This week we spoke with Bobby C. Billie and Shannon Larsen of the Resist 450 Coalition. This coalition is set up to protest the so called “450th Commemoration” Celebration to be held in St Augustine FL at the beginning of September, which will mark the 450th anniversary of the settling of that city by Juan Ponce de Leon and Pedro Menendez, colonizers from Spain. In this interview we talk about indigenous struggle in St Augustine, the Doctrine of Discovery, the Action Camp which will occur on September 5th thru 8th, and more! To get involved with the Action Camp, or to donate to this cause, you can see all the information you’ll need at http://resist450.org
Additionally this week also we have audio from our comrades at ARadio Berlin! Anarchist Radio Berlin, which can be found at http://aradio.blogsport.de, did this interview with a UK-based organizer from the Reclaim the fields initiative, and they talk about the planned international camp in North-Wales, the relationship of food sovereignty and the prison system, and the topic of prison abolition as such.
You can send these folks feedback and comments at: aradio-berlin(at)riseup(dot)net Thanks to these comrades for sharing this audio! Stay tuned for more from ARadio Berlin next week.
In a bit of news, the trial of the Tarnac 10 is set to begin soon, minus the charges of “Terrorist Association.” The Tarnac case stems back to 2009 in Tarnac, France, the site of a farm commune on which 9 folks were arrested and accused of attempting sabotage on a high speed rail line. The case allegedly also linked the arrested, including Julian Coupat and Yildune Lévy, to the publishing group, The Invisible Commitee. The Invisible Commitee, which recently published “To Our Friends” is in the lineage of Tiqqun magazine, of which Coupat was a founder. http://www.anarchistnews.org/content/tarnac-eight-sent-trial-without-designation-terrorist-organization
A Virginian Anarchist by the name of Stephen Loughman was arrested a week after attending the anti-KKK rally in Columbia, SC, on July 18th. Stephen’s cellphone was dropped and he was arrested when he attempted to pick it up from the department of Sheriff Leon Lott. Stephen Loughman’s being accused attempting to incite hatred against the KKK, yelling profanity at the white supremacists and being in traffic. He’s being smeared in local media and by the Sheriff of being a career troublemaker who was attempting to incite the crowd to riot. He sounds like a pretty stand-up guy to us. You can find out more and support Stephen by visiting http://gofundme.com/e6b3tukuc . More at https://itsgoingdown.org/virginia-anarchist-arrested-week-sc-anti-klan-rally-support-needed/
Sean Swain speaks his piece on the recent drug delivery via drone, which occurred on July 29 at the Mansfield Correctional Institution some 65 miles southwest of Cleveland, OH. It contained almost a quarter of an ounce of heroin, over 2 ounces of marijuana and more than 5 ounces of tobacco. Sean speculates as to what other uses drones might have, and leaves us with words to ponder.
This week we spoke with members of Maharlika Integral Emergence, a collective in Davao. Davao is a large city in the south east of the archipelago of Maharlika, also known as The Philippines. We talk for the hour on the emergence of anarchism in this country, anti-colonial indigenous struggle, anarcho-punk, eco-resistance, green and post-anarchism, permaculture, anti-extraction and land struggles and more. Maharlika Integral Emergence is a collective in Davao working with communities to promote self-care, explore autonomy, build alternatives to the deadly duo of State and Capital and it’s ecocidal path. We apologize for the quality of the audio, at times it becomes difficult to hear the collective members due to tech issues. Check out ashevillefm.org/the-final-staw to find the blog entry for this episode which includes hyperlinks to some of the projects and publications coming out of Maharlika. For instance, here’s a pdf about projects that that MIE are involved in.
But first, a couple of announcements. If you’re in the Asheville area, we’d like to remind you that tonight, Sunday the 12th at 5pm is the grande-opening of Firestorm Cafe & Books at it’s new location at 610 Haywood Road at the intersection of Haywood Rd & State St in West Asheville. From their facebook event:
“It’s been sixteen months since we closed our doors at 48Commerce Street… We’re ready to start the next chapter! Join our seven year old workers co-operative for a day long celebration, featuring free coffee and other give-aways plus a 5pm local author showcase!
Located directly across State Street from Sunny Point Cafe, our new store features a unique selection of books for young folks and adults alike. Curious readers will find not only the rich assortment of titles on gardening, green living and political radicalism, for which our co-op is already known, but also an expanded inventory of children’s books, classics and speculative fiction.”
