Zeitgeist 3 - opinions?

[FinnAgain]

If you’d like to discuss them, can you please state what those opinions were?
We have several members quite qualified to discuss economics, and I’m sure they might weigh in if properly motivated.

[DMC]

@FinnAgain

If you’d like to discuss them, can you please state what those opinions were?
We have several members quite qualified to discuss economics, and I’m sure they might weigh in if properly motivated.

We also have quite a few who aren’t at all qualified, but they’ll happily weigh in as well.

[FinnAgain]

Sometimes I think that we should change that to the Dope’s motto…

[dropzone]

@Nica

That’s hilarious. Thanks.

(shrug) I’m a demonstrably funny person, but my wife doesn’t believe it because she’s funnier.

[Nica]

In my own little utopian world, I can’t help but dream that if the economy completely tanks (worldwide), we could go in 1 of 2 directions. Grass roots with no banks or interest or (2) creating an egalitarian world based simply on the willingness to cooperate. Of course, that means no banking or monetary system driven by the interest of a rich minority. A system based on actual needs rather than abstract values. I think there would have to be a huge paradigm shift to bring about something like that.

[Czarcasm]

@Nica

In my own little utopian world, I can’t help but dream that if the economy completely tanks (worldwide), we could go in 1 of 2 directions. Grass roots with no banks or interest or (2) creating an egalitarian world based simply on the willingness to cooperate. Of course, that means no banking or monetary system driven by the interest of a rich minority. A system based on actual needs rather than abstract values. I think there would have to be a huge paradigm shift to bring about something like that.

In your utopian world, how would one accumulate enough wherewithal to run a pharmaceutical company?

[XT]

As with others I’m not willing to click the link and watch a 3 hour movie to see what the debate is (and the OP is obviously not getting the whole 'use some words to describe what you want to talk about, i.e. summarize the movie and what you think is interesting enough to debate, not more links), I figured I’d do a 5 second Google search on debunking the movie. I have neither seen the movie nor have I really done more than skim the debunking site, but here it is FWIW (typing something like ‘debunk zeitgeist III’ into Google is a fairly target rich environment if someone wants to find other links…this was the first hit):

If anyone has looked on the forums of the Internet as of late, it seems as thought Part III is the most commonly believed; you typically hear things like “Well, Part I - I’m not too sure about, Part II may be/is not true, but I know Part III is true!” How do these people know? If they know, why not more people? Well, I decided to look into it myself.

I realize that most people who promote this film say “I did research, I know it’s true”, well if that was the case, Parts I and II wouldn’t have been proven false. As I did in part I, I will go through the video as it talks, that is I will take a transcription and discuss it point by point in that manner, anything from the movie appears in green to make it easy to follow.

It is worth noting that this section has some pretty long quotes from movies and from other people. I only kept in quotes of substance, so I did not put in the quotes from the movie Network or anything like that, but I did keep the stuff from CNN, CNBC, and so forth.

Quotes

The movie begins with some quotes from various people in history. On a hunch I decided to look into the context of these quotes and see what they were really talking about. I realize the purpose of the quotes are to give the viewer the impression that “something else is going on”, but there’s more to it than that. The viewer should be aware of the true meaning behind these quotes.

“There is something behind the throne greater than the king himself.”

• Sir William Pitt, House of Lords 1770

This one was kind of difficult to track down, but I finally did find it. The quote in full is “A long train of these practices has at length unwillingly convinced me that there is something behind the throne, greater than the throne itself.” What William Pitt was talking about, was a scandal of sorts, how King George III was under too much influence from Lord Bute, and how it seemed as though the King didn’t care about what the French were saying. The speech this quote came from was made in 1770, six years after the King had already stopped seeing Lord Bute, and Pitt knew this. The purpose of the statement was to imply the King was weak; it was nothing more than an insult[1].

“The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.”

• Benjamin Disraeli, English Statesman 1844

This quote originates from a book written by Disraeli in 1844 which is a fictional account of the life and career of Henry Coningsby and his politics. Essentially the whole thing is Disraeli voicing his opinion to the Reform Bill of 1832, the British Whig Party, and Utilitarianism. This quote is frequently misrepresented by Anti-Semitic individuals who wish to prove that Jews control the world[2]. In reality the context of the quote was discussion the concept behind governmental alliances. Thus it makes sense that things are run “behind the scenes” if governments make agreements with others to do or not to do something.

“The real truth of the matter is that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson.”

• Franklin D Roosevelt, US President 1933

I found the “source” of this quote. It is apparently a letter sent from Roosevelt to Colonel Edward M House, and can be received from Sterling Library at Yale University or from Radio Liberty. After hours of searching, I could not find a single location on the Internet that references this letter that is not a conspiracy site or is from a post on a forum written by someone who is promoting a conspiracy theory. More so, searching Yale’s library database yielded nothing. I found plenty of letters, but not this one.

Central Banks

In 1783 America won its independence from England. However, its battle against the central bank concept and the corrupt, greed-filled men associated with it had just begun.

So what is a Central Bank? A Central Bank is an institution that produces the currency of an entire nation. Based on historical precedent, two specific powers are inherent in central banking practice. The control of interest rates, and the control of the money supply, or inflation. A central bank does not simply supply a government’s economy with money, it loans it to them at interest. Then, through the use of increasing and decreasing the supply of money, the central bank regulates the value of the currency being issued. It is critical to understand that the entire structure of this system can only produce one thing in the long run: debt.

It doesn’t take a lot of ingenuity to figure this scam out. For every single dollar produced by the central bank is loaned at interest, that means every single dollar produced is actually the dollar plus a certain percent of debt based on that dollar. And since the central bank has a monopoly over the production of the currency for the entire country, and they loan each dollar out with immediate debt attached to it, where does the money to pay for the debt come from? It can only come from the central bank again. Which means the central bank has to perpetually increase its money supply to temporarily cover the outstanding debt created, which in turn, since that new money is loaned out at interest as well, creates even more debt! The end result of this system without fail is slavery. For it is impossible for the government and thus the public, to ever come out of the self-generating debt.

The primary reason a central banking system was implemented is because “free banking systems”, that is ones that are not centralized, were unstable. Between 1837 and 1862, a time when we had free banking, banks issued their own bank notes, which were backed against their own gold and silver, and states regulated reserve requirements, interest rates on loans and deposits, and so forth.[5] The problem with this system is it created a lot of unstable banks. In fact, banks would only last around 5 years before going bankrupt because they could no longer redeem the notes of customers. A third of banks failed during the free banking era.[6]

Imagine going to a bank today, and them telling you that your paper money is actually worthless, you can’t buy or sell anything with it. Of course, the movie implies this later by saying the Federal Reserve System creates worthless money, but if that was the case, I don’t see why we haven’t had massive market crashes and wide-spread instability as we did prior to the modern system.

Contrary to the film, the Federal Reserve does not increasingly create debt. The total debt mounted each year by the Federal Reserve is only about 7% of the total national debt. The Federal Reserve rebates its net earnings to the Treasury every year, thus the money borrowed from the Federal Reserve has no net interest obligation for the treasury[7].

If we travel back to a time when banks made their own currency, we also had the problem of going to multiple banks. I imagine if banks still did that, we’d probably wind up with a bank monopoly anyway, because people would want the convenience of being able to use the same money everywhere, especially businesses. Instead the Central Banking system allows businesses and people to deal less with converting all the tons of different bank notes they receive, and allows them to more easily save their money in cash or coin form, or in a bank backed up by the FDIC.

And so on…there is a ton here, so if the OP wants to simply go through the debunking site, look up the specific parts that s/he feels are ‘right’, and see what the response is, and then post the parts s/he doesn’t agree with or think are compelling from the movie, well…perhaps there could be something like a ‘debate’ thingy happening here. Or not. OPs choice.

ETA: Just thought I’d add the conclusions:

Film Conclusion

The most incredible aspect of all: These totalitarian elements will not be forced upon the people, the people will demand them, for the social manipulation of society through the generation of fear and division has completely detached human from their sense of power and reality. A process, which has been going on for centuries if not millennia…

I find that highly unlikely. The film maker assumes that everyone is stupid. It reminds me of an old argument, that “if the Anti-Christ is going to do exactly what is in the Book of Revelation, how does he expect no one to notice?” That’s my argument, in fact. The point is, do they honestly expect no one to notice and for everyone to accept it? It’d take years to even setup a system, with literally millions of IT professionals and other specialists, and yet nobody has ever heard of such a thing being done, and they won’t.

Religion- Patriotism- Race - Wealth - Class… and every other form of arbitrary separatist identification and thus conceit, has served to create a controlled population, utterly malleable in the hands of the few.

