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.)
Showing posts with label #forprofitprisons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #forprofitprisons. Show all posts
The Land of the Greed and the Home of the Child-Haters
by C. A. Matthews
There’s nothing to be proud of living in a country that openly and unapologetically hates children. All children.
For
those who are totally clueless (or pretending to be) the following
articles will enlighten you. Once you’ve read them, you will no longer
be able to claim ignorance of the genocide happening in Gaza and
America’s involvement in it. You will understand why the rest of the
world feels nothing but disgust whenever they spy the Star Spangled
Banner waving in the breezealongside an Israeli flag.
...You didn’t think I was going to leave out domestic
child abuse/endangerment articles, did you? If the US government is
willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on sending aid to
Israel to bomb, burn, and maim Palestinian children (and then won’t even
let them into the country for treatment), why wouldn’t it be willing to
not spend any money at home to improve American kids’ health and educational opportunities?
Why
wouldn’t the US government spend billions on hiring masked vigilantes
under the guise of ICE to terrorize and rip families apart who are
looking for asylum? Why wouldn’t the US government want to destroy the
First Amendment and censor protests against these horrific American
policies? It does these things because it can and it does get away with them.
And why? Because America hates children...
To
read the rest of this article as well as an extra piece about a county
commissioners' meeting I recently attended about divesting from Israeli
bonds, please copy or click on this 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.
This
article is the 534th 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.
Editor's
note:
I had a dream about this whole hot mess the
world finds itself in. I wanted to share my vision, but I struggled to put it
into words until I decided to write it as a short short story. Other
than the odd poem (not very often and very odd), I haven't posted
anything like a short story at the The
Revolution Continues
before. This is a first. I've not written much fiction in recent
times because, frankly, I don't feel like writing anything funny or
with a happy ending. My last
novella is set in a dystopian world where an anarchist commune that practices mutual aid is
struggling to survive alongside a fascist state. My publisher
insisted it at least have a "happy for now" ending.
(You can buy a copy of it here. It would make my publisher very happy. Or you can drop me a donation via my
Paypal.me page here. That would make me very happy!)
If you decide you'd like to read more short fiction posts, let me know. I'll
see what I can do. If you'd rather I didn't post fiction here, leave a
comment stating your preference. Thanks for your feedback.
A must-watch short video:
We can put an end to this genocide. We have the power.
The
Miracle
by C.A. Matthews
“That’s
my planet,” I confessed, trembling. I pointed to the big blue marble that is Earth through the spaceship observation port. The
tallest of the grayish, bulb-headed, big-eyed, mouthless alien beings
nodded in understanding. “You can tell it’s inhabited from the
amount of pollution in the atmosphere detectable from this…
height.”
I’d
never believed in alien abduction before, but now that it was
happening to me it didn’t seem all that bad. No anal probes. No
poking or prodding of any kind really, unless you count the mental
probing my hosts—I hated to label them “my captors”—had
gently done to determine how best to communicate with me. I spoke
out loud, but I realized fairly quickly that they were reading my
mind and communicating me mentally, so using
my vocal cords
wasn’t
necessary. Talking just made me feel less nervous in their presence,
and they didn’t seem
to mind.
The
pollutants and toxins in your biosphere are slowly killing your kind
and many other species. Do you understand?
The tallest
of the aliens
sent its
thoughts directly into my head. Its tone and intonation made me
imagine it was coming from an
older, wiser individual. Itcommunicated
slowly and kindly as if speaking to a lost child. Would
you like them removed?
“The
pollution, you mean, not the people, right?” I laughed
and then gasped
as
what it meant hit me fully.
“You’re saying that you all can actually clean up our polluted
planet
after
all we’ve done to it?”
Yes,
we have the means to return your planet’s biosphere to its state
before the mass burning of fossil
fuels began. We can purge the toxins from the atmosphere,
the water
cycle, and from the soil. Crops
and forests will thrive. No longer will adverse climate effects harm
food production or the wildlife. We
can replace the
engines that run your
vehicles, machinery, and industrial plants that cause pollution and
radiation
with ones that do not. We can eliminate rogue viruses and bacteria
that cause serious illness and provide your
healers with instruction on how to cure through natural means, not
through
the
use of synthetic chemicals. Allow
us
to demonstrate.
With
a wave of its hand—or what I thought would pass as a
hand
on Earth—Tall
Guy
gave
its
compatriots
the signal to start Operation Earth Clean-Up. I’m not sure if what I
witnessed from the spaceship
window happened instantaneously or was happening over a period of
days,
years,
or centuries,
but within what seemed only a few short minutes to
me
the face of the Earth looked much
greener
and bluer and...well, healthier.
“Wow…”
I whispered. “Thank you! I am very impressed. No more bad air
quality days? No more boil warnings for our tap water? I can actually
swim in the lake now and not get covered with an outbreak of
poisonous blue-green algae?”
We
have purged
the toxins that are hazardous to life on your planet, my
host mentally informed me. Your
kind can be cured of sicknesses
now
with simple medicines and techniques available
to all.
“No
more need
for bad
health
insurance that never covers what you really need? Cancer cured? It
all
sounds
too good to be true.” I shook
my head in
disbelief.
“In my country, big corporations make
lots of money from keeping people sick and addicted to drugs.”
Tall
Guy blinked. If it
had possessed a mouth, it might have frowned. The
concept
of capitalism was probably as foreign and strange to my hosts as
their spaceship and advanced technology were to me. If they were
reading my mind at that moment, they might have regretted lavishing
such kind gifts upon our selfish species.
Is
there anything else we can do for your kind before we return you? Tall
Guy asked.
I
couldn’t wait to return to Earth—the beautiful, unpolluted Garden
of Edenwhere
sickness would be no more. I
sighed. There was something
niggling
me
in the back of my mind. I
had to know ifmy
hosts could
grant methis
one last, grandwish.
“Can
you rid our
world of war? Can you remove all the weapons—that
is, the
tools of violence
and destruction? Guns,
cannons,
nukes,
tanks, submarines, bomber
jetsand
the like that
humans use
to
kill other humans?”
Tall
Guy blinked again.
I was pretty sure this time it was
frowning
inside even without a mouth.
I
probably had asked too big of a favor. After all, extracting
pollution out of the biosphere could be just an
elaborate
chemical equation to them, but taking weapons away from warmongers? If
the concepts of capitalism andgreed
were incomprehensibly
horrible
and cruel to my
hosts,
can you imagine what they would have thought of humanity’s
insatiable need
to slaughter their
neighbors
and steal each
others’ land
and resources?
A
few
minutes later, after much discussion
as I called my hosts’ method of communicating as a group by
touching their foreheads
together,
I got my answer.
We
will try.
It
took more than ahand
wave from Tall Guy to bring peace about on Planet Earth. Several
different groups of gray aliens
started to work out different aspects of the challenge. I was allowed
to walk about and watch each team
tackle their part of the problem. I watched a view screen with
fascination as one group disintegrated
the biggest and most obvious weapons of war. They
focused what must have been a laser upon anaircraft
carrier and
then poof!
It was vaporized. Gone. Likewise to nuclear subs and battleships. The
sailors aboard were all magically transported to the closest port.
I
couldn’t help but clap my hands with glee as another group took out
an entire fleet of bombers and nuclear silos.
Zap! They
disappeared.
But
my hosts didn’t stop there. Another
group worked on eliminating all the small arms and automatic
weapons on
the planet. I’m not sure how their scanners could pick up on the
millions of firearms, some of which were hidden in cellars and barns
by the thousands in
my country,
but they did it. Abracadabra!
They vanished.
Wars
aren’t only fought on the battlefields, but in the cities and towns
where the oppressed are helpless to defend themselves. Several groups
of my gray hosts worked on tearing down barbwire fences and concrete
walls that had imprisoned so many within their own homelands or kept
them from entering a place of safety. I don’t know how they did
it, but my hosts flung open the prison doors that had incarcerated
freedom fighters and innocents alike, setting them free.
In
turn, the
politicians and the corporate war lords who had profited greatly
from
eternal wars for oil and similar
land grabs were escorted by invisible forces to trade places with the
unjustly imprisoned. Ta-da!
What
a brilliant move!
The
destruction of homes, family farms, and small businesses, the results of the wars
and genocides, was instantly reversed. Homelessness and
hunger were no
more. All who had been separated by violence and
divisions were
once again reunited with their family
members
and friends.
I
wept
tears of joy.
It
is accomplished,
Tall Guy communicated to me. Why
do you experience sadness?
“I’m
not sad. I’m happy.” I wiped my tears away with the back of my
hand and gazed upon one
of the
view screens
where a neighborhood, once reduced to rubble by bombing, now stood
whole and complete. “I am so
happy
with
the results of your
wonderful talents. How
can we ever thank you?”
And
then I caught a glimpse of something on the screen that caused my
smile to fade.
“What the hell… What is he doing?”
A
man picked up a rock and threw it hard at another man just about to
enter his rebuilt home. The second man fell to his knees, blood
pouring from a deep
gash
on his forehead. The
first
man and his group
ran toward the second man’s home,throwing
more rocks at it as
well as the
peopleof
the rebuilt neighborhood.
“I
thought you had eliminated all war?” I
whispered.
My
hosts assembled and pressed their foreheads
together in communion. After a long
minute,
Tall Guy approached,
its
appendages spread open in an imploring fashion.
We
eliminated all the human-made tools of war and violence as you had
asked us to, but we cannot take away the feelings of hatred and greed
and fear from inside each human being. That is something humanity
must do for itself. Do you understand?
I
nodded
and closed my eyes. “I understand. I appreciate all that you’ve
done for us. I realize now that I
can’t
expect you to perform a miracle.”
A
miracle? Explain.
“Something
that seems impossible, but it can and does spontaneously
occur
on rare occasions.”
Tall
Guy nodded. Its gaze appeared softer, more sympathetic.No,
we cannot perform a miracle. We cannot change the minds of living
beings set on hurting others.
“How
long will it take until humankind rebuilds
all the weapons it
had?”
I sniffed.
“Years? Months? Days?”
Not
long. Tall
Guy’s
tone
registered upon my mind
as
resignation.
I
turned toward the window. The
skies above the Earth weregrowing
darker and dirtier by
the second.
Humanswere
already rebuilding
the polluting factories to
create instruments of death, to
destroy each other and Earth’s fragile ecosystem without mercy.
Can
we help? Tall
Guy communicated
to
me.
I
slowly
smiled
at
my gracious
hosts.
“We’d all better start praying for that miracle,
or else I’ve wasted your time.”
This meme of Israeli girls writing their names on bombs to drop on Gaza is a couple months old. Recent estimates say 15,000+ children have been murdered in the Israeli genocide of Gaza.
Subscribe
to The Revolution Continues on Substack today. Go to https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com and subscribe at the link at the end of
the article. You'll enjoy having each week's post automatically sent to
your email box or reading it at the Substack site. Many thanks for your
consideration.
After
a half year of studying US immigration law and policy, you'd think I'd be over
it by now. But I'm not. I feel like ripping my hair out by the roots some days
because our government refuses to follow its own laws and the protocols it has
signed with the United Nations but somehow expects everyone else on the planet
to do so. Perfectly, no less!
Hypocritical
isn't it?
What
triggered my hair pulling this week was news of how the Biden administration is
expediting removals at the border. Our government is so hyped up to send people
packing as fast as possible who step over the invisible boundary line that
it's actually deporting US citizens. Yeah, no kidding! ICE has arrested
674, detained 121, and deported at least 70 US citizens in the past five years.
What
makes this horror even more horrific is that non-citizens aren't
guaranteed legal representation, and we've adopted a "guilty until proven
innocent" attitude toward these poor souls. So, these unfortunates soon find
themselves locked up in "detention facilities" (a nice name for a
private-run, for-profit prison) until someone can find out what the hell happened
to them and spring them.
Our
Border Patrol and ICE won't believe you when you simply state that you're a US
citizen or even bother to look up your contacts to testify to the fact
apparently. They just enjoy locking people up during a pandemic who don't fit
their idea of what a "citizen" is supposed to look like.
How
many white people do you think ICE "accidentally" locked up in their detention
centers? How many with Hispanic surnames or dark skin? Uh-huh.
