This week, Olga and Kuba speak with William about anarchism in Poland and their experience of living in Canada. Olga is from Poznan, a city in Western Poland where anarchists have been able to open 2 squats in the city center, and a member of the musical network, Rhythms of Resistance. Kuba is a member of Tektura collective, Autonomous Social Center “Cicha4″ collective and Rhythms of Resistance Lublin, based out of Lublin.
The conversation, sprouting from Olga and Kuba’s presentation at the 2014 Montreal Anarchist Bookfaire, ranges from talking about squatting, resistance to the rise of nationalism, intersections of anarchism with feminism and queer existence, and homogeneity all within the context of modern Poland.
Due to the length of the conversation, it didn’t make sense to include Sean Swain’s commentary for this week, however his Bastille Day message to the world can be found here: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/76396
This week we’ll feature a segment by anarchist prisoner Sean Swain about education under Capitalism, a quick update about the U.S. activists threatened with extradition to Canada in relation to the 2010 Toronto anti-G20 protests and finally an interview with Orie Lumumba about the MOVE9, their 1978 conviction and their bid for parole. The last 20 minutes will feature tracks by Vallendusk from indonesia, Ah Ciliz from Los Angeles.
This week’s episode of the Final Straw starts off with a couple of announcements about recent prisoner resistance from around the U.S. and the upcoming court dates for the NATO3. (links below)
Secondly, we’ll present a short audio essay by Sean Swain, a regularly occurring segment we hope to become a regular portion of our show. Find out more about Sean Swain at http://seanswain.org
This’ll be followed by an interview with Deedee, a member of Saving Our Families, a network of those with loved-ones in the Prison Industrial Complex, based out of Indiana. Deedee is also a supporter of Control Unit Prisoners on hunger strike at Westville Correction Facility in Indiana about the strike and the atrocious food distribution, run by Aramark Corrections Services based out of Philly PA. More info can be found at http://dignityatwestville.wordpress.com
And, finally, we’ll present the last portion of the ZAD interview we started with last week. http://zad.nadir.org
Also, we announce that we’re now available at 106.5LPFM in Olympia Washington on KOWA. Tune in on Saturday nights at 9pm to hear us!
This week’s episode of the Final Straw features a conversation with Cami, a resident of the ZAD (Zone À Défendre or Zone To Defend) speaks about experiences of living on, defending, struggling on and with the project and the people in Western France and against the police, airport expansion and fascists.
Backstory: Notre-Dame-des-Landes (NDDL) in western France has been the target of the French government and private corporations like Vinci Construction for the building of new infrastructure. Plans have been brewing for 40 years to build a new, larger airport in the area, to expand the bus systems, build a high speed train out to the airport from the nearby city of Nantes and expand the port at Saint-Nazaire. The struggle, for many of the members of the farming communities around NDDL, has been about saving their countryside from gentrification, from preserving their generations-old ways of life, their homes, their agency in what happens to their homes so that it’s not just people in Paris and Nantes who reshape their world. For many others it’s about preserving some of the last remaining undeveloped lands in the area, resisting the expansion of the Metropolis and the way of life that it brings and even in making their own way of life with others while resisting eviction and learning new ways of struggle.
Much media coverage of the ZAD has worked to build a myth around the project that it’s hunky-dory heroism and everyday revolution. While those things exist there, the story is not so clean cut. This hour we’ll also be speaking about internal problems of sexism, racism, interpersonal violence, drug use, valorization of certain forms of struggle, homophobia… the same crap we have to deal with everywhere, sadly. Cami also talks about how people on the ZAD have tried to work through these problems. While also struggling against the occasional neo-fascist incursion from the outside.
We have hopes at the Final Straw that this will be the first of a few shows that focus on communities resisting development by Vinci, a company that destroys ecology, builds prisons and greenwashes around the world. Vinci is also the main holder of contracts with the Moscow government in relation to the development of old growth Khimki Forest to build a road and a village for the rich as well as Combe Haven in the U.K. Also, in the Atlanta, GA, USA they’ve been awarded (under the sub-subsidiary Hubbard Construction) the Northwest Corridor contract, worth $600 million, which will bring 30 miles of toll highway to that city.
(The following note is apparently up for dispute, according to some sources…)
2 days ago Vinci was seeing red in Bristol, UK, due to an arson at some of their offices by Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) (http://325.nostate.net/?p=9416)
The portions of the interview talking about Insurrectional theory, Radio Klaxtion (pirate radio on the ZAD), fascist attacks on the ZAD, immigrant solidarity, ability and the ZAD, films about the ZAD, and some of the music created through resistance by folks at the ZAD… don’t appear here due to lack of time. They’ll be linked on our afm blog page and eventually on thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org
The first is a call-out on behalf of Oso Blanco (Byron Shane Chabbuck #07909051) in his bid to receive medical treatment for chronic illness (Hep-C) and an unexplored growth in his liver that cause debilitating pain and have resulted in health crises for him. We suggest you participate in the call-in day on Wednesday, December 18th. More info on the call should soon be found at: http://denverabc.wordpress.com/prisoners-dabc-supports/political-prisoners-database/byron-shane-chubbuck/
The main portion of the episode features an interview with Alvaro Luna Hernandez, a Chicano political prisoner serving a 50 year sentence in Texas for disarming a Sheriff who pulled a gun on him, and then fleeing. Mr. Hernandez speaks about his case, his legal history, his political development, and his imprisonment. Special thanks to the Central Texas Anarchist Black Cross for this material. More info on Alvaro can be found at http://freealvaro.net
The final portion of the show features 3 new metal tracks: I by Dusk from their EP; Black Fast with Levitations from Starving Out The Light; and Voidcraeft from the album Scorn with the track As If Amongst Animals.
