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Bilderberg Conference 2002 Chantilly,
Virginia, U.S.A., 30 May-2 June
Thought for the year: The Bilderberg secretariat in Leiden, Holland says these are 'private meetings'. If so, why do state intelligence agencies provide their security? Are our security services moonlighting? Bilderberg can't have it both ways.
07Jun02 - Bilderberg 2002 official Press
Release and participant list
BILDERBERG MEETINGS
31 May 2002
The 50th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Chantilly, Virginia, U.S.A.,
30 May-2 June 2002. Among other subjects the Conference will discuss Terrorism,
Trade, Post Crisis Reconstruction, Middle East, Civil Liberties, US Foreign
Policy, Extreme Right, World Economy, Corporate Governance.
Approximately 120 participants from North America and Europe will attend
the discussions. The meeting is private in order to encourage frank and open
discussion.
Bilderberg takes its name from the hotel in Holland, where the first meeting
took place in May 1954. That pioneering meeting grew out of the concern expressed
by leading citizens on both sides of the Atlantic that Western Europe and
North America were not working as closely as they should on common problems
of critical importance. It was felt that regular, off-the-record discussions
would help create a better understanding of the complex forces and major
trends affecting Western nations in the difficult post war period.
The cold war has now ended. But in practically all respects there are more,
not fewer, common problems - from trade to jobs, from monetary policy to
investment, from ecological challenges to the task of promoting international
security. It is hard to think of any major issue in either Europe or North
America whose unilateral solution would not have repercussions for the
other.
Thus the concept of a European-American forum has not been overtaken by time.
The dialogue between these two regions is still - even increasingly - critical.
What [check out this sentence ;-)] is unique about Bilderberg as a forum
is the broad cross-section of leading citizens that are assembled for nearly
three days of informal and off-the-record discussion about topics of current
concern especially in the fields of foreign affairs and the international
economy; the strong feeling among participants that in view of the differing
attitudes and experiences of the Western nations, there remains a clear need
to further develop an understanding in which these concerns can be accommodated;
the privacy of the meetings, which has no purpose other than to allow
participants to speak their minds openly and freely.
In short, Bilderberg is a small flexible, informal and off-the-record
international forum in which different viewpoints can be expressed and mutual
understanding enhanced.
Bilderberg's only activity is its annual Conference. At the meetings, no
resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued.
Since 1954, forty-nine conferences have been held. The names of the participants
are made available to the press. Participants are chosen for their experience,
their knowledge, and their standing; all participants attend Bilderberg in
a private and not an official capacity.
There are usually about 120 participants of whom about two-thirds come from
Europe and the balance from North America. About one-third are from government
and politics, and two-thirds from finance, industry, labor, education,
communications.
Participants have agreed not to give interviews to the press during the meeting. In contacts with the news media after the conference it is an established rule [ref. Chatham House Rule] that no attribution should be made to individual participants of what was discussed during the meeting.
There will be no press conference. A list of participants is appended.
BILDERBERG MEETINGS
Chantilly, Virginia, U.S.A.
30 May - 2 June 2002
FINAL LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
Honorary Chairman
Davignon, Etienne
Vice Chairman, Société Générale de Belgique
USA Allaire, Paul A. - Former Chairman and CEO, Xerox Corporation
CDN Baillie, A. Charles - Chairman and CEO, TD Bank Financial Group
GB Balls, Edward - Chief Economic Advisor to the Treasury
P Balsemão, Francisco Pinto - Professor of Communication Science, New University, Lisbon; Chairman of IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.
F Belot, Jean de - Editor-in-Chief, Le Figaro
USA Bergsten, C. Fred - Director, Institute for International Economics
N Bernander, John G. - Director General, Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation
CDN Black, Conrad M. - Chairman, Telegraph Group Ltd.
INT Bolkestein, Frits - Commissioner, European Commission
P Borges, António - Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
USA Boyd, Charles G. - President and CEO, Business Executives for National Security
F Castries, Henri de - Chairman of the Board, AXA
E Cebrián, Juan Luis - CEO, Prisa (El Pais)
F Collomb, Bertrand - Chairman and CEO, Lafarge
CH Couchepin, Pascal - Federal Councillor; Head of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs
GB Dahrendorf, Ralf - Member, House of Lords; Former Warden, St. Antony's College, Oxford
USA Dam, Kenneth W. - Deputy Secretary, US Department of Treasury
GR David, George A. - Chairman of the Board, Coca-Cola H.B.C. S.A.
USA David-Weill, Michel A. - Chairman, Lazard Frères & Co.
TR Dervis, Kemal - Minister of Economic Affairs
USA Deutch, John M. - Institute Professor, MIT
USA Dinh, Viet D. Assistant Attorney General for Office of Policy Development link to him
USA Donilon, Thomas E. - Executive Vice President, Fannie Mae
I Draghi, Mario - Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International [Chairman of the Deputies of the Group of Ten, Bank of International Settlements]
USA Eizenstat, Stuart - Covington & Burling
DK Eldrup, Anders - Chairman of the Board of Directors, Danish Oil & Gas Consortium
USA Feldstein, Martin S. - President and CEO, NAtional Bureau of Economic Research
P Ferreira, Elisa Guimarães - Member of Parliament, Former Minister of Planning
USA Foley, Thomas S. - Partner, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld
INT Fortescue, Adrian - Director General, Justice and Internal Affairs, European Commission
CDN Frum, David - American Enterprise Institute; Former Special Assistant to President Bush
F Gergorin, Jean-Louis - Executive Vice President, Strategic Coordination, EADS
USA Gigot, Paul A. - Editorial Page Editor, The Wall Street Journal
USA Greenspan, Alan - Chairman, Federal Reserve System
NL Groenink, Rijkman W.J. - Chairman of the Board, ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
A Gusenbauer, Alfred - Member of Parliament; Chairman, Social Democratic Party
NL Halberstadt, Victor - Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former Honorary Secretary General of Bilderberg Meetings
USA Hills, Carla A. - Chairman and CEO, Hills & Company, International Consultants
USA Hoagland, Jim - Associate Editor, The Washington Post
USA Hubbard, Allan B. - President, E&A Industries
USA Hutchison, Kay Bailey - Senator (Republican, Texas)
B Huyghebaert, Jan - Chairman, Almanij N.V.
D Ischinger, Wolfgang - Ambassador to the US
USA James, Charles A. - Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust
USA Johnson, James A. - Vice Chairman, Perseus, L.L.C.
USA Jordan, Jr., Vernon E. - Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
USA Kissinger, Henry A. - Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
NL Kist, Ewald - Chairman of the Board ING N.V.
NL Kleisterlee, Gerard J. - President and CEO, Royal Philips Elecronics
D Kopper, Hilmar - Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG
USA Krauthammer, Charles - Columnist, The Washington Post
USA Kravis, Henry R. - Founding Partner, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
USA Kravis, Marie-Josée - Senior Fellow - Hudson Institute Inc.
CH Kudelski, André - Chairman of the Board & CEO, Kudelski Group
USA LaFalce, John J. - Congressman (Democrat, New York)
USA Leschly, Jan - Chairman & CEO, Care Capital LLC
F Lévy-Lang, André - Former Chairman, Paribas
B Lippens, Maurice - Chairman, Fortis
USA Mathews, Jessica T. - President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
USA McAuliffe, Terry - Chairman, Democratic National Committee
USA McDonough, William J. - President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
E Miguel, Ramón de - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
USA Mitchell, Andrea - Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondant, NBC News
F Moïsi, Dominique - Deputy Director, French Institute of International Relations
F Montbrial, Thierry de - Director, French Institute of International Relations
USA Moskow, Michael H. - President, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
N Myklebust, Egil - Chairman, Norsk Hydro ASA
FIN Ollila, Jorma - Chairman of the Board and CEO, Nokia Corporation
TR Özaydinlí, Bulend - CEO, Koç Holding A.S.
INT Padoa-Schioppa, Tommaso - Member of the Executive Board, European Central Bank
GR Papahelas, Alexis - Foreign policy columnist. TO VIMA
USA Pearl, Frank H. - Chairman and CEO, Perseus, L.L.C.
USA Perle, Richard N. - Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
D Polenz, Ruprecht - Member of Parliament, CDU/CSU
USA Prestowitz, Jr., Clyde V. - President, Economic Strategy Institute
USA Racicot, Mark - Chairman, Republican National Committee
USA Raines, Franklin D. - Chairman and CEO, Fannie Mae
A Randa, Gerhard - Chairman and CEO, Bank Austria AG
USA Rattner, Steven - Managing Principal, Quadrangle Group LLC
CDN Reisman, Heather - President and CEO, Indigo Books and Music Inc.
USA Rockefeller, David - Member, JP Morgan International Council
E Rodriguez Inciarte, Matías - Executive Vice Chairman, Banco Santander Central Hispano
GB Roll, Eric - Senior Adviser, UBS Warburg Ltd.
USA Rose, Charlie - Producer, Rose Communications
F Roy, Olivier - University Professor and Researcher, CNRS
USA Rumsfeld, Donald H. - Secretary of Defense
TR Sanberk, Özdem - Director, Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation
D Schrempp, Jurgen E. - Chairman of the Board of Management, DaimlerChrysler AG
D Schulz, Ekkehard - Chairman, ThyssenKrupp AG
F Schweitzer, Louis - Chairman and CEO, Renault S.A.
DK Seidenfaden, Tøger - Editor-in-Chief, Politiken
F Seillière, Ernest-Antoine - Chairman and CEO, CGIP
RUS Shevtsova, Lilia - Senior Associate, Carnegie Moscow Center
USA Siegman, Henry - Council on Foreign Relations
USA Soros, George - Chairman, Soros Fund Management
USA Steinberg, James B. - Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy Studies Program
N Stoltenberg, Jens - Leader of the Opposition (Social Democratic Party)
USA Summers, Lawrence H. - President, Harvard University
IRL Sutherland, Peter D. - Chairman and Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International; Chairman BP Amoco
FIN Taxell, Christoffer - President and CEO, Partek Oyj
USA Thoman, G. Richard - Senior Advisor, Evercore Partners Inc.
USA Thornton, John L. - President and co-CEO, The Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
FIN Tiilikainen, Teija H. - Director of Research, Centre for European Studies
S Treschow, Michael - Chairman, Ericsson
F Trichet, Jean-Claude - Governor, Banque de France
CH Vasella, Daniel L. - Chairman and CEO, Novartis AG
USA Vink, Lodewijk J. R. de - Chairman, Global Health Care Partners; Credit Suisse First
A Vranitzky, Franz - Former Federal Chancellor
S Wallenberg, Jacob - Chairman of the Board, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken
CDN Whyte, Kenneth - Editor, The National Post
GB Williams, Gareth - Leader, House of Lords; Member of the Cabinet
INT Wolfensohn, James D. - President, The World Bank
D Zumwinkel, Klaus - Chairman of the Board of Management, Deutsche Post AG
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,865213,00.html
Staff and agencies
Thursday December 26, 2002
Nato has a "moral obligation" to support the US if it goes to war against Iraq, Nato secretary general George Robertson said today. Church leaders meanwhile used their Christmas messages to appeal for peace.
Lord Robertson said it would be impossible for the US to go to war without the support of its allies, although no decision had been made on what role the 19 Nato nations would play in any military action.
"What the Americans have done in Nato is to suggest a number of options where Nato could help in a military action and countries have been invited to consider that, but no decisions have yet been taken on it," he said.
Lord Robertson defended the US president, George Bush, who he said was committed to acting through the United Nations to disarm the regime of the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein.
"Up to now the United States has kept very rigidly to the United Nations route. They still do, the inspectors are still there," he told BBC radio.
Last month the UN security council approved resolution 1441, which calls on Iraq to rid itself of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes and threatens the country with unspecified "serious consequences" if it fails to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors.
"The decision [on military action] won't be taken by America, the decision will be taken by Saddam Hussein," Lord Robertson said.
He added that Nato "is very, very supportive of the United Nations process and if that breaks down then clearly there is a moral obligation by Nato to give whatever support is required."
His comments came as Christian religious leaders around the world used their Christmas addresses to call for peace.
Pope John Paul II, in his annual Christmas message, said the world should avoid war and not "yield to mistrust, suspicion and discouragement".
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, used a Christmas broadcast to warn of the unintended suffering caused by politicians. Referring to the biblical story of the birth of Christ, the archbishop compared political strategists to the three wise men who informed King Herod of the birth of Jesus.
"Telling Herod about the Christ child, they provoked the massacre of the children of Bethlehem," he said in the message, broadcast today on the BBC. "The strategists who know the possible ramifications of politics miss the huge and obvious things and wreak yet more havoc and suffering. Here we all are, tangled in the same net ... stepping deeper and deeper into tragedy."
Yesterday the leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales also urged world leaders to work toward a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis.
"We must never give up and assume that war is inevitable," Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, told worshippers in Westminster cathedral.
"Let us pray today, therefore, that each one of us, particularly those involved in international diplomacy and politics, will maintain our permanent commitment to building and maintaining peace in our world."
The Iraqi government, meanwhile, said today it had increased food rations to allow citizens to stockpile for a possible war.
The Iraqi trade minister, Mohammed Mehdi Saleh, told the Reuters news agency that supplies distributed so far should ensure everyone had a three-month supply of food. He added that the quantity would be increased in the coming months.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,865213,00.html
By Joshua Rozenberg Legal Editor
(Filed: 20/12/2002)
Lord Carrington, who was Defence Secretary at the time of the Bloody Sunday shootings in 1972, told the official inquiry into the events yesterday that "there was never any question of the military opening fire on innocent civilians".
Suggestions that their lives had been put at risk for political reasons were "disgraceful", he added under cross-examination.
The most senior politician to give evidence to the tribunal so far said it was "ludicrous" to suggest that there was a deliberate policy to shoot civilians. It was "something that no politician would ever agree to".
In his opening statement to the inquiry, which is currently sitting in London, Lord Carrington dismissed suggestions that there was a "plan to deal with Londonderry by taking the sort of action which resulted in Bloody Sunday".
He also denied that the appointment of Gen Robert Ford as second-in-command in Northern Ireland signalled a change of heart by the Government.
The former minister thought that Gen Ford's belief, expressed in a top secret memo written three weeks before Bloody Sunday, that the best way to restore law and order was to "shoot a few Londonderry hooligans" would not have been condoned by the Government or by Gen Michael Carver, Chief of the General Staff.
"I am sure that no such plan was in existence and, even if it had been, the Ministry of Defence, the Government and Michael Carver would have had no part in it," he said.
The suggestion simply did not comply with the Army's rules of engagement contained in the Yellow Card issued to troops, Lord Carrington explained. "All I can say is that we were 'yellow-carding' for all we were worth."
Lord Carrington, 83, added: "If civilians were nearby when the Army was fired upon and fired back, it was a tragedy for any innocents who were caught in the crossfire.
"However, I can state quite categorically that it was never policy to shoot unless a target had been identified as a threat. It is ridiculous to suggest there was a plot. People always find plots in everything."
Troops from 1 Bn the Parachute Regiment insist they fired only at gunmen and bombers as they attempted to arrest rioters.
Lord Carrington told the inquiry that Bloody Sunday had been a "fairly disastrous" operation. This had been Downing Street's opinion in the immediate aftermath of the killings. "A lot of people got killed and that was the last thing we wanted to see," he said.
Lord Gifford, QC, for the family of one of those killed on Bloody Sunday, put it to Lord Carrington that the Government had been willing to risk the lives of innocent Catholics in order to appease Protestant opinion in Northern Ireland. "I think that is a disgraceful accusation," the former minister replied.
Summing up Lord Gifford's line of questioning, the inquiry chairman, Lord Saville, said the QC was alleging that "the design of the British Government was to shoot people on the streets of Derry that afternoon in the hope and expectation that it would aid the political process".
"It did not seem very likely," was Lord Carrington's laconic reply. The tribunal will resume sitting next month.
Thu Dec 12, 4:58 PM ET
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON -
President George W. Bush, rejecting protests from supply-side conservatives, on Thursday named Wall Street investment banker Stephen Friedman as his top economic adviser. Friedman said he "strongly shared" Bush's view that Congress needs to pass a new economic stimulus package.
Bush selected Friedman last week, but his appointment was delayed because of questions about his health and to give White House lawyers time to review Freidman's huge investment portfolio.
Conservatives, unhappy with what they saw as Friedman's lukewarm past support for tax cuts, used the delay to mount an aggressive campaign to try to derail the selection. But in the end, Bush stuck with his original choice.
Friedman, 64, served as co-chair of the giant Wall Street investment bank of Goldman Sachs from 1990 to 1994. He shared those posts with Robert Rubin until Rubin left the firm in 1992 to join the Clinton administration, first in the same position Friedman will now hold and then as President Clinton's second treasury secretary.
With the announcement of Friedman, Bush has now filled the two top economic policy jobs in his administration which became vacant last Friday when Bush demanded and received the resignations of Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and Lawrence Lindsey, who Friedman will replace as director of the president's National Economic Council.
Bush on Monday announced he had picked railroad executive John W. Snow, the chairman of CSX Corp., as O'Neill's replacement.
In a brief ceremony in the White House Roosevelt Room, Bush said he had selected Friedman for his "wide experience and steady and sound judgment."
For his part, Friedman said he was committed to working in the administration to "increase the momentum of the recovery" from last year's recession.
The stop-and-go nature of the recovery was underscored last week when the government announced that the nation's unemployment rate had returned to an eight-year high of 6 percent.
Seeking to reassure conservatives who are concerned about his commitment to further tax cuts, Friedman said, "I strongly share your convictions, sir, that now is the time for a robust growth and jobs policy."
Analysts saw the flap over Bush's new economic team is a replay of a two-decade-old struggle within the Republican Party. Supply-side tax cutters believe tax cuts, by stimulating output, can boost government revenues, while fiscal conservatives hold the more traditional economic view that tax cuts end up lowering revenues and increasing budget deficits.
The current fight also serves to underscore the challenges Bush will face in selling a new stimulus package, with as much as an additional $300 billion in tax cuts, to Congress next year even with an overhauled economic team.
Some analysts said the battle over tax cuts and the deficit harks back to the fight won by President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s to convince Congress to approve both a big tax cut and big increases in military spending.
Senior administration officials said shortly after Lindsey's dismissal that Friedman was Bush's top pick, but his final selection was delayed by questions about what was described as a minor heart condition that flared up last week. The administration also carefully reviewed his portfolio.
While not a Cabinet-level position, the economic adviser post is significant because the West Wing office gives the occupant access to Bush and top aides.
Everywhere you look - government, big business and any other institution seeking to exercise power - the key is secrecy. Meetings such as those of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the G-8, World Trade Organisation, World Economic Forum, Central Banks, the European Union Council of Ministers and the EU Commission, EU summits, government cabinet meetings, numerous think tanks etc. are always conducted behind closed doors. The only possible reason for this is that they don't want you and I to know what they are really up to. That well worn excuse for keeping things under wraps -"it is not in the public interest" really means that it is not in the interest of the powers that be that the public should know. However there is, in addition, a network of private forums and meetings that take place where the secrecy principle extends to the forums and meetings themselves - by and large, we don't even know that they are taking place, let alone what is being planned and discussed….
The Bilderberg Group
Did you know, for example, that some of the biggest names in world politics, media, banking and business met at Turnberry South Ayrshire from 14th. to 17th. May 1998 under the chairmanship of Lord Peter Carrington? If you didn't, this is your introduction to the Bilderberg Group - a private forum where powerful and influential figures from Europe and North America meet in great secrecy amid very tight security to plan and discuss global strategy and reach consensus on a wide range of issues. What then seems to happen is that ensuing consensus on various issues are then promoted by powerful commercial and business interests in the media at the same time becoming the policy of governments of supposedly different political persuasions.
Bilderberg was formed in 1954, named after the hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland where the first meeting took place. It has a main meeting annually in a heavily guarded location in Europe or North America. It brings together top people from a variety of spheres of influence and power on both sides of the Atlantic. Participants include Heads of State, prime ministers, other leading political figures, top corporate executives, industrialists, bankers, financiers, and an assortment of intellectuals, diplomats, influential representatives of the media and even the occasional trade unionist with demonstrated sympathy for establishment views. One insider apparently has observed that "..today, there are very few figures among governments on both sides of the Atlantic who have not attended at least one of these meetings."
What sets this private forum, (and others mentioned later) apart from other gatherings of the politically and economically powerful such as the G-8 meetings, European Union summits etc. is that they are little or almost unknown to the public and they escape media attention. Much of the centralisation of power that is taking place in the world today - a process that has been going on for many years, but is now accelerating into top gear - can very likely be attributed to the agreements and consensus reached at these meetings. Human nature being what it is, there are people in power who would seek to bring about some form of centralised all powerful global government. Much of what we see happening around us today is bringing that prospect ever closer, with increasing power of multi-national corporations, the surrender of national sovereignty in the EU, governments handing over complete control of money supply and monetary policy to unaccountable central banks, the rules and regulations of the World Trade Organisation, the ability of the International Monetary Fund to dictate to national governments etc. - power concentrated in the hands of ever fewer people operating through more remote unaccountable institutions. Maybe that is O.K. if you trust the top people in power.. However remember the saying "all power tends to corrupt…".
Few journalists, reporters and news people in the mainstream media, until very recently, had even heard of Bilderberg, yet these are the people who claim to give us informed in-depth reporting of what is going on in the world. Even many M.Ps. in the House of Commons appear not to have heard of it, and those that have do not speak publicly about it. However some of the more prominent and "promising" ones will have actually attended its meetings.
It is claimed by the organisers to be an "informal" gathering. Attendance is by invitation from the steering committee - an inner circle of permanent members, who meet regularly, setting the aims and agenda of the group, and reviewing progress. Everyone is invited to "speak freely" - which suggests perhaps they can say what they really think and believe rather than what they tell the public they think and believe! And it is all off the record.
If you question anyone who has attended, about the group, the answers you get are either that it is just an informal airing of views in relaxed surroundings with no votes or formal resolutions. (However, one can build up consensus quite adequately without formal resolutions.) Alternatively it is claimed to be a gathering of political "has beens" who no longer wield any real power. An examination of the annual attendance lists reveals nothing could be further from the truth. Many a rising star has attended and the so called "has beens" who do attend are in fact still active and influential behind the scenes. Former Observer Editor Will Hutton attended the 1997 meeting. He did not disclose the content of any discussions, but he expressed the view, privately, that it is Bilderberg that sets the agenda for the forums and summits such as the G-8, Council of Europe and World Trade Organisation meetings that follow.
Lord Carrington was chairman of the steering group until 2000, Lord Home was a former chairman. Kenneth Clarke and Henry Kissinger are current steering group members. Early steering group members included Denis Healey and Reginald Maudling, followed more recently by EU Commission President Romano Prodi, EU Commissioner Mario Monti and former Labour leader John Smith. In the past Wilson, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher, Roy Jenkins, Jeremy Thorpe, David Steele, the Duke of Edinburgh, Cyrus Vance, George Shultz, Helmut Kohl, Francois Mitterand have all attended. More recently it has been Bill and Hilary Clinton, Blair, Brown, Mandelson, Paddy Ashdown, Norman Lamont, William Waldegrave, Malcolm Rifkind, Alan Greenspan (Head of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank), numerous EU Commissioners, Lord Roll of Ipsden (Labour Peer and former President of merchant bank Warburg, Dillon Read), Conrad Black (Chairman Hollinger Group which owns the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator), Andrew Knight (chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's News International media empire), Umberto Agnelli (President of Fiat SpA). In 1996, T.U.C. General Secretary John Monks attended, and in 1999 former Friends of the Earth Director and current Forum of the Future Director Jonathan Porrit attended. Ever since its inception, members of the Rothschild and Rockefeller families have always attended.
What exactly has been going on here? There's certainly a wide range of prominent people attending these meetings, and, when hearing about Bilderberg for the first time, some people say isn't it great that so many different people come together to discuss global issues. Another perhaps more realistic interpretation is that it is the rich and powerful planning our future behind our backs without our knowledge and permission. Previous meetings in Britain have taken place in Buxton, Cambridge, Torquay, and Gleneagles, right under our noses only we didn't know about them. Only in very recent years has the veil of secrecy surrounding the event begun to break, with limited mention in the local press of the host country. Several Scottish newspapers made quite a splash that the 1998 meeting took place at Turnberry, but since then silence has returned. Nothing on 1999's meeting at Sintra Portugal or 2000's meeting at Chateau du Lac south of Brussels, or 2001's meeting at a secluded island resort near Gothenberg, Sweden. The same applied to this year's meeting which has just taken place at Chantilly, Virginia, USA. [1]
Bilderberg is reckoned to be the most influential of the private forums, but there are other little known organisations such as the Trilateral Commission, the Pinay Circle, the Royal Institute of International Affairs- (RIIA is said to be responsible for British foreign policy) and its United States counterpart, the Council on Foreign Relations. Except occasionally the RIIA, these organisations are almost never mentioned in the mainstream media, all meet behind the usual closed doors, yet they are almost certainly closely linked. Some of them are strongly Anglo-American in membership. Indeed it appears that the RIIA and the CFR may be essentially one and the same organisation, born at the same time in the early '20's, out of an earlier grouping known as the Round Table, set up by those advocates of global domination, Cecil Rhodes and Lord Alfred Milner. Perhaps this gives true meaning to the "special relationship" between Britain and the U.S.A.
Version 8 - To view the complete text of Richard Greaves' paper download here as Word or Rich Text document
More up to date version 9 in word or rich text
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=1719597
LONDON (Reuters) - Kenneth Clarke, former chancellor and deputy chairman of British American Tobacco, has defended his company's business in military-run Myanmar despite revelations he criticised other firms investing there.
A human rights group pressuring BAT to pull out of Myanmar on Monday published extracts of a letter in which Clarke, an opposition party heavyweight, told a constituent he felt "uncomfortable" about investment in Myanmar.
In the letter obtained by the Burma Campaign UK, Clarke said: "The problem with Burma (as Myanmar was formerly known) arises when companies start collaborating with an extremely unpleasant regime which is totally contrary to our notions of civil liberties."
BAT, whose brands include Rothmans, Dunhill and Lucky Strike, on Monday issued a statement in which Clarke said: "We employ more than 400 people in Burma and I see no benefit to them in us simply pulling out."
BAT operates in Myanmar through its Rothmans of Pall Mall subsidiary, a 60/40 percent joint venture with the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings (UMEH).
UMEH is controlled by the military junta which has ruled Myanmar for the past four decades. It has one of the worst human rights records of any government and faces allegations of widespread forced labour and torture.
Clarke, seen as a possible challenger for Conservative party leadership, said the Burma Campaign failed to publish an extract of his letter which said: "I do not think we can have a blanket law which stops British companies doing business with dictators ... an international company cannot reform the politics of the government of any country in which it does business."
BAT, which had revenues of 11.4 billion pounds in 2001, said its factory workers were among the highest paid in Myanmar, even though many get little more than 20 pence a day. It said it provided $50,000 (31,000 pounds) for a well project to provide clean water to villages.
The Burmese democracy movement argues that any business with Myanmar's military government keeps them in power.
It alleges the industrial area where the BAT cigarette factory is located was upgraded in 1996 using child labour.
BAT acquired the business in 1999 through its acquisition of Rothmans International.
Many Western firms have cut investment in Myanmar after pressure from the United States and European governments, which have been angered over the military's imprisonment of democracy movement leaders.
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=1719597
WARRANTS FOR ARREST
http://www.twincities.indymedia.org:8081//front.php3?article_id=7449
by Jon Chance
12:30pm Sat Oct 26 '02 (Modified on 10:20pm Sun Oct 27 '02)
address: 72 Peterborough Street, Boston MA 02215 USA phone: 617-859-8155 jpchance@egroups.com
All members of the Bilderberg Group are wanted on a material witness warrant issued on October 25, 2002, in connection with international racketeering, money laundering, theft, terrorism and other crimes.
All members of the Bilderberg Group are wanted on a material witness warrant issued on October 25, 2002, in connection with international racketeering, money laundering, theft, terrorism and other crimes.
Law enforcement personnel believe that members of the Bilderberg Group can provide valuable information regarding these cases.
IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONCERNING THESE PERSONS, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL INTERPOL, FBI, DIA, OR INSA OFFICE OR THE NEAREST AMERICAN EMBASSY OR CONSULATE.
http://www.twincities.indymedia.org:8081//front.php3?article_id=7449
Are John G. Bernander and Jens Stoltenberg part of a secret world government - or a nice forum for top executives and leaders?
A world without national states where everything is about money. This is the 50-year-old Bilderberg-group's principal objective according to its critics, who don't hesitate to call it a conspiracy. According to them the initiation of the European Union, the idea of the Treaty of Rome and Euro as well were all hatched during Bilderberger meetings.
Kare Willoch (comment: Norway's Prime Minister (Conservative) 1981-1986) has been present at several of them.
- KW: One can ponder upon the mix of businessmen and politicians. It does a great service as long as the politicians make sure that the businessmen are only partly qualified.
- VG: Is Bilderberg democratic?
- KW: Well. No. It's more of an effort to be interdisciplinary. That's why it is so important that the politicians know they represent democracy. Insight does not increase along with sales. I would say 'as opposed to'… I think I would attend the meeting today with a lot more scepticism.
- VG: Why all this secretiveness?
- KW: Good question, because it serves no purpose, says Willoch.
In 1982 the prime of Norwegian politicians met with the Bilderbergers under heavy guard in Sandefjord [Norway].
- The hotel in Sandefjord was isolated. They had their own catering and all personnel had to get a security clearance. Armed Norwegian police functioned as guards. [even today a special permit is required for Norwegian police officers to use weapons on the street - gun laws have always been strict in Norway].
NRK's [similar to BBC] journalist Ebbe Ording is one of few Norwegians apart from the participants that know anything about Bilderberg. He has written the book "Gardermoen - et nasjonalt bedrageri" [Gardermoen is Norway's ten year old International airport and there were some 'unfortunate' episodes in relation to its planning and so forth. Et nasjonalt bedrageri translates directly into "a national fraud".] In between the meetings at Sandefjord the Bilderbergers might have talked about where Norway's national airport was supposed to be.
- If anyone mentions what goes on during the meetings they are excluded from the good company. Anyone who has participated will probably minimize the importance of the Bilderberg-conferences to something like a cozy gathering.
But Ording calls attention to the fact that when people of this stature spend two-three days on meetings, they attribute it much more conceit than that. The participants of Bilderberg meetings have little time to waste on unnecessary meetings, he adds.
The most eager of the conspiracy theorists say that Bilderberg is part of a bigger power network tied together in a supersecret round table conference. The Club of Rome and the United Nations are supposed to be the other participants in the shadow government that want centralized control of the planet.
