The Revolution Continues blog is news, views, opinion and other expressions of hope from a leftist point-of-view. (We are not affiliated with any candidate, political party or organization. All are welcome.)
My apologies in advance for the brevity and possible incoherence of this week’s post. I returned home Sunday evening from four days in Chicago at the Green Party Annual National Meeting. Early Monday morning I had a scheduled dental appointment to fix a broken tooth. So, I’m composing this blog article to publish at its usual Tuesday morning time while suffering from the twin effects of exhaustion and painkillers. Here goes nothin’!
My first thought is to post more photos than words about the convention. Yeah, that’s the safest way to go… I took a lot of photos and pages and pages of notes at the various workshops. My bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived brain is still trying to make sense of it all.
I attended workshops on organizing for peace; Uniting for Peace 2.0 (the UNGA resolution for Palestine); AI data centers and how they’re impacting our communities and the environment; Latin America under attack (by the usual suspects); the AI war machine (Or how Peter Thiel’s Palantir, Aduril and Erebor have effectively taken over the US military. It’s very scary as well as they’re bent on destroying our environment.); and the independent media and its role in the resistance (yeah!). You could say that Greens attract some very intelligent and very informative people...
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Last
September, the United Nations gave the apartheid state of Israel one
year to comply with the rulings of the International Court of Justice to
end the genocide in Gaza or face the consequences.
That year ends on September 18, 2025. It’s high time for the war criminals’ day of reckoning!
On
September 18 (or even before), the United Nations can start imposing
serious sanctions on Israel. This include a military embargo as well as
establishing a war crimes tribunal. Israel can also be stripped of its
credentials as a member state in the General Assembly. The UN then can
send in a protective force to distribute food and medical aid and
protect Palestinian civilians from further harm at the hands of
genocidal Zionists. More than two-thirds of the General Assembly
supports creating such measures—it was more than a ten to one ratio for
the September 2024 vote—and there’s nothing the US, even with its
Security Council veto, can do about these measures.
So,
what’s stopping this overwhelming majority of member nations in the
United Nations from ending the genocide of the Palestinian people today?
The US can’t stop the General Assembly vote or prevent sanctions
against Israel from taking effect. Israel can’t prevent itself from
being kicked out of the UN if enough member states vote to do so. The
time to take decisive action to end this ethnic cleansing is now.
But let’s say that Canada feels pressured by the US not to vote yes on the UN’s Uniting for Peace
process. Are there other countries so terrified of the US that they’d
be willing to ignore the vast majority of their own people who want to
stop the genocide in Gaza? Could the oligarchs of other colonizing
countries in particular want to keep their ties with the US and its
corporate oligarchs intact? Could they instruct their UN representatives
to vote no or abstain on the initiative? Could US allies such as the
UK, Germany, France, Canada, or Australia actually vote against Uniting
for Peace?
Unfortunately,
the answer is yes. But it’s still worth a shot even if there’s only a
remote possibility to save lives, right? (...)
To
read more about how we can start the Uniting for Peace process and how to become a part of the Lifeline for Palestine, please copy or click on this link:
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I'll give you all I've got to give If you say you love me too I may not have a lot to give But what I've got I'll give to you I don't care too much for money Money can't buy me love –Paul McCartney & John Lennon
The Beatles are more than the greatest pop group in history. They are the proletariat’s philosophers. Their catchy song lyrics often express deep truths that aren’t easily ignored. Their 1964 hit Can’t Buy Me Love is still a favorite of many.
Wonder why? Could it be because it’s true? Sure, money can buy all the accouterments of love, but it can’t buy the real deal. One has to earn another person’s love and respect or else… It’s not really love, now is it?
The same could be said for buying votes.
Kamala Harris spent upwards of $1 billion dollars on her ill-fated “Joy” campaign. She still owes some $20 million to her campaign workers and some of the celebrities she bribed to endorse her. Beyonce’s asking price was $10 million—and that didn’t even include her giving a concert, which was a huge disappointment to the many fans who came to a Harris event just to see Beyonce perform. Oprah Winfrey’s production company had an asking price of a cool $1 million. That’s a lot of incentive to “love” a candidate, isn’t it?
Did giving tons of money to these celebrities truly earn their love and respect for Harris? The Beatles had it right, don’t you think?
So, what did Harris get for her record-breaking spending spree on the campaign trail? Well, it didn’t get her the White House...
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A Terrible Tale of Voter Suppression. (Plus "A Letter to Kamala.")
by C. A. Matthews
Living with a mystery series writer (check out my husband’s Veronica Nash series), I watch many (and I mean many) mystery movies, TV series, and the like. I’ve never been the biggest fan of mysteries since some feature “copaganda” with their noble-minded police detective sleuths showing off how damn smart they are. Putting that fault aside, I watch mysteries in order to learn more about how to plot a story as well as learn interesting science facts that occasionally pop up. I find an interesting twist in the tale or an outright surreal ending (like in a Twilight Zone episode) enjoyable, too.
Unfortunately, many mysteries are poorly plotted. If I can guess “whodunnit” within the first ten minutes of a mystery movie/TV show (or first chapter of a novel), then it’s safe to say it’s crap and needs a re-write. I mean, how the heck should anyone figure out the mystery so quickly? Mediocre mysteries are the worse. There’s no use reading the rest of the book or watching the next hour and half of silly red herrings if you know who the murderer/kidnapper/thief is already. I’ve got better things to do with my time.
Which brings me to what I do with my time these days—I try and solve real life mysteries of the political kind. In this season of post-election blues in the US, I submit for your approval the following: The Mystery of the Missing Votes or A Terrible Tale of Voter Suppression.
In New Jersey, Green candidate for Congress Ben Taylor was ahead of his duopoly competitors with 50,000+ votes, but a second later the screen said that Taylor was behind and had only 3,000 votes. What happened to his lead? Did his votes all die a mysterious death?
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It’s not every day that I say something like this, so please take note.
The Founders (a.k.a. "The Founding Fathers of the United States of America") had a good idea when it came to making a permanent separation between church and state. It may have been one of only a handful of good ideas they ever had, being handicapped with their white, wealthy, Eurocentric, males-only, slavery-is-good-for-business worldview. But it is impressive that they foresaw a day when the need to be a strictly secular state (government) would be to their—and consequently our—benefit. So, for this insight I heartily thank them.
I
do believe there were “Founding Mothers and
Others-of-the-Non-White-Male Variety” as well, but in this case, we're
sticking with the "Fathers" who wrote our founding documents. I was reminded of their wisdom concerning church/state separation when Dr. Jill Stein gave one of the most brilliant rebuttals of all time at the recent Free and Equal Debate.
The Constitution Party candidate, Randall Terry, had just given the most sick and twisted rant imaginable. I don’t know much about the Constitution Party, but if this is their pick for president, I really don’t want to know anything more about them. Terry’s diatribe went along the lines that Americans should believe as he does (seemingly he’s an ultra-conservative, Zionist “Christian”) and that those of the Muslim faith are dangerous terrorists and deserve to be killed in Gaza (and elsewhere). He actually sounded like he would start another Crusade if he ever got into the White House. His verbal vomit of sheer naked bigotry sent shivers down my spine.
Dr. Stein’s reply to Terry’s steaming pile of Islamophobia was eloquent and to the point. Watch a clip on X/Twitter or on You Tube:
Randall Terry’s rant and Jill Stein’s rebuttal starts at approx. 1:20 and goes to about 1:24.
To find out what else would make the Founders proud...
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(The US isn’t in any position to lecture anyone about morality. It's time to kick the moral idiots out of office.)
by C.A. Matthews
“How can they do such a thing!” is a phrase I’ve heard more than once over the past twelve months, closely followed by “That’s insane! They’re acting like sociopaths! They’re immoral!”
I agree wholeheartedly. Israel’s genocide of Gazans, trapped in an open air prison, on what are basically made up excuses to steal their land and resources qualifies as insane, immoral, and sociopathic. But it’s happening now to the Palestinian people in both Gaza and the West Bank, and the evil is spreading into Lebanon with the blessings (and armaments) of the USA.
