When I read The Da Vinci Code, I enjoyed it because I thought the historical information was based on fact. It wasn’t, and I’m glad I know that now. I’m doubly glad I didn’t know it when I read the book, as it would have spoiled the fun. Sometimes bullshit can be so delicious.
With that in mind, I recommend to you a movie on the Internet, available for free viewing, called Zeitgeist. It presents three entertaining arguments and ties them together:
1. The Bible is an obvious copy of earlier religions, designed to control the masses.
2. September 11th was staged by the U.S. government as a pretext for grabbing power and making money.
3. Rich bankers control the entire world.
Here’s the link, but don’t watch it until you have lots of quiet time to absorb it.
The beauty of the movie is not in its truth, if indeed it has any. I don’t have the energy or desire to research it. What I found amazingly entertaining is how persuasive it is, even if it turns out to be entirely made up.
For example, I doubt September 11th was staged by the U.S. government. After all, we all saw the video of Bin Laden admitting he did it. How do you refute that? Well, the Zeitgeist movie shows a still frame of Bin Laden from that video next to a known photo of him, and they…don’t…have…the…same…nose.
That’s entertainment!
One possibility is that Bin Laden got a nose job. Or maybe it’s just the angle of the photograph, or maybe I only imagine they look that different, or maybe someone doctored the photo to promote the conspiracy argument. As I said, I don’t believe the allegations in the movie, but it’s loaded with great-yet-questionable evidence that is a joy to behold. If you’re looking for facts, I can’t recommend this movie because I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. If you want some delicious alleged facts that sound convincing, you’ll love it.
I believe the intent of the movie is to alarm people into being more skeptical of their government. It had the opposite effect on me. It made me happy to think there might be a plan. If the war on terror is real, it scares the shit out of me. But if, as the movie claims, it’s entirely manufactured, and the war in Iraq is meant to be a permanent conflict to sell weapons and control oil – that is much less scary. It means the war will stay where it is and no one will “follow me home.”
It also means the nuclear bomb ambitions of Iran are a lie. That’s one less thing to worry about. All I have to do is stay out of the National Guard and invest my money in defense contractors and I’ll be safe and happy. Those shadowy rich guys are doing a great job!
I know you’ll send me links to web sites refuting key points in the movie. The arguments in those links will be impossible for a lazy guy like me to verify. But they might be entertaining, so send them anyway.
"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way." - noted conspiracy theorist Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Read these:
The Empire of "The City": The Secret History of British Financial Power - Knuth
The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve - Griffin
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq - Kinzer
Century Of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order - Engdahl
By Way of Deception & The Other Side of Deception - Ostrovsky
Future Fastforward: The Zionist Anglo-American Empire Meltdown - Chang
Posted by: Steve | September 24, 2007 at 01:15 PM
- Rich bankers control the world? Oh yeah, this is a stretch! Now way back in the 70's my line of work put me in contact with some very rich and powerful individuals in interesting ways. This one fellow in particular, who shall remain nameless, stood out more than others.
Let me attempt to set the scene of where this dude was coming from:
1. My entourage and myself stayed at his "guest" mansion in Palm Beach, as opposed to his mansions of residence in Palm Beach and Malibu;
2. Offspring of the Getty's, Vanderbilt's and the like 'slummed' it in the servant quarters of this place;
3. Some of his associates and drinking buddies went by names such as Kennedy, Johnson, Herriman and the like!
So one night he was bored I guess and came over to the "guest" mansion and broke out the good liquor and told me tales of power and events next to the water fountain in the study that would be considered back stories to major world news that put chills up my spine because it all sounded so plausible!
- The Bible stories based on earlier religious practices? Sure, why not! I believe the God needed to communicate with the early biblical era people in a manner they understood; and remember He also works in strange and mysterious ways. You have to also admit that part of the purpose of the Bible was to get an unruly mass of Bedouin society under control. I mean, He's God and he can do what ever he see fit to in order to get his message across! I'm just glad the messages are delivered more subtle manner these days than how it was delivered to Sodom and Gomorrah! With this in mind I very much buy into Mark Twain's' idea that God created man because he was disappointed in the monkeys!;
- and September 11th was staged by the U.S. government as a pretext for grabbing power, well DUH! I stand dumbfounded in how on earth the likes of Bin Laden and his homeys could have figured out all the details and timing to pull a thing like that off. Sounds so much like the Pearl Harbor revelations now coming to light, don't you think? Can it be proven if it is true? Not in today's world I'm afraid. As sorry as it may sound to some, sometimes hanging with the devil you know as opposed to the devil you don't know is more comforting in a very sorry way....
