[Peace-discuss] My comment on Jim Dey's article

Wed Sep 16 08:38:38 EDT 2015

Rereading Buckley (1925-2008) and Vidal (1925-2012) today, one finds plenty to criticize, but what’s strangest is the curiously old-fashioned air to their debate.  Not because what they debated wasn’t important, but because most of it predates the great unrecognized sea-change in US politics, the counter-attack of neoliberalism, beginning in the 1970s and resulting in the craven collapse of US liberalism into Identity Politics. (There are few good accounts: see perhaps Chris Hedges, "The Death of the Liberal Class,” 2010.)

That said, Vidal is unquestionably more valuable now than Buckley. Contrast e.g. “God and Man at Yale” (1951) - not inaccurate about the Ivy League two generations ago - with “Homage to Daniel Shays” (1972).

But, in an illustration of the maxim that the poets often get there first, see Vidal’s remarkably accurate and even prescient series of novels on US history. An undergraduate (or anyone) who wanted to know about US history - beyond the cant - could do far worse than read them (along with Zinn and Chomsky):

"The Narratives of Empire series is a heptalogy of historical novels, by Gore Vidal, published between 1967 and 2000, which chronicle the dawn-to-decadence history of the American Empire; the narratives interweave the personal stories of two families with the personages and events of U.S. history. Despite the publisher's preference for the politically neutral series-title 'American Chronicles,' the author Vidal preferred the series-title 'Narratives of Empire.' The seven narratives of empire can be read in either historical or publication order without losing narrative intelligibility.” Here’s the list: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narratives_of_Empire <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narratives_of_Empire>>.

   —CGE

> On Sep 15, 2015, at 2:14 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> 
> Vidal wasn't a liberal; he was a leftist. Liberals got us into the Vietnam War. Vidal is described by Dey as "bomb-throwing." He opposed the Vietnam War, which dropped more tonnage on South Vietnam than was dropped in all of World War II. Buckley is described by Dey as supporting "small government." He supported the Vietnam War, which cost at least $1 trillion in 2015 $. Vidal is described as "smug." Maybe so. But you might like to check out the Oxford debate that Buckley had with James Baldwin in Britain on youtube. Dey states that these interviews "defined" them for the rest of their lives. Maybe in Dey's mind; not so much in the real world. In a book of interviews called "I Told You So," this question and answer are contained:
>  
> Questioner 2, cont. Also, I was wondering if you had a comment on the recent passing of Buckley’s wife, Pat Buckley, who died a few days ago.
>  
> A. I liked her. She was very nice. Long suffering. When I was speaking in West Virginia in Charles Town, the capital of the state, to an audience about like this, someone asked a question from the audience: "When Buckley called you what he did on television, why didn’t you belt him one?" I said, "I’ve done many wrong things in my life—but I have never decked a lady."
> Also from that book:
>  
> In ‘68, I connect up with the mainstream of the radical movement. I do three things in ‘68. One is Myra, which is sort of sending everybody up, including the sexual revolution, and I’m sending up the ‘60s types, too, because I’m not taking them too seriously. Then my debates with Buckley during the Democratic National Convention, which, of course, the whole country watches. Though I thought Mayor Daley and Abe Ribicoff more exciting.13 Then I was caught in the Chicago police riot. The night Humphrey was nominated was the night that I was obliged to discipline Buckley. The next day, Marcus Raskin and Jules Feiffer and a bunch of us founded the New Party as a vehicle for Gene McCarthy. After we had gone to all the trouble to get the party’s names on a couple of dozen state ballots, he torpedoed it. I just saw Marcus in Washington last March and he said, "You should have been our candidate." I said "I thought so too, but I was waiting for you to ask." He said, "Well, we didn’t," and I said, "No, you didn’t." We could have launched a real party at that moment.
>  
> http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/columns/2015-09-15/jim-dey-spending-questions-and-frenemies.html <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.news-2Dgazette.com_opinion_columns_2015-2D09-2D15_jim-2Ddey-2Dspending-2Dquestions-2Dand-2Dfrenemies.html&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=tfHzwZBcTLEveiewRiq0OdhFmfRmlvZjpIBS0AUJ2v0&m=yfOkFr9yJEjbeEKjMPiYvwNKCxKw_nZz2-t6ssb3zH8&s=8yyVyrpOgOi4nwEvbSXZ8KiEYGGdEtY5Iim6lza6lR0&e=>
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