This week's show features a conversation with Ian Coldwater, a co-founder of the Coldsnap Legal Collective, about Conspiracy Trials, Grand Juries, Security Culture and technology. We discuss some of the trials that have come up against Anarchists, Animal and Earth defenders and other radicals over the last 8 years in the U.S. and Canada with an eye towards what we can learn in order to increase our safety as activists and radicals.

This show will be archived at www.ashevillefm.org/the-final-straw from 2/13-2/20/12 and can later be found at www.archive.org by searching the title "conspiracy trials, grand juries and security culture".

For months EGT, a wholly owned subsidiary of multinational corporation Bunge, Inc, kept ILWU Local 21 members from working the Port of Longview, WA. They had been replaced by other grain elevator operators in violation -- as claimed by the ILWU -- of a contract EGT had signed with the Port.

On December 12th, the Occupy Movement again demonstrated its ability to mobilize by shutting down the Port of Oakland, affecting other ports on the West Coast, and turning out protesters all over the world. Part of that action was in solidarity with ILWU Local 21.

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A few weeks ago, I was sipping tea with my favorite Marxist--he bought me the tea cuz I'm hella broke--and I was telling him how I'd been offered a job that pays $50 an hour, but I was thinking about not taking it.

"Why not?" he asked. "You need that money."

Pedro Pablo - [El Libertario, # 65, February-March 2012, Venezuela. Trans. Luis]

Politics, in the larger sense, has long ceased to be the focus of reflexive thinking, everywhere degenerating into cheap tricks, lies, propaganda, promises and deceits in the race for more power. However, from the XVI to the XVIII centuries it was one of the main topics of thought when modern nation-states and their ways of government were formed; when, from Machiavelli to Tocqueville, Hobbes and Rousseau, politics was a problem to be solved. But, as Marx and Proudhon recognized, in the XIX century, when capitalism became hegemonic and representative forms of government became general, the main themes became the economy and society. The poles in the debate ceased being political and became the model of property, bourgeoisie or proletariat, unequal or re-distributive, stratification or social mobility, in force no matter what the dominant political regime was. More recently, towards the middle of the XX century certain voices arouse to re-think politics.

Continuum 'Contemporary Anarchist Studies'

We are delighted to announce the first title in the new peer-reviewed book series 'Contemporary Anarchist Studies', published by Continuum Books.

Anarchism and Political Modernity by Nathan Jun is the first offering in the series. This original work looks at the place of “classical anarchism” in postmodern political discourse, claiming that anarchism presents a vision of political postmodernity. The book seeks to foster a better understanding of why and how anarchism is growing in the present. To do so, it first looks at its origins and history, offering a different view from the two traditions that characterize modern political theory: socialism and liberalism. Such an examination leads to a better understanding of how anarchism connects with newer political trends and why it is a powerful force in contemporary social and political movements.

From a Small Group of Oakland Radicals

We are a group of radical Oakland activists who have been involved with Occupy Oakland from the very first days. We were previously unknown to each other and met as a result of our frequent participation in OO events and GAs. Two of us (a married couple) moved in to the encampment on the second day at Oscar Grant Plaza (OGP) and have attended all daily camp facilitation meetings and most OO events since then. Another has been active in the POC Committee and Children’s Village/Children Parents, and Allies Committee. Another was involved within the labor community and in the early days of the Move-In Committee.

In our individualistic culture, it is rare when radical activists are able to pitch a big tent and draw in masses of people to the cause. The early days of the Occupy movement provided one of those rare opportunities. Occupy was the spark for the emergence of a broad wave of anti-corporate, anti-repression sentiment in our society. We are concerned that the inclusivity that began this movement and contributed to its rapid growth is dying in OO as a result of the dominant insurrectionist tendencies and the “vanguardist” maneuvering and manipulations of some of its proponents.

The first Occupation of Occupy Portland was betrayed from the inside because the leaders never devised any rational social system for the camp. The only alternative they were left with to maintain order was to plot to shut it down, which they did.

Anarchism provides the only realistic social awareness that could allow for order within such a community (a community opposed to the laws of our society), but the leaders in the camp were firmly anti-anarchist. Anarchism demands that the person is not alienated from the fruits of their labor, i.e. the power within their own bodies to assure their survival.

Below is a working framework for anarchist social organization derived from a recent article on Anarchism by Lester Macgurdy and the tribal laws of Pashtunwali.