Destabilization: Directed Discontent in Egypt and Beyond

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The flames of revolution were stoked in Egypt on January 25 as tens of thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets of Cairo on a day that was dubbed “the day of revolt against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment” (“Egypt braces for nationwide protests”). The protesters' selection of that day was certainly no accident. According to France 24, the organizers chose the day “to coincide with a national holiday to celebrate Police Day” (ibid). The day had originally been declared a formal public holiday by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2009, to celebrate the efforts of Egyptian police to maintain law and order in the streets of the Arab republic (Osman).

Apparently, protesters meant for the day to take on a new, revolutionary meaning. Relying on the Tunisian uprising to provide momentum, protest organizers called for economic and political reform and an end to what they considered to police state tactics. France 24 elaborates:

Among demands are the ouster of Interior Minister Habib al-Adly, whose police and security forces have been accused of heavy-handedness; the removal of the decades-old emergency law and a rise in minimum wages. The controversial law, which gives police wide powers of arrest, suspends constitutional rights and curbs non-governmental political activity, was renewed in 2010 for a further two years. (“Egypt braces for nationwide protests”)

As protesters flooded the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, and Ismaila, the 25th of January ceased to be “National Police Day” and became, at least among many of the demonstrators, the “Day of Anger” (“Egyptians report poor communication services on Day of Anger”). Using the Internet as a tool of revolution, many protesters also referred to January 25 as a “day of revolt” in a web message (“Egypt protests: Three killed in 'day of revolt'”).

Unfortunately, anger and revolt are usually accompanied by violence, and January 25 was certainly no exception to the rule. According to the BBC, “demonstrators attacked a police water cannon vehicle, opening the driver's door and ordering the man out of the vehicle” in Cairo’s Tahrir Square (ibid). Protesters also attempted to break the police cordons, leading to a violent response as officers beat demonstrators with batons (ibid). The violence resulted in the deaths of two police officers in Cairo and two protesters in Suez (ibid).

The violence escalated and, on February 2, the organizers of the “Day of Anger” declared February 4 a “Friday of Departure”, with a plan to march on Heliopolis Palace, the executive office of the Egyptian President (“Feb. 4 declared the 'Friday of departure”). The protest organizers issued an ultimatum to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak: step down by February 4 or face the consequences (Marshall). According to journalist Tim Marshall, demonstrators differed on how Mubarak should be dealt with, but all agreed that his time as president had to end. Marshall writes: “Some Egyptians want Hosni Mubarak to be hanged while others want him to leave the country – but they are all united in believing he cannot remain as president” (ibid).

On February 11, 2011, the protesters finally got their wish as the Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak had stepped down as president (“Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Resigns”). The announcement ended 18 days of protest and Egypt saw the close of a 30-year reign (ibid).

It would be unfair to claim that the protesters possessed no legitimate grievances with the Mubarak government. According to MSNBC's Suzanne Choney, Egyptian activists were not tolerated by Mubarak's government and ran the risk of being arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or even executed (“Egyptian bloggers brave police intimidation”). Transparency International, a non-governmental organization dedicated to the exposure of political corruption, also weighed Mubarak's government and found it wanting. In its 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index report, Transparency International gave Egypt a score of 3.1, with 10 being very clean and 0 being highly corrupt (“Corruption Perceptions Index 2010 Results”).

Yet while Mubarak was certainly no angel, his opposition appeared to be co-opted by forces that are even more questionable. The remainder of this article will be dedicated to a closer examination of these forces, all of which inhabit the murky world of deep politics.

Freedom House: Imperialists Under One Roof

It is interesting to note the role played by the social networking site Facebook and the microblogging service Twitter in the Egyptian upheaval. In a January 25, 2011 Washington Post article entitled “Twitter blocked in Egypt as protests turn violent,” Melissa Bell states that Egyptian protests “were organized on Facebook and Twitter” (Bell). Protesters even launched a virtual version of the February 1 “March of Millions” on Facebook, hoping to gather online support for the march from Cairo's Tahrir Square to the Presidential Palace (“A Virtual 'March of Millions' in Solidarity with Egyptian Protesters”).

The Facebook and Twitter activists may have received their technical training from Freedom House, a major U.S. Foundation. In a March 24, 2010 article at the Freedom House website entitled “Bloggers Learn New Media Tools,” one reads:

From February 27 to March 13, Freedom House hosted 11 bloggers from the Middle East and North Africa for a two-week Advanced New Media Study Tour in Washington, D.C. The Study Tour provided the bloggers with training in digital security, digital video making, message development, and digital mapping. (“Bloggers Learn New Media Tools”)

A Freedom House program known as “New Generation” may also point to the foundation's preparation of activists for revolution. Another article at the Freedom House site entitled “New Generation of Advocates: Empowering Civil Society in Egypt,” looks at the foundation's “New Generation” project in greater detail. The article refers to young Egyptian activists as the “YouTube Generation” and states that they are “supported by Freedom House to enhance their outreach, advocacy and effectiveness” (“New Generation of Advocates: Empowering Civil Society in Egypt”). That support, says the article, “has yielded tangible results and the New Generation program in Egypt has gained prominence both locally and internationally” (ibid). The article then shares how Freedom House helped fellows visiting from Egypt acquire tools that could be used to facilitate revolution. It states:

Egyptian visiting fellows from all civil society groups received unprecedented attention and recognition, including meetings in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor and prominent members of Congress. In the words of Condoleezza Rice, the fellows represent the “hope for the future of Egypt.”

Freedom House fellows acquired skills in civic mobilization, leadership, and strategic planning, and benefit from networking opportunities through interaction with Washington-based donors, International organizations and the media. After returning to Egypt, the fellows received small grants to implement innovative initiatives such as advocating for political reform through Facebook and SMS messaging. (Ibid)

Tacitly underpinning the euphemism-laden prose of the article is an unspoken message: Freedom House provided activists with access to the resources necessary to carry out a revolution.

Established in 1941 in New York City, Freedom House appears to represent American elites who are strong proponents of interventionism. In a history provided at the foundation's website, one reads the following:

It (Freedom House) emerged from an amalgamation of two groups that had been formed with the quiet encouragement of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to encourage popular support for American involvement in World War II at a time when isolationist sentiments were running high in the United States. (“Freedom House: A History”)

Of course, the term “isolationist” occupies a special place in the interventionist lexicon. It has been chronically invoked to stigmatize the opponents of intrusive and meddlesome foreign policies. It comes as little surprise that Roosevelt circumspectly supported the formation of Freedom House. The organization's interventionist propensities were also characteristic of Roosevelt's outlook, which had been cultivated by globalists. Curtis Dall, Roosevelt's son-in-law, elaborates on how the former President imbibed interventionism:

For a long time I felt that FDR had developed many thoughts and ideas that were his own to benefit this country, the U.S.A. But, he didn't. Most of his thoughts, his political "ammunition", as it were, was carefully manufactured for him in advance by the CFR-One-World Money group. Brilliantly, with great gusto, like a fine piece of artillery, he exploded that prepared "ammunition" in the middle of an unsuspecting target, the American people—and thus paid off and retained his internationalist political support. Perhaps he copied Woodrow Wilson unduly, in that respect, and readily fell for the One-World Money intervention and the United Nations hoax. My feeling is that he accepted that support merely as a practical means to gain and retain for himself more personal and political power. (185)

Given the invocation of the stigma on the Freedom House website, one can safely assume that the organization is a bastion of the same interventionist ideas that infected Roosevelt's thinking. The interventionist ideas that circulate within Freedom House draw to the organization's ranks imperialists of two competing elite factions.

The first of these are the neoconservatives, a faction that promotes conquest abroad through overtly militaristic campaigns. Neoconservativism is derivative of Jacobinism, which was an outgrowth of the Enlightenment. As proponents of Enlightenment universalism, the Jacobins viewed plebiscitary democracy as a model of governance that should be imposed upon all societies of the world (Ryn 21). Yet, domestic obstacles prevented the Jacobins from realizing such a universal imposition (21). The neoconservatives, however, are not hindered by such constraints, as is evidenced by their successful mobilization of an unpopular military campaign in Iraq. This faction finds representation within Freedom House through individuals such as R. James Woolsey, Jr., Max M Kampelman, and Kenneth Adelman (“Freedom House”).

The second faction is the neo-liberal Establishment, a faction that promotes imperialism largely through international treaties and free trade agreements that gradually erode the national sovereignty of participating countries. This school of thought advances its model of global society under the euphemistic banner of a “global village,” a Utopian societal blueprint marked by the democratically problematic nuances of global markets, rabid technophilia, and overtly collectivistic political arrangements. Like neoconservativism, the Establishment's neo-liberal outlook finds its theoretical underpinnings with the universalist cultural posture of the Enlightenment. However, Establishment activists deride unilaterally initiated military campaigns, particularly those that alienate world bodies and multilateral arrangements like the United Nations. This was a major point of contention between the neo-liberals and the neoconservatives in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The neo-liberal Establishment finds representation within Freedom House through individuals such as Samuel P. Huntington, Anthony Lake, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, and Zbigniew Brzezinski (“Freedom House”).

While the contention between neoconservatives and the neo-liberal Establishment is quite genuine, the dialectical commonalities shared by these two factions make their sectarian struggle somewhat superficial. Both factions promote the ascendancy of a supra-national entity to which all nation-states would be capriciously subordinated. In the case of neoconservativism, this supra-national entity would body itself forth through the imperialist machinations of a unilateral American Empire. As for the Establishment, this supra-national entity would be established multilaterally and hailed under the hopelessly romantic trope of “global governance.”

What attracts both of these factions to Freedom House is the organization's ability to facilitate imperialist campaigns through the exercise of what Joseph Nye, a neo-liberal and member of the elitist Trilateral Commission, refers to as “soft power.” Nye describes soft power as “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments” (x). Instead of outright bribes or military force, countries can be bent to the will of soft power practitioners through a subtle seduction. In his book Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, Nye writes: “When you get others to admire your ideals and want what you want, you do not have to spend as much on sticks and carrots to move them in your direction. Seduction is always more effective than coercion...” (x). Later in his book, Nye again describes soft power as a form of manipulation that involves the tempting of the target, stating: “Those who deny the importance of soft power are like people who do not understand the power of seduction” (8).

According to Nye, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) qualify as adept practitioners of soft power. As such, national governments find themselves locked in a rather delicate relational dynamic with NGOs. Because NGOs wield a considerable amount of political and social capital, this union stipulates both cooperation and guarded vigilance on the part of national governments. Nye explains: “...the information revolution has greatly enhanced NGO's soft power. Because they are able to attract followers, governments have to take NGOs into account as both allies and adversaries” (90). As an NGO, Freedom House must be regarded with the same sort of ambivalence. Unfortunately, Freedom House is currently viewed with far less suspicion. In fact, the American government has embraced Freedom House as an unquestioned ally. The alliance between government and NGOs such as Freedom House has led to private forces exerting an unhealthy influence on foreign policy and national politics.

Not surprisingly, Freedom House's use of soft power in other countries has drawn criticism. U.S. Representative Ron Paul is among those who object to Freedom House's interference in the domestic affairs of other nations. On December 7, 2004, Paul accused Freedom House of acting as a conduit for “one-sided U.S. funding” in the 2004 Ukrainian election. Paul stated:

...the U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), granted millions of dollars to the Poland-America-Ukraine Cooperation Initiative (PAUCI), which is administered by the U.S.-based Freedom House.

