Public Policy Often Affected By Force of Unseen Personalities
January 10, 2003
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
Many people wonder whether the battle for the right to keep and bear arms will ever end.
The answer is: Not very likely.
The struggle to retain or restore our individual rights waxes and wanes according to events and the seasons of politics, but it is part of a clash of ideologies that is as old as history.
For example, in 1824, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties:
“1.) Those who fear and distrust the people and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes, and
“2.) Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interest.
“In every country these two parties exist; and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.”
Jefferson’s words provide a summary of how public policy is often shaped by people who have the wealth and know how to use it to manipulate the levers of government.
The Fabians
About the turn of the century a small group of intellectuals, political leaders and financiers formed a group which became known as the Fabians. The playwright George Bernard Shaw and novelist H. G. Wells were part of the Fabian group.
Their political philosophy was based on the first group in Jefferson’s statement. Supreme elitists all, the Fabians believed that because they were smarter than everyone else, they should shape public policy internationally for the betterment of all mankind, whether mankind agreed with them or not.
Basically, they assumed everyone else was too stupid to know what they should do, so the Fabians would tell them, or at least tell the people who would decide. The Fabians weren’t looking for political celebrity or office.
The modern Fabians—although they don’t use that name—take many forms, and include people in both the liberal and conservative camps. Like the Fabians, they believe they are smarter than everyone else, and should shape the future of the world. These groups are linked in many ways, including such groups as the Council on Foreign Relations and other elitist groups.
One of the leading tenants of this type of political thinking is found today most frequently in the international civilian disarmament movement, which include the non-government organizations that manipulate the United Nations, and in the American anti-gun rights movement.
You are well aware of names like Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), and Sarah Brady, and of organizations such as the Violence Policy Center. What is less know is that behind these people are a cadre of wealthy international elitists who feed the machines of the anti-gun movement. One of the most powerful of these is George Soros, whose money funds anti-gun research and non-profit organizations.
Smart as Soros and others like him many believe themselves to be, they frequently find themselves becoming too smart. When that happens, they also find themselves more noteworthy than they want to be. And some recent news concerning Soros provides a good example.
A French court on Dec. 20 convicted Soros—one of the leading sources of anti-gun organization funding—of insider trading in a 1980s stock deal and fined him $2.2 million.
The American billionaire investor and philanthropist, whose George Soros Foundation helps to shape policy issues in the US and around the world, said he was “astounded and dismayed” by the court’s ruling. The fine by the court was in line with the request by prosecutors—the same amount the Hungarian-born magnate was accused of having made from buying stocks at French bank, Societe Generale, with insider knowledge 14 years ago.
Soros, the 72-year-old president of Soros Fund Management, said he would appeal “to the highest level necessary.”
“At no point was I in possession of inside information regarding Societe Generale. The charges against me are unfounded and without merit,” he said in an e-mail to Associated Press. He was not present in the French court.
His lawyer, Bernard du Granrut, said the court “did not acknowledge the essential elements of the arguments we presented.”
The court cleared two other men—Jean-Charles Naouri, former top aide to France’s then-Finance Minister Pierre Beregovoy, and Lebanese businessman Samir Traboulsi—of any wrongdoing.
Societe Generale was privatized in 1987. A year later, its stock price went up during an unsuccessful takeover bid. Soros was accused of having obtained insider information before the abortive corporate raid pushed up the stock price.
French stock market regulators first noticed anomalies in the Societe Generale stock surge in 1989. Soros was put under judicial investigation—one step short of being charged—in June 1993.
Soros has said he was interested in Societe Generale based on information he claims was widely known: France’s leftist government of the time favored takeovers to change the leadership at recently privatized companies.
Soros said he was buying stock in many companies and had no reason not to include Societe Generale. Afterward, he sold the stock, saying he felt the takeover attempt was politically motivated and was not going to benefit the company.
Soros Background
Soros reportedly was the first American to earn $1 billion in a single year. Born in Budapest in 1930, he emigrated to the United States in 1956 and became a citizen five years later. He made his fortune managing investment funds.
Forbes magazine ranked him this year as the 37th-richest person in the world, with an estimated fortune of $6.9 billion.
Prosecutors said the case dragged on because Swiss authorities took years to respond to requests for information. Defense lawyers argued unsuccessfully that the case should be thrown out because it took so long to bring to court.
The Soros Fund was created in 1973 with about $12 million and evolved into the multi-billion-dollar Quantum Group of Funds. Soros also heads the Open Society Institute, a philanthropic network that has funneled more than $1 billion into education, public health, science and non-governmental groups in the former communist bloc.
Soros graduated from the London School of Economics in 1952. While a student there, Soros became familiar with the work of the philosopher Karl Popper, who had a profound influence on his thinking and later on his professional and philanthropic activities.
Soros has been active as a philanthropist since 1979, when he began providing funds to help black students attend the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa. Today he is chairman of the Open Society Institute and the founder of a network of philanthropic organizations that are active in more than 50 countries. Based primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union—but also in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the United States—these foundations are dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an “open society.” In 1992, Soros founded Central European University, with its primary campus in Budapest.
Soros is the author of seven books, most recently George Soros on Globalization (PublicAffairs, March 2002). His other books include: The Alchemy of Finance (1987); Opening the Soviet System (1990); Underwriting Democracy (1991); Soros on Soros: Staying Ahead of the Curve (1995); The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered (1998), and Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (2000). His articles and essays on politics, society, and economics regularly appear in major newspapers and magazines around the world.
Soros has received honorary degrees from the New School for Social Research in New York City, the University of Oxford, the Budapest University of Economics, and Yale University. In 1995, the University of Bologna awarded Soros its highest honor, the Laurea Honoris Causa, in recognition of his efforts to promote open societies throughout the world.
If you want to know more about Soros, and details of how his foundation works, you can Google him on an Internet search engine, and learn more about one of the key—often hidden—figures behind your enemies in the anti-gun movement.
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