Elon Musk's disaster relief promises: Should we believe the hype? I live in Asheville, North Carolina. You may have seen my hometown in the news over the last few weeks after Hurricane Helene wrecked the place. Many nearby smaller Blue Ridge Mountain communities, such as Swannanoa, Marshall, and Chimney Rock, have been "wiped off the map." At last report, there were 72 dead in my area. …
His leader is Trump. Elon wants a seat in government should Trump win.
Trump is supposedly also a billionaire. How much has he contributed to the disaster relief in hard cash? Close to if not equal to zero. His trip to Georgia was a PR Stunt. The aid was coming from a different charity.
Elon could donate a billion or two (and mark it as a tax relief) without noticing a real dent in his net worth but he won't. He's content to sit at Trumps side like a good little doggy in the hope that he will get fed after 20th Jan 2025.
Don't let Trump anywhere near the White House... Send him to the Big House in an Orange Jumpsuit.
>His leader is Trump
That's the best possible option.
More likely is that Musk's leader is Musk, together with Thiel
Trump gets elected and within a few months is reported on Twitter to have had a stroke and is bundled off to a private golf-course leaving President Vance, carefully advises by Musk/Thiel/etc to run things their way.
Imagine an evil version of Donald Rumsfeld behind Bush.
Let's go for a bit of history (I'm good on this topic):
What Musk is playing at is an over century-old game, let's call it the "Carnegie shuffle".
Be absolutely cutthroat, ruthless, heartless and a general bastard for most of your [business] life, including being involved in one of the greatest disasters of the age (Johnstown flood). But whitewash the public's memory, and your legacy, by donating the money that you ruthlessly plundered from others to shower locales with gifts that make you seem 'caring' (libraries throughout small America including the aforementioned Johnstown, NYC's Carnegie Hall, etc).
Musk is simply doing what Carnegie did over a century ago by trying to ingratiate himself with the general public by seeming to be magnanimous on one hand, an untrustworthy bastard on the other (but hoping you forget that hand). It's the old two-handed shuffle. The general public, of course, having both no interest in knowing any history and having the attention span of a goldfish, never learns their lessons.
We have Carnegie libraries over here in the UK. Still serving the community in splendid buildings. Outlasting many miserable modern ones. I'm sure Carnegie was a bit of a b*stard but I wonder what concrete legacy of Elon's will be serving the community a century hence (on this planet or the next)?
Elmo could leave for Mars and never come back, that would be a huge gift to humanity. Bonus points if he takes Trump, Thiel and JD Vance or Clarence Thomas with him.
Sounds like the start of a decent passenger list for the B-Ark (The Terran Ark Fleet Ship B) or "a little list." But what has Mars done to us to deserve this load of obscenity being dump on them? Resettle these rotten blighters on Venus or the surface of the sun.
"Musk is simply doing what Carnegie did over a century ago by trying to ingratiate himself with the general public"
A big difference is that Carnegie libraries were completed and still around today. The stacks of Tesla solar panels and PowerWall might still be around in Puerto Rico in a century as corroded junk that never worked. If Elon had a Starlink team go in to some central locations, install solar panels and battery banks to provide free internet hot spots to help FEMA and other aid groups coordinate their efforts (for free), it would have been more useful and genuine. If Elon was really a genius (yeah, right), he would have already had a disaster relief set up built and ready to deploy. It's just PR grandstanding, but I'm not opposed to that if what's being done is useful and appropriate. To just try and get people locked into a long term contract at a time when they are in extremis is predatory. A 30-day trial is so common to not be all that amazing. Six months of free service, free shipping and deferred billing for those six months might be.
If this is Musk's plan, he should be looking at Bill Gates. Because Gates has done a much better job of disassociating himself from Microsoft's past.
And he (Gates) has locked up his fortune in a charity that he has full control of, getting tax breaks at the same time.
Something to keep in mind with billionaires like Musk and Trump. They have wealth on paper, but not in cash. It's all tied up in stocks that they don't want to sell or they'd have to pay taxes. Can't risk being unpatriotic by paying taxes so they can have cash to help charities.
"Can't risk being unpatriotic by paying taxes so they can have cash to help charities."
Why should somebody be pressured to do something so they have a tax liability? It's not mandatory to support charities and some charities are complete scams with highly compensated executives.
