Alternative Structures

Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash

Vaclav Havel and how to live inside and ultimately dismantle tyranny.

Vaclav Havel was uniquely suited to inspire a revolution. He was a playwright. All great artists are implicitly reformers or revolutionaries.

One way to deal with a civilization or society built on greed, hatred, violence and brutality is to NOT live in it. One can live largely in alternative structures, some built prior to the emergence of the regime and some we build ourselves in the shadow of it.

This may seem like a vague or weak idea, but it was a key component of a successful Czech resistance movement. And it’s something we need to understand today, at this very moment.

Let’s Not Watch In Horror. Let’s Start Our Own Programs.

What is it we fear in a brutal regime? Maybe some abstract things, like the end of the rule of law. But really, we fear genuinely terrible and real threats: violence, shortages, imprisonment, deportations, cruelty.
What’s the opposite of these things? WE need to build communities and programs of THAT.

Anyone can create or grow something beautiful. You don’t need authorization. Indeed, asking for official authorization is a mistake. You are alive. You can do things. WE can do things.

Let’s do them.

Some Ideas

I don’t want you to restrict your thinking to my ideas. I offer them as possibilities (and I’d love if you join or support any of these ideas!), but also to spark YOUR imagination.

In Egypt, during the movement that removed the dictator Hosni Mubarak, religious differences were a problem. Would Muslims and Coptic Christians work together to free their country? Some did. In one case, when a group of Christians were threatened with violence, a group of (brilliant!) Muslims surrounded and protected them from a mob.

In that case, sadly, religious hatred and not love ultimately won. The Muslim Brotherhood-no friend of Christians or non-religious people-took charge and later another thug, el-Sisi, ended up as the new dictator.

But let’s learn from and emulate the good. Let’s protect the people who are endangered. Maybe create groups designed to carry out this kind of protection. Or even just a group that gives advice on HOW to protect endangered people.

Dehumanization of groups of people and individuals opposed to the regime is a core tenant of totalitarianism and fascism. That’s why, today, we see the incoming regime as a cesspool of racism and sexism. Because that is who they are. And it’s a core component of their power and influence.

We need programs and tactics that humanize everyone—including our opponents. The incoming regime has labeled non-white immigrants as less than human. WE embrace immigrants as follow human beings-which is what they actually are. We know that the rapists and murderers are at the helm of the incoming administration.

Immigrants do honest work and contribute to our society.

And so there’s (an embryonic) program to identify all people of good will as friends. In fact this program is designed to defang all ridiculous conflicts by showing that none of them are necessary. Nobody needs other people’s land-we can all live together, sharing and socializing with each other and talking about sports, or families, or (my favorite!) pets!

This program is called BeFriend. The idea is to have so-called mortal enemies publicly and visibly sit together (perhaps at an outdoor cafe) with a table tent describing the BeFriend program, with an URL. And in various cities around the world, it would be common to see Arabs and Jews socializing happily, Turks and Greeks breaking bread and laughing, and essentially all hatred being SHOWN PUBLICLY to be stupid and unnecessary.

You can read about BeFriend HERE.

What about food? With the climate collapse and a really stupid administration coming in, we are bound to have food shortages. We should really produce and control our own food supply.

Such vehicles exist, like community gardens and food co-ops. Can we tie these together and figure out how to provide healthy food for everyone? Let’s work towards that. I’m particularly intrigued by an idea I heard recently-turning lawns into gardens. Lawns waste tons of water and gardens that produce food use water wisely.

That’s an idea I love. We can make this a trend. We really should.

Most of all, I am committed to encouraging the building of local community ties, and local organizations dedicated to helping people, to spreading joy, to strengthening our ties to our neighbors.

I am in the process of trying to setup the first Saners Community. The Saners is a group that understands that to ruin the planet we all live on is literally insane. The group is committed to using nonviolent noncooperation to prevent climate collapse and build a humane, sane and caring civilization to replace…well, whatever you want to call the sad and destructive culture we have today.

You will be hearing more about this in the coming days at the website WeAreSaners.org. And while you are visiting that page, consider signing up at WeAreSaners.org/join.

Where Is this Headed?

A world built on oil and greed cannot continue in the same way. Even if there was NO resistance, this civilization is unsustainable and dooming itself.

When we build alternative structures, we not only protect ourselves today but put systems in place to help everyone when the collapse comes. We are building a safety net for our loved ones and for our entire Earth.

The motivations of totalitarians and fascism is hatred and greed and stupidity. We are motivated by love of life, love of our planet, and love for each other. Our choices and values are built on a solid foundation. Today’s sick civilization is built on quicksand.

I’m placing my bet on US.