Our film series has a strong emphasis on 'promoting the COMMON GOOD' as it related to saving our environment, reversing economic and political inequality, and repairing our democracy so it works for everyone. For a list of groups/websites that support promoting the common good - click HERE!
As stated on our home page - Our goal is to be a local catalyst for building a more just, peaceful, and sustainable world for this and future generations. We must become a society that "puts people, planet, and peace above profit."
In order to do that we must address the issue of escalating economic and political inequality. The 40-year trend of escalation inequality (economic and political) begs for our attention and our action. It is a major impediment to building a democracy that works for everyone.
We must re-focus our country on the well being of all citizens. But first, we must understand how we got into this predicament. Then we must reverse the trend of escalating economic and political inequality.
For more information on economic and political inequality go to Stand Up 4 We the People (HERE) This website discusses the inequality issue in depth.
Also, here is what several authors have to say about economic and political inequality!
From Bob Herbert in Losing Our Way: An Intimate Portrait of a Troubled American - "The great promise of America, which had always viewed itself as a vibrant, upwardly mobile, fair, and just society,has been undermined by the self-inflicted wounds of near-perpetual warfare, irresponsible and grotesquely exploitive economic behavior, and political dysfunction. There was no reason this had to happen. There was nothing inevitable about it. The powers that be sold ordinary Americans a bill of goods. Tall tales were spun about the wonders of globalization and the magic of markets that would work infallibly if only they were left alone. We were told that everyone would benefit from trade liberalization, from industrial and financial deregulation, from an unwavering faith in the savvy of corporate leaders, and from the wanton use of American military might overseas.
From Elizabeth Warren in A Fighting Chance - "Here's the hard truth. America isn't building that kind of future any longer. Today the game is rigged - rigged to work for those who have money and power. Big corporations hire armies of lobbyists to get billion-dollar loopholes into the tax system and persuade their friend in Congress to support laws that keep the playing field tilted in their favor. Meanwhile, hardworking families are told that they'll just have to live with smaller dreams for their children. ----- It doesn't have to be this way.
From Joseph Stiglitz in The Price of Inequality - Three themes resonate around the world: that markets weren't working the way they were supposed to, for they were obviously neither efficienct nor stable; that the political system hadn't corrected the market failures; and that the economic and political systems are fundamentally unfair.
From Hedrick Smith in Who Stole the American Dream - Over the past three decades, w have become Two Americas. We are no longer one large American family with shared prosperity and shared political and economic power, as we were in the decades following World War II.
