Guest Post by Caitlin Johnstone
Jeff Bezos, currently the wealthiest human being on planet Earth, did not purchase the Washington Post in 2013 because he was expecting newspapers to make a lucrative resurgence. This self-evident fact doesn’t receive enough attention.
I will say it again for emphasis: Jeff Bezos, who has used his business prowess to become the wealthiest person in the world, did not purchase the Washington Post in 2013 because he was expecting newspapers to make a profitable comeback. That did not happen.
What did happen is the world’s richest plutocrat realizing that he needed a mouthpiece to manufacture public support for the neoliberal corporatist establishment that he is building his empire upon. This is why WaPo ran sixteen smear pieces on Bernie Sanders in the span of sixteen hours at the hottest point in the Democratic presidential primary battle. It is also why it continues to publish filth like this:
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How will Democrats cope if Putin starts playing dirty tricks for Bernie Sanders (again)?” https://t.co/tNG3FCL8SR via @PostOpinions
Last year Silicon Valley venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya said that Amazon is “a multi-trillion-dollar monopoly hiding in plain sight.” In June Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, wrote that Amazon is trying to “control the underlying infrastructure of the economy.”
Bezos continues to get cozier and cozier with the US power establishment as his empire metastasizes across human civilization. He kicked WikiLeaks off Amazon servers in 2010, he scored a 600 million dollar contract with the CIA in 2013, he joined a Pentagon advisory board in 2016, he hung out with Defense Secretary James Mattis in August, and he’s spent nearly ten million dollars this year lobbying the federal government, which is likely what led to an NDAA amendment gifting Amazon a $54 billion market it’s expected to dominate as a supplier to the Pentagon.
Billion. With a ‘b’.
The Intercept reports that attempts to scale back the amendment by anti-monopolists have led to some adjustments, but to little real effect.
“This amendment looks like it will crown Amazon as an official gatekeeper to government procurement,” said Lina Khan of the Open Markets Institute. “Government spending that was previously dispersed across hundreds of distinct companies will now instead all be channeled through one company, with Amazon collecting a tax.”
Meanwhile Democrats are fixated on the Koch brothers and Republicans are focused on George Soros.
A pleasure to host #SecDef James Mattis at Amazon HQ in Seattle today
I gave this story a jokey headline, but seriously, watch Jeff Bezos very closely. Your future is increasingly more likely to be imperiled by new money tech plutocrats like him than by old money plutocrats like Soros and the Rothschilds. The power dynamics of the plutocracy is shifting as the world changes at breakneck pace, and people need to be able to keep adjusting the way they think about things to keep up. A lot of folks in conspiracy circles are still talking about deep state power structures like it’s 2004, and meanwhile those power structures are all prepping for a tech explosion, monetary revolutions, vast shifts in the global economy and the end of oil.
These changes are already well underway. Let’s get our brainpower focused on the present.
The richest man in the world did not purchase the Washington Post because he believed newspapers were about to enjoy a lucrative resurgence, and he certainly didn’t purchase it to ensure the production of high quality journalism. He bought it so that he’d have a trusted mouthpiece through which to lie to you about what is happening in the world in a way that will benefit his empire.
Keep an eye on this asshole.
I would say something nasty about him too, but my name would probably be added to a special list for future retaliation.
Donald J. Trump on Twitter: “If @amazon ever had to pay fair taxes, its stock would crash and it would crumble like a paper bag. The @washingtonpost scam is saving it!”
https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/673885376742825984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=about%3Asrcdoc
With the new tax bill, they want to add a new tax – a delivery tax – of 5% to internet sales. That would kick him in the nuts.
Or consumers who purchase on the net….or manufacturers who will see either sales decline or profit margin drop. Don’t think Bezos won’t spread that tax to the less powerful and connected.
Not saying that Bezos won’t pass the tax along – but it may have an impact on his sales.
hopefully the 5% would drive some people back to local shopping–
IF a thing CAN be done, a man is justified for doing it.
Does Bezos own OAN too? I kinda like their young crew and the cut of some of their hair.
Keep an eye on Mr. Bezos? Keep a zeroed-in reticle mounted to a powerful rifle on Mr. Bezos is what I think. This guy is BAD news, all the way around.
I pretty much automatically dismiss anything printed by certain rags like Washington Post and Huffington Post.
In the context of $50 bil in procurements, hiring a couple of bimbos in Alabama to claim they’d been harassed forty years ago is chump change. Anything to keep the Swamp in charge.