Bohemian, Bilderberg, Freemason (cartoon)

(DK555) Ivy League secret fraternities like Skull & Bones and Scroll & Key and Wolf's Head fast-track their initiates and members into mainstream political, social, cultural, and economic life. Admission to such groups is a virtual lifetime-guarantee of special opportunities and connections associated to the fraternity.

These connections can and are used throughout one's career; they are also convenient when conspiratorial meetings need to be called into session. These groups are often patrilineal. They prepare and cultivate supposedly the "best and brightest" in American society. The goal is inclusion in other esoteric business groups such as The Bohemian Club.

In many ways these Western quasi-secret or clandestine societies, business groups, charitable foundations, and fraternities mimic Eastern ideals of guanxi in terms of ethics. So they can be understood culturally through the cartoon media of the very popular post-modernist program "The Simpsons."

Part of Montgomery Burns' fast-track secret to wealth and success was first becoming a Yale "Bonesman." Interestingly, the real-life voice actor for mythical "Burns'" voice, Harry Shearer, was himself fast-tracked into the Bohemian Club. (See below). This was due to the show's unprecedented global success. (Success breeds advantage to co-opt that success).

The Bohemian Club or Grove (according to the Staff Editor, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, 1991) is one of the highest quasi-clandestine business associations one can aspire to join. Along with the Bilderberg Society, the Trilateral Commission, or Freemasons, it constitutes a class of social "think tanks" and exclusive meeting clubs that are never meant to come to the public's attention. (Once they do, it is generally too late, like Area 51 or the School of the Americas; one club closes only for a more secretive organization to form). Therefore, to mention them will generally draw a complete blank.

• Bohemian who? The Bohemian Grove is a 2,700-acre (1,100 ha) compound situated at 20601 Bohemian Avenue, in Monte Rio, California, which is the property of a private San Francisco-based men's art club known as the Bohemian Club. In mid-July each year, the Bohemian Club hosts a three-week camp for some of the most powerful men on the planet (Weiss, 1989).

The Bohemian Club or Grove was established as an artists' colony in California outside San Francisco in 1872. However, a power struggle with the financial and banking members of the Grove soon ousted most of the power that had been held by the artists by the beginning of the 20th century.

Since that time many US presidents and "movers and shakers" have become members despite long waiting lists, which can be expedited through large membership contributions paid in installments over a member's life depending on their relative importance to the Grove (Turner, 1981).

What is the ethnicity of groups such as the Bohemian Club? Jewish or "Aryan," arms dealers (a species unto itself) or weapons manufacturers, Nazis or Republicans, Democrats or media moguls... all of the above? Such clubs were rumored to be discussion areas for the Manhattan Project (that developed the atomic bomb) as well as for its use on a civilian (innocent, noncombatant) population over two Japanese cities, war crimes for which the U.S. was never pursued in international court...