Chaos: The Preferred Pattern of Control

by C. A. Matthews

Sometimes life on Earth appears to be a chaotic mess. There is war and genocide here, there, and everywhere. There is discord and division around every corner. There seems to be no end in sight to global death and destruction. Nobody could possibly be in control of all this confusion.

But what if I told you there are a relatively few powerful and wealthy individuals (oligarchs) manipulating our current hellish timeline who thrive on chaos as a way to keep us under their control? Here’s an analogy to make my point clear.

Will the Hero Get There in Time?

You might have seen a scene in a film or a stage play where the hero is running upstream against the flow of traffic on a busy city sidewalk. There are literally people everywhere. The hero can barely breathe as he pushes his way through the crowd going in the opposite direction. And to make matters worse, he’s on the clock—can he get to the train station in time in order to stop the heroine from leaving town before he can tell her that he loves her? The stakes are high and the situation seems impossible. Maybe he should just give up and give in to fate and let the girl go?

But just when things seem to be at their most trying, there is a ray of sunshine. Our hero looks up and spies the heroine trying to fight her way toward him. Eventually they meet, kiss, and start their lives together. All the fighting, sweating, and swearing turned out to be worth it. They marry and live happily ever after. The end.

Now, to the untrained eye, all the chaos and the momentum of the crowd the hero is fighting against seem impossible to overcome, but the person who choreographed the scene knows better. All the pandemonium has been carefully planned out. The extras portraying crowd members have learned their “steps” or blocking well.

The extras are put into groups, and each group is directed how to act whenever they encounter the hero. “Jostle him, trip him up, block his view of the train station,” are the directions given. Behind the camera or curtains, multiple stage managers watch the action carefully and cue each group of extras as to the exact second (or beat of the song in a musical) they are to enter the street scene. More signals from the sidelines will tell the extras how fast or slow they are to make their way across the set.

There could be upward of a dozen or more extras groups in a film scene or only four or five on stage in a play or musical number—not the millions it seems to be. The chaos viewers think they see is anything but. To the trained eye, it is pure poetry in motion. And it is this “poetry of chaos” that the oligarchs who rule over us excel at.

The following are examples where this “poetry of chaos” has been used recently...

 

To read some current-event examples of this "poetry of chaos" and learn how to discern its pattern, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Do We Really Want Peace?

by C. A. Matthews

The anniversaries of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and August 9, 1945) pass by most Westerners’ consciousness without notice. The dates aren’t printed on any calendars I have like “Memorial Day” or “Presidents’ Day” are, labeled in big, bright capital letters. The week the first atom bombs were dropped on civilians is not a bank holiday anywhere as far as I know.

The anniversary is mostly remembered by the children of the survivors and a handful of international peace organizations. The one event that should have motivated humankind to turn around and go in a better direction is the one event we seem to care the least about. We neither care to remember it and learn from it nor honor it and promise ourselves we’ll never do it again.

I have to admit that if GPAX, the Green Party Peace Action Committee, hadn’t presented “Never Again!” a very informative webinar on August 6, I’d probably would have forgotten about humanity’s fall from innocence, too. Yes, humankind is guilty of the sin of unleashing the power of the atom, the genie that cannot be put back inside the bottle once it has escaped. All life on Earth will never be the same again.

No one born since those early August days in 1945 has ever lived in a world without manmade nuclear radiation effecting them, either directly through an nuclear warhead detonation, or from being shot with depleted uranium coated bullets, or from the fallout leaking from a nuclear power plant that has suffered a “mishap” like Fukushima, or even from a simple rain shower. Manmade radiation has become a permanent part of our ecosystem for the worse, not better.

No one born since then has ever known a world where life as we know it could be wiped out in a matter of minutes if one or more nuclear powers decide to launch their nuclear weapons. This knowledge should keep us awake nights, but the majority of us seem okay living day-to-day in such a terrifying world.

Could it be we really don’t want peace? Could it be that we’d rather live with the threat of imminent Mutually Assured Destruction than to give up our creature comforts and affordable lifestyles in the West? Could it be Americans enjoy the hegemony we’ve gained through the threat of dropping H-bombs on your country if it doesn’t “cooperate” and give us what we want? (This means you, Venezuela and Iran. Hand over your oil or else!)

Or could it be I’m over-exaggerating the threat of our potential demise? Could I be minimizing the numbers of activists who are actively fighting to shut the war machine down? I don’t think so...

 

To learn what all it takes to organize a successful peace movement, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Changing Directions

by C.A. Matthews

Some folks won’t admit they’re lost. They’ll keep driving miles and miles out of their way rather than own up to the fact that they took a wrong turn somewhere. For them it’s better to stay lost than acknowledge there was a different (usually better) route they could have taken to reach their destination.

I often find this same attitude whenever I encounter others who hold to a less-than-desirable political outlook. No matter what “direction” you try to give them, they will choose to remain “lost” rather than admit they took a wrong turn or listened to the wrong person(s).

Psychologists call it “cognitive dissonance” when you refuse to contemplate that you could be wrong. It’s just too painful to admit to yourself that what you believe to be true could actually be a falsehood. Instead, you’ll lash out at others who might have innocently pointed out where you became lost in your thinking or offered you directions to get back on the right path.

Friendships and relationships often end when one person shares directions with an acquaintance or relative who doesn’t want to be corrected. Even if your friend or loved one holds onto beliefs that are potentially dangerous or destructive to themselves or others, they just want validation—not correction—from you. So, do you remain silent, bite your tongue, and say nothing? Is there ever a good time to share your beliefs with a few gentle pointers as to where your relative or acquaintance might have taken a wrong turn?

Let me know if you’ve found a surefire formula on how to handle these kinds of situations because I could certainly use one! (And I’m sure I’m not the only one.)

While contemplating what to write about this week (remember that I’m a flesh and blood entity who doesn’t use AI), I came across a social media post that made me yearn to help others change directions—or change their minds, if you will. The post was a political cartoon that an old friend posted on her Facebook page. We’ve never really discussed politics per se, but even after we both moved to different parts of the country we’ve kept in touch online. 

Some of her posts have led me to believe that she is a follower of the “Blue-No-Matter-Who” cult (BNMW). I call this organization a “cult” because I’ve noticed how its members tend to repeat whatever their leaders say, no matter how “lost” it makes them sound. In other words, they repeat talking points that make them come across as brainwashed members of a cult...

 

To discover how you or a loved one can "change directions", please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 576th blog posting of The Revolution Continues. We began in June 2015, and we're still going strong. Please keep reading, sharing, and subscribing to help TRC continue for another eleven years. Thanks! 

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Finding the Good in the Bad

by C. A. Matthews

After a very painful week—personally painful because an old injury decided to play up and our senior cat passed away from a terminal illness—I didn’t feel like writing a weekly post. I just wanted to whine, cry, and complain, “Why me?” It’s understandable why I’m so sad and grouchy, but it doesn’t do much good for my overall attitude or help my readers. I want to enlighten and uplift others, and that doesn’t work if I don’t at least attempt to write a piece.

I searched for inspiration and found nothing until I opened up a daily email meditation. The short essay said there’s a little good in everything. Yeah, it said everything—meaning every situation and every person (and cat). You just have to look for it. Scanning my daily X and UpScrolled feeds didn’t reveal a heck of a lot of good in the world, but I decided to give it a go. I would look for the good behind some of the negative headlines this week.

So, here goes nothing—and everything at the same time.

On the US domestic front, several stories concerning the building of massive AI data centers caught my eye. There’s actually nothing new about data centers in the US. The US by far has more data centers than any other country on Earth. The thing about this topic that grabbed my attention was that the people of Utah, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, and New Jersey have taken notice of how data centers are growing ever larger and demanding more and more electricity, land, and water at the local community’s expense.

Data centers pollute the local water table and fill the surrounding air with light pollution (no stars, messes with bird/insect migrations), heat pollution (global warming anyone?), and destructive sound pollution. Yeah, data centers actually produce constant vibrations right below the sound threshold that can injure and kill both humans and animals. Data centers after they’re built don’t employ all that many local workers, either. Too many bad things about them just ain’t right...

