Quote
rrmoderator
VTV:

I have not agreed to do your radio show.

We spoke very briefly by phone and I suggested if you have issues with posts at this message board you can exercise free speech and respond.

But there are rules at this message board, which you agreed to before posting here.

Personal attacks directed at members of this board is a violation of those rules.

If you wish to make a point and respond please do so without name calling or personal attacks.

Pardon, but what personal attacks? Can you please quote specifically what your talking about? I never attacked him.

I also did not say you agreed to do my radio show. I said you probably would.

Thirdly, just to point out how silly this is, according to the person I am conversing with here because your full name and all of your financial records are not given here are you part of an abusive cult? :)

Homeschooling, Unschooling Deschooling are hot topics and Zeitgeist Movement is makign its contributions

Run Google searches on Zeitgeist movement and homeschooling

[www.google.com]

Do you home school? V-RADIO wants you! - The Zeitgeist MovementThe Zeitgeist Movement. Do you home school? V-RADIO wants you! (1/1) - Public
Forum in English - NEWS - The Zeitgeist Movement Forum.
[thezeitgeistmovement.com] - 64k - Cached - Similar pages


Vote Now {Homeschooling vs. Public Schools} - The Zeitgeist MovementThe Zeitgeist Movement. Vote Now {Homeschooling vs. Public Schools} (1/1 ...
[www.thezeitgeistmovement.com] - 95k - Cached - Similar pages


[Idea] Investing and exploring human potential through children ...The Zeitgeist Movement. [Idea] Investing and exploring human potential ...
[www.thezeitgeistmovement.com] - 121k - Cached - Similar pages


Zeitgeist Movement | Feed The FutureWhat would have to happen for all people to have access to shelter, free energy,
home-grown, seasonal nutritious food, wellness, home-school education, ...
[www.pierresoleil.com] - 51k - Cached - Similar pages


58000 students get Leaving Cert results - The Zeitgeist Movement ...The Zeitgeist Movement - Official Chapter. 58000 students get Leaving Cert ...
if it would not be better to home school your kids ... btw does anyone know ...
[www.thezeitgeistmovement.ie] - 82k - Cached - Similar pages

and then
run searches on Zeitgeist Movement and unschooling or deschooling


One person wrote this

Quote


[fightingsharks.blogspot.com]

We are a freedom loving family of six who are in the process of deschooling everything they know. Our goal is to become free range humans and cut out the bull shit.

Thursday, February 3, 2011
Anyone heard of the Zeitgeist Movement?
How about the Venus Project?

The Zeitgeist Movement is what ultimately led us into the "unschooling" path. The Movement has completely shattered everything I ever believed to be true and ultimately made me rethink everything. Therefore, I seriously began to re-think my own worldview and exactly what I had been teaching my children. We are now learning and amassing great amounts of knowledge we had never thought to tap before. I just showed my 16 year old son the newest Zeitgeist movie in order to help deschool what has been drilled into him since Kindergarten about the American Government process and how we as modern people live and are destroying ourselves. The Zeitgeist Movement has three other movies on Youtube, one concerning religion that I am with-holding for the time being. I agree with it but I think it is going to be a great confusion to all my kids if I show it now.

This movie, along with the documentary, "Collapse" is extremely thought-provoking. If you are ready for a completely different documentary experience and possibly a change in the way you think, view these movies!

Ivan Illich is apparently a favorite author for persons interested in unschooling, whether in Zeitgeist Movement or not.

[www.google.com]

Keepin' It Real: De-schoolingJan 25, 2011 ... De-schooling. So, we are new to the unschool idea and it shows. I am constantly
having anxiety .... Anyone heard of the Zeitgeist Movement? ...
[fightingsharks.blogspot.com] - 121k - Cached - Similar pages


Keepin' It Real: Anyone heard of the Zeitgeist Movement?Feb 3, 2011 ... The Zeitgeist Movement is what ultimately led us into the ... 16 year old son
the newest Zeitgeist movie in order to help deschool what has ...
[fightingsharks.blogspot.com] - 149k - Cached - Similar pages


