Posted on 01/24/2020 4:57:55 PM PST by spintreebob
George Soros, the financier and philanthropist, has pledged $1bn to support a global network of higher education to train students in civic engagement in response to resurgent nationalism around the world.
In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Soros lambasted rising populism internationally and picked out US president Donald Trump as well as China’s Xi Jinping, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi — and Brexit.
“I believe that as a long-term strategy our best hope lies in access to quality education, specifically an education that reinforces the autonomy of the individual by cultivating critical thinking and emphasising academic freedom,” he said.
In remarks directed at the US leader who had been at Davos this week, Mr Soros went on: “President Trump is a conman and the ultimate narcissist who wants the world to revolve around him.
When his fantasy of becoming president came true, his narcissism developed a pathological dimension.” He said that Mr Xi had abolished a carefully developed system of collective leadership in China and became a dictator
as soon as he gained sufficient strength to do so. Meanwhile, Mr Modi was creating a Hindu nationalist state in India, Mr Soros said. Not leaving western Europe untouched, he said:
“The fight to prevent Brexit — harmful both to Britain and to the EU — ended in a crushing defeat.” Mr Soros said “the tide turned against open societies after the crash of 2008 because it constituted a failure of international co-operation.
This in turn led to the rise of nationalism, the great enemy of open society.” He said some signs of a turnround last year towards greater international co-operation had been “dashed [as] the strongest powers,
the US, China and Russia remained in the hands of would-be or actual dictators and the ranks of authoritarian rulers continued to grow”.
His Open Society Foundations organisation will now develop partnerships between leading universities, think tanks and cultural institutions in the west and those in more remote, poorer and less stable countries.
The fledgling network, to be called the Open Society University Network, builds upon the $32bn he has donated over the years to education and social causes. This included the creation of the Central European University,
which has now moved to Vienna after coming under strong pressure from Hungarian authorities, including visa restrictions on students and personal criticism of Mr Soros himself from the regime of prime minister Viktor Orban.
Alexander Soros, his son and deputy chairman of the Open Society Foundations, said: “The position of the Hungarian government to be the first since the end of World World Two to ban a university . . . sped things along.
Seeing the different ebbs and flows of change in economics, politics and society . . . [my father] realised education is the best way to ensure that the values he believes in can be renewed with each generation.”
The initiative will work with Bard College, New York, which has pioneered a system of supporting high school education for disadvantaged children in inner cities, and educational work in prisons, while offering college credits
that can be transferred and recognised by other institutions. Institutions that have already received funding or worked with Open Society will co-operate more closely, offer dual degrees, and work with Arizona State University, which has developed online and remote learning. Others include Sciences Po in Paris, London University’s Birkbeck and SOAS, the University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan, Ashesi University in Ghana, BRAC University in Bangladesh
and Fulbright University of Vietnam. The move will also involve the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York, Chatham House in London, the Institute for New Economic Thinking in New York and Oxford,
the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna, and the Rift Valley Institute in Kenya.
Extradite him to any of the countries he is wanted in.
Funny that he didn’t mention Iran in his “remained in the hands of would-be or actual dictators” comment. What gives?
That he wants.
Because it is so wrong to love your country, vs adore the global village that wants to eat you alive.
Sadly, if this guy dropped dead tomorrow, he’s left hundreds if not thousands of entities that would carry on his work to destroy the United States as we know it.
His efforts to destabilize the world are worthy of note too.
What we need is an initiative to teach him how to die in agony... sooner rather than later.
George Soros, a Nazi Jew...
Well, we can’t all be fascist Nazis.
Does the Sun have a beef with him?
Liquidate his assets, and pay Elon Musk to launch his ass in that direction.
I sure hope we wind up like the Central African Republic.
I hear it’s a Utopia...
Then it must hurt a lot to likely have Created the situations that led to Donald Trump being elected, among other Nationalists.
Ironic
Didn’t S0r0$ become a billionaire by taking it from other people?
Where is AOC when we need a good Davos/S0r0$ critic?
“I believe that as a long-term strategy our best hope lies in access to quality education, specifically an education that reinforces the autonomy of the individual by cultivating critical thinking and emphasising academic freedom,” he said. “
So in other words, more brainwashing and more blackballing of anyone who disagrees with his world view.
I hear ya...
I always wonder what this guy thinks would be nirvana.
Has he looked around out there? I sure don’t see a place better.
Of course the way he and the Left are trying to destroy us, just about anything could be better in years to come.
I’d have to agree.
They feel the globalism slipping away.
What is it with these leftist jews and their organized plans to destroy the United States and other free nations?
North Korea is also shockingly missing from his list...
Good point :)
This Nazi sympathizer should’ve been brought before the Nuremburg Trials.
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