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Redacted Tonight VIP
with Lee Camp

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Welcome to ‘Redacted Tonight VIP.'
I'm Lee Camp.

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There are ideas that are so dangerous

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they're not allowed on our
mainstream media at all.

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Usually the reason is because these ideas,
if accepted,

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would mean the end of our profit-over-people

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war-for-wealth greed-over-environment
wage-slavery system.

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The Zeitgeist Movement is one of those ideas.

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Even though it has millions of followers

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with hundreds of chapters worldwide,

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and films that have been gone viral

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and been viewed over 100 million times,

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you will never hear it uttered
on a corporate media outlet.

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Think about that! The media will talk about

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war and death, rape and genocide,

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pedophilia and racism.

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They don't shy away from those things.

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Yet the Zeitgeist Movement is too dangerous.

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Why? Because it questions capitalism.

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It says you are not being
given the full picture

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of what humankind is capable of.

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It says a world without

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poverty, war,
and environmental disaster is possible.

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And look: if it's a bad idea, if it's stupid,

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if it's a flawed concept,
then let's argue about that!

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Let's have the discussion
like f*cking adults,

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rather than being scared of an idea,

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terrified of a thought paradigm

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that could upend the
current cultural template.

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Earlier today I talked with Peter Joseph,

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the creator of the Zeitgeist films,

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the web series ‘Culture In Decline,’

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and the Zeitgeist Movement.

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Peter, thanks for joining me.

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- Oh my pleasure Lee,
it's great to be back on campus.

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- And thanks for wearing
the same colors as me,

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that's very important,
that people know the teams here.

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(Peter laughs)

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I hope to have saved humanity
by the end of this interview

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so I hope you're cool with that.

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- That's cool; the clock is ticking,
so it's all on us now.

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- Exactly. The Zeitgeist Movement,
it basically wants to

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move beyond capitalism but

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capitalism has done a lot of good,
has it not?

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There's been massive innovation in-…

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massive innovation,
there’s been huge leaps in technology,

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leaps in human rights for women,
minorities, gay people,

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potheads, juggalos.

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So that's all thanks to capitalism, right?

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- I know. Capitalism made your smartphone.

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It basically made you Lee;

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capitalism impregnated your mother and produced you.
- Absolutely!

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- It's just sad how people have no sense of

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of where things have come from, through

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knowledge and science and technology and

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the beauty of all this
scientific development that has

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really been the underscoring
element that's increased lifespans

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and helped us. And capitalism
has been along for the ride, man.

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I've heard this over and over again,

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and when you … look deep down,

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all the major civil rights movement
stuff- that hasn't happened

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from anything but the outskirts.

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That's happened from people
that have been pushing things

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like socialism as they call it.

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I mean people talk about
democratic socialism today

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like it's some kind of new thing
when FDR did it, 80 years ago.

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And what would we do without those safeguards

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that have helped improve things over time?
so...

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From technology to the
advancement civil rights,

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it's all based on the
development of technology-

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in part, I’m not saying that's the
only issue. But if you look for example

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the abject slavery, chattel slavery,

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when did that really resolve?
It happened when

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automation processes and mechanization
started to be applied to agriculture.

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So if you look in tandem,
we really didn't start alleviating

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all of this labor oppression until
technology started to replace it.

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And that's of course
continuing this to this day

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with technological unemployment,  - Right.

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- and we could talk a lot
about that as we go along.

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But the trend keeps going;
it's actually very powerful

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if we can just jump on
board and not fight it,

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which is unfortunately what
capitalism is now doing.

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- Well okay, as long as you brought it up

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let's talk about technological unemployment.

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It's increasing exponentially,
I mean with self-driving vehicles

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we could lose a third of
the current US workforce

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or at least their jobs in,
very soon, 10 years maybe.

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And I want to hear what your plan is,

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how you would view we should deal with that.

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My plan is:

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I think if we kill the robots
now while they're babies

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they wouldn't know what hit them, right?

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- Yeah (laughing) robot
wars is upon us for sure.

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Sadly enough, it's two things

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that have been polluting
our need for labor freedom

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and that apparently are
robots and brown people

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if you listen to American politics.
But nevertheless-...

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And of course, we’ll let the orange,

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the orange monster Donald Trump lead the way

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with the latter of that one.

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Technological unemployment
should be a godsend, man.

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It should be everything that we've
been striving for as a species.

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Even John Maynard Keynes, you know,

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the early Keynesin economist
famous for realizing that

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capitalism is fundamentally
unstable and we need safeguards,

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he said, even though he thought it
was going to be a minor issue, that

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we're really resolving our economic problem.

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Literally the economic
problem of our society is

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a lack of means, and it's scarcity.

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And with this new capacity for efficiency

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which is being birthed in
technology that's replacing labor,

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we should be harnessing
than and happy about it,

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and instead we're still trying to
“create jobs” and “create growth,”

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and these arcane ideas
are just gonna hit a wall.

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And with the advent of
universal basic income

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(something that will be a big subject at

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the ZDay event in Greece that I’ll
be speaking at, Zeitgeist Day,

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we could talk about that moreso),

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this is probably the first
step to alleviate that issue,

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to give people a standard of living fueled

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by this increased efficiency
without them having to,

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to struggle and pay for everything.

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And not having just the base
welfare stuff that you see as well

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which is nominal and looked down upon,

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but to really realize that we
can support society as a society

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for the first time in human history.

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And that's a powerful powerful state.

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If we could just jump on
board with that and stop

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this need for labor for income,

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and turn the tides and say “You know what?

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Maybe we should NOT focus
on people needing jobs,

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and focus explicitly on replacing these jobs

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and adjusting as we go along,"

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we’d have a much healthier society.

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A much more peaceful society
too because all the conflict

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that happens with the scarcity
reality that would be resolved.

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It’s far-reaching what
this step forward could do.

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And I'll say that I think the
force is fantastic. I think

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it's really, it's the door being
cracked open by the contradiction,

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because labor for income is
needed by capitalism obviously,

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it's the bedrock of it,
and this contradiction is

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cracking that door open
for people like myself.

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I believe in a design economy
and in collaborative systems,

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all these things have been
proven to be more efficient than

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competition and all the other myths that

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support capitalist structure today.

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The door’s cracking open.
I think we're going to push through

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as a new generation very soon, hopefully.

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Well nevertheless GDP, growth,

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all that stuff is old, arcane.

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Needless to say,
you can't have a society based on growth,

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you need a society that lives in coexistence

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with itself and the habitat; I don't know how

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that logic has eluded us for
so long on the political ...

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the political economic level.

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And political economy,
no one seems to talk about the

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problem with assuming the interest of growth.

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And of course it's like a cancer.
Capital accumulation,

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you can use that old Marxism term

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but it's just as relevant
today as it was then.

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All the corporations,
like a disease, like cancer,

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they stretch out,
and they want to get more and more,

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they make a million dollars one year,
they need to make

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$2 million the next year,
they get more employees,

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the last thing you want to do is contract.

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And you know, infinite growth,
I think there's only one,

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literally one type of mechanism
that does that on earth

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apart from our economy,
and again that is cancer itself.

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So it's a cancerous system and

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something's gonna have to
happen to shut this thing down

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before it eats itself alive or we literally

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get to that point of no return which I'd,

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I'd say about 2030, 2040

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when you look at the biodiversity loss,
when you look at climate change,

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you look at the debt crisis, when you look at

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the resource overshoot:
about a sixth of the way through [the year]

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on this planet we consume more
resources that we’re actually

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able to produce by the planet.

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We need many more planets in the future,
by one estimate

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27 more planets by 2050 if we’re
to keep the current rates going.

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And the sad thing is the Global South

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is never ever going to reach a high level of,

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of public health and sustainability,
and alleviation of poverty,

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because all the mechanisms
we’re using based on growth

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are just rapidly tearing things apart

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to affect where the long-term
repercussions are going to

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settle down in the Global South,
Africa and Latin/Central America -

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they're the ones that are going
to suffer from all this because

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they're not going to have a chance
because of all the negative externalities

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that are being birthed from all
the activity of the Global North.

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Remember the Global North
consumes everything.

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80% of all the goods and
services produced on this planet

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are consumed by less than
20% of the population stuck

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in America and Europe, so it’s sad.

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- Doesn't that just mean
we're winning, Peter?

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- That's exactly what it means,
we are absolutely winning!

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… it’s obnoxious.
- Hashtag winning.

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To shrink that down to kind of
one little point maybe mixed in

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with what you're saying,
like for example, clean water.

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Thousands of people, especially children,

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die every day due to lack of clean water.

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I saw a documentary about the
same guy who invented the Segway

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invented a water purification
system called Slingshot,

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that, you know,
you could dump diarrhea in one end

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and you’d have a clean glass
of water out the other end.

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And it's affordable, it's only the
size of a mini-fridge or something and

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he's gone around to various
organizations to try and

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get those in the towns and cities
in Africa and South America

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that would need,
that definitely need clean water,

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and basically no one
says that's what they do.

