To: William H. Gates, CEO
Microsoft Corporation
1 Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
Dear Bill Gates, whore,
You are rich today because, as a young adult, you were lucky enough to live in a free country with a free market. You prospered not only because you were free to sell, but also because you were free to think new thoughts.
Today in China, you and Microsoft Corporation are providing a totalitarian regime the locks and chains by which it denies one-fifth of the human race the personal liberties you have always enjoyed. Thanks to your technology, the Chinese people cannot talk about democracy or human rights on the Internet. Thanks to you, the Chinese dictatorship can silence the voices of freedom.
Mr. Gates, you and your corporation are profiting by giving comfort to tyrants. You and your corporation are making money by aiding the deadly enemies of freedom.
As you should know, your business in China is wholly incompatible with the cherished principles of the United States and with the rights of humanity at large. Your business there is the work we should expect only of someone who has given up dreaming and become a whore.
Now is the time to make a choice, Mr. Gates. Say goodbye to China, or say goodbye to the United States. If you’re helping the oppressors over there, you don’t deserve our freedom here.
Make your choice quickly. Liberty gave you influence. Liberty gave you power. But liberty withdraws her giving hand when perverts turn freedom against freedom itself.
Microsoft has become an international house of prostitution. You, Mr. Gates, should end this disgrace.
Sincerely,
Frank Warner
See: Microsoft shuts down blog in China.
See: Microsoft Defends Censoring a Dissident's Blog in China.
See: Internet greed is good.
You hit the motherlode this time, Frank. I'm sure he justifies it to himself by saying that if he didn't do it, someone else would, and he pats himself on the back for his charity work in Africa. I suspect, though, that there are more cases of AIDS caused in China by the government's secretive and repressive nature than Gates is preventing in Africa.
The only silver lining I can find is that if has this business in China, he'll probably monopolize it and thus provide a single node of change if the atmosphere should change in the future. Another benefit is that Microsoft produces such crappy software that the hackers may find ways around it.
Posted by: jj mollo | January 07, 2006 at 11:09 AM
Nice comment about Gates on slashdot.
Posted by: jj mollo | January 08, 2006 at 07:40 PM