Tags
Anti-Totalitarian, defense of democracy, George Soros, Global Integration, Open Policy & Political Education (OPPE)
How skilled are you with disinformation?
“George Soros Announces China Must Lead the New World Order” (News Punch, December 4, 2016) — that was the header and publication that greeted me on Facebook first thing over coffee.
I’ve had enough and not only of the posting-with-an-agenda crowd on Facebook — everybody’s making a point! — but with the Far Right demonizing of billionaire philanthropist George Soros. Having now been summoned to his defense often (for having done a little bit of earnest homework on Soros as a global notable), I thought here to file and pull some of the barbs launched and planted around the Internet to aid the Putin-manipulated “Newest Nationalists” (I shall call them) for the purpose of leading EU/NATO (America First!) back to archaic, bloody, tried, and finished feudalism.
MUNICH – Neither the European public nor European political and business leaders fully understand the threat presented by Xi Jinping’s China. Although Xi is a dictator who is using cutting-edge technology in an effort to impose total control on Chinese society, Europeans regard China primarily as an important business partner. They fail to appreciate that since Xi became president and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), he has established a regime whose guiding principles are diametrically opposed to the values on which the European Union was founded.
Soros, George. “Europe Must Recognize China for What It Is.” Project-Syndicate, February 11, 2020.
Another header encountered this morning in the cause to “out” disinformation was one I knew intuitively would exist in spirit if not the precise words used here by CNBC (May 12, 2020): “George Soros says US should not work closely with China on the coronavirus crisis”.
In an interview published on Monday by German newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine, Soros said ongoing tensions between the world’s two largest economies and President Donald Trump’s blaming of China for the Covid-19 pandemic were complicating potential joint efforts to eradicate the virus.
However, Soros himself was not an advocate of closer relations with Beijing.
“There are a lot of people who say we should be working very closely with China (on tackling the crisis) — but I am not in favor of doing that,” he said. “We must protect our democratic open society. At the same time, we must find a way to cooperate on fighting climate change and the novel coronavirus. That won’t be easy.”
Taylor, Chloe. “George Soros says US should not work closely with China on the coronavirus crisis.” CNBC Politics, May 12, 2020.
With the concept of “Malignant Narcissism” readily at hand for all engaged in political psychology, we may know more about authoritarian leaders than we do about their followers who appear simply ill-informed about the world and vulnerable to its framing by persons with other than democratic and noble intentions.
Barbs
George Soros: Anti-Semite and Coward? No.
As the Nazi program uncloaked for the destruction of Jewry in its entirety, father Tivadar and son George found themselves in Hungary with few options for survival. While Anne Frank and family had found Dutch help for hiding in a sufficient compartment at the rear of a complicated house, the Hungarian father chose social camouflage, i.e., blending into invisibility. Our George was fourteen years old and listened to his father. The barbs launched at the pair today: “cowards”. I’ve heard that it would have been more laudable for them to have died in the camps or joined the resistance — although there was no resistance — no units to join — in Hungary.
Today, real and thinking Jews know that against the unbridled horror of the Nazi Jew-killing machinery, merely to survive it would be to triumph over it!
(There’s a quotation to the left on this blog attributed to Simon Wiesenthal on the occasion of his 90th Birthday celebration held in the ballroom of the Imperial Hotel, Vienna, Austria, formerly Hitler’s favorite destination: “The Nazis are no more, but we are still here, singing and dancing”).
Soros father and son, as had painfully too few other Jews, survived the Holocaust, and in relation to the anti-Semitism mixed into so much Soros-related disinformation and invective, this is the way to appreciate them: both were Jews by birth — in the traditional matrilineal way — and both became Holocaust Survivors.
George Soros, Communist, Globalist, Totalitarian — Not Quite
I think ignorance must be Hell.
What kind of mind and personality would incline to accept everything said by an “authority” or “big shot” — or “big talker” — with nodding approval and little curiosity and independence?
Here on BackChannels is a short listing of “Globalist” organizations –>
We “Earthlings” really do live on just one planet that in our modern world has been fully connected for international material and social exchange via communication technologies, global shipping, and every form of human travel so far invented. While we may be slowed down by COVID-19 and related restrictions on commerce and travel, we should not be pushed backward by it politically or socially into the shortcomings of earlier political eras or stages.
We have the Internet.
We have our better and wiser selves.
While we of little to modest means work on making the world a better place — and also keeping its 7,000 living language cultures (fewer) and about 4,200 religions (and a disputed and much smaller number of “Major Religions”) intact, George Soros, who chose some time ago to channel off investment revenue into global philanthropy through his Open Society Foundations, has been planting money and cultivating improvements in Qualities of Living worldwide.
In answer to latest Far Whacked Out Right flap doodle on Black Lives Matter, which in parts of its radical agenda can never work but will now be visible and discussable in the public discourse, one may have a look into Borealis Philanthropy, the organization that handles the money and monitors its performance downstream. Where that money goes astray, as it were and as it may — BLM is a “big tent” with fractious cliques, some of them perhaps Left of the Far Out Left — we may let the FBI figure it out as it will where crimes have been committed or incited.
Who Hates George Soros? Authoritarians, Dictators, Political Absolutists, Would-Be Fascists
Authoritarians and Far (White?) Right immoral nationalist entrepreneurs hate George Soros. Here are two practically unavoidable notes on the Soros-Orban relationship involving just one of the philanthropist’s notable enemies –>
VIENNA — Forced out of Hungary, Central European University marked its relocation to Vienna on Friday with a bittersweet ceremony that amounted to a victory for Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orban, in his campaign against liberal values.
Founded and endowed after the fall of the Iron Curtain by George Soros, the billionaire financier and philanthropist, the university promoted democracy and liberal thought in a region where they had been suppressed for a century under fascism and communism.
