to think that Freemasonry should not be allowed to exist?

[StickMeToTheMan]

... or that members should declare their membership - especially those in positions of power - police, SS, politicians etc?

I am just flabbergasted that this is allowed in this day and age. Take a look at the JS scandal and the potential involvement of the masons, and surely no-one can dispute that this old boy network is dangerously shady.

Can anyone explain to me what it is really for, and if membership to any secret society is justifiable in this day and age?

AIBU?

(Namechanged as have been discussing on FB)

I've just asked DH if anyone has ever given him a funny handshake. He tells me he has experienced plenty of funny handshakes over the years. He's thinks there are different hand shakes for different lodges, and has just demonstrated one he gets quite a lot.

So, once someone has given you a masonic handshake, you will know they are a mason. So not so secret then.

I've not demonised masons in this thread at all, I don't know enough about it.

I just think that, where possible, old school tie type arrangements should be stopped from operating in public life as far as possible. Just because it happens (and I totally agree it happens through other groups too) doesn't mean we shouldn't try to stop it.

The different handshakes are to do with degrees of learning, there's a different handshake for a first degree mason, second degree mason etc. I think there's three but I could be wrong. . . . . .

for the poster upthread who asked how the masons are apparently linked to the js scandel its a bit like this...

a photograph of js and peter sutcliff and frank bruno taken at broadmoor exists and shows peter sutcliff and frank bruno shaking hands in a apparently masonic handshake - yep it seriously is that small.

In the court case it was noted js lived by the site of a yorkshire ripper victim, link on js chat thread.

The masons seem to be off limits for the media. When did you ever hear them being mentioned in any news reports or am I missing something here? Because of their secretive nature, nothing about them can be questioned really, which is sinsister in itself surely?

Handshakes: Several. Look them up. Differ by degree
Widely known, it's a polite greeting, and you wouldn't use that to recognise a Mason.

You could not possibly tell if 2 people exchanged a masonic handshake - so all this "I saw them do it" is nonsene.

I think anything that involves "secret" hand shakes that isn't something to do with some kind of child's story is completely ridiculous!

Grown up men in special in clubs? No wonder the world is a complete mess.

OK, I looked them up. One of them looks damn strange (if the interweb's got 'em right) but I've probably given the others by accident at times!

My search also took me to the secretary of UGLE telling a sycophantic Telegraph reporter THERE IS NO SUCH THING as a masonic handshake. It must be obvious why most of us don't believe a word that comes (publicly) out of the Masons.

SamuelWestsMistress
Grown up men in special in clubs? No wonder the world is a complete mess.

... and the Lady Mason's?

That report is drivel.
The "noose" is a cable tie, and is naff all to do with "the umbilical cord".

The trouser leg isn't once, and there are a range of handshakes.

The handshakes would easily be given by accident, which is why you'd not use those as the sole mean of recognition.

I think we must all be really terrible at this 'secret world domination stuff' - masons have been around for years and we are still not ruling the world and we are so good at keeping ourselves a secret everyone knows about us.

In the USA and they have little notices as you enter towns for Lions, Rotary - and masons. One small masonic building I know there has a 10 - 15ft high masonic sign and the words Xtown Masonic Lodge which light up at night! Our local masonic centre in the UK has a sign in a public car park pointing to it.

Seriously - there have been documentaries and investigations - I can remember watching one about a year ago - they seemed quite disappointed they could not find anything really newsworthy. Perhaps that is why there is not a lot written about masons - because there is not really a lot to report?

And OP - freemasonry was outlawed by Hitler - partially because it accepted people of different religions were equal, so someone beat you to the idea.

It is fundamentally compatible with any positions of authority or public service because it demands a direct conflict of duty.

I can quite see why the rank and file masons enjoy it - to them it is as harmless as the WI or the Rotary Club or a golf club. But they are exceptionally naive to not question the effect being a mason has on the criminal justice system, from police through to judiciary to CPS. Imagine having masons in the CPS who could decide not to prosecute for not enough evidence. A case is stopped dead in its tracks. And if you can nobble the police, judiciary and CPS you're pretty much home free in terms of doing anything illegal.

