Taking Care of Business

Intro

This morning, September 1^st 2021 the UK Guardian led with a piece about Joe Biden, which was hooked up to the withdrawal of US Troops in Afghanistan but it also blethered about a “brand new way of doing things”, by “building back better”

My cynical head kicked into gear immediately, for Mr Biden is going to do just what he is told/allowed to do. No more, No less.

The reason? His Cabinet is jam packed full of CFR members.

Does this really matter?

Judge for yourself after reading this piece.

Sadly, in the Comments that followed that Guardian newspaper piece, the greater majority of people still seem to think that there is some kind of foolproof and effective democratic process in play here.

There isn’t!

What follows is the proof of that statement.

Let me introduce you to the Council on Foreign Relations, a private corporate Think Tank that drives US foreign policy, (and a lot more besides), and has been doing it since 1921

The image above shows the depth of penetration of the CFR. The image is far too large to fit on here and be readable so I will break it down into sections further on in this report. T.B.

What follows is an extract from an excellent book on the CFR called  WALL STREET’S THINK TANK(The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics, 1976–2014), by Dr LAURENCE H. SHOUP Published 2015 (Copyright © 2015 by Laurence H. Shoup) The underlined sections are our emphasis.

The Council on Foreign Relations Inc 1921

“The think tank of monopoly-finance capital, the Council on Foreign Relations is the world’s most powerful private organization. The CFR is the ultimate networking, socializing, strategic planning, and consensus-forming institution of the U.S. capitalist class.

It is the central “high command” organization of the plutocracy that runs the country and much of the world. TheCouncil is the most important U.S. and global center of “deep politics” and the “deep state” that rules behind the scenes, a way that the 1 percent conducts their unrelenting class war against the 99 percent.

Despite pretensions to “democracy” and endless attempts at instructing the world, U.S. “democracy” is, in reality, largely a fraud, a hollowed-out shell, devoid of any substantive content. The fact is that the U.S. government—led behind the scenes by the CFR—is largely run in an anti-democratic fashion by and for the interests of a financialized capitalist class, their corporations, and the wealthy families that control and benefit from these corporations.

No matter who is elected, people from the Council propose, debate, develop consensus, and implement the nation’s key strategic policies. The deep state, in the form of the CFR, operates behind the scenes, making and enforcing important decisions outside of those publicly sanctioned by law and society.

A focus on the Council on Foreign Relations is a key way to understand concretely the central sector of the ensemble of power relations in the United States and its informal global empire.

Don’t just take Dr Shoup’s word for it, or mine either come to that.

In case you are reaching for your tinfoil hat/conspiracy theory button, this is what the CFR says about itself in its annual report from 1994:-

 “For much of this century, U.S. foreign policy was made by several hundred leading politicians and figures dedicated to public service from the professions of law, banking, business, the military and diplomacy.

The Council was conceived by members of this professional class in the years immediately following World War I. For many decades, this same professional class gave the Council its cachet, energy, and influence, serving as its membership as well as its principal constituency.

Particularly after the Kennedy administration, this traditional group was expanded by policy experts from the academy and the think tanks, mainly people with increasingly professional training in the foreign and defense policy fields that dominated the country’s Cold War concerns.

This enlarged foreign policy community joined the Council’s ranks and, like its predecessor, gave us weight, reach, and intellectual strength.”

1994 CFR Annual Report

Blowing off a little steam

Such a pity that all that “weight, reach, and intellectual strength”, didn’t reach out to ALL of the citizens of the USA, instead of just the ones that were already stinking rich.

As for the bit at the beginning about all these leading politicians and figures being “dedicated to public service” I would like to see some evidence of that, because from the perspective of the taxpaying citizen they only seem dedicated to money and themselves. Even the philanthropists among them massage their egos with a new hospital wing or university laboratory with their name in lights across the front. There is another kind that gets involved in all manner of medical programmes across the globe, and as usual their names can often be found in the Patent Office on the new innovations they finance

America is one gigantic false façade, like the film sets of the Old Wild West films, all front but nothing of substance around back, just bits of 4 x 2 propping up the facade.

The citizens are told that they live in a democratically run meritocracy, where anyone can achieve anything they like just by working hard. What is more there is no class system or racism, and slavery was just a “Whoops a Daisy” moment … but it’s all over now.

Well it  isn’t over now, because if it was truly over why would we need Black Lives Matter in the 21^st Century? If we lived in a real Meritocracy why would we need Occupy, or Extinction Rebellion to highlight that huge faults in our society? Why have most major US cities got areas covered in tents to house the homeless?

“Government for the people, by the people” is a sick joke, and so is the myth of “The American Dream”. Its all just PR smoke and mirrors and has been since the day the first TV flickered into life in America.

99% of the US people have no hope of achieving that promised dreamland.

Back in 2007 roughly 14,000,000 families had stepped on the ladder to that dream and bought themselves a house.

10 years later, 14,000,000 families were on the street and the thieving b*st*rd bankers had grabbed not only those 14 million properties back, but they got bailed out to the tune of $Billions by the Government too.

“Go Figure” as they say.

Back to Business

This Wall Street think tank of monopoly-finance capital, the Council on Foreign Relations was, and still is the most powerful private organization on the planet. It is the “high command” and organization hub for old money and the billionaire upper class. The first 7 presidents of the CFR (1921 – 1971,) were all from families registered in “The Social Register”, which was then the accepted guide to “Who is in or out” of the Upper Class.

Awfully posh…and not in the least bit connected to the American Dream for the 99%

Even the Non Social Register listed founders included such luminaries as Otto Kahn, the celebrated Investment banker who languished in his 127 roomed castle which he built in 1919 on his Long Island Estate.

WW1 must have been very kind to him, according to General Smedley Butler, in his book “War is a Racket” – At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during “The war to end all wars”.

That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns”. It seems logical that folk like Mr Kahn would get themselves a slice of this action surely? The CFR would enlist hundreds of such men over the years to steer the upper classes to yet more wealth, but it was certainly not in the business of doing it democratically, and nor was it in business of operating on behalf of the ordinary citizens of this world.

A word on Old Money

Most of the American upper class had benefited enormously from the “fringe” benefits available to men who had inherited a land now almost emptied of its original native population. By the time the civil war started, 12 million or so native Americans had been exterminated, but not at the OK Corral or The Alamo, and certainly not on Film. It happened long before Big John Wayne rode into Tinseltown.

The post civil war bankers and industrialists were able to take over fertile farmlands, abundant forests, rivers, and shorelines, rich with cultivated native food and natural resources.

The mountains were bulging with coal, ores and minerals, and in the lowlands there was gold to be found literally trickling along the streams and riverbeds, just waiting to be picked up by anyone who wanted it.

By the same token, oil was also found seeping to the surface, which after some refinement lit up the world and allowed businesses to stay open even longer. It also saved countless millions of whales while it was just hanging around waiting for someone to invent the motor car in which to burn it.

Phew Gentlemen! It must have been hard work discovering and exploiting all this free stuff lying about. Just imagine building a railroad from East Coast to West Coast on Free land, chopping down Free Trees, using Free Iron ore and very cheap immigrant labour (plus a few slaves) ….it must have been hell for the poor old Du Ponts, Carnegies, and Rockefellers trying to “Eke” out a living in this not so hostile landscape.

It is probably why they had to “Crack a few skulls” when the Labour got uppity and wanted to be paid more than a subsistence wage.

Old money? Yes its old. The Gold and Silver, Coal and Oil were laid down millions of years ago, of course its old!  No piece of the world was owned by anybody back then. The people that first acquired tremendous wealth and power from these resources consider themselves to be the Old Money class, it sets them apart from the likes of “New Money” Bezos and Zuckerberg…all very exclusive, and typically snobbish. Old habits die hard.

What makes it “Old Money” in my mind is the method by which it was obtained by the first Kings and Queens. Theft and War, Exploitation and Death, and it’s the same today as it was 500 years ago, that’s why its “Old Money”

Democracy? Are you quite mad?

Billionaires cannot exist, let alone thrive, in a democracy, the two are incompatible.  We have a collection of parasitic dinosaur dynasties sucking up the world’s money supply, that represent a tiny fraction of the world population.

