Posted on 11/07/2004 2:20:41 PM PST by wagglebee
The rumor was all over town. He was in town, staying at a resort hotel on one of the Danube River islands in midtown Budapest.
It was the summer of 1989 and communism was crumbling there in Hungary, fizzing harmlessly away like the proverbial Alka-Seltzer tablet under Niagara Falls. And he had done so much to help communism crumble I wanted to interview him, or at least shake his hand.
I made my way to the island, found the hotel, borrowed some hotel stationery and wrote him a note praising him for everything he was doing and begging him for a few minutes of his time so I could bring his story before my American radio audience.
I left my hotel’s telephone number and my room number and waited hopefully. He never called; but because of all the great things he was doing for freedom, I wasn’t even miffed. Not in the slightest. Here he was, reaching into his own pocket making sure the freedom-loving students of Hungary had word processors and copying machines and all the other nonviolent implements that can bring dictatorships down these days – at least the weaker ones that know they’re finished.
If I’d still been allowed to put pictures of my heroes on my bedroom wall the way I was when I was 10, a huge picture of him would surely have been there.
You’d never have seen Che Guevara on my wall. I knew too much. You’d have seen HIM.
George Soros!
An exclamation point is the strongest punctuation I’m able to place after that name. I wish I could replace it with a firecracker. George Soros was, indeed, my hero. Born in Hungary, he fled after the Hungarian Freedom Fight was brutally put down by 2,000 Soviet tanks backed up with 200,000 troops in the futile uprising that marked the beginning of communism’s demise in October 1956.
George Soros made his way to America. He didn’t go to work in a machine shop in Cleveland or a Middle European bakery in McKeesport, Pa. He became a billionaire through means no prosecutor could question, no genius could duplicate, and no one like me could ever understand. And he went generously into that fortune to defeat dictatorship and spread democracy. Yeah, George Soros was clearly my kind of guy.
A lot of people do a lot of “180s” for a lot of reasons. Many young men do a 180 on women who disappoint. Brooklyn baseball fans used to do 180s on hero pitchers after they allowed their second hit. I’m not usually a 180 type. Loyalty was our Southern “code of the hills.” I can’t think of another person I’ve even done as emphatic a 180 on as that same George Soros.
Soros confuses me more than he angers me. Until it became clear on Election Night 2004 that George Bush was the winner, George Soros frightened me more than a battalion of James Carvilles and Paul Begalas. Here comes this billionaire vowing to spend himself down to his skivvies to throw George Bush out of office. A lot of people try to get the attention of political handlers and managers with good ideas, and there’s no political idea better than money.
George Soros would have frightened me if he’d been only a rich man willing to let a pro-Kerry delegation visit him and plead for a nice donation. In that scenario, the energy comes from the Kerry campaign, which might engineer some money from the billionaire. When it’s the billionaire himself who provides the energy and who volubly and viciously vows to oust a president he doesn’t like, there’s too much likelihood it’ll work – especially if the media, the faculty, Hollywood and the usual allies attendant thereto are all present and ready to roll.
I wish somebody would sponsor an essay contest with a prize to whoever best explains George Soros. Here’s an intelligent man who experienced Nazism and communism first-hand. Shouldn’t that by itself be vaccination against behaving like George Soros has recently behaved?
Shouldn’t a survivor of Nazism and communism applaud the liberation of 50 million Afghans and Iraqis from tyrannies just as bad? Has George Soros ever asked himself questions like “Who would have been more helpful against Hitler – President Bush or President Kerry?”
The French failed even to raise an eyebrow when Hitler violated the Versailles Treaty and sent German troops into the Rhineland in the mid-1930s. They figured the League of Nations would do the nasty stuff if it ever became necessary. This may be unfair to Sen. John Kerry, but I can “hear” him talking about the glories of diplomacy and gratitude for the League of Nations. I can also “hear” President George Bush warning Hitler to get nice and the League of Nations to get real.
Who would have been more helpful in speeding the fall of communism in the late 1980s? Can you imagine John Kerry saying, “Tear down this wall!”? Can you imagine George Bush pursuing a policy of not getting dictators angry?
How about the terrorists? Can you imagine John Kerry closing the door and scolding President Bill Clinton for answering acts of terror by doing either nothing or sending cruise missiles to destroy an aspirin factory in Sudan and rearrange the rocks on a mountaintop in Afghanistan?
And can you imagine George Bush … well, we don’t have to imagine, do we? Under Bush’s leadership we took Afghanistan and handed it back to the Afghan people, who held their first free election, leaving the Kerry crowd to frown and mumble complaints about Taliban remnants, opium production and warlords.
George Soros, you are wrong. You are on the wrong side of history, both the world’s and your own. Your fans say you’re “sincere,” but sincerity is no excuse for stupidity. I don’t know how much money you spent trying to throw George Bush out of power. Whatever amount it is, I look upon it as a traffic fine for speeding the wrong way down an important highway. Let it be a lesson to you.
And George, my note to you in 1989 is now null and void. I no longer have the appetite to question you about anything.
And if you should ever somehow gain admission to my home, George, there’s no need to sneak into my bedroom and look at the walls.
Hopefully, the 'Rats will ignore this duplicitous sociopath in the future.
