This originally aired on The Final Straw radio show.
Director Mohr? If you are there pick up the phone. Director Mohr? This is Sean Swain, calling you from the Super-Duper Max…. You know the guy who exposed how your sell-out policy for Jpay mega-profits was illegal? Yeah. You had my communication blocked for eight weeks to stop my participation in the Final Straw radio show….apparently somebody at your office there figured out how to use the interweb and discovered that I was still telling the truth about you from the Super-Duper Max, so you pulled the plug on me? Well, I’m back on the phone now. I wish you would pick up <sigh> No? You’re just gonna hide under your desk and pretend like your not there?
Okay. I guess I’ll just leave you a long message to play back. Continue reading
Author Archives: Sean Swain
Radio Essay: In Support of James Kilgore
This originally aired on The Final Straw radio show.
Have you heard about the case of adjunct professor James Kilgore at the University of Illinois, in Urbana-Champaign? Kilgore is an interesting guy. In the early 1970’s, he was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, which makes him a personal hero of mine. The SLA was an urban guerrilla faction that robbed banks, kidnapped Patty Hearst, and- along with the Weather Underground- effectively brought an end to the Vietnam War. As one demand for the release of Patty Hearst, the SLA had Hearst’s father, the publishing magnate, deliver millions of dollars in free food to the inner-city poor of Oakland.
There is a PBS documentary called “Guerrilla”about the SLA it’s inspiring.
Starting in 1975, Kilgore went underground and lived overseas until 2002. Kilgore came back to the U.S. and plead guilty to possession of explosives from 1975 and to passport fraud. He served six years in prison and since 2010, Kilgore has been on the faculty of the University of Illinois in Urbana, teaching classes on Urban Planning and Global Studies. Continue reading
Statement for Never Alone Art Exhibit
From: NeverAloneArt.org
An audio recording of this statement was broadcast on the Final Straw on June 8th.
I used to be a big fan of writer Daniel Quinn. For anyone unfamiliar, Quinn wrote Ishmael, My Ishmael, and Beyond Civilization, among other works. What I appreciated was that, through reasoned analysis, he led his readers to see that tribal living was not inferior to what we have now and, in fact, was probably superior. The logical conclusion from reading Quinn would be that this way of life, what I call SWIVILIZATION, with its mass production and its concurrent mass destruction, needs to go.
I’m sure that such a general statement – that Swivilization needs to go – would be acceptable to Marie Mason and to Eric McDavid. What I mean is, it would seem that such a statement would be a point of agreement for Marie Mason, Eric McDavid and Daniel Quinn.
Yet, as I understand it, when Quinn was asked to make a statement in support of Marie Mason, he not only refused but got somewhat irate and accused that people like Marie, engaging in radical attacks against the larger system, are part of the problem. Continue reading
Translations!
Some of Sean’s writings were recently translated into other languages by anarchists around the world!
Who the Fuck is Sean Swain? in Greek:
http://gr.contrainfo.espiv.net/2014/02/05/ohio-usa-who-the-fuck-is-sean-swain-pamphlet-in-greek/
http://gr.contrainfo.espiv.net/files/2014/02/Who-The-Fuck-is-Sean-Swain-GR.pdf
Two pieces from the same comrade in Spanish
http://es.contrainfo.espiv.net/tag/sean-swain/
His text about the shooting of Adinolfi exists in Italian and Portuguese, too
http://it.contrainfo.espiv.net/2014/01/14/stati-uniti-damerica-una-visione-del-futuro-dove-tutti-i-roberto-adinolfi-camminano-con-le-stampelle
http://pt.contrainfo.espiv.net/2014/01/25/uma-visao-do-futuro-quando-todos-os-roberto-adinolfi-caminharem-de-muletas
Radio Essay: Making Money
Lets talk about making money. The old fashioned way. Just like the poor deluded hierarchs do.
I read something not long ago- did you know the North Korean Government is the number one counterfeiter of U.S. money? Yeah. By some estimates, North Korea prints billions of phony U.S. dollars… and they’re so realistic, even government officials can’t tell. So, in order to avoid the devaluation of the U.S. dollar, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve developed a strategy; they simply assume theres “X” amount of counterfeit money in circulation, and they print less. If they didn’t do that, there’d be so much money in circulation that the U.S. dollar would be as worthless as a V.I.P. all access tourpass of the Fukushima power plant.
Now, some implications of this. For one, the U.S. economy now depends on having enough counterfeit money in circulation at any given time. “Funny money” is figured into the government equation. For two, in order to maintain economic health of our “great nation,” we have a patriotic responsibility to make sure there are enough bogus bills floating about. Continue reading
Neo-Fascists and the Death of Meaning
I recently transferred to the Ohio State Penitentiary, Ohio’s only super maximum security facility. I have been sent here not for any violative conduct but for merely communicating ideas and observations to the outside world. Those who tell the truth are terrorists
This situation provided me with a great deal of time to pace my cell and ponder the curious claims of my captors and in my ruminations I came upon some insight, I think, which applies not just to the specific war criminals who targeted me for my ideology, and not just the corrections control freaks who run the Ohio Department of Retribution and Corruption. I think I have discovered a general truth that applies to all of the hierarchy neofascists, particularly of the American variety; there is a psychological condition shared shared by all tyrants who assume the right to rule us.
In the beginning I assumed then to be liars. In my own circumstance, the neo- fascists consistently reinvented reality. Their descriptions of events were wholly false and inconsistent, their characterizations and conclusions irrational and incoherent. So,in my own laziness, I concluded that neofascists were simply dishonest, which is an easy conclusion to draw. Continue reading
The Silencing Continues, Sean’s Six Month Security Review
I was approved to security level 4Bin July 2013 on pretextual “rule violations” because Gary Mohr couldn’t admit he was punishing me for exposing his cyber-crimes. I arrived here at OSP in September.
I suspected that I would be kept at level 4B on flimsy and transparent pretexts, no matter what I do. See, the real point is to keep me at high enough security, long enough so I can’t get to level 2, get programs, and earn a parole. So, final analysis, the parole board uses my “misconduct” and “lack of programs” to justify giving me five more years in prison.
Yeah, I’ll do five years for tangling with Gary Mohr. That’ll teach me.
As soon as I got here I sent out kites. One went to Unit Management Administrator McDonough, asking if I could get lowered at my first six month review.
Her answer:
“It will depend on a number of issues (sic)
“conduct report free”
“no SGT activities”
“Interaction with staff and other inmates”
“programs completed etc…
“overall,you have to stay out of trouble and do positive things”
Okay. Four guidelines-conduct free, No STG activity, interaction with others and programs. Easy enough,right? So, I stayed “conduct” free. I had no STG activities. My interactions with others are nonexistent, since I am locked in a shoebox, totally isolated, and that left only programs. Continue reading
Radio Essay: April 20th
This originally aired on The Final Straw radio show.
April 20th marks the 23rd anniversary of my arrest. The 8,168th day of continuous captivity for a crime I did not commit. [please see: details of sean’s case, including trial documents, photographs, etc.]
My case:
Back in 1991,I shared an apartment with Diane Cisternas and her two children from a prior relationships. Andrew Crouch was the father of one of them. Crouch had previously lit Diane’s hair on fire and kicked her down the steps while she was pregnant;he got away with that and more because his aunt Collette Crouch was Clerk of Courts.
On April 20th Diane and Crouch argued on the phone about visitation and she told Crouch she was taking the kids and leaving; they would not be there. Crouch later arrived at the apartment without a car seat for his infant son. He saw that my car was gone, so he knew Diane and the kids were not there. Also he had a stomach full of alcohol. Unless he planned to toss his infant son in the trunk and swerve drunkenly down the highway, he was not there to pick up the kids.
Police later claimed there was no break in. Police photos of my shredded door frame, the deadbolt plate ripped loose from the screws,door shrapnel all over the floor and a boot print visible on the outside of the door. [this surfaced four years later] Continue reading
Help Needed
In the last couple of decades, South Chicago ABC Zine Distro has developed what may likely be the most extensive anarchist zine archive in history. South Chicago has cranked out thousands of zines in hardcopy, largely for free to prisoners.
This zine archive is a priceless resource. Simply for the lack of human resources to do the scanning and posting, this monumental archive is NOT available online.
This is tragic.
If just a few volunteers were willing to coordinate efforts to get this archive scanned and posted, thousands of zines available nowhere else would be accessible to the entire world. This is an essential project that needs to be completed.
People willing to scan these materials to create this online archive should contact Anthony Rayson at anthonyrayson[at]hotmail[dot]com or write to him at South Chicago ABC/PO Box 721/Homewood, IL 60430.
Sean
Radio Essay: Mad Max (Swivilization, Part 2)
This originally aired on The Final Straw radio show.
After having rattled off a five minute history of the world to explain why I am against swivilization, it’s clear that I’m going to have to dispel some myths. It seems that we’re all held captive by some really bad movies from the 80’s
Hollywood produced a pile of post-apocalyptic movies where swivilization collapsed. In everyone of them, there is a band of maurauding pillagers and rapists who terrorize survivors and steal limited resources for their survival. The most popular of those films was the Max Max series, staring Mel Gibson back before he became a Jew hating, drunk, producing blood sport movies starring Jesus.
It seems everyone imagines that in the absence of swivilization we’d face a Mad Max world. So out of fear of that alternative everyone hangs on to swivilization as a as a kind of “lesser evil.”But I think we need to consider that these Mad Max movies are not written by sociologists. We need to question if a Mad Max scenario would really happen if swivilization collapsed.
There are two necessary preconditions that have to exist for a mad max scenerio to happen. The first is, there would have to be bloodthirsty, irrational maniacs who have a popular following of other, roving around and terrorizing peace-loving people. The second is, there would have to be a scarcity of resources. Continue reading