When Is A Person Not A Person?

by C. A. Matthews

This question kept popping up in my mind this week: When is a person not a person? Could it be the particulates in the Canadian wildfires messing with my brain? Probably, but even before the worst of the smoke from up north came rolling into our area giving us a record-breaking 800+ AQI reading (301+ is considered “hazardous”) this question had been bothering me.

When is a person not a person? first came to me after I read an article about artificial intelligence. Many in the Big Tech field claim that AI has obtained “consciousness” and has “feelings” like a normal human being has, and it should be treated as such. However, there’s also a growing number of scientists, psychologists, and others who make the opposite claim.

AI is a sophisticated “large language model” that mimics life, but it isn’t alive. It can’t be conscious, which essentially means it’s able to suffer pain and joy like humans do. A computer with an LLM program has large memory banks and access to the internet, so you can say it has intelligence, but since it doesn’t have consciousness, it can’t put the two together and become what we’d call a person.

AI can’t use all the knowledge in the world it has at its digital fingertips and say, “I know what it feels like to be an AI, and I’m suffering a heartache today.” Well, it could say things like that, but does it actually feel things like a heartache or the loss of a close friend or the joy of eating ice cream on a hot summer’s night or holding your newborn baby for the first time? There’s the rub...

...Sticking with just human beings, however, When is a person not a person? For this next part you must suspend disbelief and consider who persons are through the eyes of the law. The law states quite clearly when a human being is not considered a person or has the rights of a person. It’s confusing because most of us define a person as a human being who possesses consciousness, self-awareness, and the capacity for moral reasoning. But that’s the psychological definition of a person, not the legal one. There is a difference—a big difference...

 

To learn more about the problems of being legally designated a non-person no matter where you live or your immigration status, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Happy Birthday Vichy USA!

 

If everybody had a notion ’cross the USA

That everybody’s gone fascist—like Donnie Trump, oh yay!

 You’d see them wearing blond hairdos

Doing their sieg heils too

Everybody’s gone fascist! Vichy USA!

(Sung to the tune of Surfin' USA. The rest of the lyrics can be found at the Substack link below.)

 

by C. A. Matthews

The 1976 Bicentennial was really something. I remember fondly all the fabulous fireworks displays, huge parades, and special band concerts in the park. It was nice to think about how the United States had stayed together and made it a full two hundred years. As a child, I didn’t really understand what all had happened in those two centuries and how the US had played a major role in maintaining violence and oppression both at home and around the world, activities that would lead to the current fiasco Americans find themselves in fifty years later.

I would have never thought that the “land of the free” meant that we’d come to deny immigrants asylum based on their race, religion, or ethnicity. I probably would have laughed at the mere idea that well-to-do white South Africans would be considered deserving refugees, but that poor black Haitians who fled a disintegrating country (helped to fall apart by greedy Americans) would not.

I would have never thought that locking up thousands of non-violent immigrants was “freedom”, nor that sending young children out of the country without their parents was a compassionate thing to do. These weren’t the concepts of freedom and morality I was indoctrinated in at church and school.

Fifty years ago, I would have never thought that anti-fascist activists would be labeled “terrorists” and sentenced to harsh sentences by a federal judge for trying to point out the crimes of ICE. These are the sentences of the activists who protested at the ICE facility in Texas: Benjamin Song: 100 years, Marisela Rueda: 70 years, Cameron Arnold: 50 years, Savanna Batten: 50 years, Zachary Evetts: 50 years, Bradford Morris: 50 years, Elizabeth Soto: 50 years. What essentially are life sentences for daring to set off fireworks and wearing all black clothing to a protest, no less.

Meanwhile, the ICE agents who murdered Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and Keith Porter have received a total of 0 years in prison. You read that right—the ICE agents responsible received sentences of zero years for their murders of Renee, Alex, and Keith. The similarities between ICE and the Nazi Gestapo are undeniable...

 

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        We Need A New John Brown

by C.A. Matthews

You never know what you’ll come across at your local library. I’m just surprised we didn’t come across this DVD earlier. You may have seen The Good Lord Bird, a mini-series of seven episodes based on the novel by James McBride of the same name. It played on Showtime about six years ago, but we hadn’t seen it, and it sounded like an interesting title.