Posted by: Dog of Cable | August 24, 2007 at 08:33 AM
If it's true what the conspiracists say,
personally feel that flying 2 jet fueled planes into the buildings AND blowing them up with explosives was a bit of overkill. Why not one or the other?
Posted by: partgypsy | August 21, 2007 at 11:47 AM
ah, what the heck. let's whip this dead horse some more. back to 9-11 conspiracies that i just learned about! did y'all know the BBC reported the collapse of WTC7 (the "salomon bldg") 23 minutes before it fell? but hey - don't take MY word for it.
google "bbc reports wtc7 collapse too soon", and you'll find a myriad of sites that'll show you video and screen shots of a BBC infobabe doing a standup in front of lower manhattan, telling the limeys back home that "[wtc7] has collapsed". the problem is, wtc7 is *standing* right behind her head, tall & proud & quite vertical.
*that's* some compelling video, gang. the BBC, bush-haters all, issued some very odd replies to queries about this (evidently recently-discovered) phenomenon. they assure us that
A) the infobabe was not standing in front of a blue screen. what we saw is what was there.
B) but she "really doesn't remember" who told her about the collapse.
C) never mind the fact that 9-11 was & will always be the pinnacle of her reporting career.
D) the fact she lost her live feed to london 5 minutes before WTC7 actually *did* fall is just a coincidence.
E) the fact the beeb has "lost the tapes" of this report is also merely just a coincidence.
F) but we may all rest assured that there is no conspiracy.
aaaand, G) besides, 23 minutes is merely a nanosecond in "geological time".
now, it's entirely possible these vids are phony. *entirely* possible. they can be found on the same internet that assures us that male appendages can be stretched to equine lengths & girths just by taking special pills. but if they're real .... well then ....
then why isn't this on every front page? which might be as big a conspiracy as 9-11 itself. **if it's real**, the same democrats and the same mainstream media that despises bush & co. isn't talking about it? **isn't** using it?? the same new york times that ran 43 consecutive days of front-page abu ghraib stories *doesn't* think THIS is newsworthy???
hell, tom, maybe you're onto something after all.
Posted by: bloodrage bob | August 21, 2007 at 01:43 AM
"many americans *know* jfk/rfk/mlk" were whacked by the democrat-controlled US government, tom? they **know** this?
"all the other intel svcs & govts know the real sroty about who did 9-11"?? wow! you must be really hooked into "all the other intelligence services and governments", huh? rolodex a foot thick; private cell numbers of "all" the directors and ministers; deeply imbedded into "all" the intel/government old-boy networks, eh? you're an amazing fellow, tom.
otherwise, you'd be just another internet guy repeating things he's "heard on the net from some guy", and attempting to dress it up by claiming access to info & intel that mere ordinary folks can't have. we all know THAT'S no way to win the argument.
Posted by: bloodrage bob | August 20, 2007 at 03:56 PM
Many Americans know that JFK, RFK, MLK and other assassinations were inside jobs. JFK’s triangulation murder involved hundreds and nobody “ratted” that out in any substantial way, although Jack Ruby was close before he was found dead in his cell and dozens of deaths surrounded the case.
The fundamental difficulty is not really disbelief about the ability to keep conspiracy secrets but disbelief that U.S. government officials could really collaborate in attacking America and take all those innocent lives at the World Trade Center. But this is naïve. First, government is the instrument of social compulsion. Organized force is what government does. The belief that soft-hearted people rise to the top in government is akin to the belief that softies were whipping masters on slave plantations. Second, setting WTC bombs could easily have been contracted out to Mossad, otherwise known as “executioner to the world.” Killing? It’s what we do (because this is “life or death for Israel,” blah, blah). Third, people are taught that they control their government and live in a duh-mocracy but all governments are run by insiders, usually permanent and dominated by the paymasters. When policy or personnel really matter, international bankers call the tune for modern governments daily dependent on them for new loans and refinance of the old. These financiers look out for themselves and believe in a New World Order, a one-government world, and have no allegiance to America or its founding principles. Fourth, the U.S. military oath requires an oath-taker to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” The enemy within the gate is key today, whether called conspiracy or not, not the enemy outside.
