Ideology or Power?

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
1

There has been a lot of discussion lately about Soros, Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, et. al., and their support of “conservative” vs “liberal” causes.

I tend to feel that people with this kind of wealth and influence are not so much “ideolouges”, but are more about power and control; and how that power and control will serve their own self-interest.

In other words, it’s more a search for greater wealth and control than it is for advancing a particular political ideology.

Thoughts?

Let’s discuss.

Mufasa

2

Power corrupts.

Are you advocating something should be done about it?

3

No.

4

I think the bad part of all of it is that money has such a huge impact on politics and the heart and minds of people. People really do in the end vote for who the guy on TV says to, be that an ad, an opinion show, or a “news” show.

5

The power elite’s ideology is self-interest.

Once someone has the taste of power on their tongue it is hard to get rid of.

But this is how it has always been so there should be no surprise.

History is rife with examples of the collision of ideologies but typically those in power do not care about ideology for its own sake but rather how it can keep them in control.

If there is one definite “shape” to history it is this: On one hand are the philosophers who demand intellectual rigor to ideology and on the other hand are the hegemonies who try to change ideology to their own cause – for the explicit purpose of remaining in power.

6

I think those guys buying politicians is like buying companies on the publicly traded exchanges. Put your money in the right ones and you will do really well with a hand in the decision making, how they spend, and all of that. Put it on the crappers who aren’t going to be around for very long and you will get beat.

Buy them all and you can’t miss.

7

It is based more on advancing ideology, methinks. The types you mention have nearly unlimited financial resources, and I think that financial support for candidates/causes they like only get them a marginal return on the actual money they make from said support.

And, uber-wealthy types have tons of money and compelled to “make a difference” - as is their right.

And if it is a strategy for control, it is horribly ineffective - look at the incredible amounts spent by Soros since 2000 and look at what it has bought him.

Further, Soros is a good example of someone voting against his naked financial interest to pursue political principles deemed higher - a radical left-winger, he certainly stands to make more money when the GOP is in power (lower taxes, particularly in the investment world, etc.), but adamantly supports the opposition as a matter of ideology.

8

I think it’s horseshit. People love to feel like they’re smarter than everyone else, (notice how it’s always the dumbest people claiming that everyone else is stupid?).

Anyways, I don’t buy into the notion that a few wealthy jews are ruling the world with their money. That’s irresponsible. It makes for great conspiracy theories and 45 minute long videos with spooky music about “THE ROTHSCHILDS! THE VANDERBILTS! THE JEWS! ILLUMINATI! BIG BROTHER! BEWARE!”, but it’s all horseshit.

Most everything is horseshit anyway, especially horseshit about money and politics. Add wealthy jews into the mix and you have a narrative ripe for the plucking of the basement-dwelling Alex Jones elite.

I know we all like to make our lives more exciting and interesting with these crazy conspiracy theories about how “SINISTER JEWS RULE THE WORLD WITH THEIR MONEY!”, but the fact remains that that just isn’t true. There are some wealthy jews that play politics with their money, but probably not for the reasons most people would like to believe.

9

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
And if it is a strategy for control, it is horribly ineffective - look at the incredible amounts spent by Soros since 2000 and look at what it has bought him. [/quote]

Kind of what I was hinting at. Maybe when you’re so fantastically wealthy, you just like to spend money on fruitless endeavors just because you can.

10

I agree with thunderbolt. Soros would make alot more money if he supported R’s, so he has to be an idealouge. Beck is doing a special tonight about him. Soros makes money by crashing economies, and it looks like he is trying to do the same with ours.

11

I get the feeling that some of you think these guys are “either”/“or”.

I think that many times these guys are smart enough to “hedge their bets”, and give money accross the political spectrum.

It most likely is the media and/or the opposition that “attaches” them to a particular person.

Mufasa

12

[quote]SUPER-T wrote:
I agree with thunderbolt. Soros would make alot more money if he supported R’s, so he has to be an idealouge. Beck is doing a special tonight about him. Soros makes money by crashing economies, and it looks like he is trying to do the same with ours.[/quote]

Soros made money by betting against currencies that are weak and it is definitely not his fault that the dollar is going to collapse.

Why should he not make money off off it when it does?

13

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]SUPER-T wrote:
I agree with thunderbolt. Soros would make alot more money if he supported R’s, so he has to be an idealouge. Beck is doing a special tonight about him. Soros makes money by crashing economies, and it looks like he is trying to do the same with ours.[/quote]

Soros made money by betting against currencies that are weak and it is definitely not his fault that the dollar is going to collapse.

