Ben’s Musings

A couple of night ago, I watched the final episode of \”The Power Of Nightmares\” by Adam Curtis. It is a documentary looking into the history of the American neo-conservatives and the Muslim Jihadists. Absolutely fascinating. It was on the BBC in January 05 and was whittled down to a 2 and a half hour film at the Cannes festival. Download and Watch!

Episode 1: Baby it\’s Cold Outside
Episode 2: The Phantom Victory
Eposode 3: The Shadows in the Cave

Curtis explains how they both emerged from realising that Western Liberalism was destroying society. The Neo-Cons decided that the American people needed to believe myths about their world so that society had something to hold it together. The Jihadists decided that they should kill the politicians in the Muslim countries who were endorsing such liberalism and that the people would rise up as a result and turn back to their Muslim ways and practices.

So, the Neo-Cons lied about the Russian Communist threat, making it out to be worse then it was so that society would unite against the \”evil\” of Communism. Meanwhile the Jihadists weren\’t finding the masses unite behind them in the Muslim countries, so out of their failure, many went to Afghanistan to stop the Russians conquering their Muslim brothers. And so we find the Neo-Cons funding the Jihadists in Afghanistan and surrounding areas.

When Russia collapsed in on itself, both the Neo-Cons and the Jihadists claimed it as a victory. But now the Neo-Cons were without a myth and lost their power in America to Clinton. During Clintons rule, they made up stories about him and Hilary and \”leaked\” them to the press. It didn\’t matter that these stories were lies because they were having a devastating effect. And eventually they regained power even though Bush got fewer votes than Gore.

Meanwhile the Jihadists decided to wage war against the source of the liberalism which was destroying their faith and declared War against America and the West.

When they flew the planes into the Twin Towers, the Neo-Cons saw their chance to build the next myth to unite society and allow them more control over their nation - Al-Queda.

Curtis explains how they made up this network to instil fear into the masses so that they could take away civil liberties and have more power. There was no centralised network of Muslim Extremists headed by Osama. He only referred to \”Al-Queda\” after the Americans started labelling Osama\’s people with the name.

Obviously it is one view on the whole history of Islamic Terrorism and the American Right, but it is definitely fascinating and really essential viewing.

I have been involved with PROJEKTS since 2001, when Charles Morgan started the skatepark in the Mackie Mayor Building in the Northen Quarter of Manchester. That ran for about a year and a half until the Council didnt renew our Lease so we had to leave and the skatepark was no more.

Since then, Charles and Dave Fiddler worked to get more funding so we could open a Skate Shop and also run a SkatePark the Council were to build. So we decided to become a Cooperative so that we could get the funding we needed and also to serve the skaters in Manchester better.

We now run a SkatePark underneath the Mancunian Way and run a Skate Shop in the Northen Quarter of Manchester.

I have been a Director of PROJEKTS for a while now. It has been quite hands off until a week ago when I went down to a 4 day week with Liquid Bronze so I could give 1 week day to helping PROJEKTS and to be more hands-on as a Director. So I\’m really excited about it and am looking forward to being more involved and to buidling my friendships with the staff and guys who hang around and skate.

PS. We have an online shop, so support PROJEKTS and buy something! www.projektsskate.com

I just stumbled across this guy and really liked his style, so I thought I\’d share:

And this made me chuckle!:

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the President his daily briefing on Iraq.

He concludes by saying: \”Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed.\”

\”OH NO!\” the President exclaims. \”That\’s terrible!\”

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, the President looks up and asks, \”How many is a brazillion?\”