as I walk through some of this stuff.

First, I want everyone to take a deep breath...

Exhale...

There's a lot of energy in an environment like this, isn't there?

There's a crowd mentality that reminds us that we are involved

in a singular social organism, and we relate to each other

on a very profound and deep level.

As profound as that is on one side

it can also be little caustic and dangerous on another

if we get too caught up in things

that might move us in the wrong direction.

I don't see that happening here but I do hope

everyone can relax with me for a moment as I begin to speak

this very brief but detailed, intricate talk.

As you all know, my name is Peter Joseph and I work

with an organization called the Zeitgeist Movement.

[cheering]

Thank you.

This movement was founded in 2008 and it's a sustainability advocacy group

without country, without classes

without any religion or race.

It is a global concept working to unify the human species

in a way that's considered humane and actually sustainable.

In the longer-term interest

we actually seek something that I think many of you might share

which is the removal of the entire socio-economic system itself.

The details of which

I'm going to express as I continue this talk.

I pulled out some history books recently to see

if I'd seen anything like this in basic modern history.

Has there ever been a movement that actually goes

against the financial and corporate powers on this scale

and in the community globally, ever and there hasn't been.

That's a very telling sign as far as the awareness of the culture

wouldn't you say? Many people yell at political buildings

and they work to try and engage their political establishment

with the idea that it actually is where the power resides in this world

that we share, when it's very clear that the power is obviously

within the financial structure and always has been.

Even with the Great Depression when I researched these issues

I found nothing that really went after the true powers that be.

There's a man named John McMurtry

which some of you might be familiar with.

He made a very unique analogy to where we are with this state of affairs.

He stated that what we're seeing in the world today

is actually the rise of the social immune system

not the rise of a political ideology

but the rise of a defense mechanism

coming from the very fabric of our culture

that sees that something is extremely wrong and very cancerous

to society as a whole.

We, the social immune system, need to work

to recognize the true root problem, and then move to remove it

as fast as possible before it takes hold

and essentially works for our own termination.

As the cancer has grown since the inception of the system

that I'm going to speak of, it's become more malignant, more caustic

and obviously across the world

absent of any country, nation or political party.

We're beginning to see its caustic effects.

Just as the cancer in our bodies produces different symptoms

that harm certain areas first, such as our lungs or our kidneys

we need to ask the question "Where is the real sickness lying?"

I heard someone yell out capitalism a moment ago

but is that really the psychology that's underlying the problem that we see

or is it simply a manifestation of something even more flawed

at the foundational level?

Are we actually seeing this cancer for what it is

really working to correct it at the root source

or are we just addressing its symptoms?

This is the question I would like to pose, not only to Occupy LA

but to the entire movement related

and all those that are worried about the state-of-affairs on this planet.

How do we diagnose the real issue?

How should we feel about the 1% which own 40% of the planet's wealth?

How should we feel about 400 Americans that have more wealth

than 150 million Americans combined?

How should we feel about top hedge fund managers

that take home over 300 million dollars a year

and for what?

Do these hedge funds managers actually create anything?

Last I checked, the measure of our market system

which justifies its competitive nature

is that those who contribute the most to society

are supposed to be the ones that are most rewarded.

Obviously, the exact opposite is true.

As a quick aside I will state that if there's anything

that can represent the tumor of the system that we inhabit

it would be Wall Street, the Stock Exchange

and the banking establishment as a whole.

But again, the tumors are not actually the source of this disease.

They are symptoms. Symptoms, just as the rampant foreclosures

forcing people out of their homes, are symptoms.

Symptoms, like the ongoing economic decline

and loss of so-called growth, are symptoms.

Symptoms, like the ongoing debt crisis

that is yet to fully hit America

but has already taken its toll in the EU

Greece, Italy, Portugal and many others.

Obviously no resolution has been found. Why?

Because they're trying to resolve the problems that have been generated

within this system by using mechanisms of this system.

Even as our governments continue to bail out banks across the world

they impose austerity on us.

Is that at the result of something negative?

Are these people just evil? Are they just trying to do the worst they can

to insult the humanity of us?

Are they just corrupt, greedy criminals? Anomalies?

Are they aliens from another planet that have come down to fuck with us?

Well, they're people, exactly

and they are likely manifestations of this cancer

rather than a cause of it.

As the world awakens to this financial system and its flaws

I've noticed a very radical perspective slowly being realized

which transcends the economic tradition

many of us assumed to be natural to our way of life.

You notice that we tend to assume

that the systems we're born into, the traditional systems

are automatically assumed to be empirical. Have you ever noticed that?

We might look at politics and governments as we know it

as a whole and assume it's valid, why?

Because that's all we've ever known. Is it any true measure of logic?

Probably not. It's simply tradition. It's custom.

You'll find that we seem to be locked into custom frames of reference

rather than emergent frames of reference

and that is fundamentally what needs to change in our view of reality.

We might look at the market system, our use of money

and assume it will always be there, right?

Not because of any benchmark of our earthly economic measure

of what it truly means to be sustainable, not because of

any scientific realization of what human behavior actually entails

and how we tend to act based on what's reinforced in our culture

but simply because that's all we've ever known.

However, as the bio-social pressures

continue to grind down the global workforce

as machine automation continues to replace human labor

for the benefit of saving corporations' money

reducing purchasing power, your money

and inevitably stifling economic growth

our perspective might just grow a little bit larger

than the traditional norms we've come to understand.

Maybe, human employment for income as we know it

something that I've heard in rhetoric a lot of people complaining about:

"Where's our jobs? " maybe the foundation

of our entire economic system simply isn't going to work anymore

because we realize the non-stop effects of science and technology

hence the emergent nature of reality

clashing with our traditional assumptions.

Perhaps even with the expanding debt crisis

born out of the fractional reserve lending system

and the structural reality that money is actually created out of debt

and sold as a commodity in exchange for interest

that can only come into existence through the creation of more loan sales

and the creation of more money.

Maybe, the debt collapses aren't the result

of some political policy or some corporate or government malfeasance.

Maybe they are the result of the actual structural form

of this system that we inhabit.

With the psychology of growth and consumption

that continues to create

the ongoing social and environmental destruction that we see:

abuse and exploitation all around us

that so many environmentalists complain about

yet they still tend not to realize that the system is based on that.

It's defined by consumption. It's defined by turnover

and we often think that corporations should be held responsible

for their actions because of their abuse of this nature

when the competitive market model of economics