You Know You’re Living In a Fascist Dictatorship When…

 

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.” —Sinclair Lewis

You Know You’re Living In a Fascist Dictatorship When…

an annotated poem by C. A. Matthews

 

You Know You’re Living In a Fascist Dictatorship When…

...You work full-time and yet still you are forced to make a choice between “heating or eating” and/or “eating or medicine” and/or “medicine or rent” and/or “rent or sleeping in your car” and/or “sleeping in your car or being arrested for homelessness” and/or “imprisoned for homelessness or heating and eating”… but no worries! The economy is going gangbusters—billionaires/oligarchs have made a killing in the stock market from rising oil prices.

Read: While Americans Paid $148B Extra on Gas Amid War, Big Oil Made $130B in Profits https://truthout.org/articles/while-americans-paid-148b-extra-on-gas-amid-war-big-oil-made-130b-in-profits/

Read: The REAL Elon Musk Is Even Crazier Than You Think https://realleecamp.substack.com/p/elon-musks-true-history-is-horrifying

...You witness a cop taser a man on the ground suffering a series of seizures instead of helping him get the medical help he needs.

Read: Another Day in the Land of the Free: Cop Tasers Black Man Having a Seizure Seven Times https://mandissent.com/p/another-day-in-the-land-of-the-free 

 You Know You’re Living In a Fascist Dictatorship When…

...You’re told you have to choose between two political parties to fill public offices but neither party represents you or even cares what actually happens to you as long as they’re allowed to rake in millions in campaign donations from billionaires and corporate lobbyists.

Read: The Soft Touch of Electoralism... https://eleanorgoldfield.substack.com/p/the-soft-touch-of-electoralism

...Your leaders cry “election fraud!” every time things don’t quite go the way they expected. But never fear! It really won’t make much difference whoever is in power in most Western “democracies.” Genocide and endless war are always well-funded and heavily supported no matter who is in office.

You Know You’re Living In a Fascist Dictatorship When…

...Your country takes in fleeing fascist wannabe dictators from other countries and offers them protection from extradition. (Welcome to the US, Mr. Bolsonaro!)

Read: Flávio Bolsonaro calls himself the ‘leader of Brazil’ after fleeing to Miami https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/28/flavio-bolsonaro-miami-us-fleeing-brazilian-election-defeat

...You’ve started getting your news from independent journalists and their publications because you can’t trust a single word coming out of the corporate media anymore. (Here are a few suggestions: https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com/lists/independent-journalism-you-can-trust)

 

To discover other reasons why you're living in a fascist dictatorship, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Luigi has had a revolutionary makeover.

Why Aren’t We In The Streets? (Winning The Hour)

by C. A. Matthews 

I—and a lot of other Americans—have been asking ourselves recently: Why aren’t we in the streets? It seems half of Europe is in open revolt. What will it take to get us off our backsides and start the Revolution?

And then I remind myself: The Revolution began the moment each one of us decided we’re not falling for the oligarchs’ lies. Why are we browbeating ourselves over things such as protests? Has any government fallen in Europe or even met the protesters’ demands yet? (The answer is no. The status quo prevails. The fascist cops daily beat and arrest protesters.)

When it comes down to it, protests don’t play a big part in the scheme of things. Sure, they help build comradery and increase our numbers by bringing us together to flip off the oligarchy as one. They demonstrate to the wider public that it’s not just a small handful of troublemakers who are pissed off at the fascist government and the evil economic system it sustains. But that’s about it.

That’s not saying that protests don’t have their uses. I know I feel better (at least temporarily) after standing on a corner with a sign, waving at passers-by, and chanting slogans for a couple of hours. But that’s about all a protest can do—introduce you to like-minded (and some not-so-like-minded) individuals while you let off steam. A protest alone doesn’t actually do anything to stop the endless wars and genocides. Massive protests in Minneapolis resulting in two deaths didn’t stop the unjust arrests by ICE nationwide, for example.

The problems arise when protesters start thinking that standing on a corner or marching in the streets is all they need to do to keep the Revolution going. Somehow magically holding signs or knocking down a Flock camera or two will make everything all right. Many hold this same misconception when it comes to voting. Everything will turn out fine if we just get out and vote harder. How I wish it was that easy!

The answer to Why aren’t we in the streets? could be Now is not the time. Maybe we need to concentrate more on what we actually need to do before we overturn the corrupt powers-that-be and fill the streets with protesters? I know that doesn’t sound very exciting, but these tasks are very important. Necessary tasks must be completed or else the pretty protests full of Macarena dancers holding “Trump wears diapers!” signs will have been for naught.

What should we be doing then? you may ask. I can’t tell you what to do—it’s up to you how you wish to support the Revolution to rid ourselves of the evil capitalist system that oppresses us all. Everyone has unique talents and skills, and helping the Revolution gain momentum is a great way you can employ your abilities to further the cause...

 

To find out ways you can use your skills and abilities to grow the Revolution, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Being Seen And Heard

by C. A. Matthews

“The people are not to be heard…”

You could have heard the gasps from miles away.

“The people are not to be heard at council meetings,” the chairwoman of Toledo’s City Council announced after anti-Flock camera activists clapped for a few brief moments following another council member’s brief statement. He’d actually had the audacity of wanting to hear more about what was actually being done with the data the Flock cameras were collecting before renewing the contract. (The vote on the contract is scheduled for later this week.)

Obviously, Toledo City Council doesn’t need to listen to its citizens—citizens who voted each of these city council members into office. We’re allowed to show up at the council’s meetings and listen quietly, but our wishes are not to be made known.

“The people are not to be heard…”

We are to be treated as children—seen but not heard.

If you’ve ever been in a similar situation where someone in authority told you to shut up and stay in your place, I’m sure you would have gasped at that ill-considered statement, too. Residents concerned about ICE obtaining data from the city’s Flock cameras and using it to harass and wrongfully deport others of color are to be scolded, told to sit quietly in their seats like the naughty little kids they are.

Even with all the pleas of politicians encouraging citizens to register and vote that we’ve witnessed lately, there still seems to be an underlying message of, “Vote, but then go home and leave it to us. We know best.”

“The people are not to be heard…”

At least once a year I feel obligated to remind readers that voting cannot save us from the abuses of authority we suffer daily at the hands of the politician-puppets of the oligarchy. It was never meant to, particularly not in the US. Voting is a method of pacification used by the powers-that-be to placate the masses into thinking they live in a “democracy” so they don’t get any ideas above their station in life.

You know the kind of ideas I’m talking about if you’ve read this blog regularly. Ideas like:

“All humans are created equal and deserve to live in peace.”

And dangerous ideas like...

 

To read more dangerous ideas and find out how voters can actually make themselves heard, please copy or click on the following link: 

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“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”...

 

To read more about what Norman Finkelstein had to say, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Childhood's End

 

Childhood’s End: Three Years of Murdering, Maiming, Bombing, Starving, and Deporting Children

by C. A. Matthews

Some anniversaries aren’t worth celebrating, but they are worth noting.

I participated in a short interview with a local university sociology professor and his student this past week. One of the questions they asked me was: “How have you changed personally because of joining this (pro-Palestine) movement?”

Three years into the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people and what hasn’t changed me?

Things certainly aren’t going back to the way they were prior to October 7, 2023. Little did I—or anyone, really—know that we’d be observing a livestreamed genocide on our computing devices for three straight years, all the while observing nothing positive in our governments’ reactions to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians—and so many of them children—at the hands of the IDF. I don’t know how being exposed to such a lack of compassion, empathy, and concern for others on such an immense scale wouldn’t change a person’s outlook on life unless the person was already spiritually and morally dead inside.

Three years of knowing that your government doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the health, safety, and security of children in Gaza—or the West Bank or Lebanon or Iran or Cuba or Venezuela, for that matter.

Three years of watching these little ones die from preventable diseases because your “ally” Israel won’t allow sufficient food, medicines, medical supplies, or Doctors Without Borders from entering their open air prison.

Three years of realizing the horrors of children and adults trapped under tons of rubble having to have emergency amputations without anesthesia...

...Honestly, I don’t know anymore if it’s just me who has gone insane because I can’t stand knowing so many horrific details about what’s happening in the world, or it’s the rest of the world that is insane for allowing them to occur in the first place...

 

To read what else has brought about "childhood's end" in these past three years, please copy or click on the following link: 

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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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Why I Dislike Most Celebrities (Except for Two)

 

Why I Hate Dislike Most Celebrities (Except for One Two)

by C. A. Matthews

(I was going to say “Why I Hate...” but I didn’t want the AI ‘bots reading my stuff calling me a “hater” at some point. They’ll be busy calling me antisemitic anti-cementic by then anyway.)

This past week’s ruckus over pop singer Ed Sheeran dropping his fellow performer, the rapper Macklemore, from his big stadium tour (and then consequently being dropped by his own backup band and all his opening acts) demonstrates to me that there is such a thing as poetic justice.

Justice is now being served on Sheeran as he deals with millions of fans unfollowing him on social media, being labeled a “coward” and a “zionist”, two adjectives that don’t paint a very pretty picture of him. How Ed is being treated by the public doesn’t surprise me. I truly believe some celebrities deserve a good hard kick in the arse now and then to remind them that they, too, are only human.

This is the theme of this piece: We are all human beings, and, as such, we all have human rights. One of the more important rights is the right not to be ethnically cleansed by white colonizers who stole your homeland. This is where Ed Sheeran totally dropped the ball.

Celebrities like Ed Sheeran entertain the notion that just because they’ve reached a certain level of fame or celebrityness they’ve somehow become something better than us mere mortals. They have become superhuman or superior to the rest of the struggling masses on this planet. They don’t need to consider anyone else’s feelings but their own. We see this mindset in Ed’s choice of billionaire friends, the NFL New England Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft...

 

...But there is one “celebrity” I hold a great deal of admiration for. She’s not a pop singer or a movie star, but she has been in the limelight quite a bit over the past three years. I’m talking about Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Here’s a short review of her latest book, When The World Sleeps: Stories, Words, and Wounds of Palestine. (Available from Other Press.)

“When the world sleeps, it falls on us, we the people, to wake it up--and now more than ever the world needs an awakening.”

So begins Francesca’s memoir of how she became the champion of human rights we see today on the world stage. Each chapter is a story of a friend or acquaintance who has shaped her outlook on Palestine and life in general. Each person helped her to take the next step in her personal development, steps necessary to deal with the stress of working pro bono for the United Nations. Each person poses a question that we all need to answer for ourselves...

 

To learn more about why I don't like most celebrities (and read the rest of the review of Francesca's book), please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 589th 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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