I’m so happy to find this video. I remember watching this on CSPAN when it came on, because very soon after I went to a book signing for Mr. Vidal in San Francisco. As he signed my copy of “The Golden Age,” I mentioned that I had recently watched his three hours on C-SPAN, and really enjoyed it. He was so nice, he made a joke and said something like “wouldn’t it have been easier to just take a sleeping pill?” Very quick wit!
His historical novels remind me of something McGovern said about Hunter S thomsons coverage of the 72 campaign: he said it was the least factual and the most truthful writing. Im eternally grateful he wrote those books. And then his great essays. He is America's Voltaire.
I found what I wrote down lower. I love Gore Vidal. Also, if I may add President Theodore Roosevelt lost his first love and went out west and he discovered the love of the wilderness and hunting. In later years he created the Yellowstone National Park. Other biographies said he might have been bio-polar, he has so much energy and gift of for writing. Now, what books did he write? The Empire and The people, chpater 12 in Howard Zinn's, " A People's History of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt wrote to a friend in the year 1897: "In strict confidence... I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one." Expansion was not a new idea. Even before the war against Mexico carried the United States to the Pacific, the Monroe Docrrine southland into and beyond the Carribean. Issued in 1823 when the countries of Latin America winning independence from Spanish control, it made it to Euopean nations that the United States considered Latin America were winning independence from Latin control, it was made plain to Euopean nations that the United States considered Latin America it's field of influence, not long after, some Americans began thinking into the Pacific: Hawaii, Japan, and the great markets of China. General Smedley Buter, " War is a Racket," The United Fruit Company, now Chiquita Bananas. Remember when President Theodore Roosevelt wanted to run again for President and he went to Cuba to fight, he was running on different party " The Boor Party, " He said he won in Cuba, but he did not. General Joe Wheeler that served in the Confederate War was in Cuba. May Gore Vidal RIP 🙏 ❤
This is a vital document in U.S. history. (So nostalgic for this era of C-Span. All he describes got worse, I didn’t know then the game was up. The contemporary he described would be the one to usher in shortly the TSA, Patriot Act, and Citizens United, and the bailout of every bank’s indiscretions.)…A very correct take on James Baldwin, with a perfect use of mercurial. 2:52:23 How does Vidal not even know the name Zinn!
Gore still had a cheerful charm about him before the passing of his partner. Then after 2004 until his death he had a sad cynical manner in interviews obviously hiding a largely broken heart and spirit. I find it very sad.
I remember he once said that it would be impossible to live with someone if love was involved. (while he was with his partner I believe) I'm overstepping with this, but I think he didn't really know what love was until it was lost and that hit him.
I think he deeply loved Howard but like you say, maybe he didn't know it fully until Howard died. Just watching the United States of Amnesia and watching that section on Howard's death, I agree with the above comments. I do think he changed and for the worse. Howard was a light in his life.@@Arareemote
@@Arareemote Vidal said that he thought that love was a silly idea. Gore defined his relationship with Howard as a “friendship”. He also said that sex pollutes and ruins friendship. Love? Friendship? Just words that can mean the same, or different things?
Forgive me of my mistakes of misspelled words on these crappy cellphones. 🙏 I only write with a pen in hand with scratches of paper marked out with corrections with many notebooks, over and over again. Thank you, Harold Blum of Yale of English Literature for being the magnificent professor you were.
I also remember when I saw this on C-SPAN, i was delighted. .. and screw Andrew sullivan! (@2:25:30) .. that hack! .. Everytime I see him on Bill Maher´s show I remember this interview where Mr. Vidal tears him a new one 🤣🤣 Incidentally, does anyone know if Gore took action against The Times or Andrew sullivan in this matter?
