Rating: 
Summary: Incendiary balm
Review: With this collection of essays written variously during the past decade, Gore Vidal addresses the lies our American government has foisted upon us. Ranging in topic from the September 11th tragedy to the current activities in Afghanistan and Iraq, these essays cut to the chase and inspire readers to wake up and pay attention. Vidal briefly traces our history since our country's beginning to elaborate the pattern our imperial government has followed, and to show how we got where we are today, with Corporate America at the helm of our United States of Amnesia. This collection is incendiary, but in a good way. Vidal is reporting information not heard in daily news and challenges readers to find out for themselves what's really going on. If only "Dreaming War" were required reading for everyone, then maybe intelligent discourse might actually occur.
Rating: 
Summary: Our Provocative Gore Vidal Is At It Again!
Review: While I do not always agree with the droll and yet penetrating notions that appear flow so effortlessly from Gore Vidal, he is always fun to read. His command of the language and his unusual perceptive take on everyday phenomena flavor his observations with a tasty mix of both well-seasoned and worldly wisdom on the one hand, and a spicy yen for old-fashioned common sense on the other. He is almost always provocative, and rarely shows any intent of even attempting to be either respectful or even civil. And that's when he is being restrained! Yet his finest and most useful quality is in turning his penetrating wit and keen intellect into laser sharp weapons he uses to surgically dissect specific instances of social and political life into their basic elements, and in doing so aids the reader in seeing the issue under question much more clearly and precisely than is otherwise possible. Once again with this book Vidal renders an uncommon service for ordinary citizens.
Always the provocateur, Vidal argues persuasively that the current administration knew well in advance of the planned terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, just as FDR knew about the so-called surprise attack at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. Furthermore, he points out, the administration has cynically exploited the terror events of 911 to initiate and extend a series of domestic political actions that amount to what Vial refers to as a Nixon-like war against its political enemies. According to the author, the ties between the Bush family on the one hand, and the family of Al Quaida leader Osama bin Laden are quite fascinating and have existed for decades, raising issues as to the administration's ulterior motives were in attacking Afghanistan. What is at the bottom of all this perfidy, according to Vidal, is that the blunt instrument of the American military is being used to accomplish what boils down to being the desires of our imperialistic corporate interests. For the author, such corporate greed has been the driving forces behind the otherwise mysterious tactics used to date relating to the so-called war on terror the Bush White house has employed since 911. Vidal takes particular umbrage at the way America's media aid and abet the goals of the government by participating in what appears to be a deliberate pro-war propaganda campaign, up to and including the vilification of liberal critics such as himself, painting him as being anti-American, and accusing him of America-bashing. In truth however, it seems that what Mr. Vidal has given us is a quite thoughtful counter perspective from which one can view and interpret current events. As with his other recent book, "Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace", he turns his ironic style into a tool by which one can better see the ways in which the power elite attempts to provoke, persuade, and exhort Americans into a new era of corporate-driven imperialism. And no one on the planet writes more colorfully or more masterfully about how the events that pounce upon us from the TV screen on a daily basis relate to those marvelous Jeffersonian ideals of democracy that the country was originally founded upon. This is an entertaining, edifying, and argumentative book you will have fun reading. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Gore Let's Freedom Ring
Review: Gore Vidal has been a thorn in the side of imperialist America for well over forty years. He has unflinchingly assailed big business and corrupt politicians in his many books and essays and defended the rights of Americans innumerable times. Dreaming War is the latest collection of Vidal essays, most taken from The Nation, in which Vidal illustrates the many hypocrisies and travesties that plague the American government. He then uses these examples to explain just why America is in the deplorable state it is presently in. He explains that America is not the great protector of inalienable rights that it attempts to portray itself to be. Rather, Vidal argues, the American hierarchy is filled with scheming, money-hungry con men, whose first priority is to line their own pockets and strengthen their personal power. In this day and age, of the Patriot Act and weakening civil rights, a voice like Gore Vidal is invaluable. It is imperative that the people remain aware of the actions of government, and speak out against injustice. Hopefully, Gore Vidal will continue his crusade, and if so we all will benefit.
