Michael Sauers
April 16, 2025
For as long as I can remember I have had to fight off, one way or another, the tentacles of condescension, contempt, prejudice and hate. My Dad was a community organizer, activist and politician. He stuck his neck out often and was usually speaking truth to power. So as kids, my siblings and I experienced blow-back that was often quite nasty. Through family and friends we fought it off and moved forward.
Mostly it was ethnic and income level based with a tad of religious and cultural elements. We were taught to be honest and respectful fighters. This carried into adult life and I feel that I have been “fighting the good fight” on environmental, economic/community development, education and political issues. Swimming upstream with some wins and some losses.
It does not take long to recognize the inequities of the world especially if your perspective is global. Overpopulation, starvation, disease, war, poverty, slavery, lack of opportunity and lack of education are all there for all to see. Perpetuated on us by a greedy and corrupt power structure that never bothers to ask what humanity wants but rather foists its vision on us. This has been a disastrous, continuous and suicidal evolution.
So I was not surprised to read a piece in the Guardian written by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor entitled, The rise of end times fascism. It talks about the right of “hereness”. Not end times but better times. However, in steps the ultimate cowards who are treasonous to democracy and the world, both human and non-human.
Ultimately insecure they are buttressed by their immense profits. They hate and fear regulation, choose machines over humans, inanimate over animate and profits over all else.
Their profits are predicated on destroying the planet. They want unfettered growth with little or no regulations in the areas of energy (fossil fuels), AI (information control), Crypto-currency (what the hell is it) and war industries. In their view climate change is already leading us into disaster and they distain any rights/benefits of shared humanity. Billionaires; Zuckerberg, Thiel, Andreessen, Musk, Karp and many others celebrate aggression, American superiority and autonomous weapons. They see empathy as a fundamental weakness. They make their profits in these areas.
Tax adverse and enemies of regulation they are pushing hard for the creation of high-tech fiefdoms, freedom cities on artificial islands (seasteading) or in remote areas of Honduras (Prospera). These extra national ideas are being challenged in court. Basically, they want to seperate from the choas that they forsee.
Picture, if you can, a world carved up into hyper-capitalist, democracy-free havens. They would be controlled by the supremely wealthy, protected by private armies, serviced by AI robots and financed by cryptocurrencies. Sounds like a few dystopian, sci-fi movies I’ve seen.
This is no joke. They are pushing hard. They feel they have an ally in Trump.
Read the above referenced article.