"Very few of the world’s governments or rich donors fund the brave citizens who fight daily for human rights. It’s less sexy and more political than vaccination, or the fight against cancer. As the light of liberty darkens as the world’s democracies turn to the populist far right, expect the attacks on Soros to intensify." Sad!
Actually many people hate George Soros in the U.S. after they experience driving down a road which is blocked by BLM activists or try to enter an airport blocked by immigration supporters. Within a day of their unfortunate experience of missing a flight or not making it to the doctor - they find out George Soros funds all the groups causing the problems. After this sensible people of all political stripes hate George Soros. Until this point many people never heard of him.
It is hard to make an omelette without breaking eggs. Have you been personally affected? If so please do what you can to support reform efforts. Ignoring the problems within our justice system will make matters worse; not better. Protests get attention proportional to how much disruption they cause. The people who start these protest movements do it because they don't have the kind of access you and I do to the courts and politicians. Soros didn't start these actions, his foundations listened and understood why. These movements like BLM seem to me to be quite often misguided and just plain wrong about facts and details to roughly the same extent that social media is wrong -- nevertheless these movements continue because some of the injustices underlying them actually do exist! Her is what Ken Zimmerman, one of the Directors of the OSFs, had to say: from: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...dn-t-give-33-million-to-blacklivesmatter.html ___________________________________ ‘Rumor Stew’ No, George Soros Didn’t Give $33 Million to #BlackLivesMatter A director for the liberal billionaire’s Open Society Foundations quashes the rumor—pushed by conspiracy theorists and even mainstream outlets—that Soros is bankrolling the movement. Ben Collins 08.19.15 12:52 AM ET In the wake of Black Lives Matter protests that interrupted speeches by Bernie Sanders and Jeb Bush over the last month, voices on social media, right-wing blogs, and even general-interest sites have pointed to a conspiracy involving liberal billionaire George Soros and a very specific amount of money: $33 million. “The Soros-funded #blacklivesmatter movement is a big problem for the Democrats,” The American Thinker’s Thomas Lifson wrote this week. Some of those rumors have gone mainstream, even making an appearance on Fox News’s ratings powerhouse The O’Reilly Factor in late July. “So who’s funding Black Lives Matter? One of the big donors seems to be George Soros, our old pal, who gives big money to affiliates of Black Lives Matter—groups that do direct business with them,” host Bill O’Reilly said in a July 28 segment. “Also giving money directly to the group [are] entertainers Jay Z and Beyoncé.” O’Reilly’s guest was Kelly Riddell, who wrote an investigative report for The Washington Times this year about Soros’s charity’s ties to left-wing organizations. Black Lives Matter is “a group that was started by three women that work at Soros-backed organizations that are into community organizing, into kind of riling up activists,” she said. “They are all—all of these organizations, from a certain standpoint—are funded by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. I found that within one year, George Soros dedicated $33 million to these types of organizations.” “So $33 million from Soros to agitators who are organized to disrupt,” O’Reilly said. “And then the national convention for the Republicans in Cleveland seems to be a target.” But a director at Soros’s Open Society Foundations says the billionaire did not give money to Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi, the three activists who rallied together on Twitter in response to the death of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his killer. “I can’t really speculate on what leads to rumors, but it is wrong,” said Ken Zimmerman, the director of U.S. programs at Open Society Foundations. “I don’t even know where one begins to reconstruct something like that.” The three women came up with the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag to bring attention to the deaths of young black Americans, and the phrase gained prominence with the police killings of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray. Now, as The Daily Beast reported last week, “Black Lives Matter” is an umbrella term for a decentralized network of everything from blogs to in-person meet-ups—like movie nights or lectures—to protests to Facebook pages, making the task of pinpointing the number to $33 million impossible. Some writers speculated that Soros’s years-long fundraising for Hillary Clinton may tie his charity directly to the shutdowns of two Sanders speeches in the last month. Soros has raised $2 million in PAC money for Clinton’s campaign this year, and Sanders has recently gained considerable ground on the former first lady in the polls. “This story is not about George Soros as a person but merely an exploration of what role he and pro-Hillary Clinton activists have within the BLM protests of Senator