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Peter Joseph is Peter Joseph Merola, born into a working/middle class family, attended the North Carolina School of the Arts and dropped out of the Mannes Conservatory of Music in NYC. He had hoped to be a professional marimba player, but instead went into video production and Wall Street day trading. He currently lives and works in New York City as a freelance film editor/composer/producer and is the creator of the Zeitgeist film trilogy and the founder of the Zeitgeist Movement.
What began as a self-described vaudeville performance piece, was then placed on YouTube, gleaned broad interest among conspiracy buffs and became the 2007 documentary Zeitgeist: The Movie, which begins with a deconstruction of the Christ myth and all institutional religion, segues into 9/11 theories and concludes with the manipulation of the international monetary system and the media by the power elites.
While the film has been praised by some for being "compellingly edited", it has also been criticized for factual inaccuracies, and the quality of its arguments, with critics describing it as "agitprop" and "propaganda". A sequel, Zeitgeist: Addendum, focuses further on the monetary system and advocates a resource-based social system influenced by the ideas of Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project (from whom Peter Joseph has apparently lately fallen out in mutual acrimony). Following the release of Zeitgeist: Addendum, Peter Joseph created an organization called the Zeitgeist Movement to promote the ideas of Fresco's Venus Project. Joseph also produced an updated 2010 version of the original film in order to address dated material and improve its accuracy. A third film called Zeitgeist: Moving Forward was released theatrically on 15 January 2011 and online on 25 January 2011.
While "the movies are not the movement" is an oft-repeated mantra of Peter Joseph, he also states that it has been the primary recruitment tool, though it has also generated a fair amount of highly critical response. Ironically, though the movie and movement vision is one of an entirely rational world which shuns spirituality, emotion, personal perception and intuition, the movies are all highly emotionally-charged and visually suggestive while being factually suspect, similar to any well-made propaganda film.
Criticism:
"The idea, though it is not new, (but is packaged in hypnotising emotional propaganda movies) sounds lovely. Lets give up our power to machines. In one generation we lose every skill we ever had at managing the earth, growing food, existing as a family unit, forget how to exercise, work at anything and become so dependant on the system that should an error occur the engineers become the new elite, the rulers of the technocratic communist sci-fi dystopia."
- The Sovereign Independent, Peter Joseph, Jacque Fresco and the Zeitgeist Movement: Venus Flytrap or Final Solution? http://www.sovereignindependent.com/?p=13193
"The film is an interesting object lesson on how conspiracy theories get to be so popular.... It's a driven, if uneven, piece of propaganda, a marvel of tight editing and fuzzy thinking. Its on-camera sources are mostly conspiracy theorists, co-mingled with selective eyewitness accounts, drawn from archival footage and often taken out of context. It derides the media as a pawn of the International Bankers, but produces media reports for credibility when convenient. The film ignores expert opinion, except the handful of experts who agree with it. And yet, it's compelling. It shamelessly ploughs forward, connecting dots with an earnest certainty that makes you want to give it an A for effort."
- Ivor Tossell, the Globe and Mail, August 17, 2007, "Conspiracy theorists yelling in the echo chamber"
Jane Chapman, a film producer and reader in media studies at the University of Lincoln, called Zeitgeist "a fast-paced assemblage of agitprop", an example of unethical film-making. She accuses Joseph of "implicit deception" through the use of unreferenced and undated assertions, and standard film-making propaganda techniques. While parts of the film are, she says, "comically" self-defeating, the nature of “twisted evidence” and use of Madrid bomb footage to imply it is of the London bombings (she approvingly cites a student journalist who calls it an "out and out lie") amount to ethical abuse in sourcing (in later versions of the movie, a subtitle is added to this footage identifying it as from the Madrid bombings). She finishes her analysis with the comment:
"Thus legitimate questions about what happened on 9/11, and about corruption in religious and financial organizations, are all undermined by the film’s determined effort to maximize an emotional response at the expense of reasoned argument."
- Chapman, Jane (2009), Issues in Contemporary Documentary. Polity Press. pp. 171–173
Regarding the origins of Christianity in The Movie, Part I:
Skeptic magazine's Tim Callahan criticizing the first part of the film (on the origins of Christianity) wrote that "some of what it asserts is true. Unfortunately, this material is liberally – and sloppily – mixed with material that is only partially true and much that is plainly and simply bogus… Zeitgeist is The Da Vinci Code on steroids."
