Gore Vidal: American Cicero

“Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.”
— Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Oratore, II, c. 80 B. C.

Gore Vidal was our American Cicero. He valiantly stood as our golden shield of republican virtue against the brassy sword of empire yielded by plutocratic militarists and their vulgar plebeians. He was the national conscience, unrelenting in reminding the citizenry of its lost historical memory in this “United States of Amnesia.” Something great has gone out of the world with his passing.

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10:24 am on August 1, 2012