It's great for somebody with the means to donate to worthy causes and I can think more of them for that philanthropy, but I don't necessarily think less of somebody for not doing that. It can be just as good for them to start or expand a business that creates more jobs. It can also increase their wealth, but it means more people have the ability to earn their daily crust rather than subsisting on handouts.
Oh? Are those businesses planning to hire the downtrodden that charity helps, with full and decent benefits packages, or were they planning on outsourcing all the actual work offshore and just paying locals minimum wage?
That's what I thought your version of "charity" was - another rip off for profit scam.
Instead of worrying about the Billionaires and their next fortunes,just go and do your best for yourself and your family/neighbours and be proud of it. Writing articles about Musk is not helping you or anyone else, you're just giving free publicity to someone that thrives on just that.
Obviously for the immediate situation, but also for being turned into a sacrificial pawn in a political game. It is understandably frustrating, and writing an article such as this is a step toward relieving the frustration.
I hope you can restore as much of your pre-disaster life as possible, both physically (basic necessities of shelter/home, food, water, electricity, etc.) and emotionally.
Musk is the one who got the free publicity by announcing he was helping, the author wrote this article about how Musk wasn't, in fact, helping.
Or are people with first-hand evidence supposed to know their place and say nothing while a billionaire compulsive liar lies yet again with the aim of deceiving the impressionable?
Always worth remembering that the "Good Olde Days" that the [U.S.] conservatives always dream about reinventing - the 1950's - businesses and millionaires (billionaires did not yet exist) were taxed at their highest rate in history.
And yet the world did not cease to function.
Amazing, no?
"Taxed on income. None of these billionaires have income."
They certainly have taxable income, but their wealth has come from choosing the right parents, spending on those things that build wealth (real estate, strong businesses, etc) and not wasting money on useless stuff. If there is to be wealth taxes put in place, the people with wealth will have the means to pick up and move someplace that doesn't have those taxes. A number of years ago a friend of mine took a trip to Costa Rica. When he got back he told me that citizenship was a $30,000 investment. Not a payment, but a long term investment. The country has some very nice areas and they are/were looking for people of means to move there and build the local economies, construct factories and bring their business expertise. Rather than just export their local resources, they wanted more value added in-country. Given a good push, a country with that sort of thing in place might attract capital looking to relocate.
In the US, the richest do pay the vast majority of taxes collected, but government can spend even more with the stroke of a pen. Chase that wealth out of the country while continuing to overspend are the two primary ingredients to crashing the country's economy very quickly.
Not if your're proper wealthy - not just $x00K/year wealthy.
You have $Bn in shares that would attract capital gains if you sell.
Borrow against these shares so pay no tax on the money you live on, in fact claim back the interest.
When you die your estate, and the banks, gets your shares with capital gains reset to your death = no tax on all the gains since Facebook/Amazon/MSFT/Tesla etc were founded
"Borrow against these shares so pay no tax on the money you live on, in fact claim back the interest."
The interest has to come from somewhere and the principal has to be paid back at some point. Having a load of stock that a lender will accept as security is great and it can get one a low interest rate, but it's swapping tax liability around rather than being a dodge that gets one free money. Being able to write-off the interest isn't a universal. In the US, personal interest isn't deductible against taxes. In the distant past it was possible to claim credit card interest as an expense on tax returns, but that's been off the menu for ages now. I used to be able to deduct food purchased when out on jobs over a certain distance from home, but that's gone now too. With the rising cost of eating out and no deduction, I bring a packed lunch more often on field days.
No they were not, and only a historically ignorant person would keep repeating this lie!
Yes, the tax rate was high, upwards of 70%. But no one paid that rate on their entire income. There were numerous deductions, mortgage interest, auto-load interest, credit card interest, just about any interest on borrowed money was deductible. Not to mention all the fees and costs associated with investments, personal business expenses, the list is too long to count.
Someone making say $100K /yr probably paid that 70% rate on less than 40% of their income!
Most of these deductions vanished under the Reagan tax reforms of the 1980's.
If you really want to make a positive change in the tax system, then change the way income on investments is taxed for the big hedge fund guys. It is taxed around 12-14% max! Good luck with at though, as these people are huge Democrat supporters! Tax the rich is a scam!
