Both the USA and Israel are becoming paria states through their own defense practices. It happens foremost in the eyes of most global citizens and slowly with more and more politicians abroad, and even in house. Why? We are tired of these global bullies, mass murderers and corrupt self enrichers. This is clear. Yet why do they keep making matters worse for themselves?

Lets for once not look at the armed forces or their ‘leaders’. Let’s look at what happens out of sight. Both the US and Israel have extremely strong intelligence services. We all know the CIA and Mossad as powerhouses that help defend their nations.… to death. Let me explain.

Side note: we’re not looking at safekeeping from terrorism here, this article focusses on the aspects of public standing in the world and how intelligence (or lack thereof) services worsen that.

Since Epstein we can all assume how the Mossad has deep fingers in many nations. They buy people with money. They seduce them with young women. They blackmail everyone they get dirt on to support Israel. A great example, I can’t proof, is Keir Stamer who made protesting the war on Gaza an act of terrorism. That was so out of proportion, it was lunacy. Why for heaven’s sake would he do that? Because people with power over him told him so. It created a lot of resentment against those suppressing a very valid emotion: the genocide in Gaza is inhumane! And we see more and more clearly how everyone trying to suppress voices for the Palestinian cause is part of the problem. They continue the genocide.

What do they defend? What should they defend?

These powerhouse intelligence services are made to defend their nation. I think that makes sense. They should defend their peoples. That makes sense. Yet, what they actually defend are their own political regimes that have gone mad. Too often these agencies don’t work for their people, nor for their nation, in reality they work for the elites and governments that give them their orders. And that is when defense becomes destructive.

All power used to defend these lunacies worsens the anger and resentment against these regimes. And sadly against their nations and people as a whole! The USA (Trumpistan) and Israel (Netanyahustan) stand more and more isolated. Most of the global population wants Gaza to stop, wants Trump and Netanyahu gone. Just think how bad you must have behaved to earn that opinion. Defending their politics is thus madness. But hey, the arms industry and elites get so much richer because of it, once again growing the power they hold over their own nations, much like parasites.

Thus these ‘intelligence’ agencies, working for the interests of their regime, become more and more dependent on suppressing resistance against their nation’s politics (read the impacts their regimes have on the world. It’s only sad most media shorten’s “Netanyahu’s Zionist Regime decided..” to “Israel announces..”). And each visible suppression worsens their position. And as a consequence they must suppress, lie, cheat, play dirty harder and harder to keep their game going. And like with terrorism, each ‘successful’ killing results in many more haters among the targeted people. Each suppression of voices protesting the mass murder makes them look more and more consciously part of the crimes against humanity. In the long run this is very self destructive defense.

If these secret services really defended their own nations as a whole, I’d think, they should remove the biggest danger to their nation, namely their own current leaders. The one is a dementing narcissistic lunatic, the other a corrupt manipulator and war monger. Their leader’s choices make enemies of friends, lose them alllies, and make their friends abroad stand more alone within their own nation. In the USA Aipac (Israel lobby) supported candidates get more and more resistance and negeative views. The Israel lobby now tries to hide behind new ‘donor organisations’ but sadly don’t chance their idiotic political stance: we support conscious mass murder. And the world forgets: Israel is not genocidal, it’s its zionist regime and propagandised part of the population.

The deadly flaw of intelligence

That’s the deadly flaw of most intelligences agencies. They’re just following orders. They think in power, manipulation, media control, destabilising the enemy. They never seem to think, how could we help humanity as a whole? How could we reduce strife, war and murder by our own side? How could we help gain goodwill and real friends around the world?

If the Mossad really cared about Israel as a whole, and the fate of Jews around the world, they would help the protests, they would support all Jewish resistance and protest against Netanyahu’s zionism. Why?

The more Jewish voices against Netanyahu get amplified, the less Israel and Jews around the world would carry all the blame. It would slowly isolate the real problem: way over the top inhumane murderous politics for made up* reasons. These are regimes that are unsustainable in any condition, Trump will be out or dead soon. Netanyahu cannot afford to lose US support, but loses more and more political allies in the US. He has even started to threaten Nato allies, like Turkey. These ‘leaders’ are mighty, but very biblical: giants on clay feet. And the more their intelligence agencies would widen the gap between these monstrous giants, and their nations, the more they’d help stop the mass murders, the more they would really help defend what deserves to be defended. The easier it would become to normalise relationships after these regimes fall.

*) the 9/11 and 7 Oktober attacks both benefitted war mongers interests so much that many conspiracies are abound that the US and Israeli intelligence orchestrated these attacks themselves to have a ‘reason to start a war’. Whether true of not (I hope not) that’s how bad a job they did in the public opinion.

If the CIA really cared about the safety of the American people they’d investigate the power billionaires of many nations have over their own politics. They’d stop following orders, as the military should have done with the bombing of Iran, and consider what intelligence would help undo the relationship damages by Trump. They’d investigate what power Russia and Israel have over him. Because Trump as a Russian and or Israeli agent totally makes sense. They certainly have dirt on him.

But for now, I fear, they’ll continue their ‘Destructive Defense’, because they’re just middle men following insane orders, slaves to the paradigm that might makes right, and manipulation solves all problems. And that, my friends, is how you lose friends and become the problem itself.

Destructive Defense was originally published in The Gentle Revolution on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

12 types of activism

There are many types of activism. Some are loud and well known. Others are more subdued, yet often as effective, if not more so. Some you may not even realise are forms of activism. Take teachers and nurses with too little pay that keep working at jobs because they care. Take citizens cleaning up their streets. Take a child caring about animals asking its parents why they eat so much meat. That is all activism too.

Each of the following kinds of activism are connected to a famous archetype. Tuning into an archetype can actually help you to better embody your role in the gentle revolution. Understand that all these forms can be mixed into new alchemies of activism. Find what either may impact your issue the best and/or what role fits you the most.

1. Protest ~ The Warriors

Protestors are brave, clear, and vocal. Whether through marches or sit-ins, they embody righteous resistance with courage. They may block highways, defend forests so that we all take notice. In the ecology of change, these are the people who raise the alarm, and demand, “we need action on this issue now.”

Some protestors show up for almost any march. Others may embrace one clear cause. They also may start court cases against officials’ neglect or refusal to take action. Even frail introverts can be such heroes, like steadily writing to open eyes towards certain causes, like the famous Amnesty International letter campaigns. Protestors hold their ground even when under pressure.

Use protest when silence is no longer an option, when huge alarm buttons must be pushed in order to wake people up. Protest to show certain authorities that many people disagree and demand other choices. Use boycotts, blockades, work refusal, etc. when expressing your voice turns out to not be enough.

2. Social Entrepreneurship ~ The Creators

Some people can see what should be there, what might help when added to the field. They’ll build new structures, businesses, NGO’s or platforms for good. Practical and future-focused, they show that doing good can be effective and sustainable. They may use art, products or new social designs to make a point and offer something new.

Social Entrepreneurs will not fight, but create alternatives, design and test what more is possible. They are the inventors, innovators, artists of change. They seek to fulfill needs not met yet. Some will operate in the old system, some even invent alternatives to capitalism. They may start Open Source companies, Cooperatives, businesses that don’t play by the capitalist principles.

Use Social Entrepreneurship when you see a product or service that may make a difference. Start an NGO when you have a clear focus about what needs to be done and know how to get funding. Build a platform to help new ideas reach a larger audience.

3. Creative Activism ~ The Artists

The creative artists express the world that could be — through story, image, sound, or space. These activists enchant, provoke, and stir change through imagination. They may not create a new business, they just let people dream, or may confront them with art that exposes the ugly underbelly of the current situation.

Approaches that creative activists contrast with the social entrepreneur because they care less about the impact, more about the play. They play the change. Artists like these came up with Solarpunk as an antidote against all doom future images. They may add instructions for kindness in the metro aside from all official regulations. They may use alienation, like dancing on a traffic island during rush hour to make people wonder, about what more is possible. They show life can be a playground if we want it.

Use creative activism when people need to see alternatives as tangible, when they need inspiration about what more is possible, or lies people tell themselves need to be exposed.

4. Stealth Activism ~ The Magicians

The stealth activist operates from within systems, gently shifting the story on the inside. They don’t need attention; they change culture under the radar. They make positive things happen, but nobody needs to know. Stealth can be used in dangerous environments to circumvent oppression and avoid repercussions.

Stealth activists often use different terminology to avoid clashes. When you’re forbidden to educate, say this book, why not host a neighbourhood improvement course? It’s not about being loud, but about being quiet, consistent, strategic and effective. They may seem to initiate action on a safe subject, yet in their argumentations also raise questions about related subjects that authorities would like to keep under the table. A great example is organising “healthy cooking lessons for minimal income people” where you talk about rights to unionise.

Use stealth activism in oppressive cultures or organisations when you want to shift convictions and possibilities. Use it to engage first those who can relate to the issue, and later slowly sway the dominant side towards new perspectives and attitudes.

5. Bringing Active Hope ~ The Rulers

These are leaders of NGO’s, projects and resistance movements. They hold the vision, structure and long-term responsibility. They lead projects, guide others, and hold the weight of complexity with grace and steadiness. By taking a clear position, they often become the face of hope. Here we can think about Bernie Sanders and the Dalai Lama, union leaders and many indigenous leaders seeking to protect their environment.

Being able to lead is on the one hand a trait one can be born with. Others develop the skills or get thrown in the role for the clarity of their stance. This kind of activism needs clarity of vision, clarity of stance, integrity (perhaps all forms of activism do) and the capability to lead, inspire and offer hope. Becoming the face of hope is a responsibility. And sadly, like with indigenous leaders, may make one a target. Yet by being an important public voice against overwhelming odds, one becomes an inspiration many people need to keep their hopes up. These are the rallying voices that help people to face, to endure and start changing their circumstances.

I cannot say ‘use this when’. One may aspire to this role, but generally it only will be given to those who have proven themselves over and over. One has to be able to organise, to communicate and show committed integrity on all levels. To be a great leader one has to rise above it all, in the interest of all. Start with the next approach.