Americans can’t deny it. US tax payers are arming “The World’s Most Moral Army (TM)” with our tax dollars. We’re arming them in spite of Israeli soldiers videoing themselves committing war crimes such as looting and shooting innocent civilians and children in cold blood.
So how is it that Israel claims to have a “moral” army when its soldiers are anything but? How can the US claim to be moral when it has broken its own humanitarian laws that say it's unlawful to arm a country that is breaking those same humanitarian laws? How can what the US military is doing in the Middle East be considered moral when they don’t even live up to their own standards?
“Because we say it is,” is the typical reply given by US and Israeli government spokespersons. “We say our actions are moral, and you are mistaken if you think otherwise. We are superior in our wisdom.”
Do you believe them? I don’t...
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Which of the following scenarios do you think is fiction?
Scenario 1: A man walks into his boss’s office and confesses that he’s been embezzling from the company for over a decade. He also confesses to having an affair with the boss’s wife and that they’re planning on running away together soon with the ill-gotten gains.
The boss replies to the man, “That’s all right, Charlie. I realize now how I underpaid you, and you needed that extra money. And I’m glad you helped put a smile on my wife’s face. She’s been unhappy for far too long. Have a great trip!”
Scenario 2: The US Secretary of State knowingly lies to Congress about Israel blocking food and medicine from reaching famine victims in Gaza in direct violation of a law that says the US cannot continue to provide arms to any country that blocks US humanitarian aid.
So, think hard… which scenario is fiction and which one is fact? Which scenario seems more likely? Having a friendly boss who understands why you did what you did in order to be happy, or watching a highly-placed government official lie to Congress about US aid getting into Gaza in order for the Biden administration to continue peddling 2,000 pound bombs to the genocidal maniacs of Israel?
The second scenario has to be fiction, right? I mean, who would believe a US Secretary of State would misrepresent the facts of humanitarian aid not getting to famine victims to Congress? To deny food and medicine to all those innocents suffering in a zone that’s been reduced to rubble is…is… Well, it’s just plain evil. What sort of individual would lie like that?
To find out...
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I have never trusted AOC. I never once thought she was a “progressive” or even “honest” in a Demon-erratic Party sort of way. So, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez actively promoting a pro-genocide/pro-war/anti-worker candidate and smearing a decent anti-genocide/anti-war/pro-worker candidate in a recent video doesn’t surprised me one bit.
I can spot a sell-out from a mile away. What do I mean by a “sell-out”? I’ll post some photos to help explain what I mean.
Above is a photo of AOC promoting a Green Party candidate in 2017. Yes, AOC actually helped the Greens, although in her recent tirade smearing Dr. Jill Stein she doesn’t seem to acknowledge how much she truly owes the Green Party for her political success. AOC and the Dems stole the “Green New Deal” from former Green presidential candidate Howie Hawkins who first verbalized it when he ran for governor of New York back in 2010. There’s even a video from C-Span from back in the day that proves the Green Party US created the Green New Deal that Dems later stole and watered down (and then totally forgot about).
With voters growing evermore dissatisfied with Harris and her ardent support for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, we are witnessing an increasing number of smears of anti-genocide candidates. Recently AOC was caught outright lying in a ratioed video about “how the Greens do nothing.” Really? This is what I have to say to her...
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I Want To Remember You As A Nice Person (but you’re making it very hard because of your support for genocide)
by C.A. Matthews
Dear “Friend”:
I honestly don’t know how to address you. I apologize if you no longer consider me your friend or if you don’t want me to call you a friend, but I still care about you. I’m very concerned about you because of recent comments you made. This is why I’m writing you this letter.
I’m going to come out and admit what's really bothering me here. No beating about the bush. No subtle hints or subtext. Just plain ol’ English. Okay, here goes… Aagh! This is going to be much harder than I thought it would be.
There should be some polite way of saying what’s driving us apart, but I can’t think of any way to put it other than the brutal truth: I don’t trust you anymore. There. I’ve said it. I can’t trust anyone who thinks that the genocide of 200,000+ human beings in Gaza is “joyful” or “not important in this election”.
You’ve used those terms about what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank on social media platforms. You’ve taunted me and others like me there and ignored me whenever I wanted to discuss the subject further in person. You’ve even insulted my intelligence when I told you who I supported for president...
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The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (Is No Democracy At All)
by C.A. Matthews
I believe most Americans understand that the United States is not a democracy or even qualifies as a representative democracy. The US is, in fact, an oligarchy, whichmeans politicians work for their big money donors and not for the people.
The Princeton Study proved that no matter how hard average voters try to influence their elected representatives—try to make them vote for or sponsor a bill that would benefit ordinary people and not billionaires—the result will be the same. Whatever corporations and the super rich folks who own them want, they’ll get. To put it plainly, “Screw the needs of ordinary Americans!”
I came across an example this week that illustrates the American oligarchy in action. I will make a few suggestions on how we can fight back against their tactics, but feel free to come up with some actions of your own. Please write them in the comments below because sharing knowledge is power. Thank you.
From a recent Jill Stein for President campaign email:
On Thursday June 27th, the FEC [Federal Elections Commission] informed us that our campaign had qualified for primary matching funds. Then minutes later, FEC told us the Treasury department will withhold our payments to give priority to general election funding–just in case the Democratic and Republican candidates decide they want it.
Let me explain why that’s so outrageous...
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Julian Assange’s release from Belmarsh Prison was all anyone could talk about online for days this past week. It was definitely good news worth sharing, no doubt about it. Seeing the video of him hugging his father and his wife at the airport after his plane at long last landed in Australia brought tears to my eyes. An evil and corrupt system had keep Julian and his family unnecessarily apart for years. They deserved to be happily reunited.
But then the complaints on various social media platforms started flooding in.
“Why did Assange accept this ass-backwards plea deal? Why didn’t he insist on a full pardon? He should have gone to trial and fought the bastards and demanded reparations for time and income lost while they unlawfully locked him up. He didn’t do anything wrong, and they tortured him by placing him in solitary confinement. He was simply practicing journalism.”
My answer to those complaints are, “Yes, Assange didn’t do anything wrong, and he deserves recompense. So does his family. But the bastards who did this—and still do this to many others unlawfully detained—weren’t about to let him go and say, “We’re sorry. Here’s a few million bucks to make up for all the torture and smearing of your good name.”
Remember these bastards are in possession of nuclear weapons and professional hit men called CIA agents. They waterboarded people and locked them up without trial (and still do) at Guantanamo Bay. They regularly overturn elected leaders in countries worldwide. (They probably attempted—and failed—to overturn the leadership of Bolivia this past week.) What makes you think they wouldn’t squash an individual, no matter how famous or iconic as Julian Assange, like an ant to get what they want out of him or in order to cast a chilling shadow upon journalism and freedom of the press?
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Some days it feels like this nightmare will go on forever. It’s overwhelming. When you can’t even have a reasonable, adult conversation with others for risk of being labeled “antisemitic” simply because you support the rights of Palestinians to live and not be ethnically cleansed, it does feel like this is it... The End Times.
The end of Western civilization perhaps.
Maybe the death of Western civilization isn’t such a bad thing after all. Who needs a society which continues to deny basic human rights to people based upon the “superiority” or “inferiority” of skin color, race, religion, politics, social status, or ethnicity? The writing is on the wall. We’re already seeing the signs of the end of this sick world approaching in various ways. It’s time to accept this truth so we all can live together in peace and harmony.
Already the “stenographers for the oligarchs” are starting to fold. Mainstream media outlets are beginning to soften their original hard line, pro-Zionist/anti-Palestinian stance. Why their sudden change of heart? It probably has a lot to do with so many independent journalists outing them for the propaganda mouthpieces for Israel and the military-industrial complex of the West that they are.
Even CNN has changed its mind, revealing how it didn’t do its job properly when it came to reportage on the “Flour Massacre.” Seems the IDF were at fault all along. Israeli snipers shot at helpless starving Gazans as they gathered to get food aid off of the trucks, the opposite of how many a Western headline read. The food aid itself didn’t kill them. They didn't kill each other in the rush. The IDF did so. Deliberately.
