Monthly Archives: December 2015

Alabama, Anarchist, General, Michael Kimble, Prisons

“We need to kick it up a notch”: an interview with anarchist prisoner Michael Kimble

Michael Kimble

Michael Kimble
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First off some words from Sean Swain on morality. Spoiler alert: it may not exist!!

This time we’re speaking with Michael Kimble, who is a black gay anarchist prisoner incarcerated in Atmore, Alabama. Mr Kimble is active in many prison organizing projects, including the Free Alabama Movement. We speak about his case, his writings, a possible future for anarchist organizing, his upcoming parole hearing, and vampires among other topics. For more about his case and to read his writings, you can visit his support page at http://anarchylive.noblogs.org.

Apologies for the audio quality on this interview, since it was recorded from inside prison it is not always easy to hear. But stick with it, there’s some really good stuff here.

To write to Michael Kimble, or to send him books or zines, you can address letters to:

Michael Kimble
#138017
3700 Holman Unit
Atmore, AL 36503

To write support letters for his hopefully upcoming parole hearing, address letters to:

Alabama Dept. of Pardons and Parole
301 South Ripley Street
Montgomery, AL 36130

Info on what to say and how to word those letters of support please visit his support page

Playlist

activism, Anarchist, Capitalism, Da Bay, General, History, Housing, Occupy, Race, Squatting

Foreclosure Defense Group: Brooke’s reflections on strategy + organizing around Occupy Oakland

Foreclosure Defense Group

https://foreclosuredefensegroup.wordpress.com/
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This week we feature an interview conducted by an Audio Cadre of ours on the West coast with Brooke, an anarchist who participated in the Foreclosure Defense Group that sprang from Occupy Oakland in March of 2012. During the hour, they speak about the history of that group, it’s strengths and weakness and lessons around cross-race and cross-class organizing around displacement in Oakland based on some of the models worked out by SolNet, the Seattle Solidarity Network. For an extended version of the conversation, check out the podcast version of the show.

If you’re in Asheville on Friday, December 18th, there will be a free event you can check out at Firestorm Books and Coffee at 8pm. From the description:

“The ZAD is a large scale land occupation near Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France. It was squatted in 2009 at the invitation of local citizen and farming associations, who had been resisting the imposition of an airport, highway, high speed train, and tram line since 1972. Since then, the anti-airport movement has depassed traditional limitations of “issue-based struggles” with a strong critique of capitalist and hierarchical systems (including and especially the State), and links and shared projects with a wide diversity of people, to the point where the divisions between squatter, farmer, local, have become blurred.

After a massive police operation in 2012, “Operation Cesar”, the zone of 8 miles square has been free of State intervention, and has become known as a “zone outside the law”. Zadistas have created our own infrastructures and are autonomous in many ways. Some things work less well, like conflict resolution, but overall the occupation is settled into the territory and is planning for the long term, together with the “locals” and “farmers” involved in the struggle and those living close by. At the moment, however, the French prime minister is threatening to evict the ZAD and begin work on the airport early 2016. Ironically, they are waiting until just after the COP 21 in Paris (while billing the airport as “good for the environment”).”

Playlist

Anarchist, Capitalism, communization, Environment, Feminism, gender, General, Health, Paul Z Simons, Race, Religion, Rojava

Ecology + Anti-Capitalism in Rojava: Paul Z. Simons part 3 of 3

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This week we start off with a dispatch from Sean Swain, read by William. Sean is an anarchist prisoner we’ve featured commentary from over the past 2 years. Sean Swain has been under media block for the past few months, so his commentary here has been sparse. In this segment he addresses his media silencing and his bid for presidency of the U.S. in 2016. More of Sean’s writings at seanswain.org

Paul Z. Simons on Rojava, pt3

For the meat of the episode, we feature part three of Bursts conversation with Paul Z. Simons about his experience of the Rojava Revolution going on in northern Syria. The Rojava Revolution began in 2012, as an outgrowth from the insurgency of the PKK and other Kurdish groups in Turkey that’s been locked in an off-and-on civil war for 30 years. Paul, a post-left anarchist from the U.S. talks about his experiences in Rojava in October of this year of their multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, feminism revolution.

