Zeitgeist - Part III: Don't Mind The Men Behind The Curtain

Peter Joseph (creator of Zeitgeist) believes that I'm mentally ill because I disagree with him. You can read all about it on his forums (linked from this forum post), with a blog-based rebuttal here. You better not disagree with him, or you'll be labeled insane next. Perhaps I'm crazy for pointing out his forum post?

If anyone has looked on the forums of the Internet as of late, it seems as thought Part III is the most commonly believed; you typically hear things like "Well, Part I - I'm not too sure about, Part II may be/is not true, but I know Part III is true!" How do these people know? If they know, why not more people? Well, I decided to look into it myself.

I realize that most people who promote this film say "I did research, I know it's true", well if that was the case, Parts I and II wouldn't have been proven false. As I did in part I, I will go through the video as it talks, that is I will take a transcription and discuss it point by point in that manner, anything from the movie appears in green to make it easy to follow.

It is worth noting that this section has some pretty long quotes from movies and from other people. I only kept in quotes of substance, so I did not put in the quotes from the movie Network or anything like that, but I did keep the stuff from CNN, CNBC, and so forth.

Table of Contents

1. Quotes
2. American Revolution
3. Central Banks
   1. Supposèd Quotes
   2. History of Central Banks
   3. Inciting Panic
   4. Jekyll Island
   5. Federal Reserve Act
   6. Woodrow Wilson's Regret
   7. Louis McFadden
   8. The Federal Reserve and Its Money
      1. Here We Go Again
      2. Congressman Lindbergh Speaks
      3. Margin Loans and Calls
      4. Insiders and Black Tuesday
      5. Congressman Louis McFadden Speaks and Dies
   9. Federal Reserve and the Gold Standard
   10. The Federal Reserve is Private
4. Income Tax
   1. Must be Apportioned
   2. Amendment Never Ratified
   3. Total Income Tax
   4. No Laws For Income Tax
5. War
   1. World War I
   2. World War II
      1. Roosevelt
      2. Path to War
      3. IG Farben and Others
   3. Vietnam
6. The True Agenda
   1. Patriot Act
   2. Hitler and Godwin's Law
7. Time to Wake Up
8. Mass Media
9. North American Union
10. One World Government
    1. Nobody Knows But Us
    2. More Quotes
    3. Aaron Russo
    4. Microchips
11. Film Conclusion 

Quotes

The movie begins with some quotes from various people in history. On a hunch I decided to look into the context of these quotes and see what they were really talking about. I realize the purpose of the quotes are to give the viewer the impression that "something else is going on", but there's more to it than that. The viewer should be aware of the true meaning behind these quotes.

This one was kind of difficult to track down, but I finally did find it. The quote in full is "A long train of these practices has at length unwillingly convinced me that there is something behind the throne, greater than the throne itself." What William Pitt was talking about, was a scandal of sorts, how King George III was under too much influence from Lord Bute, and how it seemed as though the King didn't care about what the French were saying. The speech this quote came from was made in 1770, six years after the King had already stopped seeing Lord Bute, and Pitt knew this. The purpose of the statement was to imply the King was weak; it was nothing more than an insult[1].

This quote originates from a book written by Disraeli in 1844 which is a fictional account of the life and career of Henry Coningsby and his politics. Essentially the whole thing is Disraeli voicing his opinion to the Reform Bill of 1832, the British Whig Party, and Utilitarianism. This quote is frequently misrepresented by Anti-Semitic individuals who wish to prove that Jews control the world[2]. In reality the context of the quote was discussion the concept behind governmental alliances. Thus it makes sense that things are run "behind the scenes" if governments make agreements with others to do or not to do something.

I found the "source" of this quote. It is apparently a letter sent from Roosevelt to Colonel Edward M House, and can be received from Sterling Library at Yale University or from Radio Liberty. After hours of searching, I could not find a single location on the Internet that references this letter that is not a conspiracy site or is from a post on a forum written by someone who is promoting a conspiracy theory. More so, searching Yale's library database yielded nothing. I found plenty of letters, but not this one.

American Revolution

First, there were many causes of the American Revolution, a big one was "taxation without representation", and indeed Benjamin Franklin did comment later in 1800 stating that he believed the ridiculous money system imposed on the colonies was a cause for the revolution. That is, where the colonies had to essentially ship massive amounts of money back to England because they imported more than they exported[3]. King George III outlawed the colonies from making their own money period, despite the wording of this, implying that somehow it was only the interest free money that they were outlawing. The English economic style was that of money being loaned at interest to the government, from private companies.[4] It is worth noting, that not all Central Banks are privately owned, nor do all Central Banks issue Fiat currency (money based on several things, such as payment of taxes and credible enforcement), some do back their money with gold.

Central Banks

The primary reason a central banking system was implemented is because "free banking systems", that is ones that are not centralized, were unstable. Between 1837 and 1862, a time when we had free banking, banks issued their own bank notes, which were backed against their own gold and silver, and states regulated reserve requirements, interest rates on loans and deposits, and so forth.[5] The problem with this system is it created a lot of unstable banks. In fact, banks would only last around 5 years before going bankrupt because they could no longer redeem the notes of customers. A third of banks failed during the free banking era.[6]

Imagine going to a bank today, and them telling you that your paper money is actually worthless, you can't buy or sell anything with it. Of course, the movie implies this later by saying the Federal Reserve System creates worthless money, but if that was the case, I don't see why we haven't had massive market crashes and wide-spread instability as we did prior to the modern system.

Contrary to the film, the Federal Reserve does not increasingly create debt. The total debt mounted each year by the Federal Reserve is only about 7% of the total national debt. The Federal Reserve rebates its net earnings to the Treasury every year, thus the money borrowed from the Federal Reserve has no net interest obligation for the treasury[7].

If we travel back to a time when banks made their own currency, we also had the problem of going to multiple banks. I imagine if banks still did that, we'd probably wind up with a bank monopoly anyway, because people would want the convenience of being able to use the same money everywhere, especially businesses. Instead the Central Banking system allows businesses and people to deal less with converting all the tons of different bank notes they receive, and allows them to more easily save their money in cash or coin form, or in a bank backed up by the FDIC.

