Why I Dislike Most Celebrities (Except for Two)

 

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

by C. A. Matthews

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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.   

 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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This article is the 565th 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! 

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Jesus Is Coming—To Kick Genocidal-Pedo-Protecting-Zionist Ass

by C. A. Matthews

By now I’m sure you’ve heard the news in regards to exactly who/what told the US to start a war on Iran along with the genocidal apartheid regime of Israel:

“[Secretary Of War Pete] Hegseth attends a weekly White House Bible study...led by a preacher who says God commands America to support Israel.” --from The US War Machine Is Run By Deranged Armageddon Cultists

As an American who grew up hearing great emphasis put on the “separation of church and state” clause enshrined in the US Constitution, I hate to talk about religion outside of a religious context. I don’t like to question any American’s right to practice whatever religious tradition they like (or none at all, if they don’t like), but I really have to question who exactly is this “god” that supposedly Christian Pete Hegseth and others like him in the Pentagon obey.

Their god sounds a lot like Mars, the Roman god of war. Or maybe it’s Ba‘al, the child sacrifice-loving god of the Levant in ancient times. It definitely doesn’t sound like God as described in the New Testament in 1 John 4:8: “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

“God is love” was what I was taught in the Christian tradition I was raised in. Not hate. Not war. Not genocide. Not land, oil, or any other natural resource that billionaires like to steal from others. Pete Hegseth and those like him seem a bit confused about who God is. They worship war, death and destruction as their god far more than they worship love. Have they never read I Corinthians 13, a wonderful short essay that ends by saying, “The greatest of these is love”?

Funny how “Christian” Zionists don’t seem to even know the first thing about Christianity! If they did, would they even want to get within ten feet of a rapist/pedophile such as Donald Trump...?

 

To learn more about when and where the Zionists will get their butts kicked (Plus, a report on how a trial of local activists played out) , please copy or click on the following link: 

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A Very Stinky Story

 

A Very Stinky Story (or “Operation Epstein Slurry”)

by C. A. Matthews

Once upon a time there was a big, big boat sailing across the wide, wide open seas. This big boat had a very special task. It was sailing halfway around the world to fight a war for “freedom and democracy” and, of course, to control others’ oil production in order to maintain a stable petrodollar as the world’s reserve currency.

It didn’t make a difference that the big, big boat—affectionately known as “Jerry” to its friends—really needed to go home and have some repairs done first. It didn’t matter that its young crew (average age only 19 years old) had been gone from their homes and families for almost a year. It didn’t matter that they needed some down time to recuperate between missions. Oh, no, no, no! A big Orange Man called “the president” told Jerry to sail halfway around the world and do as it was told. Now.

The true reason Jerry and its crew couldn’t rest and be with their families was because Orange Man was afraid of the Boss Man, the real ruler of the Orange Man’s country. Not everyone in the Orange Man’s country realized this, but Orange Man always did as he was told by the Boss Man. Boss Man threatened Orange Man that he had a great big briefcase full of naughty pictures and not-so-nice stories about Orange Man’s favorite activity of hurting little girls in very mean and very ugly ways. So, Orange Man always did as he was told to by Boss Man. It was safer that way.

Boss Man told Orange Man that he wanted Jerry—and his fellow big boat friend Abe—to sail to the ancient Land of Flying Carpets to fight a war for “freedom and democracy” right away. Boss Man was tired of this particular war being put off again and again. Boss Man reasoned that if his his tiny pretend country wasn’t at war all the time his own people might send him to jail because of some not-so-nice things he had done in office.

So Orange Man agreed and told Jerry and its crew to get going. It was time to do some killin’! (Killing is one of the bosses’ favorite activities.)

 

To find out if Jerry was able to complete his mission and what all the big, big boats got up to, please copy or click on the following link: 

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