Conspiracy theorists claim the Bilderberg Group is a cabal of 130 of the world’s most powerful public and private crony leaders plotting for global domination, but this year’s meeting is all about leaders trying to save globalism from Brexit.
The “Bilderberg 16” conference opened at the Taschenbergpalais hotel in Dresden on June 19. More than 400 police surrounded the area to restrain protestors who believe the group wants maximizes profits for the elite while destroying the middle class.
The organization began with a 1954 meeting at Holland’s Hotel de Bilderberg. The goal was to curb socialist anti-Americanism by promoting “Atlanticism” that would to foster political, economic, and defense cooperation between the United States and Western Europe. The Bilderberg Group set out to “bolster a consensus around free market Western capitalism and its interests around the globe.”
The group succeeded beyond their wildest imagination with the 1989 implosion of the Soviet Union, the 1991 dismantling of the Warsaw Pact, and the opening of Western trade with communist China.
But rather than declaring victory and going out of business, the Bilderbergs simply began pushing globalized trade and interventions. They supported the 1992 passage of the “Maastricht Treaty” that rolled 28 nations and 508 million people into the European Union that featured unimpeded movement of people and products. They also encouraged the global expansion of NATO’s missions.
The Bilderbergs championed the rise of globalism through the 1994 formation of the 123-nation World Trade Organization that drastically reduced tariffs and internationalized trade dispute resolution. This pro-commerce environment helped world trade increase tenfold between 1980 and 2007, propelling economic growth in China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Globalized trade has been a home run for the multinational corporate interests that dominate the Bilderberg Group. But after an initial burst of prosperity associated with massive technology transfer to the emerging markets, globalized trade appears to have cut U.S. and Europe Union economic growth, while spiking income inequality.
The 1999 introduction of the Euro currency eventually led to almost a decade of the PIIGS’ (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) sovereign debt crisis, which also exposed Northern Europe’s unwillingness to continuously subsidize the south.
The hottest topic at this year’s Bilderberg conference will be the June 23 Brexit referendum, where voters can demand the U.K. quit the EU’s Euro-government. Stratfor Global Intelligence traces the roots of the crisis to the Bilderberg supported 2004 enlargement of the EU, and the ensuing wave of Polish migration to the United Kingdom.
Despite European open-border mandates, the accelerating immigration crisis across the EU has forced national political leaders to appease their citizens by re-erecting border controls that restrict the flow of low-wage workers and foreign refugees across their territory.
To the dismay of the Bilderbergs after 70 years of trying to suppress nation states, Stratfor argues that the ascendant forces within Europe are national and that is forcing countries to put their own interests first:
“Over the centuries, great empires have risen and fallen, leaving behind distinct groups of people with different histories, languages and cultures. Any project attempting to fuse these disparate cultures into one monolithic state over the course of just 70 years would inevitably encounter insurmountable levels of nationalistic resistance and eventually the project would stall. That is the point where we now find ourselves.”
Even the wildly pro-EU ‘Economist Magazine’ latest poll shows the leave the EU faction with a slight lead.
Notwithstanding the furious efforts of British Prime Minister David Cameron to paint a Brexit vote as a disaster, only 25 percent of British voters believe that leaving the EU will result in lower living standards. But a powerful 63 percent majority in Britain believe that leaving the EU will reduce immigration.
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