philanthropy cp - kndi 09

8/9/2019 Philanthropy CP - KNDI 09

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KY FELLOWS Philanthropy CP2009-2010 Molive

PHILANTHROCAPITALIST OR PHILANTHRAPANEUR

PHILANTHROCAPITALIST OR PHILANTHRAPANEUR .................................................................. 1

STRAT SHEET ........................................................................................................................ 2

1NC GENERAL ....................................................................................................................... 3

DISASTER RELIEF SOLVENCY ................................................................................................. 5

1NC EDUCATION SOLVENCY ................................................................................................... 6

EDUCATION SOLVENCY .......................................................................................................... 7

EDUCATION SOLVENCY .......................................................................................................... 9

1NC HOMELESSNESS SOLVENCY .......................................................................................... 11

HOMELESSNESS SOLVENCY ................................................................................................. 12




INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY/DIGITAL DIVIDE SOLVENCY ....................................................... 19

SOFT POWER SOLVENCY ...................................................................................................... 20

A2: ECON DECLINE=NO SOLVE ............................................................................................. 22

......................................................................................................................................... 22

A2: ECON DECLINE=JUSTIFICATION FOR GOV INTERVETION ................................................... 23

A2: PERM ............................................................................................................................ 24

AFF: NEOLIBERALISM .......................................................................................................... 25

RANDOM: PHILANTHROCAPITALISM HYPE BAD ..................................................................... 27

Alex Lamballe is my totes bestie 1 / 27




STRAT SHEET

Ok so there are a couple of different counterplan text that each have their own independentadvantages and disadvantages.The first would be something more or less along the lines of: The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation should (insert plan text wording)

This version is useful against affs that just provide monetary support. This is good becausewhile you have to deal with the private actor fiat theory, you do not have to deal with themulti-actor fiat debate. The net benefits are politics and coercion, with a stronger focus onpolitics.

The second would be The United States federal government should issue an unfunded mandate to do XYZ. The Bill and MelindaGates foundation should fund XYZ.

This version is meant for an aff that has all those perception solvency claims. Only read itwhen you have very good funding links specific to XYZ (i.e. funding for welfare is unpopulareven though welfare is popular). This will allow you to subsume the affs link turns that usually

won’t assume funding.

The third would be The United States federal government should end all social services for persons living in poverty in theUnited States. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation should provide all social services provided by thestatus quo and the plan.

This version is particularly strong against affs that claim squo social services are bad, and itallows you to express you “amazing(ly awful)” coercion net benefit.

If you plan on running the CP and really doing well on it I advise you to cut two books Icouldn’t get access toPhilanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green

Ending Poverty: Changing Behavior, Guaranteeing Income, and Reforming Government by Joseph V.Kennedy

And If your aff is particularly weak against the Gates here is a cite that will have freakingphenomenal answers in it Just Another Emperor? The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism by Michael Edwards

Piller—2007 (Charles Piller is a Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, “Money Clashes with Mission,” 1/8/07,http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-gates8jan8,0,1783208.story)

Piller—2007 (Charles Piller is a Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, “Dark Cloud Over Good Works of GatesFoundation,” 1/7/07, http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,6827615.story?coll=la-home-headlines)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/25/746826/-What-is-powerPeets-Geography-of-Power

I had an alternative counterplan idea to incentivize private actor fill in, but after a quick confrontation with the great Lamball and Shultz I realized that it probably links to the netbenefits and it is stupid. But if you want to cut it for yourself, here is a solvency advocate.http://www.heritage.org/research/religion/bg2258.cfm

And keep in mind while a lot of the evidence is specific to BAMGF the counterplan can justfunction as a generic philanthropy fund the plan CP.


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-gates8jan8,0,1783208.story

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,6827615.story?coll=la-home-headlines



http://www.heritage.org/research/religion/bg2258.cfm


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-gates8jan8,0,1783208.story








1NC GENERAL

Philanthrocapitalism has the money and the means—absent all the constraints of other actors—giving BAMGF the unique ability to solveBishop and Green—2008 (Excerpted from "Philanthrocapitalism" by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green,10/9/08, 'Philanthrocapitalism: How The Rich Can Save the World',

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122357679748419617.html)Not one of these gifts was for the personal benefit of those accepting the letters. Buffett had long made itclear that his children should expect to receive far smaller sums for themselves in his will. Rather, each giftwas for the charitable foundation that the grateful recipient had established. At a combined totalestimated at $37 billion, Buffett's philanthropic donation was the largest ever. It beat even the $31 billionthat Gates had by then given to the foundation that bears his name and that of his wife (although Gateshad already said that most of his remaining fortune—estimated at over $50 billion—would go the samebeneficent way). By 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plans to give away over $3 billion of thatendowment every year, unprecedented in the history of philanthropy. Today's philanthrocapitalists see a world full of big problems that they, and perhaps only they, can andmust put right. Surely, they say, we can save the lives of millions of children who die each year in poorcountries from poverty or diseases that have been eradicated in the rich world. And back home in theUnited States or Europe, it is we who must find ways to make our education systems work for every child,

instead of failing so many students. And if these children are to have a decent life when they grow older,we must find a solution to climate change and the underlying causes of terrorism. And so on.As evidence of the seriousness of his philanthropy, Bill Gates had made a big announcement of his own afew days before Buffett handed out his letters. At the end of June 2008, he would leave his day job atMicrosoft, which he had cofounded in 1975, and start working full time at his foundation—a significantcareer change for a man aged only fifty-two, still at the peak of his powers, and proof that when it comesto philanthropy, he means business.Sitting in his huge office in Microsoft's Seattle headquarters in September 2007, Bill Gates rocks back andforth in his chair as he gets excited about what he is saying. "You know, if you picked the five mostinteresting and important things that have happened in my time frame, I think that these two would be inthe top five, if not at the top," he says, now tapping his pen to the rhythm. "The personal computer, whichI got a chance to participate in, has had this amazing, almost unbelievably great impact on billions of lives,so I'm very proud to be involved in that." But now he is looking to have at least as great an impact on at

least as many lives through his philanthropy as he takes on some of the world's deadliest diseases. "Now Iget to put more into what is sort of a new frontier—more like Microsoft at age three than at age thirty-three." In business, the philanthrocapitalists are used to achieving success on a grand scale, to thinkingbig and going for it. If that approach works in making money, they reason, why wouldn't it work when itcomes to giving the stuff away?In the United States, Gates wants to transform the entire government-funded public school system.Already, his money is starting to make a difference, and Gates believes this is just the beginning. In New York City, for example, Gates has provided money to start dozens of small schools, such as the Bronx Lab.One of four new schools sharing the former campus of the Evander Childs High School in one of New York'spoorest areas, which was closed due to its persistently low levels of educational achievement, the BronxLab opened its doors in 2004. After three years, a remarkable 90 percent of its first class of students wason track to graduate in 2008, compared with a typical graduation rate of under 31 percent at EvanderChilds. Gates thinks this sort of success can be repeated throughout the education system, in New York