- Callahan, Tim (2009). "The Greatest Story Ever Garbled". Skeptic 28
Chris Forbes, Senior lecturer in Ancient History of Macquarie University and member of the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney, severely criticized Part I of the movie, asserting that it has no basis in serious scholarship or ancient sources, and that it relies on amateur sources that recycle frivolous ideas from one another, rather than serious academic sources, commenting, "It is extraordinary how many claims it makes which are simply not true." Similar conclusions were reached by Dr. Mark Foreman of Liberty University.
- "Zeitgeist: Time to discard the Christian story?". Interview at the Centre for Public Christianity, Sydney, Australia.
"Challenging the Zeitgeist Movie: Alleged Parallels between Jesus and Ancient Pagan Religions". 2011, Evangelical Philosophical Society.
The Movement
According to the Zeitgeist Movement website, its mission is "the installation of a new socioeconomic model based upon technically responsible Resource Management, Allocation and Distribution through what would be considered The Scientific Method of reasoning problems and finding optimized solutions."
"This Resource-Based Economic Model is about taking a direct technical approach to social management. It is about updating the workings of society to the most advanced and proven methods Science has to offer."
While claiming to offer a social model that is a revolutionary readjustment from today's hierarchical political economy, it is organized in a surprisingly top-down hierarchical way.
Chapters of the Zeitgeist Movement are organized in Tiers.
From "Top to Bottom", including:
The Movement, it claims, is governed by what they call "rational consensus".
"Rational Consensus is not to be confused with the historically failed traditional Mob Rule Democratic Process of one person - one vote. TZM does not condone total, open mob rule democracy as it is based on the faulty assumption that each participating party is educated enough to make the most intellectually appropriate, unbiased decision. Proper Decision Making has nothing to do with the interests of a group of people, nor the interests of a single person. Proper Decision Making is a purely technical process of logical assessment of a given set of variables and hence can only be based on upon tangible, technical referents - not abject, unsupported mass value opinion, which is what the pure democratic theory erroneously assumes holds integrity. In other words, each argument of a given member must be logically supported by an external referent/set of external referents – clearly reasoned in communication to support the conclusion given. The manifestation of this reasoning could be called a Case. If the argument cannot be quantified in some manner - it isn't valid as an argument."
In other words, the Movement rejects Jeffersonian democracy and his belief in the ability of common people to rule themselves, and substitutes a technological and rational meritocracy in which the only credible voices will be those who can make cogent quantitative and empirical arguments – the Oligopoly of the Nerds.
In the third of the trilogy, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, which was meant to be a manifesto for the Movement (though Peter Joseph now denies this), the rational, science and technology-based model is fleshed out.
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward
A global resource, production and distribution management system will include
"Because these mechanisms are purely technical considerations, devoid of any human opinion or bias, we simply program these strategies into a computer which can weigh and calculate all the relevant variables, allowing us ALWAYS to arrive at the absolute best method for sustainable production based on current understandings – just a glorified calculator, a global management machine."
This distorted vision ignores the fact that a computer must be programmed by biased and agenda-driven people. This a vision not unlike that of HAL, the self-aware computer, running (and then taking over) the Starship in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It also somewhat resembles the Matrix, with a benevolent bent, George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The Machine will serve humanity's needs and we merely need to serve the machine. The result, of course, will be utopian abundance. And it's the only way to heaven.
"This logical, empirical approach can ONLY define human sustainability on this planet, and yield abundance for the global human population."
Peter Joseph, like so many science idolators before him, perceives the natural world as based on absolute recognizable laws and the social world as a clockwork machine that can be tinkered with to improve its function. He also suffers from the misunderstanding that science can prove anything as true, when its only function is develop hypotheses and theorems to approximate perceived reality or disprove them by contradictory evidence. Science can empirically disprove but never prove (other than mathematically) and, according to Gödel's 1931 Incompleteness Theorum (which has never been disproved), any purely logical (computational) system can never prove its own validity nor be completely self-consistent.
"Society is a technical invention. A resource-based economy is science applied to social concern. Nature is a dictatorship and we can either learn and fall in line with its natural laws and conduct yourself accordingly or go against the current and suffer the adverse consequences. A resource-based economy is nothing more than a set of proven life-support understandings where all decisions are based on optimized human and environmental sustainability. It is based on an empirical life ground, which every human being shares – there is no cultural relativism to this approach. A resource-based economy is based on a set of true economic mechanisms or strategies which guarantee efficiency and sustainability in every area of the economy."
