Instead of leading, the authorities and challengers are pointing fingers at each other. They never effectively deal with the ongoing crises. In fact, the climate is collapsing. and unnecessary suffering and violence are rampant largely BECAUSE of our stupid leadership. Governments, corporations, systems are all fatally flawed.
The usual series of diversions and denials are taking place among the idiots that, to our shame, we still listen to. When will we learn to stop paying attention to fools, and take charge?
Some of us are ready now. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
L.A. is burning. First responders and simply good people are helping and others are criticizing. Nearly everyone is making up clueless “lessons” from the disaster.
Mucking Around the Edges Perpetuates and Expands the Polycrisis
When you ruin the climate of the entire planet, disasters like the L.A. fires are inevitable. The specific causes of this particular fire are irrelevant. The dryness, the winds, and other conditions caused by human stupidity on a grand scale are the most significant cause.
Ignore this, and more and worse such disasters are inevitable. And yet, nobody in a position of authority or power has ever done anything meaningful to blunt climate collapse.
The Inflation Reduction Act—which actually IS the biggest climate bill in history—is window dressing. Our civilization continues to pour gigatons of CO2 through massive burning of fossil fuels into the biosphere. Without stopping that, nothing gets better.
We aren’t fighting the L.A. fires or any other climate disaster. We are feeding the fires.
A Failure of Values, of Systems, of Leadership
Something fundamental is wrong. And this endless distruction represents our actual values. Our professed values are excellent, charming lies—talk is cheap.
In truth, as a society, we do not value life or the planet we live on. That’s why both are routinely abused, and on a grand scale. We accept and sometimes even praise this outrage. Few of us resist or even know how to resist.
That is changing. We are still a bit clueless on strategy. We think protests and lobbying our “representatives” may help. We think we can “vote” with our dollars. Yes, all of that does something—but not much.
The gold standard of resistance, the approach that has a record of success is nonviolent noncooperation. And exposure of the total and catastrophic failure of the systems and leaders that we still follow.
Our first and most important step is to stop following them, stop obeying them, stop committing stupid acts of cruelty against each other and our planet at their behest.
They are fools and may always be fools. But WE have the choice to wake up, to NOT be fools. Indeed this is happening, in part because the collapse of the climate and everything else is increasingly obvious and unavoidable.
Also, the authorities are unable or perhaps unwilling to bother covering their tracks. They barely pretend to care about anything but themselves, or to have any respect for any human being or for the biosphere that sustains us.
They are revealing that they are too stupid to even continue living. WE must save them just as we must save ourselves.
Anybody who continues to worry about profits, and property and “power” while actively destroying the planet we all live on—well those people are beyond hope and certainly do not deserve our support or respect. They need our pity and our help.
But first we must completely disempower them. Completely. By NOT taking their orders, by not accepting their money, by not working for them, by not paying taxes or even listening to their endless stupid blathering.
WE need to focus on reality and on what’s really important. And you know what that is, don’t you? It’s not “the economy.”
It’s not some particular company or government or whatever. It’s not any of the stuff that dominates public discourse.
What’s important is life and our planet. We have ONE planet and each of us has ONE life. We must protect our planet and live our lives to the fullest. That is our focus and our purpose.
We share a common experience and ultimately a common fate. We live finite lives, usually no more than 8 decades or so, and this is bookmarked by two infinities of non-existence.
What are we going to do? Love one another. Take care of ourselves and each other. Cherish and protect our planet and the creatures that share this lovely Earth with us. And we will not cooperate with evil destructive acts, nor will we waste our time on senseless labor which is a crime against the gift of life. We will produce what is needed—food, shelter, medicine—and share with everyone.
We will all have ENOUGH and never forget that producing much more—particularly for something as trivial as profit and hoarding—is ridiculous.
We value our time, and chance to be together, to tell stories and create art—and any form of self-expression. We will enjoy
Nature as we give Her the time and space to heal.
We know that some evil and stupidity and destruction will continue, but it will diminish with our noncooperation. Others will join us, will see the rancid systems and behaviors for what they are, and abandon them. They will join us because we will show the way. By example, not coercion.
Nobody Else Is Offering Anything Worthwhile
What do you want? A more prestigious job? More money? More stuff?
We want more LIFE. And we want freedom from servitude, from wasting our lives on producing and selling crap and making other people wealthy. We want to stop being used as “human resources” and stop watching our Earth being abused as “raw materials.”
While others hate, we will love. While others rape the Earth, we will cherish her and humbly share in Her bounty. While others compete, we will cooperate. While others run on an adrenaline fix, we will live fully as human beings.
We will honor the lives that fate has given us. We will respect one another. We will care about what’s important and ignore the nonsense.
We can do this. We have plans. We are basing our group—our community—on principles established by intelligent and thoughtful people who came before. On principled espoused and lived by Gandhi and King and lesser-known but still wonderful souls.
We are The Saners. Read about us in WeAreSaners.org and consider joining our community. Sign up at WeAreSaners.org/join.
Add your first comment to this post