ZEITGEIST, The Movie

[Jonnyclueless]

When conversing with the anti-fed types I always keep picturing Dave Chappelle (His black white supremacist character) in the background going "White Power!" I dunno why...

 

[GreNME]

Maybe it's the norm in the states. But this is unprecendented by a BIG margin in the UK. The Madeleine McCann thing has been literally everywhere for months. I mean, posters in half the newsagents in the UK. Really....half. For someone abducted in Portugal. Whole websites, constant front page news across the 10 biggest dailies. It's quite unprecedented. The last time I saw it on this scale was when the government wanted to ban the drug Ecstasy and so leapt onto the accidental death of a policeman's daughter, Leah Betts, in a nightclub.

Could I ask you, GreNME, would you consider it OK to have people microchipped?

Nick

Of course I don't think children should be microchipped. It even bothers me some that I have to have my dogs microchipped. What I am saying is that, despite a few overzealous idiots trying to suggest it as an option, such suggestions will not gain widespread use.

What's the 'norm' in the States is that testing on children like mentioned in the article is viewed as generally unethical and, in many cases, could lose a whole department or a whole school of study in a university government funding for engaging in such a practice. Despite the rather insipid acceptance in the UK of the "big brother" cameras in practically every major metro area (and more), I seriously doubt people would take well overall to being treated like cattle or dogs.

If technical reasons would better illuminate for you why it won't happen, it's because RFID has way too many flaws. The average person with cheap equipment and the ability to read directions can clone an RFID, and with a moderate budget can buy an RFID reader to gather codes to clone. Companies out there offering bracelets and other trinkets with such technology are shysters hoping to cash in on the ignorant panic of a few gullible parents who don't know enough to look into the viability of such technology.

Basically, Nick, the technology isn't even feasible right now to do it accurately. There's already a whole lot of debate about adding RFID chips to passports, so I don't see how there should be much cause for panic that it will be in humans soon.

 

[Nick227]

Of course I don't think children should be microchipped. It even bothers me some that I have to have my dogs microchipped. What I am saying is that, despite a few overzealous idiots trying to suggest it as an option, such suggestions will not gain widespread use.

What's the 'norm' in the States is that testing on children like mentioned in the article is viewed as generally unethical and, in many cases, could lose a whole department or a whole school of study in a university government funding for engaging in such a practice. Despite the rather insipid acceptance in the UK of the "big brother" cameras in practically every major metro area (and more), I seriously doubt people would take well overall to being treated like cattle or dogs.

If technical reasons would better illuminate for you why it won't happen, it's because RFID has way too many flaws. The average person with cheap equipment and the ability to read directions can clone an RFID, and with a moderate budget can buy an RFID reader to gather codes to clone. Companies out there offering bracelets and other trinkets with such technology are shysters hoping to cash in on the ignorant panic of a few gullible parents who don't know enough to look into the viability of such technology.

Basically, Nick, the technology isn't even feasible right now to do it accurately. There's already a whole lot of debate about adding RFID chips to passports, so I don't see how there should be much cause for panic that it will be in humans soon.

I'm happy that you don't find this an acceptable future for people. I don't personally feel so reassured that this isn't on the cards, but that's natural given our differing beliefs here.

What concerns me is the sheer degree of control the mass media now have over public opinion and the degree to which they can manufacture consent.

I witnessed for myself how, in the early 90s, the drug Ecstasy was demonised in the eyes of the British public to the degree that a Schedule 1 ban became seemingly justified. It was pure manipulation. I do not personally think people should take Ecstasy, I am not pro-drug usage, but I witnessed just what the media machine can do when it wants. Despite a complete lack of reasonable evidence of risk, or significant danger being demonstrated, this substance was quickly placed on the same schedule as heroin or crack cocaine, through simple media manipulation. You get an isolated nightclub death, you get a one flimsy scientific paper, you put these things together and you bombard the public with fear-based publicity day in day out for weeks. Front page news repeatedly, billboards everywhere. Within months you have a ban, one almost entirely manufactured.

When I look at the degree to which the media can now manufacture consent, it's scary. If there was a covert plan to microchip humanity it would unfolded through convincing humans that the risks to them of not doing so are greater than the risks of doing it. This takes time. You have to build up fear images, the risk of child abduction. You have to offer a reward - my kid came back because he was chipped (I haven't seen this one yet but I shall be very concerned if it does). You have to introduce the technology at a less confrontational level - you need a biometric passport because of the threat of terrorism.

This stuff concerns the **** out of me, because to me there's a clear possibility that the media could be moving there. It's not definite, but it's enough to be very worrying.

Nick

 

[Dave Rogers]

Maybe it's the norm in the states. But this is unprecendented by a BIG margin in the UK. The Madeleine McCann thing has been literally everywhere for months. I mean, posters in half the newsagents in the UK. Really....half. For someone abducted in Portugal. Whole websites, constant front page news across the 10 biggest dailies. It's quite unprecedented.

Funny thing is, I've seen all the Madeleine McCann posters, news stories, reports on TV, and all the rest of the ballyhoo, and not once, until you brought it up here, have I heard any suggestions that children should be microchipped to avoid this sort of thing happening in future. If the powers that be are using the Madeleine McCann case as positive PR for human microchipping, they're doing a downright useless job of it.

