This week on TFSR, we’ll be airing a presentation by Diane Stevens, a member of the Jane Collective in Chicago in the 1960’s. This presentation was recorded at the 2023 Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair in so-called Asheville, NC.
The Abortion Counseling Service, now better known as Jane, started out as a referral service in Chicago in the late 1960s, providing counseling and support to women before and after their procedures. Members of the group learned to do the abortions and then were able to do the procedures for whatever the women could afford to pay. Seven women were arrested and charged with the felonies of abortion and conspiracy to commit abortion. These charges were ultimately dismissed. It is estimated that about 11 thousand abortions were preformed before the group disbanded in 1973.
Diane Stevens was born in Chicago. She went to school in the suburbs before moving back into the city where she joined the Abortion Counseling Service.
Following the Roe v Wade decision and dismissal of all the criminal charges, Diane went on to have a career in health care and worked as a nurse practitioner in a variety of settings. Her work for reproductive justice has resumed with joining the Reproductive Rights Coalition in Charlotte and being a clinic escort.
You can hear another presentation we recorded from the ACABookfair 2023 in this week’s IGD Podcast, which is sharing Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin and JoNina Abron-Ervin in conversation with William C. Anderson.
First up, former co-host on the show Scott talks about the upcoming Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair happening the weekend of August 11 – 13th, some of the content and notes on access, as well as mentioning some new projects their involved with. You can learn more about the bookfair by visiting ACABookfair.noblogs.org , the project’s instagram, facebook or mastodon.
Then, Fern from the International Anarchist Defense Fund (AFund.Info) talks about the upcoming International Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners from August 23-30th, taking place wherever you make it happen. You can find the call-out, materials, supported prisoners, some anti-repression groups involved and info on past actions and events at https://Solidarity.International .
Hybachi Lamar, an incarcerated Black, Kemetic anarchist being held at the Cook County Jail talks about the conditions in the jail in an audio message that is shared alongside links to his writings and info on how to help South Chicago Anarchist Black Cross support him. All of this can be found at https://southchicagoabc.org/helpcompa/
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Featured Track:
Everything In Its Right Place (by Radiohead) by The String Quartet from Strung Out On Kid A – The String Quartet Tribute To Radiohead
Then, you’ll hear a recent interview with Aryanam, a member of the Federation of Anarchism Era, an anarchist grouping based in Iran, Afghanistan and the diaspora to speak about the morality police murder of Zhina or Mahsa Amini and the ongoing revolt against the imposition of the hijab and general cruelty of the Islamic Republic regime. More by the Federation can be found at https://asranarshism.com and their fundraiser for comrades in Afghanistan & Iran at https://asranarshism.com/donation/
Image from @loozanar on Instagram, Drawing in black and red of Persian words swirling around Zhina watching over a crowd of people in the streets and a youth holding a giant, burning dandelion
This week on The Final Straw, we’ll be airing two interviews. In the first, Bursts spoke with author and activist Shane Burley about the state of street level fascism and anti-fascism in the U.S. Then about 45 minutes into the episode, you’ll hear Bursts speaking with two members of the Asheville branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, or IWW.
Shane also talks about essentialism in fascism and the creeping relationship between “identitarian” patriarchs and the trans-misogyny of TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) in Deep Green Resistance, such as Lierre Kieth and Derrick Jensen. The book mentioned by Bursts about essentialism, fascism and anarchism can be found in audio format on R.A.D., another member of the CZN. The original text can also be found on their tumblr.
The wobblies talk about the upcoming Service Workers Assembly they have planned for Tuesday, June 26th from 6-9pm at Kairos West, under Firestorm in West Asheville. Here’s a link to their fedbook.
If you are a service worker in the Asheville area and want to chat with other folks from the industries about how your conditions could improve, come on by. No bosses, snitches or scabs, please.
There’s no Sean Swain again this week, hopefully we’ll get the crossed wires fixed soon.
Announcements
Debbie Africa of MOVE9 released!
Debbie Sims Africa was paroled this week from prison after about 40 years inside for crossing the Philly PD and the Frank Rizzo administration! We hope that a push can happen to get the remaining 6 members inside. Welcome to the outside, Debbie! #FreeEmAll
Local Announces
In this run-up week to the Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair (ACAB2018), there’ll be a game of punk jeopardy on Thursday the 21st at the Lazy Diamond starting at 9pm. The venue is a bar, so it’s 21 and up only. On Friday, feel free to stop by the welcome table at Firestorm for an intro to the range of events over the weekend. Check out the calendar of events, including the schedule for the workshops and more!
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.
