Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Father John Deere, and today I'm speaking
with my friend Rivera Sun. This is a project
of www .beatitudecenter .org, where you can find
many other podcasts and regular Zoom programs
on the nonviolence of Jesus and practicing nonviolence
and working for a more just, more nonviolent
world. So let's begin with a little prayer, as
I usually like to do. So I just invite you, wherever
you are, just to take a deep breath and to relax,
and let's all recenter ourselves into the spirit
of peace, the presence of the God of peace, of
universal love, and welcome the nonviolent Jesus,
and just take a moment to ask for whatever graces
we need to fulfill our vocations as peacemakers.
God of peace, spirit of peace, thank you for
the blessings of life, love, and peace. Be with
us as we reflect on your call to practice nonviolence,
to be peacemakers, and to work for a more nonviolent,
more just world. Bless us, inspire us, disarm
us, strengthen us, and send us out to do our
part to help end poverty, racism, greed, injustice,
war, and nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction.
that we might be your holy peacemakers and welcome
your reign of universal love, nonviolence, and
peace on earth. Amen. So it's a great pleasure
to welcome today my friend Rivera Sun, who's
an author and activist, written many books and
novels, including The Dandelion Insurrection
and the award -winning Ari Ara series. She's
the editor of Nonviolent News. Nonviolence News,
and the program coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence,
which is a project of PaceandBene .org, which
Rivera and I used to work together on the staff
years ago. Her articles are published through
Peace Voice and in hundreds of journals nationwide.
And she's on the board of Backbone Campaign and
the advisory board of World Beyond War. And I
invite everyone to... Read about her and get
her books. You can check out her website, RiveraSon
.com. So welcome, Rivera, to the Nonviolent Jesus
Podcast. Thanks for being with me today. Thanks
so much, John, and thanks for the great work
that you're doing with this podcast. Great, and
thank you for all your good work. Well, I think
of you as one of our great teachers and researchers
about grassroots movements of nonviolent resistance.
So I thought we could start there and you could
just reflect as you'd wish to tell all the thousands
of people listening about what's going on in
the U .S. And from your perspective there at
your home in Maine, what signs of resistance
are you seeing as you look out in the country
in this new era? time under the Trump administration
that we're all enduring. Yeah, thank you. We
are seeing an unprecedented wave of organizing,
of activism, of protests. We had the No Kings
protest last month or a little while ago that
brought out somewhere between 4 and 11 million
people, depending on which estimate you're going
by. which is one of the largest single days of
protests ever in U .S. history. And what we're
really seeing is that the erosion of civil liberties,
the undermining of constitutional law, the attacks
on health care, on social services, public services.
is galvanizing a lot of people to express how
upset they are with what's going on in this country.
Things like the immigration crackdown and the
ICE raids or the sending of National Guard and
Marines to occupy Los Angeles have really got
people very concerned about the rising authoritarianism.
And we're seeing a kind of corresponding rise
of people. Not just protesting, but engaging
in all forms of non -cooperation, intervention,
all these non -violent tactics. Well, that's
encouraging. One of the things that's happening
this week as you and I are recording is the launch
of something called One Million Rising, which
I just heard about from you. through campaignnonviolence
.org. Tell us about that, because it may be over
with by the time people listen to this, but it's
another great sign. One Million Rising was an
effort to train, mobilize, and gather together
a million people to learn specifically about
the part of the nonviolent action toolbox that
we call non -cooperation. And it's distinct from
things like protest and persuasion where we lift
our voices, we say what's wrong. And it's not
necessarily the same as acts of intervention
where you literally put your body in front of
tanks or, you know, shut down a road. Acts of
non -cooperation are where we withdraw our support
and our cooperation and our participation or
our expected obedience in systems. Some of the
large organizations that have been mobilizing
for these rallies, namely Indivisible and No
Kings, collaborated on bringing people together
to be trained by a group called Freedom Trainers,
by folks like Daniel Hunter and Maria Stephan,
Maria Stephan being one of our two foremost authorities
in civil resistance, particularly against the
kind of authoritarianism that we're looking at
right now. On the first day of training, they
had over 100 ,000 people registered, all told
between the people who watched live, who watched
the live streams, who followed up with the recording.
Over 130 ,000 people engaged with this information
and this knowledge about how we resist authoritarians,
how we use acts of non -cooperation, what that
means. And then thousands of them followed up
by organizing local resistance gatherings. where
they passed on this information to their local
community. This is part of an effort to say,
we need street protests, we need street demonstrations,
but we also need to go further if we want to
stop the abuses that we're seeing. That's going
to look like many of the things that we have
been seeing, but on a much larger scale. We know
that the Tesla takedown campaign was a very successful
boycott that just... who omitted Tesla's stocks
over the behaviors of what Elon Musk was doing,
undermining public services. This is an act of
non -cooperation. All boycotts are. We also are
seeing people standing up to ICE, particularly
teachers have been taking very bold stands to
say, you know, it's just not acceptable to arrest
children's parents. and leave them stranded at
school or to come into school grounds and terrorize
the children looking for undocumented immigrants.
We're also seeing thousands of people be trained
in Know Your Rights training so that they can
really use the strength of the law to say to
ICE, no, you can't raid this workplace without
an actual judicial warrant. So these are acts
of non -cooperation where people say, no, I will
not do this. I will not let you do this. I will
not go along with what is happening. And one
of the goals of the One Million Rising is to
say these are the kinds of actions that we need
if we're going to... meet the times that we're
in and meet the challenges that we face. So it's
a very encouraging thing to see this develop.
It takes the energy of the mass demonstrations
that we've been seeing on April 5th, on May Day,
on No King's Day, and helps people do what they're
hungry for, which is go to the next level and
find out how they can really start to cooperate
and organize and plan and strategize for this
next level of action. Thank you, Rivera. You've
been giving workshops and weekends across the
country over the years, talking about movement
building, how movements work, and how we go to
those next levels of non -cooperation and all
the different aspects of grassroots nonviolent
resistance. And one of the key teachings you
have is about knocking down the pillars, the
structures that uphold these systems of injustice
and oppression. tyranny we're seeing. Tell us
about that. Any of the way you present the theories
or how movements work, and in particular, this
idea of the pillars that are upholding the injustice.
Yeah, movements succeed because of two main dynamics.
One is our participation in them. And participation
is the single most biggest determinant of success
for a movement. So it's really important that
we join in. Whether that's a street protest or
a boycott, our participation and outreach to
others is vitally important. But the second part
of that is this analysis tool that we call the
pillars of support. And it's the idea that power
holders alone, let's say a president or a dictator,
they don't have power on their own. If they give
an order to go dig a ditch. Unless we cooperate
and we obey and we pick up the shovels and go
dig the ditch, the power holder doesn't have
that power magically, right? So the pillars of
support are these different sectors of society,
things like the military and the police, civil
society groups, education like universities and
students, the media, the courts. the businesses,
the unions, and the workers. These different
categories are each different pillars that either
prop up the regime or the dictator, or they say,
no, we will not prop you up. We will not give
the weight of our time, our money, our skills,
our capacity, and our support to what you're
doing. So in nonviolent struggle, what we try
to do is to Engage with those pillars to get
them to withdraw their support. And then that
the dictator, which you can imagine sitting on
top of those pillars, if he doesn't have support
from them, his regime will collapse. And that's
what we mean by the pillars of support model.
And in Nonviolent Struggle, what we try to do
is use things like demonstrations or boycotts
or shutdowns or walkouts or blockades to get
those pillars to either directly engage in the
movement and join the, say, the boycott, or step
aside and simply don't participate in supporting
the dictator or the power holder. And this has
been really instrumental. We definitely know
that this is a critical thing that has made movements
either succeed or fail, whether or not they can
get these pillars to withdraw their support.
Well, here we are, just only, it's hard to believe,
like eight months into the Trump administration
with theoretically years to go, lest we all do
what you're suggesting. And we're witnessing
the dismantling of democracy and so many forms
of injustice and so much suffering. I know this
is almost silly to ask, but what do you think
needs to happen in light of all your understanding
of movements in the next months and years, movement
-wise, in general, if you could say something
like that? I think, first of all, each of us
needs to sit down and do a little soul -searching
and decide whether this is a normal... presidency
that we disagree with the policies of, or this
is a presidency that has stepped outside the
rule of law, outside the confines of what the
job is all about. That's going to change how
we approach resistance. We're always going to
oppose unjust policies. We're always going to
rally to stop the damages from hurting ourselves
and our communities. We're going to do our best
to respond to the barrage of terrible ideas that
seems to be coming out of the White House these
days. But if this administration decides that
it doesn't want to be constrained by the rule
of law, it doesn't want to obey the courts, it
doesn't want to give up power when it comes time
to elect a new president, let's say, it doesn't
want to... follow the laws that govern the land.
