This week on The Final Straw, we’re sharing an interview we conducted in recognition of the upcoming celebration of June 11th International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason and other long term anarchist prisoners. This week you’ll hear Julie Herrada, a long time anarchist activist, comrade of Marius Mason and worker at the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan. Julie is joined by Matthew Hart, another longtime anarchist involved in labor organizing, historical research with the Dockstadter Mutual Aid Society and the Los Angeles Anarchist Black Cross chapter of the Federation. We speak about history, memory, prisoner support and continuing the struggle.
If you’d like to hear more about the history of June 11th and voices of anarchist prisoners and those who support them outside, we’ve taken the opportunity each year to have at least one show focusing on specific cases or concepts related to ongoing struggle and anti-repression work.
But first up, you’ll hear a comrade reading the 2024 call entitled No Separate Worlds and you’re hearing a conversation between anarchist historians and prisoner supporters about memory and the upcoming June 11th international day of soldiairty with marius mason and longterm anarchist prisoners. More info at June11.noblogs.org
First up, we spoke with Tala Nasser of the Palestinian prisoner human rights group, Al-Addameer which has offices in Jerusalem or Al-Quds, as well as in Ramallah. We speak about the report they released on Palestinian Prisoners day, April 17th, on the conditions of Palestinian prisoners, particularly since October 7th, 2023 including in Gaza since the invasion. More info on the group and their findings can be found at addameer.org
Then, we’ll hear a segment by our comrades at A-Radio Berlin speaking with Johan Eriksson, an anarchist game designer has recently published such an RPG called “Oceania 2084“, based on George Orwell’s novel “1984”. You can find more of about the game including a free austere pdf of the gameplay at jocher-symbolic-systems.itch.io , and you can hear more audios from A-Radio Berlin at aradio-berlin.org .
Sean Swain’s 2024 Presidential Run
For the sake of anyone in the office of Attorney General of Ohio if they’re listening: this segment is political satire. We feel it’s necessary to make this disclaimer as they referenced a spoof press conference for Sean as governor in exile of Ohio on the January 18th, 2015 radio segment in court filings to prove how dangerous Sean is, while actually just showing how stupid hierarchs are.
Midweek Release: Yaffa As
In case you missed mid-week release of our interview with Yaffa As, a queer and trans Palestinian poet, author, publisher and activist living in the diaspora about two recent collections they published as well as mutual aid and fundraising to get queer Palestinians out of range of Israeli genocide.
We spoke with Yaffa, a Palestinian poet, author and activist living in the diaspora about two recent collections published by the Trans and Queer Muslim publishing house she founded called Meraj. One of the two books is entitled Inara: Light to Queer And Trans Palestinian Utopia and the second a collection of her own poems written during the last lunar eclipse visible on Turtle Island, Blood Orange. We spoke about the importance of poetry and world building, the importance of community care and mutual aid, as well as supporting queer and trans Palestinians escaping genocide at the hands of the Israeli military. You can find more from Meraj publishing as well as how to obtain these titles at https://merajpublishing.com/
This week, we’re sharing a recent interview with Chloe Moore, a steward, farmer and educator at the Southside Community Farm, in the historically Black neighborhood of Southside in Asheville, NC. The farm has been serving the neighborhood and the region with free and inexpensive, fresh produce for a decade, providing educational opportunities, grocery deliveries, an herb garden and a BIPOC farmers market. The farm sits on land owned by the public Housing Authority of the City of Asheville (HACA) and there is currently a threat that HACA will destroy the farm. For the hour we talk about the work of the farm, the legacy of a community farm in the wake of government policies that destroy Black communities, and ways that community members can support the SCF and help it thrive.
We sat down with three local activists to talk about the proposed Asheville Business Improvement District, a model of service provision using public funding to increase policing in downtown by an unelected and unaccountable body of largely business and property owners. For the hour, Grace, Madison and Elliot talk about attempts to ram the BID through public process, some of the businesses and individuals behind it, how bids have panned out in other cities around the country and what space there is left to oppose this further privatization of public space in Asheville.
We didn’t mention it here, but there have also been rumblings of the BID model, a version of which was fought and never funded in 2012, being applied to other parts of Asheville, for example West Asheville. You can find more information and ways to get involved with folks organizing against the Business Improvement District at AshevilleBID.com and on Instagram at @NoAVLBid. This is our show for the week of May 12th.
As a quick note, there are a few acronyms frequently used in this conversation. One is RFP, which stands for Request for Proposals and is a process of contracting out an element of a project. Another acronym is ADA, in this case Asheville Downtown Association which is an independent pressure group made up of individuals, business and property owners. Not to be confused with the Asheville Downtown Commission, which was created by the City Council and contains appointed representatives from the ADA, city council, Buncombe County Board of Commissioners and few other community members including business owners.
First up, an interview submitted by audio comrades in Italy about the struggle against the cementization of the city of Bologna and the defense of Don Bosco park from the expansion of a university, highways… the whole urban landscape without the input of the residents so the city can move a school rather than renovate it. This struggle, including the occupation and defense of the park, represents an innovation in urban struggles in Italy which consciously takes inspiration from the struggle to Stop Cop City in so-called Atlanta and the activities of the park defenders has forced the left-leaning municipal government and mayor to temporarily suspend the cutting of trees. [00:02:04 – 00:27:10]
Bernard Jemison on Conditions and Resistance in AL Prisons
Then, you’ll hear Bernard Jemison, an incarcerated activist held in Holman prison in Alabama talking about conditions inside the ADOC recent calls for prisoner strikes in the state by the Free Alabama Movement and their outside supporters, as well as his views on the demands being made. [00:27:57 – 01:05:10]
This week, you’ll hear our chat with Simón Sedillo, author of Weapons, Drugs & Money: Crime, Corruption, and Community Based Liberation in the U.S./Mexico Neoliberal Military Political Economy. Simón talks a little about his early days in media near the start of the Indymedia world, his documentary that became the news website El Enemigo Común (which translates to “the common enemy”) which covered grassroots, indigenous led movements in southern so-called Mexico, and about his book with a focus on intervention and integration from capitalist and military powers in the US, multinational banking and big pharma and the violence against and resilience of indigenous communities under that nation-state.
