Bonum Certa Men Certa

Generosity by Publicity

"In the fall of 1982, Pam Edstrom [of Waggener Edstrom], a diminutive woman with piercing blue eyes, was recruited by Microsoft. [...] In modern-day business, flacks were responsible not only for avoiding bad press, but for spinning the good. [...] Hanson and Edstrom would spin a whole new image for Gates himself. They would tap the best and worst of Chairman Bill, changing his clothes, his voice, and his allegiances, driving him to become not just the boss, but, essentially, the company mascot—a sort of high-technology Colonel Sanders." --Pam Edstrom's daughter

J P Morgan
J. P. Morgan assaulting photographers - an
example of bad PR from robber barons



Summary: An outline and an analysis of Gates Foundation news from the past two weeks

The Gates Foundation commands many publications, which makes it difficult for one to gain access to PR-free coverage that was not seeded in a source where problematic aspects got concealed. Control over information is assured by a large team of PR people and publicists who are employed by the Gates Foundation to advance its cause. We covered this before and showed that Waggener Edstrom also works for the foundation now. They even have something called an "advocacy officer" at the Gates Foundation.



Watch how the Atlantic Wire -- not just papers like the Washington Post -- are controlled by Gates Foundation types.

The editor of the Atlantic Wire is the husband of the former CEO of the Gates Foundation.


This husband also 'planted' a story in Time, glorying Gates. Disclosure of this is hard to come by. Here is the coverage in question. It deals with unjust tax exemptions for the richest people, using loopholes that they themselves create. Gates happens to be one of these people who needn't pay tax because he puts all his money in an account labeled "charity" (the major activity it actually does is investment in firms such as Goldman Sachs and Wal-Mart, as we last explained on Monday). From the article:

Donations? How About Actually Paying Taxes Peter Wilby takes the opposite approach in the Guardian, with a more comprehensive critique of so-called philanthrocapitalism. "The US treasury already loses at least $40bn ... a year from tax breaks for donations," he writes. Not only does the government lose the money, but the billionaires then get to determine what the "good causes" are. Other problems with philanthrocapitalism include that it tends to "[tackle] symptoms of poverty and distress rather than underlying causes," and tends to towards "do[ing] things to the poor, rather than with them."


We'll come back to the taxing question in just a moment.

Pay attention for those who are daemonising or at least dismissing critics of the world's richest people. There are common ways of doing so.

On one hand, there is a reason for some modest concern - there are plenty of stories of wealthy individuals using "charitable" foundations and organizations as a means of sidestepping taxes and paying fat salaries to friends and family members. Generally speaking, though, there has been a pretty substantial improvement in external oversight of these organizations, not the least of which by the IRS. Consequently, this concern is largely moot - or a true cynic can simply resolve that a sufficiently motivated and wealthy individual will find a way to contravene any system. (You may not have billions, but giving can still ease your tax bill. Check out Deducting Your Donations.)


Another new article about this subject is titled "The opposite of greed" (similar new article which also covers Gates is titled "Philanthrocapitalism: Can the rich save the world?") and here we have mischaracterisation of the campaign from Bill Gates Sr. This article is not correct, for reasons explained before [1, 2, 3].

The most prominent is in Washington state, where Seattle lawyer Bill Gates Sr., father of billionaire Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ) founder Bill Gates, has gotten into the act. He’s pushing for passage of a voter initiative on the November ballot that would impose a new state income tax on the affluent only, starting in 2012.


The truth is, nothing is done to actually tax the Gates family here. They continue to put their money in a tax haven, so this policy only harms those beneath them, still.

The most common way of downplaying concerns in these situations is to question the rationality of critical messengers and instead of voicing their criticism just focus on useless PR moves (like Buffett raising $4,500). The critics do have a legitimate message; Authors are characteristically trying to paint this as "jealousy" (also in here) without critically investigating the facts and challenging consensus. For instance, critics of the Gates Foundation and its ulterior motives are often described as "cynics" and their positions misrepresented [1, 2]. "Giving it all away for good" is a new article which puts it quite nicely:

When I first read about the Giving Pledge, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet’s campaign to get billionaires to pledge away half their fortune, or more, to charity, my first reaction was one of distaste.

It seemed such an ostentatious thing to do. Not content with being billionaires, they now seek the brownie points of overt philanthropy. They seek out admiration, approval, esteem, not for being rich but for being generous. I even thought there was a whiff of arrogance and condescension about it: how many of us would give away half of our fortunes? How many of us could?


It is often being said that those who give away money they hardly have do deserve more credit than those who took a lot away from society and then work on portraying themselves as the world's most generous people. But that's not the real point. The real point, as we routinely show, is that giveaways are typically given which only increase the giver's power (if not wealth). There is a return on investment in these donations and that is exactly what one needs to investigate more closely. Here is another sceptic who looks for insight in last week's news:

A bunch of billionaires have signed up for Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ “Giving Pledge,” promising to give away half or more of their money to charity. Sounds great, right? Not to Ron Rosenbaum of Slate. “I think I can speak for the rest of the world when I say: Dudes, the ‘pledge’ is nice and all, but show us the money if you want the credit,” he writes, declaring the promise a “nebulous never-never-land pledge.”


Here is one last take from Murdoch's press:

When 40 of America's richest individuals signed the "giving pledge," a challenge set by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to donate half of one's wealth to charity, at least one philanthropist was not impressed. "My opinion is: So what?" says Lewis B. Cullman.

With a record of giving that extends in the hundreds of millions and throughout New York's cultural institutions, Mr. Cullman, who is 91, is alarmed by how the money donated to charity by the very wealthy usually ends up. Locked, he tells me, in private grant-making foundations that may only release a trickle of the billions of dollars squirreled away inside.


Also in the news:

In the meantime, does anyone know if Bill Gates gave to one-world type causes before Microsoft got hit with the antitrust suit? I.e., is it possible that Bill Gates doesn’t actually support the stuff the Bill Gates Foundation funds, but the deal was he could keep his company if he played ball like the other billionaires?


The Guardian has sceptics writing in, e.g.:

Andy Beckett asks the question "should we be worried?" The answer must be an unequivocal yes. No one person should be allowed to accumulate this much wealth. This, more than the ills Bill Gates attempts to alleviate with his largesse, is the true crime against humanity.


There are conformists too:

The pledge of the US billionaires is perhaps a signal of a directional change that we are beginning to see in the prevailing dominant thinking. It is symbolic of their wanting to ‘give up greed to support need’ (not charity) and should not be treated as yet another CSR event. This perhaps is the beginning of a process of real change in the existing world order that can lead to ensuring its sustainability.


In reference to this article, Gates Keepers has this to say:

Normal people cannot see your yacht and jet and cannot get close to your mansion. But they sure can see your philanthropy, especially when you hire publicists to be sure they do.


We go back to the original point about publicity. Nobody does it better than the Gates Foundation. Gates has been hiring lots of PR people (some from peripheral, outside agencies whose job is to shape his image). Then there are investments in many media outlets, such as NPR.

In the previous post about the Gates Foundation we were also going to show how Gates still controls the education system using the press which he controls (including education-focused press). To put it in the words of a critic of Gates' role in capturing the education system:

The model most favored by the “venture philanthropist” billionaire reformers like Eli Broad, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg along with Arne Duncan is typically the KIPP-style franchise, which arguably is fairly punitive.

[...]

Et tu NPR?

Even the supposedly liberal National Public Radio has run stories recently that are obsessively focused on the faults of teachers at the strange omission of all other factors. Curiouser and curiouser. Is it a coincidence that NPR receives funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Teach for America – two enterprises that support charters and “education reform”?

[...]

What it will likely do is continue shrinking school curriculums into the box built by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, weaken the teaching profession and teacher unions, make test scores even more high stakes and certainly more high profit, and solidify the education industry as the dominant voice for urban school matters in America. That’s pretty good bang for your buck, or some excellent leveraging, as Bill [Gates] and Eli [Broad] might chuckle.