6. Connectivity ~ The Lovers

This kind builds bridges between people, movements, and ideas. This activist makes space for community and cooperation. They lead not by shouting, but by including. They reach across the aisle and seek to unite rather than oppose. They see the human in everyone and treat all humans as such. They have big hearts, yet will keep their integrity and not betray their ideals just to please emotional pressure from opposing voices.

Here we see friendship building initiatives across boundaries. Israeli and Palestinians in dialogue. Friendships between Pakistani and Indian civilians. Nelson Mandela seeking a way out that would include the former Apartheid regime in shaping the new South Africa. He initiated the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, seeking forgiveness and understanding rather than revenge and punishment. It made the end of Apartheid possible. Also part of this is the neighbourhood ‘elder’, a man or woman who mediates between different groups and helps keep the peace.

Use this approach to help relax polarised tensions, find ways to, like Mandela did, offer solutions that include all sides. Become a person of peace and sincerity that doesn’t judge the past, but seeks to embrace a shared future, including all sides including nature. Use language and actions that speak to the human inside everyone.

7. Daily Action at Home ~ Everyday People

This is most people. They take small, steady actions in daily life. Whether biking to work or growing food, they model another way by living it, humbly and clearly. These people are terribly important just because of their numbers. Their actions do slowly change how manufacturers produce goods and what they offer. For some people being a conscious consumer becomes a way of life. And thus they set trends.

You might also include in this category those who commit to small actions nearby their home. Picking up plastics during walks. Doing shopping for a sick neighbour. Being a volunteer at the local library. They give their life that little more meaning by helping out where they can. This book however does not focus on them. There are enough other works and websites offering a wide variety of tips making your living at home much more sustainable. This book is for those who seek to grow action around them.

Do this, when you haven’t got time to do more than arrange some action at home.

8. Healing ~ The Caregivers

Healing is a fundamental aspect of activism. A healer listens, holds, soothes. Healing Activists work with trauma, grief, burnout. They mend what’s been broken so others can rise again. And unlike therapists they’re not in it for the money, but for the work. One can find them in refugee camps, near earthquake zones, and in broken inner cities. Here they employ activities that help face and heal trauma, or offer temporary escapes by bringing joy, play, music where otherwise there would be none.

This is connectivity with one purpose, to heal. To some, caring seems a second nature. That doesn’t mean the right attitude is enough. This means that to be a healer you have to have faced your own traumas, your inner shadows. This way you’ll understand the pain of others, so you know how to reach them where they are at. For this role you might become a (neighbourhood) mother or mentor through personal acquired wisdom. Or you study this role at fitting educations, like nurse to therapist. And great healers don’t help people to step (mentally) healthy back into the old sickening system. They point them to more healthy and collaborative places and networks.

Use this when you aspire to this role or have a natural gift for it. And even then appropriate training and inner work should be considered essential. This is beautiful work, yet doesn’t fit all. It needs a personality that wants to live this too.

9. Ecospiritualism ~ The Mystics

Such people feel nature as kin and act from that deep connection. Through ritual, reverence, or rewilding, they call us home to Earth and back to nature. These can be people living off grid showing other ways of life are possible too. And while others may see them as romantics, the practical hardships of living in nature keep them grounded in reality and pragmatic engineers of working with nature, rather than against it.

Ecospiritualism means a full focus on nature, regenerative systems thinking, permaculture, food forests and finding ways to live more in harmony with nature. What the Social Entrepreneurs do with businesses, they do with nature and farming. Sometimes they meet in the middle, like farmers starting a cooperative business, and social entrepreneurs becoming farmers. Ecospiritualists often learn a lot from Indigenous practices that have been refined over centuries of living in tune with nature. From them ecospiritualists learned that our relationship with nature has a practical and a spiritual side, which both can be honed with practices that integrate both.

Use this approach when nature is your number one concern. When you either sense this spiritual relationship with nature, or you’d love to be this deeply connected to nature. And you don’t fear getting your hands dirty, cold in winter, and struggling with the weather and officials to sustain your garden.

10. Kind Questioning ~ The Innocents

This approach has two sides. First comes the questioner. Children often have this power too. They can ask questions that embarrass parents, who carelessly consume and ignore nature’s pain. “What are you doing to save nature?” “Why does all our packaging have plastics around it?” Smart, kind adults can do it too. Ask the simple questions, without judgement, that unravel the logic of people living in denial. When people avoid answering this for real, notice this too with more innocent questions.

The second approach is that of being kind to all strangers. Compassion moves with empathy, idealism and moral clarity. It may be based upon a deep moral philosophy, like Buddhism. They remind us that kindness matters, and that even systems can be softened by care. Compassion Campaigners often seem to act against reason, yet it makes so much sense. These are the volunteers feeding refugees who fled into churches. These are people visiting prisoners who have no one else. These are the people who love RAOK’s, Random Acts of Kindness. Other than Creative Activists they consciously seek out contact with those who need a hug and a question.

Use this when you want to reach individuals that seem hard to reach. Know that when such questions are asked to people in say forums, and they totally dismiss the question the room will take notice. The innocent questioning can be used by anyone. Using kindness is a role that either fits your personality, or has been trained over time.

11. Playful Disruption ~ The Fools

Playful disruptors turn norms on their head with humour, surprise, or creative rebellion. This activist plays with reality to shake us out of our habits. They organise flash mobs, parody ads, or street theatre. They are the activist stand up comedians coming in hard on huge issues and not shying away from calling out leaders and or their own audience. Playful disruption can include subversive messaging, mirroring leaders, official ceremonies and industrial pompous campaigns with ridicule. They expose what should not be taken seriously. They expose the mannerisms of oppression and make us laugh at it. They speak their truth to power indirectly, through playful interventions.

Here we have fake ad posters around cities, and many Banksy art should count too. Here we have the Yes-men, a New York based action group, who pretend to be spokespeople for large ‘wrong’ companies or organisations and then give very different messages. In 2004 speaking for Dow Chemicals they claimed to reimburse all victims of the Bhopal Chemical Disaster that killed and disabled thousands in 1984. The stocks of Dow lost millions in mere hours. And then Dow Chemicals had to speak out on the news, they would do no such thing, reminding the world what an awful company it is.

Use this approach when you have a playful attitude and or some people take things way too seriously. Use it when large parts of the population haven’t yet caught on, and look away. Like non-violent resistance humor can help reveal the faces behind the masks of power. Or it can help release tensions with laughter. It needs sharp wits, being very careful with judgemental humour, and staying playful when others trigger you back.

12. Sacred Activism ~ the Sages/Elders

This is when your activism is a higher calling rooted in wisdom, love, and spiritual presence. Coined by Andrew Harvey, it combines spirituality with action, heart and hands together, and is often grounded in compassion, justice, and service. Sacred activists may prefer wise observations over direct action, dance over protest, nature over planning. Many sacred activists may use storytelling, campfire talks, group facilitation and retreat to help people reconnect to their soul and vibrancy. When they speak people listen and sense deeply within that a deeper connection is within reach.

Sacred Activists act from deep values and inner clarity, often reminding us of what really matters. They speak from the soul. Unlike other kinds they do not seek to solve issues through overcoming obstacles and resistance to change. They directly connect into a higher awareness of the interconnectedness of the ‘bigger whole’. They also sense all pain and trauma that other people experience through their disconnection. They seek to restore this connection the best way they can.

Use this when you’re truly beyond fighting and sides. When you feel you heal and connect others with compassion and speak from a deeper sense of connectedness. Train this by listening to wise people like indigenous leaders and shamans, and other special people who have a more deeply connected sense of the web of life.

NB: Also most actions may be a mix of the approaches mentioned above. The Singing Revolution may have started as Creative Activism, it grew into pure Connectivity. People starting out as Social Entrepreneurs may end up as Sacred Activists the more they deepen their practices and discover about the interconnectedness of everything.

NB: You may wonder where’s the hard core revolutionary? Once again, this is a course for gentle revolutionaries. Violent activism is not only destructive, you want to change systems, not kill people. Violence is too easily framed as terrorism. Rather than aid a cause, it may set the people against the cause. Most people don’t want to be associated with aggressors. They may even hide how they agree. That’s why tactics that unmask the real aggressors make more sense. Better show how violently some states may defend corporate interests that pollute the planet. That’s why non violent forms of resistance have the better shot, actually they succeed at a 2 to 1 ration compared with violent attempts at overthrowing regimes. That’s why starting to build a new world, without waiting for all those who don’t believe, may actually be the fastest and most grounded way to create change.

Also those that commit to violence often start to resemble their enemy. Woke and Anti-Woke both seem intolerant of the other. Christian US Evangelists compare to Inslamic Fundamentalists in their disgust of each other and their legal restrictions for women. So if you are truly angry at injustices, destruction of the planet, please transform this anger into constructive steps.

Gentle Revolution Class 4.01 was originally published in The Gentle Revolution on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The False Promise of Superheroes Needs More Scrutiny.

It’s a terrible thought, let alone a provocative thought.

Such cool overwhelming movies, awesome comics where every time the world is at stake US superheroes intervene. Sadly the USA is not so cool anymore and the superheroes have yet to face all these new or exploded real world issues confronting Americans daily. We’ve got to consider the following poison influencing the state of mind of superhero fans.