Skepticism about conspiracy, small or large, is somewhat beside the point in the case of 9/11, because the official Osama & 19 Arabs conspiracy tale is so farcical and impossible. The analysis is out there and in a few dozen books, although the mainstream media ignores it all. Only government could have pulled off a psy-op this big, not a rag-tag band of Arab incompetents with no visible means of support repeatedly running afoul of law enforcement in the field.
All the other intelligence services and governments know the real story about who did 9/11. It is like an elephant in the living room, studiously ignored by insiders who keep quiet about it. After thorough exposure via the Downing Street memo and other irrefutable evidence about the Bush-Cheney lies to justify invading Iraq, it takes a lot to remain ignorant about 9/11. It is not about a conspiracy too large to work. Ignorance increasingly has to be willful.
Posted by: Tom | August 19, 2007 at 06:18 PM
Roby, It seems I struck a nerve. Because I cited examples of US and Nazi Germany false flag terrorism does not imply those are the only countries who have engaged in state-sponsored provocations. I simply cited more familiar examples. Because I did not mention the ones high on Roby’s list in no way implies that they are off limits.
You assume too much.
Posted by: Tom | August 19, 2007 at 05:52 PM
Realistically, most real conspiracies can be traced, because no one can hide the truth forever. Watergate was found, classified articles about MK Ultra and Project Stargate have been found. The government experimented with LSD and syphilis on black males.
If we know about these supposed conspiracies, why isn't there any solid sources of the info, and why didn't the shadow government just snipe them off for knowing too much? If they are really planning world domination, why didn't they just act on it when the world was just isolated to Europe than wait thousands of years, many first world nations, and millions of people later when it would be harder to do so? How do we know if they aren't doing it now, and fabricating new conspiracies to keep us busy while they're doing whatever shadow governments do?
Posted by: Roby Bang | August 19, 2007 at 03:52 PM
can't help but notice, tom, that all your instances of state-sponsored provocations all seem to center on either nazi germany or the US. did teacher neglect to mention the myriad atrocities & provocations committed by the gentle communist nations of the world? or asian nations? or african nations?
would teacher frown on mentioning the state-sponsored provocations/exhortations to genocide in rwanda and darfur as 'excessively racist and provocative'? or is it that ONLY the US and nazi germany (an illustrative pairing, btw) have done these things? have you forgotten how the kind, caring socialists of russia blew up some apartment buildings to justify their chechen war a few years back? did you forget that japan declared their rape of manchuria, korea, and china in the '30's to be 'a just response to acts of aggression against them'?
do you - like "most americans", as you so condescendingly inform us - do you have a "mental block" about thinking critically and making (the dreaded) value judgements about countries that **aren't** nazi germany or the US?
i'm just *sayin'*, is all.
Posted by: bloodrage bob | August 19, 2007 at 03:41 PM
I've visited the "Zeitgeistmovie"-website. Some additional material, a "contact"-page etc. But: I've found no name, nowhere! The site seems to be completely anonimous.
I've sent the guy - or his group, or whatever - an email, telling him/them
"Since I believe that personal responsability is the very basis and starting point for any positive action for the human society, I think that it just doesn't fit together: a website calling the people to wake up and act as undependent, responsable persons, being anonimous itself. It is the opposite of trustworthyness. I didn't do any research on your arguments yet, but I'm afraid it will stay that way as long as your website is anonimous."
In fact, I would have been interested to do some research on the first part of the movie, since I am not religious at all myself, quite the contrary (not unusual here in Europe). But if somebody criticizes secret manipulations and has not the guts zu show his own face, I get the feeling it is not worth it to put energy in this.
Apart from that: Scott is right about one thing: the movie is so well made, it is very entertaining to see how well all that strange material has been cooked together.
Posted by: Richard | August 19, 2007 at 07:33 AM
More Americans doubt the 9/11 story every week, but many still have a mental block against rational examination of the evidence about 9/11. The possibility that it was an inside job is a non-starter for them.
