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 sentence commuted by former U.S. President, Barack Obama in 2017. Having refused in 2019 to testify on principal before a grand jury in Virginia, spent 4 weeks in solitary confinement and has just been released to general population under the charge of civil contempt.

In the first part of this hour, we’ll hear from El & Eli, two supporters of Chelsea, about the grand jury, Chelsea’s resistance to it, and her incarceration. After that, we hear from two anarchist Grand Jury resistors of the last decade who support Chelsea about their personal experiences standing up to this unjust legal practice. First formerly incarcerated Grand Jury resistor, Jerry Koch, speaks about his experiences of resisting a grand jury for which he was imprisoned and mustered a defense that won his release. Then, Katie Yow speaks of her experience resisting a grand jury beginning in 2017 and her admiration and support for Chelsea. You can hear prior interviews with and about the resistance of Jerry Koch and Katie Yow at https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org.

You can find out more about Grand Jury resistance at Katie’s support page, https://ncresiststhegrandjury.com.

You can keep up on Chelsea’s case via their twitter handle, @resistschelsea, at their fedbook page called @chelsearesists, on their less-active website https://xychelsea.is. There are beautiful “Resist Grand Juries” t-shirts up at akpress.org that support Chelsea’s legal fundraiser, you can also check out the benefit album that Evan Greer helped make for Chelsea that's being used again for this fundraiser, or just check out the action network fundraiser for her legal defense.

 

Announcements

June 11th, 2019

From june11.org about the international day of solidarity with Marius Mason and long-term anarchist prisoners.:

 In the 15 years this tradition has been observed, June 11th has facilitated support and action inspired by imprisoned anarchists — from noise demonstrations outside of jails to letter-writing nights, from fundraisers to arson. Setting aside this day is one way of remembering anarchists who are serving long prison sentences, generating support for them, and inspiring solidarity actions.

Because social struggles phase in and out, this day is a way to make sure that our imprisoned comrades are not forgotten. Our lack of memory is partially a result of the techno-alienation of the larger culture we’re fighting against. But it’s also a product of the dynamics of the anarchist space. People become burnt out and the cycle of forgetting continues.

June 11th is a way of combating that amnesia, of trying to sustain a long-term memory in the anarchist space. Not only does this generate support for anarchists locked in the state’s prisons, it forces us to look back at what came before. Considering what previous generations did can both inspire us with ideas we’ve forgotten, and help us understand how our current practices came to be.

So, this is a call to organize ourselves actions for June 11th, 2019. Get some friends together, remember folks inside, remember our common struggles and engage in making ourselves the resistance we need to reverse this course of ecocide and tyranny.

NAASN 2019 May 31-June 2nd, Atlanta, GA

The North American Anarchist Studies Network is hosting it’s free, yearly conference in Atlanta. The following text is from their gofundme page at https://www.gofundme.com/help-bring-naasn-2019-to-atlanta-ga:

The North American Anarchist Studies Network (NAASN) is a network for the engagement of intellectual work, both within and without institutional walls.

The goal of the network is to serve as a means of mutual support for North American anarchists engaged in intellectual work, both theoretical and empirical; to facilitate and promote anarchist studies by bringing together students,academics, independent scholars, and activists from across the United States, Canada, and Mexico; and to provide a space for critical dialogue and reflection on anarchism.

This year's NAASN conference, "Emergent Horizons" will be hosted in Atlanta, GA. In keeping with the spirit of mutual aid and accessibility for all, we are asking for donations to help make this conference happen. 

Over the past years, NAASN has brought together hundreds of activists, academics, intellectuals, and artists across North America , including: Mexico City, Montreal, San Francisco, New Orleans, Portland, San Juan, and Toronto.  Previous presentations have included grassroots struggles, social and peasant movements, decolonization and Indigenous resurgence, border/imperialism, racism, police violence, torture, surveillance, technology, as well as biography, oral histories, historiography, and anarchist subcultures.

More on this year’s gathering is up at https://naasn2019.noblogs.org/. If you attend NAASN, come find The Final Straw table and say hi!

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