Power of Nightmares

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jock Gill <jg45 () mac com>
Date: December 20, 2004 4:04:23 PM EST
Subject: Re: BBC understands our political dilemma

Dave,

I blogged this on Greater Democracy last month.  Thom Hartmann wrote 
about it in an essay published on Common Dreams.

Used bittorrent to download 1.3 gigs = all three hours in high quality.

I have watched hours 1 & 2.  Need to watch hour 3.

I agree, that it is very important to see this.  It is curious that the 
BBC is said to have no plans to "distribute" this 3 hours of 
programming.

Dave, I urge you to watch this this!

Happy Holidays,

Jock

Jock Gill
Meme Intelligence
http://public.xdi.org/=Jock


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm
part one

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1038.htm
part two

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1040.htm
part three



The BBC's "The Power of Nightmares"

I have just watched the first two hours of the BBC program "The Power 
of Nightmares." Very powerful, just as Thom Hartman recently wrote on 
Common Dreams. Originally broadcast in England in October, it is, in 
fact, a much stronger and more useful analysis of the Neocon/Radical 
Islamist movements, opposite sides of the same bad penny, than 
Fahrenheit 911. The Power of Nightmares does an excellent job of 
tracking the two germs seeds as they emerged from just two individuals 
in the 1940s. Would that The Power of Nightmares were as widely 
distributed and as easily available for study as F/911.

We will only be able to defeat the NeoCons when we are able to destroy 
their foundations. Attacking their lies and myths will not do the 
trick. That is only to attack the symptoms. To destroy the foundations 
and structures of the NeoCon movement will require, however, that we 
debunk and expose all of the faults and inconsistencies in Leo Strauss' 
political theory and its derivative critiques of modern life, religion 
and politics. "The Power of Nightmares" makes an excellent start on 
this. Why has it not been broadcast in the US?


Does the Christian Right Political party, for example, have any idea 
how cynically they have been manipulated by the Neocon elite? If they 
watched the 3 hours of analysis in "The Power of Nightmares" they might 
get a glimmer of how badly they have been duped and used.

Strauss, the theorist behind the NeoCons, has it right that the all 
societies must be wary of internal contradictions. I would suggest, 
however, that he got the problem wrong. He thought individualism in a 
"liberal" society was the root of the problem. I think this is not the 
case at all. There is the counter model of the individual who leads a 
life of inquiry. Thoreau and the American trancendentalists? Buddhists? 
Monks? etc.

Strauss is in fact trapped inside the dominant economic organizing 
principles and architectures of his time - the mid 20th century. So it 
is not possible for him to stand on some other architecture at a remove 
and use this new perspective to make a more useful and more accurate 
analysis. The result is that he attacks the individual, rather than 
criticize the dominant, centralized power model that creates the 
context and myths that surround and define the individuals he is so 
quick to criticize. Domestic advertising, for example, represents 
billions of dollars in myth creation and in-country propaganda 
generally promoting all of the values that BOTH Strauss and the Radical 
Islamists so passionately detest.

Net net, Strauss comes up with a model that is: anti democratic, 
elitist, based upon supreme central authority of the elites, and that 
abandons the rule of law for an "ends justifies the means" policy. 
Further, Strauss actively demands that myths be created and that truth 
be subverted to the myths and their purposes. Only the elites may 
cynically know the truth, if they can remember what it is, as only the 
elites are capable of being pure enough to know what the truth is.

I suggest the internal contradiction that is at the root of the 
cultural dissatisfaction we seem to be facing is the broadcast economic 
model, evolved from both the possibilities and the limits of industrial 
mass production and distribution, legitimatized by Keynsian economics. 
It appears to be the case that this model devolves in its later stages 
into simple consumerism, celebrity and entertainment. This is the real 
issue. We have now created a consumer society that feeds upon its self. 
60%+ of the economy is now basic consumerism. It is hard to imagine 
that this is sustainable from any point of view.

If we do not like this, then we need to look for an alternative 
perspective from which to get a clearer view. I suggest that the 
philosophy and the architecture of the internet may offer just that new 
perspective. The answer is more democracy with more power in the hands 
of the people while at the same time disinter-mediating as much of the 
hierarchy in the center as possible. The answer is more of what we 
fought the Revolutionary War for. This answer is in direct conflict 
with the world view of the Straussian NeoCons now in power in DC.

Lastly, we need to remember that McNamara gave an speech in 1966 which 
outlined a powerful alternative vision: Security in the Contemporary 
World. Nobody seems to remember this. It is truly a road not taken.
Posted by Jock Gill at December 9, 2004 12:29 PM | TrackBack

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