2 New Films: Occupy Love And Surviving Progress

2 New Films: Occupy Love And Surviving Progress

Culture

Occupy Love: A Film That Captures The Global (R)evolution Of Compassion In Action   Occupy Love will be a moving, transformative feature documentary that asks the question: how are the economic and ecological crises we are facing today a great love story? A profound shift is taking place all over the world. Humanity is waking up to the fact that the current system that dominates the planet is failing to provide us with health, happiness or meaning. The dominant paradigm is based on separation, as exemplified by the financial system, and the corporate emphasis of profits before people.” This crisis has become the catalyst for a profound transformation: millions of people are deciding that enough is enough – the time has come to create a new world, a world that works for all life. We have experienced an extraordinary year of change, from the Arab Spring, to the European Summer, and now, erupting into North America: the Occupy Movement. This is a revolution rooted in compassion, direct democracy, and shared power, as opposed to the ‘power over’ model of the corporate world view. The new story is one of Inter-dependence. Love is the movement.” Images and text taken from the film’s crowdfunding page on IndieGoGo For more information, updates and videos such as the one below, visit occupylove.org Surviving Progress Humanity’s ascent is often measured by the speed of progress. But what if progress is actually spiraling us downwards, towards collapse? Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, A Short History Of Progress inspired Surviving Progress, shows how past civilizations were destroyed by “progress traps” – alluring technologies and belief systems that serve immediate...
Inside Job [Film]

Inside Job [Film]

Economy, Featured

Inside Job presents how a chain of actions and decisions underpinned by increasing self-interest in the U.S. financial sector over the past 50 years has brought the U.S. to its current worsening socio-economic state. Maximized Self-Interest – The Financial Crisis Time-Bomb Ticker The key point that Inside Job presents is how the “securitization food chain” developed – borrowers, lenders, investment banks, investors, ratings agencies – governed by the commonly held value of maximized self-interest at every rung of the chain. It shows how precisely this chain was the ticking financial crisis time-bomb that exploded in September 2008, the effects of which are felt worldwide until today. Here’s how maximized self-interest worked at every level of this chain: Borrowers wanted loans for buying homes or other high-cost assets (and since it was in the financial interest of people in the higher parts of the chain for as many people as possible to get loans, then loans were highly promoted during the first years of the 2000s) Lenders wanted the extra money they could make from any loans they provided, no matter how risky, since they sold all the loans to investments banks Investment banks wanted the extra money they could derive by collating all the loans they bought into complex derivatives called CDOs (Collateralized Debt Obligations), and selling those CDOs to investors Investors wanted the extra money they would get from the borrowers paying back the loans (the CDOs) Ratings agencies, which were hired by investment banks to evaluate the CDOs, wanted the extra money they would get from giving high ratings to the CDOs (since people in the ratings agencies would get paid more for giving CDOs...
Blind Spot [Film]

Blind Spot [Film]

Featured, Science

Blind Spot analyzes the problem of peak oil, that: Oil and fossil fuel energy is finite, and coming to its end in the near future Human population is constantly increasing Society is not preparing for the end of oil and fossil fuels, but instead self-interest values, which encourage the direct and indirect use of fossil fuels, continue being perpetuated in the media. The Problem Of Peak Oil – That It Connects In A Complex Web Of Other Problems Blind Spot presents the complications in dealing with the problem of peak oil, by showing how it connects to many other current and future problems: inflation, stagflation, pollution, climate change, global warming, overconsumption and overpopulation. Through interviews with scientists and experts in ecology, economy and sociology, Blind Spot proposes some approaches to these problems, including population control, policies for using less energy and implementing different kinds of energy. Peak Oil’s Central Problem – Challenging The Strong Influence Of Self-Interest Values Upon Society However, central to the problems that the film’s experts’ mentioned is the issue of social influence. There is an in-built threat in challenging generations of self-interest values at the center of society’s beliefs and assumptions, or “The American Way,” as people in Americanized societies are used to relying on cheap oil and energy, living in big houses, being highly individualized, and traveling long distances. The cultural constraint on change becomes very dangerous, because when it is challenged, it is challenging generations of belief and assumptions. … There are people who have to study raw data, who are trained as scientists to have their belief system based upon evidence, and when that contradicts generations...