They call themselves the Bilderberg Group. This exclusive, highly secretive economic forum takes place each year at a different five-star hotel, alternating between locations in North America, Europe and Turkey. Regular Bilderberg attendees include such figures as Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, King Juan Carlos of Spain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands — along with heads of state, global bankers and prominent politicians from around the world.

Bilderberg gets its name from the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, Netherlands, site of the inaugural meeting in 1954.The initial gathering was organized and chaired for many years by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands; former member of the Nazi SA during the war.

About 120 people participate in three days of “informal and off-the-record discussion about topics of current concern” in economics and foreign affairs, according to the group’s website. With the ongoing crisis in Syria and the middle east, problems in the Eurozone and the impending economic collapse of the U.S., the 2015 Bilderberg meeting promised to have a full agenda.

In past years, Bill Gates, Chuck Hagel, John Kerry, former Presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton and CEOs from various Fortune 500 companies have attended the meetings. The list of attendees has included the heads of IBM, Ford, Xerox, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Monsanto, ExxonMobil, Nokia, PepsiCo, Fiat and Daimler, to name a few.

None of this would seem particularly sinister if it weren’t for the fact that Bilderberg meetings have taken place since 1954 in a total media vacuum. There’s a good reason most Americans have never heard of Bilderberg: Reporters aren’t allowed anywhere near the location.

Attendees to the meetings are under a strict gag order which prohibits them from ever discussing any aspect of the proceedings in public.

Participants are even barred from taking written notes. Like an elitist Fight Club, the first rule of Bilderberg is: you don’t talk about Bilderberg.

To help maintain the blackout, prominent media figures such as Rupert Murdoch, Katharine Graham, Clare Booth Luce, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, George Stephanopoulos and Andrea Mitchell, who is the wife of Bilderberg stalwart and former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, have allegedly been invited to attend — provided they keep their mouths shut.

But recently, thanks to the Internet and a few intrepid investigative journalists such as James P. Tucker, Charlie Skelton and Daniel Estulin, the Bilderberg meetings have finally begun to attract the attention of a few mainstream news outlets, such as The Guardian in the U.K., the BBC and The Washington Post.

Bilderberg even has its own website now. On it, the group humbly refers to itself as “a small, flexible, informal and off-the-record international forum in which different viewpoints can be expressed and mutual understanding enhanced.”

How quaint.

So, is Bilderberg just an annual forum for leading industrialists, bankers and politicians to meet, learn about each other and try to better understand international affairs — or is it the global nexus of evil? The Bilderberg conspiracy trope resonates with both extremes of the political spectrum, even if they disagree on the group’s ultimate motives. Liberals accuse the group of promoting a pro-Western, capitalist agenda, while extremists on the right contend that Bilderberg has advanced the cause of international socialism.

To Bilderberg critics, the annual confab serves to advance the interests of the multinational cartels which are intent on establishing a global corporate state. To achieve these long-term objectives, critics say, Bilderberg meets annually to decide on favorable trade agreements in order to manipulate financial markets and global strife for maximum profit and control.

According to Daniel Estulin, author of The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, Bilderberg is already a de facto world government: “They have gathered yearly in a luxurious hotel somewhere in the world to try to decide the future of humanity … the Bilderberg group has grown beyond its idealistic beginnings to become a shadow world government, which decides in total secrecy at annual meetings how their plans are to be carried out.”

It goes without saying that the global economic interests represented by Bilderberg are quite different from the interests of the vast majority of the human race. Corporate shareholders demand profits above any moral or environmental considerations. Keeping the discussions secret allows attendees to speak to these points openly without fear that certain opinions might offend the lower classes.

Exposing the Bilderberg meetings as a tool of the plutocracy is a step in the right direction in our effort to decipher humanity’s hidden past and, quite possibly, what’s in store for us in the future.

Most of the participants at the meetings believe they are simply there to promote international cooperation on the important political, financial and technological issues of the day.

Those protesting Bilderberg, however, see it as an instrument for achieving the nefarious goals of the global cartels. Naturally, the secretive nature of Bilderberg has given conspiracy nuts a field day.

Critics point to key individuals such as Kissinger and Rockefeller, hardcore members of the global elite and regulars at every Bilderberg meeting. Rockefeller acknowledged in his 2002 memoirs that,

“Some…believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global, political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”

Board members serving on the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations — who also routinely attend Bilderberg meetings — have implied that war with Iran is still being hotly debated, while the financial sector continues to exploit the fallout from the global economic crisis to push for more centralized banking regulations.

Because of all the cloak-and-dagger secrecy surrounding the Bilderberg meetings, there is an air of mystery and intrigue about them. Bilderberg is an enigma. One has to wonder what exactly gets discussed at these forums. Perhaps the more important question, though, is precisely how the group affects the global political economy. Bilderberg and the controversy that envelops it are highly complex phenomena. No real answers are forthcoming.

People who don’t “believe” in conspiracies need to study world history more thoroughly. Human civilization and conspiracies go hand in hand. Groups of people have always conspired against one another for more wealth and power.

Bilderberg embodies that ancient tradition.

The plutocracy’s strategy for global corporate dictatorship is out in the open now. Apparently, things are going according to plan. There’s no longer any need for members of Bilderberg to keep their intentions hidden from the public. Who’s going to stop them? They already own the planet.

It’s fair to assume that when the richest and most powerful people on Earth get together in total secrecy, they aren’t discussing golf scores.

[repost from 2014]