Summary: Bill Gates' latest investments in patents pay off as the press plays along; Monsanto intersects the Gates Foundation, staff wise

THE lesser-known acts of the Gates Foundation were covered here before. It's not a charity as much as it is a private investment vehicle. Gates' portfolio includes hated companies like Monsanto [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] and the pharmaceutical industry which empties the pockets of dying individuals. It's about their patents, not their production of drugs [1, 2, 3].

“The articles about Gates vaccines in Africa are shameless propaganda with made up figures...”Earlier today readers told us about the latest public relations nonsense from the commercially-owned press that does not understand investment in one's own pharmaceutical patents. That would be Gates. The articles about Gates vaccines in Africa are shameless propaganda with made up figures, quite frankly as usual, just like with the copyright cartel (when it tries to appeal to politicians). They are sticking to the usual tricks. Putting value on these drugs is like putting a price on software that can be duplicated. They don't look at the actual manufacturing costs, which are relatively negligible. These drugs in Africa not only create a dependency but they also increase demand in the "premium" market, where the same drugs are sold at extortionate costs. Since Bill Gates and his wife invest in the same companies that benefit from this, it's just a cycle. We showed this many times before using hard evidence.

Gates is very well known (or notorious) for his deliberate confusions between libre and gratis. He is pretending to have embraced the practice of giveaways, but in fact he is giving away just lock-in (handcuffs), which is his long-term investment, conveniently disguised as a gift. To use a recent quote:

"There's free software and then there’s open source... there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with."

--Bill Gates, April 2008

He is in favour of "free samples" (with limitations) and against sharing, even where there is natural abundance and no scarcity. Red Hat's new Web site, OpenSource.com, has just published the article 'Bill Gates talks "free education"' and wisely enough it states:

It's the difference between "free beer" and "free speech" -- which is a difference that we understand extremely well in our little corner of the world.

This is typical. And actually, it's rather evil given how he uses this deception to make bigger profit (while arrogantly claiming to do "charity"). See for example:

1. Bill Gates Puts in a Million to Ratify His Role as Education Minister
2. How the Gates Foundation is Used to Ensure Children Become Microsoft Clients
3. More Dubious Practices from the Gates Foundation
4. Microsoft Builds Coalitions of NGOs, Makes Political and Educational Changes
5. Microsoft's EDGI in India: Fighting GNU/Linux in Education
6. Microsoft's Gates Seeks More Monopolies
7. Gates Foundation Funds Blogs to Promote Its Party Line
8. Microsoft Bribes to Make Education Microsoft-based
9. Lobbyists Dodge the Law; Bill Gates Lobbies the US Education System with Another $10 Million
10. Gates Investments in Education Criticised; Monsanto (Gates-Backed) Corruption Revisited
11. Latest Vista 7 Failures and Microsoft Dumping

Since Monsanto was brought up, worth mentioning are Gates' attempts to push Monsanto seeds into Africa. This is done for profit and it is connected to Gates' investment in other patents on life (mostly the pharmaceutical cartel, whose crimes are beyond the scope of this post). Edward S. Herman wrote in "The Banality of Evil" that there is this practice of "normalising the unthinkable" and that is precisely what Gates is doing here. While robbing impoverished populations he pretends to be helping.

As the following article from earlier this month states (it is titled "Gates Foundation = Monsanto"), "Gates Foundations = Monsanto now even more than ever." Here is some of the latest evidence:

Gates Foundations = Monsanto now even more than ever. I should refine that statement. Gates Foundation = in favor of a pro-biotech, for-profit, unsustainable, scary, powerful approach to "feeding the world" (a.k.a. lining corporate pockets). And they have many ties to Monsanto including a brand new one. They just filled Rajiv Shah's old job with Sam Dryden.

[...]

