Joseph...
This extremely powerful group is known as the
Trilateral Commission.
1) Do they exist?
and
3) Does this "Commission" still operate (in whatever
configuration or by whatever title)?
Yes, and yes.
Here's their homepage:
http://trilateral.org:9999/
Their self-description:
"The Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973
by private citizens of Japan, Europe (European
Union countries), and North America (United
States and Canada) to foster closer cooperation
among these core democratic industrialized
areas of the world with shared leadership
responsibilities in the wider international
system. Originally established for three years,
our work has been renewed for successive
triennia (three-year periods), most recently
for a triennium to be completed in 2003."
http://trilateral.org:9999/about.htm
2) What was the extent of their influence?
As indicated by voila-ga, the Commission was
closely tied to the Bilderberg Group, as noted
on this page, titled "Trilateral Commission:
World Shadow Government" which states:
"Rockefeller [David] first introduced the idea
of the commission at an annual meeting of the
Bilderberg group, this one held in Knokke,
Belgium in the spring of 1972. (The Bilderberg
group is similar to the Trilateral Commission
in that it is funded and heavily influenced by
the Rockefeller empire, and composed of
international financiers, industrialists, media
magnates, union bosses, academics and political
figures. However, the much older Bilderberg
group's membership is strictly limited to
participants from the United States, Canada and
Western Europe: i.e. the NATO alliance.)"
"A succinct summary of the commission's intent has
been outlined by Holly Sklar who has conducted
extensive research into the history and background
of the Trilateral Commission in her book,
'Trilateralism: the Trilateral Commission and
Elite Planning for World Management'":
RULING CLASSES UNITE
"The Commission's purpose is to engineer an enduring
partnership among the ruling classes of North America,
Western Europe and Japan -- hence the term 'Trilateral'
-- in order to safeguard the interests of Western
capitalism in an explosive world. The private
commission is attempting to mold public policy and
construct a framework for international stability in
the coming decades."
"To put it simply, Trilateralists are saying: The people,
governments and economies of all nations must serve the
needs of multinational banks and corporations."
"In short, Trilateralism is the current attempt by ruling
elites to manage both dependence and democracy -- at home
and abroad."
"Another Trilateral critic, now-retired Sen. Barry
Goldwater (R-Ariz.), views the commission as a
Rockefeller family operation through and through.
According to Goldwater:
"The Trilateral organization created by David
Rockefeller was a surrogate -- the members selected
by Rockefeller, its purposes defined by Rockefeiler,
its funding supplied by Rockefeller. David Rockefeller
screened and selected every individual who was invited
to participate."
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/8425/TRI-1SPT.HTM
and,
"The Trilateral Commission empirically exerted influence
on the World Bank and the IMF in order to advance the
Trilateralist ideology of capitalist managed
interdependence and cooperation. In fact, the first
Triangle Paper (The reports of the Trilateral Commission),
entitled 'Towards a Renovated World Monetary System' was
dedicated to the revision of the IMF as it was chartered
in the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement, after the post-war
monetary system formally broke down in August 1971, when
the United States declared that the U.S. dollar was no
longer convertible into gold or indeed any other reserve
asset."
...from 'Abstracy on the Trilateral Commission' on the
Freedom Doamain website:
http://www.freedomdomain.com/neworder/trilateral01.html
No doubt you're familiar with the concept of 'multinational
corporations' whose global footprints fall outside the
governmental control of any single nation. There are those
who fear, with good reason, that such corporations are
so influential (in that economies of entire countries are
dependent, to a great extent, upon accommodating the
individual and collective interests of these giants), that
these corporations may influence governmental policies
more easily than democratic processes or even the wishes
of autocratic government leaders.
An excellent example of this was the topic of one of
Bill Moyers' NOW series, on PBS, regarding the use of
NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, by
multinational corporations, to paralyze the democratic
process. The corporations, and their lawyers, are using
some obscure content in the NAFTA agreement, known as
chapter 11, to sue governments, sometimes at the state
level, for the equivalent of 'breach of contract' should
they, for example, try to opt out of a contract to purchase
chemicals for water treatment which they have discovered,
upon use, to be carcinogenic, or cancer-producing. These
corporations have succeeded, under the law, in enforcing
that the states continue to buy the product or pay damages
to the company equivalent to what the company would lose
if the contract was cancelled. This kind of maneuvering
threatens to bankrupt state governments. The show was
called 'Trading Democracy':
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/tradingdemocracy.html
The Trilateral Commission seems to be aligned with the
interests of multinational corporations, and the expanding
influence of such wealth-oriented organizations, and the
individuals behind them. Hence the use of terms such as
'World Shadow Government', as noted above, to describe
them.
Please do not rate this answer until you are satisfied that
the answer cannot be improved upon by means of a dialog with
the researcher through the "Request for Clarification" process.
sublime1-ga
Searches done, via Google:
"trilateral commision"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22trilateral+commision%22
"trilateral commission" influence
://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=%22trilateral+commission%22+influence
"Bill moyers" now
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22Bill+moyers%22+now
Search for "trade agreement" on PBS.org:
http://www.pbs.org/now/search_google.html?q=trade+agreement |
Clarification of Answer by
sublime1-ga
on
28 Dec 2002 23:18 PST
Joseph...
I'd like to correct an error in my information.
I said:
"The corporations, and their lawyers, are using
some obscure content in the NAFTA agreement, known as
chapter 11, to sue governments, sometimes at the state
level, for the equivalent of 'breach of contract' should
they, for example, try to opt out of a contract to purchase
chemicals for water treatment which they have discovered,
upon use, to be carcinogenic, or cancer-producing."
This was from my memory of having seen the NOW presentation
by Bill Moyers. The actual facts, while essentially the same,
are that:
"The California case in point began with a chemical — MTBE —
that was added to gasoline to help the state clean up its
air. But MTBE was found to cause cancer in laboratory
animals. And in 1995, it began to show up in drinking water."
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/tradingdemocracy.html
So, the chemicals being purchased were gasoline additives,
which later showed up in the water supply. My mistake.
And something else I should have emphasized:
"An important feature of the Chapter 11 arbitral provisions
is the enforceability in domestic courts of final awards
by arbitration tribunals."
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/tradingdemocracy2.html
Which translates to:
"...corporations have stretched NAFTA's Chapter 11 to
undermine environmental decisions — the decisions of
local communities — even the verdict of an American
jury. The cases brought so far total almost four
billion dollars."
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/tradingdemocracy.html
In other words, the decisions of these small, secret
tribunals cannot be overturned by the democratic process
or the normal recourse of appealing to a higher court
of law. Very scary, indeed.
sublime1-ga
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