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Monday, June 30, 2008

‘The United States is not a republic anymore’, says Gore Vidal
By Afshin Rattansi

TEHRAN (Press TV) -- An interview with legendary American essayist, author, social and political critic.

Press TV: We hear that Michael Mukasey is going to become the latest of
the President’s Attorney-Generals to be subpoenaed, this time over his
conversations with Bush and Cheney -- does this show that Congress is
serious about calling the executive to account?


Gore Vidal: No, Congress has never been more cowardly, nor
more corrupt. All Bush has do is to make sure certain amounts of money
go in the direction of certain important congressmen and that’s end of
any serious investigation. After all, one of the bravest members of
Congress is Denis Kucinich who brought the article of impeachment in to
the well of the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives
must then try the president, and then after that it goes to the Senate
for judgment. However, none of these things will happen because there’s
nobody there except for Mr. Kucinich who has the courage to take on a
sitting president who is kind of a Mafioso.


Press TV: How can it just be one person among so many hundreds
of Congressmen who wants the impeachment of George W. Bush in these
circumstances?


Gore Vidal: Well it’s because we no longer have a country. We
don’t have a republic any more. During the last 7 or 8 years of the
Bush regime, they’ve got rid of the Bill of Rights, they’ve got rid of
habeas corpus. They have got rid of one of the nicest gifts that
England ever left us when they went away and we ceased to be colonies
-- the Magna Carta -- from the 12th century. All of our law and due
process of law is based on that. And the Bush people got rid of it. The
president and little Mr. Gonzales who for a few minutes was his
Attorney General. They managed to get rid of all of the constitutional
links that made us literally a republic.


Press TV: You have often written about the United States’
superpower status in terms of the history of previous superpowers. Do
you think we’re witnessing the end of U.S. power as some suggest. Will
the White House be seen like Persepolis?


Gore Vidal: Well it won’t make such good ruins, no. It’ll be
more like the tomb of Cyrus nearby. They managed to destroy the United
States -- why? Because they’re oil and gas people and they’re
essentially criminals. I repeat that this is a criminal group that’s
seized control of the country through what looked like an ordinary
election. But there’s some very nice films and documentaries about what
happened in the year 2000 when Albert Gore won the election for
president and they saw to it that he couldn’t serve. They got the
Supreme Court -- which is the Holy of Holies ordinarily in our system -
to investigate and then accuse the thieves of being absolutely correct
and the winners -- Mr. Gore and the Democrats -- of being the cheaters.
It’s the first law of Machiavelli, whatever your opponent’s faults are,
you pick his virtues and you deny he has them. That’s what they did
when Senator Kerry ran a few years ago for president. He’s a famous
hero from the Vietnam War. They said he was a coward and not a hero.
That’s how it’s done. When you have a bunch of liars in charge of your
government you can’t expect to get much history out of that. But later
on we’ll dig and dig… and we will dig up Persepolis.


Press TV: Senator Obama talks about change but of course he
has courting Wall Street as well as the Israeli lobby -- do you see any
prospect of change with him as president?


Gore Vidal: Not really. I don’t doubt his good faith, just as
I do not doubt the bad faith of Cheney and Bush. They are such dreadful
people that we’ve never had in government before. They would never have
risen unless they were buying elections as they did in Florida in 2000,
as they did in the State of Ohio in 2004. These are two open thefts of
the Presidency. When I discovered that this did not interest the New
York Times or the Washington Post or any of the press of the country I
realized our day was done. We are no longer a country we are a
framework for crooks to go in and steal money. Knowing that they’ll
never be caught and they’ll be admired for it. Americans always take
everybody on his own evaluation. You say I’m a state and they say “oh,
yeah yeah yeah, he’s a state, isn’t that great.” And you accuse the
other people of your crimes before you commit them. It’s an old trick
which was known to Machiavelli who wrote about it in his handbook, the
Prince.


Press TV: Finally that issue which is exercising so many minds
in the Middle East and beyond. You, yourself have written about so many
Imperial wars of the United States. Do you think Bush and Cheney would
risk another war in what Mohammad ElBaradei of the IAEA calls a
fireball?


Gore Vidal: They are longing to but they have spent all of the
money. They have got it in their own private companies like the
Vice-President and a company called Halliburton which is stealing more
money and should be on trial sooner or later before Congress. But
perhaps not, who knows? But it’s well known in Washington, these people
are leaking away the money of the country. Well there’s no more money.
They are longing for a war with Iran. Iran is no more a harm to us than
was Iraq or Afghanistan. They invented an enemy, they tell lies, lies,
lies.


The New York Times goes along with their lies, lies, lies. And
they don’t stop. When the public that’s lied to 30 times a day it’s apt
to believe the lies, is not it?