Adam Curtis: The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom

[Phred42]

Once again it appears that Chicago is the incubator for the Hearts Of Darkness. Must be something in the water.

This is another (and the most current) Documentary from Adam Curtis the author of The Power Of Nightmares. It is Excellent and should be watched and shared.

As always Curtis covers a lot of ground but ties it all together nicely. Among the many things explained here are: the ideology of "Greed is Good", the rational for the Bush Crime Family and The Neocon elite (in both Britton and US) for Privatizing everything, the overt effort to kill Patriotism, and that the basis of these ideologies and efforts was, Paranoia. Each episode is about an hour.

Also excellent is {b]The Century Of The Self at the same link

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Video:

The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom http://www.rewtube.com/?film=the-trap&gclid=COP5wpP59pMCFQpjnAod9VlHWw#
by Adam Curtis


episode 1 - F**k You Buddy
episode 2 - The Lonely Robot
episode 3 - We Will Force You To Be Free
The ultimate political goal, at the heart of our age, is the idea of individual freedom.
"I believe freedom is the future of all humanity"
President George W. Bush

In Britain our government has set out to create a revolution that will free individuals from the control of old elites and bureaucracies, a new world where we are free to choose our lives - not be trapped by class or income into predestined roles.

"...To liberate Britain, from all the old class divisions, old structures, old prejudices...

"...To liberate the individual..."
Prime Minister Tony Blair

Abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan, Britain and America have set out to liberate individuals from tyranny, and for those leading it, it is just the first step in a global revolution for democracy.

But if one steps back and looks at what has resulted, it is a very strange kind of freedom. The attempt to liberate people from the dead hand of bureaucracy has lead to the rise of a new and increasingly controlling system of management driven by targets and numbers. While governments committed to creating freedom of choice in all areas have actually presided over a rise of inequalities and a dramatic collapse of social mobility. The consequence has been a return of the power of class and privilege.

Abroad the attempt to create democracy has lead not just to bloody mayhem, but a rejection of the American-led campaign to bring freedom. It has summoned up an anti-democratic, authoritarian Islamism. This in turn has helped inspire terrorism attacks in Britain itself. In response, the government has dismantled long standing laws designed to protect our freedom.

This is a series of films about how this strange paradoxical world came to be created. It begins in the dark and frightening days of the Cold War and it will show how what we have today is a very narrow and peculiar idea of freedom that was born out of a paranoia of that time. It is based on an image of human beings as selfish, isolated and suspicious creatures who constantly monitor and strategise against each other. The films will show how politicians and scientists came to believe that this idea of human nature could be the basis of a new type of free society. But what none of them would realise was that within this dark and distrustful vision, lay the seeds of a new revolutionary system of social control. It would use the language of freedom but in reality it would come to entrap us and our leaders in a narrow and empty world.




....you can lead a horse to water,
but you can't lead a Horticulture.