July 31 2011

I want to take a moment to respond

to this 60 Minutes Brooklyn College edition news piece

that was put out by a student named Daniel Allen

under the guidance of some individuals from 60 Minutes.

I really enjoyed this piece, I have to be honest

because it really does represent the kind of expectation

we should have when any major media, meaning Western dominant media

will attempt to talk about Zeitgeist and The Zeitgeist Movement.

The very first thing to point out is the explicit non-separation

of the Zeitgeist film series from The Zeitgeist Movement itself.

The fun thing is that

the author of the work actually knows the difference but chose to take

the more commercial route (meaning the more mainstream avenue)

which utilizes sensationalism to capture its audience.

Let's remember that 60 Minutes, Fox News, these are entertainment venues.

They also have an agenda to push with a very fundamental association

to society: traditional culture.

As this piece went on, I was amazed

at how it contradicted itself in a certain strategy

so it would enable itself to take both my movie and analyze it

and also The Movement and analyze it

while unfortunately still meshing the two together

confusing the audience most thoroughly.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to quickly address

a lot of the common assumptions of this work

which I usually don't have time to address

because of how minor they really are in my mind.

But because of the issue of religion, because the issue

of the Jared Loughner incident and other things keep arising

(usually with those who have an axe to grind)

you can rest assured that those controversial notions

will be hit against us in the mainstream

if they ever chose to pay attention to us.

I'm going to take this opportunity to also quickly address

those issues as well. Lets begin.

Zeitgeist: It's a word you may have heard before.

Its origins are German, and if you've ever used it in a sentence

you know it refers to the spirit of the age.

What you may not know is that it's also the name

of a worldwide social movement spawned from a trilogy

of documentary films released on the Internet.

The goal of the movement is to live in a world without money

and to use technology to provide for basic human needs.

While their membership is explicitly non-violent

some of their ideas in their movies might make you uncomfortable.

(Joseph) The initial introduction was perfectly acceptable overall

but then he immediately jumps into the fallacy of my film association

to 'their' movies, meaning that these films represent The Zeitgeist Movement

not acknowledging that the two films of the current three

existed before The Movement was ever in operation.

One claims that Jesus never really existed

and that 9/11 was an inside job.

While they admit they don't have all the answers

they're always trying to spread the word to see if they can seduce you

into becoming a member of The Zeitgeist Movement.

(Joseph) And we're off with the completely erroneous definition

of what The Zeitgeist Movement represents which has nothing to do

with religion and nothing to do with 9/11.

Anybody with the diligent sense of research

could go to the FAQ of thezeitgeistmovement.com

and see the obvious disassociation with my films to the Movement.

They could even go to the Zeitgeist movies film series

my film series website, and see the complete disassociation.

You could also review every moment and every sentence

of all the materials ever put out via lecture and video

to see that absolutely no reference is ever made

to 9/11 or comparative religion.

If one was to search Youtube for all of our videos

which has about 11,000 returns, those produced by our members

never reference comparative religion or 9/11.

While religion in and of itself

is something that we speak about in our Orientation Guide

regarding functional spirituality, it has nothing to do with the subjects

described in Zeitgeist: The Movie (part one).

The reason the word zeitgeist is used is because of its actual definition.

The Zeitgeist Movement means we are interested in changing

the very cultural climate that seems to be destroying us

and that has to do with a lot of different interwoven notions

about what people believe and why and how they relate to the planet, etc.

It's like saying that The Zeitgeist Movement because of its name association

relates to Google Zeitgeist which is untrue as well.

(Journalist) We wanted to meet some of the estimated half million worldwide Zeitgeisters

and we started with their NYC chapter.

While the group spends their Sundays in the park, it's actually not

their most effective recruitment tool. Putting their message online

is what's transformed them into a global phenomenon.

Would-be followers can visit their website and download 3 films

that bear the group's name for free.

(Joseph) And it is here where the editorial officially divides

as it begins a full treatment on my first film

which again has nothing to do with The Zeitgeist Movement.

My film was produced in mid 2007

and the movement didn't materialize until very late 2008

and early 2009 after the release of Zeitgeist: Addendum.

(Journalist) The films are the work of Peter Joseph.

The musician and filmmaker debuted a performance art piece

in Brooklyn in 2007.

Some of the video projections that played behind him

formed the basis of the first film, a self-financed documentary

he called Zeitgeist: The Movie.

He was not available to speak with us in person, but in this 2010 interview

he details The Movement's earliest days.

(Joseph) "He details The Movement's earliest days."

It's very interesting again how the lines are crossed and blurred.

The Movement was an experimental concept after Zeitgeist Addendum

which is talked about, but anyone watching this would assume

that Zeitgeist: The Movie had an intent for such a thing.

Not in a million years when I produced that production

did I ever think or even want to begin

any type of social reaction to what was happening in the world

based on what was displayed in Zeitgeist: The Movie.

