Category Archives: General

“Start your own local uprising!”: an interview about the uprisings in Slovenia

Black flags fly in Ljubljana
Black flags fly in Ljubljana
Download This Episode

Interview with Ramona, an anarchist activist in Slovenia and member of the Federation for Anarchist Organizing. She speaks about the uprisings which have been happening in that country since November, 2012 in reaction to widespread political corruption and police surveillance. Among other topics, we touch on the conditions leading up to these ongoing uprisings, a brief history of anarchist organizing in Slovenia, and the upcoming Balkan Anarchist Bookfair, which will take place in Ljubljana this May.

To keep yourself informed on this situation, go to the FAO website at
www.a-federacija.org/english for english content.

The FAO is also a member of the International of Anarchist Federations (IAF). More info on that project can be found at http://i-f-a.org/

We also bring you an anarchist black metal project Hesperian Death Horse, which hails from Croatia, and the band Aylwin from California.
Enjoy.

The full playlist for the show can be found here

The NATO5: Resistance and Repression in the Windy City

CPD undercovers, Mo and Gloves
CPD undercovers, Mo and Gloves
Download This Episode

This week’s show features an interview with Adesina, Jude and Emily, three folks doing support work for the NATO5. The NATO3 consist of Brent Betterly, Jared Chase, and Brian Church who were arrested in a house raid orchestrated by Chicago PD and with the use of two undercover infiltrators known as Mo and Gloves, during May of 2012 as Chicago prepared for the protests against the NATO Summit. The 3 are being charged with 11 felony counts including terrorism. With the addition of Sebastian Senakiewicz (Sabi) and Mark Neiweem (Miggs) who were picked up seperately, they are collectively known as the NATO5.

The conversation with support people introduces the case to listeners, talks about the ongoing use of conspiracy and infiltration in the United States of movements of dissent and the creation of the threats by the U.S. government that it simultaneously claims to be protecting the population from as it further expands the prison culture that is America. We talk a bit about the Gulf Port 7, Eric McDavid and the Cleveland 4, cases over the last decade focusing on Anarchists in the U.S. that included police infiltration and false imprisonment on terror-related charges.

More info on the case can be found at http://nato5support.wordpress.com/.
Also, check out:

The video of the NATO 3 being pulled over by police (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TudIyxxAboA)

A useful Daily KOS article relating to someones experience of arrest during the

NATO protests (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/07/1098235/-My-Experience-Being-Detained-Prior-to-the-NATO-Summit)

An NYT article about the Federal investigation of the Cook County Jail (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/us/18cook.html?_r=0)

The playlist for this show can be found here

Hannah Dobbz on squatting

Cover of Nine Tenths of the Law by Hannah Dobbz
Cover of Nine Tenths of the Law by Hannah Dobbz
Download This Episode

This week’s show features a conversation with Hannah Dobbz about their new book, Nine-Tenths of the Law: Property and Resistance in the United States. Hannah was also the creator of the documentary “Shelter: A Squatumentary”. We talk about squatting in the U.S., homesteading, market values, views on squat resistance in other countries from the U.S. and more. The latter half of the show features a musical selection from the metal and gothy end of the spectrum.

About

The playlist can be found here

Support Jeremy Hammond + Updates from Belarus (March 24, 2013)

Jeremy Hammond, a year in prison without trial
Jeremy Hammond, a year in prison without trial
Download This Episode

This week’s show features a conversation with the anarchist, Jason Hammonds, about his brother, Jeremy, who’s been imprisoned over a year without trial for allegedly leaking information to Wikileaks. The second conversation is an interview with a member of the Belarus Anarchist Black Cross about recent history and repression in Belarus.

First things first: Jeremy Hammond. The first half of this week’s show will be a discussion with Jason Hammonds, brother of imprisoned anarchist hacker and freedom of information activist Jeremy Hammond. Jeremy has been imprisoned for a year as the government builds it’s case
against him. Jeremy Hammond is accused of working with the hacker group, Anonymous, and for leaking information liberated from Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, and giving it to WikiLeaks. Much of the information in the so-called Stratfor Files indicate spying by company for the Federal Government on foreign leaders, Occupy Wall St, activists in Bhopal India and the hidden indictment against wikileaks-founder Julian Assange, among other things. More info on the case can be found at http://freehammond.com and http://freeanons.org

The second half of this week’s show features content gleaned from a friendly project out of Berlin, Germany. Anarchistisches Radio Berlin is a project that produces content for pirate radio around Germany and has been featuring interviews of recent in English when that is the common language between host and interviewee. The following segments features a conversation with a member of the Belarus Anarchist Black Cross on the subject of repression in their country. For the security of the guest, their voice was replaced by that of a German comrade. In order to translate into American radio a little better, we’ve overdubbed the interviewers voice as well. To learn more about the situation in Belarus, check out http://abc-belarus.org

To find out more about this project, check out their website at http://aradio.blogsport.de/

Playlist

Joel Bitar and Dane Rossman resist extradition to Canada (March 17, 2013)

g20-toronto-stormtrooper2
Download This Archive

This week’s program features 3 conversations:

Firstly, we speak with Sterling Stutz, a former co-defendant in the Main G20 Conspiracy case stemming back to the 2010 anti-G20 protests in Toronto, Canada. Sterling shares her experiences around the protest, collective defense and resistance to the G20 and Canadian State.She also speaks a bit about Det. Sergent Gary Giroux, who is the most public cop prosecuting post-G20 arrests, as well as the pig who pushed for the prosecution of Nyki Kish.
More info at http://www.freenyki.org/

