Category Archives: Pipeline

British Columbia, Canada, Earth & Animal Liberation, Indigenous, Pipeline

Gitdimt’en threatened with RCMP invasion; sub.Media’s JR on Madness

This week we feature two segments, the first on anti-pipeline resistance at the Gidimt’en Camp in Canada and second with JR from sub.Media about Mental Wellness and the recent Trouble episode on the subject.

First Nations Pipeline Resistance in so-called BC

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First up, we’ll hear from Delee Nikal, a Wet’suwet’en community member from the Gidimt’en clan and the Cas Yikh House, a First Nation in so-called British Columbia, Canada. In 2009, Wet’suwet’en members of the Unist’ot’en clan (also of the Wet’suwet’en nation) began actively blocking pipeline workers and government officials from accessing their land without prior and fully informed consent of the nation on the land. Over the years, Unist’ot’en has become home to various structures to not only block the passage of the pipeline but also to create opportunities for indigenous folks to heal themselves and promote their culture.  On December 14th, the Canadian Supreme Court pushed through an injunction on behalf of Coastal GasLink (owned by TransCanada) threatening the Wet’suwet’en community defending its land at Unist’ot’en with police invasion. Following this, a public statement was made by the 5 hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en for all of the clans to block pipelines on their land.

The Wet’suwet’en people have no treaties with the Canadian or provincial government, their land is unceded and sovereign territory within the bounds of what’s claimed by Canada. According to United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article 10: “Indigenous Peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories.” This includes RCMP, and/or military removal of Indigenous Peoples occupying their territory , say the land defenders. They also point out that the 1997 Supreme Court of Canada ruling in the Delgamuukw/Gisdaywa court case affirmed that Wet’suwet’en title, based on the traditional clan governance system, was never extinguished.

In the days since this interview was recorded, an update to the injunction by the Canadian Supreme Court was released that updated names and places to be targeted by police action and the chiefs were informed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, a Canadian Federal police force that their people and their spaces would likely be attacked by the RCMP in coming days to move forward on the building of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

The Wet’suwet’en resistance to the pipeline is asking for native folks to come to help defend the land from further Canadian incursion, for allies and accomplices to engage in solidarity actions to pressure and embarrass the Canadian government and spread word of the resistance of Wet’suwet’en people on their sovereign lands in defense of the earth, air and water that all of us share on this planet.

You can inform yourself more by visiting wetsuweten.com and keep up on updates via their fedbook page named “Gidimt’en Checkpoint visit: Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidimt’en Territory”. Here’s a short video about the access point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3OjGB4sDCw as well as a link to their gofundme campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/gitdumt039en-access-point

A great article breaking down a bunch of the history can be found at the Earth First! Newswire’s site from which we’ve poached some of the links and which has some great ideas of how to signal boost the situation, fundraising ideas and other ways to give and more!

International Call to Action for Gidimt’en Access Checkpoint for Tuesday, January 8th, 2019

#notrespass #wedzinkwa #wetsuwetenstrong

JR of sub.Media on Mad Worlds and Trouble

And secondly, we are going to present an interview with JR, who is a member of the subMedia collective about their recent Trouble episode called Mad Worlds. Trouble is a monthly mini documentary series from this collective which highlights different aspects of life and struggle on the far left. It’s meant to be watched in groups to promote discussion and counter the increasing isolating aspects of modern day existence. The episode “Mad Worlds, Redefining Sanity Through Struggle” explores the concept of sanity and how this is intrinsically linked to the white hetero settler colonialist patriarchy, and also gets into the psychiatry industrial complex and what it could mean to be on either side of that structure. This is the first time that me and Bursts have interviewed someone together, so let us know what you think of that!

To see more from subMedia, including It’s The End Of The World And We Know It And I Feel Fine, also called The F*cking Show which features anarchist news analysis and reporting from the infamous character of the Stimulator, also they do a semi regular anarchist/antifascist hip hop workout show called Burning Cop Car (which we’ve drawn on multiple times for music to score The Final Straw), and of course Trouble, you can see all that at https://sub.media. They are in the middle of a fundraising push right now, and you can see info about that at sub.media/donate to liberate your dollars.

You can donate here

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playlist

#NoDAPL, Indigenous, North Dakota, Pipeline, Political Prisoner, Standing Rock

Support the NoDAPL Prisoners!: A chat with Jess and Olive

Support NoDAPL Prisoners

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This week, we’re excited to share the voices of Jess and Olive, who both did legal support, and do prisoner solidarity with the folks facing Federal prison time from the struggle at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline. This episode was heavily edited for radio, so I suggest you find our audio at our website or in itunes or soundcloud or youtube or ideally our podcast stream and listen to the podcast version, cuz it is crammed full of great information and perspectives we don’t have time to include in the radio version of the show this week.

Jess did legal work supporting the struggle in Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and into 2018 and continues to support political prisoners in the case. Olive lived in camp, engaging in nonviolent direct action and working security during the winter (late november-february), survivor of water crises in West Virginia and as a Sundancer. Olive stayed through the raid on Oceti near the end of February 2017 and became a paralegal afterward and doing legal support for their loved one, Rattler.

At the end of these notes I’ve included a few post-scripts from Olive about the folks who caught sentences, Akicita and prophecies of the “Black Snake”.

We speak about L’eau Est La Vie camp in so-called Louisiana is continuing the struggle against the southern endpoint of the Dakota Access Pipeline from Enbridge.  Visit the site to learn more and how you can get involved, they need help!

Support sites for the Federal Prisoners from Standing Rock

www.freerattlernodapl.com

www.standwithredfawn.org

www.freelittlefeather.com

www.facebook.com/Justiceforangrybird

www.facebook.com/justice4dion

www.facebook.com/freelittlefeather

www.facebook.com/freeredfawn

www.facebook.com/freerattler

www.waterprotectorlegal.org

Announcements

NYE Demo in AVL & beyond!

The day after this airs is New Years Eve and cities around the U.S. and abroad will be continuing the, I believe Greek anarchist, tradition of noise demonstrations outside of jails and prisons. Check out itsgoingdown.org for a list of places holding these where you can join in and be heard behind bars. In Asheville, folks’ll be meeting up on College St in front of the court house and jail at 7pm and will bring noise makers, warm clothes, banners and signs.

Upcoming BRABC events in Asheville

Also this week, Blue Ridge ABC will be showing the latest Frontline/PBS documentary called “Documenting Hate: America’s New Nazi’s” about the Atomwaffen Division at 6:30pm on Friday, January 4th at Firestorm Books. Also, on Sunday January 6th at Firestorm, BRABC will host it’s monthly letter writing event from 5pm to 7pm at Firestorm. No experience necessary.

Autonomy, Resilience, Freedom: #J20 Call to Action

Finally, The Final Straw Radio alongside It’sGoingDown, crimethInc and Mutual Aid Disaster Relief are calling for a week of action around the weekend of January 20, 2019. With the charges from January 20, 2017 dropped, we can focus on other forms of long-term solidarity and mutual aid, creating a fertile soil for future resistance and creativity. You can find the challenge and ways to plug in at cwc.im/survival

Episode Notes from Olive

As an aside, I want to share a little more information from Olive about Akicita:

“…Traditionally, Akicita would go to battle as a last resort and were always the last to leave, but they acted as protectors and to hold people accountable and dispense consequences when necessry, one example being on Buffalo hunts; people were not allowed to take more than they needed or to hunt by themselves because it hurt not only other tribal members but the Buffalo population. Akicita made sure the hunts happened with integrity. They also kept Nacas, elders, and the people informed. They were mediators of conflict. They were recognized for acts of bravery and selflessness. “

Also, Olive had these notes to share about the Federal Defendants who’ve been sentenced:

“Little Feather’s mother is part of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians in California, so I forgot to mention he is also Morongo in addition to also Lakota and Chumash.

Rattler is a descendant of the war chief Red Cloud, who also signed the Ft. Laramie Treaty of 1868, one of the treaties we were defending with our occupation through camp.

Rattler’s Lakota name is Mato Tanka (Big Bear). Angry Bird’s Lakota name is Sunka Wakan Sica (Bad Horse).

Not everyone with federal charges are Akicita or Ikce Wicasa. Rattler, Little Feather, and Angry Bird are Akicita and Ikce Wicasa camp security. RedFawn and Dion had other responsibilities and ties to the camps. “

Olive also had this to add about their own participation at Standing Rock:

“If it’s relevant, I didn’t mention another responsiblity I had while being in camp. I formed with two other femme people Two Spirit and Women’s security branches so gender queer folks like myself and women/femme people could deal with our own safety/decolonizing issues within camp. This is how I began to work with Akicita security directly.

The role of Akicita, the several councils that made up camp for collective decision making, and the ceremonies we participated in were all ways we were actively decolonizing our daily lives and DEFYING state intervention in disputes among our community (concepts of transformative justice try to exert the same concept of “don’t call cops, be accountable” but don’t necessarily have the structures to do it like traditional indigenous societies have) “

Another addition to the audio that I’d like to include is a short write-up that you can find in our show notes about the concept and Lakota and Standing Rock prophecies of the “Black Snake” which has been applied to the Dakota Access Pipeline

“I didn’t feel we had the time, but I wanted to at least tell you about some Lakota prophecies related to the “black snake” and historical context of where camp was located. All of this information I have is from Standing Rock elders and Lakota that know their lands well, including Tim Mentz, a Lakota archaeologist from Standing Rock, as well as my own experience from living in camp.

Grandfathers, some in the early 1800s, had visions of a “black ribbon on top of the Earth to separate all people…the people wouldn’t gather anymore…when the black ribbon goes underneath the Earth there will be no more Lakota.” This “ribbon” is seen as pavement and fossil fuels. Prairie Nights Casino was built on top of a known site where ceremonial fasts were held. Cannonball River has buttes, all with names known to the Lakota one being Tipi Butte near the Backwater Bridge. Near Backwater Bridge (where cops kept up barricades after North Camp raid), there are remnants of old Sundance ceremony arbors. October 22nd arrests happened partly because we were protesting the 27 burials that were uprooted for DAPL’s access roads that were across from HW 1806. Cannonball Ranch, which was eventually bought by DAPL, had Bear effigies, burials in the four cardinal directions, with at least 82 other sacred sites and ancestral sites of the Lakota. Southwest of where Oceti camp is Horshoe Bend, along the Standing Rock border is Treaty ground where men gathered to discuss the 1851 Treaty (North Camp was actually 1851 Treaty Camp). Spotted Tail (Sicangu band) and Big Head adopted one another around the year 1851 in the same location of Oceti camp. “

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Playlist

Environment, Fracking, Ohio, Pipeline

Student/Community Organizing and Fighting Hopelessness with NoNEXUS Oberlin

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This week we had the opportunity to interview Isabel and Christopher, who are active in differing ways in the No NEXUS Oberlin campaign, one in a long series of anti pipeline pushes in Oberlin Ohio. This campaign is based in part around the college which exists there, but is also in strong coalition with non college attending community members in the area who have been battling  the extraction industry for years, from fighting pipelines to injection wells to fracking in this area.

We talk about what it’s like to organize as the part of a student body which seeks to break down the barriers between student and non student populations, about the NEXUS Pipeline (owned by that ever present destructive, capitalist monster Enbridge), and about the ties that direct action can have in battling political and personal hopelessness. To get in touch with this project you can write them at nonexusoberlin@protonmail.com or search their name on Facebook. The music we close the episode with is Lobo Marino, a track which is typically heard at the end of each End of the Line episode, an ongoing podcast out of Richmond on fighting the Mountain Valley Pipeline. You can find them at http://pipelinepodcast.org/ for more stories and experiences from the world of fighting extraction industries.

#AllOutAugust

Much love to those who are fighting fascism in Portland, the Bay, Charlottesville, DC, and Boston this month. The police have again shown that they are firmly on the side of white nationalists, as they have countless times before, where in Portland only a few centimeters of helmet saved the life of an antifascist from a so called “non lethal” police weapon. Stay safe out there, love and care from us in Asheville, and as always, FUCK THE POLICE!

#August21

This week we also feature the voice of New Afrikan Black Panther Party (Prison Chapter) Defense Minister, Kevin “Rashid” Johnson.  Rashid is a writer, a fantastic artist, and a political prisoner currently held in Virginia but who keeps getting repressed for his organizing with prisoners around human rights issues.  He’s faced repression since 2016 directly in relation to prison strike writings.  Thanks to comrades in the south east for sharing his voice with us. You can check out Rashid’s work at his website or write him at: Kevin Johnson #1007485 Red Onion State Prison P.O. Box 1900 Pound, VA 24279 Support Anarchist Prisoner Eric King From Eric King’s support page:

The past few weeks have been rough for Eric and his family. We learned that Eric’s partner has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. On top of the solidarity EP we are promoting, we decided to also start a gofundme page for his partner. As we mentioned in the previous post, incarceration affects the whole family. Eric’s partner will now have extra medical expenses and appointments that will require time off of work, and extra childcare. The severity and treatment of the cancer is still being determined. We’re hoping for the best, and will keep people posted. Please help us to support Eric and his family – donate if you can and/or share the fundraiser. Thanks so much for everyone’s kind words and continued support.

Please donate here! . … . .. Playlist here.

Canada, Indigenous, Pipeline

Treaties, Peace and Resisting Alton Gas at Sipekne’katik River, in Mi’kma’ki: An episode of Shades of Green podcast

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The Final Straw is excited to share with our listeners an episode of the podcast, Shades of Green, which describes itself as “a podcast exploring environmental justice from unceded Mi’kmaq territory.”

(correction to our intro, we say “liquified natural gas”, when in fact the facility would just store “natural gas.”  Apologies for the confusion.)

This episode features voices of the Mi’kmaq resistance to the building of a natural gas storage facility by Alton Gas in salt caverns under and around the Sipekne’katik River in so-called Nova Scotia, potentially resulting in salt pollution and likely seepage of the gas into the river.

The episode, a cleverly produced montage, features indigenous words about their lifeways, relationship to settlers, settler society and government and what it means to live in treaty with another community and the earth. Much of the conversation sits around the Truckhouse and Treaty Camp along the banks of the Sipekne’katik River, which provides shelter, a space for organizing.

