This week’s show features an interview with two residents of the ZAD about the demonstrations of February 22nd in Nantes, France. Also, Anarchist prisoner Sean Swain talks about Swivilization in his weekly segment. More on him can be found at seanswain.org
The demonstration, dubbed a “sacking” by the media and police, featured directed attacks by demonstrators on offices of the French construction company threatening the lands of Notre-dames-de-Landes, a police station, a travel office, and a private transit company. The day of action also featured speeches, picnics, play, marches, discussions and theater.
In this conversation, some folks from the ZAD describe what they saw, why violence occurred, how that violence as an idea is wielded to form a narrative by the media and state and how it was experienced by folks actually present with the movement and the land.
This week William talks with Volodya, a Russian anarchist podcaster whos podcast Echo of Freedom can be found at http://freedom.libsyn.com. They talk about his experiences working in the anarchist milieu, anarchafeminism, and intersections between the LGBTQ movement in Russia and movements such as antifa.
Sean Swain (website http://www.seanswain.org) discusses Mumia Abu Jamal and class/race struggles as related to police forces. Among other things…
First up, an announcement from the Autonomous Worker’s Union in Kiev, Ukraine, about Russian military invasion of the Crimea and other parts of Ukraine. More info at http://avtonomia.net and http://nihilist.li
The first is Sean Swain’s most recent challenges to Governor Kasich of Ohio.
Next up, William interviewed CeCe McDonald. CeCe was recently released after her arrest in 2011 after the death of neo-nazi who attacked CeCe and friends while hurling transphobic, homophobic and racist epithets. CeCe talks about the support she received, what time was like inside for her and how release has been. For more about her case, check out: http://supportcece.wordpress.com/
Next, Bursts spoke with Dane Rossman, who was extradited to Canada from the U.S. in relation to charges around the 2010 Toronto anti-G20 protests. Dane speaks about his experiences in detention, the other 3 known extraditees and what they face with their convictions, how to support them and anti-border and detention work going on in the Southwest of the U.S.
More on Dane’s case can be found at: http://supportdanerossman.blogspot.com/
More on the 3 extraditees at: http://notorontog20extradition.wordpress.com/
More on the anti-Operation Streamline movement in the Southwest U.S.: http://endstreamline.org/
This week we’ll feature a segment by anarchist prisoner Sean Swain about education under Capitalism, a quick update about the U.S. activists threatened with extradition to Canada in relation to the 2010 Toronto anti-G20 protests and finally an interview with Orie Lumumba about the MOVE9, their 1978 conviction and their bid for parole. The last 20 minutes will feature tracks by Vallendusk from indonesia, Ah Ciliz from Los Angeles.
This week, we featured a segment by Sean Swain on sovereignty and consent of the ruled. We’ve begun archiving Sean’s segments under the title “You Are The Resistance” on archive.org, and those can be found linked as they come out on http://seanswain.org
This was followed by a conversation with Emily who does support work the NATO3 about what’s happened in the trial and what the next steps appear to be as sentencing approaches. Great news is that defendants Brent Betterly, Jared Chase & Brian Jacob Church were found Not Guilty of all of the terrorism charges, however they still each have felonies that stuck. Check out more at http://freethenato3.wordpress.com
Next, we speak with Johanna of Keeper of the Mountains Foundation, a grassroots group out of West Virginia that looks to the effects of Mountain Top Removal and coal extraction and burning on the environment, economy and people in Appalachia. Johanna shares some info on the recent Duke Energy Coal Ash Pit spill on the Dan River, near the North Carolina-Virginia border and what impacts can be expected from the 82,000 tons of toxic ash getting into a water source that provides for roughly 50,000 human animals, and uncounted non-humans and other life. http://www.mountainkeeper.org/
Finally, we’ll hear An Unearthly Sacrament by the Marin-County-California-based metal project Radagast, their only release thus far. That’ll be followed (really finally) by Destroyed By Ourselves from Katahajime from Allentown, PA.
First, we hear Sean Swain, anarchist prisoner in Ohio’s super-duper-mega-ultra-uber max prison at Youngstown talk about accusations of Utopianism thrown at him for his anarchism.
