Elon Musk is one of those “foreign billionaires” about whom mixed feelings are decidedly in order.
What is to like about a rich greenie who has been aiding and abetting the march towards global economic catastrophe through his mass manufacture of useless electric cars, aka Teslas? He has been riding the big climate lie wave to the beach. Or whose idea of a world-wide priority is to send billions of dollars off into outer space (Space X)? Or who calls his children – he has eleven, with a variety of mothers – names like XAE A-XII, Nevada, Exa Dark Sideræl, Strider, Azure and Techno Mechanicus? He seems, on several measures, to be a sandwich or two short of a picnic hamper, to put it politely.
On the other hand, and unlike his apparent fellow Big Tech libertarian, Peter Thiel, who invests in companies like Palantir, which works closely on surveillance with the Central Intelligence Agency in order to help the Deep State get that little bit deeper, Musk seems to have some sense of the importance of free speech and individual liberty generally. Witness his freeing up of Twitter (now X, perhaps named after his son), admitted now a limited freedom hangout, and his provision of a new home to Tucker Carlson, one of world’s leading truth tellers and emerging enemies of globalism and the enveloping post-Covid gloom.
But, also, there is an old rule in politics – hate thy enemies’ enemies.
And, right now, we need to be cheering for Elon in his continuing battle with Australia’s eSafety (sic) Commissioner, the egregious Julie Inman-Grant, like Cannon-Brookes, one of Australia’s hyphenated ogres and one of the prominent examples of that dangerous, emerging phenomenon, the non-elected, powerful policy-maker. Inman-Grant has been pursuing Musk with massive fines for allowing non-politically correct posts on X. Musk is fighting back, thankfully.
Two of Elon’s other current enemies are two of Australia’s political low-lifes, Airbus Albo, the visiting professor of populism, and the appalling Senator Lambie. They have a new weapon – the allowing of posts on X of footage of a recent knife attack on a Sydney bishop. They claim it bolsters their case against Musk’s alleged, continued misinformation sins. And their case for online censorship that is driving a new legislative push for greater powers to shut down “hate speech”.
Here is Airbus:
Albanese boldly claimed that “Overwhelmingly Australians want misinformation and disinformation to stop,” in his justification for his censorship stance, which has relative bipartisan support in the nation.
In response, X vehemently opposed the directive, vowing to challenge it legally, labelling it as "unlawful and dangerous."
Albanese, seizing the opportunity, blasted X for its refusal to comply with the censorship agenda, drawing Musk's attention.
Australian PM claims Elon Musk is 'out of touch' over censorship demands - Rebel News
It is a curious word to use, “misinformation”, in relation to a truthful depiction of an event. Even more curious to conjure up mythical mass support for online censorship. Albanese claims across-the-board support for his latest mission. Just because politicians agree on something doesn’t make it mandated.
Albanese has also focused attention on Musk’s wealth in a number of interviews. By mentioning the old-left boo-word, “billionaire”, Albanese seems to be reaching back in time to the halcyon days of leftist class hatred. Playing an old card. He didn’t mind festy (foreign) billionaires, mind you, when he welcomed Bill Gates to Kirribilli with open arms a couple of years back, to discuss “pandemic planning” and, yes, climate change.
(The climate-health alliance is an emerging threat to global freedom, witnessed by the recent appearance at the Green Planet One Health Benefit 2024 of Michael Mann, the lawfare huckster, inventor of the global warming “hockey stick” and slayer of climate deniers like Mark Steyn and anyone else who dares to question Mann’s academic bona fides or his “studies” of the climate. This event brought together Mann and Peter Daszak, a Covid plandemic organiser and head of the Ecohealth Alliance. Now THERE is a pair).
And Airbus doesn’t mind Aussie billionaires. He even gives them OUR money to build solar manufacturing plants. Yes, there is that hyphenated ogre again, Cannon-Brookes.
The Australian Bullshit Corporation has weighed in, on the issue of X’s refusal to back down on the publication of footage of the knife attack on Australia’s stand-out bishop:
It takes a special kind of person to attract universal criticism across Australia's federal political landscape.
For Elon Musk, the controversial owner of the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, the backlash he's facing is likely something he'll wear as a badge of honour.
He's been called an "egotistical billionaire" by cabinet minister Tanya Plibersek, a "narcissistic cowboy" by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, an "absolute friggin' disgrace" by the Tasmanian independent Jacqui Lambie and an "arrogant billionaire who thinks he's above the law" by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The Coalition too wants in, putting aside its usual defence of free speech rights to suggest Musk is pursuing an "insulting and offensive argument" in his refusal to remove graphic footage of a stabbing in a Sydney church last week.
