The Freedom Manifesto: A Playbook for Community Building

Op-Ed by Tony Geren  |  The Pontiac Tribune

We have come to realize that the world is in an extremely disharmonic state.

A playbook for freedom and healing from this disharmony has been created as more and more people understand the importance of  our common ground and of connected, peaceful, and cohesive communities. These communities provide for themselves completely, with resources that are readily and currently available, and without the need to engage with, or rely on, our corrupt corporate system.

We believe this plan can completely change how cities all over the country function; and we believe through this plan we will create a peaceful transition to literally ensure freedom for all people.

As a great awakening unfolds around the world, we are witnessing incredible changes in the consciousness of humanity. Communes have been popping up all over the world, which employ the ideals of non-aggression and make a declaration of our true, inherent human rights. These organized communities are thriving — and they already exist all over the United States.

Urban households are at a distinct disadvantage compared to those in rural settings for their inability to practice self-reliance outside the corporate system. Rural households are often already much more self-sufficient and connected with other households nearby.

Cities host thousands — sometimes millions — of people all inhabiting the same space, and all heavily reliant on government and corporations to provide basic needs for human survival. What would happen to those millions who don’t live sustainably if the system collapses?

These cities can transition and transform just like communes do. Through local networking and community building, we can transition to self-reliance, responsibility, and trade — ultimately fully providing for everyone — no matter what happens to our current system.

This is  the manifesto of:

The Free Communities Movement

The creation and organization of money is directly to blame for every issue we are facing today. That is not to say that money is evil or wrong — but it is to say that those who control the creation of money are the ones who orchestrate events and pull the strings in our world.

Money = Power

Those in power hold all the cards — they decide who our wars are fought against; what information the media shares; and who is elected into office. Centuries in the making, this abomination has been a struggle for the people.

But now, with the internet providing free information for everyone, ignorance about these issues is a choice.

Examine all the ways you contribute to this system. Every day, you spend money created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve to buy products made by huge corporations owned by the same banks that make up the FED.

Every dollar we spend is a vote for these corporations, thus we perpetuate our own enslavement.

According to rainbowknowledge.com:

“Large corporations use advertising with the entertainment industry.  They use lobbyist in our congress to fight for laws that benefit them. They often pay minimum wage and hire entire communities.  As we can see the foods we receive are poisoning us, the lifestyles the employees receive can poison our aspirations, and the entertainment industry is poisoning us (distracting us from what we should be focused on) while being supported by large corporations.    

“When you buy products from a grocery store you are paying a percentage to the producer, the distributor, and to the grocery store. The only money that actually stays in your local area is the money earned by the employees of the retailer (which is often minimum wage). Local spending gets multiplied many times over in the local community.  The majority (57%+) of the money you spend at a chain gets taken out of the community while the majority (68%+) of money spent at a local business gets put back into the community.  Every time your spending stays in your local area it makes the community stronger.”

Eatlocalgrown is a reference database of local farms, farmer’s markets, restaurants, grocers, and co-ops that is searchable by city or zip code.

If we want to reverse the tide and practice real solutions that can have a profound impact on the world, this must be the first step. Every solution begins locally, therefore the first solutions have to begin with ourselves.

Never Stop Advancing

Let’s say you’ve already been practicing this and you are looking to dig deeper.

After you have successfully made a system that puts your money where your mouth is, it’s time to go outside of our current paradigm. The people you surround yourself with, and the community you are a part of, must follow suit to become independent of the corporate system. By connecting, trading, sharing, and building with your local community, you are working against those in power.

Each step you take to create a more self-sustainable community is one step towards crumbling the State and releasing you from your invisible cage. Building a sustainable framework that will efficiently provide and actively care for all life within the community is the ultimate goal — with each city leading the next by example.

As more people join in, these ideas can evolve and effectively transform the community.

The system of control will become obsolete.

