Laura Flanders Live on GritTV: The Powerful Forces Keeping Status Quo in Place

Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv at 8:39 AM on November 11, 2009.

How much control does the President really have, anyway? Americans voted for change and are getting frustrated with the lack of it, but our guests have both written about the powerful forces holding the status quo in place. John Perkins is the author of Hoodwinked and Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and has written about how corporations push politicians around and even threaten them with violence. Russ Baker, meanwhile, is the author of Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America and has written extensively about the military-industrial complex.

In the new film Collapse, filmmaker Chris Smith follows Michael Ruppert as he raises the alarm again and again on the financial crisis, energy, the environment, and more. Is he a genius, or just paranoid? And with all this scary information out there, what can citizen activists do?

Watch the live feed from GritTV below:

Laura Flanders is the host of GRITtv and the author of Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians.