Tag: Elon Musk

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, language, Media Ethics, media-general, Mindset, Politics, propaganda, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , ,

The chances are it’s a coup. And that seems to be what’s happening in Washington, D.C. this week.

Usually, a coup happens when people in a different part of government (e.g., the military) or outside the existing government attempt to overthrow the head of that government. But there is precedent for internal coups, as we saw quite recently: On December 3, 2024, less than two months ago, South Korea’s president attempted a coup, declaring martial law. His coup failed and he was impeached and indicted.

We can take comfort from that failure as we notice what’s going on here in the United States, where I live. Robert Hubbell’s Today’s Edition newsletter this morning lists many threats to democracy that surfaced in the past couple of days, with citations to the original news stories (mostly mainstream media), and calls this barrage “the obvious coordinated nature of the unprecedented attacks on the DOJ, FBI, Office of Personnel Management, Treasury Department, and dozens of other agencies…a hostile takeover of the US government by those who are loyal to Trump rather than to the US Constitution.” Here’s a quick summary of his grim list:

  1. A team loyal to Elon Musk has hijacked the mainframe computers and employee databases at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), connecting unvetted non-federal computers to the system. They’ve locked the old managers out of the system, have sent unauthorized and likely illegal offers for senior employees to resign with pay or be fired, and even moved beds in—perhaps so they won’t be subject to security checks?
  2. Another Musk team has attempted (unsuccessfully as of Hubbell’s deadline) to gain control of the entire US Treasury payments system , which processes all federal expenditures–forcing out a senior manager who questioned Musk’s need for access.
  3. The Acting US Attorney for Washington, D.C. fired about 30 lawyers who had prosecuted January 6th rioters who tried to keep Biden from taking office four years ago, assaulted law enforcement, and threatened to kill Members of Congress and even Trump’s first-time Vice President.
  4. As well known by now, nearly all of those rioters were pardoned and released on Trump’s first two days in office, and several have gone on to make open threats of retribution and violence (that last fact is not mentioned in Hubbell’s article, but the link will give you of numerous sources).
  5. Division managers of the Department of Justice responsible for cybersecurity, national security, and criminal investigations have all been told to resign or be fired Monday.
  6. All FBI agents involved in prosecution of January 6th rioters can expect to be fired; many already have been.
  7.  So are the senior FBI agents in charge of field offices in Miami, Philadelphia, Washington, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles.
  8. Numerous federal websites covering such topics as equality were taken down. Hubbell predicts that they’re being “scrubbed for references to diversity, gender, or human attributes that are not white, male, and Christian.”
  9. Mainstream media reporters from outlets including the New York Times, National Public Radio, and NBC are being kicked out of the Pentagon to make room for NYPost, Breitbart, One America News Network, and other right-wing fringe media.

And this doesn’t even count the appalling list of wildly unqualified nominees to senior appointments (like running the US Military and the FBI) who were chosen because they’re loyal to trump and look good on TV: an insult to everyone who has ever worn a US military uniform or served in government and an attack on those who rely on federal programs to do their job or even to afford basic needs.

If you are in the US, please contact your Members of Congress (one House Rep, two Senators) and tell them this is unacceptable and you are counting on them to return government to the people and not the plutocrats. That there must be accountability. That hacking into US government computers is a felony. And that you are watching. Remember not to give up your power prematurely. Don’t capitulate the way ABC and Facebook have. Don’t allow an internal coup as Twitter did. Don’t slash your important equity programs because some idiot tells you they’re un-American. And don’t abandon. the immigrants, non-straight people, people of color, non-Christians, etc. who make this country great.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, censorship, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, Mindset, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Heather Cox Richardson reported today that Elon Musk publicly called Alexander Vindman a traitor and accused him of being on Ukraine’s payroll. If Vindman’s name sounds familiar, is because of his earlier heroism, disclosing Donald Trump’s attempt to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Vindman struck right back:

“Elon, here you go again making false and completely unfounded accusations without providing any specifics,” Vindman posted back. “That’s the kind of response one would expect from a conspiracy theorist. What oligarch? What treason?

“Let me help you out with the facts: I don’t take/have never taken money from any money from oligarchs Ukrainian or…otherwise.

