barbara g. fleischman.y our sole corporate sponsor, mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. >> welcome to a story that's been unfolding for nearly 40 years, but has gone largely untold, and that's the way the central characters wanted it. they were smart and understood something very important -- that they might more easily get what they wanted from state capitals than from washington, d.c. so they started putting their money in places like raleigh, north carolina, nashville, tennessee, phoenix, arizona, and madison, wisconsin. that's because what happens in our state legislatures directly affects our taxes, schools, roads, the quality of our air and water, even our right to vote. politicians and lobbyists at the core of this clever enterprise figured out how to pull it off in an organized, camouflaged way, covering their tracks while they put one over on an unsuspecting public. this is the story of how and why it worked. ou

barbara g. fleischman. and by our sole corporate sponsor, mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. >> welcome. lately i've had phaedra on my mind. not the greek myth of the tragic daughter of that name, but the retelling of the story in a 1962 movie starring tony perkins and melina mercouri. their illicit affair over, perkins crashes his cherished roadster over a cliff. a big sendoff accompanied by none other than johann sebastian bach. >> oh john sebastian! you're playing your music like crazy and i'm listening to it in greece! what are you doing here? oh john! why aren't you home minding the children? i at least had some business in greece! i had a father that killed every phaedra! phaedra! phaedra! >> that scene actually keeps coming to mind as i try to follow the melodrama in washington that has us heading for a cliff. a fiscal cliff. but are we? or is this, another myth in the making? for some insight, we turn to two sea

barbara g. fleischman. and by our sole corporate sponsor, mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. >> welcome. junot diaz is known to start conversations some folks would rather not have. here he is at a recent conference in baltimore, urging the audience to take a page from jose marti, the revolutionary poet and hero of cuba's independence from spain -- >> you need to cultivate the marti mind. the marti mind is simply that, as much love as i have for my own group, i have for every other group. to take possessive investment in each others' struggles. where whatever's happening to the gay community, is happening to us. whatever's happening in the asian community, that's us. instead of possessive commodified investment in our identities, we need to take possessive investment in our other communities' struggles. >> the life and work of junot diaz contain many worlds, and that makes him all the more worth listening to. his imagin

barbara g. fleischman. and by our sole corporate sponsor, mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. >> welcome. sometimes we can see the universe in a grain of sand, as the old saying goes, but nowadays a graphic chart more vividly reveals the world we live in. take a look at this statistical snapshot of the media ecology that largely determines what you and i see, read, and hear. in 1983, 50 corporations controlled a majority of media in america. in 1990 the number had dropped to 23. in 1997, 10. and today, six. there you have it -- the fistful of multinational conglomerates that own the majority of media in america. what do we call it when a few firms dominate the market? oligopoly. doesn't quite rhyme with democracy. but today, believe it or not, big media is about to get even bigger, unless the public stands up and says "no!" here's the story. the chairman of the federal communications commission -- the fcc, the agency of

barbara g. fleischman.d by our sole corporate sponsor, mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company.

barbara g. fleischman.d by our sole corporate sponsor, mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. ♪ingle bells, jingle bells narrator: coming up, it's everyone's favorite christmas present-- a monkey. ♪ ... open sleigh. (laughing) (george hooting, man gasping) man: it's what george wants for christmas, and i have to figure it out. whoa! wow! oh, no! (grunting) (bell ringing) stop! (hooting) man: yes, george. it's christmas. funding for curious george is provided by contributions to your pbs station... ooh. ...and from: ooh! (chuckles) hi! ooh! oh!