"I do not accept the authority of any state," says Gore Vidal, one of the nation's foremost essayists and novelists, "much less one founded as was ours upon the free fulfillment of each citizen--to forbid me, or anyone, the use of drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, sex with a consenting partner or, if one is a woman, the right to an abortion. I take these rights to be absolute, and should the few persist in their efforts to dominate the private lives of the many, I recommend force as a means of changing their minds."

Force? My my, Mr. Gore Vidal is more radical than was previously supposed. Of course as a citizen ex-patriot, he can sit at ease in his Italian villa and recommend force from a distance, assured he won't get his pants wet.

Even so, it is surprising to think of a man of Vidal's stature recommending force. Anyone familiar with his work knows that he's got one of those prodigious intellects, and that if he sees force as a political revolutionary necessity, things in God's Country must actually be pretty damn bad.

Let us grant him a hearing.

He starts with an essay titled The Day the American Empire Ran Out of Gas. He refers, of course, to the day the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation. "Like most modern empires," Vidal writes, "ours rested not so much on military prowess as on economic primacy."

Now, apparently, the USA is enjoying something of an economic revival, if recent warnings about the collapse of the all-time-high stock market can be ignored. As recently as 1987 we saw how the market could, without warning, drop below all expectations. Japan, which only a short time ago seemed ready to clobber us economically, is falling behind. Will Vidal's focus on the economy prove his visionary powers correct?

It remains to be seen. But what Vidal does well in this book is describe the military-industrial complex and its complexities. "Close to 90% of the disbursements of the federal government," he tells us, "go for what is laughingly known as 'defense'...The Pentagon is like a black hole; what goes in is forever lost to us, and no new wealth is created."

Among the many virtues of this tiny book--besides its modest cost-- are its reflections on how government cheats the citizenry.

He quotes to effect the Scottish philosopher David Hume, who, in 1758, gave his countrymen a word or two about government's misbehaviors:

"Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we inquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, only on opinion that government is founded, and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as to the most free and most popular."

If force is always on the side of the governed--a questionable theory--and if opinion only supports the Established Powers--it would appear that changes in opinion (difficult when media has been hijacked by big business) are called for before force becomes the fashion.

Vidal sensibly, I suppose, also calls for a Peoples Convention to right our government's wrongs. Is this optimism, or what?

In any case, one of the more arresting diatribes in The Decline and Fall of the American Empire, is Vidal's casual rap about the Sky God. He writes:

"Although many of the Christian evangelists feel it necessary to convert everyone on earth to their primitive religion, they have been prevented--so far--from forcing others to worship as they do, but they have forced--most tryanically and wickedly--their superstitions and hatreds upon all of us through the civil law and through general prohibitions. So it is upon that account that I now favor an all out war on the monotheists."

Are you ready, dear reader, to lead the charge?