Elon Musk announced over a year ago that he planned to turn Twitter into an everything app that would include online banking and finance. Elon is not an independent businessman, but is a front man for the cabal, according to this video. He lied about growing up poor. His grandfather Joshua Haldeman was part of the Canadian Technocracy Movement in the 1930s. He is not the successful and brilliant businessman he purports to be. He did not co-found PayPal and he only contributed money to Tesla.
As a classic Technocrat, Elon Musk has no use for representative government, and the threat is starting to be felt in Washington. Musk believes he is always the genius in the room and that when you are always right, what is there to discuss? In the 1930s, Technocrats wanted to completely remove the political structure of America and appoint people like Musk to run everything. ⁃ TN Editor
Between launching four astronauts and 54 satellites into orbit, unveiling an electric freight truck and closing in on taking over Twitter this month, Elon Musk made time to offer unsolicited peace plans for Taiwan and Ukraine,antagonizing those countries’ leaders and irking Washington, too.
Musk, the richest man in the world, then irritated some Pentagon officials by announcing he didn’t want to keep paying for his private satellite service in Ukraine, before later walking back the threat.
As Musk, 51, inserts himself into volatile geopolitical issues, many Washington policymakers worry from the sidelines as he bypasses them.
A two-decade partnership between Musk and the federal government helped the United States return to global dominance in space and shift to electric cars, and made the tech geek an internationally famous CEO. But many in Washington, even as they praise his work in areas of national security, now see Musk as too powerful and too reckless.
Citing Musk’s public ridicule of those who snub him — the billionaire has called President Biden a “damp sock puppet” and said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) reminds him of “my friend’s angry mom” — many of the two dozen top government officials interviewed for this article would only speak about Musk on the condition of anonymity. But nearly all described him as being as erratic and arrogant as he is brilliant.
“Elon, The Everywhere” is what one White House official called him. “He believes he is such a gift to mankind that he doesn’t need any guardrails, that he knows best.”
“He sees himself as above the presidency,” said Jill Lepore, a Harvard historian who hosted podcasts on Musk.
Musk declined to comment for this story, but he says he weighs in on important problems and described his mission as “enhancing the future of humanity.” He said his Ukraine plan could avert possible nuclear war, and that his Taiwan proposal could ease dangerous regional tensions.
But Musk’s freelance diplomacy is angering allies at the same time he bids $44 billion to take over a media platform with hundreds of millions of users.
“The bottom line is that people hang on his every word because he has delivered so many times,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). “I hope he shows some respect for that responsibility.”
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) called Musk’s plan for Ukraine an “affront” to its people, and even suggested federal subsidies that help electric carmakers might be better spent.
Musk’s relationship with Washington started out strong. “I love you!” Musk blurted out when a NASA official called to tell him in 2008 that he got a $1.6 billion contract at a time when he was heavily in debt. Washington then poured billions more into Musk’s company as it developed its rockets and space capsule. SpaceX delivered, rebuilding the flagging U.S. space program.
His bipartisan efforts oncehelped him win over Washington. He dined with President Barack Obama and joined President Donald Trump’s economic councils. He donated to candidates of both parties. Now, he bashes Biden and says he plans to vote for a Republican president in 2024.
These days, the eccentric entrepreneur rarely visits Washington and is increasingly critical of the federal government. He does talk to foreign presidents and prime ministers, according to people who work directly with him. Musk sells his state-of-the-art rockets and aerospace technology to South Korea, Turkey and a growing list of other countries. He has Tesla factories in Germany and China. He also owns and controls more than 3,000 satellites circling the Earth — far more than any nation, including the United States.
In May, Brazilian officials said Musk met with Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president who is described in Latin America as a right-wing ultranationalist. Musk said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin 18 months ago, but denied a report that he talked to Putin just before offering his Ukrainian peace plan that was widely condemned as pro-Russian.
Though Musk needs Washington less now that he is global powerhouse, Washington continues to depend on him. The U.S. military uses his rockets and satellite communications services for its drones, ships and aircraft. NASA currently has no way to get American astronauts to the International Space Station without his space capsule. And, at a time when climate change is a top White House priority, he has more electric cars on U.S. roads than any other manufacturer.
Several top government officials said they are working on decreasing their reliance on Musk, including partnering with and nurturing competitors with government contracts and subsidies. “There’s not just SpaceX. There are other entities that we can certainly partner with when it comes to providing Ukraine what they need on the battlefield,” Sabrina Singh, deputy Pentagon press secretary, told reporters last week.
A key concern if Musk buys Twitter is his web of overseas holdings and foreign investors, including his massive Tesla factory in China, and possible leverage others could have over Musk if he controls a platform where some users have spread misinformation and ratcheted up political divisiveness. As a U.S. defense contractor, Musk has been vetted, but several top officials said they wanted a more thorough review, including any expansion plans in Russia and China. Warren and others have called his Twitter purchase a “danger to democracy.”
Washington has dealt before with powerful tycoons whodominated railroads, oil or a key economic sector, said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “But what’s a bit different here is Musk’s ability to project his political agenda and the fact that now that we have technology and media that allows individuals to essentially become their own network or channel,” Haass said.
Because Musk has business investments in China, and, according to Russian and other news reports, said last year at a Kremlin-sponsored event for students that he was planning one in Russia, several top U.S. government officials wonder if Musk’s business interests affect his views on foreign affairs.
The economic turmoil since the Ukraine war began has dented the fortunes of many people including Musk, whose personal wealth dropped by tens of billions, to about $210 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
Two people who know him well said Musk is impulsive and that makes him say things that harm his own interests — a tendency that makes itdifficult for government officials to count on Musk. Musk himself has said he has Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, and no one should expect him to be a “chill, normal dude.”
“He shoots himself in the foot all the time. He should not be getting into politics,” said one person who has worked with him for years.
“I have been as shocked as anyone these last few months at some of the things he has waded into,” said Lori Garver, former deputy administrator at NASA. She worries about the consequences. SpaceX restored U.S. leadership in space, but his politically charged comments attract critics who are starting to ask, “Why is taxpayer money going to this billionaire?”
If you’ve been in prepper circles for long, you’ve probably heard the term OpSec. It is taken from military jargon and it’s short for Operations Security. In the preparedness and survival world, it generally means not letting other people know that you are prepped, or if they know, they definitely don’t know the specifics of what you have.
Not only do we want to keep the level of our preparedness private, these days, keeping our opinions private might be likewise beneficial from a security perspective. More on that in a moment.
Trigger Warning: There’s no way I can write this article without ticking somebody off. Some readers will feel that I’m siding with the right and others will feel like I’m siding with the left. I’m not because I am not a Democrat or a Republic, nor am I a conservative or a liberal. I’m a critical thinker with diverse opinions that fall into all sorts of categories. Yet others will feel I didn’t go far enough or that there’s some “fact” or conspiracy that I didn’t reveal. I’m not an ice cream cone. I can’t make everyone happy. Also, there may be some swearing.
What is OpSec?
Here’s a definition for those who aren’t familiar with the concept.
Operations security (OPSEC) is a process that identifies critical information to determine if friendly actions can be observed by enemy intelligence, determines if information obtained by adversaries could be interpreted to be useful to them, and then executes selected measures that eliminate or reduce adversary exploitation of friendly critical information.
In a more general sense, OPSEC is the process of protecting individual pieces of data that could be grouped together to give the bigger picture (called aggregation). OPSEC is the protection of critical information deemed mission-essential from military commanders, senior leaders, management or other decision-making bodies. The process results in the development of countermeasures, which include technical and non-technical measures such as the use of email encryption software, taking precautions against eavesdropping, paying close attention to a picture you have taken (such as items in the background), or not talking openly on social media sites about information on the unit, activity or organization’s Critical Information List. (source)
OpSec goes hand in hand with the gray man principle. Here’s Selco’s definition of being the gray man.
It is a simple concept that comes to be very important when SHTF, and it is often completely opposite to how a lot of preppers are planning to look or act.
In the shortest definition, it is staying uninteresting or simply looking and acting like most of the people around you in a particular moment.
It can be used in a lot of situations when SHTF, during prolonged periods of time, or during short-term events. (source)
As tensions increase dramatically in the United States, many people will find it more important than ever to practice these principles.
Extraordinary things are happening.
Over the past few years, the United States has become extremely polarized – so much so that violence can break out simply because two people or groups of people support different presidential candidates.
We’re seeing “othering” on an extraordinary level as Big Tech and the Mainstream Media throw gasoline on the raging dumpster fire that is our recent election. There’s a purge of conservative voices that goes beyond anything I’ve personally seen – way beyond the purge of alternative media a couple of years ago.
While Donald Trump is on his way out of the White House in just under two weeks, the fact remains that the two largest social media outlets in the world, Facebook and Twitter, have suspended the accounts of a sitting President of the United States. Now, they’re private businesses – they get to make their own rules and they’re protected from any legal fallout by Section 230, unlike the rest of us folks on the internet. However, the fact that they would take such an action is simply astounding in its audacity.
Go to a different outlet, you said? Well, that would be a great idea so we did. Conservatives and libertarians went to Parler in droves and the MSM sobbed into their lattes that it was a threat to democracy. And guess what else happened? Google effectively killed Parler today by removing the app from the store. José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson, said:
“In order to protect user safety on Google Play, our longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content have moderation policies and enforcement that removes egregious content like posts that incite violence.