Why should he not make money off off it when it does?
[/quote]

he plays a role whether you agree or not. I do not care how he makes money. What gets me is how he uses theese anti capitalist orgs to help ruin a country, when he makes his money by capitalist ventures.

14

I usually just lurk this forum, get annoyed, and leave. But this is too much–seriously, you need to stop drinking the FOX kool-aid.

"On today’s Fox News show, Glenn Beck noted George Soros’ past support of various political movements in Europe and claimed Soros is attempting to recreate similar revolutionary changes of regime in America.

As examples, Beck cited Soros’ purported roles in the Rose Revolution (Georgia), the Orange Revolution (Ukraine) and the Velvet Revolution (Czechoslovakia), as well as “coups” in Croatia and Yugoslavia. Author Richard Poe then connected Soros’ previous work to Beck’s accusation that Soros’ “target” is the United States.

Unmentioned in Beck’s program, but revealed in Shadow Party, the book Poe co-wrote and which appears to be the source material for a lot of the information being presented by Beck about Soros, is the fact that many of the governments Soros supposedly helped bring down were autocratic ones, often headed by former Communist leaders.

Shadow Party explains that “Soros helped bankroll the ‘velvet revolution’ that hastened the fall of a dying Communist regime and catapulted dissident playwright Vaclav Havel to the presidency of the Czech Republic.” (Shadow Party, p. 231) The Velvet Revolution led to the establishment of Slovakia as an independent nation and eventual inclusion in NATO.

Shadow Party also goes on to note that Soros’ support for the Otpor organization in Yugoslavia helped to bring about the end of Slobodan Milosevic’s reign, and points out that the International Criminal Tribunal later charged Milosevic with crimes against humanity.

Similarly, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine was a non-violent response to a disputed election that involved poisonings and assassination attempts. And the Rose Revolution replaced Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet official, with Mikheil Saakashvili, who Beck himself has heavily praised.

Beck claims that Soros helped to engineer a “coup” in Croatia, but this seems to be a reference to Soros’ opposition to Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, who died in office and was replaced by Stipe Mesic. The BBC explained Mesic’s election this way: “He espoused a clean break from Mr Tudjman’s authoritarianism, which had left the country internationally isolated and in economic recession.”

Meanwhile, Beck disappears completely Soros’ role funding anti-Communist dissidents like Poland’s Solidarity movement, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union.

These details were completely excluded as Beck sought to sell a story of controlled revolution within America, going so far as to exclude the accurate information from an otherwise unreliable book."

Source: http://mediamatters.org/blog/201011090050

15

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
…

Further, Soros is a good example of someone voting against his naked financial interest to pursue political principles deemed higher - a radical left-winger, he certainly stands to make more money when the GOP is in power (lower taxes, particularly in the investment world, etc.), but adamantly supports the opposition as a matter of ideology.[/quote]

This is only true for “normal” business. Plenty of money to be made manipulating currency, skewing the free market with bizarre regulation etc.

But I agree that his political ventures probably do not provide significant payback.

16

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]SUPER-T wrote:
I agree with thunderbolt. Soros would make alot more money if he supported R’s, so he has to be an idealouge. Beck is doing a special tonight about him. Soros makes money by crashing economies, and it looks like he is trying to do the same with ours.[/quote]

Soros made money by betting against currencies that are weak and it is definitely not his fault that the dollar is going to collapse.

Why should he not make money off off it when it does?
[/quote]

He supports the politicians that are pushing policies that are destroying the dollar.

17

[quote]mc.loaf wrote:

I usually just lurk this forum, get annoyed, and leave. But this is too much–seriously, you need to stop drinking the FOX kool-aid.

"On today’s Fox News show, Glenn Beck noted George Soros’ past support of various political movements in Europe and claimed Soros is attempting to recreate similar revolutionary changes of regime in America.

As examples, Beck cited Soros’ purported roles in the Rose Revolution (Georgia), the Orange Revolution (Ukraine) and the Velvet Revolution (Czechoslovakia), as well as “coups” in Croatia and Yugoslavia. Author Richard Poe then connected Soros’ previous work to Beck’s accusation that Soros’ “target” is the United States.

