Then, we’re sharing Sean Swain’s segment on Goyaałé, aka Geronimo. [00:29:14 – 00:38:27]
Finally, we’ll be sharing a panel discussion by members of the A-Radio Network recorded on Saturday, July 22nd 2023 at the International Anarchist Gathering at St-Imier, Jura, Switzerland on the history and role of radio in anarchist and anti-authoritarian resistance, mostly in Europe. If you’re listening to the live radio edition, you’ll hear about 1/3 of that segment, but can hear the whole thing at our website, TheFinalStrawRadio.NoBlogs.Org or at A-Radio-Network.Org [00:38:27 – 01:36:45]
Tomorrow, from 8am to 2pm EST, the International A-Radio Gathering participants, the folks who bring you the monthly B(A)DNews: Angry Voices From Around The World podcast will be producing 6 hours of live broadcast, featuring updates from Rojava, Turtle Island, occupied Mapuche territory in so-called Chile, Russia, Europe and more!
This week, we feature three segments. First, we’ll feature a statement about recent doxing of a number of anti-racists in the Asheville area by far-right keyboard warriors.
After that, we feature an interview with Dee, an anonymous incarcerated organizer affiliated with Jailhouse Lawyers Speak. In this conversation we ask about the effectiveness of the #August21 2018 Nationwide Prisoner Strike, the push to move prisoners under storm threat as these increase under climate change, repression and changes in response to the strike, mail limitations in PA prisons, standardization of increased security in Ohio, outside support and organizing, critiques of the methods of NPS2018, and more. Check our show notes for links to more info concerning the strike.
If prisoners want to communicate with and/or join JLS, Dee suggests in some words near the end of the show that they reach out to:
And you can find JLS on fedbook or twitter to keep up with their organizing
Hambach Forest Updates
In our final section of the show, you’ll hear a report by audio comrades in Germany about the recent resistance to the destruction of the Hambach Forest by authorities. The clearing of the ancient forest is to create the largest open-pit lignite coal mine in Europe on behalf of the corporation RWE, which sells to Netherlands, Germany & the UK. Lignite has a carbon content of around 60-70%, has a low energy yield, and is responsible for 1/3 of CO2 emissions in Germany. This segment shows up in the November 2018 episode of B(A)DNews, Angry Voices from Around The World from the A-Radio Network, of which we’re a proud member. Keep an eye on our podcast stream and website for a link to this episode coming out in the next couple of days.
Local Doxxings
Within the last week, over 15 people were doxxed by white supremacists in our community. Here is most of a collective statement released a day or two after the fact by some of those folks:
They’ve targeted more than twenty people they believe are involved in anti-racist organizing in North Carolina. They’ve posted information such as our home addresses, places of work, family members, license plates, social media profiles–whatever information they could find. They seem to be fixating on trans and nonbinary people in particular, and delight in trying to deadname and misgender us whenever possible. Some of us, and some of our family members, have received harassing messages.
They wrote about us like it’s some big secret that we oppose fascism, that we oppose racism, that we oppose all forms of bigotry and oppression. It’s not a secret. We weren’t hiding. We are not ashamed.
This isn’t a plea for sympathy. Our friends and immediate community have been amazing. Rather, this is a message to let you know that if you ever find yourself targeted by neo-Nazis and the far right, you are not alone. None of us need to face this rising tide of fascist scum alone. We have each other.
Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooter, actively and publicly chatted with alt-right trolls who had doxxed anti-racist activists. He even discussed violence against anti-racists in our region. This is probably a good time to think seriously about your online security and that of your family members and friends. But staying safe isn’t just a matter of changing your Facebook settings or making your Instagram private. It’s a matter of us showing up for each other. Of us not letting them intimidate us, not letting them isolate us. Not letting them stop us from our work. Especially when the work is stopping fascism.
To read the full statement, you can visit https://ashevillesolidarity.tumblr.com/ , where you can also see a list of bands and businesses which have been included in the current harassment. And of course, there are ways to donate and send support!
For an article about this (released just as our radio show was airing), including a statement by Firestorm Books contextualizing the specific harassment they’ve received, you can visit The Asheville Blade, which you can donate to here! To support Firestorm Books, our local anarchist community space and bookstore, you can join their Community Sustainer’s Program or leave them a positive review on Facebook, Yelp, wherever you can.
Additionally, for a really excellent walk through of how to help prevent this kind of thing happening to you or your crew, you can visit the Smiling Face Collective guide to preventing doxxing. This site can be easily adapted into an interactive workshop, because let’s face it, wiping your presence off the internet is a tedious, upsetting, and grueling process which is designed to wear you down. It’s always better to do this in groups! You can write to us about your experiences with internet hygiene, good, bad, or whatever, at tfsradioshow@protonmail.com
Rural Organizing Against Racism Benefit
For those in the Western NC area, there will be a Fall Fundraiser to benefit rural organizing and resilience on Friday November 30th at 6pm at the Marshall Container Co. which is located at 10 South Main Street, Marshall, NC. The event will center around a cornbread and chili dinner and will include several surprise musical guests!
Support Anti-Fascist Protestors in Philly
And finally, if you are in the position to donate to those injured yesterday fighting the Proud Boys in Philly and elsewhere, you can go to this rally.org page. Remember that if you donate to do so anonymously!
This week on The Final Straw, we’re airing three international segments covering anarchist perspectives from the Rojava Revolution in Northern Syria, voices from the pirate radio, Radio Klaxon on the ZAD, a land occupation in western France, and refugee solidarity and struggle in on the border of Croatia and Bosnia in the Balkans.
Anarchism and Rojava
First, we’ll hear an interview with an anarchist recently returned from Rojava, the autonomous regions in North Western Syria where an anti- capitalist, ecological and feminist social revolution has been taking place while first fighting off Daesh or ISIS militants and now those fighters sent back in alongside troops from the fascist Turkish state under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The interview was conducted by comrades from Črna Luknja, comrades who first aired during the epic 8 hours of live radio from the 4th International Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarian Radio Gathering in May in Berlin, 2018. Črna Luknja, is based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and airs their content (sometimes in English) can be found athttp://radiostudent.si/druzba/crna-luknja.
If you like what you hear, check out the monthly, English-language anarchist news podcast we in the A-Radio Network collaborates on called “BAD News: Angry Voices From Around The World.” Our latest episode can be found on our website or athttps://a-radio-network.org
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To hear more audios from anarchists engaged with Rojava, you might consider checking out the podcast Vendenga Rojava. And for more resources from this perspective, check outhttp://internationalistcommune.com and check out their Kurmanji (or Kurdish) learning resources, updates on the situation there, ways to donate and ways to get more involved in the struggle in Rojava.
Balkan Route
Next, we’ll hear from Riot Turtle, an audio-comrade involved in the
anarchist media project, Enough Is Enough, based in Europe, recorded
on June 17th, 2018. In this segment, we hear audios from Vileka Kladusa, a village on the Bosnian and Croatian border. You’ll hear the construction
of refugee tents in the background while people from SOS Team Kladuša, a local initiative to support refugees as they attempt to traverse the Balkan Route from the south of Europe and towards the north, facing violence from police and border officials day to day. You’ll also hear refugees speak about their journeys and the violence they’ve faced, as well as audio from tension on the border with authorities. Earlier this month, there were about 1,000 people in this camp and only 4 international volunteers, no NGO attention besides a weekly visit by Doctors Without Borders and is supported by local initiatives of the Bosnian neighbors. To find out about how you can donate to these efforts, as well as more articles, video and
audio by comrades at Enough Is Enough, you can visit their website
(https://enoughisenough14.org) and search for “emergency call sos team bosnia”. There you will find donation options for the efforts of SOS Team Kladuša as well as for Cars of Hope, which coordinates needs and haves to alleviate the suffering imposed by borders and move people.
Radio Klaxon
Finally, we’ll hear a conversation we recorded a week before the second
round of evictions at the ZAD in early May of 2018. The interview with Marcel and Camille (two names commonly used to anonymize folks speaking to the media on the ZAD), speak about the pirate radio station, Klaxon, that they have participated in for a long time. If you don’t know, the ZAD is a decades long struggle against the building of an airport in traditional swamplands and farm lands in Brittany in western France near the city of Nantes. In the last 10 years, anarchists & autonomists have occupied the land to stop the government and the corporation VINCI from building a new aerotropolis megaproject for Nantes. This occupation and surrounding social movement has been marked by violent clashes with police and the creation of a police-free zone, an inspiration to many around the world. This year the French state cancelled the airport and began the
process of legalizing some squats. With the end of the airport, less radical support in the movement drifted away and evictions began in earnest. Klaxon folks talk about the role their station plays in amplifying the voices of people on the ZAD who might intimidated in publishing their views on the website or in their newspaper or at public meetings because of intersections of class, race, gender, education, language access and such, as well as the role the station plays in resisting the evictions. You can hear Klaxon by visitinghttps://zad.nadir.org and clicking the listen link on the right side of the page. Ps, it’s in French.
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.
Download This Episode
In this podcast special, Bursts spoke with L.A. & Hawaii, collective members at the Radiozones Of Subversive Expression, Radio98fm, a squatted pirate radio station on the campus of Athens University & the Polytechnic School in the Zografou suburb in the capitol of Greece. During the chat, L.A. & Hawaii talk about the radio station, about recent threats of repression at the hands of the university, telecommunications ministry & the police, and about collusion between those agencies and a commercial pirate radio station. You can find the station’s website at https://radio98fm.org
To hear the statement by Radio98FM about the repression, check out the July 2017 episode of B(A)D News: Angry Voices from Around The World. That podcast and more episodes of The Final Straw can be found at thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org
Download This EpisodeThis week we’re just back from a few weeks in Europe, most recently attending the 3rd International Anarchist Radio Conference at Radio98FM, an anarchist pirate radio station of 14 years in the squatted studios at the Polytechnic University in Zografu neighborhood in Athens, Greece. In coming episodes we’ll be releasing some of the interviews that we had with folks who we met between that event and the Paris Anarchist Bookfaire the week before. Here is the live radio show we helped conduct on April 30th with the participation of all of the attending projects on topics ranging from misogyny in the anarchist scene to discussions of technology, from eco-struggles around the world to prisoner resistance. Soon, we’ll have an Intl Anarchist Radio website, following will come a streaming radio station and a monthly 1.5-2 hour news blast from all of the projects called B(A)D N(E)WS. More info soon on that.
This week features 2 conversations Bursts conducted at the radio conference. First, we spoke with 2 buddies from Crna Luknja, an anarchist radio show in Slovenian and English broadcast on Radio Student in Lubljana, Slovenia. The friends talk about their organizing with the Balkan-based Federatin of Anarchist Organizations, affiliated with the synthesist International of Anarchist Federations, sometimes called IFA. An Anarchist Bookfaire is being organized by the friends next weekend in Cerkno, Slovenia as well. Since Asheville just hosted it’s first bookfaire we thought this’d be a timely audio to play.
The second segment was with Elisa. Elisa is an Anarcha-Feminist organizer in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. She talks about her radio project, Rosas Negras found at the online feminist radio station, La Radio de Todas. She speaks about Feminist organizing in El Salvador, the state of anarchist organizing there, the Anarchist Federation of Central American and Caribbean (FACC), organizing to change abortion laws in El Salvador, and a lot more.
