The Power Of Nightmares/Adam Curtis

The third episode again repeats a lot of what's gone before, steve. But at the end, it has interesting stuff about Blair et al. being obsessed with the verdict of history, in the sense of being neurotic about not having dealt with something (ie. Islamist terrorism) that later is shown to engulf our society. An obsession with the worst case scenario. Fear of getting it wrong isn't a motor of confident and successful leadership.

What's wrong with repeating things? Have you investigated al Qaeda at first hand yourself? No - you are repeating other things (that it is "cell-like" etc.) And that's fine.

alba -- yeah, i can see that but there are links between the cells, example: funding, and training camps. 'follow the money' and that.

I'm ever so hungry.

xpost

But overall, as a society, we didn't. Not enough to do anything about it. And I'm thinking about how eugenics was such a respectable and popular notion among intellectuals etc.

Really? Most of the literary intelligentsia seem to have been pretty much on the Right.

really? orwell, connolly, isherwood, auden, day lewis, spender, fucking leavis, greene, green, the left book club...?

Just a little humour there, to lighten our load.

Prospect is £4.50! Is the rest of it any good? Last time I got it it was Billy Bragg and Gordon Brown talking about Britishness. I thought it poor.

I like the Carey book, but it's about a slightly earlier generation.

Sure, mainstream politicians in england were culpable, but the popular movement here was big -- in France, it had real potential (although things got fucked-up over Spain). In any case, the popular movement against fascism in Western Europe was far more of a genuine presence than, say, the Stop The War movement is now. People like Stafford Cripps in the Labour Party were sympathetic, and it definitely formed cadres for the reformed Labour Party of 1945.

I've heard there is a guy in the US called Al Nino, and people periodically ring him up and complain about the weather.

Animal Liberation Front = ALF. Alf seems a pretty cuddly British name.

episode 3 i thought was the weakest... i almost thought the doc should've gone right up to sept. 11 and no further, as all the post-9/11 stuff seemed quite rushed, and most of it i'd seen before. also weak: when it suddenly became about the UK--i know this is a bbc doc, but i didn't get ANY sense of how britain got involved, or how neo-conservatism got a foothold there (while neo-c's ascension in the states was clearly and patiently spelled out). it seemed like an abrupt change.

also interesting that the word 'oil' wasn't used once in the program. obv i understand that curtis wasn't taking the syriana approach and that he didn't want to open a whole other kettle of words... but it still begged the question.

also: century of the self is available on archive.org, in mpeg4 format. that's next on my list!

The only thing I haven't seen by him (I think) is his one off documentary abot WWII and how history is written. If anyone knows where I can get it I'd love 'em forever.

I think the film is just composed of stuff culled from the three episodes.

someone else also posted the first episode in 6-8 minute segments. the section with young 70's rumsfeld is on the third segment.

and as elvis mentioned, archive.org still has a 4.4 GB complete download.

have only finished episode 1 so far. I think I'm going to space my viewing out to one per night.

the use of Charles Ives' music was devastating for me. I usually hear joy, pride, strength, courage in the way he used dissonance, but in this context it's all just monstrous.