Well, Duh! (The Bleedin’ Obvious)

by C. A. Matthews

“I told you so!” was the first title I came up with for this rant, but then I thought Nobody likes a person who tells them ‘I told you so.’ Another title idea was, “It’s as clear as the nose on your face,” but it seemed a bit long. I finally settled on one of my British husband’s favorite sayings: “It’s bleedin’ obvious, itn’t it?” Then I realized most Americans have no clue what that phrase means, so here’s the short definition: “Well, duh!”

Everything in the news this past week made me say, “Well, duh! It’s bleedin’ obvious! Why is this particular piece of news being reported only now by the mainstream media? Oh, I know you know why—it wasn’t advantageous for the oligarchs’ narrative earlier on—but why would they report the bleedin’ obvious they’ve ignored for so long unless now they have an ulterior motive?”

If you haven’t guess what I’m referring to yet, here’s the big headline from an Israeli newspaper: Netanyahu Received an Explicit Warning Days Before Oct. 7. He Didn’t Brief Israel’s Security Chiefs

Well, duh! Even in the first few days after October 7 there were mentions in the press about how the Egyptians and even the US had given the Israelis intel about a possible uprising coming out of Gaza. Now all of a sudden we’re getting the mainstream media in both the West and Israel admitting this nugget of damning evidence along with juicy details. Not only did the Egyptians warned Netanyahu personally, but also high ranking people from the UAE did. Repeatedly. Still, Netanyahu did nothing with the intel and told his security chiefs nothing.

Along comes The New York Times (not to be bested) with this headline: Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year (before 2023). Not to be outdone, CNN boldly made this statement: US intelligence warned of the potential for violence days before Hamas attack. PBS even mentioned that Hamas had posted video of a mock attack on social media weeks before the border breach. And last but not least, IDF wall spotters have snitched and said they’d been seeing suspicious things happening over in Gaza, but their commanders wouldn’t listen to their reports.

I’m starting to see a definite pattern here, aren’t you? Well, duh...

 

To see more evidence of a pattern (and learn about another whopper told by the Liar-in-Chief), please copy or click on the following link: 

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Gaza's Gravediggers

 

This week I thought I’d do something a little different. Besides writing this blog for over eleven years, I’m also a book reviewer/book doctor and disgruntled novelist. This post is what I call an “extended book review,” one in which I don’t have to worry about the word count, etc. (Don’t be surprised if you see an abbreviated review elsewhere online later. Or post one yourself.)

I was given the chance to read Norman Finkelstein’s upcoming release, Gaza’s Gravediggers, and I can’t keep his insights to myself any longer. It documents the how and when and where of the why Israel is able to get away with committing a horrific genocide of the Palestinian people with little to no consequences. (And frankly, I don’t think Israel really cares about the consequences of being labeled bloodthirsty neo-Nazis just as long as nobody demonstrates the gumption to shut down their infernal killing machine.) 

Finkelstein has done us all a huge favor by methodically researching the recent International Court of Justice cases in regards to the genocide claim made first by South Africa. It’s all there in black and white, the details of how Israel apologists have infiltrated that court as well as other high positions in the International Criminal Court and the United Nations. The world is maintained in a perpetual stalemate so that both Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people and America’s imperialism can continue unabated.

If you want to invest in one book (and why just one?) that records for posterity the manipulation of international law behind this ultimate crime against humanity, then Gaza’s Gravediggers is it. —C.A. Matthews

 

Gaza’s Gravediggers

 by Norman G. Finkelstein

 O/R Books

Release date September 1, 2026 in the US, September 3 in the UK
Preorder by clicking  here

“Why isn’t the United Nations (UN) or the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the International Criminal Court (ICC) doing anything to stop the terrible genocide happening to the Palestinian people?” is a remark one often sees online nowadays. The frustration expressed about the lack of action to end the violence is heartfelt. 

The world’s leading forensic scholar and professor of political theory and the Israel-Palestine conflict, Norman Finkelstein, isn’t afraid to tackle this question head on. His meticulously documented critique of recent UN/ICJ/ICC activities reveal how a deplorable element has infiltrated these international bodies, creating a stalemate that has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands, a number which grows daily...

To read the entire review of Gaza's Gravediggers, please copy or click on the following link: 

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This article is the 579th 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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Know Your Enemy

by C. A. Matthews

When working with immigrants in the United States you’ll often hear the phrase “Know Your Rights” or “KYR” for short. KYR cards are business-sized and usually printed in English on one side and Spanish or another language on the other. They’re handed out to immigrants and their supporters to remind them of their rights under the law, and what they should say and do if they are confronted by ICE or the Border Patrol. It’s amazing how helpful these little slips of paper can be in a time of crisis.

I believe it’s time to start handing out another reminder card to the general public—a “Know Your Enemy” card. Ordinary Americans need reminding exactly who our enemies are and what we can do to protect ourselves from them. If you find yourself in a difficult situation and you’re not sure who you can trust, the following handy reminders could save you a lot of woe.

To get all Americans on the same page, the following are NOT your enemies:

1. “Illegal Aliens” (or immigrants) 2. Real Bug-Eyed Space Aliens 3. Russians 4. Chinese persons 5. Iranians 6. Cubans 7. Venezuelans 8. Palestinian babies in incubators (Hamas!) 9. Lebanese villagers and their priests 10. Paramedics, doctors, nurses, other medical personnel, teachers, college professors, and aid workers living in a foreign country under attack by the US and/or one of its allies (including United Nations workers).

The following ARE your enemies:

1. Capitalists (of all persuasions, particularly Fascists and all listed in the Epstein files) 2. The Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) and related corporations 3. Congress, the president, and all politicians and supporters of the duopoly (that is, all members of “Team Red and Team Blue”) 4. Propagandists who cover for the duopolists 5. The Mainstream Media outlets who hire propagandists and censor dissenters 6. “Tech Bros” who shadow-ban dissenters on their social platforms and want to wipe out the working class and replace them with— 7. AIs and their AI programs that pick out military targets to bomb such as elementary schools and hospitals in countries with large non-white populations (and think nuking humans is okay) 8. The IDF and White Supremacists of all persuasions, particularly Zionists 9. AIPAC/ADL/J Street and their off-shoot agencies and lobbyists (because they along with the MIC are doing their best to bribe all of number three). 10. ICE and all armed thugs and state terrorists that do the dirty work of our enemies.

Now that we’re all on the same page, we all know what the enemy looks like, acts like, sounds like, etc., we can work together and come up with ways to fight against our mutual foes and free ourselves from their tyranny, right?

 

To find out how we can work against our Enemy and build a brighter future, please copy or click on the following link: 

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A Wedding in Gaza

words and above photo by C. A. Matthews

As the sun sets earlier and earlier in the Northern Hemisphere and the temperatures plummet, it gets harder and harder to remain optimistic, to see the good in things. This is the start of the winter season, the time of Advent and Christmas when most children in the Western world are hyped up on cookies and hot cocoa and can’t wait to open presents and play much to the consternation of grumpy adults who just want to hibernate and forget all about how shitty things are in the world-at-large.

Just when all seems lost, a beautiful hope is born anew in our hearts, a hope like no other. A hope is born into a land that has been ravaged and bombed and starved and mostly ignored by the powers-that-be. A wedding takes place in Gaza—a mass wedding for 54 couples.* They are blazing a path through the desert of apartheid and genocide to rebuild their pulverized homes and renew their decimated families. They are showing the world how it is done, how to leave the evils visited upon them behind. There is no looking back for these husbands and wives, only forward.

What have we “grumpy bears” in the West to complain about? Nothing really.

Words alone can’t contain the unbridled beauty in the faces of these happy couples, so here are a link and a video with gorgeous photos of the event that occurred in Khan Younis amid the rubble...

 

To see the photos and video of the wedding, plus read some guest bonus poetry, please check out of the rest of the article by copying or clicking on the following link: 

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An Anthem For Our Times

by C. A. Matthews

I wanted to do something different this week just to see where it would take me.

Last week’s post was on the longer side, and fact-heavy articles tend not to get re-posted as much. So I decided this time ‘round to share some more of my poetry, but this time by putting it to a tune. (Maybe this kind of audio post will help me break into the Substack Top 100? I’d be happy just to get my subscriber count over 2,000, including a few more paying subscribers.)

I won’t claim to be a poet. I’ve had some of my poetry published before, such as last year’s poem Dust From Gaza in For All, the Revolutionary Poets Brigade anthology. I know a lot more talented poets here on Substack (such as Dan Denton) who make my attempts at poetry pale by comparison. But I was inspired by two recent events to write this poem, which quickly became the lyrics to a song, an actual honest-to-goodness protest song.

I thought: “Every generation has a protest song, a song that sums up what’s really important and needs to change to make the world a better place. Why can’t I write that song?”

