Removed by mod

Removed by mod

They might not know all the details. Even between people who’ve known each other for a long time it’s not common to know their precise legal status, and that goes double for family/friends of a friend.

If you’re going to do business with someone it’s completely reasonable that they set their own terms. Elon Musk does not have the right to force his business on a country that does not want to do business with him, no matter the reason. South Africa’s BEE regulations are intended to re-balance the scales after decades of brutal apartheid and oppression. People like Elon Musk notice the loss of privileges they once enjoyed and interpret it as an infringement on their rights equivalent to or worse than historically oppressed (because disadvantaged does not do justice to what they suffered) groups.

And let’s be very clear, if he wants to do business in South Africa he should comply with the regulations and grant a 30% ownership stake to historically oppressed groups. He is not compelled to do so just as South Africa is not compelled to grant him a license.

This is nothing more than a feeling that you have, and has no basis in fact. All the worst atrocities committed in the name of communism throughout history cannot possibly compare in scale or cruelty to the actions of even a single fascist state.

In addition to the difference in scale there is a difference in motive. Communists have noble goals, but atrocities result from threat-induced paranoia and selfish opportunists co-opting revolutionary fervor. The atrocities of fascism are pure evil in both motive and action. Fascists seek to eliminate those that they deem inferior, and they carry this out with unimaginable cruelty and glee.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Europe is sliding into fascism too, just not as quickly. Regulating capitalism treats the symptoms and not the disease, and so it can only ever bring temporary relief. The problems we are experiencing now are not the product of a broken system, they are the inevitable result of capitalist economics, no matter how restrained.

Of course it isn’t just sitting around unused, it’s being reinvested to make more money. Billionaires typically put most of their net worth into assets and stocks and then live off of loans, just like the comic I posted alludes to. Just because they don’t have literal piles of cash sitting around doesn’t mean they aren’t absurdly wealthy.

And let’s be honest, if a billionaire wanted a Scrooge McDuck style gold pile they could have it arranged within a week at most.

An exceedingly dangerous activity indeed.

The problem is that meaningfully helping others often requires self-sacrifice. Solidarity is a shift in perspective, to extend the self around others and act in the collective interest.

It’s not exactly uncommon for systems set up to oppose something to end up supporting them instead. See the ADL covering for Elon and condemning those opposed to genocide as antisemitic. In theory the ADL should be opposed to fascism, but because Israel has become fascist they found themselves on the same side as those who had been and would be their oppressors.