Tuesday, February 01, 2005
comments on the bbc doc _the power of nightmares_.
 |
THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES
Three part series
on BBC Two
|
... but what if it turns out to be true ?
just downloaded this, will watch it later. but it brings up some thoughts. kind of rant-ish; bear with me:
hmm - what do you think the public response would have been had the government's (_our_) public position been that 9/11 was an isolated incident ? (and it is). even if it is a witch hunt, there needs to be interested hunters.
the "isolated incident" position would have been more responsible in many ways. sure, afghanistan was (is) full of problems, and same with iraq. have we really helped ? and what about the genocides and other atrocities that we've ignored, mostly in africa, but also including south america and asia. they've even occurred in europe in recent times, and that situation isn't even resolved, even in the most progressive region on the planet.
note that i've said "progressive". no one has _ever_ believed that reactionary conservative viewpoints, nor imperialism, was ever the answer to anything (besides the reactionary conservative types, and even _they_ probably know better, they just aren't telling).
never mind the more cynical (you say "conspiratorial") theories that have various groups creating these situations intentionally. never mind the cowardice ("pragmatism") shown in the face of _real_ problem nations. well, not cowardice after all, really - there are no real national interests in a reformed north korea. and so on. this includes economic "wars" as well, where the militarily "hawkish" neo-cons are roll-over-and-play-dead namby-pamby doves economically. that's because they get theirs, that way, whereas with the military, hey, that's someone _else's_ money - and lives.
why the "failure" of liberal causes ? well, i disagree with "failure", and we can use "liberal" for the moment since that's the label most people recognize, but it has accreted many inaccurate nuances over the years - due mostly to opposition efforts, not their own.
why _perceived_ failure ? why are social reformations increasingly endangered ? again, it's not the fault of the supporters - it's the opposition who causes many problems, and exacerbates what are admittedly already difficult and complex issues - then they claim the "failure" they themselves induced (and created the illusion of) is the reason to abandon those efforts ! ballsy, to say the least. and absurd.
why does this seem to work ? perhaps one reason is the increasingly shortened attention span of the world, and the reduction in amount of delayed gratification we can stand. blame the internet. blame the credit market. blame advertisers. we seem to no longer be able to stomach any causes longer than next year's budget. and arguably, this is also at the neo-con's behest.
and so we pay.
aren't blogs wonderful ? thanks again to
craig for for triggering these thoughts. it's funny, he tends to disagree with my views, but his instigation helps make them public ;-) say “irony”. say it again.