This week, we are excited to share with y’all an interview with TL, the main artist and designer of Bloc by Bloc: The Game of Insurrection. From the website of Out Of Order games, which publishes the game, “Bloc by Bloc is a semi-cooperative strategy board game inspired by 21st century riots and revolutions. The game features hidden agendas, deep strategy, area control, asymmetrical player abilities, and a special method for randomly generating billions of unique city layouts.”
Well, now the second edition of the game has launched a kickstarter to pay for the new edition. This new edition includes streamlined game play, new pieces and new scenarios in order to improve the initial game. For the hour, TL & I talk about how the board game was developed, what study of real-world did to influence the game’s development, TL’s thoughts on how play can strengthen strategic thought, cultural means of spreading liberatory imagination with story-telling, and cooperation and more.
To jump in and get a physical, printed copy of the 2nd edition of Bloc by Bloc, search kickstarter and the title of the game. If you have the 1st edition and want the streamlined update, also check out the kickstarter for ways to update. If you want a free version of the game for you to print out by yourself and play for the cost of printing with your friends, you can download all of the elements.
TL mentions that Out Of Order games is looking for translation of the game into other, non-English languages, seeking a degree of fluency in game terminology and the languages in question. They are also always seeking review and design inputs. You can email the Out of Order crew here.
This week I had the chance to speak to Ricchi, who is a Puerto Rican anarchist, about an autonomous squatted community center in Borique called Valle Garita. In this episode, we talk about the squatted space and the intentions of the organizers, plus the cultural context of squatting, reactions of the police, landlord, and bank, and some concrete asks for solidarity and support from non locals. We end the show with a brief report back and analysis of what went down on May Day in San Juan and all over Puerto Rico, so stay tuned for that!
On the social media, you can follow the Valle Garita squat by following @vallegarita or following that same hashtag, you can also search for them on Facebook. You can also follow Urbe Apie on Instagram @urbeapie.
For sending cards and letters of support you can address envelopes to:
Urbe Apie
Paseo Gautier Bénitez #16
Caguas Puerto Rico 00725
Letters can be written in Spanish, English, or any other language!
A brief correction from our last show where I interviewed Nutty about the monopod blockade at the Hellbender Autonomous Zone, I stated that the MVP was overseen by Dominion Resources and Duke Energy, and that is not the case, I was thinking of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The MVP is in fact owned by EQT Midstream Partners and NextEra Energy, Inc. EQT has a history of fracking and is now trying to get into transport. Thanks to all the people who set me right on that! If you have any questions or corrections, don’t hesitate to email us at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net
Shoutout to Nutty, Red, and Minor, and all those who are protecting and defending the land and water from predatory corporate pipelines!
For regular listeners of The Final Straw, the sound quality might not be what you are used to from us. We are continuing to experiment with our audio set ups, please bear with us through these experiments!
. … . ..
Josh Gerdts Memorial Fund
In some very sad news, Josh Gerdts, an anti-racist skinhead, was murdered two days ago in Chesterfield County just south of Richmond VA. He leaves behind a family, including a very young child. The family has set up a gofundme to help pay for the funeral and to help raise the child, which you can find at http://www.gofundme.com/joshgerdts
Rest in power, Josh. You will be missed.
Vendenga Rojava: a New Radio Show out of Rojava, Mesopotamia
VEDENGA ROJAVA – ECHOES OF THE RESISTANCE An internationalists radio project bringing an inside look into Afrin resistance. Revolutionaries from different parts of the world organized in different collectives and organizations in Rojava found and importance to come together and launch an audio project focused on the peoples resistance against an invasion of Afrin canton carried by the fascist state of Turkey and its jihadist proxies. Our aim is to spread an awareness of this historical event and inspire English speaking folks all over the globe by ongoing struggle and revolutionary organizing in Afrin, Rojava and beyond. Listen and share our reports, updates, analysis, interviews, stories about life of fallen comrades, music and more. This radio show is a limited project and will have only three issues. For more tune us up on May 16th on soundcloud.com/vedengarojava.”
No More Deaths
From nomoredeaths.org: “On January 17, Scott Warren – a humanitarian aid provider from the group No More Deaths – and two individuals receiving humanitarian aid were arrested by US Border Patrol. Scott was preliminarily charged with felony harboring and could face five years in prison.