- There is little reason for any conspiracy theories, says John G. Bernander.
The Director of Broadcasting at NRK attended this years [2002] Bilderberg meeting in the U.S.A.
- The group itself has no power. But yes, there are definitely important people with a great responsibility who attend.
In June he flew to Virginia to listen to amongst others Alan Greenspan, Henry Kissinger, The World Bank's James Wolfenson and Minister of Defence Donald Rumsfeld.
"When you have reached Bilderberg, you have arrived," The Economist wrote in a ranking of the world's power elites.
The Economist is itself solidly represented at the meetings, but rarely mentions Bilderberg.
Bilderberg has been labeled to be the world's premier boy's club. But "iron ladies" like Margaret Thatcher and Gro Harlem Brundtland [Director General of WHO and 3x Prime Minister of Norway with the Norwegian Labour Party] have been admitted. Plus Kristin Clemet [Current Norwegian Minister of Education for the Conservative party]
It all started at the Bilderberg hotel in Oosterbeek Holland in 1954. The Dutch prince Bernhard had great ambitions for the group, which since then has gotten together hundreds of American and European top people every year.
The Prince himself officiated as chairman of the board. The board decides who is invited for the next meeting and what to discuss.
The British journalist and activist Tony Gosling has also attended a meeting, although not being very welcome. He now runs one of the biggest websites on Bilderberg.
- Bilderberg is a tool to convince the rulers about what is "right". During the meetings the big companies can persuade and form a consensus for their own interests without giving people a chance to object.
The High Priest's of globalization is what Will Hutton, editor of the Observer, called the group.
- No politics are modelled there. It's just talk. But the agreements that are made there define a framework for international politics, he says according to the weekly newspaper The Big Issue.
In 1991 a relatively unknown Guvernor of Arkansas made his appearance at the annual Bilderberger meeting. His good friend, lawyer Vernon Jordan, introduced him. The latter is known as an informal adviser for presidents and people in high places within politics, but also as a repeated participant at Bilderberg-meetings.
One and a half year later the Governor turned President of the U.S.
Thorvald Stoltenberg [Former Minister of Foreign Relations for the Social Democrat's in Norway] has attended several Bilderberg-meetings, as a Labour Party delegate and UN observer [in Bosnia].
- TS: People have different perspectives in Bilderberg [sic]. Fortunately! But I have never experienced that anyone has tried to persuade anyone or pressure anyone into anything to make everyone agree.
- VG: So you are not a conspirator?
- TS: I don't even know what that means. My preoccupation is that people agree with me.
During the 1999 meeting, 14 respected mediapeople participated. None of them reported anything to their readers or listeners. The same thing happened this year.
- VG: Why the secrecy, John G. Bernander?
- JGB: There is none. Press releases are sent out on who is participating and the agenda, but the discussions are not public.
Bernander emphasizes that the meetings are not public so that the participants can speak freely.
- It's an informal meeting. If you are having a birthday party you don't invite the whole world, says Maja Banck at the Bilderberg secretariat, rhetorically.
- Don't believe everything you read on the Internet, is her comment on conspiracy theories.
But upon asking how the Bilderberg meetings function the answer is:
- I don't have to tell you.
All the guards with helicopters and what evidently is intelligence service usually overwhelm people who have come close to Bilderberg meetings.
"Special Branch and CIA was everywhere - they were running things," one of the police officers said to The Big Issue in 1999.
Tony Gosling tells stories of journalists arrested who ask questions, about cut up tires and dead pets.[does he????????]
The acknowledged Financial Times columnist during the '70s, C. Gordon Tether, wrote about Bilderberg several times. He was censored each time.
After two years he was fired when he wrote: "If the Bilderberg Group is not a conspiracy of some sort, it is conducted in such a way as to give a remarkably good imitation of one." He has now collected his texts in a leaflet.
The British weekly newspaper The Big Issue could in 1999, as the only newspaper in history, reveal parts of the discussions that took place at the Bilderberg meeting.
A report from the 1999 meeting leaked to the paper, reveals that the group was consulted on the conflict in Kosovo.
Russia's acceptance of NATO's bombing seems to be a barter deal:
"Russia now has a carte blanche to intervene in Chechyna. NATO will not bomb Moscow if Russia invades Chechyna."
The report also shows that a global currency, "dollarization", was discussed as the next step since the Euro was to be reality. Several of the attendants said that it was easier to cut welfare budgets if you were a socialist. But like German said:
"In many casses the real power is with the central banks."
P.S. The American Magazine "American Free Press" has offered a reward of NKR 300,000 to the one that can prove that Bilderberg is not a conspiracy. For the time being no one has claimed the money.
------End of article------
see also http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=1527961
Translator's note:
I would like to comment on the article. First of all, this is the first big article on Bilderberg in Norway since 1984. Mum being the word since then, would be an understatement. This is also the first time we have actually got some comments from the Norwegian delegates, although not too revealing, the journalist did a good job in letting the logical arguments come through. We have been several people trying to make a nuisance about it for the last 9 months, and finally we pulled through.
It might be important to add, that since this is the Sunday issue, one can hope that maybe one tenth of the population has read it. A careful estimate: The newspaper's circulation for its Sunday issue is approximately 400,000.
Considering that 4 million people live here, we are very glad that VG took the job. Not too surprising though, since the two other big papers, Dagbladet and Aftenposten have had Bilderbergers.
There were several pictures there, but all of them, apart from the one of Kaare Willoch were downloaded from Tony Gosling's site, www.bilderberg.org
Thank you for your attention again.
Thomas Hegge (translator)
Son of a Bilderberger (SOB)
En varierende gruppe folk fra Europa og USA som møtes årlig for å diskutere internasjonal politikk. Personer innen finans, shipping, Nato, media, politikk og forskning deltar.
Hvopr møtene holdes, er hemmelig for alle andre inntil møtet starter, og hva som foregår bak de bevoktede dørene vet man lite om.
Møtene er sannsynligivs finansiert av familier som Rockefeller og Rothschild, i tillegg til store multinasjonale selskaper.
Bildeberg-gruppen har navnet sitt fra hotellet i Nederland hvor de første gang møttes.
http://www.skolnicksreport.com/tbsynd.html
by Sherman H. Skolnick 7/1/02
Every year, for almost half a century, they meet in a different country. Their first meeting was in Holland, in 1954. It was arranged by the Dutch Monarchy. It took place in the Bilderberg Hotel, which became the name of this secret society, one of several, forbidden to be discussed by the oil-soaked, spy-riddled monopoly press.
Mutually pledged to sealed lips are those invited to the annual meeting. Members of the aristocracies attend of various nations, consisting of the elites of high finance, politics, espionage, academia, media, and other titles.
I once interviewed, on tape, the wire desk editor of the Chicago Sun-Times. "Why does your paper censor stories about the secret society, the Bilderberg?" Most media honchos pretend never to have heard of this gang of plotters. But he responded candidly, a rarity, "Well, if we went and then told about it, we couldn't go anymore. What should we do? Go and talk about it, or not be able to go?"
The meetings of the Bilderberg Group are about the only place that competing financial forces sit with one another. The Rockefellers, for example, are always there. So are their apparent enemy, the French Rothschilds. Sitting as a sort of neutral intermediary always is a top official of the Wallenberg banking monopoly of Sweden and northern Europe.
[In 1978, when John D. Rockefeller 3rd was assassinated on the road to their upstate New York fortress, we were the ONLY journalists (unpaid, free lance journalists, at that), who dared inquire. He was the father of John D. Rockfeller 4th, who to be cute, calls himself "Jay", a supposed Democrat, U.S. Senator from West Virginia. The Rockefellers like to dominate states with sizeable geography and minerals, but a small population, such as also Arkansas. In a pinch, to dominate the state it would not cost that much to buy most every voter and most every media propaganda instrument in the state.Returning the "favor" of political murder was eighteen years later when the top member of the French Rothschild Family was murdered in Paris. The American monopoly press was ordered not to mention in detail, if at all, the death of Rothschild. Or, just run an innocent little item that the French International baron died of a "heart attack". Presslord/swindler Rupert Murdoch ordered his print and electronic media outlets to avoid, if at all, mentioning the death.
The hotel in different countries where they meet each year, are announced as "closed", for "remodeling", or a "wedding party". One year they picked a resort hotel on top of a Swiss mountain, difficult to reach except by air. The host nation agrees to supply a huge, almost secret security force prepared to brutalize intruders, follow any hardy reporters who may be encamped nearby, and by various brutality and trickery stop any public knowledge. Hotel employees are likewise pledged to secrecy, which if they violated it, would be severely dealt with. Such as never to be able to work again in that nation.
When the Bilderberg met in 1991, in Baden-Baden, Germany, a purported health resort, invited was a then obscure Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. They anointed him as the next President of the United States. The election would be a mere set up. The pressfakers present agreed not to mention, if at all possible, what they all knew. That Clinton was a walking, talking scandal. Not every American voter can bring themselves to know or believe reality. Namely, every candidate for high office is selected because they are blackmailable. The Establishment has to reserve the right to pull on the chain, any time they felt like it, to shut down such a candidate if somehow elected to high office. This, anytime the "powers that be" deemed it necessary, to shut him or her up, to remove them, or, scare them into silence with weird violence directed against the candidate/president's circle.
Groomed since a teen-ager by the American CIA, Clinton in the1992 Presidential election shadow-boxed with his mentor, George Herbert Walker Bush, former head of the secret political police. Daddy Bush has been with the espionage cartel since 1959, when they helped set him up with six hundred worldwide affiliates for "his" petroleum drilling empire, Zapata Oil, later, Zapata Offshore, later Pennzoil, still later, Pennzoil/Texaco.
Earlier, as Arkansas Governor, Clinton participated in the hundreds of millions of dollars involved in the dope traffic through the southern states, run by the American CIA, in part through the espionage airport at Mena, Arkansas. Clinton's partners were Daddy Bush, Ollie North, and Congressman Henry Hyde (R., Ill.), who was also head of the CIA "black budget", funds for covert operations including domestic and overseas political assassinations. Return shipments of air-shipped weapons, went to unlawfully aid the Contras in Nicaragua.
Clinton, as known to his handlers and partners, was clearly subject to blackmail and being terrorized.
He was selected to be an Oxford College, Great Britain student by the Rhodes Trust. As not widely known, but nevertheless true, the Rhodes fortune is pledged to overthrow the American Republic, to return this continent to puppet colonies, and the American inhabitants to be subjects of the British Monarch in London. [Visit our website series, "The Overthrow of the American Republic".]
While in England, Clinton, a sexual predator, suffering from having his flag up too often, priapism, raped a British woman. He was forced to terminate his studies at Oxford and abruptly leave Great Britain, with the proviso that he would not be criminally prosecuted as long as he never returned. In the 1992 Presidential Election, Daddy Bush and Clinton agreed not to bring up each other's dirty laundry. Clinton would not mention the treasonous deal done by the Elder Bush in Paris, October, 1980, to arrange weapons shipments to Iran, in return, Iran would refuse to return the 52 U.S. hostages from the Teheran Embassy, until the Reagan/Bush ticket was safely inaugurated in January, 1981. If incumbent President Jimmy Carter could have avoided seeming to be a wimp and get the return of the hostages right before the election, it would, to Bush, be the dreaded "October Surprise". And Clinton agreed not to mention Daddy Bush's treason in the Iran-Contra scandal.
Over and above the blackmailable items known as to both Clinton and Bush, was Clinton's position with the aristocracy that gathers each year as the Bilderberg Group. The person using the name "Clinton" should rightfully be called William ROCKEFELLER Clinton. Our interviews with middle-level members of the Rockefeller Family, convinces us of the validity of our position. Namely, that "Clinton" is the illegitimate great grandson of old John D. Rockefeller, founder of the infamous petroleum monopoly, Standard Oil.[Other such details, see our website series on Wal-Mart, headquartered in Arkansas.]
Several terms prior to "Clinton", Winthrop Rockefeller was Arkansas Governor. He was known to have fathered, throughout the U.S., at least five illegitimate children. [The legitimate great grandson of John D., is "Jay" Rockefeller whose wife, Sharon Percy Rockefeller, is a top mogul of public tv and radio. We call it National Petroleum Radio.]
Throughout his career as Governor and President, "Clinton" was kept on a chain, by among other things, terror- tactics. A strange one-motor airplane with an already dead pilot, somehow eluded all the measures to protect the White House, and came within a few feet of crashing right through President Clinton's White House bedroom window. The White House rooftop battery of missiles was somehow turned off that night. The plane had to be guided, that is vectored, from accomplices on the ground, to steer around all the obstructions and buildings in its path. Remote controlled? Perhaps. During his Presidency, more than a hundred of his confidants, friends, circle of friends, and such were murdered. His Little Rock campaign chief, Jerry Parks, was murdered, mobster-style. Various of his U.S. Marine and other guards, who knew a lot about him, were one by one, snuffed out in strange, so-called "accidents". His pal, Vincent W. Foster, Jr., was murdered and explained away as a "suicide". Other websites have compiled a lengthy list of these happenings. In simple terms, those who meet at the Bilderberg Group, are aristocrats, the handlers of their retainers, stooges, spy chiefs, bank bosses, and such. Seemingly little understood is the basic premise of aristocracy. When one nation's aristocracy, Establishment, whatever you want to call them, has a falling out with that of another nation, that is grounds for war. If bad enough, it becomes a World War. One group plans to have more power, consolidate their territorial position, and silence the grumbling of unemployed ordinary people, through the drums of war, to the destruction and detriment of the opposing aristocracy. Used to foment bloody conflict are a massive media campaign of hate against the Establishment of the opposing Ruling Class, now designated as an Enemy, previously having been business partners. To get the ordinary populace into the right mode, they become bombarded around the clock with martial music, and appeals to flag, God, and such terms as Fatherland and Mother Russia.. In plain terms, the aristocracy goaded, pumped up, poorly informed workers to murder, for flag and country, the counterpart workers of the opposing aristocracv. In some instances, one aristocracy still does business with the other, in the midst of the War. [See, "Trading With the Enemy", by Charles Higham.]
Depressions, on the other hand, are a combination of an orchestrated event combined with the cycles of circumstance. The aristocracy plans to grab up the real estate, commercial and residential, the collapsed bank funds written off, the bloated pie in the sky stock ownership, and other assets of the powerless suckers, for a few pennies on the dollar. All the while, the ultra rich, through their press whores, falsely proclaim that the return of prosperity is just around the corner. [It may take fifteen years and another instigated war to do that.]
What is plotted and agreed upon, as shown by the circumstances of a secret society like the Bilderberg Group should NOT be described or labeled as merely a "conspiracy". And we are NOT "conspiracy theorists" [You do not succeed in putting bribe-taking judges in jail, as we have, for decades, by foolishness and "conspiracy theories".] These are the known ways of the Establishment, the Ultra Rich, the Aristocracy, by whatever label. Bred into them from birth is this mindset for power and enrichment little-understood by generally good-hearted, ordinary people who would not instigate a bloody war for profit.
So, sooner or later, the way the plutocrats conduct their horrors of bloodshed and financial smash-ups, leads to Revolution. Europe, to their credit, have had more or less genuine upheavals, Revolutions. America never has had such.
[A useful primer is Ferdinand Lundberg's great documented work, "The Rich and the Super Rich", first published in 1968, but timely even now. His earlier work has a lot of even more revealing details, published in 1937, still on hand in some large lirbraries, "America's Sixty Families".]
