Resisting state repression and surveillance is one of the cornerstones of The Final Straw and has been since the beginning of this project. Over the years we’ve featured interviews with support committees, political prisoners, defendants in ongoing cases, incarcerated organizers, radical legal workers and lawyers and others to talk about how power strikes at those who it fears constitute a threat. For those of us caught up in cases, navigating self-defense through the courts, penal system and mainstream media can be treacherous, as we attempt to balance our political and personal goals with our lawyer’s desire to have us do as little time and pay as little money as possible to the courts. Winning in these circumstances can sometimes seem to pit a well-meaning lawyer or legal worker against their own client. Enter the Tilted Scales’ new book, “Representing Radicals.”
This week, you’ll hear Jay from the Tilted Scales Collective talk about this book out from AK Press and the Institute for Anarchist Studies, about anti-repression work, and about this book’s attempt to shift the culture of legal representation by intervening with arguments by radical lawyers, more intimately inviting clients and their supporters into the fray and new frameworks for approaching cases.
You can find their guide for defendants and other resources, as well as contact, at TiltedScalesCollective.Org. You can hear our 2017 interview with another member of Tilted Scales about their defendants guide. And you can follow the group on instagram or twitter.
. … . ..
Featured Track:
The Wrong Side Of The Law by Mick Jones from Mick Jones
This week on the show, we share an interview with Sonja, an antifascist activist and researcher based in the state of Hessen, Germany, and involved in the network known as NSU-Watch. For the hour, we talk about the case of the National Socialist Underground terror group which killed 9 immigrants of Turkish, Greek and Kurdish immigrants between 2000 and 2006 and were only discovered in 2011. Sonja tells about organizing with those who lost their loved ones in the attacks, the uncovering of government knowledge of the networks that produced the NSU and the milieu and international nazi scene it arose from, autonomous antifascist research.
We then speak about the ongoing case of Franco Albrecht, the former German military officer who is presumed to have been planning a false flag attack to draw ire to immigrant communities in Germany, as well as the network of military and police involved in the coordinated “Day X” plot to overthrow the German state. In some ways this interview was meant as a corrective to the New York Times podcast entitled Day X, one which de-centers state agency, opacity and collusion in the plot.
You can find more about NSU-Watch’s work at NSU-Watch.info/en/ or follow them on Twitter (@NSUWatch) and Instagram (@NSUWatch). More links in our show notes
exif recherche (one of the best antifascist research collectives in germany, deeply in need of help for translating the last texts about the Hammerskin Nation)
Apabiz (longstanding, autonomous anti-fascist research group in Berlin. Site in German)
A.I.D.A. Archive (longstanding, autonomous anti-fascist research in Munich. Site in German)
On this special midweek release, you’ll hear Swift Justice, incarcerated Abolitionist in Alabama affiliated with the Alabama Resistance Movement and Unheard Voices OTCJ. Swift talks about some current situations in the Alabama Department of Corrections, legislation ongoing around prison slavery due to the exception clauses at the state and federal level (specifically the 13th Ammendment), covid-19 behind bars, groups doing well in the struggle and organizing that needs to go further and actually engage with incarcerated comrades and updates on the recent attack on Swift’s mentor, Kinetic Justice. Check out some of Swift’s writings on his supporters blog at SwiftJustice4Freedom.wordpress.com.
You can hear our past interview with Swift here as well as our interview with Kinetic and Bennu on the founding of the Free Alabama Movement. For more Alabama prisoner perspectives from over the years, you can search Alabama on our site.
Protesters will take action against increasingly torturous and fatal conditions at the prison in Green Bay (GBCI) at noon on Saturday, August 28, 2021. The protest will include a march to the prison, speeches from advocates and people who’ve done time at GBCI, and relaying messages from people currently held there. The demonstrators will use large banners, loudspeakers and noisemakers to attempt to reach and express solidarity with people confined in the prison.
WHERE: Green Bay CI, 2833 Riverside Dr, Allouez, WI 54301
WHEN: 12:00 Noon on Sat August 28, 2021
Conditions at prisons across Wisconsin have deteriorated in recent years, and GBCI is one of the worst. Money that was intended to repair and improve the 123 year old prison is instead being used to create more solitary confinement cells and control units. People held there describe it as a conversion into a supermax style prison.
