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.)
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. (Happy Black History Month, too.)
It does seem funny wishing a good day in honor of a late great American (assassinated by our own security state), but what else can I say?
I suppose I could say “Happy Inauguration Day!” but some folks would have a complete and utter meltdown if I dare mention Donald Trump being sworn in as president for a second time. So, I won’t say that, but what could I say instead? Maybe: “Trump is living in the White House again. Get use to it”?
I find it interesting how most of the individuals I know who have constantly worried and fretted over or made fun of the “Orange Man” won’t live any differently whether Trump is president or not. They still have their white privilege. They still live solidly middle- to upper-class lives. They will keep their jobs or be able to retire as planned. This is in complete contrast to the poor people that Dr. King spoke about frequently who struggled to pay their bills and never once considered retirement to be possible...
And now a short excerpt from our guest blogger's piece:
Swords Into Plowshares
by Coast Watcher
...Instead of scrapping one or both of the huge and expensive super-carriers Britain could instead donate them to the United Nations for use as disaster relief ships. Able to travel quickly to wherever they’re needed, each carrier could house dozens of search-and-rescue helicopters and other aircraft. Current hangar space below decks can be repurposed as hospitals equipped for emergency surgery, storage space for medical supplies, food, water, disaster relief equipment, tents and anything else required in a disaster relief operation. The ship’s nuclear power plant can be hooked up to shoreside facilities to provide electricity wherever local power generation has been damaged or destroyed...
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I have a thing for Christmas trees. I love to decorate them and collect ornaments from all over the world. Come the twelfth day of Christmas (Epiphany) on January 6, I’m compelled by the “social norm” to take down my tree* and store it and the decorations away until next December. (Who is this “Norm” and why is he always raining on my parade? Not very “sociable” of him.) The empty space in my living room where the Christmas tree once stood makes me sad, so I began a new tradition.
I put away the tall tree and put up a shorter, table-top sized tree* in its place. I decorate it with ornaments symbolizing love (after all, Valentine’s Day is in February) and peace. The past couple of years the little tree has become not a mere Christmas tree substitute but a “Peace Tree” dedicated to world peace.
I leave the Peace Tree standing as long as there is conflict anywhere on the planet. You guessed it—the Peace Tree hasn’t been put away for quite some time now. In the summer, I move it upstairs where I stand it on top a short bookcase in our bedroom. We put a window a/c unit in the downstairs window, and the little tree could get blown over if it stayed put, but it isn’t taken down. I see it every day, a reminder that humans are still warring with each other somewhere on the planet. We need world peace, and we needed it yesterday.
This holiday season I decided to give the Peace Tree a makeover...
To see more photos of the Peace Tree--and to read a poem excerpt by Maya Angelou and the rest of this article--please click on this Substack link: https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com. There
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Subscribe to The Revolution Continues on Substack today! Power to the people!
Happy Holidays—Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Solstice and a good Kwanzaa and peace to you and yours. May we all plant “Peace Trees” and together reap a harvest of goodness some day soon.
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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The “Ceasefire Carols” for peace in Palestine were well received in downtown Toledo at Promenade Park on Saturday night. We even picked up some new singers for next week’s performance. Nice!
The welcoming turnout gives me hope that the vast majority of human beings do desire peace, do not desire the deaths of more innocents, and do want to bring an end to the Israeli bombing of Gaza permanently. It gives me a warm feeling that perhaps not all people on Planet Earth are heartless bastards. There are people who care, who have a moral center, and who aren’t easily persuaded to think genocide is a “necessary thing.”
I realize there are still quite a few heartless types out there, but their voices are being drown out by Ceasefire Carolers worldwide and celestial choirs of angels who herald the birth of the Christ child. The baby Jesus, according to the Gospel account in Matthew 2:16-18, almost didn’t make it to his first birthday because of King Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents. There seems to be a parallel between that story and current events, don’t you think?
Sleep in heavenly peace, little ones, who will never experience a holiday here on this plane of existence. May we never forget you.
You know that the world is broken when a country is given the freedom to
annihilate another people as the world watches in real time. This
should shake each and every one of us to the core. --Michel Moushabeck, If Jesus Was Born Today, Would He Be Under Rubble?
Baby Angel
by C.A. Matthews
Most folks who put up a Christmas tree in their homes have a decorative ornament or two that holds a special meaning for them. It could be a handmade ornament given to them by their child or grandchild. It could be an ornament given to them as a present by a very special person in their life. It could be an ornament that honors a milestone in a family’s life—a “first Christmas for baby” ornament or a “first Christmas together as a couple” ornament are two such that come to mind.
