In Agatha Christie’s classic crime novel the ABC Murders, the detective Hercule Poirot comes up with the following formulation: “When do you notice a pin least? When it is in a pin cushion. When do you notice a murder least? When it is one of a series of related murders.” I would like to extend Poirot’s thinking to “When do you notice an extremely pernicious and dangerous conspiracy theory least? When it is set in a two hour film amongst many other conspiracy theories.”
Over the last year or so a number of people have told me that I should watch the film Zeitgeist: The Movie. All of these people have been lefties or liberals, and each tells me that the film supplies a good exposé of power in the modern world. These people have been from a wide range of backgrounds and ages, some of them environmentalists, some of them unionists, some of them socialists, some British, some American. The film has achieved massive viewing figures globally, with over 3,000,000 people having watched it on Youtube, and many more on DVD or Google Video. And of all of these people who have recommended the film to me, none has noticed its reliance on the old myth of the “world Jewish conspiracy”.
In this article I hope to expose the film’s relationship to older anti-Semitic texts and myths, and look more closely at how these theories are made to look left-wing or liberal. I wish to explain why this film has become so attractive to people who otherwise are engaged in good struggles against capitalism, against war, and to save the environment. I am particularly interested in the relationship between the film and a book called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, along with its use of other anti-Semitic tropes that have existed throughout modernity.
Zeitgeist: The Movie is split into three parts: The first focuses on the relationship between astrological symbology and the story of Jesus; the second on “the truth about 9/11″; and the third is about international finance. In all honesty the first part is neither here nor there. The argument is that Christianity is not original in its particular form of mythology, and instead is a reconfiguration of older myths focusing on sun gods. Whether or not we take this argument to be true has very little impact on how we understand modern society. The second section of the film expounds a theory that 9/11 was an inside job, committed by the American state. Many people do believe this, and much of the information is inaccessible, but the argument that I would like to make is that these two conspiracy theories are in many ways inconsequential to the overall meaning of the film. Rather they are used as a smoke screen to justify the dissemination of anti-Semitic material in the final section of the film.
What is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
The Protocols is a book first published by around the turn of the last century in Russia. It is a fraudulent and fictional document made to read as if written by Jews intent on ruling the world. It suggests that the Jewish people plan on world domination through a process of controlling governments, controlling the media, controlling banks, and swindling the populace at large. The claim is that Jews wish to enslave the world by creating a “one world government.” Of course the text is deeply anti-Semitic, and has been shown numerous times to be a forgery, but has been used consistently throughout the 20th and 21st centuries to justify atrocities committed against Jews. Furthermore it remains popular in parts of the world, and amongst certain right-wing and fascist organisations.
The relationship between two texts
It is easy enough to say that there is a large cross-over of content between Zeitgeist and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion by plucking a few choice quotes. For example, where Zeitgeist says, “International bankers now have a streamlined machine to expand their personal ambitions”, The Protocols says “the wheels of the machine of all the states are moved by the force of the engine, which is in our [the Jews’] hands, and the engine of the machinery of our states is Gold .” But I would suggest that this sort of critique does not go far enough, rather I would like to show that the entire argument of the third section of the film has been lifted from The Protocols. It is the same argument, often in slightly altered language, and as such is just as anti-Semitic. I will focus on five particular aspects: The one world government; the use of war; manipulation of the populace; the focus on gold and money; and the idea of an all-powerful secret cabal.
The One World Government
One of the great fears of the conspiracy theorists is a one world government. This point is made explicitly towards the end of Zeitgeist in a discussion of a North American Union, an Asian Union, the European Union, and an African Union. And finally, they say “when the time is right they will merge together forming the final stages of a plan these men have been working on for over 60 years: a one world government… One bank, one army, one centre of power.” This argument is particularly related to he opening of Protocol 3 in which we read, “Today I may tell you that our [the Jews’] goal is now only a few steps off. There remains but a small space to cross of the long path we have trodden before the cycle of the Symbolic Snake, by which we symbolise our people, will be completed. When this ring closes, all the States of Europe will be locked into its coil as in a powerful vice.” The Protocols go on in Protocol 5, “by all these means we shall so wear down the goyim (non-Jews) that they will be compelled to offer us international power of a nature that will enable us to absorb all the State forces of the world and to form a Super-Government.”
The use of war
There is a section in the film in which it is claimed that the justifications for America going into a number of world wars were orchestrated by “men behind the government.” We are told that the sinking of the Lusitania was planned, that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident never happened, that Pearl Harbour was known about well in advance, and of course that 9/11 was an inside job. We are told that both sides of conflicts have been funded by the same “international bankers.” This section of the film is lifted directly from Protocol 7, which reads, “Throughout all of Europe, and by means of relations in Europe, in other continents also, we must create ferments, discords, and hostility. Therein we gain a double advantage. In the first place we keep in check all countries, for they well know that we have the power whenever we like to create disorders and to restore order… We must be in a position to respond to every act of opposition by war with the neighbours of that country which dares to oppose us: but if these neighbours should also venture to stand collectively against us, then we must offer resistance by universal war.”
I am not going to say here that wars haven’t been entered into cynically, because of course they have, and I am also not saying that many wars should not be opposed, because again in many cases they should. The point though, is that the structure of this particular argument about war is based on the idea of Jews running the world, and should thus be thrown out.
Manipulating the populace
There are two branches to classic Jewish conspiracy theory thought about how the people are made stupid and swindled. The first, and in fact the one that has been most significant in the history of Jewish conspiracy theories, is the idea of Jews being in charge of the media. The second, which has become less widely used but still exists in Zeitgeist: The Movie is the idea of Jewish control of the education system to make it ineffective. The issue of Jewish control of the media is covered in Protocol 12 in which it is written, “Not a single announcement will reach the public without our control. Even now this is being attained by us inasmuch as all news items are received by a few agencies in whose offices they are focused from all parts of the world. These agencies will then be already entirely ours (the Jews’) and will give publicity only to what we dictate to them.” And in Protocol 13, “We further distract them [the non-Jews] with amusements, games, pastimes, passions, people’s palaces… Soon we shall begin through the press to propose competitions in art, in sport of all kinds. These interests will finally distract their minds from questions in which we should find ourselves compelled to oppose them.” In Zeitgeist identical issues are covered throughout but in particular there is discussion of a “culture entirely saturated by mass media entertainments.” We are told that the same people behind the planned takeover of society are “behind the mainstream media.”
