Late to the party, and brought Buckaroo instead of alcohol ... ^_^ ... Anyway I bin writin this post all day at work, so here it is:
I caught the last episode of this, and evangelise it quietly wherever appropriate. Two things really made it for me: the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy presentational style (visual, informative and engaging at every turn), and the giddy positive note on which it closed.
I don't recall the exact line on Al Qaeda, as to exactly where the name itself came from. The existence of an organised terror network was basically theorised in an American court as a means of convicting Osama in his absence, as the 'head' of the 'organisation', in a case concerning an Islamist terror attack (apologies but I do not recall which).
Osama was involved in funding such activities, but essentially on a whacko-by-whacko basis rather than as part of any S.M.I.R.S.H. -style axis of evil, and generally targeting the governments of countries that could have potentially been frightened into accepting the rule of Islamism. The US wanted him, and fabricated a convenient lie to give them something to go on. The whackos and the funding were all pretty much true; what wasn't true was that there was any kind of wide-reaching or sustainable network behind it all, or that any of it had too much to do with us.
The point where this goes from passably manipulative to straight up-and-down disgusting is when you get to grips with the weight of emphasis given to this charade, and the reasons for it: ten thousand thundering typhoons bearing before them a magnifying glass and a tiny paper boat. No society should take living free for granted without recognising the importance of self-defence; yet no free society should allow its will to be directed so exclusively, so exhaustively in this direction.
The positive ending, by the way, relates exactly to that: there is no way in hell the veil of irreality can continue to be held down, not without drastic accumulation of the already mounting inhibitions that hem in real freedom. Just as we have matured beyond immediate susceptibility to the power of dreams, overuse will shortly inure us to the gibbering power of nightmares. It
is quite funny when you imagine everyone suddenly snapping out of it; a bit like elated cinema-goers coming out of a really good shocker, and grinning at one another afresh.
Every time we approach one of these beach-heads, the choice is given to the men in the tower. One option is to retreat in peace for a while, letting the common man and his champions splash a wellie-shod and gleeful rampage through the still-dripping Next Level of the free worlds cognitive architecture, while the men in the tower get busy plotting and reinforcing the next line of mirrored sandbanks, drawn up in deceptive lines that will lead end-to end, and offer us no purchase on
the tower itself.
The alternative is to fight us for the remains of their existing power base. They
never win these fights, because to do so would be self-defeating, like a predator extinguishing its food supply. Far better to herd and cull as necessary; the tower generates its permanent thrust by the inexorable consumption of people, and the management of this is so simple a child could do it if given control. Perhaps only a child could be so heartless ...
The battles are a means of stalling for time, and are fought purely amongst ourselves; between those staring up at the tower and striving to grasp that one elusive principle (the ring which binds them all, no matter its limitless capacity for corruption), and those magnetised to the base of the tower, the foot soldiers of the status quo, drawn by circumstance to know nothing but prevention of access. And so we fight ourselves, seeing in one another the manifest pain and unfairness of our overall situation, instead of having the wit to raise our glances sideways and talk to one another about the game we are, that is being played. The most anyone gets out before the tide crashes over them seems to be: "Wait ... "
^_^;
OK, enough. I hope you like my little story there, I just made it up for fun on the basis of the positive note on which the power of dreams
did end. One way or another, the future has to have some sort of flavour to it
unless, as is entirely possible, circumstances are removed from the control of our flabby, corn fed mitts, and everything is simply on the very last verge of collapse.
Or I could have just gone mental, like Bomb'ead
(Poor Bomb'ead! O_O)
