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.)
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...
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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
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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.)
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Teddy R. said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
Donald T. says, “Shout loudly ‘cuz I have a small prick!”
Not one of my better attempts at writing poetry, but it came to me late at night. I just couldn’t forget it.
There’s so much truth in my short poem. It gives the real reason behind why the US is trying to start a war with Iran. It’s all because “Donald T. and his Board of Perverts and Genocidal Maniacs” are doing their best to cover up their heinous crimes, only a few of which have been exposed in this latest Epstein file dump.
What better way for the “Epstein class” to make the public forget all about their peccadilloes than by starting a war and risking nuclear Armageddon? You gotta admit it would create a gigantic smokescreen…
What child trafficking? What rape and torture parties? What genocide of the Palestinian people? What stolen oil and kidnapped president from Venezuela? Who’s blockading Cuba? Warehouses are being turned into ICE mega-prisons? What are you talking about? We’re at war with Iran now—that’s what’s important. That’s all that matters now.
It’s that easy. Besides, nobody of any real consequence will be at risk of being hurt or killed when we go to war with Iran alongside our “closest ally” in order to help them create Greater Israel. Nobody of consequence. Sure, some poor kids suckered into serving in the US armed forces and masses of Iranian civilians could be hurt or killed, but they’re of no consequence whatsoever when compared to superior individuals like Donald, Bibi, and their friends of the Epstein class...
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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...
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“The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary.”
—Ursula K. LeGuin
The Exercise of Imagination
by C.A. Matthews
My husband has a new hobby. Every evening he turns on the local newscast to view the weather forecast so we know how much watering our garden will need the next day. Lately he waits until the national newscast comes on. This is when his cathartic yelling at the screen begins.
“What the…? It’s not a war, asshole. The children of Gaza are being murdered. It’s a goddamn genocide. Say the word, you stupid bastard!”
Mercifully, the six o’clock newscast runs only about sixteen minutes or else he’d be permanently hoarse. I timed the commercials one night, and discovered the half hour is made up of mostly commercials for Big Pharma. That gives you some idea who their target audience is—older Americans with deep pockets who love popping pills.
National newscasts really don’t provide news as much as they give out headlines. Their headlines tend to be predictable propaganda soundbites courtesy of the Ministry of Truth or the government propaganda machine. The news readers with their Hollywood-movie-star looks aren’t trying to impart factual information as much as they’re trying to persuade and provoke emotions, such as hatred and animosity toward those whom the oligarchy wants us to hate. They want us to despise and fear others so much that we’d be willing to go to war with them and die—or at least we’re okay with our children or grandchildren dying for the cause.
After watching several national newscasts, the emotional manipulation became bleedin’ obvious (as my British husband says). Do the regular consumers of mainstream (legacy) media realize they’re being manipulated to believe and feel a certain way in the first place? (See last week’s post about who does the manipulating and why.) What do they really get out of it? Do they actually enjoy being lied to? Do the lies reinforce their deep-seated prejudices and feed their wildest fears, making them fat and content in their hatred? Is warmongering propaganda a source of entertainment for them?
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It's
amazing how certain words can become hot buttons for certain Americans.
"Socialism" is one of them. "Cuba" is another. With both of these terms
back in the propagandists' mill this week, we invited our resident
historian to give us his take on all things Cuban and socialistic.
Cuba Libre
By Coast Watcher
I
sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet
assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to
ease his lot by all possible means—except by getting off his back.
~ Leo Tolstoy.
President
Joe Biden recently called Cuba’s government a "failed state."
His statement is patently false. How can any state said to be failing
for sixty years? The truth of the matter is, the Cuban communist
government is under severe pressure due to the United States general
vindictiveness toward a country that has refused to kowtow to the might
of capitalism. The current straits endured by the Cuban people
are entirely due to the embargo imposed upon their nation by the
United States, an embargo it is forcing the rest of the world to take
part in.
The
United Nations recently attempted to lift the embargo. All but two
nations voted to do so. The exceptions were the United States and
Israel. (Funny that. We seem to be on the Israelis' side whenever
they do something wildly unpopular like bombing civilians and vice
versa. --Editor) The US used its veto power, so the proposal failed. The
embargo stays.
