This week’s show features a conversation with Hannah Dobbz about their new book, Nine-Tenths of the Law: Property and Resistance in the United States. Hannah was also the creator of the documentary “Shelter: A Squatumentary”. We talk about squatting in the U.S., homesteading, market values, views on squat resistance in other countries from the U.S. and more. The latter half of the show features a musical selection from the metal and gothy end of the spectrum.
This week’s show features a conversation with the anarchist, Jason Hammonds, about his brother, Jeremy, who’s been imprisoned over a year without trial for allegedly leaking information to Wikileaks. The second conversation is an interview with a member of the Belarus Anarchist Black Cross about recent history and repression in Belarus.
First things first: Jeremy Hammond. The first half of this week’s show will be a discussion with Jason Hammonds, brother of imprisoned anarchist hacker and freedom of information activist Jeremy Hammond. Jeremy has been imprisoned for a year as the government builds it’s case
against him. Jeremy Hammond is accused of working with the hacker group, Anonymous, and for leaking information liberated from Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, and giving it to WikiLeaks. Much of the information in the so-called Stratfor Files indicate spying by company for the Federal Government on foreign leaders, Occupy Wall St, activists in Bhopal India and the hidden indictment against wikileaks-founder Julian Assange, among other things. More info on the case can be found at http://freehammond.com and http://freeanons.org
The second half of this week’s show features content gleaned from a friendly project out of Berlin, Germany. Anarchistisches Radio Berlin is a project that produces content for pirate radio around Germany and has been featuring interviews of recent in English when that is the common language between host and interviewee. The following segments features a conversation with a member of the Belarus Anarchist Black Cross on the subject of repression in their country. For the security of the guest, their voice was replaced by that of a German comrade. In order to translate into American radio a little better, we’ve overdubbed the interviewers voice as well. To learn more about the situation in Belarus, check out http://abc-belarus.org
Firstly, we speak with Sterling Stutz, a former co-defendant in the Main G20 Conspiracy case stemming back to the 2010 anti-G20 protests in Toronto, Canada. Sterling shares her experiences around the protest, collective defense and resistance to the G20 and Canadian State.She also speaks a bit about Det. Sergent Gary Giroux, who is the most public cop prosecuting post-G20 arrests, as well as the pig who pushed for the prosecution of Nyki Kish.
More info at http://www.freenyki.org/
Next up, we speak with Fatimah, who speaks about the case of Dane Rossman. Dane is an American activist facing extradition to Canada in for charges stemming from the G20 protest of 2010. We talk about Dane’s work, borders, neoliberalism, incarceration and how to support Dane.
Find out more at http://supportdanerossman.blogspot.com/
Finally, we speak with Katherine about the case of Joel Bitar, another activist from the U.S. facing extradtion. We speak about Joel’s case and how he can be best supported. Find out more at http://supportjoel.com/
For more info on other cases surrounding the ongoing repression of G20 arrestees:
Memphis, TN, is heating up! This year will be the first observance of the International Day of Action Against Police Brutality on March 15th, organized in part by Black Autonomy CopWatch. Also, on March 30th, the KKK will be holding a rally against the city’s decision to rename the park housing the body of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a confederate General and founder of the KKK. Memphis also plans to rename 2 other Confederate parks in the city, not only forrest park. Counter-demonstrations are planned by Anti-Racist Action and other American antifascists.
It should not surprise folx that one of the people working so hard to organize against police brutality and challenge white supremacists is Tennessee’s own Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin. Mr. Kom’boa Ervin is a former black panther, an author, a former political prisoner and a Black Autonomist.
The show also features an update from the Tinley Park 5 website on the status of the antifa prisoners.
Dawn Paley is an independent journalist based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Much of her work deals with the displacement of peoples, particularly of First Nation peoples, in Latin America as a result of the militarized and U.S. fueled War on Drugs. The story that Ms. Paley tells illuminates the creation of Free Trade agreements, the Multinational corporations that profit from the displacement of marginalized peoples from resource rich lands and links between state security forces and paramilitary narco-groupings into a complex web of profits and losses. As in most cases under Capital and State, there are a few winners and many who suffer the penalties.
This week’s episode of the final straw picks up where last week’s left off. The features speakers are Ana and Pablo, two anarchists living in Barcelona, and they’ll be discussing the rise and struggle of Anarcha-Feminism in Spain since the social revolution of the 1930’s through to current times. We’ll also be discussing intersections of anarchist struggle and healthcare in the age of austerity and visions of autonomous and anarchist forms of health care. This show also features a scene report of Anarchists in Spain today by Pablo and Ana presents some closing thoughts on struggles to engage in.
Following the discussion, you’ll be hearing some new metal tracks from Brighton’s own Light Bearer. Light Bearer is a 4 album project themed around the fall of Lucifer. Light Bearer shares members with the band, Fall of Efrafa, an epic crust band themed around the novel Watership Down. The 2nd album in the series, Silver Tongue, has just been released by the band to a mediafire file.
We’ll also hear a metal track posthumously released from the Austin Texas anti-civ anarchist sludge project, Ecocide. For archives of this and other episodes of the Final Straw, check out radio4all.net and search the show title.
For many Anarchists, the history of Anti-authoritarian and Anti-capitalist resistance in Spanish serves as a laboratory in which to discuss the successes and failures of that political trajectory in application. The communes, the vibrant difference and debates that existed, and the resistance to the rise of fascism, bourgeious social democracy and statist communism: these are elements that find echoes in struggles prior (such as the Russian Revolution) and since (the struggles in the sixties through to today).
This weeks speakers, Ana & Pablo, present a slightly different narrative. By covering a critical (if brief) history of the Anarchism existant from the beginning of the Social Revolution ongoing when Franco’s military coup of 1936 was engaged, through the era of dictatorship, through the spectacular democratization of Spain in the 1970’s and into today, the speakers propose that the strongest that Anarchist movements have been was during periods of critical heterodoxy and debate within, as well as mutual aid and support in the face of restistance.
This show, due to it’s length, is split into two episodes. The first aired 2013-02-03. Following interviews, there’s about 20 minutes of metal tracks from Usnea and others! The playlist can be found here.
On the night of New Years Eve this year, there was an incident of violence that occurred at a party which left six people stabbed and/or beaten in the Reynoldstown neighborhood of Atlanta. One man, Luke O’Donovan, was taken to the hospital with multiple bruises and also stab wounds on his back, was arrested. The police and media narrative, based on the words of those present at the party, states that Luke left the party angry, returned with a knife and, as we’ve seen portrayed in recent coverage of mass shootings in the U.S., returned to attack those who enraged him.
The Support Luke Defense Committee and Atlanta Anarchist Black Cross, however, have been working to change that narrative. Friends, families and Allies of Luke claim that Luke was actually the target of a homophobic attack by a group of young men, and succeeded in defending himself and maybe saved his own life before police came. This week, we speak with Esme of the SLDC about Luke and Luke’s case, and how folks can support him.
In march of 2012, the Federal Government initiated a Grand Jury in the Seattle Area to focus on Anarchists. FBI began tailing Anarchists in Portland around this time, and probably in relation. This Grand Jury will likely continue to carry on through at least September of 2013, if not March 2014. Houses have been raided in Olympia/PDX/Seattle, folks have been jailed, some have been pressured into snitching and breaking bonds of trust. Two people are currently being held for refusing to speak to the Grand Jury and a third, Maddy, stands strong on the outside.
This week’s show features a conversation with Victoria Law.
This week we speak to Vikki about the second edition of her book, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women.” We discuss patriarchy, criminalization & invisibility that is faced by those held in women’s prisons. We also talk about resistance, organizing, support and engagement of those on the inside and about the organizing that formerly incarcerated people do to help their comrades on the inside.
From her PM Press Author’s page:
“Victoria Law is a writer, photographer, and mother. After a brief stint as a teenage armed robber, she became involved in prisoner support. In 1996, she helped start Books Through Bars-New York City, a group that sends free books to prisoners nationwide. In 2000, she began concentrating on the needs and actions of women in prison, drawing attention to their issues by writing articles and giving public presentations. Since 2002, she has worked with women incarcerated nationwide to produce Tenacious: Art and Writings from Women in Prison and has facilitated having incarcerated women’s writings published in larger publications, such as Clamor magazine, the website “Women and Prison: A Site for Resistance” and the upcoming anthology Interrupted Lives.”
