This week, a new contributor, Ian, talks to cartoonist and educator Johnny Damm about his recent releases I’m a cop, featuring dialogue from Police Union speeches and Riot Comics: Tompkins Square Park, which explores the 1988 Tompkins Square Riot in which Police evicted an unhoused encampment in the park on New York’s Lower East Side. They discuss the collage technique by which Damm assembles his comics, how his work dovetails with the larger work of abolition, and the role of propaganda in movement-making. Listeners can follow Johnny Damm on twitter @dammjohnny (with two m’s) and on IG @johnny.damm. His website is JohnnyDamm.com  Transcript PDF (Unimposed) Zine (Imposed PDF)  Also notable, are Damm's influence by Jack Halberstam's ideas that became the book The Queer Art of Failure ala the Failure Biographies book, and Damm's representations of the Compton's Cafeteria Riot, a similar but smaller trans and queer uprising in San Francisco  in 1966, preceding the more famous Stone Wall Riots of 1969 in New York City. . ... . .. Featured Track:  More Light by J Mascis and The Fog from More Light 

Comics, Collage and Anti-Copaganda with Johnny Damm

The Final Straw Radio is a weekly, anarchist show eminating from occupied Cherokee lands in so-called North Carolina and featuring the voices of folks engaged in struggles for liberation and the creation of rad culture since 2009.  We're also syndicated on a few community radio stations around the U.S. We frequently also feature radio commentaries from anarchist prisoner Sean Swain and are a proud member of CZN (The Channel Zero Network) and ARN (The A-Radio Network).

Check out our past archives and ways to connect with us at https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org

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Asheville's Southside Community Farm This week, we're sharing a recent interview with Chloe Moore, a steward, farmer and educator at the Southside Community Farm, in the historically Black neighborhood of Southside in Asheville, NC. The farm has been serving the neighborhood and the region with free and inexpensive, fresh produce for a decade, providing educational opportunities, grocery deliveries, an herb garden and a BIPOC farmers market. The farm sits on land owned by the public Housing Authority of the City of Asheville (HACA) and there is currently a threat that HACA will destroy the farm. For the hour we talk about the work of the farm, the legacy of a community farm in the wake of government policies that destroy Black communities, and ways that community members can support the SCF and help it thrive. . ... . .. Featured Track:  Rise Above by Ibeyi from Spell 31 

Asheville's Southside Community Farm

"Clean For Who? Safe For Who?": Asheville Business Improvement District We sat down with three local activists to talk about the proposed Asheville Business Improvement District, a model of service provision using public funding to increase policing in downtown by an unelected and unaccountable body of largely business and property owners. For the hour, Grace, Madison and Elliot talk about attempts to ram the BID through public process, some of the businesses and individuals behind it, how bids have panned out in other cities around the country and what space there is left to oppose this further privatization of public space in Asheville. We didn’t mention it here, but there have also been rumblings of the BID model, a version of which was fought and never funded in 2012, being applied to other parts of Asheville, for example West Asheville. You can find more information and ways to get involved with folks organizing against the Business Improvement District at AshevilleBID.com and on Instagram at @NoAVLBid. This is our show for the week of May 12th. As a quick note, there are a few acronyms frequently used in this conversation. One is RFP, which stands for Request for Proposals and is a process of contracting out an element of a project. Another acronym is ADA, in this case Asheville Downtown Association which is an independent pressure group made up of individuals, business and property owners. Not to be confused with the Asheville Downtown Commission, which was created by the City Council and contains appointed representatives from the ADA, city council, Buncombe County Board of Commissioners and few other community members including business owners. . ... . .. Featured Tracks:  Asheville BID song (unknown artist) Moving Through The Streets (instrumental) 

"Clean For Who? Safe For Who?": Asheville Business Improvement District

This week, two segments plus Sean Swain Don Bosco Park Defense in Bologna First up, an interview submitted by audio comrades in Italy about the struggle against the cementization of the city of Bologna and the defense of Don Bosco park from the expansion of a university, highways… the whole urban landscape without the input of the residents so the city can move a school rather than renovate it. This struggle, including the occupation and defense of the park, represents an innovation in urban struggles in Italy which consciously takes inspiration from the struggle to Stop Cop City in so-called Atlanta and the activities of the park defenders has forced the left-leaning municipal government and mayor to temporarily suspend the cutting of trees. [00:02:04 - 00:27:10] Bernard Jemison on Conditions and Resistance in AL Prisons Then, you’ll hear Bernard Jemison, an incarcerated activist held in Holman prison in Alabama talking about conditions inside the ADOC recent calls for prisoner strikes in the state by the Free Alabama Movement and their outside supporters, as well as his views on the demands being made. [00:27:57 - 01:05:10] The demands that we mention are the following:  BILL TO REPEAL THE HABITUAL OFFENDER ACT ON THE TABLE CIVIL CLASS ACTION LITIGATION FOR PAROLE ALREADY FILED. EVERYONE NEEDS TO SIGN UP. PAROLE BILL ON THE TABLE WE NEED TO ABOLISH LWOP AND CREATE AN AVENUE FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS. NO MORE NITROGEN GAS EXECUTIONS.. STOP SELLING OUR ORGANS.  A few articles on the subjects worth reading include:  https://www.yahoo.com/news/death-rate-alabama-prisons-five-091450767.html https://www.alabamasmartjustice.org/reports/hfoa https://www.al.com/news/montgomery/2024/03/alabama-legislature-seeks-to-solve-missing-organ-issue.html https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/crime/2024/03/15/death-rate-in-alabama-prisons-is-five-times-the-us-average/72936145007/ Statement of support by CCR for a strike called for by Free Alabama Movement: https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/center-constitutional-rights-stands-solidarity-mass-prison-strike  Social media accounts Bernard thinks are doing a good job covering these issues:  @Hopedealersprisonreform is Bernard on TikTok @truthbehindbars is a private facebook Bernard contributes to @prison_toks on TikTok  . ... . .. Featured Track:  On Point (instrumental) by House of Pain 

Don Bosco Park Defense in Bologna + Bernard Jemison on Conditions & Resistance in AL Prisons

This week, you'll hear our chat with Simón Sedillo, author of Weapons, Drugs & Money: Crime, Corruption, and Community Based Liberation in the U.S./Mexico Neoliberal Military Political Economy. Simón talks a little about his early days in media near the start of the Indymedia world, his documentary that became the news website El Enemigo Común (which translates to “the common enemy”) which covered grassroots, indigenous led movements in southern so-called Mexico, and about his book with a focus on intervention and integration from capitalist and military powers in the US, multinational banking and big pharma and the violence against and resilience of indigenous communities under that nation-state.  Transcript PDF (Unimposed) Zine (Imposed PDF)  Check out the website https://www.weaponsdrugsandmoney.org/ for more info on how to order a copy, and the chapters are being posted and translated into castellano at https://elenemigocomun.net/ , where you can find two decades + of really interesting content. Simón suggests people follow Avispa Mídia https://avispa.org/ as a project following in the legacy of El Enemigo Común. A big thanks to Mitchell Verter for the suggestion. . ... . .. Featured Track:  Get It Together (Buck Wild Instrumental) by Beastie Boys from Get It Together 

Crime, Corruption, and Community Based Liberation in the U.S./Mexico Neoliberal Military Political Economy

Josh Hart of Feather River Action! in Plumas county joined me to speak about US Forest Service plans for an emergency thinning of forests in this north east part of so-called California and which is threatened to be reproduced in other Federal and private lands in the name of fire prevention around the country. We talk about the claims, motivations and alternative proposals of activists, scientists and community members and the upcoming Lost Sierra Forest-Climate Action Camp happening in the area at the end of May 23-29th. Here's another group working on the issue:  http://johnmuirproject.org/   

Comics, Collage and Anti-Copaganda with Johnny Damm

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