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So Jeff Bezos, the executive chairman of Amazon, is a fascist too.

The signs were there. Up until now, the rose-colored of optimism caused me to ignore them.

When I cancelled my WaPo subscription, I attributed Bezos’ decision as cowardice.

Now I know it wasn’t cowardice. Bezos is as much of a fascist as Zuckerberg and Musk. Maybe it wasn’t always so, but it is now.

Part of my reluctance to face the truth was because of all that Amazon has meant in my life:

• In 2012 and 2019, I faced medical challenges that kept me apartment-bound most of the time. Amazon was my lifeline for items that I could not get myself.
• In 2020, the pandemic hit. Due to medical issues related to those I mention above, I’ve still had to practice isolation. During that time, I relied on Amazon, both for shopping and for entertainment via Amazon Prime.
• I ordered from Amazon a lot. So much so that free shipping from Amazon Prime was definitely in my favor.
• I’ve been an Amazon Associate for perhaps two decades now. I never made any significant money from it. It basically functioned as a link-shortener when I wanted to recommend an item, as I did for series of posts on painting miniatures.
• I know people who’ve written books. When I’ve offered to purchase those books from the original publishers, the authors would tell me, “Please buy the books on Amazon, and leave a review. That will help me much more in potential sales, even through I’ll make less money from your purchase.”
• Unless there was an actual emergency (e.g., I needed something exotic right away for health reasons), I never used next-day shipping. I always used the longest-delayed shipping option. My hope (however foolish) was that this might ease the burden on the workers in Amazon’s warehouses.

Now…

Now…

I faced the music and looked at my financial records. from 2007 until now, I’ve given over $107K to Amazon.

That’s turned into $107K to supporting fascism and tyranny.

That’s right.

I donated to fascism.

I donated to tyranny.

I donated to the pain and anguish of people to satisfy the rapacious greed of a few morally-corrupt billionaires.

Bezos’ desire to take the WaPo op-ed page and print solely articles in support “personal liberties and free markets” is a call to destruction.

It’s a call to another Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, or a Love Canal, or a Three Mile Island, another Teapot Dome, another Great Depression.

What? You haven’t heard of those ecological and economic disasters? I wonder if that’s because it’s not in the interest of media moguls to remind you of why regulations exist, the same regulations that Elon Musk (and now obviously Jeff Bezos) wants to destroy because they’re rich enough to ignore the potential of ruin and death for ordinary folks.

I left FB. Should I leave Amazon?

I’m not sure.

It would be hard. It would be expensive.

In Judaism, you’re not suppose to brag about your charity. But I feel I must: At this point, I’m giving so much to charity that I might not be able to handle an additional financial burden.

This blog post may seem like a call to action. But it’s being written by a fat guy living in a basement apartment who plays too much BG3. This post will perhaps be read by five people, if that.

Just because I’ve suddenly developed a conscience doesn’t change that.

I did a web search on “Would boycotting Amazon hurt Jeff Bezos?” Obviously, any such web search is likely to give biased results. With that in mind, I found:

• From last month: You don’t have to boycott Amazon this year if you don’t want to – “Amazon is terrible but you’re not terrible for shopping there.”
• From four years ago: CMV: Boycotting Amazon isn’t even symbolically effective protest = “Much like it is impractical to boycott currency or boycott public roads – or any life-defining system – we cannot boycott Amazon as a whole, and boycotting their shopping services isn’t a symbolic gesture because it isn’t persuasive.”
• From last year: The Washington Post is a reminder of the dangers of billionaire ownership – “Here is the problem: billionaires are mostly immune to consumer pressure. That’s how they became and remain billionaires.”

I’d like to believe that my actions will do something. I’d like to believe that my daily calls based on 5calls.org have some impact.

If there were an organized, mass action against Amazon, I would join it. I certainly plan to be part of Feb 28 boycott tomorrow.

I will do my best to remove all the Amazon affiliate links from argothald.com and acorn.garden. I’ll probably fail. 20 years worth of links are hard to remove.

Will I regret this weakness on my part?

Probably.

Maybe it will take another Triangle Fire for me to realize that even an ineffectual protest is better than watching another season of Invincible.