Why Won't Bill Gates Respond To Questions About His Connections To Monsanto?

Monsanto may be the most evil company in a world.

They are responsible for Agent Orange, PCB's, rBGH (bovine growth hormone) and other toxic materials that have caused cancers and deaths.

They polluted a town in Alabama with PCB's, including dumping 45 tons of toxins into the town's drinking water, covered up the extent of the pollution that had occurred over 40 years, and colluded with political officials to avoid prosecution for the crimes.

They secretly dumped tons of toxins in Britain, polluting the groundwater and soil, and did all they could to hide the matter from residents of the area as well.

Monsanto quite literally wants to build a monopoly around the world's food supply.

They currently are working to genetically modify and patent every seed known to man so that they can literally trademark and force every farmer in the world to have to buy see from them every year (as opposed to just saving and reusing the seeds from year to year.)

In addition,  Monsanto pesticides and other ancillary products must be used to get the Monsanto seed to grow, further driving farmers into the financial clutches of the company.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, three companies (Dupont, Syngenta, and Monsanto) already own 47 percent of the global seed market, so they are well on their well to achieving their goal.

But the Monsanto seeds are not quite as good as advertised.

In India, the Mosanto BT cotton seeds have caused the financial ruin of many small farmers. 

Farmer suicides have skyrocketed as a consequence.

By 2008, 125,000 farmer suicides were linked to crop failure brought on by Monsanto seed.

By 2011, the number of farmer suicides linked to Monsanto and other corporate seed practices had increased to 200,000.

In Argentina, Monsanto hired a contracting company that abused workers in slave-like conditions, forcing them to toil 14 hours a day, prevented them from leaving the fields, and withheld wages.

You can watch a 2008 documentary called The World According To Monsanto to see a good overview of the evils of this company, but I'm sure you get the point:

Monsanto is evil.

So why would any self-proclaimed "philanthropist" out to do "good" in the world link himself and his philanthropic foundation to this company?

Well, Bill Gates has done just that.

Gates via his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation bought 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock in 2010 worth approximately $23 million dollars. 

Community Alliance For Social Justice explains why this is a problem:

“The Foundation’s direct investment in Monsanto is problematic on two primary levels,” said Dr. Phil Bereano, University of Washington Professor Emeritus and recognized expert on genetic engineering. “First, Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and well-being of small farmers around the world, as well as an appalling environmental track record. The strong connections to Monsanto cast serious doubt on the Foundation’s heavy funding of agricultural development in Africa and purported goal of alleviating poverty and hunger among small-scale farmers. Second, this investment represents an enormous conflict of interests.”

Monsanto has already negatively impacted agriculture in African countries. For example, in South Africa in 2009, Monsanto’s genetically modified maize failed to produce kernels and hundreds of farmers were devastated. According to Mariam Mayet, environmental attorney and director of the Africa Centre for Biosafety in Johannesburg, some farmers suffered up to an 80% crop failure. While Monsanto compensated the large-scale farmers to whom it directly sold the faulty product, it gave nothing to the small-scale farmers to whom it had handed out free sachets of seeds. “When the economic power of Gates is coupled with the irresponsibility of Monsanto, the outlook for African smallholders is not very promising,” said Mayet. Monsanto’s aggressive patenting practices have also monopolized control over seed in ways that deny farmers control over their own harvest, going so far as to sue—and bankrupt—farmers for “patent infringement.”

News of the Foundation’s recent Monsanto investment has confirmed the misgivings of many farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates in Africa, among them the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, who commented, “We have long suspected that the founders of AGRA—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—had a long and more intimate affair with Monsanto.” Indeed, according to Travis English, researcher with AGRA Watch, “The Foundation’s ownership of Monsanto stock is emblematic of a deeper, more long-standing involvement with the corporation, particularly in Africa.” In 2008, AGRA Watch, a project of the Seattle-based organization Community Alliance for Global Justice, uncovered many linkages between the Foundation’s grantees and Monsanto. For example, some grantees (in particular about 70% of grantees in Kenya) of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)—considered by the Foundation to be its “African face”—work directly with Monsanto on agricultural development projects. Other prominent links include high-level Foundation staff members who were once senior officials for Monsanto, such as Rob Horsch, formerly Monsanto Vice President of International Development Partnerships and current Senior Program Officer of the Gates Agricultural Development Program.

The Seattle Times further explains why sustainable food and environmental advocates find the Gates Foundation connection to Monsanto troubling:

 Much of the foundation's work has avoided major controversy.

That changed when, four years ago, the foundation, along with the Rockefeller Foundation, created the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), aimed at alleviating hunger by boosting farm productivity.

The name itself gave some people pause. An earlier Green Revolution that started nearly 70 years ago had similar aims.

Some say that by introducing high-yield crop varieties it averted widespread famine in India and Mexico and helped those countries become more self-sufficient. Critics, on the other hand, say it led to lasting environmental damage and displaced small farmers, to the benefit of corporations that started up large-scale industrial operations.

The foundation announced it would fund projects that trained farmers and opened up new markets, as well as introduce new seed varieties. Initially, these would be conventionally bred seeds.

But over time, the work has been seen as increasingly tied to large-scale industrial agriculture and has pushed the use of genetically modified crops, critics say. For example, the foundation helped fund $37 million in grants to engineer crops to increase their vitamins and minerals.

Day believes the whole model is wrongheaded. "There's plenty of food being produced in the world," she said. "It's a matter of people being poor, and food not being distributed fairly.
"The Gates foundation is driven by an ideology based on technology," Day added. "Technology doesn't solve all problems."

It seems reasonable to ask Bill Gates himself why his Foundation has invested in Monsanto and why the Foundation is promoting Monsanto products the world over via their "philanthropic efforts." 

Anthony Gucciardi of Natural Society attempted to do just that:

In a unique opportunity to ask Bill Gates himself why he has purchased 500,000 shares of Monsanto behind the scenes (expelled into the news thanks to tax information) and teamed up with Cargill to expand GMOs worldwide, myself and several others asked him ourselves.
Yesterday Gates opened himself up to questions from online users via the social sharing site Reddit, in which he posted an open interview of sorts known as an ‘Ask me Anything’ post. This is essentially an invitation for questions that the subject will answer via text. While I had a large number of questions for Gates, such as if he actually eats GMOs himself, I simply asked him:

“Why did you buy 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock?”

Unsurprisingly, the comment received a large degree of feedback. Users asked Gates to please respond to the question, and several others posed similar variations to Gates that all went unanswered (as to be expected). Some quotes from users in response to my question included:

User Lawfairy replied: “I wish he’d answered this one — to me, this is one of the most curious things about Mr. Gates, whom I otherwise respect as one of the foremost humanists of our generation… Mr. Gates’ relationship with Monsanto is, in my mind, simultaneously the most morally troubling thing about Mr. Gates”
Another user posted (with links intact): “Would you be willing to take some time to give us some insight with your investments in Monsanto? Despite having the headlines of “ending world hunger”, this company has done some despicable things in the past 100 years and I don’t believe they have the public’s best interest in mind. Having a single company or entity trying to “control”, “manipulate” or “own” the world’s food supply, in my opinion, is not the way to end world hunger.”
Another user answered with: “Because he is supporting the Bilderberg group!”

None of these received a response nor did the many others I could not include in this article. The answer, it seems, is to bring this topic to the mainstream. The very same mainstream that seems to think Bill Gates is some sort of philanthropic super star that can do no evil. I am opposed to all wrongdoing at every level, and I find it absolutely disturbing that someone funding the GMO agenda and slave-labor-linked companies has been met with applause.

Gates dodged the question, but it certainly is a good one.

Why is the Gates Foundation partnering with one of, if not THE most, evil company in the world, a company with documented track record of poisoning and killing people, a company whose goal is to quite literally own the world's food supply system, a company with a documented history of hiring contractors tat treat workers like slaves?

Does Bill Gates really think partnering with Monsanto and bringing Monsanto products the world over via his philanthropic efforts will make the world a better place?

It would be nice if some mainstream journalist, like say Nick Kristof, would stop sucking up to the Bill and Melinda Gates long enough to ask them these questions.

But I guess that's asking too much, isn't it?

You can see the theme that runs through Gates' "philanthropic work" in agriculture, disease eradication, education and the like.

He wants to technologize everything - from farming to teaching to disease fighting - and either cannot understand or refuses to understand that often times human technologies are doing as much harm as good (and sometimes much more harm than good.)

It doesn't hurt that he makes money off technology of course, or makes money off his "philanthropic efforts" too by pushing technology into everything, from the classroom to the cornfield.

That's all connected too.

Gates claimed a few years ago that he wanted to give all his money away before he died through his philanthropic efforts.

And yet, he's richer now than he's ever been and is accumulating more and more wealth and power as he grows older.

I am reminded of the Meyer Lansky character Hyman Roth in The Godfather II who claimed to be handing over the Cuban operations and casinos to the Corleones but who really had other aims in mind.

When asked why Roth, already ancient, was still scheming even as he closed in on his own mortality, Michael Corleone says "He acts like I'm his son -- his successor -- but he thinks he's gonna live forever -- and he wants me out."

Gates is the same way - he thinks he's going to live forever and he wants to control everything - from education to disease eradication to climate change mitigation efforts to agriculture to poverty alleviation.

That he gets richer and more powerful even as he "gives" away his money in these efforts tells you everything you need to know about his true motivations.

No wonder he won't answer questions about his connections to Monsanto - it's a window into his true malanthropy.