The Non-Aggression Principle

Non-aggression is a philosophy that teaches non-violent resistance to solve any issue. As long as humans can work together from their common ground, set aside their differences, and agree not to use violence to impose their ideas onto others, the Non-Aggression Principle (sometimes referred to as “The NAP”) can fix any situation.

Voluntaryism: The Non-Aggression Principle

The success of nonviolent civil resistance: Erica Chenoweth at TEDxBoulder

 What It Means to be Free

Our vision must start with the foundational understanding that there is not only one, single right way for humans to live on this planet. It is unacceptable to force others into any system without their consent or to use violence or coercion to compel them to obey a set of rules they never agreed to.

As we begin to rebuild, we need to figure out an approach which facilitates multiple systems existing side by side. A vast network of groups, under a non-aggression agreement, that co-create at the local level and provide mutual defense and trade as needed.

This isn’t going to be easy. Nor is it an impossible task. It’s going to take leaders who are flexible enough to speak to many different states of consciousness at once — leaders who have no desire to hold power over any other individual, but instead work to build the community to fully empower itself.

Revolution: An Instruction Manual | StormCloudsGathering

Building Bridges to a Free World Ft. Derrick Broze @ Jackalope Fest |The Conscious Resistance

The State’s War on Sustainable Communities | We Are Change

This isn’t going to be easy. Nor is it an impossible task. It’s going to take leaders who are flexible enough to speak to many different states of consciousness at once — leaders who have no desire to hold power over any other individual, but instead work to build the community to fully empower itself.

Where Are These Leaders?

We need YOU to fill that role.

Leadership is a skill — one that can be refined by simply communicating these ideas with the people around you. No matter where you are — no matter if the people around you are are strangers or family — reach out to them. It can start by asking about what they enjoy or what their passion is. We need to begin actively building relationships with the people around us, locally, and discuss what it means to be free — and how we can achieve that.

After forming a solid team of 10-20 dedicated individuals, we will divide into smaller groups to go out into neighborhoods door-to-door. We will ask our neighbors if they live comfortably; if they have lost faith in our corporate system; what their passions are. After explaining how we can aid the community, we could offer examples of how they can be a part of the community transition.

This might seem trivial, but when it comes down to it, most people can understand what’s going on in the world; but they are constrained to do anything about it for fear of not having adequate money to provide for their family.

When we break down the hundreds of things we can do to save our communities thousands of dollars — that our communities can trade with each other, making everyone’s lives easier by not having to provide everything individually, by each household participating by building their relationships with households around them — our movement will grow.

Then, we will educate (from the beautiful resource the internet) on self-sufficiency and sustainability — how building these communities up will combat the powerful financial institutions’ domination of the country, and how this cohesiveness will bridge a smooth transition through a financial collapse.

How We Will Become Completely Self-Sustaining:

1. Build community wells in each neighborhood for free access to water.
2. Form a ridesharing network within the community to reduce our dependence on oil, gas, and automobile breakdowns.
3. Grow food gardens inside and outside every home.
4. BUY LOCAL.
5. Build a trading and sharing system within this enhanced community for tools, gardening equipment, food, clothing, kitchen supplies, etc.
6. Provide an avenue for political activism based on non-violent resistance through The Common Ground Movement — allowing the community to be on the front lines of political activism.

It’s no longer enough to say there is a revolving door between Washington and Wall Street — they have grown together into one organism. It is important to come to terms with the fact that this problem is not going to be solved through elections or petitions — the people are going to have to take their power back without asking for permission — but that’s only possible if we unify from a place of common ground and set aside the rest.

So, What Now?

We have several options for action.

When the community is peacefully working together to provide for one another, its success will be contagious. Seeing how much better off each household is through this model, the movement will spread throughout the entire city — thus creating a decentralized, self reliant, and peaceful network that can band together to expose and oppose the violent and oppressive system-at-large.

News of each successful community will spread to cities nearby and then across the country through social media and other platforms.

By building up these communities across the country, all completely self-reliant, the entire system of control will collapse — leaving the people to decide their own future with their communities intact.