09.30.10
Increased Opposition to Bill Gates/Microsoft Exploitation of Schools, Shameless PR Explained
Summary: More overlap is shown between Gates’ plot to change schools and Microsoft’s use of schools to indoctrinate young people; the role played by money that Gates passes to the education press (and other PR efforts) gets dissected and shown for scepticism to be justified
THE tax-exempt Gates Foundation is a lot more sinister than PR would have people believe. It operates just like a business and it has a business-like agenda. Watch this new video which helps explain the effect of rich people paying too little tax (or no tax in Gates’ case) on the US economy. That is what happens in a system which is influenced heavily by lobbyists, who get hired by those most able to afford them (Microsoft and Gates still lobby a lot to change tax laws).
“It gives Bill enormous lobbying power, which in turn he uses to benefit companies he invests in.”To put it in simplified terms, the foundation (just a name for Bill’s bank account, which gives it tax exemptions) is building a brand, the “Bill Gates” brand. It gives Bill enormous lobbying power, which in turn he uses to benefit companies he invests in. In a future post we will give more new examples of this.
One area that Microsoft relies on to keep its monopoly going is the school system. As noted this morning, Microsoft indoctrinates children at taxpayers’ expense, using children to sway an office’s choice of software and using teachers as a training workforce for Windows™ and Office™, among other proprietary software products from Microsoft®.
In order to keep schools under strict control by the likes of Gates (schools become increasingly digital over time), there is an intense lobbying campaign which children’s parents and to a certain extent teachers too are protesting against. Arne Duncan is now named as part of the problem.
The first article in this week’s New Yorker questions the ‘gold standards’ and personality cults that have been built up around education reform. The Gates Foundation is not specifically mentioned …
And then Arne Duncan was profiled in the weekend magazine. It doesn’t say what school Arne sends his “little guys” to. Private or public?
The cited articles are both from New York and we are going to come across Arne Duncan later on in this post.
As we pointed out last week, Bill Gates uses singing star Legend to further his personal agenda in schools. He also uses PR around films for lobbying. Is it not funny that Gates wishes to change public schools while he sends his kids to private schools? Here is the sort of brainwash that comes from the film (this article is from a critic):
Education movie points the wrong way for change
[...]
The film suggests public education is failing and points in the wrong directions for change. The filmmakers have not done their homework. They universalize a very specific U.S. experience and engage in simplistic and divisive finger-pointing at teachers, at a time when education needs collaboration and respect for teaching as a profession. An opportunity lost.
It is clear that Gates’ attempt to toy with education systems is not welcomed, which is why the brainwash is needed. Gates has spent hundreds of millions of dollars advertising the change he wants. There is nothing to be admired when it comes to PR, which simply collides with reality, it rarely complements it.
The blog Seattle Education 2010 is pleased to have a forum with Diane Ravitch, who is a well known critic of Gates’ dangerous experimentation with school systems [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Here is another new post about this forum and a reminder from Dora Taylor that privatisation by Bill Gates spells trouble for pupils and their teachers (it gives Gates a lot of control over them):
Dora Taylor is a parent of a high school student at a public school in Seattle, Washington, and is an architect and teacher. In response to school closures in the Seattle Public School system, Dora and her co-editor, Sue Peters, started the blog Seattle Education 2010 to report on and analyze education issues, and to protect the Seattle public school system from the corporate model and privatization efforts of the Gates Foundation, headquartered in Seattle.
Gates’ lobbying carried on in Memphis, whose schools he is trying to change not by contributing much in terms of assets; it’s all PR, it’s usually about communication, i.e. signaling to other states that they too should want the same type of school ‘reform’. From this new editorial:
That’s why spending some of that money on marketing makes sense. The effort to upgrade teaching in the district could be enhanced by the school board’s decision to spend $310,000 this year and perhaps more in the future to develop ways to help Memphians understand where the $90 million Gates grant is going.
