Posts Tagged ‘South Africa’

MAGA Race War: Musk vs. Bannon

Friday, January 17th, 2025

By Bob Gaydos

Steve Bannon and Elon Musk ... not friends

Steve Bannon and Elon Musk … not friends

    I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m rooting for Steve Bannon in his food fight with Elon Musk over who’s the bigger racist in the MAGA tent. Not because I agree with either man’s views on immigration or anything else, but rather because Musk’s money has the potential to do a lot more harm than Bannon’s pure bile and, frankly, anything that exposes the hypocrisy of the Trump cult is good for America, especially if it’s self-inflicted.

     Bannon has called Musk “pure  evil” and pledged to get gim out of the guest rooms in Mar-a-Lago and the White House. In fact, Bannon said, “I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day.” 

    That appears to be unlikely, but that’s what Bannon told the Italian newspaper Corrientes Della Serra last week. He also said the billionaire won’t have full access to the White House. Trump says he’s giving Musk the building next door to try to figure out how to steal from the poor to give to the rich.

      The crux of the fight between Trump’s old sidekick/strategist and his new, much richer one, is which immigrants are acceptable to MAGA and which are not. Old school Bannon took Trump at his word when he said he’s going to round up millions of undocumented immigrants, (mostly brown or black) and ship them back wherever they came from. No more immigrants. More jobs for real Americans.

      But Musk and other big tech billionaires say real Americans are too dumb (they actually say untrained, but  that’s what they think) to fill the jobs in their companies. They say they need more better-trained immigrants, mostly from Asian countries, here on H-1B visas as “skilled workers,” to fill all those good jobs at the tech companies.

    Musk says they are vital and Trump agreed and Bannon blew up, basically saying an immigrant is an immigrant. He also wasn’t thrilled with Musk’s opinion of real Americans’ intelligence, which actually is the same as (“I love the uneducated”) Trump’s. 

   In response to Bannon’s comments, Musk said he would go to “war” to preserve and defend the program for foreign workers at tech companies. 

    Bannon replied, “He should go back to South Africa. Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans … making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”

      Clearly, irony is lost on Bannon.

       Now, Musk may be right about that lack of skilled American workers for tech companies, but no one ever talks about more training programs for Americans. The real reason Musk and the other tech bigwigs want immigrants from Asian countries on their payrolls is that they are willing to work for less money and are happy just to be in America for all the advantages it provides. Just like all those immigrants Trump and Bannon want to round up and deport. Hypocrisy.

      The good news in terms of reducing Musk’s influence is that Bannon has the voice and support of the hard-core far-right Trump base. The ones who vote for candidates he endorses. Musk, who seems to live in a high-rent area of the spectrum, basically is just in this for his own enrichment and gratification. Like Trump. But Trump is going to be president and his ego typically wins out over his affection for other people’s money and sycophancy. He has no real agenda other than enriching himself and staying out of prison, which he thus far has managed to accomplish.

      Bottom line is that promising all things to all supporters only works when all supporters are in it for the same reason. Bannon just wants to get rid of all non-white immigrants. Musk apparently just wants to be emperor of the world, with lots of non-tran children. Maybe they should check with the suddenly much poorer Rudy Giuliani to find out what went wrong with his love affair with Donald Trump.

 rjgaydos@gmail.com

 

A Little Mystery With Our Meat

Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013

Is it beef, or what?

By Bob Gaydos

The horse-meat-in-ground-beef scandal that broke in Europe at the beginning of the year has spawned numerous investigations there as well as a booming business for food-testing companies. But it has thus far not crossed the pond to the United States.

Or has it?

Americans are famous, even notorious, for thinking that the oceans and our inflated sense of entitlement and superiority, protect us from many of the major ills that plague the rest of the world. We don’t eat horses, we say; we don’t slaughter horses, we say. Therefore, we say, there’s no danger that horse meat has been mixed into some of our hamburger meat.

It’s a comfortable way to look at things, if not an entirely realistic one. And this American, for one, had his comfort level shaken recently on reading a headline that asked, “Is the mob involved in horse meat scandal.”

