Peter Joseph defends Zeitgeist: The Movie

[Edx]

In hour 1 Joseph deals with Part 3 of Zeitgeist: The Movie (banking ) etc


http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=438&Itemid=1904


It is the recent radio broadcast dated 9/9/09.

[Edx]

He even says not even 1 state ratified the 16th ammendment. urgh. I wonder how he justifies that statement.

[LightinDarkness]

Last gasps of a dying movement. He knows with all the debunking guides out there that he is losing people.

[Edx]

Last gasps of a dying movement. He knows with all the debunking guides out there that he is losing people.

Its got nothing to do with the movement, even if he accepted Zeitgeist The Movie was 100% wrong about everything it doesnt debunk what the movement is meant to be about... but I dont want to debate that, just the things he says trying to defend the conspiracy stuff.

God knows what rubbish he will be saying when he gets to the 911 show. That I actually understand.

[Arus808]

With or without the ratification of the 16th Amendment, congress could already tax people (only on income tax). The 16ht amendment only extended congress's power to tax income derived from any source, without apportionment to the states or based on any census.

The argument about the 16th amendment only shows that these tax protesters have never read the entire constitution, nor followed the cases as reviewed by the Supreme court (before the ratification of the 16th Amendment)

[zaphod2016]

I've said it before, I'll say it again, this does nothing to help monetary reform. It only serves to discredit those who would criticize the current system.

[grandthefttoaster]

Hi Ed. I listened to the "undebunking" yesterday and this is what I wrote about it in another forum:


I listened to the radio show today. The first hour was all about the Fedral Reserve and banking. The second hour was an interview with Acharya S about Jesus. 9/11 and the North American Union were not mentioned at all. PJ made snide remarks throughout the show about how people who debunk him didn't do any research. Seems like a total **** attitude to have: "any one who says I'm wrong is an idiot."

The stupidist thing he said was that encyclopedia history isn't real history, it is propaganda. I notice he likes to call anything that disagrees with him propaganda, interesting. From my point of view I see Zeitgeist as propaganda, but unlike PJ I have a reason other than that I disagree with it. Here's an example: the movie claims that some of the hijackers were still alive after 9/11, but doesn't mention that the media sources later said they mixed up people with similar names. Some people probably say the media was lying the second time, but to not even mention it is extremely dishonest.

In the second hour, Acharya S came in. She talked about a website called Zetgeist Challenge that asked for proof of her theories. On the Zeitgeist Challenge site, they offer a whole $250 for anyone who can prove her stuff correct, I guess she is really looking forward to winning some big money. She talked about primary sources, and said that they weren't that important. Apparently if they can't find Jesus' photograph he automatically dosesn't exist, but some guy writing about Egyptians years later is proof of Horus' birthdate. The surviving ancient documents from Christian history have been studied for hundreds of years, so when someone comes out with a "huge new discovery about the bible" just like the Da Vinci code you can bet it's horse-puckey. They also implied that people don't agree with them because it challenges their world view. Seeing how some non-religious people like me see this as junk, and PJ thinks anthing that contadicts what he believes is propaganda, I wonder who's worldview is challenged?

"Encyclopedia history isn't history." -Peter Joseph.

The only real history is found in internet videos pasted together in iMovie that have at least 50 George Carlin quotes.

[purplecharger]

I find much irony in the part early on where he says that all debunkers do is looking things up in encyclopedias and google searches.

Last I checked CTers more often than not think google is this holy gift of the internet and you can punch any topic into it and get nothing but facts back.

[Edx]

The stupidist thing he said was that encyclopedia history isn't real history, it is propaganda. I notice he likes to call anything that disagrees with him propaganda, interesting. From my point of view I see Zeitgeist as propaganda, but unlike PJ I have a reason other than that I disagree with it. Here's an example: the movie claims that some of the hijackers were still alive after 9/11, but doesn't mention that the media sources later said they mixed up people with similar names. Some people probably say the media was lying the second time, but to not even mention it is extremely dishonest.

Oh yes, Zeitgeist: The Movie is by all accounts conspiracy theory propaganda, but I dont like to use that word as to me it has connotations that dont I think accuractly reflect Peter's reasons for making it.