“I do run a nonprofit foundation. The HereRightMattersFoundation.org to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s unprovoked attack on Feb 24, 2022. I served in the military for nearly 22 years and my loyalty is to supporting the U.S. Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. That’s why I reported presidential corruption when I witnessed an effort to steal an election. That report was in classified channels and when called by Congress to testify about presidential corruption I did so, as required by law.

“You, Elon, appear to believe you can act with impunity and are attempting to silence your critics. I’m not intimidated.”

Let’s make it perfectly clear: Vindman is taking enormous personal risks. Trump is an admirer of Vladimir Putin, and an awful lot of Putin’s enemies “wake up dead.”

I’m not accusing Trump of killing his adversaries. But he has made it abundantly clear that he will use the entire power and might of the US government to go after his perceived enemies. And he has shown repeatedly that he has no loyalty to anyone other than himself, that everything is transactional with him, and that he doesn’t place a value on things like truth, functional government, or policies that benefit ordinary working- and middle-class people. So at the very least, Vindman faces risks of imprisonment, financial losses, tax audits, and more.

But Vindman understands something Trump’s and Musk’s apologists either don’t realize or don’t care about. When you give in to threats, you enable bullies and thugs to push for even more power and status. When you grovel at their feet, you empower them. And when you stand up to them, especially if you are putting yourself at risk, they shrink. They withdraw. They lose status.

Vindman is denying Musk, and by extension Trump, the power to make him voluntarily capitulate.

And meanwhile, when we see someone bullying someone, especially if the victim is showing fear, we are not powerless. We can intervene. If we know of people caught in immigration roundups or arrested as dissidents, we can bring visibility, tell the media, organize support. There are many resources and trainings to help with this. The important thing is to show the bullies that we do not approve and will not cooperate, that we will nonviolently defend the defenseless and withdraw support from the power structure.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Corporate Social Responsibility, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, People Helping People, Politics, Social and Economic Justice, Socially Responsible Investing, Technology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Seize the opportunity!

Tragic as it is, the wipeout of Puerto Rico’s fossil-based infrastructure via Hurricane Maria creates a powerful opportunity to do it right the second time. With its vast solar and wind resources, why not make this sunny, breezy island the pilot project to develop 100% renewability in buildings for a populous island—using microgrids to build in resiliency, so if part of the system goes down, the rest still delivers power?

A storm-damaged pier. Courtesy freeimages.com
A storm-damaged pier. Courtesy freeimages.com

There’s already at least one island country we’ve all heard of that is near-100% renewable if you don’t count vehicles: Iceland (hydro and geothermal). Solar/electric entrepreneur Elon Musk has already converted several tiny, obscure islands, like Ta’u in American Samoa, and he says he can scale up to serve the 3,670,243 Puerto Ricans.

Of course, converting PR to renewables requires the re-invention of funding. We need mechanisms that allow a bankrupt country (technically part of the US) to front-load a huge infrastructure and then repay out of savings even when many pressing needs will be competing for those funds. The private sector won’t step up if they don’t have complete confidence that they’ll get paid back. Eco-economists, this is your moment!

But also, justice demands that a big chunk of financing come from outright grants, from the US government and various foundations and disaster relief agencies—just is occurred in storm recovery after other superstorms like Katrina, Rita, Sandy, and Irene. Even the heartless occupant of the White House, possibly the least compassionate and least competent man ever to hold that office, must not be allowed to marginalize Puerto Rico just because the population is Latina/Latino and the language is Spanish.

And wouldn’t it be cool if someone (Elon Musk perhaps?) stepped forward to fund a switch of the vehicle fleet to non-carbon-emitting sources? If the island had solar on every sunny room, it would be easy enough to supply the vehicles as well.

In some ways, converting the entire island to clean, renewable, resilient energy would actually make rebuilding cheaper and easier. Fossil fuel infrastructure is expensive, complex, and subject to environmental catastrophe. But if the money that would have gone to build tanker ports and refineries went to establishing on-island solar panel factories and training installers and to bringing in the raw materials to make millions of high-efficiency panels to deploy in every neighborhood in the Commonwealth, it’s doable.

I’m not the only and certainly not the first to say this. In addition to Musk, Time Magazine, Renewable Energy World, safe energy activist/author Harvey Wasserman, the deep-story news outlet Democracy Now, to name a few, have all said this is possible and desirable.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail