Scruton and Soros 1162

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One principle of this blog is that I give my views whether they will be welcome or not, either to the general public or to the portion of the public who regularly read this blog. Since we started accepting subscriptions to keep it going, almost every article causes somebody to write to me saying they are canceling their subscription because they did not agree with me. I would much prefer anybody who is kindly giving money in the expectation of agreeing with everything I write, to cancel now. The purpose of this blog is to be intellectually challenging and provide food for thought, with facts and viewpoints not readily available in the mainstream media. It is about intellectual inquiry, not followership.

This is one of those occasions when I know that a significant number of people here will not agree with me. I like George Soros and consider him to be a good man. I should declare an interest; he once bought me a pizza, over 20 years ago. But I considered then, and I consider now, that Soros is a man who has devoted huge amounts of his personal resources, in terms of time and in terms of money, to attempting to make the world a better place, from motives of altruism.

Furthermore I believe that a lot of the work of the Open Society Institute, which I witnessed first hand, in Poland and Uzbekistan and elsewhere, is good work, particularly in the field of human rights and media freedom.

I believe that Roger Scruton’s attack on Soros, particularly in a venue in Hungary where the far right Prime Minister has conducted a truly hateful, state orchestrated, anti-semitic and anti-immigrant campaign against Soros, puts Scruton totally beyond the pale.

Soros frequently is cited in comments below the line on this blog as the personification of evil capitalism. Let me address the obvious elephants in the room. The first is how he made his money. This I make no attempt to defend. He has simply managed assets and traded derivative products, particularly in foreign exchange markets, and either by brilliance or sustained good luck, become extremely wealthy from an activity that provides no societal good. Indeed derivatives trading is a cancerous growth on modern economies, where the financial flows vastly exceed the value of trade in actual goods or genuine first party services.

However, people live and work in the economic situation that exists; to condemn people for not dropping out and going off-grid is to adopt a purist and ineffective position. I do not know how Soros got into the business line he adopted, but I am not condemning every individual working in trading. It is also worth stating that Soros’ ethnicity is utterly irrelevant to his career, and those who hint otherwise are offensive.

The second elephant in the room is that Soros appears aligned to the global spread of neo-liberalism, and to the Clinton camp with its warmongering foreign policy. Leaving aside for two paragraphs the question of whether or not that is true, the most important answer to that is that the man is entitled to his beliefs. To condemn him because his beliefs are not all my beliefs would be wrong. That Soros uses so much of his personal wealth to try to make the world a better place, according to his view of how society might best be structured, makes him a good man and not a bad man. That I may have a different view of how society should be structured is not the test; it is whether somebody is genuinely trying to do good by others.

Soros’ view of how society might best be structured is coloured by his past experience of the Eastern bloc. It is natural that anybody from what was occupied Hungary looks at Russia with a wary and distrustful eye. It is natural that those who understand the real failings of Soviet style central planning are dubious of schemes of socialism. But Soros is in fact fairly mainstream European social democrat with very liberal societal views. I genuinely do not understand his demonisation by large sections of the left. Soros is anathema to the right wing nationalist parties of Eastern Europe.

It is also worth pointing out that Soros’ view of his own profession is by no means straightforward. He argued extremely strongly for greater financial regulation, publishing highly informative and reasoned books on the subject, at the height of the craze for deregulation. He was not a supporter of the Big Bang or of Gordon Brown’s market worship. His 1998 opus, The Crisis of Global Capitalism, argues that financial markets are inherently unstable and swing like a wrecking ball not like a pendulum, and that globalisation is in fact an extension of Imperialism. That someone made so much money, from rules he believed should have been altered to stop him doing it, is a conundrum; but he is altogether a complicated character.

Finally, that Soros is a warmonger and supporter of US military attacks on the Middle East is not true. He opposed the Iraq war, and is generally against military intervention. His funding reaches so many NGO’s, of diverse views, it is always possible to find a tweet by Avaaz, or a report on Syrian human rights violations by Amnesty International, and make the claim “that is Soros shilling for war”. But in fact his influence on the vast array of civil society institutions he funds is extremely light touch, and they encompass widely differing viewpoints. Soros’ strong support for the warmonger Clinton is something I do not attempt to justify, other than to note that many people of liberal views are taken in by the old “liberal” establishment. It is quite a psychological step to accept it has gone full neo-con.

I most certainly do not agree with all of Soros’ views, or actions. But I agree with more of them than you may suppose. That all of his actions are motivated by a desire to make more money for himself or to benefit the ruling class, I am quite sure is not true. That he is a hawk and a warmonger I do not believe. That his efforts do a lot of real good I have witnessed first hand. The demonisation of Soros is lazy, inaccurate and unfair.

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1,162 thoughts on “Scruton and Soros”

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  • Robyn

    ‘That Soros uses so much of his personal wealth to try to make the world a better place, according to his view of how society might best be structured, makes him a good man …’

    In my view, the way any society might best be structured is a decision for the people of that society. If someone has, by whatever legal means, amassed a fortune and wants to do good, funding efforts for world peace would be a good place to start. If there are any billions left over, perhaps building schools or hospitals or any of dozens of causes more worthy than donating to politicians (ie influencing elections) or trying to nudge societies to structure themselves according to his ideas.

    • Sharp Ears

      The Metro needs to improve its English.

      ‘It is being described as an accident and is not believed to be terror related. Mrs May and Mr Michel were on their way from a commemoration at St Symphorien Military Cemetery in Mons, Bergen. Mr Michel stopped the convoy to see how badly injured the officers were, according to De Standaard. She was visiting two war cemeteries on Friday,+++ to lay wreaths alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel+++ !

      https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/09/vehicle-crashes-into-theresa-mays-convoy-in-belgium-8122679/?

