Who Are We?
We are people from all over the world, more than 20 countries.
We are concerned about the climate, about the future—and about the present. We want to prevent climate collapse, and we actively join with groups fighting fascism and authoritarian regimes that abuse both people and our Earth. We are not nationalists. We are mutually supportive citizens of Humanity.
We see our species as sharing a common fate, and people everywhere should take care of themselves, each other and our planet. To do anything less would be, we believe, literally insane. The name of our group, The Saners, comes from the idea that it would be insane to knowingly choose to ruin the planet we all live on.
We are not a big group—as I write these words, we have less than 1,000 signed up members. But we consider ourselves to be the vanguard of the unconscious dreams of people everywhere. We give voice to a vision that people are too timid, or tired, or defeated to speak or even think.
Before speaking truth to power, we need to speak truth to ourselves and each other.
Through the organizing skills and action of groups like Indivisible and Fifty Fifty One, Americans are learning to recognize and wield their power—a power of nonviolent resistance. While many dismiss nonviolence, historically movements that use that strategy succeed twice as often as violent movements. The Saners endorse this strategy as both moral and effective.
While what came next wasn’t always good, nonviolent movements ousted the dictators of Serbia, Poland, The Philippines, Romania, Tunisia, Egypt, Brazil, and—most dramatically—the Soviet Union. To dismiss the power of moral force and nonviolent resistance is to deny history itself.
We urge people to join nonviolent movement everywhere, wherever they are battling for a moral cause, because this is a skill essential not only for meeting today’s crises, but for human survival itself.
More than anything else, The Saners seek to represent and embody the best values that humans have to offer. We care for each other, for our planet. We share. We work together and play together. We are available to care for other but also respect boundaries. We have human shortcomings and often fail, but our aim is true. We approach each day determined to live fully and build a better world for everyone.