Quite the collection of political non-entities, megaphoned by their ABC. The Liberals, as usual, don’t quite know where to land. After all, online safety was their idea when in government. Even Dutton has form, as it was his then portfolio, Home Affairs, that, working through spurious paid “fact checkers”, “persuaded” social media companies to shut down Covid’s dissident voices. This was little short of disgraceful. And, instead of apologising abjectly for this, the Liberals are supporting this ghastly weaponising of an already tyrannical bureaucracy.
In the light of “recent events” and “conspiracy theories” over the stabbing, Dutton concludes. Australians v The Agenda refers, aptly, to the Misinformation Uni-Party.
Well, Mr Dutton, hard cases make bad law, as Wikipedia notes:
Hard cases make bad law is an adage or legal maxim meaning that an extreme case is a poor basis for a general law that would cover a wider range of less extreme cases.
Australians v The Agenda also gets the Albanese political trick:
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese manages to correlate the Sydney stabbing rampage with Misinformation.
Yes, as the American Covid hero Aaron Kheriaty says, they do think we are stupid. My wordy, yes.
Musk should be in jail? This from a political class that itself should be had up for industrial scale manslaughter during the Covid panic.
Don’t let a crisis go to waste, it has been said.
Well, Albanese swooped upon the bishop stabbing online affair to bolster his “case” for online censorship and his declared war on MDM (misinformation, disinformation malinformation). This is dishonest, clever, sleight of hand politics at its best, the introduction of an irrelevant canard to distract attention from the real threats posed by his Government’s repugnant legislation and to garner popular support for it. Clever, sleight-of-hand sleaze is about all they are now good for.
Not only is he lying about the dangers of online freedom of speech, but he is playing a card that isn’t even in his hand. And his ALP and other fellow travelling cheer squadders have been ready to join the Musk pile-on.
It is we-the-people, who may or may not have fully formed views about the particular social media film posted on the bishop’s stabbing, who will ultimately suffer through the broader attack on social media as a mechanism for free expression and, more importantly, as a platform for push-back against enforced government and corporate narratives. The internet 1.0, long ago, once held the promise of civil democracy in action. The internet 2.0, not so much. What with Inman-Grant’s and Albanese’s attacks on our fundamental rights.
I just hope someone in the legacy media sees what they are up to, and calls them out. My hopes are not high. Cory Bernardi provides a succinct summary:
The Australian Internet policeman, known as the e-Safety Commissioner doesn't want you to see some of the content it contains.
The footage in question captures an attack by a Muslim zealot on a Sydney Bishop during his religious service.
It's far less graphic than other videos available in Australian social media circles which leads me to thinking it's not the content but something else that's driving the censorship push.
Consider how widespread the video of the drug-addled George Floyd being arrested did the rounds. He died during an arrest, not because the policeman was restraining him but because he'd taken a fatal dose of fentanyl.
That video was used to justify global protests against the police, widespread looting and riots by lawless racists and a plethora of virtue-signalling by politicians.
Then there's the Bondi murders.
Multiple fatalities all captured in graphic detail but no demands to remove those from social media.
So why is the attack on the priest different?
I suspect it's because the alleged perpetrator is a Muslim and being critical of Islam or the behaviour of its adherents is verboten in the woke world.
Source: Confidential Daily Newsletter,24 April 2024
Indeed. All those Muslim dominated electorates to be held!
Draw your own conclusions. Bernardi makes a number of great points, in particular relating to the selectivity of the current crusade against footage on Musk’s platform. This stinks to high heaven of a political class fix, reinforced by sickening grandstanding and moralising by random bogan-senators and others of equal distinction.
There are two simple questions to be put to all those, from Albanese to Inman-Grant to Lambie to NSW Premier Chris Minns (who has also joined the crusade) to Plibersek to Dutton, who all support the rapid march to online tyranny. One, who gets to decide what is misinformation? Two, why them?
Jacinda Ardern’s answer – we (the Government) are your only source of information – is far from reassuring.
Paul Collits
24 April 2024
Airbus tripped up to PNG on some sort of Anzac day stunt involving "walking". Hard to believe I know. We can only hope that the PNG terrain, climate and bugs leaves him with an appropriate souvenir.
It is too much to expect that some of Biden's cannibals will find him delicious.
They only allow violent / disturbing footage when it supports their agenda. Think back to 9/11 - thousands of people turning to ash, over and over and over again. Think back to the covid fear porn, the death counter on the tv daily. These sick politicians don't give a shit about the bishop (especially as he's an "anti-vaxxer"), they're just using this as an excuse to shut us all up for good.