In our second hour, we hear Tony Gosling at the "Awakened State" conference in Edinburgh, on 13th October 2012. His talk contains some key snatches of hidden history of the last several centuries, but does not get into details, keeping the focus consistently on theme of how power is abused, especially by those who wield it in secret. This is no mere history lesson - he makes numerous parallels to clarify its relevance to the present day. He gives an overview of some secret societies such as the Knights Templar and the Order of the Garter and asks what significance do they have today? The Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is still in existence and contains such figures as Peter Carrington, former Secretary General of NATO, chair of the Bilderberg and president of the Pilgrims Society? Are they, as the commercially-controlled media would have us believe, mere historical legacies, or do they continue as powerful institutions? Describing the broader enclosure movement, he notes how ill informed people are about Ketts rebellion, started by a rich landowner who felt a duty to keep the promises he made to his tenants and who therefore refused to enclose his land (and so render it liable for taxation by central government).
Gosling notes that financial chicanery aside, rent for a 6 bedroom house should be approximately £1/week, considering the cost of the materials and labor needed to make it, and the fact that it should last for about 200 years. Extraordinary? Well it certainly reveals how modern expectations of what is usual and natural have been shaped by those in positions of power - such as bankers and land grabbers. Of course, such abuses continue to the modern day; the Bullingdon Club, in some ways a UK equivalent to the US Skull and Bones society mentioned last week by Sutton, started a couple of hundred years back, continues to affect cronyism in UK in ways that are hard to estimate. Its members include David Cameron (UK Prime Minister), George Osborne (UK Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Boris Johnson (Mayor of London) as well as royals, financiers, businessmen and media figures.