Secondly, we speak with author, activist and advocate Staughton Lynd. Mr. Lynd speaks with us about the ongoing hunger strike at Menard Correctional Facility’s administrative segregation units in Illinois. The strikes are in response to prisoner complaints of lack of heat and hot water in the freezing facility that was built in the 1870’s, leaks around the windows, rodent infestations and the lack of transparency around how people get put into the hole or get out of it. Upon initiating the hunger strike, prisoners (in particular Armando Velasquez who was witness being beaten, thrown down stairs and stomped by correctional officers/screws) have faced threats of force, including forced feeding for which Illinois law does not require court orders. You can find out more by contacting the Alice and Staughton Lynd at salynd(aat)aol (d ot)com. Also, check out articles at The SF Bay View on the subject.
If you care to call/write officials to press for an end to the torture:
Warden Rick Harrington, (618) 826-5071, P.O. Box 711, Menard IL 62794-9277
Illinois Department of Corrections Director Salvador Godinez, (217) 558-2200, ext. 2008, P.O. Box 19277, Springfield IL 62794-9277
Gov. Pat Quinn, (217) 782-0244, http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/Pages/ContacttheGovernor.aspx, 207 State House, Springfield IL 62706
The final portion of the episode is an interview with ecological and social activist, Yaroslav Nikitenko. Yaroslav has been involved for years in the struggle to save Khimki forest, the only old growth forest in the Moscow area, from development by a public-private construction project between Russian government, companies and VINCI construction (out of France). Yaroslav argues a lack of transparency by government, profit not surprisingly overshadowing concerns for peoples lives or the environment, neo-nazi thugs hired for home invasions and street attacks on journalists and activists working to speak out about Khimki and about how people can do solidarity work with those struggling to save this forest. Yaroslav also did solidarity work for incarcerated members of Pussy Riot, some of whom were involved in social struggles including the defense of Khimki. President Putin, prior to the Sochi Winter Olympics, released a number of political prisoners including members of the feminist punk band, Pussy Riot (albeit 2 month before their release). Lastly, Yaroslav shares his perspectives on the #euromaidan protests threatening the Ukrainian government, threats from the far-right in that nation, and his own fears as a Russian of the Ukrainian civil society coming further under Russian political sway. http://khimkiforest.org
The first will be the 2nd in our hopefully ongoing presentation of audio essays by anarchist prisoner Sean Swain, currently held in isolation at Ohio State Prison in Youngstown Ohio for alleged involvement in the Army of the 12 Monkeys, a nascent prisoner guerilla sabotage movement in Ohio prisons which is spreading every wider. Sean Swain denies involvement in the group and a self-identified member of that movement denies his involvement yet he’s been convicted of it despite any evidence and is now serving 23 hours a day in solitary, without human contact. We’ll be featuring mostly weekly segments by Sean from inside prison until the fascist running dogs at OSP shut off our communication. Here Sean gives his bid in hopes of being elected not the next governor of Ohio in 2014, but the last. Check out some of his writings at http://seanswain.org
Our second segment is a conversation with Nat and D, two anarchists in the South East of the U.S. doing mutual aid solidarity work with communities in West Virginia effected by the leaking of chemicals by the sarcastically named Freedom Industries, a company involved in providing chemicals for coal extraction. https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/keeperofthemountains
For more info, if you have the fakebook account: https://www.facebook.com/pages/WV-Clean-Water-Hub
This week’s episode of the Final Straw starts off with a couple of announcements about recent prisoner resistance from around the U.S. and the upcoming court dates for the NATO3. (links below)
Secondly, we’ll present a short audio essay by Sean Swain, a regularly occurring segment we hope to become a regular portion of our show. Find out more about Sean Swain at http://seanswain.org
This’ll be followed by an interview with Deedee, a member of Saving Our Families, a network of those with loved-ones in the Prison Industrial Complex, based out of Indiana. Deedee is also a supporter of Control Unit Prisoners on hunger strike at Westville Correction Facility in Indiana about the strike and the atrocious food distribution, run by Aramark Corrections Services based out of Philly PA. More info can be found at http://dignityatwestville.wordpress.com
And, finally, we’ll present the last portion of the ZAD interview we started with last week. http://zad.nadir.org
Also, we announce that we’re now available at 106.5LPFM in Olympia Washington on KOWA. Tune in on Saturday nights at 9pm to hear us!
