RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 325 Nonviolent Resistance with Rivera Sun
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Episode 325 of RevolutionZ has as its guest the novelist and activist Rivera Sun. We discuss nonviolent resistance as a strategy to combat rising authoritarianism in the U.S. and around the world. The episode reviews the historical effectiveness of nonviolent movements worldwide, the essentials of winning campaigns, the importance of active civil disobedience and of positively engaging allies, the importance of narratives to movement communication and much more regarding organizing and activism, plus some discussion the efficacy and complexity of writing fiction.
Nonviolent Resistance Against Authoritarian Regimes
Speaker 1Hello , my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z . This is our 325th consecutive episode and our guest this time is Rivera Sun . Rivera is an author activist and has written numerous books and novels , including the Dandelion Insurrection and the award-winning Ari Ara series . She is also editor of Nonviolence News and program coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence . Her articles are syndicated by Peace Voice and published in hundreds of journals nationwide . Rivera-sanda also serves on the board of Backbone Campaign and is on the advisory board of World Beyond War . She has a website good idea to visit it as well at wwwriverasuncom . That's wwwriverasuncom . So , rivera , welcome to Revolution Z .
Speaker 1Thanks so much for having me on , michael , I'm glad to be here . I admit I would like to talk to you about writing political fiction and hope we can get to some of that after a bit . But these are trying times , full of very strange days , and in context of that , to start , I wonder if you could tell us how you have well felt and thought about and begun to act regarding , I guess , what we could call Trump too , which I at least believe is an effort at , or is an effort to impose full-on authoritarian , a fascistic rule , not by the end of his term , but perhaps by as soon as springtime . So I'm wondering how you've been feeling and what your take on it is .
Speaker 2Well , like you , michael , I'm very concerned . I think many people are alarmed , and rightly so . I think what we're seeing is not normal for a presidential administration , no matter how much we disagree with its politics . I think it is the outgrowth of things like the Citizens United ruling , which really disenfranchised your average citizen from the political process and instead empowered billionaires and their henchmen and minion , and I think when we've set that in motion all those years ago , we inevitably would end up in this place , where we have billionaires running the country for their own purposes , dismantling public services that the rest of us rely on and cherry picking what they're going to change so that their businesses get richer . On top of all this , they're doing it in a manner which consolidates power within the executive branch and runs roughshod over the system of checks and balances . We're seeing not only these behaviors , but the use of pre-existing executive powers to implement discriminatory programs under the guise of doing away with DEIA programs , and doing things that are unconsciousful on a moral level , like rounding up migrants throughout this country , instead of making a just and equitable , swift and fair easy path to citizenship , which would be the normal response to the situation that we're in around our migrants .
Speaker 2So , yeah , like many people , I'm alarmed , and rightly so . What keeps me sane and grounded is the fact that I work in the movements and with the resistance struggles , and , instead of giving 100% of my attention to all the terrible things that are happening , I have to give a large percentage of my time to going and finding the stories of what people are doing about it , joining those actions and helping others find their way into action as well . And I have to say , you know , joan Baez said that action is the antidote to despair , and I have found that to be true in my own life .
Speaker 1It's obviously part of the antidote and it obviously works in some situations . I'm not sure it's all of the antidote and works in all situations . You know , as a fiction writer or at least part of what you do is you write novels and there's a sense in which what is going on almost seems like fiction . That is I mean . Actually it doesn't seem like fiction , because I'm not sure any fiction writer would put it on a page and think that they were writing something remotely plausible .
Speaker 2Yes , I could never get away with putting what's going on into a fictional novel . People would be like that is so over the top . That would never happen . That's just unbelievable . Welcome to our reality .
Speaker 1It's an incredible situation . I've never seen anything remotely like it and yet , as you say , it had an inexorability about it that we've gotten to this place . And I know that you're very much involved with a partisan of , a creator of nonviolent activism , and I have a feeling that in coming months , maybe in coming weeks , that's going to start to become not just one approach but part of a debate . I would wager , given what I've seen over the years , that there will emerge a part of good , caring , politically astute people who are going to say we have to get violent . And there are going to be others , of course , who are going to say hello , are you for real ? And I wonder why . I assume you would say more or less the latter , but far more coherently and fully , and I wonder if you could take up that debate for a bit and tell us why you are on the side of nonviolence .
