Adam Curtis - "The Baby and the Baath Water"

[Wombaticus Rex]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2 ... water.html

Great read -- a CIA'd history of Syria. More and more I'm viewing Curtis as an heir to McLuhan rather than a journalist or commentator. The ambiguity and depth.

[Harvey]

Got to hand it to the western imperial custodians, they've got a real Shidas Touch. Thanks for the link really enjoyed that.

[Wombaticus Rex]

I think "Shidas Touch" will be with me for life, that is a beautifully powerful turn of phrase. Thanks for that.

[Harvey]

You're welcome. (It always makes me smile)

[cptmarginal]

Very interesting article... Don't think I've heard of the "Games Center" before, though of course it's pretty obvious that something of that sort existed.

The "Game" he refers to is a management game-playing exercise the CIA did in the 1950s when planning the interventions. It's aim was to predict how all the "players" in the country would behave.

It's one hell of a journey going back and rereading his articles ever since Curtis got the BBC to allow international access to his embedded archival videos.

This is one my favorite of his articles in which the videos are an essential part:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2 ... art_9.html

"A general social systems model which will make it possible to predict and influence politically significant aspects of social change in the developing country - by understanding the sociological and anthropological characteristics of the people involved in the war."

In 2005 Montgomey McFate saw these ideas as the model for what anthropology could do for American foreign policy in a war zone.

And that is what she re-created in the Human Terrain System.

Here is part of a film the Pentagon made in 1968 which explains how this universal model of psychological manipulation can be applied. It is set in a fictional country called Hostland. The film implies that it is a Latin American country - because at that time the US military were worried by Chile. But everything in it can equally apply to the American fears about Afghanistan today.

[82_28]

Interesting comment on that story and thread re: Laurel Canyon and almost "all" iconic musicians of that era spawning from the MIC:

4.
At 16:46 17th Jun 2011, drwatts53 wrote:

"...there is a terrible naivety in the West's view of the ongoing revolt in Syria. It forgets its own history and the role it played in helping create the present situation."

For Syria, read Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, the Congo, the Rwandan genocide etc etc. One of the indispensable aspects of Adam's work is to remind us of the West's forgotten colonial and neo-imperialist history in Africa and the Middle East, and its continuing influence on recent and current events. (On our own unedifying foreign policy in the 20th century, see Mark Curtis's Web of Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World).

Miles Copeland, by the way, was the father of Stewart Copeland, drummer with the Police (I'm sure Adam could make something of that by way of musical accompaniment to relevant footage - not to mention the irony of the coincidental link with Sting's campaigning on human rights etc).

[cptmarginal]

Here is some footage - beginning with the celebration from the early days of the revolution among the urban poor - as the Baath party free them from the old bosses. Followed by images of the strange Baath state that Assad then created in Syria. It was centred round countless images of Assad as a the heroic leader of the nation. It is very odd because, unlike Saddam who was doing the same sort of thing in Iraq, in every image and statue Assad looks like a middle manager.

Funny, I had just been struck by that same impression but about North Korea's Eternal President Kim Il-Sung, in contrast to his son's image:



The video Curtis is referencing even has footage of an Arirang-style Assad celebration, with a giant human-powered mural in a stadium. Nowhere near as impressive as this, though:

[Brentos]

http://stefzucconi.blogspot.com/2011/06 ... urtis.html


ERROL MORRIS: There are those that believe that [the Gulf of Tonkin incident was] part of a conspiracy to escalate the Vietnam War. Here’s a question: are they right? And, in an even more general sense, is history primarily a history of conspiracy? Or is it just a series of blunders, one after the other? Confusions, self-deceptions, idiocies of one kind or another?

ADAM CURTIS: It’s the latter. Where people do set out to have conspiracies, they don’t ever end up like they’re supposed to. History is a series of unintended consequences resulting from confused actions, some of which are committed by people who may think they’re taking part in a conspiracy, but it never works out the way they intended.

Curtis Parody

edit: didn't mean to flame, wasn't certain if you were praising curtis or not at first. His collages are interesting and informative (like the article OP linked to), power of nightmares was great for its time. But Curtis has a viewpoint that is insufficient to fully explain how the world works.

[Canadian_watcher]

^ HA! I loved it. ty, Brentos.

[Brentos]

^ HA! I loved it. ty, Brentos.

His new one about Computers has already sucked me in anyways . Just visited silicon valley as well, as the first 10 minutes of it did capture the cali/valley vibe I got and partially explained why ayn rand would appeal to people out there in particular.

[Canadian_watcher]

^ HA! I loved it. ty, Brentos.

His new one about Computers has already sucked me in anyways . Just visited silicon valley as well, as the first 10 minutes of it did capture the cali/valley vibe I got and partially explained why ayn rand would appeal to people out there in particular.

I haven't seen it but will listen to it asap - is it online yet?. In spite of it all I do enjoy his work.
EDIT: me duh, now I see that it is the 'machines of loving grace thing! .. will watch this afternoon very likely.

[82_28]

Great spoof! However, Curtis makes one think, not follow along, but think and that is why I appreciate him and his team's amazing effort at hunting down footage, music and weaving the stories that do not grovel, I think, at the feet of the PTB.

Running this new website as we do, being into archival documentation and such, I totally appreciate his uses of media of the day, whether or not they actually have anything to do with his narrative which I think is essentially spot on as far as informing and fomenting speculation goes. He presents a new way to think about our past, which is, to me, very, very and of principal importance. The past is so important that it goes beyond just a hobby. So much can be analyzed. So much must be analyzed. At what point in Humanity's history can we say this was ever possible -- yarning in smart narrative, with music, and most importantly the footage of the era?

With our site, we try to lay off on any kind of editorializing. Some here and there for sure. But try to allow what readers we do have to do the "math" themselves. The persona of what you know of 82_28 does bust through from time to time and I do try to keep it at a minimum. However, I am not the only contributor there, so there is some balance.

[Stephen Morgan]

Great spoof! However, Curtis makes one think, not follow along, but think and that is why I appreciate him and his team's amazing effort at hunting down footage, music and weaving the stories that do not grovel, I think, at the feet of the PTB.

Running this new website as we do, being into archival documentation and such, I totally appreciate his uses of media of the day, whether or not they actually have anything to do with his narrative which I think is essentially spot on as far as informing and fomenting speculation goes. He presents a new way to think about our past, which is, to me, very, very and of principal importance. The past is so important that it goes beyond just a hobby. So much can be analyzed. So much must be analyzed. At what point in Humanity's history can we say this was ever possible -- yarning in smart narrative, with music, and most importantly the footage of the era?

With our site, we try to lay off on any kind of editorializing. Some here and there for sure. But try to allow what readers we do have to do the "math" themselves. The persona of what you know of 82_28 does bust through from time to time and I do try to keep it at a minimum. However, I am not the only contributor there, so there is some balance.

I don't think he actually has a team. I read an interview with him a few years back, I think he said he just goes around charity shops looking for old VHS tapes for the background footage.