Supposèd Quotes

Instead of telling us the date of the quote or where it's from, the film just tells us the birth and death years of the person -- which is less than helpful. When searching for it, I noticed it was attributed to a letter that simply didn't exist. I did find letters that supposedly contained this quote[8] But the other sentences in these letters were actually from different letters to different people[9]. The entire quote in the film cannot be attributed to Thomas Jefferson, at all, anywhere. I searched all his complete works. It was fabricated from somewhere as far as I can tell. In letters, though, I did find that Thomas Jefferson was worried about banks being able to create their own currency, the exact thing the Central Bank system prevents[9].

This quote is completely inaccurate, here is the real quote:

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."[10]

The quote from the film is worded to make it appear as though Stamp was talking about credit and Central Banking, rather he was talking about people putting their money in banks at all, centralized or not.

History of Central Banks

The First Bank of the United States was the first central bank that America had, and it was chartered by Congress after being proposed by Alexander Hamilton, one of our most important founding fathers. The purpose was not unlike our current system. It was to establish financial order, clarity, and precedence. Credit was also established, both in the US and overseas. It was also established to resolve the messy issue of fiat currency issued by the Continental Congress. Thomas Jefferson was not necessarily up in arms against it, rather he was not too interested in the idea, as he believed that the South would not benefit because it was an agricultural economy that did not require central banking.[11]

After the charter for the First Bank of the United States expired, five years later the Second Bank of the United States was chartered in order to stabilize the currency. It was founded by noted friend of Thomas Jefferson and Founding Father, James Monroe.[12] It was also created when James Madison and Albert Gallatin found the government was unable to finance the country in the aftermath of the War of 1812, which had put the country into a lot of debt. New privately formed banks printed bank notes as a result of this debt, which increased inflation greatly[13]. Unfortunately, due to mismanagement and not having the protections the central bank does now, it became corrupt towards its end, and the nation's money was removed from it and transferred to a different bank. Quickly the Second Bank went bankrupt and turned into the Bank of Philadelphia.[14]

As we can see, the central banking system helped America a lot, especially during its formative years, and kept the country stable in times of crisis. It is also hard to believe the film when it calls the founding fathers "ruthless banking interests".

I could mention that "At this time..." is incorrect, because the Second Bank went defunct in 1841, and the oldest person on the list above was only 3 years old when it happened -- this hardly makes any of them dominant at this time. The film is basically setting us up for a conspiracy here, let's see how that turns out.

Inciting Panic

Trying foot the blame on JP Morgan for the 1908 Bankers' Panic does not stand up to historical facts. The biggest contributor to the panic was actually the Knickerbocker Trust Company, which copied speculation tactics of Charles W. Morse, who had obtained Bank of North America and several other banks to float consolidations schemes. In any case, over-expansion and poor speculation led to a stock market crash in early 1907. If that weren't enough, the stock market crashed again in October of that year.[15] This is why banks called in their loans, not because of some news paper article that was published. I tried to find reference to any such article, and I never could find it.

I have seen many conspiracy sites that square the blame on JP Morgan, claiming he "published rumors" of various banks, and all this. I cannot find any real evidence of that what so ever, outside a reference to a Life Magazine article, as quoted above by the film. I could not find that article, and considering Life Magazine has a history of publishing half-truths anyway, I cast doubt on the source until I can see an actual copy of the article in question.[16] 

In any case, JP Morgan actually helped the situation when he organized a team of bank and trust executives. This helped avoid complete economic ruin for the American economy by redirecting money between banks, security international lines of credit, and bought stock of healthy corporations to keep them from bankrupting.[15]

Unaware, perhaps, because there was no fraud taking place. Actually what happened was, Nelson Aldrich spent some time traveling around Europe, and believed the English, German, and French central banking systems were far better than what was going on in the US at the time. He was a firm believer in the progressive concepts of efficiency and science; so it is no surprise he wanted a system that worked well, easily, and was stable. He worked with various bankers and economists to design a plan for the central banking system he had in mind. In fact, he promoted a central banking concept that was decentralized, making it hard to believe he was in on any large conspiracy [17][18].

Jekyll Island

Back in 1910 banking reform was a big issue in the United States, and Nelson Aldrich -- as we already discussed -- had seen how several European countries had Central Banking systems and helped draft a plan for one in the United States. This meeting was not that secretive. We know exactly who attended:

• Nelson Aldrich, US Senator
• AP Andrews (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department)
• Paul Warburg (Kuhn, Loeb, & Co)
• Frank A Vanderlip (President, National City Bank of New York)
• Henry P Davison (Senior Partner, JP Morgan Company)
• Charles D Norton (President, First National Bank of New York)
• Benjamin Strong (Representing JP Morgan)

The film claims it was "bankers, not lawmakers", when the first two, or at least the first, would be considered as such. It makes perfect sense as well, considering as I already talked about, the whole idea was Nelson Aldrich's and he wanted help drafting a plan. That is, the help of people who knew about Banks and the help of the Treasury Department to set up the plan for a central bank in the US.[19]

The whole mystery of it can be attributed to Forbes magazine, who published an article several years later of a bunch of bankers skipping town in the middle of the night to some island -- sounds more like some horrible John Grisham rip-off, rather than what actually happened. What's next? Are you going to tell me they were speeding away from Jekyll Island in a speed boat with monocles, bags of money with dollar signs, and their canes propped up against stacks of property deeds while they stroked their mustaches mincingly?

Federal Reserve Act

It really didn't need to be "handed over to him", because he already had it, considering he was the primary person behind it. While Woodrow Wilson did get some money from corporations, most of the money was from smaller donations, not banks[20].

The film implies that nobody knew about the act, when it had been debated and discussed for more than 4 months prior to being voted on. It passed the House on December 22, 1913 with 298 yeas to 60 nays, with 76 not voting (even if they would have voted all nay, it would still have been a majority of yeas).[21] The next day the Senate passed it, 43 yeas to 25 nays, with 27 not voting. The record shows that almost all of those not voting on the bill had previously declared their intentions, and were paired with members of the opposite intentions.[22]

Woodrow Wilson's Regret

The first quote is actually changed a bit, the original is[23]:

A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom.

What's most interesting is that this originally was in a speech from 1912, so how could he be regretting something that hasn't happened yet?

The second quote is also different, but only slightly edited [24]:

"We have restricted credit, we have restricted opportunity, we have controlled development, and we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world--no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men."

As with the first quote, this quote is from before the Federal Reserve Act even existed. This is actually from his 1912 campaign speech.

How can he regret something that hasn't happened yet? Could it be these are just being used and the film is inaccurately trying to tell you that he regretted passing the law, when that was not the case? That would be my guess.

Louis McFadden

I could not find a source for this quote that was not a conspiracy web site, though I did find some interesting facts about what this quote possibly meant. Louis McFadden was quite a shady individual, and he believed that Jews controlled the world, most specifically the American economy[25]. McFadden also blamed Jews for various changes in the American economy, including the Federal Reserve[26]. He was also a major supporter of Hitler and the Nazi policies that were anti-Semitic; more specifically he supported Hitler's attempts to destroy the alleged Jewish control over the German economy, media, education, and business[27]. And for the sake of full disclosure, when he ran for president in 1936, one of his campaign slogans was "Christianity instead of Judaism"[28]

Therefore, in the quote above, if we replace bankers and Fed with "Jews", then we can get a picture of what McFadden was actually talking about. I'm not trying to derail from what he really said, but if he believed the banks were controlled by Jews and the Federal Reserve was a Jewish "problem", then it is safe to make such an assumption to change the words to show the truth behind what he was saying -- but I guess you can be the judge of that.

The Federal Reserve and Its Money

Actually the US economy has been fairly stable since the great depression. There have been some ups and downs, but many of those can be attributed to international trading of oil, over-investments in unknown areas (such as the dot com boom), or private loans to individuals without income or assets rather than the Federal Reserve.

Here We Go Again

Until fall 1914 the Federal Reserve was essentially on the sidelines, due to political and administrative delays. However, the increases were primarily due to the massive amounts of gold imported into the United States due to foreign countries owing the US more than $4 billion in railroad stocks[29]. To keep up with this the treasury continued to print money[30]. However by 1920, the First World War was over and postwar expansion peaked, causing a recession, the Federal Reserve attempted to stem the decline.

The decline caused the unemployment rate to rise from 4% to nearly 12% by 1921, this was in large part due to the fact that banks were trying to conserve gold reserves[31]. The fact is, money backed by gold constantly lead to crisis because of banks worrying more about the gold than expansion. As for the "over 5,400 competitive banks", something is wrong with that figure, considering during the 1920s, there was an average failing of only 70 banks per year, which would be 77 years to be 5,400[32]. This was nothing unusual at the time, considering prior to the Federal Reserve system, the average life-span of a bank was merely 5 years[6].

Congressman Lindbergh Speaks

It also important to note, throughout this film, the film maker refers to "group of International bankers", well "international" banks cannot partake in the central banking / Federal Reserve System of the United States.

I was unable to find a source for this quote, I have come to believe it is fabricated; however there is no doubt Congressman Lindbergh was against the Federal Reserve Act.

Margin Loans and Calls

Actually the 20s saw a reduction in loans compared to previous years[33], and banks lost money as far as earnings went[34]. Margins are not as simple as the film maker makes them. Rather a certain amount of money was used as collateral and the rest of the money equal to the amount of stock being bought as borrowed from the broker. So for example if I bought some shares of Megacorp USA for $100, buying on Margin I would put down the net value of $20 of some of my own money and the broker would put the other $80 down. The net value is calculated by (share amount - loan amount). Let's suppose, though, the share goes from $100 to $85, the net value would then be $5 -- this is when a margin call happens. A margin call is posted only when the margin loan goes below the minimum net value set by the broker. So if the broker wanted it to be a minimum of $10, and now that the stock is down to $85 and only has a net value of $5, this is when a margin call happens. A margin call does not have to be paid within 24 hours, the amount of time depends on the broker, most brokers are around 72 hours[35].

Insiders and Black Tuesday

Interesting that JD Rockefeller exited the market when he, along with the other "insiders", were buying up huge chunks of of stocks in order to try to curb the massive selling by showing the public they trusted the market[36]. The reality is much different than the film suggests. "A few months before" is in September 1929, at this time the market slipped a lot, losing 17% of the total value. However it slowly started going up again until October 24th (Black Tuesday) when a record number of 12.9 million shares were traded. Essentially chaos ensued, several big boys in the industry, including Morgan and Chase tried to find a way to stem the selling. They acted through a intermediary to purchase a huge block of US Steel at a price well above the market price, this was a similar tactic that ended the panic in 1907. It halted the slide for that day as planned, but it was only temporary.[37]

Over the weekend the events were covered in the newspapers across the country, and on Monday, October 28, more investors decided to get out of the market, and a record loss of nearly 13% occurred that day. The next day, called Black Tuesday, 16.4 million shares were traded, a record set that would not be broken again until 1969. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost another 12% that day. The market lost $14 billion in a single day, with a total week loss of $30 billion[38]. During this week is when Rockefeller and others attempted to stem the selling as I noted above[36]. This hardly makes them "exit the market". They had just as much to lose as the layman if the market fell, making a conspiracy illogical and stupid on their part.

Congressman Louis McFadden Speaks and Dies

Congressman Louis McFadden, long time anti-Semite, believed that the "banking cartel" was run by Jews, and moved to impeach president Hoover in 1932 and he went to bring conspiracy charges against Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. The impeachment resolution was defeated by a vote of 361 to 8. Yes, just eight people voted for it.[39] As I discussed above when we talked about McFadden previously, he believed International Bankers were a Jewish conspiracy and that Jews controlled American banks and the Federal Reserve, therefore he thought it must have been a Jewish conspiracy to make the market crash. Who else, in his mind, but the Jews would want to make American suffer just for their evil personal ambitions?

