People need a boogeyman because the real world is far too complex to comprehend, so having puppeteering bad guys is easier to deal with than reality of people actually having genuine beliefs that you don't agree with.
There definitely is some Antisemitism, though I don't think that's the main driver, the left also chastises Sheldon Adelson, who is also jewish.
Which you get exposed to depends on your echo chamber. Echo chambers don't share the rational arguments of their opposition because nobody wants to think the outgroup has a point.
That George Soros is funding a migrant caravan of invaders is a conspiracy theory. This theory was amplified by both the President and Fox News, so it's hard to claim it's not even a mainstream theory.
Unfortunately their go to right now, and probably for the next x number of years, is the guy who shot up the Republican baseball game. No doubt there are extremists on both sides, one side just seems to have way more
There are a lot of these cases, where a violent person is unjustly tagged as "the right".
When someone can't be crammed into that mold, they are dropped from the news. A prime example is the youtube office shooter, who was a female muslim immigrant. As soon as the demographics became clear, the news dropped the story like a hot potato.
Basically, the news wants an attacker who looks like their stereotype of an NRA member and/or Trump supporter. Anybody else is not deemed newsworthy.
That trip is not free.
Soros certainly has a history of funding exactly that sort of thing. For example, he paid to have boats pick people up right off the coast of Libya and take them to Italy. It would not be the slightest bit surprising for Soros to fund a mob of thousands to invade the USA.
If not Soros, then who? (and who paid that group, and who paid the payers... and does it not lead back to Soros?)
This sounds like if one cannot pinpoint the supposed funder (and prove that they act alone), then you'll feel free to assume it is Soros? This is nonsense.
Pelosi and Reid attended a conspiracy movie about the Kochs in 2014 https://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/harry-reid-nancy-pelo...
Funny how we forget. I don't deny Trump is the loudest, he is Trump after all. But I could pull up Maddow, Moyers, etc episodes about the Kochs that are similar to how Tucker, Hannity etc have treated Soros. Trump has also attacked the Kochs (as has Tucker, Brietbart, etc,) fwiw. The Kochs are for DACA, for example.
The simple fact is, none of these men (the Kochs or Soros) are "evil," they believe in what they believe and they put their money towards it. Simple as that. And because of that they are boogeymen to each side; since somehow each side thinks they (Soros & the Kochs) have some huge influenced...and having worked in DC circles myself and having various friends that have worked on the Hill...that's just totally false. They all WISH they had that power, and honestly if they did the world would probably be a lot simpler.
Real politics is a lot more like Veep than it is House of Cards. That's not as thrilling as people want, but it's the truth.
It's one thing for Obama allege the Koch brothers are spending millions to advance an agenda in Congress. It's quite another for Trump to allege George Soros is funding a migrant caravan containing elements of terrorists, gang members, smallpox, and leprosy to invade the US southern border. That's why I'm saying its a false equivalence.
In fact many in this VERY thread are claiming that the Kochs are actually evil people, something you'd see scrawled in the comment section of Breitbart but in regards to Soros...and we're on Hacker News, a place of generally intellectual people.
I'm trying to connect this with the words preceding it. Do you think the left chastises Adelson for anti-Semitic reasons?
He did not produce the crisis. He observed, rightly, that the pound was massively overvalued and that this was not sustainable.
He bet the bank on this fact and won.
He certainly didn't produce the crisis.
Soros would be the boogyman regardless, it comes down to the fact that he's pouring tons of money into political causes. Like the Koch brothers do on the other side. It's simple. No need to add additional theories.
At his events he asks the audience to disagree with him. He gets excited when a guest disagrees with him. He'll also call them out when they say something that can't be backed up. He's constantly sharpening his positions.
If you can make better arguments, then you should start doing so. Seriously. Because not many can.
- Ben Shapiro.
> Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue. #settlementsrock
- Ben Shapiro.
> Renewable energy: dumbest phrase since climate change. See the first law of thermodynamics, dumbass. #tcot #teaparty
- Ben Shapiro.
This is incredibly offensive and is itself racist.
i find this amusing. some of the right (those who aren't pro-israel) DO believe in social justice when it applies jews (who do in fact make up a majority of the top 1%), and the left believes in social justice when it applies to whites.
you should at least be able to discuss both sides without "racist!", "cuck!", or in this case, "antisemitism!". I don't use any social media so maybe there's something i'm not picking up on.
In particular, OSF backed the pro-Western side in Ukraine. This has resulted in a well-funded disinformation campaign against it and him by Russia.
However everything I have heard him about his didn't come from credible sources. I've honestly wondered for a long time as well.
The key thing about those sorts of things is that the lack of evidence is itself evidence of the grand conspiracy.
I had always understood the Christian basis of friendship with the people of Israel was from Genesis 12:3, which suggests that those who "bless" the children of Abraham would be blessed.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-hungary-soros/isra...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/netanyahu-absolves-hitle...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88KuVlYFXsI
This guy was in many UN meetings in relation to the compact. If you watch the interview, his view is that Europe has colonized many places, so it only makes sense that Europe now open its borders. He specifically states in the interview he has no concern for nationalists or those who worry about mass migration. He says that they need to drive the fear of mass migration out of the people of Europe through public education programs. He says that it's a matter of people's viewpoints needing to change. He's very much pro-immigration. The view that mass migration into Europe is inevitable, and that the UN and its surrounding organisations need to facilitate that and make it "safe, orderly and regular", is widespread among the people writing and setting up these documents and allocating the money the UN and it's partner organisations spend. That's why I said, Europeans are funding the welfare behind the facilitation of mass migration into their countries. If you want to find out more, consider documents like these and their supporting studies. It is also largely filled with ideological babble, which is why I am less than optimistic about mass immigration and the supposed integrated Utopia that is supposed to arise from that:
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/theme...
