“The Piers Morgan Question”

 

“The Piers Morgan Question”

words and photos by C. A. Matthews

So much going on this past week and at least some of it makes me feel… hopeful?

There were good turnouts at the two local third anniversary events I attended. We could be witnessing the last days of the apartheid state of Israel. A leaked CIA report says as much. We could be seeing a possible way of getting humanitarian aid and food into Gaza if the Israelis start a shooting match among themselves and their fascist government falls apart. Is it only a matter of time until these sociopaths/psychopaths screw themselves over?

More hints in the news gave me hope. The Greens of England and Wales have adopted a resolution stating that “Zionism is racism.” Amen! Let’s not hold back any longer about the truth of who runs the “Jewish supremacist state” as Norman Finkelstein has labeled it. 

Finkelstein gave a lecture in town while on his book tour for Gaza’s Gravediggers...

 ...Professor Finkelstein framed his talk around with what he called “The Piers Morgan Question”. If you were a guest on Piers Morgan’s TV show in the first year of the genocide, you could expect to be asked, “Do you condemn what Hamas did on October 7?” The professor stated that one must always give their answer to that question with a persuasive argument that includes both facts and an appeal to reason. But he admits that everyone on air felt forced to answer, “Of course, I condemn Hamas!” or else they’d never be invited back on the show and might be labeled as antisemitic or worse by the public.

So, how does one answer “No!” to the question without being discredited or kicked out of the conversation? The facts of that day alone make it difficult, but to persuade others one must always put the facts into the context of history. Once the history of Gaza is known, it’s much harder to condemn the actions of Hamas.

Finkelstein shared the analogy of Nat Turner’s Rebellion. In 1831, the “question” would have elicited the response, “I wholeheartedly condemn what Nat Turner did!” But in the 21^st century, we know the context of the facts and the motivations that drove the actions Turner and his men took, and some see them nowadays as American heroes. They were enslaved with no hope of ever gaining their freedom. They had little choice—either they fought the whites who enslaved them or they would die as slaves.

The parallels of what has happened in Gaza are undeniable. Eighty percent of Gazans are refugees or descendants of refugees from the Nakba, and children make up about 50% of the population. UN officials and Israelis alike have labeled Gaza as “a huge concentration camp” over the last several decades—this during what could be called Gaza’s most “prosperous era”...

 

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No One Has To Tell You That You Are Free

by C. A. Matthews

As the seasons change and the sun sets earlier and earlier each evening, I feel an overwhelming urge to crawl into a cocoon and go to sleep and escape from all the hubbub. It’s so tempting just to close your eyes and forget all about the latest tragedy, infamy, or insanity, isn’t it?

Alas, the world won’t let me rest. It calls to me—or rather it shouts at me—and tells me to continue to speak up, point things out, write about life, and march in the streets. The Revolution won’t happen while I’m sitting in my favorite chair with a nice hot cup of tea and a cozy ball of fluffy cat purring beside me. It just doesn’t work that way.

After I came home from giving a presentation on The Resistance History of the United States, all I could say to myself was “No one really gets it. Most Americans will never understand how important resisting our oligarchic oppressors is. They think they can just walk into a voting booth on November 3, and presto-chango magically everything instantly gets better. Maybe not perfectly better, but definitely better than before. At least they’ll be a few less annoying people to threaten their health and safety for the next four years. Well, until the people they voted for start annoying them.”

I wish I could relax and be as trusting in the power of the duopoly to do good as other Americans, but unfortunately reality kicks in—and kicks me hard in the seat of my pants. I know that it doesn’t make a bit of difference who is in the “majority” in Congress or who actually sits in the White House—or even on the Supreme Court, for that matter any more.

Web sites such as Open Secrets demonstrate how the two halves of the duopoly/uniparty both serve their donors (oligarchs) unquestionably. If a politician does as their told only by those who write the biggest checks to their campaign fund, then they’re not working in the public’s best interests, are they? They’re working for their own self-interests—and the interests of their insanely rich bosses, the oligarchs...

...Sorry to break it to my fellow Americans, but walking into a voting booth or standing on a street corner with a “Trump wears diapers!” sign isn’t going to save us from the desperate situation we find ourselves in. It can’t. It wasn’t meant to. Ever...

 

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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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How To Destroy A Country

by C.A. Matthews

This isn’t something most of us thought we’d ever see in our lifetimes. It was bound to happen sooner or later, but why now?

The United States of America is being destroyed from within—on purpose by its oligarchy, apparently. There’s no need to blame any other country or “terrorists” (foreign or domestic) for its destruction. Americans are perfectly able to tear themselves apart without outside help, thank you very much. They almost succeeded in doing so about 166 years ago, and there are many who wish it had been accomplished way back then.

The funny thing is that many Americans don’t see the destruction of their country happening currently. Do you call that “woeful ignorance” or “willful ignorance” on their parts?

I’m sure once the DOA tag has been tied to their collective toes Americans will understand that the USA is dead and gone for good. Until then, they’ll happily remain blissfully bamboozled (i.e., brainwashed or propagandized). They’ll keep convincing themselves that tomorrow will be their lucky day. They’ll keep praying that they’ll never need to see a doctor before they’ve landed a job with decent private health insurance as a perk. The self-destructive elements inherent in the American capitalist system get lost in the details, in other words.

Nobody acknowledges the downside of one American having a trillion dollars to his name at the expense of 340 million other people with far less who actually have to pay taxes. Nobody thinks of how denying universal health care to all Americans creates an unhealthy underclass that has nothing left to live for except revolution. Nobody gives a flying f*** about the homeless, the mentally ill, or the disabled living on the streets—directly beside tents occupied by well-employed Millennials who still can’t afford an average rent in Silicon Valley or most large cities in the US.

