Zeitgeist Addendum

[bellyscratch]

I haven't seen any of these films but have read a little about them and more or less know what the films go on about. If I get around to watching them then I can comment on them more.

I'd just like to share a quote from someone on another forum which I find quite interesting, referring to the whole Zeitgeist Movement, which from what I know of them seems about right although it is quite vague.
"They... stand where the socialists stood about 1840."

One thing that seems clear to me about the whole Internet conspiracy movement from what I've experienced, is that it is born out of trying to point the finger at a small elite for all the crap that is going on. But because it has been influenced by the mass anti-communist propaganda machine during the cold war from the developed western nations (mainly USA, which is also where the movement is strongest) the majority turns it back on the only potential solutions (various strains of communism, anarchism and socialism) that could solve the problems that they seem to complain about, abuse of power and greed from the powerful elite. Surely the only way to have a system without a powerful elite is to promote a completely equal and fair society where everyone has the same amount of power, otherwise, even if you somehow manage to take away this elite then they will always be replaced by someone else eventually, which are more than likely to be corrupted by the power they have.

I just don't see much action from these people in trying to change anything (apart from talking and sharing videos on the internet) or see what their solutions are or why they are trying to build a new movement when there are already ones they can join that have a couple hundred years of theory and practice to build upon. If I've missed something the please point me in the right direction so I can find out.

[bellyscratch]

I just want to back up what I'm saying with this quote from the Venus Project, which has come out of the Zeitgeist Movement.


"Q:How does The Venus Project compare with Communism?

A:Communism used money and labor, had social stratification, and elected officials to maintain the communists' traditions. Most importantly, Communism did not eliminate SCARCITY nor did they have a blueprint or the methods for the production of abundance. Machine production rather than labor will dominate the future. Perhaps through no fault of their own, they also had to maintain huge military expenditures to protect themselves from invasion of fascistic and capitalistic institutions.

Communism being similar to a resource-based economy or The Venus Project is an erroneous concept. Communism has money, banks, armies, police, prisons, charismatic personalities, social stratification, and is managed by appointed leaders. The Venus Project's aim is to surpass the need for the use of money. Police, prisons and the military would no longer be necessary when goods, services, healthcare, and education are available to all people. The Venus Project would replace politicians with a cybernated society in which all of the physical entities are managed and operated by computerized systems. The only region that the computers do not operate or manage is the surveillance of human beings. This would be completely unnecessary and considered socially offensive. A society that uses technology without human concern has no basis of survival. Communism has no blueprint or methodology to carry out their ideals and along with capitalism, fascism, and socialism, will ultimately go down in history as failed social experiments."


They are totally misinterprating what communism is. If you replace the word communism with stalinism then it works fine, but stalinism was a horrible mutation and manipulation of marxist theory which is too complex to go into how it arose. I'll just say that you'll be very luck to find any communists/socialists that approved of stalinist's interpretation of communism and will mostly see Stalin in the same vein as Hitler or Mussolini. These people seem to want communism but dont want to call it communism.

A good definition of communism is:
1. Any philosophy advocating a classless, stateless society without money or markets organized according to the principle “from each according to ability, to each according to need”
2. In Orthodox Marxist theory it is stage of history coming after socialism (dictatorship of the proletariat) when the state has “withered away” and society is run according to the principle “from each according to ability, to each according to need”


Doesn't really sound like the communism that The Venus Project were describing to me.

[KIRBY]

Venus Project Wrote:Police, prisons and the military would no longer be necessary when goods, services, healthcare, and education are available to all people.

ok.

[Le_Coop]

Thats a major problem. The segregation between libertarians, socialists, communists, ethical capitalists etc. Its no different to religious differences. All the 'members' see their way as the best or the right solution.

The Venus Project isnt strictly 100% the ideas of Zeitgeist Movement followers and like I said before. Its not too tough to find problems with the solution they show. To me Venus Project comes after many periods of transition and I agree it is pretty much true communism. The Venus Projects response to that question in my view, is a response to the layman who has little or no knowledge of different social and political systems. Aimed at the average Joe, dumbed down by society who has lapped up the negative teachings of anti-communist(and somewhat anto socialist) thought. So rather than spend a page teaching someone the true ideas behind current communism or the true ideas behind communism they reply to the question as if the question is being asked by a person who has stereotyped communism due to what people like Stalin did.