Funny how the truth has a way of eventually leaking into the world of Western journalism. Apparently these stenographers for the oligarchs don’t like being embarrassed by Palestinian journalists who got things right the first time. They don’t enjoy being caught in the act of regurgitating Israeli lies one too many times by independent podcasters. It makes them look stupid. It makes them look like paid-off shills.
Well, they are shills for Israel and the military-industrial complex, aren’t they? But they don’t want to look that obvious. They don't want everyone who watches them to think, "These so-called journalists love bloodshed and violence. Great for their ratings, right?" So, they’ve kept up their front and pretended that they’ve never repeated the hasbara (translation: storytelling) of the Israelis on behalf of their corrupt Western governments. They'll pretend they've never once lied even when they’re forced to make corrections to their stories later.
But it’s too late. Intelligent and insightful people question everything they hear and read. They look for and find alternative sources of news and double check the facts. Darn those smarty pants! They're making CNN’s and their compatriots’ propaganda spinning that much harder.
The writing is on the wall. Mainstream news outlets will either return to an approximation of “fair and balanced” journalism, or else they’ll be laughed off the planet. When push comes to shove, their CEOs will want to stay in business. They’ll probably accommodate the public’s need to know the truth, rather than continue passing on the false narrative spin of Western governments' propagandists.
Speaking of Western governments… The writing’s on the wall there as well.
“Genocide Joe” Biden and his administration are slowly but surely circling the drain. Trying to sell a geriatric with memory issues and a vicious streak of hatred against non-white peoples has been an extremely difficult sales job for Biden’s campaign workers. Promoting the lesser evil voting argument doesn’t hold up when making such statements as, “Trump would start even more genocides than Biden already has!”
Nah, it doesn’t work. It exposes the fallacy of lesser evil voting even more than it already has been exposed. It's all just a nasty voter shaming technique. The duopoly and its candidates are just uniformly evil no matter how they care to label themselves, as either ”Donkeys” or “Elephants”. Both groups work for the military-industrial complex and do as they're told. They're both full of crap.
Stories about how President Ronald Reagan picked up the phone in 1982 and called Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and told him to stop bombing Lebanon, and twenty minutes later, Israel stopped the bombings, have been unearthed recently. Repeating Reagan's tough stance against Israeli bombing makes things look even bleaker for "Butcher Biden" and his genocide-enabling administration.
White House briefings by smooth-talking spokespersons hinting at how “upset” or “angry” or “frustrated” Biden is with P.M. Netanyahu’s actions do nothing to change the facts of the matter. A genocide is being committed by Israel using US provided bombs and arms. What do Biden's feelings really got to do with anything unless they've been telling him it's the right thing to do, funding a genocide, for the past six months?
Biden continues to send bombs to Israel who uses them to ethnically cleanse even more civilians in Gaza. If US presidents have the power to pick up the phone and call Israeli prime ministers and get them to shut down military operations, why hasn’t Joe Biden picked up the phone and demanded an end to the bombings? The answer is simple: He doesn’t want to stop supplying bombs to Israel. He doesn’t really care if Israel is ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. Biden’s war machine donors’ wishes and profits are infinitely more important to him that breathing, happy Palestinian children ever could be.
The most recent polls show that the vast majority of Americans want the US to stop sending bombs to Israel. If Biden continues to ignore the public’s opinion on this matter, he has set himself up for a big fall come the November presidential election. With this stubbornly short-sighted attitude, one wonders if he really wants to keep his job. Maybe not.
The writing is on the wall: Biden is going down for the count. No doubt about it. And good riddance!
With Biden knocking himself out of the race, the odds for an alternative party candidate such as the Green Party's Jill Stein winning have increased exponentially. In a crowded field of two wannabe presidents and two former presidents, Dr. Stein needs only 26% of the Electoral College vote to win.
Of course, the crap-filled Donkeys and Elephants will pitch a fit and kick and scream “election fraud!” if Dr. Stein does win, but every time the duopoly pulls their dirty tricks, the more voters become wiser to how corrupt the American system of voting truly is. If they block the people's choice, the US will be revealed as the oligarchy it is and not the "democracy" it pretends to be.