He wants to do things like send troops all over
the country without invoking the Posse Comitatus
Act or the Insurrection Act, both of which are
illegal and unconstitutional to do. He can't
send troops to U .S. soil without one of those
two things, and he doesn't have it. So if this
is not a normal presidency, then we need to think
about, is it time to respond in a way that isn't
normal? The normal way would be to wait another
three and a half years and then elect somebody
new, right? That would be our normal process.
The not -so -normal way would be to say that
we need to invoke the articles of impeachment.
Trump has already committed something like 19
impeachable offenses. The list is long, and it's
growing every single day. There's plenty of material
by which to impeach, convict, and remove. him
from office. But what we lack is the political
will of our legislators who need to stand up
for the Constitution and get it done. So I would
say that, you know, if we think that this is
an authoritarian regime that no longer is being
constrained by the laws that govern this land,
we have to get ready for a struggle like that.
And that's where we have to look to. Historic
examples all over the world, things like Serbia
ousting Milosevic or the Philippines rising up
against Ferdinand Marcos. We are lucky we have
an impeachment process that we can push our legislators
to do. We just saw South Korea in 2024 go through
that exact process after their president falsely
invoked the martial law. And so they impeached
their president. got him out of office. So this
is just one thing that I think we need to do
is do some soul searching. What kind of a situation,
what kind of a mess, how deep it is, and how
do we need to respond because of that? That said,
we do need to stop the damages as many as we
can, wherever we can. We need to push for accountability
wherever we can and try to uphold the systems
and the institutions. that have kept democracy
in place. And speaking of democracy, we can't
take our eye off that. If we want to live in
a democratic society, we have to insist on it
and demand it. And this isn't just with the administration.
This is also with things like masked ICE agents
roaming about our communities and snatching people
off the street. That is terrifying. That is not
the kind of country that I was raised to believe
in or to expect that we would ever witness at
this level. And we need to maintain our sense
of perspective on this, that this is not acceptable.
It's not okay. We need to make sure that all
of our institutions are standing up for their
independence, things like universities. We're
seeing Harvard and all these other universities
push back against the administration's attempt
to control them and to cut off their funding
and to censor them. We need media institutions
to not bow down to the censorship or the control
of one administration, but stand up for the free
press. So there's lots and lots of work to do.
But I would say one of the big things that got
us into this mess that we can work on as a society
is non -cooperating with corporations and billionaires.
They already have too much money and power. And
so every day that we participate in their systems
as buyers, as sellers, as consumers, is yet another
day that we're giving them more power. We're
giving away our power to them. For example, there's
140 million people in this country who have an
Amazon Prime account. And every month they give
$15 to Jeff Bezos and Amazon Prime. I think that
we should all stop that. We should stop giving
our $15 a month to Amazon Prime and take it back
and give it to our local community. Give it to
your local farmers. Give it to a mutual aid network.
Or just stashed away for a rainy day because
the way that our economy is going, we're going
to need that. So this list goes on. There's a
lot of things we can do. Staying connected to
the many types of campaigns that are out there
on the many issues is a great idea. And, you
know, try to stay grounded. Try to find your
place and plug in and not run around like a chicken
with your head cut off and trying to do everything.
So, you know, find what you want to work on and
do that because we need you in the movement.
Thank you, Rivera. I wonder if you could be specific
in a few campaigns that people might want to
consider taking part in this fall and next year.
So, for example, Campaign on Violence, which
you're working hard on, but there are others.
Maybe just list a few that make sure people know
about them. What are ones that are growing? need
people from all walks of life. Yeah, absolutely.
So this One Million Rising campaign I just mentioned,
there will be new rounds of that and new ways
to plug in. So please do go check it out and
connect to those who are working on non -cooperation.
The Target Fast has also expanded its approach
to pressuring Target to uphold DEI, diversity,
equity, and inclusion. They're now also working
on Amazon. So supporting those boycott campaigns,
we saw how effective Tesla takedown was, so keeping
your eye out for that. You know, the big rallies
like No Kings and 5051 and Indivisible and Women's
March, keep showing up for those because we need
to show our strength. Wherever you can find a
local group working on resisting ICE, I think
it's great to connect with them and at least
support mutual aid for them. If you're not in
a position to be someone who directly confronts
ICE agents, then support them in other ways.