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The UN says No, the Clinton Foundation says

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we can't really do that. Ultimately,

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he's ended up partnering
somehow with Coca-Cola,

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because they need clean water to create Coke

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so they're willing to put some
of these things in these towns

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in order to get,
use his machine for their water to make Coke.

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So that shows capitalism works, right?

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- (Chuckles) It's the trickle-through
trickle-around affect.

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I don't know quite how
people defend it anymore.

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No, I completely agree, if industry wants it,

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then it will move forward,
but if the individual or poverty-

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I mean there's still people dying of
tuberculosis on a massive scale in Africa.

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Tuberculosis has been off the
chart in the Global North for

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forever, and literally the pharmaceutical
companies have decided to stop

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investigating it.
In fact I believe if I remember correctly,

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it's been 50 years since
anyone has attempted to perfect

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any treatments for tuberculosis

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given the circumstance in
the epidemic in Africa,

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and literally they said this:

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that it's just not profitable.

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- Right, it does,
it does come down to profit.

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I also want to go back to something
else you mentioned: basic income.

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Do you support that in the-

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is that like a band-aid to
getting to somewhere else?

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or is that a good idea?

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- Oh yeah, I’d say it's less
of a band-aid more of a step.

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If we’re keeping focus
on basically eroding,

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eroding this cyclical consumption,

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competitive, scarcity, exploitative economy,

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basic income is that first step.

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And other steps will happen such again as,

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as working to push for more
technological unemployment

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00:12:11,593 --> 00:12:13,993
and applied mechanization
to increase efficiency

244
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and safety and all of that.

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These are all cumulative and
again they'll be talked about

246
00:12:17,780 --> 00:12:19,520
on this event day that we're having in Greece.

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And I don't see it as a band-aid,
I see it as a step

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as long as we keep focus
on the larger order goal,

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which in the view of the
Zeitgeist Movement is,

250
00:12:26,455 --> 00:12:29,790
is at the farthest extreme,
is the removal of commerce itself.

251
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We have the ability to do that.
The original premise of commerce and trade

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and all of its flaws,
as effective as it has been

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00:12:37,003 --> 00:12:39,956
over the course of the past,
you know, 2,000 years,

254
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this thing is not necessary anymore because

255
00:12:44,443 --> 00:12:47,224
what defines it is no longer applicable,

256
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because we've reached high levels of
efficiency; we are post-Malthusian today.

257
00:12:51,267 --> 00:12:53,273
I think we've talked about
that before on your show.

258
00:12:53,610 --> 00:12:55,636
The Reverend Thomas Malthus came
along a couple centuries ago

259
00:12:55,740 --> 00:12:58,055
and said “You know what? There's
too many people, they're going to keep

260
00:12:58,455 --> 00:12:59,987
reproducing and then they’re just gonna die

261
00:13:00,092 --> 00:13:01,612
because there's not enough
resources on the planet,”

262
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and that's what the entire
political economy is based on.

263
00:13:03,980 --> 00:13:07,076
The entire world has been
based on this Malthusian view

264
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which means that war is inevitable,
and people really care about war

265
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and how many people die.

266
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Which means that disease will
just be allowed to happen.

267
00:13:14,775 --> 00:13:19,901
I don't think people sit back and
want to see mass populations die off,

268
00:13:20,184 --> 00:13:22,049
but at the same time they don't
really do much to prevent it

269
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because they think that's just the way it is,
you know what I mean?

270
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And that's I think the mindset of a lot
of these people in the establishment.

271
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So yeah, all of that to answer your question,
these steps -

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universal basic income,

273
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applied mechanization and then

274
00:13:35,250 --> 00:13:38,024
eventually creating a peer-to-peer
and open source type of

275
00:13:38,135 --> 00:13:41,187
design environment that eliminates
the need for corporations itself,

276
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where you- we have the
technology to do that now.

277
00:13:43,532 --> 00:13:45,420
We can literally create and design

278
00:13:45,544 --> 00:13:49,532
and use engineering systems that work in
a digital realm where you don't need -

279
00:13:49,852 --> 00:13:51,427
and it's less efficient by the way -

280
00:13:51,538 --> 00:13:55,212
to have small boardrooms and proprietary
property and all of that stuff.

281
00:13:56,104 --> 00:13:57,809
I could ramble on a lot
about that but we have

282
00:13:57,913 --> 00:14:00,276
is a massive increase in efficiency of

283
00:14:01,470 --> 00:14:03,876
both production and creative design,

284
00:14:04,043 --> 00:14:06,060
and both of those mechanisms
that are doing that

285
00:14:06,172 --> 00:14:09,772
are actually the antithesis of what
is supported by the market system.

