WHO RULES AMERICA HD

welcome to Wall Street the epicenter of financial power in America perhaps the

money capital of the world the globally oriented Financial firms

based here in the New York Stock Exchange that operates here have extraordinary influence on the politics

and policies of this country no one has elected them and in fact

these these firms are trying to undo the regulations and new laws governing them

imposed by the congress the people on Wall Street are just one of a number of

unelected and very powerful forces that operate in the shadows behind the scenes

they're the media of forces they're the military and Industrial forces they're

the corporate forces and they're the forces that we'll be investigating in this television series which asks a

question that most of our media does not who rules America

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every four years Americans go to the polls to elect a president

it's a ritual that goes back to the founding of the nation in 1776.

our economy seemingly on the brink of class high unemployment every four years

politics and politicians dominate our television screens dominate our news and

dominate our national discourse I'm Ron Paul and I approve this message

what independent Watchdogs call this present president Barack Obama is running for reelection Mitt Romney stood

with big oil for their tax breaks attacking higher mileage standards and

Renewables he is attacking and being attacked by Republicans

he said he would turn this economy around in three years or he'd be looking at a one-term proposition we're here to

collect all right the two parties may be fighting a political war but pundits labeled it a

horse race fueled literally by billions of dollars in campaign contributions

used for pervasive advertisings where one president's failed policies really

hit home [Music] welcome to obamaville the focus is on

political personalities not the forces they represent a large industry of commentators and

pollsters are paid to tell us who's ahead and who's behind

the focus invariably is on the candidates not the issues but everyone

knows the campaigns are run behind the scenes by professional strategists media

experts and political advisors

the political ads are cynical and slick almost every word is scripted symbols

Trump substance slogans are Market tested aimed at promoting perception and

reinforcing prejudices that a world nation marketing is the mission selling

not telling on one level this whole spectacle is presented as a Triumph of democracy as

if the candidate who wins will run the country but being in office doesn't necessarily mean being in power

Americans believe they are determining their future are they do most know or

are they ever told who rules America I just think that these people uh you

can't really see them yeah that's what I think the people who rule America people

are behind the screen they are behind screen invisible to the General Public

people really know what's going on [Applause] to some extent yes and to some extent no

to what extent yes to what extent no about 50 50. who rules America there's no one right

answer Pulitzer prize-winning American historian Eric foner says it's a

question that raises many more questions about power that works from the Shadows

who rules America uh you know there's no one single easily defined group who

rules America but I think you know not just now but I think for a couple of

generations we have had a what what the sociologists see Wright Mills called in

the 1950s a power elite an interlocking set of connections of people in business

in politics in the military who pretty much determine the parameters of

possible change it's not that they rule America in a conspiratorial way and of

course there are elected officials but the leeway of those officials is constrained by what you might call the

permanent government presidents come and go but there's a kind of permanent establishment what you know President

Eisenhower called the military industrial complex but now it's more a military Financial complex

that really you know determine as I say determines the limits

foreign we're at the left Forum a gathering of progressive intellectuals

and Scholars and students held every year here in New York City there are 1400 speakers this year they don't agree

on everything but they do agree that America is not the Democracy it claims to be they all want to know who rules

America Professor Stanley aranowicz writes about the research of this man C

Wright Mills who half century ago wrote about the existence of a power elite

that activists today refer to as the one percent the people who run things his

contribution to understanding the nature of power in America is in the first place to identify three institutional

orders that really together form the power of lead an elite that is generally

speaking unresponsive to the people unresponsive to democratic Liberties and Democratic procedures and he said the

three groups were the corporate capitalist uh institutions

the military and the third one was the top layer of the political uh

directorate he called them and they were they are the national uh leaders like the executive branch of government not

even Congress he said Congress was in the middle levels of power it doesn't really share

decision to make war the major economic policies and so on it participates at

some level but basically it's out of power and he said that really has undercut

the whole pretense of progressive and of representative government

this may be why in recent surveys only seven to nine percent of the American

people in both parties believe that the Congress the so-called people's house of government is representative and capable

of solving the country's problems if politicians are trapped in a

polarized and highly partisan stalemate who does exercise the power to decide

what the country's priorities and policies should be we asked JK Fowler an editor of the

mantle a political magazine I think it's extremely complicated I think there's

not one particular answer for it I think that a lot of the stuff going on in America right now is

being led by money and money of interest in Washington in particular but I think there's a bubbling movement from the

ground up as well that's happening is there a ruling class in America or is that a

in particular in New York City where but I don't think it's they're not hitting

away in some room with Mercury's deeds and mind it's it's more it's more structural there's certain

clubs they go to there's certain streets they live on they're interacting with one another more we put that question to

Aaron crowl a 30 year old working-class mother from a small town in Wisconsin who was working two jobs while pursuing

her education if I was to ask you like who runs America who rules America what what is

your you know what what is your perception of that the money to do so you know

um you know people that that that have the money and the the resources to send

a lobbyist to Washington you know like nobody from my town could afford to send

a lobbyist you know and say hey Harley Davidson is you know threatening to to

move their plants to China unless you know everybody takes pay cuts

you know and could literally shut our town down you know we can't afford to defend ourselves

do you feel as an American citizen that you have power you know in our country do you

feel as if you have the ability to get your dream achieved

I feel like it's slipping away um

I don't think I do you know because it feels like the closer and closer I would get to that

you know like just a dream for me is to finish college you know and take care of

myself and take care of my son you know but even that now you know and and I

understand like most a lot of people in my position aren't even able to get that far now

so if the citizens who are supposed to be in charge don't feel they are who does what we found is that by and large

it's the wealthiest Americans who call the shots through unelected institutions

that drive agendas in their own interests

there may be a cabal running things but in the end the state and the system merges argues Canadian political analyst

Leo panich yeah I don't think there's an external Force controlling the American state the

American state is capitalist to its core in the very way it's organized it

doesn't do it because there's too much influence from Wall Street it does it because it is structurally embedded with

Wall Street it doesn't do it because there's too much influence from the military-industrial complex it doesn't

because the military-industrial complex is inside this thing is funded by the state it's part of the state sure there

are people who conspire and there's people who act in secret but capitalism is not a conspiracy the people who have

the wealth they're not a conspiracy we know who they are we know how they

collect this money they take it out of our pocket they put it in theirs and it's not a big mystery there seems to be

corporate forces in addition to Wall Street that essentially help guide our

political and economic Direction leading our America's top corporations

political analyst Michael Claire has studied the political economy of oil for

20 years and says a lack of media coverage keeps the public in the dark

does the media cover it the media doesn't cover this for the most part in fact the media is largely

in League because of the advertising dollars that the oil and gas Lobby

provides they're very heavily dependent on Advertising Revenue so they're very

careful in what they say who are they accountable to are their laws really

controlling and regulating what they do there are laws but they have been

written largely by their lobbyists to favor them so in fact uh the laws for

the most part are in their favor not in the favor of most Americans is there an

issue where we've seen this very clearly where the interests of the oil industry or the or the energy industry is in

conflict with the interests of Americans well I would give an example that uh the

oil industry has been pushing for drilling in the Deep Waters of the Gulf

of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska for example and they get all kinds of

tax benefits for that kind of Deep Water Drilling and they were able to do so

during the bush period with absolutely no oversight whatsoever hence the deep

water Horizon disaster most Americans experience the oil

industry in two places at the gas pump where prices often rise because of

speculation not just supply and demand and also through TV advertising that

paints this very profitable business in the most positive of terms I'm still

here and so is BP we're committed to the goal for everyone who loves it and

everyone who calls it home that's good for our country's energy security and our economy

which brings us to another set of Corporations the media companies

Jeff Cohn has been in the media and written books about its impact in shaping how Americans think about their

country and its system of power he says media companies push propaganda for war

it's the same exact media quoting the same exact experts that

pushed our country and the world into a war with Iraq and we were told by these

media oh we're so sorry we didn't know you know we made a mistake next time we'll be more Vigilant but here we are

next time ten years later and the same media are blowing smoke about a weapons

program in Iran that doesn't exist there was no weapons of mass destruction in

Iraq either and so we're hearing uh it's it's like you know when the war drums

are beating and I worked in mainstream television news in this country during the run-up to the Iraq War when the war

drums are beating they don't let you put on at Point opposing views we try to get

opposing views that question the evidence the intelligence that would

justify an attack on Iraq but we were kicked off the air and now you're

finding it's it's a nightmare it's a nightmare that's happening again at the same time you have most people who work

in major well buy this they feel like they do have the

freedom to cover issues and that the networks are much more diverse in their

point of view than Outsiders like you and maybe now me would say well the the

way to rebut that fiction is just to

look at what happened in the wake of the Iraq invasion those of us who question the evidence that if they were a weapons

of mass destruction threat we were totally right and most of us got kicked out of the TV networks the people who

got it wrong have promoted up so this idea of diversity in the mainstream

Media or good journalism will win out certainly hasn't been proven in the last

10 years where the the journalists who got it right have been punished sanctioned or kicked out of the media

and the journalists who got it wrong most of them have more power today to blow smoke in Iran than they had even

when and they were blowing smoke at Iraq those people the people who own

institutions are usually very conscious of their power not just as individuals but it's part of a dominant class says

independent TV producer Brian drulay so there's a lot of talk here about

Democrats and Republicans who revote for the Democrats we both the Republicans there's a lot of talk about you know the

rich versus the 99 percent but it's it's kind of you know the the there's a

certain kind of Amnesia about the structure of our society that at one

point in this country at least had some currency you know in the 30s and even in

the 60s you could talk about the working class nobody talks about the working class it's all about there's a middle

class and then there's the one percent as if there's no and I guess then there's some you know poor blacks and

Latinos or something right and I think that that word has been sanitized and

scrubbed out of the vocabulary of the people of the United States including out of the vocabulary of the left now

that's not the entire left but even the people that use the word class don't

seem to have the ability to to phrase it in a way that actually means something to people

to talk about classes not to talk about a conspiracy but a complex system that's

evolved over the years A system that is stratified and uses campaign contributions and lobbying to ensure

that the politicians do the bidding of the companies

so these are the building blocks of the analysis we'll explore in this series on

who rules America the argument is simple but hard for many

Americans to comprehend because many of us want to believe the myths we learned

in school that make us feel Superior to other countries and other peoples this

has been called American exceptionalism many in America believe that God created

this country as the greatest country on Earth and that's what makes it so special so you really have to start with

that as a basis for how the United States was founded Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz

is one leader of America's indigenous people the first Americans they were the

ones to be eliminated yes because it was their land that was wanted not even

their labor like in Latin America they indigenous people were enslaved and

haven't made it peasants but in North America the Anglo Anglo

colonialism and Australia had the motive of Simply

wiping them out and taking their land so that it's not just that they weren't included they were to be eliminated

and so questions about the custodians of real power and who rules America lead

back to debates on how to remake power how to challenge its distribution and

make it more transparent and accountable these are the issues that the Occupy

Wall Street movement is Raising as it challenges institutional power in an

attempt to revive Grassroots democracy David DeGraw explains occupies Origins

I mean it was there was lots of events you know everything

I was looking at around the world you know it was there's protests happening in Egypt and then it moved to you know

the Arab Spring Tunisia and all throughout Europe came back and it was

just a matter of time before it hit the United States and really if you look the the occupations globally you know they

became like the thing to do so it's just a natural progression for it to show up here I feel like it shows up here

because you know even though wealth is so concentrated you know the people have

a media system where they're so propagandized and they feel isolated but

you know occupy shows that people are you know not suffering alone they're coming out and

raising awareness and we changed the national discourse the movement is up against powerful forces with large

budgets and the backing of police forces and the political establishment

while these activists are on the front lines of the fight for a people ruled America many of its people share the

same hope you have a sense of class being important and it's kind of this country

that they're being like an upper class oh God working class absolutely absolutely

um do it you know I I'm I'm a waitress at a very

nice restaurant and it's very clear to me you know where what my role is and who I am you know

and you can tell just just from the dialogue that I have with people you know um

recently I had I talked to a general manager of a fairly large business in

our town and you know when when I mentioned that I

was going to a public school you know I got kind of an eye roll and oh yeah my

tax dollars pay for that you know and it's you feel like there's all this

resentment working people kind of feeling like they don't deserve what they're what little

they're getting absolutely absolutely and especially you know with with the

recent attacks on public sector employees like on on teachers and you know people are saying you know they

don't deserve those benefits we all don't get those benefits so so they don't deserve them either you know or

like why isn't the conversation maybe we should all work to get those for everyone instead of taking it away from

the few that do have them you know when I hear you talking

uh you know I realized it's a such a bigger picture here that most people

even understand that we have you know a country where

the dream is slipping away for so many people uh and they don't feel

particularly powerful they don't feel like they can do anything they can achieve anything they can make a

difference right well I think the dream is shifted to uh

hopefully I wake up tomorrow and I'll be able to pay my rent and keep a roof over my head you know or it's just like

you know I'll I'll work on achieving my dream tomorrow but today

you know I have to have to go to class you know and I have

to you know I have to get my work done I have to go to work and I have to try to squeeze a couple hours of sleep in and

then you know and it's now you're here at this conference with

all these brilliant theoreticians and analysts and professors and experts and leaders and

feel about this this idea that people have to get together to make a difference

I I'm I feel so blessed to be able to be here

with people like that because I want to learn you know somebody had you know had

said to me well why don't you leave where you are and I don't think that's the answer I think that it's my job

as somebody who cares about these things to learn from these people to learn from

these Brilliant Minds and so I can take this back to people and and and and and show them

and explain to them where we don't have access to this kind of thing every day

you know and so hopefully try to Enlighten them a little bit

Aaron expresses the hopes of many ordinary Americans who want to reshape the nature of power so that the 99 not

just the one percent can rule but as you can see in here it's not a battle she feels she is winning perhaps that's why

she like many want to know who rules America

foreign [Music]

coming up in the next episode of who rules America how the history of conflict between the 99 and the one

percent goes back to the American Revolution the degree of inequality never before

has the very very top the one percent had so much of the national income and

wealth in its own hands next time on who rules America

foreign the question of who rules America has

been debated throughout America's own history it was originally raised and answered to some degree by the American

Revolution in the 1770s that fought for independence from the British crown so

that Americans at least some Americans could rule themselves or at least they hoped they could

we're at Columbia University uh with Dr Eric foner a historian and writer and

teacher here at the University for a long basic period of time to own property I think what is unusual today

is two things one the degree of inequality never before has the very

very top the one percent had so much of the national income and wealth in its

own hands and uh you know so that the Gap is greater than ever before and

secondly um you know Occupy Wall Street is not primarily a movement of farmers of

laborers it doesn't have the same base people need to learn history that's part of our job to know that this issue has

been around for a long time there was nothing Un-American about raising the question of economic plutocracy economic

inequality it's as American as apple pie and um you know I think that the Occupy

Wall Street people are you know legitimate Heirs of a long and

venerable tradition in this country today the activists of Occupy Wall Street are continuing the fight for

independence and economic Justice from Domination by a small Elite in the name

of the majority the 99 of America I do think what's been brilliant about the

Occupy Wall Street movement is the framing of the one percent versus 99 and

I think I think I think what we basically have is an undemocratic power structure that goes

across political economic social and cultural lines what kind of impact has

Occupy Wall Street had in raising basic questions about the nature of power in

America we asked sociologists Stanley aranowitz attackers it has an impact on perception

it has changed the conversation the question is whether or not it will

be able to change policy and the argument that I would make is that it should not worry about changing policy

in the short run the only way to change policy in the long run is going to be to create even a bigger movement and in

order to create that bigger movement what it has to do is has to ask the question what kind of a life do we want

to lead what is the good life what is a vision of the way in which we want to live David DeGraw coined the 99 one

percent phrase and was an early occupy organizer he explained why who rules America

remains an urgent issue so you have big Banks and concentrated

wealth that's just rigged the political process uh you know investigating it we

have a country where U.S millionaire households have 46 trillion dollars of

wealth it's just a mind-boggling number so you know over the past Generation all

the wealth has gone to the top you know really it's one tenth of one percent more than one percent but uh you know

breaking it down even further you have 400 people who have as much wealth as 155 million Americans so that's 400

people have as much wealth as half the population the seeds of a battle that many of the

occupiers see as a new American Revolution is not really new but deeply

rooted in the unresolved history of conflict in the United States between those who own and control its resources

and those who want economic equality

the first thing you have to understand is America is a business venture like

still a land still stolen property capitalism and it's about making money

you know many revolutions start at the top in other words the people who began

the struggle against Great Britain were merchants in Boston and New York plantation owners in Virginia you know

most of the founders of Virginia are slave owners but what happens is as the struggle intensifies they have to

generate support among Ordinary People and when you do that you break open the

political system and you open the door for very very different kinds of Demands slaves start demanding their own Freedom

women and Native Americans start demanding greater equality so what

happens at the beginning when a you know a more privileged class begins the resistance that doesn't necessarily tell

you how the whole process is going to take place this conflict between the one percent

actually the 0.001 and the 99 percent had its Echoes here in the home of

America's anti-colonial Uprising in the back streets of Boston where a freedom

trail today commemorates a massacre by the British and a fight for liberty and

that's where we'll take you next [Music]

[Music] what's the American Revolution really a revolution the British thought it was a

revolution no question about that it was not a social upheaval in the way let us say the French Revolution was but it's

certainly overthrew an entire system of government it replaced the ruling class

with another one so that seems to be What A revolution is about and it raised these questions of equality in the

society not not just equality in terms of one percent and 99 but the role of slavery in American Life the status of

women in American life it Unleashed a kind of um uh struggle for equality

among all sorts of groups which continued long after the Revolution was over listen my children and you shall hear of

the midnight ride of Paul Revere that's one of the most famous poems of the American Revolution and here we are in

front of the Statue of Paul Revere the man who alerted all of Massachusetts to the British troops coming into their

communities we're on the Freedom Trail in Boston where the American Revolution

is remembered well what kind of a Revolution was it what actually happened here in Boston back in the 1700s what

have we learned since then thousands of tourists and students visit

these revolutionary monuments every day but most have only a foggy idea of what

really happened and tend to repeat the mythologies that are taught in their schools here was Paul Revere Paul Revere

was one of the great revolutionary Heroes so you kids here to see the

statue of Paul revereign can I ask you a question about it okay we're doing a little TV program here who was Paul

Revere what was this all about do you know yeah midnight ride to warned about the

British for coming did you know that he was a very rich businessman a silversmith here in Boston and that he

wanted to be in the Continental Army and they wouldn't let him in did you know that he didn't know that I know that did you know that in Boston there was this

Merchant class you know Business Leaders the one percent who were really running the whole show uh in many ways and that

the people were not as involved because back then it was slaves there were indentured servants uh there were a lot

of people who didn't have a say in what was going on did you know about that no idea I didn't know anything about Paul

revereign

my brother Bill here has taught history uh to students in Massachusetts for many

many many years and has followed you know the various debates about our history what was it about this

revolution uh you know was it a popular Uprising or was it sort of led by Elites

here in Boston well both were true there were popular elements uh Ordinary People

did resent the British Ordinary People did participate in riots and boycotts uh but there was a one

percent back then uh the leaders of the revolution both LED it and channeled it they were

certainly not above using words like Liberty and freedom uh to deflect and

distract people from their own discontents in the colonies and their own interests I mean the the business

class of Boston didn't want more taxes on their products they wanted to compete

with the British goods they felt they they shouldn't be taxed and as a result there was a team original tea party here

in Boston and there were uh you know Merchants like John Hancock who was into

smuggling goods and you're right they didn't want to pay British taxes I mean

there were other factors behind the revolution as well but when this Revolution was codified

in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention the people who were invited were the

large landowners the slave owners the merchant class no women no Indians no

blacks no working people actually there were slaves that were inspired by the revolution trying to get their freedom

some actually I think the idea of the Revolution and the idea of democracy uh

were Radical inspiring revolutionary in ways that that actually might have

made the leaders uncomfortable since some of them themselves owned slaves

they they really didn't want this to go viral in the way it it did around the

world so who ruled America then in a way their grandchildren are ruling it today

and sometimes direct descendance of those people so uh you know I mean there

was a certain amount of class Mobility indentured servitude disintegrated due

to the chaos of the Revolution but I don't think the people who led the revolution really intended a social

Revolution that was really not what they were thinking about you know after the revolution people

like Daniel Shays in Western Massachusetts a farmer a captain in the revolution uh did try to

inspire organize another Rebellion against those who he saw as replacing

his British Masters this time they were the colonial leaders

foreign

so here we are 225 years after the Shay's Rebellion

rocked Western Massachusetts in a challenge to the one percent of those

times we have a memorial for Daniel Shays and the men who fought with him

and what's interesting is we have American flags being put in a sense

almost at his Tombstone here marking support for the values and the

aspirations that he fought for foreign [Music]

you're at the stagecoach Tavern in Western Massachusetts town of Sheffield

and this painting is a painting of Daniel Shay's militiamen Daniel Shay's

fault in the revolution they came back from the Revolution and found their Farms being foreclosed and many

put in prison because of the same debt crisis that were

experiencing now there are many similarities but essentially one of the

promises of the Revolution was to annul the foreign debt and the farmers came

home and discovered the debt was even greater and the banks were even tougher

today the Shay's Rebellion is mostly forgotten but it lives on on YouTube

with songs and dramatic Recreations Shays now unsheathed his sword and

ordered the python drum players to strike up a tune the men began Marching In Cadence the irony says historian Eric

foner is that Shays was just a front man for a mass movement

in fact it was the opponents who said it's Jay's rebellion in order to find the kind of Boogeyman you know they

could attack so let's forget about Shay's as a person and think about the mass movement the

farmers the ordinary laborers who took to the streets shut down the courts and

said wait a minute we had a revolution we have installed a government that's supposed to represent the people here in

