Bill Gates has spent at least $319 million on manipulating the media
Bill Gates has spent at least $319 million on manipulating the media
How much Phil Knight has spent massaging Nike's image is unknown, but it's worked almost perfectly so far
According to reporting by Alan McLeod of Mint Press News, Bill Gates has spent a small portion of his estimated $103-billion-dollar fortune on convincing the world that he is, in McLeod’s words, “a kindly nerd who wants to save the world” instead of the ruthlessly greedy liar he is and always has been:
Recipients of this cash include many of America’s most important news outlets, including CNN, NBC, NPR, PBS and The Atlantic. Gates also sponsors a myriad of influential foreign organizations, including the BBC, The Guardian, The Financial Times and The Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom; prominent European newspapers such as Le Monde (France), Der Spiegel (Germany) and El País (Spain); as well as big global broadcasters like Al-Jazeera.
I say “small portion” because giving away $319 million is barely noticeable when you’re worth over three hundred times that amount (and rapidly rising). Even if he had coughed up the entire sum at once, it would be mathematically tantamount to a person with $30,000 in a savings account—one accruing interest at a wildly generous rate—handing over a mere $100 to illegitimately transform the entire world’s opinion of him.
Gates doesn’t merely give huge sums to a dizzying array of media outlets; he also trains “journalists” in schools he creates himself—under the risible auspices, of course, of teaching them to do competent journalism. Anyone who has merely tried to use Google Chrome on a Windows PC knows what a bastard Bill Gates is—not that Google deserves any pity in this war between feckless, avaricious titans. But thanks to Gates’ media manipulation, practically everyone reading this does in fact believe that Gates is a genial, philanthropic geek.
If this story sounds familiar, it’s perhaps because Nike co-founder Phil Knight has used some of his $54 billion net worth on exactly the same strategy—not only forking over cash directly, but establishing “journalism schools” through Hayward Magic, notably the Magic Boost element.
As things would stand even without this wrinkle, the small scale and concomitantly incestuous structure of professional running makes it challenging for journalists to do their jobs properly. Interviewing a pro runner rarely involves going through an agent or media department; this can normally be secured by reaching out directly through social-media channels. (Try getting a few minutes of Aaron Judge’s time right now.) In addition, the people now drawn to writing about running are mostly disingenuous suck-ups who think nothing of sacrificing accuracy or even integrity in exchange for public adulation and (mostly paltry) material gains.
And it’s not all about the dirtbaggery. When journalists or quasi-journalists become friendly with people they interview or write about—and there’s no inherent crime in this—they naturally find it more difficult to generate negative press about them even when this can be the only result of their doing their jobs properly. And they all know they will be denied access to the same athletes and their parent clubs if they start making skeptical noises about the ridiculous performances of the Bowerman Track Club or even about the laughable sob-story of Shelby Houlihan, the BTC member and American 1,500-meter and 5,000-meter record holder who was suspended last January for four years for doping. (You’ll recall that in perhaps the most disgusting example of journalistic malfeasance in the history of this rapidly dying sport, the entire corporate media treated Houlihan’s story as credible. Either those involved have a median IQ in the seventies or they had external motivation for writing and speaking as if this is the case.)
However, all of this is merely diagnostic, not exculpatory. If someone is not up to the task of being unflinchingly accurate, he or she either needs to step aside and let real journalists take control or learn to accept “abuse” from critics head-on instead of being such shriveling dicks and desiccated vaginas.
But alas, the monetary-gift “wrinkle” is in fact in play. How much Citius Mag and other outlets have received, directly or indirectly, in order to ensure their continued warm treatment of Das Swoosche is obviously unknown. But good luck reading anything accurate about any of Nike’s athletes, athletic clubs, or business dealings in the foreseeable future.
Back to Gates for a moment. As one-time “Bernie Sanders Democrat” Jimmy Dore explains in the video below, the reason the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated colossal sums to Wokish causes is not in the hope of helping people but precisely the opposite: Gates (and I’m referring to Bill; Mel is off the hook for now) knew this would sow extreme citizen discord.
Why would Gates want to do such a thing? Because when the peasants are all sniping at each other, those in charge of the planet can more easily crack down on their liberties and enrich themselves in the process. The fact of the coronavirus lockdowns (and other ridiculous measures and “therapies”); the spiking fortunes of billionaires since the start of the “pandemic”; and the draconian censorship of accurate opinions by social-media companies all point in this direction, and it’s hard to assemble any other coherent conclusion from this set of variables.
Now, Gates is making noises about America being on the cusp of a civil war. Why would he say that? Because it accomplishes the same thing as stoking racial disharmony (something Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and every current high-level politician is also guilty of) and getting people to brawl over masks, vaccines, and chest-feeding pregnant people: Unwitting compliance with orders from above to the point of obeisance, and continued trust in mass media despite occasional vehement denials that amount to “I haven’t been tricked, even if other liberals are susceptible.”
I’ve said that Gates is, in proportion to his overall wealth, handing over chump change. But it’s not chump change to any of its recipients, and Gates is a cheap son of a bitch who would not engage in what amounts to dark-arts fuckery if it didn’t work. And neither would anyone else lucky enough to be in a position to employ the same tactics. These people understand the mechanics of human social behavior perfectly; they have to if they want to remain who they are—and to keep the rest of us who, and where, we are.
(Also see: This video by Russell Brand; The Grayzone’s investigation into the Gates empire.)