Before we start the episode, I’d like to say a special hello to friends new and old visiting Asheville for the Anarchist Book Faire we are just finishing up today. We are only getting stronger by joining together in this way and sharing our skills and hearts. If you’re still in town, check out the last few workshops at Firestorm. At 3pm there is LGBTQ Advocacy as Abolition by Tranzmission Prison Project, followed at 4pm by a screening of the documentary ProjektA and discussion called Mutual Aid: New Bonds, New Revolts and this will be capped off by the Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross (yaaaay) prisoner letter writing from 6-7:30pm.
Because the conversations are in English with people who are not native English speakers, the conversations may be hard to understand. But, their English is better than my Slovenian or Spanish, so it’s in English! If you misunderstand the chat, consider listening to the archive or podcast later with headphones.
There’s no Sean Swain segment for this week, but stay tuned for future outbursts by the main Swainiac himself.
This week, we’re replaying an interview that Bursts conducted with Ron Sakolsky in March of 2016. Ron had just recently published Breaking Loose: Mutual Acquiescence or Mutual Aid? From the original posting: “Ron is a poet, an anarchist, a surrealist, a pirate radio broadcaster and author and more. Recently, Little Black Cart published a small book by Ron Sakolsky entitled Breaking Loose: Mutual Acquiescence or Mutual Aid? The essay is an anarcho-surrealist critique in which Ron levels a challenge to readers to move past (or break free) from the limitations we internalize from engaging with and within (as well as with others within) the systems of domination. In the conversation, Ron revisits the essay, breaks down some terminology and eggs the listener on to exercise their imagination and act from places of inspiration to apply direct action against the status quo. The essay it’s built off of can be found in Modern Slavery #1.
During the hour, we discuss that book, we chat about radio and Ron’s 30 years of radio experience starting in college radio in IL, later involved in the pirate station called Black Liberation Radio, publishing and promoting the building of micro-broadcast transmitters, and currently with Radio Tree Frog in the forests of Coast Salish Territories AKA British Colombia. He contributed to and edited the titles Seizing The Airwaves: A Free Radio Handbook (AK Press, 1998) and Islands of Resistance: Pirate Radio in Canada (New Star Books, 2010). A sample of featuring mostly content from the “Old Pal” show on Tree Frog radio is found here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tree+frog+radio&t=ffsb&ia=videos&iai=CACQMFIi9Pk ”
To hear more of our archives, dating back to 2010, check out thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org
Announcements
Jerry Jai Williams
Later this week, District Attorney Todd Williams plans to announce whether or not he will be indicting Sgt. Tyler Radford for the murder of 35 year old Asheville resident Jerry Williams (no relation), who was a children’s book author and father of 5. The particulars of this meeting will hopefully be made public later this week. For those who are unaware of this case, Williams was murdered in early July this year at the Deaverview apartment complex after police were called regarding an unrelated domestic dispute. In response to Jai, or Jerry, being killed by law enforcement and the discrepencies between stories of witnesses and the police narrative, Asheville experienced its first of many vigorous protests under the auspices of Black Lives Matter. It is expected that the DA, who recently received a 900 page report on the case from the State Bureau of Investigation, will deliver a non-indictment announcement, so keep your eyes and ears peeled for calls for solidarity from the Williams family and for community responses. You can also call the DA’s office to express your opinion at (828) 259-3410.
KINETIC JUSTICE
There is urgent need for folks to call prison administrators at Limestone Correctional Facility, where Kinetic Justice (who was one of the main organizers of the September 9 #PrisonStrike) has been transferred in order to isolate and endanger him. He was brutally beaten on December 2, and continues to fear for his life.
WE NEED TO SHOW THE PRISON THAT THERE ARE MANY EYES AND EARS ON THE OUTSIDE KEEPING TRACK OF KINETIK!
Here are the numbers to call, and the script provided by IWOC:
Call Limestone Prison Warden Christopher Gordy 256-233-4600
Call Commissioner Jeff Dunn & Ass Comm Grant Culliver 334-353-3883 webmaster@doc.alabama.gov
Call Gov Robert Bentley 334-242-7100
Call Department of Justice 205-244-2001ussaln.civilrights@usdoj.gov
Say this, “I am calling to demand that you release Robert Early Council from solitary confinement and move him out of Limestone Correctional Facility immediately. He was brutally beaten on December 2nd and continues to fear for his life.”
You can read about Kinetik’s work at the Free Alabama Movement’s website freealabamamovement.com
GRAND JURY RESISTANCE AT STANDING ROCK
On or around December 3rd, 2016 a water protector at Oceti Sakowin received a summons to appear before a federal grand jury that has been convened in relation to the resistance of water protectors. What we know about grand juries is that they have a long history of being used to target those in resistance to the state and engaged in political or revolutionary movements. The purpose of this grand jury and all grand juries that target revolutionary people and communities is to cause division, manufacture prisoners of war, create paranoia and suspicion amongst comrades. We will not be intimidated and resistance to this is only strengthening our resolve to kill this black snake and all the others.
Water protectors stand in resistance to this grand jury and all tools of state repression, be it on the ground through Morton County’s violent tactics or in the shrouded secrecy of a grand jury courtroom.
Indigenous people, water protectors, legal workers, revolutionaries and comrades from across the camps are actively organizing resistance to this grand jury. Camp wide education efforts are already underway as well as reaching out through our networks of solidarity that know no borders in order to spread the word.
If you have been contacted by federal law enforcement or have been served with a subpoena related to water protector activities or the resistance at Standing Rock please contact the Water Protector Legal Collective at (605) 519-8180. Grand juries rely on the isolation and fear that can come with a subpoena. The first step of resistance is seeking solidarity and support!
And for many other fantastic resources regarding grand juries and grand jury resistance, you can visit itsgoingdown.org and search the article Grand Jury Resistance at Standing Rock #NoDAPL Grand Jury Resistance at Standing Rock
Oakland March in response to Gentrification & #Ghostship
In Oakland, there’s a call for a March on Monday entitled: Honor the dead! Fight for the living!
Resist the destruction of all that allows us to survive and sometimes thrive. Let us mourn and rage together against a world that tears us apart, slowly in the form of ongoing gentrification, development, deportation, and imprisonment – or swiftly through tragedy that could have been prevented.
From Libby to Trump, they don’t care about us, let’s show them we don’t need them! It’s not about the artists. It’s about all of us trying to survive in Oakland. Poor people, people of color and queer people have been fighting for their existence for decades.
Communal warehouses are only one of our most recent dwellings where sometimes we get to imagine what another life could look like.
Defend tent cities and takeover vacant buildings! Fight landlords! We demand a moratorium on all evictions and affordable housing for all!
Monday, December 12th, 6pm at Grand Lake Theater @ Grand Ave and Lake Park Ave next to Lake Merritt
FBI Spying & Rule 41
Also of note, the December 9th episode of On The Media, a podcast produced by NPR’s WNYC studios with a progressive focus on media production in the U.S. and politics, had a really good interview with Rainey Reitman, the Activism Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The OTM interview, the second interview of the episode, focused on the recently passed updates to Rule 41 of the U.S. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, giving permission for the FBI to hack computers outside the jurisdiction in which the warrant was granted, often specifically where encryption or another means of obscuring or securing the information is being used. Check out that episode at http://www.wnyc.org and more work and analysis of digital freedom and surveillance from our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation can be found at https://eff.org, alongside toolkits for staying safer in the interwebs
This week’s show we’re airing two recent interviews that The Final Straw conducted with other anarchist radio folks for our 6th anniversary, on May 8th 2016. The first you’ll hear is with a member of Anarchistisches Radio Berlin, the second conversation is with 2 members of Dissident Island Radio, based out of London. For longer editions of these conversations, check out this link.
Prisoners at Holman Correctional Institution have ended their ten-day shutdown of the State of Alabama’s auto license plate plant. Their work stoppage, initiated on May Day, spread to Elmore, St Clair, Donaldson and Staton facilities over the following week shutting down Alabama Department of Correction’s (ADOC) canning plant, fleet services, and chemical industry as well as the license plate plant. “That was our leverage, that was our power to negotiate with” said Kinetic, a member of both the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union and the Free Alabama Movement (FAM). In an interview with media representatives of the IWW-Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee he explained how the strike achieved one objective but was broken by the unexpected employment of work-release prisoners as strike-breakers.
The strike achieved its first objective after only two days when the Alabama State Legislature killed the $800 million “Prison Transformation Initiative” that would have greatly expanded Alabama’s prison system, which is plagued with overcrowding, violence, deteriorating buildings and budget shortfalls. The defeated law tried to allocate ADOC $800 million to build four 3500 bed super-max facilities. Prisoners initiated their strike to draw national attention to ADOC’s problems and propose other solutions. On May 1st the prisoners stopped reporting to their work stations, and activists organized rallies and solidarity protests according to journalists who interviewed the prisoner’s spokespersons via clandestine cell-phones. On May 3rd, the ADOC’s new prison bill died on the state senate floor. Prisoners contend that their strike tipped the scales against the bill.
The solidarity efforts on the outside were spearheaded by the Mothers and Families of FAM with the support of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Pastor Kenneth Glasgow of the Ordinary People’s Society also represented the prison strike before politicians in Montgomery.
This morning (Thurs. 12 May 2016) the prisoner’s labor action ended. After eleven days enduring harassment and being fed starvation rations, a practice the prisoners call “bird feeding” the strike was ended by ADOC sending in work release prisoners as strike-breakers to take over the industry jobs. Work release prisoners are typically sent out of the prisons to work for either private companies or state institutions at reduced wages. The program is supposed to help prisoners transition back into society. Instead ADOC sent these minimum security prisoners into the prison factories to replace the striking inmates. Work release prisoners were first sent to Elmore’s canning and recycling plants last Thursday, then to Holman Monday afternoon. Without the economic leverage of shutting down the prison industries, the striking prisoners worried that ADOC could starve them out indefinitely and they slowly trickled back to their job assignments.
“If someone is performing the job,” Kinetic explained, “then the DOC is getting what they want, even though we locked down and going through all other hardships, our objectives ain’t being met.” By Thursday morning the strike had officially ended.
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Prison Strikes
In the state of Texas, multiple prisons had participation in work stoppages last month. Starting on April 4th and then spreading, incarcerated workers in seven units, including Lynaugh in Fort Stockton, Mountain View in Gatesville, Polunksy in Livingston, Roach in Childress, Robertson in Abilene, Torres in Hondo, and Wynne in Hunstville refused to be called out for work. Much of this organizing involved outside and inside members of the Industrial Workers of the World and it’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee. For a new pamphlet on the subject as we draw nearer the 45th anniversary of the September 9th Attica Prison uprising, which is the date of a nationwide prison strike callout, check out the new pamphlet at unityandstruggle.org entitled Incarcerated Workers Take the Lead: Prison Struggles in the United States 2008-2016
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Thanks to fundraising efforts and donations from people like you, Oso Blanco was able to receive a partial assessment from a law firm. Through this, and help from an awesome volunteer, we were able to figure out that Oso Blanco must file his appeal by June 25, 2016! As you may have heard, the “residual clause” of the armed career criminal act (ACCA) was declared “unconstitutionally vague” by the u.s. supreme court in Johnson v. u.s. Just last month, in April 2016, this ruling was declared “retroactive”, meaning that in can apply to old cases like that of Oso Blanco. However the deadline for appeals based on the Johnson decision is approaching.
What this means for Oso Blanco and his outside family and community is that he has a chance to reduce his sentence and he has just under two months to do it. Meanwhile, he has very limited funds and USP Hazelton is basically holding him incognito pending transfer, with few letters getting in or out, despite all of our emailing in protest.
