The Revolution Continues blog is news, views, opinion and other expressions of hope from a leftist point-of-view. (We are not affiliated with any candidate, political party or organization. All are welcome.)
Everything You Wanted to Know About Maintaining the Status Quo (But Were Afraid You Already Knew)
by C.A. Matthews
From time to time The Revolution Continues
(TRC) likes to do a “man on the street” interview to get a finger on
the pulse of the public. What’s on the ordinary person’s mind lately?
Here is the transcript of our latest meet-up with an Average American
Voter (AAV).
TRC:
Thanks for agreeing to speak with us today. You told us earlier that
something is really bothering you. You suspect it’s also worrying
others, and you want to hear our thoughts on the matter. What’s your
concern?
AAV:
Well, it’s hard to put into words, but here goes: Why does it seem the
more Americans vote the way they tell us to, the worse things get? I
mean, why aren’t the Democrats doing anything to stop Trump and his
cronies from ruining the economy or stopping arms sales to Israel? I
thought the Dems were different.
TRC: Different? In what way are they supposed to be “different”?
AAV:
I expected them to take a more active role in protecting ordinary
people like me. You know, protect us from being taken advantage of by
the billionaires. But they’re just letting Musk tear the government
apart. You’d think they’d stand up and stop him from destroying so many
social programs, not just talk about it and do nothing of consequence.
TRC: And this inactivity on the Democrats’ part worries you?
AAV: Yes, it does. I’d like to be able to retire and collect my Social Security in a few years if possible.
TRC:
Completely understandable. To re-state your concern, you’re wondering
why the opposition party doesn’t seem able or willing to challenge the
actions of the party in power currently. The Democrats seem to be
cooperating more with the Republicans than actually challenging them. Is
that right?
AAV: Right. That’s not what I voted for. I want change. I want them to challenge the status quo, not go along with them.
TRC:
I see. I think that’s where your misinterpretation of the DNC’s
inactivity comes in. Because the Dems have, in fact, been quite active
as of late.
AAV: They have?
To discover the true nature of all this "activity," continue reading the rest of this article. Copy or click on this
Substack link:
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This
article is the 516th 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.
The
postmark read December 19, 2024. We received the Christmas card this
past week. In previous years we received mail from my husband’s cousin
in less than a month’s time. What was so different this time?
Two
Christmas letters that I’d mailed out the first week of December came
back “return to sender” a little over week ago. Is there some new rule
that says that these letters must sit in bag somewhere inside a post
office for almost two months before being returned to the sender?
What
gives with the US postal service? If you’re blaming Trump for the lousy
mail service, you’re only half right. Sure, Trump appointed Louis DeJoy
as Postmaster General during his first term, but I mailed these letters
(and others in the past four years which have been delayed and lost)
during the Biden administration. Who served as Postmaster General under
Biden?
You guessed it—it was Louis DeJoy and it still is.
If
Louis DeJoy was installed by Trump to wreck the USPS so Congress would
be tempted to shut it down and turn it into a private mail delivery
corporation instead of a public one, then why did Biden never attempt to
appoint another Postmaster General? I’ve received tons of emails these
past four years from various organizations saying we should all write
our Congress members as well as President Biden pleading to work toward
changing the USPS board so it could offer a replacement for DeJoy.
The
thing is, DeJoy knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s doing as our real
rulers want him to do. And Biden didn’t want to upset the rulers, so
DeJoy remained in office.
DeJoy’s
bosses are not the president and Congress. His bosses are the oligarchs
(or billionaires) who control everything because they essentially own
everything—up to and including the presidency...
To read more examples of how "they did it again," please
continue reading the rest of this article by copying or clicking on this
Substack link:
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 505th 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.
A Terrible Tale of Voter Suppression. (Plus "A Letter to Kamala.")
by C. A. Matthews
Living with a mystery series writer (check out my husband’s Veronica Nash series), I watch many (and I mean many)
mystery movies, TV series, and the like. I’ve never been the biggest
fan of mysteries since some feature “copaganda” with their noble-minded
police detective sleuths showing off how damn smart they are. Putting
that fault aside, I watch mysteries in order to learn more about how to
plot a story as well as learn interesting science facts that
occasionally pop up. I find an interesting twist in the tale or an
outright surreal ending (like in a Twilight Zone episode) enjoyable, too.
