Noonan jets to Bilderberg secret conference

WHY IS NOONAN AT
BILDERBERG SECRET
CONFERENCE?

Only hours after the Referendum result was declared in Dublin, Finance Minister Michael

Noonan was jetting off to the USA to attend a highly controversial and secretive meeting of

prominent figures of the global political, financial and corporate elite in a town near Washington. Noonan’s visit was unannounced and not mentioned in any Irish media. It is of some interest to the Irish people as to why their Finance Minister was attending such a meeting and what was his purpose in going there. So much for “transparency” of Government as promised by Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

The 60th Bilderberg Meeting is being held in Chantilly, Virginia, USA from 31 May – 3 June 2012. Bilderberg takes its name from the hotel in Holland, where the first meeting took place in May 1954. The original conference was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg, near Arnhem in the Netherlands, from 29 to 31 May 1954. It was initiated by several people, including Polish politicians Józef Retinger and Andrew Nielsen, concerned about the growth of anti-Americanism in Western Europe, who proposed an international conference at which leaders from European countries and the United States would be brought together with the aim of promoting Atlanticism – better understanding between the United States and Western Europe to foster cooperation on political, economic, and defence issues. Retinger approached Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands who agreed to promote the idea, together with former Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland, and the head of Unilever at that time, Dutchman Paul Rijkens. Bernhard in turn contacted Walter Bedell Smith, then head of the CIA, who asked US President Eisenhower’s adviser Charles Douglas Jackson to deal with the suggestion. The guest list was to be drawn up by inviting two attendees from each nation, one of each to represent conservative and liberal points of view. Fifty delegates from 11 countries in Western Europe attended the first conference, along with 11 Americans.

A rare photograph of the first Bilderberg meeting at Arnhem, Netherlands, in 1954

 

 ELITE GROUP

Historically, attendee lists have been weighted towards bankers, politicians, and directors of large businesses, in other words the global power elite.Heads of state, including Juan Carlos I of Spain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, have attended meetings. Prominent politicians from North America and Europe are past attendees. In past years, board members from many large corporate trans-nationals have attended, including IBM, Xerox, Royal Dutch Shell, Nokia and Daimler.

The 2009 meeting participants in Greece included: Greek prime minister Kostas Karamanlis; Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanen; Sweden foreign minister Carl Bildt; United States Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg; U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; World Bank president Robert Zoellick; European Commission head José Manuel Barroso; Queen Sofia of Spain; and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

In 2009 the group hosted a dinner meeting at Castle of the Valley of the Duchess in Brussels on 12 November to promote the candidacy of Herman Van Rompuy for President of the European Council.

The membership of the Bilderberg group is drawn largely from West European and North American countries. Writing in 1980, policy analyst Holly Sklar noted that, from the 1950s, elites in the West became concerned that the United Nations was no longer controlled by Western powers, and that this concern was expressed in the participant selection process of the Bilderberg group. Sklar also quoted observations from human rights journalist Caroline Moorehead in a 1977 article critical of the Bilderberg group's membership, who in turn quoted an unnamed member of the group: "No invitations go out to representatives of the developing countries. 'Otherwise you simply turn us into a mini-United-Nations,' said one person. And “we are looking for like-thinking people and compatible people. It would be worse to have a club of dopes.” In her article, Moorehead characterised the group as "heavily biased towards politics of conservatism and big business" and claims that the "farthest left is represented by a scattering of central social democrats".

 PROTEST

The annual off-the-record gathering of global elite in finance policy and national security is taking place behind chainlink fencing, “No Trespassing”signs and scores of local police. At the base of the driveway, the protesters congregated to denounce the meeting and shout at the occasional vehicles that entered and exited. Carrying signs with messages such as "Humanity is winning" and "Warning to secret societies: you are pissing off American patriots. One protester stated that Bilderberg meetings allow high-ranking officials to make deals away from the public eye. "It's mainly about big government contracts, for the big wigs," he said. "And then the big wigs give the government people in the revolving door jobs."

Police made at least one arrest on Friday when a young man stepped into the street, prompting condemnation from the crowd. On the whole, however, interactions between protesters and the police were peaceful. "It's just a day of work," said one officer, who insisted he was "not guarding anything", but simply protecting the Marriott's private property rights.

                       Protesters outside Bilderberg Conference, in Chantilly, Virginia, USA, yesterday.

Bilderberg critics are often labelled conspiracy theorists, particularly due to beliefs that the meeting is a sinister attempt by the global elite to concentrate power and establish a global government. But, protester Max Dickstein insists the summit merits scrutiny:

Dickstein, from New York City, lived two blocks from 7 World Trade Center, which collapsed on September 11 2001, though it was not struck by an airplane. His uncle was killed in the attacks. Dickstein was 12 years old at the time. Explanations for the collapse did not sit right with him. "I couldn't really trust any narratives," he said. "Two planes hit three buildings. That doesn't add up to me. I felt an obligation to this movement," he said. For Dickenstein, the fact that so many powerful figures meet at Bilderberg in a fashion that lacks transparency leaves him wondering, "Do people at this meeting know something I don't?"

Participants in this year's meeting reportedly include Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, War Criminal Henry Kissinger, senior officials from a number of the world's largest banks, the co-founder of LinkedIn and a member of the Syrian National Council, among others. As well as Michael Noonan, other known attendees from Ireland are: Paul Gallagher, - former Irish Attorney General and Senior Counsel, Peter Sutherland,- former Irish Attorney General, now Chairman of Goldman Sachs International.

From Britain are:

Marcus Agious - Chairman of Barclays Pls

Nick Boles - Member of Parliament

Kenneth Clarke - Member of Parliament, Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice.

Robert Dudley - Group Chief Executive BP Plc

Douglas Flint - Group Chairman HSBC Bank Holdings

John Kerr - Independent Member House of Lords

Peter Mandleson - Member House of Lords, Charman of Global Counsel

John Micklethwait - Editor in Chief, the Economist

Peter Voser - CEO Dutch Shell Plc

The Conference as announced on their website will deal mainly with political, economic and societal issues like Transatlantic Relations, Evolution of the Political Landscape in Europe and the US, Austerity and Growth in Developed Economies, Cyber Security, Energy Challenges, the Future of Democracy, Russia, China and the Middle East, but many critics believe that secret arrangements are made to coordinate strategies by Governments and leading bureaucrats such as Rompuy and Barrosso from the EU which would favour only the interests of the elite.

The attendance of many military figures from NATO at these conferences and the hostile

Anti-Soviet and anti-Communist tone of the rhetoric emanating from the Bilderbergers since the first meeting in 1954 when the Cold War was well underway, suggest that the organisation is a prop for NATO, propagandising the so-called “Western” values often put forward as a cover for NATO aggression as we have seen more recently in the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and currently the attempts to destabilise the Assad government in Syria. Coupled with the attendance of the corporate elite from those companies which make huge profits from military contracts and “security” missions in various countries where NATO aggression takes place it seems that

this is the real role of the Bilderberger gatherings.

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Áth Cliath/Dublin 03 Meitheamh/June 2012.