To understand the ways of the Bilderberg Group, you have to have a sharp
eye for calendar events and circumstances. You have to carefully notice what
happens usually in the month or so AFTER their annual secret meeting. Note
these happenings within thirty days of the Bilderberg Group meeting, May
30 to June 2, 2002 (they actually adjourned a day earlier), at a hotel at
Chantilly, Virginia.
These scandalous details, pave the way for foreign aristocracies to get an armlock on American business. These details were apparently long-known to the accounting firms, but not revealed until Bilderberg Group gave the signal, "Wreck them now! Get them!" Little known, most of the big accounting firms have as their parent firm, a foreign enterprise. Such as Arthur Andersen is owned by a Swiss outfit. Deloitte & Touche is actually owned by a Japanese firm, Tohmatsu. As we have detailed, Great Britain, at least since the war of 1812 when they burned down our Capitol, has planned to grab this continent back. And for that purpose, they were involved in the political assassination of three U.S. Presidents. [Visit our extensive website series, "The Overthrow of the American Republic".]
Of course, the Liars and Whores of the press will not link up these happenings. Remember, if good witnesses or documents are hard to get, circumstances alone, on occasion, are even sufficient to send a criminal defendant to the electric chair.
Wars, Depressions, vast theft of properties and assets, and political murders are not merely purely accidental. They are not a conspiracy. Just the day to day, month to month, year to year, and decade to decade way of conducting matters of the Establishment and their meeting clubs, their secret societies, of which Bilderberg is just one.
More coming. Stay tuned.
http://www.skolnicksreport.com/tbsynd.html
11th June 2002
Dear Bilderbergers and Bilderberg staff,
Little or no mainstream press coverage of Bilderberg again. Is that good or bad?
You really must consider sending out a Press Release a month or so before the meetings - so the press can write something about you if they want. A press conference at the end of each annual meeting is the minimum your 'Corporate Responsibility' demands. That is if you want commentators and the public to take the idea of 'Corporate Governance' seriously and not treat it as an empty PR spin term (a lie).
You could quite easily publish the list of participants after the meeting has finished with absolutely no security risk. The STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL nonsense in the release is calculated to stifle discussion in the west rather than 'for reasons of security' as you have stated.
If you're going to make progress towards your World Government, European Superstate, Global Currency or whatever it is you want, you must do it with the consent of the people of the world. That, I'm afraid, means allowing at least some press scrutiny.
If you don't do that you open yourselves wide up to the allegation of being totalitarians. Something I would have thought you might want to avoid.
Press scrutiny is not an option. It is essential to democracy. Without it we have totalitarianism.
Also, it seems that politicians are only invited from the NATO countries. Although all Western European and North American Countries have representatives at the conference. France, for example, has no political representatives. Do you have to join NATO before somebody from your government is allowed to come? Don't you even think the press has a right to ask these questions?
Democracy is a tried and tested, if old-fashioned, idea and you ignore it at your peril.
yours,
Tony Gosling
Campaign for press conference at Bilderberg
Bristol, UK
http://www.americanfreepress.net/06_09_02/Bilderberg_Batters_Bush/bilderberg_batters_bush.html
The United States took its worst beating ever at the secret Bilderberg meeting but there remains complete unity on the goal of establishing a world government.
Exclusive to American Free Press
By James P. Tucker Jr.
CHANTILLY. Va.'Bilderberg luminaries battered their American counterparts over U.S Middle East policy, which they blamed for causing the need for a 'war on terrorism' which could lead to bloody military misadventures.
However, most Bilderberg boys from both sides of the Atlantic were, for some reason, confident there would be no war between Pakistan and India. At that moment, both nations were on the brink of a nuclear holocaust.
It could have had something to do with the appearance of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was hastily summoned to appear on Saturday, June 1. Rumsfeld had attended a Bilderberg meeting in 1975 at Cemse, Turkey, as an assistant to President Jerry Ford. Ford had attended Bilderberg as minority leader of the House.
Rumsfeld is known to have been summoned to reassure the Europeans there would be 'no immediate' U.S. invasion of Iraq as had been planned by the White House (American Free Press, June 10). He was pressed, but refused to say, that the United States had no plans for future wars.
Whether Rumsfeld also helped reassure Bilderberg there would be no war between Pakistan and India could not be determined.
But, even as Rumsfeld was assuring Bilderberg of at least a momentary delay in launching a new war, President Bush was rattling sabers in a commencement ad dress at West Point.
'Pre-emptive strikes' will be used against nations or groups that threaten the United States, Bush told the newly minted Army officers. He vowed to 'take the battle to the enemy, disrupt its plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge.'
Besides Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Kenneth Dam was scheduled to attend'and did.
But unity was expressed with kind words, smiles, hand shakes and embraces on Bilderberg's long-term agenda:
Empowering the United Nations until it becomes a de jure, as well as de facto, world government.
Advancing this goal by creating a direct UN tax on 'world citizens,' expanding NAFTA throughout the Western Hemisphere as a prelude to creating an 'American Union' similar to the European Union and empowering international bodies to further erode the sovereignty of nations. Further establishing NATO as the UN's world army was also discussed.
There was much hand-wringing over 'rising nationalism' in Europe, as demonstrated by the electoral successes of Jean-Marie Le Pen in France and by a populist 'resurgence' in The Netherlands and Denmark. Americans agreed to pursue a 'world without borders.'
But on the issues of war and America's Middle East policy, Americans faced three days of chastisement, both in formal sessions and during glass-tinkling between sessions. A grim-faced Henry Kissinger and others had to take it as Europeans denounced U.S. policy.
It reached the point that Europeans were praising their detested press, which has showered them with unwanted publicity in recent years. This is a close paraphrase of the angry words Americans heard:
In Europe, you would be unable to conduct such a one-sided policy in the Middle East. Europeans know, because of heavy press coverage, of Israel's wars of expansion and brutal occupation of Palestinian lands. They are aware of the cruelty inflicted on civilians, including women and children, for no military objective at all.
Europeans know that Israel's military machine is financed by the United States. They know that the planes, tanks and weapons attacking innocent citizens are provided by the United States. While there is no justification for the attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, Europeans know that Palestinians will resist in any way they can.
Because of the unfair Middle East policy of the United States, we Europeans now must be your allies in your war on terrorism.
Americans responded to this with grim faces and shrugs.
The administration had anticipated this barrage and tried to soften it with a peace plan that included an independent Palestinian state. This goes beyond previous U.S. positions, Americans reassured the Europeans, which merely called for Palestinian statehood. The plan was still being drafted as Bilderberg met but they were assured it would be publicly unveiled in July.
Bilderberg celebrated the fact that a global UN tax is 'part of the public dialogue' without a public outcry by 'nationalists.' Alan Keyes, as President Ronald Reagan's UN ambassador, denounced the proposed tax and it has been widely discussed since.
Bilderberg has offered several variations of the world tax. First, it suggested a 10-cent tax on oil at the barrel head, meaning citizens would pay a direct tax to the UN when gassing up their cars or using oil in any way. A surcharge on international travel by air or sea and a tax on international financial transfers were also proposed.
Like the federal income tax, a UN levy would be so small at the outset the consumer would hardly notice. But establishing the principle that the UN can directly tax citizens of the world is important to Bilderberg. It is another giant step toward world government. It is openly discussed with little public notice or objection 'except for the Ron Pauls in Congress' and 'nationalist' publications, Bilderberg boys assured themselves. The references were to populist Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and the newspaper you are reading.
There were also demands for 'tax equity''meaning that the United States must revise her tax laws to more evenly reflect the high-tax, socialistic societies of Europe. It was called 'unfair trade' for the United States to be so'by comparison''tax friendly' to individuals and businesses.
Europeans continued to complain about the new farm subsidy legislation and the imposition of tariffs on steel imports to protect the domestic industry against dumping and were distraught that the Senate version of Fast Track would allow Congress to block any trade deals that negate laws protecting domestic industries.
There was continued sniping at the United States be cause Bush 'unsigned' the Kyoto global warming treaty which, economists warned, would generate sky-high inflation while requiring nothing of most nations. Spite fully, the 15-nation European Union ratified the treaty on June 1 as Bilderberg was meeting. This prompted a graying Bilderberg luminary to moan that George Bush is 'the worst president since [Richard] Nixon.' Never has Bush received a higher tribute.
NATO has been functioning as the standing army of the United Nations since celebrating its 50th anniversary in Washington during the invasion of Yugoslavia. NATO's first shot fired in anger was not in defense, as its charter required, but in an offensive war. At that time, leaders announced that NATO was no longer confined to Europe but would undertake military ventures anywhere in the world'at the direction of the UN Security Council.
Bilderberg is reinforcing this world army doctrine while doing early work on the third great region of the world: the emerging 'Asian-Pacific Union.'
It is already being bound together as APEC'the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. Even as Bilderberg met, one of its own, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) was attending a meeting of Asian-Pacific defense ministers. Ultimately, there are to be three great regions for the administrative convenience of the world government: the European Union, American Union and Asian-Pacific Union.
Bilderberg ended a day earlier than normal, abandoning Westfields early on Sunday afternoon, June 2. Normally, they would have said their farewells on Mon day. This must have been a sudden decision, be cause staffers of Bilderberg participants in nearby Washington had been told they would be out of their offices until Tuesday.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/06_09_02/Bilderberg_Batters_Bush/bilderberg_batters_bush.html
"After two days of meetings in Washington SPÖ (social democratic party of Austria) chief Alfred Gusenbauer and his predecessor Franz Vranitzky take part in the "Bilderberg Conference." At this meeting of high-ranking international personalities from politics, economy and culture, current topics are being discussed. The meeting place has not been disclosed for security reasons." http://www.salzburg.com/sn/02/06/01/artikel/270371.html
Looks like Dutch politician Mat Herben is at Bilderberg. This could be of vital importance because this man is a freemason and the new top man of the new political party LPF, named after the murdered Pim Fortuyn. Is there someone, perhaps Jim Tucker, who can find out that he is there? For a photograph of this man, please try his name in the search engine.
The point is that in the Netherlands coalitiontalks are going on.
On Friday morning the three main political parties in the Netherlands talked about education. The radio said that Mat Herben was not present, 'he had something else to do', litterally. In the evening the newspapers wrote that 'he was somewhere else' no explanation, no critical questions.
The rest of the day his name was not mentioned at all wich is strange because he is a very important man at the moment. The fact that he is a freemason wich was on television a week ago, and Bilderberg taking place on the same day of his absence is too much.
Herben is also a former spokesman of the secretary of defense and former chief redactor of the ultra catholic magazine 'Mannah', last year he had an audience with the pope. Now he has a keyrole in building the new dutch government and changing politics, the three right wing parties agreed this week to launch mandatory ID cards with high priority and pass the idea through the parliament as quick as possible. They have now the chance to make their profit, the left wing parties (who will certainly oppose this propsal) are now with only 49 candidates in the minority as a result of the elections a few days after the murder on Pim Fortuyn.
Inside the LPF no one was willing to confirm the possible presence of Herben at Bilderberg. Research is still going on.
01Jun02 - WorldNetDaily - THE NEW WORLD DISORDER - Bilderberg group meeting near D.C. - Secretive organization holds powwow in Virginia this weekend http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27814
30May02 - Propagandamatrix - A short report on Bilderberg security at the Westfield Marriotts hotel from somebody who tried to sneak in yesterday... plus lots of pictures of the hotel http://www.propagandamatrix.com/bilderberg_2002.html
http://www.americanfreepress.net/06_01_02/BILDERBERG_MEETS/bilderberg_meets.html
Bilderberg is hiding out in the posh Westfields near Dulles Airport in a Virginia suburb of Washington. This time it is less of a love-fest, with deep divisions among Americans and the European elite.
Exclusive to American Free Press - By James P. Tucker Jr.
CHANTILLY, Va. The issue of America going to war in Iraq has been delayed, with the White House agreeing to wait at least until next year, instead of late summer or early fall, but many issues simmer at this year's secret Bilderberg meeting.
President Bush lied when he said there were no plans for war on Iraq or anywhere else 'on his desk' the plans were piled high. But military brass in the Pentagon warned the president that the United States is unprepared for war. European leaders were opposed. Only civilians at Defense and State wanted war.
The role of peacemaker is new to Europe. At the Bilderberg meeting in Baden Baden, Germany in June 1991, the Persian Gulf war was celebrated and enthusiastic calls for more military action 'in five years' were heard.
It was at Baden Baden that the obscure governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, attended his first Bilderberg meeting. The next year, he was elected president and the United States went to war, euphemistically termed United Nations 'peace-keeping missions' in 16 countries.
But the warmongers aren't satisfied. In the May 29 Wall Street Journal, Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, made a strong plea for an invasion of Iraq in a commentary that amounted to an in-house memo.
Brookings is one of numerous Bilderberg torch-carriers. The 'conservative' Journal is always represented at Bilderberg meetings and its editorial policy is subservient to the globalist agenda. This war cry came just one day before Bilderberg formally gathered for its annual secret session.
With the war issue momentarily delayed, other fights were emerging in probably the most divisive Bilderberg meeting ever. On the basic agenda, the unity that has prevailed for nearly half a century remains intact: Creating a world government in which this international elite will dominate.
Bilderberg boys from the European Union are outraged that Bush protected the domestic steel industry from overseas dumping. They are equally angry over the farm bills, which significantly increased agricultural subsidies even though 'family farmers' who benefit include Bilderberg luminaries David Rockefeller and Dwayne Andreas of Archer Daniels Midland.
European Bilderberg members, with many Americans agreeing, want the United States to change her tax laws to suit their pocketbooks. They call it 'tax equity.' Bilderberg also clings to its long-held commitment to create a global tax payable by 'world citizens' (you and me) directly to the United Nations.
The paradoxes would be amusing if not so damaging to U.S. interests. Farm subsidies are necessary for real family farmers, not to be confused with Bilderberg boys, TV mogul Ted Turner or millionaire basketball players, because of what Bilderberg hath wrought: NAFTA and other 'free trade' laws. Were it not for free trade, American farmers would need no subsidies.
The European Union countries also subsidize agriculture and other exports but object to America's protecting her domestic economy.
Europeans are also angry at the United States for rejecting the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Treaty on global climate control, which economists warn would generate skyrocketing inflation here while requiring nothing of 60 percent of the world. Another point of sharp disagreement is U.S. Middle East policy. Many Europeans object to America?s abject pro-Israel policy. This is in large part because the European media has far more balanced coverage of the turmoil there than the one-sided U.S. press.
SECURITY GROWS
As grim-faced armed guards and plainclothes security agents began encircling Westfields, they were awaiting Bilderberg luminaries who also looked glum. One of the longest faces belonged to Kenneth Dam, deputy secretary of the Treasury Department, who faces a grim grilling from his European counterparts.
Never has Bilderberg met this close to Washington. In 1962, Bilderberg took over all of Colonial Williams burg 'built by Rockefeller money' located several miles south of Richmond, Va.
Security experts have explained why: Bilderberg boys were afraid of Middle Eastern terrorists. Dulles and Washington Reagan National Airport are the most secure in the United States because of their heavy traffic in congressmen and high administration officials.
One security man was overheard telling his counterpart: 'If terrorists could bag a Rockefeller, that would be one hell of a trophy.'
Westfields is situated seven miles south of Dulles Airport. When sealed off at the entrance, Westfields is out of sight. Luminaries can take short helicopter trips from either airport to Westfields?s private heliport. Nevertheless, many of the pompous chose long black limos, complete with police escorts and sirens.
Westfields has enough of its own black limos to provide these parades. To make sure everything is in order, a black car with State Department tags was parked outside Westfields five days in advance?on May 26.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/06_01_02/BILDERBERG_MEETS/bilderberg_meets.html
No it wasn't 'a couple of weddings' as we were told yesterday by the staff. The Westfields Marriott hotel in Chantilly Virginia was today confirmed as the venue for this year's secret Bilderberg meeting.
Security is very tight with FBI Secret Service and White House Security Staff, all paid from taxpayers money, on duty around the perimiter of this so-called 'private' meeting. This year, for the first time, all security have coded symbols on their lapels to distinguish who they work for.
Hotel staff are always sworn to secrecy at these events but some still feel the world has a right to know what is going on behind the cordon. They risk their jobs, and possibly more, by telling those outside who is inside the hotel and what they're talking about.
Staff have told reporters at the gate that the much talked about attack on Iraq must go ahead but will probably be delayed until Autumn 2003. To try to persuade other western leaders to join in an attack on Iraq Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of State for defence will be attending the Bilderberg conference tomorrow (Saturday). He will almost certainly be giving a presentation to the 120 or so power-brokers in attendance. Rumsfeld's deputy Secretary of Defence Kenneth Dam has already been spotted in the hotel, he's attending all four days of the conference.
It seems to have escaped both these so-called public servants that if the U.S. government agreed to lift Iraqi sanctions which are killing roughly six thousand children a month in the country, Iraq could return to relative normality and war would be unnecessary. But Rumsfeld and Dam are in fact lobbyists for the defence industry and lobbyists for U.S. expansionism. They consider the growth of the U.S. defense industry, or 'military indusrtrial complex' as president Eisenhower described it, to be more important than tens of thousands or even millions of human lives.
Global banker and head of the Rockefeller dynasty David Rockefeller has been spotted by Westfields Marriott staff as have Henry Kissinger and several others. Secretary-General of NATO, Lord Robertson, is aslo known to be in attendance this year.
When I contacted the hotel earlier today (Friday) the Bilderberg organisers refused to confirm or deny anyone's presence - they said they would be producing a press release but declined to say when.
Hotel telephone +1 703 818 0300 just ask to be put through to 'the conference'
It has now been confirmed on Turkish national TV that the Turkish Secretary of State responsible for the Economy, Kemal Dervis will be attending the 2002 Bilderberg Conference in Washington. I had been wondering as to who would be attending from Turkey, and I thought you might like to know. Kemal Dervis is not a member of any political parties in Turkey, and he has not been elected as an MP, but appointed by the present coalition government to implement the IMF loan conditions in Turkey to restore the damage caused by the economical crisis in 2000 and in 2001.
Let's see what the future holds for him. He is an ex employee of the World Bank in Washington. He resigned from his job at the World Bank to accept the current appointment. He was recently in London lecturing at the London School of Economics of which he is a graduate.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/europe/neweurope/
Thanks to The Propaganda Matrix website you can Listen to Europe Today on World Service at 1700 BST 30May02 on MP3 here http://www.propagandamatrix.com/Bilderberg.mp3
648M
(CUE: This weekend, in a luxury hotel outside Washington DC, Europe's secret rulers are meeting their American counterparts - or that's what some people believe. Today is the start of the annual gathering of the Bilderberg group. Never heard of it? that's the whole point. It's officially described as a private gathering but with a guest list including the heads of European and American corporations, political leaders and a few intellectuals, it's one of the most influential organisations on the planet. Bill Hayton has been trying to find out more.)
(BAND ONE: sinister music)
A few miles outside Washington, lies the Westfields Marriott Hotel, an exclusive place with some fine golf courses. This weekend it's fully booked - you can't get a bed or a round of golf. That's because around a hundred and twenty of the world's most important people are due to be there for this year's meeting of the Bilderberg group. But not according to the hotel's management...
(BAND TWO: Westfield Marriot)
Ring tone
"Executive Office"
My name is Bill Hayton from BBC World Service. I just wanted to check, there's some kind of big event happening at your hotel this weekend.
Could you tell me what it is?
"there's a couple of weddings...."
But there's also a big conference going on as well?
"Not that I'm aware of."
There's nothing being organised by the Bilderberg group then?
"I'm sorry who?"
The Bilderberg group.
"I don't even know who they are."
Neither do most people - but last year this obscure organisation hosted, among many others, the Chairmen of ABB, France Telecom, ENI and Deutsche Bank plus several European Commissioners, central bankers, newspaper editors, the Secretary-General of NATO and the Queens of Spain and the Netherlands. Plenty of people have alleged that Bilderberg - named after the Dutch hotel where it had its first meeting in 1954 - is a global conspiracy.
The British journalist Jon Ronson whose book on the subject first brought Bilderberg into polite conversation, says it's not quite as bad as that - but interesting nonetheless.
(BAND THREE: Ronson)
"I'm a sort of semi-conspiracy theorist when it comes to Bilderberg because I think they wouldn't go to that much trouble of having this incredibly expensive international conference every year and they'd go to all this trouble to keep themselves out of the press and be really secret and invite the world's most powerful people if it was just a chat and a game of golf which is basically what they say it is. So I do think they have some impact on world affairs but I don't think they have as much of an impact."
But given that subjects such as the future of the European Union, a possible war in Iraq and the expansion of free trade are all on the agenda, should we not know a bit more about what's going on? I approached the Bilderberg office for a comment, but sadly no-one was available. So if your boss has slipped off for a few days golf this weekend, you might ask him or her if they've been anywhere near Chantilly, Virginia and if they know what the future has in store. But then again, they probably wouldn't tell you anyway.
(BAND FOUR: sinister music)
This is Bill Hayton for Europe Today.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/europe/neweurope/
April 2002 - Open Letter
to Secretary-General of the Bilderberg Meetings
Tony Gosling
10-12 Picton Street
Bristol
BS6 5QA
+44 117 944 6219
Martin Taylor (Secretary-General)
Bilderberg Meetings
PO Box 3017
2301 DA Leiden
The Netherlands
Monday, 22 April 2002
Dear Mr. Taylor,
As you will certainly have noticed, the new millennium has brought increasing protests against the globalisation policies of the IMF, World Bank, WEF, WTO, G8, etc. with needless loss of life. Such popular movements indicate these unelected global institutions no longer have a mandate to act on behalf of ordinary people.
I, as many others, am concerned that powerful, unelected institutions are undermining democratic national governments across the world. Democracy, as press freedom, is not an option but a necessary safeguard against totalitarianism.
I am worried that alternatives such as debt relief, re-nationalisation and the kind of monetary reform proposals detailed in The Monetary Reform Act are being ignored.
It is crucial that there is dialogue between pro-globalisation think-tanks such as Bilderberg and the anti-globalisation movement. I hope you will give either me, or somebody else, the opportunity to present some of these positive alternatives to globalisation of capital for consideration at the forthcoming Bilderberg Meeting.
I respectfully ask also that you arrange a press conference this year and an announcement to the world's media before the event. You cannot continue to claim that the meeting is private when so many internationally influential public figures attend and secret services provide security.
Looking forward to your early reply.
Yours truly,
Tony Gosling
Tony Gosling - www.bilderberg.org
The latest initiatives needed to usher in a United States of Europe and to bring about global domination for the Western powers are about to be revealed at a secret power elite conference West of Washington D.C..
If you ever wondered why so many nations signed up to the Euro currency without the people in those countries being asked, or how the war on terrorism has arrived just in time to save the gravely indebted U.S. economy you may need to look no further.
This year's Bilderberg Conference, featuring 120 or so of the most influential men in Europe and North America, looks certain to be taking place between Thursday 30th May and Sunday 2nd June 2002 at The Westfields Marriott Hotel in Chantilly Virginia. In its Élite Conference Guide of Christmas 1987, the Economist described Bilderberg as 'Ne plus ultra' or 'the top of the top.'
The élite that attend Bilderberg have real power to change the world for the better but the press are 'encouraged' not to cover the event because Bilderberg's power centralising policies such the Euro, the war on terrorism and cuts in public spending are making things much, much worse. Bilderbergers are afraid that the global strategists who plan and force through these geostrategic policies will be identified and exposed as the real villains of the world.
Venues for these annual élite meetings are consistently palatial. Hotels generally have their own golf course attached and are sealed off from the outside world behind high walls. Though the Bilderberg secretariat insists the meetings are private, national military agencies such as MI6 or the CIA provide round-the-clock security at public expense.
But there have been leaks. Top of the agenda this year, we're told, is Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and how to persuade a reluctant west to once more attack one of the world's weakest countries. Already ravaged by ten years of sanctions and with an infant mortality rate currently at about five to six thousand a month an attack on Iraq is nevertheless deemed 'necessary' by the élite to justify continued Western troop deployment and control of oil reserves in the Middle East.
The leaks come from Jim Tucker, a writer for American Free Press in Washington DC, who is the only journalist in the world to discover the venue and date of the annual Bilderberg Meeting before the event. He is leaked information from a concerned source very close to the Bilderberg steering committee.
Without Tucker there would be absolutely no press coverage. Even with the advance warning he provides there is far less coverage than might be expected. Reuters, News International, Washington Post, Hollinger and other media in attendance encourage token or zero coverage within their own empires. But it's not just the press and public who are kept in the dark. In 2000 the exasperated mayor of Genval near Brussels, where a Bilderberg conference was taking place, expressed disbelief when approached by a Belgian TV reporter. "If Queen Beatrix were coming to Genval, somebody would have told me!"
Despite the enormous wealth and power wielded by the participants, Bilderberg is almost unknown amongst the general public. Many journalists or others who have heard of the meetings 'switch off' when Bilderberg is mentioned, expecting another wild conspiracy theory about meetings with aliens. But those who ignore these annual summits are playing into the hands of the conference organisers who will use any means, even encouraging madcap theories, to divert attention from what is being discussed inside. Critics have been falsely accused of anti-Semitism, disturbing when not many of the participants are Jewish. To the Bilderbergers any bypassing of democratic processes and suppression of legitimate media coverage is justifiable as 'good business'.
European political, financial and military union under corporate control will also be on the agenda this year. Chair of the commission Romano Prodi is now openly being called the 'president' of Europe yet he has never been elected to the post. Prodi is not the first powerful person to be invited to Bilderberg before making it to the top. Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, George Robertson and Jack Santer all attended just before a great leap forward in their respective careers. Ex-government ministers such as Britain's Kenneth Clarke have been ticked off for failing to declare their free Bilderberg trips.
Ever since it began Bilderberg has promoted the integration of European nations into a United States of Europe run not by elected representatives but by appointed 'Commissioners' who many believe to be in the pockets of banks and big business. This is nothing new. European based multinationals such as Philips and Volvo played a major part in designing the superstructure of the European State.
In Europe, the European Round Table of Industrialists or E.R.T. corporate lobby group works with the unelected European Commission to draw up legislation. The European Parliament only has a chance to rubber stamp or delay these initiatives before they become law. The growth of the Euro currency is a major priority always at Bilderberg, the plan being to peg the Euro to the Dollar when all E.U. nations have joined creating a de facto world currency.
The conferences began in 1954, an initiative of ex SS Nazi Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, Bilderberg's first chairman. After the Lockheed bribery scandal in 1975 Bernhard resigned in disgrace but his daughter, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, still attends the conference regularly. Bilderberg has been deciding policy since World War II which, along with NATO, is bringing about the strongest ever U.S. influence over Europe and the whole continent of Eurasia.
The agenda at Bilderberg is set and invite list drawn up by a small steering committee consisting of Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and a hand picked representative from each major economic nation in the western world. Although there is no official membership, U.S. attendees at Bilderberg tend to be members of the Council on Foreign Relations, a private club that decides U.S. foreign policy and/or David Rockefeller's Trilateral Commission which brings together élitists from Europe, the USA and Japan.
Though big names are present: Kissinger, George Robertson, Conrad Black, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, James Wolfenson, David Rockefeller etc. the Bilderberg Group usually manage to duck coverage and criticism by the world's press. They refuse requests for interviews and prepare cover stories. In 2000 the conference was an 'international croquet tournament'. Even these lies are, it seems, better than the truth about what is being talked about inside getting out. Under Bilderberg's 'Chatham House' rules none of the participants are allowed to mention where they picked up the latest line on Europe or whatever is being discussed. A request for a press conference this year has been ignored.
It is crucial that Bilderberg begin to open themselves up more fully to media scrutiny. Only by knowing of the existence of such power networks can the people make a decision on their legitimacy. Although the Bilderberg office in Leiden, Holland issues a 'press release' of its own, it does so a few hours after the last black Mercedes containing the last participant has left the conference area. Coldly calculated to ensure the press can't cover anything.
If you didn't get an invite to Bilderberg this year you're in good company - only quislings need attend.
Contacts:
Westfields Marriott Chantilly, Virginia +1 (703) 818 0300
Jim Tucker American Free Press, Washington D.C. +1 (202) 544 5977
Bilderberg Secretariat Leiden, Netherlands +31 71 5280 521
Tony Gosling www.Bilderberg.org, Bristol UK +44 117 944 6219
All references to information contained in this release can be found at www.bilderberg.org
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/lords/story/0,9061,715468,00.html
Read the register of interests
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Tuesday May 14, 2002
An updated register of Lords' interests was published today - revealing that the disgraced peer Lord Archer has shares in a second-hand car dealership and that Lord Black of Crossharbour, the owner of the Daily Telegraph, is a member of the secretive Bilderberg organisation.
Lord Wakeham, the former chairman of the press complaints commission, makes no mention of his role on the audit committee of the collapsed Enron organisation, although he does list his vice-chairmanship of Wessex Water, formerly owned by Enron.
And the controversial former Conservative party treasurer, Lord Ashcroft, whose banking interests are based in Belize, is listed as a trustee of the Crimestoppers organisation.
The register has been published since 1995, although it is only since a new code of conduct was approved last year that peers are mandated to include "all relevant interests". Until then, peers were permitted to judge for themselves what declarations "may affect the public perception of the way in which they discharge their parliamentary duties".
Further items of interest:
· Lord Archer of Weston-Super-Mare lists "rented urban property in London, Tyne & Wear, Northshields, Telford and Workington", shareholdings in a golf centre company and ownership of two art dealers among his interests.
· The former Liberal Democrat leader, Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, is president of the Fitness Industry Association.
· Lord Birt, who is employed by the prime minister's "forward strategy unit" to carry out "blue skies thinking" on transport, lists himself as "strategy adviser to the prime minister".
· Conrad Black, the owner of the Daily Telegraph and Spectator magazine, who was ennobled as Lord Black of Crossharbour on October 31 last year, is a director of 10 companies, in addition to working for 11 voluntary organisations, including the Nixon centre in Washington.
· Lord Wakeham, who stepped down as director of the press complaints commission following the collapse of Enron, is the director or chairman of eight companies.
· Baroness Thatcher, who announced her retirement from public life earlier this year, has no renumerated posts, but chairs the advisory body of the Institute of United States Studies, as well as presiding over the Thatcher foundation.
· Baroness Boothroyd, the former speaker, has also refused to capitalise on her fame and popularity, only listing an unrenumerated two-week lectureship on a cruise line.
· The planning minister, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, lists "homes in London and Nottinghamshire, joint ownership (with wife) of two flats in London occupied by an employee and a member of wife's family (from whom rent is received). Also co-ownership of house inhabited by father".
· The Labour ex-leader of the Lords, Baroness Jay, lists three directorships and a second holiday home in County Cork, Eire, which she regularly lets for periods of up to two months a year.