You are right about the alive hijackers, I want to know if he will try and defend it. How about the probably even stupider claim that the hijackers names werent on the flight manifests, that I think is even more stupid since its probably one of most easily and quickly disproven.


They also implied that people don't agree with them because it challenges their world view.

Yes I'm not sure what reason they think atheists dont agree with the religion section, but anyway!

Seeing how some non-religious people like me see this as junk, and PJ thinks anthing that contadicts what he believes is propaganda, I wonder who's worldview is challenged?


To be fair I think all in all the religion section is much more correct that any other. You might say thats not saying much and you'd be right, but it seems to me that the only debate seems to be how many attributes previous messiah figures shared with Jesus.

Theres a guy on youtube called AronRa, an "undistuted megastar" as the fanmade song puts it ;) who makes videos against Creationism (The Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism series if that rings a bell). He's been saying similar stuff for years and could easly defend it to others, I find him very very credible. In terms of criticising Part 1 I do agree that it is wrong to reject what she says merely because most Encyclopedias dont include it. I think its much more complex an issue than that. This doesnt mean Peter is forgiven for these blanket statements that Encyclopdia history isnt real history or is propaganda (if he said that) though.

But you dont need astrotheology section to prove essentially the same thing as what Part 1 tries to do, that the Bible is a mishmash of previous myths, legends and superstitions, but that is no surprise since all religions are going to be based on something else. That doesnt mean that Jesus didnt exist, that I think is a leap that need not be made. Since even if Jesus has existed he would be still be so different than the gospel Jesus that I think Christians would hardly recognise him anyway. A lot of Part 1 includes what atheists have been saying for years, so I do think skeptics are a little harsh with Part 1.I'd really like AronRa to come here and post about the stuff he knows regarding the religon stuff in Part 1. I know he said he wasnt an expert on Horus but he does know about other god-men figures. Astotheology shouldnt be dismissed as nonsence as astrotheology is clearly in the Old Testament in ways that it seems skeptics have acknowledged for years so why not the New Testament? (rhetorical question)

Thanks for replying. :)

[Hourglassmemory]

The fact that Peter has actually thought of spending time addressing these things just showed me what I was suspecting from the very beginning. That he has his own agenda about all of these things. That he has his own plans (the fact that there are “plans in the first place is also something that has been nagging me for a while). He has plans, and voices them and organizes them, that by definition comes into a crash with what he would like to think is a position as individual and neutral. Not with the resources he has. Not with the following that he DOES have whether he likes it or not (It’s a human tendency and a propensity of the human social creature, whether he likes it or not, whether he shakes his fist at it and want to fight against it or not)
Poor Mr.Fresco. I'm not defending Fresco. I just think it'd be bad for anyone with ideas, to have a team of people like the one that has self-aggregated and come along with Peter Joseph. At the end of his life, he’s gonna see his ideas being shown to the world in an extremely distorted and confused way. And when that happens (it’s already happened with Peter’s videos and addresses,) it is going to go into the history of our species, again, when we could have done something carefully, and we end up taking the long way around a problem, everything that can go wrong is going to go wrong because, it seems to me, it’s just how most of humanity seems to work.
But again, it's just so clear to me that he has his own agenda, mainly due simply to his background. His movies, and how he wants to make a trilogy of them and wants to “release the third film by” whatever date he has in mind. Things like this shouldn’t have release dates. When you discuss these HUGE subjects you can’t put a date on this. The fact that that is on his mind just shows to me how he has other things in mind other than thinking about these matter extremely carefully and with genuine intellectual and individual interest. I feel like he started on this whole “movement” thing way before he had any crystallized points and stances to make. And now he finds himself with a ball of yarn that is too complicated to control.
His whole way of being often gets into conflict with making objective points.

