This week, you’ll hear our chat with Simón Sedillo, author of Weapons, Drugs & Money: Crime, Corruption, and Community Based Liberation in the U.S./Mexico Neoliberal Military Political Economy. Simón talks a little about his early days in media near the start of the Indymedia world, his documentary that became the news website El Enemigo Común (which translates to “the common enemy”) which covered grassroots, indigenous led movements in southern so-called Mexico, and about his book with a focus on intervention and integration from capitalist and military powers in the US, multinational banking and big pharma and the violence against and resilience of indigenous communities under that nation-state.
Check out the website https://www.weaponsdrugsandmoney.org/ for more info on how to order a copy, and the chapters are being posted and translated into castellano at https://elenemigocomun.net/ , where you can find two decades + of really interesting content. Simón suggests people follow Avispa Mídia https://avispa.org/ as a project following in the legacy of El Enemigo Común.
A big thanks to Mitchell Verter for the suggestion.
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Featured Track:
Get It Together (Buck Wild Instrumental) by Beastie Boys from Get It Together
This week, we’re sharing an interview with 2 contributors an amazing history of anti-racist organizing in the late 1980’s through the mid 1990’s in Portland, Oregon, and with ripples across the so-called USA & beyond. In 2020 KBOO radio released a serialized podcast which became the basis for the book.
Mic Crenshaw was born and raised in Chicago and Minneapolis and currently resides in Portland, Oregon. Crenshaw is an independent hip hop artist, respected emcee, poet, educator, and activist. Crenshaw is the lead US organizer for the Afrikan Hiphop Caravan and uses cultural activism as a means to develop international solidarity related to human rights and justice through hip hop and popular education. Crenshaw was a founding member of the Minneapolis Baldies and Anti Racist Action. He was a coproducer and narrator of the podcast version of It Did Happen Here. Moe Bowstern is a alum of the anarchist space in Chiacgo known as the @-zone that lasted from 1993 to 2003. She’s also a writer, laborer, Fisher Poet, and DIY social practice artist. Moe is the longtime editor of many publications, including the commercial fishing zine Xtra Tuf. She contributed to the writing of the book version of It Did Happen Here and lives in Portland, OR.
For the hour, we talk about the book and podcast, the reach, the resonance to anti-racist struggle today in Portland and beyond. We also talk about the toll of the violence faced and engaged by folks pushing back the organized white supremacy of the day, police and institutional violence and other, related topics. If you would like people featured in this book to come and speak at your institution, you can reach them at ItDidHappenHerePodcast at gmail dot com, through PM Press, or via the IDHH instagram.
This book was published by PM Press as a part of the Working Class History series. Another featured title in that series that was recently released was a similar documentary history with a really good narrative on the history of Anti-Racist Action in the 1990’s and early 2000’s throughout the midwest of Turtle Island, both in so-called Canada and the USA, and bits of other areas. Hopefully we’ll feature a chat with one of the contributors to that book entitled We Go Where They Go: The Story of Anti-Racist Action soon on this show.
This week, I spoke with John from the Working Class History collective and host of their WCH podcast. We spoke about the new book, “Working Class History: Everyday Acts of Resistance“, that WCH has published through PM Press, their archives, methodology, the project of popularizing working class, movement and human-sized history and a bunch more. [00:05:53]
If you thirst for more conversation with John, you’re in luck as Firestorm Books will be hosting a presentation with him about the book on February 25 from 7-8:30pm eastern or UTC – 5. You can find out more at Firestorm.Coop/Calendar.
This week on the show, you’ll hear two segments: chat with Spencer Sunshine on the far right and the government’s reaction following the riot on January 6th in DC and some perspectives on political content removal and social media from anarchist media platforms ItsGoingDown and crimethInc.
First up, anti-fascist researcher Spencer Sunshine talks about the aftermath of the January 6th putsch attempt in DC, mainstream media and Democrat narratives of concerning domestic terrorism, reporting of participation of law enforcement and military in the riot, anti-fascist research, what the stepping down of Trump has meant for his radicalized base and Spencer’s thoughts on claims of rehabilitation by former White Nationalists like Matthew Heimbach. There was a good article published by IGD on the state’s response to January 6th and what it can mean to anti-repression activists here. Also, a great place to keep up on what’s going on in the far right in the so-called US, check out IGD’s “This Week In Fascism” column, soon to be a podcast.
