The Trilateral Commission

Forget the Davos jamboree, maybe even the G7, G20 meetings? I wonder how many have actually heard of The Trilateral Commission. It is no "Deep State" NGO in the convoluted Conspiracy Theorist sense, simply a nice friendly 325 member "Club" drawn mainly from very senior business levels, the Euro-banking higher echelons, the better classes of think tank/research institutions, media, international business, finance, lobbying and government, IMF, World Bank types, some of the better academics, "to foster substantive political and economic dialogue across the world". They just like to meet up every couple of years for lunch. Perfectly harmless. A newly published 2020 list includes Michael Bloomberg, Ian Bremmer, Paul Volcker, Robert Zoellick, Michael Chertoff, Erich Schmidt, Laurence Fink and a host of other "movers & shakers". There is a Wallenberg, Jean-Claude Trichet and of course the ubiquitous Carl Bildt. David Petraeus and Fiona Hill have been invited to join, so must have impressed recently. For those interested in Britain (mainly other British people nowadays), Keir Starmer and Rory Stewart are both members, so clearly they are the TC chosen men.  All major countries are represented, but Absolyutno net Russkikh and just a couple of Red Chinese. No oil Arabs, absolutely not.

It is naturally enough fully and unreservedly undemocratic and includes very few current elected politicians if any. A little like a sort of cuddlier but larger Bilderberg, Chatham House, CFR, WEF, Bohemian Grove, Valdai Group, but much wider ranging geographical and more international banking-money oriented. It's the ultimate respectable "wealth club", despite one Jeffrey Epstein being a member back in 2003.

Founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski amongst others. I would say TC is Euro/US Democrat-centric, heavily Business oriented, sort of "centrist", but very much intellectually oriented. Most members clearly believe that the cleverest, wealthiest, elite best-educated people should rule across the globe and that there is "too much democracy" as their 1975 book "The Crisis of Democracy" suggests.

It may perhaps be described as "Liberal Internationalist" if labels are needed. The trilateral term refers to liberal-conservative-social democrat, all sitting not too far from each other in the political centre, representing benign capital purportedly serving most, but with the top elite crew obviously quietly but reasonably getting the lion's share. The organisation's 1975 publication concluded that the post WW2 good times were over. Since then things have splintered and worsened more than most of the authors could have imagined and it is doubtful they would have been able to believe what we are seeing today in Britain and America with "Bus-Stop Crank" KooKoo TheClown and oligarch-pal Sasha-Borisova on strings doing their dances.

The TC members have probably been reeling in shock for a few years under the assault taking place from the twin prongs of the Russkie and other organised crime group hybrid attacks and the heavy-breathing nutwhack far-right US-European Oligarchs, with a little Chinese-Saudi flavouring thrown in. No Robert Mercer, Sheldon Adelson, no signs of any Trumpites & Faragists, no Vienna-turned former MI6 man and Dostoevsky fan Dom "Blinis" Cummings (*), neither was his cargo-pant holiness Cardinal Bannon invited, or that mad Rasputin copycat Aleksandr Dugin, no definitely not on the list. Then neither are the hyper-billionaires Bezos, Gates, Arnault, Zuckerberg, Brin/Page, Buffet, Ellison, Ortega, Carlos Slim or any of the expat Brit business types like Ashcroft, Dyson, Ratcliffe and Mellon  funding the BREXIT affair, certainly not any of the Far Right Tory Reform Group lunatics with their Spitfire badges and fantasies of Old Empire. Surprise? "Conspiracy Theory" hoopla or just an indication of where the various opposing forces lie in this great.... game? Not many mining or oiler people in there either, other than a couple of ex Shell men like van der Veer and Peter Sutherland (of course).

(*) pure unadulterated speculation.