Throwing Thrive Under the Bus: Progressives Interviewed in the Film Distance Themselves From Its “Dangerously Misguided” Ideas. (UPDATED!)
This blog, originally published April 12, 2012, was updated April 13, 2012. Scroll to the end for the update.
It seems that the honeymoon the public has had with Thrive as a result of the film’s release free on the web has already come to a crashing halt. Yesterday, nine of the people interviewed in Thrive—John Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Paul Hawken, Elisabet Sahtouris, Duane Elgin, Vandana Shiva, Edgar Mitchell, Amy Goodman and John Perkins—issued a public statement denouncing the film and stressing their profound disagreement with it. They also claim that Foster Gamble and the makers of the film misrepresented it when securing their participation. This is potentially an extremely serious development for Foster Gamble and Clear Compass Media, whose film is already under heavy attack from anti-conspiracy skeptics, progressive political thinkers, and environmentalists.
Who Said What?
An article in the Santa Cruz News (online) by reporter Eric Johnson quotes portions of the statement as well as remarks by John Robbins. Mr. Robbins is an environmentalist, an advocate for sustainability and a health/fitness author best known for his book Diet for a New America, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He lives in the Santa Cruz, California area and knows Thrive makers Foster and Kimberly Gamble personally. According to the article, Mr. Robbins was invited to an advance screening of Thrive at Mr. Gamble’s house. Here’s how he describes what he saw there:
“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.”
According to the Santa Cruz Weekly News article, Mr. Robbins told the reporter that Foster Gamble didn’t tell them about the real contents of the film beforehand. They didn’t know what was in it until it came out publicly. Additionally, Paul Hawken and Elizabeth Sahtouris told the news outlet that Mr. Gamble had actively misrepresented the film.
Just this evening, John Robbins posted a comment on my blog which included the full text of the statement signed by himself and the six other interviewees who have denounced Thrive. Here is the text of the statement as it was presented to me:
“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.
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.
Signatories (in alphabetical order)
Deepak Chopra
Duane Elgin
Amy Goodman
Paul Hawken
Edgar Mitchell
John Perkins
John Robbins
Elisabet Sahtouris
Vandana Shiva”
I am not surprised by this move. Since at least December I’ve been hearing rumors that numerous interviewees in Thrive were upset at how the movie came out and appalled that their words and images appear in it. This clearly indicated that there were problems with how the makers of the film presented the project when they went to secure these commentators’ interviews. However, at the time I had no hard knowledge that these rumors were true, so I didn’t feel comfortable publicizing them. I expected that eventually one or more of the interviewees would go public. Now they have.
Why now? It’s clearly because of the recent free release of the film, which seems to have boosted its popularity. The Santa Cruz Weekly article states that the nine who disavowed the movie had hoped Thrive would simply go away. It didn’t, and has become “something of a Web cult phenomenon.” Because of the popularity of the movie, they decided to go public at this time.
Why Am I Not Surprised?
There is a clear division among the people interviewed in Thrive. Some of them are people who have severe problems commanding credibility in the mainstream—David Icke, Adam Trombly and Nassim Haramein all fall into that category. However, there are also others interviewed in the film who do not appear to be conspiracy theorists, pseudoscientists or otherwise makers of wild and unproven claims. That doesn’t mean I agree with them on everything they have to say; however, I suspected from the very get-go that these people weren’t being told the full story of what Thrive was about before they agreed to appear in the film.
I will direct the readers to a passage in my very first article about Thrive, which was a debunking of the trailer, even before I’d seen the full film. Here’s what I had to say about Elisabet Sahtouris, Paul Hawken, and Amy Goodman:
“Dr. Sahtouris is the first person in this movie [at the time I meant the trailer] who actually has a real, verifiable Ph.D…. She lectures on evolution of humanity and how to create a better future. Given that she, like Catherine Fitts, sounds completely sane, I suspect that her inclusion in this movie is somewhat unwitting. Another clue that tells me this is that she appears to believe in global warming. While global warming isn’t mentioned in the Thrive trailer, I would lay odds that most of Thrive’s target audience believes that global warming is a hoax. Most conspiracy theorists do. I do not think Dr. Sahtouris is a conspiracy theorist….
Paul Hawken is a California businessman and environmentalist. He advocates for socially and environmentally responsible business practices (and I certainly agree with that). He hosted a 17-part series on PBS about running socially responsible businesses. Again, another sane person who makes me wonder if he was told he was going to be in the same movie as David Icke and Adam Trombly…
Democracy Now! is a radio program on the Pacifica radio network, dedicated to progressive causes. I’ve never listened to the show, but browsing their material there seems to be a lot of stuff I agree with. Amy Goodman was arrested along with two other reporters at the 2008 Republican National Convention despite having committed no crime. The charges were eventually dropped.
As with several other respectable names here (Fitts, Hawken, Sahtouris, williams) I wonder what she is doing in a conspiracy theory movie.”
In fact, it is noteworthy that Mr. Robbins is most upset about the very same aspect of Thrive that most upsets me—its inclusion of David Icke. According to the Santa Cruz article, he was especially concerned with the inclusion in the film of Mr. Icke as well as G. Edward Griffin, both of whom are detailed on the Thrive website. The Santa Cruz Weekly article reports that Griffin is associated with the ultra-right-wing John Birch Society. As for David Icke, whose claim to fame is obviously (as I pointed out in my own piece on him) the conspiracy theory that the world is controlled by a race of shape-shifting reptilian aliens from the constellation Draco, the Weekly article raises exactly the same concerns about the anti-Semitic aspects of Mr. Icke’s theories as I’ve noted on this blog.
Furthermore, Mr. Robbins told the Santa Cruz Weekly that Foster Gamble has taken a lot of inspiration from the work of Eustace Mullins. Mullins is, in Mr. Robbins’s words, “the most anti-Semitic public figure in U.S. history.” The article mentions that Eustace Mullins is the author of a book called Adolf Hitler: An Appreciation. The mere title of that book should tell you what it’s about–and in this case the cover of the book is quite a good advertisement for what you’ll find inside. In that book Mullins rails against “Jewish international bankers” and alleges a plot by them for world domination. Near the end of the article, Mr. Robbins is quoted as saying, “Foster is extremely naïve about the political consequences of his film.”
I’ve stated on more than one occasion that I think the main problem with Foster Gamble is that he is naïve. I don’t think he’s a racist and I don’t think he’s a bad person. I’ve even begun to question whether I think his commitment to conspiracy theorist ideology runs very deep. But what I hear Mr. Robbins saying here is exactly what I’ve been thinking for the past five months.
What Does This Mean For Thrive?
In my view, the statement issued yesterday, and the public dissociation of nine prominent people interviewed in the film from the finished product, is devastating. If Foster Gamble and the makers of Thrive had to misrepresent the film in order to sell it to the people they wanted to appear in it, as the nine undersigned allege, what does that say about the validity of the film and its message as a whole?
Thrive’s credibility has already suffered so many blows that very little of it remains. The inclusion of David Icke as a reliable source was just the tip of the iceberg. This very blog exposed further questions of credibility, when I published statements by inventor David Farnsworth who claims that the “free energy” device shown in Thrive and attributed to Adam Trombly was not in fact invented by Trombly, and does not do what the film says it does. The implication of that crisis is that, if Mr. Farnsworth’s claims are true, Foster Gamble seems not to have done a very good job in checking his sources and vetting the people who appear in Thrive. Yesterday’s allegation complicates further the question of how this film was made and what was said to the people who participated in it.
I’m curious if Foster Gamble will respond to the statement and if so, what he has to say about how the film was made and what was told to Mr. Robbins and the others who signed the statement.
There will probably be further developments regarding this story in the future. I’ll update this article as events warrant.
Update: 13 April 2012
John Robbins posted a comment on this article today in which he states that Adam Trombly has also signed the repudiation of the film.
I’m trying to learn more about this, especially Mr. Trombly’s reasons for doing so. If he has indeed walked away from Thrive, this represents the most significant defection yet–and an even more serious blow to the Thrive organization.
In a note posted on the movie’s official Facebook account, an unnamed spokesman said that Foster and Kimberly Gamble are traveling and will respond more fully later, but they didn’t knowingly misrepresent the film. The response quotes the disclaimer on the film that says they (the filmmakers) don’t agree with everything the people in the movie say. Presumably that works both ways.
I look forward to hearing what more the Thrive people have to say. But if even someone as closely identified with the film as Adam Trombly has been (up until this point) is scrambling for a life preserver, I’d venture a guess that Thrive is starting to resemble a sinking ship.