More at http://firestorm.coop
Relatedly, there’s a squatted anarchist social and community space working around some of the same causes as MIE. The space is called Feral Crust and in Manila operate a squatted infoshop, school and garden in a small squatted neighborhood. To contact them for more questions, drop them a line at feralcrust(aaat)riseup(dot) net
We’d also like to mention that AshevilleFM is currently at the Big Crafty Festival in Asheville from noon-6pm today, come check out the booth and sign up to be a volunteer!
Also an update on the occupation at the Che Cafe on the campus of the University of California at San Diego:
“On JULY 15 at 2 PM there will be a meeting with UCSD Chancellor Khosla.
For the FIRST TIME, representatives of the Che Cafe Collective and CCSN will meet with Khosla to see if he will call off the eviction. Che supporters are calling for a big crowd to rally outside the meeting. It’s requested that you come if you can and spread the word! Directions to Office of the Chancellor at www-act.ucsd.edu/maps/ enter search for “Office of the Chancellor”. Address is University Center 107, and it’s located facing the UCSD Town Square just south and west of Price Center.”
We here at The Final Straw are soliciting sticker/poster/logo design to provide fascinating swag for our listeners! The design must include our web address, show name & imagery reflecting the nature of the radio show. Chosen artists will receive gifts of t-shirts and other anarchy goodies. You can email your designs in pdf form to bursts(attt)ashevillefm(ddot)org or a physical copy can be sent to:
The Final Straw
c/o AshevilleFM
864 Haywood Rd,
Asheville, NC 28806
A reminder: The Klu Klux Klan has called for a rally at the steps of the state capitol of South Carolina in Colombia on Saturday the 18th at 3pm. Folks are planning a counter-demonstration on the day to make it known that these jokers are not welcome in the streets. Check out http://columbiascdemocallout.tumblr.com/ for more info, or follow them on their twitter handle, @antiracistSC. From their site:
“On Saturday, July 18th, the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan will assemble on the statehouse grounds in Columbia, SC. And we will confront them.
This rally is part of a recent wave of anti-Black terror, from the Charleston massacre to the arson of Black churches, that has strategically sought to build upon a white racist backlash against the #BlackLivesMatter, anti-police uprisings of the past year.
We call upon all those who can #BlackLivesMatter activists, community organizers, anti-racists, anarchists and other radicals, and anyone else furious with racism and the police—to converge on Columbia, confront the Klan, and defy their message of white supremacy. History has shown—from the armed standoff against a lynch mob in Columbia, TN, in 1946 to the 1958 Battle of Hayes Pond, from the Deacons for Defense to the armed defiance of Monroe, NC’s NAACP chapter, from the 1979 Greensboro Massacre to the 1997 confrontation with the Klan in downtown Asheville, NC—that we must oppose white supremacist organizing actively and physically, in our streets and neighborhoods.
The KKK is only a small group, whose ability to inflict racist violence actually pales in comparison to that of structures of oppression like the police, the economy, and the state. But the sentiment that groups like the KKK hold runs deep through the currents of whiteness in this country, and is a major obstacle to our struggles against these larger structures. Explicit manifestations of white supremacy like the Klan are one way that the state will seek to contain the #BlackLivesMatter organizing and anti-police riots of the last year; at this historic juncture, a large Klan rally in the South cannot go unchallenged.
Bring banners, bring a friend, and bring your anger and rage against the white supremacy that courses through the veins of this society. See you in Columbia.”
Along the lines of last week’s announcement of great audio projects to check out outside of asheville, I’d suggest folks interested in a fantastic North American prison related show give a listen to The Prison Radio Show on CKUT, out of McGill University in Montreal. The show airs on the second Thursday of every month between 5-6 pm CST as part of CKUT News’s Off The Hour & the fourth Friday of every month between 11am and 12pm CST. More at http://prisonradioshow.wordpress.com
Also for a great look at audio anarchy in the Philippines – and to see what this week’s guests typically work on – you can check out the pirate radio station RADYO ITIM at https://radyoitim.wordpress.com/, or at 107.9FM if you are listening in Davao.
Out of Middleton, Connecticut & Wesleyan University, WESU hosts a show called Anarchy On Air, a student anarchist collective radio show featuring interviews, panels, action updates and more. This show was formerly incarnated as The Horizontal Power Hour. This show More can be found at http://anarchyonairwesu.tumblr.com/ and it can be heard 2nd/4th Tuesdays 4:00-4:55 pm EST
Anarcho-primitivist & philosopher John Zerzan cohosts the weekly, years running, hour-long radio show Anarchy Radio on 88.1 KWVA at the University of Oregon, Eugene. Check out archives of the show at http://johnzerzan.net/radio to hear him and cohosts discuss recent news around technology, school shootings, alienation, ecological destruction and ideas. The show airs Tuesday’s at 7pm PST and express your views by calling 541-346-0645 during the live broadcast.