If I am generous and say that there may be as many as 5 million of the very richest people on earth running the planet, at the time of writing this represents 0.063% of the world population. (World Population taken as 7,889,451,509 when I wrote this) Only a tiny fraction of this 5 million will ever have been elected to any kind of office. . In the main they are descendants of “Old Money”, the Royals and the ever acquisitive families like the Rockefellers and Du Ponts of the world, owners of banks, corporations, and industries world-wide. There is no connection between these people and Democracy, they hate it, and they hate us too…until they have a dirty job for us to do of course.

Is the CFR really so undemocratic?

The Pew Research Center in association with the CFR Council were involved in some opinion polling in November of 2013.

The combined team sent a set of questions online to all CFR members.

Almost 40 percent of the Council members, a total of 1,838, responded.

At the same time, they conducted a series of telephone interviews using the same questions with 2,003 people representing a sample of the American public.

In the areas where the results from the public and the CFR were most at odds with each other we find: –

Regarding the priority that should be given in foreign policy to protecting the jobs of American workers.

81% of the public group wanted US Job protection this to be foreign policy “top priority,” whereas only 29% of the Council members did (In a 1997 poll this number was only 16%.)

73% percent of Council members believed it was mostly helpful when U.S. companies set up operations overseas, whereas only 23 percent of the general public agreed.

On trade issues, 93% of Council members felt “free trade” agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership were good things. They also overwhelmingly believed that National Security Agency surveillance and drone attacks on other nations made the United States safer.

The public at large had a much lower positive response on these two issues.

At the membership level, the Council predominately represents the views of the higher levels of the class structure, those who are part of, or allied with, the capitalist class, in contrast to the needs and perspectives of whose who depend upon wages for economic survival.

The most obvious lesson here is the total avoidance of democratic process.

We also be stupid not to understand the Global stance of the CFR. National interests are not their concern at all…Unless of course they are whipping up the media to get us to go fight somebody for them, in which case everyone suddenly gets noisy and patriotic and starts waving Flags all over the place.

All The Presidents Men?

Well nearly all.

The Carter Administration, 1977–1981

All twelve of Carters top foreign policymakers were CFR members at some time in their careers. This included such functions as

Sec of State (2), Nat Security Advisor, Sec of Treasury, (2), Sec of Defence, World Bank chief, UN Ambassadors (2).

Carter himself joined the CFR after his time in Office. That must have been some debriefing, I Wouldn’t have minded being a fly on the wall at that one

The Reagan Administration, 1981–1989

Reagan himself was never a CFR member, but fourteen of his nineteen top foreign policy officials were Council members.

Vice President, Sec of state (2), During his eight years Reagan had a total of six national security advisers.

Two were Colin L. Powell and Frank C. Carlucci, (CFR),  Three others, Richard V. Allen, William P. Clark Jr., and Robert C. McFarlane, became CFR members later. Sec’s of the Treasury, (2), CIA Directors (2) UN Ambassadors (2).

 The Bush v1 Administration, 1989–1993

George H. W. Bush had been a CFR member and director prior to becoming vice president under Reagan.

Ten of eleven top foreign policymakers were Council members and four also had been CFR directors. Sec of State (2), Nat Sec Advisor, UN Ambassadors (2).Sec of Treasury, Sec of Defence, World Bank chief, CIA Director.

 The Clinton Administration, 1993–2001

Fifteen of Clinton’s top seventeen foreign policy officials were in the CFR and five had also been or were soon to be directors.

Clinton was a CFR member before he became president.

Sec of state, (2) Nat Sec Advisers, (2), Sec of treasury, (3) Sec of Defense, (3) CIA Directors (3), World Bank president, UN ambassadors (3)

The Bush v2 Administration, 2001–2009

George W. Bush was never a member of the CFR, and I can quite imagine why after reading a very funny book compiled from the daftest of the sayings attributed to him.

Worth noting that fourteen of the seventeen top foreign policy officials he appointed were or had once been Council members, and three would soon became directors.

