The Final Straw Radio is a terrestrial radio show and podcast started in 2009 featuring information by, for and about anarchists and other anti-authoritarians. The show airs weekly on Sundays from 2-3pm EST out of Asheville, NC, USA.
This week, Bursts spoke with Micah Lee. Micah is, according to his bio at The Intercept: ”
a computer security engineer and an open source software developer. He writes about technical topics like digital and operational security, encryption tools, whistleblowing, and hacking using language that everyone can understand, but without dumbing it down. An avid user of Qubes and Linux, he develops security tools such as OnionShare.”
Micah is kind enough in this conversation to break down the Efail scandal that rocked security-minded folks in mid-May. A weakness in the way that many email clients handled PGP & S/MIME came to light months after it was discovered by a team of security investigators. Micah explains how this encryption works, what was found out, safer approaches to encrypted messaging. We also talk a little about threat modeling and quantum computing.
Send encrypted text messages to Micah using Signal Messenger at (415) 964-1601. Here’s a link to a cool article Micah published at The Intercept about a method of cheaply creating a second signal account, so you can give out a signal # without giving away your personal phone number.
Check out past episodes of Error451 and hit us up if you have ideas for segments or guests you’d like to hear from. Check out our contact page!
featured track: “I Did It For The Kids But They’re Gonna PAY” by Spook Rat.
In the first Bursts spoke with two organizers of the Asheville Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair (ACAB2018) taking place the 22-24th of June. To link up with this project and for aaall the information, you can visit the website here! To follow on social media, you find @acab.2018 on Instagram, and for email it’s acab2018@riseup.net. This segment begins at [11:46]
Then Bursts spoke with Tristan, an anarchist living in Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia, about the riot that took the streets for 3 hours there on May Day. They talk about anarchist in Java, the feudal Sultanate they suffer under, the New Yogyakarta International Airport threatening to displace a village and more. This segment begins at [40:02]
As Tristan says in the interview, much of the resistance of the Committee Against Feudalism that raged against the police on May Day in Yogyakarta was in order to damage government facility as well as to undermine trust of local and international investors in the building of a New Yogyakarta International Airport, or NYIA. The airport has already lead to the displacement of people in the farming village of Kulon Progo, destroying trees & livelihoods, and authorities cut power supplies to intimidate residents into selling their ancestral lands in this southern coastal village. In place of the farmlands where 11.5 thousand people live, cultivating peppers, eggplants and watermelons, the state would destroy the erosion and flood-defending dunes around this area with a 2,000 hectare “airport city” containing hotels, industrial zones, shopping centers & other tourist ventures. Here is a chronology of resistance up to late 2017.
The airport would be operated by Angkasa Pura (state-owned Airport Operator), and constructed by the U.S. company Landrum & Brown, with offices in NYC, Orlando, SF, Tampa, Cincinnati, Bogota, Boston, Chicago Alongside L&B is the India-based megaproject conglomerate, GVK. GVK is named for it’s founder, Gunupati Venkata Krishna Reddy, and is also active in the Australian coal mining sphere. A Czech corporation involved in designing the NYIA is AGA-Letiště, s.r.o. (based in Prague). Mott McDonald, an employee-owned consultancy firm, also plays a role in this mess. Finally, the Rajawali Corpora (a heavy hand in five star hotels and media ownership) is involved and is owned by https://www.forbes.com/profile/peter-sondakh/.
The Sultan, Hamengkubuwono X, the second in his lineage to be given official governorship of Yogyakarta, is grabbing public and communal lands for sale and gifts to investors, selling it off for megaprojects like the NYIA and personally profiting, claiming a Feudal ownership. The real losers in this situation are the people of Yogyakarta, the real winners are the Sultan, the global rich and these megaproject proliferators who choose short-term profits over community autonomy and ecological health.
Since we didn’t get to it, I’d like to touch on what I understand of some of the racism that Tristan references. Among other things, the Sultan’s continued use of a 1975 law that is now in conflict with Indonesian national law against discrimination, is another tool at grabbing land and fueling ethnic populism. The law excludes ethnic-Chinese Indonesians (despite many having been in Indonesia for generations) and other non “pribumi” (or ethnically Indonesian) people from owning land and has been used to repress ethnic minorities in the archipelago in the past. This law also serves the Sultan, by denying property rights it allows his government (therefore him as feudal lord) to retain the rights to the land.
A few articles on resistance in Indonesia can be found at Agitasi, a site for Indonesian Counter Information and Analysis. If you can’t read it, learn Indonesian (or babelfish or googletranslate it). Some photos of solidarity can be found on InsurrectionNews. An article on resisting the airport from EF!Newswire, with more links inside. Indonesian embassies in the Americas can be found listed here.
