Secret Societies?

[Makalakumu]

I agree with you there; at least I believe that the particular "capitalism" that we have created (where "healthy competition" has been eliminated) is an enemy to our concept of a free american society.

I don't believe, however, that "communism" is the answer either. (which, if you have a problem with capitalism, these days, your automaticaly assumed to be communist.

I don't think that we are living in a truly capitolistic society or a democracy for that matter. Both of those things need a free flow of information and considering how much money it takes to get a message out to a lot of people, those with the most money are those who control the system. Unfortunately, most of those people also belong to secret societies. Is this coincidence - please a little Occum's Razor.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Ah yaaas, the cure to capitalism is more capitalism. Or real capitalism. Duders, the Old Mole has at least tunnelled its way out into the open. We are getting real capitalism, true capitalism, for which all morality--and for that matter, all humanity--is a side effect.

Capitalism is by its very nature anti-democratic, though it seems clear that contemporary democracy is twinned with the rise of the middle class.

Why do people hate the UN? because the UN represents (not IS, but represents) the utopian alternative to a world of business. Why don't people hate the UN enough? because the UN represents (not IS, but represents) the world of pure capitalism.

Marx was right, as far as he went. "Under capitalism, everything that is solid melts into air." Only good thing about it is, under capitalism you can have Bruce Springsteen, who understands what's wrong with capitalism. And Cyndi Lauper, "Money/Money changes everything...."

Or in sf, you can get Ken MacCloud and Kim Stanley Robinson's books on Mars, smartest sf I've read (always with the exception of Frederic Pohl) in twenty years...

 

[Makalakumu]

I truly could not tell you what secret societies do. I am trying to find out, but that story is such a rabbit hole and I don't have enough acid.

I do know that secret societies exist. It has been shown that ALL of our presidents back to Johnson (with the exception of Clinton) have belonged to the Bohemian Grove/Skull and Bones organization. It also has been shown that many other world leaders belong to these organization. Some of them like the ex-chancellor of Germany have made statements like, "We are the NWO. We are the Illuminati. We will Rule the world..."

This is not something to just blow off. Its not something that can be shifted to an ideologic debate because members of all ideologies belong to these societies. What is going on here? And can anyone provide some more information on Skull and Bones.

I say again...both Kerry and Bush were members...perhaps, at the very least, this is something voters should know about.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Pogo's most famous remark was dead on: WE are the Secret Society.

And so was Pynchon:

"There is a Hand to turn the Time
Though thy Glass today be run
Till the Light that hath brough the Towers low
Find the last poor Pret'rite one
And the Riders sleep by ev'ry Road
All through this crippl'd Zone
With a face on ev'ry Mountainside
And a Soul in ev'ry Stone...

Now everybody..."

"Gravity's Rainbow," yawl. Last page, you might say. For the short form, check out Laurie Anderson. 'Course, the Pogues will do in a pinch...

 

[Makalakumu]

Pogo's most famous remark was dead on: WE are the Secret Society.

And so was Pynchon:

"There is a Hand to turn the Time
Though thy Glass today be run
Till the Light that hath brough the Towers low
Find the last poor Pret'rite one
And the Riders sleep by ev'ry Road
All through this crippl'd Zone
With a face on ev'ry Mountainside
And a Soul in ev'ry Stone...

Now everybody..."

"Gravity's Rainbow," yawl. Last page, you might say. For the short form, check out Laurie Anderson. 'Course, the Pogues will do in a pinch...

Are you sure you haven't been to the Grove?

Yeah, I bet it was like Pat Buchanen said, "yeah, uh, I went with Nixon, but I didn't go down to the Owl with him."

 

[Makalakumu]

I am going to post a series of articles that will aid in this discussion...please bear with me.

upnorthkyosa

 

[Makalakumu]

Please Keep in mind, this is CBS whose damn logo is the ALL SEEING EYE!

Skull And Bones At Yale

A 60 Minutes Special Report

Oct 5, 2003 10:03 pm US/Eastern
NEW YORK (CBS) There are secrets that George W. Bush guards at least as carefully as any entrusted to a president.

He's forbidden to share these secrets even with the vice president -- secrets he has held ever since his days as an undergraduate at Yale.

