I
don't want to come off sounding too churlish here. I think
it's great that some of Gate's wealth will be going to inoculate
the less fortunate of the world. No doubt if the program is
administered well, many lives will be saved by this much needed
medical attention, that without Gate's money, would be otherwise
unavailable. It's the cynicism of the gesture that bothers
me. Nothing is more tacky than the ultra rich trying to rehabilitate
their images and remove the taint of their own misdeeds by
exploiting as a "photo-op" the plight of those in
great need. This is exactly what Gate's gift of 100 million
dollars to UNCEF for the purpose of inoculating children is
all about - a PR effort to change the image of Gates the "monopolist"
to Gates the "benefactor".
Many of the rich and ruthless monopolist of the past have
used the tried and true methods of "charity giving"
to polish their images. Carnegie and Rockefeller, both later
in life, started trying to buy good will by doing charitable
works with portions of their vast fortunes. Why has Gates
started his "I care about people too" campaign at
such an early age when his monopolist predecessors had one
foot in the grave when they started giving away parts of their
wealth. Well there is that little matter going on with the
DOJ.
I am not naive enough to believe that Bill Gates woke up
in his 40 million dollar mansion and came to the conclusion
that he had to end world disease. No, the more likely scenario
was that his retinue of image makers and PR flacks woke up
in their modest homes after viewing yet another excerpt of
the "Gate's Tapes" at the DOJ trial and they
decided that Bill Gate's had to end world disease. And Gates
has begun living an Image Makers "script" including
"warm fuzzy" TV interviews geared to show that Bill
Gates is just like the loveable geeky billionaire that lives
next to you. It will be interesting to see what the next page
of the script brings us.
Think I'm being too cynical? Well cynicism, as many who have
had professional dealings with them will tell you, is how
Microsoft plays the game.
I just hope they don't plan to charge for the booster as
an upgrade!
Willam works for a large Internet company and divides
his time between Silicon Valley and Bern Switzerland. He
feels qualified to comment on all things Macintosh because
he often takes potshots at his son's Apple.
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I
don't want to come off sounding too churlish here. I think
it's great that some of Gate's wealth will be going to inoculate
the less fortunate of the world. No doubt if the program is
administered well, many lives will be saved by this much needed
medical attention, that without Gate's money, would be otherwise
unavailable. It's the cynicism of the gesture that bothers
me. Nothing is more tacky than the ultra rich trying to rehabilitate
their images and remove the taint of their own misdeeds by
exploiting as a "photo-op" the plight of those in
great need. This is exactly what Gate's gift of 100 million
dollars to UNCEF for the purpose of inoculating children is
all about - a PR effort to change the image of Gates the "monopolist"
to Gates the "benefactor".
