To gain some
perspective on the massive levels of funding that George
Soros lavishes on the far Left, be sure to view this vital
document:
Organizations Funded Directly by George Soros and his Open
Society Institute
George Soros is one of the most powerful men on earth. A
New York hedge fund manager, he has amassed a personal
fortune estimated at about
$13 billion (as of 2009). His management company
controls billions more in investor assets. Since 1979,
Soros' foundation network -- whose flagship is the
Open Society Institute (OSI) -- has dispensed more than
$5 billion to a multitude of organizations whose objectives
are consistent with those of Soros. (The President of OSI
and the Soros Foundation Network is Aryeh Neier, former
Director of the socialist League for Industrial Democracy.)
With assets of $1.93 billion as of 2008, OSI alone donates
scores of millions of dollars annually to these various
groups, whose major agendas can be summarized as follows:
- promoting the view that America is institutionally
an oppressive nation
- promoting the election of leftist political
candidates throughout the United States
- opposing virtually all post-9/11 national security
measures enacted by U.S. government, particularly the
Patriot Act
- depicting American military actions as unjust,
unwarranted, and immoral
- promoting open borders, mass immigration, and a
watering down of current immigration laws
- promoting a dramatic expansion of social welfare
programs funded by ever-escalating taxes
- promoting social welfare benefits and amnesty for
illegal aliens
- defending suspected anti-American terrorists and
their abetters
- financing the recruitment and training of future
activist leaders of the political Left
- advocating America’s unilateral disarmament and/or a
steep reduction in its military spending
- opposing the death penalty in all circumstances
- promoting socialized medicine in the United States
- promoting the tenets of radical environmentalism,
whose ultimate goal, as writer Michael Berliner has
explained, is “not clean air and clean water, [but]
rather ... the demolition of technological/industrial
civilization”
- bringing American foreign policy under the control
of the United Nations
- promoting racial and ethnic preferences in academia
and the business world alike
To view a list of many of the more important
organizations that support these agendas and have received
direct funding from Soros and his Open Society Institute in
recent years,
click here. (Comprehensive profiles of each are
available in the "Groups"
category of
DiscoverTheNetworks.org.)
There are also numerous “secondary” or “indirect” affiliates
of the Soros network. These include organizations which do
not receive direct funding from Soros and OSI, but which are
funded by one or more organizations that do. These secondary
affiliates also include organizations that work
collaboratively or synergistically with Soros-funded groups.
To view a list of some of these organizations,
click here. (Comprehensive profiles of each are
available in the "Groups"
category of
DiscoverTheNetworks.org.)
In one of his most significant and effective efforts
to shape the American political landscape, Soros was the
prime mover in the creation of the so-called "Shadow
Democratic Party," or "Shadow
Party," in 2003. This term refers to a nationwide
network of more than five-dozen unions, non-profit activist
groups, and think tanks whose agendas are ideologically to
the left, and which are engaged in campaigning for the
Democrats. This network's activities include fundraising,
get-out-the-vote drives, political advertising, opposition
research, and media manipulation.
The Shadow Party was
conceived and organized principally by
George Soros,
Hillary Clinton and
Harold McEwan Ickes -- all identified with the
Democratic Party left. Other key players included:
-
Morton H. Halperin: Director of Soros'
Open Society Institute
-
John Podesta: Democrat strategist and former chief
of staff for
Bill Clinton
- Jeremy Rosner: Democrat strategist and pollster,
ex-foreign policy speechwriter for Bill Clinton
- Robert Boorstin: Democrat strategist and pollster,
ex-national security speechwriter for Bill Clinton
-
Carl Pope: Co-founder of
America Coming Together, Democrat strategist, and
Sierra Club Executive Director
-
Steve Rosenthal: Labor leader, CEO of America Coming
Together, and former chief advisor on union matters to
Clinton Labor Secretary
Robert Reich
-
Peter Lewis: Major Democrat donor and insurance
entrepreneur
- Rob Glaser: Major Democrat donor and Silicon Valley
pioneer
-
Ellen Malcolm: Co-founder and President of America
Coming Together, and founder of
EMILY’s List
- Rob McKay: Major Democrat donor, Taco Bell heir, and
McKay Family Foundation President
- Lewis and Dorothy Cullman: Major Democrat donors
To develop the Shadow Party as a cohesive entity, Harold
Ickes undertook the task of building a 21st-century version
of the Left's traditional alliance of the "oppressed" and
"disenfranchised." By the time Ickes was done, he had
created or helped to create six new groups, and had co-opted
a seventh called
MoveOn.org. Together, these seven groups constituted the
administrative core of the newly formed Shadow Party:
These organizations, along with the many leftist groups
with which they collaborate, have played a major role in
helping Soros advance his political and social agendas.
According to Richard Poe, co-author (with David
Horowitz) of the 2006 book The Shadow Party:
"The Shadow Party is the real power driving the Democrat
machine. It is a network of radicals dedicated to
transforming our constitutional republic into a
socialist hive. The leader of these radicals is ...
George Soros. He has essentially privatized the
Democratic Party, bringing it under his personal
control. The Shadow Party is the instrument through
which he exerts that control. ... It works by siphoning
off hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign
contributions that would have gone to the Democratic
Party in normal times, and putting those contributions
at the personal disposal of Mr. Soros. He then uses that
money to buy influence and loyalty where he sees fit. In
2003, Soros set up a network of privately-owned groups
which acts as a shadow or mirror image of the Party. It
performs all the functions we would normally expect the
real Democratic Party to perform, such as shaping the
Party platform, fielding candidates, running campaigns,
and so forth. However, it performs these functions
under the private supervision of Mr. Soros and his
associates. The Shadow Party derives its power from its
ability to raise huge sums of money. By controlling the
Democrat purse strings, the Shadow Party can make or
break any Democrat candidate by deciding whether or not
to fund him. During the 2004 election cycle, the Shadow
Party raised more than $300 million for Democrat
candidates, prompting one of its operatives, MoveOn PAC
director
Eli Pariser, to declare, 'Now it’s our party. We
bought it, we own it…'"
Soros in 2004
spent some $26 million trying, unsuccessfully, to defeat
President Bush’s reelection bid, a task Soros
called “the central focus of my life” and “a matter of
life and death.” He has
likened Republicans generally, and the Bush
administration in particular, to “the Nazi and communist
regimes” in the sense that they are “all engaged in the
politics of fear.” “Indeed,” he
wrote in 2006, “the Bush administration has been able to
improve on the techniques used by the Nazi and Communist
propaganda machines by drawing on the innovations of the
advertising and marketing industries.” Soros elaborated on
this theme at the January 2007 World Economic Forum in
Davos, Switzerland, where he told
reporters: “America needs to . . . go through a certain
de-Nazification process.”
Soros has been a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton, who,
in turn, has long admired Soros and shares many of his
agendas. At a 2004 "Take Back America" conference in
Washington, DC, Mrs. Clinton introduced Soros with these
words:
“Now, among the many people who have stood up and said,
‘I cannot sit by and let this happen to the country I
love,’ is George Soros, and I have known George Soros
for a long time now, and I first came across his work in
the former Soviet Union, in Eastern Europe, when I was
privileged to travel there, both on my own and with my
husband on behalf of our country. ... [W]e need people
like George Soros, who is fearless, and willing to step
up when it counts.” (Cited in David Horowitz and Richard
Poe, The Shadow Party, p. 53)
In December of 2006, Soros met with Democratic presidential
hopeful
Barack Obama in his (Soros') New York office. Soros had
previously hosted a fundraiser for Obama during the
latter's 2004 campaign for the Senate. On January 16, 2007,
Obama announced the creation of a presidential exploratory
committee, and within hours Soros sent the senator a
contribution of $2,100, the maximum amount allowable under
campaign finance laws. Later that week the New York
Daily News
reported that Soros would back Obama over Senator
Hillary Clinton, whom he had supported in the past. Soros'
announcement was seen as a repudiation of Clinton's
presidential aspirations, though Soros said he would support
the New York senator were she to win the Democratic
nomination.
By the time Obama was elected, it was clear that his
economic and political prescriptions for America were quite
consistent with those of Soros. For example, in a November
2008 interview with Spiegel, Soros made some
comments which foreshadowed precisely the course that
President Obama's administration would eventually pursue in
2009.
Said Soros:
"I think we need a large stimulus package which will
provide funds for state and local government to maintain
their budgets ... For such a program to be successful,
the federal government would need to provide hundreds of
billions of dollars. In addition, another infrastructure
program is necessary. In total, the cost would be in the
300 to 600 billion dollar range…. I think this is a
great opportunity to finally deal with global warming
and energy dependence. The U.S. needs a cap and trade
system with auctioning of licenses for emissions rights.
I would use the revenues from these auctions to launch a
new, environmentally friendly energy policy."
The interviewer then said: "Your proposal would be
dismissed on Wall Street as 'big government.' Republicans
might call it European-style 'socialism.'" Soros replied:
"That is exactly what we need now. I am against
market fundamentalism. I think this propaganda that
government involvement is always bad has been very
successful -- but also very harmful to our society…. I
think it is better to have a government that wants to
provide good government than a government that doesn't
believe in government…. At times of recession, running a
budget deficit is highly desirable."
To gain some perspective on the massive levels of funding
that George Soros lavishes on the far Left, be sure to view
this vital document:
Organizations Funded Directly by George Soros and his Open
Society Institute |
