Lady - that would be great if he were - we need all the help we can get!!
Actually the reason I asked is I saw this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13526
but I dont know whether it is bogus or not, figured I would see what some others think. Pretty wild if true.
Bilderberg Group
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hotel de Bilderberg, Oosterbeek, the Netherlands - scene of the first Bilderberg Conference in 1954.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group
The Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg conference, or Bilderberg Club is an unofficial, annual, invitation-only conference of around 130 guests, most of whom are persons of influence in the fields of politics, business, and banking.
The group meets annually at luxury hotels or resorts throughout the world — normally in Europe, and once every four years in the United States or Canada. It has an office in Leiden in the Netherlands. The 2008 conference took place in Chantilly, Virginia and the 2009 meeting took place from May 14-16 in Athens, Greece.
Origin and purpose
The original Bilderberg conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem in The Netherlands, from 29 May to 31 May 1954. It was initiated by several people, including Joseph Retinger, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, who 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. Bernhard in turn contacted Walter Bedell Smith, then head of the CIA, who asked Eisenhower adviser C. D. Jackson to deal with the suggestion. The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one of each to represent conservative and liberal 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. Conferences were held in France, Germany, and Denmark over the following three years. In 1957, the first US conference was held in St. Simons, Georgia, with $30,000 from the Ford Foundation. The foundation supplied further funding for the 1959 and 1963 conferences.
The 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 West Germany, Eric Roll, former head of SG Warburg and Lord Carrington, former Secretary-General of NATO.
Participants
The steering committee does not publish a list of attendees, though some participants have publicly discussed their attendance. Historically, attendee lists have been weighted towards politicians, bankers, and directors of large businesses.
Heads of state have attended meetings, including Juan Carlos I of Spain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. While serving members of government do not usually attend, prominent politicians from North America and Europe are past attendees. In recent years, board members from many large publicly-traded corporations have attended, including IBM, Xerox, Royal Dutch Shell, Nokia and Daimler.
Conspiracy theories
Bilderberg agenda
Because of its secrecy and refusal to issue news releases, the group is frequently accused of secretive and nefarious world plots. This thinking has progressively found acceptance within both elements of the populist movement and fringe politics. Critics include the John Birch Society, the Canadian writer Daniel Estulin, British writer David Icke, American writer Jim Tucker and radio host Alex Jones. Alex Jones, in his movie Endgame, contends that the Bilderberg Group intends to dissolve the sovereignty of the United States and other countries into a supra-national structure called the North American Union, similar to the European Union.
Bilderberg founding member and, for 30 years, a steering committee member, Denis Healey has said:
“ 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."
On the other hand, Bilderber frequent participant David Rockefeller has said in his book “Memoirs”, on page 405:
“ Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as "internationalists" and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”
Origins of conspiracy theories
Jonathan Duffy, writing in BBC News Online Magazine states:
"No reporters are invited in and while confidential minutes of meetings are taken, names are not noted... In the void created by such aloofness, an extraordinary conspiracy theory has grown up around the group that alleges the fate of the world is largely decided by Bilderberg."
According to the investigative journalist Chip Berlet, the origins of Bilderberger conspiracy theories can be traced to activist Phyllis Schlafly. In his 1994 report Right Woos Left, published by Political Research Associates, he writes:
"The views on intractable godless communism expressed by Schwarz were central themes in three other bestselling books which were used to mobilize support for the 1964 Goldwater campaign. The best known was Phyllis Schlafly's A Choice, Not an Echo which suggested a conspiracy theory in which the Republican Party was secretly controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the Bilderberger group, whose policies would pave the way for global communist conquest."
……..Keep your eyes on ferdtheturds horns:worried:…and bear claw in the back:worried:… worse …both paws over your shoulders in special bear hug..Ooohhhh…… kiss me first:blink:….
