"The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear"

[Taverner]

Has anyone seen this flick?

Sounds awesome...

Adam Curtis has become the most exciting documentary filmmaker of our time. He's at once a psychologist, a historian, a journalist, a wizard of images, and a fearlessly incisive cultural detective who delves beneath the hidden myths of the modern world. The Power of Nightmares, which he wrote, produced, and narrated for the BBC, is his epic dissection of the war on terror, and, like his earlier The Century of the Self, it's a fluid cinematic essay, rooted in painstakingly assembled evidence, that heightens and cleanses your perceptions.

Curtis' audacious thesis is that the American neoconservatives and the Islamic fundamentalists are, in their dark way, the last idealists of politics, and that they rose, in tandem, as apocalyptic mirror images of each other: ideologues rooted in the absolutism of fantasy. Curtis does his homework. He shows, for instance, how the neocons deliberately fabricated evidence of the Soviet threat (an astonishing clip of Donald Rumsfeld in the '70s, talking about undetectable weapon systems that never existed, will look eerily familiar), and that their philosophical godfather, the legendary academic Leo Strauss, endorsed the use of such fictions as a basic organizing tool of a civilized society.

SNIP!


http://www.ew.com/ew/article/review/movie/0,6115,1140762_1_0_,00.html

[Al-CIAda]

1. 5 stars...absolutely mandatory viewing. -nt

[Stephanie]

2. Excellent

DIRECTOR
Adam Curtis

WRITER
Adam Curtis

RELEASE DATE (LIMITED)
Feb 26 2005

RATING
Unrated

GENRE
Documentary

RUN TIME
180 Minutes

DISTRIBUTOR | BROADCAST
BBC Films

[Fenris]

3. He's completely wrong on some points.

Especially about bin Laden and al Qaeda being an invention of the US government. Personally, I found much of the film unbelievable. But that's just me.

[mrfrapp]

5. That's not what he's saying

"Especially about bin Laden and al Qaeda being an invention of the US government."

He doesn't claim that Al Qaeda is an invention of the US governemnt at all. He claims, correctly, that "Al Qaeda" is the name the CIA used to identify the database that tracked the mujahideen in Afghanistan. In other words, Al Qaeda is the name used by the CIA, and now everyone else, to describe Bin Laden's jihad. There's nothing in the least bit controversial about this.

Former UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, claims exactly the same thing.

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1523838,00.html

[TahitiNut]

4. Produced in 2004, it's not yet available on DVD.

http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70035190&trkid=90529

[rman]

8. looks like someone is not in a hurry

all the more reason to see it

[inchhigh]

6. Transcript

It is very well done and required reading (or watching if you care to download) IMHO.

http://www.daanspeak.com/TranscriptPowerOfNightmares1.html

The neoconservatives now set out to transform the world. In next week’s episode, they find themselves joining forces with the Islamists in Afghanistan, and together they fight an epic battle against the Soviet Union. And both come to believe that they had defeated the Evil Empire. But this imagined victory would leave them without an enemy. And in a world disillusioned with grand political ideas, they would need to invent new fantasies and new nightmares, in order to maintain their power.


The third part of the series is actually the best.

[cire4]

7. It was the BEST documentary I have EVER seen...

For those who have yet to see it (and have a fast connection), it is available online at dKos.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/10/103745/557

I highly, highly recommend it. Don't watch all three parts at once though....It is a long and comprehensive program...

[The Stranger]

9. The most important thing you can do right now is view that documentary.

In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. They had different ways of achieving this. But their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered to their people. Those dreams failed. And today, people have lost faith in ideologies. Increasingly, politicians are seen simply as managers of public life. But now, they have discovered a new role that restores their power and authority. Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us from nightmares. They say that they will rescue us from dreadful dangers that we cannot see and do not understand. And the greatest danger of all is international terrorism. A powerful and sinister network, with sleeper cells in countries across the world. A threat that needs to be fought by a war on terror. But much of this threat is a fantasy, which has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It's a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media.

This is a series of films about how and why that fantasy was created, and who it benefits. At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neoconservatives, and the radical Islamists. Last week's episode ended in the late '90s with both groups marginalized and out of power. But with the attacks of September 11th, the fates of both dramatically changed. The Islamists, after their moment of triumph, were virtually destroyed within months, while the neoconservatives took power in Washington. But then, the neoconservatives began to reconstruct the Islamists. They created a phantom enemy. And as this nightmare fantasy began to spread, politicians realized the newfound power it gave them in a deeply disillusioned age. Those with the darkest nightmares became the most powerful.

http://marc.perkel.com/archives/000753.html">The Power of Nightmares