In his senior year, Mr. Bush - like his father and his grandfather - belonged to Skull and Bones, an elite secret society that includes some of the most powerful men of the 20th century.

All Bonesmen, as they're called, are forbidden to reveal what goes in their inner sanctum, the windowless building on the Yale campus that is called "The Tomb."

There are conspiracy theorists who see Skull and Bones behind everything that goes wrong, and occasionally even right in the world.

Apart from presidents, Bones has included cabinet officers, spies, Supreme Court justices, statesmen and captains of industry - and often their sons, and lately their daughters, too.

It’s a social and political network like no other. And they've responded to outsiders with utter silence – until an enterprising Yale graduate, Alexandra Robbins, managed to penetrate the wall of silence in her book, “Secrets of the Tomb.” Correspondent Morley Safer reports.

”I spoke with about 100 members of Skull and Bones and they were members who were tired of the secrecy, and that's why they were willing to talk to me,” says Robbins. “But probably twice that number hung up on me, harassed me, or threatened me.”

Secret or not, Skull and Bones is as essential to Yale as the Whiffenpoofs, the tables down at a pub called Mory's, and the Yale mascot - that ever-slobbering bulldog.

Skull and Bones, with all its ritual and macabre relics, was founded in 1832 as a new world version of secret student societies that were common in Germany at the time. Since then, it has chosen or "tapped" only 15 senior students a year who become patriarchs when they graduate -- lifetime members of the ultimate old boys' club.

“Skull and Bones is so tiny. That's what makes this staggering,” says Robbins. “There are only 15 people a year, which means there are about 800 living members at any one time.”

But a lot of Bonesmen have gone on to positions of great power, which Robbins says is the main purpose of this secret society: to get as many members as possible into positions of power.

“They do have many individuals in influential positions,” says Robbins. “And that's why this is something that we need to know about.”

President Bush has tapped five fellow Bonesmen to join his administration. Most recently, he selected William Donaldson, Skull and Bones 1953, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Like the President, he's taken the Bones oath of silence.

Ron Rosenbaum, author and columnist for the New York Observer, has become obsessed with cracking that code of secrecy.

“I think there is a deep and legitimate distrust in America for power and privilege that are cloaked in secrecy. It's not supposed to be the way we do things,” says Rosenbaum. “We're supposed to do things out in the open in America. And so that any society or institution that hints that there is something hidden is, I think, a legitimate subject for investigation.”

His investigation is a 30-year obsession dating back to his days as a Yale classmate of George W. Bush. Rosenbaum, a self-described undergraduate nerd, was certainly not a contender for Bones. But he was fascinated by its weirdness.

“It's this sepulchral, tomblike, windowless, granite, sandstone bulk that you can't miss. And I lived next to it,” says Rosenbaum. “I had passed it all the time. And during the initiation rites, you could hear strange cries and whispers coming from the Skull and Bones tomb.”

Despite a lifetime of attempts to get inside, the best Rosenbaum could do was hide out on the ledge of a nearby building a few years ago to videotape a nocturnal initiation ceremony in the Tomb's courtyard.

“A woman holds a knife and pretends to slash the throat of another person lying down before them, and there's screaming and yelling at the neophytes,” he says.

Robbins says the cast of the initiation ritual is right out of Harry Potter meets Dracula: “There is a devil, a Don Quixote and a Pope who has one foot sheathed in a white monogrammed slipper resting on a stone skull. The initiates are led into the room one at a time. And once an initiate is inside, the Bonesmen shriek at him. Finally, the Bonesman is shoved to his knees in front of Don Quixote as the shrieking crowd falls silent. And Don Quixote lifts his sword and taps the Bonesman on his left shoulder and says, ‘By order of our order, I dub thee knight of Euloga.’"

It’s a lot of mumbo-jumbo, says Robbins, but it means a lot to the people who are in it.

“Prescott Bush, George W's grandfather, and a band of Bonesmen, robbed the grave of Geronimo, took the skull and some personal relics of the Apache Chief and brought them back to the tomb,” says Robbins. “There is still a glass case, Bonesmen tell me, within the tomb that displays a skull that they all refer to as Geronimo.”

