Category Archives: United States

Autonomy, Chicago, community, Disaster Relief, Hacking, Health, Housing, Squatting, Technology, United States

Doing For Selves: Open Source Supplies and Tenant Organizing

Doing For Selves: Open Source Supplies and Tenant Organizing

3d printed n95-quality face mask
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Welcome to a podcast special from The Final Straw. While William is was busy producing an episode featuring voices of medical professionals and activists inside and out of prison to talk about the impacts of covid-19 on incarcerated people for broadcast, I had a couple of conversations about work folks are doing on the outside that I’d like to share.

Sean Swain [00:08:06-00:15:12]

Hacking To Fight Covid-19

[00:15:12-00:33:01]

First, I spoke with Bill Slavin of Indie Lab, space in Virginia that is in the process of shifting it’s purpose since the epidemic became apparent from an broader scientific and educational maker space to work on the manufacturing and distribution of covid-19 related items in need such as testing kits, medical grade oxygen, ventilators and 3d printed n95 quality masks for medical professionals to fill public health needs. Bill talks generally about the ways that community and scientists can come together through mutual aid to deal with this crisis left by the inaction of the government on so many levels. They are also crowd-sourcing fundraising for scaling up their production and facilities and there’s a link in our show notes on that. The platform that Bill talks about in the chat is known as Just One Giant Lab, or JOGL. Consider this an invitation for makers to get involved.

Organizing With Your Neighbors For Homes and Dignity

[00:35:08-01:45:44]

Then, I talked to Julian of Tenants United of Hyde Park and Woodlawn in Chicago. What with all of the talk about rent strikes in the face of such huge leaps in unemployment during the spread of covid-19 and accompanying economic collapse, I thought it’d be helpful to have this chat to help spur on these conversations of how we seize power back into our hands while we’re being strangled by quarantine and hopefully afterwards. You can learn more about the group Julian works with at TenantsUnitedHPWL.Org. Philadelphia Tenants Union and Los Angeles Tenants Union were both mentioned and will be linked in the show notes, alongside a reminder that the national Autonomous Tenants Union Network (ATUN) is being organized and folks can reach out to Philly TU or LA TU via email to get onto their organizing zoom calls. Finally, if you’re in the Chicago area and need a lawyer for housing, check out Lawyers Committee For Better Housing online at lcbh.org. Julian also mentioned squatting of homes in southern CA owned by the state, here’s a link to an article.

Announcements

WNC Mutual Aid Projects

Linked in our show notes is also a googledoc that Cindy Milstein and others are helping to keep updated that lists many mutual aid projects that have sprung up all over concerning the exacerbation of capitalism by the covid-19 crisis, as well as a similar page up from ItsGoingDown.Org

If you’re in so-called Western NC and want to get involved, the project Asheville Survival Project has a presence on fedbook and is soliciting donations of food and sanitary goods for distribution to indigent, bipoc, elder and immune compromised folks in the community. We’ll link some social media posts on the subject that list our donation sites around Asheville in the show notes and you can venmo donations to @AVLsurvival.

If you care to contribute to efforts in Boone, NC, you can follow the instagram presence for @boonecommunityrelief or join the fedbook group by the same name, reach them via email at boonecommunityrelief@protonmail.com find donation sites and venmo donations can happen up at via venmo at @Bkeeves.

NC Prisons Covid-19 Phone Zap

Flyer about call-in to NC prisonsAnd check our show notes for an invitation to call the NC Department of Public Safety and Governor’s offices to demand the release of NC prisoners susceptible to infection and possible death of Corona Virus in the NC system due to improper care. Wherever you are listening, consider getting together with others and calling jails, prison agencies and the executive branches to demand similarly the release of AT THE VERY LEAST the aged, infirm, folks in pre-trial detention, upcoming release or who are held because they can’t pay bail.

North Carolina Corrections Department-Prison Division

(919) 838-4000

North Carolina Governors Office

919-814-2000

https://governor.nc.gov/contact/contact-governor-cooper

sample script:

My name is ________, and I am a North Carolina resident  deeply concerned about the safety of the states’s incarcerated people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Incarcerated people have a unique vulnerability to disease due to their crowded, unsanitary living conditions and lack of access to adequate medical care. For humanitarian reasons as well as reasons of public health, we call for the immediate release of all people in the North Carolina prison system. We also urge that you stop the intake of new prisoners during the pandemic. The cost of failing to take these steps will be paid for in human lives, and we refuse to abandon our neighbors and loved ones to die in lockup.

