The War Against Amazon Is Here

 

By Dave Colon

Almost immediately after Amazon announced on November 13 that it would build a new corporate campus in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City, critics of the company—and of the multibillion dollar package that helped woo Jeff Bezos to the neighborhood—loudly began making themselves themselves heard.

The anti-Amazon contingent is a combination of longtime anti-gentrification activists, organizers fresh off a campaign season that remade state politics, and elected officials embracing the city’s emerging left, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And while the options to stop the up to $3 billion in incentives Amazon could wind up collecting are limited, the forces opposed to the deal have been working nonstop to convince the public that not only does New York not need to give incentives to Amazon, but that the city doesn’t need Amazon at all.

While Governor Andrew “Amazon” Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Amazon itself have relied on their power and the promise of 25,000 jobs, organizers have hit the streets, going door to door to rally opposition against the subsidies and connect Amazon’s looming presence to issues such as the affordable housing crisis, New York’s sanctuary city status, and the city’s crumbling infrastructure—whether it’s the subways or the chronically underfunded public housing system.

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Source: Splinter (via Empire Report New York)