But all the malefactors of great wealth were there plotting their schemes - Soros says be patient:
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."Phoenix Group"? SPECTRE is much cooler!
The Scottsdale, Ariz., meeting, called to start the process of building an ideas production line for liberal politicians, began what organizers hope will be a long dialogue with the “partners,” many from the high-tech industry. Participants have begun to refer to themselves as the Phoenix Group.
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.I'm a tad puzzled why something new is required since they already control academia and most of the media and large foundations; run a variety of nonprofit front groups; and have such hoary leftoid thinktanks as the Brookings Institution and the Institute for Policy Studies to carry their water.
Sarah Ingersoll, de facto spokeswoman for Stein’s Democracy Alliance, said it was “a very preliminary meeting of committed donors interested in building a community to support progressive infrastructure.”See, I knew they wouldn't forget their old flying monkey pals! And what better way to say you care, than some freshly laundered greenbacks!
The Democracy Alliance will act as a clearinghouse and is expected to channel much of its money to new organizations and existing ones such as John Podesta’s Center for American Progress and David Brock’s Media Matters for America.
Meanwhile, at SPECTRE's biggest subsidiary:
Senior Democratic National Committee (DNC) officials were quietly briefed about the meeting in recent weeks. DNC Chairman Howard Dean was aware of it, in part though his friendship with Stein, but one senior DNC source said the organizers “kept that list [of attendees] kind of tight.”I like the training camps idea, myself. We'll just call 'em The Soros Youth.
...
One source at the DNC with direct knowledge of the agenda said that the Phoenix Group had three specific goals at the outset. It wants to create liberal think tanks, training camps for young progressives and media centers.