Over the hour, Hilary talks about her 7 years of living in Chiapas and recording the stories and experiences of women there, collecting stories on their behalf. The book covers the Zapatistas experiences before the EZLN uprising of 1994, during that period and after. Discussion address what gender, indigeneity and class looked like and how that’s changed in the Zapatista communities, the state of Chiapas and in Mexico. William and Hilary also explore the effects that the EZLN & La Otra Compaña have had on radicals and anarchists abroad, the origins of the EZLN, some parallels and distinctions between anarchism and Zapatismo and much more.
This week, we’re excited to present a conversation with Saralee Stafford and Neal Shirley, editors and authors of a new book out from AK Press entitled “Dixie Be Damned: 300 years of Insurrection in the American South”. The book is a study of Maroon, Indigenous, White, Black, worker, farmer, slave, indentured, women and men wrestling against institutions of power for autonomy and self-determination. All of this in a region stereotyped to be backwards, slow, lazy, victimized and brutal. The editors do a smash-bang job of re-framing narratives of revolt by drawing on complex and erased examples of cross-subjectivity struggles and what they can teach us today about current uprisings in which we participate.
Throughout the hour we explore some of the examples that became chapters in the book, critiques of narrative histories and academia and what new ways forward might be towards an anarchist historiography. Keep an ear out for Saralee and Neal’s book tour, coming to a bookspace near you.
This week’s show, we rebroadcast an interview from 2013 with Krow, aka Katie Kloth, followed by updates on the 2-week old hunger strike at OSP Youngstown, the release of the 5e3 prisoners in Mexico & recent metal, deathrock and punk from around the world.
Krow is an anarchist, environmental and indigenous rights activist. At the time of the original interview, Krow had been facing charges stemming from a protest where eco-activists found workers from Global Taconite, a mineral mining company attempting to extract iron ore from the hills of Iron County, Wisconsin, secretly test-drilling. Krow was charged with throwing a worker’s camera away and minor assault which was caught on a video. A link to the video will be included in this episode’s blog post.
Krow was sentenced to 9 months in jail this January, 2015. In addition, according to the Ashland Daily Press, Krow will have five years of probation with the felony charge and two years with the misdemeanor including a work release where they’ll be pressed to work a full-time job as a way of normalizing them and their activities. Otherwise known as domestication. Krow is now also facing charges from District Attorney Martin Lipske of bail jumping for allegedly participating in an anniversary protest in a “forbidden zone” in the Penokkee range controlled by Global Taconite along with 45 other people. Lipske appears to have it out for Krow, who had initially filed charges could have resulted in a 15 year sentence for Krow.
You can write to Krow at:
Katie Kloth
Iron County Jail
300 Taconite Street
Hurley, WI 54534
Also this hour we announce the recent news of the release of Amelie, Carlos & Fallon from prison in Mexico on March 13th. They were charged with a molotov attack January 5th of 2014 on a Nissan dealership and the neighboring government offices of the Mexican Department of Transportation and Communication and had faced serious charges relating to terrorism because people were in the government office at the time. The 3 collectively were known as the 5e3. Amelie and Fallon, both Quebecoise, were deported back to Canada. We’re happy that they’ve been able to rejoin their friends and loved ones and that Carlos Lopez Martin with his child.
To hear some words from Amelie & Fallon while they were imprisoned in Mexico, check out our website.
Translations of their letters can be found here: http://waronsociety.noblogs.org/?tag=5e3
On Monday March 16th, over 30 supermax prisoners at Ohio State Penitentiary went on hunger strike. Warden Jay Forshey and OSP staff are refusing to meet their demands or negotiate with them. Some of the hunger strikers have not even been met and consulted with regarding their demands. Eleven prisoners remain on hunger strike and are committed to staying through to the end, if necessary.
This week, Sean Swain rescinds his 5 minute segment for an election statement from Jwow “Kasich”.
For the main portion of this episode, Bursts spoke with Dilar Dirik. Dilar is a Kurdish refugee living in Germany who’s a phd candidate studying and working around issues connected with the Kurdish Women’s movement and the PYD, or Democratic Union Party, in the Rojava territories within the borders of Syria.
