“You’re telling me none of these people shop on Amazon?” said New Orleans native Jake Springer, who, along with his wife, was spending a weekend in Venice on a wine tour through Italy. “At least they are protesting peacefully. Americans could learn a thing or two from this.”
They found the dumbest possible American to give a comment.
To be fair, it’s not that difficult.
At least they found one that could form a coherent sentence.
As an American, I think finding the dumbest of us would be hard given the amount of competition.
I didn’t think it was that hard at all, he’s in the news every day!
FFS, why does Trump look like he’s about to suck cock in every damn picture?
Americans seem to overestimate how big Amazon is here in Europe. Most people I know rarely buy anything off Amazon, a couple have Amazon Prime to watch content on, but that’s mostly it.
But even if you do buy on Amazon sometimes, why should that make you on board with surrendering your city to this billionaire? It’s part of this toxic obsession of finding minor ‘gotchas’/hypocrisies instead of debating substance. You MUST subscribe to every belief of team A and hate everything from team B.
Seeing as they are on a wine tour, it’s probably another out of touch millionaire
Wine tours are maybe a couple hundred dollars. We do 'em pretty often. Great deal and you often get a tour of the countryside as well. If you’re ever in the Kelowna, BC area, check it out.
A couple hundred feels like out-of-touch money to me.
You’re going to spend 1 to 1.8k or such on the flights alone when coming from the US. Plus of course, as a yank, being able to afford to have a free day at all.
I get it most yanks are broke but a couple hundred are not much in terms of holiday money. Cheap hotels are going to cost you 25 to 50 Euros per night alone. Mallorca 4-star all-inclusive incl. plane tickets about 1k per person, seven nights. That’s groceries for a year if you know what you’re doing, or a bit more than two months of German welfare (the raw disposable payout, rent, heating, and health insurance is separate). Monthly net income on minimum wage ~1.6k, you’ll probably spend most of your holidays in Balconia but if you want, yep, the Baleares are affordable. Trekking from hostel to hostel? Even more so, that’s student-level holidays. Drinking wine while doing it? Depending on country, cheaper than beer. So, no, it’s not out of touch. It’s just not ameripoor.
Couple of days in Venice? There’s camping grounds all around, bring a camper (I know, investment, but you can also rent them) or a tent. Commute into the city, if you buy anything… well ideally just don’t it’s all a tourist trap.
Bezos’ is hardly the only high-dollar wedding to be held in the city — not least George and Amal Clooney’s nuptials in 2014, which were cheered on by locals.
Yeah don’t confuse the Clooneys for Bezos, please. Whether an actor should be a half-billionaire is up for debate but if anyone should have that kind of money yes it’s artists, sportsball players, etc. That is, don’t confuse celebrities and feudal lords. Venice is an ancient and serene republic, have some self-respect.
Whether an actor should be a half-billionaire is up for debate but if anyone should have that kind of money yes it’s artists, sportsball players, etc.
Why would it be more fair for them than CEOs? I’m not defending this one but asking in general.
Because an entertainer/athlete gets a paycheck for doing a job. They’re not getting rich underpaying employees.
The debatable part comes in when you get more nuanced than that: The richest of them probably derive most of their wealth from investments once they’ve accumulated enough capital. Their industry requires the efforts of many underpaid people (even if they don’t directly get a say in that). Anyone that keeps (not just earns) a billion wakes up every morning and decides not to solve homelessness in their city. Etc.
But a 20mm paycheck to put asses in seats is a paycheck, not exploitation.
The vast majority of CEOs don’t become billionaires, most billionaires are born with a golden spoon in their mouth, and the rest got there by stepping on everyone else’s backs. That’s rewarding sociopathy.
Artists and athletes don’t do either, they work to get good at their craft and, crucially, would be doing the same thing even if they were not as successful as they are. You can count them as petite bourgeois which of course come in good and bad but as artists and athletes are not, by trade, businesspeople they tend to very much fall on the good side. Like, you won’t see Clooney undermining the actor’s union – on the contrary, he’s advocated for raising his own union dues. And when they use their money to start a business you don’t tend to get another Oracle or something but ARCH Motorcycles. Give me one reason why, in luxury space anarchism, the answer to Keanu Reeves saying “I want to build cool motorcycles, you in?” the answer of the collective wouldn’t range from “hell yes” to “meh but you guys do you”. He’d get all the resources he’d need: He entertained and uplifted billions, of course we’ll chime in.
OTOH, of course, fuck J.K. Rowling. But unlike with the golden spoon billionaires she’s the exception, not the norm.
Artists are on a gift-based economy. They gain status by giving away works. If you are the best artist in the world but don’t make an effort to share your works, you are irrelevant. The more they give away the more they are recognised. Even if they give them away via pirated works. See: movies, songs that everybody knows and resonates with. Status is their currency, not money.
The status then allows them to obtain more money than other people, incidentally.
CEOs are on a market-based economy, they sell goods and services for money. They don’t sell their status. The goods and services they sell are not theirs, but created with the stolen sweat, blood and lives of the people that work for them, which get a minuscule share of the profit for the amount of life they put onto it.
In gift-based economies such as the ones of artists, open source developers, fashion, cultures without scarcities of the specific resource that makes the economy (such as small plentiful tropical tribes, communes, etc), the status is the currency.
Well, Italy does have a lot of Luigis … so there is hope.
But no guns…
On an unrelated note, did you know that in a lot of European countries it’s totally legal to own a crossbow? You can just order one online.
People of Venice! The time has come to show the world what you’re made of, and more importantly, what you’ve got inside.
Let the canals bear witness to your courage. Not with arms, but with… offerings. I want to see a million floating turds on that sacred day. Let this wedding be remembered. Not for love, but for sheer intestinal audacity.
Take a stand, take a squat, and defecate for dignity.
Fate la storia. Fate galleggiare la gloria.
“You’re telling me none of these people shop on Amazon?” said New Orleans native Jake Springer, who, along with his wife, was spending a weekend in Venice on a wine tour through Italy. “At least they are protesting peacefully. Americans could learn a thing or two from this.”
Lmao the governors tell people to run over protestor here if they are in the street. Both methods block travel in the city, Venice is just specifically aimed at inconveniencing Bezos rather than the general populace.
That person sounds absolutely insufferable.
Fuck you Bezos
Though the details of the Bezos wedding are highly guarded beyond the rumored $10-million budget
Ok so I’m not going to say that we all need to eat dirt so long as anyone is worse off than we are, but that’s a lot of money that could be spent on anything else.
I’m not christian but camel through the eye of a needle, man. You can’t be a good person when you’re sitting on that much wealth, and Bezos isn’t even trying.
Devided? Between who?
Checks article: And Its berween the people who have lives there versus the ruling class who are about to profit because of course.
