How closely connected are Skull and Bones and our government?

[Marleyb]

Skull and Bones is America's most powerful secret society. It's based at Yale, where it's headquartered in a building called the Tomb, and Skull and Bones has included among its members, presidents, including presidents George W. Bush and his father, as well as William Howard Taft, Supreme Court Chief Justices, C.I.A. officials, cabinet members, congressmen and senators. What makes it so staggering that we could have a Skull and Bones versus Skull and Bones, Kerry versus Bush election is that this is a tiny tiny club. There are only 800 living members. Only 15 per year. It's staggering that two of them could be facing off for the presidency and so many of them have achieved positions of prominence. One of the interesting and I think disturbing things about Skull and Bones is that its purpose is to get members into positions of power and have those members hire other members into prestigious positions. This is something we have seen with George W. Bush since his ascendancy to the presidency, he has put several Bones members into prestigious positions, such as Bill Donaldson, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The number two and number three guys in the Justice Department, the guy that puts out all of Bush's secrecy memos. His assistant Attorney General is a major Bonesman. Bonesman Frederick Smith was Bush's top choice for Secretary of Defense until he had to withdraw for health reasons. The general council of the Office of Homeland Security, the Secretary of Defense’s representative to Europe. The list goes on and on and on. That's something that's interesting, because George W. Bush likes to feign his distance from Yale, from Bones, from Northeastern establishment elite connections, and yet he's going ahead and following Skull and Bones to the letter.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0122-10.htm

[marmar]

1. That's creepy...

:scared: :scared: :scared:

[Mass]

2. LOL

Do you have stocks in the company that published this book or is Alexandra Robbins your friend?

[bluestateguy]

3. This is why I hate fraternities and societies

Just a bunch of good ole' boys cutting deals. I think fraternities and societies are the scourge of the earth, and should be disposed of.

[earth mom]

4. Only 800 living members?

And it just "so happened" that members Kerry and Bush were running against each other...?!

:wtf:

If that ain't enough to make ya go "hmmm"?! I don't know what would...

[stillcool]

5. Looking through our history....

what stands out to me, is the prominence of certain family's. Their influence has held sway for decades if not centuries. Skull and Bones, while certainly a club of elitists, is but one of many. Just like water seeking it's own level, those born to this level of society, only associate with their kind.
http://www.aliveness.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html
http://watch.pair.com/cnp.html#rrt
http://www.ecosyn.us/adti/Koctopus_01.html

Sara Diamond's book, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States, notes: "Before and after the formation of the John Birch Society, corporations played a major role in rallying the public to the anticommunist cause." 1. In 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act granted corporations the right to distribute literature to counter labor union organizing -- a movement they blamed on the communists. To reduce the cost of producing and distributing anti-Communist materials, corporations turned to non-profit organizations such as the JBS.

"By 1963, corporations were spending an estimated $25 million per year on anticommunist literature... Some corporations circulated print and audio-visual materials produced by the John Birch Society; other corporations produced their own in-house literature...By the early 1960s, the Nation magazine reported that there was a minimum of 6,600 corporate-financed anticommunist broadcasts, carried by more than 1,300 radio and television stations at a total annual budget of about $20 million...Leading sponsors included Texas oil billionaire H.L. Hunt and Howard J. Pew of Sun Oil. The corporate sector's massive anticommunist propaganda campaigns created a favorable climate for the mobilization of activist groups like the John Birch Society."

http://watch.pair.com/jbs-cnp.html

[Mass]

6. I would not say only, but they certainly tend to.

[stillcool]

7. Do you know of anyone....

born into that top tier of society, that travels in other circles?

[dbeach]

8. Forbes made profits in opium trade

one hears of the kenendy bootleggers

but old money has some curious origens

"From an interview with Mrs. Forbes Kerr on her 'pernicious' g.grandfather and his cousins, a band of 'opium dealers', reported here <1>: "The lecture happened next. Inside Mrs Forbes told the tail of her great grandfathers involvement in the China Trade. Ships would procure opium from Turkey and sell it in Canton Harbor for silver before meeting with China Customs. Forbes would amass tens of thousands of dollars collecting $5 commission on a chest of opium. In turn the ship would buy goods for silver since the Chinese needed nothing from the ships. Mrs Forbes Kerr alluded to the disgusting behavior of her great great grandfather. What foul business dealings are going on right now that will be considered gross abuse of humans in the future along with a collection of letters from a wife and a ruthless, selfagrandising, unscrupulous capitalist husband."




