Food: The Most Lethal Weapon

by C.A. Matthews

Our early morning emergency protest proved challenging. When I arrived, I discovered the entire street in front of the building where our Congresswoman’s district office is located in the process of being torn up. There were drainage pipes being replaced along with concrete mixers and gravel trucks and graders galore. Once I figured out where to park and how to cross the construction area to get to the front door, I found my fellow protesters already hard at work banging loudly on their pots and pans.

The noisy demonstration was to draw attention to the mass starvation of the inhabitants of Gaza. Israel has killed 20.7% of Gaza's population in the past 22 months, or approximately 434,000 people by some estimates.

I don’t hold out much hope for any positive actions coming from our representative, Marcy Kaptur, a conservative Democrat fully in the zy0nists’ pockets. Perhaps we could guilt her into doing something right in Congress for a change. Marcy almost lost her last election, so the longest-serving Congresswoman really should be more cognizant of pleasing her voters, right?

After several minutes of clanking pots together and chanting, “Stop starving Gaza!” a woman in a catering uniform wheeled a cart full of pastries, fruit trays, and large coffee flasks into the building. How ironic! Here we were protesting against the deliberate withholding of food to the people of Gaza, instigated by the US government’s GHF faux humanitarian program, and the occupants of perhaps Congresswoman Kaptur’s office upstairs were about to stuff their faces full of delicious goodies in celebration for a job well done. For me, this cruel comparison of using food as both a means to hurt some and as a means to reward others is an image that will never be forgotten.

A few days later, I joined in a protest march through the University of Toledo where an outdoor arts show was being held on the main mall. The deer-in-the-headlight stares we received from onlookers were more than plentiful. You’d think these very well-heeled folks buying expensive art weren’t aware of the genocide happening in Gaza and that the US was playing a big part in it.

One art hawker even pulled out an American flag and started waving it and shouting angrily at our lack of patriotism as we repeatedly marched past his booth. None of these art-lovers looked like they’d ever missed a meal in their lives—and a few looked like they’d eaten more than enough for two or three persons in their lifetimes.

When it comes down to it, food is the most lethal weapon. Withhold it—and your enemies weaken and starve to death. Lavish it upon them—and your enemies could become your allies or at least less hostile to you, as long as you keep feeding them. Food is the ultimate way to control human beings, forcing them to respond the way you want them to with a minimum of effort. Other than depriving people of oxygen, there’s probably not a control substance in the known universe that’s quite so versatile.

Now you know the real secret behind the starving of millions of Palestinians. Starvation might take a bit longer to accomplish its goal than simply bombing cities, villages, and bodies into rubble, but it’s a relatively simple thing to do. What’s happening currently in Gaza is called a forced famine as it is man-made and not due to natural causes. And withholding food is much cheaper than building or buying bombs, jets, tanks, and other weapons—a win-win situation for aggressors...

 

To learn more about how and where food has been used as a weapon, both in the past and present-day, please continue reading the rest of this article on Substack. Just copy or click on this link: 

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This article is the 530th 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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"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: 

https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

There you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics, and be able to leave comments. You can become a free or paid subscriber and receive weekly posts in your email box, along with occasional special articles just for paid subscribers, too.

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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.

 

Atrocity Propaganda and Narrative Control

Russian propaganda poses a much smaller threat to the western world than the various government agendas that are being rolled out under the justification of fighting Russian propaganda. --Caitlin Johnstone, The US Empire Will Be Defeated By the US Empire

Atrocity Propaganda and Narrative Control

 by C.A. Matthews

There's nothing nasty that's new under the sun. Really, there isn't.

Just when you thought you heard it all, another bit of "disinformation" from the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine pops up and within a month it's revealed as the grotesque lie that it is.  (More on DHS's Disinformation Governance Board here.)

Human rights ombudsman Lyudmyla Denisova was Ukraine's top human rights official until it was revealed that she has been making up obscene stories of Russian soldiers raping defenseless women and children en masse. The Ukrainian parliament found her lurid storytelling to the Western mainstream media to be such an embarrassment and a liability to their cause that they kicked her out of office. 

According to Tyler Durden of ZeroHedge:

As has been the pattern in prior wars, whether in Syria or Libya, the media claims got more and more sensational and over-the-top as the conflict intensified, and as Western powers became more deeply involved, yet with no concrete or definitive proof.