Duh. Of course “the mob,” however one defines it, on whatever continent one chooses, is involved in the horse meat scandal. If there is money to be made by cheating, lying or stealing from others, “the mob,” in all its forms will be involved. And this crime has the advantage of being non-violent. All it takes is some people willing to go along, for a price or a threat, with the scheme. Plus, we’re talking about doctoring ground beef, for Pete’s sake. Everyone eats it and no one suspects it.

Until now.

And it’s not just the possible mob connection that has raised more suspicions that the scandal is going to get a lot bigger. Last week, in London, where the horse meat scandal is in full bloom, samples of curries and kebabs from six food outlets were tested by scientists hired by the BBC. The scientists found one burger contained no beef, save for blood and heart. One curry sample did contain meat but, a BBC spokesperson said, “that meat was not lamb, not pork, nor was it chicken or beef. Not horse. and not goat either.” The London Daily Mail wondered if it could be dog meat, noting that dog meat had been found in samples of pet food in Spain.

The horse meat scandal has spread from a meat-cutting plant in Wales to the entire British Isles, as horse meat from Poland has turned up in beef at Burger King and Tesco, as well as in major supermarkets and brand name processed foods, including Birds Eye. Brits have no delusions anymore about their food being what it says on the label. Nor do Swedes, since horse meat was found in the furniture giant’s Swedish meatballs.

There’s more. And far from London. In South Africa, a team of university scientists, curious because of the European scandal, found traces of human tissue in beef samples meant for human consumption in nine provinces across the nation. According to research.com, the scientists said there was “no threat” in eating the samples, which one scientist speculated could have been from a worker cutting himself or picking his nose at a meat-processing plant. Yumm. (Or, connecting some other dots, what a convenient way to get rid of a troublemaker.)

The South African scientists also reported that nearly half of the “game” samples they tested were, in fact, beef, and that ostrich sausages, a local treat, were found to contain pork and even kangaroo meat. The scientists were not concerned about the obvious intentional mislabeling.

Meanwhile, back in the good old USA, where we don’t slaughter horses, the governor of Oklahoma just signed a bill authorizing the slaughtering of horses. Similar efforts are being made in New Mexico, Washington and elsewhere. Oklahomans by a wide margin opposed the bill, but legislators paid them no mind. They justified the bill by noting that the horses slaughtered could not be sold for human consumption in the United States.

Really? There are no inspectors or food-processing executives willing to take bribes? Horses from this country have been sold to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico. Shipments from those countries cannot legally be sold to American firms, but they do pass through a port in Texas on the way elsewhere. Seems I’ve heard a rumor about “the mob” having some kind of influence on the docks.

Still not worried? What’s wrong with a little horse meat in my burger? you ask. Obviously the moral argument about Americans not eating animals who are pets, companions or sporting teammates doesn’t sway you. How about the possibility that the horse meat may be tainted with medications widely used on horses in the United States, including phenylbutazone (bute), a pain reliever which is a known carcinogen for humans.

These drugs cannot be administered to horses raised for food in the U.S. (which is none), but the horse slaughter lobbyists are angling to buy and slaughter the large supply of wild mustangs that have been rounded up as well as former race horses, rodeo horses and personal steeds without a home. Those horses have all likely been medicated and there is not likely to be anyone checking each horse for drugs at a slaughterhouse, where speed is a priority.

I’ll toss in the fact that it’s tough enough to know what’s in genuine ground beef, since it comes from many sources and I will resist the temptation to mention that some Americans suspect that, like in Spain, shelter dogs — and cats — may be winding up in pet food in this country. One step removed.

It is a fetid stew and very profitable for a select few. Perhaps Americans will someday get around to caring about their food labels being reliable and factual. Or maybe start shopping with an eye to wanting to know what they’re eating. But it sure would also be reassuring if someone in a position of authority started testing this system and putting checks in place to serve as a backup to that big ocean in which we place so much trust.

 bob@zestoforange.com