Thrive: What on Earth Will It Take? (2011) Reviews

• Interesting and highly relevant – but your watching propaganda

  mark_bk2011-11-25

  First of all you will probably find my background interesting: Having a bachelor in Political Science and a master in Political Communication I have worked with public relations and lobbyism from inside the system and know how rotten it can seem to be. I see Thrive as handling very relevant subjects - but with the use of very well known PR/propaganda-techniques as e.g. used during World War II. I'm a big critic of the current economic world order and see a high regulation of the top banks as very necessary step to ever get rid of the huge gaps in human inequality. Therefore this movie was very interesting to me. But Gamble definitely manipulates the viewer just like the 'enemy' he is accusing. Thrive connects a lot of very different an very complex subjects by simply putting them next to each other in sequence without using much time to explain thoroughly and scientifically the coherence – exactly how Hitler (or Goebbels) always used to put rats and Jews together, making a powerful mental tool to manipulate people's minds. Notice how he suddenly jumps from one conclusion about extremely complex problems to the other. Exactly like any other propagandist would do. When just using a couple of quotes of well-known persons as 'proof' and then jumps to the next, any university professor would flunk him had it been an exam. It's simply not scientific. Now I could easily turn Thrive upside-down as a rich and powerful person's (Gamble) own attempt to create a movement much like a religious sect. Why? Think of the audience he addresses: People that believe in aliens. Just like small religious sects appeal to people that are easily convinced that their misery is because of some master evil dominating them. The classic 'us vs. them'-way of propagandizing as seen in any war and conflict. Try watching a Youtube-clip about Scientology and see if you can spot any similarities in structure and layout? Misery vs. perfection: People suffering in a toxic wasteland, but by joining the movement you will see people smiling like crazy in beautiful natural surroundings. It's classic propaganda. I would still recommend people to watch this movie since it makes you think and reflect upon important subjects that we tend to not think about. But put on your 'critical glasses' because Gamble might as well attempt to use the viewer to become his follower and visit his website and in some way supplying Gamble with money. By writing this I also used argumentation based on propaganda-techniques. My point is: Always be critical of what you see and read.

• The Truth Behind Thrive

  ShawnM842012-12-19

  Here is a blog post from one of the people (John Robbins - Published in Yesmagazine.org) interviewed in this movie. Please allow the post to shed clarity on this horrible movie: ------------------------- Thrive is the name of a controversial film that asks, and attempts to answer, some of the deepest questions about the nature of the human condition and what is thwarting our chances to prosper. Lavishly funded, it features appealing imagery, beautiful music, and interviews with many leading progressives, including myself. Yet ten of us have signed a statement formally disassociating ourselves from the film. In my case, the decision was especially difficult because there are aspects of Thrive I find inspiring, and its makers, Foster and Kimberly Gamble, are old friends. Why have Amy Goodman, Deepak Chopra, Paul Hawken, Edgar Mitchell, Vandana Shiva, John Perkins, Elisabet Sahtouris, Duane Elgin and Adam Trombly, as well as yours truly, gone to the trouble of signing our names to this public statement? The statement reads as follows: "We are a group of people who were interviewed for and appear in the movie Thrive, and who hereby publicly disassociate ourselves from the film." "Thrive is a very different film from what we were led to expect when we agreed to be interviewed. We are dismayed that we were not given a chance to know its content until the time of its public release. We are equally dismayed that our participation is being used to give credibility to ideas and agendas that we see as dangerously misguided." ------------------------- It has been painful for me to witness personal friends of mine become caught up in seeing global warming as a lie, and just about everything on earth as part of a vast demonic conspiracy. When I wrote Foster Gamble to voice my disappointment with many of the ideas in the film and website, he wrote back, encouraging me to study the works of David Icke, Eustace Mullins, Stanley Monteith and G. Edward Griffin. Who are these people, in whose worldviews Thrive has its roots? David Icke, who is featured prominently in Thrive, is well-known for advocating utterly bizarre theories, and claims that the entire world is run by a secret group of reptilian humanoids who drink human blood and conduct satanic rituals. In a recent interview, Icke seemed to be competing for lunatic of the year. "What I'm explaining now," he said, "is that the moon is not a heavenly body but a construct." One of the signers of the statement of disassociation from Thrive, former astronaut Edgar Mitchell, has grounds to disagree. As the lunar module pilot of Apollo 14, he spent nine hours working on the moon's surface. Buoyed by lush visual effects and lovely words, the Thrive film has been attractive to many who know how often we are deceived and exploited by the powers that shouldn't be. The rest of Thrive's primary sources aren't much better. The late Eustace Mullins was the author of a book titled Hitler, An Appreciation. Stanley Monteith, who happens to be a neighbor of mine, has long been involved with Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, and professes that the environmental movement is a pretext for the effort to create a global police state. He and G. Edward Griffin have long been members and officers of the John Birch Society, a far-right political organization that first came to public attention when one of its founders, Robert W. Welch, proclaimed that Dwight Eisenhower wasn't the genial war hero and popular president he seemed, but rather "a conscious, dedicated agent of the international communist conspiracy." Welch co-founded the John Birch Society along with Fred Koch, the father of today's notorious Koch brothers. ------------------------- Read the full post by searching "yesmagazine disaster by design" in Google.

• Thrive, is what the world should do

  murray-morison2012-02-28

  Foster Gamble presents this documentary, directed by his wife. He comes from that ruling elite in America that he suggests is behind the most extraordinary coup carried out in history. Power has gradually been usurped, he suggests, and those who truly influence our lives have become virtually unaccountable. The political faces we see about us are just the tip of an iceberg that has truly murky depths. His premise will be very uncomfortable indeed for those who do not have an inkling about the way in which false flag operations have been used to justify the wars that have drained ordinary citizens of money in Europe and the USA and made certain small parts of society, that control armaments and oil, immensely wealthy. He interviews those who are in a position to know what is going on with regard to power, the military and also the question of free energy and extra-terrestrial involvement. It is not surprising that this film attracts criticism, as it will have many elements that stretch belief; on his web site he gives links that provide much credence to all the key points he makes. The film is presented very cleverly seeming to take the viewer off planet to get an overview of earth and its inhabitants. A film like this could just be depressing as it is suggesting that shadowy powers have tried, and nearly succeeded in stripping fundamental freedoms away in the Western World, and in particular in the US where many are sleep walking into a legal framework where they have little if any recourse to justice and real freedom at all. This hidden coup has been accomplished by the expert deployment of technologies of mind control initially developed in the Nazi era and exported to the USA through the infamous Operation Paperclip. So is it another of those documentaries that suggest The End is Nigh? In a way, but it is not at all without hope and points to the very many areas where extraordinary developments are taking place. It is easy to watch this documentary and recommend it to your friends. It may not be comfortable viewing but the very fact someone has bothered to make it, and make it quite so well, is encouraging. We do indeed live in interesting times.

• Please watch this!

  Dr-abbadon2012-01-30

  "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." - Wake up people! I can't believe, some of the ratings on this site?! This is a must see movie. From energy, money, health, world governments, deception on a scale that is beyond comprehension. Take the time and watch this with as many people and pass this on to as many people before its too late. Integrity freedom and compassion not tyranny, destruction and control and fear? No thanks! We have to change the way we do EVERYTHING! Some of the most honest people with the will to fight the establishment. Withdraw your support from the global elite. Follow the truth, stop the corporatetocracy!

• Positive message marred by "New Age" baggage

  discipline20082012-01-30

  "Thrive" concludes with a compelling vision of an egalitarian and compassionate future, where humans live truly free lives in cooperation with each other and the natural world. As a liberal environmentalist type, I'm very sympathetic to that message. Unfortunately, the film's path to that uplifting conclusion is rocky at best, often relying on long-debunked conspiracy theories and unnecessary pseudoscience. This mixture of a profound vision for the future (although a tad too libertarian for my tastes) and unproven –- and unprovable -- speculation seriously compromises the potential impact of the film's positive message. A few examples, among many: * David Icke describes some interesting observations about our corrupt financial system, but the film doesn't mention his other belief: that the Earth is controlled by reptilian aliens called Anunnaki from the Draco constellation. Apparently, all US presidents throughout history as well as Queen Elizabeth are really reptilian humanoids living underground. (Yes, he's serious.) Why choose such a person to communicate important insights into the out-of-control power of international banking elites? Why not interview a sympathetic expert who has deep knowledge of this exact issue, such as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman? * "Free" energy devices – aka "perpetual motion" machines -- have been promised for hundreds of years. Although they violate the well-established first and second laws of thermodynamics, and despite dozens of documented frauds and hoaxes, the filmmaker is convinced that such a device is right around the corner, where it not for a vast government conspiracy. I too wish free energy was possible but I'm not holding my breath, especially when perfectly viable renewable alternatives already exist: solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, energy efficiency, etc. Why speculate that the laws of the universe will be overturned when the answers are staring us right in the face? * Which is more likely: crop circles were created by extraterrestrials or by local pranksters having a laugh? Some facts to consider: In 1991, the British team of Doug Bower and Dave Chorley announced that they had made hundreds of crop circles since 1978, and then were filmed actually making one. There is also a UK crop circle-making artist collective (www.circlemakers.org) that makes beautiful and complex designs. If you're still not skeptical, ask yourself this: if these aliens are so advanced that they've mastered inter-galactic travel, why do they have to communicate with us by making obscure patterns in wheat? * Speaking of aliens, as a life-long science fiction buff, I'd love to believe that aliens have visited earth. Unfortunately, despite thousands of "sightings" since the 1940s, no convincing evidence has ever been produced. There have, however, been plenty of hoaxes, honest mistakes, and examples of pareidolia (the human tendency to see patterns in randomness) produced. The filmmaker believes that a 70-year conspiracy among thousands of people to suppress the reality of alien visitation continues to this day. As much as I enjoyed the X-Files, I doubt that such an elaborate and long-term cover-up is possible given human incompetence and the emergence of new technologies such as the Internet, cell phone cameras, etc. The larger point is that while the military and government certainly do keep secrets, why does the filmmaker think it's necessary to dress up that kernel of truth with outlandish speculation? Why not use well-documented examples such as Bush's WMD lies, Reagan's Iran-Contra affair, Nixon's Watergate, etc? * Was the World Trade Center deliberately blown up on 9/11 by Bush, Cheney and a secret cabal of banks and oil companies or by a few deluded zealots who were clearly captured on tape and witnessed by thousands of people? I hate Exxon and Haliburton as much as the next guy, but the evidence doesn't support this wishful thinking among the left. Further, the filmmaker's insightful conclusions about the control of the global economy by financial elites doesn't really require that 9/11 -- of all events! -- be the result of an elaborate conspiracy. Thrive's heart is the right place: it tries to unite the Utopian dreams of the left and right in an attempt to find a way to stop our planet's accelerating downward spiral. But the dream does not require evidence-challenged conspiracy theories, speculation, half-truths, anecdotes, and paranoia. Even if the causes of our crises are more banal than the melodrama depicted in the film, we can hopefully all agree about the importance of working together toward a more sustainable, inclusive, and free future.