'The Playboy of The Western World' - (When Fascists Come to Town)

[toucana]

The other day members of the EDL (English Defence League) came to our city to try and extend their campaign of racial violence and anti-immigrant slander in the wake of the Southport killings ten days ago. You may have read about this recent wave of violence across the UK, including a riot in Liverpool the other night where thugs burnt down a local community hub and library in Liverpool because some posts on social media had spread a lie that all the books in the childrens section of the library had been replaced by copies of the Koran  - (they hadn’t).

When they arrived in our city however, the EDL supporters got a surprise. They had intended to attack a Mercure Travel Lodge that was allegedly being used to house asylum seekers, but they found themselves outnumbered 4-1 by a well organised protective cordon of counter-protesters and local community leaders who were also protecting our local mosques and LGBT sites, and who successfully held the racists at bay until the police belatedly arrived to stop the EDL from setting fire to the Travel Lodge.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgrrl0zlg5o

The following day I met a female friend and lawyer on our local village green who said “Are you coming to the protest tomorrow ?” When I asked for details, she told me that the EDL were now planning to attack the premises and staff of law firms in our city centre who regularly assist asylum seekers (often on a pro bono basis). There is apparently a hit-list of such law firms circulating on far-right Telegram channels.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c624r77gnm2o

The Playboy of The Western World (1907) was the title of a play by the Irish playwright John Synge which tells the story of a braggart who falsely claims to have murdered his own father. It came to mind as a suitable epithet for Elon Musk - the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla and X (formerly Twitter) who has recently restored the X accounts of notorious UK hate speech trolls such as Tommy Robinson (EDL co-founder who recently fled the country), Katie Hopkins, and the violent misogynist Andrew Tate.

https://www.independent.co.uk/space/elon-musk-tommy-robinson-prime-minister-southport-spacex-b2590114.html

Within the last day or so, Elon Musk has put up incendiary posts on his X platform claiming that “Civil War in UK is now inevitable” and has also attacked our new PM Keir Starmer for disputing the accuracy of these irresponsible claims.

According to Sky News, Elon Musk is now also planning to sue major companies for “Conspiring to withhold advertising revenue from X/Twitter” and causing it to miss out on billions of advertising revenue.

https://news.sky.com/story/its-war-elon-musks-x-sues-companies-for-not-advertising-on-its-platform-13192318

The reality is that many large corporations stopped advertising on X after finding their adverts were being run in tandem with blatantly neo-Nazi and racist content  - which happened as a direct result of Elon Musk gutting the staff at X, and removing most of the content moderation procedures that were formerly in place.

The Playboy of The Western World” indeed ! - welcome to the land of consequences Elon.

[exchemist]

8 minutes ago, toucana said:

The other day members of the EDL (English Defence League) came to our city to try and extend their campaign of racial violence and anti-immigrant slander in the wake of the Southport killings ten days ago. You may have read about this recent wave of violence across the UK, including a riot in Liverpool the other night where thugs burnt down a local community hub and library in Liverpool because some posts on social media had spread a lie that all the books in the childrens section of the library had been replaced by copies of the Koran  - (they hadn’t).

When they arrived in our city however, the EDL supporters got a surprise. They had intended to attack a Mercure Travel Lodge that was allegedly being used to house asylum seekers, but they found themselves outnumbered 4-1 by a well organised protective cordon of counter-protesters and local community leaders who were also protecting our local mosques and LGBT sites, and who successfully held the racists at bay until the police belatedly arrived to stop the EDL from setting fire to the Travel Lodge.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgrrl0zlg5o

The following day I met a female friend and lawyer on our local village green who said “Are you coming to the protest tomorrow ?” When I asked for details, she told me that the EDL were now planning to attack the premises and staff of law firms in our city centre who regularly assist asylum seekers (often on a pro bono basis). There is apparently a hit-list of such law firms circulating on far-right Telegram channels.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c624r77gnm2o

The Playboy of The Western World (1907) was the title of a play by the Irish playwright John Synge which tells the story of a braggart who falsely claims to have murdered his own father. It came to mind as a suitable epithet for Elon Musk - the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla and X (formerly Twitter) who has recently restored the X accounts of notorious UK hate speech trolls such as Tommy Robinson (EDL co-founder who recently fled the country), Katie Hopkins, and the violent misogynist Andrew Tate.

https://www.independent.co.uk/space/elon-musk-tommy-robinson-prime-minister-southport-spacex-b2590114.html

Within the last day or so, Elon Musk has put up incendiary posts on his X platform claiming that “Civil War in UK is now inevitable” and has also attacked our new PM Keir Starmer for disputing the accuracy of these irresponsible claims.

