The Final Straw Radio The Final Straw Radio

"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.
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Featured Tracks: Asheville BID song (unknown artist) Moving Through The Streets (instrumental)

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

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.
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Featured Track: Get It Together (Buck Wild Instrumental) by Beastie Boys from Get It Together

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/  

A recent chat with Jeremy White, film-maker, activist, and street medic who’s facing prison time in what has been dubbed the “San Diego Antifa” case. You’ll hear Jeremy talk about what happened on January 9th, 2021 at the Stop The Steal rally, how the police interacted with members of American Guard and Proud Boys as they assaulted passers by, the conspiracy-theory driven DA Sommers Stephan and where the case was before it resumed on March 18th, after we recorded this chat. As always, thank you for the support in getting voices like these further into the world. Jeremy also worked on a horror-comedy film called "Bitch Ass".
Fundraising on the case: Give Butter to benefit two defendants in the case: http://givebutter.com/protest-defense-sandiego Instagram: @SuperPowerToThePeople Fundraising for Tallcan, former defendant: Benefit concert Saturday, May 18th 2024 @Birdcage Comics
165 W Hospitality Lane,
Suite 17
San Bernadino, CA 92408
Doors @ 6pm / ALLAGES
$8 Suggested donation / (no one will be turned away for lack of funds)
The proceeds from this show will go to legal funds and family support.
FEATURING LIVE PERFORMANCES BY:
SEXETTE / GLORBO / THE HAIL MARIAS / DOVE / LOW SWEEP Venmo: @PUSHINGDOWNTHEWALLS
Cashapp: $PUSHINGDOWNTHEWALLS
Please put "TC" in the notes.  
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Featured Track: Comrades by Bambu from Party Worker

SCI Rockview is a prison in central Pennsylvania where incarcerated comrades have been facing repression for demanding justice in the face of impunity by racist COs and following a year of prisoner deaths due to institutional toxicity and guard violence. We speak to an outside supporter about the situation at Rockview, the reactions of administration, inside / outside relationships and solidarity that have flared up. We hope that this conversation contributes to increased and thickened ties between folks on both sides of the walls. You can read some recent posts about this situation at AbolitionistStudy.com and PHLAntiCap.NoBlogs.org and you can find audio from the wives of prisoners at SCI Rockview on In The Mix Prisoner Podcast. A few other sites of interest include StudyAndStruggle.com, DC IWOC on instagram, and In The Belly Journal.
This conversation was conducted via encrypted messages and recorded by a comrade Golem and Ash from the the MolotovNow! Podcast, so a big thanks is due to them.
Transcript PDF (Unimposed) Zine (Imposed PDF) Announcement Jorge “Yorch” Esquivel Jorge has now been held in prison for over a year without a trial, and urgently needs funds to cover legal fees and prison costs (food, water, phone calls, visits, administration fees, service costs, etc).
Jorge "Yorch" Esquivel is a beloved compañero of the punk community, and a long-time participant of the Okupa Che. He was arrested on December 8, 2022 by plainclothes police as he was leaving the campus of the Ciudad Universitaria (of the UNAM university) in Mexico City as part of a campaign of criminalization against the Okupa  or squat.
BACKGROUND
On February 24, 2016, an operative was carried out in which plainclothes policemen detained him, "planting" drugs on him in order to fabricate crimes, and accusing him of drug trafficking, as part of a campaign of repression on the squatted auditorium Okupa Che in UNAM (still existing). The whole case was plagued with irregularities. He was transferred to Oaxaca and then to a maximum-security prison in Hermosillo as a strategy to hinder his legal defense by taking him far away from his support networks. Thanks to the solidarity and legal work, he was reclassified from the crime of drug dealing to simple possession of narcotics, and was released on bail in March 2016.
Even though he was no longer in prison, he was not out of danger. Constant threats and journalistic reports did not cease; the press even reported his death and accused him of participating in organized crime. Meanwhile, steps were being taken to frame him once again and re-arrest him for the same fabricated crime.
On December 8, 2022 he was arrested in exactly the same place - a few steps outside Ciudad Universitaria, where the Okupa is located, once again by plainclothes police - with the grounds for this illegal
detention being that the Attorney General's Office appealed the decision to reclassify the crime.
The compañero's health is fragile due to an extended hospitalization a couple years back and the toll the prison conditions have taken on him.
CURRENT SITUATION
Jorge is currently incarcerated in the Reclusorio Oriente prison in Mexico City. The legal process is still in the evidence stage. Several hearings have been postponed and Jorge’s process is being delayed and prolonged to keep him in what is called “preventative imprisonment” with no sentence, which is common for cases of political prisoners in Mexico.
Despite the fact that there is no evidence to keep him in prison, the strategy of the State is clearly to drag it out as long as possible, which is a tortuous level of uncertainty for all of us close to Jorge.
Thanks to the solidarity of individuals, collectives and networks, it has been possible to cover Jorge's expenses inside the prison, which have been very high due to the corruption that reigns in Mexican prisons. We are raising funds to support his legal costs and basic needs to be able to surv