and nationwide. But what gets Gates rocking and tapping even more excitedly are the things hisphilanthropy could achieve outside America by ending disease and reducing poverty. More than onemillion people die from malaria every year, most of them children in poor countries. That is the equivalentof losing every student in the New York public school system in one year. "We're sort of crazy enough tosay, 'Let's eliminate malaria,' " says Gates. And it is not just malaria that is on his hit list. His foundationalso wants to dramatically reduce deaths from other diseases that annually kill millions of people in thedeveloping world, such as acute diarrhea, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. And it is fundingresearch into fourteen "grand challenges in global health," ranging from creating new vaccines to findingeconomically efficient ways to measure public health.Philanthrocapitalists are "hyperagents" who have the capacity to do some essential things far better thananyone else. They do not face elections every few years, like politicians, or suffer the tyranny of shareholder demands for ever-increasing quarterly profits, like CEOs of most public companies. Nor do


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122357679748419617.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122357679748419617.html




they have to devote vast amounts of time and resources to raising money, like most heads of NGOs. Thatfrees them to think long-term, to go against conventional wisdom, to take up ideas too risky forgovernment, to deploy substantial resources quickly when the situation demands it—above all, to trysomething new. The big question is, will they be able to achieve their potential?





DISASTER RELIEF SOLVENCY

Gates funds disaster recovery efforts—Katrina and Rita proveHarneis—2009 (Julien Harneis is a Staff Writer Matador Change, “4 Gates Foundation Projects You’veProbably Never Heard Of,” 3/9/09, http://matadorchange.com/4-gates-foundation-projects-youve-probably-never-heard-of/)

3. Emergency & Disaster InterventionHurricane Katrina is a case study in developed countries’ emergency efforts gone awry, and the GatesFoundation is fully aware that no country is ever fully prepared to respond to emergencies and disasters,regardless of its infrastructure.Partnering with aid agencies that have demonstrated track records in disaster response, the GatesFoundation has provided emergency grant money to respond to flooding in India, the cyclone in Myanmar,post-election violence in Kenya, and–yes–Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.


http://matadorchange.com/4-gates-foundation-projects-youve-probably-never-heard-of/







1NC EDUCATION SOLVENCY

BAMGF funding education for the poor now—its paving the way to equalityShaw—2008 (Linda Shaw is a Seattle Times Reporter, “Gates Foundation releases ambitious new givingplans for education,” 11/11/08,http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008378857_webgateseducation11m.html)

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today unveiled ambitious new directions for its education giving,which include working to double the number of low-income students who complete some kind of college orpost-high school degree.Efforts also would be made to identify and pay higher salaries for good teaching, help average teachersget better, devise better tests and create a national set of learning standards for high schools.Bill and Melinda Gates announced these and other plans today to a group of about 100 guests in Seattlethat included many big names in U.S. education.Bill Gates told the group that improving schools is what he and Melinda see as "the best path to equality inAmerica." The new initiative will increase the amount that the foundation — already the biggest giver in U.S.education — spends each year to improve the nation's schools. Foundation officials are not yet saying howmuch. The foundation has spent $4 billion on education in the past eight years — half on scholarships and half on

its work to improve high schools. The leaders of the nation's two largest teachers unions were there, as well as superintendents of some of the biggest districts in the country, including New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C. Advisers topresident-elect Barack Obama also were present, as were several people who are rumored to be in therunning to be the next U.S. Secretary of Education. The initial reaction to the foundation's announcement was positive — not unexpected from a group madeup of those who have received Gates grants or that the foundation considers its partners in figuring outhow to improve schools.


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008378857_webgateseducation11m.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008378857_webgateseducation11m.html




EDUCATION SOLVENCY

Gates has empirically given money to community colleges—Valencia provesOrlando Business Journal—2009 (“Gates Foundation, MDC gives $1M Grant,” 6/23/09,http://orlando.bizjournals.com/orlando/stories/2009/06/22/daily15.html) The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and MDC Inc. are giving more than $1 million to the state of Florida

and Valencia Community College to expand remedial education programs aimed at boosting collegecompletion rates for low-income and minority students.Valencia will get $743,000 over three years to create a centralized remedial program, used across fourcampuses. It plans to align high school, remedial and college-level standards, expand its remedial learningcommunities, and embed reading skills into remedial math courses. The grants, announced June 22, will support remedial programs developed by Valencia through Achievingthe Dream: Community Colleges Count, a multiyear national initiative aimed at increasing collegegraduation rates among disadvantaged students. The state will get also get $300,000 over three years to collaborate with K-12 to reduce the need forremedial education. Connecticut, Ohio, Texas and Virginia also got the funding, which will be used todevelop new policies accelerating the states’ remedial education programs. The Florida grants are part of a $16.5 million effort to improve remedial education at community collegesin five states, reaching about 45,000 students nationwide.

Four states and 14 other colleges received similar Gates grants for their Achieving the Dream program.Each community college will receive $743,000 over three years to expand its programs. LuminaFoundation for Education has also committed $1.5 million to this initiative for evaluation andcommunications.About 375,000 Florida degree-seeking students annually attend a local community college, with nearly 40percent of them taking remedial classes to build basic academic skills. National studies have shown nearlytwo-thirds of those taking remedial classes never graduate, but successful programs at several collegesdemonstrate these numbers can be improved.

Status quo proves solvency—Gates already funds state community collegesMerritt—2009 (Grace E. Merritt is a Staff Writer for the Hartford Courant, “Bill And Melinda GatesFoundation Awards $1.8 Million To 2 Community Colleges In State,” 6/23/09,http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-college-remedial-0623.artjun23,0,3713950.story)

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MDC Inc. gave $1.8 million to Connecticut and two of itscommunity colleges Monday to expand remedial education programs and improve graduation rates amonglow-income and minority students. The money will allow Housatonic and Norwalk community colleges to build on innovative programsdesigned to bring students up to speed quickly, such as an online math course that allows students toprogress at their own pace and a three-week math refresher course at the start of the semester.Currently, about 70 percent of Connecticut's community college students must take remedial courses inmath or English before they can start taking college-level courses. These remedial courses typically don't count toward graduation requirements and can frustrate students,sometimes prompting them to drop out. Only 36 percent of full- and part-time community college studentsin Connecticut graduate within six years. The Gates Foundation said it was intrigued by some of the approaches Connecticut is taking to address theremedial problem and smooth the path for students.

