Finding the Good in the Bad

by C. A. Matthews

After a very painful week—personally painful because an old injury decided to play up and our senior cat passed away from a terminal illness—I didn’t feel like writing a weekly post. I just wanted to whine, cry, and complain, “Why me?” It’s understandable why I’m so sad and grouchy, but it doesn’t do much good for my overall attitude or help my readers. I want to enlighten and uplift others, and that doesn’t work if I don’t at least attempt to write a piece.

I searched for inspiration and found nothing until I opened up a daily email meditation. The short essay said there’s a little good in everything. Yeah, it said everything—meaning every situation and every person (and cat). You just have to look for it. Scanning my daily X and UpScrolled feeds didn’t reveal a heck of a lot of good in the world, but I decided to give it a go. I would look for the good behind some of the negative headlines this week.

So, here goes nothing—and everything at the same time.

On the US domestic front, several stories concerning the building of massive AI data centers caught my eye. There’s actually nothing new about data centers in the US. The US by far has more data centers than any other country on Earth. The thing about this topic that grabbed my attention was that the people of Utah, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, and New Jersey have taken notice of how data centers are growing ever larger and demanding more and more electricity, land, and water at the local community’s expense.

Data centers pollute the local water table and fill the surrounding air with light pollution (no stars, messes with bird/insect migrations), heat pollution (global warming anyone?), and destructive sound pollution. Yeah, data centers actually produce constant vibrations right below the sound threshold that can injure and kill both humans and animals. Data centers after they’re built don’t employ all that many local workers, either. Too many bad things about them just ain’t right...

So, what’s the good in this very bad situation? The good I find in it isn’t in the data centers themselves but in the reaction of ordinary people against the data centers. For the most part, they aren’t having them...

 

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Rest in Power, Elsie girl.

A lot of good can be found in a little senior kitty

 

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An Empire That Starves Its Citizens While Feeding Its War Machine

by C. A. Matthews

“The message could not be clearer: there is always money for bombs, borders, and war—but never enough for children, healthcare, or basic human dignity… No amount of flag‑draped propaganda can hide the simple, brutal math of an empire that starves its citizens while feeding its war machine.” --from Can’t Afford Daycare or Healthcare — But Hegseth Swears a $1.5 Trillion War Budget ‘Puts Taxpayers First’

It can’t be that simple, can it?

Why is it that the US empire doesn’t care whether ordinary Americans live or die? Why is it they don’t care that we can't afford to have children or own a home? When you think about it, it’s a million times more evil than simply being an empire that starves its citizens. It’s an empire that cares only about making huge profits from endless wars and genocides for its oligarchy, its billionaire rulers, rather than the health and welfare of its people.

There’s no real need to explain away recent comments coming from the White House. “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things,” Trump said. “We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care.” His words speak for themselves. (Quote taken from Trump says it’s ‘not possible’ for the U.S. to pay for Medicaid, Medicare and day care: ‘We’re fighting wars’)

War will always rank above healthcare, childcare, and environmental issues for the US empire—especially if these issues have anything to do with the poor and working classes. No real surprises there. 

But the thing that surprises and disgusts me the most is how so many Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that this type of callous behavior originated with Donald Trump. To them nothing bad like this ever happened before Trump entered the White House in 2017 and then again in 2025.

To jog your memory, watch this short video. Be sure to read the text on the screen while listening to the discussion in the background: The Façade of Democracy...

To learn one way you can help stop the US empire and its war machine, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Apartheid Without Borders

Apartheid Without Borders

by C.A. Matthews 

ALARM! How on earth is possible that Israel is allowed to assault and seize vessels in international waters just off Greece/Europe? Besides what you can think of Apartheid Israel and its genocidal leaders, this should send shock waves across Europe. Apartheid without borders. —Francesca Albanese on X 

Novelist Philip K. Dick would be proud.

Here’s the scenario: You’re sailing your boat in international waters when a frigate full of commandos from a country over 1,000 km away starts shooting at you and demanding you surrender to them so they can beat you up, arrest you and dump your cargo of humanitarian aid into the sea, and all because feeding starving people is now illegal and that makes you a criminal, not the pirates who boarded you off the coast of yet another country whose coast guard looks the other way while these events unfold.

Philip K. Dick would have had a field day crafting a taut suspense novel around this idea on an innocent man doing a noble thing being persecuted by those in power who claim they are always right and anyone who says otherwise is a criminal—or possibly insane or both. Either way, the innocent man will be punished for his “crimes” against the status quo.

