“If you stay up all night you owe it to yourself to watch sunrise, every time”

This week we are airing a presentation that Margaret Killjoy gave at Firestorm Books on the release day of her new release The Barrow Will Send What it May. This is the second in her Danielle Cain series which highlights magic, anarchism, queerness, punk squatter subculture and a bunch more.

The presentation consisted of a brief intro, a reading, and to end up a q&a session. As a warning to listeners, the reading describes the events of a car crash. This occurs between 11 and 12 minutes after the presentation starts, it is not graphic but if you aren’t in a good spot to hear that please feel free to turn the volume down.

Also, we have transcribed and re-recorded the questions in the final section, not because anything said was sketchy, but just to not air people’s voices that may not have wanted to be broadcast.

To find copies of Margaret’s book you can go to tor.com and search her name or the title of the book, and to see more of her work you can visit birdsbeforethestorm.net

To hear an interview that we did with her on the release of the first novella in this series, you can visit our blog and search her name.

This episode is scored with Nomadic War Machine’s new release, which is Margaret’s solo music project, called The Fields Lay Fallow off of her new album Always//Forever.

To round out the hour, we are presenting a much abridged version of the most recent Error 451, our sometimes weekly tech podcast that tackles tech as it pertains to anarchism, anarchists, and more generally, how to understand this strange, often terrible and sometimes alright world of tech!

Any aspiring techsters can find the full version of this podcast here, and if you wish you can keep up to date on these releases by either subscribing to our podcast feed by using “The Final Straw Radio” as your search or by keeping an eye on our website.

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Juneteenth and BRABC Event

This year incarcerated human rights activist Comrade Malik Washington put out the call for an international day of actions in solidarity with the movement to #EndPrisonSlavery on Juneteenth.

Juneteenth is a holiday celebrated on the 19th of June to commemorate and celebrate the end of legalized slavery in the United States. However, as prison rebels from Alabama to Texas to Florida and beyond have pointed out, the 13th amendment to the Constitution, which supposedly ended slavery, actually carves out an exception for people who have been convicted of a crime, meaning slavery was never fully abolished for incarcerated folks–a condition of exploitation and dehumanization clearly visible within the brutality of every aspect of the US prison system, and in the fact that incarcerated workers receive no meaningful compensation for their labor while in prison.

In response to this call for events, Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross will host a Juneteenth event at 5:30pm on June 19, at Firestorm Books. We will screen Ava Duvernays award-winning documentary “13th,” discuss how people can get involved in the movement to #EndPrisonSlavery, and send some cards to prison rebels who need a little love and light right now! Hope to see you there!

Malik Washington’s Statement in Support of Sean Swain

Revolutionary Greetings, comrades! It’s me, Comrade Malik in Texas.

  This June 11th I’d like to ask all of y’all to send some Love, Light, and Commissary CA$H to my brother in struggle Sean Swain in Ohio.

  Sean has dedicated a lot of time and effort to supporting and sustaining the work done by the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee. Sean has edited our publications and provided much needed direction for our Abolition movement. Sean continues to make personal sacrifices for the good of all, and he never ceases to speak Truth to Power. In the following months I hope to work directly with Sean so we can tear this entire thing down!

  Hopefully I will become an honorary 13th Monkey!!?

In Struggle 4 Life,

Malik

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Playlist here.