Category Archives: General

The Religious Function of Whiteness and Mass Criminalization in the US (with Andrew Krinks)

 the book cover for "White Property, Black Trespass" with a blue police offier head, plus "TFSR 5-10-26 | The Religious Function of Whiteness and Mass Criminalization in the US (with Andrew Krinks)"
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This week, we’re sharing an interview with Andrew Krinks, author of White Property, Black Trespass: Racial Capitalism and the Religious Function of Mass Criminalization from NYU Press, 2024. For the chat, we speak about taking a theological lens to the question of what ties exclusive private property, white masculinity, police impunity and mass incarceration in the US. We discuss aspects of Christian thought, employ concepts borrowed from the Black Radical tradition and try to get closer to the root of the sickness in our culture that flourishes from others pain.

To check out a Firestorm book event with the author and others about the book and related topics, check out this video!

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Vicky Osterweil on Disney, Intellectual Property and Storytelling

book cover of "The Extended Universe: How Disney Killed Movies and Took Over the World" with a picture of Mickey Mouse from behind, looking at his hand as he removes his white glove to show a shriveled claw, plus "TFSR 5-2-26 | Vicky Osterweil on Disney, Intellectual Property and Storytelling"
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This week, we’re featuring a recent, live interview that I did at Firestorm books with Vicky Osterweil, anarchist writer and worker, author of In Defense of Looting and more recently The Extended Universe: How Disney Killed The Movies and Took Over the World (Haymarket, 2026). Vicky is a member of the Collective of Anarchist Writers (CAW), and you can also find her on Bluesky and what she’s thinking about what she’s watching at Letterboxd.

During the chat Vicky talks about intellectual property and how it overlaps between entertainment and other elements like technology and medicine, the shaping and limiting effects IP has on popular culture and imagination, the film industry and more.

To hear Vickys past appearances on our show check out:

Announcements

Support Jason Reynard Walker

Incarcerated activist and journalist Jason Reynard Walker is asking for support as he nears the end of his state sentence in Texas prisons and before starting his Federal sentence. He’s concerned about the shifting of his release dates around that may put him in a dangerous position where he’s more likely to have a hit on him placed by prison authorities. Read more at: https://jasonsprisonjournal.com/a-rogue-within-tdcjs-bureaucracy-changed-my-release-date-with-malice-aforethought-to-get-me-murdered/

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Dr. Terence Keel on U.S. Deaths in Custody and Public Accountability

book cover of The Coroner's Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence, plus "TFSR 4-26-26 | Dr. terrence Keel on U.S. Deaths in Custody and Public Accountability"
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This week, we’re sharing this interview with Dr. Terence Keel, author of The Coroner’s Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence (Beacon Press, 2025). We speak about the book, the BioCritical Studies Lab that Dr. Keel founded, what public records exist of deaths at the hands of police, jails and prisons and some efforts to record names and circumstances in hopes of accountability and closure. You can find Dr. Keel at TerenceKeel.com

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Hybachi LeMar Shares Some Thoughts + Updates On Xinachtli

washed out black and white image of Hybachi in an adidas jumpsuit and mask holding lit in one hand, look at the camera from in front of a chainlink fence that divides foreground from a lawn and brick building in the bakcground. The image shows an anarchist black cross fist / cross, the words "Solidarity With Hybachi Lemar" and "TFSR 4-19-26 | Hybachi Lemar Shares Some Thoughts + Updates on Xinachtli”
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This week, we’re sharing two segments: the main feature is an interview with the recently released anarchist organizer and writer Hybachi LeMar; but first up you’ll hear Aarohi of the Xinachtli Freedom Campaign about the elder political prisoner’s medical condition and the phone zaps to pressure the TDCJ to alleviate his medical neglect

Xinachtli Phone Zap

[ 00:01:48 ]

Xinachtli is an elder, Chicano communist activist and political prisoner 30 years into a 50 year sentence for disarming a sheriff’s deputy. Of that 30 years, he’s spent 23 in solitary confinement. At age 73, Xinachtli has and continues to face medical neglect at the hands of the Texas prison system, with outside supporters having to apply pressure to get him things like a wheelchair or a proper diet. You’ll hear Aarohi of the Xinachtli Freedom Campaign talk about his case and about the phone zaps about Xinachtli’s condition as well as how to get in touch with the comrade.

Links

Past Interviews:

  • Our 2024 interview with  Xinachtli talking about his conditions
  • An audio of Xinachtli telling his story

Hybachi LeMar

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First up, an interview that’s been a long time in the making. Hybachi LeMar is an anarchist who grew up in Chicago and began considering anarchism thanks to a letter he received from Anthony Rayson of the South Chicago Anarchist Black Cross Zine Distro during over a year in solitary confinement years ago. Since that time, Compa LeMar has been organizing with projects like IWOC, IWW IU613, the self-organized Liberation School in Englewood, food distribution mutual aid, the Chicago local organizing committee of the Black Autonomy Federation and is now the author of three collections of essays (listed at his website) as well as numerous zines.

