Financial Times: Soros in new pledge to leftwing causes

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/29b5de7c-6440-11d9-b0ed-00000e2511c8.html

A group of billionaire philanthropists are to donate tens of millions more dollars to develop progressive political ideas in the US in an effort to counter the conservative ascendancy.


George Soros, who made his fortune in the hedge fund industry, Herb and Marion Sandler, the California couple who own a multi-billion dollar savings and loan business, and Peter Lewis, the publicity-shy chairman of an Ohio insurance company, donated more than $63m (€48m, £34m) in the 2004 election cycle to organisations seeking to defeat George W. Bush.

At a meeting in San Francisco last month, the left-leaning billionaires agreed to commit an even larger sum over a longer period to building institutions to foster progressive ideas and people.

Far from being disillusioned by the defeat of John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, the billionaires had resolved to invest further in the intellectual future of the left, one person involved said.

more at the link above

Thank you, Mr. Soros! This is one helluva list, dating back to 1979.
http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/George_Soros.php

:)

organizer of people.

Soros, Lakoff, and Dean. And I think it's already happening.

anything else is just pissing into the wind.

If money is no object like it says, buy up some media outlets, or create some. Support folks like our Guy James Show, etc. We need several Guy Jamess in all the purple states if not the red ones.

This is one of the most important steps in saving our country from the grips of the radical right-wingers. They are very well funded and highly organized with hundreds of millions of dollars. The infrastructure they've built over the last forty years is awesome.

Thank God for these enlightened people. This is desperately needed. Many many thanks to Mr. Soros and his partners. We thank you and our country thanks you. :toast:

only a very few people replying to this thread.

IMHO, the subject of this article is the biggest news in years, maybe decades, at least when it comes to REAL politics. The majority of the stuff that people here talk about (DNC chair, even the outcome of the election) is really on a much lower level, and I might even describe ita as just gossip, at least compared to this news.

This is great news. Soros did great with his funding of ACT. If he choses wisely with his funding, this could be a good first step in countering the 30 year old VWRC.

We need our own Cato Institutes and Heritage Foundations to counter the R/W junk that appears in supposedly "legitimate" news stories. There are definitely enough progressives and liberals in academia to provide the knowledge base.

Our own think tank. That is exactly the issue they were formed to address.

donating money to the Democrat party these days is the OPPOSITE of a progressive action, so Soros, et al., has yet to show that he is indeed interested in progressive ideas.

I guarantee you one thing, if Soros, et al., really DO fund institutions to disseminate truly progressive ideas, then a lot of so-called "liberal Democrats" won't like these ideas.

The Center For American Progress. Their website might give a good idea as to what kind of organizations they will be supporting. http://www.americanprogress.org/

eom

I am a Democrat. That is a noun, or more precisely, a proper noun.

I belong to the Democratic Party. Democratic is an adjective.

I trust that you know the difference between an adjective and a noun, and how to use them in a sentence?

Our opponents refer to us as the Democrat Party. It is meant to be pejorative. I am suspicious of any poster who refers to us in that ungrammatical and derogatory manner.

Our opponents refer to us as the Democrat Party. It is meant to be pejorative. I am suspicious of any poster who refers to us in that ungrammatical and derogatory manner.

Yup, I am too.

Is he pushing for a corporate-friendly Democratic platform? Or an economic populist one? Why would a billionaire like Soros vote against his own economic interests by supporting a party that wants to raise taxes on the richest in the country? Anyone know?

I don't know. Maybe I've crossed the blurred boundary between skepticism and cynicism.

Ok, I'm only half-serious about the shouting... but when I read

"Why would a billionaire like Soros vote against his own economic interests..."

I have to jump in and say I don't concede the point that progressive policies OR progressive taxation is "against the economic interests" of the wealthy. The aphorism that "a rising tide lifts all boats" was used to push trickledon economics, and we all saw that it didn't work that way. But, you know, when you look at it from the other direction, it actually works pretty well. When more people are doing well, business (and the wealthy) does well too. When people have more money and a greater sense of economic security, they're more optimistic and willing to spend money.

Let's not start the debate by buying the plutocrats "frame" on that point. A better, more optimistic, more prosperous society is NOT against the economic interests of the wealthy. And some rich folks know that.

Can you tell me, out of all the millionaires and billionaires and CEOs and industrialists in this great country, if a majority of them would rather cooperate with their fellow man to make things better for all or would they rather stomp on everyone's face just to make an extra buck? I don't need to "buy" into their frame of debate. The fact that so many of them buy into their own self-interested bullshit propaganda about "what's good for GM is good for America" makes it a reality for the simple fact that they behave as if it were a truism, and since they generally are our bosses and managers, we get pulled along for the ride, and so their "reality" warps and twists our "reality."

We poor folks suffer and die in the trenches and slave in the workplace for their pursuits and for their profit margins. How can you argue with a person whose single pursuit is the accumulation of wealth for the sake of having wealth that giving up his money is going to benefit what he himself deems as his own interests and not what you think is his interests?

First, I didn't say *all* rich folks - or even most of them. I said *some* rich folks. I agree that most rich people are as you described... but the point is, we shouldn't start a debate about progressive policies by *agreeing* that they're bad for "rich people." That's like starting a football game by agreeing that the other team gets to make up the rules.

I DON'T agree that progressive policies are bad for rich people. I think, ultimately, they're GOOD for rich people AND poor people. And apparently, SOME rich people agree with me.

The conservatives want us to debate from the premise that progressive policies are bad for the wealthy, and make the debate about how much "pain" the wealthy should bear to "help" poor people. I say we reject fighting the issue on that ground. I say we make the debate about whether their premise is true or not.

**edited for clarity**

did the stock market and economy do better under the last Democratic administration or the current Republican one?

Also, just because some-one is adept at making money doesn't mean that's all they're interested in. Otherwise why do Bono and Bill Gates donate millions to charity?

we have allot of catching up to do to retake our media..