Category Archives: IWW

Mr. Block’s Past and Legacy (with Sean Carleton and Iain McIntyre)

Mr. Block’s Past and Legacy (with Sean Carleton and Iain McIntyre)

book cover of "Mr Block: The Subversive Comics and Writings of Ernest Riebe" featuring a drawing of Mr Block saying "Bosses know best!"
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This week, Ian talks to Sean Carleton of Graphic History Collective and Labor historian and activist Iain McIntyre about the recent release of Mr. Block: The Subversive Comics and Writings of Ernest Riebe by PM Press. After some background on their respective projects, they talk about the legacy of the IWW cartoonist, the origins and process of putting the book together, and what aspects of his work are still relevant today. Here’s a hint: just about all of them are.

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Featured Track:

  • Mr. Block performed by Utah Philips from Rebel Voices: Songs of the Industrial Workers of the World
  • Beware The Friendly Stranger by Boards Of Canada from Alpha and Omega

Continue reading Mr. Block’s Past and Legacy (with Sean Carleton and Iain McIntyre)

Prisoner Solidarity, COVID, and Carcerality with IWOC

Prisoner Solidarity, COVID, and Carcerality with IWOC

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This week we are pleased to present an interview that Bursts did with two members of IWOC (the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee), Caroline works with Millions for Prisoners New Mexico (@iwocnm and @millionsforprisonersnm on the Fedbook), Incarceratedworkers.org and Xeno is with IWOC Sacramento (@sacramento_iwoc on Instagram).

For the little-over-an-hour they speak on what it’s like to be working with incarcerated folks during the coronavirus pandemic, how prisons and the carceral mentality impacts everyone to varying degrees, the varying conditions in the prisons they are most tangential to, ways to connect with and support IWOC and many other topics!

Continue reading Prisoner Solidarity, COVID, and Carcerality with IWOC

Class Power on Zero Hours: A chat with Angry Workers

Class Power on Zero-Hours: A chat with Angry Workers

"Class Power On Zero Hours" book and a molotov, classy
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This week, you’ll hear Kiran and Marco of the Angry Workers, a collective of anti-authoritarian communists struggling to think through and build workers autonomy from the UK. For the hour, they talk about their organizing and the book they just published, “Class Power On Zero-Hours” (available from PM press and currently 50% off if you purchase from the publisher using the discount code ‘GIFT’).

Over 6 years, the Angry Workers got jobs in West London in factories, warehouses and logistics, building relationships with coworkers and neighbors from origins worldwide, and getting their hands dirty building working class power alongside other precarious and gig workers. The book documents attempts at building a solidarity network, their newspaper to open dialogue (called Workers Wild West) and engagements in workplace action and organizing. They worked inside and outside of trade unions and the IWW, assessing victories, defeats and lessons to move forward with and sharing glimpses into the struggles and ideas of the people they worked and lived with. This book is an amazingly detailed exploration of building solidarity, learning from mistakes and working towards a collective vision for liberation amongst the labouring classes at the points of production and reproduction.

Announcement

Jason Renard Walker Parole

Incarcerated journalist and author Jason Renard Walker, minister of Labor for the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (Prison Chapter) will have a parole hearing coming up soon in Texas. Jason has faced serious backlash from white supremacist gangs and guards due to his activism and reporting while held by the TCDJ, so much so that he was recently transferred to a new prison, apparently because of the threats he was facing at Clements Unit. Jason’s book,about which we got to interview him earlier this year, “Reports from Within The Belly Of The Beast: Torture and Injustice Inside Texas Department of Criminal Justice”, is now available in paperback as well as digital via Amazon, and his writings have regularly been published by the SF Bay View National Black Newspaper. Letters of support for his parole will go a long way toward getting the parole board to release Jason so that he can finish his Federal stint and get back to the outside. Check our show notes for details on where to write and suggestions on content.

Here’s some information about supporting Jason in this effort:

Dear Supporters of Jason Renard Walker,

Jason’s parole hearing is coming up and we urgently need your help with writing letters. Here is a guide on how to write a persuasive parole letter if you need it:  https://pigeonly.com/pigeonly-blog/how-to-write-a-parole-support-letter/

Letters should be sent right away to:

Board of Pardons and Paroles
8610 Shoal Creek Blvd.
Austin, TX 78757

Things to mention (per Jason):

* Your relationship to Jason,
* Any credentials you have,
* Positive things you know about Jason,

When Jason is paroled from Texas he will immediately begin a minimum six-year federal prison sentence.

Jason said that the most common reason for denial of parole is that the prisoner is a threat to the community, and that his continued incarceration will prevent him from any contact with the general community. He is also worried because TDCJ has poor covid prevention measures.

As many of you know, Jason was facing problems with a white supremacist gang recently and in response, he has been moved to another prison. Jason’s current address is:

Jason Renard Walker #1532092

Michael Unit

2664 FM 2054

Tennessee Colony, TX 75886

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Featured music:

  • Anotha One by Apollo Brown from Trophies (instrumentals)
  • Class War by The Dils

Keep Calm and Get Prepared: A Look Into Month 3 and Beyond of the Portland Uprising with the Portland GDC

Keep Calm and Get Prepared: A Look Into Month 3 and Beyond of the Portland Uprising with the Portland GDC

IWW General Defense Committee logo
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This week we got to sit down with two members of the Portland General Defense Committee, AC (they them) and Raoul (they he), about the ongoing Uprising in Portland OR in the months since the murder of George Floyd. We get to touch on a lot of topics in this interview; the neo-liberal whitewashing of the image of the city of Portland which masks a lot of ultra racist and colonial tendencies, personal timelines of engagement in the Uprising, and a lot of tips and tricks for newer and older anarchists and radicals for dealing with and anticipating state repression and violence.

Here are some notes and links to the topics that our guests spoke on:

-One note on the group Riot Ribs that AC mentions, I think that the group has disbanded for now but have seemingly regrouped as Revolution Ribs, you can find them @RevRibs on Twitter and their Cashapp is $RevolutionRibs. This group does not have a verified Instagram presence as far as I know.

Walidah Imarisha on Oregon’s racist, anti-Black history:

Walidah Imarisha – Why Aren’t There More Black People in Oregon? (YouTube link) approx 1.5 hours long

-You can learn more about the Portland General Defense Committee and donate to their efforts at https://pdxgdc.com/

-Rosehip Medics in Portland : All Fundraising Platforms (rosehipmedics.org)

-Indigenous Mutual Aid is a platform that started up at the start of pandemic and has a very thorough list of Indigenous led and centered projects in their directory (indigenousmutualaid.org)

-Portland Freedom Fund which is a general fund that bails out BIPOC (portlandfreedomfund.org)

Twitter folks to follow for otg news on the PDX Uprising:

Economy Breakfast

Sergio Olmos

Robert Evans

Anti-Repression Resources:

Sprout Distro on Instagram

National Lawyers Guild on Insta

Civil Liberties Defense Center also in Insta

-And finally, there are too many autonomous local bail funds around the country to all name here, but if you do a search for “mutual aid bail fund in [name of town/city]” then that should give you a pretty solid clue about how to support places that haven’t made it into the news as much. You can also do searches for Black Mamas Bail Out in your area to help fund efforts to bail out Black mothers and caregivers.

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Music for this episode:

Run DMC – Peter Piper (instrumental)

RANGEEN – BeatByShaheed

Kevin Rashid Johnson on the #PrisonStrike + Two Audio Zines

Kevin Rashid Johnson on the Prison Strike

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This week on the Final Straw, we’re featuring two main events, both themed around the Prison Strike ongoing across Turtle Island until at least September 9th.

First, an interview we conducted with Kevin “Rashid” Johnson. Rashid is a co-founder of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party and is the Minister of Defense from within it’s Prison Chapter. He is the author of two books available from Kersplebedeb, Defying the Tomb & Panther Vision, both collections of Rashid’s art and essays on capitalism, racism, imperialism and his view of a road towards liberation. Rashid is a Maoist and presents some interesting arguments in his writings. In this interview, Rashid talks briefly about his own case, his politicization behind bars, organizing the NABPP-PC, it’s split from the New Black Panther Party, cross-racial class organizing, the #PrisonStrike and more. We hope to be able to bring more of Rashid’s voice in the future. To check out his writing and and his quite literally iconic art, check out rashidmod.com. And at the moment you can write to Rashid at the following address:

Kevin Johnson #1007485
Sussex 1 State Prison
24414 Musselwhite Dr.
Waverly, VA 23891

Next, we’ll hear an audio post-card that some friends put together, interspersing words of encouragement and audio from a noise demonstration outside Hyde prison in Eastern North Carolina on August 20th. Prisoners at Hyde CI met the outside supporters in the yard and from across lines of razor wire they unfurled three banners with simple statements: “parole”; “better food”; & “In Solidarity”. To read an article about the noise demo, see some pictures and hear about NC specific demands, check out the article, Community Shows Support as NC Prisoners Rally With Banners on ItsGoingDown. Make some noise!

To close out the hour, we will hear some words of encouragement to striking prisoners in #Amerikkka from comrades incarcerated in #Klanada!

If you’re in Asheville today (Sunday September 9th), consider dropping by Firestorm at 610 Haywood Rd at 5pm to join #BlueRidgeABC for the monthly political prisoner letter writing night. Supplies will be free as well as info on writing prisoners, names and addresses, and comradery.

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Show playlist here.

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Transcription

TFSR: Could you please introduce yourself for the listening audience?

Rashid: Alright, this is Kevin Rashid Johnson, I am a prisoner, incarcerated in Virginia at Sussex 1 State Prison.

TFSR: How has the prison tried to silence your organizing and writing over the years, and is this a consequence of the prison strike or other efforts?

R: I think I’ve gone through the entire range of reprisals. I’ve been subjected to physical attacks. I’ve been denied meals. I’ve been attempted to be subjected to dehydration, I’ve been subjected to destruction of property. Most recently I was transferred out of state, sent first to Oregon, then transferred from Oregon as a result of writing and exposing abuses in that prison system, to Texas. Same process resulted — I was transferred from Texas to Florida. Florida just got rid of me in June and sent me back to Virginia. I was then transferred — when I returned to Virginia, to Red Onion State Prison, and moved from Red Onion State prison and transferred on the 12th of July, and sent here to Sussex 1 State Prison, and I’m now being house on death row, although I have no death sentence, and that being with the obvious purpose of isolating me from other prisoners, as there are only three prisoners left on Virginia’s Death Row, and they’re spread out in a 44 cell pod, which I’m housed in separated and all the inmates have been instructed not to talk to me.

So, the major effort has been to isolate me and to remove me from areas and places where they felt I would be able to talk to prisoners, to be able to gain info about abusive conditions and to, I guess, influence prisoners to challenge abuses and to stand up to conditions that are pretty inhumane and abusive. As far as responses to the prison work strike, I have not as of yet seen any reprisals or any response that I could call reprisals. And they expect that there would be exposure of anything they did, which may be the only deterrent at this point for any type of retaliation. But I’ve been involved in a commissary strike, not spending any money, as my contribution to the strike, because I’m confined in solitary and don’t have the ability to work. I have never participated in prison work. I’ve refused through my incarceration because I have recognized it is slave labor, and I refuse to allow them to exploit me in that fashion.

TFSR: For the listeners in the wider public, can you talk about the purpose of prisons under white supremacist capitalism in the US, and why it’s in all of our interest to not only struggle against these institutions, but to support prisoners’’ organizing efforts?

R: Well, from the outset, I think it’s rather obvious that there is a racial component to who is targeted with mass imprisonment within America, from the New Afrikan, that is Black, prisoners, Black social population being 12 to 13% in mainstream society but being some 50% of the prison pop nationwide. In Virginia, where I’m incarcerated, they have been something like 13% of the state population but 58% of the prison population. So, race clearly is a determinative factor in who is targeted within imprisonment and who receives their sentences and the extent of incarceration and where they are housed. In that context, within the prison system, it’s usually at the low security, the low level institutions where predominately white prisoners are housed, and the most extreme and harsh prisons, in each prison system I’ve been to and I know of, this is where the predominately Black and Brown prisoners are housed at.

Within the prison structure, prisoners tend to polarize into racial groups, based on their shared cultural and social experiences, and guards and administration are typically inclined to try to manipulate prisoners against each other along racial grounds, racial lines, you know. The guards in my experience, especially where I just came from — Florida — are particularly orientated to acting out racist policies and politics. In fact, where I was confined, two of the institutions I was confined to, the Reception and Medical Center in Florida, in the Florida State Prison, those institutions have been exposed as employing card-carrying Ku Klux Klan members, in fact — three guards who were exposed as having plotted to kill an ex-prisoner who was Black, at the Reception and Medical Center, and revealed their plans to an FBI informant were recently prosecuted, and it came out during the prosecution that all three of them were card carrying Klansman, and that they work at the institution. And not long ago one of the legislatures on the Florida Congress had done a tour of the Reception and Medical Center, she being a Black woman, she pretty much expressed in the media that she feared for her life, the attitude of the white guards there were just openly racist. She acknowledged that she knew that the Klan played a prominent role in the staff and the administration of that institution and in that region, which is the same are the Florida State Prison is located. And she expressed her knowledge of a portion of the institution’s guards kicking Black prisoners’ teeth out who had gold teeth, and that in general, she knew that these institutions were run by the Ku Klux Klan. And this is from an elected member of the Congress of Florida, a Black woman who had done a tour and said that she literally was in fear of her life as she did this tour within the institution, because of the treatment and attitudes of white guards of the institution when she did her tour. So, the racial politics are pretty out in the open, and they’re able to exist in such at such a level because prisons not only hold people on the inside and keep us isolated from the general public, they also keep the general public locked out. So there is no scrutiny, there is no supervision, and there is generally no public accountability for and by those who work within the institution, so it’s just a closed culture, where all sorts of corruption and abuse is allowed to fester and just to be carried out with pretty much impunity. The support that is needed on the outside is tremendous. The support that the prisoners have been able to gain over the past several years in response to the work strikes and various attempts to publicize and challenge abusive conditions in the prisons have pretty much got word in to the institutions where prison officials had blocked prisoners from becoming aware of what was going on as far as protests going on and attempts to challenge and expose abuses. And it bolstered and motivated prisoners who otherwise were afraid to challenge abusive conditions and didn’t feel that there was anything that could be accomplished by trying to stand up and oppose conditions. It kind of motivated a lot of prisoners who weren’t otherwise involved to get involved. So the support that can be garnered on the outside and has been garnered is very important to this type of work and this type of struggle. It’s essential that those who are aware of these struggles and aware of these conditions give what support they can, not only as allies, but also as comrades.

