Michael Tae Sweeney: That a lot of US journos seem confused by the way Elon Musk is racist is ironically an example of a lack of cross-cultural understanding. They assume he must have some idiosyncratic philosophy, rather than just "what you'd expect a rich white guy who grew up in apartheid South Africa would believe"

That a lot of US journos seem confused by the way Elon Musk is racist is ironically an example of a lack of cross-cultural understanding. They assume he must have some idiosyncratic philosophy, rather than just "what you'd expect a rich white guy who grew up in apartheid South Africa would believe"

I don't even think that's all though. There's also the fact that right wing chat culture has become openly fascist. So those whose adulation he want reward him for it.

I also think attributing his behavior to his upbringing in SA is oversold. There was a large portion of the white population who disagreed with Apartheid but were powerless to stop it, and the govt was ruthless in stamping out dissent. They banned the Beatles FFS.

I suppose that those people exist. But everyone that I met moving here from South Africa in the 1980s were pretty determined to tell me how Africaners were totally unlike those dirty Africans. Sure that Emerald Mine Supervisors can be totally even handed though.

Curious where “here” is. Also the emerald mine was supposedly in Botswana.

The only place of any concern, the United States. It was in Zambia.

Getting out of SA under Apartheid was really hard. Even so there were various waves of emigration, and a number of large ex-SA communities in the US that arrived at different times. Let’s just say there’s one in particular that I can definitely see holding those views. They’re the exception.

…free range fascist… wondering how they taste…

like chicken that is to say Foul

It seems to me that the starkly racist gamergate web crowd has just made him comfortable to say what he has always wanted to say. Peter Thiel would be calling him to tell him to tone it down a bit, but Thiel is probably still pissed that Elon has been given a pass on his racism for so long.

Yuuuupppp. He wants approval so bad and rabid fascist approval is blind and loud while leftist approval is more like "Well, while I don't particularly care for _____ or _____, I think he made some really good points with his _____ and I'm excited to see where the _____ goes"

This is also true of Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen - John Ganz has written the definitive piece on the former, while in his NYT nervous rebuttal to the latter, Ezra Klein seemed to go out of his way to avoid saying the f-word that explicated it www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-enigma...

The Enigma of Peter Thielwww.unpopularfront.news There Is No Enigma — He's a Fascist

It's really, really hard to explain to people that the richest people in human history, together with the most highly valued area on Earth, have descended (or ascended, in their perspective) into apocalyptic scorched-earth neo-Nazi occultism, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try

90% off the rest of the world is like wow it's ok he's just a bit esentric we will just stay silent as long as it's not us he's targeting.

I think it is a mistake to think Trump wants to smash the New Deal order. He mouths standard GOP pablum on this - but never went as far as George Bush did in trying to destroy social security. Mussolini, of course, did smash the liberal order. But Mussolini's regime has a history, too.

In the 1920s and even up to 1936, Mussolini and Hitler were in different lanes. Between 1932 and 1935, Mussolini's minster of finance, Guido Jung, was a Jew. The mayor of Bologna was a Jewish fascist. The race laws of 1938 represented a radical shift, as M. allied with Hitler.

What was always true was that this shift was predictable, given the kind of nationalism Mussolini used to cement his power. But as it was power very vested in the Duce, the fascism built an ideology to idealize that kind of power. Its correspondent, in the U.S., is the discourse abt business CEOs.

No surprise that Silicon Valley, with its comic adulation of business "entrepreneurs", should give birth to American fascism. Walter Isaacson is its prophet - Mussolini would recognize what he is doing in making heroes of putzes in his huge bios.

Imagine this on a society wide basis and you’ll understand where these oligarchical fascists want to take us… ironically and stupidly undermining their proclaimed raison d etre

Leaked SpaceX documents show company forbids employees to sell stock if it deems they've misbehaved | TechCrunchtechcrunch.com SpaceX requires employees to agree to some unusual terms related to their stock awards, which have a chilling effect on staff, according to sources and internal documents viewed by TechCrunch.

He’s just a plain old fashioned bigot. Stupid reporters need to stop cutting him slack.

Musk crumbled like a house of cards during his interview with Don Lemon. If Mehdi Hasan ever interviews Musk, he will launch a SpaceX rocket at him. 🚀🏃🏻‍♂️

In that case, Mehdi is quite safe and should proceed.

I really expected the villain from Lethal Weapon 2 with an emerald mine would have a different ideology

so many of these just boil down to: my compatriots who I grew up with can't be racist. they did a mlk day presentation. they're just debating the real socio-economic divisions in America, not that they just think black people can't fly planes.

its just the anxiety their car ownership owning dad feels about maybe being forced to sell his Toyota dealership (he'd never sell unreliable GM cars) due to imperial edict from Biden

A lot of neutral-posing individuals have convinced themselves that rich people can't be racist because it's "bad for business" or something. They need to understand that: a) lots of rich people are racist as hell, esp. mediocre ones b) declining business & status makes them get _more_ racist

Gotta be the accent

The Simpsons - Die Bart, Diem.youtube.com nobody who speaks german could be an evil manepisode: Cape Feare (S5, E2)fuck.

People really like to assume that fascism is something only foreigners would do. It's disturbingly recursive.

Or if it is domestic, only supported by trashy people living in the backwoods, never the leaders of society.

Yeah. It can only be the Other who is responsible. Never Us.

Lot's of people out there who don't *see* themselves as fascists, but are nonetheless attracted to parts of it. So they simply redefine it so the parts they like aren't fascist.

At least there’s still SOME social cost to being perceived as a fascist, more of them might be more open about it otherwise.

The entire IDW "free speech" movement crap is about eliminating that social cost. They don't care about real free speech, they care about mainstreaming their bullshit beliefs.

All this polarisation is nothing to do with Us it's only those Bad People over there who make it happen 🫠

I agree. Example: I was raised in the segregated South. My schools were all-White until my senior year in High School. (I was so oblivious I didn't notice.) Am I racist? Of course. No, I have no 'idiosyncratic philosophy.' I'm trying to learn and grow as fast as I can, but I still screw up a lot.

Yeah, I mean it’s not like the range of mainstream political opinion is wildly different in the USA than S Africa, or for that matter, most other countries

Never ever underestimate what I wrote about White People in this thread. The journalists class are no different. #ToxicInnocence IS a thing. bsky.app/profile/adre...

I am 54 and grew up in #LongBeachCA from 1981 on & what you just wrote is one of the BLESSINGS of the Trump years. There are MANY, MANY White ppl in the US who do not harbor racial animosity per se.

Have they ever read anything this guy has written? A single tweet? And they think he has an “idiosyncratic philosophy”?

Idiosyncratic="stoned on weed and the latest tech-bro microdose*, intellectually lazy and inconsistent, not very bright" racist. *probably something stolen from an indigenous culture.

Of course not, only what is in news articles and on the TV.

They have this same blindspot regarding a number of people.

Elon is of the bad guys from the first Lethal Weapon

Has anyone put out a good book on the billionaire boom from South Africa? I read Micheal Harris' "Palo Alto" on the influence of silicon valley on the world for the last century. Up until the millennium and when a bunch of South African Plutocrats showed up and changed the game again.

Yes, we do live in a white supremacist society and at all levels white supremacist culture is the default setting.

ikr

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