This week on the show, Ian talks to Sara and Josh, organizers from the Certain Days Collective on the publication of this year’s certain days calendar. The two discuss the creative and administrative processes involved in producing one of the most consistent projects in the abolition space. They also discuss the past, present, and future of the project and the constant need to balance short term emergent issues against the long term abolition project. [ 00:02:37 – 00:33:14]
You can learn more at CertainDays.org, find them on a bunch of social media platforms, and order calendars for deliver in Canada via LeftWingBooks.Net or in the USA via BurningBooks.Com and you can find our past conversations with Josh by searching Josh Davidson on our website, including a recent interview about Rattling The Cages.
“A scholar-activist with over 60 years of experience in the Civil Rights, Black Power, Pan-African, and Social Ecology movements will discuss the role of critical historiography in the study and documentation of directly democratic communities across human history. Modibo Kadalie’s presentation will touch on ideas discussed in his two most recent books, Pan-African Social Ecology and Intimate Direct Democracy. Dr. Kadalie will also discuss his upcoming book, tentatively titled State Creep: A Critical Historiography.”
Sean Swain
Sean‘s segment on destabilizing the economy with flash mobs can be heard from [ 01:32:32 – 01:40:28 ]
First up, a chat with two members of the South Florida Anti-Repression Committee doing solidarity for the 4 queer activists facing up to 12 years in Federal prison on charges related to graffiti at a Pregnancy Crisis Center, aka a building funded by church and state to dissuade people from getting abortions. The Department of Justice is charging them under the FACE Act, a criminal law passed in the 1990’s to stop threats, violence and blockades against health clinics that offered like abortions, screenings, contraception and other services under attack by religious extremists in the USA. There are also Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, known also as a SLAPP suits being brought by a Miami-based Christian anti-abortion Crisis Pregnancy Center called Heartbeat of Miami as well as the state of Florida against the accused apparently intended to have a chilling effect and minimize their ability to defend themselves against the Federal indictments.
Oso and Hunter of SFLARC talk about the arrests, about the defendants and the rising tide of gender fascism and war on bodily autonomy in DeSantis’ Florida and around the country.
Following this, we’re sharing audio from the February 2023 episode of Bad News, a monthly English-language podcast from the A-Radio Network. In this segment, you’ll hear comrades from Črna luknjashow on Radio Študent speakin with an activist inSofia, Bulgaria about theantifascist mobilization known as Anti-lukovmarsh, which will take place on 25th February under the slogan “No Nazis On Our Streets” – Thisis amanifestation against one of the biggest international neo-nazi gatherings(Lukov March). You can find moreinfo at: http://antifa-bulgaria.org.
Announcements
Support Parole for Sundiata Jawanza
Political prisoner and activist Sundiata Jawanza in South Carolina has an upcoming parole and is looking for support. You can learn more about his case at https://www.sundiatajawanza.com/
We’re joined this week by some of the folks behind the Earthbound Farmer’s Almanac, a self-published annual collection of art, comics, facts, articles and incitements to challenge us to thicken our relationship to the land and grow autonomy against state, colonialism and capitalism. You are welcome to read the almanac for free in portions on the Lobelia Commons social media (fedbook or instascam). We also talk about spreading food forests and building neighborly food resilience with Lobelia Commons and a little about Ndn Bayou Food Forest (formerly the L’eau Et La Vie anti-pipeline camp) which can be found on fedbook or instascam.
A few acronyms come up in the chat, and here’s a breakdown: MADR is the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief network; Zeta & Ida were hurricanes that damaged the south east of Turtle Island, landfalling near to so-called New Orleans; NOMAG is the New Orleans Mutual Aid Group.
This week, we’re excited to (re-)present a 2015 conversation with Saralee Stafford and Neal Shirley, editors and authors of their book out from AK Press entitled “Dixie Be Damned: 300 years of Insurrection in the American South”. The book is a study of Maroon, Indigenous, White, Black, worker, farmer, slave, indentured, women and men wrestling against institutions of power for autonomy and self-determination. All of this in a region stereotyped to be backwards, slow, lazy, victimized and brutal. The editors do a smash-bang job of re-framing narratives of revolt by drawing on complex and erased examples of cross-subjectivity struggles and what they can teach us today about current uprisings in which we participate.