      We trust Macron and Michel are not lying in graves.

    • Paul Greenwood

      How appropriate for a politician to lay a wreath to commemorate the consequences of incompetent foreign policy back in the early years of the 20th Century. Quite why Britain became involved in a Franco-Prussian Re-Match s hard to fathom. Must be because after Fashoda the British decided to trust the French and the rest as they say is history…..the destruction of British Power

      • Shatnersrug

        Paul,

        The only war left for Prussia-Germany to wage will be a world war, a world war, moreover of an extent of violence hitherto unimagined. Eight to ten million soldiers will be at each other’s throats and in the process they will strip Europe barer than a swarm of locusts. The depredations of the Thirty Years’ War compressed into three to four years and extended over the entire continent; famine, disease, the universal lapse into barbarism.

        Engles 1887

        I strongly recommend “The Great Class War”. By Jacques Pauwels here’s a review of it from counterpunch
        https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/12/world-war-i-crime-and-punishment/

    • Deb O'Nair

      “She is OK and is now having déjeuner avec Macron.”

      Phew, I am so relieved. What would we do without her?

  • Brendan

    Soros is first and foremost a propagandist. The messages he spreads are not just the result of his own personal bias (which would be expected from anyone of any political opinion). He goes much further than that and deliberately encourages hostility against Russia.

    Some of his public comments are so out of touch with reality that they look like they were designed to spread hysteria. We know now that the following remarks of his from 2016 – only months after Merkel opened the German border to about a million refugees – have no basis in reality:

    “Putin’s current aim is to foster the EU’s disintegration, and the best way to do so is to flood the EU with Syrian refugees.
    (…)
    As Merkel correctly foresaw, the migration crisis has the potential to destroy the EU.
    When a state or association of states is in mortal danger, it is better for its leaders to confront harsh reality than to ignore it. The race for survival pits the EU against Putin’s Russia.”

    and:
    “The Putin regime faces bankruptcy in 2017, when a large part of its foreign debt matures, and political turmoil may erupt sooner than that. Putin’s popularity, which remains high, rests on a social compact requiring the government to deliver financial stability and a slowly but steadily rising standard of living. Western sanctions, coupled with the sharp decline in the price of oil, will force the regime to fail on both counts.”

    https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/putin-no-ally-against-isis-by-george-soros-2016-02

    A well-informed and intelligent man like Soros could not have really believed what he wrote then, unless he was suffering from senility or psychosis. It’s much more likely that he was deliberately spreading disinformation as part of an anti-Russian campaign.

  • Adrian Parsons

    “The first is how he made his money. This I make no attempt to defend. He has simply managed assets and traded derivative products, particularly in foreign exchange markets…”

    As the Communist Manifesto pointed out 170 years ago:

    “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”

    In other words, the Capitalist mode of production has no “morals” and takes nothing “personally”: it really does not care about your identity, culture, beliefs – only about the continued circulation of capital under the most favourable conditions and thus the continued production of surplus value. Which logic allows one to understand that, observing the process from the ‘opposite direction’, the “identity” of any particular individual (religious, ethnic, nationalist, whatever) is completely irrelevant when considering their “virtue” or otherwise vis-a-vis the deprivations and horrors inflicted by Capitalism.

    As Lenin would have said: “Identity politics is an infantile disorder.”

    • Dennis Revell

      :

      As Michael Douglas says ;-), “speculation is the root of all evil”.

      Couldn’t agree more.

      Stalin for all his (probable?) faults had his uses; he would have hung the fuckers.

      .

    • Paul Greenwood

      I doubt he “traded derivative products”. I suspect he made them like John Paulson. They liaise with Goldman, Bear, Lehman, and play both sides of the trade providing the Short to the Bank’s Long and running a back room account for bonuses. This is such a rigged market we would need to build a chain of prisons if we ever chose to prosecute insider dealing g

  • Ryelands

    Though they might perhaps have been better expressed, veteran pro-Palestinian campaigner Tony Greenstein makes interesting points on the current Soros controversy here:

    http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2018/11/george-soros-unifying-figure-for-trump.html

    In passing, it seems to have been forgotten – I’ve certainly forgotten the details – that, at the time of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Roger Scruton was known in the pro-Palestinian milieu as the “leader of the Maronite Mafia” on account of his rapid support for Israel and, by default at least, of the para-militaristic Phalange of Sabra and Shatilla notoriety.

    Funny things, politics.

  • Gary

    I do think you may have missed the point in this particular article.

    It’s NOT about the point of view of any particular individual, OR of their trying to influence others by raising issues they feel strongly about either – we can ALL try to campaign on issues we feel strongly about. The strength of feeling comes from the undue influence ONE MAN can have due to his inordinate wealth on the governance of the world. THAT kind of influence is greater than that held by heads of state because ultimately (in most democratic countries anyway) leaders are voted out (or perhaps deposed in dictatorships) whereas he is not. He can continue following his own personal agenda unabated, unaffected by what voters say or general public opinion may be. He can circumvent this by financing those organisations he chooses, he can ‘pick sides’ in any debate and give it financial advantage.

    Whether he does anything, or not, to break rules I cannot say. But I can understand the anger that ONE MAN can overcome the opinions of many, perhaps even the majority due to giving undue financial backing to his chosen cause.

    I’m not saying he is a ‘benevolent dictator’ but you get the drift. His influence could, for example, prevent Scotland gaining independence if he so chose. He COULD decide to set up or back an organisation to fund some kind of ‘Better Together’ campaign outwith a referendum period, he could do this over the heads of the public and politicians.

    I think people are RIGHT to be nervous when one man has so much influence on world events and yet we have NO influence over HIM.

  • Sharp Ears

    The old man is in the news.