Next up, we speak with Fatimah, who speaks about the case of Dane Rossman. Dane is an American activist facing extradition to Canada in for charges stemming from the G20 protest of 2010. We talk about Dane’s work, borders, neoliberalism, incarceration and how to support Dane.
Find out more at http://supportdanerossman.blogspot.com/

Finally, we speak with Katherine about the case of Joel Bitar, another activist from the U.S. facing extradtion. We speak about Joel’s case and how he can be best supported. Find out more at http://supportjoel.com/

For more info on other cases surrounding the ongoing repression of G20 arrestees:
http://g20.torontomobilize.org/
http://appetitesforchange.wordpress.com/

The playlist can be found here

Memphis organizes against police and the KKK: A Conversation with Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin

Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin
Download This Episode

Memphis, TN, is heating up! This year will be the first observance of the International Day of Action Against Police Brutality on March 15th, organized in part by Black Autonomy CopWatch. Also, on March 30th, the KKK will be holding a rally against the city’s decision to rename the park housing the body of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a confederate General and founder of the KKK. Memphis also plans to rename 2 other Confederate parks in the city, not only forrest park. Counter-demonstrations are planned by Anti-Racist Action and other American antifascists.

It should not surprise folx that one of the people working so hard to organize against police brutality and challenge white supremacists is Tennessee’s own Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin. Mr. Kom’boa Ervin is a former black panther, an author, a former political prisoner and a Black Autonomist.

The show also features an update from the Tinley Park 5 website on the status of the antifa prisoners.

The Playlist can be found here

Anarcha-Feminism: A conversation with J. Rogue and Abbey Volcano

fem_07
Download This Episode

This week features a conversation with J. Rogue and Abbey Volcano, contributors to the 3rd Edition of “Quiet Rumors: An Anarcha-Feminist Reader” and contributors to and editors of the 2012 book, “Queering Anarchism”, both published by AK Press.

Firstly, though, a few announcements about the speaking tour on the East Coast of 3 Greek Antifa which’ll be coming to Eastern/Central NC on March 17, the March 30th anti-Klan rally planned for Memphis, TN, and the repression facing Lorenzo Komboa Ervin in TN due to his organizing work around this and police brutality.

The conversation flows from an intro to Anarcha-Feminism and what differs with and what’s common with other forms of Feminism, gender in Communization Problematic, Transfeminism, Intersectionality, Queer, BDSM and the placement of this year’s Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair in a community center owned by Kink.com, and anti-capitalist analyses of sex work.

The playlist can be found here

Drug War Capitalism: A conversation with Dawn Paley (February 17, 2013)

drugwar-politico-cartoon
Download This Episode

Dawn Paley is an independent journalist based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Much of her work deals with the displacement of peoples, particularly of First Nation peoples, in Latin America as a result of the militarized and U.S. fueled War on Drugs. The story that Ms. Paley tells illuminates the creation of Free Trade agreements, the Multinational corporations that profit from the displacement of marginalized peoples from resource rich lands and links between state security forces and paramilitary narco-groupings into a complex web of profits and losses. As in most cases under Capital and State, there are a few winners and many who suffer the penalties.

Dawn’s journalism can be found at dawnpaley.ca

The playlist for this show can be found here.

Anarchism in Post-Revolutionary Spain, pt2

Download This Episode

This week’s episode of the final straw picks up where last week’s left off. The features speakers are Ana and Pablo, two anarchists living in Barcelona, and they’ll be discussing the rise and struggle of Anarcha-Feminism in Spain since the social revolution of the 1930’s through to current times. We’ll also be discussing intersections of anarchist struggle and healthcare in the age of austerity and visions of autonomous and anarchist forms of health care. This show also features a scene report of Anarchists in Spain today by Pablo and Ana presents some closing thoughts on struggles to engage in.

Following the discussion, you’ll be hearing some new metal tracks from Brighton’s own Light Bearer. Light Bearer is a 4 album project themed around the fall of Lucifer. Light Bearer shares members with the band, Fall of Efrafa, an epic crust band themed around the novel Watership Down. The 2nd album in the series, Silver Tongue, has just been released by the band to a mediafire file.

We’ll also hear a metal track posthumously released from the Austin Texas anti-civ anarchist sludge project, Ecocide. For archives of this and other episodes of the Final Straw, check out radio4all.net and search the show title.

The playlist can be found here

Anarchism in Post-Revolutionary Spain, pt1

Download This Episode

For many Anarchists, the history of Anti-authoritarian and Anti-capitalist resistance in Spanish serves as a laboratory in which to discuss the successes and failures of that political trajectory in application. The communes, the vibrant difference and debates that existed, and the resistance to the rise of fascism, bourgeious social democracy and statist communism: these are elements that find echoes in struggles prior (such as the Russian Revolution) and since (the struggles in the sixties through to today).

This weeks speakers, Ana & Pablo, present a slightly different narrative. By covering a critical (if brief) history of the Anarchism existant from the beginning of the Social Revolution ongoing when Franco’s military coup of 1936 was engaged, through the era of dictatorship, through the spectacular democratization of Spain in the 1970’s and into today, the speakers propose that the strongest that Anarchist movements have been was during periods of critical heterodoxy and debate within, as well as mutual aid and support in the face of restistance.

This show, due to it’s length, is split into two episodes. The first aired 2013-02-03. Following interviews, there’s about 20 minutes of metal tracks from Usnea and others! The playlist can be found here.