Keepin' It RealFeb 23, 2011 ... The Zeitgeist Movement is what ultimately led us into the ... 16 year old son
the newest Zeitgeist movie in order to help deschool what has ...
[fightingsharks.blogspot.com] - 204k - Cached - Similar pages


Conspiracy | Tag Archive | deschoolingMore deschooling. The Anti-Educational Effects of Public Schools | by ... fo on
Zeitgeist Movement Is A Scam – Venux Operating System is A Joke – CIA Vs. ...
[www.conspiracy.me] - 36k - Cached - Similar pages


Views on vaccinations - The Zeitgeist MovementThe Zeitgeist Movement. Views on vaccinations (12/20) - Public Forum in ...
books that Ivan Illich wrote including Medical Nemesis, and Deschooling Society.
...
[thezeitgeistmovement.com] - 142k - Cached - Similar pages


DESCHOOLING SOCIETY Torrent :: Page 7 :: OneBigTorrent.orgDownload 'DESCHOOLING SOCIETY', find Torrent downloads matching 'DESCHOOLING ...
Prezentacja celów Ruchu Zeitgeist - The Zeitgeist Movement Orientation Pr.. ...
[onebigtorrent.org] - 79k - Cached - Similar pages


Search | Films For ActionThe Zeitgeist Movement is not a political movement. It does not recognize
nations, governments, .... Words by Ivan Illich, author of Deschooling Society.
...
[www.filmsforaction.org] - 152k - Cached - Similar pages


CredentialismDeschooling Society by Ivan Illich, 1971. Disabling Professions by Ivan Illich
et al., 1977. ... Who is Peter Joseph of the Zeitgeist Movement? 1/6 [HD] ...
[wn.com] - 147k - Cached - Similar pages


Credentialism | TripAtlas.com''Deschooling Society'' by Ivan Illich, 1971. ... Who is Peter Joseph of the
Zeitgeist Movement? 2/6 [HD] · Who is Peter Joseph? ...
[tripatlas.com] - 29k - Cached - Similar pages


Can We Engineer a Bloodless Revolution?Aya - I am not a spokesman for the Zeitgeist movement. .... I'm mostly citing
here is Tools for Conviviality, and to a lesser extent Deschooling Society. ...
[hubpages.com] - 195k - Cached - Similar pages

"Deschooling wasn't perhaps the best idea to offer village people who had been barely schooled."

However, to balance Ivan Illitch and his unschooling, Corboy advises concerned readers to obtain a copy of VS Naipaul's book, Among the Believers read the concerns of a man who visited one of the Indonesian pesantren--village boading schools Illitch had visited and had gone on to recommend to readers as a model of deschooling.

Quote

The pesantren had the additional glory at that time of having been visited by the educationist Ivan Illich and pronounced good examples of the "deschooling" he favored. Deschooling wasn't perhaps the best idea to offer village people who had been barely schooled. But because of Illich's admiration the pesantren of Indonesia seemed to be yet another example of Asia providing an unexpected light, after the obfuscations of colonialism. And a young businessman of Jakarta, a supporter of Mr. Wahid's, arranged for me to visit pesantren near the city of Yogyakarta. One of the pesantren was Mr. Wahid's own; it had been established by his family.

There had followed two harrowing days: looking for the correct places first of all, moving along crowded country roads between crowded school compounds: usually quiet and sedate at the entrance, but then all at once: mobs of jeering boys and young men, some of them relaxed, in sarongs alone, breaking off from domestic chores to follow me, some of the mob shouting, "Illich! Illich!"

With that kind of distraction I wasn't sure what I was seeing, and I am sure I missed a lot. But deschooling didn't seem an inappropriate word for what I had seen. I didn't see the value of young villagers assembling in camps to learn village crafts and skills which they were going to pick up anyway.

And I was worried by the religious side: the very simple texts, the very large classes, the learning by heart, and the pretense of private study afterwards. In the crowded yards at night I saw boys sitting in the darkness before open books and pretending to read..

Naipaul was concerned that if young persons lacked the background of a deep and stable culture, a culture deeper than village life could offer, deschooling would leave them in social and intellectual poverty and undercut the whole purpose of education.

