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
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:
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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If
you’re thinking this article is about the student teachers', graduate assistants', and researchers' strike throughout the University of California system, you’re partially right. “Lab rats” is slang
for laboratory assistants, and a strike of over 48,000 of them in the
UC system is quite notable. What’s also notable is how very
little mainstream media coverage there’s been of this massive
strike by mostly young persons desperate to be paid a living wage.
The
average yearly wage in the UC system for student
teachers/assistants is $24,000 a year—this in a state where rents
have been skyrocketing, with the average rent for an apartment being
between $2,000 to $3,000 a month. You’d think with rising tuition
costs the university system could afford not to starve the people who
do the lion’s share of the work on their campuses.
But
the lab rats I’m actually referring to in the title of this blog
doesn’t just stop with the student workers at the University of
California. It includes all of us. We are all lab rats
according to a New York Times article called Western Allies Look to Ukraine as a Testing Grounds For Weapons. And we all know that
the Times is a “newspaper of record,” don’t we? That’s a
source that the big name mainstream media pundits gladly quote from, so
there’s got to be some grain of truth in what they say, right?
I’ll
admit I’m being a bit facetious here, but in this case I think
they’re reporting truthfully. If you don’t believe the NYT,
then at least believe this military bigwig:
"This Ukraine crisis that we’re in right now, this is just the
warmup,” said US STRATCOM head Charles Richard at a naval conference
earlier this month. “The big one is coming. And it isn’t going to be
very long before we’re going to get tested in ways that we haven’t been
tested [in] a long time.”
The
current proxy war in Ukraine and all wars being waged overtly or covertly right now in
the world are simply experiments to see how various newfangled war
gadgetry works against flesh and blood targets before "the big one" gets started. And by targets they mean
real live human beings like you or me.
But why? Well, step back and unclutch your pearls for a moment and consider this: What good is a costly
weapon of war if it doesn’t kill or dismember as advertised? Would you spend billions of dollars on a weapon that doesn't deliver the lethal results promised?
Congress
has sent about $100 billion worth of military and humanitarian aid to
Ukraine. Only about 30% of the weapons can be accounted for according
to a CBS 60 Minutes documentary. (Yes, another mainstream media
outlet might possibly be telling us actual facts! But don’t
worry—CBS took the documentary down from the internet after the
government of Ukraine complained about it. I had a link to the archived
version of the documentary, but it seems to have "disappeared." This article has a link to the archived documentary.)
That 30% of weapons accounted for that the US has sent to Ukraine has got to
destroy, maim, intimidate, and annihilate enough to make up for the
missing 70% or else the Ukrainians might feel like they have to push for more military aid from NATO by triggering "article five". Doing so would change the "cold" proxy war into a genuine nuclear Armageddon, but don't worry Zelensky and company would never do such a dangerous thing. (If you believe that, I have some swampland along the Pecos River to sell you.)
So, where did all the missing arms sent to Ukraine go? Most intelligent
people assume these weapons have been sold onto the black market and gone into the hands of
other groups such as the neo-Nazi groups Italian police have
investigated.
Five members of an Italian neo-Nazi organization known as the “Order
of Hagal” were arrested on November 15th while an additional member
remains wanted by authorities. He happened to be in Ukraine, fighting
Russian forces alongside the Azov Battalion, which has been formally
integrated into the Ukrainian military.
The “Hagal” members are accused of plotting terrorist attacks on
civilian and police targets. A sixth member of the Hagal group, now
considered a fugitive, is in Ukraine and embedded with the Azov
Battalion, a neo-Nazi paramilitary group that has been incorporated into
the Ukrainian National Guard.
Members of the Order of Hagal reportedly maintained “direct and
frequent” contacts over Telegram with not just the Azov Battalion, but
also the neo-Nazi Ukrainian military formations Right Sector and Centuria, “probably in the view of possible recruitment into the ranks of these fighting groups,” according to Italian media.
The police investigation was launched in 2019 and has included
extensive computer searches and wiretapping; tactics which have revealed
members of the group’s intent on carrying out violent acts in Italy.
Killing
people on the battlefield or through hate group crimes in our cities gives valuable feedback to military-industrial complex manufacturers as to the lethality of their
weapons. Simply put, dead
and wounded lab rats like you and me mean more sales. Selling weapons means more
profits for MIC investors. Lab rats dying is a win-win in the
investors’ eyes.
