People-Powered Planet Podcast

John Viscount is a screenwriter, producer, director, composer, author, branding specialist, and global peacebuilder.

Rivera Sun is a change-maker, a cultural creative, a protest novelist, and an advocate for nonviolence and social justice.

She is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, The Way Between and other novels.  She is the editor of Nonviolence News. Her study guide to making change with nonviolent action is used by activist groups across the country. Her essays and writings are syndicated by Peace Voice, and have appeared in journals nationwide.

Rivera attended the James Lawson Institute in 2014 and facilitates workshops in strategy for nonviolent change across the country and internationally.

Between 2012-2017, she co-hosted nationally two syndicated radio programs on civil resistance strategies and campaigns.

His new book Warheads to Windmills says that to survive as a species we need to work together to solve the greatest problems facing us right now.  Those include the climate crisis, the nuclear nightmare and  the time-bomb of global inequality and injustice. 

He shows, in detail, how we can solve each of these life-threatening emergencies!

Dr. Timmon Wallis is Executive Director of NuclearBan.US and coordinator of the national Warheads to Windmills Coalition.

He is truly a Solutionary -- with  a BA in Human Ecology and a PhD in Peace Studies.  His earlier book, Disarming the Nuclear Argument,  contributed to the negotiations which led to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons -- which earned ICAN its Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.

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Judith Diment is Dean of the Rotary Representatives to the United Nations and International Agencies leading a team of 30 Rotary “Ambassadors.” 
 

She led Rotary delegations to COP26, COP27 and COP28. 
Having worked in marketing and communications for over 30 years, including heading PR at the Natural History Museum in London, she also volunteers for many organizations and charities in Great Britain and around the world. 

A recipient of the Rotary Service Above Self Award,  she served as President of Windsor St George Rotary Club and was District Governor of Rotary District 1090. Elected a Councillor for Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, she was also awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire by HM Queen Elizabeth for services to charity.

How did we get from the terrible 2020s to here? 

Suzanne Taylor created an essay contest to answer that question and people shifted from being overwhelmed by doom and gloom to excitement about humanity’s future! Join us in talking with Suzanne about the wealth of ideas generated by her contest -- and where we can go from here.

Suzanne was a painter and an actress – her many TV credits include The Dick Van Dyke Show (she played Van Dyke’s secretary in the feature film, Divorce American Style), I Dream of Jeannie, and My Favorite Martian.

In the 1970s, she turned all her attention to the world problematique. She’s made wonderful contributions since then, including two feature documentaries about crop circles: What on Earth? Inside the Crop Circle Mystery and CROP CIRCLES: Quest for Truth, as well as doing 36 episodes of The Cosmic Fuel Pump, for “how I get sane in a crazy world,” on local Los Angeles TV.

On her current platform, NOW WHAT?, where the essay contest came from, she is urging a massive coalition of we-the-people to become the force we could be.

“Has a doll long criticized for perpetuating outdated gender norms and unrealistic body image become a feminist icon?”  NPR asked; “The movie takes place largely in Barbieland, a candy-colored, women-centered utopia where Barbies hold the positions of power (all of the jobs, really, except for "beach") and Kens are essentially peripheral.”  The Kens revolt - take over, start wars with each other, and try to dominate.  

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We invited Dr. Riane Eisler, the distinguished author of “The Chalice and the Blade” to give us her perspective on the “Barbie” movie.  In "The Chalice and the Blade” Riane tells a new story of our cultural origins. She shows that war and the “war of the sexes” are neither divinely nor biologically ordained.  Her research reveals that human society originated in female/male partnership but was then coerced into a dominator society. She goes on to show us that a better future is possible in partnership!  Anthropologist Ashley Montagu called it “the most important book since Darwin’s Origin of Species”. 

Dr. Riane Eisler is President of the Center for Partnership Studies and has received many honors, including honorary Ph.D. degrees, the Alice Paul ERA Education Award, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's 2009 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, and is featured in the award-winning book Great Peacemakers as one of 20 leaders for world peace, along with Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King.  She keynotes conferences worldwide, with venues including the United Nations General Assembly and the US Department of State.

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Andreas Bummel is founder and Executive Director of Democracy Without Borders.  A leading expert and advocate for a world parliament, he has been leading the campaign for a Parliamentary Assembly at the UN, supported by more than 1,500 parliamentarians from over 100 countries.

