Skull wants your bones
Secret society turns out to be a clan of assassins ??
"The documented history of Rosicrucianism reaches back no further than
the early 1600s, and modern Rosicrucian organizations don't date back
anywhere near that far. In 1614 a curious pamphlet entitled the Fama Fraternitatis was published in Cassel, Germany. This wasn't the first appearance of the Fama;
reportedly it circulated in manuscript as early as 1610. There is some
evidence that the work and some associated pieces were published in
order to promote the anti-Jesuit agenda of the publisher, Wilhelm
Wessel, but that probably wasn't the intent of the original work."
Opinion of The Straight Dope Guys
3. - The Sicilian Mafia
Since their appearance in the 1800s, the
Italian criminal societies known as the Mafia have infiltrated the
social and economic fabric of Italy and now impact the world. They are
some of the most notorious and widespread of all criminal societies. Off The FBI Website
History
of Sicily and the Origins of the Mafia
Like
the entomology of the word 'mafia', the history of Sicily and its relationship
with the Mafia is very eclectic. Because of its geographic location, Sicily
is a desirable location for trade and colonization. It was and continues to
be a gateway to the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Adriatic.
The
'mafia' is generally thought of as an Italian secret crime society, but the
origins of the Mafia start way before the onset of automatic guns and cocaine.
The Mafia began as a way of life: a way to protect one's family and loved ones
from the injustice of the government. Only later, with the onset of the media,
television and Hollywood did the Mafia take on a glamorous air it now has.
So,
one might wonder what environment fosters such violence and slander, as well
and family and camaraderie among men? Sicily's violent and oppressive history
of government and its numerous corrupt and inconsistent rulers (especially in
regards to its justice system) nurtured an atmosphere of self-reliance and cooperation
among the people. This reliance and respect was induced by fear, instilled by
violence and threats, and backed by a bureaucracy of family and friends.

Death to the French is Italy's Cry), or MAFIA. Then, eventually the word "mafia" came to mean "The Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino...You've seen all the movies, you know all the characters, you love how they "tawk", you laugh at their comebacks. Whenever anyone says, "Hey, you're funny", you instinctively reply, "Funny how? Am I a clown? Am I here to amuse you?" You're intrigued by the drama, the action, the blood, and the humor. Italian mob movies undoubtedly have a certain allure. But, how much of it is real? Do they accurately portray the organized crime syndicate? How and when did all the craziness begin? To answer those questions and more, you must explore the true, factual history of Italian organized crime and how it came to be..........THE TRUE STORY!!!
Let's begin with the word itself. Although the exact origin of the word "mafia" is uncertain, some believe it originated in 1282 during the French invasion of Sicily and the saying,
"Morte Alla Francia Italia Anela" (Death to the French is Italy's Cry), or MAFIA. Then, eventually the word "mafia" came to mean "manly", in Sicily.
The word “Camorra” means gang. The Camorra first appeared in the
mid-1800s in Naples, Italy, as a prison gang. Once released, members
formed clans in the cities and continued to grow in power. The Camorra
has more than 100 clans and approximately 7,000 members, making it the
largest of the Italian organized crime groups. Once released, these
members formed "clans"
in the cities and continued to grow in power. The Camorra made its
fortune in reconstruction after a powerful earthquake ravaged the
Campania region in 1980. The Camorra is considered the second largest
IOC group with over 200 clans and approximately 7,000 members.
The Camorra specializes in cigarette smuggling and receives payoffs
from other criminal groups for any cigarette traffic through Italy. In the 1970s, the Sicilian Mafia convinced the Camorra to convert the cigarette smuggling routes into drug smuggling routes with the Sicilian Mafia's
assistance but not all Camorra leaders agreed. This brought about the
Camorra Wars between two factions and almost 400 men were murdered.
Those opposed to drug trafficking lost the war.
It is believed that nearly 200 Camorra affiliates reside in the United States. Many came to the USA during the Camorra Wars ever since the 19th century, as proved by an old organization best known as Black Hand.
The Camorra conducts money laundering, extortion, alien smuggling,
robbery, blackmail, kidnapping, political corruption, and
counterfeiting. Some believe it is now the strongest mafia in Italy.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the Mexican state on the Gulf of California coastline, see Sinaloa.
