Category Archives: General

Victoria Law on the Struggles of Incarcerated Women

Download This Episode

This week’s show features a conversation with Victoria Law.

This week we speak to Vikki about the second edition of her book, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women.” We discuss patriarchy, criminalization & invisibility that is faced by those held in women’s prisons. We also talk about resistance, organizing, support and engagement of those on the inside and about the organizing that formerly incarcerated people do to help their comrades on the inside.

From her PM Press Author’s page:

“Victoria Law is a writer, photographer, and mother. After a brief stint as a teenage armed robber, she became involved in prisoner support. In 1996, she helped start Books Through Bars-New York City, a group that sends free books to prisoners nationwide. In 2000, she began concentrating on the needs and actions of women in prison, drawing attention to their issues by writing articles and giving public presentations. Since 2002, she has worked with women incarcerated nationwide to produce Tenacious: Art and Writings from Women in Prison and has facilitated having incarcerated women’s writings published in larger publications, such as Clamor magazine, the website “Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance” and the upcoming anthology Interrupted Lives.”

Hydraulic Fracturing in North Carolina

Download This Episode

An hour with Tamara of Croatan Earth First! We discuss the recent legalization of Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) in N.C. and the dire implications of this practice on our economy, health, environment and future. We talk about energy policy and the relationship between our society and the natural world.
croatanearthfirst.com

Also, Sunday, November 4th, check out the Tree Huggers Ball at Warren Wilson College for Contra dance 6:30-10pm to benefit Coal River Mountain Watch. More info at www.katuahearthfirst.org

Montreal Student Strikes (part 2)

Download This Episode

This week’s show features the second part of my conversation with Maria about anarchist perspectives on the student strikes in Montreal,
Quebec. Maria continues to draw the history of this last year of student strikes that have developed into a nascent social strike and talks about the call to help block the start of the next semester in early August of this year

The second half of this episode features music from and about the struggle of Miners against the bosses and the state and for survival and self-determination. The playlist can be found here.

Call Out to
block the next semester

Greve
Montreal

‘Sup, world.

Welcome to The Final Straw Radio Blog.  This site will function, basically, to make for easier access to the content of the show without having to search all over the place and to continue following it. First, if you happen to be watching, you’ll see past episodes come up starting with our earliest until the site is populated.  Afterwards, we’ll be posting the shows up on the site after they are no longer streaming on AshevilleFM.  Be sure to check out the other great shows on AFM and support our local, independent media project!

If you have content suggestions, we welcome them.  See our Kontact page.

Thanks to the folks at noblogs for hosting us!

Salud y Anarquia!

Life During Wartime: Counterinsurgency in the U.S.

Download This Episode

This week’s show features a conversation with William Munger, co-editor and contributor to the upcoming AK Press book, Life During Wartime (2013). We talk about the application of Counterinsurgency praxis by law enforcement domestically in the U.S. and what that looks like in it’s varying forms.

What is COIN (Counterinsurgency)? How is it being applied to movements and communities in the United States? How do we resist it? These are among the topics covered during the conversation.

Among other things, Will’s research has focused on the case study of the relationship and dialogue developed between law enforcement in Salinas, California and the Monterey, California-based Naval Postgraduate School. This relationship has allowed NPS to conduct the beginnings of a proxy-war on the local Latino populations with a focus on eradicating gang networks. Will’s essay, “Social War in the Salad Bowl” won a grant from the Institute for Anarchist Studies this last year.

U.S. Army Field Manual 3-24: Counterinsurgency Warfare
NPS: Gangs and Guerrillas

The playlist for this show can be found at AshevilleFM

STUDENT STRIKE! POPULAR STRUGGLE! / GRÈVE ÉTUDIANTE! LUTTE POPULAIRE!

Download This Episode

This week’s show features a conversation with Maria, an American-born anarchist and former University student living in Montreal, Quebec. Maria shares with us the context of the student and social strikes of earlier this year in this conversation.

Some more resources on the subject include:
Greve Montreal
Montreal Counter-Info
Bloquons la Hausse
Call Out to block the next semester
a good piece on the student movement
The blog of one of the neighborhood assemblies
Sketchy Thoughts

North Carolina Prisoners Initiate Hunger Strikes

Download This Episode

This week’s show features a conversation with Francis Delaney about the Prison Hunger Strikes that were initiated on Monday, July 16 at three facilities in North Carolina. This action seems to have the potential to spread to other facilities because of the apparent universality of the demands (better/more food, access to legal literature, human contact, an end to torture, an end to mail tampering, medical care). We discuss some context for the strikes and how folks on the outside can get involved and show solidarity.

Chapel Hill Prison Books
Triangle Anarchist Blog
Down: Reflections on Prison Resistance in Indiana

The Case of the Cleveland 4: The FBI, Entrapment & the construction of Terrorists

Download This Episode

This week’s conversation features a discussion of the case of the Cleveland 4, anarchists arrested in Ohio on April 30th for allegedly attempting to blow up a bridge. But the case isn’t so simple as idealists independently taking direct and spectacular action against infrastructure. As members of Cleveland 4 Justice (the support group for the defendants) share with us information about the accused, what is known about the alleged infiltrator sent by the FBI to facilitate a terror case (Shaquille Azir), and the significance of the timing of the arrests to coincide with May Day celebrations worldwide and the reawakening of the Occupy Movement in the U.S., we see a widened scope of intrigue and entrapment that fits into a bigger picture of corrupt government and self-serving security services.

The Tinley Park Five and Anti-Racist Action (July 1, 2012)

Download This Episode

The first half of this week’s show features a conversation with Telly of the Hoosier Anti-Racist Movement, an Indiana Anti-Fascist grouping. We’ll talk about the Tinley Park 5, five young men arrested in a suburb south of Chicago and accused of disrupting a white supremacist gathering in early May.

July 21st is the next bail hearing for the Tinley Park 5. July 31st is International Day of Action against Fascism.
The second half of the episode is atmospheric black metal and sludge metal.
https://tinleyparkfive.wordpress.com/
http://antiracistaction.org/

What if we could swish AND fight? (2012 Redux of Stonewall show)

Download This Episode

This week’s show is a conversation with Parks (a member of Tranzmission Prison Project) about Stonewall, the cooptation of it’s rememberance in the form of Pride marches, the split of the liberation movement into the pride movement and continued radical struggles.

The playlist for the show can be found here