    Did George Soros Demand That Failed Democratic Candidates ‘Pay …
    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/soros-candidates-pay-back/
    George Soros is demanding that Democrats repay him for donations made to campaigns that were ultimately unsuccessful in 2018.

    Why is George Soros tied to so many conspiracy theories?
    http://www.theweek.co.uk/94509/why-is-george-soros-tied-to-so-many-conspiracy-theories
    7 Nov 2018
    Soros has become a divisive figure in global politics, especially in his home country of Hungary due to his significant funding of progressive or …

    Vilifying George Soros
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/opinion/letters/george-soros.html
    -6 Nov 2018
    To the Editor: Re “Soros Bashers Go From Fringe to Mainstream” (front page, Nov. 1): It is deeply disturbing to see the breadth and depth of the …

  • Blunderbuss

    I heard a strange thing on the radio this morning. Apparently, persecution of Christians is being overlooked because we haven’t got a word for it. We can’t say anti-Judaism, we have to say anti-Semitism. We can’t say anti-Islam, we have to say Islamophobia. We can’t say anti-Christianity, we have to say (word not invented yet). Can anyone explain this?

    • Republicofscotland

      There’s a recent case surrounding the persecution of a Christian in Pakistan, that has moved forward a bit.

      The background of the story surrounds a Pakistani woman called Asia Bibi, whose spent years in prison for allegedly insulting the Muslim prophet Muhammed, (Blasphemy ) a claim made by a Muslim neighbour after a argument over a cup.

      The Pakistani Supreme court threw the case out, but the local cleric organised a mass blockade, promising to die if neccessary, if Bibi wasn’t publicly hanged.

      The latest on the case is Bibi has been released under heavy guard, but is hiding out somewhere in Islamabad, avoiding the radical extremists who want her dead.

      The Supreme court under immense pressure from the extremists had to promise to review Bibi’s case, and not to allow her to leave Pakistan.

      The European Parliament has made an offer to Bibi and her family, to protect them, however getting out of Pakistan remains a priority. It remains to be seen if Bibi will get out alive.

      • Loony

        Why so coy. These protests are truly massive and have swept through Pakistan with substantially all schools being forced to close and with credible death threats being made against members of the Pakistan judiciary.

        In the past 2 politicians that have attempted to offer support to the lady in question have been assassinated. I am sure a large number of people in Pakistan are prepared to die if that is what it takes to procure the execution of Bibi. No doubt they draw their motivations from the same source that this boy drew his motivation from

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35341256

        Little wonder that British and European politicians are so keen to pass laws suppressing free speech – they are terrified of the consequences of not doing so. How it must gall them that President Trump will not bow his knee to the cult of cowardice.

      • Antonym

        Pakistan is not Palestine, so no interest amongst what is left of the Left. Ultra right is ruling Pakistan.

    • Dennis Revell

      :

      How about a coverall phrase for all those religions, especially the Abrahamic ones, which seem the most destructive (though the Buddhists in Myanmar seem keen to get in on that act): Here it is:

      Anti-Bullshit

      .

  • Vivian O'Blivion

    Trump singles out April Ryan of American Urban Radio Network for abuse. Calls her a “looser”, “She doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing.”
    April Ryan is a woman of colour.

    • Loony

      As is common with your comments the point you are attempting to make is less than clear.

      One possible interpretation is either that you do not think it possible for a woman of color to be incompetent or that you do not believe that it is appropriate to allege incompetence if the subject of your inquiry happens to be a woman with a certain skin color.

      This would make you either a racial supremacist or someone that believes that women of color are incapable of having agency for their own actions. Either way you would have some deeply unpleasant views regarding race – and so I guess my interpretation is likely wrong. This of course would render your comment devoid of any meaning.

      • Adrian Parsons

        Spot on.

        As well as attempts to close down whole areas of free speech in the name of racism, sexism/misogyny et al, I notice that criticism of globalism is increasingly being equated with anti-Semitism! As I commented in a recent (now removed) post in the Guardian:

        “Chomsky identified several ways in which censorship functioned in the ‘media space’ of a ‘democracy’: amongst these were outright no-platforming, a restriction on the ‘acceptable’ sources of facts/news, a restriction on the ‘acceptable’ range of opinion to be aired, the sieving of the ‘experts’ to be invited to comment on current/world affairs according to their ‘ideological soundness’. Liberals understood that these mechanisms operating in the traditional MSM afforded protection against both Leftist and Rightist ‘deviations’, i. e. allowed, since the mid-1970s, the neo-liberal status quo to be maintained.

        The rise of an ‘unmediated’ social media dedicated to free speech and to which any Tom, Dick or Harry can contribute (just who the hell do these plebs think they are, holding opinions?) represents a threat to this status quo, hence https://www.dropbox.com/s/llxn76ntakmxp0l/the-good-censor-watermarked.pdf?dl=0, the Google document outlining its censorship policy that received zero coverage in the “quality” MSM when leaked on 9th October.”

        • Clark

          It appals me that conspiracy theorists will frequently turn a blind eye to overt anti-Semitism if the anti-Semite happens to support their chosen conspiracy theory. It sickens me. It also frightens me, because it implies that the resurgence of fascism could occur anywhere at any time.

        • Blunderbuss

          @Clark 19:52

          “Are you anti-Semitic, Blunderbuss? I find that lying conspiracy theorists often are.”

          No, but since I’m a “lying conspiracy theorist”, you won’t believe me.

        • Blunderbuss

          @ Clark 20:37

          “There is no hope for humanity while the mentality you display holds the upper hand”.

          I’m just in favour of free speech. Perhaps you are not.

        • Clark

          No, you’re in favour of freedom to deceive. Many of the arguments you presented to me were deliberately deceitful, and most of the others may well have been.

          Haven’t you heard? With freedom comes responsibility.

        • Clark

          My objection is to deceit generally. I have never interacted with Piers Corbyn or Valentina Zharkova, so I have no idea if they are deceitful. But I have interacted with you.

          Truth -> Justice -> Peace.

          Deceit -> Injustice -> Conflict.

          I cannot know why you deceive; I only know that you do. I observe that deceit typifies human communication. Here lies the cause of conflict.

        • Clark

          Another lie. You have no respect for science. You disguise your deceit as science to try to make it look respectable. And some readers, unfortunately, will fall for that.

        • Clark

          – “We are just discussing two different scientific theories”

          No. One scientific theory was being “discussed”; your campaign of deceit amounted to neither science nor discussion. Science implies respect for facts, and discussion implies respect for the opposite party. You showed neither.

        • Blunderbuss

          @Clark

          You think carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate change.

          I think the solar magnetic field is the main driver of climate change.

          That’s all there is to it. Why do you have to get so excited about it?

        • Clark

          I find no indication that you have any interest in the solar magnetic field, nor in science at all. Every one of your comments was (badly) crafted merely to cast doubt upon the mainstream scientific case, or to demonise the IPCC. In our society, dumbed-down as it has been by the mainstream media, many will no doubt mistake your blatant propagandising for a scientific position.

          If you had a scientific position it would be different, but how anyone can just bullshit for the destruction of the biosphere upon which they and their descendants are dependent is an absolute mystery to me.

        • Blunderbuss

          @Clark 23:19

          “I find no indication that you have any interest in the solar magnetic field, nor in science at all”.

          Actually, I’m very interested in science, but I also have an open mind.

        • Clark

          To have valid criticisms of the mainstream scientific case for anthropogenic global warming, you would first need to know what that case is. But time after time after time, you demonstrated your comprehensive ignorance of it. “Any shit that might stick” was clearly your approach. If you genuinely think your approach is science (which I doubt you really do), you’re fooling yourself and you don’t know what science is.

        • Clark

          – “Actually, I’m very interested in science,”

          “Interested”? As in interested in how it might be undermined?

          – “but I also have an open mind.”

          Implying that I don’t. So…

        • Clark

          If… If you had an interest in science, you would have made damn sure you’d carefully studied what the mainstream scientific case for AGW actually was. You’d have displayed scientific curiosity as to what these thousands of scientists and hundreds of scientific institutions were trying to warn everyone about.

          But in comment after comment after comment, you displayed complete ignorance of that scientific case, and merely concocted sound-bites in the attempt to discredit it.

        • Clark

          Your mode of “discussion” seems entirely unlike science, and far more like that of a politician or a PR campaign.

          And you display disrespect by treating your readers as idiots, to be fooled if you possibly can.

      • Dennis Revell

        :

        Fucking hell, Loony, after all the pretty sensible comments you’ve made in this particular thread, you’re just right back to your usual bullshit.

        Nevermind, I guess I knew it couldn’t last.

        Sigh.

        .

  • corkie

    If George Soros were to to go down to Harrods during business hours and start banging pot and pans while chanting “We are banging pots and pans ’cause we won’t let them kill this man”. (His Julian Assange T shirt would explain who he was supporting.) Then we could all witness first hand him doing “a lot of real good”. Your claims are a little opaque Craig. Care to name any of ” the vast array of civil society institutions he funds”. That would help.

    • Tony_0pmoc

      corkie,

      About 20 years ago, whilst I had been posting on Alternet for 5 years, this bright American kid, who posted under the handle “thoughtcriminal”, and then “gunboat-diplomat”, researched in detail, who was funding all the supposed “left wing” American websites, like Alternet, Democracy Now, Truthdig, Opednews, and many of the others.

      He even drew up a chart, of where all the money was coming from.

      He got banned. I pleaded with the moderator – Josh Holland – to reinstate him. He was merely posting the truth, and he did get reinstated, only to be banned again, like I was – well at least from Alternet. My discus account still seems to work, but I rarely post on American websites any more. It seems to me, the Americans have all gone mad.

      They have got a lot worse now, but that’s all down to Big Money, from the likes of George Soros, and many others, like The Ford Foundation.

      They don’t like the Truth.

      Almost All The Left in The USA – are Funded by The most Extreme Right Wing Capitalists.

      They fund Both sides.

      It takes a 25 year old Bright American Kid, to sus them out, write the Truth, and get serially banned.

      I don’t know his real name, but I hope he is doing well. He will be about 45 years old now.

      We were a community on Alternet, even if I am English, which I always made clear.

      Tony

      • Clark

        I bet that’s not true, and he was banned for being offensive. Conspiracy theorists love getting banned so that they can pretend their fairy tales are secret knowledge.

    • Dennis Revell

      :

      Great point. Of course he won’t do it. For that matter he’s probably got access to enough capital to BRIBE the Ecuadorean Government to relax the outrageous conditions they’ve now imposed on Mr. Assange, and could even offer to replace the billion pounds that Maggie May used to bribe the DUP on condition she arrange for Mr. Assange’s unconditional release – and safe conduct to wherever he chooses – best to join Edward Snowden in Russia, methinks, even if he also has to spend a month in Moscow airport (probably not, I think by now that President Putin is well and truly pissed at the West’s recent bullshit shinnanegans). Two-faced Ecuador is looking very dodgy for Assange..

      Hell, if he were to rescue Julian Assange from his imprisonment that would indeed confuse the fuck out of me, and even I would have to begin to re-assess my view of the old Warmonger by any other name. I think I’d have to resolve that by figuring that the parallel universe theory is true, and I’d just stepped onto the wrong side of the schism or something.

      .

