Photo by Dynamic Wang on Unsplash
I began writing this on Election Day, when I sensed the rapist and felon was going to win. I recognized that the guardrails of representative government failed, but actual reality will inevitably re-assert itself over pompous fools.
Of course, America has long been in steady decline. The acceleration began with Newt Gingrich’s Contract on America (which he Orwellianly called a Contract For America).
I’d hoped we could delay this reckoning and personally worked for the cheerful ordinary candidate, Kamala Harris…but the madman won.
At this point, its obvious that our visibly weakened systems have now collapsed.
What remains of American government provides no protection and no rights for us.
I had given up long ago on expecting much from our government, or from governments and corporations anywhere. I’d simply hoped we could stem this total collapse awhile longer, while preparing a movement to replace this shitshow with a humane civilization and a stabilized climate.
Now we will need to do this under much harsher conditions.
Fortunately, there is a way. Stick with me.
A Force More Powerful Than Governments and Corporations
We can and must save civilization and our planet by doing the exact opposite of what fools do. And we must no longer focus on working through the system, but on creating a beautiful new world, a living world, in the shadow of this ugly new world of death and hatred.
I want you to read the next paragraph slowly and carefully and stop afterward to contemplate what it means.
In the 1990’s, a tiny group of 5 college students started a movement and ousted a brutal dictator without firing a shot. We aren’t talking about brilliant skillful leaders like Gandhi and King. We are talking about 5 rather ordinary, wet behind the ears, Serbian college students.
Stop now. Think. Roll this around in your head. A handful of ordinary young people, without firing a shot, replaced a brutal dictator with a representative government.
SEE: Otpor and the Struggle for Democracy in Serbia (1998-2000)
How We Can Be Certain That Fascism Will Fail
This isn’t the 1940s. Our climate and the ecosystems of our planet are collapsing. We have been treating this as a theoretical situation, but it is a hard unavoidable reality.
Even before this latest calamity, corporations have been successfully ruining the planet, and no country had successfully resisted them.
Indeed, the greedy elites and their abusive political and economic systems have been accelerating the demise of our species for a long time.
They will discover that they cannot function because of the consequences of their actions. They will not enjoy the spoils of their “victory.” It is already being washed a way by floods, burnt to a crisp by heat domes, and obliterated by crop-destroying weather extremes.
These consequences of drill drill drill will result in a hungry, fearful and restive population which they cannot control.
A vengeful cruel government can pass all the laws they want and rule with an iron fist. But this incoming administration, and similar governments and corporations elsewhere, cannot violate Natural Law. Indeed, they will be extinguished by Natural Law, by the very forces they’ve unleashed.
Nature cannot be fooled and objects will never fall up.
WE Have More Than Enough Power To Shape Events
We can take control of our fate, protect our planet and rescue our children from the forces of cruelty.
We will need each other to make this happen and right now YOU are a key to this.
We need to dismiss our doubts and excuses. People power has worked, time and again. No, we do not need everybody. No, a brutal and “powerful” foe will not defeat us-if we are smart and strategic.
No, we don’t need big public gatherings to show our opponents. No we don’t need and, indeed, should reject violence. Because violence is wrong AND it benefits our opponents, who can then claim we are no better than they are. If we stoop to violence, they will be (to some degree) correct.
Don’t point out other people-how many opponents we have, or how lazy too many Americans are, how clueless they are.
That may or may not be true, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is what YOU do and what I do, and what WE do. Five ordinary college students deposed Milosevic. We are starting out with a lot more than they did.
We can ABSOLUTELY do this.
Sign Up and We’ll Talk
This resistance movement exists. But it’s not exactly a resistance movement because it isn’t simply against something; more than that it’s FOR something.
Our movement, The Saners, is FOR a stabilized climate and FOR a humane and sensible and caring civilization.
Our group is FOR human dignity and kindness and generosity and joy and life. We are a positive force, and our dismantling of evil systems and disempowering cruel authorities is simply an effect of a bigger vision, a bigger plan.
I can’t explain this here in a short essay. But broadly speaking, here’s our plan and why we can succeed:
We will use a strategy of nonviolent noncooperation. What this means is that we will refuse to cooperate with or support or in any way help cruel, stupid or destructive actions. This will be done somewhat cautiously, in stages. This works because ordinary people do everything, all the work, and so-called authorities and leaders and strongmen do nothing whatsoever-except issue orders.
Their troubles begin when we stop taking orders. Oh, it won’t begin with a full-fledged open revolt. People at (for example) oil companies will call in sick. And “make mistakes.” And then, we shift the culture so that a job of extracting oil is considered morally below, say, a concentration camp guard.
People will be embarrassed to do those jobs, and the fossil fuel industry will face a labor shortage. And the workers they retain will be working slower, making mistakes, and often show up late or at all.
Later, we will gather publicly, to show each other that we exist and that we are working together and that we know what we are doing. This will give hope and courage to all resisters. Our nonviolent gatherings will not impress the authorities, but these gatherings won’t be for them. They will be for US. To gather and expand our strength.
Then the quickening comes. Our loved ones-our spouses and children and parents-abandon police forces and military roles. They side with us, not with the authorities who demand that they fire on us.
These things happen. They have happened many, many times. And when they do happen, these are not random events or lucky breaks. They are engineered by movements, by those who have learned from history.
I originally approached this project, this plan to first stabilize the climate and then build a better civilization, with trepidation. I thought I was over my head. I’m just an ordinary person, not a genius like Gandhi or King.
But then I found that the world has been changed and, in fact, is most often changed by people following in Gandhi’s footsteps. WE don’t need to be geniuses because the groundwork has been done and the framework for effective change has been established.
We must stand on the shoulders of giants, put our own mark on the world, and show the guts to expose and defeat the paper tigers-the impotent old men who rule the world until we expose and defy their fundamental weakness.
Please, PLEASE sign up for our group, The Saners, right now. We are in more than 20 countries and more than 25 states. We are here, we have begun, but we need more people. We need YOU.
We aren’t citizens of any country. We are Earthlings and we are here to save our planet and our species. We are a force of Nature and we are fighting for Nature.
Read about The Saners at WeAreSaners.org and join the group at WeAreSaners.org/join.
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