Zeitgeist - The Ultimate Conspiracy Theory

By James Donahue

Americans that still possess the ability to think and reason are obviously in some agreement that something has gone drastically wrong with their government, their way of life and the insane direction the so-called "leaders" of the country are taking us. Some say this has been the reason so many wild conspiracy theories have weaved their way into the fabric of American mythology.

Now the trilogy of documentaries - Zeitgeist: The Movie, Zeitgeist: Addendum and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward - appears to have connected the dots. Directed by Peter Joseph, an independent filmmaker and social activist, the films give viewers a shocking look at the way monetary institutions, religion, corporations and corrupted governments have enslaved humanity. The films also closely examine the lifelong work of architect and social engineer Jacque Fresco and his Venus Project as an alternative solution to the situation humanity presently endures.

The second and final films promote The Zeitgeist Movement, a nonprofit organization founded by Joseph in 2008, that advocates an abolition of money and private property and promotes a global socioeconomic system, much like the Venus Project, in which all resources are shared. The ideas advanced by Fresco propose a complete restructuring of cities, with robots doing most manual labor on industrial assembly lines. Without money all that people need in life is provided without charge. This, in turn, will give people the freedom to pursue their personal bliss in life, doing creative things, inventing new ideas.

Among the more shocking aspects of the Zeitgeist Trilogy is the accusation that the world monetary system is controlled by a secret organization of people who manipulate the distribution of money, control governments and maintain the current system of forced labor for monetary and materialistic reward.

The world religious systems . . . especially Christianity . . . are attacked as ancient mythological stories designed in an attempt to explain the mysteries of the world but maintained today as a tool to invoke fear and keep humanity in a constant state of enslavement and warfare.

Zeitgeist also argues that the 9-11 attacks were "an inside job" designed to put Americans in a state of shock and allow for the stripping of Constitutional freedoms and give the military a cause to declare wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. It also maintains that the declared terrorist organization al-Qaeda has been a government fabrication based on Afghan freedom fighters the United States secretly financed to help drive the Russians out of that country in the 1980s. Active in that group was Osama bin Laden.

The films suggest that the main interest corporations had in Afghanistan was the fact that the country is one of the world’s largest suppliers of opiates used in the production of pain killers and narcotics like heroin. We attacked Afghanistan after the Taliban rose to power and began cutting the production of the poppy plants from which the opium is harvested. Thus our war in Afghanistan has been against the Taliban all along. The belief that el-Qaeda terrorists were the real enemy was a lie.

Both wars also opened the door for big corporations like Halliburton to get involved and profit from cleaning up the mess made by the bombings and disruptions of the infrastructures. In fact, war has become America’s primary business since the massive military industrial complex came into existence during World War II.

Fresco, who offers a lot of dialogue in the second film, maintains that warnings about the world running out of natural resources is another lie designed to force the price of these resources up. He says the world is rich in free natural energy and enough resources for everyone to share and live together in peace and comfort.

The second film, Zeitgeis: Addendum, asks watchers to join the Zeitgeis Movement and participate in a general boycott of the most powerful banks in the Federal Reserve System, stop watching television news, avoid participation and support of the military and invest in alternative green energy systems.

Naturally the Zeitgeis documentaries have had their critics. Some of the major publications like the New York Times and Huffington Post attacked the concept they described as "utopianism" and reduced work incentives without monetary reward. They also ridiculed the theory that the 9-11 attacks were a conspiracy.

The publication Journal of Contemporary Religion described the Zeitgeis attack on Christianity as a "synthesis of New Age spirituality."

Writer Michelle Goldberg in a critique published in Tablet Magazine said the film was "steeped in far-right, isolationist and covertly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories" and called the Zeitgeist movement "the world’s first Internet-based cult."

The most severe attack is found in a website called Skeptic Project. An entire section of this site is dedicated to picking apart all of the claims made by the three documentaries piece-by-piece. It’s author, an unknown personality who identifies himself as Edward L. Winston, claims that everything in the films are "outrageous and completely unfounded."

Winston concludes that "the film is 99.999 percent a complete lie, complete farce, made up garbage."

We believe that Mr. Winston posted his work in a wild attempt to force people to question the theories outlined by Peter Joseph and to turn away from joining the Zeitgeist Movement.

We highly recommend that everybody watch these three films, listen to Joseph’s arguments and the propositions offered by others like Jacques Fresco who appear in the films, before deciding for themselves. If you can’t rent the films, you can watch them on line without charge.

We guarantee, once you have seen Joseph’s work, you will never look at the world in the same way.