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[–] 164 points 2 years ago (10 children)

The US has spent at least 80 Billion dollars arming and supporting Ukraine in it's defense against Russian genocidal aggression and Western expansion that puts the entire NATO block in jepordy, why is Elon fucking Musk allowed to put his thumb on the scale in favor of the enemy? Why isn't anyone in the Biden administration tearing him a new asshole form stem to stern, why isn't anyone in the Biden administration publicly discussing nationalizing Starlink. We're literally throwing money into conflict (for absolutely necessary, vital, and justified reason) that one man is deciding the outcomes of, and the United States government is just ..... what .... ok with this?

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  • [–] 44 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I'm just some dumbfuck but,..money?

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Pretty much - Muskrat most likely privately funds (read: bribes) enough government officials to either stand by and do nothing or actively interfere.

    This advisor should also consider the lack of response from the US itself as part of the problem - Muskrat is helping out an enemy, but uhhh… what the fuck did the government do to curb that shit from happening in the first place?

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    Friendly reminder to everyone that all politicians are corrupt pieces of shit that will sell you out in a heartbeat. I don't know what the solution is but anyone who isn't rich is getting absolutely fucked by our own governments.

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  • [–] [S] 35 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    One thing that seems to be the case with Biden's administration - there's a lot going on behinds the scenes that we're not aware of.

    You're right, there should be some life changing repercussions for Musk. Hopefully we'll find out those are in the works.

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's insane to me that the CEO of a private company can directly engage to change the outcome of a battle without the whole population completely losing their shit over it. This asshole turned off his product to intentionally prevent our ally from succeeding in a battle against our enemy. And his reason is that he was trying to prevent escalation. How the fuck is that his call to make?

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Isn't most of that $80 billion in the form of weaponry ordered from US manufacturers? Or maybe I've misunderstood. I thought much of the cash hasn't really left America.

    But yeah, musk needs to be stopped. No one person should have so much power, it makes a joke of democracy.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago

    Most of it is actually old equipment they're taking out of storage. Of course the US likes to have stuff like that around for various contingencies, one of which is the exact thing it's being used for now. So new equipment will be bought for the US military and existing equipment will be placed into a storage a little sooner than usual.

    But a big chunk of that price tag is ordinance, and yeah that needs to be re-ordered right away.

    But at any rate, yeah nearly all of it is from US manufacturers, though there may be a few parts and things from allies like Canada.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I don't feel like nationalizing Starlink for the USA is best for everyone. It is a world-wide network, I feel like it would be better as something that isn't controlled by any single country (but, obviously I agree it should not be controlled by a single billionaire fuck-boy either...).

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Go check out who runs GPS. Starling being nationalized isn't happening, but if it did the service would likely keep on keeping on.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    GPS is quite a bit different. The satellites just orbit and send the same information out. The user device doesn't have to send anything back - the "communication" is only 1-way. Also, GPS is significantly further out from the planet and involves a lot less satellites, so it is not really feasible to turn them off specifically targeting a small area or an individual target - you'd have to black out a huge chunk of the planet to reliably block "an enemy" from using it.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Why with all those billions are we relying on a private company for military communications? I'm not excusing Musk AT ALL, but communications are insanely important in a conflict. Why are these governments spending all of this money and not just doing it themselves? If the military ordered supplies from Walmart and Walmart didn't deliver them, wouldn't we be asking the government instead "why the hell did you do that?"

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  • [+] -8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Another "liberal" who hates democracy...

    Why isn't Biden just confiscating a private company??? Are you serious?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    How are these things in any way related?

    Democracy - the people voting on laws; representative democracy - the people voting for representatives to vote on laws

    Nationalizing a company that provides a fundamental, necessary world wide service because one man decided he could determine the outcome of a battle.

    Hmm... not really sure how these two things are related.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Billionaires are not democratic.

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  • [–] -4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    And what do you think calling for the state to take control of a business that disagrees with it's policy goals is?

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Nationalization? That's not a new concept.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    So you'd be okay with trump nationalizing a company because it disagrees with his foreign policy?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I wouldn't be okay with trump in the first place, so I don't see how that's much of a gotcha.

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