Here is an update from the Appalachians Against Piplelines social media, which was posted two days ago:
Earlier this morning, on day 12 of the skypod on Pochahontas Road in the Hellbender Autonomous Zone (aka the Jefferson National Forest), fern was extracted and arrested.
Law enforcement began arriving to join the skypod’s existing 24 hour watch before 6am. For a couple hours, they discussed extraction, suited up in climbing gear, and attempted to coax fern down – but she refused to give in to their intimidation. Shortly after 8 am, a cherry picker drove up the road, by 8:30 fern was on the ground, handcuffed, and arrested.
Although the blockade of this pipeline access road has been removed, the fight is far from over. The Mountain Valley Pipeline remains a dangerous project, installed by force, and part of a network of dead end disasters for water, climate, communities, and ecosystems.
So before MVP and law enforcement even begin to breathe a sigh of relief, thinking they are one step closer to their goal of padding the pockets of executives at the expense of this forest and the lives of all along the route, let’s show them that they have not won.
Let’s remind them that this pipeline is not yet built, that it is not a foregone conclusion. Let’s prove that they have not extinguished the flame of resistance.
If you’ve been watching the efforts and sacrifices of the people confronting the MVP, if you’ve been grateful to know that this pipeline isn’t getting through without a fight, now is the time to move forward with actions of your own! None of us can do this alone.
And you can follow them on social media by searching Appalachians Against Pipelines on any platform you can think of.
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Following the recent murder of Roxsana Hernandez at the hands of ICE agents, the organization Familia TQLM (Trans and Queer Liberation Movement) is organizing a national day of action against ICE, to end trans detention, and to call attention to the dangers forced upon trans, gay, and queer people in detention on Wednesday June 6th. Roxsana Hernandez was a 33 year old trans woman from Honduras, and her passing is one of the most recent examples of the specific threats that Immigration and Customs Enforcement pose to LGBTQ people. A recent study found that LGBTQ people are 97 times more likely to face sexual assault and sexualized violence at the hand of ICE agents while imprisoned, as well as facing conditions akin to torture: being held in freezing cells, or ones that are dangerously hot, and being denied life saving medication, as in the case of Roxsana Hernandez.
If you would like to connect with this action on June 6th, you can follow the hashtag JusticeForRoxsana, or email info@familiatqlm.org
To read the full article on conditions facing LGBTQ detainees, you can visit the link here.
A change of plans: instead of airing the interview with comrades in Yogyakarta about May Day repression of anarchists there, we’re including that in the radio show for next Sunday. So, instead, kick back with this new issue of #Error451 !
The CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act) got passed by the U.S. Congress earlier this year and signed into law by President Trump. It’s a revision of the 1986 Stored Communications Act. Basically, it allows U.S. cops from local up to Federal to request data belonging to persons of interest that is stored on overseas servers from the private corporations or organizations storing it. If the U.S. executive makes an agreement with the foreign power where the data is stored, that power also gets a degree of access to the data of persons of interest to the overseas powers. Basically, governments can more easily spy on folks around the world!
We talk a bit about the implications of the Act, how it came to pass and the types of practices and services folks can engage to help protect themselves from some of these government excesses.
Check out past episodes of Error451 and hit us up if you have ideas for segments or guests you’d like to hear from. Check out our contact page!
featured track: “Bob Ross remixed by Symphony of Science’s John D. Boswell for PBS Digital Studios“
This week, we present an interview that Bursts conducted with the sci-fi and picture book author, technologist and social critic Cory Doctorow. Cory is an editor of the blog BoingBoing, a fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and his most recent book is entitled Walkaway, out from Head of Zeus and TOR books.
The novel plays with themes of open source technologies, class society, post-scarcity economics, ecological remediation, drop-out culture and liberatory social models. It was released a few days ago in paperback, along with matching re-issues of his other adult sci-fi novels.
For the hour, they chat about themes from the book, sharing, trans-humanism, imagination and monsters. To find more work by Cory, check out his blog craphound.com. You can also find him on twitter, free writings on Project Gutenberg, his content on archive.org, or his podcast.
Due to technical difficulties, we have no Sean Swain segment this week. We hope this will be remedied next episode.
For a slightly longer version of this episode, make sure to check out the podcast version.
Stay tuned mid-week for a podcast special interview with an anarchist from Indonesia about May Day in Yogyakarta and the repression that has followed. Also, if you haven’t been checking our podcast feed, you’re missing out. We have been regularly releasing extra content mid-week including our 8th Anniversary episode with interviews of hosts of two Channel Zero Network podcasts. You’ll also find two episodes of #Error451, our sometimes-weekly tech security podcast from an anarchist perspective.
Announcements
If you’re in Asheville this week, consider attending the Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair benefit show at the Odditorium on Haywood Road on the West Side. The show starts at 9pm, it features the music of Kortriba, Mother Marrow, Lynathrope and a special battle set of the project Fatal Comfort versus the stylings of FUNK JAMz. If you visit the ACAB table, you could be one of the first one of your friends to grab an ACAB2018 poster hot off the presses or ACAB2018 tshirt, both designed by super awesome local artists. Proceeds from the entry, shirts and posters go to pay for the local anarchist bookfair taking place between June 21st and 24th. More info on the bookfair at acab2018.noblogs.org
Also, this Friday Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross will be hosting it’s monthly presentation of the short documentary series, TROUBLE, by sub.Media. This month we’ll watch the second episode of two on the topic of gentrification and resistance to it. The film will be 30 minutes and then followed by a discussion with prompt questions suited to the Asheville’s specific brand of problems. The show starts at 6:30 and will last roughly an hour. Invite your friends!
This week on Error451, William Budington and Bursts chat about the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal. We’ve seen Congressional hearings and M. Zuckerburg give testimony, we’ve seen punditry, we’ve seen evasion.
For the episode, the two chat about what’s going on with the hullabaloo and different solutions privacy advocates have proposed.
Check out past episodes of Error451 and hit us up if you have ideas for segments or guests you’d like to hear from. Check out our contact page!
This week, we are excited to share with y’all an interview with TL, the main artist and designer of Bloc by Bloc: The Game of Insurrection. From the website of Out Of Order games, which publishes the game, “Bloc by Bloc is a semi-cooperative strategy board game inspired by 21st century riots and revolutions. The game features hidden agendas, deep strategy, area control, asymmetrical player abilities, and a special method for randomly generating billions of unique city layouts.”
Well, now the second edition of the game has launched a kickstarter to pay for the new edition. This new edition includes streamlined game play, new pieces and new scenarios in order to improve the initial game. For the hour, TL & I talk about how the board game was developed, what study of real-world did to influence the game’s development, TL’s thoughts on how play can strengthen strategic thought, cultural means of spreading liberatory imagination with story-telling, and cooperation and more.
To jump in and get a physical, printed copy of the 2nd edition of Bloc by Bloc, search kickstarter and the title of the game. If you have the 1st edition and want the streamlined update, also check out the kickstarter for ways to update. If you want a free version of the game for you to print out by yourself and play for the cost of printing with your friends, you can download all of the elements.
TL mentions that Out Of Order games is looking for translation of the game into other, non-English languages, seeking a degree of fluency in game terminology and the languages in question. They are also always seeking review and design inputs. You can email the Out of Order crew here.
This week, we are airing a conversation that William had a few weeks ago with Wriply Bennet and Ashley Braxton, two members of the Black Pride 4. The Black Pride 4 are four black queer and trans people with accomplices who were arrested during a Pride parade on June 17, 2017.
The four were arrested after leading a silent protest that obstructed the Stonewall Columbus Pride parade in downtown Columbus Ohio. With tape over their mouths and with linked hands, the BP4 were hoping for seven minutes of silence, one for each of the times a Minnesota cop shot Philando Castile during a routine traffic stop in 2016. The cop was found not guilty of second-degree manslaughter on June 16, 2017, a day before the Columbus parade in question. This action was furthermore calling attention to the then count of 14 murders that year of black trans women.
Their arrest made national headlines and was heavily spectacularized in the media. Subsequent to their arrest they were forced to face trial and were each charged with various things, all on very shaky legal grounds. At this time are not being made to be incarcerated, though the lengthy probations and other legal hoops are severely disrupting their lives.
In this conversation, we got to talk about the problems with Pride as being apace which heavily favors white elites and police officers to thedetriment of the community it claims to support, the impossible situation of protesting while Black, the racial and socio-economic situation of Columbus’ LGBTQIA scene, and much much more!
To support Wriply in her work and to see her art, you can hit her up on Facebook bysearching her name, Wriply Marie Bennet, or by searching her artist’ spage on FB by its name, Art and Short Stories by Wriply Marie Bennet.
You can donate to Community Pride here, the same one which our guests spoke about. There you can read a bunch about its mission and background, as well as keep up on updates about this event.
You can also follow @blackqueercolumbus on Instagram to learn more and for further updates, and many thanks to them and to our guests for helping make this interview possible!
For another really great interview by our guests, you can listen to the episode by the radio show On Resistance entitled “In Their Own Words”, which you can find on SoundCloud.
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To close out the hour, we will hear two tracks, the first by Angel Haze entitled A Tribe Called Red and the last by Mhysa entitled Spectrum. Thanks to all the people who gave me music recommendations for this episode!
Heya listeners. The Final Straw has an irregular tradition of using our anniversary to air conversations with other projects that produce anarchist media. In past episodes, linked in the notes for this special, you can find chats from past anniversaries. This time around, we are featuring two interviews.
