A most creative way to protest Trump's recent visit to Scotland.

Unlearning Hopelessness

by C.A. Matthews

Seen on X: https://x.com/aashisjo/status/1947314052016824491

@DrNeenaJha Seriously what do we do?? We’ve protested, boycotted, campaigned, donated, written articles, pressured our government & institutions

@aashisjo What do we do? We organize real action, not performances. We disrupt the empire by refusing to work. We do not ask them to stop, we force them to stop.

 

While I was pruning back the dying raspberry canes in our organic garden, I contemplated just how hopeless the task was. The monsoon rains dumps this season had encouraged more raspberry canes and briers to grow than usual, then further rains drowned half of them with the excessive water around their roots. The out-of-control new brier growth was choking some of the older fruit bearing ones.

Why bother? I thought. I should give up now and avoid any more scrapes and scratches.

But I didn’t give up. I kept on until the task was finished. Why? Because I happen to like eating raspberries. I helped plant the first small canes in our garden, and they’d graciously had fed me (and others) over the years. So, I gritted my teeth and kept pruning. I vowed not to give up on them, especially when they needed my help the most.

Gardening is very much like fighting the unjust system we live in. Sometimes things go well, but most of the time it’s chaos and all hands-to-the-pumps—or pruning shears. Raspberries and other living things can be as unpredictable as the powers-that-be who control and punish us whenever we deviate from their plans. But we can’t give up on fighting back against the oligarchs no matter how tough things get. We’ve got to keep on hacking through the jungle and prune those briers. We’ve got fruit to harvest.

There’s been a lot of talk among psychologists and therapists about learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is when we believe we cannot change painful circumstances, so we stop trying and just endure what’s happening. 

This “just enduring” behavior describes the actions of the majority of humankind in the year 2025, in my opinion. We are enduring, but we’re not growing and producing fruit that will feed ourselves and others now and in the future. We’ve thrown in the towel along with our gardening secateurs, and because of that choice to give up, our circumstances will not change for the better.

Some psychologists believe that it’s actually learned hopelessness or a hopeless depression that keeps us from fighting back against painful circumstances. It’s easy to understand why and how depression sets in. Have you ever scrolled through your social media stream to check out the headlines or look at the memes?

No wonder it's called doomscrolling! 

While the odds of us succeeding in our goals to make the world a better place for all may be astronomical, we can at least try to fight the corrupt system and make some things better, right? The challenge is that we’ve heard too many horror stories and learned from others how hopeless the fight has become for them. We start to believe that it’s hopeless to even try and change things...

 

To learn more about how to unlearn hopelessness and keep up the fight against the corrupt status quo, please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

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This article is the 531st blog posting of The Revolution Continues. We began in June 2015, and we're still going strong. Please keep reading, sharing, and subscribing to help TRC continue for another ten years. 

You can make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you.

 

Food: The Most Lethal Weapon

by C.A. Matthews

Our early morning emergency protest proved challenging. When I arrived, I discovered the entire street in front of the building where our Congresswoman’s district office is located in the process of being torn up. There were drainage pipes being replaced along with concrete mixers and gravel trucks and graders galore. Once I figured out where to park and how to cross the construction area to get to the front door, I found my fellow protesters already hard at work banging loudly on their pots and pans.

The noisy demonstration was to draw attention to the mass starvation of the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel has killed 20.7% of Gaza's population in the past 22 months, or approximately 434,000 people by some estimates.

I don’t hold out much hope for any positive actions coming from our representative, Marcy Kaptur, a conservative Democrat fully in the zy0nists’ pockets. Perhaps we could guilt her into doing something right in Congress for a change. Marcy almost lost her last election, so the longest-serving Congresswoman really should be more cognizant of pleasing her voters, right?

After several minutes of clanking pots together and chanting, “Stop starving Gaza!” a woman in a catering uniform wheeled a cart full of pastries, fruit trays, and large coffee flasks into the building. How ironic! Here we were protesting against the deliberate withholding of food to the people of Gaza, instigated by the US government’s GHF faux humanitarian program, and the occupants of perhaps Congresswoman Kaptur’s office upstairs were about to stuff their faces full of delicious goodies in celebration for a job well done. For me, this cruel comparison of using food as both a means to hurt some and as a means to reward others is an image that will never be forgotten.

A few days later, I joined in a protest march through the University of Toledo where an outdoor arts show was being held on the main mall. The deer-in-the-headlight stares we received from onlookers were more than plentiful. You’d think these very well-heeled folks buying expensive art weren’t aware of the genocide happening in Gaza and that the US was playing a big part in it.

One art hawker even pulled out an American flag and started waving it and shouting angrily at our lack of patriotism as we repeatedly marched past his booth. None of these art-lovers looked like they’d ever missed a meal in their lives—and a few looked like they’d eaten more than enough for two or three persons in their lifetimes.

When it comes down to it, food is the most lethal weapon. Withhold it—and your enemies weaken and starve to death. Lavish it upon them—and your enemies could become your allies or at least less hostile to you, as long as you keep feeding them. Food is the ultimate way to control human beings, forcing them to respond the way you want them to with a minimum of effort. Other than depriving people of oxygen, there’s probably not a control substance in the known universe that’s quite so versatile.

Now you know the real secret behind the starving of millions of Palestinians. Starvation might take a bit longer to accomplish its goal than simply bombing cities, villages, and bodies into rubble, but it’s a relatively simple thing to do. What’s happening currently in Gaza is called a forced famine as it is man-made and not due to natural causes. And withholding food is much cheaper than building or buying bombs, jets, tanks, and other weapons—a win-win situation for aggressors...

 

To learn more about how and where food has been used as a weapon, both in the past and present-day, please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

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This article is the 530th blog posting of The Revolution Continues. We began in June 2015, and we're still going strong. Please keep reading, sharing, and subscribing to help TRC continue for another ten years. 

You can make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you.

 

"The revolution will not be televised because the first revolution happens inside your mind." —Gil Scott-Heron 

From Merriam-Webster online:

Revolution: a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something : a change of paradigm. From the Latin revolvere meaning “to revolve or roll back.”

The Revolution of the Mind

by C.A. Matthews

It’s odd, but you can tell that many Americans feel uncomfortable using the world revolution with one notable exception: They will say “the American Revolution” when referring to the conflict the white colonists fought to gain their independence from Great Britain.

Advertisers frequently use the description term revolutionary when selling merchandise, everything from dish soap to feminine hygiene products, but even they hesitate to use the word revolution by itself in their ad copy.

Why all this fear and trepidation over a perfectly useful word? What dark, sinister secondary meaning does revolution hold for so many? How can we reclaim revolution and its healing power?

As you can tell by looking at the masthead above, revolution holds no threat to our peace of mind here at The Revolution Continues. In fact, as the years progress, the word has become almost a mantra of sorts for your truly. Whenever something hideous occurs in the world—say a livestreamed genocide of innocents, particularly children—I often find myself saying under my breath repeatedly: This will all come to an end, come the revolution…

I’m reassuring myself that one day there will be a great change of paradigm and the billionaires and their lackeys who persecute us now will be gone and the world will revolve around the workers of the world instead. Our needs and wishes to live in peace and harmony will reign then, not the oligarchs’ greed and selfishness. It’s an optimistic take on what seems a pessimistic era in our civilization’s history, but one must do what one must do to get out of bed and not cry all day long. Nothing changes that way.

If the revolution won’t be televised, will it be livestreamed instead? Open up your social media apps and tell me that the revolution isn’t being livestreamed now. Things are changing radically in front of our eyes in real time. Immigrants and their supporters are fighting against ICE. Protesters are going to jail simply for saying, “I don’t support genocide,” in the UK. The world is revolving around a different narrative than the one the powers-that-be want us to believe. Many of us in the working classes aren’t buying into the lies and excuses of the richest 1% anymore.

To borrow an old expression, “The cat’s out of the bag,” and that kitty is hissing and scratching to prevent itself from being stuffed back inside, kept in the dark, and thrown into the river to drown as the oligarchs are tempted to do to us who don’t do or think as we’re told...

 

To  learn more about how the narrative is being questioned, please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

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Still of Gil Scott-Heron taken from youtu.be/1Iklff1pNWY

This article is the 529th blog posting of The Revolution Continues. We began in June 2015, and we're still going strong. Please keep reading, sharing, and subscribing to help TRC continue for another ten years. 

You can make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you.

 

Francesca Albanese: Boldly Speaking Truth To Corporate Power

by C.A. Matthews

Serving as the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Territories of Palestine is a tough job, and Francesca Albanese knew when she took on the position that she was bound to make her share of enemies. However, the vile things coming out of the mouths of genocide-enabler Donald Trump and his boyfriend, genocide-instigator Benjamin Netanyahu, about Albanese’s recent work reporting on the economic conditions of the genocide in Gaza are unbelievable.

Even US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had to get in on the feces-slinging by “sanctioning” her for standing up for the Palestinian people’s human rights. He posted on X:

Secretary Marco Rubio @SecRubio

Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt @IntlCrimCourt action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.

Rubio, a former “human rights attorney”, is coming down heavy on a fellow human rights attorney? Is this a Monty Python sketch or am I just dreaming? If it is a dream, it’s a nightmare, that’s for certain.

Will Francesca Albanese suffer personally from US sanctions simply for doing her job? I hope not...

...In spite of the pressures and threats from bullies such as Trump and Rubio, Ms. Albanese carries on. She even calmly explained why she’s under fire for exposing state and corporate complicity in Israel's genocide:

It's a sign the system is cracking; it is punching back. But it will only win if we are scared, if we stop standing with one another.

Good advice. We need to stand with each other and not let the bullies shut us down.

The system is cracking, but it’s possibly not quite the system most imagine...

 

To find out what kind of system Francesca Albanese is really taking on (and just how dangerous it is), please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

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There you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics, and be able to leave comments. You can become a free or paid subscriber and receive weekly posts in your email box, along with occasional special articles just for paid subscribers, too.

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This article is the 528th blog posting of The Revolution Continues. We began in June 2015, and we're still going strong. Please keep reading, sharing, and subscribing to help TRC continue for another ten years. 

You can make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you.

 

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. ~Buckminster Fuller, US Architect, Systems Theorist, Author, Designer, Inventor and Futurist

Making The Existing Model Obsolete

by C.A. Matthews

“That’s the way it is,” I’m often told whenever I criticize the corrupt governmental system in the US. “We can’t do any better than that,” I’m informed. “It’s the best we’ve got.”

I’m not one for absolutes. My usual response to that kind of statement is, “How can you be so sure it’s the best? Have we ever tried anything radically different and compared the two?”

My challenge to their belief that they live in a “democracy” isn’t what most people want to hear. It makes them uncomfortable. If our system of government in the US was compared to something else and found wanting, well… You get where I’m coming from.

Americans who don’t like change are comfortable with the status quo. They’re not hurting financially or going without health care. They’re not starving or skipping meals. They’re not sleeping rough in the streets.

Sure, these Americans might have some beefs about paying taxes and they’ll hold grudges against elected officials who failed to stand up to their promises, but they’re not going to welcome an entirely new system of government just because of those things. A sudden change in the governmental system might upturn these comfortable Americans’ apple cart. They can’t have that.

I’m not one of those people. I’m not that comfortable financially, physically, or intellectually with the existing model. I can’t stand the hypocrisy, hate, and violence the American system engenders. I’m for Revolution, a complete change of direction, a total tear-down of the prevalent framework and a building of a different model that works for working people, not corporations and their CEOs.

I go along with Buckminster Fuller—we need to create a better model or style of government so we can completely junk the old one that doesn’t work for the majority of us.

So, what would I replace the present “representative democracy” (that is, in reality, an oligarchy according to the 2014 Princeton study) in the United States with? Change always starts with an idea. I have an idea, a pretty good idea. It may not be your idea, but I thought I’d float it by you and get your feedback...

 

To discover my unique model of government that actually works as a democracy, please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

There you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics, and be able to leave comments. You can become a free or paid subscriber and receive weekly posts in your email box, along with occasional special articles just for paid subscribers, too.

Subscribe to The Revolution Continues on Substack today. Power to the people! 

This article is the 527th blog posting of The Revolution Continues. We began in June 2015, and we're still going strong. Please keep reading, sharing, and subscribing to help TRC continue for another ten years. 

You can make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or at Buy Me a Coffee or at Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you.

 

I’d like to share this great comment by UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Territories of Palestine Francesca Albanese on the food blockade to Gaza, the GHF, and the lack of response from the international community:

This is the most sadistic exercise in intellectual gymnastics I’ve ever come across. (Found at the 42 minute mark: youtu.be/tLa4BT0J8Q4)

More videos featuring Francesca Albanese are listed on the Substack post.

The Goal Is An Endless War

 

Not all the power and money, not all the weapons and propaganda on earth can any longer hide the wound that is Palestine. The wound through which the whole world, including Israel, bleeds. --Arundhati Roy

Random thoughts about the current state of the world while a cat sits on top of my head while I lie awake in bed during the dark hours before dawn. Happy "Independence" Day, USA. 

The Goal Is An Endless War (Not A Successful War)

By C.A. Matthews

Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange once said “The goal is an endless war, not a successful war.”

Whatever did Assange mean by that? Surely, the goal of warfare is to beat your opponent(s) and achieve the results you wanted when you began the fighting, right? Otherwise, what is the point of war? It can’t simply be about endless death and destruction and if-I-can’t-have-it-neither-can-you, can it?

The endlessness is what really gets to me. Who comes up with the concept of endless war? Only persons who see a need for endless growth and endless chaos would even consider endless war as beneficial—or possibly even necessary—to their side of the conflict.

Endless growth of the economy, endless chaos of competitors, endless hoarding of wealth, endless destruction of the environment and the Earth’s ecology… Hmm, all that sounds oddly familiar.

Could it be it’s capitalists who have behind all this endless warfare in the last hundred+ years? 

 

To find out more on the endless war and its monstrous goals, please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

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There you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics, and be able to leave comments. You can become a free or paid subscriber and receive weekly posts in your email box, along with occasional special articles just for paid subscribers, too.

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This article is the 526th blog posting of The Revolution Continues. We began in June 2015, and we're still going strong. Please keep reading, sharing, and subscribing to help TRC continue for another ten years. 

You can make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or at Buy Me a Coffee or at Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you.

 

 

AT&T Hates Our Cat

by C.A. Matthews

We returned home from the cat shelter around 1 PM with our new foster cat Elsie, a twelve-year-old tabby with a sweet disposition who we hoped would be a friend to our four-year-old cat, Bowtie. Since Bowtie had been cooped up for a while, and it is his normal schedule to take a romp in our garden in the afternoon, we let him out so we could concentrate on settling Elsie into her new home. We have a long lot with trees and many raspberry bushes on a slight incline away from our house, so we were unaware that anything was amiss with our back fence line when we let him out.

Little did we know that while we were out picking up Elsie contract workers for AT&T had bent over our wire fence, dug a deep trench, cut away limbs from the trees behind us, and opened an exit for a curious and frightened cat to dart through when he heard the loud noises of their equipment shoving fiber optic cable underground. We had received no warning from AT&T that they would be doing such work in our area. Nothing—no paper hanger on the door, no post card in the mail, no phone call. We had no idea that their workers could casually knock over our fence and leave it that way, causing our beloved pet to escape...

...I believe this incident sends a message: Those of us who live in normal, working class neighborhoods have zero rights compared to huge corporations. Our local officials can’t be bothered to stand up for us if our property is damaged and our pets or family members become lost or hurt, either...

 

To hear the end of the story and how it relates to how corporations treat us and what we can do about it, please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

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There you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics, and be able to leave comments. You can become a free or paid subscriber and receive weekly posts in your email box, along with occasional special articles just for paid subscribers, too.

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This article is the 525th blog posting of The Revolution Continues. We began in June 2015, and we're still going strong. Please keep reading, sharing, and subscribing to help TRC continue for another ten years. 

You can make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or at Buy Me a Coffee or at Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you.