For anyone claiming the Masons are harmless please read about the collapse of the Daniel Morgan trial and the effort of the non-masonic police to prosecute two police charged of the 6 defendants in that murder.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Morgan_(private_investigator)

It took 5 enquiries and a collapsed trial and still the family are no further to finding who killed Daniel. NoTW and hacking involves the masons and police loyalty to other mason, If inquiries into JS widen beyond the BBC we will start to see how he used the masons to further his connections with other pedophiles and procure children for them so he had a hold over them.

Sorry to cut and paste my post from another thread but it puts the JS connection across:

Savile is the tip of the iceberg. I bet a lot of people currently shitting themselves are hoping we all focus on lynching the BBC so they can carry on.

There's just so much stuff even apart from the wholly credible witnesses in that programme - including the eye witnesses let's not forget - Sue Thompson the BBC junior producer he saw him abusing a young girl and reported it - in no particular order:

1. JS injunction agains The Sun in 2008 to prevent them publishing the photo of him with the kids at Haut de la Garenne - a children's care home in Jersey where Ted Heath's bodyguards reportedly saw JS deliver little boys from the care home to TH to abuse on his yacht Morning Glory - JS has been named by at least one Jersey victim although the investigation was actively run aground by those in power in Jersey - JS had denied ever visiting HdG presumably when he was interviewed over victim's allegations in 2007

1. JS's nephew Guy Marsden's statement about running into JS in a child molester's flat he and his school friends had been lured into at King's Cross and ending up guarding 10 - 12 year olds ferried into a pop impresario's from care homes while they waited their turn to be taken into bedrooms by men and abused. {Daily Mail Article}

1. JS's own autobiography which a poster refers to above, especially with regard to JS's elevated position in the freemasons and blackmail material he had in order to take down half of that particular Leeds police station with him in the 1950s.

1. JS's request to be buried in concrete - "eccentric". No. Evidence-DNA destroying? Perhaps. I'm not a forensic pathologist CSI type person so I have not a clue. But a block of concrete would certainly deter an angry mob disinterring a corpse if, as the net was starting to close in with his questioning on HdG involvement in 2007, he started to contemplate things coming out within a short time after his death.

1. "God?ll Fix It, his slim volume on religion published in 1978, contained many more unusual insights. Jimmy opened a chapter titled How Do I Cope With Sex? with the following thought: ?Sex at its worst is corruption, as when young people might be corrupted to provide sex.? He went on to talk about how sex could be the source of ?great remorse, great guilt? and insisted his rule was never ?make love to anyone if it causes them distress? or if they were in ?a state of drunkenness or don?t know what they?re doing. I mustn?t take them knowing that when they return to normal they?ll be distressed?.

In closing, he offered a final thought: ?Whether it?s OK to God we?ll just have to wait and see.?" Wonder what God will think when he turns up and has to explain why he's in concrete? www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2213931/Jimmy-Savile-Little-slaves-sordid-boasts-dark-truth-friend--biographer-Dan-

Absolutely everything JS did was motivated by access and opportunity to abuse children. I don't doubt this for a second. One of his older brothers has a conviction for sexual abuse of a hospital patient. Something went very very wrong in that family. His utter disregard for those children he abused and procured for others to abuse (there are already revelations that his motto was "the younger: the better" as stated by his biographer - the opportunistic abuse of 13+ yr old fans is just what he permitted enough people to see openly)

There have been child care home abuse scandals in concentrated pockets around the country (Jersey, Clwyd/N Wales, Islington, Plymouth to name a few) where abuse was going on through the 60s/70s/80s and the 90s. In all cases it has been only staff abusing the children have been convicted (with puzzlingly lenient sentences) but allegations from victims of being hired out/given to be abused by others have been shut down due to who they identify in positions of power throughout the ages. The names are astonishing and yet, like Savile, the rumours have always been there and insinuated publicly in a variety of ways. In Clwyd the main abuser running the home Bryn also ran several video production companies and was inexplicably estimated to be worth £7m. www.independent.co.uk/life-style/clwyd-at-long-last-the-coverup-is-over-1283994.html

