5 Months After Hurricane Helene in Barnardsville, NC

Photo of mutual aid in early October, 2024 in Barnardsville, NC
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This week we’re sharing recent chat with Jazz and Badger, two residents of Barnardsville, a small village just outside of Asheville, NC. We spoke about the community, the impact of Hurricane Helene, some lessons learned from coordinating among the neighbors and how people are faring now, nearly 5 months out from the storm. You can find their website at MutualAidBarnardsville.com

To hear similar stories from after the storm you can find links to past interviews here. Also mentioned were interviews recorded by Blue Ridge Public Radio: Voices of Helene.

Articles on recovery referenced:

If you’d like to help out after recent flooding in Eastern Kentucky, there are a few links in our show notes to Hillbillies Helping Hillbillies aka EKY Mutual Aid

Recent Storm Support for EKY, ETN, SWVA + WV

Recent floods in middle Appalachia in the middle of an intense winter cold snap have left many without potable water or other basic needs. ATV donation / loan / operation request to help check on people in hollers, help clear roads, drive supplies: reach out to theferalraccoon (a t) proton (d ot) me OR MutualAidDisasterRelief ( at) gmail (do t) com.

EKY

One place you can look for where to send resources is Eastern KY Mutual Aid, found on Instagram or Facebook under the name Hillbillies Helping Hillbillies. And you can find out more by visiting the website or checking social media for Mutual Aid Disaster Relief. Some of the useful links are here for those unable to use the platforms:

  • EKY Mutual Aid Patreon
  • Volunteer form if in the region
  • EKY Mutual Aid Cashapp: $SoupBeansFriedTaters
  • EKY Mutual Aid Paypal: @EKYMutualAid

In Pikeville, KY, there’s a request for food grade 5 gallon for water filtration where municipal water isn’t running or wells are contaminated there’s a request for restaurants to save buckets for water filtration. People interested can contact Cara at 859_533_0349

DROP OFF LOCATION:
Pike Central HS
100 Winners Circle Drive Pikeville, KY 41501

Other EKY sites:

  • Appalachian Crisis Aid Fund
  • The Y’all Squad TheYallSquad.org/donate

SWVA

  • SAMS Lonesome Pine Mutual Aid Paypal: @SAMSVA
  • The Care Collective of SW VA Venmo: @carecollectiveofswva
  • Cumberland Mountain Mutual Aid
    • Paypal: cumberlandmountainmutualaid (a t) gmail (d o t) com
    • Venmo: @CMMAID
    • CashApp: $CMMUTUALAID

WV

  • WVUMC Disaster Response Ministries WVUMC.org/donate
  • Bluejay Rising BluejayRising.org/donate
  • Spark of Love Foundation
    • CashApp: $sparkoflove4thekids
    • PayPal: The Spark of Love Foundation

ETN

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Surveillance Self Defense, Encrypted Chat Apps and Securing Devices with Thorin Klosowski

The SSD logo of a lock and a key in adjoining spaces of an infinity symbol, a photo of Thorin Klosowski and "TFSR 2-16-25 | Surveillance Self Defense, Encrypted Chat Apps and Securing Devices with Thorin Klosowski
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This week, a conversation with Thorin Klosowski of the Electronic Frontier Foundation about some basic tools and ideas for keeping our information a little safer online and the Surveillance Self-Defense site, ssd.eff.org . We discuss device encryption, tor-browser, vpns, encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram as well as password vaults. I’m hoping this’ll be the first of a few interviews to try to make digital security concepts a little more accessible.

Links to check

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CIMA on Community Defense Against ICE + Kristian Williams on the Comics of Alan Moore

This week on the show, we’re sharing two interviews.

<a href="https://traffic.libsyn.com/forcedn/thefinalstrawradio/tfsr-podcast-20250209-CIMAKristianWilliams.mp3">Download This Episode</a>First up, Dulce, a member of Companeros Inmigrantes en las Montanas en Accion, or CIMA, a local organizing and advocacy group by and for immigrants in western NC about her experience working for dignity and solidarity in light of the current and past administrations. More on CIMA can be found at CIMAWNC.Org

Then, Ian speaks with Kristian Williams, author of Gang Politics, Resist Everything Except Temptation, and Our Enemies in Blue, among others, about his recent book, The Illuminist: Philosophical Explanations in the work of Alan Moore. The chat touches upon Moore’s work and its anarchist underpinnings, his legacy in and out of comics, the necessity of imagination, and the possibilities that arise from death and disaster. The book is available from emergencyhearts.com, emergencyhearts.bandcamp.com, and kristianwilliams.com. You can find past interviews we’ve done with Kristian here.

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“From Hash Rebels to Urban Guerrillas” with Gabriel Kuhn

book cover of "From Hash Rebels to Urban Guerrillas" with the words "TFSR 2-2-25 | The 2nd of June Movement (with Gabriel Kuhn)"
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Today we’re sharing an interview recorded this week with Gabriel Kuhn speaking about the West German urban guerrilla group the 2nd of June Movement, the book he co-edited on this subject entitled From Hash Rebels to Urban Guerrillas: A Documentary History of the 2nd of June Movement (from PM Press and Kersplebedb), the milieu from which it arose, how it compared to other groups at the time like the Red Army Faction, and some of the legacy of their critiques and interventions on radical politics in the autonomen movement and beyond.

For the hour we speak about the context from which the 2nd of June Movement grew (alongside the Red Army Faction, Revolutionary Cells and others) in the 1970’s, their goals and actions, the timing of the book and the legacy that these groups left to German society and the autonomous movements that continued.

• Our prior interview with Gabriel on Liberating Sapmi
• Gabriel’s blog: https://lefttwothree.org/
• A blog collecting documents of this period: http://germanguerilla.com/

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Featured Track:

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