The
shortage of syringes with which to vaccinate people seems to be the
cause of the current protests. So why not allow Cuba to import
syringes to fight Covid in the same way Cuban medical professionals have
traveled to other countries to help combat the pandemic? Because
medical paraphernalia is one of the items banned under the embargo. (Of course they are!)
It’s
no secret that most of the impetus behind the US policy toward Cuba
comes from self-styled Cuban Exiles, people who benefited
hugely from the fascistic Batista regime that ruled the island from
1952 until 1959.
It’s no secret that Big Business is salivating at the prospect of
once again getting a chance to plunder Cuban resources, probably to
the point where it becomes yet another Haiti or Puerto Rico. Biden’s
White House, like all others before since 1959, is going along with
the capitalists' plan.
After
the long series of ignominious pratfalls the CIA has endured since
1959, it looks suspiciously like the CIA is once again involved in
trying to overthrow the Cuban government. (Exploding cigars are probably out this time. --Editor) Mainstream media is playing
up the seriousness of the suspiciously well-equipped protests
currently underway in Cuba, and not mentioning anything about the
huge counter-protests supporting the communist government.
Some
have even called for airstrikes against Cuba, which is really upping
the ante. But then, the US is never above preemptive strikes against
anyone who annoys the capitalists in charge—and Biden has never met a
war he didn’t like.
Would the US dare to deploy its massive
navy in an actual blockade to prevent the rest of the world from
trading with Cuba? Would Biden dare to risk huge disapprobation on
the world stage for showing his country to be the bully really it is?
Frankly, it’s high time the rest
of the world called
the US bluff, and tell it
exactly what it can do with its embargo. (The UN should tell us to stick it where the sun don't shine--straight into the heart of our vampire politicians. -- Editor)
BIO:
Coast Watcher sees through the haze created by the mainstream media
propaganda machine regarding Cuba and calls them on their bullshit. It's
time for Americans to wake up and smell that shit that has been dumped
unceremoniously on the Cuban people for decades and help our neighbors
to the south shovel themselves out of it. They may even thank us by
sending over some of their world-renown Henry Reeve Brigade medics to help out Americans without access to adequate health care during a pandemic in return. Think about it.
“If President Joe Biden really had humanitarian concerns for the Cuban
people he would eliminate the 243 measures applied by President Donald
Trump, including 50 imposed cruelly during the pandemic,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote on his Twitter account.
From sanctions against Iran and
Venezuela to the blockades of Gaza and Yemen, we know well how
devastating economic warfare can be. This is why we care about
what’s happening in Cuba where, thanks to a 60+ year-long
U.S. embargo, economic conditions are dire. There are rising food
prices, rolling blackouts, and medicine shortages.
Last Sunday the U.S.-caused crisis
resulted in anti-government protests on Cuba’s streets and now
far-right regime-change proponents are clamoring to make things even
worse. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is suggesting airstrikes.
Republican Congressman Anthony Sabatini says the Cuban government
should be overthrown and its leaders executed. Senator Rick Scott
wants even more sanctions on the Cuban people! Those calling for war
or sanctions claim that they want to help the Cuban people, but we
know that the best way to help the Cuban people is to lift the embargo
now.
The embargo, put in place over 60
years ago, was specifically designed to bring about hunger,
desperation, and “overthrow” of the Cuban government.
President Trump made the embargo even worse by hitting Cuba’s energy,
tourism and banking sectors, among others, as part of his “maximum
pressure campaign” against the Cuban government. He even limited the
amount of remittances U.S. citizens can send to Cuba, as well as
limiting travel to the island. Trump then imposed even more sanctions
during the pandemic! The combination of the embargo, the Trump
sanctions, and the pandemic make life incredibly difficult for
ordinary Cubans.
Biden made a campaign promise to
reverse the Trump sanctions. Unfortunately, his lack of leadership has
opened the door for right-wingers to use the protests to take control
of the narrative. Just yesterday he broke his pledge and said the
limits on remittances would remain. It’s crucial that we provide a
strong counterweight by calling for an end to the Cuban
embargo!
The good news is that we’re
not alone in this. Some politicians are pushing back —
Senator Bernie Sanders is calling for an end to the embargo and House
Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Greg Meeks, among others, is asking
the Biden administration to lift the Trump sanctions!
The embargo is cruel and illegal, and it
affects every single person in Cuba. The best way to help Cubans is to
lift it now. To learn more, read
this article
Leonardo and I wrote about the protests and the embargo. Also, make
sure to watch this TikTok
by Emily, where
she questions why a few days of protests in Cuba of thousands drew
more media attention than years of protests by hundreds of thousands
of Haitians.
In radical
solidarity, Medea, Leonardo, Michelle,
Teri, Carley, Ariel, Ally, Alida, Ann, Ciara, Cody, Danaka, Emily,
Farida, Jodie, Kelly, Leila, Madison, Mary, Marcy, Moses, Nancy, Paki,
RJ and Sana
***
When it comes to getting ‘forever
chemicals’ out of our drinking water, your hard work and amazing
advocacy have paid off! This week, the House of
Representatives is expected to vote on creating a national standard
that finally sets strict limits on PFAS chemicals in our
water!
This is a huge step forward in protecting families, since PFAS have
been linked to cancer, birth defects, and other serious health
problems. PFAS are called ‘forever chemicals’ because they don’t
easily break down in the environment — 97% of Americans have
measurable levels of these chemicals in their blood.
But getting this critical bill through Congress is going to be an
uphill battle. Giant chemical companies and manufacturers
oppose PFAS limits, which is why it’s so important everyone speaks out
now before the vote.
Consumer Reports’ members across the country helped us test
tap water, and nearly every sample we examined had measurable levels
of PFAS. In response to that disturbing report, 60,000 of you
signed our petition earlier this year to the Administration and EPA to
set an enforceable limit on these contaminants.
That testing and advocacy made a real difference. The PFAS Action
Act not only would create a drinking water standard, it would
designate these chemicals as hazardous substances, limit industrial
discharge, and provide funding for water treatment.
We’re thankful for all of the work you have done to fight for a
federal standard for PFAS in drinking water — your advocacy makes all
our families safer and healthier. Can you do one more thing
after you act, and share this email with friends and family?
Spreading the word this week is critical to getting this bill
passed.
Meg Bohne Consumer Reports
***
Right now, Lakota Law is doing all we can to help build the movement
to stop the Line 3 pipeline. As you may recall, I made my first visit to
the protest camps last month, and we have since sent two more
delegations — including a media team who produced this video from the frontlines.
We are far from done. At month’s end, we’ll send a more permanent
presence to assist our Anishnaabe relatives in their fight to protect
sacred lands and rivers.
Our world continues to move toward the brink of climate catastrophe.
If we don’t fight new, poisonous pipelines, we risk the death of Unci Maka
— our Grandmother Earth — and all our relatives: the waters, the
animals, and the people. That’s why I hope you’ll continue to empower
this movement. We must show up and give of ourselves so the next seven
generations can live and flourish.
To protect the homelands of the Anishinaabe People, Native water
protectors and allies have been standing against this toxic pipeline for
years now. At the Line 3 frontlines, I met with many relatives called
to defend the sacred. They’re sacrificing every day and doing amazing
work, but they also need our help. For this movement to succeed, more
people, more resistance, more media coverage, and more action from our
elected leaders must happen — and soon.
We’re creating a support plan inclusive of you, my relatives, because
it is going to take all of us to stop this. There are many ways to
help. The resistance highway has several lanes, and they’re all valid —
whether you are chained to a bulldozer, or making art, or signing
petitions.
This fight has multiple frontlines, not just one. And camps are
spread hours apart, separated by distance and complicated by the lack of
cell service. Our media team felt the drills boring into the ground and
under the Mississippi while they slept. Even as the pipeline
experienced a “frac-out,” or release of drilling fluids into the river,
the camps — including Red Lake Treaty Camp, Manoomin Camp, Shell River
Camp, Welcome Water Protector Center, and Camp Migizi — are all urgently
in need of people.
If you can show up in person as a water protector, you will be in
good company — and we will happily provide resources for you to
participate in a good way. Regardless, please do what you can to stand
with the Anishnaabe by amplifying this struggle.
Wopila tanka — thank you for your dedication to safeguarding sacred land and water.
Madonna Thunder Hawk,
Cheyenne River Organizer
The Lakota People’s Law Project
Chaos: The Preferred Pattern of Control