Unfortunately,
many mysteries are poorly plotted. If I can guess “whodunnit” within
the first ten minutes of a mystery movie/TV show (or first chapter of a
novel), then it’s safe to say it’s crap and needs a re-write. I mean,
how the heck should anyone figure out the mystery so quickly? Mediocre
mysteries are the worse. There’s no use reading the rest of the book or
watching the next hour and half of silly red herrings if you know who
the murderer/kidnapper/thief is already. I’ve got better things to do
with my time.
Which
brings me to what I do with my time these days—I try and solve real
life mysteries of the political kind. In this season of post-election
blues in the US, I submit for your approval the following: The Mystery of the Missing Votes or A Terrible Tale of Voter Suppression.
In New Jersey, Green candidate for Congress Ben Taylor
was ahead of his duopoly competitors with 50,000+ votes, but a second
later the screen said that Taylor was behind and had only 3,000 votes.
What happened to his lead? Did his votes all die a mysterious death?
To see and solve more electoral mysteries, continue reading the rest of this article by clicking on this Substack link: https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com There
you'll also see related article and video links, all the images,
and be able to leave comments. You can subscribe to receive the
weekly blog post in your email box as well.
Have you ever heard the old expression, When your enemy is making mistakes, don’t stop and correct him? I believe working class Americans are currently in this situation. And it gives me optimism we may just make it after all.
What makes me feel so positive? First off, The Revolution Continuesblog was censored by Google (Blogger) for the second time in a week. Now, censorship is not usually something that makes me happy, but the probable reason behind what triggered the censorship reinforces my optimism. It's a sign that things are about to get very interesting, and they could work out well for the majority of us if we hang in there.
Check out last week’s blog, Weaponizing Free Speech, for the details of the first round of censorship the blog experienced and how it was circumvented. This second censored posting came from the same time period—about seven years ago—when the blog was still The Bernie Blog, and guess what? It also contained a short article about the Dems rigging the 2016 primaries against Bernie Sanders. This piece was actually a call for Berners to sign a petition for open DNC primaries. (The first censored blog had a piece about primary wins that were outright “stolen” from Bernie.) It seems somebody in authority has commanded Google to shut down any blog posts on the topic of trying to steal or manipulate the outcomes of Democratic Party primary elections.
Now, why would the Dems all of a sudden get twitchy about people reading an article about how their primaries have been “stolen” in the past? Could it have something to do with the recent announcement that both the Democratic Party primaries and the candidate debates are being canceled in 2024 so that Joe Biden can be crowned the party’s nominee with no need for him to undergo the hard work of campaigning? This announcement was made after both Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Junior announced they’re planning to run as Democrats.
I believe the Dem bosses are very concerned there will be a lot of upset blue voters demanding primaries and debates. Perhaps the bosses worry they'll be some very vocal and visual protests against Biden’s automatically assuming the throne without at least debating Marianne and RFK Jr.
That's pretty clear evidence of why the Dem bosses don’t want Biden to be in a debate situation or have him go on the road, campaigning for the primaries. He’s not capable of answering questions that aren’t written out—and answered for him—when he’s out in public. There is something else they're deathly afraid of: They're terrified that We the People won’t stand for having a cognitively incapacitated president in office for another four years.
To pretend that President Biden is focused on trying to reach the American people by different means, and not avoiding the give-and-take of a news conference open to all, as a White House aide told the New York Times, is just horseshit. --Seymour Hersh, Confessions Of A Political Flack
This non-choice of DNC candidates is particularly obnoxious when you realize that Donald Trump is the likely Republican Party nominee. Here is where the duopolists’ hubris might get the better of them. They think every American has been brainwashed enough to never consider not voting in protest or instead voting for an alternative party or independent candidate. But intelligent folks know that this couldn’t be further from the truth. A recent Gallup poll shows over 49% of Americans don't identify as either “Democrat” or “Republican” but as “Independent.”
Unlike Biden, We the People can think for ourselves. We understand how the same billionaires have bought off both the Ds and the Rs. We realize they're working for the billionaires and not us, and do as they're told. An intelligent electorate is scary indeed for the oligarchy.
Joe Biden's approval rating is at a record low according to Gallup: only 37% approve while 59% disapprove of the job he is doing. Of special note is that he's only at 31% with independents. The economy is the number one reason. No wonder the DNC won't allow debates. --Professor Anthony Zenkus on Twitter
See what I mean about not correcting your enemy’s mistakes? The donkeys and elephants of the duopoly have felt confident for almost one hundred-seventy years that their man (literally a male, and a white, wealthy male at that) will be the winner of the presidential election. There’s been zero exceptions, although there have been some close calls. Could the 2024 presidential election be the upset of the millennium? Could Americans actually see a libertarian, socialist, eco-socialist, or even a professed communist assume the presidency? Could we witness some real change?
