All posts by The Final Straw Radio

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.

Anniversary Show! Two interviews with other anarchist radio projects + announcements

6th Birthday of The Final Straw!

6th Anniversary show!

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This week’s show we’re airing two recent interviews that The Final Straw conducted with other anarchist radio folks for our 6th anniversary, on May 8th 2016. The first you’ll hear is with a member of Anarchistisches Radio Berlin, the second conversation is with 2 members of Dissident Island Radio, based out of London. For longer editions of these conversations, check out this link.

But first a few updates

Prisoner Uprisings in Alabama

From Support Prisoner Resistance.noblogs.org

Prisoners at Holman Correctional Institution have ended their ten-day shutdown of the State of Alabama’s auto license plate plant. Their work stoppage, initiated on May Day, spread to Elmore, St Clair, Donaldson and Staton facilities over the following week shutting down Alabama Department of Correction’s (ADOC) canning plant, fleet services, and chemical industry as well as the license plate plant. “That was our leverage, that was our power to negotiate with” said Kinetic, a member of both the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union and the Free Alabama Movement (FAM). In an interview with media representatives of the IWW-Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee he explained how the strike achieved one objective but was broken by the unexpected employment of work-release prisoners as strike-breakers.

The strike achieved its first objective after only two days when the Alabama State Legislature killed the $800 million “Prison Transformation Initiative” that would have greatly expanded Alabama’s prison system, which is plagued with overcrowding, violence, deteriorating buildings and budget shortfalls. The defeated law tried to allocate ADOC $800 million to build four 3500 bed super-max facilities. Prisoners initiated their strike to draw national attention to ADOC’s problems and propose other solutions. On May 1st the prisoners stopped reporting to their work stations, and activists organized rallies and solidarity protests according to journalists who interviewed the prisoner’s spokespersons via clandestine cell-phones. On May 3rd, the ADOC’s new prison bill died on the state senate floor. Prisoners contend that their strike tipped the scales against the bill.

The solidarity efforts on the outside were spearheaded by the Mothers and Families of FAM with the support of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Pastor Kenneth Glasgow of the Ordinary People’s Society also represented the prison strike before politicians in Montgomery.

This morning (Thurs. 12 May 2016) the prisoner’s labor action ended. After eleven days enduring harassment and being fed starvation rations, a practice the prisoners call “bird feeding” the strike was ended by ADOC sending in work release prisoners as strike-breakers to take over the industry jobs. Work release prisoners are typically sent out of the prisons to work for either private companies or state institutions at reduced wages. The program is supposed to help prisoners transition back into society. Instead ADOC sent these minimum security prisoners into the prison factories to replace the striking inmates. Work release prisoners were first sent to Elmore’s canning and recycling plants last Thursday, then to Holman Monday afternoon. Without the economic leverage of shutting down the prison industries, the striking prisoners worried that ADOC could starve them out indefinitely and they slowly trickled back to their job assignments.

“If someone is performing the job,” Kinetic explained, “then the DOC is getting what they want, even though we locked down and going through all other hardships, our objectives ain’t being met.” By Thursday morning the strike had officially ended.

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Prison Strikes

In the state of Texas, multiple prisons had participation in work stoppages last month. Starting on April 4th and then spreading, incarcerated workers in seven units, including Lynaugh in Fort Stockton, Mountain View in Gatesville, Polunksy in Livingston, Roach in Childress, Robertson in Abilene, Torres in Hondo, and Wynne in Hunstville refused to be called out for work. Much of this organizing involved outside and inside members of the Industrial Workers of the World and it’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee. For a new pamphlet on the subject as we draw nearer the 45th anniversary of the September 9th Attica Prison uprising, which is the date of a nationwide prison strike callout, check out the new pamphlet at unityandstruggle.org entitled Incarcerated Workers Take the Lead: Prison Struggles in the United States 2008-2016
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Oso Blanco

From http://freeosoblanco.blogspot.com/

Big News! How You can Help get Oso Blanco FREE!!!

Thanks to fundraising efforts and donations from people like you, Oso Blanco was able to receive a partial assessment from a law firm. Through this, and help from an awesome volunteer, we were able to figure out that Oso Blanco must file his appeal by June 25, 2016! As you may have heard, the “residual clause” of the armed career criminal act (ACCA) was declared “unconstitutionally vague” by the u.s. supreme court in Johnson v. u.s. Just last month, in April 2016, this ruling was declared “retroactive”, meaning that in can apply to old cases like that of Oso Blanco. However the deadline for appeals based on the Johnson decision is approaching.

What this means for Oso Blanco and his outside family and community is that he has a chance to reduce his sentence and he has just under two months to do it. Meanwhile, he has very limited funds and USP Hazelton is basically holding him incognito pending transfer, with few letters getting in or out, despite all of our emailing in protest.

To find details about his current legal and funding needs, check out his support site. This last minute push to get his legal ducks in a row could help get this brother out of a medically dangerous situation, meaning his incarceration as he ages and is regularly denied correct medical treatment.

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More Political Prisoner Updates

Here are a couple of legal updates from ItsGoingDown.org’s regular feature called The Bloc Party :

Joseph Buddenberg

Joseph Buddenberg was sentenced to 2 years for conspiring to free mink from their cages. Joseph was charged along with his co-defendant Nicole Kissane, under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. Nicole will be sentenced in June. As we posted last week, he already has an address you can write to. Please let him know you support him, and his fight for the wild:
Joseph Buddenberg #12746-111
MCC San Diego
808 Union Street
San Diego, CA 92101

Josh Williams

Ferguson rebel Josh Williams is in need of support while doing his 8 year sentence. For info on how to write to Josh and everyone serving time for being involved in the uprising, check out antistatestl.noblogs.org and at Sac Prisoner Support
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Janye Waller

In more sad news, Oakland rebel Janye was sentenced to two years for his crime of being a black revolutionary involved in the uprising in the wake of the Ferguson verdict in the bay area. As of this date, Janye has received the longest sentence of anyone involved in the revolt. Please support Janye here and stay up with how to write him on his support page.

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Casey Brezik

Casey Brezik is an incarcerated anarchist in Missouri and is currently raising funds for college courses on the inside. In the interest of his supporters getting to know him a bit better, he also wrote this pretty amazing proposal titled Anarchists in Space. While IGD certainly has some misgivings about the potential for this to actually happen, they fucking love that Casey takes the time and thought to write shit like this. Anarchists have always been a little unrealistic anyway, yeah?

The Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons (or FTP) and Ben Turk on the recent prisoner strikes

Panagioti on Fight Toxic Prisons + Ben Turk on September 9th Prison Strike

https://fighttoxicprisons.org
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This week on the show we feature an interview with Panagioti, who is an organizer with the Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons. From their website:

 

“The Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons (FTP) is a collaboration with the Abolitionist Law Center. FTP’s mission is to conduct grassroots organizing, advocacy and direct action to challenge the prison system which is putting prisoners at risk of dangerous environmental conditions, as well as impacting surrounding communities and ecosystems by their construction and operation. At this time, FTP is focused on opposing the construction of a new federal prison in Letcher County, Kentucky.

