Category Archives: Self-Defense

Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone + Updates from Argentinian Antifascist

Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone

Split image of the top of a prison wall breaking up into birds flying into the sky and a black and white shot from a demonstration with smoke bombs, flares and large banner reading "Antifa" in front of La Cultura Del Barrio social space. Also, the words "TFSR 3-3-24 | Anarchist Prisoner Toby Shone + Updates from Argentinian Antifascist"
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This week, we’re sharing audio from anarchist prisoner in the UK, Toby Shone. Toby was arrested in November of 2020 after a car chase and during 5 simultaneous raids on residences in the Forest of Dean outside of Bristol.

 

  • Transcript
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Toby was accused of being responsible for the insurrectionary counter-info anarchist site 325.NoState.Net as well as participation in the Informal Anarchist Federation – International Revolutionary Front, authoring communiques on behalf of IAF-IRF & the Earth Liberation Front, funding terrorism and being involved in the sabotage of a cellphone tower and having information on explosives. This raid and the case were brought in conjunction with the attempted linking of a diverse array of UK anarchist projects with terrorist charges via Operation Adream, which Toby understands to be conducted in conjunction with intelligence services from the Netherlands and German. The court failed to convict Toby Shone on these charges and only succeeded in convicting him of having and distributing hallucinogens and got 3 years, 9 months. Toby was then re-arrested while out on probation for having a cellphone and attending a prisoner support event.

You’ll hear two audios from Toby, first him explaining his conviction and situation during his first incarceration, and then you’ll hear Toby recently answer a few of our questions and updating listeners about his recent re-imprisonment in HMP Garth, far away from his supporters in the Bristol area. Much thanks to Brighton Anarchist Black Cross for supporting Toby and this conversation. More information at https://brightonabc.org.uk. Brighton ABC and Tobys supporters have noted that he’s been receiving pretty spotty treatment for his cancer and not getting a healthy vegan diet and so has lost some weight of recent. Tobys mail, including letters and books haven’t been making their way to him at HMP Garth. It’s requested that supporters consider writing Toby a postcard, letter or email to help him through these next 8 months or so before his scheduled release and to inform his crew at forestcase (at) riseup.net of the mailing so they have a record in case it doesn’t get to Toby.

Notably at that website you’ll see information about an upcoming International Anti-Repression Gathering happening in Brighton from March 30-31st. There’s information about signing up for the event at Brighton ABC’s website.

Argentinian Antifascist on Resisting Milei and Red Gym, La Cultura Del Barrio

Then, we were able to get an interview with Nicholas of Buenos Aires, Argentina to catch up on what’s been happening since the presidential election of libertarian capitalist Javier Milei. Milei’s presidential campaign was highlighted by his claims to subvert the status quo of Peronism – a socially liberal form of democracy with decades of complicated contexts in the 20th century. He’s claimed to be an “anarcho-capitalist,” although his policies since election have been nothing short of classic neoliberalism: cuts to social welfare, hamstringing of labor union’s rights to strike and picket, and doing away with common regulations of capital.

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While folks in the USA have sought to understand Milei by comparing him to former U.S. President Trump, Nicholas outlines how this comparison falls short. We also talk about the role of organized anti-fascists in expecting continued clashes with the police, the social space & boxing gym La Cultura Del Barrio, and how the call for a general strike by mainstream labor unions in Argentina largely fell flat.

A couple of brief announcements…

Andrew Bushnell Memorial in Asheville

For folks who hear this in time, you’re invited to mourn the death of Aaron Bushnell, anarchist and US soldier who self-immolated on February 25th in front of the Israeli Embassy in DC in protest of the US complicity in and arming of the Israeli genocidal war on Palestinians. This gathering will happen at 6:30pm on Sunday, February 3rd by the Craven Street Bridge over the French Broad River in Asheville.

Kevin “Rashid” Johnson in dire health situation

Rashid, minister of Defense of the Intercommunal Black Panther Party has surpassed the 70th day of his hunger strike demanding transfer to a lower security medical facility near where he can receive comprehensive treatment for his prostate cancer and is suffering dire medical consequences as his organs begin to shut down. You can hear an interview we did with Shupavu wa Kirima of the IRBPP on the earlier stages of this hunger strike in our January 21st, 2024 episode at our website, which is also transcribed there. There is a sample script and some numbers to call in our show notes for folks who can call the Virginia government to advocate for Rashid’s life.

They are asking folks to keep calling, urgently. Here’s a sample script and numbers to use and to share/post etc:

“I am calling with grave concern about the status of Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson who is participating in the Red Onion State Prison hunger strike. He must be allowed to remain close to the medical facility where he accesses treatment for his prostate cancer and congestive heart failure. Please move him back to Sussex I or Buckingham. Additionally, the use of solitary confinement in the state of Virginia is cruel and illegal. I am demanding an end to the use of this practice inside your prisons. We are watching the strike and we will not stop calling until the striker’s demands are met. Thank you.”

The contact info is as follows:

  • VADOC Director, Chadwick S Dotson
    • *NEW NUMBER*Phone: (804) 674-3000 (then hit “0” for staff)
    • Email: Chadwick.Dotson@vadoc.virginia.gov
  • VADOC Interstate Compact Liaison, Kyle Rosch
    • Phone: (804) 887-8404
    • Email: kyle.rosch@vadoc.virginia.gov
  • VADOC, Chief of Corrections Operations, David Robinson
    • Phone: (804) 887-8078
    • Email: david.robinson@vadoc.virginia.gov
  • Governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin

Mumia Abu-Jamal deteriorating health

Mumia underwent a double bypass heart surgery on April 19, 2021. His doctor prescribed a cardiac diet and regular exercise for recovery. To date, almost 3 years later, the prison has failed to provide Mumia the required cardiac diet and opportunities for exercise. More on this, including places you can donate to his legal and medical defense fund and who to express your concern for Mumia’s life and safety can be found at PrisonRadio.Org

Please call and write these prison officials.

1) Superintendent, Bernadette Mason: 570-773-2158
Email: bmason@pa.gov

SCI Mahanoy PA Department of Corrections, 301 Grey Line Drive, Frackville, PA  17931

2) Secretary of PA Dept of Corrections, Laurel Harry: 717-728-4109
Email: ra-crpadocsecretary@pa.gov
Message this form: py-forms-prod.powerappsportals.us/DOCContactUs/

1920 Technology Parkway | Mechanicsburg, PA 17050.

3) Acting Deputy Secretary Eastern Region, Morris Houser 717- 728-4122 ext. 4123

Email: mhouser@pa.gov

Sample Script (can also use for letters and emails): 

I am calling because Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM 8335 and other incarcerated elders diagnosed with heart disease are being prevented by the prison from getting what they medically require for their health.

Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM 8335 had double bypass heart surgery. He needs:

1) A CARDIAC DIET three times a day that includes fresh vegetables and fruit, whole grains, legumes, and limited sugar, salt, and highly processed foods;

2) He must have access to do sufficient cardiac rehab every day.   Thank You.

Cc: your letter to info@prisonradio.org

https://bit.ly/mumia-fund        https://www.bit.ly/mumia-action

Leonard Peltier Must Be Freed!

Elder political prisoner of Lakota, Dakota and Anishinaabe descent, Leonard Peltier, has been in prison for roughly 47 years and at nearly 80 years old after this long behind bars, his physical health is ailing. His supporters are asking people of conscience to contact US senators and representatives to appeal for medical care for his eyesight and other medical needs, including access to a wheelchair. There are lots of backgrounds on his case, but you also can hear a February 17th, 2019 interview we conducted with Paulette D’Auteuil on his case.

SAMPLE SCRIPT

“Hello, I’m calling about immediate medical care needed for Leonard Peltier, a 79 year-old federal prisoner. His prisoner number is 89637- 132, and he’s in USP Coleman 1.

We need Sen/Rep _____’s assistance.

1) First, Leonard must see an eye specialist without further delay, as his loss of vision poses serious risk of him falling, and he depends on other prisoners to perform basic life activities.

2) Second, Leonard is in constant pain and has multiple severe health conditions requiring immediate and ongoing medical care.

I am asking (Sen/Rep) to request an immediate transfer for Leonard Peltier to the Federal Medical Prison Facility in Rochester

Minnesota (FCI Rochester) where he can get treatment for all of his medical conditions.

I also urge the Sen/Rep to advocate for elder Leonard Peltier’s release so he can receive healthcare outside of prison and be with loved ones and community. Aside from Leonard Peltier being innocent of any crime, immediate release is proper and humane given his advanced age and medical conditions. Thank You.”

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Featured Track:

  • Shut ‘Em Down (instrumental) by LL Cool J

Continue reading Imprisoned Anarchist Toby Shone + Updates from Argentinian Antifascist

Firearm Safety and Education with Comrade Center

Firearm Safety and Education with Comrade Center

"Comrade Squid" color logo with a squid holding a lamp, sheaths of grain, an AK-47, red and black stars and flags and a large cog in the background
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This week on the show, we spoke with folks involved with Comrade Center, a leftist project focused on accessible education around armed self-defense in so-called New Hampshire. They were formerly known as Southern New England Socialist Rifle Association and while they’re no longer a chapter of the SRA, they are working with groups like that and individuals to purchase and maintaining a space for armed self-defense education outside of the right wing milieu in their area. For the hour we talk about mainstream, reactionary gun culture in the US, the impact of the NRA, the importance and empowerment of education around fire arms and other topics. You can learn more about the project at ComradeCenter.Org

Comrade Center links:

Other organizations we would like to shoutout:

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Pan-African Social Ecology: A conversation with Dr Modibo Kadalie

Pan-African Social Ecology: A conversation with Dr Modibo Kadalie

Book cover of "Pan-African Social Ecology"
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This week, we’re happy to air a conversation I had with the author and activist, Modibo Kadalie, author of Pan-African Social Ecology as well as Internationalism, Pan-Africanism and the Struggle of Social Classes. A version of Dr. Kadalie’s conversation with Andrew Zonneveld of OOA! Publishing, entitled Pan-Africanism, Social Ecology and Intimate Direct Action appeared up in the recently released collection Deciding For Ourselves, edited by Cindy Milstein out from AK Press. Dr. Kadalie has also been involved in political organizing including resisting the draft of the Vietnam War, labor organizing in Detroit and Memphis, ecological protest, community self defense in Atlanta and currently is working on writings about ecology and living in the territories of southeastern Turtle Island, including those of the Creek and Seminole peoples, and working at the Autonomous Research Institute for Direct Democracy and Social Ecology in Midway, Georgia.

In this hour, Modibo talks about autonomous community organizing, the contradictions between the survival of the species and capitalism, CLR James, his read on Pan-Africanism and Social Ecology, the pandemic, and direct democracy. We also talk about Geechee history in south so-called Georgia, the weaknesses of nationalism, hierarchy and revering individual historical figures and the strength of spontaneity and community action.

This conversation was recorded before the killing of George Floyd and but after the increased awareness of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery nearby to Dr. Kadalie in Glynn County, GA, which reflects in the discussion. Modibo shares some criticisms of official Black Lives Matter, liberal cooptation and the veneration of representative leadership.

