Don’t give the Foo Fighters a pass for doing corporate gigs for these assholes either. They knew exactly what they were doing.
It’s so disappointing.
They were the best, the best, the best bootlickers.
You break your back for pennies while they get millions a second to eat sushi off of a porn star’s back.
Rookies. The real wealth gets to eat sushi off a porn star’s front!
I want this sushi dinner to be the tits, Charlie!
The funny thing is that people always forget about old money - people who don’t know what work is or what actual money is. And who see billionaires as just mere peasants.
There is a lot of old money where I grew up, and it was funny hearing about Blackrock trying to buy their properties. They would offer these people ten times the value, but old money was just “but, that’s just a little bit more money in the money bin. I have a massive house and estate to look at the peasants. Why would I bother?”
And now imagine old money in Europe. For example, the British aristocracy owns at least 30% of land in England (that’s the official number, but Land Registry doesn’t have information about who owns 15% of land at all and it is most likely owned by aristocracy as well). And England has a leasehold system. So if Blackrock would come to a king or some lord to buy some of their land, the land would be sold to them easily as a long term lease, for like 100+ years. And then Blackrock would also pay yearly rent on top of that. Because you ain’t buying shit here, dirty peasant.
Another thing to keep in mind is that old money here have their wealth for over a thousand years. They’re not simply entrenched, they’re a part of the fabric of the country itself. They have all kinds of exceptions in the laws and regulations and exist above everyone else not only in social status, but also in economic and political status as well.
People can hate the rich as much as they want, but there’s a layer in the society which doesn’t care about the existence of the rich and the poor. And they are all related to each other through centuries of strategic marriages, so basically one incredibly large family spread across the whole of Europe.
Just more for the guillotines. Still massively outnumber them.
To think this is a problem with just Amazon is silly. This is every American corporation. The executives of every major corporation in this country treat themselves very very well on company dimes while their workers all languish in starvation wages. The only way to fight this is to raise the minimum wage to something that is livable for the average worker. The government needs to force these companies to behave. They will never and I mean abso-fucking-lutely never choose to treat their workers with respect and dignity by paying them a decent living wage.
And the politicians that are in all of their pockets will never ever go against their corporate masters. The only way to make them listen is to get every single American to acknowledge that this is something that is needed and then push their politicians to do it or threaten their jobs by voting for someone else. This goes for both Democrats and Republicans, not quite equally but there’s definitely a few Democrats that need to be replaced.
Bentonville AR is being turned into a bicyclists haven. To the tune of Arkansas laws are making it that bicyclists don’t have to pay attention to traffic laws. That’s neat, wonder why… Ah. And while bicycling is one of the better things I guess billionaires can do, in the region buying bicycles are far beyond affordable anymore to a walmart wage because it’s gotten so over the top fancy, and the Waltons literally have a helicopter with a bike rack to fly out to the trails. My dad is irritated because of how often it shakes his house as it goes over.
Same city, Alice Walton had a really nice museum built in the area that was surely out of the good of her heart… Ah. Unless really local, one might not know of her nickname “Drunken Alice” where she has a history of dwi’s and wrecks, including one where someone was killed, yet somehow nothing seems to stick.
Yea… I’ve got a bit of an axe to grind with the Waltons having grown up in their personal playground, I agree with you to think this is a problem with just Amazon is ludicrous, and despite only living a state away it’s amazing to hear how people bitch about Amazon, it’s chokeholds, it’s problems, its wrecking of the country, and gives a full pass to Walmart. We live in an oligarchy.
Completely unrelated to my bitching about Walmart, but a perfect example of execs doing this nonsense and how I got in trouble because I can’t stop snarking: Worked for a medical testing facility, ran by a doctor. Said doctor buys himself a brand new shiny Lamborghini, then through the whole email has an announcement that for one day for 4 hours where any of the staff can get a picture with the Lambo and share on the company page. Now I met said doc once during training, but otherwise worked 3rd shift with two other people, he certainly never showed up when we had issues.
