07.10.12
Education Agenda and Public Policy Hijacked by Bill Gates
“There won’t be anything we won’t say to people to try and convince them that our way is the way to go.”
–Bill Gates (Microsoft’s CEO at the time)
Summary: Gates is abducting a future generation of adults through the education system
THE Gates Foundation is better understood by more people now that more and more of the media (alternative for the most part, not corporate) is less afraid to criticise. The facts speak for themselves, even in Gates-funded avenues like Education Week. It’s not so simply to buy one’s silence.
Diane Ravitch has been exposing Bill Gates for quite a few years and Valerie Strauss gave her a platform at the Washington Post after the Melinda Gates scandal (which left the Gates family with less influence over the publication). To quote parts of the article: “When one foundation has amassed over $30 billion, it has the financial power to shape the policies of government to its liking.”
“Educator Anthony Cody published a guest column on his Education Week Teacher blog that describes how the Gates Foundation intervenes in agricultural and environmental issues around the world, often in ways that support corporate profits rather than the public interest. (Education Week is in part funded by the Gates Foundation.)
“I have never believed that the Gates Foundation or the Gates family puts profits above the public interest. I work on the assumption that anyone who has more riches than they can ever spend in their lifetime or in 100 lifetimes is not motivated by greed. It makes no sense.
“I believe that Bill and Melinda Gates want to establish a legacy as people who left the world a better place.
“But I think their their efforts to “reform” education are woefully mistaken.
“I have tried but had no luck in my efforts to meet Bill Gates. On the two occasions when I was in Seattle in the past year, I tried to arrange a meeting with him well in advance. He was never available.
“I am puzzled by what I read in the column cited abovee. I am also puzzled by the Gates Foundation’s persistent funding of groups that want to privatize public education. I am puzzled by their funding of “astroturf” groups of young teachers who insist that they don’t want any job protections, don’t want to be rewarded for their experience (of which they have little) or for any additional degrees, and certainly don’t want to be represented by a collective bargaining unit.”
It is gratifying to see those who speak about this issue in the public arena. In the remainder of this month we’ll focus on catching up with software patents news and then we will catch up with Gates Foundation news. A lot of it can be repetitive because once a person grasps the key strategies, these are seen and understood easily. Critical skills are needed when the press is PR and thus not critical at all; it is deceitful and repetitive for its real clients (the readers/viewers are the products, not the clients). █
