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by James Corbett
BoilingFrogsPost.com
June 4, 2013

It is the first week of June, and that can only mean two things. Firstly, that 130 or so of the world’s most richest and powerful figures will be gathering at a 5-star resort near London to discuss some of the most important topics in global finance and geopolitics. And secondly, that the so-called “fourth estate” whose very reason for existing is supposedly to keep the public informed on issues of importance will be doing their best to label anyone who so much as raises questions about the meeting as a delusional mental patient.

That the BBC would smear those interested in this annual meeting as believers in “inter-stellar lizards” is especially odd considering the network’s own coverage of the group just a few years ago. Back in 2003, the BBC aired “Club Class,” a half hour exploration of the group and the secrecy surrounding it. The program even presented the documentary evidence that the group was committed to forming a European Union from the time of its inception in the mid-1950s, decades before the term was ever normalized in mainstream discourse.

By the BBC’s own logic, BBC presenter Simon Cox is clearly a delusional believer in inter-stellar lizards for daring to talk about the conference. The characterization of those interested in this meeting as mentally unhinged individuals is so obviously flawed that it is not even offensive. It is self-parodying. Better yet, exactly as the rare moment of lucidity on BBC’s Club Class program a decade ago demonstrates, there is ample documentary evidence, including leaks and confessions from Bilderberg whistleblowers and insiders, proving that the meeting is, contrary to its self-characterization, a policy-setting conference at which important global policies and agendas are not only discussed, but later implemented.

Over the years, a smattering of documents have been leaked, discovered or otherwise obtained giving glimpses into the meeting and its discussions. The documents cited by the BBC in the Club Class documentary were later leaked online and made available for download, detailing how the 1955 edition of the conference stressed the need “To arrive in the shortest possible time at the highest degree of [European] integration, beginning with a common European market.”

Last year the hand-written notes of Senator Fred R. Harris from the 1966 Bilderberg meeting were likewise released online, which included notes on suggestions for the reorganization of NATO and even the single line, “Nationalism is dangerous.”

Over the years veteran Bilderberg hunters like Daniel Estulin and the late Jim Tucker have cultivated sources that have allowed them to report on some of the inside discussions. In 2002, Jim Tucker revealed that Bilderberg had resolved on starting the Iraq War in early 2003. In 2006, Daniel Estulin revealed that Bilderberg had decided to pop the housing bubble. In 2008, Jim Tucker revealed that Bilderberg had decided on the remarkable drop in oil prices that was then implemented just months later.

Some of the most important information, however, has come from the Bilderberg attendees themselves. In 2009 Bilderberg Etienne Davignon admitted that Bilderberg had been instrumental in creating the Euro currency in the 1990s. In 2010, former NATO Secretary-General admitted, contrary to Bilderberg’s official propaganda, that agendas and policies are indeed discussed at the meeting and later expected to be implemented by its members.

In recent years, a new phenomenon has emerged to press Bilderberg attendees for more information about what occurs behind the conference’s closed doors: an independent, grassroots citizen media movement that confronts Bilderbergers and presses them for information on the meetings. (See this and this and this.)

What is perhaps most remarkable about the Bilderberg group and its annual meeting is not that such a conference takes place, or has a hand in setting the global political and economic agenda for the coming year; only the most naive could believe that the rich and powerful do not actively collaborate to attempt to maintain and expand their influence.

Equally unremarkable is that the mainstream media has helped to guard the meeting’s secrecy throughout the majority of its 59 year existence; only the most credulous would believe that the corporate and government media is there to do anything but protect their corporate and government masters’ interests.

What is remarkable is that, despite the remarkable secrecy surrounding the meeting, and the media’s refusal to report on it, there has been such a remarkable flowering of awareness of the group in recent years. The pressure that has been placed on the group is undeniable. A few short years ago, protest of the group consisted of a handful of independent journalists gathering outside the hotel, taking photographs and swapping notes. These days, the conference draws hundreds and even thousands of protesters and generates headlines and video reports in the online social media that have been accessed millions of times.

As a direct response to this unprecedented pressure, the group has taken to issuing press releases regarding the conference and maintaining an official website where they post guest lists and discussion topics. This year, there is even a marked increase in mainstream news outlets that are reporting on the conference as a mundane matter of fact, rather than delusional “conspiracy theory.”

These are minor steps toward transparency, to be sure, but the very fact that these steps are being taken at all is a testament to the tireless work of thousands of independent journalists and millions of netizens who have worked to get the word out about the group, its members, and their discussions.

As listeners of the most recent Corbett Report podcast episode will know, this does not mean that the fight against these types of secret conferences is over by any stretch of the imagination. If anything, it is just an indication that Bilderberg itself is becoming less of a convenient shroud of secrecy for the would-be global elite. But it is a sign, nonetheless, that a self-motivated, self-sufficient, independent, grassroots media can change the nature and course of these secretive negotiations, and can overpower the mainstream media attempts to denigrate the vast majority of the public who are concerned about what is taking place behind closed doors.