But
the worst injustice happens to asylum seekers who are coming to our country
looking for refuge from well-founded fears of gang violence, domestic violence,
and war. The US signed the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees
stating that we agree with the UN's definition of a refugee. It says:
A refugee is any
person who is outside their country of nationality and is unwilling or unable
to return because of fear of persecution because of that person's race,
nationality, religion, membership in a particular social group, or political
opinion and the government is unable or unwilling to provide protection.
We've
agreed to protect refugees, officially labeled by the UN or self-labeled (asylum
seekers). And yet we won't let these asylum seekers stay in the US as we process their claim to asylum as we agreed to when we signed
the 1967 Protocol. No, we're kicking them out at our border crossings without due
process, without an actual hearing with a trained asylum officer who is capable of accepting their plea for asylum.
We let
ICE officers act like Nazi Brown Shirts and deny asylum seekers justice.
We are breaking our own laws and breaking our covenant with the United Nations in regards to refugees. We are the lawbreakers--not those fleeing for
their lives.
They
are simply trying to find a safe haven. They are searching for a peaceful land
to live in and raise their families. Many
have escaped hell, and then we greet them at our borders with more of the same.
In desperation, many have sent their children on ahead of them to the US in hopes of keeping their kids safe from the violence they are fleeing.
We really
should be ashamed of ourselves. For some reason, we are not.
Yes,
the "kids are cages" exist to this very day. Children fleeing for
their lives because they are orphaned, abused, or were told by their parents or guardians
that it was safer for them in the US than to remain in their homeland. This
surge in unaccompanied children began during the Obama administration and has continued on under his former vice president.
You
can change the figurehead in Washington DC, but you can't change our egregious
immigration policies, or so it seems. Our immigration policing agencies (birthed a
mere 20 years ago with the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security) continue to reinforce the same racist, capitalistic,
slave-laborer-loving quotas that the oligarchs have desired since the founding
of our country.
"Kind
Imperialism" is one way of putting it. The US has conquered/is conquering/is
attempting to conquer the rest of the world, and yet we try to keep a kind face on our imperialistic,
colonizing ways. Face it--we're not the friendly "melting pot" of cultures we
were taught in fifth grade social studies. I haven't believed that lie for
many years now.
Have
you?
It
doesn't take a certificate in immigration advocacy to understand prejudice and
inhumanity after observing our government's actions toward immigrants. It's
time for Americans to confess their personal indifference and call out the travesty
of justice inflicted upon our neighbors by the agents of the DHS.
BREAKING:
The Biden administration just announced it will continue a Trump-era
policy, known as Title 42, that bars families from entering the country
under the false-pretense that it’ll keep us safe from COVID.
Make no mistake – President Biden is choosing to continue a cruel and racist policy that puts children and families in danger and is the opposite of the values that should underpin our immigration system: care, compassion, and dignity.
Title 42’s impact has already been horrific – 875,000 people seeking
asylum in the United States have been blocked from entering since March
2020. Families have been expelled to dangerous Mexican border cities
where they’re often targeted by gangs and have less access to medical
care and protective measures from COVID.
If this was really about public health – as the Biden administration
claims – they could instead expand COVID-19 testing for families and
children at the southern border or provide immediate vaccinations. In
fact if anything the Biden administration’s immigration policies are
*increasing* the risks of COVID for asylum seekers and for people in the
U.S. by keeping families in unsafe conditions as they wait for legal
entry.
The Biden administration has said they need time to fix the
policies inherited from Trump. But seven months into office this is no
longer an extension of a Trump policy: this is President Biden choosing
to implement an inhumane immigration policy.
But it’s not too late to stop it and we’ve been successful pressuring President Biden before. In
April, when President Biden tried to keep the refugee caps at the
shamefully low levels Trump had imposed, thousands of us forced Biden’s
team to quickly change course -- so we *have* to step up quickly again.
People seeking protection deserve a warm welcome, not a cold shoulder.
Absolutely no one should be detained, separated or instantly rejected
without a fair hearing for trying to get their child out of harm’s way,
especially amidst a global pandemic that affects migrant families at
disproportionate rates.
More than ever, we need bold solutions to fix the broken immigration
and asylum system. We need to push back on the notion that we as a
country cannot rise to this task: We can.
