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Ben Norton Profile picture
@BenjaminNorton
Feb 6, 2022 • 15 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
The trucker convoy in Canada is so obviously a rightwing operation astroturfed by conservative billionaires. It's absurd seeing some "leftists" pretend otherwise

This is Texas' far-right attorney general, a corrupt Tea Party pet project who tried to help Trump steal the election
It's clear as day that the Canada trucker convoy is astroturfed by rightwing oligarchs. Trump is promoting it, and single rich donors were giving them $215,000, which is how it got $10 million in 2 weeks

It's similar to a billionaire-funded rally Bolsonaro recently did in Brazil Image
In September, Brazil's far-right leader Bolsonaro and ultra-rich allies organized an astroturfed rally, which they marketed as "grassroots"

Corporate oligarchs paid to send many buses to the rally. Trump aide Jason Miller was in Brazil helping organize it
brasilwire.com/september-7th-…
Very informative thread here. The far-right is international, and Steve Bannon-adjacent networks are very active both North and South America, sharing tactics - and distributing lots of money
I can't believe how many people are falling for this. It's like Tea Party 2.0
The main organizers of the so-called "trucker" convoy are Canadian far-right extremists. It's not led by workers but petit-bourgeois owner-operators, financially backed by rich right-wingers — not exploited trucking workers, c. 90% of whom are vaccinated
readpassage.com/p/the-trucker-…
Excellent thread showing 20+ examples of how the "trucker" convoy in Canada is a rightwing bosses' rally of petit-bourgeois capitalists who exploit actual working-class truckers

Ironically many received Canadian gov't Covid-19 funding for their businesses
First Nations Leadership Council Strongly Condemns “Freedom Convoy” Movement Across Canada and its Spread of Misinformation, Racism, and Violence
First Nations Leadership Council: "First Nations have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic... In addition to dangerous public health and safety misinformation, the convoy is also amplifying hate speech and dangerous racist sentiments"
ubcic.bc.ca/fnlc_strongly_…
"The racist double-standard in policing in this country is on full display -- had these protesters been Indigenous, the police would have cleared them out in a heartbeat."
-First Nations Leadership Council
ubcic.bc.ca/fnlc_strongly_…
I've seen enough right-wing, foreign-funded, astroturfed "protests" in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Belarus, Hong Kong, etc. to immediately recognize one in Canada

Yes the neoliberal Trudeau gov't is awful, but allying with even more reactionary right-wingers against it is stupid
The largest trucker union in Canada, Teamsters, has openly condemned the convoy as a "despicable display of hate lead by the political Right" that "has served to delegitimize the real concerns of most truck drivers today"

90% of its workers are vaccinated teamsters.ca/en/blog/2022/0… Image
One of Canada's largest unions, PSAC, condemned the convoy as right-wing and anti-worker:

"These protestors do not represent the majority of truck drivers and do not have the right to bully, intimidate and physically harass residents, openly promote hate speech and racism" Image
In addition to the biggest truckers union condemning the convoy, the Canadian Trucking Alliance said it "does not support and strongly disapproves of" the right-wing protests.

It added, "The vast majority of the Canadian trucking industry is vaccinated"
cantruck.ca/canadian-truck… Image

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More from @BenjaminNorton

Ben Norton Profile picture
Oct 14
To understand the genocide in Gaza, it's important to recognize Zionism's roots in European colonialism.

Israel was not created due to the Nazi Holocaust. The British empire endorsed creating Israel in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when Europe was colonizing the Middle East🧵Image
It's not a coincidence that the Balfour Declaration came immediately after the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement, in which the British and French empires carved up the Ottoman empire's territory and established their own colonies in the Middle East (West Asia). Image
Zionism was directly modeled after 19th-century European colonialist movements.

Zionist "founding father" Theodor Herzl wrote a letter to Cecil Rhodes, the genocidal colonizer of Africa, asking for help to colonize Palestine.

Herzl boasted that Zionism was "something colonial". Image
Read 8 tweets
Ben Norton Profile picture
Aug 17
The neo-feudal corporate landlords at Apple are charging creators on Patreon a 30% fee for all new memberships registered using the iOS app.

It's the perfect symbol of the future of the economy -- neo-feudal rent extraction by corporate monopolies.

🧵This is how the scam works: Image
It all started with Big Tech corporations first offering supposedly "free" services (which were paid for by selling users' information).

Those "free" platforms soon became monopolies, and were so deeply embedded into the economy that they are now (privatized) digital utilities.
A 20th-century economy needed utilities like an electrical grid, water plants, sewage system, highways, etc.

These natural monopolies should be publicly owned, provided as public goods to prevent rent-seeking by corporate landlords (although neoliberals want them privatized too)
Read 8 tweets
Ben Norton Profile picture
Aug 8
🚨The US allows its athletes to cheat, including at the Olympics.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) says US agency USADA let athletes use steroids in exchange for spying on other violators.

This is the Rules-Based Order™ -- the US violates the rules whenever it's convenient.
Image
Russia was banned from the Olympics in 2019 due to doping. Now we know that the US has allowed athletes to use steroids (ie cheat) since at least 2011, with no punishment

Also, Russia was banned this year due to the war in Ukraine, but the US invaded Iraq and faced no punishment
What the US government calls the "Rules-Based International Order" is a global imperialist dictatorship, in which the US makes up "rules", and violates them whenever it's in its interests.

But then the US invades or sanctions foreign countries it accuses of breaking the "rules".
Read 4 tweets
Ben Norton Profile picture
Jul 31
The US State Department supported Nazism in the 1930s, saying genocidal fascism "must succeed", or communism would win.

The US charge d'affaires in Germany praised the so-called "more moderate section of the [Nazi] party, headed by Hitler".

These are objective historical facts.
Image
Before WWII even ended, the US government recruited genocidal Nazi monsters to launch its cold war on the Soviet Union.

Later, the CIA recruited Nazi spies like infamous criminal Reinhard Gehlen, Third Reich's spy chief on the Eastern Front, to continue Hitler's war on the USSR.

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Many US corporations profited from investments in Nazi Germany, such as Chase Bank, Standard Oil, IBM, Ford, GM, Coca-Cola, and Kodak.

Hitler also got help from US Senator Prescott Bush, father of President George H W Bush, grandfather of George W Bush.
theguardian.com/world/2004/sep…
Read 4 tweets
Ben Norton Profile picture
Jul 23
Crucial point by prominent Palestinian scholar Joseph Massad:
"The claim that the Israel lobby controls US policy in the Middle East amounts to absolving the US of responsibility for its imperialist policies".

Israel is an extension of US imperialism.
middleeasteye.net/big-story/why-…
The US empire has always violently opposed anti-colonial struggles.

The US gov't has been an "implacable enemy of all national liberation groups".

"Why the US would then support Palestinian national liberation absent the Israel lobby is something this argument fails to address" Image
Blaming the Israel lobby for the Iraq War is absurd

The invasion of Iraq follows a consistent US imperial policy since WWII of overthrowing Third World states that control their national resources, land, oil, minerals

See: Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Venezuela & Iran today

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Read 4 tweets
Ben Norton Profile picture
Jul 16
Trump's VP pick JD Vance was created in a political petri dish by billionaire oligarch Peter Thiel.

"PayPal Mafia Don" Thiel founded CIA/Pentagon-backed mass surveillance corporation Palantir.

He was an FBI informant and got his start at CIA-linked law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.
Image
Far-right billionaire oligarch Peter Thiel, a CIA-linked FBI informant who has funded Donald Trump and his "MAGA" allies, also funded a spy company that hacked WhatsApp.
forbes.com/sites/thomasbr…
Libertarianism nearly always turns into fascism, because libertarians and fascists value private property and capital above human life.

Libertarians eventually realize that, to save capitalism, democracy must be destroyed. Pinochet is the textbook example
Read 4 tweets

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