VTV,

If I was attempting to spin anything i would not provide supportive links to every statement as further evidence of my claims. In your latest response to me, you provided 1 supportive link to my 18 links. I also offer any of the material in its full context if anybody is interested, pm or public. If I was "spinning" data, you would be providing counter audio/video that demonstrate that i have taken things out of context or edited to my advantage. But you haven't. Instead you only try to discredit me personally or offer your own "spin" to the link.

If im taking things out of context, supply the full audio/video. Otherwise your commentary is pointless to me. I say let the evidence speak for itself.

Also, keep in mind, my focus has been on Liftons criteria as expressed in this post here:
[forum.culteducation.com]

Quote
james kush
VTV,

If I was attempting to spin anything i would not provide supportive links to every statement as further evidence of my claims. In your latest response to me, you provided 1 supportive link to my 18 links. I also offer any of the material in its full context if anybody is interested, pm or public. If I was "spinning" data, you would be providing counter audio/video that demonstrate that i have taken things out of context or edited to my advantage. But you haven't. Instead you only try to discredit me personally or offer your own "spin" to the link.

If im taking things out of context, supply the full audio/video. Otherwise your commentary is pointless to me. I say let the evidence speak for itself.

Also, keep in mind, my focus has been on Liftons criteria as expressed in this post here:
[forum.culteducation.com]

Volume of links does not in any fashion make a point. I can put 20 links in this post and it would not make me right or wrong. I debunked every point you made. In some of the links you posted the person didn't even say what you suggested they did.

Meanwhile, the only actual expert on cults on this forum is still unconvinced. You have since said you don't need his opinion to prove your claim, which now means you feel you are more qualified then he is to answer the question. Prometheus tried to lecture Mr. Ross on what cults are too and it did not work out to well for him.

I also notice now your saying it is my responsibility to post the full context and not yours. So you have changed your stance from suggesting you will only offer context in PMs, (Where your spin would be free of scrutiny) to suggesting it is now my responsibility? No. The burden of proof is on you. You are the one making the accusations in the first place.

If the evidence was so overwhelmingly in your favor you would be able to convince him. And you can't.

VTV,

I have already proven #1 and #2 of Liftons terms. The only issue at debate is wether or not your group is a "destructive" cult per Margaret Singer's terms. I need to research Singers definitions and get back to you. Have a nice day.

Quote
james kush
VTV,

I have already proven #1 and #2 of Liftons terms. The only issue at debate is wether or not your group is a "destructive" cult per Margaret Singer's terms. I need to research Singers definitions and get back to you. Have a nice day.

You have not proven anything. You have made some assertions and I proved those assertions false.

However, the most important concern today is not simply who might be somewhat "cultic" in their devotion now or historically, but what groups might represent potential problems regarding personal or public safety. That is, groups that are potentially unsafe and/or destructive.-Margaret Singer

Douglas Mallette Murder Dialog

Venus Project Spokesmen VTV and Douglas Mallette believe people need to be "annihilated". Mallette says people "need to die", "people are bad and evil": [www.youtube.com]

the Zeitgeist Movement has now crossed the line into advocating violence, which sets them on (I believe) a very destructive and disturbing course, given the cult-like characteristics of this group—characteristics which unfortunately have accelerated markedly in just the last two months.
[muertos.blog.com]

Douglas Mallette is a lead technician for the Zeitgeist Movement [www.youtube.com]

Members ask Douglas Mallette to step down,but he says "f*ck that, its p#ssy sh#t". [zeitgeistmovements.files.wordpress.com]

Complete audio (murder talk is in last five minutes) [www.youtube.com]

Mallette issues attack on myself for exposing his words and issue a "word retraction/apology" of sorts [www.youtube.com]

In the same "apology" video, mallette warns members to expect attacks Venus Project | Zeitgeist Members mentally prepared for violence-Douglas Mallette [www.youtube.com]

An unsafe or destructive group is not defined by what it believes, but by what it does. That is, the behavior that causes harm and injury to the members of the group and/or others in society. -Margaret Singer