FTP is inspired by the abolitionist movement against mass incarceration and the environmental justice movement, which have both been led by the communities of color who are hardest hit by prisons and pollution.Both these movements also have long histories of multi-racial alliances among those on the front lines of the struggle and those who can offer support and solidarity, which we aim to build on.

FTP has been informed by the ongoing research and analysis of the Human Rights Defense Center’s Prison Ecology Project, as well as the work of the Earth First! Prisoner Support Project and June11.org”

You can see much more about this project, learn about the convergence, and donate or register for the event at https://fighttoxicprisons.org

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Ben Turk on Sept 9th Nationwide Prison Strike

The second segment in today’s show is an interview with Ben Turk conducted by members of The Prison Radio Show collective at CKUT, on the campus of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada about the prison strikes across the U.S. and the buildup towards calls for a general prisoner strike on the 45th anniversary of the Attica Prison uprising on September 9th.

For a link to this show, follow: https://ckut.ca/en/content/prison-radio-april-14-5-6pm-ben-turk-ending-prison-slavery-0

Announcements

Bloc Party Updates

From the website, It’s Going Down dot org, the regular segment called Bloc Party is a great source for recent uprisings in the streets and in prisons around North America. We’d like to highlight a few of these items. First off, the article summarizes a number of the May Day
disturbances that took place last Sunday, including brief report-backs from May Day noise demos and street parties in NYC, Hamilton (Ontario) & Chicago, riots in Seattle and prison work strikes in Alabama at Holman, Elmore, and St Clair facilities. More details and photos from those prison strikes and solidarity protests, including ones in Minneapolis & Milwaukee plus arrestee support links can be found at http://supportprisonerresistance.noblogs.org

Also from that post are announcements of the June 12th birthday of Jay Chase of the NATO3 who’s been struggling with some health and legal hurdles of recently as well as information on the upcoming June parole dates for longstanding Black Liberation political prisoners Robert Seth Hayes and jalil Muntaqim with links to their support campaigns and also a new mailing address for Joseph Buddenburg, recently sentenced to 2 years for a non-cooperating plea for releasing thousands of minks from
fur farms. We spoke about his case alongside that of Nicole Kissane.

Check out http://itsgoingdown.org to check it out in detail.

Fire To The Prisons magazine

Finally, we’d like to share a part of the crowd sourcing request for the U.S.-based, English-language insurrectional anarchist journal, Fire To The Prisons which is asking for help in the publication of it’s 16th issue. In the request, FTTP describes the sorts of content it’s covered
and plans to cover, including wanting:

“to expand our coverage, scope, and the reach of the publication while remaining true to the spirit of Fire to the Prisons. We will continue with our long term commitment to counter-information, original writing and content, and the amplification of the anti-authoritarian/anti-prison/anti-repression struggle that you have come to expect from us.

We will have both a domestic and international voice this issue. While remaining true to reporting on repression and anti-prison resistance across the states, Canada, and Mexico, we have committed articles from abroad promising insight on struggles and happenings that will help to bridge and unify an array of social tensions through a mutual awareness and solidarity.

We truly want FTTP to become a global publication and one that links anarchists and other autonomous combatants together in a dialog about the commonalities that we all face, as well as a discussion on the actions and struggles that we can all engage in.

We will be covering the resurgence of fascism in mainstream American politics, as well as updates on communities resisting further eco-devastation across the states. We have committed articles from prisoners domestic and international. We have commitments from NYC Anarchist Black Cross to use the project as a resource for raising awareness on repression and prisoner status in North America. We will also focus on the pacification of favelas in Brazil, the current reality and history of anarchist struggle in Chile, and the refugee situation in Greece. We will have further reports on anti-police struggle across the
United States, and will be continuing a tradition of news on broader prisoner strikes across America since our last issue. We are also intent on original articles on indigenous resistance in western Canada. Plus accounts and updates of the struggle in Rojava and general Kurdistan. Also all our featured articles will be available in Spanish for free on our website.

We are a committed collective. We are prepared to invest a lot of time and energy into producing this project, but we ask any and all sympathetic readers to help us with printing and distribution. by donating to our funding page. To print 10,000 copies of this it will cost us $2,000 dollars. While in the past we have had to ask people to pay the postage to our distributor, we would like to be able to send out more copies for free, to encourage broader distribution. We are asking for another $2,000 dollars for this. With maximizing our distribution efforts through contacts and friends across the world, we can distribute and mail out almost all of the new issues to anyone interested in distributing it. This leads us to asking for $4,000 dollars. We know this is an ambitious amount, and most likely those supporting us aren’t very wealthy, but it will absolutely secure this project, and help with the expansion of our readership. We hope that reaching out this way will put a dent into that fiscal goal, as our collective members are all working people.”

The collective is soliciting submissions and comments via email at firetotheprisons@riseup.net and invites folks to read and download old issues in pdf form from the website at: http://firetotheprisons.org

Donations can be made at https://www.generosity.com/fundraising/help-print-and-distribute-fire-to-the-prisons-13

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Playlist

May Day with Peter Linebaugh

Peter Linebaugh

Happy May Day
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To friends we’ve met, and to those we have yet to meet, I’d like to wish everyone a happy May Day. As we’ll hear in the following hour, this day has a long celebrated history. From its many European pagan roots as a celebration of fertility as the fruits of the spring planting season began to… uh, spring forth. Then on to the repressive winter that fell early on May 3rd and 4th of 1886 in Illinois with, first, the killing of workers striking for an 8 hour work day at the McCormick Works and then the repression of anarchist and socialist workers and organizers following the bombing at Haymarket Square in Chicago of that same year. From there to the taking up of May 1st as International Workers Day by struggling groups around the world and the U.S. adoption of a sanctioned Labor Day in September of the year.

To divide an international working class, The U.S. government, oppressors of that May Day 1886 sanctioned a Labor Day to be celebrated in September, declared the first of May both Law Day (an obvious testament to Irony in respect to the Haymarket 8, all jailed and 4 executed) and, for some, it’s celebration as Americanism Day. Whatever that means. In 2006 & 2007, immigrants rights marches were seen on and around May Days that, for many, re-sparked the importance of this day. The protests and festivals swelled to numbers nearly unmatched in the history of protest on Turtle Island, and were accompanied by school and work walkouts and boycott days.

This hour we’ll be hearing Peter Linebaugh, author of the recently printed book “The Incomplete, True, Authentic & Wonderful History of May Day” to present some of his meditations from the last 30 years but covering ancient times, through the first May Pole on Turtle Island, through to today.