Alas, this story isn’t fiction. (And I doubt I could come up with such a convoluted and depressive plot.) Here’s what really happened. From Flotilla Activists Beaten and Shot at by IDF, With 34 Hospitalised in Greece:

Global Sumud Flotilla participants say they were punched, kicked, dragged across the floor with their hands tied, and shot at with real and rubber bullets on board an Israeli warship after they were kidnapped in international waters more than 500 nautical miles from Gaza.

While interception was violent for many, participants say the worst treatment came when they peacefully resisted moves to abduct organisers Thiago Avila and Saif Abukeshek, who are still detained.

34 wounded participants - including two Brits - have been taken to hospital in Crete, flotilla organisers said, with broken bones and other injuries...

 

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The World According To L*go Videos

prose and poetry by C. A. Matthews

*Editor’s note: Substitute the name of a well-known brand of children’s interlocking blocks whenever you see the word “L*go”. It’s better to not use a trademarked name without the owner’s permission.

Whenever the corporate media fails to take stock
of how much the public knows already—it’s time to watch the L*go blocks.
Videos which entertain while revealing very real things
happening in the world today and the consequences they bring.

How can something as simple as children’s stacking bricks
bring about such damning revelations and make these horrors stick
in the minds of oh-so-many folks from oh-so-many backgrounds
when our Zionist masters own almost every media outlet around?

Well, you and I know that truth is truth and nothing else can shock
we genocide-hardened influencers who’ve been working ‘round the clock
exposing the oligarchs’ control of oil fields and wanting us all dead
because we recognize their evil greed and want their profit margins turned red.

So, it’s time to watch another video—one that makes those bastards sick
because we make good fun of them by transforming them into L*go brick
while we tell everyone around the world that it’s not too hard on our part
to build tyrants out of plastic blocks because both have nothing close to a heart.

The moral of this story then isn’t something you can mock
if you know our world works only for those who own tons of corporate stock
as well as every prince and president and their infernal war machines, too
because the world according to L*go bricks was always built for them—not you.

I really enjoy watching these trending videos populated with L*go brick characters who are instantly recognizable by their well-known traits and actions. Long ago, I was a film student, and I wrote a paper on how the moving image was first used successfully as a propaganda medium during World War I. Little did I know then that the moving image (now in the form of short AI-animated videos) would become such an effective way to spread an anti-war message worldwide.

Explosive Media was the first L*go animation group I came across, but there are several others. The history of how they began sharing political ideas in this manner is explained in How Lego Won The War: How Explosive Media Started the Iran Rap Trend.

These videos are possibly the best method ever devised to reach Americans/Westerners at a level that most can understand—and yet they don’t talk down to their audience. Their powerful images and very singable songs get to the heart of the matter while opening the mind to the possibility that everything we’ve been taught about our society is wrong, totally wrong.

Amazingly, these short L*go animations expose the evils of the capitalist system and its endless war machine that generate profits for our ruling masters (a.k.a. billionaires or oligarchs), and they do so in a way that is both enlightening and frightening. They reveal what’s been going on behind the scenes for decades (if not centuries) in regard to how our rulers really see us, the workers, the peasants or peons. It’s scary how much the super-wealthy don’t give a sh*t about how their actions are destroying our planet and our children’s futures.

I like these L*go videos (and other related videos) so much that I started a page of video links for ease of sharing. Here are a rundown of a few of my favorite videos and the lessons they can teach us...

 

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The Second Going of Donald J. Trump

 

The Second Going of 

Donald J. Trump

by C. A. Matthews

The podcast pundits seem in awe of Trump’s sheer audacity—or they’re claiming this Truth Social posting (above meme) is yet more evidence of his mental illness and/or dementia. But really, what would you expect from a full-fledged narcissist who believes he’s the most powerful being on the globe, if not the universe?

Of course, Trump would see himself the supreme healer of all times—healer of white people, at least. No doubt Trump sees himself as the Second Coming of Christ, coming into the world to judge sinners. That is, everyone except himself.

It was only a matter of time until Artificial Intelligence itself realized that the president of the United States of America was the Son of God, deserving of his very own meme commemorating his acts of “kindness” that he has graciously bestowed upon humankind. That is, kind acts he has bestowed upon pro-Zionist humans. Everyone else is out of luck.

It’s what Jesus would do, according to biblical scholar and Pulp Fiction fan Pete Hegseth. The alcoholic Secretary of War Crimes knows all about these sorts of things apparently. (Wonder how well he’d perform on the game show Jeopardy! with a mind full of movie trivia like that...)