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Summary: Obvious Observations About September 11
Review: Before opening this book it is obvious where Gore is going in this collection of essays. However, for those of us seeking solace as we witness the ongoing depradations of the Bush Administration the few opinions in print that seem to validate our opinions are needed and reassuring. What I didn't expect in this collection of essays was Vidal's stunning, but intuitively obvious expose of the apparent decision to allow the attacks of September 11. While most complacent, sheep-like Americans will dismiss this as more "radical left conspiracy theory blather", how else can one explain that fact that 4 commercial aircraft were hijacked simultaneously, lost control with air traffic controllers for one half hour and allowed to attack the nation's largest city, and its capital, also simultaneously, without any response from the most powerful military on the planet? To assume Vidal is incorrect would assume that the entire eastern seaboard remained entirely vulnerable to attack prior to September 11. This is hardly likely, and Vidal points out the incentives and historical precedents. That his assertions aren't far fetched is being supported by the Bush Administration's ongoing stonewalling of investigations of the events of September 11. A few of the essays are revelatory, and have insight and bite. Others are mired in Vidal's pedantic rehashing of WWII, and memories of a fictional, idealistic republic, which he is clearly reflecting upon with rose colored glasses. While America's imperialism and quest for empire have been bold and unattractive for the past 110 years, our history under the "republic" was hardly unblemished with its legacy of slavery, racism, disenfranchisement of women, and extermination of native Americans. One is prompted to observe that hindsight is always 20/20. A number of these essays reveal that Vidal is losing his focus, and waxing nostaglic as he gets older -- his mind, however, remains strong as a beartrap, and his integrity and courage are light years beyond that of most writers. This collection will rightfully make you cynical, angry, depressed, and frightened. It is important, however, that Vidal's observations not be dismissed -- he is not to be underestimated and far from half baked. The operative question is why haven't, and aren't, more Americans asking the same questions about the attacks of September 11.
Rating:
Summary: GOOD BOOK! BUY IT AND HIDE IT! ORWELL WAS RIGHT!
Review: Vidal wrote a good book. A Philips Exeter education makes you a good writer. Vidal was class of '43 and wisely never went to college. Wish I'd done the same. Get this book. Vidal will be dead soon, which is a shame. They don't make 'em like that anymore, even though we do need 'em. He tells the facts, and tells them well. A good sense of logic and good powers of expression. What a combination! Also read PERPETUAL WAR FOR PERPETUAL PEACH (2001), his last book.
Rating:
Summary: One man's personal view of America
Review: You cannot read this book and continue to have a neutral opinion of America. Depending on how seriously you take this book you will either want to pack up and get out while the gettings good or buy a shotgun and pray every night that an oppressed and angry young man somewhere in Algeria never gets a hold of this book. You see, this book does a wonderful job of comfortably asserting every little suspicion that an educated and well-informed individual might have of America. I believe ,however, that Vidal is an impotent old man who no longer has any real power in America, and is very angry about this. He is not important enough for prime-time so he is relegated to C-Span on Saturday afternoons. I have seen this man speak. He enters a room ten minutes after his massive ego. His power and wealth comes from the few socialists here and the many in Europe, to whom he is most popular. Despite saying he is pro-American, he must know that his views influence angry minds most often beyond American borders. View this wolf in sheep's clothing with a skeptical eye. There are many who would like you to think that a free America is at its twilight and that its destroyers come from within. Gore Vidal's book is dangerous; but it is not dangerous to Bush or Cheney. It is a threat to ordinary Americans because it is they who will be attacked by the killers influenced by the ideas of Gore Vidal.
