Sunday, April 03, 2005

The Undoing of America (interview with Gore Vidal)

"Well, the Congress has ceded--which it cannot do--but it has ceded its power to declare war. That is written in the Constitution. It's the most important thing in the Constitution, ultimately. And having ceded that to the Executive Branch, he can declare war whenever he finds terrorism. Now, terrorism is a wonderful invention because it doesn't mean anything. It's an abstract noun. You can't have a war against an abstract noun; it's like having a war against dandruff. It's meaningless."

12 comments:

Ken said...

"Now, terrorism is a wonderful invention because it doesn't mean anything. It's an abstract noun. You can't have a war against an abstract noun; it's like having a war against dandruff. It's meaningless."

Isn't it incredible that one man can be so full of shit? W continues to amaze me...

Mac said...

It's even more incredible that a large chunk of the population has actually fallen for W's shit.

Anonymous said...

I still believe the vote was hacked. And not just in Ohio. The password for the entire Ohio system apparently was "Diebold" for god's sake!
--WMB

Anonymous said...

I just finished watching the beginning of the White House video clip which the Rigorous Intuition blog links to in their lead article today on the assassination of Martin Luther King.

My stomach is turning.

Go through his archives. He covers a lot of topics of interest to us with a wealth of fresh insights, and he does not seem to be that well known yet. I wish he was not as good as he seems to be, because I don't want things to be the way they are starting to look to be.

It won't leave you happier or more at ease. Even the most cynical and knowledgeable of us may flounder further out than our usual comfort zones allow us.

Damn.

http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Carol -- The worst of it is that "conspiracy theories" themselves have been GENERICALLY discredited. So that the minute you suggest something like rigorousintuition's take on the King assassination, you're immediately branded as a nutcase. And what's most depressing is that it makes no difference how much evidence you marshall to make your case (like the famous pic of the men pointing to the rooftop and everything else that points to govt. complicity in the King assassination). Obviously, this discrediting of conspiracy theory is part of the conspirators' cover! Diabolical, no?
--WMB

Mac said...

In a fair election, Kerry would have won. What scares me is that it still would have been disturbingly close...

Anonymous said...

In that hypothetical "fair" election we still would have had a Skull and Bones president, married to a widow of a Bonesman, with the governor of Ohio still the direct descendent of the founder of Skull and Bones.

I think no matter what had happened, America would still be fair Nell tied on the tree trunk and heading for the blade of the buzz saw.

Mac said...

Kerry wasn't an answer to our problems, as so many seemed to think -- at at least wanted to think.

The sad part is that, as WMB pointed out, when you start talking secret societies, you're automatically tarred with the "crank" brush and dismissed from the discussion.

Anonymous said...

The best thing about Kerry, as a lot of us realized, was that he wasn't Bush. Actually, I think that counts for a lot!
--WMB

Mac said...

Kerry also epitomized the problem with American "democracy" -- people tend to vote for the lesser of two evils. Even when you count the votes (which appears to be a thing of the past), there's little actual choice.

For once, how about "NONE OF THE ABOVE" on a ballot? Take that, Diebold!

Anonymous said...

Their whole big plan is to get people to dispise and hate leadership.

It's a massive individualist movement working on the habit people have of looking for what's wrong.

Pretty clear stuff.

Anonymous said...

And you can bet that if someone (miracle of miracles) had hacked the vote in KERRY'S favor there would have been a HUGE political stink and he'd never have been allowed to take office. What bothers me as much as the hacking itself is who's doing the hacking -- and getting away with it!
-_WMB