It wasn't even supposed to be a movie. It was just

a rather cathartic expression of myself which I expected to go nowhere.

(Joseph) What happened completely blew my mind!

(Journalist) According to Joseph, popularity of the movie grew far quicker

than he anticipated and it's not hard to see why.

The film is based on three very provocative claims;

the first is that Jesus Christ never really existed...

(Joseph) And then begins a rather long exposition of the first film.

(Journalist) The final claim put forward in the movie is that the root

of all evil in the world is money.

(Joseph) Actually, no. Zeitgeist: The Movie (part 3) had nothing to do

with the inherent problems with the monetary system as the 'root of all evil'.

It simply pointed out how money was used, how power and profit

was gained through various forms of social manipulation:

the Central Bank as a private bank cartel

the wars that are utilized as admitted

by General Smedly D. Butler of World War I

for industrial profit gain and all the shenanigans that go along with that

which is common knowledge to most people that are paying any attention.

It wasn't until the 2nd and 3rd film

that a deconstruction of the monetary market system was presented.

And this perspective of economics as a distortion of intent

as a producer of tremendous inefficiency is explicitly different

than what was communicated in Zeitgeist: The Movie (part 3).

(Journalist) Based here in lower Manhattan, the financial sector was just one

of the three targets set in the sights of the first Zeitgeist movie.

Since its release it's caused quite a stir, with several websites

springing up in an attempt to debunk the film

which has proved to be no easy task.

However one academic expert who knows her way around conspiracy theories

says the Zeitgeist movie may be nothing more than a little bit of bull.

(Joseph) I thought this editorial was about The Zeitgeist Movement

not my personal film series.

This gives way to more conflation and distortion

which I'll comment on as we go along.

(K. Olmsted) So I would say it's a grand conspiracy theory

linking three previous strands of conspiracy.

(Joseph) I don't know who this woman is or what grand conspiracy theory

she is talking about, but speaking as a filmmaker for a moment

unrelated to The Movement the first film talks about comparative religion:

how it developed over time as origin and how the political establishments

would utilize religions for their own betterment.

The 2nd part is simply looking at 9/11 from a different angle.

The government story is indeed a conspiracy theory though no one

would refer to the 9/11 Commission Report as a conspiracy theory commission report.

The 3rd part is simply about different elements of corruption

that have existed in the history of the US

with no grand conspiracy element to be found.

(Journalist) From her research she defined conspiracy theories

as simple ways to make sense of complicated circumstances

and sees why the first movie has been such a powerful recruitment tool.

(Joseph) First, of all the people I've met in The Movement

very rarely does anyone say

"I'm in The Movement because of the first movie."

They might say they learned about the film series initially

through the first movie which led to Zeitgeist: Addendum

and then they became more informed and motivated to try and see

some fundamental social change to assist in our progress.

The idea that this is a recruitment tool explicitly

is extremely misleading.

However I do agree that many people out there

turn to very simplistic forms of causality

(some will call it conspiracy theories) in order to explain complex events.

There are a lot of people today, such as in the Alex Jones camps

and many others, that see the entire world as being pulled through strings

and there's no causality in and of itself: It's just a bunch of groups.

For instance, rather than seeing the causality:

the monetary system, the pyramid scheme of debt

the historical origins of the development of this system

and how it's basically a self-destructive cancer

influencing the motivations of the population as a structural basis

it's much easier to say there's just some ruling, banking

New World Order Elite that's rigging everything

and they want to take down everything for some purpose

and that everything is calculated by some hidden group.

That is an idiotic way to view the world and is far from reality.

(K. Olmsted) It would make the movie more authoritative

if they didn't take these leaps from the undeniable to the unbelievable

but it also would make it less compelling.

I think part of the reason that so many people have watched it

and been taken in by it

is because it is proposing this grand theory

that explains everything.

(Joseph) Once again, as the filmmaker

I have no idea what the hell that's supposed to mean.

I suppose some could look at the entire film series

(which I doubt she's even seen) and could say

that since we focus on money as the root of many social problems

that that's the root of everything and that's actually not what we're saying.

We're just analyzing what the most important problem is

in trying to find a resolution for it.

As far as the film itself which she derails, there is a 220-page companion guide

with thousands of sources that goes into extreme detail

and has been unrefuted on the Internet

with all the people that claim to have debunked this movie.

It is quite possibly the most sourced film in history.

With all due respect, I don't have time to engage the naysayers anymore

because it's so exhausting and there's so many of them and the religious right

or the super-jingoistic patriots.

If I had the opportunity I could debate anybody

into a fetal position on these issues. I'm that confident

in the integrity of Zeitgeist: The Movie.

(Journalist) The group has chapters in all 50 states

and 49 countries around the world.

Their message has taken root in countries as far away

as Macedonia and Mongolia.

We've been told that there are upwards of 500,000 people

possibly following the movement talking about upwards of

millions of hits online on the movie.

Historically, where does that fit in