Customer Reviews

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (The Real Story Series)

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It will not be easy for any of us who love our country to face the assertions Gore Vidal makes in this book, but this is exactly what we need to wake up from the current miasma of smoke-and-mirrors spin. Perhaps the proliferation of conspiracy theories is a symptom of what we all suspect, but are in denial about. Vidal confronts us with the cold hard facts: 90% of the disbursements of the federal government go to defense; our language has grown decadent and is used to disguise; the corporations control opinion through the conglomerate media; in 1991, 37% of federal revenues (taxes) came from individuals and only 8% from corporations. Reading this book will be worth the anguish it causes you. If Thomas Jefferson could see that his beloved country was being ruled by an elite through armies of lawyers, lobbyists, and paid-for-scientists, he would warn us all that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance; and this is precisely what Gore Vidal is attempting to do.

Gore Vidal has the power to drive conservatives insane, I can't say why, but the mere mention of his name seems to turn them into screaming maniacs, that alone would make this book worth owning. In addition to its value as a heart attack inducer, it is also easy reading, witty and well written. I especially enjoyed his vicious attack on the Christian Church (which he refers to as the cult of the `Sky God'). He is also right on target with his assessment of the pervasive dangerous of corporate power. This slim volume is not a scholarly tome by any means, but Vidal's strength is in the way that he says things, not in the way that he backs up his assessment. Less a stunning indictment than a readable, witty summing up of the Vidal take on several important topics. A superb little pamphlet.

The beauty of Vidal's volume is that it establishes signposts, dates, events, places marking historically important events. To say that the American empire is in decline sounds like just more left-wing doctrine. To document that assertion, Vidal places a date--September 16, 1985--during the roaring, go-go, Reagan years--when America changed from a creditor to a debtor nation, and has been there ever since.

Combining dates with events and revealations of the names and identities of the men behind the men in power marks a significant departure by documenting the rise and fall. The fear of accepting the reality of failure is a heavy burden empires must accept. Like the lives of people, empires do not go on forever. Americans cannot imagine a world without American military, political and economic hegemony (this is what happens when one believes the hype).

Vidal traces the history--the 1914 shift of capital from New York to London, the men of power who created American foreign policy, the establishment of the national security state in 1947 and the place of America in the world. He ends with practical solutions to the decline and fall. Vidal's style is hard-hitting, real, well-documented and informed. The volume is worth reading and re-reading. The sinking feeling, the giant sucking sound of America heading south is on every page. The "Decline and Fall" is the ultimate reality check.

Gore Vidal demonstrates once more that as author and political pundit he remains well ahead of his time, but that it appears as if we are starting to catch up and comprehend the importance along with the necessity of his message.

When Vidal ran for U.S. Senator in the 1982 California Democratic Party primary his opponent was Jerry Brown. The California Governor had a reputation for being unconventional in many ways like Vidal. When Brown later sought the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in the 1992 primaries he sought out the anti-establishment ideas he had heard Vidal espouse earlier. Vidal willingly helped Brown in the idea department in 1992 and the Californian ran a strong and idea-effective anti-establishment primary campaign.

Since the sixties Vidal has preached that the American political system has become increasingly beholden to entrenched corporate interests, which is further reflected in an all too often obeisant media. Now the public has demonstrated an increasing alertness of the captivity as more individuals seek fundamental changes based on Vidal's concepts.

Another fundamental idea that Vidal has tackled for many years, and on which the public is finally catching up with him, is the degree of infringement upon basic freedoms, as evidenced by the Bush-Ashcroft Patriot Act. He also rails against the dangers of the military industrial compex, and how its most reactionary elements have been served by an active intelligence community through the auspices of the CIA and the FBI.

Vidal preaches hard core liberty in the best tradition of Founding Fathers such as Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin. This volume shows him at his best, witty, acerbic, and driving his point home with an economy of effort.

I'd like to think that I understand how the puzzle pieces fit together but I need people like Vidal to illuminate the connections, to see the picture rather than the mass of pieces strewn on the table. To take the metaphor further, he provides the picture on the puzzle box that shows you what you will eventually have when the pieces are together.
I find that with the daily blizzard of new's facts coming into my house that it's like sitting down to a twenty thousand piece jigsaw that strangely has no border.
Vidal throws out bits of history and then provides the connections allowing a picture to form-seemingly from random occurrences. I found after reading this wonderful, insightful little book that all the disparate post-WWII facts came together. Yes-call me stupid for not seeing the connections earlier but my defense is this continuous blizzard of facts that shower me-this blizzard is in itself designed to do just what it is doing to me and millions of others.
One little bit from this tiny read-living as I do in Australia, I could never see why what happened to Clinton happened-everybody here knew he was being undermined since he came into office. We didn't get much coverage of his attempt to rework the healthcare system-Vidal says very matter of factly that Clinton's attempt at this reworking was his undoing. The conservatives that orchestrated his downfall didn't want Americans to have what people in nearly every other government in the developed world have-what we in Australia take for granted-universal health care.
I'm sorry most Americans will miss reading this book because they will see it as "devil phoolosophy"-the powers at work have done a fabulous job for themselves.

