Am I actually quoting George Soros? Yes, I am.
President Bush ran on the platform of a “humble” foreign policy in 2000. If we re-elect him now, we endorse the Bush doctrine of preemptive action and the invasion of Iraq, and we will have to live with the consequences. As I shall try to show, we are facing a vicious circle of escalating violence with no end in sight. But if we repudiate the Bush policies at the polls, we shall have a better chance to regain the respect and support of the world and to break the vicious circle.
I grew up in Hungary, lived through fascism and the Holocaust, and then had a foretaste of communism. I learned at an early age how important it is what kind of government prevails. I chose America as my home because I value freedom and democracy, civil liberties and an open society.
…When George W. Bush was elected president, and particularly after September 11, I saw that the values and principles of open society needed to be defended at home. September 11 led to a suspension of the critical process so essential to a democracy – a full and fair discussion of the issues. President Bush silenced all criticism by calling it unpatriotic. When he said that “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” I heard alarm bells ringing. I am afraid that he is leading us in a very dangerous direction. We are losing the values that have made America great.
The destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center was such a horrendous event that it required a strong response. But the President committed a fundamental error in thinking: the fact that the terrorists are manifestly evil does not make whatever counter-actions we take automatically good. What we do to combat terrorism may also be wrong. Recognizing that we may be wrong is the foundation of an open society. President Bush admits no doubt and does not base his decisions on a careful weighing of reality. For 18 months after 9/11 he managed to suppress all dissent. That is how he could lead the nation so far in the wrong direction.
Go read the rest.
For my part, I think it’s on the money in a number of ways which, sadly, many people don’t and perhaps for a long time won’t understand. Using a hand grenade on the kid who shot your brother isn’t acceptable, especially when you consider who else gets hurt. If the moral high ground for America is that “terrorists kill innocent people” then, considering the numbers of innocent Iraqis dead, what is America?
America is a nation that has the choice, right now, to begin on a path of rebuilding some form of trust with the rest of the planet, or to throw it away unilaterally as worthless.
America would do well to remember it’s not worthless. Britain, Korea, Poland, and Australia may stand staunchly by America’s side now. After ten years of this crap, though, nobody will be willing to do that anymore.
Anyway, the way to change the Middle East is the same way to change any part of the world. Make sure everyone has a TV set, enough money for junk food and computer games, and sports and sex and dramas and brainless comedy on the TV. Make sure there’s never such a shortage of food that anything more than a petty minority goes hungry. That’ll pretty much weed out tendency toward terrorism: “I can’t blow up the WTC, I’ll miss Friends!”
Hey, I didn’t say it’s be a worthwhile culture that would result, I just said it wouldn’t be producing so many people who are violently hostile to America. If people choose TV and McDonald’s instead of authentic entertainment and food, well, it’ll be their own damned fault when they have no culture but consumerist culture left.
The thing is, America would just be wiser pursuing that kind of agenda—McDonald’s-izing the world—that using its military as it has been doing. As Soros says, the time is coming where the choice Americans make at the ballot box will determine how much respect the rest of the world ends up losing for the nation in the light of the whole Bush Administration.
And yes, America, you do have the right to vote in an insane Administration. And the rest of the world has the right to do anything it pleases too. If might makes right, as it seems it does to the minds of Bush supporters, then guerilla might must make guerilla right. I thought the terrorists were bad guys; by which logic Americans, hating them for it, ought to try do better.
George Soros is not an American, he was born in a communist country, and obviously has never had the taste of “true” American freedom. He has no reason to have any loyalty to the U.S.A., so why does anybody in this country believe anything he says. He is a manipulator of words, a hypocrit if you will. Bush stands for the Americans’ Freedoms, Soros would burn our Constitution and hand us over to the United Nations. If he had his way Iraq wouldn’t be free, the U.S. wouldn’t be free, nobody would be free. The “One World Order” would rule everybody and everything. I say to every freedom loving individual in the world, freedom is not free, you are not alone, and WE will fight to the death to spread and maintain freedom in any way. Screw you George Soros.
Dom,
What logic that is.
I might mention that *I* was not born in America, nor in a Western country. I’ve never had a taste of “true” American freedom either — my health care was socialized, I never feared drug-and-gang related crime, I never worried if my neighbours carried handguns and I never have been nervous in all my travels and life abroad to tell the truth about where I’m from.