Massachusetts and yet it's talking you know it's the bankers and the landowners and the merchants who are getting the

benefit of everything it was the first Occupy Wall Street movement

they petitioned the government in Boston for a redress and the government ignored

the petitions and they're having still had their arms they went to these Court

sites and picketed to prevent the courts from sitting succeeded to some extent until private

militias were formed and the Massachusetts militias were formed to suppress it

it was suppressed right near here right last battle was fought in Sheffield it

was led by Brigadier Ashley who's the Ashley house is still here and Colonel

Ashley his parents were one of the heroes of the Revolution so here we have

the same family uh building Independence but then trying to

suppress it if many white Americans were disappointed by the achievements of the American Revolution what about blacks

and Native Americans in 1730 when Sheffield was incorporated

there were 30 black families in Sheffield half were slaves half were free but the famous story is again at

the Ashley House one of the servants Elizabeth Freeman called ma Betts

overheard all the talk about the Massachusetts Declaration of Independence at the dining table

and it occurred to her that may she might qualify and she actually filed in

the court of Great Barrington and won her Freedom so here you have the court giving freedom on one hand and

suppressing freedom on the other years later a small black community in

the area that Daniel Shea is made famous became the home of a young man who had

become a leader of the fight for civil rights he coupled concerns for racial

equality with demands for economic Justice today in the center of his

hometown of Great Barrington Massachusetts there's a warm mural celebrating his political and

intellectual contributions it includes quotes from president Barack Obama and

Martin Luther King Dr W.E.B Du Bois Du Bois was one of the Titan Giants of

the 20th century of course he's born in the 19th century Du Bois put forward the

issues which are still with us the race issue in America you know he said 1903 the problem of the 20th century is the

problem of the color line it's still a problem in this country and around the world Du Bois talked about economic

equality and how to gain that and he grappled with these questions he's a brilliant writer a brilliant thinker and

much of what he said is still relevant I think to thinking about American society

what about Native Americans they were the ones uh to be eliminated yes because

in Dunbar Ortiz as part of America's indigenous movements and says the people

we call Indians were being exterminated we asked her about the American

Revolution it wasn't a revolution it was a war of independence from you know the

colonial over the power but it wasn't an anti-colonial Revolution like the

bolivarian Revolutions in South America or the Haitian revolution so there are many different even

competing narratives about the origins of the United States the United States

of course was founded as a separate State as an imperialist power

and the democracy has always been an oligarchy

you know a capitalist democracy with a rhetoric above

populism which is so strongly based on race that is if you're not if you're not

black if you're not a slave you're not indigenous if you're white and a settler then everyone could be a

king everyone can own land and be a landlord so all these peasants who came

as settlers the dream is to be you know be the King of the Hill and uh so it's a

very um it's very Insidious kind of democracy

because it's a it's a an illusion illusion or not this is a subject that

needs to be examined if we are to understand who rules America the origins

of the one percent and then teach about it so this is all part of the history that

most Americans probably don't know did you find when you were teaching students here that many of them just didn't know

much about their own history I think there are many students that I

taught in one of the towns that fought at Concord who were never even in the spot

we're standing in now I think that that's true that that many kids were not

familiar with that history Beyond local battlefields the other thing about the Revolutionary War which

is relevant to today because we live in a globalized world is that this revolution started locally here in

Boston but soon the British were involved the Dutch the French it became

a war of many different countries all fighting on American soil well very true

and the the French intervention was was very critical to Our Success it wasn't

all through the force and Valor of our eyes uh there were other people involved but

I think the you know the idea itself has played a revolutionary role in history but the idea itself did not create a

deep social revolution in the United States and to this day people are distracted by

um words like Liberty and freedom and Justice uh in the same way that they

were back then ironically the original tea party which inspired the modern right-wing Tea Party

Movement today was actually a protest against an earlier form of corporate

imperialism why was T the issue not corn whiskey or something like that it was

because the East India Company had gone bankrupt in China and the crown the British crown bailed

them out so they wouldn't you know lose their lose their assets but then the crown

looked around said well what does the company have that we can sell well it turned out what they had was T so they

decided to market the T and that's why it was tea that was uh the tax issue

so here you have a big Financial failure and the the it was Global the the uh the

implications trip rippled across the Pacific rippled across the Atlantic and

we have the Boston Tea Party throughout our history there have been sort of conspiracy theories about all of

this I mean today for example both the right and the left seems to see the Federal Reserve Bank as sort of a a

conspiracy concocted in 1913 without any proper process and kind of running the

show yeah well you know conspiracy theories conspiracy thinking is deeply

embedded in our political culture my PhD supervisor my mentor Richard hofstetter

wrote the famous book in the 1960s the paranoid Style in American politics in

which he traced out various kinds of conspiratorial thinking whether it was Catholics or in the before the Civil War

trying to undermine America or uh you know various other groups at various

times immigrants others trying to you know destroy the American culture or the

trilateral commission remember them in the 1970s were supposedly ruling the whole world

now the Federal Reserve right if we only abolish the Federal Reserve Bank everything would go back to some Utopia

of the past throughout US History you see various right-wing movements point out

scapegoats in the society and they're usually the the folks who are already marginalized in some way or another and

and what happens is that there comes a moment when it becomes a really useful

for the elite Powers whether they're in government or corporations to encourage these movements so you get a tea party

or you get a militia movement like in the 90s or you get the Ku Klux Klan in the 1800s and what this is all about is

taking angry mostly white people who are mostly somewhat privileged and

convincing them that they're about to fall down the social economic ladder I guess the basic problem with conspiracy

theories is that no group can fully determine what

happens even people with great power launch things and then they kind of lose control of them and things happen in a

way that is unpredictable when you look back at history and and

you maybe can see because of you know it's a long time ago all of these forces yet today somehow in the news we never

see these forces what we see are politicians spouting various you know

rhetoric and speeches but we don't really know whose interests they're serving who's behind the scenes well

this is why we need research we need uh we need an understanding of who rules

America because the mythology today is that it is the people who rule America

and most folks don't know a great deal

in terms of specifics about the role that corporations play

um the way politicians are tied to corporate interests

change is possible I think when one talks about who rules America and a power elite one should not use that to

Simply fall into a kind of quietism and say well nothing is possible no change is possible everything's under control

many of the major popular movements in our history have been big surprises you know nobody expected them to come and I

think the same thing with Occupy Wall Street nobody expected Occupy Wall Street to come up simply simply out of

nowhere and so I think you know we have seen that over and over again in our history and we will continue to

people say the one percent and you know we are the 99 but you know when I broke down the

numbers it was really it is a couple hundred people in this country that have immense wealth if you look at the if you

look at our election process it's something like uh you know one hundredth or one percent accounts for something

like 80 percent of the campaign Finance I mean that's Insanity I mean it's

completely it's a rigged game and now the ball of History has been passed to a new generation fighting to

transform a large and complex country with many power centers but just as in

the past it has determined minorities who make the difference an elite made the American Revolution and as we will

see a power elite still rules [Music]

coming up in the next episode of who rules America how the military and the

corporations took over the people who rule America are

um a large corporate entities which are supernational they have no loyalty to

the nation state next time on who rules America

time for president I for president and for president I for president you like I

I like everybody when retired World War II General Dwight David Eisenhower ran

for president he was hailed as a military Savior and All-American hero

from The Plains of Kansas [Music]

now is the time for all good Americans to come to the aid of their country vote

for Eisenhower no one expected that in his farewell address he would identify and oppose the emergence of a new power

constellation the military industrial complex in the councils of government we

must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence whether sought or

unsought by the military-industrial complex the potential for the disastrous rise of

misplaced power exists and will persist we must never let the weight of this

combination endanger our liberties or Democratic processes this was a prophetic speech especially

for a military leader who saw that a fusion of government and corporate power could lead to what he called unwarranted

influence and misplaced power [Music]

50 years later on the warnings anniversary President Eisenhower's own granddaughter Susan documented how the

military industrial complex had grown she wrote in less than 10 years our

military and security expenditures have increased by a hundred and nineteen

percent this new book on the cloud of the military industrial complex by William

Hartung details the power it wields he told me how it works

military contractors uniform military the Pentagon basically pushing their

interest at the expense of taxpayer National Security in case some cases

their civil liberties is it a description of an actual reality

well the military industrial complex is probably more real now than it was when Eisenhower coined the phrase a company

like Lockheed Martin not only are they building missiles they're building cluster bombs they're building uh you

know submarines at the same time uh they're helping process your taxes they're counting the census they're

running fingerprint databases for the FBI so it's kind of morphed from just the military-industrial complex to sort

of the National Security State so you've got surveillance as well as Weapons building

Hartung says these companies in effect dictate our foreign policy they've sort

of captured our foreign policy and captured our military policy really for

special interest purposes to large degree writer David Swanson believes that this

military-industrial complex relies on Wars or the threat of Wars to stay in

business Eisenhower pushed War propaganda in the

very same speech and throughout his career but he could not have been more right I think he he probably did not

imagine how huge the problem of what he called the military-industrial complex would become it I describe it as a

banker bailout every year it is a trillion dollars over a trillion dollars every year into the Machinery of mass

murder it is over half of federal discretionary spending from the U.S government it is as much and more than

all other nations of the world put into the military each year it is much of it

unaccountable the the Pentagon routinely loses quantities of money that are as

much as most other governmental departments get

it's not just that more money is being spent on arms but the rise of the

military industrial complex has been accompanied by an overall rise in corporate power and not just in the

military sphere military contractors now have

disproportionate influence says Sheila krumholtz of the center for responsive politics

there is a huge sum of money coming from defense contractors in particular and

these range from a t and Boeing the largest multinational kind of Goliath their primary source of Revenue may be

telecommunications or or Transportation but they have huge contracts worth a ton

of money with the dod and and Military there have been a number of uh pieces of

legislation aimed at both making that connection more transparent and trying

to put a lid on the kind of pay to play uh method that has ruled for instance

earmarks have we seen a pattern of military and

Industrial occlusion and and Industrial you know companies that do business with the

