What do you know about the Bilderbergers?

[Aiptasia]

So my TiVo records a program on the history of various secret societies (Freemasons, Council on Foreign Affairs, Skull and Bones, etc.) and it mentioned an ultra-secret illuminati society called the "Bilderbergers." It was pretty interesting. Approximately 130 of the most powerful and influential members of government and the media get together for secret conferences every year, apparently to outline world government strategies and policies and advance it's own private agendas.

The History Channel documentary was quite compelling, and I was wondering what (if anything) anyone knows about this clandestine group of world powerbrokers. Since the show is currently in rotation on the History Channel (and probably not for long if the Bilderbergers get wind of it), i'd advise everyone remotely interested in conspiracy theories to record it.

Here's the Wikipedia entry for them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg

[benburch]

1. I like mine with cheese.

And some relish, mustard and onions. Pickle on the side.

[Ravenseye]

2. It's a nigh-meaningless club

Sort of a who's who of the rich and powerfull to get together and hob nob. The different people invited and their varying political and economic views make me think there isn't any ulterior motive other than just getting the rich and powerfull on two continents together for drinks and a round of golf.

[WhiteTara]

4. and ways to stay rich and get

richer. They get together for the drinks and golf the way the Mafia goes to weddings and baptisms.

[Ravenseye]

10. Exactly

That's why it's nigh meaningless and not totally meaningless. Back rubbing rich boy time, but nothing 'sinister world controlling group' level. Just rich boys jerking each other off and staying rich.

[Minnesota Libra]

6. Are you absolutely sure about that?? nt

[Ravenseye]

11. yes

Everyone in the real secret organization, like I am, bent on dominating the world knows just how ludicrous the bildebergers are. ;)

Seriously though. It's elite, yes, but the people in it aren't there to control the world, just to stay rich and get richer. Money. Power. Sure. Evil bald guy with cat laughing maniacly around a conference table...not so much. There's been plenty written about it that's bland because...well it's pretty bland.

[Virginia Dare]

13. How does one group stay rich and get richer...

unless they control the system?

[WhiteTara]

16. I was just getting ready to post the very

same query. Just like the Mafia, they work on controlling their neighborhood, which just so happens to be the whole world.

[Ravenseye]

18. It's a little different

At least in the mechanics. See my other post below.

It's just networking at it's highest level. They're not out to control the market, just exploit it as best as they can and help each other out doing it.

Rather than fixing a stock price, they let each other know things to buy and sell. Rather than stealing from people, they arrange contracts with each other rather than with outsiders.

[Minnesota Libra]

21. "......just networking at it's highest level"??...............

...:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Ravenseye]

23. Well it is

Taken to an insane level, but really that's what networking is. Getting to know people so you can help them, and they can help you. WE're just talking about a group of about 100 of the most powerful people in the world doing it.

Do you claim it isn't?

[Virginia Dare]

25. I would claim that you have too simplistic a view...

of it. This is a high stakes game and I think there's much more going on than a few rounds of golf and some back slapping.

[Minnesota Libra]

27. Ravenseye, I claim it's efforts to out and out control everything so......

....if it does come down to a case of "networking", then it's networking at it's very worst and most sinister. In that case maybe there needs to be a new term for what the rest of us currently view at "networking".

[Ravenseye]

17. Control implies...well control

It's more like insider trading, than it is setting prices. It's not unlike what a million small businessmen do when they join Rotary or Kiwanis or a local business group, but at an elite level. It's all about connections and using who you know.

For instance, say you have a guy who owns a big weapons company that makes tanks, and he's at the meeting with Donald Rumsfeld. They have a couple of drinks and chat, and the guys mentions his new great tanks, and Rumsfeld mentions they need new tanks, and he orders some.

A guy who owns a shipyard needs a new steel supplier, and talks with a guy who owns some sources of steel, and they handshake a new deal.

I wouldn't call it controlling the system. I'd call it networking as art, nepotism, or insider trading. I wouldn't say they're out to control the world, more so than exploit it as well as they can to make themselves richer by scratching each others backs.

so maybe we're having a semantic issue.

[Virginia Dare]

20. Yes, I think it's semantics...

because when we're talking about people as powerful as Rumsfeld, we're talking about someone who DOES have the ability to control the "system", at least the U.S. military system. The question is, who is controlling whom?

[Ravenseye]

24. Nobody

I think the system is it's own beast, and these people are just clinging to it as desperately as they can. That's why they're there to help each other, because without it they know they'lle ventually get eaten alive and tossed out.

[Virginia Dare]

26. No, I don't think these people are washing in and out with the tide...

I definitely think there is some control going on. By the way, this didn't just start in our lifetime, it's been going on for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

[benburch]

9. Not a club! A Burger!

They are very different!

[VaYallaDawg]

15. That burger is plum' beautiful!

You've got my stomach growling!!!

[benburch]

22. Sorry!

Show up here around 5 and I'll grill you one!

[silvertip]

29. Masters of the Universe

  Above is title of a documentary on this group (don't have
link but will try to locate it and post it) these people and
their little group are anything but just a few good old boys
getting together for golf and drinks supposly this group
controls the world through international banks.

[Minnesota Libra]

3. I saw that show as well and would love to see us give much................

....more air and print time to these clandestine power brokers, especially where they involve the neocon/fundies.

[meganmonkey]

5. John Edwards was invited to the 2004 Bilderberg meeting

He attended shortly before he got picked for the VP slot. He was one of the very few token US Dem politicians invited that year.

[Freddie Stubbs]

7. John Edwards attended their 2004 meeting

and then Kerry picked him as his runningmate.

[peacetalksforall]

8. It's ANOTHER secret socity. Therefore, everyone is correct in what

they say about it because no one can say for sure, no one can contradict anyone, no one can prove anything, or swear anything.

Little boys and girls, mostly boys, need secret societies.

[yellowcanine]

12. Are they anything like the Limbergers?

[Igel]

14. Most of what I 'know' I got from two sources.

First, a strange guy in the Baltimore congregation of the small fundamentalist church I was in. Illuminati this, Bilderberger that, Bohemian Grove and Trilateral Commission every now and then. When he wasn't talking about pills that could make water into gasoline, or how UFOs were actually from the advanced civilization that lived inside the earth (you see, the earth is hollow, with an alternate sun inside, and they can exit at the poles :-)

The second source was a hopefully now-defunct newspaper called _The Spotlight_ (which the guy under 'first' also "helpfully" dragged to church on a regular basis). LaRouchian to the core. 'Nuff said 'bout that.

OK, just because those two sources believed the Bilderbergers set international policy doesn't mean they're wrong. After all, that would be an ad hominem fallacy. But in a world with limited resources and time for investigating hypotheses ...

It would have helped if they could have said how the Bilderbergers worked in with the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, and the 'aliens from the center of the earth'.

[Bridget Burke]

19. If you really want to know about the Illuminati....

Start out with "The Illuminatus Trilogy", by Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea. Then move on to the "Historical Illuminatus Chronicles.

You will learn about the Secret Group that runs the world. Then, you will discover that everything you just learned was a cunning plot--to hide the Real Secret Group that runs the world. But you have just begun your voyage....

According to Ishmael Reed, "The History of the World is the History of the Warfare between Secret Societies." That quotation appears in his "Mumbo Jumbo"--which folds the Harlem Renaissance & Voodoo into the adventures of the Last Templar.

These works are all fiction. But they are probably more reliable than "factual" books on these Great Conspiracies. And they are lots funnier.

[benburch]

28. Actually, I am member of a group that claims to be the successor...

...of the Bavarian Illuminati. We can usually not conspire to have picnics.