Before you laugh and say something along the lines of “That’s not possible,” I'll remind you of just how many damning duopolist-driven government lies and obscenities have been exposed lately. Who thought these embarrassing truths would ever come to light? Who knows how these revelations might persuade voters to vote for other than the duopoly?
This past week it was revealed the CIA recruited some of the 9/11 attackers from Saudi Arabia, covering up for them after the Twin Towers fell. Whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and independent journalists like Julian Assange have revealed how Americans have been spied upon and outright lied to, only to be exiled or jailed without trial. The Russiagate conspiracy has been totally debunked, and the Hamilton 68 dashboard was revealed as a government-funded troll farm to perpetuate these myths.
The US is perpetually at war for other countries' resources, making the military industrial complex CEOs ever richer and turning our children/grandchildren into casualty figures fighting the billionaires' wars for oil. Many Americans express horror at a possible nuclear war between the US and Russia and/or China. They know nuclear winter is not survivable.
In an attempt to bring an end to this war, China has taken the lead in advocating peace talks. Brazil's President Lula da Silva has backed Beijing's efforts. The West, on the other hand, has vociferously opposed all attempts at diplomatic negotiations and instead pushed to escalate the NATO proxy war on Russia, sending fighter jets and tanks to Kiev. Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, are treating their country as a for-profit company, frequently traveling to the United States in search of lucrative business opportunities. --From US Corporations Cash In On Ukraine’s Oil And Gas
Ordinary working Americans watch in horror as the billionaires who own the duopoly grow richer while the workers' food prices and rents skyrocket.
The workers' “enemy” has made a lot of “mistakes,” and many of them have been revealed. Why should We the People trust the duopolists currently in power? They unquestioningly do the bidding of their billionaire masters. Why should we allow the billionaires and their puppets to prosper at the workers’ expense?
We’re already seeing the scales fall from the eyes of the French and the Peruvian workers. They have been marching and protesting in the streets for months now, livid at the evils of their respective governments. Even in the US this year we’re seeing a record number of protests, strikes, and new unions forming. Apparently, a good number of We the People aren’t afraid to take our disputes public and shout down our oppressors any longer.
Then there are deaths of despair–-in its massiveness a nearly unique American phenomenon. These seemingly ubiquitous encounters with the Grim Reaper from suicide, drug overdose or cirrhosis of the liver predominately afflict middle-aged whites–-for obvious reasons, namely, this demographic has suffered a stupendous decline in its living standards in recent decades due to Wall Street-enforced deindustrialization. Good jobs just don’t exist in their old numbers anymore, and many people cannot “adjust” to this. As a result, according to Health System Tracker, “the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy among large, wealthy countries, while it far outspends its peers on health care. --From As American Life Expectancy Plunges, Political Bigwigs Stay Busy Not Noticing
As more and more Americans lose their COVID-related Medicaid health care and other tax breaks, I predict there will be even more protests and strikes. As the climate catastrophe worsens and more Americans find themselves dealing with floods, forest fires, and super-storms, I see more activism and demands for the billionaires to clean up their messes at their expense, not ours.
As the “copbots” and "robo-dogs" shoot at protesters, I hope we’ll see even more protesting and demonstrating directed toward the useless duopolists who have militarized the police in their fear of us. They think we’re not courageous enough to take them on. But hunger, homelessness, desperation, and anger all can motivate a person, so perhaps we are.
A clueless president who can’t answer questions on the spot and speak to the people’s concerns doesn’t deserve our respect or support. A greedy ex-president who would rob us all blind doesn’t deserve a second chance. And neither of them deserve our vote.
We know what they’re afraid of—they’re afraid of us, the American workers, We the People. We're not all brainwashed. We see through their lies. We're determined to be rid of those who persecute and prosecute us for simply trying to live our lives.
Let’s use their fear of us to our advantage. Let's put them on the spot. Let’s keep them guessing what we’ll do next. Let’s keep doing whatever it takes until they break and we get what we deserve.
Get off your sofas and out of your basements, Doomers and Gloomers! Take to the streets! Demand change! You have nothing to lose but your misery.