Dave

 

[Nick227]

Funny thing is, I've seen all the Madeleine McCann posters, news stories, reports on TV, and all the rest of the ballyhoo, and not once, until you brought it up here, have I heard any suggestions that children should be microchipped to avoid this sort of thing happening in future. If the powers that be are using the Madeleine McCann case as positive PR for human microchipping, they're doing a downright useless job of it.

Dave

Hi Dave,

I would certainly admit that the rfid aspect is not front page news. But it's there in the background. Anyway, I am in the fortunate position of hoping to be proven wrong!

My personal position is to continue putting this kind of stuff out as a form of "insurance policy" against negative future outcomes. If I'm lucky I stand to be rightly ridiculed.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

To continue on the same theme for a while...

The pattern of organisation in media activities does at times resemble that of a very large, centrally-controlled body reacting to an extreme threat. The Leah Betts' case is a good example.

In the mid 90s a 17 year old girl is found dead at an Essex nightclub after apparently having taken one tab of Ecstasy. The story that she had died from taking the drug is festooned across the front pages of all the major UK dailies with reports and updates on TV news broadcasts up and down the country. Within 48 hours there can be few people who do not know that Leah died from taking ecstasy. This is followed up by an, at times very nasty, multi-million pound countrywide billboard campaign demonising the drug and its users.

No one of course bothered to wait for an autopsy report. The coroner subsequently ruled that Leah died from over-hydration, not MDMA intoxication.

That she had taken Ecstasy could have been a factor in her death, and the alcohol companies could have been involved in the billboard smear campaign. But, these factors notwithstanding, the level of sustained, coherent activity seen in this and other occasional campaigns and activities demonstrates an at least reasonable liklihood to me that the media is under some form of centralised control that we are not aware of. There are hidden agendas in the background. It is worrying.

Nick

 

[GreNME]

Nick, I'm not even going to engage in an argument about whether MDMA is justifiably dangerous enough to have media campaigns against it. You should be plenty smart enough to find the information explaining just how dangerous it is on your own, and casual use of any manufactured drug like MDMA in the settings where it is used, have risks involved that aren't just from the direct side-effects of the drug. I would suggest taking this part of the argument to the political section of the forum if you really have a political opposition to the general public outrage.

I don't know (or really care) how old you are, Nick, but please rest assured that this is not the first, second, or even third time that tracking devices and child abductions have come up in a few public discussions regarding a somewhat recent case. Often times it comes up in a few stories because a company or two who deals in RFID tags figures they can get some attention for themselves by calling the news and claiming the abduction wouldn't have happened if the family has been using one of their products. I recall even seeing one consumer safety reporter deftly call the guy he was interviewing on the unreliability of RFID. People get scared when they hear or see reminders of how dangerous the world can be, and until things cool down many people want to know what can be done to avoid the dangers. A few people offer good advice (well-lit, high-populated areas, never leave sight of parents-children), and some snake-oil salesmen try to come out with alleged cure-alls that they argue don't actually require thought or responsibility, but in the end don't really work anyway and get abandoned. This is one of the pitfalls of mass communication-- you can get access to worldwide news, but snake-oil salesmen can also use it as a platform to hock their dubious wares.

This is pertinent to conspiracy theories, so I'm glad you brought it up, Nick. If you honestly and truely are concerned with the idea of RFID being used, I urge you to look into the public debate on the weaknesses of RFID. Look into the history of cellular phone makers and how they have actually lowered their frequency intensities over the years to avoid concerns with having too-strong of transmitters in the phones (and why). Call or write your local news affiliate with this information, and stress that this is why you are concerned about the danger of attempting to use tracking technology in children. Stress that it concerns you from a health point of view and from a misplaced sense of safety that doesn't really exist. There are sites out there where you can probably correspond with people who can easily bypass RFID, and you can turn your news affiliate to them. Things like that provide a story that news agencies love to run, because it gives them a heads-up on what is otherwise run from news wires, and the more they can "scoop" cometitors the more they stand a chance of bringing in more revenue. It becomes mutually beneficial to you both-- you get the word out on why these things are not viable and you feel safer, while the news agencies get to attract more attention and probable ad revenue.

This is how to use the world that exists around us to inform and spread the word of ideas that could be used to take advantage of people, Nick, and is exactly what is often lacking in conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory like the Zeitgeist film preach a message of allegedly having some "secret" understanding of the workings of the world, but do nothing to actively make anything any better as they view the world. But there are things we can do to ensure that people are not being taken advantage of, and that revolves around taking useful information and confronting the snake-oil dealers out there. That is what would be empowering to you, and you could feel justified that you had actually done something about it. That is the mythos around the "hero" that everyone loves-- someone who recognizes a wrong, identifies that something needs to be done, and (the step so many of us are afraid to take) does something about it. These conspiracy films trick the viewer into feeling like they are doing something about it by spreading the word about the film, which is actually just giving free advertising. Notorious CT speakers like Mr. Jones have created a whole franchise around this "grass roots" type of word-of-mouth advertising.