Among four new programs at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, for example, is a bridgingprogram with area high schools that encourages students to continue taking math classes in their senioryear. High school juniors take a placement test that shows them where they would end up in math andEnglish at community college if they enrolled that day.Other initiatives include more thorough student advising and tracking, embedding student tutors inclassrooms and promoting study groups. The idea is to better engage students, many of whom work fulltime, with classmates and give them a stronger connection to college, said Mary Anne Cox, assistantchancellor for Connecticut's community colleges."It's really a testament to the state of Connecticut and to Housatonic and Norwalk community colleges thatthey received this grant. They have some of the most promising programs out there," said Marie Groark, aspokeswoman for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.


http://orlando.bizjournals.com/orlando/stories/2009/06/22/daily15.html

http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-college-remedial-0623.artjun23,0,3713950.story

http://orlando.bizjournals.com/orlando/stories/2009/06/22/daily15.html

http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-college-remedial-0623.artjun23,0,3713950.story




In addition to Connecticut, the Gates Foundation gave grants to four other states — Florida, Ohio, Texasand Virginia — to expand their programs and policies and to compare results.





EDUCATION SOLVENCY

Gates funding charter schools now—its creating a beneficial impact on domestic educationBlankinship—2006 (Donna Gordon Blankinship is a Staff Writer for the Associated Press, “GatesFoundation spending $30 million for charter schools,” 10/11/06,http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003299382_webgates11.html)

SEATTLE – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is spending $30 million to help build 200 new charterschools for low-income students around the country. The grant to the NewSchools Venture Fund, announced this week, is the foundation's second donation tothe organization that supports nonprofit charter management organizations, which start and run charterschools, said foundation spokesman Eli Yim.A $22 million Gates grant in 2003 gave NewSchools the money to help create five new chartermanagement organizations. The NewSchools Venture Fund supports charter organizations running schoolsin California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., that enrollmore than 26,000 students a year. This year's grant will help support as many as 20 charter networks that are expected to start 200 schoolsand eventually educate 100,000 students in low-income urban communities including New York, LosAngeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C., the foundation said. The foundation's support for charter schools will focus on high schools, Yim said. He said the foundation's

officers have been impressed by the results of NewSchools' efforts, especially preparing low-incomestudents to succeed in college.NewSchools said low-income students in the charter schools it supports were outperforming students intheir host districts by 36 percent in math and 52 percent in reading."The charter school movement holds the promise of improving radically the quality of public schooling inAmerica," said Ted Mitchell, chief executive officer of NewSchools Venture Fund. "These schools areproving that all children can meet high standards if given the right tools and the right environment." Yim said the $30 million grant is not a renewal of the previous $22 million grant; it is an expansion of support."We don't really renew grants," he said. "They came to us with a proposal for another grant." The Gates Foundation continues to invest in American high schools in a number of different ways — frompaying large schools to recreate themselves into groups of small learning communities to supporting newtechnology and teacher training initiatives. Foundation money has impacted a total of 1,100 schools

serving an estimated 700,000 students."We continue to just work from the strategy of trying to improve student outcomes. We continue toexplore a wide range of entry points to do that," Yim said, emphasizing that the foundation is not changingits education program to focus on charter schools."We want our money to be catalytic and do whatever works for a particular community," Yim said.

Gates is uniquely capable and has empirically donated to education programsCalefati—2009 (Jessica Calefati is a Staff Writer for the U.S. News, “Gates Foundation Gives $16.5 Millionfor Community-College Programs, 6/30/09, http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-education/2009/06/30/gates-foundation-gives-165-million-for-community-college-programs.html) The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation renewed its commitment to improving college graduation rates forlow-income and minority students by giving $16.5 million in grant money to expand remedial educationprograms at the community-college level.

Fifteen community colleges and five states with model remedial education programs received the grantslast week. The model programs share qualities such as accelerating the speed at which students completeremedial courses, providing students one-on-one support with class work and homework, and offeringcourses with open entry and exit dates so that students who miss registration deadlines can still enroll,says Hilary Pennington, director of special initiatives in the Gates Foundation's United States program. Sheadded that the foundation hopes the grant recipients can act as replicable models to other communitycolleges and states looking to improve their remedial education offerings. The need for strong remedial education programs is vast, according to a recently released report by Jobsfor the Future, a nonprofit research and advocacy agency. The report indicates that about 60 percent of students enrolling in community colleges across the nation take remedial education classes to shore uptheir mastery of basic academic skills. This statistic tops 90 percent for low-income and minority students


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003299382_webgates11.html

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-education/2009/06/30/gates-foundation-gives-165-million-for-community-college-programs.html


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003299382_webgates11.html






HOMELESSNESS SOLVENCY

Private philanthropic donations—like Gates—are empirically successful at homeless alleviationHarrell—2004 (Debera Carlton Harrell is a Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter, “Seattle's 'supportivehousing' for homeless gets boost,” 11/30/04, http://www.seattlepi.com/local/201681_homeless30.html)A civic and nationwide effort to end chronic homelessness received a recent boost with the announcement

of a new charitable partnership aimed at providing more supportive housing nationwide.Local housing advocates received more good news with the release of a national report showing that in Seattle and eight other citiessupportive housing has proven more successful and cost-effective in dealing with the chronically homeless than relying on jails,prisons, treatment centers, emergency shelters and emergency rooms.

"Supportive housing" is housing where an array of services -- such as mental health and employmentcounseling, and drug and alcohol treatment -- is provided to help end the persistent homelessness seen inabout 20 percent of the overall homeless population locally and nationally.Without such supports, many chronically homeless people repeatedly move from streets to shelters,emergency rooms, prisons or mental hospitals -- and then right back to the streets, advocates say. The report, released Nov. 23, was prepared for the non-profit Corporation for Supportive Housing by the Lewin Group, a policyanalysis organization based in Washington, D.C.It analyzed the costs of supportive housing, jails, prisons, emergency shelters, mental hospitals and hospital and emergency rooms innine cities -- Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix and Columbus, Ohio.In Seattle, the cost of supportive housing was estimated at $26 per person per day, in contrast with $87.67 for a day in jail, $555 formental hospitals and $2,184 for hospitals.

The study is important, local housing advocates and city officials say, since it reinforces what many in Seattle and King County havebeen saying for some time now: Combining housing with services and supports for the chronically homeless is not only more humanebut also costs less than relying over and over again on emergency services.Bill Hobson, executive director of the Downtown Emergency Service Center, one of the shelters surveyed for the report, said he wasgratified but not surprised by the findings.Hobson said the DESC, which serves those with mental illnesses, drug addictions, disabilities, AIDS and other that contribute to theirchronic homelessness, sees about 5,000 people in a year.In King County, it is estimated there are from 2,000 to 2,500 homeless people on any given night -- the majority of whom are inSeattle, Hobson said."We've learned an awful lot since the '80s about how to engage with this (chronically homeless) population," Hobson said."Supportive housing is more cost-effective, but it is also more humane than having people languish in jail."The good news is we know how to do this, but the bad news is we don't have enough money to do this (supportive housing)frequently enough."

Some help may come from the new charitable partnership that has pledged $37 million toward a national,10-year goal of ending chronic homelessness.Partners include: the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation of Los Angeles; the Rockefeller Foundation of New YorkCity; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation of Princeton, N.J.; the Fannie Mae Foundation; Deutsche Bank;Melville Charitable Trust; the Corporation for Supportive Housing; and the National Alliance to EndHomelessness. The philanthropic donation, combined with leveraged public and private financing, will help create 150,000units of high-quality supportive housing for individuals and families in various communities, nationalhousing officials said.While the communities to receive funding have not been determined yet, Seattle may have a good shot atsome of it because the city is already ahead of much of the rest of the country in proving the value of supportive housing, housing officials said.Its track record, and availability of supportive housing and other data, were prime reasons for includingSeattle in the study, said Nan Roman, president and chief executive officer of the National Alliance to EndHomelessness."There is a lot of supportive housing in Seattle -- it is ahead of the curve," Roman said.Katie Hong, deputy director of Pacific Northwest giving programs for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,said the creation of a national partnership reflects local partnerships that have been formed to solvehomelessness locally, such as the Gates' Sound Families Initiative. The $40 million supportive housing initiative is at the halfway mark toward funding 1,500 housing units inthe Puget Sound region.Hong said a recent Sound Families evaluation also showed that supportive housing helps stabilize thehomeless -- and saves taxpayers money."The report is very consistent with what we're finding," Hong said. "We didn't set out to prove that thisapproach saved taxpayers money; we were trying to stabilize families."But our findings also show that it is more cost-effective in the long run to provide supportive housing."


http://www.seattlepi.com/local/201681_homeless30.html

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/201681_homeless30.html




Seattle City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck, who has long tracked local homeless issues and is on theadvisory board of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said the study and the partnership show"we're getting a better handle on the problem.""I'm very pleased the partnership has teamed up to provide funding, and recognizes this approach,"Steinbrueck said."Now we need to take these findings and move them into action."






BAMGF is empirically successful in private donations to stop homelessnessHarrell—2002 (Debera Carlton Harrell is a Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter, “Gates Foundation DoublesGrants for Homelessness,” 12/26/02, http://www.seattlepi.com/local/101564_gates26.shtml)KINGSGATE -- In what advocates call "the best possible Christmas present," the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will end

the year by awarding $8 million in new grants to non-profit housing organizations in King, Pierce andSnohomish counties to build housing and provide family services ranging from employment training andcounseling to child care.

All of the money will go to help formerly homeless families. The money will provide 188 units to house an estimated 650 people, doubling grants given by thefoundation since July 2001, when its Sound Families program was rolled out.While the foundation has become known for its work in education and global health, Sound Families has been an effort on asmaller scale to address an issue closer to home: keeping kids from growing up in cars and shelters and onthe streets by making their parents self-sufficient.Amy Moe, 31, watched through tears last week as civic leaders and homeless advocates cut the ribbon on one new unit, the latest in the ambitious public-private effort.

The apartment, in one of four new multiplex apartments in a woodsy cul-de-sac in northeast Kirkland, will be rented to a homeless family that, a year ago, could have been Moe's own. The celebration was proof thatthe best presents can't be wrapped -- especially if you're homeless."I feel triumphant," said Moe, who spent this Christmas in her own apartment with her three kids -- a 4-year-old boy and 11-year-old twins. With the foundation's help, Moe returned to college, graduated from theUniversity of Washington with honors and reunited with the children's father. She now works in Redmond as an advocate for the homeless.Mary Maxwell, 50, wound up homeless with three kids after she and her husband split. This year, Maxwell celebrated a cozy Christmas in a light and airy rental unit in Vision House, an early Sound Families granteein Renton.She calls the services provided by the program, such as tutoring for her children, "a lifelong gift," and credits many volunteers and donors -- Stafford Homes and Master Builders volunteers, the city of Renton and

the private, non-profit Vision House -- for helping her out of homelessness."I had the rug completely pulled out from under me. . . . I have a lot of faith, but I'm not sure where I would be without this," she said."My children and I are regaining our confidence and our joy. Our grieving lasted a long time, but we are laughing again," said Maxwell, recalling a past Christmas spent wrapping and redistributing what little sheowned so her children could "play Santa."

While the Gates Foundation's clout and money cannot be duplicated everywhere, some in other states saythe approach -- attractive housing designs, community partnerships, flexible funding and the combinationof capital funding and social services -- is showing what's possible, even in a time of fiscal constraints.

"It is very audacious and commendable for the Gates Foundation to take this problem on, to lookcomprehensively at systemic change," said Nan Roman, president of the national Alliance to End Homelessness based in

Washington, D.C. "I love that they're going to scale, really trying to have an impact instead of these constanthalf-measures.

"The bottom line is that homelessness is an affordable housing issue, and Gates gets this. . . . Theyunderstand that homelessness is an issue of prevention, that people need services so they can get theirincomes up to the point where they can afford their own housing."Ron Hutchinson, associate director of Kirkland Interfaith Transitions in Housing, said the Gates initiative "will make a major

difference" in addressing family homelessness. Hutchinson's agency joined with Sound Families and volunteers fromHomeAid, a charitable branch of Master Builders of King County, to renovate the Petter Court multiplex in Kirkland.

"The Gates Foundation is not just throwing money at the problem," Hutchinson said. "They are helping with allkinds of healing that has to occur for these families."An exact count of homeless families is hard to come by, partly because they are so mobile. But estimates have placed the number of homeless people in King County as high as 7,000 -- and possibly 2,000 of themare children."Our system is swamped," said Paul Carlson, a homeless and supportive housing specialist for the city of Seattle's Office of Housing."We know there is so much backlog, families go in and out of homelessness. When all 1,500 units (the Sound Families goal) are online, it will have a huge impact on the whole system."

