[Reveling John]

You know what, cutting this review up and exploring the language out-of-context is frankly the only way to demonstrate how fool hardy the statements are. These individual statements are absolute mis-truths (lies), which have been strategically placed into the middle of a valid argument or tacked on to the end. They are already out-of-context, in the way in which they are originally used!

Originally Posted by peacelovinman

http://www.freedom-force.org/freedom...refpage=issues

If only we abolished all money and private property everything would be great. All resources should collectively belong to all humans of the world. Intelligent management of resources and technology could allow everyone to be free. The world would turn into some utopia. All crime would go away and greed and corruption would go away. We should be a one world community.

So, what's the argument here? Are we supposed to be cajoled by the cynical sarcasm that he leaves dripping from a simple synopsis of the message?
Let me show you what this same content means to me:

In the wake of a once eminent collapse, human beings realized that they had the opportunity to take steps towards an evolutionary leap in social, ecological, spiritual, moral and emotional health. Like the ancient thought of traditional indigenous peoples, they recognized the inherent value of their connections to the earth, the stars, each other and the underlying mechanism that is responsible for the eternal dance of awareness and perception. The acceptance of a universal obligation of each and every element to the well-being of every other element became not only the rule-of-law, but the foundation of logic, incentive, and fulfillment (as opposed to these things hanging on the thread of monetary gain). In such a society would crime as we know it still exist? Would corruption have any motive or method of operation? Would this picture of a inter-universal dynamic civilization be accurately analyzed as a "One World Community"?

So, how does that sound without the sarcastic tom-foolery?

It even specifically says that voting for liberty candidates like Ron Paul is the wrong thing to do.

This is implied, but it is not stated in this way. That would be one interpretation.

I guess we should give up all hope and let bad politicians do whatever they want to us.

Nope. This is neither implied nor said.

It is full of doublespeak, wild assumptions, and crazy socialist propaganda.

Show me.... like I'm a small child. Be specific

It puts in just enough truths that we believe in to trick people into following the wrong path.

If you think that anything that comes out of this video is dictating that you should follow any, and I mean ANY imperative that is contrary to your own internal impression of Love, then you have just about completely turned your mind off to the intent of the author and of the entire movement. DO NOT FOLLOW. How can anyone *trick* you, when they are telling you to DO YOU? JUST DO YOU.

...
Jonathan, 2008 Oct 6
...

And here's the reply:

REPLY FROM EG:

... I watched it two nights ago and was deeply disturbed by its message... So here are my comments on a few items of concern:

1. The information about the Federal Reserve is, for the most part, right on target. However, I practically fell out of my chair when the program repeated that old, silly argument about the Fed not creating enough money to cover the cost of interest on debt; and, therefore, the world must forever be in debt. I knew right there that the writer did not read The Creature from Jekyll Island or, if he did, he forgot my analysis of this common myth. For those who are interested in that topic, it is fund on pages 191-192 of The Creature.

Ok, so is he trying to sell me his book? Why doesn't he make specific arguments, right here, addressing specific claims from Addendum that he feels are inaccurate? Notice that he does not specifically say that any sentence in the Fed section is false. He implies that something may be false, and allows that implication to be broadly applied to the entire section. So, in short, he has made NO commentary about anything, allowing for his implications to speak for themselves, unless of course you go out, buy his book, and desperately search for what ever argument he may have made in said book.

2. The next jolt came when the program praised Civil War Greenbacks, calling them debt-free. Actually, Greenbacks were contrary to the U.S. Constitution and, although they were not fiat money issued by the banks, they were fiat money issued by the government. That was better than paying interest on nothing to bankers, but they still wiped out the purchasing power of American money through massive inflation.... It never ceases to amaze me how people think that the solution to money created out of nothing by those big, bad bankers is to have money created out of nothing by those nice, trustworthy politicians.

Ok, that never ceases to amaze me either, BUT....

Yet, that is what this program supports.

This statement is what we call a lie. Addendum does not support the creation of a government produced fiat currency. Addendum does not support ANY economy founded on ANY form of monetary system/relationship. Did this guy even get half-way through the film? If he watched the entire piece, which he seems to indicate he did, then his use of this tag statement is an expression of insincerity (i.e. lying).

...This, of course, is a half truth that is just as dangerous as a total lie. It is true about the propagandists and their strategy to scare the public into supporting military intervention in those countries, but it is false to portray those dictators as great humanitarians who cared only for the well being of their people. That is total bunk. They WERE aligned with the Soviet Union and they WERE part of a Marxist/Leninist strategy to dominate Latin America; a strategy that continues to this day.

