"I knew one day I'd have to watch powerful men burn the world down - I just didn't expect them to be such losers."

[Kid Berwyn]

Something worth knowing and sharing — the truth about the Situation.



Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg’s desperation to be cool as they suck up to Donald Trump is so cringe it makes my skin crawl

by Rebecca Shaw
The Guardian, Opinion, January 16, 2025

Whether I am engaging with the news, or with Musk tweeting constantly like a man with no job or friends, or with Zuckerberg sending out weird videos and appearing on Rogan, I am in pain. Not just because I don’t like what they are doing but because they are so incredibly, painfully cringe.

I knew that one day we might have to watch as capitalism and greed and bigotry led to a world where powerful men, deserving or not, would burn it all down. What I didn’t expect, and don’t think I could have foreseen, is how incredibly cringe it would all be. I have been prepared for evil, for greed, for cruelty, for injustice – but I did not anticipate that the people in power would also be such huge losers.

I’ve always been someone who cannot tolerate embarrassment. I hate being embarrassed more than just about any other emotion and I’ve always skipped content based on cringe humour like Meet the Parents, Borat or Nathan for You. It makes my skin crawl and it makes the contents of my stomach try to crawl out of my mouth. But I cannot skip world events.

Nor can I skip Musk’s clear desperation, even as he holds this much wealth and power in his hands, to be thought of as cool. There are endless examples of him embarrassing himself while attempting to be funny or to gain respect. Unfortunately, while you may be able to buy power, it’s impossible to buy a good personality. Watching his Nigel-no-friends attempts to be popular, his endless pathetic tweets that read as though they come from the brain of an 11-year-old poser, has made me start to believe we should bring back bullying. If yet another humiliating report in the last couple of days is to be believed, he appears even to have lost the respect of some of his gamer audience, who the report claims suspect that he may have been lying about his achievements in hardcore gaming (cursed sentence).

Continues…

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/16/i-knew-one-day-id-have-to-watch-powerful-men-burn-the-world-down-i-just-didnt-expect-them-to-be-such-losers

Losers.

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. Thanks for posting. The Subject line hooked me.

Thinking back to our convo's 20 years ago....we are way past that now. But each ste[p provided the elevation for Donald Trump.

[Kid Berwyn]

7. Smedley Butler gave witness.

“War Is a Racket.”

And then came the Wall Street Coup to overthrow FDR.

The McCormack-Dickstein Committee Investigation

Astonished by MacGuire’s plans, Butler knew he would need someone to corroborate his story if he was going to stop the intended coup. Having previously worked as the police captain of Philadelphia, Butler reached out to Philadelphia Record writer Paul Comly French, who agreed to meet with MacGuire as well. During this meeting, MacGuire told French that he believed a fascist state was the only answer for America, and that Smedley was the “ideal leader” because he “could organize one million men overnight.”

Armed with French’s mutual testimony, Butler appeared before the McCormack-Dickstein congressional committee, also known as the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, to reveal what he knew about the plot to seize the presidency in November 1934. The committee at first discounted a large part of Butler’s testimony (even writing in their initial report that they saw no reason to subpoena men like John W. Davis, a former presidential hopeful, or Thomas W. Lamont, a partner with J.P. Morgan & Company).

However, with the testimony of French, and the erratic testimony of MacGuire, the committee began to further investigate the plot. The final reports of the committee sang a different tune, finding that all of Butler’s claims could be corroborated as factual. However, they also stressed that the plot was far from being enacted, and it was not clear if the plans would have ever truly come to fruition.

Quickly becoming known as the “White House Coup” and “Wall Street Putsch,” many major news sources derided Butler’s claims, as the committee’s final report was not made available publicly. Those implicated, ranging from the DuPont family to Prescott Bush, the grandfather of future President George W. Bush, laughed off Butler’s claims. Evidence of the validity of Butler’s testimony was not released until the 21st century, when the committee’s papers were published in the Public Domain. No one was ever prosecuted in connection to the plot.

Butler, for his part, went on to continue advocating for veterans. He also became a staunch opponent of capitalism, which he felt fed war efforts. His views were published in his well-known short book War is a Racket, which was published in 1935. There’s no telling how far the plot to overthrow the President may have gone without Butler’s intervention, but one thing is certain: its failure was the work of one patriotic Major General, and his life-long love of democracy.

https://yesterdaysamerica.com/smedley-butler-and-the-1930s-plot-to-overthrow-the-president/

Now the rich are foisting traitor puppet on America.

Again.

PS: Love ya, Bro. Thanks for reminding me, Giant Never OAITW!

[Blue_Tires]

2. Pleasantly surprised with the Guardian lately

Wonderful stuff...

[Kid Berwyn]

8. Great Paper. They have pegged our situation perfectly.

And tomorrow, they return to put the hobnailed boot to democracy.

[NEOBuckeye]

3. Musk doesn't have a clue about mystique

Musk had it way back when he first emerged on the scene with Tesla. People thought he was a real life Tony Stark. That was before he came out as a hardcore RWNJ and started humping Trump’s leg like an abused puppy chained to its master.

No one is more uncool than Donald J. Trump. Well, maybe Musk has him beat now because he’s so annoying desperate for attention even more than Trump is.

[Kid Berwyn]

9. They run in the same circle, Jeffrey Epstein's.

Of course, the US press -- Corporate McPravda -- is A.W.O.L.

... Who knew what when? In Palo Alto, after Epstein’s conviction, he was a guest at a dinner for the MIT neuroscientist Ed Boyden that was hosted by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. At the same dinner Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg. Is money so powerful that it tramples all other considerations? As James Baldwin put it, “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.”

One of the most remarkable moments in Tyrnauer’s documentary comes near the end, when it’s no longer possible to pretend that Cohn isn’t a liar and a fraud, when it’s no longer possible to deny that he lacks both shame and conscience. When Cohn was about to be disbarred in 1986 for defrauding his clients and for taking advantage of a dying and incompetent man, character witnesses began to emerge. There were letters to the court from William F. Buckley Jr., Barbara Walters, William Safire, and, of course, Trump, who wrote that Cohn “has been extremely loyal and extremely honest.” Were Cohn’s parties—was his protection—really that good?...

Source: https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a29130905/roy-cohn-documentary-wheres-my-roy-cohn/

Small world the rich live in, small as in the crumbs they leave for the rest of us to live off.

[malaise]

4. Great read

Rec

[Kid Berwyn]

12. President Musk Agenda: Tax Avoidance!

Why Is Elon Musk Supporting Donald Trump? Tax Avoidance!

Like so many of his fellow billionaires, the world’s richest man is placing wealth over country.

by Bob Lord
Inequality.org, October 26, 2024

Elon Musk, the New York Times reports, has gone all in for Donald Trump. His pro-Trump America PAC, has already spent $118 million and has the budget to spend tens of millions more, almost all of that coming from Musk himself.

Musk has based his efforts on Trump’s behalf in Pennsylvania, the state he sees as the election’s lynchpin. He’s even talking about going door-to-door himself. And Musk, of course, is also spreading election misinformation on X, the former Twitter, at a furious pace.

Quite an about-face for someone who in 2020 voted for Biden and called Trump in private conversations a “stone-cold loser.” The reasons for that 180-degree about-face? Musk is claiming that Democrats are trying to “fill the country with undocumented immigrants.” Humanity, he adds, “will never reach Mars” unless Trump triumphs.

Reasons like these amount to pure rationalization. The one and only real reason Musk supports Trump: how much he’ll save in federal taxes if Trump triumphs. How can we be so sure? The timeline on Musk’s turn from Trump skeptic to Trump champion leaves no doubt when and why Musk’s political stance so abruptly and radically changed.

Back in 2021, less than a year after Musk cast his vote for Biden, House Democrats passed the Biden-backed Build Back Better budget package. That legislation included an 8 percent surtax on incomes over $25 million.

Continues...

https://inequality.org/article/why-is-elon-musk-supporting-donald-trump-tax-avoidance/

Of course, he had no idea his centi-billionaire fortune would balloon by nearly a half before the inauguration.

Elon Musk’s wealth jumps by $170bn since election after he backed Trump with $277m

Musk’s wealth and position advising Trump rockets him to unique position in U.S. history

Josh Marcus
The Independent, 16 December 2024

Elon Musks’s wealth has jumped more than $170 billion since Election Day, according to a Washington Post analysis, capping off a year that saw the tech billionaire go all in supporting Donald Trump and Republican candidates with a combined $277 million contribution.

A substantial portion of that increase is driven by Tesla’s soaring share price, according to the analysis. Musk owns a reported 12 percent of the electric automaker, the world’s most valuable car company, and Tesla shares are up about 70 percent since the election.

“Elon stuck his neck out, he made a big bet — and he was right,” Gene Munster, managing partner at investment firm Deepwater Asset Management, told the newspaper of Musk’s recent moves.

Musk’s current net worth is roughly $455 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index, and is the wealthiest person on the planet. Last week, Musk became the first person in history to be worth more than $400 billion dollars.

Beyond the Tesla surge, aerospace firm SpaceX has been another key driver of Musk’s growing wealth.

Continued...

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/elon-musk-net-worth-trump-b2665395.html

PS: Sorry to sound so pedantic allatime, malaise. The rich are getting richer and the rest of us are not always hip to that. Besides, it's no fun living off the crumbs falling from the bastards' table.

[malaise]

13. You have been correct

Rec

[Jjfried]

5. Yikes

Insecure people constantly looking for approval. Very unhappy at their core but quite sure the most money wins.

[Kid Berwyn]

14. It's like a broken record of cringe, what happened to the middle class.

Getting rid of the Constitution and all that “ We the People” stuff returns to the status quo ante, wherein the Rich get richer and The Poor get poorer for ever.

Unfortunately, the planetary human ecosystem is entering its death throes. Didn’t have to be this way.

A Planet Full of Hitlers

The world's billionaires, led by the Bush "madministration," are acting like a planet of full of Hitlers. They are willing to invade whatever region in the world has what the world needs most -- oil.

Black gold. Texas tea. Petrodollars.

They figure they have all the money. And basically, apart from a Soros here and a Gates there, they do.

And thus, the world’s billionaires and their hounds of the BFEE want to spend it all before they die. And they have the plan and cash on hand to do so.

Consider the Bush agenda: All War. All the Time. Government spending for the MI-Complex, transferring trillions to the wealthy corporate owners, war and all.

These are the likes of the “industrialists” Mussolini, Franco and Hitler so loved.

And like the fascist trifecta, the American fascists of the BFEE have bought all the political power. Don't just think Tom Roach Motel DeLay and Mr. Friskie Frist. Remember Prescott Bush and Averell Harriman and Allen Dulles and Rheinhard Gehlen and Igor Orlov.

What can we do about it? They’ve bought all the legal power, built law schools for Federalist Society AND Opus Dei judges. Think Bill Eagle Eye Rehnquist and Antonin Fat Tony Scalia.

These turds of the BFEE have worked all the tax breaks and bankrupty laws for the rich. Uncle Sam reverse-Robin Hoods wealth to the top 1-percent of country.

And what do these rich turds who prop up Bush use their tax savings on? They certainly haven't invested it in making America a better place to work or live; they've invested in "off-shoring."

Lots of the tax money goes to buy more vacation homes, yachts and jet planes. Most goes offshore to the Caymans and Switzerland.

And of course they want more without having to pay for the damage to the environment. Farmland depletion in the USA. Rain forest depletion around the globe. Oceans getting acidic. Fish stock depletion. Global air pollution and water shortages.

Well. OK. Maybe a case can be made it’s the rich folk’s money. They can do what they want. But they should pay their fair share of taxes! After all, the rest of society helps keep them in their position. And its our brothers and sisters in the armed forces who are giving their lives to keep their oil and power and privilege.

Budget red ink means no money for middle class. No money for schools. No money for cities and suburbs and farms. No money for roads. No money for science and R and D. No money for the future.

And the media? What media? What Fairness Doctrine?

They cover up their materialism and venality with all the talk about Faith-based this and Conservative-values that. But the reality is these are sinister wolves and satanic bed-wetting bastards in sheep's clothing we are dealing with.

Wasn’t that what Bush really meant when he told Bob Woodward “History? Who cares about history? In a hundred years we’ll all be dead.”

Just like Hitler. And just like Hitler, Bush (today Trump, Musk and those with escape collapse redoubts) wants to take us all with him.

-- Octafish

DU OP: https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3648867

And still we try. Thanks Jjfried!

[drmeow]

6. In stark contrast

and to DT, EM, and MZ's utmost hatred, Obama and Clinton (although not as much as Obama) are completely effortlessly cool. EFFORTLESSLY!

[WhiskeyGrinder]

10. If a powerful person is willing to burn the world down, why would you expect them to not be a loser?

[allegorical oracle]

11. Interesting thread. Thanks.

[UTUSN]

15. Knr