Here’s the response by Foster and Kimberly Gamble to John Robbins. It made me see stars. The chat that follows  is a rather fascinating highlighting of how people think, good and bad.

This is what I wrote in response:

I was assured, when I saw a rough cut of the film and thought some of the people in it were not going to be pleased being there – that the film espoused ideas they did not hold and there were people in the movie they would not want to be associated with – that they would be shown the movie before it was finished. However, they never were contacted. So much for any idea that disavowals were out of the blue and were a shock to the Gambles.

And, I want to call attention to something that I’ve not seen talked about. This “Movement” is based on one person’s opinions. It has come about because Foster Gamble is a very rich man who has lavished money on the movie release way out of proportion to what any other film release would have gotten. It’s like Goliath take over from David to get this little film spread around. As a filmmaker (http://CropCircleMovie.com ), I assure you this is unheard of. It is being pushed at you and punched at you by very deep pockets. It’s like the Koch Brothers funding the Republican cause.

Please, people, this is a huge strong-arm of one human being amassing a huge following. It is more like a cult than a movement. Can you imagine anyone else coming out with a movie and calling it a movement? In fact, if this little movie came and went, which would have happened without all the promotion, the participants likely would have kept quiet. But, with the incredible promotion and relentless pushing of this movie, you all just have to get how uncomfortable this is for them.

And, the Gambles’s response to John Robbins is shocking to me. What they wrote is the kind of reasoning Joe McCarthy used in his era. How can you argue with something so embedded in wrongness? For example, how can the Gambles say that someone in the John Birch Society is worth listening to? PLEASE. Hitler analogies are apt here – listen to Hitler’s opinions about poetry because they have nothing to do with his politics? Who wants to listen to anything he would say? It is scary to use this sort of logic. James has a good rap on this in the comments below.

Solutions are great, but only if we have identified the problems. THRIVE’s Solutions are to the problems that Foster identifies, not THE problems, and he is taking a huge swath of the population on a ride of his making.

This has drawn some of the big guns of THRIVE to attack me, and I have responded to them. Get on their site to read it all. And if you have a  response that you post there, please put it here, too.

I want to reiterate that I think there could be something valuable going on in this sizzling scene. This isn’t Democrats versus Republicans, where we have two opposing ideologies, but here we have those who essentially are on the same side, of moving us into a progressive, sustainable, and compassionate world, hopefully ironing out the kinks to where we will cooperate to get us there.