 

[Nick227]

Nick, I'm not even going to engage in an argument about whether MDMA is justifiably dangerous enough to have media campaigns against it. You should be plenty smart enough to find the information explaining just how dangerous it is on your own, and casual use of any manufactured drug like MDMA in the settings where it is used, have risks involved that aren't just from the direct side-effects of the drug. I would suggest taking this part of the argument to the political section of the forum if you really have a political opposition to the general public outrage.

I was more quoting the case as an example of how the media can, at times, behave in a disturbing manner, quite seemingly having its own hidden agenda. On the face of it, there are many different media companies, apparently taking a whole variety of stances on a variety of current issues. Yet, every once in a while, this miasma of diversity disappears and there is a sudden, highly coherent single posture taken by a very broad spectrum of media companies. Usually overnight.

It's rather like a school of small fish who spend most of their time swimming this way and that but who, once in a while, suddenly combine to become one very big fish with a very clear agenda.

Leah Betts is just an example. It's not about drugs. It's about patterns of organised activity in global media. And it points towards a high degree of centralised control, a cabal.

I don't know (or really care) how old you are, Nick, but please rest assured that this is not the first, second, or even third time that tracking devices and child abductions have come up in a few public discussions regarding a somewhat recent case. Often times it comes up in a few stories because a company or two who deals in RFID tags figures they can get some attention for themselves by calling the news and claiming the abduction wouldn't have happened if the family has been using one of their products. I recall even seeing one consumer safety reporter deftly call the guy he was interviewing on the unreliability of RFID.

As an aside, note that rfid pioneers, Digital Angel, withdrew human-implants in the face of sustained public and CT criticism.

People get scared when they hear or see reminders of how dangerous the world can be, and until things cool down many people want to know what can be done to avoid the dangers. A few people offer good advice (well-lit, high-populated areas, never leave sight of parents-children), and some snake-oil salesmen try to come out with alleged cure-alls that they argue don't actually require thought or responsibility, but in the end don't really work anyway and get abandoned. This is one of the pitfalls of mass communication-- you can get access to worldwide news, but snake-oil salesmen can also use it as a platform to hock their dubious wares.

This is pertinent to conspiracy theories, so I'm glad you brought it up, Nick. If you honestly and truely are concerned with the idea of RFID being used, I urge you to look into the public debate on the weaknesses of RFID. Look into the history of cellular phone makers and how they have actually lowered their frequency intensities over the years to avoid concerns with having too-strong of transmitters in the phones (and why). Call or write your local news affiliate with this information, and stress that this is why you are concerned about the danger of attempting to use tracking technology in children. Stress that it concerns you from a health point of view and from a misplaced sense of safety that doesn't really exist. There are sites out there where you can probably correspond with people who can easily bypass RFID, and you can turn your news affiliate to them. Things like that provide a story that news agencies love to run, because it gives them a heads-up on what is otherwise run from news wires, and the more they can "scoop" cometitors the more they stand a chance of bringing in more revenue. It becomes mutually beneficial to you both-- you get the word out on why these things are not viable and you feel safer, while the news agencies get to attract more attention and probable ad revenue.

I do tell people, quite a few. I have written articles on it in the past. The more people that hear of it, regardless of the reaction - ridicule, concern, or whatever - the lower the chance of such a plan manifesting. That's the way I see it. Like I said, I'm happy to be rightly ridiculed for it.

This is how to use the world that exists around us to inform and spread the word of ideas that could be used to take advantage of people, Nick, and is exactly what is often lacking in conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory like the Zeitgeist film preach a message of allegedly having some "secret" understanding of the workings of the world, but do nothing to actively make anything any better as they view the world.

I would say that Zeitgeist leaves out connecting links between the principle elements of the plot. It allows the viewer to create his or her own connections. I don't know that it alludes to secret knowledge per se, though I guess one could make that one of the connections.

I really fail to see just what the CT opposers have against this film. The more people that are aware of the potential for the mass media to absolutely subvert human development the less the chance of it happening. With the whole 911-CT debate, it's acutely difficult to prove a reasonable case either way. Individuals with any grasp of method are so few in either camp, mostly it just becomes two sides frantically trying to introduce "significant doubt" into the other's story. In these circumstances what exactly is wrong with people knowing both sides of the story?

The popular media word "balance" comes to mind. Where is there actually a problem with, say, 100 million people watching this film?

But there are things we can do to ensure that people are not being taken advantage of, and that revolves around taking useful information and confronting the snake-oil dealers out there. That is what would be empowering to you, and you could feel justified that you had actually done something about it. That is the mythos around the "hero" that everyone loves-- someone who recognizes a wrong, identifies that something needs to be done, and (the step so many of us are afraid to take) does something about it. These conspiracy films trick the viewer into feeling like they are doing something about it by spreading the word about the film, which is actually just giving free advertising. Notorious CT speakers like Mr. Jones have created a whole franchise around this "grass roots" type of word-of-mouth advertising.

Again, I don't really see the big deal about Alex Jones. There are plenty of loudmouths in the world. Why not CT loudmouths.

Nick

 

[GreNME]

I was more quoting the case as an example of how the media can, at times, behave in a disturbing manner, quite seemingly having its own hidden agenda. On the face of it, there are many different media companies, apparently taking a whole variety of stances on a variety of current issues. Yet, every once in a while, this miasma of diversity disappears and there is a sudden, highly coherent single posture taken by a very broad spectrum of media companies. Usually overnight.