· Liberal Democrat Lord Razzall declares 21 directorships and a house in Treasure Cay, Abaco, Bahamas, whguardian- owner of telegraph is.ems ile Lord Rea (Labour) lists "12 acres of rough forest (surrounding a holiday home not let commercially) in Cumbria".
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/lords/story/0,9061,715468,00.html
Electronz - Issue 219- 20 May 2002
Weekly International Ezine focusing on the New Economics
While the public can be kept ignorant of secret agendas and such fundamental mechanisms as the infinite capacity of uncontrolled credit (read debt) creation to transfer asset ownership and power to itself, the progress towards a democratic Utopia will be painfully slow. Thanks to independent newsletters and the internet, the grip on the international information flows like Reuters is not so complete or effective as it once was.. for which we can be very grateful.
Thanks to subscriber 'B. R.' of NZ.. drawing on details from the Aida Parker Newsletter.. we can circulate, for passing along to anyone interested, that next month the Bilderbergers are having one of their international conferences in Washington. The info reads..
-----quote-----
At the end of May, from the 30th until June 2nd, a shadowy, still largely anonymous group, the Bilderbergers, will assemble in Washington for their 48th annual meeting. That should strike terror into every loyal American heart, for when the Bilderbergers come to town, it is invariably bad news, very bad news for some. These are the creme de la creme of the long-planned New World Order, primarily international money monopolists, the global puppeteers.
As Professor Carroll Quigley disclosed in his famous work .. "Tragedy and Hope" p324.. these financial vultures seek ----- ".. nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country, and the economy of the world as a whole. The system (will) be controlled in a feudal fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in private meetings and conferences".
This year about 120 Bilderberg delegates will meet at the plush Westfields Marriot hotel, just seven miles south of Dulles International Airport. High on this year's agenda will be how to further exploit Bush's "war on terrorism" to increase their control of the much desired "world-without-borders" while, as ever, generating immense wealth for themselves.
There will of course be journalists and publishers there, but they won't be writing about it. The real point of their presence will be to prepare readers for policies already decided upon by the One World moguls.
-----unquote-----
Our Comment : If undermining national sovereignty and allowing foreign powers to override democratic institutions is treason, then why are internationally subversive organisations like the Bilderbergers treated as VIPs instead of as traitors?
The super-secret Bilderberg gang wants a new war to generate immense profits and spend the world out of recession. And they just might get it.
Exclusive to American Free Press
By James P. Tucker Jr. - 07Apr02
When Bilderberg luminaries seal themselves off behind armed guards at the Westfields hotel in Chantilly, Va., May 30-June 2, a major topic will be promoting a new war.
Sources within Bilderberg and its junior varsity, the Trilateral Commission, confirmed the war part of the agenda. The Trilaterals are meeting in Washington April 5-7. The two groups have an interlocking leadership and a common agenda.
They believe that public outrage over the 9-11 attacks and the new “war on terrorism” make a new war on Iraq, with the intent of destroying the regime of Sad dam Hussein and seizing Iraqi oil, politically palatable to Americans. If Americans back a new war, they reason, a reluctant Europe will be dragged along.
Bilderberg’s hand was first tipped March 24 when Jim Hoagland, a Bilderberg regular, called for and predicted all-out war on Iraq in a commentary in The Washington Post.
Every Post publisher—now it is Donald Graham—has at tended these secret meetings since the elite first called itself Bilderberg in 1954. Hoagland is also a Bilderberg regular.
President Bush has decided to “remove you from power,” Hoagland wrote, addressing his words to Hussein. “The Pentagon can now go ahead and draw up war plans very quietly for the right time, as it did in 1990.”
Just how casually the Bilderberg-Trilateral troopers spill the blood of young men is demonstrated by Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter and long-time Trilateralist.
Brzezinski, in a 1998 interview with the French news paper Le Nouvel Observateur, said that, contrary to the official version of events, CIA aid to the mujahedeen guerrillas began six months before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It was intended to provoke the invasion, he said. Brzezinski boasted of “drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.”
When asked about the wisdom of supporting Islamic fundamentalism, Brzezinski offered this chilling dismissal: “What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet Empire?”
Henry Kissinger, a power in both Bilderberg and the Trilaterals, started the war drumbeat Jan. 13, also writing in the Bilderberg-controlled Post:
“There is no possibility of a negotiation between Washington and Baghdad and no basis for trusting Iraq’s promises to the international community . . .
“But if the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is to be seriously considered, three prerequisites must be met: (a) development of a military plan that is quick and decisive, (b) some prior agreement on what kind of structure is to replace Hussein and (c) the support or acquiescence of key countries needed for the military plan,” Kissinger wrote.
The Bush administration already appears bent on war, according to Rep. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Strom Thurmond (R).
“Before the end of summer or fall we’ll be in a major engagement with Iraq,” Graham was quoted by The Columbia State. “We’re looking at going after Saddam Hussein—not to contain him but to replace him.”
Graham said he based his predictions on “intelligence briefings, contact with the Bush administration and his attendance at a recent international conference in Germany,” the State said.
By James P. Tucker Jr.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/03_31_02/BILDERBERG_FOUND/bilderberg_found.html
Bilderberg will seal off the Westfields Marriott, just seven miles south of Washington’s Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Va., for its annual meeting of the super-rich and super-famous on the weekend of May 30-June 2.
While it is the closest Bilderberg has ever come to Washington for annual secret meetings to plot the world’s future, Westfields is ideal for the security-paranoid international elite. Westfields stands in lonely grandeur with much space separating the resort from tall brick buildings in a luxury “office park.”
Perhaps coincidentally, neighboring office buildings are home to numerous spy organizations.
The last time Bilderberg met in Virginia was 1962, when the secret gang of international financiers and political leaders took over all of Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Va. Bilderberg tends to meet on the same continent as the Group of Eight economic summits, which follow shortly afterwards, featuring heads of state from the world’s industrialized nations. The G-8 will meet in Alberta, Canada June 26-28.
Bilderberg’s junior varsity, the Trilateral Commission, will meet April 5-7 in Washington at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Bilderberg and the TC have an interlocking leadership and a common global agenda. David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger are powers in both groups.
Trilaterals have about 320 participants while the more exclusive Bilderberg has about 120. The TC includes Japan, while Bilderberg draws only from Europe and North America. Both high-powered groups plan the future, together, of the entire world.
BILDERBERG’S AGENDA
High on their common agenda this year is how to exploit “the war on terrorism” to increase their control of the “world without borders” while generating immense profits. The Trilaterals will meet behind closed doors at the Ritz Carlton but not seal off the entire downtown hotel. Bilderberg will have armed guards blocking the entrance to Westfields and none but participants will be permitted inside. There will be no other guests.
Sources inside both groups say they will try to exploit the new “war on terrorism” to advance an old agenda: Establishing NATO formally as the United Nations’ standing army, imposing a direct UN tax on the world, global gun control and selling the Free Trade Area of the Americas as a “necessary step to ward off future attacks.”
It is all part of a grand design to establish a world government under the UN. As NAFTA expands through out the Western Hemisphere as the FTAA it is to evolve into the “American Union” and “dollarization” is to be come the common currency, as the euro is in Europe. Bilderberg luminaries have directly acknowledged this to an American Free Press reporter.
Other Bilderberg sources said the site near Washington was chosen for several reasons.
Dulles is considered one of the most secure airports in the wake of 9-11 and it is a short ride in flag-draped limos to Westfields. While instant communication with the White House has always been easy, wherever in the world Bilderberg hides, it is a 30-mile drive for any high official of the administration who may be summoned on short notice. High officials of the administration will be attending the full three-day session anyway.
But more are prepared to come like a dog to the whistle if called.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/03_31_02/BILDERBERG_FOUND/bilderberg_found.html
You are cordially invited...
The Bilderbergers are throwing a party, and we're all invited (not).
Well, at least we know where their secret bash will be held, which means its not a secret any more.
Therfore, we should cordially invite ourselves, to meet with the puppetmasters who control the IMF, G8, NATO, UN, US, World Bank, EU, and possibly Domino's Pizza and Hooters....
Bring party hats, party masks and raw vegatables for an ad hoc salad bar.
F
Would any group wishing to organise protest actions at Chantilly please contact me (Tony Gosling) ASAP and I will circulate your material
CAN THE NEW MEDIA BUST THEIR MEETING?
Joe Sansone 12Apri02
The Ether Zone http://www.etherzone.com
After many successes breaking news stories and scandals ranging from the Monica Lewisnky scandal to the Waco massacre, the "New Media", consisting mainly of Internet publications, may be facing its biggest challenge.
Recent alternate news reports have revealed that from May 30th to June 2nd the Bilderberg Group will be holding its annual meeting in Chantilly Virginia, at the Westfields Marriott about seven miles south of Washington’s Dulles airport. This is the first meeting of the Bilderberg Group in Virginia since 1962.
The Bilderberg Group and many media outlets have denied its existence for decades and are still benefited by a virtual media blackout. Reportedly consisting of over one hundred participants, the Bilderberg Group is allegedly comprised of international power brokers planning and implementing the various stages and the development of a world government.
Supposedly on the agenda of these un-elected and self-appointed leaders of the new world, is the expansion of NAFTA throughout the Americas, the polarization of the Western Hemisphere, and the development of an American Union. To figure out how to use the war on terrorism to furthers its goal of propping up the United Nations as a global political body by granting it taxing authority and developing NATO into the United Nations standing army.
This world without borders can only be created through the erection of a global police state that would stifle humanity. It is being driven from the top down and that is exactly how it will rule.
To prove the point, consider the issue of militarizing the United States borders to prevent illegal aliens and terrorists from entering the country to commit the mass murder of more Americans. Politicians have said that our military is not equipped to protect our borders the same way that it protects South Korea’s. They have also expressed a fear that military personnel might accidentally shoot unarmed civilians. Yet, a stroll to any U.S. airport would reveal military personnel carrying M-16s.
The fact that international power brokers meet regularly in secret to plot out the destiny of the world would outrage millions of Americans if they were being informed about it. The problem is that most people have never even heard of the Bilderberg Group and don’t even know that it exists.
If a group of right wing extremist were meeting and plotting to over throw the United States government, wouldn’t the media consider it worthy to report on if they new about it? Isn’t that exactly what the Bilderberg Group is plotting, but through different means? What else would you call secretly meeting and planning the eradication of national independence or self-government?
For years prominent politicians and media personalities have attended these meeting without covering the event or mentioning it. Here lies the challenge for the new media and also an opportunity to show its growing muscle.
Priding itself on being a truly free press, the "New Media" has maintained its independence and acted as the "Town Crier". The Bilderberg Meeting to take place in VA in late May and early June is the perfect opportunity for the "New Media" to develop into a 21st century equivalent to the Committees of Correspondence that were used by our founding fathers.
If the "New Media" makes a conscious decision to reveal the nature of the Bilderberg Group and what goes on at the meetings it is likely that various organizations would rally demonstrators and protestors to the event.
How could the "old media" continue to cover up an event that drew the same number of protestors that were present to protest the Seattle meeting of the WTO in 2000?
Americans have a right to know what will transpire at this meeting, what deals will be made, what decisions, and how they will be implemented. Isn’t that an essential element of a free society, to have an open debate on the issues, and more importantly to have an input on the decisions that will affect your life?
Hopefully the "New Media" will have the courage and the tenacity to cover this event and deliver the news by busting the Bilderberg meeting.
Joe Sansone is a columnist and the Vice-Chairman of the American Reformation Project. Joe has previously hosted a Central Jersey Talk Radio Show and is the former chairman of the Reform Party of New Jersey. He is currently active as a consultant for conservative Republican candidates and is a regular columnist for Ether Zone. http://www.etherzone.com
Joe Sansone can be reached at: jsansone@rcn.com
Published in the April 12, 2002 issue of Ether Zone. http://www.etherzone.com
Scandanavian Globalisation/Bilderberg roundup by Thomas Hegge - Son of A Bilderberger (SOB)
Greetings, warriors against the inhuman agenda of the Globalists.
As one of the few 'anti-globalisation' activists with a family connection to Bilderberg, I would like to give you my view of the Globalist-agenda, which is clearly managed by one special people and their 'religion'. Find out for yourself too, because if I tell you, I'll get killed (no joke). If one is to understand these Globalist fascists, one must understand their mentality and personality, as well.
I am the Son of a Scandinavian newspaper editor at who participated at a recent Bilderberg meeting in Europe.
Dad, why the illogical statements?
First, about this meeting. Just recently I read that internally this meeting was a flop, so excuse me Dad for coming so hard out on you. Still - you are a globalist and weren't able to answer over half of the questions I recently asked you. You are doing the wrong thing, and when you get a hold of this document, because someone will "tell on me", think about the consequences it will have, if you want to 'do something about it.'
You might be surprised to learn that my father said that the Bilderberg-meeting was boring. Don't be. In chapter 14 of Des Griffin's book "Fourth Reich of the Rich" (ISBN: 0941380068 (1998 edition) mentions that among the top 7 excuses amongst Bilderbergers, the "boring" version is numero uno.
In the Norwegian Parliament, Steinar Bastesen, the leader for the Coast Party, is completely alone fighting against Globalism, and with at least two Bilderbergers in the Government, when writing this, Kristin Clemet and Jan Petersen, it looks like we have our work cut out for us.
The thing is that Steinar Bastesen, at the Address Debate in the Norwegian Parliament, on October 25th, 2001, talked about Bilderberger. Kristin Clemet, which is a real b***h, was furious after his contribution. Swedish and Danish readers, since you are able to read Norwegian, you can check out the transcript from this debate at http://www.stortinget.no/stid/2001/si011025.html [if anyone can translate this article and email it to me I will publish it here - Tony]{they did, thanks!}
Representative Bastesen's mention of the Bilderbergers during a speech in the Norwegian Parliament ran as follows : "What about the press' interest in the Bilderbergers, where central politicians are participating, an organization whose main goal is to end the nation state; Is it not high time the media start to take interest in such secret organizations ?"
By concidence, one week later, he had a cerebral infection. If you take the time to read the patents mentioned below at http://www.uspto.gov (U.S. Patent Office), you will see that this is possibly a deliberate attack.
The diabolical connection
My father being who he is has of course met a lot of people, highly placed people, mostly Norwegians. There is a connection between people that push their pregnant wives down the stairs on purpose, while being employed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The newspapers wrote nothing. There is a connection between the fact that in these families (highly-placed people) there's almost always one child that's a drug addict, committed suicide or whatever. I can prove it! Just think about that the next time your promised leader is on TV, and sits in studio laughing and chatting it up with the host. They are sick people.
The information-hungered people of Norway
The papers don't write anything about Bilderberg. Dagbladet http://www.dagbladet.no tried when Bilderberg came to Norway in 1982, but after the first day with a huge first-page reading "Secret meeting in Sandefjord", the next day had nothing. Absolutely nothing. The people of Norway have been deprived of the fact that Bilderberger exists. They know nothing about it. The press doesn't even want to discuss it. I have had friendly and unfriendly discussions with journalists in Norway's largest newspapers. These journalists have always been eager to discuss and quarrel, but as soon as I mention Bilderberg, I never receive a response.
The situation in Denmark
Denmark, a neighbouring country, is in the same situation. In the 70's the newspaper Berlingske Tidende warned that they would now write everything about Bilderberg and their fascist agenda. By a "coincidence" there was a strike the day after that lasted for 3 - three - months!