The rest of the hour will feature songs that made myself and William, cohost of The Final Straw, feel a bit in the spirit of the day. Whether you’re out there today taking direct action, in repose from the horrors of wage slavery, resisting the carceral state, gardening, dancing around a May Pole or otherwise celebrating the possibilities of this year to come when, hell, we might as well end this system of exclusion and extraction: We wish you a fire on your tongue, love in your heart and free land beneath you.

May Day Across North America

Bloc Party: Fire of Beltane

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Playlist

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Transcription

TFSR: I’m speaking with Peter Linebaugh. Mr. Linebaugh is a Marxist, a historian, and an author. His most recent book is a compilation of essays called The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day, out from PM Press. Peter, thanks for taking the time for this chat.

Peter Linebaugh: You’re welcome.

TFSR: So May Day is this coming Sunday, when we’ll be airing this episode of the show. For listeners that are out there who may not know can you sketch some of the history of this great and widely celebrated day?

PL: Yes! I like the way you say that it’s great and widely celebrated because for so many American years, it was never celebrated. The ruling class just hated that day. Because it was a day of no work. It was a day to enjoy the springtime. It was a day to go outside. Hooray, hooray! The first of May! Outdoor loving begins today. That’s the spirit of the day. It goes back to the first agricultural civilizations around the great rivers, the Neolithic Revolution. It’s springtime. It’s a time for fertility. I’m speaking from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the whole world is budding and flowering right now. I imagine that’s somewhat past in North Carolina.

TFSR: It’s a very sexy place here in North Carolina. There’s there’s pollen in the air and a lot of people are suffering from it, but…

PL: So anyways, it was a major pagan festival and survived through years of dominant religions. The State of England, under the Tudors, they forbade it. They made it criminal to hoist a maypole because people would dance around the maypole as part of community celebration and fertility, as you say.

For us in North America, the date to remember is 1627 when Thomas Morton set up a maypole in Quincy, MA, and Native American people and runaway servants and former slaves and antinomians from England, they danced around that maypole. The first poem ever made in the USA was there. I’ll quote it “with the proclamation that the first of May, at Marymount shall be kept a holy day.”

So that’s 1627. The Puritans from Boston came down and shut it down with force of arms. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a wonderful story about it, thinking it was the crossroads of American history. We could have gone one way and been happy with the maypole and the spirit that it represented among different kinds of people. Multicultural we’d say today. Or it could have gone the other way, the way of domination, hierarchy, endless war, and endless work.

That brings us to the second major aspect of the day, which we need to celebrate with a different kind of seriousness, and that’s the struggle for the eight-hour day and the massacre of socialists, anarchists, white, indigenous and African Americans in Chicago, back in 1886 at the famous scene at Haymarket. That came as a direct result of a police shooting of workers at the McCormick works. McCormick made the mechanical reaper that brought industry and machines to the earth, to the plains, to cutting grass, cutting grain. Those workers had gone on strike for an eight-hour day, and the police shot them and killed one. In response, the people of Chicago called for a meeting to discuss the issue at Haymarket, where farmers brought in hay for the horses. At that meeting, just a few days after May Day, 1886, a stick of dynamite was thrown. To this day, no one knows whether it was a police provocateur or a misguided anarchist or what. But anyway, there was casualties, including demonstrators, as well as the policemen.

As a result, tremendous repression came down all across the US, not just in Chicago. Seven people were found guilty after a kangaroo trial, and four of them were actually hanged on the 11th of November 1887. We should remember their names: Albert Parsons, we know him especially because of his wife, Lucy, who went on living and carrying the message of the eight-hour day and a workers struggle right into the 1930s. August Spies, before he hanged, he said, “There will come a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangled today.” That’s been the case. Their silence is powerful, and all of us around the world celebrate and remember those workers, those martyrs, as they’re called in Mexico.

The ruling class of the United States tried to put an end to the celebration right away. They made made an into Law Day. Eisenhower did that. Then they made the workers’ holiday, Labor Day, in September to get it far away from May Day, when workers all over the world celebrated. They wanted to divide US workers from world workers.

I have to admit that they succeeded. People forgot May Day except for a few anarchists in the 1920s. Then in the ‘30s and ‘40s, the Communist Party kept up the tradition of May Day. But the Communist Party, worldwide anyway, associated the day with militarism, and it became something in the Cold War. This gives another reason why, in the United States, we’ve tended to forget that day. Until 2006, when tens of thousands of undocumented workers, most Spanish speaking, flooded the streets of Chicago again, and of Los Angeles and other towns, calling for justice for this new underclass of people denied basic rights as workers or citizens.

While I should also say, my book is called incomplete, because the hope of May Day has not been realized. We still are fighting not only for the eight hour day, but for equality, not equality of opportunity, but equality of economic conditions. I think we should fight this year to own the whole economy, not leave it just to the 1%. It should belong to us all, and we need to reconstitutionalize ourselves, reconstitute ourselves. But now I’m going off on my own views. I hope that gives your listeners some idea of the importance of May Day in the past, especially as it concerns North America.

TFSR: That was a really lovely outline that you just offered. I love the way that in the book you connect themes such as the displacement of indigenous people prior to the period, the Gilded Age of the Haymarket, when the Haymarket affair occurred, the clearing of the pastures, the killing off of buffalo and other residents of the great grasslands of the Midwest, then the connection to the McCormick works creating the reaper that just decimated the grasslands themselves.

PL: Yeah, just produced a buzz cut, didn’t it? Then as a result, we had the Dust Bowl because it was so bad for the soil: monoculture.

TFSR: The essays in the book range from 100 years after the Haymarket, basically 1986 to 2015. From the oldest to the newest, you make the claim a few times that May Day has both a green and a red side. What do you mean by this, and why do you think it’s important to remind people of that?

PL: Well, the green side now, as we’re talking in 2016, with the melting of the ice caps, the pollution of the Pacific Ocean, the destruction of species has a greater meaning, I think, than it did when I first conceived of the idea in the ‘80s. The notion of the green is the notion of photosynthesis, now that I think about it, the relationship of the sun to vegetation. Of course, vegetation is the basis of animal life, so really, all of life depends on… Well, I’m not a biologist, but a great deal of life depends on the green, depends on photosynthesis and chlorophyll. So there’s a literal meaning of green, but there’s also a symbolic meaning of green, which is the joy of living, the joy of life. In contrast to the red. Red I used signify blood and to signify struggle, especially class struggle, and thinking of the red flag of battle.

May Day is a holiday that spans both these notions. It can be both a family day of picnicking, outdoors preferably, and of dancing, and it can be a day of marching and a day of militants, a day of taking back the world that has been dis-commoned and dis-greened (if I can use that phrase), turned into asphalt, turned into concrete. So it’s had both the green and the red. I mean, the green has led to the Anthropocene. It’s led to geological changes of the planet. I think we can restore it, not to the way it was, but to the way it could be, only by a red struggle, only by a mass struggle. I believe people are are interested in that and see the necessity of it all over the world.

Anyway, so that’s kind of the red and the green, but I think it’s up to your readers and listeners to give to these symbols their own meanings from their own experience.

