Who Rules America ?

Statue of George Washington/Flickr by How I See Life

Now that the Presidential elections are behind us, the coming months will show the spectacle of Congress and the President dealing with the upcoming fiscal cliff, and the inauguration of the President in January. However these events will develop, it's not too late to gain a better understanding about who really rules America. Danny Schechter, independent filmmaker, longstanding media critic, blogger, aka the News Dissector, and author of Occupy: Dissecting Occupy Wall Street, produced a TV series Who Rules America (curiously first released on Iranian Press TV, but let's watch the message first before considering to shoot the messenger) a six part series covering the power of the media, corporations, money and Wall Street and explaining how their power trumps those of regular citizens. 

                                                     Episode 1: Debate over Power

                                                Episode 2: History of Democracy

 

                                                  Episode 3: Debate over Power

                                               Episode 4: Power of the Media

                                            Episode 5: Money Dominates Politics

                                                 Episode 6 - Power of Wall Street

This series confirms what has been described earlier by scholars, journalists and writers about the powers to be behind the political scenes in America. Neither is the inequality of resources, information and influence in U.S. politics a new phenomenon. What is new, however, as the latest elections with billionaires funding Super PACs can attest to, is how the structure of U.S. politics is stacked against the uninformed voter at a level never seen before. Who Rules America? makes crystal clear that U.S. democracy in the sense of "one man, one vote" is severely under threat.

For further background reading, see the following selection:

Who Rules America? by G. William Domhoff,

The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills

  

The Price of Inequality by Joseph E. Stiglitz

Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland

 

The Promise of American Life by Herbert Croly

 

The American Crisis by Thomas Paine

Occupy by Danny Schechter