All developers agree to these terms and we have reminded Parler of this clear policy in recent months.
We’re aware of continued posting in the Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the U.S.
We recognize that there can be reasonable debate about content policies and that it can be difficult for apps to immediately remove all violative content, but for us to distribute an app through Google Play, we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content.
In light of this ongoing and urgent public safety threat we are suspending the app’s listings from the Play Store until it addresses these issues.” (source)
And speaking of egregious things, the glaring double standard between the media coverage in Washington DC on Jan. 6th and the coverage of “protests” all over the country for the past year is particularly flagrant.
This blatant silencing of dissent is heinous and reminiscent of Communist China or North Korea. I mean, the DoJ did just revive the legality of firing squads. While we’re not currently being executed for dissenting opinions, people are losing their livelihoods, having their homes vandalized, and being ostracized. ABC News literally called for a cleansing of Trump supporters.
“Even aside from impeachment and 25th Amendment talk, Trump will be an ex-president in 13 days,” ABC’s Rick Klein and MaryAlice Parks wrote for The Note on Thursday. “The fact is that getting rid of Trump is the easy part. Cleansing the movement he commands, or getting rid of what he represents to so many Americans, is going to be something else.”
It now reads, “Cleaning up the movement he commands, or getting rid of what he represents to so many Americans, is going to be something else.”
Klein also shared the original phrase on Twitter before deleting it.(source)
Do they wish to “cleanse” all 74,223,744 people whose votes were considered official? It’s rather reminiscent of a recent hullabaloo when another guy on Twitter wanted to send Trump voters to re-education camps. (See #7 here.)
Incidentally – neither Klein’s account nor ABC News’s account were suspended by Twitter. Nor was that guy who wants to forcibly re-educate people. Just the President’s. Oh and a whole bunch of other people who had the audacity to be publicly supportive of him. But not those cleanser and re-education people. They’re cool.
Know what you’re getting yourself into before taking action.
If you’re anything like me, your initial reaction is, “F*ck this. I’ll say what I want.” I agree wholeheartedly that this is outrageous censorship on a massive scale, it’s virtual book-burning, and the double standard is utter bullsh*t and I’m furious about it.
But this is, first and foremost, a website about survival and preparedness. This is not a site about staging a revolution and I have really limited the coverage of politics since the 2016 election. I want it to be a place where everyone feels welcome to learn about preparedness and the events that affect us, regardless of their political beliefs, their religious beliefs, or which foot they put in their pants leg first.
There will be people out there who feel it is their duty to fight. There are people who support that and people who do not.
Unless you are making a conscious decision to get out there in the thick of the battle, imperiling your livelihood and risking ostracization due to cancel culture, it may be time for you to consider strengthening your OpSec. If you are going into this with your eyes open, then more power to you all.
Crackdowns like what we’re seeing now start with polarization and information blackouts. They can lead to far worse scenarios.
Selco wrote:
It is a situation where all stakes are much higher, and solutions-actions that the government ( ruling party, military leaders or whoever in your case) wants to achieve will be attempted with all means. That can include some new rules where what you think about it usually does not mean anything.
A lot of preppers think about “martial law” but in reality, they think about it still in normal terms, with rights, law, constitution, and rules…
You cannot defy military, at least not openly, because they will deal with you fast and efficiently. In times like that it is so easy to get labeled that you are dangerous, an enemy of the state, a terrorist or anything similar, and most probably you will not have any help.
Forget about the movie illusions of openly being a freedom fighter.
No matter how well-organized you are, those who impose martial law have better organization than you. Remember that martial law usually means an information blackout. “They” will own information and present it to the public the way that they want to present it. (source)
While I’m not suggesting we’re necessarily headed for martial law, we have stepped into a brand new world where our media is tightly controlled and our every decision or utterance can come back to haunt us.
Why do we need to focus more stringently on OpSec now?
I want to focus on the survival and preparedness aspects of this unbelievable situation we now find ourselves in.
As I’ve written before, survival is about surviving. Some people find this philosophy cowardly and feel we should all be willing to choose the hill of their choice to die upon. Others believe that it’s better to be strategic, live to fight another day, and choose their battles. This is a personal decision.
If you don’t wish to be involved in the political aspects of the things going on right now, if you want to quietly live out your life with limited conflict, and if your focus is on the safety of your family, you need to think about the information you are giving away about yourself. This is not just information for people of one political party or race. It’s for those who don’t want to be targeted because of their beliefs.
Don’t make a visual statement. Do you have any political paraphernalia on display? Bumper stickers? Yard signs? Banners? T-shirts or hats?
Avoid political conversations. Back when I was a kid, I was told that politics and religion were topics that were bad manners unless you were in the company of those you knew really well.
