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Learn about the principles and practice of nonviolence as an active force for personal, social, and political change. Co-hosted with Grassroots Leadership Criminal Justice / Participatory Defense Organizer and Visions After Violence Fellow with Texas After Violence Project Robert Tyrone Lilly and Jim Crosby, the show covers current events, learning opportunities, and nonviolent direct action taking place locally. Airs 1st Thursdays of every month from 1-2 pm CT at KOOP Community Radio 91.7 FM in Austin, Texas, and streaming online at koop.org.
You are listening to k o o p dot o r g h t one h d three Hornsby. I am your host of this upcoming hour of nonviolent Austin radio hour, and we have quite a few treats for you today. Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour is part of the Austin Cooperative Radio Hour Hour Collective, and we actually have, two folks with me in the studio, and we have one guest who we are trying to bring in on the line. So, Jim, why don't you start us off with some lovely music?
Speaker 2:Here you go. Just about to run me wild. You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Donald. You're just about to run me wild. Gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Don.
Speaker 2:I mean, just what I say. We got no none picking up. You got it, Dan? Okay. You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Donald.
Speaker 2:You don't, you're gonna run me wild. Gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Don. I mean, just what I say. You say you're gonna deport 11,000,000 folks. I'm thinking about poking a stick in your spokes.
Speaker 2:You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Donald. Don't you gonna run me wild. I mean, you're just about to run me wild. You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Elon. Don't you gonna run me wild?
Speaker 2:Gotta stop doing what you're doing to me? I mean, just what I say. If we give up on Earth just to colonize Mars, what's the point of all them electric cars? You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Elon. You ought to dodge me wild.
Speaker 2:Just about to run me wild. Gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Abbott. Don't you gonna run me wild. Gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Greg. I mean just what I say.
Speaker 2:From Operation Lone Star till you scoop out your scam, every care and Texan about to pick up and scram, you gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Abbott. You don't you're gonna run me wild. I mean, you're just about to run me wild. You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Maga. You don't you gonna run me wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Magga. Mean just what I say. You say empathy has gone out of style. Jesus told me it makes wild life worthwhile.
Speaker 2:You gotta stop doing what you're doing to me, Magga. Don't you gonna run me wild? Mean, you're just about to run me wild. Oh, yeah. Just about to run me wild.
Speaker 2:That's a new one as of this week, but it's old. It's the piccolo rag from Blind Boy Fuller from sometime in the nineteen thirties, and but just the last week or so, I wrote those lyrics to it. Hope you like them, and I'll keep practicing, try to get it a little smoother for the next few times around. We're plugging in Nevan Cometh, I think, right now. And so he'll be on the line with us, and we've also got Dan Weber here in the room with us.
Speaker 2:So you'll be learning about their stories. They are two folks much younger than I, who have stepped up in recent weeks and are part of, the hands off movement. And, so you'll be hearing a lot about what's going on now in terms of nonviolent activism. Stacy, we got them hooked up.
Speaker 1:I believe so. Can you hear us, Nevin?
Speaker 3:I could hear you guys just fine.
Speaker 1:Yes. Mhmm. The universe bends towards justice.
Speaker 3:It does.
Speaker 1:So, yeah. So we are, Nevin, I'll let you kick us off by, introducing yourself. I haven't done so yet. So go ahead and tell the fine folks listening who you are.
Speaker 3:Sure. Yeah. My name is Nevin Kammoth. I am an organizer with a group called Resist Austin in Austin, Texas, and I'm also the director of a separate and related entity known as Resist Trump campaign.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Thank you. And across from me here, I have in person Dan Weber. Dan, why don't you introduce yourself?
Speaker 4:Hi. My name is Dan Weber. I am new to the nonviolent resistance movement. I was a marine from 02/2008 to 02/2012 and a deputy with the Hays County Sheriff's Office from 2016 to 2020. Currently a student at Texas State University and just trying to get involved and really teach and help disseminate some of the lessons learned that I've come across in my life in different aspects and bring them to unfortunately where we need now, is giving people the tools and the confidence to protect themselves and to protect their neighbors against a government that is no longer doing that.
Speaker 1:That's right. I at this point, I will go ahead and say that the views expressed here are not necessarily the views of Co op Radio or its board of directors, volunteers, staff, or underwriters. So it is the divine coincidence that this show falls on May Day. I was reflecting on that this morning. And May Day, for those of you who are just coming online with that, honors the struggle for workers' rights.
Speaker 1:And we have both of our guests today organizing organizations and groups who are mobilizing this afternoon. So we wanna talk about that a little bit. Jim, do you have any burning questions for either of our guests of where we should go next in this conversation? We have we have a luxurious hour together.
Speaker 2:Yeah. What I wanna do is is first give each of the two of them five to ten minutes to talk about their journey. Not only what they're doing now, but how they got there. And so, Nevan, I might invite you to come first and and talk to us about resist as a movement, but also your background a little bit and how you came here and how you understand what you're trying to do now.
Speaker 3:Okay. That sounds great. Happy to. So my background. I mean, like, the broad, you know, kinda arc of my background is I've got about a fifteen year career in strategy consulting, leadership development, and international human rights.