VP, Sec of State,(2), Nat Sec Adviser, Sec of treasury, Henry M. Paulson ?? (They can certainly pick ‘em) Secretaries  of defence,(2),  CIA Directors (2),  World Bank Directors (2), UN ambassadors, (3 out of 4)

The Obama Administration, 2009–2017

Obama has never been a member of the CFR, and his vice president, Joseph R. Biden, was only briefly a member in the late 1980s. (See separate section below on the Biden Administration)

Nat Sec advisers, (3),  Susan E. Rice, who also served as Obama’s first UN representative, has been active in the organization for years. She was a term member by 1994, a regular member by 1996, and a speaker at CFR meetings by 1998. Although Obama’s first Sec of State Hillary Clinton, was not a member, her husband, Bill, had been a member for more than twenty years, and their daughter Chelsea had become a member by 2013.

Obama’s second secretary of state, John Kerry, joined the CFR in early 1990’s. Kerry married for the second time to near billionaire Teresa Heinz ( Heinz food ), in 1995, the same year she was elected to CFR. Secretaries of Treasury (2), Secretaries of defense, (3 out of 4) CIA directors, (2) World Bank Director (1)

The Trump Maladministration 2017 – 2021

With the evidence of the last 6 administrations staring us in the face can anyone seriously argue that Trump was just a glitch on the radar?  In my mind there can be no possible doubt that the Trump government was just as much a product of the CFR as all the rest of them…or are we to believe that after 83 years of controlling both the US, and most of the Global North, those “Distinguished Fellows” of the CFR decided to take a break for a few years?

                           The Biden Administration 2021 –

Just in case you thought that Bidens team was going to be any different…….He seems to have adopted the CFR plan of the last 45 years. It is said that many of this CFR team were selected before the results of the election were even known , How Democratic is that?

The CFR Group on the Biden Team

• Kamala Harris, Vice President (CFR through family; Harvard; DLA Piper; Uber through family)
• Antony Blinken, Secretary of State (CFR member; Harvard and Columbia; West Exec)
• Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury (CFR member; Yale and Harvard; Brookings)
• Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense (CFR member; West Exec; Raytheon)
• Linda Thomas-Greenfield, UN Ambassador (CFR member; Albright Stonebridge)
• Cecilia Rouse, Council of Economic Advisors (CFR director; Princeton; Rowe Price)
• Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security (CFR member; Wilmer Hale)
• Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor (CFR author; Yale and Oxford; Carnegie)
• Ron Klain, Chief of Staff (CFR through family; Harvard; O’Melveny and Meyers)
• John Kerry, Special Envoy for Climate (CFR member; Yale)
• Susan Rice, Chief of Domestic Council (CFR member; Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford)
• William J. Burns, Director of Central Intelligence (CFR member; Oxford; Carnegie)
• Kurt M. Campbell, Indo-Pacific Tsar (CFR member; Harvard and Oxford; Asia Group)
• Thomas Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture (CFR member; Dairy Export Council)
• Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce (CFR member; Oxford; Point Judith Capital)
• Eric S. Lander, Director of Office of Science and Technology (CFR member; Harvard)
• Jeffery Zients, Counselor to the President (CFR member; Cranemere)

Other Connections on the Biden Team

• Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence (Chicago; Carnegie; WestExec)
• Katherine Tai, Trade Representative (Harvard and Yale; Miller & Chevalier)
• Deb Haaland, Secretary of Interior (University of New Mexico)
• Merrick Garland, Attorney General (Harvard; Arnold & Porter)
• Marty Walsh, Secretary of Labor (building trades unions)
• Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and Human Services (Stanford)
• Marcia Fudge, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (Ohio State University)
• Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Transport (Harvard and Oxford; Cohen Group; McKinsey)
• Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Energy (Harvard; several corporations)
• Miguel Cardona, Secretary of Education (University of Connecticut)
• Denis McDonough, Secretary of Veterans Affairs (Macro Advisers)
• Neera Tanden, Office of Management and Budget (Yale; Center for American Progress)
• Michael S. Regan, Environmental Protection Agency (Environ. Defense Fund).

CFR in Government – A summary

There you have it, 44 years of American administration infiltrated by hundreds of CFR members delivering the CFR agenda.

