This sounds exactly like the kind of thing that should have an army of conspiracy-theorists hacking away at their keyboards in a veritable orgy of rumour-mongering. Are they? Will they?
After all, it is not every day that a gazillionaire, international financier buys up a political wing of an entire country:
George Soros, one of the world’s wealthiest financiers and philanthropists, has declared that getting George Bush out of the White House has become the “central focus” of his life, and he has put more than $15m (£9m) of his own money where his mouth is.
“It is the central focus of my life,” he told the Washington Post in an interview published yesterday, after announcing a donation of $5m to a liberal activist organisation called MoveOn.org. The gift brings the total amount in donations to groups dedicated to Mr Bush’s removal to $15.5m.
Other pledges of cash have gone to America Coming Together (ACT), an anti-Bush group that proposes to mobilise voters against the president in 17 battleground states. Mr Soros and a friend, Peter Lewis, the chairman of a car insurance company, promised $10m.
Mr Soros has also helped to bankroll a new liberal think-tank, the Centre for American Progress, to be headed by Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, John Podesta, which will aim to counter the rising influence of neo-conservative institutions in Washington.
Excuse me, but ‘liberal’? MoveOn.org are hardcore socialists who are about as ‘liberal’ as Fidel Castro.
The 74-year-old investor, who made a fortune betting against the pound in the late 80s and against the dollar this year, is to lay out the reasons for his detestation of the Bush administration in a book to be published in January, titled The Bubble of American Supremacy, a polemic which he has half-jokingly dubbed the ‘Soros Doctrine’.
Which means that he at least half-serious (and that is generally serious enough).
Of course, Mr Soros is free to do what he pleases with his own money but is this plutocratic takeover of the American left really all about George Bush? Or are there more lavish plans afoot? Mr. Soros has mind-boggling amounts of money, an army of political footsoldiers at his disposal and a ‘doctrine’. All he needs to complete the picture is a monocle and a persian cat.
I am always rather embarrassed when I find myself in the position of defending George Bush. He is a machine politician of the kind I have learned to mistrust on principle. But looking at the respective profiles of these two Georges, which one sounds more like a demagogue?
update: ‘AK’ has sent us a very… revealing image!
click for larger image
I find it odd that organizations like MoveOn (who can’t seem to move on from the 2000 election) have conniption fits when a wealthy Republican uses his money to make large donations of a political nature, but have no problem taking massive sums from George Soros.
What a bunch of hypocrites.
Re: Ted
Actually MoveOn’s charter purpose was to urge Move On from the Lewinsky affair during the Clinton years. Once the country moved on, they found Florida to chewed on. And they’re still there.
Think of him as George Crassus.
BigFire:
I actually visited the MoveOn site once, and saw it mentioned that they were formed during the Lewinsky scandal, and they were claiming to be average concerned citizens. When I saw that one of their ongoing campaigns was to keep the estate tax, I realized it was a front group — average people don’t care about the estate tax.
$15.5M might buy him a single congressional race, but the presidency?… the whole country?
If you have enough money, you still have to spend it in he right place, and putting it behind a substantive candidate rather than the tangential vapourings of MoveOn would be what you’d do if you were serious about politics.
This is just Soros’ showing he cares for his liberal (US sense) friends: he’s doing the equivalent of buying an anti-Bush tee-shirt.
We should all welcome Mr. Soros’s attempt to flaunt himself as a stereotypical rich idiot. Mr. Soros is obviously one of those people who got money to burn. This will turn out to be one of the most foolish investments he ever made.
The US political landscape is filled with the political corpses of rich men who thought money is everything. Let’s see, there’s Ross Perot, Al Checchi, Steve Forbes, Michael Huffington,… and probably a few more I can’t remember.
I have no objections to adding Mr. Soros to the list.
Soros has travelled full circle from supporting basically Libertarian efforts like NORML (anti-drug war) to now seemingly going off the deep end of Progressive zealotry. It’ll be interesting to see him blow his millions supporting MoveOn type candidates akin to Gov. Dean in Congressional districts of gerrymandered black voters who don’t tend to think as highly of the redneckrebelflag portion of the electorate as the Dean Progressives do…
As a secondary question I’ve been pondering… what’s the best response a Libertarian type can give to a Socialist/Progressive associate when pressed for their political views? I used to just come right out and say “Libertarian”, but more and more I’m starting to think it’s better to just lie and say “Communist”. At least by claiming to be an old line Commie there’s some fun to be had tsktsking soft Trotskyites and their lack of a “political education”.
