Last night (or perhaps during his daytime) the beloved leader and patriarch of the Zeitgeist Movement condescended to respond to my recent article, ‘The Cult of Zeitgeist’, in what was a rather disappointingly insipid response entitled
‘Enjoying “The Circus” – Meet Samuel Gilonis’. Joseph first takes issues with my labeling of TZM as a ‘cult’. While I may concede a certain lack of originality – The fact that calling TZM a cult has become old hat does not speak
entirely against me – The word was not chose merely to slur or to strawman Peter’s thoughts; observing Zeitgeist and the Venus Project and watching their films you should not fail to see the quasi-religious structure. We have an impending apocalypse lest we change our sinful ways, we are promised utopia if we
do change them, we have a wise old man and a young prophet (a father, a son – we are just one short of a trinity!), we have the dismantlement of previous religions and, perhaps most importantly, the requisite of faith. The Venus Project/TZM operates with the faith that there will be a day of reckoning whereby all of the globes peoples rise up as one. It requires faith to believe that we are all actually so good, and the noxious, corrupting power of monetary miasma is so great, that if we exorcise money from our society we will see a 95% reduction in crime (as claimed in Zeitgeist: Moving Forward).
It may appear inimical to not wanting to appear cultish that Peter’s followers have descended from all corners of globe to criticise my article like flies on an extremely well written and factually accurate shit (for lack of a more succinct or self-aggrandising simile). They have attacked it with every jot of the fury of a Scientologist exercising the ‘Suppressive Person Doctrine’ or the Islamist attacking a Danish cartoon. They have also, however, completely ignored the much more
flattering article regarding their cause written by my colleague Fouad Al-Noor, Peter’s resident vicar on Wessex Scene. It was a member of TZM that brought up Scientology but I am now reluctant to relinquish such a fitting analogy for their behaviour; it speaks volumes to me that these people (Peter included), armed with their rather anodyne critiques, care vastly more about suppressing thought contrary to their own than they do discussing their ideas with those who endorse them. While I commend Peter for addressing criticism he could have easily ignored; his infantile cherry picking, his pitiful reasoning and his cowardly evasion of the more important issues are all beneath our disdain.
This leads me onto Peter’s next point which is that I called Fresco a racist:
The first highlight is the implication that Jacque Fresco is a Racist [sic]
[prima facie]. He doesn’t say this outright, of course, for even Samual [sic]
is smart enough to know what “libel” is – but what would propaganda be without subtly? 
[sic]
The trick with these writers is the broad picture they choose to paint as they diligently avoid all areas, [sic]
which are actually relevant.
We must ignore Peter’s peculiar grasp of grammar, his inability to spell and the cringing use of a winking emoticon to look at true issue: Peter, through his nauseating appeal to defamatory laws, has made his position on the freedom speech abundantly clear here, as have the asinine calls of his followers for me to be charged with slander (learn the difference between libel and slander – then bring it on). I have not skirted around libel laws to say what I said as I shall now demonstrate:
Jacque Fresco is a deluded and devious mummy who is almost certainly lying about his involvement with the KKK and White Citizen’s Council.
I hope that has made my position on Peter’s comrade clear enough. The real reason for my qualification of what I wrote in that article, as is quite clear, is that Fresco’s possible racism is not particularly relevant to the ideas of TZM but I think many would agree that the confused and fanciful justification for his actions which is indicative of Fresco’s over-active imagination — is relevant. Having said that, I am not entirely sure that it isirrelevant that Fresco was a member of the KKK and the WCC – if, as any mammal with a semblance of rational and independent thought is able to see, Fresco is a bullshit merchant; he should be denounced as one (note I do not call for him to be charged with slander or any other such absurd measures, all I require is his ignominy).
Peter now moves onto democracy. He claims that democracy has become an illusion and a ‘complete failure’. This is true to some extent and nowhere more so than in the US. Professor Noam Chomsky has observed amongst others that the gap between US policy and US public opinion has never been as pronounced as it is today. Peter follows this with the absolute non-sequitur that we should therefore abandon democracy! Why should we not attempt to improve our democracy instead? Democracy, with all of its flaws, is the only true justice.
We seek a medium that provides the ability for each human to interface with “government” – effectively becoming the government itself. This can be done.
The fact that Peter states that they are ‘seeking a medium’ suggests that in fact – this cannot be done. The promise of the eventual abolition of the state is also further proof that the ‘Movement’ is a shameless plagiarism of Marx (rather than the shameless plagiarism of Plato’s Republic that many of Joseph’s flock must think that TZM is when they call it a technocracy).
Now for my favourite part of Peter’s response: Peter claims that the conspiracy theories that he has propagated are in no way linked to the Zeitgeist Movement. This could only hold water if he had not espoused them in a documentary called ZEITGEIST: THE MOVIE.
I am fascinated to hear that he
hasn’t moved away from his paranoid and masochistic delusions – In researching the article I happen to know that he is aware of the
http://conspiracyscience.com/ website which does a good job in debunking his piffle. He could also look into any one of a thousand other sources which examine every claim he makes regarding 9/11 –
and why they are false! The fact is that these conspiracy theories are very much a part of TZM as Peter needs to exculpate the true terrorists in order to breed paranoid vitriol against the status quo. While this may seem a purely American concern these issues are relevant to the UK as well, although perhaps not on the same scale: 24 per cent of British Muslims believe that the British Government was involved in the 7/7 bombings according to a
2007 poll of 500 Muslims by GFK NOP.
Zeitgeist as described by Peter in this response is a rather inane mixture of platitude and sanctimony.
We can implement technology to eliminate scarcity – SHOULD read – ‘We should aim to implement technology to reduce scarcity as much as possible’. This is obviously already in practice! Under what Joseph sneeringly calls; cannibalised from Adam Smith, the ‘
Invisible Hand’; the mechanisation of labour is transparently already a momentous force as observed in his own films when he discusses how labour has moved from industry to the service trade. This is a direct consequence of consumer-capitalism! As are the countless forms of technology Joseph claims would be implemented by TZM – all were pioneered and will be implemented under a free enterprise, democratic society.
He also claims that we should locate and work out a way to economise all of the resources on the planet. Of course! And every effort to locate them is already being made. Why not simply advocate being more conservative with global resources? This has absolutely nothing to do with the monetary system and there is no need for an upheaval of every aspect of society but Peter Joseph insists that there is because, as we can see from the masturbatory dramatisation in ZMF of the day he is ‘proved right’, he harbours an obsession for this revolution and the rapture that will come with it for him.
Joseph continues to fatuously deny the fraternity between his ideas and Marxist ones and then in mock indignation asks, what do I even mean by Utopianism!? As I have stated in a response to Fouad; I begrudge nobody their meliorism but Joseph goes further. He does not simply claim that we should try to improve some certain areas; he does not even lay out a single specific manifesto of how any of this would truly be put into practice. He does however make extremely specific claims of results such as a 95% crime reduction, an end to poverty and an end to war if we implemented the Zeitgeist Movement’s ideas. He makes promises of a world so wholly perfect if we follow his instruction that, as I wrote in my article, we should be concerned about the effect that these vacuous promises will have on those who truly believe them.
Joseph finishes his rebuttal with, “We need “learners” and “thinkers” and to be such is to not “follow” anyone or take anything at face value.” This is a sentiment I could not agree with more. Scepticism is of the upmost import and I urge all to watch the Zeitgeist Movies (although they are tediously long), read/watch Peter Joseph on 9/11, read the inane ramblings of Fresco but do so with a sceptical mind and an independence of thought. If you do so you will see TZM and The Venus Project for what they are: a tapestry of platitudes, conspiracy theories and hollow promises. I leave you with the belief that Capitalism, personal liberty and property rights are the only truly revolutionary ideology comrades!
Samuel Gilonis
_________________________________________________________
Damn everything but the circus!
…damn everything that is grim, dull,
motionless, unrisking, inward turning,
damn everything that won’t get into the
circle, that won’t enjoy, that won’t throw
its heart into the tension, surprise, fear
and delight of the circus, the round
world, the full existence…
E.E. Cummings
