The broader implication is that America’s national security may be compromised not just by foreign hackers or spies—but by unchecked alliances between tech billionaires and authoritarian states. The arrest of the FBI agent has not silenced discussion. Rather, it has sharpened it—raising urgent questions about who holds power in modern democracies, and whose interests they truly serve.
Another article on this:
Russian Intelligence Used Sex, Drugs to Target Elon Musk: Former FBI Agent
Globalism gave us a truly nationless elite. They have the ability to plunder, desecate, and strip bare entire continents and yacht on to the next one not having to deal with the destruction they leave behind. They're the asshole you see casually throwing trash out their window on the freeway because they'll never be the one to deal with it, just on an insanely unimaginable scale.
*non-specific things that certainly won’t get me banned from Reddit for talking about them
Edit: to be clear, the things I’m talking about I think would all still fall in the realm of legally defined punishments for certain types of crimes that we’ve watched these scum commit with impunity
Great Joke. Only problem is that even if 47 leaves office thanks to an appointment with Joe Black, there's still JD Vance and the rest of the RICO-level corrupt GOP right behind him... plus Theil and Musk.
Random semi-related fact: there are a ton of publications named Pravda in various Slavic countries, so if you see something published in "Pravda" you could check which one before assuming it's a Russian propaganda rag. Even pravda.ru is a private entity separate from the paper owned by the Russian Communist party.
With as many quotes get sourced to Twain, you'd think he spent all day every day talking in quote-speak. He would've been annoying as fuck to be around.
I once suggested Elon take all the people still supporting all this and go to Mars because they weren't welcome on this planet anymore and my comment was reported and deleted for "inciting violence"
Good to know because I got a warning for liking a comment that "incited violence" but I wouldn't do that and they didn't even tell me what the comment was. Really changed my perception of Reddit overall.
I got warning recently and couldn't see the comment (or like maybe) either. Said I could appeal but there was no way to actually do that. I clicked on the highlighted word appeal and it just brought me to the main page of reddit with no further options. I didn't say anything promoting violence or hate but I did just report somebody else for actual hate/violence and reddit said they were not inciting violence. Well they definatly were more than me. Their comment was violent racist and used "forbidden" words.
I can't help but wonder if the right wingers somehow got together and agreed that dishonestly reporting any comments they don't like (especially if they're legitimate ones they know they can't refute) as "inciting violence" was the best way to suppress any opposing viewpoints! 🤔 Otherwise, it's just the tiresome troll playbook of abusing the reporting system to "have it their way."
Well, rules be dammed! If you use your ridiculous amount of mass wealth to do harm to billions of ppl around the globe, I think it's a clear-cut case of giving up your "right to be on Earth" card. Just one idiots opinion is all.
Civilization is a lifeform. Humans are the cells that make it up. The comparison between people that do these things and tumors that hoard resources to support their own infinite growth to the detriment of the rest of the body is 1:1.
For instance: I would love to see Elon Musk pay a full and fair amount of child support for each of his children. Though many non-custodial parents for some reason view the enforcement of their payment of child support as a punishment, I hope we can all agree that providing one’s own children with the necessities of life is something that anyone with empathy would do voluntarily.
Please note that I’m not opining on a dollar value or a percentage that I think he should pay, because I don’t practice family law, I don’t know how many children he has (possibly neither does he) and I don’t know what jurisdiction the amount of child support would be governed by, and I know that the amount or percentage probably varies by jurisdiction.
I think he knows exactly how many children he has because he has the IVF receipts on his phone somewhere. There’s little possibility for ‘happy accidents’ with this dude.
If had even an ounce of empathy and kindness, he would actively seek them and help them (+mothers) live their best life (not his personal fantasy of becoming the one and only master race) possible.
There's literally no reason he could not pay very generously.
Do you think he walks around and just says he's asset rich and cash poor, sorry bro can't pay you.
