No One Has To Tell You That You Are Free

by C. A. Matthews

As the seasons change and the sun sets earlier and earlier each evening, I feel an overwhelming urge to crawl into a cocoon and go to sleep and escape from all the hubbub. It’s so tempting just to close your eyes and forget all about the latest tragedy, infamy, or insanity, isn’t it?

Alas, the world won’t let me rest. It calls to me—or rather it shouts at me—and tells me to continue to speak up, point things out, write about life, and march in the streets. The Revolution won’t happen while I’m sitting in my favorite chair with a nice hot cup of tea and a cozy ball of fluffy cat purring beside me. It just doesn’t work that way.

After I came home from giving a presentation on The Resistance History of the United States, all I could say to myself was “No one really gets it. Most Americans will never understand how important resisting our oligarchic oppressors is. They think they can just walk into a voting booth on November 3, and presto-chango magically everything instantly gets better. Maybe not perfectly better, but definitely better than before. At least they’ll be a few less annoying people to threaten their health and safety for the next four years. Well, until the people they voted for start annoying them.”

I wish I could relax and be as trusting in the power of the duopoly to do good as other Americans, but unfortunately reality kicks in—and kicks me hard in the seat of my pants. I know that it doesn’t make a bit of difference who is in the “majority” in Congress or who actually sits in the White House—or even on the Supreme Court, for that matter any more.

Web sites such as Open Secrets demonstrate how the two halves of the duopoly/uniparty both serve their donors (oligarchs) unquestionably. If a politician does as their told only by those who write the biggest checks to their campaign fund, then they’re not working in the public’s best interests, are they? They’re working for their own self-interests—and the interests of their insanely rich bosses, the oligarchs...

...Sorry to break it to my fellow Americans, but walking into a voting booth or standing on a street corner with a “Trump wears diapers!” sign isn’t going to save us from the desperate situation we find ourselves in. It can’t. It wasn’t meant to. Ever...

 

To read more about what "freedom" actually entails, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Resistance Is A Lifetime

 

Resistance Is A Lifetime: The Resistance History of the United States (Part 2)

by C. A. Matthews

For an introduction to Tad Stoermer’s The Resistance History of the United States and a discussion of the first four principles of resistance, check out last week’s post The Patterns of Resistance. Here is a brief listing of the first four:

Principle 1: Beware False Prophets—Learn to Recognize False 
Resistance

Principle 2: More Weight—Refuse to Validate the Lies

Principle 3: My Enemy’s Enemy—Your Ally Doesn’t Have to Be 
Pure

Principle 4: Force the Fight, Even When You’re Losing

On to the remaining five!

Principle 5: Resistance Is a Lifetime, Not a Moment

You might not want to hear this but single dramatic acts of defiance are only the beginning of your fight. “Real resistance requires persistence to keep pursuing your goal and resilience to withstand the inevitable counterattacks without breaking.” (Stoermer, p. 332)

Resisters must build their capacity for sustained resistance so they can overcome numerous setbacks and adapt to new threats. In other words, a revolution is a lifetime commitment. It’s not for the faint hearted.

The oligarchs, our oppressors, know they can wait out our first hint of confrontation—a protest, strike, or walkout. They know from past experience that most can’t sustain defiance for very long. Resisters will fold withing days or weeks, not years. Life happens. The oligarchs’ strategy is to outlast the resisters and make simply surviving so tough that people will give up and go back to life as “normal.”

The oligarchs waiting us out works since most resisters don’t realize that persistence is necessary. We must keep our eyes on the goal, even when things seem impossible. Resilience is another trait that helps us recover from the inevitable blows. Resisters must adapt, recover, and build new support networks, to continue on with the unglamorous, mundane, grinding fight.

Nobody said it was going to be easy. You could lose it all—family, friends, home, job, your life. Are you willing to make such a commitment to the cause? “Your persistence—your refusal to quit no matter how long it takes—is what they [the oligarchs] can’t plan for, can’t budget for, can’t outlast.” (Stoermer, p. 335)

“This is the hardest of all the principles because it demands the most. A moment of courage you can summon when adrenaline runs high. A lifetime of resistance requires something deeper—an unshakable core that sustains you when no one is watching, when the world has moved on, when you’re exhausted and alone.” (Stoermer, p. 334)

 

To learn more about the historical figures behind the principles of resistance (and how all nine were used and can be used today), please copy or click on the following link: 

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Patterns of Resistance

Patterns of Resistance: The Resistance History of the United States (Part 1)

by C. A. Matthews

In last week’s article I promised to provide some patterns of resistance to defeat the patterns (or poetry) of chaos that our oligarch rulers practice. Did you start reading Tad Stoermer’s The Resistance History of the United States like I recommended? It’s okay if you didn’t. This article won’t ruin your read later by giving out too many “spoilers”. (You’ll still want to read the book.)

And don’t worry if you’re not American or have much knowledge of US history—many of the examples Stoermer uses to illustrate the different patterns of resistance aren’t commonly known by most Americans. It’s sort of the point of the book. The oligarchy, the billionaires who essentially rule us all, have been keeping these kinds of historical examples quiet since day one of the United States. They really don’t want Americans (or anyone else) to know how often and how well ordinary people have resisted their abusive, authoritarian power. So, even if you’re not a history buff, I know you’ll find the stories Stoermer tells very eye-opening and enlightening.

First a quick recap of last week’s post about the oligarchs’ pattern of control or“the poetry of chaos”. Things may appear chaotic in the world, but upon closer examination we can define predictable patterns of behavior by the oligarchs who cause the “chaos” that keeps us feeling overwhelmed and incapable of fighting back.

I summed up the oligarchs’ pattern in a three step process... (Read summary in the full article by clicking the link below.)

...Stoermer describes nine resistance patterns or principles in The Resistance History of the United States that We the People have used and can continue to use to take on the oligarchy. I’ll provide a short synopsis of each, but I encourage you to read the book to gain deeper understanding from the historical figures’ stories. It will make more sense to you to learn who it was that used a certain resistance principle, how they used it, and how effective it was in their resistance.

Stoermer tells us that these principles/patterns don’t have to be practiced in any particular order, and they don’t all have to be used all at once. Revolutionaries/resisters are free to pick and choose what works for them in their particular situation...

 

To learn all about the patterns of resistance (and how they were used in US history), please copy or click on the following link: 

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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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AI Is Not Your Friend...

 

AI Is Not Your Friend (In a Capitalist Society)

words and original photos by C. A. Matthews

It’s pretty obvious that I don’t use a AI to write my posts online. I wouldn’t make so many typos and mistakes in grammar/punctuation if I did use an AI computer program. I like to write the old-fashioned way—on a pad of paper with a pen—or on a laptop running Linux without all the bells and whistles. It just feels more natural that way, not forced, with no artificial intelligence trying to change my words mid-sentence.

I know what I want to say and how to say it. I don’t need an AI to tell me how to think.

I’m not anti-technology (despite my advanced years). In fact, I was one of the first persons to actually own a “PC” or personal computer back in the dark ages of forty-plus years ago. I worked in a government office during that time when our case documentation was being transferred over from pen and paper to computer documents. I’ve even written code for web sites and done other computer-related things over the years. So, you can’t say that I’m adverse to artificial intelligence out of a superstitious belief that all technology is evil and should be stopped.

I don’t believe it’s the technology that’s evil. It’s the people who are using it in negative ways and exploiting it that are doing evil. (Pope Leo agrees with me.)

AI data centers are breaking out like pimples across the face of America. This demonstrates to me that artificial intelligence isn’t going to be used for the public good because these data centers are being rammed down the throats of small town and big city people alike, against their will. These AI data centers aren’t there to help the locals, but to make tech bros even richer.

Simply put, AI is not your friend—especially if you’re not a billionaire. Don’t believe me? Would you believe economists from the prestigious Wharton School of Economics?

