Amazon is buying MGM — antitrust, what's that?

© 2021 Peter Free

 

27 May 2021

 

 

With the American nation gurgling . . .

 

. . . its happy way down the toilet tube, this latest development is representatively apt:

 

 

Amazon said Wednesday it will acquire MGM Studios for $8.45 billion, marking its boldest move yet into the entertainment industry and turbocharging its streaming ambitions.

 

The deal is the second-largest acquisition in Amazon’s history, behind its $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods in 2017.

 

Amazon said it hopes to leverage MGM’s storied filmmaking history and wide-ranging catalog of 4,000 films and 17,000 TV shows to help bolster Amazon Studios, its film and TV division.

 

“The real financial value behind this deal is the treasure trove of IP in the deep catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM’s talented team,” said Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon Studios. “It’s very exciting and provides so many opportunities for high-quality storytelling.”

 

In a statement, MGM Chairman Kevin Ulrich said: “The opportunity to align MGM’s storied history with Amazon is an inspiring combination.”

 

© 2021 Annie Palmer, Amazon to buy MGM Studios for $8.45 billion, CNBC (26 May 2021)

 

 

Ignore the press release's joy-making drivel

 

Amazon's real goal is to control more media and fix prices.

 

 

This used to be called 'monopoly'

 

Somehow, Americans have forgotten the concept.

 

Thus Amazon, already a massive oligarchical enterprise of its own, is going from — books, foods, entertainment and general goods — into becoming SuperGargantua-SoulCrusher.com.

 

They'll be in the armaments business next. Raytheon, look out.

 

And buying Texas and California — and maybe New York — to ensure themselves of a reliable supply of (slave) workers.

 

 

Meanwhile . . .

 

The US Lamestream is mainly silent. Corporatist itself, why would it care about anything that affects ordinary Americans in a substantive way?

 

And the Justice Department's fat cats, characteristically, are doing diddly squat about anything important. That's because they, too, are mostly all part of the corporatist-horned Oligarchy.

 

 

Consider, for instance . . .

 

. . . Brian Boynton, who heads DoJ's civil division:

 

 

Despite only disclosing clients from the past year, the breadth of Boynton’s corporate work is staggering.

 

An incomplete accounting shows he serviced predatory for-profit colleges like the University of Phoenix, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers like Eli Lilly and COVID vaccine maker Moderna, Big Tech companies like Google, major defense contractor Northrop Grumman, union-busters like Walmart, insurance giants like Cigna and State Farm, numerous hedge funds (including Renaissance Technologies, where billionaire conservative donor Robert Mercer plied his trade), Big Ag interest groups, and even the Democratic National Committee itself.

 

Name an industry and Boynton likely worked for it.

 

© 2021 Eleanor Eagan, Justice Department Shot Through With Corporate Influence, The American Prospect (27 May 2021)

 

 

Or take Elizabeth Prelogar:

 

 

Elizabeth Prelogar, the current acting solicitor general charged with representing the U.S. government before the Supreme Court in the most contentious of cases, has a similar record to Boynton.

 

She represented Big Tech firms like Facebook, Uber, Snap, and Twitter, while also providing personal legal services to the billionaire founder of Yahoo and pharmaceutical firms Amgen, Lumos Pharma, and Syneos Health.

 

© 2021 Eleanor Eagan, Justice Department Shot Through With Corporate Influence, The American Prospect (27 May 2021)

 

 

Frankly

 

Attorney General Merrick Garland — who has admirable legal credentials, most famously focused on criminal law — nevertheless does not look like the sort of person, who could properly head a group of — appropriately rabidly slavering — 'For the People' antitrust attorneys.

 

Garland's pictured demeanor seems too mild. See one such photo, by Kevin Dietsch, here.

 

Attorney General Garland is, I surmise, is not the sort of fire-breather required to take down a corrupt system.

 

There is a huge difference between going after clout-lacking folk like Marion Barry, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Ted Kaczynski — which Garland has — and routinely taking down giant corporations and their hordes of parasitically rich lawyers, as he has not.

 

Garland, by the way, is characterized as a "moderate".

 

That generally means, in political terms, someone sleep-easily controlled by the Great American Plutocracy.

 

This mild character trait, I presume, is exactly why 'Dementia Joe' Biden picked him for the DoJ job. Don't want no boat-rockin' in Ahmuhrika, do we?

 

 

The moral? — Cages and puff-us-for-plucking hormones are next

 

Improved oligarchy-feeding chickens — we will become.

 

Don't forget to renew your Amazon Prime subscription.

 

Or we'll do it for ya, with penalties.