One cannot deschool if a person has had little or no education in the first place and has had little training in manners and reflective, critical thought.

VS Naipaul grew up marginalized in an Indian family in Trinidad. He had had to fight desperately to leave village life in Trinidad, battle his way to the United Kingdom and then work yet harder to obtain a university education and the ability to think, write and reflect consciously and then locate himself in the world of ideas and later, ponder how to make sense of himself as a man at the edge of three worlds--Western Third World, India, and Britain.

Radio Frequency ID Tracking Chip

or...RFID Tracking Chip

(Repeat three times fast)

In the context of where Zeitgeist Movement stands in relation to other ideologies, one discussant on another forum suggested ZM was a watered down version of a 70 year old ideology called Technocracy Inc

Quote


[www.revleft.com]

Zeitgeist Movement Discussion Tools

DeLeonist
20th March 2009 20:24
DeLeonist
Hi There

I just joined your group. I am interested in a green-left perspective and the use of technology to liberate humanity.

I was wondering what you folk thought of the [www.thezeitgeistmovement.com]

They have some nutty and naive tendencies, but they are hugely popular with 250,000 members apparently and more than 30,000 visits a day.

I think there could be considerable merit for the Green-Left tendency to form alliances with the Zeitgeist movement.
Quote
bellyscratch
26th March 2009 18:05
bellyscratch
They seem to have a pretty distorted view on communism which would need to be addressed before any alliance could be made I think. I'm not entirely convinced by some of the points they put across either from the stuff I've seen. I don't think we can entirely dismiss them though as they are trying to look for some sort of alternative to the current system and have a large following
Quote
Technocrat
21st April 2009 16:41
Technocrat
The zeitgeist movement is a watered-down version of the same thing Technocracy, Inc came up with more than 70 years ago, except it lacks any kind of scientific background and is based mainly around speculation as far as I can tell. Plus the whole chipping thing is kind of weird. They do have one thing going for them, and that is marketing.
Quote
Discussion Tools
Mark This Discussion Read

Was curious about 'the whole chipping thing'

[www.google.com]

Quote

THAT F****** RFID TRACKING CHIP!!!!!!! - The Zeitgeist MovementThe Zeitgeist Movement. THAT F****** RFID TRACKING CHIP!!!!!!! (2/6) - Public
Forum in English - HUMANITIES - The Zeitgeist Movement Forum.
[thezeitgeistmovement.com] - 113k - Cached - Similar pages


THAT F****** RFID TRACKING CHIP!!!!!!! - The Zeitgeist MovementThe Zeitgeist Movement. THAT F****** RFID TRACKING CHIP!!!!!!! (4/6) - Public
Forum in English - HUMANITIES - The Zeitgeist Movement Forum.
[www.thezeitgeistmovement.com] - Similar pages


Radio-frequency identification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaZeitgeist The Movie presented RFID chips as a negative technology, ... Some
conceptualize a future where every movement is tracked by the government. ...
[en.wikipedia.org] - 275k - Cached - Similar pages


PHOENIX AQUUA: Zeitgeist RevisitedDec 11, 2009... please know that the RFID tracking chip is already in all new American
passports. .... Zeitgeist the Addendum · The Zeitgeist Movement ...
[phoenixaquua.blogspot.com] - 315k - Cached - Similar pages


Zeitgeist, the movie Debunked - Part Three - Zeitgeist Exposed ...Nov 29, 2007 ... That is until you release the people behind this movement are the same .... the
RFID tracking chip is already in all new American passports. ...
[conspiracyscience.com] - 128k - Cached - Similar pages


It's time to wake up | FacebookMovies such as Zeitgeist, Wake up Call and Loose change have begun to spread
what has ... FACT: RFID tracking chip is already in ALL NEW AMERICAN PASSPORTS
...
[www.facebook.com] - 57k - Cached - Similar pages

In the context of where Zeitgeist Movement stands in relation to other ideologies, one discussant on another forum suggested ZM was a watered down version of a 70 year old ideology called Technocracy Inc

Quote


[www.revleft.com]

Zeitgeist Movement Discussion Tools

DeLeonist
20th March 2009 20:24
DeLeonist
Hi There

I just joined your group. I am interested in a green-left perspective and the use of technology to liberate humanity.