Dilar is a Kurdish refugee living in Germany who’s a phd candidate studying and working around issues connected with the Kurdish Women’s movement and the PYD, or Democratic Union Party, in the Rojava territories within the borders of Syria. With it’s foundation in 2004, the PYD has been attempting to create a dual power situation with the government and centering on an anti-state, anti-capitalist, feminist & ecological critique stemming from the influence of the PKK’s founder, Abdullah Öcalan, and his model of Democratic Confederalism. Democratic Confederalism is, in a large part, influenced strongly by the libertarian socialist philosophy of communalism, a term coined by the late Murray Bookchin. Bookchin, although not an anarchist upon his death, had been influential to certain strains of social anarchist thought since the 1960’s and included elements Communalism of Left Anarchism, Marxism, Syndicalism and Radical Ecology. Following the the 2012 pullout of Syrian government forces from the northern territories, the PYD, a group aligned with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, has held the territory as three independent cantons (Rojava, Cizre and Efrin) organized through a series of communes, councils and alternative representational structure.
Primarily during this episode and the following, Dilar speaks about the methodologies of the Kurdish Women’s movement in Rojava to autonomously push the PYD at large to create not just an inclusive but to attempt to center on gender balance in all functions, moving to shift things often called “women’s issues” to the fore and make them issues for the movement at large. Dilar also speaks about the shift from the former national liberation struggles of the Kurdish people for inclusion in the nationstates of the middle east to an embracing of a stateless status and an attempt to invite and include as many ethnic, religious and national communities and individuals of the region into the implementation of Democratic Confederalism (that implementation is also known as Democratic Autonomy) as could be done. Their hope, as people in the larger Rojava Revolution, is to expand the model into a self-sustaining, directly democratic society in tension with the state and capitalism.
The Democratic Union Party (PYD), Rojava region, the YPG (Peoples Defense Units) militia and YPJ Star (Women’s Defense Units Star) have come into media headlines in the U.S. of recent because they’ve been some of the main actors in the defense of Kobane (the capital of Rojava) against the forces of the Islamic State In the Levant (ISIL). ISIL has been attacking the three cantons in recent months, in fact for the last 2 years prior to U.S. recognition of it’s existence, and the YPG and YPJ Star have been among the groups fighting ISIL back. The press of ISIL to take the lands, weapons, slaves and wealth and to destroy heretics, continues throughout the 3 cantons despite the retaking of most of the city of Kobane. Perhaps the U.S. public hasn’t learned about resistance and attempts at alternative self-organization until the Siege of Kobane because it challenges the stability of U.S. allies like Turkey, Syria and also of Iran and other countries with significant Kurdish populations in the region.
In the last 2 years, many anarchists in the west have been looking on with interest on the organizing and resistance in Rojava. Recently, David Graber wrote in an op-ed for the U.K. Guardian that the PYD in Rojava fighting the ISIL parallels the Spanish Revolution of 1936 with the Rojava as the anarchists of the FAI and ISIL as the Falangists, and thus that social libertarians worldwide need to pay attention and offer support to the struggles in Rojava. Other western anarchist sources have been critical of the shortfalls of the Rojava Revolution from their ideological perspectives. We here at the Final Straw are excited to present the words of Dilar Dirik about Rojava not because the revolution is by name an anarchist project, but because it teases some boundaries between philosophies and attempts to put them into practice in the midst of a warzone and fight for their lives. This case of Rojava is interesting, but more importantly it’s people, again fighting for their lives.
With that said, because the PKK, which is aligned with the PYD, is on the U.S. terrorist list, it’s difficult to solicit donations for them in the U.S. However, if you’re in the Asheville area, on Wednesday November 5th, 2014 at the Winehaus at 86 Patton Ave, in Asheville from 6:30pm – 8:30pm. There will be music, vegetarian food and the sliding scale tickets from $20-60 will go to the Kurdish Red Crescent to offer material support for those facing assault from the Islamic State. More info can be found at http://bit.ly/aid4rojava
You can find writings by Dilar at http://dilar91.blogspot.com
Also, we’d like to apologize for the quality of Dilar’s audio on the episode, we had a poor connection.
Next week’s show will be the second half of our conversation on the Rojava Revolution and Kurdish women’s movement, media representation of women in Rojava and in the YPJ Star militias fighting against ISIL, if there’s an overlap between anarchism and Democratic Confederalism and more.
For some articles on the Rojava, check out: http://tahriricn.wordpress.com/tag/kurds/
and remain aware that the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) is a seperate movement operating in Iraq and that the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) is a movement based in Turkey. Both groups operate inside of Syria and were involved in the fight against ISIL on Mount Shengal (Sinjar in Arabic), which crosses the border between Iraqi Kurdistan and Rojava.
This week we get to speak with Amélie Trudeau and Fallon Rouiller. Amelie and Fallon, alongside Carlos Lopez Marin, make up the 5E3, who are being charged by the mexican state for an arson of a Nissan dealership and the neighboring ministry of communication and transportation in January of this year. We talk about prison, freedom, dignity, solidarity and more. For more info on the case of the 5E3, check out our episode of August 10th, 2014, where you can find links to sources of their writings and updates.
Before we announce the show, we want to announce our presentation of
Sean Swain’s voice on our show for the first time in 8 weeks. Sean’s
GTL (GlobalTelLink, privatized prison phone company) and JPay (private company Sean’s critiqued before which handles, among other things, emails/commisary and other profitized elements of incarceration) accounts were suspended by the OSP administration, the office of Governor Kasich & the Ohio Highway Patrol/State Police. During those 8 weeks, Sean’s segments on The Final Straw (which were ostensibly a reason for his blackout) never stopped, as Sean smuggled scripts out of the Super-Duper-Uber-Mega-Ultra-Max in Youngstown. Congrats, Sean!
This week we play part two of Mel Bazil’s presentation from the 2014 Montreal Anarchist Bookfaire. He covers an array of concepts. He talks about the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Decolonization, infrastructure, false alternative energies and capitalism.
Mel also touches on the ideas around self-knowledge, Free Prior and Informed Consent between individuals and communities (http://unistotencamp.wordpress.com/free-prior-and-informed-consent-protocol/), and the framework of human/indigenous Rights versus Responsibilities to
the earth and to each other and to ourselves. This broadcast comes on the day that Mr. Bazil and other people struggling with the Unist’ot’en Action Camp expected an injunction against the action camp by the B.C.
government. Anarchists have been invited over the years to build relationships and struggle alongside this community and project, which brings interesting questions of overlaps and differences between anarchism(s) and indigenous cultures in resistance.
Warrior Publications has been publishing informative and beautifully illustrated works on decolonization, resistance and anarchism for over a decade now: http://warriorpublications.wordpress.com/
Vancouver Island Community Forest Action Network is a gateway for outside anarchists and activists to get involved in helping at Unist’ot’en: http://forestaction.wikidot.com/
This audio is from an almost hour and a half presentation that Mel gave on Saturday the 24th of May at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfaire, entitled “Anarchy, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Decolonization.” Many thanks to CKUT Radio in Montreal for sharing this content with the Final
Straw. More info on CKUT can be found at www.ckut.ca
This week’s episode features a workshop by Mel Bazil, an indigenous Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en organizer, sovereigntist, and anarchist of the Unist’ot’en Action Camp. For folks in the listening audience, Unist’ot’en is located on unceded native lands in so-called British Colombia, Canada. More about the Unist’ot’en Action Camp can be found at unistotencamp.com
This audio is from an almost hour and a half presentation that Mel gave on Saturday the 24th of May at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfaire, entitled “Anarchy, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Decolonization.” Many thanks to CKUT Radio in Montreal for sharing this content with the Final Straw. More info on CKUT can be found at www.ckut.ca
This week we’ll be presenting the first of two parts of Mel’s presentation, the second will be aired in coming weeks and linked together on the Final Straw website soon.
Firstly though, an announcement about the health of longterm political prisoner, Kevin “Rashid” Johnson. The following text was found at http://rashidmod.com, where one can seek further updates on the situation.
The first is a call-out on behalf of Oso Blanco (Byron Shane Chabbuck #07909051) in his bid to receive medical treatment for chronic illness (Hep-C) and an unexplored growth in his liver that cause debilitating pain and have resulted in health crises for him. We suggest you participate in the call-in day on Wednesday, December 18th. More info on the call should soon be found at: http://denverabc.wordpress.com/prisoners-dabc-supports/political-prisoners-database/byron-shane-chubbuck/
The main portion of the episode features an interview with Alvaro Luna Hernandez, a Chicano political prisoner serving a 50 year sentence in Texas for disarming a Sheriff who pulled a gun on him, and then fleeing. Mr. Hernandez speaks about his case, his legal history, his political development, and his imprisonment. Special thanks to the Central Texas Anarchist Black Cross for this material. More info on Alvaro can be found at http://freealvaro.net
The final portion of the show features 3 new metal tracks: I by Dusk from their EP; Black Fast with Levitations from Starving Out The Light; and Voidcraeft from the album Scorn with the track As If Amongst Animals.