The writing's on the wall for the wealthy, white, male settler-colonialist class who created and perpetuated this travesty called the United States of America. Let's hope they realize this soon and surrender peacefully to the people.
Perhaps the best news of all is that six months after starting their genocide of the Palestinian people the writing is on the wall for the ethnostate of Israel.
Things have gone too far, too fast. The moral stench of the murders of innocent children and babies in incubators in Gaza has convinced many countries to stop supporting Israel. Some like Spain are calling for the recognition of the Palestinian state. Colombia is calling for all nations to break diplomatic ties with Israel. The South African genocide case made against Israel at the International Court of Justice has picked up more supporters. Many countries are calling for United Nations' sanctions against Israel and for the UN to treat Israel as a pariah state.
If there ever was any hope for a “two state solution” between Israel and Palestine, recent actions of the Israeli government, military, and its bloodthirsty civilian population have pretty much killed its chances. The writing’s on the wall. The only chance for peace in the region is to permanently shut down the white settler-colonial, apartheid, racist-Zionist government of Israel and build a democratic secular state that doesn’t make one ethnic group superior to the other. All people are to be treated equally. No exceptions.
Six months of daily images of children lying crushed in the rubble, dying slowly of starvation, and dying trying to scrounge up food while being shot at by IDF snipers is grueling and disheartening. But there is a glimmer of hope when we realize that the writing is on the wall. I predict that the end is coming soon for these heartless bastards in both Israel and the Western governments. My only wish is that I live long enough to see all of them punished for their crimes against humanity.
Peace and morality can be restored to the world. We the People can take our rightful place in the governance of ourselves. We can lock away the warmongering narcissists and their minions in the prisons they've built to torture those who resisted their tyranny. When we do, we will write the best and last thing on the wall: Good-bye to the war machine forever!
Related Articles and Other Interesting Links
BREAKING: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announces Spain’s readiness to recognize the state of Palestine and encourages other European countries to follow suit. pic.twitter.com/egt9FcgJj9
Gaza is a test of the absolute bare minimum requirements for someone to be worth listening to about anything at all, because if you got this one wrong then there’s just something wrong with you as a human being.—Getting Gaza Right Is The Absolute Bare Minimum Requirementhttps://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/getting-gaza-right-is-the-absolute
"If something like this can happen in plain view of everyone, and the people in charge not only do nothing but actively facilitate it, then you have to start wondering if everything about your entire nation is deranged, and if everything you’ve been told about the world is a lie." —Gaza Asks Us A Question About What Kind Of Future We Want To Havehttps://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/gaza-asks-us-a-question-about-what
Active Duty Airman Larry Hebert refuses to eat while Gaza starves.
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Editor's
note:
I had a dream about this whole hot mess the
world finds itself in. I wanted to share my vision, but I struggled to put it
into words until I decided to write it as a short short story. Other
than the odd poem (not very often and very odd), I haven't posted
anything like a short story at the The
Revolution Continues
before. This is a first. I've not written much fiction in recent
times because, frankly, I don't feel like writing anything funny or
with a happy ending. My last
novella is set in a dystopian world where an anarchist commune that practices mutual aid is
struggling to survive alongside a fascist state. My publisher
insisted it at least have a "happy for now" ending.
(You can buy a copy of it here. It would make my publisher very happy. Or you can drop me a donation via my
Paypal.me page here. That would make me very happy!)
If you decide you'd like to read more short fiction posts, let me know. I'll
see what I can do. If you'd rather I didn't post fiction here, leave a
comment stating your preference. Thanks for your feedback.
A must-watch short video:
We can put an end to this genocide. We have the power.
The
Miracle
by C.A. Matthews
“That’s
my planet,” I confessed, trembling. I pointed to the big blue marble that is Earth through the spaceship observation port. The
tallest of the grayish, bulb-headed, big-eyed, mouthless alien beings
nodded in understanding. “You can tell it’s inhabited from the
amount of pollution in the atmosphere detectable from this…
height.”
