Strategy Is For Everyone – And So Is The Path Of Most Resistance

/ | 1 Comment on Strategy Is For Everyone – And So Is The Path Of Most Resistance

A Review by Rivera Sun “When everyone knows how to plan, you start to get strategic behavior.” These words from Ivan Marovic serve as my mantra as I facilitate trainings in strategy for nonviolent campaigns. When I met Marovic at the James Lawson Institute in 2014, he impressed upon me that everyone should understand strategy, […]

Read more »

We are Hurtling Toward Death–Step Out of Line and Resist

/ | Leave a Comment

Muster courage to resist. Outrage is a mere spark; it must ignite the flame of courageous determination or else its light dies swiftly. You will need the stronger fuels of love, hope, and vision to sustain you through the struggle. Build up your muscles for the marathon of change. Drill and train. Focus your mind. […]

Read more »

Rise And Live!

/ | Leave a Comment

Stay asleep, by all means. If you wish to die, sleepwalking over the cliff edge of extinction is one way to go. Stay afraid, by all means. If you wish to die, cowering in fear until poverty starves or the police state kills you is one way to go. Stay addicted, by all means. If […]

Read more »

Throw Off the Tyranny of Poverty! – An Essay of the Man From the North

/ | 1 Comment on Throw Off the Tyranny of Poverty! – An Essay of the Man From the North

An Essay of the Man From the Northby Rivera Sun Curse the war culture! It leaves us at a loss for words, bereft of metaphors to describe our situation. Our minds become blank slates, unable to recognize dangers at the door unless they carry assault weapons or drop bombs on our heads. Poverty and poverty-related […]

Read more »

La Casita Library Occupation, Chicago

/ | Leave a Comment

In the neighborhood of Pilson, Chicago, there’s a small elementary school called Whittier Elementary School. The residents and children are mostly Mexican immigrants, and the chronically under-funded school needed repairs, a functional cafeteria, and a library. In the corner of the soccer field was an old run-down field house affectionately called “La Casita”, where parents […]

Read more »

The Frontier Gandhi: Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan

/ | Leave a Comment

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was born on Feb 6th, 1890 in the Peshawar Valley of British-controlled India. At the age of twenty, Ghaffar Khan founded a village mosque school, and began his revolutionary work against British colonial control with what his contemporary Mohandas K. Gandhi was calling “constructive programme”. He worked tirelessly for independence and […]

Read more »

10 Things To Know About Nonviolent Struggle

| 1 Comment on 10 Things To Know About Nonviolent Struggle

Nonviolent struggle is on the rise globally. Neither passive, nor inaction, this powerful way of working for change is proving Gandhi’s audacious claim that “nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind” to be correct. Here are ten things you should know about nonviolent struggle and how it works. 1. Nonviolent action is […]

Read more »

The Frontier Gandhi: Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan

| Leave a Comment

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was born on Feb 6th, 1890 in the Peshawar Valley of British-controlled India. At the age of twenty, Ghaffar Khan founded a village mosque school, and began his revolutionary work against British colonial control with what his contemporary Mohandas K. Gandhi was calling “constructive programme”. He worked tirelessly for independence and […]

Read more »

Norwegian Teachers’ Defense of Education

/ | Leave a Comment

In April 1940, the Nazis invaded Norway and occupied the country. In 1942, as part of an attempt to implement a fascist curriculum in the schools, Minister-President Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian collaborator, disbanded the existing teachers’ union and required all teachers to register with the new Norwegian Teachers’ Union by February 5th. Between 8,000-10,000 of […]

Read more »

The Women of Berlin, Rosenstrasse Protest

/ | Leave a Comment

In 1943, Joseph Goebbels promised Adolf Hitler that Berlin would be Judenfrei – Jew free – in time for Hitler’s birthday. On February 27th, without warning, Jews were snatched off the streets and from workplaces, and held in buildings temporarily before being loaded onto trains to be sent to their deaths in the concentration camps. […]

Read more »

Know Your Nonviolent History: Leymah Gbowee

/ | Leave a Comment

“We are tired of war. We are tired of running. We are tired of begging for bulgur wheat. We are tired of our children being raped. We are now taking this stand, to secure the future of our children. Because we believe, as custodians of society, tomorrow our children will ask us, “Mama, what was […]

Read more »

Got Fascism? The 1942 Norwegian Teachers’ Nonviolent Resistance to Nazis Has Answers

| 1 Comment on Got Fascism? The 1942 Norwegian Teachers’ Nonviolent Resistance to Nazis Has Answers

(This essay was originally part of a longer essay addressing five stories of nonviolent resistance to the Nazis and the parallels that can be applied to current events in the United States.)  With bigotry and hatred on the rise in the United States and politicians like Donald Trump giving everyone the nightmares of an American Hitler […]

Read more »

What the Women of Berlin’s Rosenstrasse Protest Can Teach Us About Trump

| Leave a Comment

(This essay was originally part of a longer essay addressing five stories of nonviolent resistance to the Nazis and the parallels that can be applied to current events in the United States.) Many United States citizens are appalled at recent remarks by Donald Trump and other bigoted politicians advocating policies against Muslims that are eerily reminiscent […]

Read more »

Trump vs. Sophie Scholl: Lessons in Courageous Resistance

/ | Leave a Comment

(This essay was originally part of a longer essay addressing five stories of nonviolent resistance to the Nazis and the parallels that can be applied to current events in the United States.)  US politics are enough to give everyone nightmares of Donald Trump as Hitler minus the mustache. He’d drop a nuke on ISIS. He wants […]

Read more »

Send Me Your Blessings, Oh Angels of People!

| 1 Comment on Send Me Your Blessings, Oh Angels of People!

The Man From the North is a fictional writer in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrection. The novel takes place in the near future, in “a time that looms around the corner of today”, when a rising police state controlled by the corporate-political elite have plunged the nation into the grip of a hidden dictatorship. […]

Read more »

The Government Ain’t Your Daddy

/ | Leave a Comment

The Man From the North is a fictional writer in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrection. The novel takes place in the near future, in “a time that looms around the corner of today”, when a rising police state controlled by the corporate-political elite have plunged the nation into the grip of a hidden dictatorship. […]

Read more »

Liberty and Strategy for All

| 2 Comments on Liberty and Strategy for All

The Man From the North is a fictional writer in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrection. The novel takes place in the near future, in “a time that looms around the corner of today”, when a rising police state controlled by the corporate-political elite have plunged the nation into the grip of a hidden dictatorship. […]

Read more »

The Danes Saved More Than 7,000 Jews . . . Would We?

| Leave a Comment

  (This essay was originally part of a longer essay addressing five stories of nonviolent resistance to the Nazis and the parallels that can be applied to current events in the United States.) Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” said philosopher George Santayana, and in a time when presidential candidates are […]

Read more »

The Dawn of Tomorrow is Today!

/ | Leave a Comment

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 […]

Read more »

What Are We Waiting For?

/ | Leave a Comment

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 […]

Read more »

Blowing Up The Armory

/ | Leave a Comment

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 […]

Read more »
To top