The Only Standard is Truth
The schools have been lousy most of my lifetime. Teachers need to teach the truth and tell the real story of our country's founding. It was Murder Incorporated, with the European invaders killing everything in their path…then the English, French and Spanish killing each other. We had the railroad robber barons buying all of the state legislatures to get what they wanted. And Vietnam, a war of vanity.
So says Gore Vidal, historian and novelist, who, at age 80, has returned to live in his home country full time. With a laser directed toward the present government, he pulls no punches in his criticism calling Bush the "most ignorant president in American history…inept, uneducated, uncivilized."
Recalling Benjamin Franklin's warning at the Constitutional Convention, Vidal charges that the government is now failing due to the "corruption" of the American people. By this he means a collusion that's taken place by having two presidential elections stolen and no one raising a voice to complain. "The three branches of government … totally out of balance…a really power mad and money hungry little group grabs control of Congress, the Executive and the Judiciary."
In this, one of his few interviews directed specifically toward educators, he reflects on the American government and society and what it has become. Vidal sees America as a consumerist society caring only about money. He defines our government as totalitarian and bent on destroying our constitutional rights. He sees our schools as failing to teach the truth about the history of our country as well as the importance of our Constitution.
"We have a very interesting history, and luckily for me, I've lived by telling the history of the United States. But I ought not to be doing it. The schools ought to be doing it. I'm perfectly happy to hand over my megaphone any day of the week, but they can't tell the truth."
And so the interview goes. Opinionated and controversial, Gore Vidal hits all the main education issues squarely and leaves no doubt where he stands.
- Privatization of public education by charter schools--"It's one of the last big rip-offs…They don't know anything about education. They're money collectors."
- Mayoral control of schools--"What is a politician, by and large, unless he's an educator of some kind himself….keep the politicians out of it."
- No Child Left Behind--"Coming from this most ignorant president in American history, it is great comedy…and whoever thought he was sincere…he wants to leave everybody behind and keep the money for himself, and Halliburton, and his friends."
- Evolution -- "If you deny that, you deny all modern science, all medicine, and all knowledge of the human race…only someone extremely stupid, full of the laughing gas of very, very primitive fundamental religion …told to stay in their humble place by Thomas Jefferson…"
- News media-- "never been more corrupt or dishonest. It lies about everything…they start to sell the presidents the way they sell the detergents, and…don't find much difference between them."
Most poignant was his recollection of all the brightest boys in his school being sent off to World War II to be used as cannon fodder…"just thrown away, thrown away, thrown away." The consequence of this tremendous loss is the "absolute degradation of American society today politically, in the arts, in everything….due to too many of us …killed…there was no repeat generation."
AUDIO MP3 (50 minutes) Available in larger sizes for broadcast
© 2006, Linda Sutton WGA Reg. No.: 1149317