Throughout the hour we explore some of the examples that became chapters in the book, critiques of narrative histories and academia and what new ways forward might be towards an anarchist historiography.
This week on the show, we bring you the audio of an activist panel from the recent Queer Conference held online by University of North Carolina, Asheville, in March of 2021.
The conference was titled Fitting In and Sticking Out – Queer [In]Visibilities and the Perils of Inclusion. From the panel’s description for the conference:
This panel brings together 4 local (Asheville, NC) and regional groups working at different intersections of queer community support. We will learn about the work these groups do, the particular issues that affect southern queers, the changes in visibility and inclusion for queer community, and the building of larger coalitions of liberation. Representatives from four organizations will be part of the panel:
Youth OUTright (YO) is the only nonprofit whose mission is to support LGBTQIA+ youth from ages 11-20 in western North Carolina. Learn more about their work on their website, and support them financially here.
Southerners on New Ground (SONG) is a nonprofit aimed at working towards LGBTQ liberation in the south. Find out more about their work on their website, and support them financially here.
Tranzmission Prison Project (TPP) is a prison abolition grassroots organization that provides literature and resources to incarcerated members of the LGBTQ community. Learn more about their work on their website and donate here.
Pansy Collective is a decentralized, DIY, queer, music and arts collective that created Pansy Fest, an annual queer music festival showcasing LGBTQ musicians from the south and rural areas, prioritizing reparations for QTBIPOC artists and community members, and community education and organizing around the principles of autonomy, mutual aid, antifascism, love, and liberation for all. Learn more about their work on their website, or donate here.
This week, we feature two audios with y’all. The voice of a prisoner in SC as the 2018 #PrisonStrike ends and someone resisting Nuclear Waste in Bure, France.
South Carolina Prisoner, “J”
First, “J” is in segregation in a South Carolina prison. He does not give his full name or the prison he’s inside for reasons of personal safety. You’ll hear him share a bit about his experience of the prison strike from the inside, the repression of prisoners at his facilities, prisoner unity in the strike,the high costs of living in prison and poor quality of food and other goods available and the red herring of administration that cell phones are the cause of violence. He shares condolences for families of those who were killed at Lee Correctional, the guard-instigated violence in April that sparked the call for the Nationwide Prison Strike. J also shares his thanks of outside supporters who have demonstrated outside of his facility, IWOC in particular and those who’ve helped to carry prisoners words around the world.
After that, for the bulk of the episode shares words from Daniel, who is involved in resistance to the building of a nuclear waste storage facility in the Gran Est (formerly Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine or ACAL) region near the French border with Germany. This infrastructure mega project threatens to poison the ground-water that feeds Paris, poison the ground in Gran Est and for villages like Bure where Daniel is based, and the resistance to the CIGEO storage facility has been met by harsh government repression and a heavy response police response. Daniel talks about the energy infrastructure in France, the military and colonial connection with the fuel of Uranium, comparisons to the ZAD at Notre Dame de Landes in Western France, resistance to other damaging power sources like in the Hambach Forest against a huge lignite mine in Germany and a few words about anti-pipeline struggles in the U.S.
We experienced some technical difficulties during the Bure interview, so for about 15 minutes there is a buzz. We hope that you will power through and listen carefully through the audio because the information is very interesting. After that time, it clears up and Daniel is far more listenable.
Here are a few references Daniel makes, such as the Tarnac Case, the ZAD (our interviews on the ZAD) , Hambach Forest (including interviews by crimethInc and us). The deforestation may happen this autumn, so actions in Bure (which is bristling with police who detain and inspect people). You can find out info in French at https://vmc.camp (most updated) that can be put through a translator or a less-updated English-language version at https://en.vmc.camp or one in German at https://de.vmc.camp that’s slightly more updated. And Unicorn Riot did a piece last year contextualizing the ZAD NDDL, Hambach Forest resistance and struggle in Bure.
If you’d like to hear an update and call-out about resistance in the Hambach forest by audio comrades from Infolara in Switzerland, check out the link in our shownotes. This audio will be a part of the next edition of B(A)DNews: Angry Voices From Around The World, produced by the International A-Radio Network of Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarian radio and podcast projects, of which we and Infolara are members. B(A)DNews is a monthly, English-language podcast (sometimes with a Spanish-language edition) released in the middle of each month. Stay tuned for that and you can find past episodes at A-Radio-Network.Org
Announcements
Resisting Neo-Confederates and Nazis in Eastern TN
“The League of the South (LOS) and other far-Right/neo-Nazi groups are organizing two events in Northeast Tennessee this month. One will target the TriPride march in Johnson City and the other is a gathering in Elizabethton, Tennessee to protest the fall of Silent Sam in Chapel Hill NC.”
“The LOS is a neo-Confederate hate group known for its flash-rallies brandishing the Confederate battle flag in small towns across the South, and for its extreme violence like in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017 last summer. Their Chief of Staff is Michael Tubbs, a former green beret who went to prison for stealing and stockpiling weapons from the US Military for the KKK, and who was integral to the violence in Charlottesville.”
TriPride will be held in Johnson City, TN and will march through downtown, starting at 101 Commerce Street. Tennessee LOS coordinator Tom Pierce has called for a protest to happen along the march route. Pierce helped organize a similar protest against a Pride march last June in Knoxville.”
“We’re calling for folx to organize autonomously for this event. The fascists could show up on any part of the march route so be prepared to visibly or physically block them from interfering with the pride march.”
Check out the IGD article to see the full, article.
Rashid In Danger of Punitive Transfer
The prominent voice featured in last week’s episode of The Final Straw, the political prisoner Kevin Rashid Johnson, is being threatened with another punitive transfer because of his organizing and speaking out. There is a hearing on Monday, September 10th in his prison in Virginia, the state in which he was captured before being transferred away. His past transfers have moved him further from his family, have resulted in beatings, medical neglect, threats, starvation other attacks by prison officials and other prisoners.
It would be awesome if you, dear listener, could take a moment to call and email tomorrow starting at 9am eastern time to the official in charge of interstate compact: Chief of Corrections Operations David Robinson. We can call the main office number at 804-674-3000 and ask to be transferred to his phone line. Robinson’s email address is david.robinson@vadoc.virginia.gov.
When leaving a message or talking to Mr Robinson, refer to Rashid by his legal name Kevin Johnson, and give his Virginia prison id # 1007485. Explain that he is better off in Virginia, that he has been subjected to serious human rights abuses during previous transfers. Over ten thousand people have already signed a petition demanding that he be released from solitary and that he not be transferred. More info at RashidMod.Com
Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar 2019
Pre-orders of the 2019 Certain Days Calendar have begun! For those who order now, calendars will ship around September 10th. You can order in the U.S., Canada and internationally at https://www.certaindays.org/order
The Ceratin Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar is a joint fundraising and educational project between outside organizers in Montreal, Hamilton, New York and Balitmore, in partnership with a political prisoner being held in maximum-security prison in New York State, David Gilbert. Co-founders Robert Seth Hayes and Herman Bell were released from prison in 2018. The proceeds from Certain Days 2019 will be divided among these groups: Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Assoc. (Palestine), Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP) and other groups in need.
Check out our interview with former Political Prisoner, Daniel McGowan, about the Certain Days calendar.
Update on Harm Reduction and Food Distribution in Asheville
The City of #Asheville just dropped their notice of violation against the 12 Baskets food distribution project out of the Kairos West community center, however is still retaining it’s attack on Steady Collective’s needle exchange, noloxin distribution and harm reduction program by an unprecedented challenge to Firestorm’s hosting of the project via claiming that Firestorm is operating a homeless shelter by hosting Steady Collective. This is idiotic. Distributing harm reduction tools to the public saves lives and providing a space for people to sit, read, access reading materials and the internet does not amount to a shelter. If you haven’t heard the issues, check out our August 12th interview with Hill Brown of Steady Collective and keep an eye on their social media presence as well as that of Firestorm. Also, consider a visit to their public event every Tuesday at Firestorm from 1:30 to 4pm.
BRABC event
On Thursday, September 20th at Firestorm Books & Coffee in West Asheville, NC, Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross will be packaging mail for prisoners. No experience needed, just show up ready to fold and address and stamp materials. Snacks and good company will be provided!
“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. ‘
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.
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 Centersbad 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
Beeville, TX 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.
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
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