This week’s episode features a presentation by members of Tranzmission Prison Project, an Asheville-based group. TPP is described on their tumblr as “Prison abolitionists against Queer & Trans* incarceration “. This is a recording of group members presenting their LGBTQQIA Prisoner Realities workshop recently at Warren Wilson College.
Trigger warning: This episode discusses sexual assault, solitary confinement and other torturous punishments.
This week, we featured a segment by Sean Swain on sovereignty and consent of the ruled. We’ve begun archiving Sean’s segments under the title “You Are The Resistance” on archive.org, and those can be found linked as they come out on http://seanswain.org
This was followed by a conversation with Emily who does support work the NATO3 about what’s happened in the trial and what the next steps appear to be as sentencing approaches. Great news is that defendants Brent Betterly, Jared Chase & Brian Jacob Church were found Not Guilty of all of the terrorism charges, however they still each have felonies that stuck. Check out more at http://freethenato3.wordpress.com
Next, we speak with Johanna of Keeper of the Mountains Foundation, a grassroots group out of West Virginia that looks to the effects of Mountain Top Removal and coal extraction and burning on the environment, economy and people in Appalachia. Johanna shares some info on the recent Duke Energy Coal Ash Pit spill on the Dan River, near the North Carolina-Virginia border and what impacts can be expected from the 82,000 tons of toxic ash getting into a water source that provides for roughly 50,000 human animals, and uncounted non-humans and other life. http://www.mountainkeeper.org/
Finally, we’ll hear An Unearthly Sacrament by the Marin-County-California-based metal project Radagast, their only release thus far. That’ll be followed (really finally) by Destroyed By Ourselves from Katahajime from Allentown, PA.
This week’s episode features three, that’s right, three whopping conversations.
Firstly, we hear from Luke O’Donovan about his case. Luke is an Anarchist in the Atlanta area who defended himself against a queer bashing last New Years at a party. Luke suffered multiple wounds inflicted by knives as well as beating which sent him to the hospital. He’s facing 5 charges of aggrivated assault with a deadly weapon for injuring the people attacking him, who’d earlier called him a faggot repeatedly. Each of those 5 charges could carry a twenty year sentence.
After that, we’ll hear from Rafi, an organizer in Durham North Carolina, about the spate of police murders of young men of color in that city. Particularly we’ll talk about the case of Jesus Chuy Huerta, a 17 year old latino man shot in the back of a patrol car while handcuffed that the police are claiming was self-inflicted.
Finally, we’ll hear from Jess who’s been organizing alongside youth in Santa Rosa, California since the shooting death by Sheriff’s there of 13 year old Andy Lopez for having a toy gun. The fatal shooting of Andy Lopez fell
on October 22nd of this year. For those who don’t know, October 22nd is a day when many people in the United States remember those killed and imprisoned by police and protest against police violence.
This week’s show features two interviews. The first is a conversation is with Mark of Croatan Earth First! about the recent visits by JTTF/FBI to anti-fracking activists on the East Coast, climate-change activists on the West Coast and and GJ-targetted Anarchist communities in NYC.
The second conversation takes place between our friend, Wren Awry (AFM news hour) and Dustin Steele about Dustin’s work with the Beards Fork Health Survey to gather information on the health effects of surface mining in West Virginia with an eye toward mutual aid.
The last half of the show features new songs from Bellicose Minds (PDX), Anniversary (D.C.), Wiccans, and Criminal Damage. And more!
Luis Leon was born in Veracruz, Mexico but has been living in the U.S. since the age of 5 with his parents. In 2011, after graduating high school in Marion, NC, Luis self-deported to Mexico because of the high cost of higher education to undocumented immigrants here. In July, he and 8 other immigrants who’d been living in the U.S. attempted to publicly re-enter from Mexico.
This week’s episode features a conversation with Luis about his experiences in Western NC, moving back to Mexico, being detained in Arizona and now being back in the U.S. and fighting for the chance for higher education.
This weeks show features 2 interviews. The first is with Savannah, an anarchist working on solidarity with members of the North Carolina tribe of the Almighty Latin Kings & Queens Nation. ALKQN members are facing RICO charges in Federal Court. The trial begins October 22nd, 2012. More info can be found at alkqnsolidarity.com
The second part of the show, we speak with Jeremy, an Anarchist who was invovled in copwatch in the South Barton Heights neighborhood in the north of Richmond, Virginia. Jeremy asserts that he faced increasing harassment and eventually imprisonment for being a vocal and visible proponent of holding cops accountable and spreading the practice of copwatching. For more about Richmond CopWatch, check out wingnutrva.org
The third part of the conversation will concern efforts by law enforcement at many levels to label political organizers as gang members, including those recently arrested in the San Francisco protest against Christopher Columbus Day, Jeremy and those doing support work with ALKQN.
A resurfaced archive of our first show on May 09, 2010. From the blog post:
We were lucky enough to be allowed to interview two folks from the LGBTQI communities this week directly effected by the spate of bashings in Asheville. We’ll talk about their and others’ attempts to organize for more safety in the streets of our city, the March taking place on Wednesday (5/12) in the Montford neighborhood, and their experiences of being female assigned and LGBTQI/LGBTQI-perceived. We’ll also talk about concerns about going to the police and the mainstream media with reports.
For more info on the march, check out the facebook and myspace pages for Safe Streets Asheville. Also, see the newly published article in the Mountain Xpress
An hour with Tamara of Croatan Earth First! We discuss the recent legalization of Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) in N.C. and the dire implications of this practice on our economy, health, environment and future. We talk about energy policy and the relationship between our society and the natural world. croatanearthfirst.com
Also, Sunday, November 4th, check out the Tree Huggers Ball at Warren Wilson College for Contra dance 6:30-10pm to benefit Coal River Mountain Watch. More info at www.katuahearthfirst.org
This week’s show features a conversation with Will Potter about political repression against accused Anarchists in the Pacific Northwest. Later, we’ll speak with Bryan of Katuah Earth First! about his participation in a recent action in West Virginia against Mountain Top Removal.
Our first segment of this weeks show is a conversation with Will Potter, award-winning journalist, author and blogger at www.greenisthenewred.com about the JTTF & FBI raids on suspected Anarchists in the Pacific Northwest and the series of Grand Juries now being convened around participation in the May 1st protests in Seattle of this year.
Also, we’ll be speaking with Bryan, a member of Katuah Earth First!, based out of Asheville. Bryan was arrested on July 28th during a non-violent direct action under the banner of Radical Action for Mountain People’s Survival (RAMPS). This action briefly shut down and brought attention to the Mountain Top Removal style of strip mining being used at the Hobet mine, operated by Patriot Coal in Lincoln County, West Virginia. We talk about the Katuah bioregion, Fracking in North Carolina and getting involved to save our landbase.
This week’s show features a conversation with Francis Delaney about the Prison Hunger Strikes that were initiated on Monday, July 16 at three facilities in North Carolina. This action seems to have the potential to spread to other facilities because of the apparent universality of the demands (better/more food, access to legal literature, human contact, an end to torture, an end to mail tampering, medical care). We discuss some context for the strikes and how folks on the outside can get involved and show solidarity. Chapel Hill Prison Books Triangle Anarchist Blog Down: Reflections on Prison Resistance in Indiana