CALL AS MANY TIMES AS YOU CAN

stay tuned to the twitter accounts for @NCResists and @EmptyCagesColl for updates

10th Anniversary

Even while the world burns, our 10th anniversary still approaches and we’re still soliciting messages from you, our listenership. Not sure what to say, likely you have a LOT of time on your hands, so go back through our archives and dive in. If you want a deep dive, visit our website where you can find hundreds of hours of interviews and music. If you want to drop us a line, check out the link in the show notes, or you can leave a voicemail or signal voice memo at +18285710161, you can share an audio file with the google drive associated with the email thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net or send a link to a cloud stored audio filed to that email address. Tell us and listeners what you’ve appreciated and or where you’d like us to go with this project.

Spreading TFS

If you appreciate the work that we do here at TFS, you can also help us out by making a donation if you have extra cash rustling around. The link on our site called Donate/Merch will show you tons of ways. If, like most of us, money is super tight at the moment, no prob, we struggle together. You can share our show with other folks to get these voices out there and more folks in the conversation. And if you REALLY like us and have a community radio station nearby who you’d be excited to have us air on for free, get in touch with us and we’ll help. The page on our site entitled Radio Broadcasting has lots of info for radio stations and how to let them know you want us on the airwaves. Thanks!

. … . ..

Featured music:

  • From Monument To Masses – Sharpshooter – The Impossible Leap In One Hundred Simple Steps
  • Filastine – Quémalo Ya (instrumental) – Quémalo Ya
  • Etta James – I Don’t Stand A Ghost of a Chance (With You) – Mystery Lady: The Songs of Billie Holiday
Author, Burning Books Lecture, History, Indigenous, United States

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Burning Books Lecture Series)

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Burning Books Lecture Series)

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As corona virus spreads, the failures of capitalist states becomes even clearer and many people are forced to take some breaks from participating in the economy in the way they did before, we’d like to offer some audio we’ve been sitting on.  The good folks at the radical bookstore and community space, Burning Books in Buffalo, New York, has given us a small trove of audios from presentations by authors, activists, visionaries and revolutionaries they’ve hosted over the last 7 years or so.  We hope that you’ll take away some good perspectives from these luminaries, on struggle, on change, on shifting terrain and on the revolutionary solidarity impulse that they communicate. These are scary times we are living in, but we want to remind you that sometimes in scary times people bring out their best to the fore because we are stronger together.

Get involved in local efforts to organize in your area by visiting this IGD post and searching down the page for the regional mutual aid groups you can plug into.

In this podcast special series, we’re sharing a presentation by the author, historian and activist, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on September 17th, 2015, speaking about her book ‘An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States’. From the website, reddirtsite.com:
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, the daughter of a tenant farmers. She has been active in the international indigenous movement for more than four decades, and she is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. After receiving her Ph.D. in history at the University of California at Los Angeles, she taught in the newly established Native American Studies Program at California State University, Hayward, and helped found the Departments of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies.
The audio cuts off rather suddenly after just about an hour due to recording device, sadly, so we lose Dr. Dunbar-Ortiz part way through a sentence.  We’ll have more information at the end of this about where you can find more of her writings.
If you are thinking of purchasing any of her titles, we suggest that you check out getting them from a local bookstore rather than Amazon. And while quarantine is ongoing, if you prefer to order online from Burning Books, they are offering free shipping in the US on orders more than $25 (as of this recording on March 18th, 2020) from their website, burningbooks.com. Feel free, also, to support our local venue and regular supporter of our site, as well, Firestorm.Coop, which sells titles online as well. 
Anarchist, Autonomy, Capitalism, Colonialism, Colonization, CounterInsurgency, Feminism, Forest Defense, General, Immigration, Indigenous, Mexico, Neoliberalism, United States, Zapatista

Anarchy and Indigenous Resistance to AMLO in Mexico

Anarchy and Indigenous Resistance to AMLO in Mexico

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This week on The Final Straw, an anarchist living in Mexico talks about the reign of the MORENA gimpparty of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (aka AMLO), the new face of capitalism it presents, it’s relation to social movements and indigenous sovereignty and the anarchist and indigenous resistance to the regime. We cover mega-projects being pushed through around the country, the repression of activists and more in this whopper of an episode.

Here’s a great English-language blog based mostly out of Oaxaca that covers struggle in Mexico and across the northern border: https://elenemigocomun.net/

 

To learn more about the Anarchist Days that our guest spoke on, you can email janarquistas2020@protonmail.com!

Channel Zero Fundraiser

The gofundme can be found at https://gofundme.com/Channel-zero-network-2020-fundraiser/ .To check out the video to match the audio you just heard so you can enjoy and spread it around, check out our show notes or at https://sub.media !

Final Straw Notes from the guest:

If you want to understand the politics of Mexico, listen to the voices of Indigenous peoples and communities, women in struggle, campesinos

Indigenous populations and megaprojects:

Airport Lake Texcoco

New International Airport of Mexico City proposed in 2001 by Vicente Fox, but cancelled shortly after due to organized resistance

AMLO cancelled project after carrying out a “popular consultation”

Cancel one mega-project to impose three more

  • Expansion of Santa Lucia and Toluca airports
  • Naucalpan- Toluca highway
  • Interurban train

– Tren Maya (Mayan Train)

  • 950-mile train connecting principal tourist destinations in the states of Chiapas, Campeche, Tabasco, Yucatan and Quintana Roo
  • 17 stations including Playa del carmen, Tulum, Palenque, Merida, Cancun
  • Infrastructure projects to be built around train stations
  • For tourists and cargo

– “Corredor Transistmico” Interoceanic corridor

  • Industrial corridor connecting the ports of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, on the pacific coast, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, in the gulf of Mexico.
  • The project is meant to compete with the Panama Canal, as a route of land transportation connecting the Pacific with the gulf of Mexico.
  • United States has been trying to get this project going since the 19th century
  • Train routes and a super highway, modernization of ports, and various older train routes

– Proyeto integral de morelos (PIM) (Integral Project of Morelos)

Project that began in 2012 and has faced stiff resistance from the Frente de pueblos en defensa de tierra y agua Morelos-puebla-tlaxcala (People’s Front in Defense of Land and Water Morelos-Puebla-Tlaxcala)

The PIM roject includes:
  • Thermoelectric plant in Huexca, Morelos
  • A natural gas pipeline to supply gas to the plant which passes through 60 Indigenous and campesino communities in Tlaxcala, Puebla and Morelos
  • An aqueduct that seeks to move 50 million liters of water daily to the thermoelectric plant from the Rio Cuautla
  • Italian and Spanish transnationals

Zapatismo:

Armed Indigenous rebellion in Chiapas in 1994. After failed talks with the government, they took the path of autonomy
2003-formation of five caracoles (zones of autonomous self-government) The caracoles are regional administrative units where autonomous authorities come together and from which clinics, cooperatives, schools, transportation and other services are administered.
The Zapatista communities are managed by the Juntos de buen gobierno (Good Government Councils), which are made up of representatives of the autonomous councils of the rebel municipalities.
Expansion of autonomous territory: In august of 2019 the Zapatistas announced 7 new New Centers of Autonomous Zapatista Rebellion and Resistance (CRAREZ) and 4 new rebel Zapatista autonomous municipalities. Added to the 5 original Caracoles for a total of 16. In addition to the 27 original autonomous municipalities, giving us a total of 43 (CRAREZ). Made up of different assemblies, autonomous municipalities, etc.
Zapatista communities made up of Insignous tzotziles, tzeltales, mames, choles, tojolabales y zoques
 
Zapatista activities in December of 2019: Celebration of Life: A December of Resistance and Rebellion
Film Festival 7-14 of December 2019
Dance Festival December 15-20
Forum in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth December 21-22
 
Second Gathering of Women who Struggle December 26-29
3,259 women
95 little girls
26 men
From 49 countries
Celebration of the 26 Anniversary of the Beginning of the War Against Oblivion December 31 and January 1
EZLN declaration to continue struggle.

CODEDI assasinations:

  • On February 12, 2018- Ignacio Ventura, Luis Angel Martínez and Alejandro Diaz Cruz.
  • On July 17, 2018- Abraham Hernandez Gonzales
  • On October 25, 2018- Noel Castillo Aguilar

COPIG-EZ assasinations:

  • Concejo Indígena y Popular de Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata CIPOG-EZ (Indigenous and popular council of Guerrero-Emiliano Zapata)
  • May 2019- José Lucio Bartolo Faustino, Modesto Verales Sebastián, Bartolo Hilario Morales, and Isaías Xanteco Ahuejote of the Nahua people organized as the Indigenous and Popular Council of Guerrero – Emiliano Zapata (CIPOG – EZ).

Other assasinations

  • Samir Flores Soberanes of the Nahua people of Amilcingo, Morelos.
  • Julián Cortés Flores, of the Mephaa people of the Casa de Justicia in San Luis Acatlán, Guerrero.
  • Ignacio Pérez Girón, of the Tzotzil people of the municipality of Aldama, Chiapas.
  • Juan Monroy and José Luis Rosales, of the Nahua people Ayotitlán, Jalisco.
  • Feliciano Corona Cirino, of the Nahua people of Santa María Ostula, Michoacán.
  • Josué Bernardo Marcial Campo, also known as TíoBad, of the Populuca people of Veracruz.

Political prisoners

Building international networks of solidarity, both anarchist and otherwise, with Mexico

Anarchist Days- July 13-19, 2020 in DF Email: janarquistas2020@protonmail.com

Las jornadas en defensa del territorio y la madre tierra “Samir Somos Todas y Todos” February 20-22, 2020

. … . ..

Music for this episode by:

U.N.E. – Explosion Humana

AmRen, Anarchist, Anti-Civ, Anti-Racist Action, Antifa, Appalachia, Author, General, Nazis, Philosophy, Racism, Tennessee, United States

Out-Organizing Racists: ROAR Conference 2019 + Spencer Sunshine on Fascism

ROAR Conference 2019 + Spencer Sunshine on Fascism

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[Sean Swain at 2m40s]

This week on the show, we feature two segments.

First up, an organizer with the Revolutionary Organizing Against Racism, or ROAR Conference shares perspectives on the upcoming conference, May 18 & 19, 2019 on stolen Ohlone land in the so-called Bay Area. More info on ROAR Conference at roar-conference.com

[ROAR starts at 9m32s]

Then I spoke with journalist and anti-racist activist Spencer Sunshine about various far right and racist tendencies such as traditionalism and third-positionism, in relation to the current landscape of anti-fascist struggle in Turtle Island and in particular tendencies suspected in relation to the demolition of a building at the Highlander Education and Research Center in New Market, TN at the end of March, 2019. More writings by Spencer can be found at spencersunshine.com, at his fedbook author page or on twitter by searching the username @transform6789.

[Spencer Sunshine starts at 30m47s]

Announcements

Atlanta Solidarity

On Friday, April 12th at 8pm there was a ruckus noise demo outside the Dekalb County Jail where prisoners had been able to get out word of physical violence out of camera-view by guards, black mold conditions and more against the mostly indigent, mostly POC prisoner population in this Atlanta Jail. You can hear an interview with the mother of two prisoners mistreated in that jail who got the word out about conditions on IGD’s This Is America #68 from April 12, 2019. At the noise demo, at least two people were arrested and there’s a fundraiser up to help cover legal costs. You can find that fundraiser and kick in by visiting atlsolidarity.org

Immigrant Solidarity Rally, Asheville

Listeners in the Asheville area, on Monday April 15th there’ll be a demonstration in front of the Federal Building at 115 Patton Ave in downtown to mark the year anniversary of the 2018 ICE raids against our communities. The demo will be organized by CIMA, or Companeros Inmigrantes de las Montanas en Accion, and will focus on the continued danger faced by our undocumented loved ones, friends and families. This is also in opposition to HB370 currently in process at the state level that would force collaboration between sheriff departments and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. CIMA urges people to show up in force.

Asheville Black Mama Bail Out Benefit

Also, on Saturday, April 27th at show o’clock at The Bottle Shop next to Firestorm Books, Blue Ridge ABC will be hosting a benefit for Black Mama Bail Out efforts organized by Southerners On New Ground. The show will feature performances by XOR, Kangarot, Nomadic War Machine and more. Check out the flyer and more up at brabc.blackblogs.org
. … . ..

General, History, Indigenous, Leonard Peltier, Political Prisoner, United States

Who Is Leonard Peltier?: Paulette D’auteuil of the ILPDC

A Story of Leonard Peltier

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This week, Paulette D’auteuil speaks about the life and case of Leonard Peltier. Peltier is one of the best known political prisoners currently held in the U.S. Paulette is the Director of the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, based near Coleman, FL, where Leonard is incarcerated and also is an advisor to the National Jericho Movement.

For the hour, Paulette tells about Leonard’s life, his case, his health, the resistance that Leonard was and continues to be a part of, COINTELPRO, and Leonard’s art. You can learn more about Leonard Peltier by visiting the ILPDC’s website, http://whoisleonardpeltier.info, where you’ll find lots more info, Leonard’s artwork, ways to plug in and do events to raise awareness of Leonard’s case and keep up on updates. You can also find the ILPDC on twitter and fedbook.

Interview begins at 9 min, 14 sec

. … . ..

playlist

Certain Days, Colonialism, Colonization, Israel, Palestine, Political Prisoner, Prisons, United States

Sahar Francis of Addameer on Palestinian Prisoners

Sahar Francis of Addameer

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This week, I spoke with Sahar Francis, the Director of Addameer. Addameer is a non-governmental organization, or NGO, based in Ramallah in the West Bank in occupied Palestine that focuses on human rights advocacy, political prisoner support & public education efforts like Know Your Rights trainings. Addameer is one of the projects that is receiving a portion of the profits of the 2019 Certain Days: Political Prisoners Calendar that we’ve you’ve heard of in past episodes. For the purposes of broadcast, we had to cut some portions of this chat for the radio. If you’re listening to the radio version, check out our podcast version for a few more minutes of chat. More instructions below.

For the hour, Sahar tells us about aspects of the Palestinian struggle of the last 70 years against the domination of the Israeli state and a little about the refugee situation of the 10 million Palestinians in the region as they await their Right of Return to their homeland. Addameer (which translates to “Conscience” from Arabic) works to highlight the treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories by the military court system of Israel, in particular the situation of youth as young as 12 years old who face harassment and torture, administrative detention of months and years on end with seemingly no end, and the impunity of the military system’s use against Palestinians, and the unequal treatment of Palestinians and Israeli Jewish Settlers in the Occupied Territories. We also speak of the movement towards widening the death penalty under military law and the difficulty of Palestinian lawyers offering defense in the Israeli military courts who aren’t usually fluent in Hebrew or proficient in Israeli law, as they study Palestinian law in college. Addameer, as a human rights organization, frames it’s work in terms of International Human Rights law as enshrined in the United Nations (UNRWA, The Geneva Convention in hopes of eventual international intervention against the ongoing genocide at the hands of the Israeli government. We even cover the incarceration of Palestinians (in Israel or the Occupied Territories) for publishing critique of the Israeli occupation on social media (1,000’s, including Tareen Tatour in 2015). In a segment comparing Settler-Colonialism in the U.S. & Israel/Palestine, Sahar speaks about two Bedouin villages under threat of demolition by Israel, Khan al-Ahmar in the occupied West Bank as well as Umm al-Hiran in order to clear way for Israeli colonial design.

If you visit our website, thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org you can find all of our episodes going back to 2010. To never miss an episode, click the “podcasting” link, where you can find instructions on how to subscribe to our podcast using iTunes or whatever music app or program you like, including our soon-to-be resurrected Error451 podcast, an occasional tech security podcast from an anarchist perspective. In the near future we hope to bring you perspectives on encryption from the pEp (or Pretty Easy Protection) Foundation, LEAP (or Leap Encryption Access Project) and more.