In both Zeitgeist and The Protocols we see some discussion of the education system. In Zeitgeist we are told about the “downward slide of the US education system” and that “They [the government] do not want your children to be educated.” Completely unsurprisingly the same argument is made in Protocol 16: “When we are in power we shall remove every kind of disturbing subject from the course of education and shall make out of the youth obedient children of authority.” The narrator of Zeitgeist says, “the last thing the men behind the curtain want is a conscious, informed public”, echoing the sentiment from Protocol 5 that “there is nothing more dangerous to us (the Jews) than personal initiative.”
The focus on gold or money: the federal reserve, and Jewish usury
Both The Protocols (particularly Protocols 21 and 22) and Zeitgeist focus heavily on issues regarding money or gold. Both offer the theory that the problems of society are caused by money and systems of money being controlled by a small group of people of questionable morals. What is important here is the focus is on money rather than on capital or production. Instead of offering critical perspectives on the structures within society that cause oppression and poverty, the general view is society as it stands is benevolent and this benevolence is subverted by problems in the sphere of circulation.
Over the centuries, going back as far as the expulsion of the Jews from Britain in 1290, the charge of usury has been levelled against the Jews for anti-Semitic purposes. Zeitgeist says of the federal income tax, “roughly 25% of the average worker’s income is taken via this tax, and guess where that money goes? It goes to pay the interest on the currency being produced by the Federal Reserve Bank. The money you make working for almost three months out of the years goes almost literally into the pockets of the international bankers.” Again, for the sake of trying not to appear as racist as they really are, the word Jew is replaced with “international bankers.” This is once again a restatement of an anti-Semitic myth. Just as in all of these examples, the arguments here are lifted from older anti-Semitic theories. They are not offering an explanation of world or national political economic systems, rather they exist solely to foster an attitude of hatred to a certain pre-defined section of society.
A secretive cabal?
Ultimately, the argument that is being made throughout Zeitgeist is that the world is being controlled by a small secret society of individuals, and in the context of the history of conspiracy theories, they are talking about the Jews. When we are told by the film about meetings of these “international bankers” that are “secretive and concealed from public view”, discussions about “an accelerated agenda by the ruthless elite”, or “people behind the government” they are breathing new life into an old racist myth that we must try to do away with.
There is an insistence throughout conspiracy theories that someone or some group of people are personally responsible for all of the ills of the world, and this is very much related to anti-Semitism throughout modernity. For hundreds of years, Jews have been the officially sanctioned scapegoat of capitalism. Where systems of production have impoverished people, the Jews have been blamed; where people have felt taxes are unfair, the Jews have been blamed; where people have felt alienated by the structures of society, they have been told that they are in fact alienated because they are not part of secret meetings of Jews. Ultimately these theories lead us away from a critique of capitalism. Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Zizek makes exactly this point with reference to Wagner’s anti-Semitism when he writes “He needs a Jew: so that, first, modernity – this abstract impersonal process – is given a human face, is identified with a concrete, palpable feature; then, in a second move, by rejecting the Jew which gives full body to all that is disintegrated in modernity, we can retain its advantages. In short, anti-Semitism does not stand for anti-modernism as such, but an attempt at combining modernity with social corporatism which is characteristic of conservative revolutionaries.”
Who was Senator Louis McFadden?
Louis McFadden, who is quoted at length in Zeitgeist, was a senator in the US in the first part of the twentieth century. He also happened to be a serious anti-Semite, and came out with lines such as, “in the United States today, the Gentiles have the slips of paper while the Jews have the lawful money.” He is quoted twice in the film saying the following: “A world banking system was being set up here… a superstate controlled by international bankers acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure…” and “It was a carefully contrived occurrence. International bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair so they might emerge rulers of us all.” Within the context of McFadden’s world view, he is using “international bankers” as an epithet for Jews. What is notable is that the makers of Zeitgeist seem keen to omit this context, to suggest that McFadden is simply offering a critique of capitalism. The fact is that within conspiracy theories the labelling of Jews as “international bankers” and “international finance capital” is a common trope. These quotes would have been understood at the time, and is still understood by many now, to be anti-Semitic gestures.
The Case of Jeremiah Duggan, and the truth about Lyndon LaRouche
Another rather shady character who appears in Zeitgeist is American political activist Lyndon LaRouche. I felt I should include the following story as anecdotal evidence of quite how dangerous these people can be:
Jeremiah Duggan was a British Student at the Sorbonne who died in 2003 in extremely suspicious circumstances. In the months leading up to his death, Duggan had become involved in what he believed to be an anti-war organisation. In fact he had become entangled with a set of political organisations headed up by American political activist Lyndon LaRouche. In March that year, Duggan attended a conference of these organisations at the Schiller Institute (a site owned by LaRouche’s movement) in Wiesbaden, Germany. During the course of meetings Duggan revealed himself to be Jewish, and yet in such meetings of LaRouche’s movement, Jews are blamed for starting the war, reanimating the old conspiracy myths about the Jews encouraging wars as they aid social control. He said in his keynote address to the conference, “This plot to launch a new world war has been intellectually influenced by people who, like Hitler, admire Nietzsche, but “being Jewish, they couldn’t qualify for Nazi Party leadership, even though their fascism was absolutely pure! As extreme as Hitler! They sent them to the United States.[…] Who’s behind it? . . . The independent central-banking-system crowd, the slime-mold. The financier interests.”