To better understand what goes on in Memphis schools, see our previous posts which touched on the subject, e.g.:
- Boston Globe Writes About Gates’ Dangerous Influence on US Education, Memphis Provides New Example
- Gates Foundation Accused of “Steer[ing] State and National Policy in Education” (Monopolising Schools)
- Gates Roundup: Monsanto, Colonisation, Clinton Ties, and Control of Education
- How the Gates Foundation Blocks GNU/Linux and Free Software in National Libraries, Then Inherits Education
- “Both Sen. Williams and Mr. Gates Do a Great Disservice to the Hundreds of Thousands of Students and Teachers”
- The World According to Gates: Constructing a System of Profitable Philanthropy
- More Dubious Practices from the Gates Foundation
- Microsoft Builds Coalitions of NGOs, Makes Political and Educational Changes
- Microsoft and the Gates Foundation Inherit More Roles of the US Department of Education
- Bill Gates and Microsoft Use Government Support to Turn Public Schools Into Private Business
- Gates Foundation Still Sponsors Blogs That Praise Its Work, Lobbies Governments, Takes Over School Districts
There is a huge amount of education-flavoured PR going on (more PR from AP) and Gates pays for it because there will be returns, there are simply gains to be made. In order to promote his agenda in schools, Gates’ staff has arranged for him to appear on Oprah’s show and Microsoft is of course directly involved in these efforts too, in order to indoctrinate children. Julie Bort from IDG’s Microsoft Subnet has this new article titled “Bill Gates, Microsoft call on you to contribute to education reform” and “Microsoft [is] selected by Demi and Ashton,” says another headline. We have already given many other examples where Gates’ involvement in a so-called ‘reform’ is directly benefiting Microsoft, which he co-founded and still have shares of. The Gates Foundation is to Microsoft what in some sense CodePlex Foundation/Outercurve is to Microsoft.
Dora from Seattle Education 2010 proceeds to writing on the subject of Arne Duncan, whom we mentioned earlier. What Dora may not know is that the article she cites comes from a Gates-sponsored (and thus biased) source. Yes, it’s true. Education Week is sponsored by Gates to glorify him as it so often does [1, 2]. She opens as follows: “In the mindless march towards privatization of our public schools through the edicts of Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top agenda, the least among us who Duncan, Broad and Gates claim to be helping are the students most damaged by their plans for a charter school in every pot.”
“Education Week is sponsored by Gates to glorify him as it so often does.”A lot of people are still not realising that Gates now owns/contributes to a lot of the education press and thus he can better control what people think. It’s not just Education Week as we have given many other examples. It’s not just about education press, either. The popular progressive British newspaper (Guardian), for example, was recently 'bought' by the Gates Foundation to promote its agenda in the under-developed world. No wonder Gates is now advertised in all the relevant articles (see top banner), which also promote his agenda, e.g. in this new example. According to this disclosure (The Guardian at least does not hide the fact that Gates pays it), it is revealed that it’s a 5-year ‘bribe’. “Gates Foundation to contribute to site funding until 2015,” says this update and “[i]t is envisaged that the Gates Foundation will contribute financially to the new site up to 2015 as part of its commitment to the millennium development goals.” Watch/listen to what the Gates-funded NPR is saying about Gates right now [1, 2]. NPR lost all credibility because of the money on its table. More NPR propaganda is being used to promote the Gates agenda under the guise of “national” radio (national but privatised). This includes help to abusive companies like Monsanto. We have already given many other examples where NPR promoted Gates and companies he invested in after Gates had ‘donated’ millions to NPR.
It is too easy to get distracted by puff pieces like this one (“I will not leave $53B fortune to kids, says Bill Gates”). It’s just one pointless article amongst others of its kind [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] which tell no news (been heard many times since almost a decade ago, thus it’s just PR about his children, reiterated).
“Gates is getting richer while being portrayed as a giver and the middle class still vanishes (widening gap between rich and poor).”To put things in perspective, Gates has been saying this and spreading such a fairy tale for ages, all of it while not paying taxes. He is still getting richer based on Forbes’ list (so much for retirement or giveaways), so how is that promise of not leaving a fortune to his kids being fulfilled since he first made it about a decade ago? Gates is getting richer while being portrayed as a giver and the middle class still vanishes (widening gap between rich and poor). Well, maybe this newly-updated list is the reason for repeating old news and getting people off his back. Microsoft Nick and many others have spread the news about Bill Gates being #1 in Forbes’ rich list [1, 2, 3], so there couldn’t be better timing to say that this fortune will be given away (even though it continues to expand). In a world where being most rich also means being most “generous” (at least when greased up by a PR machine), why not exploit people’s ignorance or gullibility?
There is propaganda in printed newspapers to build an icon of someone who robbed society and now runs it. People are supposed to love those who hurt them the most. Using euphemisms like “reform”, “education”, and “health”, there is an increase in suggestion that only the super-rich can save the world. Here is some health-flavoured PR about Bill Gates and Seattle growth and here is a new press release about Microsoft “health”. More about this whole “health” agenda will be the main discussion of tomorrow’s post. In health too there are monopolies and vast profits. █
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