But one consistent detail in the majority of the stories is that the aforementioned Ukraine human rights ombudsman, Lyudmyla Denisova, is often the central figure feeding Western correspondents the shocking rape stories. (...)

"Ukrainian lawmakers dismissed the country’s ombudsman for human rights, Lyudmyla Denisova, in a no-confidence vote on Tuesday, concluding that she had failed to fulfill obligations including the facilitation of humanitarian corridors and countering the deportation of Ukrainians from occupied territory," The Wall Street Journal reported late in the day.

"Lawmaker Pavlo Frolov said Ms. Denisova was also accused of making insensitive and unverifiable statements about alleged Russian sex crimes and spending too much time in Western Europe during the invasion," the report added.

Frolov said in a Facebook post announcing her dismissal as the country's top human rights investigator: 

"The unclear focus of the Ombudsman's media work on the numerous details of ‘sexual crimes committed in an unnatural way’ and ‘rape of children’ in the occupied territories that could not be confirmed by evidence, only harmed Ukraine."

 It's pretty amazing they shut Lyin' Lyudmyla down since she wasn't afraid of dumping "atrocity propaganda." Atrocity propaganda is a very effective weapon in the arsenal of professional propagandists. It has been used to push for increasing amounts of money and weapons to be given to Ukraine with no debate and little expectation of compensation.

 Nothing makes Westerners more horrified and ready to open their wallets than a supposed "reliable source" (often an "anonymous" or insider source like Ms. Denisova or the CIA) spinning a narrative about newborn babies being kicked out of their incubators (Iraq War I) or soldiers being given massive doses of Viagra in order to rape the helpless populace to death (Libya) or huge stockpiles of "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (Iraq War II). 

Going back even further to World War I, it was posited that the German Kaiser's troops actually ate babies for dinner as they advanced into Belgium. Rape, child endangerment, and cannibalism definitely make for great attention-grabbing, pro-war headlines.

Why do our corporate-owned politician-puppets and their media lackeys put out such outrageous falsehoods? Why do they constantly whip up hatred of others such as the Russians, a people that most Americans don't see as being very different from ourselves? I think it's simply because the vast majority of Americans don't mind being lied to. Some might even enjoy having a scapegoat to blame for all the world's ills. 

Comfortable Americans will allow their emotions and intellect to be manipulated by the current government because somewhere, somehow they feel it will  benefit them not to go against the status quo.  Or perhaps it's simply because many Americans can't be bothered to double-check dubious tales the mainstream media feeds them since they have more important things to attend to--like watching professional sports or the latest Marvel movie release.

And so the US government and its cronies will keep lying to the public in order to keep pumping billions of dollars of weaponry into a faltering proxy war. The capitalists rest assured that their lies will never be called out because We the Workers are all too stressed and busy trying to survive to make a fuss. We're too confused to see that we're being played in order to make billionaires even richer.

Other examples of recent atrocity propaganda include newspaper headlines declaring, "Too high wages are causing inflation" which implies that wage cuts and a possible dropping of the federal minimum wage are in the works. Atrocity propaganda can include news stories about how it's good to lock up homeless persons for up to six years for camping because they cannot afford skyrocketing rents, thus creating  more "slave labor" for the for-profit prison system.

Lyudmyla Denisova may have gone the more salacious route with made-up tales of rape and child abuse, but mainstream media pundits casting doubt about who is at fault for our current hard times is every bit as atrocious. Blaming real-life homeless and dispossessed Americans for their current situation is as cruel and evil as labeling them "cannibals." Hatred is stirred up against the most vulnerable. They are turned into scapegoats, blamed and punished, rather than the actual criminals who put all of us into this untenable proxy war/economic meltdown situation. The wealthy one-percent, who profit immensely from the military-industrial complex, are never held responsible for their actions.

The current government narrative spin says it's working class Americans' fault that gasoline is averaging over $5+ a gallon. We're told we're experiencing food shortages because we won't work during a pandemic. Why are they dumping this atrocity propaganda onto our breaking backs? It's simple--the oligarchs want to keep us lowly workers subdued and confused. If we fall for their lies we'll accept ever-worsening conditions. If today things seem bleak and overwhelming, then we will never have the strength to take on these corrupt bastards and change things and make a better tomorrow.

