BBC's The Power of Nightmares
 

*** Warning: NOT for the faint of heart ***

As I'm sure few people have heard of this documentary, and it has since come to my attention that it's actually legally downloadable/streamable online for free, I figured a little thread about it wouldn't hurt anyone ;)

http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares

Part 1 - Baby it's Cold Outside
Part 2 - The Phantom Victory
Part 3 - The Shadows in the Cave
(All three are rougly 60 minutes long)

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...bushhblair.jpg

If you find the quality (which is nearly excellent) bothersome, and you have broadbang, get the DVD quality mpeg files here or here :)

Watch and discuss! (or well, atleast watch).

This is an excellent documentary. While it doesn't present much new information, it's a thought-provoking contextual view of the rise of the "politicals of fear". It presents a rather one-sided argument, but for the other side, simply watch your TV news.

It's really Fahrenheit 9/11 for people with a brain. It even has a really nice presentation style.

I linked Jeysie up to this a few days ago, so hopefully you'll have at least one other person to discuss it with soon. I'm planning to watch it again because I've forgotten most of it. It keeps disappearing and reappearing on archive.org, so grab it while you can.

Incidentally, as a potentially useful piece of context, this was screened before the July 2005 attacks on London. The references to 'Tube Attack!' in the introduction were, at the time, just speculation.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is nothing compared to this, I like that the beeb took the time to put 9/11 into context with "The Power of..", and not hastily either, they start around WW2 and end with the Afghan and Iraqi conflict. I've seen all three twice but I still can barely remember half of it, it's a lot to take in, but very much worth it. As far as I'm concerned Fahrenheit 9/11 wasn't even a documentary, but this one is, and a rather good one at that :)

No one else? Bah, I post a free documentary and there are no takers? Ungrateful ***** :shifty:








***** = j/k ;)

Don't be so impatient! I just noticed this thread.

Frontline has most of its shows available online. Frontline is my faaavourite.

'Broadbang'? That sounds....... < dirty mind >

:P

I was just messing around ;) What's frontline, is that a network or something? We probably have something like that over here, it lets you watch even ancient documentaries and pieces online (in awesome quality, if you've got a nice connection).
My bad :D That does sound a lot like something Vivienne Vixen would say (just pretend that's an actual porn star name :P), when describing her latest film, or something :P

But enough <dirty mind>, watch the doc! :P

Thanks, looks like an awesome archive of interesting docs, I'll definately be visiting that one a lot :)

Ah, cool. I'll watch it tonight.

Cheers, I'll give it a look tomorrow (beer and footy tonight!)

I just re-watched the first part, and I can't really say I agree :) For me, it does present a lot of new information (I'd never heard of Leo Strauss or Sayyid Qutb before this, and as 'founders' of Islamic radicalism and Neoconservatism respectively, that's quite a load of insightful knowledge).

Also, I think it's one of the more objective documentaries I've seen so far - for every historian there's a Straussian 'rebuttle' and so on. Ofcourse most of these ideas (of say Richard Perle or Michael Ledeen) sounds so outlandish to non-neocons such as us, that it could be perceived to be one-sided, while it's actually not the case. Ledeen saying the PLO, RAF and even the IRA were secretly run by the Soviet Union may sound like something taken out of context, but you have to realise that's what the hard core of the neoconservative wing actually believed. The funny bit is that they actually made these things up according to Strauss's belief that there needed to be "myths" such as religion and that of "The Nation" (with a unique destiny to fight evil in the world etc.) in order to keep the country from falling into decay at the hands of selfish individualism. Yet somehow they actually started believing in their own myths and fantasies (about the (fall of the) USSR amongst other things) :crazy: Anyway I digress. Great stuff, going to let it sink in and see the second part tomorrow :P

Just watched the first part: great and frightening. Of course it's always easy to point at the mistakes people made in hindsight. Still, how can anyone see this documentary and STILL believe in the stuff the neo-conservatives are telling? In any case, these people are really scary and in some ways even criminal in their deception.

I'm only halfway through the first part. It's so interesting! Except I find myself agreeing with Strauss somewhat. Eek. Am I secretly a neocon? I do think Strauss' idea of using myths to control the unwashed masses is super creepy.