Speaker 2I can empathize with people who feel like the situation is so extreme and something must be done , and I understand how , in our culture of widespread honoring of violence and the role that it plays , why people would think this is a time to reach for that . We live in a culture of violence , so it's very normal for people to say , okay , now we need to grab our guns and do something about it . I believe and I think the science of resistance struggles backs me up in this that that would be a strategic misstep . That if we chose that method of struggle to try to resist authoritarianism in the federal government of the United States , we would be outgunned , outmanned and outcrushed instantly . That we would reinforce their authoritarianism and they would double down on using their capacity to wield and inflict violence against us , and not just against those who chose to resist that way , but against every other vulnerable person who is already targeted under this administration . So I think it behooves us to think twice before we go down that route . It is a perilous route . It leads directly into situations of civil war , and we have seen how this plays out in other countries around the world . Even when they have won , they have lost , and this costs them dearly in terms of casualties , the stability of the country , the likelihood of democratic outcomes coming out of that . On the other hand , to give nonviolent action some credit , we do have an impressive track record of overthrowing dictators around the world , from Chile to Bolivia , to Argentina , to Serbia , to the Philippines , to South Korea , to on and on and on around the world , and throughout the last hundred years . So I think we need to take that track record seriously and ask ourselves what don't we know about how these people rose up against dictators and authoritarian regimes under highly repressive situations and won , and what are the commonalities between these struggles ? We need to study this with as much seriousness as people have studied the weaponry and the tactics and strategies of violence .
Speaker 2Michael , most of the time when I hear people say we need to turn to violence , it's because they don't know the background on how nonviolent struggle works . They think , oh , we can't just keep protesting . And they're right . We can't just keep protesting . We need to engage in acts of non-cooperation like strikes , stay at homes , refusals to comply with orders and acts of intervention , things where we get in the way of injustice , where we shut down systems , where we blockade the machinery of injustice , things that we're actually seeing already in this country .
Speaker 2So we know that one of the frontline resistances to the migrant roundups is school teachers who are standing at the doors of their schools and telling ICE straight to their face you are not entering this building , you are not taking these children . This story moves me deeply because I know the history of things like the Danish rescue of the Jews in World War II under Nazi occupation . World War II under Nazi occupation , where Danish citizens literally saved 6,800 Jewish people right under the noses of those who wanted to send them to extermination camps and help them hide in 48 hours time , checking them into hospitals under false names , putting them in attics everywhere , and then help them get to safety in Sweden . This is an analogy that means a lot to me in our current situation , tells you a lot about this current situation . We are up against really tough odds .
Speaker 1Let me I agree with you . I mean , the only word I would have disagreed with was the word misstep , because I think it's too gentle , that is to say , I think it would be a horrendous choice . Let's call it . But let me take that side anyway , like as a devil's advocate , because I'm not sure that you are yet convincing all who might go that route , and honestly , I want you to . So what about the person who says wait a minute , I get it . You know , I really do get it . I get that they've got the fucking guns and that we don't want to piss them off .
Speaker 1But nonviolence , and everything short of that , raises certain kinds of costs and wins when it convinces the elites that those costs are too great . They no longer want to bear those costs and so they relent . Maybe it's on a policy , maybe it's on something much bigger , like our situation . But what if the elites are like Trump ? What if the elites don't care where the population is at ? What if the elites , you know , a display of the trajectory of anger and dissent just doesn't impact them , because they think , well , they'll weather the storm ? What do you do then ? Can nonviolence overcome that situation which is roughly , in a sense , our situation ?
Speaker 2I would argue that it can . I think we have seen that around the world . We've seen it on the scale of each country , which you can go country by country . When you look at the Philippines , their situation with the dictator Ferdinand Marcos seemed intractable . Indonesia with Suarto's regime maybe same thing , even worse where that dictator was inured against typical both of them against typical political pressures , because they were backed by the United States , the most powerful nation in the world right , but what we saw was that these movements successfully encouraged enough defections from the ranks of previous supporters of each of those dictators that they simply could not rule or get things done , notably in each of those cases encouraging military defections , to swing sides , to say I'm not going to go kill the people on your behest to keep you in power . You are no longer a legitimate leader . To swing religious groups away , those that support them and pull it away , their position becomes very untenable and there's more to gain by their political contenders and we see that even with Trump right now .
Speaker 2There are a lot of . There's a lot of moving around let's put it that way among the Republicans . There's a lot of moving around , let's put it that way among the Republicans people who are trying to gauge the political weather about whether they should align or whether they should resist . One of the jobs of the movement is to change that equation make it less and less profitable and beneficial to support that particular power holder , that particular power holder . So nobody says any of this is easy , but I think the fact that it has been done against far worse tyrants than we currently see I won't say they won't end up one of those worst tyrants shows that . You know we should try these measures first . We have everything to gain and we have a lot to lose if we go the other direction .
Speaker 1And it seems like what success depends greatly on is impacting , as you said , current constituencies that currently support or at least abide Trump support or at least abide Trump and there's one tendency on the left that tends to subvert that possibility , the tendency that says they're all little Trumpers , they're hopeless , they are what do they call it ? Down a rabbit hole , they're gone , there's no point , we can't reach them . That's not an uncommon view on the left and even among people who support civil disobedience , but they forego what is an essential , I think . I wonder if you agree gain that that civil disobedience has to make , which is to reach out .
Speaker 2Yeah , you know , we're always going to have the diehards , the ones that will never leave the camp of the authoritarian . But our job is to splinter off every other person that we can and to make a pathway away from active support , even if someone is just just shifts their stance to not never be a fan of the left wing movements , but as long as they stand aside and don't enforce an authoritarian's command to shoot , as happened in Indonesia when they threw out Suarto , by the way , that's a win for the movement . And then you have all the people who are kind of in the middle . Maybe they voted for Trump because they just really didn't like Biden's economic policies . You know , we don't have to argue about that .
Speaker 2What we do need is for them to say there's got to be a better option than this . We need to help each person take a step away from supporting the authoritarian or at least question their stance . Never doubt the power of sowing doubt in people . It really stops them from turning into full-fledged Nazis . Let's say so . Yeah , I think there is value in not allowing Trump to enjoy the illusion of being a monolithic power source . I think that's inaccurate and I think it's not going to help us in actually dismantling his power .
Speaker 1Something you said at the very beginning that you don't spend all your time wallowing in Trump , but instead not celebrating but at least advancing the opposition to Trump . That the message that the civil disobedience needs to take into account , the need to speak to people who don't start out agreeing with it , which is part of what you're describing and I mean basically , it's it's consequences . It's looking at what one is doing in terms of the consequences instead of just well , that feels right or that suits what I think , all those things . I wonder how you try to make those mindsets arrive . I'm assuming that you do . Maybe that's not fair , but I suspect it's the case , given even just these few minutes . But how do you do it ? How do you organize a big civil disobedience and get the people at it to feel not just that they're expressing themselves , not just that they're making visible descent , but they're communicating beyond their usual , you know , beyond the usual ? How do you do that ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I think that's a great question , Michael , and there's a couple like prongs of that that I would look
Mobilizing Mass Movements for Change
Speaker 2at . First of all , I think we need to remember in our movements to not just talk to our choir , to remember that acts of protest are not just about catharsis .
Speaker 2They can be I mean , protests are very cathartic but we can also use them strategically for other purposes and other goals , like talking to the people who are not already in the movement , and we might want to use a little discipline and intentionality about how we go about that strategy , about how we go about that . Now there's one kind of strategy and all the accompanying tactics and messaging that we use to talk to those middle of the road people , and that has a lot of value and a lot of groups are going to do that and that's great . We need them . You know we can . Also , we may not be ready to be in the middle of one particular campaign , but there are a lot of campaigns . I'm not going to get in the way of them doing their work , even if I'm not directly organizing for them .
Speaker 2On the other hand , those of us who are on the vanguard and want more people in our movement , we need to be spending a lot of our time thinking about how we get our passive allies , people who generally support our cause , to become active allies and actually show up and take part in the movement . And part of this is simple outreach right , if we want to mobilize a mass movement , we have to be relentless about outreach and it can be exhausting , but it's very worth doing . But then the other thing is what are we asking them to do ? How hard is it to do ? What is that ratio between difficulty of the action and really obvious impact of the action ? Because every human being is sitting there thinking , okay , I got you know 15 minutes between my work calls .
Speaker 2What can I do for the movement , what's the risk of taking this action and what's the potential impact of it ? Interestingly enough , people often won't participate in actions that they don't feel have any impact whatsoever . It's just a waste of their time . So as organizers , our job is to find that balance between risk and impact and to really think carefully about that , for who we're trying to bring into the movement . We know from movements around the world that any movement that has successfully mobilized 3.5% of the population has always won its goals . Sometimes much smaller groups Wait has always won , what Sorry .
Speaker 2Has always won its goals . 3.5% this is in big campaigns , things like changing a government regime , ending occupations , repelling foreign invasions these very hard things to win . So we don't know how small a group it takes . Sometimes very small groups have achieved these things with nonviolent struggle . But we do know that any group that reached that 3.5% of their population threshold always won .
Speaker 2In the US , that's between 9 and 11 million people , depending on whether or not you want to count the kids . I don't count them out because they're walking out of school right now over migrant justice policies , so let's give them a little credit . So let's say we need 11 million people . That's larger than almost all of our campaigns in the past 10 years , the only exception to that being the George Floyd protests , which were 20 million people in the streets actively protesting and demonstrating and shutting things down . So if we want to see mass change , we really have to think about how to mobilize those kind of mass movements , and it's going to take reaching out to people who don't know our most activist-y lingo , who maybe don't say things right all the same ways , who don't agree with us on every single issue , who are on learning curves around issues that we've already gone on . Learning curves around , and it behooves us to have grace in our movements and to build a path for people to join us .
Speaker 1I have to admit . First disagreement I'm a little skeptical about that percentage . In Greece not that long ago , 40% of the country was in the street and they lost . But partly they lost because there's another part of what you're saying what are they trying to win ? Because there's another part of what you're saying what are they trying to win ? It was quite interesting . I was talking with somebody who was involved in all those activities and asking them about what was going on and they said look , it got to the point where the only thing we could do beyond what we were doing was occupy the government . And I said could you ? He said yes . I said why didn't you ? Because the next day we would have no idea what the fuck to do . He was very honest . He said we would be at a loss . We didn't . We weren't prepared , we didn't . So I guess the disagreement is slight .
Speaker 1The disagreement is depending on what it is that you're trying to do . It's one thing to force them to implement something . It's another thing to ultimately replace them and be prepared to do . You know , pursue a country's future yourself . Dare to struggle , dare to win . I used to wonder what the hell does dare to win mean . Why do you have to dare to win . And after a while I began to understand . And I began to understand that it's a big impediment that people are afraid of winning and that people don't know what they're winning . So that's another part , I guess , of civil disobedience conveying what it needs to convey . You describe people not participating , because what's in it ? You know ? Why do it , why take this risk ? Where is it going ? Well , that's the thing . It isn't always obvious with our demonstrations where the hell they're going , what they want . So that has to be a dimension of it also . I assume you know , you probably , I think , will agree , but that's hard too .
Speaker 2I would say one caveat about that 3.5% number that a lot of people don't know or hear is that it's not just 3.5% of the population engaged in active protests or persuasion right , so not just marches or rallies or demonstration , it's also it specifically refers to people engaged in acts of non-cooperation and intervention . So things like boycotts , strikes , shutdowns , walkouts , civil disobedience of unjust laws , that certainly improves the picture .
Speaker 1I don't know whether it does it or not . I mean , I don't know . I don't know . Do we need 9 million ? Do we need 11 million ? Do we need might it happen with 3 million and might it need 20 ? We don't know . What we do know is we better keep growing .
Speaker 2That's for sure .
Speaker 1That's the thing you know you don't have to solve this math problem . You have to keep growing until you win .
Divisions, Empathy, and Solidarity in America
Speaker 1Let me ask you a different question , or a related question . If , if the civil disobedient movement that you're a significant actor in has to speak to reach out to these other constituencies , it probably has to have some understanding of why the other constituencies are where they are , are where they are Now the usual formulation on the left not everybody by any means , but I think the most frequent one is that it's just racism and sexism .
Speaker 1These people who vote for Trump are racist and sexist and that's driving their support for Trump , and I wonder what you think about that , because if that's true , that's what you have to address , right , that's what , among all the things that it does , civil disobedience would have to overcome that obstacle . But is that really true ?
Speaker 2I'd like to see some really good figures on this . I haven't dug as closely into it as I want to , because I do think it's an important question for us to to ask of of the those who voted for Trump , and so you know , if people were swallowing the bitter pill of his overt racism and sexism because of other goals economic goals come to mind , for example then that is a different equation .
Speaker 1Like he's the lesser evil .
Speaker 2Right , very familiar , huh .
Speaker 1Exactly .
Speaker 2Yeah . So I don't know . I don't know the answer to that . I do know that recent polls have shown that a lot of people in this country are supportive of the deportations , which , to me , yeah , that's true .
Speaker 2A lot of people in this country are supportive of the deportations , which , to me , are blatantly racist and cruel and inhumane and costly . So I'm not sure that this country is really very honest about its racism , or well , I'm actually sure that this country is not honest about its racism , about its racism . And I think if we don't want to be seen as racist , no matter who we voted for , then our actions and our statements and the policies that we support or don't support need to be reflective of that . If you're not upset that we just canceled Black History Month in the federal government , there's a very good chance that you have some unexamined racism that you need to look at .
Speaker 1Devil's advocate again . Let me try . It's not going to be easy . On the deporting and basically the whole immigration issue .