As we watched the series, I started thinking about the state of things today and how it’s a good time to watch a show about an abolitionist who literally shook up a nation. John Brown is often credited with being one of the main catalysts that started the American Civil War. I think his experiences as an activist could teach us a lot.

Ethan Hawke gives a stunning performance as a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer when it came to doing whatever he deemed necessary to end slavery. A self-described “militant Christian,” Brown wasn’t afraid to use force if he felt it would gain the freedom of the enslaved. But was he as “crazy” and dangerously impulsive as he’s been described? We’ll never know for certain, but Brown was both revered and feared in equal measure throughout his lifetime—and even beyond—so much so that he often warrants only a short footnote in a high school history text.

It seems American activists who aren’t afraid to stand up to the immoral powers-that-be in Washington DC aren’t people we’re supposed to learn about. Funny that.

The Good Lord Bird is a fictionalized account of John Brown’s last days, but the show stealer is a precocious enslaved boy, Henry a.k.a. “Onion”, portrayed to perfection by Joshua Caleb Johnson. Somehow Henry is mistaken for a girl after his father is killed in one of Brown’s shoot outs with slave owners. Contrite, Brown “adopts Henrietta” as his own child. Henry is an excellent narrator of the saga, telling us all he experiences with innocence and passion. He follows the resolute John Brown and his sons, along with an “army” of a dozen or so whites, blacks, and even a Native American to their ultimate confrontation with the pro-slavery government troops at the Harpers Ferry federal armory.

Watching this story of John Brown’s life got me thinking: We really could use a “new John Brown” in the US. We need a compassionate and courageous leader who isn’t afraid to tell truth to power. It doesn’t have to be an middle-aged, white male, either. It could be a “Joanna Brown” or a person of any age, race, ethnicity, religion, or gender identity. And why settle for one when we could use dozens of John Browns spread across the country? Americans definitely need charismatic and decisive leaders who aren’t afraid to take their “troops” into battle against the evil foe of the oligarchy.

What characteristics should we look for in this new John Brown(s)? I say that one thing in activism that has been ignored in recent years is...

 

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AI Is Not Your Friend...

 

AI Is Not Your Friend (In a Capitalist Society)

words and original photos by C. A. Matthews

It’s pretty obvious that I don’t use a AI to write my posts online. I wouldn’t make so many typos and mistakes in grammar/punctuation if I did use an AI computer program. I like to write the old-fashioned way—on a pad of paper with a pen—or on a laptop running Linux without all the bells and whistles. It just feels more natural that way, not forced, with no artificial intelligence trying to change my words mid-sentence.

I know what I want to say and how to say it. I don’t need an AI to tell me how to think.

I’m not anti-technology (despite my advanced years). In fact, I was one of the first persons to actually own a “PC” or personal computer back in the dark ages of forty-plus years ago. I worked in a government office during that time when our case documentation was being transferred over from pen and paper to computer documents. I’ve even written code for web sites and done other computer-related things over the years. So, you can’t say that I’m adverse to artificial intelligence out of a superstitious belief that all technology is evil and should be stopped.

I don’t believe it’s the technology that’s evil. It’s the people who are using it in negative ways and exploiting it that are doing evil. (Pope Leo agrees with me.)

AI data centers are breaking out like pimples across the face of America. This demonstrates to me that artificial intelligence isn’t going to be used for the public good because these data centers are being rammed down the throats of small town and big city people alike, against their will. These AI data centers aren’t there to help the locals, but to make tech bros even richer.

Simply put, AI is not your friend—especially if you’re not a billionaire. Don’t believe me? Would you believe economists from the prestigious Wharton School of Economics?

 

To learn more what's behind the big push to build AI data centers and how they can adversely effect workers and their jobs, please copy or click on the following link: 

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The Time For Revolution Is Now

 

The Time For Revolution Is Now (No More Waiting/Burn It Down)

by C. A. Matthews

I just had to smile.

What was I smiling at? This: A person was arrested Friday after throwing a Molotov cocktail at the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in San Francisco.

Molotov cocktail? Thrown at the home of a Big Tech CEO (who was charged with sexually abusing his sister in January 2025)? Could this mean? Really, could this be the start of…?

Only the day before this sentence on X grabbed me: An unhappy employee started this fire at the Kimberly-Clark warehouse in Ontario, California.

A massive 1.2 million foot warehouse full of paper products went up in flames. The unhappy employee was reported as saying, “All you had to do was pay us enough to live.” (The next day a shopping mall in Ontario, California was set on fire. Good ideas catch on fast.)

Less than 24 hours later I read that a warehouse in Queens, NY was burning in a four alarm fire. And the day after that I spied an X post about another warehouse (full of lumber) burning in Wayne County, Ohio.

And then there’s this recent headline: ‘Everyone is Replaceable’: Death Rattles Oregon Amazon Facility about how an employee dropped over dead and management told workers “to look away” rather than stop and resuscitate him.

Add these fiery actions and lack of respect for workers to the massive flood of conscientious objector calls to national hotlines due to the illegal war in Iran—as well as Luigi Mangione’s “protest” against the CEO of United Healthcare for their high rate of denying health insurance claims—and I’m starting to see a pattern.

Could it actually be that Americans have had enough? Are they ready for Revolution?

I’m not talking about the so-called “American Revolution” of 250 years ago, either. That was tame by comparison to what could be happening here. 

In 1776, we allowed a bunch of rich, white males tell the rest of us that they were tired of paying taxes to the crown and wanted to form their own style of monarchy—an oligarchy—instead. Forget that quaint little “tea party” in Boston Harbor. The “American Revolution” didn’t free enslaved persons, women, or the working poor, and it certainly didn’t recognize the right of the Native American peoples to live peacefully and have control over their own lands...

 

To find out what a Revolution really should be like, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Speechless

an annotated poem by C.A. Matthews

 

Speechless.

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

Anger.

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

Horror.

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

 

To read the rest of this poem, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Know Your Enemy

by C. A. Matthews

When working with immigrants in the United States you’ll often hear the phrase “Know Your Rights” or “KYR” for short. KYR cards are business-sized and usually printed in English on one side and Spanish or another language on the other. They’re handed out to immigrants and their supporters to remind them of their rights under the law, and what they should say and do if they are confronted by ICE or the Border Patrol. It’s amazing how helpful these little slips of paper can be in a time of crisis.

I believe it’s time to start handing out another reminder card to the general public—a “Know Your Enemy” card. Ordinary Americans need reminding exactly who our enemies are and what we can do to protect ourselves from them. If you find yourself in a difficult situation and you’re not sure who you can trust, the following handy reminders could save you a lot of woe.

To get all Americans on the same page, the following are NOT your enemies:

1. “Illegal Aliens” (or immigrants) 2. Real Bug-Eyed Space Aliens 3. Russians 4. Chinese persons 5. Iranians 6. Cubans 7. Venezuelans 8. Palestinian babies in incubators (Hamas!) 9. Lebanese villagers and their priests 10. Paramedics, doctors, nurses, other medical personnel, teachers, college professors, and aid workers living in a foreign country under attack by the US and/or one of its allies (including United Nations workers).

The following ARE your enemies:

1. Capitalists (of all persuasions, particularly Fascists and all listed in the Epstein files) 2. The Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) and related corporations 3. Congress, the president, and all politicians and supporters of the duopoly (that is, all members of “Team Red and Team Blue”) 4. Propagandists who cover for the duopolists 5. The Mainstream Media outlets who hire propagandists and censor dissenters 6. “Tech Bros” who shadow-ban dissenters on their social platforms and want to wipe out the working class and replace them with— 7. AIs and their AI programs that pick out military targets to bomb such as elementary schools and hospitals in countries with large non-white populations (and think nuking humans is okay) 8. The IDF and White Supremacists of all persuasions, particularly Zionists 9. AIPAC/ADL/J Street and their off-shoot agencies and lobbyists (because they along with the MIC are doing their best to bribe all of number three). 10. ICE and all armed thugs and state terrorists that do the dirty work of our enemies.

Now that we’re all on the same page, we all know what the enemy looks like, acts like, sounds like, etc., we can work together and come up with ways to fight against our mutual foes and free ourselves from their tyranny, right?

 

To find out how we can work against our Enemy and build a brighter future, please copy or click on the following link: 

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The System Deserves To Collapse

by C. A. Matthews

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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"Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave."

Unfit To Be a Slave

by C. A. Matthews

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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