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.)
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:
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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...
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Imagine living in a world where you could get arrested for saying “Don’t kill the children!” because it might hurt the feelings of the killer.
Imagine living in a world where all children are cherished and taken well care of, always have enough to eat, a safe place to live, access to a decent education, and medical care whenever necessary.
Imagine living in a world where your country uses your tax dollars to provide the armaments, bombs, planes, and bullets for a genocide of innocents and won’t allow you to speak out against these war crimes upon pain of prosecution.
Imagine living in a world where you are free to speak your mind about the immorality of genocidal war crimes no matter how it casts a dark shadow upon the reputations of those in power, the oligarchs their political henchmen, and their celebrity endorsers, and your tax dollars go to support programs that actually serve the public.
Imagine living in a world where proxy wars have become commonplace and your tax dollars go to finance these conflicts in order for wealthy CEOs in the oil industry, the military-industrial complex and related industries to make even more billions at the expense of millions of lives.
Imagine living in a world where the polluting fossil fuels industry is no more because clean and plentiful sources of green energy from the sun, the wind, the tides, and the geothermal activities of the Earth itself have been developed and made available to all, thus making the need to start wars for oil and other resource grabs entirely unnecessary...
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A system that makes you pay to exist, compete to eat, and obey to survive is not a civlization; it's a prison with shopping privileges. —Anonymous
Round Peg Revolution
by C.A. Matthews
There’s
an old saying that goes, “You can’t fit a square peg into a round
hole.” When I saw the above meme, I was momentarily taken aback. In this
instance it’s the “round pegs” telling the “square peg” that they’re
not going to change to fit the “square hole” or system. The round pegs
insist that it’s better if the system is changed to fit all pegs. No peg is left behind that way.
Wow. That’s pretty deep, isn’t it?
What
is the “system” these pegs are talking about? Could it be the system of
government or a political system the pegs live under? Could it be the
economic system the pegs have to work in? Could it be the social system
that dictates what is considered moral and what isn’t in peg society?
Could it be all three?
For ease of argument, let’s say the pegs’ “system” includes all three dimensions—social, political, and economic.
Now
notice the square peg’s countenance and gesturing in the meme. It's
frowning and pointing. Its demeanor is disapproving and demanding. The
square peg is shown carrying a briefcase—sure evidence of a closed mind
if there ever was one!
I’ll
admit I’m jumping to conclusions with the scanty facts presented, but
you’ve got to admit that any peg which has sharp corners, carries a
badge of honor for business-types (the briefcase), and displays a stern,
condescending attitude toward others who are different from it is
probably not a very nice peg person.
I believe the technical term for this type of peg would be an “asshole.”
The
round pegs, on the hand, seem friendly and outgoing. They’re willing to
work with the square peg to build a better system—a better world, you
could say. Their willingness to think outside the box—or rather the
“square hole”—and include a wide variety of pegs in their system
demonstrates flexibility and their ability to handle a greater range of
experiences. They’re not stuck with four sides and four corners. They’re
“fluid” not “rigid,”open to change and desiring that all pegs thrive in
their system.
Square
peg with its briefcase and finger pointing tells us that it’s “The
square pegs’ way or the highway!” The square peg system is unyielding.
All pegs must re-shape how they think, how they act, who they are, and
what they do to survive in order to fit into the square peg system.
There are no options, no consideration for individual differences,
talents, or tastes apparently in a square peg world.
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Every genre of fiction has its purpose. While the horror genre is far from being my favorite, even I can see it has its uses. In a horror film, we see true evil and learn who the real villains are and what sort of monsters we’re up against. The plot of a horror movie usually revolves around fighting against the monsters, sometimes losing, but sometimes winning. In the end, the Blob is defeated. The teen slasher is himself slashed. The vampire gets a wooden stake through the heart.
If there was one genre that sums up the world’s happenings in 2024 it would be the horror genre. To be more precise, 2024 has been a first-rate, B-grade monster movie where the monsters and their terrorizing actions have been revealed for all to see. There’s no doubt who and what the monsters are, and what we’re up against in the new year. It’s now up to us to survive the coming horrors and to take out as many monsters as possible before they get us.
If there were such an award, I’d award The Monster of the Year title to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. (For more on Blinken’s “winning traits” read Liar, Liar! World’s On Fire!) No one person encapsulates everything that is so purely evil simply for the sake of evil than Antony Blinken does. Sure, soon-to-be-former President Joe Biden and Bibi Netanyahu are in the top three, but Blinken is the ultimate monster in the fact that there’s no good reason he should lie as monstrously as he does, as much as he does, but he does. He just can’t seem to help himself...
