First up, we’ll hear Josh Harper, a co-defendant from the SHAC7 case and former political prisoner talking the struggle to shut down the company, Huntington Life Sciences, a contract animal testing laboratory, in the early 2000’s in the so-called US. Josh talks about the case, his post-release experience, archiving the history of earth and animal liberation with The Talon Conspiracy (currently on hiatus) and some views of moving forward. Josh and the other co-defendants are the focus of a recent documentary film called ‘The Animal People’, which is available on all of the paid streaming sources, which speaks with participants in the case and their prosecutors, plus journalists like Will Potter who documented the Green Scare. Gut wrenching is a great descriptor for the film.
Check out our early interview with Will Potter on ‘Green Is The New Red’ and consider listening to the recent episode of the IGD podcast with Josh Harper and Andy Stepanian for a larger assessment of the Animal Liberation movement and more.
Voices from the Gidimt’en Access Point Barricade
Then, you’ll hear the voices of three warriors who were on the barricade on the road to Unist’ot’en Camp at the Gidimt’en Access Point. Eve Saint (Wet’suwet’en land defender), Anne Spice (Tlinket land defender) and Shilo Hill (from Onandaga nation, Haudenosaunee, Six Nations) were there to defend unceded Wet’suwet’en land from the Canadian state’s violent imposition of the Coastal Gas Link pipeline. They talk about what brought them to the Gitdumden Access near so-called Houston, BC, the buildup to the impending raid by RCMP troops, indigenous sovereignty, land and water defense, the long road to decolonization and the importance of outside support and solidarity from indigenous and First Nations peoples and their allies and accomplices.
On Thursday morning, the day after this recording, at about 5am Pacific, the RCMP began their raids and arrests in an attempt to impose the injunction and clear the land and water defenders from the Wet’suwet’en lands. Media have been detained and released and at the time of this publication, 6 land defenders have been arrested and refuse to sign and conditions imposed by the Canadian state and so are still in state detention.
Members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation are asking for people to take solidarity action in support of their autonomy. Solidarity actions have looked a lot of different ways in the last few months across Turtle Island, so-called USA and Canada. Take a moment and listen to your heart, find your friends and do what you think needs to be done to get the ball rolling.
First, Bursts interviewed Mark and anonymous, members of the Internationalist Commune of Rojava, which coordinates civil structure engagement among internationals in North Eastern Syria in the Rojava Revolution as well as helping to spread. More on their project at InternationalistCommune.Org, or check out related projects like MakeRojavaGreeAgain.Org and #RiseUpForRojava that may be organized in your area. The US government, which has been supporting Rojava militarily in their struggle against Daesh, or ISIS, is at the conference table with the Turkish government which has given aid and weapons to Daesh and has opposed Kurdish dignity and survival within Turkey’s own borders, exemplified by the conflict from 1978 til today, re-lit by Erdogan’s attacks. The guests and I speak about Turkish buildup on the border of Syria, about the incarceration of Daesh prisoners by Rojava, and how folks internationally can offer support to Rojava at this tense time.
If you’d like to hear an hour-long question and answer discussion with ICR hosted by Demand Utopia that goes more into depth into some of these topics from March 16, 2019 at Firestorm Books, we have archived a recording of it and it can be heard here by seeking our show notes.
Sovereign Likhts’amisyu
Next William had the chance to speak with Smogelgem, who is a hereditary Chief of the Likhts’amisyu clan of the Wet’suwet’en people. He is a teacher and a builder, and was one of the people who helped make the Unis’tot’en Camp, who are another clan of the Wet’suwet’en people. Unis’tot’en Camp is an Indigenous re-occupation of land stolen by the state of Canada in so called “B.C” and has done a lot of resistance against pipelines and other incursions by Canada.
We talk a little bit about his experiences organizing with Unis’tot’en, but moreso were focusing on another Indigenous re-occupation project on traditional Likhts’amisyu territory, some of the history involved in this re-occupation village, about the nature of the “state” of “Canada”, the climate and environmental research center that is forming a central component of the village, aid that they need, and many more topics.
Keep them in your thoughts today (Sunday August 11th 2019) as they are marching out in full regalia in the name of Wet’suwet’en Unification.
To learn more, to get involved, and to donate to the building efforts and legal fees, you can visit their website at https://likhtsamisyu.com/,
And email them at likhtsamisyu@gmail.com for more ways to get involved and for setting up potential fundraisers!
. … . ..
If you appreciate the work that we do on this show, please consider supporting us monetarily. We have a patreon with thank-you gifts of t-shirts, mixtapes, stickers and more if you care to make monthly donations of as little as $5, though we’ll take a dollar if that’s what you can share. Or, you can right-out purchase merch at our bigCartel shop or make donations via venmo or paypal. More info our site by clicking the donate tab or visiting https://tfsr.wtf/support
Gord Hill is an indigenous author, anarchist, antifascist and militant, a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation living in so-called British Columbia, Canada. Gord is also graphic artist and comic book author who most recently published The Antifa Comic Book, out from Arsenal Pulp Press, and runs the website Warrior Publications and sometimes publishes under the nom-de-plume of ZigZag.
For the hour we speak about his writings documenting indigenous resistance history in the so-called Americas (mostly with a focus on Turtle Island), antifascist organizing, intersections of indigenous struggle and anarchism and critiques of Pacifism (see Gord’s “Smash Pacifism” zine). Some of the points of resistance that we cover include Elsipogtog (Elsipogtog in 5 Minutes video at sub.media), Idle No More, The Oka Crisis (“The Oka Crisis in 5 Minutes” video at sub.media), Stoney Point/Aazhoodena (another 5 minutes video by Gord), Gustafsen Lake (we didn’t talk about but another 5 minute video), the Zapatista Rebellion and the Unist’ot’en Camp resistance to pipelines in so-called B.C.
Sean Swain: [ 00:033:55 ], Gord Hill [ 00:11:27 ], announces at [ 00:57:29 ]
Rayquan Borum Trial Update
In a brief and sad update to last week’s interview on the case of Rayquan Borum, we’d like to read a statement from the fedbook page for Charlotte Uprising:
We are deeply saddened to report that Rayquan Borum has been found guilty of possession of a firearm and second degree murder with him being sentenced to 25/26 years in a cage.
We knew it would be difficult to receive a fair trial in the same court that allowed Officer Randall Kerrick to walk free for the murder of unarmed Jonathan Ferrell. We know the police will continue to kill Black and brown folks and escape accountability.
We suffered extreme suppression from the judge from the start of the trial. Even though the medical examiner testified there was a 51% chance that ANYTHING else killed Justin Carr, Judge Hayes would not allow any testimony naming the police. Of course, it is far easier to scapegoat a random Black man than to launch an investigation into the same police force that killed ONLY Black people in 2015.
We also know that Justin Carr would be alive were it not for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department murder of Keith Lamont Scott (no trial for that officer, of course). We know that the Mecklenburg County Courts disproportionately sentence Black and brown bodies to time in cages. We know that CMPD disproportionately arrests Black and brown folks. Black people are 30% of Charlotte’s population and make up about 70% of the jail population.
Heinous.
We know that this is the American Way. In response, we will continue to rise up and resist this colonized nation and work toward building a more decolonized world, for all of us.
A few house keeping notes about the show. We’re happy to announce that The Final Straw is now available on the Pacifica Radio platform for affiliate stations to pick up more easily. If you, dear listener, live in an area where we aren’t on the radio but there’s a community station that airs programming from the Pacifica Network, you now have a WAY easier IN to bug the station’s programming director with. If you want us on your airwaves, check out our “broadcasting” tab on our website and reach out to a local radio station. If you have questions or want help, reach out to us and we’re happy to chat. We hope to have a some more terrestrial broadcast stations to announce soon.
Actually, yah, that was the only note. Tee hee. Otherwise, if you want to hear me, Barchive is linked up in our show notesursts, Dj’ing a 2 hour set of punk, goth and electronica on AshevilleFM, an archive is linked up in our show notes that’s available until March 12th.
Announcements
Asheville Events
If you’re in the Asheville area, there’re a few events coming up on March 16th of note. At 11am at Firestorm books, a participant in the Internationalist Commune, a self-organized collective in Northern Syria, will join us for a video chat about the revolutionary movement to transform Kurdish territory into a stateless society.
Later, across town, there’re a couple of Blue Ridge ABC events at Static Age on Saturday, March 16th. From 3-5pm there’ll be an N64 Super Smash Brothers tournament with vegan philly cheese steaks and fries available, and then from 9pm onward an antifascist black metal show featuring Arid from Chicago, plus local bands Rat Broth and Feminazgul.
Then, a reminder, that on March 22nd at the Block Off Biltmore is a benefit for info-sharing between Southern Appalachia and Rojava. The event will include a discussion, a short documentary showing, vegan desserts and nice merchandise. For more info, check out the flyer in our shownotes from March 3rd, 2019.
And now a couple of prisoner announcements
Chelsea Manning Imprisoned
U.S. Army whistleblower and former Political Prisoner, Chelsae Manning, has been jailed for criminal contempt for refusing a subpoena to participate in a Federal Grand Jury in Virginia concerning her 2010 disclosures to Wikileaks of U.S. drone killings of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. A support committee called “Chelsea Resists!” has been set up and updates will be coming from the website xychelsea.is and there’s a fundraiser up at actionnetwork.com for her as well. We hope to feature members of her support as well as former Grand Jury resisters who’ve been on this show before in an episode soon. You can write to Chelsea at the following address:
Chelsea Elizabeth Manning
AO181426
William G. Trusdale Adult Detention Center
2001 Mill Road
Alexandria, VA 22314
Some quick guidelines to keep her safer while writing are in the show notes
Address your letter exactly as shown above
send letters on white paper
use the mail service to send letters
include color drawings if you’d like
sparingly send 4×6 photos, as she may only keep 10 at a time
Do not send cards, packages, postcards, photocopies or cash
Do not decorate the outside of the envelope
do not send books or magazines
Exonerated Vaughn 17 prisoners transferred out of state
As the cases proceed against the Vaughn17, 17 prisoners on trial in Delaware for a prison uprising following the election of Trump as president, an uprising sometimes compared to the Lucasville Uprising, repression continues.
The uprising was as follows: prisoners took over Building C at the Vaughn prison in Smyrna, Delaware, and took three prison guards and one prison counselor hostage. Demands issued during the hostage standoff included that Delaware Governor John Carney investigate poor living conditions at the facility. One correctional officer who was taken hostage, Steven Floyd, would later be found dead after police re-entered the facility. The case can be followed at vaughn17support.org as it enters it’s third trial group. A few words from the support site note the continued repression of some of the court-exonerated prisoners:
The State of Delaware retaliated against defendants in the Vaughn uprising trial last week, by moving them out of state to Pennsylvania.
Kevin Berry, Abednego Baynes, Obadiah Miller, Johnny Bramble, Dwayne Staats, and Jarreau Ayers were all transferred to solitary confinement at SCI Camp Hill, a maximum security facility. They joined Deric Forney, who was transferred weeks earlier in January. Berry, Baynes, and Forney have all been fully acquitted on all charges.
“It’s unusual to move prisoners with short terms left in their sentence out of state,” said Fariha Huriya, an organizer working closely with Vaughn 17 prisoners. “They’re being held in solitary confinement, with no showers, no access to commissary, and limited phone calls. It’s the same inhumane conditions that they faced at James T. Vaughn.”
“The State’s vindictiveness will cost them,” said Betty Rothstein, who also organizes with the prisoners. “The Vaughn 17 have resisted these charges, and will continue to resist and expose the corruption of the DOC and abuse on prisoners.”
There are nine defendants who are still awaiting trial. New trial dates for groups 3 and 4 are scheduled for May 6th, 2019, and October 21st, 2019.
This week we feature two segments, the first on anti-pipeline resistance at the Gidimt’en Camp in Canada and second with JR from sub.Media about Mental Wellness and the recent Trouble episode on the subject.
First up, we’ll hear from Delee Nikal, a Wet’suwet’en community member from the Gidimt’en clan and the Cas Yikh House, a First Nation in so-called British Columbia, Canada. In 2009, Wet’suwet’en members of the Unist’ot’en clan (also of the Wet’suwet’en nation) began actively blocking pipeline workers and government officials from accessing their land without prior and fully informed consent of the nation on the land. Over the years, Unist’ot’en has become home to various structures to not only block the passage of the pipeline but also to create opportunities for indigenous folks to heal themselves and promote their culture. On December 14th, the Canadian Supreme Court pushed through an injunction on behalf of Coastal GasLink (owned by TransCanada) threatening the Wet’suwet’en community defending its land at Unist’ot’en with police invasion. Following this, a public statement was made by the 5 hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en for all of the clans to block pipelines on their land.
The Wet’suwet’en people have no treaties with the Canadian or provincial government, their land is unceded and sovereign territory within the bounds of what’s claimed by Canada. According to United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article 10: “Indigenous Peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories.” This includes RCMP, and/or military removal of Indigenous Peoples occupying their territory , say the land defenders. They also point out that the 1997 Supreme Court of Canada ruling in the Delgamuukw/Gisdaywa court case affirmed that Wet’suwet’en title, based on the traditional clan governance system, was never extinguished.
In the days since this interview was recorded, an update to the injunction by the Canadian Supreme Court was released that updated names and places to be targeted by police action and the chiefs were informed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, a Canadian Federal police force that their people and their spaces would likely be attacked by the RCMP in coming days to move forward on the building of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.
The Wet’suwet’en resistance to the pipeline is asking for native folks to come to help defend the land from further Canadian incursion, for allies and accomplices to engage in solidarity actions to pressure and embarrass the Canadian government and spread word of the resistance of Wet’suwet’en people on their sovereign lands in defense of the earth, air and water that all of us share on this planet.
A great article breaking down a bunch of the history can be found at the Earth First! Newswire’s site from which we’ve poached some of the links and which has some great ideas of how to signal boost the situation, fundraising ideas and other ways to give and more!
