V Is For Venezuela...

 

I was in the middle of writing an “annotated freestyle poem” when I heard about Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife’s kidnapping. The news sent my head spinning. I asked our resident armchair historian his opinion of what was going on, what we could learn from history, and where it might be going. Here’s his take on the developing story in Latin America.

Venezuela: The New Sudetenland

By Coast Watcher

I feel like a German who saw WW2 coming and couldn’t do anything.

So wrote a friend on Saturday when the news broke of Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife’s abduction from their home. Their subsequent transportation to New York City to be processed for alleged crimes unfolded over the next few hours, during which social media lit up like a Christmas tree.

Few posts by ordinary citizens and commentators praised America’s actions. Those that did were probably AI generated trolls and bots. Musk’s Grok is particularly asinine in condemning President Maduro with a spiel straight out of Trump’s playbook.

Most Western governments issued statements supporting President Maduro’s “arrest,” although reading between the lines there’s a sense of shock and disbelief that such a thing could have happened. For anyone with knowledge of history, there are few precedents. We’re in uncharted territory, but that territory is looking increasingly similar to the years leading up to World War 2.

The post World War 1 (WW1) seismic shift that moved the boundaries of Europe took huge populations and resources of various kinds from the Central Powers and either transferred them to the victors’ control or set them up as independent polities. The former Austro-Hungarian Empire was shattered as its disparate ethnic peoples went their own ways. Latent or oppressed nationalism surged into life, leading to the creation of new states such as Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.

Control of coal deposits was crucial to the post-war revival of the global economy. France and Belgium demanded the Saar-Warndt Basin in compensation for the destruction of their mines by Germany during the war. Germany needed to retain the coalfields to fuel its own industrial recovery so it could pay the war reparations demanded by the Entente Powers. Wrangling over the coalfields delayed economic revival by years and caused a great deal of hardship to ordinary people during some harsh winters.

American President Woodrow Wilson’s cherished dream of a League of Nations bringing perpetual peace to the world got off to a rocky start...

To learn more about the history of US empire PLUS read my poem entitled How Many Babies Have To Freeze Before...,  please copy or click on the following link: 

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Democrats feel the same way as Trump about Maduro. Go figure!

 

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2025: The Year Truth Becomes Hate Speech

 

2025: The Year Truth 

Becomes Hate Speech

by C. A. Matthews

At the end of the year, most bloggers/columnists compile a round-up of worldwide events that stood out to them as making a significant impact on human society. This year the detrimental events came at us all so fast and furious, one right after another, that there’s almost no way to rank them in order of horridness because they were all so… well, horrid. Where to start?

I tried to find a common thread among the happenings which sums up what the year 2025 was all about. An idea grabbed me as I read one astute observer’s comment on the recent arrest of activist Greta Thunberg. Greta was arrested in London for holding a sign pleading for the release of the Palestine Action hunger strikers. This comment has become the theme of this year's round-up: Truth has become hate speech.

In the year 2025, this theme was present in most earth-shattering events. It can be summed up in a formula reminiscent of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity: Truth = Hate Speech. (Or possibly Hate Speech squared.) And just as revolutionary as Einstein’s breakthrough in physics, this Truth = Hate Speech axiom opens up a whole new way of understanding how our lords and masters (a.k.a. the billionaires/oligarchy and their henchpersons/political puppets) want to manipulate and use us from here on out—that is, if we let them.

Let’s start with Greta’s and thousands of other British protesters’ example...

 

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Happy New Year to you and yours! Keep sharing the truth!

Radical Peace

by C. A. Matthews

A lot of talk in activist groups consists of “When do we act?” and “Who will lead us?” Discussions of when we’ll know what to do and how we’ll know who to trust or which groups are the best ones to give us advice can go on for days, weeks, months or even years. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but in the meantime nothing much is accomplished and things can continue to grow worse. Much worse.

Waiting forever for answers is the wrong option, I believe. We must act, even if we’re uncertain of what direction we’re going exactly. Making no decision is actually making a decision, one that’ll probably not yield the desired result. At the current crossroads we as activists find ourselves, following the example of leaders from the past may help us find the direction that will lead us to a more peaceful present and happier future.

Once upon a time, a radical activist declared, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9) and meant it. He kept emphasizing peace as an action that could produce positive results and strengthen our determination. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14: 27)

His idea of peace was both internal and external, as one can’t fully be realized without the other. This was quite a daring concept in his era, especially as it was vocalized by a poor man from a working class migrant family living on the edge of the world’s largest empire. Sound familiar? That’s were many of us find ourselves today—living on the edge of empire, struggling to survive.

Empire, both then and now, doesn’t care very much for peace. Peace doesn’t sell fighter jets or killer drones. You can’t grow empire if you don’t have ready access to natural resources, land, and (slave) labor enough to build the profitable weapons of war, and you can’t gain these things without endless wars and genocides to appropriate them from others. We’ve seen this recently with the US perpetrating resource grabs in both Venezuela and Gaza...

 

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Happy holidays and a very peaceful New Year to you and yours! 

 

Pirates of the Capitalist Caribbean

by C. A. Matthews

Yo-ho-ho, me mateys! Come one, come all to this not-so-new movie sensation! It’s Pirates of the Capitalist Caribbean!

Starring Donnie Drip and Marco Ruin-It-All, with cameo performances by J.D. (Juvenile Delinquent) Vice, Pete Hogsbreath, Pam N. Bondage, and a special appearance by B.B. Satans-Yahoo.

