The Bilderbergers are an invitation-only group of rich and powerful people who have been getting together secretly in expensive hotels since 1954 to discuss how to make the world a better place for rich and powerful people. Not surprisingly, the Bilderbergers are the subject of much conspiracy theorizing.
In recent years, they've been overshadowed by the Davos confab, which cleverly took the opposite tack: maximize publicity. Sure, it's fun to secretly hang out with your fellow Bilderbergers, but it can be more fun to boast about your invitation to Davos. The Davos strategy is to invite journalists to lecture rich and powerful guys. The rich and powerful guys treat the journalists like peers with fascinating insights, then the journalists go home and write articles about how today's crop of rich and powerful guys are so much more wonderful than you might think.
There is less conspiracy theorizing about Davos than Bilderberg because Davos hires platoons of PR flacks to tell everybody that, yes, the people who get invited to Davos do Run the World. So that takes all the fun out of it for the conspiracy theorists.
There is less conspiracy theorizing about Davos than Bilderberg because Davos hires platoons of PR flacks to tell everybody that, yes, the people who get invited to Davos do Run the World. So that takes all the fun out of it for the conspiracy theorists.
It appears the Bilderbergers may be slowly moving in the Davos direction. (Here's Charlie Skelton's BilderBlog at the Guardian.) This year, a website called BilderbergMeetings.org has appeared. It could be a hoax or it could be the real deal. (The Guardian says one delegate confirmed it's valid.) It's certainly sober and understated enough.
It even features a purported list of this week's participants: Niall Ferguson, Bill Gates, Donald Graham (Washington Post publisher), Richard Holbrooke, James Johnson (ex-Fannie Mae), Henry Kissinger, Henry Kravis, John Micklethwait (editor of The Economist), Peter Orszag (OMB), Richard Perle, Charlie Rose, Robert Rubin, Erich Schmidt of Google, Larry Summers, Paul Volcker, Jose Zapatero (PM of Spain), Bob Zoellick (World Bank), and a whole bunch of CEOs. Last year's guests included Max Boot, Vernon Jordan, David Rockefeller, and Paul Wolfowitz.
Sounds kind of dull.
The two years' worth of attendees would be a useful source for a study of the characteristics of the Trans-Atlantic elite.
That the Bilderbergers feel they need the insights of Max Boot and Charlie Rose reminds me of Greg Cochran's insight: There is no Inner Party. There's no Mustapha Mond who understands how it all works. At the end of 1984 [spoiler alert!] O'Brien of the evil Inner Party gives poor Winston Smith of the Outer Party a lecture explaining how the whole system works, just as at the end of Brave New World, Mond explains to the main characters how and why he and his fellow World Controllers control the world.
On a fashion note, the Guardian's series of 19 photos of big shots arriving suggests that the Obama Look -- a suit or a sports jacket and a dress shirt, but without a necktie -- has become the Bilderberg standard, unless you are an old coot like Volcker.
The two years' worth of attendees would be a useful source for a study of the characteristics of the Trans-Atlantic elite.
That the Bilderbergers feel they need the insights of Max Boot and Charlie Rose reminds me of Greg Cochran's insight: There is no Inner Party. There's no Mustapha Mond who understands how it all works. At the end of 1984 [spoiler alert!] O'Brien of the evil Inner Party gives poor Winston Smith of the Outer Party a lecture explaining how the whole system works, just as at the end of Brave New World, Mond explains to the main characters how and why he and his fellow World Controllers control the world.
On a fashion note, the Guardian's series of 19 photos of big shots arriving suggests that the Obama Look -- a suit or a sports jacket and a dress shirt, but without a necktie -- has become the Bilderberg standard, unless you are an old coot like Volcker.
A labor union for the international overclass.
ReplyDeleteWho is this union orgainized against now that the Cold War is ostenisbly over?
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Parting below-the-belt shot: Hawaii is our 50th state n'est pas?
Our 50th state, which is (supposedly) the birthplace of our president, recieves so much less press in than our de facto 51st state, doesn't it? I mean I can't pick up a paper without reading articles devoted to our 51st state's military activities as of late, even those activities are about as lopsided as a pee wee batter batting against Steven Strausurg.