It was strongly suggested the North Wales police were involved which was why the extent of the abuse was allowed to rake in £7m in profits from using those children as studio fodder for their video production companies and why victims' allegations were reportedly not passed to the CPS. In 2007 the Waterhouse Report (the resulting inquiry into the N Wales scandal) was suppressed - www.nickdavies.net/1997/10/01/secrecy-imposed-on-the-exposure-of-alleged-child-abuse-news-and-feature/ because as you can see, the list of the accused contained high ranking individuals and police and social workers and suggests links to political parties and the aristocracy.

JS used his links within the freemasons to find, procure for and involve in the abuse of children and then forever have a hold over them. In the early days (1950s) in the dance halls it may have been just the cop shop round the corner from the Mecca Locarno he had connections in as he boasted of, but then the masons has all manner of members from police to parliamentarians to aristocracy. I'm pretty sure he used his "faith" in the same way, as a means to connect with other paedophiles in positions of power or with access to children. His nephew references a priest at the parties. And through this JS built an invincible power base as more and more people in positions of power became known to him as pedophiles. So no, if it's some small comfort I don't think we were as morally negligent or uncaring as we think although there are plently of points to be made about the culture of sexism and children not being listened to. But I also think that JS was very well protected by what he knew about people in power - and he was also known to be very litigious.

I suspect this will end up with a suppressed report or a D notice for 100 years like Tony Blair slapped on the findings of the Islington care abuse scandal or, if they can, we will be incited into scampering after the celebrities who, for sentimental reasons, we will be most upset about. Never mind the fact that those in actual positions of power and authority, some with immense wealth who can afford to buy children and treat them as so disposable they lose their lives, will slip under the radar yet again.

incompatible I should have said in my first post.

And my grandfather was a mason and long after his death they paid half of all my grandmother's care home bills until her death so I know they look after their own very well and have indirectly benefited from that within my own family.

As we know from JS, charitable acts don't exonerate wrongdoing. There's no balancing act here where God does some double entry book-keeping on arrival at the pearly gates looks you up and down and says ah yes I can see you've abused over a thousand children in your lifetime, some of whom were killed in the process or killed themselves BUT you did raise over £40m for charity so through the doors you go.

"It is fundamentally compatible with any positions of authority or public service because it demands a direct conflict of duty."

It doesn't. Freemasonry is very clear that:

(1) You need to be a law-abiding citizen of your country
and
(2) You help out a fellow Freemason but not at the expense of someone better qualified or if doing so will be illegal (as above).

Hiring someone you know rather than a complete stranger happens everywhere. If you have seen a Freemason do it, that is hardly evidence that the entire establishment is corrupt and should be abolished

"Because of their secretive nature..."

Freemasonry is not "secret" or "secretive". It is esoteric.

I have said this a few times on this thread now. Has anyone looked it up?

If Freemasonry was so secret and Freemasons oh so secretive, there would not be so many books and websites about it. And you would not be able to ask questions on here and receive answers from a Freemason.

"nothing about them can be questioned really"

Many people are questioning it on this thread right now. And receiving answers. What are you talking about?

Cote - you know about the Daniel Morgan successive investigations and the collapse of the trial and the declaration by the investigating team that they were not masons?

No but I have a feeling that you will tell me all about it.

Well if you're not interested in reading what I already linked to above more than happy to oblige - From wikipedia:

"In the twenty years following Morgan's death five police inquiries were conducted. There were allegations of police corruption, drug trafficking and robbery.[3]

During an initial Metropolitan Police inquiry Jonathan Rees and Sid Fillery were questioned but both denied involvement in the murder.[2][3]
After an inquiry by Hampshire police in 1988, Jonathan Rees and another man were charged with the murder, but charges were dropped because of a lack of evidence.[4] The Hampshire inquiry's 1989 report to the Police Complaints Authority stated that "no evidence whatsoever" had been found of police involvement in the murder.[2]