Why does Elon Musk have such importance in your daily lies, I just dont get it .
If peoples lives are so influenced by Musk then the real problem lies elsewhere. E Musk is just another of those Billionaires, Gates, Zuckerberg, Besos etc that couldn't give a shit about you, so why do you care about him or anything he does. Instead of waking up thinking what stupid shit can I write about Musk today, just get on with your lifes, enjoy what you have and stop hating what you don't.
All and any publicity for or about Musk is good for Musk and yet people here seem to hate him and still give him endless articles, that's just unbelievably ironic.
He must mean a great deal to you because you put so much effort into defending him. To the best of my knowledge Gates and Bezos have not spread lies that led to a riot. Bill was a complete pest when he was younger. These days his charity makes the world a better place. It is not simply some headline grabbing words with no real follow through.
Sometimes news articles are published that say things you do not want to hear. By all means piss and whine that they should be silenced. It tells others exactly who you are.
> "He must mean a great deal to you because you put so much effort into defending him."
The El Reg forums are text-only, so imagine that meme of Apu from the Simpsons repurposed to make Apu the 'weird nerd' sacrificing himself to save 'Elon Musk' from 'valid criticism'.
That's Khaptain, that is.
I very much doubt that you will ever see me defending Elon Musk or Trump.. I don't care for either of them.
But he's in the tech business, so are we, it's interesting to read what Billionaires do with their money/projects but every single article just ends up being a sesspit of childish Ad Hominems towards a man that no-one here knows. If they were funny then that would be fine but the overall feeling generated is one of absolute hate and that to me just doesn't make sense.
There's truth in your words but conversely it is always worth remembering that those billionaires *are* billionaires due to us - the money in their pocket is made from the excess of buying / building something at cost and selling on to their customers at a markup. If they are billionaires either they are doing incredibly massive volumes of trade, incredible margins on each trade...or all of the above.
They have money because, essentially, *we* gave it to them. If they are quiet and on the down-low about it, that's fair, but Musk makes it a point to be in the public eye, makes it a point to be a famous individual with money.
You play, you pay. Musk wants to be world-famous about his achievements? Then, as a public-facing individual, you pay the price by being open to criticism as well as accolades for your actions. Deal with it, you get the poop as well as the prizes.
Don't want Musk to be a target of criticism? Then simply tell him to live a quiet life of a Poor Little Rich Boy.
You are defending Musk with that very comment. The article is not an ad hominem attack. It points out that Musk's words do not match reality. This is a common theme in articles about Musk. Pretending the articles are a sesspit of childish Ad Hominems shows you care for him a great deal.
I'm going to wade in on this one because I've seen some of your comments and replies and to be quite frank you don't know what you are talking about.
No one is worrying about billionaires and pointing out when a billionaire makes claims they are helping to be false needs to be pointed out. You talk about "free publicity" but the thing is he already has the free publicity by making this offer. If no one counters this awful and to be frank useless offer then the people not on the ground and away from the situation will falsely believe he is actually doing some good when he is not. Are you saying we shouldn't call people out when they make false claims? Should journalists let false claims be made without scrutiny? You seem to be a fan of misinformation for some bizarre reason. Are you suffering from the American dream delusion that one day you might be a billionaire and you would want some idiot to fight for you?
Maybe you are just a troll. Who knows?
"Instead of worrying about the Billionaires and their next fortunes,just go and do your best for yourself and your family/neighbours and be proud of it."
The author is a significant contributor to El Reg but I don't know if he's salaried staff or a freelancer paid by the word/article. If the latter, then earning money is doing what's best for himself. And he didn't mention what else he might be doing at home or for neighbours because maybe he's not the type to blow his own trumpet. For that matter, just being able to carry on earning money is helping others because he's less dependant on external aid. Many are not so lucky.
Which part of that was him? Was he cosplaying as a rocket booster now? Oh wait, you're giving him credit for the work of people employed by him, aren't you?
I expect he thinks he has done a bang-up job and has his sycophants crow about it when his cleaners get his toilet nice and clean too.
Nice projection you've got there.
Please give an example of me blaming him for something SpaceX/Tesla/etc. has done, that wasn't directly caused by him, or is this just one massive fucking ridiculous straw-man you're building?
