George Soros is behind every evil in the world. That's the idea you get when reading some conservative posters. But why is he being portrayed as such a boogeyman?
As a normal Swede, I don't hear much about George Soros from domestic sources. Last time anyone discussed him in the mainstream over here were in the 90s, when there were lots of complaints against him shorting the Swedish currency, leading to a financial crisis. Of course that wasn't exactly the case; the currency fell because of disastrous policies when it came to privatizing public companies and corporate malfeasance, but Soros was one of several speculators, and he received a lot of the blame back then. Since then, it's been rather quite about him.
Unless you're a Nazi. For the Swedish extreme right, Soros has remained a target of hate, and with the rise of the populist extreme right over the last 20 years, he's become a target for them too. That seems to be the case all over Europe, including his native Hungary - where he's blamed for just about everything by the right wing populist government - and Russia. But what is it he does that's so damn evil to these right wingers?
As far as I've been able to read about him, he's a holocaust survivor, and what he saw during the German dominance of Hungary during World War II made him very distrustful of nationalism. He saw what he perceived as the ultimate form of nationalism in the Nazi purges of Jews and other "undesirables", and that affected him for the rest of his life. The money he made as a broker and speculator have been to a large part funneled into his various projects, especially his Open Society Foundations. These organisations, as well as those he funds but aren't under his direct auspice, all work towards liberal democracy, human and civil rights and the strengthening of democratic institutions. They have worked especially in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism, in order to help bring the nations who suffered under Communism into a modern democratic Europe.
So what's objectionable about this to a conservative? I understand why extreme right wingers in Europe propagate against him, and why he's such a pariah in Russia, because those people don't want to see increased democracy or civil or human rights. But can an American conservative really say the same?
What has George Soros done that's so bad? Try to answer without resorting to conspiracy theories.
As a normal Swede, I don't hear much about George Soros from domestic sources. Last time anyone discussed him in the mainstream over here were in the 90s, when there were lots of complaints against him shorting the Swedish currency, leading to a financial crisis. Of course that wasn't exactly the case; the currency fell because of disastrous policies when it came to privatizing public companies and corporate malfeasance, but Soros was one of several speculators, and he received a lot of the blame back then. Since then, it's been rather quite about him.
Unless you're a Nazi. For the Swedish extreme right, Soros has remained a target of hate, and with the rise of the populist extreme right over the last 20 years, he's become a target for them too. That seems to be the case all over Europe, including his native Hungary - where he's blamed for just about everything by the right wing populist government - and Russia. But what is it he does that's so damn evil to these right wingers?
As far as I've been able to read about him, he's a holocaust survivor, and what he saw during the German dominance of Hungary during World War II made him very distrustful of nationalism. He saw what he perceived as the ultimate form of nationalism in the Nazi purges of Jews and other "undesirables", and that affected him for the rest of his life. The money he made as a broker and speculator have been to a large part funneled into his various projects, especially his Open Society Foundations. These organisations, as well as those he funds but aren't under his direct auspice, all work towards liberal democracy, human and civil rights and the strengthening of democratic institutions. They have worked especially in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism, in order to help bring the nations who suffered under Communism into a modern democratic Europe.
So what's objectionable about this to a conservative? I understand why extreme right wingers in Europe propagate against him, and why he's such a pariah in Russia, because those people don't want to see increased democracy or civil or human rights. But can an American conservative really say the same?
What has George Soros done that's so bad? Try to answer without resorting to conspiracy theories.
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2BIhFH6
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