“The preoccupation with bones, mortality, with coffins, lying in coffins, standing around coffins, all this sort of thing I think is designed to give them the sense that, and it's very true, life is short,” says Rosenbaum. “You can spend it, if you have a privileged background, enjoying yourself, contributing nothing, or you can spend it making a contribution.”

And plenty of Bonesmen have made a contribution, from William Howard Taft, the 27th President; Henry Luce, the founder of Time Magazine; and W. Averell Harriman, the diplomat and confidant of U.S. presidents.

“What's important about the undergraduate years of Skull and Bones, as opposed to fraternities, is that it imbues them with a kind of mission for moral leadership,” says Rosenbaum. “And it's something that they may ignore for 30 years of their life, as George W. Bush seemed to successfully ignore it for quite a long time. But he came back to it.”

Mr. Bush, like his father and grandfather before him, has refused to talk openly about Skull and Bones. But as a Bonesman, he was required to reveal his innermost secrets to his fellow Bones initiates.

“They're supposed to recount their entire sexual histories in sort of a dim, a dimly-lit cozy room. The other 14 members are sitting on plush couches, and the lights are dimmed,” says Robbins. “And there's a fire roaring. And the, this activity is supposed to last anywhere from between one to three hours.”

What’s the point of this?

”I believe the point of the year in the tomb is to forge such a strong bond between these 15 new members that after they graduate, for them to betray Skull and Bones would mean they'd have to betray their fourteen closest friends,” says Robbins.

One can't help but make certain comparisons with the mafia, for example. Secret society, bonding, stakes may be a little higher in one than the other. But everybody knows everything about everybody, which is a form of protection.

“I think Skull and Bones has had slightly more success than the mafia in the sense that the leaders of the five families are all doing 100 years in jail, and the leaders of the Skull and Bones families are doing four and eight years in the White House,” says Rosenbaum.

Bones is not restricted to the Republican Party. Yet another Bonesman has his eye on the Oval Office: Senator John Kerry, democrat, Skull & Bones 1966.

“It is fascinating isn't it? I mean, again, all the people say, ‘Oh, these societies don't matter. The Eastern Establishment is in decline.’ And you could not find two more quintessential Eastern establishment, privileged guys,” says Rosenbaum. “I remember when I was a nerdy scholarship student in the reserve book room at, at the Yale Library, and John Kerry, who at that point styled himself ‘John F. Kerry’ would walk in.”

“There was always a little buzz,” adds Rosenbaum. “Because even then he was seen to be destined for higher things. He was head of the Yale Political Union, and a tap for Skull and Bones was seen as the natural sequel to that.”

David Brooks, a conservative commentator who has published a book on the social dynamics of the upwardly mobile, says that while Skull & Bones may be elite and secret, it's anything but exciting.

“My view of secret societies is they're like the first class cabin in airplanes. They're really impressive until you get into them, and then once you're there they're a little dull. So you hear all these conspiracy theories about Skull and Bones,” says Brooks.

“And to me, to be in one of these organizations, you have to have an incredibly high tolerance for tedium 'cause you're sittin' around talking, talking, and talking. You're not running the world, you're just gassing.”

Gassing or not, the best-connected white man's club in America has moved reluctantly into the 21st Century.

“Skull and Bones narrowly endorsed admitting women,” says Robbins. “The day before these women were supposed to be initiated, a group of Bonesmen, including William F. Buckley, obtained a court order to block the initiation claiming that letting women into the tomb would lead to date rape. Again more legal wrangling; finally it came down to another vote and women were admitted and initiated.”

But Skull & Bones now has women, and it’s become more multicultural.

“It has gays who got the SAT scores, it's got the gays who got the straight A's,” says Brooks. “It's got the blacks who are the president of the right associations. It's different criteria. More multicultural, but it's still an elite, selective institution.”

On balance, it may be bizarre, but on a certain perspective, does it provide something of value?

“You take these young strivers, you put them in this weird castle. They spill their guts with each other, fine. But they learn something beyond themselves. They learn a commitment to each other, they learn a commitment to the community,” says Brooks. “And maybe they inherit some of those old ideals of public service that are missing in a lot of other parts of the country.”

And is that relationship, in some cases, stronger that family or faith?