So,
why do we lab rats, white mice, and cute little guinea pigs allow these horrible events to happen? Do
we want to be killed? Do we enjoy watching others being killed simply to make profits for billionaire capitalists? If
you say “no” to these two questions, then you no longer have any excuses. You know what is needed. We must take
action to prevent more deaths. We have to say "no more war" and actually mean it and do what it takes to stop it.
Just
like the striking lab rats of the University of California system, the warehouse workers of Amazon, and the
baristas of Starbucks, we need to take this message to the streets. We must
strike, protest, do whatever to get our message out to the public and get it on the airwaves and tweeted
around the world. We need to make the owners
of our lab cages afraid of us tiny little rodents who outnumber them 99 to 1. We must escape the cages of our own making and rattle their cages instead.
We
can’t just sit back and nibble our cheese (or whatever lab
rats/white mice eat) and watch Netflix. We
can’t offer up “thoughts and prayers” alone about this
situation and expect practical results. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin don’t read minds, and they certainly don’t
hear our prayers. They
simply accept large amounts of US taxpayers’ dollars and laugh
all the way to the bank. What’s another million dead lab rats to
them if they turn a profit?
Our
planet’s very survival depends upon this generation’s actions. Do
we run back into our mouse holes and allow homicidal maniacs to kill
us all in the name of capitalism and profits? Or do we use our teeth and
claws to fight for our lives? Rats are known for their bravery and for deeply caring for their offspring. Let’s
not cower in our cages any longer.
Lab rats of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our cheese (and our planet's safety to gain).
In a near-future dystopian world, hope blossoms where mutual aid and democracy begins...
Zonta’s
world is turned upside down when Jake arrives at the commune to
investigate the disappearance of agents of the Authority. Can she
persuade him to switch sides before the Protectors (antifascist
fighters) take action?
It's been a tiring week. I'm still recuperating from a recent surgery, but I felt it was important to attend a local peace demonstration. I also feel it's important to share information from non-mainstream media sources to a wider audience who has fallen down the rabbit hole into Alice's (nonsensical neoliberal/warmongering propaganda) Wonderland... A place were so-called "peace activists" are actually advocating for sending more weapons to, as well as enforcing a no-fly zone over, Ukraine because in their minds, "War is peace."
Didn't George Orwell say something like that in his dystopian masterpiece of a novel, 1984? I'm sure I've read it somewhere.
Frankly, I don't have enough energy right now to argue with the "President Zelensky can't support Nazis/fascism because he's Jewish" crowd. Yes, he can and here's the link to an excellent article from The Grayzone that explains how Zelensky gave a medal of honor to an openly avowed Neo-Nazi in December 2021.
Yes, he did just that less than four months ago. Read it and learn to think for yourself. I promise you'll thank me for it later. (Or not.) But at least things will start to fall into place for you as you learn how Ukrainian oil oligarch (or, as we call them in the West,"a billionaire") Igor Kolomoisky helped to place Zelenski into power with the help of the US-backed coup in 2014. Click here or the link below to read all about the fun and games of Zelensky and Kolomoisky utilizing Neo-Nazi paramilitary units to further their political and financial aims.
I hope peace activists' voices will eventually break through this toxic fog of propaganda funded by the US government along with its Big Oil and military industrial complex allies. Below I've shared a few good quotes and article links I've come across this week that will help clear that nasty propaganda fog completely from your mind.
One news tidbit that'll cut through the muddy logic of American war-loving propgandists: According to indie journalist Ben Norton, "An estimated 377,000 Yemenis have died in the US-Saudi war on their country, and roughly 70% of deaths were children under age 5."
I hope you'll soon be able to discern that 377,000 Yemenis--most of them children--dying in the ongoing US-sponsored bombing war with Saudi Arabia against Yemen is actually a much more horrific current conflict than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Horrible that it is, Ukraine hasn't experienced anywhere near the loss of life or property damage. (Less than 400 confirmed deaths, some of them ethnic Russians.) And, yes, brown-skinned Muslim peoples can suffer just as much (if not more) as white-skinned European "Christian" peoples.
Like the Yemeni woman in the meme above, one day soon I'd like to be able to say, "Now they'll see us!" And we will still have enough of our humanity intact to go and rebuild their bombed cities and help them bury their hundreds of thousands dead in Yemen, in Somalia, in Gaza, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya... even if they're not blue-eyed blond Ukrainians who, according to one American mainstream media pundit, "Look just like us."
Uh-huh. Sounds like something a Neo-Nazi would say, doesn't it?
Here are some examples of good independent reporting:
Civilian casualties in Ukraine are relatively few. Despite the strenuous
efforts to find then, actual numbers appear to be in the order of
300-400. For good reasons, Russian forces are calculatingly avoiding
attacks on urban centers; after all, 40% of the population is Russian
and concentrated in the regions where the fighting is taking place.
Moreover, Moscow has no interest in subjugating the country to its rule.
In comparison, the Ukrainian army has been shelling the city centers of
Lugansk and Donetsk, producing casualties estimated by a UN agency at
more than 1,300 (3 or 4 times what objective observers estimate on the
Ukrainian government’s side of the battle lines). Also. the water system
has been destroyed. Yet, these facts are unreported and unnoticed in
the total absence of media presence in an area they have erased from
their reportorial map. --Michael Brenner, Another Casualty of the Ukraine Conflict: The Truth
More concerning than backing Nazi militias in Ukraine is the far more
widespread, far more deadly, and equally white supremacist belief we're seeing throughout the western world that invading a nation of white people is horrific while invading a nation of brown people is normal.
Is what the US and its allies are trying to accomplish in Ukraine worth continually risking nuclear armageddon for? This is the single most important question in the world right now, and hardly anyone seems to be asking it. --Caitlin Johnstone, Every US Enemy Is Hitler
In December 2021, Zelensky would be seen delivering a “Hero of Ukraine” award to a leader of the fascistic Right Sector in a ceremony in Ukraine’s parliamenthttps://t.co/FWGNJST5v4
— David J Farquhar🌹 #Peace&Love (@DavidJFarquhar) March 5, 2022
The US has a history of working to draw Moscow into gruelling, costly
military quagmires which monopolize its military firepower while
leaching it of blood and treasure. Jimmy Carter's National Security
Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, author of US hegemonic manifesto The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, openly bragged about having lured Russia into its own Vietnam fighting the US-backed mujahideen in Afghanistan for a decade.
Just two years ago then-US Special Representative for Syria engagement said during a video event hosted by the Hudson Institute that his job was to make Syria "a quagmire for the Russians".
So
this isn't something new or out of the blue, and what it means is that
all the self-righteous posturing by the western political/media class
about the need to pour weapons into Ukraine is not really about saving
Ukrainian lives (only negotiating a ceasefire can do that), but about
seizing this golden opportunity to hurt Russia's geostrategic interests
as much as possible. Ukraine on its own is powerless to stop Russia from
taking Kyiv no matter how many weapons are sent, but those weapons can
be used to fight a "long, bloody insurgency" after that happens which
costs many more lives, keeps Moscow militarily preoccupied and
hemorrhaging money, and ultimately hurts Putin's popularity at home. --Caitlin Johnstone, Ukraine Is A Sacrificial Pawn On The Imperial Chessboard
Nowhere could the the revelations from the Pandora Papers
investigation hit harder than in Ukraine. The discovery of offshore
accounts strike at the heart of the current government and power
structure of a ruling class that rose to power on the promise of
fighting corruption, including the television-star-turned-President
Volodymyr Zelensky.
The
worldwide probe, prompted by a massive leak to the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), has included work by
journalists from the Ukrainian media Slidstvо.Info,
which connected the shady financial dealings of Zelensky's television
production company Studio Kvartal 95 to the Ukrainian oligarch Igor
Kolomoisky. Slidstvo found that the laundered money passed through the
Cyprus branch of Kolomoisky-owned Privatbank, according to law enforcement officers. --Livy Bereg,Zelensky's Ukraine, Where the Pandora Papers Hit Hardest
Thought-provoking articles to read and share with others:
This is what Putin's bombs are doing to children in Ukraine.
Wait, not Ukraine, that's Yemen. And they're not Putin's bombs, they're US bombs. Dropped by our friends the Saudis. Yes, Russia's bombing ppl in Ukraine- It's wrong. So why do you only talk about one of these things? pic.twitter.com/SigmvawzPP
— The ice continues to melt (@squaneenge) March 6, 2022
Is NBC run by "Putin Lovers" too because they told the truth about how racist Nazi ultranayionalist army soldiers in Ukraine put black students from Africa in danger by denying them safe passage out of Ukraine? They were backing it up with US guns by the way. Freedom pic.twitter.com/uMPZfoWbme
The Establishment had a tough time trying to deny the Nazi presence in Ukraine, because everybody acknowledged it for 8 years and the Nazis wouldn't stop coming out publicly proudly pronouncing that they were Nazis.
— Black in the Empire (@blackintheempir) March 7, 2022
***
In a near-future dystopian world, hope blossoms where mutual aid and democracy begins...
Zonta’s
world is turned upside down when Jake arrives at the commune to
investigate the disappearance of agents of the Authority. Can she
persuade him to switch sides before the Protectors (antifascist
fighters) take action?
How many Humvees and Tasers does an average police department need? How much pepper spray and teargas? If you have a reputation for killing persons of color, it seems you can never have too many army cast-offs or spend too much of your city's budget on obtaining weapons of war to use against your civilian population, in groups or individually.
How much is a child's life worth? If you're twelve-year-old Tamir Rice or thirteen-year-old Adam Toledo, not much. It's not even worth very much if you're sixteen or seventeen or twenty, especially if there's some money to be made in it for private prisons or immigrant detention centers.
Let's not deny the facts any longer. In a capitalist society neither children nor adults of color nor the poor and homeless of any color or gender identity are seen as having much worth in the eyes of those in power. Those of lesser worth are seen as disposable commodities to the wealthy elites, things to be used and abused and then thrown in a landfill (grave) or cage (prison) at will.
Since testimony began in the Derek Chauvin trial on March 29, at least 64 people have died at the
hands of police nationwide. Black and Brown people
represent more than half of those killed. With the re-opening of public spaces as the world is declared "post-Covid," we should only expect more deaths by cops.
According to Marjorie Cohn:
On April 27, the International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence Against People of African Descent in the United States,
for which I am serving as a rapporteur, will release its report with
findings of fact and recommendations addressed to national and
international policy makers. The commission is examining whether police
violence against Black people in the U.S. constitutes a gross violation
of international human rights and fundamental freedoms. Testimony was
presented to the commission by family members and attorneys about police
killings of 43 Black people and the paralyzing of another, all of whom
were unarmed or were not threatening the officers or others. --The Supreme Court Is Also To Blame For Daunte Wright's Death
So, it's not just Chauvin and his ilk who are at fault. We can't just lay the blame on "a couple of bad apples." Our human rights are being deliberately abridged. The corrupt system that runs our country is to blame for perpetuating this overtly military-style response against its own people.
You aren't seeing things. US policing budgets in total are greater than budgets for the Indian and Russian Armies. Take that Russiagaters! Why should anyone obsess over one poor country like Russia so much when it can't even afford to spend for its actual army as much as we do on just our police?
Could conspiracies like Russiagate be just another way to deflect attention away from things that really matter? A method of keeping the public from dwelling on the number of deaths caused by the police and the fact that kids are still being held in cages along our border with Mexico?
So, why is the US police force the third wealthiest "army" on the
entire planet? (We already have the world's largest conventional army by far.) The answer is clear: we're at war with our own citizens. People of color are
being used for target practice, and all citizens are being forced to pay ever more taxes to cover up police malpractice, that is, police brutality.
When we say "demilitarize the police" it means it's time to take away their military-grade weaponry that is being used against civilians who are exercising their freedom of speech and right to assemble. When we say "defund the police" it's backed up by the above memes which demonstrate just how much money our government pumps into what is one of the best customers of the Military-Industrial Complex, your local police department.
"Demonetize the children" should be self-explanatory. Any cop killing anyone's child--including an adult child--should be charged with murder. Private prisons and detention centers should be closed because no one should be making billions of dollars off the suffering of others, particularly struggling drug addicts and refugees fleeing violence. Compassion not cages should always be our goal.
Until we see money taken away from police departments, away from the Military-Industrial Complex, and away from the pockets of the for-profit prison/detention center industry, we will only see more innocents shot by the police, more protests, and more arrests to fill the prisons.
There's really only one answer to this genocidal mess. Replace cops with social workers to answer calls dealing with people in mental/emotional crises. Take the guns off those who walk a beat much like the British bobbies who don't carry weapons. More empathy, more training, more psychological testing of police recruits. Zero hiring of white supremacists, zero military equipment, zero lethal force allowed.
Abolish the police and replace them with what we need, not what the gun manufacturers want. And stop putting a price tag on human life.
"I need to drive my two-year-old to daycare tomorrow morning. To ensure we arrive alive, we won't take public transit (Oscar Grant). I removed all air fresheners from the vehicle and double-checked my registration status (Daunte Wright), and ensured my license plates were visible (Lt. Caron Nazario). I will be careful to follow all traffic rules (Philando Castille), signal every turn (Sandra Bland), keep the radio volume low (Jordan Davis), and won't stop at a fast food chain for a meal (Rayshard Brooks). I'm too afraid to pray (Rev. Clementa C. Pickney) so I just hope the car won't break down (Corey Jones).
When my wife picks him up at the end of the day, I'll remind her not to dance (Elijah McClain), stop to play in a park (Tamir Rice), patronize the local convenience store for snacks (Trayvon Martin), or walk around the neighborhood (Mike Brown). Once they are home, we won't stand in our backyard (Stephon Clark), eat ice cream on the couch (Botham Jean), or play any video games (Atatiana Jefferson).
After my wife and I tuck him into bed around 7:30pm, neither of us will leave the house to go to Walmart (John Crawford) or to the gym (Tshyrand Oates) or on a jog (Ahmaud Arbery). We won't even walk to see the birds (Christian Cooper). We'll just sit and try not to breathe (George Floyd) and not to sleep (Breonna Taylor)."
These are things white people simply do not have to think about.
--- Author unknown
***
My name is Kyle Bibby and I served in the Marine Corps as an
Infantry Officer for over six years. As a Black man who earned the
uniform and served this country, I, along with many other Black
veterans, am growing concerned with the military equipment being
utilized by police departments across the country.
Increasingly, the training, equipment, and ultimately philosophy of
policing in the United States are being modeled to approach American
civilians as threats. Police departments receive militarized vests,
armored vehicles, weaponry, and training that they end up deploying
against civilians in the streets — especially Black and brown civilians.
Over the past year, we’ve witnessed a consistent and utterly unacceptable
deployment of force by uniformed police, and a culture of violence that
seeks to dominate communities rather than serve and heal them. If we’ve
learned anything, it’s that we can’t continue this war in our streets.
Yet, the trend of the military giving police combat gear is getting
worse, not better — the police are on track to get more military
hardware in 2021 than they did in 2020. Congress needs to act.
I became a Marine in 2007, but I'll be Black my entire life, treated differently in and out of my uniform.
I know that any interaction with police could all too easily
lead to detention, injury, or death. The police don’t care that I’ve
gone to war to protect this country — I could be the next George Floyd,
or Daunte Wright, solely due to the color of my skin.
While many are saying that our system is broken, I have to
disagree. Our system is working the way it was designed — to oppress and
disenfranchise the Black community while disguising it as “law and
order”. The rot is to the core and to the roots.
Simple reform isn’t enough: We must dismantle the system brick by
brick and push for transformative change together by standing strong and
not allowing our justice system to stay the same any longer.
We have the momentum to make real, lasting change — now we need your help to mobilize and organize passionate people ready to make a difference.
In solidarity,
Kyle Bibby U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Afghanistan Common Defense
***
JUSTICE FOR DAUNTE WRIGHT MEANS DEFUNDING AND ABOLISHING THE POLICE
The Movement for Black Lives and our supporters support the family
and community of Daunte Wright who had his life ripped from him by
former police officer Kim Potter. Daunte was a beloved son, brother and
father to a two-year-old. We’re grieving alongside his family and
community, and will continue fighting to defund the police in the
pursuit of justice and Black liberation.
A police officer murdered Daunte just miles from where another
officer murdered George Floyd last year. As Black people in Minnesota
and across the country have been forced to relive George Floyd’s murder
during the ongoing trial of his murderer, Derek Chauvin, the murder of
Daunte Wright is a harsh reminder of the daily threat the police pose to
Black lives, while police departments continue to be rewarded with
outsized budgets and impunity.
Police killed 121 people in traffic stops in 2020, and Black people
are pulled over at disproportionate rates with deadly consequences —
Sandra Bland, Philando Castile and now Daunte Wright. A traffic stop
should never be a death sentence. There is no excuse for the continued
murders and terror inflicted by police.
As the Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis, and broader Minnesota
communities grieve, a militarized police force continues to perpetrate
tremendous harm on a community in mourning, with police officers
recklessly shooting tear gas at protestors and arresting and jailing
people at protests for extended periods of time in an intentional effort
to further terrorize and silence our communities.
Charging Kim Potter is not enough to create real accountability for
police or real safety for these communities. Ultimately only defunding
and abolishing the police will stop this terror and bring about real
safety. There is no ‘reforming’ this system—the time is now to divest
from deadly policing and invest in a vision of public safety that
protects us all.
We’re calling for all those who stand in defense of Black lives to
support Black-led organizations in Minneapolis and across Minnesota as
they continue to support and mobilize their communities in this moment.
If you’re able, send donations to:
