First up, we’re sharing a short interview with Beck of Pansy Collective, a queer DIY benefit booking collective responsible for Pansy Fest. Beck talks about the 2022 New Years Eve noise demonstration and bailout that Pansy helped to fundraise for (alongside the Asheville Community Bail Fund), as well as the Buncombe County Jail being reported by the Citizen Times newspaper as the deadliest jail in North Carolina as of January 2021.
Then, we you’ll hear Elliot of Asheville Survival Program (Instagram or FB), M of Asheville for Justice and Moira talk about the water crisis that started on December 24th, the city’s response, how mutual aid stepped up to distribute water and more. To read statements by the 16th people facing felony littering and other charges for mutual work and solidarity here in Asheville, check out AVLSolidarity.NoBlogs.Org, or check out our transcripts or episodes from (10/31/21, 12-26-21, 5-15-22) for more words from the groups involved.
Next Week…
We announced that we’d be airing Rhiannon Firth talking with Scott about her recent book, Disaster Anarchy, but we’re putting that off until next week. Patreon supporters can find it released a tiny bit early.
Announcements
20th Balkan Anarchist Bookfair
If you’re in southern Europe, the 20th annual Balkan Anarchist bookfair is coming up from the 7th to 9th of July in Ljubljana, Slovenia. If you want to table or present, submissions are still open and more info can be found at their website, bab2023.EspivBlogs.Net
Fundraising for JJ Ayer Eagle Bear
In prior weeks, listeners heard updates from the struggle against evictions at Winnemucca Indian Colony. Jimmy J, who spoke in the December 25th episode has set up fundraising to help him overwinter via the venmo: @lunaleve
Comrades Conspiracy
There is a fundraiser online to support four anarchists accused by the Greek state of participation in a terrorist group the state is calling “comrades”, a case which has stretched out for nearly 3 years now, and their trial is slated to take place on February 6th of 2023. Learn more at FireFund.Net/Solidarity4Comrades
Leon Benson Fundraiser
We’re happy to announce a re-entry fundraiser for Leon Benson (aka EL Bently 448), a wrongly convicted man in Indiana being organized by IDOC Watch, out of Indiana. Leon was the subject of a chat with his daughter, Koby Blutt, in our May 30th, 2021 episode (audio and transcript available at our website). You can find it at GoFundMe.com by searching Leon Benson.
Eric King Release Fundraiser
There is also a fundraiser going for post-release support for anarchist prisoner Eric King that you can find at GoFundMe.Com
This is a conversation with Matthew Lyons, antifascist researcher, contributor to Three Way Fight Blog and author of, among other books, Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right’s Challenge to State and Empire and contributor to the recent AK Press compilation, No Pasarán: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis (edited by Shane Burley). For the hour, Matthew talks about Christian Nationalist and theonomic tendencies and movements like New Apostolic Reformation, Dominionism, reactionary Catholicism and Christian Reconstructionism to learn more about how they interrelate or conflict with other far right tendencies in the so-called USA and the ongoing assault on bodily autonomy, abortion access and cis-hetero-patriarchy. More of Matthews work can be found at MatthewNLyons.Net
We’re hoping to bring you voices from graduate student workers and other workers on strike in the University of California system and possibly beyond for this coming Sunday’s show.
Announcements
Phone Zap for Shinewhite
BACKGROUND:Joseph “Shine White” Stewart is a long-time incarcerated writer and organizer who is known, among other things, for promoting interracial unity among black and white prisoners in North Carolina as a way to forward their shared resistance against the prison industrial complex and for encouraging abolitionists on the outside to center prisoners’ demands and resistance in their work. He has most recently been central to prisoners’ organizing efforts to combat racist CO brutality at Alexander Correctional Institution and the extended lockdown at Bertie Correctional Institution. As one might imagine, he is no stranger to political repression, and he has been repeatedly transferred, held in solitary confinement for years at a time, and physically brutalized as the system has attempted to silence him. On November 3, in response to his most recent organizing, Shine White was transferred to Granville Correctional Institution in Butner, NC, where he was placed in restrictive housing. When he arrived, he was placed in a filthy, unsanitary cell which staff refused to allow him to clean and denied access to his property, including legal paperwork related to pending motions in a lawsuit his is pursuing which he was therefore unable to put in the mail on time. Staff have even restricted his access to paper. As of his last contact with Solidarity Beyond the Walls, Shine White is still being housed in unsanitary conditions and still does not have his property. He has requested that SBW support him by organizing a phone zap on his behalf.