“Absolutely,” says Robbins. “You know, they say, they say the motto at Yale is, ‘For God, for country, and for Yale.’ At Bones, I would think it's ‘For Bones.'”

 

[Makalakumu]

SPIKED!: CNN Refuses to Run Connie Chung's Skull & Bones Broadcast

by Todd Brendan Fahey
September 5, 2002

CNN spiked Connie Chung's widely-publicized "expose" on Yale University's Order of Skull & Bones, chapter 322, which counts among its membership President George W. Bush and his father and grandfather before him, and influential aide and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and Connie Chung ain't talking.

The program--billed at CNN's Web site to air 8:00pm ET, September 4, did not materialize; in its place was a story of a murder trial in Florida.

Contacted repeatedly at CNN studios, representatives of Ms. Chung and producers of Connie Chung Tonight were either "unavailable" or had "no comment."

The Order of Skull & Bones forms the nucleus of the private Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Trilateral Commission--which are, themselves--the guiding forces behind the drive toward an United Nations-run World Government. Each year at Yale, since 1832, 15 sophomores are "tapped" for consideration into this secret society, whose headquarters, called "the Tomb," lie underground, beneath Yale's campus; contained within the Tomb are computer facilities which are said to rival NORAD in sophistication. And although initiates are sworn to secrecy, a complete membership roster, initiation rites and Bones history was furnished to the late Dr. Antony Sutton in 1981.

Dr. Sutton, who died this year at the age of 77, was at the time a Research Fellow at the prestigious Hoover Institution of Stanford University. His ardent anti-communist/anti-globalist views and reputation for impeccable research doubtless attracted the attention of the disgruntled Bonesman, and with the records, Sutton eventually produced America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order or Skull & Bones, the definitive expose on that which lies at the core of a conspiracy to enact Global Government, via the destruction of America's Constitutional republican political system.

For a good overview of Dr. Sutton's research, please follow this Google link.

Ms. Chung's TV program would probably have been a puff piece anyway, but the 11th-hour spiking of her Skull & Bones broadcast is a glaring example of the Pravda-like protection of the Establishment that is the so-called "mainstream media."

 

[Makalakumu]

The following site is research done to dig up the membership of who is involved in the Skull and Bones. The numbers and the people are astounding. Lets see if I can find Bohemian Grove next. Skull and Bones runs the Bohemian Grove...

http://www.prisonplanet.com/skull_and_bones_membership.html

upnorthkyosa

 

[Makalakumu]

White House 'Bonesman' leads nation into the dark

By Alexandra Robbins

"My senior year (at Yale University) I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society," President Bush wrote in his autobiography, "so secret, I can't say anything more."

He doesn't have to. He's practically turning the government into a secret society - an old-boy, throwback establishment that even holds its secret spy-court proceedings in an elaborately locked, windowless room that sounds similar to the Bones' elaborately locked, practically windowless "tomb," or campus clubhouse.

Bush, a loyal and particularly active member of Skull and Bones, a mysterious, historically misogynist Yale-based secret society, seems to have done almost all he can to promote a level of secrecy in government not seen since the Nixon administration:

Last month, Bush-appointed Assistant Attorney General Robert McCallum, a member of Bush's 1968 Skull and Bones class, filed pleadings in U.S. District Court seeking to extend executive privilege to any government official in pardon cases; the move makes information on presidential pardons more secret than it has ever been.
After 9/11, without initially telling Congress, Bush assembled a shadow government assigned to secret bunkers somewhere on the East Coast. He also tried to cut off some members of Congress from classified information about the anti-terrorist campaign.
The USA Patriot Act Bush eagerly signed lets the FBI - with permission from a secret Washington "spy court" - view some customer records; store owners cannot reveal the review
In October 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft released a memo encouraging federal agencies to withhold as much information as possible from the public.
A month later, just before documents from the Reagan-Bush administration were to be released, Bush signed an executive order severely hindering public access to former presidents' records.
Bush also signed legislation that jails or fines journalists who publish sensitive leaks, essentially reviving the Official Secrecy Act that President Clinton vetoed.
Bush has a "fetish for secrecy," Vanderbilt University professor emeritus Hugh Davis Graham, now deceased, told the National Journal earlier this year.

