Pigs In Parliament, Beach Parties & Sewer Drains: 32 Protests To Inspire Creativity

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Originally published by Campaign Nonviolence (in collaboration with Nonviolence News) on Waging Nonviolence. Nonviolent action is an art, a science and a toolbox for making change. With over 300 methods of waging struggle — from street art to strikes, boycotts to blockades — and millions of people engaging with it, nonviolent action is innovative, unexpected […]

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Sparking Change: How Movements Pass On Inspiration

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Change doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Resistance is a continuum. Nonviolent movements arise amidst the efforts of many other struggles. The knowledge of how to organize for change is a global legacy passed between movements and generations of activists through lineages of inspiration that stretch through hundreds of years. (The first recorded strike happened in […]

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Tapping Into People Power

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by Rivera Sun, Editor of Nonviolence News In times like this, many of us feel powerless to do anything about the political, social, and environmental injustices we face. But, power is everywhere. Like sunlight and solar panels, it’s a question of tapping into it. Accustomed to the top-down power of presidents and CEOs, most of […]

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Turning the Titanic: Belfast Shipyard Workers Want to Build Windmills

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Editor’s Note from Rivera Sun: Each week, I read hundreds of articles and survey close to a thousand headlines in search of the stories I feature in Nonviolence News. Finding these reports bolsters my heart.  In New Zealand, 10,000 weapons have been turned in through a buy-back program after the Christchurch massacre.  In Brazil, Indigenous women […]

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Against All Odds, We Rise & Resist

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From Qatar to Honduras, People Take Action.Nonviolence News: Aug 10th, 2019 Editor’s Note from Rivera Sun: In Nonviolence News this week, you’ll find some powerful stories.  Thirteen victories, large and small, show how change is being made step-by-step. Georgians, Russians, Hondurans, migrant workers in Qatar, and Irish and British airport workers are all striving for […]

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Creative + Strategic = Effective Movements for Change

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by Rivera Sun, Editor of Nonviolence News If you want to make change, think outside the protest box. It’s easy to get hung up on protests. We’ve heard about them, they’re highly visible, and they’re relatively easy to pull off. The problem with protests is that – all too often – they’re easily ignored. Creativity […]

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The Bottom Line: Go For The Money

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by Rivera Sun It’s rare to hear business magazines admit the power of nonviolent action. As the editor of Nonviolence News, a service that collects and shares 30-50+ stories of nonviolence in action each week, I often see business journals minimizing the effect of activism. Usually, industry tries to conceal the impact nonviolent action has on […]

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Nonviolence News: A Record-Breaking Year

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May 11-18, 2019 Editor’s Note from Rivera Sun: By the numbers, Nonviolence News covers stories that involve millions of people. Civil disobedience arrests are happening by the dozens. Demonstrations involve thousands. Strikes include hundreds of thousands. This week alone, Nonviolence News is covering stories about 100-200,000 French protesters, 300,000 teachers on strike in Poland, thousands […]

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Going Horizontal: Written for Workplaces, Perfect for Activists

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A Review by Rivera Sun The Occupy Movement ignited popular awareness of “horizontal” concepts, yet many years have passed and few movements – and even fewer organizations – have really figured out how to embody those ideas. Samantha Slade’s new book, Going Horizontal, offers practical tools and tangible practices for all of us seeking to […]

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The End of the NRA: Biz Mags Tell Activists “The Strategy Is Working”

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Good news for humanity: the NRA is weakening. The gun-lobbying group is in “deep financial trouble,” Fortune Magazine reported, and warns that the NRA may not be able to keep going. “The group says it is under such financial distress because New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has convinced a number of financial service providers, banks, […]

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8 Awesome Lessons from the Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum

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I recently left the country (for a weekend) and joined an international group of feminists of all genders at the Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum (EFF) in Toronto. I had been invited to offer a workshop on the tools and strategies activists use to make change. When I first heard about this group (not knowing anything about […]

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Rivera Sun’s Murmuration Exercise for Leaderful Organizing

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Murmuration Exercise Adapted for movements and organizations by Rivera Sun Please use and share, but please let participants know where it comes from so a sense of lineage and longevity is built through our movements. Thank you. History: I first learned this exercise as a group improvisational dance structure at Bennington College with Dance Professor […]

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After the Vote

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An Essay of the Man From the North (The Writings of the Fictional Character Charlie Rider from The Dandelion Insurrection) by Rivera Sun The Vote – the beloved, abused, scorned, corrupted, stolen, hijacked, pointless, profound, hopeful, depressing, hard-won, cherished vote – is not the only way to take action for meaningful change. Currently, the elections […]

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Protect the Net!

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Stop Crony Capitalism: Protect the Net! by Rivera Sun Pretty soon, we’ll all be paying a whole lot more money for Internet service. A few days ago the FCC’s repeal of Net Neutrality went into effect. If nothing is done, it easy to see the handwriting on the wall. After a waiting period of no […]

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Think Outside the Protest Box

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Protest. Petition. Call your senators. Nothing changes, right? No matter how large our demonstrations get, no matter how many millions of people write and petition politicians, no matter how many people get arrested in front of the White House or at our state capitols, it seems that our (supposedly) elected officials keep turning a blind […]

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Shifting Systems with Nonviolent Strategy

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The secret to successful nonviolent struggle lies in understanding strategy and systems. All systems require participation and resources to survive. Deny those things, and the system will wither away . . . or concede to meet your demands. Strategy can be that simple. Cut off the water and the plants will die. Block all other […]

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The Earth Is Singing Her Revolution – Excerpt from Steam Drills

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“The Revolutionary Table” Chapter Fourteen of Steam Drills by Rivera Sun Patrick, Louisa, Hank, Wanda, and Ford all crowded around the kitchen table in Henrietta’s two-room cabin. Old Moses Nelson’s mother gave birth to him on that table. Strong and sturdy, rugged as the ancient oak that formed its boards; the table’s grains held a […]

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Nonviolent Resistance to Trump: Creative, Powerful . . . and Growing

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The rise of Donald Trump has been infuriating, horrifying, and ridiculous all at once. Meanwhile, what we, the People, are doing to resist injustice, oppression, discrimination, hate, bigotry, and authoritarianism is downright inspiring. Nonviolent action is reaching new heights of creativity in the United States, widening in frequency and participation. Here’s just a sample of […]

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Emergence: Revolution Within and Without

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An Essay of The Man from the Northby Rivera Sun A self-organizing movement like the Dandelion Insurrection relies on the collective and individual capacity of our participants. We are only as strong as the synergistic sum of our parts. The weaknesses of each person affect the effectiveness of the whole movement. The wisdom or folly […]

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Countering Hate and Discrimination

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by Rivera Sun for Campaign Nonviolence and Peace Voice Many people in the United States are expressing concern over the rise of hatred, hate crimes, bigotry, racism, sexism, and Islamophobia. At the same time, a number of creative nonviolent responses have arisen for addressing discrimination and hatred on the ground. Here are a few stories […]

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Old Toads and Millennial Votes

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I am an old millennial, one who just barely squeezes into the age category.  I graduated high school in 2000. My first presidential election was Bush vs. Gore – a rigged election with widespread allegations of electoral voting machine manipulation and a dubiously-legal intervention of the Supreme Court to stop the pivotal Florida vote count, […]

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Swarming: How the Movement of Movements Rolls

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by Rivera Sun, author of The Dandelion Insurrection The word you’re looking for is swarming. The people are rising, resisting, changing, growing, evolving . . . and as they do, they’re swarming like bees or birds in the hundreds, thousands, millions. They’re coming together to stop pipelines, then dispersing and reassembling in a different configuration […]

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Know Your Nonviolent History – August 20, 2013, Antoinette Tuff Stopped a School Shooter with Nonviolence

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On August 20, 2013, Antoinette Tuff (right) nonviolently disarmed a school shooter, saving the lives of hundreds of school children. Antoinette was a bookkeeper. She wasn’t supposed to be at the school that day. She was just filling in as a front desk receptionist as a favor to a friend. That morning, during her prayer […]

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Got Strategy? Actions – Campaigns – Movements!

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If I could make one wish come true on a silver-headed dandelion, it would be to instill a deeper understanding of strategy for nonviolent movements into every single person working for change. As my friend, Philippe Duhamel told me once, “Strategy without action is futile . . . but action without strategy is fatal.” So, […]

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