The city of Seattle is one of six major partners for Sound Families. The cities of Tacoma and Everett, and Snohomish, King and Pierce counties are the others.Carlson, formerly a housing director for mental health services at Harborview Medical Center, lauds the program as building not only families, but greater awareness of homelessness."Sound Families isn't just a funding program but an unprecedented policy initiative," Carlson said. "Part of the intent is to strengthen the political will to address homelessness."Sound Families complements other Gates Foundation initiatives in education and world health, foundation co-chairman Bill Gates Sr. said."It's been very encouraging to see all the partnerships come together," he said. "It could be modeled -- there are people in other states who are interested in that."It's unlikely, however, that the program will be extended beyond King, Snohomish and Pierce counties."I wouldn't think we'd expand it geographically; it won't be on the scale of our global health initiative," Gates said. "The problem of homelessness is bigger than any one foundation. I am not sure we could eliminatehomelessness inSeattle, let alone King County. But there's an issue of dimension. No one else is likely to give a $40 million gift for a local effort like this."Doreen Marchione, former mayor of Redmond and executive director of Hopelink, a Sound Families grantee on the Eastside, said there is no doubt the strategy is working."People are increasingly looking at this approach and seeing how effective it is," Marchione said. She said 95 percent of the people who moved out of Hopelink's 32 units of transitional housing in the last fiscal yearmoved into permanent housing.Ed Petersen, executive director of Housing Hope, a non-profit housing development corporation and Gates grantee in Snohomish, said becoming a partner with Sound Families has helped expand a longtime effort tfind and maintain transitional housing.One building, called New Century House in Everett, contains transitional housing for teenage moms.

"The Gates Foundation has opened up huge doors," Petersen said. "They've energized the whole discussionabout how to solve homelessness. Just their involvement is a statement that this effort is vital andneeded." THE INITIATIVE

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has approved $8 million in grants to help develop transitional housingfor families and to provide services as part of its inter-agency, tri-county $40 million Sound Familiesprogram. The newest round of grants, the largest to date, provides $2.5 million to eight projects for capitalconstruction costs and human services, which can include mental health counseling, job training, tutoring,transportation and child care. An additional $5.5 million is being awarded as "advanced funding" to fivegrantees to help fund predevelopment activities and jump-start housing.


http://www.seattlepi.com/local/101564_gates26.shtml

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/101564_gates26.shtml




The funding lifts the Gates contribution to $16 million, with a total of 586 housing units either started orcompleted, since the Sound Families initiative was announced in July 2001. The goal is 1,500 new orrenovated units. The eight new grantees are: Flett Meadows and Tyler Square (Tacoma); Project Permanency and Highland Inn (King County); and ThePantages, Kingway Way, Pine City Inn and Andover Court (Seattle). The five advanced-funding grantees are the Capitol Hill Housing Improvement Program, Housing Hope, the Housing Resource Group,Intercommunity Housing and the YWCA.

Most of the grants are matched or augmented by partners, such as the city of Seattle, the King County Housing Authority or otherpublic/private housing concerns.






Gate’s donations empirically assist homeless alleviation—they are uniquely effective atpreventionHeim—2009 (Kristi Heim is a Seattle Times Staff Reporter, “Gates Foundation Joins Others in Goal to CutHomelessness,” 3/19/09,

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008884912_gateshomeless19.html)A partnership of governments, businesses and nonprofits is pledging today to redouble its efforts to helpthe growing number of homeless families in Washington state. The pledge includes up to $60 million over10 years by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.Partners in the Washington Families Fund vowed to reduce the number of homeless families by 50 percentover the next decade."I feel this is an opportunity right now, as much as I'm a realist about the economy," said Alice Shobe,deputy director of Building Changes, which administers the fund. "It is ambitious, but we have a visionabout how to do it. We have the creativity and broad partnership to make it happen."As the recession throws more people into poverty, "we must do more to help families achieve andmaintain stability," said Gov. Chris Gregoire, who signed an agreement with King, Snohomish and Piercecounties and the cities of Seattle, Everett and Tacoma to collaborate with the private partners.Created by the state Legislature in 2004, the Washington Families Fund has received contributions of more

than $20 million — $12 million from the state and $8.3 million from 18 other partners, including the GatesFoundation, Boeing, Microsoft, the Campion Foundation, the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation, theBen B. Cheney Foundation and United Way. It has awarded $13 million in grants so far. The Washington Families Fund has not yet revealed any new financial commitments other than the GatesFoundation's pledge.Governments and private groups together spend about $200 million a year to address the problem inWashington state, but as economic conditions worsen, the number of homeless families keeps going up.About half of the state's estimated 22,000 homeless households are families with children.Winter nights The family of Jackilin Abiem, 25, was one of them. She arrived in 2001 as an orphan from Sudan afterfleeing civil war and walking for three months across the country and eventually to a refugee camp. Oncein Washington, she lived with two foster families, graduated from Garfield High School and landed her first job at McDonald's.

Abiem then worked for two years as a cook at a retirement home, but she never earned quite enoughmoney to afford her own apartment. She became homeless after the youth housing where she was stayingmade her leave when she became pregnant.She then bounced around, staying with four different friends and her foster mom through the birth of herson, Nassir. She remembers "window shopping" outside on winter nights as she waited for friends to getoff work."When I was pregnant, I didn't have a place to live, so I was just running around between friends," shesaid. "It was hard for me to go house to house and to old friends. I keep them worried ... that I may givebirth [at] their house." Spending some nights with her foster mom in Mount Vernon and other nights withfriends in South King County made it tough to be in West Seattle consistently for her job, and she lost that,too.Abiem is now at Katharine's Place, in a transitional apartment for homeless families in Rainier Valley, buther two-year term ends in December. She is about to give birth to her second son. Katharine's Place had so

many people on its two-year waiting list that it closed the list to new applicants in January.Prevention That reflects a rise in the number of homeless families in 2008 over 2007, especially in South King County."The trend lines have gone in the wrong direction, period," said David Bley, director of the PacificNorthwest Initiative at the Gates Foundation. "We need to go about tackling the problem differently thanwe have in the past."For one thing, there's not enough emphasis on preventing homelessness by keeping people in affordablehousing. Only 3 percent of the $200 million is used for prevention, he said."It feels totally out of whack from what we know works — it's easier to keep people in a home than putthem back once they've lost one," Bley said.