This is SOOOOO transparent. This guy is screaming "I'm a free-market economist who cannot bare to face the truth of my ideology's impact in the real world, on real people!" So is Bolivia part of some Marxist ploy to dominate South America? Are the indigenous peoples of those lands, who have been exploited, bamboozled and sucked dry for centuries, demonstrating psychosis when they move to elect leaders who champion change, fairness and compassion?

That's f'n horse-**** and that guy is too intelligent to not know that.

...In his book, Perkins reveals this same slant. He exposes the foul tactics of international corporations, the IMF, and World Bank, but he never mentions a Leftist dictator, such as Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez without praising them. Perkins is a collectivist aligned with the Left, and that strongly influences his telling of this story. Yet the producers of the video make no mention of this bias and give him an inordinate amount of time to present his slanted view without challenge.

WITHOUT CHALLENGE?

Decades of unchallenged, unmediated propaganda have informed every aspect of the American experience of these events. DECADES. Perkins comes on and speaks for about 15 minutes on subjects into which the government has sunk billions of dollars for hundreds of thousands of hours of fictional media to keep us *informed*. UNCHALLENGED?

Are you kidding me?!!!

That being the case, we must change mankind to reject profit and we must work together on some other basis. It is never quite clear what that basis is...

IF IT IS NOT IMMEDIATELY CLEAR TO YOU WHAT THE NEW *BASIS* OF HUMAN INTERACTIVITY SHOULD BE, WILL BE, ACTUALLY IS, AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN, then let me help you out:

The Basis of the new paradigm is Love.

Unconditional Love.

... but, whatever it is, it will be administered and directed by an elite group, at least in the beginning.

No. This is never said. This is never implied. This statement is a LIE.

...The desire for profit is merely the desire to be compensated for our labor, our creativity, our knowledge, or even for our risk.

This is not true. The desire for PROFIT has no relationship to the incentive for a CREATIVE act, whatsoever. I create because I fill compelled to express something that can only be expressed as an act of creation. Money is no incentive. Someone who makes art for the sake of profit, using profit as an incentive to do her work, is not partaking in an act of creation. She is working, which is very, very different. Someone who receives compensation subsequent to producing a genuine artifact of creation is not being payed for the act of creation; they are being paid for the use of the intellectual property which represents the creation itself. Money does NOT generate art.

Without profit, very little would be accomplished in the world - not even if everyone spent a few years in labor camps to be re-educated.

Show me. Prove it. Give specific examples of the non-accomplishments of a society in which financial or political profit did not play a fundamental role. This statement is based on NOTHING. It is complete presumption based on no 'real world' experiences, whatsoever.

It is a basic part of man's nature and is the mainspring of human progress, as Henry Grady Weaver described it in his book by that same title. Throughout history, whenever man lived in a system that allows him to be rewarded for his work, there has been great productivity and abundance.

Does he live in a hole in the ground? What does he have to say about these societies/cultures?

Anasazi/Hopi
Maya
Yuman
Quechua
Inuit

Where is the proof that reward (profit) has lead to "great productivity and abundance"? For WHOM? And who was left on the ass end of the stick? What's the ratio of reapers-of-abundance to reapers-of-mysery and pain?
1:1 - no
1:10 - no
1:100 - nope
1:1000 - hmmm, so for every one on this planet that feels his basic needs are totally and fully accounted for and be rest assured in the continuity of his situation, how many folks around the world cannot feel that safety and well-being?

...By contrast, where social engineers gained control of the state and restricted people from receiving the fruits of their labor, productivity fell, and scarcity was the norm.

As if these socialized societies were developing in bubble, completely unhindered by the pouring of historic amounts of wealth and resources into the concerted effort to destroy those societies. What simple minded being accepts this argument as being made upon any kind of sound foundation?


Ok, and this is how he ends his tirade:

In summary, this program does NOT offer a cure. It offers a mega dose of the disease itself.

What disease! This is a meaningless statement. He may as well have said, "Zeitgeist Addendum does not support patriotism." So, what?!

In what way is it promoting a diseased world-view? In what way are it's principles inhibiting, restrictive, or hateful? In what way does it promote fear and anger?

In what way does it promote Love?

In what way does it promote Empowerment?

In what way does it promote Trust?

In what way does it promote Honesty?

In what way does it promote Hope?

In what way does it promote Personal Relevance?

In what way does share with us a vision of an intelligent and meaningful civilization, which we now have the opportunity to dream into being?