The Scouring of the Shire: George Soros Plays Sharkey

"The Elder Days are gone. The Middle Days are passing. The Younger Days are beginning. The time of the Elves is over, but our time is at hand: the world of Men, which we must rule. But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see."

Saruman, FotR

"George Soros told a carefully vetted gathering of 70 likeminded millionaires and billionaires last weekend that they must be patient if they want to realize long-term political and ideological yields from an expected massive investment in “startup” progressive think tanks (…) Rob Stein, a veteran of President Bill Clinton’s Commerce Department and of New York investment banking, convened the meeting of venture capitalists, left-leaning moneymen and a select few D.C. strategists on how to seed pro-Democratic think tanks, media outlets and leadership schools to compete with such entrenched conservative institutions as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Leadership Institute."

"One would think that our journalists, who profess a commitment to the Bill of Rights, would raise the alarm. But they're too busy filling out grant applications to the Soros Open Society Institute."

"Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet."

’No!’ said Merry. ‘It’s no good “getting under cover”. That is just what people have been doing, and just what these ruffians like. They will simply come down on us in force, corner us, and then drive us out, or burn us in. No, we’ve got to do something at once!’

‘Do what?’ said Pippin.

‘Raise the Shire!’ said Merry. ‘Now! Wake all our people! They hate all this, you can see: all of them except perhaps one or two rascals, and a few fools that want to be important, but don’t at all understand what is really going on. But Shire-folk have been so comfortable so long, they don’t know what to do. They just want a match though, and they’ll go up in fire. The Chief’s Men must know that. They’ll try to stamp on us and put us out quick. We’ve only got a very short time.’

"A highly respected currency speculator, he once shorted the British Pound for a one day gain in excess of $1 billion."

"Known as "the man who almost broke the Bank of England," Soros engaged in a complex financial transaction that resulted in the Bank of England losing billions of dollars defending the British pound before having to devalue it. He is essentially a manipulator of money, able to bet that currencies of nations will rise or fall while he makes billions in the process."

"George Soros: A Bridge to Radicalism -- Soros Funds a Leftwing Network Addressing Media, Legal and Social Issues" (pdf, via Frontpagemag.com)

’I’m sorry, Mr. Merry,’ said Hob, ‘but it isn’t allowed.’

‘What isn’t allowed?’

‘Taking in folk off-hand like, and eating extra food, and all that,’ said Hob.

‘What’s the matter with the place?’ said Merry. ‘Has it been a bad year, or what? I thought it had been a fine summer and harvest.’

‘Well, no, the year’s been good enough,’ said Hob. ‘We grows a lot of food but we don’t rightly know what becomes of it. It’s all these “gatherers” and “sharers”, I reckon, going around and counting and measuring and taking off to storage. They do more gathering than sharing, and we never see most of the stuff again.’

"It would seem that Terri Schiavo had the misfortune to be targeted as a test case for a wide-reaching change in medical policy. That, I believe, is why her would-be killers - those in black robes as well as white ones - run roughshod over the law with such fearless confidence. Powerful forces stand behind them. Hundreds of billions of dollars in future medical entitlements are at stake."

"Compassion in Dying, a Hemlock spinoff founded in 1993 to surreptitiously assist in suicides, is also broadening its mandate. Originally a local group in Seattle, it has metastasized into the Compassion in Dying Federation of America, funded in part by billionaire George Soros, who has donated at least $350,000 to various of its constituent groups."

"This brings me to that hotly debated subject, physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. This is the one aspect of dying that is talked about everywhere -- on television, in public forums, in newspaper headlines, and serious journal articles. Voters in Oregon just approved a law that makes it the first state to lift the prohibition against physician-assisted suicide.

As the son of a mother who was member of the Hemlock Society, and as a reader of Plato's Phaedra, I cannot but approve. But I must emphasize that I am speaking in my personal capacity and not on behalf of the Board of the Project on Death in America."

There was no beer and very little food, but with what the travelers brought and shared out they all made a fair meal; and Pippin broke Rule 4 by putting most of the next day’s allowance of wood on the fire.

‘Well, now, what about a smoke, while you tell us what has been happening in the Shire?’ he said.

‘There isn’t no pipeweed now,’ said Hob; ‘at least, only for the Chief’s men. All the stocks seem to have gone. We do hear that wagon-loads of it went away down the old road out of the Southfarthing, over Sarn Ford way. That would be the end o’ last year, after you left. But it had been going away quietly before that, in a small way…’

‘What’s all this?’ said Frodo, feeling inclined to laugh.

‘This is what it is, Mr. Baggins,’ said the leader of the Shirrifs, a two-feather hobbit: ‘You’re arrested for Gate-breaking, and Tearing up of Rules, and Assaulting Gate-keepers, and Trespassing, and Sleeping in Shire-buildings without Leave, and Bribing Guards with Food.’

’You little folk are getting too uppish. Don’t you trust too much in the Boss’s kind heart. Sharkey’s come now, and he’ll do what Sharkey says.’

‘And what may that be?’ said Frodo quietly.

‘This country wants waking up and setting to rights,’ said the ruffian, ‘and Sharkey’s going to do it; and make it hard, if you drive him to it. You need a bigger Boss. And you’ll get one before the year is out, if there’s any more trouble. Then you’ll learn a thing or two, you little rat-folk.’