Granted, pressing issues of national security merit a level of secrecy. But security and secrecy are not always necessary companions, and some of these examples suggest secrecy for secrecy's sake, such as the pardons and the Reagan documents. Also, a government that operates in secret prevents its constituents from holding it accountable and so may be more prone to arbitrariness and ill-considered conduct. This administration may even be doing itself a disservice with its excess secrecy, which can cause people to conjure up much more malicious and elitist scenarios than may actually exist.

That is what has happened with Skull and Bones, which operates a powerful alumni network but, despite the lore, does not run a secret world government, collaborate with Nazis or require initiates to lie naked in a coffin.

Bonesmen have long helped Bush; he received a fair chunk of his early business financing from them and turned to them for help when he needed a job, investors and campaign assistance. Even his baseball-team purchase involved at least one Bonesman. As president, Bush has appointed fellow Bonesmen to high-level positions, such as Edward McNally, the general counsel of the Office on Homeland Security and senior associate counsel on national security. Yet, although one of his first social gatherings at the White House was a Skull and Bones reunion, Bush feigned ignorance when asked recently about Bones: "The thing is so secret that I'm not even sure it still exists," he replied.

Is it a coincidence that the federal government suddenly prioritizes secrecy when a Skull and Bones president is in power? Maybe. But there's no question that the Bush administration increasingly resembles the Bones' dark, locked tomb.


Alexandra Robbins is the author of Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power.

 

[Makalakumu]

Skull and Bones in Bush's Foreign Policy Closet
New California Media, Paolo Pontoniere, Sep 30, 2002

Amidst the debate over the impending US-led war against Iraq, some European media, mostly in Italy and Germany, took note of the publication of Secrets of The Tomb: Skull and Bones, The Ivy League and The Hidden Paths of Power.

In the Little Brown book, author Alexandra Robbins discusses the connections between America's wealthiest families, secret fraternities and the role of Ivy League institutions in the genesis of United States foreign policy. For some European analysts, Skull and Bones explains much of the mystery surrounding how power is apportioned in the US by describing a well-established system of nepotism and co-optation among members of this fraternity. They fear that the unwieldy influence that secret lobbies--such as those described in Skull and Bones--have on the American administration may interfere with President Bush's ability to decide freely what action to take. They also believe that Bush's belonging to such a secret fraternity may explain the nihilistic overtones of his foreign policy and his strong drive toward waging war against Iraq because of the gothic character of the fraternity.

Europeans have noted that not only the current US president is a Bonesman, but that also his former-president father and his grandfather, senator Prescott Bush, are members. In the Bush family, connection to the Tomb--the name of the Yale building where the fraternity meets--also involves three uncles of the current president and two of his cousins. A couple of Bonesmen came up with the money to launch President Bush's career in business when he founded the oil company Arbusto; another Bonesman provided the capital for Bush to acquire a stake in the Texas Rangers; and another member of the fraternity that bolstered Bush's 2000 presidential campaign by paying for advertising billboards at a million dollars a piece. One of President Bush's first actions when he entered the White House was to organize a dinner with the members of his fraternity.

What worries Europeans most about the Bonesmen is the suspicion that the organization may have a neo-Nazi tendency or that it may be animated by anti-Semitic sentiments. According to various reports about the activities of the Bonesmen throughout the years, it appears that many prominent members, in particular those linked to the Union Bank in New York and its sister bank in Holland at the beginning of WWII, were financing Hitler throughout the war and as late as 1945. Italians and Germans alike have a long history of secret associations meddling in the internal affairs of their countries.

This fact makes European analysts tend to distrust both politicians that can be linked to such groups and secretive associations that have links to political parties or single politicians. In the case of the Skull and Bones, Italian and German media have reported that such ties between the secret organization and politicians could be understood as a multigenerational secret society with a global reach and a finger in many different pies. They describe the Skull and Bones' influence as resulting in a sort of oligarchic government that includes some of the most influential American families such as the Bushes, the Harrimans, the Tafts, the Whitneys, and the Rockefellers.

Skull and Bones was founded in 1832 by William Russell, the heir to Russell and Company, at that time one of the world's most prominent opium traders. According to author Robbins, Russell befriended the leader of a secret society during a year of study in Germany. Returning to the US, Russell sought to re-create in the US the spirit of exclusivity that he had encountered with the German secret society, whose main goal was the establishment of a strong government of the kind that would mold every individual to the obedience of the state.