They are quite clear about it by their own statement above , remember “For much of this century, U.S. foreign policy was made by several hundred leading politicians and figures dedicated to public service blah blah”from earlier above?

If you take a step back to consider what the United States has actually been doing during the last 76 years following WW2, think of the death and destruction all over the world. US led bombings, assassinations, killings, drone strikes and regime changes almost weekly.

Well now you know where it all came from, after all they dont call it the Council on Foreign Relations for no reason, and the reason was simply world domination.

Statistics taken from CFR’s own sources, (Annual Reports 1998/2011)

• Snapshot 1998, from the Annual Report that year that states its members “include nearly all current and former senior U.S. government officials who deal with international matters.”
• Snapshot – July 1, 2011. at which time the privately owned and run CFR had 529 of its members serving in Federal Government.
• Across the board, 77 out of 96 (80.2%) top federal government policymakers on foreign policy during these years were CFR members at some point in their careers.

If it is all so undemocratic how come the public just swallows it?

Maybe this chart will help and note the crossovers with the Bilderberg and Trilateral groups, for they all share the same basic Upper Class philosophy, the same economic beliefs and strangely enough…the same murderous people

To put it bluntly, they control the media in the English-speaking world and a great deal of it across Europe and the rest of the planet.

To answer the question posed by the heading above-

The public swallows this lack of Democracy simply because it hasn’t a clue what is going on.

Its not for no reason that the doings of the CFR, TC and BB Group are held in secrecy and opacity

This is not just about influence in Government, it is very much bigger than that!

The influence and control reaches way beyond the reach of CFR headquarters. They run a massive global scheme of funding and education for their members at home and abroad and publish a global magazine called Foreign Affairs as well as an up to the minute website at CFR.Org.

Its worth a visit, especially when you realise that a lot of the guff on the homepage is about global conflicts and issues that the CFR actually created over the last half century.

Some of the other ways that they link into the world of money, prestige and power include:-

1          The Bilderberg Group

The Bilderbergers were formed by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands in 1954 after he was lobbied by a Joseph Retinger, described by David Rockefeller as being “from Polish aristocratic heritage”. The aim was to “promote cooperation among the Atlantic community”.

Prince Bernhard was also from noble stock in East Prussia(Germany at the time) but his marriage to Princess Juliana of the Netherlands required that he became loyal to his queenly mother-in-law, Queen Wilhelmina, before his country of birth. Bernhard was head of the Bilderbergers from 1954 to 1976 and throughout that period, presided over a largely aristocratic membership with strong ties to Banking and corporate industrial bodies throughout Europe and the US. In one of the earliest line ups of the group 3 UK peers of the realm could be found seated around the table.

Alec, the 14th Earl of Home, Conservative leader of the House of Lords, the heir to extensive family estates in the English countryside. The second was Baron Eric Roll of Ipsden, a banker who became director of the Bank of England. The third was Peter, the sixth Baron of Carrington, also known as Baron Carrington of Upton, a Conservative Party politician, who became Defense Secretary in 1970, chair of the Conservative Party in 1972, Foreign Secretary in 1979, and Secretary-General of NATO in 1984.

Unfortunately, Prince Bernhard was involved in a Bribery scandal in 1976 and had to step down from Bilderberg, but by then, the rot had set in and much of the worlds democracy had already become infected.

The key interest in this piece is that of the 52 US citizens who participated in the leadership roles of the Bilderberg group, no less than 48 of them (92%) had been members of the CFR – this included 13 who had been Directors of it.

As Dr Shoup states in his book: –

“Clearly, the Bilderberg Group, organized by some of the leading nobles of Europe, together with their multinational corporate allies, consider the CFR to be the U.S. organization to be in consultation with, when discussing and attempting to develop mutual understanding and consensus on what they consider the key issues of the future.”

2          The Trilateral Commission

In 1972 CFR leaders David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski attended Bilderberg in Belgium. They wished to enlist Japan into the group as it emerged to be a major force in global economic power. They were, in Rockefeller’s words, told “politely but firmly told no.”