Then, you’ll hear the main host from the ItsGoingDown Podcast and a comrade from CrimethInc (both affiliates of the Channel Zero Network) talking about implications for anarchists and antifascists of the silencing of far right platforms and accounts and how similar moves have silenced the anti-authoritarian left. We talk about perspectives the media may have missed around “deplatforming” by tech giants like Patreon, Facebook and Twitter and how easily the normalization of ejecting non-mainstream narratives follows the trail of profit and power, and the importance of building our own platforms and infrastructure.
This week on The Final Straw we’re featuring a chat with Elia J. Ayoub and Leila Al-Shami. In this conversation, Elia J. tells us of some of the history of Lebanon, since the civil war that ended in 1990 and up to the current demonstrations against the clientelist warlords in power in that country. Intertwined with this, Leila speaks about the sparking of the resistance to Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, the tumult of the civil war, and the state of anti-authoritarian and social justice organizing and media work in that country. Then the two talk about the experience of countering disinformation, conspiracy thinking and poor solidarity in the so-called Left in the West and ways to combat ignorance.
This is another long conversation, covering a lot of the last 30 years in these two neighboring nations. The guests proposed speaking about the interrelations across that border because of the similarities, differences, and shared experiences between the two places. Lebanon has Syrian refugees, it was occupied by Syria until 2005. Both spaces share Palestinian refugees, experienced war with Israel, are politically influenced from Hezbollah, mostly speak Arabic and even the flames of the recent wildfires that ignited anti-regime sentiment in Lebanon last fall crossed the border between Lebanon and Syria. We hope to have future chats that play with borders in this way to explore ways we can bridge these borders in our understanding in hopes of increased solidarity.
Lebanese Protests of 2015 & 2019 [00:21:35 – 00:31:40]
Syrian Revolution to Civil War [00:31:40 – 00:41:34]
Current Social Justice Struggle in Syria [00:41:46 – 00:45:56]
Daesh / ISIS and Syrian Civil War [00:45:56 – 00:49:56]
Solidarity with Syrians in Lebanese Protests [00:49:56 – 01:05:38]
Leila on Tahrir-ICN [01:05:50 – 01:09:18]
Educating Ourselves on Syria and Lebanon [01:09:18 – 01:23:07]
White Helmets and other Conspiracy Theories [01:23:07 – 01:32:59]
Syrian Diaspora and Western Left [01:32:59 – 01:37:19]
Rojava and the Syrian Revolution [01:37:19 – 01:41:56]
Better Practice in Solidarity with people in Syria and Lebanon [01:41:56 – 01:53:38]
Announcements
Michael Kimble Benefit
Last week we announced a fundraiser for Michael Kimble. Because of issues with the platforms, the fundraiser for Michael Kimble’s legal benefit to help raise money for his fight to get him released from prison has been moved. Now you can find it at ActionNetwork.org/Fundraising/Support-Michael-Kimble . Because the fundraiser had to be moved a couple of times, some of the initial push to get word out and initial donations may be irreplaceable. So, folks are asking for an extra push to help rasie this money to get our comrade out and organizing on the outside after 33 years behind bars.
BADNews February 2020 (#31)
This month, the A-Radio Network released it’s monthly, international English-language podcast featuring voices from anarchist and anti-authoritarian radio shows, pirate stations and podcasts from around the world. The episode is up at A-Radio-Network.org by clicking the B(A)DNews. If you’re interested in joining the network or learning more, info’s up on that site.
This week, we have two portions to the show. First, we catch up with Mitch from Red Strings and Maroons podcast about some of what they saw at the A2 rally in Richmond on January 20th, about antifascist intervention and the effectiveness of intervening to call out white nationalists in gun advocacy spaces. More of their work available at RedStringsAndMaroons.com.
Then, we spend the remainder of the show speaking with Alexander Reid Ross. Alexander is a PhD candidate in Portland State University’s Earth, Environment, Society Program, a Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, and the author of “Against The Fascist Creep“, which you can get from AK Press or our affiliate Firestorm Books!
For the remainder of the episode we speak about conspiracy theories, how they wind their way into some leftist approaches to critique, bleed-over between left and right anti-establishment critiques and media that hold a pro-Kremlin position, the ideas of Alexander Dugin, ways of combating disinformation and some of it’s sources. More of his writings and interviews can be found at AlexanderReidRoss.net and this article that we reference a bit is called “Fooling The Nation: Extremism and the Pro-Russia Disinformation Ecosystem”.
This week we are presenting a special guest interview, done by Scott who is an anarchist academic and regular listener, with Eli Meyerhoff about his book “Beyond Education: Radical Studying for Another World”. In this book, Meyerhoff “traces how key elements of education emerged from histories of struggles in opposition to alternative modes of study bound up with different modes of world-making. Taking inspiration from Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and Indigenous resurgence projects, he charts a new course for movements within, against, and beyond the university as we know it.” and this quote is from the University of Minnesota webpage, who also published his book.
I found this interview really thought provoking and well crafted, it brought up a lot of issues I hadn’t really thought of in such terms, specifically about the historical and colonial construction of what we think of today as education. In this interview, Scott and Eli talk about his book, the vast terrain that the book covers, experiences in academia when one is operating as politically radical, and some alternatives to education that we can see and experience in the world around us.
If you are a listener and want to submit an interview for broadcast, just get in touch with us by emailing thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net and we can walk you thru the process!
On the show this week, Bursts spoke with Tom Tanuki, front man of the group Yelling At Racist Dogs (Y.A.R.D.), a performance anti-fascist group that directs insulting yells at far-right, xenophobic events and speakers. For the hour we talk some about Tom’s background, the landscape of far-right politics in Australia and the place of humor and public shaming in confronting racist public figures in the work that Tom and his comrades do. You can follow Tom on twitter at the handle @tom_tanuki, on instagram at the same handle minus the underscore (@tomtanuki), and on fedbook by finding Yelling At Racist Dogs. And you can find the shirts Tom talks about at their bigcartel page.
[Sean Swain at 2min 53sec, Tom Tanuki at 11min 23sec]
We stole this picture from Subversion1312’s interview with Tom. A couple of the resources that Tom references at the end of the interview are Blackfulla Revolution and Black Feminist Ranter by Celeste Liddle, both pages on fedbook, and the book on Australian history he suggests is called Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe. Stay tuned for an upcoming episode where we share my interview with Andy Fleming, the maniac behind SlackBastard, an exhaustive commentary on the far right in Australia (as well as the tankie left and Andy’s thoughts about anarchism, antifa and more) up at slackbastard.anarchobase.com.
Announcements
May Day in Asheville
If you’re in Asheville this May 1st, Wednesday, there’re a few events we’re happy to share. At 10 am there’s a rad families meetup at Vermont Ave playground at the West Asheville Park. Buncombe County schools are closed due to call ins by teachers as a part of the organizing wave known as Red4Ed and there’ll be a large march and rally in Raleigh, the state capital. For those unable to make it, there’s an 11am rally by teachers at the Vance monument downtown. Festivities begin at 3pm at the park on Vermont Ave with a roving bike ride, with some bikes provided. This’ll be followed at 4:30pm by a game of kickball and at 6pm, a short parade will commence from 644 Haywood Rd complete with a marching band. At 7:30 there’ll be a potluck with free vegan and gluten-free options and, finally, a public showing of the working class-ic, “9-5”, featuring Dolly Parton. More info by visiting https://tfsr.wtf/avlmayday
This week on the show we feature two interviews. The first is with a volunteer at the Steady Collective, a group that self-describes as “ dedicated to promoting the wellness of people who use drugs through empowerment and respectful collaboration. Our goal is to improve overall community health by reducing the rate of drug overdose and the spread of infectious disease with education, advocacy, and direct services. “ Their ability to operate a harm reduction program around needle exchange and narcan distribution to stop overdoses in the midst of the #opiodCrisis in Appalachia is being threatened by the city of Asheville. Here’s the website for 12 Baskets, the food distribution program out of Kairos West.
Then I spoke with Mary Ratcliff, the editor of 27 years of the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper, with a print distribution of 20,000 copies around the U.S., including thousands behind bars. For the hour, Mary talks about the history of the paper, it’s relationship with prisoners and prison struggles and the difficulties faced by the poor and populations of color in white supremacist capitalism in the so-called U.S.
Announcements
A12 in D.C., Cville & Boston
Last weekend witnessed far right, nazi-affiliated, sexist, homophobe rallies in Portland and Berkeley, which I’m sure folks are aware of. Patriot Prayer and Proud Boy goons schlepped their way out from under rocks in their goofy-ass larping costumes to spit their deranged and hateful screeds and threaten and attack counter-demonstrators where they could. And the police helped by holding back and assaulting the anti-racists at both events with pepper spray, batons, tear gas and rubber bullets, as well as legal charges. Big ups to the brave folks who came out to stem the tide of hate on the West coast, and also a big a thanks to the comrades who came out in Providence, R.I. where they were able to shut that crap down real fast.
This weekend the year anniversary of the August 11th Torch Rally and August 12th Unite The Right Rally in Charlottesville approaches. On Sunday, August 12th in Cville there’s a day of events of remembrance and mourning starting at 9am in Washington Park. The police presence has been shown to be huge in the runup to this weekend with Martial Law and States of Emergency declared by local and state officials, leave for police being suspended, and swaths of the city shut down and blockaded. Follow #AllOutCville for updates. In Washington, D.C., haters are trying to put on a second UTR to draw their morons in swastika and Pinochet shirts and confederate bafoons into the streets. Information about what’s happening and how to congregate against it can be found at https://shutitdowndc.org/ . And check out the ItsGoingDown’s “This Is America #24” for voices from the ground in DC & Cville.
On August 15th in Boston there is planned a Town Hall Meeting at the Arlington St Church in preparation for the counter-demonstration on August 18th at the MA State House to shut down the far-right hate front group, “Resist Marxism”. More info at http://bit.ly/fight-right-boston
Be safe out there, cops and klan go hand in hand. Bring water, watch out for your friends, don’t leave alone.
Worker’s Assembly Asheville
On Monday, August 20th at 6pm and every 3rd Monday of the month, the Asheville IWW is hosting a service industry workers assembly at Kairos West. If you work in food serice, retail, hospitality, breweries, or other service industries and don’t have the right to hire or fire, come by and join the discussion on issues facing your ilk including wages and hours, but also issues such as racism and gendered violence that workers face in and outside of their workplaces. The discussions are aimed at creating direct action solutions and creating class solidarity. To hear about their first Assembly, check out our interview on the topic.
Reminder on upcoming #August21
A few CZN member projects have been producing content specific to supporting and understanding the Nationwide Prison Strike. You can find great, related content to enjoy and share by ItsGoingDown podcast, Kiteline Radio & Rustbelt Abolition Radio. Links are in our notes to those recent episodes. Also, visit incarceratedworkers.org for the new and very shareable video breaking down IWOC’s role in the strike and reasons to support #August21.
If you appreciate this podcast and the voices that we bring to you each and every week (at least once), please consider a one-time or recurring donation via paypal or liberapay. You can also subscribe to recurring donations to us at patreon.com/tfsr and get some pretty sweet swag. If you want one of the shirts or mixtapes or sticker and button packs we offer to patreon supporters but can’t afford a monthly donation, drop us an email and we’ll work something out.
For a 59 minute long, radio clean version for syndication purposes, please visit the archive.org collection.
Prison-Related Audio Roundtable
This week we feature two segments. The first is a roundtable discussion with producers from various audio projects around North America that focus on prisoner struggles and amplifying incarcerated voices. In the chat you’ll hear from me, two producers of The Prison Radio show on CFRC radio in Kingston, Ontario, a producer of the Prison Radio Show on CKUT from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and a producer of the June11 audio series released this last year and revving to mark the day in solidarity with Marius Mason and other long term anarchist and ecological prisoners.
Follow-Up with Walid Zazai on Manus Island
The second conversation is an update from Walid Zazai, the 24 year old Afghani man being held on Manus Island off of the coast of Papua New Guinea. Walid has been in detention for 4 years now awaiting resettlement at the pleasure of the government of Australia. We spoke with Walid two weeks ago after the Manus Regional Processing Centre in which he was living had been closed and he and roughly 450 other refugees stayed in protest of their longtime lack of freedom of movement and the violence they feared from PNG security forces and locals on the island. More coverage of the struggle immigrants against the Australian border authorities and other updates from the Oceania can be found on the long running Anarchist radio show based there, Subversion1312. Subversion1312 is also a recently added member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts.
Now For Some Fun Events
If you’re in the Asheville area today (December 3rd 2017), at 5pm at Firestorm Books and Coffee, Blue Ridge ABC will be hosting it’s monthly letter writing session, where you can swing by, find out about political prisoners in the U.S., write to some with upcoming birthdays and meet other local radicals. After that, tonight at 8pm at the Lazy Diamond, 98-A, North Lexington Ave in downtown Asheville, comrades will be hosting a Radical Trivia night to benefit the 2nd Asheville Carolina Anarchist Bookfair, or ACAB2018, planned for this summer. Alone or in teams, you are invited to test your wits on subjects of Black Liberation, Anarchist History, Queer Resistance and more. A cash prize will go to the winning team or individual.
