"Freedom of the press" loses its moral force when it is played in aid of reckless conduct: the Washington Times telling Osama bin Laden that the US was able to monitor his mobile phone was indefensible. But there is danger, too, when the respect due to "national security" is diluted by accusations that prove unsubstantiated. From the Pentagon Papers on, there is a whole history of authority crying wolf. I don't know if this is another. What I do know is that the current attacks on the Guardian echo those levelled at the Sunday Times in a number of investigations. We took national security as seriously as anyone, but over 14 years the barriers erected against legitimate inquiry on grounds of national security – reporting, not document dumps – proved spurious or self-serving. Kim Philby betrayed his country and sent countless people to their deaths. However, when we exposed the full measure of his treacheries the outrage in government and sections of the press was directed not at Philby and those who protected him for years but at our reporters. The diaries of the scholarly cabinet minister Richard Crossman have been recognised as shedding valuable light on the way we are governed, but government made a full-scale attempt to censor their publication. Same yet again in the long ordeal of Northern Ireland. Cheerleading was exalted and real reporting excoriated.

WE LIVE IN A world of empire.

The empire serves what has been described by George Monbiot in The Guardian as

‘… a class of global elites which has, in effect, seceded …’

and is subverting society from above:

‘… an elite insurgency’.

The empire is based on extracting resources and wealth from across the globe. And it is in its final days of decline. The monetary system has created too much debt – an instrument of wealth extraction – and its extractive toll is now collapsing both the global economy and the eco-system.

Citizens in Western countries managed for a century or so to grab back some of the wealth.

This was due to several factors. One factor was that the system needs consumers; another that the resistance that everyday people put up first in the form of violent revolt; then, later, more successfully in the form of trade unions.

However, the logic of the system is still in place.

The Dickensian long work hours ‒ poor conditions that Westerners thought they had shrugged off ‒ have continued in less developed nations and, with globalisation, conditions in the West are deteriorating. Labour unions lose effectiveness when employers have no loyalty to nation states and can – and do – move production to more amenable environments — environments with no labour or environmental protections. Services which cannot be sent off-shore (transport, hospitals etc) are declared “essential services” and strikes are banned by law. This leaves only less critical service industries such as hospitality which, filled with temporary and casual workers, are poorly unionised and no threat to the system.   

This process of sending jobs to nations with low wages and low costs – due to a lack of protections for people and the environment – is hollowing out Western nations and, by many measures, America is largely a third world nation.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/how-to-survive-in-the-age-of-empire,5874

From Der Speigel...

Another form of paranoid information procurement is torture, used by American intelligence agencies to gain information about terrorists. Torture is the negation of democracy, freedom and human rights. If a democratic country allows itself to sink to the level of torture, it must already be extremely hysterical and anxious.

It isn't as if nuclear bombs were at issue. The aim of some of today's intelligence methods is to prevent attacks that could be very painful for America, but in truth do not threaten the American founding myths and are not capable of extinguishing the American paradise. Only the Americans themselves can do that. The fear aspect of freedom is destructive to freedom, because it allows the need for security to get out of hand.

While paranoia legitimizes a dictatorship, it can achieve the opposite effect in a democracy. The United States is no longer a model of liberal democracy. That much has been made clear in light of mass surveillance, torture, the extralegal detention camp at Guantanamo and an isolationist ideology that leads to author Ilija Trojanow being denied entry to the country, presumably because of his criticism of American policy.

Other nations also have their fears, but they lack the power to turn the world upside down. Power and paranoia are a dangerous mix.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Who is attending the mysterious annual conclave of the Bilderberg Group? And what are they up to?

The Bilderberg Group conference began in Copenhagen yesterday, with leaders of industry, finance, academia and the media meeting politicians to discuss global policy matters.

The conference – closed to reporters and bound by strict secrecy rules – has long been a favourite of conspiracy theorists. So who is attending this year? We lift the lid on the secretive group that has been accused of wielding clandestine power to advance its own interests.

What is the Bilderberg Group?
Founded 60 years ago, the Bilderberg Group brings together between 120 and 150 senior politicians and businesspeople from Europe and North America. The group took its name from its first conference, which was held at the Hotel de Bilderberg in the Netherlands, in May 1954.

The official website says that the conference is "a forum for informal discussions about megatrends and major issues facing the world".

Who is attending this year?
This year's meeting includes Queen Sofia of Spain; General Philip M Breedlove, Nato supreme allied commander in Europe; Reid Hoffman, co-founder of Linkedin; three senior members of Goldman Sachs; Craig Mundie of Microsoft; and Cheng Li of the Brookings Institute; and UK chancellor George Osborne.

Also on the high-profile guest list, according to Al Jazeera, are Keith Alexander, former NSA director; Anders Fogh Rasmussen, secretary-general of Nato; Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund; and John Micklethwait, editor in chief of The Economist magazine.

Why are conspiracy theorists so interested?
The meetings are held under the Chatham House Rule, a convention that allows speakers to advance unpopular opinions without fear of being identified.

The group is deliberately vague on what is discussed at its annual meetings, but insists that discussions are informal. "There is no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued," the Bilderberg website says.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Bilderberg-mania began when journalist Jon Ronson wrote "a brilliantly entertaining account" of crawling through bushes to expose the group's activities.

What do conspiracy theorists believe?
The Bilderberg group is said "to have launched the career of Margaret Thatcher; to control fleets of black helicopters; even to be secretly composed of giant shape-shifting lizards, bent on ruling the world", the Telegraph says.

In Yugoslavia, leading Serbs have blamed Bilderberg for causing the war which led to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic, the BBC reports.

The Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the London nail-bomber David Copeland and Osama Bin Laden are all said to have believed in the covert power of the Bilderberg Group.

Could the theories be true?
Most commentators suspect not. As the Telegraph says, "today's world is so complicated and hydra-headed that no one actor, or even group of actors, can control it".

"People cling to the conspiracy theory because they want to believe that someone is capable of controlling things," the paper suggests. "But even for hyper-intelligent, shape-shifting lizards, bringing order to our chaotic world would be a bridge too far."

Nevertheless, many say that any meetings of the "global elite" should be held in the open.

Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/world-news/58748/secretive-bilderberg-group-of-world-leaders-meets-in-denmark#ixzz33KpXIwJT

 See toon at top...

From Victoria Rollison...

Since I started Conspire, there have been a lot of things going on in the real world which are closely related to the themes in the book. Julian Assange, who I knew little about when I started the plot, is referenced in a few places in connection with ‘leaks’ and ‘insider knowledge of conspiracies’. The revolution that swept through Tunisia, Egypt and Lybia (ongoing) is somewhat related to themes in Conspire. There are other things also going on which pop up in my fiction, but I’m not going to give too much away!

Follow my blog to find out what, if anything, happens to Conspire.

read more: http://victoriarollison.com/conspire/

See articles above from toon at top...

Covering issues from Europe to terrorism and IT, the lesser known Bilderberg policy conference includes prime ministers, CEOs from banks, airlines, oil and the arms industry, and even George Osborne

As one summit closes, another opens. Thursday sees the start of the influential Bilderberg policy conference, which this year is being held in Austria, just 16 miles south of the G7 summit, and in a similarly inaccessible luxury alpine resort. The participant list for the conference has just been released by the organisation, and some big names leap off the page.

No fewer than three serving European prime ministers will be attending, from the Netherlands, Finland and Belgium. They will be discussing “European strategy” with the head of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, and the president of Austria, Heinz Fischer. Two European finance ministers are on the list: one Dutch, the other George Osborne. The UK chancellor is a regular attendee of the Bilderberg summit, and this year he will be showing off his post-election glow. Unlike that other Bilderberg regular, Ed Balls, who is being invited back despite having by some considerable distance the weakest job title on the list: “former shadow chancellor of the exchequer.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/08/bilderberg-summit-forget-the-g7

See toon and article at top... from two years ago.

The clandestine gathering is also expected to be attended by prominent business and political figures such as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, among others.

Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, is expected to take part in a Bilderberg Meeting scheduled to take place this week in Montreux, Switzerland, according to CNBC.

The media outlet reported, citing local media, that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will also attend the meeting, even though his name wasn't on the official guest list.

Other notable political and business figures who will be present for the gathering include NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, Credit-Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne, as well as former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

The meeting’s published agenda includes “Brexit, the ethics of artificial intelligence, the importance of space, and climate change and sustainability”.

The costs of the meeting are reportedly covered “wholly by private subscription”.

The annual Bilderberg Meeting was established in 1954 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands in order to foster dialogue between Europe and America, with its participants being political leaders, experts from industry, finance, academia, and the media.

The clandestine nature of the meeting frequently gives rise to conspiracy theories about a “secret world order”, though the organizers merely claim that the gathering’s somewhat secretive nature “simply allows more freedom within discussions”, CNBC notes.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201905281075423981-bilderberg-club-kushner...

read from top.

Bilderberg Group's long hand

by Manlio Dinucci

To date, many things have been written about Bilderberg Group. However, it is possible to have a reliable idea on the basis of the documents. Numerous researchers have been eagerly engaged in this. It is definitely not a global government, but a network of influence created by CIA and MI6 to support NATO.

Three Italian guests were invited to the Bilderberg Group meeting in Montreux, Switzerland, from May 30 to June 2 this year. Another journalist, Lili Gruber, who is now the permanent guest of the Bilderberg Group, has been invited: Stefano Feltri, deputy director of Fatto Quotidiano, led by Marco Travaglio. The third man, chosen by Bilderberg, is the former Senate of Partito Democratico, former President of the Council Matteo Renzi.

In 1954, the Bilderberg Group was formed by the initiative of the CIA and the British secret service MI6 in order to support NATO against the USSR. [1] In the aftermath of the Cold War, it maintained the same function in support of the US / NATO strategy.

About 130 people attend the meetings each year, representing the world of politics, the economy and the army, the big media and the secret services, almost exclusively from Western Europe and North America. Each year, they are gathered in closed hotels behind the closed doors in a different country, protected by the armor of hard military security systems. The journalist or observer is not allowed to monitor the meetings and no press release will be published. Participants are subject to the silence rule: they cannot even disclose the identity of the informing speakers (despite the declared 'transparency'). As far as we know this year, we know that Russia and China are talking about space systems, a stable strategic order, the future of capitalism.

The most important participants were the American as usual: the historical figure Henry Kissinger, who together with the banker David Rockefeller (founder of the Trilateral Commission, died in 2017); the former CIA chairman and still foreign minister Mike Pompeo [2]; General and former CIA chairman David Petraeus [3]; Jared Kushner, the Middle East adviser (and son-in-law of President Trump and the close friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu). Following these, the NATO secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, is entitled to the second term for his services to the United States.

For four days, in multilateral and bilateral secret talks, representatives of these and representatives of Western major powers (overt and secret) strengthened and expanded the contact network that allowed them to influence government policies and public opinion.

It is possible to see the fruits of the meeting. Stefano Feltri is strongly advocating the Bilderberg Group by announcing that these meetings held in a closed session, to create a sincere and open non-institutional discussion set to create a non-institutional, non-institutional, open debate [and eliminate] numerous conspirators [promoting] legends and stories about the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission.

The results of the investigation conducted by the CIA and the Italian secret services, Gladio and the neo-fascist groups, the P2 lodge and the US masonic lodges [5], were prepared by the NATO bases of the Bilderberg Group. The Supreme Court of Appeals President Hakim Ferdinando Imposimato (died in 2018) does not mention the fact that he is responsible for the tension strategy as well as the massacres.

Matteo Renzi was accepted even in this prestigious place. There is no assumption that those who have a say in Bilderberg will be secretly preparing for other political operations in Italy, they will not invite him for their analysis skills. We apologize to Feltri for joining a large number of conspirators.

The book proposal on the subject: Sociologist and economist Domenico Moro Le Groupe Bilderberg, the «élite» du pouvoir mondial (Translation M-A Patrizio), Delga Publications, Paris 2015 (19 Euro). Bernard Genet (LE GROUPE BILDERBERG (PRÉSENTATION DU LIVRE DE DOMENICO MORO PAR BERNARD GENET). Note from second translator: "Nice conference that details the origins, the goals, the operating mechanisms and the challenges of the Bilderberg Group. Not sure, however, that Bernard Genet's classical Marxism is entirely adequate to explain the [Bilderberg] phenomenon"

We have published the official participant list of the 2019 Bilderberg Group meeting, but we have defined our duties: la List des participants à la réunion 2019 du Groupe de Bilderberg yayın Réseau Voltaire, 1er Juin 2019.

The announcement of unexpected political events to the participants is one of the characteristics of Bilderberg Group. For example, in 2014, the Bilderberg Group invited Emmanuel Macron, who explained his ways with François Hollande, or the mayor of Havre, Édouard Philippe, who announced in 2016 that he had joined the ranks of Emmanuel Macron. These two men later became President and Prime Minister.

Manlio Dinucci

Translation

Osman Soysal

Source

Il Manifesto (Italy)

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article206683.html

Note: This article was first written in Italian, translated in Turkish, then translated in English by our friend Martino Vigneroni. A few expressions had to be approximated and further research made.