A destructive cult hurts people. -Rick Ross

arizona mass murder

OK, now I’m getting creeped out. Jim Jones and the People’s Temple. David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. Marshall Appelwhite and Heaven’s Gate.
There is a pattern, a trajectory, to such cults. When the leader starts telling his followers that the movement’s (mundanely predictable) problems are proof that his prophecies are being fulfilled — “See? I’m omniscient! I’ve foretold the future! And now I predict my triumphant vindication!” — things tend to start getting crazy.
Were I asked to guess what we’ll see from The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) over the next year, I’d say schisms and purges. A year from now, the faint-hearted and disillusioned will have drifted away, rival groups will have sprung up to dispute Joseph/Merola’s leadership, and Joseph/Merola’s TZM will consist of a hard core of fanatical True Believers. Whether they’ll hunker down in a “compound” to await the apocalypse, I can’t predict. But these things never end well.
[theothermccain.com]

Zeitgeist, a conspiracy-theory documentary released in 2007, has spawned its own cult following. According to Loughner's friends, the accused Tucson gunman was one of the cult's most zealous converts. And many of Loughner's otherwise inexplicable obsessions -- from his fascination with currency to his rantings against illiteracy to his paranoid fears of "mind control" -- parallel ideas promoted in Zeitgeist.
[spectator.org]

According to a friend of his interviewed on Good Morning America on Wednesday, the conspiracy documentary Zeitgeist "poured gasoline on his fire" and had "a profound impact on Jared Loughner's mindset and how he views the world that he lives in."
[www.thedailybeast.com]

I’ve been listening to and reading about 32 year old Joseph and his ideology, most of the night. He is frightening and the most ego-maniacal person I’ve ever listened to. I believe I’ve finally actually witnessed a true anarchist. Nothing like those wild young people who break store windows and throw rocks – this guy is the real deal. Regardless what he says though, Joseph is thriving in and loving the cult worship that he is nurturing and that’s being showered on him by so many misguided people. It’s very apparent in the interview video.
[rartee.wordpress.com]

Zeitgeist: Watch the Conspiracy Movie That Had a ‘Profound Impact’ on Tucson Mass Murder Suspect Jared Loughner
[theothermccain.com]

At a time when Loughner was increasingly unable to control his own mind, he apparently welcomed "Zeitgeist's" message that there were sinister forces out there trying to control it for him. The meaning of "Zeitgeist's" role in the Tucson violence is not that Loughner's motive was political. It's that the movie's insane incoherence proved to be an awful stimulant for one dangerously incoherent mind. Read more at the Washington Examiner: [washingtonexaminer.com]
[washingtonexaminer.com]

Peter Joseph: "Message to Members" after laughner mass murder: [zeitgeistmovements.files.wordpress.com]

Exclusive: Zeitgeist Movement Inspired Jared Loughner Says Friend [www.youtube.com]

[theothermccain.com]

[tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com]

member reported abuse

Brenton Eccles, a former member from Melbourne, described how his involvement cut him off from reality. “It’s very, very, very isolating,” says Eccles, who was part of the communications team in the movement’s Australia branch. “You’re encouraged to kind of exit the real world. There’s kind of this us-and-them attitude.” A few days later, he sent me a document recanting most of his charges and claiming that his conflicts with the organization had in fact been his fault. This did not make it seem less cult-like.
[www.tabletmag.com]

St Louis Zeitgeist Member wants to beat people with a bat

He wants to beat a critic of Zeitgeist with a bat: [www.youtube.com]

Why he advocates Zeitgeist video: [www.youtube.com]

vandalism

[www.dailymotion.com]

Campus police arrested Robert Lowell Harris, 21, Thursday morning on complaints of obstructing an officer, public intoxication and malicious injury to property.
Alumni Center Operations Director David Cates said someone used pruning shears to cut metal letters off the Alumni Center’s west side and then hurled the foot-tall letters through windows into a lounge.
A window at Gundersen Hall next door was also smashed, and the phrases “ZM” and “Zeitgeist movement” were spray-painted on the sidewalk and walls outside the Student Union and in the Alumni Association parking lot.
[www.stwnewspress.com]

it is crucial to understand that behavior is the issue and not belief. When those concerned about someone's group involvement find clearly destructive behavior, this is an issue for legitimate concern.-Margaret Singer