Peter Lewis is the big cheese for Progressive Car Insurance out of Cleveland, Ohio. He is also a very wealthy political nitwit.
what’s the best response a Libertarian type can give to a Socialist/Progressive associate when pressed for their political views?
As an American, I would tell them I start from the default position that the current Bush administration and Republican Congress are completely typical of governments generally – exploitive and violent – and that therefore no government should be given much power or trusted very far because you never know when a Bushitler will take it over.
That should cross their wires.
I am rather interested in your definition of moveon.org as “hardcore socialists”. Can you provide any evidence of that position? I can only assume that your simply intend tar them as socialist in the hope that the thoughtless will simply believe you.
what’s the best response a Libertarian type can give to a Socialist/Progressive associate when pressed for their political views?
I punch them in the face and knock them down, then pull my gun, point it at them, and demand my fucking tax money back, and ask them if they have any illegal drugs on their person (for my own consumption).
I think R.C.’s method is more subtle, though.
At a guess, Jeff, I would imagine most of the people in this neighborhood believe the current crop of Republicans are socialists lite. Using that yardstick, MoveOn is pretty hardcore.
Anyhow, are you sure they would regard themselves as being “tarred” by the label? Labour politicians in the UK cheerfully describe themselves as socialists.
Jeff,
So do you think that being a socialist is something to be ashamed of?
I’m not sure Toony Blair would “cheerfuly describe himself as a socialist”.
I am American living in the UK. Within the context of American politics to even suggest a politician or an organisation is socialist to push them beyond realm of serious consideration. In fact it would not surprise me if a majority of Americans didn’t consider socialism and communism to be synonyms.
As to being ashamed of socialism – I am socialist and not ashamed – but again I’m not sure I’d volunteer that much in a conversation with the average American lest my arguments be written off without due consideration.
Tony Blair’s 1994 Labour Leadership Acceptance Speech
I know I’ve heard him refer to himself as a socialist more recently, but I can’t find a citation. It’s always shocking to my ears because, as you say, it’s a pejorative in American politics.
Of course, when socialism became a pejorative, the Democratic Party continued to advocate it enthusiastically. They just stopped calling it socialism.
“As to being ashamed of socialism – I am socialist and not ashamed – but again I’m not sure I’d volunteer that much in a conversation with the average American lest my arguments be written off without due consideration.”
So are you a member of ‘Socialists Anonymous’?
“Within the context of American politics to even suggest a politician or an organisation is socialist to push them beyond realm of serious consideration.”
Which is precisely why I will not allow people either in America or Britain to peddle socialist ideas while hiding behind words like ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’.
Well, just like Bush has proven he’s not against big government as long as he’s the one running it, the Dems are proving that they’re not against the rich running the political show, as long as they’re the beneficiaries of their handouts.
I sent an email to moveon asking them if their:
“Principled support of campaign finance reform and opposition to the inordinate influence of wealthy individuals on political campaigns will cause you to reject any huge contributions from George Soros to avoid charges of blatant hypocricy?”
Shockingly, I haven’t received a response.
Jeff,
Perhaps it might be quicker for you to point out to us which positions of MoveOn are notsocialist:
— their links to A.N.S.W.E.R. (a communist organization)?
— their support for state control of the press?
— their support for statist measures like the estate tax, the alternative minimum tax and so on?
— their hatred of global capitalism, and of capitalism in general?
— their support for neo-socialist (and self-confessed socialist) politicians in the United States?
Their general position is “we know what’s best for you, and we can decide that better than you can.”
Feel free to rebut. A visit to their website is quite illuminating.
Kim, if you could provide any specifics for any of the random allegations you make I would love to refute them. But I suspect you cannot.
I can certainly refute the allegation of “support for neo-socialist (and self-confessed socialist) politicians in the US”. There are no socialist politicians in America full stop. The entire crop of presidential candidates, with the possible exception of Kucinich, are all right off centre.
Jeff: There are no socialist politicians in America full stop. The entire crop of presidential candidates, with the possible exception of Kucinich, are all right off centre.
Which only goes to show the essential meaninglessness of terms like ‘Left’ and ‘Right’. What exactly does right of centre mean? Does it mean they support free trade? Clearly it does not as no serious candidate at the moment supports anything even approaching that. Does it mean they are more/less in favour of civil liberties? Clearly it does not as what one hand giveth the other taketh away. All the Republican and Democrat candidates support regulatory statism and an increasingly panoptic state, the notion that their ‘rightness’ or ‘leftness’ makes a huge difference is a canard, unless all we are talking is the rate (rather than the extent) to which they want to expand the government… but they all want to expand it, that is for sure.