This week on The Final Straw Radio, I spoke with Mars Goetia. Mars is, among other things, a musician, parent and anarchist who’s been doing a lot of thinking and working around conflict engagement in and around anarchist communities. In this episode, Mars and I speak about about the difficulty of language when engaging in interpersonal conflict, about state repression, expectations and more.
Announces
Hüseyin Civan of Mayden Magazine, Istanbul
In June we aired 2 conversations with members of the Turkish group DAF, Revolutionary Anarchist Action. Among the three voices featured was that of Hüseyin Civan, the managing editor of Mayden Magazine. Hüseyin has been sentenced to 15 months in prison by the Turkish government for Mayden articles in support of Kurdish struggles for autonomy and against state repression in Turkey.
This sentencing comes amid a very troubling time in Turkey. Following the Turkish government’s reversal of seeking peace with Kurdish groups in the country’s eastern regions, a failed coup earlier this year, the grab at increasing presidential control and prerogative, non-secular regime of Tayip Erdogan has resumed military incursions into Kurdish communities and purged educational institutions and media of critical voices. They even went so far as to allow Daesh fighters across their border to fight Kurds and anti-capitalists and have launched attacks across the Syrian border into Rojava.
On Jan 5th, 2017, The Odditorium in Asheville will be hosting a benefit concert for the newly-formed Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross starting at 9pm. Come early for a Security Culture 101/201 training where folks’ll talk about things you need to keep your community safe.
The lineup includes: Secret Shame, Nomadic War Machine, Kangarot & Cloudgayzer
This week we are airing two short interviews, the first is with an anarchist legal worker who has been participating in resistance at Standing Rock in so called North Dakota. This interview is specifically about the grand jury summons which was recently served to someone who was struggling at Standing Rock, we speak about what a grand jury is and how people might resist them, also a bit about what it means for this movement to have a grand jury subpoena occur at this moment.
Scott Campbell on upcoming tour of Mexico with It’s Going Down
The next interview we will present is a conversation with Scott Campbell who writes the Insumisión column for itsgoingdown.org. Insumisión is a semi regular publication which aims to highlight anarchistic and anarchist struggles and news all around Mexico. Scott and members of IGD are in the process of launching an information gathering and affinity building tour around Mexico in early next year. In this interview we talk about Insumisión and what inspired it, as well as some of the strategies and influences both North American and Mexican struggle can take from one another, among other topics. To read Insumisión and for a write up about the upcoming tour, you can visit https://itsgoingdown.org/insumision/. To donate to the tour and to see a write up about it, you can visit the rally dot org website https://rally.org/igd-mexico
“[This project] is an international watchdog against state sponsored repression. It is the project of a small collective of volunteers in the U.S. and Mexico. We publish and translate communiqués, articles, and other media by, about, and for social movements. Our primary focus is on indigenous peoples, women, and youth, in both urban and rural communities in Oaxaca, but we also publish about other struggles against neoliberalism throughout Mexico”.
Thanks!!
A quick shoutout of thanks to KFED for the lovely new image for the series podcast. Much appreciated!
This week, we’re replaying an interview that Bursts conducted with Ron Sakolsky in March of 2016. Ron had just recently published Breaking Loose: Mutual Acquiescence or Mutual Aid? From the original posting: “Ron is a poet, an anarchist, a surrealist, a pirate radio broadcaster and author and more. Recently, Little Black Cart published a small book by Ron Sakolsky entitled Breaking Loose: Mutual Acquiescence or Mutual Aid? The essay is an anarcho-surrealist critique in which Ron levels a challenge to readers to move past (or break free) from the limitations we internalize from engaging with and within (as well as with others within) the systems of domination. In the conversation, Ron revisits the essay, breaks down some terminology and eggs the listener on to exercise their imagination and act from places of inspiration to apply direct action against the status quo. The essay it’s built off of can be found in Modern Slavery #1.
