Do please watch this :)

I am sure, some of you, if not most of you, have already seen this. Regardless, I would ask that you set aside 2 hrs. of your day, and watch it again.

Keep in mind, the idea of this request is not to insight a rabble rousing, or any kind of bashing of governments, or policies, but to take an objective view of your current situation, your current life, and, if you feel the need make adjustments accordingly.

If you do respond to this post: I do NOT want to hear anyone make a statement that is intentionally made to anger a specific group (any group). I would like a purely objective, and non-confrontational point of view.

Watch, listen, think. You all are Jedi here, or aspiring to be, let's get to it.

(No response is necessary, or in anyway required)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHiuaGJ46zo&feature=related

Enjoy

I think I will watch this when I get some time off, looks interesting. Thanks for pointing it out

Since I can only download a limited amount please tell us more about the link. Thanks!

I neglected to mention, and I attribute this to it being 2 am when I posted the original post, but my main focus of this is the 1st story. Hehe, the rest of it is relevant too though.

www.zeitgeistmovie.com

I've previously seen and loved the section about Jesus.

Check it out, folks, it makes a LOT of sense.

The Zeitgeist movies and slideshow are like dog biscuits- long and dry. Patience is required. If you can handle two guys in a library talking for hours about interesting stuff I guess you can handle Zeitgeist .

From an objective viewpoint, I really can't say that this movie is terribly productive. It uses emotional arguments and seems to imply that these are somehow more reasonable. It uses a pseudoscientific philosophical methodology to deconstruct Christianity, and is in fact just as unreasonable as the things it criticizes. Not being Christian, though, I'm really not sure about more than half of what it's talking about. I've read the Bible twice through, and I find plenty of truth, but also mistakes and contradictions. Focusing on the true principles which are expressed, and discounting the fluff and falsehoods, there is simply no reason to discount anything at the level of contempt which seems apparent on the part of the producers of Zeitgeist.

Objectively, this film is mediocre propaganda with a good level of research and an excellent emotional impact (but I have to say that it did not strike me as either reasonable or well-reasoned). The bias which is expressed is clearly against Christianity, and not against the actual foundation of religious organization.

The issue I take with this film is that it outright promotes an intolerant viewpoint, and the most positive lesson I can see is the positivist ideal of questioning everything. In this case, I must also question the question, because emotion should never be confused with reason: skepticism is an emotional response, not a rational one. The \"prove it\" mechanism of the movie promotes an unhealthy level of skepticism and drives the true-believers even farther into their unquestioning belief (which is also unhealthy, IMO). The true method of promoting an idea is to allow it to rest on the laurels of its own merits. Trying to force skepticism or disbelief serves to further the internal drive to discount the message of the film, which is one that I nonetheless agree with in spite of my misgivings and my understanding of the generally-unreasonable position from which the arguments are made to support the claims.

The United States was made to prevent the kinds of rampant abuses against individuals that government had perpetrated in the past. The problem is, people only see a certain part of the picture. Said Andrew Jackson:

\"... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.\"

(Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334)

This implies to me that the solution is not propaganda, nor even the ongoing war between science and religion, but education about what is real. If you are unwilling to accept my viewpoint, that doesn't mean that I'm wrong... but if I'm misinformed about something, I don't mind being corrected by provable fact. That the claim exists that Christ never existed is a sign of desperation, as the common acceptance among various religions (including the Johnists, who believe that Christ \"stole\" John's doctrines and spread them for his own glorification, the Muslims, the Jews, and dozens of other groups in the region) implies that the person did indeed exist. The fact is, there is no documentation that the Roman Empire actually attacked Egypt and sacked the Great Library... what we have are secondhand accounts at best, and the fact that the Great Library was destroyed. So, even with that, how can we accept one of the accepted turning points in the progress of human society?

Being purely objective, one cannot negate the existence of a thing simply by its lack of evidence; and by the same token one cannot accept a thing without some form of evidence--not merely questions, not merely ideas, and not even the presence of evidence which doesn't relate directly. One cannot judge present performance by the performance of the past. And one cannot accurately predict future events simply by looking at the trajectory of the past through the present--unexpected events are the rule, not the exception.