TFSR: Yeah, definitely you leave it with a lot of space for interpretation but draw out some lovely conclusions of your own.

How have you seen the celebration of the day change throughout your lifetime? You mentioned that the through the ‘20s it was remembered by a number of anarchists activists, and through the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s communists in the United States… Just to interject right here, my first May Day that I celebrated was in San Francisco in 2000 during the anti-globalization era, as people call it. There was a giant maypole that was raised and a number of speaker and at the same time a big open-ended pagan celebration and picnic that led to a march eventually. It was really beautiful tying together what you seem to describe as the green and the red. And the marches of 2005 and 2006, as you mentioned.

Can you talk a little bit about how you’ve seen May Day in the popular imagination during your life?

PL: Yeah, I just know my own part of it. I love to hear about that San Francisco May Day. That sounds grand and beautiful. And I love to hear about the immigrant ones, the undocumented worker ones in 2005 and 2006. For me, May Day, an important day is always May 2nd because then I tune into the radio or read the newspaper, or now I guess we have the internet, to see who else in the world has turned out. May Day was so important in bringing down apartheid in South Africa and is still a major day of struggle in South Africa. It’s that way in so many parts of the world. On May 2nd it’s just a good time to check in and see what’s going on.

But for me, it began as a historian in Rochester. We thought let’s try to have a picnic and make it a family day and have some speeches and then sing songs. That’s the way it worked there. Then later, I moved to Boston, and we had different forms of May Day. I remember in Jamaica Plain on May Day we joined a festival called Wake Up The Earth. So on all these occasions I would meet people, old timers who had participated in Union Square in New York, for instance, and in May Day celebrations of the ‘40s. Then here in Washtenaw County, in Southeast Michigan, ever since I’ve lived here, we try to have a picnic, or we have a commons, or we teach children how to dance around the maypole. This year, I think, folks for Black Lives Matter and folks from other social change outfits will probably go to Detroit to join a picnic and march in so called Motor City, which now I guess is known, not as a rust belt, but as a place of urban gardening.

It’s important to do that because the powers that be have been poisoning the waters, as you perhaps have heard of, up in Flint, MI. It’s just a crime what the rulers of our country are doing. We need to bring them to justice to pay for their crimes. Not by long prison sentences. I’m certainly not in favor of that because we need to open the prisons, if anything. But we need to find other ways of making them pay. That is, we need reparations. The main reparations that must come must restore equality. So the riches, the ill gotten gains of the 1%, either they must voluntarily turn them over, or they must be made to do it. That can only be done I think with justice and mass mobilization.

At the moment our mobilizations can’t be that great, but it’s growing. It’s growing bursts. People are wondering, “What is anarchism? What is socialism? What is the political revolution?” These are questions raised by Bernie Sanders, and not to support him, but the questions are important. The discussion that results from them is important, and May Day should be a day to have those discussions. May Day is a day when we need to think deeply about this and to do it with our neighbors. To do it with all kinds of folks, everybody, all workers, all working people who belong to our class of the precariat, students, servers need to be involved in this discussion, as well as farmworkers and undocumented workers. Undocumented workers are so important because they bring the experience of other countries, and they bring also revolutionary experience from other countries. So we have a lot to learn from them.

Anyway, so I’m hoping to learn something myself by meeting some new friends this coming Sunday in Detroit. By the way, I was asking you about the lunch counter sit-ins in North Carolina. I asked you that for a purpose because I think there was an earlier lunch counter sit-in for the same goal of integrated lunch counters here in Ann Arbor, MI, in the 1920s led by Lenore Smith from Mississippi. We learned this by studying May Day in our own locality. I urge all your listeners to study May Day in your locality, to talk to old timers, to search out the old records, even to consult the occasional historian and see what they know and what they remember to bring this back to life.

One way of doing this is a wonderful book by Dave Roediger called the Haymarket Scrapbook, which I recommend. James Green wrote a very good book too called Death in the Haymarket. These are essential readings for those who want to go back to that, those crimes at Haymarket, when the police and the state came down so heavily on the workers, their press, their leaders, and their families, and jailed and hanged so many. In some ways, it’s a sad day.

TFSR: In the Ann Arbor experience that you’re talking about, in the second to last essay you wrote between 1923 and 1928, the Negro Caucasian Club was involved in some of these strikes, right? If listeners want to pursue further.

PL: Right, just get a friendly competition going between your state and Michigan.

TFSR: Competing for who gets the title of first lunch counter sit-ins?

PL: Yes, against segregation. Because of course, the North is so full of Jim Crow, even worse in many ways.

TFSR: Yeah, just kind of a different accent…

PL: They’re not poisoning the waters down in North Carolina, as far as I can see.

TFSR: Well, I don’t know, when you get coal ash ponds that are overflowing into the rivers, or the leaking of chemicals from coal production. Or in Louisiana with cancer alley. I mean, they’re doing it to us everywhere.

PL: Yes, thank you.

TFSR: As a historian, much of your written work has focused on the idea and the history of the commons, or at least that’s an idea that you seem to have played with a lot and documented, from which we draw May Day is a pagan holiday in the European context. Can you talk a bit about what the commons were and the enclosure of that and what you think May Day opens up in terms of the opportunity of the commons?

PL: Yeah, the basic thing about what May Day opens up is that the earth belongs to all. I talked about skipping and dancing on May Day, but the Earth as our sacred habitat, the Earth as Turtle Island, the earth as a place of abundance and joy to share with all kinds of creatures. The way to celebrate that is to climb over the fence, or to go under it or around it or through it, because the enclosures, the privatization of the earth, to produce the incredibly weird fiction that a person can own the earth, or part of it, this needs to change. It’s only in the United States, really, that private property is like this and is enforced with weapons. “Keep Off” and “No Trespassing” signs. Anyone who’s flown, you look down from the air, you see that the whole land is turned into squares or rectangular grids. This is what the founding fathers did. They privatized the common, they privatized the free land where people had lived, hunted, farmed, and gathered for for centuries.

That is the commons in terms of North America, in terms of Europe, and especially England, which which I studied carefully because, well, I grew up in England, and thats what I studied and taught. The enclosure of the village commons, the enclosure of common field agriculture, became the basis of the capitalist mode of production, as we say. It began under Henry the Eighth, who everybody knows because he killed his wives. But he’s the one who took a fifth of English land and sold it off, privatize it, just the way George Washington and them did several hundred years later in the 1790s to North America. They surveyed it with a theodolite and the tools of the surveyor, laid down their lines, and said, “This is mine,” and threw off everyone else who had lived on it. Thus creating the proletariat, as well as agribusiness.