286
00:14:10,172 --> 00:14:11,513
- Couldn't have said it better myself!

287
00:14:13,729 --> 00:14:18,116
I wanna go to a quick commercial here and
then I'm gonna ask you about the current

288
00:14:18,344 --> 00:14:21,132
political climate in this country.

289
00:14:21,993 --> 00:14:22,738
- Oh sure.

290
00:14:22,984 --> 00:14:25,969
- I'll be right back with
my guest Peter Joseph,

291
00:14:26,080 --> 00:14:28,098
the creator of the Zeitgeist Movement.

292
00:14:30,713 --> 00:14:33,513
Welcome back. I'm here with Peter Joseph,

293
00:14:33,630 --> 00:14:36,701
the creator of the Zeitgeist
Movement and the Zeitgeist films.

294
00:14:36,812 --> 00:14:39,821
He also has the ZDay coming up which we'll

295
00:14:39,963 --> 00:14:41,267
talk about in a moment.

296
00:14:41,483 --> 00:14:43,316
Peter, I wanted to ask you about-

297
00:14:43,420 --> 00:14:46,886
there's a lot of anger in this country,
justifiably, I think,

298
00:14:47,864 --> 00:14:50,240
people are angry.
Some people are channeling it into

299
00:14:50,492 --> 00:14:53,440
the Bernie Sanders campaign,
some people are channeling it into

300
00:14:53,556 --> 00:14:56,535
Donald Trump and racism:
“Make America white again!”

301
00:14:56,720 --> 00:14:57,883
You know, that kind of thing.

302
00:14:58,120 --> 00:15:01,421
Some of that anger has to
do with scarcity I think:

303
00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:04,006
there's not enough money out there,
there’s not enough food,

304
00:15:04,110 --> 00:15:06,947
there’s not enough clean water,
not enough jobs,

305
00:15:07,113 --> 00:15:10,978
dancing in the background of rap
videos which is my true dream,

306
00:15:11,489 --> 00:15:15,433
and if we just have the
right president in place

307
00:15:15,770 --> 00:15:17,920
those problems would be solved.

308
00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:20,812
What's wrong with that train of thought?

309
00:15:21,193 --> 00:15:25,218
- The counter establishment
dyad of Sanders and Trump which,

310
00:15:25,384 --> 00:15:27,630
in a certain poetic sense is kind of fun -

311
00:15:27,772 --> 00:15:31,501
I have to admit it's a very
amusing and surreal environment.

312
00:15:31,686 --> 00:15:33,700
- For entertainment value it’s great.

313
00:15:34,301 --> 00:15:36,910
- Oh that's for sure.
But it also goes to show, speaking of that,

314
00:15:37,144 --> 00:15:41,784
just how easily persuaded the general
public can be as far as entertainment and

315
00:15:42,627 --> 00:15:44,418
the news networks go
where their ratings are,

316
00:15:44,529 --> 00:15:47,593
where their corporate sponsors
put the most money into.

317
00:15:47,704 --> 00:15:51,544
So therefore you gravitate towards
this belligerent known as Donald Trump.

318
00:15:51,729 --> 00:15:53,950
(I don't think he's real frankly,
I think he's a weird hologram.)

319
00:15:54,390 --> 00:15:57,987
But the structure of the system
I think needs to be held more in account.

320
00:15:58,104 --> 00:16:00,467
I mean, why do we have a president?

321
00:16:00,570 --> 00:16:02,584
There's a question for the general public.

322
00:16:02,953 --> 00:16:06,300
This is a business consti[tution]-…
as Thorstein Veblen said,

323
00:16:06,418 --> 00:16:09,649
“Constitutional democracy
is business democracy.”

324
00:16:09,913 --> 00:16:13,220
I think it was just dead on when
he said that about a century ago.

325
00:16:13,766 --> 00:16:15,907
And you literally have this "president"

326
00:16:16,036 --> 00:16:19,483
of this big American corporation
with all of its subsidies,

327
00:16:19,780 --> 00:16:23,981
which have now been funneled out
into the transnational industries,

328
00:16:24,100 --> 00:16:27,870
that have culminated their own identity
with the TPP and NAFTA and the like,

329
00:16:27,980 --> 00:16:30,947
and it's really is quite amazing
that no one sits back and questions

330
00:16:31,050 --> 00:16:32,566
the very structure itself.

