"Oh what a wicked web we weave when first we practice to deceive." Shakespeare's immortal wisdom rings eternal. The web I refer to in Shakespeare's quotation is the international corporate/banking web of power and global dominance; the "we" refers to several little-known groups in our society that conduct the weaving. Who are the faces behind the military industrial complex, and what common traits bond them? Who guides our foreign and domestic policies, orchestrates the wars, the chaos, the suffering, the poverty, while reaping the financial benefits at the expense of so many others?
Gliding the halls of government and commerce like some ethereal ghosts, a select group of powerful wealthy wield their might through clandestine means; their cabal is often described in obscure terms such as the Invisible Government, the Insiders, the Power Elite, and the Establishment. These men and women would like the misinformed public to believe it's all a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma. Yet could their goals simply be transparent and rudimentary; power, greed, and retaining control of their amassed wealth at all costs? Only the machination that accomplishes these goals appears complex: the interwoven infrastructure, the ability to manipulate, to distort the truth, to polarize groups, always diverting the peoples' attention from their true nature and identity. This article focuses on three of their primary organizations that develop their cabal and set into motion their objectives: the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergers, and the Trilateral Commission.
Council on Foreign Relations: The Council on Foreign Relations, from hereon referred to as the CFR, was founded in 1921. It's architect was Colonel House, the behind-the-scenes power to Woodrow Wilson and representative of the turn-of-the-century American industrialists and bankers, including J.D.Rockefeller, J.P.Morgan, Jacob Schiff, and Paul Warburg.
The late Carroll Quigley, Georgetown University professor and CFR member, stated in his book Tragedy and Hope, "The CFR is the American Branch of a society which originated in England, and which believes that national boundaries should be obliterated, and a one-world rule established". Simply stated, the goal of the CFR is to influence all aspects of American society in such a subtle, gradual process that one day Americans would wake up and find themselves in the midst of a one-world system.
Indeed, for the past eighty years, the majority of cabinet positions have been held by members of the CFR, as well as past presidents, both Republican and Democrat. Certainly, as a leading CFR and TC member, Kissinger's own admittance that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac" and "Middle East oil is too important to be left in the hands of Arabs" add little doubt to this gang's truer motives.
Quigley also makes reference to The Establishment members' desire to stay "close to governments," an indictment that The Establishment gains and controls its privileged status through political power rather than market competition. Many of the self-proclaimed pillars of capitalism are in reality capitalist failures who seek and constantly rely on bailouts from the American taxpayers. Had Ken Lay's Enron, Dwayne Andreas' ADM, Jack Welch's GE, George Schultz's Bechtel, David Rockefeller's Chase Bank, or the recent airline industry's CEOs not seek bailouts, corporate welfare and exclusive government contracts, laundered through national security and foreign policy, they would have floundered under a real competitive marketplace. However, thanks to their brotherhood CFR connections, they continue to profit.
Members come from predominantly affluent circles and upbringings, as well as from those individuals with a self-serving sense of extreme ambition, elitism, and ultimate disdain for humanity. Its membership represents the interests of a governing American upper social class which owns a disproportionate share of the country's wealth, contributes a disproportionate number of its members to governmental bodies and decision-making groups, and dominates the policy-making process.
You may join the CFR only by invitation, and although the CFR has just 4000 members they are nearly all current and former senior U.S. government officials who deal with international matters, renown scholars, and leaders of business, media, human rights, humanitarian, and other nongovermental groups.
The grand political facade is best exposed by the fact that George Bush Sr. pledged both Bill Clinton and Ross Perot's membership in the CFR club.
Bilderberger Group: Originally named for the Dutch hotel where the first meeting was held in 1954, the Bilderberger meeting is a private annual gathering for the politically and corporate influential, with revolving representation from the world's western leaders in global banking, education, politics, business, military, and the media.
Bilderberger founder, Prince Bernard of the Netherlands, a protege of the Rothschild family, once said, "It is difficult to re-educate people who have been brought up on nationalism to the idea of relinquishing part of their sovereignty to a supra-national body".
