If all of us take little steps to deprive billionaires of some of their power, maybe we can eventually make them care about us little people. Here are some simple things that could make them sting a little bit.
- Obviously, get off Twitter. There’s no excuse anymore — tweeting enables fascists.
- Unsubscribe from any big, national newspapers. They’re all bought and paid for. Subscribe to a local paper. Alternatively, read The Guardian, it’s not American and it’s totally free.
- No more books from Amazon. This one is going to be tough: we don’t have a real bookstore in town (the University Bookstore is a joke, selling only the necessary textbooks, and most of the floor is dedicated to t-shirts and souvenirs). The nearest bookstores are 45 minutes away, but I guess they’ll get more of my business. Here’s a good list of alternatives to Amazon. Added complication: Amazon has been buying up competing vendors aggressively.
- Even better, use your local library.
- Don’t buy anything else from Amazon. That’s difficult here in small town America, too — we rely so much on ordering things from Amazon because we can’t get them here. Huh…I wonder why local availability has been drying up?
- Just generally buy local. It deprives the massive rich stores (which are usually owned by assholes) of money, and is better for the environment, too.
- And finally, never ever vote for a Republican, no matter how nice they may be and how much they promise you.
Teeny tiny steps. It’s not much, but it’s a way for me to cope.
Another suggestion: Friends of the Library. Wherever there’s a public library, you can check and see if there’s a Friends of the Library organization. They often raise money to donate to their public library for programs, book purchases, etc. Some (OK, I know about 5 FOL that do this, so small sample size) collect donated books and sell them to raise money for the library. Some of these have their own space, some do periodic sales, and some even have web sites where you can buy books. I will especially recommend the Friends of the Berkeley (Calif) Public Library. Good people and gently used books. If there’s one near you, it’s a good volunteer opportunity as well.
Getting off Amazon is gonna be hard! But thanks for the suggestions.
For old books Project Gutenberg. For less old books, archive.org once we’re allowed to log in again.
“Subscribe to a local paper. Alternatively, read The Guardian, it’s not American and it’s totally free.”
FWIW, I follow assorted lefty British writers on Mastodon and Bluesky, and most of them accuse the Guardian of having a strong bias against transsexuals.
I mean, okay? I already do these things, except not buy from Amazon. And not because I’m a Good Guy in rebellion, but because I have no interest in the ramblings of nazis or the biases of American media. I have a large backlog of books (dead-tree versions), most from Amazon. Not sure how to unhook from that trough — but, as of today anyway, I don’t really care.
“Subscribe to a local paper.” You should check to make sure your local newspaper is truly local. There are a couple of publishers who have been buying up small town locals. Our local, the Marin Independent Journal (“the IJ” as folks say) is owned by California Newspapers Partnership which owns about two dozen daily newspapers and some weeklies. California Newspapers Partnership is itself owned by MediaNews Group (majority owner) and Stephens Media. MediaNews Group is in turn a brandname for MNG Enterprises Inc, which also does business as Digital First Media. MNG owns over 100 newspapers and 200 other publications. MNG is a propriety of Alden Global Capital. Alden Global is a division of Smith Management LLC. Alden purchased Tribune Publishing…as in Chicago Tribune and others…in 2021 and is now the second-largest newspaper publisher in the US.
You see where this is going.
Stephen Media LLC is a smaller but similar chain of owners. You might call another “paper trail.”
I’m tired of this inconsequential bullshit, they need to face actual consequences. They need to be afraid for their fucking lives. They go out and advocate for the mass deaths of me and my loved ones and you cowards can’t even articulate a fraction of the same vitriol in response to these unapologetic, racist, transphobic, rapist assholes. I want them to fucking DIE
Nearly all my loved ones are in immense pain and suicidal right now and staring our genocide in the face and I see this fucking consumer activism bullshit and it’s fucking enraging
one person taking out a single one of these assholes would do far more to affect their power than tens of thousands of people canceling their fucking amazon prime membership. i’m so fucking sick of nothing but law-abiding pacifist non-solutions. hope you feel fucking good about yourself for canceling your washington post subscription while trans people are cracked down on and forced to be sexually tortured in jail. Is there ANYTHING these ghouls can do before you start waking up and advocating direct action against them??? fuck this world is beyond horrible
None of this will have an effect on billionaires in the slightest. If anything, billionaires who pretend to give a shit would encourage this since it puts the responsibility on individuals. People do stuff like this to feel good, to help them think of themselves as “good people” even though they aren’t really doing anything at all. If you actually care and want to accomplish something good, you need to get directly involved in political organizations fighting against it.
Hex @ #s 6-8 – Aside from the legal and ethical problems with your proposals, have you not seen how eagerly the right wing flaunts its martyrs?
If people followed your advice, progressive USAnians would end up in the same positions as Muslims in India Which maybe we will anyhow, but let’s not accelerate it.
No More Shall I Be Loyal to my Sorrowful Country
I’ve unsubscribed to 4 or 5 things from WaPoop so far, but I keep getting more emails from them. They’re all “separate” subscriptions.
Recently moved back to the US with my (legal) immigrant spouse. And now we have to make an exit strategy for when the dreadful orange chud launches his mass deportation plan, as the US historically has had no problem deporting and expelling immigrants. Even US citizens born here by immigrant parents were forced out (see Hoover’s Mexican Repatriation from the 1930s for example).
This is our new reality……ugh….. oh, and fuck trump.
robro @ # 5: … make sure your local newspaper is truly local.
Indeed. The “local” paper here is owned Gannett (best known as publisher of USA Today), itself under a chain of corporations controlled by a (relatively new) Japanese operation called SoftBank. (With others probably pulling the strings there, but apparently the public paper trail goes no further.)
@10
My community is facing a fully legal genocide right now so I couldn’t give less of a shit about “legal, ethical solutions”. Fuck legality completely when the law oppresses us, and who the fuck is in charge of what is “ethical”, and even more pressing, why the fuck should should anyone care about intangible ethics points or whatever instead of actually felt consequences?
And if nothing is going to work, and I suspect nothing will, the next best thing is to advocate that people don’t bring further life into this world to suffer under fascist oppression or perpetuate it. I cannot imagine gambling with someone else’s life if there’s even a fraction of a chance they’ll experience the suffering I’ve gone through in this world due to my disabilities and gender, let alone far worse suffering that others have experienced. Anyone that can be convinced not to have children or assisted with getting an abortion, that’s entire lifetimes than can be spared suffering
I love, love, love this website:
https://www.paperbackswap.com/help/how_to_swap_books.php
So low-frills, grass-roots, the way the web should be.
You only pay to ship your books you send out when someone wants one that you list.
The money stays in the trading circle, when you receive a book, you pay nothing.
Keeps people reading and reduces waste!
@Hex, # 8: Shh. You’re making the same mistake MAGA makes-saying the quiet part out loud.
Mistake? They fucking filled up a stadium and yelled it with their full throats and fucking WON
I’m seriously thinking of deleting my Facebook account. Besides not wanting to support that little shit Zuckerberg, I don’t want my long list of anti-right wing comments to be used against me.
These assholes cheered when speakers advocated we be exterminated. They openly fantasized about jailing and killing their political opponents. And the fucking Democrat response was to say “you don’t want to have us in your administration but we’d offer you seats in ours! Dick Cheney endorses us!”
Just fucking face it, far, far too many of the population is too fucking nice to fascists. Harris just called Trump to concede and congratulate him, a multiple felon, rapist, genocidal, racist asshole. She’s not much less of a piece of shit
Be prepared for claims of “cancelling”.
With respect to newspapers that is. “Cancel” in that sense is a likely route to complain.
I would love to have some ideas of things we can do that won’t make matters worse. Physically assaulting Republicans is going to produce a backlash against exactly those communities that are most vulnerable. They’d love to have an excuse to march in with the jackboots.
Akira MacKenzie @19
Deleting Facebook sounds like a great idea. And our esteemed host recommended getting away from Twitter. That too.
Not trying to be too snarky, but it might be cool if PZ could somehow remove those buttons for Facebook and Twitter(X) at the bottom of his OPs. Are these things removable or are they tag alongs that go with the WordPress(?) blogging platform? There’s also tumblr, if anyone even uses that platform anymore.
I don’t have Prime, but I will use Amazon on infrequent occasions for some arcane book not available digitally. Bezos ain’t exactly buying a new yacht with my paltry purchases.
I’m pretty much tied into the amazon/google/youtube system. My credit card gets me amazon points that I use to buy presents for family. I also have lots of ebooks and audiobooks I still need to read. I’m at the age where I don’t really want more physical things and ebooks are an alternative since they take up less space. No amazon prime or unlimited. Even if there are alternative ebooks, kindle has an app that tracks how many consecutive days you’ve read and I’m above 1700 days and I don’t want to break that streak. IMHO boycotts are like prayers, they make you feel better while pretty much doing nothing. Bozo won’t miss the few pennies he gets from me and even if he does feel the pinch, he won’t change his ways just punish someone else. Going after the millionaires won’t help. I’m not sure what will.
physically assaulting anyone will bring the police. And yeah, they will kick your ass. they were trained to do that. Win without physical assault,.an ancient artform, worthy of study.
Before the election I had been watching some Massimo Pigliucci instructional videos on stoicism. I’ve also been looking into stuff like dialectical behavioral therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy. The founder of ACT tells of his early est experiences which seems a little sus, but ok. I was also delving into Socratic method. Somethings now to maintain my sanity. I’m trying to fight my pull toward jaded cynicism and nihilism post-election. Maybe I should revisit Camus.
I haven’t started assimilating or accommodating the new reality of Trump 2.0 yet, but maybe I have some cognitive tools to keep myself at least treading water psychologically. Ugh! Not much into mindfulness and yoga. Some of that stuff sadly dovetails into MAHA…our new nightmarish hellscape given RFK Jr.
Self applied therapy or beer? A toss up.
BTW my foray into Socratic method is facilitated largely by Youtube. That platform is benefiting “do much evil” Google. I can’t see myself boycotting that platform. I’m not paying for the ad- free version. Pick your oligarchic poison.
I am avoiding WaPo and NYT for the most part. Pretty easily given their paywalls. Politico has been forcing subscriptions. Archive.ph has been suggested as an end-around against paywalls. When I tried it Safari notified me it was blocking profiling trackers from mail.ru and yandex.ru. I bailed on that tool.
Amazon’s retail crap isn’t where their revenue stream really is anymore. That’s just to keep collecting data now.
Their revenue stream is in AWS: Amazon Web Services. And basically… do you have the internet? Do you use any websites? You’re supporting AWS.
Amazon’s retail crap isn’t where their revenue stream really is anymore. That’s just to keep collecting data now.
Their revenue stream is in AWS: Amazon Web Services. And basically… do you have the internet? Do you use any websites? You’re supporting AWS.
drickard@3–
The Guardian has been consistently appalling on trans reporting. But you can always visit the Guardian’s Australian site. It has its own editorial team which decided a few years ago not to republish the anti-trans rubbish coming out of the UK flagship. The problem of course is that you will suddenly get an surge of Australian news stories, but you can ignore those and concentrate on the international news.
None of you seem to have figured it out – this is what 72 million Americans wanted. All the asshats at the top aren’t the problem – the problem is 72 million Americans that voted for it (and the tens of millions that implicitly supported it by staying home)
Now you know what the American public wants. Are you going to get mad, or change some people’s minds?
If people vote for it, that’s what you get.
It starts in small organizations, outreach to community, getting to know people. Some aren’t reachable; you won’t get everybody, but a lot of the people that voted for DT are voting because the Republican party started small, and built a movement. Democrats can either figure that out, or keep losing.
Or, stop allowing democrats to shove candidates down your throat, stop listening to people who tell you to just fall in line, “we don’t need an primary, just shhhh” democrats alway shoot themselves in the foot. If you’re just going to lose be like the libertarians, doing nothing good, but nothing bad either.
An order is get mad and go change people’s minds. Other feelings can be used on the second part too. Don’t discount a natural impulse, do something with it.
As a public librarian, I just hope libraries survive the next 4 years.
I’m proud to say that I have only ever bought one thing from Amazon and that was the Twisted Sister christmas album in 2006. I once was going to buy a baritone ukulele, but I cancelled the order and got a refund. About three weeks later, two packages showed up on my doorstep each containing a baritone ukulele. So, I’m about $120 up on Bezos.
X-posted from environmentalism threads, but the sentiment especially applies here:
Remember, one of the biggest actions you can take individually is to kill and eat a billionaire. A billionaire takes a long time to eat by yourself, though. Bring the whole family, invite the neighbors, make it a community event.
You can order books online at powells.com.
beholder @36
Sorry the while Krokus “Eat the Rich” thing is so passe. I’m not Hannibal Lecter. Musk and Bezos just look unappetizing. I doubt butter and hot sauce would help. They are just completely disgusting people.
But I still think you are wrong. As unappetizing as they are you could freeze them and keep them from spoiling so could eat one by yourself over an extended time. I’d prefer a large tuna or turkey. Maybe an avocado tree instead.
Whatever animosity PZ has for Hemant should be transcended. Dude is pissed too:
https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/a-few-thoughts-on-last-nights-election
I’m truncating way too much:
That’s like the most blunt point to be made from an atheist POV.
Or:
Yeah I dunno. At this point let the past be passed. PZ and Hemant should both guide us.
Just a couple cautionary notes:
@2: No, do not rely on ar(hive.org for “newer stuff.” The vast majority of the “newer stuff” there is pirated material (or an otherwise unfair practice) — meaning that you’re hurting authors by suppressing the market for their more-than-five-seconds-ago work. (Disclosure: I’ve been representing authors, artists, musicians, composers, and filmmakers for decades.) By no means am I defending commercial publishing pricing and gatekeeping practices — or the unjustified restrictions on libraries, and “censorship” is just the most visible of them — but this is disturbingly close to saying that the way to get the city council to listen to you is to have an actual riot at next Tuesday’s meeting (and then actually rioting).
Whether society might be better off with a “right to read anything” system is an argument for another time; that’s not the system we have. Even if “information” wants to be free, writers want to be paid; what they earn soon after publication is discounted by the publisher’s expectation of “deferred compensation.”
@14: SoftBank is “a (relatively) new Japanese operation” only if you think four decades makes for “relatively new.” It’s not even relatively new in the US/Canadian, as it predates Amazon; nor in publishing and “content distribution,” as it’s been involved in that from before it began (existing operations were folded in to the “new” we’re-neither-a-zaibatsu-nor-a-hedge-fund on founding in 1981).
Canadiansteve @31: “Are you going to get mad, or change some people’s minds?”
To change people’s minds, they have to be willing to listen. Many of us have been working for 8 years to change minds on Trump, and far longer on the ghouls he surrounding himself with now. They don’t want to listen. They want this.
Well, they got it. And if I catch any of their asses on my property, I will consider it a direct threat to my life and well-being, and defend myself.
Seriously: archive.org
The lawsuit against them threatens the ability of normal, conventional libraries to loan reading material — stopping that is the publishers’ goal. Support archive.org if you think that it is reasonable that libraries lend books.
@41 billmcd
Stop talking about Trump and start building a movement that draws people in. Instead of reacting – do something new and build your own movement instead of just not Trump. Most of the democratic talking seems to be directed at other democrats…. how about doing something that actually brings people in?
We better hope (or pray) that Trump survives his whole term.
If he dies in office, J.D Vance becomes POTUS.
OK; just make sure to let me know when they buy up L1brary Gene5is.
Invade Poland? That’s what it took the last time, as I recall. :/
Fortunately, uBlock Origin sez you don’t have to. :)
Also don’t panic. Trump is a cult leader and won’t be easily replaced and he is old af. He will be a ghost at the end of his term. Also the likely AI bubble crash will happen during his term.
To Akira MacKenzie: for quiet news sharing with friends, why not try DreamWidth? It’s small, it’s free, it is ad-free and will remain so, and the owners have Principles and are not afraid to use them.
I recommend bookshop.org for any books you need to get online. You can pick a local bookstore and they’ll give part of the profit to them. That way if you need something quick your local store can’t get right away, you’re still doing something to help the small bookstores.
OK – I have never been on Twitter, or any social media that matter.
I stopped using Amazon ages ago.
I subscribe to the Guardian (online)
I sometimes donate, to Wikipedia – please do that!
I use Linux Mint and not Windows of IOS on my laptop. I plan to donate to some open source software this Christmas.
Of course, I don’t live in the USA either and never have. I used to have relatives in the USA, but they moved to Australia because they didn’t like the way it was heading, and that was 40 years ago.
And I spread the slogan, “There should be NO billionaires” (no empires either for that matter) whenever appropriate!
So what is the next step?
Freethoughtblogs is social media.
I don’t do Facebook.
None of my Boomer cohort has Facebook accounts either so it isn’t useful. Facebook/Meta is a predatory corporation with you as their product.
Every year I donate to Wikipedia, not a lot for me and it makes a huge impact for everyone else. It’s a good idea.
I also donate to the local animal shelter and consider that a high priority.
@ 47
The thing is that only stayed on FB for so long because it was primary means of communicating with friends as well as a few hobby related resources. Now I’m getting bombard with spam, ads for fascist organizations and businesses, and I have a substantial backlog of anti-right-wing/anti-theist/anti-Christian/anti-capitalist posts that will surely earn me a bullet to the head from the incoming administration.
I’m with Hex. The most powerful government on the planet has been seized by White Nationalists in cahoots with Christian Extremists. And they will use this power on us, in small samples at first, but if they meet resistance, they will not be afraid to wield the full power of the government and yes, even the military. If you are white and like to pray to an imaginary being in the sky, you will OK. Otherwise fuhgeddaboudit.
Doing small things will no longer matter. Doing big things at this time will not produce the needed results. Need to start at the bottom, get everybody on the same page and build coalition, I hate that word, and hope there will still be time to do something come the next election, if there is one.
It’s likely there will always be the appearance of an election, à la Putin (110% victory, etc). Even a dementia-ridden, 90-year-old El Presidente gonna need his ego food.
Re books.
IOBA.org is a self organised association of independent booksellers who really really really know their stuff, from medieval manuscripts to tomorrow’s first editions.
Chrislands.com/stores lists independent sellers by location.
Biblio.com is worth a look. Many ABE sellers list also list their books there at the same price.
AVOID bookfinder.com. Owned by Amazon, gets a cut of the sale.
Jaws @ # 40: SoftBank is “a (relatively) new Japanese operation” only if you think four decades makes for “relatively new.”
Compared to the major keiretsu, yes. Wikipfft:
Pretty small potatoes.
Market cap as of this month: >$85B. So SoftBank grew by a factor of 28 over 30 years – definitely a nouveau riche kid on the block, by capitalist terms.
Trying to take small individual steps to prevent capitalist wealth accumulation will make you feel better. The capitalists won’t notice at all.
If you want to make a difference, get involved in politics. Find the local partisan groups and volunteer to get out the vote.
That picture is appropriate since these suggestions are soft as baby shit. lol
PZ has some great advice. No one in our organization has ever had anything to do with the toxic muskrat’s xhitter (or anything that useless imbecile owns or sells) or AMAZ0N (they are thugs and bullies). We have always used honest local businesses whenever possible. For 20 years we ran an art organization as an LLC and we worked with local artists to help them succeed. We only shopped at Malwart once and when we saw them moving into smaller cities, undercutting the local businesses, driving them out of business and then raising prices.
SOCIETY, AS OWNED AND ABUSED BY CORPORATIONS, IS LARGELY A FAILURE.
As the old motown song said, ‘nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide’ Keep your heads down people, we’ve officially entered the new DARK AGES.
Oh, and about where to buy books, go to the publisher’s site run a quick search on duckduckgo or use half price books ( https://www.hpb.com ), we have used them many times, their service is excellent as are the prices. Also, local bookstores (the few that haven’t been driven out of business) and as others have said local libraries.
Stay safe people.
@29 billmcd wrote: Their revenue stream is in AWS: Amazon Web Services. And basically… do you have the internet? Do you use any websites? You’re supporting AWS.
I reply: You are correct in most respects. They are an abusive evil consuming everything they can get their hands on. But, there are still many small sites, many of whom are self-hosted. And independent hosting companies and smaller ISP’s (internet service providers) whose sites you can visit and use are good to find. (all the dozens of sites we have created were for small businesses and artists and hosted on QWKnet or other small hosting companies that have their own internet backbone connections)
@45 — The invasion of Poland got the European powers and their colonial offshoots involved. It took Pearl Harbor for the US. (To be fair, the US had been giving materiel support long before they got involved in combat.)
@46 — Unfortunately, personality cults can survive the death of their leader. Arguably the PRC is a direct descendant of the personality cult of Mao, albeit significantly adapted, and North Korea has maintained its personality cult by switching focus from Kim Il Sung to the Kim family.
Here’s an appropriate quote I came across yesterday:
“Dear America: You are waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that 1/3 of your people would kill another 1/3 while 1/3 watches.”
– Werner Herzog
Correction: The previous post was attributed to Werner Herzog, but he isn’t the one who wrote it. It’s still appropriate.
Drive the speed limit. Chances are the annoyed driver behind you is a maga.
Tiny step: build up your real life social network and find a way to talk politics without breaking it. Care for one another and improve each others lives.
Easier said than done for some people. Particularly those whose incomes are too low to live in a city rather than on the outskirts of a smallish one or a town that will have little or nothing in the way of public transportation and not a lot going on regardless.
please: working together, not alone. that’s the only thing that could ever give me any hope
does anyone know of anything anywhere?
@56, numerobis
agreed.
my proposal: volunteer to help people more directly, with the things that are of real value to them in their own lives. and organize to create larger abilities to help people.
be the change you want to see…..but collectively, not individually.
Not so little things some people may have to do to protect themselves – some good advice via a fb friend :
( Typed from screen – any typos mine. Italics mine.)
There’s a narrow window of time before Trump gets sworn it, us eit wisely, make the most of it. prepare.
Also what is suggested here – Plan 4B :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-10/donald-trump-win-4b-movement-male-supremacists-make-threats/104575732
If folks can leave the USA it might be a good idea to do so.
I fear that what’s coming will be worse than even our worst case scenarios and we should prepare accordingly.
Stay safe and good luck everyone. (Trolls & Trump voters excepted.)
‘Coalition Of Malice’ – What To Expect From Trump’s 2nd Term – Zeteo YT hour long and soem things at the end in final minute or so on what we can do now.