Forum Post: What is this Rumor of OccupyWallStreet being sponsored by George Soros...
Posted 12 years ago on Sept. 29, 2011, 7:01 p.m. EST by robotech
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Ok so i've got people telling me that the movement's being sponsored by George Soros, but so far nobody's been able to offer me any kind of credible evidence for this, and after searching for it online i still haven't come up with anything, so I'm pretty skeptical about this. I'd like to know some info on this just so that I can stand my ground firmer and be like Yo, look, shits got to change, you're just being lied to."
NOTE: i am not trying to spread rumors i am looking for ways to combat rumors. i want this movement to succeed 100% this is a very important time for this country!
"It's about helping the 99% get out of under the thumb of the 1%."
A statement claiming that the vast majority are economically oppressed and need to do something about it is a left wing ideological statement. It is an obvious one, but not terribly profound. What you are missing is an ideology that can help the 99%. I can assure you the capitalists who are laughing at your disorganization are not without potent ideological weapons as well as physical ones. Anti-communism in the US as a political/religious/media/educational touchstone has made anything left of Liberal (a capitalist doctrine for those of you who had the privilege of doing some reading in university or elsewhere - try Adam Smith for Classical Liberalism and Franklin Roosevelt for the New Deal Liberalism that saved capital from itself) a bete noire such that those who would benefit from the elimination of the system of hierarchical privilege based on hereditary wealth and the violence of contract (promises aren't usually backed up by the threat of the monopoly violence of the state) can't recognize, let alone articulate, that what they need is an anti-capitalist solution.
It is correct that it is not about religion or race (although class often wears an ethnic dress, e.g. endemic poverty and the mortgage crisis disproportionately affects blacks and Hispanics). It is incorrect that it is not about class - that dirty five letter word one would expect to see everywhere given the gross inequalities that have existed for some time and which are now being accelerated.
If you have no class consciousness and no ideological basis for proposing a solution because your mental chains are too strong or you feel that you cannot build consensus if you use the wrong words (a consensus of the blind, if it were possible, wouldn't be worth much), then you might as well go home. You are in the streets and you don't know what your goals are? Have you been lobotomized? To a certain extent the MSM is correct in deriding the protests as a disorganized hodgepodge and your post reflects that. What are your solutions? Do they not involve redistributing wealth downwards at a minimum? I sympathize with the protests, but it seems like the participants could be wearing diapers.
As a side note, you should be very careful of Soros and the foundation funded media (Media Matters, Moveon.org, Democracy Now, etc...). If you embrace them uncritically, they will derail you, co-opt you (they have the $$$ and $$$ talks) and make you vulnerable to the neo-Birchites assertions that the movement is a front. That is not the case yet as far as I can see, but I can also see them moving in on a very unsophisticated group of protesters.
That being said, some of those I would disagree with to varying degrees who do get into the foundation funded media have thus far been helpful. Cornell West and Michael Moore do note that the fundamental problem is capitalism. If you don't get it, you are lost. These media outlets should be welcome for the coverage they provide, but they should not provide leadership.
A strategy should be fashioned to challenge the "Alex Jones" contingent to provide real proof of Soros sponsorship. He, and his ilk, should be the target of a campaign inviting him to contribute to the Occupy Wall Street movement or shut up about the Federal Reserve which is hardly the basis for all of capitalism's evils. Pointing out that the "eugenicists" they rail against are the progeny of the robber barons that enriched themselves via crony capitalism before the Fed was established is a good harpoon against their arguments for half-measures which preserve the system they actually want to preserve by going back to the "good ol' days" that never existed.
Lastly, I note the top 19% immediately below the top 1% own 50% of the nation’s wealth. Combined with top 1% that makes 85% of the nation’s wealth. Who do you think they will side with? Politically, they know where the stand. They have an ideology and they have beaten the majority up pretty well with it. Your opposition is more than 1% of the population. As my tax law professor used to say in his classes/seminars, “Ideology is critical”. Sadly, from what I have seen of the OWS movement, they will be neutered because of their inability to form one that is fact based, rational and that could appeal to the masses if the message was (or could be) widely disseminated.
