Strikes

[Qusdahl]

It’s mjl’s radical hot take, not Q’s.

[Deleted User 863]

Amazon should be broken up. I don't understand how that isn't politically popular on both sides.

China would love that.

[Deleted User 863]

It’s mjl’s radical hot take, not Q’s.

That's not a radical take.

[Qusdahl]

Why not?

This is one of the richest doods ever doing what he can to maintain one of the most profitable corporations of all time. Why would we wanna screw all that up?

The real radical hot take, is all the workers thinking they deserve better in the first place. Or that organizing as a union would do anything toward that goal!

[Deleted User 863]

What?

[Qusdahl]

What?

You want mjl to break up Meta now too?

How come that is not more popular on both sides?

[Deleted User 863]

It's not the same as standard oil or the the microsoft situation in the 90s.

Amazon and FB are global companies in a global marketplace.

But it's absolutely something that is constantly looked at and it should be closely monitored.

[Qusdahl]

Right!

That’s what I’m saying!

It’s not like Q’s the one who wants to break them up.

How else could Bezos afford to move bridges for his floating phallic compensation? How else could Zuck buy up all of Hawaii for himself?

It was never about workers, they’re disposable. It’s about sociopath rich guys and their fragile egos. Think of what’s really important here!

[Deleted User 863]

You don't seem to even understand the reasons why those companies need to be looked at and monitored...

[Deleted User 863]

Has "Zuck" bought anything that wasn't for sale?

[Qusdahl]

Thank the lord!

We’re back to being apologists for the evil rich people again.

And to think for a moment there it seemed like illy cared about anything more than that.

Phew!

Now if we could just talk mjl back out of going full Q with the whole breaking up big bidnesses radical talk.

[Deleted User 863]

Do you even know why he said it?

[Qusdahl]

…cuz mjl is becoming some kinda radical fascist socialist who suddenly thinks workers are human beings too?

[Deleted User 863]

No.

It has nothing to do with workers.

[Mjl]

Illy wins. I don't know enough about their labor situation so I'm not specifically commenting on that... though it's all kinda related, since they wield too much power, which does put the employees in a spot where it's hard to just quit and go to the competition.

I don't think cloud providers should be allowed to be in retail. They control too much of the internet, including the data and operations of their competitors. They put in the investment to create it, good for them, they deserve to make a lot of money on it. But they should be forced to sell AWS.

As for political viability, it's not a matter of both sides are beholden to corporations quite to the extent Qus suggested. The Democrats could do it and get some populist pubs on board. But the House Dems would go too far, demanding all huge businesses get broken up.

[Deleted User 863]

I don't think cloud providers should be allowed to be in retail. They control too much of the internet, including the data and operations of their competitors. They put in the investment to create it, good for them, they deserve to make a lot of money on it. But they should be forced to sell AWS.

As for political viability, it's not a matter of both sides are beholden to corporations quite to the extent Qus suggested. The Democrats could do it and get some populist pubs on board. But the House Dems would go too far, demanding all huge businesses get broken up.

This.

It doesn't need to be "all or nothing".

Not necessarily just about "size". More about the control they have, and also how their business "investments" really shape/control sectors of the economy.

[Qusdahl]

POTD mjl. For real, good stuff. I particularly appreciate the point about cloud providers.

But, the first and second paragraphs talk about controlling too much and wielding too much power and how it’s all related, which seems at odds with the third paragraph.

Who, then, controls the Dems and “populist pubs?” The voters? Why aren’t the voters holding their feet to the fire about shit? Could the corporate lobbyists and corporate media and corporate super pacs have too much control and power over that too? Or is it not all related after all?

bear in mind the U.S. Democratic Party, though a bunch of radical leftists by Q’s standards, is still further right than pretty much any other party anywhere in the free world.

With all that said, Q’s favorite part is not politically viable cuz Dems going too far. That seems like more top shelf ruling class gaslighting. Fuckin Dems!

Also, what is a populist pub?

[Mjl]

The politicians are beholden to the voters, yes. They need money, more than they think they do, to get the message out that will reach the voters. Unfortunately that's simplistic, extremist at the House level, and often just negative stuff because that's effective.

I'm with you on getting corporate money out of elections. But I don't think the stranglehold is as tight as you frame it. If Pete and Amy, who were still viable going into Super Tuesday, hadn't dropped out right before it, there's a damn good chance anti-corporatist Bernie would have been the Democratic nominee. The Progressive caucus in the House is at 97 members.

I think the reason a push isn't there to break up Amazon is because that's not the priority of politicians or voters. Pubs are too busy doing legislation on CRT education and vaccine mandates that don't exist, the far left is too busy attacking Capitalism, and the middle is worrying about the infrastructure bill ( the one that passed) and Russia.

That's a guess. Luke I said at the start, I don't really understand why someone hasn't introduced a bill AFAIK to do basically a Glass-Steagall for the internet.

For that matter it's disappointing that Ossoff's bill to get rid of Congress trading stocks has gone nowhere.

Populist pubs - Trump (usually), Hawley, Hannity, a big chunk of QAnon followers like Lobster that used to be Bernie Bros, etc etc

[KUTradition]

imo, this is the biggest problem with amazon (outside of worker issues)

https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/cor ... 2021-10-13

[Qusdahl]

More good insight.

I feel like we’re so close!

But, I’m still trying to tie up some lose ends.

Why did Pete and Amy drop out when they did? More than anything, didn’t they just run out of campaign money? How much of that comes from direct voter support? How much comes from shady who-really-knows super pacs or whatever?

Bernie’s about as anti-corporatist as an American politician gets at the federal level, but bear in mind how many folks think Bernie is just too damn radical.

This prompts other tangential, but big, questions. How much of it is cuz Citizens United? How many voters really agree with the idea that money=free speech and corporations=people? What if voters rallied against Citizens United as hard as they do against Roe? Why don’t they? Remember when DC insisted they did? Lulz.

So why isn’t stuff like breaking up Amazon or some Glass Seagull bill more popular with voters or politicians? What’s the correlation between that and the $20 million or so a year that we know of that Amazon spends on lobbying? Or that the owner of Amazon also owns some of the biggest media outlets in the country?

And yea the far left is too busy “attacking capitalism,” but bear in mind the far left in this country mostly just exists on a handful of qusdahl meme pages. As far as actual policy goes, if there was some “far left” presence among our gummint, we’d already have glass seagulls to show for it.

Why isn’t the congress stock trading ban getting anywhere, despite overwhelming (3 in 4) bipartisan voter support for it?

And as for populist pubs - how often are Trump and Hawley and Hannity and Lobster gonna get on board with anything at all that the Dems propose?