PAUCI then sent U.S. government funds to numerous Ukrainian non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This would be bad enough and would in itself constitute meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation. But, what is worse is that many of these grantee organizations in Ukraine are blatantly in favor of presidential candidate Viktor Yushenko. (“U.S. Hypocrisy on Ukraine”)

Guardian journalist Ian Traynor asserted that Freedom House was involved in the aiding of “grassroots campaigns” in Ukraine (“U.S. Campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev”). The foundation also manipulated public opinion using polls. In an article entitled “U.S. Campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev,” Traynor elaborates:

Freedom House and the Democratic party's NDI helped fund and organise the “largest civil regional election monitoring effort” in Ukraine, involving more than 1,000 trained observers. They also organised exit polls. On Sunday night those polls gave Mr. Yushchenko an 11-point lead and set the agenda for much of what has followed. (“U.S. campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev”)

Named the “Orange Revolution,” the series of protests and political events that took place from late November 2004 to January 2005 in Ukraine was one of many “color revolutions” that swept through the former Soviet Union and the Balkans. While western media organs portrayed the uprisings as organically occurring political phenomena, the involvement of deviant elites and criminalized portions of western governments and the intelligence community were detected and documented by many astute observers on both the left and right side of the political spectrum. Thierry Meyssan was among those observers, referring to the color revolutions as a “grassroots takeover technique” (“Color revolution fails in Iran”). Meyssan describes color revolutions in detail:

Color revolutions are to revolutions what Canada Dry is to beer. They look like the real thing, but they lack the flavor. They are regime changes which appear to be revolutions because they mobilize huge segments of the population but are more akin to takeovers, because they do not aim at changing social structures. Instead they aspire to replace an elite with another, in order to carry out pro-American economic and foreign policies. (ibid)

Meyssan's description of color revolutions is accurate with one crucial exception: the revolutionary changes are never “pro-American.” While American entities and resources may have been employed, it is a collection of elites that exist above government that benefit from the takeover. The only America that benefits from color revolutions is the imperialist model. The American republic only receives the negative results, like blowback and a poor international image.

The negative effects of color revolutions and NGO interference in other countries has not stop individuals in the government from making sure that Freedom House receives government funding. In a March 31, 2006 article in the Financial Times entitled “Bush enters debate on freedom in Iran,” Guy Dinmore asserts that Iran was another country that was a target of Freedom House interference. Dinmore identified Freedom House as “one of several organizations selected by the State Department to receive funding for clandestine activities in Iran” (“Bush enter debate on freedom in Iran”). Highlighting Freedom House's subversive and revolutionary nature, Dinmore cited one of the foundation's research studies, which states:

Far more often than is generally understood, the change agent is broad-based, non-violent civic resistance – which employs tactics such as boycotts, mass protests, blockades, strikes and civil disobedience to de-legitimate authoritarian rulers and erode their sources of support, including the loyalty of their armed defenders. (Qutd. in Dinmore)

Freedom House and its allied NGOs are employing soft power to facilitate what neoconservative Michael Ledeen calls “creative destruction.” An inherently revolutionary and subversive concept, creative destruction refers to the tearing down and rebuilding of every aspect of a society. Ledeen provides a frightening definition:

Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence - our existence, not our policies - threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission. (212-213)

Not unlike the 18th century revolutionaries, the interventionists want to see radical change and societal reconfiguration. Freedom House and its allied NGOs are tools for realizing that dream.

The National Endowment for Democracy: Human Rights, Covert Wrongs

Freedom House is only one entity in a network of governmental and non-governmental organizations that deviant elites use to conduct destabilization campaigns, reshape countries' political, social, and economic landscape, and punish recalcitrant national leaders and dictators. In a Haitianalysis.com article entitled “The Freedom House Files,” Diana Barahona points out a connection between Freedom House and an elite combine known as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Barahona states: “During the 1980s the organization (Freedom House) began to receive a majority of its grant income from the newly created NED (founded by Congress in 1983)...” (“The Freedom House Files”).

A Voltairenet.org article entitled “Freedom House: when 'freedom' is only a pretext,” contends that NED and Freedom House are both part of the same mechanism. This mechanism, as portrayed by the article, is to U.S. intervention what money launderers are to drug dealing. The article states: “The NED subsidizes Freedom House, which at the same time co-finances programs chosen by the NED thus erasing any traces of U.S. intervention” (“Freedom House: when 'freedom is only a pretext”).