Stay tuned next week for an overview of the 2018 Nationwide Prison Strike with an incarcerated organizer named Dee from Jailhouse Lawyers Speak.

Announcements

Phone Zap for Comrade Malik Washington

This didn’t make it into the recording for today, but this Tuesday, November 13th, BRABC with the backing of IWOC is inciting a phone zap in support of Keith “Comrade Malik” Washington to get Malik out of segregation. Malik has been continuously punished and persecuted, including instances of medical endangerment and solitary confinement with out reason given or recourse. He’s also had his property, including legal documents, taken and his communication is greatly stifled at the moment (including legal). Read more by visiting the above links.

Digital Security Self-Defense at Firestorm

If you’re in the Asheville area coming up, on Saturday, November 17th from 4-6pm at Firestorm Books and coffee, Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross will be giving a free, interactive presentation on online hygene and security self-defense threat modeling the far-right. But, whether you’re concerned about what info’s online that might fall into the hands of the fash, a stalker or just want to tie up loose ends, a lot of the tools and tips are the same. Bring a laptop, tablet or phone to work on. And a few hours later there’ll be a concert by Nomadic War Machine at the Bottle Shop, an electronic assault by Margaret Killjoy that you’re welcome to swing by.

SF Bay View Newspaper Updates

In an update to our past episode featuring Mary Ratcliff of the SFBayView National Black Newspaper from August, we have good news! Amani Sawari, who we interviewed in July about the Nationwide Prison Strike as an outside spokesperson for Jailhouse Lawyers Speak prisoner organization, will be stepping up to take on the editorial position at that paper and giving Mary and Dr. Willie Ratcliff a long-deserved break. There’s an online fundraiser to help get Amani situated in the Bay Area where you can support the transition and hopefully long next phase for the paper. You can find out more at https://www.patreon.com/sfbayview

Anti-Anti-Semitism Action

In light of the murder of eleven people at the Tree of Life synagogue, Anti-Anti-Semitism Action is asking for your support to take action against anti-Semitic organizers and to defend Jews. We are raising funds which we need to spotlight specific anti-Semitic organizers—especially those who use platforms that cater to the Alt Right such as Gab—to spread their toxic conspiracy theories. Funds will be used to expose and run public campaigns against activists who spread anti-Semitism, as well as those promoters who bring anti-Semitic speakers to their towns.

Remaining monies will be used to provide security and protection for Jewish activists who are targeted by anti-Semites. This includes hiring security for public appearances, and arranging security measures at activists’ residences.

The ADL raises millions of dollars a year to “fight anti-Semitism” but they refuse to do the nuts and bolts work of taking action against anti-Semitic organizers or protecting Jews who are targeted. 100% of your donations will go directly to this.

Donate to this fundraiser here

Support Craggy Prisoner, Dayvon Person

Dayvon Person is a prisoner being accused of inciting a riot on September 24 at the Craggy Correctional Institution, just outside of Asheville, NC, where he was just about to reach minimum security levels. It’s requested that people call officials to press them to hear is appeal of innocecence. He is asking that folks on the outside call with persistence, and ask these persons to hear his appeal for this false accusation.

You can call:

Kenneth E. Lassiter (Director of Prison Facilities):

919 838 4000

919 838 3755

David Rogers (State Representative):

919 733 5749

Ralph Hise (NC Senator representing District 47):

919 733 3460

Express your concern through calling or writing the North Carolina Department of Public Safety:

512 North Salisbury Street
Raleigh, NC 27604

919-733-2126

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Playlist

Author, Colonialism, Colonization, Israel, OOOA, Palestine, Racism, United States

Taglit-Birthright Israel and Settler-Colonialism with Nani Ferreira-Mathews

Taglit-Birthright Israel and Settler-Colonialism with Nani Ferreira-Mathews

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This week, we spoke with Nani Ferreira-Mathews. Nani is the author of “Birthright?: Travelogue of an American Radical in Israel / Palestine”, published by On Our Own Authority (or OOOA) Books, out of Atlanta, earlier this year. Nani has indigenous Hawaiian and Jewish heritage and talks and in 2013 went on the Taglit-Birthright tour to Israel, which is offered to Jews raised outside of Israel, in this case mostly of those on the trip were from the U.S., Canada & Europe.

