ZEITGEIST

[la_belle_laide]

I'm not cutting any of this, sorry. And even if you normally skip over my posts, please read this one.

ZEITGEIST

Part one: Religion.

Astrotheological literary hybrid. Remember that phrase.

If you are a Christian, it will shake the foundation of your faith. Can you handle that? Isn't it better to know the truth--to have knowledge--than to be in the dark?

And if you're a snarky pagan-sometimes-atheist with a penchant for codes and decoding them, like me, then part I of this movie is orgasmic.

These are things that I've been on the verge of halfway understanding since around college. This movie pulls them all together and puts them out there in total coherency. It will give you frigging chills. What else can I say? It's worth every single second.

See now, I've always thought that Jesus actually did exist. I didn't believe in his divinity, but I did believe in his humanity: the fact that there was a historical figure who preached certain things and who was more of a political activist than a Messiah. But this movie pretty much proves that even as a historical figure, Jesus didn't even exist. O_O

Part two: War, 9-11.

It is not a matter of debate. If some people have the bad taste to raise the question of the TRUTH of the sacred story, the keepers of 'the faith' do not entire into debate with them. They ignore them, or denounce them as blasphemers. TRUE STORY.

I know I've heard stuff like this before and so have many of you. I know I can get really into conspiracy theories. I know that gets labeled as being really wacky. But honestly, I'd rather be labeled as wacky and unpatriotic (PLEASE! LABEL ME AS UNPATRIOTIC!) rather than not look at what is right in front of my goddamn face! This is all stuff I have heard before. I've just never heard it so coherently.

I know that this movie is cleverly edited to prove a point; I get that, I do. But just keep trying to figure out why: "There was a secondary explosion." "The Carlyle group."
No seats. No luggage. No bodies. Nothing but bricks and limestone. "What kind of fire can vaporize aluminum and tempered steal, and yet leave human bodies intact?" When you're hearing from the designers and builders of the WTC buildings, people, it gets kinda obvious!

I was telling my Mom about this and she asked, "But why? Why would the American government do something like that?"

I only wonder if anyone asked why Hitler and the Nazis would, either.

Part III is about the Central Bank pulling all the strings. This whole stuff about "legal tender" no longer being backed by gold is something I knew but never quite understood till this came along, too. And that Federal Income tax is actually unconstitutional, that's something else I've held forth about over the years, most people thinking I was crazy. There is no law in existence that requires you to pay income tax, how about that? There's something I didn't know.

Then it goes on to demonstrate how war is profitable for the people pulling the strings (the central bank,) and why America gets into wars that have nothing to do with them, and goes so far as to, yanno stage epic events in order to start them. This begins with the Lusitania, believe it or not. THen it goes into WWII and how that began... or rather how it didn't, because check this out: "The question was how should we maneuver them into firing the first shot? It was desirable to make sure the Japanese be the to do this so that there should remain no doubt as to who were the aggressors." Nov. 25th 1941, Henry Stimson, Secretary of War. And here's something I didn't know either: The Rockefellers actually funded the Nazis and made oil for them. Hello!

And check this out, another Nazi money laundering bank, who also funded Hitler's rise to power? As in, the bank was exposed and seized? The Union Banking Corp. of NYC. Who was the director of and vice president of that bank> Prescott Bush. W.'s grandfather.

Then it goes into Vietnam and how the war was never meant to be won, just sustained for its profits.

And here we are today, at war again, this time over 9-11.

Hitler used this same tactic, attacking his own base and then taking away civil liberties, small at first, in the name of "homeland security."

This is how empires are created: my brainwashing and manipulation. I mean, throughout the ages.

North American Union? WTF? I know that I've never heard of it, have you? A new currency called the Amero? Have you heard of it? I hadn't either. I wonder why not.

Last night I asked if religion was an opiate for the masses, or an opiate of the masses, and I unwisely decided on of. I take that back. It is an opiate for the masses, of a select few.

RFID TRACKING CHIP in all passports. What do you think comes next?

What can I do? Probably not much in the grand scheme of things. But one thing I will not do is sit there and eat everything the people in power try to shovel down my throat. You can deny this stuff all you want if that helps you sleep better at night. Water it down or make it simple so that you can live--in fear of "terrorism" and "the enemy" perhaps--but not in total anger. Well, I'd rather have the anger than the fear, thanks.

