District 3 Meeting: Tax Amazon – How can we take on Big Business and win?

Tax Amazon: How can we take on Big Business and Win?

Socialist City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, Seattle DSA, unions, and other progressive forces are looking into a TAX AMAZON ballot initiative in 2020 to tax big business to potentially fund affordable housing. To take on Amazon, Starbucks, Alaska Airlines, Boeing, and Microsoft (to name a few!) we’ll need to build a powerful grassroots movement of everyday working people. The 2019 Seattle city council elections were a referendum on corporate domination of politics. The majority of working people and youth rejected the Amazon and big business backed candidates, most defiantly in District 3 with the re-election of Kshama Sawant, the main target of the $1.5 million attempt by Amazon to buy the elections. This rejection of runaway corporate control is also reflected in a recent poll that found 75% of Seattleites support taxing big business, like Amazon, to fund social programs. How can we transform this support into a movement able to take on the biggest corporations and win? What role can DSA play? How can we raise the banner of socialism?