You are prompted multiple times, dear listener, to reflect on whose land you are on and what your relationship is with them. What is decolonization and what does living in treaty with the land and your neighbors mean? Thanks to the friend in Nova Scotia for passing this our way, thanks to Sadie Beaton for permission to air and to those voices we hear on the recording. We hope you enjoy.

More information on the struggle can be found at Stop Alton Gas

 

#NoDAPL, Bayou Bridge Pipeline, Climate Change, Colonialism, Energy Transfer Partners, Environment, Indigenous, Louisiana, Pipeline, Racism, United Houma Nation

No Bayou Bridge Pipeline! An interview from L’eu Est La Vie camp

Download This EpisodeAnti-Pipeline Organizing in Louisiana

This week, Bursts had a change to speak with two participants in the L’eu Est La Vie camp (Water is Life in French) organizing against the Bayou Bridge pipeline that Energy Transfer Partners is trying to push through the swamps of Louisiana at the tail end of the Dakota Access Pipeline.  For the hour, they speak about the pipeline, the lifeways of people living in the bayou, potential impacts on the environment and the impact on our guests of increased indigenous forefronting to struggles to defend the environment in recent years around Turtle Island. More on their work can be found at http://nobbp.org/

Resist the TWP in Knoxville! January 21st at 12 Noon

The Traditionalist Worker Party is a neo-Nazi, white nationalist group which is headquartered right here in North Carolina. This group promotes white separatism and a white supremacists view of Christianity. Begun in 2013 by the now infamous Matthew Heimbach as the official face of the similarly neo-Nazi group the Traditionalist Youth Network, the TWP’s main focus seems to be promoting their agenda by making attempts on public office in local elections while maintaining something that could be called a street presence.

There is much more to be said about this group, from its formal designation by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group to its yearning to establish Turtle Island as something called a “white ethnostate”, seemingly a mythological and highly revisionist creation of the alt right and its philosophical forebears.

What is more relevant right now is that this group is seeking to descend on Knoxville, TN on January 21st at 12 noon to protest the second annual Women’s March and support the anti-choice group Right to Life. The exact TWP rallying point is still unknown but may coincide with the Women’s March rallying point in Market Square at 12pm and then join the Right to Life rallying point at World’s Fair Park at 2pm. Details will be shared as they get received, so keep eyes on your favorite news sources for updates.

From the Holler Network and Nashville ARA:

“The TWP and other white supremacist groups view Southeast Appalachia as an ideal region for a white separatist movement, and they prey upon rural and semi-rural areas to build their base. But their claims to Appalachia fly in the face of centuries of resistance to white supremacy and settler colonialism that are woven into these hills and rivers. From indigenous resistance to militant maroon communities, to multiracial labor strikes and prisoner uprisings, to the very existence of tight-knit black and brown communities across these hills, we know Appalachia has never been and will never be their all-white vision- as long as we continue to resist.”

For questions and additional info you can contact the email address  ETresist@protonmail.com , and you can see the full call with some more contextual information by going to the It’s Going Down article here.

Show playlist here.

Capitalism, community, communization, Environment, Euskal Herria / Basque Territory, Housing, North Carolina, Petroleum, Pipeline, repression, Squatting, Virginia, West Virginia

Anti-Pipeline Action Camp in VA & Errekaleor Bizirik squatted neighborhood in Euskal Herria/Basque territory

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This week we featured two conversations in the episode.

“Stop The Pipelines Action Camp”

Firstly, Bursts chatted with erin. erin is a resident of the Blacksburg VA area and an affiliate of Blue Ridge Rapid Response Project (or BRRRP) and is helping to organize the “Stop The Pipelines Action Camp” in that area from July 13-17th, 2017. The action camp is being organized in hopes to spread resistance to the Mountain Valley & Atlantic Coast Pipelines that are traversing Appalachian West Virginia, Virginia and, in the ACP’s case, North Carolina. We talk about what it is to live in a place and defend your home, to get to know your neighbors, to build the skills needed to resist ecocidal, capitalist infrastructure projects. More info at https://blueridgerapidresponse.wordpress.com. The event is being co-sponsored by Smokey Mountain Eco-Defense (SMED)

erin mentions pipeline security pursued by mercenary groups like TigerSwan as well as industry-sponsored astro-turf (or fake grassroots) group YourEnergy meant to muddy the water of community resistance to pipeline expansion and other infrastructural projects.

Errekaleor Bizirik!

After that, Bursts chatted with 2 residents of the squatted neighborhood of Errekaleor Bizirik in the Basque territory within the borders of so-called Spain. The residents talk about the history of Errekaleor Bizirik, feminism, energy infrastructure, recent attacks by police on the project and pre-figuring a post-capitalist life-way in the rubble of the existent. For more info on the project, which translates to Dry River (Errekaleor) Lives (Bizirik)!, check out:
The draft wikipedia page;
An IGD post about the project with links and context;
Their Coopfunding page.

From their post on igd, is this quote:

For those of you that are too far away to personally attend, feel free to make a quick call to the mayor of Vitoria-Gasteiz Gorka Urtaran at +34 945 16 13 82 or +34 945 16 13 83 or send us a message at errekaleorbizirik@gmail.com!”

We wanted to also state that the folks at Errekaleor reached out to us for the interview, which was super awesome. If you have a project, a book, an article, a fight that seems like it’d be interesting to us and our listeners, send us an email at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net and get the ball rolling.

If you want, find us on itunes and subscribe for free. You can rate us there as well, to help others find us more easily.

Announcement

The Arizona based humanitarian aid group No More Deaths (No Mas Muertes in spanish) has been under semi constant surveillance by Border Patrol for the past week. This is unprecedented attention; since its foundation in 2004 this group has had a written agreement, essentially a non interference good faith contract, with Border Patrol that names the group as a health aid and humanitarian group that has every right to be doing the work it’s doing. NO More Deaths is a group based on certain faith principles (it is an official ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Tuscon) and on critical engagement with policy reform, nevertheless it is a group that has a high degree of anarchist involvement and solidarity with what could be called anarchist principles. It is most famous for desert aid; volunteers hiking out and leaving supplies such as water – essential in the 100 plus degree heat – food, socks, blankets, other supplies, and directed first aid where needed along remote corridors in the Sonoran Desert. The group also engages with legal aid, abuse documentation, searching for missing or disappeared people, helping getting belongings back from Border Patrol, networking with other border solidarity groups in the area, and consciousness raising and education to subvert the extremely stale narrative that immigration has in the US.

A couple of days ago, after almost a week of constant surveillance, Border Patrol raided a camp “in an unprecedented show of force, [with] approximately 30 armed agents raided the camp with at least 15 trucks, two quads, and a helicopter to apprehend four patients receiving medical care.” We hope to talk with someone about this situation soon for the radio show; the fact that this raid is coming now is a clear sign of the administrations attitude toward this kind of work. For more information on this issue and to keep up with No More Deaths, you can go to their website https://nomoredeaths.org

Playlist

#NoDAPL, activism, Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Capitalism, Environment, Fracking, Mid-Atlantic, Mountain Valley Pipeline, North Carolina, Petroleum, Pipeline, Protest, Virginia, Water

Resistance to the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley Pipelines

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This week, we spoke with Whitney about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline, two pipelines flowing through mid-Appalachian and the mid-Atlantic region on Turtle Island and both connect Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania County, VA. The pipelines are 48 inches in diameter and are made for transporting dangerous compressed and pressurized natural gas through many watersheds, towns and farmlands. In addition to fears of contamination of waterways and soil, through possible leaks and explosions, many people are concerned the pipeline will be carry gas for export , not even for domestic consumption.

Whitney is also involved in an upcoming podcast series to inform folks in Virginia about the history and aspects of the pipelines to be released in the run-up to the decisions by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on whether or not these projects can move forward.

As of now, there is no website address for our guest’s podcast, but their podcast’s mission statement is as follows:

“‘End of the Line’ is a pre-recorded podcast created by local Richmonders, following the developing story of two proposed pipelines in Virginia – the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Over the past year, the subject of fossil fuel “pipelines” has reached a high point of saturation in the national consciousness. While the nation watched major milestones unfold around the rejection of Keystone XL by President Obama and Standing Rock’s struggle to protect water against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, resistance to pipelines in Virginia has been building as well. Residents and landowners in mostly rural parts of the state have taken on an uphill battle to try and stop two high pressure natural gas pipelines from going through their land as well as some of Virginia’s most treasured places.

Featuring the voices of those directly affected by the proposed infrastructure, this ongoing series will examine every aspect of the local pipeline struggle, episode by episode, starting at the very beginning and working our way to the present. Through voices of those on the frontlines, we will touch on issues such as eminent domain, energy policy, industry influence on local politics, environmental impacts, and the mental health aspect of how residents are coping with this tremendous burden. Our goals are to provide listeners with the stories of Virginians who have been and are currently resisting both proposed natural gas pipelines and build a wider audience of people throughout our region who may not be familiar with all that has occurred since the summer of 2014 when the pipelines were first introduced. The built-in question we will be posing to listeners is the same many landowners are facing, “Are these pipelines a ‘done deal’?” To that end, as our episodes begin to meet up in real time with the decision-making process at state and federal levels, “End of the Line” will continue to report on developments as the pipeline saga unfolds”.

We will announce a website for this project as soon as we know!