Rating:
Summary: A few possibly irrelevant comments
Review: I have possibly a weird slant on Vidal's controversial and often dyspeptic views about America. If you're a fan of Oswald Spengler and other similar historian's pessimistic outlook for human civilization, then you can understand why I sometimes like Vidal's books. As someone once observed of the Renaissance artist Beccafumi, if I recall right, Vidal's dark visions of the present have the power of a premonitory dream--one that you'd rather forget, perhaps--but still powerful, nevertheless. I don't always agree with Vidal; sometimes he gets carried away with his muse and he goes a little off the deep end--but then that's an artist for you. I'm more impressed with the fin de siecle aspect of his books, whether the exact details of his ideas are correct or not. They say a literary genre is dead when it starts satirizing itself. It seems to me the best interpretation of Vidal's books about America would be to ask the same question--is a culture or country dead when it starts to look like a similar satire or caricature of itself? I'm not criticizing here, really, I think America is a great country, and Americans are the greatest people in the world. It's just that things are getting a little weird in the old town tonight, if you know what I mean. Most of the essays in this book were written in the 90's as the 20th century was drawing to a close. And what a century it was. One can understand Vidal's pessimism here. The 20th century saw not only the advent of the greatest scientific and medical advances, but also the greatest conflagrations of mass death and destruction in man's history--and which, ironically enough--were mostly caused or exacerbated by man's own new-found technological capabilities. With these awesome new powers at his command, mankind unflichingly, even enthusiastically, embarked on a new era of unabashed and uninhibited mass death and destruction unprecedented in human history. For example, the 20th century saw mankind, using its new science and technology, uninhibitedly embark on massive wars that killed literally hundreds of millions of people. It was indeed a century to remember, made all the more memorable by the millions of people caught in its deadly milieu. Millions died in World War I; 20 million more died during the Spanish Flu epidemic immediately afterward, and made worse by the weakened condition of state infrastructures and medical facilities after the war. In World War II, millions more died, including 20 million dead in Russia alone either directly from war casualties or indirectly through starvation, disease, and privation. Six million Jews, 1 million Russians--and even a quarter million Gypsies--were rounded up and systematically exterminated in the death camps ("better living through chemistry"), and tens of millions more died of starvation in India because the price of rice went through the roof. Anyway, not to say the 20th century was all bad and was just a conflagration of mass death and destruction, but sometimes it seems that way. But seriously, is this how we want to run our world? This is what the most advanced and evolved species on the planet is all about? Oh well, I'm not sure what can be done about this. Maybe nothing. Maybe all one can do, as we bask in the increasingly polluted twilight of our ever-sickening planet and civilization, is to write dyspeptic books about it like Vidal and vent one's frustration that way--and hope for a better future for mankind and our planet, who certainly deserve better than what they have gotten so far.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book but Wrong Title
Review: In this collection of witty, thought provoking essays, Gore Vidal makes two powerful points. The first point, which he discusses in brief, and almost superficial terms is that having secured power illegally, the Cheney/Bush Junta was responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11th either through complicity, or through slightly more forgivable acts of homicidal negligence. The second, and probably more important point, is that following the Second World War the United States was transformed by its leaders from a republic into a "national security state" that has remained in a continuous state of war since that time. Viewed in the context of this second point, the first one begins to make more sense. Vidal's critique of the Cheney/Bush Junta, and specifically, of its roll in possibly causing and certainly exploiting the terrorist attacks of September 11th is both compelling and flippant. Much of his information is a synthesis of Naffez Mossadeq Ahmed's definitive study on the subject, "The War on Freedom". While Vidal does an admirable job of recounting the facts, one is better off going to the original source in this case. The important point in these essays is that whether it caused the terrorist attacks of September 11th, or merely exploited them, the Cheny/Bush Junta was primed beforehand to attack Afghanistan and Iraq because of its oil interests in both regions. It is Vidal's numerous essays about America's transformation from a republic to a national security state that is far more worth reading. In these essays, most of which were written during the Clinton years, Vidal provides the necessary historical context for understanding 9/11 and its aftermath. Prior to World War II, America was a regional empire competing with other regional empires. As one of those regional empires, Nazi Germany expanded its power base through military conquest, America needed an excuse to confront Germany and consequently provoked its ally, Japan to initiate hostilities. Following the defeat of Germany and Japan, America now competed with the other victor, the Soviet Union for global domination. To meet this challenge, America placed itself in a state of permanent war against the Soviet Union, its Communist ideology, and its numerous allies and client states. Permanent war required a radical overhaul of American government and society, which gave birth to the defense industry, and to the American version of a police state complete with blacklists, denunciations and show trials. Finally, having defeated the Soviet Union, America was poised to grab whatever it wanted from wherever it wanted beginning with the prime oil transportation route across Afghanistan, and the world's second largest oil reserves in Iraq. But to accomplish this a new transformation was required in the national security state. This transformation included increased defense spending, further consolidation of wealth and power among the elite through tax cuts and deficits (all financed by the ever growing poor and ever shrinking middle class), complicity of the press, and the implementation of totalitarian controls through the USA PATRIOT Act and other measures. Vidal makes it clear that since these are not the kind of things that the American people accept at face value, their implementation is largely dependent on the creation and perpetuation of specific historical myths. Vidal effectively destroys many of these myths including the notion that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was unprovoked, that nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to shorten the war (the Japanese offered to surrender months earlier after a bombing mission that destroyed Tokyo), and that Stalin started the Cold War (well, he did, but with a little prodding from us). The implication, of course, is that the causes and consequences of 9/11 have also been molded by immediate historical mythology. "They attacked us because they're evil and because they're jealous of our freedoms" sounds a lot more appealing than " we let them attack us so that we could remilitarize society, clamp down on dissent and make war with other nations whenever we want." While Vidal's essays are intelligent and informative, they also have their share of problems. To begin with, Vidal's writing style is sometimes glib and he frequently boasts about his own knowledge or accomplishments in a manner that is beautifully parodied in the "Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature". I also wish Vidal had chosen a different title since his analysis of the forces that shaped American foreign policy is far more in depth (and perhaps more important) than his critique of Cheney and Bush. If any Bush and Cheney fans have gotten this far in review then I urge them to read this book even though parts of it will definitely irritate them. The larger historical issues are not only more interesting than the individual players, but also render them irrelevant.
