Dear cj,
I'd like to present special-feature articles and essays on cj on a regular
basis. I've been contributing such on my own for some time, but I'd like
to open it up to other contributors.
Wade Ward, who is working with Carolyn and me on our book "Globalization
and the Revolutionary Imperative," wrote this essay as the draft for one of
our chapters. I hope to be able to publish future work by Wade as well.
If any of you would like to try your hand you are welcome. BUT don't be
disappointed if I don't use everything submitted. You might want to check
with me first on your topic. "Featured articles" are not really a
reader-feedback mechanism, contributors don't even need to be subscribers -
these articles are intended to be items of special educational value to our
list.
Enjoy.
BTW> all f
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF ELITES
Copyright 1998 by Wade B. Ward
18 March 1998
Imagine this scene:
Two people are alone in an empty room. A third person enters and
beckons one of the persons away from the other. These two, we'll
call them the "colluders," huddle together and speak in hushed
tones. The third person, we'll call him the "excluded," can't help
but be curious what they are talking about.
He knows it must be something important. Why don't they want him
to know? Soon another person comes into the room. The colluders
gesture for the new person to join them. Now the excluded knows
that there is something serious brewing, and he gets worried.
It's only human nature to make up answers when we don't know for
sure. And it is natural to assume the worst if we don't know the
truth.
Since humans banded together in communities, there have been social
strata. Some people become rich, some hold power, some have glamor
or charisma. The rich and powerful often band together and feel
comfortable together. They typically will not admit their lesser
neighbors to their inner circle. Those who are not among these
select often feel inadequate, insecure or resentful. They begin to
fear those they consider better, or who consider themselves better.
One of the earliest secret orders in our western civilizations is
the Freemasons. Membership was only by personal invitation, and
usually only "special" people were invited.
As with most secret societies, their rituals and secrets were
quickly leaked. Over the centuries, probably everything about the
Masons has been revealed in publicly available books.
Today we still have our secret societies, and for every one there
are tales of intrigue, deceit and outright evil.
In the mass of stories, some may be true, but many are surely
false. What does one believe?
Most people believe whatever reinforces their own prejudices. All
people have prejudice. It may not be race or religion, it may be
relatively harmless or innocent, but it is present.
When the rich or powerful people of society gather behind closed
doors and don't reveal what they are doing, many people come up
with different interpretations.
To the right wing, it may be a communist conspiracy. To the
Christians, it may be Satanic worship.
Look at these names and see what reactions they invoke in your
mind:
Freemasons, Boy Scouts, Trilateral Commission, Skull and Bones,
Mensa, Council of Foreign Relations, Bilderbergers.
Congratulations if you recognize all the names. Some may sound
ominous to you. Some may sound positive. It's hard for many
people to find anything negative about the Boy Scouts, for example,
but there are plenty who could tell you about their dark side.
Of course, the Boy Scouts aren't exactly a secret society. They do
have rituals, ceremonies and manuals that are for members only, but
generally, nothing sinister is ascribed to them. Likewise, Mensa
may have it's share of good and bad eggs, but it has no real
agenda.
The other organizations, though, have been linked with nefarious
goals and deeds. Today, we have an intricate world with politics,
wealth and power overlapping. The people of the various nations
fear losing their sovereignty and having their economy undermined,
and so they have been scrutinizing these closed societies. Because
of mass communication, and especially the development of the
internet, more information is available to more people than at any
time in history. It is up to the individual to filter the
information, decide what is true or false,
THE EARLIEST SUPER GROUP
Almost everybody has heard of the Illuminati by now. Ironically,
it is said to have formed in 1776, the same year of American
independence. The founder was allegedly Adam Weishaupt, who
idolized the philosophy of Plato. who idolized the philosophy of
Plato.
About a hundred years later, John Ruskin, Oxford University
professor, is said to have revised the Illuminati ideals.