Cults range from relatively benign to those that exercise extraordinary control over members' lives and use thought reform processes to influence and control members. While the conduct of certain cults causes nonmembers to criticize them, the term cult is not in itself pejorative but simply descriptive. It denotes a group that forms around a person who claims he or she has a special mission or knowledge, which will be shared with those who turn over most of their decision making to that self-appointed leader.Margaret Singer [www.factnet.org]

Further in her introduction Dr. Singer compares George Orwell's vision of a negative utopia in his classic work, Nineteen Eighty-Four, to the frightening world inside modern-day cults: "Modern-day cults and thought-reform groups tend to offer apparent utopias, places where all humankind's ills will be cured. The cults' lure is, if you just come along, all will be fine, and everyone will live happily ever after. Singer [www.factnet.org]

"Since the 1960s, there has been a burgeoning not of governments but of independent entrepreneurial groups that go into the mind-manipulation and personality-change business. Myriads of false messiahs, quacks, and leaders of cults and thought-reform groups have emerged who use Orwellian mind-manipulation techniques. They recruit the curious, the unaffiliated, the trusting, and the altruistic. They promise intellectual, spiritual, political, social, and self-actualization utopias. These modern-day pied pipers offer, among other things, pathways to God, salvation, revolution, personal development, enlightenment, perfect health, psychological growth, egalitarianism, life in and ecospheres. Margaret Singer

"Let’s not even get in to the question of whether Mallette is an “official” spokesman for the Zeitgeist Movement. I believe he is, but the Zeitgeisters often play games with the authority figures in their movement, usually claiming “he’s speaking for himself” when one of them says something embarrassing, while conversely trumpeting the same person as a “spokesman for the Venus Project” when one of them says something they like. What cannot be denied is that Mallette deliberately intends an official or quasi-official association with the Zeitgeist Movement, and the Zeitgeist Movement (generally) likes to claim him as one of their own—which is not surprising considering that if Mallette wasn’t around, there’s no one the Movement could point to as any sort of expert on anything who agrees with their program."
[muertos.blog.com]

Quote
james kush
However, the most important concern today is not simply who might be somewhat "cultic" in their devotion now or historically, but what groups might represent potential problems regarding personal or public safety. That is, groups that are potentially unsafe and/or destructive.-Margaret Singer

Something you have repeatedly failed to prove.

Quote

Douglas Mallette Murder Dialog

Oh give me a break. Seriously. You already posted about this and I already debunked it. Now your spinning it in an appeal to fear fallacy.

Quote

Venus Project Spokesmen VTV and Douglas Mallette believe people need to be "annihilated". Mallette says people "need to die", "people are bad and evil": [www.youtube.com]

And again, completely taken out of context, and debunked already. Your repeating yourself.

Quote

the Zeitgeist Movement has now crossed the line into advocating violence, which sets them on (I believe) a very destructive and disturbing course, given the cult-like characteristics of this group—characteristics which unfortunately have accelerated markedly in just the last two months.
[muertos.blog.com]

Meurtos is not an expert on anything. Your just quoting another blog from a hostile troll who is just another guy on the internet.

Quote

Douglas Mallette is a lead technician for the Zeitgeist Movement [www.youtube.com]

Members ask Douglas Mallette to step down,but he says "f*ck that, its p#ssy sh#t". [zeitgeistmovements.files.wordpress.com]

Not members. Just one person. And they recanted later.

Quote

Complete audio (murder talk is in last five minutes) [www.youtube.com]

And more James Kush spin and patented repetition of already debunked logic.

Quote

Mallette issues attack on myself for exposing his words and issue a "word retraction/apology" of sorts [www.youtube.com]

Attacks you? For exposing your dishonest tactics?

Quote

In the same "apology" video, mallette warns members to expect attacks Venus Project | Zeitgeist Members mentally prepared for violence-Douglas Mallette [www.youtube.com]

Yes, he feels that if and when an ecological or economical collapse happens there will be violence and people who are prepared to deal with the famines that will result will likely be targeted. So what? The attempt to spin this as him trying to prepare people to be violent is an attempt on your part to make it look like Doug wants to attack other people. That was never implied. At all.

