Context: Getty photo (local copy for backup) and more information
A LOT of well-meaning people have been bamboozled into this ludicrous idea that Bill Gates is a nice man. This sociopath is worse than a nihilist. He's a tyrant who bribes the media to paint him as exactly the opposite of what he is. He could barely get along with his own family (shouting at them) and he was arrested several times.
"Please note that we don't take a stance on abortion here, we just point out the hypocrisy regarding overpopulation."Gates is a stereotypical example of people with private jets stressing the urgency of climate action and/or urging for such action by flying their planes around... to merely shake a hand and give a talk...
Does Gates live a modest life? No, his mansion directly contradicts such a view (worth about 0.15 billion dollars; compare this to the world's most expensive mansions) and his fast-growing wealth contradicts claims that he's "giving it away" (one of the biggest lies perpetrated by him).
This is an issue which we explored and mentioned here many times about a decade ago. Much of the above isn't worth exploring again because it was covered here 'to death' back then. We try not to become too repetitive. Nothing has changed since then.
One reader recently reminded of us this 1998 article which touches on the Gates family and its "population control" (depopulation) ties, notably the father of Bill Gates. That mentioned Warren Buffett as well:
"Reproductive health and family planning" is a buzz phrase that emerged out of the 1994 United Nations Cairo conference on population issues, said Dr. Gordon Perkin, president of PATH. In the past, the research topic used to be referred to as "population control" -- though, said Dr. Perkin, "the words 'population control' are not used any more, except by people who don't know the field."
Billionaires have always had a fond spot in their hearts for population control: Ted Turner is a big supporter, as is Warren Buffett, a Gates family friend.
"If you think about what people like Buffett, Turner and Gates all have in common -- they are more global in their thinking, more risk-taking, more revolutionary in their business practices," said Beth Frederick, development director at the Alan Guttmacher Institute, "and as such they look for larger answers to some of the problems that seem so close to home."
But whatever you call it -- "population control" or "family planning" -- this isn't just a billionaire fad for the Gates family.
"Bill Gates Sr. has been deeply involved in this issue for decades," says Laurie S. Zabin, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Zabin, who served with Gates Sr. on the national board of Planned Parenthood, was instrumental in getting the Gates Foundation grant for Johns Hopkins.
But that doesn't mean Gates Sr. is the only one who cares about overpopulation, said Zabin: Gates Jr. "has supported issues of real social concern and certainly this is one of them."
Gates Sr. agreed: "It's an interest he has had since he was a kid. And he has friends who are interested in supporting research into world population problems, people whom he admires -- it's just a matter of a fit between his proclivities and mine."
A "proclivity fit" is one way to put it. Or one could surmise that Bill Gates is growing up to be the man his parents raised him to be.
The Buffett Foundation has had an impact on society that rivals that of much larger organizations, mainly because it concentrates its giving in two closely related fields: population control and reproductive health. This emphasis is rooted in the deeply held beliefs of Mr. and Mrs. Buffett, neither of whom is inclined to air their views in public. "Certainly I consider population and reproductive rights to be important issues . . . but I don't want to comment on the question or become a spokesman," Buffett said in 1997. "It would change my life too much."
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Family Matters
With just $22 million in assets, the Buffett foundation is tiny. But thanks to carefully targeted grants like those below from last year, it has had an outsize influence in its chosen sphere of family planning and population control.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD*
$3.76 million to fund family-planning clinics
INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS ASSISTANCE SERVICES
$2.5 million to distribute abortion devices in Third World countries
POPULATION COUNCIL
$2.43 million for research on population issues
PATHFINDER INTERNATIONAL
$1.24 million to fund family-planning programs abroad, mainly in Vietnam
NATIONAL ABORTION RIGHTS ACTION LEAGUE
$1 million to finance pro-choice lobbying group
*Includes a $648,089 donation to the Planned Parenthood Federation and grants to 17 affiliates around the U.S.