International power brokers arriving in Chantilly for the 2012 Bilderberg conference were treated to a rude welcome by a raucous crowd of about 200 demonstrators Thursday afternoon.
As black limousines and SUVs pulled into the secluded Westfields Marriott hotel, the site of this year’s annual meeting of the world’s richest and most influential, the protesters, many of whom wielded megaphones, shouted them down.
Even hotel employees weren’t immune.
“Don’t serve these criminals,” one man shouted as members of the wait staff drove onto the hotel grounds.
The Bilderberg gathering, given its name after the first meeting at the Netherlands’ Bilderberg hotel in 1954, is viewed in conspiracy lore as the central planning session for an eventual one-world government. The European debt crisis is rumored to be at the top of this year’s Bilderberg agenda, but, among members of the crowd, opinions differed about what was being discussed inside.
“They’re talking about Mitt Romney’s running mate and they’re talking about setting up re-education camps for all of us,” said Ross Mullaney, 21, who drove to Northern Virginia from his home in New Hampshire.
Like most of the other demonstrators, Mr. Mullaney said he was inspired to make the trek by the work of Alex Jones, radio host and leading voice in American alternative media. An iconic figure among his listeners, Mr. Jones is also one of the loudest critics of the Bilderberg group.
He led the tongue-lashing as Henry Kissinger, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, Goldman Sachs International Chairman Peter Sutherland, World Trade Organization Director-General Pascal Lamy and about 150 other Bilderberg attendees showed up for the meeting, which officially began Thursday afternoon and continues through the weekend.
“You’re going to prison, scumbags,” he shouted at a dark limo with tinted windows as it turned slowly into the hotel, the entrances to which were closely guarded by dozens of Fairfax County police officers.
Demonstrators were kept confined to grassy areas outside the facility’s main gate. While law enforcement was strict in keeping everyone away from the vehicles and off the hotel grounds, no one was arrested, and there were no serious incidents, officers told The Washington Times.
But police also have warned members of the press that anyone attempting to get into the hotel would be arrested. Guests, including Mr. Jones and his crew, were kicked out of the hotel before the conference began.
Rumors were circulating among the crowd that federal law enforcement had set up machine-gun nests atop the hotel, though those reports couldn’t be confirmed.
Often mocked by the mainstream media, Mr. Jones and his listeners think that inside the Westfields hotel, world leaders, bankers and business titans are plotting the death of democracy and the replacement of the U.S. government and those of other nations with a centralized global power structure.
They’re willing to take extreme measures to combat it.
Zac Bergholtz, a 21-year-old college student from Nashville, Tenn., said that after he began listening to Mr. Jones’ show, he grew concerned that medical vaccines given to his young son weren’t designed to protect him. Like others in the crowd, he fears the medicines are meant to squelch brain power and make ordinary people easier to control by authorities.
He’s stopped giving his son, now almost 2 years old, any doctor-recommended vaccines. Mr. Bergholtz also said that the increased use of police and military drones is the first step in “taking the humanity out of the humans.”
Bilderberg attendees appear to pay virtually no attention to Mr. Jones, Mr. Bergholtz or the other protesters who show up like clockwork at the meeting each year, even when it’s held in remote locations, such as last year’s gathering in the Swiss Alps.
The mysterious group releases little information about the conference, though it did on Thursday afternoon put out a list of this year’s participants. Critics think the list is by no means complete, and many high-profile persons – such as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton [-] are present but intentionally left off the official roster.
The full list is posted at bilderbergmeetings.org.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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