“American Taliban”
Toward the end of tonight’s Newsroom season finale, Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) accuses Tea Party wackos of being RINOs — Republicans In Name Only — and runs down a list of traits and beliefs that define them as such. But he was really describing most of the Republican party these days, which has pretty much become all wacko all the time.
Rightie nutters embrace (a) ideological purity; (b) compromise as weakness; (c) a fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism; (d) denying science; (e) being unmoved by facts; (f) are undeterred by new information; (g) have a hostile fear of progress; (h) a demonization of education; (i) a need to control women’s bodies; (j) severe xenophobia; (k) tribal mentality; (l) intolerance of dissent; and (m) a pathological hatred of U.S. government.
“They can call themselves the Tea Party,” says McAvoy. “They can call themselves conservatives. And they can even call themselves Republicans, though Republicans certainly shouldn’t. But we should call them what they are — the American Taliban.”
Quite true, but British documentarian Adam Curtis owns this analogy, having presented it eight years ago in his documentary The Power of Nightmares.
In 2004 I wrote the following about Curtis’s film: “[It] weaves together all sorts of disparate historical strands to relate two fascinating spiritual and political case histories, that of the American neo-conservatives and the Islamic fundamentalists. The payoff is an explanation of why they’re fighting each other now with such ferocity (beyond the obvious provocation of 9/11), and why the end of their respective holy war, waged for their own separate but like-minded motives, is nowhere in sight.
“That’s right — the Islamics vs. the neo-cons. You might think the United States of America is engaged in a fierce conflict with Middle-Eastern terrorists in order to prevent another domestic attack, but what’s really going on is more in the nature of a war between clans. Like the one between Burl Ives vs. Charles Bickford in The Big Country, say, or the Hatfields vs. the McCoys.
“It’s not that Curtis’s doc is saying anything radically new here, certainly not to those in the hard-core news junkie, academic or think-tank loop, but it makes its case in a remarkably well-ordered and comprehensive way, which…you know…helps moderately aware dilettantes like myself make sense of it all.
“The film contends that the anti-western terrorists and the neo-con hardliners in the George W. Bush White House are two peas in a fundamentalist pod, and that they seem to be almost made for each other in an odd way, and they need each other’s hatred to fuel their respective power bases but are, in fact, almost identical in their purist fervor, and are pretty much cut from the same philosophical cloth.
“It says, in other words, that Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz have a lot in common with Osama bin Laden. It also says that the mythology of ‘Al-Qeada’ was whipped up by the Bushies, that the term wasn’t even used by bin Laden until the Americans more or less coined it, and that the idea of bin Laden running a disciplined and coordinated terrorist network is a myth.
“Nightmares doesn’t trash the Bushies in order to portray the terrorists in some kind of vaguely admiring light. It says — okay, implies — that both factions are too in love with purity and consequently half out of their minds.”
http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/20/the-wrong-side-absolutely-must-not-win
Wells to qdpsteve: That is a genuinely stupid, head-in-the-sand, American nincompoop viewpoint.
Jeff,
If you liked The Power of Nightmares, you’ll dig the follow up: “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace” -
Prescient stuff, especially the Ayn Rand angle…
http://vimeo.com/27393748
Curtis also made a FANTASTIC abstract documentary/installation piece called IT FELT LIKE A KISS, which is well worth an hour or so of your time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNkPNJ_gSko&feature=player_embedded
ALWAYS entertaining when Wells professes to be an expert on what people he doesn’t listen to believe.
Humility in the shadow of ignorance is no vice.
While those of you on the irrational left and the fundamentalist right continue to lob charges of Naziism and Talibanism at each other, hopefully there are enough moderates in the middle who can actually get some shit done.
Usually what gets done by ‘moderates in the middle’ is they vote for either the “irrational left” or the “fundamentalist right”. So for instance, they are primary reason George W Bush got 2 fucking terms. Good work! Enjoy your status of the glue that holds us together.
And I’ve got family that blames people like me for Obama. I wish I could lock them in a room with folks like you.
Wow, that stings. Hopefully, you’ll never wind up locked in a room full of bleating sheep. That could get ugly.
Last night, Wells watched NEWSROOM and didnt bother with BREAKING BAD. That’s all you need to know.
^RIP Mike.
I keep trying to give The Newsroom a shot, but every week I’m stupefied with just how inanely awful the show is.
This is supposed to be a show for “smart” people? Will McAvoy attempting to put two legs into one side of his pants is a plot point worthy of two bits in an episode, seriously?
99% of the relationship writing on the show is gag-worthy, godawful, unbelievable tripe. Plus, it’s also ironic that a show that’s so focused on journalism ethics and reporting facts, not titillation, spends so much of its own time on the titillation aspect.
So the only thing the show might have going for it is its take on a “newsroom” which honestly seems like it was beamed straight out of 2000 not 2011. The whole thing feels like an antique and they’ve got the old guy sporting a bow tie to prove it.
I think I’m only tuning in to watch Olivia Munn at this point.
Nothing like being lectured to by the 1%.
“I think I’m only tuning in to watch Olivia Munn at this point.”
Likewise. A threesome with the Olivas Munn and Wilde would be the essence of erotic bliss.
Thanks for the visual, Floyd. Holy shit. Good luck getting anything done, now.
What’s scary is, the Munn/Wilde scenario is giving me probably the same feeling Wells and the like get from watching McAvoy go on one of his rants.
Jerk-off material for the Current TV set.
I love Olivia Munn. I really, really do.
Burn in hell, SaveFerris.
Not really, but c’mon, man.
So far, it’s only been people on the extreme side of their respective wings that haven’t liked that Reason article.
I tire so of the false equivalence bullshit of “far right does it” so the “far left must do it too.” Who is this “irrational left?” Noam Chomsky? Commenters at DemocraticUnderground? What kind of voice do they have in American politics compared to the tea partiers? Obama is no liberal. Not even close.
I wonder if those of you under age 40 can really appreciate how far to the right this country has moved in the last 30 years. If you look at Obama’s and Clinton’s policies, really look at them, one can argue quite reasonably that they are to the right of Nixon. They are to the right of Eisenhower. In foreign policy. In individual rights. Drone warfare, unlimited detention, anyone? In the never ending rigging the game for corporations and the rich while humiliating and excluding the poor.
Money, capitalism, commerce, high finance, these are all games. They are made up stories. Money is fiction. The free market is fantasy. It doesn’t exist. The stories can be changed.
Yet, for an alarmingly high percentage of people, they would say if you aren’t very good at the game and nobody will come to your rescue, you don’t even deserve to live. If you want $6000 a year in food stamps you’ve got to take a drug test. You’ve got to work 16 hours a day and have no health insurance just to make ends meet, too fucking bad!
Make no mistake, Obama is no liberal. He’s center-right at best. But the alternative is so far off the charts to the right fascist, what are we to do?
Oh, and that horrible word they trot out at every opportunity. “Socialist.” Ever been to Norway? It’s got the highest standard of living in the world for a reason. One of the largest oil producers in the world. Where does that money go? Back into the country to invest in the people, not into some greedy sociopath’s pockets. After their terrorist attack last year, did the PM come out and say all the restrictions on individual rights that need to happen to keep them “safe,” like here? No. He said, “we need more democracy, not less.”
So if Gore Vidal is an “irrational leftist,” that I am an irrational leftist for wanting the world to be a place where everybody can thrive. In life, not just in money.
SaveFarris, that Breaking Bad spoiler was really nasty and uncalled for.
My fundamentalist family would support Eisenhower/Nixon over Obama/Clinton any day of the week. I’m betting these neo-progressives who keep making that comparison would not. I guess that makes my family the more liberal ones. Strange times.
Who the hell has a LIBERAL FAMILY? Outside of Hollywood and Portland Oregon, I have NEVER EVER EVER, like EVER, heard of anyone over the age of 40 not being a die-hard conservative.
Uh oh, looks like I’ve been outed as an Enemy Of The People.
Should I pack a suitcase, Wells, or are personal effects verboten at the Camp?
Strange times, indeed.
Lex, you can add college towns like Berkeley or Ann Arbor, and cities like Seattle and San Francisco to that list, but yes. I don’t know if it always was that pronounced a divide. If not, why is that?
For one thing, I would venture to say that the hidden #1 problem in the US today and for many generations is and has been child abuse. It’s hard to learn when you’re afraid. You grow up angry in search of an “other” to project your shit onto. That describes a large percentage of the US population.
#2, education has been incredibly dumbed down. Do schools even teach the constitution any more? What do they teach? I was amazed at the number of tweets the other day of people who didn’t even know who the fuck Neil Armstrong was. What they teach is taking a test. Not learning for the sake of learning (which goes by the horrible phrase “liberal arts”) but learning how to take a test. See season 4 of The Wire.
Norway, Sweden: 100% literacy. US not even close. Norway: every kid learns English from the 3rd grade. US: we can’t learn foreign languages, that would be unAmerican.
Not many union halls where issues get discussed anymore. Fox news blaring so loud I can’t stand it in public airports, the barber shop, wherever.
It’s not that Americans are stupid. They’re not. Many are psychologically traumatized. And I imagine many of them are working so hard they don’t have time to learn, especially if they have kids to take care of. And many others seem comfortable in their world of the willfully obtuse, where the free market and Jesus and rooting for your favorite team will work everything out just fine.
Maybe sad times is a better phrase.
“My fundamentalist family would support Eisenhower/Nixon over Obama/Clinton any day of the week. I’m betting these neo-progressives who keep making that comparison would not. I guess that makes my family the more liberal ones.”
Awesome use of the spectrumatic time-machine. Not sure why you bothered. Here, I’ll give it a try. Some people would support Herbert Hoover over Gus Hall, while people on the left would not. Boy that bunch of Hooverites are a lot more liberal than the Communists. Not as hard as I thought.
When you go out with friends, you’re the grump of the group, aren’t you?
And for the record, I’m not the one that keeps bringing the time machines to these discussions.
Also, I missed the part where somebody was saying that Gus Hall was more conservative than Ronald Reagan.
‘Also, I missed the part where somebody was saying that Gus Hall was more conservative than Ronald Reagan.’
Missed something, didja?
Yes, but thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I hadn’t realized that the True Revolutionaries hated Hall even more than they hated Republicans. Did Angela Davis know that her running mate was such a traitor? Wait, don’t tell me….she’s one of them too? No!
Still haven’t figured out how this makes a Nixon Republican more liberal than a Clinton Democrat, though.
Wait, now I get it! Clinton is even worse than the Republicans because…he’s a Democrat and they aren’t! Now it makes sense. Why oh why do we have to settle for Obama these days instead of the lesser evil of George H.W. Bush?!?