|
Contributors
Cliff Kincaid- Contributor
Cliff Kincaid, serves as editor of the Accuracy
in Media (AIM)
Report. A veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff has
appeared on the Fox News programs Hannity & Colmes and
The O'Reilly Factor, where he debated O'Reilly on global
warming, the death penalty,
and the homosexual agenda. He was a guest co-host on CNN's Crossfire
(filling in for Pat Buchanan) in the 1980s, where he confronted
the then-Libyan Ambassador to the U.N. with evidence of Libyan
involvement in international terrorism. Through his America's
Survival, Inc., organization (www.usasurvival.org), he has been
an advocate on behalf of the families of victims of terrorism
and has published reports and held conferences critical of the
United Nations. His articles have appeared in the Washington
Post, Washington Times, Chronicles, Human Events, Insight, and
other publications. He served on the staff of Human Events for
several years and was an editorial writer and newsletter editor
for former National Security Council staffer Oliver North at
his Freedom Alliance educational foundation. He has written or
co-authored nine books on media and cultural affairs and foreign
policy issues. Cliff is married and has three sons.[go to
Kincaid index]
 The
Media, George Soros and Needle Park
Why does Big Media abet the international man of mystery?…
[Cliff Kincaid] 10/5/04
At a forum
hosted by the New Yorker on Saturday, Dan Rather said that
he regrets
not doing more stories that "follow
the money" of major contributors to the political campaigns
and examine what they want for their money. Rather calls this
Journalism 101. There’s still time to rectify this problem.
One of the great ironies of the current campaign is that a
leftist pro-drug- legalization billionaire named George Soros
is spending
untold millions of dollars on behalf of John Kerry and the
Democratic Party, which supposedly represents the working class,
while the
Republicans continue to be branded as the party of fat cats
and big business.
Kerry, in the first
presidential debate, took a shot at Halliburton, which is Vice
President Cheney’s old firm, and John Edwards
will probably mention the company in his debate Tuesday night
with Cheney. But Kerry and Edwards have never been asked to explain
their party’s relationship with a foreign-born financial
manipulator who runs a mysterious privately-owned "international
investment fund" and has holdings in scores of companies,
including media companies.
After contributing
millions of dollars to pro-Kerry groups, Soros took out a $400,000
two-page anti-Bush ad in the September
29 Wall Street Journal and unveiled a new website. He is now
on a nationwide speaking tour to defeat Bush. On the sensitive
issue of how he accumulated a fortune of $7.2 billion, making
him the richest "money manager" in the world, Washington
Post columnist Harold Meyerson is quoted on the Soros site as
saying that he "made his money the old-fashioned way, on
Wall Street." In fact, he made his money through investment
techniques that are not available to ordinary investors. He runs
a private "hedge fund," only open to the super-rich,
which is largely unregulated. He is currently fighting an attempt
by William Donaldson, the Bush-appointed chairman at the Securities
and Exchange Commission, to more actively regulate hedge funds.
Meyerson is the same
columnist who said that the "privatization" of
the Democratic Party through Soros’ funding of pro-Kerry "527" political
groups has bypassed an incompetent Democratic Party apparatus.
Meyerson also joined New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in
attacking House Speaker Dennis Hastert for raising questions
about where Soros is getting his seemingly unlimited funds.
Dan Rather should
recognize that it is certainly newsworthy that some liberals
are so desperate for political power that
they will allow a figure such as Soros to virtually purchase
a major political party. But why do the liberal media continue
to excuse his power grab by whitewashing Soros as a "philanthropist" who
supports "progressive" causes? We sent a letter to
the Washington Post correcting the record about Soros and his
controversial investments in countries such as Colombia that
was rejected for publication.
In his ad, Soros charges
that Bush "managed to suppress
all dissent" after 9/11, as if Bush had become a dictator.
This false statement reflects an obsession that borders on paranoia.
But a Journal advertising executive insisted the paper was taken
off the hook for any Soros misstatements by labeling the ad as "political" in
small print at the top.
Soros once again highlights
himself as committed to an "open
society." It sounds good, except for the fact that he has
a plan for drug addicts and abusers to function openly in society,
with drugs and even drug paraphernalia supplied by government
agencies and paid for by taxpayers.
This approach was
tried in Switzerland, where drug addicts gathered in "Needle Park" and used drugs such as heroin and
cocaine openly. Ethan Nadelmann of the Soros-funded Drug Policy
Alliance admitted that "Needle Park" became "unmanageable." He
and Soros then became advocates of a new Swiss approach, whereby
the government gave hard drugs directly to dopers in "consumption
rooms" under government control. In effect, the Swiss brought "Needle
Park" indoors. The idea of getting addicts treated and off
drugs was simply shunted aside.
Soros called the idea
of giving drugs to addicts "remarkably
effective" and Nadelmann urges a similar "experiment" in
the U.S. Does the public have any idea that the "fat cat" backing
John Kerry and the Democratic Party favors government fixes for
junkies? Soros makes these proposals because he believes the
U.S. is losing the war on drugs. His "solution," of
course, means raising the white flag of surrender.
The same might be
said for his position on Iraq. His Wall Street Journal ad calls
the Iraq war a "quagmire" but he offers
no way out or plan for victory.
When will Soros get the media scrutiny he deserves? Dan Rather
and his colleagues can pass Journalism 101 by following the trail
and influence of the Soros billions. CRO
copyright
2004 Accuracy in Media
§
|