But even with this being true, we cannot negate the subjective, either. What we each experience leads us to believe that something is true or not. That truth is personal. It is experiential. In trying to convince people that what they experience is untrue, we ultimately discredit ourselves. But if the argument is not one of experience, but of objective reality, then we must be completely certain that no counterargument can be valid.

There are multiple viewpoints which are valid. Zeitgeist is equally valid (whether true or not) with Christianity, as is the case with any of the plethora of other religious beliefs in the world--even Jediism.

The idea of organized religion being wrong is one that I myself had for many years. But the object in such a case is not that the fact of organization is wrong, but that the organizers did not themselves espouse the ideals which they expressed to those who followed them. They did not believe what they preached; it was not a guiding principle.

And the same is true of politics: time and again, we see US politicians going after the campaign funds which can get them into office, usually saying or doing anything they can, and so monetary support is what currently determines who gets office. Even in the EU elections last year, there was beginning to be this tendency: currency, and not reason or principle, reigns supreme.

The purpose of government in a democracy is to serve the people. But in serving, they have taken a superior role, relying on their power to pass laws to determine what direction our population should go--disservice, rather than service. Democracy accepts dissent as a natural byproduct, and the only way that dissent can operate in a productive capacity is when all of the facts are considered, including the internal workings of each individual. Democracy, and not ochlocracy. It is not simply \"majority rules\" but \"service to the people, for the people, by members of the population.\" Where politicians do not allow access to their time and service.

To correct this, the solution is very simple. But the real issue is that people have lost the idea of the purpose of having a political institution (such as political parties, governments, etc.). Political institutions which have been democracies (even in our democratic republic with its representative democracy mechanisms) have always been founded on high ideals, but short-lived because people don't want to take out time to address things which people do hundreds or thousands of miles away... even when those things directly affect their ability to do what they want to.

Movies such as Zeitgeist tend to make people want to separate, rather than question; divide, rather than unify; and tend to be negative overall in both tone and impact. I would consider it, therefore, a perfect tool for recruiting strong Christians who are blind to any level of propaganda, rather than encouraging any but those who are already questioning to continue to do so. What is needed is something that rests not on the irrational form of skepticism, nor on belief (whether for or against), but on rationality and reason.

Question authority, including those authorities who demand that authority be questioned.

Correction:

\"Where politicians do not allow access to their time and service, we cannot accept that they are acting in our best interests, because too many unanswered questions give those who oppose such authority too much ability to detract from any good which might be accomplished.\"

Zeitgeist's expression of the horrors of 9/11/2001 are clearly uninformed, poorly-researched, and biased wherever the research has been accomplished.

The ideas involved in Zeitgeist's reporting the conspiracy revolving around the events of September 11, 2001, neatly ignore thousands of eyewitness accounts (and talk about hundreds of other accounts which are unconvincing when compared to the others), and seems to imply that the relationship between the Bin Ladens and the Bushes is somehow improper (though the son, Osama bin Laden, was officially disowned by the family some time in the 1990's, according to other news reports). While I have no love of Bush's policies or personal political stances (as I am opposed to fascism), the fact stands that a business relationship was established as early as 1978, and this was not at all brought up to balance the story in Zeitgeist.

Objectively, the facts for the portion on the 911 conspiracy are distorted because of the high level of secrecy involved surrounding the events. It was later discovered that there was, in fact, warning given regarding the attack, but it was discounted as unreliable because of the history involving the particular sources with regard to the level of information they typically provided. That they offered a warning at all is a sign that the US didn't take it seriously. They operated using the best information they had at the time, and there just weren't enough facts.

In the film it seems to try to paint the idea that there was no connection to bin Laden or al-Qaeda, yet bin Laden himself not only claimed responsibility for the attack, he seemed to have intimate detail of the planning before all of it came to light.

The claim that it is \"scientifically impossible\" for a plane to disintegrate to dust is expressed as fact, when it is opinion. A group of self-selected students in England showed that there was, in fact, ample evidence of metal debris, airline wheels, chairs, and other large pieces of the aircraft removed within 9 hours of the event at the Pentagon. Soil and gravel were poured on the lawn, \"covering up forensic evidence\" (as one author put it from the movie), but also to soak up the liquid jet fuel which still covered the area. This was decided after three members of the FBI began having breathing problems in conjunction with their presence in the area.

Every video which showed the plane crashing into the Pentagon was confiscated by the FBI... why? One possibility might be that these videos were considered part of the investigation, so that they could see if there was a pattern of activity. And, when there was no pattern of activity, the FBI (under the Bush administration) was not required to return them, so they were destroyed without thinking. The FBI doesn't care what a few rabble-rousing conspiracy theorists write on some web sites, and certainly didn't expect anyone to call them to task over a few VHS tapes, when it was clear what happened from the one tape that the Pentagon released (showing a 737 jet crashing into an obscured side of the building.

Another possibility might be the fact that if analysis of the video of the crash was revealed, structural flaws would be discovered which would lead to another attack (whether by the same group or a copycat).

Yet another possibility might be that it was standard procedure in the event of a crash to collect anything which might show it, but that such video lacked utility in the investigation because it didn't shed any additional light on the nature of the crash: \"Yep, it's a plane crash. We have everything we need already.\"

In fact, the only portion which seems suspicious at all was not addressed in Zeitgeist: the entire wing of the Pentagon which the plane struck was empty, as it was prior to the beginning of the construction day. Did the pilot know which side to strike? And if so, how? And if he did, why did he take a plane filled with passengers into the side of an empty section of the building? The only answer that even remotely presents itself is one of demoralizing our population.

Several quotations are given for the crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 took a nose dive into the ground. Yet they don't really characterize the intent of the statements very well, taking them out of context and painting them in a light that implies that Flight 93 did not, contrary to the Cleveland Tower Control tapes, drop below radar in that area, but instead simply disappeared and a huge truck instead dug a hole and put pieces of metal on top of it. That it took them 2 weeks to extract the tail section flight recorder after they found it (6 feet below the bottom of the 15-foot hole in the muddy Earth), and like the Pentagon, the debris was in small pieces.

They compare the images to a horizontal plane crash in Nigeria, when the angles weren't even similar, nor the surface soil, nor even the weather conditions were similar or the same.

I almost expected them to talk about the \"white jet\" which was a Fairchild Falcon 20 private jet piloted by a man named Yager Caldwell.

They next focus on WTC 1, 2, and 7. This is not a subject I can discuss because of PTSD surrounding that location. But I disagree wholeheartedly with the conclusions that Zeitgeist's producers have expressed. While there is a good deal of questionable activity surrounding that particular site, none of it was brought up, and instead Zeitgeist seems to be focusing on the Michael Moore theory, which I find anything but credible because of the lack of attention paid to the details, and the obvious intent to profit through the suffering of others. My own suffering in this regard has been going on 8.5 years next month, because I actually knew someone who was killed there. I find such uninformed rumor-mongering counterproductive and offensive. But from a more objective perspective, this kind of retelling is precisely the kind of myth that they are talking about. While it may be an alternative to the official story, it by no means answers the unanswered questions. What it does do, on the other hand, is to detract from the really important questions.

The next issue I have is the criticisms of both sides of the fighter-jet interception of the hijacked aircraft. However, because this is already long enough that I'm worried about space, I'll skip it for now. Suffice it to say the same issues of detracting from real concerns while focusing on minutiae continues to exist.

The author they cite, John Lumpkin, is currently working on science fiction. It's great stuff!

The next bit about the 911 commission... more was wrong with the commission than was right to begin with. The focus on the statement that the money is of \"no consequence\" is basically smoke and mirrors: of course it is consequential, but that report originated before we even went into Iraq, and so any revelation that it was important would have tipped our hand. Sun Tzu said: \"All warfare is based on deception.\" The 911 Commission wasn't a fact-finding body, and should never have been characterized as one. It was, in fact, essentially a group of people whose job it was to settle the public and put the enemy at ease (at that time, the Bush administration seemed to be placing the general public in the same category as \"enemy\" in practice, even if not in word).

Building 7's collapse was outside of the 911 Commission's scope, as it was neither a part of the terrorist plot nor important to the conclusions regarding the tactics used to create the holes in security that caused the failure of the system to foresee that any attack was imminent. Any focus on Building 7 at this point is moot anyway.

