bye amazon, bye facebook
OK, so maybe Neil Young is a little out of touch. It’s not as easy for everyone to disentangle themselves from corporate-guided lifestyles as it is for us A-list mega-stars! But he’s absolutely right about Bezos and Zuckerberg. These fascists and their companies deserve to be made not just uncool but obsolete. In this spirit we’ve decided to follow Neil’s example and remove our albums from Amazon and black out our Facebook. It’s small. It’s no general strike. But we think those of us with more privilege need to start wiggling out of our convenient relationships with oligarchs. Even if there’s a financial hit.
It’s certainly not that Americans don’t hate oligarchs enough! This notion that Americans love rich people. A ridiculous myth perpetuated by rich people. Musk is the most hated man in America. No one’s impressed by the new fascist tendencies of our top corporations. Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Palantir, Black Rock, Chevron, Citibank, Lockheed Martin have made themselves the IG Farbens of today. But love oligarchs or hate them, it hardly makes a difference. We have no infrastructure to oppose them. Mostly we’re reduced to posting clever insults and cartoons. Corporate-sponsored parades. Marching around with signs. No change in policy.
It’s also not that Americans don’t hate Trump enough! The effort to delegitimize him worked. Worst first-year approval rating in history. Something to feel good about. But all the insults and memes in the world have zero effect on his greed. His violence. Because no entities that actually oppose greed and violence are ever allowed to develop real political influence here. Till we build and support movements or parties that pose a real threat to Trump’s power, we might as well all be MAGA.
Normally a civilized country faced with a dictator or oligarchy run amok would just organize a general strike. That’s because those countries have Socialist parties. Strong unions. Legal aid. Backup plans. Resources for when the food and rent run out. Their strikes, boycotts and lawsuits are often effective as a result. Such an apparatus is missing in the US. Our two-party system, with its wealthy donors and its volunteer armies of duopoly cheerleaders, has seen to that!
In the days of Hitler and Mussolini, public opinion was controlled. Ban free speech, free assembly, and free press, under penalty of death. It ended badly. Since then fascism has had 80 years to think about where it screwed up. In the new version, the ruling class has realized that public approval isn’t really worth the effort! For the 21st century fascist there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Studies show that US government policy conforms consistently and precisely to the wishes of the richest 1%. End of story. When the public can’t back up its anger with substance, their anger means nothing. It just helps the ruling class justify more clampdowns.
Earth is spiraling into WW3 under Trump’s witless command. The planet’s inhabitants have correctly identified the aggressors: Russia, Israel, and especially the US. If you want to guess how the rest of the world will view the civilians of these warmongering countries, just look at the LAST world war. How much sympathy do Germans under the Nazis get shown in, say, a Spielberg movie? They were and are berated for failing to rise up against their demonic dictator, whom they voted into power themselves. History can hardly be expected to be more lenient towards Americans! We enjoy comparative freedom of speech, press, and assembly. But we limit ourselves to symbolic publicity stunts. Strongly worded condemnations. Playful insults on social media. Occasional anti-oligarchy parades. All while patting ourselves on the back for our moral superiority.
Every election season Democratic politicians get cast as the opposition. To greed, to violence, to lawbreaking. This fantasy flickers out as soon as they start voting. They’re not just weak opponents. They’re no opponents at all. Especially when it comes to economics and state violence. Tens of billions in weapons to foreign war criminals. ICE buildup. The Wall. Mass deportation and detention. More militarized police regardless of rising police murders. Overfunding the Pentagon even though it fails every audit. Handouts to billionaires no matter how many starve or go homeless. And the biggie, genocide. Protest that, you get arrested or beat up. Dems vote for all of it! Forget the rhetoric. They prize greed, violence and lawbreaking so highly, they’re willing to lose elections over it. They only keep themselves on life support by spreading fear that there’s no other option.
Corporate news wants everyone focused on a few attention-hungry politicians. Deranged, exciting sociopaths whose devotion to greed, violence, and white supremacy seems to come from a deep, ideological hatred of the human race. But center them too much, you miss the big picture! Individual politicians and CEOs may be mean or nice, famous or obscure. But the US ruling class as a whole has a tendency to do murder and slavery. The stuff America was built on. Not necessarily out of sadism, but out of indifference. They believe they can’t keep increasing profits any other way. Not that this distinction matters much to their victims.
Maybe we used to imagine that America’s nameless victims thousands of miles away deserved it. Then Bush’s claims turn out to be lies. Then we watch tens of thousands of defenseless Palestinian civilians get senselessly murdered. With weapons we paid for! We watch ourselves and our neighbors increasingly struggle to get by. Whoever’s President. All the propaganda techniques, cruise missiles, AI enhancements, normalized war crimes and shocking racism that have been deployed outside the country, with such bipartisan unanimity, are now coming home. With each passing day, we all become just a little more likely to be treated to a taste of the trillion-dollar terror we’ve been so comfortable unleashing elsewhere.
That lethal US military might that we hear so much about has been turned against us. We cry for help. We cry for mercy. We cry for reason, for law, for morality. The cries sound familiar to anyone who’s been listening to Palestinians, to Iraqis, to Afghans, to Vietnamese. Our cries go similarly unheard. It’s Americans themselves who pulverized the legal frameworks meant to protect human beings from such abuse. The whole world watched us cheer and rally and vote for the same war criminals, ICE champions, and Wall St toadies now attacking us!