Well you may not be a Bilderberger, but you get lumped in with some good company:
ReplyDelete"The exceedingly intelligent form a social class seldom mentioned but inordinately influential. They are not recognized as what they are because they do not append IQs to their by-lines. As a quite ordinary example, consider the magazine The American Conservative, with many of whose writers I have some familiarity. The publisher, Ron Unz, studied theoretical physics at Stanford after graduating from Harvard. Bill Lind, Pat Buchanan, Taki, Steve Sailer, Kara Hopkins, John Derbyshire—I doubt that there is an IQ below 140 in the bunch. The same could be said of many other political slicks, left or right."
Fred Reed is nothing if not entertainingly curmudgeonly:
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Commentators.shtml
Dull? Why not? It's a conspiracy, not a party!
ReplyDeleteMax Boot? Seriously? Why?
ReplyDeleteDo they think they can learn something from him?
Having read a bit of his stuff, I still find it hard to believe that he is a person, rather than the title character in a first-person shooter.
Max Boot? Seriously? Why? Having read a bit of his stuff, I still find it hard to believe that he is a person...
ReplyDeleteAsked and answered.
It is true that there is no Inner Party Steve. But North Korea puts paid to the notion that Saddam was "too broke" to construct a nuke. Kim Jong Il's regime has its people starving, eating grass, and they built nukes.
ReplyDeleteTrue, not very good ones. But you don't need perfect with nukes, just "good enough." Technology tends to spread and get radically cheaper over time, for the most part.
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Davos strategy has been very successful. But much of it has been by various celebrities hob-nobbing with each other. Not the Press writing fawning articles ...
THAT NO ONE EVER READS.
After all, is not Bono (a fatuous self-loving rock star) or Sting (ditto) as powerful and as important as Bill Gates? Even perhaps, as George Soros?
Because if Soros can move massive funds in and out of nations to manipulate currency (he was convicted of just that in France in Absentia), Sting and Bono can command Western nations to move massive funds into Africa, and forgive massive amounts of debts, based on their mega-celebrity.
[Neither Sting nor Bono would impress one as being highly intelligent men. Skilled musicians and Mega-Celebs, yes, high IQ masters of finance, no.]
When Bill Gates was looking around for something to do to make himself a big philanthropist, his wife convinced him Africa was a target ... because of Sting and Bono's lobbying and publicity. Melinda Gates surely did not call up Soros and ask him for advice on how to direct the Gates Foundation.
That the Gates Foundation has many scholarships available in the US for children "of color" but none for Whites, and spends the bulk of its expenditures in Africa, I will leave for others to ponder.
But ... once you reach Bill Gates and Warren Buffett levels of fame and fortune, what matters? Why, the approval of the hippest, coolest, mega-celebs as wealthy as you: Sting and Bono. Men so famous they have only one name.
[I love each man's music, loathe their personalities/personas, which is probably all that is left of them as people now.]
The Bilderberg Group has always involved major media figures in its activities with the agreement that the major media wouldn't cover it and would uphold secrecy.
ReplyDeleteBefore the internet, nobody knew about the Bilderberg Group. If you simply mentioned its name or asserted its existence and annual meetings, you'd be immediately dismissed as a kook, wacko, conspiracy theorist, etc.
With the internet and the consequent decline (at least to a degree) in the mainstream media's stranglehold on the public, and the rise of people of Alex Jones, more people are aware of the Bilderberg Group. I think the Bilderbergers are cognizant of this, realize that they can't maintain total secrecy anymore, and are going somewhat public now.
Are you quite sure there isn't an Inner Party? I suspect there's probably nothing so organized as a "party" but it's hard to say. Also, you can't generalize from America to the rest of the world.
ReplyDeleteThe does contain some entries that give me a little pause, especially when I look at the Brits.
For instance, one of this year's attendees was Niall Ferguson, whom I think it would be fair to describe as a social climber riding the coattails of the Rothschild family to fame and fortune. And the only journalists present were from The Economist, as is usually the case I believe...which is odd since they don't report on it. Odd, also, because the Rothschilds own that magazine.
Among English politicians, Peter Mandelson and George Osborne are very well-connected people who are constantly showing up in various stories with a strong whiff of corruption (it would be crass to mention that like Ferguson they are - or were - good friends of Nat Rothschild).
And Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury is at least interesting because the lineal descendants of William Cecil, Lord Burghley refuse to stop getting involved in conspiracy theories and secret histories, from the Gunpowder Plot to the RIIA.
I think in England there's a good case for an "Inner Party" of some kind. Here, probably things are more chaotic. I don't, for instance, see much evidence that the Rockefellers are secretly running everything, though David Rockefeller did start the Bilderberg group, and it's likely enough they are a lot richer than people think (the Forbes list is utter garbage because it's based mainly on stock holdings - thus favoring CEO's that get paid in stock options).
Bilderbergers?
ReplyDeleteDon't pick on the Rothschilds. They are simply a nice Jewish family trying to make a living.
That their family business is to take over central banks of nations, lend those govt's money created from thin air (at interest) & then stick the taxpayers with the bill is just good clean fun, or modern day tax farming.
Ever wonder why not one Rothschild, Warburg, Schiff or Oppenheimer is found in the Forbes 400? Me too. I guess they were all on the losing side of WW2, oh wait...
Niall Ferguson? God, does he spend ANY time on Harvard's campus?
ReplyDeleteI've seen him speak at private investor meetings twice in the last six months... and I don't go to a whole lot of conferences.
Do you think some of those Davos experts could have had a word or two with BP . . . or Goldman Sachs?
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that after all that hype about Green Tech that we managed to avert an offshore oil disaster.
Its funny when mentioning Bilderberg, some people immediately dismiss it as a crackpot conspiracy theory. Yet its undeniable that collectively the Bilderbergers do run the world. Well, at least exercise a good deal of influence over it.
ReplyDeleteIn dismissing any conspiritorial influence the deniers are implicitly saying there is an IP running things. After all if the Bilderbergers arent running the show, with its prime ministers, billionaires, think tank heads etc who is? Clearly an even more shady group, if thats not a conspiracy theory I dont not what is.
I'll certainly try that tack next time someone takes issue with me over Bilderburg.
The point of "there is no inner party" isn't that there aren't very powerful and wealthy people who sometimes conspire together to keep their power and wealth. It's that there's not some inner circle of powerful people who actually understands what they're doing and wisely guides US policies for either their own interests or the interests of their country, race, or world.
ReplyDeleteInstead, there are wealthy and powerful people. Mostly, they got that way by being successful in fields that lead to wealth and power. That success correlates to some extent with intelligence and luck and background knowledge, and so those people really are smarter than the average citizen. (Your average senator or hedge fund manager or top-tier journalist is unlikely to be smarter than your average cardiologist or math professor, but they will be a whole lot more powerful.)
Getting and keeping that wealth and power is a full-time job. So even though they're relatively bright folks, hard working, capable in many ways, they mostly aren't able to learn a lot of what they'd need to know to do that kind of deep planning.
And more fundamentally, the skills necessary for gaining power in those ways have little to do with the skills/knowledge you'd need to make good decisions. Go ask the current or previous president, if you need this clarified.
"has its people starving, eating grass"
ReplyDeleteSure, and they're starving back in China, so finish what you've got. Just kidding, this is neo-con nonsense, North Korea is not starving, Iran is not forcing Jews to wear Yellow badges, etc.
I'm so glad that after all that hype about Green Tech that we managed to avert an offshore oil disaster.
ReplyDeleteA hype campaign which was authored by Rahm Emanuel's landlord, Stanley Greenberg.
[Only - being a member of the Inner Party and whatnot - Rahm didn't actually have to pay any rent; he slept gratis chez Greenberg.]
Henry Kissinger
ReplyDeleteSeems like Kissinger takes life-enhancing drugs. I remember the guy from when I was a kid and yet he keeps popping up everywhere.
I tried to read a transcript of a Bilderberg meeting report Aachen, 1980, which is listed on Wikileaks. I fell asleep after about half a page. Maybe their convoluted babble is some kind of secret code system.
ReplyDeleteThat the Gates Foundation has many scholarships available in the US for children "of color" but none for Whites, and spends the bulk of its expenditures in Africa, I will leave for others to ponder.
ReplyDeleteEven more of a reason to switch to Linux. Gates has the gall to screw middle class guys, who more than anybody contributed to his fortune by paying the overrated fees for M$-bullshit.