At around 5am, after Duggan had revealed his Jewish identity at the conference, he phoned his mother. He said, “Mum, I’m in … big trouble … You know this Nouvelle Solidarité? ..” He said, “I can’t do this” … I want out.” And at that point the phone was cut. And then it rang back again almost immediately. … And then the first thing that he said that time was, “Mum, I’m frightened.” She realized he was in such danger that she said to him, “I love you.” And then he said, “I want to see you now.” She said, “well, where are you, Jerry?” And he said, “Wiesbaden.” And she said, “How do you spell it?” And he said, “W I E S.” And then the phone was cut.
The next day, Jeremiah was found dead, with members of LaRouche’s movement claiming that he had committed suicide. Inquests are still ongoing to determine what happened that night. In the last few weeks a second inquiry into his death has been announced.
LaRouche has been known as a Jewish conspiracy theorist for more than 30 years now. His organisation is cultish and dangerous (one of the reasons I choose to write this anonymously), and the content of much of what he says can be traced back to the sort of allegations put forward by The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. What, then, is a man like this doing in a film that purports to be a lefty-liberal critique of society?
Zeitgeist and the Left
What is in many ways most unsettling about this film is the fact that it purports to be left-wing or liberal. As the film ends we see images of three men faded in and out: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther-King, and John Lennon. Throughout the film we have quotations from left wing comedian Bill Hicks and a section is given to New Labour politician Michael Meacher. It is asserted once again that the aim of this film is the affirmation of the unity of humanity, of doing away with difference, whether it be class, race, or sex. We are made to think that the film is offering a radical left critique of power. Instead it is indulging in the sort of theories that are more at home with right-wing libertarians. I do not know entirely why the Zeitgeist group are particularly targeting the left. It is perhaps a divisive measure, but also possibly just an arena where they feel they can convert people to their way of thinking. What is clear, though, is that the suggestion that the ideas expressed are left-wing or liberal, and the deployment of quotations from well known lefties and liberals, is utterly cynical.
The positivist problem
There is one reason in particular that these conspiracies may seem compatible with left wing modes of thought, and that is to do with the philosophical problem of positivism. Stated in its simplest form, this is that ideas about transforming a society cannot be straightforwardly expressed in the language or accepted modes of thought of the society that they wish to transform. And this issue is common to all transformative theories of society. Probably the most influential branch of this type of thinking stemmed from Hegel to Marx, and then into Marxists of the 20th and 21st century. The solution for them is to talk in terms of a dialectic, that is, by comparing the consciousness of a society to the material reality. The significant conclusion of this type of thought is that one’s consciousness of society, up to a certain point is always false.
The conspiracy theorists take on this question in another way. They say that if our consciousness of society is always false, it is made to be false by a small number of powerful who make it false. They believe that we are consistently duped by an all-knowing cabal who control every aspect of our lives. And the solutions differ too. For the Marxists and socialists the problem is that society produces a consciousness that doesn’t allow us to fully understand our immiseration in work, in unemployment, or in powerlessness, and the solution is the radical transformation of society to a fairer, less exploitative world. For the conspiracy theorists the answer is the elimination of this so-called small powerful elite. They do not believe that society needs any more transformation than this.
This is difficult philosophical ground to tread. We run a huge risk if we are to criticise the conspiracy theorists for not being positivists, not working within accepted modes of thought. Instead, what we must say is that their particular critical mode of thought does not propose a correct solution for solving society’s problems, and furthermore is reliant not on unity but on division. We must show that inequality in society is structural rather than being based on the wishes of a small group of Jews.
What is to be done?
Zeitgeist: The Movie is ever growing in popularity, and furthermore they are building a movement. More and more people are being influenced by what the film has to say, without realising quite where it is coming from. It is important that as widely as possible we can expose the anti-Semitic subtext to this film. We must expose the film as being cynically positioned to influence liberals and lefties. In targeting the ideas presented by Zeitgeist it is not enough to just quibble over details, rather we must be trying to understand the politics that this film overall is trying to portray. We need to read through the many layers of conspiracy theories here, and understand that there is one in particular that they want us to believe, and that this one is, of course, the most dangerous and pernicious.
It is important to understand that the type of critique of society offered by the Zeitgeist movement cannot be separated from the Jewish conspiracy theory. One cannot take classic anti-Semitic texts, replace the word “Jew” with “international bankers”, or “international finance capital” and then believe that your theory is no longer anti-Semitic. Of course there are very good arguments that capitalism and indeed imperialism are extremely dangerous. There are very good arguments from a left or liberal perspective to say that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq should never have been fought. And it is here that we must recognise that ends do not justify means. We cannot afford to support any cause that is simply anti-capitalist, or any cause that is simply anti-war, otherwise we run the risk of getting into bed with fascists. Rather, our positions on capitalism and of war must arise from thoroughgoing critique, rather than a rehashing and rebranding of old anti-Semitic narratives.
In order to spread this message as widely as possible I encourage you to republish this piece on your own websites, to send it to friends and comrades, to show it to anyone who tells you about “this fabulous new film you just have to watch.” One of the easiest ways is, if you are on twitter, to just click the tweet button at thee top of this post. If possible, do track back to The Third Estate so they can monitor how widely this material is being disseminated. In coming weeks I will be recreating this article as a voice-over video, much in the style of Zeitgeist: The Movie in order that we can spread these views to even more people who may be influenced by this abhorrent film.
CROSS POSTED FROM THIRD ESTATE
Derek Wall on said:
thanks for posting this, I had never heard of Zeitgeist before.
SteveH on said:
A superlative article in my humble opinion.
prianikoff on said:
I’ve never heard of this before, but in a NY Times interview, the director “Peter Joseph” describes the mission of his “Worldwide Zeitgeist Movement” as
“…the application of the scientific method for social change,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/nyregion/17zeitgeist.html?_r=1
His colleague, Jaques Fresco, “has spent the last six decades working on the Venus Project, a futuristic society where (adjust your seatbelts, now) machines would control government and industry and safeguard the planet’s fragile resources by means of an artificially intelligent “earthwide autonomic sensor system” — a super-brain of sorts connected to, yes, all human knowledge.”
Hmm……O.K.
It sounds a bit like the sort of utopian futurology that was all the rage before the monetarist counter-revolution took over.
Remember tomorrow?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7xiwYoPXLs
Francis King on said:
This all sounds very much like the familiar “Red/Brown” phenomenon in Russia and Eastern Europe, where so-called “communists” cosy up to all sorts of anti-Semites, xenophobic nationalists and other unpleasant elements on the basis of their common hostility to (US) imperialism, globalisation and so on. In Russia it is quite mainstream, but it has generally been a fringe phenomenon on the left in Western Europe so far. It’s not hard to see its appeal though.
SteveH on said:
“but it has generally been a fringe phenomenon on the left in Western Europe so far”
Absolutely, far more common is some leftists cosying up to anti Muslim and pro imperialist elements. I can’t for the life of me see the appeal of that!
jock mctrousers on said:
Right, no criticism of ‘international bankers’! Or does he mean that only the right sort of people are allowed to talk about ‘that sort of thing’ in the right sort of way? This article was nearly as imbecilic as Lyndon LaRouche, which is the only thing I agree with. I’d say more but I know it would be censored here.
Laban Tall on said:
I think I understand what you’re getting at (‘don’t be anti-semitic’, which no one could argue with), but this seems a little confused.
Firstly, are you implying that anyone criticising bankers is ipso facto repeating anti-semitic propaganda ? That would seem a tad harsh. Does even ‘Fred The Shred’ get a free pass ?
Secondly, ‘Jews have been the officially sanctioned scapegoat of capitalism’ may have been true in past times, but how exactly is this ‘officially sanctioned’ today, when so many individual Jews reach such high positions in capitalist society ? Who are the people doing the official sanctioning ? In the upper reaches, say, of UK achievement, from academia through to finance and the law, Jewish people are represented out of all proportion to their percentage of the total population (for example, three out of the last five Lords Chief Justice were Jewish). That’s just a non-racist, non-anti-semitic fact.
You can explain this disproportion in three ways :
1) conspiracy theory as in your piece – the classic anti-semitic ‘theory’. The only trouble is that it’s not true for too many reasons to go into – suffice it to say that anyone who gives even a cursory study to say, Israeli politics would find it improbable that such a secret could be kept 😉
2) high average intelligence
3) culture – respect for education and high culture, close families etc. Same kind of thing you could say about UK Hindus.
The problem for the UK left is that explanation 2) is a pretty unacceptable one, as the notion of an inherited component of intelligence has all sorts of eugenic connections which they don’t like. Long gone are those Darwinian days when the Left marched in the eugenicist camp and “the most important of all questions” was “the breeding of the right sort of man”, as Beatrice Webb put it. Forced to make a choice as to the reasons for Jewish success, a modern leftie would go for 3) nurture – hence the illusion that if, say, you throw enough money and social workers at a ‘problem family’ all their problems can be solved.
But generally the UK left prefer to ignore the fact of ‘disproportionate’ over-achievement altogether – which means that when some people notice it, and notice that it never gets mentioned in polite society, they’ll wonder why. The conspiracy theory provides them with a (wrong) answer.
It’s amazing how many of today’s social pathologies have their genesis in some lefty’s tender conscience, isn’t it?
David Hillman on said:
The saying that anti-Semitism is the socialism of idiots could be updated to conspiracy theory is the antiglobalisation of idiots.
I must admit that I do find conspiracy theories quite entertaining until I remember its various links to several forms of racism (not just against Jews)and annoying not least because a few people who once did useful work for PSC or STW now spend all their time leafletting people about the 911 conspiracy.
Buts lets beware of tarring the wrong people with the wrong brush!
There are people with a genuine intellectual interst in the origions of Christianity, who doubt that Jesus Christ was an historical figure, but have advanced beyond the parallelmania and conspiracism of Zeigeist. See amongst others http://tomverenna.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/more-hyperbole-from-historical-jesus-scholars/. Unlike Hitchens and his cronies they are not all militant atheists lining themselves up with Islamophobic prowar lackeys. I think it was Andy who contrasted militant atheists now who concentrate their hate on the least powerful sections of our society, with the Enlightenment deists who challenged the entrenched power of church and king.
Secondly while I don’t really care if Geoff Hoon is a lizard or a human, and don’t believe history is driven by conspiracies, there are conspiracies – including the Dreyfus case, the Zinoviev letter,the Reicstag fire, and yes the gulf of Tonkin.
Thirdly and most important – the lobby:
Undoubtibly since 1966 there has been a close alliance between the government of the USA and the state of Israel. Sometimes it looks like the tail wagging the dog, but I can not believe that the American ruling class would go along with this unless it resonated with how they percieve their interests. The lobby does not consist only of Likudist Jews, just as important are the so-called Christian Zionists – actually the continuation of right wing populist racists. Zionism like all kinds of racism is a movement of the right. (Antisemitism had the same kind of roots even in earliest times – see for
example Thr rise of Political Antisemitism by Peter Pulzer, an old book but a good one).
The irony is that those who now oppose the war against Iran, or who are in solidarity with the Palestinians, or who oppose Islamophobia are accused of using are now accused of using antisemitic trophes. Lets nail this lie.
Well. a couple of us went to argue against Mr Antony Julius. Surprisingly he began by putting forward his solution to the problem of Israel as an end to the occupation, end to the settlements, sharing Jerusalem, return of some refugees with very generous compensation to the rest, a real Palestinian state gradually moving through federation towards a single state. He claimed he was at ease with the strongest political opposition to the state of Israel, claiming that all he objected to was the use of antisemitic trophes to attack Israel. However he denied that Israel had any anti Palestinian strategy, going along with Benny Morris’ history, saying that most actions of the Israeli state were stumbling short term defenses, in effect blaming Israel’s enemies for all the bad things it does, and the only massecre he happened to mention was of Jews at Hebron. Most strange of all he said it was a bad mistake to confuse antisemitism with racism. Most of the audience were Jewish, nice enough people I think, but with an exaggerated fear of English antisemitism that I’ve never met before. Of course we argued against many of his points but I don’t know that we were very effective.
Referencing Edward I,Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, T.S.Eliot, he argues that there is a continuous use of antisemitic trophes in England, though sometimes pathetically snobish and polite. His aim of couse is to discredit Palestine solidarity and the anti-war movement by saying its based on such trophes – hence the reference to Jewish lobby (world wide conspiracy), blood libel etc. Well even if we are meticulously careful people will accuse of of this, with no evidence, but it’s good to be aware of the agenda.
Forget about conspiracy theory : all anti racists should be at this event –
URGENT ACTION: Protest against Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, 22nd March, 5pm, London
Nir Barkat, the mayor of Jerusalem behind the announcement of 1,600 new settlement units in East Jerusalem, will be visiting London early next week. A total of 50,000 housing units have been planned in the coming years – doubling the settler population – and reducing the Palestinian population to a third.
He will be speaking at Chatham House (10 St James’s Square, London SW1Y 4LE). Come along and protest against the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from East Jerusalem.
SteveH on said:
Jock Mctrousers has failed to see the point of this article. No one is saying bankers shouldn’t be vilified or the system shouldn’t be criticised but there are ways and means to do this.
The article above shows that by trivialising agitation with conspiracy therories and childish Dan Brown intrigue you end up satisfying a need and abstaining from actual protest. And when you build your conspiracy theories on well known anti semitic sources that just gives you an idea of the validity of this approach.
Anonymous on said:
Only yesterday on the thread about the EDL in Bolton, a poster (not myself) who argued that eyewitness reports, media reports and video coverage suggested the day had not been successful for the UAF as a few were claiming. The response of one of the SWP posters:
“keep on taking those Zionist pills mate. You weren’t at the demo so you don’t know how many were there do you? Be honest now. I know honesty isn’t something you Islamophobes take to very easily but you must be used to police propaganda by now.
“constructive critism of UAF tactics”
The Zionists are screaming on here in outrage because we drove back their Islamophobic chums, the EDL”
Now if you can work in a ‘zionist’ agenda behind simply referring to media reporting and apparent video evidence of a demo in Bolton diverging massively from the UAF line, it suggests you will be able to see ‘zionism’ absolutely anywhere and in anyone who disagrees with you on practically any subject. That is to say, there ARE those on the left even here who seem to use ‘zionist’ as a catch-all pejorative, partly for some total underlying conspiracy doing bad things everywhere down to the smallest level – i.e. absolutely congruent with what is being referred to in the article – but also as a denunciatory term that will stand in anywhere for ‘incorrect thinking’ or ‘bourgeois deviation’ or what-have-you.
It’s worth being absolutely clear that that is by no means a majority left tactic, and the approach has been criticised by others than myself on that thread, but it’s not a new phenomenon for some on the left to take the absurd and malicious line of blaming almost anything on ‘the zionists’ and thus ultimately to Israel itself. If one wants to discuss Israel’s own policies, fine, but this sort of ‘zionist’-flinging is a form of relentless demonisation that is no less harmful and malicious for it being preposterous. If one really sees ‘zionists’ behind even mere divergence of opinion on matters like the Bolton demo, then one has placed oneself in the same swamp of malicious conspiracy as the traditional right wing One World theory antisemites who see the hands of the ‘zionists’ just about everywhere also. Why not just have done with it and substitute for ‘zionists’ ‘Satan’?
SteveH on said:
But Zionists do engage with these tactics. Lets make that clear. And there is an alliance between the EDL and some Zionist elements. It is interesting that the die hard racists of the EDL see the Israeli flag as their own. Says a lot that.
Anonymous on said:
Okay, so Jews ARE behind it all, then…. Carry on in your mad little world. just don’t imagine you are essentially any different from the tradional right wing anti-semites who see Jews behind everything bad also.
darren redstar on said:
or indeed the left wing anti semitism- I recently completed an essay examining the roots of mosley’s anti semitism; I argued that whilst he was a fascist bmolded by the fascisms in power and about to gain power in Europe, he was also a product of his political evolution through Labour and the ILP.
“From our vantage point as historians we look back at Mosley’s relationship with anti Semitism through the prism of the Nazis and the Holocaust and it is inevitable that we see it as being a movement which is derived from the political/ Volkische Right. However anti Semitism was a hatred that was not peculiar to the political right and neither was it a German import. It was in fact a common feature within English socialism and especially amongst the Fabian and ILP intellectuals with whom Mosley had mixed with whilst a member of the Independent Labour Party.
Many, especially middle and upper class, individuals were attracted to socialism as a remedy to the damage that they saw modern industrial capitalism was doing to Society and Nation. They considered socialism to be a moral renewing crusade, in which under the enlightened leadership of the socialist intelligencia both the worker and the boss would benefit through working together for the good of society and nation.
Rejecting the rhetoric of class war at the heart of Marxism as being divisive and destructive, they sought to find an opposition to capitalism which would mean the reinvigoration of the nation without the risk of the class war and revolution. And by finding a common cause with the good, patriotic and socially concerned capitalist boss the crimes of capitalism become not the impersonal and uncontrollable results of an anarchic economic system but instead a conspiracy of evil men, bad bosses, with an international rather than a national loyalty. Jews, as the personification of, non productive, financial capitalism, were considered the natural enemy of socialism. The young Fabian, Beatrice Potter, wrote;”The love of profit distinct from other forms of money earning” is “the strongest impelling motive of the Jewish race” and that working class Jews, “Have neither the desire nor the capacity for labour combination”.
