According to published reports, George Soros is teaching college courses these days to thousands of students.
To be clear, he is not actually on campuses in front of the class. Rather, exhaustive investigations by journalists reveal how his reach, influence, and above all, money, is resetting curriculum to reflect his political ideology wherever and whenever he can.
Investigative author Matt Palumbo wrote in the New York Post last month:
"In 2020 alone, Soros' Open Society Foundations budgeted more than $63 million, or just over 5% of its budget, toward influencing higher education here and abroad....
"More than 19 colleges had individually received at least $1 million from Soros, including Harvard University, Columbia University, Indiana University, and Georgetown University, among others."
One institution in particular, Palumbo reveals, has significantly benefited from Soros' campaign of campus influence, Bard College.
"Bard College had received nearly $80 million total from Soros when he announced in 2020 that he'd be awarding it an additional $100 million over the next decade."
For what purpose?
It would appear that Soros is seeking to leverage his enormous wealth to create a new political cadre from an emerging generation that will pursue his goals today, and long after he is gone. It is what these goals are that is being questioned (for instance here , here and here).
Soros was a student of Karl Popper (author of The Open Society and Its Enemies) in London. Later, to promote freedom and defeat totalitarianism, Soros donated millions to such causes as Lech Walesa's Solidarity Movement, which led Poland out of the grip of the Soviet Empire, and to financing democracy movements in Yugoslavia working to oust Slobodan Milosevic.
More recently, however, questions arise, such as, in 2016: "Is Soros Funding An Agitprop Protest Movement to Destabilize Poland's New Democratically Elected Government?"
In the United States, there are allegations that he funded the self-declared Marxist "Black Lives Matter" movement as well as efforts to defund the police.
Last month, the outspoken news commentator Joe Rogan blasted Soros:
"That's what's scary, is that it seems like he funds corrosion, it's like he wants these cities to fall apart, he wants crime to flourish, it's almost like he's an evil person in a Batman movie"
Palumbo reminds us that the Soros dollars are not meant for the college marching band.
"Soros funds student activists through the 'Trustee Leader-Scholar' program at Bard...." These projects include efforts such as the Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative, which in 2018 posted on Facebook:
"Dear Bard community, the Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative is hosting a movie series at Preston tonight from 6-8.
[T]he movies are dedicated to the memory of the catastrophe that has happened May-15-1948, they showcase the injustice, discrimination and the hard living situations of the Palestinian people in occupied Palestine. Please join us in commemorating the Nakba, especially in light of the recent political atmosphere. The embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on the anniversary of the Nakba. Please help us raise funds to help support the cause of the Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that were displaced. Donations will be appreciated! A short discussion will be held after the movies."
Yes, the Palestinians do have "hard living situations," but these are basically caused the Palestinians' own corrupt governments, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and originated in 1948, the war started when five Arab armies attacked Israel and then lost. The moral probably is: Do not start a war unless you are aware you might lose it.
Others have also benefited, such as Georgetown, which Palumbo says "received $1.8 million for the Justice at Stake Campaign, a group that believes there aren't enough 'people of color, women, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, and persons with disabilities' who are judges. " The wish not to exclude people because of their appearance or sexual preference is certainly commendable, but is that really the way we want our judges chosen – for these extrinsic and possibly immaterial qualities rather than for their merit, or, as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
For hundreds of thousands of parents who start saving for their children's college education before they even leave the hospital delivery room, all of this may come as a surprise. Most of us are only dimly aware of how college campuses have become incubators for anti-Semitism, defunding the police, and similar political agendas.
Based on Palumbo's reporting, one must assume that it is Soros' intent is to create global political change that reflects his values through your children, even if those beliefs are antithetical to the majority of citizens living within our democracy.
In the end, Soros may in fact, be serving an important purpose. He is reminding you in the most powerful way possible that if you do not teach your children your values, there is someone else who will teach them his values.
Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.
