The Power of Nightmares, The Rise of the Politics of Fear

The Power of Nightmares, The Rise of the Politics of Fear is a recent BBC documentary first broadcast in the UK around the US election. This should be required viewing. It takes the best traditions of documentary filmmaking and investigative journalism and uses them to place US neoconservatives, radical islamists and the war on terror under the harsh light of reality.

The documentary follows the historical rise of the both the neoconservative movement within the United States, and the rise of radical islam, which interestingly enough also had its genesis in America. The documentary argues that both groups, were founded on a disgust with liberal sentiment; particularly for liberal willingness to compromise, and what both those groups of fundamentalists saw as the liberal lack of belief in strictly defined black and white notions of good and evil.

The documentary is in three parts. Here are links to the BBC that describe each part in detail:
Part 1: Baby It's Cold Outside
Part 2: The Phantom Victory
Part 3: The Shadows in the Cave

If you live in North America, getting to see this documentary will take some doing. You're going to need a high speed internet connection, bittorrent software, and a fairly large hard drive. Each part is about 600 MB in size. (NOTE: There are probably other ways of getting a hold of this documentary, but I doubt it will be available for sale or rent in North America for at least a few months)

To download bittorrent click here.

To download the three parts of the documentary you will have to sign up (for free) at www.uknova.com. After you confirm your registration, do a search on their website for "The Power of Nightmares".

I don't expect this documentary to convince those firmly in the neoconservative camp (although I can always hope). It would be far too damaging to their sense of purpose and their fantasies. But for everyone else it provides a realistic look at the political use of fear in the world today.