First, it's how he's trying to organize the whole thing, trying to make a movement out of these speculations and visions of the future. When movements just aren't born that way. They’re certainly not as organized and structured as this. There’s such a drive to control and have a grip of things. There’s such a striving for agency, for being the agents for change…
Instead of reading stuff about money he should be reading stuff about how movements are born in the first place. That's what I doing and I'm just shaking my head at this whole thing now.
The people have no idea what they're doing. I left and I completely disassociate from this thing now because it has a "shaking the fists" feel to it that annoys me to no end.
Second, the language he and Fresco sometimes, uses also works against him and contributes to this simplistic tackling of these matters. “Corrupt”, “sick”, and on and on and on, arguments and statements filled with these words (like “propaganda”) with a baggage that show more of a frustrated point of view than anything else.
Thirdly, how there seems to be a faith of sorts on “humanity’s better angels”. These “Appeals to better conscience” don’t do it for me, nor do I think will do it for most people. It’s a simplistic way to tackle these matters and totally unsubtle and unsophisticated.
The subjects are of such a wide variety and made of so many spectrums and they are so interconnected and dynamic that to try and make a movie about them, to try and make a movement to change them, to propose things to give people motivation, shake a fist at them and dream about a future and trying to ground it on “already observed data” is never going to work.

I have literally moved away from this whole thing just to see it fall because I don't think it deserves to lift off in the first place, the way it’s being done now.
I think Peter would say something like "It'd be failing because people who have criticism are leaving instead of making it better". I know. That's one of the motivations I left. To see it fail because "I'm not there to make it better". I wouldn't want to contribute to something that is going the way this thing is going. And how CAN I be listened to in such a convoluted forum and podium such as the ones that have sprung up around this?
I'm just going to stand and watch and follow along my own route when it comes to these subjects, with my own ideas about all these different nodes of information and inform myself independently. If it falls it falls, it shouldn’t’ have risen in the first place, I will not feel like all is lost or anything like that. These “movements”, these “drives” get people so attached to ideas that when they’re not reality there’s a frustration that comes with it not being accomplished, and it grows with time. That to me is a ticking bomb.
A "movement to change the world" is the last thing on my mind right now.
Change doesn’t happen like that. Not the subtle change this “movement” is calling for.
It’s always so much more subtle and less dependent on organization and “ok let’s do this and prepare that”.
The movement wants to be the agency behind the change, as if being responsible is something they’ve put in their heads is something that have to be. When again and again, changes of the magnitude we are talking about are provoked by no one in particular. He who knows that history book are “propaganda (there’s these stupid silly words again) should know that things aren’t as simple as they are made to be in books and encyclopaedias.
But that’s not sickness. It’s not corruption. It’s human limitations. It’s the human condition. It is the natural drive of the human mind to condensate knowledge. And Peter himself and Fresco fall on this “trap” again and again, for example, when they word themselves with words like “corrupt” and “sick”.
It’s the simple curse that evolution has put on humans, mindlessly, and carelessly, like everything it has ever done. This shaking of fists I see over and over again, is what I expect of a species that is limited by its own past, of which it had absolutely no control over. I can’t help seeing it as just a curious little tragedy in a tiny spot in the universe.
Peter has never taken the time to consider this and explore this matter seriously and publicly, and has instead fantasised like a child about the future and “human potential”. Ah, such shortcuts to mental pleasures. Human tendencies again. Peter is more of an example of what makes humans what they are, then he is a person who “stands outside and objectively looks at society”. He’s more inside than he thinks.

I haven't even listened to the thing and I don't think I will because I literally, physically feel nauseous about a lot of things surrounding this "movement". Acharia S? Really? Thumbs down, Peter, thumbs down. Get over this sort of nonsense. Stop this movement activism crap as well (Chapters?...) as if the free world is gonna end tomorrow and actually take some time to look into extremely complicated matters for 40 years before you open your mouth.

And I know the term is very broad and even I hate to use words like this but it's so clear to me that Peter just...is trying to do so many things at once, and he just creates this naive and simplistic road forward and wants…Ack!
The stupidity in a lot of these things is what’s making me stop typing now.

By the way, I asked him a question about skepticism, and first the didn't asnwer, but did talk about it in another question I had asked him. His response showed to me that he has abslutely no knowledge of the skepticism we see in the James Randi forums for example.
He responded what I was already expecting "I'm skeptical especially of the governemnt". I rolled my eyes and concluded he completely missed the point because he's ignorant of what I was asking him to address and look into.