Here's the thing some are missing. We have been saying all along this is not about ideology, it's not about religion, it's not about parties or candidates, it's not about race. It's about helping the 99% get out of under the thumb of the 1%. It's about stopping the rampant corporate greed & corruption that infects both Wall Street and our political system. We have continually said ALL are welcome, because those things I mentioned are not about talking points that are designed to distract and divide us from our purpose and our goals, whatever they may be. Unfortunately there are those on the far right that would rather perpetuate the divisiveness that has led our nation to this point, and Soros is a convenient meme for them.
Its valid question because it is about winning the water cooler wars. One of the biggest challenges we face is the misinformation the other side spews. If you can't make it to New York or any other big city you can still change one mind at a time and change one vote at a time by challenging lies with facts uninformed people are repeating they assume is true because they read it on some blog.
Plus the Tea Party has been largely written off by mainstream America as it was exposed that its organizers have deep pockets with corporate agendas while trying to portray themselves as a grass root movement. So naturally they are going to try to do the same to this movement so it is VERY important to show middle America this is real not a corporate funded sham like the tea party.
I have to say that I was involved in the Tea Party at its very beginning (not many months after Santelli's rant that started the whole thing) and I can unequivocally tell you it was a grass roots movement. Once political and monied interests saw that the movement had legs they co-opted it with the media's ever willing help. If OWS ends up having legs, it too will be co-opted by the powers that be, but by the corporate deep-pockets more commonly associated with the political left. Funny thing is, I also got involved in OWS earlier than most and both the Tea Party and OWS started with a more Libertarian agenda. It appears as though OWS is going to be co-opted even faster than the Tea Party was. We Libertarians have the right message but don't know how to carry it forward!
Libertarians are just capitalists who pretend inequality jives with freedom and human rights. Libertarians are committed to hereditary wealth and relations governed by contract (i.e. they really, really, really love the state that guarantees this violent legal structure while feigning that there is some minor defect in the system (e.g. the "Fed") that has distorted the "Free Market" which brings "freedom" and the sunrise.
Of course, there never has been a free market and free markets are an impossibility. If they did exist, they would still result in gross inequality and injustice. How you could want to redistribute wealth from the top 1% and call yourself a Libertarian is bizarre. At least classical liberals allowed for a redistribution of wealth, if and only if (henceforward "iff") political rights were not detrimentally affected by a maldistribution of wealth (which they acknowledge "may" be the case). Libertarianism doesn't give a shit about economic equality. Rather, it maintains the pretence that inequalities of wealth do not negate political equality. The doctrine is propounded by those who want to maintain the status quo with respect to property relations. They steal their patina of humanism from the real libertarians who were Anarchists in the same way Nazism pretended to be a form of Socialism. Nonetheless, it is a great ideology for upper middle class AM radio/internet talk show hosts who have never missed a meal, who defend their “right” to own a SUV, who possess hereditary wealth (i.e. private sector “entitlements” are just OK), who have a profitable business model of disseminating any conspiracy theory whether it has merit or not and who screens/censors callers who attempt to point out the obvious to their audiences. No need for AJ to worry. His audiences aren’t swift enough to see who has their boot on their throats even if he let the educated callers through or didn’t pull the faux screaming and hang-up out of “frustration” routine once he knows he’s got some old man on the line who could call him out on his historical distortions.
I have a friend who works at CNN. Actually he works for CNN-Asia. And he said that although the major networks recognize this movement... the general consensus is that the Country would be even WORSE OFF if the OWS Movement started influencing or controlling things. My response to that? Well, I guess the minds behind the OWS Movement will just have to prove the Mainstream Media wrong...
I agree, I was the chair for my local Libertarian party but there was very little getting accomplished. every time we started getting something planned it would get side tracked by all kinds of side conversations there was no order.
that is one of the reasons I am so for some order and clear goals.
I think it's a left-brain vs right-brain thing. Some people just like the idea of a "sit-in" and a protest that has NO agenda. I can't say that I relate to that approach. But I'm inclined to think that maybe it is the "sit-in" folks who get the movement started. Kind of like the first infantry division that storms the beach. Brave soldiers... :o)
yes they often are the ones to come up with the loose concept and for that they should be commended
Oh and btw leftyd, Fox will take no time to portray this movement as a product of powers with an agenda rather than a grass-roots movement should OWS actually become a force, just as the media did to the Tea Party. You apparently bought into that lie. I promise you... the Tea Party WAS a grass-roots movement. The first thing we all need to do is stop the divisions and focus on the corruption on Wall Street and in D.C. Believe it or not, that was the Tea Party's focus at the beginning.
