2023/12/18
Opinion: Amazon’s takeover of the Inland Empire is a textbook case of corporate manipulation
Opinion: Amazon’s takeover of the Inland Empire is a textbook case of corporate manipulation
A leaked memo from within Amazon details the company’s public relations efforts to sway decisions in the region to serve its own interests. The plan for 2024 included strategic donations, currying favor with local politicians, methods of cultivating allies and placing of “Amazonians” within community groups and local boards like sleeper spies. Together, these are intended to overcome vocal community opposition to Amazon’s labor exploitation and union-busting tactics and the environmental harms of warehouse proliferation.
The memo puts into words what environmental justice advocates have known all along: what we have traced through political donation patterns, what is facilitated by legal loopholes. The memo gives shape to invisible protagonists who have tilted city council loyalties toward outside developers instead of residents. These tactics are not illegal for the most part. But Amazon’s memo is a stark representation of the kind of manipulation that has systematically eroded community voices in places like the Inland Empire.
Todays Thought
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
-Steve Biko, anti-apartheid activist (18 Dec 1946-1977)
2023/12/17
Todays Thought
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been!”
-John Greenleaf Whittier, poet (17 Dec 1807-1892)
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