Only by massive amounts of propaganda would people consent to unprecedented acts of economic warfare which directly hurt them and benefit them in no way, shape or form.  --Caitlin Johnstone

The abusive relationship we have with those in power must end. Reject the oligarchs' atrocity propaganda and the status quo's narrative control. Turn off the mainstream media outlets and turn on to the podcasters and independent journalists you can find via Rad Indie Media and the links below to gain a wider perspective. 

Once you know what's really happening in the world, then you can fight more effectively to make it a better place. We owe it to ourselves to take control of the narrative and tell these professional liars where to shove their atrocious propaganda.
 

Related Articles:

Ukrainian Official Behind Western Media Reports of Russian Atrocities Fired by Ukrainian Parliament  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/ukrainian-official-behind-western?s=r

Ukraine Fires Own Human Rights Chief For Perpetuating Russian Troop "Systemic Rape" Stories  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukraine-fires-human-rights-chief-perpetuating-russian-troop-systematic-rape-stories 

Guarding Democracy From News https://scheerpost.com/2022/06/03/guarding-democracy-from-news/ 

US State-Affiliated NewsGuard Targets Consortium News https://scheerpost.com/2022/06/03/u-s-state-affiliated-newsguard-targets-consortium-news/

People Who Defend Empire Narratives Are Really Just Defending Their Viewpoint From Destruction https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/people-who-defend-empire-narratives?s=r

The Rulers Are Losing Narrative Control (video) https://youtu.be/JYuSWarS4Pk 

The Power of Lies  https://scheerpost.com/2022/06/03/craig-murray-the-power-of-lies/

US Federal Reserve Says Its Goal is "To Get Wages Down" https://multipolarista.com/2022/05/24/us-federal-reserve-wages-inflation/

Tennessee Makes Public Camping for Homeless a Felony. Violators Could Face Up to 6 Years in Prison https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/tennessee-makes-public-camping-for-homeless-a-felony-violators-could-face-up-to-6-years-in-prison 

The US Empire Will Be Defeated By the US Empire https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-us-empire-will-be-defeated-by?s=r 

Mass Psychosis -- How an Entire Population Becomes Mentally Ill (video) https://youtu.be/09maaUaRT4M 

Seen on Twitter:

No surprise there. Americans literally have no idea what fascism is, what communism is, what capitalism is, what class consciousness is, what colonialism is, what empire is, what propaganda is, what police are all about. Basically, Americans are the most befuddled confused people

— 🇸🇴⭑ ☭ ⭑ Justice for the Damned ⭑ ☭ ⭑🇸🇴 (@tekstone) June 3, 2022

And neolibs keep supporting these "good Nazis"... #NoWar #antifascist https://t.co/OF5AeaY3iB

— C.A.M.@ TheRevolutionContinues.com (Pls read & RT) (@cynthianna3) June 1, 2022

The queen of the Ukrainian BS machine got fired...https://t.co/S0zQidUBQY

— Back on Double Secret Probation (@thecraigrpowers) June 1, 2022

When we drop bombs, use guns, throw grenades, hurt, destroy, seize, steal, loot, rape, harm and kill in other countries and normalize that as a form of collateral.. it becomes engrained in the Western subconscious as being a standard way of operating not just over there but here.

— Heena Lotus ✨ (@HeenaLotus) June 2, 2022

The US empire's ruling elite have lost control of the narrative and therefore need to push the idea that many independent journalists are "misinformation" or "fake news." They also try to censor anything outside allowable corporate talking points.

— Lee Camp [Redacted] (@LeeCamp) June 2, 2022

 ***

In a near-future dystopian world, hope blossoms where mutual aid and democracy begins...

Zonta’s world is turned upside down when Jake arrives at the commune to investigate the disappearance of agents of the Authority. Can she persuade him to switch sides before the Protectors (antifascist fighters) take action?

Available now from Extasy Books: https://www.extasybooks.com/Where-the-Bodies-Lie 

Please buy direct from the small publisher and not via Amazon. Why? Amazon takes a huge percentage of the book's price and leaves very little for the publisher and author to share. Thanks.