By banning perspectives critical of the status quo, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is turning a major news outlet into a mouthpiece for market fundamentalists. If the ideas he champions are so defensible, why is he squeamish about debate?
[Billionaire Bezos: We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.]
If you read this literally it says Bezos doesn’t want his WP mouthpiece to endorse socialism over capitalism. Socialism means there is no such thing as private businesses. But we know this is actually a dog whistle. What Bezos really wants is for WP mouthpiece to endorse the long discredited Laissez-faire form of unrestricted capitalism. WP writers should pretend to take Bezos in the literal way instead of the dog whistle way… Since WP writers have never ever in the past advocated for abolishing capitalism, they can completely ignore Bezos directive and still be in compliance. They may be fired, but they are going to be leaving Bezos mouthpiece anyway. They should force Bezos to fire them over a SPECIFIC editorial column, which would (1) give lots of attention to that column and (B) thereby deprive Billionaire Bezos of his dog whistle tactic. And who cares if someone is personally fired by a billionaire who doesn’t care about anything other than getting gigantic GOP tax cuts? That would be a good mark on the career record of an editorial writer not a bad mark.
Why would give a debate the time of day? He’s already won.
Free speech for me, not for thee.