It's rather like a school of small fish who spend most of their time swimming this way and that but who, once in a while, suddenly combine to become one very big fish with a very clear agenda.

Leah Betts is just an example. It's not about drugs. It's about patterns of organised activity in global media. And it points towards a high degree of centralised control, a cabal.

It points to no such thing. What it implies is that sensationalism is alive and well and in use regularly. This is no different than every other period throughout history. This is why we have names for it like 'rhetoric' and 'hyperbole' and 'sensationalism' in the first place. I'll get back to this later in the post.

As an aside, note that rfid pioneers, Digital Angel, withdrew human-implants in the face of sustained public and CT criticism.

Just one of many to whom that has happened. There already exist passport wallets with faraday cages in order to block RFID chips that appear in some newer passports, as well. RFID is already turning out to be a non-starter with the attempts at implementation. That is my point: there is no need for alarm, because chips provide an unrealistic expectation where it is already known it can't meet.

I do tell people, quite a few. I have written articles on it in the past. The more people that hear of it, regardless of the reaction - ridicule, concern, or whatever - the lower the chance of such a plan manifesting. That's the way I see it. Like I said, I'm happy to be rightly ridiculed for it.

Why are you happy for it? There are alternatives to setting youself up for ridicule-- couching what you are studying in terms of viability, feasibility, and reasonable expectations, for example. You would find that you would be subject to less criticism, even if people disagree, when you approach it from those methods. I would say you've done a fair job of doing so here, so I know you are capable of it.

I would say that Zeitgeist leaves out connecting links between the principle elements of the plot. It allows the viewer to create his or her own connections. I don't know that it alludes to secret knowledge per se, though I guess one could make that one of the connections.

This is where we disagree. I see the movie as full of assertations to allegedly secret knowledge-- secret (though mostly incorrect) claims of knowledge about religion, secret (though misguided) claims of knowing about details of 9/11, and secret (and incorrect) claims of knowledge about the US Fed. Moreover, the film itself attempts to connect (through placing them adjacently) all three of these huge conspiracy theories together into a larger single (unified) theory. That is the film's largest failure, aside from the numerous errors found in each separate section, IMO.

I really fail to see just what the CT opposers have against this film. The more people that are aware of the potential for the mass media to absolutely subvert human development the less the chance of it happening. With the whole 911-CT debate, it's acutely difficult to prove a reasonable case either way. Individuals with any grasp of method are so few in either camp, mostly it just becomes two sides frantically trying to introduce "significant doubt" into the other's story. In these circumstances what exactly is wrong with people knowing both sides of the story?

This is exactly the problem I have with these kinds of movies (getting back to what I was saying earlier). It assumes that people who don't believe this stuff aren't aware, are somewhat mindless zombies, or are ignorant and complacent to everything that threatens to control their lives. This is a completely false (and insulting) assumption to make, and ignores societies around the world. In most of the West, the general distrust for politicians is a common subject for joking and jest. In the States alone, the number of people who actually genuinely trust any political group without question is extremely low. The general consensus for decades regarding elections is that people are voting for a "lesser of two evils," for the most part. A slight but generalized distrust for authority that claims it on its own merits is also a common thread among people in the Western world. People don't happily accept all claims of authority from government, and even right now this resistance to government constantly asserting itself is causing resistance in the general public-- in the UK and the US, people are demanding in greater and greater numbers that their leaders get the soldiers home and out of the quagmire they are currently embroiled in. There is real debate going on, both publicly and politically. This debate happens because people don't always come to the same conclusions when looking at the same set of factors, but this debate is happening because people (in general) do not have infinite patience, and they are definitely not 'blind' or unaware of everything in the world around them. Does this mean everyone is fully aware of everything in the world? No, but that applies equally to groups who think they know the 'truth', which also includes conspiracy theorists.

The popular media word "balance" comes to mind. Where is there actually a problem with, say, 100 million people watching this film?

Where is the problem with calling it poorly-researched false assertions and snake-oil sales?

Again, I don't really see the big deal about Alex Jones. There are plenty of loudmouths in the world. Why not CT loudmouths.

I don't see the big deal with calling a shyster a shyster. The same freedoms that allow him to call other people far worse (of which he takes advantage regularly) allow me to point out exactly how much snake-oil he's peddling in the first place.

 

[Dave Rogers]

I would certainly admit that the rfid aspect is not front page news. But it's there in the background.

And I'm saying that, if indeed it's there in the background, it's so far in the background that I, a UK citizen and father of four, have remained totally unaware of it and have experienced no unexplained positive feelings towards the implantation of microchips in my children. Any campaign that is therefore being carried out has totally failed to impact on at least one member of the most important demographic group it would need to convince.

Dave

 

[Nick227]

It points to no such thing. What it implies is that sensationalism is alive and well and in use regularly. This is no different than every other period throughout history. This is why we have names for it like 'rhetoric' and 'hyperbole' and 'sensationalism' in the first place. I'll get back to this later in the post.

