hebig.org/blog

From time to time - no more than four or fives times a year - a new writing by George Soros gets published on the website of his Open Society Institute and Soros Foundations Network, and every single time it is excellent reading material. So is his newest piece, America's Global Role: Why the Fight for a Worldwide Open Society Begins at Home, first published in the June 2003 American Prospect.

I won't excerpt from it, better read the whole article. What he says does not only apply to the U.S, but to any free nation whose government follows an ideology in contradiction to the nation's ideas and values. He considers core elements of the National Security Strategy "views of extremists, not adherents to an open society. Perhaps because of my background, these views push the wrong buttons in me. And I am amazed and disappointed that the general public does not have a similar allergic reaction. Of course, that has a lot to do with September 11."

Still, the absence of such a reaction is among the most interesting observations one could have made since that date. But would the public in other countries act fundamentally different under similar conditions? George Soros: "I put my faith in the people. But in the end, open society will not survive unless those who live in it believe in it."

IN THE ARCHIVES
2003-05-20: George Soros: Bush's Inflated Sense of Supremacy
2002-10-05: George Soros: Busted - Why The Markets Can't Fix Themselves