This year has felt like there’ve been a series of large sports mega events and summits planned and taking place in cities across the USA. For instance, starting in June the FIFA World Cup will be hosted in cities across the country (as well as a few in Mexico and Canada). Also a few cities are hosting meetings and an eventual summit related to the G20, or group of 20 economies, a gathering between large capitalist industries, banks, para-grovernmental neoliberal international institutions, government ministries and heads of state that share policy decisions effecting immigration, wars, trade policy and the climate. In 2028 Los Angeles will host the Olympics.
This episode will feature two discussions about some of the security impacts of hosting large sports or political events and the ways that the state and capital work to change the landscape and norms of the locations they take place. First up, Kristian Williams speaks about National Special Security Events like the G20 or World Cup, how they change local police and surveillance landscapes and work to turbocharge gentrification and displace working and poor people, making our cities more hostile to anything but commerce and control. Then, you’ll hear from Sam Schmidt at Our Streets Collective to speak about homeless sweeps in Pittsburgh, PA in the run-up to and aftermath of the 2026 NFL Draft taking place in that city.
- Kristian Williams past interviews on TFSR
- new book, Policing The Progressive City
- Our Streets Collective: https://www.ourstreetscollective.org/
- Article showing complaints to police in Pittsburgh about homelessness
- info-page for PopEd around G20 in Asheville this year: g20avl.noblogs.org
- past episodes relating to G20 protests and repression on TFSR
- Prosfigyka video by Sub.Media: https://sub.media/prosfygika-resist/
- Prosfigyka coverage by Pyrias of Athens appears on this episode of B(A)D News podcast
Announcement
Marius Mason
Longtime listeners to The Final Straw Radio will be familiar with the yearly June 11th Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason and other Longterm Anarchist Prisoners. Well, stay tuned for an announcement from the June 11 crew in coming weeks with a recording of this year’s call. We are happy to announce here that Marius Mason, a long standing ecological, animal rights and trans prisoner rights activist will is on his way out of prison, currently in a halfway house having served out his sentence,
- Past interviews on Marius’ case, other prisoners supported on the day and June 11th yearly event
- https://supportmariusmason.org/ for how to donate to his post-release and updates
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Featured Track:
- TFSR by The Willows Whisper
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