Amazon Tests ‘Soul of Seattle’ With Deluge of Election Cash

I live in Seattle and have nothing to do with Amazon. The incumbent Sawant has been a disaster for this city. Suggesting that her opponent is less honorable because he is supported by the businesses in our community is utterly false and inflammatory. If any of your readers are ready to get involved in our election I suggest they familiarize themselves with the real issues that we face. This isn't one of them.

I just don't get what it is that makes Bezos, Gates, Zuck and their ilk think they need to squeeze every last nickel out of the citizenry by hoovering up every tax break, acquisition, relocation bonus and wage cut to improve their already massive bottom lines and to make the point that they are the biggest enchilada on the planet and we better not forget it. Is there not a single grain of public awareness or sense of community responsibility that goes along with all that economic power? Is there a Hewlett-Packard left in the corporate universe? This is simply a replay of Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller and all the other robber barons of the past, and it is going to yield the same result: anti-trust regulation that they'll be whining about and fighting for years until the voters are so sick of them that the pols will have to act. It makes me sick to watch Gates running around Africa spending his billions on public health after spending 15 years blatantly violating the antitrust laws until at long last Microsoft became a convicted criminal.

Get rid of Citizens United.

Well, as an Amazon shareholder, fine with me if it ups and moves to, say, Dallas. Let the remaining bars and tattoo parlors pay the Seattle burdens.

So, Amazon is trying to buy an election. On principle, Seattle voters should just vote against anyone Amazon supports.

Corporations are people too my friend. When will we ever live this down?

How do we help you Seattle folks defend against Amazons election interference in this cycle? Where can I donate and who do I support to offset their agenda?

Yes large companies put pressure on cities and impose a resource burden on them. This should be met as a challenge by the cities to expand and support these needs and not demonize large companies. Companies bring in additional people that they employ to the city, they also bring in additional revenue in the form of these employees paying taxes and spending on other services that are taxed again. They add to the diversity of the city as large tech companies have diverse workers. I am tired of these liberal Luddites.

Does anyone here believe that if Bezos wanted to create a utopia in Seattle that anyone would (or even could) stop him? So why doesn't he? The Boomers here in the comment section and Zapolsky want it both ways: the City Council is ineffective, but they are somehow also blocking the most cash-rich and powerful company in the world from making change. It's mindbending to me that 1) people are actually begging for a company town, for these giant companies to control more of their lives when they by definition do not care about people, the city or anything else but profit and 2) these same people fail to see a correlation between the Rise of Amazon and the fall of Seattle. I lived there five years and left when the building I was living in was slated to be knocked down for more condos. I went from $900 a month rent (a damn steal for that place) to looking at a smaller apartment across the street for $2700. What is happening there is accelerated late stage capitalism, not the so-called liberal nightmare folks think it is.

Amazon's corporate "free speech" is corrosive to our democracy in Seattle, and we're currently in a life-or-death struggle with corporate interests for control of our city government. The real problem, though, is in the other Washington, where a bought-and-sold Court has decided that we must allow this sort of thumb on the electoral scales. Further evidence that we're living in a demockery.

Yep, Seattle has become a company town. How about a law that says if you can't vote for a candidate, you can't donate to his or her campaign. Of course Republicans would agitate for private business suffrage.

Too often, Kshama Sawant sounds like Mao, and nobody would accuse her of being a barrel of laughs. But, generally, her policy ideas are solid, if one believes Seattle ought to be a place to live for others besides the wealthy. The apparently deathless notion that the business community knows how to better solve something as complicated, intractable, and rooted in status quo economics as homelessness is laughable. The coalition Amazon is part of is the same old cast of Seattle characters who have always been for trickle-down, barely incremental progress, so long as as their wealth and profit won't in any way be compromised. The payroll tax freaked them out, just as talk about measures like rent control does; they've responded accordingly. We can talk about "tone" and "invective," but the A-bomb of cash that business has dropped to buy this election makes it clear that this is only about protecting what's theirs and ensuring they'll get more. The absurd number of mailers and canvassers advocating for business-backed candidates that has streamed up my porch in recent weeks will have one effect: I'll vote against the business community's candidate for my council district. Because if that crew is pushing this hard to win, the rest of us must push back if we care about fair elections, equity in public policy, and that quaint old notion that, once upon a time, Seattle wore like a badge: livability.

They couldn't afford 10 million a year when they made 11 billion in 2018 while paying zero in taxes with another 130 million in a tax rebate, how has Seattle, Washington state, this whole country let this company run rickshaw all over? Theodore Roosevelt is rolling over in his grave at what we've let these multinational, conglomerate leeches do to this country. But Bezos knows what to do with all that excess money right... build rockets. Who needs infrastructure or schools or police or health?

Sawant opted out of the public funding system not because of Amazon or others (which hadn't yet donated), but because she wanted to use large amounts of union finding.

With great wealth comes ... lobbying. When companies or individuals become wealthier than God and governments, that wealth is frequently used to subsume or subvert governments at the expense of the governed. As soon as anyone achieves such wealth, it is too much wealth and should be taxed to bring it down to a level where it can no longer be used get its way in government unfairly. Shame on Amazon for continuing its efforts to be a giga-tax-avoiding-scofflaw. If, as Romney asserts, companies are people, then Amazon is entitled to one and only one vote - regardless if it is worth a trillion.

Ms. Sawant asks if Seattle is “...going to be a city that serves the needs of ordinary people?” My recent trips to Seattle showed me that ordinary people there have an overwhelming need for the elimination of street camping and open drug use. The current city council has been an absolute failure on that issue. I expect the ordinary people will be delighted with Amazon’s effort to influence the election.

As a Seattleite, I think Amazon's plans to influence elections might backfire. In my local race, I'm voting for the candidate not backed by Amazon. When I saw how much money Amazon had given the other candidate, I knew that I couldn't vote for him, because he stands for big business above all else. I suspect that I am not the only citizen to use this criterion as part of the decision making process; it will be interesting to see the results and find out if I'm right. I'm not anti-Amazon the way some are (I have plenty of friends and family who work there), but I have no desire to have corporate America be a primary decision maker in elections.

I live in Seattle and the city is an absolute mess. Homeless drug addicts are literally everywhere. The local government doesn't focus on any issues other than income redistribution. What about schools? Roads? Infrastructure? All progress on those issues seems to be made at the state or county level while the communists on the council just debate how much more to tax and how much free stuff to give away. This is crazy for the professionals who live here and know this makes no sense. Many of us are formerly from New York where we saw how Bloomberg ran the city (really well!!!). I am glad Amazon is now focusing on the city council and cannot wait for a new government after November. My ballot is already in.

City of Seattle governance is a disaster: Beyond dysfunctional. Sawant and her supporters lead the charge and would make it more so. Thanks to the tech industry the City has enormous financial resources, yet open drug use and a revolving door at the jail have turned what used to be a great central business district which families enjoyed to a "no go" zone.