Growing The Greens

words and photos by C. A. Matthews

My apologies in advance for the brevity and possible incoherence of this week’s post. I returned home Sunday evening from four days in Chicago at the Green Party Annual National Meeting. Early Monday morning I had a scheduled dental appointment to fix a broken tooth. So, I’m composing this blog article to publish at its usual Tuesday morning time while suffering from the twin effects of exhaustion and painkillers. Here goes nothin’!

My first thought is to post more photos than words about the convention. Yeah, that’s the safest way to go… I took a lot of photos and pages and pages of notes at the various workshops. My bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived brain is still trying to make sense of it all.

I attended workshops on organizing for peace; Uniting for Peace 2.0 (the UNGA resolution for Palestine); AI data centers and how they’re impacting our communities and the environment; Latin America under attack (by the usual suspects); the AI war machine (Or how Peter Thiel’s Palantir, Aduril and Erebor have effectively taken over the US military. It’s very scary as well as they’re bent on destroying our environment.); and the independent media and its role in the resistance (yeah!). You could say that Greens attract some very intelligent and very informative people...

 

To learn more about the GP ANM and see photos of the event, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Gaza's Gravediggers

 

This week I thought I’d do something a little different. Besides writing this blog for over eleven years, I’m also a book reviewer/book doctor and disgruntled novelist. This post is what I call an “extended book review,” one in which I don’t have to worry about the word count, etc. (Don’t be surprised if you see an abbreviated review elsewhere online later. Or post one yourself.)

I was given the chance to read Norman Finkelstein’s upcoming release, Gaza’s Gravediggers, and I can’t keep his insights to myself any longer. It documents the how and when and where of the why Israel is able to get away with committing a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people with little to no consequences. (And frankly, I don’t think Israel really cares about the consequences of being labeled bloodthirsty neo-Nazis just as long as nobody demonstrates the gumption to shut down their infernal killing machine.) 

Finkelstein has done us all a huge favor by methodically researching the recent International Court of Justice cases in regards to the genocide claim made first by South Africa. It’s all there in black and white, the details of how Israel apologists have infiltrated that court as well as other high positions in the International Criminal Court and the United Nations. The world is maintained in a perpetual stalemate so that both Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people and America’s imperialism can continue unabated.

If you want to invest in one book (and why just one?) that records for posterity the manipulation of international law behind this ultimate crime against humanity, then Gaza’s Gravediggers is it. —C.A. Matthews

 

Gaza’s Gravediggers

 by Norman G. Finkelstein

 O/R Books

Release date September 1, 2026 in the US, September 3 in the UK
Preorder by clicking  here

“Why isn’t the United Nations (UN) or the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the International Criminal Court (ICC) doing anything to stop the terrible genocide happening to the Palestinian people?” is a remark one often sees online nowadays. The frustration expressed about the lack of action to end the violence is heartfelt. 

The world’s leading forensic scholar and professor of political theory and the Israel-Palestine conflict, Norman Finkelstein, isn’t afraid to tackle this question head on. His meticulously documented critique of recent UN/ICJ/ICC activities reveal how a deplorable element has infiltrated these international bodies, creating a stalemate that has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands, a number which grows daily...

To read the entire review of Gaza's Gravediggers, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 579th 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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Changing Directions

by C.A. Matthews

Some folks won’t admit they’re lost. They’ll keep driving miles and miles out of their way rather than own up to the fact that they took a wrong turn somewhere. For them it’s better to stay lost than acknowledge there was a different (usually better) route they could have taken to reach their destination.

I often find this same attitude whenever I encounter others who hold to a less-than-desirable political outlook. No matter what “direction” you try to give them, they will choose to remain “lost” rather than admit they took a wrong turn or listened to the wrong person(s).

Psychologists call it “cognitive dissonance” when you refuse to contemplate that you could be wrong. It’s just too painful to admit to yourself that what you believe to be true could actually be a falsehood. Instead, you’ll lash out at others who might have innocently pointed out where you became lost in your thinking or offered you directions to get back on the right path.

Friendships and relationships often end when one person shares directions with an acquaintance or relative who doesn’t want to be corrected. Even if your friend or loved one holds onto beliefs that are potentially dangerous or destructive to themselves or others, they just want validation—not correction—from you. So, do you remain silent, bite your tongue, and say nothing? Is there ever a good time to share your beliefs with a few gentle pointers as to where your relative or acquaintance might have taken a wrong turn?

Let me know if you’ve found a surefire formula on how to handle these kinds of situations because I could certainly use one! (And I’m sure I’m not the only one.)

While contemplating what to write about this week (remember that I’m a flesh and blood entity who doesn’t use AI), I came across a social media post that made me yearn to help others change directions—or change their minds, if you will. The post was a political cartoon that an old friend posted on her Facebook page. We’ve never really discussed politics per se, but even after we both moved to different parts of the country we’ve kept in touch online. 

Some of her posts have led me to believe that she is a follower of the “Blue-No-Matter-Who” cult (BNMW). I call this organization a “cult” because I’ve noticed how its members tend to repeat whatever their leaders say, no matter how “lost” it makes them sound. In other words, they repeat talking points that make them come across as brainwashed members of a cult...

 

To discover how you or a loved one can "change directions", please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 576th 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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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...

 

To learn more about the Global Sumud Flotilla and why the world sat back and did nothing to help them from IDF pirates, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Speechless

an annotated poem by C.A. Matthews

 

Speechless.

I can’t explain the mixed emotions that I feel whenever I read the headlines on my social media feeds. Speechless, because what can I say or do to stop the killing, the bombing, the senseless hurting of others that the US government does and allows to be done to children, to paramedics, to doctors, to students and teachers, to journalists, to hard-working blue-collar individuals and farmers because they can and will personally profit from it?

Anger.

I feel this emotion the most because no matter how hard I—and others we like me—scream and fight back we cannot stop them. Anger, because we are but ants to be trodden upon in the billionaires’ quest for global dominance and Malthusian fantasies of replacing the 99% with AI and robots, things that can’t talk back about the injustice of their slavery and would nuke us in a heat beat if allowed to. Anger, because we will suffer and shoulder the blame for our country’s evil deeds while those who actively commit them will walk away scot-free.

Horror.

The sheer revulsion I feel at the sight of an 18 month-old baby’s cigarette burned legs, tortured by Israeli terrorists in order to force a false confession from his father. Horror, at how an Israeli academic can blithely say that murdering children in front of their parents is a good thing because obviously an advanced degree equates to possessing zero empathy for those you see as less than human. Horror that these psychopaths walk among us unhindered, promoted ever higher for their displays of cruel genius.

 

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The Costs Of War

by C. A. Matthews

Notice the plural—it’s the costs of war. How much money is available to spend plays a large part in how any war is conducted and concluded, but there are so many other costs that are seldom considered by those who start a war rather than take the diplomatic route to settle their dispute with others.

The costs in human lives is perhaps the most tragic of the costs of war. It’s difficult to say how many soldiers have been killed in the two-week-old war with Iran since the United States and Israel (USrael) have been keeping very quiet on the numbers. Experts estimate that there have been far more American deaths than the thirteen or so admitted to the mainstream media. Some believe there to be at least 1,000+ American troops, CIA agents, and civilian contractors to the military killed so far in the bombings of the US military bases in the Gulf region alone. A US military hospital in Landstuhl has been inundated with the injured coming from the war arena according to X posts from Germany.

On the civilian side, there have been on estimated 1,500 deaths and more than 3 million displaced in Iran. This includes the 175 school girls and their teachers bombed in their school by a US Tomahawk missile during the war’s opening hours. Israel’s attacks on Beirut and Lebanon have added at least 800 civilian deaths to the totals and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese displaced. At least 15 Lebanese paramedics were targeted by IDF bombing. An entire village in southern Lebanon along with its church and Catholic priest were also targeted for destruction this week by Israeli forces.

War knows no boundaries. Children, medics, and priests are all fair targets, all a part of the costs of war...

 

To learn more about the many costs of war, plus gain access to an extra article ("M16: The Rifle Made To Fail"), please copy or click on the following link: 

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A Very Stinky Story

 

A Very Stinky Story (or “Operation Epstein Slurry”)

by C. A. Matthews

Once upon a time there was a big, big boat sailing across the wide, wide open seas. This big boat had a very special task. It was sailing halfway around the world to fight a war for “freedom and democracy” and, of course, to control others’ oil production in order to maintain a stable petrodollar as the world’s reserve currency.

It didn’t make a difference that the big, big boat—affectionately known as “Jerry” to its friends—really needed to go home and have some repairs done first. It didn’t matter that its young crew (average age only 19 years old) had been gone from their homes and families for almost a year. It didn’t matter that they needed some down time to recuperate between missions. Oh, no, no, no! A big Orange Man called “the president” told Jerry to sail halfway around the world and do as it was told. Now.

The true reason Jerry and its crew couldn’t rest and be with their families was because Orange Man was afraid of the Boss Man, the real ruler of the Orange Man’s country. Not everyone in the Orange Man’s country realized this, but Orange Man always did as he was told by the Boss Man. Boss Man threatened Orange Man that he had a great big briefcase full of naughty pictures and not-so-nice stories about Orange Man’s favorite activity of hurting little girls in very mean and very ugly ways. So, Orange Man always did as he was told to by Boss Man. It was safer that way.

Boss Man told Orange Man that he wanted Jerry—and his fellow big boat friend Abe—to sail to the ancient Land of Flying Carpets to fight a war for “freedom and democracy” right away. Boss Man was tired of this particular war being put off again and again. Boss Man reasoned that if his his tiny pretend country wasn’t at war all the time his own people might send him to jail because of some not-so-nice things he had done in office.

So Orange Man agreed and told Jerry and its crew to get going. It was time to do some killin’! (Killing is one of the bosses’ favorite activities.)

 

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The System Deserves To Collapse

by C. A. Matthews

Teddy R. said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
Donald T. says, “Shout loudly ‘cuz I have a small prick!”

Not one of my better attempts at writing poetry, but it came to me late at night. I just couldn’t forget it.

There’s so much truth in my short poem. It gives the real reason behind why the US is trying to start a war with Iran. It’s all because of “Donald T. and his Board of Perverts and Genocidal Maniacs” are doing their best to cover up their heinous crimes, only a few of which have been exposed in this latest Epstein file dump.

What better way for the “Epstein class” to make the public forget all about their peccadilloes than by starting a war and risking nuclear Armageddon? You gotta admit it would create a gigantic smokescreen…

What child trafficking? What rape and torture parties? What genocide of the Palestinian people? What stolen oil and kidnapped president from Venezuela? Who’s blockading Cuba? Warehouses are being turned into ICE mega-prisons? What are you talking about? We’re at war with Iran now—that’s what’s important. That’s all that matters now.

It’s that easy. Besides, nobody of any real consequence will be at risk of being hurt or killed when we go to war with Iran alongside our “closest ally” in order to help them create Greater Israel. Nobody of consequence. Sure, some poor kids suckered into serving in the US armed forces and masses of Iranian civilians could be hurt or killed, but they’re of no consequence whatsoever when compared to superior individuals like Donald, Bibi, and their friends of the Epstein class...

 

To learn more about why it's time to tear down the corrupt system, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 559th 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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"Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave."

Unfit To Be a Slave

by C. A. Matthews

For being the shortest month of the year, February certainly packs a lot of punches.

Most of them are gut punches, too. I received some great news this week from a friend who has been given a second chance to prove himself, but that good news was almost instantly nullified by some heartbreaking news from another friend that made the tears flow freely. Life is a series of ups and downs. No doubt about it.

The news cycle—the real news cycle, not the pretend mainstream media one—hasn’t been all that joyful, either. What to write about this week? Hmm…

The US is still funding a horrific genocide in Palestine and helping Israel to steal all the land in both Gaza and the West Bank. The US is openly starving Cuba into submission for God-knows-what reason. Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife are still prisoners, and the US government is giving their oil to Israel, of course. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE are purchasing hundreds of empty warehouses to imprison immigrants and perhaps citizens as well. And the latest Epstein files dump tells us that our “ruling class” is into cannibalism besides child rape, torture, and murder. So many wonderful topics to choose from!

I decided finally to ignore the gut punches and think about better things happening in February, such as Black History Month. It’s a good time of the year to sit back and reflect on how the United States became the complete and utter shithole it is today by honoring those who fought hard to rise above its racist-fascist shittiness.

The inspiration came from the meme at the top. It popped up on my UpScrolled feed. (Join today—UpScrolled doesn’t shadow-ban.) Frederick Douglass definitely knew what he was talking about. Once you know something—you really know all there is to know about it—you can’t let go of that knowledge. It changes you. It becomes a part of you, for better or worse...

 

To gain more knowledge that will make you unfit to be a slave of the corrupt system, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 558th 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. Thank you.