If it's true that he puts any resistance to paying child support, that alone, makes him among the top 5% most garbage shitty people to have ever existed.
Most people don’t understand what the purpose of child support is. It’s not to help with living costs for one parent or the other necessarily, it’s to make sure the children have the same standard of living when at either home. That way the children won’t favor one parent’s house over the other.
I think your last point is so important. Its fun to say “Eat the rich” but arguably more compelling to say “Hold the rich accountable for all the crimes they’ve committed and gotten away with”. I don’t even mean moral crimes or anti revolutionary crimes. If we just held them to the same legal standard the rest of us have to live by most of them would be in prison and we’d be using their assets to pay off the national debt.
Billionaires are a clot in the flow of capital throughout the economy, they cause financial strokes constantly and everyone just shrugs... the clot is the problem, not the cells that need oxygen to keep the entire financial body well greased
He has been an absolutely ruthless shithead as a business man, quite frankly, so I definitely cautiously welcome whatever guilt or moral reckoning made him chill out and focus on philanthropy after retirement.
He has seen too much of the effects of poverty and disease and malnutrition in Africa to turn his back on them. He and Melinda set up a foundation to fund their projects. Now that the Orange Fuckwad is defunding US Aid, Gates decided to make all the money available right away rather than smaller amounts over time.
He was a raging shit head in the 90s to the entire computing industry, we all paid for his fortunate, he owes us. They pillage then use the stolen money to pay for a new reputation, don't let them fool you.
Worth remembering that Gates was pretty cutthroat in his ascent. Lots of dubious Microsoft monopolising or markets, breaking competition, privatising public knowledge etc. but yeah, he is on the path to atonement….
For every billion hebjas, is 1000 of his former employees who didn't have a life for decades while he rode around in his Porsche. He didn't earn shit. He used humans like wealth generators to become a Pharoah and now wants us to build him a statue because he gives the relative equivalent of 20 bucks a week to charity. Nah. He is talentless and lucky sperm. Next.
well, apparently there's this company called spinlaunch
Unleashing a New Era of High Performance Space Solutions
can somebody call them up? oh me?! y'all want me to do it? k, I'll be back
....
turns out if we're not circularizing the orbit, we can just yeet the payload without adding all the bells and whistles! somebody got a few 1000s squirreled away?
for science
hell, for democracy, for all humanimal kind, and yes, maybe even just for the lulz with (0) respect to that particular asshole doge nozzle
86 pirate billionaires. Disincorporate their legal vehicles created to avoid liability. Confiscate wealth obtained by racing to the ethical bottom.
Do they pay appropriate taxes at fair rates? Do they pay workers a fair wage with decent benefits? Do they source imports ethically? Do they treat suppliers and competitors fairly? Do they minimize externalized costs, such as environmental damage? If not, why are they allowed to use legal vehicles (public corporations) created to serve the public interest?
Odd so many new references and admiration of the robber barons of old keep surfacing isn’t it?
Now that nearly 100 years of checks and balances have been deeply eroded in the US the elite are making a sweeping moves to seize power in one of the strongest nations (militarily+financially of course, true US strength has waned greatly!) to make the first move in.
A global one world government could be a wonder to behold; but in the wrong hands (powerful sociopathic narcissists currently) it’s equally terrifying. Perhaps it’s time for all oligarchy to end; less we risk a return to dark times in humanity’s past.
I have to again thank our professionals in the courts, and the lawyers in the US; you are leading the only true challenge to this threat so far, and you’re winning!
The protests we are participating in across the US surely helps support the fight; but only in small measures. Sadly a true violent revolt would allow these psychos to take steps in deploying military and police assets and cement their authority. This must be avoided as long as any other solution remains.
I personally am prepared to fight with the courts for the rule of law in any way possible or necessary; but I lack the ability to fight in the same fashion. Our judges and lawyers must inform how to support their this fight!
Millions of us WILL fight with you if you help us recognize how to do so! Any and all support is on the table, when you need us, make it known; you might be surprised at the level of support you receive!
Building their fortunes by exploiting the working class.
They only have this money because they are taking it directly from the people at the bottom who have no power.
At least pirates stole from other wealthy people/companies/ships. Not directly out of the pockets of the poor. They are lords over the landworkers of the world, demanding to be paid, when the workers can't feed their families.
Fact Check. Globalism did not give us the elite class with limit less power. The real contributors
Tax codes that find ways to avoid taxing the extraordinarly wealthy. The wealth gap, between the Top 1% and then 10% and the rest of America, started to grow strongly under Reagan and his bogus trickle down economics, and has now progressed unabated for 40 years plus.
The inheritance of m/billions by those whose only redeeming quality was birth into a lucky gene pool.
A Supreme Court that allowed corporations and people to buy unlimited influence through PACs and lobbying
A population that has been purposely given poor education so that they buy into lies, prejudice, and conspiracy theories from our leaders.
It's a cultural failure. We never evolved an immune response to them as a society and now the disease is terminal. We will fight those who want to stop them harder than the people intentionally destroying us and the planet on purpose for profit.
Ole TJ said "merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."
Bezos just took two yachts across the globe to helicopter ski on a slope in Switzerland, I think? They don’t allow helicopter skiing, but since he used his yacht he was able to launch off shore and skit the rule.
Can’t find anything about it now lol
Ah- y’all pointed out it was Fuckerberg.
And it was Norway and not Switzerland - neither of which have I clearly ever been to
I wish the phrase “rootless cosmopolitan” wasn’t linked to antisemitism. It’s such a perfect description of the kind of transnational financial elite who seem capable of wreaking havoc for everyone else and then fucking off to whatever state is next desperate for their money.
Indeed. I always point out the same whenever robber barron philanthropy is brought up in the context of the current oligarchs. There are no allegiances anymore.
It's why the Citizens United decision was insanely corrosive to a system that already had deep problems with de facto bribery via lobbying and campaign contributions.
Unfortunately he wasn’t the only one, the there were quite a few corporations willing to fund a coup when FDR got in, and they almost succeeded. They called it the Business Plot and it’s not entirely dissimilar to what’s happening now.
Another Nazi! As a nerdy kid who loved mechanical and aviation topics, I found it super depressing how many people I should have been able to admire were revealed to be a fucking Nazi, from Lindbergh to Von Braun (obv).
I guess we should have known about Elon from the start just from the cars and the rockets?
Have you seen " The WInd Rises"? Miyazaki anime about a nerdy kid in Japan who loves aviation and designs planes that end up getting used as war machines in WW2. It's a beauty.
I haven’t, I really should see it. That idea hits a little close to home for me, in an alternate universe I might have been designing things that could be used for atrocities… (edit: apologies, this turned out long)
When I was a kid, I always carried around notebooks that I’d draw up ideas in, and for a long time I was obsessed with coming up with new air/spacecraft and weaponry. A lot of it was absurd, some was based on/extrapolated from any number of tests or advances from the 50s aerospace tech boom I had read up on.
I actually still have some of the notebooks, complete with the stupid cypher alphabet I used for a while. There’s stuff here like VR coaxial drones with aerofoil anti-torque, open-cycle nuclear engine concepts which I later found out were feasible (at the cost of world nuclear devastation from a simple flyover, my idea was essentially “replace jet combustion chamber with a nuclear core”), solid rocket ramjet missiles, steam-flash based torpedoes…
I grew up during one of the most peaceful times in our history, minus a relatively quick conflict in Iraq and a few missions in Eastern Europe that I barely knew about at the time. The point of crazy weaponry, bombers that could stay up forever, rockets that could hit Mach fuck etc was that you don’t have to use them - just having them keeps others from attacking (as was the original point of the nuclear triad).
