« A Coup for the Blogosphere | Main | Who Killed Cultural Studies? »
Culture and politics, as Nietzsche said...
Or at least parrhesia, that is. A fourth unavowable film joins The Power of Nightmares, Inconvenient Truth and Sicko, then (via here).
No End in Sight is apparently the first film by millionaire Charles Ferguson, and an essential one. (As the saying goes, aristocracy often do some interesting things because they have the time. The rest of us just watch. I recently watched the Guerilla News Network's docudrama, Battleground, a bit more in your face than My Country, My Country, though both significant collections of testimony on their own.)
If one thing seems abundantly clear, it is that a politically splintered, sectarian Iraq looms on the horizon, and for a while now has been actively anticipated and even "planned for" by a host of powers. For what the blogosphere has had to say on this disastrous "development," still as yet barely noted in the MSM (barring some miracle, as an all-but-inevitable, long-planned-for military consequence), I refer you to Juan Cole (any others?).
By Matt | August 26, 2007 in War | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/361357/21050451
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Culture and politics, as Nietzsche said...:
Comments
I would really like more insight into how things are going to go. My brother and I discussed this as the eventual outcome a year ago after an article he read in The Economist. The main problem, which will never allow a tri-partition to go forward, is Turkey. An independent Kurdistan is really bad news for them as their Kurdish population would then find it much easier to agitate for their section of the country to be joined to such a state.
In any case, war will continue unabated in Iraq for years and years even if the U.S. isn't involved. This of course is a major boon for weapon mongers.
Posted by: old | Aug 27, 2007 2:30:57 AM
Personally I'm placing all hope in General Betray-Us!
(Just to clarify the first sentence: remembering that Nietzsche once declared there to be an inverse relation between the political strength of any nation and the excellence of it's culture; so in these times of mounting political vulnerability, more truth-telling/paradigm-challenging/unfreezing of the imagination might be seen as only natural...etc.)
Posted by: Matt | Aug 27, 2007 7:38:57 AM
Those concerns having good company in Young Cheney, old, if I'm not mistaken.
Posted by: Matt | Aug 27, 2007 7:46:55 AM
I hadn't seen that, yet, Matt. That's just terrific stuff. Someone should hire that guy. The democratic party. Really, this is what I'm wanting to hear someone on the democratic side talk about. How would a democratic administration serious about getting troops out of there respond to such pressures? There would have to be an incredible risk taken somewhere and that's why Obama's pullout and attack Pashtun Pakistan is so intriguing. He really might be a Leninist. I think it's pretty safe to say that Hillary would (and probably will-my money's on her to be the next pres.) continue the war with some minor repair. I have not gotten a good read yet on how I think Edwards would respond. I tend to think that he is genuinely sorry that he voted for the war, but that the original vote shows him to be highly susceptible to caving in the face of multiple pressures.
Posted by: old | Aug 27, 2007 10:39:26 AM
I just finished a thesis for a cultural studies program --- the thesis was about Power of Nightmares, Century of the Self, and The Trap. I also touched on plenty of other conspiracy theories and tied it all together with my own range of continental thinkers. Despite the "I know something you don't know" sensation I get from the documentaries, I find them all quite alarming, especially Century of the Self. It also startles me that Curtis' films don't get any attention in the USA -- regardless of their validity they sure as hell make for interesting discussion. Anybody else have any personal opinions about these films or any in the genre (whatever you might call such a genre)??? Anyone use them in their classes?? I wouldn't call myself a 'conspiracy believer' but I like to think I have an idea of what humans are capable of (nasty or otherwise), and this draws me to this kind of film.
Best,
Jake.
Posted by: Jake B | Aug 27, 2007 9:11:29 PM
Nietzsche once declared there to be an inverse relation between the political strength of any nation and the excellence of it's culture; so in these times of mounting political vulnerability, more truth-telling/paradigm-challenging/unfreezing of the imagination might be seen as only natural...etc
Yes: like the unfreezing of the imaginations of the muslims rallying for B.O., or the unfrozen shekels flowing from Ho-wood celebs (even a few kosher ones) into his war chest.
FN's bon mot (the inverse relationship between military power (not political) and culture) was in reference to Wagner and his glorification of the Bismarckian state. Interesting observation, but somewhat out of context here (and however unsavory Bismarckian Germany may have been, Wagner's musick itself sort of a rebuttal to FN's assertion).
Posted by: Phritz | Aug 29, 2007 9:29:01 AM
Post a comment
Please note: comments are published at the discretion of the post's author and will not appear immediately. Do not submit comments more than once.