He also rejects the notion of individual or cultural diversity and proposes a one-size-fits-all model of global economy and governance. And he paints the same kind of technological utopia that so many other false prophets of the modern age have done, decoupling humanity from the very soil of its beginnings and its earthly sustenance.
"Food can be grown industrially without soil in vertical production facilities. All consumer goods can be manufactured by automated mechanization without human labor by machines that can even reproduce themselves."
"With the elimination of the money system, we would see a global reduction in crime of almost 95% immediately."
"Making homes with hammers and nails and wood, with the state of our technology today, is really absurd," says Roxanne Meadows of the Venus Project, "and will go the way of our labor class in manufacturing in the United States. Our middle class is obsolete"
No more physical labor, no more hand crafts. All things provided by perfect machines.
"80% of the US workforce is in the service sector today, and 75% of the global workforce can be replaced by mechanization tomorrow."
"A Resource-Based Economy accepts the efficiency of mechanization and accepts it for what it offers, because it's irresponsible not to. The Resource-Based Economy city will be one big machine. While people will be needed to oversee the machine and respond to problems, that number will diminish over time to perhaps 3% of the city's population."
The ever-growing, ever-urbanized human population will be reduced to permanent leisure and voluntary assistance for the betterment of society, which Peter Joseph is certain will be guaranteed in this work-free society, since there will be no incentive to do anything else. By technological magic, all the shadow side of human nature will evaporate and we will all gratefully accept this dystopian construct as the right way to live.
Of course, as with every such charismatic-led cult movement, the primary corruption is in the leader. Just as excess money corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely – whether begun in an idealistic and altruistic spirit or out of pure ego and self-aggrandizement, when there's one person at the head of a social movement, everything revolves around him.
The Zeitgeist Movement - A Critical Review
Edward L Winston, June 13, 2010
http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/the-zeitgeist-movem...
Peter Joseph, the leader of TZM is far more damaging to his own movement than I imagine many of the hardcore members want to believe:
"The most important issue here is that Peter Joseph is the leader of TZM and his word is law, despite claiming that he doesn't consider himself the leader, he acts unilaterally to forbid members from talking to outsiders and bans members who post on our forums that aren't glorifying him."
Some excerpts from a letter to Peter Joseph Merola from 38 members of TZM development group:
"Only a few individuals currently exert global control over the movement, and decide who can remain a member and who cannot. In addition, nothing resembling a peer-review process exists within the current practice of decision making."
"The express exclusion of certain community tools and discussion mediums is counterproductive, prohibitive and ultimately unsustainable. It also leads directly to the perception of a dictatorship by many active members."
"As a result of these issues and more, we are witnessing an increasing number of users, contributors and moderators suddenly deciding to throw in the towel and walk away from the movement."
This group of active website developers were summarily banned from the movement.
The most common attributes of any cult movement are a promised utopia, an almost fanatical following, authoritarian control by a core elite, a relentless and brutal attack on any outside critics, and quick and decisive elimination of any inside dissenters. This is the wake that the Zeitgeist Movement has left behind.
There is also evidence that Peter Joseph's insistence on attracting 50 million members before actually manifesting anything on the ground, and a complete dearth of any actual service to the world suggests that his primary purpose is to sell himself, sell DVDs and attract some considerable multiple of the 12 disciples he simplistically denies to Jesus. If ever a man had a messiah complex, Peter Joseph (Merola) is one stunning example. The likelihood is that he will end up crucifying himself (or sold out by a disgruntled disciple for 30 pieces or resource economy scrip).
Thank you for putting this together. It is just as valuable to me as is one or another pointer to TZM.
Bravo for completely shunning and misrepresenting an entire sustainability advocacy organization.
Rather, The Movement recognizes that issues such as poverty, corruption, collapse, homelessness, war, starvation and the like appear to be "Symptoms" born out of an outdated social structure. While intermediate Reform steps and temporal Community Support are of interest to The Movement, the defining goal here is the installation of a new socioeconomic model based upon technically responsible Resource Management, Allocation and Distribution through what would be considered The Scientific Method of reasoning problems and finding optimized solutions.
Lets just clear a few things up shall we? Because anyone reading this getting your ill-informed and ignorant 'opinions' on an entirely peaceful and rational organisation will come to some very one sided conclusions. Not to mention that half of the bold statements you come out with are entirely fabricated.
First and foremost, TZM is a some kind of a cult? Are you crazy? Here's Stefan Molyneux a blogger, essayist, author, and host of the Freedomain Radio and NOT a member of TZM with his response to people who throw up the word 'cult' as a crass attempt to belittle and put people off an entirely non cultish movement.- www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEPq33y75YM
(For anyone interested in hearing some criticisms closer to being classed as 'valid', check out some of Stefans radio shows on the topic of TZM) - and then watch Peter Joseph Merolas (yes, we all know it's Merola- well done!) response to his objections, and make your own mind up - http://youtu.be/ozy52bZ6JTw
Also useful for people interested in what the movement does day to day, or what it's all about is to check out their website, radio shows, and youtube channel- http://www.youtube.com/user/TZMOfficialChannel.
Here Peter Joseph debunks some of the claims from a REAL conspiracy theorist (Which Peter Joseph certainly isn't) - http://youtu.be/r2leoOhtQp8
Here's another - http://youtu.be/XRI8QSpD3_s
He also openly asks people with criticisms to discuss these issues on their weekly radio show at- www.blogtalkradio.com/zmglobal where academics, critics and activists regularly discuss and debate issues and keep people up to date with the movements progress.
Basically what I'm trying to say is, anyone coming here to find out 'What is the Zeitgeist Movement and who is Peter Joseph' has come to the wrong place, I have heard nothing in terms of any constructive criticisms there's no criticisms about peer reviewed scientific studies that debunk the human nature argument. No arguments about the fact that infinite growth on a finite planet is unsustainable, and no real contribution from the author of this blog in terms of his own solutions to any of the problems of our socio-economic systems (I know the topic of this blog was TZM, but if you are going to criticize the ideas and proposals of an organisation then try to bring something to the table yourself)
So the most important issue you have with TZM is your belief that Peter is the leader of this group- "despite claiming that he doesn't consider himself the leader, he acts unilaterally to forbid members from talking to outsiders and bans members who post on our forums that aren't glorifying him." - Please! What a load of crap. No one has to sign anything to be a member, no one is made an 'official' member, like it was some kind of paid-for membership and anyone can associate or disassociate themselves with the groups ideologies whenever they like. This is both its strength and weakness, on the one hand, anyone can 'join' but on the other hand it means a lot of people who state they are part of the movement, actually are not- and this is where the trouble arises from within the organisation. What we take offence to are trolls who are OBVIOUSLY trolling, people who misinform people on TZM because they don't understand the subject well enough and are unwilling to educate themselves better and critics who throw up the usual petty 'insults' such as Communist, Marxist, cult member, etc when they don't understand enough about the subject they are trying to criticise.
He quite openly asks people to BE THEIR OWN LEADER - http://youtu.be/NernaboToRE
Now, let's put many of these false-claims under the microscope...
WHAT THE ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT IS NOT?
• IT'S NOT utopian
• IT'S NOT a for-profit organization.
• IT'S NOT a dogmatic movement
• IT'S NOT an organization to create a NWO or New World Order"
• IT'S NOT a political party
• IT'S NOT communism
• IT'S NOT a technocrat movement
• IT'S NOT a centralized organization
• IT'S NOT a secret or occult organization
• IT'S NOT a sect or select group, closed or elitist
• IT'S NOT a charitable society
• IT'S NOT an esoteric movement or New Age
• IT'S NOT a left-wing movement
• IT'S NOT an anti-system movement
IT'S NOT utopian
Utopia (From the Greek for "what does not happen or does not exist") can be defined as a seemingly unattainable ideal society at the time of its formulation. In this sense, a utopia has an important ideal component that makes a happy existence possible because peace and justice realm in it.
Thereby and antonomasia (par excellence), though inadequate, is associated with the impossible utopia or unattainable (especially because of those popular and unscientific false sayings "Man has always been bad by nature").
The Zeitgeist Movement (ZM) is not Utopian, it advocates for an update of society through education, awareness and introduction of the knowledge accumulated by humanity and use of science as a tool for society to successfully implement a realistic and sustainable system called Resource-Based Economy (RBE).
