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(1997 article by Soros)SOROS SNACKING ON SIDE DISHES
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Posted on 10/19/2004 5:59:37 PM PDT by Notch
Breaking News from NewsMax.com
Billionaires Secretly Met in Aspen to Defeat Bush
In the days following the Democratic National Convention in Boston this past August, several billionaire Democratic activists secretly met at the famed Aspen Institute in Colorado.
The purpose of their clandestine meeting was "to use their fortunes to engineer the defeat of President George W. Bush," The New Yorker magazine reports in its most recent edition.
Details of the meeting remain sketchy, but the magazine described the Aspen conference this way: "Five billionaires joined half a dozen liberal leaders in a lengthy conversation about the future of progressive politics in America."
For sure, there were differences of opinion in the group, but they all shared one goal: to get George Bush this November.
The Aspen meeting was supposed to have been a top secret within Democratic Party circles.
When The New Yorker inquired about the meeting, an assistant to one of the attendees was surprised by the call.
"No one was supposed to know about this," the aide told the magazine. "We don't want people thinking it's a cabal or some sort of Masonic plot!"
Apparently the leader of the secret cabal is billionaire Peter B. Lewis, chairman of the Cleveland, Ohio-based insurance company Progressive Corporation.
Like another attendee, wealthy financier George Soros, Lewis has poured millions into Democratic 527 groups, including Americans Coming Together and MoveOn.org.
One of Lewis' top agenda items has been the decriminalization of marijuana, a policy position also shared by Soros.
Another billionaire who attended was John Sperling, founder of the online University of Phoenix.
Also present were Herb and Marion Sandler from California. The couple founded Golden West Financial Corporation, a California bank reportedly worth $17 billion.
The key agenda items for the Sandlers has been "preserving progressive income taxes and inheritance taxes," the magazine reported.
The wealthiest and most notable of those attending the meeting was George Soros, the 74-year-old Hungarian immigrant who desperately wants to defeat George Bush and has even compared him to the likes of Adolf Hitler.
Apparently, all was not roses at the billionaire confab, according to The New Yorker.
"The billionaires spent much of the time moaning the superior powers of the GOP," the magazine said, and the group even needed some cheerleading from Harold Ickes, a former top aide to Bill Clinton who is involved in the 527 efforts.
There was disagreement about some of the issues and policy positions the group should take.
Sperling, for one, argued that the main target of their efforts should be Wal-Mart. He wants to push for unionizing the giant retailer.
That idea was apparently vetoed by George Soros, who reportedly told the group he had no desire to support union initiatives and that his only single goal at this point was "ousting Bush."
Though not the leader of the group, Soros holds the largest bank account and as such is the 800-pound gorilla, having given more than $18 million to the 527s in an effort to defeat Bush.
The magazine said Soros had planned to keep a low profile in the closing months of the election, but suddenly changed course this summer when he decided to "jettison the strategy in favor of waging his own media-grabbing political campaign."
Soros hired a publicist and began a 12-city, $3 million personal crusade to defeat George Bush.
According to the magazine, Soros has nothing but contempt for Bush, who he considers "an ignorant fool."
More than that, he sees Bush as the face man for a secret cabal. "Bush was just chosen as a figurehead, an acceptable face for a sinister group," Soros told The New Yorker, adding, "Cheney is the Capo."
Clearly, Soros knows a thing or two about secret cabals and capos.
You were wondering about auto-insurance?
Pressed on how so much of the country could support Bush and Cheney, given his dismissive assessment, Soros cited the German scholar Erich Fromm’s landmark study of totalitarianism, “Escape from Freedom,” suggesting, “In uncertain times, people want to escape to safety. They seek a father figure, who acts with conviction.” He added, “Bush does have conviction. He practically claims a link to God.”
Soros, who describes himself as an agnostic, contended that Bush’s religious beliefs are in conflict with America’s democratic traditions. “The separation of church and state, the bedrock of our democracy, is clearly undermined by having a born-again President,” he said. “Our concern about Islamic fundamentalism is that there’s no separation between church and state, yet we are about to erode that here.” He lamented that, in the current climate, most American politicians could not risk making such politically incorrect statements. “You can see it, but you can’t say it,” he said.
SNIP
In our conversation, Soros tiptoed around his personal feelings for John Kerry, although he has known him socially for a number of years. Throughout the campaign, Soros has maintained a careful distance from Kerry, since the independent political groups he had funded are legally required not to coördinate their activities with the candidate. But both Soros and Kerry own houses in Sun Valley, Idaho, and they spent an afternoon in December, 2001, together, discussing Kerry’s ambition to run for President. At the time, Kerry was preparing a major foreignpolicy statement. “I helped him with it,” Soros told me. Yet Soros’s description of Kerry as “very acceptable”—the same ranking that he gave to Howard Dean and Wesley Clark—had all the warmth of a corporate personnel office. “I would have backed any of them over Bush,” he said.