On page 19 of the Guardian link:
ReplyDelete"Javier Solana, the secretary general of Nato from 1995 to 1999 and the high representative for common foreign and security policy of the EU from 1999 until 2009. He is a Knight of the Order of St Michael and St George, and a member of the Club of Rome"
......I guess this guy is there to make sure everybody has their minds right? Club of Rome? Those were the 'resource depletion' and 'limits to growth' fanatics from back in the 70's weren't they? Weren't they big anti-population mongers also?
: Im shocked Jesse Jackson wasn't there.
I believe more of the "Ellsworth Toohey" model of group persuasion. There will undoubtably be some leading personalities there who will zealously sell the idea (with the help of all the propagandized video presentations and lectures the attendees will be viewing) that we need a more integrated world financially, racially, enviromentally, and spiritually. The attendees will probably be made to feel that they haven't done quite enough to make these misty ideals a reality, and to go back out into the world and try to bring about changes towards certain goals.
What is the end-zone though? The usual claims of conspiracy theorists are that the world's elite is sold on the idea of a global governing body, a globally integrated economy with one common currency and one central bank at some point. We seem to be a long way from anything like that at the moment, but one thing is for certain:
The Western leaders, by transforming their demography, could be imperiled electorally in their own nations at some point in the next 100 years, while China, Indonesia, Arabia, South American, and Indian leaders will still be firmly ethnic majorities in their own countries. Are our elites trying to outsmart common sense?
In some ways our elites seem to be attempting to make the West into the World's first "anti-racist" nations, while the rest of the world still firmly favors their own peoples to the other. Until the aforementioned nations risk losing control of their own electoral processes, I think we are fooling ourselves long term.
I taught on a non-tenured basis at at one of the major 'globalist' universities -- the kind of place you go to get a masters to 'get your ticket punched'. From that experience I suspect that Cochran is right. My kids were hot runners, but while smart they certainly weren't overly impressive, despite many having undergrad degrees from Ivys, Chicago, etc. Meanwhile the actual policy makers I was exposed to also were relatively clueless, and my impression is that they largely made things up as they went along. This isn't to say that there was no knowledge there -- for example, people dealing with monetary policy have a rough idea about where the money supply should be to avoid a total meltdown. But for the big trends -- five, ten years out -- they are just about as clueless as the rest of us. The smartest of them know this -- that's why that 'events, dear boy, events' remark is so profound.
ReplyDeleteBilderbergers?
ReplyDeleteDon't pick on the Rothschilds. They are simply a nice Jewish family trying to make a living.
That their family business is to take over central banks of nations, lend those govt's money created from thin air (at interest) & then stick the taxpayers with the bill is just good clean fun, or modern day tax farming.
Ever wonder why not one Rothschild, Warburg, Schiff or Oppenheimer is found in the Forbes 400? Me too. I guess they were all on the losing side of WW2, oh wait...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-rothschild-story-a-golden-era-ends-for-a-secretive-dynasty-756388.html
"But in another way it marks out the continuation of an even older tradition - the ability of the family which has founded one of the world's largest private banking dynasties to sustain their secretive fortune, which industry insiders count not in billions but in trillions, and keep it within the family."
I taught on a non-tenured basis at at one of the major 'globalist' universities -- the kind of place you go to get a masters to 'get your ticket punched'.
ReplyDeleteThe various alumni magazines that I get from all of my 'globalist' universities are so sickening that they go straight to the garbage can.
[The only interesting thing is to read the obituaries of the WASP graduates from the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s - back when American society still had a Norman Rockwell/Andy Griffith/Father Knows Best sense of normality to it, and undergraduates took sabbaticals to serve in the military during World Wars.]
Club of Rome? Those were the 'resource depletion' and 'limits to growth' fanatics from back in the 70's weren't they?
ReplyDeleteYou know, I'm sure many of their doomsday scenarios were wrong. But it isn't like there weren't famines in the 1980s -- We Are the World, anyone? I know the PC/Neocon line is that famine is a result of nefarious political doings, but isn't the simpler explaination that there just wasn't enough food for all the people?
And, according the Kevin Myers, its happening again.
http://tinyurl.com/6mnyyt
There is an Inner Party, and just because some laundry list of country club invitees comes out doesn't mean the people on said list are the "Inner Party". Ferguson's not in the gang. Some ridiculous Marquess isn't in it. And any guy who "never really questioned usury", a paraphrase, doesn't seem to have the faculties to grasp what it is or how it operates.
ReplyDeleteAs for Testing99's latest insane statement - yeah, Bono is as powerful as Soros. No difference at all. That song of his about MLK has been known to knock down and subsequently tether complete nations as much as Soros' devaluation of currency.
Whiskey said:
ReplyDelete>It is true that there is no Inner Party Steve<
Whew! That's a relief. Thanks for the inside info, Evil Neocon!
none of the above said:
>Getting and keeping that wealth and power is a full-time job. So even though they're relatively bright folks, hard working, capable in many ways, they mostly aren't able to learn a lot of what they'd need to know to do that kind of deep planning.<
Have you ever heard of compound interest? Or nepotism, or begging the question....?
Anonymous said:
>this is neo-con nonsense, North Korea is not starving, Iran is not forcing Jews to wear Yellow badges, etc.<
Correct. Nor did Saddam have babies ripped from incubators; nor did Ahmadinejad bellow that he would "wipe Israel off the map"; etc. Neocon bullshit, as accurate as a British Home Office press release about the Kaiser in WW1.
That the Bilderbergers feel they need the insights of Max Boot and Charlie Rose reminds me of Greg Cochran's insight: There is no Inner Party.
ReplyDeleteThis strikes me as borderline disingenuous. It's not that the Bilderbergers "need their insights," but that the media role they play serves, as you said, "how to make the world a better place for rich and powerful people," and by attending Bilderberg, they are positioned to better fill that role and serve those interests, and their own as well in the process. That such obvious useful fools are attending bolsters the notion of an "Inner Party," not discredits it. See Krugman's prior attendance, and his recent career trajectory.
A disappointing backpedal, Steve
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteIt's not that the Bilderbergers "need their insights," but that the media role they play serves, as you said, "how to make the world a better place for rich and powerful people," and by attending Bilderberg, they are positioned to better fill that role and serve those interests, and their own as well in the process."
True, I believe. Also, inviting media figures to the Bilderberg and Davos confabs is a way for the wealthy and powerful to cement their hold over elite opinion. Write what we want you to write about us (or say nothing about us, if that's what we want), and we'll continue to invite you to our swanky meetings so that you can hobknob with us. However, if you act like a real reporter (rather than a press-agent), well, no five-star luxury weekend invites for you!
Read "Team Rodent" by Carl Hiaasen. Journalists are the cheapest dates in the world. They'll willingly pen endless treacle about your company for a free room at a Holiday Inn, a couple of stuffed animals and a gimme cap, never mind a five star European hotel and a few words with Bill Gates.
ReplyDelete[I asked]
ReplyDeleteMax Boot? Seriously? Why?
Dennis Dale said . . .
Asked and answered.
Where? Steve used Boot's presence to make an inference. That's not the same as explaining his presence. It's a lot like the opposite of explaining his presence.
Mr Anon made a stab at answering my question, for example. For anon, his presence is a reward for propagating official truth---and maybe he will learn next year's official truth at lunch? Also Anonymous right before Mr Anon has interesting stuff.
Tangentially, how did Whiskey find out about the existence or non-existence of the inner party while teaching in a barrio high school?
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteRead "Team Rodent" by Carl Hiaasen."
That was a funny book (like everything Hiaasen has written), and laced with real vitriol directed at the Disney company - an entity he clearly hates. His description of one particular Disney property - the rap group "Insane Clown Posse" - was a riot.
"Its funny when mentioning Bilderberg, some people immediately dismiss it as a crackpot conspiracy theory. Yet its undeniable that collectively the Bilderbergers do run the world. Well, at least exercise a good deal of influence over it."
ReplyDeleteIf the Bilderberg attendees run the world, why haven't they fixed Africa?
Maybe because they are smart enough to know it can't be done and they want results not involvement in a futile morass.
Tangentially, how did Whiskey find out about the existence or non-existence of the inner party while teaching in a barrio high school?
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for whiskey, but I imagine many of us found out while in public school.
If you don't happen to notice the push for global centralization of power, than whatever this group of elites spanning every profession is up to is of no consequence. But, if you value national sovereignty and have noticed the precipitous decline of the West, than whatever plans and policy drafted in secret at this annual gab fest should anger the hell out of you.
ReplyDelete