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Forbes_family

do not think the references to furs, teas and other goods should have been removed. Unless you can document that these were of no consequence to the Forbes business, I would be **extremely** surprised to learn that the Forbes solely traded in opium. As for the British ships and monopoly, this is the history that I am somewhat familiar with--unless you have evidence to the contrary, I think that should stay in as well in some form as I think that is a major part of how it was possible for Forbes to profit so handsomely in the trade. However, I agree that the removed statement that Forbes only "once brought in a shipload of Turkish opium" is a bit dubious.
I find your efforts to repeatedly insert the phrase opium dealer at every opportunity to be prima facie evidence of bias. As I have discussed elsewhere (I'm assuming it is with the same anon), the connotations of "dealer" are simply not applicable to Forbes. Trader, yes. And that is not to say it was a good thing, but it is just wrong to try to label him with a very loaded contemporary term. older≠wiser 20:44, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
I think articles known to be targeted by biased edits should be nominated for Wikipedia:Articles only to be edited by logged in users cf. Wikipedia talk:Requests for page protection. Get-back-world-respect 23:16, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
Readers should be aware that Get-Back-world-respect, and to a lesser extent, Bkonrad, are shills for Kerry's campaign to clense his family name. The fact is that the Forbes ILLEGALLY smuggled opium into China, making historic (it is legitimate and accurate to say) windfall profits, with which they invested in greater Boston, Europe, etc. Any other commodities sold like furs, etc., had minor markups. OPIUM is the source of their money. BREAKING CHINESE LAW is the source of the mark-up. Like drug dealing families today that are shunned by law abiding Americans, and like networked Sicilian 'families', the FORBES (and related Cabot/Perkins/Russell families) ILLEGALLY SMUGGLED opium into CHINA, so much that they helped trigger a WAR called the OPIUM WAR to protect that trade for British and American merchants. HIDE IT all you want and TRY TO LOCK AWAY THE FORBES FAMILY history on a protected page, but their money is TAINTED. - Rgs, Anon1453
Yawn. And Kennedy ancestors were bootleggers. So what? What does that have to do with Kerry himself? RickK 03:17, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

"Reportedly, the Forbes family ties to the opium trade were quite significant, and thus the Forbes family became known in China during the Opium War in the 19th century as the 'Opium Dynasty' or 'Poppy Dynasty' and also by a poetic turn of phrase: 'The House of Forbes - Rests on Water - Dreams of Opium'." is not neutral. Where is a reference for these allegations? Before the same anon deleted some parts with the justification: "unsupported reputation claims and business intentions out". I did the same for the second time. Get-back-world-respect 21:46, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

Bkonrad - as both of us wish to avert revert war, and as you're too quick to amend, I will neither revert nor appease, to use a trendy word. In fact, I'll review how items were previously posted, and revert or amend as necessary, but not today. My main items are: 1) opium history first - it's a fact 2) smuggling or illegal reference must be included, though I'll agree to put 2nd or 3rd and to use 'trader' or 'opium trade' in first instance 3) 'opium dynasty' references seem to have been accurate and acceptably contributed for months, so unless I see evidence they're wrong, I'll reinclude rather than whitewash. 4) tea and fur are O.K., but where is your reference? I assume they traded other goods, just as I assume these other goods had paltry profits compared to opium 5) they sold opium business to Russell & Co. so even if they immediately reinvested in other goods, that capital is still originated in previous or 'capitalized' opium trade. -Anon1453

Fair enough. Re: tea and fur--Forbes is not the only person who made a fortune trading furs in the 19th c. That's the initial basis of John Jacob Astor's wealth, and probably many others. I don't know that much about the tea trade, but it was an important commodity at that time--so I think you are incorrect to assume that opium was the primary basis for the Forbes' wealth. The opium trade was one component. I'm not sure what to make of the 'opium dynasty' references. Simply because no one noticed it for a long time, doesn't make it legitimate. I'd very much like to see some attributions for these quasi-quotes. older≠wiser 13:52, 14 May 2004 (UTC) "
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Forbes_family"

[dbeach]

9. opium was a boost to some

I find it intersting that the CIA often is accused for allowing drugs into the US but the business is as american as well ...Yale U itself

http://www.strath.ac.uk/Departments/History/jmills/s12.htm

"Opium merchants Robert Bennet Forbes and Thomas Handasyd Perkins dealt with domestic disapproval in different ways. Forbes wrote of his participation in the opium trade in his memoirs, but his tone was defensive. He insisted that opium use was no more damaging than alcohol and that many individual Chinese were complicit in the trade. Perkins made his fortune in the opium trade, but he avoided referring to it, and the word ‘opium’ never appears in his biography, which his son-in-law wrote.

Both men became philanthropists. Forbes sent food to Ireland during the potato famine, and Perkins supported the Boston Athenaeum as well as the New England Institute for the Blind—which was renamed for him. Many other opium merchants also shored up American institutions. In 1876, Rev. Daniel Wise would thank ‘Christian merchants’ whose generosity had ensured the ‘existence or prosperity’ of ‘most of our colleges, many infirmaries, and countless churches,’ as well as the Perkins Institute and the Boston Athenaeum.

It is doubtful that any other trade could have provided such wealth. Carl Trocki insists that ‘there may have been no empire at all’ without opium, because drugs provided large amounts of revenue like nothing else could.

Most Americans perceived the opium trade as a British affair; consequently, they criticized opium traders while praising the institutions that the opium trade sustained. In 1841, the Unitarian journal Christian Examiner condemned the opium trade ‘for it destroys the soul.’But the previous year, a writer for the journal had praised the Perkins Institute, where one could see ‘benevolence working in its highest and surest paths.’ Unwittingly, Americans were developing their own addiction to opium."
"

[Nutmegger]

10. How comforting

We are being ruled by rich men instead of the common man. These people don't care about us.

????

[Dr Fate]

11. If it is so secret, then why do you know so much about it?

There are indeed bad people who know each other who do things to make money.

There are no large-scale conspiracies- there are rudderless cadres of powerful, greedy, selfish people.

Conspiracy theories are cool, b/c they are symptoms of a corrupt govt. that is not truthful and open.

Secret Society conspiracy theories are my very favorite ones- but they are limited just like Area 51, JFK or whatever- parts are true but the rest is fiction to fill in the gaps.

[Karenina]

12. "One thing leads to another

Too late to run for cover
It's just too close for comfort now..."