They might as well just say: “I’d rather cling to the official 9/11 myth” = “If mass murderers run free, I’m fine with that” = “If 9/11 was an inside job, then I’m ruled by monsters and I might have to do something about it, I’d rather watch Paris Hilton.”
When bad things happen on a large scale, chances are that an important group of people wanted them to happen and made them happen.
Governments throughout history have provoked or staged attacks on their own people to serve the powers behind the throne (“the money power”), glorify themselves, engage in vast government spending, reward friends, exert domestic control, stimulate the juices of war, annex neighbors and pursue vast geo-strategic rearrangements (the “global domination project”).
Here are a few examples:
• Nero burned Rome to blame the Christans A.D. 64
• US provoked Mexican-American war 1846
• USS Maine sinking 1898
• Lusitania sinking 1915
• Reichstag fire 1933
• Hitler’s staged attack on the Gleiwitz radio station 1939
• The “surprise attack” at Pearl Harbor 1941
• Bay of Pigs conspiracy 1961
• Operation Northwoods 1962
• LBJ’s Gulf of Tonkin conspiracy 1964
• Kuwaiti baby incubator hoax 1991
• Bush Jr.’s 9/11, yellow cake and WMD scams
...to name a few.
Posted by: Tom | August 18, 2007 at 04:20 PM
Right !! Everything on the internet can't be trusted.
Posted by: Yash | August 18, 2007 at 07:53 AM
You seem to forget that Ben Laden is mandated by the CIA.
That's why he has been told to recognize 9/11 attacks on video.
Posted by: CDriK | August 18, 2007 at 05:17 AM
*fascinating* movie. propaganda, to be sure, but then you can say that about "inconvenient truth", too. they're trying to sell you on their POV, just like gore did.
i've been saying 'something stinks about 9-11' for years now, mostly die to the WTC7 collapse. small fire; no jet fuel; fell precisely in its own footprint; "fell due to poor construction" yet they *didn't sue the contractor and then rehired hired the exact same guys to rebuild it*; yadda yadda. maybe i'm supersmart, maybe i'm a tinfoil hat loon. time will tell.
but here's the rub on (government) conspiracies: there are 2 fundamental problems that haunt all gummint conspiracy theories - preparation & chatty folks. in the case of 9-11, *if* charges brought down those towers, it would have required **massive**, very PUBLIC prepwork. google highrise demo sometime: it demands dozens if not hundreds of explosive charges drilled into walls, and dozens of great big thick steel cables drilled into walls to pull everything inwards as the bldg falls. that's very visible. putting "cutting thermite charges" on the core pillars of each floor would have made a LOT of noise. made a mess, too: how do you get at core pillars without ripping up walls?
as i understand it, the trade centers were pretty well-occupied and busy. *someone* would have noticed all that prepwork.
also, people LOVE to talk. bush's administration is notoriously leaky. the MSM had literally thousands of abu ghraib photos, photos bush would have preferred to be kept secret. clinton's admin was just as leaky. etc etc. a massive conspiracy as alleged in the movie would require hundreds of folks to be involved. yet they ALL stay mum? forever? doubt it. the same CIA who managed the bay of pigs debacle (under the guidance of the sainted JFK, btw); who had exactly "zero" korean speakers in the seoul station *during the korean war*; who had no clue the berlin wall would come down till they saw it on CNN - THOSE guys pulled off 9-11??? doubt it. the same CIA who *lives* to leak bad stuff about bush?? so they gave us plame & wilson, but forgot to mention the 9-11 conspiracy?? riiiiight.
still, *something* stinks. wtc7 fell at freefall speed into its own footprint "as a result of a small fire". the pentagon & shanksville planes "disintegrated completely". NORAD was all over payne stewart's plane, but missed 4 hijacked heavies. (and how exactly did they take the cockpits? a former 747 pilot has told me that everyone in the cockpit has a 'hijack button' of their own. trouble? they're "trained to push that button first." **no** 9-11 planes got off a hijack signal. why?)
"confused"? moi?? saaaay, is it possible this bleeds into another conspiracy? could the "greys" be responsible for this? or the rothschilds & rockefellers?
Posted by: bloodrage bob | August 18, 2007 at 04:27 AM
This post is so weird. Its opposite from what you would normally write.
Posted by: corrine | August 17, 2007 at 09:41 AM
This post is so weird. It's totally the opposite of what you normally write.
Posted by: corrine | August 17, 2007 at 09:38 AM
Whenever people talk about Bin Laden and how we have yet to catch him it makes me think of the Dread Pirate Roberts in "The Princess Bride." For the unfortunate people who have not seen the movie, there are several people who have played the part of the Dread Pirate Roberts over the years. Every so often the person would retire and pick another person to play the part. It’s the name that keeps people frightened, not the actual person. I bet the "real" Bin Laden was killed several years ago and many different people have shown up on videos claming to be him.
As for the conspiracy, everyone knows it was really the Knights Templar.
Posted by: Tin hat man | August 17, 2007 at 08:58 AM
"In the Hole to China", by Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts08082007.html
Posted by: Leonel | August 17, 2007 at 07:54 AM
To nipplingbeast:
You seem to have a lot of free time.
Posted by: Matt | August 17, 2007 at 07:17 AM
PS I see the coffee swilling beaver made it past the censors...I still prefer the one where he was coked up or whatever it was...
Posted by: cristen | August 17, 2007 at 07:11 AM
@Will Von Whatever: Not having yet read all the previous comments, which may have already made this point, noone is saying the towers fell through pure impact and building fire. What destroyed them was a massive explosion of gallons and gallons of jet fuel blowing through their entire structure. This is unprecedented, and had not been planned for when the buildings were erected.
Scott: I love that your comments are listed latest first: it means that when I visit the blog late on, I have a chance of writing a comment that might get read.
Posted by: Cristen | August 17, 2007 at 07:05 AM
We were watching this thing on the SciFi channel last night - same thing. They're after this mysterious man-eating bird. You know the entire thing is bullshit, that the radio communications were dubbed in later to make it seem "spookier", etc. etc. but that didn't stop us from watching.
Unfortunately, our pitiful lives are based upon perception, and we're forced to believe what is thrown at us as long as we deem it credible. I'm not stupid enough to believe that my government - or anyone else - tells me the truth all the time. In fact, I'm more of the cynical type that believes that most people will lie reguarly for their own selfish agenda.
Not that I can blame them.
"No honey, that dress looks fabulous on you!" is certainly going to get you more action than "It's not the dress with the problem dear..."
But the problem with relgion and 9/11 is that there exists at least enough, if not a lot, of missing information, so our imagination fills in the void. Some of it is plausible, possibly true.
And some of it would make for good man-eating bird hunting television.
Posted by: Oddity | August 17, 2007 at 06:53 AM
After watching the first 10 minutes (I do plan to watch the rest),
I must admit that this movie is very good at using the techniques of propaganda. The last movie I saw which was this "persuasive" was Triumph of the Will (which documented the Nuremberg Rally).
I found this tendency that it had of trying to lead me by the nose to every conclusion annoying, to be honest. Showing two things one after the other (as it does in the introduction repeatedly) is a low-brow way of making the viewer reach a conclusion without making him think rationally.
I hope it gets better...
Posted by: Esn | August 17, 2007 at 02:32 AM
For the 9-11 issue i strongly believe that the buildings fell for the planes and the fire. That is because i am a firm believer in the power of stupidity to dismiss small issues, the hidden compromises, the weak link of the underpaid low-end worker yet the one that put that humble but crucial part that needs a little bit of attention, and the power of overall arrogance that would hide the pity truth for whatever makes look good. To me this is the simplest and more reasonable explanation, at least when you saw some world and how humans really are.
Posted by: T.G. | August 16, 2007 at 11:03 PM
[@Sam
about the tinfoil hat... weren't there guys at MIT (might be another institute in the US i'm not entirely sure) who examined the screening of a tin foil hat of radio waves and found that it really amplifies the intensity just below the hat. And so instead of shielding, it rather works like an antenna :-) Now that is some useful research]
Now that's what I call irony! (or maybe that should be 'tinny' *groan*) I just posted the link as a resonse to all those here who seem to believe in any of the conspiracy theories - seemed more succinct that expaining it all; I don't actually BELIEVE in conspiracy theories at all. Any of them. Or at least certainly no more than I believe in what the gorvernment or media touts as 'truth'.
I just thought is was quite hilarious, that's all...
xox
Posted by: sam | August 16, 2007 at 07:09 PM