The Politics of Fear

Cheese

Cheese

CAGiversary!
Check these out.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=461187809452836609

The first one's about the nearly simultaneous rise of NeoConservatism and Radical Islam and how they have nearly identical goals: The end of individualist thinking; ie. liberalism. And tools: Fear, Nationalistic jingoism and orthodox interpretations of religion.

I haven't gotten to these yet, but if they're anywhere near the same caliber, sheesh.

They are about an hour long each.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5540430071898586965
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2324388902129396093
 
Those are awesome...

The worst part (starting at around 25 min.) is how the Neo-Cons-Rummy and Wolfie trumped up the Soviet threat in order provide an enemy. Of course, history shows how wrong they were but the similarities between that "threat" and the Iraq "threat" are staggering.
 
I just found out that part two was incorrectly submitted to google video and is a replay of part one. You should still be able to download part 2 from archive.org.
 
Found this on Wikipedia:

Although the series has not been shown on U.S. television, its three episodes were shown in succession on 26 February 2005 as part of the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri, USA. After the film, Curtis made a public appearance and lead a discussion in which he expressed pessimism about an eventual American TV airing or DVD release.
Curtis has also stated: "Something extraordinary has happened to American TV since September 11. A head of the leading networks who had better remain nameless said to me that there was no way they could show it. He said, 'Who are you to say this?' and then he added, 'We would get slaughtered if we put this out.' When I was in New York I took a DVD to the head of documentaries at HBO. I still haven't heard from him."
Click to expand...

It's very telling that TV execs won't touch this piece. I wonder if it's:

1) Fear of retaliation from the administration in the form of less perks from the FCC or less access to administration officials.
2) Fear of being labeled with the dirty "L" word (liberalism, not lesbians you porn hounds)
3) Fear of having sponsors for the program boycotted by the dittoheads, O'Reilly watchers, red-staters, etc
 
[quote name='camoor']Found this on Wikipedia:



It's very telling that TV execs won't touch this piece. I wonder if it's:

1) Fear of retaliation from the administration in the form of less perks from the FCC or less access to administration officials.
2) Fear of being labeled with the dirty "L" word (liberalism, not lesbians you porn hounds)
3) Fear of having sponsors for the program boycotted by the dittoheads, O'Reilly watchers, red-staters, etc[/QUOTE]

I don't think its the networks or media's role to so obviously take sides on national issues, especially one that isn't clear cut (ie. we know they're going to oppose nazi's, terrorists etc.). Considering this can't pass itself off as an entertaining or important piece (like michael moore's movie, due to popularity and critical acclaim), this really doesn't belong on anything other than a movie channel.

The CBC (canadian version of the bbc) has a show called "the passionate eye" where they would often show these kind of things. But, unless it was an issue of civil rights (such as same sex marriage), they didn't air things that so openly attacked national politics, only international politics. While I did enjoy them, I'm still not sure whether I think it was appropriate to show anti-bush documentaries, which they clearly were, on such a mainstream network considering the closeness of the countries. But it definately would not be appropriate on cnn, fox, abc etc. unless they showed two similar ones arguing opposing sides of the issue.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']I don't think its the networks or media's role to so obviously take sides on national issues, especially one that isn't clear cut (ie. we know they're going to oppose nazi's, terrorists etc.). Considering this can't pass itself off as an entertaining or important piece (like michael moore's movie, due to popularity and critical acclaim), this really doesn't belong on anything other than a movie channel.

The CBC (canadian version of the bbc) has a show called "the passionate eye" where they would often show these kind of things. But, unless it was an issue of civil rights (such as same sex marriage), they didn't air things that so openly attacked national politics, only international politics. While I did enjoy them, I'm still not sure whether I think it was appropriate to show anti-bush documentaries, which they clearly were, on such a mainstream network considering the closeness of the countries. But it definately would not be appropriate on cnn, fox, abc etc. unless they showed two similar ones arguing opposing sides of the issue.[/QUOTE]

I think there needs to be a place where gutsy, controversial documentaries are aired. While I agree that a documentary of this nature may be out of place on cnn or fox news, I really don't see why opinionated documentaries shouldn't be aired on networks or channels that bill themselves as "independent" (Alonzo - I realize that you are pragmatic when you say it would only be shown on movie channels, I'm being idealistic here). It sucks that these type of documentaries can't be shown, but John Stossel can go on network TV with a 20 minute Walmart infomercial and Fox news can show nothing but pro-Bush, pro-war, and christian propaganda 24/7.

It irks me that US network execs acknowledge that this piece would generate buzz and viewership, but will not show this documentary because it is coming at the issue from the left side.

I'm a big fan of the Disinfo series of books, TV shows, et al - and they have the same problem. In fact, the Sci-Fi channel bought rights to their UK show "Disinformation", but then shelved it when they actually watched the show and realized it's subversive nature (and this is the Sci-Fi channel!). I'm beginning to realize that the UK will always have cooler TV then the US. For the curious - www.disinfo.com
 
i don't think it's strange for any American network to deny showing this, hell, what was the last documentary you saw on NBC, ABC, CBS, or FOX? (besides COPS and Wife Swap) The only place this could air here in America is either HBO (whose documentaries focus more on social issues, not political) or PBS's Frontline, which is already under constant attack anyways.
 
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