Here’s a headline at Politico that caught my attention:
The U.S. government under incoming President Donald Trump should intervene to stop the EU from fining American tech companies for breaching antitrust rules and committing other violations, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said late Friday.
Exactly how is Trump going to “intervene” with the EU’s business? Will he invade Brussels once he’s conquered Greenland, or what? Trump can always ask the EU nicely to lay off the tech bros, of course; and the EU can and probably will tell Trump to go pound sand.
Zuckerberg complained that the EU had forced U.S. tech companies operating in Europe to pay “more than $30 billion” in penalties for legal violations over the past two decades. Last November, the tech chief’s Meta conglomerate, which operates Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other social media and communications platforms, was fined €797 million for breaching EU antitrust rules by imposing unfair trading conditions on ads service providers.
Last year the EU fined Meta 1.2 billion euros for sending users’ personal data to the U.S., I assume without the permission of the users. “The decision applies to user data like names, email and IP addresses, messages, viewing history, geolocation data and other information that Meta — and other tech giants like Google — use for targeted online ads.” Stuff they get away with here.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk — having bought the U.S., apparently — is now moving on Europe. And the Europeans don’t care for it much. Newsweek reports that “Musk is being investigated in Europe amid concerns the billionaire’s influence, for instance through his posts on X, constitutes an ‘interference’ in upcoming elections.” Well, yes, it probably is. Go for it, Europe. See also EU politicians warn against Elon Musk’s incursions into European politics at ABC News.
Same old story, some organization with a mad scientist wants to rule the world. They always have a lethal device and a button they can press. You know Rupert Murdock is all over this one, as his hate speech racket is not allowed in Canada or most of Europe. Who would have thought the scientists would be computer scientists a.k.a. computer jockeys.
I wish I could skip to the end of the book and read the ending. Who knows if a James Bond type is even a character in it. We kind of know where the evil villains hang out, and who their fascist heroes are. That's pretty obvious. The usual scapegoats are in this one, but the immigrants have the lead role now.
At this point in the saga Mother Nature is showing her power and control of the earth. She will be the winner in the long run, with a possible attempted escape by some villains to Mars of all places. I see Gavin Newsom is stepping into a hero role. Good for him.
"Everybody wants to rule the world."
I'm sure this was true in Hitler's ascent to power. The Nazis had factions that vied for power… for a while. There's an event called "The Night of the Long Knives" that ended the competition and there were elements of opposition, A documented 85 enemies of Hitler were murdered by the "brownshirts", the brutal private army Hitler assembled. I ssid, "at least" – some historians place the toll of enemies in the hundreds. This "event" which ran over several days, got all the wannabe puppetmasters who thought they could manipulate Hitler in line. The tyrant has the power of life and death, and if he thought you had crossed him of would, the result was often a painful death, without a trial. So Hitler's generals were slow to give Hitler anything but happy news. D-day might have failed except Hitler believed false information the Allies fed him. Hitler's generals KNEW where the real invasion was happening but Hitler had concentrated his forces to repel a feint. With the outcome of the war in the balance, no German general dared confront the megalomaniac.
Trump does not have sole power, even over his own movement. He'd rather play golf and issue edicts. (Hitler was an obsessive micromanager who decided every detail.) Delegating to the cast of idiots Trump has assembled will not deliver cohesive results. They will (and are) fighting with each other. Yes, the US will set records in domestic human rights violations but the infrastructure of an effective force to purge opposition isn't there.
For example, I have doubts about the tax cuts passing by reconciliation in less than a year. There are fiscal hawks in the Freedom Caucus who want spending slashed. Trump wants to spend like a drunken sailor – that's why Trump wants to eliminate the debt ceiling. To make matters worse, Trump wants everything rolled into the reconciliation bill, some of which may be rejected by the Parliamentarian. (There are strict limits on what may be in a budget bill passed by reconciliation.)
Other factions besides the Freedom Caucus are pulling Trump's strings. White Supremacists, Evangelicals, Expansionists, Isolationists, The MI Complex, Tech Bros… and none of them are scared of Trump. Oh yes, a lot of factions including the media are sucking up to Trump and they are "afraid" of regulatory retaliation. None of them fear the guillotine or concentration camps.
It's a partial consolation that we won't see efficiency in the evil of Trump's regime, but we will see a clownish show of barbarism.