Speaker 1What if a person feels , however ignorant of reality they may be , it's in tune with the messages that they receive , feels that what's happening , what's been happening and what will continue happening unless we do something dramatic like Trump , is that people with different values , different celebrations , different language , different culture are coming into communities and that risks threatening the norms of those communities , including some that are pretty healthy . Um , there are some cultural communities that have all sorts of problems but also have , you know , a considerable degree of sort of mutual aid that you won't find in Scarsdale or in , you know , in various other communities . Anyway , what if that is a significant part of why people feel as they do ? What if it's no accident that the right wing proposes this replacement stuff , however outrageous it is , as its way of talking and addressing and appealing ? You're being replaced . What if that's a factor ? And what if not getting excited about Black History Month ? I mean , I hate to put it this way , but is basically people thinking I don't have a history month , where's the white history month ? And really feeling downtrodden Now recognize that those people are living in communities and cultural areas devastated by oxycodone , devastated by drugs , devastated by , you know , economic downturn , in which the downtown looks like it's almost been bombed , and they feel that it's almost been bombed .
Speaker 1And they feel that . And so they , like you , say hate Biden , hate Democrats , and figure maybe Trump is just a lesser evil . And even if he is really evil , he's going to throw a wrench into everything and maybe I'll come out better off . Now , I'm not saying that there aren't . I mean , there's neo-fascists and flat out fascists and white supremacists and all the rest of it . But how many that is , as compared to half the country , seems to me to be an important question . Or maybe it's wishful thinking on my part , but I don't think it's that many , or maybe it's wishful thinking on my part , but I don't think it's that many .
Speaker 2Well , I think this is a recurring theme in US history of the downtrodden being pitted one against the other Sure , and it's been going on for a really long time . And I think we know that the kind of carte blanche judgment and stigmatizing one another isn't the answer to get through that . That if we want to see change and transformation and people who feel like they're being replaced or that they're not being honored , the path through that is with empathy , listening , understanding , but also holding really firm lines and being really clear about some of these things . You know , ending Black History Month in the federal government isn't going to get any more oxycodone relief to low income areas anywhere in the country , regardless of race . I think we need to be very clear and upfront that we can't accept these false equivalencies , accept these false equivalencies and we need to switch scapegoating , which is widespread right now and very convenient to the ruling class . We need to switch it out with solidarity .
Speaker 2We know that the times when two groups have been pitted against each other did that switch from scapegoating to solidarity . It often gave rise to unstoppable campaigns for justice for all . A great example might be the United Farm Workers , with the Filipino and the Mexican migrant farm workers and with , under Cesar Chavez's leadership , and Larry Ito . We also know that you know we've gone the other direction and it hasn't ended up well . You know , my ancestors were Irish American .
Speaker 2When they first arrived here , they were second class citizens . They couldn't apply for jobs , they couldn't enter the same buildings as white people , and then they were sold a lie that yeah , you can be part of the ruling class , you can be part of the upper class if you become racist towards Black people . A lot of them swallowed that lie . So this conversion from scapegoating to solidarity , I think , is one of the most critical issues of our times , and I think it does behoove us to get very serious about how we make that flip happen Now . That said , we are a very large country . There are 320 million of us . If we want to see 11 million people in the streets , we already know that 74 million of them , or whatever it was , did not vote for Trump .
Speaker 2So only part of our question is how do we move the people who aren't with us already . The other part , as I said before , is how do we move the people who agree with us into meaningful action .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah , and I would say it's not really either . Or it's really a question of division of labor and to figure out where you belong in this ecosystem of change and to do your work to your best ability and to not shoot down somebody else for working on the other piece of the equation .
Speaker 1Right . At the same time , I have to admit , the thing that sort of shocks me the most , in some sense , about what's going on is the number of people who do understand what Trump is doing , who do understand what Trump is doing , do understand the effects of it . You know , broadly speaking , and sometimes with details , and don't feel propelled to do anything . You know back to Netflix or back to whatever that seems to me to be . I find it hard to deal with in one's own family , among friends , wherever it happens to be . You know where people do get it , are seeing it how can you miss it ? Are seeing it and even understand that it's going to come back and get them and still are passive . I mean , does civil disobedience feel that the way to get past that is by displaying getting past that , or is there something more ? In other words , is it a showcase effect that jars people out of passivity or something else ?
Speaker 2I think it's a little bit of many things . One definitely , when movements pick up steam , we see more of those people joining in . That's very normal . There's some great YouTube videos about how to start a movement and it uses the analogy of a rock concert . Right , there's always that one person at the rock concert who gets up and starts dancing first and nobody else moves for a period of time . Then a second person joins in and that's good . Now there's two of them , then it may be a third person and right about the time when you get a fourth or fifth person , you see 10 people all get up .
Speaker 2Right , so that's very human and we accept it as part of organizing . The other thing we do to try to encourage that to happen a little faster is that we pair tactics together so not everybody is going to be out there . You know , blockading the doors of a federal building along with me and my buddies , but they may be wearing a symbolic color , like a blue t-shirt to work , or they might not go shopping because we said don't go shopping on this day . Don't go shopping because we said don't go shopping on this day . So using different tactics can help people find easy access points to the movement , and it behooves us to think about that a little bit yeah to make room so that the most militant tactic isn't the sole option .
Speaker 1We used to come on mass demonstrations where people would bring kids and everything else , and then the next day the sit-in and or the blockade or whatever it is right , and you know you're not going to move them all when I talk about the people power revolution that took out , uh , the dictator , ferdinand mar .
Speaker 2There were like a million and a half people out in the streets of Manila . Now , that sounds like a heck of a lot of people . Right , there were 7 million people who lived in Manila at that time .
Speaker 2So , it was only one seventh of the population who were actively out there protesting . But you know , when you get to that kind of a number , everybody knows somebody who's in the streets , even if you're at home with your kids or you don't feel like you can take the risk of confronting police officers , or you're not even that convinced that the movement will succeed or is valid . So this is what we mean about the those percentages and really thinking like we . It doesn't take everyone , but it is more helpful the more tactics that we use that are welcoming to people at all from all walks of life .
Speaker 2And there is an arrogance among activists to think of the diehards are the best ones . But we can't do those actions to a scale that is meaningful unless we make space in the movement for people to do support roles and to do other kinds of actions . You know , to make the Montgomery bus boycott successful , there were two committees of bake sale ladies who did bake sales every twice a week , every single week , to pay for the taxis , to pay for the legal fees , to make it possible for that boycott to succeed . So I always tell people if you can't speak like Dr King , if you are not the person like Rosa Parks who will sit down on that bus and do civil disobedience , sign yourself up to be a big bake sale lady . None of us will succeed without all of us .
Speaker 1Yeah , one thing that is perhaps necessary is a trajectory of growth . If the other side sees , okay , they had a hundred thousand people at their demonstration and then two months later they did it again , and then two months later they did it again , and every time they did it , nothing changed , didn't grow , the other side's not stupid , they can deal with that , they clean up after the demonstration . But if they see 20,000 become 50,000 , become 75,000 , now they're worried because now something is happening and it has a trajectory and they can see where it leads . The other side too knows about 10 people getting up and dancing and then 15 people . I mean , they know that scenario also . So you do have to grow .
Speaker 2Very important part of the organizing work that we do , and I think you're right , Like the speed at which a movement grows can be an influencing factor , but then movements also have to think about , you know , the pacing of their tactics and their actions in response to the crisis . If you tell me we're only going to take action every two months from now , I'm going to be like what we need to be in the streets every single week , I think at least . And right now we're seeing , you know , multiple strands of organizing , holding multiple campaigns per week , which is good . We just need a lot more of it , I think in our current situation .
Speaker 1I think , really , it is right now a kind of race . Trump and Musk and all the rest of them are trying to throw shit at the wall and claim victories whenever they can make it even remotely the case that it's a victory and in doing so , you know , strengthen or legitimate their support in their circles and grow it a little bit . And we're trying to do , or starting to try to do , from a backward position compared to where they are right now . Same thing to grow and to make progress . And I have to admit I'm a little worried about how fast they're progressing , for all the nonsense and the craziness and everything else .
Speaker 1if you look at it through the eyes of their voters , it doesn't look so crazy . It looks like he's hey , he's trying to do stuff and he's made some mistakes Big deal . Look at , you know that kind of reaction . You know it's sad , but it's real .
Speaker 2Oh , yeah , no , I agree , and personally it's hard for me to wrap my mind around that perspective , although I do try because I think it's strategically insightful . Yeah , I do think that you know , the more the Trump administration blunders well , I don't think they're blundering , I think they're steamrolling , they're wrecking balling , but it's not a blunder on their part the more they wreck , the more pissed off people are going to be , and I think it's a good time to really tell some true stories , to really talk about what's happening . You know , we know the misinformation coming out of corporate media or right wing media or on right wing dominated platforms , right-wing media or on right-wing dominated platforms , or the very fact that musk and trump can lie and lie and lie and lie on public platforms flat out , not deceptively even .
Speaker 2It's not even deceptive right .
Speaker 2I mean it's just , it's incredible there is no fact checking going on at a meaningful level among those who are convinced of their , their , the trump and musk's administration right , and I think that it's part of the job that we have to do , as futile as it may seem like build the track record , be able to talk about what is a lie and what is a truth , what is a misperception , what is a misinterpretation , because no one else is doing it , and the battle for the truth is important . It's important not to lose sight of that .
