Notes on our Third Meeting

Date: Saturday Oct. 16th, 2010
Time: 1:00-3:00ish PM
Location: Auditorium, Administration Building, South Texas College, McAllen, TX
Number Attending: 11

The Rio Grande Valley Zeitgeist Movement had its 3rd general meeting today in McAllen, TX. I am pleased to report that we had several new faces in attendance, including two young school children. I am very happy to see children attending our meetings and encourage people to bring them if they so choose. It is very unfortunate that we do not include children in the discussion of how society works. These young people had a rare opportunity to listen in and even participate in a wide ranging discussion about many different aspects of our current society. It was very much a treat and hope to meet more young minds as we continue to move toward a better world.

This meeting had no set agenda. As I mentioned previously, we had a wide ranging discussion about our experiences trying to reach out to others with the message of redesigning society to benefit all people. In one particular case, we explored the necessity of maintaining all our arguments and discussions on an intellectual and informative level. Emotional interactions are generally less productive and potentially hurtful to the parties involved. We also discussed the issue of credentialism and criticism of the messenger instead of critically analyzing the message. Many people who are socialized in our current system will not trust what a person has to say if they do not have the trappings of media approved competence or appearance. In many cases, these people are close friends or even family members. While we must understand that this is simply a symptom of the underlying forces at work at all levels of society, we can overcome these obstacles by finding a common ground between the participants of the discussion. Find things we can agree upon and build on that establishment of common ground. It is imperative to understand that what we are trying to do is highly suspicious to the self appointed guardians of the status quo, but that does not make them an adversary or even an enemy. These are the people that we need to reach if we are going to have any hope of moving society to a saner way of life.

Near the close of the meeting, we discussed the upcoming elections and our individual opinions on politics in general. There were many different views and opinions expressed, but one thing that we all made clear was that the Zeitgeist Movement is not a political movement and does not endorse political parties or candidates. One of our future goals as a global movement is to engage political authority at the appropriate time, but that is quite a long time off, and it would be ill advised and generally a waste of energy and resources to engage the political system at such an early stage. We do recognize however, that we are still subject to the monetary and political systems currently in place, and being informed and aware of those institutions are in the best interest of everyone.

Our next meeting will be on October 30th, which is coincident with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity. We are looking at ways to incorporate this event into our meeting due to the common goals that seem to be in common with both events. We will have more information available in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we encourage you to engage others in community events at your local school, college, church or other gathering. Society will not move forward until we find the courage as individuals to come forward and address the reality of problems and we start looking for the technical solutions to them. Thank you for your interest and attention.

 Pictured above are 6 of the members attending this meeting.