Review of Generation Zero (2010) by Sarah D — 17 Feb 2017

Watched this to try to better understand Bannon's motives. The main theme of the film is the idea of 20-year cycles, with a war every 4th cycle: predicts an upcoming war, which the filmmakers seem excited about as a fertile ground to rebuild the world. Lots of statements and opinions, but nothing to back them up. Any interviews with experts are short, out-of-context sound bites. In an interview, one "expert" actually asked "why didn't the dot com bubble happen in 1985 instead of 1995?" [for those too young to remember, the world wide web started in 1990, so dot com wasn't a thing in '85]. At one point, an interviewee seemed to be reading a statement from cue cards.

Focuses on Wall Street corruption and political collusion, but fails to zero in on names, blames the regulatory institutions instead. Implies that morals fell away with hippie generations of the 1960s and after, and that this somehow became the abdication of responsibility that causes financial corruption, but never makes the link clear. The film advocates for a return to protestant work ethic & less conspicuous consumption. Attempts to say both individualism and community volunteerism are the solution.