Most of all I'd rather live with my eyes open. At least I know.

This is the kind of movie that should change the world, but won't. Because people believe what they want to believe. You feel me?

Live with your eyes open. Please please please, for your life: watch it from beginning to the end. All the way through. WATCH IT. SPREAD IT AROUND.

The activism page.

Can you tell how turned on and totally afraid I am at the same time?

Comments

[spotts1701.livejournal.com]

Hate to say it, but the income tax is constitutional. The argument saying it is not focuses on ratification and is based on hyper-techincal arguments over capitalization and punctuation, and that Ohio (admitted to the union in 1803) was not actually admitted to the union until 1953 (because Congress had not issued a proclamation recognizing Ohio statehood until then).

Such "hyper-technicalities" have been rejected because differences in capitalization and punctuation only matter if it alters the fundamental text of the Sixteenth Amendment, and a state's entry into the Union does not turn on official proclamations but upon that state ratifying a constitution and submitting it to Congress.

[shonagonchan.livejournal.com]

Please tell me that's not ALL you got out of that. Did you actually watch the thing?

[spotts1701.livejournal.com]

I'm not into conspiracy theories, sorry. Especially ones that would require thousands of people to keep the secret.

I live by the old adage "Three people can keep a secret if two are dead."

[shonagonchan.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd rather look at all possibilities than brush them off without giving them a chance, and I also find that living by old adages is too limiting for me.

I also try not to comment on something unless I've seen it, but that's just me.

[spotts1701.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, but my original comments were based on my legal training and examination of the issue beforehand. This is not the first time I've been confronted with the questions about the legality of an income tax (in Nevada, the libertarian streak runs mighty deep).

I did offend. I am sorry.

[shonagonchan.livejournal.com]

Don't worry about it. :)

[twh.livejournal.com]

I don't find the thought of a movie that supposed to 'shake my faith' very appealing because that's what it's supposed to do. So, I'll pass on that.

Furthermore, what ever happened to respecting the beliefs of others if they don't coincide with yours? Seriously, not every Christian is a psycho nut-job like Pat Robertson.

[shonagonchan.livejournal.com]

Me, I'm willing to look at everything, even if it's something that I don't want to hear or don't want to believe in. I'm a pagan, and this movie shakes that up, too. Bother me? Not too much.

But oh please do tell me where in this post I said anything about every christian being a psycho nut job like Pat Robertson? ANd also, do tell me where I disrespected anyone's belief? Just because I posted a movie means that I don't respect your belief? LOL. I won't write anything about The Golden Compass after I get to see it, then. Wouldn't want to "disrespect your belief" by even bringing it up.

You see, you haven't even watched it and you're making assumptions.

[twh.livejournal.com]

Ok, to be fair, I did watch that first part. But I guess that I'm just not main stream fundamentalist Christianity enough for it to take offense to what the guy was saying. (Heck, a lot of Christian preachers, primarily Baptists, hate my faith, so it's nothing new.)

To the contrary, I found what he was saying to be rather interesting about the parallels between Christianity and the preceding religions. I don't agree with his point, but I still find what he had to say interesting and we'll leave it at that.

[shonagonchan.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you found it interesting. I'm still not sure what you meant by your original comment, though.

[twh.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess it was the tone of the original post. I more likely than not overreacted and took it as though it were Christopher Hitchens talking down to me. Confrontational, that man is.

I could go into the particulars as to why I believe the way I do, but that's not what this is about.

Either way, I apologize for the less than couth manner in which I first started.

[skitty-kitty.livejournal.com]

Fuck, that movie is hard to watch. Am at the third part and already wanted to throw something through the window. Mostly for the second, the first isn't really new to me. But gods above and beyond, the second hurts. Gonna run off to bed and wait to finish it tomorrow, definitely going to give me something to think about.

You know, I've had experience in government shite, and it is hard for me to believe that the 9/11 conspiracy is true, if only because the g'vnt I know is so incompetent and no one knows how to keep their mouths shut, at all. But I always did wonder why the buildings fell like they did, and the lack of wreckage. And that's before taking Physics. All the coincidences, though, with the drills, and overlooking shit. At the very least, it may not wholly convince me, but it does make me wonder. A lot.

