"All in all it's just another brick in the wall"

The post's title, from Pink Floyd's rock opera "The Wall" is the only nod to Music Monday this week, it buzzed through my mind as I read an article online about the firing of a journalist.

I don't read any newspaper, don't watch any news or political shows on TV. News for me these days comes solely from the internet. For those who do still trust corporate newspapers to offer "fair and balanced" views, the news that democratic socialist journalist/columnist Harold Meyerson was recently fired from his regular Washington Post column by newspaper's owner Jeff Bezos aka CEO of internet giant Amazon should alert them to what's becoming common in mass media: getting rid of any who don't toe the corporatist line!
My 2013 post Robber-Baronitis mentions Jeff Bezos, by the way.

From Wikipedia

Harold Meyerson (born 1950) is an American journalist and opinion columnist. In 2009 The Atlantic Monthly named him one of "the most influential commentators in the nation" as part of their list "The Atlantic 50."

Life and career
Born in Los Angeles, Meyerson was educated in the Los Angeles public schools and at Columbia University. The son of long time leaders in California of the Socialist Party of America, he was active in the 1970s in the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee.

Meyerson is editor-at-large of The American Prospect and was an opinion columnist for the Washington Post from 2003 until 2015, when he was fired by the latter. He served as executive editor of the L.A. Weekly from 1989 through 2001, and continues to write about California politics in the Los Angeles Times. His articles on politics, labor, the economy, foreign policy, and American culture have also appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Nation, and New Statesman.......

An avowed democratic socialist—according to Meyerson one of only "two" that he encounters during "daily rounds through the nation's capital," the other being Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — he is a vice-chair of the National Political Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America

Commenter "Sneed Urn" at Huffington Post wrote

His firing is not at all ironic. It is (most likely) in response to Sanders' rise and the growing realization among conservative rank and file that they have been duped. Keeping the balance of power tipped towards big money is the job of corporate owned media. Presenting "opposing" points of view is part of that process, to be able to claim objectivity with the actual intent to frame the range of what counts as progressive and what is "fringe".

Sanders has been able to overcome the "fringe" label. The media now has to help disenfranchise his supporters through other means. Limiting Sanders' exposure and always asserting the presumption that Clinton is the de facto nominee are the primary ways media works for corporate interest and against the people in the democratic race. This should not be a surprise.

Exactly!
(My highlights in both quotes)

This video is around a couple of months old, not much has changed in the meantime. Watch a comedian tell us how it really is.

ROBBER-BARONITIS

A robber baron, originally, was an unscrupulous and despotic nobleman of medieval Europe. The term is also used to describe wealthy and powerful unscrupulous industrialists of the 19th century who used exploitative practices to amass their wealth. They would exert control over national resources, gain a high level of government influence, pay extremely low wages to their unfortunate employees, quash competition by buying out competitors in order to create monopolies and eventually raise prices and limit services, and devise schemes to sell stock at inflated prices to unsuspecting investors in a manner which would eventually destroy the company for which the stock was issued and impoverish investors. (Wikipedia)

I did a bit of light research on Google's two entrepreneurs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, then went on to look into that other internet giant, Amazon, and its CEO and founder Jeff Bezos (below). Are these three individuals some of the 21st century's equivalents of 19th century robber barons? They are now certainly among the wealthiest individuals in the USA, multi-billionaires, (allegedly more than 20 billion each, and # 11 and 13 on the Forbes 400 list). All three experienced meteoric rise from the mid 1990s onward, in tandem with mushrooming of the internet.

I am becoming frustrated and annoyed with Google's ongoing shenanigans. Having forced me into using their Chrome browser because Blogger's (now owned by Google) new interface is incompatible with the most up to date version of Internet Explorer my XP pro operating system is compatible with, there then arose an issue with the e mail address associated with my Blogger/Google account. I am to be forced to provide a second e mail address. I don't want to do so. Chrome will not function without my doing so. Firefox to the rescue. What'll happen when Google buys out Firefox?

Google has become way, way too big for its boots with too many tentacles! Much as I admire the skills and talent involved, and the wondrous search engine, I can't help thinking that the interests of users have, latterly, been well and truly sidelined. I don't know how Google treats its staff, but they tend to treat users of their services with deep disdain.

Amazon, on the instruction of their CEO, do put the interests of their customers first at all times, but often to the detriment of their staff members. Staff are badly paid and in some cases expected to work excessive hours in poor conditions with no sick pay should they fall ill. Amazon's undeniable efficiency is achieved at the expense of its workers - in conditions loosely comparable to Walmart's staff treatment.

Admittedly, these examples of 21st century robber baronitis are not nearly as nasty as 19th century counterparts, they are not the worst 21st century examples either, but they are two very familiar to all who spend time online every day. There is, though, potential for even worse to come. Google has access to information on everyone who uses the internet, and on what we do online. If such information were to be only slightly expanded, maybe released to government by mandate, results could prove to have unpleasant consequences - doesn't take much imagination to see that!

Google and Amazon: two examples of how excellent innovative ideas from brilliant minds, with initially good intention, can become corrupted by intoxication of success and then morph, like some unwieldy drunk, into an entity the men may not have originally envisaged. They are now blinded by the size and power of the behemoths they created.