rastilinSep 29, 2023

@bastardsheep @randahl @ghost_shit

Also, I don't understand why Elon cares about the border, like, what's it to him? I think he only cares because it's pandering, which actually mystifies me even more that he's not pro Ukraine.

This is someone who really wants to be a popular figure for the right wingers because he sees how much attention people like Jordan Peterson get, and he knows he won't get that kind of love from left leaning supporters.

Show threadPassenger

@rastilin @bastardsheep @randahl @ghost_shit

Musk cares about the border because "the border" is a publicly-acceptable euphemism for white supremacy.

"Care about the border" means sending cops to terrorise Latinx people, and having special unaccountable police forces and prisons specifically for this purpose. It means a racialised and minoritised group of people having to carry paperwork to protect themselves from being disappeared, which means the process for granting that paperwork can be made arbitrarily complex and expensive in order to force those people around. It means that process can be selectively made more rigid to fuck over individuals who stand out of line.

In world-systems theory, we learn that a border is not a line on a map between countries; it's a line between human beings. "Care about the border" means, in this context, wanting to paint a legal dotted line around every minoritised person so that wherever they go, wherever they were born, they're always an outsider and their rights are only ever temporary and contingent.

I'm South African. I know this tune, even if the words are different. They used to sing it in my country too.

Sep 29, 2023 at 9:07amWeb
Show threadghost_shitSep 29, 2023

@passenger BRAVO!

@rastilin @bastardsheep @randahl

Show threadEndemicEarthlingSep 30, 2023
@passenger @rastilin @bastardsheep @randahl @ghost_shit All settler-colonial nations are hyperanxious about "border control", perhaps due to a suppressed memory projected onto an imagined Other: what if 'they' treat 'us' like 'we' treated/treat 'them'. #auspol
Show threadGrandpa DonSep 30, 2023
@passenger @rastilin
Excellent points. I have long thought the concept of drawing imaginary lines and declaring a random part of the earth's surface to be separate from everything outside the lines to be a nonsensical human construct. Many animals stake out a territory; aboriginal people had regions they dominated. It is a way of ensuring peaceful coexistence. But humans have taken it to extreme as populations grew to outstrip available resources. Now it is a constant game of "king of the hill."
Show threadStarkRGSep 30, 2023
@passenger @rastilin @bastardsheep @randahl @ghost_shit Yeah, his rich, white, apartheid-era upbringing is showing up more and more.
Show threadPassengerSep 30, 2023

@StarkRG

Honestly I'm not sure if it's his Apartheid-era upbringing that's doing it, or if he's going native in the US and picking up their own local version of the tune.

Show threadStarkRGSep 30, 2023
@passenger I think it's a combination of the two. He grew up being told he was the superior race, and then was told that was wrong, but now he's seeing a growing acceptance of that kind of thinking which is bringing it all back.
Show threadPassengerSep 30, 2023

@StarkRG

See, I'm not sure. His rhetoric isn't really that of Afrikaner white supremacists; the whole "invasion" and "secure the border" trope isn't something we particularly had. Afrikaner fascism, then and now, is very much centred on our survival as a minority group, and uses that to justify dominance. There's an eagerness to tie everything back to racial survival and to present any loss of power as the first step in the process of extermination, and Afrikaner fascists are usually extremely eager to indulge in this sort of all-or-nothing rhetoric.

If I heard Musk saying things like "we need to keep the culture alive" and "allowing blacks to vote will inevitably lead to our genocide" and "teaching kids to be gay is assimilation, and assimilation is the same as extermination," then that would be Afrikaner shit and I'd agree with you. As it stands, though, Musk's rhetoric echoes American and European fascism far more.

I don't know much about Australian fascism; what sort of distinctive rhetoric do they use over there?

Show threadStarkRGSep 30, 2023

@passenger His rhetoric is definitely localised, for sure, but it's his upbringing that allows him to think like that.

The current deal over here seems to be that Aboriginals haven't suffered from white colonialism. Not just that they've benefited more than they've suffered, though that's something that's been said too, but that they actually haven't suffered at all. There's probably more, but I find it hard to pay attention to such bullshit.

Show threadStarkRGSep 30, 2023
@passenger If Musk lived in South Africa, Australia, India, or wherever, I'm positive his rhetoric would reflect the local racist bullshit instead.
Show threadPassengerSep 30, 2023

@StarkRG

Thanks, that's interesting to learn about! One must be able to spot one's enemy, after all.

Yeah, I agree that Musk would probably just assimilate to the local fascist beliefs wherever he went. I have never met him (though I have family who went to school with him) but my impression is that the man is impressively gullible.