Seriously- what happened in this man's brain for him to undergo SUCH an extreme change- and to lose his appreciation for freedom?
This allowed Soros to become a billionaire using this insider info for currency specululation on a level unparalleled in history.
Soros is a master of manipulating the world's currency markets. My guess is that he envisioned a scheme to further enrich himself if America's domination of global foreign affairs and economic power is somehow seriously diminished.
I say a special task force should examine Soro's buttcrack with a flashlight and if they find anything out of place indict him for racketeering, campaign finance law violations and whatever else will stick. Convict him in absentia and put him on a terrorist no-fly list so he can never enter the United States again.
I dont really know who Barry Farber is but he has the best voice and most wonderful way of stringing words together on the radio. I listen to him when I can find him up here in Leftist-land.
Spending like drunken sailors for a number years, at government, corporate, and personal levels, is catching up with us. Get ready for some serious, intense, importation of inflation. Our IOU's are getting shorted big time.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/257979a6-30f4-11d9-a595-00000e2511c8.html
Dollar expected to fall amid China's rumoured selling
By Steve Johnson in London and Andrew Balls in Washington
Published: November 7 2004 19:43 | Last updated: November 7 2004 19:43
Euro and dollar
The dollar could slide still further, in spite of hitting an all-time low against the euro last week in the wake of George W. Bush's re-election, currency traders have said.
The dollar sell-off has resumed amid fears among traders that Mr Bush's victory will bring four more years of widening US budget and current account deficits, heightened geopolitical risks and a policy of "benign neglect" of the dollar.
Many currency traders were taken aback on Friday when the greenback fell in spite of bullish data showing the US economy created 337,000 jobs in October.
"If this can't cause the dollar to strengthen you have to tell me what will. This is a big green light to sell the dollar," said David Bloom, currency analyst at HSBC, as the greenback fell to a nine-year low in trade-weighted terms.
The dollar's fall comes as the Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise US interest rates by a quarter point to 2 per cent when it meets on Wednesday and to signal that it will continue with a measured pace of rate increases.
Speculative traders in Chicago last week racked up the highest number of long-euro, short-dollar contracts on record. Options traders have reported brisk business in euro calls - contracts to buy the euro at a pre-determined rate.
However, the market has been rife with rumours that the latest wave of selling has been led by foreign governments seeking to cut their exposure to US assets.
India and Russia have reportedly been selling US assets, as well as petrodollar-rich Middle Eastern investors.
China, which has $515bn of reserves, was also said to be selling dollars and buying Asian currencies in readiness to switch the renminbi's dollar peg to a basket arrangement, something Chinese officials have increasingly hinted at. Any re-allocation could push the dollar sharply lower and Treasury yields markedly higher.
soro's soul is serving the dark side.......
It's called power.
Ignore Soros. . .AND his money? No way.
Of course, maybe GS will not offer as much; next go round; and just maybe he will experience an 'enlightenment' of sorts that will only make him then; an anathema to the Left. Or maybe he has found the monastery where he can please his soul until his afterlife beckons.
If not any of the above; then no most likely all Demrat hands will be out; palms up, to big George.
I agree; hardly ever listen; but if traveling and I find him; hearaing his voice, is like listening to a kind of 'magic' as you drive along in the night. At least 'night' was the time I would catch him.
Thought he was 'playing out of New York'.
Well Soros still spends a lot of money funding democracy organizations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia where central authority and dictatorships are the norm.
However, I don't know why he came out on the side of Kerry this time around. Maybe his interests aren't particularly in the United States but focused on other countries. Maybe this gives him some credibility in some of those countries?
However, I'm not so sure this is the case in Eastern Europe where pro-America sentiment is high. That's why we have Polish and Bulgarian troops helping us out in Iraq.
Seems like a bad move to me.
BUMP
EXCELLENT!
Bary Farber:
Legendary radio talk show host Barry Farber, whose daily radio program is heard across America on the Talk America Radio Network, is a regular NewsMax columnist offering political and social commentary.Source: http://www.newsmax.com/pundits/bios/Farber-bio.shtml"Barry Farber is one of the greats of talk radio, and we are pleased to have him with NewsMax.com," Christopher Ruddy, president of NewsMax.com, said.
"Every morning I have been going to NewsMax.com. It's my favorite source for news on the web and I'm glad to be on the NewsMax.com team," Barry Farber, who broadcasts from New York, said.
Barry Farber has had an incredible career. Before leaving college Barry had been an editor of a daily newspaper, a wrestler, a steel worker, a representative of American college students in Yugoslavia and Brazil, an interpreter for units of the Chinese Nationalist Navy, and a Phi Beta Kappa student. All before leaving college.
Since then, Barry's news coverage has taken him in and out of trouble spots all over the world: He led Hungarians across the border after their revolution and sped to Cuba after the fall of Batista, beating Fidel Castro to Havana by five days! Barry reported on the repression of Soviet Jews from the Moscow synagogue beginning in 1956.
In 1991, Barry's nationally syndicated radio show won him the title of "Talk Show Host of the Year." His numerous articles have appeared in the New York Times, Reader's Digest, the Washington Post, and the Saturday Review, to name a few.
Soros was convicted for insider trading in France in 2002. HE made his money by trading on inside information.
BARF, BARF, BARF....
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