The majority of this chat has difficult audio quality because it was over prison phones. Happily at the end of the chat, we speak with Hybachi following his recent release, having maxed out his sentence and returned to his organizing and life in the streets of Chicago. There is a fundraiser ongoing to support Hybachi in his post-release life.

To hear Hybachi’s spoken piece On The Powers of Self-Reflection, produced by Slug, check it out at the end of the chat.

There are a few mentions of mental distress and suicide in the chat, just a headsup. Compa LeMar mentions a few names in the episode of people that we’ve had on the show in the past, and we’ll link those episodes where we can (Brianna Peril of IWOC, Sean Swain, Anthony Rayson of South Chicago ABC Zine Distro, True Leap). You can find ways to support Casey Goonan at their support site.

Announcements

B(A)D News Episode 100!

If you’re looking for more anarchist news beyond the Channel Zero Network podcasts, check out B(A)D News: Angry Voices from Around The World from the A-Radio Network (of which we are also a member). The March 2026 episode features:

  1. FrequenzeA presents an interview about environmental struggles in Russia.
  2. A-Radio Berlin presents a satiric piece called “Weird politics” where they talk about German military, AfD, and the wolf.
  3. Parias radio-show presents an interview about the repression the Community of Squatted Prosfygıka in Athens.
  4. The last contribution is from Radio Ausbruch that was visiting feralcrust, an Eco-anarchist Infoshop and Social Center close to Davao City, Philipines. The first of a series.

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Out Here For Them: Updates As Prairieland Federal Trial Ends

image with featuring broken chain links, crescent moons, kale, flowers, raccoons, other animals and the words " Support The Prairieland Defendants" plus "TFSR 3-29-26 | Out Here For Them: Updates As The Prairieland Federal Trial Ends"This week we spoke with AC and E, two members of the DFW Support Committee about the recently finished federal trial for 9 defendants in the terrorism case around the Prairieland Detention Center noise demo in July of 2025.

To recap the case, in the midst of increased racist and nativist rhetoric, ICE and CBP snatch squad deployments ripping apart communities across the US in the first year of Trump 2.0, and the buildup of immigrant rendition and imprisonment in the southwest there was a July 4th noise demonstration called for to happen outside the infamous Prairieland Detention Center outside Alvarado, Texas. During the protest, meant to be loud enough for people held there to hear that they were not forgotten, participants used bullhorns, shouted, shot off fireworks and painted slogans. In response the staff called the Alvarado police and upon arrival the cop drew his weapon and aimed at dispersing protestors. At this point the state narrative and that of the defendants diverge: on the one hand the state argues that this whole event was a planned ambush for law enforcement by a north Texas Antifa terrorist cell in black bloc meant to draw police into a fight and then liberate the prison; on the other side the defendants claim the event was escalated to targeted gunfire by defendant Song meant to deter deadly violence by the cop and allow the crowd to disperse without bloodshed.

For the hour, you’ll hear folks from DFW Defense Committee talking about what evidence and arguments were presented in court, what evidence and arguments were suppressed, the strange decisions of the judge in jury selection, venue and other elements effecting the ability of those facing decades in prison to mount and defense and where we’re at now with the case. This case cannot be disconnected from the Trump administration’s call to name Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, to tie in projects and movements they consider to be enemies (ranging from Democrats to civil liberties groups, queer folk and immigrants rights advocates to anti-fascists, communists and anarchists and everyone in between) with the goal, some speculate, of more fully capturing the federal government under a white, christian nationalist and fascist regime. More on the case at PrairielandDefendants.Com

A couple of useful links for the case:

Next week, keep an ear out for a chat we plan to release with Nina of Anarchist Black Cross Dresden about the impacts of naming German antifascists as terrorists by the Trump Regime on the ability of various leftist, anti-repression groups there to do their work, to hold bank accounts for sending money to prisoners or pay for lawyers and about the shift towards the right electorally and politically that is being experienced in that country. You may be surprised about the parallels with the situation in the US.

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Homeless Organizing in Oakland and the Wood Street Movie

A still from the film showing two figures from behind, leaning up against and peering through a fence at an empty lo next to highway interchanges under a purplish sky, plus "TFSR 3-22-26 | Homeless Organizing in Oakland and the Wood Street Movie"
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This week on The Final Straw Radio, we’re featuring an interview with three participants in the feature length documentary Wood Street, about the community that formed in a parking lot at 1707 Wood Street in Oakland. The location was a destination for people evicted from encampments around the city, who either refused or were denied the low number of shelter beds available, or didn’t fit into the city lots for camping or recreational vehicles aka RVs. Over the course of 10 years at a few spots on the street, as guest John Janosko explains, residents got to know each other and build bonds to the place and each other as neighbors. The north portion of what became known as the Wood Street Commons was evicted by the city to build transitional tiny homes managed by a services organization called BOSS and residents at the south side of the Commons ramped up organizing with outside supporters to stop the city’s eviction plan in 2023 through lobbying politicians and proposing alternative plans. The film shows this work, snippets of the lives of residents and the eventual eviction of the Wood Street Commons in 2023, with over 300 people losing their homes in the end.