Sinaloa Cartel
(a.k.a. Pacific Cartel, Guzmán-Loera Cartel)
Founded |
1989 |
Founding location |
Culiacan, Sinaloa |
Years active |
1989–present |
Territory |
Mexico:
Sinaloa, Sonora, Nayarit, Chihuahua, Durango, Jalisco, Colima, Chiapas, Tamaulipas, Guerrero, Zacatecas, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Oaxaca, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Morelos, Mexico City
United States
Central America
South America
Australia |
Ethnicity |
Latino |
Criminal activities |
Drug trafficking, money laundering, murder, kidnapping, bribery |
Allies |
Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Gulf Cartel, Knights Templar, |
Rivals |
Los Zetas, Juárez Cartel, Tijuana Cartel, Beltrán-Leyva Cartel |
The Sinaloa Cartel (Spanish: Cártel de Sinaloa or CDS) is a drug-trafficking and organized crime syndicate based in the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, with operations in the Mexican states of Baja California, Durango, Sonora and Chihuahua. The cartel is also known as the Guzmán-Loera Organization and the Pacific Cartel, the latter due to the coast of Mexico from which it originated. The cartel has also been called the Federation and the Blood Alliance.
The 'Federation' was partially splintered when the Beltrán-Leyva brothers broke apart from the Sinaloa Cartel.
The United States Intelligence Community considers the Sinaloa Cartel "the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world" and in 2011, the Los Angeles Times called it as "Mexico's most powerful organized crime group."
The Sinaloa Cartel is associated with the label "Golden Triangle", which refers to the states of Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua. The region is a major producer of Mexican opium and marijuana. According to the U.S. Attorney General, the Sinaloa Cartel is responsible for importing into the United States and distributing nearly 200 tons of cocaine and large amounts of heroin between 1990 and 2008.
The Afrikanerbond (Afrikaner League), established in 1994, is a new incarnation of the Afrikaner Broederbond, formerly a South African secret society.
Although it retains its old headquarters in Auckland Park,
Johannesburg, unlike its predecessor, membership is open to anyone over
the age of 18 years who identifies with the Afrikaner
community. Applicants are required to go through a selection process
before membership is granted. The existence of the organization is no
longer cloaked in secrecy, it now has its own website.
The organization has the following aims:
- To promote human rights and democracy; reconciliation between the people of South Africa; family stability; land reform; and Afrikaans language and culture
- To preserve cultural artifacts and heritage sites
- To enable poverty alleviation and the prevention of HIV-AIDS
- To fund bursaries and research
- To provide disaster relief; occupational guidance; youth development
programmes; and educational development programmes and resources.
7. - South African Institute of
International Affairs
Have you ever heard of the South African Institute of
International Affairs?
They have been running South
Africa for nearly 100 years.
During the first two thirds of the nineteenth century
the interest of European states in overseas expansion
reached its lowest ebb in several centuries. This period
of relative disinterest did not last out the century.
Suddenly, and almost simultaneously, between 1870 and
1900, the states of Europe began to extend their control
over vast areas of the world. Historians generally agree
that the late nineteenth-century European expansion was
one of the great events of world history.
Conspicuously absent from the history books is mention
of a small secret society of men who played a significant
role in the sponsorship of the historical events. This
secret society would conquer South Africa. They would use
the money they had plundered, and techniques and methods
learned, to grow into a world-wide organization that
continues to shape world history to this day. Between
1910-1915 this Secret Society evolved into an
international group of co-conspirators called Round Table
Groups set up in seven nations: Britain, South Africa,
Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India, and the United
States.
Sourced From http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Freemasonry is a fraternal organization
that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century.
Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a
membership estimated at around six million, including approximately
150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge of Scotland and Grand Lodge of Ireland, over a quarter of a million under the jurisdiction of the United Grand Lodge of England, and just under two million in the United States.
The fraternity is administratively organized into independent Grand Lodges or sometimes Orients, each of which governs its own jurisdiction, which consists of subordinate (or constituent) Lodges. The various Grand Lodges recognize each other, or not, based upon adherence to landmarks. A Grand Lodge will usually deem other Grand Lodges who share common landmarks to be regular, and those that do not to be "irregular" or "clandestine".
