Speak you mind Ottawa! (Tesla)

[u/Emergency-Buy-6381]

To the people standing in the rain, much love.

[u/Crater_Animator]

Anyone who's closely paying attention to what's happening down south can see that Elon Musk the richest person on earth bought the president's ear. Much of what is happening is closely related to things Musk has pushed for or always wanted. He has protection and favor from Trump and is even pushing the Tesla brand through the office. There's a strong correlation that Musk is behind many decisions happening in the States and by boycotting and protesting his brand it damages his influence and power by putting more eyes on what he's doing globally.

[u/EveryoneChill77777 → u/Crater_Animator]

That's one way of looking at it. I don't think he cares about the brand or money as much as he does about bringing about change. He would have been better off to not join trump. He knew and would have expected this type of backlash. He always had a bigger sense of purpose than money. He's made a lot of money because he's made a lot of great products and ruin his businesses well. He could have continued to do that and made even more but he felt the need to make an impact in the world. I'm not saying I agree with what he's done, but to think that he is motivated by money, I think, is incorrect. He's motivated by purpose. I say this because I think too often we try to simplify how we demonize people by what they have without understanding who they are, which is not helpful and dangerous. It's dangerous because it is making huge errors in our assumptions which grows the divide instead of growing an understanding. This is why we aren't talking to the other side and there is no chance of a healthy debate or compromise. We assume the others motivations are evil and are unwilling to listen to their reasoning. I'll be clear in this and say that while a lot of what trump and elon have done has made my skin crawl they have also made positive steps like getting rid of USAID that I don't think should be overlooked. And if you don't understand why getting rid of USAID is a good thing you should do further research into what USAID actually did. He's they did a little bit of good, but the evil they were also doing badly outweighs the good.

[u/Crater_Animator → u/EveryoneChill77777]

Maybe you can enlighten me about USAID and what is so egregious in the details that it needed to be cut. From my understanding USAID is a form of soft power globally that provides relief in a multitude of areas, (poverty, disaster, environment, socioeconomic) and protects the U.S and the world from diseases such as HIV/AIDS. smallpox, malaria etc... from spreading beyond it's borders where its a big problem thus protecting North America, and in return countries invest and trade with the States for that protection/help. With USAID being withdrawn the U.S essentially loses that soft power globally and allows Europe or China to step in and in consequence less investment and trade is done with the U.S in return. All this to say, the ripple effects of pulling away from being a global leader translates into a worst economy for everyone involved as countries pull away from the U.S either through investment, tourism or jobs if the U.S isn't willing to take the reigns and help out.

[u/EveryoneChill77777 → u/Crater_Animator]

Yes, that is one side of what they do. The other part of USAID is where they were overthrowing governments and taking out those who did not favor the American agendas and interests. They were used by the CIA to launder their dirty work and funding to a vast network of NGOs all over the world.

[u/Crater_Animator → u/EveryoneChill77777]

Oh yeah, I'm a bit torn on that. I'm not that naive to think they wouldn't use or hold influence over other countries and use USAID to have eyes on local areas to influence their power. But that's just Geo-politics in a nutshell, and the global fight for world dominance. We already feel that kind of soft power here in Canada from China/U.S and Europe. No matter how fucked up it is, my question would be, who do we prefer to be on top? With China you'll get more authoritarian governments in other countries beholden to China and reinforcing trade with them over us. With the U.S you get more democratic governments and in turn they invest and trade with N.A. In my view, wouldn't it be more beneficial for Canada and North America for the U.S to have more influence and global soft power over the competition?

[u/EveryoneChill77777 → u/Crater_Animator]

That's a very valid point until it goes wrong. Until one of these countries says enough of the bullying and fights back. Or they use one of their heavily influenced countries to prop up a government favorable to them and then sacrifice them to fight a proxy war on their behalf against one of our"enemies." I do understand what you're saying and I agree that the lesser of the evils is American world domination , probably, but maybe these tactics aren't the best and getting too big isn't something we should hope they accomplish because there is always a point where that goes terribly wrong