Except we're not just talking about mistakes here ;) That whole Team B thing was just outrageous. I mean, come on; "We couldn't find any evidence of weapons, so we just have to assume they've made them undetectable" - WTFwtftwtf?! (sounds a lot like..). And taking a picture of a radar dish and saying it was the USSR's new laser beam weapon?! :crazy: That's more than mistakes my friend, it's even beyond deception. Anyway it's 'interesting' to see that Qutb and Zawahiri both got extremely radical after their prison time/torture (two hours in a cage with two attack dogs, wtfwtfwtf?! :crazy: ), and only since then started developing ideas which sanctioned the killing of innocent civilians. Kind of makes you wonder how many terrorists the U.S. are breeding in all their prisons around the world :crazy: (enough to last us centuries, that's for sure).
Well a lot people feel societies are slowly rotting/decaying, on both sides of the political spectrum, but it's what to do about it that makes them opposites, so don't worry :P Anyway, in the strictest interpretation of Strauss's ideas, the neocons are actually not neocons at all. The mere notion of a pre-emptive strike would make Strauss turn in his grave and scream "Blasphemy!" ;) They're really (too) extremely 'progressive' on some aspects (foreign policy) and (too) extremely conservative on others (birth control etc.). Still, just as two wrongs don't make a right, two *extremes* don't make a moderate ;)
Watch the rest and be yet even more mortified..

I know! I laughed out loud at the secret undetectable submarines. We have no proof they exist, no one's ever seen one, but we KNOW they're there!

Two hours in a cage with an attack dog while SMEARED WITH ANIMAL FAT. That made me want to cry. Poor Qutb had a heart attack.

True. However, I think birth control restrictions can be attributed to pandering to the conservative religious right rather than anything that most of the original chickenhawks believed in. What I find really interesting is that the Plan B fellows started to believe the crap that they were spreading, when Strauss had stressed that one was to remain above all of that in order to control it.

I also find the transformation of the CIA interesting. I hope the next two parts explore this further. (I also laughed when the ex-CIA guy was describing how he and his colleagues had told Casey that this book connecting international terrorism was actually made up of lies that the CIA itself had invented. HA HA.)

After watching the three episodes back-to-back I can say I thoroughly enjoyed them, in parts laughed at the absurdity of reality.

Same here :P These guys are in-cre-di-ble :crazy:
I can't even begin to imagine what went on in there, but from the fact that he suffered a heart attack in there, I guess it was so horrible his heart simply gave up out of sheer horror :crazy: Lovely, what the CIA teaches around the world :crazy:
Very true, I was just using it as an example to show they're not exactly neocons, though what we'd have to call them then, I have no idea, so for the sake of simplicity.. Anyway I should've used their outlandish spending habbits as an example of how "progressive" they are, it's not like average conservatives like to boast about their crazy spendaholic behaviour (if anything they'd love to build up a surplus and sit on it forever :P). And yeah that Team B crap just goes to show how insane they must be to believe in their own fantasies :crazy: (More cocaine, Mr. Bush?)
Oh it'll get a lot "better", and I absolutely love the doc's concluding words.
Yeah, in many ways what happened over the past half century really epitomises irony, doesn't it :crazy:

It's completely shocking and makes you wonder what in YOUR has or hasn't been just influenced by black propaganda. Remember, American culture is inexorably tied to European now. 99% of the movies we watch are from America, and with that all their ideologies, virtues and whatnot.

And yes, the ideas of Strauss were not unloveable. Nor were Marx' ideas, or those of Qutb. They all started out of idealism and it's hard not to like idealism. But somewhere along the way, things are lost and followers become more radical, and it's at the edge of the ideologies that their greatness starts to crumble. But their essence is almost never horrifying and even very attractive. Besides, that, it's always gratifying on a personal level to be called the Vanguard of something, an intellectual. Or to hear that your country has a destiny to fulfil, that you are the Good Guys in a valiant battle. It's easy to believe because you want it so desperately to be true.

The only way to make everything right is to educate everyone with documentaries and insights such as these. And hope they'll see reason.

Well, in our case (living in Europe), we're probably more "brainwashed" than we realise. We'd have to read and watch a couple of hours each day to undo that ;) Hey, atleast we try, right? :)
Exactly, and now idealism is practically dead, having made way for unrealistic pragmatism. I don't see how their (Strauss&Qutb) ideas could become even more radical, but I'm sure we'll see soon enough (what with there being hundreds of breeding grounds for radicalism all over the world, also known as "secret prisons" :shifty: ) and ofcourse the imminent attack on Iran.

Neoconservatives, with all their gained powers, have transformed the myths they once wanted to have the people believe into self-fullfilling prophecies, and disturbingly now seem to believe in them themselves, funny how easily they dropped the "Perry Mason" for "Gunsmoke" :crazy: I don't know which is more dangerous, the spindoctor or the fundamentalist :crazy:
Sadly this documentary series was only aired once on the beeb (and never since the London bombings) and never in the States.

Twice at least. The second time it was revised in light of the Law Lords' decision that detaining foreign terror suspects without trial was illegal. Not sure which version is on archive.org.

It was also shown at Cannes in condensed form.

Can you imagine it ever being shown in the US? :shifty: