As Jeff Bezos donates $10 billion to address climate change, Tom Moriarty wonders how much of it comes from Amazon not paying its fair share of taxes.
First published in March 2020.
A few words about Amazon and their CEO (Jeff Bezos) ‘donating’ to climate change.
PMP XTRAWell good - but how much better if his parasitical company paid taxes to fund coordinated, integrated government efforts to tackle the #ClimateEmergency (and pay for schools, hospitals & the roads its parcels need)https://t.co/DfPkKOvZbX
— Natalie Bennett (@natalieben) February 18, 2020
Let’s be clear on this, when Amazon don’t pay tax they are defunding the state, defunding society. Society is in fact subsidizing them.
So when they ‘donate’ money to a cause it is in part our money. And it is our money that is being directed by the CEO of a big US corporation.
Why is this significant? Because in a functioning democracy we, as a society, decide how our tax money is directed by electing governments that decide on spending.
So normally... society decides through the democratic process how it cares for and supports society. For example, providing welfare, supporting culture, sport, building roads, etc.
However, we are moving to a malfunctioning democracy whereby business decides.
This is one of the key aspects of Neo-feudalism where new lords of mammon (bankers and billionaires) run society for their benefit and decide on who gets help, which they call philanthropy, and frame as charity, as ‘giving’.
In truth, it just directing our tax money...
And this is the society they want. They don’t believe in democracy and believe people should be given the illusion of democracy. The best way of controlling people is when they believe they are free. The concept of freedom is a useful tool of oppression.
And so it is that the boss of Amazon makes a big hurrah of ‘giving’ some of our money to climate change. And we are all meant to thank him. Fellow disciples of capitalism will no doubt praise him, a public show of allegiance for future reward.
PMP XTRA
Jeff Bezos with U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter (right). / Flickr - U.S. Secretary of Defense
And of course we must remember this. It is often the defunding of the state that creates the need for charity, creates the issues that supposedly those oh so self-righteous CEOs will then proclaim they are solving.
Think about what happens in societies that are financially oppressed, what happens to environmental issues when you are struggling to eat, to stay warm? Environmental initiatives?... We know the reality, they go to the bottom of the list.
Of course this government doesn’t give a f*** about environmental issues. It is one of their reasons for leaving the EU to avoid environmental regulations, and any other regulation that might stop their mates from exploiting people.
But to return to Amazon. Let us not be taken in by this BS narrative that they are doing anyone any favours. They are exploiting societies. They are defunding them, sucking out the wealth of the nation, exporting it to Luxembourg or the Caymans.
And then having the audacity to proclaim how generous they are about ‘funding’ the solutions to problems they and their ideology have created. When it comes to the future of our global society they are not saviours... they are saboteurs.
We should note that all the extremists in this government... They usurped democracy to rig a referendum. They are capitalist fundamentalists. They don’t believe in democracy. They don’t care about society. They do not give a f***.🔷
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[This piece was first published as a Twitter thread and turned into the above article on 9 March 2020, with the author’s consent, with the purpose of reaching a larger audience. It has been minorly edited and corrected. | The author of the tweets writes in a personal capacity.]