331
00:16:32,990 --> 00:16:35,027
Scarcity - going back to that one though -

332
00:16:35,827 --> 00:16:38,800
I love what Trump represents
in the sense of his rhetoric

333
00:16:38,920 --> 00:16:42,141
because he literally is doing exactly
what all the other guys have done

334
00:16:42,510 --> 00:16:44,283
of the elite class, and that is

335
00:16:44,393 --> 00:16:48,086
blaming black and brown people and
foreigners for the problems of the world.

336
00:16:48,381 --> 00:16:51,236
And I think it's just so
poetic that he's doing exactly

337
00:16:51,575 --> 00:16:55,636
what everyone else has done,
since the beginning of this country,

338
00:16:55,760 --> 00:16:57,956
to distract people from
the fact that they're being

339
00:16:58,067 --> 00:17:00,326
screwed on a daily basis by the upper 1%.

340
00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:03,212
And they make them fear,
you know- the xenophobic fear.

341
00:17:03,690 --> 00:17:06,018
And that's exactly what he's doing,
it's literally textbook,

342
00:17:06,289 --> 00:17:08,849
and frankly I think he believes it;
I think guys like that are not

343
00:17:08,996 --> 00:17:12,203
sitting there and trying to con the public,
they literally believe this stuff.

344
00:17:12,547 --> 00:17:14,252
And I think that goes
for the majority in fact.

345
00:17:14,467 --> 00:17:16,470
We have a conspiratorial tendency,

346
00:17:16,584 --> 00:17:19,200
I think Frederick Douglass was the
one who made a great quote about that.

347
00:17:19,606 --> 00:17:23,556
He said “When society makes you feel like
there's a conspiracy working against you,

348
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:26,270
no property or person will be safe.”

349
00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:30,104
And it's the feeling that
everything's working against you,

350
00:17:30,276 --> 00:17:33,987
when it's really this sort of procedural
dynamic and poor value structure

351
00:17:34,227 --> 00:17:37,864
and these interacting web of chain reactions

352
00:17:38,043 --> 00:17:39,384
that are inevitably oppressive.

353
00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:43,452
I've done a lot of work on structural
bigotry and structural racism,

354
00:17:43,563 --> 00:17:45,880
structural classism,
so in other words to answer your point:

355
00:17:46,030 --> 00:17:49,126
It's just fascinating how
this old ancient rhetoric

356
00:17:49,292 --> 00:17:51,218
is still so prevalent

357
00:17:51,378 --> 00:17:53,470
just like it was in the
Roman Empire and beyond

358
00:17:53,593 --> 00:17:55,470
where they're blaming the external-…

359
00:17:55,593 --> 00:17:58,092
And scarcity, back to that,
is a big part of it.

360
00:17:58,227 --> 00:18:01,587
That's at the root of almost all of
our problems on one level or another.

361
00:18:01,827 --> 00:18:04,892
- Yeah, you said it's amazing that
no one sits back and questions

362
00:18:05,003 --> 00:18:07,193
kind of the system as a whole,

363
00:18:07,495 --> 00:18:09,930
you know, why do we have this system we have?

364
00:18:11,138 --> 00:18:14,123
That's kind of reinforced all
day long with advertising.

365
00:18:14,230 --> 00:18:17,113
I've heard people say “Oh advertising,
you know kind of evens out”

366
00:18:17,230 --> 00:18:20,529
because if Coke’s advertising for one thing
Pepsi's advertising for the other thing,

367
00:18:20,720 --> 00:18:22,738
so it's not like one thing has an advantage.

368
00:18:22,843 --> 00:18:25,667
I've heard this multiple times. I've heard
about the Democrats and the Republicans:

369
00:18:25,778 --> 00:18:27,729
“Oh, the ad dollars even out.”

370
00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:30,326
You have Democrats advertising,
Republicans advertising.

371
00:18:30,572 --> 00:18:33,409
But people never seem to
take notice of the fact

372
00:18:33,520 --> 00:18:37,304
that it's all advertising one thing:
it's all advertising the current system.

373
00:18:37,569 --> 00:18:41,021
It doesn't matter whether it's for
Coke or Pepsi, it’s for this current

374
00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:46,135
profit-over-all-else,
you know, dual-party system.

375
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:50,996
So really it is endless!
thousands of ads a day most people take in,

376
00:18:51,193 --> 00:18:55,403
that just continues to promote this system

377
00:18:55,544 --> 00:18:58,443
and in your last book -
I know you have another one coming up -

378
00:18:58,578 --> 00:19:02,640
but in your last book you talked
about how then it becomes to the point

379
00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:06,904
where our own thoughts become
indecipherable from propaganda.

