“As difficult as it was for me, I’ve come to an inescapable and profoundly disturbing conclusion. I believe that an elite group of people and the corporations they run have gained control over not just our energy, food supply, education, and healthcare, but over virtually every aspect of our lives; and they do it by controlling the world of finance. Not by creating more value, but by actually controlling the source of money.” – Foster Gamble

The video below is a short clip taken from the Thrive documentary, a film that lifts the veil on what’s really going on in our world by “following the money upstream.” Created by Foster Gamble, the heir to the Proctor & Gamble Corporation, it represents his efforts to reveal the hidden truths of our world to the masses. Gamble was groomed for the establishment and chose a different path once he saw how corrupt an institution he would be entering, and he and his wife Kimberly Carter Gamble have done a tremendous job of opening people’s eyes to what is happening on Wall Street and around the world.

It’s no secret that the global consolidation of power lies in the hands of very few — a small group of people and the corporations they run, all held together by the world of finance — or that this few controls every aspect of our lives.

“A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many, and various, and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the bast surplus in the banks.”– John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President of the United States

It’s unusual to see politicians who garner such respect and attention offer this information as fact, but it does happen, even in today’s political climate. Current presidential candidate Bernie Sanders certainly did so in a recent debate:

No matter who is elected to be president, that person will not be able to address the enormous problems facing the working families of our country. They will not be able to succeed because the power of corporate America, the power of Wall Street, the power of campaign donors is so great that no president alone can stand up to them. That is the truth. People may be uncomfortable about hearing it, but that is the reality.

How can anybody really claim that we are living in a democracy when presidents don’t even have enough power to change anything significant? If we want change, we must figure out a way to curtail the power of corporations and prevent them from destroying our world. And keeping our eyes glued to our television screens, waiting to see who will become the next president of the United States, is not the way to do it. The entire political system seems to be full of buffoonery to capture our attention, and ultimately, to distract us.

I often wonder if the whole thing is pure spectacle, pure entertainment meant to keep us from asking questions and waking up to what’s going on right under our noses. I personally believe, as President Roosevelt himself emphasized, that “presidents are selected, not elected.”

In his farewell address to the nation, president Eisenhower offered these words of caution, and what he warned us about seems to have taken place:

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. . . . Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defence with our peaceful message and goals. (source)