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Featured Tracks:

  • Marvin Gaye – Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) – What’s Going On
  • Quincy Jones – Everything Must Change – Body Heat
  • Sam Cooke – A Change Is Gonna Come – Ain’t That Good News

. … . ..

Transcription

TFSR: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat, Dr. Kadalie.

Dr. Modibo Kadalie: It’s very good, thank you very much. I’ve seen this collection. It’s a very good, very easy read, deciding for ourselves, it’s got quite a few different perspectives. What makes it so good is that everybody talks about where does this ideal society exist, where can you find it, and what we got to do is show how it’s emerging all over the world. The collection is a really good read. I recommend it highly.

TFSR: Awesome, we just received a copy from AK Press which we are excited to dig into. I’d like to say first off that I really appreciate the wide focus lens that you use when discussing the history and popular movements and popular participation in discourse. When you have Q&As and discussions. It seems like a lot of your public presentations are focused on the idea of de-centering the individual as the focus, and you engage other participants in lively discourse, rather than a monologue. I feel that says a lot about your politics.

MK: Don’t you find monologues boring? I think their peculiar emergence in a liberal individualistic society. The lecture shows you that somebody’s got the answers, and you’ve got to listen. It is very boring and authoritarian.

TFSR: Absolutely. One thing that I noticed from some pieces that are in your collection from OOOA! was you talked a lot about the impacts of, among other people, C.L.R. James on your thinking. We’ve never had anyone talk about his writings and what he brought to the Marxist tradition and the postcolonial struggle tradition. Can you talk a little bit about, maybe like some of his thoughts that influenced you and interactions that you had with him?

MK: The most dramatic thing was he was a critic of the nation-state. Of course, I was disappointed because he never went as far as I wanted him to go. He was a critic of the nation-state, yet he venerated certain pan-African statesmen. I don’t think he ever made a distinction between classical Pan-Africanism, which is statist in its nature, and neo-Pan-Africanism, which is what I am. I’m a neo-Pan-Africanist, I believe that Pan-Africanism as any kind of humanism has to emerge from my people sitting down, talking, and discussing things to decide how they will go in their society, consistent with their natural ecosystems there that they depend upon for their survival. And these ecosystems are mutually dependent on human beings, symbiotically, relating in a natural world. And I believe we’ve got a real serious problem because capitalism has taken human beings into a very bad dark place. It’s a real detour that people have degenerated, and the technology, it is not very impressive when you look at it from a social-ecological perspective, all the patterns and human knowledge and all that stuff. Beginning with the industrial revolution, it was really inhuman what they did. It’s a very vicious and horrible period we live in. And they’ve been successful in making us believe it is the golden age of human thought and existence. To me, it is just the opposite. You get weapons of mass destruction, human beings fighting all the time with other human beings. Capitalism is driven by the private ownership of property and wealth accumulation. The writers of history look at human society as something which is not only great but the modern technology is wonderful, but the tragedy of it all is that they cannot see the inhumanity. We are on the verge of completely destroying the planet. Nobody seems to understand that human beings who try to own everything and try to rule everybody, there is a danger. The danger for the survival of the species and human society and human advancement not in the materialistic sense but in a humanistic sense.

TFSR: I think what you are saying plays with the definition of social ecology that you give in some of your pieces. Can you break that down a little? Because people may not be familiar with the term?

MK: The term ‘social ecology’ was coined by Murray Bookchin. His contribution was that he saw that human society was natural as opposed to the people who thought human society was unnatural. The rest of the natural world was natural and humans were pitted against the rest of nature. Bookchin saw that human beings and human society were a natural outburst of nature, and what we have to do is reintegrate human society with the rest of the natural world as a natural symbiotic relationship, a mutual affirmation.

TFSR: Where do social ecologists feel like it went wrong? You pointed out the industrial revolution- and I think some people might point to the application of Cartesian Logic, but some people might go back to primitive accumulation.

MK: Well, I have a serious break with Bookchin at the point when you start venerating the Age of Reason, venerating the American democracy. I really don’t think American democracy ever existed. I think that in the American state, there is a particular bastardization of democracy, of direct democracy, for sure. Now, there’s gonna be a debate about that. Because there are people who believe that the American and the European experiments with the rise of the nation-states in the Age of Reasoning and, of course, what they call modern science… I believe that science has existed, as long as human beings have tried to live collectively on the planet. So I’m a little different there, and I’m gonna write more about that later. But I believe that American democracy is no contribution to human social history. And we can see it’s not any kind of contribution to ecology at all. Look at America today, look at what’s happening in the North American continent, this is probably the most unnatural of the continents, because, by the way, you have to put this element in it, this idea of individual ownership of property, the unbridled right to own people, including other people, as it began. And this private property is against human collectivity. Human beings have existed socially and as a species for documented over 200,000 years. And if the greed and avariciousness and competitiveness that we know now, that defines individual relationships with one another, the kind of exploitation and the kind of brutality that human beings exact upon each other and nations, exact upon one another.

And as you know, nation-states in their legal systems have a right to kill people. They call it capital punishment, and war. They venerate people who kill people, those who kill the most other people are the people who are the heroes. So I mean, capitalism and individual private property really must be looked at seriously, because that’s just where human beings, and that’s where the detour began to take place. Now, there was some hierarchy before, old against young, against women and men, but it never reached the point that it exists now. The point it exists now is almost unimaginable. Can you imagine, some nations can wipe out every living thing on the planet with their weapons? And they got all kinds of technologies circling the planet, most of its purpose, of course, they tell you, the purpose is to facilitate communication, but most of its purpose is to seek some advantage over one another. So that they can develop this diplomatic concept that they call Mutual Assured Destruction. What an inhuman concept! I’m laughing because I’m hurt so bad by it.

Bookchin and C.L.R. took me up to a point. But they were people of their time, just like I am a person of this time. So hopefully, we can write this stuff down so other people can take a look at it and critique it and see where they don’t take it.

TFSR: So if we decenter the individual, just in terms of decision-making or deciding what’s best for the communities in which we live and the repercussions that we have to live with as individuals, I can see people who have been raised in places like the United States, we’ve been taught what democracy is to be this representational constitutional republic, whatever it is, that people would reject the term Democrat outright, because that’s what has been fed to them. Are there any visions of democracy that you can talk about that you’ve been personally influenced by that have had a different, more decentralized and human-level version?

MK: Even you can look at the most popular movements of our time, which have started off as direct democracy. And even the native people that were culturally and socially destroyed with the North American genocide, (when I say ‘we’, I don’t mean ‘me’) the American government wiped out all these democratic forms which they could have learned from. Anytime you see a picket line, when a local group, when a local society is under great pressure and in crisis, like in a storm or flood, people do what they have to do. People get sandbags, they don’t get paid for that, they line on the riverbanks with sandbags, they feed themselves, they feed other people that are in this pandemic. But let me give you a good example of how we don’t even know because we’ve been so brainwashed, don’t even know what’s happening for us.

For instance, Black Lives Matter. When Black Lives Matter started off, it was completely democratic. People were marching in the streets and raising their slogans and saying what they needed to say. But by the time the social workers and various people came in from the outside, as people came in, it became the Black Lives Matter. Next thing we’ve been raising individual people who were running for office, who were credited with founding the Black Lives Matter movement. First thing, it became the Black Lives Matter movement, because the media did that, the media named it that. And so it became. So they had to interview somebody, to interview these people who claim to be articulators of the program of the Black Lives Matter movement, but the Black Lives Matter movement was spontaneous of people from the suburbs of St. Louis. And basically, when we look at it, we’re looking at what I call a state creep. The state is taking it back over. And now people are running for office and using the Black Lives Matter environment as credentials. So they become members of the bureaucracy. But what you’re looking at is the shadow of the Black Lives movement, the aftermath, what the state has creeped up and done. Like the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement started in Montgomery. These people spontaneously began to organize themselves. Martin Luther King didn’t really know what was going on. And they organized an alternative transportation system on their own, boycotted the bus. They boycotted the buses. But that wasn’t an important thing. The important thing is a lot of those people were getting to work on time. Taxicab drivers were organizing, people who had cars organized themselves. And so they maintained a transportation system because the city continued to function despite what they call the boycott. Martin King came in, they got somebody who can speak, they always get the best speakers to articulate what the masses want. But they usually are not clear on what’s going on anyway. And even now, I don’t know if you know about a young black man who was killed in the streets of Brunswick, Georgia.

TFSR: Yes.

MK: Okay, let me tell you something about it because you have to look at it. When the history is written, if we don’t say anything, it is going to be the NAACP leaders, the ones who call the rally on the steps of the courthouse, and then, of course, they interview his mother. And that’s the story we get on TV. But what happened was that Ahmad was a very popular young man. And his friends went over to that suburban, almost all-white community after he was killed. After they got the story straight, because they had to go through the story to get the story straight, the officials. The official story was that he was trying to rob, there was a burglary in progress. And the police came in with these other guys helping to stop this burglar. And so after the story got out, people didn’t believe that, they were his friends. So these young people went over to the community where he was killed and started walking up and down the street and saying, “We run with Ahmad, all of us, we run with him“. And so they started running down the street. But there were no preachers there with no Bibles, no black leaders with no suits and ties telling them how to conduct themselves. And then when the guy who took the video saw that these kids were getting some publicity like that, he then released the video. And then when the video was released, then everybody knew them. But these kids are not gonna get any credit for any of that.

TFSR: Because they don’t have a non-profit or a pulpit.

MK: Yeah, because people don’t look for direct democratic, spontaneous people as being significant in human history. But that’s where the new society is born, and that’s why we have to write it like that. And once they see it, and once you look at it, everybody knows, yeah, that’s what happens. Because you can verify it, like in the case of Montgomery, the Montgomery Improvement Association was having regular meetings, but the black bus boycott, it already jumped off. And I saw it in Detroit, in New Orleans, when these people were trying to keep their community running. And next thing all the drug stores are flooded. So you are going to the drug store and ask the cashier to get you some Pampers, but there is no cashier in there. And the kids need Pampers, people need medicine. So they go in and get it and give it to people. But then when the media gets it — they’re looting the drug store.

So we just have to begin to look at history from a real directly democratic eye. Because that’s how it’s been happening the whole time. And you can see it even in the dark ages. If you look at European history, that gives you a good example.

Before all these philosophers, like Locke, and Hume, and Berkeley, even Rousseau started writing. That was the Dark Ages. And that was between the period of the fall of the Roman Empire, the disintegration of the Roman Empire, and the rise of these kingdoms in northern Europe and the periphery of the Roman Empire.

These are the Dark Ages because the church was not strong. There were no strong kings, these are the Dark Ages. But the people were organizing guilds, the artisans were organized, they were directly democratic forms. So when they say the Dark Ages existed, then what we got to do is shed some light on the Dark Ages. And when they say that African people were not capable of civilizing, that’s why they have classical colonialism, we have to show that these people were civilized, self-organized, but they don’t look at directly democratic organizations as being any form of civilization. And that’s why European capitalists in these states who now rule the world, or some form of their organization all over the world, this is a very dark period of civilization in human history. And I don’t know if we can survive it or not. What do you think?

TFSR: I hope so.

MK: I think we will.

TFSR: You pointed to how these directly democratic forms are coming up when people are feeling under pressure, you pointed to Katrina, you pointed to more recently during the pandemic, these examples of mutual aid and goods redistribution. I think there’s a lot of hope in there. I think the scale is lacking, and not that things have to be centralized, but if things can integrate together, if these things are happening in a bunch of different places, there are forms of communication between them, but it seems like networking and sharing resources.

MK: All the time now I’ve been zooming my ass off. I’ve been on a Zoom in Europe, people from Belgium and France, and I’ve been all over the screen and read my screen right in front of me. Young people understand it. But the point is, as long as you measure human beings by some material wealth and some private accumulation of property and federate these corporations because that’s all they are, they are just people organized to amass enormous material, wealth, and control. These things have to be dismantled along with the state. They put up these big centralized states, people have to become unmediated human beings. You can’t represent me, I can’t represent you, we have to get together and talk about what we want to do and figure out what we want to be. And we can figure it out. Human beings have always done that. Human beings wouldn’t exist for 200,000 years in some kind of without any kind of mutual aid or some kind of cooperation. And if they were selfish and individualistic, there would have been no more human species, human society. That’s why we got to this point by people understanding that despite all that… Sometimes people do it without even knowing it. If you went to Montgomery, Alabama, and asked anybody black, even a month or two before the bus boycott broke up. If you asked them, “Do you think that black people in Montgomery, Alabama can organize an alternative transportation system that can get people to work on time for a year?” “No, can’t do that? Who is going to teach us how to do that?” Well, you teach yourself, you work yourself, you work yourself through. I feel very strongly about it, I guess you can tell that.

TFSR: And you’ve done a lot of thinking and observing of that, too.

MK: Oh yeah, it’s a marvelous thing to behold. It’s like anything else, beautiful. If you know what to look at, it becomes greatly beautiful, if you don’t know what you’re looking at, you won’t be able to appreciate it. We are all learning, of course. Do you have any examples that you marvel about in your life time?

TFSR: Well, it’s hard to not have like the tinted glasses of retrospect and be like, “Well, that was weak for this reason, that reason, but definitely like the mutual aid stuff…

MK: Where are you now?

TFSR: North Carolina, Asheville.

MK: Asheville, North Carolina? And where did that bookstore come from?

TFSR: That came from people getting together and saying, “We want this in our community.” And that’s how it gets supported, it definitely doesn’t make money.

MK: Y’all trying to make money in a massive fortune?

TFSR: It would not work. That’s probably the joke at the beginning of every presentation.

MK: You want to have a whole book chain of all these books, so you can get on your computer and count your money?

TFSR: Here, we have a couple of mutual aid projects that are distributing goods that are donated from people and doing deliveries of groceries or handing out sandwiches and coffee to houseless folks or folks who just need a little up in the morning.

MK: Who taught you to do that?

TFSR: Our program’s named after the Black Panther Party Survival Program, and they learned from someone, too.

MK: Does it make you feel good?

TFSR: Yeah, absolutely.

MK: And you know who’s not going to be there and who’s going to be there when you get ready to do it. That’s how it works.

TFSR: Yeah.

So we’ve talked a little bit about the decision-making and the organizing aspects of what some of the things that we’ve experienced that humans are capable of in our societies. Shifting a little bit, you mentioned militarism and mutually assured destruction. Trump just dropped out of the Open Skies Treaty. And before that, he removed the US from the INF Treaty and the Iran nuclear deal. And there’s talk of sparking an arms race with Russia and there’s been saber-rattling with China. A lot of the people that are listening to this show have grown up under the war on terror, and haven’t known a time when the US hasn’t been actively engaged in a war abroad. Besides the police interventions that were going on in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, or whatever you want to call it.

MK: I grew up during the Cold War. I thought the Russians would come. We used to duck and cover under the seats in the school expecting a nuclear attack. But the only country that used nuclear weapons against the civilian, nuclear weapon against anybody is the United States government.

TFSR: And you resisted the draft, right?

MK: Yeah. That didn’t make sense. As dumb as I was, that didn’t make sense. For whatever reason, I wouldn’t go into that one. That’s the whole history of the last century. Nation-states fighting armies. Only ones that have armies are Nation States. Nation-states got armies, and they got legitimate armies. You can be a nice guy from Northern California and get drafted into the military. You can’t get drafted now into the military. And you can go into a place that you have never been before. And because you’re an American military person, you can kick down somebody’s door and shoot him in the head and get away with it. And then come back a hero. Cowardly, what you can do is just become technologically savvy and send drones over there to do it.

TFSR: And then afterwards, you carry the trauma of having done that sort of thing as a human being in a lot of cases, right?

MK: Yeah. And you do it because other people tell you to do it, you don’t even have a chance to think about it, you follow orders. I don’t mind following something that I’ve agreed with other people that we are going to do. I don’t follow somebody telling me what to do, that I never had anything to say about. And I think that’s a human, not so much an instinct, but I think human beings are wired to work in common with other human beings and to not destroy other human beings, except over something material. And we are taught that I think.

TFSR: Yeah, because we’ve been taught that, I wonder how – especially for those folks that have been living under this war on terror thing or those of us who grew up during the Cold War – how do we move away from being influenced by these leaders who… it’s obvious that Trump and the administration feel that not only have we lost the prestige of our imperial halcyon days of the Cold War, but the economy also could do for a boost, and all these other associated things with militarism, like patriarchy and white supremacy. And these things are waning in some ways, because of the threat of social justice movements, or just people being good to each other.

MK: It’s the way they mobilize everybody behind the banner of patriotism and stuff. So it’s not just a war on communism, or war on terrorism, it is the war on poverty, the war on the virus. The American policymakers know one thing, they know that to get everybody behind a policy, you got to declare war. There is a war on everything, on drugs, etc. And so what we have to do, is get out of our mindset, this jingoism when we get involved in a debate about policy. Anytime it says a war on something, what that means is that they’re trying to rally people and appeal to their nationalist fervor. You have a war on virus – what the fuck is that? So what you have to do is criticize, there is no war on viruses and we’re not all in this together either. Some people ain’t even in it, but they’ll send you to be in it. The fact is that there are people who are unevenly affected by this kind of thing.

So, what you have to do is you have to explain it to people that these are viruses, these are naturally occurring viruses that are part of the evolution or the failure of the evolution of the human body to adjust to the environment, to their immediate environment. And then you have to explain it scientifically that there is a cancer pandemic. People understand that very well. Because cancer is the human body trying to adjust or accelerate evolution in an uneven way. So, all these tumors and everything come as a result of the human body trying to adjust. And these viruses are like that. These viruses come in for several reasons, they turn down the natural support system of other life forms on the planet. They are trying to survive, their bodies have viruses, too, and what we need to do is understand how we have to live within the scope of our own context. And we have to put scientific knowledge in the service, not of developing a vaccine, and showing that a vaccine is gonna make a lot of people a lot of money, a lot of people will get famous. So that’s why over a hundred different corporations are putting money into vaccines as an investment. And explain the system to them, and how the policy arguments are not fruitful. The argument that we have to look at is how do we take control of our own local communities and help other people do that. And we have an opportunity here too, because the virus attacks community, locality. And that’s why you have outbreaks here and there, and you have to work it from that angle. But the rhetoric gets to be really emotional.

We have to have a war on this and a war on that, and then, of course, everybody’s thinking that Biden is going to save us. And Trump has betrayed us. That’s what the liberals think, and the more conservative think that Trump is trying to save us, and all you other dummies are trying to stop them from saving us. But the point is, people will have to have an enlightened discussion about the relationship between human society and the rest of the natural world. And we will have to understand that the nation-state and the corporations and individual ownership of property stands in the way of human beings realizing the scientific and ecological future. A lot of people are going to say “What the hell are you saying?” But over time, and we have to sacrifice ourselves, your children will understand, that generation will understand. But if we have nothing written down, no kind of discussions like this on tape, then they will have to reinvent the wheel, because these things will be suppressed. So we have to keep these things alive, so they won’t be suppressed. So I don’t see my role too much, I just trying to write something down so that people have something to think about in the next generation when the real pandemics come. What we have right here is nothing compared to the real pandemics, the real wars and stuff and real confusion.

Young people understand climate change, but the really important thing, all of the major real issues have nothing to do with state policy in the sense. Climate change is across borders. Borders don’t mean anything to climate change or the pandemic. And it doesn’t mean anything to these immigrants. People gonna go where they go and people gonna fight where they need to fight. And then they go organize themselves to make the fight. And we have to put a mirror in front of them. So they’ll see who they are, what they must do, and support them in doing it and not try to interpret what they’re doing in some capitalistic bourgeois bullshit way. I get tired of reading these people, you read them, and they reach, they get to the point where all the shit is wrong, obviously, they’re wrong. But you know what they end up doing? But we got to develop, we got to change the state so it can really save us, we got to make sure the corporations are accountable. That’s where they fuck up right there. We got to get beyond that point.

TFSR: They haven’t rejected the state structure or capitalism fully, but they recognize the climate crisis is real. And they recognized the patterns of disease and how capitalism facilitates its spread. I just keep thinking back to all the money that’s been poured into the airlines, and how much of an effect on the ecology there’s been since fewer flights have been going, and how cheap the planes are right now, and how it’s just trying to stay alive. But it’s literally the vector for not only massive amounts of pollution for people to make pleasure trips in a lot of cases or business trips or whatever. But it’s also the vector for so much of the disease spreading. So many of these huge places where it’s become pandemic are not that far from an international airport and then it’s complicated by racialized and class-based impacts of capitalism.

MK: I just enjoy looking at the sky and not seeing vapor trails. I don’t know whether you noticed it, but in the morning, the sun is much brighter and the grass is much greener. And seeing like nonhuman nature seems to be responding, releasing itself in a very good way. I’ve seen animals come out of the woods. I have a comrade in China, he texts me and he says, he’s from Beijing. He says the sky is blue in Beijing. I thought it was great. You got to see the sky. That has an impact. And I understand that the fish coming up into the Grand Canal in Venice now. You don’t have those big luxury liners going up in there. So you can catch a fish off the Grand Canal. People don’t see that. The earth is telling us something.

TFSR: Yeah, and we need to heed that and we need to stop this shit from coming back.

MK: It’s gonna come back, but it’s not gonna come back without being seriously challenged next time. It goes like that way. I have another little difference with my friends. They think that I’m some kind of a historical generator of spontaneous upheavals. Because they think that what we should be doing is agitating and telling the masses, they must fight and engage blah, blah. No, no, no, this isn’t the period of propagandizing, this is the period when we conceptualize stuff, and when they erupt, that’s when we should be agitating. And they say, “Spontaneity, what is that?” “That’s the New Society trying to emerge?” “How come they never take over?” Because they aren’t trying to take over, they just try to understand who they are, what the world can look like. And over time, it’ll become clear to everybody. Let me just draw a line right here, I have drawn a line with my mentor C.L.R. James, when he venerated certain black heads of state, he says, the states are evil and we must go beyond them. But then he turns that around and venerates the guy like Lenin, a guy like Kwame Nkruma. If you’re gonna be against the state, you gotta be against all of them, whoever they were, whoever they are. He’s circumscribed by us all the time. He can only act in a certain way. And Bookchin, he’s gonna raise the Age of Reasoning and the American Revolution. I broke with him there.