We need your support to fight these charges and resist the dangerous, divisive claim that sharing food and water with undocumented immigrants is a criminal offense.”
We are well into our preparation for the next Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair, happening June 22nd-24th, and we want to invite you to participate in shaping the themes and helping gear up for this exciting weekend!
We are holding an interest meeting to ask for volunteers and discuss possible contributions folks can make:
Monday May 7 at 7pm Firestorm Books 610 Haywood Road
Our main items where we need help are:
Street Team Promotion, Online/Social Media Promotion, Arranging Housing for Out of Towners, Fundraising, Cook Food, DAY OF (biggest Need)
If you have other ideas, we welcome your input!
This week’s installment of #error451 podcast, Bursts and William Budington speak about facial recognition technology. We chat about how different methods are employed, scanning of social media by police and security forces, different methods used to avoid it such as camouflage, lights, makeup and masks, the Google Arts & Culture app comparing people’s selfies to the contents of art museums and more.
Check out past episodes of Error451 and hit us up if you have ideas for segments or guests you’d like to hear from. Check out our contact page!
This is episode number 11 of “B(A)D NEWS – Angry voices from around the world”, a news program from the international network of anarchist and anti-authoritarian radios, consisting of short news segments from different parts of the world.
(Overall duration 39:33)
Content:
– The Hotwire from Crimethinc: school shootings in the united states & youth liberation;
– 105fm, on the island of Lesvos, come with news from around the North Aegean including the persecution of migrants at Moria and in court
– Dissident Island Radio in London tell us strike organizing among staff & lecturers at the University & College Union in the UK plus words from Anna Campbell, a UK-born antifascist, animal liberationist and anarchist organizer awho was killed during the Turkish assault on Efrin in Rojava
– From Athens Radiozones of Subversive Expression have words about the acquittal of Golden Dawn racists of hate speech, levels charges at anarchist Tasos Theofilou of terrorism by identity
– A-Radio Berlin shares thoughts on fake news, a website called getbadnewscom (nothing to do with us) about media literacy
– and AGAIN a segment from The Hot Wire, pulling from sub.Media‘s 2014 interview with anarchist panther, Ashanti Alston, about the continuance of the murders of Black people in the so-called U.S. by police despite decades passing since the life (and death) of Martin Luther King Jr. (assassinated 50 years ago this year) and an announcement by members of the former Black Lives Matter chapter in Cincinnati, OH, USA, critiquing and splitting from the BLM organization.
This week we got the chance to speak with Yousef Natsha, who is a Palestinian filmmaker and activist about his new documentary called Hebron. In this interview we talk about how he got into making this documentary, some historical and present day context for this series of struggles in Hebron City, and some suggestions for action.
We’ve been skipping out on announcements, so here’s a few to play catchup:
First, in local news: Next Sunday, April 1st at 5pm is the monthly political prisoner letter writing event by Blue Ridge ABC at Firestorm Books & Coffee, 610 Haywood Rd in West Asheville. All the necessary materials will be provided as well as a curated list of political prisoners in the U.S. with upcoming birthdays.
Following letter writing, at 7pm EST, we’ll be showing the latest episode of TROUBLE by sub.media. This 30 minute-long documentary about struggles against patriarchy around the world will be followed by a discussion on the film. More details up at brabc.blackblogs.org
ACAB2018 Bookfair Signups
ANNOUNCING, the second annual Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair aka ACAB 2018. Hosted in Asheville, NC over the weekend of June 22-24. Last year, hundreds of people from the southeast and beyond participated in workshops, talks, panels, community building, skill sharing, and celebrating resistance. Dozens of presses, publishers, radical and anarchist groups displayed their books, zines, artwork, and promoted their projects. This year will be even better, as we continue to build sites of resistance, structures of counter-power, and networks of solidarity across the region and the world.
Do you have skills to help build the future we want to see? We want to offer a diverse and comprehensive range of activities that could include analysis and theory, models of organizing, anti-repression, environmental resistance, physical and community self-defense, technological offensive & defensive practices, abolition & transformative justice, and more. Sign up for vending and workshops is now open! The form for workshops can be found at acab2018.noblogs.org/workshops-speakers/
Do you have a radical grassroot project, an independent press, anarchist publishing group/distro, cool anarchist and anti-racist merch, or just someone who would like a table to promote your project?! The form for those interested in tabling or vending at Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair can be found at acab2018.noblogs.org/vendors-publishers
The vendor/tabling portion will take place both Saturday 23 & Sunday 24. You can table one or both days.
