Understanding America's Terrorist Crisis: What Should Be Done?
How did the United States come to be so hated? Could the horrific events of September 11th be setting in motion a chain of events far more significant than the terrorist attacks themselves? Held before a standing-room audience of 1,350, this powerful program features celebrated authors and scholars who examine the terrorist crisis and ask the all-important question: Why?
Filmed before a live audience, renowned author Gore Vidal rejects the blind patriotism expected by government officials and the mainstream media, and investigates U.S. foreign policy throughout recent history, showing how it has contributed to the terrorist crisis. With his famous wit and insight, Vidal also demonstrates the ways in which the War on Terrorism is being used to curtail civil liberties and shred the Bill of Rights.
Barton Bernstein, Professor of History, Stanford University, examines the definition of terrorism and cites U.S. military campaigns perpetrated against foreign civilians during the twentieth century. Economist and historian Robert Higgs, Senior Fellow, The Independent Institute, debunks myths about the U.S. defense budget that perpetuate massive corporate welfare and contribute to America's vulnerability to terrorism. Thomas Gale Moore, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, describes the effects of U.S. global military presence and explores options that would reduce the terrorist threat. The forum finishes with a lively question and answer session- The Independent Institute
Bio
Barton Bernstein
A professor of History at Stanford University, Bernstein is a world renowned expert on US foreign policy and the arms race.
Thomas Gale Moore
Thomas Gale Moore is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a Member of the Board of Advisors at The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.
Robert Higgs
Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy for The Independent Institute and Editor of the Institute’s quarterly journal The Independent Review. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, and the University of Economics, Prague. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation.
Lewis Lapham
Lewis H. Lapham is an American writer. He was the editor of Harper's Magazine from 1976 until 1981, and from 1983 until 2006. He also is the founder of a publication about history and literature entitled Lapham's Quarterly. He has written numerous books on politics and current affairs.
David J. Theroux
David J. Theroux is Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Independent Institute and Publisher of The Independent Review. He received his B.S., A.B., and M.S. from the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. Mr. Theroux is the recipient of two Mencken Awards for Best Book, six Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Awards for Best Book, and two Choice Magazine Awards for Outstanding Book. He was founding vice president and director of academic affairs for the Cato Institute and founding president of the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy.
Having directed and published over seventy scholarly books, Mr. Theroux is the editor of the books, "The Energy Crisis, Private Rights and Public Lands" (with P. Truluck), and "Politics and Tyranny." His articles and reviews have appeared in USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dallas Morning News, Insight, other publications, and he has appeared on ABC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, NPR, Voice of America, and other local, national, and international TV and radio networks and programs.
He is a contributor to the forthcoming Encyclopedia of American Politics. Having been a director of seven corporations and four foundations, he has been a member of the Koch Crime Commission, the Prison Advisory Board for the California Little Hoover Commission, and the Executive Committee for the Templeton Collegiate Honor Rolls for Education in a Free Society.
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is hailed as one of the most remarkable cultural and political critics of our time. Born at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, raised in the Washington D.C. home of his grandfather, Oklahoma Senator Thomas Gore, he is a cousin of Al Gore and was brother-in-law to John F. Kennedy.
A masterful and prolific author with a unique “inside” perspective on American politics and history, he has penned twenty-two novels, five plays, screenplays (e.g., "Ben Hur," "Visit to a Small Planet," "Suddenly Last Summer"), television scripts ("A Sense of Justice," "The Death of Billy the Kid"), more than two hundred essays, and a memoir. His first novel, "Williwaw," is based on his experiences in World War II. Other novels include "The City and the Pillar," "Myra Breckenridge," "Julian, Creation," "Live from Golgotha," and the “American Chronicles” series (Burr, 1876, Lincoln, Empire, Hollywood, The Smithsonian, The Golden Age, and Washington D.C.). Vidal’s essays have been collected in eight volumes, including "Reflections on a Sinking Ship," "The Second American Revolution," "Screening History," "The Last Empire," and "United States," for which he received the National Book Award. He has also written mysteries under the name, Edgar Box.
For a quarter-century, he has served as the literary and political critic at the New York Review of Books, and he has appeared as himself in the film, Fellini’s Roma, and co-starred with Tim Robbins in Bob Roberts. He has served on the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts, and has twice run for national public office, and is a member of the Board of Advisors of The Independent Institute. His latest books, "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated" and "Dreaming of War: Blood for Oil and the Bush-Cheney Junta," published by Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books, are collections of essays investigating the roots and causes of the terrorist crises currently facing the United States.
Systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective. It has been used throughout history by political organizations of both the left and the right, by nationalist and ethnic groups, and by revolutionaries. Although usually thought of as a means of destabilizing or overthrowing existing political institutions, terror also has been employed by governments against their own people to suppress dissent; examples include the reigns of certain Roman emperors, the French Revolution (seeReign of Terror), Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union under Stalin, and Argentina during the “dirty war” of the 1970s. Terrorism's impact has been magnified by the deadliness and technological sophistication of modern-day weapons and the capability of the media to disseminate news of such attacks instantaneously throughout the world. The deadliest terrorist attack ever occurred in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 (seeSeptember 11 attacks), when members of al-Qaeda terrorist network hijacked four commercial airplanes and crashed two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City and one into the Pentagon building near Washington, D.C.; the fourth plane crashed near Pittsburgh, Pa. The crashes resulted in the collapse of much of the World Trade Center complex, the destruction of part of the southwest side of the Pentagon, and the deaths of some 3,000 people.
(born Oct. 3, 1925, West Point, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. novelist, playwright, and essayist. Vidal began publishing his writings soon after his wartime army service. Though he wrote stage plays and television and film screenplays, he is best known for his irreverent and intellectually adroit novels. The City and the Pillar (1948) became notorious for its homoerotic subject matter. Myra Breckinridge (1968) was acclaimed for its wild satire. His other novels, many of them historical and most of them best-sellers, include Julian (1964), Washington, D.C. (1967), Burr (1974), 1876 (1976), and Lincoln (1984). He also published several essay collections and the memoir Palimpsest (1996). Known for his iconoclastically leftist political analyses, he twice ran unsuccessfully for Congressional office.
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