This collection of six essays and speeches by America's most astute and acerbic critic, though somewhat dated, (written from 1987-92) still manages to pack a powerful and relevant punch directly at what Vidal perceives to be the reasons for America's political, cultural and economic continuing downward spiral. He states in the Preface that his intention is to "...put into historical perspective the state of our nation and what can be done to salvage it." (p.5)

In the essay, The National Security State, he explains its history and formation and its official start in the National Security Act of 1947; this was a blueprint created after WW2, which the country had never seen before. This doctrine, (only declassified in 1975) grants the pentagon unlimited power and spending on "defence" against the Soviet Union during peacetime. To justify such a massive spending on weapons, part of the document states that the American society had to be "mobilized" to fight communism. This, of course, manifested in the form of media-generated propaganda, creating fear in the hearts of ordinary Americans, to justify high taxes to pay for defence during peacetime. Vidal writes, "...thanks to the brainwashing of the national security state's continuing plan, Americans have a built-in horror of the Evil Empire, which the press and the politicians have kept going for forty years." Now that this particular "Evil Empire" has unfortunately fallen, we currently have a new "Axes of Evil" to justify billions of dollars spent on "defence".

It is impossible to cite all of Vidal's arguments in the space provided. However, rather than merely list everything wrong with America, he offers solutions, albeit radical solutions, to some of the problems. For example, the campaign-funding system for presidential candidates is fundamentally problematic, as it opens the door for corruption at every turn. If a candidate doesn't want to be bought, he shouldn't take campaign donations from specialist and corporate groups. In other democratic countries, including Australia, the taxpayers provide campaign funds and the actual four to six week campaign is broadcast on public television. This ensures that no special interest group can tarnish a politician with promises of unlimited cash for unlimited airtime on commercial television. The campaign is short and "corporate free". This one solution he offers, however, to my mind, would fundamentally pave the way to a less corruptive and more democratic system.

Vidal is deeply concerned about the United States and its perceived decline. The problems he writes about are real, and his solutions, though radical on face value, are pragmatic and workable. These essays strike right at the heart of the matter and despite being somewhat dated, are relevant today.

Gore speaks wisdom. For those turned off by the corrupt state of American politics this book is required reading. Our political system has been taken over (wait a minute, hijacked) by corporate america and its cronies in Washington D.C. The "War on Drugs" is nothing more than a war on minorities and civil liberties. The national media is nothing more than a mouth piece for the well-off and elite. The "Cold War" was basically military-industrial complex wellfare scheme. Gore Vidal cuts through the bull s--t to show that the American people have been taken for a ride by the political establishment whose sole purpose is for the protection of the very elite. By the way; I am 37 years old. Not 12.

Gore Vidal is hard hitting and puts the facts straight.
The US is governed by the few, who are chloroforming the many through their control of the media. As a truly brilliant quotation of David Hume states: 'as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion'.
The few for him are an emanation of monotheism, which can only be truly served by totalitarianism. The few keep also control by spending a big part of the real US budget on National Security (the military-industrial complex). For what? To support regimes which deny freedom, democracy and human rights to their own people.

This situation is deeply hurting Gore Vidal, who above all loves freedom and telling the truth: 'should the few persist in their efforts to dominate the private lives of the many, I recommend force as a means of changing their minds'. (p.52)

I agree with the above mentioned analyses of Gore Vidal, but I strongly disagree with the title of this book.

Far from declining and falling, the US Empire is still a reigning world superpower and actually the only one.
The two main causes Gore Vidal cites for the fall are not there anymore. The Japanese economy imploded and is still imploding, and the US national budget is in a far better shape now than ten years ago.
I see at the horizon one big superpower emerging, on which the US high tech industry is already highly dependent: China. With a market of 1.3 billion people and a well educated population, China cannot loose if it plays it cleverly. It is doing it, for I saw it this year.

This book is a must read for everyone interested in US and world politics.

Although dated now, this book remains as fresh as the day it was published. Indeed, most of the facts and trends Vidal described are exactly the same today. Progress is not an American virtue. This book will knock your socks off. A must read. Social criticism at its finest.

I have read several great books by Vidal over the past few months. This book is more or less a summary of several others that he has written. If you are new to Vidal, this is a great place to start. I have read collections of his essays, The Last Empire was great. It gets into more detail on many of the topics covered in this book.