Sid Fillery retired from the Metropolitan Police on medical grounds and took over Daniel Morgan's position as Jonathan Rees's partner at Southern Investigations.[4] In 1998 Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Roy Clark conducted a third, secret, inquiry into the murder during which Southern Investigations's office was bugged.[4] In December 2000, Jonathan Rees was found guilty of conspiring to plant cocaine on an innocent woman in order to discredit her in a child custody battle and sentenced to seven years imprisonment for attempting to pervert the course of justice.[2][4] When the Morgan family called for disclosure of the 1989 Hampshire police report, DAC Clark imposed very restrictive conditions.[2]

In the fourth inquiry in 2002-2003 a suspect's car and Glenn Vian's house were bugged and conversations recorded.[4] Although as a result of the inquiry the Metropolitan Police obtained evidence that linked a number of individuals to the murder,[4] the Crown Prosecution Service decided that the evidence was insufficient to prosecute anyone.[2]

After the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair declared that the first police inquiry (involving Fillery) was "compromised", a secret fifth inquiry, began.[4]

Detective Superintendent David Cook was appointed to head an inquiry to review the evidence. Because of concerns over connections between Masonic Lodge members and the murder, the 36 police officers appointed to the inquiry team were required to state that they had never been Freemasons.*[5] Cook described the murder as "one of the worst-kept secrets in south-east London," claiming that "a whole cabal of people" knew the identity of at least some of those involved. He said that efforts had been made to blacken Morgan's character and dismissed claims that Morgan might have been killed after an affair with a client or because of an involvement with Colombian drug dealers. He identified the main suspects as "white Anglo-Saxons".[2]"

Daniel Morgan is the private invesitgator murdered in 1987 with an axe - he was the partner of the man Jonathan Rees who continued to run SOuthern Investigations - the PI agency with the links to the police that did NoTW's dirty work when it came to hacking.

so going by that logic,

i am also a member of the wi and a few social sports clubs including a golf club.

if a member of my wi (given that the wi is really very political and makes no secret of courting many power makers or cultivating powerful friends and projecting a image) breaks the law then all wi members must be bad?

What logic?

If police who aren't masons think it's a problem, especially in cases where they are attempting to prosecute their own for corruption and much much worse then I am inclined to agree with them.

sock - I am sure many WI members break the law, and not because they are WI members, same as with the masons. JS and all the paedophilia links within the masons don't make all masons bad just like padeophile priests don't make the entire RC bad.

What is bad is that these people are in a position of authority. Cote corrects me and says their is no demand to put other masons first so there is no conflict of duty within cirminal justice system for example. That may be the case. However, there have been significant issues where masons appear to be acting under the impression they are somehow required to protect their own.

I am surprised more posters who are pro-masons and see thm as harmless haven't heard of the Daniel Morgan case and the lengths to which the non-masonic police investigating had to go to try and prosecute? - and even then it still didn't work (there are masons in the CPS and the judiciary aplenty).

I have huge admiration for all the police who don't join the masons, I really do. and there are plenty of them thankfully.

Good posts HAW.

No, Sock (durr) it doesn't mean they must all be bad. What we are saying is that involvement can compromise justice and therefore failure to disclose is inappropriate. Not that every single person is bad.

i was refering to the js suituation as we xposted with the morgan stuff.

fwiw i am aware of the morgan case, but cote is correct the law of the land comes first.

when you have positions of power sadly they will always attract a significant amount of people who wish to abuse power,its sad but true that unfortunatly a large amount of power hungrey bullies are attracted to roles with in the justice system, police, social services even teachers as each role places them in a fairly unique possition to abuse people more vulnerable. it has always and will always be the case. thankfully all those jobs are also attractive to the right people those who wish to make the world a better place and i do hope there are more of the right people in them.

it wont make a jot of a difference if you are a mason or a member of any other type of club those bullies will always be there, it is part of my belif that the really serious bullies are more likly to get sussed out if they are involved with social groups because other decent people tend to notice these behaviours and perhaps not tollerate them. i know i for one will not assosiate with people who make me uncomfortable.

Hell - What is your point with that enquiry? That some policemen said there weren't Freemasons? That others were concerned they may have been?