In the rarefied atmosphere of Yale University, Russell found a receptive environment for his dream, enrolling the help of Alphonso Taft, future US secretary of war and father of President William Howard Taft. The society they founded was called the Brotherhood of Death, or more informally, the Order of Skull and Bones. Later the order would include among its ranks Prescott Bush, who would take the helm of the Union Bank, Roland and Arvell Harriman, several Rockerfellers, Henry Luce, and others who read like a who's who in American public life.

European reporters were astonished to learn that the cult has been extremely successful in its pursuit of establishing a "New World Order"-the Bonesmen's lingo was used by then-President Bush Senior to describe the philosophy behind his foreign policy. The Bonesmen's New World Order consists of fewer individual freedoms for the majority and of a few elected people sitting in the collective driver's seat. They noted that besides pushing three of its men-the two Bushes and Taft-to the presidency of the United States, the society has produced nine supreme court justices, several senators and congressmen, and that the idea of launching both Time and Newsweek magazines was first conjured up in the Bones' Tomb. Skull and Bones members founded the American Historical Association, the American Economic Association and the American Psychological Association. More than a dozen Bonesmen have worked at the Federal Reserve. Bonesmen are believed to control the Rockerfeller, Carnegie and Ford families' wealth.

European reporters don't appear to buy Alexandra Robbin's suggestions that Bonesmen may have developed and dropped the first nuclear bomb; may have organized the Bay of Pigs invasion; were tied to the Kennedy assassination and to the Watergate break-in; or that they may control the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Nevertheless, Europeans are intrigued by the notion that Bonesmen may be tied to many of history's recent conflicts, compelling them to wonder if the fraternity mentality may not explain a tendency toward destruction rather than building. They also wonder how a 2004 presidential race between Senator John Kerry on the democratic side running against President Bush-both Bonesmen--might unfold.

 

[Makalakumu]

And the last one in the series...

Yale grads Kerry, Bush share bond of secrecy

Palm Beach Post | March 8 2004

WASHINGTON -- In the spring semester of their junior years at Yale University, John Kerry and George W. Bush were tapped on the shoulder and abruptly asked: "Skull and Bones, accept or reject?"

Both answered, "Accept."

Kerry was initiated into this most famous and mysterious of Yale's secret societies in 1965. Bush entered Skull and Bones in 1967, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. Thus was set up the first presidential election between Bonesmen nearly four decades hence.

This development was perhaps inevitable. For generations, 15 Yale seniors -- frequently future leaders of government, business, media, arts and other professions -- have gathered in secrecy in the Tomb, the windowless home of their select society on the Yale campus.

Often after graduation, their bonds have strengthened inside a Bones network entwined throughout American culture.

"The only agenda of Skull and Bones is to get its members into positions of power and then to have those members hire others to positions of prominence. The organization has an enormous superiority complex that partly fuels their secrecy," said Alexandra Robbins, author of Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power.

"I think the problem here is that, frankly, I don't believe that the people who represent our country, especially the president of the United States, should be allowed to have an allegiance to any secret group. Secrecy overshadows democracy," said Robbins, a 1998 Yale graduate who belonged to Scroll and Key, another secret society.

"They stopped talking to me after my book was published," she said, describing the spirit of secrecy that still permeates the societies.

Such secrets seem safe with Bush and Kerry, the likely Democratic nominee for president.

In separate episodes of the NBC program Meet the Press, host Tim Russert asked Bush and Kerry about their memberships in Skull and Bones.

"It's so secret we can't talk about it," answered the president.

"I wish there were something secret I could manifest there," Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, replied warily when Russert asked if he would divulge rituals of the Tomb.

"What's so staggering about the fact that both presidential candidates are members of Skull and Bones is that this is a tiny organization with perhaps only 800 living members," said Robbins. "This isn't an organization in which a member can simply get an interview at some Joe Schmo law firm. This is an organization where members can call up presidents, Supreme Court justices, and Cabinet members, and ask for jobs, power, money, or connections."

In researching her book, Robbins interviewed more than 100 members of Skull and Bones. She inquired about which candidate the secret society would rather have in the White House.

"I asked many Bonesmen that question," she recalled. "The sincere answer to me was, 'We don't care -- it's a win-win situation.' "

Of course, Bush and Kerry are only the latest Bonesmen to star on the national stage. President George H.W. Bush, the incumbent's father, was also a member of Skull and Bones, as were former President William Howard Taft; former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart; former Sens. Prescott Bush, David Boren, James Buckley, John Heinz and John Chafee; Time magazine founder Henry Luce; writers Archibald MacLeish, John Hersey, William F. Buckley Jr. and his son, Christopher Buckley; historian David McCullough; Washington power brokers Averell Harriman and McGeorge Bundy; anti-Vietnam War activist the Rev. William Sloane Coffin: Morgan Stanley founder Harold Stanley, and a wealth of other well-connected notables.

"I think Skull and Bones has had slightly more success than the Mafia in the sense that the leaders of the five families are all doing 100 years in jail, and the leaders of the Skull and Bones families are doing four and eight years in the White House," author and Yale graduate Ron Rosenbaum said on the CBS News program 60 Minutes.


Ritual and reverence

With roots stretching to 1832, Skull and Bones is the oldest of Yale's secret senior societies. There are others, however, that also meet on Thursday and Sunday evenings in their own "Tombs." Among them are Scroll and Key, Book and Snake, Wolf's Head and Berzelius.

Each chooses 15 or 16 new juniors as members on "tap night" in April. As seniors, they will spend countless hours together in their Tombs and form lifelong relationships. With varying input from alumni, each class chooses -- "taps" -- its successors.

In Secrets of the Tomb, Robbins revealed much of the ritual and reverence of Skull and Bones:

New members are assigned secret names. Some are traditional: "Long Devil" is the tallest member. "Boaz" (for Beelzebub) goes to a varsity football captain. The new member with the least sexual experience is dubbed "Gog." The most sexually experienced member becomes "Magog."

The elder George Bush was nicknamed "Magog," Robbins reported. George W. Bush was called "Temporary" because he was not assigned a name and didn't choose one. The author didn't know Kerry's secret name but "Long Devil" might be a good bet.

Kerry's Bonesman class of 1966 included Alan Cross, now a physician and director of the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Federal Express founder Fredrick W. Smith; and William Warren Pershing, grandson of Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing, an infantry officer who died in Vietnam.

Among Bush's diverse group of Bonesmen, who graduated in 1968, were Olympic gold medalist Don Schollander; future Harvard Medical School surgeon Gregory Gallico; Jordanian Muhammed Saleh; Donald Etra, an Orthodox Jew; and Roy Austin, then African-American captain of Yale's soccer team and now U.S. ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago.

As president, George W. Bush has appointed other Bonesmen to his administration, including Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William H. Donaldson and Assistant Attorney General Robert McCallum.

Most of Yale's secret societies set aside long sessions in which members tell their life stories in deep, intimate detail.

The lore of Skull and Bones, which began accepting women members in 1992, describes additional meetings in which each member gives explicit accounts of his or her sexual history. This is known as a "CB" or "Connubial Bliss" account.

"There was nothing perverse or surreal or prurient -- just an open exchange," a Bonesman told Robbins.


Alumni gather annually

Skull and Bones is a "dry" society. No alcohol is consumed inside its Tomb. Members dine together at 6:30 p.m. on Thursdays and Sundays in the Firefly Room, where light comes through fixtures shaped like skulls and beverages are served in skull-shaped cups.

There are also plenty of actual skulls and bones, both human and animal, inside the Skull and Bones Tomb. Initiation puts new members in coffins.

"The preoccupation with bones, mortality, with coffins, lying in coffins, standing around coffins, all this sort of thing I think is designed to give them the sense that, and it's very true, life is short," said Rosenbaum. "You can spend it, if you have a privileged background, enjoying yourself, contributing nothing, or you can spend it making a contribution."

During their senior years, members often hang out in the Tombs, which are closed to outsiders. The Skull and Bones building is described as more comfortable than plush, and the society is financed through an endowment and contributions by alumni. There are no dues.