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Other, regional upcoming events related to the ACP & MVP pipelines may consider attending include the following: Beyond Extreme Energy will be putting on a convergence in Washington DC from April 26-28th. BXE was a co-sponsor of the walk across NC areas that may be affected by the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline. More info on the conference and other stuff by BXE can be found at http://beyondextremeenergy.org Delaware River Keepers have compiled “People’s Dossiers” on shortcomings of studies in the economic and environmental harms of the ACP & MVP by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or FERC. http://www.delawareriverkeeper.org/ongoing-issues/peoples-dossier-ferc-abuses-economic-harms

Another site of interest worth check out is http://www.apppl.org for the Alliance of People to Protect the Places we Live.

If you’re in the South East (or wherever), you are cordially invited to attend the 1st Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfaire, also known as ACAB2017 from May 5-May 7th in Asheville, North Carolina. The weekend of events kicks off with an a welcome table at firestorm books at 610 Haywood Rd from 3pm until 6pm with a schedule of events and ways to plug in. There are multiple musical events Friday and Saturday night. Featured speakers include Shon Meckfessel, Jude Ortiz of Tilted Scales Collective, members of the crimethInc collective as well as from the Water Protectors Anti-Repression Crew and a special appearance by author and activist Ward Churchill. Vendors over the weekend will include PM Press, AK Press, Little Black Cart, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, Combustion Books and many more. Consider the daytime events to be all ages. Check out https://acab2017.noblogs.org/ for updates and info.

#NoDAPL, activism, Environment, Indigenous, Krow, North Dakota, Pipeline, Standing Rock

Red Warrior Society Tour and Defending Water Protectors

Red Warrior Society

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This week on the show we spoke with Ikmu, an indigenous activist who was involved in the Red Warrior Camp at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Ikmu is now affiliated with the Red Warrior Society and is traveling with comrades around the country on a tour to talk about their work, decolonization and the struggle against ecocidal projects like #DAPL.

For the hour, Ikmu and Bursts talk about the Camps at #StandingRock, indigeneity, decolonization, the cases against Water Protectors Krow, Red Fawn Fallis and others, prayer, direct action and more. We had this conversation just after the eviction of the Oceti Oyati Camp by pol-igs of various stripes. To find out about the upcoming West Coast branch of the Red Warrior Society Ride For Resistance Tour, check out https://facebook.com/redwarriorcamp

Red Warrior Society’s legal fund
Red Warrior Society’s Funds Account

Contacts and support for some of the folks who are still being held in custody in connection with water protection at Standing Rock are:

Katie “Krow/Twig” Kloth
Katie Kloth
Morton County Correctional Center
205 1st Ave. NW
Mandan, ND 58554

Red Fawn Fallis
205 6th Street SE Suite 201,
Jamestown ND 58401

Charles “Scorch” Jordan
Charles Jordan
Burleigh County Jail
PO BOX 1416
Bismarck, ND 58502

and Michael “Rattler” Markus
Michael Markus
PO Box 1108
Washburn, ND 58577

Please write to and support these folks! For more information and further ways to support these brave folks, you can get up with the Water Protector Legal Collective at https://waterprotectorlegal.org/ and the Water Protector Anti Repression Crew on fedbook. Fundraising sites for these folks can be found at It’s Going Down

To check out our 2013 conversation with Krow on defending the Penokee Hills in northern Wisconsin, it starts 35 minutes, 47 seconds into the episode.

Announcements

Updates from Sabal Trail Resistance

Following our interview last week with Karrie and Niko of Sabal Trail Resistance against the Sabal Trail Pipeline in the South Eastern U.S., the the two locked down inside a section of the pipeline in Marion County, Florida to hamper the construction of the high pressure gas pipeline and demanding the release of a revised Environmental Impact Statement.. You can donate to the legal fund for these and other Water Protectors in the South East by visiting https://sabaltrailresistance.wordpress.com/donate/

Building The Commune in Durham

#BUILDINGTHECOMMUNE is a convergence organized to spread the tools and knowledge for self-defense and autonomy throughout our community in Durham, NC. We are dedicated to building a culture and space for autonomous resistance against Trump and his regime, the State, and capitalism. This convergence is happening across three different venues in Durham: Pinhook, Arcana, and the Atomic Fern.

The Welcoming Committee will be setup at Pinhook (at 117 W. Main St, Durham, NC 27701) with materials/programming distributed there. Childcare will be provided with drop-off/pick-up at the Atomic Fern (at 108 E Parrish St, Durham, NC 27701). A free lunch will be provided at Pinhook by Durham FoodNotBombs.

To close out the day, an Autonomous Assembly will be held at Pinhook from 4:00PM – 5:00PM. The assembly will collectively create the agenda to be discussed, but we’d like to suggest that folks come prepared to discuss: announcements and projects to collaborate on; skills, resources, and spaces we can share with one another; direct issues/crises facing the community or concerns we’re feeling; and mutual aid networks (cop-watches, community medical programs, rapid-response call networks, etc.) we can begin building in Durham now. We will provide materials to help folks learn how they form affinity groups, so that they may begin autonomously building these networks themselves.