If you think billionaires and massive corporations aren't the problem, think again...
Protecting Our Right To Protest
by C. A. Matthews
Just when you think you can't fall down the rabbit hole into
Alice's Wonderland any farther, your
elected officials will come up with legislation to abridge your rights to protest
and free speech.
I'm not kidding.
Who could joke about something so offensive and so entirely undemocratic?
Who could come up with a law that would make even chalking a protest message on
a sidewalk a felony? Who could come up with a way to make it legal for the cops
to shoot unarmed protesters if they feel the least bit "threatened"?
Our elected officials can--and they have!
Ohio isn't the only state to introduce anti-protesting
legislation, but it's the one I'm most familiar with. There are several bills currently in the Ohio legislature that focus on
curtailing or restricting protesting and free speech. They are Senate Bills 33,
16
and 41
as well as House Bills 22
and 109.
I recently encountered some protesters in Toledo who were speaking out (while
we still can) about protecting our rights to protest. Here's my impression of
where they were coming from and how it differs from my take.
Most of my fellow anti-protesting protesters (you go crazy just
saying that!) weren't happy about their elected representatives supporting these
measures, but they felt sure one thing could turn all of these bills
around. And what one thing is that? Why, voting these naughty politicians out of office.
The only reason these politcos created these anti-protesting bills in the first place, according to one of my
fellow protesters, is because they belong to the Republican Party. It's that simple. To be a Republican is to be anti-free speech and against embarrassing protests, in his opinion. As soon
as "good Democrats" can be put into office and take over these wayward politicians' seats, all
threats to our rights to protest and free speech will simply evaporate like a
light rain on a hot summer's day.
I wish I could be so optimistic.
Alas, I doubt that turning around the overwhelmingly Republican Ohio
House and Senate will automatically kill these anti-protest bills. I wish it could
be that simple. But it isn't.
Why isn't it? You only have to look at who or what is behind these pieces
of legislation to see why they won't simply "go away" when all the bad,
evil, wicked GOPers are voted out of office and replaced with the only other "recognized
establishment party" (the Democrats) in the Buckeye State. (That's a whole
other blog piece in the making. Ohio's current political establishment hates alternative parties so much that it makes it almost impossible for third parties to keep their "recognized" status from election to election.)
The real money and impetus behind Ohio's anti-protesting measures isn't because Republicans hate free speech. It's because the
fossil fuel industry hates free speech and bad publicity more. Big Oil is terrified of protesters shouting,
"People over pipelines!" over each and every mile of pipe they bury into our soil. The fracking industry doesn't care much for
the bad press they get whenever one of their wells or collection ponds leak. Somehow, Ohioans are
supposed to drink petroleum-laden well or river or lake water and
like it and live happily ever after.
Uh-huh. Yeah, like who's really fallen down the rabbit hole here?
Big Agriculture plays a part in all this shutting down of
free speech, too. But I suspect you already know something about that if you've
followed this blog's coverage of the first Rights of Nature Law passed in the
United States, The Lake Erie Bill of Rights.
Since both establishment parties--the Republicans and the
Democrats--have been well-awarded by Big Oil, Big Ag, and their lobbyist friends over the years, the
chances that a flip in the Ohio House and Senate to a majority Democratic Party
leadership would make any difference to how these new laws would be passed and enforced
is slim to none. Money talks--and
politicians whose hungry campaign coffers love a big helping of Big Oil dollars
aren't going to tell the fossil fuel industry to shut up and go away.
So we will have to do it.
Calling all activists! This spring and summer our voices must
be heard and our signs and bodies must be seen before it is too late. And start
raising your bail money now. Anti-protest laws mean more arrests. That's the purpose of them. But we have something Big Oil doesn't have--sheer numbers. They can't lock all of us away, all at the same time, can they?
Our elected representatives in Washington DC are also trying to abridge our right to free speech. Watch this interview with a person who was intimidated by the police for a response to a tweet he posted--not his actual tweet (which wasn't threatening) but another person's response to it that was. He was questioned and scared essentially because the tweet wasn't exactly flattering to a certain Congressmember's recent performance. If your elected officials can't be held accountable and take responsibility for their actions, then are you really living in a democracy?
Plastic is accumulating on our beaches and in our oceans. There could be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050. Take action now.
Corporations
love plastic. Thanks to the fracking boom, it’s cheap for the fossil
fuel industry to create. So oil and gas companies are pushing plastic
consumption -- including the widespread use of one-use plastics -- to line their pockets.
But
the plastic waste problem has become massive: in the United States 91%
of plastic ends up being thrown away, never recycled. Some of it
ultimately ends up in our oceans, where it harms or kills marine
wildlife.
Call on Congress to protect our planet by supporting the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act.
Demand Congress address the plastic crisis before it overruns our planet.
Plastic
pollution kills over a million marine creatures annually, including
turtles, dolphins, whales, and sea birds. And plastics don’t
disappear. They just break down into smaller and smaller pieces until
they become microplastics.
But plastic also impacts humans. On average, people ingest the equivalent of a credit card each week. That’s right -- if
you’re an average person, you are likely consuming an average of 5
grams of plastic per week. Microplastics can be found in everyday foods
and drinks -- like beer, salt, shellfish and even drinking water!
Tell Congress you do not want to be exposed to more plastic in your food and water. Stop plastic polluters.
Plastic production also worsens the climate crisis. More than 99% of plastic is created from fossil fuels. The emissions from creating plastic could soon reach the equivalent of 300 coal-fired power plants.
Finally,
our country is one of the worst plastic offenders, which is why
Congress needs to take action. The United States produces the most
plastic waste per capita of any country -- then ships a large portion abroad to countries that are already struggling to maintain their own waste effectively.
Plastic
is polluting our entire planet, from the beaches to the deepest depths
of our oceans. Congress must address this crisis and stop Big Polluters
from destroying our health, land, air, and sea.
Demand the United States break free from plastic and stop the pollution at its source!
Michelle Chan,
VP of programs,
Friends of the Earth
***
We're rapidly approaching the May 1
deadline to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, and President Biden still
has not proposed a plan to fulfill his campaign promise.
War hawks in the foreign policy establishment are trying to dominate media coverage and claim nobody cares about ending the Forever War in an attempt to force President Biden to continue it.
But we have news for them — we
care. There is an overwhelming consensus among veterans and civilian
supporters that we must end the Forever War.
That's why Common Defense is calling on
supporters across the country to write Letters to the Editor to hold
President Biden accountable and show the media there is a grassroots
movement calling for an end to the Forever War.
The
war in Afghanistan has dragged on for nearly 20 years, and it is time
to do the right thing and end what veterans call the "Forever War." An
entire generation has never known a country at peace, and this conflict
has cost a trillion dollars and countless lives.
Pres. Biden has
the chance to right this wrong. This conflict must end now, as he
promised many times during his campaign. Our continued presence in
Afghanistan is not making America safer. In fact, prolonging these
conflicts is making us a target and putting our troops in harm's way
unnecessarily. It's well past time, please, Mr. President, bring our
troops home now.
Military withdrawal from Afghanistan will give
our diplomats a chance to do the hard work of building a peace
agreement, rather than continuing with a failed military strategy that
cannot accomplish anything further, and which the "Afghanistan Papers"
published by the Washington Post reveal top generals themselves do not
even believe in.
America's veterans and military members deserve
to have a government which advocates for them. We're counting on you to
do the right thing.
Writing a Letter to the
Editor can have a real impact, especially if you include any applicable
information about your military service or name your Representatives in
Congress. Believe me, elected officials read these!
If we can get dozens of veterans to sign on, we can take a crucial step to defending our democracy. But we need your help.
This
week, we learned what happens after a multi-billion dollar company like
Amazon spends a year intimidating, punishing, and suppressing workers
in Bessemer, Alabama who were working to form a union to push back on
unfair working conditions.
While this was not the result that we were hoping for, we are proud of the bravery and tremendous success the workers had in standing up to one the biggest corporations in the world, telling their story on the global stage, and demanding that they be treated with dignity and respect.
Congress needs to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to make sure worker voices cannot be silenced.Unions are one of best ways to ensure fair working conditions and equity.
And we need to break up these corporations through stronger antitrust
laws that give the tools that regulators need to ensure that no
corporation can make billions of dollars by profiting from the suffering
of workers and the destruction of small businesses.
This
is only the beginning. Workers and communities have been standing up to
Amazon's greed and abuses for years and we will soon see a time where
those efforts will result in the power that workers need to break up
Amazon's grip on our economy.
We need to remember that what’s happening in Bessemer is a result of Amazon’s unchecked corporate power and what corporations have done for decades to diminish the power of labor law so that they can get the most profit out of us as possible.