First, you’ll hear audio from the regular host of the ItsGoingDown podcast. The IGDcast is a weekly podcast produced by It’s Going Down which features interviews with participants in social movements, struggles, rebellions, projects, thinkers, and organizers, mostly focused on anti-capitalist, anarchist, antifascist, autonomous and anti-colonial activities in North American. For the interview, we talk about the past of the IGDcast, what it covers, the state of radical media and mainstream interventions and some of their plans for the future.
Then we bring you a chat with Linda Rose, the main host of Subversion1312. Subversion1312, inheritor of The Anarchy Show, airs in Brisbane, Australia on 4zzz radio. Linda Rose and I speak about the history of the show, which has run in various forms for over two decades, anarchist approaches in Australia to anti-colonial struggle, spaces and scenes in Australia, feminism interventions against so-called “Men’s Rights Activists“, with a special appearance by Mark, the international pop sensation and occasional co-host.
This week I had the chance to speak to Ricchi, who is a Puerto Rican anarchist, about an autonomous squatted community center in Borique called Valle Garita. In this episode, we talk about the squatted space and the intentions of the organizers, plus the cultural context of squatting, reactions of the police, landlord, and bank, and some concrete asks for solidarity and support from non locals. We end the show with a brief report back and analysis of what went down on May Day in San Juan and all over Puerto Rico, so stay tuned for that!
On the social media, you can follow the Valle Garita squat by following @vallegarita or following that same hashtag, you can also search for them on Facebook. You can also follow Urbe Apie on Instagram @urbeapie.
For sending cards and letters of support you can address envelopes to:
Urbe Apie
Paseo Gautier Bénitez #16
Caguas Puerto Rico 00725
Letters can be written in Spanish, English, or any other language!
A brief correction from our last show where I interviewed Nutty about the monopod blockade at the Hellbender Autonomous Zone, I stated that the MVP was overseen by Dominion Resources and Duke Energy, and that is not the case, I was thinking of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The MVP is in fact owned by EQT Midstream Partners and NextEra Energy, Inc. EQT has a history of fracking and is now trying to get into transport. Thanks to all the people who set me right on that! If you have any questions or corrections, don’t hesitate to email us at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net
Shoutout to Nutty, Red, and Minor, and all those who are protecting and defending the land and water from predatory corporate pipelines!
For regular listeners of The Final Straw, the sound quality might not be what you are used to from us. We are continuing to experiment with our audio set ups, please bear with us through these experiments!
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Josh Gerdts Memorial Fund
In some very sad news, Josh Gerdts, an anti-racist skinhead, was murdered two days ago in Chesterfield County just south of Richmond VA. He leaves behind a family, including a very young child. The family has set up a gofundme to help pay for the funeral and to help raise the child, which you can find at http://www.gofundme.com/joshgerdts
Rest in power, Josh. You will be missed.
Vendenga Rojava: a New Radio Show out of Rojava, Mesopotamia
VEDENGA ROJAVA – ECHOES OF THE RESISTANCE An internationalists radio project bringing an inside look into Afrin resistance. Revolutionaries from different parts of the world organized in different collectives and organizations in Rojava found and importance to come together and launch an audio project focused on the peoples resistance against an invasion of Afrin canton carried by the fascist state of Turkey and its jihadist proxies. Our aim is to spread an awareness of this historical event and inspire English speaking folks all over the globe by ongoing struggle and revolutionary organizing in Afrin, Rojava and beyond. Listen and share our reports, updates, analysis, interviews, stories about life of fallen comrades, music and more. This radio show is a limited project and will have only three issues. For more tune us up on May 16th on soundcloud.com/vedengarojava.”
No More Deaths
From nomoredeaths.org: “On January 17, Scott Warren – a humanitarian aid provider from the group No More Deaths – and two individuals receiving humanitarian aid were arrested by US Border Patrol. Scott was preliminarily charged with felony harboring and could face five years in prison.
We need your support to fight these charges and resist the dangerous, divisive claim that sharing food and water with undocumented immigrants is a criminal offense.”
We are well into our preparation for the next Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair, happening June 22nd-24th, and we want to invite you to participate in shaping the themes and helping gear up for this exciting weekend!
We are holding an interest meeting to ask for volunteers and discuss possible contributions folks can make:
Monday May 7 at 7pm Firestorm Books 610 Haywood Road
Our main items where we need help are:
Street Team Promotion, Online/Social Media Promotion, Arranging Housing for Out of Towners, Fundraising, Cook Food, DAY OF (biggest Need)
If you have other ideas, we welcome your input!
This week’s installment of #error451 podcast, Bursts and William Budington speak about facial recognition technology. We chat about how different methods are employed, scanning of social media by police and security forces, different methods used to avoid it such as camouflage, lights, makeup and masks, the Google Arts & Culture app comparing people’s selfies to the contents of art museums and more.
Check out past episodes of Error451 and hit us up if you have ideas for segments or guests you’d like to hear from. Check out our contact page!