He was poisoned and died in 1936, however he did attempt to bring the impeachment and conspiracy charges forth in 1933, and they were overturned, as we discussed; he did not die for another 3 years after that -- so it was not some kind of conspiracy to keep him from impeaching anyone[40].  No one knows why he was poisoned, but some think it was his opposition to the Federal Reserve system. We may never know[41].

Federal Reserve and the Gold Standard

Actually the Gold Standard was not abandoned at this time, instead something very different happened. The causes of the great depression were not completely clear, but in order to address the perceived causes and effects, Executive Order 6102 was signed on April 5, 1933 -- its purpose was to keep people from hoarding gold, by outlawing ownership of gold by an individual person or corporation greater than the amount of $100 (~$1,500 today) in value[42]. The government required holders of large quantities of gold to sell their gold at the prevailing price of $20.67 per ounce -- later on the price was raised to $35 per ounce, and the government devalued dollars by 41% of the previous value[43].

Money was still redeemable in silver and gold before August 15, 1971 when Richard Nixon announced the US would abandon the gold standard[44]. The limitation on gold ownership no longer exists, anyone can own any amount of gold they wish[46].

Most nations have fiat money today, not backed by any physical asset. It is not worthless paper, in fact the dollar is made from linen and cotton not paper[47], regardless, its worth is not based on how much is in circulation, rather it is based on the "guess" of how much tax and other revenues the government will receive in the next year[48].

If the power to regulate money is the power to bring entire economies and societies to their knees, then why do we need war? Wouldn't it make more sense to use our massive monetary power to force people into financial squalor? Most economies of the world are not based on gold, so it should be easy according to the movie.

The Federal Reserve is Private

This quote has nothing to do with the Federal Reserve, in fact he died in 1812, long before the Federal Reserve existed. He was merely stating a fact, even if money is not backed by a central bank, it does not change the fact that if you have control over the money supply, laws mean little to you. However, that is not necessarily true in the US, where the Federal Reserve must answer to the congress, but because the Federal Reserve is private, congress cannot control it and use it for political means -- which seems ironic, but it is like a private company that is indirectly controlled by the US Congress.

Apparently the film makers have a very small understanding of the Federal Reserve. Yes, it is a private corporation, however it is not as private as Federal Express. It is considered private because the decisions it makes do not necessarily have to be ratified by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislature. However, the Federal Reserve has a board of governors with seats for congressional officials. The Federal Reserve is also subject to heavy oversight from Congress. Therefore, it is not necessarily private or public, rather it is "independent within the government."[49]

Income Tax

Since when is the Federal Reserve Act unconstitutional?

Must be Apportioned

That's actually not true, congress does have the power to impose an income tax, the Sixteenth Amendment does not impose this tax, rather it eliminates the requirement that direct income must be apportioned. We'll talk more about the 16th Amendment in a minute[50]. Taxes on income from property had always been indirect taxes, and were not subject to apportionment. The 16th Amendment made the origin income irrelevant, which included labor, in respect to the apportionment rule[51].

Amendment Never Ratified

This rumor has been on the Internet for quite some time, especially in conspiracy circles. The whole thing can be largely attributed to William J. Benson and his 1985 book "The Law That Never Was", where he claims that the 16th Amendment was not properly ratified. In December of 2007 Benson's "Defense Reliance Package" containing his argument that it was never ratified was offered for sale on the Internet. A federal court ruled it to be a "fraud perpetrated by Benson [that had] caused needless confusion and a waste of the customers' and the IRS' time and resources."[52] Also stated by the court "Benson has failed to point to evidence that would create a genuinely disputed fact regarding whether the Sixteenth Amendment was properly ratified or whether United States Citizens are legally obligated to pay federal taxes."[53]

In all actuality, it was ratified by 36 states, and one more a little later on. This is more than enough for the 3/4ths majority required to ratify the amendment[54]. That is, there were 48 states and 37 of them is equal to just over 77%, more than the 75% required to be ratified.

Total Income Tax

The percentage is about right, it can be as low as 10% or as high as 35%, depending on many things. I have no clue as to where the film maker gets the conclusion that it goes to pay off the Federal Reserve Bank. As we discussed towards the beginning of this document, the debt accumulated by the Federal Reserve each year is only about 7% of the total national debt, which could easily be paid off by all the income taxes, many times over. However the earnings by the Federal Reserve are rebated to the Treasury every year, thus the money borrowed from the Federal Reserve has no net interest.[7]

It actually goes to pay for a boatload of things, from the military, to social security, to nearly anything you can imagine[55].

No Laws For Income Tax

Oh really, maybe we should ask someone at the IRS?

Perhaps get a second opinion?

Interesting. Well, while these two were yakking, I managed to find the exact law in the IRS code! Can you believe it? It was just right there the whole time[56][57]. 26 USC Section 1[58] says it is for every individual, Sections 61[59] and 64[60] essentially show that all income from whatever source is derived, Sections 6012[61] and Sections 6151[62] require you to file a tax return, and Section 6072[63] requires you to file an income tax return.

I'm not sure how it was so complicated for them to find it. Incase anyone is wondering, Title 26, the Internal Revenue Code, is law, just as Title 23 is for highways and Title 35 is for patents[64].

Oops!

Maybe someone should show these two Google and how to use it.

Well, while it may seem unfair, comparing it to slavery is a bit unethical, because at one point this country had real slaves. 28% of all my money last year went to the Federal Government, while I wish I had that money, I hardly view myself as someone who is enslaved.

War

Why is the next tool war? I thought you said that the Federal Reserve gave people power to bring entire societies to their knees. What happened to that? 

World War I

If they were looking for an excuse, it sure took a while, because the US did not enter the war until April 6th, 1917[65].

I cannot attribute this quote to William Jennings Bryan, in fact it only appears on Illuminati and Jewish conspiracy sites as original sources, no where else. It wasn't even mentioned in his memoirs.[66]

War is profitable for a lot of people, banks typically don't make much money until the war is over because they loan the money to contractors, not the other way around. Regardless if they borrow it at interest, as I have explained twice already, it does not matter because it is such a small amount of money in the national debt, and in the end it doesn't matter anyway because it is credited to the treasury.

The conversation did take place, but not within the context that the movie claims[108]. The discussion originated from the fact that the boat The Gulflight has been torpedoed on May 1st[108 - 1] and the concern was "what would happen if it was a passenger boat instead?" The conversation also mentioned the Lusitania, which was a popular transatlantic vessel.

(Thanks to Brandon Z for his contribution to this section)

It was not "deliberately sent into German controlled waters", rather Germany patrolled nearly all of the coast of Northern Europe. Britain sent out a warning stating that "submarines [are] active off the south coast of Ireland". The captain William "Bowler Bill" Turner took what he felt were prudent precautions, such as closing watertight doors, posting double lookouts, ordering a blackout, and had lifeboats swung out on their davits so they could be quickly put in the water if the need arise. After receiving another radio warning of the risk, Turner adjusted his heading northeast, apparently thinking that submarines are more likely to keep to the open sea, and so his ship would be safer close to land. The U-20 piloted by Kapitaenleutnant Walther Schwieger was low on fuel and returning home when it spotted the Lusitania on the horizon. At about 2:10 in the afternoon, the Lusitania was fired upon and sunk into history.[67][68][69][70]

How does this prove it was deliberate? Yes a warning was issued and posted next to the advertisement for the return voyage of the ship, but that does not mean it it was put in place to be bombed on purpose. People were afraid of it, but the Captain assured everyone the ship was very fast and no one had nothing to worry about.[67] If they were wanting to deliberately kill people, wouldn't they make sure nobody knew of the risk so the maximum amount of people would take the trip?

If by a short time, you mean almost 2 years before ever entering the war, and almost 3 before actually fighting. The British felt that America should declare war on Germany, however Woodrow Wilson still did not want to get the country involved, in which he was criticized by Britain as being a coward. After another ship was sunk with Americans onboard, Wilson protested through various German diplomatic channels and the Kaiser ordered severe restrictions on U boats attacking passenger vessels[67][68]. It was in January 1917 that the Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare. It was a captured and decoded German telegram that spoke about how to make the United States enter the war and have Mexico declare war on the US that put the nail in the coffin of neutrality for Congress, and they declared war on April 6, 1917[67][71].

Actually there were 117,465 American deaths (this includes the 128 Americans on the Lusitania), I'm not sure where they get this number that's almost 3 times that amount[72]. How did JD Rockefeller make $200 million? The only way I can think of is if the American government bought a lot of oil. Saying someone who owns an oil company, the only oil company in the US made money from ... pretty much anything to do with oil is the understatement of the century, and shows know connections at all.

Actually it was $22,625,253,000 to be exact as possible, about 8 billion less than the film's total, but that isn't that much[73]. I've already explained the debt is not a big deal, and as I mentioned above, "international banks" cannot be a part of the Federal Reserve System, thereby making this term meaningless.

World War II

Actually that is not clear at all, as we will discuss below, there is no real evidence that Roosevelt knew of the attacks, nor that they were provoked.

Roosevelt

Roosevelt has several family members who were in the banking industry, only one actually founded a bank. Regardless, his name was not Fredrik, it was Frederic. I imagine the original conspiracy theorist that found this information changed the spelling of his name, perhaps to make him look more foreign or Jewish. He was appointed to a six year term on the Federal Reserve Board, however he resigned 4 years later in order to join the army. He received the Distinguished Service Medal for his wartime service[74]. If someone was in league with the big-bad conspiracy to control all the money of the world, why would he resign and join the army which he conspired to send into battle? Sounds more than a little illogical to me.

This quote is inaccurate, here is what Stimson really said in his journal[75]:

The President brought up the event that we were likely to be attacked, perhaps (as soon as) next Monday, for the Japanese are notorious for making an attack without warning, and the question was what we should do. The question was how we should maneuver them into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves. 

I cannot find any source for the second sentence. So, what does this mean? Well it means that the President as well as Stimson were almost certain that the Japanese were going to attack at some point, but when they did the question was, how could America put itself into a position to where they would not suffer badly during this surprise attack.

One thing we must understand is that the US and Japan has been at odds since the the 1920s, however the tension did not meet boiling point until Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931. There was also an effort by Japan to halt war supplies from entering China at this time by creating an embargo.[76] When Japan invaded northern IndoChina (now Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, etc)[77] This is the reason behind the US halting petroleum to Japan, as if the conspiracy theorists expected the US to do nothing at all when our ally China was being threatened[78].

The US also made loans to other allies as well, the largest to Britain and the smallest to China. This was a part of the Lend-Lease Act, which was a way American thought it could help combat the expansionism of Germany and Japan without directly entering the war[79]. This is not a violation of any war rules, I'm not sure where the film maker comes up with such a conclusion[80].

The only non-conspiracy site that lists this is an archived New York Times article published June 29, 1989. From the article, it seems as though Elliot R Thorpe, who the conspiracy theorists say "warned Roosevelt", sent a message to Washington telling them that the Japanese were planning to attack Hawaii[81]. Needless to say, this is extremely vague, and there is no other evidence these warnings actually took place, at least not from this man. There is no mention of it anywhere except this article and places that quote this article.

Path to War

This film likes to inflate numbers. Actually 2,388 were killed, but that doesn't make it any less of a bad thing, of course[81]. I was unable to find any source what so ever saying that "83% of the American Public wanted nothing to do with the war.", or actually any percentages what so ever. While it is known that after World War I the view by many Americans was that isolationism was a good thing, even before the attack of Pearl Harbor, this idea started to fade in favor of helping the allies without joining the war[82]. It is true, however, that the attack on Pearl Harbor did further support of entry into the war.

In any case, this is not really an issue, because as the evidence shows, there was no real conspiracy to bring the US into the war by the US government. In fact the whole concept is illogical -- the Japanese could have easily annihilated our fleet, and came close, but they did not. The idea that the US government would sacrifice the pacific fleet and set themselves back a year and risk even more attacks in order to enter the war is ridiculous.