Bernie Sanders,” The Huffington Post’s David Pakman wrote last week. But Zimmerman said Soros isn’t in the business of paying for protests. “We don’t fund protests, per se,” Zimmerman told The Daily Beast. “In the way we do our grant making, we are continually looking for new voices. It’s a broad array of things—including both immigration and criminal justice reform.” Open Society Foundations spent more than $826 million in 2014. Riddell’s report in The Washington Times details $33 million in domestic expenditures on social justice issues, largely to broad-issue charities. About one-eighth of the $33 million went to the Drug Policy Alliance, a nonprofit whose goal is to end the war on drugs. “I think a lot of people think [the protests] were cooked up in a lab or something,” said Zimmerman. “It’s just not true.” As The Daily Beast reported last week, the founders of Black Lives Matter did not know that the two local activists who interrupted Sanders’s speech would do so until after the event. The protesters, Marissa Johnson and Mara Willaford, claimed no official ties to the movement until the day of the event. Zimmerman said his organization has donated money to groups working on “issues arising out of the Black Lives Matter movement.” OSF helped organize a talk with the hashtag’s cofounder Patrisse Cullors and actor Danny Glover, a spokesperson said. But Zimmerman said there is simply no way to directly fund an amorphous movement like Black Lives Matter, even if George Soros wanted to. Zimmerman called the suggestion “rumor stew.” “How and where somebody would tally up those [donations] and somehow combine them with Black Lives Matter—I don’t know,” he said. ________________________end of quote____________________ One of the things I've noticed over the years I've followed Soros is that he hardly ever responds to false or misleading stories about his activities. If he did respond personally, he'd certainly get nothing else done. People had to die before blacks could ride in the front of the bus. Likely people will have to die before the justice system is reformed to the point that the poor are no longer trapped in it. And in the meantime you and I may have to miss a plane. It's annoying for us, but it's far worse for those trapped. The sensible thing to do is to advocate reform of the institutions that cause these problems. But frankly, if there are those in government who could bring about reforms without much disruption, they apparently are not the ones missing flights.
After all the coverage from the NYT, Washington Post, and other mainstream media outlets outlining how Soros provided money to organizations that promoted BLM and organized protests via social media.... I am not buying this article that OSF did not fund BLM because BLM is de-centralized.... pure semantic nonsense.
The lost 60 min interview. "I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of what I do." - George Soros - Philanthropist! It's around the 2:30 mark.
I certainly don't no. I think the Foundations annual reports are publicly available and they should list all disbursements. But I do know a great deal about Soros's personal philosophy, and it would be quite unlike him to intentionally fund violent or highly disruptive activities. On the other hand he has pointed out instances in some of his books where his money was used in ways he did not approve of. We have to understand that there are billions involved. He gives money to the foundations, they disperse it as they think wise and in keeping with their principles, and then step back. They do not micromanage. That too would be inconsistent with Soros's nature. see https://www.google.com/search?q=ope...utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=open+society+annual+report&*
That statement, from what I know about Soros, is absolutely true. No single individual can micromanage billions of dollars. You are forced to trust others, and sometimes they will let you down of course..
I think Soros is a mixed story. Many of his activities in numerous countries are opposed by politicians in power. He tends to fund liberal organizations. His money flows downstream from organization to sub-organization making it hard to trace. Yet it is pretty clear in the U.S. that OSF has funded organizations (through series of giving downstream) that organize and fund protests. Many of these protests turned violent. When this is pointed out, the OSF organization merely points out Soros is funding social justice and attempts to deny responsibility for the violence. Years ago many people cheered Soros when most of his money was used to undermine Communist countries in Europe by funding anti-government organizations. Now the West is getting a taste of his medicine, and many people & politicians in western democracies are not liking the taste of Soros' social medicine & the chaos it causes.
Have I been personally been affected by violent protestors funded by Soros? Yes. In recent weeks I have been blocked from getting into RDU airport to catch my flight due to violent protestors out front. Previously a few months ago I sat for hours in traffic on Highway 147 in Durham when violent BLM protestors blocked the road. Both protests were organized by organizations that received funding by Soros. Something nobody attempts to deny.