[Imc-uk-network] The Power of Nightmares

[chip]

hey indypeeps

this looks like it _might_ be worth watching on the 'good' old Beeb tonight.

chip
-- 
http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk


The Power of Nightmares
BBC2
Wed 20 Oct, 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm  60mins

Baby It's Cold Outside

In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they
promise to protect us from nightmares. The most frightening of these is
the threat of an international terror network. But just as the dreams
weren't true, neither are these nightmares.

This series shows dramatically how the idea that we are threatened by a
hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion. It is a myth that
has spread unquestioned through politics, the security services and the
international media. At the heart of the story are two groups: the
American neoconservatives and the radical Islamists. Both were idealists
who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better
world. These two groups have changed the world but not in the way either
intended. Together they created today's nightmare vision of an organised
terror network. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power
and authority in a disillusioned age. Those with the darkest fears became
the most powerful.

The rise of the Politics of Fear begins in 1949 with two men whose radical
ideas would inspire the attack of 9/11 and influence the neoconservative
movement that dominates Washington. Both these men believed that modern
liberal freedoms were eroding the bonds that held society together. The
two movements they inspired set out, in their different ways, to rescue
their societies from this decay. But in an age of growing disillusion with
politics, the neoconservatives turned to fear in order to pursue their
vision. They would create a hidden network of evil run by the Soviet Union
that only they could see. The Islamists were faced by the refusal of the
masses to follow their dream and began to turn to terror to force the
people to 'see the truth'.