SNIP
Soros seemed rather isolated in his political adventure. Although he often chatted with Peter Lewis, Soros said that there was no Brain Trust advising him of political developments. He talked from time to time with Bill Moyers and with Harold Ickes, whom he described as “a real pro.” But, he said, “I am a political neophyte. I get most of my information from the newspapers.” Democratic partisans, he said, “send me books of polls, but, frankly, they’re not of much interest. I don’t read them.” He hadn’t attended the Democratic Convention, and he had decided to stay away from a large fund-raising event held the night before at a nearby beach house, even though Kerry had attended. He made no pretense of being a Washington insider. During one conversation, he mistakenly assumed that the conservative columnist David Brooks, of the Times, and the anti-conservative activist David Brock were the same person.
“This is not my strength,” he confessed. “I’m eager to get out of this partisan position that I’m pigeonholed into. I heartily dislike it.” He added, “I’ve always been against dividing the world into ‘us’ versus ‘them.’ So this ‘us’-versus-‘them’ campaign is very uncomfortable for me.”
SNIP
Soros spent years in therapy, and was undoubtedly familiar with psychoanalytic theories that the wealthy bought art as a means of assuaging their guilt, by transforming filthy lucre into objects of beauty. But he didn’t seem particularly afflicted with this neurosis. He said, “I’m not one of those rich people who pretend they’re not rich, or try to live that way. I just happen to have a more abstract bent.” A friend who asked not to be identified said that Soros was so uninterested in money that he often travelled with an empty wallet, forcing friends to loan him cash for cab fare, which he invariably forgot to pay back. Women, the friend said, flocked to him, “because they expect him to leave hundred-dollar bills in their pocketbooks. But he never does.” Soros’s second wife, Susan, from whom he is separated, sumptuously decorated the couple’s Fifth Avenue apartment and an estate in Bedford, New York. But Soros spoke with indifference of the Sargent and Whistler paintings they owned.
“Money is just a tool for him,” the friend said. “It’s how he manipulates a lot of things in his life.” Indeed, when I asked Soros to name one thing in the world that he wished he could have, he replied with a laugh,“If I want it, I own it.” He paused. “But I do want something,” Soros finally said, his smile fading. “I want my ideas to be heard.”
A number of Soros’s previous efforts to influence American policy had been frustrated. After the Berlin Wall fell, he met with the Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger, in an attempt to get the first Bush Administration to provide more support for Mikhail Gorbachev, whose reform instincts Soros took more seriously than the Administration did. “They told me that we can never help Russia so long as it is allied with Cuba,” he recalled. In the mid-nineties, Soros had also tried, with mixed success, to influence the foreign policy of the Clinton Administration, in favor of intervening against Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia. After donating fifty million dollars to the relief effort in Bosnia, and a hundred thousand dollars to Clinton’s reëlection effort, Soros expected a warm welcome. But Clinton’s chief of staff, Thomas (Mack) McLarty, kept him waiting for so long in his empty office, Soros said, that he walked out. Aides ran after him, telling him that the President wanted to see him. But, Soros said, Clinton seemed less interested in Soros’s thoughts on Yugoslavia than in the stock market. “He just wanted to please me as a donor,” Soros said, sighing. “It happens a lot.”
During the fight over Yugoslavia, Soros developed an amiable rapport with Paul Wolfowitz, who shared his view on the necessity of intervening. Wolfowitz, who was then the dean of Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, invited Soros to deliver an address on his theories of open societies. When Wolfowitz later became the Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Bush Administration, and emerged as a key figure arguing for the invasion of Iraq, Soros told me that he had proposed to debate Wolfowitz publicly. “I got no reply,” he said. Soros clearly hopes that a Kerry White House would be more receptive to his views. “I put my money where my mouth is,” he said.
Darn -- I'm going to have to change over all my insurance...
Blofeld!!!!
Risk-taking, in the form of huge and often highly leveraged bets, had been a major factor in his financial success. (These gambles, he admitted, had at times made him so dizzy from the stress that he could barely walk.) Now, he said, he felt impelled to risk his reputation in the Presidential campaign, because he thought that inaction was more dangerous.
SNIP
Soros’s son Robert has joked that his father simply buys when he’s feeling good, and sells when his back hurts. Stanley Druckenmiller, his former partner at Quantum, was even more blunt. “The ugly way to describe it would be ‘balls,’” he told Soros’s biographer.
By the time Soros was fifty, he had exceeded his most extravagant financial goals, but he was miserable, for he felt his life lacked a greater “meaning.” He decided to set up a foundation devoted to promoting Popper’s ideal of open societies. It didn’t hurt that a provision in the American tax code offered a significant tax incentive to individuals who formed “charitable lead trusts.” During our lunch, Soros beamed when he told me that, upon launching his foundation, he had exploited this provision to pass on to his heirs hundreds of millions of dollars—and, in the process, saved untold millions in taxes.