During the hour, we discuss that book, we chat about radio and Ron’s 30 years of radio experience starting in college radio in IL, later involved in the pirate station called Black Liberation Radio, publishing and promoting the building of micro-broadcast transmitters, and currently with Radio Tree Frog in the forests of Coast Salish Territories AKA British Colombia. He contributed to and edited the titles Seizing The Airwaves: A Free Radio Handbook (AK Press, 1998) and Islands of Resistance: Pirate Radio in Canada (New Star Books, 2010). A sample of featuring mostly content from the “Old Pal” show on Tree Frog radio is found here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tree+frog+radio&t=ffsb&ia=videos&iai=CACQMFIi9Pk ”
To hear more of our archives, dating back to 2010, check out thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org
Announcements
Jerry Jai Williams
Later this week, District Attorney Todd Williams plans to announce whether or not he will be indicting Sgt. Tyler Radford for the murder of 35 year old Asheville resident Jerry Williams (no relation), who was a children’s book author and father of 5. The particulars of this meeting will hopefully be made public later this week. For those who are unaware of this case, Williams was murdered in early July this year at the Deaverview apartment complex after police were called regarding an unrelated domestic dispute. In response to Jai, or Jerry, being killed by law enforcement and the discrepencies between stories of witnesses and the police narrative, Asheville experienced its first of many vigorous protests under the auspices of Black Lives Matter. It is expected that the DA, who recently received a 900 page report on the case from the State Bureau of Investigation, will deliver a non-indictment announcement, so keep your eyes and ears peeled for calls for solidarity from the Williams family and for community responses. You can also call the DA’s office to express your opinion at (828) 259-3410.
KINETIC JUSTICE
There is urgent need for folks to call prison administrators at Limestone Correctional Facility, where Kinetic Justice (who was one of the main organizers of the September 9 #PrisonStrike) has been transferred in order to isolate and endanger him. He was brutally beaten on December 2, and continues to fear for his life.
WE NEED TO SHOW THE PRISON THAT THERE ARE MANY EYES AND EARS ON THE OUTSIDE KEEPING TRACK OF KINETIK!
Here are the numbers to call, and the script provided by IWOC:
Call Limestone Prison Warden Christopher Gordy 256-233-4600
Call Commissioner Jeff Dunn & Ass Comm Grant Culliver 334-353-3883 webmaster@doc.alabama.gov
Call Gov Robert Bentley 334-242-7100
Call Department of Justice 205-244-2001ussaln.civilrights@usdoj.gov
Say this, “I am calling to demand that you release Robert Early Council from solitary confinement and move him out of Limestone Correctional Facility immediately. He was brutally beaten on December 2nd and continues to fear for his life.”
You can read about Kinetik’s work at the Free Alabama Movement’s website freealabamamovement.com
GRAND JURY RESISTANCE AT STANDING ROCK
On or around December 3rd, 2016 a water protector at Oceti Sakowin received a summons to appear before a federal grand jury that has been convened in relation to the resistance of water protectors. What we know about grand juries is that they have a long history of being used to target those in resistance to the state and engaged in political or revolutionary movements. The purpose of this grand jury and all grand juries that target revolutionary people and communities is to cause division, manufacture prisoners of war, create paranoia and suspicion amongst comrades. We will not be intimidated and resistance to this is only strengthening our resolve to kill this black snake and all the others.
Water protectors stand in resistance to this grand jury and all tools of state repression, be it on the ground through Morton County’s violent tactics or in the shrouded secrecy of a grand jury courtroom.
Indigenous people, water protectors, legal workers, revolutionaries and comrades from across the camps are actively organizing resistance to this grand jury. Camp wide education efforts are already underway as well as reaching out through our networks of solidarity that know no borders in order to spread the word.
If you have been contacted by federal law enforcement or have been served with a subpoena related to water protector activities or the resistance at Standing Rock please contact the Water Protector Legal Collective at (605) 519-8180. Grand juries rely on the isolation and fear that can come with a subpoena. The first step of resistance is seeking solidarity and support!
And for many other fantastic resources regarding grand juries and grand jury resistance, you can visit itsgoingdown.org and search the article Grand Jury Resistance at Standing Rock #NoDAPL Grand Jury Resistance at Standing Rock
Oakland March in response to Gentrification & #Ghostship
In Oakland, there’s a call for a March on Monday entitled: Honor the dead! Fight for the living!
Resist the destruction of all that allows us to survive and sometimes thrive. Let us mourn and rage together against a world that tears us apart, slowly in the form of ongoing gentrification, development, deportation, and imprisonment – or swiftly through tragedy that could have been prevented.
From Libby to Trump, they don’t care about us, let’s show them we don’t need them! It’s not about the artists. It’s about all of us trying to survive in Oakland. Poor people, people of color and queer people have been fighting for their existence for decades.
Communal warehouses are only one of our most recent dwellings where sometimes we get to imagine what another life could look like.
