This week, we spoke with Alex, an anarchist squatter in the Athenian neighborhood of Exarchia. They talk about repression by the New Democracy party, struggles against green washing wind turbines around rural Greece, the fires raging through the country, resistance to rape culture, fighting against the building of a metro station in Exarchia and the privatization of public spaces like Strefi Hill, police presence at Universities, anarcho-tourism and the hunger strike of anarchist prisoner Giannis Michialidas.
Ongoing Sabotage and Resistance to War in Russia and Ukraine
This week, we’re airing 2 interviews to do with the Russian war in Ukraine. Plus, Kevin Rashid Johnson talks about being denied medical care for his prostate cancer in the Virginia prison system.
First up, an interview with Assembly.Org.UA, a news site based out of Kharkiv about their journalism, disaster capitalism in the midst of pandemic and war, resistance to forced military conscription by the Ukrainian military and information about sabotage activity against the war taking place in Russia.
Then, you’ll hear words from BOAK, or the Anarchist Communist Combat Organization, a Russia-based group advocating sabotage and guerrilla struggle and the development of a social revolution against authoritarian regimes in eastern Europe. You’ll find a Russian version in audio and text of the BOAK conversation for dissemination very soon in the post for this show at our website. You can find a bunch of links in our show notes as well.
But first, you’ll hear Minister of Defense of the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party, Kevin Rashid Johnson, talk about his diagnosis of prostate cancer and his request for a call in to get the VADOC & his captors at Nottoway Correctional Institution in Virginia to give him the care he needs to survive. You can read his article at RashidMod.Com.
Phone Zap!
RIBPP & PSO are calling on all comrades and supporters to participate in a Phone/E-mail zap for Comrade Rashid. The following script can be used/personalized:
“My name is___. My friend Kevin Johnson, #1007485, housed at Nottoway, just learned from the prison doctor that he has prostate cancer. Tests he took last October and November indicated that diagnosis almost certainly, but no biopsy was performed until April and the results reported to him on July 1. Eleven of 13 biopsies are positive for prostate cancer.
“Cancer kills, and it can kill fast. A friend with prostate cancer says his treatment started immediately upon diagnosis in an effort to stop the cancer from spreading to his lymph nodes and on to his bones, where it would be fatal. The Virginia Department of Corrections has already failed in its responsibility to provide even minimal care. Mr. Johnson’s thousands of supporters are shocked to hear of these inexcusably long delays in diagnosis. The best possible treatment must begin now. No obstacle must be allowed to cause further delay.”
Who to call: Director of the Virginia Department of Corrections Harold W. Clarke VADOC P.O. Box 26963 Richmond, VA 23261 (804) 674-3000 docmail@vadoc.virginia.gov
Director of Health Services, VADOC Steve Herrick healthservicesinquiries@vadoc.virginia.gov (804) 887–8118
Warden Clint Davis Nottoway Correctional Center 2892 Schutt Rd. Burkeville, VA 23922 (434) 767-5543
Email the following officals:
harold.clarke@vadoc.virginia.gov
david.robinson@vadoc.virginia.gov
steve.herrick@vadoc.virginia.gov
clint.davis@vadoc.virginia.gov.
Sean’s Segment
[00:51:41 – end]
Sean Swain talks about the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in his usual manner.
This week, Scott and William talk to Sophie Lewis, author of Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family and the soon-to-be-released Abolish The Family A Manifest for Care and Liberation (out in October, 2022) about the current political moment that is characterized by attacks on trans people and peoples reproductive abilities. They also talk through what creates this moment, where trans people come into the target of State power being weaponized by the far right, as well as the connections among these attacks against LGBT education, access to transition, access to abortion and critical race theory. Also discussed are some limitations of a legalization framework around abortion, as opposed to a decriminalization, the limits of liberalism (particularly liberal feminism), and also the ways that certain strains of feminism contribute to an anti-trans discourse. Finally, there is chat about how to approach people needing support people who need access to healthcare, whether it be transition or abortion, outside of the hands of the state.
First up, the struggle to Defend the Atlanta Forest and Stop Cop City has been gaining momentum over the last year, in opposition to the building of what would be the largest police urban training center in the so-called USA in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd Uprising, alongside the construction of what would be the country’s largest film sound stage for Blackhall Studios. Coming up, you’ll hear Tony Lane of Defend Atlanta Forest talk about some of the issues involved, the ongoing organizing to stop the destruction of dozens of acres in this forest in the city in the forest, the ongoing info-tours around the country and upcoming week of action from July 23-30th, 2022.
David Campbell on Supporting Antifascist Prisoners
Then, you’ll hear an interview with formerly incarcerated antifascist prisoner, David Campbell, about his experience of incarceration for participation a street melee against fascists in January 2018 in New York City and about the importance of prisoner support and the upcoming annual International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners on July 25th.
David’s former celly who could use some love:
Bruce Williams #21R0721
Orleans Correctional Facility
3531 Gaines Basin Rd
Albion, NY 14411
David also mentions the Resistance Committee in Ukraine and Operation Solidarity which include participation of anarchists and antifascists resisting the Russian invasion.
Dunstan Bruce is perhaps most famous for his lead vocals and listing of libations in the Chumbawamba pop hit, Tubthumping. But there is so much more to him and that band than that one song. For the hour we touch on some of the band’s 30 year history, their relation as a collective, anarchist band to social justice movements around the world and how they used their fame and money to give back, Dunstan’s recently finished documentary “I Get Knocked Down: The Untold Story of Chumbawamba” and his accompanying one man show “Am I Invisible Yet?”, aging and the battle for relevance, staying involved in politics and more. “I Get Knocked Down” is still seeking distribution so not streamable, but keep an eye on the fakebook page for updates on that, and you can find his prior documentary on Chumbawamba published about 20 years ago on youtube, entitled “Well Done, Now Sod Off!”
We’re joined this week by some of the folks behind the Earthbound Farmer’s Almanac, a self-published annual collection of art, comics, facts, articles and incitements to challenge us to thicken our relationship to the land and grow autonomy against state, colonialism and capitalism. You are welcome to read the almanac for free in portions on the Lobelia Commons social media (fedbook or instascam). We also talk about spreading food forests and building neighborly food resilience with Lobelia Commons and a little about Ndn Bayou Food Forest (formerly the L’eau Et La Vie anti-pipeline camp) which can be found on fedbook or instascam.
A few acronyms come up in the chat, and here’s a breakdown: MADR is the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief network; Zeta & Ida were hurricanes that damaged the south east of Turtle Island, landfalling near to so-called New Orleans; NOMAG is the New Orleans Mutual Aid Group.
This week on The Final Straw, we’re featuring a recent conversation with anarchist author and activist, Peter Gelderloos about his latest book, “The Solutions Are Already Here: Strategies For Ecological Revolution From Below”, published by Pluto Press in 2022. For the hour we speak about critiques of science and Western Civilization that Peter levels, as well as the centrality of struggling on the ground we stand on, creating autonomous infrastructure, resisting colonial extractivism and the need for imagination and care as we tear down this ecocidal system.
An interregnum is defined as being a period of discontinuity in a government, organization, or social order, and it typically points to time frames at which there isn’t a clear monarch or reigning body in a given place. This article points to the many ways the George Floyd uprising, the covid 19 pandemic, the rise of anti-work, and what the article calls the Great Refusal (a pivot from the ‘Great Resignation’ nomenclature of some mass media) have all created the conditions for a possible broadscale social revolution. Also stay tuned to the end of this episode where we chat briefly about what books we’re reading right now. We hope you enjoy this chat!
((note to listeners, I’m now using the name I use in real life for this radio project, which is Amar. It’s become more and more important to me to be as fully acknowledging of my culture and ethnicity as possible, and this is one way I’m choosing to do that))
A note on the audio, I messed up recording on my side – my bad – but Scott saved the audio by doing their own back up recording!
This week, you’ll hear my chat with Jon Bigger about the status of the monarchy in the UK, the power it wields, the interventions it makes into parliamentary procedure and where we might see hopes of challenging it from an anarchist approach. Jon is an anarchist who is involved with the Anarchism Research Group, writes a column on UK politics at Freedom News and has been involved in the project Class War. You can find him online at twitter and at his website, jonbigger.uk
This week, we are re-broadcasting an inteview with the sci-fi and picture book author, technologist and social critic Cory Doctorow. Cory is an editor of the blog BoingBoing, a fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the book we spoke of on this episode was Walkaway (you get a 10% discount and support for us when you order from the above link from Firestorm Books in Asheville), out from Head of Zeus and TOR books. The novel plays with themes of open source technologies, class society, post-scarcity economics, ecological remediation, drop-out culture and liberatory social models. It was released a few days ago in paperback, along with matching re-issues of his other adult sci-fi novels.
For the hour, we spoke about themes from the book, sharing, trans-humanism, imagination and monsters. To find more work by Cory, check out his blog craphound.com. You can also find him on twitter, free writings on Project Gutenberg, his content on archive.org, or his podcast. In 2019 he released Radicalized, a collection of four novellas, and in 2020 he released Attack Surface, a novel in the universe of his prior works, Little Brother and it’s sequel, Homeland.