Hi GreNME,

What I was hoping to demonstrate was that are times when the whole gamut of media organisations move very rapidly in one direction, rather as one coherent organism. The only likely means by which this can happen, I submit, is if there is some level of centralised control, a hidden governing body with the potential powerr to direct the vast majority of media activities at any given moment, if desired.

I certainly wouldn't consider the case proven, but for me there are grounds for concern.

Just one of many to whom that has happened. There already exist passport wallets with faraday cages in order to block RFID chips that appear in some newer passports, as well. RFID is already turning out to be a non-starter with the attempts at implementation. That is my point: there is no need for alarm, because chips provide an unrealistic expectation where it is already known it can't meet.

Personally, I would feel more reassured if a larger number of people had heard the story. That it may or may not be currently feasible for RFID tracking to work is a bit tangential because I am concerned about the longer term perspective.

If we suppose, just for a moment, that this plan is present as a hidden agenda then it would have to manifest progressively over several decades.

Why are you happy for it? There are alternatives to setting youself up for ridicule-- couching what you are studying in terms of viability, feasibility, and reasonable expectations, for example. You would find that you would be subject to less criticism, even if people disagree, when you approach it from those methods. I would say you've done a fair job of doing so here, so I know you are capable of it.

I am happy for it because, in this case, I would prefer to be ridiculed for being wrong than applauded for being right.

This is exactly the problem I have with these kinds of movies (getting back to what I was saying earlier). It assumes that people who don't believe this stuff aren't aware, are somewhat mindless zombies, or are ignorant and complacent to everything that threatens to control their lives. This is a completely false (and insulting) assumption to make, and ignores societies around the world.

Well, I submit that this may be the interpretation of the individual watching the doc but this is up to them. You are responsible for how you process information. The individual can be manipulated into making certain decisions, for sure, but there is always a level of consent at the personal level.

If people truly, in their heart of hearts, believed that they had a real solid understanding of the world and its workings there would be no ground for movies like Zeitgeist to work in. In my experience, few people have this belief deep down.

In most of the West, the general distrust for politicians is a common subject for joking and jest. In the States alone, the number of people who actually genuinely trust any political group without question is extremely low. The general consensus for decades regarding elections is that people are voting for a "lesser of two evils," for the most part. A slight but generalized distrust for authority that claims it on its own merits is also a common thread among people in the Western world. People don't happily accept all claims of authority from government, and even right now this resistance to government constantly asserting itself is causing resistance in the general public-- in the UK and the US, people are demanding in greater and greater numbers that their leaders get the soldiers home and out of the quagmire they are currently embroiled in. There is real debate going on, both publicly and politically. This debate happens because people don't always come to the same conclusions when looking at the same set of factors, but this debate is happening because people (in general) do not have infinite patience, and they are definitely not 'blind' or unaware of everything in the world around them. Does this mean everyone is fully aware of everything in the world? No, but that applies equally to groups who think they know the 'truth', which also includes conspiracy theorists.



Where is the problem with calling it poorly-researched false assertions and snake-oil sales?


I don't see the big deal with calling a shyster a shyster. The same freedoms that allow him to call other people far worse (of which he takes advantage regularly) allow me to point out exactly how much snake-oil he's peddling in the first place.

For sure, no problem. Generally, I think these kinds of debates should come more and more out into public view. It's healthy.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

And I'm saying that, if indeed it's there in the background, it's so far in the background that I, a UK citizen and father of four, have remained totally unaware of it and have experienced no unexplained positive feelings towards the implantation of microchips in my children. Any campaign that is therefore being carried out has totally failed to impact on at least one member of the most important demographic group it would need to convince.

Dave

I sincerely hope that that remains the case.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

I'm not such a "big time" campaigner these days but I do recall another case involving the mass media, aside of Leah Betts, where my interest was piqued.

It concerned the "Earth fly-by" of the NASA space probe, Cassini, in August 1999. Several activist orgs were trying to get mainstream media attention for what seemed, to pretty much everyone who was aware of it, an almost insanely reckless astronomical manouevre.

Cassini is/was powered by some 30kg of radioactive plutonium which, had the manoevre gone wrong, would have been dumped into the earth's upper atmosphere. Given that radioactive plutonium is one of the most toxic substances known to man, I think it's fair to say that this was cause for concern.

Activists, those who knew, were up in arms; some former NASA scientists, it was reported, were extremely concerned; I can't conceive that the majority of the earth's citizens would not have liked to have been informed as to just what NASA was up to and been given the opportunity to at least voice their feelings. Was there any coverage of the event in the world's major media? Barely a dickybird!

Who has the power to sanction a mass media blackout in cases like these? Can it really be that the world's journalists saw absolutely no potential story material in this event?

Nick

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini–Huygens for more info

 

[Dave Rogers]

In the mid 90s a 17 year old girl is found dead at an Essex nightclub after apparently having taken one tab of Ecstasy. The story that she had died from taking the drug is festooned across the front pages of all the major UK dailies with reports and updates on TV news broadcasts up and down the country. Within 48 hours there can be few people who do not know that Leah died from taking ecstasy. This is followed up by an, at times very nasty, multi-million pound countrywide billboard campaign demonising the drug and its users.

No one of course bothered to wait for an autopsy report. The coroner subsequently ruled that Leah died from over-hydration, not MDMA intoxication.

That she had taken Ecstasy could have been a factor in her death,

This is rather a distorted view of the Leah Betts case, in that the coroner ruled that water retention caused by the MDMA was a key cause of death, and that "If she had drunk the amount of water alone she would have survived." In my book that means that MDMA was as much the cause of death as water intoxication, and "could have been" is far too weak a description of its role in her death.

Of course, the attitude of the media to drugs is grossly inconsistent - I doubt that alcohol or tobacco would be approved for general use if recently introduced, and that both are far more socially damaging than cannabis, whatever its negative psychological side-effects. However, misrepresenting the argument on the opposing side desn't help.

Dave

 

[GreNME]

Hi GreNME,

What I was hoping to demonstrate was that are times when the whole gamut of media organisations move very rapidly in one direction, rather as one coherent organism. The only likely means by which this can happen, I submit, is if there is some level of centralised control, a hidden governing body with the potential powerr to direct the vast majority of media activities at any given moment, if desired.

I certainly wouldn't consider the case proven, but for me there are grounds for concern.

There is always a concern. There is even constant concern among the people who operate and administrate the separate media outlets. They are constantly trying to find ways to distinguish themselves. However, we have this whole 'chicken-egg' problem: is it the media guiding the public or the public guiding the media? There are certainly cases made for both, and both certainly have at least some degree of credibility in that regard.

In this, though, there doesn't need to be any singlular entity asserting control. There are certainly fewer 'mother' corporations that own the subsidiaries than, say, 20 years ago, but on the other hand there are more such companies than there were five years ago. There is every indication that it isn't that control is coalescing into one mammoth beast, but that the medium is undergoing a huge shift and dinosaurs are dying off. As long as people keep embracing new technologies, outlets will continue to grow and competition will ebb and flow. I'd agree we're at one of those crucibles for mass news media in general, but this isn't the first time broadcast news has faced such circumstances, and I doubt it will be the last.

Personally, I would feel more reassured if a larger number of people had heard the story. That it may or may not be currently feasible for RFID tracking to work is a bit tangential because I am concerned about the longer term perspective.

You are concerned about it because you don't understand the weakness of RFID, I would suppose. It is nice to have a passive technology that is able to be used to identify stock, but stock can't counterfeit itself. Stock can't intentionally block its own identification. Stock can't find and remove the identifying chip. RFID and other passive ID technology are not feasible because it could never be enforced.

If we suppose, just for a moment, that this plan is present as a hidden agenda then it would have to manifest progressively over several decades.

It has been several decades! RFID is nothing new. I see no reason to suppose a hidden agenda, even if "just for a moment." There is no discernable reason to. Imagining otherwise is attempting to stuff information into a predetermined conclusion.

Are you aware that claims like these have been constantly coming out since before the development of the bar code? Do you understand the pseudo-Christian interpretational origins of these ideas? The base concept is one of millenialism, it is nothing new, and for all the times it has come up in the past-- and entire new faiths have cropped up from millenialism, by the way-- so far the record has shown that none of the prophecies have yet to come to pass. So, if you want the biggest reason such ideas aren't taken seriously, I simply refer you to the story of the boy who cried wolf.

I am happy for it because, in this case, I would prefer to be ridiculed for being wrong than applauded for being right.

Yes, everyone loves them an underdog, don't they? You realize that is just another social construct you're wearing, right? The emperor truly does have no clothes.

Well, I submit that this may be the interpretation of the individual watching the doc but this is up to them. You are responsible for how you process information. The individual can be manipulated into making certain decisions, for sure, but there is always a level of consent at the personal level.

That's just another way of saying "anything can be true if you believe it to be true." I reject such notions outright. Using mistaken and sometimes outright false information while purveying a notion of "truth" is nothing less than a scam. Yes there are loads of scams in this world, but that doesn't make the scam that is Zeitgeist any more justified. It just affirms that there are, indeed, many scam artists in the world.

If people truly, in their heart of hearts, believed that they had a real solid understanding of the world and its workings there would be no ground for movies like Zeitgeist to work in. In my experience, few people have this belief deep down.

Weren't you calling me a pessimist quite a few pages back? You have very little faith in humanity in general to hold such a disdainful view of them.

For sure, no problem. Generally, I think these kinds of debates should come more and more out into public view. It's healthy.

It's old and boring to most people. Once again, this is not a new concept in general, and may not even be a new concept to you. However, at the heart of the story of a conspiracy theory is that the information being passed is secret, or new, or containing some sort of imperative about it that if we do not act right now our world that we all hold dear hangs in the balance. Once again, it's the boy who cried wolf.

 

[Nick227]

This is rather a distorted view of the Leah Betts case, in that the coroner ruled that water retention caused by the MDMA was a key cause of death, and that "If she had drunk the amount of water alone she would have survived." In my book that means that MDMA was as much the cause of death as water intoxication, and "could have been" is far too weak a description of its role in her death.

Of course, the attitude of the media to drugs is grossly inconsistent - I doubt that alcohol or tobacco would be approved for general use if recently introduced, and that both are far more socially damaging than cannabis, whatever its negative psychological side-effects. However, misrepresenting the argument on the opposing side desn't help.