  • pete

    Since my last comment I have been scouring the internet for examples of philanthropic or benevolent billionaires, for what you might call a scintilla of evidence that I can cite of one, just one, who I might, with a clear conscience, be able to cite as an example to maintain the assertion that there are ‘good’ billionaires.
    This has proven to be more difficult than I imagined as so many seem to be knee deep in projects of either, self aggrandisement or maintaining or perpetuating a myth about their aims or their origins. Of course a lot of this depends on what you interpret as ‘good’…

    In his 2012 article, William D Cohen suggested that moguls interested in gun control – Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and David Geffen – buy the largest gun manufacturer in the US at that time – Freedom Group Inc – which had come up for sale by its then owners Cerberus Capital, due to the bad publicity from the Newtown shootings. Then they should literally set about liquidating it, melting the guns down for ploughshares:
    http://www.startribune.com/benevolent-billionaires-can-buy-out-gunmaker/185295522/
    Of course this did not happen, and ignores the question of what would have happened to the 3000 Freedom Group Inc employees.
    So if anyone can tell me of a few benevolent or philanthropic billionaires, I’d really like to know.

    • Lisa

      Pete,
      You might try to learn about this guy:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Milner
      Would he suit the description of a benevolent billionaire?

      He is a Russian physicist, studied at the Moscow State University. He comes from a Russian-Jewish family (already suspicious?) now living in the USA. His main achievement, to me at least, is the creation of the Breakthrough Prize, awarded yearly since 2012 to scientists in the areas of Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences and Mathematics. Each laureate receives $3 million, which is abt. three times as much as the Nobel prizes are. There are other financiers than he himself, but his large fortune has helped to establish the prize.

      You never hear in the main media about this prize, but you get a detailed description of the dresses and jewels of the Swedish princesses, sitting next to the Nobel prize laureates, during the Nobel ceremonies in Stockholm.

  • Tony_0pmoc

    Craig,

    I respect your views too, and do not denigrate you, for accepting a pizza from George Soros. I certainly do not denigrate George Soros, for using his massive wealth in some altruistic ways. In fact there are many things, I agree with about what you write, and George Soros does and did.

    However, I can’t cancel my subscription to you, cos I never made one. I have bought and read two of your books, and will eventually get round to the third, though I am currently reading my Great Uncle’s, and have a couple more to read before yours.

    You may think George Soros, is a nice altruistic man advancing the cause of the human race, to make everything and every man and woman equal. I like John Lennon too.

    For such an intelligent man, I think you are very naive, but by all means have another pizza with George Soros.

    I think the man is evil, but I don’t think that of you.

    Maybe, you just fell in with Bad Company.

    I guess you would vote for Hillary Clinton too, if given the chance.

    Soros, Clinton & Co, are using their lies, disinformation and hatred of Russia, to a war, that this time really will end all wars.

    A nuclear WWIII, will be the end.

    I am amazed you can’t see this.

    Tony

  • Sharp Ears

    Time for the BBC to provide a montage of our country’s wars. To make us feel proud? More like to make us weep.

    Can’t see any mention of Libya or Syria or Yemen. There is no analysis or reasoning.

    Foreign fields
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ampstories/otherwars/index.html

    At the end it morphs into ‘The changing face of the British Army’.

    Suggest they retitle it and steal John Newsinger’s book title ‘The Blood Never Dried’.

  • Mistress P's Elk

    “… or to the portion of the public who regularly read this blog…”

    Quite how it is possible regularly to read a blog when the blogger posts sporadically is unfathomable. Regularly visit, perhaps. Regularly regurgitate “back numbers”, perhaps. An active comment area is neither here not there.

    The only thing regular about this blog are the regularly recurring payments of those who live in hope that, just maybe, the blogger may actually start blogging in a way one can reasonably expect of a “web log”..

  • MK

    “GS is a jolly decent chap really, he bought me a pizza once. I know he can be somewhat amoral, but his heart is in the right place. He wants a better world, and it’s ok that he use his vast fortune to realise that because he has our best interests at heart.”

  • N_

    From Number Ten today: “The government will not agree anything that brings about a hard border on the island of Ireland“.

    So they’re planning a “no deal” route to a hard border then? Because it’s either that or it’s stay in the customs union and the single market, when of course you might as well stay in the EU. Every country that belongs to both the CU and the SM is a member state.

    Jo Johnson is right to speak of “a failure of British statecraft on a scale unseen since the Suez crisis”.

    Come on, Arlene! Bring the curtains down on the government. (That said, the UVF DUP are even crazier than the ERGers insofar as they are raving Brexiters at the same time as wanting an open border. Which attitude I suppose is of a kind with foaming at the mouth about Robert Lundy’s actions in 1688.) Enter the chamber wearing as much orange as you want, Arlene, just so long as you bring this sh*thouse Tory government down.

    • Deb O'Nair

      ‘Jo Johnson is right to speak of “a failure of British statecraft on a scale unseen since the Suez crisis”.’

      It’s not a failure of British statecraft, more a failure of a political system where completely hopeless fools attain high office because they are a rich man’s pet.

    • Dennis Revell

      :

      ?Bye, bye, GFA?

      If so, may be this time Scottish Republicans should join their Irish Republican brothers and sisters in the possible impending struggle – a re-ignition of an old one.

      Someone, somewhere, it may have been Craig, reckons that that is just what the Tories and DUP want (well the Irish part); in which case, I say give it to them, with bells on.

      .

      .

  • Sharp Ears

    That deeply unpleasant ex NATO Secretary General and Liebour defence minister ups the ante for more military spending.

    May and Macron told to strengthen NATO alliance to counter ‘unpredictability’ of Trump
    9 Nov, 2018 09:37

    The UK and France must urgently deepen their military alliance through intergovernmental organizations such as NATO, to guard against the ‘unpredictability’ of US President Donald Trump, a former British NATO chief has warned.

    Former Labour defense secretary Lord Robertson, who was NATO’s Secretary General from 1999 and 2004, along with ex-French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, have released a report claiming the UK and France’s relationship has never appeared more perilous, due to risks surrounding Brexit and current US foreign policy, led by Trump.

    The report urges British and French intelligence agencies to work together on a greater scale, and for the NATO allies to share military facilities, and push for concessions to be made on Brexit talks between the UK and EU, to strengthen ties.
    /..
    https://www.rt.com/uk/443458-france-britain-nato-usa/

    So what and where is the threat Milord Robertson and what are your interests?

    Note the jobs, the directorships, the shareholdings and the other ‘non-financial’ interests esp those under the Category 10 heading, such as the CFR.
    https://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-robertson-of-port-ellen/672

    • N_

      So far, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) has always been from the US and his deputy has always been British. Given the problem with the insane fascist in the White Houe, why not let SACEUR be a Frenchman? 🙂

  • Dennis Revell

    :

    Craig Murray is quite right – this is his article that is most worthy of the the most vicious and vituperous critiscism it is possible for human beings to concoct.

    It is UTTERLY and ABSOLUTELY fucking disgusting, and has me wondering about his continued sanity or at least integrity.

    Murray waxes almost lyrical (sic) about a man who cackled concerning his interferences mainly in Ukraine during and after the utterly tragic demise of the Soviet Union that “if this isn’t interfering in the affairs of another state, I don’t know what is”; in what I imagine was the same joyous tone that his Mass-Murderer friend Hillary Clinton cackled: “We came, we saw, he died” on the gruesome cruel murder of Ghadaffi that she helped engineer.

    I say that the idiot Gorbachev caused demise of the Soviet Union was UTTERLY tragic not just for the Soviet system pensioners and many others who then died by their hundreds of thousands – on a scale commensurate with the region being involved in conventional (non-nuclear) war, but also for the VAST majority of ORDINARY people in the West – now that the bulwark of the “power of the good example” had disappeared – whatever the faults of the Soviet Union were – and I think the main one was probably the overall atrocious climate over most of it – there was NO homelessness, nor people dying on the streets or elsewhere through hunger and exposure, and no unrequited unemployment owing to bullshit fictitious “economic indicators. NOW ALL THAT WAS GONE, and Gorbachev had “wonderfully” stopped that “during the Soviet era, young girls would be forced to enter the army, study at a university, or work at a farm or in a factory, the merciless Soviet system thereby crushing their young souls transforming then into scientists, doctors, teachers, workers or officers. Mikhail is to be thanked for giving them the freedom to choose between unemployment and prostitution”, – – –

    – – – Hence the time had come for the Jackals of Capitalism to decimate social services in the West, which indeed they have done and continue to do – in America very largely during the presidency of Soros’ great friend Bill Clinton. IN ADDITION and much more importantly for those who actually have a conscience, that demise and plunge into poverty of the peoples of the former Soviet Union – partly by the extraction (ie: theft) of resources by the robber baron Soros unleashed the murderous Western dogs of War primarily on the Middle East, now also in the Ukraine – basically the fascist geographer MacKinder’s RIMLAND – with the loss and maiming of untold numbers of lives – in the millions, and the almost complete destruction of the life giving infrastructure of one country after another – AGAIN in large part under Soros’ friends the Clintons.

    As mentioned elsewhere in these comments, Soros pretty much severely damaged the British economy with his currency speculation, as he also did that of Malaysia – FOR WHICH AN ARREST WARRANT WAS ISSUED FOR HIM – I don’t know if that is still active. He DELIBERATELY used the power of having control of vast amounts of cash to if necessary in his view RUIN these economies so that he and his buddies could reap in even more billions. When you ruin or severely damage economies, PEOPLE DIE, something which amazingly seems of no concern to Craig Murray. Where the integrity? Here’s a snippet of the twat’s interview with Ted Koppel:

    TED KOPPEL: “… I mean if you could have profited by destroying Malaysia’s currency, would you have shrunk from that?”
    GEORGE SOROS: “Not necessarily because that would have been an unintended consequence of my action. And it’s not my job as a participant to calculate the consequences …” Copyright © ABC News

    Craig Murray says that Soros should not be blamed for exploiting systems which in some ways at least Soros himself is critical of. SO, I guess his cozy view of Soros would have been the same if slavery were still commonplace in the American South, and so cotton a worthwhile commodity to have significant investment in, and Soros indeed had such investments.

    Another example, in a more recent era, in fact when Soros was still around and kicking, were there significant returns to be made on the mass production of lamp-shades made from human skin, and Soros had investmed in that “industry”? AGAIN Soros would not have been responsible for that “production system” from gory beginning to end and probably even critical of it (really?), but could not be blamed for having lucrative investments in a “production system” that he had nothing to do with setting up?!?! After all, it just happened to be the environment he ‘haplessly’ found himself in, and no doubt he would state that any bolstering and expansion of such “industry” by his investments was “an unintended consequence of my action”. The guy’s a total amoral and immoral blot on the human race, an utter prick.

    Soros “Open” society foundations, as Murray would discover if he bothered to examine them more closely, are largely nothing but another arm of Western (Global Capitalist) foreign policy – the harmless sounding name (though NOT to me) masking that they are nothing but another Western tentacle to be inserted parasite-like into the affairs of other states. Colonialism by any other name.