I was wondering what you folk thought of the [www.thezeitgeistmovement.com]

They have some nutty and naive tendencies, but they are hugely popular with 250,000 members apparently and more than 30,000 visits a day.

I think there could be considerable merit for the Green-Left tendency to form alliances with the Zeitgeist movement.
Quote
bellyscratch
26th March 2009 18:05
bellyscratch
They seem to have a pretty distorted view on communism which would need to be addressed before any alliance could be made I think. I'm not entirely convinced by some of the points they put across either from the stuff I've seen. I don't think we can entirely dismiss them though as they are trying to look for some sort of alternative to the current system and have a large following
Quote
Technocrat
21st April 2009 16:41
Technocrat
The zeitgeist movement is a watered-down version of the same thing Technocracy, Inc came up with more than 70 years ago, except it lacks any kind of scientific background and is based mainly around speculation as far as I can tell. Plus the whole chipping thing is kind of weird. They do have one thing going for them, and that is marketing.
Quote
Discussion Tools
Mark This Discussion Read

Finally, someone said ZM reminded him or her of something 70 years past called Technocracy Inc.

Here are some citations in case anyone is interested in seeing whether ZM is in any way similar to what futurologists were pondering back in the 1930s.

[www.google.com]

This article has a summary of Technocracy and its history and lists Jacque Fresco

[webcache.googleusercontent.com]

One concern listed is this

Quote

It may be argued that although perfect scientific management would result in good governance, the limitations of human managers will produce imperfect management, which might be less efficient than other systems like democracy. Poor governance might result from abuse of power, managers' limited knowledge of the system, and internal conflict among decision-makers, for example. Of course, these arguments have never been tested with respect to technocracy per se, as no nation-scale technocracy has been implemented.

[conspiracyscience.com]

and

[conspiracyscience.com]

[www.talk2action.org]

Loughner, “Zeitgeist - The Movie,” and Right-Wing Antisemitic Conspiracism

Chip Berlet
Fri Jan 14, 2011 at 09:29:46 AM EST

A friend of Jared Lee Loughner says that the alleged shooter in the Tucson terror attack was impressed by “Zeitgeist - The Movie,” one of the most popular conspiracy videos posted on the Internet. Since about a third of the video concerns conspiracy theories about the 9/11 terror attacks, right-wing pundits have been quick to label “Zeitgeist - The Movie” left-wing propaganda.

This is a leap too far. It is true that some on the Political Left have embraced the “9/11 Truth Movement,” but so have some on the Political Right, and a lot of folks with confused political ideas.

At its core, however, “Zeitgeist - The Movie,” is driven by a replication of longstanding right-wing antisemitic conspiracy theories about the so-called “International Bankers,” a phrase long associated by bigots with the Rothschild, Warburg, and Schiff banking families. Cue the Jew Banker rant.

In many ways the 9/11 conspiracy theories in “Zeitgeist - The Movie,” are bait used to attract viewers from the 9/11 Truth Movement and others who embrace conspiracist thinking to the idiosyncratic anti-religion views of the videographer and the world of right-wing antisemitic theories of a global banking conspiracy.

In a long review of Zeitgeist - The Movie, Jay Kinney on the Tech/Culture site boingboing in August 2007 notes that the video's worldview is that:

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.

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 over-all temper of the video is rather like the John Birch Society on acid, with interludes by Harry Smith.

Brian Dunning in his negative review on Skeptoid in March 2010 observed “asserts the existence of what Joseph believes is a worldwide conspiracy of international bankers, who are directly responsible for causing all wars in the past century as a way to earn profits.”

In the orbit of the John Birch Society, the phrase international bankers is avoided and replaced with the phrase “The Insiders.” The Birchers trace the conspiracy back to the Illuminati/Freemason conspiracy theory first popularized in the late 1700s.

In the late 1800s, several populist authors pursued the idea that British speculators manipulated the price of gold, which affected paper currency at the time. A common image was that of an octopus. Who was the head with tentacles reaching out across America depended on the author. This easily slid into antisemitic interpretations with the Rothschild family at the head.

The most infamous source of false allegations of a Jewish banking cabal is the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

The public circulation of the Protocols grew out of propaganda intrigues of the secret police of Czarist Russia in the late nineteenth century. The main Russian print source for the Protocols first appeared as an appendix in The Big in the Small, and Antichrist as a Near Political Possibility; Notes of an Orthodox Person by Sergei A. Nilus, published in 1905 but republished to wider audiences in 1911, 1917, and 1918.

The text purports to be secret minutes of meetings of a Jewish ruling clique conspiring to take over the world (a claim that should be unnecessary to point out is a bigoted falsehood.). The Protocols incorporate many of the core conspiracist themes outlined in the earlier attacks on the Illuminati/Freemasons and overlay them with antisemitic allegations about anti-Czarist movements in Russia. The Protocols reflect the same themes as other, more general critiques of enlightenment liberalism by those supporting church/state oligarchies and other anti-democratic and theocratic forms of government.

Three publications that followed are of particular interest because they trace a transitional arc that starts with the theme of money manipulation, jumps to war as a form of manipulated internationalist politics, and then jumps back to money manipulation.

The Reign of the Elders (Gold, Gold, Gold), is a short book by an anonymous author that starts with the Protocols, moves through the Rothschilds, and ends up with Roosevelt’s “Jew Deal.” It was published before WWII.

The pseudonym “Cincinnatus” took the same basic arguments and wove them around the theme of Jews plotting War, War, War, to help an England controlled by Jews.

E.C. Knuth’s, Empire of “The City”: A Basic History of International Power Politics was the post-war publication that took the same theme and returned it to focus on financial manipulation by Jews.

The result was the popularization of the idea that the Rothschild family and other Jews controls the British monarchy, City of London financial institutions, and through them, the U.S. government and economy. The Lyndon LaRouche network later adopts this claim, while removing the more obvious antisemitic references after being criticized for antisemitism. Some on the Political Left have picked up these claims and mindlessly repeat them. T

he bulk of published material pushing this antisemitic line, however, comes from the Political Right.

Who is really behind the vast timeless conspiracy? Is it the Freemasons, the Communists, or the Jews? The Rothschilds or the Rockefellers? Is the real control group the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, or the Bilderberg banking conference? The scapegoated group varies by the sector on the U.S. Right doing the construction of the frames and narratives. These distinctions on the Right really matter, both politically and analytically, writes professor Martin Durham.

Phyllis Schlafly blamed the conspiracy on the “Secret Kingmakers;” which to Schlafly meant the Rockefellers AND the Bilderbergers, but NOT the Jews (Schlafly, 1964).

Author Revilo P. Oliver, a leader of the John Birch Society, was purged by the Birchers after giving a speech where he challenged the organization to come right out and admit it was the Jews behind the conspiracy. Another migration moved L. Fletcher Prouty (Col., U.S. Air Force [ret.]) author of The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World, from the standard Birch Society analysis of liberal treachery to a place where Prouty had his book republished by a Holocaust denial outfit at the time controlled by Willis Carto.

If you compare the allegations against the Jews in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion they are remarkably similar to the allegations hurled by contemporary right-wing demagogues at liberals, leftists, and President Barack Obama and the Democrats.

It is in this right-wing milieu of conspiracy theories and venomous vilification that Loughner picked his target.

Quote
shakti
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/1/14/92946/9451

Loughner, “Zeitgeist - The Movie,” and Right-Wing Antisemitic Conspiracism

Chip Berlet
Fri Jan 14, 2011 at 09:29:46 AM EST

A friend of Jared Lee Loughner says that the alleged shooter in the Tucson terror attack was impressed by “Zeitgeist - The Movie,” one of the most popular conspiracy videos posted on the Internet. Since about a third of the video concerns conspiracy theories about the 9/11 terror attacks, right-wing pundits have been quick to label “Zeitgeist - The Movie” left-wing propaganda.

This is a leap too far. It is true that some on the Political Left have embraced the “9/11 Truth Movement,” but so have some on the Political Right, and a lot of folks with confused political ideas.

