are activists who are willing to fight for what they think is right for themselves but the fact is forty four brit. i. think. we are clowning. around and i think it's spread now why it's cutting off our. it's making real democracy. all but impossible. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

wealthy british style. pastime. markets why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cars are there are no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars a report on our. this

is our moment this is our time to reclaim the american dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many we are one that wall we breathe we hope and where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't we will respond with that time a spree that sums up the spirit of a people. yes we came. here to go see to. take it seriously. and then this is going to get it right is it so create can't have it when they think they did danger

. where did it all go wrong for barack obama and the democrats after sweeping to power with a promise of hope and shine a citizens' uprising called the tea party movement and the message was known to be government spending not to health care and climate change legislation and no to what balmy himself obama is because he doesn't get it believe it because it's thin to you seem to obama's presidency tea party endorse candidates emerged to sweep the republicans to victory in the house of representatives thirty two percent of the candidates who were elected last night across this country are affiliated with the tea party movement there's the tea party john little way and we're sending a message to it. and they see it as a repudiation of the president and his policies. what does it feel like. feels bad

. i came to the united states to examine the tea party phenomenon and in particular the accusations that the protesters were pawns in a card the power play by a small group of billionaires and corporate players they're recruiting them to do the bidding of corporate america this is not some corporate sponsored thing these citizens' groups are bogus the media portrays of being backed by some billionaire. person or people who is not here to be trusted with the story just like to make it . boom boom boom boom. was the. name. of come to kentucky the heart of tea party

country it's more than a year before the movement will organize to become a force at the two thousand and ten elections the diverse group of protesters here are united by a combination of anger and patriotism this all american families and militia groups trolling for new members reason for this the so-called bertha's we think is really a kenyan mr obama were the first ever in a cost of historical figures evoking the spirit of the american revolutionaries at the boston tea party from which this movement takes its name beginning less than a month after obama took office the protests reflected a mounting anger at both democrats and republicans legislating message by a loud packages in response to america's economic crisis well the tea party idea was first right during this on a rant by sea and they say reports of bricks and telly this is america how many

people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage you want to get a very have a chicago tea party in july or you capitalists i want to show up to lake michigan on a star orgon. testifying to the crossroads nature of the uprising the vast majority of tea partiers a middle class americans with little or no experience in political organizing i'm just i'm on that was tired of seeing what was going on in my country and i decided to do something about it. the day after liks a intelli had his rant there were about twenty two people that got together on a conference call and we decided to have around the tea parties one week from that day we had fifty tea parties with thirty thousand people in attendance. who thought the brewing if we had on april fifteenth eight hundred fifty plus tea parties across this country with one point two million people in attendance.

but if the tea parties began as a bipartisan are prizing against government weist they quickly morphed into an all out attack on president obama and his entire policy agenda you cannot ignore i'm not sure i'm going to grab anything dr no to france during our writing our interest them crocked factories that jammed up its current program paper on the fun began and how god can. blow many factors are involved and i was particularly interested what role being played by a group called americans for prosperity pay their mission is to engage citizens in the nine of limited governments and free markets essentially they are activists for a radical form of capitalism with private enterprise not government is the guiding force and saucy of particular interest with their chief benefactors brothers

charles and david koch according to the forbes list of the richest americans the cloke sit a cool fifth with personal fortunes estimated at more than twenty billion dollars. to find out more i've come to the annual convention of americans for prosperity. well distancing himself publicly from the tea party movement david koch is known to play a very hands on role with i have paid. and sure enough as representatives of the group's hundred thousand members reported on their activities they later was there to hear the news it's now my great pleasure to. begin my favorite part of the summit conference and that is the report by representatives of each of the twenty five chapters a p on their activities over the last year

we don't organize huge tea parties all throughout the state we have lad the largest tea party in the state the largest tax day tea party in the nation on april fifteenth. i vote we we've had twenty nine p. parties organize dozens of tea parties mr chairman our grassroots efforts are engaged they're energized and they're ready to fight for their freedom and if you try to raise our taxes and trample on our liberties we're either going to beat you or make your life. i thank. the members flatly deny the charge that they are astroturf the name given to fight grassroots organizations that are essentially corporate fronts it's nonsense that there is no such thing among our our people as astroturfing i'm here with four hundred fifty other people from north carolina and we're all individuals. to find

out more about the recent tory sleep publicity shy brothers and their company koch industries i turn to a man who's been investigating them for a number of years. diabetes from the environmental group grain pace koch industries is the company nobody's ever heard of it's the second or first largest private company in this country we don't even know how much money they make they're primarily a refining company and pipeline company they now have expanded into paper and chemicals acquiring other companies in recent years there worldwide based here in the united states in wichita kansas davies and green can assert that americans for prosperity are essentially just a low being tool for koch industries david koch deliberately founded these groups to intervene in the government to reduce taxes on corporations to reduce the impact of environmental laws. that intersected with what became the tea

party movement and uprising against the government and against governments writ large against taxes and against health care regulations so they're basically use this public sentiment to forward their corporate agenda this charge of profiteering was especially evident i have pains opposition to a proposed climate change bill that would have come profits of oil industry players like koch industries. in two thousand and nine after the obama administration came on there was massive momentum towards climate regulation suddenly there was a real possibility of getting new good law passed and they went into high gear attacking obama from day one even started before the obama administration attacking any climate legislation they run for years these summer hot air tours where they run what looks like

a grassroots activists campaign around the country with a bus and t. shirts and hats and handouts and little events in small towns in fact it's a corporate funded propaganda tour as i arrived in philadelphia for one of the forty it's who are events and i have peace railed against the climate change bill known as cap and tried legislation. that will keep america's prosperity and shrinking our jobs this country is heading in the wrong direction. and that direction is for pick up more. control over health care taking control of our. taking control of our lives yet. attack attack attack they reframe to this cap and tax as opposed to the term cap and trade term for carbon trading and went on the attack and declared this part of the obama agenda to impose new government regulations and grow the government

global warming regulation equal to socialism attacking green jobs and renewable energy as some imposition on people's freedom this is the last stop in this leg of what we call our hot it's sure we're exposing the fourth of what is basically a massive trillion dollar tax on american energy users the phoniness of green jobs in government subsidized alternative fuels and what we're doing in americans for prosperity is educating americans to understand the threat to our to our future what's motivating the government to try and bring in the cap and trade bill it's a marxist regime basically the obama administration the democratic party has gone calling to the left so extreme now it's about seizing control over our lives it's a total government scheme and it's going to destroy jobs it is for his country. a local tea party he's also on hand to lend their support the one thing that i really

want to get through to people is that this is not some corporate sponsored thing we are for i know i am i live in apartment i have two kids and a wife struggling but this is a feel sorry for me thing this is just telling you know we're not corporate sponsors period and everything is grassroots our organization itself was from the ground up no budget not low budget nobody we've done everything free i believe on the website for free we've you know gone to great lengths to make this happen and it's all in the name of liberty and justice. i don't want to founding fathers had proposed this country be a republic. but i have paid a far more than just tool for the cops oil interests as evidenced by their lading wrote in opposing another of obama's assaults on liberty health care reform. that

would have seen the government. running short of americans and breaking the private health insurance monopoly. for veteran political operatives and i have paid president team phillips the group success lies in their ability to tap into the american spirit of individual ism well americans have a long tradition of individual ism and of good healthy skepticism toward their government i mean about the worst thing you can say in america is i'm from washington d.c. and i'm here to help instantly americans go wait a minute i don't trust that far as i can and so i our coalition of americans for prosperity we go out and we educate americans on hey here's the threat here's what this health care bill is going to do the take over here's what happened trade going to do your job and to your utility rates and we just say if you want to get out here a ways to get active this goes to the heart of how the clerks might be manipulating

tea party protesters and a fair proportion of i have pace and support it on a much deeper level than personal financial gain because while americans might have a healthy skepticism about government i wonder how many of them really share the koch's extreme vision of a free market economy you and i know that free market principles make sense for american families american jobs and i want term prosperity medicine essential at a time when the very foundations of our nation are being challenged. government has become a monster crippling the economy and devouring personal liberties this poster is from a not a night he libertarian party campaign in which to run for vice president the party's political platform is an insight into just how radical his views and those of the free market movement. i saw the abolition of the department of energy the

environmental protection agency the food and drug administration and a host of other public health and safety bodies not to mention social security welfare the public school system and of course huge tax cuts across the board but after spending over two million dollars of their own money on the campaign and receiving just one percent of the thought the changed course deciding that of people wouldn't come to their philosophy they take their philosophy to the papal. created and invested in a network of free market. including the establishment in one thousand nine hundred four of a grassroots group called citizens for a sound economy that was the forerunner to americans for prosperity a number of documents have emerged from the citizens for a sound economy dies which give a candid insight into how these groups work to discard both the corporate dharnas

and radical ideological goals. under texas law there's no one profit groups are allowed to keep their done as identities confidential as is the case with many groups including green pace but these lakes nine hundred ninety eight budget reveals just how much money citizens resend the corn and he received from a wide variety of donors. more troubling was the fact that citizens for a sound the corner took money through an asteroid to campaigns directly on behalf of a number of these hidden dharnas. then there was they would for the tobacco industry thanks to a major legal settlement in the light ninety ninety millions of internal tobacco industry documents have been made public the documents showing how citizens for a sound economy and other free market groups was secretly paid millions of dollars to fight tobacco taxes and regulations using what i called