Sustainability? Crop diversity? Food security? Are they joking? Also note that he's got some Green Revolution credentials in there with his work with CGIAR and the Rockefeller Foundation. Then there's his work with the World Bank and the Council on Foreign Relations. It's not terribly surprising that Gates picked him really. The Gates Foundation just formally joined CGIAR, and Sylvia Mathews Burwell (Dryden's new boss) is on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Also new: "Gates Foundation throws its lot with agribusiness, by Tom Philpott"

For a while, the Gates Foundation sought to avoid a reputation as a cheerleader for biotech “solutions” to Africa’s agriculture troubles.

Sure, our nation’s best-funded foundation hired a former Monsanto exec, Rob Horsch, as a program officer. But its official ag-development documents (see, for example, this one) brim with statements on the importance of small-scale farming—a wise idea, given that a majority of Africa’s residents rely on small-scale farming for their sustenance.

And the foundation lavished some cash—a small amount, relatively—on appropriate-tech, farmer-friendly, ecologically sound initiatives.

Then Bill Gates himself gave his blunt pro-biotech speech in October 2009—which I commented on here—at the awards ceremony of the industrial-ag-friendly World Food Prize.

Lastly, here is an excellent in-death article about Monsanto and Gates' inter-personal relationships:

Michael R. Taylor’s appointment by the Obama administration to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on July 7th sparked immediate debate and even outrage among many food and agriculture researchers, NGOs and activists. The Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto Corp. from 1998 until 2001, Taylor exemplifies the revolving door between the food industry and the government agencies that regulate it. He is reviled for shaping and implementing the government’s favorable agricultural biotechnology policies during the Clinton administration.

Yet what has slipped under everyone’s radar screen is Taylor’s involvement in setting U.S. policy on agricultural assistance in Africa. In collusion with the Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates foundations, Taylor is once again the go-between man for Monsanto and the U.S. government, this time with the goal to open up African markets for genetically-modified (GM) seed and agrochemicals.

[...]

The Rockefeller Foundation funded the first Green Revolution in Asia and Latin America in the 1960s, and in 2006, teamed up with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to launch the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). In Taylor’s 2003 paper “American Patent Policy, Biotechnology, and African Agriculture: The Case for Policy Change,” he states: “The Green Revolution largely bypassed sub-Saharan Africa…African farmers often face difficult growing conditions, and better access to the basic Green Revolution tools of fertilizer, pesticides, improved seeds, and irrigation certainly can play an important role in improving their productivity.”

[...]

The “penultimate draft” of Taylor’s 2002 paper was reviewed by Dr. Robert Horsch, a Monsanto executive for more than 25 years, who left in 2006 to work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It states, “The ultimate concern of this report is how innovative seed technology derived from patented tools of biotechnology can be developed and disseminated for the benefit of small-scale and subsistence African farmers.”

[...]

As it arrived in D.C., the Obama Administration received a report from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs titled “Renewing American Leadership in the Fight Against Hunger and Poverty: The Chicago Initiative on Global Agricultural Development.” The report was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and co-authored by its senior fellow Catherine Bertini. “The United States should thus remain willing to support research on all forms of modern crop biotechnology by local scientists in Sub-Saharan Africa,” it reads.

[...]

While people have been debating about whether Michael R. Taylor might support labeling of GM foods (as he is aware, a moot point in the U.S. due to widespread contamination by GM pollen), he has been literally writing the book on U.S. agricultural aid to Africa. While the motives, beliefs and interests of Taylor, the Obama administration, the Gates, Rockefellers and everyone in support of a Green Revolution in Africa are debatable, those of Monsanto are not.

A few years older is the following reference from philanthropy.com:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has invested at least $8.7-billion in companies that undercut the organization’s philanthropic efforts or that engage in socially irresponsible activities, reports the Los Angeles Times, in a two-part article on the grant maker and its investments.

Those who never watched videos from these reporters should see them now. And for those who do not understand the financial relationship between the West and the developing world, here is a concise introduction from a well-known reporter. For obvious reasons, this is not the material children are taught at school or shown on CNN.com (even though it's factual). It's not good for national pride and one's consciousness. ⬆

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