Meetings are held behind a locked iron door in the Inner Temple, or Room 322. The number is hallowed in Skull and Bones history. In its beginnings, the society was known as the Eulogian Club and honored Eulogia, the goddess of eloquence. She "took her place in the pantheon upon the death of the orator Demosthenes in 322 B.C.," reported Robbins.

Inside their tomb, Bonesman refer to outsiders as "barbarians."

Alumni are expected to return to the Tomb for events. And members from over the years gather at least annually on Deer Island, which is owned by Skull and Bones and located just north of Alexandria Bay, N.Y.

"Bones likes to bring back its prominent alumni, especially, because the visits remind younger members of the illustrious footsteps in which they are expected to follow," said Robbins, "and that the bizarre traditions in which they participate are traditions that famous men have been following for nearly 200 years."

 

[CanuckMA]

The question that is not asked of course is this:

Are these people all powerfull because they are Bonesmen, or were they ask to join because they were powerful?

Then again, they will not rule the world until they wrestle control of it from us Jews. :boing2:

 

[Makalakumu]

I wonder if anyone got the point that Skull and Bones is a Death Cult and that both our presidential candidates belong to it... :idunno:

 

[theletch1]

Since Coast to Coast has been mentioned a couple of times so far in this thread I'll mention that George Noory will be doing a show on secret societies on thursday night (4-22-04).

 

[Cruentus]

Since Coast to Coast has been mentioned a couple of times so far in this thread I'll mention that George Noory will be doing a show on secret societies on thursday night (4-22-04).

What Channel?

 

[theletch1]

Coast to Coast A.M. is a radio show that comes on the a.m. band from 1:00 am until 5:00 a.m. Coast to coast a.m. I don't know if there is a radio log that would tell you which station to listen too or not but their site has a streamlink feature for listening to it over the 'puter. There's a fee associated with the streamlink but since I'm in the truck all night long I've never bothered with it. C2C deals with a lot of the paranormal, mystical, fringe news type stuff and their discussions on secret societies have proven to be fairly interesting. A good bit of the stuff on the show is "ghost stories" or "I had a visit from an alien" stuff during the open line portion of the show but the interview portion of the show has been getting a little more mainstream.

 

[heretic888]

I wonder if anyone got the point that Skull and Bones is a Death Cult and that both our presidential candidates belong to it...

Very interesting articles, I must say.

Still, nothing in any of them struck me as either presidential candidate or the organization itself as being involved in anything "diabolical".

I think the label of 'death cult' to the organization fits only in an allegorical sense. As far as I can tell, its a somewhat bizzare secret club with powerful political connections. Of course, those connections derive mostly from the members themselves, moreso than the club's nature or organization structure.

I fail to see what the big deal is.

 

[Makalakumu]

Very interesting articles, I must say.

Still, nothing in any of them struck me as either presidential candidate or the organization itself as being involved in anything "diabolical".

I think the label of 'death cult' to the organization fits only in an allegorical sense. As far as I can tell, its a somewhat bizzare secret club with powerful political connections. Of course, those connections derive mostly from the members themselves, moreso than the club's nature or organization structure.

I fail to see what the big deal is.

An unelected, extremely powerful organization of political leaders and sponsors...we the people have absolutely no say about their structure and politics and they have the power to keep in the game. I have a problem with that. As far as nothing diabolical...well, I wonder what Connie Chung had to say...also, I think I can find something to fit that bill.

 

[heretic888]

An unelected, extremely powerful organization of political leaders and sponsors...we the people have absolutely no say about their structure and politics and they have the power to keep in the game. I have a problem with that. As far as nothing diabolical...well, I wonder what Connie Chung had to say...also, I think I can find something to fit that bill.

Well, honestly, when it really comes down to it --- its just a private club. Sure, its a club made up of very powerful people who are all very influential, but it is still just a club.

If you think these people are somehow obliged to tell us what they're really doing or make the club open to anybody... well, that's an infringement of constitutional rights. Kind of defeats the purpose you're trying to fight for.

Unless there is solid proof that the club is responsible for nefarious events, then there is really nothing illegal or immoral about what they're doing. Let them have their little club.

If I created a private organization, I would feel pretty damn pissed if a bunch of people started trying to force me to change the ways I do things, too. This, of course, is provided such an organization is truly innocent of any illegal activities.

If not, then...