Not to be outdone, Rockefeller and Brzezinski simply set up another group to complete the US – European – Japanese love triangle and the Trilateral Commission was borne that same summer, (1972) with Mr Brzezinski presiding. There seemed to be a trend developing for setting up new private, invitation-only, international agenda-setting and policy-planning organizations, by the worlds elite, all seasoned with the salt of global powerplay politics, but without the annoying pepper of Democracy being involved.

Yes there were some differences between these entities, but the core business of making sure that it was “Business as Usual” for the Monopolists, Aristocrats and Super Rich of the world while quite literally the rest of the planets population just had to do as they were jolly well told.

Free market economy applied, even though no such thing exists in reality, and Governments had to be “Small and Agile”. This according to a report published in 1974 by Samuel Huntington entitled “The Crisis of Democracy” in which he had written the US section.

Dr Shoup, in Wall Street’s Think Tank, characterises this contribution like so :-

“U.S. citizens were at fault for taking democracy seriously and that there was an ongoing problem of an “excess of democracy,” a “democratic distemper” in the United States. This, he believed, had been caused by an “internal democratic surge” during the 1960s, and the solution was a “greater degree of moderation in democracy” in order to, among other things, reduce government expenditures as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, thus weakening government so that private capitalism could play a larger role.”

Sadly, the world is full of people that never read this report, it got side-lined after those closest to it realised that by “Weakening Government “you are directly weakening democracy, after all what else is there for Democracy to do but elect Governments? Naturally a properly effective Media would have made sure that this shady conspiracy reached the publics attention…but they were all in on it too.

3          The World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum (WEF), held every year in Davos, Switzerland, with regional meetings all over the planet and yet another “Independent global capitalist-class organization of corporate, political, intellectual, and civil society leaders.”. It was started in 1971 and is centred around Mr Klaus Schwab and is apparently all about his philosophy, which on the surface of it sounds all very laudable.

“Corporations must respond to and serve not just the shareholders, creditors, and top managers of a given firm, but also employees, customers,suppliers, the state, and society at large.”

The problem is that today’s corporations don’t follow those  rules, for them now, the ONLY people to whom they must answer is the shareholder and the devil take the hindmost. A large number of WEF members or their top leaders have been involved in illegal and unethical activities like mortgage fraud, fixing LIBOR rates, insider stock trading, bribery, municipal bond fraud, and environmental crimes.

From Dr Shoup again: –

“Even under a lax regulatory and enforcement regime, they have been forced to pay tens of billions of dollars in fines. It is thus obvious that as a group they can hardly be said to be following the core “stakeholder” responsibility ethic that the WEF is supposedly promoting. The attempt by the WEF to prettify capitalism and imperialism so as to appear humane and legitimate has clearly failed, because this system, by its very nature, is inhumane and cruelly destructive of the very things the WEF presumably is trying to uphold”

I have nothing to argue with  there Dr Shoup. The WEF is a total fake, illustrated nicely by events that took place when Klaus Schwab had been tipped off in 2007 about an impending financial crash.

What did he do? Bang the drum, wake the world up to this impending disaster?

No, dont be silly!

He just shifted all of the WEF Investment monies into Swiss Government Bonds(Probably any personal money he had too) and dodged his way out of the 2008 crisis. Integrity seems to be in short supply in Davos, as it is anywhere these days in Corporation Street.

The Great Reset Mr Schwab? Yes please.

Can we start by resetting you?

This is a short clip of Schwab clearly very proud of himself for “penetrating ” a few sovereign governments to insert into them their senior politicians/ministers whom the unelected WEF has “Chosen” for us to be World Leaders.

Zis is not Democracy in any shape or form

FROM HERE THE MATERIAL WAS ADDED LATER ON THE 10TH SEPTEMBER

4          G30 The Group of 30

Yet another Private, non-profit international body born in Washington, 1978 and set up by British economist and former chairman of one of London’s most prestigious private banks, Guinness Mahon Holdings’. He was invited to do so by reps from the Rockefeller Foundation, an entity we see throughout this piece, with David Rockefeller involved in almost everything we have discussed in this report.

