Norman Mailer - Iraq and the American Right

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=1249

Internationally acclaimed author and journalist Norman Mailer discusses his views on national pride, the Iraq war, and American Neoconservatives. This excerpt is taken from a program in which Norman Mailer talks with authors Gunter Grass and Andrew O'Hagan on the topic of "The 20th Century on Trial," and was recorded in collaboration with the New York Public Library.

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The New York Public Library presents "The 20th Century on Trial" with Norman Mailer and Gunter Grass.

Born in the 1920s, Gunter Grass and Norman Mailer went on to become grand men of letters. They witnessed the 20th century at close quarters. At the center of each writer's consciousness is the role of their respective countries in World War II and the legacy of violence and guilt that created the Cold War. Yet as stylists these two novelists appeared to internalize the great forces of their times: the appeal of totalitarianism and the cult of celebrity, the struggle for national definition and the psychology of sex.

Mailer and Grass set out to create revolutions in the consciousness of their times, and now might be the moment to ask how the 20th century itself emerges from their work. What was that century? What would they write for its epitaph? Nobel Prize-Winner Gunter Grass's memoir "Peeling the Onion" takes him back to his wartime childhood and adolescence - it is a searing book that provides evidence on behalf of the self-accusing. Norman Mailer's latest novel, "The Castle in the Forest," is his take on Hitler's own youth. These two great writers have come full circle, to the same place and time, and their creativity puts the 20th century itself on trial - The New York Public Library

Norman Mailer (1923 - 2007) was born to a Jewish family in Long Branch, New Jersey. He was brought up in Brooklyn, New York, graduated from Boys' High School and when he was only sixteen was admitted to Harvard University in 1939, where he studied aeronautical engineering. At the university, he became interested in writing and published his first story when he was 18. Mailer was drafted into the Army in World War II and served in the South Pacific. In 1948, just before enrolling in the Sorbonne in Paris, he published a book that made him world-famous: The Naked and the Dead, based on his personal experiences during World War II. It was hailed by many as one of the best American novels to come out of the war years and named one of the "100 best novels in English language" by the Modern Library.

Other famous works include: The Presidential Papers (1963), An American Dream (1965), Why Are We in Vietnam? (1967), Armies of the Night (1968, awarded a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award), Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968), Of a Fire on the Moon (1970), The Prisoner of Sex (1971), Marilyn (1973), The Fight (1975), The Executioner's Song (1979, awarded a Pulitzer Prize), Ancient Evenings (1983), Harlot's Ghost (1991), Oswald's Tale (1995), and The Castle in the Forest (2007).

In 1968 he received a George Polk Award for his reporting in Harper's Magazine.

Norman Mailer passed away on November 10, 2007, at the age of 84.

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[mkp1974]

Hocotra

I don't know how you Republicans think we can pay for a war in Iraq , and Iran or wherever the hell we go next, by lowering taxes. That makes no effin sense. How do you pay for anything by lowering taxes? Tell me how. By borrowing money from China I guess. I'll tell you what is is- it is going into debt and passing the buck to future generations. The US is done. I really don't care, i'll just sit around and watch you bastards run us into the ground.

[CharlieChan007]

You're not too bright, are you, hocotra?

[ThePregnancySlaves]

Henry Clay's lick-spittle lackey Abe "Adolf" Lincoln expressed his sentiments freely. He was a champion of corporatism/mercantilism and a foe of the Constitutional Republic that the United States was. His war changed the federal government into a central government.

[HoGraz]

I can't stand the nasty lip smacking sound.

[Mbalakala]

It's not true that nothing good can come of it as he says in 02:36. America is taking control of all middle east oil, be it by making super BBF like with Saudi Arabia and Israel or by directly conquering those countries America can't be friends with, like Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a very good move against the next huge rival for world leadership, China.

Maybe he's thinking about good in general, as in "The Greater Good", not just good for America strategically.

[Vebinz]

"...should we only fight people who are a threat to us?"

Yes, because no one appointed America as Judge, Jury, and Executioner of the world.

[juhd69]

Look your English is simply not good enough. Your last comment is completely indecipherable.

Are you using some sort of translating program. Or have you taken English classes? Either way get your money back.

Idiots and cretins who have no argument always fall back on accusing someone of being a Nazi.

[PNACATTACKdotCOM]

As a Neo-Nazi admirer (you) of Christopher Hichers - I know what you are ... We have saying here about people like him - you have propably too there - and you are full of that ;-)

[juhd69]

Thank you for confirming what I already suspected.

You are insane.

[PNACATTACKdotCOM]

I will tell all and much more in our coming documenatry about 4th Reich Nazi-USA.

I have huge amout of issues wchich shows people how USa do not differ from 3rd Reich. ANd how it have done almost all what 3rd reich did...

[juhd69]

Your statement is practically incoherent. I sincerely hope you are not a native English speaker.

Let's just say that Hussein was not a threat to the U.S. should we only fight people who are a threat to us? Would it therefore be wrong to defend the of Darfur because the Sudanese government is not a threat to us?

Let's say Hitler did NOT declare war on the U.S. would it have been wrong to attack Nazis?

Your English is poor. But I suppose you speak better English than I do Finnish.

[PNACATTACKdotCOM]

Hypocrisy seved old nazis too. Old mass murderers. Saddam wasn't bvener real treath. Saddam was NEVER treat for USA etc. BUT treat for Iran - by Nazi-USA and Nazi-UK who backed him 1980-1988. And to Kuwait and Israel 1991 - BUT only Because he was allowed on purposely to coem treath with James Baker (faxes to Iraq minister), Colin powell, April Glaspie and GHW Bush lies. He got weapons before from ALL NWO terorists states.