I think this is the most stunningly inappropriate article for a news organ in a (supposedly) democratic society to print that I have ever seen.

Just taking the standard theory of the nature of the US, now, and removing the almost diametrically opposite reality, our society is claimed to be in some sense a democracy. If the people who have attained power in same can sit around and cook up our future for us every year, and our news media doesn't even MENTION each year that they're doing it, then that suggests rather strongly what we actually live in -- an oligarchy. Apparently editors know this, and humbly refrain from bothering their betters.

Just a yearly MENTION of the fact of this meeting, together with a list of the attendees, would remind us that something's going on in those rarified realms that we the people perhaps should know about. Just such a mention, alone, might also give us the ability to infer other interesting information, like who the masters have lined up to rule us next. The fact of reporters' being hustled away by security would also have enlightening implications.

And finally, don't you suppose that our once-marvelously inquisitive reporters could ocasionaly go further and even find out what was actually discussed there? Wouldn't you like to know? Don't most of us know enough history to be aware that when the rulers have total secrecy in which to confer they are more likely to make decisions that the plebs wouldn't like? My goodness! Forewarned we might even be able to organize politically and defeat some of those dispositions.

But, apparently appropriately in this writer's view, editors are happy not to run the risk of fomenting any such dangerous knowledge or disruptions. I expect nothing less. Ever since we started to see special boxes being constructed in our stadia for the nobles, I've known that the old nonsense about democracy has been dying, and the new reality has been a secret open to the people if they want to see it, and they don't. Best to just trust the masters.

Apparently our editors and this commenter agree.

Boo hoo, the rich and powerful are ruining my perfect democracy. The democracy where everyone is equal, and loves and respects each other. The democracy where no one is any better than anybody else, where everyone gets their fair turn to sit in the special nobles' boxes.

If our founding fathers, in all their WASP-y, land-holding, slave-owning, ivory tower, gentlemanly, electoral college envisioning glory, could see what's become of their beloved America, they'd be rolling over in their graves.

I prefer the system envisioned in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers; a direct democracy where the majority can subjugate the will of the minority, and where mob rule reigned supreme.

Oh, wait...

by a private group confuses you? Are they funded by the taxpayers or are they a government group? The answer is no, therefore they have no obligation to open their meeting to the public or reporters........

whew for a second there I thought you were gunna say republic, might as well go whack a horents nest with a stick..........

Bingo, Hst_Fan. Private means "butt the hell out, you wasn't invited." Sorry, but no one asked you to play!

Yes, I see. "Trust the Masters", subset "Be polite to 'em."

If you want to hold a Rotary meeting I wouldn't think of crashing it, or having the press do so, because politeness is a virtue, and these people can't do me any harm.

The Bilderberg folks, on the other hand, can make deals and decisions that affect the lives of millions, including mine and yours, sometimes doing us great harm.

Trusting the masters in the past has brought us things like The Crusades, World War I, The Viet Nam war, trickle-down economics, Cherynoble, the Iraq war, Enron....ad nauseum.

Are you sure politeness is important enough to justify enduring all that?

dianasatyr

you get to decide who has a right to privacy, correct?

That is in essense what you are saying, Rotarians, carry on as you are not concerned, what about Masons, do you get to peak at their rites? Can you come up with a list of those not allowed the freedom of association and the right of privacy or whould we just await your whim? Perhaps you can stop those closed door meetings by the people we actaully pay, you know congress......

Gee Whiz The Media had plenty of ink for Valerie Plame and Cindy Sheehan.

Perhaps Bilberburg needs more drama>

It also helps to be a blond !

Forget the straw man of "How Dare You Decide". Society will decide about privacy in this context, not I--if it ever deems these meetings especially dangerous to the Republic. It seems reasonable to infer that the meetings are in fact likely to be far more dangerous, given the conferees' great economic power, than the random e-mail meanderings of our undifferentiated and largely subjugated populace, which our government is now eager to spy on without let or hindrance. My guess is if it does that's gonna be fine with you.

Again, the bottom line queston is "Who you do you trust?" And how much harm is Mr. X likely to do you if your trust in him is misplaced? There is a mindset that always gives powerful people the benefit of the doubt, and if you have that mindset then you are going to want, maybe even like, the idea of these movers and shakers working out, in secret, dispositions for the various aspects of society that they control.

And there is another mindset that knows that...well, you know the quote about "power corrupts". The governmental structure of this country (with its checks and balances) was founded on the latter assumption, but, paradoxically, by people who were the equivalent of the Bilderbergians of their day. They, the colonial wealthy, feared above all the power of the masses and of any popular government that would be too responsive to those masses, so they sought to make government unwieldy.

