[Peace-discuss] Bilderberg At 60: Inside The World’s Most Secretive Conference

Sat May 31 08:16:42 EDT 2014

  Bilderberg At 60: Inside The World’s Most Secretive Conference

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Educate! <http://www.popularresistance.org/category/educate/> Bilderberg 
<http://www.popularresistance.org/tag/bilderberg/>, Inequality 
<http://www.popularresistance.org/tag/inequality/>, Privacy 
<http://www.popularresistance.org/tag/privacy/>, Surveillance 
<http://www.popularresistance.org/tag/surveillance/>
By Charlie Skelton, www.theguardian.com 
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/29/bilderberg-60-inside-worlds-most-secretive-conference>
May 30th, 2014
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/George Osborne is among those attending the high-powered summit. 
Photograph: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images/

It’s been a week of celebrations for Henry Kissinger. On Tuesday he 
turned 91, on Wednesday he broke his personal best in the 400m hurdles, 
and on Thursday in Copenhagen, he’ll be clinking champagne flutes with 
the secretary general of Nato and the queen of Spain, as they celebrate 
60 glorious years of Bilderberg 
<http://www.theguardian.com/world/bilderberg>. I just hope George 
Osborne remembered to pack a party hat.

Thursday is the opening day of the influential three-day summit and it’s 
also the 60th anniversary of the Bilderberg Group’s first meeting, which 
took place in Holland on 29 May 1954. So this year’s event is a 
red-letter occasion, and the official participant list 
<http://bilderbergmeetings.org/participants.html>shows that the 2014 
conference is a peculiarly high-powered affair.

The chancellor, at his seventh Bilderberg, is spending the next three 
days deep in conference with the heads of MI6, Nato, the International 
Monetary Fund, HSBC, Shell, BP and Goldman Sachs International, along 
with dozens of other chief executives, billionaires and high-ranking 
politicians from around Europe. This year also includes a visit from the 
supreme allied commander Europe, and a return of royalty – Queen Sofia 
of Spain and Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands, the daughter of the 
Bilderberg founder Prince Bernhard.

Back in the 1950s, when Bernhard sent out the invitations, it was to 
discuss “a number of problems facing western civilization”. These days, 
the Bilderberg Group prefers to call them “megatrends”. The megatrends 
on this year’s agenda <http://bilderbergmeetings.org/press-release.html> 
include: “What next for Europe?”, “Ukraine”, “Intelligence sharing” and 
“Does privacy exist?”

That’s an exquisite irony: the world’s most secretive conference 
discussing whether privacy exists. Certainly for some it does. It’s not 
just birthday bunting that’s gone up in Copenhagen: there’s also a 
double ring of three-metre (10ft) high security fencing. The hotel is 
teeming with security: lithe gentlemen in loose slacks and dark glasses, 
trying not to kill the birthday vibe. Or anyone else.

Already, two reporters have been arrested trying to interview the 
organisers of the conference in the Marriott hotel bar. It’s easy enough 
to keep your privacy intact when you’re employing so many people to 
guard it.

There’s something distinctly chilling about the existence of privacy 
being debated, in extreme privacy, by people such as the executive 
chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, and the board member of Facebook Peter 
Thiel: exactly the people who know how radically transparent the general 
public has become.

And to have them discussing it with the head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, 
and Keith Alexander, the recently replaced head of the National Security 
Agency. And with people such as the head of AXA, the insurance and 
investment conglomerate –Henri de Castries. 
<http://bilderbergmeetings.co.uk/chairman/> Perhaps no one is more 
interested in data collection and public surveillance than the insurance 
giants. For them, privacy is the enemy. Public transparency is a goldmine.

Back in 2010, Osborne proudly launched “the most radical transparency 
agenda the country has ever seen”. However, this transparency agenda 
doesn’t seem to extend to Osborne himself making a public statement 
about what he has discussed at this meeting. And with whom.

We know, from the agenda and list, that Osborne will be there with the 
foreign affairs ministers from Spain and Sweden, and the deputy 
secretary general of the French presidency. And from closer to home, the 
international development secretary, Justine Greening, and fellow 
Bilderberg veteran and shadow chancellor, Ed Balls.

We know that he’s scheduled to discuss the situation in Ukraine with 
extremely interested parties, such as the chief executive of the 
European arms giant Airbus, Thomas Enders. Not to mention the chief 
executive and chairman of “the defence & security company” Saab: Håkan 
Buskhe and Marcus Wallenberg. And billionaire investors including Henry 
Kravis of KKR, who is “always looking to sharpen” what he calls “the KKR 
edge”. Helping Kravis sharpen his edge is General David Petraeus, former 
director of the CIA, now head of the KKR Global Institute – a massive 
investment operation.

The Bilderberg Group says the conference has no desired outcome. But for 
private equity giants, and the heads of banks, arms manufacturers and 
oil companies, there’s always a desired outcome. Try telling the 
shareholders of Shell that there’s “no desired outcome” of their 
chairman and chief executive spending three days in conference with 
politicians and policy makers.

Try telling that to the lobbyists who have been working so hard to push 
the Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal that is being 
negotiated. Bilderberg is packed to the gills with senior members of 
powerful lobby groups. Will members of British American Business’s 
international advisory board, such as Douglas Flint and Peter 
Sutherland, express BAB’s fervent support of TTIP when discussing “Is 
the economic recovery sustainable?” Or will they leave their lobbying 
hats at the door?

MP Michael Meacher describes Bilderberg as “the cabal of the rich and 
powerful” who are working “to consolidate and extend the grip of the 
markets”. And they’re doing so “beyond the reach of the media or the 
public”. That said, every year, the press probes a little further behind 
the security fencing. Every year the questions for the politicians who 
attend, but remain silent, get harder.

They can try to laugh it off as a “talking shop” or a glorified 
knees-up, but these people haven’t come to Bilderberg to drink fizzy 
wine and pull party poppers. It’s possible that Reid Hoffman, the head 
of LinkedIn, has turned up for the birthday cake. But I doubt it. This 
is big business. And big politics. And big lobbying.

Bilderberg is big money, and they know how to spend it. From my spot 
outside, I’ve just seen three vans full of fish delicacies trundle into 
the hotel service entrance. I always thought there was something fishy 
about Bilderberg. Turns out that for tonight at least, it’s the rollmops.

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