Quote

An unsafe or destructive group is not defined by what it believes, but by what it does. That is, the behavior that causes harm and injury to the members of the group and/or others in society. -Margaret Singer

A destructive cult hurts people. -Rick Ross

arizona mass murder

OK, now I’m getting creeped out. Jim Jones and the People’s Temple. David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. Marshall Appelwhite and Heaven’s Gate.
There is a pattern, a trajectory, to such cults. When the leader starts telling his followers that the movement’s (mundanely predictable) problems are proof that his prophecies are being fulfilled — “See? I’m omniscient! I’ve foretold the future! And now I predict my triumphant vindication!” — things tend to start getting crazy.
Were I asked to guess what we’ll see from The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM) over the next year, I’d say schisms and purges. A year from now, the faint-hearted and disillusioned will have drifted away, rival groups will have sprung up to dispute Joseph/Merola’s leadership, and Joseph/Merola’s TZM will consist of a hard core of fanatical True Believers. Whether they’ll hunker down in a “compound” to await the apocalypse, I can’t predict. But these things never end well.
[theothermccain.com]

Zeitgeist, a conspiracy-theory documentary released in 2007, has spawned its own cult following. According to Loughner's friends, the accused Tucson gunman was one of the cult's most zealous converts. And many of Loughner's otherwise inexplicable obsessions -- from his fascination with currency to his rantings against illiteracy to his paranoid fears of "mind control" -- parallel ideas promoted in Zeitgeist.
[spectator.org]

According to a friend of his interviewed on Good Morning America on Wednesday, the conspiracy documentary Zeitgeist "poured gasoline on his fire" and had "a profound impact on Jared Loughner's mindset and how he views the world that he lives in."
[www.thedailybeast.com]

I’ve been listening to and reading about 32 year old Joseph and his ideology, most of the night. He is frightening and the most ego-maniacal person I’ve ever listened to. I believe I’ve finally actually witnessed a true anarchist. Nothing like those wild young people who break store windows and throw rocks – this guy is the real deal. Regardless what he says though, Joseph is thriving in and loving the cult worship that he is nurturing and that’s being showered on him by so many misguided people. It’s very apparent in the interview video.
[rartee.wordpress.com]

Zeitgeist: Watch the Conspiracy Movie That Had a ‘Profound Impact’ on Tucson Mass Murder Suspect Jared Loughner
[theothermccain.com]

At a time when Loughner was increasingly unable to control his own mind, he apparently welcomed "Zeitgeist's" message that there were sinister forces out there trying to control it for him. The meaning of "Zeitgeist's" role in the Tucson violence is not that Loughner's motive was political. It's that the movie's insane incoherence proved to be an awful stimulant for one dangerously incoherent mind. Read more at the Washington Examiner: [washingtonexaminer.com]
[washingtonexaminer.com]

AND JARED LOUGHNER AS I HAVE ALREADY EXPOSED MULTIPLE TIMES WAS NOT PART OF THE ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT.

Quote

Peter Joseph: "Message to Members" after laughner mass murder: [zeitgeistmovements.files.wordpress.com]

Exclusive: Zeitgeist Movement Inspired Jared Loughner Says Friend [www.youtube.com]

Yeah, some guy who hadn't spoken to him in two years. As I already pointed out but your hoping people whom have not been keeping track of this debate may not of noticed, Loughner for his alleged "obsession" or "influence" from the first Zeitgeist film did not mention it on his own blogs, or in any of his own videos. And in in fact advocated the gold standard or personal currencies, NEITHER OF WHICH ARE ADVOCATED BY THE ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT.

Quote

http://theothermccain.com/2011/01/16/jared-loughners-zeitgeist-obsession-he-wanted-to-watch-it-all-the-time/

[tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com]

So far you have posted a spam of personal opinion articles that don't prove anything.

Quote

member reported abuse

Brenton Eccles, a former member from Melbourne, described how his involvement cut him off from reality. “It’s very, very, very isolating,” says Eccles, who was part of the communications team in the movement’s Australia branch. “You’re encouraged to kind of exit the real world. There’s kind of this us-and-them attitude.” A few days later, he sent me a document recanting most of his charges and claiming that his conflicts with the organization had in fact been his fault. This did not make it seem less cult-like.
[www.tabletmag.com]

I have spoken to Brenton about that article. And he was highly displeased about the way the author took him completely out of context.

