Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation

[OhioChick]

Published January 7, 2007


Ebocha, Nigeria - Justice Eta, 14 months old, held out his tiny thumb.

An ink spot certified that he had been immunized against polio and measles, thanks to a vaccination drive supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

But polio is not the only threat Justice faces. Almost since birth, he has had respiratory trouble. His neighbors call it "the cough." People blame fumes and soot spewing from flames that tower 300 feet into the air over a nearby oil plant. It is owned by the Italian petroleum giant Eni, whose investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Justice squirmed in his mother's arms. His face was beaded with sweat caused either by illness or by heat from the flames that illuminate Ebocha day and night. Ebocha means "city of lights."

The makeshift clinic at a church where Justice Eta was vaccinated and the flares spewing over Ebocha represent a head-on conflict for the Gates Foundation. In a contradiction between its grants and its endowment holdings, a Times investigation has found, the foundation reaps vast financial gains every year from investments that contravene its good works.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-na-gatesx07jan07,1,2987071.story?coll=chi-news-hed

<snip> In addition, The Times found the Gates Foundation endowment had major holdings in:

Companies ranked among the worst U.S. and Canadian polluters, including ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical Co. and Tyco International Ltd.

[Robbien]

1. Gates money has always been used to do evil

the only difference now is that they are putting aside a little bit to do good, or so they say.

[truthisfreedom]

2. Gates didn't invent oil. We need alternative energy... I wish he'd make a big noise

in that regard. I wish Bill would step up and say loudly "WE ALL NEED TO WORK ON DEVELOPING ALTERNATIVE ENERGY AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!"

[The Blue Flower]

4. I wish he'd do for energy

what he did for computers.

[manic expression]

6. Create a monopoly on it for his own enrichment? n/t

[Mika]

8. Enabling corporations to downsize and outsource labor?

[OhioChick]

10. Good Point. n/t

[Mika]

7. delete

[RawMaterials]

9. he is a big investor of Pacific energy

its an ethanol energy company

[Nomad559]

3. Posted

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3059050

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3058874

:eyes:

[rebel with a cause]

5. So charity covers greed, tax cuts and colonialism of American Billionaire.

Sounds about right to me. :sarcasm:

[Hekate]

12. Sometimes, when "robber baron" capitalists mature, they do good works

Andrew Carnegie was one: after amassing his fortune on the backs of labor and his competitors, he built libraries in cities and towns all across the US.

This was not a trivial thing in a time when many people were proud to have an 8th-grade education (like both my grandfathers, who were modestly successful men) -- people who used their literacy to enable their inquiring minds to roam the world of ideas. Many people who grew up poor used those libraries as a refuge, too.

That is not to say Carnegie became a saint -- but when his ambition was in some sense satisfied, he did give back.

When I first heard about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, I thought of Andrew Carnegie. People can be complicated -- they're not all one thing.

Hekate

[NCarolinawoman]

11. I have never seen him interested in environmental issues.

I keep watching and waiting..... but nothing. :shrug:

This article fits the pattern. He's not a "total picture" kind of guy.

[superconnected]

13. I'll giving him a chance.

I think the guy really does want to make the world a better place and isn't just interested in lining his wallet at this point.

I think he runs microsoft knowing he has a responsibility to the share holders - many microsoft employees, to try to do the best he can with it. And having worked there, no I don't like all of their policys, but I did like the people. I'll give Gates a chance. From what I've seen so far, he's totally into whatever the newest stuff out there is(often letting microsoft develop it), technologically. I see him as a very forward thinking guy. That's from watching the annual company meeting at safeco field though.

Who knows what's behind the scenes, but I doubt it's too much different than what we've seen, and what people who have worked with him have said.

[Peace Patriot]

14. Bullshit! Almost any big foundation's portfolio is going to have some

questionable investments. And the Chicago Tribune--one of the biggest war profiteering corporate news monopolies, into massively repressing diversity of opinion, and whose monopoly now includes Times-Mirror--is slashing Times' staff in order to increase profits and kill investigative journalism.

I smell an agenda here. I don't trust this article--its publication, its choice of topics and focus--at all!

---------

Check out Chicago Media Action for info on the Tribune's monopolistic practices...

http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/index.php?link=big_media_portal

Here's a good one...
http://www.chicagomediaaction.org/news.php?id=152

---------

We really MUST begin considering the SOURCE. WHY have they published this? Is it part of a corporate war of some kind? Are the Gates' polio shots undermine some pharmaceutical giant's profits, that the Tribune owners are invested in?

Don't take ANYTHING at face value that is published by a corporate news monopoly!

[OhioChick]

15. "From the Los Angeles Times" n/t

[catzies]

16. Which is owned by the Tribune Company in Chicago

So you're both right.

[mainegreen]

17. Bill Gates is the DEVIL! Boogie Boogie Boogie Boooo!

:eyes:

Please. He just owns a huge company that also releases moderately crappy software and one of the worst evils his company did was kill off a browser. Except that browser didn't really die, and lets face it folks, IE4 kicked that old tired Netscape's butt.