~ gore vidal always seemed to us to be too much of a tight-ass to be much of a liberal, which is why it is such a delightful surprise to find the wry iconoclasm throughout his american chronicles. however, in his latest novel, the golden age, he surpasses his usual irreverence; he is downright alarmist. i don’t know if he is cutting loose with what he knows is most likely his last novel before death, but he paints a terrifying picture of the post-war (ww2) united states:
a nation that intentionally terrifies its own citizens with the threats of predatory nations seeking to destroy them at any moment – a moment that lasts perpetually – so that the citizens will continue to voluntarily turn over a third of their income to a government-subsidized weapons industry which is, in turn, subsidizing the political class to perpetuate the threat – they appear as communism, terrorism, drugs, or, currently, ‘states of concern’.

from the golden age:
‘those rich boys daydream about vast armies and navies conquering all the seas and lands while we humble folk think of boys that we know – sons even – dying in a process that benefits no one but the international banks and their lawyer-lobbyists…the real political struggle in the united states, since the civil war, has been between the peaceful inhabitants of the nation, with their generally representative congresses, and a small professional elite totally split off from the nation, pursuing wealth through wars that they invent and justify and resonate for others to die in.’

-gore vidal

~ a few images of the final thesis work added to the angry red planet thesis section; find them in the ‘development’ section.

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