I just want you to know that I’m thankful for these guys. But we got to go further than that. If we stay where they stood… And I’m sorry that there are people who are venerating these people now without understanding what they represented in the development of certain ideas and certain political trends and stuff. You should never venerate anybody, no individual person should be… When you put out a work, or you engage in the discussion, like you and I, it’s supposed to be for critical purposes. So you can understand one another better. The axe doesn’t get sharp on his own must be sharpened by file. That’s a metaphor.

TFSR: It’s a good metaphor. I was talking to a friend the other day about having this conversation and she was asking, “What are you reading?” And I mentioned your book and she asked about social ecology. And she also asked “What’s the definition of Pan-Africanism?” and I gave like the Wikipedia definition. I wonder if you could break down what that phrase means to you and what it means to be a neo-Pan-Africanist.

MK: Pan-Africanism is a concept that arose to counteract the colonization of Africans on the continent of Africa and the segregation of African people in the new world along with some other colonies in the Caribbean and Central America, which were black. The original Pan-Africanists saw that the empowerment – that’s why I call them classical Pan-Africanists – that the empowerment of African people requires that they create state bonds, state formations, and unite them like the United States in North America so that they can be on the world stage as representatives of the will of the black masses, both in the United States, the Caribbean, and in the continent of Africa. That’s what classical Pan-Africanism is. Now, most people don’t make this distinction. My distinction is neo Pan-Africanism is for the empowerment of all African people, wherever they might be, without the state, the empowerment of African communities all over the world in unity with the rest of the people all over the world. So that’s what I call neo-Pan-Africanism. Now, most people don’t make that distinction. So if you talk to somebody, you tell them that that’s the distinction that I’m making. So they won’t think that you haven’t thought about it as well. To be clear, classical Pan-Africanism is associated with a response to classical colonialism. Classical colonialism is the period in human history where European nation-states sent their direct administrative apparatus to administer their colonies. They lived there. Neocolonialism is the period in human history where indigenous groups of people emerge to take over control of these states and administer them like they’re doing now. The period of classical Pan-Africanism is a response to classical colonialism, the idea of neo-colonialism, neo-Pan-Africanism is a response to that.

TFSR: And is the need within the neo-Pan-Africanist push, or as you experienced it, or that delineation that you make, you said that the nation state format is an unnatural, or at least a detrimental form…

MK: Yes, it is unnatural, and it needs to be swept aside, along with these various confederations of states, like the Organization of African Unity. People see them as that. People just say, “Why don’t they act right? Why don’t they be what they’re supposed to do that?” The Organization of African Unity and various governments, they call socialist governments in Africa, like in Tanzania, sometimes, Ghana sometimes, and even Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela never was anything but really a classical Pan-Africanist and, actually, he was a more broad-based classical Pan-Africanist, because he united with the Cubans as well, and the Chinese as well. But he never was a socialist, even of the old classical socialist ilk, but he’s like Martin Luther King. You can say nothing against Martin Luther King because that’s being racist, and he’s denying black people and he was turning against your race and all that, but you got to criticize him. Even Malcolm X. These people understood liberation in the context of nationalism, black people, white people have got nation-states. And what we need to do is have nation-states of our own, and that’s how you liberate yourself. To me, that was bullshit from the beginning.

TFSR: But you do feel that it’s important that people of African descent have been able to organize together, right?

MK: Yeah. Being organized together in places where they have a commonality with other people organized with them too. I don’t see it as a separation thing, it’s like right here, down here in Midway. There’s Black people and white people. Black people can organize and then white people want to come and we can organize together on how we want to live. And as time goes on, you will see more and more of that.

TFSR: Can you talk a bit about the community that you live in and some of the history of resistance there? Your interactions with the authors of of Dixie Be Damned and other essays that you talk about are really impressive.

MK: Well, I live on the coast of Georgia. And during the reconstruction, during the Civil War, this was a rice plantation area. And you had rice plantations up and down the coast of Georgia and up and down the coast of South Carolina. But even before the Civil War, there was a shift in the south, where big money was invested in cotton, cotton don’t grow well down here. If you look at the Black Belt, that is a demographic area where there were large black populations before the migration to the north, you don’t find the coastal areas included except in various places. But you’ll find the use of those plantations in central Georgia, central Alabama, up and down the Mississippi on both sides and up into Western Tennessee and Eastern Arkansas. That’s where, in North Carolina, South Carolina. But when the Civil War broke out, the market and rice were already gone. So the rice plantations don’t look like the cotton plantations, the rice plantations were left alone and they worked down here. The owners only came as traders who actually traded that it didn’t last so long during the Reconstruction. People just claimed the land for themselves. And then they didn’t give any kind of acknowledgment to white ownership. And they just claimed that, that’s why when Sherman came down, he issued Field Order #15, and he said that all of the land, from the ocean to 31 to 32 miles inland couldn’t be claimed by the emancipated slave as their own. So they did.

So as the country grew and developed, there was an erosion of that ownership of land, but people held on for a while. I was born down here. When my parents came from central Georgia… And by the way, these people voted. They couldn’t run for office in the South, because the state government didn’t allow that. But they could vote for white people.

So I had all kinds of Gullah Geechee communities and all kinds of African retentions. And all kinds of independent, autonomous institutions. So that’s who they were. The Geechee had a reputation of being a rice-eating, fish-eating, mean, recalcitrant, disagreeable person, short, black. And those are the people I grew up around. So it has a collective history.

And even the people who ran the county government really didn’t bother the black people too much. When the paper companies took over some of the lands, they just want to make sure that the people brought the wood to the sawmill like in many other places. But that tradition was a part of who I am. So I never believed that black people were not resourceful and could not govern and decide for themselves what they want to do. I never believed that. Other people believed that, I think in central Georgia, there was less of this kind of self-organizing activity. But in coastal Georgia and coastal South Carolina, there were a lot of legendary leaders who guided the people to some kind of autonomous existence. And their history is written. There’s a place called Harris Neck, Andrew went over there, he was amazed because they still live over there, even though there’s a great push from Northern, New York people primarily from Long Island to settle down here after they retire, instead of going all the way to Florida. So it’s always changing. But that’s the context. You want to come down here sometime.

TFSR: I’d love to.

MK: When this is over, you come down and take a look around.

TFSR: You also have a Social Ecology center down there, right?

MK: Yeah. We just found that about three years ago, after I retired from my teaching career. We set up, primarily myself, Andrew, one of my students, and another friend of mine, a guy who found a Geechee Cultural Center in Riceboro, which is about four miles down the road. But he passed on. So we became the conveners of the Autonomous Research Institute for Direct Democracy and Social Ecology. Now, that’s a complicated name. But we wanted to have a name that was not confusing to what we were doing. If we called it the C.L.R. James Center, that would be an amorphous veneration of some individual person and that wasn’t serious. We wanted people to know that it was autonomous, which means we have a different kind of fuels, historical development. And we want to let them know that it was an institute for direct democracy, we’re not interested in people writing about their heroes and famous baseball players or anything like that. And it is for social ecology. But we believe that direct democracy, social ecology cannot be achieved without having a direct democratic social organization. And a group of people who could see that. History shows that, the Native American people show us that. I’m writing about some Native American people, it will probably be released next fall. So I’m here working now and talking to you of course.

TFSR: That’s awesome. Are the Gullah and Ogeechee communities what one might consider to be Maroon communities?

MK: Yeah, you can consider it, but Maroonage has taken on all kinds of forms. It’s not just people running away and setting up their own… Some of those communities right on the ridge in the front of plantations and interacting with some of the people. And some of the people went far distances and set up very complicated societies and stuff. So the type of Maroonage is dependent upon demography, history, the type of plantation and was the type of monocrop that was being raised, and how people fed themselves, what kind of transportation was available.

TFSR: It’s kind of attesting to the adaptability of people.

MK: Oh, yeah, they adapted. They were all over if you study Maroonage, they were in Mexico, and across the islands, the big islands, they have substantial populations in the hinterlands, like in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and, of course, in Cuba, and Jamaica. In Haiti, that was Hispanola, and after slavery was over, a lot of those people just simply took over the land in the Caribbean and grew crops to feed their families. And that’s why in places like Trinidad and Guyana, they had to import plantation labor. So the black people who were slaves developed their own autonomous communities. They grew crops on their own, no monocrops. So if you wanted a monocrop labor force, they had to go to inland and get that. That’s why he has an in the population in Guyana and Trinidad, coming out of that type of relationship with labor with capitalist mercantile agricultural laborers.

TFSR: Is the nature of the writing that you’re doing right now on indigenous populations about what might be understood as social ecology of… to put that term onto what communities were experiencing and living? What’s the topic?

MK: Well, the two examples that I’m using to do some detailed writing, the Forte Mose experience and Spanish experience in northeastern Florida. How the Seminoles evolved from this interaction. And how the Creek Seminoles where the creeks came from autonomous, complicated, hierarchical society. Do you know anything about anthropology and archaeology in St. Louis, upper Mississippi, and middle Mississippi areas? Have you heard of Cahokia?

TFSR: Yes, Kevin Tucker writes about Cahokia. He lives right outside of it. So I’ve heard it referenced.

MK: In that connection, I’ve talked about how Cahokia ,which was a hierarchical kind of society, and people look at the big leaders in Cahokia, but I was trying to explain how Cahokia… People left Cahokia, people didn’t like it. That’s why the Creeks were fleeing Cahokia and that’s why they migrated down the Mississippi and all the way up to Northern Florida. And they went along creeks that’s why they were called Creek Indians, but I hook them in and then the African populations which fought with the Yemassee in early Charlestown, the early Charlestown settlement, and they went south to St Augustine and then to Cuba. That’s what that’s all about. Then I’ve got another section, which is a more naturalistic section, it’s got to do with the Great Dismal Swamp and the history of that geographic area. I’m looking at that one as a part of the lore, the place and why it became known as the Great Dismal Swamp, but it really wasn’t dismal. Depending on who you were, if you were running away, it was a paradise. But I think it’s coming in the right size. I remember the first book I wrote, that thing was way too big.

TFSR: I still use it as a reference, though.

MK: It had all the documents in the back. I think that’s just saving grace, the rest is shit. I lose to self-organization every once in a while. But that was where I was in the 1970s, a young man trying to put it together.

TFSR: And at least he referred to the book very clearly on the cover as the raw notebooks.

MK: It’s raw, really. Because my students, one student, in particular, he came by the house and I was rummaging through some stuff and he said “What’s over here?” It was one of those manuscripts. He put this together. He grabbed the thing, and took it back to the office, and started hunting and pecking, I said, “What are you doing?”, and he said, “I want to put all this together”. They organized it and put it in a book. It’s very raw. It offers no real solution. But it shows certain attempts: it shows the 6th Pan-African Congress, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and its lack of democracy. And it shows the African Liberation Support Committee. So it came from the minutes and stuff that I was keeping at the time. So it has an empirical side to it, I think

TFSR: It’s interesting to hold that up to your shorter book The Pan-African Social Ecology, because a lot of those events that are in a lot of cases you and Andrew talking about or that you referenced during speeches, to be able to dig back into this book and say, like, “Well, here’s the notes from that time, here’s a little deeper context of what was going on with the League of Revolutionary Black Workers or the 6th Congress”.

MK: I guess it has that value, but it doesn’t speak to any kind of ecology. When I started exploring questions of ecology, I was really out of the anti-nuclear movement, I just thought the nuclear shit was dangerous to the planet. But I didn’t have a real conceptual context you put it in. And I was just trying to deal with some Marxism and critique the limitations of Marxism, especially the vanguard party in need for the revolutionary people to lead the ignorant masses to victory.

TFSR: It’s so patronizing.

MK: It’s preposterous. But I think we got a nice size for people to actually read this. There are pictures in it, too. A guy from Nova Scotia was in my last zoom session. And he saw a picture of me on hillside. That was me. I owe a lot of that to Andrew [Zonevald]. Andrew edited and put this book into great context, and the introduction is of great detail. And when I mentioned something he says “Oh, man, we should have put that in there”…

TFSR: I like your working relationship. It’s really awesome. I like Andrew a lot, too.

MK: Yeah. And Andrew brings it out. He knows when I get contradictory, he says, “What does this mean in relation to what you just said?”

TFSR:That’s the beauty of conversation.

MK: When there’s an election, I do vote in the local election, and I vote for sheriffs, representatives on the county commission, but the rest of the stuff, I don’t vote for. But I know these people. And that guy who’s running for the county commission chair thing, I sat down with him, and he says that he’s gonna make sure and he made it part of… He’s been on social media and essentially, his thing is to get people involved in the decision-making of their local government, and he said that he will have some town-hall meetings where he don’t say nothing unless they call along. And he’ll organize in such a way that everybody gets their say. And he’s committed to what he calls participatory democracy, which I don’t know what that means for him. But participatory democracy is not the same as direct democracy. But if we really get it kind of close like that. And if he wins, which he stands a good chance of winning, more people understand that we’ll be able to set up a couple of forums, regular forums, where people can actually decide something about their local government.

TFSR: It seems like that critique of the stuff that was going on in Jackson for a while.

MK: You can’t just stop at participatory. You can’t have people come in and they talk and talk and they listen to you, and then they go do what they want you to, you can’t do that. Not only do people have to decide, but they also have to actually implement, that’s what direct democracy means.

TFSR: Because there has to be, some sort of accountability and recallability. Right?

MK: Yeah. There has to be a direct recall. And no hell of a lot of money involved beyond the task, if you enlist somebody to do something, you paying for that and that’s it. No lifetime appointment, no president-for-life shit. So I’m involved in that. But if the guy doesn’t win, he’ll at least raise the credit, but he got a good chance.

TFSR: That’s better than a lot of us have right now. We just got to not stop at participatory.

MK: In terms of the state legislature and state governments, I don’t vote in that kind of stuff. But people are really upstanding Trump, it is primarily a black community still in East Liberty County.

TFSR: Again, some meandering. Here Modibo shares some criticism on decision-making in vestiges of Leninism, and projects like Cooperation Jackson, and the Zapatistas.

MK: That’s all that they were doing. They were trying to push the gathering over and think it was supposed to be an anarchist gathering in Detroit or somewhere, and they were pushing, the people in Jackson have been in the vanguard of what they call this concept they introduced as organizing dual power, which means that they were kind of stuck with the Leninism. And I really think that they need to examine that. I don’t want to get associated with that. Because dual power, to me, is a statist concept in itself. When I started writing about the origin of dual power, and how it’s a statist concept, and how we got to break with Leninism. And I couldn’t explain that in an article and stuff. So I just want to hit on a road. That turned out to be about 12 or 14 pages. Andrew said, “Why don’t you put that with your critique of direct democracy and republicanism?” So I put it there. And then it turned into a chapter and like the explanation of what representative democracy is and the difference between participatory democracy and all these sham democracies? So I never did. Because if I got associated with that, and somebody was gonna write a book and reference that book, and reference somebody else in that book, and then I’d be associated with people trying to organize the democratic institutions. The point I’m making is that getting organized is shit, people don’t do that. All you have to do is shepherd the process. Frankly, I found it kind of vanguardist because I know what’s going on in Jackson, Mississippi is not a direct democracy. I know that so I’m not gonna even go there.

TFSR: I feel like in the book, at least, that’s one of the goals they point to and say they get a lot of influence from Rojava and the Zapatistas. I know that there’s a history of Leninism in the backgrounds of both of those.

MK: Well, the Zapatistas, I got into a tiff with Andrew on that. Andrew was sympathetic to the Zapatistas, which is a Leninist, Marxist organization stuff, plus their stated goal was to take power in Mexico, they see themselves as operating in the kinds of... And then when the Cheran people emerged, that’s what you need to be looking at, the Cheran people.

TFSR: I don’t think I know that. How do you spell that?

MK: Cheran. It’s in the book. The women who stoned the logging trucks that were taking logs from the forest.

TFSR: Oh, that’s right, near the end of the book.

Anarchism in El Salvador / An Antifa View of the Militia Demo in RVA

Anarchism in El Salvador / An Antifa View of the Militia Demo in RVA

Download this Episode

This week we have two segments, an interview with an Anarcha-Feminist organizer in San Salvador, El Salvador on the situation there, followed by Mitch of Red Strings And Maroons podcast on the upcoming Militia demonstration on MLK Jr. Day, January 20th, 2020 in Richmond, VA.

Elisa on GANA Govt in El Salvador

[starts at 00:04:54]

First, you’ll hear my conversation with Elisa, an anarchafeminist in San Salvador, El Salvador, talking about the new neo-liberal government of Nayib Bukele’s GANA party, repression, immigration, relation to the US and anarchist organizing there. More on her work at ConcienciaAnarquista.NoBlogs.Org and a Spanish version of this audio is available at our website.

Spanish

A2 Gun Demo in Richmond

[starts at 00:27:19]

Then, I spoke with Mitch, host of Red Strings And Maroons podcast on the Channel Zero Network about the upcoming far right militia and gun rights rally on Monday, January 20th 2020 in Richmond, Virginia. More on Mitch’s work at RedStringsAndMaroons.com and organizing info by AntifaSevenHills from Richmond can be followed on twitter at @ash_antifa, their response to the Vice article can be found here (https://antifa7hills.blackblogs.org/2020/01/18/in-response-to-vice-news-why-this-antifa-group-is-siding-with-thousands-of-pro-gun-conservatives-in-virginia/) and above that post is a local rogues gallery of known fash in RVA to be aware of.

Announcements

[Starts at 00:01:20]

Jason Renard Walker

First up, some prison rebel Jason Renard Walker. Jason had his contacts book stolen by prison staff and has been moved. He’s asking folks who have been in contact with him (or any other comrade) to reach back out to him with a letter as he’s getting situated in his new spot. You can read Jason’s writings up at SFBayView.com by searching his name. You can write him at:

Jason Renard Walker #1532092
McConnell Unit
3001 S. Emily Dr.
Beeville, TX 78102

Delbert Africa

Just got the news that MOVE 9 prisoner Delbert Africa has been released! Now it’s time to get the remaining co-defendant, Chuck Africa and their supporter Mumia Abu-Jamal out as well. #FreeThemAll!

Marius Mason

Marius Mason, an anarchist, labor organizer and trans prisoner who was sentenced to 22 years for ELF activities that led to no harm of humans or other animals has an upcoming birthday on January 26th. You can learn about how to write him or see his book wish list up at SupportMariusMason.org

Phone Zap for Hunger Striking Prisoners at Central Prison, NC

From Atlanta IWOC:

Description:

Sixteen folks incarcerated at Central Prison in Raleigh, NC are going on a hunger strike starting Monday January 20, 2020 as an act of comradery to the 200 prisoners being tortured in Unit One (a mental health unit). They need your help to make the calls on Monday, January 20th. And if you have the time thereafter, call any other day you can until their demands are met and those sixteen hunger strikers can eat again.

Background:

In Unit One at Central Prison, guards are daily using chemical mace against both (level 2) mental health prisoners who receive psychiatric help and (level 3) mental health prisoners who take psychotropic medications. Guards are trigger happy and deploy an excessive amount into the prisoner’s small cell at the slightest disagreement. Pursuant to Chapter F Section 1504 Procedure (d):

“An officer is prohibited from using force solely as a result of verbal provocation. An officer shall not use force against an offender who has abandoned his/her resistance or who is effectively restrained. The use of force as punishment is strictly prohibited.”

Furthermore, these prisoners attend a group therapy session every Monday but while these prisoners are in group, Unit One’s guards destroy the cells of these prisoners by searching their cells and throwing their personal belonging all around the cell. This is done to deter the prisoners from attending group, discouraging them from receiving treatment.

Medical staff continue to show deliberate indifference to the needs of the prisoners housed on Unit One. Several prisoners are not receiving their self-meds (medications given out monthly that prisoners keep in their cells, these meds are but are not limited to blood pressure meds and high cholesterol meds, etc.). To receive these meds, the prisoner submits a medication refill request. The medical staff has neglected to submit the requests therefore leaving several prisoners without their meds.

It takes months to be even seen by medical staff when a sick call is submitted. Prisoners are not receiving adequate healthcare. Prisoners are compelled to endure illnesses for months before being seen by medical staff.

This medical neglect and excessive use of force towards the most vulnerable population in Central Prison is cruel and unusual torture and a human rights violation.

These sixteen brave and selfless activists imprisoned in Central Prison are taking a stand for those in Unit One who are mentally incapable of making these demands, by way of a hunger strike. This is a humanitarian display of unity for those inside who face injustice by the very same who face injustices enslaved right there with them. This solidarity is inspiring. Please help them to expose these human rights violations and meet their basic, humanitarian demands by joining the phone zap and calling in to amplify their voices!

Suggested script and demands:

I am aware that Central Prison’s guards and medical staff are directly torturing the prisoners and there are 16 hunger strikers exposing these human rights violations that will not eat until the following issues are addressed:

  1. The excessive use of chemical mace on prisoners who have not been a threat to staff or others.
  2. Stop the targeted searches of mental health prisoners who attend weekly group on Unit One. We know that this is an attempt to discourage from attending group to receive treatment.
  3. Address the deliberate indifference shown by medical staff not refilling prisoners’ self-meds and neglecting to answer sick calls within a timely manner

Who to call:

  • (919) 733-0800 Central Prison, Request to speak with Deputy Warden Steven Waddel, Unit One Manager Tenbrook, and/or medical personnel.
  • (919) 838-4000 DPS Office; Request to speak with Commissioner Todd Ishee and/or Dr. Gary Junker

Hot tips:

You don’t have to give your name or any other information if you don’t want to.