1. Real heroes never consider themselves heroes. A fireman will say he did his job protecting people, not “look at me I’m a hero.” We get presented awesomeness through heroic poses and pointed remarks. In reality it’s a functional professional focus that results in impact.
2. Fandoms who help people discover their inner superpower will always come up short. Ordinary people end up comparing themselves with magic powers, super reflexes or supertech and come up short. We may play pretend for a bit, and then reality checks us right back to our real world issues that we have no power over.
3. No superhero ever gets PTSD. They’re almost all psychopaths, with perhaps some morals, but dominantly the ‘good guy with a gun’ syndrome. The movies say, to get results, be like a superhero, discard your feelings. Well many Americans did just that, and threw out their morals too. It’s all about the money, baby.
4. Superheroes never face real issues, ever. Ooh, there may be remarks about an awful polluting industry, or an evil tech billionaire may seek mind control over the populace, but systemic issues like homelessness, poverty, pollution, corrupt presidents, and the power of billionaires, buying the laws they want? No. Superheroes are great at fighting imaginary evil monsters, but ending hunger in the USA, the richest, least equal land on earth? No, they can’t.
5. Many superheroes embody propaganda for the lies spread to the world and its own people. The USA protects the world! Land of the free! And now that the freedoms are taken away, now that the USA is the bully, the heroes feel empty and hollow pawns of a bygone era.
6. And what is your favourite character’s origin story? Gamma rays, nuclear radiation? Personal drama but very rich? Spider bite? Alien gift? Oh yes, ever so often they pretend chemicals and nuclear waste are not so bad but rather turn you in superheroes. And check Iron man, batman and others, the very rich can be good people. I’d say modern fairy tales are still fairy tales.
7. And finally, you the people are weaklings who need to be rescued from outside threats. You are the fillers of the streets who can’t protect themselves nor make a difference as soon as the land is under attack. As long as you believe that, looking at big threats, those in power are safe from the people. Trump even abuses this aspect with having himself portrayed as a superhero, the golden hero everyone should look up to. We all should realise the branding isn’t the reality. We are all humans, who can become captains of our own destinies.

Are US Superheroes Poison? was originally published in The Gentle Revolution on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Unintended Brilliant Opening of Snow White

Oh I know, Disney would never try to sell socialism, and thus the opening of this movie was not intended to be this brilliant. Yes, a brilliant mirror of our current times.

First we see a land where everybody fairly shares all the bounties from the land. In whatever role you work in the land, you share bountiful from what is gathered. Yes, I read fair pay, and access to good food for everyone. The story says this means colours, trust, happiness and safety for all. The king and queen can even safely mingle with the people, for who needs to steal to have?

Then, after the queen dies, this land in invaded by an evil outsider, who takes over control. (Musk? Israel lobby?) The happiness of the land is destroyed by Gal Gadot, an evil, oops Zionist, queen, who promotes building a strong army at the cost of the peoples income. She robs from the people, and openly wants over the top punishments for all who obstruct her or steal something back just to have a life. That too reflects a hot current issue of mass murder and insanity at the top. Also everyone at her court has to wear fundamentalist drab.

And here we have current ugly world politics perfectly captured in just the first 10-15 minutes. Lesson: all the people must share fairly from what they produce and make to have a wonderful peaceful land. For not sharing leads to resistance, anger and shortages and destruction of abundances. At first you may think you get everything, you seem to win, and then you only create your own downfall.

Winning at the cost of others leads to you losing it all, for an empty heart can never be filled enough. All it really gains is resistance and the need for ever more enforcement to keep the regime alive.

Take that capitalism, USA, Trump and Netanyahu. The fairest in the land is not the one with the best plastic surgery, branding or advertisements or most power. It’s the one with the biggest heart. There’s a fairy tale to believe in.

What the Mirror Reveals was originally published in The Gentle Revolution on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The worst dangers for humanity presented as mythical beasts.

Lets frame global threats metaphorically as dragons we have to beat. And after we framed them we’ll offer you many different solutions you can be part of. Against which dragon will you be, or already are you, a hero? And which strategy is yours? Did I miss any essential approaches? Have fun and/or let me know.

The 12 Dragons

First let’s choose 12 “dragons” that represent the most fundamental and interconnected challenges. These are, I’d say for now:

1. Dragon of Greed (Insatiable Consumption)

• Represents unchecked desire for profit and wealth, driving overexploitation of natural resources and widening inequality.

2. Dragon of Corruption (Rot of Power)

• Symbolizes the misuse of power for personal gain, eroding trust in institutions and enabling destructive policies.

3. Dragon of War (Endless Conflict)

• Embodies military-industrial complexes that profit from perpetual conflict and devastation.

4. Dragon of Propaganda (Twisted Truth)

• Spreads disinformation, fuels division, and undermines democracy through manipulation of media and social networks.

5. Dragon of Environmental Collapse (Dying Earth)

• Represents deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and ecosystem destruction due to human negligence.

6. Dragon of Climate Chaos (Raging Storms)

• Breeds floods, droughts, hurricanes, and rising sea levels caused by human-driven climate change.

7. Dragon of Pollution (Toxic Blight)

• Includes plastics, chemicals, and industrial waste poisoning air, water, and soil.

8. Dragon of Inequality (Towering Divide)

• Symbolizes vast socioeconomic divides, where the wealthiest few thrive while billions suffer poverty and deprivation.

9. Dragon of Exploitative Capitalism (Endless Growth)

• Represents the relentless pursuit of economic growth at the planet’s expense, fostering unsustainable practices.

10. Dragon of Tech Overreach (Digital Dominion)

• Encapsulates unchecked technological development, surveillance capitalism, and social manipulation.

11. Dragon of Fanaticism (Blind Belief)

• Represents ideological extremism, religious or political, fueling conflict and obstructing reasoned progress.

12. Dragon of Systemic Apathy (Frozen Will)

• Reflects the collective inaction and complacency in addressing known global challenges.

These dragons are interconnected, with some feeding on or enabling others. Together they thus kind of emphasise the scale and complexity of the dangers facing our planet. Addressing them requires global cooperation, ethical leadership, and a fundamental rethinking of how humanity relates to each other and the planet.

12 Dragons, and the many ways to beat them.

You only need to choose your dragon, the one you ‘get’ or are most angry about. Then choose which approach, ‘spear’, will be best to help strike it down. What’s your heroes journey?

1. Dragon of Greed (Insatiable Consumption)

Strategy: Ethical Economics & Spiritual Awakening

• Provocative Action: Tax billionaires heavily; cap corporate profits tied to planetary health metrics.
• Paradoxical Strategy: Create “status symbols” based on sustainability rather than luxury goods.
• Loving Approach: Foster gratitude and contentment through education, mindfulness, and collective simplicity.
• Entrepreneurial Idea: “Purpose-Driven Profit Accelerator”: A business consultancy linking executive bonuses to measurable social and environmental impact.
• Community Action: Start “Resource Circles” where communities trade goods and services without money, promoting local abundance.
• Personal Action: (things you can do or start on your own)
• Live simply: practice minimalism, buy less, and support ethical companies.
• Donate a portion of income or time to causes that reduce inequality.

Historical Inspiration: Mahatma Gandhi. He lived simply to protest colonial greed, sparking India’s independence movement. In fact Gandhi could be used several times as inspiration, for aside from living simply, he was a master at setting up non violent resistance. The British had no answer to that and it laid the foundation for India’s independence.

2. Dragon of Corruption (Rot of Power)

Strategy: Radical Transparency & Civic Empowerment

• Legal: Enact strong anti-corruption laws with independent oversight.
• Psychological: Teach integrity and empathy as core school subjects.
• Activism: Organise mass whistleblower protection networks.
• Shamanic: Rituals for cleansing power structures, symbolic “fire” ceremonies to burn corruption.
• Entrepreneurial Idea: “Integrity Blockchain”: A platform for transparent governance tracking in corporations, NGOs, and governments.
• Community Action: Create local watchdog groups (“Transparency Guardians”) that crowdsource reports of misconduct and corruption.
• Personal Action:
• Vote regularly, even in local elections.
• Support transparency organizations like OpenSecrets or Transparency International.

Historical Inspiration: Malala Yousafzai. She spoke up against educational corruption, winning the Nobel Peace Prize despite personal risk.

3. Dragon of War (Endless Conflict)

Strategy: Peace Economics & Cultural Healing

• Paradoxical Strategy: Fund peacebuilding at the same scale as militaries.
• Activism: Global “ceasefire festivals” where combat zones are transformed into celebrations.
• Shamanic: Global ceremonies for ancestral healing and forgiveness rituals.
• Entrepreneurial Idea: “Peace Tech Hub”: Tech incubators for startups developing peace-building software, conflict resolution apps, and refugee aid platforms.
• Community Action: Form “Conflict-Free Zones” where communities adopt nonviolent mediation models and host global peace conferences.
• Personal Action:
• Support peace-building charities and NGOs.
• Promote non-violent communication in personal and online interactions.

Historical Inspiration: Nelson Mandela. He fought apartheid using both activism and reconciliation, transforming South Africa. His integrity and aim to seek a solution that would work for both sides created the big breakthrough in the stalemate of the apartheid regime.

4. Dragon of Propaganda (Twisted Truth)

Strategy: Media Literacy & Transparency Tech

• Legal: Ban algorithmic manipulation on social platforms.
• Psychological: Mandate media literacy in school curricula. Yeah, include critical thinking in that one too.
• Activism: Hackathons to expose disinformation sources.
• Loving Approach: Promote storytelling campaigns of shared human experiences.
• Entrepreneurial Idea: “TruthShield Media Labs”: Independent journalism accelerators using AI to fact-check content in real-time.
• Community Action: Launch “Media Watchdog Collectives” offering free media literacy workshops in local schools and libraries.
• Personal Action:
• Verify facts before sharing content.
• Support independent journalism with donations or subscriptions.

Historical Inspiration: Ida B. Wells: She was an investigative journalist who exposed systemic racism and lynching through fearless reporting. By writing the truth many didn’t want to face, she forced many whites to look into the mirror and face the consequences of their attitudes.

5. Dragon of Environmental Collapse (Dying Earth)

Strategy: Planetary Stewardship & Eco-Rights

• Legal: Recognize ecosystems as legal persons with enforceable rights.
• Activism: Rewild urban centers and hold “Earth Courts” for violators.
• Shamanic: Reconnect with nature through ceremonial offerings and deep ecological rituals.
• Entrepreneurial Idea: “Reforest Ventures”: A climate-tech company offering reforestation-as-a-service with eco-dividends paid to investors.
• Community Action: Organize “Community Rewilding Brigades” planting trees, restoring habitats, and safeguarding natural reserves.
• Personal Action:
• Plant trees, create backyard habitats, and support conservation groups.
• Volunteer for local environmental restoration projects.

Historical Inspiration: Jane Goodall. Her lifelong dedication to primate research helped reshape global conservation efforts. Her message reached the masses by walking the talk her whole life long and offering well framed new insights, like animals have a social consciousness.

6. Dragon of Climate Chaos (Raging Storms)

Strategy: Global Cooperation & Radical Adaptation

• Legal: Create a global Climate Emergency Council with binding authority.
• Paradoxical Strategy: Pay citizens for carbon-negative lifestyles. Yes, reward positive action, rather than get the worst people richer.
• Loving Approach: Organize “Earth Healing Days” for communities to act and reflect together. Make it a party/movement people love to join.
• Entrepreneurial Idea: “Climate Guard Systems”: Home fortification services offering climate-resilient retrofits for buildings.
• Community Action: Build “Climate Resilience Networks” that coordinate emergency response training and disaster preparedness workshops.
• Personal Action:
• Reduce your carbon footprint by cycling, using renewable energy, and eating less meat.
• Join climate protests like ‘Fridays for Future’.

Historical Inspiration: Greta Thunberg. She sparked a global climate movement by skipping school to protest climate inaction. Her stubborn attitude towards her mission as a child inspired millions of other worried students to follow her lead.

7. Dragon of Pollution (Toxic Blight)

Strategy: Zero-Waste Systems & Circular Economies

• Legal: Ban single-use plastics and penalize major polluters.
• Activism: Create “Plastic-Free Rebellions” targeting corporations.
• Shamanic: Ocean-blessing ceremonies for healing polluted waters.
• Entrepreneurial Idea: “Zero-Waste Start-Up Kits”: Ready-to-launch businesses offering community recycling, composting, and repair shops.
• Community Action: Found “Plastic-Free Villages” where residents pledge to reduce waste collectively, holding monthly cleanup events.
• Personal Action:
• Go zero-waste or adopt sustainable habits like reusable containers.
• Join or organize community clean-up events.

Historical Inspiration: Boyan Slat. He founded The Ocean Cleanup at 16, developing technologies to reduce ocean plastic pollution. He also showed that when you’re young and focus on an issue, you can make a career out of it.

8. Dragon of Inequality (Towering Divide)

Strategy: Wealth Redistribution & Human Dignity Movements

• Legal: Institute universal basic income and global wealth caps.
• Paradoxical Strategy: “Adopt-a-Billionaire” campaigns to shift ultra-rich minds.
• Loving Approach: Co-create community-based economies of mutual care and solidarity.
• Entrepreneurial Idea: “Social Equity Incubators”: Business incubators specifically for marginalized entrepreneurs, with profit-sharing for community reinvestment.
• Community Action: Start “SkillShare Collectives” where professionals volunteer time teaching job skills to underserved populations.
• Personal Action:
• Support local businesses and fair-trade products.
• Volunteer at shelters or community outreach programs.

Historical Inspiration: Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini (Mother Cabrini) She was a fierce advocate for the marginalized. She tirelessly built support networks in hostile(!) environments. Her work shows the power of compassionate leadership combined with organizational vision — a model for modern humanitarian efforts.

9. Dragon of Exploitative Capitalism (Endless Growth)

Strategy: Post-Capitalist Models & Restorative Economies

• Legal: Transition corporate charters to prioritize people and the planet.
• Psychological: Rewire collective cultural values toward community and sustainability.
• Activism: General strikes for planetary health.
• Shamanic: Rites for redefining humanity’s relationship with “Mother Wealth.”
• Entrepreneurial Idea: “Ethical Marketplaces”: E-commerce platforms where every product must meet environmental, labor, and sustainability standards.
• Community Action: Launch “Local Exchange Networks” that operate on community currencies and time banks.
• Personal Action:
• Invest in socially responsible funds or cooperatives.
• Support businesses with transparent supply chains and labor policies.
• Explore or invent and experiment with alternative monetary solutions.

Historical Inspiration: Muhammad Yunus. He created micro loans through Grameen Bank, lifting millions out of poverty through social enterprise. Sadly later a lot of scam artists followed his lead obscuring this impactful idea. So what new financial idea would you come up with?

10. Dragon of Tech Overreach (Digital Dominion)

Strategy: Ethical Tech & Digital Sovereignty

• Legal: Establish digital rights treaties protecting privacy and data ownership.
• Activism: Decentralized tech co-ops creating open-source alternatives.
• Paradoxical Strategy: Promote “Tech Fasts” where people unplug annually.
• Entrepreneurial Idea: “Data Sovereignty Solutions”: Personal data protection services that help users control and monetize their own data.
• Community Action: Set up “Tech Literacy Clubs” offering workshops on privacy, digital tools, and ethical tech development.
• Personal Action:
• Use privacy-protecting tech tools and limit screen time.
• Advocate for ethical tech policies through petitions or activism groups.

Historical Inspiration: Aaron Swartz. An internet activist who fought for free access to information and knowledge-sharing, such as the architecture of Creative Commons and his work for Reddit. In memory he’s known for his work on civic awareness and progressive activism.

11. Dragon of Fanaticism (Blind Belief)

Strategy: Interfaith Dialogues & Critical Thinking

• Psychological: Global empathy and conflict resolution training.
• Paradoxical Strategy: Create immersive empathy-driven role-playing experiences where people “live” in opposing belief systems.
• Loving Approach: Encourage storytelling circles where all voices are respectfully heard.
• Entrepreneurial Idea: “Bridge Builders Media”: A production company creating interactive media promoting empathy and conflict resolution.
• Community Action: Create “Empathy Cafés” where people of opposing views engage in structured, guided dialogue over meals.
• Personal Action:
• Engage in conversations with empathy and an open mind.
• Participate in interfaith or inter-ideological dialogue groups.

Historical Inspiration: Martin Luther King Jr. His peaceful protests against racial injustice inspired global civil rights movements. Too often forgotten is that he also had socialist beliefs and stood for all poor, black and white. Following Mahatma Gandhi, he also made great use of non violent protest strategies.

12. Dragon of Systemic Apathy (Frozen Will)

Strategy: Global Awakening & Personal Responsibility

• Psychological: Massive “Earth Citizen” programs to cultivate compassion.
• Activism: Organize “Wake-Up Marches” confronting collective inaction.
• Shamanic: Global ceremonies invoking inspiration, vision quests for societal purpose.
• Paradoxical Strategy: “Mandatory Joy Days” to reawaken zest for life through art, play, and wonder.
• Entrepreneurial Idea: “Awaken Studios”: Experience-driven retreats focused on leadership awakening, social responsibility, and civic engagement.
• Community Action: Start “Action Circles” where local communities set monthly sustainability and social goals, holding one another accountable.
• Personal Action:
• Lead by example in daily life; small acts of kindness can reignite hope.
• Create or join local action groups for causes that ignite your passion.

Historical Inspiration: Rosa Parks. Her refusal to give up her bus seat sparked the Civil Rights Movement, proving one action can change history. Her one simple action, and the repercussions, ignited the hidden collective anger against systemic racism into open protest movements sparking change.

Summary Thoughts

These strategies blend the practical, provocative, psychological, spiritual, and legal, recognizing that multi-layered approaches are needed to tackle humanity’s greatest challenges. By combining systemic change with personal transformation, we can begin to confront these metaphorical dragons together.

Tackling the 12 metaphorical dragons through entrepreneurship, business training, corporate interventions, and community-driven action requires creative, scalable, and transformative initiatives. Here are tailored ideas for products, services, business models, and community actions targeting each dragon:

Cross-Cutting Corporate Interventions

• Corporate Activism Programs: Offer workshops on ethical leadership, employee volunteering, and impact-driven innovation.
• Sustainability Hackathons: Host events where employees develop solutions aligned with company goals and global needs.
• Community-Backed Corporate Funds: Establish funds where local communities vote on company investments and projects.

These entrepreneurial, corporate, and community-driven strategies form a “Dragon-Slaying Toolkit.” Together, they combine technological innovation, grassroots activism, and purpose-driven business models with personal and collective transformation. By uniting purpose with profit and responsibility with creativity, humanity can confront even the mightiest of these planetary dragons.

The Power of Small Actions

Facing these planetary “dragons” may seem overwhelming, but individual actions can create ripple effects. History is full of individuals whose small steps ignited massive change. Here are meaningful personal actions anyone can take, inspired by impactful historical examples:

Key Insight: Great changemakers started with small steps. Individuals can make tiny but meaningful contributions by aligning daily habits with global goals. No action is too small — consistency, empathy, and courage magnify their impact.

Together, we can face the dragons of our world, one brave step at a time.

The 12 dragons threatening us all was originally published in The Gentle Revolution on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Trust this: Every individual has influence. We are watched (I mean by friends, family, co-workers, people on the street), judged and our actions will touch and influence others, whether we are aware of it or not. We are part of the web, and must trust we can influence it, as it influences us. We may inspire others, or become an example of how not to live.

How to become a positive influence that helps make the world a better place?

Start with asking questions that question our ‘normal’. You’ll find you’re not the only one. When you dare, tell your truth, yet stay open for contrary insights. Wonder if arguments contain new information, or are fear driven, offered by people who want you to comply. In the latter case, unmask lies and hypocrisies. Use humour, or speak with integrity.

Choose your betters well. Choose to be inspired by those whose eyes shine, by those who walk the path, who are approachable, who have humour, integrity, have hope and work to make a positive difference. Avoid those who seek power, who make big promises, who stoke your fears, pushing you to join them, pay them, or vote for them.

Protest the wrongs, best together with others. Often you’re not the only one seeing the same issue. Like when your child hurts at school, is this only your child hurting? Or are many children hurting because of a system that can’t see them for who they truly are? Join those who feel the same. Address the wrongs, demand things get improved.

Share your vision for a better future. If possible, walk out, walk on. Create and live in the alternative. You may have to experiment, try and try to make it work. This in itself is worth a lot. Show the world a new way is possible. This will bring hope. Offer alternatives. Live alternatives.

Make it a party, people love to join.

Comment of the sage: “Live a life of service that helps improve the whole.”

Comment of the fool: “I’m kind, I’m tender, I play. I’m doing it.”

*) This one page of a book I’m writing called ‘the Fool Rules’. It unscrews the idiotic rules we follow, questions the stories we tell ourselves and show what a wise fool might do to break through stifling patterns.

The Power of the Individual was originally published in The Gentle Revolution on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Real Face of Fascism and How to Address It.

The beast is coming and it’ll be very hard to tame it in time.

Fascism, let alone a far right take over, seems to be happening in many countries. Why does it seem unstoppable at the moment?

Understand it’s not political ideology that’s winning. It’s new robbers taking what they feel they deserve from those who they blame for their shortages. And those who are blamed are not the real culprits, it’s another underclass you can easily point at. People love blaming others and grabbing what they can, when anxious. Anxiety is driving this rise more than anything else. This is just another run on toilet rolls, only now the run is for everything at the cost of anyone blamed to be in the way.

The beast is coming and too few truly try to tame it. Fighting, ridiculing, ignoring the beast only makes it stronger. For too few see the nature of the beast for what it is.

“Forgive them, Lord, for they don’t know what they are doing.” ~ Jesus

This article is a follow up of my 2018 ‘Descend into Fascism’. All warnings of it seem to unfold and matters are worse now than ever. These warnings be:

A country where industrial interests fund their political benefactors cannot stay sane for long. A country where the media is divided in (fake) political ideologies cannot stay sane for long. A country where the media talks in talking points, not critical observations of reality cannot stay sane for long. A country where a large part of the people feel ignored, stamped on and robbed cannot stay sane for long. A country where new gangsters dress up as politicians facing the old gangsters cannot stay sane for long. Such a country is very likely to surrender to a new violent elite, fascist in nature, robbers in reality*.

*) The Nazi elite turned out to be little more than art thieves in the end, while they kept pretending there was an ideology. They rather were just robbing Jews and Europe for all they could take. And they drove their own people to get killed on battle fields to get it. So know this: anyone taking up a gun for an ideology is serving gangsters who use you for their own interests. This insight is always believed way too late, rather even in hindsight denied: sunk cost fallacy.

The Sparks That Lit the Fire

Trump saw dictators getting away with it. He loves to be like them. And they love to support Trump. They like Trump better than an America with integrity, let alone one pretending to have integrity. Trump showed the world, it’s okay to blatantly lie to get elected, it’s okay to only serve your own crowd. Many other leaders like him saw that Trump’s trick of blatantly lying worked and went for it. Yet why would so many people follow such self serving leaders? Is the lie, ‘I do this for you!’ enough? Let’s take a look in the belly of the beast.

Fascism is NOT about Ideology, It’s the Belly of the Beast

The first thing to understand is that it’s NOT a political rise. Politics is just the means of grabbing power used. The (white, or Hindu, or Christian, or..) poor underclass has felt robbed for a long time now. This gives an unease. They have been told they’re the heart of the nation, yet they have less and less. So, once again, the victimhood trauma strikes again. “Now is our time to get everything.” And some are eager to point fingers on who to blame.

And with capitalism getting close to the monopoly end game, the financial bosses can choose who to fund, who to support to further their own interests.

So, as we see in the USA, many who feel they’ll benefit to be part of the new regime, help to make it happen. They are, just like the art robbing nazi’s, robbers that hide their motivations behind an ideology full of promises and blaming others.

Yet why do so many people drawn to it? They feel they’ve been robbed for a long time. They feel they have a right to take, for they’ve seen others taking for too long. And much of the rhetoric is now focussed more and more on blaming others, and making them look so bad, that acting violently against them seems the ‘reasonable civilised’ thing to do. They are beyond listening to arguments. They are instigating themselves and others to lose all hesitation and shame for what they’re about to do.

The Real Thieves Are Preparing an Even Bigger Heist

And here’s the thing. In a way, they are right. They have been robbed for too long. Only, very important, they’ve not been robbed by those who are blamed. The Muslims in India haven’t robbed the Hindus. The coloured immigrants in the USA have not robbed the white Americans. It’s the often liberal elites with their gentle smiling faces that consciously have been widening the wealth gaps over time. They just couldn’t help themselves. And they’ve been hollowing out the middle class that worked as a buffer against rising underclasses. The descend of the USA into a third world country is too blame. The industries corrupting politics for decades are to blame. The politicians benefitting from all these (legal) bribes are to blame. And these self enriching elites now see that by stoking people with lies, they’ll even can win bigger than ever before.

The Fear of Socialism Makes Intelligent Approaches Impossible

And now the (far) right and years of paranoia about socialism comes back to bite the USA. They can’t have universal healthcare. They can’t have free education. They can’t have cheap public transport. They can’t have a government working for the people. That’s all seen as dangerous leftish. Thus the only way open to get what you need is by taking it. Getting rich is not only an anxiety, eh life goal, of many Americans, it’s a necessity to get by. And more and more the pressure of unfair low incomes have eroded patience with many people. So if the solution can’t be ‘radical left’ fair wages, then it must be taking it, by force if necessary.

This is the belly of the beast.

The Very Rich Are Funding Their Own Demise.

Why do the very rich fund their own demise? Who are investing in people like Trump, Modi, Natenyahu, Orban and all other (potential) dictators?

“There’s always enough for the needy, but never enough for the greedy.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Firstly the rich only want to get richer. It’s a biological urge driven by anxiety to lose everything. It helped us survive prehistoric times. Now it’s, especially for the very rich a lie. Yet we see billionaires, like the Koch brothers, up to their death investing in gaining more and more. Not out of reason, but out of a deeper drive of a black hole in their psyche. Thus they fund whats helps them getting richer, stay in power, and bend the rules to their own benefit. They’d rather have a dictator as leader than having to pay taxes. The very rich who make fascism run smoothly may benefit, yet most won’t benefit.

And what do they win? Firstly the country will become a bigger violent mess, where certain view points will be dangerous. Millionaire clubs will have to accept new members of the new elite, who’ll take the right to enter their territory. Then many rich will be taken down eventually. They have been, or are seen as, robbers and the new robbers want what they have. And when in power the new elite will feel justified to take what they can. That’s how they’ve learned how the world works.

If only the rich had been more willing to share with everyone for a safe and comfortable life for everyone. As we see in some European countries, more egalitarion countries are generally safer, have less crime and less social unrest. In the end that’s the only thing that will buy them real acceptance and safety. Bodyguards and private schools only widen the gap and increase the bubble of disconnect they are living in. Bubbles make them have too little knowledge about the real issues and pains in society. They think their propaganda can steer anger, and it seems to work. But even in wars that are won, victims happen on both sides. Families on both sides with face loss and disaster. And plans always don’t work as expected.

Secondly, Trump could have been gone it he wasn’t so media savvy. Rather than ignored he was put in the spotlight by both sides. All Trump news makes money. Even when all the left media attacks on him are factually right, it don’t matter. The right doesn’t watch, or don’t believe the factual take downs. They feel those take downs are part of their own sense of being suppressed. And all the attention the left has been putting in taking down Trump, has made the other side more radical as a form of self defence. If only the rich hadn’t given Trump all this attention. The media and legal pressures on Trump put him in a corner, pushing him to radicalise out of self defence.

That in the USA ‘news’ channels can blast opinionated propaganda into the air 24/7 is a crime in itself. But so many news anchors rather lie for money than wonder about the effects they are creating. This corruption will haunt one day all who took part in it, left and right. Like all Germans who helped fascism to rise, and then woke up too late, when they found they actively helped those who would rather destroy the whole nation, rather than admit defeat and their own wrongs. By the time the FOX news anchors have to praise Trump or be shot, let alone fired if being critical it’ll be too late. And the industries funding FOX with advertising keep pretending it’s business as usual. If only the media owners and makers had seen that the cheap talking commentator ‘news’ take downs, would divide and radicalise the nation.

Why Stopping the Rise of Fascism is Very Hard.

Most well thinking Americans fail to stand up in the right way. Warning of fascism when having a good income, gentle suburban life, or hot inner city career is just being part of the oppression. To demand people are polite to gays, or worry about the climate is being experienced as the ‘woke’ oppression. When you daily feel being robbed or fear homelessness you don’t have time for that shit. Addressing people with the right pronouns doesn’t address the real pain of poverty. The underbelly of the beast sees your woke asses as part of the hypocrites ruling the nation. And the conscious fascist ideologists instigate the rest by warning of trans people infiltrating your schools. Such perceived direct threats invoke biologically much more anxiety than polite scientists, telling another 2 degrees warmer temperature may be disastrous in 10 to 20 years.

Thus all pushing against Maga makes them feel more attacked and alone. Thus they organise better and better. And soon those who armed up against the day their government would come for them, or their guns, will use these guns for what they feel is self defence. Only it isn’t. It’s a coupe against a corrupt regime that way too many years condoned money in politics. It allowed smooth talkers sell you corporate Americas interests as good politics. And now it’s too late to take money out of politics. Now the huge corporations will support the right, if the left even considers to threaten their influence. And the people protecting themselves with guns, will use those guns to be the ones many people will need protection against. Sadly those with the guns will be blind to the fact that they are just new oppressors, of a worse kind than the old elites. They’ll rather close their eyes, as oppressing others gives access to food, luxuries and power.

That’s why the beast is coming and the USA fucked up alternative options.

The Last Barrier Before Things Explode

Many many well thinking calm cool people trying to maintain reason, trying to avoid escalation are the only thing preventing things getting worse. Sadly some of them wonder when to be on the save side and join the madness. Some scream louder and louder warnings against Maga, and become part of the perceived threat the Maga’s feel from what they call ‘woke’.

Why Fascism Always Will Destroy Itself.

A nation with accepted and forbidden truths is lying to itself. A nation with such ideologies will create alternative realities, until real facts hit home, like a climate freaking out, like plastic pollution poisoning the nation, like the new elite being way worse self serving bastards than the old. They raze everything for themselves. They’ won’t be able to stop themselves as their insane rhetorics, their lies are believed, and their believers will push them further and further. This too we can see. Those who consciously lie for attention and manipulation may be overtaken by those who really believe their shit. And such people will be blind to any reality but their own, until the building collapses.

Only when people wake up, a real revolution must clean ship. And some rich industrials, and foreign nations, will arm this revolution, for they’ll see the gains opportunity in the madness that must be stopped.

Oh, and you wonder how to address it?

Stop thinking your suppressing, ridiculing, fact checking Maga makes any difference.

Stay human, be kind, be empathic, speak truth to power, don’t get anxious, don’t attack Maga, nor ignore them. Help the victims of FOX news get on their feet. Push your employer not to advertise anything on media adding to the fire.

