I can imagine a world with no countries, and with people living all in peace. Can you? It’s time to try.
I’m in for the win. I don’t underestimate the challenges but I know that complete victory is possible. Oh, I’m not talking about victory for “our side.” I’m talking victory for EVERYONE.
The discontent is worldwide. Few people want the world as it is today.
The ONE planet we all live on is being destroyed. Our short precious sacred lives are being wasted in cubicles and on factory floors. We are insecure, justifiably worried all the time. We are fed a steady stream of diversions, but we are losing interest.
Who gives a f-ck what some businessman or politician or “opinion-maker” says? Things are awful and getting worse. Nobody is helping us, nobody is addressing the multi-crises in any meaningful way. Decisions are being made by clueless unserious and often simply selfish people.
Our leaders lack ability or empathy. We need to be done with them, with countries, with leaders, with failed systems, with the epic stupidity that got us to this deadly moment.
Time for some sanity.
Where Sanity Came From
A few years back, I was re-assessing my life. I wanted the rest of my life to be meaningful. So, I began doing triage, evaluating the situation that we and the world are in.
I concluded that the overwhelming most important crisis to address was (and IS) climate collapse. It’s here and it’s accelerating and it’s on course to end civilization and life as we know it on Earth. We are rapidly descending into chaos as our leaders and systems fiddle stupidly.
We need to stop the collapse. We also need to reclaim our lives before they end. We cannot waste our lives working for money, producing crap that wastes our time and ruins our biosphere. Work doesn’t give us meaning; work is the essence of meaninglessness.
Most jobs are no more meaningful than digging and filling in the same hole—forever. This terrible situation, this cruel and ridiculous civilization—WE are keeping it going.
WE must stop. WE must do something else. That was my conclusion. Of course it created as many questions as it answered. Perhaps more. The truth is, I don’t have all the answers, and if we want to change the world, we must do some improvisation.
Working out my thoughts, largely here on Medium, I first wrote something called A Climate Declaration. And then I founded The Saners.
To knowingly ruin the planet that we all live on is literally insane. Our group refuses to participate in this insanity. We intend to stabilize our collapsing climate, and rescue people everywhere from wasted lives.
We have systems and behaviors we oppose—those that are poisoning the planet and abusing people—but we have no enemies. We recognize our common humanity. Even our oppressors are simply people—confused and cruel people, but still just people.
We aren’t facing invulnerable supervillains. Most of our opponents are impotent old men. They won’t even be alive much longer. We need to disempower them, not harm them.
A Revolution In Values
We espouse laudable values but practice the opposite. We do so out of “pragmatism.”
The fact that pragmatism requires cruelty, stupidity, and self-destruction demonstrates clearly that our civilization is based on evil values and systems. It is fatally flawed at its very core.
The actual values that our civilization REQUIRES includes selfishness, greed, endless stupid labor, damaging the planet to the point of uninhabitability, and the glorification of every possible vice.
WE reject all of it. Everything. The countries. The leaders. The systems. All of them. As a group, they have failed catastrophically. They have fought each other but not one of them fought for our species or our planet. Not one.
They are all useless. And that’s being kind, because it’s clear that they are worse than useless.
WE will embody the exact opposite of everything our current civilization stands for. We will embody kindness, respect for leisure, recognition that the arts and self-expression—not unending production of crap—is the core of a meaningful life. We value each other, our beautiful planet, and our time. We scorn money and labor and business and governments and especially armies and violence and hatred and division.
We understand that the near universal respect for and worship of militarism—we glorify soldiers for their worst and most immoral behavior—is yet another unequivocal example of the complete moral bankruptcy of this civilization.
WE are working towards total withdrawal and noncooperation with all of it. We will begin withdrawing our labor. We will withdraw our attention from those who “command” us. We will withdraw participation in commerce. We will refuse to pay taxes or serve in the military. We will stop doing all of THEIR work, and stop doing all of the damage THEY demand.
They will need to do more with less. As participation decreases, those that remain will see they are fools. Many of them, too, will withdraw.
And so the evil collapses, and nobody continues to mine and pump and extract fossil fuels, or burn them, or poison our planet. We shall ONLY produce healthy food, medicine, shelter. Only what’s needed because it’s CRAZY to waste our lives producing extra shit, especially when its sole purpose is to enrich unworthy greedy morons. And we will share what we produce, what people actually need to live.
The current cruel and ridiculous spectacle is ending. Of course, it would all end even if we didn’t withdraw. The civilization is already destroying itself. Our action simply speed up the process and ensure that beauty rather than universal death is what comes next.
There has never been a better time to join our community, The Saners. Read about us and sign up now at WeAreSaners.org.
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