So, now we see where the Religion part comes into play. I was beginning to think there was no reason to have Part I other than to trash Christianity. Even if these things are arbitrary, they still exist, and really aren’t in the hands of “the few”. I’d like someone to name these “few” for me, and provide real sources, not conspiracy sites.

“Divide and Conquer” is the motto, and as long as people continue to see themselves as separate from everything else, they lend themselves to being completely enslaved.

The men behind the curtain know this. And they also know- that if people ever realize the truth of their relationship to nature, and the truth of their personal power… The entire manufactured zeitgeist they prey upon, will collapse like a house of cards.

Separate from everything else? What does that even mean? The men behind the curtain are as real as the Wizard of Oz, they exist only in the paranoid minds of the conspiracy theorists. Every time someone tells the people “the truth”, millions end up dying. I hope to god that nobody figures out the “real truth”.

There is also a My Conclusions section but won’t post that one…click the link at the bottom of the cited page if you are interested. It’s mainly talking about how parts 1, 2 and 3 don’t see to actually have much relation to each other.

-XT

[mlees]

Just for info’s sake, here is a plot summary found on IMDB for the movie Zeitgeist: Moving Forward.

A feature length documentary work which presents a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society. This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical “life ground” attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a “Resource-Based Economy”.

WTF is “life ground”?

“Immutable natural laws”? Is that where cold logic is used to decide who gets what resources? (“Sorry, Somalia. Your GDP is too low this year, your food quotient is hereby reduced by 3 units per annum.”)

[mlees]

Here is a “user’s comments” on IMDB for the above movie: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011) - IMDb

This was definitely the best, in both visual effects and quality of content, out of the Zeitgeist series. A few animated shorts provide welcomed comic relief throughout the 2-hour and 40-minute film.

As a sociologist, I particularly appreciated the first half of the movie which was dedicated to discussing human “nature”, behavior, and social pathology.

With the basic groundwork laid for understanding how humans do have the potential to create a massive shift in our current social/cultural paradigm, the film goes on to offer the potential design and physical layout of a more efficiently functioning social system.

Anyone who is concerned with the current state of our global society should watch this film… and then share it with a friend. (And anyone who’s not concerned with the current state of our global society should probably read about international news more often.)

Is this more “let’s get rid of the flawled free market capitalist system” type arguments?

[heathen_earthling]

@Czarcasm

In your utopian world, how would one accumulate enough wherewithal to run a pharmaceutical company?

I suppose a true conspiracy theorist would be willing to do without any pharmaceutical companies. Remember, the utopian world wouldn’t have any evil governments or corporations poisoning our food or environment, or getting us hooked on mind control drugs, so most everyone would naturally be a lot healthier to begin with.

[DrFidelius]

Pharmaceutical companies are part and parcel of the conspiracies, and everyone will be healthier if Big Pharma is stopped from creating new diseases.

[SteveG1]

I had a hard time taking this Zeitgeist seriously. It seemed like too much “people suck”, conspiracy, socialism, and magical thinking (if only everyone believed strongly enough). I thought it was junk.

[Czarcasm]

@mlees

Here is a “user’s comments” on IMDB for the above movie: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011) - IMDb

Wow. If I was going to guess which movie on the IMDB had the highest percentage of hack-written reviews, it would have to be this one. I have never seen so many “You must see this! You must tell others about this!!” plugs in my life.

[mlees]

@Czarcasm

Wow. If I was going to guess which movie on the IMDB had the highest percentage of hack-written reviews, it would have to be this one. I have never seen so many “You must see this! You must tell others about this!!” plugs in my life.

I don’t think they restrict who can write a review. Anyone with an active IMDB user account could probably submit one. I don’t know if too many regular folks would be arsed enough to bother.

[Nzinga_Seated]

@SteveG1

I had a hard time taking this Zeitgeist seriously. It seemed like too much “people suck”, conspiracy, socialism, and magical thinking (if only everyone believed strongly enough). I thought it was junk.

Did you take the last one seriously? I liked the first part of the first one. The comparing of the religions and the pointing out of the horoscopes and Christianity parallels was cool. When I went on to research debunking of the Zeitgeist, of course, it didn’t stand up to scrutiny.

I am a sucker for conspiracy theories, though. So at the risk of exposing myself as that elusive doper who will actually sit through 3 hours of this stuff, here I go.