"How We Got To Be So Hated"
Finished Fr 9/29/17
Although I had read through this a few weeks ago, I kept coming back to it.
The book is a collection of seven longish magazine articles and an introduction written and published by Vidal .
I thought the most interesting section was his writings and observations about Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh contacted Gore Vidal when he was in jail and said that he thought the author's take on Terrorism was accurate- "You've hit the nail on the head".
Gore (and many others) feel that McVeigh was not a singular 'bad apple' or 'lone assassin', but had contacts with several home-grown American militias, and might even have been involved with middle-eastern terrorists. And, Vidal clearly makes the case that the government did not do a transparent and meticulous investigation, and the government's examination seems tainted and might even be some kind of coverup.
McVeigh's doctor maintained that Timothy was not deranged or unhinged, but "serious". McVeigh's sessions with this doctor were allowed to go public, and I'd really like to read them. And, I'd like to read more unbiased information about Timothy McVeigh. He was obviously something more than a random 'evil doer'.
In one of the articles- THE NEW THEOCRATS- Vidal makes an excellent case for ending the tax abatement for religious organizations. It's a glaring fact that religious institutions now play a dominant role in America's political structure and they should no longer be allowed to shrink their tax obligation. And, most importantly, there is absolutely NOTHING in the First Amendment that says anything about letting religious institutions out of their financial duty to the government.
The only thing that I regretted about the book is that it's over twenty years old. In the era of Trumpism, all of the data in this books seems almost 'small potatoes'.
I want to read more by Vidal.
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