Thanks to the Indybay Collective for translation of the article Der Planet platzt:
There are too many of us. Too many people, the prevailing notion goes, populate the earth. Resources are running out; the planet, it seems, is lurching toward total destruction. After all we have done, many think, it would be best if we disappeared from the face of the earth as soon as possible. As everywhere, numbers rule. It dictates what we have to think. We forget that it is not a question of quantity, but of quality that determines our future.
Enough is enough. The number of people living on earth has grown so much that, according to many, there is no more room for all of us. The planet is bursting at the seams. Like parasites, we have spread everywhere. Like swarms of locusts, we invade wherever there is food and a safe haven. Like viral super-spreaders, we are endangering the earth with our mere presence. The breath of 7.27 billion people is pushing the limits of permissible CO2 levels. 9.2 billion we will be in 2050.
There are too many of us and we must become fewer, according to the conventional wisdom. Humans have done so much damage anyway that they basically deserve no better than to disappear from the face of the earth again. Nature can do better without us. It's true: The forests have been cleared, the waters poisoned, the soil polluted, the air barely breathable. We have disregarded all living things. Without regard for losses, we tinker with the mechanisms of nature and ignore its laws. We have seized all the treasures of the earth, dissected, manipulated, sterilized and finally turned paradise into hell.
And now we steal away from our responsibility like stubborn children who refuse to clean up their room. Snivelling, we retreat into the prosperity that is left to us and throw cynical remarks at richly laid tables that determine the lives of others. There are too many of us. The entrance to the club is watched with a sharp eye. In the old manner, we leave it to those we have exploited the most to go first. Because by "too many" we don't mean ourselves and our families, but the others.
Allowing the worst to happen
Those in my circle who say we are too many are inoculated. To make them feel safe, they support measures that force everyone else to get vaccinated as well. Obviously, they want to stay a little longer. They are not bothered by the fact that many of their contemporaries can no longer work or participate in public life, and that even supplies are becoming difficult to come by. They care little about the collateral damage of the measures. Information about what it looks like on the other side is usually simply ignored. Their world is supposed to remain intact. The main thing is that they themselves are safe. That is solidarity. That is responsibility. That is charity.
Under this guise, the worst becomes legitimate. For those who believe we are too many, famines, wars and weapons of mass destruction are okay.
For him it is almost desirable that, for example, as many people as possible are made infertile, whether with or without their consent. Even a pandemic is then ultimately a good thing. For those who think that there are too many of us, it amounts to the same thing whether people die from a virus, from a vaccine against it, or from the effects of the restrictions. The main thing is that as many as possible disappear. The end justifies all means.
Whoever thinks that we are too many, signs a carte blanche for every form of crime and paves the way for a power that coldly calculates and mercilessly destroys. In this world, numbers are the measure of all things. It dictates when the fourth, fifth, sixth wave will roll, who will receive medical treatment and who will still be allowed to participate in public life. Only quantity counts. Quality is of no interest. The form determines where things go, the content is unimportant. What's inside is usually written so small that no one can read it anyway. The main thing is that the packaging and marketing are right.
Since time immemorial, this power of cold calculation has tried to lead creation into nothingness: Heaven is empty and the universe is a black hole. Man is a sinner, a faulty construction, a virus smuggler - nothing.
Nothing has a sense. Everything is coincidence. So anything can be made that can be made. It is all right. Everything is acceptable if only the cash register is right. It is all right for animals to be treated in the cruelest way. Didn't they come into the world to be used by us? Isn't our breeding their raison d'être? It's also okay for our bodies to be irradiated and our brains burned away so we can stream more to pass the time. It's even acceptable if we ruin the planet. Then we'll just move somewhere else.
Man or machine
So today we are falling into our own shadows. We don't realize that it's not a question of numbers, how it looks here on our planet, but of the way of life. No one would think of a tree as having too many leaves. Too much is not us, but the mode of production and consumption patterns that we have allowed to be foisted upon us. The exploitation and destruction are too much, the idea that the earth and everything that lives on it is nothing more than a resource, a thing that can be manipulated at will. The idea that nature must be improved and dominated is too much. Those who have brought into the world these ideas that are contemptuous of humanity and life are too much.
The hierarchies and power structures are too much and the states that have put themselves in their service.
It is not we who are too much, but the financial elites, digital companies and energy corporations that are leading the world to destruction. Vanguard and Blackrock are too much, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple.
We have let them hijack us. Our brains have been occupied by them and our thoughts and habits have been brought under their control. So much have we surrendered to them that it is now almost impossible to exist without them. They are the ones who put the flea in our ears that we are too many. Because they don't need eight billion people to exist. Half a billion is enough.
Today, the digital giants confront us with the question of whether we want to continue to exist as humans or as machines. We have a choice: become fully programmable or start cleaning up inside ourselves and trash the destructive ideas; continue to disregard the elements that give us life or connect with them. As for me, I have made up my mind. My feet are on the ground and rooted to the earth. Deeply penetrating the roots into the nourishing humus, the purifying water, the strengthening minerals, until finally touching the fire within the planet.
Accepting the task
This fire shows the way. Its flame is always directed upward. I can warm myself by it and let what has become superfluous in my life burn in it. In connection with the elements I feel that I am not only a part of nature. I am nature. It is all connected and interwoven. In the earthly fabric, everything has its place and its meaning. If one removes a part, it has consequences for the whole.
In this whole, man also makes sense. The planet would get along without us - but we would be missing. We are creative beings endowed with consciousness and have the possibility to shape the world in our image. That is our specialness, our contribution. We are like living antennas, a connection between the earthly and the heavenly. In which direction we align ourselves is naturally up to us. Which forces do we invite to the earth? Which energies do we nourish? On which frequencies do we vibrate?
It is we who decide about the climate, about the life of the plants, animals and minerals that live on this planet. Let's not leave them alone now, in the moment of greatest need, but let's lead them into a world where we all live together harmoniously and respectfully.
Let us turn our backs on the diabolical idea of darkening the sky and dimming the insolation of the sun, but turn once again to the Source and connect with the Light.
Let us step out of the twisted world. Instead of snivelling and bemoaning our fate, we can set about developing an awareness of our greatness and beauty and move into action. There are enough concrete ideas and projects (1). There is so much to do! We have our history to rewrite, a history of togetherness, of working together and cooperating, where opposites complement each other for the good of the whole. In this way, we take up a time that was not defined by scarcity and fear, by struggle and the grasping for material wealth, but by the awareness that we can only ever reap what we sow.