To find details about his current legal and funding needs, check out his support site. This last minute push to get his legal ducks in a row could help get this brother out of a medically dangerous situation, meaning his incarceration as he ages and is regularly denied correct medical treatment.
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More Political Prisoner Updates
Here are a couple of legal updates from ItsGoingDown.org’s regular feature called The Bloc Party :
Joseph Buddenberg
Joseph Buddenberg was sentenced to 2 years for conspiring to free mink from their cages. Joseph was charged along with his co-defendant Nicole Kissane, under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. Nicole will be sentenced in June. As we posted last week, he already has an address you can write to. Please let him know you support him, and his fight for the wild:
Joseph Buddenberg #12746-111
MCC San Diego
808 Union Street
San Diego, CA 92101
Josh Williams
Ferguson rebel Josh Williams is in need of support while doing his 8 year sentence. For info on how to write to Josh and everyone serving time for being involved in the uprising, check out antistatestl.noblogs.org and at Sac Prisoner Support
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Janye Waller
In more sad news, Oakland rebel Janye was sentenced to two years for his crime of being a black revolutionary involved in the uprising in the wake of the Ferguson verdict in the bay area. As of this date, Janye has received the longest sentence of anyone involved in the revolt. Please support Janye here and stay up with how to write him on his support page.
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Casey Brezik
Casey Brezik is an incarcerated anarchist in Missouri and is currently raising funds for college courses on the inside. In the interest of his supporters getting to know him a bit better, he also wrote this pretty amazing proposal titled Anarchists in Space. While IGD certainly has some misgivings about the potential for this to actually happen, they fucking love that Casey takes the time and thought to write shit like this. Anarchists have always been a little unrealistic anyway, yeah?
This week on The Final Straw we feature a short interview by our komrades at Anarchistisches Radio Berlin with anonymized organizers of the International Week in Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners, which is called for August 23rd-30th of 2015. More info on that can be found at http://tillallarefree.noblogs.org
After that we’ll be playing some recent metal and punk tracks from around the world. Much of this was gleaned from R-A-B-M, a site featuring global perspectives and music from across the Loud spectrum. Red & Anarchist Black Metal, as a site, hosts political commentaries and musical projects of anti-capitalist, ecological, anti-state, feminist and other common sense pursuasions… or at least projects that’re good and reject NSBM & RAC trajectories. More can be found at http://R-A-B-M.blogspot.com
But first in news:
Earlier this week Sean was unexpectedly transferred to Warren Correctional. It seems he wasn’t given enough notice to send word out to supporters, so we’re not sure what’s up with this. Warren is a primarily level 3 institution, so Sean also likely had his security level reduced.
It is located near Cincinnati, so anyone there, in Bloomington, or in Columbus are now closer than they used to be. Sean loves visitors (and is more down to earth in person than his writings would suggest) so if you’d like to hang out in a big room with uncomfortable chairs, lots of sad people who are happy to see each other and vending machines that provide the best food half the people in that room can get, fill out some visitation forms and write Sean a letter letting him know you’d like to come.
His new address is:
Sean Swain
243-205
Warren CI
P.O. Box 120
5787 State Route 63
Lebanon, Ohio 45036
Chelsae Manning, who is currently serving a 35 year sentence at the maximum security US Disciplinary Barracks in Ft Leavenworth after disclosing to WikiLeaks nearly three-quarters of a million classified or unclassified but sensitive military and diplomatic documents while she was in the military, is facing indefinite solitary confinement. The charges that have been brought up against Chelsae are very clearly the product of institutional intimidation, and they include: having literature pertaining to trans issues (Manning is a transgender woman), spilling food onto the floor, and being in the possession of an expired tube of toothpaste.
