The Power Of Nightmares

in #informationwar5 years ago

Occasionally some real information and truth sneaks through all the filters and lands in the public view on mainstream media. This information is usually broadcast during times when TV audiences are at their minimum, like very late at night, or on the other channel while everyone's watching some life sports.


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Image by geralt - source: Pixabay

I believe this happens because our memories are short, in large part caused by the same audio-visual medium. As Winston Churchill once said: "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." One of the major truth-bombs to hit the television screens is the documentary that has the title of this post, made for BBC television by Adam Curtis. Curtis has some of the best political documentaries to his name, like The Century Of The Self, in which he exposes how modern politics has been shaped by propaganda techniques as a reaction to the elite's need to control the masses in a "free" democracy, or HyperNormalisation in which he argues that governments, financiers, and technological utopians have, since the 1970s, given up on the complex "real world" and built a simpler "fake world" run by corporations and kept stable by politicians.

A common thread through all his documentaries is the way those with power use and create myths to govern the masses, but none illustrate this better than "The Power Of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear" in my opinion. This documentary deals with the pivotal event of the 9/11 attacks, which makes it essential food for thought for all of us living in the post 9/11 era. In this three part, three hour long expose, Curtis tells the remarkable story of how politics have changed from offering a long term ideological road to a preferred future, into painting a nightmarish future from which the people need to be protected; the transformation from the politics of hopes and ideals into the politics of fear. He tells us in great detail about the idealists who later united into the group we now call the "neocons," William (Bill) Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and others, you know, the ones who ruled behind George W. Bush's back and plunged us into a preemptive war with Afghanistan and Iraq.

The introduction as narrated by Adam Curtis goes as follows:

"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."

The story is remarkable for many reasons, but for me one of the standout themes is the opportunistic nature of power. In part two we see Ronald Reagan dedicating the launch of Space Shuttle Colombia to the brave people of Afghanistan; the United States had in the Soviet Union a common enemy with the Islamic freedom fighters in Afghanistan and made a pact with them through CIA operations and training. This is where Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda enter the world stage, as allies of the U.S. against the U.S.S.R. In a remarkable series of events, all driven by the aspirations of powerful factions on opposing sides, we have traded one far away, largely invisible enemy, the communist threat, for another far away, largely invisible enemy, the terrorist threat. The government (the plutocracy's hand-puppets) can then jump in and offer the protection we "need" and we freely give away freedoms in return for a false sense of security. How the switch was made, how allies turned into sworn enemies, is part of this remarkable story. I won't spell it all out here, but instead invite you to watch the excellent documentary right here:


The Power Of Nightmares: Part 1 Baby Its Cold Outside (2004)


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