This week, an interview with Clifton Ariwakhete Nicholas and Franklin Lopez about about the film currently in production via Amplifier Films, A Red Road To The West Bank: An Indigenous journey of resistance and solidarity. The conversation covers some about relationships between the people of occupied Palestine and Kanehsatà:ke in so-called Canada, histories of settler colonialism and resistance of it. Clifton and Franklin are attempting to raise $10000 CAD for the film.
First up, you’ll hear Maru Mora-Villalpando talking about the immigration prison known as the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA and the organizing that her organization La Resistencia does to shut down this private prison run by Geo Group. [ 00:00:54 – 00:44:00 ]
Then, a member of Pittsburgh Fash Watch, an antifascist group, talks about their mobilization and unmasking of white supremacists in their area, such as WLM and Goyim Defense League (GDL) chud Brandon Cahall. [ 00:45:07 – 00:54:42]
collage of photos of Eric King smiling with his book, Josh Harper and Jake conroy
This week we’re sharing a discussion recorded some months back in the pacific northwest featuring former political prisoners Eric King, who went in for actions in solidarity with the Ferguson Uprising in 2014, and Jake Conroy, who was convicted for coordinating successful anti-vivisection divestment campaigns against Huntington Life Sciences as one of the SHAC7. They are joined by Eric’s co-author of Rattling The Cages, Josh Davidson. We hope you appreciate the wisdom and passion of the discussion.
You can find Jake’s youtube channel The Cranky Vegan for a long-running and ongoing commentary on animal liberation topics. And you can follow Eric’s panels with other former prisoners and supporters on the instagram for Rattling The Cages and past media and articles by and about Eric (including past interviews we’ve done with or about him) at SupportEricKing.org and find more from Josh at linktr.ee/JoshDavidson..
Over the first weekend of October, 2024, there was a deluge from two storms (including level 4 Hurricane Helene) descended on southern Appalachia, mostly on the eastern side which includes Asheville and other parts of western NC, eastern TN, south eastern Ohio, and northern Georgia. At the point of this recording there are over 200 known dead and hundreds missing, portions of the region continue to be without electricity or cellular service, and where the toxic mud and water linger and separate people from medical and community care. This episode, we’re speaking with two people who’ve lived in the region and have been helping other residents distribute storm relief.
This week on the final straw we’re featuring a conversation with Tom and Miriam of the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led network of activists standing in solidarity with Palestinians on the ground in the occupied territories. For the hour we talk about the organization, its history, what got these folks involved, the recent and tragic murder of Ayşenur Eygi in Beita in the West Bank which Miriam witnessed, and how conditions have changed as the war by the Israeli settler state has expanded.
Our chat with Louis, an anarchist emergency room nurse who has just returned from a second tour doing healthcare work in Gaza and is about to leave again. During this difficult conversation, we talk about medical conditions that he encountered in Gaza, what aid is getting in and how it’s being distributed, health infrastructure and how this relates to his prior mutual aid and anti-border work in the so-called USA. You can find a prior interview with Louis from Living and Fighting blog.
This week, we’re airing 2 interviews to do with the Russian war in Ukraine. Plus, Kevin Rashid Johnson talks about being denied medical care for his prostate cancer in the Virginia prison system.
First up, an interview with Assembly.Org.UA, a news site based out of Kharkiv about their journalism, disaster capitalism in the midst of pandemic and war, resistance to forced military conscription by the Ukrainian military and information about sabotage activity against the war taking place in Russia.
Then, you’ll hear words from BOAK, or the Anarchist Communist Combat Organization, a Russia-based group advocating sabotage and guerrilla struggle and the development of a social revolution against authoritarian regimes in eastern Europe. You’ll find a Russian version in audio and text of the BOAK conversation for dissemination very soon in the post for this show at our website. You can find a bunch of links in our show notes as well.
But first, you’ll hear Minister of Defense of the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party, Kevin Rashid Johnson, talk about his diagnosis of prostate cancer and his request for a call in to get the VADOC & his captors at Nottoway Correctional Institution in Virginia to give him the care he needs to survive. You can read his article at RashidMod.Com.
Phone Zap!
RIBPP & PSO are calling on all comrades and supporters to participate in a Phone/E-mail zap for Comrade Rashid. The following script can be used/personalized:
“My name is___. My friend Kevin Johnson, #1007485, housed at Nottoway, just learned from the prison doctor that he has prostate cancer. Tests he took last October and November indicated that diagnosis almost certainly, but no biopsy was performed until April and the results reported to him on July 1. Eleven of 13 biopsies are positive for prostate cancer.
“Cancer kills, and it can kill fast. A friend with prostate cancer says his treatment started immediately upon diagnosis in an effort to stop the cancer from spreading to his lymph nodes and on to his bones, where it would be fatal. The Virginia Department of Corrections has already failed in its responsibility to provide even minimal care. Mr. Johnson’s thousands of supporters are shocked to hear of these inexcusably long delays in diagnosis. The best possible treatment must begin now. No obstacle must be allowed to cause further delay.”
Who to call: Director of the Virginia Department of Corrections Harold W. Clarke VADOC P.O. Box 26963 Richmond, VA 23261 (804) 674-3000 docmail@vadoc.virginia.gov
Director of Health Services, VADOC Steve Herrick healthservicesinquiries@vadoc.virginia.gov (804) 887–8118
Warden Clint Davis Nottoway Correctional Center 2892 Schutt Rd. Burkeville, VA 23922 (434) 767-5543
Email the following officals:
harold.clarke@vadoc.virginia.gov
david.robinson@vadoc.virginia.gov
steve.herrick@vadoc.virginia.gov
clint.davis@vadoc.virginia.gov.
Sean’s Segment
[00:51:41 – end]
Sean Swain talks about the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in his usual manner.
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Featured Track:
Democratize, Decentralize, Demobilize, attributed to Antivoenny Bolnichny, lyrics found on LyricsTranslate
This week on The Final Straw, we’re featuring a recent conversation with anarchist author and activist, Peter Gelderloos about his latest book, “The Solutions Are Already Here: Strategies For Ecological Revolution From Below”, published by Pluto Press in 2022. For the hour we speak about critiques of science and Western Civilization that Peter levels, as well as the centrality of struggling on the ground we stand on, creating autonomous infrastructure, resisting colonial extractivism and the need for imagination and care as we tear down this ecocidal system.
Anarchist and antifascist political prisoner, Eric King, has been transferred from Grady County Jail (where we spoke to him from for our April 3rd episode) to USP Lee in southwestern Virginia where he and his loved ones are afraid he will be put into solitary and attacked where there will be no witnesses. This comes directly after he won a trial against the federal Bureau of Prisons showing that he had been set up and punished for false reasons, subjected to obvious acts of petty and not so petty vengeance by the corrections officers, and in spite of the fact that his security level should have him at a medium security facility rather than a high security like Lee. There is a continued call-in campaign that his supporters are asking y’all to participate in. You can find more information in the show notes or at SupperEricKing.org as well as on the twitter, facebook and instagram pages for the under the name @SupportEricKing.
May Day
May Day is coming up real quick, y’all. The first of May has been known as a festival of spring bounty from pagan times in Europe, and has been celebrated by anarchists, socialists, communists and labor activists to commemorate the 1886 struggle for the power of workers against the capitalists and state and the remember the Haymarket Martyrs. We have a couple of episodes featuring content about May Day that we’ll link here, but this is just a quick note to find other comrades and fellow travelers this May Day, there may be something going on in your area. And if there isn’t, maybe you can organize an event with you friends!