Dave

Hi Dave,

I apologise if misrepresentation took place.

However, I would like to point out that whether or not mdma ingestion was a factor in causing death, this was rather an aside to the main point I was trying to make....

...which was....that there is here, and in other places, a pattern in media behaviour that is consistent with the existence of a controlling central body behind the mass media, with its own agendas, hidden from the public gaze.

This is, imo, highly relevant when one considers the scenario laid out in the final scenes of Zeitgeist. To show that a hidden agenda could be being pursued through the mass media, it is of course necessary to demonstrate that the media could possibly be under centralised control away from the public gaze. I'd say there's a reasonable level of evidence to support this supposition.

Nick

PS - BTW, at the time of the campaign no one knew whether or not Leah had died from consuming Ecstasy because the inquest had not taken place.

PPS - If I recall correctly, the coroner also stated that had Leah taken Ecstasy alone she would not have died. You seem to have missed this aspect out in your own summing up above!

 

[Nick227]

There is always a concern. There is even constant concern among the people who operate and administrate the separate media outlets. They are constantly trying to find ways to distinguish themselves. However, we have this whole 'chicken-egg' problem: is it the media guiding the public or the public guiding the media? There are certainly cases made for both, and both certainly have at least some degree of credibility in that regard.

Hi GreNME,

Again, I see I am failing to clearly articulate my point. I apologise.

I'm not talking so much about the "struggle for individuation" that individual media organisations might face or go through, rather pointing out that there is a basic level of evidence that the mass media is under centralised, discreet control. What you're asserting, if I understand it correctly, is subtly different though certainly related.

What would you think to the possibility that Chief Execs and Editors of all major mass media could be members of an organisation who might meet occasionally and maintain discreet networking connections? Possible, likely, inconceivable, ridiculous?

In this, though, there doesn't need to be any singlular entity asserting control. There are certainly fewer 'mother' corporations that own the subsidiaries than, say, 20 years ago, but on the other hand there are more such companies than there were five years ago. There is every indication that it isn't that control is coalescing into one mammoth beast, but that the medium is undergoing a huge shift and dinosaurs are dying off. As long as people keep embracing new technologies, outlets will continue to grow and competition will ebb and flow. I'd agree we're at one of those crucibles for mass news media in general, but this isn't the first time broadcast news has faced such circumstances, and I doubt it will be the last.

As mentioned above, I'm not talking so much about direct, corporate control, rather subtle, behind-the-scenes control. It seems to me that there is some evidence to suggest this could be present.

You are concerned about it because you don't understand the weakness of RFID, I would suppose.

I certainly don't have the confidence you appear to have that the application can't be made to work. For sure, your knowledge of the engineering principles involved could well exceed mine.

It is nice to have a passive technology that is able to be used to identify stock, but stock can't counterfeit itself. Stock can't intentionally block its own identification. Stock can't find and remove the identifying chip. RFID and other passive ID technology are not feasible because it could never be enforced.

You mean it couldn't be enforced because you couldn't stop counterfeiting?

It has been several decades! RFID is nothing new. I see no reason to suppose a hidden agenda, even if "just for a moment." There is no discernable reason to. Imagining otherwise is attempting to stuff information into a predetermined conclusion.

Are you aware that claims like these have been constantly coming out since before the development of the bar code? Do you understand the pseudo-Christian interpretational origins of these ideas? The base concept is one of millenialism, it is nothing new, and for all the times it has come up in the past-- and entire new faiths have cropped up from millenialism, by the way-- so far the record has shown that none of the prophecies have yet to come to pass. So, if you want the biggest reason such ideas aren't taken seriously, I simply refer you to the story of the boy who cried wolf.

I don't know that it's really several decades, per se. For sure the more biblically inclined CT has made much of the 666 thing. I'm not quite sure about the prophecies thing, but I think that if one were to consider what an immediately pre-1984 Orwellian society might look like, it mightn't be so far from our world today.

Yes, everyone loves them an underdog, don't they? You realize that is just another social construct you're wearing, right? The emperor truly does have no clothes.

Well, I hope I'm not merely acting out an underdog trip. It does genuinely concern me that these things could be real. And I simply find it makes me feel more at ease to inform people. I'm not courting ridicule. It's just that, in the scale of things I make in my head, I'd rather people knew and suspected I was a bit mad or over-the-top than people didn't know and it happened.

Weren't you calling me a pessimist quite a few pages back? You have very little faith in humanity in general to hold such a disdainful view of them.

I can't really see where the disdain bit is coming from. I think most people keep a front up but underneath there's a lot of concern about what's really going on in our world. There's a lot of insecurity because, finally, a part of us suspects that we are just being fed information from a remarkably small number of sources. And there are these occasional outbursts of quite inconsistent behaviour in the media and government.

Zeitgeist holds its Top 5 position on Google Video, I submit, precisely because of this. Deep down, people are becoming more and more concerned about the media, corporations, the government. On a superficial level we/they maintain face, but underneath...people are very open to a fresh perspective. This is not because of some inherent lack or failure on their behalf, rather it's human nature to try and fill the gap they sometimes perceive in their awareness.