Patents
Patents mentioned and of interest for those who want to understand the New World Order agenda: 3,951,134 - 4,395,600 - 4,616,261 - 4,686,605 - 4,777,529 - 5,017,143 - 5,027,208 - 5,128,765 - 5,134,484 - 5,159,703 - 5,170,381 - 5,175,571 - 5,194,008 - 5,215,468 - 5,221,962 - 5,224,864 - 5,245,666 - 5,270,800 - 5,644,363 - 6,017,302 and 6,122,322 check these out at http://www.uspto.gov
You can contact me at vi_blir_lurt@yahoo.com , but please note that you are commenting this article, as I use this e-mail address for other purposes as well.
Dad's Name: Per Egil Hegge
Dad's Newspaper: Aftenposten http://www.aftenposten.no Norway's largest morning newspaper (267000 circulation)
Dad's Bilderberg attendance: 1999 (Portugal)
Is Dad a freemason or not? Not that I know of. But he's very active in Norway reviewing books and working for "a correct utterance of the Norwegian language". He probably isn't a Freemason. Freemasonic membership in Norway is open to the public. I checked the 1994/1995 book (Matrikkel), and he wasn't in it.
Thomas's favourite/most visited websites:
http://www.adl.org
http://www.criminalpolitics.com/home.html
http://www.projectcensored.org
http://www.eastlundscience.com
http://www.buchanan.org
http://www.keystonereport.com/911.htm
Bilderberger is mentioned on page 34 in the PDF document pointed to by the
link
http://www.stortinget.no/stid/2001/si011025.html
Pat Cox, Irish MEP, former RTE journalist, and attendee at the 2001 Bilderberg meeting in Gothenberg, Sweden has just been voted President of the European Parliament.
The President of the European Parliament is in many ways a figure head role, like a President. He or she presides over the Parliament sessions in Strasbourg and Bruxelles.
The President has an important political role in representing the Parliament to the other Institutions, the Governments, the European Commission, and in particular the Council of Ministers. He or she gets to participate in some Ministerial meetings, and can influence the course of Intergovernmental Conferences, who's task it is to negotiate or change treaties. Given that Parliament has, at least theoretically, equal power with Council in many areas of legislation, including the EU Budget, the role of European Parliamentary President should not be underestimated.
Pat Cox is a very polished performer, and a media friendly personality. He will be quite influential in the development of European political life, as we move towards the Enlargement to the East, and the Constitutional Convention. His next crucial role will be to poke his nose into Irish national affairs, and try to get the Irish to approve the Nice treaty. This is strictly speaking out of order, but Pat being the cutee he is, says he will do this in his private capacity. Sorry Pat, but if you want to do that, resign.
Sign along the dotted line to give up our national sovereignty
Why have we neither been told nor offered a referendum
Maybe because - we the people - wouldn't answer correctly
Still, if the Irish don't approve Nice, it's dead. It looks as though they will either reject it the second time, or not have a second vote before December. Either way, hopefully, it's gone.
There's also a Charter of Fundamental Rights, military, new powers for the EU without Eurpoean Parliamentary codecision (ie. no democratic accountability), etc. Big Quiet Changes. You can read it on the web:
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/search/search_treaties.html
Trouble is, they have now set up a Convention to go to the next step, beyond even what Nice envisaged, by 2004. Some want a European Constitution, a federation of some sort. Others want more of the same 'United States of Europe' stuff as Nice, including the contents of Nice I imagine. It's like choosing between two blind goats.
Very handy for the anti-democratic elements in Europe that the Bilderberg got their man in in Denmark. And they hope to have their friends in in Ireland as well (John Bruton, Pat Cox et al) - even the green party is being used as an elitist vehicle now
The guy given the dirty job of chairing the Convention is ex-French President, Valery Giscard d'Estaing. When he was French President, he met Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in 1978 in Aachen beside the tomb of Charlemagne in the Dom (cathedral). He said: "Perhaps when we discussed monetary problems, the spirit of Charlemagne brooded over us." (Bernard Connolly, "The Rotten Heart of Europe", '95, p17)
Having such a sense of his importance in history, he has now asked for a salary of 20,000 euros per month tax free, plus staff, luxury hotel etc. for the privilege. That's about £16,000 Sterling! Yikes. Even some of the staff in the EU earn just over that in a year, not to mention the unemployed in the UK, or people who might never see that kind of money in their lifetime in the developing world - closer to the people my arse.
STRASBOURG, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Irish Liberal politician Pat Cox was elected president of the European Parliament on Tuesday, pledging to liven up political debate in the European Union's only directed elected body and bring it closer to its citizens. His widely aniticaped victory is expected to mark the start of a more visible role for the EU's 626-member assembly. The outspoken former journalist, backed by the centre-right European People's Party and his own Liberal Democrats, won 298 votes on the third ballot against 237 for Scottish Labour deputy David Martin and 33 for Jens Peter Bonde, with 18 invalid ballots. The threshold for victory was 285 out of a total 586 votes cast. Cox has promised to enliven parliament's multilingual debates by allowing more direct questioning of European commissioners and taking some of the power to control speaking time out of the hands of political group leaders. "I sense there is an appetite for change. There is a feeling in this house that we need to do more politics," he told parliament before members began the secret voting. Reuters Limited 2002.
Source: REUTERS NEWS SERVICE REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
WESTERN EUROPE REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 15/01/2002
BRUSSELS, Jan 15 (Reuters) - He's not from a big political party. He's from one of the smallest countries in Europe. But Ireland's Pat Cox aims to become the first publicly recognisable head of the European Parliament for two decades. A former television journalist, Cox, 49, has a media-friendly, soundbite style that his supporters say is vital to raise the profile of the often underestimated assembly, the European Union's only directly elected institution. "Above all he's somebody who understands the need to sell the parliament's message to the outside world," said one of his aides. Thanks to a power-sharing deal that his Liberal group struck with the centre-right European People's Party in 1999, Cox takes over the reins from Nicole Fontaine, a French conservative little known in her native country or beyond. Cox is better known, at least to his own countrymen, - although more for falling out with his party, the centrist Progressive Democrats, in 1994 and successfully returning to the assembly as an independent than for any major policy success. A combination of personal charm and luck led the father of six, whose family home is in Cork, to become leader of the Liberal Democrat grouping - the assembly's third largest - that year. With a position on the assembly's front bench, Cox was one of the loudest and clearest voices demanding the resignation of the European Commission, the EU executive, in 1999 after a report implicated it in fraud and mismanagement. Parliamentary pressure eventually forced the Commission, headed by Luxembourg's Jacques Santer, to stand down. Cox memorably told them: "Go or be pushed."
His supporters now hope he will use his eloquence to improve the visibility of the European Parliament, which has the power to amend or veto a wide range of EU policies. Apart from Simone Veil of France, who was president of the first directly elected parliament in 1979-82, most of the body's leaders have been largely unknown to the European public. "We have high expectations of Pat as a reforming president," Chris Davies, an English Liberal Democrat MEP, told Reuters. "We need a media man. Someone who can have a higher profile than in the past - not because of being controversial but because they can effectively promote the parliament's concerns." Cox would push for reforms such as making the position of European Commission president a democratically elected one and securing more legislative powers for parliament in areas where it is now weak, such as agriculture and trade, Davies said. Cox relishes the prospect of heading the EU parliament as the 15-country bloc is on the verge of a major enlargement to include eastern European countries, and faces crucial choices on its future at a constitutional Convention opening in March. "It's a wonderful time to be involved in European politics," he told fellow Liberal Democrats at a Brussels New Year party. The European Parliament had now come of age, he said, and should face the future with greater confidence. After less than 50 percent of the electorate bothered to turn out to vote at the last European election, Cox will need to use his media savvy to convince voters the institution is more than a well-paid talking shop. The fact that he is Irish may help. As a native English-speaker, Cox may get more media coverage in northern Europe than his French predecessor, while his nationality clears him of suspicions of British Euro-scepticism. "Pat's Irish - he can talk the hind legs off a donkey," one supporter said. "The trouble is, he finds it difficult to accept advice." Reuters 2002.
Source: REUTERS NEWS SERVICE REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
WESTERN EUROPE REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 15/01/2002
By Lisa Jucca STRASBOURG, France, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Irish Liberal Pat Cox was elected president of the European Parliament on Tuesday and pledged to give the European Union's only directly elected body a stronger voice. The outspoken former television journalist, backed by the centre-right European People's Party and his own Liberal Democrats, won 298 out of 586 votes cast in the third round. In his acceptance speech, some of which he delivered in Irish, not a recognised EU language, Cox said the bloc's eastward enlargement would be his top priority. He pledged to bring political debate back into the parliament and to put the assembly at centre stage as a democratic counterweight to the unelected European Commission. "I make a political commitment to political leadership," Cox told the assembly. "We are building the democratic part of Europe's future. We are the check and the balance - the counterpart of Europe's technocracy. We are indispensable to enrich Europe's future." Cox beat Scottish Labour deputy David Martin who secured 237 votes and Danish eurosceptic Jens Peter Bonde with 33. There were 18 invalid ballots. Communist Francis Wurtz and Green Gerard Onesta, both from France, withdraw after the first round. Martin pledged to support Cox and voiced hopes the election, more lively than many in the past, would help make parliament more visible.
ENLARGEMENT CRUCIAL
Cox said EU expansion to ex-communist countries was crucial. Up to 10 east European and Mediterranean states are due to conclude negotiations by the end of this year and join in 2004. "We are on the brink of the most important event of recent European history - the enlargement of the European Union. The successful completion of enlargement negotiations is the overarching political priority," he said in Irish. The election came as the 626-member assembly struggles for greater acceptance among voters often apathetic on EU affairs. "We have been bad at telling our story," Cox said in a television interview just before the vote. "One of the jobs of the newly elected president would be to get this story and tell it to the European public in simple terms." He faces an uphill struggle since EU parliamentarians enjoy less media coverage than their domestic counterparts and the assembly's growing powers are little known to the public. Turnout at European Parliament elections has fallen consistently, with less than 50 percent of the electorate bothering to turn out to vote at the last European election. Yet with the 1991 Maastricht and 1997 Amsterdam treaties, parliament gained power as a co-legislator - sharing policy-making powers with national governments in a wide range of areas affecting business and the environment. Many parliamentarians consider their finest hour was in 1999, when they forced the Commission led by Jacques Santer to resign over allegations of corruption and mismanagement. Cox played a key role in the Commission's downfall and is remembered for having told the EU executive: "Go or be pushed." In more recent times, parliament demonstrated its muscle by killing long-awaited draft legislation on common EU rules for takeovers last year, even though the law had been agreed by all but one EU member states. Reuters 2002.
Source: REUTERS NEWS SERVICE REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
WESTERN EUROPE REUTERS NEWS SERVICE 15/01/2002
Secrets of the Bilderberg
http://www.eyespymag.com/ EYE SPY INTELLIGENCE MAGAZINE ISSUE 5
Bilderberg Group, so called because of their first meeting in May 1954 at the Bilderberg Hotel, near Arnhem in Holland, are, according to the Christian US based Jeremiah Project:
‘Shrewd and calculating, their hearts are filled with lust for power and consumed with greed for money. Rich and aristocratic, they despise Christians and they loathe the lowly working class. They control the world’s press and virtually all our banks and financial institutions. They screen and choose who America’s leaders will be and even determine who will run on the Democratic and Republican Parties’ tickets.
‘Arrogantly, they plot the subversion and take-over of constitutional governments everywhere. Their goal is a World Government run exclusively by their hand picked puppets.’1
On the other hand to some, a world government might just be a better alternative to the nationalist strife and religious fundamentalism that has belaboured our planet for the last millennium. One thing is sure; the Bilderbergers represent the most wealthy and powerful establishment of every Western nation. They include royalty, executives of multinational corporations, leading statesmen, ex-military top brass and other elite influence peddlers. Their meetings, which take place at a different venue every year, go unannounced, their speeches unreported and their decisions unrecorded. This seems like the Mother of all Conspiracies and it’s been going on a long, long time.
The great conspiracy apparently goes back to the eighteenth century when one Adam Weishaupt, who greatly admired the teachings of Plato, formed a secret fraternity called the Illuminati in Bavaria based loosely on the lines of the Freemasons. They claimed superior knowledge and access to the revealed truths about the world.
This was all to be used to elevate the human race to a brotherhood above fratricidal squabbling.
John Ruskin the noted English social critic and philosopher, revived these ideals in the 1870s through his teachings and writings at Oxford. He wanted to motivate the upper classes to use their education, breeding and money to ‘civilise’ the world. Cecil Rhodes the founder of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and South African diamond millionaire, who was a devoted disciple of Ruskin used his fortune to promote this grand scheme of federating the English speaking peoples around the globe and bringing all of it under their ‘benign’ imperial control.
To this end Rhodes and other acolytes of Ruskin, formed a secret society known as the Round Table Group in 1881. This group of academics, dreamers and aristocrats were able to gain access to Rhodes’ fortune after his death in 1902. Under the trusteeship of Lord Milner, another arch-imperialist, they sought to spread and carry out the ambitions that Rhodes derived from Ruskin.
John Ruskin, together with Cecil Rhodes, formed a secret society in 1881 known as The Round Table Group
Milner was Governor-General of South Africa between 1897-1905 and used his contacts to recruit a group of young men, chiefly from the intellectual elites of Oxford and Cambridge to assist him in fulfilling his dreams.
These men were able to win important posts in government and international finance and became the dominant influence in British imperial and foreign affairs up to the Second World War. They were originally known as ‘Milner’s Kindergarten’ and after 1910 organised confidential, exclusive gatherings known as Round Table Groups, in the English speaking Empire and in the United States.
Cecil Rhodes
After the turmoil of the First World War and the triumph of the Anglo-Saxon West, it was at the Majestic Hotel in Paris during the peace conferences that the Round Table Groups emerged from their cloak of secrecy and officially became the US Council on Foreign Relations and the UK Royal Institute for International Affairs.
This evolution, in the opinion of the Liberty Lobby, another Christian ultra-conservative pressure group, based in Washington DC, was the beginning of what they call a Jewish-communist conspiracy to rule the planet by way of a ‘New World Order’ whose eventual goal is one world government - a sort of apocalyptic marriage between the Communist Manifesto and the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion, (a supposed Judaic scheme to dominate the human race). The Bilderbergers are, according to the Liberty Lobby, direct descendants of the ‘Satanic-Marxist’ Illuminati, the Round Tables and the two subsequent foreign-relations organisations.
The ‘Bible’ of the conspiracy theorists is a book written in 1966 called ‘Tragedy and Hope’ by the late Dr Carroll Quigley, a distinguished professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. In it he detailed how the complex financial and commercial relations between the major powers, especially the British and Americans, before 1914 influenced today’s global markets. Quigley used his book as the text of his courses on western civilisation at the University.
The book has become very hard to locate. Quigley had trouble getting it published; the original plates disappeared and the banking authorities and the higher echelons of finance voiced their displeasure about its revealing contents. Quigley himself once remarked how his academic career in government institutions had been stunted because of the book. It is for these reasons that ‘Tragedy and Hope’ became the Holy Grail of the conspiracy theorists, much to Quigley’s annoyance, who disparaged its revelations claiming it was just the sort of book any assiduous researcher could produce. The publication is for sale though mail order book clubs that specialise in the world of paranoia.
The Bilderberger meetings were the brainchild of the remarkable Pole Dr. Joseph Retinger. He was according to Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands an extraordinary character who flitted through fifty years of European history on close terms with prime ministers, trade unionists, industrial magnates, artists, intellectuals and even committed revolutionaries. His address book of intimates and confidants read like a Who’s Who of international Movers and Shakers. He was born in 1888 of gentry parents in pre First World War Krakow, then part of Austrian Poland. He went to the Sorbonne in Paris to complete his education and was soon part of the city’s literary and artistic circles. He was a fierce Polish patriot and this made him more than unpopular with the Germans and Austrians, who during World War One put a price on his head.