There are also appendant bodies, which are organizations related to the main branch of Freemasonry, but with their own independent administration.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Illuminati (plural of Latin illuminatus, "enlightened") is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776 to oppose superstition, prejudice, religious influence over public life, abuses of state power, and to support women's education and gender equality. The Illuminati were outlawed along with other secret societies by the Bavarian government leadership with the encouragement of the Roman Catholic Church, and permanently disbanded in 1785.
In the several years following, the group was vilified by conservative
and religious critics who claimed they had regrouped and were
responsible for the French Revolution.
In subsequent use, "Illuminati" refers to various organizations
claiming or purported to have unsubstantiated links to the original
Bavarian Illuminati or similar secret societies, and often alleged to
conspire to control world affairs by masterminding events and planting agents in government and corporations to establish a New World Order and gain further political power and influence. Central to some of the most widely known and elaborate conspiracy theories,
the Illuminati have been depicted as lurking in the shadows and pulling
the strings and levers of power in dozens of novels, movies, television
shows, comics, video games, and music videos.
10. - CIA
The reality is that the CIA was born in the aftermath of WWII, and has
expanded in scope and authority ever since. It has never been
accountable to any authority outside of the executive branch, and has
continuously taken the fall for the failure of leaders to recall
anything when questioned about clandestine activities. Nevertheless, it
has absorbed all criticism simply due to the fact that it cannot be
de-funded, disbanded, controlled, or held accountable by the people of
this republic. In short, it is its own power, conducting business in
secret, establishing its own missions and goals, and operating under its
own guidelines. From http://blogcritics.org
Dana Priest
of the Washington Post tells us the CIA has “joint operation centers in
more than 2 dozen nations” and the agency’s job is “to track and
capture suspected terrorists and to destroy or penetrate their
networks.” Never mind that the CIA created the Islamic Terror Network
(along with MI6, Mossad, and other intelligence “services”) and this is
sort of like a cop selling drugs to a street corner pusher and then
busting the dealer and his customers. Call it job security, or rather
terror security. If not for the CIA’s billion dollar effort in
Afghanistan, there would be no al-Qaeda. But I suppose we can’t expect
Priest and the Washington Post to mention such bothersome details.
The
CIA and Nazi War Criminals
National
Security Archive Posts Secret CIA History
Released Under Nazi War
Crimes Disclosure Act
National
Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 146
Edited
by Tamara Feinstein
February
4, 2005
Washington D.C., February 4, 2005 - Today
the National Security Archive posted the CIA's secret documentary
history of the U.S government's relationship with General Reinhard
Gehlen, the German army's intelligence chief for the Eastern Front
during World War II. At the end of the war, Gehlen established
a close relationship with the U.S. and successfully maintained
his intelligence network (it ultimately became the West German
BND) even though he employed numerous former Nazis and known war
criminals. The use of Gehlen's group, according to the CIA history,
Forging an Intelligence Partnership: CIA and the Origins of
the BND, 1945-49, was a "double edged sword" that
"boosted the Warsaw Pact's propaganda efforts" and "suffered
devastating penetrations by the KGB." [See Volume 1: Introduction, p. xxix]
The declassified "SECRET RelGER" two-volume
history was compiled by CIA historian Kevin Ruffner and presented
in 1999 by CIA Deputy Director for Operations Jack Downing to
the German intelligence service (Bundesnachrichtendienst) in remembrance
of "the new and close ties" formed during post-war Germany
to mark the fiftieth year of CIA-West German cooperation. This
history was declassified in 2002 as a result of the work of The
Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency
Working Group (IWG) and contains 97 key documents from various
agencies.
This posting comes in the wake of public grievances
lodged by members of the IWG that the CIA has not fully complied
with the mandate of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act and is
continuing to withhold hundreds of thousands of pages of documentation
related to their work. (Note 1) In interviews
with the New York Times, three public members of the
IWG said:
- "I think that the CIA has defied the law, and in so
doing has also trivialized the Holocaust, thumbed its nose
at the survivors of the Holocaust and also at the Americans
who gave their lives in the effort to defeat the Nazis in
World War II." - Former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman
- "I can only say that the posture the CIA has taken
differs from all the other agencies that have been involved,
and that's not a position we can accept." - Washington
lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste
- "Too much has been secret for too long. The CIA has
not complied with the statute." - Former federal prosecutor
Thomas H. Baer
The
IWG was established in January 11, 1999 and has overseen the
declassification of about eight million pages of documents from
multiple government agencies. Its mandate expires at the end of
March 2005.