Nick

 

[Dave Rogers]

PPS - If I recall correctly, the coroner also stated that had Leah taken Ecstasy alone she would not have died. You seem to have missed this aspect out in your own summing up above!

Yes, that's what he said. I said that MDMA was as much the cause of death as water intoxication, i.e. both were factors, which I feel was a reasonable representation of the coroner's conclusion.

So the press speculated that MDMA was the cause of death, and it turned out to be one of the causes. Seems to me to be rather analogous to the case of CBS and the BBC pre-announcing the collapse of WTC7; they guessed and jumped the gun, they just happened to be partly right.

And yes, the press tends to have a blatantly anti-drug agenda. There's nothing hidden about it. A majority of UK society seems to have a blatantly anti-drug agenda, however hypocritical, and the press prints what sells. I don't see much of a conspiracy here.

Dave

 

[Nick227]

Yes, that's what he said. I said that MDMA was as much the cause of death as water intoxication, i.e. both were factors, which I feel was a reasonable representation of the coroner's conclusion.

So the press speculated that MDMA was the cause of death, and it turned out to be one of the causes. Seems to me to be rather analogous to the case of CBS and the BBC pre-announcing the collapse of WTC7; they guessed and jumped the gun, they just happened to be partly right.

And yes, the press tends to have a blatantly anti-drug agenda. There's nothing hidden about it. A majority of UK society seems to have a blatantly anti-drug agenda, however hypocritical, and the press prints what sells. I don't see much of a conspiracy here.

Dave

Dave,

I'm not talking about the details of the individual cases. I'm talking about the pattern of activity in the media.

A girl dies in a nightclub one night. There's no wait for an autopsy. Instead the WHOLE media jump instantly on to this case as absolute proof that Ecstasy is deadly dangerous. It's on every front page. It's on every TV news show. I'm saying that this seems to me a complete set-up.

It is as though a decision had already been taken at another level to destroy the reputation of the drug and the media were primed and simply awaiting any case that could fit the bill. Leah died and the whole pre-arranged she-bang descended.

My contention is that it is precisely scenarios like this, where the media appear to have clear hidden agendas, that cause people to feel insecure about mass media control. This is what fuels the interest in conspiracy theories and films like Zeitgeist. It is that the pattern of activity in mass media, at regular intervals, suggests a schedule of priorities to which the general public are excluded.

Nick

 

[Stout]

Hey Nick.

I find it interesting that you at least acknowledge that your views may be held up to ridicule and you're concerned that people are and will continue to, question your sanity and reason.

Remember that Ferrari scenario I posted last week ? I had a sneaking suspicion that you might be nuts and value your beliefs over "what's real" and also, I'd just finished reading Blueprint For a Prison Planet.

Compare and contrast your attitude with a local CTer who's taken Zeitgeist to heart ( among other things ) and is so convinced that we're heading towards a society like the one you describe in Blueprint that he's identifying and expanding on ANY idea in the popular press that can be used to back up his beliefs in the nwo idea.

Thing is...he's not open for discussion on these ideas.

Here's a for instance. In North America, we're currently dealing with a ( albeit rather questionable ) government/corporate institution called the Security and Prosperity Partnership, which local CT guy is convinced is a big step in the whole NWO direction and goes so far as to quote the mention of using biometrics on the official SPP website as being "proof" of microchipping..yadayada. Problem is...when I pointed out the difference between biometrics and microchipping he responded with a know it all " that's just what they want you to believe ) and when I pointed out the drawbacks to RFID technology,,,he responded by telling me about " ones with a range of 2000 miles that they haven't told you ( meaning me ) about"

Focusing in on one specific part of Blueprint, the one where you envision a cashless society I can't say that I agree. I'm an independent street artist who only deals in cash and this makes me highly sensitive to people carrying cash issues, and I've got to say that since the date of publication of Blueprint, I noticed an increase in the amount of cash machines available to the general public.

Every hotel, every tourist attraction, most restaurants, most grocery stores, have cash machines and if there truly was a plan afoot for "them" to restrict the use of cash, then how can you explain this obvious increase in cash machines?

We had the Madeleine McCann story over here in Canada, briefly, but the only reason we did was because it was so highly unusual like the Australian story of the couple who's daughter was " abducted by dingos" YOU may be getting the message that English children aren't safe and may see the guy who's marketing RFID technology to paranoid parents as being part of a greater plan, but most people do not. We see a sensational story involving a cute little girl who disappeared under mysterious circumstances and a guy who'd looking to make a buck off the story.

Why...a few minutes with the google proved to me that, in the UK child abduction by stranger is statistically not much of a problem. Why would "they" allow this information to be published ? Or more correctly, why would "they" publish it in the first place. You think they'd at least embellish it, at least by am order of magnitude (or two) just to get "their" point across.

Don't get me wrong here Nick, I don't want to see an "Orwellian" society any more than you do but when you were reading 1984 didn't you find yourself wondering just how many people it would actually take ( as expressed as a percentage of the population ) to make a society like the one portrayed in 1984 to actually be what it was. I mean, when it comes right down to it, it would take a majority of the population to actively "watch" the minority.

1984 was written as fiction, and I took the licence you granted me in the intro paragraph of Blueprint to read it in the same way.