However, the history of the US since the Civil War suggest that the great danger to be feared is precisely the reverse of what the Founders feared so long ago. That danger is what the holders of the vast and unprecedented concentrations of wealth and power that the Industrial Revolution made possible can do to the working people, who are most of us. And to us they can do just about anything they like. A bit of reading about the Gilded Age would help here.

Of course, if you, Mr. or Ms commenter are wealthy or think you might someday be, then the now-fast-approaching return of the Gilded Age will be fine with you. Peoples' opinions generally follow their class interests. But if, like me, you are poor and too old to hope to get rich, then you might consider the unfamiliar notion that the interests of the Bilderbergians are NOT yours, and, since you likely to spend your life being their worker, you have much to fear from them.

Such an analysis might cause some conflict with any temperamental tendency to Trust the Masters that you might have, with interesting results. And then again it probably wont.

I just try to plant little seeds of doubt from time to time in the vast edifice of thought in favor of the utter rightness and beneficent of capitalism and of its masters that is the prevailing ideology of the US.

and your guesses like your exceedingly long muse is wrong.

Ah, the descent to the personal.

Then I say,

In your case brevity is not the soul of wit.

Hey! I got a suggestion for you journalists. Just pretend the Bilderberg group is a meeting of Tom Cruise Bonno Rolling Stones Brad Pitt George Clooney Britney Spear - TRUST ME - even if its a closed session you "Journalists" will but your ass to cover the closed event. ("ummm umm ummm that that thats different")

I dont recall the last time in this entire galaxy when reporters stayed home and called in sick just because something was kept private. Especially a big bash. This goes for closed sessions in the courtroom to closed sessions at the G20 to closed sessions at the UN to even CLOSED WEDDINGS OF MADONNA.

Since when did a closed event ever stop anyone from doing anything? Journalism 101.

You need to go back to school darling.

What is with this whining of 'oh they wont spoon feed me the story', 'oh me oh my' Damsel in Distress routine. Put a sock in it. And get your "reporting" rear in gear or quit. Nancy.

Listen: Bottom Line? You are the reporters. Your supposed to be reporting. If all your going to do is what they do at ANY OTHER CLOSED EVEN (like a Celeb Wedding) I expect my journalists to get creative and aggressive - in short DO THEIR JOB - than sit here whinning like a kindergaterner about 'oohhh whaaaa they wouldnt talk to me' gaaa gaaa gooo goo.

Do your job or get out of the Journalism business.

I must say that I ENTIRELY concur with dianasatyr here. Even the most cursory reading of history shows that secrecy is the greatest path to corruption and the greatest tool of the corrupt, and that secrecy among the powerful WHILE they are working out OUR destiny will invariably skew their decisions in their OWN favor. ANYTHING that is likely to impact on the workings of society at large may be covered by the press in a free society - in fact SHOULD be covered, and SHOULD be questioned by intelligent members of that society. Doing the opposite leads to what happened in Nazi Germany. It is the very reason that Congress is now working on ways to make large organisations more transparent - they are sometimes public enterprises and sometimes private, but what they do and what they sell heavily impacts society and so Congress and the public rightly demand accountability AND transparency. With more of this, Enron would not have been allowed to happen. Sorry, but public impact necessitates public knowledge and intervention. No, you cannot do whatever you want, even if you are rich and powerful - in fact, ESPECIALLY if you are rich and powerful, as your reach may go much further than the poor and fragile. The need to rein in the power of the supra-national hedge funds is a classic example of the need to know, shame and control those powerful who WILL use whatever they have at their disposal to increase their wealth and power, no matter what the cost to the rest of the world.

To suggest that we do not have a right to look PUBLICLY into gatherings of the rich and powerful while they discuss how to manipulate and control the system for their own ends is sheer insanity and sticking one's head in the sand - and therefore guilty of complicity in the crimes that these people may eventually commit, just as the German people were complicit in the crimes of the Nazis.

Thank goodness for the great investigative journalists of this world - wonder where they have gone to ? Maybe they have all become columnists and controversialists instead - much easier, I guess, than doing the hard work of really investigating. But in this day and age we desperately NEED them fighting for transparency and openness when the efforts of a small few can have such devastating effects on the rest of the world.

Dead right, Bilderberg - couldn't agree with you more. Journalists really are the TRUE soldiers and protectors of freedom and democracy. If they are put off by a bit of stone-walling, we're in deep do-do.