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008884912_gateshomeless19.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008884912_gateshomeless19.html




Bley said other needed changes include providing permanent housing as soon as possible, rather than"transitional housing," and standardizing the fragmented systems used to determine what families need,so they get access to the same services no matter where they go for help."Some people will need a lot of services and some people will need nothing more than a rent subsidy," hesaid. The program also will focus on improving the economic prospects of people with low incomes or no

income, connecting them with work-force development and job training. And more money will be investedin getting better data on homeless families to understand the problem."It is difficult to assess progress if you don't have good numbers," Bley said, "and it is very difficult to serveindividual parents and children well if no one is tracking their needs, the support they get and the progressthey are making.""Gains being lost" The Gates Foundation has previously given $40 million in grants to help homeless families and learn howto better tackle the problem. Grants to help homeless families are part of the foundation's PacificNorthwest giving, which totaled $33 million in 2009.While that money is only a fraction of the billions the foundation gives away globally, it does make it thelargest private human-service grantmaker in the state, said T.J. Bucholz, Gates Foundation senior programofficer.Washington is studying the practices of other communities that have managed to reduce homelessness by40 to 50 percent. But even the most effective programs are seeing some erosion of progress."That's what was really frightening about the current economic climate," Bley said. "We see a lot of thosegains being lost in those communities that were very innovative."However, he added, "there would be a lot more homeless families if we weren't doing this work."






Gates empirically funds homelessness alleviation programsHarneis—2009 (Julien Harneis is a Staff Writer Matador Change, “4 Gates Foundation Projects You’veProbably Never Heard Of,” 3/9/09, http://matadorchange.com/4-gates-foundation-projects-youve-probably-never-heard-of/)

1. Housing in the United StatesHomelessness has long been a problem in the U.S., but with the mortgage and foreclosure crisis affectingso many families, homelessness is threatening people previously insulated from this particular socialproblem. Though the Gates Foundation has been committed to fair and affordable housing initiatives in theWashington State region since 2000, it has stepped up efforts to prevent homelessness, assist in rapidplacement of homeless families, and work with partner agencies to provide newly homeless withemployment opportunities that will help them recover economic stability.









INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY/DIGITAL DIVIDE SOLVENCY

Gates is solving the digital divide now—provides access to Information TechnologyVNBusinessNews—2009 (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Helps Rural People Access Internet,” 4/21/09,http://www.vnbusinessnews.com/2009/04/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-helps.html)Vietnamese people in rural areas will have a chance to gain better access to information technology (IT)

under a pilot project sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a private US fund. The Ministry of Information and Communication will conduct the US$2.1-million project in the provinces of Thai Nguyen, Nghe An and Tra Vinh from now until July 2010 to assist rural residents to benefit from IT andtelecommunication services, which are expected to reduce poverty and narrow the ‘digital gap’.Specifically, the project will be carried out in 99 public telecommunication access sites such as communalpost offices, people’s committee offices, and provincial, district and school libraries as well as hospitals. Atotal of 705 computers in these venues will have a broadband internet connection and there will betraining courses in computer and internet skills for both local officials and citizens.In addition, the project will disseminate information to help local people understand about the benefits andeffectiveness of IT and the internet as well as the Party and State policies on such issues. The project is expected to pave the way for developing a national IT project for the 2010-2015 period.(VOV)

Its totes obvi—Gates does telecomHarneis—2009 (Julien Harneis is a Staff Writer Matador Change, “4 Gates Foundation Projects You’veProbably Never Heard Of,” 3/9/09, http://matadorchange.com/4-gates-foundation-projects-youve-probably-never-heard-of/)4. Internet Connectivity & Access to TechnologyAs the man who was at the helm of Microsoft for more than 30 years, it’s little surprise that the GatesFoundation invests time and money in Internet-related projects. The Internet is a powerful resource andtool, yet a deep digital divide exists between developed and developing countries, and the GatesFoundation is working hard to bridge that gap.With projects in Latvia, Bulgaria, and South Africa, the Gates Foundation hopes to democratize the Internetby making access free and as widespread as possible where government budgets are unable to buildtechnological infrastructures.


http://www.vnbusinessnews.com/2009/04/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-helps.html



http://www.vnbusinessnews.com/2009/04/bill-melinda-gates-foundation-helps.html






SOFT POWER SOLVENCY

Private domestic organizations can improve U.S. soft power – they avoid popular mistrust of the U.S. governmentNye—2004 (Joseph S. Jr. Nye is a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, “Soft Power: The Means toSuccess in World Politics,” Chapter 4 Wielding Soft Power,. 4/5/04

http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/BCSIA_content/documents/Joe_Nye_Wielding_Soft_Power.pdf )Even when policy and communications are “in sync”, wielding soft power resources in an information ageis difficult. For one thing, as mentioned earlier, government communications are only a small fraction of the totalcommunications among societies in an age that is awash in information. Hollywood movies that offend religious fundamentalists in other

countries or activities by American missionaries that appear to devalue Islam will always be outside the control of government. Some skeptics have concluded that Americans should accept the inevitable, and letmarket forces take care of the presentation of its culture and image to foreigners. Why pour money into the Voice of America when CNN, MSNBC or Fox can do the work for free? But such a conclusion is too facile.Market forces portray only the profitable mass dimensions of American culture, thus reinforcing foreign images of a one-dimensional country.Government support of high cultural exchanges has often had important effects on key foreign elites. Developing long-term relationships is not always profitable in the short term, and thus leaving simply to themarket may lead to under-investment. While higher education may pay for itself, and non-profit organizations can help, many exchange programs would shrink without government support. Private companies mustrespond to market forces to stay in business. If there is no market for broadcasting in Serbo-Croatian or Pashtu, companies will not broadcast in those languages.

And sometimes, private companies will cave in to political pressures from foreign governments if that isbetter for profits – witness the way Rupert Murdoch dropped the BBC, which broadcasts some material critical of China, from his satellite television broadcasts to China in the 1990s. At the same

time, postmodern publics are generally skeptical of authority, and governments are often mistrusted. Thus itoften behooves governments to keep in the background and to work with private actors. Some NGOs enjoymore trust than governments do, and though they are difficult to control, they can be useful channels of communication. American foundations such as Ford, the Soros Foundation, and the Carnegie Endowment For countries like Britain and the United States, which

enjoy significant immigrant populations, diasporas can provide culturally sensitive and linguistically skilledconnections. Building relationships between political parties in different countries was pioneered by Germany where the major parties have foundations for foreign contacts that are partly supported by

government funds. During the Reagan Administration, the United States followed suit when it established the National Endowment for Democracy, which provided funds for the National Democratic Institute and theInternational Republican Institute as well as trade unions and chambers of commerce in order to promote democracy and civil society overseas.