Pentagon giving more and more money to politicians many defense contractors were making contributions spending lots

of money to the lobby and and in exchange winning uh contracts that maybe

they weren't the best organizations to uh to benefit from so

there has been a lot of research done about about how money uh greases the

skids for defense contractors I'll also say that the revolving door plays an important role so it's not just money

it's other forms of elite influence where people in in the Department of Defense are kind of lining up their next

their jump to the Private Industry where they can rake in uh huge sums of money

in lucrative posts from in a Private Industry that they used to regulate alongside the military are huge

intelligence agencies with vast budgets to spy run covert action operations

collect personal data and conceal how powerful interests operate today the

former head of CIA runs the Pentagon was replaced by a general the head of the

Navy Seals runs the Central Command secrecy is pervasive in a National

Security State even as groups like Wikileaks try to disseminate hidden

information Wikileaks your baby has um in the last

few years has released more classified documents than the rest of the world's media combined can that possibly be true

yeah can it possibly be true it's a worry isn't it that the rest of the world's media is doing such a bad job

that a little group of activists is able to release more of that type of

information than the rest of the world press combined years earlier an auto executive turned

defense secretary Charles Wilson said what's good for General Motors is good for America he saw no distinction

between an elected government and an unelected Corporation GM was a car company that became a major

defense supplier Boyd my military spending and then years later became a mortgage lender driven by Wall Street

originated and often fraudulent subprime loans until it nearly collapsed and had

to be bailed out by government the United States Supreme Court in its

citizens united decision has decided that corporations like GM have the

rights of ordinary people and can openly and sometimes secretly Lobby Congress

and the public or Finance political campaigns to promote their agendas

there are now many criticisms against citizens united many of the arguments

can be seen in this video by the story of stuff campaign we have a democracy in

crisis 85 percent of Americans feel that corporations have too much power in our

democracy and people have too little 85 percent hey that's a majority

so let's get together and take our democracy back from the corporations it's the first and most important step

in making real progress on all the issues that people care most about there is also a counter campaign

underway against corporate control of politics focusing on two billionaire

political donors Charles and Edward Koch two brothers both industrialists and

both funders of conservative campaigns including one to suppress voting by

democrats filmmaker Robert Greenwald has distributed this video Nationwide

folks like the Koch brothers are attempting to ensure that as few people of color and as few young people show up

as possible we live we've undergone included we live in a corporate state

Chris Hedges is a best-selling author and former reporter for the New York Times the people who rule America are

the large corporate entities which are supernational they have no loyalty to

the nation state they are harvesting the country just like they're harvesting the rest of the globe they're implanting a

global neofutalism where workers around the planet have to be competitive which means being competitive with Sweatshop

workers in Bangladesh who make 22 cents an hour or prison labor in China it's it's a global neofutalism

um it's one that is

unassailable completely Untouchable and more powerful than the host governments

that were there nominally based Hedges is not alone in this view Professor

Michael Claire specializes in studying the country's largest industry oil and

gas I would say that the oil industry or energy writ large coal natural gas

uranium is the most powerful Lobby in America the most powerful economic

interest and it's tied to other powerful interests automobile Highway construction

Suburbia many other Industries tourism are all linked to energy and they work

together to keep America addicted to oil and to avoid the transition to

alternative fuels do they have an influence on our politics do they have an influence on what happens in

Washington what happens in the ballot boxes of America they're the biggest contributors to electoral campaigns in

general to the especially to the Republican party and I think they have a

very powerful influence do you think most Americans know how powerful they are only the people who see this power

in their daily lives have grasped the the strength of it for many Americans

the military industrial complex is seen only as a source of jobs and in fact

military contractors win political support and federal funds by promising

to create jobs there are real jobs people working in the weapons factories and all the

subsidiary subcontractors but it's a fraud because you could take those same dollars and put it into any other

industry into infrastructure green energy education or even into tax cuts for working people and produce more jobs

than you do with the military spending so it's worse than nothing purely on the economic terms for years there have been

protests against America's Wars and the military but most of targeted politicians not necessarily the

corporations who profit for making weapons and other products for the military

one of the groups that's most visible and challenging militarism is a woman's

group code pink media Benjamin is a co-founder I've learned that we don't

rule America I've learned that the Democrats

don't rule America us the corporations rule America I've been doing the work on

the wars and I've just been floored of how powerful these weapons manufacturers

are and how powerful the contractors are and that they have the ability to kind

of keep the words going I mean that's that's pretty amazing when you think about it like I'm just doing a lot of

work around the drones issue do you know there's a drones caucus in Congress I mean instead of having a caucus to feed

preschool children you know they decided it was more important to have a drone caucus and that's because all the

manufacturers in their districts are funding them they are quite open about

it and in fact over 50 members of Congress have created a caucus for drones a call where they openly promote

the use and sale of drones at home and abroad and then they've now authorized the the flight of at least third of up

to 30 000 drones in U.S skies for whatever purpose this is in contrast to

the lack of any caucus for senior citizens for children for health coverage for green energy for for human

beings there's a caucus for robots Eisenhower was so right and he was so

right when he said that it steals money it robs us of food for our children of

health care for our parents who is so right and it's just worse and worse and you get the little puppets in Congress

and I live in Washington now so I see these little puppets and wish that they were like the NASCAR drivers that had to

have their corporations on their suits but they don't rule America the

corporations obviously rule America and when it comes to War and Peace those

corporations are so powerful that they've kept us for the last decade anymore and if we don't do something

about it they'll keep us at War for the next beyond the debates about the role of the

military there may be a deeper challenge because the United States has evolved from a nation into an Empire with a

far-flung system of bases economic interests and intertangled business dealings all around the world

top political leaders interact with corporate leaders at meetings of Elites like the Bilderberg conference the

trilateral commission and the international monetary fund meetings it's all part of a global structure of

corporate culture politics and Power some like the billionaire George Soros

told me a while back that the world economic forum is more like a networking party than a decision-making venue

decisions are often made behind the scenes not at public events

the divorce meeting is a enormous

sort of cocktail party a lot of contacts people meet and so on

a lot of things are discussed it's actually very convenient because you can

meet a lot of people whom you want to meet in in a con confined period of time

it is also a media event is it also a symbol of the growth of sort of economic

power of over political power lack of sovereign loss of sovereignty by some countries

well it is actually symptomatic of the age because you have

presidents and prime ministers courting the the the

financiers and the industrialists only a few Americans seem to understand

how corporatization and globalization go hand in hand Walter Teague was one of

the first activists against the Vietnam War he believes that Americans can't see

the facts because they're trapped in myths I asked them how he would explain the situation to people on Mars

I'd have to explain some very crazy things to them I'd have to explain it in

terms that they would perhaps understand I'd have to not use some of the terms

that Americans commonly use because if you use the language that we're

taught in school about democracy free uh Free Will

um you know all of the how the United States is number one Uber Alice right all those terms lead the person to not

being capable of understanding what you're saying which is that there are really and have been for a long time a

very small percentage one percent or something like that really make most of the decisions but they are smart enough

to make them in a way that keeps most Americans until recently from realizing

that they're being ruled we cannot undo the plutocracy the kleptocracy the lack

of representation without dismantling the military-industrial complex this is

the one percent of the one percent this is where we give a banker bailout every year and we don't get a dime of it back

we borrow it from China we pay it back within keep interest rates ridiculously low we crash Wall Street we bail it out

because we've created a war economy without any need for war well I think if

people had a better sense of how these companies how the uniformed military how

their allies and Congress are basically running the show scaring us into spending on weapons we don't need I

think they'd have the beginnings of a tool to do something about it but I think absent that information there's

sort of nowhere to start there's nowhere to sort of plant your feet and try to fight back against it so I'd have to

tell the Martians it's going to be very hard for you to under understand why Americans don't see how they're

being screwed they don't see it except when it gets so bad or so contradictory

or so blatant or so personal and then they wake up one day and say oh my God

does this mean in a way that business that Wall Street that defends

contractors than others have disproportionate power in other words are they kind of one of the forces

ruling our country that most people don't even know about I think that the money has great

influence across the board particularly where the issues are Arcane and they

seem disassociated with the average Americans where constituents aren't paying attention and they're not being heard by

their representatives in Washington I think where people are paying attention where it becomes a there is a hue and

cry from regular people it's hard for the money to to beat out the marathon

policy politicians usually will not risk the political liability of being seen as

catering to their the interest bankrolling their campaign if the voters

are paying attention they're usually not that that unwise most of the public doesn't interface

with the military-industrial complex because they participate in the economy as consumers

but even there they're being affected by a power shift an economic inequality

that drives them deeper and deeper into debt George Scribner is an executive

with a corporation that advises other corporations today it takes two hundred

thousand dollars a year to feel somewhat affluent I asked George Scribner how he

thinks growing inequality is affecting our politics who's in charge of our country we keep reading more and more

about big money in politics there was a great article of the one percent by the

one percent for the one percent and I think it might have been Vanity Fair but

I'm not positive right now but they made a point that I in politics that I've

been making in terms of business is that for you know since World War II it was

head count that made a difference one person one vote so you go you play to the to the vote you know one person one

dollar you played to as many people as you could to get the dollars now because the assets are concentrated at the high

end in the hands of the few actually money is much more valuable both the politicians and to marketers than the

mass of people that comprise the middle class so it was the mass of people being left out now the massive Americans they

certainly they aren't being left out but they're certainly less important

so I think in a variety of ways you'll see them being less catered to and manipulated more in a sense

and in politics and in terms of marketing there'll be fewer products and

fewer Services that's one view from inside the corporate world essentially

saying that the majority of Americans have less economic power and as a result less political power

people with money rule America because people with money can acquire power

through that but we all have the great thing about America is all we we all

live within the myth that each one of us can make a difference and I think there

are enough opportunities for that to happen that makes me think that the

future will be won't be as Bleak as it seems sometimes let's hope so certainly most Americans

believe their future is bright but given the trends we've explored about who's in power there certainly are doubts

especially because of the danger and threat of new Wars that are being planned secretly according to Professor

Stanley aronowitz w war against Iran there as a matter of

fact unless you refuse to count um embargoes

things like that are going on at this very moment that is to say in March of 2012. that's inactive that is virtually

an act of war that we are saying to the Iranians either you bow to our demand

that you do not develop nuclear weapons and you renounce nuclear weapons or otherwise we will continue to to Bar

your goods from going back and forth I mean after all the market is part of the the system so they're saying you have no

Market rights so there is a war underway right now I think so but most Americans don't really know it do they that's

right they really know about this power elite do they really know about what she Wright Mills talked about so many years

ago why is that and how can that change of course we don't have a left that really continually in an effective way

talks about who has power in America we have the Occupy Movement talked about 99

being deprived of uh economic uh Power and about inequality but it is not even

close to being an analysis that can be uh disseminated throughout the entire

Society we don't have it we don't have a daily news system of daily newspapers we don't have a weekly newspaper we have

Twitter we have you know various other kinds of social media that we have access to but it does not replace the

kind of systematic analysis that could take place as a result of having our own media so Americans in a way are still in

the dark and I think you know the left forum and so many other efforts are attempts to challenge that to change

that well yes that's right even as President Eisenhower exposed the

military-industrial complex he also expressed a very American deeply felt

desire for peace and Justice that history has largely forgotten from the earth and that in the goodness of time

All Peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed

by The Binding force of mutual respect and love

[Music] thank you

thank you coming up in the next episode of who

rules America the power of the media Ambassador last thing so if you're

looking at who rules America or who owns America it's the same people that

propagandize to America next time on who rules America

foreign

[Music]

from the earliest days freedom of the press was what defined America Thomas

Jefferson helped write the Declaration of Independence believed a free media

was essential for a free Nation saying where it left to me to decide whether we

should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government I should not hesitate a

moment to prefer the latter that was in

1787. today our newspapers seem to be fading in importance in a multimedia

world that is largely owned and controlled by a handful of large media

corporations I think we're probably the most media dominated Society in the

world Jeff Cohn worked in major media now he's one of the industries fiercest critics

half a dozen corporations own and control most of the mainstream

media in our country so if you're looking at who rules America or who owns

America it's the same people that propagandize to America the press and

the outlets that report news or convey information are just a small slice of

vast media Empires producing entertainment products that also sell a

way of life based on consumption when you look at who's on the boards of

media corporations they're also on the boards of U.S oil companies and they're

on the boards of U.S military contractors so trying to study who owns

America you're really also these are the people that own the media we don't have

a state media but in some ways it's very much like a state media it's the

corporate state if this is true and we can say that the American Media doesn't

just report news as we'll see it's not independent of the system but a pillar

of it it reinforces the world view and defends the interests of those who rule

America [Music]

foreign [Music]

years ago 50 companies dominated American Media now it's down to six here

are some charts on media ownership that illustrate this concentration

with new Global digital Enterprises like Google Facebook and Twitter growing in

importance worldwide us-based media became a transnational

Force so U.S media companies are themselves owned in large part by hedge funds

mutual funds and finance companies Barry James Dyke is an asset manager who has

studied media ownership the research which I've done is it's unequivocal and I kind of stumbled into this is that the

the media companies the major media companies I.E the Disney's The cbs's the news corporations

all of them this is all public documents is that they're all owned actually owned by mutual fund companies the majority

shareholders are owned by mutual fund companies so um and also they also get a lot of their

revenue from these companies so you're never going to see any consistent criticism about these fun companies are these companies investigated by the

media no they're not are they responsible to the public in some way

are they accountable to the public really know what they're doing the public really doesn't have a clue

they really don't know what they're doing he has documented his findings with charts in his own book The Pirates

of Manhattan

well people are not going to be not getting the truth but there is a lot of coverage

especially of politics that's often treated as a sporting event with an emphasis on poll numbers and election

results Mary Boyle follows media coverage of Elections for common cause

what about the role of the media is the media helping to strengthen our democracy or do you think it's helping

to divide us well I I think that's a great question I I think that

um you know there are a couple of things going on there obviously you've got kind of cable channels that are you know in

different camps and they are not showing different points of view you've got Fox News showing the right you've got MSNBC

showing the left and so with a setup like that you you have Americans that are just kind of

tuning in to the channel they want to listen to that you know kind of expresses their views and and you're not

seeing kind of a mix of an opinion a debate anything like that you've also got you know the shrinkage of of the

media you've got less coverage of of what's going on and I think this is

particularly concerning more around kind of state based and local politics where

there's even less less coverage of of what's going on in politics but even as the world is known for its

diversity American media is not editorially and ideologically the power

elite tends to reflect the views of the government and the people who shape its views dissenting politicians like

Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr have a hard time getting their views heard who owns

the media how the media has translated some of the Moguls and the titans of media and

Industry are part of the problem they shape a narrative for the American people

a narrative that ultimately leads millions of people to vote for candidates based upon the narrative that

they shape based upon the talking heads that they control and those Americans

tend to vote and tend to engage the system on the basis of that which they hear media is a significant part of this

problem historian Eric foner agrees he says it's not just political bias at work but what

the media as a business feels it's forced to focus on to attract ratings

and revenues somehow that idea of of power uh behind

the people in office is not really in our media very much it's not really in

people's minds very much they personalize politics their personalities combating each other but they don't look

at who's behind the scene well you're quite right that the media focuses on

personalities you know and and and often the quirks of Personality Clinton's uh

sexual escapades or whether Obama was born in the United States or not or Romney and his uh cars and whatever you

know is not paying taxes and many other things those are not totally unimportant issues but maybe it's the nature of the

media today in and of itself in that it it you know it has to go for the quick

news deep investigative reporting is not emphasized as much as perhaps it was in

the past and um you know you got to sell papers and Scandal sales papers

um personality sales papers celebrity sales papers so uh you're right that the

you know the the larger nature of how the system operates tends not to get emphasized as much it's not even

understood by many people well it's hard to understand this is a very large country over 300 million people a very

very complicated economy and political system so it's it's difficult to understand exactly how things operate

but I think but but I think you know in a certain sense the anti-government sentiment

which is Rife in this country which is generally associated with the right wing is also a response to the feeling

it's an incoate feeling it's not an analytical feeling but it's a feeling that government is aloof it is not

responsive it does not really represent the people it represents some very particular interests and that sense is

pretty widespread in this country Media Watch groups are also concerned about the lack of diversity within the

media that makes it unrepresentative of the country it serves in racial ethnic

and gender terms the unwritten Credo of the New York

Times is do not uh alienate those for whom we depend uh on for money and

access Chris Hedges was an award-winning journalist for the New York Times an American Media star

and that means the power elite and the financiers who advertise uh so uh but

but it's it's expandable I mean you have you have at least in the positions that

I was in the possibility uh to do journalism not that there

aren't you know restrictions or constrictions there are um and not that they can't be punishing

hedge's work is still very respected but he believes that much of the press is ultimately a charade that covers up for

power more than covers it especially when reporting on elections

because the political theater I mean the personal narrative of the candidate it's all irrelevant it's meaningless uh and

and people we you know we still play the game look every uh totalitarian country

I covered had elections they all play the charade I mean even East Germany did uh and uh and that's the charade we play

and when we have a compliant corporate media that pretends that that charade is real

um so I think uh the problem is that the illusion Still Remains so powerful but

people are changing but the illusion is still so powerful that people confuse where power actually exists

how does the New York Times cover the power centers that many people say rule

America Chris Spanos edits the New York Times examiner that monitors the

newspaper's content every day he believes the paper has become an accomplice to the power elite

the New York Times as an institution is almost like a mini nation and in the in

the correspondence the the op-ed writers the editors they're almost like diplomats and how they they they carry

themselves and their own self-importance in a way that they communicate with other politicians and diplomats and they

are very influential could you say that they're a disseminator of ideology in America not just of information

absolutely they're they're they disseminate a very particular ideology and that their readership is primarily

managers um and and people who make around over ninety thousand dollars a year and and

so they cater to a managerial perspective and and so they they have a Pro Management when they're discussing

labor relations they often have a Pro Management view a pro-business view

Financial journalists like Stacy Herbert and Max Kaiser found that many pro-business views in some media Outlets

were often uninformed as they told me on a radio show from December 2008 so well after the

collapse of bear Stearns Lehman Brothers the Marcus tumbling a thousand points in

a day and the head of BBC World News business said

and we had a 10 episode contract do you think the financial crisis will last all

the way through these 10 episodes so in other words the people actually in

charge of planning the coverage are are very uninformed themselves well the mainstream media are themselves deeply

in debt you know the the news organizations have become entertainified and and to compete they take on enormous

amounts of debt so the bankers they don't want to uh to to to insult their creditors uh because they might cut off

their lines of credit so they don't have they're not unbiased in this Regard in

any stretch of the imagination you see this most spectacularly with the New York Times They they're their coverage

of the Wall Street is is pitiful it's my world one reason the Press is so

pro-business is that they are themselves businesses the people who run media

companies increasingly pay themselves huge salaries and bonuses the same way

that Bankers do says Barry Dyke they're less moonves I couldn't believe he made

59 million in 2009 and he racked up it was just as close the other day that he

made close to 70 million in uh 2010 and that's the head of CBS that's the head

of CBS but you're saying that all of them are are really running their businesses as if they were Banks I mean

that's pretty good that's Banker pay I mean 70 million dollars a lot of money in anyone's book and that's what they're getting paid

so the the media companies are really part of this whole system of who rules

America they're they're part of these interconnecting interlocking relationships with financial

institutions there's no question but there's no question about you get the the meeting companies which are huge it's part of the Empire get the media

companies you get the bankers of course you have the your massive you know uh

unions okay you have uh other factors as well but those the

media is definitely part of it and the asset managers that's exactly it the corporations that own the U.S media and

own U.S television are very wealthy and very powerful and the people at the top

of the news networks get paid an awful lot of money I have never earned

anything close to the amount of money I earned in the one year I worked where General Electric was my boss at MSNBC so

what I think happens is a self-censorship where the people who rise to the top have learned how not to

rock any boats and they know if they do rock boats they will lose their huge salaries

newspapers like the New York Times The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal tend to frame a deeper narrative

that tells us what we should believe matters they set the agenda that influences what

TV news programs also cover for example they don't focus on inequality and class

differences as Independent Media executive Brian Drew lay if they don't talk about the working

class and part of it is it's like the the idea that you know they promote this idea that you know if you buy a lottery

ticket you could win right so you're already thinking that maybe you could win so if you're in the if you're in the

working class or you're part of the working class that's unemployed you still have this hope that somehow you're

going to go into the middle class there's been very little attention paid to class I mean you were saying that the

media really doesn't discuss this they don't really uh highlight class differences in America they're much more

comfortable talking about racial differences or ethnic differences at the same time in their business practices

they're very conscious of demographics what class are they attracting upper

class how to cater their advertising how to sell it no they go I mean you know

the internet is a perfect example the only thing where they're constantly slicing and dicing who you are so they

know exactly how much you make so they can pitch what kind of products to you but that's that's this whole sort of

Madness of the consumer Society that's been created by modern capitalism but

the the key thing I think that you're getting at is is that even though there is a reality of Class A working class in

this country and a ruling class or a Boudoir class people have been trained

not to think in those terms so they don't even know who they are

some networks like Fox News owned by Rupert Murdoch seem to be more

comfortable presenting a right-wing political line they have helped shift many media Outlets to the right there is

a school of thought that says we should have given the citizens of Baghdad 48 hours to get out of Dodge and flatten

the place then it would be already over and we could have done that in two days that may be so but old media is being

eclipsed by the new says George Scribner the vice president of digitas a company

that comes up with digital strategies for big companies and studies how affluent consumers now Drive Marketing

in an era of growing economic inequality the one thing that's different now is

that the media is owned by everyone you know there's there the only the thing that's kind of leveling off the

dollars to some extent is that everyone has access to Twitter everyone has

access to blogging and there's this new kind of fast and fluid Coalition

building like Occupy Wall Street what street was one example of that of the Arab Spring wasn't an example of that so

in some ways kind of the the there's the check there's a new check and balance I don't think that's necessarily changing

the restructuring of income and wealth but I do think there's another trip switch that that might help us when

things get too bad so the digital media in a way is where democracy exists today

it's not in politics it's not in big business it's not in big money that's true I think that's well said

there is some debate on how free the internet really is given corporate control and government censorship but it

does make possible more interactivity at the same time media attention still tends to revolve around the political

Elite with authority even if that elite doesn't necessarily have the power to

shape priorities or impose policies but when you talk to ordinary Americans

many of them feel it's totally fair they're seeing different points of view they're seeing people who are critical

from time to time they're you know they see the media as the liberal media in some instances I was in the Soviet Union

and it was we were always raised in this country that that's pure propaganda and frankly it was very ineffective

propaganda because they never pretended to have two points of view they would have some one point of view saying how

great things are but in our country propaganda is really effective because

they have the appearance of debates the United States of America will not permit

the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us Jeff Cohn says that just as

Americans were misled about Iraq before the war they are being misled today about Iran he pointed to a study about

