As much as I Miss Gore Vidal and Hunter s Thompson, it's almost a blessing that they didn't have to face the last ten or so years of American society and politics. We are now so far removed from the freedoms men like them believed in and fought for wholeheartedly, that it would no doubt break their hearts to witness a single news cycle as of today
You have to miss the days when the public was exposed to actual intellectualism and debate in mass consumed media . Buckley versus Vidal is the likes of something will never see again, two sides passionately opposed to one another's view, yet debating it in a sharp crisp intelligent manor.... As we age the next generation, then rhe next, seems more and more foolish, more add more committed to idiocy. I suppose this is how generations work, yet it seems some exceptional aversion to knowledge has accelerated at an unprecedented rate over the last 30 years.....that on our march toward the warmth of dark age levels of stupidity we've reached terminal velocity........ With all our new access to knowledge, an overabundance of Personal Truth has set in, causing us not to question ourselves or whatever /whomever our personal style-appointed jesus may be. Instead we dismiss anything outside this pre-appointed self image, losing not only our ability for growth via self accessment, but our very ability to think critically.
He became very bitter in the end and can you blame him?! He would not be surprised at all at this current dismal lot in government and the other loathsome lot on the other side. Trump is disgusting but he is just a product of the corrupt system. The constitution needs to be rewritten. Thank you for sharing this. Always a good day to become aware of a new Gore Vidal video.
Ya see, there is some use to these empty comment sections for old, once loved, Great, documentaries: I can run my cathartic narrative thru them and react where no one will ever know. Psst! It's our secret. Gore Vidal, what a charmer. He came from and wrote about a slice of life when it wasn't the life that mattered, but the writing. Isn't it good he was a great writer. Speaking of which, in that world I get to enjoy being a, "failed writer", as I come from the generation who grew up in front of the TV set and stopped reading anything with 500 words or more. Hell, for the vast majority of us, if we can't get the gist within the first fifty words we stop reading. No wait, that's being too generous, fist twenty-five words. Most would call it ironic, but I think its hilarious, that if you follow the lineage of Gore's acerbic political commentary, he fostered the cultist's of Donald Trump.
"(America) goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication.... She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit." -John Quincy Adams, July 4, 1821
I adore this man. I thank you for sharing these delightful videos. Unfortunately things continue to decline. I truly think Gore Vidal would say; "I told you so." Unfortunately the corrupt media, the lackluster incompetent politicians, the greedy billionaires such as the hideous Elon Musk etc...are not critised nearly enough by the general public. They believe demigods who lie and blame the "other." And on and on it goes...
Susskind and his producers were the boldest. They actually let people go onto national TV in the US and express their opposition to the Vietnam War. He also pioneered a number of other issues as legitimate for talk shows.
This interview has me wondering he would've reacted to the Hillary Clinton Email leak, the 2016 election, Obama's treatment of Snowden and Assange, and the division since.
2:11 - With Honors // RIP Professor Pitkannan // you were a great mentor, appreciated your challenge of the Harvard Class of 1994 of the stance that “Faith in the wisdom of the people is exactly what makes the Constitution incomplete and crude.”
If he could look our current - ongoing organic - stupidity in the face, he would adorn it with a perfectly unruffled remark of summation. But he would also burn with patriotic indignation. How he welcomed the battle of Life. I love the story of the New York cabbie who, dropping him off said ' have a nice day ' to which Vidal laconically responded, 'no thank you, I've made other plans'.
Gore Vidal was the only treasure we had that actually had wisdom and knowledge who loved America. Things I learned about U.S. history I got from this brilliant man. Unlike the one party system we have or the white mans wing of it aka the GOP, Vidal was actually conservative, at least he would have cut the insane military budget if he had the power.
But Gore, for all his amusing brilliance, was completely wrong in assessing Cuba. And for all his malignancy, Cohn is spot on in his every (precise) observation.
I wish that CBS would send someone into the archives and digout the 16mm film of these older episodes and re-telecine them. They would be 4k quality. Instead they just up convert their video tape masters to 1080p.