From her support page: “This is a disturbing attempt to silence Chelsea’s voice. Chelsea has been very active while in prison, speaking out through her twitter account about issues of government transparency, transgender rights, and the prison system. She’s been writing a regular column for The Guardian, and even wrote a bill to reform the Espionage Act and protect journalism.These absurd charges against Chelsea, and the outrageous threat of indefinite solitary confinement, are clearly an attempt to silence Chelsea’s important voice and cut her off from the outside world.We have to make sure this attempt to silence Chelsea not only fails, but backfires”. And we here at The Final Straw agree!!
To write to Chelsae, you can address letters to:
CHELSEA E. MANNING 89289
1300 NORTH WAREHOUSE ROAD
FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS 66027-2304
And to donate funds, read updates on her case, and to see guidelines for sending her mail, you can visit the very comprehensive website http://www.chelseamanning.org
Columbia, SC native, Eddien Patterson was arrested during the July 18 anti-KKK demonstration in South Carolina (which we at The Final Straw reported here: http://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2015/08/03/they-ran-the-kkk-out-of-town-in-fact-exclamation-point/). He was initially charged with 2nd degree felony assault and battery by a mob as well as 3rd misdemeanor assault and battery. Eddien was on probation at the time of arrest and now is serving ten months for violating the probation. He is currently being held at the Richland County jail.
On July 29 Eddien was given the additional charge of Breach of Peace of a High and Aggravated Nature for allegedly breaking the windows of a KKK members pick up truck. Currently we are trying to find a lawyer for Eddien, but he has requested that money be added to his books and desires to receive letters.
EXTREME HEAT IN TX PRISONS by Malik Washington:
The next audio was a lengthy letter dated July 20th from Keith “Malik” Washington. Keith ‘Malik’ Washington is living in the Wallace Pack Unit in Navasota, Texas. He reports on human rights abuses in the Texas prison system. Known to his friends as Comrade Malik, his life mission is to serve the people and create conditions in the United States in which all humyn beings have access to freedom, justice and equality! More on his observations, his case and the contents of the letter on Extreme Heat conditions at Wallace Pack Unit (and the retaliation for complaint against 3 inmates there) at http://comrademalik.com
UNICORN RIOT:
And finally, we’d like to suggest another source for what’s called “alternative media” aka media for all you trouble makers out there. The website http://www.unicornriot.ninja/ boasts a bunch of awesome looking videos and articles about current events which would be of interest to anarchist leaning folx.
From the website:
“Unicorn Riot is your commercial-free not-for-profit media alternative. We operate independent of government/corporate funding and are currently accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
The purpose of Unicorn Riot is to amplify the voices and images of marginalized people and further the understanding of dynamic social struggles in communities around the world. We produce media in order to educate and expose the root causes of social conflict in today’s globalized world.
Unicorn Riot is comprised of independent journalists and multimedia artists working together from around the world who are committed to providing uncensored alternative media supported by the viewers themselves.”
MUSIC TRACKS:
This track is “a gospel of the flesh” by SEEDS IN BARREN FIELDS from Gothenburg, Sweden, which formed in 2007. They focus on themes of anarchism and environmentalism and are out on Lundr Records. This track is off their July 19th, 2015 release Let The Earth Be Silent After Ye.
AMESTIGON is from Lower Austria, and they formed in 1995 and are still going strong. They focus on Satanism and the Occult among other themes and are out on the lable World Terror Committee. Right now we’re hearing the track, 358 which is off the band’s full length album “Thier”, which was released in May of this year.
PALE CHALICE from San Francisco, formed in 2008 and out on the label Gilead Media. We’re hearing Shaking Nerves & Vacuous Spheres from their June 16th, 2015 release, Negate The Infinite & Miraculous.
This week, we’re sharing 3 segments.
Tomorrow, from 8am to 2pm EST, the International A-Radio Gathering participants, the folks who bring you the monthly B(A)DNews: Angry Voices From Around The World podcast will be producing 6 hours of live broadcast, featuring updates from Rojava, Turtle Island, occupied Mapuche territory in so-called Chile, Russia, Europe and more!