Don’t agree with me that US is disintegrating? Below (on Substack) are some recent headlines illustrating how the bomb fuse of chaos has already been lit and lobbed by the ruling elites upon the Land of the Sort-of Free and the Home of the Wannabe Brave. It’s just a matter of time now until it blows up in one big Ka-BOOM! Even now you can hear the clock ticking: Tick tick tick…

 

To read some recent headlines that demonstrate what's happening to the country (and what Americans should do about it), please copy or click on the following link: 

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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

 

This article is the 571st 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 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...

 

To read more about (and find the links to) these great L*go videos, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 568th 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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What Is Activism?

by C. A. Matthews

This week I planned on introducing a documentary film, To Kill A War Machine, to the general public at our main library branch downtown. After doing some research on the group the film is about, Palestine Action, it got me to thinking: What is activism? Is what most of us engage in activism or is it just so much showing off? Can we become real activists? What’s holding us back?

I’m not going to dissect the “No Kings” event that happened recently since so many others have already done so. Caitlin Johnstone and Lee Camp both wrote excellent pieces about it. What I am going to say here for the record is that I agree with their takes on it.

No Kings wasn’t a “protest” as much as it was a “rally” or a “parade” (if people marched along a parade route). There’s nothing wrong with rallies or parades, but when circumstances are as dire as many of us think they are, then we simply don’t have time to waste on fun things like rallies or parades. We need to get down to business. Things are happening in our world that are deadly serious and need addressing. Now.

This is the way I saw the No Kings event I attended: It was like an adult spying a house on fire and then deciding to dress up in an inflatable dinosaur costume and prance about in front of the burning house holding a Trump is a DICKtator sign instead of organizing a water bucket brigade to put the fire out. Cute costume and clever sign but a juvenile reaction. It’s neither helpful nor appropriate to the occasion...

 

To read more about what is activism (and what we should be doing), please copy or click on the following link: 

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Watch the film here: https://youtu.be/_hdHCS0X610
 

Don’t Listen To That Person!

The following is a transcript of a podcast I stumbled upon after waking up from a horrible nightmare. Read at your own risk. --C. A. Matthews*

Hi! It’s me, your favorite social media influencer of all time, Ima Queen, here with the news you really shouldn’t know. I mean it—you really should not know any of these details if you want to remain my friend or make friends with my well-connected friends in Tel Aviv. Got it? Good.

First off, we have a quick rundown from a recent lecture given by a first-class traitor of Israel, Miko Peled. You really shouldn’t listen to that man because he says so many stupid things. For instance:

“I grew up in a colony.” While Peled was growing up as the son of a IDF general in Jerusalem he says he learned that the “Arabs” in Israel were an inherently backwards people because they didn’t have electricity and running water and live in a European-styled city like he did. Only much later did he come to realize the reality of why Palestinians lived the way they did. He says it’s because Palestinians are being oppressed. (As if!)

(...) 

Our second example is a young woman you definitely should not listen to if you know what’s good for you. You may remember her as an adorable teenager sitting in front of the Swedish Parliament “Striking for the Climate” or some other such nonsense. Now she’s all grown up and has attempted not one but two illegal invasions of Israeli territorial waters. How criminal can you get!

(...) 

This last item is one that you definitely should not listen to, although actually it’s a book. If you ever find an audio version of it, do not listen to it! If you find a printed or electronic copy, get rid of it at once!

 

*To read more of this satire piece about who you shouldn't listen to (if you know what's good for you), please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 542nd 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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In a sane and compassionate world, would American veterans be imprisoned and tortured (and ignored by their own government) for attempting to deliver food and medicines to starving people? First, a press conference for returned Global Sumud Flotilla hero Phil Tottenham, then a look a current events and how they tie together...

Read more about Phil's experience on this week's Substack post. Also, coming soon to Toledo, To Kill A War Machine, a UK documentary about Palestine Action. Details on Substack.

In a Sane and Compassionate World…

by C.A. Matthews

In a sane and compassionate world… one wouldn’t expect a Nobel Peace Prize winner to be actively working against her own people’s peace and her nation’s sovereignty. One wouldn’t expect a Nobel Peace winner to cooperate with a foreign plot to overthrow a popularly-elected president or cheer on an imperialist power happily bombing the boats of poor fishermen off her country’s coast in a lame attempt to steal what is the world’s largest reserve of oil. What’s world peace got to do with the massive petroleum reserves off the coast of Venezuela anyway?

But this is 2025, and if Donald Trump can’t win a peace prize for funding a genocide in Gaza one day while pretending to set up a permanent ceasefire there the next, then Maria Corina Machado is the Nobel committee’s next best choice. Because everybody loves a class traitor and opportunist like Maria, don’t they?

Read about Maria and her “peace making” at https://www.codepink.org/nobel_peace_prize_peace_has_lost_its_meaning

Sane? Compassionate? You decide.

In a sane and compassionate society… one wouldn’t have to spend billions of dollars on an outlandish propaganda campaign in order to convince the majority of the public that mass murdering innocent civilians (especially women and children) is “okay.” But this is 2025, and the apartheid state of Israel is paying upwards of $7,000 per post (not per day, week, or month but per post) to high-flying online influencers to convince their followers that the genocide of Palestinians is the best thing to happen since TikTok was invented...

 

To read the rest of the article and see how these current events tie together (along with photos from the press conference) please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 541st 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. 

You can 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.