Town Hall Meeting

Check out this short film (about 7 minutes). The film was made to supplement Naomi Klein’s new book, “The Shock Doctrine.” Klein is an excellent writer and is one of the smartest leaders of the young movement for peace and democracy.

In one of Town Hall Meeting’s first conference calls, we talked about how consumer-driven we are as a nation, often at the expense of a debt-free, balanced life. The “why” of this behavior is closely examined by Peter C. Whybrow, director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at UCLA, in his latest book, American Mania — When More Is Not Enough. Whybrow examines the addictive consumption of the world’s most affluent nation and shows how people are so hooked into buying that they suffer epidemic rates of obesity, stress, depression and anxiety. Whybrow’s analysis looks at the roots of American culture as a laissez faire competitive free market economy and explores how the nation’s migrant temperament has created this environment.