Yes, but...
...in the case of our politicians, they are *elected* by us and therefore meant (hollow laughter) to be **accountable** to us.

They shouldn't during their working time or in their official capacity be attending meetings like this. If they had nothing to hide, then they wouldn't go to such elaborate attempts to hide it.
(TheImmortalJenkins, Thu 1 Dec 2011, 15:32, 2 replies)

they don't attend in their 'official' capacity, and they aren't exactly going out of their way to hide anything
given the list of attendees is made public to the press.
( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Thu 1 Dec 2011, 15:38, closed)

Agreed
If a host of power players are meeting regularly in secret then they shouldnt be power players, especially democratically elected power players.
If they want to remain out of the media spotlight whilst they make plans then they shouldnt be in public jobs. And the 'likely-to-become-powerful' being there implies that our prime ministers and officials are decided for us which is undemocratic.

Publishing an attendee list does not count as transparency.
(Joe Guevara is well known for stealing your biscuits, Thu 1 Dec 2011, 17:55, closed)

Nail hit
firmly on the head there.

Why else would extremely powerful and fairly busy (one imagines) people fly across the globe to meet up ? Why would they invite people like Thatcher and Blair - several years before they achieved power - to come and talk to them ? There are numerous opportunities - G8 and so forth - for world leaders to congregate. Bilderberg is more suspect simply because what happens goes on behind firmly closed doors.

I don't think this is a Monty Burns style "Council of Evil" or anything like that; however there must be some fairly major decisions made there, and made both by our elected representatives and the leaders of industry and commerce. Events like us going into Libya / Afghanistan / Iraq aren't unplanned. It's the mixture of politics and commerce that concerns me; politicians should (another hollow laugh) make policies because they reflect the will of the electorate, not because they produce a better 'bottom line' for the megacorps.
(TheImmortalJenkins, Thu 1 Dec 2011, 18:12, closed)