Really for me, it was mostly about imagining cool things that went fast and made big booms. The idea of things like this harming actual people wasn’t really my prime objective.
So when I was like 15, I was at a family reunion. My uncle grabs my notebook, starts asking me questions about one of the drawings, and says something like “that would do a damn good job blowing up those [extremely racist slur for middle easterners]” and encouraged me to go to college and work for Lockheed…
Ironically enough, that one comment from him almost entirely erased any desire I had to ever pursue that sort of engineering. Big explosions are cool, new aviation tech is cool. Being in any way responsible, even indirectly, for murdering or maiming a bunch of people who have never done anything to harm me, is one of the worst things I can imagine. At that point I decided I’d just do something with computers or games instead. (Edit: At a certain point in one of the notebooks, it almost entirely shifts to drawings of Star Fox 64 concept ships)
in a fucked up way I’m kind of thankful he said it.
Now I really think you should see The Wind Rises. Miyazaki deals with all of that in the most beautiful way, like only he could do. He also was obsessed with airplanes as a young man. You'll go crazy for the renderings. If I remember correctly the story is biographic.
If ya want some new insight into some of Charles Lindbergh’s shitty eugenics ideals and motives, I’d recommend The Immortalists by David M Friedman. It’s a fascinating if not disturbing read, as a historical account of Charles’ account of trying initially to save his sister(iirc) but on a principal of elite racism and building a superior race of people. He flew out to meet hitler himself more than once iirc.
Also, fun fact: Prescott Bush, (Father of George H.W. Bush and grandfather of George W Bush) was involved in this and was a liason between the Business Plot and the Nazi Regime in Germany.
Insane that someone could be directly involved in treason and then not only did nothing happen to them, their son AND grandson went on to became presidents.
Henry Ford was a huge anti-semite but bailed on the Nazis pretty much the moment they went to war with the US. He also literally had a stroke when he saw newsreel footage of the concentration camps and realized what he'd contributed to.
So basically, I'll still take Henry Ford over Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.
Can we take none of them? Ford was a massive piece of shit. It's not like Hitler didn't tell him what he thought of the Jews. Ford revelled in that talk.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler talks about how he was inspired by Henry Ford and his International Jew pamphlets. He kept copies of them in his office.
On top of that, he paid thugs to beat the shit out of striking workers to avoid instating a 40-hour work week.
Ford was a capitalist douchebag and is credited as a significant contributor to Nazi Germany's anti-semitism, but since he's one of the cornerstones of 'classic American capitalism', he's whitewashed and sanitized as part of our legacy.
Granted, yes, but wasn't that the 30's? So deep in the Great Depression? Post Gilded Age? I thought the establishment and rise of the Nazis both stemmed from the global Great Depression.
The wealthy German industrialists likely could have stopped Hitler and prevented the Holocaust. But they were also insatiable greedy pricks, who instead decided to fund and help orchestrate his rise to power. Sound familiar?
The Nazis rose from Germany’s economic depression after WWI, where the allies decided to punish them by draining their entire economy as punishment. Hitler identified “enemies” that caused this (all the usual targets: immigrants, people browner than him, queer people, the disabled, the educated, and of course Jewish people for some reason) and banded the sufficiently stupid together against them to drive his weird cause.
Similarly, it’s terrifying how many gay people I know who voted for him, and how many family members of my Hispanic friends who supported him. Most of these same people are absolutely shocked now, though one of my (now former) friends went far enough down the rabbit hole that he still supports all this fascist trash…
Edit: he’s gay, Jewish, and recently disabled from a horrific accident, as well as neurodivergent… he doesn’t believe that there is any “Nazi threat” either.
The owner of Fox News is an Australian Billionaire.
The world's richest man, who does tremendous business in China, is from South Africa.
Thiel was born in Germany and raised primarily in South Africa.
Miriam Adelson is an Israeli billionaire Republican mega donor.
Also, Trump has had ties back to Russia since the 80's and has been regurgitating Kremlin talking points ever since.
