{"id":156,"date":"2004-10-20T22:20:28","date_gmt":"2004-10-20T22:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2004\/10\/20\/bbc-filthy-propaganda-merchants\/"},"modified":"2004-10-20T22:20:28","modified_gmt":"2004-10-20T22:20:28","slug":"bbc-filthy-propaganda-merchants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2004\/10\/bbc-filthy-propaganda-merchants\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC = filthy propaganda-merchants"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least, that’s the inevitable reaction of any rabidly pro-Bush right-wingers<\/a> who get a chance to see (or hear about) the superb documentary The Power of Nightmares: The Politics of Fear which just aired on BBC2. If you missed it, leave it a couple of days and hope it appears online. If not, part 2 can be seen at 9pm next Wednesday.<\/p>\n

According to the superbly-researched film, and the many high-profile interviewees contained within, our current fucked-up situation can basically be blamed on Leo Strauss<\/a> – the inspiration for NeoCons like Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz – and Sayyid Qutb<\/a> – the bloke who inspired the bloke who inspired Osama bin Laden. I would go into more detail, but I’m tired, it’s late, and this Guardian article<\/a> summarises it fairly effectively anyway:<\/p>\n

“Straussian conservatism had a previously unsuspected amount in common with Islamism: from origins in the 50s, to a formative belief that liberalism was the enemy, to an actual period of Islamist-Straussian collaboration against the Soviet Union during the war in Afghanistan in the 80s (both movements have proved adept at finding new foes to keep them going).”<\/i><\/p>\n

This is – sadly – no sloppy conspiracy theory, but strangely compelling, and almost cliched in its Orwellian tone. The war with the Soviet Union is over. The war on terror has just begun.<\/p>\n

It’s all rather scary, but then again we knew that anyway<\/a>, and as this superb documentary demonstrates pretty much conclusively, that’s the whole point…<\/p>\n

This is not a war on terror, it’s a war on liberalism. Bush and bin Laden want the same thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(Disagree with the BBC? Disagree with me? Are you a NeoCon?<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Update<\/b>: Interesting, if long, article on Bush’s faith in himself and his NeoCon outlook<\/a>. (Reg req)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least, that’s the inevitable reaction of any rabidly pro-Bush right-wingers who get a chance to see (or hear about) the superb documentary The Power of Nightmares: The Politics of Fear which just aired on BBC2. If you missed it, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}