1981 Barney Miller Episode Lays Out Trilateral Commission Agenda

originally posted by: DelMarvel
a reply to: WCmutant

I'm pretty sure that episode was called "Field Associate" and the writer was Jordan Moffet. If you want to investigate anyone it probably should be Danny Thomas. The guy who really created the show was Ted Flicker who never played ball with the networks and studios but he was gone at that point.

Early in the morning when I posted this: I mean Danny Arnold not Danny Thomas.

a reply to: NthOther

This was a popular conspiracy theory of the '70s / '80's that was really born from the book The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

Plot summary[edit]
The trilogy's story begins with an investigation by two New York City detectives (Saul Goodman and Barney Muldoon) into the bombing of Confrontation, a leftist magazine, and the disappearance of its editor, Joe Malik. Discovering the magazine's investigation into the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the two follow a trail of memos that suggest the involvement of powerful secret societies. They slowly become drawn into a web of conspiracy theories.

GREAT BOOK!

Although the many conspiracy theories in the book are (presumably) imaginary, these are mixed in with enough truth to make them seem plausible. For example, the title of the first book, The Eye in the Pyramid, refers to the Eye of Providence, a mystical symbol which derives from the ancient Egyptian Eye of Horus and is erroneously claimed to be the symbol of the Bavarian Illuminati. Some of America's founding fathers are alleged by conspiracy theorists to have been members of this sect.[9]
The books are loaded with references to the Illuminati, the Argenteum Astrum, many and various world domination plans, conspiracy theories and pieces of gnostic knowledge. Many of the odder conspiracies in the book are taken from unpublished letters to Playboy magazine, where the authors were working as associate editors while they wrote the novels.

If I remember correctly..........it went like this.............

Tri Lateral Commission i.e. T.L.C.

T.L.C. = Tender, Loving, Care

Control the Tender, i.e. Money and currency

Control the Loving, i.e. Church and Justice

Control the Care, i.e. Health Care, Pharma and Insurance

There's some good ole' 1970's conspiracy stuff from one who what there!

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: NthOther

This was a popular conspiracy theory of the '70s / '80's that was really born from the book The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

That's a good book. I really recommend "Cosmic Trigger 1: The Final Secret of the Illuminati" by RAW if you haven't read it. It really transformed my paradigm RE: conspiracy theories and a lot of other things.

However, that wasn't the source of the Trilateral Commission conspiracy theories IMO. A lot of people were talking about that. As you point out, that was one of the existing memes that Wilson and Shea incorporated into their writing.

This is a quote from Barry Goldwater's memoirs published in 1979, two years before this Barney Miller episode.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say I strongly doubt Goldwater read The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

In my view The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power -- political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical. All this is to be done in the interest of creating a more peaceful, more productive world community. What the Trilateralists truly intend is the creation of a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved. They believe the abundant materialism they propose to create will overwhelm existing differences. As managers and creators of the system they will rule the future.

a reply to: DelMarvel

I really recommend "Cosmic Trigger 1: The Final Secret of the Illuminati"

Oh my God, I'd forgotten about that book! Yes! Excellent!

I guess the TLC conspiracy just blossomed at the time, from all kinds of angles, because it had to!

Beating a dead horse---

There was a very strong conspiracy subculture by the seventies that believed in an elite cabal secretly controlling the finances and politics of the country. It was to a point where the Republican party was worried about it gaining too much influence in the GOP. "None Dare Call It Conspiracy" sold 4 million copies in 1972 and spelled out all the elements we're familiar with including naming the Council on Foreign Relations. When the Trilateral Commission was formed that was plugged right into the conspiracy. Robert Welch the founder of the John Birch Society specifically named it in a big speech in 1974. The John Birch Society had 400 bookstores across the country in the seventies. There were articles in main stream publications about the Trilateral Commission. The theory that Rockefeller forced Reagan to accept Bush as VP was widely circulated.

There was nothing out of the blue in that Barney Miller episode especially considering that is exactly what that show was about---eccentric intellectual suspects being brought and locked up and then spouting off their theories.

And looking at it again, the Jeffrey Tambor character was NOT portrayed completely unsympathetically. Yes, he was being arrested. Yes, the detectives made jokes at his expense. That was the plot device they used for eight years to introduce most of the guest characters. But he winds up delivering the spiel about the convention and the members of the TLC earnestly and without rebuttal. Considering the creators and/or producers of that show Ted Flicker and Danny Arnold were both mavericks who butted heads with the studio I would say that if there was any ulterior motive to that scene it was far more likely to have been a comment by jaded Hollywood liberals after the election of Reagan; people who may have actually been buying into some of the conspiracy theory as I speculated before.