The “We The Peoples” campaign, which he co-convenes, advocates for more democracy at the UN.  It has been joined by over 200 groups, including leading environmental and

civil rights NGOs.

He served on the Council of the World Federalist Movement, which played a central role in supporting the creation of the International Criminal Court.

Hear from Dr. Sheyda Jahanbani, the historian conducting research on Garry Davis for her book and the efforts to promote his inspiring World Citizen view around world!

Listen to fun stories from people who knew him!

The Global Challenges foundation thinks so - awarding her a prize in their multi-million dollar contest for the best new models of global governance -- to avert disaster and put humanity on a path toward a bright sustainable future.  

Jon Fitzgerald, Founder & CEO of Cause Pictures, is one of the Co-founders of the Slamdance Film Festival and author of Filmmaking for Change:  Make Films That Transform the World.

Recognizing that film is more than just entertainment, it is a tool to engage and inspire audiences to take action, Jon created Cause Pictures as a new paradigm to help create change. 

The Company combines Jon’s years of filmmaking, festival and consulting experience, providing services to film festivals and supporting independent filmmakers looking to produce, market and distribute their films to a growing audience yearning for socially relevant stories.

Armed conflicts are ongoing around the world.

At times it may seem that there are no rules in war. However, there are and they make a difference. "Even War Has Rules" is a dynamic discussion on international humanitarian law (IHL) and how it governs armed conflict. By the end of the hour, participants will achieve a general understanding of IHL and will be better able to evaluate the actions of parties to armed conflicts.

Join Former Peace Corp Volunteer, Retired Teacher and Teacher-Trainer Joanne Dufour in learning international humanitarian law!

Bob and Liz run Story Connection, working in New Mexico with Native American Pueblo schools - and traveling the world telling stories -- that celebrate the intersection of myth, family and culture.

Come hear how stories mold society and shape behavior -- and why stories are more powerful tools than facts and figures for influencing hearts and minds, shifting the paradigm and truly creating Social Change.

Go to: storyconnection.com

Bob and Liz developed Future Wave’s BULLYPROOF program, engaging young people to use stories told through Puppet shows and a rap’n roll opera to learn powerful tools for handling conflict in more powerful ways than violence. At a time when world leaders are acting like schoolyard bullies, the world needs life-affirming stories -- and BULLYPROOF!

With humanity poised at 90 seconds to doomsday, and growing risks of nuclear war breaking out with Russia, China & North Korea, we will be chatting with Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the Peace in Ukraine Coalition, about her new book "War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict".

Nobel peace prize nominee Medea Benjamin is co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK and of the human rights group Global Exchange.  

The MOVEMENT and the “MADMAN” shows how two antiwar protests  in the fall of 1969 — the largest the country had ever seen — caused President Nixon to cancel what he called his “madman” plans for a massive escalation of the U.S. war in Vietnam, including his threat to use nuclear weapons.

Remarkable archival footage and firsthand accounts reveal how you changed history!

We chat with:

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER ROBERT LEVERING is a former business/workplace journalist. In 1969, on the staff of the New Mobe, he organized and trained 4,000-5,000 nonviolent marshals for the huge antiwar demonstration in November 1969 in Washington, DC.
 

CO-PRODUCER STEVE LADD, has worked with filmmakers for the last 3 decades to help produce and distribute documentary films. He was an antiwar and draft resistance organizer at UC Berkeley during the war in Vietnam.

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Watch the National Women's Conference To Prevent Nuclear War
Coretta Scott King, Joanne Woodward, Dr. Helen Caldicott and other leading women came together in a high-profile nuclear war prevention conference organized by our Future WAVE board member Charolett Baker who was the Special Projects Director for the Center for Defense Information and later Director of USA-USSR Citizens Dialogue.

In the exciting video you'll hear from Ruth Adams, editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

ALSO: Mary Dent Crisp, Co-Chair of the Republican National Committee; 
Margaret Bush Wilson, NAACP Chairperson; 
Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State
Mildred Scott Olmsted, Suffragist 
Congresswoman Bella Abzug, and many others.

BULLYPROOF is a life-skills program Arthur Kanegis developed to make conflict resolution fun and memorable.

It uses ten animal characters to teach more powerful tools than intimidation or violence for getting what you really want and need in life.

B.U.L.L.Y.  is Bustout Bear, Understanding Unicorn, Listening Lynx, Yin Yang Yak.  P.R.O.O.F. is Picturing Porpoise, Respectful Raven, Originating Orangutan,Overseeing Owl, Fearless Fox)

Sovaida Ma’ani Ewing is a prolific author, speaker, and international lawyer with 20 years of experience in public and private legal practice.

TV host Glen Anderson strives tirelessly for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and a wide variety of progressive political issues.   

His cable TV show focuses on changing to a truly peaceful foreign policy, creating social justice and economic justice in many ways, and promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society.   

He writes, speaks, conducts training workshops to strategize and build progressive grassroots social change movements.  His shows are broadcast on Thurston Community Television (TCTV) and are available online at parallaxperspectives.org

“What if Grandpa had been killed in Vietnam? We wouldn’t exist!”

Thousands of kids and grandkids owe their lives to Frank Kroncke, who with the Minnesota 8 "liberated" most of Minnesota’s draft files.

“My wife and I are celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary” Joe wrote. We have two sons who gave us six wonderful Grandkids. We are now retired and … enjoying life. None of this might have happened if I was sent to Nam or moved to Canada. I would like to thank you and seven others for what you did for our country and hope this history will be taught in the schools.

Sincere thanks,

Joe

Brainerd, MN”

John Reuwer is a board member of World BEYOND War and serves on the Committee to Abolish Nuclear Weapons with Physicians for Social Responsibility.

A retired emergency physician and former adjunct professor of conflict resolution at St. Michael’s College in Vermont, Dr. Reuwer has studied, taught and practiced alternatives to violence for over 40 years.

He was an International Protection Officer with the Nonviolent Peaceforce in South Sudan and has served on volunteer unarmed peace teams in South Sudan, Haiti, Guatemala, Colombia, Palestine/Israel, and in several U.S. cities - including Washington DC where the DC Peace Team worked to de-escalate tensions around the Jan. 6 storming of the US Capitol.

He recently returned from a month in Romania and Ukraine where he joined people searching for nonviolent ways to end the invasion and stop the war!

Join us and learn how nonviolence is the most powerful force in the world!

World BEYOND War

Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor named “Lawyer of the Year” by California Lawyer Magazine for his pioneering work in litigation that was a stepping-stone toward same-sex marriage equality.     

Working now with Lawyers Defending American Democracy, Dennis writes and co-writes opinion pieces that have been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, NBC News, CNN, The Guardian, NBCThink, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, Salon and more.
See https://muckrack.com/dennis-aftergut/articles  

In the early 1970s, Dennis worked with Arthur Kanegis in the NARMIC team at the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), using research and investigation to educate people about the ongoing Vietnam War.  

Incorporating the ads of the manufactures of the weapons with the children their products maimed, NARMIC made a powerful pre-VHS documentary which sold 1,500 copies, each used widely in the movement to stop the Vietnam war.

Also highly documented was their budget analysis co-produced with the Indochina Resource Center (IRC) that exposed the dark realities of nice-sounding US Aid programs. Congress people used it to cut appropriations.  When the US military effort collapsed and Ambassador Graham Martin was helicoptered off the Saigon embassy roof, he blamed IRC for triggering the end of the war.     

Traveling recently to Vietnam, Dennis made heartfelt connections with people the US government had called our enemies.

Can we shake our world off the path toward extinction and instead build a Solartopia?

Harvey Wasserman is an author, radio host and activist working to bend the arc of history toward peace, love & understanding…plus justice.  

(See Solartopia.org)      

Solartopia, No Nukes, election protection, people’s history, nonviolent action….and our vital leap to green sustainability are advanced and promoted in his 20 books -- and discussed on his radio shows at prn.fm and KPFK/Pacifica-Los Angeles.   

He co-convenes zoom meetings of the Grassroots Emergency Election Protection (GREEP) zooms Mondays at 5pm Eastern (www.electionprotection2024.org).

What if the key to our future lies in our past?

Realizing that law as a “battle” was actually a weak force not serving his clients needs so much as perpetuating the “war machine of litigation,” Eric Sirotkin shifted his legal skills into honing Gandhi’s “weapon of the strong.”  He discovered that Satyagraha-based holistic spheres of collaborative and integrative law are a more powerful way to serve his clients and humanity.

Eric weaves together the core wisdom of Navajo, Sioux, Onondaga, Andes Shamen, Hindu mystics, Buddhist monks and tribal elders around the planet with that of Einstein, Dr. ML King, Bishop Tutu to recognize that the interconnected principle of Ubuntu --  building peace and relationship through experiencing our intrinsic interconnection - has existed throughout time in non-dominant cultures.

He founded UbuntuWorks.org, a 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization dedicated to infusing ubuntu-based principles into education, workplaces, finance and other institutions.

See EricSirotkin.com

More on Ubuntu

Michael Nagler, President of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, argues that nonviolence–not just as a tactic but as a way of being–is the only way to unite deeply divided people and enable progressive movements and leaders of all stripes to fulfil their promise and potential.

Watch Nicholas Meyer, Director of "THE DAY AFTER" (see TRAILER), which had the largest audience of any made-for-television movie before or since!
In the midst of the cold war nuclear arms race, it shook people to the core - 100 million Americans and 200 million Russians!  It convinced US and Soviet leaders to START negotiations to reduce nukes!

Nicholas also directed STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN and STAR TREK VI:  THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. He wrote the screenplay for STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME.  He directed and wrote TIME AFTER TIME.

He has authored nine books including NY Times best-seller THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION -- and wrote the screenplay (It stars Nicole Williamson, Robert Duvall, Alan Arkin, Laurence Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave.)

We'll talk about his book THE VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE: MEMORIES OF STAR TREK AND A LIFE IN HOLLYWOOD and discuss how movies change the world!

SURPRISE GUEST! -- Honored Whistleblower and star of "The Most Dangerous Man in America" documentary Daniel Ellsberg joins Nicholas in the discussion!

Our special guest is Jeff Daniels, the award-winning producer/director of "Television Event"!

Riane Eisler, JD, PhD(h), is recipient of the Distinguished Peace Leadership Award (earlier given to the Dalai Lama) and she is internationally known for her ground-breaking contributions as a systems scientist, historian and futurist.

Learn of the exciting advances in Eisler's work since “The Chalice & The Blade” and how the Partnership system can help us build what Garry Davis called a “People Powered Planet!”

In “The Real Wealth of Nations,” for example, she shows that the great problems of our time — such as poverty, inequality, war, terrorism, and environmental degradation — are due largely to flawed economic systems.

She offers a model of a caring economy that transcends traditional categories like capitalist and socialist and offers enormous economic and social benefits. Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu hailed it as "a template for the better world we have been so urgently seeking.”

Eisler offers new perspectives for constructing less violent and more egalitarian, gender-balanced, and sustainable future societies.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Russia to “immediately suspend” its invasion of Ukraine.  4 experts will discuss what it will look like when we evolve a future in which no nation or national leader is above the law.  Can you imagine what the future will look like if we, the people, used our economic and nonviolent power to enforce world law?  How could we enforce the recent World Court ruling against Putin’s invasion?  Imagine implementing Kellogg Briand in which Russia, USA and 60 other countries outlawed war!

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How can we, as sovereign World Citizens Govern our World?

In 1993, Garry Davis, operating on behalf of world citizens, engaged organizational cybernetics pioneer Stafford Beer to join him in developing and testing an interactive system for ordinary people to have a real voice in governing spaceship Earth. Come hear about their early experiments and how we can now use the Syntegrity process and protocol to co-create whole system solutions to the Core Questions on Humanity's Table:

How can world citizens evolve world law to:

--to avoid a world war?
--prevent ecocide to ensure a healthy planetary civilization?
--engage in implementing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

Presenters:

Dr. David Beatty is the World Syntegrity Project Co-ordinator and a Founding Member of Team Syntegrity International. He was a Research Director of Individual and Organizational Learning at the Unesco Centre for Water Education, Netherlands.

Dr. Allenna Leonard, former president of the American Society for Cybernetics and the International Society for the Systems Sciences, is an American cyberneticist and Director of Cwarel Isaf Institute specializing in the application of Stafford Beer's Viable System Model and Team Syntegrity Process.