Entering *67 before any number may block your caller ID.

Don’t worry about anyone giving you the runaround, not getting through or having to leave a message. Just pursue it to the point that you can. We are calling to apply pressure and every call counts.

Please report back on calls made in the comment section below or email atlantaiwoc@protonmail.com

B(A)DNews Jan 2020

TFSR is also excited to be a member of the A-Radio Network of anarchist and anti-authoritarian radios. Check out our website or social media streams for the latest episode of our monthly, English-language news roundup from anarchists around the world, BADNews. This month with anti-repression updates about the Park Bench 3 case from Hamburg, steampunk anti-eviction activism from Berlin, support for Chilean uprising prisoners, updates from the not-so-united United Kingdom and anti-repression, prisoner solidarity, labor organizing and squat struggles from Greece’s two largest cities.

https://www.a-radio-network.org/bad-news-angry-voices-from-around-the-world/episode-30-01-2020/

. … . ..

A playlist will be available soon (Sunday), on the post on our website when we distribute the radio-friendly version of this chat, but here’s a breakdown of tracks:

Manu Dibango – Soul Makossa

Declive Repunknante – Capitalista Canibalista [starts at 00:25:27]

Las Musas – Las 17 [starts at 00:57:52]

Los Insurrectos – ‘32 [starts at 01:21:33]

The Ramsey Lewis Trio – The In Crowd

Digital Security / Tenant Organizing / #MeToo and Updates from Hong Kong

Digital Security / Tenant Organizing / #MeToo Hong Kong

This week, we feature three portions.

Lauren Regan of CLDC

art by Ar To
poster by Ar To
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First up, we share a chat with Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, or CLDC, to chat about safer practices around technology for activists, as well as the “reverse search” warrant used by the NYPD with Google to capture info on antifascists and the Proud Boy attackers last year. More at https://cldc.org. An article about tech security and phones that Bursts references is called “Never Turn Off The Phone” [starts 10m 08s]

Palm Beach Tenants Union

Following this, Withers (a new collective member at The Final Straw) shares a chat with Adam and Amy, two organizers with the Palm Beach Tenants Union out of Florida about their work and the sorts of mutual aid disaster work they’ve done with Hurricane Irma and advocating for and organizing with renters in their communities for dignity in housing. More on the Union at https://pbctu.org and more on how you can get involved in mutual aid up at https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org. There are a number of donation sites around the region to prepare for this Hurricane season, as well as distribute support to Bahamas that you can find by searching social media for DRASL (Dorian Response Autonomous Supply Line), as mentioned on itsgoingdown.org. [starts at 54m 06s]

#MeToo and Updates from Hong Kong

Finally, you’ll hear a conversation with Enid and Rebecca, who feminist activists in Hong Kong about the current state of protests there. Content warning, that segment deals in part with organizing around sexualized assault by police and by protestors. To hear our prior interview with Ahkok on protests in HK, check our website and see the great articles up at crimethinc. Also, the guests talk about the term 自由閪, or “Freedom Cunt” as a re-appropriation of a misogynist insult by police from the protests. [starts at 1hr 15m 51s]

*Correction to the HK conversation: The full name of the IPCC mentioned in regards to the establishment of an independent police inquiry is called the Independent Police Complaints Council. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam appointed two new committee members to the already existing committee, not independent investigators. However, the IPCC has hired five foreign investigators to participate in examinations, though it must be clarified that the role of the IPCC is observational rather than investigative. The IPCC has no jurisdiction to either call witness nor collect evidence for the independent inquiry called for by citizens.

If you’re listening to the radio version, as usual, we suggest that you check out the podcast version for longer versions of all three chats in this episode as well as Sean Swain’s audio this week. You can hear that at thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org or via various streaming platforms we publish to, such as youtube, soundcloud, stitcher, pandora and so-on.

. … . ..

playlist ending

Autonomy Meaning More Than Just Guns

Community Self Defense Post-Charlottesville-2017

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This week we share an interview I conducted a few months back with two folks, Inman and Bleep, about community armed self defense. They talk about their experiences of handling firearms, lessons learned from their visibly armed presence at the Charlottesville Unite The Right protest in 2017, wider ideas of community self-defense beyond open carrying firearms (like engaging in like unarmed self-defense, infrastructure for food and health autonomy). The guests also talk about skills expanded and muscles flexed in Appalachian and southern participation in autonomous disaster relief in the last few years, some resources and ideas to keep in mind or steal if your group is thinking about training in firearms or medic’ing and more.

There’s a lot cut from the radio version, so if you’re listening live, we suggest you check out the online edition up at thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org where you can stream any of our shows or subscribe to our podcast.

Announcement

Blue Ridge ABC events upcoming

If you’re in Asheville on Sunday, June 2nd, you can join Blue Ridge ABC for their monthly political prisoner letter writing night from 5-7pm at Firestorm Books. No experience is requred. And on Friday, June 7th from 6:30 to 8:30 instead of Trouble, BRABC will be showing the documentary “The Bail Trap” and having a discussion about it afterwards.

. … . ..

Playlist

Charles E. Cobb, Jr, on “This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed”

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“You may be nonviolent, but I’m not gonna let these white people kill you”. A presentation with Charles Cobb on This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed.

This week we are very pleased to present a presentation done some months ago at Firestorm Books with Charles E. Cobb, Jr.  Charles Cobb is a journalist, writer, and current senior analyst at allAfrica.com, which is “is a voice of, by and about Africa – aggregating, producing and distributing news and information from over 140 African news organizations and our own reporters to an African and global public.” Cobb has had a long career full of landmark moments, for example being the first Africa correspondent for NPR and being the first Black staff writer for National Geographic Magazine, among many other achievements.

In this presentation, done on April 2nd 2018, Cobb talks about his 2014 book “This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed”, which details his work from 1962 to 1967 for the SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), the most influential youth and student organization during the Civil Rights Movement. He also fills in a much overlooked gap in the understanding of the Civil Rights Movement, that is, the lived experiences of Black people living in the rural South at this time, gives his insights on embedding in communities for social justice purposes, and draws lessons from those insights as they pertain to the current Movement for Black Lives. In this talk he is being interviewed by Carol, who is a long time comrade and friend.

Announcements

Week of International Support in Lead Up to Nationwide Prison Strike

A call from a variety of groups to make some noise for the upcoming prison strike, kicking off on August 21st, 2018. This is a challenge to every anarchist, abolitionist, rebel and determined fighter against prison society and white supremacy in Amerikkka:

‘Between Monday, July 16 and Saturday, July 21, we’re calling on you to help unleash a concerted and spectacular array of solidarity actions before the upcoming prison strikes! Prepare now, bring mayhem everywhere! As you likely know, prisoners will strike from August 21st to September 9th. They anticipate guards and administrators to respond with violent reprisals, media distortions, and extended lockdowns. Defending the strikes from the outside is an essential component of its success. Don’t wait; retaliation has already started and as August 21st approaches we expect to see transfers, preemptive lockdowns, and more. Outside support efforts, in collaboration with imprisoned rebels, have already begun. Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, IWOC, and other organizations are building phone trees, publishing call-outs, and mounting pressure campaigns. Another thing outside supporters can do is promote and set a stage for the strike. From July 16-21, we want to make an opening act that warms up the public consciousness and media landscape.

If we’re successful, it will also be a loudspeaker for the prisoners’ call, blaring it past the censors, the mailroom pigs, and the dense walls of isolation and silence that prevent prisoners from knowing what’s cooking in other states or facilities until it’s already served up cold. The challenge before us is to do things so spectacular, creative, and unexpected that the mainstream media cannot neglect them. Hashtag: #prisonstrike2018. Use any means necessary to break that media blockade: take the streets, paint the town, disrupt the status quo, hack a site, get things lit, or go ahead and chuck your anarchist purity, resort to wooing celebrity endorsements, buying clever ads, or schmoozing your way into the news. Remember, the radical and independent outlets most likely to cover our activities exist mainly online.

We need to leverage that coverage to force the big old media (the kind that gets into prisons: TV, radio, print editions of newspapers) to report this news due to fear-of-missing-out. The goal: get the phrase “Nationwide Prison Strike: 8/21-9/9” printed or spoken on the largest platform so prisoners can see it and no one outside can ignore it. So get out there and surprise us! Overwhelm amerikkka’s hostile media environment and get the word into prisons large and small across the nation. ‘

For downloadable Sticker and Poster Graphics:
https://supportprisonerresistance.noblogs.org/nationalprisonstrike2018/

Groups endorsing the 2018 Nationwide Prison Strike:
Jailhouse Lawyers Speak
Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee
The Fire Inside Collective
Millions for Prisoners
The People’s Consortium

Asheville Prison Strike Info Session

If you’re in the asheville area, Tuesday the 17th from 5-7:30pm at Firestorm, Blue Ridge ABC is holding an info session about the prison strike. There’ll be an introduction workshop to writing to prisoners followed by news about the strike, propaganda to take home and brainstorming on outreach methods we can take to get word flowing on the outside and support those rumblings on the inside. This event is open to anyone who’s interested in uplifting prisoner voices.

Intl Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners

In other prison-related news, here’s an announcement about the August 23- 30th 6th Annual Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners.  From https://solidarity.intenational/ :

We are coming back with global week of solidarity with anarchist prisoners. Since last year, a lot has changed in our countries, but the general tendency is going in the worse direction with more repressions applied against anarchists not only in Europe but worldwide. With this in mind, we are calling for sixth annual week of solidarity!

Last year lots of people sent us their reports from different parts of the world and we hope that this year the tradition will grow even bigger. We need to support our comrades! Use this week to spread the information about anarchists behind bars. Don’t have prisoners in your country? No worry, support prisoners from other countries in your region or use those days to raise awareness of repression mechanisms and how anarchist communities can fight against them!

Build up security culture, support your local anarchist prisoners and fight back.

Do not hesitate to continue sending your reports to tillallarefree@riseup.net!

Nobody is free till all are free!

Eric King’s Partner Needs Help

In other anarchist prisoner related topics, the partner of Eric King has just suffered some major tragedies in her life and could use some help. She was recently in a car accident from which she’s recovering but now lacks a vehicle for her day to day work life, the childcare of Eric and her two kids, and her weekly visitations of him in prison. On top of that and her partner serving a sentence on which he has 5 more years, Eric’s partner was also just diagnosed with thyroid cancer. If you have any extra dough you can toss to her, there’s a go fund me page where she’s soliciting donations. This can be found at gofundme.com.

The Texas prison system is trying terrorist-jacket politicized prisoner Malik Washington!

Politicized prisoner Malik Washington was cleared for removal from Ad-Seg by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s state classification committee last month.  He has spent the past two years in solitary confinement on a bogus riot charge, which TDCJ has since admitted was not for actual rioting, but for organizing fellow prisoners to engage in work stoppages during the 2016 nationwide prison strike.
But as soon as Malik got to his new unit, he was informed that his clearance had been revoked, and that he was heading back to Ad-Seg.  He was given no explanation of why, but his support network did some digging, and found out that the classification committee is claiming to have “received additional information” from the Fusion Center in Texas, causing a determination that “it was in the best interest of the department that he not be released from Ad-Seg.”
 