TFSR: to anyone behind bars out there who might hear this interview, and is sitting on the fence about participation, what can you say about the nation-wide prison strike?

R: That they should not be deterred, they should not be discouraged, they should not just sit on their hands and refuse to get involved. The more of us who get involved, the stronger the outside support and awareness that we’re serious about the conditions that we’re challenging and the need for change — that they should not allow officials to continue to manipulate us against each other, whether along racial lines whether you’re talking about along the lines of street organizing. That’s what supporters… They should also not allow loved ones to discourage them from participating in the work strike. I know a lot of the loved ones who may hear about the strike, they may advise them to not get involved because of fear of them being transferred, a long way away from their loved ones, or they don’t want to see them subject to relation or being placed on lock down, but their loved ones should understand that  this is a condition, that these are conditions that we live, that they’re not living them and that its important that we take a stand to change these abuses, and not play in to officials trying to isolate and play us one against the other, and cause people to refuse or fear coming involved, and keep us divided amongst ourselves. We need all possible participants; we need the greatest level of unity possible. And one of the things I always emphasize to my peers is, we outnumber the prison guards, the prison officers around us some 30 to one at very least. But they have total power and total control, because they always keep us divided, fearful, envious, and not trusting or believing in our own potential, where as they exercise complete and absolute unity in their actions. If they want to abuse you, the rest of them are gonna fall in line and support that abuse. If one them lies on us and mistreats us, the rest of them are going to conform to that lie and they’re gonna carry out that abuse. And that’s why they have the control and power that they have, because no matter what, no matter what the situation no matter the condition, they always work and stick together. And we need to take that same example and apply it to how we exercise our unity and our level of power amongst ourselves.

TFSR: Rashid, can you talk about your incarceration, political development, and a bit about the New Afrikan Black Panther Party that you helped to co-found? Also, how does it differ from the New Black Panther Party, formerly of the nation of Islam?

R: Ok, my imprisonment initially began in 1990. I was incarcerated for a murder that I had no involvement in, and large part, it was conspiratorial on the part of a police officer who I had a history of conflicts with. They subjected me to deliberate misidentification and a number of procedural violations during the prosecution of the case that was imputed against me, that went the actual jurisdiction, the actual power of the court to try to convict and sentence me for the charges that they were attempting to impute against me.

Ok, throughout my imprisonment, particularly the first decade and a half, I spent a large part of my time struggling directly against guard abuses. Their physical abuses, I responded to with physical responses. They would abuse physically myself or others around me, and I would respond with physical reactions to their abuses. I went through the struggle pretty much back and forth, one to one head up conflicts with guards and their teams, riot guards and cell extraction teams, for about the first decade and a half. I became exposed to political thought put, particularly the writings of George Jackson, around 2002, when I was housed in an area with another prisoner, another political prisoner, Hanif Shabazz Bey, from the Virgin Islands. He turned me on to a lot of different political writings, and different political organizations that were involved in the system in America, the various revolutionary nationalist struggles that had taken place through the world through the 40s and 50s.

I began to do extensive studies into various aspects and levels of progressive as well as revolutionary history and politics. Various theories, etc. And as I studied more, I came to understand the inherent dysfunctional nature of the capitalist, imperialist system that America is at the center of, and I understood or came to understand that the oppression that I was struggling against was much bigger than head to head clashes with individual guards, that it was largely an invalid system that pitted a small group of powerful wealthy people against the masses of working class people and poor people through out the world, and that they lived at the expense of these people. And to change conditions requires a struggle that mobilized the oppressed to bring about fundamental change at various levels of society. And I grew from a person inclined to react on a more individual level to one who recognized or saw the bigger picture and was more inclined to organize people and to contribute what I could with my resources, and the understanding that I was developed to build into something bigger, that was more, addressed more to the fundamental problems of the overall system. So in that, my clashes with individual guards lessened. I was also involved in mitigation and studying and understanding the political system and legal system. I became less inclined to, as I said, individualize my struggle against the system. Though, in doing that, I began to reach out more to people on the outside who were involved in political organizations, trying to pull people who were in positions of influence, politically people who were willing to mobilize groups of people in support of prisoners and conditions that we lived under, to challenge those conditions, to educate prisoners, and to try to consolidate a base of support on the outside to the inside. In doing this, I was able to understand some of the weaker points of the system.

I understood where it was most effective to attack the power structure, and I understood, or came to understand that one of the most vulnerable places that you can direct your attack at the system is by exposing its corruption to the masses, because the masses are the sources of their power, that those people can’t be ruled over by an oppressor, or any power, unless they give their consent at some level to that ruling. And once they become aware of the illegitimacies and the corruption of the system, and they refuse to acknowledge or concede the legitimacy of the system, then they can typically overnight overthrow that system. And this is why the power structure expends such a massive amount of resources and propaganda to try to influence and keep the masses brainwashed and believing that they’re moralistic and they’re honest and they’re well-meaning and their intentions are oriented to the best interests of the masses, because they realize without some level of acknowledgment and consent, the masses of the people could not be ruled over and would not accept their authority, and as you observed during the Arab Spring in, what, 2011? — once the mass of the people refused to accept the power that rules over them, they can send that power into exile and flight over night, and the powers that be understand this. So I understood that by exposing the corruption and illegitimacy of those in power and the lies that the sustain themselves with, this is one means of undermining the false power and the false credibility and sense of legitimacy that these people try to portray themselves, as the basis of them exercising their authority over others. And it has proven most effective, particularly my writings about abuses going on inside of the prisons. My writings exposing the corruptions and illegitimacy of the power structure and the economic system to the extent that people have been receptive to my writings, I have seen a corresponding reaction by those in power, which, as I pointed out earlier, is a result of me facing a much higher level of reprisal and attempts to isolate me now, a very different response from when I was just in my head to head clashes with, you know, guards at a very low ranking lever. When I started to expose the system, they started tryna isolate me, to try and stop me from communicating with people on the outside, to shutting down my lines of communication, transferring me from state to state and deliberately sending me to states where conditions were known to be the most abusive in the country, particularly Texas and Florida, and trying to put me in positions where I would end up in violent clashes with other prisoners, and that sort of thing.

But anyway, as I became more politically I aware, I saw the need for political organizations to represent those who do not have political representations and to operate to educate and organizing the masses on a more revolutionary and fundamental level of understanding the political economic system on how to challenge and ultimately over throw that oppressive system in the interest of the working class and in support of the people. So, we co-founded the New Afrikan Black Panther Party Prison Chapter initially as an autonomous of the New Black Panther Party, being aware the New Black Panther Party started in 2000 was not practicing the politics and they were not living up to principles in the program of the original Black Panther Party, but had pretty much wrapped up these politics, the racial politics of the Nation of Islam, in an artificial garb of Black Pantherism. And our agenda was to try to take that organization in to the politics and the revolutionary ideology of the original Black Panther Party and to change their reverse racism, and to put them more on to the path of revolutionary politics of the original party. Ultimately, we realized that it was futile trying to do this, in that they were not interested in changing their political orientation, or to maintaining or carrying forward the agenda of the original Panther Party, so we ultimately split from the New Black Panther Party.

We changed our name to the National Black Panther Party Prison Chapter, and from there we have maintained the political line of the original Black Panther Party, but we have been very focused on not repeating the mistakes of the original party, but building on the correct contributions that the party made to the struggle of the 60s and 70s. And trying to carry forward what they were able to accomplish during their more revolutionary stages, which was from 1966 to 1971, and to, again, not repeat the errors that they made, and to learn from the mistakes that they made and from the what we understand now to be a very vicious campaign carried out against them by the US government, and the inclination of the government to attack any organization that seeks to open the eyes of the masses of the people. And we ourselves have been subjected to the same sort attacks and attempts to undermine. We’ve been stigmatized as Black Separatists and domestic terrorists, and all when we have done nothing and we have not been fighting for doing anything except publicizing the corruption of the law enforcement establishment and the abuses inside the US prisons, and they have identified this as being the behavior that they dislike, that they feel qualified us as threats to the security of the country. And I was personally profiled in a 2009 threat assessment report as a domestic terrorist because of my involvement in publicizing abuses in, you know, American prisons. And they’re saying that I prove to have exercised a good level of influence over people and society, in turning them against the law enforcement system because of my writings, which is pretty absurd. But this has been the thrust of what we are trying to organize, and some of the work that we’ve done, and the response has been, as I said, repression, isolation, attempts to attack us, subjecting the various members, leading members of our org to various levels of reprisal. Being placed in, thrown in solitary, subjected to all sorts of physical abuses, and you know, other attempts to try and dissuade and deter us from the work that we’re trying to do.

TFSR: The New Afrikan Black Panther Party has a focus of org with folks of African descent. In your view, how can folks in other groups, like white folks, act as comrades as you say in struggle against white supremacy?

R: Alright, within our party, we founded in 2006 in what’s called the White Panther Organization and subsequent to that, the Brown Panther Organizational Committee, as arms of our party. We are the first Panther organization that has actually brought white comrades and brown comrades in to our party. So we have brown and white Panthers in our party, and the function of them is to take the line of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party in to the white communities to struggle against the racism in the white communities, the Brown Panthers take the same line in to the brown communities, and the thing is to bring all these different sectors of society, both domestic and abroad, into a consolidated, united front that will unify us in the single struggle against the imperialist system, particularly focused on the marginalized people that are called criminalized or the Lumpen. Our work is specifically again to take the struggle to the power structure at the most fundamental level, and to build the sort of unity that has been probably the Achilles heel of revolutionary struggles, and undermining their effectiveness, and that has been polarizing factor of race. And as I see it, this is our approach in it has proven quite effective.

Initially when they sent me out of state, they sent me to Oregon, which is one of the few prison systems in America where there is a predominately white prisoner population — it’s probably like 5 or 10% Black. And they sent me there after they had profiled me as a Black Separatist, and when I got to Oregon, they spread amongst the large number of Aryan gangs up there that I was Black Panther, which they portrayed as some sort of Black variation of the Ku Klux Klan, portraying us as anti-white and wanted to make race war against white people and this sort of thing, and they were trying to create a violent conflict between me and the white groups up there, which was obviously the point of them sending me to that state. But in effect, because of the politics of our party, and the orientation of the line of our white panther organization, I was able to politicize the white groups up there to various — they had like 13 different Aryan gangs up there in the prison system. I ended up politicking with them. They immediately released me into the population, which was another indication what they intended to try to see happen. But instead of me ending up in a war with them, I ended up politicking with them, exposing them to the history of racism, how racism was manipulated and created in the late 1600’s, and how it had been used and has been used as the most effective polarizing factor in society to manipulate oppressed people against each other. And I won a large sector of them over, and when I started to prove effective as not engaging them in violence, but winning them over to more revolutionary political and understanding of racial politics, they immediately threw me into solitary, got me out of population, and started to impose a different regiment of abuse and oppression against me, and ultimately kicked me out of the state and sent me to Texas, and when I was able to influence white Aryan gangs there to get involved in the national prison hunger strike that was taking place in 2013, where 30,00 prisoners got involved in Oregon joined them in hunger strike, so the line of our party, with respect to racial politics is specifically to organize white comrades to take the politics of our party, unifying politics in to the white community to struggle against the polarizing culture in, you know, white culture and white society in America, and to try to bring us all together in a common, united front.

TFSR: Can you talk about your views on feminism in the revolutionary struggle for a new society?

R: Alright, I should make a distinction between our line on the gender issue and the question of the struggle against paternalism and male domination. We are not feminist. We are, we are about revolutionary women’s liberation. Feminism seems to be the equal opposite of chauvinism, no– male chauvinism. The line in feminism largely has been represented by the bourgeois sector of the women’s movement, the upper middle class to upper class has always dominated the voice of the feminist movement, so we find it to be largely not a movement that really is about advancing the cause of women, at all levels of oppression, but at the interest of bourgeois and upwardly middle class women to gain an equal foothold with the bourgeois males in dominating society in general. So our struggle is for gender equality, not to raise the interest of upper class women at the exclusion of the lower class and oppressed women. Our struggle is to see working class women, poor women have all their rights respected and to be given an equal stage of power and an equal stage of respect throughout society at all stages, though I would make the distinction between what is known or generally represented as feminism with what we call revolutionary women’s liberation. But we are allied, of course, to the women’s movement, those women who identify as and those other people who may reject the concept of gender etc, who identify with the feminist struggle, but from the standpoint of working class women and working class non gender people or working class lgbtq people, and we stand on an equal footing with them and seek to have all forms of repression of women or all forms of repression of non gendered people, all forms of repression of LGBTQ people overthrown, and all people to have an equal share in power, and an equal interest in having their rights, and their desires, so long as they aren’t opposing and oppressing other people.

TFSR: Are there any other final statements you’d like to make, before we get cut off

R: Well, I would like to state that I appreciate this opportunity to speak to the listen au of this program, and I really hope that much can be achieved through the struggles that are gaining ground and momentum now, and that there will be a growing link between those on the outside and the prison movement, and that this will help advance the cause of the oppressed against this oppressive system.

TFSR: Thank you so much for making this conversation happen, and solidarity

As of May 2019, Rashid has been transferred out of state yet again to Virginia. He can be written at:
Kevin Johnson # 264847
G-20-2C
Pendleton Correctional Facility
4490 W. Reformatory Road
Pendleton, IN 46064

You can read his essays and updates on his case, plus get ahold of his two books, learn about the NABPP-PC and see his revolutionary artwork up at: http://rashid.mod

Shane Burley on Fascism Today + Asheville’s Service Worker Assembely

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This week on The Final Straw, we’ll be airing two interviews. In the first, Bursts spoke with author and activist Shane Burley about the state of street level fascism and anti-fascism in the U.S. Then about 45 minutes into the episode, you’ll hear Bursts speaking with two members of the Asheville branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, or IWW.

Shane Burley on Fascism today

Shane is the author of numerous articles on the subject as well as a the 2017 book from AK Press, “Fascism Today: What It Is And How To End It.” The conversation ranges from talking about specific groups like Atomwaffen, The Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer and the Traditionalist Workers Party (TWP), to the Unite The Right 2 (UTR2) having been announced by Jason Kessler for either D.C. or Charlottesville, VA.

Shane also talks about essentialism in fascism and the creeping relationship between “identitarian” patriarchs and the trans-misogyny of TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) in Deep Green Resistance, such as Lierre Kieth and Derrick Jensen. The book mentioned by Bursts about essentialism, fascism and anarchism can be found in audio format on R.A.D., another member of the CZN.  The original text can also be found on their tumblr.

Shane Burley is touring on the east coast, currently, and can be seen tonight (June 17th) at The Wooden Shoe in Philadelphia and on Tuesday the 19th at Potter’s House in Washington, D.C.

Asheville IWW on Service Work

The wobblies talk about the upcoming Service Workers Assembly they have planned for Tuesday, June 26th from 6-9pm at Kairos West, under Firestorm in West Asheville.  Here’s a link to their fedbook.

If you are a service worker in the Asheville area and want to chat with other folks from the industries about how your conditions could improve, come on by. No bosses, snitches or scabs, please.

There’s no Sean Swain again this week, hopefully we’ll get the crossed wires fixed soon.

Announcements

Debbie Africa of MOVE9 released!

Debbie Sims Africa was paroled this week from prison after about 40 years inside for crossing the Philly PD and the Frank Rizzo administration!  We hope that a push can happen to get the remaining 6 members inside.  Welcome to the outside, Debbie! #FreeEmAll

Local Announces

In this run-up week to the Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair (ACAB2018), there’ll be a game of punk jeopardy on Thursday the 21st at the Lazy Diamond starting at 9pm. The venue is a bar, so it’s 21 and up only. On Friday, feel free to stop by the welcome table at Firestorm for an intro to the range of events over the weekend. Check out the calendar of events, including the schedule for the workshops and more!

Playlist

Powderkegs and Cyber Communism: WV Teacher’s Strike Reflections + Asheville SETWAC

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Interview with Michael about the recent WV Teacher’s Strike

In this interview, Bursts spoke with an anarchist teacher and IWW labor organizer in West Virginia, Michael Mochaidean, about the work that went into the recent teacher strikes that went slightly Wild Cat and ended in a partial victory for the teachers after 12 days of walk outs by public school teachers across the state and has inspired labor organizing among communication workers in West Virginia, teachers across Oklahoma, Arizona, New Jersey and elsewhere.  They cover Right To Work regimes in the U.S. South, the organizing model of the IWW, dual union membership, #generalstrike2018, #55strong, and where Michael sees things moving forward.

Interview about the Southeast Trans and/or Women’s Action Camp
Next we have a short interview with Miel, an Asheville resident and co organizer of the Southeast Trans and/or Women’s Action Camp, or SETWAC, which will take place outside of Asheville from April 26th thru 28th. We talk about the camp and the importance of having an eco-struggle space be centered away from cis-masculine genders.

We also talk about this group’s fundraising platform and the troubles they’ve had there, plus a link for a new fundraising push and how to get involved.To learn more about this project, you can visit https://setwac.blackblogs.org, and to donate you can go to http://paypal.me/SETWAC2018

Podcast special: International Solidarity against Repression of anarchists and antifa in Russia

If you want even more audio in your ear, check out our website for the interview Bursts did with Antti, a member of Moscow Anarchist Black Cross, about repression of anarchists and anti-fascists in Russia & Crimea, including the frame-up of criminal conspiracy, torture, disappearances and criminalization of supposed statements on social media.  There has been a call for international solidarity actions with a-team and antifa in the Russian Federation from today, March 11th through the 18th, as well as a day of solidarity specifically on the 18th called for by Moscow Anarchist Black Cross in the run-up to the first round of Russian Presidential elections.

Presentation at Firestorm 

Also, if you’re in Asheville this week, at Firestorm on Thursday, March 15th at 6pm there’ll be a presentation by another Russian anarchist comrade entitled, “The Western Left and Media Politics of Russia in the Context of the War in Ukraine”.  This event is free, wheel chair accessible and will be followed by a question and answer period.
You can see the Fedbook event here!

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Playlist here.

Autonomous Northern California Fires Relief Efforts

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I’d like to share a Final Straw Radio mini-episode, a conversation with Emilio of the currently unofficial Sonoma County IWW, or Industrial Workers of the World. This chapter doesn’t yet have an official charter but they were in the process or organizing one when the fires in Northern California started last week and have used this as a platform for fund-raising and trying to work out solidarity relief in Santa Rosa, the seat of Sonoma County. For this chat, Emilio and I talk about the weather patterns of northern coastal California, relief efforts by the Red Cross and other NGO’s around shelter and care distribution, what their nascent chapter of the IWW is trying to do and related topics. To find more about their chapter, you can go onto fedbook and stay tuned in the conversation for their relief phone number, a few material needs you can provide from a distance and ways to get involved if you’re in the area.

August 19th Solidarity with Prisoners: Ben Turk of IWOC

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This week, Bursts spoke with Ben Turk about the August 19th call out for solidarity with prisoners. The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, a project of the Industrial Workers of the World (or IWW) syndicalist labor union is one body organizing the inside and outside actions, and Ben is a member. Ben’s also affiliated with Lucasville Amnesty

Last year was a huge time for radical organizing around the U.S. Prisoners from around the country participated in the September 9th national prisoner strike, the first of it’s size and scope that we’ve seen. This event mobilized individual prisoners and also sprang from groups like the Free Alabama Movement and it’s sister pushes in other carceral states, Anarchist Black Cross chapters, the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, or IWOC, of the Industrial Workers of the World labor union and also by just lots of unaffiliated prisoners. Now, we have what could be called a hard Law and Disorder administration in the White House talking about increasing funding and support for cops, further militarizing the border and terrorizing residents, reviving the 1980’s style war on drugs and other repressive actions. In this context, it feels necessary for those who have a different vision of the world to push back and keep pushing as we were under Obama, under Bush & before.

This August 19th there is a call for another prisoner-led show of resistance supported by folks on the outside as well.

More on IWOC can be found at https://incarceratedworkers.org and more about public call for the strike can be found at IAmWeUbuntu.com

Soooooo many Announcements

But first, we have a bunch of announcements we wanted to share with you. If you have things you want announced on the show, send us an email and we may include it!

Firstly, if you follow the show on twitter, we’re shifting the show’s account over to @StrawFinal. If you’re on that or other, despicable forms of social media, consider checking us out for announcements about the show, about related projects and for the occasional anti-social, cat memes.

Kevin “Rashid” Johnson in transit
An update on the case of Kevin “Rashid” Johnson from http://rashidmod.com :

“Supporters have received word that Kevin “Rashid” Johnson was picked up by Virginia officials and removed from Clements Unit on Thursday, June 23rd. He is no longer being held by Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Thanks to so many people phoning Virginia Interstate Compact Supervisor Terry Glenn, we have found out that Rashid is now in Florida at a “reception facility”. However, we do not know where that is, if he can receive mail there, or where he will end up. We will keep you informed as we find out more, and in the meantime will be asking people to phone Glenn back on Monday.
Rashid is Minister of Defense of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (Prison Chapter); he is a Virginia prisoner organizer and revolutionary communist. As a result of his organizing he has been repeatedly transferred out of state, under a setup called the “Interstate Compact” which is used to remove rebellious prisoners and exile them to locations where they have no friends, support, etc. For the past four years Rashid has been held in Texas, where he has been beaten, threatened, had his property confiscated, been set up on bogus infractions, and more — nonetheless, he used his time there to forge connections with other prisoners and to write a series of powerful exposés about violence, medical neglect, abuse, and murder in the Texas prison system.
Transfers can be opportunities for prison officials to arrange for violence and abuse. Rashid was beaten when he was first brought to Texas, and lost much of his property at the time. Outside supporters and people concerned about prisoners’ rights and basic human dignity need to make sure this does not happen again!”

Kevin “Rashid” Johnson’s support site suggests people call the following prison employee to support Rashid, and there’s a simple script for calls available at http://rashidmod.com:
Mr. Terry Glenn, Interstate Compact Supervisor
Virginia Department of Corrections
P.O. Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261-6963
Phone: (804) 887-7866
Fax: (804) 674-3595

QTLUG & VPNs
When this show is over, consider bringing your linux or soon-to-be linux laptop, tablet, phone or whatever device over to Firestorm for the QTLUG. A linux and open source software enthusiasts’ meetup. Asheville Queer & Trans Linux User Group (QTLUG, pronounced “Cutie Lug”) aims to provide a welcoming environment for queers, trans folks, women and others who want to explore technology and receive support from peers. QTLUG meets monthly and can be contacted at qtlug@tuta.io . Today, June 25th at 3:30pm EST there’ll be a VPN clinic, where attendees will be helped to set up Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, on their devices. Little to no experience necessary!

Self-Protection Class
Today at 4 to 6pm, and every Sunday, in Haw Creek Park at 40 Avon Rd in Asheville there will be a self-protection class taught by folks at Mountain Forge. This class is informed by Combat Systema and other tendencies.

J20 benefit with Thou
Tonight, on June 25th at 7pm at the Pinhook in Durham, NC, there’ll be a benefit concert to raise funds for J20 defendants, those swept up in the kettle on January 20th in D.C. during the protests against the inauguration. Bands playing include the New Orleans, anarcho-doom band THOU as well as Bad Friends, and Slime.

Info Session on Stonewall
On Tuesday June 27th, the other Tranzmission in Asheville will be hosting An Information Session, Stonewall Commemoration Week downstairs at the Pack Library in Downtown AVL from 6-8pm. “Learn about the Miss Major, Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. Myka Johnson from TQPOC, Charlotte (Queer Trans People of Color, Charlotte) will teach us about the leaders who kicked off the modern day LGBTQ movement, trans people of color!”

DIY Screen Printing workshop
On Wednesday, June 28th, you can attend a DIY Screenprinting workshop// Taller de serigrafía from 7-8:30pm at the Kairos West community center, behind Firestorm at 610 Haywood Rd in West Asheville. Bring a blank, light colored tshirt to print on!

Trouble #4: There Is No Justice… Just Us
On Friday, June 30th at 7:30pm, there’ll be a showing of the 30 minute, 4th installment of TROUBLE, the new serial documentary series from sub.Media. This episode has a focus on Repression and Movement Defense with examples around support for Fernando Barcenas in Mexico, defense of water defenders from the #NoDAPL struggle, support for #J20 defendants, La Fuga anti-carceral organizing across Chile, Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee about U.S. prison strikes and more. This’ll be followed by a conversation based on prompts from the film makers.

Prison Books packaging
On Saturday July 1st and every following Saturday, Asheville Prison Books Project will be hosting a weekly book packaging and letter writing event in the back of Downtown Books & News, 67 N Lexington Ave, Asheville. APBP sends free books and letters to prisoners around the South Eastern U.S.

Stonewall Folk Punk concert
Also on July 1st in Asheville, the other Tranzmission will be hosting Folk Punk Transtravaganza, Stonewall Commemoration Week at the members-only bar, Broadways from 7-10pm. Performances by Gullible Boys, Bless Your Heart, Brynn Estelle and ATL’s wWaylon.

NVDA training against Coal Ash & Pipelines
On Sunday July 2nd, there’ll be a Non Violent Direct Action training camp from 9am to 5pm hosted by Claire and Coleman in preparation for a protest on July 4th against the Duke Energy coal-ash pit and Atlantic Coast Pipeline that Duke is investing in. The action is entitled “Lake Julian Action: Independence From Fossil Fuels”. The action camp will take place at 406 Overlook Rd Extension in Arden. There’s also a request on that fedbook page for fundraising for the direct action.

Blue Ridge ABC letter wriitng
Letters save lives! Join Blue Ridge ABC each month for an evening of solidarity with incarcerated comrades. Celebrate their birthdays by sending words of encouragement and support. From 5-7:30pm at Firestorm Books & Coffee, more info on the group at BRABC.Blackblogs.Org

Needle Exchange
July 4th falls on a Tuesday and every Tuesday at 1:30pm, the Steady Collective, a harm reduction project in Asheville, does it’s Needle Exchange at Firestorm, 610 Haywood Rd. Show up if you need clean needles, information on Narcan, or wanna start helping out! They’ll also be at the Haywood Street Congregation, 297 Haywood St in downtown from 10am to 3pm every Wednesday.

July 4th Critical Mass Bike Parade
Also on July 4th, from 5:30pm to 9pm, there will be an Anti-Nationalist Critical Mass Bike Ride and bike parade in Asheville. Leaving from Montford Park Place, near between Panola and Cumberland, the ride will be a reasonable distance at a reasonable pace to allow more participation and will return to the park for cool-down, vegan popsicles, or vice lollies as they may be called in the U.K., plus speakers, info and maybe music. From the announcement:

“Gather with us on July 4th to demonstrate resistance to nationalism and the american empire’s history of genocide, slavery and ecological devastation. Especially in the present climate of rising white nationalism, attacks on indigenous sovereignty, and disregard for impending climate disaster, we reject this holiday and its gratuitous flag-waving propaganda. Instead, we’ll celebrate collective resistance by taking the streets in a critical mass bike ride through downtown. Show your opposition to war and eco-devastation in this pedal-powered parade!”

More on this event and other local events to WNC, check out http://avlcommunityaction.com

Anarchist Summer Camp, Register by July 5th!
The Institute for Advanced Troublemaking, which is “a small collective
of long time anarchist organizers seeking to create a lasting movement
education hub in the Northeast of the so-called US”, is hosting an
anarchist summer camp which will be held August 11th – 18th in
Worcester, MA this year.

Some information about the group from their website “The I.A.T. aims to
raise collective capacity to target our enemies at the systemic level
with effective direct action and campaign work. As Trump’s presidency
spurs a swell of anarchist organizing and renewed interest in anti-state
anti capitalist perspectives, we want to escalate by building skills in
direct action, creating movement infrastructure, and community
organizing for new anarchists. We also want to bring experienced
organizers together to innovate strategies and tactics for our
contemporary context. Rather than an activism 101, our intention is to
cultivate deeper understanding and praxis of anarchist organizing among
people who are already doing some of that work.”

The main idea is to build on the social and political potential of
events like conferences and bookfairs to expand what is possible in this
upcoming era in which it feels increasingly vital to have a vibrant and
adaptive anarchist praxis.

You can see more information about this event at
https://advancedtroublemaking.wordpress.com/ which will include a three
part presentation by some past interviewees about Burn Down The American
Plantation! Registration ends on July 5th, and will prioritize “people
of marginalized identities including POC, working class, trans or gender
nonconforming, those with dis/abilities, LGBTQI, and women, but
recognize that many of these may not be visibly apparent”.

When There Is No 911
On Thursday, July 6th to 9th from 9am to 5pm each day in Knoxville, TN, there will be a workshop entitled “When There Is No 911: Emergency Care”. This will be hosted by Mountain Forge

Learn the skills for the Right Now emergencies. There is no time to google for the answer, you can’t consult your mentors, the stars, or your power animal, you need to act NOW ! Now what?

Skills that will help us to take care of ourselves and each other.

This class will start you off in the fundamental skill of emergency care in urban, suburban, rural, wilderness, and disaster (short, long, and very long ) emergency situations.

More info, including the location and the requisite pre-registration, can be found at their fedbook page.

BK Punk Rock Karaoke
If you’re in Brooklyn on July 14, consider the Punk Rock Karaoke benefit for Certain Days political prisoner calendar. The karaoke will take place from 9:30pm til 12:30am at the Pine Box Rock Shop at 12 Gratton st in Brooklyn.

Meet Your Local Redneck
Back in Asheville, Carolina Mountain Redneck Revolt will be having a public event in Carrier Park (220 Amboy Rd) on July 16th from 12 noon to 4pm. This’ll be a meet and greet with the local chapter in the hopes of networking, discussion of community engagements, Redneck Revolt praxis and more. This is a potluck with veg options, and it’s suggested you bring sides to share.

Playlist

Greg Curry (of the ’93 Lucasville uprising) on the #PrisonStrike

Greg Curry

gregcurry.org
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This week Bursts speaks with Greg Curry, a prisoner serving time for alleged participation in the Lucasville Prison uprising of 1993 where prisoners took over the Ohio prison, leading to the death of 10 inmates and one guard. For the hour, they speak about incarceration in the U.S., intersections of race and class, the prison strikes, capitalism and resistance. More on Greg’s case can be found at https://gregcurry.wordpress.com/

Announcements

Prison Strike, Week 2

Here is another roundup of week two of of the National Prison Strike. This information was pulled from Mask Magazine, It’s Going Down, Support Prisoner Resistance, and the Incarcerated Worker’s Organizing Committee.

September 12th

  • Hunger strike begins at Lucasville and Ohio State Penitentiary, called by the Free Ohio Movement.
  • South Carolina prisoners release video of insects in their food.
  • Columbia, SC: Confirmed strike at Broad River Correctional Institution:
  • Florida: More prisoner uprising broke out on Monday night. According to the Miami Herald:
  • Florida’s state prisons have resumed “normal” operations despite a disturbance Monday night at Columbia Correctional, the fifth inmate uprising in less than a week, officials said. About 40 inmates engaged in civil disobedience by refusing officers’ orders and taking control of at least one dorm Monday evening. Columbia — one of the state’s most violent prisons — remained on lockdown Tuesday. Since Thursday, inmates have caused trouble at four other prisons, all in the state’s Panhandle, including Gulf Annex Correctional, Mayo Correctional and Jackson Correctional. The most serious melee was at Holmes Correctional, where 400 inmates destroyed several dorms on Thursday. Inmates involved in any incident have been moved to other prisons.

September 13th

Chelsea Manning ends hunger strike that she began on September 9th. The army has agreed to grant her demands of gender affirming surgery.

September 14th

Support Prisoner Resistance reports prison lockdowns in Arizona. Perryville, Yuma, Tuscon, Douglas, and Phoenix. It is unclear whether these are related to the strike, more information is forthcoming.

September 16th

Merced, CA: Supporters report another block joins hunger strike. You can hear full coverage of this situation on the most recent IGD Cast here.

September 17th

Holman Prison, AL: Free Alabama Movement issues press release calling for an end to the humanitarian crisis at the prison. They state through social media that many guards are not reporting to work and that much of the prison remains unguarded. This is from a press release which came out yesterday:

A serious humanitarian crisis is developing at Holman prison as correctional officers continue to walk off of the job amid concerns about safety and apathy from Warden Terry Raybon and the office of ADOC Commissioner Jefferson S Dunn, as violence, including deadly stabbings and assaults continue to mount.

Several officers expressed dismay and fear after learning that two of their fellow officers, Officer Brian Ezell and another officer, reported to Warden Raybon that they had knives drawn on them and their lives threatened, and that neither Warden Raybon, nor Commissioners Jeff Dunn and Grantt Culliver would take any action to ensure their safety. Both of these officers then quit.

Several other officers have also quit in the past three weeks after witnessing a stabbing of a fellow officer in the temple and who had remained hospitalized with life threatening injuries until he was pronounced dead earlier today. This after a former warden, Carter Davenport, was stabbed in March amidst back to back riots and other violence at Holman.

Now, after seeing Warden Raybon release approximately 20 people from segregation on September 13, 2016, most of whom were all in segregation for violent incidents (only to see several stabbing take place, including one critically injured and another losing an eye), a total of eight more officers have e ither quit or turned in their two week notices. Officers are expressing concern that the Commissioners of the ADOC are intentionally exacerbating violence at the expense of human life in efforts to push forward their plan to extort the public for 1.5 billion to build new prisons in next years Legislative Session.

Officers have began to express support for the Non-Violent stance of FREE ALABAMA MOVEMENT and their efforts to expose corruption, violence and other issues plaguing Holman and other Alabama prisons, and have went so far as to make repeated requests to Warden Raybon for the release of F.A.M. co-founder and organizer Kinetik Justice from solitary confinement, because officers now feel that he is being wrongfully detained and because he has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to conduct peaceful demonstrations at Holman prison to bring attention to issues within the ADOC and Holman prison.

We are asking that everyone call Commissioner Dunn and Warden Raybon and demand that they post daily reports of the staffing levels and incidents of violence taking place at Holman as a matter of public safety.

Warden Terry Raybon
Holman Correctional Facility
251-368-8173
Commissioner Jefferson Dunn
Commissioner Grantt Culliver
334-353-3883 (switchboard operator)

We close with this update from inside prison walls in SC:

“Comrades up here having an inside meeting to critically analyze the Prison strike strong and weak positions. For many it didn’t go far enough. Crucial points of resolution are not addressed. Certain regions didn’t feel the love, so the fire didn’t burn where they were at. Strong points, it was time. Unity was found on the outside. More people are talking about prison issues. Inside prisoners found unity in certain units or prisons. We too are talking more. These are just samples of what we need to start discussions around, particularly the prisoners. Because this will tell us how to add this moment in the movement, to the collective of prison rebellions to strengthen it, and toss the weak points.

Big UPS to the Prisoners thats always refused to comply. I’m one. For over a decade I’ve been punish with little privileges do to my insistent stance not to work. So the prisons close us off from the working prisoners. Its good to see others joining. But its not enough. They’ll let the few of us lay. So to be truly effective, time to plan and prepare for the next phase.”

Call for solidarity from IWOC

Meanwhile, the IWOC is making every effort to track the strike in the hopes of continuing this resistance and locating forms of solidarity and calls for assistance. If you would like to help in this effort, there is a comprehensive phone zaps list that includes a rundown of phone numbers, some context for the specific struggles, and suggested scripts to read if and when you get the pigs on the line. You can see this Google Doc here.

Also, if you hear anything, or are able to call prisons and ask about lockdown status, please let IWOC know via email at: iwoc(at)riseup(dott)net If you make calls for a given state and hear no lockdowns, please report that too.

Stay tuned all around for updates on the strike. Love and solidarity!

Legal fund donations to AVL and ATL

And finally (tho not lastly) just to plug, and to yet again express our love for our jailed NC and GA comrades, people here in Asheville and in Atlanta still need donations for legal funds. All of these folks were arrested while expressing solidarity with the Prison Strike, and the folks from Atlanta are facing some insane felony charges. All of them are out of jail now, but are beginning the long, slow battle with the criminal injustice system and they need your support.

To donate to comrades in Asheville, and to see a pretty sweet write up of the events of the day in our town, you can visit:
https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/legal-support-for-wnc-sept-9-solidarity-activists

And to express solidarity to Atlanta, you can visit: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/bail-out-prison-strike-supporters

Some anarchist media not to be missed

I’d like to share a few notes on recent anarchist audio and video media in english that I’ve been appreciating in hopes of enticing you, dear audience, into checking them out.

Crimethinc’s The Exworker has begun rebroadcasting. This most recent episodes of the podcast focuses on the September 9th strike with a conversation with Azzurra of the ABC in Houston, TX, and Ben Turk of IWOC based in Wisconsin. Episode 49 also includes a review of Captive Nation: Black Organizing In The Civil Rights Era, an interview with an anarchist in the UK about Brexit and other tidbits. #50 also includes a segment mourning the death of Jordan MacTaggart, an American anarchist who died on the front lines in Rojava recently, a segment celebrating the death of former police chief and all-around king-bastard John Timoney and a rebroadcast of a Crna Luknja interview with members of DAF about Turkey after the attempted Coup. These ExWorkers are well worth a listen and available at http://crimethinc.com/podcast/

Also, submedia’s most recent episode on strikes, the DAPL pipeline and more entitled Burn Down The Plantation features a great interview with Melvin Ray of the Free Alabama Movement. This sits alongside a second video installment explaining anarchist fundamentals, this time featuring the concept of Mutual Aid, short videos on continued struggles in France against the #LoiTravail, direct action against fascists in Athens. These and more can be found at https://submedia.tv/stimulator/

It’s Going Down is now producing the IDGcast which can be found at http://itsgoingdown.org/ and include thus far timely interviews on the uprising in Milawukee, words from the Red Warrior Camp at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access pipeline, the state of the alt-right or new white nationalist movements in North America and a discussion on communes and struggle with Morgan and El Errante. The most recent episode features an interview with a woman on hunger strike in Merced, California, in solidarity with hunger striking prisoners against the deplorable situation in this poor and rural county’s jails. The jails have witnessed abuses, deaths and injuries among those imprisoned in adult and juvenile detention at the hands of sadistic CO’s. Find the IDGcast at http://itsgoingdown.org/podcast

Resonance Audio Distro, or RAD, is a source for radical and anarchist audio of zines, books and essays and, among other things, produced an awesome and lengthy interview with Sylvie Kashdan and Robby Barnes to give context to two plays by these rapscallions that Resonance put online. Robbie and Sylvie are longtime anarchists living in the Seattle area who have been involved in The 5th Estate magazine for decades and have tons of stories and experiences to share. Check out Resonance at https://resonanceaudiodistro.org/

Season two of The Brilliant Podcast has begun and is apparently headed towards a new format. The most recent episode features a conversation with Isaac Cronin, curator of the Cruel Hospice imprint at Little Black Cart, talks about his experiences of Situationism, pro and post-Situ ideas and play in the U.S. since the 1960’s. Check this and more out at http://thebrilliant.org/

Finally, hip hop artist Sole is continuing to put out interesting discussions on his podcast SOLEcast. Most recently, Sole talked to Franco “Bifo” Berardi on Capitalism, Mass Killings, Suicide & Alienation. Episodes can be found at http://www.soleone.org/solecast

More suggested media to come in the near future!

Playlist