Gore Vidal on TYT!

Email Print posted by AnaKasparian 08/05/2008 01:57:21 AM EST

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On Monday, Gore Vidal - the novelist, essayist, playwright, politician, historian, and actor - was live and on-air with The Young Turks!

Watch the interview here.

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Gore Vidal on TYT! | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 hidden)
wow (none / 0)
That should be a great show.  I bet he and Cenk stir up some trouble!

by desertpear on 08/02/2008 01:00:20 AM EST

Vidal question (none / 0)
I have read many of his books.
I know that "Creation" is the book about which he is proudest.
Please ask him for what he wants to be known when he dies, aside from "Creation."

by MyDesiredUsername on 08/02/2008 05:12:54 PM EST

TYT Gaining Strength (none / 0)
TYT has had some famous guests on.  At least since i have joined.  Having Gore Vidal accept an invitation indicates the growing interest and impact TYT is having.  I predicted to David when I first joined that the new paradigm offered by the program would be very successful. I laughed when David eeed me "I hope your psychic".  Well I'm not but I believe the prediction is playing out.

by psyche2 on 08/03/2008 02:07:04 PM EST

A Great American While he lasts (none / 0)

Gore Vidal has some health problems so use the time with this great American to the best. 

No one alive today can match him for his wit and scope of view.

 My favorite is his phrase "United States of Amnesia." That sums up the foundation upon which American fascism rests. 

In Mein Kampf Adolph Hitler wrote in Chapter Six on Propaganda, "The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out...."

This explains how Republicans are better at propaganda because they have whittled down their talking points on any issue to a few slogans and repeat them over and over.  For example, Democrats are "tax and spend liberals is the favorite slogan repeated again and again. Intelligent people laugh at slogans.  In fact that is how you can tell if you are intelligent--if you take Republican slogans seriously that is a great diagnostic indicator of your lack of intelligence and your citizenship in the United States of Amnesia. 

 

by Gregory Wonderwheel on 08/03/2008 06:17:53 PM EST

subject (none / 0)
"Gore Vidal has some health problems so use the time with this great American to the best."

He hates the phrase "great American." When Pete Buck (of R.E.M. fame) told him that he was a great American, he snapped a sarcastic salute at him then walked away.

I empathize. I hate nationalism, especially when it is invoked at baseball games. When I was standing in line to buy a Dodger dog at the Dodgers game yesterday they sang "god bless America" AND the national anthem. I wasn't there to jerk off on the flag. I wanted to buy a damn Dodger dog (hungry as hell), then I wanted to watch the game. 

by MyDesiredUsername on 08/04/2008 05:23:25 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Slogans (none / 0)
Wonderwheel, I have heard from many individuals with whom I associate and from pundits that the Bush regime is only a conglomeration of Slogans. He and his bunch of thugs have whored the term and meaning of "FREEDOM and LIBERTY" in all their empty slogans.  You are correct, the conservative machine seems to have taken thier approach / ideology straight from Mein Kampf.  However, are you a bit supprised? It is a fact now they have used Fux Noise as part of their machine and remember all the Armstrong Williams and the like who were paid with our tax dollars to push the Bush / Cheney Rethug propaganda.  BTW, that is also illegal.

by psyche2 on 08/04/2008 06:52:16 PM EST

[ Parent ]
30 second mentality of media (none / 0)
When Cenk ended the interview by saying they were out of time, Vidal pointed out this proved his point about the control of the media.  The short media segements and shorter corporate media segements feed the point Wonderwheel is making-- inadvertantly or by design, thoughtful exploration of issues is not possible.  So, if the real tension is between intellectual analysis of issues and moronic self-absorption of popularity contests, which fits best into slogans... and the lack of institutional memory-- the media is "50 first dates".
Cenk, if Wendy is a psychologist, talk to her about concrete thinkers sometime please.  Vidal was making an abstract comparison... and as Jayar and Wonderwheel pointed out, the reaction to the word "conspiracy" is a "great diagnostic indicator", so don't bite that hook.
Wouldn't it be great if progressives felt so good about themselves that their talk show hosts would want to have a half hour chat with one of the Colonels or Captains, or if Thommy Hartmann talked to some of the well informed and thoughtful callers instead of the whackos from the Ayn Rand or other think tanks.  I wonder who will do it first.  Gosh, it would make your listeners feel so normal and the "mainstream" so odd.

by NicoloM on 08/05/2008 07:18:46 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Gore Vidal on TYT! | 7 comments (7 topical, 0 hidden)
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