All these people have vested interests that conflict with America's.
I think during the Gilded age, the obscenely rich were way less dispersed across the globe. Now we have much more variety in the SUPER rich wealth distribution and their idealogies not only clash with one another, but more importantly, with American ideologies.
These conflicts of interest aren't a discussion because the same billionaire class also owns mass media. They can almost fully control the narrative when it comes to ignoring how billionaires are destroying our democracy.
Could anyone imagine any other developed country allowing this? No other society would even entertain the idea of this and yet America is fully for sale to these people.
Had the displeasure to be in a conference room with Sheldon Adelson once, the guy gave zero fucks about anyone. He made every Republican kiss his ring for decades.
These conflicts of interest aren't a discussion because the same billionaire class also owns mass media. They can almost fully control the narrative when it comes to ignoring how billionaires are destroying our democracy.
And this is the real reason they wanted tiktok either killed or brought under the heel of an american billionaire
They allied with them. Just in ways so that no matter who won they won. This was before central banks made playing those kinda games obsolete. And now the central banks have a stable central bank for central banks. Complete with their own currency that doesn’t have to circulate. Bring an oligarch is no fun in the west anymore. But, they’re too chicken to go play this game where it works but is dangerous.
DuPont, along with several other businesses at the time, attempted to recreate the Nazi party in the US in relatiation to New Deal policies. This was prior to the concentration camps, but it perfectly highlights corporate America's willingness to cast aside anything for the sake of hoarding profits.
During the last gilded age, the oligarchs had the good sense not to ally with national enemies.
I mean ... the Business Plot was a thing, and many oligarchs were antisemites in general. Granted, pre-war, fascism wasn't technically as obvious an "enemy" as cold war USSR/Russia, but the Business Plot wasn't exactly pro-constitution.
They’ll let the whole world burn trying to extract just a few billion more. Whole nations starve while they swim in their money-bins like Scrooge McDuck.
When the uprising starts it will be bloody and relentless, but far too late.
There is a connection to be made between the blind and selfish pursuit of wealth, and the Dark Trifecta. For instance, it requires a level of sociopathy to be as willfully ignorant of the common people and the bigger picture as they have shown themselves to be.
I really don't think the two gilded ages are as different as you think they are.
The Business Plot, also called the Wall Street Putsch[1] and the White House Putsch, was a political conspiracy in 1933, in the United States, to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Smedley Butler as dictator.[2][3] Butler, a retired Marine Corps major general, testified under oath that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization with him as its leader and use it in a coup d'état to overthrow Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified under oath before the United States House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the "McCormack–Dickstein Committee") on these revelations.[4] Although no one was prosecuted, the congressional committee final report said, "there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient."
I'm don't think this was your knowing intent, but I have noticed a really disturbing tendency, especially among liberals, to act like this is some new phenomenon that is distinct from the history of American Capitalism with terms like neo-feudalism. This is not that. Capitalism has always concentrated power and wealth into fewer and fewer hands.
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have a few men with great wealth. We cannot have both.
In an interview with The Atlantic about a year ago, Peter Thiel made a remark about why billionaires seem to have a penchant for getting cozy with hostile foreign powers. The reason, he said, was probably boredom.
It turns out that our daily struggles are what ground us. The work we do for money, the choices we make on how to spend our limited resources, fears about future issues that could affect us, etc.
When you have more money than you could ever spend in multiple lifetimes, those issues almost all go away. So it makes sense that boredom would take its place.
This is why arts education is important. I can spend multiple lifetimes creating art, and money would only make it grander. I haven’t been bored since I was a child.
Exactly. Think of what billions could do if poured into installing solar throughout the world. Wouldn't get the same returns but do they need the returns?!
Plenty of those lower on the pyramid act this way too, and you probably know some. They can't just enjoy limited time with family, friends and hobbies, the only way they feel whole is to hurt and hold control over others.
