DJP wrote: Thought I’d repost

[Brian]

DJP wrote:

Thought I’d repost this comment from another thread as it could lead to an interesting discussion

Ozymandias wrote:

Just an example of the utterly undemocratic nature of TZM that they can just wipe their forums with no recourse or consultation with any of their “members”. Apparently their supreme leader PJ was unhappy with the amount of “useless noise” on the forums…a crazy decision in my estimation for an organisation that is stagnating, mostly in my opinion due to the stranglehold of PJ’s arrogance and chauvinism. Although in a way he did a bit of a favour to our class by producing his movies, he still just wants his entry in the history books at the end of the day. For me the Zeitgeist global forum was the thing that kept me hooked…in fact it was one of the most entertaining sources of novel information out there. How they expect to grow without it now it is a mystery to me. I think they are on their way out now anyway and are already being replaced by the “occupy” movements sprouting up worldwide. Zeitgeist itself was the child of “reclaim the streets” and the anti globalisation protests of the late 90’s and eventually the occupy wall street movement might very well be overtaken by something else…real moneyless socialism? God knows.

Whilst I don’t think it’s right to say TZM is a child of ‘Reclaim the Streets’, it’s more the child of the conspiracy-loon circuit, the popularity of this contributing to its initial success.I think this whole episode is another illustration of how this ‘movement’ could by defacto be nothing than a following. The activist arm of the ‘venus project’ ended up looking very strange after the venus project (which is the work of just two people) disassociated itself from it.I can only hope that people who did find Zeitgeist to be an inspiration don’t get disillusioned and take up some form of meaningful activity.

Its been my experience that in order to obtain a concise evaluation of TZM there’s a need to make a distinction between : 1.  What the de facto leadership of TZM pronounce and; 2. What the followers accept and think in respect of the direction of the movement.  The former is easily attainable given that Peter Joseph misses no opportunity to publicize his current thoughts to wider society and the movement in general.  Whereas obtaining a deeper insight on the latter is not so easily detectable – unless of course you become ‘meaningfully active’ and involved with the membership in general.  Generally there is huge confusion on issues relating to what sort of specific activity the movement should be involved with and the IT tools utilised to carry them out.   On top of that there are also concerns on the obvious contradictions on what Peter Joseph says and what he does.  For on the one hand he states there are no ‘Leaders’ in the movement yet on the other does what he thinks is best for the movement.A current example of this occurring is the manner on how the main global site and teamspeak 3 was redesigned without a proper consultation between the chapters and the global development team who supposedly managed the sites.    However an even better example is the “Mission Statement” issued by Peter Joseph without any consultation with the chapters.  A more recent example is the announcement by Peter Joseph that he’s had a change of heart on accepting donations for the movement.  Apparently, if you make a donation towards the making of his next film it has nothing to do with the movement.  Please pull the other one!How long TZM will stick the pace is a guess but when the inevitable does happen socialists need to be in a position to pick up the pieces, which is not going to happen by not being involved with the activists.  Which means making a clear distinction between “meaningful activity” and “involvement”.