The deadline for signing up is April 15 for workshops and vendors.
For more information and ways to get involved, check our website at, ACAB2018.noblogs.org or Follow us on Instagram @ACAB.2018 for instant updates!
Afrin
March 24th was an International Day of Solidarity with Afrin, the canton and epinomious city in Rojava that’s been beseiged and now over-run by Turkish and Islamist Free Syrian Army forces. People in cities around the world shared space, took to the streets, chanted, waved banners, held discussions and more to raise awareness that the world was watching the atrocities in Rojava at the hands of the FSA & the Turkish state. Info on events can be found at ItsGoingDown.Org
Rojava is the democratically administered region in what would be the West of Kurdistan, or northern Syria, where there has been a social revolution undertaken by multi-ethnic and religious councils, foregrounding struggles against patriarchy, with a vision of direct democracy, feminism, autonomy, ecology and anti-capitalism. The U.S. has been fighting alongside of the mostly Kurdish forces in the YPG & all-women YPJ militia to destroy strongholds of Daesh (aka ISIS). The YPG & YPJ have proven some of the most effective units to fight Daesh as they’re fighting for their own communities and values as opposed to professional soldiers brought in from elsewhere.
The recent incursions by Turkey and the FSA over the Syrian border are in a way the fault of the U.S. for claiming it was going to use the YPG & YPJ as a border security force, giving the Turkish government of egomaniac fundamentalist Erdogan the symbolic signal that the Rojavan forces could be attacked. Turkey has aided, armed and abetted Daesh by allowing them to cross the border between Turkey and Syria and shares the common enemy of Rojava as Rojava views the Kurdish political prisoner in Turkey, Abdullah Ocalan aka Apo, as their ideological founder. For Daesh, Rojava is an enemy because it’s hetero-cultural, empowers women and struggles against centralized state authority, as opposed to the Daesh and Turkish fascist forces.
So, in recent weeks, Afrin has been beseiged and invaded. The city has finally been taken by forces of what is the second largest army in NATO, Turkey being just behind the U.S. Hundreds if not thousands have died or fled the surrounding areas away from the bombs and mercenaries of the Turkish military and the FSA. Videos have floated around the internet of Turkish soldiers in Afrin giving the salute of the Turkish fascist “Grey Wolves” grouping and FSA and Turkish soldiers looting & pillaging the city.
The struggle in Rojava has inspired people in The West to join International Brigades, a reflection of the international struggle against Fascism during the Spanish Civil War. With the following announcements we don’t mean to undermine the self-defense struggles of people from Rojava who have been hurt or killed defending their homes and spreading their revolution, only to fulfill these listener requests and also tip our hats to brave Westerners whose solidaristic hearts brought them to fight in Rojava against the forces of reaction and for the new world in their hearts.
First is Anna Campbell. Anna was a dedicated feminist, social justice and environmental campaigner known to many for her activism around the student occupation movement, ecological and community outreach projects in Bristol and Sheffield. She was a key organiser in the IWW’s IWOC group, also being involved with the Empty Cages Collective, Smash IPP and Bristol ABC. Here is some audio sent by a friend of hers of Anna reading a statement from the Rojava Commune: https://iww.org.uk/news/anna-campbell-rest-in-power-fellow-worker/
Here is another statement, this time about an Anarchist from Turkey who died defending Afrin:
Our anarchist comrade and friend Şevger Ara Makhno arrived in Rojava on 20th January 2018 to take part in the revolution. Only the day before the army of the Turkish state and its jihadist proxies had begun the invasion of the autonomous region of Afrin, an area which had remained at peace throughout seven years of war and had become both a cradle for the Rojava revolution and a safe haven for hundred thousands of refugees from all over Syria. While the AKP and its allies ever more violently pushed Turkey towards fascism and the military brutally smashed the insurrection in North Kurdistan, Rojava and especially Afrin became a beacon of hope and resistance for all those who defied Erdogan’s regime.
Comrade Şevger was from Turkey himself, he passionately wanted to join this resistance at the frontlines. He received basic military training in the canton of Cizîre and on 19th February arrived in Afrin, where he immediately took part in the ongoing defence. As part of the Anti-Fascist Forces in Afrin (AFFA), a unit of internationalist revolutionaries within the YPG, he faced the invaders in the vicinity of Raco in the northwest of Afrin.