Fusion Centers bad news; they are based in the Department of Homeland Security and deal with anti-terrorism intelligence gathering, which, as we know, means manufacturing evidence to label people associated with the anti-authoritarian left, and others, as terrorists.
Fusion Centers are shadowy, unaccountable arms of the repressive state apparatus, and are quickly becoming one of state’s new favorite tools.  What just happened to Malik is a signal that TDCJ is upping its repression of anarchist-identified prisoners, Muslims, and those engaged in black liberation struggle.
Please share this info with any media contacts you have; urge them to investigate Fusion Centers, and to ask questions about what kind of information they collect, how it is fact-checked, and how this data collection contributes to political repression–and urge them to dig into Malik’s situation!
Write to Malik at:
Keith H. Washington
#1487958
McConnell Unit
3001 South Emily Drive
BeevilleTX 78102

Sean Swain update

To check in about last week’s ask about Sean Swain’s condition, we have yet to hear anything back from Sean, the prisoner who has for the last 4 years been doing a weekly segment on our radio show. Sean had been missing from the ODRC database of prisoners and not showing up as a transfer to another prison but the day after last week’s episode of our show it was brought to our attention that Sean was now back in the Ohio database’s website. Anyone with clues about Sean’s condition and state of being, please drop us a line at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net.

Red Fawn Fallis sentenced to 57 months in jail

In May, Michael “Little Feather” Giron was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for actions taken to defend pipeline resistance camps from police assault. Several other water protectors still face federal charges, with potential sentences of decades in prison, stemming from their participation in the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline.Indigenous Water Protector Red Fawn Fallis, a political prisoner arrested during the movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, was sentenced today in federal court by Judge Daniel Hovland. Fallis was sentenced to 57 months (4.75 years) in federal prison. She will receive a credit of 18 months ‘time served’ taken off of her sentence, from time spent in North Dakota jails before trial proceedings began. Fallis is expected to serve a total of 39 months in prison followed by 3 years probation.

In January 2018, Fallis entered a non-cooperating plea agreement in which prosecutors agreed to seek a sentence of less than seven years. In exchange, she pleaded guilty to charges of ‘Civil Disorder’ and ‘Possession of a Firearm and Ammunition by a Convicted Felon.’

Red Fawn and her supporters had previously maintained her innocence, and had stated that Fallis accepted the plea deal under the assumption that she would not receive a fair trial due to prosecutors withholding evidence.

Judge Hovland had forbidden Fallis’ defense team from mentioning treaty rights or other issues related to her arrest at anti-pipeline protests near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation border.

The case against Red Fawn had centered around allegations she fired a gun during her arrest on October 27, 2016, when a massive police and military raid seized indigenous treaty lands on behalf of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The gun allegedly fired by Fallis was later revealed to have belonged to Heath Harmon, an undercover FBI informant who was romantically involved with Red Fawn at the time of her arrest.

Before she was sentenced by Judge Hovland, Red Fawn Fallis told the court,

“No matter where I go from here I am going to continue going forward…I wanted to move forward in a positive way away from Heath Harmon and the things he tried to put on me while I was trying to push him away.” – Red Fawn Fallis

Sharing Is Caring

If you like the podcast, share it with someone.  We want to spread these voices and their messages far and wide.  Also, you can upvote us in the iTunes library to extend or reach.

You can find our stuff up on twitter, fedbook, instagram, mastadon, youtube & reddit, plus our most recent show is always up on soundcloud.

scott crow on Liberatory Community Armed-Defense

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This week we share as our main feature an interview with longtime anarchist, musician, anti-racist & organizer from Texas, scott crow. scott is the author of numerous books, including “Black Flags & Windmills: Hope, Anarchy, and the Common Ground Collective” & “Emergency Hearts, Molotov Dreams: A scott crow Reader“. At the end of 2017, PM Press published “Setting Sights: Histories and Reflections on Community Armed Self-Defense“. Bursts caught up with scott about a month later and they chatted about his experiences of an abusive household, his anti-racist organizing and engagement in community self-defense from white supremacist militia in the Algeirs neighborhood of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. scott also chats about the text, about community armed self-defense, violence, militarism, masculinity, patriarchy, the chilling effect of displayed weapons and more. To find more of scott’s writing and other interviews, please check visit scottcrow.org .

Announcements

Check out the April episode of B(A)DNews from the A-Radio Network, just released! For more of the episode, check www.a-radio-network.org .

Support for Those Arrested in Newnan GA!

This weekend there were large counter presences to a national socialist movement rally in the small town of Newnan Georgia, about 45 minutes outside of Atlanta. This group, which was formerly known as the American nazi party, has been called one of the most active white supremacist groups in the US, and was gathering to celebrate the birthday of one dead white power a-hole. Despite the protesters outnumbering the wp group by as much as 10 or 20 to 1, militarized police heavily repressed the diverse coalition of anti racist activists by using extreme physical force resulting in over 10 arrests.

From the support page:

As feared, cops attacked and arrested people with absolutely no justification – particularly people of color and other marginalized individuals. So far, we’re aware of up to 13 arrests, some of whom are dealing with serious medical conditions while in jail.

We need to get them out as soon as possible, and we need a lot of money to do it. Together we have the power to free them!

From an update posted this morning:

We have several protesters free already thanks to bail contributions! We have contacted everyone still in jail, and have learned some concerning things: Some protesters are being given trumped up felony charges, despite video evidence showing they did nothing. We believe the charges are intended to make it longer/more expensive to get them out.

We have also learned that some protesters have been put in the same cell block as NSM members (a Nazi group). This makes it even more urgent that we get folks out as soon as possible.

To donate to those still in custody and for contributing legal support, you can visit the support webpage here.

From the Neighborhood Anarchist Collective in Eugene, Oregon

“For this May Day, the Neighborhood Anarchist Collective will be hosting an International Workers’ Day Solidarity Share Fair on Tuesday, May 1st!   The event will be at First Christian Church* from 2-6PM.   This free market is a project organized by NAC to provide free goods and services from local organizations and community groups to the unhoused and working class communities in need of these basic necessities, along with food, live music, and a chance to know other folks in the community – and it’s all free!

The collective is also still accepting donations and volunteers! If you or your group, business, or organization would like to provide goods or services at this event or lend a helping hand, please contact  resources@neighborhoodanarchists.org  to get connected. Your contributions are greatly appreciated!

Check out our Fedbook event page or our website at neighborhoodanarchists.org for more information.  ”

For info on May Day events in Santa Rosa, CA & in Asheville, NC, stay tuned for the April 29th , 2018, episode of The Final Straw for interviews with organizers of events in both of those places.

Certain Days Calendar

For any artists or folks in touch with artists out there, heads up reminder on this:

The Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar collective is releasing its 18th calendar this coming fall. The theme for 2019 is ‘Health/Care,’ reflecting on the overlapping topics of health, care/caring, and healthcare. We are looking for 12 works of art and 12 short articles to feature in the calendar, which hangs in more than 3,000 homes, workplaces, prison cells, and community spaces around the world.

Deadline is May 18, 2018 (and June 8 for prisoners) and submissions can be sent to info@certaindays.org or check out certaindays.org for more information.

ACAB 2018 pushes back it’s deadline

For anyone interested in giving a presentation or looking to table at the 2018 ACAB, or Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair in Asheville from Thursday, June 21- Sunday, June 24, 2018, there’s been an extension of deadline. Sign up for either or both of those things or find more information at https://acab2018.noblogs.org

And now a couple of repression announcements:

Herman Bell back on track to parole!

In some good news, the lawsuit to block the release of political prisoner Herman Bell, former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army POW in New York State, has been thrown out by a judge, so he should be released on his scheduled parole after nearly 45 years inside. Thanks to everyone who sent letters & emails, made phone calls and spread the word about Herman Bell’s case. We wish him a welcome back to the outside. Free Them All!

In some not as good news from Hamilton, Ontario, so-called Canada:

As some of you may have heard, our beloved friend, Cedar (Peter) Hopperton has been arrested and charged in relation to the property damage that occurred on Locke Street in Hamilton.

In the very early morning hours of Friday, April 6th, the Hamilton SWAT team broke down the door of Cedar’s house, threw in a flash grenade, and entered with assault riffles drawn. Cedar was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offense (unlawful assembly while masked). While a publication ban is in effect that prohibits us from sharing the details of the crown’s flimsy case, we can say that this is clearly a political prosecution: Cedar is being targeted because they are a visible face to anarchist organizing in Hamilton, and because of their self-affirmed and proud anarchist politics. As we learned from the G20 in Toronto, and again more recently with the J20 defendants in the US, conspiracy charges are ambiguous and deeply political. This is no different.

On Tuesday, April 10th, having already been in custody for 5 days due to stall tactics used by the crown, Cedar was, devastatingly, denied bail. Despite the fact that they have no history of violence and have never been charged with a violent crime, Cedar will remain indefinitely in jail, a place that is profoundly violen t and leaves lasting trauma. In addition to the routine violence of jail life, Cedar, as a gender nonconforming person, faces additional harm from the institution, the guards, as well as the other prisoners.

Please visit https://hamiltonanarchistsupport.noblogs.org/ for more information or to make a donation to Cedar’s legal defense fund. Also consider writing Cedar. Keep in mind all correspondence will be screened by guards. Use ink only – no glue, fragrances, glitter, stickers, etc. Sending books is prohibited. Staples are also not allowed.

Peter (Cedar) Hopperton
c/o Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre
165 Barton St E
Hamilton, ON L8L 2W6

=====

Show playlist is here.

Tech Security, Doxxing, Encryption

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For a 59 minute long, radio clean version for syndication purposes, please visit the archive.org collection.

The Main Event

This week Bursts spoke with William Budington, a digital security expert, about various topics under that heading. We spoke about: encryption for texting, email and mobile devices operating systems; about anonymity on the internet; safer practices with social media; doxxing; and more.

The conversation was ranging and a bit thick at times due to Bursts very specific style of posing questions. Thusly, the notes will be very long with lots of links embedded for further reading on the topic, posted in the Further Reading section below. If there are other topics around security that you’d like to hear discussed on this show, drop us an email at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net and we’ll mull it over. This chat was by no means the end of a conversation. The practices and tools we talked about here are meant to keep you SAFER, but can’t promise your safety. But hopefully some of these words can get more of us to take our digital hygiene more seriously!

Announcements

Political Prisoner Herman Bell Assaulted

We received this notice after the show aired, but hope that folks read these notes and get this info. Herman Bell is one of the New York 3, the same group of defendants as Jalil Muntaqim, who we featured an interview with in our last episode:
Black Panther Party political prisoner Herman Bell was viciously assaulted by guards at Great Meadow Correctional Facility (Comstock) on September 5, 2017. While being “escorted” by a guard back to his housing unit, a guard struck Herman, age 69, in the face causing his glasses to drop to the floor. This same guard then repeatedly punched Herman about the face, head and body. Responding to a commotion, 5-6 other guards arrived and joined in the assault. One of them was able to knee Herman in the chest causing two cracked ribs. Another guard took out a bottle of mace and sprayed it all over Herman’s face, eyes and mouth.

