Category Archives: Earth & Animal Liberation

A True(r) Measure of Renewable Energy with Dr. Alexander Dunlap

A True(r) Measure of Renewable Energy with Dr. Alexander Dunlap

"TFSR 3-5-23" + the cover of "Enforcing Ecocide" featuring riot cops in front of a huge digging machine
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This week, I spoke with Dr. Alexander Dunlap about a range of topics, such as Degrowth, green anarchism, the violence of extractivism, questions of the conception of renewable energy and resistance to ecocide. We covered a lot in this discussion and he’s written a lot on a range of related topics. Check out his ResearchGate where many pdfs are available or searching his name on AnarchistLibrary.Net. If there’s something at ResearchGate that isn’t available for download, you can email Alexander and request access.

Other accounts for Dr. Dunlap:

Suggested links:

Our past interviews on resisting infrastructure projects can be found by checking out posts tagged “Environment” or “Earth and Animal Liberation

Books

Articles 

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Voices In Struggle: Remembering Tortuguita + Resistance in Lützerath and Against Tren Maya

Voices In Struggle: Remembering Tortuguita + Resistance in Lützerath and Against Tren Maya

Manuel "Tortuguita" Teran pictured in the forest "TFSR 2023-01-22 | Remembering Tortuguita + Resistance in Lützerath and against Tren Maya"
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This week on The Final Straw, we feature three segments: words from a friend of Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran, the forest defender killed by law enforcement on January 18th outside of Atlanta, Georgia; A-Radio Berlin’s conversation with an activist at Lutzerath encampment in western Germany attempting to block a lignite coal extraction operation by RWE; a discussion of the Tren Maya megaproject by the AMLO administration in Mexico.

Remembering Tortuguita

First up, we caught up with Eric Champaign of Tallahassee, FL, about his friend Manny, aka Tortuguita or little turtle. Manuel Teran was shot and killed by law enforcement during an early morning raid of the forest encampment to defend the Welaunee aka Atlanta Forest and to stop CopCity on Wednesday, January 18th, 2023. Law enforcement claimed in the media that they responded to shots fired and the wounding of an officer by killing the shooter, but at the time of this release the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has not yet produced a weapon or bodycam footage of the clash. [Update, Georgia Bureau of Investigation claims they found Tort’s gun and ballistics match the bullet in the pelvis of the cop] The killing of Tortuguita has sparked outrage, calls for independent investigations, vigils and calls for renewed and dispersed activity. Word is that another 6 people were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism during the raid. Check out our chat with a member of Atlanta Anti-Repression Committee for some context and links to group fighting back in the courts. There’s a fundraiser for Tortuguita’s family at GoFundMe

Eric also speaks about his friend, Dan Baker, who is nearing his release date. You can hear our past chat with Eric about Dan’s case at our website alongside links about the case and how to support him. There’s now a paypal for donations for Dan’s post-release, which can be found at DanielBakerDonations@gmail.com

Then, we feature two segments are selections from the January, 2023 episode of B(A)D News from the A-Radio Network. You can find this ep, #64, alongside many others at A-Radio-Network.Org

Updates from Lützerath

This second segment is a recording by A-Radio Berlin of a conversation with a radio activist from Aalpunk from Lützerath giving some context of the struggle there in the west of Germany. Since this recording, the encampments have been evicted but resistance continues against the ginormous lignite mine that the corporation RWE is attempting to expand there. You can also hear or read our September 25th, 2022 episode for some background. More info at https://luetzerathlebt.info/en

Opposing Project Tren Maya

Finally, we’re sharing a segment by Frequenz-A about Proyecto Tren Maya in the Yucatán peninsula of so-called Mexico. The conversation with a member of Recherche-Ag about a report they published in Solidarity with the Zapatista movement, on the German state and corporate participation in this mega-project and the dangers posed by the Maya Train, which includes huge expansion of electric, travel and other corporate and state infrastructure through sensitive ecosystems and sovereign indigenous lands, being overseen by the Mexican military. You can find this report and more at ya-basta-netz.org.

To hear a past interview of ours talking about Tren Maya & AMLO’s infrastructure projects, you can find our February 2nd, 2020 interview.

Continue reading Voices In Struggle: Remembering Tortuguita + Resistance in Lützerath and Against Tren Maya

Aric McBay on “Full Spectrum Resistance”

Aric McBay on “Full Spectrum Resistance”

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This week we are re-airing a conversation that Bursts had last year with Aric McBay, who is an anarchist, organizer, farmer, and author about his most recent book called Full Spectrum Resistance published by Seven Stories Press in May 2019. This book is divided into 2 volumes, and from the books website [fullspectrumresistance.org]:

Volume 1: Building movements and fighting to win, explores how movements approach political struggle, recruit members, and structure themselves to get things done and be safe.

Volume 2: Actions and strategies for change, lays out how movements develop critical capacities (from intelligence to logistics), and how they plan and carry out successful actions and campaigns.”

This interview covers a lot of ground, with topics that could be of use to folks newer to movement and ones who have been struggling and building for a while. McBay also talks at length about the somewhat infamous formation Deep Green Resistance, some of its history, and tendencies within that group that led him to break with them.

Links to Indigenous and Migrant led projects for sovereignty and climate justice, and some for further research:

Links for more reading from Aric McBay:

Continue reading Aric McBay on “Full Spectrum Resistance”

Defending The Earth By What Means? (Burning Books Lecture Series)

Defending The Earth By What Means?

Rik Scarce and Leslie Pickering from the discussion in 2017
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Rik Scarce is the author of the 1990 exploration of earth liberation and defense and the folks involved, entitled “Eco-Warriors: Understanding The Radical Environmental Movement”, which is still considered required reading in understanding radical eco-defense. At one point, he served 159 days in the Spokane jail for refusing to testify about his sources in his research on the Animal Liberation movement. Leslie James Pickering, co-owner of Burning Books in Buffalo, NY, is an author, activist and is a former spokesperson for the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office. The following is a recording from November of 2017 at Burning Books of a conversation between Scarce and Pickering about property destruction, terrorism labels and the radical ecological movement. Rik and Leslie speak about definitions of violence, concerns around alienating the wider community and repercussions of militancy.

This conversation feels important to air as we stand at a crossroads here in the U.S. between the pandemic, an uprising to challenge police killings (primarily of Black and Brown bodies) and what role if any police should fill in our society, the collapse of the economy, the continued rise of political fascism, the de-platforming of racist statues, further internalization of the border and it’s logic, and global climate chaos that will likely make human life at this scale impossible. This power structure is amplifying difference and applying privileges and oppressions across that constructed spectrum as it always has, but it is in death throes and thus is made visible in all of it’s ugliness. For that reason, conversations about the serious needs to challenge basic assumptions and work through hard ideas feels important to me.

As usual, we invite listeners to check out the slightly longer podcast version online for free. To hear the questions and answers from the end of the presentation, you can check out the podcast. You can find more presentations from Burning Books plus an interview we did with Leslie a few years back about how they uncovered government surveillance at our website. You can learn more about their bookstore, including books by Pickering and Scarce at BurningBooks.com.

Graham Clumpner, part 2: Accountability and Movement Building

Graham Clumpner, part 2: Accountability & Movement Building

Graham Clumpner on the beach with the mosquito fleet
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We’re happy to share the second half of this conversation with Graham Clumpner, anarchist, U.S. military veteran and eco-defender. If you missed the first half of this chat, check out our May 17th episode up at our website. For this hour Graham talks about the responsibility of U.S. society as a whole for the devastation of the Global War On Terror and to the victims in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. He also talks about the need for a movement against militarism and war, the need for active inclusion of veterans into our movements and intersection of militarism and ecological devastation and climate catastrophe. You can find Graham on twitter by the handle @turncoatveteran

The anti-militarist organizations he mentions include:

Graham’s involved in on-water direct action against extractive industry with Mosquito Fleet.

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featured tracks:

Eye On Palestine / Likhts’amisyu Summer Camp / BADNews from Serbia + UK

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Today we air three segments. First, audio about Likhts’amisyu Summer Camp in so-called B.C., Canada [4min 50sec]. Then, two Palestinian activists talk about the project “Eye On Palestine” [14min 42sec]. Finally, we share audios from the A-Radio Network show, BADNews, with words from struggles in Serbia [49:42] and the UK [53:50]. Sean Swain’s segment for this week is available separately.

Eye On Palestine

Today we’re very pleased to present some audio from two Palestinian comrades, Iman Eloghonemi who is an Austrian born Palestinian living in Vienna, and S, who a prisoner rights advocate, about their work doing consciousness raising and advocacy. Because of time differences and schedules, we recorded our interview over text to voice prints about a month ago, so there will be some dated material in the interview but William believes it is relevant even now. In this interview we talk about their work and recent projects, the social media project Eye on Palestine (on Instagram and Facebook) which Iman co-runs, and issues such as how we talk about anti Zionism, anti Semitism, and apartheid as it could relate to Palestinians.

