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Arianna Joins Deepak Chopra In Conversation

Posted: 01/11/12 12:48 PM ET

Arianna Huffington joined spiritual thinker Deepak Chopra and author and television host Dylan Ratigan on Tuesday night for a conversation about poverty, high unemployment, and the lack of social mobility that has become a reality for many Americans.

Asked by Ratigan -- whose book "Greedy Bastards: How We Can Stop Corporate Communists, Banksters, and Other Vampires from Sucking America Dry" has just been published -- about how Americans are feeling the "misaligned interests" of the country, Arianna said that "downward mobility" and growing income inequality is "basically destroying the American dream --destroying the hope of the American middle class for their children to do better than they are doing."

Chopra concurred that "the diagnosis is a broken system," and said that Americans need to focus on the areas of society that need the most improvement, then come up with "creative solutions" in a compassionate yet "ruthless" manner.

"This is completely beyond left and right," Arianna said. "All the solutions we are prosing -- any founding father or mother of capitalism would be in favor of. Because they knew capitalism would not survive if we did not have a moral foundation."

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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
AndyPhx
Fruit don't talk. Fruit just listens... and waits
01:56 AM on 01/12/2012
Never been a fan of Chopra's until just recently.

I loved what he had to say during this discussion. Spot on!
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ZeroCoke
HP COMMUNITY BARTENDER
01:44 AM on 01/12/2012
yawns
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
SouthPrairie
01:12 AM on 01/12/2012
Get out of the melodrama and embrace systemic opposition to corruption.
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12:27 AM on 01/12/2012
I feel like we are being torn apart from the top and the bottom. It seems like everyone is only out for their particular share of the pie. Whether it's politicians and corporations at the top and special groups, and people who just don't want to work and who live off the system even when they can work. Meanwhile who aren't in those three groups have to argue about all of that and pay the price.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
CHARLESTHETENTH
12:11 AM on 01/12/2012
Someone needs to explain how a Spiritual Thinker fits into all of this? Just what is a Spiritual Thinker anyway?..and does anybody really know. What we do know is that they are full of positive energy !!
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KOisGod
To thine own self be true
01:42 AM on 01/12/2012
How does he fit in? Have you ever heard him talk? Read any of his work?

His background is not in western capitalism. He comes from India, where their material values are linked to things like Karma, reincarnation, and universal laws as taught by their holy men. India is the oldest continuous civilization on earth. Powers have come and gone, but at it's core, it's belief system goes back thousands of years and remains unchanged.

That is his heritage, and his perspective is unique and valuable. I'm glad to see him included in the discussion.
11:57 PM on 01/11/2012
America is in a death spiral and republicans and democrats are making it happen. Time to start fighting back. #1 priority is to send the F'n shiftless CEOs to India and China.

They want all the benefits of high pay and no taxes while they use slaves in Asia. Let them go where their workers are instead of hiding behind congress and the whitehouse.
11:47 PM on 01/11/2012
Chopra is hard to take serious as he tends to spout a lot of woo.
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
KIVPossum
Moldova Marsupial
08:59 PM on 01/11/2012
Love the dress Ms Huffington has on
jerryatthebeach
Till Death Do You Barrier Island...
08:42 PM on 01/11/2012
We cannot survive wihout proper taxation. Why is this happening???
06:43 PM on 01/11/2012
There is a social contract between those at the top, whether they be kings,landowners etc and the working class how much weatlh is going to be shared. When this percentage become to low for the working class then revolution can ensue. This creates unstability, look at many of the south aerican countries which used to have revolutions all the time. The question is the percentage, in America the wealth gap as grown to much since the reagan era began and needs to be adjusted.
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mathislaw1
"Faith is believing what you know ain't so"-Twain
07:30 PM on 01/11/2012
A contract requires two competent consenting parties. Last time I checked the so-called "social contract" doesn't have that.
09:44 PM on 01/11/2012
The reasons why it has grown so large since Reagan aren't too hard to find. The top marginal tax rate went from its 70%+ for 45 contiguous years down to 28% under Reagan. Google historic top marginal rates.
HUFFPOST PUNDIT
RButler
"Who wouldn't love a person who had a pony?"
12:23 AM on 01/12/2012
Funny, isn't it? That Reagan's tax cuts for the rich DID NOT SATISFY THEM. That's when the greed really got going in this country, when CEO compensation packages took off and the CEOs only thought about the next quarter's profits rather than long range. Productivity increased but wages remained stagnant. How come the workers didn't share in the profits from increased productivity? Just the top execs.
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Bio-man
An advocate for the middle class
04:04 PM on 01/11/2012
A single individual feels powerless in the face of all this corruption, yet more and more people are waking up and asking why. I hope we can attain critical mass and bring about a system that works for all of us and not just the selfish few. Part of my personal awakening is letting go of the Left-Right paradigm. I also look to primary sources for information rather than taking what I hear from the mass media at face value. I think Deepak is a good man and I enjoy listening to his take on all this.
03:01 PM on 01/11/2012
what a treat to see Deepak get national coverage