The Marshall plan after WWII helped prevent Germany going nuts again for many decades. Create such a plan for the whole nation, help make things work for everyone. Include everyone. End the deceits of liberalism, stop defending it as reason, or the reasonable alternative. End the power of money in politics. Study critical thinking. Become a volunteer to help victims of all current politics. Be seen helping anyone on both (political sides) showing there is a way beyond, aside of politics. Ask any Evangelical Christian to come help you with that. Show them, real humanity, rather than anger politics against perceived ‘wrongs’. Ask people what they’d love to see in friends, in family. Show love is stronger than hate, anxiety and greed.

It’s like Nelso Mandela trying to stop Apartheid. Only by including both sides offering them both satisfying gains and solutions can you make them both agree. Only by offering an inclusive solution, read not a democratic win (that’s only a temporary cork) can you help heal the whole.

For we only win, when everyone wins.

The Belly of the Beast was originally published in The Gentle Revolution on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How a Nation Lost It’s Way, Because of a Shared Trauma.

Let’s take a concise look why many Israeli Zionists went from victims to fascists. We start with several questions. How can one protect one own’s culture against bigger outside forces? Why do peoples often start to look like the enemy they are fighting? How does trauma shape cultural patterns? Find out why the answers to these questions show a universal pattern in religions and among peoples. And why we need to heal those traumas, not perpetuate them unto others.

Note: there will be religious quotes in this article, not because I endorse their content, but to reveal the motives and mindset behind them.

The Basic Root of Zionist ‘Self Defence’

One. In it’s simplest form we see the power of trauma among abusive parents. Children of alcoholics or child beaters have a 6 times bigger chance of becoming like them. But they don’t have to. What certainly helps is therapy and focussing on consciously healing. What doesn’t help is clinging to your past as if a fixed reality that will determine you too.

Two. In it’s simplest form we see that the short way out of suffering is a story of self deception to make the hurt endurable. People who lose, say a leg, often say, ‘it was the best thing that could have happened to me’. This is logical. The losing the leg often forces people to reconsider everything in their life. But foremost it is a great, normal, psychological self healing trick. We tell ourselves a great story to make the pain endurable and make sense of the loss. We don’t want to be the victims of a irrational chaotic random universe. Loss happens for a reason, and the strongest reason is when divine intervention made things so. Suffering is helping us on our way, to a higher destiny.

“The enemy always fights hardest when God has something great in store for you.” ~Lysa TerKeurst

Zionists are like children who have been beaten up for many generations. They so identify with their own victimhood they’ve become blind to the suffering of others. Zionists are like people who kept losing legs over centuries and kept reinforcing a story to give meaning and make it endurable. Why then did this make them like the fascists, the people who hurt them the most?

Becoming the Enemy.

Two quotes summarise the problem. ‘He who takes up the sword dies by the sword.’ ~ Jesus. And ‘To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.’ ~ Sun Tsu. Those two become one in this quote, ‘Be careful who you choose as your enemy because that’s who you become most like’ ~ Nietzsche.

And sadly this explains how victims of fascism can become fascists. It explains how opponents of fundamentalist Islam become fundamentalist Christians. It explains how the freedom loving Israelis now have more and more women dressed in black living restrictive beliefs. It explains US woke battling intolerance became intolerant itself. And how anti woke, feeling attacked, shifted even further to the right. It explains how Russian invaders ‘liberating’ Ukraine of fascism became the new fascist invaders. It explains how we become that which we are battling.

An additional problem is that many religious texts, Bible, Quran, Torah, etc, use war metaphors to explain inner fights. And sadly simple minded people, or worse, manipulative leaders, take the war metaphors literally. The Islamic Jihad is foremost to fight inner demons or weaknesses, not to fight unbelievers. But Zionists, Islamic, Evangelical, Communist, Fascist radicals rather put the blame on others. We universally shout too often, ‘We’re the good guys. We have the right ideas. Those others, they need to change. They need to be reformed. They are the enemy. See our holy text/belief/ideology/story says so.’

“I think it’s time we let go of this whole, ‘We’re the chosen people shit.’ It hinders positive progress and peace.” ~ Israeli Jew in 2016

The big lesson is that we way we fight is often ineffective and makes matters worse. However righteous we feel in doing so. We make matters worse when we keep clinging to a story we used to make our own suffering endurable, and when that story blinds us towards what we do unto others. The current question is, can we escape such a story, or choose we not to?

The World’s Shortest History of Zionism

When people of Abraham were a small people, amidst big empires they needed a story to cling to. Even more so when they, as a whole people, became slaves of Egypt. And again when Moses led his people out of slavery, into the desert. They needed a story that would give their suffering meaning; a story like, ‘we’re the Ultimates Being’s chosen people’. All their hardships made sense now. Others were jealous, and it gave their culture a strong unifying soul.

When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you. (Deuteronomy 20:1–4)

During the Jewish diaspora, during all the pogroms in Eastern Europe, during all the discrimination, during all the hate and being second rank citizens this story made the suffering endurable. ‘We are the God’s Chosen People, and they have a promised land to return to.’ And then after the immense suffering of the holocaust this story had to become a reality. And the zionists among the Jewish people finally found support from strong nations to let them have it. They called it Israel. Never again would they suffer Jew hating rulers victimising them.

Nay, now would be the time they’d be the ones striking back.

And out of self protection, out of their huge victimhood they removed from their ‘own’ promised land, those that already lived there. They removed those that might become a danger in time. And thus they created a new enemy, for the removed people were a people of their own. And when they resisted being removed, the Israelites were back in known territory. They were back in their own ancient victimhood survival story: “See, we were right, they’re always out to get us. You’ve seen what they did to us! And this time we have the right and power to use self defence.” And their deeply rooted trauma and victimhood story became decades of oppression for the Palestinian people. Their own victimhood trauma blinds Israel to the suffering they themselves created upon others. And their ruling elite became the kind of fascist regime they had barely survived. A regime that repulses the last holocaust survivors, looking shocked at what monster Israel has become, turning Gaza is worse rubble than even the Warsaw getto.

It’s identifying with your trauma that makes you look more and more like that which you think you’re fighting. And centuries of trauma enforced by generations of conscious Zionist propaganda have led to this monster.

Mind you, as we saw with children of abusive parents, you don’t have to become like them. It takes conscious work to choose a different path. We see millions of Jews around the world are not oppressing others, even when Netanyahu tries hard to force them on his side. And we see other religions and peoples fall into the same trap.

The World’s Shortest History of Islamic Fundamentalism

The Arabs, the Muslims, are also an Abrahamic people. They too have Moses as one of their prophets. So why and how is their victimhood trauma different? For one, they had another later main prophet, who led them in a short time into power. And this power led them to a golden age of progress. From the 8th century to the 13th century, Islam was progressive, allowed many new ideas, developed sciences, was very tolerant to other religions. So what made many of them so intolerant in the last century?

The whole Middle East become a hotbed of fighting powers during the 20th century. A few key moments. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan rallied the anti communist rebels under the flag of Islam. Meanwhile the Persian Shah, installed by the CIA, hunted down all socialists (pressured by US cold war paranoia). So resistance against the Shah found the other common determinator among Persians, Islam. And with every Western meddling or trampling of Islamic countries, their religion became ever more their main source of pride, for all others were taken away. Installation of Zionist state? Kick! False flag invasion of Iraq? Kick! Civil war in Syria? Kick! These decades of trauma culminated in Isis. They clung to such a warped version of Islam, that most Islamic countries resented it, and helped bring it down. Why? Because Isis wasn’t Islam, they were war traumatised crooks considering it was now their time, ‘to have everything their own way’.

US Evangelical Fundamentalism

The Christians too became big powers. After fighting islam out of Europe, they became intolerant amongst each other. Many, especially protestants, when the catholics were still in power, fled the fighting, to the new lands, to America. Here they could believe things forbidden in their countries of origin. Then the US had a civil war, and the trampled upon South saw itself as the victim. They, like the current Zionists, disregarded the victims they had trampled upon. Rather than rejoicing in the liberation of the blacks they, to this day, see themselves as victims. Victims of invasions of the North, of Liberals, of Mexicans of woke people and even of Islamic immigrants. And how do they react? By becoming ever more religious fundamentalist. They who who once looked down on the role of women in Islamic societies, now are just as repressive towards women, in just different ways. In their own vision, being more stringent is actually the best defence needed against all these outsiders coming in. And forgotten are slavery, the genocide of the native peoples, the corporate meddling around the world, the devastating war on drugs in Latin America.

“The enemies power is nothing compared to the promises of God.” ~ Joel Osteen

We see the same mistake being repeated all the time. And we have ask, then why do we keep falling in the same trap time and time again? Are, ‘because of what was done unto us’, or ‘Our holiest being is on our side!’ good enough stories?

The Big Lie in the Media and this Text

There are 1.9 billion Muslims in this world. That’s roughly 24% of the global population. The overwhelming majority of these people are never in the news, are peaceful people who want no trouble, no war, and be with their family. The same desire goes for everyone else, Jews, Christians, every other faith and all non believers. Islam, the Jewish faith, Christianity and almost all believes do not condone, nor support starting a war against others. Then why do we keep pointing fingers? Why do we keep starting wars? Why do so many Americans discriminate against Muslims, as if all of them might be a terrorist?

The big lie of the media is repeated in the concise histories in the short histories above. For reasons of narrative we throw many people in a generalised box. The media do it all the time. There is a truth to it, but it also misses the reality, and personal experiences of many. Few are the cliché we make them out to be. When Iranians fought their regime, the were a suffering population. Yet when Iran shot many missiles at Israel, you think they were all in on it? Of course not.

Regimes fight wars, populations don’t.

Did Gaza attack Israel on the 7th of October 2023? No, they didn’t. Hamas did. All of them? There lived 2,048 million people in Gaza in 2020. Of them according to Google only 40.000 are Hamas soldiers. That’s less than 2% of the population. Many Palestinians saw, or experienced, them as an oppressing power in their own territory. They terrorised their own people too. And of these 2% you should know that in most wars, mostly only about 7% of all soldiers actually aim to kill. Most don’t fire, or generally shoot to make the other side retreat out of fear, or work jobs to help the fighters. So the Hamas army had only little more than 3000 active shooters at the start of the conflict. And 2,048 million people get bombarded to get them, while most on these shooters will be on the front line. Bombarding behind the front line, makes in military sense, in this case, no sense. There is no weapons industry, no railway network, no airport, no harbour to strengthen the army. Just a imprisoned population already traumatised by Israel for three full generations.

