What Would the Red Ponchos Do?

by C. A. Matthews

A few years ago, there was a fad to wear a bracelet with the letters “WWJD?” inscribed on it. In times of doubt and uncertainty, one was to contemplate what the person whose name in English begins with “J” would do in that particular situation. The “What Would J Do?” method helped a person to confidently take action and not become paralyzed with fear or indecision.

It worked. It was an effective means to an end, because if J wouldn’t be afraid to take action, then you shouldn’t be afraid, either. So, you followed J’s example and carried on boldly without hesitation, trusting that things would work out for the best. The WWJD bracelet wasn’t a magic amulet, but it could indeed work wonders.

The time has come again for a useful aid to help activists who are being overwhelmed with self-doubt and self-recrimination. I’ve read one too many comments online recently that go along the lines of “Why don’t you do something? I don’t know what to do. Nobody seems to know what to do, but somebody has got to do something to make things better, right?”

This sentiment could also be phrased as “We need a revolution to end this corrupt system, but apparently no one is going to lead us, so we might as well stay home.”

The paralysis of not knowing what to do is what the oligarchy depends upon to keep us working class peons in our place. They’ve kept us overwhelmed with one distressing event after another on purpose from the start of the year...

We haven’t been given a moment’s rest from the sensory overload. It’s just too much. We long for a respite from the capitalists’ constant nastiness and relentless stress. Why can’t our side celebrate a victory now and then? If only we had someone fighting against the system to look up to, somebody to emulate, then we’d get off our backsides and start fighting back.

But why are we waiting on a “hero” to lead us into battle? History is full of examples—Gandhi, MLK Jr., Malcolm X—that we could follow. Recent history is providing us with even more.

My suggestion is to pick a person or group with experience you admire and follow their example. Do what they’re doing/have done with maybe a few tweaks for your particular situation and culture. If “plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery,” then why not flatter those we look up to by copying their tactics and methods until we come up with some of our own?

 

To discover a couple of excellent examples of activists to plagiarize, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Apartheid Without Borders

Apartheid Without Borders

by C.A. Matthews 

ALARM! How on earth is possible that Israel is allowed to assault and seize vessels in international waters just off Greece/Europe? Besides what you can think of Apartheid Israel and its genocidal leaders, this should send shock waves across Europe. Apartheid without borders. —Francesca Albanese on X 

Novelist Philip K. Dick would be proud.

Here’s the scenario: You’re sailing your boat in international waters when a frigate full of commandos from a country over 1,000 km away starts shooting at you and demanding you surrender to them so they can beat you up, arrest you and dump your cargo of humanitarian aid into the sea, and all because feeding starving people is now illegal and that makes you a criminal, not the pirates who boarded you off the coast of yet another country whose coast guard looks the other way while these events unfold.

Philip K. Dick would have had a field day crafting a taut suspense novel around this idea on an innocent man doing a noble thing being persecuted by those in power who claim they are always right and anyone who says otherwise is a criminal—or possibly insane or both. Either way, the innocent man will be punished for his “crimes” against the status quo.

Alas, this story isn’t fiction. (And I doubt I could come up with such a convoluted and depressive plot.) Here’s what really happened. From Flotilla Activists Beaten and Shot at by IDF, With 34 Hospitalised in Greece:

Global Sumud Flotilla participants say they were punched, kicked, dragged across the floor with their hands tied, and shot at with real and rubber bullets on board an Israeli warship after they were kidnapped in international waters more than 500 nautical miles from Gaza.

While interception was violent for many, participants say the worst treatment came when they peacefully resisted moves to abduct organisers Thiago Avila and Saif Abukeshek, who are still detained.

34 wounded participants - including two Brits - have been taken to hospital in Crete, flotilla organisers said, with broken bones and other injuries...

 

To learn more about the Global Sumud Flotilla and why the world sat back and did nothing to help them from IDF pirates, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 569th 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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Conscientious objectors: Call the G.I. Rights Hotline at 1-877-447-4487 or the Center for Conscience & War: 1-800-379-2679. 

 

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. 

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SHUT IT DOWN!

rants and original photos by C. A. Matthews

After several late nights watching the livestreams from the various boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla, cringing as the activists were pummeled with skunk water before being kidnapped by the Israeli Navy and taken to prison to be beaten and called “terrorists,” I’m in the mood for screaming:

SHUT IT DOWN!

The very last of the first flotilla boats was boarded by the Israelis by very early Friday morning Eastern time. But the next wave of boats to carry humanitarian aid to Gaza, a flotilla called “Thousand Madleens to Gaza”, had already launched, and are on their way. (Learn more about them at https://www.thousandmadleens.org/) There’s no stopping a good idea and good people who want to help others live a good life.

And keeping the Israeli Navy busy hunting for the small boats of the flotilla in the Mediterranean has actually helped the starving in a measurable way. Gazan fishermen were able to slip their boats out into the sea and fish without being shot at by the IOF! Even if the Israelis threw the humanitarian aid into the bottom of the sea, the flotilla really did break the blockade after all.

Greta and the others did what they intended to and weren’t persuaded to stay home and sit on their backsides. They worked hard and suffered much to—

SHUT IT DOWN!

Palestinian supporters in Europe have been marching in record numbers protesting their countries’ lack of help for the victims of Israel’s ethnic cleansing. In Amsterdam alone a quarter million were in the streets. In Italy over a million turned out. Workers and students demonstrated after the largest unions called for a one-day general strike. Hundreds of trains were cancelled or delayed, some flights were cancelled, and many schools were closed.

These same sorts of actions should be happening everywhere. In North America, we’re slow on the uptake. No major shut downs yet. No general strike. A meme says, “The problem with American protests is that we schedule protests one by one instead of showing up every night until the change happens.”

Word! We should show up every night until we—

SHUT IT DOWN!

 

To read the rest of the rants and see original recent protest photos, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 540th 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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Would you risk arrest to SHUT IT DOWN?

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: 

https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

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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. 

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.