Elmo is perfectly fair game when he does something stupid in his role as the owner of these companies, and he has all the usual responsibilities for governance that this entails.
Here's the thing, though, take a counter-example of Microsoft for example. Here's a company that often makes questionable choices. Why don't I criticise Bill Gates for this? Because, unlike Space Karen, Bill Gates isn't publicly making claims about Microsoft and he takes a completely hands-off role. Those bad choices are mostly made by marketing people some level below him. A lot of them may not even be "bad" per se from a business point of view, they're just shitty choices from a user's perspective. This doesn't mean I don't think there are valid things to criticise Bill for, either, but he sure doesn't make continuous and very public bad personal choices like Elon.
Meanwhile, Musk is publicly doing and saying things that are perfectly valid points for criticism. The people running his companies, when he doesn't interfere, generally do a fairly decent job of it, but pretty much every time he involves himself, for instance by deciding to fire all the moderation staff from Twitter and then give it a stupid name, based on his own ego-trip obsession with the letter X, it's a poor choice, made directly by him. He's a fucking massive man-child who, for some reason, people with cognitive difficulties seem to think is a "genius".
I don't blame him if a rocket blows up, but I do blame him if he has a toddler tantrum about the regulators if they make Starlink wait until a cause has been determined and remediation plans made before allowing them to launch the next.
That's the real reason he wants Trump, he wants carte blanche to do whatever the hell he wants, and have a government that will help him cover it up and deflect blame if that lack of regulation causes people to be injured or die. For him "move fast and break things" includes breaking you or me.
"Just a reminder for the El Reg Musk Lovers about what he failed to do."
I'm actually struggling to understand exactly what part of that test flight of a prototype was a failure. Or did you miss out the <sarc> tags?
FWIW, I think it's generally accepted that SpaceX technical success is as much because he's NOT directly involved in running it and has very good people running it for him.
Well, there was also the part about locking people in need into an expensive subscription too, so there was more than a hint of opportunistically extracting profits from the needy.
If Musk had started out with nothing instead of his big inheritance, he is the sort of person that might have set up a hot dog stand outside a funeral.
As someone who was through their first serious natural disaster 35 years ago and has known people who have been through pretty much every big natural disaster you care to mention over the last 50 years I am well used to the initial BS that comes out in the media. First rule is, the closer the people / media source to the devastation the more factually correct the stories. Everything outside the immediate area is mostly / all incorrect / untrue. So Ashville maybe be closer than say Charlotte and a hell of a lot closer than DC or NYC but I'll still give more credence to ordinary folk doing the relief work/ people living in the worst hit areas up in the mountains than someone who lives a bit further out. Flooded but not utterly devastated.
First. The Starlinks delivered in the mountains by helicopters / ATV's were free with 90 days free a/c's. Might be different down in Ashville. But you guys mostly have your cell / power back already based on the most recent coverage maps. At least in the close in metro area. And based on previous disasters when the 90 days are up I expect the worst hit areas to get a rollover on their free Starlink a/c. The areas that wont have cell / etc for many months.
FEMA on the ground Day 1. I dont think so. For a start you dont seem to have a clue how Disaster Response actually works. Did you have your full 3/5 days (absolute minimum) prep supplies before this happened. I've had my 7/10 days prep supplies for decades. Get Home Bag / Go Bags etc. Because I've lived in major natural disaster risk zones most of my life. Its city/county and state who are responsible for initial response. FEMA just ride into town days / weeks later to write checks. They dont do initial response. Read your state / city Disaster Prep guide (if they have one) to discover how disaster response actually works.
Plus regional FEMA HQ is down in Atlanta and state HQ is in Raleigh. There have been no major structural changes in FEMA role / responsibilities since the first time I saw them up-close in action in 1989. In the weeks following the disaster. Sending their guys out to look at damaged infrastructure that was going to need big Federal checks to fix. And their regional HQ is very local. So thats why the guys with the FEMA high-vis vests and baseball hats only showed up in the worst disaster areas in NC many days / weeks later. Because thats what FEMA always does. And is suppose to do.
Now the story about the incompetence of the state disaster prep and initial recovery in quite a few counties is a very different story. The guys in Raleigh really screwed up by all accounts. The failure in the NC Govs office regarding immediate mobilization of NG and DOD resources being particularly bad. If you knew how the disaster response chain of command works you would know who is really to blame. It starts with the Gov.