But the commons are a basis of community. People long for community, they long for useful work, so they long for the commons, to share the earth and to share the means of subsistence, the means of production. This is what I meant earlier, when I said, “We demand the whole economy.” Because we really need to rest, to stop being quite so busy, to stop driving for profit, stop driving for “development,” to stop driving for “progress.” Progress for whom? Progress for the 1%. The rest of us need to rest. This is why Sunday and May Day is so important. There used to be hundreds of holidays every year, but the capitalist enterprise and puritanical beliefs shut down those holidays. We’re lucky to have… I was gonna say one a weeK——Sunday, but that’s not even true anymore.

So, community, time of work, is all tied to the commons. It’s not an accident that Henry the Eighth was a wife beater, wife killer. According to documents of his own age, he killed 78,000 people on the gallows. This isn’t the demonize him particularly, but it’s to show at the birth of the modern British state, its project was misogynist, it was enclosing, and then it became slaving. These are the basis of capitalism as we know it. Misogyny, or patriarchy, enclosure, or destruction of the commons, and privatization and slavery. I hope everyone has a great May Day.

TFSR: I really hope so too. Well, thanks for the inspiring conversation. I guess we should maybe get out there and start commoning, right?

PL: Well, people are doing it all over. We have to do it just to survive. Whether we like it or not, whether it’s ideological or not. Poverty requires us to. Either that or suicide. On that happy note… [laughs]

TFSR: Well, Peter, thanks a lot for talking. I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading more of your stuff. Have a great time up in Michigan.

Announcements about Stone Mountain Resistance, the Asheville Zine Fest, and May Day, plus new anarchist music!

Antifascist Music

https://alloutatl.com/
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This week we thought we’d bring you some new releases from a few sources for anarchist metal and punk from around the world. All the projects featured here can be found on bandcamp.com, or you can go to the specific blogs http://r-a-b-m.blogspot.com, http://crustwithstrings.blogspot.com, or http://thedarkskiesaboveus.blogspot.com/ to see more projects like these.

Announcements

Stone Mountain Resistance

But first, an announcement from Georgia:
As of around 20 hours ago, the cops have arrested at least 9 anti-racist protesters who went out to resist the KKK at Stone Mountain in Georgia. By all accounts, it seems like the protests were a definite win for anti-racists and anti-fascists, but as usual we still have to contend with police repression. Hopefully we will have more of a report for you about this event in coming weeks. Support folks for those who were arrested are working hard to get them free, but they desperately need funds for bail. If you can, please contribute by following this link:
https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/legal-support-for-anti-kkk-protesters

Zine Fest

The Asheville Zine Fest will take place Sunday May 1st, 2016 from 11-4pm at the Grey Eagle in the River Arts District, Asheville, NC. Makers of zines, minicomics and small press from around the region will be in attendance to sell, trade & show off their works. The festival is free and open to the public. Come shop independent works of literature, politics, strangeness, art, and all kinds of unique publications. The Grey Eagle is at 185 Clingman Avenue, in Asheville.

Nationwide Prison Strike

If you, dear listeners aren’t in Seattle or some other urban center planning a stellar May Day for this year, a suggestion is going around that people plug in to the site supportprisonerresistance.noblogs.org where you can find ideas and materials for distribution where you live and work to support the prisoner hunger strikes ongoing throughout Texas and Alabama and try to build dialogue and solidarity towards the September nationwide prisoner strike on the 45th anniversary of the Attica Prisoner uprising. Alongside prisoners in AL and TX, incarcerated folks in Michigan are planning to begin a food protest and hunger strikes are slated to begin in Louisiana.

Playlist

Announcement from Asheville Anti-Racism and an interview on LGBT+ anarchist struggle in Berlin

LGBT and Anarchist Struggle in Berlin

Asheville AntiRacism
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We open with an announcement from Asheville Anti-Racism, which is a far-right-watch group here in Asheville. There is a benefit show tonight (4/17/2016) at the Odditorium in Asheville, NC to raise funds for an anti-fascist, anti-KKK march just outside of Atlanta, GA next Saturday the 23rd. Every year, fascists march on Stone Mountain in Georgia, and every year there is anti-fascist presence. Let’s make this a year to remember!

Announcements

A few prison updates from the U.S.:

Since April 4th, prisoners in at least 4 Texas prisons have been on strike for better conditions and an end to slavery and human rights abuses. This strike is but the latest in a nationwide mass movement inside prisons for dignity and freedom. Minimum wage in Texas prisons is 00/hr. Access to medical care requires a $100 medical copay.

Striking prisons have been put on lockdown in an attempt to “conceal the strike” and the battle of wills is being daily tested by the inhumanity of the administration. No lights, two peanut butter sandwiches a day, no phone, mail or visitation from the outside world. And likely far worse.

Since the strike’s inception, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice TDCJ) has been trying to contain the strike and paint the strikers as causing harm to inmates and families. Threatening additional lockdowns, forced transfers, violence. Even a statewide lockdown.

The Incarcerated Workers Organzing Committee, IWOC, believes TDCJ’s actions to be an intentional, routine tactic. “They are trying to change who the enemy is,” said Nick Onwukwe, Co-Chair of IWOC and a former prisoner. “Trying to get you believe the enemy isn’t the slave master, it’s the slave who sits down and says – enough.”

Increasingly lockdowns are becoming reality. Already there are additional lockdowns at Jester III, Dalhart, and Beto, partial lockdowns at Coffield and Allred, and a confirmed order for lockdown at Michael for this morning, April 16th. Is the strike spreading? Will TCDJ’s tactics backfire? We may be at a tipping point.

IWOC and prisoners, family & supporters are requesting shows of solidarity from the outside. If you hate slavery in the U.S. under the guise of the Prison Industrial Complex there are a few suggestions on getting involved: contact family and friends in prison and clue them in to the strikes; organize a local group to engage folks in jail and prison and hear their concerns; talk to your neighbors, church-mates, schoolmates, coworkers who may have folks on the inside and talk about what’s going on; join the call in campaigns or demonstrate outside a facility.

More info from the IWW Incarcerated Workers’ Organizing Committee (IWOC) can be found at their webpage, iwoc.noblogs.org, and they can be reached at : 816-866-3808 or iwoc@riseup.net Visit the site to find phone numbers and addresses to direct grievances about the treatment of Texas prisoners and continued conditions of enslavement in the U.S. prison complex

In related news, on April 9, 2016 3 prisoners at David Wade Correctional Center in Homer, Louisiana went on hunger strike. The three were also on what is called “extreme suicide,” which is where they place you in FULL RESTRAINTS (chains) – that is, shackles and handcuffs attached to a waist chain. This is done for days at a time. They are also on “strip” –dressed only in a paper gown.

The torturous punitive conditions here at David Wade Correctional Center have gone on long enough. The sadistic practices by security and the administration are a violation of human rights and decency.

The administration has admitted to the infliction of corporal punishment against prisoners on lockdown. Just now as I write, they sprayed a prisoner while he was on his knees and struck him several times. They also sprayed and beat another prisoner who is mentally ill and has been on . for over a year. He has also been on food loaf for a long time.

