January 20, 2025

Last month I canceled my long time Prime account. Not only Prime, but also my Amazon Prime Visa Card, which I’ve had for twenty years. I know its probably small potatoes to you, but over those twenty years I’ve spent thousands of dollars at Amazon and Whole Foods and Kindle…

You see I live in rural America where I can’t just go to the local ethnic shop and buy my red miso or organic whole wheat flour. The nearest Trader Joes is 29 miles away; the nearest Barnes and Noble is 23 miles away in a different direction. And Amazon made it so easy for someone who hates to shop. But I’m done. If I’d had a Washington Post subscription, I would be canceling it too.

This is going to be a sacrifice for me, but I can do this. Because millionaires like you, who bow the knee to old rich white men with power are disgusting. Worse, you’re doing it under the guise of free speech. I remember the exact day when it crossed my mind to cancel Amazon. It was when you used free speech as the reason to not endorse a presidential candidate, and then you wrote an editorial trying to justify Insanity vs. Sanity.

Worse, you’re donating millions of dollars to the inauguration of a madman.

Worse, you have the power of the media at your fingertips and you are controlling what political cartoons you will publish. It’s called Bowing the Knee. Or Obeying in Advance. Or Kissing the Ring (and that’s just a polite way of putting it).

So I’m opting out of Amazon. Almost everything I can buy on Amazon, I can find somewhere else.

My vitamins come from Naturewise.com; our refrigerator filters came from a small family business that enclosed a hand written note thanking me for supporting them; our cat food and supplies come from Chewy.com; and my brand new KitchenAid mixer came directly from Williams-Sonoma.com. (Why didn’t I get this ten years ago?)

It’s a bit of a hassle. But I’m looking at it as a game to see what smaller or better companies I can support.

Yes I miss Prime movies, but I can make do with Netflix. And with the money I’ve saved from axing Prime, I can donate to PBS and get Masterpiece. And have enough to spend on Britbox.com, if I want.

My new credit card is another account that still accumulates points, just not from Amazon. I am Amazon-free. I am X-free. I am Facebook-free. Next I will be trying to figure out an alternative to Home Depot. I’m hoping our local Ace Hardware will do the trick.

And I’m reminded that I also subscribe to the theory that all I need is less.

And now, I am going to go watch the speech of a Real. American. Hero. Whose day of honor has been overtaken, overshadowed, and stolen by a bunch of anti-democratic, anti-American, oligarchic cowardly millionaires. And the poor people that they have fooled.

Martin Luther King Jr’s I Have a Dream Speech can be viewed on You Tube right here.

I suggest you do the same.