Gore Vidal lived outside the box with wisdom and intelligence and he had his pains, hurts as every human being does. What a gift he was as a writer!!! When when one wants to write, just write with pen in hand, type if one must, but never use a computer to write. Look at us now in 2023. Who are we? American history on all sides and world histories on all sides. Read great historians brings truth to light!!! We have great ones, as with great writers and film directors and music. Creative arts. Hollywood has had its problems with greed, as the music industry has had also. From radio to television, consumerism, but there again we had many great television shows with writers and music. What happened to our public education and those badly written textbooks , and now this is happening again. What happened to "America the Great," and the Birch Society? And the Civil Rights Movement with Dr. Matin Luther KingJr and Malcom X, Jim crowe again. Nelson Mandella and even Ghandia. Tolstoy and Ghandi exchanged letters, the privatization of our federal prisons, Clinton administration and Nafta. We have to understand our votes have been taken away over and over again. We don't elect our presidents, they are elected for us, by many organizations and think tanks. Examples, the Bilderberg Group, take it all the way back to President Woodrow Wilson, and the brain of Edward M. House1921, the league of Nations, a new world order. As George Carlin said, " I dont vote, both sides have us by the balls." We have to throw true humor in there or we go insane. Great writers of comedy. The great writers of literature, poetry, philosophy and now psychology is growing with Carl Jung and his books. Subsequently, the truth about histories is never is stagnant, it grows as histories unfolds with its many secrets with its claws in corporate powers of greed.
He loves to mention he left school at 17 to join the Army, never went to Harvard. But he puts so many well-known Ivy-League graduates (particularly those we see on the news who are in government) to shame.
integrity is what makes the difference..brilliance must always expose lies or it becomes corrupt.....courage is not always required because truth can be demonstrated by the ignorant.....but....when courage and intelligence come together....it is the most powerful trait that humans possess....
Also, Jimmy Carter was Gore Vidal's 5th cousin. Nina Acuincloss- (half-sister), Hugh Steers, (half- nephew), Beer Sterrs,( half -nephew). Gore Vidal was the chairman of the People's Party, Nov.7, 1972. Service in the United States Army, 1943-1946. His political & cultural essays were published in the Nation, The News Statesman, The NY Review of Books and Esqiuire Magazine, on sex, politics & religion turned to quarrels with William F Buckley. I have all his novels he ever wrote. It is unnecessary to write them here.
Myra Breckenridge , Gore Vidal wrote in 1968, social satire the mulibilty of gender rolls and sexual orientation as social being social constructs established by social mores. "The City and The Pillar" gay and bio-sexual, 1948. A literary political & moral sensibilities of conservative book revueweis. The plot being male homosexual relationship. Subsequently, there is no need to write down what Gore Vidal wrote. Indeed we know here.
I enjoy Vidal a great deal; how fortunate to have experienced such ‘context’ within this American experience. His affect, now and again, is a bit much for this reader, but one can’t have it all: Where would one put it?
It's interesting that Vidal admits to knowing very little about Freemasonry, especially considering it's influence on this nation's history and present and due to his grandfather (who he claims to have idolized) having been a 33rd degree Mason. You'd think he'd be embarrassed to admit to such a blindspot.
The grandfather he idolized was TP Gore, Vidal is his fathers side. It wasn’t the senator. He also dismissed the conspiracy theorist with, “if there was a smoking gun we’d have found it by now.” It was all there. He didn’t miss the connotation.
I suggest that you presume that Freemasonry has some sinister influence on the country. I don't think it has and neither does Vidal. It is just a social club with secret handshakes that appeals those who like to belong to such societies. It is only political to the estent that its membership includes people of influence in society. Nothing at all to be embarrassed about at all.
Watching these videos is like stumbling upon the ruins of a dead, far superior civilization
Imagine being able to critique Ulysses S Grant’s prose in his autobiography & compare its style to Julius Caesar’s.
Great remark. Sadly true.
witty, analytical, stimulating man, he is greatly missed
“Our policy is ‘Perpetual war for perpetual peace.’…That’s why we have no health care for the people. “ 😢
I’m so happy to find this video. I remember watching this on CSPAN when it came on, because very soon after I went to a book signing for Mr. Vidal in San Francisco. As he signed my copy of “The Golden Age,” I mentioned that I had recently watched his three hours on C-SPAN, and really enjoyed it. He was so nice, he made a joke and said something like “wouldn’t it have been easier to just take a sleeping pill?” Very quick wit!
😅
His historical novels remind me of something McGovern said about Hunter S thomsons coverage of the 72 campaign: he said it was the least factual and the most truthful writing. Im eternally grateful he wrote those books. And then his great essays. He is America's Voltaire.
I found what I wrote down lower. I love Gore Vidal.
Also, if I may add President Theodore Roosevelt lost his first love and went out west and he discovered the love of the wilderness and hunting. In later years he created the Yellowstone National Park. Other biographies said he might have been bio-polar, he has so much energy and gift of for writing. Now, what books did he write?
The Empire and The people, chpater 12 in Howard Zinn's, " A People's History of the United States.
Theodore Roosevelt wrote to a friend in the year 1897: "In strict confidence... I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one."
Expansion was not a new idea. Even before the war against Mexico carried the United States to the Pacific, the Monroe Docrrine southland into and beyond the Carribean. Issued in 1823 when the countries of Latin America winning independence from Spanish control, it made it to Euopean nations that the United States considered Latin America were winning independence from Latin control, it was made plain to Euopean nations that the United States considered Latin America it's field of influence, not long after, some Americans began thinking into the Pacific: Hawaii, Japan, and the great markets of China.
General Smedley Buter, " War is a Racket," The United Fruit Company, now Chiquita Bananas. Remember when President Theodore Roosevelt wanted to run again for President and he went to Cuba to fight, he was running on different party " The Boor Party, " He said he won in Cuba, but he did not. General Joe Wheeler that served in the Confederate War was in Cuba.
May Gore Vidal RIP 🙏 ❤
Bless you for posting this!!!!!!
You failed to mention the name of this interviewer whom Vidal caught not listening to him. 😂
My heart breaks that Vidal is gone. We needed him and Hitch to get through these times.
he was the best
*Vidal lost his mind post-9/11. Thankfully Christopher Hitchens called him out on his excuse-making for Islamofascism.*
@@timfrye3586 *Vidal lost his mind post-9/11. Thankfully Christopher Hitchens called him out on his excuse-making for Islamofascism.*
@@MattSingh1 Somebody here lost his mind but I think it's you. Hitchens was dead wrong and Vidal told him so.
@@MattSingh1Vidal was vindicated. US handed Iraq to Iran and prolonged the Shia -Sunni conflict.😢
This is a vital document in U.S. history. (So nostalgic for this era of C-Span. All he describes got worse, I didn’t know then the game was up. The contemporary he described would be the one to usher in shortly the TSA, Patriot Act, and Citizens United, and the bailout of every bank’s indiscretions.)…A very correct take on James Baldwin, with a perfect use of mercurial. 2:52:23 How does Vidal not even know the name Zinn!
Legend !!
When will someone make a biopic of this outstanding man?
Loved, he’s so relevant today
Gore still had a cheerful charm about him before the passing of his partner. Then after 2004 until his death he had a sad cynical manner in interviews obviously hiding a largely broken heart and spirit. I find it very sad.
I remember he once said that it would be impossible to live with someone if love was involved. (while he was with his partner I believe)
I'm overstepping with this, but I think he didn't really know what love was until it was lost and that hit him.
@@ArareemoteHe said it wasn’t a sexual relationship.
@@cindymaceda2999 I don't think you replied to the correct comment lol.
I think he deeply loved Howard but like you say, maybe he didn't know it fully until Howard died. Just watching the United States of Amnesia and watching that section on Howard's death, I agree with the above comments. I do think he changed and for the worse. Howard was a light in his life.@@Arareemote
@@Arareemote
Vidal said that he thought that love was a silly idea.
Gore defined his relationship with Howard as a “friendship”.
He also said that sex pollutes and ruins friendship.
Love?
Friendship?
Just words that can mean the same, or different things?
Forgive me of my mistakes of misspelled words on these crappy cellphones. 🙏 I only write with a pen in hand with scratches of paper marked out with corrections with many notebooks, over and over again. Thank you, Harold Blum of Yale of English Literature for being the magnificent professor you were.
2:52:21 I was surprised to hear Mr. Vidal say, “I don’t know who Howard Zinn is.”
I also remember when I saw this on C-SPAN, i was delighted.
.. and screw Andrew sullivan! (@2:25:30) .. that hack! .. Everytime I see him on Bill Maher´s show I remember this interview where Mr. Vidal tears him a new one 🤣🤣
Incidentally, does anyone know if Gore took action against The Times or Andrew sullivan in this matter?
Gore Vidal lived outside the box with wisdom and intelligence and he had his pains, hurts as every human being does. What a gift he was as a writer!!! When when one wants to write, just write with pen in hand, type if one must, but never use a computer to write.
Look at us now in 2023.
