Bartholomew's Notes

A predictable opinion from Metropolitan Seraphim, Greek Orthodox bishop of Piraeus; a few days ago he

said that the Bilderbergers represented a “criminal cabal of world Zionism and its efforts to set up a cruel world dictatorship under the headship of Lucifer”.

I last blogged on the rancorous Seraphim here; it’s remarkable that such an abusive person can achieve high office in the national church of a modern European country.

The recent Bilderberg meeting in Greece was also protested by LAOS, the “Popular Orthodox Rally”; I blogged on this group in 2005.

Meanwhile, baroque anti-Bilderberg conspiracy mongering is also being pushed by WorldNetDaily (although minus the anti-Semitism), in order to flog some books:

Do you ever wonder what all those secret organizations – the Trilateral Commission, the Council of Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergs – are doing and why? And what it means in your life?

Here’s the answer: The “Brotherhood of Darkness” book in which Stanley Monteith outlines the people, power and purses that, in many opinions, control nations and destinies, which was in the No. 1 spot among best-sellers at WND’s online Superstore this week.

Monteith writes in his incredible but true publication how the secret societies direct the courses of civilization and affect your life.

Also:

“Hope of the Wicked: Master Plan to Rule the World” by Ted Flynn is in third place.

Hundreds of pages, photographs and footnotes document the convergence of multinational corporations, foundations and political and social instruments to assemble a one-world government and the “New World Order.”

I blogged Flynn’s book here.

(However, as Terry Krepel has noted, there is one media-shy think-tank with political links that WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah doesn’t see as part of the conspiracy: the Council for National Polity. That’s apparently because he’s a member.)

A March report in the EUObserver included a quote which has been seized on as evidence of a Bilderberg hidden hand:

A meeting in June in Europe of the Bilderberg Group – an informal club of leading politicians, businessmen and thinkers chaired by [former EU commissioner Etienne] Davignon – could also “improve understanding” on future action, in the same way it helped create the euro in the 1990s, he said.

Blogger “Cranmer” described this as

an astonishing disclosure, especially in the light of all those alleged Bilderbergers who have dismissed as ‘conspiracy theorists‘ those who have ventured to suggest the group has any such agenda to ‘improve understanding’ (a distinctly Orwellian inculcation), or that they ‘helped create the euro’ (by helping to remove those who opposed it…).

However, the “disclosure” becomes less “astonishing” when you read the rest of the Davignon quote:

“When we were having debates on the euro, people [at Bilderberg events] could explain why it was worth taking risks and the others, for whom the formal policy was not to believe in it, were not obliged not to listen and had to stand up and come up with real arguments.”

In other words, it helped to create the Euro by…facilitating frank private debate between people with different views. How sinister (Cranmer’s claim that the group “helped to remove” anti-Euro figures is unsupported by the source he links to, and his suggestion that members deny seeking to “improve understanding” makes no sense, even without the vacuous Orwell reference).

I’m all in favour of keeping a sceptical eye on what political and economic power-players are up to, and I have no problem with using such conflabs to publicise the need for accountability (as with the G20 protests). It’s also doubtless the case that networks between and within organisations help to promote particular ideas (Mike Peter’s 1996 essay on Bilderberg, originally in Lobster magazine, treats it in this way). But let’s keep some sense of proportion: where’s the evidence that Bilderberg meetings give decisions made in the real world any extra protection from public scrutiny and opposition? And while we may be curious about how important these meetings actually are, what exactly in political life remains mysterious without recourse to “Bilderberg” as an explanation?

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