A letter from a prisoner at DWCC in Homer suggested “Please call if you can – just a phone call will spook them. Thank you!:
Department of Corrections Secretary James M. LeBlanc, 225-342-6740
Deputy Secretary Eugene Powers, 225-342-6744
Undersecretary Thomas Bickham, 225-342-6739”

For more information on this, you can visit http://sfbayview.com/2016/04/urgent-call-to-support-tortured-hunger-stri…

Finally, notes from 2 prisoners in the North Carolina prison system requesting help:

Kevin Cox is a politically active prisoner struggling at the moment just to be able to receive mail and contact from the outside. He asked that this statement be shared with anyone who might care to help call in to the prison. Since he wrote this, he’s been transferring to Marion CI,
but is still facing the same issues.

Greetings, Shalom Aleyka, Salaam Alaykum, Amani,

My name is Kevin Cox #1217063. I’m a political prisoner who’s being housed in Bertie Correctional Institution, in Windsor, NC. Since my incarceration I’ve dedicated my life to the struggle by fighting for the rights of prisoners, human rights for all oppressed people and rights for LGBTQ. Also I’m a dedicated member of the Black liberation movement and a member of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party [distinct from the New Black Panther Party], which is a legal aboveground political organization. At Bertie Corrections, I’m being treated like a ‘slave’ because of my political beliefs, my continuous activism in educating prisoners and my refusal to be submissive to Bertie Correction’s oppressive rules and regulations, which correlates to division, miseducation, provoking Black on Black violence, and racism.

As a result of my resistance, they [officers and staff] have stopped the flow of mail that comes from outside support such as family, friends, and comrades, have prevented me from recieving books, pamphlets, and newspapers, and have even denied me my “due process right” to be notified of the censorship of my property. The SRG [Security Risk Group] intelligence officers read my mail, that is stamped “legal,” without my being present, when my legal mail usually refers to my criminal case, law suits, etc. And the SRG officers are trying to “SRG” me, after I adamantly disavowed and denied any affiliation with any SRG group.

I’m telling you this because I need your help. I want to start a telephone/fax campaign to the administration demanding that they quit these egregious tactics that violate my constitutional rights.

Marion CI (Ask for Lt. Daniel Merrill and Cpt. Michael Long)
(828) 659-7810

NC Director of Prisons
George Solomon, (919) 838-4000

Jimmy Milton is an active voice in prison struggle at Bertie Ci, and has faced repeated violation of religious rights as a Hebrew-Israelite. He has not been provided Kosher meals, was not allowed to participate in Passover, and has not been able to order relevant religious materials. According to Jimmy, “I’ve already filed my grievance here at the facility and my next step is my hunger strike. The people I need for you to call and speak to are as follows:

Bertie CI Superintendant Herring or Asst. Superintendant Clark (252) 794-8601

More info on prisoner resistance in the U.S. and how to engage it can be found at http://supportprisonerresistance.noblogs.org

Also, for a first hand account by anarchist prisoner Michael Kimble who’s warehoused in the Alabama prison system, on the recent riots and ongoing struggles of prisoners there as well as organizing by the Free Alabama Movement, check out http://anarchylive.noblogs.org

This week we air an interview which was recorded at the latest international anarchist radio conference in Berlin this year. This interview is with an anarchist who is very active in LGBTQI struggle in that city, and we speak about the history of feminism and trans activism in Berlin as well as the problem of trans-misogyny in feminist and queer scenes, plus many more topics. You can see more about what our guest is talking about at http://www.transinterqueer.org/

This audio was made at a long standing leftist and anarchist space called Friedel 54, which is gearing up to fight an impending eviction. You can see more about this at https://friedel54.noblogs.org/, which is in German but gets run through a translator pretty well.

2 views on migrant struggle in Germany + the E.U.

Migrant Movements in E.U.

http://oplatz.net/
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In this hour we’ll be hearing two perspectives on migrant struggles in the EU, Germany in particular, dating back to roughly 2012. The first we’ll hear is Adam Bahar. Adam is an immigrant from Sudan who currently works on emergency phone networks connecting Coast Guards with migrants cross the sea in distress. In the second, we hear from Adams interviewer, a Berlin-based German-born no-border activist about their experiences. We tried to cut overlapping information to decrease redundancy but there will be a little overlap in order to make space for both differing experiences expressed.

In this first interview Adam Bahar talks about his participation in migrant struggles, including taking part in the public migrant march in 2012 from Wurzburg to Berlin, the tent occupation of Oranienplatz in Berlin by 150 migrants for a year and a half followed by the squatting of an empty school building. In German, the word Lager is used as a storage place, also used for the camps or shelters where asylum seeking refugees are kept isolated from the rest of the German population. Another word that may be difficult for listeners to understand is Adams phrasing of Guardsea, comparable to Coast Guard. Adam also talks about the cooperation between corrupt African governments and the German government either in their business of dictatorship or the deportation of Africans back to their continent of origin.

For the rest of the hour we’ll be hearing part of an interview conducted by myself and William with the activist who held the conversation with Adam in the first half hour. Here, our German friend talks a little more about the occupation of Oranienplatz from 2012-2014 in Kreutzberg, Berlin and more generally we discuss the Shengen Zone for the understanding of non-regional audience members. Later, they speak about their understanding of border situations in the Balkans as they’ve been closing down and thoughts about relationships between richer countries and the intolerable situations in the poorer nations from whence come many of the refugees.

Thanks to our buddies affiliated with Anarchistisches Radio Berlin for helping us out with setting up these recordings. More content from them at http://aradio.blogsport.de

Announcements

Prison Resistance Updates

First, a couple of announcements. Here’s a wrap up of prisoner resistance activities this week around the U.S., followed by a few specific prisoner updates.

Momentum is growing behind the bars. After two intense rebellions in four days at Holman prison in Atmore, Alabama last month things have really heated up. Prisoners in Texas called for and initiated a state wide series of work strikes on April 4th, the Free Alabama Movement announced a shutdown of ADOC for the month of May and prisoners across the country announced and called for a nationally coordinated strike and protest this September.

Reports from Texas prisoners are still coming in, but at least 7 facilities participated enough to get locked down by prison authorities. There have been a lot of threats and harassment by staff reported, but no specific reprisals or people targeted as leaders, yet.

On Saturday, April 9th outside supporters gathered for solidarity events across the country, including, Austin, Houston, Phoenix, the Bronx, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Providence, Denver, Tucson, Minneapolis and Fayetteville Arkansas, as well as a protest at Holman prison in Alabama by the Mothers and Families of the Free Alabama Movement.

These events were either protests at corporations that profit from prison slavery, or workshops and planning sessions about prison slavery and supporting the growing wave of prisoner resistance. Supporters hope to see this tide continue to rise leading up to the September 9th work-stoppage, since attention from the outside is essential to protect striking or otherwise rebellious prisoners from violent reprisals.