You can see an entire list of workshops and events at the website http://www.buildingthecommune.com/

ACAB2017

If you are in Asheville or the surrounding area, consider participating in the first ever Asheville Anarchist Bookfair! The dates for this event are May 5-7th, and will include workshops, shows and dance parties, nature events, and a whole day of tabling revolutionary and anarchist art and literature.

Keep your eyes on http://acab2017.noblogs.org for the latest in news about the fair, and also use this webiste to submit ideas for workshops, speakers, or tabling. See you there!

Playlist

#NoDAPL, Anarchist, Colonialism, Environment, Florida, FrequenzA, Georgia, Krow, Pipeline, Political Prisoner, Prisons, Protest, Racism, Sean Swain

Sabal Trail Pipeline Resistance in Florida and Antipolitika newspaper in ex-Yugoslavia

Sabal Trail + Antipolitika

Sabal Trail Resistance

https://sabaltrailresistance.wordpress.com
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This week we’re sharing a conversation we had with Karrie and Niko, two folks involved in the initiative called Sabal Trail Resistance. The immediate goal of Sabal Trail Resistance is to block the Sabal Trail Pipeline, actually a series of 3 pipelines meant to run through Georgia, Alabama and Florida, carrying pressurized natural gas. We spend about a half an hour of this episode chatting about the route, who’ll be effected, the companies behind the pipeline, environmental racism, decolonization and other related topics.

Coming up, they plan a weekend of action February 23-27, including an action against prisons and in solidarity with longterm Indigenous political prisoner, Leonard Peltier.

More on their project can be found at https://sabaltrailresistance.wordpress.com and http://stopsabaltrail.com

antipolitika

After that, we’re spreading a 10 minute interview between comrades at FrequenzA out of Hamburg, Germany, published in English at the end of January. From https://frequenza.noblogs.org:
“The interview is about the first issue of ‘antipolitika’, released in summer 2016 with the topic antimilitarism. The anarchist newspaper consists of statements and articles from ex-yugoslavia and greece and is dedicated towards a broader public.”

Announcements

Updates on Sean Swain

Before these words from anarchist prisoner Sean Swain, we have a quick update on his dietary situation. We’ve just gotten word that Sean resumed eating on his 50th day of hunger strike. He is still not being given a halal diet in line with his practice of Islam, and neither are other Muslim prisoners in Ohio, but he’s said that the administration is considering the move. He’s achieved the other demands that he was hunger-striking for. If you’d like to see Sean and other adherents to Islam in Ohio prisons during this age of increasing Islamophobia be able to at least eat according to their faith’s dietary practices, give a call to Ohio Governor, John “JWow” Kasich. You can call JWow at 614 466 3555, that’s The Honorable Governor of Ohio, John Kasich at 614 466 3555. You can also write to him via
Governor Kasich
77 South High Street
Columbus, OH 43215-6117
And request that Sean Swain, prisoner #243-205 who’s being held at Warren Correctional, be allowed to eat according to his faith.

Reporting ICE Raids on Social Media

As many of yall are aware, there has been a lot of concern and fear regarding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (or ICE) checkpoints recently. Given the rising tide of overt xenophobia and racism in this country, these concerns are valid, and there has been a lot in the way of confirmed raids and detentions by ICE. However, the use of social media in these situations is something that can both help and hurt the situation, both being an effective way to broadly communicate an issue and a platform for a whole lot of unsubstantiated claims and rumors.

In an effort to battle this aspect of social media use, I’d like to plug a resource that DRUM put out some time ago. DRUM stands for Desis Rising Up and Moving, and they are a NYC based group which “is a multigenerational, membership led organization of low-wage South Asian immigrant workers and youth in New York City.

Founded in 2000, DRUM has mobilized and built the leadership of thousands of low-income, South Asian immigrants to lead social and policy change that impacts their own lives- from immigrant rights to education reform, civil rights, and worker’s justice. Our membership of over 2,400 adults, youth, and families is multigenerational and represents the diaspora of the South Asian community – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Guyana, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad.”

They have put out a very useful resource entitiled “A Brief Guide for Reporting Raids on Social Media”, which we will link to directly in our blog. Basically it cautions against the spreading of unsubstantiated information and provides a step by step guide for what to do if you witness something:

http://www.drumnyc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/ABriefGuideforReportingRaidsonSocialMedia.docx.pdf

To see more about DRUM you can visit http://www.drumnyc.org/

Support Krow

From our comrades at supportkrow.org:

On February 4, while supporting the No DAPL struggle, Krow (Katie Kloth) was assaulted and arrested by a Bureau of Indian Affairs officer (there is video of the incident below). She was walking on a public road, away from the Sacred Stone camp, when she was chased down by the officer. It is believed that she was specifically targeted because of her ongoing involvement and visibility within the No DAPL resistance, which had resulted in two arrests on misdemeanor charges previous to this incident. Krow was also known at Standing Rock for being an advocate for creating a unified front in fighting the pipeline.