At first glance designs such as the Venus Project (VP) may seem utopian. So we must remember that certain technological advances and way of thinking in our past history were branded as impossible, or at least wrong, by the same institutions that today would if they could: religious, political and business (eg, the earth was certainly flat and, of course, occupied the centre of the cosmos). All that has been considered impossible, has become viable at a time. To assume the impossibility of something a priori is a lack of creativity. We have the knowledge, resources and initiative to redesign a new integrated architecture that can create a world where we can flourish as a civilization. This is not a utopia, much less an opinion, is a verifiable fact, tangible and demonstrable through the use of the scientific method as a tool to approach and argue. History shows us as the "establishment" of the past always oppose a paradigm shift in both the institutions that shape them are violated in their pretence of being absolute and permanent, which is absurd in the natural order because planet earth and the universe are always constantly changing and evolving.
Moreover, the notion of utopia is also associated with an idealized goal or objective to be achieved: societies are always in transition, so there is no final destination but the road, which is built all the time.
IT'S NOT a for-profit organization
The ZM aims to overcome the prospect of profit as an incentive for people. Although the ZM acknowledges that monetary reward somehow motivates it also recognizes that the monetary incentive generates an absolute crisis of values: a culture based on individualism, scarcity, mistrust, violence and competition (understood as unhealthy competitiveness and pathological where anything goes for money).
The dominant mentality of looking at any price the greatest benefit at the lowest cost has proven to be an unhealthy attitude that is threatening our survival as a species. The ends never justified the means (not anything goes!). The profit interest overrides the interest of human and social welfare, thus society is not motivated to contribute to itself in a meaningful way but simply personal enrichment at the expense of itself in any way possible. That's a dementia.
That's why not only the ZM is a non-profit organization but it also advocates for the absolute abolition of the monetary system because it encourages indecent attitudes, which are retrograde and lascivious in individual growth as well as in social development.
IT'S NOT a dogmatic movement
A dogma is a particular doctrine, prefixed and sustained by a centralized hierarchical institution. Such doctrines don't allow room for doubt or criticism, they would be censored by consensus and are respected by its members and followers supporters without question (or a low level of questioning). Dogmatic attitudes impede understanding, destroy or limit communication, and therefore evolution. A dogma as a belief is by definition the antithesis of scientific thinking because, even if shared by an overwhelming majority is never subjected to any test of truth.
The ZM is open to environmental influences and supports criticism of their understandings. This non-dogmatic way comes from the recognition of the emergent nature of knowledge, in other words, we accept the reality (nature) always changes and emerges into something different with each change.
Consistent with this, we see no superiority of one belief system over another, in this sense the ZM is practical and simply seeks to apply the most efficient techniques to facilitate the development of human life and the use of the best that is known or can do to date.
IT'S NOT an organization to create a NWO or "New World Order"
The proposal for a RBE is not related to the political agendas of the financial elite, corporate and government that advocate for the creation of a world government.
The RBE could only take place if the whole planet cease competing with each other and collaborate to serve a single objective, sustainability on a finite planet. Then it would be possible to declare the planet's natural resources as common heritage of mankind. Although this is expressed as a new way of organizing society, it has nothing to do with the politicized NWO and other organizations or initiatives that propose that a few hold the power over most of humanity and the planet at any cost.
IT'S NOT a political party
The ZM is not a political party but a social movement. As such it is an informal grouping (not institutionalized) of individuals dedicated to social, economic and technological development aimed at updating and social evolution.
The ZM is not seeking to take power, that is, their interest is not to govern. One of the main objectives is to generate a critical mass of people that call for change on a global scale, just so the other institutions will be forced to acquiesce.
It also aims to help individuals or entire communities to depend in a minimum way on the monetary system and the financial system, therefore depend as little as possible of money. This is achieved through the promotion, development and implementation of projects and initiatives that advocate and achieve the stated objective. (eg, implementation of renewable energy, permaculture, environmental pedagogy...) Unlike political organizations, the ZM is organized in a absolutely decentralized and horizontal structure, with no political affiliations, much less partisan. (Please seehttp://www.zeitgeistargentina.com/pdfs/The_Zeitgeist_Movement_Argentina_Organizational_Model.pdf
The ZM does not need the homogeneity that is enjoyed by political parties, on the contrary, its strength lies in pluralism, diversity and its members, while they share the same basic concepts, have the autonomy to exercise critical thinking, differentiate into any level and not lose its identity and individuality. The freedom to question is not only alibi, but encouraged and sought-after at all times for it is an expression of the use of scientific method as a tool for development and construction.
IT'S NOT communism
Communism exists within a monetary system, and therefore has banks, police and social inequality. A RBE does not (will not) have any of this because it has been overcome by not contemplating it.
However, in the term commonly referred to the ideal of Karl Marx, we see that he did not design a model or a technical method to maintain a classless society. A RBE provides a methodological approach to produce abundance by the best possible management of resources and the least human labour possible until it's eventually eliminated, while offering all the comforts to the people in a prosperous society.
In a RBE decisions are reached through the scientific method, where the construction processes, production and distribution are managed and operated by computerized systems.
IT'S NOT a technocrat movement
Technocracy literally means government technicians. In our proposal technicians do not govern, in fact no one governs. At the beginning of a RBE, during the transition from monetarism, society should be clearly technically organized by qualified people stating social needs and available resources. The government will be a set of automated operations based on the scientific method to provide greater efficiency in its operations: production and distribution of goods, education, health, etc ...
The criteria used for any decision is always the greatest benefit and social prosperity.
For this, we use technology to take all possible information and reach decisions. A decision is reached, no one will take them. Computers have the advantage to be able to process much more data than people and are not subject to whims and cultural prejudices to those that humans are exposed, which skews our judgement ability. We rely on technology because it is capable of operating like a human expert. The role of people, among others, will be to monitor these systems.
IT'S NOT a centralized organization
The ZM is a decentralized structure. That is, it doesn't have leaders who order what to do or what not to do, because all the information (power) is distributed among all members involved in a horizontal manner. Each member learns to make decisions by himself guided by their understandings on how to contribute to a whole and unlearning to use individualistic criteria associated with one's own subjectivity (taste, pleasure or personal convenience). It maintains a horizontal and circular structure, because it recognizes the symbiotic nature: we are all connected to everyone.
To recognize the emerging nature of reality allows us to be open and flexible to the changing environment. This regenerative approach is useful and practical to grow and adapt. Renew or perish, right? ;)
IT'S NOT a secret or occult organization
The ZM is completely public and transparent, it has no secrets and no leaders. It is based on sharing and extending its nature, not hiding it.
IT'S Not a sect or select group, closed or elitist
We list some characteristics of sects to demonstrate that the ZM has nothing to do with these kids of organizations.
Definition of a sect: It's a group of people who share a form of destructive thinking with devotion to an idol or leader and with a strong paternalistic attachment towards it. It uses mental and behavioural manipulation techniques to control and persuade their followers and to secure the objectives of the group leader or organization. They restrict freedom of education, expression and the movement of its members. They maintain cults, practices and rituals. Their members are induced to economic exploitation, sexual or general abuse of people. There are more features, anyone interested can include them later. . .
In contrast to these features, the ZM is open to all without distinction or conditions of any kind, since it considers these divisions illusory, false, immobilizing, outdated and artificially created by the groups in power to divide and separate mankind.
IT'S NOT a charitable society
While we welcome any act of charity, our aim is to solve the cause of the problems in our society from the root.
Solidarity is fine as an attitude, but the ZM aspires to equality, which is unrelated to lose (something like individuality), but to gain.
IT'S NOT an esoteric movement or New Age
Although we seek a change of mentality that allows the receptivity of new knowledge and the questioning of the current values of society, we argue that this change alone will not create the conditions necessary for the survival of life on Earth. The ZM is not based on faith or belief that reality will change in the way that it proposes itself, but in real possibilities of changing reality.
For example, a hungry child will not be fed by the fact of humanity meditating, prayers or performs rituals on the need to be fed.
IT'S NOT a left-wing movement
Neither centrist nor right-wing. In fact, the understanding of the ZM overcomes the horizontal immobility of the bipolar policy. Demanding equality for humankind could be considered nowadays as coming from the left of the political spectrum. In a monetary system, money equals power, so in that context of the struggle to obtain equality, this by definition is denied when the law of the strongest reigns.We are apolitical and rational, very rational.
IT'S NOT an anti-system movement
We do not fight against the current system: we create a new system. In this sense we are an alternative to the system (alter-system) or builders of a new one (pro-system). Another way to understand it is seeing the movement as one who is pro RBE (Pro Resource-Based Economy).
I hope people choose to take their time in finding out what TZM is really about, and how it operates. Rather than just the opinion of someone on occupy cafe. (By the way, you can look up a number of videos of TZM activism, lectures and debates at the various Occupy camps on TZMs YouTube channel)
Peace x
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