What's disturbing about Soros' effort is not his insistence that performance be measurable, but, alas, the fact that the ultimate arbiter of success is the self-appointed zillionaire. I don't blame S for wanted proof that his money in thsi worthy cause isn't being pissed away, and I don't blame him for not trusting in some sort of "democratic" process to take over for him -- not that I think that such a process would be bad, but what would it look like? He should give the money to the DP? To the "movement"? What would that entail? Our sad sack situation is such that we don't even have the sort of organization that offers a plausible alternative to Soros' calling the shots himself. One can't really personally blame S for this.
As for the objection that S is not a socialist revolutionary but only a liberal, phooey. God bless S, we need more such liberal zillionaires. jks
--- T Fast <tfast at yorku.ca> wrote:
> Soros is mad at Bush because he thinks Bush is
> screwng up the liberal
> globalisation project with his highly unliberal
> methods of forcing the
> barbarians to be free. Soros forgets that the
> liberal state is a muderous
> one.
>
> Travis
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Curtiss Leung" <curtiss_leung at ibi.com>
> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 5:38 PM
> Subject: [lbo-talk] The Opposition to Bush,a
> subsidiary of Soros Fund
> Management
>
>
> > >From an article in today's WSJ, "Soros Has a
> Hunch Bush Can Be Beat":
> >
> > But Mr. Soros isn't just writing checks and
> > watching; He is also imposing a business model
> > on the notoriously unruly world of politics. He
> > demands objective evidence of progress, and
> assigned
> > an aide to monitor the groups he supports. He
> studies
> > private polls to track the impact of an anti-Bush
> > advertising campaign, and he is delivering his
> money
> > in installments, giving him leverage if
> performance
> > falters.
> >
> > This makes my head spin, and not in a good way.
> "[H]e is
> > delivering his money in installments, giving him
> leverage if
> > performance falters." So if $X million to
> whomever fails to
> > give the desired downtick to Bush's approval
> ratings, he'll
> > just take his checkbook and go home? And am I
> supposed to
> > believe that his checks come without recommended
> positions?
> >
> > Am I just being too cynical, or does this give
> others here a
> > bad, bad feeling?
> >
> > NB: I found the official webpage for Soros' Open
> Society Institute,
> > but nothing for the Quantum Fund, or Soros Fund
> Management--plenty
> > of stuff *about* them, sure, but no official
> webpage. I guess openness
> > only goes so far.
> >
> > Entire article follows. Snarky comments in
> parentheses.
> >
> > Curtiss
> >
> >
> >
>
-----------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Soros Has a Hunch Bush Can Be Beat
> >
> > Billionaire Puts His Weight, Money Behind
> > Democratic Effort to Oust President in '04
> > By JEANNE CUMMINGS
> > Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
> >
> >
> > NEW YORK -- When he was an active currency trader,
> George Soros bet
> > heavily on his hunches, most famously when he made
> a $1 billion profit
> > on a 1992 bet that the British pound was
> overvalued. Now convinced that
> > President Bush is overvaluing America's supremacy,
> he's betting at
> > least $15 million that he can help oust him in
> November.
> >
> > The 74-year-old billionaire's clout and largess
> has made him the
> > most important money man in the Democratic Party
> this election
> > year, as he raises funds for candidates, donates
> to left-leaning
> > activists and lobbies wealthy friends to do
> likewise. Wednesday
> > night, he co-hosted a New York event to help a new
> voter-registration
> > project.
> >
> > Republicans are concerned enough to mount a legal
> assault to
> > slow him down. They have appealed to the Federal
> Election
> > Commission to hem in Soros-backed, tax-exempt
> advocacy and
> > voter-mobilization groups by forcing them to
> adhere to limits
> > on political donation and spending. The FEC will
> take up the
> > matter Thursday.
> >
> > But Mr. Soros isn't just writing checks and
> watching; He is also
> > imposing a business model on the notoriously
> unruly world of
> > politics. He demands objective evidence of
> progress, and assigned
> > an aide to monitor the groups he supports. He
> studies private polls
> > to track the impact of an anti-Bush advertising
> campaign, and he
> > is delivering his money in installments, giving
> him leverage if
> > performance falters.
> >
> > Certainly Mr. Soros -- whose estimated fortune of
> $7 billion puts
> > him 28th on the Forbes 400 list of the world's
> richest people -- is
> > one big reason new channels for political money
> have become such
> > a hot subject this year. He doesn't sit on the
> boards of the groups
> > he supports, or weigh in on day-to-day strategy.
> Still, his opinion
> > matters, and the group organizers give him early
> warning of any brewing
> > controversies -- such as the time when one
> mistakenly posted on the
> > Web a proposed anti-Bush commercial that compared
> the president to
> > Adolf Hitler. The ad was never broadcast
> commercially.
> >
> > Of course, Mr. Soros doesn't always enjoy the
> golden touch.
> > His two early Democratic presidential primary
> picks -- Howard
> > Dean and Wesley Clark -- are struggling. But that
> may not
> > matter to Mr. Soros, who said in an interview that
> Massachusetts
> > Sen. John Kerry's foreign policy best reflects his
> own global thinking.
> > (Oh yeah, something else to give me the warm and
> fuzzies about
> > Soros --CL)
> >
> > It was the Iraq war that prompted Mr. Soros to
> break his tradition
> > of staying out of presidential campaigns. As
> troops were sent to
> > Iraq, he began writing "The Bubble of American
> Supremacy," which
> > was recently released and argues that the
> administration's reliance
> > on military power to impose its global vision is
> dangerous and as
> > untenable as the inflated technology stocks of the
> late 1990s.
> >
> > His next step was to amplify other voices of
> dissent. Early in
> > 2003, he pledged $3 million over three years to
> the Center for
> > American Progress, a think tank founded by former
> Clinton aide
> > John Podesta to counter conservative voices.
> >
> > After an April dinner at his Manhattan apartment
> to discuss
> > Mr. Podesta's project, Mr. Soros pulled aside two
> senior aides,
> > Morton H. Halperin, a former Clinton aide who
> directs Mr. Soros's
> > Washington-based Open Society Institute, and
> Michael Vachon, a
> > personal assistant who is overseeing Mr. Soros's
> political projects.
> > Mr. Podesta's think tank was a good long-term
> project, he said,
> > but was there a role Mr. Soros could play in the
> 2004 campaign?
> >
> > To ensure an unbiased assessment, he hired two
> separate political
> > teams to evaluate Mr. Bush's strengths and
> weaknesses, the tactics
> > needed to beat him and how much it would cost.
> Heading
=== message truncated ===
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