 

To learn more what's behind the big push to build AI data centers and how they can adversely effect workers and their jobs, please copy or click on the following link: 

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Our Children Are Not Disposable Playthings For The Ruling Class

by C. A. Matthews

Butch Ware, the Green Party candidate running for governor in California, made a statement about the recent Epstein files dump that sums up what I and many others believe:

x.com/ButchWare

As Governor of California I will direct the Attorney General to immediately open investigations into any and every California resident mentioned in the Epstein files.

Human trafficking, s*xual abuse of children, women…humans…by powerful people demands accountability. They must face the consequences for these heinous, unspeakable crimes.

The Democrats and Republicans are protecting the billionaire predators that own them.

With God as my witness, I will go to WAR on p*dofiles and traffickers.

Our children are not disposable playthings for the ruling class.

His last sentence really says it all: Our children are not disposable playthings for the ruling class. It demonstrates just how the corrupt capitalist system operates. It allows the members of the ruling class, a.k.a. the elite or the oligarchy, to use human beings seen as inferior as their “playthings” and then casually dispose of them when they’re no longer wanted.

We’re so advanced now in the West that we’ve become willing to let the wealthiest and most powerful of our society abuse children in the most heinous ways purely for their own sick enjoyment. Those who possess large quantities of currency or positions of power know that only they are entitled to act out their most horrific fantasies with impunity.

Is it any wonder now that Western capitalists support a live-streamed genocide in Palestine? What’s another dead child to them...

 

To find out what we can do to protect ourselves and our children from the pedo-protectors and the abusers of the ruling class, please copy or click on the following link: 

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"The revolution will not be televised because the first revolution happens inside your mind." —Gil Scott-Heron 

From Merriam-Webster online:

Revolution: a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something : a change of paradigm. From the Latin revolvere meaning “to revolve or roll back.”

The Revolution of the Mind

by C.A. Matthews

It’s odd, but you can tell that many Americans feel uncomfortable using the world revolution with one notable exception: They will say “the American Revolution” when referring to the conflict the white colonists fought to gain their independence from Great Britain.

Advertisers frequently use the description term revolutionary when selling merchandise, everything from dish soap to feminine hygiene products, but even they hesitate to use the word revolution by itself in their ad copy.

Why all this fear and trepidation over a perfectly useful word? What dark, sinister secondary meaning does revolution hold for so many? How can we reclaim revolution and its healing power?

As you can tell by looking at the masthead above, revolution holds no threat to our peace of mind here at The Revolution Continues. In fact, as the years progress, the word has become almost a mantra of sorts for your truly. Whenever something hideous occurs in the world—say a livestreamed genocide of innocents, particularly children—I often find myself saying under my breath repeatedly: This will all come to an end, come the revolution…

I’m reassuring myself that one day there will be a great change of paradigm and the billionaires and their lackeys who persecute us now will be gone and the world will revolve around the workers of the world instead. Our needs and wishes to live in peace and harmony will reign then, not the oligarchs’ greed and selfishness. It’s an optimistic take on what seems a pessimistic era in our civilization’s history, but one must do what one must do to get out of bed and not cry all day long. Nothing changes that way.

If the revolution won’t be televised, will it be livestreamed instead? Open up your social media apps and tell me that the revolution isn’t being livestreamed now. Things are changing radically in front of our eyes in real time. Immigrants and their supporters are fighting against ICE. Protesters are going to jail simply for saying, “I don’t support genocide,” in the UK. The world is revolving around a different narrative than the one the powers-that-be want us to believe. Many of us in the working classes aren’t buying into the lies and excuses of the richest 1% anymore.

To borrow an old expression, “The cat’s out of the bag,” and that kitty is hissing and scratching to prevent itself from being stuffed back inside, kept in the dark, and thrown into the river to drown as the oligarchs are tempted to do to us who don’t do or think as we’re told...