Novak, Benjamin. “Pushed from Hungary, University Created by Soros Shifts to Vienna.” The New York Times, November 15, 2019.
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Should the Jews of Hungary pack their bags? Those with an eye to history might wonder. Last March, in a formal speech commemorating the 170th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, President Viktor Orban said the following:
“They do not fight directly, but by stealth; they are not honourable, but unprincipled; they are not national, but international; they do not believe in work, but speculate with money; they have no homeland, but feel that the whole world is theirs. They are not generous, but vengeful, and always attack the heart – especially if it is red, white and green [the colours of the Hungarian flag].”
With these words, Mr. Orban pursued his marginalization of Hungary’s Jews. He didn’t name them. He didn’t have to. His familiar anti-Semitic tropes, which might have been lifted from any number of German sources between the late 18th-century and the defeat of Adolf Hitler in 1945, would have resonated clearly in the minds of his audience.
Paris, Erna. “Viktor Orban’s war on George Soros and Hungary’s Jews.” The Globe and Mail, June 1, 2018.
What kind of man hates George Soros: Viktor Orbán.
According to the Wikipedia entry, “Orbán’s social conservatism, national conservatism, soft Euroscepticism and advocacy of what he describes as an “illiberal state” have attracted significant international attention.[2] During his time in government since 2010, Hungary has experienced democratic backsliding, shifting towards authoritarianism.[3][4][5][6][7].”
Is Viktor Orban really that bad as an anti-democratic authoritarian leader traveling the tiredly familiar route toward fascism?
Yes.
Related Online
Mentor and Student
And this is the point: anybody who has ever lived under another form of government—that is, under a dictatorship which cannot be removed without bloodshed—will know that a democracy, imperfect though it is, is worth fighting for and, I believe, worth dying for. This, however, is only my personal conviction. I should regard it as wrong to try to persuade others of it.
We could base our whole theory on this, that there are only two alternatives known to us: either a dictatorship or some form of democracy. And we do not base our choice on the goodness of democracy, which may be doubtful, but solely on the evilness of a dictatorship, which is certain. Not only because the dictator is bound to make bad use of his power, but because a dictator, even if he were benevolent, would rob all others of their responsibility, and thus of their human rights and duties. This is a sufficient basis for deciding in favour of democracy—that is, a rule of law that enables us to get rid of the government. No majority, however large, ought to be qualified to abandon this rule of law.
Popper, Karl. “From the archives: the open society and its enemies revisited.” The Economist, 1988, reprinted January 31, 2016.
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Soros, George. “Soros: General Theory of Reflexivity.” Financial Times, October 16, 2009.
I started developing my philosophy as a student at the London School of Economics in the late 1950s. I took my final exams one year early and I had a year to fill before I was qualified to receive my degree. I could choose my tutor and I chose Karl Popper, the Viennese-born philosopher whose book The Open Society and Its Enemies had made a profound impression on me.
In his books Popper argued that the empirical truth cannot be known with absolute certainty. Even scientific laws can’t be verified beyond a shadow of a doubt: they can only be falsified by testing. One failed test is enough to falsify, but no amount of conforming instances is sufficient to verify. Scientific laws are hypothetical in character and their truth remains subject to testing. Ideologies which claim to be in possession of the ultimate truth are making a false claim; therefore, they can be imposed on society only by force. This applies to Communism, Fascism and National Socialism alike. All these ideologies lead to repression. Popper proposed a more attractive form of social organization: an open society in which people are free to hold divergent opinions and the rule of law allows people with different views and interests to live together in peace. Having lived through both Nazi and Communist occupation here in Hungary I found the idea of an open society immensely attractive.
Soros, George. “Soros: General Theory of Reflexivity.” Financial Times, October 16, 2009.
For some years, I have kept a “quick list” of articles about George Soros. I had compiled the list of URL’s to haul into intellectual battle involving those more loaded with attitudes and beliefs than facts and histories. Not all items so stashed were favorable the the Soros image, but as evidenced here the best work fits the mosaic of a son and father who both well knew the horrors of dictatorship and tyranny, survived both, and were to set themselves against both for the rest of their lives.
Here is the “Quick List” of Soros URL’s (and preceding note) relayed here verbatim in the plain text in which it has been maintained –>
Schwartz György
George Soros, Hon FBA is a Hungarian-American billionaire investor and philanthropist. As of February 2018, he had a net worth of $8 billion, having donated more than $32 billion to his philanthropic agency, the Open Society Foundations. Wikipedia
Born: August 12, 1930 (age 89 years), Budapest, Hungary
Net worth: 8.3 billion USD (2020)
Spouse: Tamiko Bolton (m. 2013), Susan Weber (m. 1983–2005), Annaliese Witschak (m. 1960–1983)
Children: Alexander Soros, Jonathan Soros, Andrea Soros, Robert Soros, Gregory Soros
Nationality: Hungarian, American, British
—> Google brief results, “Hungarian surname Soros”
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/
http://heymancenter.org/people/george-soros/
https://www.biography.com/business-figure/george-soros – 1/26/2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/17/magazine/george-soros-democrat-open-society.html – 7/17/2018
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-george-soros-interview-20180609-story.html – 6/9/2018
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/11/17405784/george-soros-not-a-nazi-trump – 6/11/2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iGB0gTA4Ec – 10/29/2018 “George Soros on 60 Minutes”.
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-truth-about-george-soros-is-damning-enough/ – 11/1/2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFy_X6IVmkc – “George Soros BIG Secrets EXPOSED!!!!!!!!” – 11/17/2017
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/soros-war-against-jews-daniel-greenfield – 12/31/2019
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivadar_Soros
Masquerade: Dancing Around Death in Nazi Occupied Hungary Hardcover – September 10, 2001
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