Entry details

Younghusband
Author

Younghusband

Date

October 3rd, 2005

Tags

Comments

6 Comments so far.
Add yours.

Antisoros

No more!

A new activist movement named “Antisoros” has arisen in Georgia, taking on international philanthropist George Soros.

from Mosnews
“The objective of the organization is to determine the projects that are financed by George Soros and that are undermining Georgian national traditions and are, in essence, anti-national,”Â? reads a newsletter circulated by the Antisoros founders.

Soros is a very controversial fellow, in 2003 he said that removing Bush from office was the “central focus of my life” and “a matter of life and death.” He also contributed $5M to MoveOn.org.

Independent forensic expert Maya Nikoleishvili is poised to become the chairwoman of the new movement. Nikoleishvili is known for publicly questioning the official version of the death of Georgian prime minister Zurab Zvcania, who, according to the authorities, died of carbon monoxide poisoning this February, soon after pro-western president Mikhail Saakashvili came to power.

Is this related to Soros? Antisoros hasn’t made any outright claims yet (they don’t have a website out yet, at least not in English, Russian or Georgian) but Soros has been previously accused of being at the center of a web of other conspiracy theories, and I think that is just what is motivating this new Georgian group.

One good thing about Soros’ penchant for throwing cash about is Eurasianet.org which is a great resource for those interested in Central Asian/Caucasus affairs.

Comments to this entry

Kenneth
October 3, 2005
8:57 pm
My complaint: the man rails too much against "market fundamentalism".
Curzon
October 3, 2005
9:03 pm
For clarification purposes, that is Georgia THE COUNTRY (as opposed to the state of Georgia in the US, capital Atlanta, bordering North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, and Tennessee.)
Nathan
October 3, 2005
9:45 pm
One of the bad things about him is he's too involved in the projects he funds though. He's notorious for leaving projects high and dry when he gets a new idea and running people ragged in circles. I can't remember all the details of the stories I've heard, but they were actually in the US at fundraising seminars for mid-Atlantic nonprofits. The implied point was not to waste your organization's time with anything having to do with the man's money.

And along those lines, I think that some of what his largesse has wrought in and related to the former USSR is going downhill. (I say this as someone who strongly supports the work of OSI despite not liking the man too much.) Sure, there's been an assault on OSI in some countries in the region, but I also think the man 's interest dipped during 2004 while he focused on the US election. I can't prove it of course, but I at least partially assumed that the reason why Eurasianet kind of sucked for a while is because Soros's attention was elsewhere. Thankfully I think the site's improving again to the point that I'm occasionally disappointed when I miss something/delighted to see something worth reading. (No RSS though? Come on, what is this, 2002?)
R. Elgin
October 4, 2005
2:23 am
Curzon, if anyone in Georgia (the state) took issue with Mr. Soros, I'd suspect that they were not from Georgia anyway. :-)
Younghusband
October 4, 2005
11:52 am
Nathan, I am totally with you on the RSS and Eurasianet sucking sometimes. It seems when they switched to the new design they forgot to add new content for the longest time. Do you know if Justin Burke has always been there?
Nathan
October 5, 2005
1:34 am
He's been there for a while. And by "a while" I mean "as long as I can recall, but I haven't really been paying attentiion."