Skeptic Project

Why does TZM/TVP hide its financial records?

You can get the financial records of the Venus Project as it is a non-profit entity. You just have to file for it through the proper channels in Florida. Have at it.

I don't know anything about the finances of the Zeiteist movement as far as any status financially other then the fact that Peter actually does not profit from it.

I gave my reasons for disliking "America" in the forum post you quoted.

Why, if (as you say) conspiracy theories are irrelevant to the Zeitgeist Movement, does Peter Merola continue to promote them heavily, to the point of banning and shutting down topics on this forum that question conspiracy theories, as well as putting them in his upcoming film, and state unequivocally that conspiracy theories are the #1 generator of interest for his movement?

Why has Peter Merola not been expelled from the movement, and the Zeitgeist films not definitively disavowed and denounced by Jacque Fresco and those who you claim do not believe in conspiracy theories?

Why is Zeitgeist I (the most heavily, but clearly not the only, Zeitgeist film associated with conspiracy theories) continually promoted as recommended viewing for those interested in the Zeitgeist movement?

What do you, VTV, personally believe regarding the 9/11 disaster?

To what degree are you, VTV, willing to go on record as publicly disagreeing with Peter Merola regarding (1) his belief in conspiracy theories, and (2) his very public promotion of conspiracy theories as THE prime motivator of interest in the Zeitgeist Movement and the Venus Project?

"First of all, I would say that the vast majority of people I have seen claiming that they were banned for politely disagreeing have turned out to be lying."

Ed's lying?

@macieski

""First of all, I would say that the vast majority of people I have seen claiming that they were banned for politely disagreeing have turned out to be lying."

Ed's lying?"

Did I specifically say "Ed" in my post? No I said "the vast majority" as you just quoted.

Ed was banned as it was clear his only purpose on the forum was his anti-conspiracy agenda. He had no interest in the movement and didn't contribute anything else.

What have you done for your community or society to help further it's advancement and improve conditions for people?

What movie did you see with your wife the other day?

VTV;

"Ed was banned as it was clear his only purpose on the forum was his anti-conspiracy agenda. He had no interest in the movement and didn't contribute anything else. "

-----

Oh really?

1. Made music for the Movement, for example I think its Brenton's radio show uses my piano remix of ZG theme. I also put some Fresco clips on some other music I had done.

2. I had a podcast with two other people including one of the moderators that talked about Movement related issues, the main goal was to get the mainstream audience interested. For the first episode we only took questions from the ZGM.

3. I have attended meetings including the London meetup, I have gone to see Fresco's London lecture and Peter's London lecture LIVE.

4. I have tried for over a year to get the Movement's powers that be to distance themselves from the credibility destroying path they are taking with their marketing. Why do you think I was so interested in doing that VTV? I only stopped considering myself a member of the movement about 5 months ago. You and Peter think I was doing that because I wanted to destroy the Movement, when the goal was to help it.

EDIT: 5. I remember I actually had a long debate on a skeptic website (JREF) about Movement related issues and took a lot of abuse from people that didn't get some of the concepts.

6. Even when I left the Movement I defended its moderation and willingness to hear criticisms, until recently of course!

Don't you dare claim I was never a real member, that my purpose was just to argue and that I never did anything for or care about the movement.

Maybe you want to convince yourselves of that because it makes you feel better but it evidently is a complete lie.

Oh, and you STILL keep ignoring the fact that your Movement still allows conspiracy theories to be talked about on the forums so long as people are PRO-CONSPIRACY THEORY. Why is that? And why don't you care that Peter says conspiracies are the number 1 marketing tool? If so why aren't you making more conspiracy theory material?

@Sil

"What have you done for your community or society to help further it's advancement and improve conditions for people?"

The reason that the ZM doesn't get involved in charitable stuff is that we consider it to be patchwork and that the problems usually attempted at being patched with these actions while noble are inefficient. The system the world uses for interacting with resources has to change. I can start a soup kitchen for the homeless and it might help them get meals every now and then but it will not help these people stop being homeless. At this stage in the game we are not working on projects like that. We want to be more solution oriented and we feel you need to start at the root of problems. The service comes in the form that most people don't even know that we really could take care of these people along with everyone else through the proper application of science. And breaking the "mental mold" that people have that causes them to look at problems like poverty as "just the way it is" and actually making people realize the truth which is that they can be solved.

As I didn't go see a movie with my wife as a member of the Zeitgeist Movement I don't really see any point in sharing that information. My personal life is my own.

@Ed

"Oh really?

1. Made music for the Movement, for example I think its Brenton's radio show uses my piano remix of ZG theme. I also put some Fresco clips on some other music I had done.

2. I had a podcast with two other people including one of the moderators that talked about Movement related issues, the main goal was to get the mainstream audience interested. For the first episode we only took questions from the ZGM.

3. I have attended meetings including the London meetup, I have gone to see Fresco's London lecture and Peter's London lecture LIVE."

