Author: Rivera Sun

“This is the final showdown between the force of greed and the power of love. Either we are going to stop this extraction, or we are going to perish.” The Dandelion Insurrection – a novel by Rivera Sun It is not an exaggeration to say that Canada and the United States are facing an invasion […]

“Freezing to death is not an unpainful experience. Being cold is very painful.” – Carey Homelessness is on the rise. Despite the fact that we have more than enough houses to adequately shelter our population, three and half million homeless men, women, and children live and sleep in the streets. Imagine how it feels to […]

This week on Occupy Radio, cohosts Rivera Sun and David Geitgey Sierralupe interview Michael Nagler, founder of the Metta Center for Nonviolence. Listen to the podcast here. Those of us engaged in protesting the current failing system sometimes forget to remember the good things happening in our society, such as solar technology, local economies, and […]

“Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.” -Mahatma Gandhi While interviewing Jill Stein, Green Party Presidential Candidate in 2012, for the weekly Occupy Radio show that I co-host (listen here), it seems that she, like many of […]

Occupy Radio featured a special on the West Virginia Chemical Contamination. Co-hosts Rivera Sun & Getch interviewed Johanna de Graffenreid of the West Virginia Clean Water Hub. Listen to the podcast here. Every time your gas water heater roars to life in your basement, remember the West Virginians. Hundreds of thousands of residents no longer […]

Look beyond this night of darkness to the dawn of tomorrow. There is a world beyond the apocalypse, a world beyond war, a world of music and dance; a world where the children are laughing and time stretches slowly; where the Earth lives in the hearts, minds, and souls of our people. There is a […]

Occupy Radio interviewed Ysaye Barnwell on song and protest. Listen to the podcast here. When Pete Seeger died, a sense of the impermanence of life increased my urge to ask Ysaye Maria Barnwell, a Grammy Award winning, 34 year member of Sweet Honey in the Rock, to speak on Occupy Radio about the importance of […]

by Rivera Sun Occupy Radio interviewed reporter Kevin Gosztola on the NATO 3 trial, the surveillance state, the rise of counter-terrorism operations, and the use of terrorism law in relation to activists. Listen here: http://occupythemedia.podomatic.com/entry/2014-02-20T00_23_50-08_00 Cops need criminals. Otherwise, there’s no reason for police to exist. Likewise, counter-terrorism agencies need terrorists to justify the billions […]

I feel like shaking everyone and saying, don’t you get it? We don’t need a Movement of Movements – we are a movement of movements. My friends, we have been trapped in old dominant paradigm thinking. We have been steeped in warmongering, hierarchical, competitive, control-based mindsets since birth. We think we are lacking something, or […]

Is the NSA a secret admirer . . . or a stalker who needs a restraining order? After recording a dozen Love Letters to the NSA for Occupy Radio’s Valentine special, co-host Rivera Sun wrote down a letter of her own. Listen to the podcast.  Dear NSA, This is awkward. All these years, you’ve been […]

“Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.” -Mahatma Gandhi While interviewing Jill Stein, Green Party Presidential Candidate in 2012, for the weekly Occupy Radio show that I co-host (listen here), it seems that she, like many of […]

Enough! Enough of this senseless criticizing of one another. A Dandelion Insurrectionist who is imprisoned and beaten by the police is no more revolutionary than the mother who gets up in the morning and feeds her child. We all have tasks that are imperatives of our times and we must do them with humility. Those […]

We wait . . . we wait for another scandal to validate our suspicions of corruption . . . as if the abuse of power is not enough to demand impeachment and reform. We wait for a courageous Thomas Jefferson to declare our independence . . . as if we did not already know the […]

Occupy Radio co-hosts Rivera Sun and David Geitgey Sierralupe interviewed Pancho Ramos Stierle on radical kindness, Little Revolutionary Gardens (Jardincitos Revolucionarios), and fearless love in East Oakland. Listen to the podcast here: http://occupythemedia.podomatic.com/entry/2014-01-29T23_42_56-08_00 “If you want to be a rebel, be kind.” – Pancho Ramos Stierle Facing the severity of corporate-political domination and the wanton […]

Occupy Radio co-host Rivera Sun reflects on interviewing fugitive philosopher Katherine Ann Power In the late 1960’s, Katherine Ann Power engaged in an armed robbery to finance a revolutionary movement to overthrow the US Government. While leaving the bank, one of the men in her group shot and killed a police officer, Walter Schroeder. Katherine […]

“We don’t have a fracking problem. We have a democracy problem.” – Thomas Linzey, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund Every week on Occupy Radio, my co-host and I discuss the issues of our times: corporate politics, economic injustice, environmental destruction, the police state, government surveillance, and more. Over the episodes, one thing has become clear: […]

We have been losing ground. Corporate politics has invaded many sectors of our lives. In times of tactical retreat (in preparation for later advances), the military uses a tactic called blowing up the armory to describe a situation in which they will destroy any unsecured weapons and munitions to prevent their opponents from capturing them and using […]

There is a formula for revolution. The corporate-political elite are following it to perfection: steal the money, corrupt the power, imprison the people, starve the children, poison the water, pillage the resources, enslave the workers, eviscerate justice, stalk the citizens, stifle dissent, and inject terror in the bloodstream of society. Massive unrest and movements for […]

The Love-In-Action Network welcomes you! Welcome! We are a network of locally organized, interconnected groups dedicated to nonviolent action. The Love-In-Action Network empowers citizens through education, discussion, and action, providing opportunities to collectively and individually study nonviolent action, and preparing for the necessary struggle to ensure our health, well-being, and a future for humanity. “You are […]

There are subjects that break my heart and pull my pen toward them like gravity. The prison system is one of them. As a social protest novelist, I took my first novel, Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars, into the human impact of high incarceration rates and the policy effects of the private prison industry’s […]

Wishful thinking and random action will not topple the corrupt and powerful collusion of extreme capitalism, the wealthy elite, and military force. For all the courage shown thus far by people across the country in demonstrating, petitioning, even throwing their bodies in the line of danger, I call upon an even greater courage now … […]

It is not enough to hurl your rage at tyranny . . . every bully knows how to dodge a hothead. Anger is the alcohol of emotions. We flush, courageous in its drunken heat, but our blows miss, we flail, and our opponent easily dispatches us. I’ve had my share of schoolyard skirmishes. I’ve been […]

“This country is ready to be reborn. Something fresh and new is fomenting in the fertile crumbling of the old.” – The Dandelion Insurrection Two years after the rise and demise of Occupy, we are still spinning around wondering what happened . . . and what comes next. The discussion runs in tail-chasing circles so […]