.
JREF Reviews Thrive!
Kyle Hill, who is associated with the James Randi Educational Foundation, recently posted an article reviewing the Thrive movie. The full article, which I eagerly recommend, is here.
The article begins:
I recently started doing my skeptical due diligence with a link on Facebook that was connected to the newest conspiracy theory movie, “Thrive”, released just last week on 11/11/11 (you can watch the trailer here). If you are unfamiliar with it, this movie is basically Zeitgeist 2.0. It talks about ancient codes “burned into atomic structures”, huge energy company conspiracies and free energy technology, as well as the standard Federal Reserve, Rockefeller, and economic policy rants. Supporting these claims are people like David Icke, world-renowned conspiracy theorist who believes that a secret reptilian race controls the world, and our old friend Mr. Chopra. The movie also proffers that the Illuminati (useless conspiracy placeholder) are covering up free energy technology (which contradict the laws of physics) which was given to us by aliens who make coded crop circles, and have crashed on Earth numerous times, which the government covers up. When you align all of the claims that this movie purports to be true, it is hard not to think it is some kind of joke.
I won’t go into the specifics here, suffice it to say that there is a lot of Chopra, crop circles, aliens, Illuminati, world-bank, new world order, federal reserve, reptilian overlord kind of gibberish in it. I’m just sad to see actual scientists hoodwinked into giving statements that they did not know would be taken out of context for this so-called “research.”
If you don’t know, the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) is an organization established by former world-class magician James Randi, who has devoted a significant portion of his life to promoting skepticism and critical thinking. Randi is probably best known for exposing the tricks of phony psychics, most notably an Israeli man called Uri Geller who claimed he could bend spoons with his mind. For many years Randi had an open challenge that anyone who could replicate psychic powers under controlled scientific conditions would win $1 million from JREF. No one won.
Today, JREF is known as a gathering place for others who believe in Randi’s ideas of skepticism and critical thinking. The JREF web forums are probably the most significant gathering of debunkers on the Internet in the English-speaking world. Conspiracy theorists hate JREF because the skeptics there frequently demolish the very theories to which conspiracy believers are most committed.
JREF’s article on Thrive echoes many of the sentiments stated on this blog. I again recommend reading the full article. Toward the end, however, Mr. Hill offers this warning for debunkers of Thrive, which is probably good to take to heart:
What can skeptics do to counter-act such arguments? In my experience, these are typically intelligent people who have put their efforts into theories that only could be true, without relying on evidence or skepticism to sort through them. Getting a conspiracy theorist to converse on rational terms is then the objective, supplanting the seed of skeptical doubt the ultimate goal. However, if you run up against the kind of opposition that I have, perhaps you should jettison and try to promote critical thinking to people not so entrenched. Charging headlong into the lion’s den is admirable, but dangerously unproductive.
I think this is sage advice. I’m posting material on this blog to rebut the errors and misconceptions in the film, but I am stopping short of charging full-bore into conspiracist forums to force this information upon Thrive believers. It’s been my experience that conspiracy theorists reform only if they want to, and their journey out of the darkness of conspiracy thinking can only be self-motivated. Thus, while I’m happy to post my information here, I’m not on a “crusade” to convert believers in the film.
As an aside I will also remark that, while there’s no way to tell quantitatively, it appears that Thrive is not making a particularly profound impact, even in the conspiracy underground. Certainly conspiracy theorists like it, but now two weeks after its release I don’t see much evidence of it “going viral” in the same way that, say, Zeitgeist or Loose Change did. I think this is very good news, if it can be borne out by some sort of quantitative analysis.
The Next Conspiracy Movie: The Trailer for Thrive, Debunked.
This blog was originally published here.
Dealing with conspiracy theories is like playing whack-a-mole. Every time you hammer one down, another one pops up in its place.
Just as we are witnessing the terminal decline of one so-called activist organization based on movies about conspiracy theories, another one appears to be rising. Yesterday, November 11, was the worldwide “premiere” of an Internet-based movie called Thrive. Yesterday morning I didn’t even know about it. But a lot of people have sent me links and messages about it, and given its splashy roll-out and the aggressive promotion that’s been put into the film, I can tell right away that I’m probably going to be spending a lot of time over the next few months dealing with Thrive and its fans.
Thrive is basically Zeitgeist 2.0. It’s a slick Internet film that pushes conspiracy theories and advocates for a utopian future that is—and I am not making this up—based on free energy technology given to us by extraterrestrials. The makers of Thrive have taken another page from the Zeitgeist playbook, by seeking to turn the hoped-for popularity of the Thrive movie into a “movement” (see their website). The film and the embryonic group around it seem to be the brainchild of one Foster Gamble, who believes in UFOs, ancient astronauts, free energy and the Illuminati (though he does not use that exact term). What does he want? Well, right now, he wants you to buy the movie for $5 online. I’m sure he’ll want something else after that, but let’s start with that.
The moment I started watching the trailer for Thrive I knew we were dealing with some serious crackpottery. Conspiracy theory media has come a long way in the last ten years. Zeitgeist blazed the trail, followed by Desteni’s low-tech but effective (and now defunct) strategy of proselytizing via YouTube; then came Garret LoPorto’s “Wayseer” thing (which I haven’t yet debunked), and now, Thrive. These are slick movies designed to appeal to frustrated young people—and also designed to induce them to believe in conspiracy theories. One of the people prominently featured in Thrive is arch-conspiracy theorist David Icke, who believes that shape-shifting reptilians secretly control the world. The Thrive Movement website contains a section called the “Global Domination Agenda” which vomits forth all sorts of conspiracy theories including Trilateral Commission, HAARP, FEMA camps, 9/11 and the Georgia Guidestones. If Thrive attains the popularity its makers obviously hope for, it is going to be a serious and troubling gateway drug for conspiracy theorists, the same way the Zeitgeist films were.
This said, you don’t even need to hear me explain why Thrive must be debunked. It must be. Stupidity and distortion on this order cannot be allowed to sit out there unchallenged. Therefore, this afternoon I put together what I believe may be the first debunking material on the Internet specifically targeted at the Thrive movie.
I have not seen the entire movie. (I don’t want to give conspiracy theorists any of my money, and in any event I’m quite sure it will show up free on the net very soon). This article debunks the trailer of the film, which runs 3 minutes, 39 seconds. As you can see, there’s plenty to debunk. Because the trailer is freely available on YouTube, I’m going to go ahead and embed it in this video just for the ease of accessing it. I realize I’m running the risk of increasing the visibility of what could turn out to be a very damaging film, but I think it’s worth it to show what it is I’m debunking.
As you can see, there’s plenty to debunk. Now, without further ado, I give you…Thrive!
The sources I’m relying on appear at the end of each section.
0:09 — Foster Gamble
Foster Gamble is a documentary filmmaker and formerly CEO of MindCenter Corporation. He has been active in issues involving pesticide spraying and an organization called “Stop the Spray.” A graduate of Princeton University—in what field I do not yet know—he is related to the Gamble family (of the corporation Procter & Gamble).
http://www.eon3.net/food/interviews/a_skirmish_won.html
http://www.rvml.org/calendar/wc07202004.htm
http://thrivemovement.com/faqs (section “How is Foster related to Procter & Gamble?”)
0:30 – V = 2π2Rr 2 Torus
A torus is a geometric figure. It’s defined as a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three dimensional space about an axis coplanar with the circle. In most contexts it is assumed that the axis does not touch the circle—in this case the surface has a ring shape and is called a ring torus or simply torus if the ring shape is implicit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torus
This shape appears several times in the video. Presumably something about this shape is related to the idea of free energy derived from alien technology.
0:36 – Floor mosaic in Ephesus, Turkey
This is a common pattern in floor mosaics throughout the Roman and Byzantine era. Ephesus was an important city in the Byzantine Empire in the early Christian era. Without seeing the full film, it is not clear what significance is being put on this design.
0:44 – Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut
Edgar Mitchell was a NASA scientist who walked on the moon in February 1971. During the mission he claims to have had a spiritual experience that he described in terms of “Savikalpa Samadhi,” a type of Eastern mystical experience. He believes in ESP and founded a think tank to investigate psychic phenomena. He has been a long time believer in the Roswell conspiracy that claims a UFO crashed in New Mexico in 1947 and alien bodies were recovered from it. NASA has gone on record denying that his claims are true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Mitchell
http://www.ascentmagazine.com/articles.aspx?articleID=195&issueID=30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwE0vDuTm48
0:49 – John Callahan, Senior FAA Official
John Callahan is a former FAA employee who has gone on record as claiming that the FAA has covered up incidents involving UFOs. He is most closely associated with an incident where a UFO was seen from a Japan Air Lines flight in November 1986, which he helped investigate. Callahan claims there was a cover-up of this incident but the corroboration of his story is sketchy at best.
