I’ve just finished reading a collection of essays by Gore
Vidal covering a span of nearly six decades. I don’t think we will see a writer
of Vidal’s erudition again; it seemed he had read everything from Aeschylus to
Tennessee Williams, and that he was personally acquainted with every important
thinker, writer and political figure of his time.
Vidal was at his best when lacerating our government for
hypocrisy, or puncturing the windbags who dominate the public airwaves on
Sunday morning.
My progress through the essays was slowed by frequent pauses
for note taking and reflection. Vidal reminded me that issues that appear
peculiar to our time are in reality not new at all. For instance, forty years
ago Vidal wondered why “we allow our governors to take so much of our money and
spend it in ways that not only fail to benefit us but do great damage to
others?”
Great question. Why indeed.
In a number of essays Vidal pointed out that American
politicians have, since the beginning of the republic, created illusions and
called them facts. Illusions galore, like claiming from every rooftop that our
national debt is the direct result of overly generous entitlement programs
rather than a national security state run amok; and that the only path to
enduring solvency is not to raise taxes on the wealthy or drastically scale
back our national security apparatus, but to take a sledgehammer to “wasteful”
social programs.
Another grand illusion, and a core tenet of the idiot wing
of the Republican Party, is that tax cuts for the wealthy produce jobs for the
middle class. The wealthy have enjoyed more than a decade of tax “relief” and
the middle class is still waiting for jobs.
Or like our president at the Commander’s Ball thanking our
brave warriors in Afghanistan for protecting our freedom. Really? Our freedom
is imperiled from the frightful military capability of a relatively small,
rag-tag, loosely knit group calling itself Al-Qaida or the Taliban? The
president failed to mention that America is entering its twelfth year of waste
and futility in Afghanistan; the greatest, most expensive military force in
human history has failed in spectacular fashion, but, naturally, our political
leaders claim that the occupation has been a brilliant success and has prevented
evil terrorists from attacking our homeland.
And now, of course, the Al-Qaida threat has sprouted in
Africa and the prevailing wisdom is that we fight the terrorists there or fight
them in Florida, California or on the shores of Lake Michigan.
America has itched to get a foothold in Africa and now,
courtesy of the endless War on Terror, we have a pretext.
Yes, we are awash in illusions and to those I would add
fables and myths; the fable that we live in the land of the free and the home
of the brave; the myth that we are inherently better than people of other
nations and that our lives are more valuable; the fable that we are a force for
good in the world.
Primarily what we have that others do not is louder and more
persistent PR.
Vidal was also bemused by America’s relationship with the
state of Israel and the way this small nation manipulates our foreign policy.
Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, was grilled the other
day on Capitol Hill about the sacred topic of Israel, and of course he promised
undying fealty to Tel Aviv, no matter how many innocent Palestinians the
Israeli army kills or how many settlements are built on confiscated and
disputed territory.
In the 1980’s Vidal wrote, “I would stop all military aid to
the Middle East. This would oblige the hardliners in Israel to make peace with
the Palestinians. We have supported Israel for forty years. No other minority
in the history of the United States has ever extorted so much treasury money
for its holy land as the Israeli lobby.”
The extortion has now been going on for 65 years and we are
as far from peace in the region as ever. Israel is more militant and
recalcitrant, always making threats to bomb Iran or launch another assault on
Gaza.
My favorite Vidal quote has to be this one: “Persuading the
people to vote against their own best interests has been the awesome genius of
the American political elite from the beginning.”
The electorate becomes apoplectic, rabid and sometimes
violent over the rights of a fetus or the teaching of creationism and the Ten
Commandments in public school, but when the financial syndicate mortgages our
future and turns millions into paupers, the electorate falls silent.
Unfortunately that’s not an illusion.
No comments:
Post a Comment