Quote

St Louis Zeitgeist Member wants to beat people with a bat

He wants to beat a critic of Zeitgeist with a bat: [www.youtube.com]

Why he advocates Zeitgeist video: [www.youtube.com]

vandalism

[www.dailymotion.com]

Campus police arrested Robert Lowell Harris, 21, Thursday morning on complaints of obstructing an officer, public intoxication and malicious injury to property.
Alumni Center Operations Director David Cates said someone used pruning shears to cut metal letters off the Alumni Center’s west side and then hurled the foot-tall letters through windows into a lounge.
A window at Gundersen Hall next door was also smashed, and the phrases “ZM” and “Zeitgeist movement” were spray-painted on the sidewalk and walls outside the Student Union and in the Alumni Association parking lot.
[www.stwnewspress.com]

And another spattering of spin articles that are not even relevant. Unless you can prove that the core principles of the Zeitgeist movement and more specifically that the Zeitgeist movement specifically instructs anyone to exhibit this behavior it comes back to being the individuals doing things outside of our control.

Quote

it is crucial to understand that behavior is the issue and not belief. When those concerned about someone's group involvement find clearly destructive behavior, this is an issue for legitimate concern.-Margaret Singer

Cults range from relatively benign to those that exercise extraordinary control over members' lives and use thought reform processes to influence and control members. While the conduct of certain cults causes nonmembers to criticize them, the term cult is not in itself pejorative but simply descriptive. It denotes a group that forms around a person who claims he or she has a special mission or knowledge, which will be shared with those who turn over most of their decision making to that self-appointed leader.Margaret Singer [www.factnet.org]

Further in her introduction Dr. Singer compares George Orwell's vision of a negative utopia in his classic work, Nineteen Eighty-Four, to the frightening world inside modern-day cults: "Modern-day cults and thought-reform groups tend to offer apparent utopias, places where all humankind's ills will be cured. The cults' lure is, if you just come along, all will be fine, and everyone will live happily ever after. Singer [www.factnet.org]

"Since the 1960s, there has been a burgeoning not of governments but of independent entrepreneurial groups that go into the mind-manipulation and personality-change business. Myriads of false messiahs, quacks, and leaders of cults and thought-reform groups have emerged who use Orwellian mind-manipulation techniques. They recruit the curious, the unaffiliated, the trusting, and the altruistic. They promise intellectual, spiritual, political, social, and self-actualization utopias. These modern-day pied pipers offer, among other things, pathways to God, salvation, revolution, personal development, enlightenment, perfect health, psychological growth, egalitarianism, life in and ecospheres. Margaret Singer

And again. Repeating already debunked logic. And taking things out of context in a propaganda fashion.

Quote
james kush
"Let’s not even get in to the question of whether Mallette is an “official” spokesman for the Zeitgeist Movement. I believe he is, but the Zeitgeisters often play games with the authority figures in their movement, usually claiming “he’s speaking for himself” when one of them says something embarrassing, while conversely trumpeting the same person as a “spokesman for the Venus Project” when one of them says something they like. What cannot be denied is that Mallette deliberately intends an official or quasi-official association with the Zeitgeist Movement, and the Zeitgeist Movement (generally) likes to claim him as one of their own—which is not surprising considering that if Mallette wasn’t around, there’s no one the Movement could point to as any sort of expert on anything who agrees with their program."
[muertos.blog.com]

So you posted Meurtos's bias personal opinion. I can tell you Doug is NOT an official spokesman. He hadn't even met Jacque and Roxanne in person until two days ago.

After reading through this whole thread I have not seen one shred of evidence proving that TZM is a destructive cult. I could be proven wrong in the future - but so far the detractors are not doing a very good job proving that this is a cult.

*Not a member of TZM
** Not an expert on cults but I have been in one and have studied them for about 20 years on and off.

Perhaps they are a relatively benign example of a "cult following" of sorts.

Destructive cults is what people post about and are generally interested in this forum, not benign cults.

It may be a personality fringe group with strange beliefs, but that seems to be about it.

Time will tell.