Kimberly and Foster Gamble never meant to mislead anyone, according to a team member from the controversial movie ‘Thrive.’ And the pair will respond to concerns about the locally made cult documentary when they have time.
Turn the Tables
[RE: “Those Who Trespass,” Currents, April 4]: “Wells Fargo hit the jackpot. It was one of the first banks to get bailout funds—the biggest amount awarded in a single shot: $25 billion tax dollars.” —Sharyl Attkisson, CBS News correspondent
Your article used the word “trespass” nine times. At the time of the Wells Fargo protest, didn't we own the building? Let's turn the tables: if the CEO of Wells Fargo walked into that local bank, would he be trespassing?
Don Cochrane
Santa Cruz
Think About It
[RE: “Progressive Leaders Denounce .htmlThrive,” Currents, April 11]: I think it’s great to see people distancing themselves from Thrive, but the distance is not nearly far enough. People think it’s strange to claim that an alien race of reptiles runs the planet, but perfectly normal to follow the advice of someone who believes that the moon is just a ball of potential unless a human looks at it (Deepak Chopra). If we’re going to uproot charlatans, let’s go all the way… As Drew Lewis points out in his letter to the editor (“No Straw Men,” April 11), even if we reject Thrive and the extremists like David Icke, we’re still left in a country where the vast majority of people believe that a supernatural being (though admittedly, not a reptile) intervenes in our lives on a daily basis and is especially concerned with who we sleep with and in which position. I’m all for reason and progress, but a thing worth doing is worth doing right.
Michael Montgomery
Santa Cruz
From The Web
Shoe Dropping
To add some info to all this, I made the documentary What On Earth? Inside the Crop Circle Mystery (http://CropCircleMovie.com) and was invited to look at a rough cut of Thrive to review the crop circle content. It concerned me that Thrive took positions that I thought people who were interviewed would object to, and I said I thought it was urgent to confirm with them that indeed they would be happy being in the movie. That never happened, and the statement some of them just issued is the other shoe dropping.
Suzanne Taylor
Response to Come
Foster and Kimberly are currently on tour. They look forward to offering a full response as soon as they have time. Meanwhile, Foster never received an email requesting a comment, and they never intentionally misled anyone in the movie. This statement has been in the credits of Thrive all along:
“The people in Thrive do not necessarily agree with the themes, statements, claims or conclusions presented in the film or website, nor does their inclusion imply our full agreement with all of their views…”
We do not know of any film—documentary or otherwise—that could get made giving final say to the people who are in it.
The Thrive Team
Weak Disclaimer
For the record, I sent an email, labeled urgent, through the Thrive media contact page on April 6. I received a reply later that day from Karen Larsen of Larsen Associates saying “I will send this request to Foster.”
As for the weak disclaimer that appears at the end of the film, it was obviously insufficient—I don’t know of any documentary in which all of the most credible people in the film feel a need to issue a statement denouncing it.
Eric Johnson