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.
Ed Mead & Danny Atteberry on the Tier of Walla Walla’s Isolation Unit in the 70’s Download This Episode
This week’s show features two parts. In the first we present a speech from the recent Carborro Anarchist bookfaire by a collective member at Untorelli Press on queer resistance inside and outside of prisons in the 20th century and what we might take from the experiences of our predecessors. More from Untorelli can be found at http://untorellipress.noblogs.org
For more on Men Against Sexism, check out this interview with Ed Mead on Earful of Queer
Secondly we’ll hear a presentation by Joe of the North American Anarchist Black Cross Medical Justice Committee. The conversation ranges over a number of topics, but focuses primarily on active and revolutionary solidarity with anarchist and other political prisoners.
The original post with contacts can be found here: http://325.nostate.net/?p=9112
A pretty good list of prisoners can be found at Denver ABC‘s page
This week Bursts spoke to Leslie James Pickering about a range of different subjects. Mr. Pickering worked for the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office (NAELFPO), acting to spread the message and communiques of the ELF, from 1997 to 2002. Obviously, he experienced heavy state oppression during that period of time. And recently, it’s become apparent that the state hasn’t forgotten him.
Leslie James Pickering is no longer allowed to enter Canada (despite no relevant arrests in the last decade and a half) and has found that he’s got a “Mail Cover” via the Post Office where his mail is photocopied and tracked by an as yet unidentified Law Enforcement Agency. He’s also had friends on the West Coast contacted by the Buffalo (NY) FBI Office and asked if Leslie has enemies or do direct action and business contacts of Leslie’s have been subpoenaed to Grand Juries around Burning Books Radical Bookstore. Leslie is an owner of that radical bookstore in Buffalo, which carries books, zines and hosts political events and via which, according to the FBI, Leslie is “stirring up the youth.”
We spend most of the hour talking about government surveillance in his case in particular and in general in the U.S. and also about the prosecution of Jeremy Hammond. Leslie shares some thoughts on parts the forgotten history of radical resistance in the U.S. In particular, he talks about his recent book on the Evan Mecham Eco Terrorist International Conspiracy (EMETIC), a predecessor to the ELF, as well as his earlier book on a radical, white, working class radical named Sam Melville who bombed government and capital centers in New York and inspired the Weather Underground. Melville, who’s the focus of Pickering’s book “Mad Bomber Melville”, went on to organize at Attica before and die during the Attica Prison uprising in 1971. In Pickering’s view, the importance of recognizing and learning from radical history allows us to better strategize for current and future struggles.
Lastly, we briefly touch on the story of Martin Sostres, who’s ideological journey brought him from Nation of Islam through Black Nationalism to Anarchism. Sostre was framed up on drug charges in order to silence his organizing and shut down his bookstore in Buffalo, NY, in 1967 and served 10 years before having his case overturned. Martin Sostre now lives in New York City. There was a 1974 documentary about his case called “Frame-Up!: The Imprisonment of Martin Sostre” (Pacific Street Films). The film HAS been available for streaming at christiebooks.com, alongside MANY other films in many languages.
This week’s show is about the case of two prisoners in Ohio. In 2011, the staff at Mansfield Correctional Institution (MANCI) became aware of a nascent guerilla sabotage movement starting among prisoners called the Army of the 12 Monkeys (A12M). A12M sabotage and organizing manual and propaganda began circulating among prisoners. Cells were searched in detail and James “BlackJack” Dzelajlija was found to have angry hiphop against prison he’d written and also a book on Ericco Malatesta, the long-dead Italian anarchist. Sean Swain, an outspoken anarchist prisoner and jailhouse lawyer at the same institution, was found to have an article he was writing criticizing the privatization of the prison system. Neither were found with A12M materials. As time passed, 2 other prisoners were accused and assented to membership in A12M and that Swain and Blackjack were unaffiliated. Ohio’s prison court, however, disagreed. Now this movement has spread throughout multiple facilities in Ohio, such as Noble, Lake Eerie and Toledo.
This episode is a conversation with Blackjack and Sean Swain, both serving in high security at Youngstown (OSP), and also with Ben Turk of Redbird Prison Abolition and supporter of Sean Swain. We talk about Sean’s activism and writing, how the A12M case has effected Sean & Blackjack, the targeting of anarchists within prisons and more.
http://seanswain.org for Sean’s articles, posts, zines, comics and news on Blackjack, A12M as it relates to Sean and Blackjack and more!
This week’s episode is a conversation with Ben Turk. Ben’s a co-founder of Insurgent Theatre, the decade-old theater troop that has presented a number of original and refurbished theater workshops and performances around the country. Topics of IT’s works have ranged from discussions around Militancy framed through Homer’s Odyssey to Administrative Segregation to a Terrorists Fairytale.
Insurgent Theatre’s current play is called “Know Your Enemy.” The play is a one-person presentation based around a community liaison cop with a liberal heart of gold. As the play goes on, the cop begins to question whether he can actually do his job and help the community. A psychological study into the head of the “good cop” and community/cop relations, it also serves as a history of policing in the United States (ala “Our Enemies in Blue” by Kristian Williams) and a discussion of safer practices when interacting with cops (a sort of Know Your Rights presentation). http://insurgenttheatre.org/acab/acab.html
We also talk a bit during the hour about art and theater in the modern U.S. and how they can and/or do(n’t) intersect. He has a theatrical and theoretical project meant to play out his views on the role of art in revolution. http://artscab.net/
Finally, we speak about prison abolition. Ben has been involved in Redbird Prison Abolition, doing support work for and with prisoners (and those in revolt in particular) in Ohio where the project is based. These include the Lucasville Uprising prisoners, Sean Swain and others. http://www.redbirdprisonabolition.org/