    IN days that do not seem so long ago, I made up a little mantra concerning Soros that I inserted where appropriate at the various blogs and comments sections that existed then – mainly on the Western/Vatican engineered destruction of Yugoslavia:

    == George Soros ==
    Humanitarian
    Philanthropist
    Leading Luminary of the Helsinki Human Rights Groups
    Billionaire currency speculator.
    Total Bastard

    As true today as it ever was; though these days I would have used stronger (more profane) language. Here’s a bit of other stuff I found in the same (very old) file:
    [BEGIN]:
    Soros makes no bones about the interventionist nature of his role in Ukraine. At one point, he remarked, jocularly, “If this isn’t meddling in the affairs of a foreign nation, I don’t know what is!” …Connie Bruck, The World According to Soros, The New Yorker, 23 Jan ’95, p. 70.
    Allegations that the (Soros’) China Fund was a tool of the CIA surfaced in ’87: Washington post 8/8/89 a4
    http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/HRW.html (who is HRW?)
    :[END
    ]
    Well, I have never been a contributor to Craig and never will – apart from figuring that with his civil service pension, and other monies that his life is, well, more lucrative than mine – there has always been too much doubt in my mind concerning his positions on various issues – such as his nonsense about the “illegality” of Russia’s acquisition of Crimea, and that he still harbours some sentimentality concerning British Colonialism of old.

    What can we expect next from Craig? A sycophancy concerning Tony Blair’s long-time friend and also privateering total bastard Richard Branson!!???!!

    .

    • Hmmm

      Not sure what the human skin lamp shades bit is about, but otherwise an excellent comment.
      Put simply, making obscene amounts of money, particularly if not actually making anything, precludes someone from being a good guy. Simple as.

    • MK

      In short, anyone who pays attention knows he is a sociopath. Sorry billionaire philanthropist. Whatever..

    • Deb O'Nair

      “Another example, in a more recent era, in fact when Soros was still around and kicking, were there significant returns to be made on the mass production of lamp-shades made from human skin”

      This was outed as nonsense sometime ago. DNA testing showed that an ‘example’ of a human skin lampshade was in fact made out of pig skin.

      • Dennis Revell

        :

        It WAS suggested as Soros’ most likely behaviour and reaction to a FICTIONAL situation, with NO suggestion whatever that he had anything to do with profiting from the sale of human skinned lamp shades.

        That’s WHY that section, which is probably one example “too far”, is replete with the conditional tenses.

        .

    • Kerchée Kerch;ee Coup

      @bj
      Only point I noted relevant to this blog was about the tears of George Soros watering the loch formed by those shed by Scots ruined in the Darien Gap venture (or at least an eggplant/aubergine plantation in Panama).
      But my eyes generally glaze over at any mention of Russia-gate or other spurious rationale for the majority vote of the electorate as a whole in favour of leaving the European Union.

  • Elizabeth Burton

    Thank you for showing the world an example of true unbiased reporting. Or commentary. Either applies. I’m still getting my incentive back after watching thousands of my fellow countrypersons march in lockstep to join “protests” instigated by media rabble-rousing that lasted only as long as those media required to get photo ops and sound bites. The speculation that Matthew Whitaker is, in fact, going to shut down the Mueller investigation may be true, but the reports as of yesterday were that Mueller was pretty much done anyway. Those reports, of course, were not featured in any of the corporate media propaganda that drove people into the night.

    I’ve not delved deeply into Mr. Soros’s history or his oeuvre, but I confess I have little patience with rich people who throw money hither and yon with seeming disregard for what eventually is done with it. It’s not that hard to research NGOs, and these are people with huge staffs. So, while I’ll accept he means well, we both know the road those good intentions are paved with. If his goal truly is to do good, then I’d prefer to see some evidence he’s actually taking the time to understand the reality most people on the planet occupy and address that.

  • Hmmm

    Apparently the town of Hyde is split. Some still love the amazing family doctor. Obviously plenty hate the evil murderer.
    Just goes to show you can be 2 people I guess. Maybe Soros is the same.
    I feel sorry for Dr Shipman’s son. He’s a doctor too. Had to change his name, apparently.

  • Philip Cross

    next we’ll be hearing about all the good work Bill Gates does for African women….sterilising them all

  • Sharp Ears

    A nonogenarian sells out. The BBC (ie the licence fee payers) made him and financed him over decades but now he sells out to the America. He hardly needs their money.

    Our Planet: David Attenborough to present Netflix nature documentary series
    The series will showcase the world’s most precious species

    ‘Even Sir David Attenborough could not resist the allure of Netflix.
    After over six decades of presenting nature documentaries for the BBC, the naturist has hopped ship to voice an eight-part documentary series, titled Our Planet, for the streaming service.
    The series will showcase a breath of different habitats, ranging from the Arctic wilderness to the vast landscapes of Africa, exploring the world’s most precious species.’ Independent today.

    Netflix’s owners. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/060716/top-3-netflix-shareholders-nflx.asp
    Reed Hastings is a billionaire. On the Facebook board and was on Microsoft’s.
    Netflix’s income is $11.69 billion.
    £7.99/month for a UK Netflix subscription.

    • Pyewacket

      I don’t want to sound picky Sharp Ears, and I do enjoy reading your posts on here, but I think there’s a bit of difference between a Naturist and a Naturalist, although both do enjoy the wonders of the natural environment but in different ways.

    • Ian

      As he doesn’t need the money, it is likely for another reason he has taken the opportunity. I can think of a few good reasons, but clearly it doesn’t fit your misanthropic agenda, where everything is for the worst, and it is all about money.

  • CanSpeccy

    As is generally known, Soros was a Nazi collaborator and, as might be expected of a fully fledged psychopath, he found the business of betraying his Jewish brethren the most enjoyable period in his entire life, the experience that, by his own account, shaped his character — hardly it would seem the character of a philanthropist.

    Is it not more likely, therefore, that the CIA or some such agency has Soros by the balls and is using him as a plausible cover for the transfer of US taxpayers money into globalist schemes to destroy America as a nation state? After all, Soros is surely as eligible as any nonogenarian prison camp guard to be sent back to Europe for trial as a war criminal.

