Year: 2015

(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 […]

(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 […]

(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 […]

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. […]

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. […]

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. […]

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. […]

(This is a guest post from Sherri Mitchell, a member of the Penobscot Nation, Indigenous Rights Attorney, and my cohost on Love (and Revolution) Radio which premiers Jan 6, 2016.) As a revolutionary, street corner activist, or even as a human being that is trying to make their tiny corner of the world a better […]

  (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 […]

(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.)  Recent comments by US politicians have left many troubled, worried about a replay of Nazi-era Germany here in the United States. The specter […]

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 a registry of all Muslims. He decries economic inequality while profiting from and being the epitome of the problem. He’s white, male, and millions of prejudiced, mass media skewed Americans seem […]

North Country Mornings from Skylandia: Farm Poetry by Rivera Sun On north country mornings, you can slip between worlds as easily as stepping out of bed, rising half-groggy, and walk out into the mist. Light frost etching lace on every gold meadow stalk, fog hung off the ponds hushed and reverent, breath of earth on the […]

Sitting on my altar, in the place of honor all new writing creations share, is this hand-stitched poetry chapbook (pictured right) that I made recently as part of my “Ode to the Southwest” holiday gift package (with sage, piñon incense, and some treats I’ve grown to love while living here). Here’s my favorite poem from the […]

(This is a guest post from Sherri Mitchell, a member of the Penobscot Nation, Indigenous Rights Attorney, and my cohost on Love (and Revolution) Radio which premiers Jan 1, 2016.) Carly Fiorina’s lies directly resulted in the attack at Planned Parenthood. There is no denying this, since the shooter quoted her when he was apprehended. […]

As I’m riding the overnight train from Chicago to New Mexico, an elderly African-American man in a wheelchair is taken off the train by paramedics, police, and the conductor. Earlier, I had heard the car attendant say something about a minor heart attack. The man, a double amputee, shivers in the cold night air as […]

In the past 36 hrs, I have watched and listened to hundreds of reactions of ordinary people to the attacks in Paris. With a clenched gut, I feared the reiteration of the sequence of 9/11: anger, shock, fear, calls for vengeance, war, and more violence. Instead, I saw the unexpected, and a tendril of hope […]

Know Your Nonviolent History (You’re Gonna Need It) According to Wikipedia: “A cacerolazo, cacerolada, or casserole is a form of popular protest practiced in certain Spanish-speaking countries – in particular Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Cuba, Spain – and more recently English and French-speaking countries, most notably Québec, as well as in Turkey during the […]

Do animals have sentience? How about trees? What about rocks? Or ecosystems? In Billionaire Buddha, I tell a story about a man who makes a fortune from trees and then questions the morality of wealth, property, ownership, and an economic system that destroys people and the planet. The central character wonders how humanity can justify […]

Recent Talks & Travels Along the West Coast Last week, I traveled the West Coast, speaking at several events and offering a few workshops on nonviolent change. With former-CIA intelligence analyst (turned anti-nuke activist) Elizabeth Murray and anti-drone, peace activist Sr. Megan Rice, I spoke about US imperialism and militarism, and the need for pro-democracy […]

The day begins with the sun rising over the Sangre de Christo Mountains, which stretch from the distant southwest horizon clear to the northeast corner of the round bowl of our sagebrush mesa. Snow clouds gather, grey and heavy, draping a mist over the mountains as the light slides into the glass bottle walls of […]

Every fifteen minutes, I leave my work behind and dance. For five minutes, I move, stretch, spiral, spin. I shake my body free of the tensions of typing and the linear quality of online work. I release the news, the calls-to-actions, the cries of human suffering. I leave it all behind and dance. Like a […]

Rivera Sun shares these short ‘n sweet video clips, each presenting a single thought on strategy for nonviolent movements. Enjoy, and find all of Rivera Sun’s videos on Youtube.     Above: Rivera Sun, author of The Dandelion Insurrection, discusses one of the concepts from strategic nonviolent struggle that helped her craft the plot of […]

Dear Friends, Life is full of surprises . . . including this unexpected, delightful new volume of poetry: Skylandia!  As we eagerly approached the much-anticipated release of Billionaire Buddha, we had an opportunity to feature an afterword from a much-respected researcher and policy advocate in the field of wealth and income inequality. In the spirit of including […]

Dear Friends, As you know, I am the author of a delightful little piece of fiction, The Dandelion Insurrection, which is winning friends across the nation. It is an eerily prophetic story, one which posited a mass surveillance system in a United States “just around the corner of today” months before our friend Snowden told […]