And mutual aid. Mutual aid is how we show solidarity,
not charity. How we recognize that the economic
policies of this administration are causing economic
hardship for millions of Americans right now.
And the social safety net is eroding and crumbling.
So making sure that we stock our food pantries,
making sure that we help at the food bank, making
sure that we check in with new mothers and fathers
and making sure that they have that little extra
support that they need as they're trying to raise
their kids. making sure that someone can meet
rent so that they're not thrown out in the cold.
This is what mutual aid is about. It helps us
maintain our strength as a populace while we
push to resist the big problems. Oh, that's beautiful.
Thank you. Well, you know, you've also done a
lot of work studying nonviolent movements around
the world, and you've mentioned some of them.
I wonder if you could want to say anything else
about... What you see happening elsewhere in
the world, you know, Erica Chenoweth and Maria,
Stefan, Maria was on the podcast, have been saying
that more has been happening in the last 50 years
in terms of global participation in grassroots
movements than ever before in history. What are
you seeing? That's absolutely true. Just a few
weeks ago, we saw India hold a one -day strike.
that mobilized 250 to 350 million people. Imagine
that. The entire size of the U .S. population
went on strike for a day. Why? Why? They did
it because the Modi government is rolling out
a series of labor reforms or trying to do so.
And they were upset because it's going to lower
wages. It's going to lower workplace safety.
impact many of the things that workers rely on
in India. So 10 big unions went on strike. They
represented 150 million people. And if you can
imagine, every person who's part of that union
who's going to go on strike because the union
striking said to their partner or their sibling
or their friend, go on strike with me. That quickly
you get to 300 million people. So that was an
extraordinary action that happened in mid -July.
But it is indicative of this kind of rising swell
of activity that we're seeing. We're seeing mass
protests against corruption in Serbia and against
authoritarianism in Hungary. Ukraine had huge
protests against Zelensky's attempt to kind of
roll back. some of their anti -corruption agencies'
independence. This is very unusual in the war
context that they're in. But we are seeing people,
you know, recognize that if our democratic institutions
falter and if they backslide and if they can't
do the job of protecting the people or ensuring
a livable planet or opposing a war, then we the
people need to. We need to reach for the tools
of nonviolent action, which I consider, you know,
in this country, we talk about the three systems
of checks and balances. So we have the executive
branch, we have the legislative branch, and we
have the judicial branch. But I maintain that
there's a fourth system of checks and balance,
and that is people using nonviolent action. Over
and over again, when those three institutions
fail to stand up for justice, It is the people
using nonviolent action who say a change must
occur. We saw this with the suffragettes. We
saw this with the civil rights movement, with
the labor movement, with the environmental movement.
And we're going to see it again in support of
democracy. You know, Americans have lots of challenges,
but our love for democracy is not one of them.
That has been an unshakable value in this country
for a very long time. And I think we're going
to see that this country will rise up for it
again. And that's a vision and a goal that I
know that I'm working for as well. Well, that's
great. Thank you. It's very powerful the way
you put it and gives me hope. And yet, we're
so many struggles at home for democracy and around
the world and human rights and social justice
in all new ways. But hovering over the whole
planet are these two catastrophic forces, nuclear
weapons and climate change. Although a lot of
people now say there's a third that's leading
us to the brink, which is another pandemic. So,
and in the past, a lot of us, I myself spent
a lot of my life organizing and resisting nuclear
weapons. But now we're just so spread thin. I
guess I want to ask you. Any thoughts about,
especially nuclear weapons and climate change,
how can we keep those movements, the environmental
movement and the anti -nuclear movement moving
when we're all struggling just with basic rights?
And maybe that's why in the end it's a soul -searching
question. We each do what we feel we can or what
we're called to do. You know, I think one of
the... things that gives me a lot of faith in
nonviolent action is that a lot of these struggles
that I study around the world happen in places
where people don't enjoy very many democratic
rights and freedoms. Their right to speak out
is severely restricted. Their right to assemble,
like for a march or a rally, is very restricted.
But they still have this toolbox of over 300
different methods of nonviolent struggle. And
even when it's outlawed, they will reach for
things like strikes and boycotts. So disguise
them cleverly as a call -in sick day or a work
-slow strike like they used in Chile when they
wanted to resist the dictator Pinochet, but they
couldn't go on strike. Everybody slowed down,
like they literally walked slowly through the
streets. They literally shopped slowly. And suddenly
everybody knew that everybody opposed the dictator.
