In 2006, John Dean wrote this about neoconservatives in his book Conservatives Without Conscience:
Neoconservatives are a relatively small group of social dominance authoritarians, with significant, if not disproportionate, influence.
Dean also stated that, “Neoconservatism first surfaced in the public during the Reagan Administration.” As posted here and elsewhere, neoconservatism started with Leo Strauss, a WWII German immigrant, in the late 1940s.
Also discussed here are the ways in which American social dominance authoritarians have actually helped their Islamic counterparts. This posting uses a BBC documentary to detail that relationship where both groups use fear mongering to wreak havoc on all the world and build the myths of Soviet superiority and world-wide al-Qaeda organization.
In late 2004, Adam Curtis’ documentary, three part series, The Power of Nightmares – The Rise of the Politics of Fear, was aired on the BBC. In it, Leo Strauss and other American neocons are compared to Sayed Kotb and other Islamic radicals. Both groups, as John Dean describes, are “social dominance authoritarians, with significant, if not disproportionate, influence.”
Curtis describes what these authoritarians have done and said over recent decades. This documentary is an extension of what John Dean, Shadia Drury, and others have written about the authoritarians of our time. These authoritarians exist and this documentary shows how they rule by fear and Noble Lies.
Below, the documentary is presented in 18 segments. You will see how Leo Strauss, Irving Kristol, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Sayed Kotb, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other Islamic radicals used Nobel Lies, or “simple powerful myths,” to promote fear and war. Eventually, these two groups actually, but not intentionally, created the myth of an al-Qaeda organization.
Both groups of social dominance authoritarians (SDA) feel the same moral duty to put a stop to individual freedoms that are corrupting the morals of America, Egypt and the rest of the Middle East. Both groups see the other as an evil that must be eliminated, and use their imaginations to replace broken dreams with frightening nightmares and thus generate fear of each other.
The original documentary consisted of three one hour programs. The SDAs gain power fighting the Soviet myth in part 1, turn inward after the collapse of the Soviet Union in part 2 while failing to rally the “masses,” and then regain control with the myth of al-Qaeda in part 3.
(YouTube provides both 18 short segments, shown below, and three longer segments. Links to the longer segments are listed at the end of this posting. )
According to Leo Strauss and Sayed Kotb:
Individual Freedom Was Corrupting the World
– SDA Must Stop the Decay with Myths –
Neocons and Muslim Brotherhood Must Lead Their “Masses”
The Culture Wars and Execution of Kotb Unite the “Masses”
Unite America Against the Evils of the World
SDA Spokesmen: Kristol, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz
SDA Message: Imaginary Superiority of the Soviets
America Must Save the World from the Soviets
Middle East Must be Saved from Corruption by the West
Egypt’s Adoption of Western Ways Must be Stopped
Ayman al-Zawahiri to Egypt’s Rescue
Killing of Muslems by Muslems Justified
Neocons Convert Evangelical “Masses” and President Reagan
Terrorism ‘Organized’ by the Soviets
CIA Lies Become Neocon Reality
Part 2: The Phantom Victory
Neocons, Evangelicals, Islamic Radicals Defeat Soviets?
Myth’s Will Unite
Stinger Missiles, IEDs, Satellite Images for Terrorists
bin Laden Brings Cash to the Cause
Ayman al-Zawahiri Released to Help
The Evil Soviet System Dies
Muslim Moderates and Political Solution Defeated
Islamic Radicals Gain Upper Hand
bin Laden comes to Power
Neocons Stymied by Bush Senior and Turn Inward
Neocons Work With Evangelicals on Culture Wars
Religion Used as a Nobel Lie
Islamists Kill Their Own – Lose Support
Neocons Attack Liberal Moral Failures – Another Myth
West and East “Masses” Could not be Mobilized
Neocons and Islamists Re-group.
New External Enemy Needed to Replace Soviet Myth
Part 3: The Shadows in the Cave
The Myth of an al-Qaeda Network
New Enemy for Neocons Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle
bin Laden Funds Terror
The Myth of al-Qaeda Replaces the Soviet Myth
A New Noble Lie For Neocons to Scare Us
‘Coded Evidence’ of Terrorist Sleeper Cells Everywhere
Few Terrorist Convictions
Neocons Grow Myth of al-Qaeda ‘Organization’
Neocons and Radical Islamists
Perpetuate the Myth of a World-wide al-Qaeda Organization
al_Qaeda ‘Sleeper Cells’ Unsuccessfully Prosecuted
Projecting the Fantasies of the Neocons
Abu Zubaydah and ‘Dirty Bombs’
al-Qaeda ‘Linked to’ Saddam Hussein
The Fear of an Imaginary Future
Evidence Not Required
The Precautionary Principle:
The More Dire The Fantasy – The More Power to Act
Imagine the Worst Scenarios
– Scare the Masses –
Control The Masses
Three longer videos available from one video blogger:
Andy Hailey