His machinations on behalf of the Polish people got him banned from London and jailed in the USA (he carried an enemy passport). These experiences sharpened his skills for both intrigue and diplomacy. He moved to England after the War and found entrée into the political circles that included Herbert Asquith and Lord Balfour.
Lord Balfour
In London he worked as secretary to the famous novelist and fellow Polish nationalist, Joseph Conrad. Although Retinger was crippled by polio, he never let this interfere with his amazingly active life.
At the outbreak of WWII he became an aide to the Free Polish General Sikorski and despite his painful disability parachuted into Poland to make contact with the Home Army to arrange the transfer of several million dollars.
When the Red Army moved into Central and Eastern Poland and turned it into a bastion of Stalinism, Retinger then devoted the rest of his life to uniting the West against Marxist hegemony - he acted as a sort of ‘Eminence Grise’, a Talleyrand without Portfolio. Cardinal Richelieu would have been impressed.
Being a realist he knew that Western Europe, devastated by war could not stand alone against the rising tide of communism and also the growing tide of anti-Americanism in all social classes. This seemingly illogical fear of Uncle Sam threatened the West’s defences against the power of invasion from the East. Retinger devised a plan to address the situation, but needed powerful allies to implement it. Convinced of the need to strengthen ties between the USA and Western Europe, he approached through numerous contacts, leading politicians, businessmen and ex-military leaders who were concerned to cement Atlantic co-operation.
They asked Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands to act as Chairman designate because they rightly thought it would be difficult to find a politician who would not be besmirched with partisanship and who could call on politicians no matter what their party, without fear or favour (it was quietly forgotten that as a German-born aristocrat, Bernhard had been an honorary member of the SS in the 1930s).
Thus was enhanced the cementing of the Atlantic movement, already founded by the Marshall Plan, NATO, and the European movement, which has led to today’s European Union. Both are the ‘children’ of Joseph Retinger. He has been called ‘a True Renaissance Man’, ‘a Machiavellian Jesuit,’ and having a ‘Borgian Brilliance for Intrigue.’
Although his name is virtually unknown today, his influence has been tremendous - either for good or ill, depending on your world-view. Until his death in 1960, Retinger devoted his life to strengthening the West against ‘the threat from the East.’ He would have been overjoyed at the collapse of communism, Poland’s entry into NATO and its application to join the European Union.
Towards the end of May 1954 at a small hotel at Oosterbeek in the deeply wooded Arnhem area the most eminent and powerful men from the principal western European nations gathered. There was absolutely no publicity. Security personnel surrounded the hotel and journalists, except those invited in a private capacity, were persona non grata. The participants sworn to secrecy, stripped of their official titles for the three days of the forum were just ‘simple citizens’ of their respective countries. Everyone could say what he liked without fear of repercussions. That meeting and all subsequent ones have had an enormous if impossible-to-validate effect on post-war history.
For the first 22 years of the Bilderberg meetings Price Bernhard was in the Chair until forced to resign in 1976 because of a bribery scandal involving Lockheed. Then the former British Prime Minister Lord Home took over, then his political ally Lord Carrington. There are no members of Bilderberg. Each year the chairman in consultation with the international steering committee compiles an invitation list. Individuals are chosen in the light of their knowledge of, importance to and standing in the world. To ensure a full and comprehensive discussion the list includes invitees from the full spectrum of political and economic points of view.
Of the 100 or so participants, approximately one third are from government and politics and the rest from a wide variety of fields including finance, journalism, academia and labour. They attend in a personal and not in an official capacity. From the beginning the conferencees are overwhelmingly from America and Western Europe and the two debating languages are English and French. The significance of the gathering can not be underestimated.
The participants on most definitions would be labelled as members of the ‘Ruling Class’ in Europe or the USA - the most powerful men (for they have been overwhelmingly men) in the corridors of power of the western democracies.
The meetings take place in a different venue every year, alternately in Northern America and Western Europe.
Officially, the discussion at each meeting is centred on ‘...topics of current concern in the broad fields of foreign policy, world economy and other contemporary issues. Basic groundwork of the symposium is laid by means of working papers for general discussion. In order to assure freedom of speech and frankness of expression, the gatherings are closed and off the record. No resolutions are proposed, no votes taken and no policy statements issued during and after the meetings.’2
It is the Bilderberg custom to book a hotel for a weekend or more, with the whole building being cleared of all other guests, no matter what their standing and status. Two days before the meeting the various secret service personnel move in and go through the place with a fine tooth comb to make sure there is complete privacy and safety for the delegates. All staff are thoroughly vetted and any suspect ones are removed for the duration. To the outsider, this looks like a real cloak-and-dagger operation, where publicity shy power-brokers lock themselves into a tight security grid.
The meetings are never dull and not always with consensus. Sparks regularly fly. At St Simons in 1957 the French, British and Americans almost came to blows over Suez. At another it was the Chinese offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu. The Europeans could understand the American attitude about defending Taiwan, but holding up the Big Stick to the Communists for a couple of insignificant outcrops seemed military madness ‘for the sake of tweaking the dragon’s tail.’ Other controversial issues have been the American and British attitudes to European unification and the US’s heavy handed policy towards Cuba.
This is known as ‘Son of Bilderberg’ and is more or less a global version of its bilateral parent, with the Japanese being invited. It has an interlocking membership with Bilderberg and also holds closed-door meetings. Both George Bush and Bill Clinton were long-time members of the Commission and got promoted to Bilderberg when the time was thought right. Having consecutive US presidents mixing with the same people puts the Bilderbergers in a win-win situation. Former President Bill Clinton is a member of the Bilderberg Society
Obviously, considering the guest list, the Bilderberger/Trilateral get-togethers are certainly not an inconsequential gabfest. In recent years some conferencees have broken their Trappist-like silence and revealed some items on the agendas. In retrospect they read like a menu of the world’s most historic events: the USA and UN recognising Communist China was mooted before Nixon made it so; the idea of a single European currency was debated in the late 1980s. Apparently, Margaret Thatcher was removed as British PM because of her opposition to surrendering British sovereignty to a federal Europe.
The invite list reveals that those in power or reckoned to be on its threshold are immediately incorporated to the inner sanctum. All the Presidents of the US or their close aides since Eisenhower have attended; the same goes for British Prime Ministers and senior Cabinet members. Lords Home and Carrington headed Bilderberg and Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson and George Robertson were recently there. Robertson, of course will be a regular attendee now he has been appointed to the Secretary- Generalship of NATO. Every major banker in America and Europe has turned up at one time or another and David Rockefeller who heads the Chase Manhattan Bank is almost a permanent feature. European royalty active in public life such as Prince Charles, make frequent appearances.
More recent debates have started alarm bells ringing with both the Left and Right. It’s claimed that NATO has decided to become a world policeman after its intervention in Kosovo and it also promised to turn a blind eye to Russia’s complete obliteration of Chechnya’s attempt of secession and the recent razing of Grozny, all at the behest of Bilderberg. Eventually there will be a unification of the dollar and the Euro making a de facto world currency, and encouraging of ‘socialist’ governments like Tony Blair’s New Labour to implement New Right policies so as to appear to ameliorate their harshness. After all it might be easier for someone claiming to be a socialist to push the stringent changes through.
Past invitees claim that some of the speeches are so dull and esoteric that they would be instant cures for insomnia. One thing is certain: the participants can be relied on to keep mum about what goes on at the Bilderberg. Even the world’s press barons and their editors who are regularly invited to attend, make sure that absolutely nothing is printed or broadcast in their media. Excommunication would not be in their interests. Once you have been invited to Bilderberg you have arrived. You are a privileged member of the Grandees of the World; the Patricians with ‘Pull’ or what the journalist Tony Gosling calls ‘The High Priests of Globalisation’: a select forum whose talk results in the making of history.
Not everyone succumbs to the lure of the Bilderbergers though. Computer billionaire and sometime US presidential candidate Ross Perot received an invitation and gave them short shrift. He told them pointedly, ‘You boys don’t want to know my views, you want to impose your views on me. If any of you have anything to tell me, write or give me a call.’3
Those who are considered mavericks or gauche will not get the call. Pat Buchanan, the powerful leader of the American religious right is never likely to go through the hallowed portals, and interestingly, Rupert Murdoch has never been invited - maybe he didn’t want to be bound by the promise of silence.
The disquiet about Bilderberg has reached the level of European parliamentarians. Patricia McKenna MEP of the Irish Green Party tabled a question to the European Commission in December 1998 about the attendance of Commissioners at Bilderberg. Did their presence in any way conflict with their duties towards Europe? The reply was bland and resembled Bilderberg’s own vague description of the activities the Group involved itself in.
With concern about the amount of ‘sleaze’ British MPs were involved in during John Major’s administration, the incoming Blair government assured voters that they would be a squeaky clean act. It came as a bit of a surprise therefore to discover that the trip Tony Blair, then shadow Home Secretary, and Kenneth Clarke, then a Cabinet Minister, took to the Athens meeting in 1993 had not been declared by them in the Parliamentary Register of Members’ Interests. Blair belatedly entered his details in 1995 but Clarke never did.
In 1998, after the Labour election landslide, several questions were asked in Parliament about ministers’ attendance at Bilderberg meetings, the Group’s influence on European policy and world agricultural prices. To all the questions the reply was either in the negative or evasive.
Magazines such as Freedom Today, published by the Freedom Association, a British right wing pressure group virulently opposed to European federalism and the single currency, regard Bilderberg as part of planning the death of Britain’s independence, ‘Ordinary people do not know Bilderberg exists, and hence are powerless to scrutinise the highly questionable activity of this treasonous, corporatist oligarchy of influence.’4
Conspiracy theory is more than just a belief in just the occasional cabal. Simply put, it is a conviction which asserts that world events are being controlled in secret by a group of ultra-powerful puppeteers behind the curtains. Is it the stuff of fiction that at once thrills and chills? The basic storylines of conspiracy theory have a striking resemblance to the anti-Semitic propaganda manufactured by the Nazis in the 1920s and 30s. Indeed the Nazis accusations against ‘international bankers’ and ‘Zionist-Cosmopolitanists’ are echoed today by the American Militia and Patriot movements. Similarly many of these latter-day ‘saviours’ of sturdy independence openly revile Jews.
The fact that some of today’s international bankers are Jews lends them more ammunition. It is no coincidence that the Liberty Lobby, which publishes Spotlight Magazine is the same organisation which claims the Holocaust is a Jewish invention to milk compensation from the hapless Germans. The wild claims of insider manipulation of the lives of millions go back to the beliefs about the Illuminati - a group that divined special and secret knowledge not available to the common people. The accusers have ‘figured out’ that if you do not see it then you are just one of the dupes controlled by The Puppeteers who have the Concealed Enlightenment.
Of course, it’s not difficult to conclude that the magazines which exist to expose ‘schemes for world domination’ can find ammunition when they investigate Bilderberg. Most nationalists are hostile to supra-national attempts, which threaten a country’s sovereignty - some regard the European Union as a Catholic conspiracy to resurrect the Holy Roman Empire in another guise! The Bilderberg group is attacked from both sides of the political spectrum. The far right regard them as a Zionist-Marxist plot, whilst the far left see them as an offshoot of the Rothschild-Rockefeller Grand Design to Rule the World.
The length to which the Bilderbergers go to achieve the level of seclusion and solitude for their deliberations raises deep suspicions about the group’s motives and objectives. The critics may be not so far off the bulls-eye when they accuse the group of being supra-governmental, intent on ‘re-educating’ governments to relinquish their sovereignty.
Their apparent power to manipulate global finances and monetary rates puts them on a par with the IMF and the World Bank and the selection of important figures who are either groomed for power or removal is scary. The most damning indictment is that, rather than pursuing aims which would solve macro environmental and health problems, the group pursue goals which guarantee to propagate their own influence and the enrichment of Bilderbergers at the expense of human rights and the global ecology.
The Bilderbergers are protected from all forms of petty bureaucracy that face ordinary citizens. Airport formalities disappear as if by magic, no visas are required. They travel around in armoured limousines with police escort and their presence at a hideaway venue, screened by a phalanx of armed guards is hardly likely to be conducive to open disclosure. Therein lies the problem.
There are many ‘secret’ organisations in the western world today whose shibboleths are the subject of scrutiny by ‘watchdog’ groups hoping to pick up evidence of plots and subversion. The Freemasons, the Afrikaner Broederbond and Opus Dei are three which have been powerful on the international stage. America itself, the centre of suspicion about the Bilderbergers, has dozens of ‘fraternal’ organisations with weird and dubious sounding names: The Royal Arcanum, The Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, The Maccabees etc. Most are harmless if not beneficial to society on account of their charitable work. Conversely there are the Ku Klux Klan, The Militias and the Mafia whose activities cause a shiver of revulsion. Even the respectable groupings of the right, such as the John Birch Society are not to most people’s taste.
Yet, the doings of the ultra powerful have always been a part of the modern international scene since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, which began to re-arrange Europe into its modern form. The concept of Bilderberg is not new. Two years before its inception in 1952 field Marshal Bernard Montgomery suggested to Eisenhower, NATO’s European commander an extension to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE) to include other topics and exercises of mutual interest. Since then the SHAPEX meeting has been held every year at SHAPE near Mons in Belgium.
In 1957 the first of the Pugwash Conferences on science and world affairs took place with India hosting the inaugural meeting. Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell were its founder members. In the 1970s Pugwash took in a range of issues including wars around the world. One of the latest groups to emerge is the Williamsburg Asian Window. Its first meeting was sponsored by John D Rockefeller in 1971 and still continues today. It brings together Asian leaders and the Americans and was particularly effective in bringing the Vietnam conflict to an end.
Today of course we have the annual winter meeting of the rich and omnipotent at Davos, the Swiss ski resort and G7/8 the meeting of the world’s seven - or eight if you include Russia - most industrialised countries. Both of these conclaves discuss themes of importance that affect the world but none has attracted and provoked global myths the way Bilderberg has. As Tony Gosling has stated:
‘One cannot help but be suspicious when priorities for the future of mankind are being considered by those who have real influence over that future in total secret.’5
The fate of the ordinary citizen is and always has been in the hands of the powerful and secretive. They manipulate our daily lives and most of the time we are not even aware of it. We can only be grateful up to a point that the Bilderbergers see themselves as a force for stability and bourgeois values in a world of political violence and economic turmoil.
1 The Bilderbergers. http://www.jeremiahproject.com/prophecy/
2 The Bilderbergers - Invisible powerhouse. Armen Victorian Nexus Magazine Vol 3#1 January 1996
3 The Bilderbergers. Spotlight Magazine. May 10 1993
4 Bliderbergers Aiming for World Government. Freedom Today Vol 22 The Freedom Association 1992
5 The Bilderberg Group; Planning the World’s Future. Charles Overbrook. Matrix Magazine June 1998
Works Used
The Global Manipulators. Robert Eringer. Pentacle books 1980
The Time of My Life. Denis Healy. Penguin 1989.
Some Bilderbergers Break Silence. Tricia Katson. Spotlight Magazine. June
1996
International Brokers Meet To Discuss World’s Future. Portugal today.
May 1999
Secret Society-Hidden Agenda. Gibby Zobel. Big Issue. Nov 1999