So, what’s the good in this very bad situation? The good I find in it isn’t in the data centers themselves but in the reaction of ordinary people against the data centers. For the most part, they aren’t having them...

 

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Rest in Power, Elsie girl.

A lot of good can be found in a little senior kitty

 

This article is the 571st blog posting of The Revolution Continues. We began in June 2015, and we're still going strong. Please keep reading, sharing, and subscribing to help TRC continue for another eleven years. Thanks! 

Feel free to make a donation at our Paypal or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps. Thank you.   

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An Empire That Starves Its Citizens While Feeding Its War Machine

by C. A. Matthews

“The message could not be clearer: there is always money for bombs, borders, and war—but never enough for children, healthcare, or basic human dignity… No amount of flag‑draped propaganda can hide the simple, brutal math of an empire that starves its citizens while feeding its war machine.” --from Can’t Afford Daycare or Healthcare — But Hegseth Swears a $1.5 Trillion War Budget ‘Puts Taxpayers First’

It can’t be that simple, can it?

Why is it that the US empire doesn’t care whether ordinary Americans live or die? Why is it they don’t care that we can't afford to have children or own a home? When you think about it, it’s a million times more evil than simply being an empire that starves its citizens. It’s an empire that cares only about making huge profits from endless wars and genocides for its oligarchy, its billionaire rulers, rather than the health and welfare of its people.

There’s no real need to explain away recent comments coming from the White House. “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things,” Trump said. “We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care.” His words speak for themselves. (Quote taken from Trump says it’s ‘not possible’ for the U.S. to pay for Medicaid, Medicare and day care: ‘We’re fighting wars’)

War will always rank above healthcare, childcare, and environmental issues for the US empire—especially if these issues have anything to do with the poor and working classes. No real surprises there. 

But the thing that surprises and disgusts me the most is how so many Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that this type of callous behavior originated with Donald Trump. To them nothing bad like this ever happened before Trump entered the White House in 2017 and then again in 2025.

To jog your memory, watch this short video. Be sure to read the text on the screen while listening to the discussion in the background: The Façade of Democracy...

To learn one way you can help stop the US empire and its war machine, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 570th 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. 

 

To Die For The Ungrateful

by C. A. Matthews

The original title for this piece was going to be “No one wants to fight for Israel!” Veterans for Peace member and Green Party candidate for US Senate from North Carolina Brian McGinnis shouted, “No one wants to fight for Israel!” as he was violently dragged away from a recent Capitol Hill hearing, his arm severely broken in the process.

I find the video of Brian’s protest very hard to watch, wincing when I witness how cruelly injured he was for standing up for his rights of free speech. But his words and the images of the protest have been incorporated into an heavy metal song video. It’s really good and gets his message across beautifully. Click on the link to watch it and see what I mean:

https://youtu.be/jPneMI_BijQ

I considered using Brian’s quote as a title, but I figured the blog would be shadow-banned even more than usual if I did. A day or so later, I had another idea for a title when the following meme popped up on my feed on UpScrolled.

We the unwilling

Led by the unqualified

To kill the unfortunate

Die for the ungrateful

Talk about poetry in motion!

“To die for the ungrateful” echos Brian’s fervent cry of “No one wants to fight for Israel!” Because war is hell—particularly when it’s a completely avoidable conflict that serves no one’s interests except the capitalist-elite class. You can call them the “Epstein class” if you prefer, but I hope you realize those files don’t contain an extensive list of all capitalists who have caused much suffering in the world. And, surprisingly, pedophilia is not a qualification to become a capitalist or member of the ruling elite.

I imagine even now that “We the Unwilling” (that is, US troops) are composing their poems as they’re being forced into a ground war against Iran on the behest of the apartheid regime of Israel with the assistance of the wealthy investors of the military-industrial complex (MIC) and Big Oil. To paraphrase Brian’s memorable quote, “Nobody wants to die for a bunch of rich Zionist assholes to make them even richer!” 

 

To read the rest of the article and discover links to the anti-war "Lego videos" that have become very popular online, 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.

 

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This article is the 564th 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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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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This article is the 563rd 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! 

Feel free to make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps. Thank you.