The Final Straw Radio

Antifa + Anarchy Down Under: Andy Fleming of SlackBastard This week, we're sharing a recent conversation with Andy Fleming. Andy is an anarchist and anti-racist organizer based out of Melbourne, Australia. For the episode, Andy tells us about his research into far right organizing in Australia and, to a lesser degree, Aotearoa (aka New Zealand), who key players are, what tendencies are present and...

On the show this week, Bursts spoke with Tom Tanuki, front man of the group Yelling At Racist Dogs (Y.A.R.D.), a performance anti-fascist group that directs insulting yells at far-right, xenophobic events and speakers. For the hour we talk some about Tom's background, the landscape of far-right politics in Australia and the place of humor and public shaming in confronting racist public figures in...

David Easley of Ohio IWOC & Jasper of FOM ****This show carries a heavy content warning for institutionalized violence against incarcerated people, suicide, and issues related to mental wellness//unwellness.****** This week I'm sharing a conversation with David Easley, an imprisoned member of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, or IWOC, currently held at Toledo Correctional in Ohio. In...

ROAR Conference 2019 + Spencer Sunshine on Fascism 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 Then I spoke with journalist and anti-raci...

Chelsea Manning and Grand Jury Resistance This week on The Final Straw, we're excited to bring you perspectives on resisting Federal Grand Juries in the U.S. In particular, we focus on the situation of imprisoned, former army whistle-blower, Chelsea Manning. Ms. Manning, who was in military prison for releasing information about U.S. war crimes in the Afghanistan and Iraq theaters in 2010, had her...

Indigenous Spaces + Decolonizing Prison Abolition (Sean Swain starts at 05min, 12 sec) Ni Frontieres Ni Prisons on No New Migrant Prison in Laval, Canada (starts 12min, 08sec) Today we have a two part show! In the first part we are presenting a conversation with someone from Ni Frontiers Ni Prison, which is a group in so called Canada that is resisting the proposed construction of a new migrant pr...

This week we had the chance to interview Lelia, who is a community activist and a part of the group Comunidad Colectiva, an immigrant rights group based in Charlotte NC. We got to talk about a lot of things in this interview, the work that they and other groups do with immigrant and undocumented communities, about the February ICE raids that got national attention, what effective rapid response ca...

End Prison Slavery: The Free Alabama Movement (Sean Swain: 4min 47sec) This week we air two interviews about the struggle of Alabama activist and prisoner Kinetic Justice. Kinetic, aka Robert Earl Council, conducted a 6 day hunger strike because he was transferred with no altercations, investigations or disciplinary actions and after just having ended an almost 54 month stint in solitary confineme...

Gord Hill on Art and Resistance Gord Hill is an indigenous author, anarchist, antifascist and militant, a member of the Kwakwaka'wakw nation living in so-called British Columbia, Canada. Gord is also graphic artist and comic book author who most recently published The Antifa Comic Book , out from Arsenal Pulp Press, and runs the website Warrior Publications and sometimes publishes under the nom-de...

Anarchists In Conflict: Rojava + Yellow Vest Movement (Sean Swain at 6:28, interviews begin at 14:05) This week on The Final Straw, the episode's theme is anarchist interventions in struggles around the world. We'll be sharing audios from comrades in the A-Radio Network, which just had it's 5th Annual Gathering in Zurich, Switzerland. The A-Radio Network is made up of stations around Europe, plus...

A Story of Leonard Peltier 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, Paul...

This week, we feature two segments on the show: an interview with a Russian anarchist about the recent ramping up of torture and repression by the FSB in Russia against anarchists and anti-fascists  ( 00:14:13 ); and a chat with Patrick Strickland, author of "Alerta! Alerta!: Snapshots of Europe's Anti-Fascist Struggle" ( 00:34:17 ); plus anarchist prisoner Sean Swain on his bid to "Build The Wall...

Updates on FOSTA and Digital Harm Reduction with Norman Shamas This week, we continue our look at sex, work and the state with guest, Norman Shamas . Norman Shamas is an activist and educator whose work focuses on human-centered information and digital security and privacy. Now, Norman is not a lawyer but shares their insights about the legal situation around FOSTA, or Fighting Online Sex Traffick...

