Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos), meaning "a few", and ἄρχω (archo), meaning "to rule or to command") is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, or military control. Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families who pass their influence from one generation to the next.

Throughout history, some oligarchies have been tyrannical, relying on public servitude to exist, although others have been relatively benign. Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as a synonym for rule by the rich, for which the exact term is plutocracy, but oligarchy is not always a rule by wealth, as oligarchs can simply be a privileged group, and do not have to be connected by bloodlines as in a monarchy. Some city-states from ancient Greece were oligarchies.

Some other examples include the former Soviet Union where only members of the Communist Party were allowed to vote or hold office; the French First Republic government under the Directory; and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (only the nobility could vote). In the time of the ancient Greeks, Sparta was an oligarchy that clashed with the democratic city-state of Athens, (these two nations eventually clashed in the Peloponnesian war in which Sparta defeated Athens causing the city state to rule much of Greece for some time).^{[citation needed]}

Stelios Kouloglou is a Greek journalist and writer. He is the creator of the news web channel "TVXS" and a board member of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation. He is, also, a columnist for the LIFO magazine.

He was born in Athens. He graduated from the University of Athens and studied journalism in Paris, Tokyo and India. He has worked as a political correspondent in Greece and as a foreign correspondent in Paris and Moscow, from where he covered developments in the Soviet Union and the other ex-communist countries. In the 1992-95 period he covered the war in Yugoslavia as a special war correspondent.

In 1996 Kouloglou created and introduced for the Greek national television Reportage Without Frontiers. Although disputed in terms of originality at home as considerably based on international investigative reportage, his documentaries have won awards in Greece and abroad (2000 and 2001 "Euro-Comenius" historical documentary Award).^{[citation needed]}.

On June 2008 he began writing a column for the Greek free press magazine LIFO, called "Spin Doctor". On November 1, 2008 he began an internet channel named "TV Without Frontiers", a news and political analysis website.

Webster Griffin Tarpley (born 1946) is an American historian, author, journalist, lecturer, and critic of US foreign and domestic policy. Tarpley maintains that the September 11 attacks were engineered by a rogue network of the military-industrial complex and intelligence agencies as a false flag operation. His writings and speeches describe a model of terror operations by a rogue network in the military/intelligence sector working with moles in the private sector and in corporate media, and locates such contemporary false flag operations in a historical context stretching back in the English speaking world to at least the Gunpowder Plot in England in 1605.

Tarpley was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1946. He received a BA degree summa cum laude in English and Italian from Princeton University in 1966. While a student at Princeton he became a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and was a Fulbright Scholar at University of Turin in Italy. Tarpley also obtained a MA degree in humanities from Skidmore College. As well as a Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America in History.

George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.

Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves.

The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In 1988, the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death.

James George Janos (born July 15, 1951), better known as Jesse Ventura, is an American statesman, actor, author, and former professional wrestler who served as the 38th Governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003.

Ventura served as a Navy UDT during the Vietnam War. He later embarked on an 11-year professional wrestling career from 1975 to 1986, taking up the stage name Jesse "The Body" Ventura. He had a long tenure in the World Wrestling Federation as a performer and color commentator, and was inducted into the company's Hall of Fame in 2004. After leaving wrestling, Ventura began a successful film career, appearing in films such as 1987's Predator.

Ventura first entered politics as Mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota from 1991 to 1995. He ran as the Reform Party candidate in the Minnesota gubernatorial election of 1998, running a campaign centered on grassroots events and unusual ads that implored citizens not to "vote for politics as usual". The campaign was successful, and Ventura served from January 4, 1999, to January 6, 2003, without running for a second term.