Check out the website https://www.weaponsdrugsandmoney.org/ for more info on how to order a copy, and the chapters are being posted and translated into castellano at https://elenemigocomun.net/ , where you can find two decades + of really interesting content. Simón suggests people follow Avispa Mídia https://avispa.org/ as a project following in the legacy of El Enemigo Común.
A big thanks to Mitchell Verter for the suggestion.
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Featured Track:
Get It Together (Buck Wild Instrumental) by Beastie Boys from Get It Together
Josh Hart of Feather River Action! in Plumas county joined me to speak about US Forest Service plans for an emergency thinning of forests in this north east part of so-called California and which is threatened to be reproduced in other Federal and private lands in the name of fire prevention around the country. We talk about the claims, motivations and alternative proposals of activists, scientists and community members and the upcoming Lost Sierra Forest-Climate Action Camp happening in the area at the end of May 23-29th.
A recent chat with Jeremy White, film-maker, activist, and street medic who’s facing prison time in what has been dubbed the “San Diego Antifa” case. You’ll hear Jeremy talk about what happened on January 9th, 2021 at the Stop The Steal rally, how the police interacted with members of American Guard and Proud Boys as they assaulted passers by, the conspiracy-theory driven DA Sommers Stephan and where the case was before it resumed on March 18th, after we recorded this chat. Jeremy also worked on a horror-comedy film called “Bitch Ass“.
Benefit concert Saturday, May 18th 2024 @Birdcage Comics 165 W Hospitality Lane, Suite 17 San Bernadino, CA 92408
Doors @ 6pm / ALLAGES
$8 Suggested donation / (no one will be turned away for lack of funds)
The proceeds from this show will go to legal funds and family support.
FEATURING LIVE PERFORMANCES BY:
SEXETTE / GLORBO / THE HAIL MARIAS / DOVE / LOW SWEEP
Venmo: @PUSHINGDOWNTHEWALLS
Cashapp: $PUSHINGDOWNTHEWALLS
Please put “TC” in the notes.
SCI Rockview is a prison in central Pennsylvania where incarcerated comrades have been facing repression for demanding justice in the face of impunity by racist COs and following a year of prisoner deaths due to institutional toxicity and guard violence. We speak to an outside supporter about the situation at Rockview, the reactions of administration, inside / outside relationships and solidarity that have flared up. We hope that this conversation contributes to increased and thickened ties between folks on both sides of the walls.
This conversation was conducted via encrypted messages and recorded by a comrade Golem and Ash from the the MolotovNow! Podcast, so a big thanks is due to them.
Announcement
Jorge “Yorch” Esquivel
Jorge has now been held in prison for over a year without a trial, and urgently needs funds to cover legal fees and prison costs (food, water, phone calls, visits, administration fees, service costs, etc).
Jorge “Yorch” Esquivel is a beloved compañero of the punk community, and a long-time participant of the Okupa Che. He was arrested on December 8, 2022 by plainclothes police as he was leaving the campus of the Ciudad Universitaria (of the UNAM university) in Mexico City as part of a campaign of criminalization against the Okupa or squat.
BACKGROUND
On February 24, 2016, an operative was carried out in which plainclothes policemen detained him, “planting” drugs on him in order to fabricate crimes, and accusing him of drug trafficking, as part of a campaign of repression on the squatted auditorium Okupa Che in UNAM (still existing). The whole case was plagued with irregularities. He was transferred to Oaxaca and then to a maximum-security prison in Hermosillo as a strategy to hinder his legal defense by taking him far away from his support networks. Thanks to the solidarity and legal work, he was reclassified from the crime of drug dealing to simple possession of narcotics, and was released on bail in March 2016.
Even though he was no longer in prison, he was not out of danger. Constant threats and journalistic reports did not cease; the press even reported his death and accused him of participating in organized crime. Meanwhile, steps were being taken to frame him once again and re-arrest him for the same fabricated crime.
On December 8, 2022 he was arrested in exactly the same place – a few steps outside Ciudad Universitaria, where the Okupa is located, once again by plainclothes police – with the grounds for this illegal
detention being that the Attorney General’s Office appealed the decision to reclassify the crime.
The compañero’s health is fragile due to an extended hospitalization a couple years back and the toll the prison conditions have taken on him.
CURRENT SITUATION
Jorge is currently incarcerated in the Reclusorio Oriente prison in Mexico City. The legal process is still in the evidence stage. Several hearings have been postponed and Jorge’s process is being delayed and prolonged to keep him in what is called “preventative imprisonment” with no sentence, which is common for cases of political prisoners in Mexico.
Despite the fact that there is no evidence to keep him in prison, the strategy of the State is clearly to drag it out as long as possible, which is a tortuous level of uncertainty for all of us close to Jorge.
Thanks to the solidarity of individuals, collectives and networks, it has been possible to cover Jorge’s expenses inside the prison, which have been very high due to the corruption that reigns in Mexican prisons. We are raising funds to support his legal costs and basic needs to be able to survive in this unjust incarceration, and to re-join the community on the outside as soon as possible. We call upon the solidarity of our friends and compañerxs around the world to help us in supporting our compañero Yorch.