Sex Worker Outreach Project Behind Bars w/ Dr. Jill McCracken This week, William spoke with Jill McCracken , codirector of SWOP Behind Bars , or the Sex Worker Outreach Project, Behind Bars chapter. Jill is also a professor at University of South Florida at St. Petersburg teaching rhetoric and gender and sexuality studies, with a focus on sex work, prostitution, and trafficking in the sex industry...

Support Anarchist Prisoner Eric King This week Bursts spoke with the wife of vegan, antifascist and anarchist political prisoner, Eric King. Eric was was convicted of attempting the September 11, 2014 firebombing of the Kansas City office of a Missouri Democratic Congressman in solidarity with the Ferguson Uprising that kicked off after the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO. The office was att...

Front Line Organization Working To End Racism Firstly we're presenting a conversation that William had with an organizer with F.L.O.W.E.R ., which stands for Front Line Organization Working to End Racism, about opposition to a neo confederate rally scheduled to take place on February 2 nd at Stone Mountain Park about half an hour's drive outside of Atlanta, Georgia. We talk about the longstanding...

This week, we'd like to share a conversation had a little bit ago with Kali Kaneko, from LEAP.  Leap Encryption Access Project, like pEp featured in our prior Error451 interview, is an open-source project meant to ease... access to encryption (and it's a project).  At a point in the past, LEAP had an interest in shifting paradigm of email but is now focusing mainly on distribution, upkeep, and imp...

This week we feature two segments, the first on anti-pipeline resistance at the Gidimt'en Camp in Canada and second with JR from sub. Media about Mental Wellness and the recent Trouble episode on the subject. Wet'suwet'en Pipeline Resistance, so-called BC First up, we'll hear from Delee Nikal, a Wet'suwet'en community member from the Gidimt'en clan and the Cas Yikh House, a First Nation in so-call...

Support NoDAPL Prisoners This week, we're excited to share the voices of Jess and Olive, who both did legal support, and do prisoner solidarity with the folks facing Federal prison time from the struggle at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline. This episode was heavily edited for radio, so I suggest you find our audio at our website or in itunes or soundcloud or youtube or ideally our...

Hernani Marques on Pretty Easy Privacy On this episode I'm joined by Hernani Marques, a hacker and member of the pEp Foundation, talking about Pretty Easy Privacy, a concerted attempt to make adoption of end-to-end email encryption easier and more ubiquitous through automation of key-making and management through partnering with programs like Outlook and Thunderbird. To learn more about pEp, check...

Cindy Milstein, Part Two You're listening to the second half of my inteview with anarchist, activist and author Cindy Milstein as they toured with the book Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief , published last year by AK Press. In this portion of the conversation, Cindy will share about community support infrastructures in sickness and in health, the importance of play, the Montreal S...

Cindy Milstein, Part One Cindy Milstein is an anarchist, activist and author who was a touring few months back with Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief , published last year by AK Press. The book is compilation of essays by various authors about loss in it's myriad forms experienced under cis-hetero-patriarchy, in a capitalist settler colonialism, anti-Black and otherwise racist, abl...

This week William had the opportunity to speak with two people who are doing active support work for the folks involved in what's being called the "migrant caravan", a group of 7,000 or so people primarily from Honduras fleeting violence of many kinds. Firstly we'll hear from Chris, who is an organizer with Enclave Caracol, a social center which stands in solidarity with migrants in Tijuana. This...

Rural Organizing And Resiliency (ROAR) This week on The Final Straw Radio, we're sharing an interview with two members of Rural Organizing And Resilience, or ROAR, an anti-racist and mutual aid organization that's based in Madison County, North Carolina. Madison County is just north of Asheville and VERY Appalachian, with a small population that's sparsely populated in remote hollers and small tow...

Walidah Imarisha on Angels With Dirty Faces (rebroadcast) This week we are rebroadcasting an interview that William and Disembodied Voice conducted with Walidah Imarisha, who is an Oregon based writer, educator, public scholar and spoken word artist about her book Angels With Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, and Redemption , her 2016 book out from AK Press and IAS, which highlights thr...