Democrats, Republicans, and corporate executives don’t actually have much choice. Just try being a Dem or GOP politician who prioritizes something besides rich people’s bank accounts. See what happens to your SuperPAC donations. Just try being a CEO who goes rogue. The minute you start acting on a higher morality than money, you’re fired. There’s no room in our current system for personal feelings that might limit the board’s or shareholders’ bottom line. But therein lies its weakness! Being a slave to the dollar means you have to bow to those of us who actually create the dollars. Your workers. Your customers. Your campaign contributors.
Rich, powerful Americans have become complacent. Secure in the knowledge they can do as they please. And yet, haven’t Biden and Trump shown a few recent bouts of nerves? Feeling the need to physically attack people who question their genocide? Haven’t the corporate media looked more and more ridiculous trying to pretend the genocide isn’t happening? Haven’t some boycotted corporations been making a few panicked concessions? That’s BDS actually starting to work. Showing us how it’s done. It’s not public anger that gives oligarchs and tyrants anxiety. It’s losing money! It’s losing control of the narrative!
The US economic model can’t function without greed, violence and fear. The two-party ruling class is devoted to this model like a religion! Not surprisingly this has precipitated multiple global crises. Everything from AI takeover to mass hunger to mass surveillance to slavery to environmental collapse to endless war to genocide. The left’s been warning about this for decades. The stakes are nothing short of the inhabitability of the planet. Still, no US movement has been able to stop the polycrisis or slow it down. To be fair, this movement is still growing. Things could still go either way.
A tiny minority among us are turning the world into a corporate, AI-assisted police state. Committing corporate, AI-assisted genocides. Pretty soon Americans are going to have to step up our resistance. Escalate beyond what MSNBC and the Democratic Party recommend. Besides Mayor Johnson, The Dems haven’t bothered to call for a general strike. Or even join the Economic Blackout. We can’t let that stop us. While it can’t happen overnight, Americans need to stop gifting their oligarchs and tyrants the only thing that makes them oligarchs and tyrants. Our business! No money, no labor, no attention, no subscriptions, no clicks, no participation, no votes.
We’re not guilt-tripping anyone who can’t function without Facebook for the moment. Deerhoof can’t function without Instagram for the moment. The fact so many of us got tricked into relying on Big Tech is mostly Big Tech’s fault. And lack of government regulation. But shaming and blaming are not solutions. To avoid planetary disaster, a lot more people, especially Americans, need to start brainstorming ways to extricate ourselves from corporate tyranny in the next two to three years. The upcoming Economic Blackout Nov 25-Dec 2 is an amazing start. We should be ready to repeat and escalate if necessary.
Deerhoof will no longer be doing business with Amazon or Facebook. We’d already left Spotify and Twitter. We have other targets planned: Apple, Google/Youtube, Paypal, and obviously Instagram. But ultimately individual acts of sacrifice only go so far. It’s like recycling one’s plastic. It may improve your mental health and set a good example. But unless it’s part of a larger movement to disempower billionaires and transform our politico-economic system, it has very little effect. Survival is at stake. Americans need to find the courage to participate in the Economic Blackout. Prepare for a general strike. Prepare for the inability of strikers to eat or pay rent. Prepare for the inevitable all-out media/corporate/political backlash, that will be meant to undermine solidarity, crush dreams, regain control of the narrative, sap the public’s energy, and funnel us back into the duopoly.
Americans are going to need backbone. Emotional and institutional. Higher union membership is key. And it’s time to break from the duopoly! 60% of Democrats support socialism according to a very recent poll. Whether through socialist-leaning parties or independent candidates, we need politicians who actually see food, housing, education, and basic income (including for artists) as human rights. Who actually believe in international laws and institutions. Who don’t just murder people in cold blood for having the wrong race, religion, class, or address. Who endorse de-growth. With an actual plan for phasing out fossil fuels.
Once again we express our gratitude to Joyful Noise, Polyvinyl, and the other record labels that release Deerhoof’s music. They have had the thankless task of removing our music from Amazon and Spotify, and sharing in the resulting financial hit. Although our labels and their distributors will no longer be doing direct business with Amazon with any Deerhoof music, we have no control over whether third party vendors still sell our music there.
Jeff Bezos is known worldwide for tax dodging and monopoly practices. His best-known company, Amazon, is famous for its hazardous safety conditions, abusive environment, and failure to pay a living wage to its employees. Since 2021 Amazon has been providing cloud computing infrastructure and AI weaponry directly to the Israeli government and military. It provides AI facial recognition technology to ICE. Bezos owns Whole Foods and The Washington Post, which now publishes only pro-capitalist opinions, according to his own announcement this year. Post employees cite low wages and an abusive atmosphere. Bezos has donated millions to various Trump-related funds. He has $236 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg is the founder, chairman, CEO and controlling shareholder of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. Meta’s role in the global spread of misinformation, hate speech, and child safety issues is well known. The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal is widely thought to have been a deciding factor in Trump’s election in 2016. Zuckerberg has consistently rejected proposals to address mental health issues for Facebook and Instagram’s billions of users. This year Meta announced it was ending professional fact-checking, loosening content moderation, dismantling its diversity programs, and allowing hateful rhetoric against LGBTQ+ people. Zuckerberg has donated millions to various Trump-related funds. He has $257 billion.