Fight the Machine: A Template
 

The unaccountable Top-Down Machine dominates the world. It reaches into every corner of our lives and into our hearts. Replaceable administrators manipulate, exploit, and use people as disposable tools. The Machine weaves our institutions, our cultures, and ourselves into a self-perpetuating social system. It encourages everyone to climb social ladders, get ahead of others, dominate their "inferiors," and submit to their "superiors." Baked-in incentives constantly motivate people, organizations, and nations to seek more wealth, power, and status. No one controls the Machine, though administrators operate components. It dehumanizes everyone.

Everyone's daily actions reinforce the Machine. Too often, we conform to this order — glorify the operators, worship the "successful," or look for a Savior to rescue us. We reproduce the Machine every time we deny another's essential humanity, dominate people without cause, hate an "enemy" as less than human, impose unfair or cruel punishments, or stop trying to understand others, including those who disagree with us.

Resistance, however, exists everywhere. You find it, for instance, in healthcare workers, teachers, and public servants. It shows up in random acts of kindness, the courage to protest, the creation of inspiring works of art, and the commitment to stay educated. It lives in those who form co-equal partnerships, respect others deeply, "think together," and honor Mother Nature. These individuals form the Bottom-Up Community.

 

Taking Action: Holistic Circles
 

If this community grows, evolves, and unites, it can help restructure the Machine to better serve the common good, hold it accountable to this goal, balance it with countervailing, bottom-up power, and limit top-down power to its most important use: intervening to stop real harm.
 

To move in this direction, you can gather a few trusted friends and affirm these Core Principles:

• Equality: Everyone is created equal and deserves respect for their essential humanity.

• Dignity: Everyone should be able to make ends meet and thrive.

• Awareness: The Top-Down Machine is rigged to benefit the few at the top.

• Power: Society needs a stronger Bottom-Up Community.

• Growth: We support one another's self-improvement.

• Common Good: We advance fairness, protect life, and spread joy.

Methods:
With rotating facilitators, members of these self-regulating, egalitarian holistic circles:

• Meet regularly, break bread, and speak from the heart.

• Open meetings with a review of the Core Principles abd a moment of silence for reflection, meditation, or prayer.

• Check in with brief reports on recent activities and current feelings. Members reflect on how the Machine has conditioned them, with each member defining their own goals. They might, for instance, acknowledge where arrogance or bias led to disrespect, fear kept them silent, self-centeredness fed depression, or they pushed too hard to get others to do what they wanted.

• Discuss a reading, a video, or a song selected by the facilitator.

• Choose the next facilitator.
   

Facing these realities can be painful, but doing so confidentially allows us to become better people. Putting thoughts and feelings into words helps. By countering our conditioning, we minimize divisive infighting and increase our effectiveness. In addition to their regular circle activity, many circle members engage in other forms of personal growth, mutual support, social service (such as volunteering at a soup kitchen), and political action (such as writing postcards).
 

Imagine: These circles multiply. Members of the first circle organize new circles and persuade existing groups — such as book clubs and social action committees — to affirm the Core Principles and Methods and become a holistic circle. One of these circles creates an online mechanism that enables circles to sign up in a Network of Holistic Circles. Representatives meet regularly to brainstorm, plan, and support one another.

A New Kingian Movement
 

Some members support the formation of a new Kingian movement that:

• Focuses on winnable demands.

• Is rooted in Dr. King’s Philosophy.

• Persists with each campaign until it is resolved.

• Organizes one campaign after another.

• Engages in civil disobedience when negotiation stalls.
   

The early civil rights movement focused on winnable demands and negotiated victories that built momentum and advanced progress. In particular, inspired by King's Birmingham campaign, the 1964 Sheraton Palace "sleep-in" in San Francisco shows how sustained, disciplined campaigns win. After two months of talks over the hotel's hiring practices stalled, thousands of demonstrators occupied the lobby on the night of March 6–7, 1964. Organizers told those willing to be arrested to link arms so police would have to separate them and go limp so they'd have to be carried out — footage that made the evening news. Police arrested 167 people while labor leaders pressed the mayor to intervene, and he kept all sides in his office until 33 hotels signed a nondiscrimination agreement. 
 

These actions were grounded in Dr. King’s six fundamental principles:

• Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. 

•  Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding. 

•  Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, or evil, not people. 

• Nonviolence holds that unearned, voluntary suffering for a just cause can educate and transform people and societies. 

• Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate. 

• Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice. 
   

Moreover, they used King’s Six Steps of Nonviolent Social Change:

• Information gathering

• Education

• Personal commitment

• Negotiation

• Direct action

• Reconciliation
   

(For more on these principles and steps, click the links above.)
 

Organizers prepared themselves personally, conducted research, formulated demands, identified targets, discussed their demands with the targets, engaged in demonstrations when needed to turn up the heat, negotiated with the targets to seek a resolution, and constantly sought reconciliation that changed hearts and expanded the Beloved Community. If the targets relented for selfish reasons, organizers accepted the outcome and hoped the targets would change their minds later.
 

The urgency of our current situation calls for a powerful grassroots movement like the early civil rights movement. The movement might focus on economic or political issues, such as taking on Big Tech, supporting a labor organizing drive, or pushing to ban Congressional stock trading, which is timely now. Winning an early victory through a sustained campaign could build momentum and a grassroots force that moves on to other issues. The movement might also place its work within the framework of a commitment to reform and counter the unaccountable Top-Down Machine.
 

Banning Congressional stock ownership and trading might be an effective initial focus, since members of Congress use their position to profit from these transactions. This issue has strong bipartisan public support and is live in Congress. In July 2026, the House passed a weak bill that bars new stock purchases but lets members keep the holdings they already own, and a voter-ID provision attached to it leaves its Senate prospects uncertain. Campaign members could initially focus on the officials and candidates who represent their own community and ask them to sign a Pledge that goes further than the House bill by requiring divestment:
 

I support prohibiting members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from owning individual stocks, individual bonds, or similar investments while in office. (Diversified funds, Treasury securities, and retirement plans are permitted.) While I serve in Congress, my family and I will sell any such investments. I also support meaningful penalties for violations.
 

Those who decline after education and negotiation could face nonviolent demonstrations. Some participants might choose civil disobedience.
 

This focus on Congressional stock trading is merely one option. Many needs are pressing. However, this focus could build momentum with a victory on an important issue: corruption in Congress. Making progress on this issue could open the door to progress on other issues.
 

The Network of Holistic Circles could support this new Kingian movement. Many of its members could participate in its training sessions, public forums, and political actions. They could debrief together after actions, and in general help each other stay on top of current events and counter disinformation.

At the same time, we recognize that the Bottom-Up Community is diverse. Some of us are outside agitators who turn up the heat with utopian demands. Some of us wage campaigns and negotiate compromises. Some of us are insiders who finalize resolutions. Some of us work inside to fundamentally restructure the Machine with multiple reforms, pushing it to be more responsive and more accountable to the public, and to more fully honor its highest ideals. Some of us aren't political at all and help people survive. Some of us build countercultures and counter-communities and create inspiring art. The bottom line: We don't attack one another for these differences. We say, "I understand where you're coming from, but I'm playing a different role."

By respecting these diverse contributions, we promote a balance between an accountable Top-Down Machine and a powerful Bottom-Up Community. Together, we fight the Machine and help save the world.

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COMMENTS
 

Rhonda Magee:
Hi Wade! I do find this to be encouraging, even though I don’t think I understand what is meant by “the Machine.”
But it may be that there is no better word for what you are pointing towards. (I don’t have a better alternative.)
Love!
Rhonda
Wade:
Great to hear from you. What is encouraging about it?
Rhonda:
Well, the idea of doing SOMETHING— anything— with others, with an open frame, while promoting understanding, room to grow together and respect— is encouraging.
Wade:
Yes, if I hear you correctly, flexibility and self-determination within a shared, collective "open frame" are feasible and provide balance.
To clarify this, I just added to the second Methods bullet point: "Open meetings with a review of the Core Principles...."
I'm posting your comments on the Latest Draft. Please let me know if you'd rather I didn't.  o far, you, Eva Paterson, Penn Garvin, and Michael Nagler have commented. So you're in good company!

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Eva Paterson:
I am in the final stages of producing a 40-second video that will go to 11 states where we think we could help flip the Senate from red to blue. I’m so tired I could curl into a ball and cry. I wish I had time to look at this, but I just don’t.
If you can reach out to me in November after the midterms, I’ll have more energy
Wade:
Thanks so much for your work. Get some rest! I'll be in touch after the election.
Eva:
 

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Penn Garvin:
I like it! Following the election, I am in an ongoing local group that is focusing on envisioning a future different from our past as a nation. I will share this with others. Thanks for all your good thinking as always! Much love and appreciation,
Wade:
​If you will, please elaborate a bit on why you shared this particular piece.

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Michael Nagler:
Thanks for sharing.  I think it's a good plan. It's just about impossible to predict when (not if) something will precipitate a grand resistance.  When it does, plans like yours and those of Paul and Mark Engler, for example, could be extremely helpful to keep things moving and focused.
Wade:
Good to hear. Please refer me to a good source for the Engler plan. BTW, I’m posting your comment(s) on the Latest Draft.
Michael:
https://thisisanuprising.org/

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Brandon Faloona:
It's great, as usual! The portions I read felt straightforward, true and compelling. Your website looks great too!