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!
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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.
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. You can find part 2 of this interview here.
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.
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 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.
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.
This week’s show features a conversation with Aragorn! Aragorn! is an author based out of the Bay Area who is responsible for numerous essays on anarchism, nihilism and indigeneity; was an editor of Anarchy: a Journal of Desire Armed, and currently helps to publish The Anvil Review. More recently, Aragorn! has been working with Ardent Press and edited a compilation on anarchism and the occupy movement entitled “Occupy Everything”, available from Little Black Cart. I spoke with Aragorn! earlier this week about the book and about anarchism in occupy related projects of the past and future around the world.
Correction to my audio intro to Aragorn!: Aragorn! was not an editor at Green Anarchy Magazine, but did contribute content.
This week features a conversation with attorney, educator and trans activist, Dean Spade about his new book, “Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the limits of law”, just out from South End Press. Normal Life is a finalist for the 2012 Lambda Literary Awards. Follow Mr. Spade’s writing at http://www.deanspade.net/
Before hearing from Dean Spade, though, we hear from Bailey, who’s doing support for Christopher French, an Atlanta Anarchist who’s facing multiple felony charges and has to raise $25,000 to be bonded out in relation to the recent anti-NATO demonstrations in Chicago. More information about Christopher’s case can be found at: http://freedomforchris.wordpress.com
This week’s show features an interview with Abrasha Blum and Ruth, who work with Anarchists Against The Wall. AATW is a coalition of Israeli Anarchists doing solidarity work alongside Palestinians struggling against the aparthied wall and system in and around the West Bank. As the 45th anniversary of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War approaches (June 5th-10th), we talk about Zionism, the Settlers, solidarity and how folks can support the popular struggles for Palestinian autonomy and dignity. If you have the ability to help them cover legal fees, check out awalls.org and donate.
Main Episode:
Birthright Program Segment
An archive of this show, as well as an extra segment on the Birthright Program and the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement can soon be found on www.archive.org by searching the show title.
Other useful links include:
http://www.icahd.org/ – Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions website
http://www.awalls.org/ – Anarchists Against the Wall website
http://www.popularstruggle.org/ – Popular Struggle Co-ordination Committee website
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/ – Alternative Information Centre
http://www.addameer.org/ – Palestinian prisoner and human rights organisation
http://972mag.com/ – daily commentary from West Bank, Israel and Gaza
http://www.taayush.org/ – direct action group supporting Palestinian farmers particularly in South Hebron Hills
http://www.bdsmovement.net/ – In 2005, Palestinian civil society issued a call for a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights. A truly global movement against Israeli Apartheid is rapidly emerging in response to this call.
http://boycottisrael.info/ – Israelis supporting the BDS call
http://activestills.org/ – Israeli and Palestinian photography collective
http://www.btselem.org/ – Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
http://punksagainstapartheid.com/ – clue is in the title 😉