SNIP
Soros’s past support for campaign-finance reform. “Soros is in an odd position,” he said. (Soros donated money to Democracy 21 during his days as a campaign-finance-reform advocate.)
our lawyers said that what we did this year was legally permissible.” Soros acknowledged that, “after this election, there will be a need for further reform.” He suggested that it was unrealistic to expect that money wouldn’t find some other way into future campaigns, but he added that with more public financing there might be ways to dilute its influence. As the situation stood this year, though, Soros conceded, “I think it’s unhealthy.”
SNIP
if the election is very close, the get-out-the-vote operation he paid for could make a decisive difference. (According to a recent analysis by the Times, in the battleground state of Ohio voter registration in Democratic precincts is up by two hundred and fifty per cent from 2000.)
SNIP
If Kerry wins, Soros will be in a unique position. He told me that he would not accept any offers of a government appointment. “I’m not looking for a job,” he said, then joked, “I don’t believe in working.” But, he added, “I would be very happy to advise Kerry, if he’s willing to listen to me, and to criticize him, if he isn’t. I’ve been trying to exert some influence over our policies, and I hope I’ll get a better hearing under Kerry.”
Soros had already compiled a list of specific notions about how to solve the crisis in Iraq which he’d like the next President to consider. He and Leslie H. Gelb, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, had worked out a plan calling for summit talks on Iraq, under U.N. auspices, which would include neighboring countries. The two men envisioned that Iraq could be divided along ethnic lines into largely autonomous regions, united by a federal government that would distribute oil revenues. “It’s purely an idea, but one I’d support, and advocate,” Soros said. He also told me that he would push for eliminating Bush’s tax cuts.
Such an outcome is a pleasing scenario for Soros to contemplate—but if the President is reëlected, he acknowledged, he may well find himself in an “uncomfortable” situation. As he put it, “After all, I regard Bush as danger. And I am sure he holds the same opinion of me.”
No Troll Here, But if asked - I will go away!
Sorry what I say makes you look bad. That's always a bad thing. (SHEESH).
Wow. $oro$, Lewis, and Sperling all in one room. Who wants to bet against the idea that they were smoking Colombian cigars...for medicinal purposes, of course.
Decriminalize maryjane!!! So that's why Soros and Lewis want to defeat Bush! Now it comes out. These "high" rollers just want more dope. If that's the case, why can't we just establish a fund to get these superrich pests more wacky weed? Inquiring minds want to know. (smirk)
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The Soros ThreatThe Capitalist Threat
(1997 article by Soros)SOROS SNACKING ON SIDE DISHES
(Soros the Adulterer)FR Search for Keyword George Soros
Liberals seriously believe "it's not Bush, it's the people around him".
Thanks very much for the warm welcome from you and many others here. But Alas- It appears I may have already gone to far here and done gone and insulted some more sensible people here than I. So I know that going from a warm welcome to a Troll all in the same thread here is not a feat easily accomplished, and yes I do say and act in Harsh ways, But I see this as much more than a freindly P.C. argument which doesn't insult peoples sensabilities,only to be forgotten as soon as another Hot topic of the day is dug up from the bowels of the DU! Because incase anyone hasen't noticed - their perfected plan is to flood the system with such overwhelming filth while at the same time accusing us of the exact same thing that the willy-nilly-happy-go-lucky voter never sees the trees for the S@#*.
But I have been asked to leave, So I say good-by and good luck.
$18M is not a lot of money to Soros. He makes or loses that on one trading position. These guys are not committed. While they are playing around with some spare cash, on the GOP side there are folks, surely a lot less wealthy, like by a factor of 10,000, who have staked their lives, fortunes and sacred honor on defeating Kerry. THAT is committment.
"Note to self: Change car insurance to something other than Progressive."
I had a job offer from Progressive in 1978 when I graduated from college. I turned it down for a better job. I have followed Progressive since and have noted their success. My faint whispers of "what might have been" evaporated with this article.
This is an excellent point. Excellent. The people who all cheer wildly when he says this don't realize how little buying power $200,000 can have in certain areas. Talk about crass manipulation of people to create class warfare. Don't get me wrong, I'd enjoy earning that kind of income.
Someone living in his neighborhood of Boston, someone, or a couple, working and earning say $210,000 would be cutting corners after correcting for the cost of living index in that area alone. Never mind paying housing and taxes and other costs. And he would call them wealthy. They may be well off, but no where 'wealthy'.
Finally, in the late 1800's, a group of very wealthy industrialists and bankers got together to influence politics and plant the seeds of class warfare and socialism. And the fruits of their labors were years of turmoil, the overthrow of the Tsar, and 70+ years of communism/socialism in Russia and all the horrors the people were forced to endure.
Well, I'll remember that next time I hear a commercial for this school...
Interesting..I thought Progressive gave discounts on auto insurance to folks who didn't drink, etc. At least that's what I recall when I once got it in IL. (Don't worry- I won't be patronizing them again)
There is a term in psychology books for that - PROJECTION.
George Soros was a member of Nazi Arrow Cross organisation.
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