Why do I get the feeling that if this was a Zuckerberg et al doing the donating a very different article would have been written. Not something that reads very like a politically motivated hit piece. After all you do live in Ashville. Which by all accounts is slightly to the left of Berkeley politically. I have heard far more and far worse really sleazy stories about Musk. Going back decades. Not my favorite person. By a very wide margin. But why do I think that if Musk was toeing the DNC line and donating to all the "right" causes your article would have taken a very different tack.
Yes, the purely political motivation for writing this piece is that patently obvious.
It will take years for even the lightly hit areas to return to any kind of normalcy. And for people who have been through a really big natural disaster, one that causes widespread devastation, life, and your view of life, will never be the same again. You will see the very best in people. And sometimes the very worst. But at least in my experience natural disasters mostly bring out the best in people.
Best if luck. Its going to be a very long road to recovery.
Khaptain in response to an article by a journalist: "Writing articles about Musk is not helping you or anyone else, you're just giving free publicity to someone that thrives on just that."
Khaptain in response to an AC: "Are you sure that you really want to be telling facts on a thread that is trying to knock down Musk ?"
The cognitive dissonance is real.
No, they won't be, because they posted as an AC.
And you've got to love someone so keen to flaunt their alleged victimhood/martyrdom that they apparently haven't spotted the contradiction in being able to freely complain about being "persona non grata" via the very same forum they're supposedly "persona non grata" on.
It's not FEMA's fault you choose to live somewhere that makes it harder to reach, Musk got in the way and risked lives. None of this changes the facts in the article and you can't prove that the free account periods will be extended, the only fact we know on that point is that they have stated they will leave you holding the very expensive can come December.
The only way he should be involved is paying more taxes.
I disagree. I think the piece was reasonably argued and - well, not "free" of political bias, but as light on it as anything you're likely to see written this week.
Musk has a history of making big, showy offers (via public announcement) to help in various headline-catching emergencies, but the stuff he offers is seldom what is needed (according to people on the ground actually providing relief). That's okay, it's still nice of him to offer - or it would be, if he didn't then go on to attack the other people and agencies, who are really trying to help, who decline or pooh-pooh his offer.
Like the "pedo guy" comment, or his recent bullshit claims about FEMA. There is no way you can spin either of those as helpful, or necessary, or even half-way excusable from a decent human being.
I never thought I'd say this, but I actually miss the old Musk - he of the "pedo guy" days. He was a cunt and an asshat, but at least he wasn't a hack. That's what stumping for Trump has turned him into now - spouting lies not for his own purposes, but to please the whale he's decided to attach himself to.
Have you joined the "shoot FEMA" militia too?
Do you also claim that the money meant for residents is being diverted to illegal immigrants?
There was a guy on the phone to a call in show recently in tears - he lives on the other side of the country, and his father in law was in the hurricane path, lost his house, and is living in his car. He refused FEMAs help because he had heard that when things were settled, FEMA would then take what's left of his house/property/land, and any other assets as "payment".
There are been many similar stories. Being there doesn't make you more informed if you're an easily duped nutcase. Take this as advice.
Moderate criticism is not negated by crazies who lie along the same spectrum of opinion on a given topic. Adopting or abandoning a stance to place yourself counter to crazies is both inane and impossible because there's inevitably crazies at both ends.
If you think you're sitting on a side that's free of crazies further along while the other side is infested with them you're either wilfully ignorant, getting your information from a biased source* or are, in fact, one of the crazies.
*That's not to say you should ignore your current source, it's just a potential indicator that wider reading is required.
> If you think you're sitting on a side that's free of crazies further along while
> the other side is infested with them you're either wilfully ignorant, getting
> your information from a biased source* or are, in fact, one of the crazies.
What absolute bollocks. The "crazies" on one side complain that a chalkboard is called a blackboard, and are annoying SJWs with no power.
The crazies on the other side are saying to drink bleach or take horse medication to cure covid; Jewish space lazers are attacking California; immigrants are eating cats and dogs etc.etc.etc.
P.S. I don't seeing SJWs forming armed militias going around hunting down people because their Messiah came out with some ridiculous statement about them.