The documentation unearthed by the IWG reveals extensive relationships
between former Nazi war criminals and American intelligence organizations,
including the CIA. For example, current records show that at least
five associates of the notorious Nazi Adolf Eichmann worked for
the CIA, 23 other Nazis were approached by the CIA for recruitment,
and at least 100 officers within the Gehlen organization were
former SD or Gestapo officers. (Note 2)
The
IWG enlisted the help of key academic scholars to consult during
the declassification process, and these historians released their
own interpretation of the declassified material last May (2004)
in a publication called US
Intelligence and the Nazis. The introduction to this
book emphasizes the dilemma of using former Nazis as assets:
"The notion that they [CIA, Army Counterintelligence Corp,
Gehlen organization] employed only a few bad apples will not
stand up to the new documentation. Some American intelligence
officials could not or did not want to see how many German intelligence
officials, SS officers, police, or non-German collaborators
with the Nazis were compromised or incriminated by their past
service… Hindsight allows us to see that American use
of actual or alleged war criminals was a blunder in several
respects…there was no compelling reason to begin the postwar
era with the assistance of some of those associated with the
worst crimes of the war. Lack of sufficient attention to history-and,
on a personal level, to character and morality-established a
bad precedent, especially for new intelligence agencies. It
also brought into intelligence organizations men and women previously
incapable of distinguishing between their political/ideological
beliefs and reality. As a result, such individuals could not
and did not deliver good intelligence. Finally, because their
new, professed 'democratic convictions' were at best insecure
and their pasts could be used against them (some could be blackmailed),
these recruits represented a potential security problem."
(Note 3)
The Gehlen organization profiled in the newly posted CIA history
represents one of the most telling examples of these pitfalls.
Timothy Naftali, a University of Virginia professor and consulting
historian to the IWG who focused heavily on the declassified
CIA material, highlighted the problems posed by our relationship
with Gehlen: "Reinhard Gehlen was able to use U.S. funds
to create a large intelligence bureaucracy that not only undermined
the Western critique of the Soviet Union by protecting and promoting
war criminals but also was arguably the least effective and
secure in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. As many in
U.S. intelligence in the late 1940s had feared would happen,
the Gehlen Organization proved to be the back door by which
the Soviets penetrated the Western alliance." (Note
4)
The documents annexed in the CIA history posted today by the
Archive echo the observations of Professor Naftali. While placing
much of the blame on the Army Counterintelligence Corps' initial
approach to Gehlen, this history emphasizes the CIA's own reluctance
to adopt responsibility for Gehlen's organization, yet the documents
show the CIA ultimately embracing Gehlen.
Some of the highlights from this secret CIA documentary history
include:
- A May 1, 1952 report detailing how Gehlen and his network
were initially approached by U.S. army intelligence. (Document
6)
- Two evaluations of the Gehlen operation from October 16
and 17, 1946, advising against the transfer of Gehlen's organization
to CIG hands and questioning the value of the operation as
a whole. (Documents 21
and 22)
- A March 19, 1948 memorandum from Richard Helms, noting Army
pressure for the CIA to assume sponsorship of the Gehlen organization,
and continued concern over the security problems inherent
in the operation. (Document
59)
- A December 17, 1948 report outlining the problems with the
Gehlen organization, but ultimately recommending CIA assumption
of the project. (Document
72)
In answer to the question "Can we learn from history?",
the IWG's consulting historians noted "The real question
is not whether we will make use of our past to deal with the present,
but rather how well we will do so. To do it well, we need these
documents." (Note 5)
"This secret CIA history is full of documents we never would
have seen under the Freedom of Information Act, because Congress
in 1984 gave the CIA an exemption for its 'operational' files,
on the grounds that such files were too sensitive ever to be released,"
commented Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive.
"The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act has proven this assumption
false. Release of these files has done no damage to national security,
has provided information of enormous public interest and historical
importance, and however belatedly, has brought a measure of accountability
to government operations at variance with mainstream American
values." From National Security Archive