Many political careers seem to dramatically soar after attending their first Bilderberger meeting, including Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, and Tony Blair. Once the groomed politicians meet the Establishment's approval as their chosen representatives, the machination is set into motion to convince the various citizenry's to elect these candidates. Henry Kissinger's 1991 Bilderberger address underscores their one-world government intent by saying "today Americans would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government." This scenario is a prophetic blueprint to our current war on terrorism's strategem.
Though formally claiming their meetings are only healthy debates, even its members concede that Bilderberg debates do have a global impact on political, economic and military policies, a debate that circumvents our democratic process. At previous meetings, a common European currency and US-China relations were discussed before their respective governments became involved.
Trilateral Commission: Founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller, Zbigniew Brzezinski and others to foster cooperation among the big three industrial powers of the U.S., Europe and Japan, utilizing its future influential members to design a multinational consolidation of the four centers of power---political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical---in the formation of a one-world government.
Overlapping membership frequently occurs within these three organizations, as throughout corporate board rooms, helping to consolidate their interests. Both the Bilderbergers and the Trilateralists insist on anonymity of its attendees, no media coverage, and closed-door meetings. If their discussions are truly for the common good, why not tell the world?
Revolving door politics and influence is a golden key of opportunity for the members of these stealth organizations. In his final address, President Eisenhower warned about the dangers of such a controlling organization in government. "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
His warning was dutifully noted but few heeded his words. Kennedy appointed Dean Rusk, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, to be his Secretary of State, Ford Motors president Robert McNamara, who later served as head of the World Bank, was Kennedy's Secretary of Defense, Investment banker C. Douglas Dillon was Kennedy's Secretary of the Treasury.
In recent administrations, presidential cabinet members have included George Schultz with Bechtel, Cheney with Haliburton, Rubin with Citibank, and Bush Sr., Frank Carlucci and Jame Baker III with the Carlysle Group, each making millions from their insider influence peddling in the private sector. Even President Obama's administration is heavily weighted with CFR members.
The illusion of ideological differences between the two political parties that is conveyed to the unsuspecting American public is best summarized by the advice of former CFR and cabinet member Henry Cabot Lodge to his colleagues "Is there anything we can APPEAR to do?" This charade is given credibility and legitimacy by the controlling CFR influence of top management within corporate media. In reality, a uni-party collusion between the CFR represented politicians and their corporate counterparts continues to solidify and presses its totalitarian agenda.
To insure their power, the Establishment covers their bases. For decades, presidential candidates from both parties have been CFR members. When Bush, Cheney, McCain, Bradley, Gore, and Lieberman, all CFR members. touted the corporate globalization agenda such as NAFTA, FTAA, WTO, World Bank, ad nauseum, one could question where their loyalties might be.
Even in the event that a presiding president's administration gets caught in some unsavory practice, the chosen legislators that head the investigative committees are often members of the CFR; thus, the truth is never revealed and the issue is quietly swept away. During Clinton's Whitewater investigation, Jim Leach, House Republican from Iowa (CFR) directed the investigation. During George W. Bush's tenure, Lieberman (CFR) Dodd (CFR) and Levin (CFR) headed committees that investigated the Bush Administration while Paul Volker, former Federal Reserve and Trilateral Commission chairman, was named chairman of an oversight committee for the International Accounting Standards Board to review recent lapses in accounting ethics. The governmental solution presented for disciplinary or reform action is often presented by one of their own foxes watching their henhouse, assuring no constructive changes are even implemented. Through the influence of revolving door politics, corporate executives are assigned to direct public regulatory agencies that dismantle the very laws that were designed to protect the public from the abuses of corporations.
For a quick examination into the media's influence on public opinion, consider the virtual monopolistic view of the CFR promotes through mainstream media. Think you're getting the true scoop on the Sunday talk shows? They might as well call this political commentary the CFR Misinformation News Hour. You have CFR guests from both Republican and Democratic parties interviewed by CFR journalists (Diane Sawyer, George Stephanopoulis, George Will) with CFR commercial sponsorship (Archer Daniel Midlands, Merrill Lynch, IBM, etc.). Swith to PBS, you say? Jim Lehrer (CFR) will also make sure the incriminating questions are never asked.
