Rick Gregory
Avi Lewis
grte
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hiphopheaven@avilewis for israel
@avilewis the mention of the jcpoa was unnecessary because the threat of an nuclear iran was always a lie
Kim Possible 
@avilewis Weapons Manufacturers and Oil Companies. Is he invested in either/both?
Olivier@kimlockhartga both, and more.
Em 
Michael Richardson 🇨🇦@avilewis it was worth billions to his oil company masters.
Wulfy—Speaker to the machinesThe #epsteinwar in #Iran was worth it because the US has shown the whole world it's a giant with clay feet
Roknrol@n_dimension @avilewis I wonder if he's buried in the files somewhere...
caitp
D
Mark R. Stoneman@avilewis @AnnaAnthro Maybe he's glad it has taken Trump's U.S. down a peg. 🤷
JeremyJupiterJones 
Reading USA’s surrender deal, I guess it was worth it for Iran.
Jennifer Kayla | Theogrin 🦊In a roundabout sense, by showing off the US government's complete fallibility to the rest of the world stage and hastening the decline of hegemony, it may well have been worthwhile.
Somehow I don't think that's what Carney meant.
Mirishuli
an actual bus@avilewis I swear I have not looked forward to elections this much since Jack Layton.
Nicole ParsonsThe Iran War was "worth it" to Trump's fossil fuel fascist billionaires, foreign & domestic.
$234 billion in windfall profits in just a few months.
$30 million an hour in windfall profits leaving town & lining the pockets of #PrinceBonesaw , Putin, Koch Network, and Atlas Network.
We underestimate how far the oil industry will go to consolidate all oil supply into the hands of Trump's cronies.
It's the most corrupt industry on the planet.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/15/big-oil-huge-war-windfall-consumers
shem
Cian O'Connorhttps://popular.info/p/update-after-sending-billions-to
The UAE exited OPEC over #PrinceBonesaw 's collusion over the Iran War with Witkoff & Kushner to prolong the war on Iran.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70vjpny0dno
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/the-big-opec-shakeup-is-about-a-lot-more-than-oil.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/29/trump-says-its-great-that-uae-pulled-out-of-opec.html
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/28/business/uae-leaves-opec-oil-cartel-intl
Breaking up OPEC was a long held goal of Koch Network.
Putin, #PrinceBonesaw & Koch Network are in a fossil fuel axis alliance to keep captive oil markets hooked on high has prices.
@Npars01 @avilewis
Breaking up OPEC has been a long term policy goal of the US since its formation.
I don't think anyone expected UAE to leave OPEC in a fit of pique over not getting their way over Iran, but anyway
that has more to do with changing alliances in the region and tensions between MBZ and MBS that existed long before this war. And given that theUAE has now caved, and it's looking likely that MBZ will be sidelined within the UAE, who knows how long that will last.
There is no alliance between Putin and the Koch 'network' (the Koch network is about domestic US policy. Koch industries is presumably what you mean, but they're not hugely influential globally compared to companies like Chevron).
Obviously oil exporters want high prices for their commodities. While Russia benefited from this war, they were fairly active in both trying to prevent it, and to end the war. And if the war had gone on long enough the result would have been demand destruction (less demand for oil), which isn't really in oil companies interests (even if it might be good for the planet.)
Throughout history there have been imperialists & geopolitical price-fixing cartels that never spoke directly to each other.
They come in many forms.
One variation is "Follow the Leader".
For example, Japan, Mussolini, Hitler, & Franco responded to the stupid Smoot-Hawley tariffs by ginning up fascist takeovers & starting invasions.
Historian S.C.M. Paine speaks contemptuously of half-court tennis & a lack of foreign policy planning.
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/interview-sarah-c-paine
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Moneyed Americans traded covertly with them all in the wake of the 1929 crash they orchestrated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_C._Teagle
https://www.shellnazihistory.com/?cat=106
"Follow the Leader" killed 90 million people in WW2.
Other examples are "Beggar Thy Neighbor" and "Good Cop, Bad Cop" driving captive markets into economic traps & dead ends.
https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/politics/right-wing-push-to-dismantle-the-eu-heritage-foundations-private-workshop/
GOP billionaires hoped to dismantle the EU & force a switch to American-controlled energy supply using Putin's invasions as a pretext.
