Today is “Move your Money” day across the globe! This is an issue directly addressed by Heist in our “solutions” section. Run don’t walk to take your money out of the big banks and put it into credit unions or community banks.
The Federal Credit Union Act was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1934 to create a banking structure that would lend money to communities that really needed it because the big banks would not lend locally as a result of the Depression.
Sound familiar?
As Local First Arizona Founder Kimber Lanning points out in Heist, community banks and credit unions are “an absolutely critical component to any healthy community big or small.” Lanning goes on to say that if lending in your community is not by your community for your community then you are effectively saying “take my deposits and invest them elsewhere. We are not worthy.”
Credit unions are democratic in nature as the Board of Directors is made up of people who live and work in the community. The Board is on equal footing with depositors and is not beholden to stockholders but to members.
Moving your money to a local banking institution will go a long way to thwarting the diabolical financial system that is the target of the Occupy Movement. There are only two kinds of power in America: organized money and organized people. It’s time the people organized their money!
Frances Causey,
Director/Producer, "Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?"
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
First three screenings of Heist - and what's next!
Hi Heisters,
We just wrapped premiering "Heist" to sold-out crowds at the 34th Mill Valley Film Festival. Organizers added a third screening due to overwhelming demand!
After spending five years making this film, we were very eager to hear audience feedback in the post-screening Q & A sessions. In our screenings, we knew we were “preaching to the choir” to some extent. But we worked very hard to make a movie that was a FACT- BASED, balanced tic-toc of the crimes against the 99% of us who have not benefited from the last 40 years of economic/ political decision making in this country.
The feedback in the post screening Q & As were both validating and enlightening. We heard over and over again comments like ”you nailed it”…”you managed to make a very difficult, dense and complex subject straight forward and easy to understand!”
Without a doubt, "Heist" got the majority of our audiences really, really angry! Many of the questions were about how and when we were getting the film to the rest of the country. Rest assured, we are working hard this week to do just that. Our biggest hope is that Heist gets it into the hands of the millions of Occupiers across the globe, helping to keep the movement alive and well.
As our "Heist" audiences now know, the 1 percent has conveniently framed the Occupy movement as one that does not have “direction." Can millions of people be wrong? Of course not but this is the “powers that be” message machine again at work. As illustrated in "Heist" widespread systemic corruption cannot be distilled down to one convenient sound bite.
Onward!
Frances and Donald
We just wrapped premiering "Heist" to sold-out crowds at the 34th Mill Valley Film Festival. Organizers added a third screening due to overwhelming demand!
After spending five years making this film, we were very eager to hear audience feedback in the post-screening Q & A sessions. In our screenings, we knew we were “preaching to the choir” to some extent. But we worked very hard to make a movie that was a FACT- BASED, balanced tic-toc of the crimes against the 99% of us who have not benefited from the last 40 years of economic/ political decision making in this country.
The feedback in the post screening Q & As were both validating and enlightening. We heard over and over again comments like ”you nailed it”…”you managed to make a very difficult, dense and complex subject straight forward and easy to understand!”
Without a doubt, "Heist" got the majority of our audiences really, really angry! Many of the questions were about how and when we were getting the film to the rest of the country. Rest assured, we are working hard this week to do just that. Our biggest hope is that Heist gets it into the hands of the millions of Occupiers across the globe, helping to keep the movement alive and well.
As our "Heist" audiences now know, the 1 percent has conveniently framed the Occupy movement as one that does not have “direction." Can millions of people be wrong? Of course not but this is the “powers that be” message machine again at work. As illustrated in "Heist" widespread systemic corruption cannot be distilled down to one convenient sound bite.
Onward!
Frances and Donald
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
"Heist" and the Class War
As illustrated in our movie "Heist," the far right, on behalf of the very rich, has been waging a war on the middle class for over thirty years. Class war is described as the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests between people of different classes. Throughout history class war has always been waged from the bottom up, working people versus the elite, moneyed class. We are witnessing an astonishing twist of this in the headlines today. Through co-opting Congress and the media, big money’s message machine has inexplicably managed to turn the tables and perpetuate class war from the top down—the super rich waging it on working people! Incredibly, they are crying “class war” and unfairness in response to President Obama’s proposed “Buffett tax” that will levy a tax on those individuals making 1 million or more per year. This is a political tactic by the far right to rally their greedy, trickle down obsessed and ideologically driven base.