On the 4th March comrade Şevger had taken position on a hill outside the village of Berbêne ready to defend it against the advancing fascists. It was there that around 8AM he and two other YPG comrades were hit by an air-strike. All three of them lost their lives. In accordance with the wishes of his family his picture and legal identity will not be published, in order to protect the people close to him from repression.
We mourn the loss of our comrade and extend our condolences to all his friends, family and everyone who had the fortune to share their lives with this great and inspiring person. The people of Rojava and northern Syria and all those who are fighting for freedom and an end to oppression in the Middle East and beyond will never forget him. We know that he will live on that as long as his love and passion continue to thrive in our hearts.
Şehîd namirin! Bi hev re heta hetayî – anarşîst û apocî!
If your heart is free the ground you stand on is liberated territory. Defend it!
Show Stuff
The Final Straw is a ALSO a part of the International A-Radio Network, which produces a monthly podcast called “B(A)DNews: Angry Voices From Around The World”. The newest episode is out and free to download and we have a link on our website pointing to it. Check out anarchist perspectives from the U.S., Greece, Russia, the U.K. If you know of anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist radios or podcasts that’d be a good fit for our international and anti-nationalist network, point them to a-radio-network.org and have them contact us. We’re always looking for more angry voices from around the world.
Fundraising
This month we started a patreon subscription and donation page for the Final Straw podcast so that listeners could throw us some money for equipment, merchandise, travel and operational costs. In past years we’ve paid out of pocket (and with kind donations from other members of the A-Radio Network) to travel to the A-Radio conference and conduct interviews along the way with interesting projects. We’ve paid out of pocket to attend the North American Anarchist Black Cross conference and recorded the public proceedings there and connected with former political prisoners and organizers in IWOC and ABC chapters. We’ve recorded proceedings from the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair and other public, out of town events traveling on our own funds. Well, we want to bring y’all more audio you can’t easily hear and hope that you’ll help. Visit patreon.com/tfsr for ways to donate and thank yous we’re offering. We now have more than enough coming in to cover our web syndication for our podcast, which is a great start and a great alleviation off our pocketbooks. Want to donate but can’t make a regular donation? Visit thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/donate/ for a few other ways to send us money. Want some of the swag up at patreon.com but can’t make a regular donation? We can work something out, just get ahold of us. Thanks so much to Zuki, Olivia, scott, Jackie, Tiger & Chris for signing up!
First, there’s the interview that Bursts held with Michael Davis Africa Jr., a member of the MOVE organization. MOVE is a Philadelphia-based black liberation group founded by John Africa in 1972. The group lives communally. During the conversation, Michael Jr. talks about the case of the MOVE9, who were 9 members of that group who were arrested and accused of the killing of a police officer in 1978 in Philadelphia, a charge they each deny. Officer James Ramp was killed following a year of the Philly PD blockading the house for a year under an eviction order and the police besieged the house on August 8th, 1978. The MOVE 9 have been incarcerated for almost 40 years now, with Merle & Phil dying behind bars. Police and white supremacist affiliated groups have successfully gotten parole denied for Eddie, Michael and Delbert Africa over the last 9 months as they do for many Political Prisoners from the 1960’s through 80’s in the U.S. There are upcoming are parole hearings for Janet, Janine and Debbie Africa and more info on who to petition for their release can be found at http://onamove.com/move-9/. The name of the D.A. who prosecuted the MOVE9 in 1978 and who is still on the paperwork and has a say on the parole of the MOVE9 40 years later is named John Straub.
Coming up this Saturday, February 24th starting at 4pm there’ll be an event called “Framed In America: The Making of Political Prisoners”. This will take place at The National Black Theater, 2031 5th Ave in Harlem, New York and will include presentations by Ramona Africa, Fred Hampton Jr, Pam Africa, Roger Wareham, Betty Davis, Ralph Poynter and Johanna Fernandez. More info can be found on the Justice for the Move 9 fedbook group.
Stare Into The Light My Pretties
The second conversation you’ll hear today is an interview by Dissident Island Radio from London from their February 2nd episode. In this, a collective member interviews Filmmaker Jordan Brown, director of ‘Stare Into the Lights My Pretties’, discussing their documentary about screen culture and its implications. The film is available for free on archive.org, youtubeand at truthstreammedia.com. DI is a member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts available at channelzeronetwork.com.
