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George Soros' "Parallel Anti-War Media/Movement"

by bob feldman

Perhaps Amy Goodman should finally make full disclosure of all foundation grants that either the Pacifica Foundation, WBAI, Democracy Now, WBAI, KPFA, the Indymedia Centers, Free Speech TV, Deep Dish TV, the Pacifica Campaign or the Downtown studio from which she broadcasted in 2000 and/or in 2001 have received since 1992?

Regarding George Soros's U.S. alternative media gatekeeping/censorship network, the following recap might be of use to U.S. grassroots anti-war activists whose political work is not being subsidized by Establishment Foundations such as Billionaire Global Speculator George Soros' Open Society Institute:

1. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute gave a $50,000 grant to the Nation Institute "to support project to improve performance and reach of Radio Nation, weekly public radio news and commentary program." George Soros' personal advisor for politics, Hamilton Fish III, is also a top executive at The Nation Institute.

2. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute gave a $50,000 grant to the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, which used to be headed by former Pacifica Foundation Executive Director Lynn Chadwick.

3. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute apparently gave a $125,000 grant to the Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting [CIPB} group (on whose board sits FAIR/CounterSpin co-host Janine Jackson) "to cover administrative and start-up costs for launching national campaign entitled Citizens for Independent Broadcasting."

4. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute gave a $78,660 grant to Don Hazen's Institute for Alternative Journalism/IMI/Alternet in San Francisco "to fund start-up of Youth Source, a youth Web site which will be part of a larger web poral, Independent Source."

5. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute gave a $126,000 grant to the International Center for Global Communications Foundation "toward launch of Media Channel, first global media and democracy supersite on the Internet."

6. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute gave 4 grants, totalling $118,000, to the Internews Network.

7. In 1999 George Soros's Open Society Institute gave a $12,000 grant to Downtown Community Television Center. (There's a possibility that this was the group which provided studio facilities for Democracy Now after the 1999 WBAI Christmas coup).

8. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute gave a $150,000 grant to the Fund for Investigative Journalism. (Is this the same media group which provided some funding for KPFA's Dennis Bernstein during the 1990s?)

9. In 1999, George Soros' Open Society Institute gave a $35,000 grant to American Prospect magazine.

10. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute gave a $30,000 grant to the Center for Defense Information.

11. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute gave a $75,000 grant to the Center for Investigative Reporting.

12. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute gave 4 grants, totalling $220,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists--on whose board sits NATION magazine co-owner and editorial director Victor Navasky.

13. In 1999, George Soros' Open Society Institute gave 2 grants, totalling $272,000, to the "Project on Media Ownership."

14. In 1999, George Soros' Open Society Institute gave a $100,000 grant to the Public Media Center in San Francisco.

15. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute gave a $73,730 grant to the dance company of a Pacifica Network News staffperson's domestic partner.

16. In 1999, George Soros' Open Society Institute gave a $50,000 grant to Youth Radio in Berkeley.

17. In 1999, George Soros's Open Society Institute gave 2 grants, totalling $393,000, to the Tides Foundation.

18. George Soros's Open Society Institute recent gave a $102,025 grant to Radio Bilingue.

19. George Soros's Open Society Institute has also apparently been providing funds to subsidize a "parallel left" section of the prisoner solidarity movement. Critical Resistance, the Prison Moratorium Project, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and The Sentencing Project are all being funded by George Soros's Open Society Institute.

20. In 2001, George Soros's Open Society Institute also gave grants to help subsidize the Jews for Racial and Economic Justice group, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement group, the Million Mom March group and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

21. After 9/11, George Soros's Open Society Institute gave a $75,000 grant to the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Research Institute, a $250,000 grant to the ACLU and a grant to the LCEF group on whose board Mary Frances Berry used to sit.

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Billionaire Soros's War Stock Investments

Like the former Corporation for Public Broadcasting Chairperson who owns a major chunk of the Columbia University-linked Nation magazine, Clinton-Gore Campaign Fundraiser Alan Sagner, the global speculator whose Open Society Institute gave KPFA a $40,000 grant in 1995 has some interesting special economic interests.

In his 1990 book The New Money Masters, John Train has a chapter entitled "George Soros: Global Speculator" in which he indicated how Soros obtained his surplus wealth:

"Soros...has always had partners on the management side, such as Jim Rogers...In 1969, aged 39, he [Soros] ...joined with Jim Rogers to found Quantum Fund... "It is not registered with the SEC...so the shareholders are foreigners, mostly Europeans...It engages in multidirectional international speculation in commodities, stock, and bonds...Thanks to Rogers, the fund was one of the first to recognize the investment merits of defense stocks."

According to The New Money Masters book, Soros's business partner in the 1970s and early 1980s, Jim Rogers, "became the largest outside shareholder of Lockheed in 1974."

As of 1989, the portfolio of Soros Fund Management Equity Holdings included $27 million worth of Boeing stock, $106 million worth of RJR Nabisco tobacco company stock, $3.5 million worth of Lockheed stock, $2.2 million worth of CBS stock, $2.3 million of Time Inc. stock, $12.8 million worth of Warner Communications stock and $6.5 million worth of Wal-Mart stock.

A Senior Fellow at the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute who is a former president/ceo of Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minnesota "is aiding the Open Society Institute in considering issues of professionalism in media and related public policy questions," according to the Soros Foundation/Open Society Institute website.
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