NCDPS Division of Prisons Central Region Director Loris Sutton 919-582-6125 (direct office line) OR 919-803-0713 (cell phone) OR 919-838-4053 (Central Region main office line);
Standard and Performance Director Cynthia Thornton 919-838-4000 (Division of prisons main office line)
Remember that repeat calls are welcome, as the more calls come in, the more likely it is that our demands on Shine White’s behalf will be met.
WHAT TO SAY: Here is a script you can use if you aren’t sure what to say when you call:“Hello. I am calling on behalf of Joseph Stewart, OPUS number 0802041. When he was transferred to Granville CI on November 3, Mr. Stewart was placed in restrictive housing in unsanitary conditions and denied his property, including legal paperwork that needed to be put in the mail no later than November 4. Both of these are violations of NCDPS policy and procedure. I am calling to demand that Mr. Stewart be released from restrictive housing, be placed in a clean cell with access to supplies to keep it that way, and that all of his property be returned immediately.”
Support Colombian Uprising Prisoners
There is still repression being felt by those swept up by the state during the 2021 National Strike in Cali, Colombia and there’s a fundraising effort for the Paso del Aguante 6 who are facing up to 50 years in prison for participating in the strike. The Colombia Freedom Collective is happy to announce that Christian Andres Aguilar has been released at 14 months of pre-trail detention, though he’s not out of danger yet. You can learn more about the cases of the Paso del Aguante 6 and how to support their defense efforts at: https://colombiafreedomcollective.org/christian-andres-aguilar-released-after-14-months-of-pretrial-detention/
Bad News #62
Check out the latest episode of Bad News: Angry Voices from Around The World from the International A-Radio Network. This month features two really good interviews you may not have heard from Frequenz-A: a chat with a member of Feminist Anti-War Resistance, a movement against the militarism of the Russian state and the war in Ukraine; a conversation with Berlin-based advocates for Alfredo Cospito, Juan, Anna and Ivan hunger striking in Italy against 41 bis. These are alongside shorter versions of our recent chats on heaters in Albuquerque, updates on Eric King & Oso Blanco’s situations and the struggle against Camp Grayling.
Suppport TFSR
We are entering a period of recording fury. Patreon supporters will get early access to interviews as we get them edited down, as well as behind the scenes conversations between the producers. Upcoming releases include Mitchell Verter, co-author of the 2005 AK Press book, Dreams of Freedom: A Ricardo Flores Magón Reader speaking around the 100th anniversary of the murder by incarceration by the US state of the Mexican anarchist communist revolutionary, RFM, and discussion of his legacy. Another is a conversation with Rhiannon Firth on her recently published book, Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action, out from Pluto Press. You can find our patreon at patreon.com/tfsr
Though we’re releasing some content early to patreon supporters, we won’t be paywalling it permanently. Our fundraising goes to operating costs, equipment, and paying our transcribers. We’ve been transcribing each interview we’ve conducted and making them available as zines on our website for coming up on 2 years now, and going back to transcribe past episodes to boot. This makes these important conversations available for translation, for easier access to folks who are more comfortable reading or for whom English is a second language, as well as getting the content more easily into prisoners, reading groups and passers-by’s hands so as to include more people in the discussion.
For other ways to support our project monetarily, there’s merch and donation options at tfsr.wtf/support. For non-money support, we could always use ratings on apple, google and amazon podcasts or mentions and boosts on social media (including on Mastodon and Castopod), examples can be found at tfsr.wtf. Telling others about the project is also a great way to help us expand our audience. If you have a story you’d like covered, you can find ways to contact us there we well!
Finally, if you have a community or college radio station that you’d like to hear our weekly, free, 58 minute episode air on for any weirdo with an antenna and receiver to pick up, help us out by visiting tfsr.wtf/radio to learn more. Thanks for the support!
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Featured Tracks:
Gods and Government by Snog from Dear Valued Customer
The Voice of God Is Government by Bad Religion from How Could Hell Be Any Worse?
As I say in the interview, I was excited to have this conversation with Robert since the 150th anniversary of the first anti-authoritarian International hosted by the anarchist watchmakers in St-Imier, Switzerland. I’m definitely not a history or theory head, so I’ve been pleased to take this opportunity to broaden my horizons and areas of study. To hear about the 150th Anniversary gathering, check out the segment by comrades at A-Radio Berlin from August 2022’s Bad News podcast. And check out Anarchy2023.Org for info on next year’s gathering.
Part 1: [00:11:45 – 01:11:58]
Part 2: [01:14:32 – 02:13:22]
The interview begins at after Sean Swain’s segment on the protests in Iran [00:03:20 – 00:11:45]
The book is available from Firestorm at the above link, also from the publisher at AKPress.Org, and you can check out an online version from Archive.Org for free as well. Or now at TheAnarchistLibrary.Org for easy & free download.
Here’s a link to an archive of Open Road, the anarchist journal Robert participated in in the 1970’s
For a related historical interview we conducted in 2014 with Andrew Zonneveld of On Our Own Authority! on an anarchist historical compilation called “The Commune: Paris, 1871”, linked in our show notes. Also of note, Coffee With Comrades just conducted an interview Jim Yoeman on his recently published AK Press book, Print Culture and the Formation of the Anarchist Movement in Spain, 1890-1915
Next week….
Next week, I hope to air voices supporting prisoner struggle in Alabama and anarchist prisoner struggle in Italy, particularly Alfredo Cospito.
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Featured Tracks:
The Internationale by Ani DiFranco & Utah Phillips
Then, you’ll hear a recent interview with Aryanam, a member of the Federation of Anarchism Era, an anarchist grouping based in Iran, Afghanistan and the diaspora to speak about the morality police murder of Zhina or Mahsa Amini and the ongoing revolt against the imposition of the hijab and general cruelty of the Islamic Republic regime. More by the Federation can be found at https://asranarshism.com and their fundraiser for comrades in Afghanistan & Iran at https://asranarshism.com/donation/
Image from @loozanar on Instagram, Drawing in black and red of Persian words swirling around Zhina watching over a crowd of people in the streets and a youth holding a giant, burning dandelion
Next week….
Next week we hope to share with you an interview about the case of the Pendleton 2, two Black prisoners still suffering punishment in the Indiana Department of Corrections for standing up to defend their lives and that of a jailhouse lawyer in the face of a racist, Ku Klux Klan -affiliated corrections officer gang known as the Sons of Light in 1985. To learn more, check out related episodes of Kiteline Radio or the recent documentary by TheKingTrill on youtube, both linked in our show notes, or by visiting linktr.ee/freedomcampaign
Announcements
Solidarity with Striking Alabama Prisoners
If you’re in the southeast, there is a Break Every Chain demonstration outside of the Alabama State Capital, 600 Dexter Avenue in Montgomery on Friday, October 14th at 9am in support of striking prisoners across the Alabama Dept of Corrections. You can find more info at www.bothsidesofthewall.com or by emailing contact@bothsidesofthewall.com
Certain Days Calendars Out
Also, the Certain Days: Freedom For Political Prisoners Calendars are back from the printers. You can find out how to order one for someone behind bars, for your self or place a bulk order for distribution at certaindays.org
This week, our guests are Sam and Alex (not their real names). Sam was until recently the co-host of the 12 Rules for What podcast and is the co-author with Alex of their two books, The Post Internet Far Right and The Rise of Ecofascism. Sam is now focusing on writing at Collapsology Sub-Stack and the Collapse Podcast, and you can support Alex’s ongoing work with 12 Rules for WHAT podcast via their patreon or check out the podcast via Apple Podcasts or Channel Zero Network. We talk about fascism, ecological trends on the far right, Patriotic Alternative, Patriot Front, grifters, the Tories and antifascist activism. Oh, and a lot more.
