Actual truth
White House criticises Elon Musk over ‘hideous’ antisemitic lie
On Wednesday, Mr Musk replied [to] a post sharing an antisemitic conspiracy theory, calling it “actual truth”. Mr Musk has denied that the post was antisemitic. But a White House spokesman said his endorsement of the post, which drew anger online, was “unacceptable”.
“We condemn this abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms,” said White House spokesperson Andrew Bates. He noted that the post Mr Musk was responding to referred to a conspiracy theory that motivated the man who killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.
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On Wednesday, Mr Musk responded with his “truth” comment to a post that accused Jewish communities of pushing “hatred against whites” and which included anti-immigrant sentiments. It appeared to be an endorsement of a racist and antisemitic conspiracy theory known as “white genocide,” which argues that Jewish people systematically plot to encourage immigration of “non-white” people to Western countries in order to “eliminate” the white race.
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Mr Musk denies he is antisemitic and later said his comments referred not to all Jewish people but to groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other unspecified “Jewish communities”.
NotallJews. That’s fine then.
Let’s just point out the dishonesty of the BBC’s and the White House’s statements on this:
“Mr Musk replied [to] a post sharing an antisemitic conspiracy theory, calling it “actual truth”.”
Note that there’s no caveat there. The post is baldly asserted to have shared “an antisemitic conspiracy theory”. And:
“He noted that the post Mr Musk was responding to referred to a conspiracy theory that motivated …”. No caveat there either.
But, then a bit lower, they get round to telling us what this supposed “antisemitic conspiracy theory” actually is:
“It appeared to be an endorsement of a racist and antisemitic conspiracy theory known as “white genocide,” …”.
Suddenly there’s a caveat. Suddenly the Tweet only “appeared to be” an endorsement. But that “antisemitic conspiracy theory” wasn’t in the Tweet, and the Tweet only “appears to be” a reference to it if you’re determined to read into it the most malign intent you can.
Again, the fair reading of the Tweet, in line with dozens of other Tweets by Musk, is that the “theory” being opposed is woke DEI/CRT theory that demonises white people as “oppressors” and “colonists”. And yes, plenty of the woke left *do* promote that theory, and plenty of Jewish people (including organisation like the ADL) have done so also.
So, the BBC, the White House and the rest of the woke brigade who are criticising Musk over this are being dishonest. Which is (sadly) not new and not a surprise.
According to you. You think it’s very clear that’s not what Musk meant. I don’t think it’s clear at all. Maybe if one had been following him closely, reading every tweet and following what every tweet led to, it would be clear (or maybe it wouldn’t), but it’s not clear from the tweets themselves.
To be clear, the tweet Musk responded to:
Which Musk greeted with “You have said the actual truth.”
I’m not seeing a lot of ambiguity there.
And just to add:
Musk is someone who, in the last four elections, voted Obama, Obama, Clinton and Biden. He’s also said he’s unlikely to vote Biden again (and said he could vore for DeSantis).
This sort of thing, with a woke White House joining in with a woke attack on him, is exactly why he now feels alienated from a party that he previously supported. If the Democrats are actively trying to alienate any centrist-minded people who dislike wokeness, then they’re doing the right thing. If they’re alienating Musk then there’s a lot of others in the centre who will be similarly alienated. They should remember that all elections are won by whoever best appeals to the middle ground.
Currently, both parties in the US seem to be actively trying to lose the next election.
@Ophelia:
Well ok, yes, you’re right, if you read only the Tweet Musk replied to and Musk’s reply, then the intent is not clear. You could read all sorts of things into it. But is that a fair thing to do?
If you do read Musk’s Tweets in the ensemble, including ones further down the same thread (which I quoted under the first post on this), and indeed if you follow the theme of Musk’s Tweets over time, then it is entirely clear what he thinks about this and what he was agreeing with.
There are many Tweets by Musk along a similar theme, just for example:
Tweeter: “Everyone is allowed to be proud of their race, except for white people, because we’ve been brainwashed into believing that our history was somehow “worse” than that of other races. That false narrative needs to die – and if we really want to do the comparing game, white people have also done A LOT of good for the world.”
Musk: “Yeah, this is super messed up. Time for this nonsense to end and shame ANYONE who perpetuates these lies!”
Or this one:
Tweeter: “Black Guy: People shouldn’t be racist against black people. Judge people by the content of their character!
“Crowd: Yeah!
“Jewish Guy: And people shouldn’t be anti-semitic!
“Crowd: Yeah!
“White Guy: And people shouldn’t hate white people either!
“Crowd: RACIST! Get him!”
To which Musk replied: “Exactly!”
These are all criticism of CRT/wokeness, which is the theme underlying a great many of Musk’s Tweets. And that’s the context in which one should read the Tweet under question here.
Note also, he’s Tweeted many times attacking woke gender ideology also, does he get any credit for that?
Ophelia @3,
And that was in response to this tweet:
So the tweeter that Musk thinks was saying “the actual truth” admitted tacitly to posting “Hitler was right.” Hard to explain that away.
@Maroon:
Oh come on, that’s a heck of a stretch. He was simply replying to: “You got something you want to say? Why dont you say it to our faces…”.
Anyhow, if you want to understand that poster, the one Musk agreed with, well, there are actually lots of Tweets in that thread and adjacent threads.
(It’s bizarre that people are treating Twitter as though you’re only allowed to read one Tweet at a time, and must interpret it devoid of all context).
Here are some quotes from that person:
“I support Jewish people’s right to self defense literally and ideologically. But I also, as a white person, have to acknowledge that it’s been depressing to see Jewish communities not take a stronger stance against anti white dialecticism that is basically just repurposed antisemitism.”
Then, in reply to someone asking: “How is it antisemitism?”
“Anti white bigotry? Because it uses a dialectical view. If you take most any antisemitic trope and remove “Jews” and “Jewishness” and insert “whites” and “whiteness” you have basically an interchangeable set of ideas to attack either group.”
Then in reply to someone mentioning “conspiracy theories”:
“Look, I’ve been clear. I’m not here for this shit. I’m here to defend white people from unfair propaganda. Not to hate Jews.”
And also:
“I’ve clarified in many, many follow ups and replies in that thread. I’m referring basically entirely to left wing Jewish entities. Journalists, authors, orgs like the ADL, etc. Groups, I think, erroneously push anti white ideology and tend to support policies that tend to erode westernism. I, personally, have defended Israelis and Jews as a whole for a long time, and it’s all over my TL.”
In other words, a complete absence of any dislike of Jews, a complete absence of any “anti-Semitic conspiracy theories” that the BBC claims the Tweets were all about. Again, he, like Musk is just rejecting the woke/CRT/DEI anti-whiteness that is all the rage nowadays.
This is completely obvious if you just read a few Tweets in context.
Coel — “(It’s bizarre that people are treating Twitter as though you’re only allowed to read one Tweet at a time, and must interpret it devoid of all context).”
It’s not so bizarre. Unless you are signed up, this is precisely the case. I am not signed up, and when I follow a link from here to a tweet, I can only see that tweet and cannot navigate to anything other than a sign up page. Also when navigating directly, without linking, the individual twitter accounts only show tweets from around two years ago, if at all. Sometimes you go directly to a sign up page, and as many twitter users as there are, there are many more who are not, Twitter has been going through different variations of non-user access, apparently trying to maximize both exposure (for revenue) and sign ups (for potential revenue), but it keeps changing.
For what it’s worth, I read the original tweet as expressing a critique of the sort of blind, quasireligious fervor with which so many “progressives” embrace multiculturalism, despite the glaringly obvious issues it comes with–a sentiment most of us here have agreed with on multiple occasions. If I may:
(Referencing the town that elected a Muslim majority and were somehow surprised that their new government didn’t like the gays none too much.)
Ah yes, like all those “progressives” who campaigned against PEN America honoring the Charlie Hebdo dead.
Yep, I hadn’t thought of that example. Support for Genderism despite its antagonism to feminism and gay rights would be another. Still another might be the current viral trend among “progressives”: Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America”.
For real.
PS to add:
If nothing else, the White House picking a fight with Musk by joining in the blatant lying about what he said is tactically dumb.
I mean, they do realise that: (1) there is an election coming, (2) Twitter is influential, and (3) Musk has his grubby paws all over Twitter, right?
And they set a precedent at the last election, over old-Twitter’s locking out of the New York Post account, where the wokies all intoned “Twitter is a private company, they can do what they like”.
Or are they so woke-addled that, despite realising the above, they still need to pander to the woke left?
And despite pandering to the woke left getting them nowhere since they already have their votes (the Pope would be more likely to vote for Satan than a wokie vote Republican).
I remember a time when someone characterized as being ‘woke’ was a good thing and not a perjorative. It seems as if the liberal attitude of being aware of social injustice is the baby getting thrown out with the bathwater. How much casual throwing around of the term completely ignores it’s original meaning and intent? I would say very much, judging by how and by whom it’s being used.
The wiki on woke is interesting (particularly how it’s used in Europe). >>
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke