Avi LewisJun 17

Prime Minister Carney says the war in Iran was "worth it".

I want to know who he thinks it was worth it for.

#cdnpoli #iran #iranwar #NDP

Show threadNicole ParsonsJun 18

@avilewis

The 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

$30m an hour: big oil reaping huge war windfall from consumers, analysis finds

Exclusive: Climate action blockers including Saudi Arabia, Russia and major fossil fuel firms set to make extra $234bn by end of 2026

The Guardian
Show threadCian O'ConnorJun 18

@Npars01 @avilewis

If this was true, the the oil companies (and the gulf states) wouldn't have spent the last couple of months trying to end this war. The oil industry, like any extractive industry, hates disruption. Even if that disruption is profitable in the short term.

Show threadNicole ParsonsJun 18

@cian @avilewis

https://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.reuters.com/business/energy/uae-says-opec-opec-exit-was-sovereign-strategic-decision-not-political-move-2026-05-16/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70vjpny0dno

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesbroughel/2026/05/02/the-uae-quit-opec-because-its-sovereign-wealth-now-dwarfs-oil/

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.

UPDATE: After sending billions to Kushner and Trump, Saudis lobby to escalate Iran War

“I’m not going to start a war,” President Trump pledged during his November 2024 victory speech.

Popular Information
Show threadCian O'Connor

@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.)

Jun 18 at 5:49pmWeb
Show threadNicole ParsonsJun 18

@cian @avilewis

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

1/

Interview: Sarah C. Paine

A scholar of the 20th century explains the conflicts of the 21st.

Noahpinion
Show threadNicole ParsonsJun 18

2/

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.

Walter C. Teagle - Wikipedia

Show threadNicole ParsonsJun 18

3/

"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/

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eus-pledge-250-billion-us-energy-imports-is-delusional-2025-07-28/

https://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/issues/climate-energy/47995/eu-parliament-backs-eu-us-deal-on-tariffs-oil-and-gas/

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/06/even-hormuz-reopening-will-not-resolve-europes-key-energy-vulnerability

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.

Greenpeace European Unit
Show threadCian O'Connor6d ago
@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).
Show threadNicole Parsons6d ago

@cian

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://theconversation.com/what-francos-fascist-regime-in-spain-can-teach-us-about-todays-america-274248

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.newyorker.com/books/under-review/why-we-cant-stop-arguing-about-whether-trump-is-a-fascist

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/10/fascism/623081/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_and_fascism

Show threadCian O'Connor6d ago

@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.

Show threadNicole Parsons6d ago

@cian

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://wisconsinexaminer.com/briefs/uihleins-owners-of-wisconsin-company-gave-millions-to-group-sponsoring-the-jan-6-march-for-trump/

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

1/

Mapped: How 6 Billionaire Family Fortunes Fund Project 2025

Unraveling a $130 million web of climate denial, political extremism, and Trump campaign ties.

DeSmog
Show threadNicole Parsons6d ago

2/

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://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025-would-destroy-the-u-s-system-of-checks-and-balances-and-create-an-imperial-presidency/

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/

https://wisconsinexaminer.com/briefs/big-money-behind-the-big-lie-exposes-the-bradley-foundation-role/

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

What the Hell Happened to the Claremont Institute?

How the once-distinguished conservative think tank plunged into Trumpism, illiberalism, and lying about the election.

The Bulwark
Show threadCian O'Connor6d ago

@Npars01 @avilewis

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.

Show threadhiphopheaven6d ago
@cian Bibi also though they would win.
Show threadCian O'Connor6d ago

@hiphopheaven

The Israelis always think they will win, even though they rarely do. It's quite remarkable.

Show threadhiphopheaven5d ago
@cian decades of impunity makes them so confident