Where the hell are you slumming? It reminds me of something from the late sixties early seventies. Then the bete noire of the loony left AND right was the Trilateral Commission. I was a layabout permanent student and so went to the U library and found a Trilateral Commission publication (which had never been checked out before, and probably never since). It was a collection of papers written for a Commission meeting. I think the editor's name was Huntington; anyway he had written a lot of the stuff in it, and it was mostly extremely unmemorable.
I do remember the list of members. It was a list of national and state/provincial politicians, business people, and a few academics who were past doing, or never could do any original research. All the usual suspects.
The only paper I remember, because it hit my funny bone, was entitled something like "The Governability of the Western Democracies" (I think it was by this fellow Huntington (?)). In it he bemoaned the fact that we were educating young people and, gosh durn it, they were thinking for themselves and being uppity.* And the dilemma these wise folk faced in their discussion: we can't dis-educate young folk and we can't stop educating them because our prosperity and well being depend on having lots of educated people. Much academic moaning and wringing of hands....
(I suspect the participants for whom this stuff was written read the first couple of paragraphs and then got on with what they came for - schmoozing, wheeling/dealing and getting drunk. Participation in the Trilateral Commission conferences didn't stop these people from failing in business (some did), or being voted out of office, or resigning, or getting old and dying).
The agenda of the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, or others like them is preservation of the status quo, especially theirs. I don't know whether I should be comforted or alarmed that the advice they get from sycophants such as Huntington will be irredemiably mediocre.
So what are they talking about these days at the elite meetings when they're not schmoozing and getting drunk? Let me guess: China, young Islamic men, China, Russia, the internet and the mischief young folk can get up to using communications technology, China, the current economic wobble, China, Africa, demographics, Japan, China, terorrism, WTO, China,
They could stay home and discuss the Sunday Times, Le Monde or La Stampa with their spouses and quite likely gain greater insight than attending the meeting but they wouldn't get to schmooze....
Conspiracies exist, but not in these surroundings. These are people who supposedly run things.
Conspirators are the ones who want to run things. They don't know it's not possible.
The action these days is in the WTO. Here bureaucrats and lobbyists jostle for short term advantage and keep hitting the levers of the law of unexpected consequences and the welfare of billions of people is at stake. The whole process is going far too fast and privately. What is produced at WTO should be a matter of vigorous discussion everywhere in the world. The young people hitting the bricks these days have got that much right even if a large number of them are mal-educated socialists.
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*Could have had something to with VietNam but he never mentioned that, as I remember, possibly wrongly, or the very poor position Western European governments had put themselves in. |