http://www.cosmostv.org/2011/08/alaska-ufo-mystery-endures-25-years.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_flight_1628_incident
0:55 – Osiris Temple, Abydos, Egypt
Another appearance of the “mysterious” pattern. Coupled with the Byzantine mosaic, this is intended to surprise us that the same shape is employed in two ancient cultures. How surprising is it really, though? The shape is a series of interlocking circles. How special is that? Would it take a genius to come up with that shape? Is it implausible to believe that two people, thousands of years apart, might have the same idea for a pattern of ceremonial artwork?
1:00 – “It’s burned into the atomic structure in some extraordinary way!”
I don’t know the story behind this claim, but this is extremely unlikely. Have atomic analyses been done on the artwork in temples from Abydos, Egypt? My (admittedly perfunctory) searching didn’t turn up anything. My suspicion is that this claim is simply false.
Nassim Haramein, Cosmologist, Inventor
Nassim Haramein is a New Age writer who has dabbled in topics involving “unified field theory,” which also pops up associated with Gamble’s name. He gives lectures on metaphysics and something called “the Schwarzchild Proton” that has absolutely no acceptance among mainstream physicists. Haramein evidently claims to be a “physicist,” but I cannot find a specific record of a Ph.D. in physics. He does not list a Ph.D. on his own website. He does not appear to be a real academic. I also found material associating him with various “Ancient Astronaut” theories.
http://psychedelicadventure.blogspot.com/2011/01/nassim-haramein-resonance-project.html
http://theresonanceproject.org/about/personnel
http://ezinearticles.com/?Its-A-Pyramid-Scheme&id=5904037
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=332671
1:09 – Crop Circles
Crop circles are not extraterrestrial, they are not amazing, they are not mystical, and they are not hard to make. They are a fraud, and were debunked a very long time ago.
http://www.skepdic.com/cropcirc.html
1:11 – “Free, safe energy!”
Gamble gushes about “free, safe energy” supposedly from aliens. Free energy is one of the most common delusions out there, and there are many debunkings of it. It doesn’t exist because it violates fundamental scientific principles.
http://wiki.4hv.org/index.php/Free_Energy_Debunking
http://www.yrad.com/cs/index2008.htm#may038
1:18 – Adam Trombly, Physicist, Inventor
Adam Trombly is a pseudoscientist who is closely associated with “free energy” devices, most notably something called a “Closed Path Homopolar Generator,” which is—you guessed it—yet another free energy/perpetual motion device. He is also a conspiracy theorist who claims his invention was suppressed (of course). Trombly is billed as a “physicist” but I cannot find any indication that he has a Ph.D. in physics.
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=8510.0
http://www.economicexpert.com/5a/History:of:perpetual:motion:machines.htm
Note how the “technology” is shown in this part of the video. It’s obviously a computer generated image superimposed on the table in front of the panelists. But note, in the studio, lights have been shone on the faces of the men to make it look like the thing on the table is emitting light. This is a very curious deception.
1:27 – Nikola Tesla
Conspiracy theorists and pseudoscientists love Nikola Tesla, because he was working on a lot of weird stuff that could theoretically lead to lots of nifty science fiction machines. Consequently, if you want a machine that does X to exist, all you have to do is say that Tesla invented it and that the invention was suppressed, or that it’s an extension of something Tesla invented. After all, he died in 1943 and won’t be able to dispute you. Tesla’s theories, which I presume here are asserted as the scientific “basis” of Gamble and Trombly’s free energy devices, have even been used to explain the nonexistent “beam weapons” that some more extreme 9/11 Truthers like Judy Wood and Abraham Hafez Rodriguez claim destroyed the World Trade Center towers.
If Tesla appears in a “documentary” about free energy, be skeptical…be very, very skeptical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
1:29 – Steven Greer, M.D. – Director, the Disclosure Project
Steven Greer is a conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed UFO abductee who claims he has had contact with aliens. He has offered no proof of these claims. The “Disclosure Project” is his own idea, an organization he started mainly to accuse the government of covering up UFOs. Not surprisingly, Greer has appeared many times on the Art Bell radio program. Art Bell and Whitley Strieber are buddy-buddy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disclosure_Project
1:38 – “The single largest industry in the world—energy!”
The energy industry is not the single largest industry in the world. According to the World Bank, it’s tourism. Sorry, guys.
http://www.apec-tourism.org/tourism-is-the-largest-industry-in-the-world-2
1:44 – “The suppression of UFO phenomena…”
No evidence to support this claim. I suspect that the full-length movie will contain the word “Roswell.” Just to get a head start, I’ll go ahead and post some links to debunk that.
http://www.yrad.com/cs/index2009.htm#may189
http://www.skepdic.com/roswell.html
1:51 – “An elite group of people…”
Oh, you mean the Illuminati? Not that shit again. How many times do we have to debunk this ridiculous conspiracy theory before people will understand that the Illuminati do not exist?
http://www.skepdic.com/illuminati.html
http://www.yrad.com/cs/index2007.htm#oct227
2:02 – Deepak Chopra
I’m not surprised Mr. C. (I won’t call him “Dr. C” because I’m not sure his Indian doctorate is valid in the US) is popping up in a movie like this. You know him. Alt quackery, health woo, all that sort of thing. In case you need to educate yourself as to why Chopra is not a very good source of scientific and medical information, I’ll post a link to debunk him.
http://www.skepdic.com/chopra.html
2:09 – “Connect the dots!”
Conspiracy theorists love to “connect the dots.” It’s the only thing they can do, because there’s no direct evidence of their claims. This is a false methodology used by conspiracy theorists to bamboozle people into thinking “this can’t be a coincidence!” It’s also what passes for reasoning behind the Illuminati and puppet master type conspiracy theories, which Thrive seems to traffic in quite heavily.
2:10 – Bill Still, Author, The Money Masters
Still has written books bashing the U.S. money system and grinding his ax against the Federal Reserve, which most conspiracy theorists hate. He gives a patina of legitimacy to the usual hysterical anti-Fed arguments you hear circulating in conspiracy theorist, Libertarian and Ron Paulfanboy circles. Oh, did I mention that Still is running for president in the Libertarian Party? Does that surprise you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Still
2:13 – Federal Reserve conspiracies
What pan-conspiracy film would be complete without alleging that the Federal Reserve is a private corporation bent on controlling all money in the US? The usual crap from anti-Fed people, made recently popular by Ron Paul and his gang of right-wing fringe followers. The Federal Reserve is not a private corporation, it is subject to law, and it is audited. But facts won’t get in the way of conspiracy theorists’ damning of it, so why should this be different?
http://www.famguardian.org/Subjects/MoneyBanking/FederalReserve/FRconspire/FRconspire.htm
2:18 – Alan Greenspan, no one can overrule the Federal Reserve
Doing a search for the text of this quote brought up an explosion of anti-Federal Reserve crazy. It’s going to take days to weed through it all and I’m not sure I want to do it, so I may be lazy and let some debunker come to my rescue with the full text of Greenspan’s comments. I’m 99% sure that this quote is taken egregiously out of context, because that’s what conspiracy theorists do, and if they attach as much importance to something as they seem to have for this quote, the chances of it not being taken out of context are almost zero.
2:16 – Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of US Department of H.U.D.
Catherine Austin Fitts was Assistant Secretary for Housing in 1989-90 under the first George Bush. She is also a Wall Street banker. She currently works for an investment advisory firm called Solari, Inc. I suspect she’s being taken out of context too, because browsing her résumé it seems she’s way too sane to voluntarily participate in a nutty conspiracy theorist documentary.
http://solari.com/about-us/resume/
2:30 – David Icke
David Icke is probably the most influential conspiracy theorist in the world, even more so than Alex Jones. He is also insane. He believes that the world is secretly controlled by Jews reptilian shape-shifting aliens, and that the Jews aliens have secret bloodlines, rituals and symbology that they advertise so the whole world can see. Just browsing some of Icke’s stuff leads to two inescapable conclusions: first, that his elevator is not going to the top floor, and second, that he really, really, really hates Jews reptilian shape-shifting aliens.
Any supposed “documentary” that quotes Icke or uses him seriously as a source is automatically disqualified as reliable in any way, for any reason. Icke is absolutely radioactive. His hate-filled conspiracy moonbattery is the ideological basis (if you can call it that) for the Desteni cult.