Ok, these are things you have done in the past. The contention is that you had no further purpose for being there other then your anti-conspiracy agenda.

"4. I have tried for over a year to get the Movement's powers that be to distance themselves from the credibility destroying path they are taking with their marketing. Why do you think I was so interested in doing that VTV? I only stopped considering myself a member of the movement about 5 months ago. You and Peter think I was doing that because I wanted to destroy the Movement, when the goal was to help it."

If you no longer considered yourself a member of the movement then what purpose did you have to be on the forums other then to detract from it?

"EDIT: 5. I remember I actually had a long debate on a skeptic website (JREF) about Movement related issues and took a lot of abuse from people that didn't get some of the concepts."

Neat. Same as I said above. You used to do that.

"6. Even when I left the Movement I defended its moderation and willingness to hear criticisms, until recently of course!"

I already explained this position and I agree with it. If people want to come there to question things that is fine. Once it becomes clear that they are just there to spread an anti-ZM agenda then there is no reason for them to be on our forums. There is a whole internet where people can do that. And it is a huge waste of our energy to deal with people who are clearly so brainwashed by the current system that they do not get what we are doing and likely will never. We still hear criticisms. It takes a while before people are kicked out generally depending on how destructive they are being. Our forums are for members to discuss the goings on of the movement and how to communicate our ideas better. Not for detractors who in most cases haven't even bothered to actually research.

"Don't you dare claim I was never a real member, that my purpose was just to argue and that I never did anything for or care about the movement."

In your own words you stopped being a member about five months ago. You were allowed to stay on for a long time after that.

"Maybe you want to convince yourselves of that because it makes you feel better but it evidently is a complete lie."

See above.

"Oh, and you STILL keep ignoring the fact that your Movement still allows conspiracy theories to be talked about on the forums so long as people are PRO-CONSPIRACY THEORY. Why is that? And why don't you care that Peter says conspiracies are the number 1 marketing tool? If so why aren't you making more conspiracy theory material?"

Again. All of that stuff gets moved to the Miscellaneous section where other material irrelevant to the movement goes. Pro-conspiracy theory or against it.

VTV.

You said... ""Ed was banned as it was clear his only purpose on the forum was his anti-conspiracy agenda. He had no interest in the movement and didn't contribute anything else. ""

That is a complete and total lie.

Stop trying to defend Peters dishonesty.

You also say...
"Again. All of that stuff gets moved to the Miscellaneous section where other material irrelevant to the movement goes. Pro-conspiracy theory or against it. "

Again, Peter said that I am wasting his bandwidth talking about 911, therefore he should also lock and stop ALL discussions of 911 conspiracies. Why hasn't he or any of the mods done this? Why is he such a goddamn hypocrite?

He even says ..."If you want to debate 911, go to one of the 1000s of other blogs that deal with it explicitly. "

So why are you letting the 911 debates continue? Because there is no debate now, you just have people like Thunder, radicalhumilty and WWu777 saying whatever they like. The last post by WWu777 was even trying to debate me on 911 when I knew I was banned! Yet, no mod action was taken.

"If you want to debate 911, go to one of the 1000s of other blogs that deal with it explicitly. "..... Hilarious, Peter, hilarious.

You also said I was a member for 5 months as if that somehow makes you guys fair and open to criticism. Firstly, they have have at one time been more open but they started cracking down when they started locking all 911 threads pretty damn quickly and then he banned me and changed the rules of the forum saying that they would only tolerate criticism and that the forums were for members only.

Don't believe me?

Peter even admitted it in his reason for banning me... "You are obviously not a member, AS NEEDED BY THE RULES WE DENOTE"

....So if you're not a member you will at best be tolerated but banned if they find out "as denoted by the rules". He also says, "Your contribution is nill and distracting"... so going back to the lie you continue to make that I had no interest in the movement and was only there to promote critical thinking to conspiracy theories. Why does Peter and you have to lie and distort the truth in order to make your points? Why does Peter not care about the lies in his films?

See these comments?

"He has done nothing but complain about 911 for 15 months"
"He sits in Misc and waits for any break to undermine the movement."

Those are LIES and you and he knows it, just like Peter knows his films are full of lies that he refuses to defend and doesn't care.

@Ed

"What realistic goals do you have besides "spreading the word?

ie.
At what point will your work HELP people?

Imagine if everyone currently working in charitable organisations joined the ZGM and worked on "spreading the word" instead of... you know... help feeding the poor, providing fresh water to those that don't have any, providing food and medical supplies to places like Haiti or New Orleans, or campaigning to stop whaling or the preservation of fish stocks and so on. Suddenly a lot of people will DIE because they all left to spread the word of the Venus Project society that most Zeitgeist members seem to accept they probably wouldn't see in their lifetimes anyway, right?"