Donald Goldmacher
Producer/Director, "Heist: Who Stole the American Dream"
Donald Goldmacher
Producer/Director, "Heist: Who Stole the American Dream"
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
“Heist” World Premiere!
What an incredible five-year journey it has been to create "Heist!" We are honored that “Heist” has been chosen as an official selection to the 2011 Mill Valley Film Festival. "Heist" tells a story that you won’t hear on Cable TV or read about in The Washington Post. Unlike the 24-hour news cycle, “Heist” “connects the dots” for working Americans, exposing the truth about how big money corrupted our politics and restructured the U.S. economy for its own personal gain over the last 30 years -- abandoning American workers and almost everything the United States once stood for.
We made “Heist” because there is a HUGE disconnect between what we know to be true from our own experiences in the field and in our personal lives, what we hear from our family and friends, versus what we hear the political class and the headlines telling us. For example, does anyone really think Macy’s creation of thousands of minimum wage, temporary jobs at Christmas is big news and a real solution to our tragic unemployment problems? “Heist” offers a fact-based, well-researched explanation of why so many good paying jobs with benefits have been outsourced.
We could not sit on our hands and watch House Majority Leader John Boehner create a fake debate on the budget as justification for not extending unemployment benefits. Nor were we content to sit and click as politicians on both sides of the aisle called for Social Security reform, in effect taking benefits from our elders to pay for obscene tax cuts for the super rich and unjustified wars.
In "Heist" we offer actionable solutions to the current crisis. At Mill Valley, we are so pleased to be a part of their Active Cinema program which allows us to showcase important groups that are helping to put the country back on track towards democracy and the values we all hold dear, justice and fairness.
There is great angst throughout the country and indeed the world. Our leaders have stopped listening to us so we must force them to listen through our actions. Throughout history, people power has always triumphed over hubristic politicians or a greedy, power crazed oligarchy. Look at the example of the Arab uprisings. We hope “Heist” inspires you to act as it did us. As Gandhi once said, “a good diagnosis is three-fourths of the remedy.” We now know what happened and what we are up against. The next steps are up to us.
For more information on our world premiere screenings at the Mill Valley Film Festival, please visit: http://www.heist-themovie.com/screenings.html
Frances Causey
Director/Producer
“Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?”
We made “Heist” because there is a HUGE disconnect between what we know to be true from our own experiences in the field and in our personal lives, what we hear from our family and friends, versus what we hear the political class and the headlines telling us. For example, does anyone really think Macy’s creation of thousands of minimum wage, temporary jobs at Christmas is big news and a real solution to our tragic unemployment problems? “Heist” offers a fact-based, well-researched explanation of why so many good paying jobs with benefits have been outsourced.
We could not sit on our hands and watch House Majority Leader John Boehner create a fake debate on the budget as justification for not extending unemployment benefits. Nor were we content to sit and click as politicians on both sides of the aisle called for Social Security reform, in effect taking benefits from our elders to pay for obscene tax cuts for the super rich and unjustified wars.
In "Heist" we offer actionable solutions to the current crisis. At Mill Valley, we are so pleased to be a part of their Active Cinema program which allows us to showcase important groups that are helping to put the country back on track towards democracy and the values we all hold dear, justice and fairness.
There is great angst throughout the country and indeed the world. Our leaders have stopped listening to us so we must force them to listen through our actions. Throughout history, people power has always triumphed over hubristic politicians or a greedy, power crazed oligarchy. Look at the example of the Arab uprisings. We hope “Heist” inspires you to act as it did us. As Gandhi once said, “a good diagnosis is three-fourths of the remedy.” We now know what happened and what we are up against. The next steps are up to us.
For more information on our world premiere screenings at the Mill Valley Film Festival, please visit: http://www.heist-themovie.com/screenings.html
Frances Causey
Director/Producer
“Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?”
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Van Jones, who was a target of Right Wing media attacks that led to his resignation as a White House adviser on the Green Economy, has launched a new organization, Rebuild the American Dream. Van, who is featured in Heist, and is a brilliant visionary, is part of a broad coalition to take back the American Dream, which we are very proud to endorse. Here's the link to the new organization. http://www.rebuildthedream.com/
And catch excerpts of his speech launching the new effort at this link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToAm6bnYfsM&feature=player_embedded#at=117
And catch excerpts of his speech launching the new effort at this link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToAm6bnYfsM&feature=player_embedded#at=117
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