Next week’s show will feature an interview with a member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement about the case of Dr. Mutulu Shakur and his struggle for compassionate release despite being 7 years past his date for release eligibility and his diagnosis of bone marrow cancer.
Announcements
Shinewhite Phone Zap
Anti-racist, communist prisoner held in North Carolina, James “Shinewhite” Stewart, is facing severe repression and deprivation at Maury C.I. where he was recently transferred; he’s been in solitary since he was transferred, denied food and his blood pressure medicine, and had various pieces of property and correspondence stolen, as well as mail tampered with. He is asking people to make urgent calls and emails to Secretary Eddie M. Buffaloe of the NC Department of Public Safety in order to demand SW’s transfer out of state (called “interstate compact”) to West Virginia:
Shinewhite wanted to share that his politics have evolved in such a way that they no longer align with the Revolutionary Intercommunal White Panther Organization (RIWPO), so he’s stepping down from his role as National Spokesperson for the organization. However, Shinewhite still believes deeply in Intercommunalism and the liberatory vision of the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party (RIBPP).
Indonesian Anarchist Paralegal Fund
Anarchist Black Cross in Indonesia, Palang Hitam, is fundraising for their paralegal trainings for anarchists and anti-authoritarians. You can learn more and contribute at Firefund.Net/PalangHitam
BAD News: Angry Voices from Around The World
A new episode of the A-Radio Network’s monthly, English-language podcast, BAD News. This month it includes an interview with Greek Anarchafeminist group “Salomé”, a chat with an organizer of the Weekend Libertaire in St-Imier (Switzerland) on the 150th anniversary of the first anti-authoritarian International, and a call for solidarity with anarchist prisoners. Give a listen!
Bodily Autonomy Rally in the South East of Turtle Island
There’s a rally next Thursday at 11 a.m. at the Justice AA Birch building in Nashville to protest the abortion ban in TN. Others in the area, keep an ear out for demonstrations in South Carolina despite the overturning of the 6 week abortion ban, and because of the 20 week abortion ban now in effect in North Carolina. More on the latter two pieces of news and ways to support folks seeking abortions at linktr.ee/CarolinaAbortionFund
Firestorm Benefit Concert
There’s a benefit party & queer country show at the Odditorium on Wednesday, August 31 for Firestorm’s building purchase, right across the street from the venue. It runs from 6pm to 10pm and you can find out more by checking out their social media.
Blue Ridge ABC Letter Writing Event
We’ve been forgetting to announce, but on Sunday, Sept 4th at West Asheville Park from 3-5pm you can find Blue Ridge ABC writing to prisoners. They’ll provide a list of political prisoners with upcoming birthdays or facing repression who could use some words of support, plus paper, pens and addresses. Come down, meet some folks and send some love behind bars.
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Featured Track:
Bella Ciao by Nana Mouskouri from Revolutionary Songs of the World
We speak about conspiracy theories and real conspiracies, strategies of tension, the use of extremist actors to set conditions of concentrating power un-democratically and challenging conspiratorial thought patterns. You can find a past interview we did with Tom on “Insurgencies Journal” and “The Master’s Tools”.