NOTE: Well, the USA seeking to find one man in Afghanistan invaded it for 20 years, a man actually found in Pakistan. So off putting figures are made sane by the media, that keeps talking in parties, sides and generalities. They support narratives and interests, rarely nuance and reason. Escalations sell better.

Just by the numbers alone, attacking and destroying all of Gaza is sick. Making almost the whole population refugees is so out of proportion, is sickening. Targeting schools, hospitals, press is sickening. 15.000+ dead children make no sense, unless you see it for what it is: a reign of terror.

At the same time, it’s by far not all Jews around the world doing this. It’s not even all of Israel invading. It’s a regime, that has control over the army. Many Israelis protest, including certain Orthodox Jews, and even some Zionists with a different mindset, protest and detest the genocide by their government. Within their own country, and within the nations that supports Israel, these voices are hardly in the news. Because here the narrative is ‘Israel is defending itself.’ And when your media doesn’t show you the Palestinians hunger faces of children, doesn’t show you the extensive the destruction of buildings, doesn’t show you how little food is actually allowed through, then you may believe this lie. Why is it a lie?

There Are Only Three Reasons To Go To War.

One. Because you’re a crook, conquistador, invader and have lust for power and riches. You can become such a crook due to trauma. ‘Now it’s our time to strike and take revenge.’ Such crooks are often populists and great at pointing fingers and declaring who is the enemy as a whole. A whole, which we just saw, just never exists. The Nazis assigned huge power to the Jews. And then they burned thousands of poor villages in Eastern Europe and murdered millions, many poor people with tiny farms or meagre jobs, just because the story was made stronger than reality.

Netanyahu is such a crook. Just check his wealth. He claims every act against Isreal’s current actions is a hate crime against Jews. So Jews around the world get extra targeted by stupid people who can’t distinct Jews, from aggressive Zionists. Much like people who think every muslim is a terrorist, every Frenchman drinks wine all the time, and every Russian supports Putin. This way he pressures all Jews to support him, because, “See, everyone always is out to get us. Join my insane cause!” The Mossad, all the Israelis, who are not already doing so, really needs to ask themselves, are we defending Israel, or helping a dictator play Hitler? The embarrassment alone should haunt them.

2. The second reason the enter into a war is, because you’re a victim of a inciting narrative, of propaganda. Your leaders point fingers that make you scared and or angry. They claim all the shit you experience can be blamed on a certain others. Hitler being the world’s most infamous example. Many ideologies are full of such shit, as a solution to problems. This includes (not all, but too many) Zionists. You believe Netanyahu and his cronies, ‘We should have all the Palestinians territories for our own safety, to build our own new settlements.’ Within Israel people in power say such things aloud. They make children sing songs about it on Tiktok. They have become themselves the enemy they hoped to escape. Like with Hitler, the story has become stronger than reality.

3. The third is perhaps the only valid reason. Because it’s self defence. Yet, when self defence means striking back, then it may become reason number one again. Because this means invading another people’s territory, like the Hamas attack, or more urgently now, the invasion of Gaza. Hence Putin is a crook. Netanyahu is a crook. And the Hamas leaders are crooks. Sadly Israel’s centuries old narrative of victimhood and being God’s chosen people, is used as excuse for attacks, invasions, apartheid and suppression. And after 70 years of being bullied by Israel, we see the Palestinians getting the same trauma’s as the Israelis. And they too have a religion that can be bend to justified victimhood. Terrorism is often the only weapon tiny minorities have against much bigger forces. Israel thus, once again, creates its own future enemies.

Note: In general everyone knows their own countries heroic victories and the times they were victimised by others. Very few people actually face their own bloodied pages, when they were the culprits. I think we should.

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:43–44).

Then What Can Be Done?

A. Non Violent Resistance and Integrity.

Which heroes terrify leaders the most? Which heroes did with little power make empires bend over? Which leaders changed cultures for the better?

NOTE: Notice that violent protests against supporting Israel distract from the issue they seek to address. The violence revolts many ordinary people. I suspect instigators mix with the stupid ones who see this as an opportunity to hate on Jews. Stay clear of such people.

Here are some more recent names. Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Marten Luther King. By showing non violence against a violent oppressor their violence looks way more ugly and becomes way more visible. Their own narrative as in, ‘we’re the good guys’ falls apart. Most people love to support the underdogs too. Also strength of character, inner belief, has a power no gun can touch.

I know these names bring each their own controversies. Why? Because the powers that be, feared them much more than a few terrorists. Terrorism, violent resistance, whether by Hamas, or Israel, reinforces the current narratives. it’s the same paradigm. Peaceful resistance make the oppressors look very ugly. Batons against flowers are ugly. Guns against angel wings are ugly. The crazy mothers in Latin America made the dictators look ugly. Nelson’s integrity made cheap racism look ugly. Etc. And we know the world is watching. Design opportunities that the press cannot ignore.

“You cannot solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that created it.” ~ Einstein (Note: and this goes for thinking enforced upon you too).

B. Heal your own trauma.

Heal your own trauma! Stop projecting it on others! Help heal the other’s trauma too. Rabin was close to make peace possible. he dared look to the future, beyond Israeli exceptionalism. And he was murdered for it, by a zionist, not by a Palestinian. And what did the Israeli do? Rather than follow Rabin they started choosing more and more right wing politicians. They should have faced their own crimes, and helped Palestinians heal.

And this finally shows the clearest why Netanyahu is a childish criminal. If he were an adult , he’d face his own traumas. He’d work them through like the son of an abusive parent, or like a soldier who lost a leg. He doesn’t. He forces his own whole people to play along in his ‘solution’, removing, plundering, committing genocide against another targeted people. He forces the Israeli state media to play along, even meddles in foreign media. This makes him an immature fascist. Is there another choice? Still don’t believe me, let him tell yourself, about his conscious manipulations.

Why does Germany have over 70 years of peace? Because they got US help to rebuild, and were seen as much as victims as they had been culprits. Because the huge majority of the Germans faced their trauma as the perpetrators and felt ashamed. And then learned into what traps they had fallen. And why are they in danger of falling into that trap again? Because populists point at all the refugees and immigrants coming to their country. See reason number 1. Refugees who, by the way, cannot be blamed. It were Western interests that destabilised the Middle East for oil and political power. Indeed. We keep creating trauma prisons*.

*) A Trauma Prison, is a mental prison shaped by a trauma, or by a story based upon a trauma, that keeps people confined within the story, and often makes them repeat it, and/or make others suffer the same trauma.

C. Build for a shared future

When you’ve overcome your traumas you can really build. Stop tribal thinking. Start building together on something more beautiful. There is is enough food for everyone, enough energy for everyone, enough space to live for everyone. If there are shortages, find ways to sort them together. The Netherlands, a tiny country, has the second largest agricultural turn over in the world. They are helping desert countries to cultivate greeneries with massive smaller amounts of water needed. So, when we all would help each other go live smaller, with more parks and culture and less stuff, we’d all feel more peaceful.

D. Don’t believe any pro war propaganda

And if you live in the West, don’t support your government supporting Israel. Let them feel, they need to live with their neighbours and start building relationships. Don’t believe the whole ‘Israel is just defending itself’ story. It has become absurd and criminal. Boycotts and reducing their military might should force them to consider more peaceful solutions.

Conclusion

So what can we take away from this text? Defend the nuances. Check the facts. Question the logic. Did the attack on the 7th start this war? Or was it started decades earlier? Don’t support political interests, don’t believe old stories, certainly not of those blaming an ‘enemy’. Check the 3 reasons for war, and apply them to any current violent situation. Wonders who benefits from a war. Use non violent strategies. Find ways for the ‘enemy’ to disgrace themselves in the public opinion. Avoid listening to the populists that blame others, or who spike your fears.

And foremost of all, face your own damned traumas and don’t project them onto others. On this little planet everyone is your neighbour, and you better learn to live with them and yourself.

Peace.

How Zionism Became Fascism was originally published in The Gentle Revolution on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A welcome and short intro about this blog.

We mostly think our leaders decide where we all go next. They don’t. We all decide together in a complex dance of push and pull, support and resist. We’re all waves in the ocean, dancing our own pattern on the wind, being part of huge streams with or against the winds. trying to impact where the water goes. When we dance together we do influence the stream, little wave by little wave.

This is for all those who seek or work for constructive change towards a flourishing planet. We are not waiting until governments or their business partners change their ways. All of us have started acting in a positive and constructive way. We’re the ones we have been waiting for. Let’s become the (R)evolution everyone wants to dance in!

This blog offers articles in several directions.

Rebel.

Articles on being a gentle rebel, from organising things, to how to be an activist, and why and how to convince others to join. As Gandhi said, “Be the voice of change you’d wish to see in the world.”

Living

Articles on personal development, positive psychology and dealing with a crazy world. Indeed, you are not the problem, our society is.

Big Picture

Articles on the bigger picture. How is our global system so skewed and what are the deeper influences making it does. For, as Einstein said, “We cannot solve big problems with the same mindset that created them.”

Education

Articles on how and why to change our dominant school system. It crushes people, trains them to be good workers, not to challenge the system as it is, nor offer them the tools to create a healthy planet for all life and people. And that’s what it should focus on.

Swarm

Articles on Swarm Leadership. How can we organise without leaders? How to self organise solutions? And what mindsets must we train to be part of the solution? And some ideas that may flip how you see human civilisation. As Margaret Wheatley said, “whatever the problem, community is the answer.”

Play

Articles on the power of play. Play is essential and serious. The opposite of play is apathy and depression, not what many people think, seriousness. To quote myself: “Play is how nature invented learning.”

Story & Game

Articles on storytelling, gamedesign and more. And here’s where I share my short stories, poetry and more. https://medium.com/floris-playground

Enjoy. And if you subscribe, thank you for joining.