Rating: 
Summary: Crud
Review: There is hardly anything new here - most essays in this book were originally written in the 1990s. What's the purpose of the exercise? To quickly cash in on the new interest about Iraq? Some items, like the connections of the Bush leaguers to Middle East oil and gas, are interesting but hardly new or unknown. To mention Prince Konoye as a Japanese organizer of a valid peace proposal is cute. But Vidal should have also mentioned that the prince had no standing within his own country and would not have gotten very far with his ideas. Vidal writes that Roosevelt provoked Japan into the war by sending a nonsensical ultimatum. But that is only half the story. He should have checked out the situation paper Roosevelt wrote when Secretary of the Navy after World War I. In that paper he wrote:" Should Japan ever decide to attack the United States, that attack will take place at Pearl Harbor". Now we know why he assembled the whole Pacific fleet there. But the main idea Vidal conveniently left out: Why were the US so very anxious to enter two world wars, despite considerable opposition in the population? We should start out with the fact that, in both cases, the "enforcer" was Winston Churchill. A good part of the book is dedicated to the defense against critics, especially his "The Golden Age". I don't think I need to be brought up to speed on this. Furthermore, he seems to be in such a hurry to get things on paper that his justly celebrated polished use of the English language suffers badly.
Rating:
Summary: Vidal: partners with Rush??
Review: At several points in this book thoughts of Rush Limbaugh danced through my head- not due to any similarity in ideology, of course, but the acrid tone and unfounded assumptions whose sole purpose seems to be to draw the ire of the reader are strikingly similar to Limbaugh.
Vidal makes interesting (entertaining?) points about Bush-Cheney, but I find his conclusions about FDR and WWII somewhat absurd. He is not the inventor of this argument, but how can any rational person, much less an historian, simply skim over the point that Japan's imperialistic regime was not at least partly to blame for FDR's action/response? He also fails to mention in his argument that the oil embargo imposed upon Japan prior to Pearl Harbor was in direct response to Japan's invasion of southern Indochina ( in addition to their attempted occupation of China), and that Great Britain and the Netherlands were part of the embargo as well.
Vidal then refers to the Tripartite pact as a "defensive agreement", and would be no cause for Germany to declare war on the US, and it is puzzling why Germany would do so. However, article III of the Pact states " Germany,Italy, and Japan.....
further undertake to assist one another with all political, economic, and military means when one of the three contracting powers is attacked by a power at present not involved in the European war..". This was signed in September of 1940. "Defensive??" What country might be targeted here?
Vidal's ability as a writer and historian is apparent, but his inability to remain objective dilutes his arguments to the point where his expertise almost goes unnoticed ( at least in my experience). I'm all for isolationism (to a point), but even Gandhi said it is better to fight a just war than to let injustice prevail. It would be interesting to hear what Vidal thinks the world be like today if the Allies had not undertaken the task they did.
The world needs people like Vidal to keep us from getting in that "comfort zone", but in all his genius and talent he needs to be recognized for who he is- just another Rush.
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