The close relationship and monetary ties between Freedom House and the NED appear to have continued to the present. In its 2007 Annual Report, Freedom House lists NED as one of its donors (“Freedom House Annual Report 2007”).

Interestingly, the NED may have been seeding Egypt for a revolution since at least 2009. In an article for the NED 2009 Annual Report entitled “Middle East and North Africa Program Highlights 2009,” the NED reveals its involvement with various activist groups striving to bring political change to Egypt. The article states:

In Egypt, a new generation of civic groups and activists emerged in the midst of continued arrests of democracy activists. Civic groups, bloggers and emerging social networks built national coalitions in preparation for future parliamentary and presidential elections. NED-supported groups, such as the Justice and Citizenship Center for Human Rights, formed and trained a coalition of provincial civic organizations to mobilize and engage citizens in the upcoming elections. In preparation for these elections, the ruling party allocated a 64 seat quota for women. Accordingly, NED supported the National Association for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms (NADRF), which launched a campaign to train independent women candidates to run for parliament. (“Middle East and North Africa Program Highlights 2009”)

While some of these Egyptian activists may have been seeking legitimate social, economic, and political change, their efforts were being hijacked by an organization with sinister and nefarious motives. Over the years, the NED has gained a reputation among critics in both the left and right wings for draping covert action with a veil of “human rights.” In fact, Allen Weinstein, one of the drafters of the legislation that established the NED, was quoted in 1991 saying: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA” (Blum).

Not everyone has fallen for the NED's humanitarian mask. Representative Ron Paul has viewed the organization with considerably more discernment. In an October 11, 2003 article entitled “National Endowment for Democracy: Paying to Make Enemies of America,” Paul explains how the NED interferes in the political processes of other countries under the euphemistic banner of “democracy.” Paul states:

The misnamed National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is nothing more than a costly program that takes US taxpayer funds to promote favored politicians and political parties abroad. What the NED does in foreign countries, through its recipient organizations the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), would be rightly illegal in the United States. The NED injects "soft money" into the domestic elections of foreign countries in favor of one party or the other. Imagine what a couple of hundred thousand dollars will do to assist a politician or political party in a relatively poor country abroad. It is particularly Orwellian to call US manipulation of foreign elections "promoting democracy." How would Americans feel if the Chinese arrived with millions of dollars to support certain candidates deemed friendly to China? Would this be viewed as a democratic development? (“National Endowment for Democracy: Paying to Make Enemies of America”)

There are several examples of NED involvement in the political affairs of other nations that would lead many to surmise that the answer to Paul's question is “no.” In 1984, the NED provided funds to a presidential candidate in Panama who was supported by Manuel Noriega and the CIA (Blum). Controversy following this move prompted Congress to enact a “law prohibiting the use of NED funds 'to finance the campaigns of candidates for public office'” (ibid).

The NED, says William Blum, “successfully manipulated elections in Nicaragua in 1990 and Mongolia in 1996 and helped overthrow democratically elected governments in Bulgaria in 1990 and Albania in 1991 and 1992” (ibid). Serbia is yet another country that fell victim to a NED destabilization campaign. In a November 26, 2000 New York Times article entitled “Who Really Brought Down Milosevic,” Roger Cohen shares some damning admissions given to him during an interview with Paul B. McCarthy, an official with the NED. In 1999, McCarthy and his colleagues at the NED were looking for a Serbian opposition movement that could be used to destabilize Milosevic's government (“Who Really Brought Down Milosevic?”). The NED turned to Otpor, a student-led revolutionary group, as a candidate (ibid). McCarthy told Cohen that “the fascistic look” of Otpor's flag, with its closed fist logo, initially scared many NED officials (ibid). Several of the group's features, however, made the NED officials put their fears and reservations aside. Cohen shares some of those features:

Its flat organization would frustrate the regime's attempts to pick a target to hit or compromise; its commitment to enduring arrests and even police violence tended to shame the long-squabbling Serbian opposition parties into uniting; it looked more effective in breaking fear than any other group; it had a clear agenda of ousting Milosevic and making Serbia a ''normal'' European state; and it had the means to sway parents while getting out the critical vote of young people. (ibid)

McCarthy revealed to Cohen that large amounts of money from the NED began to flow into Otpor coffers around August 1999 (ibid). Almost $3 million were spent by the NED in Serbia and, according to McCarthy, “Otpor was certainly the largest recipient” (ibid). The NED funds were placed in Otpor's accounts outside of Serbia (ibid). McCarthy even “held a series of meetings with the movement's leaders in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, and in Szeged and Budapest in Hungary” (ibid).