Speaker 3:I have been doing this since graduated from law school in 02/2009. And I should say that, you know, towards the end of that fifteen year journey, I found myself, you know, volunteering with the American Bar Association's International Human Rights Committee as one of their co chairs and found myself in a city called Oslo in Norway, a little bit away from Austin, but a very pleasant place, especially during the summer. I was there in this past June for a conference known as the Oslo Freedom Forum. There, which was held by the Human Rights Foundation, I encountered and didn't actually speak to, but just encountered a a gentleman who had kind of a lanky gait and what appeared to be a quick sense of humor. This gentleman, I later found out, was a man named Sergey Popovic, one of the leaders of the Serbian youth movement that successfully overthrew a dictator named Slobodan Milosevic.
Speaker 3:You know, at that time, I was sort of, like, reflected a little bit about what that meant, but just was kind of impressed that I was in the same space as a hero. And then a few months later after the November election, reflecting on the
Speaker 2:fact
Speaker 3:that president Trump had broadcast the world that he would be willing to be a dictator on day one. I kinda knew what that meant and that it would probably go past day one. You know, I just kinda reflected on the fact that, well, listen. If these Serbian activists did something successfully, there's no reason why we can't do the same thing in America if we are are forced into that circumstance. And so on 11/07/2024, I began preparing for developing a resistance organization that would emulate something along the lines of the OTPOR, o t p o r, Serbian youth resistance movement.
Speaker 3:I called that entity resist Trump and resist Austin. I think it was either the same week or the same time I started both entities. So that was in November. I you know, fast forward to today. It's May.
Speaker 3:It's been about six to seven months. Both entities are now nonprofit corporations. We're trying to develop what's called a distributed organizing network where we have a hub and chapters that are essentially semi autonomous or you can call them autonomous, but they're linked to a mutual understanding of what they're trying to accomplish, similar vision, mission, values. Resist Austin's vision is a future free of tyranny. Its mission is lawful nonviolent civil resistance of authoritarians.
Speaker 3:Resist Trump campaign provides coordination, support, resources, ideas, and we're looking to move forward by expanding the distributed organizing network in other cities, towns, and places, you know, around The United States and maybe even around the world.
Speaker 2:That's a good place. Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's pretty much pretty much what I'm up to.
Speaker 2:Pause there and shift to Dan, but I want you to be thinking that we wanna follow-up. I don't wanna leave out Tesla takedown and the whole idea of of pillars. Be thinking on that some and and but Dan, would you do a thing? Talk about your journey and where you're at now?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. So I I have two distinct journeys. One started going back to 09/11/2001, where I one of my first memories of seventh grade was at home alone watching the towers fall. On that day, I knew that I was gonna join the marines, so the rest of my childhood was spent preparing for that. I did two deployments in Afghanistan, Two combat deployments with second battalion, eighth marines.
Speaker 4:And I got out after four years. I taught marksmanship training for a little bit to civilians and ran a firing range as a range safety officer. Is? I do. I do.
Speaker 1:I was married to a marine for twelve years.
Speaker 4:I do. I never had one expert. Not not to brag about something that I did fifteen years ago, but
Speaker 1:No. But I I I bring this in because this informs where we have arrived in this moment together in conversation. And
Speaker 4:so I did a little bit of school, and then just I I felt a lack of service personally. I was a little bit lost like a lot of veterans are. So I I joined I moved to Texas with my wife and joined the Hays County Sheriff's Office. I worked there for four years. Some of the most amazing people I've ever known.
Speaker 4:I while I was there, I got to the opportunity to be a school resource officer for a k through 12 private boarding school. So I got to write the first active shooter preparedness plan in the country for a boarding school or a private school. I worked with ALERT, the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center, and that's also out of Texas State, but it it is state federally grant funded to send instructors across the country to teach fire, EMS, and law enforcement, dispatchers, military, and school children, students, and teachers on how to both prevent and mitigate and respond to active shooter events. When I I had my first child in 2020 and between that living as a cop in a post George Floyd world and with my dissatisfaction with how that was being handled or or not handled. I I left law enforcement in 2020, December '30 first '20 '20, and that was where my first story ended, and I had just planned on being a stay at home dad.
Speaker 4:I was lucky enough to be able to get a work from home job, so I would no longer miss weekends and holidays. But now we're at a place where I see every oath that I've ever taken, everything that I've ever done in my adult life which was to protect people in this country from, I mean, people just doing them injustice, physically, emotionally, or mentally harming them, is now being done by the United States government and the executive branch. And it I I do not want to be here. It breaks my heart every time I leave my house and see my flag signed by everybody from my second deployment hanging upside down. I still remember after 09:11 saying every house, every street with flags up.
Speaker 4:And I wanna see that again, but I wanna see the flags inverted to show that to show our neighbors that we're not abandoning them, that we're not turning against them. I never thought that I would have to feel the need to go to the Texas State Capitol or go to town hall meetings and express my fear that my brothers and sisters in the military are going to be used as part of a system to not just denigrate their honor, but to just destroy everything they stand for. And I I see my friends and loved ones and people I've never met that work in law enforcement across the country being put in positions where like time and time again, it has happened as long as civilization has occurred, where our heroes, our law enforcement, and our military are being put in places, in positions where they are fulfilling an injust system. And it it it absolutely breaks my heart. So now I'm trying to do everything I can to get people the tools and resources that they can speak up for themselves.
Speaker 4:I'm working on founding the Student Nonviolent Action Union.
Speaker 1:And we'll go into that in just a little in just a bit. If you are just tuning in, are listening to Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour here on Co op Community Radio ninety one point seven FM. Thank you for those who are listening anywhere. If you're not here in Austin, Texas online at k00p.0rg. And this show will be available for streaming after the hour, after we go off live.
Speaker 1:So thank you for sharing. You know, it's interesting. I'm a mother to a six year old, and the my I I was already, the seeds have been planted for nonviolence as a framework for me. But when my son was born is when I really had this perspective shift of I need to devote my practice and my way of life to align with nonviolence because we are in a very violent, to use a metaphor, an ocean of violence in language, in thoughts, in systems, in regimes.
Speaker 2:Nevin, can I throw you a softball?
Speaker 3:Anytime.
Speaker 2:I wanna know. I wanna get you to talk a little with us a little bit, not only about Tesla takedown, but about things we've talked about. Erica Chenoweth, three point five percent in pillars.
Speaker 3:Can you
Speaker 2:do that?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Erica Chenoweth, three point five percent in pillars. Yeah. So I was just kinda reflecting a little bit. And as far as, you know, authoritarianism goes, one of the leading scholars in this field is actually not mean, it is Chenoweth, but the one I'm thinking of at the moment is someone named Stefan.
Speaker 1:Maria.
Speaker 3:Maria Stefan. They I think they sometimes work with Chenoweth, and they've produced a framework, on how to respond to the authoritarian threat known as block, break, bridge, or build. And those are four approaches that, you know, groups and individuals can take to counter authoritarians. And it seems like it's the best kind of general framework that we've got. Blocking you know, think about, you know, the party in opposition right now, trying to block policies by the Trump administration, building, you know, like, you know, developing pipelines into the future, developing candidate leaders, bridging, right, having conversations with people across the aisle, so to speak, through organizations like Graver Angels and others.
Speaker 3:And then breaking. Right? That's, like, that's that's really the the work of Tesla taking down and and what other thing other people are doing to break what are known as the pillars of support. So that's a concept that I'll I'll just kinda briefly talk about. The idea, which I don't think was originated by Erica Chenoweth, who's, like, the foremost scholar on nonviolent civil resistance today, but it is it is something that is is promoted by by them and by other, you know, experts and trainers and consultants in this in this area is that, you know, authoritarians are typically mediated by pillars of support that exist kinda between them and the general population.
Speaker 3:So these these they're sort of like middlemen. Right? And in in Chennai's most recent paper in 2022, she had 11 pillars that that they named corporations was the first one, followed by business and economic elites. Right? We can probably think of a few in those categories that we'll talk about in a second.
Speaker 3:Media is the third. Party officials and staff is the fourth. Civil servants is the fifth. Security personnel is the sixth. Cultural influencers, seventh.
Speaker 3:Foundations and philanthropy is eighth. Religious leaders, ninth. Organized labor, tenth. And elite and local authoritarians, eleventh. So those are all comprised, the 11 kind of pillar categories that prop up authoritarian regimes in general in a generic sense.
Speaker 3:And so going towards the the the strategy that we're pursuing with Tesla takedown in your earlier question, you know, that first pillar of corporations, I mean, one can make up, I think, a pretty easy argument that Elon Musk, who donated $250,000,000 of his own money towards Donald Trump's election, used, you know, the the the the the value of his personal portfolio that's driven by Tesla's market capitalization to to make that donation and to to further financially support the Trump administration. So the idea behind Tesla Take On is quite simple. Right? It's it's like a circle. Like, you've got we're giving money well, so traditionally, we we gave money to Tesla.
Speaker 3:We've been, know, global citizens, right, by buying their products. That gave money to Elon. Elon gave that money to Trump, then Trump treated us all badly. So we're trying to break that cycle of pain, right, by promoting a boycott and a protest movement that discourages people from owning Tesla stock or buying Tesla products. It's very it's very straightforward.
Speaker 3:It's not like rocket science. Right? And we're doing it in a very targeted way because Tesla's the the the most obvious source of pain for people suffering under the Trump administration. So that's the that's the pillars concept. The 3.5% concept is is actually a little bit different.
Speaker 3:That's the notion that relates to mass mobilization, and that actually is a Chenoweth concept that I think they created based on studying, you know, mass movements that have countered authoritarians in the past. And what they found is that if there is a peak event, right, like a peak mobilization event that somehow mobilizes 3.5% of a general population, it is likely that that event will cause significant, if not wholesale change in a governmental apparatus like an authoritarian administration. In other words, that could cause the resignation that my group is looking for. It's it it may not it it you know, they go on to say that it's not like a blip, but more like, in my in my own words, like, the high like, the high point of a high tide. So you need to build towards that 3.5%.