Anyone who can't see the difference, and tries to "both sides" this.. well it says a lot about them... If they aren't crazy, they're bat-shit psycho.
P.S. I don't seeing SJWs forming armed militias going around hunting down people because their Messiah came out with some ridiculous statement about them.
Try wearing a kippah around people who, despite largely being LGBTQ+ individuals or proud open allies, sing From the River to the Sea. What's crazier is that, if asked, they'd probably say they're acting against fascism despite their blatant antisemitism.
"Do you also claim that the money meant for residents is being diverted to illegal immigrants?"
Well, it was! That's just a fact!
Was it done "during" the relief effort? No! But Mayorkas went on television and stated that FEMA was out of money, when records show that FEMA spent money designated for disaster relief on housing and supporting illegals! No amount of spin doctoring is going to make that go away!
This post has been deleted by its author
Technically, they (and the fact checkers) are right and you are wrong. The money wasn't "intended" for hurricane relief, it was allocated for whatever FEMA judged to be an disaster, including housing undocumented (no such thing as an 'illegal', human beings cannot be illegal) migrants.
People fleeing from poverty and war, whatever their immigration status, are definitely disaster victims and it is the moral duty of all to help.
It might sound crazy to you but the "accept Fed / State money - now you own them big time" is not the figment of some crazed imagination. I have not heard this in particular with FEMA money over the last five decades but I have heard of cases of accepting Fed / state / local money as loans in disaster scenarios being later used as leverage to get people to accept buys out / eminent domain actions.
Example. Business gets flooded out and takes out state / Fed agency guaranteed loan. They rebuild their business and somewhere down the line local / state / Fed government decides that their business property is now in the footprint of some "mitigation project" so they want it. Or as simple as its now in a redline area that wont get disaster insurance and the gov loan will be foreclosed without this insurance. While non-government load holder will works something out without foreclosing.
That's how it works. And that's were the fear comes from. Might be garbled in the how people understand it. But it is well founded.
As for the worries by some folk in the NC mountain valleys (hollers) about losing their property to the "gov" if they accept "gov" money. Well the upstream silica mines have a lot of backstory which just reinforces their fears. Its not just the hard coal mining companies in that area who have a long history of being complete and total bastards.
Again if this is all sounds a bit far fetched I'll tell one last story. Every state has a pubic health insurance scheme for the poor and those who hit hard times. It California its called MediCal. Since its founding all expenses charged to MediCal are supposed to be reimbursed to the state if the recipient starts earning over a certain income limit. It all gets compilated and messy as administered but the law as written is that MediCal debt is real. And recoverable by the state. Then in 2014 when Obamacare kicked in with the collapse of independent non-employment insurance market in state pretty much all these people were kicked onto the MediCal programme. And the state law establishing the debt owed was never changed. The state said - we will put a hold on the debt crystallization and recovery stuff. But some day down the line that might change. Until then every MediCal / most ACA pool people instate are running up an often huge debt to the state. Without ever being warned in any way about this. That its just an administration hold. Thats all.
Its stories like that which makes anyone who pays attention very leery of "free" state / Fed money. There will be string attached. Somewhere. Always.
You had me until you said "right-wing friends".
How much of this piece was motivated by politics. Impossible to say unless you know everything that was done in all locations. But I agree Musk's mouth does get ahead of things which is dangerous for someone with his reach. The left also lies incessantly and I would suggest more than the right. Unfortunately, I see no end to the culture of lies until, we the people, stop believing word and demand to see the action and more importantly, the outcome.
The left also lies incessantly and I would suggest more than the right.
"You were born with no genitalia and I would suggest also a cabbage where your brain should be."
See, anyone can come up with absolute unevidenced horseshit, and post it on the internet. Whodathunkit?
Meanwhile, there have been numerous studies to suggest that left-wing opinions are over-represented amongst those with higher intelligence, those in scientific and technical disciplines, and those working in the arts. Right wingers will point to this being evidence of some massive conspiracy against them, rather than draw the obvious conclusion that right-wing opinions are simplistic and wrong, so only thickies swallow them.
There's also this element of "sour grapes" that some sort of "left wing elite" are somehow subjugating them, rather than acknowledge that they are simply less intelligent, less talented, and less able than those who hold open-minded and inclusive opinions, and that their own prejudices and greed, are probably more likely to be the things that are holding them back.
