Zeitgeist, the Movie

[David Morris]

>From Boing Boing:

In three parts, Zeitgeist (which has no credits) attempts to show that
1) Christianity is rehashed pagan sun-worship and is used by the rich
and powerful to control people, 2) the 9/11 tragedies were part of an
elite conspiracy, and 3) ever since World War I, the ultra-rich have
been secretly manufacturing wars and financial collapses to control
the populace and to get richer and more powerful.

And:

Exactly who is behind the video is unclear, although someone with the
moniker of "Peter J." has posted an online letter claiming credit and
explaining Zeitgeist's message to those who may have somehow failed to
grasp the worldview that the video hammers home.

And what is that worldview, pray tell? Religions in general, and
Christianity in particular, are primarily systems of social control.
9/11 was an inside job and the destruction of the WTC twin towers and
building 7 were aided by controlled demolition. And finally,
International Bankers, through the Federal Reserve and the Council on
Foreign Relations (CFR), control our money and our future, leading to,
ta da, the coming One World Government and the microchipping of
everyone.

Exactly how all this fits together is left to the viewer's imagination
or, presumably, the film-maker's hash pipe. Are those who manipulate
Christianity for control purposes in cahoots with the Bankers, and
were the Bankers in on the 9/11 caper? Zeitgeist sidesteps such
logical questions through the use of the all-purpose term, "the
elite," a shadowy group of rich and powerful men who want nothing more
than to enslave humanity and reap block-buster profits through the
promotion of wars and financial crises.

For conspiracy buffs, this is all pretty standard fare, and, indeed,
aficionados of the genre will find little new in "Zeitgeist." The
notions that most religions were originally a kind of solar worship,
and that the Jesus Christ story recapitulated the mythos of numerous
other "dying gods," were floating around in the late 1700s. Fittingly,
the video features a quote from Thomas Paine reducing Christianity to
warmed-over sun worship, which was a daring bit of religion-baiting
200 years ago, albeit not so earth-shattering today.

The nefarious International Bankers meme has been propagating itself
since at least the mid-1800s and has long been a mainstay of radical
right-wing circles where it has often overlapped with mutterings about
Jewish cabals.

The 9/11 truth segment of the video is, of course, of much more recent
vintage, but, here too, it mostly repeats accusations that have gotten
widespread play in the uber-skeptic milieu.

Breaking new factual ground is not what Zeitgeist is about, however.
Rather, the video is a powerful and fast-acting dose of agitprop,
hawking its conclusions as givens. Unfortunately, like most
propaganda, it doesn't play fair with its intended audience. At times,
while watching it, I felt like I was getting Malcolm McDowell's
treatment in Clockwork Orange: eyes pried wide open while getting
bombarded with quick-cut atrocity photos.

At other times, Zeitgeist engages in willful confusion by showing TV
screen shots of network or cable news with voice-overs from
unidentified people not associated with the news programs. If one
weren't paying close attention, the effect would be to confer the
status and authority of TV news upon the words being spoken. Even when
quotes or sound bites are attributed to a source, there's no way to
tell if they are quoted correctly or in context.

Late in the video, there's a supposed quote from David Rockefeller,
which, if genuine, would be an astounding confession of complicity in
mass manipulation. But, of course, the quote is not sourced or dated,
which renders it useless. (The video's website does feature a Sources
page, but a hodge-podge list of books, with no page numbers cited, is
of little value for source verification.)

The over-all temper of the video is rather like the John Birch Society
on acid, with interludes by Harry Smith. Incongruously, after spending
nearly two hours trying to scare the bejeezis out of its viewers,
Zeitgeist ends on an oddly upbeat note, telling us that Love — not
Fear — is the answer, We are all One, and featuring sound-bites from
Ram Dass and Carl Sagan.