Oxford attracted the upper crust of British students, including
Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes made his fortune in the South African diamond
fields -- De Beers Consolidated Mines -- and his wealth established
the Rhodes scholarships.
'In the middle of the 1890s Rhodes had a personal income of a least
a million pounds a year which he spent so freely for his mysterious
purposes that he was usually overdrawn on his account. These
purposes centered on his desire to federate the English-speaking
peoples and to bring all habitable portions of the world under
their control.'
Rhodes gathered other of Ruskin's students and fans and formed a
round table group in the 1880s. By the 1920s, this was known as The
Cliveden Set.
Rhodes left much of his vast wealth in trust, which was
administered by Alfred Lord Milner. The purpose, many claim, was to
continue in the tradition of the Illuminati.
Milner was appointed governor-general of South Africa in 1897. He
recruited like-minded young men into his administration, called
Milner's Kindergarten, and they later earned posts throughout the
government and in international finance.
These men loved forming round table groups, and keeping them
secret. The first real meeting to come out of the shadows brought
both British and American groups to the Majestic Hotel in Paris in
1919. The British branch became the Royal Institute for
International Affairs, and the American branch became the Council
on Foreign Relations.
THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The CFR is an organization of private individuals who are not
affiliated with any government. However, membership is by
invitation only and consists of the most prominent representatives
of royalty and government, academia, industry, banking and media
ownership.
The prominent members of round table groups supposedly wielded
enough power and influence to choose the candidate they wished to
win an election. The scions of Wall Street were in favor of
Woodrow Wilson in the U.S. presidential election of 19??.
According to one story, their devious tactic was to fund a third
party and sponsor Teddy Roosevelt, which succeeded in splitting the
support away from William Howard Taft.
Republicans had a bad reputation in those days, as the public
identified them with the "robber barons." These were the
super-rich magnates in the steel, oil and railroad industries who
were later targeted by anti-monopoly and trust-busting legislation.
If this was the plan, it worked. Republican candidate Taft and
former Republican Roosevelt (now a Bull Moose candidate) scattered
the support so that Democrat Wilson was able to win the election.
Wilson reported relied on his Secretary of State Edward M. House to
the extent that House helped choose Wilson's cabinet. House
allegedly had strong ties to the Wall Street power brokers and
European politicians and international bankers.
Wilson established a new group in 1916, with orders to create terms
of the peace with Germany after World War I. Among this group were
brothers John Foster and Allen Dulles.
This led to the meeting in Paris in 1919 forming the Royal
Institute for International Affairs and the Council on Foreign
Relations. House and the Dulles brothers were at that meeting,
where they supposedly vowed with their English comrades to study
international affairs.
The CFR was actually incorporated in 1921, with an expressed
purpose to create a positive US foreign policy to counteract
America's isolationism.
The moneyed men behind the CFR could surely see that isolationism
was bad for business. Their interest in international affairs is
understandable from a profit-and-loss standpoint.
Isolationism restricted international business and kept the US
military out of very lucrative wars.
The goals of the CFR and the actions it took have made a huge
impact on the state of the world. Even before World War II, CFR
members were deciding what would be best for themselves in
government policy, educational curricula, monetary policy, public
dissemination of news and industrial research and development.
CFR members in politics could carry their ideas back to shape into
legislation. Members in finance could encourage or discourage
projects according to CFR aims. Educators and media shapers could
develop opinion by deciding what to present to the public and what
to ignore.
In the rebuilding of the world after WWII, the CFR had an even more
influential role. Entire countries could be favored or dismissed.
Favored persons could rise to seats of power. In some cases,
history could even be re-written.
The Allies uneasily accepted the help of Russia against the
Nazi-Italian-Japanese Axis. After WWII, Russia became the world
villain and the "Cold War" developed -- keeping military spending
active even there were no armed conflicts.
China was isolated, supposedly shunned for Communist government.
But one of the most important developments, attributed by many
directly to the CFR, was the United Nations.
