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.)
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...
Please read the rest of this article by clicking on this link to go to our Substack page: https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com There
you'll also see related article and video links, all the images,
and be able to leave comments. You can subscribe to receive the
weekly blog post in your email box as well.
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?
To read the rest of this article, click on this link to go to our Substack page: https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com There
you'll also see the related article and video links, all the images,
and be able to easily leave comments. You can subscribe to receive the
weekly blog post in your email box as well. (We'll think you'll like it
much better than Blogspot.) Power to the people!
THE AMAZON RAINFOREST IS BURNING… We Must Refocus Our Priorities Toward Protecting Our Planet
by The Independent Reformist
The
Amazon Rainforest fire is just one of several recent crises that
highlight the need for real swft and bold action against climate change.
Yes,
people--this is really happening. The largest rain forest in the world
is on fire. Yet the lead on the news is about stock markets and
politics. It is a telling sign of just how disconnected we have become
with the planet we live on.
For years, scientists
have been warning us that we need to drastically reduce our carbon
emissions to even try to preserve a habitable planet for future
generations to live on. Yet it seems we have political
parties around the world who basically scoff at the notion of doing
anything about it. Some cling to their religious beliefs their deity
won’t let it happen. Others dismiss scientific finding out of hand when
it suits their agenda.
“I’m
not a scientist. I am interested in protecting Kentucky’s economy. I’m
interested in having low cost electricity.” — Mitch McConnell
Here in the United States, that party is the Republican Party. Here are a few gems from some of their politicians:
Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky
Senate majority leader, said he was “distressed” by the US-China deal to cut emissions
announced this week. He was likely also surprised, as he spent his
recent reelection campaign saying he would not consider emissions caps
because “nobody else is going to do that,” as he told the Louisville Courier-Journal.
“I’m not a scientist. I am interested in protecting Kentucky’s economy, I’m interested in having low cost electricity,” he said.
Translation:
I don’t want to do anything because no one else is. I’d rather lower
electrical bills than make sure my grand kids will be able to live on
this planet.
Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, has taken different routes to denial, from saying he’s not a scientist
to second-guessing the data. “I don’t agree with the notion that some
are putting out there, including scientists, that somehow there are
actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s
happening in our climate,” he said in a May interview on ABC News. Here's the full statement:
"Our
climate is always changing. And what they have chosen to do is take a
handful of decades of research and say that this is now evidence of a
longer-term trend that’s directly and almost solely attributable to
man-made activity. I do not agree with that.
I
do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to
our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. That’s what I
do not — and I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass
will do anything about it. Except it will destroy our economy."
Translation:
Thought I trust and rely on science for everything else to include
travel, technology and oil exploration, but in this one instance I will
chose to completely ignore what scientists are telling me since it
doesn’t suit my agenda.
The Republican Party often call itself the party of “Fiscal Responsibility.” Yet under Donald Trump...
President
Donald Trump has blasted bipartisan politicians for failing to address
the federal debt and repeatedly vowed to eliminate it within eight
years. On his watch, it has exploded to more than $22 trillion.
The
country was already headed for a $1 trillion deficit this year. Yet,
the president has made clear his support for the federal budget deal
reached Monday, which would increase spending by billions against a
backdrop of lower tax receipts.
“House Republicans should support the TWO YEAR BUDGET AGREEMENT which greatly helps our Military and our Vets,” the president said Thursday of the bill,
which would lift the debt ceiling until July 2021 and permanently end a
series of automatic spending cuts. “I am totally with you!”
Crafted
by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
the deal would give both Republicans and Democrats bigger budgets for
fiscal priorities. It would increase spending by about approximately
$320 billion, with equal amounts going to defense and domestic agencies.
It’s
funny how when it’s something Republicans want, we always seem to find
more money to spend. Yet when it comes to trying to ensure that our
planet can sustain our children and grandchildren money suddenly
becomes an issue.
Climate
change is real. This isn’t a bunch of crazy people on social media
saying this. This is NASA, the American Meteorology Society, The
Australian Academy of Sciences, and hundreds more scientific societies
and agencies from around the world. Here’s a list:
If
you want to do a deep dive in to why these organizations agree that
Climate Change is driven by human activity, NASA has a website dedicated
to that purpose.
At
the same time the Democratic Party, which at least accepts that climate
change is a real issue, won’t have a debate for it’s 2020 presidential
candidates that will focus solely on this issue.
This
is not just a national issue--it’s a global issue. Climate change will
affect the future of all of humanity. Why would they do this? According
to Vice News:
Democratic
National Committee officials voted down the resolution that would’ve
called for an official climate debate by a margin of 17 to 8 at a party
meeting in San Francisco Thursday.If the DNC
doesn’t host a climate debate, the candidates could opt to participate
in a non-DNC sanctioned debate. But by participating, they could be
sanctioned by the DNC, which means being potentially barred from any
further DNC-sponsored debates.
The article continues:
DNC chief Tom Perez opposed the climate debate and doesn’t think it benefits the Democrats to hold any single-issue debates.
Joe Biden’s press secretary, Symone Sanders also doesn’t support a climate debate — even though the former vice president and presidential candidate has said that he supports one .
It
is critical to emphasize this point. Not only has the DNC voted down a
debate with a sole focus on climate change… but because of the DNC rules
any candidates who participates in any non-DNC sanctioned debate will
be banned from future DNC sanctioned debates. This is ridiculous.
Clearly this issue isn’t being taken seriously enough… by either party.
A
debate is about more than just putting candidates ideas against each
other. It is an opportunity to truly articulate the severity of climate
change to the public. It’s an opportunity to inform the citizenry and
potentially change the minds of those who opt to bury their heads in the
sand about this issue. Instead, it seems as though the DNC is content
with putting the fate of all of humanity on par with every other issue.
Even as important as they are, the economy and health care won’t matter one bit if we continue on this course. According
to the United Nations, we have 11 years to have done enough to prevent
irreversible climate change. That was as of March 2019--before the fire in the Amazon Rainforest.
Also,
this week Iceland had a “funeral” for the Okjökull glacier. It is the
first glacier that has been lost to climate change. This event follows
“The hottest July on record”. In 30 days, we have seen at least three major
events that are signalling that half measures and incrementalism is not
sufficient to turning things around.
During the ceremony in Iceland, they placed a plaque where the glacier once stood which said the following:
Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as glacier,
In
the next 200 years all our main glaciers are expected to follow the
same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is
happening and what needs to be done.
It’s
not just about fossil fuels either. In June 2019, reports were
surfacing about toxic algae in Florida’s waterways. It has gotten so bad
that it has started to affect the tourism industry.
Florida’s
waterways are screaming for “help.” A catastrophic combination of red
tide and blue-green algae blooms on the west coast, and blue-green algae
blooms on the east coast are hurting Florida. These headline-making
events are causing significant public health concerns, tarnishing
Florida’s reputation for world-class beaches, and mucking up our clear
blue waters. But how does this happen?
Red
tide originates naturally in the Gulf of Mexico’s salty waters while
blue-green algae occurs in freshwater bodies like Lake Okeechobee. These
two outbreaks are independent of one another, but together wreak
compounding havoc. Both deplete water of vital oxygen- suffocating fish,
mammals, and plants. More research is needed to get a full picture of
what’s going on, but what is clear is that both of these chaotic
scenarios are exacerbated by a warming climate and excess nutrients in
our waterways. The sources of nutrient pollution aren’t new:
agricultural runoff, manure from cattle, septic tanks, treated sewage
used for watering lawns, sewage sludge spread on fields, and local
storm water runoff. All of this ends up entering waterways and
exacerbates red tide and blue-green algae. When combined with the
decades-old phosphorus in Lake Okeechobee during the hot summer months,
excess nutrients result in the harmful blue-green algae blooms in the
lake and estuaries on Florida’s east and west coasts.
How
much worse do things have to get before our leaders get serious about
this? We can already see the effects . Many of the more seasoned power
brokers in D.C. will not be alive when the effects of climate change are
at their worst. If now isn’t the time to have a serious and substantive
debate on how to tackle climate change, when is the right time?
