The Bilderberg Conference...Should we care who attends?

[slipslidingaway]

Your thoughts...thank you.

Tx Gov Rick Perry at Bilderburg & Israel

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3334339&mesg_id=3334339

[hansberrym]

1. No, we should leave matters involving government to those who know best.

:-) !!!


http://ronpaul2008nyc.wordpress.com/?s=highway#nafta

If he did attend a Bilderberger meeting, a good reason for his (and the Kansas Governor's) invitation would be the NAFTA Superhighway.

[slipslidingaway]

5. Thanks, but I was speaking in more general terms, should it

interest us in who attends these meetings? Not just this year...any year???

[RB TexLa]

15. OhhhhhKaaaay

[whistle]

2. It is the rich and powerful who meet in secret to organise things in their own interests

<snip>
Bilderberg Group
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The front cover of the privately circulated report of the 1980 Bilderberg conference in Bad Aachen, Germany. 1The Bilderberg Group or Bilderberg conference is an unofficial annual invitation-only conference of around 130 guests, most of whom are persons of influence in the fields of business, media, and politics.

The elite group meets annually at exclusive, four or five-star resorts throughout the world, normally in Europe, once every four years in the United States or Canada. It has an office in Leiden, South Holland, Netherlands. They met at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey for the June, 2007 meeting.

Contents
1 Origin of the name "Bilderberg"
2 Origin and purpose of the first annual conference
3 Declared purpose
4 Attendees
5 Meetings
6 References
7 External links



Origin of the name "Bilderberg"
The "Bilderberg" name comes from the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek near Arnhem in the Netherlands where the first meeting in 1954 took place. Although the conference is not officially regarded as a club of any sort, many members are regular attendees, and guests are often seen as belonging to a secretive Bilderberg Group.


Origin and purpose of the first annual conference
The original Bilderberg conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem, from May 29 to May 31, 1954. The meeting was initiated by several people. Polish emigre and political adviser, Joseph Retinger, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting understanding between the cultures of United States of America and Western Europe.

Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who agreed to promote the idea, together with Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland, and the head of Unilever at that time, the Dutchman Paul Rijkens. The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one each to represent conservative and liberal (both terms used in the American sense) points of view.

The success of the meeting led the organizers to arrange an annual conference. A permanent Steering Committee was established, with Retinger appointed as permanent secretary. As well as organizing the conference, the steering committee also maintained a register of attendee names and contact details, with the aim of creating an informal network of individuals who could call upon one another in a private capacity. The declared purpose of the Bilderberg Group was to make a common political line tie between the United States of America and Europe in their opposition to the USSR and the global communist danger.

Dutch economist Ernst van der Beugel took over as permanent secretary in 1960, upon the death of Retinger. Prince Bernhard continued to serve as the meeting's chairman until 1976, the year of his involvement in the Lockheed affair. There was no conference that year, but meetings resumed in 1977 under Alec Douglas-Home, the former British Prime Minister. He was followed in turn by Walter Scheel, ex-President of Germany, Eric Roll, former head of SG Warburg and Lord Carrington, former Secretary-General of NATO.<1>


Declared purpose
The original intention of the Bilderberg Group was to further the understanding between Western Europe and North America through informal meetings between powerful individuals. Each year, a "steering committee" devises a selected invitation list with a maximum of 100 names. Invitations are extended only to residents of Europe and North America. The location of their annual meeting is not secret, but the public and press are strictly kept at distance by police force and private security guards. Although the agenda and list of participants are openly available to the public, it is not clear that such details are disclosed by the group itself. Also, the contents of the meetings are kept secret and attendees pledge not to divulge what was discussed. The group's stated justification for secrecy is that it enables people to speak freely without the need to carefully consider how every word might be interpreted by the mass media.

<MORE>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group

[slipslidingaway]

6. So it might be interesting to know who gets invited, hope I

interpreted your reply correctly :)

[emilyg]

3. even if we care

what can we do

[slipslidingaway]

7. We cannot do anything other be aware of the fact that certain

people are invited and have attended.

[papau]

4. No - it only means he - or those he represents (oil) has world wide influence. n/t

n/t

[slipslidingaway]

9. And they meet other influential people to share a meal and

talk, wonder how they come up with a list of people to invite?

:shrug:

[papau]

14. Good Question - the invitee list is obviously made up by someone - but the

invitee must be willing to part with about $10,000 to get over and back and stay at one of the $1000 to $2,000 a night rooms, so there is a bit of self-selection.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3773019.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group

[slipslidingaway]

18. True, 10 or 20 thousand is nothing compared to the people

with influence one might meet at the conference. Of course if one attends I would imagine they know there would be some give and take to earn their influence in the future???

From the Guardian article posted below.

"So this is how it works. A tiny, shoe-string central office in Holland decides each year which country will host the next meeting. Each country has two steering committee members. (The British ones have included Lord Carrington, Denis Healey, Andrew Knight, the one-time editor of The Economist magazine, and Martin Taylor, the ex-CEO of Barclays Bank.)...


"First off," said a steering committee member to me, "the invited guests must sing for their supper. They can't just sit there like church mice. They are there to speak. I remember when I invited Margaret Thatcher back in '75. She wasn't worldly. Well, she sat there for the first two days and didn't say a thing. People started grumbling. A senator came up to me on the Friday night, Senator Mathias of Maryland. He said, 'This lady you invited, she hasn't said a word. You really ought to say something to her.' So I had a quiet word with her at dinner. She was embarrassed. Well, she obviously thought about it overnight, because the next day she suddenly stood up and launched into a three-minute Thatcher special. I can't remember the topic, but you can imagine. The room was stunned. Here's something for your conspiracy theorists. As a result of that speech, David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger and the other Americans fell in love with her. They brought her over to America, took her around in limousines, and introduced her to everyone.

"I remember when Clinton came in '91," he added. "Vernon Jordan invited him along. He used it as a one-stop-shop. He went around glad-handing everyone. Nobody thought they were meeting the next president." (Of course, Jim Tucker would contend that they all knew they were meeting the next president - for they huddled together that weekend and decided he would be the next president.) At times, I become nostalgic for when I knew nothing. There are so few mysteries left, and here I am, I presume, relegating Bilderberg to the dingy world of the known."

[LeftishBrit]

21. A bit off-topic but I couldn't help giggling over the Thatcher story

Senator Mathias must be the only person in history who ever complained at Thatcher being too QUIET!

[papau]

22. It does sound a bit like the first meeting with Senior management after you've been promoted - it is

easy to be intimidated.

And it is easy to see the meeting as being the "directors of the world" for the rich and corporate keeping everyone on the same page and exposing the newly chosen leaders for future departments - like Thatcher in the 70's exposed as future ruler of Brittan - not that things could not change - anger one of the very high ranking ones and no doubt you may lose your invitation to the next conference.

[slipslidingaway]

23. :)) Agree with papau below...

"It does sound a bit like the first meeting with Senior management after you've been promoted - it is easy to be intimidated."

[Stephanie]

8. This is the best article I've read about Bilderberg >

This is from a cheeky book called Them: Adventures With Extremists, by Jon Ronson, which investigates many purported "conspiracies" and dismisses all but one as ridiculously silly. The tone is generally mocking, until he gets the pants scared off him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4149485,00.html

This is how Denis Healey described a Bilderberg person to me: "To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing."

He said, "Bilderberg is a way of bringing together politicians, industrialists, financiers and journalists. Politics should involve people who aren't politicians. We make a point of getting along younger politicians who are obviously rising, to bring them together with financiers and industrialists who offer them wise words. It increases the chance of having a sensible global policy."

"Does going help your career?" I asked.

"Oh yes," he said. Then he added, "Your new understanding of the world will certainly help your career."

"Which sounds like a conspiracy," I said.

"Crap!" said Denis Healey. "Idiocy! Crap! I've never heard such crap! That isn't a conspiracy! That is the world. It is the way things are done. And quite rightly so."

He added, "But I will tell you this. If extremists and leaders of militant groups believe that Bilderberg is out to do them down, then they're right. We are. We are against Islamic fundamentalism, for instance, because it's against democracy."

"Isn't Bilderberg's secrecy against democracy, too?" I asked.

"We aren't secret," he snapped. "We're private. Nobody is going to speak freely if they're going to be quoted by ambitious and prurient journalists like you who think it'll help your career to attack something that you have no knowledge of." I noticed a collection of photo albums on his mantelpiece. Denis Healey has always been a keen amateur photographer, so I asked him if he'd ever taken any pictures inside Bilderberg. "Oh yes," he said. "Lots and lots of photographs." I eyed the albums. Actually seeing the pictures, seeing the set-up, the faces, the mood - that would be something.

"Could I have a look at them?" I asked him. Lord Healey looked down at his lap. He thought about my request. He looked up again. "No," he said. "Fuck off."

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Selatius]

10. Do you care if a body of people who are unaccountable to the will of the people help set policy?

You should.

[slipslidingaway]

12. Thanks, sure I would care, watching this now.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3725493129921826227

[Tinksrival]

13. Alex, I'll take Bilderberg movers and shakers for a thousand!

He is an '04 Bilderberg Alumni currently running as a Democratic candidate for President?



Who is John Edwards!




"WHO ME?"


...............................................

[slipslidingaway]

17. Thanks, NY Times article when Edwards attended.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F05E3DA103BF932A25754C0A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

"Roughly 130 delegates attend the invitation-only annual gatherings, named for the Dutch hotel where the first Bilderberg conference was held in May 1954, to debate issues surrounding the cold war...

Mr. Edwards, several said, joined Ralph Reed, the Republican strategist, in giving a presentation on the American election. After Mr. Reed spoke about how Mr. Kerry was vulnerable on ''values,'' Mr. Edwards presented a characteristically positive case for Mr. Kerry's election, focusing on the insecurity of American workers that persists even when economic statistics turn north...

The group's meetings, Ms. Banck-Polderman said, are financed by corporate sponsors in the host countries and are regularly attended by tycoons, politicians and diplomats in Europe and the United States, including Henry A. Kissinger, the former secretary of state, and Richard N. Perle, the former head of the Defense Policy Board. This year's list also included Richard C. Holbrooke, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, and, of course, Senator Edwards...

Whatever else, the selection of Mr. Edwards as Mr. Kerry's running mate seems to show that the Bilderberg delegates have an eye for a contender. But Democrats please note: they do not always back the winner..."

[Warren DeMontague]

16. I hate to break it to you, but if the spooky black shadow Illuminati forces that run the world

want to organize a secret meeting, all they need to do is use Cheney's office.

[slipslidingaway]

19. Would that not be beneath them :) n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

20. Beneath 'em, above 'em, behind 'em... seems the Vice President's office no longer resides in the

space-time continuum, so no one can say for sure.

[Beelzebud]

24. Shhhhhhhhhhhh

Go back to sleep.

[slipslidingaway]

25. That's hard to do :) n/t