Thoughts on ZZZZZ Day

Yesterday was Z Day, the day on which Zeitgeist fans all over the world congregate to be paranoid, self-righteous, and misinformed together.

I have to give Peter Joseph a small amount of credit for at least trying to make the world a better place, but there is just no way that such simplistic conspiranoia is going to transform our lives and right all the wrongs of modern society. Watching Zeitgeist for the first time, I was reminded a little of Scientology propaganda films.

Alex Jones dislikes the film and distrusts the filmmaker primarily because there's too much New Agey "occult" stuff involved, because Christianity is attacked, and because there's too much "science" behind Zeitgeist: Addendum. Other than that, as I noted yesterday, he agrees with 90% of what's in the film. And why wouldn't he? It's the same stuff he talks about. I would like to point out Jones's self-contradiction (call it hypocrisy if you like) in criticizing the religious portion of Zeitgeist; virtually all of that information came from Jordan Maxwell, and Maxwell has been a guest on Jones's show, spouting very similar stuff. Only on Jones's show, he's careful to criticize and slander only Judaism.
Incidentally, it's interesting that Jones rants against Theosophy and the New Age beliefs derived from it all the time (not because they're a crock, but because it's all occultic), yet he hosts Michael Tsarion (a fervent fan of HPB) and Jordan Maxwell (whose name might actually be derived from HPB's work, though he denies it).

I was going to do a slew of posts on how derivative, simplistic, naive, and fact-free (not to mention boring) Zeitgeist is, but I really don't feel like it at the moment. Let's face it, the folks who really, really dig Zeitgeist are pretty much beyond hope, anyway. So I'll just summarize my thoughts on the *film*.

Part I: In which Peter Joseph alienates the majority of his viewers by trying to convince them that Judaism and Christianity are just a retooling of ancient solar cults and astrotheological concepts. Basically Brian Flemming's documentary The God Who Wasn't There blended with the "research" of Jordan Maxwell, the guy who says, "'Christ' means 'oil'. That's why we have Crisco", "98% of Judaism is worship of the planet Saturn", and "Zionism is a Teutonic/Germanic death cult."

Part II: This part promises to explore myth as sacred narrative. Maybe things are looking up for this film! But no. It's all about 9/11. Loose Change, only looser. Includes audio by Ted Gunderson, fer crying out loud. The guy who told Geraldo that 50,000 Americans are sacrificed by Satanists every year. The guy who says Osama bin Laden is really "Tim Osman". The guy who subscribes to the Sonny Bono assassination-by-tree theory.

Part III: Mangled information about central banking and the Federal Reserve, which Joseph expands on in Zeitgeist: Addendum. Nothing you can't get from Birchers or Ron Paul. If the Fed deliberately implodes the economy for the hell of it, would someone please explain to me why Bernanke was sweating bullets on 60 Minutes last night? He looked awfully twitchy for a guy who knows exactly what he's doing.
The banking stuff is capped off with some Aaron Russo footage about the illegality of income tax. I assume it's merely coincidence that the people who say income tax is unconstitutional are the same people who just happen to owe millions in back taxes...
Next up is a relatively sensible overview of false flag operations, war profiteering, divide and conquer strategies, etc. I'm not saying this part makes sense; I'm just saying it makes more sense than Ted Gunderson and Jordan Maxwell.

Zeitgeist: Addendum features the total b.s. of John Perkins, conman/author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, as well as lots more ill-informed bitching about fractional reserve banking. But Addendum also features the point of Zeitgeist, the whole reason Joseph created this hot mess in the first place...

The Venus Project

What does the Venus Project want us to do, exactly?

It was dreamed into existence in the mid '70s by a resident of Venus, Florida, inventor and futurist Jacque Fresco. He envisioned an end to poverty via the development of technology that will make more resources available to more people, as well as the replacement of our money-based economy with a resource-based economy.
It's quite similar to Buckminster Fuller's "ephemeralization", which won't work either.
Both Venus and ephemeralization seem to be based on the Smurf model of society. Baker Smurf will bake because he likes to bake, and will share his muffins with everyone freely. Papa Smurf will dispense wisdom because he's older and smarter than the other Smurfs. And Vanity Smurf will do everybody's hair because he's... well, I'll leave that one up to you to decide.

This will not work. Few farmers are going to produce free food for thousands of people out of the goodness of their hearts. In the Bible, farming was the very first curse that God placed upon man as punishment for his disobedience. I'm not saying this literally happened, but it does seem to embody an ancient and essential truth: Farming is really freaking hard.

What we would end up with under Venus would be an agrarian society in which everyone would have to do their own subsistence farming, build their own homes, and barter frantically for all other essentials. Hardly "freedom from economic slavery".
Also, you can eliminate money, but you can never eliminate greed. The unscrupulous among us will find ways to exploit any non-monetary system we create.

The Bottom Line

Zeitgeist concludes with the words, "A choice right now between love and fear."

Hmm. What does that leave out?

Oh, right. As Donnie Darko would say, "THE ENTIRE SPECTRUM OF HUMAN EMOTION!!"