This week on the show, you’ll hear from Doug, Onion and Papi, three folks involved in the Aston Park Build, a daily event to hold space in Aston Park in downtown Asheville, creating art, sharing food and music and a wider part of organizing here to demand safer space & redistribution of wealth to care for houseless folks and relieve the incredible strains on housing affordability in Asheville. We talk about the park actions, the housing crisis and service industry wage woes, local government coddling of business owners and police repression of folks on the margins.
This week’s segment is Sean’s statement given to the Interstate Compact Hearing he was to face before the foregone conclusion of his transfer far from his spouse & support base. If you want to write to Sean, for the moment it’s a good idea to send to his Youngstown address until his support site says otherwise, but also to hold on to a copy of your letter in case he’s been moved and ODRC doesn’t send back your original. You can find info on how to support his legal campaign (Donations can be made via CashApp to $Swainiac1969), his books and past writings at SeanSwain.org or find updates on Swainiac1969 on instagram or SwainRocks on twitter.
We got an update that the Interstate Compact Committee, during their hearing this week, recommended that Sean stay in Ohio (but they didn’t quit their jobs).
Feel free to reach out to the following public officials to express your concern at the moving of Sean Swain out of Ohio based on the word of a former ODRC because Sean spoke out about torture he suffered in Ohio prisons. More details in the statement at [01:04:19] in the episode…
The Biologica Squat at the School of Biology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, has been open for 34 years and is now under threat of attack by the New Democracy government and their new campus police. There are calls for solidarity at Greek Embassies, businesses and other places around the world during the up til and through January 10th & 17th of January 2022. The original post can be found in Greek on Athens Indymedia or in English at EnoughIsEnough14.org
Mèo Mun is an anarchist collective working to make anarchist materials and ideas more accessible to a Vietnamese audience, together with providing an analysis of social struggles from a Vietnamese anarchist lens. Over the next hour you’ll hear three collective members, Mai, Will and tùng share their critiques of leftist misrepresentations of the Vietnamese State as Socialist, lasting impacts of imperialism and war on populations of Vietnam, the centering US imaginaries of Vietnam, the struggles of working class people in general (and queer folks and sex workers in particular) in Vietnam, nationalism promoted by the government and other topics.
This week on The Final Straw, we spoke with Vasili and Maria, two Belarusian anarchists living abroad about the aftermath of the 2020 Uprising in their country of birth, lessons learned, the current political prisoners and the Lukashenko regime’s attempts to attack dissidents abroad. Maria is also a member of Belarus Anarchist Black Cross, which does anti-repression education and prisoner and legal support for anarchists in or from that country. More on that group and these topics can be found at ABC-Belarus.Org, including a form to send letters to prisoners in Belarus from the website and a link to a brand new fundraising campaign to help BABC to support their anti-repression efforts. Check it out and spread it around: https://www.betterplace.org/en/projects/99819-support-anarchist-and-antifascist-prisoners-in-belarus
Antifascist and anarchist prisoner, Eric King, has had his trial pushed back to October 14th at 9:30am. If you can show up to court with an ID and your dapper court wear, you can show up to the Alfred A. Arraj Federal Courthouse in Denver to show Eric some support and that he’s not alone. For a good read, check out the recent article by Vice about the allegations from Eric’s legal team that the BOP deleted video of the incident in question in order to cover up his setup and torture: https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvzqqa/prison-destroyed-video-proof-of-guards-torturing-anti-fascist-lawyers-say
Protest AmRen
The annual American Renaissance conference, or AmRen, a gathering of vile ethno-nationalist hucksters is slated to occur in Montgomery Bell Park at the Inn and Conference Center, outside of Burns, TN, from Friday, November 12th to the 14th. Opposition is being organized from all over and you can participate with your crew. For a good intro to what’s expected this year, check out the link in our shownotes or visit the calendar at OnePeoplesProject.Com: https://tockify.com/idavox/detail/136/1636722000000
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Featured Track:
Johnny Ryall (instrumental) by Beastie Boys from Dub The Boutique
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.
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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