380
00:19:07,021 --> 00:19:08,289
Are we there?

381
00:19:09,581 --> 00:19:13,741
- Yeah, well we've been there a long time;
I mean it's called cultural hegemony.

382
00:19:14,523 --> 00:19:16,620
That's a term put out by a theorist,

383
00:19:16,840 --> 00:19:18,923
I can’t remember his name right
now but Antonio [Gramsci] ...

384
00:19:19,046 --> 00:19:20,610
nevermind. Cultural hegemony is-…

385
00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:22,880
- Benderas! I think it was Antonio Benderas.

386
00:19:23,840 --> 00:19:28,707
- (Laughs) It's when you hijack
the value system of the culture,

387
00:19:28,890 --> 00:19:31,495
and we are extremely malleable.
Speaking of advertising,

388
00:19:31,753 --> 00:19:34,363
as a slight aside which caters to your point,

389
00:19:35,267 --> 00:19:38,535
and the fact that of course we are a
social- we’re social organisms man.

390
00:19:39,190 --> 00:19:43,575
We are immutably responding
and affected by-…

391
00:19:44,280 --> 00:19:46,449
Our limbic and nervous system literally

392
00:19:46,664 --> 00:19:48,910
reacts to the world around us and...

393
00:19:49,778 --> 00:19:52,363
There's numerous studies for example
that have been done when people

394
00:19:52,689 --> 00:19:54,775
are put into a room and they're purposefully

395
00:19:55,138 --> 00:19:56,756
conned into believing something

396
00:19:56,892 --> 00:19:59,655
or making a measurement that is
clearly untrue, like it's blatant.

397
00:19:59,827 --> 00:20:01,680
Like “Is this a circle or is this a square?”

398
00:20:01,852 --> 00:20:04,904
and the people will say "it's a
square" but it's actually a circle,

399
00:20:05,190 --> 00:20:08,596
and they'll see how much it takes to
get that person to conform to that value

400
00:20:08,700 --> 00:20:12,603
so they'll fit in with the group.
And it’s pretty frightening, frightening!

401
00:20:12,843 --> 00:20:14,984
how many people will conform to the group

402
00:20:15,132 --> 00:20:16,744
just because they want to fit in.

403
00:20:16,910 --> 00:20:20,480
That's part of our system, our nervous
system has been measured to react that way.

404
00:20:20,707 --> 00:20:24,030
But on the issue of,
similar studies on the issue of advertising,

405
00:20:24,280 --> 00:20:27,083
it's been found - subliminal advertising,
that's been made illegal because

406
00:20:27,360 --> 00:20:29,464
clearly it has effects: they flash.

407
00:20:29,723 --> 00:20:32,886
But they did a recent study and I have
this in my new book that I'm working on,

408
00:20:33,556 --> 00:20:35,698
they found that actual normal advertising,

409
00:20:35,809 --> 00:20:38,541
because of the way it's
been groomed socially,

410
00:20:39,255 --> 00:20:42,233
the way it's evolved, that it's even
worse than subliminal advertising.

411
00:20:42,430 --> 00:20:45,809
And what they concluded in this study
is that it's really a form of violence

412
00:20:46,092 --> 00:20:48,996
because effectively you get
like a Coke shown on the screen

413
00:20:49,150 --> 00:20:52,178
and you're a diabetic,
and you get the Coke shown on the screen,

414
00:20:52,326 --> 00:20:53,963
and they make these associations socially.

415
00:20:54,070 --> 00:20:56,824
Your brain starts to rewire
itself with those associations

416
00:20:56,930 --> 00:20:58,836
regardless of your conscious thoughts.
- Right.

417
00:20:58,970 --> 00:21:02,240
- So effectively it's affecting
you on a deeper subconscious level

418
00:21:02,369 --> 00:21:04,523
that no one was even
really aware of in the past

419
00:21:04,861 --> 00:21:07,833
and its truly destructive and,
you just have to avoid it.

420
00:21:07,990 --> 00:21:10,966
I mean literally just turn it off,
do not listen to advertisements.

421
00:21:11,070 --> 00:21:12,640
I just, I don't do it.

422
00:21:14,250 --> 00:21:16,867
- You know what made me realize
just how deep it is was

423
00:21:17,476 --> 00:21:20,890
I had quit eating meat.
I had quit eating at McDonald's for

424
00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:24,055
probably a decade, but I grew up on it.
When I was a kid,

425
00:21:24,793 --> 00:21:27,378
chicken nuggets were my favorite thing.
And I realized that

426
00:21:27,495 --> 00:21:30,596
despite not having been in
a McDonald's for a decade,

427
00:21:30,750 --> 00:21:34,843
when I was driving long distances and
I saw the golden arches in the horizon,

428
00:21:35,796 --> 00:21:38,104
it still made me feel good.
I still got kind of excited.

