The parallels to the Nazi takeover of Germany are pretty evident. Congress is asleep at the wheel, or worse as to Republicans, totally adhering to the Trump regime. At this point I don't know whether it is fixable. Nothing will change significantly until 2026, and by then we may not have our democracy. We are in a dire situation at the moment and the mainstream media ignores all of this. The riling up of the MAGA base by economic issues may provide some change but we don't know that this will happen. I don't want to see "think pink" Pelosi staging a useless visual protest.
Tell him it's being nationalised. Pay him $1. The rest is covered by what the people have already provided him as "grants".
He and Trump want the Ukrainians to pay back what they have been provided (alot of it aged munitions that would have had to be scraped anyway). So it's time the people applied to same to Musk.
Thank you. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, with talk of privatizing Social Security and the U.S. Postal Service. What happens when the company that runs the mail is headed by a mercurial billionaire who suddenly decides you don't deserve your benefits, or your mail?! Even more terrifying when they are deciding where the bombs fall. There is this insidious notion that someone should have the right to make a profit on any service the government performs. It's false.
It isn't just the privatization of war. It's the privatization of Social Security, the privatization of the national park system and public lands, the privatization of education, the privatization of literally every public good out there. By definition, a public good is something when once produced, by its very nature, cannot to be excluded to anyone afterward. Think police, fire services, libraries, K-12 eduction, roads, bridges, water, national defense, a clean environment.
No sane person I know of --- save for a billionaire out to destroy all public goods and buy them up for himself at a firesafe --- would want to live in a world without public goods. Only a true sociopath -- a debauched, demented criminal felon --- would ever dream of making it possible for that greedy billionaire to do just that.
Another problem with privatizing what should be a government service. Thank you for the history and comparison of an important part of our current times.
I agree with Wendy, this is a devastating article.
Sometimes I read an article and realize how little I actually know. At the risk of sounding like a fool, I have a couple questions.
Am I reading this right? Is this article saying that Ukraine’s ability to communicate via satellite relies solely on Elon Musk’s company, Starlink? Does that mean Ukraine’s internet service relies on Starlink also?
Ok, one last question…
If that is the case, are there other companies that can supply the same service Elon Musk is providing Ukraine?
I can’t believe what I’m reading in this article and I’m really not knowledgeable about this topic so any explanations that might help me understand would be greatly appreciated.
For instance, I thought the whole world was connected through the same internet (satellite?) service? Maybe I should have left that part out.
Starlink provides a higher speed service cheaply than many other satellite Internet providers. This is because SpaceX has been able to reduce the expense of satellite launch and cost of mass produced satellites.
Speed is NOT the virtue of Starlink's service or its cost, which is NOT cheap, and to which I've subscribed for 3-4 years to serve as backup to Comcast, which is much faster but had poor reliability because they were deeply negligent about backup power for their network. (Sorry about the run-on sentence -- it's late). Rather, Starlink's principal virtue is that they cover much of the earth with a pretty good system where land-based systems (fiber, wire) in sparsely populated areas are impractical. It's a great system and concept -- my system has gone from 20% downtime when I installed it to less than 1% downtime today, and that due to the obstructions of the signal from the 250 ft redwoods in the dense old-growth NorCal forest where I reside. Comcast is twice as fast, and half the cost. I buy both because I'm in the Santa Cruz mountains, where wildfires, storms, and earthquakes make redundancy of critical infrastructure important. AT&T has been trying to discontinue wired Telephone here, but half of those in my community have no cell coverage.
As a veteran of the Civil Rights movement and longtime activist, I strongly agree with all of the concerns raised by this post, but as an engineer who actively reads, keeps up and lives in the real world, I need to debunk the fallacies. And opinion writers and activists need to write ONLY about what they actually KNOW, not what they read or hear. One of my heroes, Heather Cox Richardson is writing about the stock market about which she knows nothing and making a fool of herself.
This dependency and Musk's machinations have been well known for almost two years, when he had a snit and disabled Ukraine's access! I read about it contemporaneously in mainstream media.
It was pretty clear from the beginning of the war in Ukraine that Musk was playing games with Starlink access, even though the US had paid for Starlink service. Lots of folks were sounding the alarm in 2023. Why didn't the Biden admin prioritize finding a replacement for Starlink? I don't recall then Sec of Defense Lloyd Austin making a statement about this. In fact I don't really recall him making any statement during his tenure. I would think the head of the DOD would have been concerned about Musk's control of US military hardware. I'm just a civilian. If the problems were clear to me, how could they not have been to the admin?
Under normal situations, I would advocate for Starlink to be taken out of the hands of a mercurial billionaire. Our President however, is so indebted to Mr. Musk that the effect at this point would be nil.
We have a dictator using the President as a puppet to
do what he wants. It is appalling.
Congress must find the gumption to address this before we are taken over by this guy.
"I saw the needle and the damage done. . ." Neil Young was talking about heroin, but he was describing America today. Capitalism/Consumerism has been our drug of choice for decades. It is a drug as old as Plutus, no older than that, it preceded the written word! This "myth" always ends the same way. Fate determines its outcome, self-destruction. I started this with a quote; I'll end it with a quote:
"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction." ~Picasso
What a devastating article.
I feel as though those in government who knew, should have been sounding the alarm bells.
And if this is not a new problem, then Democrats and Republicans both are culpable for letting this problem get almost too big to handle. Wow.
The parallels to the Nazi takeover of Germany are pretty evident. Congress is asleep at the wheel, or worse as to Republicans, totally adhering to the Trump regime. At this point I don't know whether it is fixable. Nothing will change significantly until 2026, and by then we may not have our democracy. We are in a dire situation at the moment and the mainstream media ignores all of this. The riling up of the MAGA base by economic issues may provide some change but we don't know that this will happen. I don't want to see "think pink" Pelosi staging a useless visual protest.
Tell him it's being nationalised. Pay him $1. The rest is covered by what the people have already provided him as "grants".
He and Trump want the Ukrainians to pay back what they have been provided (alot of it aged munitions that would have had to be scraped anyway). So it's time the people applied to same to Musk.
Thank you. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, with talk of privatizing Social Security and the U.S. Postal Service. What happens when the company that runs the mail is headed by a mercurial billionaire who suddenly decides you don't deserve your benefits, or your mail?! Even more terrifying when they are deciding where the bombs fall. There is this insidious notion that someone should have the right to make a profit on any service the government performs. It's false.
Let's not kid ourselves, there is nothing accidental about anything Elon Musk does.
Great piece.
Scary!
Unregulated human greed creates so many ugly possible futures. Thank you for an illuminating article.
It isn't just the privatization of war. It's the privatization of Social Security, the privatization of the national park system and public lands, the privatization of education, the privatization of literally every public good out there. By definition, a public good is something when once produced, by its very nature, cannot to be excluded to anyone afterward. Think police, fire services, libraries, K-12 eduction, roads, bridges, water, national defense, a clean environment.
No sane person I know of --- save for a billionaire out to destroy all public goods and buy them up for himself at a firesafe --- would want to live in a world without public goods. Only a true sociopath -- a debauched, demented criminal felon --- would ever dream of making it possible for that greedy billionaire to do just that.
Another problem with privatizing what should be a government service. Thank you for the history and comparison of an important part of our current times.
I agree with Wendy, this is a devastating article.
Sometimes I read an article and realize how little I actually know. At the risk of sounding like a fool, I have a couple questions.
Am I reading this right? Is this article saying that Ukraine’s ability to communicate via satellite relies solely on Elon Musk’s company, Starlink? Does that mean Ukraine’s internet service relies on Starlink also?
Ok, one last question…
If that is the case, are there other companies that can supply the same service Elon Musk is providing Ukraine?
I can’t believe what I’m reading in this article and I’m really not knowledgeable about this topic so any explanations that might help me understand would be greatly appreciated.
For instance, I thought the whole world was connected through the same internet (satellite?) service? Maybe I should have left that part out.
Thank you in advance for educating me.
Starlink provides a higher speed service cheaply than many other satellite Internet providers. This is because SpaceX has been able to reduce the expense of satellite launch and cost of mass produced satellites.
Speed is NOT the virtue of Starlink's service or its cost, which is NOT cheap, and to which I've subscribed for 3-4 years to serve as backup to Comcast, which is much faster but had poor reliability because they were deeply negligent about backup power for their network. (Sorry about the run-on sentence -- it's late). Rather, Starlink's principal virtue is that they cover much of the earth with a pretty good system where land-based systems (fiber, wire) in sparsely populated areas are impractical. It's a great system and concept -- my system has gone from 20% downtime when I installed it to less than 1% downtime today, and that due to the obstructions of the signal from the 250 ft redwoods in the dense old-growth NorCal forest where I reside. Comcast is twice as fast, and half the cost. I buy both because I'm in the Santa Cruz mountains, where wildfires, storms, and earthquakes make redundancy of critical infrastructure important. AT&T has been trying to discontinue wired Telephone here, but half of those in my community have no cell coverage.
As a veteran of the Civil Rights movement and longtime activist, I strongly agree with all of the concerns raised by this post, but as an engineer who actively reads, keeps up and lives in the real world, I need to debunk the fallacies. And opinion writers and activists need to write ONLY about what they actually KNOW, not what they read or hear. One of my heroes, Heather Cox Richardson is writing about the stock market about which she knows nothing and making a fool of herself.
Thanks Greg
This dependency and Musk's machinations have been well known for almost two years, when he had a snit and disabled Ukraine's access! I read about it contemporaneously in mainstream media.
Biden made a mistake not making every effort to seize control of StarLink.
It was pretty clear from the beginning of the war in Ukraine that Musk was playing games with Starlink access, even though the US had paid for Starlink service. Lots of folks were sounding the alarm in 2023. Why didn't the Biden admin prioritize finding a replacement for Starlink? I don't recall then Sec of Defense Lloyd Austin making a statement about this. In fact I don't really recall him making any statement during his tenure. I would think the head of the DOD would have been concerned about Musk's control of US military hardware. I'm just a civilian. If the problems were clear to me, how could they not have been to the admin?
Under normal situations, I would advocate for Starlink to be taken out of the hands of a mercurial billionaire. Our President however, is so indebted to Mr. Musk that the effect at this point would be nil.
We have a dictator using the President as a puppet to
do what he wants. It is appalling.
Congress must find the gumption to address this before we are taken over by this guy.
Is Musk allowing Starlink access to the Russians? How can we find out for sure?
"I saw the needle and the damage done. . ." Neil Young was talking about heroin, but he was describing America today. Capitalism/Consumerism has been our drug of choice for decades. It is a drug as old as Plutus, no older than that, it preceded the written word! This "myth" always ends the same way. Fate determines its outcome, self-destruction. I started this with a quote; I'll end it with a quote:
"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction." ~Picasso