You're welcome.
"Meanwhile, there have been numerous studies to suggest that left-wing opinions are over-represented amongst those with higher intelligence"
Factually inaccurate!
The proper term would be ""Meanwhile, there have been numerous studies to suggest that left-wing opinions are over-represented amongst those with higher education"
Education <> intelligence, that, is just another fact of life!
The reason those you mention lean further to the Left is not intelligence as much as indoctrination! The American (and western) higher education systems have been infiltrated by Marxists for decades! Not just those who sympathize with that ideology, but hard core adherents of that ideology, with an intentional desire to spread that ideology!
We are not the "subjugated" ones, far from it in fact! The masses of people who blindly follow the left are the subjugated ones. Blindly believing that the Left will give them "everything they desire without cost" while the real truth is their leaders desire that which the people of China have. A totalitarian Fascist state that will squash any freedoms they enjoy now! The real sad part is many of them (you) will bend the knee and accept it with a smile on your face! (until the jack boot lands on your neck, but then it will be too late!)
The masses of people who blindly follow the left are the subjugated ones. Blindly believing that the Left will give them "everything they desire without cost" while the real truth is their leaders desire that which the people of China have.
We are not blindly following anyone. In fact there are cases where I'd happily vote for someone who isn't a Democrat if the opposition wasn't so bat shit crazy.
We want a leader who is reliable, that commands respect through actions, and doesn't leave the White House in a continuous state of chaos. We aren't necessarily looking for a tax cut, and certainly not one that favors the wealthy and their corporations, until the debt is under control. When the government eventually collapses due to the interest payments on the debt, the wealthy will become citizens of some other country they can exploit, leaving the poor with what remains. We want a government that will be there when pandemics and natural disasters occur, and not lie about them for political advantage or use them as a club against opposing parties.
We want immigration reform that is humane and shows empathy for people who didn't choose the life they have been given. And we don't want some medieval wall that kills people and animals and does very little to stop illegal immigrants. The majority of which enter the US legally and then overstay their visas. But a lot of them are white Europeans, so they are the 'ok' illegals.
As far as 'giving me stuff', I would like the option for single payer health insurance. Health insurance shackles you to your employer because it's too expensive to pay for on your own. The ACA market is a sorry excuse for an alternative. $12,000 a year with a $10,000 deductible for a single adult is not insurance. $8,000 a year with a $2,800 deductible on a Fortune 500 policy is a bit ridiculous as well. Not asking the government to pay for it, but it would be nice to have the option to buy Medicare coverage at any age.
And we are tired of the convicted criminal ex-president being in the news every single day with his herd of liars like Elon.
Some parting ideas for you to think about: women are not property, they are perfectly able to make decisions about their own health. Give them some respect, you might be surprised what they are capable of. And even though the poor are called 'wage slaves', they are not actually slaves to the wealthy owners of corporations. You keep your foot on their neck long enough and The Purge will be more than just a movie.
Thank-you Cliff for helping prove Elongated Muskrat's point.
Indoctrination? LOL. MAGA is a literal cult.
"Education infiltrated by Marxists" - another bat-shit right wing conspiracy. And you get double points because I bet you can't even define "Marxist".
"Fascist" - I suggest you look up the meaning of that word. It's a right-wing philosophy. By definition. No debate. If you don't like it, maybe you should examine your views?
Sigh. Maga believe Trump will give them everthing they want - which includes taking things away from non-whites. LGBTQ, and non-Christians.
Only the second part is right. As for actual positives, they go only to the richer class. That's a right wing philosophy every time.
Sigh, it's a shame to have to debunk the tired old tropes so often, especially on this site.
Your post is a great example of a complete mirror-image reality - EVERY things you raise as criticism of "the left" is a fair criticism of the right.
Sad.
I suspect this particular poster also believes that the Nazis were socialists, you know, because they called themselves "National Socialists", and this tiny piece of information, taken wholly out of context, has completely bypassed any part of their brain that might be used for thinking.
The fact that they clearly conflate socialism and Marxism just demonstrates their ignorance. Their inability to correct their ignorance when presented with its existence demonstrates their stupidity. Being ignorant of something is nothing to be ashamed of, nobody can know everything. Holding a position based on ignorance after bing shown that this is the case is the problem here.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
