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As some of you may know, ten of the people interviewed in our movie, THRIVE, have recently signed a public letter of dissociation from the film. They include Deepak Chopra, Duane Elgin, Amy Goodman, Paul Hawken, Edgar Mitchell, John Perkins, John Robbins, Elisabet Sahtouris, Vandana Shiva, and Adam Trombly. [1]
Those signing the statement express feeling misled about the film’s content and find the message of THRIVE to be misguided. We sincerely apologize for whatever unwitting part we played in generating this sense of having been mislead and can say with utmost sincerity that this was never our intent.
originally posted by: MRuss
But THRIVE---created by Foster and Kimberly Gamble has completely taken off.
I'm sharing this tonight because I know it will benefit a few people to watch this update. I'm happy to reply to those ATS'ers who want to have a conversation about the VIDEO.
Ignorance. Pure ignorance. Spreading untruths to help model your view of the world---shameful.
Last fall, the acclaimed environmentalist and nutrition guru John Robbins was invited to the home of his friends Foster and Kimberly Carter Gamble, near Santa Cruz, to view the Gambles’ just-completed film, Thrive. Robbins, who makes a brief appearance in the film, says he was “overwhelmed” by what he saw.
“There were parts I liked, but there were other parts that I just detested,” he recalls. “I didn’t want to be rude—we were there with our families—so I just didn't say anything.”
In addition to Robbins, author of the groundbreaking Diet for a New Americain 1987, the film features conversations with Deepak Chopra, the superstar self-help author; Paul Hawken, the green entrepreneur and environmental economist; Elisabet Sahtouris, the evolutionary biologist and philosopher; Duane Elgin, the futurist and author of Voluntary Simplicity; Vandana Shiva, the physicist and advocate for sustainable agriculture; and former astronaut Edgar Mitchell.
In the months since the film’s release, Robbins says, he has been in communication with all of these folks. He wasn’t surprised to find that many of them agreed with his assessment of the film.
While they might have hoped the film would just disappear, Thrivehas become something of a Web cult phenomenon—by some estimates it’s been seen by more than 1 million people. And now they have decided to speak out.
In a just-released statement, Robbins, Chopra, Hawken, Sahtouris, Elgin, Shiva and Mitchell write that they have “grave disagreements” with some parts of the film.
“We are dismayed that our participation is being used to give credibility to ideas and agendas that we see as dangerously misguided. We stand by what each of us said when we were interviewed. But we have grave disagreements with some of the film’s content and feel the need to make this public statement to avoid the appearance that our presence in the film constitutes any kind of endorsement.”
Update, April 13: Two more progressives who make appearances in “Thrive” have added their names to the letter denouncing the film: Amy Goodman, the host of public radio's “Democracy Now,” and John Perkins, author of “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.”
Talking about Thrive last week, Robbins enumerated a long list of complaints. Much of his critique is centered on the film’s politics.
“Foster says he’s not advancing a political agenda,” Robbins says, “but his sources certainly are.”
Robbins is particularly galled by the presence of G. Edward Griffin and David Icke—both of whom who are featured prominently in the film and on the Gambles’ elaborate website (thrivemovement.com). Griffin is a prominent member of the ultra-right-wing John Birch Society, while Icke has one-upped the world’s most ambitious conspiracy theorists with his notion that the world’s secret rulers are actually descended from a hybrid species of evil half-human “Reptilians.” (Ironically—or hypocritically—neither of these facts is revealed in Thrive.)
Both Griffin and Icke have long defended themselves against charges of anti-Semitism with needle-threading arguments pointing out that while the enemy is decidedly Zionist, it is only coincidentally Jewish. Similarly, although his movie echoes Joseph Goebbels’ The Eternal Jew, Gamble insists in Thrivethat the conspiracy he describes “is not a Jewish agenda.”
But Robbins isn't buying that. He says that in private correspondence, he learned that his friend was being influenced by the ideas of Eustace Mullins, whom he calls “the most anti-Semitic public figure in U.S. history.”
If you were well-informed, you'd know this.
And secondly, seriously? You're a member at ATS and you didn't look for an explanation from the opposing side?
Ignorance. Pure ignorance. Spreading untruths to help model your view of the world---shameful.
Do your homework.
Did you think the Powers That Be were going to let them get away with releasing the documentary without any repercussions?