Communique 012: The Carceral State of the Nation

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Elias sits down with Dr. Christopher Petrella, a Lecturer in American Cultural Studies and Associate Director of Programs for the Office of Equity and Diversity (OED) at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and contributor to Boston Review and Black Perspectives (African American Intellectual Historical Society) to discuss his work on exploring and exposing the private prison industry, which has previously been featured in The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, Boston Review, and The New Yorker, has appeared on ESPN and NPR, and has been debated in the U.S. House of Representatives. Strap in, Unsettlers, this is a good one!

Talking points:

Renown Scholar Forced to Discuss The Onion; a town with more prisons than stop lights; when private prisons become ubiquitous, are private prisons “normal”?; “mass incarceration” vs “the carceral state”; you don’t have to be in prison to be imprisoned–how are bodies criminalized?; immigration becomes a crime–crossing the Streamline; detainment as a “market”; bed quotas and minimum occupancy requirements for ICE and prisons; “if you build it, you will fill it”–empty prisons lead to uncomfortable questions; banks built the prisons; don’t get it twisted–“state-funded” prisons aren’t “better”; our previous “victories”; why stocks for private prison corporations surged after Trump’s win; race and the state; weaponizing a census; “real estate companies who dabble in incarceration.”

Related links:

Communique 009: It’s Gonna Be May Day

HAPPY MAY DAY! Elias and Athena bring you a brief history of May Day in Massachusetts and beyond, and discuss state efforts to subvert the holiday, the Janarchists of Fyre Festival, prank calling ICE, gay frog week, another awful beverage ad, and more!

Stream or download on SoundCloud or iTunes.

Talking points: Untouched by an angel; that little guy? I wouldn’t worry about that little guy; a-Maying grace; moderation is involved; open yr fresh can; Athena doesn’t like it; the Duke of Fuck-You vs Lord I-Do-What-I-Want; feedin’ the cedar meter; Puritans HATE him–click to see why!; the storied Malorkus’s of Braintree; the “Haymarket thing;” 1919: Boston PD become Hot Cops; kill Mayor Whitey; gargling foie gras; the Albert Parsons Project (oy); Loyalty Day, Law Day, and Labor Day; it’s okay if you keep laboring thaaanks; live every week like it’s #gayfrogweek; Rise of the Janarchists, climb in a megafauna and sautee a mouse in yr pee; spam on ICE; somebody’s Heiney is crowding my nice talks; Family Double Dare in a warehouse with alcohol and racists; literally “hold my beer;” painting Chase Bank on fire is not a crime; elaborate heist maps; Dali the chrono-terrorist; M’aidez Rhonda.

Relevant Links:
The incomplete, true, authentic and wonderful history of May Day (Peter Linebaugh, LibCom.org)
May Day 2017: Nothing is Over, Forward We Continue (It’s Going Down)
The Next 100 Days: May Day and Worker Resistance Under Trump / Los Próximos 100 Días: El Primero De Mayo Y La Resistencia Obrera Bajo Trump (Black Rose Federation/Federación Anarquista Rosa Negra)
Not to be a downer, but here’s a reality check on ‘Loyalty Day’ (The Los Angeles Times)
Activists stage sit-in to protest detention of immigrants (Lisa Wangsness, The Boston Globe)
Lizard People of NY and TruthBang.net
I Worked at Fyre Festival. It Was Always Going to Be a Disaster. (Chloe Gordon, New York Magazine)
$12,000 luxury Fyre Festival is basically a disaster zone (Alex Young, Consequence of Sound)
The Heineken Ad Is Worse Than The Pepsi Ad, You’re Just Too Stupid To Know It (DiDi Delgado, Medium)
Of Mead And Molotov (Rhyd Wildermuth, Gods and Radicals)
Alex Schaefer’s Paintings Of Burning Banks From His ‘Disaster Capitalism’ Series (Mutant Space)
Paganism, Anarchism and May Day (The Final Straw Radio)
The History of May Day (Resonance: An Anarchist Audio Distro)

Communique 007: In the Pocket of Big Parpo

Download/stream here, or find it on iTunes!

Elias and Athena with the week in bullshit: tone-deaf ads, war-mongering politicians, confusion in the White House, and more.

Talking points: Technical difficulties, “that’s too high,” there’s no such thing as a free information, 3 Infinite Jests’ worth of documents, the black pants-ers?, the Pepsi® blues, highly irregular products, Big Parpo, 6th-grader-birthday-size soda, the most orange of the Grey Champions, Right Hand Bansquantch, Steve the shitty dungeonmaster, Post-Nunes, why does anyone believe in anything?, V for Vagina Dentata, BORED–NEXT!, Somerville People’s Protection Units, extremely dense, don’t be a tankie, foreign policy negging, a different kind of shitty, what’s your favorite anti-North Korea military exercise name?

Relevant Links:
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Pepsi Pulls Controversial Kendall Jenner Ad (The Daily Beast)
How Devin Nunes is Threatening the Constitution (David Corn, Mother Jones)
Steve Bannon Believes The Apocalypse Is Coming And War Is Inevitable (Paul Blumenthal, JM Rieger, Huffington Post)
Syria’s war: a 5-minute history (Max Fisher, Johnny Harris, Vox)
Trump’s Options for North Korea Include Placing Nukes in South Korea (, ,

Playlist:
Talking Heads – Don’t Worry About the Government
Parquet Courts – Careers in Combat
Television Personalities – How I Learned to Love the Bomb

Aaaand the ad, as promised: