Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?

Heist traces the worldwide economic collapse to a 1971 secret memo entitled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System.” Written over 40 years ago by the future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, at the behest of the US Chamber of Commerce, the 6-page memo, a free-market neoliberal treatise, called for a money fueled big business makeover of government through corporate control of the media, academia, the pulpit, arts and sciences and destruction of organized labor and consumer protection groups.

Powell’s real end game was business control of law and politics. Narrated by Thom Hartmann, and partly based on Jeff Faux’s 2006 book Global Class War, Heist’s step by step detail exposes the systemic implementation of Powell’s memo by both U.S. political parties culminating in the deregulation of industry, outsourcing of jobs and regressive taxation. All of which led us to the global financial crisis of 2008, the continued dismantling of the American middle class, and eventually the voter anger of 2016 and rise of Donald Trump. Today, politics is the playground of the rich and powerful, with no thought given to the hopes and dreams of ordinary Americans. Heist provides a deep explanation of the greatest wealth transfer of our time. Moving beyond the white noise of today’s polarizing media, the film offers viewers a clear, concise and fact- based explanation of how we got into this mess, and what we need to do to restore our representative democracy.