LAT: Soros, in new book: similarities in Bush, Nazi, Communist regimes

[DeepModem Mom]

A wealth of criticism
Philanthropist Soros writes that the Bush camp reminds him of the Nazi regime.
By Anne-Marie O'Connor, Times Staff Writer


George Soros
(Jennifer S. Altman / For The Times)

GEORGE SOROS, the Hungarian Holocaust survivor whose fortune is matched only by his philanthropy, pioneered a kind of self-styled approach to global reform....With no sluggish bureaucracy to answer to, he rose to prominence with stunningly practical bequests delivered in a timely manner. There was his $50-million donation to the besieged citizens of Sarajevo in 1993 that financed a water plant so that women did not need to rely on the public wells where Serbian snipers picked them off with ease. There was his pro-democracy support in the Soviet Bloc, for Poland's Solidarity movement and for Czech dissident Vaclav Havel, who would become that country's post-Communist president.

Soros has given away about $5 billion since he embarked on this citizen-policymaker approach in the 1970s, a sum that approaches the $7.2-billion estimate of his net wealth by Forbes in 2004....Now, Soros has raised eyebrows with his most recent sally into American political culture by drawing comparisons in his new book between the Bush administration and communist and Nazi governments.

In "The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror," Soros recalls that when he "heard President Bush say, 'Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists,' " in the wake of 9/11, "I was reminded of Nazi propaganda."...

***

"You don't have a Karl Marx, you only have a Karl Rove who has been successful in creating a coalition of fundamentalists," he began, sitting in a conference room high above Manhattan, framed by a view of New York's Central Park, in a striped blue cotton shirt and khakis, his manner affable and relaxed.

However, he added, "we are an established democracy.... The policies and tactics employed by the Bush administration do not pose a threat to open society." Heavy-handed government in America today, he said, manifests itself in the undue extension of executive powers and the dismissal of critics as unpatriotic. That, in his view, "is the most significant similarity with the Nazi and communist regimes."...

http://www.calendarlive.com/books/cl-et-soros29jul29,0,2391263.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[mnhtnbb]

1. Say what you will. Bush family fortune came from supporting

Hitler before the U.S. gov't made them stop. This is not in dispute and is well documented.

[NYCGirl]

2. Actually, Prescott did business with both sides. He was an equal

opportunity crook.

[elehhhhna]

3. just like sonnyboy

[Arkham House]

4. The Right really hates Soros...

...maybe even more than they hate Clinton or Joe Wilson...he must be doing something right...