The Rojava Revolution has been described as anti-state, anti-capitalist, feminist and ecological, however in the conversations Bursts has had on what’s gone on in Rojava with students of it, little has come out in terms of how the Rojava experiment has been ecological or anti-capitalist. So, in this conversation Paul and Bursts spoke about Paul’s understanding of economic models, property rights, modes of exchange in Rojava as well as discussions of it’s war-time and long-view approaches towards ecology in Rojava.

The first two parts of this interview can be found here.

Playlist can be found here

Anarchist, Feminism, gender, General, Paul Z Simons, Religion, Rojava

Paul Z. Simons on the Dispaches from Rojava (part 2 of 3): Form, Function, Gender & Martyr culture in the Rojava Revolution

Paul Z. Simons on Rojava, pt 2

http://anarchistnews.org/content/report-back-rojava-revolution
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This episode features part two of Bursts conversation Paul Z. Simons on his recent trip to the northern, autonomous regions of Syria known as Rojava. In this conversation Paul shares his experiences of gender, feminism, power distribution and infrastructure in Rojava and his thoughts as a post-left anarchist of experiencing what he’d consider a social revolution. Paul is an editor of the Modern Slavery Magazine, where his writings can be found here and William’s interview with him last year can be found HERE. You can find weblinks and more context on the page for our prior conversations on Rojava with Paul.

The audio from part one of the conversation can be found here. To hear part three before it airs, check it out here.

Announcements

Sean Swain

Sean Swain is having a very hard time right now and could really use to be reminded that he is not alone. If you haven’t written to Sean in a while or haven’t heard back from him due to the ODRC messing with his mail or cutting off his other methods of communication, now would be a great time to flood him with letters, cards, photos, drawings, books, zines, anything.

In particular, now would be a good moment to remind Sean that he matters to you, that you are glad he is alive, and that you see him as contributing to the world in a way that matters to you. Every once in a while we all need a loving kick to the head to get us back on track and feeling ready to continue fighting. Now is that moment for Sean. So send him a kick; he deserves it.

Write to Sean at:
Sean Swain #243-205
Warren Correctional Inst.
P.O. Box 120
Lebanon, Ohio 45036

Playlist

Anarchist, Canada, Operacion Pandora, Police, Prisons, Racism, repression, Spain

A conversation about Operation Pandora II and words from Nyki Kish about GVI

Operation Pandora II + Nyki Kish

Belfast Jan 16th anti pandora demo
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Important announcement:
**There will be a vigil commemorating the death of Tamir Rice TODAY in Asheville, 3pm at Carrier Park, on the 1 year anniversary of his death. This 14 year old African American boy was gunned down without consequences to the cops who killed him. People will be meeting at 3pm, at the end of this show at Carrier Park off of Amboy road.. Come and support Black Lives Matter and demand justice. Please spread the word and bring flowers and signs against the death of Black people by Law Enforcement in the U.S.

This week on the show you’ll hear an interview that Bursts conducted with a comrade living in Spain regarding Operation Pandora and Operation Pinata, two government initiatives specifically designed to target and incriminate anarchists. In this interview, they get into how these initiatives operate, the real life implications of targeted governmental oppression, security culture and much more! To learn a little more about this topic you can visit http://en.contrainfo.espiv.net and search “Pandora, Pinata, and Beyond”.

First though, you’ll hear some words from Nyki Kish, incarcerated at Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. This is a segment of a reading of Nyki’s 4th recent blog entry concerning persecution of non-cis-heteronormative prisoners at GVI. We announced about this last episode. There’s a call-in-campaign ongoing to get the GVI to stop the repression. More information and updates on the Grand Valley Institution for Women and struggles there, check out https://gviwatch.wordpress.com/ and join the call-in campaign by dialing 519-894-2011, requesting to speak to the acting warden at GVI and inquiring why they are criminalizing LBTQ2+ prisoners. Or you could fax 519-894-5434 with similar requests. The warden has announced the allowance of a LBTQ2+ group to be formed among prisoners there, but the campaigners suggest continuing to call and fax to see if they follow through and what comes next.

More of Nyki Kish’s writing can be found at http://changeandprison.wordpress.com/

Playlist