Defend tent cities and takeover vacant buildings! Fight landlords! We demand a moratorium on all evictions and affordable housing for all!
Monday, December 12th, 6pm at Grand Lake Theater @ Grand Ave and Lake Park Ave next to Lake Merritt
FBI Spying & Rule 41
Also of note, the December 9th episode of On The Media, a podcast produced by NPR’s WNYC studios with a progressive focus on media production in the U.S. and politics, had a really good interview with Rainey Reitman, the Activism Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The OTM interview, the second interview of the episode, focused on the recently passed updates to Rule 41 of the U.S. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, giving permission for the FBI to hack computers outside the jurisdiction in which the warrant was granted, often specifically where encryption or another means of obscuring or securing the information is being used. Check out that episode at http://www.wnyc.org and more work and analysis of digital freedom and surveillance from our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation can be found at https://eff.org, alongside toolkits for staying safer in the interwebs
This week we’re speaking with Josie and Nathan of the project “The Spaces Between; A project about the rest of us”. This is a zine which is a compilation of interviews with anarchists who live in smaller towns, away from so called anarchist hot spots. In this zine, the interviewees illustrate what it is like to live outside of the spotlight in the anarchist culture and politic, further away from its attending benefits and downsides. These folks just yesterday finished touring with this zine, keep your eyes peeled for their next one though, which is tentatively scheduled for sometime later this year. You can read or download the full pdf of this zine and keep abreast of further doings at https://spacesbetweentour.wordpress.com/
Announcements
New Book on La ZAD NDDL
We’d like to make an announcement for folks interested in learning more about La ZAD, the many year land occupation against the Airport in Notre Dame de Landes, France, the expansion of the nearby seaport, and the world that it would bring by a diverse mixture of peoples in the Brittany region of France. We’ve conducted interviews with activists from NDDL a few times on the show. Well, now the writer’s collective called Mauvaise Troupe has created a book on the subject that is available for free online and soon to be available in print. We at The Final Straw Radio would like to inform listeners that while this is by no means a definitive or objective view of La ZAD NDDL, it is an interesting and informative take on the land struggle and worth a perusal as food for thought. The text is recently translated by The Laboratory of Insurrectional Imagination and the text can be found online here
(Just noticed this hadn’t made it up on the website. This aired March 13, 2016)
This week we spoke with two members of the southern Ohio based group Appalachia Resist!, which is a social and environmental justice group that has been active since 2012 in fighting fracking, frack waste, and injection drilling in their area. We speak about the camp, which is going to be held next weekend, about the schedule and about how the two approach organizing. More about the camp and the group can be found at https://appalachiaresist.wordpress.com/
Announcements
Uprising at Holman Unit in Alabama
Last night prisoners took over Holman prison in Alabama. At around midnight a fight between inmates escalated to include guards and even the warden. Staff fled, and the rioting prisoners have taken over general population, lighting guard towers on fire and barricading the
doors.
According to rumors, the incident began when an officer responded to a fight between two prisoners with excessive force and was stabbed in response. “Then they brought the warden down and the warden got to talking crazy so they ended up stabbing the warden, and then after that
all the officers ran up out of the institution, that was like 12:00, 1:00 this morning.”
The warden and officer’s injuries were not fatal. There are videos circulating on social media of prisoners burning the control towers and opening all doors. “We’re tired of this shit, there’s only one way to deal with it: tear the prison down” one of the participants stated.
At around 2 am the riot squad and police arrived. They said they were waiting on daylight to move and try to restore control of the facility. At this time, people haven’t heard from the occupied portion of the prison for a few hours, but it seems the authorities have not moved in,
either. Friends and family of prisoners in Holman are asking that people pray for their loved ones.
Holman’s capacity is 1002 prisoners, but it also has a segregation unit and death row, which are still under the prison’s control. Prisoners in segregation have not received their breakfast meal, four hours after it is normally distributed. General population at Holman consists of four
open space dormitories, housing 114 people each, plus a 200 person annex, so there may be between 450 – 650 prisoners involved in the uprising.
Alabama DOC has been increasingly unstable in recent months, incidents of violence within the institutions have been stacking up, the federal government was on the verge of taking over the system due to poor management and budgetary shortfalls last year.
This week, we air 2 interviews, one about the case of the Cleveland 4 and one with members of Unicorn Riot.