This week’s episode of the Final Straw features a conversation with Cami, a resident of the ZAD (Zone À Défendre or Zone To Defend) speaks about experiences of living on, defending, struggling on and with the project and the people in Western France and against the police, airport expansion and fascists.
Backstory: Notre-Dame-des-Landes (NDDL) in western France has been the target of the French government and private corporations like Vinci Construction for the building of new infrastructure. Plans have been brewing for 40 years to build a new, larger airport in the area, to expand the bus systems, build a high speed train out to the airport from the nearby city of Nantes and expand the port at Saint-Nazaire. The struggle, for many of the members of the farming communities around NDDL, has been about saving their countryside from gentrification, from preserving their generations-old ways of life, their homes, their agency in what happens to their homes so that it’s not just people in Paris and Nantes who reshape their world. For many others it’s about preserving some of the last remaining undeveloped lands in the area, resisting the expansion of the Metropolis and the way of life that it brings and even in making their own way of life with others while resisting eviction and learning new ways of struggle.
Much media coverage of the ZAD has worked to build a myth around the project that it’s hunky-dory heroism and everyday revolution. While those things exist there, the story is not so clean cut. This hour we’ll also be speaking about internal problems of sexism, racism, interpersonal violence, drug use, valorization of certain forms of struggle, homophobia… the same crap we have to deal with everywhere, sadly. Cami also talks about how people on the ZAD have tried to work through these problems. While also struggling against the occasional neo-fascist incursion from the outside.
We have hopes at the Final Straw that this will be the first of a few shows that focus on communities resisting development by Vinci, a company that destroys ecology, builds prisons and greenwashes around the world. Vinci is also the main holder of contracts with the Moscow government in relation to the development of old growth Khimki Forest to build a road and a village for the rich as well as Combe Haven in the U.K. Also, in the Atlanta, GA, USA they’ve been awarded (under the sub-subsidiary Hubbard Construction) the Northwest Corridor contract, worth $600 million, which will bring 30 miles of toll highway to that city.
(The following note is apparently up for dispute, according to some sources…)
2 days ago Vinci was seeing red in Bristol, UK, due to an arson at some of their offices by Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) (http://325.nostate.net/?p=9416)
The portions of the interview talking about Insurrectional theory, Radio Klaxtion (pirate radio on the ZAD), fascist attacks on the ZAD, immigrant solidarity, ability and the ZAD, films about the ZAD, and some of the music created through resistance by folks at the ZAD… don’t appear here due to lack of time. They’ll be linked on our afm blog page and eventually on thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org
This week there are two political court dates going on in the United States we wanted to bring attention to, followed by about 30 minutes of METAL!!!!!!!! WOAH!!!!
First: on Monday, January 6th the NATO3 will be facing trial, starting with the jury selection. There’s a callout for solidarity and support for the NATO3. The call out can be found at http://nato5support/wordpress.com . A past episode of the Final Straw talking about the basics of the case can be found at The Final Straw Website.
Second: on Tuesday, January 7th Shaka Cinque, known by the state as Albert Woodfox, will be facing a court date to determine if the earlier overturning of his conviction will be upheld in Louisiana or if he’ll continue his indefinite time in imprisonment in Solitary Confinement at the Angola Prison in Louisiana which has thus far lasted 42 YEARS. Shaka Cinque is the only remaining imprisoned member of the Angola 3, three prisoners imprisoned Black Panthers accused of participation in the murder of a prison guard in the early 1970’s. Robert Hillary King was released from prison when his case was overturned in 2001 and has written and spoken about the case of the Angola3 since. Herman Wallace served 41.5 years in solitary confinement for the case and died 3 days after his release near the end of 2013. More about the case can be found at http://angola3news.blogspot.com
