If those dirty fucking workers had just worked harder they could have a Foo Fighters concert too.
If those workers worked hard the execs could have had another concert after this one*
Yeah I heard some of them had the gall to use the actual restroom on work hours. Like, get yourself a bigger bottle, and some better bootstraps! Amirite?
Best I can do is a YouTube video with ads for dick pills.
They should pour out a piss bottle for the warehouse employees who couldn’t attend.
I’m disappointed in Dave grohl
Tbf it’s not like grohl needs the cash is it
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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.
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.
I don’t know. Macklemore is a pretty stand up guy and will stand by his morals. Plenty of people ain’t selling out and plenty of people stand up for what they believe in.
Kinda strange all the back lash for my choice here but y’all won’t give the same backlash for FF choice. Double standards much.
I’m not talking to Dave Grohl, I’m talking to you.
Don’t expect perfection, or you’ll always be disappointed by people. Macklemore included lol
What did Will Smith do?
He assaulted a man on live TV and later was given an award and never faced any repercussions.
Also, over shadowed Samuel L Jackson’s night.
LMAO reading this IMMEDIATELY after replying to a… slightly different vibe of comment:
Beauty & strength through diversity [of thought]!
Ah, I see. I was thinking he might have done something else and didn’t hear about it.
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.
So I won’t buy a yacht anytime soon. Good.
Corporate musicians still suck
Dave is making money. Don’t blame him.
I quit a company for this. We wouldn’t give our star performers raises, but they somehow managed to pull off a 7 million dollar one week party for the whole company. It would’ve been something like 100k per employee had they just handed out bonuses.
We lost a wave of talent after that and their stock dropped 80%. I’m glad I cashed out when I did.
7 million could’ve paid 100k per employee? Impressive for a 70 person company to host such an expensive party then.
Er…shit…was off by half…it was 50k an employee.
Dave is making money. Don’t blame him.
Tf kinda brain dead excuse is this?
Acting immorally is okay if you’re making money?
This is truly mind-obliterating stupidity.
My guess is that the argument is that participating in society does not equal endorsement of the system we live in. This is how musicians make money. By playing music to who pays for it.
That said, I myself am of two minds about them taking the money.
It absolutely does equal endorsement.
I’ll make my life harder to avoid companies and people I don’t support.
Have a fucking backbone and stand up for what you believe in. Why should we contribute to the things we abhor?
Do you think you it’s justified perform for these people if they getting paid?
It would be easy for the Foo Fighters to not take that gig. They’re doing fine either way.
It’s also possible for musicians to take a stand for change.
Ya… being paid to perform isn’t immoral. Honestly, I hope he took a ton of cash from Amazon for the show.
Amazon is the crowd doing evil crap. Their immorality doesn’t automatically spread to everyone they interact with. Especially, people that aren’t actually aiding their efforts. This one is corporate waste
FFs took a huge paycheck of blood money that they could’ve easily turned down. They’re in it too.
Yes…I’m sure FF is intimately involved in Amazon internal politics. I’m sure they were made aware of every person fired to pay for their show before it was booked last year.
It’s a gig. A highly paying gig. They don’t fucking care who’s in the audience.
Yeah plus it’s not like they’re a new band desperate for cash and a big break - without doing any maths, I’m pretty sure Dave & Co. could easily turn down evert corpo gig that comes their way from now until forever, and still be out there living the high life.
This is absurd. I can’t believe the amount of hate I’m seeing here. They did a gig. Fucking get over yourselves. Wow.
I’d say you need a better grip on reality, but that would imply you had one to start with
Don’t blame him because he’s just “making money”? Might as well not blame the execs with that logic. They’re also just making money, right?
With this particular concert, no, they’re spending company money (which otherwise could have gone to employees) for themselves.
He’s not your average guy working to put food on the table lol. For someone of his status, his image being hurt from this is far more expensive than whatever they’re paying them for.
Bands do gigs. Everyone needs to relax. The amount of hate I’m seeing here for one of the nicest people who’s made it in the music industry is upsetting.
Wtf does this even mean?
Essentially, if you’re nice enough you’re allowed to do something bad once in a while.
It doesn’t make sense.
The hate is proportional to the level of betrayal people feel. These people are scum(Amazon execs). Dave and the band rewarded them with a special people only concert for being extra parasitic on society. Shame is not unwarranted here.
lol
I mean, I’m not exactly giving FF a pass here but rewarded is factually incorrect considering FF was paid to do the gig. The show wasn’t some free pat on the back for the execs doing such a great job.
True but it’s not like it was a life-changing payoff. If they didn’t do this gig they could have been paid for a regular gig.
Again, not giving them a free pass. Just pointing out the terminology used is an overstatement.
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.
So that’s who listens to this garbage…
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.
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.
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.
While you’re breaking your back, they’re getting paid millions to eat sushi off of a porn star’s back.
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.
True, this problem is everywhere.
For those not upset and see the band “just playing a gig”, what would be a line that you personally would consider too far? Would you be ok with them doing a private show for Netanyahu and his cabinet? Would a private show for Trump and his Republican lackeys be ok? How about Nestle CEO and its board, but none of its workers? Would a private show for the Proud Boys be ok if they had a “dump truck full of cash”?
This is way past the point for me, but I’m not a good musician or famous and part of how I draw lines may be contributing factors.
Depends on how they’re paying for it and if I could donate most of it to causes that actively oppose them. IMO it’s like buying Chicks CDs to burn them. But the money, which is the real power here, flowed in one direction that day.
I honestly don’t care who they play for, as long as it’s not at the cost of of any regular scheduled gig.
Right? The concert is not the problem. The problem is who is paying for it/who is deserving of this (or any other) company benefit.
Though I guess there is an argument that the performers are enabling it instead of standing in solidarity. Then again, it’s entirely plausible that the performers don’t know any of these details.
Look, I despise Amazon and Jeff bezos. I avoid Amazon and work hard to find products from retailers that aren’t Amazon storefronts. But at some point, unless you’re self-employed and completely self-sustaining, you’re 1) whoring yourself out to somebody, and 2) sucking the knob of capitalism somewhere.
All we’re left to argue is matter of degrees.
Seems like it’s just fanboyism and they can’t stand that a band they care about (or at least enjoy) has sold out to the absolute worst degree. People are right in that all bands sell out to a certain point (“All you know about me is what I’ve sold ya, dumb fuck/I sold out long before you’d ever even heard my name/I sold my soul to make a record, dipshit/And then you bought one” – Hooker with a Penis, Tool), but when you specifically accept a gig that is just some elitist executive party for a company that treats its employees like shit, you’ve gone too far.
Fuck the Foos. And stop making it political (“lol, liberals”) – bullshit, this is just rampant band fanboyism.
And stop making it political
It’s political because caring about people who aren’t rich is political.
The fact that you think it’s a certain side that does this is the only reason you think it’s political. And you’re wrong about it.
Bands who break through walls with speakers
Not just try to sell you sneakers
You want bands who wanna sell you things
Or bands who wanna tell you things?
- Jeffery Lewis and the Rain, WWPRD
One of the last punk dudes still making a statement instead of doing shows for 50 year old execs.
I consider Amazon to be only average evil. Now if they did a concert for Nestle…
What harm are they doing though? They’re being paid to do a private concert, not donating to their super PAC. It goes without saying that lavish spending on executives when people are being laid off is super gross, but at the end of the day I dont think the band did anything worth being chastised for.
Well I guess I’ll be adding the Foo Fighters to my list of people that won’t be getting any money from me.
Does it matter? Sure it matters to me. I can sleep better knowing I’m not contributing to things I don’t agree with.
I expected better from Dave Grohl but here we are.
Obviously it’s entirely your prerogative what artists to support, but I’m having a hard time understanding how the Fighters of the Foo accepting money from rich douches changes how you feel about them. Now, if they took an Amazon record deal and wrote a bunch of garbage jingles or something, then yeah, id bail on em too. But in this case, I don’t hink theyve done anything they havent done 1000x before; Played on a stage for a few hours, shook some hands, took some photos, and went home with some extra zeroes in their bank account.
It changes how I feel about them because I refuse to support people that don’t hold the same morals as me.
I’m not saying they can’t perform here, just that their actions have consequences and they have to deal with that.
Does it matter in the grand schema of things? Not at all, but I know what my beliefs are and where I want to put my money.
Perhaps one day there will be a line that is over your moral boundary and I would support your right to make that choice.
Oh, I do the same for other things and didnt mean to imply you should do anything differently, everyone has their “line”. I’m just saying maybe you dont have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The Foo Fighters, particularly Dave Grohl, are some of the more humanitarian artists out there. Dave himself routinely puts on BBQs to feed the homeless. So considering your comment about actions having consequences, they’ve earned a little bit of wiggle room in my eyes.
But regardless, I respect ypur opinion and enjoy your weekend!