Anarcho-Syndicalist Organizing in Kosovo
Finally, we’ll be airing an interview conducted by our friends at Črna Luknja on Radio Student in Lubjlana, Slovenia, that they conducted with members of an anarcho-syndicalist collective from Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. This segment was released as a part of the February 2018 edition of B(A)DNews: Angry Voices From Around The World, from the A-Radio Network of which The Final Straw, Črna Luknja and Dissident Island are members.
Mere days before FDC’s repression effort began scattering active prisoners into new facilities, and into solitary confinement for the weeks surrounding January 15, an Operation PUSH prisoner’s anonymous voice reached the world and called on outside supporters to “shine a light from the outside in on the system.”
In essence, this prisoner saw what was coming and passed the torch to us on the outside. With three clear demands and a simple strategy, this invisible group of prisoners gave a glimpse of what could be, if the networks of outside solidarity and inside communication could coalesce.
While we have heard from many prisoners since January 15, we know that the vast majority of FL prisoners still do not know how much support they garnered on the outside. And many who made plans to struggle together have not seen or heard from each other in weeks. In many ways, the next steps towards victory for them are in our hands.
It is with this understanding that a group of us on the outside are developing an additional list of demands, based primarily on communication from prisoners we’ve gotten in recent weeks, that aims to honor the countless who have suffered major sacrifices to develop or report on Operation PUSH as well as those who had no idea what it was, but were punished preemptively simply because they were viewed as potential organizers or participants.
We will do all we can to bring these demands to FDC, the Governor and State Legislature, in an effort to carry the prisoners’ vision for Operation PUSH forward.
In addition to the Operation PUSH demands of payment, parole and pricing, we, supporters of all Florida prisoners struggling for dignity, demand:
An end to censorship of publications that give voice to prisoners and/or critique prisons;
An end to repression of prisoners for communication with outside advocates;
An end to the use of Security Threat Group status as a means for political repression;
An end to strip cells and extreme temperatures to torture prisoners;
An explanation of the cause for a major spike in 2017 prisoner deaths;
Protection of prisoners health from nearby industrial activity, including phosphate mining and landfills;
An end to black mold-infested facilities, spoiled food and dilapidated buildings;
Removal of all KKK members, and other recognized racist hate groups, from FDC staff;
An end to the medical co-pay that results in financial debt and untreated illness;
An immediate reduction in prison population using existing guidelines for clemency; and
A face-to-face meeting with FDC officials to further discuss these matters.
This week William got the chance to speak to Bruno Renero-Hannan, who is an anarchist historical anthropologist from Mexico City, about their solidarity work around two of the original 250 Loxicha Prisoners in the state of Oaxaca. This rebellion and imprisonment occurred almost simultaneously to the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas in the mid-late 90s with very different results. We talk about the long and complex history of this case, the similarities and differences between this uprising and that of the Zapatistas, the ongoing political repression of Alvaro Ramirez and Abraham Ramirez, and the economic solidarity push being orgainized by our guest, as well as some stark parallels between this case and that of the remaining 59 J20 defendants. If you would like to see the 45 minute broadcast edit of this interview, you can go to The Final Straw Radio Collection on archive.org.
As per the very reasonable request on the part of the folks doing support for Alvaro and Abraham, we have omitted the Sean Swain segment for this episode. The You Are the Resistance topic did not pair well with the main interview content nor were Keep Loxicha Free supporters aware of the segment. We regret any confusion or discomfort that this caused.
We would like to take a bit of space here to explain to new listeners that many of the Sean Swain segments are meant in the spirit of satire; Swain himself has been a political prisoner for over 25 years at this point, and his humor is sometimes abrasive, but he is a committed believer in the dismantling of all forms of oppression.
He and we are open to feedback on this segment, and any content we present!
Sean Swain #243-205 Warren CI P.O. Box 120 Lebanon, Ohio 45036
Resist Nazis in Tennessee
On Saturday, Feb 17, Matthew Heinbach of the Traditionalist Workers Party will be speaking at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville from 1-4pm. If you don’t like this, you can contact the University by calling 8659749265 and demand that they disinvite this open neo-nazi organizer from their campus!
Some Benefits in Asheville
For the drinkers in Asheville, this week features two libation-centric benefits for books to prisoners projects.
On Wednesday, February 14, Valentines Day, three bars in Asheville will be participating in a drink special that will raise money for Tranzmission Prison Project, our local LGBT books to prisoners project with a national scope. You can visit the Crow & Quill on Lexington, the Lazy Diamond around the corner in Downtown or the Double Crown on Haywood in West Asheville on Wednesday for more details.
On Thursday, February 15th at the Catawba’s South Slope Tasting Room & Brewery (32 Banks Avenue #105) for their first New Beer Thursday fundraiser of 2018!! Starting with the release on the 15th and running through March, a portion of the cost of every glass of their pomegranate sour sold will be donated to the Asheville Prison Books Program!
More events coming up this week include: Thursday the 15th at 7pm Blue Ridge ABC is holding a benefit show at Static Age for a local activists with a sliding scale cost. Bands featured are Kreamy Lectric Santa, Cloudgayzer, Secret Shame, Falcon Mitts & Chris Head
Later that night in Asheville, the monthly benefit dance party called HEX will be holding an event at the Mothlight to raise money and materials for A-Hope, which provides services locally to houseless and poor folks. Bring socks, footwear and camping gear to donate!
On Tuesday, April 20th at 6pm at The Shell Studio, 474 Haywood Rd on the second floor, there will be a showing of the locally produced documentary entitled Hebron about human rights struggles in Palestine.
On Friday the 23rd at 6:30pm, the Steady Collective will be participating in a Harm Reduction forum at the Haywood Street Congregation at 297 Haywood St. in downtown.
Also that night, BRABC will be showing the latest TROUBLE documentary by sub.media at 7:30pm at firestorm books and coffee. This will be a second on Student Organizing around the world.
Finally, on Saturday the 24th 9am to 3pm at Rainbow School, 60 State Street in Asheville there’ll be a Really Really Free Market organized by the Blue Ridge General Defense Committee or GDC. Bring stuff that’s still good to share and come back with other stuff that’s still good for free! Perfect for spring cleaning or dealing with inclement weather on a budget.
A Call for Art Submissions for ACAB2018…
A reminder that if you are the sensitive, artistic type, the ACAB2018, or Asheville Carolina Anarchist Bookfair is soliciting art for fundraising and advertising purposes. If you have image ideas that you can put into action and want to share them, that’d be dope. We’re looking for things we can put onto postcards, t-shirts, posters and other swag to spread word about the event and help us cover the costs of operation. Contact us at acab2018@riseup.net
…and for Yours Truly at TFS
Likewise, if you are feeling artsy fartsy and want to help out this show, we’re looking for swag imagery, either as a logo or a standalone piece of art we can feature for fundraising purposes. If you like the show and want to help, post your files on share.riseup.net and send us a link at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net or share it with one of our social media identities. If we choose to use your art, we’ll send you a mix tape with one side produced by each of our regular contributing editors.
First, we air a portion of Ursula K. Le Guin’s acceptance speech from the 2014 National Book Awards, where she received the Lifetime Acheivement award. Ursula K. Le Guin, wrote fantasy and sci-fi for 77 years of her life, contributing many books such as The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Word for World is Forest & The Earthsea Series. She died on Monday, January 22nd at the age of 88. Her fiction touched on many themes, including anarchism, taoism, gender, environmentalism, sociology, anthropology and psychology. Her official website is here. The full video this was pulled from, including the introduction by Neil Gaiman can be found here.
The third and fourth portion of CKUT’s Prison Radio Show interviews with former Black Panther and BLA Political Prisoner of War Jalil Muntaqim. In the third segment, Jalil speak about being incarcerated during the Attica Uprising, the ideas of Intercommunalism, Internationalism and Nationalism, as well as the idea of revolution. In the final portion, Jalil speaks on spirituality and politics, ISIS and a message to rappers. More of his writings and info on his case can be found at freejalil.com
Support Kevin Rashid Johnson!
We are nearing the end of the second week of #OperationPUSH!, which is described in a statement released by participants, as a work stoppage or “laydown” in at least eight prison facilities around the state of Florida. The beginning of this plan coincided with Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday on January 15th 2018, in protest of the deplorable conditions in FL prisons. This comes hot on the heels of the September 9th prison strike which took place in 2016 on the 45th anniversary of Attica, and disrupted operations in dozens if not hundreds of prisons across the country. This is being called the largest prison strike in US history, and was followed by several subsequent strikes all over the country. It has been difficult to get information about OperationPUSH!; FL prisons are being predictably recalcitrant and have also been imposing communication blackouts for even suspected participants.
However, there has been one major insight into this situation in the form of an article by Kevin Rashid Johnson entitled Florida Prisoners are Laying It Down. In this article, Rashid (who is a prison journalist and self taught paralegal) describes conditions within Florida prisons in detail, including the high cost of goods in the commissary coupled with the fact of forced and unpaid labor, up to and including a culture of abuse and neglect by prison staff. In retaliation, Rashid has been thrown into an unheated cell, with no working toilet and with a window that cannot properly close, making the temperature equal to the subzero environment outside.
This is a clear sign of retaliatory torture, and surely is what Rashid calls “a true emergency”. It is urgently requested that people call the prison to advocate for and demand the immediate cessation of this abuse on the part of the prison!
Please call:
Warden Barry Reddish
Florida State Prison
Raiford, FL 32083 904-368- 2500
The demands are:
Move Johnson (#158039) to a properly climate controlled cell with working toilet
Immediately allow Mr. Johnson to make phone calls to his attorneys
Stop retaliating against him for reporting on conditions within your prisons.
A little heads up about media worth checking out. This week, It’s Going Down aired a podcast interview with an anarchist in the U.S. who’s from Turkey about the Turkish assaults on Afrin, one of the cantons of Rojava, the autonomous Kurdish region in Northern Syria. Afrin is administered by the Democratic Confederalist PYD and defended by the YPG & YPJ militias. The interview covers some of the history as relevant to anarchists, some of the developments of Rojava through the Syrian Civil War, their alliance with the United States and Rojava’s relationship with Turkey and other states involved in the proxy wars in the region. This interview is well worth a listen, and hopefully can aid you in organizing reading groups, fundraisers or demonstrations in your area in support of Rojava and it’s tenuous experiment.
An Update from Us!
Just a little heads up, too, we’re messing with our podcast a little bit, not so much in format but more so in distribution. So, we set up a soundcloud with the three latest episodes and all of the episodes in our podcast stream are now up youtube though the videos only plays our show as you’d hear with the episode image as the background. If those platforms are your deal, swing by and follow us. I’d also like to remind y’all that we’re up on itunes. If you go into that blasted program and rate our content and write reviews, it fucks with the algorithms and will make the show visible to wider audiences.
Also, I’d like to reiterate what we say in the introduction to the show, that we have a free edition of the show that’s 59 minutes in length and falls within the requirements of the FCC here in the U.S. for radio broadcast. If you have a community or college radio station in your area and you’d like to hear us up on the airwaves, getting into folks’ cars, houses, jail cells, work places or whatever by the magical accident of radio science, check out our Radio Broadcasting link at our website, hit us up on social media or email us to get the ball rolling. In addition, we suggest getting some friends together to petition the local radio overlords to get us on their station.
Finally, just to remind y’all, we love hearing feedback and show suggestions. Finding a different person or persons every week to fill an hour with interesting content is hard work, and cues from y’all really helps us plug away at this volunteer endeavor. As always, you can email us at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net
This week, Bursts was joined by Pat Boyle, a collective member at Unicorn Riot (more about them later in this post), radical independent media project. We chatted about crypto-currency, Bitcoin in particular, technologies and strategies involved in the implementation of crypto-currency, recent comings to light of increased wealth coming via Bitcoin into the hands of far right racists and ecological impacts of crypto-mining.
As to the far right, we referenced an article from IdaVox and one from Mic.com, as well as the twitterbot @NeoNaziWallets that can be visited to track transactions with the bitcoin wallets of well-known white supremacists.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange trading of Bitcoin was brought up a few times, and it was just introduced to the Private, or secondary, Market of the NASDAQ.
An example of an interesting use of cryptocurrency ongoing against the prison industrial complex is the BailBloc project that is shared between the Bronx Freedom Fund and The New Inquiry.