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It’s
been really hard keeping up with what’s been happening recently in
Syria and the rest of the world. Then I remembered a wise old saying,
and I sat down and started listing the facts, just the facts. Here they
are as simple as I can explain them:
First
off, the US and its Western allies once called the group now in charge
of Syria “terrorists”, but now we’re calling them “moderates” and
forgiving them for all the torture and extrajudicial killings that they
did. Their leader, Muhammad Al-Jawlani, used to have a $10 million
reward on his head for being a terrorist with an organization formerly
known as Al Qaeda. (Never heard of them before, have you?) But now we’re
supposed to ignore his past because he turned in his turban for a
Western-styled suit…
Yeah, that’s it. It’s sort of like a woman becoming a virgin again after twenty years of marriage and several children.
Second thing, we’re told that this recent invasion of Syria is not
a land grab. Pay no attention to the Israeli military (using American
provided weapons) bombing Syria 480 times in 48 hours because (in their
words) the “moderates are terrorists” and can’t control their own people
to Israel’s satisfaction. (But Al-Jawlani wears a suit now—doesn’t that
make everything all right?)
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No doubt, it will be called the surveillance video of the century. Well, no one who is working class—or even upper middle class or whatever is the term for those who aren’t quite in the top one-percent of earners in the US—is going to forget it. If you have ever paid private health insurance premiums, co-pays, and deductibles, or filed for bankruptcy because of medical debt, or if you or your loved ones have ever been denied necessary health care by a private insurance company, then you will understand why so many are cheering over the gunning down of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk.
Thompson was a man already under suspicion of insider trading by the Department of Justice, a man who made well over $10 million yearly, a man whose estimated net worth was estimated at approximately $42.9 million as of February 16, 2024, according to Wallmine.com, and a man whose corporation, UnitedHealthcare, has become notorious for its 32% denial of claims, with a market cap of $561.15 billion, the world’s 16th most valuable company by market cap according to CompaniesMarketcap.com.
So, yeah, it couldn’t have happened to a “nicer” guy.
The internet is full of some of the best memes and quotes ever this week. The shooter is being called the “Adjuster” by some, since he acted as a “claims adjuster” of sorts. The upside of all this hullabaloo is that after a lull we’re once again seeing a familiar hashtag: #MedicareForAll
It doesn’t seem all that long ago that I was actively volunteering for a presidential candidate who touted Medicare For All...
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“The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary.”
—Ursula K. LeGuin
The Exercise of Imagination
by C.A. Matthews
My husband has a new hobby. Every evening he turns on the local newscast to view the weather forecast so we know how much watering our garden will need the next day. Lately he waits until the national newscast comes on. This is when his cathartic yelling at the screen begins.
“What the…? It’s not a war, asshole. The children of Gaza are being murdered. It’s a goddamn genocide. Say the word, you stupid bastard!”
Mercifully, the six o’clock newscast runs only about sixteen minutes or else he’d be permanently hoarse. I timed the commercials one night, and discovered the half hour is made up of mostly commercials for Big Pharma. That gives you some idea who their target audience is—older Americans with deep pockets who love popping pills.
National newscasts really don’t provide news as much as they give out headlines. Their headlines tend to be predictable propaganda soundbites courtesy of the Ministry of Truth or the government propaganda machine. The news readers with their Hollywood-movie-star looks aren’t trying to impart factual information as much as they’re trying to persuade and provoke emotions, such as hatred and animosity toward those whom the oligarchy wants us to hate. They want us to despise and fear others so much that we’d be willing to go to war with them and die—or at least we’re okay with our children or grandchildren dying for the cause.
After watching several national newscasts, the emotional manipulation became bleedin’ obvious (as my British husband says). Do the regular consumers of mainstream (legacy) media realize they’re being manipulated to believe and feel a certain way in the first place? (See last week’s post about who does the manipulating and why.) What do they really get out of it? Do they actually enjoy being lied to? Do the lies reinforce their deep-seated prejudices and feed their wildest fears, making them fat and content in their hatred? Is warmongering propaganda a source of entertainment for them?
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Zionarcissism: The Grift of Eternal Victimhood by C.A. Matthews
I fell down a long, surreal rabbit hole this past week. I bet you did, too. I even learned a new word to describe what it was exactly that I was witnessing. You might know it already, but if not, allow me describe it to you. First off, I want to share what I learned from a talk given by three local doctors who served a two week mission in Gaza this past month. They flew to Egypt, fought with customs officials there to bring in desperately needed medical supplies, and then finally they were able to get past the miles and miles of parked trucks at the Gaza/Egyptian border to make it to Gaza European Hospital, the only remaining hospital (more like a homeless shelter at this point) located in the southern area of the occupied territory near Khan Yunis.
Photo warning: Wounded people (click and expand to see details)
The three doctors are members of “PAMA” (Palestinian American Medical Association), but medical professionals from all around the world—including Jewish doctors—have traveled with PAMA to Gaza. The doctors shared their slide presentations containing some rather graphic photos of people (many of them children) they operated on, knowing full well that 80 to 90 percent wouldn’t make it because of the lack of medicines and the astronomical rate of infections running rampant in the overcrowded hospital.
Gaza European Hospital is a modest building that was built to house 215 patients, tops. Today it is housing about 6,000+ persons. The families of victims camp out in the all the hallways, closets, and public areas. They have nowhere else to live and assume the hospital is a safe place from the bombings. The doctors said they had to be very careful where they were walking whenever they turned a corner so they didn’t accidentally run into a person sleeping on a mat behind a sheet or old rug as a privacy screen.
Photo warning: Surgery shots
The three doctors related stories of horrific injuries caused by shrapnel and bullets to the back of the head. Many have been blinded and maimed, losing one or more limb and/or their eyes. The doctors operated on men, women, and children without sufficient pain-killers, antibiotics, or even sterilized instruments. They all marveled at the bravery of Palestinian doctors, nurses, medics and other health professionals working 24/7 and without pay for the last half year doing their best with what little they have and without their loved ones who have been slaughtered by Israeli bombings and sniper attacks.
I could sense the American doctors felt guilty that they eventually had to leave and return to a (relatively) safe country. But they knew they had to leave so that others could come in after them. They couldn’t risk angering the Israelis who barely allow the United Nations or member organizations like PAMA to have any presence in the territory. The doctors voiced concerns that Gaza European Hospital might become the next Al-Shifa, totally destroyed and its occupants brutally murdered and thrown into mass graves.
From this sobering experience—which actually made me glad to know that there are Americans who care about the plight of the Palestinian people so much as to put their own lives at risk—I fell down the rabbit hole further. My eyes became glued to my Twitter/X feed as I witnessed the videos and photos of the student-led solidarity with Palestine and divestment from Israel occupation of Columbia University campus. Within hours, similar solidarity-divestment camps sprang up like wildflowers on college campuses across the US, spreading around the world like wildfire.
The students are brave. They aren’t to be bullied, and they aren’t taking no for an answer. But it came as no surprise when IDF-trained police “terrorism squads” were deployed to quell the “uprisings” at the request of none other than United States’ de facto leader—Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yes, that Netanyahu, formerly of Philadelphia. Bibi actually is giving your local police their marching orders to arrest peacefully protesting college students now. (Here’s a video showing him doing so.) And good ol’ Genocide Joe Biden is going along with Bibi and this unnecessary cruelty to his own countrymen because… Lockheed Martin stock has more than quadrupled in the past twenty years?
As I viewed videos of students and faculty standing up to the police-thugs while being beaten, hosed, and gassed, memories of National Guardsmen shooting students at Kent State in 1970 came to mind. This surreal, corrupt version of academia is hellbent on repeating the horror of Kent State more than fifty years later because of…? The universities’ boards of trustees all enjoy investing their schools' money into the military-industrial complex because of…?
Because of…? The only thing that remotely ties the horrible atrocities of the genocide in Gaza that the three PAMA doctors witnessed firsthand to the beating/arresting of university students protesting to stop their schools from funding that same genocide is a sickness known as “zionarcissism.”
Zionarcissism is a disease related to the racist-political movement of Zionism. The saddest thing is that it robs those who succumb to it of their sanity. It turns the zionarcissist into a self-centered prick who will make outlandish claims on others’ time, money, and efforts. The most common claim is that to prevent the zionarcissist’s desire to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people from their settler-colonial project will somehow transform zionarcissists into “eternal victims.”
While this may sound like a terrible fate, most zionarcissists quite enjoy victimhood and its benefits. A strange side effect of zionarcissism is that anyone who blocks the zionarcissist’s attempts to commit a genocide of Palestinians instantly becomes a “terrorist.” Terrorists, according to zionarcissism, are evil agents who need to be beaten and locked up for protesting for the rights of oppressed people. You see, there are no such things as oppressed peoples—except for zionarcissists. (Catching on now?)
Alas, there is no known cure for zionarcissism other than a raw dose of reality. A textbook case of zionarcissism appeared within a day or so of the first university encampment being set up.
The female zionarcissist positioned herself in the middle of the Yale encampment. The woman is not known to be a current or former university student. She apparently entered the school’s grounds upon the instruction of her husband who videotaped her actions for posterity. (He later took the video down, but you can still see it here.)
Wearing a white t-shirt with the word “JEW” painted on the front and the word “ISRAEL” on the back, the zionarcissist stood in the middle of the public square and began to frown and stare hard at the students. They ignored her and went about their own business.
Ignoring a zionarcissist is dangerous. This wasn’t what the zionarcissist at Yale expected or wanted. It greatly upset her because no one paid any attention to her. No one called her names or pushed her or attempted to beat her up. No one spit on her or teased her or called the cops on her. She simply was not allowed to “play the victim.”
Without being able to profit from victimhood, zionarcissists can become very agitated. They must
extract money, armaments, attention, blood, sweat, and tears from others "who owe it to them," or else the zionarcissist will label those who owe them attention “antisemitic.” Citizens of white-ruled, settler-colonized Western countries like the US can be labeled as either “antisemitic” or “terrorist” depending on the needs of the zionarcissist, but all non-white, non-Western people are automatically considered to be antisemitic terrorists without exception.
Westerners are forever in the zionarcissist’s debt for not being labeled antisemitic. It is a faux pas of the highest order. This is true even if the zionarcissist accusing others of antisemitism isn’t technically Semitic, but of European ancestry. If Westerners don't make payments (give in to the blackmail), they're in big trouble. The zionarcissist’s sense of eternal victimhood has been threatened. It forces her to up the odds by taking impulsive actions in order to gain what she desires.
(This could be the reasoning behind zionarcissist Netanyahu’s impulsive bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus. Murder a few Iranian generals and diplomats, threaten World War III, and suddenly everyone is talking about you. They can’t help but notice you. Possibly starting nuclear war is well worth the risk to a zionarcissist.)
Frustrated that she wasn’t allowed to call the shots, the Yale zionarcissist began shouting at the students: “Look at me! Film my face! Dox me!” The result? The students continued to ignore her while hanging up a Jews for a Free Palestine banner and dancing to the groovy beat of a tom-tom drum. Eventually, the zionarcissist walked away, unharmed.
Horrible, isn’t it? No one hurt her or taunted her at all. She believed her victimhood fantasy to be reality and was embarrassed to find out it was all made up. (Watch another good example of a zionarcissist in action, here. This "Karen" called the cops on a nonexistent threat while walking her dog near a campus protest at Northwestern University.)
Zionarcissism is the number one mental illness infecting the US government. Zionarcissism is spread through influencers such as AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee). AIPAC is the number one lobbying organization in the US, regularly contributing large sums of money to the vast majority of Congress members and Senators who do their bidding. The all-time recipient of AIPAC money is none other than Joe Biden.
Maybe that’s why Netanyahu decided to start the genocide in Gaza while Biden was in office? He knew Biden would cooperate and cover for Israel—and Biden has. The US has vetoed several ceasefire resolutions in United Nations Security Council, withdrew its support from UNRWA (the UN refugee agency for Palestine), and continues to send armaments to Israel even after the International Court of Justice and the UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese labeled what the Israelis are doing in Gaza as a “plausible genocide.”
To sum up, zionarcissism is a terrible disease that motivates corrupt US government officials to continue material and political support of Israel's genocide in Gaza. Israel has murdered over 42,000+ people with another 76,000+ injured so far. The US is currently allowing the Israelis to deny water and electricity to Gaza as well as block all the entrances that could transport food and medicines into the open-air concentration camp.
The college students are calling attention to this horrific situation caused by zionarcissism by demanding their universities divest from or take their money out of the military-industrial complex that is fueling this genocide (as well as other military excursions). Without armaments being made, bought, and sold, civilians stand a much better chance of staying alive, and the risk of a nuclear war starting is lessened. It’s that simple.
Don’t let zionarcissism destroy your university, your community, your country, or your world. Keep pointing out its manipulative, selfish machinations to others. Expose its carriers to the sunlight of reality. It’s the only way to eliminate it for good.
Keep talking about Palestine and its people and what they’re suffering and have suffered. Don’t let up until we’ve rid our world of all of these narcissistic sociopaths. It’s our only chance for a peaceful planet.
University of New Mexico University of Michigan California State Polytech University Humboldt Emory University of Texas Indiana University Emerson Harvard MIT Penn State UNC Chapel Hill University of Maryland Ohio State Auraria Northwestern University Rice University University of Houston Cornell UCLA University of Southern California Florida International University University of Minnesota Vanderbilt Yale Berkeley The City College of NY Columbia The City University of NY NYU Evergreen State College University of Pennsylvania University of Pittsburgh Princeton Brown University North Carolina University University of Texas University of Rochester University of Washington Florida State University University of Arizona Georgetown George Washington University Purdue University Stanford Temple University
***If you live near any of these campuses, the students need food, water, blankets. Drive by and drop off these basic essentials.***
Related Articles and Other Interesting Links
These students watch, like most of us, Israel’s live-streamed slaughter of the Palestinian people. But unlike most of us, they act. Their voices and protests are a potent counterpoint to the moral bankruptcy that surrounds them. --Chris Hedges: Revolt in the Universities https://scheerpost.com/2024/04/25/chris-hedges-revolt-in-the-universities/
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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.
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