Speaker 3:You can't just get it one day out of nowhere. But that's what that concept kinda relates to. Does that does that answer your softball?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And let me let me just get an addendum from you if you would. Paint a little picture for us of what the Tesla takedown protests have looked like so far.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I only know what they've looked like from on the ground in Austin. As I said at the at the top of the call, I'm both director of a campaign that has national ambitions, but I'm also an organizer on the ground in the local chapter that is affiliated with that campaign. So I'm trying to learn, right, how to run a chapter so that I can help run other chapters. And in that process, I've worked closely with other organizers who are my peers in that chapter, and we have organized, I think, five or six test takedowns now in two different sites.
Speaker 2:Tesla showrooms.
Speaker 3:First, Tesla stores and galleries. Correct. Yes. So outside of those stores and galleries. A lot of things have happened over the course of the, you know, eight weeks or so that we've been engaged in this work.
Speaker 3:So I'm happy to talk about the the kind of difference between the two sites that we've experienced because there are quite a few dynamics. We've dealt with counterprotesters, hostile, intimidating counterprotesters. We've dealt with various MAGA aligned chieftains, if you want if you might call them that. We've dealt with, you know, minor kind of, like, irritating agitators. And on top of all that, we've had a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:We've met a lot of people. We've built community, and we've we've advanced in our skill set of organizing civil resistance.
Speaker 1:I'll say as a a partner and a comrade in this work, Nevan, you and I yet again parallel in that I'm here on the ground as you are in Austin with Nonviolent Austin, which is rolls up to the Nonviolent Cities Project, which rolls up to a national organization. And then folks, if interested, can find that at campaignnonviolence.org. And I wear a hat there. I serve as development director. And so I am both organizing as non violent Austin and wearing that other hat and oscillating between those two roles.
Speaker 1:So
Speaker 3:It's an interesting kind of dynamic to to be in those two places at once.
Speaker 1:You know, it is and it's so complimentary in that it really gives the affords the perspective of taking direct action, planning direct action, and going deep in networking within place and geography, as well as scanning and extending across geography, which I really appreciate.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's and and I've been learning so much that I didn't expect, but other people may have may may scoff at my learnings. But, like, so much energy happens on the ground that you you just don't see at the at the national sort of, like, you know, in the cloud level where it's very kinda strategic and, like, kinda, you know, open and kinda just something. But on the ground, man, the energy is so palpable and and things grow a lot more quickly on the ground.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Maybe that's obvious they're different. Obvious to me. Like, Adrienne Marie Brown, I'm a fan of emergent strategy and she talks about the concept in the natural world of fractals. And I I see that in full relief in in this scenario.
Speaker 1:So I actually wanted to ask because you mentioned some of the ways that you are organizing and scaffolding. And Dan, you were gonna go into some of and your journey into learning non violence and some of our movement ancestors. And I want you to go ahead and expand on that now.
Speaker 2:S n a w S n a u. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yes. So history into I guess self educating mostly about all of this. I've throughout my military career have gained shelves and shelves of World War two history books and Holocaust history books. Because I've always been terrified of what people can do. And it goes back to I mean, you listen to podcasts about the Roman Empire, and it's time after time after time.
Speaker 4:It's these are know, our military is our heroes. They're honorable. They are great people. The people we look up to. And then era after era, they are used to do things that are expressly opposite of what they stand for.
Speaker 4:So I've always been very morbidly curious about how that happens to make sure that it doesn't happen. About three or four years ago, I for whatever reason, probably something political, turned that focus inward onto the country itself into it's our past. Our very very very heavy and deep past. And through that I found oh, sorry. It was World War two taught me or brought me into Mahantas Gandhi.
Speaker 4:And then through him, Martin Luther King, through him, Thich Nhat Hanh, John Lewis. I mean, list goes on and on, Dolores Huerta. And every single one of their books, one of their speeches, everything that I've ever read about them or learned about them has just re reinform me and, you know, cemented it that this is not a isolated thing, that this is cyclical. It happens. It's fractal.
Speaker 4:It's gonna continue happen as long as there's civilization probably where we hit a comfort point. And then there's people who want power and find an easy way to take that power at the best of others. They create a caste system that forces right now, we are in the middle of creating an undocumented caste where there's going to be millions of people who are afraid to talk to police if they're being abused by their employers. They're going to be afraid to talk to the police if they are being raped or abused or assaulted physically by their partners. Again, their employers.
Speaker 4:Every every right that the UFW and Dolores Herita and Cesar Chavez fought for are gonna be stripped away because all of these human beings, these millions of human beings are are afraid. And I'd noticed that as opposed to pretty much every other time where there's been mass, like a mass movement, nonviolent or otherwise. It's it's always begun and I say always, but I'm I'm sure there's outliers. But it's always begun with and been initiated and held throughout by the oppressed people. With the dominant cast primarily being white males in this country coming in to help and then that being the tipping point.
Speaker 4:Where I see this being completely different is the the people who are being oppressed and who are being abused and having their due process taken away by definition can't be out here in the streets safely. They can't perform things like jail no bail that worked in the sixties by overpopulating jails and saying no, we're gonna accept our punishment. Because here it's just if you dissent against the government, if you use your first amendment speech as a human being in this country, you will be taken out of this country and sent to, I don't know what to call this place, a torture camp, a gulag, a concentration camp, death camp. Some place where no human being should be, let alone no American should be. And I think I got a little bit off your original question.
Speaker 4:So if you could And
Speaker 1:we're gonna we're gonna circle back into We are actually at the the halfway point through our show. So we have a few pieces of station traffic. And Nevin, I'm gonna ask you to stay on the line through this, and, we'll be back in just a minute.
Speaker 3:Sounds good.
Speaker 1:K o o p h d one h d three Hornsby.
Speaker 2:Business member support for coop comes from Sunshine Vinyl.
Speaker 1:Coop Radio y Drinks Lounge and East Cesar Chavez You are listening to nonviolent Austin radio hour here on Co op k o o p dot o r g streaming and ninety one point seven FM if you are in our lovely Bat City. This I'm your host, Stacy Fraser. I am joined with my cohost, Jim Crosby. And I must say, we miss you, brother Rob. Robert, Tyrone, Lily, our third leg of this, nonviolent radio hour stool is, now gainfully newly employed with, Travis County.
Speaker 1:And so he is, devoting himself with steadfastness as he does in every endeavor to his new role.
Speaker 2:We miss you, Rob.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Come back. Yeah. So I actually have a burning desire to ask, and I have the mic on, so I'm going to. The role of love as a motivator for sustaining one's nonviolence practice, I believe, is is paramount.
Speaker 1:And I do think that people may come into nonviolence, and I want people to come in any way they find to come in, by fear. And you mentioned the word morbid. You had a morbid fascination with the World War II. And I just want to wax philosophical for a moment with everybody here about what is the role of love as fuel for this work from each person's vantage point? Nevan, how about you go first?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Sure. I mean, I think with, you know, I approach nonviolence from the perspective of meta, which is a Buddhist concept of that is also known as loving kindness. And and and I I'm not an expert at the philosophy of nonviolence the same way you and and Jim, I think, are. We're working on You know?
Speaker 1:I'm aspiring to Jim's level.
Speaker 3:We all are. Yeah. So, anyway, so meta is like, you know, meta practice advanced meta practice, anyway, involves, like like, thinking thoughts of of loving kindness towards what you might consider your enemy or your opponent. And that can be really difficult, right, like, to mentally go through that exercise. But it's that, like, idea that I've I've noticed myself embracing with some of our counterprotesters who are essentially our opponents.
Speaker 3:You know, they have showed up on Infowars. They have posted pic our pictures on Twitter or X or whatever, and they've, you know, they've tried to intimidate us physically, like like the WTF Biker Club did recently, I think, on April 12. And so I don't feel anger. I you almost feel like like like a you like, you wanna smile and, like, you you feel your heart melt a little bit when you think of them. Like, it's kind of a weird feeling.
Speaker 3:But but I think this idea that there's a beloved community is a good guide. Right? This concept that I believe MLK popularized of, you know, like, in a community where we're all we're all in loving kindness or sharing community together as equals and and and and in in a loving spirit. It's kind of a big amalgamation of thoughts. I apologize.
Speaker 3:But I will say that, like, with the counterprotesters, my my heart melts a little bit with them. Now now that I've engaged in the work from a perspective of nonviolence, which is different than how I might have approached, you know, opponents in a particular situation in the past.
Speaker 1:Thank you for that.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 4:Excuse me. So first off, the the meta is absolutely a wonderful wonderful practice. Sharon Salzberg has a podcast on it and it's it's wonderful, the meta hour. I I learned about meta about the same time I started really digging into Martin Luther King because through an intermediary, a Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh, who was a non violent very very active non violent activist in the sixties in Vietnam. He ended up having to go into hiding in France.
Speaker 4:But he actually taught meditative walking to Congress. And Martin Luther King Junior put Thich Nhat Hanh up for the Nobel Peace Prize. They they have a book together, Brothers and the Fellowship of or the Beloved Community Brothers and the Beloved Community, I believe. But where Thich Nhat Hanh had focused on what he called engaged Buddhism or engaged compassion, which was him and all the the other monks who primarily would stick to themselves in isolation. During Vietnam were forced to either say say to themselves, are we gonna stay here and just worry about ourselves?
Speaker 4:Or are we gonna actually break with tradition, go out and help people regardless of what side they are. Just helping people. And what they brought to it was a a very fanatical empathy. Where I've heard it said in contemporaries that it's it's like seeing every seeing every person as God in drag. Where you recognize if I was born in the body of Elon Musk as a baby, and I grew up to his family and his environment and lived his life at this exact moment, I would be very very more predisposed to make the same decisions he's making.
Speaker 4:So as somebody who can recognize that and say, my goal is to try to bring reality and empathy and compassion to those people. Where it's recognizing that I could be that person. Just same thing as World War two. I could have been the people if I was a very patriotic German soldier from World War one, I can see how it would be a very easy transition into something very dark. As far as specifically love, I I I can't out speak King who broke it into eros, philia, and agape as the three different types of love.