When we were first talking about doing this interview, there had just been a massive hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and prisons. It ended a couple of days before the interview took place, but the main demands of the strikers were: the institution of landline phones in prison, and releasing those held in solitary confinement (many of whom are children).

Some other issues in Israeli prison also come up in S’s segments, the use of electronic signal jammers is one which has been a central problem for some time. The prison puts these in place, ostensibly to prevent the use of so called contraband cell phones, even though prolonged exposure to these devices causes health problems from headaches to certain forms of cancer. It’s our understanding that these jammers have not yet been removed from facilities.

Another central issue that S brings up is the rationing of drinking water given to prisoners. It’s our understanding that prisoners don’t have access to tap water in Israeli facilities, and the land in question is characterized by its long, hot, dry summers. It’s common for prisons all around the world to not have any form of indoor climate control, and if you’re being held in a small room with many other people for long hours at a time, you could imagine why rationing water would turn into a huge issue.

Likhts’amisyu Summer Camp

Also as part of this episode, we’d like to present some words from the Likhts’amisyu Summer Camp. We hear from two people from the Likhts’amisyu clan about an autonomous camp and climate research center being constructed on Parrot Lake in Likhts’amisyu territory.

To keep up with this project, you can visit https://likhtsamisyu.com , email them at likhtsamisyu@gmail.com for more information. You can also visit our show notes for links, to the registration form for the summer camp, and also to the video that  this audio was pulled from, with permission from the participants (links below).

Registration for the Camp

Promotional Video

BADNews: Serbia + UK

Finally, we feature 10 minutes from the latest BADNews: Angry Voices From Around The World episode. More episodes, including one due out in the next week, up at https://a-radio-network.org

Announcements

On Tuesday, June 11th 2019, the day in solidarity with
Marius Mason and other longterm anarchist prisoners, Firestorm and Blue Ridge ABC will be showing a couple of films and a vegetarian potluck from 6pm til 8pm. We invite you to come by, eat, share, watch, chat and celebrate the fierceness of comrades the state fears so much they have to stick them in cages.

Also, if you’re looking for more audio, check out our episode released June 7th with an anarchist in Italy about the hunger strike of Silvia and Anna in L’Alquila prison against the torturous, solitary conditions there. Also, for June 11th, keep an ear out for a podcast special featuring Michael Kimble, Sean Swain, a song dedicated to Marius Mason, an anarchist supporter of Eric King and Robcatt, an editor of the journal Fire Ant, coming out in a few days. We interviewed all of these folks about Fire Ant, prisoner support and community. Both can be found at our website soon if not now at thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org.

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Playlist pending.

Gitdimt’en threatened with RCMP invasion; sub.Media’s JR on Madness

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 Nations Pipeline Resistance in so-called BC

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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.

You can inform yourself more by visiting wetsuweten.com and keep up on updates via their fedbook page named “Gidimt’en Checkpoint visit: Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidimt’en Territory”. Here’s a short video about the access point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3OjGB4sDCw as well as a link to their gofundme campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/gitdumt039en-access-point

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!

International Call to Action for Gidimt’en Access Checkpoint for Tuesday, January 8th, 2019

#notrespass #wedzinkwa #wetsuwetenstrong

JR of sub.Media on Mad Worlds and Trouble

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.

You can donate here

. … . ..

playlist

Indigenous Resistance in so-called B.C. and Mattole Forest Blockade in CA

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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.

To hear more from From Embers, hit them up at http://fromembers.libsyn.com/website/

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.

To get in touch with the Mattole Forest Blockade, you can email mattoleactioncamp@riseup.net and on FaceBook you can search Save the Mattole’s Ancient Forest for news and updates via that medium.

Links:

Support Kanahus’ Indigenous Land Defense Fund (includes a link to her YouTube channel)

It’s Going to be a hot Indian Summer: Secwepemc Women Warriors call land defenders to B.C. (on her arrest and much more info on the ongoing situation in this region)

–Links included in the original From Embers blog post–

Wreck: A Vancouver Anarchist Publication

Defend the Territory by Warrior Publications

Secwepemcul’ecw Assembly (includes more information on the Kindermorgan man camps and the statement against them)

Tiny House Warriors Facebook Page

Tiny House Warriors GoFundMe

Unsettling Canada by Arthur Manuel

. … . ..

