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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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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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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This article is the 564th 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 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 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...

 

To see the photos and video of the wedding, plus read some guest bonus poetry, please check out of the rest of the article by copying or clicking on the following link: 

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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...

 

To learn how to recognize moral insanity in action, please read the rest of the article by copying or clicking on the following link: 

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

We’ve Got The Power!

by C. A. Matthews

Oftentimes, we don’t realize that all is not lost. We haven’t hit a roadblock like we thought. There is a path forward.

This is one of those times.

The Uniting for Peace resolution was made at the United Nations General Assembly this past week by Colombian President Gustavo Petro. He is now talking with other countries, such as the ones that comprise the Hague Group, to build a protective force for Gaza. (The US has since revoked Petro’s visa for his courage to speak so boldly at the UN. An illegal move, but what would you expect of Trump?)

More nations have recognized Palestine as a state than ever before. Spain, Italy, and recently Turkiye have sent naval escorts to protect the Global Sumud Flotilla. Every large city in Italy has held massive pro-Palestine protests and the longshoreman have vowed to go on strike to prevent the transport of military supplies to Israel.

So, even if the Western governments look like they’re not doing anything much to end the genocide in Gaza, there are some tiny, incremental changes happening for the better that will lead to a positive outcome. Yeah, I know—what’s happening seems very little and very late in the game, but it’s what we got.

Now is the time to play our cards well and pull out all the stops...

 

To find out how we can use our power for the good of all and end the genocide in Gaza, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 539th 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. 

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The Land of the Greed and the Home of the Child-Haters

by C. A. Matthews

There’s nothing to be proud of living in a country that openly and unapologetically hates children. All children.

For those who are totally clueless (or pretending to be) the following articles will enlighten you. Once you’ve read them, you will no longer be able to claim ignorance of the genocide happening in Gaza and America’s involvement in it. You will understand why the rest of the world feels nothing but disgust whenever they spy the Star Spangled Banner waving in the breeze alongside an Israeli flag.

Ready to open your eyes and your mind? Here goes…

 (The article links can be found in the article on Substack.)

...You didn’t think I was going to leave out domestic child abuse/endangerment articles, did you? If the US government is willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on sending aid to Israel to bomb, burn, and maim Palestinian children (and then won’t even let them into the country for treatment), why wouldn’t it be willing to not spend any money at home to improve American kids’ health and educational opportunities?

Why wouldn’t the US government spend billions on hiring masked vigilantes under the guise of ICE to terrorize and rip families apart who are looking for asylum? Why wouldn’t the US government want to destroy the First Amendment and censor protests against these horrific American policies? It does these things because it can and it does get away with them.

And why? Because America hates children...

 

To read the rest of this article as well as an extra piece about a county commissioners' meeting I recently attended about divesting from Israeli bonds, please copy or click on this link: 

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This article is the 534th 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. 

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How Your Love's Affecting Our Reality?

by C.A. Matthews

Have you ever experienced an “earworm” or a “sticky tune”? An earworm is a song or melody (or part of one) that gets stuck in your mind that you can’t seem to shake for days on end. You keep hearing it over and over again during the quiet parts of your day. You’re not even sure how or why it happens, but somehow it does. There’s nothing you can do to shake it loose, either. I know—I’ve tried!

I was infected with an unusual ear worm this past week. It’s from the chorus of a pop hit from 1999 that I must have heard playing on my car radio recently. What makes this earworm even more unusual is that it’s not from a song that I particularly like. I’m not even a fan of the group that recorded it. In fact, I don’t think either one of my daughters were a fan of the group or the song back when. So why are these words repeating constantly in my head?

All you people, can't you see, can't you see
How your love's affecting our reality?
Every time we're down, you can make it right
And that makes you larger than life

Chorus from the 1999 Backstreet Boys’ song Larger Than Life, written by Brian Littrel, Kristian Lundin, and Max Martin.

The one line that really haunts me is Can’t you see how your love’s affecting our reality? Yeah, it’s part of a catchy lyric and tune, but there’s something about that question that keeps bugging me. I really want to know what the answer to it is. It’s driving me crazy.

How is your love affecting our reality?

According to the song lyrics, we can’t see it. We can’t actually see or know how our love (and this could mean anything from romantic love to neighborly love to compassion and empathy for all humankind and the earth itself) affects the reality of the universe itself. But the next lines show us that our love does indeed hold tremendous power: Every time we're down, you can make it right/And that makes you larger than life.

Deep stuff, huh?

All I can guess at this point is this earworm is the universe’s way of telling me that all is not lost. So, when it comes to how we can end the horrible genocide in Gaza, all is not lost, even if it looks like it is. I don’t know why I’ve come to this conclusion, but I feel it in my bones. Call it intuition or a gut instinct. Even when things seem down (or impossible) for us, we can make them right (or at least better). Perhaps that’s what makes us all larger than life—we have more power than we could possibly dream of.

We need to start using our power for good and to save lives. Right now.

A lot of Substack commentators embrace various creeds and belief systems and tell us to think positive, but I’m not going to assume anything I write here will change your mind. Others are much more persuasive and eloquent than I am. But I implore you to keep an open mind for just a little while longer...

 

To see where I'm coming from and how this could make the world a better place, please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

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How Can We Make Reparations to Palestine?

by C. A. Matthews

There will come a day when the genocidaires of Israel and its mostly Western allies will be forced to make reparations to the Palestinian people. Justice demands that fair and proper restitution be made to the victims of Israeli war crimes. But what will these reparations look like? How will they be enacted? Who will oversee the implementation of these reparations?

I’ve pondered these questions and came up with an outline of what all should be covered in a reparations plan. I believe reparations should be made to the Palestinian people in the following categories:

1. Financial-Material Reparations

2. Cultural-Historical-Educational Reparations

3. Political-Judicial Reparations

4. Spiritual-Physical Reparations

Israel will have to make reparations to Lebanon, Syria, and Iran in addition to Gaza and the West Bank. In this article, I’m concentrating on reparations to be made to the Palestinian people, although this outline could be used as a pattern to help develop a reparations plan for other peoples Israel and its allies have committed war crimes against.

Financial-Material Reparations

Financial-material reparations are the most obvious ones that Israel and its allies will need to make. All buildings Israel has destroyed in its genocide of Gaza, as well as in its attempt to takeover the West Bank, must be repaired or replaced. This includes public edifices such as hospitals, schools, universities, churches, mosques, and community centers. It will also include restoring parks, beaches, tourist attractions, museums, theaters, and other public gathering places. Bridges, roads, port facilities, utilities, water treatment plants, power plants, and any other infrastructure damaged or destroyed will also need to be repaired or rebuilt and paid for by the war criminals.

Private homes, apartment buildings, business offices, shopping areas, and individual stores or kiosks must also be repaired or rebuilt in a timely manner. And because Israelis have deprived Palestinians of their livelihoods and homes, they would need to make good on the income Palestinians have lost during the commission of their war crimes. Israelis must continue to repay all Palestinians lost income during this period of rebuilding Gaza and the destroyed and stolen homes and villages of the West Bank.

I know what’s going through your head at this point: How will the state of Israel be able to afford the restoration of all the buildings and infrastructure it has destroyed? How will it afford to give financial support to the Palestinian families it has harmed? Who will be the workers to fulfill this plan?

I will discuss the worker situation later, but for now notice that I added “and allies” at the start when I mentioned who all have committed war crimes against the Palestinian people. Israel won’t be the only country that will be making good on these reparations. All of Israel’s allies that have provided funding, bombs, jets, tanks, munitions, mercenaries, military support and surveillance, etc., to attack Gaza will need to make restitution as well. No country that aided or abetted Israel’s war crimes gets to walk free under this reparations plan. All who are guilty will pay to restore the damages their activities and support of the state of Israel have caused. No exceptions...

 

To learn more about my reparations plan, please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

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