Who are we? American history on all sides and world histories on all sides. Read great historians brings truth to light!!! We have great ones, as with great writers and film directors and music. Creative arts. Hollywood has had its problems with greed, as the music industry has had also. From radio to television, consumerism, but there again we had many great television shows with writers and music. What happened to our public education and those badly written textbooks , and now this is happening again. What happened to "America the Great," and the Birch Society? And the Civil Rights Movement with Dr. Matin Luther KingJr and Malcom X, Jim crowe again. Nelson Mandella and even Ghandia. Tolstoy and Ghandi exchanged letters, the privatization of our federal prisons, Clinton administration and Nafta.
We have to understand our votes have been taken away over and over again.
We don't elect our presidents, they are elected for us, by many organizations and think tanks. Examples, the Bilderberg Group, take it all the way back to President Woodrow Wilson, and the brain of Edward M. House1921, the league of Nations, a new world order.
As George Carlin said, " I dont vote, both sides have us by the balls." We have to throw true humor in there or we go insane. Great writers of comedy. The great writers of literature, poetry, philosophy and now psychology is growing with Carl Jung and his books.
Subsequently, the truth about histories is never is stagnant, it grows as histories unfolds with its many secrets with its claws in corporate powers of greed.
Checkout Carl Jung Civilization In Transition. Collected Works Volume 10
@@allencollins6031
I have ❤
What say you Mr Gore as we steam through 2023? "I told you so" perhaps?
If he could’ve risen from the dead, he would be having a field day haranguing The Don. 😂
Pretty friggin awesome
He loves to mention he left school at 17 to join the Army, never went to Harvard. But he puts so many well-known Ivy-League graduates (particularly those we see on the news who are in government) to shame.
He was an auto-didact.
25:50 he was wrong about Baldwin's legacy. 1:40:00 2:00:41 2:17:32 LOLLLLL
integrity is what makes the difference..brilliance must always expose lies or it becomes corrupt.....courage is not always required because truth can be demonstrated by the ignorant.....but....when courage and intelligence come together....it is the most powerful trait that humans possess....
Also, Jimmy Carter was Gore Vidal's 5th cousin. Nina Acuincloss- (half-sister), Hugh Steers, (half- nephew), Beer Sterrs,( half -nephew).
Gore Vidal was the chairman of the People's Party, Nov.7, 1972. Service in the United States Army, 1943-1946.
His political & cultural essays were published in the Nation, The News Statesman, The NY Review of Books and Esqiuire Magazine, on sex, politics & religion turned to quarrels with William F Buckley.
I have all his novels he ever wrote. It is unnecessary to write them here.
2:02:23 The voice AND question sounds an awful lot like Sydney Powell ?
I really wonder what he would have thought of Trump
🙄
Vidal is totally spinning in his grave. 😅
He would prefer Trump for sure and ridicule Brandon and the Democrats.
Myra Breckenridge , Gore Vidal wrote in 1968, social satire the mulibilty of gender rolls and sexual orientation as social being social constructs established by social mores.
"The City and The Pillar" gay and bio-sexual, 1948. A literary political & moral sensibilities of conservative book revueweis. The plot being male homosexual relationship.
Subsequently, there is no need to write down what Gore Vidal wrote. Indeed we know here.
I enjoy Vidal a great deal; how fortunate to have experienced such ‘context’ within this American experience.
His affect, now and again, is a bit much for this reader, but one can’t have it all: Where would one put it?
What do intend to say about Mr. Vidal's "affect"? Please clarify.
Didn’t know he has Italian dna?
He had a home in Ravello, Italy for 40 years & lived there part of the year. He spoke some Italian.
@@cindymaceda2999
Beautiful place.❤
It's interesting that Vidal admits to knowing very little about Freemasonry, especially considering it's influence on this nation's history and present and due to his grandfather (who he claims to have idolized) having been a 33rd degree Mason. You'd think he'd be embarrassed to admit to such a blindspot.
The grandfather he idolized was TP Gore, Vidal is his fathers side. It wasn’t the senator.
He also dismissed the conspiracy theorist with, “if there was a smoking gun we’d have found it by now.”
It was all there. He didn’t miss the connotation.
Why do you say "he'd be embarrassed"?
He had class.
I suggest that you presume that Freemasonry has some sinister influence on the country.
I don't think it has and neither does Vidal.
It is just a social club with secret handshakes that appeals those who like to belong to such societies.
It is only political to the estent that its membership includes people of influence in society.
Nothing at all to be embarrassed about at all.
Would he have sold out like his friend Chomsky?