Under the guise of risk management, multinational corporations' global conquest may encounter risks, so when private insurers are unwilling to accept the risks, corporations turn to national and multilateral government agencies which offer investment guarantees and political risk insurance backed by taxpayers.
These companies have even cornered the market on the cures for the very ills they create. General Electric, which owns four of the largest air-polluting companies, is the largest producer of air pollution equipment. Dupont, one of the largest toxic waste producers, has created a lucrative line of toxic waste disposal services and Westinghouse, which earns its money selling nuclear weapons, also profiteers from selling equipment to clean up its mess. Also, alcohol companies own rehabilitation centers and tobacco companies own cancer clinics. A vicious cycle.
The processes of corporate power do not work in isolation. The economic and legal mechanisms that allow the privatization of the commonwealth, externalization of costs, predatory economic practices, political influence-buying, manipulation of regulation and deregulation , control of the media, and the use of police and military forces to protect the property of wealthy, all of these work synergistically to weave a complex web of power. The institutionalization of multinational corporations and banks is exemplified through the structural adjustment programs of the World bank and the international Monetary Fund. These programs channel more of the debtor country's financial and productive resources to war debt payment, an extortionary process which ultimately opens easy access for American and Western European companies to exploit these countries' cheap sources of labor and raw materials.
These world institutions serve to extend the concept of colonialism or feudalism globally, circumventing other countries', (including our own) national sovereignty, representative democracies, and ultimately the citizen's wishes, while instead serving the corporate elite and wealthiest shareholders' interests. This financial blackmail is dictated by the international banking leadership with such a ruthless fanaticism to the unsuspecting governments and citizens, the results are consistent. The countries are left in financial and social turmoil, in places as diverse as Bolivia, South Korea, Russia, Nigeria, and Mexico. The shallow premise that these world financial institutions' leaders are guided by benevolence is tragically false, easily recognized when one peruses the disastrous reality of these institutions' actions. in a leaked internal document, CFR member Lawrence Summers proposed in 1991 that the World bank encourage the migration of dirty industries and toxic waste toward less developed countries
Our present reality so strongly resembles a complete Orwellian 1984 chapter and verse, that you wonder if his warning has become the how-to manual by the very people Orwell warned us about; global alliances and perpetual war, political and mainstream media double-speak and perverese definitions of "war is peace" and "peace is war" have become today's normalcy.
Fortunately, this darker tale of humanity has a hopeful side, a hope that resides with us. The 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) protest in Seattle marked the consolidation of previously diverse social, labor, and environmental activist groups, each finding a common enemy within the ranks of the multinationals and their institutions, creating the birth of the anti-globalization movement. The movement organized locally, nationally, and internationally, reaching across borders, creating a vibrant web of organizations, communities and networks. People are demanding greater participation in the decision making process, including ways to exert more democratic control over the multinational corporations as well as questioning these world institutions' policies and legitimacy.
Another recent effort by individuals has been conducted at the shareholder meetings. Small shareholders represented through labor pension funds have organized and applied pressure upon corporations to base their decisions on more humane practices rather than always the bottom line.
In recognition of the citizen's abandonment by our political leaders, a grassroots groundswell underpinning the Iraq anti-war protests was formed and currently, the Occupy America movement has gained momentum and must continue.
What else can we do? Possible solutions could include a public outcry demanding an inpartial inquiry and full disclosure of all CFR, TC and Bilderberg members and their associated activities.
We can strengthen ourselves as individuals, becoming more informed of the truth and mitigating our vulnerabilities as to being manipulated as voters, as consumers, and as citizens. Hey, and we could always give them a call or pay them a visit. Here are their addresses:
Council on Foreign Relations:
Harold Pratt House, 58 east 68th St. New York, NY 10021 Ph# (212) 434-9400 Fax# (212) 861-1789
Trilateral Commission: 345 East 46 St. Ste. 711, New York, NY 10017 Ph#(212) 661-1180 Fax#(212) 949-7268
In parting, George Orwell, in his wisdom, may have left us, the people, with some equally powerful seeds to sow..."In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is truly a revolutionary act."
Author's Note: An update article which will include Trump's new cabinet is coming soon...