According to Sky News, Elon Musk is now also planning to sue major companies for “Conspiring to withhold advertising revenue from X/Twitter” and causing it to miss out on billions of advertising revenue.

https://news.sky.com/story/its-war-elon-musks-x-sues-companies-for-not-advertising-on-its-platform-13192318

The reality is that many large corporations stopped advertising on X after finding their adverts were being run in tandem with blatantly neo-Nazi and racist content  - which happened as a direct result of Elon Musk gutting the staff at X, and removing most of the content moderation procedures that were formerly in place.

The Playboy of The Western World” indeed ! - welcome to the land of consequences Elon.

Yes, it certainly looks as if "the Musk has slipped", as it were, and he has come out as the far-right cheerleader some of us were beginning to suspect.

He is actually trolling the prime minister of a major western democracy, calling him "Two-Tier Starmer", a reference to a baseless claim circulating on the far-right, that British police show favouritism ("two-tier policing")  towards ethnic minority protests. And, since Musk's own posts on X are given special prominence, he is spreading far-right tropes across the entire global ecosystem of X.

Why would an American businessman - with zero knowledge of UK politics, but aware he is stirring up more trouble - do that sort of thing?   

[TheVat]

Really disturbing when Brits starting acting like...Americans.  

Musk is more and more showing the world the stunted adolescent I've known him to be for years.  Fascinating legal argument that a company declining to advertize somewhere is somehow actionable.  Not surprising that the lawsuit was filed in Texas, where Musk no doubt hopes a conservative bench will bend our statutes and Constitution into a grotesque pretzel for him.  

[CharonY]

21 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Why would an American businessman - with zero knowledge of UK politics, but aware he is stirring up more trouble - do that sort of thing?   

A) wants to get on the right wing grift, B) aligns with his own values, C) thinks that every stupid thought he has is gold.

39 minutes ago, toucana said:

The Playboy of The Western World” indeed ! - welcome to the land of consequences Elon.

I wished there were, but ultimately I doubt that that they will.  

[exchemist]

16 hours ago, CharonY said:

A) wants to get on the right wing grift, B) aligns with his own values, C) thinks that every stupid thought he has is gold.

I wished there were, but ultimately I doubt that that they will.  

Yes, it's all too easy to forget your C. Some of these CEOs think because they are good at their chosen business they have wisdom to share with the world on host of subjects about which they are both ignorant and incompetent.

But normally, CEOs of major corporations don't try to pick fights in public with national leaders, for the simple reason that it is almost invariably bad for their business. Musk is positively encouraging the UK government to impose new obligations on social media corporations to police the content they disseminate. And whining about the "First Amendment" won't cut any ice outside the USA.

 

 

Actually I may just have found the answer to my question, in an article in the Independent this morning: https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/elon-musk-x-far-right-b2592740.html

In summary, Musk's son Xavier announced, on his 18th birthday, that he was transitioning to a woman, changing his name including surname,  and disowning his father. According to Musk's ex-partner (Claire Boucher, a.k.a. Grimes) this traumatised Musk. Searching for something to blame he lighted on "wokeness" as a "mind virus" and vowed to try to destroy it.  

Xavier's birthday was in April 2022. In October of that year, Musk bought Twitter,  rebranded it to X, sacked all the stuff exercising editorial control over content, re-admitted far-right posters who had been banned from Twitter  - and reset the platform's algorithm to give prominence to his own posts.  

Since then, the speculation is that Musk has become radicalised by his own platform, being fed by his own algorithms a diet of far right stuff that further entrenches and amplifies his hatreds. 

It all starts to make sense. The implication would be we have a billionaire, in charge of a global social media network, who is off his trolley for personal reasons and conducting a far right vendetta. Shit-stirring over immigration riots in the UK would make sense in that context. 

Edited August 8 by exchemist

[CharonY]

What is up with this guy and his obsession with the letter X?

[exchemist]

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

What is up with this guy and his obsession with the letter X?

Well it evidently pissed off his son - or now transdaughter. But one of my son’s Christian names is Xavier, actually. We wanted names that worked in both French and English, as my wife was French, and we thought having an X as one of his initials would be cool. So far he has shown no sign of sexual fluidity or resentment.  But then I’m not a nutter like Musk. 

[CharonY]

Yeah, I randomly had the thought because of the the change of the naming of his companies. But since I don't know the name of his other children, it was likely totally unrelated and I draw a comparison where there should haven't been one.