Speaker 4:Eros being romantic love. Philia being the brotherly love that you choose of the people you're around, and agape being the the all consuming all pervading love of of God for people or of if again, if you don't believe in God or you believe in a different God or any way of saying that or if you're totally atheist, whatever the universe is that you feel inside of you that's love for somebody that if you if your family member, if your daughter, your son, your parents did something horrendous, you would love that person in spite of that horrendous deed. In spite no matter how many they were. You you don't have to like it. You don't have to in fact, you shouldn't.
Speaker 4:King tells us that it's that he's thankful that Jesus said love your enemies, but not like them. Because it would be hard to like somebody that's spitting you. Spitting on you, kicking you, beating you, who's burning crosses in your yard, or deporting you or your loved ones sell. You don't need to like that and you should never like that. You should never give sympathy to these people, but you give empathy, and that's how we reach through.
Speaker 4:That's
Speaker 1:Yeah. Thank you for sharing. In fact, Thich Nhat Hanh is my greatest spiritual influence, and and that's been about twenty plus years. And I want to invite folks if they're interested in looking up followers of Thich Nhat Hanh's message, we call him Thay, t h a y, which is teacher in Vietnamese. And he wrote a poem called, Please Call Me By My True Names.
Speaker 1:And it's one of the most profound pieces of writing I have ever consumed. So I think it captures the spirit of of what you just shared with us. Jim, how about you on love being the motivator and the driver and its place in our approaching this way?
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, going back a century and more when Gandhi was struggling to to come up with a name for what he was doing. They ended up with satyagraha, which is variously translated love force, soul force, holding on to the truth. And I think people have had various degrees of discomfort with what sounds like a negative term, nonviolence. We can't come up with anything better, but for me, sometimes it's just love in action.
Speaker 2:And I think what Dan, you know, saying is that the difference between liking something and loving something or somebody is love demands action. And so I see nonviolence as as, you know, that empathy, becoming compassion, and resulting in compassionate action. And, I just wanna say something more about that wonderful book that Dan mentioned, Brothers and Beloved Community, and it focuses mainly on the relationship between the friendship between King and Thich Nhat Hanh, even though they only met, I think, physically in proximity a couple of times. But it goes back to I think his name was Josiah Royce, who was the philosopher that first started it, you know, over a century ago using that phrase beloved community. And then AJ Musty who was so involved with the fellowship of reconciliation, and then Howard Thurman, great black liberation theologian.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, King picks it up most directly from Thurman, I think, and and and then establish that relationship with Thich Nhat Hanh, and and they they both use that phrase positively together. So, yeah, you know, I I commend that book to people and just that idea of what we're all about is building beloved community. I think because I'm I've loved the the teaching of Thich Nhat Hanh and and shared it with my students through the years and stuff, but I go back, you know, to my childhood and my main tradition is the Christian tradition and and Jesus saying, not only love your neighbors as yourself, which is hard enough, but love your enemies. You know, that being, one of my teachers has called that the probably the most political statement ever made, you know, and the hardest thing, love your enemies. And so that unconditional or as near as we can come as humans to unconditional love that you're talking about that you feel for your kids, for example, and it becoming even the motivator for sacrifice, like to fill the jails, you know, things that that in India or in the South in The United States or, you know, going on those bus rides and being beat sometimes to death.
Speaker 2:So it's a self giving. Yeah. So the spiritual roots of this work, I think, are are need to need to be emphasized.
Speaker 1:Principle number four in Kingian nonviolence, accept suffering without retaliation for the good of the cause to achieve the goal.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And the goal I often define as beloved community. You know? It's one way to look at that.
Speaker 1:And and I can't help but think of MLK's quote, hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. And that, you know, will put a bow on this topic for now. If you are just tuning in, you are listening to Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour. I am your host, Stacey Fraser, alongside my cohost, Jim Crosby.
Speaker 1:And we have covered and oscillated between the philosophical and the pragmatic aspects of nonviolence a k a love in action, which I agree with you, Jim. That's a good way to put it because nonviolence has a challenge with defining what nonviolence is. And I'll tell you that's the number one when people ask me what I do and I, you know, explain that I'm a nonviolence practitioner. It's eight out of 10 times it's, oh, can you help, us in the schools because people are fighting with each other. And and so they really, tend to put it as direct gun or fist, you know, fighting and and it's so much more rich and deep and complicated than that.
Speaker 1:So Dan and Nevan, we are at we have about fifteen minutes left. And, Jim, I'm looking at you too as this is a consensus based participatory model. I'd like to get really practical about what is coming up, what's on the horizon, how folks, if interested, may plug in. And maybe we start this time with you Dan on what what are you planning?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. Thank you. So I'll try to keep it short because I'm interested in what Nevin's plan. But so right now my big focus is well, have two two big focuses. One is I'm creating the Student Nonviolent Action Union, SNAU.
Speaker 4:And I'm using SNCC from the sixties, the student nonviolent coordinating committee headed by John Lewis as a template and a foundation. I I firmly believe that we have the ability right now to skip about ten years worth of suffering by standing on the shoulders of the people who already suffered for us to make sure that we didn't need to go through all that and we can use the lessons learned. So at s n a u is and the website for that, if you're interested, snau-tx.com.
Speaker 1:Is it .com?Dotcom.
