I believe that we the people have given up control of our country to a few elites whose only goal is to increase their wealth at the expense of the workingman. How can this be? After all, this is a democracy, isn't it?

Edward Bernays wrote:  

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. (http://www.newswithviews.com/Monteith/stanley4.htm)  

Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and his public relations efforts helped popularize Freud's theories in the United States. Bernays also pioneered the PR industry's use of psychology and other social sciences to design its public persuasion campaigns. "If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it," Bernays argued. He called this scientific technique of opinion molding the "engineering of consent." (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Edward_Bernays)  

I spent almost 4 years attending college to obtain my Bachelor's Degree. What I learned is not necessarily what the school intended me to. The online classroom setting was comprised of teams and an instructor. Each instructor organized his/her class into online teams of between 3-8 people. Each team had several projects to complete during the 5-week class. I found that almost without exception, there were only one or two team leaders. The rest of the team was content to go along with whatever the leader/s wanted. I know this because I was the sole leader in all but 3 classes out of 26, and shared the lead in the other 3. Most of the students on my teams wanted to do the least amount of work as possible and were more than happy to have someone do the work for them.

Minority lead is not the exception, but the rule! 

With enough money and influence, the masses can be manipulated through the mass media to believe and act in whatever fashion that the leaders want them to. This is especially true if people are uneducated and dumbed-down by the public school system. A dumbed-down populace is much easier to manipulate than an educated one.

This leads us to the following inevitable conclusion: If our leaders do not represent the people but rather their own special interests, then where does that leave us? Answer - under the control of a few elite ultra-rich leaders who are putting in place their utopian idea of a New World Order in which the peons are in subjugation to the elite ruling class.

We the people need to wake up and smell the stench. It is a conspiracy.