Staff at GBCI frequently neglect medical emergencies and drive their captives to self-harm and suicide. Those held in the restrictive housing unit (RHU) often express fear for their lives. When summoned to investigate deaths or litigate suits against the prison, local law enforcement and judges support the prison, enabling continued atrocities.
The demonstration at GBCI is part of the national SHUTEMDOWN2021 mobilization called by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak (JLS), a prisoner-led organization. The goal of SHUTEMDOWN2021 is to raise awareness of the prison strike JLS plans for next year, and their 10 demands to end slavery and improve conditions in prisons across the US. Wisconsin organizers are also planning educational events in Milwaukee, and a large demonstration at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF) on September 9.
This week on the show, you’ll hear our conversation with Mwalimu Shakur, a politicized, New Afrikan revolutionary prison organizer incarcerated at Corcoran prison in California. Mwalimu has been involved in organizing, including the cessations of hostilities among gangs and participation in the California and then wider hunger strikes against unending solitary confinement when he was at Pelican Bay Prison in 2013, helping to found the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, or IWOC, Liberation Schools of self-education and continues mentoring younger prisoners. He was in solitary confinement, including in the SHU, for 13 of the last 16 years of his incarceration.
For the hour, Mwalimu talks a bit about his politicization and organizing behind bars, his philosophy, Black August, the hunger strikes of 2013, the importance of organizing in our neighborhoods through the prison bars.
You can contact Mwalimu via JayPay by searching for his state name, Terrence White and the ID number AG8738, or write him letters, addressing the inside to Mwalimu Shakur and the envelope to:
Terrence White #AG8738
CSP Corcoran
PO Box 3461
Corcoran, CA 93212
To hear an interview from way back in 2013 that William did former political prisoner and editor of CA Prison Focus, Ed Mead (before & after the strikes), search our website or check the show notes.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Jonathan Jackson at the Marin County Courthouse, the assassination of his brother George at San Quentin in California and the subsequent uprising and State massacre at Attica State Prison in New York. Black August has been celebrated at least since 1979 to mark these dates with study, exercise, community building, sharing and reflection by revolutionaries on both sides of the bars. In the last decade across Turtle Island, you’ve seen strikes and protests and educational events take place around this time of the year as we flex our muscles.
This year, as you’ve heard us mention, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak is calling for weeks of action for Abolitionism under the name “Shut ‘Em Down 2021”. You can find out more at JailhouseLawyersSpeak.Wordpress.Com and follow them on twitter and instagram, linked in our show notes, alongside links relating to this weeks chat. You can hear our interview with a member of JLS from earlier this year about the “Shut ‘Em Down” initiative, or read the interview, at our site and in these show notes. Also, check out our interview with the remaining member of the Marin Courthouse Uprising, possibly the oldest living political prisoner in the US, Ruchell Cinque Magee.
Shaka Shakur Hunger Strike
New Afrikan prison rebel, co-founder of the New Afrikan Liberation Collective and IDOCWatch organizer, Shaka Shakur has been interstate transferred hundreds of miles away from his support network to Buckingham Correctional Center in Virginia (recognize that name?). There was a call-in campaign this week focused on VA Governor Northam, director of VADOC Harold Clark, VADOC central regional director Henry Ponton and Warden Woodson at BKCC. This was in support of Shakur’s hunger strike in protest of the transfer, his time in solitary prior in Indiana for having his prescription medication, being moved into solitary at BKCC with minimal hygiene and no personal materials. As noted in the transcript about his hunger strike at IDOCWatch’s website, the transfer interrupts civil and criminal litigation Shaka Shakur had pending in Indiana and has caused him to be halfway across the country after his own surgeries, the loss of his family matriarch and another aunt, the hospitalization of mother and other health hardships.
This week on the show, William and Scott are presenting an interview with Alice and Dolly, who are two people working toward Disability Justice and Mad Activism (among other things), about the prevalence of movement misogyny in antifascist currents, world building as antifascist and as community defense, ways to rethink harmful patterns in movements, and some things we can do to make each other safer. The show initially got in touch with these guests based on a Twitter thread that they co-authored about these issues. Check out our podcast at our website later today for a longer conversation.