The Incarcerated Worker’s Organizing Committee of the IWW is heavily involved in support efforts. You can keep up to date by following their website at http://IWOC.noblogs.org or by monitoring and signing up for the email list at http://SupportPrisonerResistance.net.

on twitter:
#SupportPrisonerResistance
#EyesOnTexas

Alvaro Luna Hernandez (Xinachtli)

Supporters of Alvaro Luna Hernandez sent this message:

“Alvaro is in dire need of immediate, practical solidarity from all who support his emancipation from unjust incarceration and cruel punishment.

Alvaro’s Recent Hardship
In these past few weeks it has come to our attention that Alvaro is enduring multiple forms of inadequate and cruel treatment by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ).

He is in need of dire medical attention; the TDCJ has placed him in more inhospitable holding conditions; the TDCJ has confiscated and stolen from him; the TDCJ has limited his mail correspondence; and when in transport to Lubbock, TX, the TDCJ transported him with—what you will certainly agree is—little to no regard for his health or comfort.”

Therefore, Alvaro’s supporters are urging you to email or call relevant TDCJ authorities by Thursday, April 14th, 2016 (at midnight) to protest these conditions and demand immediate improvements. More information at http://FreeAlvaro.net

Playlist

No New OC Jail + an update on the recent prisoner uprisings in Atmore, AL

No New OC Jail

no new oc jail

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This week Bursts spoke with the No New OC Jail coalition, which is opposing the building of a new jail in Orange County, NC. In this interview, we speak about the social conditions surrounding this opposition, as well as generalized opposition to the prison industrial complex.

More about this and to see this coalition’s petition, you can visit here.

Also included is a segment from our friend the Stimulator at www.submedia.tv about student uprisings in South Africa.

Announcements

Certain Days:

The Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar collective (www.certaindays.org) is releasing its 16th calendar in the Fall of 2016. Over the years, we’ve turned our attention to various themes: grassroots organizing, resisting repression, and visions of justice. The theme for 2017 is focused on what it takes to sustain our movements.

We are looking for 12 works of art and 12 short articles to feature in the calendar, which hangs in more than 2,000 homes, workplaces, prison cells, and community spaces around the world.

We encourage contributors to submit both new and existing work. The deadline for submission is March 15th, 2016.

For further information, such as submission guidelines, format, and so on you can visit this project’s website here

AN UPDATE ON THE PRISONER UPRISINGS IN ATMORE, AL:

From https://itsgoingdown.org/

“Things here are tense but festive. The C.O. and warden was stabbed…It has nothing to do with overcrowding, but with the practice of locking folks up for profit, control and subjugation. Fires were set, we got control of two cubicles, bust windows. The riot team came, shot gas, locked down, searched the dorms. Five have been shipped and two put in lockup.”

~A Prisoner at Holman Correctional

This week, prison rebels at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama staged two riots in three days—battling guards, building barricades, stabbing the warden, taking over sections of the prison and setting a guard station on fire. These actions come as no surprise to those who have been paying attention to the crumbling prison system in
Alabama and the increasing level of radicalization of the prison population there.

The uprising at Holman, and the conditions of Alabama prisons in general, provide a unique situation in which anarchist solidarity may prove strategic. Historically speaking, successful prison uprisings have often been the result of a degrading prison system (incompetence,
understaffing, weak administration) in combination with a high level of prisoner-unity and the development of a strong political subculture within the prison that supports and encourages acts of resistance. These conditions shift the balance of power between prisoners and their captors and allow prisoners more latitude to take bold action.

Prison rebels in Alabama report that guards often refuse to enter the cell blocks for months at a time out of fear of attacks. The conditions for rebellion are ripe in the Alabama prison system.

The connections that Alabama prison rebels and anarchists outside of prisons have cultivated over years have created a situation in which expressions of solidarity from anarchists may have an impact. There is a great possibility that news of solidarity actions will reach prisoners there and that those actions will make sense to these rebels.

Another way in which anarchist solidarity may prove uniquely valuable in this and other situations of prison rebellion is in our capacity to relate to these uprisings outside the framework of reform that the media, the state and the left will inevitably push them toward. We are already hearing the rhetoric of those outside Holman turning immediately toward reform, appeals to legitimacy in hopes of reaching journalists and liberals, and framing the riots as a ‘last resort’ after non-violent methods failed.

What we propose instead is direct affirmation, through action, of prisoners’ own revolt. In this, our solidarity is equally with those demanding better living conditions and those who say, quite simply, “they need to let us free up out this bitch” and “there’s only one way to deal with it: tear the prison down.”

In the spirit of diversity of tactics we’ve compiled a list of some ways to act in solidarity with prison rebels in Alabama. The intention of this list is to find ways to act in solidarity with the many, often contradictory, desires of the many different rebels involved in the uprising.

1. Publish and spread the list of demands, provided by journalists who were able to get in touch with some of the rioting inmates:

We inmates, at Holman Prison, ask for immediate federal assistance. We ask that the Alabama government release all inmates who have spent excessive time in Holman Prison — due to the conditions of the prison and the overcrowding of these prisons in Alabama. We ask that the 446 laws [Habitual Felony Offender laws] that Alabama holds as of 1975 be abolished. We ask that parole board release all inmates who fit the criteria to be back in society with their families. We ask that these prisons in Alabama implement proper classes that will prepare inmates to be released back into society with 21st century information that will prepare inmates to open and own their own businesses instead of making them having to beg for a job.
We also ask for monetary damages for mental pain and physical abuse that inmates have already suffered.

2. Call and write Alabama Department of Corrections officials:

General: http://www.doc.state.al.us/Contact.aspx
Holman: (251) 368-8173

3. Contact inmates at various Albama prisons in order to form bonds and connections on which to build struggle.
http://www.doc.state.al.us/InmateSearch.aspx

Currently you can type a letter into the first or last name section and get a whole giant list of inmates to choose from. It’s up to you to discern who you’d like to write to. We avoid inmates who are listed as having racist tattoos or sex crimes. However there are also several pen pal sites where you can find Alabama inmates who are already looking to maintain correspondence with someone.

4. Visit
https://itsgoingdown.org/call-actions-solidarity-alabama-prison-rebels/ for more creative ways to get involved!!

Heather Doyle on Stopping Extraction + Exports Destruction (SEED)

Heather Doyle of S.E.E.D.

https://seedcoalition.wordpress.com/
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This week, William interviewed Heather Doyle, an activist involved with S.E.E.D. coalition, a mid-Atlantic-bsed activist grouping whose name stands for Stopping Extraction & Export Destruction. Heather talks about her recent harassment and assault at the hands of the Culver County Sheriff’s dept, that dept’s collusion and payoff by the Dominion corporation and more. Dominion is behind the liquified natural gas containment storage & export facility being protested by S.E.E.D. activists, which they claim endangers all of the surrounding, rural residents in case of emergency. The protests have also focussed on the role of Culver County’s facility and Dominion in the extraction from Marcellus shale gas and other nasty petroleum extraction projects and the dangers of it’s shipping via pipelines and trains across Turtle Island. More on S.E.E.D. can be found at https://seedcoalition.wordpress.com/

Heather should have the beginning of her jury trial on May 3rd & 4th in the Culver County circuit court in Maryland and is looking for court support.

UNControllables: UNC Chapel Hill anarchist student group on organizing, austerity & community

UNControllables

https://www.facebook.com/carolinaUNControllables
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This week, Bursts spoke with members of the University of Chapel Hill-based student group called The UNControllables. Created in 2012, the UNControllables regularly present anarchist, feminist, anti-racist and anti-authoritarian presenters from around the world to speak to the student body and members of the community, organize around student issues, incarceration, reproductive health, and much more. For the hour, members of the group talk about what they’ve done and upcoming events they’ll be hosting, in particular an upcoming event with CeCe McDonald, a Black Trans Woman & LGBTQ activist who went to prison for defending herself against a hate attack by a white man with a swastika tattoo on his chest and served about 19 months. She’ll be at UNC Chapel Hill at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture & History for free on Monday, March 21st at 7pm. Check the UNControllables’s fedbook page for details and updates.

A major focus of the discussion is the student and faculty opposition to the incoming president of the UNC systems, Margaret Spellings (#SpellCheck) this Tuesday at 11AM. The UNControllables knew of students at 7 of the 17 universities in the UNC system where student walkouts would lead to teach-ins and or protests around privatization of education and university services, threats to the continued cultures of Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU) and Native Universities in the UNC system. Spellings past as former Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush and was a prime mover in the No Student Left Behind project, a former Senior Advisor at the Boston Consulting Group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a former Board member of the University of Phoenix (facing lawsuits by former students), advisor to Ceannate (a for-profit student loan collection agency)… wow. There’s also a discussion of current relations between UNC system and faculty, adjuncts and employees in these times of growing precarity. Aramark Industries, which provides “services” within the many prisons, detention centers and jails around the U.S. produces the food at UNC Chapel Hill, interestingly.

Some faculty and adjuncts in the UNC system have been organizing under the name of Faculty Forward – NC.

We also present a couple of announcements:

Anarchist prisoner Eric King has accepted a non-cooperating plea deal, which he;ll sign on March 3rd. If you’re in Kansas City, MO & want to attend his hearing on Thursday at 1:30pm (or for other updates on his case) check out http://supportericking.wordpress.com

A request for letters supporting parole for accused former Black Liberation Army militant and New Afrikan activist and accupuncturist, Dr. Mutulu Shakur (written by the doctor) is up on http://mutulushakur.com along with information of his recent denial of release after serving 30 years since his arrest on February 12th, 1986.

Thursday, March 3rd at 6pm at Firestorm , 610 Haywood Rd, Asheville, NC 28806, the Political Prisoners Letter Writing Night will be holding a do-over for the January 22nd Trans Prisoner Day of Solidarity letter-writing night that was cancelled due to snow storms. Envelopes, paper, pens & postage will be provided. Check out the facebook event put on by Tranzmission Prison Project for more details.

Finally, there is a request for folks to seign a petition to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on behalf of Eddie Africa of the Move 9 following his 2 year hit during his recent parole hearing. The petition demands a federal investigation into the injustice and endangerment faced by the Move 9 To check it out, go to http://causes.com/campaigns/92454-free-the-move-9

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Breaking Loose: a conversation with Ron Sakolsky

Ron Sakolsky on Surrealism & Anarchy

http://littleblackcart.com/books/anarchy/breaking-loose
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This week’s episode features a conversation with Ron Sakolsky. Ron is a poet, an anarchist, a surrealist, a pirate radio broadcaster and author and more. Recently, Little Black Cart published a small book by Ron Sakolsky entitled Breaking Loose: Mutual Acquiescence or Mutual Aid? The essay is an anarcho-surrealist critique in which Ron levels a challenge to readers to move past (or break free) from the limitations we internalize from engaging with and within (as well as with others within) the systems of domination. In the conversation, Ron revisits the essay, breaks down some terminology and eggs the listener on to exercise their imagination and act from places of inspiration to apply direct action against the status quo. The essay it’s built off of can be found in Modern Slavery #1.

During the hour, we discuss that book, we chat about radio and Ron’s 30 years of radio experience starting in college radio in IL, later involved in the pirate station called Black Liberation Radio, publishing and promoting the building of micro-broadcast transmitters, and currently with Radio Tree Frog in the forests of Coast Salish Territories AKA British Colombia. He contributed to and edited the titles Seizing The Airwaves: A Free Radio Handbook (AK Press, 1998) and Islands of Resistance: Pirate Radio in Canada (New Star Books, 2010). A sample of featuring mostly content from the “Old Pal” show on Tree Frog radio is found here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tree+frog+radio&t=ffsb&ia=videos&iai=CACQMFIi9Pk

But first this announcement:

From The International Coalition to Free The Angola 3 we have some breaking news on Albert Woodfox, aka Shaka Cinque. From Friday, April 19, 2016:

“Just moments ago, Albert Woodfox, the last remaining member of the Angola 3 still behind bars, was released from prison 43 years and 10 months after he was first put in a 6×9 foot solitary cell for a crime he did not commit. After decades of costly litigation, Louisiana State officials have at last acted in the interest of justice and reached an agreement that brings a long overdue end to this nightmare. Albert has maintained his innocence at every step, and today, on his 69th birthday, he will finally begin a new phase of his life as a free man.

In anticipation of his release this morning, Albert thanked his many supporters and added: “Although I was looking forward to proving my innocence at a new trial, concerns about my health and my age have caused me to resolve this case now and obtain my release with this no-contest plea to lesser charges. I hope the events of today will bring closure to many.”

Over the course of the past four decades, Albert’s conviction was overturned three separate times for a host of constitutional violations including prosecutorial misconduct, inadequate defense, racial discrimination in the selection of the grand jury foreperson, and suppression of exculpatory evidence. On June 8th, 2015, Federal Judge James Brady ordered Albert’s immediate release and barred the State from retrying Albert, an extraordinary ruling that he called “the only just remedy.” A divided panel of the 5th Circuit Court of appeals reversed that order in November with the dissenting Judge arguing that “If ever a case justifiably could be considered to present ‘exceptional circumstances’ barring re-prosecution, this is that case.” That ruling was on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court when news of his release broke.

On behalf of the Angola 3 – Albert Woodfox, Robert King, and in memory of Herman Wallace – we would like to sincerely thank all the organizations, activists, artists, legal experts, and other individuals who have so graciously given their time and talent to the Angola 3’s extraordinary struggle for justice. This victory belongs to all of us and should motivate us to stand up and demand even more fervently that long-term solitary confinement be abolished, and all the innocent and wrongfully incarcerated be freed.”

For our 2014 interview with Malik Rahim about the case of the Angola 3, check out our blog

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