IG Farben and Others

It is true that there was selling-buying of goods between I.G. Farben and Standard Oil, but there was also DuPoint, IBM, Industrial Alcohol Co, Cuba Distilling Co, and many others. There was an investigation into this, but it was dropped in favor of enlisting these companies into the war effort[83]. I can't, however confirm the second part. It makes sense that there could have been such selling, but I cannot find a source for it. While there was some trading going on with the enemy, it hardly proves conspiracy, and proves more that people will sell to the bad guys to make more money than anything else.

While this is based on fact, it is not entirely accurate. The Union Banking Corporation was founded by a Dutch bank that was formed and controlled by a German steel magnate and one-time Nazi supporter Fritz Thyssen. The executive members consisted of various Dutchmen and some Americans, one was Prescott Bush. Assets of the bank were frozen on May 10, 1940 when Germany invaded the Netherlands, because it was a Dutch owned company, however it was formally seized by the government in 1942, a total of $3 million was taken[84].

Prescott Bush was a director of the UBC with only one share. While he was a member of this company, it really proves no moral stance or is proof of helping the Nazis take power as some other conspiracy theorists claim[85]. I am not an apologist for the Bush family, trust me on that one, my point is that there were many Americans that had mild and heavy ties with the Nazis and their beliefs, such as Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh (the pilot).

Vietnam

Actually, it is not quite as simple as being fabricated. In reality, the US had been involved in Viet Nam since the 1950s, and so there would have been little need to lie in order to enter a war. In any case, it was less of a fabrication, and more confusion, miscommunication, hearsay, and people asking others to be quiet. In a way, if it was a conspiracy to enter the war, it was probably the most disorganized, random, and most asinine ways to do it. Let me explain what I mean:

There are two attacks in question. The first involved the USS Maddox and it claimed to be attacked by three North Vietnamese P-4 patrol torpedo boats 28 miles off the coast of North Vietnam[86]. Details are still pretty scarce on what actually happened, but the USS Maddox suffered very minor damage and retired to South Vietnamese waters. The question was, not whether they had been attacked, but who fired first. Was it the USS Maddox or the North Vietnamese?[87] That's the question that is still pretty unclear.

The second attack occurred two days later, the USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy believed that they were going to be attacked by North Vietnamese ships, and began firing at radar targets. This is what Robert McNamara was referring to. The mistake was that they were firing blindly, and probably at nothing at all -- however McNamara did admit that attacks occurred during the first incident.[88]

So while it was asinine and stupid behavior, it was not a massive conspiracy to enter the war. Rather it is pretty clear something actually happened during the first incident on August 2nd, while maybe nothing but the US ships firing at whales happened on the 4th. That is why I have to disagree that it was "a contrived farce, a complete lie." That is simply not the case.

I think perhaps the results are backwards here. The US provided South Vietnam with 80% of their war supplies, training, and all costs.[89] The USSR did supply support and materials to the North Vietnamese, but the Chinese provided far more. I could not find evidence of "lifting trade restrictions." And I'm not sure why these trading restrictions would matter anyway, considering North Vietnam is connected to China and China was not our ally by this time, so why would they help with our blockade?[90] They wouldn't. The logic behind the US having a trade restriction between North Vietnam and the USSR is completely inane. 

Factories in the USSR were all state owned. There is not much more that can be said about this. There was no American financed activities until McDonalds and Tetris in the 1980s.

I was unable to find a real mention of "Rules of Engagement" or something similar anywhere outside conspiracy sites. Thought, that doesn't mean something like that did not exist. I did find a few documents that had "Rules of Engagement" in the middle of the names. They described how to attack the enemy, when to, and all that. I did not find anything like what the film is describing[91][92]. In fact the documents I came across seem to say "attack when you can" rather than don't. It might also be worth mentioning that prior to the war in Viet Nam the US really never messed with guerilla warfare before and were no doubt used to conventional warfare, where it was slightly "honorable", in the sense, that everyone played rolls. This was one of the main reasons Viet Nam was so unsuccessful, that and piss-poor planning and execution.

The True Agenda

We're finalizing debunking this entire film.

As we have seen, the conspiracy theories put forth by this movie are absolutely false, and hold no water, the evidence is barely circumstantial. As we discussed the Lusitania was sunk 3 years prior and has no meaning to the war. And the "provoking" of the attack on Pearl Harbor was not intentional, and would have been a horrible mistake for the US to make. As for the Gulf of Tonkin incident, while something happened on the first instance, the second is in question, with conflicting view points and no exact evidence of what really happened. In reality, it was just military men making asses of themselves, with no conspiracy in mind.

As we have seen they are all exceptions to the rules setup by the conspiracy theorists, as there was no conspiracy at all. The war in Afghanistan was not necessarily unprovoked and the one in Iraq is a whole different story.

Here we go.

Patriot Act

The first sentence is a setup, and it is quite obvious. While the Patriot Act does potentially violate civil liberties, it hasn't really been used to do so. This is mostly because the US Government knows the public, and the media (though not all sides of it) are waiting for something to happen. You can find the same claims made by conspiracy theorists since the UN conspiracy films of the 80s. Pretty much everything the government does, good or bad, is in some way to keep you from "fighting back."

I really don't want to voice my own opinions in these articles, or at least try to avoid it when I can, I will say that I do not agree with the previsions in the Patriot Act. I will however, remain realistic, and say while it can be used for evil to control all Americans, it won't be. It is completely asinine to believe the US government, who can barely organize the DMV would go out of its way to search your home, considering you could easily sue them for doing so. Of course, they could use their evil powers to plant evidence and so forth, but as we have seen above, the government seems pretty incapable of doing anything correctly, much less creating a mass conspiracy.

We'll look more into this as we go on, and don't take me wrong, I'm not trying to say "if you have not done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about", rather I am giving a realistic view point here.

Hitler and Godwin's Law

This is a perfect example of Godwin's Law, and incase you were wondering, Godwin's Law states[93]:

As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

Essentially what that means is, the longer a conversation gets, the more likely Hitler or the Nazis will be compared to something. Here this law is invoked, and with good reason. No, not because there is an actual comparison, but because the comparison works when conspiracy theorists want to demonize anything.

History pretty much sets the blame on a conspiracy by the Nazis to start the fire in order to incite panic and fear. And this, was of course, used to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree. However, history hardly repeats itself in this situation. Let's consider that the Reichstag Fire Decree overruled the constitution completely, and allowed for the new dictatorial government to abolish freedom of speech, right to assembly, right to protest, and so forth[94]. The Patriot Act does none of these things, not even close. Making a comparison between the Patriot Act and the Reichstag Fire Decree is like comparing rams to wolves[95].

I like how in the last sentence of the film quote, the narrator says "maintaining homeland security", clever words, of course, showing that the film maker is implying an obvious connection between the two, "proving" that the Nazis and the Bush administration are one in the same.

Sounds like any politician to me, generic stuff you can find from any president, prime minister, premier, or dictator.

Again, same as I said above, but more so I fail to see a major connection and similarity here. The first is talking about communists and all their front organizations such as Unions and the like, and I cannot say the exact context because the quote is broken, and is missing a part of it. The second is about terrorists and other governments which do support them. Regardless, there were front organizations for communist movements and there still are (ANSWER, Not In Our Name, United For Peace and Justice, and so forth). There are terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda, Black September, PLO (parts of it), Hamas and Hezbollah that are guarded by their governments, or in some cases more powerful politically than the governments themselves.

Time to Wake Up

Yes, it is, and stop being paranoid and making connections between half-truths and lies.

While I agree that there is a lot of misleading politics to keep peoples minds off of the issues, e.g. making big deals about who the President is sleeping with in order to keep people from criticizing congress. In the end though, these tactics barely work. There are two different sides in our government, media, and society, and each side tries non-stop to make the other side look bad -- so if one side can prove a conspiracy or misleading of the public, it'll be in the media, or mentioned some where. You can find thousands of examples, such as the "Liberal Media" constantly talking badly about the war in Iraq while the "Conservative Media" does the opposite. If the job was to keep you mislead, they do a bad job at it, considering they constantly spill the beans on everything to the public. Try reading about Iran Contra or Watergate for instance.

Why would they need a new launch pad? As if having massive bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and so forth are not enough? Domination of the oil is going badly as well, considering all the money goes to the new Iraqi government, not the US, not to mention the oil production has gone down -- pretty bad for a "war for oil", isn't it?[96]

This is a story that cannot really be substantiated by sources, primarily because the stories are so conflicting. Some people say it was the SAS, some the SRR, and some that it did not happen this way at all. The British broke the men out of prison because they were handed over to Shi'a militia illegally, after Iraqi forces had already agreed to hand them over[97]. The comments that they were dressed in an "Arabic fashion" were all at least second hand and were unattributed.[98]

Mass Media

I honestly believe the "stupefying downward spiral" is related to too much media saturation, and the reason is very simple: Media is entertaining, media sells, school is boring, and that's it. Nothing big behind it other than that.

The last thing the men behind the curtain want you to realize is that there is no curtain, only people wanting to make money, and they are not co-operating in any conspiratorial ways. There are many reasons our society is making a turn around, most of them are related to economic and social problems, not a big conspiracy to control everyone.

North American Union

This is the most hilariously illogical conspiracy theory out there. Why in the world would congress allow this to happen? Who is behind it? Oh, let me guess, it's "They"; those who really control the world. The question here really even shouldn't be "Why would America allow this?", but rather "Why would Canada or Mexico allow this?"

In the end, Canada's GDP is $1.4 trillion[99], Mexico's is $893 billion[100], and the United States' is the largest in the world, over $13 trillion[101]. This means that the United States has over 7 times the GDP and 85% of the population of Canada and Mexico combined[102]. So, what makes anyone think that Canada and Mexico would agree to a program where they would certainly be the absolute minimum of partners -- dominated by the most powerful country in the world. And of course, the people of these nations would just bend over as well? Horribly unlikely.

Even if the Patriot Act conspiracies were real, and were meant to control you, Canada and Mexico do not have such laws, so how are they going to control their citizens? And even so, the Patriot Act and such is law, and if this operates outside of congress, why did they have to establish all of this in the first place? Couldn't they have just avoided it all together, all that conspiring, secret armies of people planting evidence and so forth?

It sounds to me like he's quoting someone, or reading. Perhaps he does talk about the NAU and the Amero, but the reason he's the only one talking about it is because it is just an urban legend that has been thoroughly debunked, as it defies logic or purpose[103].

But where does this NAU concept come from? Well it originates in a book entitled "Toward a North American Community" by Robert A Pastor. The book, written in 2001, proposes a hypothetical North American Union and a currency called the Amero[107]. What an astonishing coincidence! Perhaps someone took this book and tried to contend that it was fact, began talking about it, and several others did as well, creating the idea that it is going to happen. There's a reason you can't find any references to "North American Union" or "Amero" before this book came out.

I'm not sure the exact context of this quote, but if it was really happening, I'd expect more people in the government to be talking about it. As we have discussed in this article, it's near impossible for them to keep secrets or do anything correctly.

The dollar is the world's most solid currency, even though the Euro is competing with the dollar, the dollar remains the currency that is continually invested in because of the trust people around the world have in the US economy. It would be a tremendous mistake to abandon this and start a new currency. In fact, I know it would not be done, if anything the two other countries in the "NAU" would switch to the dollar, there's no reason to put horrendous mistrust in the currency by changing it. It is simply illogical and naive to believe two other countries would willingly be dominated by another, and that everyone would just blindly switch over.

Believing that they will somehow switch without anyone noticing is completely stupid. If one considers the economic impact in all countries, especially internationally considering how much is done with the US dollar, it becomes clear that such a switch is not something that can be done in secret. Thousands of pieces of software alone must be updated for the new currency, other countries must know about it in order to exchange it. There is no reason to move to such a currency, Canada and Mexico would never agree to it. Even if you believe in "they" and somehow "they" will change it, why didn't they change to the one world currency all the conspiracy theorists were talking about in the 1980s? Where's the UN birth control centers? All of the other stuff?

It's all lies, and just because some moron on television parrots it, does not make it real.

One World Government

As we have seen, no such agreement has any potential of taking place.

Nobody Knows But Us

This is the classic conspiracy theorist mindset, "I know something that nobody else knows." I'm still curious about the UN conspiracies, why did they stop trying to dominate the world? Or is it the same people but they changed their plan? Why would they change their plan if nobody knew about it but a few people with tin-foil hats?

If the NAU is the same as the EU, then it will take years to occur, with many steps, many of which include the public. Perhaps it is important to mention the EU was something that took many steps and involvement with other countries. Laws needed to be changed everywhere, not to mention a currency change which was a huge project -- this is not something you can do with nobody noticing[104]. 

Further, as we have discussed, all the conspiracies related to the Federal Reserve and their entanglement with wars and the like are not only not true, but also completely unrealistic and illogical.

More Quotes

I could not find a source for this quite that was not on a conspiracy site or anti-Jewish site. It seems strange though, why would someone setting up the Federal Reserve System be talking about creating a one world government? Even back then, people realized that a one world government was difficult to come by, if not impossible. I attribute this quote to originating from anti-Semitic individuals who wish to demonize Paul Warburg for his Jewish heritage and show proof of a Jewish plan to rule the world.

Same as the above, except more likely to Illuminati and Bilderberg Group conspiracy theorists rather than anti-Semites. So, these quotes, like many on here, really come from non-existent places, that is they either were simply made up, or were cut-and-paste of many other quotes by a single person, or multiple people as we have seen.

Aaron Russo

No one world bank, no one world army (why would they need an army? Oh, I imagine to crush those conspiracy theorists, right?), no one center of power -- unless ... wait a second... this is the same claim made by the conspiracy theorists about UN. Again, why did that not happen? I agree though, absolutely power corrupts absolutely, thank god nobody is in absolute power over the world, and nobody will be -- claims have been made like this for at least 250 years, even longer in some cases, yet it has never happened.

Exactly who is Aaron Russo? Well he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in another movie similar to the third part of Zeitgeist, the movie, called America: From Freedom To Fascism (at a later date I am going to discuss this movie on this site). The movie discusses the income tax, essentially stating the same claims as Zeitgeist does, and various other topics. Let's understand that this movie was made after Russo had over $2 million in tax liens filed against him by the IRS of California and New York for unpaid taxes. He refused to discuss it when asked in interviews[105].

Why should anyone trust what he has to say? He's a tax dodger and from his movie, an obvious liar. I think what's most important, if he knew all this was going to happen, and the only person he told was Alex Jones after most of it already had happened, that makes Aaron Russo the most evil person in the world. If you have the ability to prevent a horrible terrorist attack or know something may happen, and you do nothing... I do not know of something more inhumane. I wouldn't trust this man at all, and if any of this is true, it's even more reason not to trust him because he let it happen and only mentions it later casually. I'd bet ameros to doughnuts this conversation between him and anyone other than himself never took place.

Microchips

Pretty much every industrialized country in the world has some form of national ID. In fact, the US has them already. I wonder if you have ever heard of Drivers Licenses? Birth Certificates? Social Security Cards? Draft Registration Cards? Oh man, the conspiracy is already underway! In reality, the Real ID is more like a drivers license, and doesn't change anything, it doesn't give the government anymore control over you than they already have. If it does, how does it? What difference would it be than them writing down your Driver's License Number? The difference here is that there is a national standard, where Drivers Licenses don't have them, and a scanner makes it easier to record this information when you go into a court house, and less likely for a mistake to occur.

Pretty much all the European countries that criticize the US as being "fascist" and such already have programs like this, Germany, France, Spain, England, etc.

So, they are going to issue the cards, and then do it all over again with RFID? Why do that, why not do the RFID first? Wouldn't that be more cost-effective for them? I mean, they do care about money more than anything, so why would they waste it?

I remember when this was on, they wanted to have their information easily identifiable. Fair enough, if someone wants to do it to themselves, they should have the right to, and I have never heard of any government agency supporting such an idea. In fact, most Americans think it's bizarre, why would they agree to it? Would it be forced on them? Why would anyone expect Americans to take it? Oh, right, the media will convince them it's a good idea.

I watched this 60 minutes program and he was talking about Alzheimer's patients, so if they appeared somewhere, completely confused, they could easily be identified. Regardless, he was speaking voluntarily.

Let's be realistic, how will they track your every move on the planet? You would need endless amounts of satellites, radio towers, and not to mention for RFID scanners to work, you must be generally around 10cm from a recording device. Keep in mind, RFID tags are passive, that is, they don't send out signals, they are activated by a signal which also provides them with power[106].

Not to mention, how do you log and categorize something like that? If it is to control nearly 7 billion people now, that would be constant queries to a database, it would take literally billions of computers around the world, constantly filling their hard drives up with where people have just been. It would cost trillions to invest. It is one of the most impractical inventions there is. And for what? To control you? Why? You won't buy more, you won't do more for them, there's absolutely no reason for them to do it, other than wasting their own money, and most likely not getting more money from you in the future.

The same claim was made by Alex Jones and the other conspiracy theorists about the UN, and it never happened, and it won't happened. However, RFID didn't exist then, so they claimed it would be tattoos. Why does that sound so familiar?

Film Conclusion

I find that highly unlikely. The film maker assumes that everyone is stupid. It reminds me of an old argument, that "if the Anti-Christ is going to do exactly what is in the Book of Revelation, how does he expect no one to notice?" That's my argument, in fact. The point is, do they honestly expect no one to notice and for everyone to accept it? It'd take years to even setup a system, with literally millions of IT professionals and other specialists, and yet nobody has ever heard of such a thing being done, and they won't.

So, now we see where the Religion part comes into play. I was beginning to think there was no reason to have Part I other than to trash Christianity. Even if these things are arbitrary, they still exist, and really aren't in the hands of "the few". I'd like someone to name these "few" for me, and provide real sources, not conspiracy sites.

Separate from everything else? What does that even mean? The men behind the curtain are as real as the Wizard of Oz, they exist only in the paranoid minds of the conspiracy theorists. Every time someone tells the people "the truth", millions end up dying. I hope to god that nobody figures out the "real truth".

My Conclusion

You can read my conclusion on the My Conclusion page.