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That a certain portion of conservative and reactionary Republicans have chosen to develop and spread lies about George Soros — it’s practically an industry — comes as no surprise. Push-back, however, seems to me comparatively rare. The Political Correctness of the Far White Right immediately demonizes those who would defend the billionaire’s spacious philanthropy on behalf of authentic democracy, freedom, and progress.

The post that follows came about through involvement in one such conversation.

From the Awesome Conversation

Soros’s funding engages and liberates. Some of the people you hate so much appear to be fashionably “Marxist” but in fact hustling capitalist and modern Americans themselves, but they are leveraging substantial American challenges (involving bigotry) into careers.

The Anti-Defamation League has commented twice in the past two years on the demonizing of George Soros: https://www.adl.org/blog/the-antisemitism-lurking-behind-george-soros-conspiracy-theories & https://www.adl.org/blog/soros-conspiracy-theories-and-the-protests-a-gateway-to-antisemitism.

Sometimes, some features of the “New Nationalism” and its Christian focus may remind many of the mission taken up by Gerald L. K. Smith (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_L.K._Smith) and his own (failed) “America First Party” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Party(1943).

See Soros, Tivador and Humphrey Tonkin. Masquerade: The Incredible True Story of How George Soros’s Father Outsmarted the Gestapo. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2001.

See Soros, George. In Defense of Open Society. Public Affairs, 2019. New York: Public Affairs Publishing, 2019.

BackChannels has come to regard the co-founders of Black Lives Matter as fashionably “Marxist” and perhaps misguided in the ways set by Soviet/Post-Soviet Active Measures — the term “Marxist” has been overplayed as a dog whistle for the nation’s reactionaries — but in fact deeply “capitalist” in their operating behavior as public figures — i.e., making their way — as modern moral entrepreneurs, each uniquely engaged in the address of the more stubborn aspects of America’s issues with class and race.

https://www.ted.com/speakers/alicia_garza

https://www.ted.com/speakers/opal_tometi

https://www.ted.com/speakers/patrisse_cullors

With the Trump Administration playing up the term “Antifa”, some easily seduced may come out to play, as it were, and by doing so actually create an organized and visible Antifa movement, but for the most part, such claims have been Big Lies and undeniably fake news, e.g., “FBI did not say teacher is the most common occupation of antifa activists” (Ali Swenson for AP, July 9, 2020).

The Trump Administration lies to Americans — not as yet a still conscionable FBI (please do look up “FBI, Antifa” up to this day (August 8, 2020) and let BackChannels know of any substantiation of claims about either “Antifa” and “Black Lives Matter” as the direct drivers of protester violence.

Addendum: Also Related Online

BBC. “Why is billionaire George Soros a bogeyman for the hard right?” September 7, 2019.

Epstein, Nadine. “No, Holocaust Survivor George Soros Was NOT a Nazi.” moment, Winter Issue 2019.

Reuters. “Fact check: False claims about George Soros.” September 29, 2020.

Reuters. “Fact check: Photograph shows Nazi bookkeeper, not George Soros.” June 18, 2020.

Selk, Avi. “George Soros wasn’t a Nazi, Roseanne Barr. He was a 14-year-old Jew who hid from them.” The Washington Post, May 30, 2018.

In an open society, the role of the state is to protect the freedom of the individual; in a closed society, the role of the individual is to serve the rulers of the state. Other issues that concern all humanity – fighting pandemics and climate change, avoiding nuclear war, maintaining global institutions – have had to take a back seat to this systemic struggle.

Soros, George. “The Fight of Our Lives.” Project-Syndicate, May 24, 2022.

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