‘We will block the canals’: Venice divided as young protesters target Bezos wedding
‘We will block the canals’: Venice divided as young protesters target Bezos wedding
Protests are planned as the tourism-battered canal city gears up for the wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, but many in Venice say the billionaire’s nuptials should be welcomed.
Must be good to know you are disliked by the majority of a city
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.
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.
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.
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.
Artists give. When they actually work. At their real jobs. Dubno if they deserve more than scientists or steel workers, but if it turns out we do actually need inequaluty and theres a lottery for which professions make you rich, i won't begrudge them a win.
Ceo's take, ruin, defile everything they touch. The meth addict who wanders around the city pissing on things is closer to a net positive than a ceo. The MBA and its various spawn was the final genocidal victory lap of the confederacy, and their purée must all soak the soil before the tree of freedom can grow.
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.
My 2cents: Bezos money comes from other people's works, entertainers money comes from the perception that other people has of their work. Of course there are exceptions.
George Clooney is rich. Jeff bezos is wealthy
Well, Italy does have a lot of Luigis ... so there is hope.
“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.
that is ok, none of these require cold turkey approaches. you start by protesting Jeff's wedding, you continue by replacing some of your amazon shopping with alternatives, next you know you are only using amazon a couple times a year at most. This would already be enough I think as amazon relies on a much higher level of consumerism.
The dumbest American with a passport.
Of course there are far dumber Americans but they aren't the kind who travel to Europe.
Them protesting peacefully is exactly why Bezos will eventually get things his way.
Please notice that Brugnaro, mayor of Venice, is politically spawned out of Berlusconi's party, Forza Italia.
Italian lesson: "Dio li fa, e poi li accoppia": "God makes them, and then pairs them"
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.
Both are probably wrong so would be nice to have data instead. Here in Belgium checking out from postal workers deliveries or on recycling garbage day I can see a lot of Amazon parcels unfortunately. Your observation is not wrong, neither is mine, so the question rather is how relevant they are when scaled to all of Europe.
You seem to underestimate it though. Amazon is pretty big here as well, even just considering the "buy stuff" parts.
Man, talk about being fucking disconnected from the rest of the world.
I was listening to an NPR segment asking American tourists at a French vineyard what they thought of the tariffs and they also managed to find the biggest group of dipshit chads they could
It's of course impossible to know if it was intentional, but lets not forget - platforming the dumb drives engagement, one of the reasons our view of the world is distorted towards thinking people are worse than they are. (Don't get me wrong, people aren't great on average, and broadly follow the lowest common denominator trends - but especially with terminally online people, there is a huge problem with paranoia and defeatism thanks to that dynamic).
Very likely it's intentionally chosen or even fake to push the narrative that US protests are violent..
Palantir laughs quietly
May be on to something there. Only "Jake Springer" I see on LinkedIn posted from Port Aransas, TX yesterday.
They just checked voter registration. Easy pickins from there.
Well, that’s a pretty easy search.
“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.”
That person sounds absolutely insufferable.
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.
How dare they inconvenience Lord Bezos though? Have they never used Amazon or dreamt about his rocket, huh? They should be grateful and hand over the city to him
Exactly what came to mind when I read that.
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.
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.
If they do anything to prevent things from floating through, get out your waffle stompin' boots, Venice!
Moeche can feed on billionaires. Just sayin'.
Recently visited Venice, and it was an excellent place.
From my observations, there is not really a place for big business there; no big roads, hardly any trains, essentially no commercial transport besides small boats. In a place as such, goliaths like Amazon are likely out-competed by local businesses.
Fuck you Bezos
I could have sworn this dude got married in Aspen and spent $600M on it. They shutdown the airport for it even because of all the private traffic
How many times are they tying the knot?
Every time they update the prenup.
Sto cazzo…fottetelo.
It warms my heart.
Serious question, why are Venetians against Bezos' wedding? Did he do anything that offended the city before?
The city is literally sinking, global warming is not helping and billionaires disproportionately contribute to it.
Apart from every other answer already given, Venice is existentially threatened by the continuous influx of people causing huge costs to the city while contributing absolutely nothing to the local economy.
I am Italian, I have stayed in my uncle's house in Rialto and loved to experience the little local life that was left at that time (20 years ago, more or less). Nonetheless, I have made the conscious choice not to visit the city ever again until it gets its shit together.
It is in fact cursed to disappear, but to deny young people to experience it because it is turning into a Disneyland for old people is just cruel.
It's Jeff Bezos.
Billionaires are inherently evil.