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listen to this mega episode: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thefinalstrawradio/tfsr_podcast-20210425-An_Indian_Anarchist_on_Anti_Caste_Organizing.mp3 An Indian Anarchist on…

This week, we’re airing a conversation recorded by Eda Levinson on September 12th, 2002, with political prisoner Veronza Bowers, Jr. It originally aired on Youth Speaks Out on KZYX in Modesto County, California, and we re-air this with permission of Veronza and the current producer of the Youth Speaks Out. The show continues to produce youth focused and progressive content available at YouthSpeaksOut.net.

For the hour, you’ll hear former Black Panther Party member Veronza describe to the audience in his own words his upbringing, his experiences of racism, his time in prison, his case, his views on the burgeoning War on Terror, and the situation of political prisoners in the US. You’ll also hear some recordings of Veronza playing the shakuhachi bamboo flute. Veronza was convicted of the death of a US Park Ranger on the word of two prison informants who were paid and received reduced sentences. Veronza continues to claim his innocence and he has been illegally held beyond his mandatory release date of June 21, 2005, based on political pressure by GW Bush appointed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales apparently on behalf of the Association of National Park Rangers, the widow of the dead ranger and the Fraternal Order of Police.

This is a conversation with Geoff Aung (@Rgnhardliner on twitter), a Burmese American Marxist anthropology Phd candidate at Columbia University living abroad, about the current uprising, repression and revolutionary potentials in Myanmar. We discuss the evolution of tactics on the ground as revolutionaries adapt to the brutal murders of protesters by the state. Geoff also talks about the ways in which this movement is different from similar current movements in Asia and some of the historical context of struggle in Myanmar.

This week on The Final Straw, we feature a conversation between our occasional host, Scott, and adrienne maree brown. For the hour, Scott and adrienne speak about “We Will Not Cancel Us and Other Dreams of Transformative Justice”, her latest booklet available through AK Press, as well as sci-fi, abolition, harm, accountability and healing.

This week, we’re presenting three segments, all related in some way to prison. We hear an essay by an anarchist prisoner in Chile about a prison massacre on it’s 10th anniversary, the voice of David Easley reporting from within a covid outbreak in an Ohio prison, and the voice of someone who’s protest against nuclear weapons was leading her to incarceration.

Airs on WSFM-LP 103.3 in Asheville / streaming at AshevilleFM…

The following is a recording from November of 2017 at Burning Books of a conversation between Rik Scarce and Leslie James Pickering about property destruction, terrorism labels and the radical ecological movement. Rik and Leslie speak about definitions of violence, concerns around alienating the wider community and repercussions of militancy.

Dr Modibo Kadalie talks about autonomous community organizing, the contradictions between the survival of the species and capitalism, CLR James, his read on Pan-Africanism and Social Ecology, the pandemic, and direct democracy. We also talk about Geechee history in south so-called Georgia, the weaknesses of nationalism, hierarchy and revering individual historical figures and the strength of spontaneity and community action.

This week we’re sharing a chat with Graham Clumpner, an anarchist veteran of the U.S. military from the early days of the so-called Global War on Terror. Graham works with the Mosquito Fleet, engaging in resisting oil drilling in the arctic and elsewhere through direct action.

Wayne Price is longtime anarchist, author and currently a member of Bronx Climate Justice North and the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council, or MACC, in New York City. His most recent book is “The Value Of Radical Theory: An Anarchist Introduction to Marx’s Critique of Political Economy” (AK Press, 2013)

This week, we feature two conversations. Cora Borradaile and Michele Gretes, folks involved in the Digital Security Project of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, speak about contact tracing apps and surveillance. Then, Se speaks about Tucson Food Share’s grocery distribution program.

Barry Pateman was born in the early 1950’s, grew up in a working class coal mining town of Doncaster in the UK and became an anarchist in the 1960’s in London. He is a longstanding member of the Kate Sharpley Library which covers histories of little-known anarchists and events in history. We talk about anarchist history, community, repression, defeat, insularity, popular front with authoritarian Marxists, class analysis and how to beat back capitalism. Find Kate Sharpley Library at KateSharpleyLibrary.Net

This week we feature two segments, first up we got to chat with Hill Brown about Asheville’s response to the pandemic in terms of public health, drug use and the houseless communities. Then, Jason Renard Walker talks about his journalism, activism and troubles in the Texas prison system.

First we hear from Deja, the fiance of incarcerated copwatcher Ramsey Orta (who has been persecuted for recording the police killing of Eric Garner in 2014) who is currently being denied personal cleaning items by staff at Midstate CI in New York state. Deja is seeking support to pressure NY to releases Ramsey who is less than 90 days from the end of his sentence for a nonviolent conviction. Then, two members of Unemployed Humans Organizing Help who are organizing rent resistance and lobbying for housing relief for houseless members of the community.​

This week, we feature a conversation with Matt of Rural Organizing and Resilience about mutual aid during pandemic. Then David Forbes talks about journalism, Asheville and anarchism.