THE BILDERBERG GROUP
About 120 influential people -- mainly men -- meet every year.
They come by invitation only. They meet in a luxury hotel in a
different city each year, and the entire hotel is closed to the
public for the three-day weekend of the meetings. No agenda is
published for this meeting, no information disseminated to the
public. No records are kept of these meetings. No media coverage
is allowed. This gathering is called the Bilderberg Group.
When you consider that the attendees include presidential cabinet
members of the U.S. and even former presidents, members of royal
families, owners of media conglomerates, highly-placed academics,
and the men who hold the purse strings to the largest lending
institutions in the world, you can see how some people start to
fear what they are doing behind the wall of secrecy.
The first meeting was called at the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek,
Holland in 1954. Thus, the name stuck.
This is not a group with a regular membership, according to those
who actually talk about Bilderberg. Each year, certain people are
invited to attend. Of course, a lot of the attendees are regular
-- such as David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger. Reportedly, some
present papers, many participate in panel discussions, there are
some volunteer committees to work on various projects.
Where the CFR issues public papers analyzing various world
activities and making suggestions on how government, industry, or
other fields might handle these affairs, the Bilderberg
participants keep everything to themselves until the next meeting,
where they report among themselves.
Their secrecy makes some people paranoid. If you are anti-semitic
or see a red under every bed, you probably have your own theory
about the designs of the Bilderbergs. But almost all theories --
benign and malignant -- involve a New World Order.
Those words are capitalized, because NWO has come to mean some very
specific things. Chiefly, it involves a conspiracy of
multinational corporations and large banks to rule the world,
subverting democracy as it is practiced in the western hemisphere.
So, the western world is under control of the elite? What about
the East?
That's where the Trilateral Commission comes in.
THE TRILATERAL COMMISSION
Describing the Trilateral Commission (TC) sounds repetitious if
you've read this far. There are only so many rich and powerful
people to go around, and so the membership overlaps with CFR and
Bilderberg. The main difference is that the TC invites members
from Japan.
The TC is actually a subset of the CFR and was formed in 1973.
It's concerns are the world political and economic picture, and
various high-profile people are invited to join. Unlike
Bilderberg, there are formal members. The TC publishes a
membership roster, has a publicly-available mailing address and
phone number, and is very visible in the world.
Still, it is the center of a vast sea of conspiracy theories. In
fact, the TC is probably the organization about which most people
learn first when exploring the causes and effects in our world
today. They trace backward through the CFR and to the round table
groups, the Masons and Illuminati.
WHERE THERE'S A ROCKEFELLER, THERE'S A WAY
The USA went through an economic crisis in the 1960s. President
Nixon removed the US currency from the gold standard and devalued
the dollar by 10%. Rampant inflation threatened, which Nixon
staved for 90 days with wage and price freezes. When the freeze
ended, wages and prices shot up to the levels they would have been
anyway. This economic spiral continued even when Nixon left
office.
Gerald Ford took the reins and was mainly a caretaker president.
He served part of one term and did not win re-election. However,
he chose Nelson Rockefeller as his vice president.
Ford's successor, Jimmy Carter, may be called the first Trilateral
President. Carter was a member of the TC and most of his cabinet
came from TC membership. The organization at that time was less
than four years old and already its members held the most powerful
offices in American government. During Carter's administration,
inflation soared to double digits, the prime lending rate hit 20%,
global market manipulations caused severe price increases in oil,
gasoline, sugar and other products -- which were attributed to a
shortage that was later proven nonexistent.
The Rockefeller clan has been one of the richest and most powerful
families in America for more than a century. Patriarch John D.
Rockefeller was one of the "Robber Barons" who founded Standard Oil
and was the target of so many anti-monopoly and anti-trust laws.
The Rockefeller family started a foundation chiefly as a public
relations project to make John D., who was the American equivalent
of Ebenezer Scrooge, into a sympathetic character. The foundation
gave away millions to worthy causes, to the arts and gave John D. a
pocket full of dimes so he could hand them out to children during
the depression and cultivate the image of a kindly philanthropist.
