Bezos wedding: Venice protestors claim 'enormous victory' after venue change
(www.bbc.com)
from pelespirit@sh.itjust.works to world@lemmy.world on 24 Jun 2025 16:22
https://sh.itjust.works/post/40879690
from pelespirit@sh.itjust.works to world@lemmy.world on 24 Jun 2025 16:22
https://sh.itjust.works/post/40879690
“We are very proud of this! We are nobodies, we have no money, nothing!” Tommaso Cacciari, from a group calling itself No Space for Bezos, told the BBC.
“We’re just citizens who started organising and we managed to move one of the most powerful people in the world - all the billionaires - out of the city.”
The wedding kicks off later this week, and has a star-studded guest list of the rich and famous that is rumoured to include Kim Kardashian, Mick Jagger and Leonardo diCaprio, as well as several of the Trumps.
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They forced him to the suburbs, now they’re like the little people.
I hope the people in those suburbs kick up a stink as well.
Venice “suburbs” are basically the industrial zone or the farm lands. It’s different than NA or Australian burbs.
Still gonna be people there.
Having all those billionaires there gathered at once would be a massive opportunity to create a huge transferable amount of wealth under the right circumstances.
Even the Romans used to be like “yeah you got too much money, time to kill you and add your wealth to the common fund”
You’re only bringing that up because it’s a highly relevant and logical solution to the problem of isolated and ego driven wealth objectively and negatively affecting society on a global scale, way to strawman, libtard.
You forgot to defend the conservative ideal of the Roman empire as the supreme fascist state! You need to talk about how the romans allowed the free market (with the guiding hand of daddy imperator) to determine where the money should go! Tell them that the money was used to build roads, not for trade, but to march their very manly soldiers on against the commies and the libs!
:wink:
After reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, I’ve just been crossing my fingers for homemade drones to start taking down private planes.
Yeah,but can we please leave Venice intact doing that? Without the tourists it’s a nice little city to be honest, and its inhabitants have suffered enough.
Maybe Marghera?
I hope the voters remember to kick these politicians and officials to the curb. They clearly don’t work for the people they represent
All they see is income and screw everything and everyone else. Way too much of that right now from governments and corporations.
Meanwhile, Venice is sinking. But money is more important. :|
It sure get’s better when 200 people, mostly from the US, get in their private jets and travel half the world. That’s how that works, right? Right?
They’re all just a bunch of showoffs.
Remember when dolphins actually returned to the city for a little while? That’s how it’s supposed to be for citizens. Bezos should just tour somehwere that needs more tourism. I think the deep sea is open.
I was thinking the middle of Tunisia.
I nominate the Bermuda Triangle to play host to Bezos and friends…
bezo is an alien, so he knows it wont affect his species.
also jellyfish when tourists stopped coming.
I think the Titanic could use a few more wealthy visitors.
I hear there’s a well-known company that started taking tourists down to it a few years back! They were all over the press! Sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
remember when jellyfish took over venice during the pandemic.
Don’t you need money to stop Venice sinking?
For temporary solutions, yes. They have three major, perpetual issues that are not solved by tourism money.
I’m with the locals on this one. Bezos should go attempt something anatomically impossible on himself.
I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work. It just made my back sore…
I’m sure the Venetians would gladly help lex luthor with any difficulties in bending
Tell me you don’t understand what is being protested without telling me you don’t understand what is being protested.
He knows but part of the major economic benefits for the city are already in his pockets
Well yeah, most likely that. I want to believe that there are some politicians and city officials and such who are just too stupid to realize the problems with capitalism. I just don’t wanna think bad of all my fellow humans, you know. That style of useless universal misanthropy is so 2008-2011 thinking for me personally.
It’s not stupidity. It’s willful blindness.
tomato potato. and how do you know, hmm? do you divine the exact information on a case-by-case basis from animal bones and cryptic symbolism in your dreams for every non-socialist on whether they are stupid or willfully blind? i often find myself making such grand generalizations, while being myself willfully blind to the stupidity of such endevours.
Because they wouldn’t get to that position if they were just plain stupid. But it’s amazing what someone can fail to understand when their livelihood depends on it.
Counterpoint: Trump
The influence of money outweighs intelligence every time, which is precisely why your second statement holds true.
You both seem to be right. Needless levels of empathy should also be avoided in some sense. i want to believe in aliens though
Could you elaborate on “needless levels of empathy”?
irl i like to believe the best of people, can’t really help it, and that has lead me to problems in relationships. so like that, one shouldn’t forgive a person their infractions just because they cry.