So apparently without being a CEO one might have the delusion that random thoughts could be post-worthy. Shame on me and I'll go sit in the corner for a while.

[toucana]

Counter-protesters last night in the Old Market /West St area, protecting the boarded-up Law Centre (bottom right) which EDL supporters had threatened to attack.

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

Yeah, I randomly had the thought because of the the change of the naming of his companies. But since I don't know the name of his other children, it was likely totally unrelated and I draw a comparison where there should haven't been one.

So apparently without being a CEO one might have the delusion that random thoughts could be post-worthy. Shame on me and I'll go sit in the corner for a while.

Didn't he name one of his children 12%*!X🤪 or something? No wonder they hate him. 

[TheVat]

Another x related name among the Musk children is Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, which seemed to border on child abuse.  Then they changed it to ?, which California does not accept for a legal name, so they shortened her name to Y, as in "Why?" instead.  

Grimes and Musk's first son, born in 2020, was initially named X Æ A-12, but this was later tweaked to X Æ A-Xii since California law forbids the use of numbers in a legal name.  Sometimes eccentricities are charming, sometimes just annoying.  I expect Y Musk will at some point in her later childhood be asking why???

 

[MigL]

On 8/7/2024 at 12:04 PM, CharonY said:

A) wants to get on the right wing grift, B) aligns with his own values, C) thinks that every stupid thought he has is gold.

I'll have to take option C.
But not because he's a CEO; because everyone has been calling him a genius and kissing his ass for the last 30 odd years.
the jackass thinks that every turd that comes out of his mouth is made of gold and smells like roses.
Unfortunately a lot of Americans ( and other nationalities also ) think he can say and do no wrong.

Kind of reminds me of another millionaire former American President.
Not the cult of personality, rather, the cult of the rich and influential.

@toucana
It occurs to me That, if all these people, who are travelling cross-country to burn down buildings and facilities, had jobs, they wouldn't have time for such silliness.
How bad is the lack of employment in these areas?
And do these peoplemisguidedly blame immigrants for their job situation ?

[exchemist]

13 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Another x related name among the Musk children is Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, which seemed to border on child abuse.  Then they changed it to ?, which California does not accept for a legal name, so they shortened her name to Y, as in "Why?" instead.  

Grimes and Musk's first son, born in 2020, was initially named X Æ A-12, but this was later tweaked to X Æ A-Xii since California law forbids the use of numbers in a legal name.  Sometimes eccentricities are charming, sometimes just annoying.  I expect Y Musk will at some point in her later childhood be asking why???

 

Yes That’s the one I was thinking of - I knew there was a 12 in it. I can’t think what possesses parents to give their children such names. What do they think will happen at school? I recall being shocked to be introduced to a girl in The Hague office called Hariom. As in Hari Om. Her parents had been hippies, apparently, back in the 60s. I used to refer to her as the Hippy Chick - she was extraordinarily beautiful, actually, and very clever. But what a name to grow up with. 

[toucana]

1 hour ago, MigL said:

 

@toucana
It occurs to me That, if all these people, who are travelling cross-country to burn down buildings and facilities, had jobs, they wouldn't have time for such silliness.
How bad is the lack of employment in these areas?
And do these peoplemisguidedly blame immigrants for their job situation ?

About 10 years ago The Guardian did a study of EDL donors which suggested that up to 68% of them live in a local authority where unemployment is above the national median, and 23% live in a region whose jobless rate is among the the worst 10% in England and Wales.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/may/31/english-defence-league-edl-white-extremism

But the same study also noted that

Quote

with white extremist groups, rural communities where exposure to other ethnicities is likely to be the lowest, are typically considered the most likely crucibles for racial intolerance.

The most violent younger EDL activists often seem to have been radicalised in online neo-Nazi discussion groups, and they also tend to be part of the football hooligan sub-culture which acts as a gateway to such online echo-chambers, and even more dangerous forms of tribalism.

A quick glance at the most recent criminal convictions of rioters shows up perps from deprived areas with high levels of unemployment  - such as Hartlepool in the northeast Tyne & Wear area of UK, and Southport near Liverpool which is in the midlands, on the west coast of Lancashire.

A rather more unlikely hotspot was Plymouth a naval seaport on the south coast where 3 men were jailed for violent disorder, one of them being a 51 y/o man with a rock in his pocket which he claimed was a ‘healing stone’.

https://news.sky.com/story/the-men-who-have-been-jailed-for-rioting-so-far-13193109

Probably the most surprising stats were the ages of some of those newly convicted. A 69 y/o retired welder was jailed in Hartlepool after fighting with 3 policemen at once; and a 54 y/o former postmaster and his partner were jailed for joining in the same riot while returning from an afternoon bingo session. Perhaps the older ones were easier for the police to catch ?

[npts2020]

54 minutes ago, toucana said:

Perhaps the older ones were easier for the police to catch ?

Or old enough to just not care about being caught.

[CharonY]

There are a couple more here https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm23y7l01v8o

Currently, 3 under 20 and 4 over 50.

[exchemist]

4 hours ago, CharonY said:

There are a couple more here https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm23y7l01v8o

Currently, 3 under 20 and 4 over 50.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that older people tend to be more racist. It is they who perceive the change in their communities from what they remember from when they were young, and are disturbed by it. And having had less exposure to people of different ethnicity, they tend to fear them more. Young people don’t have the same stake in the past.

[StringJunky]

4 hours ago, exchemist said:

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that older people tend to be more racist. It is they who perceive the change in their communities from what they remember from when they were young, and are disturbed by it. And having had less exposure to people of different ethnicity, they tend to fear them more. Young people don’t have the same stake in the past.

Yes. a lot of the 60-plussers attitudes are generally shocking and antiquated in my area. It tickles me greatly that Elon now has a trans-daughter. Binarity is at the historical cusp of being seen like the aether, I think. The increase in variability of expression will bode us more favourably to surmount adverse circumstances in the future. It means individuals can move away from restrictive traditional social expectations into activities and cognitive pursuits they excel at, which should benefit the societies that welcome them. "Vive la difference", as the French say.

Edited August 9 by StringJunky

[exchemist]

54 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Yes. a lot of the 60-plussers attitudes are generally shocking and antiquated in my area. It tickles me greatly that Elon now has a trans-daughter. Binarity is at the historical cusp of being seen like the aether, I think. The increase in variability of expression will bode us more favourably to surmount adverse circumstances in the future. It means individuals can move away from restrictive traditional social expectations into activities and cognitive pursuits they excel at, which should benefit the societies that welcome them. "Vive la difference", as the French say.

I agree. Bloody funny that, having shacked up with a woman with a weirdo name and given even more weirdo names to his kids, rather hinting at a weirdo lifestyle in other ways too, he then gets outweirded by his own son - and can't handle it! What a jerk. 

[MigL]

2 hours ago, StringJunky said:

The increase in variability of expression will bode us more favourably to surmount adverse circumstances in the future. It means individuals can move away from restrictive traditional social expectations

On the other hand, that may be the source of the angst young people experience more and more these days.
Their desire to express their individuality is at odds with their need to 'fit in'.

[exchemist]

2 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Yes. a lot of the 60-plussers attitudes are generally shocking and antiquated in my area. It tickles me greatly that Elon now has a trans-daughter. Binarity is at the historical cusp of being seen like the aether, I think. The increase in variability of expression will bode us more favourably to surmount adverse circumstances in the future. It means individuals can move away from restrictive traditional social expectations into activities and cognitive pursuits they excel at, which should benefit the societies that welcome them. "Vive la difference", as the French say.

I doubt that, actually. The trans issue is being pumped like hell by its advocates - very aggressively and unpleasantly in some cases - but remains distinctly fringe and I think it will remain so.  But I would certainly agree that breaking down sexual stereotypes must be healthy and liberating to people. 

[toucana]

On 8/7/2024 at 5:04 PM, TheVat said:

Musk is more and more showing the world the stunted adolescent I've known him to be for years.  Fascinating legal argument that a company declining to advertize somewhere is somehow actionable.  Not surprising that the lawsuit was filed in Texas, where Musk no doubt hopes a conservative bench will bend our statutes and Constitution into a grotesque pretzel for him.  

GARM (Global Alliance for Responsibe Media) a non-profit advertising group that aims to help brands avoid having their adverts appear alongside illegal or harmful content has shut down after being being sued by Elon Musk and X in Texas USA.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/09/tech/elon-musk-garm-advertisers-lawsuit/index.html

The group has a hundred or so members including CVS, Unilever, Mars and Danish energy company Øersted. Elon Musk’s lawsuit against them claimed that GARM organised “to collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising from Twitter” because the group  was concerned that the platform had deviated from brand safety standards after Musk’s acquisition in late 2022.