The NED also played a role in the Iran-Contra Affair, considered one of the greatest political scandals in American history. Blum shares the details:

The Endowment played an important role in the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s, funding key components of Oliver North's shadowy "Project Democracy" network, which privatized US foreign policy, waged war, ran arms and drugs and engaged in other equally charming activities. At one point in 1987, a White House spokesman stated that those at NED "run Project Democracy". This was an exaggeration; it would have been more correct to say that NED was the public arm of Project Democracy, while North ran the covert end of things. In any event, the statement caused much less of a stir than if - as in an earlier period - it had been revealed that it was the CIA which was behind such an unscrupulous operation. (“Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy”)

NED may have even found its way into the hands of a recognized terrorist. Between 1990 and 1992, the Cuban-American National Fund (CANF), a group described by Blum as an “ultra-fanatic anti-Castro Miami group,” received a quarter-million dollars of taxpayers’ money from the NED (ibid). In turn, Luis Posada Carriles, who Blum calls “one of the most prolific and pitiless terrorists of modern times,” was a recipient of CANF financing (ibid).

The Apotheosis of George Soros

In Freedom House’s 2007 Annual Report, the Open Society Institute is listed as one of the foundation’s donors (“Freedom House Annual Report 2007). At its website, the Open Society is described as a foundation founded by George Soros, a Hungarian-American investor and chairman of the Soros Fund Management, LLC, “to help countries make the transition from communism” (“About the Open Society Foundations”). One of the richest men in the world, Soros gained a reputation as a stalwart opponent of the Bush Administration in 2003. In particular, Soros derided Bush’s transparent militarism and unilateral approach. Yet, while Soros decried Bush’s meddlesome foreign policy, he shares the former President’s adherence to the interventionist outlook. The point of departure is Soros’ emphasis upon a soft power approach to conquest. Neil Clark elaborates on this point of departure:

Soros is angry not with Bush's aims - of extending Pax Americana and making the world safe for global capitalists like himself - but with the crass and blundering way Bush is going about it. By making US ambitions so clear, the Bush gang has committed the cardinal sin of giving the game away. For years, Soros and his NGOs have gone about their work extending the boundaries of the "free world" so skillfully that hardly anyone noticed. Now a Texan redneck and a gang of overzealous neo-cons have blown it.

As a cultivated and educated man (a degree in philosophy from the London School of Economics, honorary degrees from the Universities of Oxford, Yale, Bologna and Budapest), Soros knows too well that empires perish when they overstep the mark and provoke the formation of counter-alliances. He understands that the Clintonian approach of multilateralism - whereby the US cajoles or bribes but never does anything so crude as to threaten - is the only one that will allow the empire to endure. Bush's policies have led to a divided Europe, Nato in disarray, the genesis of a new Franco-German-Russian alliance and the first meaningful steps towards Arab unity since Nasser.

Soros knows a better way - armed with a few billion dollars, a handful of NGOs and a nod and a wink from the US State Department, it is perfectly possible to topple foreign governments that are bad for business, seize a country's assets, and even to get thanked for your benevolence afterwards. Soros has done it. (Clark)

As was previously stated, the dialectical commonalities between the unilateral and multilateral forms of interventionism render sectarian struggles such as those between Bush and Soros rather superficial. In both instances, the nation-state system is weakened and an onerous supra-national authority is enshrined. Democratic governance does not fare well in either case.

The Open Society’s activities “have grown to encompass the United States and more than 70 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America” (“About the Open Society Foundation”). Waving an extremely euphemistic banner, Soros and his institute claims to “work to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens” (ibid).