There’s a difference between feeling empathy and providing grace or forgiveness. It is absolutely acceptable and healthy to set boundaries on what you are capable of forgiving, but giving up empathy is a different story. Empathy is what makes us human, makes us care about each other. You absolutely can (and, IMO, should) keep caring about these people who have hurt you. If someone shares a true human connection with you, that matters. Thats what you should empathize with.
That said, people are products of their circumstances, environments, and the systems they grew up within. Depending on those factors, people may develop incredibly maladaptive behaviors, or be subject to untreated mental health issues; this can lead to unhealthy behaviors that harm those around them.
It is not your responsibility to fix them, nor guide them. Even if they recognize themselves as the source of their problems and wish to change and grow, it is still not your job to drag them through that process. Actively caring for someone isn’t the only option. Caring for someone can be remote, can be passive or entirely uninvolved in their life. You are absolutely allowed to set those boundaries, or to set more open boundaries and do what you can to help them if you wish.
To stop caring for them altogether, however, is a mistake. If you genuinely connect with and care about someone, hang onto that. Hang onto your love for fellow humans because that empathy, that love is what keeps humans growing and moving forward. It is okay to separate yourself from those who harm you, okay to leave someone to their journey, but to stop caring for them dehumanizes yourself just as much as it dehumanizes them.
yeah i hear you, and think you’re right. still ain’t gonna forgive her, just forget. and when she will inevitably appear in my spaces again (might be because this city is in actuality a fucking backwoods village) i’ll remember, and will choose not to forgive again! you only get about a thousand chances with me, 'cause i don’t tolerate shit. but once those are done you can consider your ass forfeit. and this person i am constantly referring to used up those thousand chances with me, and then some; i drew boundaries and she crossed them when it suited her. her type of help for a person lying on the ground was to kick them. the years i wasted dealing with that fuckwit kinda really fucked me up, but thankfully i now know not to forgive her.
You cannot fathom the damages brought about by 20 years of Berlusconism
Why the fuck would any of those people want to go to the wedding of a glorified shopkeeper anyway? Mick Jagger? WTAF?
He’s probably getting paid a literal boat load to be there. Kardashian already paid trump off to release someone from prison, so she’ll go where the wind takes her. Leonardo diCaprio probably wants to see some fresh college age Italian girls. The trumps want to be seen as one of the elites, even though they know everyone secretly hates them by now and see them as white trash. Bezos inviting them is another matter.
Rich people are weird.
Edit: and by that I mean that I find it hard to believe that at any of these people are still motivated by money, and if they are, they need to seek psychiatric help. I reckon it’s more out of boredom. Jagger and DiCaprio are probably there in support of his cradle robbing.
Bezos made (makes?) his people piss in bottles, he’s one of the richest in the world. They think they’re smart by being frugal. Yes, rich people are absolutely weird.
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. ”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Same as it ever was.
That’s a great Fitzgerald quote. I had to look it up. Written after The Great Gatsby but published shortly before, The Rich Boy is a novelette. From 1926.
Sometimes a DIY icepick lobotomy doesn’t sound like a bad idea.
For the same reason they are rich. It is a network that is looking out after each other and protecting their class interests. You go there you shake some hands, exchange some numbers and strike a deal or two.
Love to see it
Bezos can be taxed more for sure, good for them.
Ironic. Venice was built by people like Bezos.
Nothing was ever actually built by people like Bezos.
Nothing was ever built by a person on a computer.
Don’t diminish his work. If you want billionaires to have less influence you have to replace what they do. If you think they do nothing then you have nothing to understand.
Of all places, Venice is in the top 5 of places that cannot complain about being commercialized and rented out. Simping for Venice just shows how big the hate for Bezos is which isn’t justified when looking at the criticism:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos
Where does the hate come from? He shows the limits of worker organized structures in comparison. All the unemployed could have built Amazon by themselves. The focus should be placed on finding new forms of cooperation, not on hating Bezos.
Lemmy, the software you’re using right now, was built by a person on a computer. As was the operating system your computer uses to function.
As was the management structure, leadership culture and selection of markets by Bezos.
People on computers work, but so do CEOs.
His work, his sole accomplishment, is maximizing value extraction. That’s not nothing, it’s less than nothing because it’s a monumental net negative for the rest of society.
Maximizing value extraction is not bad as long as there is a free market. That’s what drives competition and brings prices down. Of course, employees and customers need other options for this to be fair.
