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The Bilderberg Group
The Bilderberg Group is an annual conference of influential
persons in business, politics, and the media. Each year, they meet in Europe,
though every fourth year, they meet in Canada or the USA. Their name comes from
the Bilderberg Hotel in the Netherlands, the site of their first meeting in
1954.
The original members met to promote understanding of North
American and European cultures, with an eye towards fostering better relations.
Membership is restricted to two invitees per country, one leaning politically
to the left while the other leans to the right. This keeps the number of
attendees quite low Ð often, no more than 100.
Those who attend the Bilderberg conferences are each
powerhouses in their own right. Press barons, royalty, prime ministers and
other political leaders, defense experts, and international bankers all get
involved. Donald Rumsfeld is active in the Bilderberg Group, as was former US
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
In all, it is a conference of powerful (mostly) men,
gathering to talk about areas of common concern to their nations. However, the
extreme secrecy of the meetings, not to mention the power already wielded by
the attendees, has led to many accusations of conspiracy.
Originally, the conference meant to foster better
understanding between North America and Europe. While the location of each
meeting is public knowledge, what happens during those meetings is kept
strictly quiet. Members are expected to maintain a code of secrecy, and what is
discussed is never released to the media or the public.
For this reason, the Bilderberg Group has been the centre of
several conspiracy theories. Opponents accuse the Group of developing a New
World Order. Alex Jones, a researcher and radio host, accuses the Bilderberg
Group of attempting to destroy governments as we know them, replacing them with
a single structure of government and trade. The sovereignty of each nation will
be lost, he claims, and all Europe and North America will be controlled by one
government.
Alex Jones is not alone in making these claims. Madrid-based
writer Daniel Estulin accuses the Bilderberg Group of trying to create a new
society in which the planet is regulated by a United World Army, regulated
financially by one large bank, and where the population is microchipped so the
government can monitor our every move.
Of course, the Bilderberg Group vehemently denies any
accusations of conspiracy or double-dealings. Denis Healey, a founder of
Bilderberg, dismisses these theories as ÒcrapÓ. According to his claims,
Bilderberg is for discussion, and not a method of reaching a consensus. A
British newspaper published information on the 1999 meeting of the
Bilderbergers. No evidence of conspiracy was found.
Whether the Bilderberg is a benign Òdiscussion groupÓ, or a
more dangerous capitalist secret society bent on achieving world domination
continues to be hotly debated. Until more evidence is found, the possibility of
a conspiracy cannot be ignored.
The front cover of
the privately circulated report of the 1980 Bilderberg conference in Bad Aachen, Germany.
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