Trilateral Commission

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateral_Commission

Trilateral Commission

The Trilateral Commission is a private organization, established to foster closer cooperation among the United States, Europe and Japan. It was founded in July 1973 at the initiative of David Rockefeller, who was Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations at that time. The Trilateral Commission is widely seen as an off-shoot of the Council on Foreign Relations.[1]

Established

Speaking at the Chase Manhattan International Financial Forums in London, Brussels, Montreal, and Paris, Rockefeller proposed the creation of an International Commission of Peace and Prosperity in early 1972 (which would later become the Trilateral Commission). At the 1972 Bilderberg meeting, the idea was widely accepted, but elsewhere, it got a cold reception. According to Rockefeller, the organization could "be of help to government by providing measured judgment."

Zbigniew Brzezinski,[2] a professor at Columbia University and a Rockefeller advisor who was a specialist on international affairs, left his post to organize the group along with:

Other founding members included Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker, both eventually heads of the Federal Reserve system.

Funding for the group came from David Rockefeller, the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.

Activity history

In July 1972, Rockefeller called his first meeting, which was held at Rockefeller's Pocantico compound in New York's Hudson Valley. It was attended by about 250 individuals who were carefully selected and screened by Rockefeller and represented the very elite of finance and industry.

Its first executive committee meeting was held in Tokyo in October 1973. The Trilateral Commission was officially initiated, holding biannual meetings.

A Trilateral Commission Task Force Report, presented at the 1975 meeting in Kyoto, Japan, called An Outline for Remaking World Trade and Finance, said: "Close Trilateral cooperation in keeping the peace, in managing the world economy, and in fostering economic development and in alleviating world poverty, will improve the chances of a smooth and peaceful evolution of the global system." Another Commission document read:

"The overriding goal is to make the world safe for interdependence by protecting the benefits which it provides for each country against external and internal threats which will constantly emerge from those willing to pay a price for more national autonomy. This may sometimes require slowing the pace at which interdependence proceeds, and checking some aspects of it. More frequently however, it will call for checking the intrusion of national government into the international exchange of both economic and non-economic goods."

In May 1976, the first plenary meeting of all of the Commission's regional groups took place in Kyoto, attended by Jimmy Carter.[3] Today it consists of approximately 300–350 private citizens from Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and North America, and exists to promote closer political and economic cooperation between these areas, which are the primary industrial regions in the world.[3] Its official journal from its founding is a magazine called Trialogue.

Membership is divided into numbers proportionate to each of its three regional areas. These members include corporate CEOs, politicians of all major parties, distinguished academics, university presidents, labor union leaders and not-for-profits involved in overseas philanthropy. Members who gain a position in their respective country's government must resign from the Commission. The North American continent is represented by 107 members (15 Canadian, seven Mexican and 85 U.S. citizens). The European group has reached its limit of 150 members, including citizens from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom.[citation needed]

At first, Asia and Oceania were represented only by Japan. However, in 2000 the Japanese group of 85 members expanded itself, becoming the Pacific Asia group, composed of 117 members: 75 Japanese, 11 South Koreans, seven Australian and New Zealand citizens, and 15 members from the ASEAN nations (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand). The Pacific Asia group also includes nine members from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

US Administration ties

In his book Radical Priorities, Noam Chomsky says:

Perhaps the most striking feature of the new Administration is the role played in it by the Trilateral Commission. The mass media had little to say about this matter during the Presidential campaign – in fact, the connection of the Carter group to the Commission was recently selected as "the best censored news story of 1976" – and it has not received the attention that it might have since the Administration took office. All of the top positions in the government – the office of President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, Defense and Treasury – are held by members of the Trilateral Commission, and the National Security Advisor was its director. Many lesser officials also came from this group. It is rare for such an easily identified private group to play such a prominent role in an American Administration.
—"The Carter Administration: Myth and Reality," Excerpted from Radical Priorities, Noam Chomsky (1981)[4]
Criticisms

The John Birch Society believes that the Trilateral Commission is dedicated to the formation of one world government (which they consider would be a negative outcome).[5] Conservative Democratic congressman from Georgia and second head of the John Birch Society, Larry McDonald, introduced American Legion National Convention Resolution 773 to the House of Representatives calling for a congressional investigation into the Trilateral Commission.

Certain critics, such as Alex Jones, an American paleoconservative of "The Obama Deception" documentary, claim the "Commission constitutes a conspiracy seeking to gain control of the U.S. Government to create a new world order." Mike Thompson, Chairman of the Florida Conservative Union, said: "It puts emphasis on interdependence, which is a nice euphemism for one-world government."

Senator Barry Goldwater wrote in his book With No Apologies: "In my view, the Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power: political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical. All this is to be done in the interest of creating a more peaceful, more productive world community. What the Trilateralists truly intend is the creation of a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved. They believe the abundant materialism they propose to create will overwhelm existing differences. As managers and creators of the system they will rule the future."

In his 2008 book "Making Government Work," former South Carolina Senator Ernest Hollings cited the Trilateral Commission as a negative influence on President Carter in his pro free trade and U.S. textile policies.

Membership

Trilateral Commission bylaws exclude persons holding public office from membership. [3]

"Several of whom had been involved with the Trilateral Commission, but then that's almost everybody at one time or another."[6] This comment was made during an exit interview by the White House Adviser on Domestic and Foreign Policy, Hedley Donovan, under President Jimmy Carter, in reference to when he was gathering a group of foreign policy figures to convene during the Soviet brigade in Cuba. [4] [5] Although initially opposed to Trilateral, “President Reagan ultimately came to understand Trilateral’s value and invited the entire membership to a reception at the White House in April 1984”, noted David Rockefeller in his memoirs.[7]

  Lots more where that came from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateral_Commission

Further reading
  • Brzezinski, Zbigniew (October 1970). "America and Europe". Foreign Affairs 49 (1): 11–30. doi:10.2307/20037815.  (Includes Brzezinski's proposal for the establishment of a body like the Trilateral Commission.)
  • Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1970). Between two ages; America's role in the technetronic era. New York: Viking Press. OCLC 88066. 
  • Crozier, Michel; Huntington, Samuel; Watanuki, Joji (1975). The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0814713653. 
  • Geuens, Geoffrey (15 March 2003) (in French). Tous pouvoirs confondus : État, capital et médias à l'ère de la mondialisation. EPO. ISBN 2-87262-193-8. 
  • Gill, Stephen (1991). American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission. Cambridge Studies in International Relations. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-42433-X. OCLC 246854587. 
  • Rockefeller, David (2002). Memoirs. New York: Random House.  (Contains a brief history of the Commission's founding, composition of members and overall influence.)
  • Ross, Robert Gaylon (2000). Who's who of the elite: members of the Bilderbergs, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, and Skull & Bones Society (2nd revision ed.). San Marcos, TX: RIE. ISBN 0-9649888-0-1. OCLC 176877863. 
  • Sklar, Holly (November 1, 1980). Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management. South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-103-6. 
  • Wilkerson, Bill (1980). The Rockefeller triangle: A country editor's documented report on the Trilateral Commission plan for world government. Idalou Beacon. OCLC 7273912. 
External links

04.13.2011. 11:12

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