Elon Musk considers suing Tim Walz over Nazi salute accusation
Elon Musk considers suing Tim Walz over Nazi salute accusation
“I think I will,” Musk said, when prompted by a follower.
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He's a lot like trump. When you have that much money, it's basically infinite, you get anything you want, anything. So you just do stuff, whatever pops into your head, because there are no consequences. When there are no consequences, nothing matters. You're the main character, everything revolves around you. What does that do to a person's mind? We see the answer before us in Musk and Trump.
It must get so boring, when you're surrounded by people who are nothing more than background characters in your movie, servants at your beck and call, sycophants flattering you. So you have to do outrageous things to get people to react. Do a nazi salute. Threaten to invade Greenland or Panama. Get them to say something against you, so you can punish them, to feel your power. Sue them, destroy them, squash them like a bug because you need to prove to yourself over and over that you're not the pathetic loser your father always said you were.
no one (e.g. musk) should ever have this much money - and therefore this much unfettered power. billionaires should not exist. the fact that they do is an existential global danger.
his "fuck you in particular" money threatens every. single. person... simultaneously.
no one (e.g. musk) should ever have this much money - and therefore this much unfettered power.
Well, yes. It's pretty obvious how bad that is for society.
But the problem is that he does have that much money. And that much power that is derived from it.
So what practical things can we do about it?
in the short term, not much aside from... create local community and support structure, zero pre-compliance, non-compliance at every turn, malicious compliance if under threat, aggitate at every opportunity to elicit the same from our representatives / leaders and replace them as needed. if you are able, lead yourself. tar anyone that trolls with or tries to make fascist symbols normal - if we cant touch musk then do it to his sycophants. dont let the Nazi clerics cleric. record by any means available everything you can names, titles and actions. there may come a a day of reckoning for these people.
none of this is a real plan, and all of this may be fruitless in the near term, but could be important for cohesion in the now and for future, less polite resistance. I think the likelihood of mass violence is upon us. buy a firearm and learn how to use it (for self defence, of course - amirite?). we perhaps have one more opportunity to even pretend to prop up a political resistance. I guess organize around, and focus on that politically. everything else is protecting yourself, your family and the vulnerable.
medium term and specific to the musks of the world, break the unholy alliance between govt. and subsidized for-profit private industry. it has always been nothing more than a one way transfer of wealth from the many to the few. how you do that in the US with the current, materialized political system, I dont know. we are so far off the edge of the cliff right now, I cant even see ground. I can say that the current looting of the US cadaver will hasten the actualization of some sort of replacement - cant steal whats all been stolen already.
in my talks with the slightly less rabid trumpers (read: able to form coherent, non-screamy mouth sounds), their attitude has been "burn it to the ground so that we can remake it in our image" - this has been said to me more than once. how do you fight that? logic seems useless against short term nihilism and a scorched earth ambition. monolithic organisms are usually easier to infect - citizens united massively deepened the infection in both parties and the GOP has been further subsumed in the most bloodlessly violent corporate takeover possible.
I expect the system will almost certainly collapse because enough people want it to. who, if anyone, will be left to pick up the pieces? find like minded folks, whatever that means to you, and reach out to establish as many group alliances as you can.
I apologize if I have answered your question poorly. my mind hurts. my being hurts. I am sure that, like me, almost everyone here has loved ones that are immediate candidates for the first trains... and I am at the "do the opposite of what the fascists say" stage... and thats all I have right now.
There are a lot of Teslas near where I live. A lot.
But today I found myself behind a Nissan Leaf. I got to thinking, "So many people praise Tesla's electric system and say they still prefer it over hybrids due to its environmental impact. But giving money to Musk means enabling untold damage to society, and his alliance with right-wingers guarantees that his presence will make this environment worse." I mean, if he spent his time in Trump's inner circle convincing them that electric cars are better, that would be fantastic. But no. We all know that's not going to happen. He definitely has the power to make a positive impact on the world, but he won't.
I live in a pretty red area and the increasing number of, what I assume are, second hand teslas is pretty striking. a growing number of fuglytrucks as well. I imagine that some of these teslas are simply "good buys", but it feels like a whole lot of self sorting. teslas are the new new red hat.
had a replace a car recently - went with a second hand hybrid. you can be sure that muskmobiles were not even a consideration. funny how history rhymes with fascism and cars.
There's a growing body of research from behavioral neuroscience which indicate that power and privilege have a deleterious effect on the brain. People with high-socioeconomic status often:
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Have reduced empathy and compassion.
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Have a diminished ability to see from someone else's perspective.
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Are more impulsive.
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Have a dangerously high tolerance for risk.
When you don't need other people to survive, they become irrelevant to you. When you're in charge, you can behave very badly and people will still be polite and respectful toward you. Instead of reciprocity, it's a formalized double standard. When you have status, you're given excessive credibility, and rarely hear the very ordinary push-back from others most of us are accustomed to, instead you receive flattery and praise and your ideas are taken seriously by default.
Some sources:
Hubris syndrome: An acquired personality disorder? A study of US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers over the last 100 years
Does power corrupt? An fMRI study on the effect of power and social value orientation on inequity aversion.
Social Class and the Motivational Relevance of Other Human Beings: Evidence From Visual Attention
The Psychology of Entrenched Privilege: High Socioeconomic Status Individuals From Affluent Backgrounds Are Uniquely High in Entitlement
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Damn, that hurt and it wasn't even directed at me.