Has anyone watched Jesse Ventura's Wall Street Conspiracy segment?

[howaboutme]

I just watched my only segment of Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy show (TruTV??) about the ONGOING great Wall Street robbery. It was a little too Hollywood and scripted for my taste but nonetheless it was informative and in my opinion the points made were not over the top at all.

Matt Taibbi who has published some highly informative and provocative articles on Wall Street made appearances, as was an indicted Wall Street manager and others such as Ron Paul. The basic gist of it is that the economy was put in the hole by the Fed Reserve, and a cabal of bankers with Goldman at the head of the line. They not only stole but infiltrated the US government as enablers of the bailout at taxpayer expense and that nothing is going to change because they own our government. It is worth a watch but not if your blood pressure tends to rise when pissed.

This is one area I believe has really hurt Obama (and Democrats) credibility. He had the political clout, public opinion and goodwill to really chop some serious heads in the financial community and install a strong public advocate such as Elizabeth Warren. Instead he held back and did little to appease the American anger at the banksters while they continued to get bigger bonuses. Much of the non-action had to do with his appointments of those such as Geithner and his deputies that all had Goldman in their resume AND the fact that they do own us. He needed people without Wall street connections.

[RKP5637]

1. Recommend and Agree! I saw it and thought it was very revealing and on target. There

is so much BS and corruption going on it's hard to keep track of the crap. If MSM did a better job and was not controlled by a cartel of corps. with an agenda, we would be better informed than the propaganda we get and dumbed down coverage. Meanwhile the shenanigans continue, business as usual, and the majority of Americans are screwed by all of this and most don't even remotely know what's going on IMO.

[jtuck004]

2. Watch the movie Inside Job, read "It Takes a Pillage", "Ecconned",

"Bailout Nation", and "Broke,USA".

I think investment bankers would no longer be safe going to their jobs if most people took just a cursory look at those. And people would
be camped out at the White House, the Fed, and the Treasury, throwing rocks.

Perhaps it's a good thing that most seem oblivious to what has happened to their country, and their money.

[howaboutme]

3. Thanks for that

I agree with your analysis and for the suggestions. Honestly there are times I wish I could just put my head in the sand and pretend life was fair, government was honest, and everything was hunky dory.

There are many books on the "Great Robbery" and I'd like to read them all but it can almost be harmful in a sense because it creates a level of frustration. Why isn't the public outraged? Another related question should be why isn't the mainstream media stirring the pot of public outrage? We know they can do it if they wish, as they helped to get us into Iraq, and now Iran is still on the horizon. They made sure to thoroughly cover that aspect of Wiki Leaks.

The mainstream media has been extraordinarily mum and lacking in enthusiasm and not at all interested in stirring the public anger in ways and direction that Wall street deserves. Where are the Hollywood movies that can easily focus anger on these people? The story of a nation that is going broke due directly to the actions of bankers, while public policy makers make these people even wealthier than they were is something that needs fully addressed by the MSM.

I think my wife is getting me several of Taibbi's books which including Griftopia for Christmas. http://www.amazon.com/Griftopia-Machines-Vampire-Breaking-America/dp/0385529953

[jtuck004]

4. Why isn't the public outraged?

I have thought about that, and I think it boils down to a couple of things.

One is that they operate within their own experience. Whether this is because humans are more comfortable doing that or simply because that is all they have learned is unknown. They can understand paying or defaulting on a mortgage, so the guy's rant on CNBC about "do you think it is fair that you have to pay for someone else's mortgage" resonated with people. Had he ranted about credit default swaps, or squared collateralized debt obligations and how people in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations enable the banks to hide over a hundred trillion dollars of money behind a veil in an off-the books accounting system...

Well, you get where I am going. The actions of the investment banks\government in creating over a $100 trillion in toxic assets was far more harmful than the smaller portion of the $13 trillion housing market that actually defaulted. But explain that to the average joe, in terms that he WANTS to hear.

Dang near impossible.

The other is our educational system. We teach people that learning is finite, that they reach the end - not that they need to be re-educating themselves on new information, that the test they are taking today may in fact have 3 questions that even if answered correctly are wrong, because new information just invalidated them. You can't very well use tests as weapons to control behavior if you teach people that they are not the be-all end-all of their lives. But that is an argument which has been going on since John Dewey, and still the educational system of the masses is structured so they never learn that they have a lot more power, and responsibility, than they realize. Just my opinion, of course. And that of Kozol, Horton, Freire, Farber, Nikolaj Grundtvig, others. ;)

Inside Job tries, with their graphic showing how credit default swaps, or the same insurance policy, was sold 50 times against the same set of bonds - couldn't help but fail. But even that begins to get a little esoteric.

So people like us will read, be amazed at what they got away with, and try to educate. But it's gonna be damn slow, maybe impossible.

[howaboutme]

5. But when you see

these greedy bankster bastards thriving on an uninformed uninterested somewhat media centric public like roaches in a cesspool apartment, promoted by a naive public, brainwashed by paid media pundits, or NFL quarterbacks, or publicly subsidized Hollywood stars, all earning tens of SUBSIDIZED millions a year - it is frustrating.

So what do you think will finally create the outrage that will supersede the current public apathy that George Carlin so aptly described? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

I believe that the Wall Street crowd and their political puppet/shills knew exactly where the USA was headed and their ultimate goal was to short-stop it before it occurred.

The USA was headed towards a culture and generation changing event that would have created responsible saving Americans (much like the Great Depression) that would have replaced the consumerist media puppets that we have. It took the banksters at least 50 years to create this craving "spend until they drop" society and they weren't about to let it go away thanks to the crew.

Had too big to fail not been Obama's/Goldmans policy I think we would have been far better off. The real fallout has not yet occurred. It will and it will be far worse.

[jtuck004]

6. Your question

"So what do you think will finally create the outrage that will supersede the current public apathy..."

If I knew that I would be able to pay for everyone's unemployment by myself ;)

I really do think it is a problem of experience and perhaps how they learn. People understand their own experience, moving very far beyond that takes effort. People don't like effort, and many times their experience of learning new things comes from school, where they remember how difficult or painful it was. That is even more so in the past few years as students are flogged with test after test. I teach adults, and they almost jerk their heads like a dog that's been struck when you mention the words test, or suggest that they may have to learn something new. Sad.

So one just tries to educate people that the problems they are going through are not of their making, that people, wealthy and politically connected people, have and continue to take advantage of them, and that as long as they rely on their previous experience it will continue. Sometimes a window opens, sometimes not.

[upi402]

7. I think that until the media is reformed, we are toast

imho

If it weren't for the media propaganda organ of corporate fascism, the chickens wouldn't be so head over heels in love with Colonel Sanders.

I've seen Ventura's show and it was right on in its main thrust. It may hit the independents right in the gaping maw.