Thanks for all you do,
Erin Mazursky, Organizing Director
Families Belong Together
***
Pololū Valley is a sacred place in Hawaii. It’s not only known for
its beauty and lush wildlife, but it’s also land that embodies the
history of Hawaiian people. But it now faces a severe threat: developers
who could turn it into a parking lot. Hundreds of thousands are
outraged, and are demanding immediate action to save this sacred land.
The group Protect Pololū Valley started this petition and need your
support to protect Pololū Valley.
Do not donate. Donations do not come to the Protect Pololū!
Pololū
is a sacred place. A pu’uhōnua (a place of refuge, peace and safety).
Kohala is the birthplace of an infant who sought refuge in Pololū Valley
and grew up to become the King of Hawaii and unify the lands. Original
place names of this region tell the mo’olelo (story) of how the people
of this place protected this infant on his journey to Pololū Valley.
"A‘ohe u‘i hele wale o Kohala" (No youth of Kohala goes empty-handed)
speaks to the generosity of the Kohala people. Pololū Valley is more
than a place of "cultural signficance". It is the history of the
Hawaiian people. It is a place of refuge that we must protect for our
future generations.
On December 11, 2020 at the Board of Land and
Natural Resources meeting the Division of Forestry and Wildlife
submitted a request for approval to apply as a co-applicant to the
County of Hawaii Planning Department together with Surety Kohala
Corporation and KP Holdings LLC to submit a PCRS application for a
13-lot subdivision along the ridge at Pololū Valley. A request for
approval to enter into a Letter of Intent with Surety Kohala Corporation
and KP Holdings LLC was also submitted to donate land to the State of
Hawaii.
At this meeting representatives from these organizations
spoke as if the community was in agreement with their submittals. No one
from the community attended the meeting or was notified about it. Prior
discussions with the community were about the donation of lands to the
State which include 5 acres to build a "comfort station" and parking lot
for visitors and acreage on the valley floor for conservation. There
was NO discussion about the proposed subdivison along the ridge. Surety
Kohala Corporation and KP Holdings LLC will only donate land to the
State AFTER the County approves the application for the subdivision.
This is not a donation. It’s a payout.
This is a process of greed.
It doesn’t consider the wisdom of our kūpuna (elders) and the future of
our keiki (children). It doesn’t acknowledge Pololū Valley as a wahi
pāna (a sacred place). Instead, the land is sold, as "the best view" to
the highest bidder, during a pandemic and a climate crisis. The State of
Hawaii has mismanaged conservation lands of our sacred mountain Mauna
Kea, just as these organizations continue to mismanage the generosity of
the people.
SIGN THIS PETITION TO PROTECT POLOLŪ VALLEY AND TELL
SURETY KOHALA CORPORATION AND KP HOLDINGS LLC, BOARD OF LAND AND NATURAL
RESOURCES, DIVISION OF FORESTRY AND WILDLIFE, COUNTY OF HAWAII AND THE
COUNTY OF HAWAII PLANNING DEPARTMENT THAT OUR VOICES WILL BE HEARD AND
THAT WE DO NOT WANT MORE DESECRATION AT THIS SACRED PLACE OF REFUGE.
*You do not need to donate. Donations do not come to the Protect Pololu Valley page.
No matter how much we all wish it were so, the coronavirus pandemic is NOT over:
The much more contagious Delta variant is now the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the U.S.
Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are spiking in many parts of the country.
Far
too many people have refused to get vaccinated (in large part because
of irresponsible and unconscionable propaganda being spread by countless
Republican politicians and right-wing media degenerates like Fox News’
sadistic Tucker Carlson — who are sacrificing their own followers to advance a Trumpist, neo-fascist agenda).
Yet
state and local officials all across America are lifting commonsense
restrictions and ending relief efforts as if the pandemic is all but
over, despite the plain evidence staring us right in our faces.
And it’s all even worse throughout much of the world.
There is, to state the obvious, A LOT of work still to do.
One
thing we need to do — and fast — is put pressure on Moderna, Pfizer,
and Johnson & Johnson to share their vaccine technology with the
world. This will help save millions of lives around the globe and
minimize the risk of even worse variants making their way to America.