Nonviolent Resistance Stories
Speaker 1Are there more things in this vein that you would like to address before I change the vein or the path ?
Speaker 2Sure , there are a couple other things that I think are worthy of thinking about in these times for people . One , just to circle back a little bit to that idea of how much time are you spending on news sources that only tell you about the problem and not about the people working for ?
Speaker 1the solution .
Speaker 2If your news is not telling you who's organizing , consider swapping it out for a news channel that focuses on how people are going to resist , Because if you take that lens into the story , you're also going to find out what's going on , what's wrong , but you're also going to feel more empowered . So that kind of making sure that you're staying networked and informed . I recommend people follow Choose Democracy and get on their email list choosedemocracyorg . I recommend that people follow Alt National Park Service on all the social media platforms . They're giving a blow-by-blow , fact-based reporting on what's going on at the federal level . And I think that you know be strategic with your energy .
Speaker 2One of the tactics of this administration is to exhaust us and overwhelm us . So one of our front lines of resistance is having the disciplined focus , to not give them that power over us , to take rest when you need it , to notice when you're doom scrolling and stop . To be strategic with where you put your energy and why . We need to be as disciplined as soldiers in this time and I don't usually like to go into , you know , military metaphors , since I am a peace activist , but if that's a handy reference point for people , really think about that . Think about the skillfulness of how we can navigate these times .
Speaker 1I usually use sports analogies . That's a good one .
Speaker 2Be like Simone Beals , y'all .
Speaker 1Right , but a question that relates to what you just said a writer , a journalist , a left commentator , they are generating various things . Some of them , like the piece you just did , are trying to impact , provide evidence of ideas about and even inspire activity . You know , activism , response , etc . Some are thinking about and trying to promote understanding that bears upon activity , that bears a bond strategy . A lot are just reporting horror and I have to say I find that hard to understand . Also , I find that harder to understand in some ways than people in rural areas voting for Trump . You know I'm not saying it's right , but I can understand that . I find it hard to understand long-time leftist , strategic , ostensibly strategic socialists , feminists , whatever , piling on more and more evidence of pain when the audience doesn't need that . It knows that In fact , mainstream is providing that . Why are we doing it ? I wonder what you think about that . I mean , am I just being obnoxious here ?
Speaker 2I think I can imagine there's two scenarios one in which , uh , the worst , the worst of that behavior is just , uh , putting it together for clicks right . And the more well-intentioned end of that behavior is operating from the principle of if people just knew what was going on , they would do something about it . But they do the truth will change everything , but it's not an accurate theory of change because people also need to know what they can do about it . So they need the problem , the solution and the people working towards the solution .
Speaker 1But , rivera , they're writing these things in left outlets . I know when the people do know what's going on . One might hope I mean I I appreciate trying to give them that excuse , but I just don't see it . I mean , how can I tell you ?
Speaker 2well , I think we need to question , like our , our viewpoint that says that every little sneeze that comes out of the trump administration is worthy of reporting on . But every little sneeze that comes out of the Trump administration is worthy of reporting ? On but every little sneeze that comes out of the movements is not .
Speaker 1It is to be avoided Right .
Speaker 2Right Frankly .
Speaker 1I think if we spent more time talking about the movements .
Speaker 2yeah , we'd be having different stories to report on . Yeah , I also think you know I've been doing a lot of work lately with the stories of some nonviolent struggles against dictators . Sorry nonviolent what .
Speaker 1Struggles against dictators . Oh , ok , yeah .
Speaker 2So historical studies , but not from a million years ago , from in the past 10 to 20 years , 10 to 20 years , so things . Like you know , south Korea in 2016 had a problem , like we do , where the president had a friend who had way too much power in that administration and was not elected . This person didn't hold the official position . They organized weekly mass demonstrations that , like you were just saying , swelled from tens of thousands of people to hundreds of thousands of people , to millions of people , campaigning for the not just the friend to be kicked out of the power circle , but the president to resign , and ultimately they achieved that goal .
Speaker 2Or the pakistani uh long march , in which the president ignored the courts . The president um kicked a Supreme Court justice off the bench , closed all the courts down , declared a state of emergency and the judges said , oh hell , no . They opened the courts in defiance . Two-thirds of them , the lawyers , showed up for business as usual , and then they organized a long march of over a thousand miles with lawyers and judges and regular citizens that converged on the Capitol and forced the politicians to force the president to resign . This was in 2009 .
Speaker 2So these stories and examples are the stories we need to be knowing and hearing about , and our mainstream media or our left-wing media could be dusting these cases off and digging into those histories , showing us what worked before and how it's relevant to today , because without the presence of those stories , we will revert to our assumption that violence is the way to get out of this problem , and that is wrong . Violence is the way to get out of this problem .
Speaker 1And that is wrong . It's not wrong , I mean , it's beyond wrong it will make it worse .
Speaker 2That's a danger .
Speaker 1Much worse . Let me ask you another question . It's a bit of a sidebar , I apologize , but you are an established effective fiction writer and I wonder about how the hell you do that . Um , I mean , it's maybe it's not a fair question , but you're constructing something that doesn't exist and yet it's not a vision for what the world right it might might be just a completely different circumstance and scene , and you're putting all these characters into it and giving them life and stuff .
Speaker 2To me it seems like yikes , how do they do that right ?
Speaker 1And so I sort of want to ask you , since I have you here and I've got the opportunity is there any way you can answer that question ?
Speaker 2Well , I have a lot of imaginary friends . Apparently it's a very imaginative act and in some ways not so different from being an activist the ability to imagine a different world , imagine a pathway to that world . In fact , that's how I really got on . This path of activism is , I postulated in one of my first novels , the Dandelion Insurrection , a hidden corporate dictatorship in a time that looms around the corner of today , in the place on the edge of our nation , and I knew , even writing it , that I didn't want a violent revolution .
Speaker 2My father was a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and his influence . I felt that in my heart very strongly . So I did what any self-respecting millennial would do and I Googled it how to bring down dictators nonviolently . I Googled it , how to bring down dictators nonviolently and you know dozens , hundreds , thousands , millions of hits came back and I started reading about these kind of stories we've been talking about today and revising my plot accordingly , so that my movement in the book got more and more strategic and more and more likely to actually achieve its goals and that that taught me a lot about how change is won .
Speaker 2So all of my work has really revolved around replacing the typical uses of violence that we see in our literature with stories of active nonviolence . When we get into the Ariara series , which is really written for the young , to include the younger generation in the readership , we're working in a world of fantasy , so it's a completely invented world . You know , fantasy is a genre that has unicorns and dragons and time travel and witches , magic . So why are they still swinging swords at things when it comes to conflict resolution ? They're really not very inventive about what they do so .
Speaker 2I tried replacing , you know , typical war and battle scenes with an Aikido-like non-martial art or , you know , youth who were standing up for peace , not to win a war but to stop a war , and what I found is that it was surprisingly effective .
Speaker 2So what I found was that these stories really , really appealed to young people that I thought it would be hard for them to swallow a story without the war and violence of , let's say , the Hunger Games .
Speaker 2But actually the exact opposite was true and it revealed the surprising truth Young people are very much more used to solving their problems without resorting to violence than the other way around that actually we have to spend a lot of time , energy and military spending on convincing them to go to war , energy and military spending on convincing them to go to war . You know they've got to watch a million video games , a million Marvel comic movies to think that this is a reasonable idea . So they resonated with these characters and by the time our young people get to high school , they're one of the most active generations in US history . They've been walking out of school over school shootings and police brutality and climate justice . They are so used to the idea of the nonviolent non-cooperation of a walkout or a protest or a march . So these are the tools of heroic struggle that our young people are using them , and our literature seriously needs a 21st century update when it comes to that .
Speaker 1And our literature seriously needs a 21st century update when it comes to that . You know you watch TV and cable . If you take account of the movies , or you know series that are built around people being vile , greed and violence , and then you take account that are built about anything positive at all , the former pile is immense and the latter pile is minute , and most of what's in the latter pile is just either peppered with sex to avoid not having an audience for people being nice , and you I'm not sure how much , but you remember the discussions about how , oh , media is making a mess , media is corrupting people and stuff . It wasn't all wrong , it just wasn't . But what it is about media that's doing that is , of course , an intentional I don't know what to call it focus on immersion in violence , hate , hostility and greed . Now , nine times out of ten , the character who's the lead is the most violent . That wasn't the way . You know if you watch old movies , it's just a complete transfer and along with it you see this thing that we're confronting in the world . So I commend you on not just the civil disobedience movement activism part , but the writing part too , the fiction , not even just the political writing , the fiction writing and keep it up .
Speaker 1Rivera , I want to thank you for being on the show and I ask you if there's anything at the end here we're about an hour that you want to say , or maybe come back another time and really go on some more . Sadly , I'm interjecting now . Rivera did answer that and did say more , but the system did not pick it up . I don't know why something went wrong . We lost some time before this also . Anyway , I think the overall product I don't know what to call it the episode was not heard severely , even though it is very annoying that the system didn't function properly toward the end . So , that said , this is Mike Albert signing off for Revolution Z until next time .