Going into it, she already had some misgivings but throughout the tour she became more and more aware of the trip as a means to erase Palestinian and Indigenous perspectives from visibility to the tourists, who are being groomed for populating the spaces seized by the Israel as a Jewish-only territory and state. We talk about Zionism as a nationalist movement, the manipulation of the tourists on this free trip including setting up romantic situations among the guests and IDF soldiers and sleep deprivation, funding sources for Taglit-Birthright, and comparisons between the erasure or commodification of non-hegemonic ethnic and religious identities in the history and culture of the United States of America and Israel. We also talk about the BDS (or Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement, a Palestinian-led protest movement to economically and culturally push Israel to end the occupation.

Next week we’ll be airing a conversation with activists working on political prisoner and human rights issues in Palestine, so stay tuned!

Resources mentioned in the episode include

Ilan Poppé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Jewish Voices For Peace national where you can find info about specific chapters.

Related, from CZN members

In an update to the International Days of Action against Fascism and Anti-Semitism that we read an announcement from last week, in the crimethInc HotWire weekly podcast #43 from last week you can hear an interview with members of the Outlive Them Network who are calling for the day as well as an anarchist from the Tree of Life synagogue where the terrible anti-semitic attack happened in Pittsburgh last week. Also, though this didn’t make the audio for this week, the ItsGoingDown podcast #38 from early November also includes an interview with an anarchist involved in If Not Now, an anti-Zionist organization of young, American Jews.

Birthright in the U.S.

But first, dear listeners, We would be remiss to leave the fact of birthright citizenship coming under fire recently here in the so called US without comment. Birthright citizenship, which was established by the 14th amendment to grant citizenship to freed slaves, and is characterized by the idea that all people born in the United States are U.S. citizens, regardless of race or where their parents came from. Despite this being a practice which had been reinforced by law – namely the constitution and the courts, more about that in a minute – white supremacists have often tried to tie the concept of “US citizenship” into an understanding of “whiteness” by restricting birthright along racial lines, citing non white people as “unassimilatable”. You can read more about this in a Raw Story article entitled “This isn’t the first time white supremacists have tried to cancel birthright citizenship.”

This is also not the first time that the current voices on top of this garbage pile that we call a government have utilized othering strategies to further attempt to divide and stratify the thinking regarding non white, non cis, and non papers having folks. We don’t have to think very far back for examples of this kind of behavior, and I don’t really think that they bear repeating here.

Back to the laws tho, citizenship as we know it is a very problematic structure. It is so closely wrapped up in colonialism and overwhelming biases toward the wealthy and white so as to be practically indistinguishable. If any of the components which make up citizenship were to be in any way compromised, the whole system might topple. It’s colonizer nature, which is at the same time very established with many supporting structures but also very fragile and riddled with internal contradictions, is also to point here: the US government in our view should not have the right to determine who is legitimate on stolen land.

If you or someone you know have a perspective on citizenship which is anti colonial and would like to talk about it with us for a future radio piece, please get in touch at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net or tfsradioshow@protonmail.com and make the subject heading “Anti Citizenship”. We’re seeking to trouble and nuance this conversation in any way and would love to hear from you!

Announcements

Phone Zap Monday for Hunger Striking Toledo Prisoners

Seven people incarcerated in Toledo Correctional Institution went on strike Saturday, November 2nd). They refused to be moved into the yard for recreation time until a SWAT or SRT team moved them, and are going on hunger strike and refusing food. SWAT and SRT teams have used rubber bullets against protesters in Toledo before. They are protesting renovations to add more solitary confinement wings. In the past 2 months, the state has been trying to turn the entirety of Toledo into a lockdown institution. As a result, people have been sent to solitary because other units didn’t have room, and for minor infractions that wouldn’t have been reason to send someone to solitary confinement otherwise.

Call to protest the expansion of solitary confinement, racist harassment, and the denial of food at the whims of abusive officers. On Saturday, prisoners were maced and refused the ability to wash the chemical weapons off of their body overnight.

The details of this callup can be found, including numbers and more, at the IWOC website.

. … . ..

Playlist