Keep your preps under wraps. Trust me, when The Great Toilet Paper Crisis of 2021 happens – and it will – you don’t want to be the house with all the toilet paper that the guy repairing your furnace saw. Nobody needs to see your preps. Put things in cardboard boxes with misleading labels like “Christmas” if someone is going to be in the area where you store supplies. Don’t have shelves and shelves of canned goods out in your kitchen.
Tighten your circle. If you thought 2020 was bad, 2021 is here and it’s old enough to drink. As expected, 2021 is not going to be a walk in the park. Selco recommends that the worse things become, the smaller your circle should be. Focus your efforts on the things you can control and your energy on the people in your inner circle.
Remember what you learned about people. We learned a lot about how those around us handled stress during the first round of lockdowns. Don’t forget the lessons you learned about those in your circle, as well as what you discovered about friends, neighbors, and coworkers. A lot of folks were really surprised by the behavior of others when they were under stress. Think about who you really want to let in – this may have changed after the past year. Do your best to make sure that people are truly worthy of your trust.
Be neutral on social media. Remember, the internet is forever. Even if you delete an ill-advised post, someone may have taken a screenshot or be able to find that post on the Wayback Machine. People don’t have to have the visible proof of those posts either to remember you dislike Trump or Biden, or that you’re super liberal or super conservative. Posting meme after meme expressing your adoration for certain political figures or beliefs is the digital equivalent of running your mouth in a crowded bar. You never know who’s watching or listening, nor do you know how that might come back to haunt you.
Don’t make yourself a target.
When people are hungry they’ll do things they might never have imagined doing before, like stealing food. Many of the jobs lost in 2020 are not going to be coming back in 2021, people are dealing with major financial problems, and we have supply chain issues. There’s a very real chance that we will see greater poverty in America happening to a greater number of people than we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes.
Those people will be wracking their brains trying to figure out how to survive. Don’t give them a reason to think of your place as a supply nirvana.
(If you are in that desperate position, check out this book – it’s free and it may help you make difficult decisions.)
When people are angry, they’ll also do things they normally would not and mob mentality is contagious. Take this former CEO, for example.
“My decision to enter the Capitol was wrong, and I am deeply regretful to have done so,” Rukstales said in a statement. “Without qualification and as a peaceful and law-abiding citizen, I condemn the violence and destruction that took place in Washington.”
Rukstales also apologized to his family, colleagues and “fellow countrymen” for his actions.
“It was the single worst personal decision of my life,” the exec’s statement continued. “I have no excuse for my actions and wish that I could take them back.” (source)
Don’t make yourself a target for the rage of people who aren’t behaving rationally. Your memes and banners and bumper stickers aren’t going to change their minds.
First Posted: 7/27/11 10:33 AM ET Updated: 7/27/11 10:54 AM ET
f you are a Buddhist or somebody who is just curious about the tradition and the issues facing it today, Twitter is a great starting point for getting in on the conversation. Here we’ve compiled several of the prominent teachers, writers and organizations that we follow to help us stay clued in on the world of Buddhism.
We invite you to follow them, and also join our conversation @HuffPostRelig! Be sure to add your suggestions below if we left your favorite Buddhist on Twitter off the list.
Mood-Reading Billboard: Jell-O’s ‘Pudding Face’ Ad In New York City Smiles Or Frowns Based On Twitter Emoticons
First Posted: 8/3/11 03:51 PM ET
This advertisement won’t just make you smile — you can make it smile.
A newly-installed billboard for Jell-O constantly studies the ratio of happy and sad emoticons on Twitter, then uses the ever-changing data to make a face on the ad smile or frown.
If the majority of Twitter users are posting the 🙂 symbol, a man’s face on billboard grins. When the majority are posting the 🙁 symbol, the advertisement grimaces.
The billboard at the corner of Grand Street and West Broadway in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood is an extension of larger campaign by Kraft Foods that started with the Jell-O Pudding Face website, which gives out coupons when there are more frowny faces than smiley faces on Twitter, Adage notes.
Facebook and Twitter have created a generation obsessed with themselves, who have short attention spans and a childlike desire for constant feedback on their lives, a top scientist believes.
Repeated exposure to social networking sites leaves users with an ‘identity crisis’, wanting attention in the manner of a toddler saying: ‘Look at me, Mummy, I’ve done this.’
Baroness Greenfield, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, believes the growth of internet ‘friendships’ – as well as greater use of computer games – could effectively ‘rewire’ the brain.
Vain generation: A top Oxford scientist has warned that repeated exposure to social networking websites could harm users. (Picture posed by model)
This can result in reduced concentration, a need for instant gratification and poor non-verbal skills, such as the ability to make eye contact during conversations.
Vain generation: A top Oxford scientist has warned that repeated exposure to social networking websites could harm users. (Picture posed by model)