And secondly, we are going to present an interview with JR, who is a member of the subMedia collective about their recent Trouble episode called Mad Worlds. Trouble is a monthly mini documentary series from this collective which highlights different aspects of life and struggle on the far left. It’s meant to be watched in groups to promote discussion and counter the increasing isolating aspects of modern day existence. The episode “Mad Worlds, Redefining Sanity Through Struggle” explores the concept of sanity and how this is intrinsically linked to the white hetero settler colonialist patriarchy, and also gets into the psychiatry industrial complex and what it could mean to be on either side of that structure. This is the first time that me and Bursts have interviewed someone together, so let us know what you think of that!
To see more from subMedia, including It’s The End Of The World And We Know It And I Feel Fine, also called The F*cking Show which features anarchist news analysis and reporting from the infamous character of the Stimulator, also they do a semi regular anarchist/antifascist hip hop workout show called Burning Cop Car (which we’ve drawn on multiple times for music to score The Final Straw), and of course Trouble, you can see all that at https://sub.media. They are in the middle of a fundraising push right now, and you can see info about that at sub.media/donate to liberate your dollars.
This week we are talking a little break to work on other things, and so have taken the time to re-broadcast two interviews from two other radical and anarchist audio projects, both of which have been doing amazing work.
Blocking Trans Mountain Pipeline and Defending The Mattole
From Embers
The first we’ll present is from an anarchist radio show in so called Kingston Ontario called From Embers. This interview was originally released by them in the middle of June, and is with Kanahus Manuel, who is a Secwepemc woman fighting against the Trans Mountain Pipeline on her land in a variety of ways. This situation of extraction, forced displacement, and ongoing subjugation on Secwepemc land is one which has many aspects to it all of which Manuel talks about in this interview. Kanahus Manuel was arrested recently, a few days after the tattoo gathering that she mentions around half way through the interview. If you would like to read more on this issue though, we will be posting a bunch of articles in the show notes for this episode, which you can access through our noblogs website or via your podcasting app. These links will include both how to support Manuel post arrest, the explicit call for solidarity from the Secwepemc Women Warriors Society, and also the original links that From Embers included in their blog post.
A quick update, From Embers has JUST joined the Channel Zero Network! Woot!
Radical People podcast
The second interview is from the podcast Radical People, which recently became a member of the Channel Zero Network and is hosted by Eamon Farrelly. In this interview, Eamon speaks with Sweet Pea about the 20 year strong Mattole Forest Blockades in Humblodt County California. In this interview the guest speaks about their experiences participating in this forest blockade, and I thought it was an extraordinary interview because so often we get a picture of direct action which is very action oriented but this presents an experience which is profoundly emotional, or spiritual. Anyway, I liked it a lot and found it very inspirational, hope you will too.
To hear more from Radical People, hit them up on Soundcloud, also via any podcasting app. We had to cut some out of this interview, and you can hear the full version on their platform. They also have a patreon if you have any loose change kickin around, and are on Twitter @Radical_Podcast.
Before we announce the show, we want to announce our presentation of
Sean Swain’s voice on our show for the first time in 8 weeks. Sean’s
GTL (GlobalTelLink, privatized prison phone company) and JPay (private company Sean’s critiqued before which handles, among other things, emails/commisary and other profitized elements of incarceration) accounts were suspended by the OSP administration, the office of Governor Kasich & the Ohio Highway Patrol/State Police. During those 8 weeks, Sean’s segments on The Final Straw (which were ostensibly a reason for his blackout) never stopped, as Sean smuggled scripts out of the Super-Duper-Uber-Mega-Ultra-Max in Youngstown. Congrats, Sean!
This week we play part two of Mel Bazil’s presentation from the 2014 Montreal Anarchist Bookfaire. He covers an array of concepts. He talks about the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Decolonization, infrastructure, false alternative energies and capitalism.
Mel also touches on the ideas around self-knowledge, Free Prior and Informed Consent between individuals and communities (http://unistotencamp.wordpress.com/free-prior-and-informed-consent-protocol/), and the framework of human/indigenous Rights versus Responsibilities to
the earth and to each other and to ourselves. This broadcast comes on the day that Mr. Bazil and other people struggling with the Unist’ot’en Action Camp expected an injunction against the action camp by the B.C.
government. Anarchists have been invited over the years to build relationships and struggle alongside this community and project, which brings interesting questions of overlaps and differences between anarchism(s) and indigenous cultures in resistance.
Warrior Publications has been publishing informative and beautifully illustrated works on decolonization, resistance and anarchism for over a decade now: http://warriorpublications.wordpress.com/
Vancouver Island Community Forest Action Network is a gateway for outside anarchists and activists to get involved in helping at Unist’ot’en: http://forestaction.wikidot.com/
This audio is from an almost hour and a half presentation that Mel gave on Saturday the 24th of May at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfaire, entitled “Anarchy, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Decolonization.” Many thanks to CKUT Radio in Montreal for sharing this content with the Final
Straw. More info on CKUT can be found at www.ckut.ca
