Laurene Powell Jobs’s Organization to Take Majority Stake in The Atlantic

How do any of these links demonstrate that Bezos is controlling the Washington Post's output?

Seems like you have an axe to grind. I don't have a reason to be this suspicious about amazon. What's your reason?

There is no question that this is the reason. Many billionares have sought to control the public narrative by buying media outlets. It's easily the most effective way to ensure that their personal views are served up to the public. Same reason that Putin started RT.

I'm a little unclear as to the logic of your argument. If you are implying that Bezos is controlling WP's output then wouldn't he have stopped some of the stories you posted? I don't remember when he took control, but I'd note at least two of those stories are from this year.

There are other articles critical of Amazon from WP too, eg: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/birkenstock-...

Maybe you think there should be more, but it's not like other news sources have huge numbers more.

(Also, your argument that Amazon is a monopoly isn't one that is widely made. I can't think of a single category where Amazon doesn't have meaningful competition. Just being successful doesn't make a company a monopoly.)

They're smart enough. They have the same idea of how force has been used to extract wealth over the ages, but see that force personified as an unchecked government with a monopoly on violence. They see their libertarian philosophy, at it's root, at protecting society and freedom of business from the power of statism. You may or may not agree, but that is how I'd expect them to roughly frame what they believe.

Both the Koch brothers and Bezos are liberals in the broadest sense of the word, in fact Charles Koch considers himself and probably is a classical liberal [1]. They both are both injecting personal bias into politically active ventures, and that is an affront to what democracy should be about. Because of their vast wealth they are able to shape and suppress political discourse in their own favour (I would guess that your and most peoples interests don't align directly with those of a multi-billionaire). Bezos is probably more left leaning than others but that doesn't mean that his politics don't impact people negatively. Do you really believe that Carlos Slim's primary motivator for becoming the largest stake holder in the NYT Co. is to promote coexistence via liberalism? [1]http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-hate-koch-brothers-part-...

It does no good to mischaraterize and disparage other humans when you're not aware of their motivations. Understand that I dislike what the Kochs stand for as well, but I can understand how their viewpoint evolved.

Firstly, they're two MIT-educated engineers, and secondly they did not inherit all their wealth. In fact the business was worth in the tens of millions when their father turned control over to them and died a year later. After many decades, the company is now worth multi-billions. That's no small feat.

And finally you must understand that their father (who founded the company) was a simple chemical engineer that came up with a brilliant new refining process. However he was blocked, by litigative competitors, from implementing that process in the U.S. So, their father turned to Soviet Russia at the time to build these new improved refineries for a government that was all to happy to accept them. However, in the process, many of their fathers collaborators were killed off by Stalin in a brutal purge.

Ever since his experience in Soviet Russia, Koch believed that communism was one of the greatest political enemies and socialism was one slippery step from falling into communism. He didn't want to see anymore colleagues die, and so his political views became polarized.

He passed those polarized views onto his children -- not all of them accepted them -- specifically the two Koch brothers leading the firm now.

In their minds they believe they're fighting the good fight. No matter how much you and I may disagree: we can understand how they may have arrived there.

This isn't an either-or situation. Both your issue, as well as the parent's, are true