Per Lizzie Warren, who took an ax, and gave a Cherokee 40 whacks, vs. wingnut trollmeister farm owner Elon Musk, on Ukraine and Starlink?
First, to go beyond Josh Marshall responding to a slobbering neoliberal former admirer of Smelling Musky, the real problem is neoliberalism and the military and the national security state.
Ed Snowden taught us this, or he should have taught us this, when he said, in essence, "No, I didn't work for the NSA; I really worked for Booz Allen, etc." No and yes. Yes, as in you really worked for privatized contractors, but they had been contracted by the NSA. Per old Glennwald the libertarian (Mises Caucus type) himself, 70 percent of each national security dollar is spent on privatized contractors. (Let's also not forget, per Mark Ames, that Snowden was probably about as pure as the driven slush.)
And, THAT is the problem. I think a fair chunk of Americans both conventional "conservative" and "liberal" would shit bricks if they knew how much of the federal government were privatized. Most leftists have at least almost as much inkling as me and do shit bricks. Many L/libertarians do as well and many of them probably think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
As long as the likes of Lizzie Warren and sheepdogger St. Bernard of Sanders support DoD and NSA/CIA budgets with this privatization, along with liberals of less fakery and conservatives, nothing will happen. In more subtle ways, Booz Allen, DynCorp, Fluor etc. may themselves be directing government foreign policy because of the stranglehold they have. Or Pierre Omidyar, to whom Glennwald gave 90 percent of the Snowden file.
The related point is that many people like this; it makes proxy wars easier if the proxy assistance is privatized. And, I think the pair above probably think that, too.
Next? Per the first link, whether that really was Musk's belief at the time, he claims that he cut off the Starlink assistance re a possible attack on Crimea is he feared Russian nuclear retaliation. If true, it would make him smarter, or at least, more thoughtful, than Nat-Sec Nutsacks™, even though that's often a low bar to hurdle. And, since Josh Marshall is in bed with them along with Sanders and Warren, his tune won't change either.
As for the #MuskIsATraitor hashtag on Twitter on Sept. 12? It's the same evidence-free BlueAnon bullshit that we heard six years ago claiming Trump was a traitor.
Let's start with the constitutional definition of treason, since #BlueAnon is usually liberal originalists like Akil Reed Amar and loves to fetishize the U.S. Constitution as much as he does, as well as fetishizing what I'll call, per another book of his that was semi-dreck, "constitutional common law.". So:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
Musk's baseline defense against the claim is that there is no declared war by the US, ergo, for constitutional purposes, Russia is not our enemy.
You might counter, "but Aaron Burr." I counter that he was acquitted. (That said, the alleged would-be secession shows that Confederates could indeed have been tried for treason, as, per Chief Justice John Marshall's restriction on the Burr charges, the CSA waged war and Burr did not. And they probably should have been.) And, both that and ex parte Bollman show that, rightly, the federal court system in general has taken a narrow view of what constitutes treason.
Note: It is, yes, possible, that some people are using "traitor" or "treason" metaphorically. To them, I say: Stop it. This is nothing to be metaphorical about. Others, I suspect, believe this literally. Specific to Musk on Ukraine, stop it, and stop being fellators of Warmonger Joe in general.
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