GOOD's guide to secret societies
GOOD magazine's Matt Schwartz wrote a fun survey of the secret societies that rule the world: Freemasons, Trilateral Commission, Order of Skull and Bones, Bohemian Grove, Bilderberg Group, and the World Economic Forum. Schwarts, a Freemason himself, profiles those "Shadowy Organizations" in easily digestible chunks, highlighting their mythical achievements, actual achievements, membership, alumni, true facts, and what they say about themselves. Remember, just because you're paranoid, don't think they're not after you. (For more on the secret ruling elite, read Jon Ronson's excellent book Them: Adventures with Extremists.) From GOOD:
• History Channel on Bilderberg Group Link
• Punks in the Masons Link
• List of the "World's Weirdest/Stupidest Conspiracy Theories" Link
• San Francisco's clubs you can't join Link
• Documentary: Crazy Rulers of the World Link
LinkIn the 19th century, the Masons were the favorite scapegoat of frightened jingoists who found themselves at the mercy of history and wanted someone to blame for their problems. In the early 20th century, it was the Jews—I’m one of those, too. These days, the conspirators of choice are the internationalist elites who arrive by chartered jet to mingle with their fellow Murdochs, Soroses, Gateses, and Wolfowitzes (I’m a few dinner parties away from becoming one of these).
With that in mind, we present six organizations that have been accused of plotting world domination, along with an assessment of who they are, what they do, and just how powerful they actually are. From what we can tell, no group on this list is running the world from behind its locked doors. But those without keys can never be sure.
• History Channel on Bilderberg Group Link
• Punks in the Masons Link
• List of the "World's Weirdest/Stupidest Conspiracy Theories" Link
• San Francisco's clubs you can't join Link
• Documentary: Crazy Rulers of the World Link
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...Hey, what about the MafRIAA and the WiMPAAs?
To borrow an opinion from the immortal Terence McKenna:
It's not the jews, not the illuminati or the mafia. The truth is much scarier.
No one is in control.
(Which is not to say they are not people out there who are trying.)
..and I tend to think this is true, and the reason some people become such avid conspiracy theorists is that they see that the order of modern civilization is wafer thin, and are incapable of dealing with the fact that it is just chaos underneath.
There is a great wealth of information about who these elites are and how they maintain their hold on global power. These people are at the top levels of world financial markets and banks, governments, and universities. They have been working for generations on a plan for global enslavement and now that control grid technologies exist, they are that much closer to attaining their goal. This is as much a potential reality as the fictional events in Little Brother, folks.
If tech savvy people can understand how technology can be used to corral and control humanity then it would be in their best interest to know who is controlling that technology.
I highly recommened viewing Endgame: A Blueprint for Global Enslavement by Alex Jones. You will find it on google video. You will find it in high quality on the torrents.
Um, while NOT seconding the Alex Jones thing above, there is a big difference between conspiracy theories about various shadowy organizations, such as the freemasons, and having a systemic critique of capitalism. The freemasons are whatever. What happened to the Paris Commune, to Vietnam, in the stadium in Chile, etc etc, is not crazy talk, it's real. There's a pretty direct relationship between Milton Friedman and the sports stadium.
The World Economic Forum people may have not secretly instructed their borg bush to invade Iraq, but there is a clear relationship between the two. And jumbling them up with flat earth nuts isn't helping people understand what is going on.
I agree with #4. It's too often that I hear some ignorant right-winger call Noam Chomsky's ideas conspiracy theories when, in fact, he never claims a conspiracy is taking place. Instead, he argues that institutions and ideologies are set up in a way that happen to cause certain outcomes - not that shadowy groups are getting together to decide how the world should be run (in fact, Chomsky is vocally against conspiracism).
As for Jones, don't trust him. The man is a crypto-fascist, throwing around a Disneyfied version of the old International Jew conspiracy theory that the Nazis promoted (that is, a international Jewish bankers plotted to create communism to destroy the world economy, though Jones removed the word "jew" from it). Likewise, the end statement of his theories is that Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to become dictator of the US and is planning to bring back the Nazi party. It's pure rubbish not worth anyone's time.
And for those who want to learn a rational perspective on conspiracism, I suggest this link:
http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/Conspiracy_Theory
History is a Weapon: There's a pretty direct relationship between Milton Friedman and the sports stadium.