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"Good Cop, Bad Cop" driving the prey into traps & dead-ends.
https://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/issues/climate-energy/47879/eu-bans-russian-gas-imports-but-risks-bankrolling-other-tyrants/
Instead, nations are accelerating the switch to renewables because all three sets of oil oligarchs are terrible.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Worlds-Top-Oil-Companies-To-Rake-In-Extra-234-Billion-In-War-Profits.html
"Beggar Thy Neighbor" funds the hate.
https://globalextremism.org/reports/project-2025-goes-global/
EU bans Russian gas imports, but risks bankrolling other tyrants - Greenpeace European Unit
EU ministers have finalised the EU’s ban on imports of Russian gas, after the European Commission, European Parliament and national governments reached a deal late last year, nearly four years after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
@Npars01
That a thing happened in the past, does not mean it's happening today. Trump is many things, but he's not a fascist. Maybe he wants to be, who can say, but he lacks the capability. He's a second rate grifter and reality TV star, who's leading a party that has been hollowed out by social media and just thinks in slogans. And he's leading an empire in rapid decline (far more rapid due to his incompetence).
That a thing happened in the past, does not mean it's happening today. Trump is many things, but he's not a fascist. Maybe he wants to be, who can say, but he lacks the capability. He's a second rate grifter and reality TV star, who's leading a party that has been hollowed out by social media and just thinks in slogans. And he's leading an empire in rapid decline (far more rapid due to his incompetence).
Trump is a fascist by every measure used as a metric for identifying despotic regimes.
Umberto Eco. Jason Stanley. Tim Snyder.
Fascism is always a wealth grab rife with public corruption. The grift is an essential component.
https://www.durham.ac.uk/research/current/thought-leadership/2024/10/is-trump-a-fascist/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/dispatches/what-does-it-mean-that-donald-trump-is-a-fascist
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/29/2024_election_fascism_authoritarianism
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/feb/25/how-to-spot-a-fascist-the-umberto-eco-way
https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article74623
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/yeah-its-fascism-jd-vance
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/10/fascism/623081/
@Npars01
Grift is an essential component of many right wing movements. I fail to see in what way that is unique to fascism.
Describing the politics surrounding Trump (which precede him, and date back to Bush Jr) as fascism strikes me as about as useful as describing Hitler's politics as Bonapartism.
It's also deeply misleading. He's the most unpopular president to ever win an election. HIs victory was not due to right wing strength, but the total collapse of the center-left, and their inability/refusal to grasp with current US problems. Trump is a symptom of the rot at the heart of the US political system.
Beg to differ.
Trump's MAGA movement is a fossil fuel funded fascist movement decades in the making.
https://www.desmog.com/2024/10/25/project-2025-trump-mapped-how-6-billionaire-family-fortunes-fund-climate-denial/
Project 2025 is funded mainly by six dynasties reliant on "forever" fossil fuel addiction.
Bradley, Koch, Coors, Mellon Scaife, Seid, Uihlein
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/us/politics/koch-network-2024-election-trump.html
Their Unitary Executive constitutional heresy is their brain child.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/09/the-big-money-behind-the-big-lie
https://www.status.news/p/larry-ellison-2020-election-cbs-news-january-6
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/20/larry-ellison-oracle-trump-election-challenges/
https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/project-2025-oracle-19654875.php
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They fund the coup-plotting think tanks that made Trump immune from prosecution for insurrection, crimes against humanity, child sexual abuse, rape, & tax evasion.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-the-hell-happened-to-the-claremont-institute
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/unitary-executive-scientific-research/687565/
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/12/morrison-v-olson-and-the-triumph-of-the-unitary-executive-theory/
https://dc.alumni.columbia.edu/laurafield
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/03/magazine/claremont-institute-conservative.html
https://verfassungsblog.de/trumps-straussian-shysters-the-scary-sequel/
https://theintercept.com/2021/08/07/election-fraud-bradley-impact-fund-donors/
Hitler had his financial backers too.
https://jacobin.com/2022/06/nazi-billionaires-capitalism-hitler-book-review
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler
The US is a classic maritime empire, but apparently professor Paine is so locked into US propaganda that she can't see it. Also Putin and Xi aren't dictators (the leaders of the gulf states on the other hand ARE).
Trump attacked Iran, because he was stupid enough to believe Bibi's bullshit and he needed a 'win' after numerous failures. This was didn't serve US interests (this defeat has permanently weakened the US), it certainly didn't serve gulf state interests and given that it nearly caused a global depression - didn't really serve capitalist interests either.
DavidM_yegNo war is ever “worth it”.
“You've never really known that when the white flag is flown
No one, no one, no one has won the war” The Flag - Stephen Page/Barenaked Ladies
Hugs4friends ♾🇺🇦 🇵🇸😷@avilewis Worth what? Has he made a killing on the Stock Exhange, too?
victor tsaran@avilewis @patrick_h_lauke I am sure it was worth for him. What does the bank account say?
Dud and Forgotten.@avilewis he's on crack. He must be.
Gwen The Red Moss@avilewis Oof. That's definitely a bad take on Carney's part. It's obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that the entire war was a shit show from the start.
Unless he thinks it was worth it because of some yet unseen effect that it leads to the U.S. learning its lesson and not being complete asshats in the future, but that feels like giving Carney too much credit.
It's probably money. It's always money.