Or it could be simply an ornament that was purchased because it was beautifully crafted and looks absolutely perfect on the Christmas tree. Art and beauty lend a message that this is a season full of love and wonder. Whatever the meaning behind a special ornament, it usually is given a position of honor on the tree so that all can gaze upon it and contemplate the special meaning it symbolizes.
We’ve collected so many special ornaments over the decades that it’s sometimes difficult figuring out where to place them on our medium-sized Christmas tree. As time goes by, I’ve even forgotten why I found a particular ornament special to begin with. Imagine that!
What was I thinking? I ask myself every December as I take some of them out of the storage box. These “lost meaning” decorations usually get put on toward the bottom or on the backside of the tree. Sort of filler ornaments, you could say. But sometimes, an older ornament takes on a new meaning, a new kind of specialness than it had before. It deserves a more prominent place on the tree.
Baby Angel is one example.
Baby Angel was given to me by my late father when I was pregnant with my first daughter. Now, that fact alone makes it a special ornament in and of itself. But in recent years, we’ve acquired many more flashy angel ornaments. Baby Angel was hung toward the back of the tree more often than not. Just one angel among many.
This year when I took Baby Angel out of storage I immediately put her in a place of honor in the front part of the tree. Baby Angel reminded me instantly of all the tiny infants slain by Israeli carpet bombing and by Israeli soldiers who forced their doctors away from their incubators in Gazan hospitals, leaving them to die all alone in the cold and dark.
Not exactly a “warm holiday season” thing to contemplate over a mug of hot cocoa, is it?
But it’s reality. Get use to it. The surviving family members of these murdered infants will have to learn to live with it, even if they’re murdered, in turn, by US-provided bombs. Bombs dropped on their refugee camp in the south of Gaza that crushes them under rubble or dismembers them in an explosion. Or they'll die slowly through starvation and disease because Israel has turned off their water, and food and medicine can’t be delivered under the hail of Israeli bombs and their control of the only exit points in Gaza.
I don’t think Baby Angel will ever not remind me of these massacred innocents from now on.
Over 70% of the civilian deaths in Gaza have been women and children. Not soldiers or terrorists but mothers with their children. Children who will never get to celebrate another birthday or holiday. Children who will never get to go to school again or play football with their buddies. Children who pose no threat to anyone except to those who commit a genocide against an entire group of indigenous people so they can steal their land and resources.
Baby Angel will hang on our Christmas tree in a place of honor to commemorate all the babies who became victims of the genocide in Gaza…. In a season that celebrates a baby who survived Herod’s slaughter of the innocents and whose family became refugees who fled to Egypt. It seems appropriate.
Holy infants so tender and mild, sleep in heavenly peace. In this world, there is none.
From a "Ceasefire Carol":
Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright Safety for fathers, mothers, and child Holy infants alive with smiles Ceasefire now! Ceasefire now!
Related Articles and Interesting Links to Contemplate Over Cocoa:
If children are being slaughtered by the thousands in a horrific massacre and someone tries to make the conversation about what words and phrases you’re not allowed to use when opposing that massacre, the correct thing to do is to tell that person to shut the fuck up.
Israel has no intention of minimizing civilian casualties. It has already killed 18,800
Palestinians, 0.82 percent of the Gazan population — the equivalent of
around 2.7 million Americans. Another 51,000 have been wounded. Half of
Gaza’s population is starving,
according to the U.N. All Palestinian institutions and services that
sustain life — hospitals (only 11 out of 36 hospitals in Gaza are still “partially functioning”), water treatment plants, power grids, sewersystems, housing, schools, government buildings, cultural centers, telecommunications systems, mosques, churches, U.N. food distribution points — have been destroyed. Israel has assassinated at least 80 Palestinian journalists alongside dozens of their family members and over 130 U.N.
aid workers along with members of their families. Civilian casualties
are the point. This is not a war against Hamas. It is a war against the
Palestinians. The objective is to kill or remove 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza.
It’s so hard to say who’s in the right in this conflict. On one side you’ve got facts and evidence and a nonstop deluge of raw video footage documenting massacres of civilians day after day after day, but on the other side you’ve got people calling you an anti-semite if you disagree with them. It’s very complicated.
