Elon Musk’s stances on statues gives away who he is.
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Transcript:
00:00:00:05 - 00:00:25:15
Bennett Tomlin
Elon Musk cares about some statues more than he cares about other statues. It may seem strange to focus on what the richest man in the world thinks about some statues, but it reveals what he thinks about some people. For context, in October 2023, a statue of white supremacist slave owner and treasonous General Robert E Lee was melted down.
00:00:25:17 - 00:01:00:21
Bennett Tomlin
This was the same statue which had inflamed the very racist right wing Unite the Right rally organizers in Charlottesville, in response to this statue being melted down. An account called Giga Thaad with two A's instead took to Twitter to claim, literally, my ancestor. We carry the Lee name as a first middle in my family, and well, I don't need a directly insulting gesture to tell that my kind is hated and may seek our extinction.
00:01:00:23 - 00:01:33:18
Bennett Tomlin
The implicit clues were strong enough. I appreciate this image, making it absolutely clear. This was already a strange thing for Giga Thaad to say, because Lee's statue was being melted down because he was a racist, slave owning guy who did treason. And only some of those apply to gigafact. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, saw this post from once again an account called Giga Thaad and decided to respond to say they absolutely want your extinction.
00:01:33:20 - 00:02:00:15
Bennett Tomlin
Elon Musk was so upset that the statue was being melted down that he was able to confidently state that we all want giga Thaad to go extinct. Or maybe we weren't racist slave owners who commit treason to go extinct. It's not entirely clear, but we know Elon is having a lot of big feelings about it now. Maybe you want to give Elon the undeserved benefit of the doubt.
00:02:00:17 - 00:02:14:06
Bennett Tomlin
Maybe you think Elon believes every statue is precious and needs to live a long and happy life, no matter how bad its subject was? A few days ago, Elon seemed to change his tone.
00:02:14:08 - 00:02:49:07
Bennett Tomlin
Protesters have been tearing down statues of Hugo Chavez, an authoritarian socialist dictator, president of Venezuela. Elon's response to this is not to warn about extinction, but to instead quote, tweet someone who has previously said they love Hitler. To state his new opinion that the dominoes continue to fall. It really seems from here that Elon cares a weird amount about statues of white supremacists who commit treason, because he clearly has decided that not every statue needs defending, only some statues.
00:02:49:08 - 00:03:02:07
Bennett Tomlin
So Elon Musk is not a statue guy. He's a white supremacist statue guy. He's a slave owner statue guy, a treasonous statue guy. A real fucking weird statue guy.
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John F Kennedy was a sexual predator by today’s standards. Lyndon Johnson was corrupt and stole his Senate primary. FDR was manipulative and a MeToo boss. We can keep going . Most popular heroes are anything but to their detractors , who are generally legion. Judging historical heroes by simplistic anachronistic templates viz. Jefferson, Grant, Washington, McKinley, Jackson, Madison, Theodore Roosevelt is neither insightful not an especially productive current political issue. I share your distaste for Musk: but tackle him in the areas in which you appear to be particularly knowledgeable as opposed to what appears to be relatively poor ground for both of you.
It is not anachronistic to call Lee racist. He absolutely was racist, and there absolutely was a moral movement at the time to deal with slave owning racists.
You might even call it the issue that defines Lee