Thanks for freaking me out! (and I mean that sincerely, I love a good mind fuck ;D)

[shonagonchan.livejournal.com]

I felt the same way about the second part, it was just painful to watch. It was so exhausting, I had to keep going away from it and then coming back. I haven't felt the same about anything since then.

[marrael.livejournal.com]

I get mindfucks so rarely these days, that was kinda a treat.

Part I: Loved it! My inner astronomer was captivated. I knew the Old Testament was a chimera of rip-offs of various mythologies, but the New Testament stuff as well? Making more sense the more I think about it.

Part II: I was kinda only half paying attention to this part (it was a long movie! I had stuff to paint!) as most of the 9/11 conspiracy stuff I'd encountered before. What I'd never heard before though, was a really good reason as to why that could satisfy me, and it was Part II and III put together that closed it.

Part III: Oh, cool.

All in all, I think I want to double-check some of the historical/mythological facts; Money and power does corrupt; absolute corruption does exist; and a complicit mass media? Check. None of what the movie posits is unrealistic, but it does base its arguments on facts that are/were new to me. My mind is open; but I don't want to be taken in by anything that may be inaccurate.

With all that said though, I was glad to watch it. Thanks for the link. :) Had a lively convo with my dad about it; he's already convinced there are EVIL people controlling the world.

[shonagonchan.livejournal.com]

I've heard it before too, but it was really coherent in this film. I think it's dangerous to just discount stuff like this just because it doesn't seem like it could ever happen. That kind of thinking is what allows things like this to happen, that's why I had to post it. :)

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

I have to say that I'm not particularly impressed.

In part I, I've already seen most of the relationships between religions. It's well known among the scholars of religion that religions do often borrow from each other, that things were shared. This is common knowledge, and I don't find much of interest there.

In part II I find a lot of things questionable. They make several extraordinary claims without providing evidence, including several claims of collusion by US officials, without releasing exact information. They recycle the old and tired free fall argument, postulate the existence of a new extremely advanced form of non-chemical explosive (technology currently a hundred years beyond us) to provide the kick, and make the bad assumption that everything failed at once. They also postulate new, intense-stealth units capable of secretly wiring a building for demolitions (since nobody saw anything), and ignore the fact that none of the demolitions experts noticed anything, nor did the explosion appear on the seismograph data. The evidence for the 1993 bombing is relatively scant, the conspiracies required, involving the careful manipulation of both the Michigan Militia types and the Islamic terror network are never justified, and never explained. It's just assumed that this magic conspiracy has that much power.

Moreover, they break the fundamental rule of real strategy, which is simplicity. They never say why people would bother rigging a bunch of buildings to fall, when a false flag operation would simply have slammed a pair of planes into skyscrapers and watched them fall (it's well known they couldn't have survived that). They never explain why al Qaeda, who has the ability and connections to do something like this, did not do so. They never say why most of the inhabitants of the towers and the emergency response units were in on the scheme, nor why all the experts are likewise in on it.

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

The third part shows a definite lack of knowledge of the financial system. The claim that the Central Banks (in this case undoubtedly referring to the Federal Reserve) loan money to the US at interest is never explained. In fact, the duties of the Federal Reserve are never discussed in anything but the most hysterical of terms. The Reserve Rate, the Interest Rate, and OMO are all valuable tools, but with extreme limitations, as we've discovered in the past few decades. The behavior of the Federal Reserve is relatively simple to understand, and open to public view. The interaction between the world's central banks is an extremely interesting field, and one who studies it understands that their power is relatively limited. And certainly the behavior of the Federal Reserve pre-depression is nothing to be proud of. They changed it to adjust to the Great Depression, as they will undoubtedly change fiscal policy to handle the subprime mortgage disaster. It remains independent because the monetary policy, in order to be stable, must be held independent, just like the jury. The documentary provides no evidence that a giant cartel is controlling everything, or explain that cartel's schizophrenic behavior. Or how the central banks actually make money off of this, since the real value of interest is, of course, zero.