Krow has been charged with violation of felony probation and is being held at Morton County Correctional Center. The probation is from previous charges in Wisconsin stemming from an environmental protest against mining in the Penokee Hills in 2013, for which she served nine months in jail. After a recent bail reduction hearing, Krow was assigned a cash-only bail of $100,000. The stipulations of the judge require that the bail be paid in full. Even if the full bail is paid, it is likely that Morton County would refuse to release Krow. We are currently working with lawyers and legal teams in North Dakota and Wisconsin to figure this out. Donations to support Krow will go towards paying lawyers, commissary, postage, travel for supporters visiting Krow, and/or bail. Krow has stated that she wants the bail paid.

We fear for Krow’s safety and well-being, especially in light of her assault and the severe mistreatment other water protectors have received in this particular facility.

Krow is an activist, artist, forager, sustainable farmer, biologist, and amazing person loved by many within the environmental movement. We need to show her as much solidarity and support as we can at this vital time. In Krow’s own words, “We must negate state repression by protecting ourselves and land-bases therein; we must not give our people up, and recognize that to be in solidarity with one another is more akin to the idea of ‘harmony’ than ‘unity.’ Harmony implies that we can all do different things within the same song, and still find conclusion together.”

Whether you are a direct action environmental activist or simply support the No DAPL struggle and protection of the land and all of its people, join us in supporting Krow, in solidarity with all things wild and free.

Contact Krow’s support team at supportkrow[at] riseup.net
You can also donate to Krow’s legal fund at http://supportkrow.org/

Resisting Snitching in Berkeley

From the Anti Repression Committee in Oakland:

ARC is aware that UC Berkeley PD is circulating images of individuals who they claim are associated with the Berkeley anti-Milo protest on February 1. They are actively seeking information about these individuals, and are asking anyone with information to contact them.

We want to remind everyone NOT to assist UC Berkeley PD in their investigation, EVEN IF it seems like the information you give is harmless. Remember that even minor information, like identifying a “witness,” can be used to increase surveillance of activist communities. Police use this kind of information to map activist networks and harass them. In the current political climate, the state is looking for ways to clamp down on dissent and resistance. Let’s not help them do that.

Remember that you have NO LEGAL OBLIGATION to talk to police or FBI if contacted about the protest. They may try to make you feel intimidated, but you ALWAYS have the right to remain silent. If you are contacted by phone, email, letter, or in person, either ignore the correspondence, or tell the officer that you decline to speak with them.

If you are contacted, immediately call the National Lawyers Guild at 415-285-1041 so that they can give you legal advice, and also so that they can be aware of police/FBI activities.

Finally: DO NOT post or circulate the UC Berkeley PD webpage with pictures of individuals. We do not want to signal boost anything that will increase surveillance and targeting of our communities.

NC J20 Defense

As always, you can help support our comrades who got kettled in DC by donating to http://ncj20defense.com/

Playlist

Anarchist, Canada, Earth & Animal Liberation, Environment, Fracking, General, Indigenous, Neoliberalism, Pipeline, Quebec, Racism

Mel Bazil on “Anarchy, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Decolonization”; Imprisoned Kevin “Rashid” Johnson denied medical care

unistotencamp
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This week’s episode features a workshop by Mel Bazil, an indigenous Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en organizer, sovereigntist, and anarchist of the Unist’ot’en Action Camp. For folks in the listening audience, Unist’ot’en is located on unceded native lands in so-called British Colombia, Canada. More about the Unist’ot’en Action Camp can be found at unistotencamp.com

This audio is from an almost hour and a half presentation that Mel gave on Saturday the 24th of May at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfaire, entitled “Anarchy, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Decolonization.” Many thanks to CKUT Radio in Montreal for sharing this content with the Final Straw. More info on CKUT can be found at www.ckut.ca

This week we’ll be presenting the first of two parts of Mel’s presentation, the second will be aired in coming weeks and linked together on the Final Straw website soon.

Firstly though, an announcement about the health of longterm political prisoner, Kevin “Rashid” Johnson. The following text was found at http://rashidmod.com, where one can seek further updates on the situation.

For anyone in the Durham area of North Carolina, there is a call-out on June 13th for a Noise Demo at the jail. More info can be found at (http://prisonbooks.info/2014/05/30/jail-demo-june-13th-solidarity-with-l…)

For more info on the prisoner hunger strike at Polk CI in Butner, NC, including their demands, check out: (http://prisonbooks.info/2014/06/02/prisoner-hunger-strike-hits-polk-corr…)

Playlist