We've seen how well integration works in Britain and Sweden...
The part about how Europe colonized many places was just a description of how Europe itself was fairly insulated from the rest of the world for a long time, which can make it hard to suddenly start accepting a lot of people from elsewhere because it's a big change. There was nothing at all about this meaning Europe should open its borders.
Can you provide a link/source for these groups?
Even if it was related, this report says nothing about open borders. As I understand the migrants are looking for asylum, which is an extensive process with a low success rate. How is that "open borders"?
The "Open" in "Open Society Foundation" also has nothing to do with "Open Borders". A open society is defined by freedom of speech, equality before the law, high social mobility, more interested in trying new ideas than in defending the status quo, etc.
It's the same ideology that made him spend his first billion on fighting the communists in the 1980.
1. https://www.vox.com/2018/10/29/18037580/pittsburgh-shooter-a...
edit: added reference for downvoters.
The left’s complete failure to understand the other side is why they were so shocked that Trump got elected. And it looks like we are in for a repeat in 2020, since they’ve learned nothing.
I personally don't think the Kochs nor Soros are bad people, and likely want what they view as what is best for society. They put their money where their mouths are, nothing nefarious about that. If the Kochs were only for their own self interests their main focus right now wouldn't be criminal justice reform.
Don't be easily fooled by their "generosity" as it's not always as it seems to be, many times they fund "independent" organizations or think tanks which really are just foils for them to push their Conservative agenda.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/we-now-know-how-...
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/trump-koch-brot...
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-denier...
https://www.ucsusa.org/publications/got-science/2017/got-sci...
I can keep going on, so please don't paint them as just some "nice" guys who give money.
Anyhow, you just cited 4 left leaning sites, so that's not helpful (and actually proves my point in other parts of this thread!) Charles Koch himself does not deny climate change (you can read about this in actual news sites like the Washington Post,) he is against corporate welfare like the government directly/indirectly subsidizing Tesla, etc. Which is perfectly in line with his libertarianism.
Even the one source you could argue is somewhat "real," was from an opinion writer. Here's the rest of his pieces, which uh, don't seem so unbiased. https://slate.com/author/mark-joseph-stern
They very much don't put their money where there mouths are, as they put their money through a massive chain of anonymous shell organizations to hide their involvement. This has given the appearance of many right wing "grassroots" movements appearing as by the people, though when donations have been investigated they are overwhelmingly from single donors traced back to the Kochs.
I don't really know that much about Soros, but the fact that people try to claim Soros is just the lefts version of the Kochs is very wrong on many levels. The most basic level is simply net worth, which is their influence ability. Soros is worth 8/9 billion, the Koch brothers are over 100 Billion. Their ability to buy politicians is that much greater.
I believe the Kochs believe they are doing what they think is right, but I also believe they are evil for the country. Their ideals are not what benefits the country in the long run, but continues this trend of money and influence being contained within a tiny minority.
The Kochs are very calculated people, they know what they are doing, and just being they are focused on criminal justice reform, doesn't mean they aren't also focused on other things that benefit them (and that criminal justice reform how they see it doesn't benefit them). The for profit prison industry owners are some of their peers who donate to their causes, they are playing every side they can.
Please give Dark money a read. There’s a huge difference between media personalities spouting conspiracies and a well respected journalist spending years of there lives delving into something, whilst having their reputation under constant attack and being followed by private investigations hired to dig up any dirt on you.
Those right-leaning voters are not pro-Israel because they like jews, they believe that if jews return to Israel it will bring about the apocalypse and they will be saved [1]
Also I don't think 2020 will be anything but a massive rebuttal to Trump and Republicans...
https://www.nbcnews.com/card/almost-six-10-americans-believe...
If you can point me to a left-wing agitator violently attacking Jewish people over the actions of Sheldon Adelson I'd love to see it.
Otherwise this is just intellectually-lazy "Both-sides"ism.
He also gave a very poor and ill-advised interview, where he once stated that (despite being Jewish) he helped Nazi's confiscate properties from Jews in a sixty minutes interview.
He stated that he didn't help later in the interview, but the damage was done.
Soros started by funding most of the opposition in Poland in the 1980s, making him a key factor in the downfall of the Sowjet Union.
And he has basically not changed since... He's for "Open Societies". Practically, that means supporting opposition parties or groups in any country that lacks freedom of speech. Also journalism, job training for groups traditionally excluded from majority society like kurds or Roma.
I have personally worked with his Foundation, when they gave almost a million to the Debating World Championship. As in: Oxford & Harvard students arguing for/against anything, including extremely conservative positions.
He isn't trying to increase migration. He tries to improve the plight of those who have already fled. That may increase migration in the sense that shooting migrants at the border would decrease it, yes. But that logic is neither intended, nor accepted anywhere else. Unless you believe killing all sick people would be just as effective as vaccinations.