The SDF leaderships opposition to the Boer war was based upon it’s belief that that conflict was instigated by “Jew financial cliques and their hangers- on”# and supported by a “Jew-jingo press”
One of the foremost theoreticians of Imperialism in the British socialist movement was John Hobson, whose major work was to form the basis for Lenin’s Imperialism: the highest stage of Capitalism who also blamed Jewish finance capital for the Boer war “leaving their economic fangs in the carcasses of their prey. They fastened on the Rand … as they are prepared to fasten upon any other spot on the globe”
Within the left was a conviction of the immense power of Jewish money power Justice, the paper of the SDF claimed that “Jew moneylenders now control every Foreign Office in Europe” that the press and the government were pawns of Jewish power: “Our leading statesmen do not care to offend the great banking houses or money kings”
Long before the distribution of the Tsarist forgery of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion the British Left had in place all the essential features of modern anti- Semitic conspiracy theory.
Alongside such anti capitalist anti Semitism was the embracing by the left of the necessity of eugenics, Of the need to regenerate the human stock which Industrial capitalism had enfeebled. The arrival of many hundreds of thousands of east European Jewish refugees in the last years of the 19th century were an immediate threat to the maintenance of a sturdy race. Blatchford’s Clarion could declare that Jewish immigrants were: “a poison injected into the national veins”, they were the “unsavoury children of the ghetto”, their numbers were “appalling” and their attitudes “unclean” while Bruce Glasier of the I.L.P. argued in Labour Leader that: “Neither the principle of the brotherhood of man nor the principle of social equality implies that brother nations or brother men may crowd upon us in such numbers as to abuse our hospitality, overturn our institutions or violate our customs.”
prianikoff on said:
“Long before the distribution of the Tsarist forgery of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion the British Left had in place all the essential features of modern anti- Semitic conspiracy theory.”
Your examples don’t reflect the British Left as a whole.
They are either representatives of middle class intelligensia, who attached themselves to the growing workers movement and tried to divert it into national chauvinism.
Or, they’re reformist socialists, who based themselves on the older craft unions amongst the skilled “labour aristocracy”. The SDF under Hyndman combined both trends in one organisation. But the ILP developed in a much more internationalist direction.
What you’ve totally missed is the development of trade unions amongst the Jewish working class in the garment industry in the East End, in more or less exactly the same area where George Galloway and Respect hope to gain three MP’s today.
There was a class division within the Jewish population between owners of sweatshops and those who sweated in them, leading to numerous strikes.
(see ‘East End Jewish radicals’ by Bill Fishman)
It also meant that there had been fighting solidarity between the Jewish workers and the mainly Irish Catholic dockers, during the big docks strikes and the growth of new unions. This was one of the reasons why they fought together against Moseley in the 1930’s.
Genuine internationalist socialists, like William Morris of the Socialist League and Eleanor Marx supported the struggle against Tsarist Opression and welcomed the immigrants and their unions.
Anarcho syndicalists like Rudolph Rocker worked to build their organisations, even learning Yiddish, despite the fact that he was a German Protestant.
This was the substratum from which much of the Jewish left wing movement from the 1930’s onwards developed.
Your account is seriously one-sided and hence negative.
Muzz on said:
As far as i can see the arguments to the final section of the film were:
i) War is a useful way of converting public funds to private profit; the manufacture of consent for war is a simple profiteering initiative.
ii) We have an insane monetary system that has been moulded by those in power by coercive and undemocratic means.
iii) The ruling classes are forever attempting to impose a repressive police state upon us.
Some people may argue that all of this is obsesses upon the jews, which i think is insane, it was presented as a class issue. Was it the fact that Naomi Kleine was Jewish insider that enabled her to write ‘The Shock Doctrine’ (a history of neo-liberal siezures of power through manufactured or natural ‘shocks’)? Or maybe there are more important things than ethnicity or religion to concider.
Anti-semitism is probably there if you want to find it, as im pretty sure some of the bankers mentioned happened to be jewish. If you are looking objectively however you will find that the narrator is criticising a system of corrupt governance independant of the religion of those who perprotrate it.
angrysoba on said:
What is in many ways most unsettling about this film is the fact that it purports to be left-wing or liberal. As the film ends we see images of three men faded in and out: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther-King, and John Lennon. Throughout the film we have quotations from left wing comedian Bill Hicks and a section is given to New Labour politician Michael Meacher. It is asserted once again that the aim of this film is the affirmation of the unity of humanity, of doing away with difference, whether it be class, race, or sex. We are made to think that the film is offering a radical left critique of power. Instead it is indulging in the sort of theories that are more at home with right-wing libertarians.
This is very common with those particular conspiracy theorists who perfer to believe in all-powerful secret forces rather than engage in genuine political discussion. It tends to affect those who were already predisposed towards one type of extreme political viewpoint or another. In America these conspiracy theorists are just as often on the isolationist right such as Alex Jones or Paul Craig Roberts. One of their favourite topics is the Federal Reserve and how it is owned by “international bankers” and what they see as the illegitimacy of income tax.
christian h. on said:
Anonymous, 12.: you are a bit daft aren’t you. If person A says “Zionists (which is not the same as “Jews”, only antisemites would argue that) do bad things” this is not the same as claiming “Zionists are behind it all”. This is goes to the heart of the point argued in the article posted here.
On that topic, good article. It is impossible for me to understand how anyone considering themselves materialists can approve of the conspiracy mongering apparently perpetrated in the film. The ruling class does NOT NEED a conspiracy. That, to me, is the whole point of marxist analysis.
David Hillman on said:
Well I’ve had a look at all Hobson’s writings against Imperialism (he wrote lots) and while he did denounce Jewish financiers in the Transvall in “Capitalism and Imperialism in South Africa” (in Contemporary Review, 1900) this is the only place he mentions Jews. He does have a lot to say about the pernicious influence of Christian missionaries, but mostly he gives economic facts and figures. I think the idea that the anti Boer war people, which included William Morris, were influenced by anti-Semitism is just something people have been copying from each other without any real knowledge.
I do agree though that the Fabians, H.G.Wells, George Bernard Shaw were tainted by every kind of racism, much as I enjoy their writings.
Joseph Matthew on said:
I see a lot of posters comfortable with so easy-to-throw-around labels here in reference to criticism of any topic covered in the Zeitgeist film… isn’t such labeling just reactionary band-wagoning? Where is the critical thought? Or the sources for such claims?
For example: the film cites the Federal Reserve’s own operating manuals as a major source. Where is conspiracy or theory in such provable facts?
The film cites numerous sources (http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/transcript), so please also cite your sources for any contentions of “conspiracy theory” & “anti-semitism”; short & to the point will do.
Without such, this article comes across as paranoid “finding red everywhere you look” type thinking… as if we need more of that! haha
Thanks.
Howard Gibson on said:
This entire post is an excuse to attack Lyndon LaRouche as an anti-semite, bad guy, etc. As such, it can only be viewed as a propaganda piece for the real British Empire that would like to destroy any resistance to the financial oligarchy.
Anonymous on said:
“As such, it can only be viewed as a propaganda piece for the real British Empire that would like to destroy any resistance to the financial oligarchy.”
Well, only viewed as such if you are a lunatic, yes.
jock mctrousers on said:
” he article above shows that by trivialising agitation with conspiracy therories and childish Dan Brown intrigue you end up satisfying a need and abstaining from actual protest. And when you build your conspiracy theories on well known anti semitic sources that just gives you an idea of the validity of this approach.” #6
No, I agree with that entirely, but I dispute that that is what the article said. It’s what it SHOULD have said. It seemed to be heading in that direction with the bit about hiding a crime in a series of crimes; that seems to be the effect of the deluge of Dan Brown type stuff poured out by various genuinely antisemitic websites . They just serve to discredit the genuine information which they sometimes carry themselves. The previous poster #18 seemed to think there were some hard facts in the film – I think I agree with #18 that an article of this length could have tackle some specific points. I think the term ‘conspiracy theory’ is a bit cheap, and it’s used inappropriately when what is meant is speculation and assertion that goes beyond what any evidence offered can support. There ARE conspiracies. ‘The ruling class don’t need to conspire’? Well then, why do they feel the need to hold elections, for instance?
And talking of assertions which are unsupported by the evidence – the official 9/11 story is as good an example of that as I’ve ever seen, even better than Saddam’s WMD.
#7 Laban Tall ” 3) culture – respect for education and high culture, close families etc. Same kind of thing you could say about UK Hindus. ”
Up to a point, and it’s important to compare the percentage of jews not with the population at large, but with the appropriate ‘demographic’ – I can’t remember how these classifications work, you know AA (the queen) to DD ( the dosser)- that is of traders and literate professionals, a subsection of the middle-class. Jews have historically occupied certain economic niches, in common with some Hindu castes, and many other groups in all human societies – nothing unusual or reprehensible about that. But even allowing for that, the ‘success’ of jews is way beyond statistical expectations. And no, higher intelligence is not only not an acceptable answer, but not a credible one – IQ comparisons don’t show that jews are alien Dr Spocks.
Ray on said:
“Now if you can work in a ‘zionist’ agenda behind simply referring to media reporting and apparent video evidence of a demo in Bolton diverging massively from the UAF line, it suggests you will be able to see ‘zionism’ absolutely anywhere and in anyone who disagrees with you on practically any subject.”
A bunch of you racists from Harry’s Place have been on here attacking Respect in Tower Hamlets and now the UAF in Bolton. I’m very happy to expose this because the lies you spread on here about the left and in particular about Muslims needs to be challenged. Criticising Zionist racist propaganda has absolutely nothing to do with anti-semitism and everything to do with fighting the apartheid state of Israel.
As for this film it’s the first I’ve heard of it and I doubt that anyone on the left in the UK is conned by the anti-Semitic, ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, that were exposed as fake and discredited nearly a century ago. The UK left has always been at the forefront of exposing anti-Semitism and exposing the lies that the racists and nazis try to spread about Jewish people by quoting this crap.
Boab on said:
” I can’t remember how these classifications work, you know AA (the queen) to DD ( the dosser)- that is of traders and literate professionals, a subsection of the middle-class. ”
A Senior Professional e.g consultant proctologist/ self employed with more than 25 employees / Senior managerial.
B Lawyers & Doctors ( not partners or consultants) Teachers / Middle Managers/ University lecturers
C1 Clerks
C2 Skilled Manual
D Unskilled Manual/ process workers
E Living on State benefits/ SWP members/ Web designers
The Queen is oddly enough an “E” as she lives on state benefits, although she only has to sign on once a lifetime. She also has the highest income in the household, so everyone else in Buck House is also an E.
Gene on said:
I doubt that anyone on the left in the UK is conned by the anti-Semitic, ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, that were exposed as fake and discredited nearly a century ago.
Sabah al Mukhtar, whom George Galloway called his “right hand” in the first Viva Palestina convoy, said in an interview with an American antisemitic lunatic named Daryl Bradford Smith:
“At one time or another there was this talk of the Protocol of Zion and everybody said that it was a put-up job, it’s not true, it is not factual, all sorts of accusations of this book. But at the end of the day, let’s assume they are all correct, that this is really not a real book and it was not the Protocols of Zion. This is an incredible insight, some hundred years ago, to show what the position nowadays. The control over the media, the education, the law, the medicine.”
http://hurryupharry.org/2009/12/12/viva-palestina-mahathir-and-ihh/
BenSix on said:
I think this article – though impressively researched – is a tad too enthusiastic in aligning concepts with anti-semitism. (I’ve no wish, I should say, to defend Zeitgeist – haven’t even seen the bally thing.) For example, notions a “One World” government didn’t begin and end with the Protocols: heck, people as varied as Ulysses Grant, Karl Krause and Bertrand Russell actively supported one.