Speaker 4:Okay. And it's still pretty bare bones, but it has some good resources for different books to read. It has a good number of interviews and speeches that are a little bit less less heard of than for instance like the I have a dream speech which people are familiar with. But my goal with that is starting with Texas State University and then branching out. Texas State University has over 400 student organizations.
Speaker 4:And I intend to provide a meta organization where every each one of those who wants to participate has a vote and has a voice in bringing all the different injustices that all of these separate subgroups are feeling into one larger group so that they can find solutions and tackle them together without having to wait on what I consider highly ineffective university leadership.
Speaker 1:Give us a couple of tangible examples of what an issue might be.
Speaker 4:Well for instance, there's an estimated 200 to a thousand undocumented American students at Texas State University alone right now. There's an estimated 3,500 to 5,000 students at Texas State who have an immediate family member who is an undocumented American. These students have been provided absolutely no education into what their rights are, what their what the risks of protesting are. They the only statement that Kelly Danfoss, the president of Texas State University has made on the subject was, hey, if you're scared of ICE, call the police. So which is about as unhelpful as advice as you can possibly give.
Speaker 4:If you're afraid of the police, call the police. But bringing in ACLU know your rights. But I want to give these students and and faculty an opportunity to get together and actually say, okay the university is not doing anything for us. We're going to educate ourselves. We're going to bring trainers in.
Speaker 4:Best practice evidence based training. So that they can successfully, appropriately, safely, and legally go out into their community and effect change it injustices that are there's a mass perception of. And then taking that same type of thing for the other thing I'm tackling right now, which is towards the end of the month. It ideally, it'll be the May 24 to the thirty first, but we're still working on securing venues and speakers. But transferring the movements, all the the the people like Nevan are are building and having this huge outreach.
Speaker 4:With with without that, I would never have been here. I would have still just been at home angry without these these opportunities to speak and to to gather. But changing that from the gathering to the next step which is truly organizing. So bringing in mass training into venues with you know 800, a 2,000 people and saying, hey, instead of just protesting, we're gonna learn. We're gonna speak to these you know the heroes of veterans of the civil rights movements and we're gonna learn how to do this, how the best way to do it.
Speaker 4:We're gonna build small unit leaderships. We're gonna learn how to march. We're gonna learn how to sing. We're gonna learn how to sing. We're gonna learn how to sing.
Speaker 4:So replacing, you know, meme signs with with signs of progress and replacing complaints with specific goals and strategies to accomplish those goals. There's legislation out there right now like HR fifteen eleven, which would modify the 1986 Reagan amnesty date for undocumented Americans from 1982 to a rolling seven year date. So that would effectively nationalize over 7,000,000 people, or give the opportunity for nationalization of over 7,000,000 undocumented Americans, and and just really drive a force. So having goals, having training, having discipline. King talked about Agape which is all encompassing love.
Speaker 4:Gandhi talked about Satya Satyagraha which is all encompassing truth. And John Lewis talked about discipline. So all three of those things need to happen and it doesn't happen without training. I would never send an untrained marine into combat. I would never send an untrained deputy into into a school shooting or any violent experience.
Speaker 4:And I would never want to send students, teachers, or just civilians off the off the road who are coming out of their houses to protest injustices. I would never want to send them into a movement without proper training. So that's that's where I'm coming from.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Nevan, concrete plans and opportunities? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Happy to. I'll just frame it by saying, you know, Resist Austin and Resist Trump campaign both are looking to ally with anti authoritarian partner organizations that are doing doing the work. And we have done so with a group known as fifty fifty one locally in in Austin, and also another group we're developing a partnership with is known as Indivisible Rosedale Huddle.
Speaker 3:In terms of the next three days, including today, we have events scheduled with with with those groups and with our own group, Resist Austin. Today, May 1, there's a march and rally starting at 5PM at the Texas State Capitol that'll start at the Capitol and go down to City Hall. There'll be a number of speakers, and it may be a very interesting, you know, opportunity for people to see the power of social movement in action. You'll see if you happen to attend, you'll see signs. You may bring a sign.
Speaker 3:You'll probably witness a wide variety of creative acts of nonviolent civil resistance. Then tomorrow, we're also working with individual we're also working with individual Rosedale Huddl to put on what's called a banner drop, which is essentially like a banner drop or banner display from I 35 And Twelfth Street on the bridge, on both sides of the bridge. That's going to say hands off our liberty. We'll be getting a lot of eyeballs and traffic and some of form of cars, and it can be fun to do a little banner drop work and get a 18 wheeler or two to give you a when you're when you're doing that work. So I, you know, I I consider that to be an interesting opportunity to engage in nonviolent silver resistance and get a message, you know, out to people who are are either, you know, already feeling feeling the pain or, need to learn more about what the pain is.
Speaker 3:And then May, we'll be at at the Tesla Store and Gallery, on at 500 East Saint Elmo in South Austin in the St. Elmo or right side of St. Elmo development from 10AM to 12PM and we'll be doing the Tesla takedown work that we've been doing for the last six or seven weeks. We consider it to be a good time, family friendly. There are occasional counterprotesters, and we're developing, you know, different strategies to address them and their disruptive nature.