    • Adrian Parsons

      The interview you refer to is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSyczwuTQfo.

      The telling rationalisation that he uses is that, while he was only 14 at the time and only an “observer”, if his non-Jewish “protector” had not been engaged in the confiscation of Jewish property then someone else would have been doing it! The same rationalisation used years later for his own predatory financial activity.

      Psychopathy defined.

  • Loony

    What is it with all these anti Soros comments? The guy has had a hard life. He was only young when he found himself collaborating with Nazi;s, Almost anyone would have done the same – apart from extremists who preferred death over collaboration, like the 6 million Poles or the 27 million Soviets who went to an early and violent grave.

    Fast forward a few years and the guy atones with acts of philanthropy like buying random people pizza’s. Or maybe not so random – I doubt you will see him in the Pizza houses of Baltimore or Blackburn. No, Mr’ Soros buys pizzas for senior members of the British civil service. What an incredible payback he gets.

    Just suppose that he also buys pizzas for people that do not fall on their sword but instead climb the greasy pole. How many policy makers are now making policy that is influenced by George Soros having once bought them a pizza – or maybe a poodle for the real high flyers.

    No Soros is a great guy who has worked out just how cheap it all is. The problem is with everyone else, Wise up and rise up. What more can you possibly need to know?

  • Paul Beecroft

    Reading this eulogy to Soros nearly made me vomit; I’m sorry Craig I had so much respect for you but you just lost every single ounce. I can’t believe that a billionaire can buy you a cheap pizza and all of a sudden he is a good guy according to you? I didn’t realise you could be bought so effectively and so cheaply. I dispair for your sanity.

    To quote a recent “Off-Guardian” piece >
    “Long lost footage of George Soros appearing on 60 Minutes in 1998. GS has allegedly gone to some lengths to suppress this interview, and it’s not hard to see why.

    He does not come off well.

    Sit back and enjoy the media-vaunted “philanthropist” inadvertently reveal his textbook psychopathy to an incredulous interviewer (who does his best to cover for him).
    Listen to George tell us it’s all about making money and the social consequences of his actions just don’t bother him.
    Watch George admit he feels no shame for selling out his fellow Jews to the Nazis and pocketing their gold.
    Marvel at his blank incomprehension when asked if he is tortured by guilt for what he did. Guilt? Moi? Nah, he says, with what may pass for a smile to those familiar with his facial expressions, it’s just like business really – if George wasn’t doing it someone else would be.”

    https://off-guardian.org/2016/11/20/soros-60minute-video/

  • Loony

    Oh dear. what to make of the British. Are they congenitally stupid, are they closet fascists, or do they think the empire still exists?

    Apparently some 55 Pizza eaters (or MP’s if you prefer) have written to the US government urging them not to let Tommy Robinson into the country. Exactly what has it got to do with British MP’s who the US does or does not let into the country.?

    Don’t they realize that Trump despises them in general – he cannot despise them specifically because he will not waste time finding out who these losers are. If MP’s actually want to support Robinson it would be hard to devise a more effective strategy than the one they are pursuing.

    Still I guess it is an interesting diversion from betraying the very core of the democratic ideal by failing to leave the EU.

    Way to go losers!!

      • Dennis Revell

        :

        Loony sounding surprisingly sane!?! I know. I mean, what the hell happened to him? Fall down and land on his head?

        Hope he’s careful not to do it again, and revert.

        .

    • Ian

      There is a reason they asked, but clearly it goes straight over your head, placed as it is in a rather undignified place.

      • Loony

        I note you do not offer any clue as to what that reason might be.

        There is a reason I do not ask you for anything – that reason being it would simply inflate your ego to either sneer at or deny or ignore my request. This is precisely the same reason that 55 MP’s should have kept their mouths shut – but it seems that pointless virtue signalling tops even the desire for personal dignity.

        The really funny thing is that you losers voted for a cabal of losers and so their desire to heap ignominy on themselves also covers you in the same excrement.

        Like I said – way to go losers!

    • Ken Kenn

      Yes let him in.

      He’ll look great in robes and a pointy hat like Donald will once he’s got through Mein Kampf without sticking his tongue out and following the words with his index finger.

      You can then adopt poor Tommy if you wish ( he is white so that’s a plus) and while you’re at I can offer you
      a deal on adopting and paying for the Royal family.

      You Republican Yanks are fascinated by them ( as are the French ) so you can lease them for say twenty years.

      My people can talk to your people about the deal anytime you want.

      In fact you can have as many of our British proto facists as you want ,as it seems Trump lattracts them, like flies round a turd.

        • Ken Kenn

          I like this bit from Wikipedia.

          ” In September 2012, Frank Gardner revealed that Queen Elizabeth II had been upset some years earlier that Abu Hamza al-Masri could not be arrested.[49] The BBC apologised later that day for the revelation.”[49]

          If the Queen and you are upset – the I’m upset.

          Wikipedia Nicholas Witchell – in my view he has to go as well.

          By the way my people have got a Special Offer on leasing out Prince Charles to you if you wish.

          I’ve been advised that you should get in quick before he replaces his mother.

          The price will increase then, obviously

          Wkipedia Wisdom – you can’t beat it.

    • Deb O'Nair

      “what to make of the British. Are they congenitally stupid, are they closet fascists, or do they think the empire still exists?”
      Yes, yes and mostly yes.

  • Clark

    A lot of vitriol has been directed at Soros on this thread. From Craig’s post:

    – “I believe that Roger Scruton’s attack on Soros, particularly in a venue in Hungary where the far right Prime Minister has conducted a truly hateful, state orchestrated, anti-semitic and anti-immigrant campaign against Soros, puts Scruton totally beyond the pale”

    Scruton and Orbán have been entirely ignored.

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