What would that link be? Friedman's famous visit to Chile came two years after the stadium massacre.
I can buy a link between capitalism and the massacre -- Pinochet's coup was backed by ITT, Pepsi-Cola, Anaconda Copper, and various other multinational corporations. But Friedman in particular? How do you figure?
Let's create a NON-secret society dedicated to world domination. But we'll pretend it is secret.
Let's create a NON-secret society dedicated to world domination. But we'll pretend it is secret.
My people have already done that.
Stop conspiring against our conspiracies!
I need to have some external force to blame for things in my life that are not the way I’d like them to be, and to maintain the illusion that SOMEone is in the driver’s seat of civilization, even if they are drunk or insane. My health, level of personal success, or any other arbitrary measure of my life that could be better or is suffering the ravages of aging or lifestyle choices is easier to take when I can say “They” did it to me. I cannot accept that “excrement occurs” no matter what I intended or that I might have brought things I don’t like on to myself.
There are indeed strange (if not exactly secret) societies who seek to rule the world, but our best protection is that there’s more than one. That is, the friction created by the conflicts between groups competing for world domination is a self-regulating phenomenon that prevents any one group from succeeding (so far) and probably explains most of human history.
It would be in the interests of a wannabe-megalomaniac group to document and expose the maneuvers or shenanigans of a competing megalomaniac group with concrete and indisputable evidence, but this doesn't happen very often. Instead we get sporadic, grainy, and easily disputed pictures, videos, and personal anecdotes. Contrast the sporadic talk of "chemtrails" with the the sex-abuse scandal in the catholic church as an example; once it broke, the coverage was widespread and relentless. No doubt some other wannabe Napoleons got the goods on 'the Vatican coverup (quite a score, btw).
We all make plans for our lives. Sometimes big plans, sometimes little ones. Anyone who has made and attempted to carry out a plan knows that things rarely go as planned, no matter how big or small the plan was. So, how would it be different for a World-Dom group? I would expect the wrath of Murphy’s Law (or “excrement occurring” or "the hidden variable") to increase proportionally to the number of people involved and the complexity of the plan.
World domination/ secret governments/ etc. are incredibly complex goals that require the collaboration of many individuals, so we can reasonably expect the incidence of mistakes and failure to be rather high. International banking could be said to be an example of a megalomaniac mindset, but remember it took a very long time to develop it into what it is today, it's made many mistakes, and it is not a secret; it works as an instrument of control because most people are not financially astute or educated enough to accurately assess what’s right in front of them.
We sign adjustable-rate mortgages because we are ignorant of finance. We see chemtrails because we are ignorant of science, but at least they pretend to teach science in school, though for finance you're on your own. We think some shadowy group of “the elite” rules the world because they happen to own a lot of the crap we’re taught to desire, which it just so happens they're selling. Most of us tend to lose sight of the fact that once we cease to desire those things, they no longer rule our world, at least.
Seems to me the greatest threat to us as individuals (and as a species) is ignorance… Or maybe the rationalization of that ignorance, it’s hard to say…
Isn't anyone else familiar with the 'single agent of blame' theory? You blame every bad thing that ever happens on one source of your choosing: the gay agenda, an international Jewish banking conspiracy, the Templars, reptilian overlords, your mother.
And the Laurie Garrett letter referenced to in the article on the World Economic Forum:
http://lists.topica.com/lists/psychohistory/read/message.html?mid=1711891071&sort=d&start=4389
Among other shining spots from 2003:
"- If the U.S. unilaterally goes to war, and it is anything short of a
quick surgical strike (lasting less than 30 days), the economists were
all predicting extreme economic gloom: falling dollar value, rising spot
market oil prices, the Fed pushing interest rates down towards zero with
resulting increase in national debt, severe trouble in all countries
whose currency is guaranteed agains the dollar (which is just about
everybody except the EU), a near cessation of all development and
humanitarian programs for poor countries. Very few economists or
ministers of finance predicted the world getting out of that economic
funk for minimally five-10 years, once the downward spiral ensues."
Personally, I blame the "conspiracy people" for making all the secret organizations look bad. They are all shining examples of humanity otherwise.