Speaker 3:But, again, they are part of the beloved community, and we are trying to do so with a spirit of meta and loving kindness. Looking forward, there's June 6, which will be the next hands off Central Texas event. I think it's a Friday or Saturday. I'm not sure. June 6.
Speaker 3:And then there's Independence Day on July 4. And we have some very interesting ideas we're considering for Independence Day in Central Texas and how to celebrate that given the current moment that our country has found itself in. I'll say finally, like, going back to Chenoweth who, you know, Jim asked me about earlier. Chenoweth has this concept that relates to what what they call the physics of descent, which is kinda interesting. And they have this idea that social movements, and I'm reading actually on off a page right now, can leverage a combination of participation, which can be conceived of as mass, right, like in physics, like mass, and the frequency of protest events, which can be considered like velocity, right, to build what is known as momentum and exert pressure on authoritarian systems.
Speaker 3:So we are looking to build momentum through the events that I've just described, and people participating in those events will play a small or I should say a an important potentially small, but equally significant role as anyone else. The name of the game is to build momentum, break pillars of support, and create a beloved community. That's that's what I would end end this little piece on.
Speaker 2:And, Nevan, I'll I'll wax teacherly. Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stefan, who you mentioned, wrote an earlier book called Why Civil Disobedience Works. Right? So I wanna steer people to that if they're interested. And but also you mentioned
Speaker 3:Civil Resistance, not civil disobedience.
Speaker 2:Okay. Yeah. Correct. Why Civil Resistance Works. And but were you indicating that Maria Stefan has a a more recent book?
Speaker 2:And what's the name of that, if if so?
Speaker 3:I believe that Maria Stefan wrote about the breaking, bridging, building, and the last blocking framework in an online magazine article in the publication waging nonviolence in November 2024. That's what I'm referring to when I mentioned that framework.
Speaker 2:Okay. Another great resource.
Speaker 1:So, yeah. So since we've been, giving flowers to Maria Stefan, I will say that we, Pacha Benet, nonviolent service and campaign nonviolence, we have an upcoming webinar, with Maria Stefan, and, it's coming the next couple of months, and we are finalizing the date. If you're interested, campaignnonviolence.org is our website. And we are going to be, I would say, within the next two weeks finalizing the date of Maria Stefan. Are doing that in part Campaign Nonviolence is doing that in partnership with the Franciscan Action Network.
Speaker 1:And we just had a webinar with Maria, and it was very well attended. And the recording is available on campaignnonviolence.org's website. That is super fresh. So I will say in terms of local organizing, in addition to Resist Austin and fifty fifty one and Indivisible, which has a few groups around. We've mentioned the Rosedale huddle today, but there are others.
Speaker 1:We also are a local part of the tapestry, nonviolent nonviolent Austin. So you can the most active place that we post consistently are updates are, currently our Facebook, group, which is, public, and it's nonviolent Austin. You can find that. We also are on pretty much every communication channel you are on right now, and we're trying to build our network as a central hub and a spoke for nonviolence locally. So please reach out if you're interested.
Speaker 1:And our URL is nonviolentaustin.org. We are consistent in our Friday vigils at 4PM, eleventh in congress. So we have a lot of singing and banner holding. And I believe that's actually where I met Nevan in person for the first time was at a vigil and on my last vigil. We have monthly potlucks.
Speaker 1:We have we just had one, and I don't know if a June date has been determined yet, Jim. But but yeah. That's
Speaker 2:find us. If you want to yeah. There's there's a we often meet at 2505 Princeton Drive, the Princeton Palace in Southeast Austin, and there is a concert there through the afternoon this Sunday, one to five on Sunday, twenty five zero five Princeton Drive. That's the makeup for the postpone. I think we had rain on when they had it scheduled for Earth Day.
Speaker 2:So Earth Day concert with Bill Oliver and with the Therapy Sisters, so should be great fun for those interested in that. And I wanna close. Is it time to close?
Speaker 1:It's just about time to close. All I'll say is if you are to staying tuned to co op, up next is Democracy Now, and our next show is gonna be June 5. We have officially been renewed for another year, so we'll continue to offer this to our community and see you around. So, Jim, take it over.
Speaker 2:Okay. This is a song I call Hot Time Monday Afternoon. It's a shout out to the Poor People's Campaign, the current Poor People's Campaign and Reverend William Barber and their Moral Mondays, which have gotten restarted just in the past week or so in DC, I think.
Speaker 1:And let me say thank you, thank you, thank you to both of our guests today. Nevan, thank you for, being on the phone for so long with us, and safe travels back. And Dan, thank you. Can't wait to collaborate.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Alright, y'all. It's a hot
Speaker 2:time in the capital come Monday afternoon. It's moral Monday and it can't come too soon. It's a hot time for senators who need to change their tune. A hot time to come in Monday afternoon. We're gonna make our voices heard till we can't be ignored like Moses with a word from from the Lord.
Speaker 2:Nonviolence is our method, justice our only sword. You powers that be know, we can't be ignored. We're gonna shut down Alec and its flood of fascist law. We'll shine a light and mend our country's flaws. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We'll create democracy like you never saw. Your frozen hearts are just about to thaw. We get the AK's off the streets and Segue. Adios.