A Quote by Gore Vidal

On 16 September 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died.

Gore Vidal

Quote Topics

American American Empire Announced Become Commerce Department Died E Commerce Empire Had Nation September States United United States

Quote Author

Gore Vidal
American - Writer
October 3, 1925 - July 31, 2012

The United States appears to be a debtor nation in perpetuity.

Lou Dobbs

We better rethink the position of the United States in the world and whether we want to be an empire. Being an empire puts all of us in jeopardy. The American Empire, while it was just wreaking havoc on other nations, didn't bother us.

Howard Zinn

Today the Internet is run by private sector interests within the United States under the supervision of a nonprofit entity formed by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Robin Hayes

The American Dream has really good PR. It's kind of difficult to live in the United States and not on some level be pulled into the allure of the American Dream. It's in the DNA of the country. So, for a population coming out of slavery, desperate to become part of the full life of the United States, it only makes sense that they would embrace this route to the American Dream.

Anthony B Pinn

On a Tuesday, September 11th, 1973, we had the military coup in Chile that forced me to leave my country eventually. And then, on a Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, we had the terrorist attack in the United States.

Isabel Allende

The White House announced on Monday the Prime Minister of Australia will visit President Bush in September. We have a lot in common. Australia started out as a prison colony, while the United States has evolved into one.

Argus Hamilton

The fact of the matter is we went after Iraq for oil. And the fact of the matter is that the United States has degraded our role as a great nation by attacking this nation that had no capacity to attack the United States and no intention of doing so, that didn't have anything to do with 9/11, didn't have weapons of mass destruction.

Dennis Kucinich

The United States is now The Empire. There isn't an empire; there's The Empire, and that empire is the United States.

Tariq Ali

If there be a principle that ought not to be questioned within the United States, it is that every man has a right to abolish an old government and establish a new one. This principle is not only recorded in every public archive, written in every American heart, and sealed with the blood of American martyrs, but is the only lawful tenure by which the United States hold their existence as a nation.

James Madison

So we make this big loan, most of it comes back to the United States, the country is left with the debt plus lots of interest, and they basically become our servants, our slaves. It's an empire. There's no two ways about it. It's a huge empire. It's been extremely successful.

John Perkins

The main motivation was to explore the empire's falling. I mean 'Duck City' is like an allegory for the Western Empire or the United States. And I was thinking what happens when it falls and declines like the Roman Empire.

Lena Andersson

I was in New York on September 11 when those planes hit the World Trade Center. At the time, it seemed like it was a local thing. But three or four days later, by the time we drove across the country in the bus, we realized it wasn't a local thing. You could really feel the states become united. We became the United States of America.

John Madden

Americans long to be united. After 9/11, we all just wanted to be one nation. Not a single American on September the 12, 2001, cared who won the next presidential election.

William J. Clinton

It would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees little need for diplomacy; power is enough. Only the weak rely on diplomacy. The Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali

The terrorist attacks on September the 11th were a turning point for our nation. We saw the goals of a determined enemy to expand the scale of their murder and force America to retreat from the world. And our nation accepted a mission. We will defeat this enemy. The United States of America is determined to guard our homeland against future attacks. As the September 11th Commission concluded, our country is safer than we were three years ago, but we are not yet safe