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I think we need a new section that focuses on the agenda of the Bildeberger group, which has evolved over the years since its foundation. This would greatly help demystify what they are up to. For example, most right-wing conspiracy theorists (who are convinced Bildebergers are crypt-communists) are ignorant of the fact that the May 1956 Bilderberg meeting devoted itself to the causes of the growth of anti-Western blocs, particularly in the United Nations, and countering the Communist campaign for political subversion and control of the newly anticipated countries of Asia. --Loremaster (talk) 22:25, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The second edition of McConnachie's book Rough Guide To Conspiracy Theories seems to have dropped references to reptilians and refers to the more sober interpretation of the conspiracies involving the Bilderberg Group Lung salad (talk) 23:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We would not be discussing Bilderberg conspiracy theories in the Agenda section but what mainstream scholars and journalists like Holly Sklar think the actual agenda is based on their study of the group. --Loremaster (talk) 00:06, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with that Lung salad (talk) 00:12, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an interesting quote Peter Thompson's essay The Bilderberg and the West:

Bilderberg itself is not an executive agency. However, when Bilderberg participants reach a form of consensus about what is to be done, they have at their disposal powerful transnational and national instruments for bringing about what it is they want to come to pass. That their consensus design is not always achieved is a reflection of the strength of competing resisting forces-outside the ruling capitalist class and within it. Bilderberg is not the only means of Western collective management of the world order; it is part of an increasingly dense system of transnational coordination. The foreign policies of nation-states, particularly economic and monetary policies, have always been a highly elitist matter. Policy options are proposed, reviewed, and executed within the context of a broad bipartisan consensus that is painstakingly managed by very small circles of public and private elites. Democratic interference in foreign policy is avoided, in so far as possible, throughout the Western capitalist democracies. Where necessary, a consensus is engineered on issues which must get congressional/parliamentary approval, but wherever possible executive agreements between governments are used to avoid the democratic process altogether.

How do we best intergrate it? --Loremaster (talk) 22:41, 2 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The lead is also over-long. We can cut the part: 'to better promote Atlantic free-market capitalism and its interests around the globe'. - Crosbie 19:21, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree on both counts: 1) The current version of the lead is a conscise yet comprehensive summary of the article; and 2) in light of all the mystery surrounding the Bilderberg group which feeds conspiracy theories, this line helps demystify what the group is about. --Loremaster (talk) 20:07, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does explain how it actually has a purpose, unlike the $14b third-world talking shop. Nevard (talk) 22:57, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Although it is sourced, I've removed the term “free-market” to make the sentence slightly shorter. --Loremaster (talk) 05:45, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Crosbie, since I'm opposed to your removing that (arguably important) sentence from the lead, please seek consensus before deleting it again to avoid a needless edit war... --Loremaster (talk) 17:49, 2 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've replaced the contested sentence entirely with one based on content from Peter Thompson’s essay "Bilderberg and the West". --Loremaster (talk) 22:12, 2 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Crosbie, in light of a dispute, it would be appreciated if you discussed changes to the lead on this talk page to seek a consensus before making them in order to avoid a needless edit war. That being said, I don't understand why you feel so strongly that the current version of the lead section is “over-long”, when it doesn't violate the guidelines in Wikipedia's manual of style concerning lead sections. Furthermore, in light of your bias, one would think you would appreciate current the last sentence of the lead section since it counters conspiracy theories and explains exactly what the Bilderberg group does in the least controversial manner. --Loremaster (talk) 18:59, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The lead now leans heavily on the opinion of one Peter Thompson. It's not obvious that he is in fact a critic of Bilderberg conspiracy theories. - Crosbie 18:03, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Although it's not obvious, I would argue that he is. Thompson wrote: "There is certainly room for disagreement about the role of the Bilderberg meetings in the flow of events since its founding in 1954. In my view, Bilderberg is neither a world super-government; nor is it merely a club where incidental shoptalk takes place, as some portray it." We all know that it is conspiracy theorists who portray the Bilderberg group as a “world super-government”. That being said, I will simply replace the expression “Critic of Bilderberg conspiracy theories” with “Scholars”. Do you approve of this change and does it resolve this dispute? --Loremaster (talk) 18:18, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say I feel uneasy about using stuff 3 decades old in this way. Dougweller (talk) 18:22, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unless current scholarship contradicts claims made by older scholarship that's not a problem. --Loremaster (talk) 18:25, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The bottom line is we know nothing at all about Peter Thompson except that he identified with something called the 'London Collective' at some time during or before 1980. That's it. We know nothing else about him. - Crosbie 20:28, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, we have this 2005 quote from Etienne Davignon talking to the BBC, saying "What can come out of our meetings is that it is wrong not to try to deal with a problem. But a real consensus, an action plan containing points 1, 2 and 3? The answer is no. People are much too sensible to believe they can do that" [1] So despite the meeting chairman in 2005 explicitly denying that Bilderberg is about concensus, we lead with the 1980 view of one Peter Thompson of the 'London Collective' that Bilderberg is about reaching consensus. Total undue weight. - Crosbie 20:50, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do not believe we are required to know much about Thompson, can you reference a policy or guideline? I have added some material from the Moorehead article to balance things a bit, but I also suggest that we consider taking the second paragraph in the lede and create of it a section, perhaps "Purpose", directly below the lede. Then we can expand that as we find sources. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:25, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Putting aside that I don't understand Crosbie's obsession with constantly scrutizing every sentence of this article to find something to complain about, his argument is absurd. Just because the leader of a group says something about the group doesn't mean that it's true nor does it mean that we should not report what critics (whether they be notable mainstream scholars/journalists or notable paranoid conspiracy theorists) say about the group. According to his logic, just because a Ku Klux Klan leader claims that there has never been and there is no discussion of engaging in acts of intimidation or violence against blacks and Jews at any KKK meeting, we should not report allegations by critics that they do.