Playlist here.

NAABC Former Political Prisoners Panel 2016, pt 2

Former Political Prisoners at NAABC 2016


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This is a podcast version of the second part of the 2016 North American Anarchist Black Cross Former Political Prisoners Panel. The first part can be found here.

In this, the question and answer portion, we hear from Sekuo Kombui, Kazi Toure, John Tucker and Daniel McGowan about their thoughts on incarceration in the U.S., steps forward in resistance, violence in struggle and sources of hope among other things. For info on these prisoners, check out the above link for short bios.

New York City Anarchist Black Cross

New York City Anarchist Black Cross

Run Down The Walls 2016 NYC
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This week on the Final Straw, we air a conversation Bursts, me, I… hi… had with a member of New York City Anarchist Black Cross, heretofore known as nyc-abc. For a good portion of the hour we speak about this activists views on anarchist support for prisoners and long term liberation prisoners. We also talk about the work that NYC-ABC does including: prisoner-writing nights; the Running Down The Walls event coordinated with numerous folks on the outside and incarcerated comrades; their recently unvailed Project FANG ( with help from Sac Prisoner Support)which sets aside regular visitation funds for animal and earth liberation prisoners and their loved ones; their U.S. Political Prisoner graphic guide updated monthly; and more. You can find out more about NYC-ABC on their website at http://nycabc.wordpress.com, or find them on the various and insidious social media platforms out there.

For the last 10 minutes, here is a musical track to get you into the holiday spirit, and to beckon some much-needed rains in this area to put out the fires: Klarträumer, meaning Lucid Dream. This is Deluge from their album, Aether. Deluge is from Metz, Lorraine in France. More from them and other awesome dark and heavy music with good politics can be found at http://thedarkskiesaboveus.blogspot.com

Announcements

2016 Former Political Prisoner Panel pt2 Podcast

Also of note, in a few days we’ll be releasing the second half of the Former Political Prisoner Panel from the 2016 North American Anarchist Black Cross conference in Denver. This year we heard from Sekuo Kombui, Daniel McGowan, Kazi Toure and John Tucker. To hear the first portion and check out brief bio’s of these folks visit: https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2016/11/13/naabc-former-political-prisoners-panel-2016-pt-1/

IWOC call for support for James Shelby

When you have a minute (literally, one minute) please call WMCC Prison Warden Sherie Korneman in Missouri at (816) 632-1390 and say, “I am calling to do a wellness check on James Shelby, prisoner number 41244, my friend told me his life is in danger to medical negligence. If he was not sent back to the hospital after November 14th, he needs to be taken immediately.”

Again, that name and number is Warden Sherie Korneman at (816) 632-1390.

#NoDAPL: Standing Rock camp threatened with eviction

As many of you have probabaly heard, the Standing Rock camp for resisting the Dakota Access pipeline has recently been issued an eviction notice to take effect on December 5th (though they are *generously* granting people a so called “free speech zone” well away from the camp and sacred lands). Updates from the camp have been flying out fast in recent weeks, most notably having to do with the police and army’s use of force essentially being tantamount to torture and brutality. In the wake of the eviction notice, there had been a call from standing rock for a broadening of tactics for people wanting to stand in solidarity with water protectors. To that end, there is a collection of names and addresses of people directly related to the Dakota access pipeline which you can use as you see fit; the authors of the peice are very clear to state that they do not endorse so called “illegal activity, but that the list is for education and outreach purposes only”. However, I think that it is also safe to say that people should use their discretions when coming up with any actions they would like to see happen.

You can see this full article, plus the list of names and addresses, check out: https://itsgoingdown.org/nodapl-indigenous-land-defense-strategic-solidarity-pressuring-power-capital/

Portland organizing

Please help to build Portland’s movement total and collective liberation! Please donate now! Many people have been outraged by the election, Standing Rock, Prison Industrial Complex, white supremacy and capitalism in general. We are all fed up and need to take a stand. The left movement in general is grossly underfunded and inhibits our ability to control the narrative with social media and of course trumping the corporate media. Many activists are getting arrested and charged for all kinds of things. We need to keep our communities safe.
However the movement needs funds to actually move forward and fix this whole system and not because it’s broken! It’s because we need to build something new! Not fix broken things. It was never a broken system and was meant to do exactly what it was doing! Please help!
Help spread the word!

you can donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/support-fund-antitrump-activists

Playlist