Moreover, I think the generalisations about “conspiracy theories” are clumsy (the term, as ever, isn’t even defined)…
No, there isn’t: two-thirds of Americans have agreed with the assertion that JFK fell victim to a conspiracy. I doubt they all believe society’s “based on the wishes of a small group of Jews“. Define yer terms!
Anonymous on said:
An excellent article.
As far as the issue of whether anyone on the left takes ‘Protocols’ seriously, I think that there are very few. More numerous and more troubling are those on the who take seriously those who take it seriously. Since, eg Gilad Atzmon slid off the madman end of the table he’s become quite upfront about his embrace of ‘Protocols’ and Holocaust denial, caught in the spiral of needing to say ever more shocking things to reclaim even a little of his former spotlight. Yet there are still those on the left defending the Great Gilad and blaming Atzmon’s evergrowing pariah status on ‘the zionists’.
Roan Carratu on said:
The Zeitgeist Movement is not anti-semitic in any way, shape, or form. period.
‘Guilt by imagined association’ is really not an honest critique of anything.
Horrendous cannibalistic psychopaths describe putting their pants on one leg at a time, and you describe (insert anyone) putting their pants on one leg at a time, therefore (insert same name) are cannibalistic psychopaths.
What an insult to your readers who know of the Zeitgeist Movement, and it’s even more insulting to your readers who have never heard of the Zeitgeist Movement because you are seeking to ‘immunize’ them into even reading about the Zeitgeist Movement. You are trying to instill ‘instant rejection’, which is about as dishonest as you can get in any writing.
This does not make for trust in your ideology if you do that kind of manipulation. Hopefully this is just the delusion of the writer and not an authorized party position.
For those who want the actual Zeitgeist ‘position’, I suggest you watch Zeitgeist Addendum, found on the zeitgeist global page at http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com and make up your own mind. I also want to state for the record that the Zeitgeist Movement is not socialist, communist, fascist, or democratic… it is something new which we think will make those all obsolete. It will happen not because we push it on anyone, but because of a global paradigm shift driven by a common observation that all conceptual systems of thought have failed and thus our world degenerates ecologically and socially. We refuse to do violence or use intimidation, nor manipulation or indoctrination. If you want good results, you must use good means.
Ryan Nelson on said:
After being a part of The Zeitgeist Movement for two years, it is made very clear that the movement is not a political movement. Nor is it anti-semitic in any way shape or form, and anyone who has read anything about The Zeitgeist Movement and a Resource-Based Economy knows for a fact that it isn’t anti-semitic in the least bit.
The Zeitgeist Movement does not place the blame for todays social and political issues or conflicts on anyone. The root cause for issues such as poverty, war, crime, world hunger, ect., is the monetary system. A Resource-Based Economy eliminates these social issues by eliminating the root causes of these problems, which again, is the monetary system.
There is absolutely nothing within the films or the movement that suggests in the least bit that any particular group of people or individuals are to blame for these issues. It simply states that the monetary institutions that are in place today is the reason why we have war, crime, and poverty.
Like I stated in another article, I want The Zeitgeist Movement to be as completely transparent as possible. If you have any questions or comments about The Zeitgeist Movement or The Venus Project, please feel to contact me via email.
E-mail: ryan.ok@thezeitgeistmovement.com
Thank you.
james on said:
every zeitgeist source for the zeitgeist movie is occult based. have a look for yourself:
http://zeitgeistmovements.wordpress.com/
Edmund Schluessel on said:
I already knew the Z’s were worse than useless but I wish I’d seen this piece when it came out…they’ve been trying hard to build in Cardiff.
Ray on said:
First, the beginning comparative religion analysis said the same of Judaism as it did Christianity. The analysis of comparative religion and it’s hypothesis of adoption of pagan religions into the main monotheist religions appears to have some possible validity. And that would include the Jewish religion which is not excepted to as a religion even if you are of the ilk that Judaism is a race as it does have a basis within it the various Judaic religious beliefs (there is not just one).
Second, you seem to advocate a grand conspiracy theory against Jews while simultaneously attempting to dismiss all other conspiracy theories. Someone once said to me that nearly all conspiracy theories contain nuggets of truth. I do not defend them nor belong to any secret society or group that is out to get anyone.
Thirdly, the Zeitgheist movement is undoubtedly a Socialist movement which is als oundoubtedly “left leaning” by today’s standards or interpretation of what a liberal or leftist is which is jusxtapositioned to that of a “Classical Liberal”. The terms and characterizations have been blended, swithced and melded over time that they almost have no meaning anymore. That undoubtedly has been dome by those who have the power to do so and to gain more power and get people to “switch sides”. Redefinition has become an epidemic in communication.
Fourth, you seem to take for granted that Fascism is a right leaning political thought. I disagree with that blanket statement and Jitler’s party was called a Socialist movement and obviously had strong central control in government and quasi-ownership or outright ownership of most of the means of production. I personally see it very close to Communism but that is my opinion. You also state the Zeitgheist movement is like right-wing Libertarianism. That statement is completely off the charts and Libertarianism, including “right-wing Libertarianism” ecompasses a great variety of people including those who would be shocked and frightened by the suggestions made by these followers.
I would say that the Zeitgheist movement is a socialist movement based on resource sharing. Perhaps Communist with the ruling party elite being replaced by a computerized, allegedly rational based decision-making system. As a Libertarian, I say that this is wrong and that the underlying need for each of us to do best in any society is that where the government has little control given only that which can protect the rights of freedom and liberty of each individual which includes the right to practice their individual belief systems while respecting others’ rights to do the same with the foundation being non-aggression. Finally, one which not only upholds the freedoms and liberties of the rights of the inhabitants to rule by the consent of the governed mindful of and respecting the minority but which also respects other sovereign nations doing the same. Aggression is only defensible in self defense be it person or country or to protect your rights to property.
Having said the above, please offer your hypotehses in a non-offensive way which does not attack other groups of people such as Libertarians. I want to live alongside my fellow Jew, Christian, atheist or whomever in peace and freedom allowing them to do the same exact thing.
Shalom.