X had previously unsuccessfully sued The Center for Countering Digital Hate - a non-profit for documenting the amount of hate speech on X after accusing them of driving away advertisers. (That lawsuit was tossed by a federal judge in California as an attempt to punish protected speech).

X has also sued the progressive watchdog group Media Matters over its analysis of antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on X , in a case set to go to trial next year.

Elon Musk who recently told brands that had left the X platform to “go f**ck yourself” may however only succeed in driving even more advertisers away from X according to Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin, founders of watchdog group Check My Ads Institute who  wrote in an op-ed Thursday. “Everyone can see that advertising on X is a treacherous business relationship for advertisers,”

https://checkmyads.org/elon-musk-garm-lawsuit/

[CharonY]

3 hours ago, MigL said:

On the other hand, that may be the source of the angst young people experience more and more these days.
Their desire to express their individuality is at odds with their need to 'fit in'.

If so, probably just one of the 450 things on their social media feed before breakfast. I think many/most young folks struggle with the input they get. Information-wise, they are almost catatonic. Simplified (but wrong) messages might indeed have a calming effect. We are doing a very poor job in training them to filter and process information.

1 hour ago, toucana said:

Elon Musk who recently told brands that had left the X platform to “go f**ck yourself” may however only succeed in driving even more advertisers away from X according to Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin, founders of watchdog group Check My Ads Institute who  wrote in an op-ed Thursday. “Everyone can see that advertising on X is a treacherous business relationship for advertisers,”

It would be interesting to see how the lawsuit goes. Ultimately, advertisers would look at cost-benefit of the situation. If the reach via Twitter brings more revenue than lawsuits or other potential costs, they'll be happily advertising there again. 

Also: 

Quote

Stephan Loerke, the chief executive of the World Federation of Advertisers, told members in an email that, while he was “confident that the outcome will demonstrate our full adherence to competition rules in all our activities,” GARM would shut down its operations immediately. The World Federation of Advertisers, which is also named in the lawsuit, will remain operational.

 

 

“This decision was not made lightly, but GARM is a not-for-profit organization, and its resources are limited,” Mr. Loerke wrote. The email was previously reported by Business Insider.

So even if the lawsuit is not successful in court, it is successful already in effect  and highlight the issue of using money and legal proceedings to shut down thing you don't like.

[TheVat]

1 hour ago, toucana said:

lon Musk who recently told brands that had left the X platform to “go f**ck yourself” may however only succeed in driving even more advertisers away from X according to Nandini Jammi and Claire Atkin, founders of watchdog group Check My Ads Institute who  wrote in an op-ed Thursday. “Everyone can see that advertising on X is a treacherous business relationship for advertisers,”

It is sort of comical.  Rather like someone building an open cesspool and then whining that people don't want to swim there.  I wonder if all these Right Wing types who like to bang on about the wisdom of the free market and Mr. Smith's invisible hand are going to find themselves really conflicted if X goes belly up.  

5 hours ago, exchemist said:

I agree. Bloody funny that, having shacked up with a woman with a weirdo name and given even more weirdo names to his kids, rather hinting at a weirdo lifestyle in other ways too, he then gets outweirded by his own son - and can't handle it! What a jerk. 

I think the part he couldn't handle was not the weird so much as it was his son's rejection of HIM.  Musk is nothing if not a narcissist. 

24 minutes ago, CharonY said:

So even if the lawsuit is not successful in court, it is successful already in effect  and highlight the issue of using money and legal proceedings to shut down thing you don't like.

Ah yes, that Cancel Culture Musk is so very incensed about.  

[exchemist]

21 minutes ago, TheVat said:

It is sort of comical.  Rather like someone building an open cesspool and then whining that people don't want to swim there.  I wonder if all these Right Wing types who like to bang on about the wisdom of the free market and Mr. Smith's invisible hand are going to find themselves really conflicted if X goes belly up.  

I think the part he couldn't handle was not the weird so much as it was his son's rejection of HIM.  Musk is nothing if not a narcissist. 

Ah yes, that Cancel Culture Musk is so very incensed about.  

You have to be a pretty special sort of dad to get rejected that dramatically. Being a narcissist probably gets you 3/4 of the way there though.

But the guy is now a serious menace. He could end up getting X shut down in a number of countries at this rate. The UK is already looking again at its on-line protection legislation and calls to prosecute Musk for peddling false and malicious information are starting to appear. Not a great business move. But maybe he’s not in it for the business any more, but for his power to  influence politics. 

Walz, one feels, is on the money talking about these people: weird and creepy is about right.