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Comment by philwelch | Hacker News Reader

It's extremely disingenuous to assume that attacks on George Soros are necessarily anti-Semitic. Soros is a quintessential politically-active-billionaire bogeyman like the Koch brothers, or Sheldon Adelson (who is also Jewish). In fact, Zuckerberg and Sandberg are Jewish themselves, and I don't think they're necessarily the self-hating type.

Sure, actual anti-Semites probably also criticize George Soros, but (a) of course they would, and (b) why the fuck are you paying attention to those bozos anyway?

Of course, accusing people of anti-Semitism is, in reality, usually a dog-whistle for calling them Nazis.

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I would argue it's extremely disingenuous to not recoginize that the crowds that blame Soros for everything have a distinctly anti-Semitic streak. You would have to be either blind or deliberately ignoring the massive dog whistles.

Being Jewish isn't his only defining characteristic. There's also the fact that he's a billionaire who is politically active.

I would argue it's extremely disingenuous to not recoginize that the crowds that blame Soros for everything could very likely have a distinctly anti-billionaire streak.

This is an extremely disingenuous guilt-by-association argument that groups together "generic conservatives who gripe about billionaires financing their political adversaries" with "anti-Semitic nutjobs".

There are anti-Semites in many movements, both left and right. Louis Farrakhan has been openly anti-Semitic for years. Jesse Jackson has referred to New York City as "Hymietown". Should we dismiss the entire black civil rights movement as "crowds with a distinctly anti-Semitic streak", or should we condemn Farrakhan and Jackson personally while acknowledging that not all of the people they work with share their most repugnant views?

Should we dismiss the UK Labour Party as a "crowd with a distinctly anti-Semitic streak" because of Jeremy Corbyn's uncomfortably friendly comments about Hamas?

Let's also not miss the facts that (a) much of the criticism towards Facebook has been directed at Mark Zuckerberg personally, (b) Mark Zuckerberg happens to be Jewish, and (c) there is also no shortage of anti-Semites who make the connection between A and B. But, because it doesn't serve the media's vested interests to protect Zuckerberg the way they protect Zuckerberg's critics (remember that Facebook is a direct competitor to the mainstream media), they don't go out of their way to point out this connection.

a) Anti-Semites rarely make any effort to criticize Sheldon Adelson, though, and b) because ignoring them doesn't lead them to disappear, since the popularity of falsehoods is well understood to exceed that of truth over the short run.

I do not think the best way to fight anti-Semitism is to widely publicize every anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, publicize the Jewish ethnicity of every controversial figure, and accuse as many people as possible of being anti-Semitic.

I do think that's the best way to convince yourself and those who already agree with you that everyone on the other side is a Nazi.

Good thing I'm not doing that then. I have very particular criteria for deciding whether someone is a Nazi and reject your insinuation.

>It's extremely disingenuous to assume that attacks on George Soros are necessarily anti-Semitic.

The messages may be paid for by people with other overall intents, but the receptive audience for the messages is people like that recent bomb maker. And the people paying for the messages know this.

I could tell people all day long that something was being funded by Warren Buffet and nobody would give a shit. Tell them it is funded by Soros and suddenly you have raised a following crowd of prime fuckwits and I do not think it is because he is Hungarian.

edit - assembled prime fuckwits, you know who you are, there is a reason I picked Warren Buffet for comparison and once you have bothered to look it up, you are really not going to like it.

But wouldn't that be on them always ethically? Exposing evidence that definitively proves Bill Cosby is a rapist might cause some idiot to try lynching black men as all rapists but that doesn't mean reporting him suddenly becomes immoral.

Warren Buffett generally isn't a political financier. The Koch brothers and George Soros are.

And I am generally not sarcastic. No, really.

So why did you pick Warren Buffett for comparison? I did look it up, and do not see what point you were trying to make.

He was one of Obama's first funders, advisers and public fundraisers, way back when Obama was still a senator. It is very unlikely that Obama would have become and then stayed president without Warren Buffett's initial and continued support.

Warren Buffett is a liberal, very politically involved billionaire philanthropist, very much like George Soros, but with quite literally ten times as much money and political influence.

Furthermore, he has promised to spend all of this money on fluffy liberal causes and social welfare programs and all sorts of other scary commie-sounding stuff before he dies. And he is very old.

Yet, where the hell are all the Warren Buffett conspiracies? He must feel really left out.

It's easier for each side to have one designated boogeyman. Why do the Koch Brothers take all the heat from progressives when there's still Sheldon Adelson and Robert Mercer and Peter Thiel?

>Why do the Koch Brothers take all the heat from progressives when there's still Sheldon Adelson and Robert Mercer and Peter Thiel?

I'm not sure they do. Mercer particularly is getting a lot of flack right now.

I just find it slightly odd that people put George Soros up as some scary liberal billionaire kingmaker while completely and utterly ignoring an actual liberal billionaire kingmaker.

Yes, Buffett is liberal and has donated to political candidates, but Soros funds a number of left-wing organizations, PACs, and movements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_projects_supported_by_...

I have no issue with these organizations. I support many of them, and am left-wing and Jewish myself, but it's not a smear to say he's a significant backer of the causes of the left in the same way the Koch brothers are significant backers of the causes of the libertarian-right.

Buffett isn't nearly as influential as Soros or the Koch brothers in terms of political spending. He has spent and is continuing to spend a lot on philanthropy, but not specifically to ideologically and overtly left-wing organizations, other than the kinds of donations almost all rich people make (for several reasons), like ones to prominent political candidates and the main two political parties.

>Buffett isn't nearly as influential as Soros or the Koch brothers in terms of political spending.

He is the only one of those three to have successfully backed, funded, be the economic adviser for and receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from, a two term US President.

Also, he gives out vast amount of money, far more than Soros, mainly because he has far more money, to things ranging across a variety of progressive causes such as universal public health, refugee rights and support, sexual rights, family planning, and campaigning for global nuclear disarmament. He is every bit the activist politically involved liberal billionaire.

He spends more, but on different things than what Soros funds.

Some people hate Soros because of his role in the Asian financial crisis, where he literally broke banks which resulted in many going into poverty. He has also shorted the British pound and other currencies, so I imagine that there are people mad at him for that too.

I don't follow what you're trying to get at with Warren Buffett. What are you referring to that people won't like?

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