Stop, you fools—you’ll kill us all!

John Lennon – imagine (live 1975)

All truth passes through three states: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. And third, it is accepted as self-evident.

So said Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788–1860) – or perhaps that was someone else.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

So said Mahatma Gandhi, pioneer of non-violent social protest (1869–1948) – or perhaps that, too, was someone else.

It seems that there’s little that hupersonity^[1] can agree on. Even when we do appear to agree, our deeds do not match our words. If they did, we would have abolished war by now; and with the resources freed up by doing so, we would have defeated hunger, poverty and injustice – not just in our own little necks of the woods, but all over the planet.

Clearly^[2], most individuals agree with the sentiments of the song ‘Imagine’. The goals it suggests may be lofty, but to have any possibility at all of achieving them we must act in a way, however small, that gives peace a chance^§.

As individuals, we may say one thing: but then we delegate decisions to our local leaders, and they focus on the needs of the local neighbourhood; and the needs of anything beyond are, at best, largely ignored. So it has been, for the entire history of our species. Struggling to survive on our little patches of land, our ‘sovereign nations’, and fending off ‘the enemy’.

Now, it’s different. The enemy is us. The mode that has served us reasonably well until now is entirely inappropriate. We need to act to preserve ourselves, and the planet, from ourselves. If we are to do so, the rules must change. The question is: will we choose how the rules change – or will those decisions be made for us?

… if humanity is now committing omnicide^[3], it behoves everyone
with a brain, a heart or a soul to scream: “Stop, you fools—you’ll kill us all!”

In other words, what is needed today is not one more scholarly study, but some solid traction on the ground in the form of a bona fide strategy that gets us off the current trajectory towards oblivion, and onto a much more reasonable path, one that leads to a sustainable future.

So says Jim Stark (1943–), co-president of the non-profit NGO Vote World Parliament, in his book Rescue Plan for Planet Earth: Democratic World Government through a Global Referendum (although the megacorporation amazon is a planet destroyer and ought to be boycotted until it changes its ways, here’s a link to the book on there anyway… copies seem scarce, currently: perhaps hit the ‘I want this on Kindle’ link if you pop by there?). Worth a read, I think.

Maybe sooner, rather than later.

---

^[1] ‘Hu-person-ity?’ Well, I’ve long refused to use the word ‘mankind’, since the word ‘kind’ is probably the last word that should be employed to describe a mass of humans; and ‘humanity’ is also a no-no as the characters ‘m’, ‘a’ and ‘n’ together are anti-egalitarian….

^[2] Views of five YouTube clips of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’…

… @24Nov2012:
clip	views	likes	dislikes
9Q0Eyw3l3XM	4,556,342	12,702	176
XLgYAHHkPFs§	27,591,098	117,751	2,037
DCX3ZNDZAwY	3,578,718	16,252	322
w2gKUr0xc50	873,635	1,051	65	(karaoke)
RwUGSYDKUxU§	4,508,271	19,166	406	(lyrics)
	41,108,064	166,922	3,006
… @10Mar2021:
clip	views	likes	dislikes
9Q0Eyw3l3XM	6,585,106	22k	463	unavailable
XLgYAHHkPFs§	131,468,668	495k	14k
DCX3ZNDZAwY	—	—	—	unavailable
w2gKUr0xc50	1,828,618	2.4k	209	(karaoke)
RwUGSYDKUxU§	60,304,154	291k	10k	(lyrics)
	200,196,546	~810,400	~24,672

^[3] Omnicide: the killing of everything, the extinction of our species and the extermination of all or most other life forms; basically the assassination of Earth.

Page updated 10Mar2021,
with thanks to Goldie,
(an honorary member of ?Random Raiders!)
for his invaluable feedback!

Page updated again 09Sep2021 because the embedded video was found to be unavailable
… due to a copyright claim by Yoko Ono Lennon.
Thanks, Yoko – you really know how to keep John’s vision alive, don’t you?

^§ Link no good in the UK ‘for copyright reasons’, but may be OK where you are.