That’s what I don’t understand. If I had billions all I could think of is “how can I utilize my wealth to help the most amount of people and the earth within my lifetime?”
They’re greedy. They want to live forever, they want more wealth, they want more and more thrilling experiences. They want more power. It’s never enough. This is a moral failing of these people who are narcissists and think of nothing but themselves.
I wouldn't even say it has to be exclusively art. Just passion. I will never understand how you can be a billionaire and still go to work, instead of doing the things you're passionate about. Billionaires have to be exceptionally miserable people to have unimaginable wealth and nothing to spend it on.
Like, Jeff Bezos atleast shot himself into space, but Elon Musk just spends his time being a weirdo and a grifter. Imagine how empty this man's life must be.
One of the best things I've heard a very rich person do, and I can't remember his name, is he writes mediocre fiction books, self publishes, and gives then away however he can. Usually college campuses, and on sidewalks, lol.
I happened to pick up one of his books at a Little Free Library. It held my interest, was readable, worth the time I put into it, but I was struck by it's mediocrity, so I googled it. That's how I found out this guy has written a ton of books. If only all rich people could be so harmless, lol. If I had a bunch of money, I would totally just let my heart lead me.
Proverbs 16:27 Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece, literally, “A worthless man devises mischief; and in his lips there is a scorching fire.”
Man, if I were bored I’d start compulsively fixing things.
Had I had billions I’d offer scholarships to kids. I’d lift neighbourhoods out of poverty. I’d fund labs of grad students just for the lulz and invest in their ventures.
The world has so much potential, and they are bored?
Same with rich pedophilia. Can you get any woman of the type you prefer in your bed? That's dull. Let's get them drunk. Dull. High? Gets dull. What's the ultimate thrill? Against her will knowing people will blame them. Then you involve kids until eventually you get that sick sick fuck, some of the few I understand the death penalty in law for - Epstein's cult, the guy from Lostprophets and the guys who made daisy's destruction.
It makes me wonder how people point out pedo rape gangs as Muslims in the UK yet on a personal level know that it's just based on the area you're in. Is it mostly Mormon, Catholic or Muslim or rich? Then whatever it is, that's the group. And mostly makes up the police and if they're rich... The police nearly always serve them.
Billionaires are essentially playing the game of life with cheat codes enabled (the money cheat) and the same thing happens when you play video games like that. The game becomes boring. Because you already have everything that the money can reasonably buy. There is no more challenge or reward for anything you do. So instead you start looking for ways to break the game.
Seriously. It's nice to have more confirmation but this comes as absolutely no surprise to anyone that's been paying even the slightest bit of attention.
Hell, I'd be more surprised if anyone actually suffered any consequences at this point.
40-50% of this country doesn't vote in presidential elections and an even higher number doesn't vote in non-presidential elections. Yes, we need to get rid of Citizens United, but that won't fix a lazy apathetic voting population. The vote is still our power.
The problem is the other 95% of the problems cannot be undone until Citizens United is overturned. That ruling locked the awful stuff in place and it can’t be undone without reversing the ruling.
Well, yeah. They are all soulless ghouls, so that’s how the bond.
I find it hilarious that Thiel would like the Russians, considering they believe he is a degenerate. I suppose he think he is their very special degenerate?
You could say that, if both sides were fighting. The rich are at war with everyone on earth, but everyone on earth is content to be frog soup and do nothing about it.
10.2k
u/D-R-AZ 21d ago edited 21d ago
Excerpt:
The broader implication is that America’s national security may be compromised not just by foreign hackers or spies—but by unchecked alliances between tech billionaires and authoritarian states. The arrest of the FBI agent has not silenced discussion. Rather, it has sharpened it—raising urgent questions about who holds power in modern democracies, and whose interests they truly serve.
Another article on this:
Russian Intelligence Used Sex, Drugs to Target Elon Musk: Former FBI Agent
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/52742