This week I had the chance to speak to Ricchi, who is a Puerto Rican anarchist, about an autonomous squatted community center in Borique called Valle Garita. In this episode, we talk about the squatted space and the intentions of the organizers, plus the cultural context of squatting, reactions of the police, landlord, and bank, and some concrete asks for solidarity and support from non locals. We end the show with a brief report back and analysis of what went down on May Day in San Juan and all over Puerto Rico, so stay tuned for that!

To connect with this project you can go to their website at https://www.urbeapie.com/ , and to write them you can email [email protected]

On the social media, you can follow the Valle Garita squat by following @vallegarita or following that same hashtag, you can also search for them on Facebook. You can also follow Urbe Apie on Instagram @urbeapie.

For sending cards and letters of support you can address envelopes to:

Urbe Apie Paseo Gautier Bénitez #16 Caguas Puerto Rico 00725

Letters can be written in Spanish, English, or any other language!

A brief correction from our last show where I interviewed Nutty about the monopod blockade at the Hellbender Autonomous Zone, I stated that the MVP was overseen by Dominion Resources and Duke Energy, and that is not the case, I was thinking of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The MVP is in fact owned by EQT Midstream Partners and NextEra Energy, Inc. EQT has a history of fracking and is now trying to get into transport. Thanks to all the people who set me right on that! If you have any questions or corrections, don't hesitate to email us at [email protected]

Shoutout to Nutty, Red, and Minor, and all those who are protecting and defending the land and water from predatory corporate pipelines!

For regular listeners of The Final Straw, the sound quality might not be what you are used to from us. We are continuing to experiment with our audio set ups, please bear with us through these experiments!

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Josh Gerdts Memorial Fund

In some very sad news, Josh Gerdts, an anti-racist skinhead, was murdered two days ago in Chesterfield County just south of Richmond VA. He leaves behind a family, including a very young child. The family has set up a gofundme to help pay for the funeral and to help raise the child, which you can find at http://www.gofundme.com/joshgerdts

Rest in power, Josh. You will be missed.

Vendenga Rojava: a New Radio Show out of Rojava, Mesopotamia

VEDENGA ROJAVA – ECHOES OF THE RESISTANCE An internationalists radio project bringing an inside look into Afrin resistance. Revolutionaries from different parts of the world organized in different collectives and organizations in Rojava found and importance to come together and launch an audio project focused on the peoples resistance against an invasion of Afrin canton carried by the fascist state of Turkey and its jihadist proxies. Our aim is to spread an awareness of this historical event and inspire English speaking folks all over the globe by ongoing struggle and revolutionary organizing in Afrin, Rojava and beyond. Listen and share our reports, updates, analysis, interviews, stories about life of fallen comrades, music and more. This radio show is a limited project and will have only three issues. For more tune us up on May 16th on soundcloud.com/vedengarojava."

No More Deaths

From nomoredeaths.org: "On January 17, Scott Warren – a humanitarian aid provider from the group No More Deaths – and two individuals receiving humanitarian aid were arrested by US Border Patrol. Scott was preliminarily charged with felony harboring and could face five years in prison.

The arrests took place just 8 hours after No More Deaths released a video of Border Patrol agents destroying water gallons and aid supplies, and a report which concludes that Border Patrol plays a significant role in the destruction of humanitarian aid.

We need your support to fight these charges and resist the dangerous, divisive claim that sharing food and water with undocumented immigrants is a criminal offense."

If you would like to donate to this group, which does excellent solidarity work with people crossing the southern border between Mexico and the US, you can visit this particular page at http://forms.nomoredeaths.org/defend-volunteers-facing-federal-charges/

This is coming on the heels of ramped up repression by border patrol against No More Deaths, for an article about this issue you can visit https://theintercept.com/2018/04/30/were-gonna-take-everyone-border-patrol-targets-prominent-humanitarian-group-as-criminal-organization/

ACAB2018

We are well into our preparation for the next Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair, happening June 22nd-24th, and we want to invite you to participate in shaping the themes and helping gear up for this exciting weekend!

We are holding an interest meeting to ask for volunteers and discuss possible contributions folks can make:

Monday May 7 at 7pm Firestorm Books 610 Haywood Road

Our main items where we need help are:

Street Team Promotion, Online/Social Media Promotion, Arranging Housing for Out of Towners, Fundraising, Cook Food, DAY OF (biggest Need) If you have other ideas, we welcome your input!

If you can't make the meeting, we've made an online signup sheet which you can find here.

http://acab2018.noblogs.org, [email protected], and Instagram: @ACAB.2018 . … . ..

Playlist here.