I guaranty Fox is hard at work at this very moment discrediting OWS there is no doubt about that. The Tea Party movement didn't gain any real traction until supporters with very deep pockets and a political agenda got involved.
nice! agree
I'm kinda surprised how many accused you of having some hidden agenda because you asked that question. I often will search out right wing blogs or news sites to see what they are talking about and arm myself with facts in order to win a friendly political debate. It almost becomes painfully predictable when you know exactly which talking points are coming next.
The election is over a year away how else are we going to keep up this momentum if we don't educate ourselves on the facts? This is only the beginning....
How does it matter ? Our demands are based on common sense and honest and in our common good.
it only matters if they manage to provoke you to violence. then it does matter because the rest of us lose more civil rights. the plan of course is to send you all off to fema camps. But they can't get away with it unless they can say your violent.
because he's part of the 1% that doesn't care about you and would discredit the movement from what i understand and it's important to be able to defend yourself against accusations against the movement like that... it only wins more people over
uhm, its really a game of who uses who .
Again, we don't care who tries to discredit who. All we care are our issues facing Middle class and Poor and we don't give a f**king damn to what any critic or mainstream media says. People like you who spread unwanted rumors should be banned from posting messages.
only if they persist after being told its not useful...?
LOL dude trust me i'm all for this movement you're misunderstanding me...
it's important to be knowledgeable about what other people are attacking you for. don't you want other people to see as well?
i'm not the one spreading rumors i'm asking for ways to combat it
the best way to combat it is to say it might be true, to acknowledge the obvious connection of why the elites would want this to happen, and then to point out that you still use them instead of them using you so long as everyone stays non violent.
Don't you have anything better to do than do this Gossip ?
lolwut. u crazy. i ain't tryin' to cause shit, siros.
Simply put this is a right wing meme designed to divide us.
maybe.
that's what i figured... my response to the person was that if there was a hidden agenda discovered behind the occupy movement, we the people would be so pissed... lol
i'm still looking for the evidence against and/or where the claim started
i think it's important that we have ways to tell people "look you're wrong about that" in cases like this
now realize what its like.. what its doing to me.. to see it from my vantage point. lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2WRn3xfEkA
of course it is. duh. thats my laughingstock moment. they want protests, not open source democracy. you are all being tactically distracted away from me- onto the streets- and safely away from intellectual problem solving or direct democracy or the evolved agents of change. the game is on. you all think you are doing something the elites hate. nope. just like 911 was a false flag where the USA fronted the money to the terrorists, rich elites actually astroturfed your entire event so that they can now play with their toys. See?
Whats got them checkmated is your non violence. Grasp that. its the only thing that prevents you from being disapeared.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug0IL7k3elQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJBxdRIQx7Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_9_5aBU33E&mode=related&search= http://www.freedomfiles.org/war/fema.htm
http://uweb.txstate.edu/~lf14/conspire/rex84.html
http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1062 http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/fema.html
http://www.linkoregon.com/fema/
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/camps.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84 http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/camps.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3010
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/FEMA-Concentration-Camps3sep04.htm
http://www.greatdreams.com/concentration.htm
http://www.publiceye.org/rightwoo/rwooz9-14.html
will YOU go quietly when they come for you? will you fight uselessly after it is allready too late?
or will you stand up now, and overthrow (via peacefull means) a corrupt and evil government of the elites, for the elites, and by the elites?
that doesn't answer my question :p
if its not funded by george its funded by some rich person who wants to see the FEMA response system activated. There are thousands of better ways to get evolutionary social change. But heck . they are there now so i best support them as best i can.
I wouldn't even waste my time arguing with somebody that claims it's being funded by George Soros, personally, since that person is probably impervious to reason/evidence.
aaha yea but the important thing is to be able to tell them why they're wrong so they realize hey wait ok i was lied to
occupy wallst gets its funding from the donations of individuals; they've also partnered with the Alliance for Global Justice:
http://afgj.org/?page_id=2
Donations now go through the AFGL
thx man