You can follow Alice on Twitter @gothbotAlice, and to read Tema Okun’s work which Dolly was referencing on unmasking and addressing white supremacy culture you can follow the link in our show notes – or – search “White Supremacy Culture” on your search engine and follow the results to the pdf on the dismantlingracism.org page.
Further reading
Intentional Peer Support (alternative mental health support structure)
also our recent interview with them: https://thefinalstrawradio.mayfirst.info/post/2021/02/14/adrienne-maree-brown-on-cancellation-abolition-and-healing/
On July 12 Kevin “Rashid” Johnson was transferred from Wabash Valley prison in Indiana to the custody of the Ohio Department of Corrections, being brought directly to their intake center in Orient. He would remain there for less than three weeks before being sent to Lucasville prison on July 30th.
… More details in the actual post, listed above at Rashidmod…
For Virginia: #1007485
For Indiana: #264847
For Ohio: #A787991
Joseph Walters, Dep. Director VADOC joseph.walters@vadoc.virginia.gov
(Proxy for Harold W. Clarke, Director of the Department of Corrections)
(804)887-7982
Annette Chambers-Smith, Director of Ohio Depart of Rehabilitation and Corrections
please contact: Melissa Adkins (Executive Assistant)
via email: melissa.adkins@odrc.state.oh.us
614-752-1153.
Ronald Erdos, Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, Warden (Lucasville)
(740)259-5544 drc.socf@odrc.state.ohio.us
Charlene Burkett, Director DOC Ombudsman Bureau (Indiana)
(317) 234-3190
402 W. Washington St. Room W479
Indianapolis, IN 46204 Ombud@idoa.in.gov
Richard Brown, Warden
Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, Indiana
(812) 398-5050
The city of Asheville likes to make headlines. The Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority, or TDA, has been working alongside other tourism industry groups, to make an impression in the minds of people worldwide and entice you to visit this little mountain city with it’s big fuck-off estate, the Biltmore, the beautiful mountains for hiking, waterfalls for swimming, artsy and craftsy culture for consuming and rivers of beers for tourists to tube down. But in the last year, Asheville has, once again, let its “crisis in policing” also reach national and international audiences with two New York Times stories (1, 2, which are pay-walled fyi), one reaching the front page, which spoke about a 34% attrition rate of the Asheville Police Department since the George Floyd Uprising and renewed, local efforts to defund or decrease the police in Asheville in favor of social and restorative infrastructure. The article spoke mostly from official viewpoints. According to the Asheville Citizen-Times, to deal with the bad press, the APD hired a public relations firm called ColePro Media for $5,000 a month to shift narratives and bring the veneer of progressive policing back to our fair, “land of the sky.”
This week, we spoke with local journalist, activist, abolitionist and anarchist, Ursula Wren of the AvlFree.Press about Asheville’s “crisis in policing”, a brief blooper roll of Asheville police foibles over the last decade, homeless camp evictions, prior and current efforts to restructure public safety, the reactionary business effort to bolster the police with blue ribbons of support, housing issues and other fare.
Here are a few links to sites and events mentioned:
To hear our conversations on struggle against the opioid crisis and overdoses in Western NC, check out our interviews with members of the Steady Collective (2018 & 2020)
You can find a transcription of this interview as well as an imposed pamphlet for easy printing in about a week on the blog post for this chat or alongside many of our past episodes at the link TFSR.WTF/zines . You can find ways to stream the lengthier podcast of this and all of our episodes or follow us on social media by visiting TFSR.WTF/links.
You can support our ongoing transcription efforts, which get topical and timely anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist and all the other good anti’s texts into a format for easier digestion for folks with hearing difficulties, easier mailing into prisons, easier translation as well as searching by search engines by checking becoming a patron at patreon.com/tfsr or making a one time donation or purchasing tshirts, stickers or other merch. More info on that at TFSR.WTF/support. And if you want to hear us up on your local community or college radio station, more info is up at TFSR.WTF/radio.
. … . ..
Featured Tracks:
The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Burl Ives from The Big Rock Candy Mountain
USA by Reagan Youth from A Collection Of Pop Classics