At its core, however, “Zeitgeist - The Movie,” is driven by a replication of longstanding right-wing antisemitic conspiracy theories about the so-called “International Bankers,” a phrase long associated by bigots with the Rothschild, Warburg, and Schiff banking families. Cue the Jew Banker rant.

In many ways the 9/11 conspiracy theories in “Zeitgeist - The Movie,” are bait used to attract viewers from the 9/11 Truth Movement and others who embrace conspiracist thinking to the idiosyncratic anti-religion views of the videographer and the world of right-wing antisemitic theories of a global banking conspiracy.

In a long review of Zeitgeist - The Movie, Jay Kinney on the Tech/Culture site boingboing in August 2007 notes that the video's worldview is that:

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.

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 over-all temper of the video is rather like the John Birch Society on acid, with interludes by Harry Smith.

Brian Dunning in his negative review on Skeptoid in March 2010 observed “asserts the existence of what Joseph believes is a worldwide conspiracy of international bankers, who are directly responsible for causing all wars in the past century as a way to earn profits.”

In the orbit of the John Birch Society, the phrase international bankers is avoided and replaced with the phrase “The Insiders.” The Birchers trace the conspiracy back to the Illuminati/Freemason conspiracy theory first popularized in the late 1700s.

In the late 1800s, several populist authors pursued the idea that British speculators manipulated the price of gold, which affected paper currency at the time. A common image was that of an octopus. Who was the head with tentacles reaching out across America depended on the author. This easily slid into antisemitic interpretations with the Rothschild family at the head.

The most infamous source of false allegations of a Jewish banking cabal is the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

The public circulation of the Protocols grew out of propaganda intrigues of the secret police of Czarist Russia in the late nineteenth century. The main Russian print source for the Protocols first appeared as an appendix in The Big in the Small, and Antichrist as a Near Political Possibility; Notes of an Orthodox Person by Sergei A. Nilus, published in 1905 but republished to wider audiences in 1911, 1917, and 1918.

The text purports to be secret minutes of meetings of a Jewish ruling clique conspiring to take over the world (a claim that should be unnecessary to point out is a bigoted falsehood.). The Protocols incorporate many of the core conspiracist themes outlined in the earlier attacks on the Illuminati/Freemasons and overlay them with antisemitic allegations about anti-Czarist movements in Russia. The Protocols reflect the same themes as other, more general critiques of enlightenment liberalism by those supporting church/state oligarchies and other anti-democratic and theocratic forms of government.

Three publications that followed are of particular interest because they trace a transitional arc that starts with the theme of money manipulation, jumps to war as a form of manipulated internationalist politics, and then jumps back to money manipulation.

The Reign of the Elders (Gold, Gold, Gold), is a short book by an anonymous author that starts with the Protocols, moves through the Rothschilds, and ends up with Roosevelt’s “Jew Deal.” It was published before WWII.

The pseudonym “Cincinnatus” took the same basic arguments and wove them around the theme of Jews plotting War, War, War, to help an England controlled by Jews.

E.C. Knuth’s, Empire of “The City”: A Basic History of International Power Politics was the post-war publication that took the same theme and returned it to focus on financial manipulation by Jews.

The result was the popularization of the idea that the Rothschild family and other Jews controls the British monarchy, City of London financial institutions, and through them, the U.S. government and economy. The Lyndon LaRouche network later adopts this claim, while removing the more obvious antisemitic references after being criticized for antisemitism. Some on the Political Left have picked up these claims and mindlessly repeat them. T

he bulk of published material pushing this antisemitic line, however, comes from the Political Right.

Who is really behind the vast timeless conspiracy? Is it the Freemasons, the Communists, or the Jews? The Rothschilds or the Rockefellers? Is the real control group the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, or the Bilderberg banking conference? The scapegoated group varies by the sector on the U.S. Right doing the construction of the frames and narratives. These distinctions on the Right really matter, both politically and analytically, writes professor Martin Durham.

Phyllis Schlafly blamed the conspiracy on the “Secret Kingmakers;” which to Schlafly meant the Rockefellers AND the Bilderbergers, but NOT the Jews (Schlafly, 1964).