American companies can also play an important role. Their representatives and brands directly touch thelives of far more people than government representatives do. Some public-spirited business people have suggested that companies develop and share

sensitivity and communications training for corporate representatives before they are sent abroad. Companies can also take the lead in sponsoring specificpublic diplomacy projects such as “a technology company working with Sesame Workshops and a Lebanese broadcaster to co-produce an English language children’s program centered on

technology, an area of American achievement that is universally admired.”xlii

Gates actions demonstrate the effective use of soft powerPlate—2002 (Top Plate is a Professor of Communications UCLA, Tribune Media Services, “Gates wields‘soft power’ in India" 11/15/02 http://asiamedia.ucla.edu/TomPlate2002/11192002.htm)Los Angeles --- Perhaps it should not be so surprising that the world's king of software should so well evidence an

understanding of the deft efficacy of "soft power."That's

the term coinedby Joseph Nye Jr., Harvard's brilliant dean of the Kennedy School of

Government, to explain that America's global influence derives not only from its military might but also from thepower of its values and institutions.In America private charity, for example, is as deeply embedded as baseball and cookouts. So when Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates unveiled, on a swingthrough India last week, an initial grant of $100 million to help that country cope with its AIDS problem, theworld was witnessing the exercise of soft power -- and America's charitable instincts -- at its best.For the mammoth aid project could well wind up saving more Indians from death than anything short of nuclear war with Pakistan. The grant is designed to spread information, education and preventivetechniques. The experience in the U.S. has been that AIDS does not simply go away by sweeping theproblem under the rug because of the disease's off-putting social stigma. AIDS is a hot-button issue in India. Religious conservatives,

appalled by the sexual promiscuous and homosexual behavior that fuels the infection's spread, would prefer to keep the crisis under the covers. But with the window of opportunity proffered by the Gates grant,India can be spared the public-health horror that has befallen some countries in Africa infected by the twin plagues of the AIDS epidemic and government incompetence.

Critics in India are even accusing Gates of "spreading panic" about AIDS among the public. That's absurd,of course. Gates is first and foremost a shrewd businessman. The grant from the Bill & Melinda GatesFoundation -- its largest to date -- could be thought of as representing little more than good business: India's

economic potential will suffer if its Hindu-dominated government fails to come to grips with the causes and extent of AIDS contamination. A growing Indian economy offers U.S. businesses not only a fantasticmarket, but also provides a splendidly bilingual workforce that can do everything from creating new software programs to answering the questions of U.S. credit-card customers via the Internet or satellite telephonelinks. So, sure, Gate did not act simply out of humanitarianism: India hosts Microsoft's only research center outside the United States.But Gates's Microsoft also represents more potential business for India -- a thriving Asian software colossus -- than anything this side of "Bollywood," that perennially thriving Indian film industry. India's peopledeserve better politicians than those that'd throw sand at Gates. Moreover, the grant is also a recognition, albeit by a private U.S. entity, of the towering importance of India to America's future. Lately, that realityhas been obscured by the Bush administration's need to break bread with Pakistan, neighbor to Afghanistan and sometimes-home to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. But at some point, proportionality willreturn to U.S. relations with South Asia and America will re-tilt toward India. For in the grand geopolitical scheme of things, the world's second most populated nation is to Pakistan as Hertz is to Dollar Rent-a-Car."From the standpoint of U.S. interests," explains David Karl, an expert at the West Coast-based Pacific Council on International Relations, "Pakistan is important tactically, but India's value is strategic."Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration made no bones of its plan to pump up relations with New Delhi, no matter the reaction in Islamabad. 911 put that plan -- and so many others -- on hold. But the U.S.strategy -- to help India grow in heft so as to serve as a geopolitical balance to China on the latter's southern flank -- is still the plan.

The Gates gift also demonstrates an increasingly potent phenomenon of globalization: the intimate interconnectedness between what is important locally and what is important globally. All along the West Coast of the United States -- from Seattle, where Microsoft is headquartered, to Silicon Valley in northern California, where Indian CEOs and programmers are nearly as common as ZIP-drives, to Southern California, whereIndian programming geniuses lie behind Hollywood's increasingly computerized celluloid movies -- Indians dominate the software spotlight of the American computer world.

A further thought: Note that in India last week the world's richest man was practically accorded all thetrappings of office normally reserved for a visiting head of state. When Americans in their private capacitycomport themselves less like parochial neo-colonial pariahs and more like true statesmen of the world,they demonstrate American soft power at its best.


http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/BCSIA_content/documents/Joe_Nye_Wielding_Soft_Power.pdf

http://bcsia.ksg.harvard.edu/BCSIA_content/documents/Joe_Nye_Wielding_Soft_Power.pdf




Last week, Mr. Microsoft ran the soft-power program without a bug.





A2: ECON DECLINE=NO SOLVE

In spite of the economic decline the gates foundation is growingHeim—2008 (Kristi Heim is a Seattle Times Business Reporter, “Despite sour economy, Gates Foundationplans to expand,” 11/10/08,http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008371541_gatesside10.html) The world's largest philanthropy, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, can afford to expand in spite of theeconomic downturn.Next year the foundation, with an endowment of $35 billion, will grow "significantly" in both grant-makingand operations, said Chief Financial Officer Alexander Friedman. The Gates Foundation has a different problem than most nonprofits. It has to work hard to spend its moneyfast enough.As a nonprofit foundation, it's required to distribute at least 5 percent of its assets a year. In July thefoundation also received an installment of $1.8 billion from investor Warren Buffett, which must be spentin 2009. Those two streams of dollars come into the foundation from a separate account, the Gates FoundationAsset Trust, which is managed by an outside fund manager.Next year's installment of Buffett's gift could reflect the market downturn, since the gift comes in the formof Berkshire Hathaway B shares. On Friday those shares were down by about 18 percent from the same

time last year. The value of the Gates Foundation endowment was also down to $35.1 billion in Octoberfrom $35.9 billion in June.Most foundations fund what they can from limited budgets, usually 5 percent of their endowments, whichhistorically suffer during market downturns."For us we think of it slightly differently," Friedman said. "We're committed to meeting the fundingrequirements our program strategies are designed around." The Gates Foundation determines its goals first, and then decides how much money it will need to achievethem. The foundation's ambitions include eradicating malaria, finding a cure for AIDS, supporting anagricultural revolution in Africa and improving education in the U.S.As for the stock market and the economy at large, even Friedman, a former investment banker at LazardFreres, won't hazard a guess."It's unprecedented for everybody," he said. "I just have no idea what the year's going to end like."