429
00:21:38,210 --> 00:21:40,233
I knew I wasn't gonna go get a Big Mac,

430
00:21:40,344 --> 00:21:44,307
but it was like “Why am I excited
about an establishment I have

431
00:21:44,420 --> 00:21:46,707
chosen long ago to no longer eat at?”

432
00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:51,833
- Yeah! Believe me I understand,
your associations get engrained.

433
00:21:52,030 --> 00:21:54,369
We are not in control of ourselves, which

434
00:21:54,578 --> 00:21:56,689
makes us have a larger order awareness,

435
00:21:56,898 --> 00:22:00,012
excuse me, requires us to have a larger
order awareness of what's affecting us.

436
00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:01,809
I'm what you call a structuralist,

437
00:22:01,956 --> 00:22:04,652
that's the term I’ll
label myself just for ease.

438
00:22:04,849 --> 00:22:08,258
A structuralist- Gandhi was deemed
a structuralist in the context.

439
00:22:08,369 --> 00:22:11,058
He said “Don't blame the
person for their actions,

440
00:22:11,187 --> 00:22:13,987
look at the motivating structure
that puts them in there.”

441
00:22:14,166 --> 00:22:17,015
I mean that applies to like
the military establishment.

442
00:22:17,890 --> 00:22:20,806
The military,
for it to be positive on some level,

443
00:22:21,500 --> 00:22:23,698
it's great to see people in their idea

444
00:22:23,809 --> 00:22:26,578
wanting to defend their country
and their people, that's fine.

445
00:22:26,781 --> 00:22:28,941
But on another level what
you have is a groomed

446
00:22:29,144 --> 00:22:30,418
set of serial killers.

447
00:22:30,744 --> 00:22:34,190
Because they're serially oriented around
the destruction that they're seeking,

448
00:22:34,523 --> 00:22:38,400
and they've convinced themselves
that all of this is of high-value

449
00:22:38,516 --> 00:22:41,021
so they're being influenced by
the structure of the military

450
00:22:41,132 --> 00:22:44,769
to do what they're doing,
as opposed to their own individual free will,

451
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:47,563
and that's really important.
Gandhi was big on that, I'm big on that,

452
00:22:47,673 --> 00:22:49,286
I take it to many different levels.

453
00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:52,246
My big thing ultimately is that
until we change the economic system

454
00:22:52,350 --> 00:22:54,130
you're not going to change human culture.

455
00:22:54,812 --> 00:22:57,790
The absolute foundation of our
entire value structure, our culture,

456
00:22:57,993 --> 00:23:00,738
is rooted both in present and historically

457
00:23:00,898 --> 00:23:03,483
in the unfolding of our
economy and how its evolved,

458
00:23:03,735 --> 00:23:05,772
whether it's slavery,
whether it’s exploitation,

459
00:23:06,258 --> 00:23:08,338
all of this stuff is built into us now

460
00:23:09,323 --> 00:23:12,640
and we just- that's pretty much
what I started to to say about that,

461
00:23:12,775 --> 00:23:14,640
that's why I’m big on economic change.

462
00:23:14,867 --> 00:23:18,301
- Before we run out of time,
we have a about a minute 30 left,

463
00:23:18,412 --> 00:23:22,098
I wanted to hear about ZDay
you have coming up in Greece,

464
00:23:22,289 --> 00:23:25,544
and you also have a new
movie you're working on,

465
00:23:25,673 --> 00:23:27,255
you got a new book you're working on.

466
00:23:27,433 --> 00:23:29,501
I wanna hear about all those things,
because people

467
00:23:29,624 --> 00:23:32,664
are itching for new projects from you.
You've got them addicted

468
00:23:32,812 --> 00:23:35,673
and you've created some sort
of scarcity market around it,

469
00:23:35,821 --> 00:23:38,972
around your projects,
and its really really hypocritical of you!

470
00:23:39,590 --> 00:23:42,160
- You're figuring me out!
I can’t work fast enough.

471
00:23:44,190 --> 00:23:46,203
Yeah, everything's been long
overdue for a long time.

472
00:23:46,978 --> 00:23:49,095
I have too many things going on man,
too many projects.

