“Amazon Accuses Trump of ‘Improper Pressure’ on JEDI Contract”

Will you speak up if you’re going to lose your job?

Amazon Web Services dominates cloud computing, it is the leader in all categories, it was destined to win a ten billion dollar Defense Department contract and then…

Trump said: “other ‘great companies’ should have a chance at the contract.”

Speak your mind, tell the truth, and you’re out of a job.

And most people need that job.

Peloton? Are you telling me no one involved saw a problem with that ad? Sure, the CEOs are out of touch, having been brought up with a silver spoon. But no one else involved wanted to blow the whistle, messing with all that money, all that hard work and spending for the company?

Just ask the whistleblower. He spoke his truth, Trump and his cronies want his name revealed.

They call this a “chilling” effect. Yup, it’s part of the bedrock of Constitutional law. Just ask all those with a paper Constitution in their pocket, they never reference this as they say that the Second Amendment allows the hoi polloi to own guns. Law is based on stare decisis, i.e. you make new decisions based on prior decisions, just not out of thin air, and if what the government does has a chilling effect…

Just ask Comey. Just ask all those dismissed from the government under Trump. You do what he says, or you’re gone. Isn’t that the essence of impeachment? Ukraine had do to what Trump wanted, or it wouldn’t get the money. You don’t need it in writing, you understand. Raise your hand in the meeting and go against the CEO and you get a black mark. We hear all about entrepreneurship in America, but the truth is most people work for someone else, furthermore, in the vaunted tech sphere, don’t dare compete in any way with the FANG companies, i.e. Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google, and Microsoft too, they’ll either buy you or put you out of business. Tech is a game of musical chairs, and now everybody but the Big Five is out!

But you hate Amazon.

While you use it.

Kinda like the “Delete Facebook” movement.

It turns out that people like convenience, they like to connect with their brethren. And to tell them not to is like taking away oxygen, it won’t work.

This is what the music industry failed to understand. That people would pay for convenience. They’d pay to stream everything as opposed to stealing. As for stream-rippers…if you’re turning YouTube videos into files, you probably were never going to pay, you’re just like those people who recorded their friends’ albums on to quarter-inch tape. As for the cassette…it was much easier to use, but fascinatingly when they sold prerecorded ones most people bought instead of making their own, the sales of cassettes eclipsed those of vinyl, the standard at the time.

As for CDs…you’ve got to put them in the drawer, who has time for that?

As for vinyl…they re-enact the Civil War too, it’s a de minimis enterprise that can be ignored economically, despite the inaccurate reports in the press.

So Jeff Bezos buys the “Washington Post,” reinvigorating it, and his company loses a contract in the process. This was shocking to everybody who knows tech. But not shocking if you follow today’s political shenanigans.

So the message here?

Stay in your own lane. Tell Trump you’ll bring manufacturing to America, even if you really won’t. Kinda like Foxconn, building in Wisconsin, only the truth is they’ll employ almost no one, assuming the enterprise gets up and running. Meanwhile, it gets Trump off its back.

But chances are you don’t know Foxconn, and you want to see Amazon humbled.

Well, Amazon should be fought in the open, under the rule of law.

As far as knowing Foxconn…now, more than ever, the big, multinational corporations rule the world, and they’re beholden to no one, but they pay the politicians, they even write the laws and op-eds, and you think you’re in control.

The U.S. was based on free speech. And, under today’s law, corporations are people, entitled to free speech…how that happened, I’ll never know, then again, those lobbyists were involved, and never forget those lunches and plane rides and golf games…

Meanwhile, you think if you can rap about your problems, you’re in the clear.

No!

Try getting an abortion. Did you see the Supreme Court refused to hear the Kentucky case, wherein the doctors performing the operation have to essentially scare patients into backing away from the procedure?

Oh, maybe you’re anti-abortion, I don’t care, I’m just saying that forces larger than you are tilting the playing field to their advantage and you think your voice counts but it does not. Just try taking the unpopular stand. Isn’t that what America has turned into, a land of one vision or you’re out?

Not only in government, but organizations, companies. In the sixties you were supposed to let your freak flag fly, be an individual, now the greatest goal is to be a member of the group. Say something out of line, and the judges will come down on you. Men can’t even discuss Me Too, if they don’t take women’s party line, they are excoriated. This is what women don’t understand, men are fed up, they all think things have gone too far, I hear it all the time, but they won’t tell you.

Shoot the messenger. That’s what Trump does. That’s what everybody does today.

So you’re supposed to stay silent in your hovel, in your 10,000 square foot mansion, just to save what you’ve already got.

Is this the country we want to live in?

NO!