Friday Film: The Free Voice of Labor

The Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists is a 1980 documentary by Steve Fischler and Joel Sucher of Pacific Street Films. It memorializes the story of the Yiddish anarchist newspaper Fraye Arbeter Shtime, and the Jewish anarchist movement of the early 20th century. The movie contained a short interview with a very young Joe Conason. Paul Avrich was a consultant on the film.

As of 2006, AK Press has begun distributing it as part of a double DVD release with Anarchism in America, named after the latter.

Wobbly Wednesday: Starbucks Union Press Conference

The Grand Rapids Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) held a May Day press conference outside the East Grand Rapids branch of Starbucks. The Press Conference was part of an ongoing campaign to get Starbucks to recognize the union's legal right to organize their workers. The Grand Rapids chapter of the IWW is part of a legal case along with another union in New York that has been challenging Starbucks' anti-union practices.

Trailer: DJ Spooky's "Rebirth of a Nation"

This film was on one of the specialty channels I am currently receiving for free. I'm kind of disappointed I didn't watch it. It is a hip-hop reinterperation of the racialist D.W. Griffith film Birth of a Nation. Birth presented a vision of the Civil War and reconstruction-era KKK in a sympathetic light.

Rebirth of a Nation turning the tables on the 1915 D.W. Griffith film that simultaneously launched the modern film industry and gave the Ku Klux Klan a foothold in the 20th Century. Dj Spooky applies DJ techniques to cinema in a way that parallels, deconstructs and remixes the original.

Monday Music Video: Ryan Harvey at IMF/WB Rally

Ryan Harvey is a Baltimore-area musicians and activist apart of the Riot Folk Collective. There's allot of his music floating around on torrent. The Riot Folk site used to have all his songs for free download, but it's down at the moment.

Weekend Emma: Prisons: A Social Crime And Failure Audio



Prisons: A Social Crime and Failure
is an essay written by Emma Goldman published in 1910.

One of the idea I really thought should be explored more is how prison labor should no be seen as scab labor or against the established labor market, and that unions should try and create solidarity with our brothers and sisters in jail being used as essentially slaves.


Listen to Prisons: A Social Crime and Failure at Audio Anarchy

Friday Film: Breaking the Spell

Breaking the Spell is a 1999 anarchist documentary, directed by Tim Lewis, Tim Ream, and Sir Chuck A. Rock.

Using amateur camera footage recorded by protesters at the scene of the 1999 WTO protests, it documents the events from the perspective of the anarchists, their opinions of fellow protesters, local politicians, and includes footage which aired nationally on 60 Minutes.

The film is currently distributed by CrimethInc. on the CrimethInc. Guerilla Film Series, Volume One DVD.

Wobbly Wednesday: IWW IU 460/640 March on HWH Trading

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) IU 460/640 marches on HWH Trading, a new shop where workers have joined the union. At HWH some workers work as much as 110-117 hours per week with no overtime pay.