America needs a Guarantor

By Pablo Ouziel

In an interview with The Washington Post on November 11, 2003, George Soros
said that removing President George W. Bush from office was the “central
focus of my life” and “a matter of life and death.” He said he would
sacrifice his entire fortune to defeat President Bush, “if someone
guaranteed it”.

Again in 2006, during an interview with Charlie Rose, when Charlie asked him
about that particular statement, with the following question; “You would
have gladly given away ninety percent of your fortune in a minute?” Soros
replied; “One hundred percent, because I think it would have made a
tremendous contribution to mankind.”

According to Forbes Magazine in March 2007, George Soros´s net worth stood
at 8.5 billion U.S dollars and placed him as the 80th richest man in the
world, surely this sum should be enough to creatively remove President Bush
from office. I am surprised that in a country which prides itself on its
entrepreneurship, intellect and creativity, where garage start-ups with tiny
financial sums are part of the corporate culture and many have gone on to
become world leading multinationals, there are no entrepreneurs available to
draft a concise and effective strategy to guarantee George Bush’s removal
from office, supported by Soros’s 8.5 billion dollar fund.

Great institutions and organizations have been born and bred as part of the
American dream, a dream which George Bush is rapidly replacing with a vision
of war, destruction, carelessness, genocide, poverty, and the much dreaded
police state more commonly attributed to dictatorial states but definitely
gaining ground in America’s formal democracy.

Of course on Bush’s obtuse vision of the world hinges America’s credibility,
world leadership, free thought and the ability for future creative
entrepreneurship, all necessary attributes to sustain Americas real
influence in world affairs.

Soros brilliantly emphasized this reality during his time with Charlie Rose
with the following words; ” People I think don’t really realize how much
power and influence we have lost, in how short a time, and how really dismal
the direction in Iraq is, that everyday you see the situation deteriorating,
so this could have been avoided with a different leadership.”

Perhaps those entrepreneurs whose quest of building powerful corporations
have been realized, people like Gates, Jobs and Schultz can remain in their
high horses enjoying their success and expanding their know-how to other
markets, but maybe those younger ones out there working on their start-up
plans for the corporations and organizations of the future, should look at
the world for what it is, and expand their minds to place Bush in our
historical time period.

Maybe with this analysis in motion, the ‘stream of consciousness’ will flow
in America’s future leaders and their five-year plans asking for venture
capital or grants, will become visionary strategies to guarantee the ousting
of Bush and the continuation of the great American dream.

If Americans wants to continue being a source of inspiration to the world, a
rapid change of mood is required. Granted all evils will not be removed by
ousting this president, much work needs to be done within America’s reality
in order for it to become what it has so eloquently preached. But there can
be no doubt in my mind after studying the recent history of America since
2001, that Americans are being short-changed by their political and
financial leaders and that the rest of the world is suffering from
Americans’ lack of ‘political will’.

Just like a good plan to raise venture capital or secure a grant would
require good leadership and strategy, together with solid advise from
seasoned professionals, ousting Bush and defending the American dream, will
require committed activists with a solid strategy and the guiding hand of
lucid intellectuals.

People like Noam Chomsky, Norman G. Finkelstein, Howard Zinn, Tim Wise,
Jeffrey Sachs, James Petras, Ramzy Baroud and Edward S. Herman could be
amongst the list of advisory board member for such a quest. After all,
looking at the current state of the world, this seems like the time for
coming together. Edward Said in 1993 expressed in a very clear way that this
day could maybe arise; “I feel we all have different audiences in different
constituencies. Just performing acts of routine solidarity, or mindless
loyalty, strikes me as not interesting, not important. Although there may be
a time for it.”

If I was an American entrepreneur or an American activist I would jump at
the chance which Soros has put on the table and would work on the plan to
guarantee the ousting of Bush. After all, how many times in your life do you
get the chance to spend 8,5 billion dollars to put a derailed society back
on track, and all of this without having to focus on financial
profitability. However, since I am Spanish and the Spanish empire has long
vanished, all I can do is point out the facts, hoping American colleagues
will decide it is time to act.

-Pablo Ouziel is an activist and a free lance writer based in Spain. His
work has appeared in many progressive media including Znet, Palestine
Chronicle, Thomas Paine¹s Corner and Atlantic Free Press.