The New Boss ...

    Elon Musk is, without doubt, one of the most controversial figures of our time.  He is an ambitious, self-made visionary who spends most of his waking hours running multiple businesses. His resume as an entrepreneur is the stuff of legends, as he has successfully founded multiple billion-dollar companies.  Depending on whom you talk to, as well as the last price at which Tesla stock traded, he is arguably the wealthiest man on the planet. He claims to be both an anti-government libertarian and a champion of free speech. In fact, one of the past year's more significant business news stories was Elon scraping the change underneath his couch cushions into a pile big enough to buy Twitter, complete with the promise to restore free speech to the internet.

   Y’all remember Twitter, right? The social media hangout, which at some point in the last few years, took it upon itself to provide the world with an “Overton Window.”  In Layman’s terms, they decided to arbitrarily set the limits of modern-day acceptable free speech. They began by suspending the accounts of anyone who engaged in spreading any subjectively defined version of misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and the catch-all …. hate speech. The problem was one man’s conspiracy theory, is another man’s truth - and that truth, is another man’s hate speech. Wouldn’t you know it, former President Trump is closing in on his fourth year of Twitter suspension for spreading hate speech while the Taliban’s account is still growing.

   In the first few days after buying Twitter, to much fanfare, Elon fired 3/4ths of the existing Twitter workforce. Many of those laid off were the censors who spent their days suspending the accounts of those outside the narrowly defined “Overton window.” In the months that followed, however, he has quietly hired back hundreds (at last count) of those censors. Bag wonders, As a champion of free speech who boldly claims he will provide the platform for it, why hire censors at all? Call me cynical, but it’s almost as though his deeds don’t match his words.

   It may be anecdotal, but consider Bagholder’s Twitter page. Bag used it sparingly, mainly to provide links to new articles he had posted on Substack. A couple of months AFTER Elon took over, Bagholder’s Twitter page was suspended. After filing an appeal to get the suspension lifted, Bag was informed by Twitter his posts violated their policy against hate speech, and the suspension would stand. Bagholder is a lot of things, but purveyor of hate speech isn’t one of them. There is some real irony in that pre-Elon Twitter was so brazen about all the censoring they were doing, but it took a self-proclaimed champion of free speech to take over the company, to suspend Bag’s account.

   Bagholder also finds irony in the fact Musk positions himself as a Libertarian, which by definition means anti-government. Consider the following list of his companies: SpaceX, Solar City, The Boring Company, and Tesla. The lion’s share of the revenues for his companies come from Government contracts and Government subsidies. Bag wonders, do you get all that Government scratch by behaving like a libertarian and finding ways to minimize the government’s influence in the world, or do you get it by doing their bidding?  Taking into account that without Government support, not a single one of those companies has ever turned a profit, It really calls into question Musk’s reputation as an entrepreneurial genius. Even a run-of-the-mill businessman like Bagholder could become wealthy selling Shit on a stick, provided the government was there to hand out subsidies.

   Worse yet, now that Elon owns Twitter, what happens when a government entity walks through his door and says: “We want you to censor anyone espousing these opinions” or “We want contact info and a complete history of accounts ABC thru XYZ.”  It just doesn’t seem there is any possibility that Elon, who has spent his entire adult life working WITH governments, would decline their request. When your entire net worth is derived from cashing government checks, you are owned, a bought and paid-for government lackey, nothing more.

   If Bag were to identify Musk’s true natural talent, it would be curating an image as a man of the people. Appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast, smoking pot and dropping F-bombs, makes him highly relatable to the common man. Just last week, Musk, in a very public way, told huge corporations to take their advertising dollars and shove them up their ass. This acted to further cement his bona fides with the plebes. Bag cannot think of any other member of the ruling class that behaves like this. He is remarkably adept at tapping into and diffusing the masses' anger toward the ruling class. Look no further than the time and energy he pours into the absurd fantasy of colonizing Mars. This resonates with the people because it provides hope that a fresh start somewhere else, away from the idiots running the show here on Earth, is somehow possible.

   While it may appear that Bagholder’s criticism of Musk is unfairly harsh, the fact is that Bag finds Musk to be quite entertaining. His role as a tool of the state is what Bag finds troublesome. Musk and our government go to great lengths to keep that relationship concealed. It’s one thing to be upfront about wanting to grow the power and size of government, like, say, Biden or Obama. They are easily recognizable for the cancerous tumors they are. It is something altogether different to present yourself as an anti-government free speech advocate and then quietly work behind the scenes to thwart those very ideals. For Bag, that is where the line gets crossed from benign to malignant.

 

If you don’t want to take Bag’s word for it, Pete Townsend may have said it best:

• “There's nothing in the street

• Looks any different to me

• And the slogans are effaced, by-the-bye

• And the parting on the left

• Is now parting on the right

• And the beards have all grown longer overnight

• I'll tip my hat to the new Constitution

• Take a bow for the new revolution

• Smile and grin at the change all around

• Pick up my guitar and play

• Just like yesterday

• Then I'll get on my knees and pray

• We don't get fooled again

• Don't get fooled again, no, no

• Meet the new boss

• Same as the old boss”