Politicians Once Sold Promises Of A Better Life - Now They Sell Fear

"The Mayfair Set is a trilogy of documentaries produced and presented by Adam Curtis that study how corporate pirates and hot money were allowed to shape the UK economy during the Thatcher years (1979 - 1990). The set focuses on the rise of four 'entrepreneurs' (and don't be impressed by the mystique attached to that word now, an entrepreneur is literally someone who enters and takes - as I said, corporate pirates.) They were Colonel David Stirling, founder of the elite SAS regiment and later of the private military company Watchguard Ltd; Jim Slater, founder of Slater - Walker - an investment bank and asset stripper; Jimmy Goldsmith aka Sir James Goldshit, founder of Cavenham Foods which had little to do with food production or marketing beyond gobbling up smaller, asset rich but underperforming companies; and Roland 'Tiny' Rowland, head of the Lonrho conglomerate. All were members of The Clermont Club in London's Mayfair the 1960s."

One of the gaming rooms at the Clermontlub

The four-part series was hailed by critics and commentators as Curtis' most important work to date. It is not open to false interpretations as his previous documentary series, The Trap and The Power of Nightmares had been. To expand on that for the sake of clarity, the Trap is a forensic examination of economic theory and psychiatry and attempts, not entirely successfully, that in relation to biology, chemistry and physics these are pseudosciences, sadly lacking in thee empirical rigor required by the traditional scientific method. (NB: As eminent scientists Richard Feynman and Michael Crichton have pointed out, statistics and consensus has nothing to do with scientific methodology, which is all about challenging orthodoxies, not perpetuating them.) Equally The Power of Nightmares deals with two ideologies; if anyone remembers economist and architect of the dotcom bubble Alan Greenspan, he said ideologies are:
"...An Ideology is, is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality." Alan Greenspan KBE

Mayfair Set calls on a host of highly credible witnesses, who offer their thoughts on the motivations of the trio, some even offer their appraisals of events which, with the benefit of hindsight, are not seen in such a sympathetic light as they were in the era of "greed is good." The four programs provide, through the lens of the BBC news archives, an informative, entertaining and slightly sinister insight into the way these much lauded at the time, but now clearly very dodgy characters operated. More importantly they expose a chapter of British History which was totally hidden from people living and working in the UK at the time. Check out the whole set by following the links, you might be outraged to learn how corrupt corporate businesses really are, or you might love to share the exposing of how deeply the cancer of corruption has eaten into the heart of our societies.

One thing though, after seeing this do not be seduced by the promises of socialists and communists, remember that Soviet Russia, red China and all the other Marxist regimes have been the most brutal tyrannies that the worst of regimes that were based on free markets. Remember also that in all socialist regimes, the gap between rich and poor was wider than in any democracy, no matter how corrupt.

Also recommended:< br /> The Living Dead http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtis_TheLivi...

"The Living Dead, subtitled Three Films About the Power of the Past is the second major documentary series made by British film-maker Adam Curtis.

This series investigates the way that history and memory (both national and individual) have been used by politicians and others."

Episode 1. Who Pays Wins



Episode 2. The Mayfair Set episode 2 - Entrepreneur Spelt S.P.I.V.



Episode 3. Destroy The Technostructure



Episode 4. Twilight Of The Dogs


A devastating critique of the shift of power from democratic institutions to corporate business. It is a pity Curtis made no equivalently excoriating study of the equally anti - democratic radical (aka progressive) left who are as addicted to power as the financial elites and political right are to wealth.

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