Some great Unicorn Riot content that Pat & company have been releasing this year (an incomplete list):
Black Snake Killaz, full length documentary about resistance to the #DAPL;
Coverage from Greece & the G20 in Hamburg, Germany;
on the ground in Charlottesville, VA for Unite The Right;
the processing of TONS of documentation of the UTR organizing on the (leaked) Discord chat platform;
Our interview last year with Unicorn Riot’s Pat Boyle and Wendy Parker; their appearance on Delete Your Account talking about their coverage of the Alt-Right.
track heard: Traffic by Babyland from their 1992 album, You Suck Crap.
Airs on WSFM-LP 103.3 in Asheville / streaming at AshevilleFM from 3am EST on September 25th through October 1st and podcasting on libsyn.com.
For a 59 minute long, radio clean version for syndication purposes, please visit the archive.org collection.
Coalition for Immokalee Workers
Today we are airing an interview conducted with Lupe Gonzalo of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Immokalee, Florida. This is is a worker-based human rights organization which seeks to promote awareness of social responsibility, human trafficking, and gender-based violence at work and in corporations, seeking to boost the voices of some of the more marginalized workers in the US. We talk about the ciw, how it got started, and about hurricane relief after Hurricane Irma. We also touch on some political differences and points of unity with anarchism. This interview was conducted in translation from Spanish into English, with Patricia of the Alliance for Fair Food doing translation. If anyone would like the full interview just in Spanish, please write to us and we will provide that audio!
If you would like to learn more about the Coalition of Imokalee Workers, and to donate to hurricane relief efforts, you can visit their online fundraising page
Then comes part two of Prison Radio’s interview with Jalil Muntaquim, who is former member of the Black Panther party and the Black Liberation Army and is one of the longest held political prisoners in the world. While incarcerated, Jalil has become a father, grandfather and great-grandfather. Jalil graduated with a BS in Psychology and a BA in Sociology in 1994. He has written several books, arguably most notable being We Are Our Own Liberators, his most recent being a book of poems entitled Exiting the Prism.
In Asheville on Wednesday, there’ll be a protest against Duke Energy, which proposed to the NC Utilities Commission to raise electricity rates 15%, raising $200 million a year to pay for the cleanup costs of their coal ash dumps and build new infrastructure to keep us dependent on ecocidal fossil fuels. NCUC is holding a public hearing from 7-10pm at the downtown courthouse in Asheville, with a rally starting at 5pm and marching towards the courthouse. You can find a fedbook event for a training to help you get more comfortable with presenting during public comment period.
“Eyewitness to Charlottesville” at UNCA
Also in Asheville this Wednesday, Sept 28th at UNCA here in Asheville, there’ll be a presentation from 6-8pm. Location to be determined, but you can find more at fedbook by searching for “Eyewitness to Charlottesville.” The presenters are from the (shudder) International Socialist Organization (ISO) from Raleigh, a UNCA student and member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and members of the Carolina Mountain John Brown Gun Club, formerly Redneck Revolt.
Trouble #6 at Firestorm
BRABC will be airing Trouble #6 on Friday the 29th at 7:30pm. This episode of the short-documentary series from sub.Media is focusing on Counter-Insurgency. The showing is free and will be followed by a discussion with questions crafted by sub.Media on the topic. The flyer for the event can be found here.
On September 8, 2017, an FBI agent attempted to visit a comrade in western North Carolina. They visited a house, and the person there stepped outside to talk to the agent, who repeatedly asked if the comrade in question lived there. The person at the house did not engage with those questions, and instead insisted on a card from the agent that a lawyer could call later. The agent said it was regarding a case being handled by another office.
This comes at a time when Anarchists have been standing up to a grand jury and other FBI harassment across the state of North Carolina. The person who the FBI agent was seeking secured legal representation. On September 13, 2017, their lawyer called a number the agent wrote down, and the FBI specified that they were actually looking to speak with the person’s child, a minor. The FBI said that they were seeking the original person because a legal guardian had to be present for the agent to talk to the minor. During that call the agent stated she wanted to ask about graffiti on a car related to a case being investigated by the FBI Field Office in Raleigh, NC. The minor in question has now secured legal representation. Nobody above is speaking to the FBI.
We cannot just hope that harassment like this stops. Get educated on how to protect yourself if the FBI shows up. If you are approached by the FBI, refuse to answer their questions. Know your rights! Please read If An Agent Knocks for more information. We cannot let them intimidate us and raise fear and distrust.