473
00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:51,290
Yeah the Zeitgeist Movement,
that's a big time consumer

474
00:23:51,403 --> 00:23:54,363
and also very important,
we’re on our 8th annual Zeitgeist Day.

475
00:23:54,652 --> 00:23:57,913
You participated in our Berlin main
event last year, we appreciated that.

476
00:23:58,036 --> 00:24:02,603
- Yeah  - And we’re in Athens Greece,
which is a timely place to be.

477
00:24:03,360 --> 00:24:06,781
Athens had got so hit with its
debt collapse and austerity and

478
00:24:06,996 --> 00:24:10,301
youth unemployment.
It's still in shambles to this day

479
00:24:10,418 --> 00:24:13,556
so we're hoping to draw a nice
European crowd to talk about this.

480
00:24:14,110 --> 00:24:16,904
So that's the 8th annual Zeitgeist Day.
There's also local ones.

481
00:24:17,010 --> 00:24:18,560
I'm in Los Angeles at the moment and

482
00:24:19,021 --> 00:24:20,929
there's a Los Angeles event March 26 as well,

483
00:24:21,033 --> 00:24:23,692
and by the way March 26 is
also the Athens Greece day.

484
00:24:23,820 --> 00:24:26,086
And there are ones all around the
country and around the world.

485
00:24:26,196 --> 00:24:28,160
If anyone wants to see if
there's one in their area

486
00:24:28,276 --> 00:24:31,446
they can go online to the social
networks or thezeitgeistmovement.com

487
00:24:31,704 --> 00:24:32,621
and check it out.

488
00:24:32,763 --> 00:24:34,332
As far as my film InterReflections,

489
00:24:34,443 --> 00:24:37,883
this has been very much overdue
and I'm in production with it now

490
00:24:38,140 --> 00:24:40,301
in tandem with a book
that I was also working on

491
00:24:40,418 --> 00:24:42,360
which I won't go into too much
detail with  because it’s still

492
00:24:42,473 --> 00:24:43,735
in its kind of final stages.

493
00:24:44,018 --> 00:24:46,738
But effectively it deals with
the future of civil rights.

494
00:24:47,300 --> 00:24:50,861
Frankly I think of all this conversation,
at the very root of it

495
00:24:51,690 --> 00:24:55,218
is our mutual codependence and
our interplay as a species;

496
00:24:55,329 --> 00:24:56,836
that's what we are right? I mean-

497
00:24:57,507 --> 00:25:01,655
Our lives are defined by each other,
and our entire presence is social.

498
00:25:02,110 --> 00:25:04,806
And the Civil Rights Movement
as historically seen in America,

499
00:25:04,910 --> 00:25:08,141
which was so profound on multiple
levels because of the history of America

500
00:25:08,363 --> 00:25:11,600
and slavery, a very different
orientation than many other countries,

501
00:25:11,975 --> 00:25:14,307
served as a unique model for me
and what I've done in this book

502
00:25:14,412 --> 00:25:17,440
is basically taken the framework of
the American Civil Rights Movement

503
00:25:17,660 --> 00:25:19,624
and extended it out to include all the things

504
00:25:19,735 --> 00:25:21,372
that I've talked about throughout the years

505
00:25:21,538 --> 00:25:24,055
with respect to economic
change as the ultimate route.

506
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:25,796
I'll say in conclusion of that is that

507
00:25:25,975 --> 00:25:29,889
racism and bigotry, its grandfather -
the ultimate overarching umbrella -

508
00:25:29,993 --> 00:25:33,347
is classism. It always has been.
It’s always been about that.

509
00:25:33,470 --> 00:25:35,490
- Well thank you so much Peter,
I feel like we could talk

510
00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:37,981
for 3 hours and not run out of topics but

511
00:25:38,258 --> 00:25:40,689
I really do, I really do appreciate it and

512
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:42,240
keep doing what you're doing.

513
00:25:43,027 --> 00:25:45,846
- I appreciate Camp, we all appreciate
what you're doing as well so,

514
00:25:46,116 --> 00:25:47,649
be good.
- Thanks man.

515
00:25:48,250 --> 00:25:50,960
That's our show.
Tune in tomorrow for a new episode

516
00:25:51,070 --> 00:25:53,790
of Redacted Tonight which
tapes with a live audience

517
00:25:53,901 --> 00:25:58,769
here in Washington DC.
Email RedactedTonight@RTAmerica.TV

518
00:25:58,873 --> 00:26:01,932
for ticket details.
Good night, and keep fighting.

519
00:26:02,130 --> 00:26:04,584
Redacted Tonight VIP
with Lee Camp