a retail sales if they pitched these to their own members as a tax on individual freedoms by big government the idea being that while people may not be moved to fight on behalf of big tobacco you will do almost anything to protect their own freedoms one campaign of particular relevance was the lading wrong citizens for a sound economy played in killing the last major attempt to reform the health care system with the clinton administration proposing a new tobacco tax to help pay for their plan to back a company philip morris funded i major grassroots effort by the group. citizens for a sound economy also went hand in hand with the health insurance industry to defeat the reforms by running a few campaign from the clinton plan with soviet style socialized medicine that would lead to a denial of health care treatments they sent the supporters out to him democrats including first lady hillary clinton as they attempted to explain the reforms get

out there isn't all that i always like. that you're. there close yeah i was there i was. trying to draw out the hours of the shortage of american. health care reform to make sure everything the american if. one person who has worked on coalitions with citizens for a sound economy is wendell potter a former health insurance industry spin doctor turned whistleblower about these deceptive practices. they have insurance industry is very much like the tobacco industry it's held in very low regard by the public and they know that they have very little credibility themselves so they have to establish these front groups to carry their messages for them they do this third party is telling their stories

that they want to be told and getting the word out that they want to get out because according to when to a porsche or a cape benefit of using front groups is that they can cite things the company couldn't actually get away with saying themselves they're hired guns and they do what they are told to do. and it doesn't matter necessarily what the tactics are sometimes that if it involves a million ethics or violating ethical standards they will do that terms like government takeover of the health care system is one that has been used many times to scare people away from reform and it's misleading no plan before congress would have come anywhere close to a government takeover but nonetheless it's a term that the industry knew would be effective slippery slope toward socialism in the united states socialism still has this connotation of something that is akin to communism it's not even worse the people who put those sentences together do it for a purpose and they know that that will that will evoke

a certain emotion you're getting over twenty five years these campaigns tapping into people's distrust of government and sense of individual isn't attracted a saws will follow is so much so that within hours of rick's and tele making his famous tea party rights and i have to pay stossel was able to offer him you know on national television it costs a million nines to get the movement started and read i've got i've got five hundred thousand people who signed our petition against the stimulus bill i'm willing to email all of them and tell them to come out to your event to stand ready and they weren't the only ones in two thousand and four and internal rift actually caused citizens for a sound economy to split into two groups the second cold. financially connected to the freedom with a similar model of corporate funded free market activism from day one they worked on the ground to help small groups organized. and when after

a couple of months the movement was running out of steam. helped. to move. socialized medicine. some anonymous great americans with very deep pockets to fund a multi-million dollar campaign by the group some good folks some great americans come to us and say they were concerned about this health care issue and they could see this train coming down the pike and they want to do something about it are born madden said you know a lot americans for prosperity wants to be a part of that. as i have paid. to hold events around the country they campaign was to be an almost carbon copy. sometime in the next sixty or ninety days. and. are going to vote. on your health care by the government they want to make sure.

that. they also. scaring senior citizen. some potentially lifesaving drugs could be would go and seniors could lose their home and when democrat politicians. in two thousand and nine. and we started doing the twittering the facebook and the e-mails. and. people showed up. and said that was the worst. and democrats. change members of. police are called. getting physical if you're a senior citizen this takeover is

a disaster for you and the american people know that truth is on our side. well congress eventually passed a very much compromised health care. by then opponents that helped make it so unpopular the health care became a major factor in the democrats the feat in two thousand and ten older voters in the last midterm split evenly this time they were overwhelmingly voting republican and why did they vote six out of ten said that they wanted to repeal health care. but to properly understand the cook's influence on the rising movement there's

a much bigger picture to be saying the koch's exert influence in a number of ways which we know that they fund front groups like americans for prosperity this are astroturf effort they also throw money straight into the political machine so they funded millions of dollars towards political candidates specific candidates they also of course have lobbying money coming into washington so they're sending lobbyists up to forward their agenda the more more insidious stuff is starting in one nine hundred seventy s. a number of free market think tanks were born at the cato institute the heritage foundation heartland institute these groups were purpose built by right wing philanthropists like the coax to forward a corporate agenda and the regulatory agenda there is no better example of how the small poly coordinated network of groups afford regulation then they're almost single handed effort to manufactured to bite as a global warming this two thousand and eight study one hundred forty one pokes

skeptical of global warming found that out of the ninety percent of them who written and or published by free market think tanks at the heart of what opponents have called the denial machine. other resident policy experts such as myron ebell of the competitive enterprise institute saying here talking to a group of a of pay members. wealthy british style assignments and that's not on the title of the time. markets why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report

on our. me he. he. believes in six. six

. governor romney do you believe that states have the right to ban contraception and g.o.p. hopeful get fired up about the three genes guns gays and god and although the topics aren't as sexy many americans are more concerned about the three words finances foreclosure and foreign policy so what's more important candidates values or their vision. and while republicans pay play touch and go with popular topics one convicted d.c. lobbyist is out of jail and ready to tackle a new special interest getting money out of politics will take a page from the book of abraham.