Iraq before the American Invasion that found that of some 393 people who were

interviewed on all the networks only three were anti-war because almost everything we knew about

Iraq before The Invasion turned out to be false and almost everything we're learning today about Iran

is uh not accurate and we you know we went to the New York Times a couple months ago where they said that the

international atomic energy Association has put out an assessment that the

nuclear program in Iran has a military objective an affair this media criticism

group went to the times and said which report is that we've never heard of it the times knew they'd made a big error

it was a prominent error They removed the sentence from their website but they

refused to correct the error it's not just Wars that get propagandized media

does not often cover the people behind the scenes who run things says William Hartung who has written about the

military industrial complex you would think there would be some Independence

in the journalism on this issue but in some cases reporters have even said to me well you know I can't go after the

Pentagon harder or the company's harder or this Nexus of influence harder because this company is a big Advertiser

in the paper and we'll get pressure you know if we do those kinds of stories so we'll do stories about the more in

Afghanistan we'll repeat what the president has to say on an issue but there's not really a lot of interest or

resources put into investigating these kinds of connections David Swanson who also writes about military policy agrees

well the corporate media in the United States is integrated with the military-industrial complex some of the

same corporations are making profits from both there are two major political

parties that don't have much disagreement on this topic so it's not a topic for debate no matter if ninety

percent of the public is upset about it it's not acceptable news Michael Claire who's investigated the

destructive power of oil and gas companies says the same is true when it comes to that industry the media doesn't

cover this for the most part in fact the media is largely in League because of

the advertising dollars that the oil and gas Lobby provides they're very heavily

dependent on Advertising Revenue so they're very careful in what they say

big business a wealthy and frequent Advertiser in the media is often not

scrutinized by the media that was the case in the financial crisis as Sheila

krumholz of the center for responsive politics so these are complicated issues the

issues are are difficult to understand on a good day and they seem again very Arcane and and unimportant to the

average American so it's possible that that some media were uh

laboring away trying to explain why this was critical information that the voters need I think a lot of blame though can

be laid at the at the feet of the media for the financial collapse ultimately what we do know is that it's critical if

if there if there's any uh perfect scenario that shows why transparency and

paying attention and scrutinizing the the powerful players and what they want and what they're doing to get get their

way the financial crisis is is that perfect example it shows us how important

transparency is because significant wealth demands significant attention

together we can give you and your wealth the wings to soar

[Applause] Goldman Sachs Wealth Management [Music]

at the same time media has become so pervasive online and off on TV and on

our mobile phones that many Americans say they are becoming victims of information overload the more they watch

the less they know [Music] sure information overload is I think a a

a serious threat to democracy because it

doesn't work if people aren't Vigilant nobody's going to hold

members of Congress accountable for you you have to take you have to make sure

that you're heard I think there's also the the sense that because there is this tension and some

would say healthy tension between uh concern about protecting the

process democracy and government from monies undue influence versus protecting

freedom of speech and privacy nobody wants to censor information we want our

representatives to have all the information even if it's coming from Deep pocketed corporations unions or

trade associations very narrow interest just want to make sure that they are doing their job to seek alternative

perspectives even if they're coming from groups that have no power and have no money

media criticism tends to revolve around what's being covered and not covered and

not on the way media narratives shape how we think and what we think about that's the power of media and why it is

now among the forces ruling America

foreign coming up in the next episode of who

rules America money now controls politics and you look at our system as so broken

nobody in their right mind would try to copy our system if they wanted a real democracy

next time on who rules America

[Applause]

hello Chicago every school child learns power in Washington is formally divided

three ways between the executive branch in the white house now occupied by

Barack Obama in the judicial branch topped by the Supreme Court with nine

judges all political appointees and the legislative branch where the

Senate has a hundred members with two from every state and the House of Representatives

435 drawn from districts across America this is the formal system of checks and

balances that is supposed to keep the country on the stable course of democracy

and yet wherever you go in this capital of America and meet the people who are the most informed about how the

government really works you hear that the system isn't working and that the voters are not in charge

you hear it from a member of Congress who controls America

an elite group of people who function in a stratosphere

globally and Beyond the Constitution beyond the reach of government they have

enormous resources you hear it from an expert on our elections our politics are being

hijacked they're being hijacked by anyone by people who are willing to spend millions of dollars to you know

elect or defeat certain candidates you hear it from the head of a public interest group we have a plutocracy we

have a corporate plutocracy and the rules in Washington are written by the corporate lobbyists working on behalf of

the biggest corporate interests in the country and you hear about lobbyists from a veteran former Congressional

staffer who would only talk to us if his face and voice were altered

99 of the people that I see lobbying Congress are white men and women who you

can tell are where very nice expensive suit and ties and dresses

and they are going into the Republican offices I rarely see African Americans here I

rarely see Hispanics I rarely see Asians I rarely see Muslims

um it's like you see these very well-dressed guys who just came off from

their Jets and you can tell they're right out of the country club and they're going to the Republican

offices asking for a tax cut of some kind these are not just opinions this

well-researched book by William domhoff details how the government today is being run by powerful Elite forces

outside the government as we will see his conclusions are supported by experienced insiders here

in Washington D.C all of these insiders say that money and special interests are

now in control they too ask who rules America

[Music] foreign [Music]

in Washington we spoke with leaders of three respected Watchdog organizations that specialize in researching and

analyzing hidden forces operating behind the scenes

public citizen focuses on corruption and accountability issues Robert Weissman is

their president and described how laws get passed how does a piece of legislation emerge

how does it become law how does it get implemented and how does it get enforced at every step of the way you really have

sort of corporations in whatever industry dominating the process why don't congressmen the people we elect

challenge this system well they are products of the system and so they've

got an inherent bias a favorite look they've succeeded in the system one way or another and those who challenge it

are going to have to fight really entrenched power so of course there are many of them who are very good and who

do challenge the system but by and large people got to Washington because they figured out how to make the system work

for them even if they came in as insiders most of them were quickly educated on the ways that things that

really do work in Washington if they hope to get things done or get reelected and basic come to the corporate

interests where does the money come from the top 100 donors have given 77 percent

of the money going to Super Pacs that means one percent of the donors are

giving 64 percent of the money this is a tiny Elite that can afford to make the

contributions uh that are going to be most influential in this election cycle

this website opensecrets.org documents where all the money in politics originate Sheila

krumholz oversees it as the executive director of the center for responsive politics I think many of the people who

are concerned about money's role in in Washington and how it greases the skids

for for uh private narrow interests to kind of Rule

the Day believe that the money is that the members of Congress and policy

makers control the levers of power but that the donors

the kind of patrons of these people are operating the strings the politicians

are kind of the visible locus of power but the but the people behind them really are calling the shots how do we

find out who those people are well we have millions upon millions of

records of donations to Federal candidates political action committees

including leadership Pacs which are their kind of slush funds that they control and the parties we also can see

money going directly to the super Pacs these are the uh political action

committees which are supposedly are only giving contributions uh to groups that

are spending money to run independent expenditures independent of the campaigns and parties the problem is of

course that there's this Secret pot of cash being collected by groups

that do not disclose where the money's coming from and they are running advertising political ads which are

often quite damning and nasty and not sometimes irresponsible but are highly

influential and we have no idea where their money is coming from

she showed us what their data shows a small minority controlling the process

with very few millionaires funding all politics there are 610 registered super Pacs 190

of 95 of them are ponying up the money for the ad so far but this chart really

demonstrates what a dramatic increase we've seen in uh spending on Advertising

by these groups so in 200 2012 uh we're

seeing over 100 million spent that's a hundred percent increase over the amount spent in 2008 and a 400 increase over

last cycle this is a who's who of who's lobbying in

Washington between 1998 and 2012 the U.S Chamber of Commerce spent

831 million dollars the American Medical Association

269 Million Dollars General Electric 268 million dollars

the pharmaceutical research and manufacturers of America admit to

219 million plus for lobbying and there are many many more

2012 could be a turning point in American politics because of all the big money that's literally being invested

Mary Boyle is the vice president of common cause and who is ruling America you certainly

have to look at the people who are giving the most money to political campaigns they are highly influential

people who give a lot of money to political campaigns millions of of dollars you know want something for

return they tend to be really Savvy business people who have made a lot of money because uh you know they know what

they do they're doing and they don't make investments without wanting an investment on their return

it's unfortunate but obviously it buys media time

um it also buys a constant uh male efforts and also obviously you support

uh candidates who will ultimately come to the United States Congress who may vote your way

the largest contributors to political campaigns in America are the financial institutions the second largest

contributors are large real estate developers that means that if you're running for office you have to get

elected by promising to support policies that are supported by the real estate sector and by the financial sector that

lends to the real estate sector and doesn't this really kind of put the Democracy under threat yeah I mean

corporations are free now due to Citizens United and a couple of other

um Court rulings to give more money than they have ever been allowed to be before and that is certainly a threat to our

democracy because what it does is it drowns out the voices of Regular People it's uh you know discouraging in one

sense and that you know the election of 2008 showed a tremendous number of

people who want change and yet there seems to be at every turn change is being resisted by minorities that are

very skillful at undermining change certainly 2008 was the you know change

election and we have been disappointed there there has not been more change

coming from the White House at WWE now that President Obama is running for

reelection he too is spending most of his time raising money two billion dollars for political campaigns that's

why Robert Weissman says this Scandal involves both parties yeah it's a bipartisan problem for sure

the uh the 2 billion is just the presidential race the over the overall national race will probably be around 8

billion Obama is an extremely talented fundraiser so he's going to be able to

raise big money the massive chunks of outside Super Rich money and corporate

money though look like they're going to go overwhelmingly on to the Republicans it is so expensive to run for office

whether it's a presidency or the state legislature that you just have to go out

and start raising money from people who want something in return to run for office

the money in politics just doesn't Finance candidates it pays for lobbying in 2011 there were 12

654 lobbyists spending 3.32 billion dollars on influencing politicians

agencies and regulators I

need us and we met in the cafeteria and we looked all around said all these people are lobbying Congress and they

think they're going to have some influence but the influence doesn't happen here there's a special place in

the capital that special people go to that we can't go to and that's where the people who have money go to do the

lobbying and they also have their special parties where they pay a lot of money to have a face-to-face with their

