The Power of Nightmares

DadaKopf

pearsquasher wrote:

I only saw the last episode and enjoyed it a lot.... but..... as with Micheal Moores stuff, if you're going to show a doc. with lots of edited bits and pieces they should lay out all those bits in context. I dunno...have some fatc sscrollingf on the screen about when and where the various statement swere made.

The bit with GWB saying how America shouldn't impose their will pre-9/11 needs to be put in context not just thrown in there. .... a i mean the program maker should make it all as credible as possible to prevent the nay sayers saying "well, its all editing isn't it?" ... as happended with Moore.


At the same time, a lot of the program was believeable enough. They said out of the 600 "terrorists" arrests since 9/11.... 3 were convicted and they for NI related stuff.

I also thought it was extremely amusing and had a sort of dark Kubrick-style use of music and archive footage.....

I wonder will any British MP's put anything to the PM about it today?

I think Curtis made a lot of logical leaps in his documentary in both what he said and the images he used. But when I thought about those leaps, they were all convincing and sound. You simply can't fit everything into a three part series, so he distilled his argument down to its bare components, like in Dragnet. And the whole Ali Baba thing was just illustrating where the whole myth originates, although I was interested that he didn't use imagery from cowboy flicks.

Another couple of books worth reading: Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient by Edward Said, and the unfortunately titled, but excellent Why Do People Hate America? by Sardar and Wyn Davies. They fill in a lot of those blanks.

mike65

PH01 wrote:

At the end of the programme, it theorised that the truth does come out in the end.Like as we all know now that the Soviet Union was never the force of evil as it was built up to be. And that the Neocons will have to dream up a new Evil Force to scare us with.

Well it was a force for evil (ask the poor sods in Eastern Europe!) but it had withered greatly by the time the neo-cons fixed thier gaze on it.

I agree about the flashy post-ironic use of images and sound, as it gives the non-beliver the chance to say "its all style...". That said it was another gripping hour and I wish the beeb or Adam Curtis had been willing to give it more time to unfold. I wonder which station in the USA wil risk showing it?

Mike.

mike65

Panic! Fear! Loathing! (in our food)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3979019.stm

Better traceability brings a further benefit: the question of security.

David Little, a retired Metropolitan Police officer, now advises the food industry on security issues. He believes it is vulnerable to terrorist attack.

Counter-terrorism legislation

Whereas America has introduced specific legislation to counter the threat of bio-terrorism, Europe has not.

Mr Little warned: "Bio-terrorism is going to happen. You need to improve security in smaller food companies, then that will reduce the risk of a bio-terrorist attack."

Next year sees the introduction of Europe-wide legislation on traceability. Every individual link in the food chain will have to keep records of who it buys from and sells to.

This is already standard practice for larger retailers; it is the smaller, independent shops that will be most affected. But will it work?

The FSA believes it will make the job of recalls easier. Although the Sudan 1 problem may have peaked, it is not over yet.

Palm oils imported from Africa have been contaminated with the related and equally unpalatable Sudan 4 dye. Any improvement in traceability will not come too soon.

Thats it, I'm never eating chilli again! :eek:

Mike.

p.pete

mike65 wrote:

I wonder which station in the USA wil risk showing it?

BBC have an American channel - I'd imagine if anywhere it'll be shown there first. That channel has a small enough coverage but it could then get picked up by a larger network (if they're brave enough).

DadaKopf

It'd probably end up on something like PBS in a few months in the wee hours of the morning, too.

mike65

BBC2 is repeating Adam Curtis series this week

DOCUMENTARY: The Power of Nightmares
Channel: BBC 2 Northern Ireland (Digital) 106

Date: Tuesday 18th, Wednesday 19th, Thursaday 20th

Time: 23:20 to 00:20 (starting in 2 days)
Duration: 1 hour.
(Widescreen, Repeat, Subtitles)

Mike.

DadaKopf

Brilliant! I'll re-record all of them!

Moriarty

Bump.

This is starting tonight at 23:20 BBC2.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

god damnit, i wanted to watch this and I JUST saw this notice

bah

maybe I'll run downstairs and catch the credits

DadaKopf

Don't worry, it recaps on tonight's episode tomorrow night.

chewy

ok so then one of the main premises of the docu is that Al Qaeda is a cretion of the neo-cons(which I agree with) so why on the same day do I see a news report (on itn i think) where an "extremist muslim scholar" was being investigating for encouraging people to join Al Qaeda to fight the americans here and abroad??


wanted to post this last week but the boards were down for days: /