Oh, yes. You’ve nailed it. Look, we want the killing to stop. Every sane person wants the killing to stop. But you know what else? We want the killing and starving to stop in Sudan and Mynmar, too. Everywhere people are suffering.

But are we sending aid to the MILLIONS of displaced people in those countries? Are we getting them food, or let them die quietly while we ignore them?

No, we pick sides among the various flawed leaders. We choose one set of killers (in this case Hamas) to condemn another side (in this case Israel.) How about we choose LIFE and PROTECTING OUR PLANET so everyone’s children can live on a habitable Earth and not on a dying burnt hellhole?

Palestinians and Israelis—all of them—deserve to live as human beings, not as targets or victims. Nobody should be kidnapped or raped or bombed.

What about the land? Who cares who “owns” it or what it’s called? Who cares if there’s one state or two states? I happen to think there should be one state or better yet, ZERO states. Just people living together, people being friendly and thoughtful and kind and ignoring leaders of any kind who try to gin up hatred and violence.

That’s why I’m promoting BeFriend. (See WeAreSaners.org/befriend) I’m told this is naive, but what we are doing is naive. Hating on each other and wasting our short lives on this planet, this wonderful place and our strange magnificent short adventures in consciousness—well that hate and violence and brutality is INCREDIBLY STUPID.

In fact, it’s literally insane. It’s literally insane to destroy the planet that we—and everyone we love—lives on. It’s literally insane to obsessively vilify and brutalize and incite hatred against other people—people who are way more like you than different—because of their sexuality or what stupid country they happened to be born into, or—incredibly—the color of their skin.

It’s insane to ignore the genuine and serious challenges we face as a species—like the willful and conscious destruction of the biosphere that sustains all of us, and fight all the goddam time.

The human race needs to wake up and act like responsible caring people. AND WE CAN DO THIS. The only reason we don’t is that we are enthralled by childish “leaders” with their fragile egos and their bombastic attitudes, and we listen to them and—worse of all—we do what they say.

Ordinary people, the billions of people of Earth, are NOT inclined to waste their lives hating and brutalizing. We love our families and friends. We are in awe of Nature and they mystery of our existence. We love to tell stories, to express ourselves, and to hear the stories that others have to tell.

We are social animals and enjoy being together, and enjoy taking care of each other.

We can do better. Stop worrying about what other people, badly behaved people, do. Disempower evil by refusing to justify it and by refusing to give it the spotlight and, most of all, by refusing to cooperate with it or do the dirty work small-minded cruel and epically stupid “leaders” and “influencers.”

Follow your heart. You know good from bad. You can set the example every day. You can start living in that better world by modeling it, by beginning to creating it now, today, this minute.

We have a group of activists dedicated to bring out the best in humanity, to ending unnecessary suffering and cruelty—largely through non-cooperation, but using a variety of tactics pioneered by Gandhi and others who showed the way to genuine benevolent change. We are small and not yet very influential, but we have begun.

We are The Saners and you can read about us at WeAreSaners.org and—better yet—you can join us at WeAreSaners.org/join.

Stop justifying killing and cruelty for any “cause.” The only worthwhile cause is an end to killing and cruelty. That’s our side.