If you think the US and Iraq actually are free under Bush, and if you think the UN is somehow an Evil World Order that is out to enslave your countrymen, you’re so dissociated from reality it’s saddening. It’s saddening becayse, Dom, I realize that conversation with you is pointless.
However, I will offer you one bit of advice. Don’t assume we’ll play along to your little jingoistic song about America being the one true bastion of freedom, don’t imagine the rest of the world will play along with your current President’s pathetic rallying cry that he is fighting “for freedom” when we have better coverage than your government will ever allow you on what’s going on not just in the wake of your ravaging Iraq and Afghanistan, but also what is happening worldwide. From your comments it seems all you read is domestic news, and a poor selection of it at that.
Next, do not make the pathetically common logical error of the fallacy of ad hominem attack. If Soros’ comments are wrong, attack his comments, not his birthplace or current nationality or even what you think he “would” do if he could — something you have to be pretty arrogant to think you could say.
And if you must make an ad hominem attack, which you oughtn’t since it makes you look like a Mongoloid in terms of reasoning, then for God’s sakes don’t use something that turns the genetic fallacy onto whatever it is you’re supporting.
For example, plenty of the Founding Fathers of your nation were born into Monarchic states. If there’s something wrong with someone who’s never had a taste of “true” American freedom, then apparently not only all of the first-generation immigrants there, but also your own very founding fathers could have had no idea what freedom is.
And by the way Dom, you should really read more history. America’s history with the notion of “spreading and maintaining freedom” is dirty and tragic and wrongheaded in so many ways, and it is arguable that the few good ends that have come of it has only come by means that cannot ever be justified except by the historically blind and the naive and the soulless.
Finally, I am not George Soros. You can post your rude little comment on his site if you like. I was merely linking to his essay. But then given your amazing mental stature it’s not surprising you left a comment addressed to *him* on my web page.
Moron.
I am of hungarian ancestory and am ashamed of it because of people like george soros.I believe the 527 loophole needs to be changed so people like him can’t single handely change the elections everyones voice should be heard equally,not a few rich powerful people able to influence the vote of millions because of there money
I by the way have been to many countries and the media coverage in those countries is so one sided and controlled either by the government or by groups there that don’t report the truth on alot of issues..it’s ok to have a different view but many countries around the world report only what they ant there peopel to believe not the truth and anyone like gordsellar above that believes different is only fooling themselves no matter how articulate they try to be in there comments.Fancy words don’t make a lie the truth it might disguise it for some people(the ones voting for the idiot Kerry-most everything he says can’t be fact checked or if able to be checked turns up being a lie-i.e.-saying that Bush wants to bring back the draft when in truth it was Democrats that suggested it in the first place and only Demorats voted in favor of the draft…thats just oen of a million alacies brought on by Kerry and his croonies in the 527’s)
Dear Glenn,
“gordsellar above” is the owner of the webpage you happen to be commenting on.
Being ashamed of your ancestry is about the most moronic waste of mental energy I can imagine. If you don’t want rich people affecting elections, why don’t you do something about the way the Republicans affected the last one? The Republican party, with its elite, wealthy backers, affect the votes of far more people than Soros affects. And Bush affected the votes and the lives of millions of people over money and goods, in Iraq, as well.
If you think media coverage is skewed the world over, what makes you think it isn’t skewed in America? Rather, why would you think the situation any different in America? And by the way, you’re right, it’s biased the world over, but if you take in a lot of media from the rest of the world, including the countries allied with America (like Canada and Britain) you get more unbiased coverage of America’s policies and the results of those policies. America never reports its own dirty messes, but others are willing to report them.
And what “otherwise” am I supposedly claiming to believe in? That news outside America isn’t biased? All news, in fact all speech is biased. But America right now is in such a fit of self-control, and has been since 9-11, that honest critical self-assessment is rarer than it should be, and that the rest of the world is in fact a better source of knowledge. After all, one could very easily make the case that it’s the fault of the American media, and not the lies of Bush, that caused such a huge majority of Americans to believe in the existence of a link between Al-Quaeda and Iraq — when every educated person in the world knows the two regimes were bitter enemies.
You write, with the grace of an aging, obese ballerina with cancer in both her legs, “and anyone like gordsellar above that believes different is only fooling themselves no matter how articulate they try to be in there comments.Fancy words don’t make a lie the truth it might disguise it for some people…”
Please, Glenn, do the following things.
First, learn to write. There are many problems with your writing, of the kind I see among students who dont know English well. First among them is spelling: as the title character Hal Hartley’s film Henry Fool astutely noted, there are three theres:
You have no reason not to know the difference and use it in your writing. It marks you as both a philistine and as someone not worth the time to read, because you have no mind for such details as how to write effectively. If you cannot be bothered to take the time and care to write properly, dear barbarian, why should I take your ideas seriously? Fancy words, as you call them, are actually nothing more than precise. Precision reflects attention to detail and a desire to communicate ideas, and not just jingoistic slogans.
You claim that Kerry’s claims are impossible to fact-check. That this makes you a supporter of Bush rather than a political agnostic is mazing to me. Didn’t Bush and Cheney recently admit that there are no WMDs in Iraq? They claimed there were some, they based the rationale of the invasion on the premise, and now they say there’s nothing. And on top of that, as all people who read anything published outside America (and many Americans) know, there is no connection between Hussein and bin Laden. So… in the face of that, Kerry’s uncheckable claims drive you to the ever-more honest waters of Bush harbour? Are you mad? Being disillusioned by both sides would be reasonable. But hold Bush up as an alternative to Kerry’s dishonesty is just insane.
Cronies, by the way, has only one “o”. Your spoonerism, croonies, implies that the Kerry’s cronies sing in an old jazz or lounge style.
As for the draft, of course Republicans don’t need the draft; they’ve screwed the economy so badly that the poorest classes will soon be needing to line up around the block signing up for the army just to get by. Why the hell would they need a draft? A draft would even things out, would cause war to be visited upon the wealthy as the poor in statistically proportional measure.
While I don’t follow the details of this bread-and-circus campaign closely enough to say anything about the specifics of the draft, I’ll agree that every politician on the campaign trail will bend the truth… or, to say it like it is, every politician is a damned liar. But I don’t understand YOUR bias: lies are disgusting in Kerry, but they’re just as disgusting in Bush. I can’t see where the fundamental distinction lies except that you happen to be wearing the shirt with the red team, and therefore are willing to overlook your team’s lies and demonize the other’s. Why you can’t see past the partisan games to the fact it’s all a crock of bleeding shit is beyond me. But I guess all them fancy ideas are just more hokem silley stuff dat dem intelletural types try to use ta make us smart people who unnerstand the world feel stoopid.
I find you a little more than slightly pathetic.
> > > I’m sorry you think my comment was pathetic.
> > On the
> > > other hand, very true. George Soros said
> > himself that
> > > it is his “life mission” to defeat George W.
> > Bush. He
> > > repeatedly says ” The United States is in
> > danger”
> > > because of GW. That is far from the truth.
> > Infact,
> > > the world is in danger because of George
> > Soros. I do
> > > not say this because he is from Hungary, or if
> > he were
> > > from any other foreign country, I would still
> > feel
> > > that his “contributions” are nefarious. If
> > you look
> > > at his trading record, he did not get a net
> > worth of
> > > approximately $7 billion by being an honest
> > hard
> > > worker, he got it by manipulation and
> > cheating. He
> > > didn’t receive the nickname “The Man Who Broke
> > The
> > > Bank of England” for no reason. In 1997,
> > during the
> > > Asian Financial Crisis, Malaysia’s former
> > prime
> > > minister said George Soros brought down the
> > Malaysian
> > > currency, the ringgit. The same in the
> > Ukraine,
> > > Russia, etc. He is a hypocrit. He ridicules
> > the very
> > > system that has made him the billionaire he is
> > today.
> > > I wish he had the proclivity to tell the world
> > what he
> > > “really” thinks. Then the world could see
> > what a
> > > snake in the grass he truly is. He is a
> > fascist and a
> > > socialist, not a capitalist. He practices
> > capitalism,
> > > and preaches socialism with this “Global
> > > Capitalization” facade. His views are far
> > from
> > > Democratic. He once said he would go bankrupt
> > to see
> > > George W. Bush defeated in this election, is
> > that
> > > something a Democratic mind would even have
> > conceived
> > > of? No. That is a thought from the mind of a
> > fascist.
> > > “Pick and Choose” by the wealthy only who can
> > hold
> > > political office. “Pick and Choose” by the
> > wealthy
> > > who can become wealthy and who can stay
> > wealthy. My
> > > opinion of him has nothing to do with him
> > being born
> > > in a different country. It has every bit to
> > do with
> > > his hypocrisy.
Dom,
Hell of a comment. Wanna try again with some content this time? Like, besides quoting your email to me?