Virtually all of the charitable work I have seen has been temporary solutions that do not actually fix anything. They make you feel good and we don't look down on people for doing it. The issue is that the problem is still there when the charity money dries up. And the system is not designed to facilitate those situations getting better. This is the realization the world's people need to come to and we work on spreading that realization. Lets look at these issues you suggest:

1. "help feeding the poor"

How do we do this? Do we just give them food that we purchased from whatever donations we can muster to feed as many people as we can? There are plenty of organizations trying to do this yet for some reason there are still starving poor people and always have been. This is because there has always been money and a sense of entitlement in the people who have more of it. It is further capitalized by the fact that we are conditioned to ignore the problem. If you want to solve this problem people need to be aware that the problem is not "too big" to be solved. And more to the point, they need to understand why this is happening. Until then just feeding these people is like sticking your finger in the dam as more holes become apparent then you can possibly plug.

2. "providing fresh water to those that don't have any"

See above. The root causes need to be dealt with or the problem will just continue forever.

3. "providing food and medical supplies to places like Haiti or New Orleans"

So we do this only to have another flood happen at some point in New Orleans? Or more of the same happen in Haiti and places like it? We are not opposed to this as I said earlier. The issue is that in order to actually treat the problem you have to go to it's root. People shouldn't build in flood prone places in the first place. And if they are going to then they need to find a way to design their buildings to be resistant to it. Buildings could also be built to solve issues that come with other natural disasters. This is not done because of the profit motive. It is far more profitable to be the company that gets to go and rebuild everything in the end then to actually design homes to save lives. Once again. THIS is the realization we need to come to.

4. "or campaigning to stop whaling or the preservation of fish stocks and so on" I hate whaling personally. I also know that the only way to effect lasting change is to eliminate the profit motive. We do campaign to solve these problems in that we make people aware of them. And make them aware that it doesn't need to be like this and suggest a solution. I real lasting solution. We can lobby against corporations in Congress to get laws passed or whatever but all of that is just patchwork that as soon as the corporations throw more money at it then we do as activists it will just go back to being the way it was. The system is designed for profit to be king.

When will our work actually start helping people? It already is. We need to change people's thinking to affect change that is material. And their thinking needs to be solution oriented rather then patchwork oriented, or "I just don't care. Man it sucks for those people but hey, I worked hard for all of my stuff that was mostly built with slave labor in third world countries! So I am going to go watch American Idol now.." oriented.

@ Ed:

"We are sharply critical of 9/11 conspiracies because there is no evidence that one occurred."

I said that, not VTV. I was responding to his comment about us (skeptics) being "anti-conspiracy nazis."

@Muertos

"Because it seems clear that the Zeitgeist Movement will never be taken seriously as a force for change in society so long as it is so heavily associated with conspiracy theories. Merola made his bones with a conspiracy film before he ever heard of the Venus Project. Speaking out forcefully on 9/11 Truth theories is the kiss of death for public credibility--ask Steven Jones, Rosie O'Donnell, Charlie Sheen or Richard Gage. So long as Merola is on board he's a ball and chain dragging you down, because the world will see you as nothing but a bunch of crackpot 9/11 Truthers."

For wanting to change the system at all you will be called a crackpot.

"That sounds suspiciously like you are a 9/11 Truther. Even Truthers don't believe every theory (space beams and exploding paint, for example, are mutually exclusive). What exactly do you think a new investigation would reveal? The one we had already uncovered evidence of incompetence at nearly every level of government counter-terrorism and homeland protection, so what's the point of another investigation unless you believe there is some other "truth" that remains unrevealed?"

I have already given you the answer I have for you on this. The reason I call for another investigation is because of what you have already suggested. The difference is how many people were actually punished for this? I am not going to get into a 911 truth debate but I have answered you.

"Name one false flag terrorism operation that has been proven to have been executed by our government, or one conspiracy on the scale of 9/11 that has been proven to have occurred."

Sure. The "Gulf of Tonkin" incident was a false flag operation to get us into Viet Nam.

We set up the coup to throw an Iranian president out of office. (That's revealed in de-classified documents, FYI.)

The incident that started the "Spanish American" war was total crap too.

We can go even further back to the various bullshit propgaganda campaigns waged by the American government to convince us we needed to be rid of the "Savage Red Man".

How about the conspiracy to convince us to go to war in Iraq? Even if 911 were not an inside job as some claim. That was a total line of bullshit. And it is killing hundreds of thousands of people.

I despise Alex Jones, but in his film "Terrorstorm" he goes over a lot of the now declassified and even historically commonly accepted examples of this.

VTV stop promoting conspiracy theories on your own thread, you just dig yourself in deeper.

@VTV:

"I have also seen "debunking" that amounts to little more then name calling. "

Please show me one example of pure name calling in anything I have said.

Also, please explain what name calling I engaged in in the thread that I was banned in. I pointed out clear examples of quote-mines and dishonesty in Zeitgeist and was prepared to give many more but no one was interested, then I was banned.