Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun
Ever wonder what 20,000 lies look like? Artists in New York put Trump’s 20,000 false and misleading statements up across a 100-ft wall, helpfully color-categorized by topic. It’s a visual reminder that this is a president who lies through his teeth – just like he has since Election Night, claiming that he lost because of “widespread voter fraud”. As his supporters organized this weekend for an in-person rally to #StopTheSteal, K-Pop fans swarmed their hashtags with pancake images. Some represented flipped states. Other rainbow pancakes played off an earlier #ProudBoys spin by gay men. And some were just plain old pancakes against fascism. If you were looking for the location of the Million MAGA March in DC, you couldn’t find it amidst all those pictures of syrupy stacks. Brilliant. I don’t know about you, but I finished this newsletter on Saturday morning with a little anti-fascist solidarity for breakfast.
Creativity is winning against Trump. On Election Day, #JoyToThePolls used dance to de-escalate tensions and stand up for democracy. In the week prior, the Women Steel Workers projected a Bat Signal for Biden onto the Chicago Trump tower. Activists in the Bay Area painted two giant murals saying #Choose Democracy and #CountEveryVote.
Don’t miss the Success Stories this week! Bolivia welcomed back Evo Morales from exile, thanks to the national strike that won them the elections that ousted the alt-right. The Mi’kmaq in Canada won the upperhand in the Lobster War, buying 50% shares of the biggest lobster company in the East Coast, and becoming the bosses of the very people who burned their boats and lobster sheds last month. Los Angeles handed #DefundPolice a big win by reallocating money from police to social services. And that’s just the start of the good news.
Speaking of good news, I’m celebrating a book launch! The third part of the Dandelion Trilogy, Winds of Change, kicked off its Community Publishing Campaign this week. These novels are all about a nonviolent movement for change and weave an adventure out of a people-powered movement for democracy, economic justice, climate action, and so much more. Thanks for your patience last week as I juggled all of the many hats I wear. Curious about the book? Check it out here and thanks for celebrating with me>>
In solidarity,
Rivera Sun
Photo Credit: Wall of Trump’s Lies In New York City. Photo by Phillip Buehler.
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Former President Evo Morales Returns To Bolivia After Being Forced Into Exile: One year after a right-wing military coup forced him to flee the country, former president Evo Morales is back … and the right wing power-grabbers are out of power. How did it happen? Mass nonviolent action, street blockades, and national strikes. Read more>>
Remember the Lobster War? Mi’kmaq Just Won It. Big Time: Mi’kmaq just bought 50% of the shares of the largest lobster fishing fleet in the East Coast – literally becoming the new bosses of the people who were burning their boats and lobster sheds last month. Read more>>
Palestinian 100-Day Hunger Striker Wins Freedom: Imprisoned Palestinian Maher Al-Akhras engaged in a heroic 103-day hunger strike and was recently released. The hunger strike brought the issue of the captive movement and administrative arrests back to public attention. The strike was accompanied by nonviolent action by Palestinian people in numerous locations. Read more>>
Orange County, FL, Adopts Rights Of Nature Law: Asserting and defending the rights of nature for Florida’s numerous waterways, this bold law passed overwhelmingly in Orange County to make it the largest population to pass such a law. Read more>>
TD Bank Group Ditches Arctic Drilling – Now Do Tar Sands, Campaigners Urge: TD Bank Group’s announcement that it will not fund fossil fuel projects in the Arctic, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as part of its net-zero emissions by 2050 target. Climate justice campaigners are urging them to go even further. Read more>>
Formosa Plastics Denied Permit For Toxic Plant In Cancer Alley: The Army Corp of Engineers will deny the plastics corporation a necessary permit that would have led to continued and increased pollution by the company. Read more>>
Los Angeles Voters Deliver Huge Win For #DefundPolice: LA’s “Yes on J” campaign flipped the message from defunding cops to investing in everything else. It worked brilliantly. Read more>>
Portland, OR, Community Halts Drone Testing Facility: The Port of Portland announced it would cancel a pending lease with Verizon for seven acres of riverfront property in one of Portland, Oregon’s most diverse neighborhoods. The company wanted to lease this area to test drones on Verizon’s 5G network. “We appreciate the Port responding in support of community members and organizations who organized quickly to oppose this facility,” said the Executive Director of the Portland Harbor Community Coalition. Read more>>
Michigan Governor Moves To Shut Down Enbridge Line 5 Pipeline: “Enbridge has imposed on the people of Michigan an unacceptable risk of a catastrophic oil spill in the Great Lakes that could devastate our economy and way of life,” said Gov. Whitmer. Read more>>
#HandsOffOurBallots Giant Street Mural Warns Law Firm Against Supporting Trump’s Lies: San Francisco activists painted a giant mural outside the offices of the law firm filing Trump’s elections related lawsuits. Read more>>
#EndSARS – A Youth Movement To End Police Brutality In Nigeria: Global Voices correspondents in Nigeria—Nwachukwu Egbunike and Aremu Adeola, Jr. —have both covered this youth movement from its inception. Here’s their most recent update and links to their articles if you want to take a deeper dive. Read more>>
Report Finds Over 100 Rebellions in US Jails and Prisons Over COVID Conditions: Demands for baseline safety measures by incarcerated people have been met with brutal repression and punishment. Editor’s Note: Not all of these actions were nonviolent, but a large percentage of them were, including protests, strikes, hunger strikes, and more. Read more>>
Pittsburgh Steelers Treat Pennsylvania Poll Workers To Dinner: “We’re just trying to look out for the people looking out for us.” It was a grueling election week … and these athletes said thank you to the poll workers for the long haul of upholding democracy. Read more>>
Alberta Inches Closer To General Strike Over Labor Woes: The powder keg of Alberta labor relations has finally exploded, in a good way. Yesterday, wildcat strikes popped up across the province from hospital support staff who learned last week that 11,000 of their own will be getting laid off. Read more>>
Youth Organizers Lead Marches To The Polls: Transforming elections as we know it, youth mobilized marches to the polls, turning individual action into collective protest. Read more>>
Post-Election Protests In US Met With Mass Arrests: Protests demanding that every outstanding vote in the presidential election be counted have sprung up in major US cities, including New York City, Portland, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis and Seattle. Police showed biased responses, failing to arrest or repress heavily-armed pro-Trump protesters to the same degree as #CountEveryVote unarmed protesters. Read more>>
What I Told My Daughter After The Police Pepper Sprayed Us On The Way To The Polls: “Maybe 30 seconds after the officer told us to move, the screaming started. And the choking and coughing and crying. My eyes stung and watered, but I could see a cloud of vapor coming toward us, and I knew that we’d been tear-gassed or pepper-sprayed. I won’t forget my daughter’s horrified face when she realized that the air she was breathing was literally choking her. “Mommy!” she cried. ‘Why is this happening?'” Read more>>
Philadelphia to Biden: ‘If Every Vote Counts, Why Not Every Life?’: Racial justice activists in this city have a plan – and it includes both Democrats and Republicans. Read more>>
Alliance For Global Justice Release New Report: 10K Arrests; 1K Incidents of Brutality: The report details the numerous human rights violations in the United States toward people of color, particularly during the George Floyd protests – the largest in US history with 20 million people participating. “We need to stop pretending that human rights violations are something that happens in other countries.” Read more>>
San Francisco Moves To Ban Racially-Motivated Police Calls: The CAREN Act, now one step closer to becoming a law, will make racially motivated 911 calls illegal. Read more>>
Black Googler Creates Anti-Racism Resource Guide for All: Jenae Butler said she created “Standing United” because she knew, “George Floyd’s death and related protests would spark uncomfortable conversations at work.” Read more>>
Northwestern University Students Push To Remove Campus Police: Students are calling for the removal and defunding of police from campus entirely, as Northwestern’s campus police represents the institutional force and violence characteristic of the style of policing inflicted upon communities across the country, now and throughout history. Read more>>
How Military Veterans Are Answering The Call To Defend Black Lives: From marching in the streets to forming human walls of protection around protesters, veterans are playing a quiet but important role in demanding racial justice. Read more>>
Mourning A Clear-Cut, Nude Activists & Naked Truth, Civil Disco-bedience, and More: Extinction Rebellion’s newsletter has stories from Italy, Spain, Germany, Indonesia, Nigeria, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and so many more. Creative and bold, this is where to find some of the most dramatic climate activism in the world. Read more>>
Using People Power To Fight Climate Change And Build A More Just Future: Rather than wait for transportation solutions from conventional, old school approaches to materialize, Open Streets’ response has been to begin solving Cape Towns’ mobility challenges through such citizen-led, ground-up solutions as the Bike Bus. Read more>>
Editor’s Note: Our editorial policy on covering abortion is that, while abortion may not be particularly nonviolent, neither is denying a woman the right to body autonomy. When women stand up for their reproductive rights using nonviolent action, we’ll cover it.
Poland Delays Abortion Ruling After Protests: On October 22, the court decided aborting fetuses with congenital defects violates the constitution – only permitting terminations in cases where there is a risk to the woman’s life or in instances where a crime has taken place – such as rape or incest. For almost two weeks, hundreds of thousands of people in Poland have defied coronavirus restrictions to take part in huge rallies denouncing the move. Read more>>
Mexican Police Repress A Feminist Protest With Bullets: Mexico’s Police Monday shot down a feminist protest organized in Cancun to reject two women’s femicides that took place last weekend. Police brutality left three reporters injured, one of them by gunshot. Over 2,000 protesters attended the march in Cancun. Read more>>
Peace Billboards Can Be Powerful. Here’s How: World Beyond War shares a how-to guide to getting the most out of an effort to put up a billboard for peace. Read more>>
Armenia and Azerbaijan Signed A Ceasefire, But What Does It Really Mean? After six weeks of war with Azerbaijan, Armenia has capitulated, signing a Moscow-brokered peace agreement to withdraw from most of the territory it has occupied for over a quarter century. Read more>>
Syrian Resilience – Spotlight on Nonviolence with Rafif Jouejati and Syrian Resilience: Syrian activists speak about their dreams and struggles in one of the most war-torn areas in the world. Read more>>
Greece and Turkey Tensions Have Been High; Tell Them To Make Peace: An international effort to de-escalate the threat of war between Greece and Turkey. Sign the petition here>>
How Dancing In The Streets Is Saving Democracy: With brass bands and drum lines, activists transformed election anxiety into a strategic, distributed demand to #CountEveryVote. Read more>>
Massive Mural In SOHO Shows You What Trump’s 20,000 Lies Looks Like: A new installation put up in Soho took 20,000 false and misleading statements from President Trump and fashioned them together to create a massive, 100-foot long mural full of his lies. The thousands of lies included in the installation are helpfully categorized by color-coded topics. All the greatest hits are there including Russia, Coronavirus, Ukraine, Taxes, Immigration and more. Read more>>
Meet The Midwestern Women Steelworkers Who Put A Pro-Biden Bat Signal On Trump Tower: The Women of Steel also shined the light on the walls of the Chicago Theatre, the Art Institute of Chicago, Wrigley Field and famed hot dog stand Wiener’s Circle. Read more>>
Grassroots Savings Groups Multiply As COVID Rages On: People of color, disadvantaged populations, and those living in developing countries, where formal banking services are nonexistent, are strengthening their financial futures by creating and sharing communal funds and building trust through grassroots savings groups, including ROSCAs (rotating savings and credit associations) and ASCAs (accumulated savings and credit associations). Read more>>
Rumor Control and Hate Speech In Sudan: At a time when many countries are watching the ways rumors and hate speech lead to injustice and violence, Sudanese activists offer these reflections on how to deal with those. Read more>>
Learning To Strike & Win: If we’re going to reverse the ravages of neoliberalism, we’ll need to rebuild a global labor movement that knows how to strike and win. A recent international “Strike School,” led by labor organizer Jane McAlevey, brought 3,000 trade unionists and activists from seventy countries to try to do just that. Read more>>
What Trump’s Claim Of a ‘Stolen Election’ Means For Activists Today: George Lakey shares his analysis that Trump’s lies and misinformation around “widespread voter fraud” is less about setting the stage for a coup, and more about adding to the right’s list of grievances in order to build political power in the future. Read more>>
Self-Care For Sustainable Movements Is Difficult, But Necessary: Stories of burn-out, exhaustion, and trauma abound. Self-care is not a luxury, but requirement for sustainable movements. But how do organizations and movements remove structural and systemic barriers to self-care for all members? Read more>>
The Power of Storytelling – Spotlight on Nonviolence: Author and Nonviolence Trainer Rivera Sun speaks with Nonviolence International about nonviolence novels, Nonviolence News, and about how the story of nonviolence in changing the world. Read more>>
States Are Muzzling Dissent. Here’s How To Fight Back: No matter the election results, we must maintain our right to peaceful protest. But, fueled by corporate power, laws criminalizing protest have been spreading. 13+ states now have them. This new report from the Institute for Policy Studies shows how to fight back. Read more>>
Power and Co-optation in Protester-Police Interactions in Nonviolent Protest in South Africa: The right to protest is protected (for some) in South Africa, but it can easily be co-opted and its power diffused. Read more>>
Social Movements Can Win Even With A Hostile Supreme Court: Given the state of the US Supreme Court (conservative majority), this is a must-read for US organizers. The stories of why the Supreme Court upheld reproductive rights, civil rights protections and workers’ rights to organize are our stories. By telling them, we can prepare ourselves to continue those fights inside and outside the courtroom today. Read more>>
Challenges For US Social Movements Post-Trump: As many people around the country and the world celebrate the media’s announcement of the defeat of President Trump, those who advocate for transformational changes in the political, economic, legal and social systems are talking and writing about the challenges we’ll face under a Biden/Harris administration. Read more>>
How To Identify Visible and Invisible Surveillance At Protests: Want a crash course in how to identify surveillance technologies at protests? Watch EFF’s new video presentation on How to Observe Police Surveillance at Protests. The 25-minute video, taught by Senior Investigative Researcher Dave Maass, explains how you can identify various police surveillance technologies, like body-worn cameras, drones, and automated license plate readers, which may be used to surveil demonstrations. Read more>>
Organizing Do’s And Don’ts: Take it from a long-time labor organizer, there are things that you should do in community or labor organizing and things you should definitely avoid. And they’re not necessarily what you’d expect. Read more>>
From Confusion to Clarity – Finding Your Way Forward with Kingian Nonviolence: Attendees will leave this session with a very clear idea of Dr. King’s six principles and how to relate them to their own lives and the particularities of the times we live in. (Nov 17) Learn more>>
Restorative Systems – Justice and Community Safety Reimagined: During this learning event you will begin to develop the experience and skills needed to support organizations and communities in developing their own restorative systems. (Nov 17) Learn more>>
Solution Summit for the Housing Crisis: Join thousands of people from around the United States to learn about some of the most inspiring and practical ways that organizations in states and communities can address the eviction, foreclosure, and housing affordability crisis. (Online Summit | November 17-19, 2020) Learn more>>
Democracy Defense w/ International Activists: An interactive webinar featuring international activists sharing critical lessons and advice for organizing after election wins ousting authoritarian leaders in divided societies. (Nov 18, Online) Learn more>>
Nonviolence News Happy Hour: Join our readers for a discussion of our favorite stories in Nonviolence News! Everyone is welcome at this free event. Registration is required. (Nov 20) Learn more>>
Soul Force Retreat w/ Rivera Sun, Veronica Pelicaric, and Robert Ferrell: Restore. Nourish. Replenish. Nurture. Heal. It’s been a crazy year. Let’s take time together to look inward and look forward. This retreat is a place where we can return to our hearts, restore our spirits, and gather our energies for new beginnings. (Dec 12) Learn more>>
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