So when the day happened, it was one of those I commented it’s the first time I think I’m glad that 3rd shift gets ignored on any staff events. Think about it for a second, then ask the others “Who has the newest car?”, turns out was a Nissan Juke. So each of us go out and get a picture with the Juke, then sent the pictures in to where people were supposed to send in the pics with the Lambo. Turns out they got 4 pictures, the 3 with the Juke, and 1 with the Lambo. Got told by our manager said doc was pissed and to keep our heads down.
My last job, we removed two departments and fired them all, then forced to have a “virtual retreat” to save money. Three months later, they showed a PowerPoint how this was their best year ever.
By that point, I was already looking for a new job.
The only way to fight this is to raise the minimum wage to something that is livable for the average worker.
Then what do you do when only the Amazons and Walmarts of the world with the deepest pockets can afford that, and small business basically ceases to exist, as a result? People talk a lot about ‘if you can’t pay a livable wage you don’t deserve to be in business’, but the same people also complain about monopolies and lack of choice at the same time. How do you propose this be reconciled?
Also, no one’s ever going to be able to begin to enforce a “living wage”, even if they wanted to, until that wage is given a concrete definition–at the very least, a formula with variables to account for cost of living differences across the country. Until then, all this clamoring for a “living wage” is completely pointless.
I’m disappointed in Dave grohl
Eh, all he did was accept money to do exactly what he does: play a concert. Now if he canceled other concerts just for this, that would be a different story IMO. The Amazon execs would just buy a yacht or something instead if Dave declined.
Ah the ol’ “If I didn’t accept the money to do something unethical, then someone else would have done it.” argument.
Yeah, I can see how it could be seen that way. I’m thinking more along the lines of “Dave performs for money. Someone wants to pay a lot of money for a special performance, and it doesn’t affect any of his other shows so of course he would do it”. IMO what Dave did isn’t unethical, but I can see how it could be seen that way. But I also think if the article was “Amazon Execs bought a multi million dollar yacht after massive layoffs”, no one would be blaming the yacht manufacturer. Just the execs.
no one would be blaming the yacht manufacturer
I already don’t support yacht manufacturers. I own foo fighters albums. There is a massive difference in your example.
The yacht was a bad example. What I’m getting at is that not hating something is not the same as supporting it. I don’t support Dave doing this, but I don’t hate him for doing it either.
Fair as fuck
Here’s a better one: If the Amazon execs threw a private party, no one would be blaming the caterers.
Assuming they’re not already millionaires, correct.
Perhaps it’s not against Dave Grohl’s ethics but it’s certainly against mine so all I can do is add the Foo Fighters to the ever growing list of people or companies that don’t get my attention or money.
To be honest I’m thankful all this stuff is out in the open as I’m saving a lot of money.
I don’t shop on Amazon, don’t use social media, don’t eat McD, don’t buy Foo Fighters albums, don’t watch Will Smith movies, etc.
Ah, the piecemeal approach to becoming a hermit. Eventually you’ll just add literally everything to your “failed my purity test” list.
Tbf it’s not like grohl needs the cash is it
Yup, this is really maximize shareholder value. I can totally see this teambuilding event doubling dividends. Wait? You said the company never pays dividends and rarely buys back its stock? Wow, I am really seeing those profits!
ffs dave
I wonder when “selling out” or being called a “sell out” stopped being a thing. It happened during my lifetime for sure. Now basically everyone everywhere you look in the music business not only is one, but the public seems to not even consider it an option to not sell out, and I think most people dream of being able to be a sell out themselves so much they pardon others preemptively and almost instinctively.
But like in this case, Dave Grohl is already a multimillionaire, does he really have to further prostitute himself for Amazon cash?
It fell victim to the “gig economy”, now it’s less “Selling out” and more “Get that bag”
I’m kind of bewildered by it, like there wasn’t any expectations but this is the sort of thing a creatively spent band would do, one of their best (imo) albums came out last year they absolutely could’ve passed on this. I’m hoping they at least put on a dogshit show, “Corporate magazines still suck” on Rolling Stone type move.
they might be under contractual obligation to do what the record label says
🤷 and maybe someone was holding his dog hostage until he performed, but that pic doesn’t look like someone who is having a terrible time fulfilling his label obligations
Dave is a businessman first and foremost. I wonder how Pat is dealing with this sort of shit.