Author Revilo P. Oliver, a leader of the John Birch Society, was purged by the Birchers after giving a speech where he challenged the organization to come right out and admit it was the Jews behind the conspiracy. Another migration moved L. Fletcher Prouty (Col., U.S. Air Force [ret.]) author of The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World, from the standard Birch Society analysis of liberal treachery to a place where Prouty had his book republished by a Holocaust denial outfit at the time controlled by Willis Carto.

If you compare the allegations against the Jews in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion they are remarkably similar to the allegations hurled by contemporary right-wing demagogues at liberals, leftists, and President Barack Obama and the Democrats.

It is in this right-wing milieu of conspiracy theories and venomous vilification that Loughner picked his target.

I would ask the Israeli chapter of the Zeitgeist Movement if they believe we are an anti-Semitic movement. Jacque Fresco's parents were Jewish as well. In other words, the entire idea that there is any anti-semetisim in TZM is patently absurd.

As for Loughner, though someone who had not spoken to Loughner for two years said he was influenced by the Zeitgeist movies, anyone who studies Loughner's personal material knows better. He advocated the gold standard, then something about personal currencies. He was very clearly insane and despite the claims from someone after the fact that he supposedly was "obsessed" with Zeitgeist for some reason it was not mentioned on any of his own blogs or in any of his series of youtube videos. Nobody in the Zeitgeist movement advocates the gold standard, or personal currencies. In fact the Resource Based Economy suggests getting out of the use of money altogether. And his primary victim was a member of Congress who was a serious advocate for sustainable energy, something that we DO value. Loughner did a great deal of drugs, and anyone looking at him closely can see his brain was swiss cheese. The right and the left both played "hot potato" with this Loughner guy trying to blame each other. And then they used the vague claim of someone who claims to of been a former friend who had not spoken to him in two years as "evidence" that Zeitgeist motivated him.

Since then, the same people who are engaging in harassment of the Zeitgeist movement jumped on the Loughner issue in an attempt to further take amusement in trying to do more damage.

This forum behaves a bit oddly. Posts take a long time to show up sometimes leading me to believe they were not posted (Which is the reason for some of the double posts in this thread). And this was supposed to be posted here:

I looked over the list of warning signs and considered doing a much longer post about this, but I realized it really was not necessary. So I am going to go over a few key points.

1. One of the reasons for the confusion over what our organization is is because we state that we are not a "political movement". But in practice we are a political activist organization in the same context as Green Peace, Veterans for Peace, etc. We advocate an economic model designed for ecological sustainability. Not a religion, superstition, etc. (In fact a lot of our members are atheists.) We suggest people use the scientific method to test ways of fixing the world's problems rather then relying on politics or superstition.

2. Activity as far as membership in TZM consists of signing up for a mailing list. Optionally chatting on forums or using voice chat. (The vast majority of people signed up for the newsletter and mailing list do not do this.). We attend public events to try and engage in dialog about our ideas in the same way other activist groups do. Some groups of people have meetings in person to talk about this stuff but they are not secret cabal meetings in forests or something. In fact most of them are in public places like libraries and such, again like most activist groups. If someone "leaves" the group it would actually probably go completely unnoticed. If someone was friends with a given member they might inquire as to why they didn't see their friend at a meeting but there is no protocol suggested or even implied that we would go track people down and try to guilt trip them into attending meetings again. And removing yourself from our email list is as easy as it is for any other activist organization.

3. Peter Joseph does not paste his personal information and his financial records everywhere. And while I can understand why this is often a concern with a given organization, there are no "membership dues". He gives away all of his films on the internet for free, including files to allow you to make your own DVDs. If people buy DVDs from him it's generally because they don't know how to burn them themselves. He could easily charge $20 for these and he only asks for $5. He sells T-shirts but he is not making a killing on them. And in fact spends a lot more money on this activism then he ever gets out of it. To say nothing for the hours of his time he puts into making activist films. There are hundreds of indy film makers who do the same, but make a hell of a lot more money then he is. Michael Moore comes to mind.