They explain nothing about what their financial plan is. There is no current replacement for the central bank system to stabilize the system. They have no proposal for how to deal with the necessity of using the interest rate and OMO to run the economy. They fail to point out that the gold standard is outdated for a reason, and why no developed economy depends on it. To go back to the gold standard now would cause an incredible catastrophe, not to mention essentially requiring us to invade South Africa.

On World War I, they have claimed that the Lusitania incident is the cause of our involvement. First, they make the claim that the ship was sent into German-controlled waters, neglecting to mention the fact that in this case German-controlled waters means Irish waters (only eight miles from the Irish coast). They also claim that the US entered the war shortly thereafter, neglecting the fact that the ship was sunk on May 7, 1915. The US did not declare war, as Wilson felt that war would be unsupported, until 6 April 1917. Less time passed between the beginning of the war and the sinking of the Lusitania then passed between the sinking of the Lusitania and America's entry into the war. It took both the Zimmermann telegram and the development of unrestricted submarine warfare to bring in the US.

The issue of World War II briefly takes me into the land where I never like to go, that of Japanese apologism. The film makes it up as if our refusal to sell oil to Japan, and to loan money to her enemies, constitutes an act of provocation. Perhaps it does. Refusing to sell gas chambers to Nazis is also an act of provocation. Refusing to fuel the war machine of a militaristic Imperial regime bent on genocide seems to me more of a moral than in immoral act. The film then compounds the confusion, blaming the US for not trading with the Japanese, while simultaneously blaming US companies for trading with the Nazis, an impossible double standard.

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

Gulf of Tonkin has been known to be false for some time.

The film provides no evidence for the brief claim that US companies funded both sides of the Cold War, even indirectly. They then go off on a tangent about US RoE regarding North Vietnam, attempting to cast the confusing White House orders into the result of some great conspiracy. Reality on the ground more readily explains the result. The film here then goes into the typical lunacy associated with this disease, the idea that the US could easily have won the war if we had just taken the gloves off the bombing teams. The current consensus is that this is not true, that although we ran the war incompetently, simply upping the amount of explosives dropped on Vietnam would not have changed things. The film interprets the fact that we did not win the war as evidence that a conspiracy intervened, an act which assumes the US's godlike omnipotence in the field. Neil Sheehan and Stanley Karnow have both written excellent and accessible works on the subject. Normally this is the line I see from far-right hardliners, usually followed by them blaming the liberal media for our defeat.

They then seem to indicate that the civil war in Iraq is caused by the US, where every expert I know points out that it was an inevitability, which could hardly be contained, and has proved far more expensive to the occupiers, and far more detrimental to the international financial system.

And they jump over to entertainment, blaming this also on the grand conspiracy. The film does not understand the fact that people have never been particularly cerebral. Even in the "good old days" we were never engaging in philosophy as a mass effect, in the Middle Ages it was even worse. People want to be entertained, their happy being entertained and not having to think about the big problems. This doesn't require a huge government conspiracy, it simply requires people to be people. I never assume that people being human is a result of a massive conspiracy.

No evidence is given for the North American Union, nor any idea of how it can be accomplished. The entire thing seems to be based off of a document produced by an independent task force organized by the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent organization, which is not even a formal part of the government, just a piece of the Washington sub-strata. At this point, pending direct divine intervention, there's no way that this is even plausible, or any evidence that we can find.

In conclusion, I have heard this before. The old one-world-government conspiracy, the dramatic predictions of a massive shift to a completely controlled world, the idea that tomorrow the huge big men in the sky are going to snap their fingers and turn everything into one world, is old hat. I have not seen anything particularly interesting about the theory before, and I don't see anything interesting about it now. The way it provides unsupported claims, and the way it reworks existing events, twisting them to make them fit a conspiracy theory with no firm ideology, and no firm base, discourages me from believing it.

It's a conspiracy theory. Not a very well done one. Not a very thorough one. I give it a six out of ten on the conspiracy theory scale - they should try harder if they want to be amusing.

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

I have to apologize for how many time I had to comment to get everything on the journal. Sorry about that.

[shonagonchan.livejournal.com]

Don't apologize, I read every word and it was interesting. I'm glad for a different perspective. Like I said, I like all angles.