Congress person that's where things get done the scholar Francis Fox Piven says

that's because of another problem not all Americans can or do vote

uh Zurich developed very twisted and very distorted system of electoral

representation uh it is distorted not only by Big Money although that's

certainly very very important because of the advertising and the campaigning that it makes possible a lot of people do not

in fact have the franchise and even those who vote are not represented

fairly people in a smaller states have more representation and so forth so this

helps explain why small but well-funded groups like The pro-israel Lobby or

pro-military Lobby can have so much impact Joanne Landy has examined who

makes foreign policy it's an informal network

of the people who rule America even though they don't go around wearing signs saying We Rule America that's who

makes the positive whether it's with politicians or whether it's with think tanks or with the military or you know I

mean it's they're all interconnected Landy says these lobbies are more united than divided another disagreements among

them but their disagreements about methods not goals you know so some

people think you should get rid of some nuclear weapons other people think you should hold on to the law but the

differences are really they cover the gamut from A to B as they used to say the sort of day by day run-of-the-mill

reality is that those who have high

positions in politics and strong connections with monied interests and

the moneyed interests themselves run the country we are now on the way to the Congress

which now enjoys less than a 10 approval rating from the public you know how you

know Congress personnel and we have a little pin here but they never carry anything it's always an assistant who's carrying something and all they get is

people who are fawning over them and you know so they're in their bubble and they

don't recognize I think that the country is so cynical about them the congressmen

are cynical too I literally ran into representative John Conyers in a dark

hallway he's the longest serving member he complains that they are being deluged

by lobbyists are you seeing a lot of Wall Street people donating to Congress

trying to stop the reforms I don't you don't see that but you know what's going

on they haven't stopped Congress wanted to reform Financial you

know the financial laws and it seems like they're being stopped at the regulatory level by all

these donations from members of Congress I mean from Big Banks and Wall Street

well it will show up it shows up on the court at least uh but I I have no reason

to believe that there's been any cessation of reduction and so you get

the same results stagnation JPMorgan Chase has shocked the markets by

revealing a trading loss of over two billion dollars two weeks later it was reported that the huge Bank JP Morgan

Chase lost 2 billion dollars gambling on exotic derivative products in what they

called a synthetic credit portfolio if Jamie Diamond makes this mistake because we know he's good what the hell is going

on at Citigroup and a Bank of America thanks for the mistakes by JP Morgan which is the biggest U.S Bank in terms

of assets rippled through the financial world for many it brings back memories of 2008 when big Banks risky bets

threatened to collapse the financial system who was later reported that the bank's lobbyists had fought against the

new rule that if passed would have prevented this giant loss the internet buzzed with the bad news

because this is the derivatives Market this is very important could pan out to

be nothing largest U.S Bank you know best buddies with the FED

um and of course this is a whole lot of debt but none of the commentary I saw

discussed the lobbying by JP Morgan Chase you see Banks time and time again

getting into problems slipping up and you've got America's biggest bank JP

Morgan doing exactly that and frankly um the banks are Their Own Worst Enemy

we know we were sloppy we know we were stupid we know there was bad judgment we don't know if any of that's true yet of

course Regulators should look at something like this that's their job so you know we are totally open component regulators and they will come through on

conclusions but we intend to fix it learn from it and be a better company when it's done one of the amazing

lessons I think of everything that led up to the crash is they can't control themselves even to the extent that they

will destroy their own industry even at the extent they will destroy their own companies the short-term profit motive

seeps in in so many pores of individuals and divisions and offices and whole

companies they will destroy themselves so we definitely can't trust them to figure out how to control themselves

public citizen later played a role outlawing insider trading by members of

Congress on information they obtained in hearings and investigations public

citizen considered it corruption the notion that the powerful shouldn't

get to create one set of rules for themselves and another set of rules for everybody else

and if we expect that to apply to our biggest corporations and to our most

successful citizens it certainly should apply to our elected officials

especially at a time when there's a deficit of trust between this city and

the rest of the country [Applause]

Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr the son of the famous Civil Rights leader has been

representing Chicago's second district to 17 years he's consumed with

investigating and explaining how the system was set up historically to serve

states rights and special interests I filed an amendment to the Constitution

to guarantee us the right to a public education of equal high quality why because every American that's in a

public school ought not be in states rights slavery in other words the lesson of the

African-American overcoming the Constitution with respect to states rights was not heeded Through Time by

the American people and it is the exact same system that they are stuck in today and they just don't know it we asked him

why Congress has become so dysfunctional I've never seen it more polarized I've

never seen it more divided along geographical lines along factional lines along

economic political lines it's not what the democracy was

conceived to be it's not what it has he it was supposed to evolve into and unfortunately the American people

are are the victims of this process how would you answer that question who rules

America there are two types of material power in this country and in the world

one is political and one is economic we the people have the power politically

to control and determine the economic system and there is a constant struggle

between people power and economic power We the People control through the political system are economic Destiny

and the economic Destiny of the nation increasingly the heavy hand of the economic system is controlling the

political system and manipulating the people who controls America

uh an elite group of people who function in a stratosphere

globally and Beyond the Constitution beyond the reach of government they have

enormous resources they own the media the Power to investigate

they get to shape The Narrative of the stories they get to model and position

candidates for public office and shape an image in front of the American people

an image that oftentimes does not jive with reality and yet the American people

see this image of leadership and they vote for it only to find out the human

frailties and the shortcomings of the individual at a later date we met a former Congressional staffer who worked

on the hill for a leading legislator for 12 years he agreed to talk with us only

if we blacked out his face and distorted his voice he was scathing in his

description of how decisions get made this is a great institution but

unfortunately you have uh an Untold amount of members and

Congress that spend 60 percent of their time raising money and then when because they got a run

every two years which makes no sense um they have to raise millions of

dollars just to be competitive to go on television because the CBS ABC and NBC

and CNN charge this outrageous amount of money to get TV commercials it ought to be

free or very low cost so what happens is these members of Congress are relying on

well-intentioned staffers many of them are just out of college many of them were interns to

make major decisions on foreign policy and domestic policy and health care and

employment and jobs and they're not really mature enough he also told us

many of the staffers get bought off by special interests and big donors and a

lot of these um young people are just out of college instead of graduate school they have to

pay back these enormous college loans and graduate school loans they're paying

unbelievable rent in Washington D.C Northern Virginia oftentimes more than a third of their income a lot of them were

taken care of out of work uh family members so there's a pressure for them

I'm sorry on them to go work for the money to interest on K Street a lot of

staffers even Progressive staffers have left the hill and worked for the

large drug companies work for the oil companies well it's usually the biggest industry

it's usually the biggest companies in whatever industry you're looking at if you're looking at overall National Economic Policy Wall Street is the

dominant influence you don't know what's happening in the pharmaceutical industry and you know they're the big big farm has got cause the shots as as you know

within the financial industry which factions are most important it's still really the biggest institutions that set

the agenda has there been polls on where Americans think our money goes in our government and just about nobody has a

clue people wildly overestimate how much goes to Aid and of course part of that

is because we talk about weaponizing foreign Nations as Aid uh and and they're they wildly underestimate how

much goes to the military and yet says our whistle-blowing former Congressional aide the real problem is

not just corporate power the biggest problem in America is not the

corporations it it's not even necessarily the money for campaigns the the biggest problem is

that the American people don't really organize themselves in their congressional districts to

mitigate the power of special interest they're not utilizing their democracy because they don't know how the game works the donors know exactly how the

game works you give a member of Congress the money they're gonna probably do what

they've asked them to do so if you've got millions and millions of people who voted for Obama or vote

for their member of Commerce and then that's the end of their political involvement well that's the end of

democracy [Music]

[Music]

coming up next the roll Wall Street plays Wall Street the banks and the financial

industry writ large is the single largest source of campaign cash in the

United States and it has been for years if not decades next time on who rules America

no serious about who rules America can leave out wall Street's Financial clout

we've left its impact for last secure in the knowledge that in today's America

this financial district is a key Power Center a hub for the financialization of

an economy in which the control of big money is often Central to the control of

politics and Society we have spoken with a respected corporate executive who told us Point

Blank that the rich now rule America my personal opinion is a large part of

what's Happening economically is due to basically globalization and digitization

of business that can't be stopped Professor Stanley aronowitz quotes the

famous sociologist C Wright Mills on the same theme from 50 years ago

it was really the financial sector is the Leading Edge of corporate capital and it was a Leading Edge of corporate

capital in the mid 50s of course today it's much more accentuated because of the relative decline of industrial

corporations I've heard things that will blow your mind and now I think it's time

you get the whole story many Americans see all this as a

conspiracy by an unaccountable secret cabal that operates like a power center

Beyond Democratic control the internet is filled with videos about shadowy

billionaires and their plots that control everything ongoing right now it is a conspiracy of

institutional corruption from the highest level from International Bankers

to the super rich from Washington to Rome they're all in it together is Wall

Street a conspiracy and what role does it play and who rules America is it an

outside job or an inside job it's not a matter of

Elites outside the state although of course they have enormous influence but the reason they have enormous influence

because it's because the state is structured to be reproducing their power and authority in society Trio Panic he's

uh Economist and analyst and I think he offered a perspective that we really

haven't heard before he's sort of fighting against a conspiratorial idea you know that there's a small group of

people in a room somewhere running things he's talking about the structure of the society the values of it who

really runs things [Music] foreign

is not only a place it's an industry with thousands of interconnected firms

that call themselves a financial services industry but they are much more

than that they are deeply involved with how our country is run says Robert Weissman the head of the public interest

group public citizen well you can't understand what's happening in the country in the last 30

years in terms of economic policy and really the way the country's evolved politically without understanding how

Wall Street has grown in power it's grown in economic power and it's grown in political power and that's been

synergistic they use their political power to wipe out a whole range of regulations that control them in the

past investors would buy stocks in real companies and industries that generated jobs provided services or created

products of value those days are gone they became a bigger and bigger portion

of the economy then we went from an economy of production making things to one based on

consumption buying and selling things consumers soon drove 70 percent of the

economy as Banks private Equity companies and hedge funds grew in size

as it became a bigger portion of the economy they were able to leverage more and more political power and a really

horrible cycle for the functioning of democracy and what that led us up to of course was the crash in 2008. so

consumers went deeper and deeper into debt and then Bankers bought and sold

debt while they changed the rules regulating their activities a whole

series of deregulatory moves that had been enabled by the influence the political influence of Wall Street led

to the actual functioning the economy to be a disaster

because as billionaire investor George Soros told me years ago the capitalist

economy is also inherently unstable and prone to Bubbles and crashes I I've

worked with the theory that financial markets are inherently unstable and to

prevent excesses you need some kind of

intervention supervision regulation uh unfortunately the prevailing

idea is that markets tend towards equilibrium and so we work with a false

concept of how financial markets operate we were told by someone for example that

the beauty of globalization is that no one is in control well it there is a great advantage in

that because controls have their own problems in fact

markets are much more efficient than centralized controls but it doesn't mean

that that there should be absolutely no control and in fact if you look at

reality ever since you've had capitalism and

ever since you have had financial markets you have had a crises and each time there was a

crisis there was something done to prevent a recurrence the problem this time is the dramatic

surge in debt look at this these are charts showing the debt of the United States page after page illustrating how

much money is owed it's mind-boggling it gets even more complicated when you

start talking about new financial instruments like derivatives that have turned the industry into a global Casino

derivatives can also be used as insurance betting that a loan will or won't default before a given date they

become the basis of a big betting system like in a casino Financial journalist Max Kaiser says

just a handful of big Financial firms now dominate the industry and the global

economy without a doubt there's JP Morgan which is in bed with the FED into the central banking system

Wall Street bets on future values and the performance of practically everything of value

Southeast Morgan Goldman Sachs are the two primary players in this in this

Global financialized world soon CEOs financiers and Executives of a

small number of investment Banks and hedge funds became rich and Powerful by

controlling specialized high-stakes markets they are connected to the central

banking system which is the fed the ECB the bank of international settlements of Switzerland is kind of the potential