The Cleveland 4
Firstly, we speak with Amanda Shemkes. Amanda does legal support for members of the Cleveland 4. The Cleveland 4, or CLE4, are 4 anarchists who’re serving around a decade in Federal prisons in the U.S. on charges of terrorism. Back story is that Brandon Baxter, Connor Stevens, Doug Wright, Joshua “Skelly” Stafford and Anthony Hayne (Anthony took a cooperating plea deal) were arrested on April 30th in 2012 for attempting to blow up a bridge with the provocation of an FBI informant named Shaquille Azir. The young anarchists had coalesced during Occupy Cleveland as a group after encamping together, being involved in food distribution and activism and were targeted and entrapped by Azir who escalated their talk of direct action to the bombing plot and provided them with work, housing, drugs, alcohol, access to (fake) explosives and more. Brandon Baxter, Connor Stevens, Doug Wright and Skelly all received sentences of around a decade each with terrorism enhancements promising lifetime probation. Amanda talks about their case, their time inside, government attacks on social movements and how to support Brandon, Connor, Doug & Skelly, the Cleveland 4. More on their case can be found at http://cleveland4solidarity.org
Also of note, Connor Steven’s birthday is coming up on December 17th, so send him a bday card! Same day is Chelsae Manning’s bday, actually… on that note, why not visit PrisonBooks.Info to see political prisoner birthdays for this month and sign up to receive the monthly calendar that the Prison Books Collective puts out? No good reason, I reckon.
pt 2: Unicorn Riot
Following that, we speak with volunteers with the non-profit, radical media outlet Unicorn Riot. Founded in 2014, UR has expanded from it’s Minneapolis base to be present on the ground at struggles around the U.S. covering events as they unfold with the words of the people involved, documenting the brutality of the state’s reactions and bravery in the streets and the fields of those resisting. As a platform, UR distributes regular tv episodes, podcasts and features small news briefs as well as a presence on social media. UR’s coverage of the uprisings in Minneapolis around the killings and lack of justice in the killings of Jamar Clark & Philando Castille and more recently of the struggles of Water Defenders at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota have gone viral, increasing solidarity and pressed mainstream media outlets to expand their coverage of these violent government interventions. In this second half of the episode, the plucky media rebels share their views on activism and journalism, on media paradigms, their project and some of the resistance it’s participated in. http://www.unicornriot.ninja
Lots got trimmed from this episode due to time constraints, so check out that podcast version at thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org
Corrections
Patrick misspoke a couple of times during the interview that we didn’t catch. Corrections are: 1.) When describing the drone rules on Standing Rock, he meant to refer to no-fly rules from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and not the FCC (which oversees broadcast restrictions and allowances in the U.S.); 2.) When Patrick talks about Niko being flagged down by police to broadcast a police statement over Unicorn Riot, it was actually during the Justice for Jamar Clark struggle, not in the aftermath of the killing of Philando Castille.
Also, a real cool journalistic tool that the UR folks shared was this site, called MuckRock. Check it out!
Announcements
Sean Swain
This week Sean Swain shares his thoughts on Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution in light of Fidel’s death last week. More from Sean at http://seanswain.org
Asheville NoDAPL protest
Tomorrow, Monday December 5th in Asheville there’s a prayer and vigil in Soldarity with Standing Rock as regards the struggle to stop the expansion of the Dakota Access Pipeline we’ll be talking about later in the episode. Folks are meeting at 6pm at Pack Square. Bring an offering.
Klan Backstabbing
Also, big ups to the folks who went out to face off the kkk motorcade on Saturday the 3rd in Danville, VA & Pelham, NC. This time the KKK got their own stabby after the fact.
Ghostship
Of note, our hearts here at the final straw go out to those suffering the devastating effects of the fire at the ghostship warehouse on Friday December 2nd during a 100% Silk party. According to the most recent KGO-7 news out of San Francisco at 2pm EST on Sunday the 4th of December, 24 victims have been found inside the warehouse. A list of missing people has been compiled in an article on heavy.com. Not all of those pictured are known to be among the victims of Friday’s fire. To donate to relief funds, visit youcaring.com.
This is a podcast version of the second part of the 2016 North American Anarchist Black Cross Former Political Prisoners Panel. The first part can be found here.
In this, the question and answer portion, we hear from Sekuo Kombui, Kazi Toure, John Tucker and Daniel McGowan about their thoughts on incarceration in the U.S., steps forward in resistance, violence in struggle and sources of hope among other things. For info on these prisoners, check out the above link for short bios.
