It is often tempting to dismiss tales of conspiracy—especially those that seek to provide occult explanations of pivotal events in human history—as made from whole cloth, spun by nervous and leery minds. But if we follow through on that temptation and allow bias to cloud our judgment, it is almost certain that we will eventually reject a story that is true.
The test of any claim, no matter how fantastic, is the evidence that supports it. The video attached to this post, Zeitgeist, makes some stunning claims that, if true, reveal nothing less than the attempted enslavement of the entire world. In the filmmaker's wide-ranging thesis, Christianity, September 11, and the Federal Reserve System are all part of a broad conspiracy to create a population of ignorant sheep, beholden to a select few and stultified into submission by mass media.
On the surface, it seems like such a hopelessly far-fetched idea—and one so far beyond the capabilities of the ignoramuses we've grown used to in government—that it almost begs for summary rejection. It is also arguable that the filmmaker's effort to weave these disparate elements together into a single cogent thesis does not meet with complete success. Why, then, would I post the video on this blog? Simply put, each claim it makes is either true or false, a fact or a lie. Some of the historical claims I know to be true from my own reading (of course, to the degree that I can be certain of the veracity and authority of what I read; the false report of an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, which served to escalate the American involvement in Vietnam, is one example); others I can't confirm without some additional research. Still other claims seem plausible on the surface and warrant further investigation. If even a fraction of the video's claims turn out to be true, this is an earth-shaking bit of work.
Among the tougher ideas to swallow is the suggestion that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were not actually terrorist attacks but instead carefully orchestrated bits of theater designed to support a move toward the guaranteed cash cow of war, specifically a war against an ideology, with victory so undefined as to be unachievable, an unwinnable war by design. Much of the evidence—indications of controlled demolition of three of the World Trade Center buildings, suppressed video footage of the Pentagon attack, wreckage inconsistent with aircraft crashes—may not be new to you. After all, any tragedy seems to give birth to a conspiracy story to explain it, and the Internet has been rife with "evidence" since soon after the attacks. But there has always been something less than satisfying about the official explanation of the World Trade Center buildings' collapse and the pattern of damage at the Pentagon, and some of the ideas presented here are not easy to dismiss without a leap of faith. Is it possible that we have been believing a lie when the truth is far more horrible? I can't say that I am convinced, but I am at least interested.
There is one claim made of which I am totally convinced—namely, that religion and the mass media are responsible for the gradual decline in our ability to reason as a society and as individuals. Whether this effect is intentional or accidental is ultimately less important than our ability to recognize it, arrest it, and reverse it before it is too late. Invest two hours in watching this video. Think about it. Check its facts. Accept it, reject it, or hold your judgment in abeyance, but do so on the strength of the evidence it presents. We should be grateful for the exercise.
The test of any claim, no matter how fantastic, is the evidence that supports it. The video attached to this post, Zeitgeist, makes some stunning claims that, if true, reveal nothing less than the attempted enslavement of the entire world. In the filmmaker's wide-ranging thesis, Christianity, September 11, and the Federal Reserve System are all part of a broad conspiracy to create a population of ignorant sheep, beholden to a select few and stultified into submission by mass media.
On the surface, it seems like such a hopelessly far-fetched idea—and one so far beyond the capabilities of the ignoramuses we've grown used to in government—that it almost begs for summary rejection. It is also arguable that the filmmaker's effort to weave these disparate elements together into a single cogent thesis does not meet with complete success. Why, then, would I post the video on this blog? Simply put, each claim it makes is either true or false, a fact or a lie. Some of the historical claims I know to be true from my own reading (of course, to the degree that I can be certain of the veracity and authority of what I read; the false report of an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, which served to escalate the American involvement in Vietnam, is one example); others I can't confirm without some additional research. Still other claims seem plausible on the surface and warrant further investigation. If even a fraction of the video's claims turn out to be true, this is an earth-shaking bit of work.
Among the tougher ideas to swallow is the suggestion that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were not actually terrorist attacks but instead carefully orchestrated bits of theater designed to support a move toward the guaranteed cash cow of war, specifically a war against an ideology, with victory so undefined as to be unachievable, an unwinnable war by design. Much of the evidence—indications of controlled demolition of three of the World Trade Center buildings, suppressed video footage of the Pentagon attack, wreckage inconsistent with aircraft crashes—may not be new to you. After all, any tragedy seems to give birth to a conspiracy story to explain it, and the Internet has been rife with "evidence" since soon after the attacks. But there has always been something less than satisfying about the official explanation of the World Trade Center buildings' collapse and the pattern of damage at the Pentagon, and some of the ideas presented here are not easy to dismiss without a leap of faith. Is it possible that we have been believing a lie when the truth is far more horrible? I can't say that I am convinced, but I am at least interested.
There is one claim made of which I am totally convinced—namely, that religion and the mass media are responsible for the gradual decline in our ability to reason as a society and as individuals. Whether this effect is intentional or accidental is ultimately less important than our ability to recognize it, arrest it, and reverse it before it is too late. Invest two hours in watching this video. Think about it. Check its facts. Accept it, reject it, or hold your judgment in abeyance, but do so on the strength of the evidence it presents. We should be grateful for the exercise.
NOTE: The filmmaker has posted clarifications to some minor misstatements made in the video here. The film's primary Web site is http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com.
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