Two generations later, Rockefeller's grandchildren were public
servants. Jay was governor of Arkansas (?), Nelson of New York,
Winthrop of (?) and David was the president of the Chase Manhattan
Bank.
If any one man can be given the credit, David Rockefeller can be
called the architect of the Trilateral Commission.
GOVERNING THE WORLD -- BUSINESS AS USUAL
There is a close relationship between big business/big money and
government in the western democracies.
There used to be a saying in the USA, "What's good for General
Motors is good for America."
Since one of every seven dollars spent in the manufacturing sector
was spent with GM, it only followed that GM had a major impact on
the economy. They bought lots of raw materials, they employed a
lot of people and they sold a lot of products.
The government, therefore, should treat GM favorably, the reasoning
went. If it was good for GM, it was good for America.
During the Ronald Reagan administration in the 1980s, most
industries were deregulated. The airline industry saw prices
plummet, along with safety standards and profits. Most companies
had catastrophic accidents and entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Banking institutions were allowed to speculate and lost billions in
real estate. Wall Street issued junk bonds and made billionaires
of the brokers while bankrupting the individual investors.
Economic journalist Adam Smith calls these the "go-go" years.
The people of the democracies thought they were in control. When
something was not right, they would vote for something else. If
inflation was a horrible monster eating at savings and deflating
the value of currency during the Democratic micro-management of
Carter, they voted for the Republican laisez-faire of Reagan. If
the Reagan deregulation bankrupted small business and made Wall
Street and the multinational corporations bloated with profit, they
voted for the Democratic restoration of the Clinton administration.
Little did they know that many of the same people, and colleagues
from the same organizations served all cabinets and all branches of
government, no matter who they voted for.
WHAT IS THE NEW WORLD ORDER?
Public funds are often used for private purposes. For example,
meetings such as the Bilderberg conference or the CFR or TC
meetings have no connection with any government. Yet when
government representatives are members, taxpayer funds are used for
transportation, per diem expense, bodyguard protection and other
expenses.
When "national interest" is invoked, taxpayer funds can be used for
military intervention or trade sanctions that enrich only a small
sector of the private economy. Was the gulf war about Saddam
Hussein's atrocities against his neighboring countries, or was it
about Mid-East oil? Are areas such as the Balkan states or Somalia
of enough interest to justify expenditures for intervention?
Loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank
can affect world commodity prices. Members of the CFR, TC and
attendees of Bilderberg conferences have substantial input into
which causes are aided and which abandoned. The currency of an
entire nation may be supported, national debts may be forgiven,
precious or strategic minerals may be exploited by private industry
with the help of government intervention. Powerful people have
powerful influence in these matters.
Whole nations, entire continents, the world can be controlled by
cooperating bodies who act without consent of the citizens.
If the U.N. employs military action, it can command forces from any
-- or many -- nations with authority exceeding the
Commander-In-Chief of participating nations.
If international treaties are negotiated for trade, they may
subvert safety or wholesomeness standards of any participating
nation and bring these levels to the lowest common denominator.
If a conglomeration of nations decides to honor a standard of
currency based on something different than the individual nations
honor, the balance of trade can be manipulated.
A government of multiple nations, or of the entire world, can
eliminate the sovereign powers of any single nation. The trading
medium for international commerce can supersede the currency of any
individual nation.
One world government. One world currency. These are the vertebrae
of the New World Order.
The powerful members of the CFR, TC and Bilderberg conferences are
the people capable of achieving these goals, and the ones with the
vested interest in these changes.
Their rationale may be for the good of the people, but the cost may
be the loss of control by the citizens.
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Restore democratic sovereignty.
Create a sane and livable world.
Bring corporate globalization under control.
* CITIZENS FOR A DEMOCRATIC RENAISSANCE (CADRE) *
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