Unless you organize a cooperating economy, maximizing value extraction is inevitable.
Besides, you shouldn’t ignore the work he does.
Yes it is. It is inherently exploitative.
How is it exploitative? If you get market rates for your work or pay market rates for the stuff you buy, you don’t lose in transactions.
Those who maximize value extraction optimize resource allocation and bring prices down for everybody.
He hordes more wealth than almost anyone else in the entire world. The man could fucking cure cancer and I would still hate him and consider him a horrible person. Nobody needs or deserves that much money when so much of the word is struggling to get by. And nobody makes that much money without exploiting others.
He owns shares of Amazon, not money. If he sells those he loses his influence.
People are struggling because markets are distorted, including preventing free global movement of people. Figure out who does that before hating Bezos.
And that shows you don’t understand the power of “just owning shares”. It’s a whole fucking shit load better than having income or money. He can take whatever loan he wants with his stocks as collateral. He skips out completely on doing anything helpful to society whatsoever. People are struggling because of this system, yes, and people like Bezos are happily living grand off of it
Of course. But Bezos taking loans is only slightly connected to keeping people poor. As far as I know Bezos also hasn’t financed a regime change for some mining operations.
Other corporations depend much more on keeping people poor. They don’t get the attention because they are not household names. It’s not good that richness has become the measure for evil, and not evil itself.
Look up “criticism of Amazon” or anything like that and you’ll see he isn’t just a good guy who happened to make a big benevolent corporation. From antitrust practices, to design theft, especially from POC, counterfeit products, special tax deals designed to contribute as little as possible, a significantly negative effect on the environment and more. Add to that Bezos’ personal relationships with business and government leaders that are actively trying to keep people poor, including Trump. It’s not the good-guy corporation you think it is.
And yes, when you’re worth 220 billion dollars and you do nothing positive with it whatsoever, you’re problematic, bordering on evil. It’s greed. If Bezos gave a flying shit about humanity, imagine what kind of change he could actually do.
Of course. As the saying goes, there are no innocent billionaires.
Yes, that would be nice. But it totally shifts the blame away from regular people. We live in a democracy. This entire debate could have been spent on how to improve the world. If we don’t have the money, why don’t we come up with a plan and ask Bezos for the money if needed? Actually there are so much taxes that society can easily outspend Bezos.
So you do recognise that. Then why are you spending so much energy defending Bezos and people like him?
Sure, regular people should rise up and retake power. Take back resources from the billionaires. Idk who “we” are - but I don’t live in USA, and if I did I wouldn’t be living in a democracy. There are plenty of plans for how to save the planet and they all include stopping billionaires and fundamentally changing the system. Think Bezos will bankroll it if we ask him nicely?
Because this is backwards. Billionaires fill the void that people don’t fill. The system could be changed right now if people stopped focussing on billionaires and would create their own structures.
Yes, people are kept stupid. But believing that all it takes is getting rid of billionaires is part of the disinformation.
What structures are people supposed to create exactly?
I never claimed it was the entire problem and that it solve all of humanity’s issues, but the system that they’ve helped create and now benefit from is what’s destroying both the world and humanity. Eating just a few of them wouldn’t change that but it’d be a start. That’s why the fact that a few hundreds of brave Venetians won’t let him do whatever he wants in their home is awesome. Entitled motherfuckers coming in their private planes and yachts acting like they own a city that’s literally sinking and where locals can hardly make a living.
That’s to be determined. I don’t know how people want to live.
What Bezos has done for Amazon, which is ignored as he “doesn’t work”, has to be replaced. People have to be organized. The structure can be anything that works, but it has to be something.
Same for all the other billionaires that people don’t want to see in power.
Haven’t locals already been replaced by millionaires and moved to Mestre? I don’t want to root for millionaires who feel diminished by billionaires.
What is it you think Bezos does and has done “for Amazon” that makes him so important? The main thing he was good at was knowing how to rig the system. If he died tomorrow you’ll see that Amazon will do just as fine, possibly even better. He’s not even the CEO anymore. People can’t just “create structures” when all the world’s resources are owned by regimes and big corporations. If I create my own Amazon-equivalent they’re gonna destroy me before I ever make it big.
The Old City is being heavily depopulated, yes. Locals can hardly even live their anymore. So why wouldn’t thry be angry?
Start an AWS in Europe now. You should even get government support.
Have you seen my great man comments? Nothing in particular. But if people want to do without billionaires, they have to do “it” by themselves.
Are they? “Pay more tax” sounds like a demand from American expats. More irony if they are defending Venice from Bezos.
There’s plenty of Cloud companies in the works currently; I already applied for a position at Evroc. But it’s not all that Amazon does.
Run corporations by ourselves? Gladly! When do the CEOs step down?
Definitely Italian names and groups being mentioned in the article. Might be some Americans and others inbetween; it’s a struggle mirrored around the world. Can just be a reference to the fact that Bezos and Amazon are known tax evaders - including for their EU business. And yes, I’d imagine that people aren’t happy about being priced out of their own communities - hence the widespread anti-tourism protests in general
How come it’s either civil war or nothing for most lefties? Why are people willing to fight a civil war and believe in success but not willing to start a business? The probability for survival is much bigger.
That might be a genuine option if not for widespread antitrust abuses by what is essentially monopolies… your answer to that is “just create more businesses”?
It’s always duopolies because the elite doesn’t trust itself. This leaves some room for business.
Awww poor Jeff
Don’t diminish his work? The world could easily do with Amazon, or with an alternative/competitors/etc.
So Bezos himself is irrelevant in the discussion about important leaders. He wishes he was in that group.
You simping this hard for Bezos for free is the really sad part.
To me, the sad part is that I am not simping, but nobody recognizes that. Like a bull in a bullfight, people attack billionaires without seeing the dagger.
Especially Amazon, people could have recognized the idea and created a cooperative competitor. Bezos is a billionaire because they haven’t.
There are four options for the billionaire situation. Do nothing, organize a new party, civil war or starting competing businesses.
Hating Bezos without understanding his skills looks like the first option to me. In a world of flooding zones, that makes me wary.
People like Bezos actively prevents competitors from emerging. You equating someone who received $245,000 from his parents with any random guy who could have done the same is culpably dense. His skills are being the business equivalent of a cancer that kills its host in order to grow.
And yet, what other options exist right now?
But starting another regular company would end up with yet another billionaire, if successful. To avoid billionaires, businesses have to be structured and financed differently anyway.
Ok, Jeff
or perhaps, built by people enslaved by the likes of bezos.
keep on simpin’ serf.
Keep on serfin’ simp.
You need people to organize and give directions. People on their own are trapped in the routines they have. There will never be built something pretty like Venice without leaders. All you do by making the recognition of leadership toxic is that there won’t be leaders [that you can choose or build up] who organize a better life for you.
To add to this:
Venice is the historic city of global trade that is filled with tourist second homes. To celebrate with the inhabitants is simping on its own. The working people don’t live in Venice anymore. People who object are other rich people who feel diminished because they cannot rent the city themselves.
The elephant in the room is the introduction of the tourist ticket for Venice. How can Bezos rent the city? He must have bought all tickets for the day. Now, was the ticket introduced by his influence to make that possible? That would be something to object, not the renting itself.
rome conquered and enslaved millions of people. then became so beholden to consuming that they consumed themselves. Then they allied with the nazies. They are definitely very pretty people though.
The mongols surpassed Italy and rome by a wide margin, its strange how no one worships them. could it be? Could be it because they weren’t white?
keep on simpin serf. The time for emperors and kings should be over, but here we have ‘little people’ begging for the ruling class to just spit a little of their bread crumbs into their mouths. its ridiculous
As far as I know, the mongols ended slavery. That’s the big no no.
Yes, like simping for the people of Venice who are allowed to live in the pretty city.
But telling me to not simp for Bezos. Instead U should beg in style and protest for more handouts.
However, I am not simping for Bezos but pointing out the double standard for Venice.
Bezos is just one of the richest people. He hasn’t created the system. Others did and do. Focussing on Bezos isn’t helpful to understand what needs to change.
You earlier “If it wasnt for people like bezos venice wouldn’t exist!”
you now; “yeah bezos isn’t to blame its the system!”
hes part of the system, literally you are going to bat for a rich man then backing down to save face. “please spit in my mouth, bezos!” is your thesis and don’t even try to pretend anymore. I would say its you who has double standards here but its clear you have no standards.
keep licking that boot.
In the same way that it is true that Bezos hasn’t built Venice but the workers. Bezos organizes the trading but he is just new money. His influence must be much smaller than his wealth.
Bezos organizes the trading?
he absolutely does not, he pays people to do that for him. You fool.
Ok
Yep. Dude bought the system.
Jesus Christ, this is the worst case of billionaire apologia I’ve ever seen. You are just going to town on those boots.