Regarding the date of a criticism, virtually nothing has changed in the way the Bilderberg group operates or the way it is viewed by critics since 1980 or 1977 or 1954 so the criticism is still valid.

Regarding Thompson, Nuujinn is right. We are not required to know much about him. The fact that his essay was published in a reliable source is more than enough.

As for Nuujinn's addition of content to add some balance, I have no problem with that and I obviously support the idea of creating a “Purpose” section.

--Loremaster (talk) 22:16, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I like Nuujinn's new sentence beginning 'Such claims have been rejected..', which provides balance to the conspiracy accusations material. If we keep this, and lose the Thompson-sourced 'Some scholars..' sentence, the lead will be okay. - Crosbie 09:37, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am strongly opposed to losing the Thompson-sourced sentence. --Loremaster (talk) 16:07, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was listening to a radio show that contested that the European Union was founded (because of and) following the 1955 meeting and that this was confirmed in their own (Bilderberger's) documents. I tried pretty hard to find some verifiable sources for this and only came up with the Wikileaks place as being the site that 'housed' the supposed documents that 'verified the info' (which then generated many many reports on alternative media and blog sites). I couldn't find any mainstream news reporting that 'wikileaks had leaked docs that prove the EU is a Bilderberg plot'. The current 'conspiracies' section doesn't mention this surprisingly large but apparently very current notion of what 'they' have conspired to. It's an interesting enough notion that it merits includsion if reliable sources turn up to verify.--86.6.187.246 (talk) 05:06, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Although we should have a comprehensive section dealing with Bilderberg conspiracy theories in this article, we should be always careful to avoid having this article overburdened with every Bilderberg conspiracy theory that has ever been expressed by a paranoid crank and making the Conspiracy theories section article too lengthy. That being said, you might want to check scholarly sources instead of journalistic ones to find what you are looking for. --Loremaster (talk) 17:29, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The section of conspiracy theories is absurdly overlong. We get the opinions of Kenneth P. Vogel, Chip Berlet, William Domhoff, and James McConnachie on the subject of conspiracy theories. This is an article about the Bilderberg conference, not conspiracies about the Bilderberg conference. Conspiracies deserve a mention, no more. Three paragraphs, *tops*, I'd say. - Crosbie 19:21, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, looks fine to me. Other areas could use expansion, I'd suggest focussing on that. --Nuujinn (talk) 19:24, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. As I've already explained to Crosbie (in a debate that was archived), unlike the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Bilderberg group is mostly discussed by journalists and scholars in the context of refuting or confirming Bilberberg conspiracy theories. It is therefore logical that a section on conspiracy theories in this article could and would be long but I would resist an attempt to expand the current version of Conspiracy theories section. I think the solution is to expand other sections of the article to avoid the Conspiracy theories section looking disproportionately large since these sections should be expanded anyway even if the Conspiracy theories section was short or non-existent. That being said, it would be appreciated if Crosbie discussed changes to this section on this talk page to seek a consensus before making them in order to avoid a needless edit war. --Loremaster (talk) 19:40, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've restored it, I think it's relevant and have access to the article in question. We can talk about phrasing, but it's a quote, and thus not copyvio, and I do not think the current representation is plagiarism. The article is pretty long and I could add addition material from it if that is desired. --Nuujinn (talk) 22:06, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Nuujinn. When editors delete content because they think it is not relevant they need to convincingly explain why it is not relevant. Simply saying “it's not relevant” is not enough. --Loremaster (talk) 03:22, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I expanded the section a bit with a couple of additional quotes from Moorehead, feel free to recast (I'm using quotes since the article is not readily available). --Nuujinn (talk) 21:11, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Great! :) --Loremaster (talk) 16:23, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Rockefeller quote beginning 'We are grateful..' is sourced to the Hilaire du Berrier Report. This as far as I can tell was a self-published newsletter and I don't believe it is a reliable source. I understand the du Berrier source references Minute, but in that case we should reference Minute directly and skip the du Berrier report entirely. Furthermore, this should only be done by someone who has actually read the original Minute report, not just read about it somewhere. Given we are dealing with the reported actions of a living person, this should be removed at least until a solid reference can be found. - Crosbie 10:17, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, and I believe Dougweller took care of it. --Nuujinn (talk) 13:15, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. --Loremaster (talk) 17:20, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest a general principle when we talk of people's views. If we say that some group of people hold a particular belief, it should always be possible for the reader to identify a particular person or organization who holds that belief. So if, for example, we say that 'conspiracists' believe that Bilderberg is a meeting ground for 'international Jewry', then it should be possible for the reader to identify a particular person or organisation who actually believes that. Otherwise, this is not a statement of fact but a suggestion that 'conspiracist = racist anti-semite'. Just because the papers do it doesn't mean we should. We can take facts from reliable sources, we we shouldn't take smears or innuendo from anywhere. - Crosbie 12:37, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What policy or guideline supports that principle? And it should be no surprise to anyone that some conspiracy theorists believe that 'international Jewry' are trying to take over the world, as absurd and offensive as that notion is. See, for example, The_International_Jew. That this accusation is leveled against the Bilderberg group is pretty well documented, see [2]. We could document that with a list of groups or people, but I personally think that would be undue weight. --Nuujinn (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Although I applaud your initiative, the Purpose section is seriously flawed. It mainly focuses on what conspiracy theorists think the purpose of the Bilderberg group is. We already have a section for that called “Conspiracy theories”! What I had in mind is a section that explains the purpose of the group as claimed by the group itself and what scholars think the purpose really is after critical study (see New section suggestion: Agenda). There should be no discussion of conspiracy theories in this section. I will therefore remove this section until we agree on it's content. --Loremaster (talk) 16:06, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a fine approach, why don't you restore it and separate out the two kinds of content into the appropriate sections? --Nuujinn (talk) 17:28, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With regards to this Politico article, I (perhaps mistakenly) changed the verbiage attributing statements to Vogel from opines to reports (it used to say reports until the IP edited it). I felt that reports was more accurate as the article doesn't appear to me to be an opinion piece. Arthur Rubin kindly reverted my edit and posed the question of whether or not Politico is a reliable source for anything other than opinions.

Taking into consideration WP:RS#News organizations and WP:RS#Statements of opinion, I think that Kenneth Vogel's Politico article in particular is mostly channeling the views of conspiracists associated with PrisonPlanet and InfoWars content about Bilderberg, as well as the views of anonymous Bilderberg attendees and of Ron Paul. Even though Vogel's characterization of what captures the interests of conspiracy theorists, or of what suspicions their worldview derives from, represents a point of view and might constitute an opinion, it seems that merely attributing the quote to him is sufficient, and that we don't need to take it a step further by attributing it as his opinion rather than his reporting. I thought it is more accurate to use reports because he seems (to me at least) to be reporting a point of view rather than formulating his own point of view - in other words, though it may be an opinion, it doesn't necessarily seem to be his opinion as his article appears to be simply channeling the views of others.

Am I looking at this article the wrong way? I'm not particularly against a different verb than reports, but opines struck me as a bit dodgy. John Shandy` • talk 16:38, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I fully support your edit. I also think “reports” is more accurate than “opines”. Although it is important to distinguish statements of opinions and statements of fact, we should also mindful that pro-conspiracy editors will often try to make statements of fact appear as statements of opinion in order to manipulate some readers into dismissing a statement as nothing more than an opinion rather than a fact... --Loremaster (talk) 16:45, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]