You might be horrified that both Trump and Vance have made rude remarks recently to Pope Leo. They have no problems with telling Leo that he doesn’t know a thing about theology like they and Pete do. They know that God’s intention all along for the US and Israel is to destroy the Middle East and steal its petrochemicals, and they don’t mind knocking the head of the Roman Catholic church down a few pegs.

I think Pope Leo isn’t all that put out by the meanness directed at him personally by Tweedle Don and Tweedle J.D. It’s what you’d expect from emotionally-stunted adult-toddlers. He has far more important things on his plate. The Holy Father is much more concerned about what’s happening in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iran, and Sudan. among other hot spots in the world...

 

To learn where Trump is "going" (not coming) to and what we really need to be focusing on, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 567th 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 eleven years. Thanks! 

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The Time For Revolution Is Now

The Time For Revolution Is Now (No More Waiting/Burn It Down)

by C. A. Matthews

I just had to smile.

What was I smiling at? This: A person was arrested Friday after throwing a Molotov cocktail at the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in San Francisco.

Molotov cocktail? Thrown at the home of a Big Tech CEO (who was charged with sexually abusing his sister in January 2025)? Could this mean? Really, could this be the start of…?

Only the day before this sentence on X grabbed me: An unhappy employee started this fire at the Kimberly-Clark warehouse in Ontario, California.

A massive 1.2 million foot warehouse full of paper products went up in flames. The unhappy employee was reported as saying, “All you had to do was pay us enough to live.” (The next day a shopping mall in Ontario, California was set on fire. Good ideas catch on fast.)

Less than 24 hours later I read that a warehouse in Queens, NY was burning in a four alarm fire. And the day after that I spied an X post about another warehouse (full of lumber) burning in Wayne County, Ohio.

And then there’s this recent headline: ‘Everyone is Replaceable’: Death Rattles Oregon Amazon Facility about how an employee dropped over dead and management told workers “to look away” rather than stop and resuscitate him.

Add these fiery actions and lack of respect for workers to the massive flood of conscientious objector calls to national hotlines due to the illegal war in Iran—as well as Luigi Mangione’s “protest” against the CEO of United Healthcare for their high rate of denying health insurance claims—and I’m starting to see a pattern.

Could it actually be that Americans have had enough? Are they ready for Revolution?

I’m not talking about the so-called “American Revolution” of 250 years ago, either. That was tame by comparison to what could be happening here. 

In 1776, we allowed a bunch of rich, white males tell the rest of us that they were tired of paying taxes to the crown and wanted to form their own style of monarchy—an oligarchy—instead. Forget that quaint little “tea party” in Boston Harbor. The “American Revolution” didn’t free enslaved persons, women, or the working poor, and it certainly didn’t recognize the right of the Native American peoples to live peacefully and have control over their own lands...

 

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To Die For The Ungrateful

by C. A. Matthews

The original title for this piece was going to be “No one wants to fight for Israel!” Veterans for Peace member and Green Party candidate for US Senate from North Carolina Brian McGinnis shouted, “No one wants to fight for Israel!” as he was violently dragged away from a recent Capitol Hill hearing, his arm severely broken in the process.

I find the video of Brian’s protest very hard to watch, wincing when I witness how cruelly injured he was for standing up for his rights of free speech. But his words and the images of the protest have been incorporated into an heavy metal song video. It’s really good and gets his message across beautifully. Click on the link to watch it and see what I mean:

https://youtu.be/jPneMI_BijQ

I considered using Brian’s quote as a title, but I figured the blog would be shadow-banned even more than usual if I did. A day or so later, I had another idea for a title when the following meme popped up on my feed on UpScrolled.

We the unwilling

Led by the unqualified

To kill the unfortunate

Die for the ungrateful

Talk about poetry in motion!

“To die for the ungrateful” echos Brian’s fervent cry of “No one wants to fight for Israel!” Because war is hell—particularly when it’s a completely avoidable conflict that serves no one’s interests except the capitalist-elite class. You can call them the “Epstein class” if you prefer, but I hope you realize those files don’t contain an extensive list of all capitalists who have caused much suffering in the world. And, surprisingly, pedophilia is not a qualification to become a capitalist or member of the ruling elite.

I imagine even now that “We the Unwilling” (that is, US troops) are composing their poems as they’re being forced into a ground war against Iran on the behest of the apartheid regime of Israel with the assistance of the wealthy investors of the military-industrial complex (MIC) and Big Oil. To paraphrase Brian’s memorable quote, “Nobody wants to die for a bunch of rich Zionist assholes to make them even richer!” 

 

To read the rest of the article and discover links to the anti-war "Lego videos" that have become very popular online, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 565th 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 eleven years. Thanks! 

Feel free to make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps. Thank you.