I spent the majority of this last weekend viewing the films Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist:Addendum. (You can check out the full-length features here, and for free, no less).
My Impression? They certainly provoke thought, and the first installment is probably best viewed with lights on and awareness of who/what is in your house, as it gets disturbing at times. Director Peter Joseph, who narrated as well as wrote the film and the music score, displays a very keen sense of the emotional impact of images, sounds, and the impact they have in the right places at the right times.
The first film, the better of the two, is divided into three main parts: the first deals with religious mythology and its use as a political cudgel over its subscribing populations. The second deals with 9-11, and lays out the case that the "official" version of the 9-11 story is, in fact, a myth - going as far as to suggest that the affair was a "false flag" operation by the government. (I personally have a few questions/issues about the false flag theory - but I will go as far as to say that the 9-11 Commission Report was the biggest load of BS ever subjected to the American People. At the very least, the Bush Administration's negligence was of an epic grossness.) The third stanza deals with our present monetary system, especially its fiat nature - a topic covered in greater detail in Addendum. Perhaps the most controversial point Joseph makes is the concept that the Federal Income Tax is unconstitutional, having never been properly ratified - I'm not so sure about this allegation. The bigger point, though, is that our present free-market system, combined with a fiat (not backed by anything except "full faith and credit" - whatever that's worth these days) currency, is unsustainable, and that collapse of this system is not a matter of if, but when. "When" is coming awfully fast, in my estimation.
As stated above, Addendum delves further into the weaknesses of the present monetary and free-market economic systems, and touches on globalization, often by subterfuge and/or brute force (read The Shock Doctrine for more details on this.). It also proposes a solution through introducing the viewer to The Venus Project - a concept originally envisioned by social engineer Jacque Fresco. Here, concepts such as "resource-based economy" and that technology will be mankind's ultimate salvation, are discussed.
One issue I have with Fresco's conclusions is that he stipulates that the "resource-based economy" has not really been tried before. The idea that Earth's resources, in their entirety, are part of the "commons" and thus the heritage of all and must be managed for the benefit of all goes back to antiquity. The First Nations peoples of this continent and South America, the Australian Aborigines, and other indigenous peoples would probably have a lot to say about "resource-based economics" - they would likely call it "survival". So what he's really proposing is a tech-based adaptation of what our ancestors did hundreds, even thousands of years ago. Fresco's concepts, as they are described, may seem far-fetched and even destined to remain fiction, knowing what we know about present-day human nature and economics. But he's not describing present-day conditions - he is describing what they could be, generations from now.
While I am challenged by some of the points Fresco makes in Addendum, and by Joseph in both films, I would agree that our country, economy, and culture are on a completely unsustainable path. In the end, we are a part of nature and not it's master, no matter how we delude ourselves. Chief Seattle said it best: "The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth".
We're about to relearn that lesson, and in a hard way, I fear.
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