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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This article is the 586th 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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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: 

https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

There you'll be able to read the rest of this article, find related links, see more graphics, and leave comments. You can become a free or paid subscriber and receive weekly email posts, along with occasional special articles just for paid subscribers, too.

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This article is the 585th 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 Paypal or via 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 at 1-800-379-2679.        

 

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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This article is the 584th 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 at 1-800-379-2679.       

 

How To Destroy A Country

by C.A. Matthews

This isn’t something most of us thought we’d ever see in our lifetimes. It was bound to happen sooner or later, but why now?

The United States of America is being destroyed from within—on purpose by its oligarchy, apparently. There’s no need to blame any other country or “terrorists” (foreign or domestic) for its destruction. Americans are perfectly able to tear themselves apart without outside help, thank you very much. They almost succeeded in doing so about 166 years ago, and there are many who wish it had been accomplished way back then.

The funny thing is that many Americans don’t see the destruction of their country happening currently. Do you call that “woeful ignorance” or “willful ignorance” on their parts?

I’m sure once the DOA tag has been tied to their collective toes Americans will understand that the USA is dead and gone for good. Until then, they’ll happily remain blissfully bamboozled (i.e., brainwashed or propagandized). They’ll keep convincing themselves that tomorrow will be their lucky day. They’ll keep praying that they’ll never need to see a doctor before they’ve landed a job with decent private health insurance as a perk. The self-destructive elements inherent in the American capitalist system get lost in the details, in other words.

Nobody acknowledges the downside of one American having a trillion dollars to his name at the expense of 340 million other people with far less who actually have to pay taxes. Nobody thinks of how denying universal health care to all Americans creates an unhealthy underclass that has nothing left to live for except revolution. Nobody gives a flying f*** about the homeless, the mentally ill, or the disabled living on the streets—directly beside tents occupied by well-employed Millennials who still can’t afford an average rent in Silicon Valley or most large cities in the US.

Don’t agree with me that US is disintegrating? Below (on Substack) are some recent headlines illustrating how the bomb fuse of chaos has already been lit and lobbed by the ruling elites upon the Land of the Sort-of Free and the Home of the Wannabe Brave. It’s just a matter of time now until it blows up in one big Ka-BOOM! Even now you can hear the clock ticking: Tick tick tick…

 

To read some recent headlines that demonstrate what's happening to the country (and what Americans should do about it), please copy or click on the following link: 

https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

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This article is the 575th 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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The Time For Revolution Is Now

 

The Time For Revolution Is Now (No More Waiting/Burn It Down)

by C. A. Matthews

I just had to smile.

What was I smiling at? This: A person was arrested Friday after throwing a Molotov cocktail at the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in San Francisco.

Molotov cocktail? Thrown at the home of a Big Tech CEO (who was charged with sexually abusing his sister in January 2025)? Could this mean? Really, could this be the start of…?

Only the day before this sentence on X grabbed me: An unhappy employee started this fire at the Kimberly-Clark warehouse in Ontario, California.

A massive 1.2 million foot warehouse full of paper products went up in flames. The unhappy employee was reported as saying, “All you had to do was pay us enough to live.” (The next day a shopping mall in Ontario, California was set on fire. Good ideas catch on fast.)

Less than 24 hours later I read that a warehouse in Queens, NY was burning in a four alarm fire. And the day after that I spied an X post about another warehouse (full of lumber) burning in Wayne County, Ohio.

And then there’s this recent headline: ‘Everyone is Replaceable’: Death Rattles Oregon Amazon Facility about how an employee dropped over dead and management told workers “to look away” rather than stop and resuscitate him.

Add these fiery actions and lack of respect for workers to the massive flood of conscientious objector calls to national hotlines due to the illegal war in Iran—as well as Luigi Mangione’s “protest” against the CEO of United Healthcare for their high rate of denying health insurance claims—and I’m starting to see a pattern.

Could it actually be that Americans have had enough? Are they ready for Revolution?

I’m not talking about the so-called “American Revolution” of 250 years ago, either. That was tame by comparison to what could be happening here. 

In 1776, we allowed a bunch of rich, white males tell the rest of us that they were tired of paying taxes to the crown and wanted to form their own style of monarchy—an oligarchy—instead. Forget that quaint little “tea party” in Boston Harbor. The “American Revolution” didn’t free enslaved persons, women, or the working poor, and it certainly didn’t recognize the right of the Native American peoples to live peacefully and have control over their own lands...

 

To find out what a Revolution really should be like, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 566th 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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"Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave."

Unfit To Be a Slave

by C. A. Matthews

For being the shortest month of the year, February certainly packs a lot of punches.

Most of them are gut punches, too. I received some great news this week from a friend who has been given a second chance to prove himself, but that good news was almost instantly nullified by some heartbreaking news from another friend that made the tears flow freely. Life is a series of ups and downs. No doubt about it.

The news cycle—the real news cycle, not the pretend mainstream media one—hasn’t been all that joyful, either. What to write about this week? Hmm…

The US is still funding a horrific genocide in Palestine and helping Israel to steal all the land in both Gaza and the West Bank. The US is openly starving Cuba into submission for God-knows-what reason. Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife are still prisoners, and the US government is giving their oil to Israel, of course. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE are purchasing hundreds of empty warehouses to imprison immigrants and perhaps citizens as well. And the latest Epstein files dump tells us that our “ruling class” is into cannibalism besides child rape, torture, and murder. So many wonderful topics to choose from!

I decided finally to ignore the gut punches and think about better things happening in February, such as Black History Month. It’s a good time of the year to sit back and reflect on how the United States became the complete and utter shithole it is today by honoring those who fought hard to rise above its racist-fascist shittiness.

The inspiration came from the meme at the top. It popped up on my UpScrolled feed. (Join today—UpScrolled doesn’t shadow-ban.) Frederick Douglass definitely knew what he was talking about. Once you know something—you really know all there is to know about it—you can’t let go of that knowledge. It changes you. It becomes a part of you, for better or worse...

 

To gain more knowledge that will make you unfit to be a slave of the corrupt system, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 558th 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!

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

 

Revolutionaries Don’t Ask Permission

by C. A. Matthews

The kids in Minneapolis get it. They stood outside the hotel where ICE agents were staying and made noise all night long. Loud noise. Deafening music and consistent shouting. All. Night. Long. No sleep for the killers and kidnappers of ICE allowed.

The kids didn’t ask for permission. They didn’t care about violating a noise ordinance or getting arrested. They just wanted ICE gone. For good. For the family of Renee Good. For the good of the community.

This is what Revolution is all about. It’s about doing good for the sake of the community—not the billionaire oligarchs ruling this fascist state.

Revolution is not about doing nothing and taking the shit dumped on us. It’s about shoveling that shit right back into the faces of those who wish to bury us. We bury them instead until the threat is no more.

I think the constant following and videoing of ICE agents in Minneapolis will wear the bastards down in time. They will leave town and avoid the upper Midwest from now until their ultimate demise at our hands. So keep it up, kids! You do us proud.

More Americans need to demonstrate the same bravery, the same courageous bloody-mindedness of the Minneapolis protesters...

 

To learn more about what it means to be a revolutionary, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 554th 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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"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. 

You can make a donation at https://paypal.me/camatthews or Buy Me a Coffee or Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you.