Id like to see your view of both of the films Ross coming from a socialist scholars viewpoint :)

The main reason Im 'into' it is because it encourages the elimination of the Federal Reserve and Bank of England who are private banks who hold our governments to ransom. The same inbred families/bloodlines who control them control and influence far too much of our world and one major step in the right direction is the ability to print our own money, interest free. People involved in the IMF, EU, UN, World Bank, Trilateral Commission and Council on Foreign Relations and the true enemies within.

As for the internet and armchair activists. Many of these people constantly look for people who share their views to get involved in actual activities away from a pc. The truth is, the internet is the most powerful tool for truth seeking, fascists fighting individuals and could become our last true home of free speech. Even now, organising protests are bound with a lot of red tape if you are looking to do something ona big scale. You can reach many people online and this fight is not about action outside. Its a mindset mainly. We let all of this happen because we simply go along with the choices we are given when all we have to do is stop. We dont need to wave banners and chant ryhms but obviously it helps. Back when the media were more unrestricted we would see reports and news items informing the public about protestors and their ideas.

[GrapeSta]

This shit proberly bores the arse off me. Pure fodder for people whose lives are that boring that they look for something to make sense of the dullness of their existence. People with a gaping hole in there lives looking for something to fill the void.

"Ohhh life can't just be this simple. The answers that make sense are too simple as well. I must be special so who is keeping me down? There must be a dark force at work. Errr, the government, thats it! No, I mean the church, thats them!"

Elvis is dead. Oswald shot Kennedy. Bin Laden blew up the towers. There are no Aliens sporting about Milton Keynes. The X-Files was just a TV show. There is no Bigfoot.The goverment couldn't care less about you in your poxy bedsit. Face it, you're not that exiting, in fact you're well below-average. You're boring.

Deal with it.
Get a grip.
Get a life.

[Le_Coop]

What? No socialist speech?

[syfra55]

dont worry about it grapefruit darling, csi:miami is start soon.

[lovefrombelow]

at least you have a project mayhem thingy going on you can shut the fuck up with thinking that you are changing minds with lowbudget internet drama.

[Le_Coop]

syfra55 Wrote:dont worry about it grapefruit darling, csi:miami is start soon.

Its all about Lost and 24

lovefrombelow Wrote:at least you have a project mayhem thingy going on you can shut the fuck up with thinking that you are changing minds with lowbudget internet drama.

Try again. ??

[bellyscratch]

Well 1st I'll say that I've found that debating politics on the internet just doesn't work. It just goes on and on until someone gets too fed up to go on anymore, so I'm not going to waste my time going too far into it because it will get nowhere. Comments here and there maybe useful to get people thinking but thats about it.

Le_Coop Wrote:Thats a major problem. The segregation between libertarians, socialists, communists, ethical capitalists etc. Its no different to religious differences. All the 'members' see their way as the best or the right solution.

Yeh, you're right there, but communists/socialists have developed the theory of the united front about 100 years ago (?) which basically means that they can work together with other people on certain issues such as Stop the War and Unite Against Fascism with other non-revolutionary people. I do think that now things are starting to go wrong that there will be a regroupment of people on the left who are politically like-minded but you won't see much happening between communists/socialists and the pro-capitalist libertarians because they essentially want different things.

From my experience though, the people who are most politically active do not come from the internet conspiracy movement, and I've been to a wide variety of events, not just socialist stuff. Usually I only encounter these people in real life is when someone has come over to a stall and said 'have you seen the Zeitgeist films?', signed the petition and then when you ask them if they'd want to get involved in actually doing anything (not necessarily socialist), they're 'too busy' (this is quite common for most people to say anyway as they're too caught up in their consumerist lifestyles).

Maybe I'm saying this in the wrong forum and I should actually go on these Zeitgeist forums (along with a few friends) and tell them that they're pissing in the wind.

I'll get round to watching the films when the library is open as my home internet is crap, but here are a couple of socialist articles discussing the film or issues raised in the film:
socialist-tv.blogspot.com/2008/12/zeitgeist-and-zeitgeist-addendum.html
http://www.wspus.org/economics/banks-mon...-thin-air/

[Le_Coop]

Cool Ill give it a read.

Its true though. If peoples lives are generally not adversely affected by whats going on then folk will carry on as normal lapping up whats been fed to them. And if theyre making a fuck load of cash and can do what they want then its no surprise. Id like to think Id channel funds into something worthwhile but until that happens its only a thought

[GrapeSta]

This thread = Warhammer.

[Mat Payne]

GrapeSta Wrote:This thread = Warhammer.

40K or the other one with knights and castles?

[Le_Coop]

bellyscratch Wrote:http://socialist-tv.blogspot.com/2008/12...endum.html
http://www.wspus.org/economics/banks-mon...-thin-air/

First one wasnt bad. Just critiquing Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project, which incidentily has been around a lot longer than Zeitgeist (movement) film folk. and yes, like we've said before, its easy to attack it because its a somewhat unrealistic utopian solution that would take many stages in between, and people attacking it just cant see the stages in between. Such as abolishing the Fed.

Second one was just an attack on the idea that banks create money out of thin air. Firstly saying it doesnt happen, then saying it does, then saying but it doesnt happen how we think it does because we misread a Federal Reserve leaflet. And then telling us that when banks do create money out of thin air they fail, like they have done recently. Surely that would be a tick box for the money out of thin air brigade, ala Zeitgeist.

Using a Federal Reserve booklet to argue FOR the federal reserve is like giving a murderer control of the dury decision. They arent going to print the fraud details for us to decide they should be abolished.

Id be curious for Adam Buick to analyse The Hidden Deceptions - http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?doci...0859&hl=en

I reckon most socialist groups just have the hump because of the increased popularity of the 'conspiracy lot' who happen to spread their own take on socialist ideas away away from traditional socialists. Just a wild guess, not much thought put into it

[bellyscratch]

Le_Coop Wrote:

bellyscratch Wrote:http://socialist-tv.blogspot.com/2008/12...endum.html
http://www.wspus.org/economics/banks-mon...-thin-air/

First one wasnt bad. Just critiquing Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project, which incidentily has been around a lot longer than Zeitgeist (movement) film folk. and yes, like we've said before, its easy to attack it because its a somewhat unrealistic utopian solution that would take many stages in between, and people attacking it just cant see the stages in between. Such as abolishing the Fed.

Second one was just an attack on the idea that banks create money out of thin air. Firstly saying it doesnt happen, then saying it does, then saying but it doesnt happen how we think it does because we misread a Federal Reserve leaflet. And then telling us that when banks do create money out of thin air they fail, like they have done recently. Surely that would be a tick box for the money out of thin air brigade, ala Zeitgeist.

Using a Federal Reserve booklet to argue FOR the federal reserve is like giving a murderer control of the dury decision. They arent going to print the fraud details for us to decide they should be abolished.

Id be curious for Adam Buick to analyse The Hidden Deceptions - http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?doci...0859&hl=en

I reckon most socialist groups just have the hump because of the increased popularity of the 'conspiracy lot' who happen to spread their own take on socialist ideas away away from traditional socialists. Just a wild guess, not much thought put into it

Both of those articles were just something I found and I don't necessarily agree with them (mainly because I havent seen that film yet), but thought you might want to see.

The socialist/communist movement is much larger than the current conspiracy movement worldwide and has thousands upon thousands of books been written in its name (as well as many people dieing in its name too). I think the main criticism is that the conspiracy movement diverts away from the 'real' issues and concentrates too much on trivial things that are hard to prove, when there are plenty of issues easily proven that can be concentrated on which already shows how the system does not work.

I know there are socialists/communist/anarchists who welcome the Zeitgeist movement as move in the right direction as it targets mainly a US audience which, if socialism or communism was mentioned would not want to know. It seems to attack the current political system (even though it says it distances itself from politics). The problem is that it is saying it is coming out with something new but it isn't, and from what I gather the film is trying to represent a sort of anarcho-communist technocracy, which has already had a theoretical foundation for years. This diverts away from an strong existing political movement from people and therefore could segregate people even more who may want the same thing, especially as there organisations such as the Venus Project distancing themselves from communism, even though they are essentially communists.

[Le_Coop]

Yep I agree with all that