“Private school grad, college dropout” — a powerfully entrenched ignoramus — spreads nonsense to the gullible and the profit makers about something he knows nothing about — good education policy and how properly to educate and improve the system, facilities, faculties, resources supportive of quality education for all in the United States.
Business slick Willie (unclothed)
“The only reason people listen to [Bill Gates] is that he’s thought to be some sort of business genius (as if business genius were translatable to pedagogy or anything else). [The thought is], ‘If he’s that rich, he must be smart’ … but [Bill Gates] really is not such a business genius [in the original sense of a heroic entrepreneur rising on one’s own well-honed creation.]”
Henwood unclothes in some detail this “genius” feeding on other people’s creation. This is some of what he had to say.
Schemer, stealer, trickster (unclothed)
“What really made [Gates] rich was having been in the right place at the right time in 1981 when IBM needed an operating system for its new PC,” Henwood writes. “[To put it gently], Gates (with Allen) borrowed heavily from an existing operating system, Digital Research’s CP/M. [Reporting what happened Digital Research said] ‘Microsoft paid Seattle Software Works for an unauthorized clone of CP/M, and Microsoft licensed this clone to IBM.’”
Henwood concludes the undress: “[Gates’ rise in riches was] another instance of adopting someone else’s work and taking credit for it—this time with the innovation of litigating aggressively and manipulating markets to defend a monopoly position; and once secured, Microsoft did everything it could to crush competition.…”
Given this business history, “it is pretty rich for Gates to criticize monopoly and stodginess in public education.”
Education reformer without credential (exposed)
Gates learned from a parent in the field of intellectual property “about gaining advantage in a world where the innovation of others can threaten monopoly profits,” Henwood concludes. “But there’s nothing terribly admirable about using litigation and market power to become a billionaire.…”
Bill Gates’ personal and business history confers no credential or qualification “to hold forth on education policy.”
Sources and notes
Doug Henwood hosts Behind the News, a weekly radio show covering economics and politics on Pacifica Network KPFA-Berkeley that rebroadcasts on several other stations across the U.S., and attracts a worldwide audience via its Internet (archived).
Henwood is editor and publisher of Left Business Observer, a newsletter he founded in 1986. The periodical covers economics and politics in the broadest sense. His “recent and persisting obsessions include the meaning of ‘Bush-ism’; income distribution and poverty in the U.S. and elsewhere in the First World; the globalization of finance and production; the worldwide attack on pensions; the 1990s boom and its gloomy aftermath; the economics of energy.” Each issue of LBO contains a report on the world's financial markets and central banks.
Henwood is an American print and broadcast journalist, author of Wall Street (1997), The State of the USA (1994), After the New Economy (2003), and Yale University graduate in English. http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/DH_bio.html
http://lbo-news.com/
William Henry (Bill) Gates III (b. October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, philanthropist, author and Chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen. Gates is ranked among the world’s wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third. At Microsoft, Gates held positions of CEO and chief software architect. He remains the largest individual shareholder with more than 8 percent of the common stock. Paul Allen and Bill Gates were childhood friends sharing an interest in computer programming, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates
Paul Gardner Allen (b. January 21, 1953) is an American industrialist who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates. Allen is one of the wealthiest people in the world with a personal wealth of U.S.$12.7 billion as of 2010. He is the founder and Chairman of Vulcan Inc., his private asset management company, and is Chairman of Charter Communications. Allen also has a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio, which includes stakes in Digeo, Kiha Software, real estate holdings, and more than 40 other technology, media, and content companies. Allen also owns three professional sports teams: the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL), the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the Seattle Sounders FC franchise (which began playing in the 2009 season) in Major League Soccer (MLS).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft
_______________________________________________________
Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
_______________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment