History, Poetry, Security

Normalizing Racism: Elon Musk Questions Why Nazis Get a Negative Public Reaction

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Elon Musk seems to have a troubling penchant for using his brands to flirt with Nazi symbolism and spread toxic ideologies. His social media antics often feel like a calculated effort to disseminate hate and disinformation. Some observers even suggest he’s become a prominent figure in promoting white supremacist rhetoric, casting a damaging shadow over his public persona. Whether in Germany or elsewhere, Musk’s actions speak louder than his tweets, and they paint a disturbing picture.

One blatantly obvious tactic is Musk’s constant oscillation between claiming to be the smartest person (which he clearly isn’t) and pretending to be the dumbest (which he clearly isn’t either). When you understand this charade, the danger of his tweets becomes immediately apparent.

The AfD is the modern Nazi party in Germany, which has worked hard to normalize and reintroduce extremism by falsely claiming to be moderating it.

German far-right leader intentionally used banned Nazi slogan, court rules

When Elon Musk regularly protests against democracy by questioning the condemnation of the AfD’s Nazi rhetoric with comments like, “Why is the AfD uttering Nazi phrases bad? I’m ‘missing’ an explanation,” what should be said to him?

Why should Elon Musk be taken seriously rather than dismissed when he repeatedly questions the harm in spreading Nazi slogans by a political party rooted in racist hate?

Is Elon Musk subtly suggesting that we should find something positive in the mass suffering caused by racism, as he seems to? Is he lamenting the loss of the wealth and privilege his family accrued during apartheid before he fled its downfall in 1988 to America (becoming an illegal immigrant)?

These are the real questions provoked by his repeated disingenuous queries pretending to not understand why the far-right extremist AfD is bad.

Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed genius, is trying to pretend like he can’t seem to grasp why anyone would see Nazis as an extremist group instead of mainstream. He “gaslights” between pretending to be the smartest person alive and then displaying a baffling ignorance that’s both dangerous and absurd, using Twitter to fraudulently normalize Nazi ideologies under the guise of intellectual discourse.

Maybe someone should teach this pampered apartheid-era silver spooner how to read properly. After all, the self-styled innovator, who shamelessly takes credit for others’ work, clearly needs help understanding the basics. Honk, honk—watch the clueless clown with his big shoes and funny nose try to play the part of a thoughtless leader.

Timeless advice from Walt Disney on the appropriate reaction to Elon Musk’s antics…

Here’s a quick song to help.

“When Elon Musk says, ‘We ist der AfD in a race’,
“We HEIL! (phhht!) HEIL! (phhht!) Right in Elon Musk’s face!
“Not to love AfD is a great disgrace,
“So we HEIL! (phhht!) HEIL! (phhht!) Right in Elon Musk’s face!”

Fortunately, due to occupation by Allied forces, the German papers today are the opposite of “missing” these history lessons and don’t hesitate to educate. They have been obliged to smack down Elon Musk levels of feigned ignorance and stop his disinformation tactics.

For example, it doesn’t get much clearer than this.

Berlin. Vor laufender Kamera nennt der SPD-Chef die AfD „Nazis“.

That’s the head of a mainstream major German political party who says the AfD are Nazis. The very definition.

Thus there should be no doubt that Elon Musk’s big reaction to AfD in the news was very strategically timed. He Tweeted a question during German elections asking why Nazis are bad, which reveals a lot about him and his active foreign political campaigns.

His targeted disinformation blast from a bully pulpit is perhaps something the AfD and Elon Musk have even conspired to use. Reuters warns that such public-private methods of commercial/socialized extremism have been successful in “cracking” the “firewalls” that were meant to protect German democracy from hate groups.

Experts on far-right extremism say there also has been a very strategic pattern of lies, broken promises and false ignorance used by the AfD to obfuscate their Nazism, allowing it to creep back into vulnerable areas.

Right-wing extremism experts like sociologist Matthias Quent, who teaches at the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences, aren’t surprised by the AfD’s proximity to the neo-Nazis. “The AfD and NPD are closely linked ideologically.” He says the AfD has long been a kind of “NPD light.” The NPD “paved the way for the AfD, in both East and West Germany,” Quent says.

In a constituency analysis he completed together with other colleagues back in 2017, the researcher found that the AfD is performing especially well in areas where the NPD used to be strong. At the same time, it performs worse where the NPD hasn’t been as successful. There is a “specific cultural-political space,” Quent says, that favors parties like the AfD.

Elon Musk knows exactly what he’s doing when he asks what is so extreme about the AfD after the BBC reported that the party is run by and for dangerous anti-democratic racist Nazis.

…the BBC has found a clear crossover between AfD figures and far-right networks, some of which are classed as anti-democratic or racist by German authorities.

The BBC even noted the AfD says the quiet part out loud in private conversations.

In leaked remarks [an AfD leader] mentions Nazism several times, including an apparent description of himself as the “friendly face” of National Socialism and… Nazi-era judge, Roland Freisler.

Elon Musk is normalizing Nazism by falsely claiming to know nothing or be “missing” something. In fact, to him and his infamously fascist family (who supported Hitler and fled Canada to South Africa to create the white supremacist apartheid political system) the extremism of Nazism probably feels most normal.

Related:

  • German Court Rules Elon Musk’s Communications With AfD as Extremist (Nazi-related)
  • If AfD are Nazis, and Elon Musk Campaigns for AfD, What Does That Make Him?
  • Elon Musk “most prolific liar in the history of American business”
  • Twitter’s “X” Design Based on Nazi Swastika
  • Tesla Announces “8/8” Launch Date for RoboNazis
  • Elon Musk says some of his best friends are Jews

See also: Tesla Expands Nazi Symbolism in New Mezcal Campaign

Update:

After being called out as a “full-blown Nazi sympathizer” Elon Musk replied by falsely claiming, yet again, that his support for Nazism feels centrist and not at all extreme.

Remember, Elon Musk is from apartheid South Africa, so this is what he is calling a “centrist party of ~20 years ago“:

  • Dieter Görnert, AfD: “Das Pack erschießen oder zurück nach Afrika prügeln.”

    Shoot the pack of vermin or beat them back to Africa.

  • Marcel Grauf, Referent von Dr. Christine Baum, AfD und Heiner Merz, AfD: “Immerhin haben wir jetzt so viele Ausländer im Land, dass sich ein Holocaust mal wieder lohnen würde.”

    We have so many immigrants in the country that another holocaust would be worthwhile.

  • Marcel Grauf, Referent von Dr. Christina Baum, AfD und Heiner Merz, AfD: “Ich wünsche mir so sehr einen Bürgerkrieg und Millionen Tote. Frauen, Kinder. Mir egal. Es wäre so schön. Ich will auf Leichen pissen und auf Gräbern tanzen. SIEG HEIL!”

    I wish for a civil war and millions of deaths so badly. Women, children. I don’t care. It would be magnificent. I want to piss on dead bodies and dance on graves. SIEG HEIL!

  • Holger Arppe, AfD: “Wir müssen ganz friedlich und überlegt vorgehen, uns ggf. anpassen und dem Gegner Honig ums Maul schmieren aber wenn wir endlich soweit sind, dann stellen wir sie alle an die Wand. (…) Grube ausheben, alle rein und Löschkalk oben rauf.”

    We must proceed peacefully and calculated, adapt if necessary and butter up the enemy, but when we’re ready, we’ll put them all up against the wall to shoot them. dig a ditch, throw them in and put slaked lime on top.

  • Egbert Ermer, AfD: “Drecksack-Antifakindern bekiffter Eltern gehört eine verpasst und sie in den Dreck geworfen. Ihnen gehört gedroht, dass sie nächstes Mal unter der Erde liegen!”

    Scumbag-antifakids of stoned parents are to be beaten and thrown into the dirt. Threaten them that next time they will be put 6 feet under.

  • Andreas Geithe, AfD: “Wir sollten eine SA gründen und aufräumen!”

    We should create a new SA and clean up.

  • Beatrix von Storch, AfD: “Wenn jemand kommt, und den ganz großen Knüppel rausholt und das damit schafft, innerhalb von zwei Tagen zu beenden, bin ich sofort dabei.”

    If somebody comes with the really big bat and manages to end it all in 2 days, I’m all for it.

  • Petr Bystron, AfD: “Solche Menschen müssen wir selbstverständlich entsorgen.”

    Of course we must dispose of those kinds of people.

  • Björn Höcke, AfD: “Das große Problem ist, dass man Hitler als das absolut Böse darstellt.”

    The big problem is, that Hitler is portrayed as the absolute evil.

Security

U.S. Military is Developing a New Bright Line to Detect Extremism

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The Project on Government Oversight, reporting on a 2023 Army Audit Agency report, says we’re a month away from another attempt to write an enforceable extremism policy with a clear definition.

[In 1995] white, active-duty soldiers murdered two Black people in North Carolina, who they picked randomly due to their race. The white supremacist views of one of the murderers was apparently “well-known” prior to the murders, according to a Washington Post article, underscoring why identifying and reporting extremist activity before there is violence is so important. The then-secretary of the Army launched a task force on racial extremism.

Then, like now, there were questions about how to define extremism and how to mount an effective approach to identifying extremists in the ranks. Yet “no clear definition of ‘extremism’ was established” by the task force, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

Here’s the news from 1997 that they are referring to:

A North Carolina jury found James N. Burmeister, 21, guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy in the December 1995 shooting deaths of Jackie Burden, 22, and Michael James, 36. The couple was shot at close range while strolling down a dirt road near Ft. Bragg, home to the U.S. Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Burmeister, who authorities said targeted the couple simply because they were black. The sentencing phase of the case was scheduled to begin today.

The shootings prompted an Army investigation that revealed 22 soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division had “active, passive or former links” to extremist groups. Nine of the 22 faced discharges or civilian or military trials, whereas the other 13 received lesser punishments. […]

During the two-week trial, prosecutors argued that Burmeister killed the couple merely to earn a spider web tattoo as part of a rite of membership for racist skinheads at Ft. Bragg. The jury also heard testimony that Burmeister often said blacks should be rounded up and shipped to Africa or shot. […]

Months before the double murders, Burmeister had received an Army reprimand and counseling because of his extremist views. His security clearance had also been revoked after a fight with a black soldier.

A three-month Army study… recommended that the Army draft clearer rules on participating in extremist organizations, conduct more-thorough screenings of recruits to keep out those with extremist views and institute new training courses about extremist activity.

And so here we are 30 years later looking for that Army draft of clearer rules on extremist organizations and views. Something tells me that active propaganda spread by Elon Musk to undermine long-standing definitions of “far-right” extremism, while he’s building a commercial army of lethal robots, makes this more urgent than ever.

Is Tesla building Timothy McVeigh sentiments into their algorithmic driven products and customers to evade extremism detection?

Related:

  • Lawfare: “Why Defining ‘Extremism’ Matters to the U.S. Military”
  • Stars and Stripes: “Extremism in the US military remains dangerous threat even though DOD-commissioned report downplays it”
  • The Atlantic: “Extremism in the Military Is a Problem: It doesn’t have to be big to be lethal”
  • Politico: “The military has a hate group problem. But it doesn’t know how bad it’s gotten.”
  • CNN: “US Army survey results underline ongoing struggles to combat extremism after Pentagon made it top priority”
  • VICE: “US Military Veterans Are Increasingly Turning to Extremism: DOD Report”
  • The Guardian: “‘The Timothy McVeighs are still there’: fears over extremism in US military”
  • NYT: “Extremists in Uniform Put the Nation at Risk”
  • USA Today: “The military ordered big steps to stop extremism. Two years later, it shows no results”
Food, History, Security

Tesla Nazi Symbolism Expanded in New Mezcal Campaign

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Recently I wrote about the Tesla “Cyberhammer” Nazi symbolism, after I wrote about the Tesla 8/8 launch date fiasco. Now Tesla has unveiled a completely unnecessary and overpriced product: a bottle of booze in a weird lightning shape.

Notably, many people have pointed out to me how Mezcal lightning bottles form the infamous Nazi SS rune.

The bottles are 750ml, or 1500ml for a pair, allegedly an update on a 2020 design blamed on Javier Verdura, director of product.

In fact, the official Tesla release statement for the mezcal claims that that the infamous Nazi SS design by Javier was meant to honor his roots, a life in Mexico City.

The bottle was designed by Tesla’s Director of Product Design, Javier Verdura, in honor of his Mexican roots and early life growing up in Mexico City.

Honor roots how? The vast majority of mezcal is “artesanal” and “joven” (unaged), and the vast majority of agave is “espadín”, so this bottle says basically nothing. The details couldn’t be more superficial and generic.

I hate to be the one to point this out but mezcal is usually meant to share the particular details of people who make it and their methods, which the Tesla design absolutely does not “honor” in any way.

“I look for the name of the person who made it—the mezcalero or mezcalera—the town where it’s made, and the mezcal varietal, such as espadín,” says Boehm [owner of The Cabinet, an agave spirit-focused bar]. “And the more information, the better.”

So who made Tesla’s mezcal? The Tesla website just says Nosotros. That brand turns out to be a recent graduate from Loyola Marymount (LA) who in 2015 had “a college assignment” to imagine a business, so he created one in California.

I discovered tequila when I moved from Costa Rica to California… Our big break came from the San Francisco World Spirit Competition. With less than $1,000 in the bank, we submitted our Blanco and won multiple awards, including Best Tequila of the Show! Suddenly, we had the attention of buyers everywhere, and that led to our first string of large order sales. The first two years were spent focusing on small boutique restaurants. Now, we’re focused on continuing to grow our retail presence. After three years of development, we just recently launched our Mezcal.

That’s it. That’s Tesla mezcal. So how again is this design concept honoring Mexican roots?

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that we are supposed to connect a lightning bolt bottle design to the ancient legend about an Agave plant in Mexico struck by the gods and mystically delivering alcohol. However, this actual Mexican connection seems far-fetched because why would Tesla honor real roots when they clearly don’t care about Mexico at all? Their mezcal press release could be accused of burying Mexican heritage if their lightning theme is supposed to fit somehow since they haven’t explained anything and did such a poor job of highlighting any reasons to believe them.

More specifically, Tesla chose a very obvious Nazi-looking lightning bolt design. How is that supposed to make us think about the ancient fertility goddess Mayahuel and her four hundred breasts, often depicted as agave leaves with “drunken bunnies” sipping on them? The Aztec symbolism, such as the phrase “drunk as 400 rabbits” (Centzon Tōtōchtin), representing infinite intoxication, would make far more sense.

Anyway, I digress. There’s really nothing about a Nazi SS-shaped lightning bolt that connects us to Mexico for a bottle filled by a Costa Rican business school student in California. A design with plausible roots featuring fertility, or a bunch of stumbling drunk rabbits would have been a much clearer tie-in.

Do you know who really promoted the lightning bolt into Mexican culture, specifically for tequila?

Can you guess?

It was two British guys from Peckham, England who drank a Siete Leguas Anejo in 2017 and then quit their jobs to start a competing brand in 2019 called El Rayo (lightning).

Once in Mexico we linked up with a local designer, Mario and he showed us a culture that blew our minds! Forget sombreros and cactuses, this was modern Mexico… but after 3 trips and a lot of sips! Lightning struck and in May 2019 El Rayo ⚡ was born!

Lightning struck in 2019. Could two British nerds vacationing be any more awkward about how they decided to reframe Mexican culture to be suited more to their own tastes?

And did I mention Tesla claims they alone came up with a lightning concept for a tequila bottle in 2020? Yeah, oops, Tesla your designer is busted. The idea looks to be stolen from these two English guys, who were not even pretending to like Mexican heritage because they repeatedly boast how lightning branding for tequila was invented by them to erase the past.

I wish I could say it was the first thing we came up with but it wasn’t, we had a fairly bleak process to get to El Rayo – but it was worth the wait! It actually came from a book that Jack’s brother gave to him! Lightning fits in with our brand world – we want to be a bold and exciting presence and it will be a key asset for the brand moving forward.

A book? What book? A bleak process to get to “bold” new El Rayo sounds like the literal opposite to Tesla claiming lightning is to honor the old life in Mexico. What book?

And that’s what makes this so interesting as a design issue. Tesla did not say it’s about electricity, or being an electric car. They said it’s about Mexico. Yet the El Rayo team did not make anything that even remotely resembled Nazi symbolism when they invented the lightning brand for tequila. So it’s a break from Mexican life, and Tesla is exposed.

With that in mind, also accompanying this release of Tesla mezcal “SS” bottles are two cups featuring a letter “S” each. When placed together these “SS” cups have a capacity of 88ml, a number notoriously associated with the phrase “Heil Hitler” in neo-Nazi circles.

Price: $55
Features: Holds 1.5 oz (44 ml)

Perhaps you know that when you buy random mezcal cups in Mexico they vary from 1oz to 3oz or more and usually come in sets of four wide mouth bowls called a “copita”.

“It allows the nose to get close to the mezcal while making it easy to sip,” says Jon Bamonte, lead bartender at Philadelphia’s Vernick Fish, which partners with Mezonte mezcal for the bar’s agave program.

Alas, Tesla is promoting exactly 88ml to their customers in their weirdly tall cups that look nothing like a proper shape. The affinity for that number is not new, as I’ve written before. In many other places Tesla has often featured it, though the company never directly admits their meaning. Given how often 88 comes up for the company the two cups with “SS” imagery fit into a clear and disturbing association to Nazi ideology.

Charge Plugs: 88
Model Cost: 88
Average Speed: 88
Engine Power: 88
Voice commands: 88
Taxi launch date: 8/8

The mezcal bottles and cups might be viewed by some as just another step in a long-running political extremism joke, but the historical and cultural sensitivity surrounding these symbols suggests a need for greater awareness and responsibility in product design and marketing. Tesla went with the worst lightning bolt design possible using a dubious backstory that apparently stole from a directly competing brand, for what?

Given well-documented associations of the Nazi SS runes and the number 88 with white supremacist groups, the context cannot be overlooked, especially given the pattern at Tesla. This incident adds to a series of ongoing controversies involving its CEO, including active support for Nazi politicians today, raising broader questions about his past and present political work.