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October 12, 2008
While Zeitgeist challenged our perspectives on religion, the attacks of September 11th, and the formation and function of the Federal Reserve Bank, Zeitgeist Addendum dives deeply into our debt-based monetary system. It also comments on the media, corporations, energy use, consumerism, government, as well as religion. More importantly, perhaps, it also offers solutions.
“Zeitgeist was created in the hope that it will inspire people to start looking at the world from a more critical perspective, and to relay the understanding that very often things are not what the population at large think they are. The true understanding of events, both historical and modern, are crucial to the development, awareness and spirituality of the human condition.”
Featuring Jacque Fresco, Roxanne Meadows, Krishnamurti and John Perkins
Winner: Best Feature Artivist’s Spirit, Artivist Film Festival 2008
Website: http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com
Free download, or $5 for the DVD, at http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com
Released on October 2, 2008
123 minutes
Filmmaker Peter Joseph at the 2008 Artivist Film Festival
Artivist is the first international film festival and awards dedicated to addressing advocacy for human rights, children, the environment and animals. “Artivist is the premiere venue for advocate filmmakers to screen their cause related films,” said Diaky Diaz, President and Cofounder. “It’s an opportunity to raise awareness for the interdependence between humanity, animals, and the environment.” The 2008 Artivist Film Festival is touring the world through December 7th.
The film acknowledges the complaints of anti-civilizationists, but differs in its solutions. Instead of rejecting civilization with anger and destruction, Zeitgeist II rejects today’s form of civilization, offering a beautiful vision of what is possible without government, banks and corporations based in a profit-driven monetary system. It then offers concrete steps toward achieving this vision, transcribed below.
Zeitgeist II suggests that in order to achieve global sustainability, we need to develop “Weapons of Mass Creation.” The survival of the biosphere depends on “outgrowing” the dominant institutions that rule us through the fictitious creation of a monetary system. The majority of the world’s population comprehends the failure of capitalism, experientially if not intellectually. Its psychopathic pursuit of profit to the exclusion of all other values is hard to miss. Capitalism destroys everything it touches – water, air, soil, plants, animals, ecosystems, and landscapes, as well as human lives and cultures.
In the last fifteen minutes of the film, the narrator asserts the following suggestions amid images of Rosa Parks and the successful bus boycott that ended seating segregation in 1955:
“The system itself is based on competition which immediately destroys the possibility of large-scale collaborations for the common good, hence paralyzing any attempt at true global sustainability. These financial and corporate structures are now obsolete, and they must be outgrown… Peaceful yet highly strategic action must be taken. The most powerful course of action is simple: we have to alter our behavior to force the power structure to the will of the people. We must stop supporting the system. The only way the establishment will change is by our refusal to participate while continuously acknowledging its endless flaws and corruptions.”
Jacque Fresco then asserts:
“They’re not gonna give up the monetary system because of our designs of what we recommend. The system has to fail and people have to lose confidence in their elected leaders. That will be a major turning point if the Venus Project is offered as a possible alternative. If not, I fear the consequences. The trends now indicate that our country is going bankrupt. The probability is our country will move toward a military dictatorship to prevent riots and complete social breakdown.”
The film resumes its narration:
“As of now, the world financial system is on the brink of collapse due to its own shortcomings… [T]he fractional reserve based monetary system is reaching its theoretical limits of expansion and the banking failures you are seeing are just the beginning. This is why inflation is skyrocketing, all debt is at record levels, and the government and Fed are hemorrhaging new money to bail out the corrupt system. For the only way to keep the banks going is by making more money. The only way to make more money is to create more debt and inflation. It is simply a matter of time before the tables turn and there is no one willing to take new loans, while defaults grow as people are unable to afford their current loans. Then the expansion of money will stop and contraction will begin on a scale never before seen, ending a century-long pyramid scheme…
“Therefore we need to expose this financial failure for what it is, using this weakness to our advantage. Here are some suggestions [slightly paraphrased]:
1. Boycott Citibank, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America, the most powerful controllers in the corrupt Federal Reserve System. Expose the banking fraud. Move your money, credit cards or mortgages to other banks. If you own stock in them, sell it. If you work for them, quit. This gesture will express contempt for the powers behind the private banking cartel known as the Federal Reserve, and it will create awareness about the fraud of the banking system itself.
2. Boycott the news networks (CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, etc.) and visit the emerging independent news agencies on the internet for your information. With four corporations owning all the news media outlets, objective information is impossible. The true beauty of the internet is that the establishment has been losing control because of this free flow of information. We must protect the internet at all times, as it is truly our savior right now.
3. Boycott the military. Don’t ever allow yourself, your family, or anyone you know to join the military. This is an obsolete institution now used exclusively for maintaining an establishment that is no longer relevant. US soldiers work for US corporations, not the people. Propaganda forces us to believe that war is natural and the military is an honorable institution. Well, if war is natural, why are there eighteen suicides every day by veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder? If our military men and women are so honored, why is it that twenty-five percent of the American homeless population are veterans?
4. Boycott the energy corporations. If you live in a detached house, get off the grid. Investigate every means of making your home self-sustainable with clean energy. Solar, wind and other renewable energies are now affordable consumer realities. Considering the never-ending rising cost of traditional energies, it will likely be a cheaper investment over time. If you drive, get the smallest car you can and consider using one of the many conversion technologies that can enable your car to be a hybrid, electric, or run on anything other than establishment fuels.
5. Reject the political system. The illusion of democracy is an insult to our intelligence. In a monetary system, there is no such thing as a true democracy, and there never was. We have two political parties owned by the same set of corporate lobbyists. They are placed in their positions by the corporations, with popularity artificially projected by their media. In a system of inherent corruption, the change of personnel every couple of years has very little relevance. Instead of pretending that the political game has any true meaning, focus your energy on how to transcend this failed system.
6. Create critical mass. Join the movement. Go to our website and help us create the largest mass movement for social change the world has ever seen. We must mobilize and educate everyone about the inherent corruption of our current world system, along with the only true sustainable solution declaring all the natural resources on the planet as common heritage to all people, while informing everyone as to the true state of technology, and how we can all be free if the world works together rather than fights.
“The choice lies with you. You can continue to be a slave to the financial system and watch the continuous wars, depression, and injustice across the globe, while placating yourself with vain entertainment and materialistic garbage. Or, you can focus your energy on true, meaningful, lasting, holistic change, which actually has the realistic ability to support and free all humans, with no one left behind.
“But, in the end, the most relevant change must occur inside you. The real revolution is the revolution of consciousness. Each one of us first needs to eliminate the divisionary, materialistic noise we have been conditioned to think is true, while discovering, amplifying and aligning with the signal coming from our true, empirical oneness. It is up to you.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti again appears to close the film:
“What we are trying in all these discussions and talks here is to see if we cannot radically bring about a transformation of the mind. Not accept things as they are, but to understand it, examine it, study it, give your heart and your mind with everything that you have to find out a way of living differently.“But, that depends on you and not somebody else, because in this there is no teacher, no pupil. There’s no leader. There’s no guru. There’s no master, no savior. You yourself are the teacher and the pupil. You are the master. You are the guru. You are the leader. You are everything.
“To understand is to transform what is.”
Much thanks to WarOnYou for providing the VidzKing.com link to “Zeitgeist Addendum.”
Practical Populism 