We previously wrote about how Gates is sponsoring NPR and how it seemingly affects coverage. It's a good investment for Gates, who is controlling the media to an extent, using money. NPR is again advertising Gates and offers no disclosure about their financial relationship. The same goes for Education Week which is running Gates propaganda pieces, at least with disclosure this time around.

(Editorial Projects in Education, the publisher of Education Week, also receives grant money from the Gates Foundation.)


We were going to deal with the (mis)education issue in the previous post, but it is clear that an overview will be needed some time in the near future, maybe even a comprehensive Wiki page. In the mean time, watch how Ina Fried continues the Gates PR while pretending to be a journalist [1, 2]. That's distasteful coverage from CNET, which typically prides itself in coverage about technology, not evangelism for dangerous egomaniacs.

“The gist of it is that people in the mainstream press measure generosity not by proportions in giving (like someone giving 95% of his/her wealth) but by absolute values.”NewsWeek, whose managing editor has just moved to Microsoft, is also pretending to nobody but Gates is generous. We'll address this pattern of coverage in just a moment. The gist of it is that people in the mainstream press measure generosity not by proportions in giving (like someone giving 95% of his/her wealth) but by absolute values. Oo scrutiny is given based on receiving ends, either (some people donate... to terrorist groups).

First we'll just show part of the hypnosis and self advertising in public events and even the Huffington Post, which gave Gates a blog in which to advertise. It recently created a whole corner for such promotion, possibly with financial help from Gates (this is just a suspicion given the timing and the relationship between the Gates family and the Huffingtons). We previously showed that ties between the powerful (as in rich or politically able) are being exploited to serve those families' interests or vision of the world while not paying attention to those who are affected.

Clinton's relation to Gates' agenda [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], which is mentioned in this new article about "philanthropic propaganda", must not be ignored (Gates is also tied to Tony Blair). There is strong criticism of the "globilisation" involved:

Bill Clinton is perpetrating this global blackmail through his William J. Clinton Foundation, headquartered in Little Rock, Ark. Amazingly, the foundation is fueled by a $140 million annual budget. More amazing is who is giving him that money in support of his globalist plans.

The biggest contributor to Clinton’s globalist war chest was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which tossed in a hefty $25 million- plus. Gates also made sure that his company, Microsoft, tossed in another $250,000 - $500,000. Google was counted in for that same category, and so was Cisco.


Former Gates staff serves a similar role in the Obama government, which should not be entirely surprising [1, 2].

Earlier this year, he left a job at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle to work for the Obama administration.


Africa has its share of sceptics about the rich and powerful people from the West, who claim to help while actually investing in the companies that cause the most harm to Africa [1, 2]. From Kenya we have:

Method to the Madness points out some of the dangers of private foundations such as the Bill Gates Foundation, running 'aid' programmes in Africa. Unlike NGOs, the Bill Gates Foundation is not subject to any controls other than those it makes itself. Additionally the foundation often invests in industries and sectors that are detrimental to the poor as well as upsetting the 'aid train' if for example too much emphasis was placed on African countries as investment opportunities:

'I don't think the Gates Foundation is completely unencumbered. It could potentially deal a blow to aid agencies, the calculus goes, for the word to get out that African countries also present economic opportunities. With the PR machine having done such a good job of telling people how messed up things are, it would now be hard to be seen as making money from a land where everyone is poor. It'll be hard to spin that, because it'll involve a counter-narrative, one that could potentially be harmful to all the efforts to generate aid for projects all over the continent. Too many images of happy, smiling, not-emaciated children eating cheeseburgers and playing basketball after schools not in clay huts, and next thing you know the Western audience breathes a sigh of relief and thinks, "Oh, good! They're not basket cases anymore! Now we don't have to care since they can take care of themselves!" Folks would stop buying baskets from Africa with proceeds to go to the One Campaign's efforts in some random village. And the US will then feel more comfortable relaxing its 0.7% of GDP aid commitment to African countries (which they already don't meet anyway), and reducing for PEPFAR (Which, even as good as the PR machine is, they're currently doing).'


