From Boing Boing
In an interview on news.com, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates described free culture advocates as a “modern-day sort of communists.” Well now.
Lawrence Lessig responds, “what a total (intellectual) disappointment this man is”.
If I had the time, and the money, I’d do the deep analysis that it would take to explain to myself why it is I constantly hope to be surprised by Mr. Gates. Yet I never am. Here’s BoingBoing reporting the red-baiting of Mr. Gates.
It’s one thing to read this sort of thing from a studio exec, or head of a record label — surrounded as they are by the sort that surround them. But the people I’ve met at Microsoft are miles beyond this sort of silliness. Does Mr. Gates not even talk to them?
Of course not. Gates is a hardcore right-tilting CEO utterly convinced of the sanctity of capitalism. Anyone who steps outside those narrow capitalist boundaries and questions the system is of course immediately branded as being a commie – although it’s a given that Gates has never actually read the Communist Manifesto and thus doesn’t know what he’s talking about, right?
Following up on yesterday’s Boing Boing post about Bill Gates describing free culture advocates as a “modern-day sort of communists,” reader Jaime whipped up this bit of Soviet Constructivist goodness. Further the cause, comrade! Link to full-size.