In Pirates of the Capitalist Caribbean, you’ll find the story of a rich boy growing ever richer by pirating Venezuelan oil tankers daring to sail the seas along the Spanish Main while he simultaneously enacts a daring real estate grab in the Middle East with the help of a genocidal M.I.T. graduate.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry (mostly), but worse of all, you’ll kiss hundreds of billions of US tax payers’ dollars good-bye in a vain attempt to shore up the fading petrodollar by denying BRICS nations the ability to do business in their own currencies—all the while funding and arming one of the worst genocides of all time.

Pirates of the Capitalist Caribbean is an economic thrill-a-minute ride with a “will-he-or-won’t-he?” vibe as you witness the witless Donnie spill his frijoles by threatening to download his idea of “democracy” onto a socialist republic that is infinitely more democratic than his own...

 

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A Wedding in Gaza

words and above photo by C. A. Matthews

As the sun sets earlier and earlier in the Northern Hemisphere and the temperatures plummet, it gets harder and harder to remain optimistic, to see the good in things. This is the start of the winter season, the time of Advent and Christmas when most children in the Western world are hyped up on cookies and hot cocoa and can’t wait to open presents and play much to the consternation of grumpy adults who just want to hibernate and forget all about how shitty things are in the world-at-large.

Just when all seems lost, a beautiful hope is born anew in our hearts, a hope like no other. A hope is born into a land that has been ravaged and bombed and starved and mostly ignored by the powers-that-be. A wedding takes place in Gaza—a mass wedding for 54 couples.* They are blazing a path through the desert of apartheid and genocide to rebuild their pulverized homes and renew their decimated families. They are showing the world how it is done, how to leave the evils visited upon them behind. There is no looking back for these husbands and wives, only forward.

What have we “grumpy bears” in the West to complain about? Nothing really.

Words alone can’t contain the unbridled beauty in the faces of these happy couples, so here are a link and a video with gorgeous photos of the event that occurred in Khan Younis amid the rubble...

 

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Boycotting Capitalism

by C. A. Matthews

I’m waiting to hear some good news about the outcome of the Economic Black-Out that happened this past week. Did record numbers of shoppers stay home—and offline—denying profits to the corporations that have been partners in genocide? I’d like to think so.

I’d like to think that folks shopped locally on Black Friday and didn’t waste their time and money on whatever-expensive-thing the mega-corps are pushing this holiday season, because it’s not like we’re all drowning in money this year. Am I right? What struggling family has anything leftover to spend on frivolous things after scraping up just enough pocket change to buy this week’s groceries? If you can eat whatever you like, whenever you like, and buy without back-breaking interest whatever it is you like, you know you’re truly blessed, don’t you?

But even if only a handful of us boycotted the genocide-enabling corporations this week, it was well worth it. It’s always worth it to free one’s soul from the never-ending cycle of consumerism. Face it, we don’t need to own the latest widget or gadget or thingamajig in order to survive. We just need a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. All the rest is superfluous.

And dangerous. How so? If we find ourselves addicted to amassing more and more material goods or lusting after the “latest thing,” we could discover a greed that will never die. The monster of greed will just grow within our soul and grow and grow… Soon, we could find ourselves owning everything and nothing at the same time.

If our lives become nothing but an excuse to shop and spend, very soon we could have an overflowing shed or rented storage space and nobody to share any of the contents with. We wouldn’t have spent much time or effort on relationships. We’ll just have stuff. And stuff can’t snuggle with you on a cold winter’s night or hold your hand when you’re sick or be there when you’re in need of companionship. Stuff just sits around and gathers dust.

Useless, absolutely useless, stuff is, which is why it’s not worth accumulating much of it in the first place. In order to save our precious souls and the souls of others, it’s time for us to stop this destructive accumulation and cult-like worship of stuff, and instead focus our energies on making the world a better and safer place for us all.

That’s why the BDS or boycotting/divesting/sanctioning movement is so vital...

 

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Diagnosis: Moral Insanity

by C.A. Matthews

When you call someone “insane” in a court of law, it means something different than what we usually think of as “crazy.” A person can hear voices, hallucinate wildly, speak in a word salad, but if that person still understands the difference between what is right and what is wrong, then that person is considered legally sane and responsible for their actions. For example, if you know that killing people is wrong and against the law, but you still go ahead and do it, then you are legally sane and must accept your punishment. Even if you spout off a lot of nonsense trying to justify your murderous activity, you are still legally sane and responsible for your actions.

What do you call a person (or group of persons) who declare outright that they are legally sane (they indicate they know the difference between right and wrong), but they behave in a manner that suggests that they really don’t? I’m not sure there is a legal term for that kind of behavior, so I’ve come up with my own. I say that person/group of persons is “morally insane.”

Something isn’t quite right with morally insane folks in their hearts or souls or what-have-you. They understand they’ve committed crimes (or at least have taken adverse actions) against others, but they couldn’t care less about the pain, chaos, and destruction they’ve unleashed. They may not have pulled the trigger themselves, but they’ve financed, promoted, and encouraged hit-men to do the deed for them, and they’re happy with the results. In fact, some are quite proud of their violent accomplishments and openly brag about their crimes to anyone willing to listen.

It’s downright sickening to observe so much moral insanity in the world in the year 2025. One would hope humanity had grown up by now, but it seems not. If you’re still not certain what I mean by moral insanity, here are some recent incidents that sum up the concept...

 

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Remember The National Day of Mourning: https://www.uaine.org/