— — — — — — — —

Here’s the friend link to this article: https://floriskoot.medium.com/c1b43214d08d?source=friends_link&sk=697ac85a0a9d66f71905e0753f341566

Also when you’re an activist and request a friend link to an article closed off to you, send me a request as a comment in this article. But, know this, I’m not fast.

Welcome to The Gentle Revolution was originally published in The Gentle Revolution on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Why Humanity Is in Big Trouble Without Them & How to Support Them.

Most ants never get lost. They just follow the pheromone trail of previous ants. But this can go deadly wrong with army ants. When these ants get confused they’ll just follow the trail of the ants before them. And when they get caught in a circle following each other, then we call this an an ants death spiral. They’ll follow each other’s pheromone trail round and round and round, until they die of exhaustion.

In general following a well marked trail is smart for ants. It’s often the route between the nest and food. You follow the trail that many seem to walk, and thus run straight to places where things can be found. Yet there is a way rarer ant, the scout ant, or as Arjan Postma calls them crazy ants. They go where there are no paths yet. It is the one that can create new paths. So when paths are broken and all obedient workers get stuck, wondering where to go, these crazy scouts create new trails to follow. And when they find food, they’ll even lay a bigger and fatter pheromone trail to excite all the rest.

The freethinkers are our crazy scouts. The explorers who question stuck convictions, who wonder what more is possible. Some social activists will protest what’s wrong with the traditional ways, and some will experiment with alternatives. These are not bad people, even though they may create a bit of chaos. They can help us prevent from getting into a death spiral or out of one. And anyone a little critical of the state of our societies may feel, we are currently trapped in one, or even more, death spirals.

“A little bit of craziness is necessary to stay healthy.” ~ Arjan Postma, Dutch Ranger.

The Dominant Roles of the Human Ant Nest …

… And how we’re different from ants.

The human ant nest, say nation state or tribe, has like ants different roles. These are way more complex and intricate than those of ants. And there’s a huge difference.

Some humans are advancers. We tend to call them leaders, they advance things, have a high status and can give orders or influence a lot of others. They often have a message or ideology to solve a certain problem and ask others to follow in order to solve it. But while they may officially be leaders, the question is always for whom and what interest are they advancing things? And when that isn’t an inclusive, helping goal for as many people as possible, then an advancers is not a real leader.

Some humans are early adapters or trendsetters. These can be true believers in the call of the advancers, they also can be opportunistic people who see a chance to get rich, mighty, upward in society. Compare Saint Francis, a true believer trying his best to live the essence of Christianity, with the Spanish Conquistadors, using the message of the Church to plunder South America. Consider modern American evangelicals and influencers limiting the rights of women and banning books ‘for the good of all’. Like bees, many trendsetters will dance a new ideology excitedly to each other to get as many others in as possible.

Most people are followers. Once they feel many around them say the same thing, they believe that’s the way to go. This for personal safety, to not stand out in their own community. This is to join what seems to be successful, or may get successful. We find many followers working in clear jobs, preferring a contract over taking risks themselves. They carry society, but can become a mob when agitated. Or as in Nazi Germany they stay silent too long. Many Germans had their suspicions about them, or were against, yet feared (and often rightfully so) acting against them… until it was too late for everyone. One lessons for followers: when any leadership demands you to do something inhumane to other humans, they’re the bad people. Often their ideology preys on your fear, or hunger for power.

And then there are the Freethinkers, the Wise Ones or Elders, the Social Activists and Outliers. Especially freethinkers will be seen as crazy. For followers they mean chaos, for settled advancers they may even be seen as dangerous outliers who threaten their position. And then even among them, there are pretend freethinkers selling ideologies, beliefs, products even, sometimes whispering “this is what ‘they’ don’t want you to know.” How to recognise the true freethinkers from the liars?

No true freethinker will ever claim, “We all have to believe this one thing together to make things right. Follow me and my ideas to set things straight.”

How We Differ From Ants

Ants don’t have liars, humans do. Ants sacrifice their life for the nest. Unlike ants, we do have humans who will lie, cheat, manipulate and advance their way forward out of self interest. Many good, or less critical, people will follow their lead. Such followers are often stoked by cronies, trendsetters who see opportunity to gain a lot from following such false advancers. We can see it with ultra right wing parties or hardcore communist parties. People, who feel little other opportunities to advance in life, will join such a party and seek leadership roles, through being extra fanatic about the ideology. They hope this will attract a lot of followers and they end up on top. Corporations have this problem too. Many eager managers will pollute the planet, ravage natural resources, be toxic for their (personal) environment all to earn more money and please the advancers or owners above him. And currently billionaires and their corporations lead millions in death spirals that only benefit them, however true and promising their stories sound.

Note: In a healthy democracy where everyone feels safe, and social upward possibilities are fair and possible, and distance between elite and poor aren’t too big, there is little change aggressive disrupting advancers stand a chance. The bigger the gaps, to more chance and reason for angry advancers to hype the mob. Here freethinkers are often persecuted too.

“This is the system we live in, and this is how things are done.” ~ Corporate Lobbyist

Why Is This so Important Right Now?

The Death Spirals We Are In and Those Pointing the Way Out.

Check the Doomsday Clock. Scientist put our global civilisation at 90 seconds before midnight. It seems our economy is in an ants death spiral. We talk about climate change, but no major announcement made by global corporations have been made, nor have governments dared any hard decisions. Lobbyists from big oil still dominate climate talks between countries, while the consequences like wild weather patterns get worse. Cheating with CO2 offsets has become a global scam.

Wars are becoming death spirals. Both Russia and Ukraine are trapped by a sunk cost fallacy. The USA blatantly turns a blind eye to what Israel in doing in Gaza, because of their own interests. The drums of war roll. Many countries seem to propagate arming up, as major power shifts in the world are happening. Will China become the global number 1? Will the BRIC countries destroy the dollar? Will the USA blow up what’s left of their democracy? It seems many played games making them feel tough, and bad things happen always to people far away. And then, one day, far away comes home.

And there are many more hidden, or rarely spoken about dangers. If there’s one in this list you aren’t aware of, then change your media channel: A new virus might spread fast. AI might destroy global banking. A global Carrington event can happen in 2025. Men become ever more infertile because of the pill. Soil depletion due to industrial agriculture will increase and endanger millions. Clean water and draughts will endanger millions, etc. We need people who point these things out and show routes.

The Positive That Should Be in the News

And what you may not even know, millions of freethinkers and activist trendsetters are exploring answers all over the world. There are even permaculture farmers in Pakistan and Uganda. Bicycle lanes are more widely introduced in many cities. Solarpunk companies are designing new tech to help cities and agriculture become greener. Better forms of self governance are explored by many communities. The internet is a mess, but also scandals can be exposed easier, when people are willing and daring to speak up. And freethinkers do just that. For all of us.

The Way Out

How to recognise and support the ‘crazy ants’ among us.

I used the word advancers above to differentiate them from leaders. Real leaders will be the voice of what’s in the best interest of the whole nest. They will be less interested in ideology and conviction, but in what has been shown truly works. They will not make false promises. And they’ll let you choose yourself what to follow. And if they target a part of the population as scapegoats, then they’re advancers stoking hate. And trust me, when you act on that hate, somebody else will get very rich.

This too goes for so-called freethinkers, or people proudly claiming to have a radical different view. They may be paid off to play their role, for big interests. They may be influencers selling you an ideology. They may be liars, or believers in lies. Real freethinkers will wonder, will try to explain big issues and their underlaying causes. If they speak true, best chance is that you fall still and feel awful about a certain aspect of your own society. When they trigger anger, hate, fear towards a certain people, certain cultural patterns then it’s probably not a freethinker, but an advancer pretending to be one. They love it, when a whole large mass runs in circles around their ideas, even into an ants death spiral.

Distinguish Real Freethinkers from False Prophets

Real leaders invest in truth, integrity and consideration. They listen first. They will seek to be inclusive. Nelson Mandela made sure that also the whites could have a role in the new South Africa, and it wouldn’t be a bloodbath of ‘us against them’. That is leadership. Compare this to Trump’s ‘America First’, and his MAGA followers radiating the full energy of early adapters seeking to profit personally from him winning. Because that’s what he keeps promising.

Hence real leaders, wise people, elders try to stand above the crowd or outside any party affiliation. They try to oversee the whole, or act humane on very personal levels.

It is very hard to spot the ‘crazies’ who try the new or speak truth to power. They often don’t have any status to share about them in the news. There are never enough of them to make politicians looking for votes notice them. They are threatening, let alone questioning the status quo. And worse may not even have good alternatives yet.

So how to spot them? When everybody goes right, they go left. Even if just for a healthy balance in society, some ideas of the other side have merits. Like, if you’re a socialist fearing American, please wonder why capitalist Europeans have very affordable and accessible healthcare, even when out of a job?

If you are convinced of an ideology or belief, watch a channel run by the enemy. I noticed this fact: about their own side most countries will feed you propaganda. About others they don’t like, they’ll show the best revealing criticisms they can find (and perhaps blown a bit up too). It’s hypocrisy all the way. It can also help to check your own country on the Press Freedom Index and be shocked how bad things are. (giveaway: USA barely holds 45th place).

So here are some freethinkers that very well may challenge your conventions:

Pluto Press, radical books, many addressing big issues from activist viewpoints

Noam Chomsky, public intellectual and professor in linguistics

Slavoj Žižek, passionate independent philosopher

Manish Jain, founder of ecoversity, a radical different approach to education

Adrewism, Solarpunk advocate and societal critic with clear videos.

Alice Chapelle, French Philosopher with interesting new perspectives.

Shiva Vandana, fighter for food rights against corporate agriculture.

Journalists, thinkers, whistleblowers who fled their own country or got wanted because of things they exposed. Two of the most famous ones sadly are wanted by ‘Land of the Free’: Edward Snowden and Julian Assange In many countries also refugees live who fled their own country because they spoke up. Speak to a few, and at the least discover how suppression works, if not why freedom is worth fighting for.

And if you google things like ‘most important freethinkers in the world today’, you’ll find names you never heard of before.

We need more Freethinkers! Now! was originally published in The Gentle Revolution on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.