Carl
Sagan asked NASA to turn the Voyager space craft towards Earth and take
a snapshot of our world when it was heading towards the outer edge of
our Solar System. This was the image it took:
Planet Earth viewed from the Voyager space craft from the far reaches of our solar system.
That
is our world. It’s the only one we have. We rely on it for everything
from growing food to breathing. It is our one, and only safe refuge in a
universe that is not hospitable to human life.
Dr.
Sagan talked about the above image in his book Pale Blue Dot — A
Vision of the Human Future in Space. Here is a very famous quote from
that book:
“Look
again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone
you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human
being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and
suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic
doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every
creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every
young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor
and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every
“superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the
history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a
sunbeam.
The
Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the
endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel
on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how
frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one
another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled
by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they
could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our
posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have
some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point
of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping
cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint
that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The
Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere
else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate.
Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is
where we make our stand.
It
has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building
experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of
human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it
underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and
to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever
known.”
Carl
Sagan understood the importance of protecting our planet in the 1990's…
but our politicians and so called leaders still are not taking this as
seriously as they should in the 21st century. This is not just our planet. This is our children's planet. It belongs to our descendants who will be here after we are gone to
dust. If we do nothing… if we keep kicking this can down the road, we
imperil their existence and the very existence of humanity.
Once humanity is gone, it no longer matters about your power or status. No
one will be here to remember you. No one will care that you were an
important CEO or congressman or resident. No one will remember the
great things humanity has accomplished. Outside of our structures that
survive, it will be as though we were never here.
Is this really the future you want?
“We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” -- David Brower
The
world stands at a critical moment right now. We have a responsibility
to future generations to try to sustain our world. The fate of humanity
is in our hands. Either we take this threat seriously and do what is
necessary to try to mitigate what is coming or we do little to nothing
as we allow humanity to go extinct. We can’t wait until later. We need
to take serious action right now!
BIO: The Independent Reformist says this about his writing: "Independent political perspective from a working class American. No B.S." He currently blogs on Medium and at his Wordpress site.
***
From Rainforest Action Network:
The fires in the Amazon rainforest
are devastating. The Amazon rainforest is called the lungs of the
planet, because it accounts for 20% of the world’s oxygen. With the
climate crisis worsening, we can’t afford to lose these ancient trees
who filter out and store the world’s carbon.
These
fires affect every single living creature on earth. Read that again,
every single creature on earth is and will be impacted by the loss of
these forests. We need your help to protect them.
Many of you have asked, how can we help?
The fires aren’t a random occurrence. With new leadership, Brazil has declared the Amazon open for business. Massive companies and investment firms like BlackRock, have rushed to the Amazon to develop this formerly protected land.
The fires are being used to clear villages, trees, and wildlife for
illegal cattle ranching, soya, and other products. They are literally
stealing land from Indigenous Peoples and destroying the Amazon
rainforest to turn a profit.
There are a lot of reasons the Amazon is
burning at a record rate. Burning cultivate nutrient-rich farm land is a
long-held practice. For decades, farmers, ranchers and loggers have
hacked into the rainforest to get access to timber
and land, which they use for profit. But now, climate change and deforestation magnify the risks if and when fires get out of control.
Much of this was true last year and the years before
What's different in 2019 is that Brazil's new right-wing government doesn't care.
President Bolsonaro has dramatically scaled back on enforcement against illegal logging and mining in the Amazon.
In fact, he's called for more of it. People have responded by setting records numbers of fires to clear the forest.
As of August, more than 1,300 square miles of forest have been lost in 2019 alone. Now that people around the world have realized just how catastrophic this could be, everyone from the right-wing Prime Minister
of the UK to Colombian pop star Shakira are calling on the Brazilian government to act.
We agree. Perhaps most alarming that Brazil's dry season has just begun — meaning things could actually still get
worse. We need to mobilize massive action now to get
these fires under control, find people who've started these fires and,
most importantly, stop the setting of new ones.
P.S. With dry season just beginning, we need Brazil's government to stop
more human-caused fires in the Amazon (and put out the ones already
raging out of control).
Sign the petition.