Edit: Great Man Theory is the worst kind of cuckoldry, you fucking simp.
Do you see what you did?
You are missing my point entirely.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory
My argument is that there is no need to rely on divine leaders. Any leader could do. But for that, a climate must exist that fosters leaders so that some are available. By being toxic, the left eliminates their leaders and they end up as customers of Amazon, which they despise, but cannot change.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/63a2a524-d663-4c9a-b2e7-43033063df2a.jpeg">
To be fair, his “JC vs Great man” reply was funny. Not enough, but funny.
Hey, we got a case of oligarch bootlickin’ here!
This is the most disgusting comment I’ve seen on Lemmy. People got priced out, but we sure need leaders so lets bring more rich assholes in to fuck everyone.
The point is that if you foster the leaders yourself you are not led by rich assholes but by people that you choose and who respect you.
He is not a leader. A guy who lets empliyees die in tornadoes because he just can’t let them off work is not a leader. A guy who polices employees so aggressively that they have to pee in bottles is not a leader. A guy who funds the celebration of a technoauthoritarian state is not a leader. A guy who violates antitrust laws to stamp out small businesses is not a leader. He’s a scourge and should be shunned. He’s extremely bad for society and probably our whole species.
Yes, if you want to define it like that.
No matter how one looks at that assertion, it’s just plain fucking wrong.
Did slave owners build Venice? No. Rich Romans? Also no. Someone who isn’t a slave owner but worked all his subjects to the bone? Nope as well.
You have it backwards. Do I miss the /s?
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_slave_trade
…wikipedia.org/…/History_of_the_Republic_of_Venic…
Bezos doesn’t come from a rich family
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos
Bezos is a rich trader, like the Venetians. Compared to them he doesn’t look that bad.
Downvoters, these are facts and OP is wrong. You should’t build your convictions on lies. Find valid reasons for the things you want to do.
Venice as a city predates the independent republic by roughly 2 centuries
By your logic, Bezos built Washington, which is where Amazon started
By your logic, people visit Venice for the fisher village huts.
If you don’t see what the elite does, how can you live in an equal society? Then nobody does those things and the society crumbles or those who do become the next elite.
It’s the people who build stuff. The elites control the resources, but they don’t build shit. Ordering stuff to be done doesn’t make you a builder, just as commissioning a portrait doesn’t make you a painter.
People can come together and build big things without elites, kings or bosses sitting down and telling everyone what to do. Just because societies that greatly limit the power of the elites no longer exist, having been crushed, doesn’t mean they don’t work.
I know. I was not prepared for a .world community to demand and not oppose that way of thinking.
Fine with me.
Could. Hating Bezos instead of coming together and start building is the mental trap I try to point out in my other comments that is not accepted. Right now people need commissioning if they keep thinking the way they think, and they don’t want to hear it.
There are pockets that work, like Wikipedia or Burning Man. But they grew slowly and are not blueprints to get other projects done.
Lmao if you say so, Ayn Rand
It looks like Lauren Sanchez has had one too many plastic surgeries.
yeah about 9 surgeries ago
Yep, looks more like Temu than like Amazon.
don’t know about Amazon but certainly not her Prime
They can have their wedding in one of their beloved tax havens, not in some crumbling city that should be preserved as well as possible.
Doesn’t Venice take a tax for each visitor? They should up this as much as possible. If you really want to go there you can pay a 100+ euros.
Don’t get me started on cruise ships and the clientele on there.
100+ euros? Lets say its 200€ each. And lets say Jeffy B has 2000 guests. So he has to pay 400.000€ in taxes. You know how long he has to do nothing to earn 400k? 100 Seconds. That’s not even 2 minutes where he earns as much as we pay for a home.
Indeed, they do have a tax. But it’s essentially a tourist trap / tourist heaven now, a giant partying hub with few notable events that appeal to the ‘haute culture’ that, somehow, feels consumeristic in nature.
Tax based on yearly income of the individual. Even with the creative accounting these shits do, it will still dwarf what normal people make.
That picture. He’s one monocle away from being a bond villain and she looks like she’s halfway through the transformation into a vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He’s even got one eyebrow raised like the monocle is already there. I wonder if he’s just used to wearing one in his evil lair.
If we were to rank people on the basis of how far they are on the path towards enlightenment, without a doubt Jeff Bezos would have all the world in front of him.
This is the actual answer. Remember Greenpeace, who would set sail to interrupt oil tankers?
Sailors in the Vaca Navy, what’s the point in having wealth if you can’t enjoy it?