 

To  learn more about how the narrative is being questioned, please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

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Still of Gil Scott-Heron taken from youtu.be/1Iklff1pNWY

This article is the 529th blog posting of The Revolution Continues. We began in June 2015, and we're still going strong. Please keep reading, sharing, and subscribing to help TRC continue for another ten years. 

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Francesca Albanese: Boldly Speaking Truth To Corporate Power

by C.A. Matthews

Serving as the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Territories of Palestine is a tough job, and Francesca Albanese knew when she took on the position that she was bound to make her share of enemies. However, the vile things coming out of the mouths of genocide-enabler Donald Trump and his boyfriend, genocide-instigator Benjamin Netanyahu, about Albanese’s recent work reporting on the economic conditions of the genocide in Gaza are unbelievable.

Even US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had to get in on the feces-slinging by “sanctioning” her for standing up for the Palestinian people’s human rights. He posted on X:

Secretary Marco Rubio @SecRubio

Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt @IntlCrimCourt action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.

Rubio, a former “human rights attorney”, is coming down heavy on a fellow human rights attorney? Is this a Monty Python sketch or am I just dreaming? If it is a dream, it’s a nightmare, that’s for certain.

Will Francesca Albanese suffer personally from US sanctions simply for doing her job? I hope not...

...In spite of the pressures and threats from bullies such as Trump and Rubio, Ms. Albanese carries on. She even calmly explained why she’s under fire for exposing state and corporate complicity in Israel's genocide:

It's a sign the system is cracking; it is punching back. But it will only win if we are scared, if we stop standing with one another.

Good advice. We need to stand with each other and not let the bullies shut us down.

The system is cracking, but it’s possibly not quite the system most imagine...

 

To find out what kind of system Francesca Albanese is really taking on (and just how dangerous it is), please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

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You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. ~Buckminster Fuller, US Architect, Systems Theorist, Author, Designer, Inventor and Futurist

Making The Existing Model Obsolete

by C.A. Matthews

“That’s the way it is,” I’m often told whenever I criticize the corrupt governmental system in the US. “We can’t do any better than that,” I’m informed. “It’s the best we’ve got.”

I’m not one for absolutes. My usual response to that kind of statement is, “How can you be so sure it’s the best? Have we ever tried anything radically different and compared the two?”

My challenge to their belief that they live in a “democracy” isn’t what most people want to hear. It makes them uncomfortable. If our system of government in the US was compared to something else and found wanting, well… You get where I’m coming from.

Americans who don’t like change are comfortable with the status quo. They’re not hurting financially or going without health care. They’re not starving or skipping meals. They’re not sleeping rough in the streets.

Sure, these Americans might have some beefs about paying taxes and they’ll hold grudges against elected officials who failed to stand up to their promises, but they’re not going to welcome an entirely new system of government just because of those things. A sudden change in the governmental system might upturn these comfortable Americans’ apple cart. They can’t have that.

I’m not one of those people. I’m not that comfortable financially, physically, or intellectually with the existing model. I can’t stand the hypocrisy, hate, and violence the American system engenders. I’m for Revolution, a complete change of direction, a total tear-down of the prevalent framework and a building of a different model that works for working people, not corporations and their CEOs.

I go along with Buckminster Fuller—we need to create a better model or style of government so we can completely junk the old one that doesn’t work for the majority of us.

So, what would I replace the present “representative democracy” (that is, in reality, an oligarchy according to the 2014 Princeton study) in the United States with? Change always starts with an idea. I have an idea, a pretty good idea. It may not be your idea, but I thought I’d float it by you and get your feedback...

 

To discover my unique model of government that actually works as a democracy, please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

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I’d like to share this great comment by the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Territories of Palestine Francesca Albanese on the food blockade to Gaza, the GHF, and the lack of response from the international community:

This is the most sadistic exercise in intellectual gymnastics I’ve ever come across. (Found at the 42 minute mark: youtu.be/tLa4BT0J8Q4)

More videos featuring Francesca Albanese are listed on the Substack post.