This Is How You Do It

words and photos by C.A. Matthews

It’s more than a song title—it’s how we’ll win this thing.

The most common reply I get whenever I post a blog or make comment on another’s blog about this topic goes like this:

“Well, since you’re so full of ideas—how the hell do we pull this off? How do we get rid of the raping-pedophile-fascist-imperialist-capitalists-in-power? Because if we can’t get rid of them, then what’s the use of pointing out how evil and corrupt they are? Learn to live with it, [insert insulting epithet here].”

It is tiring repeating myself constantly, but if that’s what it takes I’ll do it. Our planet and our children’s futures depend upon this current generation of human beings doing the right thing and getting it done.

Perhaps words alone are not enough to make an impression on some minds… Here are some photos from a recent “ICE Out!” march, an organizers’ fair, and a “No War on Iran” protest along with a brief explanation of what I’m talking about.

First off, we need to organize. This is not a dirty word. Here’s an explanation of what it means...

 

To learn more about what it means to organize versus mobilize, please copy or click on the following link: 

https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

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This article is the 556th 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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Part-way through writing this week’s article the unthinkable happened again. ICE/CBP agents murdered another American citizen in cold blood on a cold street in Minneapolis during a general strike. Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse at the VA hospital. He was helping another person when he was beaten to the ground and shot several times by federal agents. Videos of the incident show that he was never a threat at any time to anyone before the agents murdered him.

Within the past month we’ve witnessed the deaths of three citizens at the hand of federal agents—Keith Porter was murdered by an off duty ICE agent in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve, Renee Good and Alex Pretti shot by ICE/CBP in Minneapolis in January while working as legal observers. Three Americans who had long lives to look forward to have been cut down early by the fascist state. They are symbols and martyrs of the Revolution… The Revolution that is being born even as I type this.

Rest in power, Alex, Renee, and Keith. May we do you proud.

The following poem posted by Sony Thăng on his X account inspired my article. You’ll see why.

Trump is the perfect American symbol.

A loudmouth preacher of greatness standing on a 

mountain of debt, spectacle, and unpaid human cost.

He is the flag turned into a product.

The gospel turned into a grift.

The empire turned into a reality show.

The Perfect American Symbol

by C. A. Matthews

If things appear to be falling apart, so much the better.

The global capitalists’ empire truly is a “reality show” of sorts. It’s scripted by the twelve richest men in the world and acted out by their chosen politician-puppets. The entire plot of this sick and twisted reality show has become more and more obvious over the last few years. It can be summed up simply: Endless War for Endless Profits.

Millions of deaths are necessary in order to generate the trillions of dollars’ worth of profits for those lucky billionaires (or oligarchs if you prefer that term). I mean, you wouldn’t buy a killer drone or an AI surveillance program that hasn’t been extensively tested, would you? You wouldn’t waste your money on something that doesn’t work as advertised, right?

What better place to test out your new “toys” than in an open-air concentration camp called Gaza? It’s full of frail human bodies to crush, explode, and dismember at will. And once it has been emptied and turned into a luxury resort, they’ll just move the weapons testing on to a new location. Hmm… How about Minneapolis?

These twelve super-wealthy white males didn’t get filthy rich by holding back any. They didn’t get rich by having morals or practicing compassion. Eight decades ago, about the same time the apartheid regime in what is now called Israel formed, novelist George Orwell penned their mantra:

War is peace. Ignorance is strength. Freedom is slavery.

 

To learn more about who should be our "perfect American symbols", please copy or click on the following link: 

https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

There you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics, and be able to leave comments. You can become a free or paid subscriber and receive weekly posts in your email box, along with occasional special articles just for paid subscribers, too.

Subscribe to The Revolution Continues on Substack today. Power to the people!   

This article is the 555th 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!

You can also make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is our only source of income. Thank you. 

 

Revolutionaries Don’t Ask Permission

by C. A. Matthews

The kids in Minneapolis get it. They stood outside the hotel where ICE agents were staying and made noise all night long. Loud noise. Deafening music and consistent shouting. All. Night. Long. No sleep for the killers and kidnappers of ICE allowed.

The kids didn’t ask for permission. They didn’t care about violating a noise ordinance or getting arrested. They just wanted ICE gone. For good. For the family of Renee Good. For the good of the community.

This is what Revolution is all about. It’s about doing good for the sake of the community—not the billionaire oligarchs ruling this fascist state.

Revolution is not about doing nothing and taking the shit dumped on us. It’s about shoveling that shit right back into the faces of those who wish to bury us. We bury them instead until the threat is no more.

I think the constant following and videoing of ICE agents in Minneapolis will wear the bastards down in time. They will leave town and avoid the upper Midwest from now until their ultimate demise at our hands. So keep it up, kids! You do us proud.

More Americans need to demonstrate the same bravery, the same courageous bloody-mindedness of the Minneapolis protesters...

 

To learn more about what it means to be a revolutionary, please copy or click on the following link: 

https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

There you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics, and be able to leave comments. You can become a free or paid subscriber and receive weekly posts in your email box, along with occasional special articles just for paid subscribers, too.

Subscribe to The Revolution Continues on Substack today. Power to the people!   

This article is the 554th 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!

You can also make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is our only source of income. Thank you. 

 

“My country is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” -Martin Luther King Jr. (True in 1967—even truer today.)

This Is Your Country On Fascism—Any Questions?

by C. A. Matthews

This new year is off to one hell of a start, ain’t it?

American taxpayers are still funding and arming a genocide in Gaza and ignoring land grabs and murders in the West Bank by Israeli settlers. The US military is pirating oil tankers and has the audacity to bomb Venezuela and kidnap their president and his wife because of made-up drug trafficking charges. Greenland, Cuba, Iran—what’s next on their agenda?

And lest we forget, the US attacked Nigeria because supposedly bombing it would save the lives of Christians living there… There’s so much non-stop violence and thievery going on at the hands of the US and their proxy forces throughout the world that it’s hard keeping up with the disgusting propaganda spewing forth from the mouth of the self-called “peace president.”

But wait—there’s more!

The feds in 2026 gladly will look the other way while ICE thugs kill a woman in cold blood in Minneapolis. Things in the US are really that screwed up! A mother of three, Renee Nicole Good, was shot in the face by masked ICE agent Jonathon Ross for attempting to drive away from the scene of one of ICE’s kidnappings—I mean “removal of violent immigrants.”

Never mind that the immigrants they’re after usually turn out to be hard-working, tax-paying persons with no criminal history and a legal US status. Low hanging fruit is much easier to pick.

“What gives in the Land of the Free?” you ask. I’ll tell you, but you won’t like the answer: The United States of America is an openly fascist empire, and it’s doing what fascist empires normally do: keeping their billionaire rulers deliriously happy...

 

To learn more about how to recognize and take on the fascist empire--plus read an extra article about three activists who are willing to put their bodies on the line to do so--please copy or click on the following link: 

https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

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.

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This article is the 553rd 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. 

Please make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you. 

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: 

https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

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.

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

 

This article is the 552nd 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. 

Please make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you. 

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...

 

To find out what other horrible happenings made the list, read the rest of this post by copying or clicking on the following link: 

https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

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This article is the 551st 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. 

Please make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you. 

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...

 

To learn more about radical peace, read the rest of this post by copying or clicking on the following link: 

https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

There you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics, and be able to leave comments. You can become a free or paid subscriber and receive weekly posts in your email box, along with occasional special articles just for paid subscribers, too.

Subscribe to The Revolution Continues on Substack today. Power to the people!  

 

 

This article is the 550th 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. 

Please make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you. 

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