I think this is an interesting point. What if they gave a concert and a murderer attended? Should they leave if they found out who was there?
Of course it’s more personal when it’s a private concert, but this is Amazon not Gaddafi. They are kind of supporting the company, but who’s working as an Amazon executive just for the concerts? I’m sure they have free gym memberships or something too. Should the gym ban them?
Just to carry this train of thought forward… What type of device (make/OS) did you compose this post with? Unless you found a way to pass tcp via… I don’t know… clay you dig up in your back yard, it’s pretty hard to avoid ecological damage and morally-questionable employment practices. Participating in damn near any way with any economy makes all of us complicit, and at this point all we’re arguing is to what degree makes each of us uncomfortable.
This is such weird logic. The Foo Fighters are millionaires that have a ton of leeway with what shows they do because they don’t really need more money to survive. The guy that frames houses probably isn’t working for a morally great company but that dude starves without the job.
And yet the Foo fighters and specifically Dave do benefit concerts raising millions and actually cook and feed disadvantaged people by the thousands. They also do (at last I knew) an annual multi-day trolling of the westboro Baptist church compound, which is a great thing imho.
Now, what is the measure of a man? Is it a sliding scale? Is it just the sums? Sure, that house framer has smaller sins, but does he have a smaller positive impact? Does it matter?
As I said in my last sentence, we’re all just arguing degrees.
So if we can’t completely remove ourselves from every terrible company in society we shouldn’t even try at all.
That’s pretty apathetic don’t you think.
If we can’t stop all murders, why bother prosecuting any aye.
Something about monkies with lots of bananas? Dave’s got 330 million bananas and just got a few hundred thousand more. Hoarding is only bad when people I don’t like do it.
Oh, dont get me wrong, most anyone hoarding that much wealth is an asshole by default, but theres a lot worse out there than those guys. Hell, just this year Dave BBQed for 24hrs to feed the homeless, and has done many such events over the years.
Personally, I’d think it would be much for impactful to play for whoever, then donate all the proceeds to some important cause. Telling e.g. Netanyahu no to a Foo Fighters concert isn’t going to make him change his mind about anything. But giving the concert will take money away from him and give it to something important.
I think that anything benign that separates evil people from a significant portion of their cash is fine by me. That’s millions of dollars they can’t use to break up unions, or replace human workers with AI, or pay for campaign ads (or hush money, or legal costs). And it’s not something that’s aiding them in those pursuits, so it’s generally just money they’re losing.
I think. That’s just my initial idea.
I definitely agree but it still hurts, a lot.
The only way this gig is ethically justifiable is if the support act is a guillotine.
Rage Against the Machine doing this concert would just be Tom Morello beating every one of them to death with his guitar.
no hed be doing the same as foo fighters actually. playing a gig
Someone hasn’t heard the Tom Morello don’t you know who I am story haha
no but i did hear of the rage against the machine charging outragelously high prices story
They charged outrageous prices for their last tour. I never cared for them, so it didn’t impact me.
I’d pay for that. Let’s start a Kickstarter.
Too bad the Foo Fighters are garbage, so they treated themselves to shitty music
Bayer is solving it a different way: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pharmaceutical-giant-bayer-getting-rid-111358398.html
They aren’t “solving it”, yet. They’re desperate to do something to wake up the stock and for investors to have some, any belief in the future of the business.
Whether they’re actually solving anything remains to be seen.
It’ll be very amusing to see that company to go down in flames.
Bayer is one of the evilst companies in the world. Responsible for millions of deaths from AIDS
The song “Dr. Aiden” by B.o.B. talks about this. I think it’s a good song.
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WWRATMD
Probably not what they tell them
… With a pocket full of shells.
FF (fuck 'em) whoring themselves for Amazon execs isn’t the main story here. It’s the disgusting exploitation of labor for profits. Organized destruction of unions and workers rights had made this tale an everyday, everywhere occurrence. Long ago there was a time when the news would report about main street and wall street as being more intertwined. Today their well being is in opposite directions. From symbiotic to parasitic.
It seems to prefer coercion as a method to keep people producing rather than inspiring them and earning their best.
Ambush style layoffs remove the feeling of safety, making people desperate to prove they shouldn’t be next. With this approach, Amazon embraces a timelessly blood-curdling rationale: nothing concentrates the mind like a credible threat.
Annual attrition targets for a fixed percentage of people every year create a survival mentality. No one wants to be the slowest gazelle when the lion comes around again, so everyone runs faster. Classic coercion.