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008371541_gatesside10.html

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008371541_gatesside10.html




A2: PERM

We should decrease our reliance on public sector welfare—and allow private charities to fill in—the perm prevents this shiftLingle—2007 (Christopher Lingle is a Staff Writer for the Ideas on Liberty Freeman, “Casualties of the Waron Poverty,” 12/07, Vol. 57 Issue 10, http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/casualties-of-the-war-on-poverty/)And so it is that despite massive amounts of spending by governments, poverty remains at a high rate inthe United States. Or perhaps it is better said that public-sector welfare and other aid programs arecausing poverty since the poor become dependent on handouts instead of looking for work or starting abusiness. (See Charles Johnson’s article on page 12 to understand why the poor have trouble startingbusinesses.)Government officials who spend so much of other people’s money have weak incentives to see that it isspent well. Indeed, the so-called war on poverty has been no more effective than the war on drugs andprobably less so than the war in Iraq.Perhaps a better response to poverty would be to reduce the reliance on governments. The slack could bemade up by elements of civil society, such as private charities, that are more effective than welfareprograms in serving the poor.As it is, 85 million American households give a total of $250 billion to charities each year. Interestingly,

private Americans gave more to the victims of the Asian tsunami than the federal government did.Giving is not limited to the very rich. The working poor give as large a percentage of their incomes as dothe rich and a lot more than does the American middle class.Were it not for so many public policies that undermine private giving, this amount would almost certainlybe larger. For example, private foundations face punitive regulation, and government subsidies tononprofits crowd out charity. On the one hand, subsidies reduce the incentive for those groups to seekvoluntary contributions, and on the other they reduce the incentive for individuals to donate since theyalready “gave at the office” when taxes were withheld from their paychecks. Moreover, many policiesreduce disposable incomes of major donors.It is important to know what lies behind the data on the extent of poverty and giving in America. It iswrong to think that Americans are shirking their obligations to needy neighbors or that the U.S.government should do more.





AFF: NEOLIBERALISM

The Gates foundation functions on the use of neoliberalism which undermines democracy andinevitably leads to fascismKovacs and Christie—2008 (Philip Kovacs is a former high school English teacher now teaching teachersat the UAHuntsville in Huntsville, Alabama, USA. He helped create the Educator Roundtable, anorganization working to replace standardized schooling with education more conducive to realizing andmaintaining an organic democratic social order, H. K. Christie is a graduate student in the School of Education at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, USA, “The Gates’ Foundation and the Future of U.S. Public Education: A Call for Scholars to Counter Misinformation Campaigns,” 2008,www.jceps.com/PDFs/6-2-01.pdf )Indeed the Gates Foundation has spent over three billion dollars influencing American public schools, andwhile the donations seem laudable on some fronts, especially in an era of increased federal demandscoupled with reduced federal spending, his philanthropy remains problematic. When corporate leadersshape government institutions according to their needs, countries move away from democracy and towardcorporatism, a relative of, and arguably a precursor to, fascism. This paper is no place for a completeanalysis of American democracy and fascism writ large, and we believe scholars have made a compellingcase for keeping corporate leaders out of our classrooms as, despite their "best" intentions, their ideology

ultimately undermines the democracy our schools purportedly serve.3 Corporations are out forcorporations, whereas democratic citizens, ideally, are out for each other. John Dewey, American philosopher and vocal critic of traditional public schools, defined democracy as asystem of associated living where individuals participate in the institutions governing them. 4 In ademocratic school system, parents, students, teachers, academics and business leaders would participatein curricular decisions. Corporatism, on the other hand, requires citizen obedience to corporate demands;individual needs are ignored. In the case of U.S. public schools, CEOs have great influence on thecurriculum whereas parents have little to none. Individual students become products whose manufactureis subject to the whims of the market. As our society becomes more market based, we have seen strictercoordination between government and industry. This coordination often comes in the form of government-business partnerships, where elites from both groups decide how public institutions should be shaped andrun. Ultimately, corporatism undermines the legitimacy of individual citizens and any possibility of democracy, as these elites, often unelected, make decisions for the people. This paper problematizes the

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation‘s involvement with the reformation of U.S. public schools. Focusing onfour organizations funded in-part by the foundation, we use Chris Mooney‘s work on ―political scienceabuse‖ to illuminate how corporate-funded think tanks and advocacy groups generate ―spontaneousconsent‖ for pro-corporate educational reform. 5 We then raise questions about the legitimacy of whatthese organizations say and do, with the hope that scholars will work to counter misinformation campaignsmade possible by corporate philanthropists such as Bill Gates.

These neoliberal actions of the gates foundations corrupts their solvenyTurl—2009 (Adam Turl is a reporter for the Socialist Worker, 6/8/09, How the Other 0.00000003 PercentLive,” http://www.voltairenet.org/article160507.html) The mythmaking continues when it comes to Gates’ philanthropy. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation iswidely cited as a symbol of Gates’ sense of social responsibility, funding projects to provide health care

and AIDS treatment in places like Africa. But a Los Angeles Times investigation in 2007 showed the darkerside of the fund."[A]t least $8.7 billion, or 41 percent of its assets, not including U.S. and foreign governmentsecurities...have been in companies that countered the foundation’s charitable goals or socially concernedphilosophy," the Times reported.For example, the foundation has stock from corporations "ranked among the worst U.S. and Canadianpolluters, including ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical Co. and Tyco International Ltd," wrote the Times. TheGates fund invests in "many of the world’s other major polluters, including companies that own an oilrefinery and one that owns a paper mill, which a study shows sicken children [in a Nigerian town] while thefoundation tries to save their parents from AIDS." Then there’s the "pharmaceutical companies that pricedrugs beyond the reach of AIDS patients the foundation is trying to treat," the Times reported.


http://www.jceps.com/PDFs/6-2-01.pdf

http://www.voltairenet.org/article160507.html

http://www.jceps.com/PDFs/6-2-01.pdf

http://www.voltairenet.org/article160507.html




RANDOM: PHILANTHROCAPITALISM HYPE BAD

TAGEdwards—2008 (Michael Edwards was the Director of the Governance & Civil Society Unit for the FordFoundation, now he is a Senior Fellow at Demos in New York, a Visiting Senior Scholar at the New YorkUniversity’s Wagner School of Public Service, “Philanthrocapitalism: After the Goldrush,” 3/20/08,http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/globalisation/visions_reflections/philanthrocapitalism_after_the_goldrush)My worry is that the hype surrounding philanthrocapitalism will divert attention from the deeper changesthat are required to transform society, reduce decisions to an inappropriate bottom line, and lead us toignore the costs and trade-offs involved in extending business principles into the world of civil society andsocial change. I'm concerned that these questions, and the evidence that underpins them, are not beinggiven a fair hearing. And I want to provoke a conversation in which different positions can be aired andlistened to. The only way that philanthrocapitalism will be able to fulfill its considerable potential is bymoving beyond the hype..

http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/globalisation/visions_reflections/philanthrocapitalism_after_the_goldrush




philanthropy cp - kndi 09

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