2:36 – Rockefellers
This belongs in the “Illuminati” category. Here we’re shown pictures of influential people with the name Rockefeller. From this you’re supposed to infer that Rockefellers control the world. My guess is that in the full-length movie the Rothschilds are probably added to the bunch, and I’m confident enough that the words “Bilderberg Group” will appear in the full-length movie that I’m going to go ahead and add a debunking link for it.
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4225
2:52 – Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D., Evolutionary Biologist
Dr. Sahtouris is the first person in this movie who actually has a real, verifiable Ph.D. Too bad I can’t quite figure out what it’s in. (I assume biology). Anyway, she lectures on evolution of humanity and how to create a better future. Given that she, like Catherine Fitts, sounds completely sane, I suspect that her inclusion in this movie is somewhat unwitting. Another clue that tells me this is that she appears to believe in global warming. While global warming isn’t mentioned in the Thrive trailer, I would lay odds that most of Thrive’s target audience believes that global warming is a hoax. Most conspiracy theorists do. I do not think Dr. Sahtouris is a conspiracy theorist. Indeed she looks like a very nice person, which makes me wonder what she’s doing in this movie.
http://www.sahtouris.com/pdfs/A2011Flyer.pdf
3:01 – Paul Hawken, Founder, Natural Capital Institute
Paul Hawken is a California businessman and environmentalist. He advocates for socially and environmentally responsible business practices (and I certainly agree with that). He hosted a 17-part series on PBS about running socially responsible businesses. Again, another sane person who makes me wonder if he was told he was going to be in the same movie as David Icke and Adam Trombly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hawken
3:04 – Kimberly Carter Gamble, CEO, Clear Compass Media
Kimberly Carter Gamble is the wife of Foster Gamble. On the Thrive Movement webpage, she quotes David Icke, not an auspicious start: “Having the courage to risk stepping out of what David Icke calls the “hassle-free zone” is the quality I am most proud to have mustered in this life, and it felt great to infuse the clarity and compassion that come from that process into the story – and production – of THRIVE.” But does she believe in reptoids?
http://thrivemovement.com/about_us
3:10 – Martin Luther King
Some shameless self-promotion here by inviting the comparison between Thrive and Dr. Martin Luther King. I hate it when conspiracy theorists do this. When Peter Joseph Merola of the Zeitgeist Movement compared himself to Martin Luther King, it drove me berserk. I have a dream that people would stop comparing themselves to Martin Luther King.
3:12 – angel Kyodo williams
To my surprise, the title card identifying angel Kyodo williams, despite its odd capitalization, is correct—she really does write her name that way. Ms. williams is a Zen Buddhist and wrote a book trying to make Zen accessible to African-Americans.
I am, again, virtually certain that Ms. williams does not fully understand the views and background of the people behind Thrive. I seriously doubt that a person who is obviously a dedicated activist for African-American issues would consent to be in the same movie with David Icke (who as you remember really hates Jews reptilian shape-shifting aliens) if she knew about the baggage he carries. This makes me skeptical of the disclosures that were done during the making of this film.
http://angelkyodowilliams.com/bio/
3:15 – Amy Goodman, Host, Democracy Now!
Democracy Now! is a radio program on the Pacifica radio network, dedicated to progressive causes. I’ve never listened to the show, but browsing their material there seems to be a lot of stuff I agree with. Amy Goodman was arrested along with two other reporters at the 2008 Republican National Convention despite having committed no crime. The charges were eventually dropped.
As with several other respectable names here (Fitts, Hawken, Sahtouris, williams) I wonder what she is doing in a conspiracy theory movie.
Conclusion
Assuming the full-length Thrive movie follows the general pattern of the trailer, I think we can see a basic road map emerging as to how the full-length film and the movement it hopes to spawn can be debunked. I’m starting early, on only the second day that Thrive has been out, in the hopes that the movie will attract some attention from debunkers who can tag it with the facts and expose the errors and misstatements contained in it, which, as you can see from the trailer alone, are considerable. I’d like to say I’m looking forward to seeing the final film, but the truth is, I’m not. I have a feeling it will make me very angry. In any event, it seemed that some people out there thought it appropriate that I take a look at it, so here it is. I’ll be keeping tabs on this movie and this organization and may post updates later on.
Thanks for reading.
Thrive Debunked 
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