Category: Nonviolent Struggle

  Here at the foot of the Sangre de Christo Mountains, the desert is promising winter. The sagebrush mesa is dotted yellow with autumn flowering shrubs. Soon, the aspens high on the sides of the peaks will turn shocking gold with the bite of cold air. Our field of winter squash ripens orange, red, and […]

Dear Friends, Certain things fall by the wayside while the squash and weeds proliferate and our US tax dollars go to work bombing children in foreign countries. Updating my website and sending out newsletters lose significance as the power mongers maneuver for a stronger stranglehold on our lives. Yet, the crises grow into constants, and […]

by Rivera Sun Depending on one’s proximity to wage and workplace issues, the term Labor Movement may conjure up images of 19th century Wobblies with rolled-up shirtsleeves, Detroit autoworkers, or Walmart strikers. The face of labor evolves through the decades and with each change in the workplace, our identity as a populace of laborers has […]

by Rivera Sun Surfing is an art. Life today sweeps us up in the swells of tremendous change. Terrifying undertows and riptides are brewing beneath the surface of our socio-political situation. The rise and fall of waves of change palpably upheave beneath us. And like dedicated surfers, we are all waiting to catch the perfect […]

by Rivera Sun The recent Supreme Court ruling removing limits to campaign financing should be the final straw on the camel’s back of the American people. Democracy in our country is a standing joke . . . and the trend of politics-for-sale is no longer funny. Wealthy elites and mega-corporations have created a modern day […]

Please enjoy this 1:30min excerpt from Rivera Sun’s talk at Unity of Taos on the stepping into the lineage of nonviolent struggle.

Extinction is no joke. Climate scientists say we have ten years, at most, to make a massive transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. If we do not, climate change will signal lights out for the human species. I am thirty-one years old. Climate change and global warming have been making headlines since I was […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 … […]

“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 […]

Note: Usually this blog post features a companion article to our weekly Occupy Radio interview. This week, however, Radley Balko, senior writer and investigative reporter for the Huffington Post, hit upon a concept so powerful that, with all due respect, I had to detour from discussing his bestselling book about the militarization of our police […]