RUTHFULLY YOURS

If you wake up with a spearmint-fresh brain that hasn’t read a magazine, seen a newscast or exchanged what’s been happening, you could be excused  for being charmed and seduced by the programs offered by the Open Society Foundations, a “rights” organization that bills itself as a grant-making association formed by billionaire George Soros in 1993.

Materials available at the entrance to his Open Society building lobby assert that Soros is one of the world’s biggest philanthropists, having given away, his materials say, over $32 billion. Recipients of his international meddling would have other nomenclatures for this.

Offered at the Open Society every few weeks are slide-ameliorated talks on issues of concern to mostly Third World countries.  And, of course, progressive Democrats.

The recent one, was held, as are most, at Soros’ luxe building on West 57^th off Broadway. The topic, which was preceded by a color documentary of some 20 minutes’ duration in Spanish (English subtitles, mostly), was titled: “The Industrialization of Coca.”  The lecture title could have been interpreted as a criticism of coca leaves’ commercialization. But it wasn’t. Instead, four panelists, a translator, and a moderator spoke of the many medicinal and commercial uses of coca leaves, trying to dispel the taint that instantly accompanies the noun coca.

On page 17 of a 68-page brochure* richly illustrated with graphs, black-and-white images, and reference tables, there is a table comparing the nutritional offerings of coca with lentils, beans, corn and plantains. The five parameters include crude protein, phosphorus, calcium, potassium, and iron, all in milligrams. Coca does indeed, from the table, stand up to scrutiny and comparison, coming in just under lentils and beans in all but potassium, and comes in far higher than all in iron (55.8 mg), more than eight times the nearest contender, lentils. And coca comes in with more than four times as much phosphorus as lentils and beans, as well as 16 times the next nearest contender, beans, in calcium.

Another table provides other elements of the bland leaf (all recorded in dry base, which refers to the dehydrated vegetal matter submitted to labs for analysis):  Neutral detergent fiber, acid detergent fiber, cellulose,  hemicellulose, ashes, carbs, lignans, and humidity. These, from a 2015 study, comparing results to a prior 1975 study on the same lab protocols.

So it would appear that in fact, properly handled, coca is indeed  a valuable addition to the medicine-  and pharmacopoeia shelf.

The documentary displays leathery farmers and their equally worn wives planting, tending, reaping, and preparing coca plants in South America. It is emphasized that banning their bread and butter will impoverish the men women and children making their living in the fields for generations.

You enter,  if your name is listed on a sheet perused by a kindly pewter-haired gentleman Cerberus, who directs you along the hall and then down the stairs some 20 steps, to a large, well-lit series of rooms off a reception area.

There, before any talks begin, a bright white anteroom is spread with 15 different  kinds of delicious hors d’oeuvres, from cunning dim sum to shredded salads to fish balls and dip. A barista at the far end of the room dispenses wine, sparkling water, soda, and juice.

All of this is free, for every talk given. There is quite the selection of pony-tailed and man–bunned superannuated hippies, leftists and grad students making themselves platefuls. And having seconds.

It’s not hard to see why people would gravitate to a free buffet spread and beverages, all free, all seemingly limitless.

So seduction begins the moment you get down the stairs and scarf the food and drink. The panelists are accredited, many having ‘advanced degrees’ and living in the countries under discussion. At the coca talk, one of the main speakers spoke only in Spanish, translated paragraphs later by a interpreter in good English. She went on many sentences too long, however, before the translator recited her words in English.

After the hour-long presentation, extended with Q & A, the visitor can go back out to the food and get thirds, and solicit more wine or soft drinks.

When you leave, upstairs at the turnstiles going out, there is a glass jar with dozens of colored jelly beans you can scoop out and plop into your mouth, en route home. Everywhere you look are snazzy brochure stands and expensively produced handouts telling you where else the Soros hand goes: Hungary. Romania. Italy. Germany. France. South America and some African countries.

These fora are just a slim slice of the Soros empire. The billionaire has initiatives of all sorts on much higher levels, costing many millions of his vast fortune.

One of his initiatives, co-produced with Barack Obama when he was president, but apparently still chugging away beneath the radar, tried to shoehorn homeless and poor into every community, so as to disperse the poor and give a fair shake to those not as wealthy as the reviled 1%. This initiative cost nearly $1 million in one year, but it has met, not surprisingly, with opposition.

One wonders whether Obama and Soros themselves would be included in these forced neighborhoods.

The attempt, always, is to close the gap in wealth, to lower the prerogatives of the haves, and bring the poor into comity with the money and real estate, ideally, of the wealthy.

If you are a leftist, it is heaven on a stick. Food, leftist cant, no questions of attendee fealty asked, and the promise of more to come. All it costs is your acquiescence and yea vote. If or when it ever comes to that.

Not a word is broached about Soros’ financial dealings to bankrupt allies [notably, England] and make pocket change for the benefactor of the wild leftists. Few words are mumbled about his interfering in elections here and abroad.

Nothing is noted about his acts as a teenager reportedly collaborating with the Nazis to throw Jews out of their centuries-old homes and “liberate” their property and assets. Recently, Roseanne Barr made mention of Soros’ Nazi past, and the leftist media called her allusions “anti-Semitic” assertions. First, Roseanne is herself Jewish. Secondly, Soros is famously repulsed by and rejects anything resembling being called or being referred to as Jewish. He is notably anti-Zionist, and always has been.

He has boasted “If I did not do it, someone else would have.” No apology. No shame.

Expunged in the minds of the eager hangers-on who flock to Open Society events, buy into his continental meddling, or take a subsumed but potential hand in Soros’ nefarious doings as they age up is any hint of questioning about any of this free-for-all subversion take-down philosophy.