THE Gates Foundation has been discussed in our IRC channels quite a lot as of late. Australian members of this site are unhappy to see their so-called elected leaders hanging out with a famous criminal like it's some kind of a badge of honour. Gates is buying the press (literally) in Australia and it is a recipe for disaster. It is not about helping journalists but about enlisting them for PR. Journalists these days are not talking about the business crimes of billionaires like the Rockefellers* and they are only ever mentioning Gates in a positive connotation because their editors or publishers know the implicit rule that money comes from PR, not criticism. Watch Associated Press whitewashing Rockefeller while lumping in Gates and the Bill Gates-funded [1, 2] BBC doing the same. Some criminals go to jail; but if they are big enough they get a bailout (taxpayers' money) and get characterised as heroes and business champions.
"Some criminals go to jail; but if they are big enough they get a bailout (taxpayers’ money) and get characterised as heroes and business champions."The Gates-funded BBC uses promotional language like "Rockefeller (and most other private foundations) is dwarfed in size by the Gates Foundation, which has assets of more than $36bn."
It almost correctly notes that "The Gates Foundation is also Rockefeller's partner in the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, and Ms Rodin says it is a "terrific" partner."
It's not a a green revolution, it's "Green Revolution" (capitalised). It is exactly the opposite of green. It's greenwashing of seed monopoly by Monsanto et al. Gates is an investor; he's in it for money. It's about gaining wealth through monopoly on the food supply -- a subject we covered here dozens of times before.
The Gates-funded BBC doesn't say that this is a for-profit GMO alliance. The BBC has been publishing many pro-GMO/Monsanto pieces (or ignoring criticism) since Gates bribed it (to a certain degree the same has been true about The Guardian since Gates bribed it). We gave several examples of this. Appalling? Yes, but nonetheless very true. We are not unique in the making of this observation. This is actually a growing trend in alternative media and to a growing extent in some mainstream media too (they have to keep up with common knowledge and neglect PR).
"It's not a a green revolution, it's "Green Revolution" (capitalised). It is exactly the opposite of green."To quote a noteworthy old article which has Gates and Rockefeller mentioned in tandem in relation to their pro-Monsanto agenda in Africa and the rest of world (monopoly on food), they sure have a "doomsday seed vault". They seem to realise the problem with GMO, but GMO is about profit. Bill Gates just getting richer, he is not losing wealth. He is disseminating lies in the media to make it seem as though he is a giver, not a taker. Radio Australia says in this summary that "Bill Gates announced he would donate almost all of his fortune to charitable causes" (he is only getting richer a decade after saying this, so it's more like expanding his fortune to widen the lead as the world's richest man while also trying to portray himself as world's most generous man).
We found this very gross article, too. The old headline was "Bill Gates: Richest Man and Also one of the Most Generous - ABC News" (this headline is not visible anymore, but we grabbed it from cache).
"It's not hard to grasp the facts, it's just hard to get the truth/facts past conservative editors and publishers of corporate media (where profit, i.e. advertising, comes before accuracy)."it is troubling enough seeing one engaging in crime; what's even more blood pressure-raising is seeing criminals who do this injustice (with direct harm to those around them) literally buying themselves hero status, getting all the credit for the work of volunteers whom they looted, destroyed, demonised, and so forth.
Well, the editor changed the headline, so it is hard to show the nerve of this branch of corporate media. ABS is corporate press, very extremely so. The Australian press has been doing PR for Gates amidst a visit. Never mind if Gates and Microsoft are both tax evaders (too rich to pay tax), the Australian press will reverse the facts. Yes, tax evader Bill Gates keeps saying the rich should pay more tax and the Australian media prints that, completely without challenge (just like in the US press of Gates' Australian friend and partner Rupert Murdoch last month [1, 2]), not noting that this foundation is an apparatus of tax exemptions, like many other such foundations.
For those with a strong stomach, here is some more gross PR from the corporate news sites. Well, it's merely a lobbying trip to Gates in Australia and it's paying off. The agenda and business model is usually relaying tax money (by lobbying politicians) to Gates' private investments -- companies whose manufacturing costs less than one percent of the retail price, so publicly-stated 'donation' numbers are grossly overstated and someone -- some shareholders (wink-wink) -- pockets the massive margins. Here is a lobbying pitch from the man who got his wealth using illegal business tactics like sabotage designed to derail law-abiding competitors. Go figure why nobody in the corporate press dares to point this out. It's not hard to grasp the facts, it's just hard to get the truth/facts past conservative editors and publishers of corporate media (where profit, i.e. advertising, comes before accuracy). ⬆
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* There are many books and documentaries about it, spanning approximately one century, but it is definitely not worth delving into at Techrights as it's not technology related.
"Don’t encourage new, cross-platform Java classes, especially don’t help get great Win 32 implementations written/deployed. [...] Do encourage fragmentation of the Java classlib space."
--Ben Slivka, Microsoft