They next attack the Bush administration (specifically Bush and Cheney) regarding their lack of transparency regarding the issue. The Bush administration typically lacked transparency, and so this is not surprising, but it is one of the questions which I think might actually be valid.

But they later say that if there were any issues on the part of any member of the 911 Commission, that fact would be dropped from the report. Building 7 may have been one of those controversies.

The next statement is that the 911 Commission was a \"false flag\" operation, and while I tend to agree, I do so for entirely different reasons than those expressed by the author... Bush was not an Imperialist; he was a Fascist. He didn't want an empire; he wanted to protect his money, and carefully merged the interests of government with those of large corporations--a practice that seems to be continuing today.

The producers next imply that overuse of the word \"terrorist\" was used to inspire fear. But oddly, the field of psychology would call this \"systematic desensitization\" and so anyone who is called a \"terrorist\" would have less of an impact. On a broad scale, this is actually a very smart tactic. It causes people to be able to remember, but to push away negative emotions associated with it. But by the same token, the way it was used against Congress inspired fear... fear of Congress losing its job. Just one term later, most of the politicians who fell for it weren't re-elected. It's odd, it's backwards, but this shows that it was effective--or does it?

In truth, what it shows is that the American public is smart enough to be able to get over this horrific event, and is able to reason for itself. They aren't fooled by the \"Monstrous Myth\" of the War on Terror. By earlier definition, it is therefore not a myth, but merely one of a long string of lies that Bush has perpetrated--this time a lie of consequence and action, rather than word or intent.

The next part about the anti-terror legislation and the apparent collusion between the FBI and a terrorist to pass legislation which would result in the suspension of the civil liberties of citizens doesn't make sense.

The pointing out immediately afterward of the July 7th bombing of the tube stations and the bus in 2005 in London seems to try to imply that this is a collusion, since the same exercises are being carried out. This compares to the 9/11 training exercises. What this does point out is that there were, in fact, elements within which were supplying the terrorists with information about the exercises. This implies to me that the terrorists had either successfully placed operatives in the operational groups involved in the exercises, or that they had recruited assets through any of a variety of means. It doesn't necessarily point to collusion, in spite of the exposure of collusion between FBI agents and bombers in 1993 and 1995. The successive nature of these elements implies a connection where one is not clearly made.

The \"911 Truth\" is not what was stated, though the case is strong (and far from airtight). In truth, we simply don't know everything that happened that day, and probably never will. Was it an inside job? I haven't seen enough evidence to say it was, nor have I seen enough to see it wasn't. That there are still unanswered questions which would be easily answerable in the time they were asked simply shows that Zeitgeist's aim is not to answer these questions, but to convince others that their answer and the twisting of their own \"facts\" is in fact justified by the fact that the government did it first.

I am at this point just over halfway through the movie, and I am forced to conclude the following, based on both the facts I have found through my own research and the facts as they are presented in this film:

The Zeitgeist Movement is an institution bent on destructive aims, rather than on the implied aims of responsibility of those in authority to answer for the things which they did wrong. They are the very thing they preach against, in spite of the fact that they have no centralized leader. They aim to pull down government and religion. They claim that reason is skepticism. It simply isn't, and cannot be, because it is an emotional response to disbelief. They don't want a system; they want the dismantling of power.

But history is a better teacher than that. I thus consider them misinformed dissenters, curable only with provable fact. But with a lack of faith, and a lack of ability to accept the lessons of history (if their lacking research into Jesus was any indication) or that any portion of history can be seen as anything but a lie.

It is for this reason that I have never been able to finish watching the film. I view it as not only destructive, but dangerous to the well-being of its adherents. The film is in itself a lie.

But some facts are very good, salient, and valid. It's simply an incomplete picture.

I refuse to continue watching on the grounds that the film is perfect rubbish, of very little true value to me, emotionally upsetting (due to the PTSD issue), and counterproductive to the aims of truly getting people to think. There are better ways, and more effective ways. I can't watch it because it is offensive to see such self-glorifying tripe being held up as a means of getting people to think and question.

In short, this whole film, up to the 1 hour and 10 minutes in that I can bear to watch, is self-gratifying, misinformed, propagandist bullshit.