The G30 is all about money and its members past and present are threaded with Presidents and Chairmen of the likes of Goldman Sachs, the Federal reserve and the IMF. They meet twice a year organising study and publishing Policy Papers and I doubt very much that they publish the papers simply for the hell of it. It’s a pretty safe bet that all of this effort has a profound effect on global economics and finances to which the public are neither invited or consulted.

5          The International Crisis Group

Surprise!. Yet another non-profit international body, this time based in Brussels and founded in 1995.

Predominantly populated by US members and drawing on representatives from various NATO countries. A 2012 snapshot in shows 45 trustees, with 14 from the US, all nicely weighted with 11 of the 14 being members of the CFR. Names such as George Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Carla Hills pepper this lists of members and advisors.

The function of the ICG is sold to us as an independent, non-partisan outfit dedicated to preventing and resolving deadly conflicts around the world.

On a purely personal level, judging by the number of “Deadly Conflicts” that the US has been engaged in during my 70+ years the ICG are not very good at delivering their aims and objectives.

Once again we cite from the book –

The ICG’s funding helps explain its practice of ignoring some deadly conflicts. Over 50 percent of its $20 million annual budget comes from governments, mostly NATO members; about 25 percent from big foundations like Ford, Gates, Carnegie, Hewlett, Merck, Mott, and Open Society (which is mainly funded by George Soros); and the rest from corporations, such as Chevron, BHP Billiton, and Royal Bank of Scotland, and capitalist-class notables like Soros.

Wall Street’s Think Tank pp115  Laurence A Shoup 

6      The International Advisory board of the CFR (Now the Global Board of Advisors)

David Rockefeller founded this board in 1995. He was its chairman, and the board ran until 2009 when no further mentions of it were made. In 2012 the CFR gave birth to the IAB v2, known as the Global Board of Advisors.

This entire section has already been carefully pared down in Laurence Shoup’s book, because it covers such a lot of ground it needs a book of its own. By paring it down even more I will not do it justice, so I will merely list the key nations which the GBA seems to have focused on with a smattering of the kind of people we could expect to see in place.

Britain.                 Baron Peter Carrington and Baron John Browne

Germany             Count Otto Lambsdorff and Gerhard Cromme

Russia                   Vladimir Potanin and Mikhail Fridman

France                  Christophe de Margerie and Michel Rocard

Italy                       Giovanni Agnelli and Paolo Scaroni

Sweden                Percy Barevik and Jacob Wallenberg

Spain                     Juan March Delgado and Javier Solana de Madariaga

India                      Mukesh D. Ambani and Anand Mahindra

China                     Zhang Xin and C. H. Tung

Japan                    Yorihiko Kojima and Toyoo Gyohten

Saudi Arabia       Lubna Sulaiman Al Olayan and Khalid Ali Alturki(No Wiki or EN Links)

Israel                     Jacob A. Frenkel and Idan Ofer

Nigeria                  Obusegun Obasanjo and Hakeem Belo-Osagie

Mexico                 Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon and Jose Antonio Fernandez Carbajal

Canada                 Paul Desmarais Jr and Brian Mulroney

And to round up couple of true “Internationals” Peter D Sutherland and Kofi Annan.

I have deliberately used Wikipedia for the links to get uniformity and verifiable information in most part. There were a few that got round me on that one so I tried the next best things that were available in the English language. There was no attempt to add or remove emphasis in any way whatsoever

Bearing in mind that all these names are for people we know were engaged in either the IAB or the GBA limbs of the Council of Foreign relations, just a fleeting scan of the wiki pages will show lots of shared key characteristics that are in ADDITION to that involvement

Harvard University, Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, Goldman Sachs to name but a few.

Another distinction is the obvious highly-capitalist nature of the vast majority, which combines with a healthy number that were either borne into the aristocracy, or at least borne into very well-off families. Only one sprang out as having very humble beginnings. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the elites looking out for the elites, nobody else.

A few had also held public office, and may well have been elected, though at least one dictator appears here, but none of the work done in the context of this report bears any relationship with Democracy

MORE TO COME SHORTLY ON THE SCOPE OF THE CFR IN WIDER US SOCIETY

Another great site by the Dangerous Globe