Bank of the central banks and the these are the folks that are keeping their

main purpose at this point is to keep interest rates as close to zero as possible to make it as cheap as possible

for people who are borrowing money to speculate to be able to speculate freely without having to pay for the money that

they're borrowing to speculate even if these financial markets are supposedly open to all a relatively few Traders

investors and asset managers came to structure the markets to increase their

own wealth and power and if they ever make a Bad Bet then they quickly move to cover their bad

Bets with austerity programs or some kind of bailout program or a quantitative easing program

Swiss study by physicists on the ownership and control of stock exchanges in 48 countries examined 24

877 stocks and a hundred and six thousand one hundred and forty one

shareholding entities to their amazement they found that just 10 companies were

dominating all stock ownership here they are

when we talk about money and we talk about Wall Street we have to ask this question where does the money come from

that's used in the speculation in our financial markets this man knows Barry

James Dyke he's an asset manager and he works with clients so where does it come from the money comes from people's

savings regular old savings where people's retirement funds which is saving for retirement but to the people who put

their money into these accounts and know how it's being invested or spent they don't have a clue

it's only now as a result of the financial crisis that the public is learning slowly that the self-styled

Masters of the Universe on Wall Street speculated on risky Investments and

created a crash green Carter the editor of Vanity Fair wrote it can fairly be said that the

chain of catastrophic bets made over the past decade by a few hundred Bankers May

well turn out to be the greatest non-violent crime against humanity in history they brought the world's economy

to its knees lost tens of millions of people their jobs in their homes and

crashed the retirement plans of a generation and they could drive an estimated 200 million people worldwide

into dire poverty in 2010 before Occupy Wall Street labor

unions were marching to protest Wall Street crimes

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on the 29th of April this is a march on Wall Street organized by the AFL-CIO

which says they've organized 200 protests so far but you never know it in

terms of the media coverage well today the media is out and they're marching because of a theft millions of jobs are

missing 11 million jobs according to the AFL CIO they want payback they want Wall

Street to pay they want a new tax on financial transaction

we are trying to recover from a financial crisis that some people say is

even worse than the depression in the 1930s and yet reforms that have been

proposed very modest reforms are being fought tooth and nail at the regulatory level by Wall Street firms and

financiers uh do you think that they have a disproportionate power to

influence Congress there's no doubt about that not just the Congress but State legislatures as well their strength

their power runs the entire Gambit of the of the American political system

I read that the financial services industry had hired 28 lobbyists per

member of Congress to try to influence their decisions to try to inform how

what happens to you when lobbyists come into your office to try to get you to vote their way how does that work that

game well it's very hard to to get a meeting with me I don't think that they spent a lot of money trying to Lobby me

I'm kind of clear on my ideology clear my view of representative government and

very clear on on the Constitution but suffice it to say while my district is

competitive there are many more competitive districts than mine and every member of Congress to that extent

becomes a prisoner to the election process to the fundraising process

Sheila krumholz of the center for responsive politics says wall Street's power is well documented

Wall Street the banks and the financial industry writ large is the single

largest source of campaign cash in the United States and it has been for years if not decades

it is uh kind of following the Willie Sutton rule of politics you go where the

money is that's where the money is they have not just political action committees that componia the maximum

amounts to influential members of Congress who have jurisdiction over their industry but also they can Pony up

pass the hat and pony up hundreds of thousands of dollars just among their partners and vice presidents and

Executives in their companies she says their clout will impact the election in 2012.

so they can muster a ton of money and this is also seen specifically in the

presidential race in 2012 where of course Mitt Romney has hailed from uh the private into private Equity industry

and prior to that Barack Obama had been darling of Wall Street so Wall Street

and and banks in particular are an enormously influential uh part of the

U.S industry that power is being shown as Wall Street

lobbyists try to sabotage Financial reforms passed by Congress

two years after the passage of the legislation and are The Regulators doing the good things that Congress told them

to do and the answer to a considerable extent is no they're way behind on issuing the rules are supposed to issue

where they actually have issued the rules are getting challenged in almost every instance in court by the Chamber

of Commerce or the financial securities Roundtable or other Wall Street interests and they're having a tough

time with the Judiciary that's favorable to big business and maintaining the rules that they Vision so reforms can be

passed but they can also be sabotaged right they get multiple bites at the Apple they get a bite in Congress where

they've got enormous power but at least it's mostly a public fight and then they go to the Regulatory Agencies where they also have enormous power but it's

usually below the radar off the front pages and they don't even have the public scrutiny

recently on a radio show I host I discussed Wall Street power and the financial meltdown with financial

journalist Max Kaiser and Stacy Herbert as well as Andy stephanian an animal

rights activist who led a campaign against the company in the business of painful medical tests on poppies after

his group drove their stock price down the company went broke but then the government labeled him a financial

terrorist and sent him to prison we began by comparing Wall Street to the

Titanic the unsinkable ship that sank if the Titanic were the story today the

difference would be that Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan would have heavy bets that

would pay off when the ship sinks and Hank Paulson would be down there widening the gash it brings me to a new

study out just recently and they looked at hundreds of shipwrecks throughout the

hundreds past few hundred years what they found is that the norm is actually for women and children to die more

frequently than men and that the captain usually didn't go down with the ship

they were usually the the their survival rate was the highest these guys they

they use derivatives as Warren Buffett calls them Weapons of Mass Financial destruction to to make situations worse

because they're bets that they have uh on on these calamities becoming worse pay off enormously and we see that in

the in the numbers in the bonuses it's reflected and you were nodding before when Max was speaking about all of this

is this really true that they're betting against you know us in a sense betting

against uh you know hoping for bad things to happen I don't think that everybody that works on Wall Street has

this mentality but there is a culture that's in place where people have learned to at least accept and and

justify Behavior like looking at these Investments betting Investments against

you know things to fail whether it be a government whether it be a country or whether it be a company to fail and and

say oh well I can justify this and you look at it like it's numbers you don't look at the people behind it you don't look at the families that suffer you

don't look at the country that suffers as a result well here's what what you know is is mind-boggling to me is you

are presenting a picture of intentionality that people did things to further their own interests they knew

what they were doing it was calculated and yet in most of the media

uh it seems as if it's presented as some sort of mistake as miscalculation uh G

we wanted housing to go up but it went down you can't blame us everybody was doing it there therefore nobody was

doing it therefore nobody can be prosecuted well it's assume that there was intention uh is that a good thing or

a bad thing some would argue that it's it's a good thing to have people who are who are parasites in an economy because

parasites are useful I have parasites and my intestines they perform a useful function the problem is the parasites

don't run my hard lungs and brain in in America the parasites write the

regulatory framework that's supposed to be governing them so the parasites run the show is Wall Street affecting you

know capitalists is Wall Street affecting our policy making well they're becoming our policy makers at least for

a short period of time and then returning back to the banks um so it's an evolving door kind of thing essentially I mean they're in and

out of whether it be the Bush Administration or the Obama Administration the different positions within the cabinet

that are you know governing Finance our individuals that are former CEOs of banks where they might go back to being

an honorary chair on the board of directors it's it's this incestuous relationship between Wall Street and

policy sounds so corrupt Danny you asked who runs America and I say it's

ignorance and you know Thomas Jefferson warned of this and that we needed

a media who would inform the population otherwise we would lose our democracy so

this is ignorance that is being forced upon a criminalizing knowledge this is

something that I was startled by when NASDAQ opened up you know on in Times

Square a big Studio out front with a big window and you know and then I I said

I'd love to tour the exchange and uh you know this was the time that Bernie Madoff was running NASDAQ you know and

they said you can't tour The Exchange there is no exchange it looks like in exchange there's a building that says

NASDAQ but the actual operations are computers algorithmic trading goes well

beyond that as you're alluding to it's not about individuals who are taking any risks personally to make a market as

part of a capitalist system these are computers that have virtually unlimited credit because the cost of credit is now

zero and the ability for a bank like JP Morgan with a 90 trillion dollar balance sheet of derivatives they can land a

trillion dollars to a computer program to make a bet if the BET doesn't work then they get a federal bailout if the

BET works then they get a bonus so it's heads they win tells we lose and this has been going on now for a number of

years but it's gotten shockingly more disproportionate and asymmetric this shift towards super fast computers

is just another example of the deeper shift we've seen in power as Finance in

effect takes over with politicians courting Wall Street at Global conferences and in private meetings as

George Soros explains it is actually symptomatic of the age

because you have uh presidents and prime ministers courting the the the

financiers and the industrialists uh so it does show a shift in in the

relative power but I I don't want to convey

see I don't believe that that business can in any way replace

the power of the state because it's different kind of power so the the sovereignty is still in the hands of the

state Wall Street you know it sounds like a conspiracy theory but Wall Street controls everything you know I mean

they're the major shareholders of all the major companies look at the BP oil spill who is who is the owner of BP oil

spill the biggest shareholders J.P Morgan there's so much happening now you know

there's no stopping what's happening now the system everyone knows the system's broken whether you're a you know a one

percenter or 99 or a republican a Democrat Anarchist communist capitalist

everyone knows the system is broken so now we need to fix it

we'll give the last word to a scholar with a longer view American historian

Eric foner I think what we face is a serious democracy deficit not only in

the United States but in many other countries as well I'm not quite ready to say a plutocracy determines everything

that happens in the United States but I think the Democracy deficit arises from the fact that

fundamental issues are now just off limits from democracy it doesn't matter

who is elected the basic issues about Finance about de-industrialization

things like that are about globalization about the loss of power of ordinary

people over their own lives that's not open to discussion I don't care if it's Democrat Republican Obama

Romney that's not part of what their debate is you their debate is at the margins so

that the fundamental issues facing Ordinary People are not subject to democratic consideration government does

not represent the ordinary people even though people elect the government the government does not respond at all to

the needs and aspirations of Ordinary People in this series we've investigated who

rules America examining the history of deep conflicts in this country going back to the American Revolution we've

dissected the power of the military corporations the media and Wall Street we have shown that these powerful forces

often undermine democracy rather than strengthen it

there is a battle on the way for the soul of America for whom rules America that has put these deeper issues on the

agenda the question is a fundamental transformation possible or will special

interests in the wealthiest Americans continue to dominate in a country that says it's the most dynamic democracy on

Earth the belief in our democracy is almost an article of religious Faith even though

there's a separation of church and state perhaps that's why the views you've heard in this series are rejected by The

Establishment rejected by Academia rejected by the Press they believe only

the people have power if anyone does but opinion leaders don't look into it they

don't focus on interests they focus on ideologies on personalities not

institutions the idea of a power elite is an anathema to them because if people

believed it that might spur dissatisfaction and dissent

the age of the internet and global television you can't stop people from being exposed to counter narratives to

official myths these issues are debatable of course but most political

coverage doesn't debate other ways of looking at the world it relies on the

usual pundits recycling conventional wisdom

they don't ask who rules America

members of Congress I have the high privilege and the distinct honor of presenting to you the president of the

United States foreign

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