4. There is no "abuse" going on. I have challenged Mr. Wish to produce any sort of evidence of "abuse". He seems really fixated on our internet forums and not much else. He uses a lot of language like insinuating that people could die, get hurt, or their "blood" could be on someone's hands and to be blunt, this is all really silly. The vast majority of the interaction that people have in the Zeitgeist movement goes on in public places or on the internet. Nobody is being molested, sexually harassed, intimidated, or mentally abused. And when he came to our forums and made that broad and vague accusation of "abuse" even users who are critical of our moderation team because they are anarchists philosophically and wish we didn't have moderators still came forward and told him he was being unreasonable.

5. The first Zeitgeist film did contain a lot of stuff about conspiracy theories. But it was put together by Peter when he was in college as a music major. It was part of an artistic presentation he did and never really expected it to be anything special. The most controversial portion about religion was based on a book he read by an author named Acharya S. and was not his own research. But he was an atheist so he liked it and included it. Some people liked it and suggested he put it on the internet. He never expected it to get the following that it did. This said, when he made that film he had no idea what a Resource Based Economy was, or who Jacque Fresco was. He stumbled across the idea when he was looking for solutions to the perceived problems he saw in the world that he talked about in the film. Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project do not endorse the first film. And belief in conspiracy theories is by no means required to support the ideas Fresco presents. You will notice there are no conspiracy theories presented in the orientation guide. And while some members still watch the first Zeitgeist film it is not relevant to anything we spend time talking to people about.

6. With the advent of the internet there are a lot of cultural factors as far as to what the internet is still being ironed out. If you own a given website it is fully within your rights to set rules for how it will be used by other people. Just as you are within your rights to set rules for what topics you don't want talked about in your house. We run into new territory when people do not agree with things being said on a given website. But the analogy I came to realize applied better was this: Imagine you have decided to have a civil rights meeting at your house. A racist comes over and starts to disrupt the meeting and is very clearly not in support of the purpose of the meeting. So the owner of the home asks the person to leave. That is what goes on when we ask someone to leave our forum. It is meant to be a meeting place to talk to other people interested in the same topic. None of us would ever advocate censorship of dissent elsewhere. Just as it is the right of that racist to go to the street corner and protest our civil rights meeting if that is what he wants to do. Some of us have taken action against people who's "dissent" includes what amounts to little more then cyber-bullying and harassment. But that is done on an individual basis and not the organization as a whole.

In conclusion:

I would hope that the people who frequent this forum while being concerned about cults would also be concerned about the kind of damage you can do to well meaning organizations by labeling them cults too quickly. I would ask you to think very critically of what it is your reading about the Zeitgeist movement and be skeptical of the other side of the argument as well. Internet harassment of different organizations is becoming more and more common. And words like "cult" are extremely easy to abuse. You may not agree with the political views of the Zeitgeist movement but that does not make it a cult. And I hope you also realize that the internet is full of angry people making unfounded allegations towards one group or another that they feel has done them wrong, or just to amuse themselves. And that is what is going on here. I found out about this conversation because one of the people who does this just to amuse himself (including taking people's personal photos, their personal information and warping them to engage in schoolyard mocking behavior) had the link posted on one of his websites. In other words, they are hoping you will label us a cult not because anyone is being hurt or is in any danger, but because they would get the same sadistic pleasure they do when they photoshop pictures of members of our family to humiliate them out of this. You will notice if you study it further that most of these people are also just as concentrated on people who have moderated them on the forums.

[thezeitgeistmovements.wordpress.com]

This page is an example of the kind of childish cyber-bullying i am talking about. You will notice the endless mentioning of my weight, and very little in the way of intellectual content. At one point he posted a video of me and my three year old son playing together to insinuate my son was stupid. This is the kind of harassment I might add that is the reason we have anonymous moderators. This person spends a great deal of time in their life doing this. And chases us all around the internet doing things of a similar intellectual value. And it is people like him that is where this "cult" business started.

While I do feel we need to be concerned about people being hijacked into "cults". I would also caution people to be equally concerned that they might also be hijacked in the lynching of innocent organizations that just angered someone who is behaving petty who might use your efforts for their own amusement. I keep thinking of "the crucible" and how in Salem a girl who felt scorned used the Christian religion to get back at her "enemies".