So, you know, nonviolent action is incredibly
creative and versatile. And that's what gives
me a little bit of hope, even though things are
pretty bleak right now, that we have more power
than we think. We have way more tools than most
of us know. And I think about things like in
Pakistan in 2009, their president went toe -to
-toe with their Supreme Court justice and kicked
the Supreme Court justice off the bench. And
the lawyers immediately started picketing outside
the courts. It was kind of interesting because
they didn't file a lawsuit. They decided to use
nonviolent action. And so then, you know, this
went on for a while. And the president started
getting his hackles up, and he ended up closing
the courts and disbanding the Congress. So things
got even worse, right? And so the lawyers and
the judges decided they would not obey the closing
of the courts. They went and they opened 75 %
of the courts in the country and just held normal
court proceedings saying, we're not going to
obey you. Then the president had to back down
a little bit and he had to reinstate some of
the judges and repeal martial law and reinstate
Congress. But he didn't do the full measure of
what they needed. So they organized thousands
of lawyers to march on this long march. And then
it became a motorcade through Pakistan to the
capital. And as the motorcade got closer and
closer and closer. it became this thing like,
is the president going to back down? What's going
to happen when we reach the city? And sure enough,
as they reached the city, the president actually
backtracked and was forced to step down out of
power. This story goes on. There's many chapters,
but it's a great illustrative example of, you
know, these tools are here for us when the going
gets tough. They're here for us when all of our
rights and freedoms seem to go away. And when
we reach for them, we find that power that we
really need. So if we're looking at climate justice,
you know, and we see the doors closing on the
federal level, a lot of climate organizers are
saying, okay, we're going to the cities. The
cities are going to be the agency of change.
It's where we're going to get in solar panels.
It's where we're going to get public transportation.
It's where we're going to... Change the zoning
laws so we stop doing a lot of carbon emission
through heating and housing. So, you know, where
there's a will, there's a way. And we just got
to keep going. Wow, that's great. Maybe because
we're running out of time, I could just ask you
one last question. In your workshops and your
teaching as you work with people around the country.
What basic points would you have about, I'm calling
it holistic nonviolence, maintaining your personal
nonviolence and practicing peace as we go forward
in creative ways and nonviolent action and doing
what we can to resist? You spoke earlier about
making sure we're all grounded, staying grounded.
That's really nice. But can you be more specific?
What suggestions do you have for folks? to sustain
themselves for the long haul in this work of
grassroots nonviolence movements? Yeah, there's
many things I am thinking about every single
day. One is don't go alone. Find friends and
do it together. Two is take breaks. This is going
to be a marathon, not a sprint, and it's got
to be like a relay race. That's why you need
friends. You've got to pass that torch to them
and then pick it up when your turn comes again.
I've been trying to do a practice where I take
a breath and then act because when I get hot
and bothered, it's very easy for me to react
without thinking, and I might not act in the
way that I want to. So I've been trying to train
myself, particularly in my crazy inbox, before
I hit send on an email to take a breath. This
becomes a habit for myself, no matter where I
am, whether I'm at a protest or whether I'm at
a meeting or whether I'm, you know, just really
upset about the next bit of news and about the
snap at my partner, to take a breath, then act.
And there are things that I am really challenged
to do in these times, but are very deep principles
of nonviolence, like be against the injustice,
not people. Don't go after the humans involved.
Go after the behavior. Go after the policy. Go
after the injustice. Because people can and will
change, and we want to make the space for them
to do that. And then the one thing that I've
been thinking about a lot is to try not to become
what you oppose. I think nothing would satisfy
the forces of... hate and destruction more than
to turn all of us into forces of hate and destruction
as well, against them or for them, one way or
the other. So reclaiming your humanity, reclaiming
your sense of love, reclaiming your sense of
integrity and purpose, I think are great acts
of resistance in this time, and very deep, very
profound ones. So these are some of the practices
that I'm doing in terms of how I'm trying to
really embody the deepest principles of nonviolence
that I can. And it's not easy. Well, thank you
for sharing that. It's really encouraging and
it's great wisdom. And I hope we can all join
you in staying grounded like that and going forward
for the long haul. So thank you so much, Rivera
-san, for speaking with me today. And thank you,
friends, for listening to this episode of the
Nonviolent Jesus podcast. You can hear more podcasts
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