10/28/2004|||109896388302275187||||||

THE POWER OF NONSENSE, PT 2

I felt quite exhausted at the end of the second part of BBC2's "The Power of Nightmares". Wading through Adam Curtis's conspiracy theories (highly acclaimed in papers like The Observer) is like trying to keep track of all the half-truths in a Chomsky essay. The mind reels after a while. (My review of Part One is posted at NRO.) All I'll say for the time being was that this programme - mainly devoted to Afghanistan and the Clinton years - was a lot duller than the first. My main impression is that Curtis uses neo-conservative to apply to anyone to the right of Colin Powell. I've long felt that people on the Left like throwing the word around because it sounds similar to "neo-fascist". Deep down, it gives them a wicked thrill.

I've heard that viewing figures for Part One were poor. Unfortunately, I suspect that it still did well among the movers and shakers in the Islington-Hampstead Exil of Banality

UPDATE & CLARIFICATION: I've discovered that Part One's comments about Ledeen's "book" did not appear on the final broadcast version. I was reviewing a preview tape sent to me a couple of days before the programme went out. This point does lower the documentary's looney quotient, but not by much, unfortunately.

|||Clive|||http://clivedavis.blogspot.com/2004/10/power-of-nonsense-pt-2-i-felt-quite.html|||10/28/2004 01:43:00 pm|||||||||

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