The real question is, how many pee bottles did they force Dave Grohl to fill in order to make his song quota in time?
I can’t find much about this gig online, but the Setlist.fm page lists this as a ‘private event’ for Amazon Web Services.
AWS is not the part of Amazon where employees have to piss in bottles. It’s their cloud hosting subsidiary, and the most profitable part of the company. I also can’t find any mention that it’s just the executives of AWS either. It seems more likely to me that this would have been open to the employees of AWS in general as it is the most profitable part of Amazon and the crowd in the pictures seems quite big if it were only made up of ‘AWS executives who like the Foo Fighters’.
Its a yearly event that collects directors and above fork across the company to a week long “convention” that is supposed to be about building cohesive between leadership.
The author went in 2022, when they had bon jovi play, and said it was just a boozy networking event where leadership was dictated to by the execs with no actual exchange of ideas.
In 2022, Amazon made a record profits, but even then they were admonished to save money. Still, no layoffs.
This year? They also made record profits, but had record layoffs, yet the party goes on.
The authors overall point is that Amazon is successful by asking people to “lean in,” to go the extra mile. When you freeze wages and layoff 10,000s of people while threatening more and still throw your 10 million dollar party for yourself, you are telling good people to not only leave, but to lean right the fuck out before they do.
The article says what part of Amazon it was for. It’s for logistics, not AWS, which is a separate division.
The ruling class needs a very poignant reminder that their perceived value is entirely manufactured by the working class, on whose shoulders they stand. These people have no real value if the people they exploit are able exert their own agency.
Fuck these parasites. And as a matter of course, fuck the foo fighters.
Yeah, call me when consequences actually happen.
Oh look everyone it’s part of the problem.
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History has a way of repeating itself. Best we can hope for is a soft reset. It will always be this way until human avarice is somehow ejected from our genome.
Most of the people in those concerts are employed. They’ll have stock with Amazon, as does everyone working for Amazon on a full time, permanent contract.
You do realise Amazon is a public company, don’t you? If your country allows fractional shares, you could become an owner of Amazon for £10.
Is the “ruling class” anyone who has a report at Amazon?
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/6039327
" if you’re under retirement age and quit your job tomorrow, do you have enough assets to comfortably live out the rest of your life"
This gets to it. Basically bourgeoisie is the owning class and proletariat is the class that can only survive via labor, but as the post says it’s a bit more complicated these days. You could have a business owner or landlord who gets the same amount of paycheck as say a high-paid tech person, or actor, or doctor, or something. And the former is petty bourgeois and the latter is not, because the former owns assets and the latter, if they lose their job, will before long need to find another one in order to survive.
Now you could have someone getting a wage that’s been high enough for a long enough time that they have been able to acquire assets that could bring in income, which changes things somewhat. But the main thing to analyze is the relationship to resources, land, and means of production.
It is a musician’s business to know who they are performing for and why - and the more famous they are, the more it starts to matter. Grohl knows this.
The people on here who is excusing this with “capitalism bad except when people I like is doing it” arguments is just demonstrating how empty “liberal values” get when push comes to shove.
Sure but the biggest pushback I’ve really seen tbh was by a dude who eventually revealed he’s just ranting about cancel culture. He doesn’t even like Grohl. So certainly not a liberal lol
That’s actually their manager’s business. Literally what they hire them for. And honestly, if you’re going to fault them for performing a private venue for an Amazon event, you should also fault every artist that’s ever performed in like, Vegas. Casinos have been bleeding people to death long before Amazon hit the scene.
I’m not going to fault a performer for literally doing their job and taking a fat payday. I’d probably do the same in their shoes, anybody who insists otherwise isn’t being honest with themselves.
It’s not like the rider said “play show at Amazon, these guys just laid a lot of people off and are screaming about budget cuts so they want you to play for the rest. Here’s 4 million dollars.”
It probably said “corporate event for 6-10k people. Here’s a check for 4 million dollars”
So you’re arguing that selling out any supposed values you might have is fine as long as the check is big enough.
Foo Fighters are a huge band. They aren’t at the whims of some all powerful manager. And Amazon’s crimes are not new, they’re not obscure information. They’re incredibly well known, frequently discussed, and go hand in hand with the mention of Amazon. They knew what they were doing, who they were doing it for.
Now, if you want to discuss the power that record labels and their business relationships hold and their contracts with the bands they produce, that’s a possible explanation for this. But we’re talking about aging millionaire white guys. Chances are, they had veto power, knew what they were doing and probably could’ve accepted a monetary fine from the record company for defying a contract obligation if that’s why they were being forced to do it. And, honestly, probably would’ve leaked that information, gotten a ton of great press, maybe gotten into a public dispute with the record label if they chose to speak out about it, and then cashed in on that.
But, like you said, they did it for a fat paycheck. They didn’t stick up for the well-documented abused workers of Amazon while cashing in on it — “virtue signaling,” as people say. They decided to do this. For money. From Amazon executives.
And that’s…not better.
The fact that this comes at the end of typical corporate purse string tightening at the expense of workers is really just the steaming shit nugget on top of this diarrhea sundae.
I’m arguing that you’re villainising the wrong people.
And that was me telling you your assumption of who’s at fault was way off the mark.
They’re rockstars. They knew what they were doing and made the choice themselves.
At the end of the day they’re people too though. And this is music, not war. There’s a pretty big gray area for “participating in capitalism does not equal approval of capitalism.”
There’s a pretty big gray area for “participating in capitalism does not equal approval of capitalism.”
That only goes for the working class - the people who are forced to participate in capitalism. Not for filthy rich musicians.
And this is music, not war.
There is no aspect of our enforced existence under capitalism that is free from it’s insidious influence - and that includes music.
So we’re just skipping the part about the execs treating themselves to a concert after many years of union busting, horrid working conditions, innumerable other abuses, and excluding the workers. But we’re going to shit on the people they hired for a gig.
Coolcoolcoolcoolcool.
So we’re just skipping the part about the execs
No… we actually talk about Amazon’s shitfuckery a lot. Where have you been?
I’m talking about the point of the article and you know it. Which is why I have you noted as “Bad Faith”
and you know it.
This is where you are wrong. You aren’t commenting on the article… You aren’t even commenting on the post about the article. Your responding to a comment left on the post about the article.
It’s you that’s arguing in bad faith here, or at least not recognising the context of what you’re saying, presumably because you’re too busy trying to get across your own point.
I don’t think your initial point about the criticism that should be levelled at Amazon is wrong (I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone on here that supports what Amazon have done), but that isn’t to say that the Foo Fighters shouldn’t be being criticised here.
Both things can be true.
But by responding to a comment that points out the band’s faults with whatabouttery you’re kind of coming across like you’re defending the band whilst also ignoring all the other people saying the same thing you are. Then on top of that having a go at the OP when he points out other people are talking about the Amazon issue by saying you’re clearly taking about the article… If you’re commenting on the article why are you replying to some other post?!
Not unlike all the excuses we’re seeing for genocide now that it’s Biden shipping the bombs over to Israel.
Have yet to see anybody ‘excusing’ it. Everybody’s just holding their noses and sticking with him because the alternative is convicted felon Trump.
Oh they straight up deny it’s happening. Nobody tries to say it’s a genocide and it’s okay, they just deny it or deflect to talking about Trump.
Trump is not a ‘deflection’ from Biden. Trump is the only alternative, and a much worse one for pretty much everybody on the planet, even if some don’t realise it.
It is absolutely a deflection when we want Biden to stop participating in Genocide, to instead bring up Trump.
That’s not what was stated before.
Then we’re reading two different threads.
Fucking-A, Dave. At least Kurt never sold out.
Kurt wasn’t offered millions for a private show.
They should pour out a piss bottle for the warehouse employees who couldn’t attend.
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WWRATMD
Probably not what they tell them
So that’s who listens to this garbage…