Notice the part which says: "With the PR machine having done such a good job of telling people how messed up things are..."

This is a typical tactic from Gates, who says colleges in the US are messed up and therefore he needs foreign workers (on visas). He also says the schooling system is broken and therefore he should step in and change all schools based on his personal vision, wherein he becomes de facto education czar.

When people describe Mr. Gates as "generous", be sceptical. Gates is a very greedy man (for money and power, which are interchangeable).

"Microsoft looks at new ideas, they don't evaluate whether the idea will move the industry forward, they ask, 'how will it help us sell more copies of Windows?'"

--Bill Gates, The Seattle Weekly, (April 30, 1998)

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Register MS is Still Being Paid to Participate in the "AI" Ponzi Scheme Which Will Crash the Economy
The Register MS is hoping to get lucky by tricking people into a scam
Evidence Contradicting Microsoft's Non-Denying Denials and Expectation of Many Layoffs Soon
"Microsoft has had this constant drip of layoffs for months."
At Least 3 Richard Stallman Talks in Europe Confirmed So Far, Next Week in Rome There's Another
Dr. Stallman has not announced this yet
 
Microsoft's Non-Denying Denial About XBox's Death is Already Being Shattered to Pieces
Like Microsoft's 'open' 'hey hi', heralding meaningless non-committing agreements with AMD is little more than vapourware
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT Joins the Slopfarms Club
Slopfarms gonna slop
Links 07/10/2025: Privacy at Risk, GAFAM Remains Off the Hook
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/10/2025: Modern Retro Console Idea and Batch vs Bash
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2025: International Criminal Court (ICC) Convicts Ali Kushayb; Moroccan Imprisoned for 'Offensive' Shirt
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2025: EU' Chat Control is Back, US Cracks Down on Democracy
Links for the day
Techrights Pursues Justice and Truth Because, Without Those, Society Descends Into Chaos
most people reject dogma and pseudoscience
Upcoming Talks by Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Göteborg, and Rome
Join with him and share the software
Something Bad is Happening in the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
The latest OSI blog post is from a Microsoft operative and a few weeks ago the Executive Director left
TLS 1.3 Dominates Geminispace (99% of Known Capsules)
it's nowadays safe to assume almost every capsule can handle TLS 1.3
Why soylentnews.org Has Been Having Technical Difficulties Lately
The network has been going up and down quite a lot this past week
A Statement Against Violence
The facts are on our side
They've Run Out of Things to Rebrand or Label as "AI"
The next few years will be interesting because if Microsoft lays off tens of thousands of workers each year, there won't be much left except mountains of debt and dying brands
Richard Stallman Confirms His Talk in Göteborg This Coming Friday
"The hosts say that the list will not be given to the state"
Most of the "Linux" Results This Morning in Google News Are LLM Slop From the Same Slopfarm, Plagiarising Phoronix
The main question is, does Google even care at this point?
Gemini Links 07/10/2025: Civil War and "Goodbye Web"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 06, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 06, 2025
The "AI Revolution" is Going Very Well, Right?
money that does not exist and alleged potential that is pure fiction
Links 06/10/2025: Scam Altman Himself Admits He Runs a Scam Based on a Bubble, US Administration Adopts “War From Within” Narrative to Crush Opposition/Dissent
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Ubuntu 'Articles' and Google News Helps People Who Plagiarise Phoronix Using LLMs
Michael Larabel can't possibly be happy about that
6,000 Pages/Articles a Year
Today in one month from now the site turns 19
When Things Become So Ubiquitous That They're Almost Nameless
The notion or the concept of software freedom isn't tied to any particular brand or project, so it should still resonate
IDG Seems to Have Abandoned Sandra Henry Stocker's UNIX/Linux Column
Unless we hear otherwise or see some update/s, this may mark another death blow from IDG
Gemini Links 06/10/2025: Winter Nights and "Virtue Signaling"
Links for the day
Links 06/10/2025: Scientific Awards and Typhoon Matmo
Links for the day
IP Kat Gone Bonkers, Pushing Slop in Patents (Likely Illegal, With Severe Consequences)
AstraZenecaKat: "Last time, this Kat covered some practical steps on how to ensure client confidentiality when using AI tools (IPKat)."
Links 06/10/2025: Grokipedia as Malicious Slop, US 'Martial Law' a "New Normal"
Links for the day
Fake Economics and Clown Computing Circuses
who's gonna pay for these scams?
Nobel Prize in Economics Does Not Exist, It's Propaganda From Sveriges Riksbank
"It is that time of the year when it is important to remind people that there are no Nobel Prizes for professional wrestling, astrology, or economics"
Rust is Eating Linux
That's a recipe for problems
Cindy Cohn (Executive Director of EFF) is a Millionaire, Earned Almost $30,000 Per Month Before Departing While the EFF Lost Money
EFF is "Big Business"
Non-Denying Denial From Microsoft (Again) Regarding the End of XBox Consoles
It's kind of hilarious that even the site chosen by Microsoft to relay its BS, based on past loyalty, isn't quite buying it
Bringing Back Lost Articles From the 1990s: Microsoft Products Leave Door Open to NSA
Nothing has changed since then
When the Slop Bubble Pops People Will Say Richard Stallman Was Right (Again)
What was once known as Computer Science turned into "IT"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 05, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 05, 2025
Links 06/10/2025: Science, Hardware, and Andrej Babis Making a Comeback
Links for the day
Links 05/10/2025: Slow News Day and Wondering About the Canada Post Walkout
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/10/2025: Telnet Debugging and The Programmer’s Brain
Links for the day
More Than "Just a Rumour": XBox Seems to Have Just Died
At this point, why would any studio out there target or partner with XBox?
How to Tell Your Community, Project or Company is Being Infiltrated by Saboteurs
How to identify nefarious social engineering
The Fortieth Birthday of the FSF Made Us Extremely Happy
It feels like the 'hacker community' is regrouping to discuss things and prepare for the next Big Challenge
Chat Control 2 Them, Not 2 U
Follow the advice of Dr. Patrick Breyer
Mozilla: Throw Away Your "Old" PC and Enable "Digital Rights Management (DRM)"
This is heading in a bad direction
Controlling Our Computing for Another Forty Years
40 years of freedom
Motivational Small Place to Run Large Sites
We deem this scenery motivational and inspiring
Techrights' Text Version (Daily Bulletin) Turns Five This Month
our plain-text bulletins are turning 5 this month
We'll Continue Covering the Moribund OSI and Other Dysfunctional if Not Hostile Institutions
Stefano Maffulli's departure is due to his defection and due to him failing the mission in pursuit of money (his salary)
Microsoft XBox is Dying as More Retailers Stop Stocking It and Massive Layoffs Planned Again
Microsoft is circling down the drain
Links 05/10/2025: Lufthansa Layoffs (4,000) and More Spotify Woes (Aside From Massive Debt)
Links for the day
The Free Software Foundation's Livestream Has Ended, Video/s Might be Online Next
I've asked whether they'll upload video of some of the event; I still wait for an answer
The Register MS Does Not Know the Difference Between Microsoft GitHub and GitLab
At the time of writing (October 5) the article from "Thu 2 Oct 2025" remains uncorrected
Linux and the Freedom Paradox
Linux is losing freedom if some external actors who only use Microsoft tools for development wrest control
"Bullshit Generators" (What RMS Calls LLMs) and Fake Images Already Target the FSF
Why does Google News promote fake articles about the FSF while omitting all the real ones?
Software Patents as a Bubble
Don't invest resources in hype; if you detect a bubble, run away from it
Links 05/10/2025: Political Leftovers, Climate Change, and Security Incidents
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 04, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 04, 2025