The secret organization of illuminati known as the Priory of Sion (that you read about in The Da Vinci Code) is a hoax, of course. What isn’t a hoax however, is the shadowy and ultra-powerful Bilderberg Group who are meeting in Ottawa, Canada this weekend:
It’s like Woodstock for conspiracy theorists.
A serene suburban setting has been transformed into a four-day festival of black suits, black limousines, burly security guards — and suspicions of world domination…
It’s not the Freemasons.
Forget those fabled U.S. military men who tucked away UFOs in the Arizona desert.
These guys, you’ve probably never even heard of, and if you believe the camera-toting followers who attend all their meetings, they control the world.
They’re called the Bilderberg group.
They include European royalty, national leaders, political power-brokers, and heads of the world’s biggest companies. [Link]
If you happened to be at the airport in Ottawa yesterday you may have noticed a bunch of limo drivers holding up a single letter. That would have been a sign that a Bilderberg attendee was near at hand:
Greeted at the airport by limousine drivers holding single-letter “B” signs, global luminaries such as Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands began arriving in Ottawa Thursday for the annual gathering of the ultra-secretive Bilderberg Group. [Link]
Before we get into who these guys are and what they are going to talk about (and who they are going to dominate) it is important to understand the historical context of why they got started:
The original Bilderberg conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem, from May 29 to May 30 in 1952. The meeting was initiated by Polish emigre and political adviser, Joseph Retinger. Concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, he proposed an international conference at which opinion leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting understanding between the cultures.
Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who agreed to promote the idea, together with Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland. The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one each to represent conservative and liberal points of view…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 only extended to residents of Europe and North America. The location of their annual meeting is not secret, and the agenda and list of participants are openly available to the public, but the topics of the meetings are kept secret and attendees pledge not to divulge what was discussed. The official stance of the Bilderberg Group is that their secrecy prevents the members’ discussions from being manipulated by the media. [Link]
What types of things will the Bilderberg attendees do, and what will the be discussing this year?
Those who follow the Bilderberg group say it got Europe to adopt a common currency, got Bill Clinton elected after he agreed to support NAFTA, and is spending this week deciding what to do about high oil prices and that pesky fundamentalist president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. [Link]
Keep in mind that this was originally intended to be a meeting of Europeans and Americans. After all, in the 50s when this organization was created, Americans and Europeans dominated the world. It was hard for me to find any non-whites and any attendees from the entire Southern hemisphere. On the 2005 attendee list I saw the name of only one single person of South Asian descent. It was…wait for it…Fareed Zakaria (who I wrote about earlier this week).
So there are a bunch of powerful old white people holding an ultra-secretive meeting, surrounded by a private army, with the intent of influencing global policy (including, I am sure, policy regarding India and China). I can’t blame them. If you change “old” to “young” and “white” to “brown” then our blog is doing much the same thing. Who do I have to sleep with for an invitation? :)
Ottawa police officers are standing guard outside a dozen metal gates that serve as security checkpoints a half-kilometre from the hotel.
But Ottawa’s finest are clearly not in charge here.
To approach the hotel property, even these uniformed police officers are required to show their credentials to the half-dozen black-suited men working for Globe Risk, a private security firm.
“This is pretty unusual,” one Ottawa cop said. [Link]
