A worldwide web of the wealthy and powerful

Jeremy Shapiro 

A number of British newspapers have reported comments made by Jeremy Shapiro at the Cheltenham Literature Festival about the 'special relationship' between the USA and the United Kingdom.

Shapiro, who worked as an adviser to Barack Obama, said that the relationship was unrequited and that US officials would make jokes about it behind the scenes.

I could well believe that Barack Obama's administration took that view and I am sure we all remember how Obama turned up to support David Cameron's failed campaign to win the referendum to stay in the European Union.  That US president wanted to deny us OUR 'independence day'.

But what about the man making the claim?  The newspaper report state that Jeremy Shapiro worked as an adviser in the US State Department under Obama and now works as research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

I must admit that I had never heard of Jeremy Shapiro or the European Council on Foreign Relations so I decided to browse aroudn on the internet for some background information.

The ECFR is a private pan-European think-tank, which I would describe as internationalist liberal elite.  It is funded by private donations; so who is it that 'pays the piper', because very often whoever 'pays the piper, calls the tunes'?

It seems that the ECFR was established with the support of Open Society Foundations, Communitas Foundation and Fundacion Para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Dialogo Exterior (FRIDE).

George Soros - multi-billionaire

Its partners and funders are foundations, corporations, governments and individuals.

FRIDE closed down in 2015 for financial reasons but Open Society Foundations is still very much alive and active.  It was founded in 1993 by the culturally-subversive George Soros and may be the largest 'philanthropic' organisation ever established, with branches in 37 countries.

Soros was educated at the London School of Economics where he was a student of the Marxist Karl Popper and today he is a business magnate worth more than $25 billion.  He is a multi-billionaire and uses his wealth to influence politics in many countries.  He advocates a federal Europe, opposes Israel,  backs euthanasia and has supported more liberal drug laws in America.

This is just a small insight into the worldwide-web of the wealthy and powerful and the organisations and institutions they use to promote their worldview.  It is a world about which most of us know very little and I suppose that is the way they want it.