Unmentioned in Beck’s program, but revealed in Shadow Party, the book Poe co-wrote and which appears to be the source material for a lot of the information being presented by Beck about Soros, is the fact that many of the governments Soros supposedly helped bring down were autocratic ones, often headed by former Communist leaders.

Shadow Party explains that “Soros helped bankroll the ‘velvet revolution’ that hastened the fall of a dying Communist regime and catapulted dissident playwright Vaclav Havel to the presidency of the Czech Republic.” (Shadow Party, p. 231) The Velvet Revolution led to the establishment of Slovakia as an independent nation and eventual inclusion in NATO.

Shadow Party also goes on to note that Soros’ support for the Otpor organization in Yugoslavia helped to bring about the end of Slobodan Milosevic’s reign, and points out that the International Criminal Tribunal later charged Milosevic with crimes against humanity.

Similarly, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine was a non-violent response to a disputed election that involved poisonings and assassination attempts. And the Rose Revolution replaced Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet official, with Mikheil Saakashvili, who Beck himself has heavily praised.

Beck claims that Soros helped to engineer a “coup” in Croatia, but this seems to be a reference to Soros’ opposition to Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, who died in office and was replaced by Stipe Mesic. The BBC explained Mesic’s election this way: “He espoused a clean break from Mr Tudjman’s authoritarianism, which had left the country internationally isolated and in economic recession.”

Meanwhile, Beck disappears completely Soros’ role funding anti-Communist dissidents like Poland’s Solidarity movement, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union.

These details were completely excluded as Beck sought to sell a story of controlled revolution within America, going so far as to exclude the accurate information from an otherwise unreliable book."

Source: http://mediamatters.org/blog/201011090050[/quote]

Soros bankrolls Media Matters. Not exactly a reliable source of info…

18

[quote]Big Banana wrote:
Soros bankrolls Media Matters. Not exactly a reliable source of info…
[/quote]

A valid point, take it as you will. The facts remain the same, and they were excluded from Glenn Beck’s piece.

19

[quote]mc.loaf wrote:

I usually just lurk this forum, get annoyed, and leave. But this is too much–seriously, you need to stop drinking the FOX kool-aid.

"On today’s Fox News show, Glenn Beck noted George Soros’ past support of various political movements in Europe and claimed Soros is attempting to recreate similar revolutionary changes of regime in America.

As examples, Beck cited Soros’ purported roles in the Rose Revolution (Georgia), the Orange Revolution (Ukraine) and the Velvet Revolution (Czechoslovakia), as well as “coups” in Croatia and Yugoslavia. Author Richard Poe then connected Soros’ previous work to Beck’s accusation that Soros’ “target” is the United States.

Unmentioned in Beck’s program, but revealed in Shadow Party, the book Poe co-wrote and which appears to be the source material for a lot of the information being presented by Beck about Soros, is the fact that many of the governments Soros supposedly helped bring down were autocratic ones, often headed by former Communist leaders.

Shadow Party explains that “Soros helped bankroll the ‘velvet revolution’ that hastened the fall of a dying Communist regime and catapulted dissident playwright Vaclav Havel to the presidency of the Czech Republic.” (Shadow Party, p. 231) The Velvet Revolution led to the establishment of Slovakia as an independent nation and eventual inclusion in NATO.

Shadow Party also goes on to note that Soros’ support for the Otpor organization in Yugoslavia helped to bring about the end of Slobodan Milosevic’s reign, and points out that the International Criminal Tribunal later charged Milosevic with crimes against humanity.

Similarly, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine was a non-violent response to a disputed election that involved poisonings and assassination attempts. And the Rose Revolution replaced Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet official, with Mikheil Saakashvili, who Beck himself has heavily praised.

Beck claims that Soros helped to engineer a “coup” in Croatia, but this seems to be a reference to Soros’ opposition to Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, who died in office and was replaced by Stipe Mesic. The BBC explained Mesic’s election this way: “He espoused a clean break from Mr Tudjman’s authoritarianism, which had left the country internationally isolated and in economic recession.”

Meanwhile, Beck disappears completely Soros’ role funding anti-Communist dissidents like Poland’s Solidarity movement, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union.

These details were completely excluded as Beck sought to sell a story of controlled revolution within America, going so far as to exclude the accurate information from an otherwise unreliable book."

Source: http://mediamatters.org/blog/201011090050[/quote]

Are you for real? Soros funds media matters, so of course, they are going to take his side. I bet you copied your post word for word off thier site. Go back to lurking untill you can think for your self.

20

straight from his own mouth