All Embracing But Underwhelming…

Jon Ronson, ‘Them: Adventures with Extremists,’ Picador, London, 2001

p. xi-ii - ‘This book began its life as a series of profiles of extremist leaders, but it quickly became something stranger. My plan had been to spend time with those people who had been described as the political and religious monsters of the western world - Islamic fundamentalists, neo-Nazis, etc. I wanted to join them as they went about their everyday lives. I thought that perhaps an interesting way to look at our world would be to move into theirs and stand alongside them while they glared back at us.
‘And this is what I did with them for a while. But then I found that they had one belief in common: that a tiny elite rules the world from inside a secret room. It is they who start the wars, I was told, elect and cast out the heads of state, control Hollywood and the markets and the flow of capital, operate a harem of underage kidnapped sex slaves, transform themselves into twelve-foot lizards when nobody is looking, and destroy the credibility of any investigator who gets too close to the truth,
‘I asked them specifics. Did they know the whereabouts of the secret room? But their details were sketchy. Sometimes, they said, these elitists meet in hotels and rule world from there. Every summer, they added, they team with presidents and prime ministers to attend a Satanic summer camp where they dress in robes and burn effigies at the foot of a giant stone owl.
‘I took it upon myself to try to settle the matter. If there really was a secret room, it would have to be somewhere. And if it was somewhere, it could be found. And so I set
about trying to find it.
‘This turned out to be a hazardous journey. I was chased by men in dark glasses, surveilled from behind trees, and unlikely as it might sound right now - I managed to
witness robed international CEOs participate in a bizarre pagan owl-burning ritual in the forests of northern California.
‘One night, in the midst of my quest to find the secret room, I was back in London playing poker with another Jewish journalist, John Diamond. He asked me what I was up to. I ranted about how the extremists were on to something, how they were leading me to a kind of truth, and so on.
‘John, who has throat cancer and consequently needs to write everything down, immediately found a blank page his notepad and furiously scribbled, ‘You are sounding like one of THEM.’
‘The word THEM was written with such force that it scored through the paper. Was John right? Had I become one of them?’

p. 6-7 - ‘I dropped him off near the tube station. I went to park the car. Ten minutes later, I found him standing in the middle of the pavement with a stack of leaflets in his hand.
‘’How’s it going, Omar?’ I asked.
‘’Oh, very good,’ he smiled. ‘The message is getting across that there are some deadly diseases here and there.’
‘He turned to the passers-by.
‘’Homosexuality!’ he yelled. ‘Beware the deadly disease! Beware the hour!’
‘Some time passed.
‘’Homosexuality!’ yelled Omar. ‘Beware! There are homosexuals everywhere!’
‘I expected to see some hostility to Omar’s leaflets from the passers-by. But the shoppers and tourists and office workers seemed to regard him with a kindly bemusement. Nonetheless, after ten minutes nobody had actually taken a leaflet.
‘‘Beware the hour! There are homosexuals everywhere! Beware the hour!’ continued Omar, cheerfully. ‘Be careful from homosexuaIity! It is not good for your tummy!’
‘Omsar Bakri was unlike my image of a Muslim extremist.
‘Then he told me that he had a good idea.
‘’Just watch this,’ he said.
‘He turncd the leaflets upside down.
‘Help the orphans!’ he yelled. ‘Help the orphans!’
‘‘Omar!’ I exclaimed, scandalized.
‘The passers-by started to accept his leaflets.
‘This is good,’ chuckled Omar. ‘This is good. You see, if I wasn’t a Muslim I’d be working for.. how you say… Saatchi and Saatchi!’
p. 64-5 - ‘’Some people think this is a Jewish conspiracy, some think it’s a Catholic conspiarcy, some people think it’s a Masonic conspiracy. But I know what it really is.’
‘‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘’It is a a satanic globalist conspiracy,’ said Jack.’

p. 79 - ‘’Television’s an interesting thing,’ said Ron. ‘When this started here at Waco, I could not imagine that they would bum these people up. But they did. Then I thought
there’d be such an outcry it would bring down the government. But the silence was deafening. When I asked people about it they said, “David Koresh was a bad guy. He deserved it.” I started thinking, what’s wrong here? There’s something wrong. I kept thinking about it. Then I found out one day that television is not a steady light, it’s a rapidly flashing light. As soon as I got that little bit of information, I realised what had happened. One of the ways you hypnotize people is with a rapidly flashing light. Everybody is hypnotized.’

p. 299-300 - ‘This is how Denis Healey described a Bilderberg person to me:
‘’To say we were striving for a one world government is exaggerated but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn’t go on for ever fighting one another
for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing.’
‘He said, ‘Bilderberg is a way of bringing together politicians, industrialists, financiers and journalists. Politics should involve people who aren’t politicians. We make a point of getting along younger politicians who are obviously rising, to bring them together with financiers and industrialists who offer them wise words. It increases the chance of having a sensible global policy.’
‘’Does going help your career?’ I asked Denis Healey.
‘’Oh yes,’ he said. Then he added, ‘Your new understanding of the world will certainly help your career.’
‘‘Which sounds like a conspiracy,’ I said.
‘‘Crap!” said Denis Healey. ‘Idiocy! Crap! I’ve never heard such crap! That isn’t a conspiracy. That is the world. It is the way things are done. And quite rightly so.’
‘He added, ‘But I will tell you this. If extremists and leaders of militant groups believe that Bilderberg is out to do them down, then they’re right. We are. We are against Islamic fundamentalism, for instance, because it’s against democracy.’
‘’Isn’t Bilderberg’s secrecy against democracy too?’ I asked.
‘’We aren’t secret,’ he snapped. ‘We’re private. Nobody is going to speak freely if they’re going to be quoted by ambitious and prurient journalists like you who think it’ll
help your career to attack something that you have no knowledge of.’

p. 330 - ‘’Let’s face it,’ my deep throat had said to me, ‘nobody rules the world any more. The markets rule the world. Maybe that’s why your conspiracy theorists make up all those crazy things. Because the truth is so much more frightening. Nobody rules the world. Nobody controls anything.’’