An Antidote to Amazon & AI
Billionaires make everything bad.
Dear friends,
Every day, more and more people are starting to realize that billionaires are the problem. Not trans kids. Not immigrants. Not single moms. Not poor people. Not people of colour. It's the billionaires who have screwed up everything and are on a mission to burn everything down for their own profit and power. The good news is that there aren't actually very many billionaires compared to the number of us who are increasingly pissed off at how they are destroying everything we hold dear. They may think they are all powerful, but, in fact, we are far more powerful than they are and it's time for us to show them this reality. Billionaires suck and should not exist. It's time for us to get super creative in our collective efforts to destroy the billionaire class before they destroy everything.
Soooo many reasons to boycott Amazon!
Anyone who knows me knows how much I loathe Billionaire Bezos and his Amazon empire that he's built from the blood and tears of his workers and our planet. I long for the day when enough of us have had enough of this horrid corporation and boycott it into oblivion. I know! I know! It's (sometimes) cheaper. It's fast. It's easy. It's sometimes the only place to find a certain item (gee - I wonder why that is). But, we humans somehow lived for centuries without the ease and convenience of Amazon, I'm sure we can manage again. In fact, when that day comes, I'm sure we'll all be the better for it.
Why boycott Amazon? Here is a short list of some really big reasons:
- Let's start with how far Bezos' nose is up Trump's butt. The billionaires bought control of the US government where they are wreaking utter havoc that is causing enormous pain and suffering worldwide. Bezos seems to be getting extra cozy with Don & Melania lately and that's just gross.
- It's no secret how badly Amazon workers are treated. While Bezos' wealth is increasing faster than the speed of light, he criminally underpays his employees, and subjects them to inhumane working conditions. Our convenience should not come at the cost of slave labour.
- Those Big Fucking Delivery Vans. Amazon built a warehouse at Victoria airport a few years back and, ever since then, our streets are crawling with these big honkin' delivery vans dropping tchotchkes at every other door. They take up far too much space on our overtaxed, under-resourced infrastructure, while oozing exhaust fumes all over town. Yuck!
- Any way you look at it, Amazon is an environmental disaster. From the mass manufacturing of the gazillions of items, to the speedy deliveries, to the inevitable returned products, to Bezos' private jets and yachts... Amazon is a big fat planet-killer.
- Amazon is also killing small businesses. I don't have the statistics, but it is a well-known fact that Amazon has been single-handedly responsible for wiping out small businesses everywhere. As a former small business owner, this really pisses me off.
- Ain't no community with Amazon. One of my favourite pastimes is waiting in line at a store or the bank or wherever. I love striking up friendly chitchat with others waiting in line. Sharing niceties with familiar cashiers feels like I'm part of the community. Interacting with real live humans is an antidote to loneliness. Ordering online and having your (overpackaged) thingy dropped at your doorstep by a harassed, under-waged, over-exhausted stranger leaping in and out of their van is a prime ingredient for loneliness.
The opposite of Amazon
I was so excited when my friend Marianne said she'd decided to turn her weekly Farm Stand newsletters into a book, and I was deeply honoured when she asked me to write a blurb for it. She said that I 'get her'. Having eagerly received and read her newsletter every Wednesday morning since she started her neighbourhood farm stand at the height of the pandemic, I feel that Marianne gets me. What Marianne has done with her farm stand and the accompanying newsletters (soon to be book!) is to bring life to a world that is the opposite of Amazon. Every weekend, Marianne fills her front porch farm stand with handmade and homegrown goodies (much of it inspired by her Mennonite Omas), which she offers in exchange for cash or trade, or as a gift, with the hope that the recipient will then go on to offer up gifts of their own elsewhere in their community. Even her newsletter is written out by hand before it is typed and sent via email. Her writings are as deliciously comforting as her Omas' recipes.
As Amazon now makes it possible for consumers to receive mass produced whatever in the blink of an eye, Marianne's farm stand world slows everything down. Whereas Amazon thrives on reducing human connection, Marianne's farm stand is all about nourishing her community and bringing us together. Whereas Amazon is forever chasing technological advancement, Marianne consciously embraces her Mennonite past, honouring her Omas and their connection to food and community.
The fact that Marianne's book is being published by a cooperative publishing house makes it even more exciting for me to promote. 9th House Press is such a sweet F-U to Billionaire Bezos and his Amazon empire. I live in a town where we are spoiled with independent bookstores that are much loved and well supported. I am delighted to go that step further and support this anti-capitalist independent publisher! It is so important for us to consciously choose to keep our hard-earned cash within our own communities, supporting businesses run by real live humans who happen to be our neighbours, our friends, our family, rather than continuing to line the pockets of the richest dudes on earth. This is one of the easiest and most effective acts of resistance we can take in this moment that requires all of us to make our voices heard.
Farmers markets are anti-empire and AI proof.
The tech bros have spent the past few decades convincing us all that we must have everything our hearts might desire immediately and at our fingertips. They have suckered us into believing that all life now comes with/through an app. They have created the apps and caused our addictions (if you haven't already read Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, you should!). They have stolen our focus and our ability to get through a single day without relying upon their creations from which they profit. And now they are trying to fully steal our humanity with AI, while stealing our lands and water to run their data centres. Oi!
It's no wonder that farmers' markets are becoming increasingly popular. Farmers' markets are a gathering place for communities of vendors who make, bake or grow their wares, and their loyal customers who support them. I have a belief that any money you spend shopping at your local farmers' market is not actual money spent. When you shop at a farmers' market you are sharing your financial resources with your neighbours, and that money typically stays circulating within your own community. When you shop on Amazon however, you are contributing to Billionaire Bezos' next mega yacht. When you shop at your local farmers' market, you are purchasing goods that have travelled just a few short miles. When you shop on Amazon, well, that shit's come from Godknowswhere, but you can bet your bottom dollar it's travelled a half a zillion miles to land on your doorstep. Every time we spend our cash, we are using it to support someone somewhere. We are using it to invest in the world we want to live in. Whenever possible, the best investment is in our own communities that sustain us, not in the bank accounts of those who are intentionally destroying us.
As the old systems collapse, it's time to change our habits.
We have been lulled by the techbros and their bitches for too long into a pervasive dependency on everything they try to sell us. Don't get me wrong, many technological advances are very beneficial on so many levels and often level the playing field, but I guess the obscene profits and gross power of the industry has been too hard to resist, and so we've ended up with the Elon Musks and Peter Thiels, the Jeff Bezos and the Mark Zuckerbergs, and the other insatiable billionaires who just can't stop fucking shit up for their own power and the glory, while humanity and all life on earth suffers.
Even though we are all addicted to the convenience, speed, and apparent ease these techbros have sold us, we actually have the ability and responsibility to stop buying their shit that's literally killing us. I'm not sure if it's even possible to go cold turkey off tech, but we can gradually change our consumer habits so that we start spending more where we live rather than online. The more we connect the dots about where we spend and who we're supporting with our dollars, the easier it is to choose our local communities as the recipients of our resources.
Of course, as the patriarchal systems collapse, it's not just how and where we spend our money that we need to be considering. Big tech has spent years turning us into isolationists, removing us from our neighbours. As these patriarchal systems collapse, we need to remember the old ways of being in community and caring for each other. If you're feeling a little rusty on how to step back into community, slow down your consumption, or allow yourself the joy of handmade food, Marianne's book Farm Stand News: Letters to the Neighbourhood is a loving reminder of how this all works. Books like this are truly the antidote to Amazon and utterly AI-proof. I can't wait for you to read it!
Smashing the patriarchy, one book, friend, neighbour at a time,
Jessica (she/her)
