Discussion of All Things Political

If you needed another reason to side-eye the hell of out Freud and many of his relatives... like Edward Bernays. A seething mass of desires: Freud's hold over history

Tyrrell: The Century of the Self was for me and many others I've spoken to, by far the best TV series for a long time. In four 60 minute programmes on BBC2, you showed how the ideas behind psychoanalysis were responsible for the development of mass consumerism and self absorption in western society. You also explored the link between consumerism and politics in ways that were terrifying to contemplate. How did you come to piece this amazing history together?

Curtis: I'm a journalist who stumbled over a story, not a historian. For me it began when I came across the intriguing information that Freud's nephew Edward Bernays had invented public relations, specifically using his uncle's ideas about human beings and human nature. From there came the idea that I should look at how Freud's ideas have been used generally in social and political ways, not telling the history of psychoanalysis but the history of how psychoanalytical ideas have been applied. When I started to research this I found lots of different stories about the application of psychoanalytical theories which had been missed out in the history of it, largely because psychoanalysis, as I am sure you know, is a very hermetic world …

Tyrrell: … a closed system of thought.

Curtis: Yes, both in the way it treats patients and also in the way psychoanalysts think of themselves. So what I did was to pull together various stories about how psychoanalysis was applied in different ways by some powerful 20th century figures in both business and politics.

As that started to come together, I began to make connections with another idea I was working on — about how today we all talk about our 'selves'. A hundred years ago, people didn't do that — a few rich people did, and you read about it in novels, but most people didn't. The question lurking at the back of my brain was "Why do we now always have this obsession with the self?" MORE

The Century Of The Self 1 of 4 | One: Happiness Machines
( Read more... )

The Century Of The Self 3 of 4 | There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads, He Must Be Destroyed
( Read more... )

The Century Of The Self 4 of 4 | Four: Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

( Read more... )


When I consider this in conjunction with Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine and Beyond Elections docu, I start making some interesting connections. Milton Friedman's shenanigans start making more sense to me. I need to reread The Shock Doctrine then rewatch this. And I will say that as I watched the first episode, one of my thoughts were: "Well damn. They treated their own people like shit. No wonder they thought that American people of color were less than dust beneath their feet. Nevermind the people of color who had the misfortune to reside in places with natural resources that these elitist, greedy assholes could steal! I mean DAMN that shit got spelled out for me in this series!

What the hell happened?

Graphic: Gulf of Mexico oil spill



Q&A: BP's role in Gulf of Mexico oil spill

What caused the oil spill? It seems workers on the Transocean Deepwater Horizon drilling rig (not owned by BP) were attempting to cap this new exploratory well when it suffered a "blow" causing the fire and sinking of the rig and the rupture of the line which brings extracted oil to the shore. Investigators will want to see what caused the explosion.

What are BP's offshore operations? BP took over two big American oil companies in the 1990's, ARCO and AMOCO which gives BP access to many U.S. oil fields and refineries. There has been a slew of new oil and gas finds in the Gulf of Mexico in deep water. BP, like many of its competitors, is drilling exploration wells there to gauge the oil and gas potential. The well, known as Mississippi Canyon (MC) Block 252, is in the 'Macondo prospect'. The well in question is 65 percent owned by BP and has other oil companies as minority partners. It's the norm these days for competitors to invest in these speculative wells.
MORE

What's the Fallout?


BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill likely to cost more than Exxon Valdez

• Oil rig explosion already causing political storm
• BP could face criminal charges and ban on activities in US

Britain's biggest oil company was tonight facing an environmental disaster expected to cost more than the Exxon Valdez tanker spill as thousands of tonnes of floating oil began to reach the US Gulf coast.

As several coastal states declared a state of emergency and dispatched clean-up crews, BP was desperately trying to stem not just the flow of crude from its damaged offshore platform but also to snuff out a growing political storm that has wiped billions of pounds off its share price.

President Barack Obama tonight sent officials from the US Department of Justice to monitor the company's handling of the crisis, while lawyers acting for victims of two earlier BP disasters in the US called for criminal charges and a ban on its activities there.

Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Co in New York, said the ultimate costs of dealing with the slick could rival that of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, which led to $3.5bn in clean-up costs and $5bn in legal and financial settlements. "This is a real pickle – it's a really challenging one. It's going to be difficult to choke off this spew of oil. Any solution is going to take time and I really think the cost here is going to be in the billions of dollars," he said.MORE

What's the Context?

How the Disaster in the Gulf Could Have Been Prevented: BP's Terrible Record on Environmental and Human Health :The company has found itself at the center of several of the nation's worst oil and gas–related disasters in the last five years.

Crude oil sits on the surface of the water that has leaked from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico on April 28, near New Orleans, Louisiana. US President Barack Obama started his key daily intelligence briefing Thursday with a 20-minute discussion of the oil spill, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images - Chris Graythen

BP, the global oil giant responsible for the fast-spreading spill in the Gulf of Mexico that will soon make landfall, is no stranger to major accidents.In fact, the company has found itself at the center of several of the nation's worst oil and gas–related disasters in the last five years.

In March 2005, a massive explosion ripped through a tower at BP's refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 workers and injuring 170 others. Investigators later determined that the company had ignored its own protocols on operating the tower, which was filled with gasoline, and that a warning system had been disabled.

The company pleaded guilty to federal felony charges and was fined more than $50 million by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

MORE

US oil spill crisis continues