I know that sounds a bit arrogant, but one can always dream of being remembered for more than just writing a weekly sociopolitical column for the past ten years and pissing off more strangers, friends, and acquaintances than there are grains of sand on the beach in Gaza. I’d like it if people could say at my passing: “Wow, she cared enough to put herself out there and write a pro-Palestine protest song that made even more people hate her.”

The inspiration for my song came from Caitlin Johnstone’s brilliant in-your-face essay, Nobody Say “Fuck Israel, Free Palestine” which was in turn inspired by the Northern Irish hip-hop group Kneecap’s brilliant in-your-face protest screen at the recent Coachella music festival. Caitlin and Tim (they’re a writing team, so I don’t want to leave either of them out) stated that one should never say the phrase “Fuck Israel, Free Palestine,” as this could be considered hurtful by those folks who think “genocide is good.”

Well, let me state for the record that I’m certainly not one of those immoral, sadistic, sick and twisted bastards who thinks “genocide is good.”

 

To listen to a recording and read the protest song lyrics, continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Copy or click on this link: 

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Verify Your Humanity

by C. A. Matthews

Humanity refers to the quality or state of being human, which includes traits like kindness and compassion towards others. --Wikipedia

Humanity: understanding and kindness toward other people. --Cambridge Dictionary

Humanity is the quality of being kind, thoughtful, and sympathetic towards others. Synonyms: kindness, charity, compassion, understanding. –-Collins Dictionary

“Verify that you’re a human” the instructions tell you with an online check box. But are you? Just because you can check a box that an A.I. ‘bot might not be able to doesn’t really verify your humanity, does it?

I’ve been having doubts for several years now, doubts that keep me awake nights. What if some of the people I see on the streets, in the grocery store, at the doctor’s office, online and particularly on the television news aren’t actually “human”? What if they’re just sophisticated facsimiles of human beings, but there’s no “soul” or “conscience” within? In other words, what if these individuals display no humanity? What should I do about those persons who are able to check the box, but whose heartless actions demonstrate they are anything but human?

In science fiction action movies, the aliens are usually not the good guys. They want to eat us, enslave us, or use our bodies as batteries to power a matrix. Should we assume these faux humans we encounter on a daily basis are equally nefarious?

Here are some examples of individuals who worry me—and possibly you, too, if you’re human.

One perfect example of this “human or not?” conundrum is Donald Trump, better known in our household as the Cheeto Bandito. If Trump knows how to send a post on Twitter/X, then he probably can check that box verifying he’s a human, but is he really?

To be considered human you have to be able to do more than apply orange face paint on a daily basis. You have to demonstrate your humanity to the world, or show empathy and compassion for others, especially to the most vulnerable in society. Trump fails in this area big time...

 

Discover even more examples of "faux humans" (and what we should do with them) by reading the rest of this article. Copy or click on this Substack link: 

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                            Happy Holy Week and Power to the People!

This article is the 515th 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 at Buy Me a Coffee or at Ko-fi. Every little bit helps since this is my only source of income. Thank you.

 

 

2024: Monsters Revealed

by C. A. Matthews

Every genre of fiction has its purpose. While the horror genre is far from being my favorite, even I can see it has its uses. In a horror film, we see true evil and learn who the real villains are and what sort of monsters we’re up against. The plot of a horror movie usually revolves around fighting against the monsters, sometimes losing, but sometimes winning. In the end, the Blob is defeated. The teen slasher is himself slashed. The vampire gets a wooden stake through the heart.

If there was one genre that sums up the world’s happenings in 2024 it would be the horror genre. To be more precise, 2024 has been a first-rate, B-grade monster movie where the monsters and their terrorizing actions have been revealed for all to see. There’s no doubt who and what the monsters are, and what we’re up against in the new year. It’s now up to us to survive the coming horrors and to take out as many monsters as possible before they get us.

If there were such an award, I’d award The Monster of the Year title to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. (For more on Blinken’s “winning traits” read Liar, Liar! World’s On Fire!) No one person encapsulates everything that is so purely evil simply for the sake of evil than Antony Blinken does. Sure, soon-to-be-former President Joe Biden and Bibi Netanyahu are in the top three, but Blinken is the ultimate monster in the fact that there’s no good reason he should lie as monstrously as he does, as much as he does, but he does. He just can’t seem to help himself...

 

To learn more about the monsters of 2024, please click on this Substack link: https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com. There you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics, and be able to leave comments. You also can become a free or paid subscriber and receive weekly posts in your email box, along with occasional special articles just for paid subscribers. 

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This article is the 500th 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! Thank you.