Herman was then taken to the prison infirmary. X-rays have confirmed fractured ribs. Herman’s left eye is damaged from the mace and blows. He has bruises to his body and is suffering headaches, a sign of a possible concussion.

Herman Bell has now been charged with “assault on staff”. Defying common sense, they allege that Herman, for no apparent reason, slapped the guard escorting him. He did this, they claim, in a location out of the view of all inmates but in the presence of other guards. He is now in the Special Housing Unit (box) at Five Points Correctional Facility where he was transferred after the incident.

Herman Bell has not had a disciplinary violation in over 20 years. He was scheduled to begin a three day family visit with his wife a few days after the incident, their first such visit in over 2 1/2 years. In addition he is to appear before the parole board, for the 8th time, in February 2018.

Herman has, however, been the target of guard harassment due to his political background. Visitors report that guards processing them and in the visiting room comment that they are visiting a “cop killer” or “terrorist”. Some guards have been seen passing around the book “Badge of the Assassin” written by Herman’s prosecutor.

At this time, we are encouraging everyone to take the time to write to Herman or send him a get-well card, so that the authorities know we are paying attention and are concerned for Herman. Stay tuned for updates as we develop this campaign.

Herman Bell’s new address is:

Herman Bell #79C0262
Five Points Cor. Fac.
P.O. Box 119
Romulus, N.Y. 14541​

2018 Certain Days Calendar

I’d like to quickly announce that the 2018 Certain Days: Freedom For Political Prisoners Calendar has just been posted as ready for pre-order. The calendar is a joint fundraising and educational project between outside organizers in Montreal, Toronto, and New York, in partnership with three political prisoners being held in maximum-security prisons in New York State: David Gilbert, Robert Seth Hayes and Herman Bell. The proceeds from Certain Days 2018 will be divided among these groups: Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association (Palestine), Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP) and other groups in need. More info on the project and where to sign up is at certaindays.org

T-Shirt Designs

For all you artistically minded listeners out there, who would like to see their art worn by people (potentially) all over the world, The Final Straw is looking for tshirt desgins! If you like the show, or love it, or just think it’s ok-ish but like to make designs then this challenge is for you.

We will be accepting submissions until the (end of November), and lest you think this is a one way street, the winner of this challenge will recieve a special prize from each of us (Bursts and William) of a personal and one of a kind mixtape which will include all sorts of audio goodies. Runners up will also get prizes, so never fear there’s no heirarchy here.

Want in?? Just email your submission and any relevant info to thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net and keep your ears peeled for the winner announcement.

Show Notes begin in vain

For a starter on COINTELPRO, check out the wikipedia page on the topic.

The Whisper Systems (Signal) case referenced concerning user data disclosure to government is explained by WS folks. Also, here’s a link to Weapons of Math Destruction, the book by Cathy O’Neil that William references.

Doxxing

Anti-Repression Committee in the Bay deals with, among other things, doxxing by the far right in order to build charges against anti-racists.
Discord Chat logs leaked from the Far Right prior to and after #Charlottesville on Unicorn Riot.
Oh Crap! What Now? digital security page
Time to Beef Up Defense Against Far Right Doxxing
Equality Labs released this dope guide to safer practices which overlaps with a lot of the interview and links presented here
In case it’s too late, check out Crash Override Network‘s guide to post-Doxxing mitigation

Bigger Toolkits

That One Privacy Site
The EFF‘s Security Self Defense Guide
Riseup‘s offerings on safer practices and tools

Device Safety

Your Phone is a Cop part one and two
On the topic of vulnerability markets, zerodium.com/program.html got brought up.

Specific Tools

PGP
Enigmail for is an add-on to the Thunderbird email client that makes creating a pgp key set easier.
The Onion Router (TOR) produced this really great package for safer browsing called the Torbrowser package.
TAILS is a portable operating system so you can operate a computer and leave less traces
Signal is a phone app for end-to-end encryption available for iphones, android phones and desktops.
HTTPSEverywhere is a useful add-on for your web browser

VPNs

One VPN intro, including links to clients you can use, can be found at riseup

VPN services to check out
https://www.mullvad.net/
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/

Online Presence

One tool mentioned to help minimize your online presence is DeleteMe by ABINE.com

Data Brokers you may want to scrub yourself from include:
Spokeo
BeenVerified
PeekYou
PeopleFinders

Various other nefarious tech the state and non-state actors may deploy

IMSI catchers, or phone spoofers, include the name-brand Stingray. The ACLU has this little site that allows you to see what law enforcement agencies they know to have (and probably use) them!
In reference to the Automatic License Plate Readers mentioned by William, here’s an article on the subject

Playlist here

Haymaker Gym on Antifascism, Fitness and Much More! (rebroadcast)

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For a 59 minute long, radio clean version for syndication purposes, please visit the archive.org collection.

INTERVIEW

This week, we’re airing the formerly only podcast conversation I had with organizers of the Haymaker Gym project in Chicago, IL. Haymaker is an explicitly anti-fascist and feminist self-defense initiative.
If you want to help out the Haymaker project, until August 14th they have a fund raising page up at launchgood.com and search for “Haymaker self defense.” If you want to encounter the folks from the gym and get involved in some of the startup events, you can run into them at the Breakaway Autonomous Social Center at 2424 S Western Ave Chicago, IL and more info on that project can be found here.

Announces

NC Resists the Grand Jury, Donate to Katie Yow!

In July of 2017, long-time activist Katie Yow received a subpoena to testify before a grand jury in North Carolina. The subject of this grand jury has been revealed to be what the government has described as a bombing at the GOP headquarters in Hillsborough, NC this past fall. Katie has expressed no knowledge of any relevant information to this alleged event, yet is continuing to resist the inquiries of this proceeding.

Grand juries are not regular trials, but rather operate in secrecy where normal rules of evidence do not apply. The prosecutor runs the proceedings and no judge is present. This type of proceeding has been used as tools of the State to isolate, divide, and destroy social movements since the 1960’s. They have been used to sow distrust and coerce information from the Chicano, Puerto Rican, and Black liberation movements, the anti-war movement, and more recently the environmental, animal rights, and anarchist movements. They are currently especially being wielded against anarchists, anti-fascists, and indigenous water protectors who struggled at Standing Rock.

But we have powerful tools as well, those of resolute silence, courageous refusal, and fierce solidarity. In honor of her principles and the different world we struggle for together, Katie is refusing to cooperate with this witchhunt.

In addition to legal support, navigating the possibility of an unknown amount of jail time, away from work, can be expensive. Please consider making a donation to support Katie’s refusal to participate in the grand jury by going to the support page.

You can learn more about this case and keep abreast of updates by going to NC Resists the Grand Jury.

Getting Ready for Cville with It’s Going Down

Regular listeners to The Final Straw, and anyone who’s clued in to southern antifascism, will be aware that there is opposition planned to a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville Virginia next Saturday, August 12th. For any folks still feeling uncertain of what is going on and who will be there, there is an excellent article on It’s Going Down about the specifics of all the Neo Nazi, white nationalist, and all around bonehead alt righters who may be showing their miserable faces in Cville on the 12th, plus some context for why these fashies are dragging themselves out from behind their computer screens in the first place.

You’ll get to read about such charmers as the Traditionalist Worker Party, Identity Europa, plus Neo Nazi Jason Kessler, local to Cville, who is one of the brains behind this march in the first place, plus many others.

PANSY FEST

If you can’t make Charlottesville but will be in the Asheville area, consider Pansy Fest. Pansy Fest is a new queer and trans DIY music and arts fest in Asheville, NC, August 11-12th. Proceeds will go towards two beneficiaries: Beloved House and Southerners on New Ground. If you are local and you would like to help with support functions (set-up, tear-down, stage management, local housing, etc) you can contact the organizers at pansyfestavl@gmail.com.

On August 11th, at Static Age Records in downtown Asheville at 7pm there’ll be a show who’s lineup includes Bryan Estelle, Crooked Ghost, Sister Mantos and many more.

On August 12th, from 12-3pm at Firestorm Books & Coffee in West Asheville, there’ll be workshops and a band panel. At 7pm at the Odditorium another show will ensue with bands including Brief Awakening, Laser Beams, Ghastly & Cloudgayzer. More info at http://pansyfestavl.com/

Dearest Asheville (and surrounding area) Queers!

“Glitter and Bone is a radical queer collective hosting what is, basically, a big party. We have no official status as an event or an organization, nobody makes a profit or gets paid. We ask for donations only to cover our expenses. The dis-organizers are queer/trans folx who are concerned about emotional, psychological and physical safety of queer and trans people at skills events, and want to create a safe space for our queer/trans community to learn skills, be in the wilderness, and thrive.

Registration begins at noon on Friday, August 18. Event begins Friday evening, 7pm, and ends Sunday afternoon, 6pm. Glitter and Bone provides rustic camping, composting outhouses, and water/soap for handwashing and meal clean up. We do not have showers. Meals are not provided, but a large, rustic communal kitchen area will be maintained, with both open fire and camp stove cooking. Pack for a typical weekend of camping, bring whatever food and supplies you would bring for that. Please see the specific list of what to bring below. For folx unfamiliar with rustic camping, we provide support in finding a good camp spot, pitching a tent, understanding the bathroom situation, learning how to cook over an open fire, etc. No judgement here, we want more queers in the wilderness!

We need everyone’s help to make this happen! All Glitter and Bone participants will be asked to volunteer a few hours to help out at the
event. Here is a list of jobs to help you think in advance about what you would like to do. If you feel drawn to providing some leadership in a particular area, email us at glitterrrandbones@gmail.com”

You can get in touch with G&B at that email, keep in touch with them on tumblr at their tumblr, and link up w them on the Fedbook by searching their name!

Asheville Solidarity Rally with Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March on Washington DC

The 13th Amendment of the US Constitution still allows slavery, creating an increasing population of caged people who provide free or near-free labor to stockholders of the Prison Industrial Complex and profiteers of mass incarceration. As a result, American jobs are lost and job-seekers are victimized because private industry cannot compete with involuntary servitude.

Therefore, citizens of Asheville North Carolina invite you to a Solidarity Rally with Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March on Washington DC. There, we will peacefully assemble to let Congress know, it is time to end slavery once and for all, delete the exception clause in the 13th Amendment authorizing prison slavery, and stop profiteering in its tracks – because all workers deserve living wages.

All Asheville and Buncombe County residents are invited–especially our elected representatives and those running for office this election season. Voters, your constituents, want to know where you stand on this matter.

When: August 19th at 11:30 AM

Where: Pack Square Park (In front of City Hall)

This event is organized by Asheville Black Lives Matter, Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross (BRABC), and Zamani Refuge African Cultural
Center, with more endorsements forthcoming.

For more information, please check out this Facebook event.

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