Since the eviction, the tiny home camp funding ended and it was vacated, the mayor Sheng Thao was recalled and indicted for corruption and the site became a parking lot for a minor league baseball park next door, but people have taken their energy and experience to keep advocating for themselves and other Oaklanders around issues of houselessness. For the hour we speak with John Janosko, a featured face in the film, as well as our past guest Freeway and the film’s director Caron Creighton. The Wood Street Movie is touring a number of film festivals and looking to feature elsewhere, in hopes that the film can act as a support and inspiration for other homeless organizing in communities across the country.

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Rayhunter with Cooper Quintin plus deBanking the Movement in Germany

This week, we’re sharing two segments.

"Rayhunter: Detecing Cell-Site Simulators (aka Stingrays) with Cooper Quintin | The Final Straw Radio – TFSR 2-22-26" featuring the logo for Rayhunter, an orca leaping and taking a bite out of a graph showing available cellular connectivity
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First up, a chat with Cooper Quintin, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and developer of the Rayhunter. Rayhunter is open-source firmware to turn specific hotspots into IMSI-catcher, effectively scanning for and logging any signs of fake cell towers (often known under the brand-name of Stingrays) in the area. Law enforcement has at times deployed these as a way of collecting information about phones in the area and could use it to intercept some communications like sms or phone calls. Cooper talks about what’s known of law enforcement use of IMSI-catchers, what has been observed of the data collected by deployed Rayhunters, phone security at demonstrations and related topics.

Then you’ll hear Radio Ausbruch from Frieberg from this month’s B(A)D News podcast from the A-Radio Network talking about the repression and deBanking of anti-repression projects like ABC Dresden and Rote Hilfe in Germany based on pressure from the US government related to the so-called Antifa Ost case. This carries heavy implications for prisoner support, anti-racist and other social struggles.

Links

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Death To The Dictator: Uprising and Repression in Iran (with Anarchism Perspective)

"Death To The Dictator: Uprising & Repression in Iran (with Anarchism Perspective" and a photo of masked people posing with a torn-down poster of Khamenei
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This week, an interview with Aryanum, a member of the Persian-language anarchist group Anarchism Perspective, based in Iran and Afghanistan. Anarchism Perspective is a synthesist anarchist group based mostly in the region that organizes solidarity and resistance as well as publishing writings at Anarshism.com . For this episode, we speak about the recent uprising in Iran that was met with bloody repression by the regime, with internet blackouts and low-ball estimates of 30,000 dead at government hands from January 8th and 9th 2026 alone. Aryanum speaks about the posturing by monarchists supporting the return and enthroning of Reza Pahlavi II, the son of the last Shah, and the weaponization of Islam by the Mullahs of the regime and other topics.

Anarchism Perspective links

Other Links

Another Farsi Group, Anarchist Front:

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Rojava Revolution In Peril: a perspective from Tekoşîna Anarşîst and a voice in Qamişlo

a photo of TA militants playing chess in the front lines, February 2025 plus "TFSR 2-2-26 | Rojava Revolution In Peril: a perspective from Tekoşîna Anarşîst and a voice in Qamişlo"
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We’re sharing this episode a little early so it’s still timely as relates to the threats faced by the Rojava revolution in north and east Syria.

First up, we’ll hear some updates and assessments from Garzan, a member of Tekoşîna Anarşîst, an internationalist anarchist structure based in Rojava and aligned with the Syrian Defense Forces. Garzan’s voice has been re-recorded for anonymity and a transcript of their audio is available in the show notes.

Then, we hear from Jînda a western activist engaged in solidarity with the Rojava Revolution to speak about what the spread of Syrian transitional government and the Turkish-backed so-called Syrian National Army militia into areas formerly under control of the Syrian Defense Forces means for women and different ethnic and religious minorities.

Some Further Reading

Some Internationalist Structures to Keep Up with Calls for Support

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Anarchists At War in Spain, Myanmar and Rojava (with James Stout)

book cover of "Anarchists At War" featuring a photo of a barricade in Myanmar with a black flag raised high plus "TFSR 1-11-26 | Anarchists At War in Spain, Myanmar and Rojava (with James Stout)"
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This week, an interview with James Stout on his upcoming AK Press book: Against The State: Anarchists and Comrades at War in Spain, Myanmar, and Rojava, due out early January. You may recognize James as a contributor to the Cool Zone podcast It Could Happen Here (including the recent four parter, “Darién Gap: One Year Later” December 1-4th episodes, 2025), distributed by IheartMedia. For this episode, we talk about the idea of anarchist armies, discuss those three conflicts, left libertarian approaches to formalized armed resistance beyond a guerrilla unit, some of the novel technologies and international solidarities that have developed and a lot more.

Other podcasts James has worked on

Reports Related To Child Soldiers and Conscription among the SDF

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Featured Track:

  • Canción de Soldados by Chicho Sanchez Ferlosio from Canciones De La Resistencia Española Año 1963

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