Category: Occupy Radio

Locked Down, Locked Out, Truthout Editor-in-Chief Maya Schenwar’s nonfiction book on mass incarceration arrived in the mail last week. I opened the first page and did not stop reading until the very last word. From the moment my eyes made contact with Schenwar’s gripping confession of her complex relationship with her often-incarcerated sister, I was […]

by Rivera Sun The current struggle between democracy and oligarchy in the United States traces its roots back to the 1787 Philadelphia Convention where the wealthy elite pulled off a counter-revolutionary coup to stifle democracy. Oligarchs are as American as poisoned apple pie. Their wealth and power look mouth-wateringly good, but with every bite, democracy […]

by Rivera Sun Occupy Radio cohosts Rivera Sun and David Geitgey Sierralupe interviewed Ben Page, coauthor of the new study on how politicians ignore the people. Listen here. If a dictator moved into the White House and condemned the populace into servitude, the US political situation might be a lot clearer. But beneath the lies, […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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: […]

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 […]

“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 […]

In other years, Thanksgiving has found me ranting about Black Friday’s commercialization of greed during a holiday of gratitude. I have written historical exposes of the historical Thanksgiving and the genocide of the native tribes. I have explored the inner convolutions of emotions that come along with being an American. This year, I chose to […]

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 […]

“Imagine!” Philippe Duhamel urges excitedly, “The natural gas industry is coming and instead of the usual blockade of activists, there could be a row of grannies in rocking chairs knitting!” The whole scene whips through my mind lightning fast: the police come to arrest the protesters. The grannies lock down, not to natural gas drilling […]