I agree with you on not totally dismissing people but rather taking the good from the bad in what they say. That requires a lot of research so most people just bail at the first thing they don't like. Here I am years after thinking Icke is a complete nut for his reptilian stuff and I'm listening to one of his old interviews. It's got a lot of good stuff so far and some, not so much.
With the Masons, I really don't think they're at the heart of the big conspiracy today. I think the organization served its purpose, after being infiltrated, for a few hundred years and now the main players have moved on to form other groups to occomplish their goals. Do they still have connections to freemasonry, I'm sure. Is freemasonry today at the heart of this all? I don't think so, I think largly they've been somewhat dumped to the side over the last 3-4 decades. Even to the point where for a while freemasonry was in trouble of dying out. It's been revived in recent years only due to increased interest out of hollywood.
I think the only thing that has change with the FREEMSAONS is their names have changed or they are just considered secret societies and even better still they are labeled to seem like government organizations or organizations looking out for the good of man. we hear always about NGO (non government organizations) of which no one really has a clue what these organizations are really about. Even the CFR is dismissed as just a group that offers opinions, when questions arise about it. but truth of the matter the CFR plays a major role in the running of america, Europe, Canada etc. It is a elite group that makes decisions on literally what happens in the world and how governments functions...including america. I take all mason organizations as secret societies with an agenda... and that agenda is always money, power and control. You see every politicians or famous person in business, industry, finance, banking, hollywood etc are always affiliated with certain schools(colleges). You see certain institutions always being called upon to be the spokes person, entity, reference for anything...like Columbia, Yale, Princeton University (high level masonic schools). Here is a list of schools in america with secret societies on their campus (of course SKULL AND BONES is on this list
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegiate_secret_societies_in_North_America ). Notice the colleges and the impressive people who have come out of these secret societies on this list of colleges.
The belief is that the Freemsons were exposed some centuries ago in France and then they dispersed into England and then fled to america. I don't believe they ever disbanded rather they know the NEED to remain secret (especially after being exposed in France) so they buried themselves deeper into societies in countries around the world. DENIAL is the name of their game and obtaining power and control the focus of their ambition. They are still around and their goal is still to dominate and rule the world...