I’d
never believed in alien abduction before, but now that it was
happening to me it didn’t seem all that bad. No anal probes. No
poking or prodding of any kind really, unless you count the mental
probing my hosts—I hated to label them “my captors”—had
gently done to determine how best to communicate with me. I spoke
out loud, but I realized fairly quickly that they were reading my
mind and communicating me mentally, so using
my vocal cords
wasn’t
necessary. Talking just made me feel less nervous in their presence,
and they didn’t seem
to mind.
The
pollutants and toxins in your biosphere are slowly killing your kind
and many other species. Do you understand?
The tallest
of the aliens
sent its
thoughts directly into my head. Its tone and intonation made me
imagine it was coming from an
older, wiser individual. Itcommunicated
slowly and kindly as if speaking to a lost child. Would
you like them removed?
“The
pollution, you mean, not the people, right?” I laughed
and then gasped
as
what it meant hit me fully.
“You’re saying that you all can actually clean up our polluted
planet
after
all we’ve done to it?”
Yes,
we have the means to return your planet’s biosphere to its state
before the mass burning of fossil
fuels began. We can purge the toxins from the atmosphere,
the water
cycle, and from the soil. Crops
and forests will thrive. No longer will adverse climate effects harm
food production or the wildlife. We
can replace the
engines that run your
vehicles, machinery, and industrial plants that cause pollution and
radiation
with ones that do not. We can eliminate rogue viruses and bacteria
that cause serious illness and provide your
healers with instruction on how to cure through natural means, not
through
the
use of synthetic chemicals. Allow
us
to demonstrate.
With
a wave of its hand—or what I thought would pass as a
hand
on Earth—Tall
Guy
gave
its
compatriots
the signal to start Operation Earth Clean-Up. I’m not sure if what I
witnessed from the spaceship
window happened instantaneously or was happening over a period of
days,
years,
or centuries,
but within what seemed only a few short minutes to
me
the face of the Earth looked much
greener
and bluer and...well, healthier.
“Wow…”
I whispered. “Thank you! I am very impressed. No more bad air
quality days? No more boil warnings for our tap water? I can actually
swim in the lake now and not get covered with an outbreak of
poisonous blue-green algae?”
We
have purged
the toxins that are hazardous to life on your planet, my
host mentally informed me. Your
kind can be cured of sicknesses
now
with simple medicines and techniques available
to all.
“No
more need
for bad
health
insurance that never covers what you really need? Cancer cured? It
all
sounds
too good to be true.” I shook
my head in
disbelief.
“In my country, big corporations make
lots of money from keeping people sick and addicted to drugs.”
Tall
Guy blinked. If it
had possessed a mouth, it might have frowned. The
concept
of capitalism was probably as foreign and strange to my hosts as
their spaceship and advanced technology were to me. If they were
reading my mind at that moment, they might have regretted lavishing
such kind gifts upon our selfish species.
Is
there anything else we can do for your kind before we return you? Tall
Guy asked.
I
couldn’t wait to return to Earth—the beautiful, unpolluted Garden
of Edenwhere
sickness would be no more. I
sighed. There was something
niggling
me
in the back of my mind. I
had to know ifmy
hosts could
grant methis
one last, grandwish.
“Can
you rid our
world of war? Can you remove all the weapons—that
is, the
tools of violence
and destruction? Guns,
cannons,
nukes,
tanks, submarines, bomber
jetsand
the like that
humans use
to
kill other humans?”
Tall
Guy blinked again.
I was pretty sure this time it was
frowning
inside even without a mouth.
I
probably had asked too big of a favor. After all, extracting
pollution out of the biosphere could be just an
elaborate
chemical equation to them, but taking weapons away from warmongers? If
the concepts of capitalism andgreed
were incomprehensibly
horrible
and cruel to my
hosts,
can you imagine what they would have thought of humanity’s
insatiable need
to slaughter their
neighbors
and steal each
others’ land
and resources?
A
few
minutes later, after much discussion
as I called my hosts’ method of communicating as a group by
touching their foreheads
together,
I got my answer.
We
will try.
It
took more than ahand
wave from Tall Guy to bring peace about on Planet Earth. Several
different groups of gray aliens
started to work out different aspects of the challenge. I was allowed
to walk about and watch each team
tackle their part of the problem. I watched a view screen with
fascination as one group disintegrated
the biggest and most obvious weapons of war. They
focused what must have been a laser upon anaircraft
carrier and
then poof!
It was vaporized. Gone. Likewise to nuclear subs and battleships. The
sailors aboard were all magically transported to the closest port.
I
couldn’t help but clap my hands with glee as another group took out
an entire fleet of bombers and nuclear silos.
Zap! They
disappeared.
But
my hosts didn’t stop there. Another
group worked on eliminating all the small arms and automatic
weapons on
the planet. I’m not sure how their scanners could pick up on the
millions of firearms, some of which were hidden in cellars and barns
by the thousands in
my country,
but they did it. Abracadabra!
They vanished.
Wars
aren’t only fought on the battlefields, but in the cities and towns
where the oppressed are helpless to defend themselves. Several groups
of my gray hosts worked on tearing down barbwire fences and concrete
walls that had imprisoned so many within their own homelands or kept
them from entering a place of safety. I don’t know how they did
it, but my hosts flung open the prison doors that had incarcerated
freedom fighters and innocents alike, setting them free.
In
turn, the
politicians and the corporate war lords who had profited greatly
from
eternal wars for oil and similar
land grabs were escorted by invisible forces to trade places with the
unjustly imprisoned. Ta-da!
What
a brilliant move!
The
destruction of homes, family farms, and small businesses, the results of the wars
and genocides, was instantly reversed. Homelessness and
hunger were no
more. All who had been separated by violence and
divisions were
once again reunited with their family
members
and friends.
I
wept
tears of joy.
It
is accomplished,
Tall Guy communicated to me. Why
do you experience sadness?
“I’m
not sad. I’m happy.” I wiped my tears away with the back of my
hand and gazed upon one
of the
view screens
where a neighborhood, once reduced to rubble by bombing, now stood
whole and complete. “I am so
happy
with
the results of your
wonderful talents. How
can we ever thank you?”
And
then I caught a glimpse of something on the screen that caused my
smile to fade.
“What the hell… What is he doing?”
A
man picked up a rock and threw it hard at another man just about to
enter his rebuilt home. The second man fell to his knees, blood
pouring from a deep
gash
on his forehead. The
first
man and his group
ran toward the second man’s home,throwing
more rocks at it as
well as the
peopleof
the rebuilt neighborhood.
“I
thought you had eliminated all war?” I
whispered.
My
hosts assembled and pressed their foreheads
together in communion. After a long
minute,
Tall Guy approached,
its
appendages spread open in an imploring fashion.
We
eliminated all the human-made tools of war and violence as you had
asked us to, but we cannot take away the feelings of hatred and greed
and fear from inside each human being. That is something humanity
must do for itself. Do you understand?
I
nodded
and closed my eyes. “I understand. I appreciate all that you’ve
done for us. I realize now that I
can’t
expect you to perform a miracle.”
A
miracle? Explain.
“Something
that seems impossible, but it can and does spontaneously
occur
on rare occasions.”
Tall
Guy nodded. Its gaze appeared softer, more sympathetic.No,
we cannot perform a miracle. We cannot change the minds of living
beings set on hurting others.
“How
long will it take until humankind rebuilds
all the weapons it
had?”
I sniffed.
“Years? Months? Days?”
Not
long. Tall
Guy’s
tone
registered upon my mind
as
resignation.
I
turned toward the window. The
skies above the Earth weregrowing
darker and dirtier by
the second.
Humanswere
already rebuilding
the polluting factories to
create instruments of death, to
destroy each other and Earth’s fragile ecosystem without mercy.
Can
we help? Tall
Guy communicated
to
me.
I
slowly
smiled
at
my gracious
hosts.
“We’d all better start praying for that miracle,
or else I’ve wasted your time.”
This meme of Israeli girls writing their names on bombs to drop on Gaza is a couple months old. Recent estimates say 15,000+ children have been murdered in the Israeli genocide of Gaza.
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