David Gallup is the President of the World Service Authority which carries on the work of Garry Davis.

What is beyond systems built on Domination Culture?

Partnerism, developed by Dr. Riane Eisler, (The Chalice and the Blade) is a socio-economic system where all relationships, institutions, policies, and organizations are based on principles of equitable partnership that supports linking rather than ranking and hierarchies of actualization rather than hierarchies of domination.

Rosie von Lila has worked with Burning Man headquarters since 2013 and been a member of the global Burning Man community for more than half her life.

Al Jubitz is a soft-spoken powerhouse - a changemaker working through Rotary to promote World Peace, Environmental Stewardship and the needs of at-risk children.

He is Executive Producer of "A Bold Peace" a fabulous film about how Costa Rica, surrounded by hostile military powers, got rid of their military - and thus gained 75 years of peace, energy independence, education for all and so much more!

He is on the National Advisory Board of Environmental Defense Fund and on the Leadership Council at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

He is also the past President of the Rotary Club of Portland -- and is a sponsor of the TV broadcast of "The World Is My Country".

We are so pleased to also welcome Patrick Hiller - the Executive Director of the War Prevention Initiative by the Jubitz Family Foundation who also teaches in the Conflict Resolution Program at Portland State University.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights unanimously confirmed that everyone on Earth has certain rights and freedoms.  But who is going to enforce our rights?  Who is going to protect our freedoms... and the most basic right of all -- the right of our species to survive on Planet Earth?

Mark Oettinger, a seasoned attorney, educator and author, with extensive experience in Judicial Systems and Rule of Law, is working with the World Service Authority, founded by Garry Davis, to develop a World Court of Human Rights.

Come hear about their progress -- and how such a Court will be able to create binding, enforceable world law - above the nations that divide us.

Rieki Cordon is an inspiring speaker with innovative ideas and creations to help plant the seeds for a better future.  He will share some ideas on how we can opt-out of the degenerative economies that are harming our planet and opt-into regenerative economic systems that give us more voice and value while doing so!

He also explains a unique perspective on cryptocurrencies that go well beyond the scams and ponzinomics you hear in the news.

A facilitator and map-maker who is part of a community of people developing SEEDS, a regenerative economic system where the citizens govern the protocol and the net outcome is personal and planetary regeneration.

He is also a part of Hypha:  A global, transparent and decentralized cooperative which is building tools for the Regenerative Renaissance.

Come hear his ideas on how Tokenomics and Decentralized Governance can build a regenerative economic systems with positive feedback loops to heal our planet and communities.

Prof. René Wadlow is the President of the Association of World Citizens, a global organization promoting oneness with humanity and seeing the whole planet as our home.  It has official consultative status in the UN's Economic & Social Council.   

René first met Garry Davis at the home of Harry Jacobsen -- the machine-shop Guru and teacher of Natarajan's Indian philosophy -- who played a key role in inspiring Garry to declare a government of, by and for the people of Earth.   

Hear more about this key time in the life of the man who inspired our Podcast and "The World Is My Country" movie.   René -- a Princeton graduate and Professor and former Director of Research of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies in Geneva -- is a font of wisdom, spiritual and practical knowledge about how to avert catastrophe and create a flourishing  and regenerative future!   

awcunited.org  
awcungeneva.com

Peter Meisen heads the World Energy commission of the World Citizen Government founded by Garry Davis.

The inspiration for his life’s work came from meeting the visionary engineer Buckminster Fuller and reading his seminal book “Critical Path.”

Dr. Fuller created the global gaming simulation, The World Game – “to make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone.”

Peter launched the Global Energy Network Initiative (GENI) to promote linking renewable energy resource around the world. The GENI initiative has earned the endorsements of 7 Nobel Peace Laureates, and newsman Walter Cronkite calling it “the best solution to peace and sustainable development he’s seen.” After 30 years, the world has now embraced this solution, just far too slowly.

He developed The SIMCenter, a surround visualization tool, like a Mission Control Room, that enables collective understanding and dialogue.

He's helping to create many SIMCenters in partnership with universities and city leadership -- to help City leaders deal with complex, interconnected problems, highlighting need options and strategies.

David Swanson, co-founder of World BEYOND War will tell us about the big campaign to get COP26 to include the biggest source of environmental damage of all:  the Military/War System.