Calendar
Bioneers, “Revolution from the Heart of Nature,” will hold its 35th annual conference in Berkeley this year. Leaders, activists, and healers will give talks and lead discussions and workshops on a wide range of topics including: indigenous rights and wisdom, climate issues, digital rights and democracy, many approaches to personal healing, effective persuasion, reproductive justice, dealing with conflict, debtors’ rights, just transition, fossil fuels in the Amazon, the danger of rising fascism — and many more.
The conference will also include films, social gatherings, and more.
The introduction to this year’s conference says:
“We’re already in overtime. The driving question is whether we have sufficient time to make the transformational change necessary to begin to heal and regenerate people and planet.
“We need to connect and scale the constellation of brilliant social movements to reach critical mass and enact . . . breakthrough systemic solutions.”
Members of the Sunflower Alliance community can get a 20% discount using the code: Sunflower20
WHERE
UC Berkeley Zellerbach Hall and locations in downtown Berkeley
REGISTER EARLY FOR LOWER COST!
Rates go up February 21 and again March 13
Register here
Bioneers, “Revolution from the Heart of Nature,” will hold its 35th annual conference in Berkeley this year. Leaders, activists, and healers will give talks and lead discussions and workshops on a wide range of topics including: indigenous rights and wisdom, climate issues, digital rights and democracy, many approaches to personal healing, effective persuasion, reproductive justice, dealing with conflict, debtors’ rights, just transition, fossil fuels in the Amazon, the danger of rising fascism — and many more.
The conference will also include films, social gatherings, and more.
The introduction to this year’s conference says:
“We’re already in overtime. The driving question is whether we have sufficient time to make the transformational change necessary to begin to heal and regenerate people and planet.
“We need to connect and scale the constellation of brilliant social movements to reach critical mass and enact . . . breakthrough systemic solutions.”
Members of the Sunflower Alliance community can get a 20% discount using the code: Sunflower20
WHERE
UC Berkeley Zellerbach Hall and locations in downtown Berkeley
REGISTER EARLY FOR LOWER COST!
Rates go up February 21 and again March 13
Register here
I’m writing on behalf of the California Poor People’s Campaign and
Western States Legal Foundation to invite and encourage you to join this
year’s public participatory reading of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
prophetic speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence [2].”
Please let me know if you plan to join us Tuesday, April 4, if you’d
like to read a section of the speech, and if your organization would
like to endorse the event by completing this form [4].
This year’s readings are again part of the Poor People’s Campaign
initiative to build support for the Third Reconstruction Agenda to Heal
the Nation: End Poverty and Low Wages From the Bottom Up [5].
An updated “tool kit” for the 2024 readings has been posted by PPC
National Mobilizing Partner, United for Peace & Justice, at Organize a
Public Reading of Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” Speech in your
Community – United For Peace and Justice [6]. In the tool kit, you’ll
find the text of the speech, divided into 16 sections, in English.
You’ll also find an updated introduction for 2024 that connects the
speech to the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war.
If you can’t make it in-person on April 4, there will be a statewide
online reading at 6:30 pm. Register here.
Background:
On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his tragic assassination, in
his prophetic speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence [2],”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. declared: “I am convinced that if we are
to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must
undergo a radical revolution of values…. we must rapidly begin the
shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When
machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are
considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism,
extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival [7] has
picked up Dr. King’s unfinished work weaving the interlocking
injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, environmental
devastation, militarism and the war economy and a distorted moral
narrative of Christian nationalism that blames poor people for their own
poverty, into one “moral fusion” campaign.
Please join us on April 4! Let me know if you have any questions or can
volunteer to help.
Links:
——
[1] http://www.wslfweb.org
[2] https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
[3] https://www.bart.gov/stations/12th
[4] https://forms.gle/mzub2CYautNwNPmi6
[5]
https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/join-us-as-we-build-the-third-reconstruction/
[6]
https://www.unitedforpeace.org/organize-a-public-reading-of-dr-kings-beyond-vietnam-speech-in-your-community/
[7] http://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org
[8]
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ba-ppc-sg/0dd5c271-c229-46fd-bda5-645e7cf0cf10%40earthlink.net?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer
This Friday, March 22nd from 3-7pm we are excited to do a soft launch of The People’s Clinic!
The People’s Clinic is an abolitionist wellness and recovery center for people impacted by state/police violence and frontline organizers taking action against genocide.
(1/3) pic.twitter.com/aN3uXvzkrf
— Anti Police-Terror Project (@APTPaction) March 21, 2024
Saturday, April 6th Award-winning journalist, and host of Democracy Now! Amy Goodman will be in Berkeley to honor KPFA’s 75 years of building community trust. Amy has a long and valued relationship with KPFA and will offer her unique perspective on our 75-year history. Tickets are now on sale! Get yours early and support the Bay Area’s truly independent media outlet.
Welcome to the Public Bank East Bay (PBEB). We are creating the first regional public bank in
the United States in over a hundred years, where our public money will be used for the public
good. The PBEB will be capitalized by the municipalities of Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond and
the County of Alameda. The PBEB will also take deposits from these three cities and the
County. The deposits will provide money to make partnership loans to community- based small
businesses, Land Trusts, Co-ops, and other efforts to advance important projects in the East
Bay in the areas of housing and facilitating home ownership, small businesses/entrepreneurship
, and clean energy. We will help your local Community Banks, Credit Unions, and CDFIs by
partnering with them, sharing risk and reducing borrowing costs, which will allow us all to create
policies that promote equity in lending.
You are invited to join the Friends of the Public Bank East Bay and other community groups and
allies at a Town Hall to learn more about the proposed bank. RSVP
We want to hear from you! At the Town Hall you will have the opportunity to learn more about
the PBEB, ask questions, and most importantly provide your input on what products and
services you would like the PBEB to provide.
On this zoom you will have the opportunity to meet the newly-hired CEO and PBEB Board
Candidates.
Who should come?� Community groups, allies and folks who want to learn more.
Topics to be covered include PBEB support for:
- Innovative Small business – including co-op lending
- Affordable Housing and Facilitating Homeownership
- Green Energy
- Land Trusts
When? Tuesday April 9th, 2024, 11am – 12:30pm
Where? Join Zoom
We very much look forward to meeting with you on April 9th. � RSVP
Flyers about the business plan are available in English and Espanol. Please write to publicbankeastbay@gmail.com if you want digital copies.
This Friday, March 22nd from 3-7pm we are excited to do a soft launch of The People’s Clinic!
The People’s Clinic is an abolitionist wellness and recovery center for people impacted by state/police violence and frontline organizers taking action against genocide.
(1/3) pic.twitter.com/aN3uXvzkrf
— Anti Police-Terror Project (@APTPaction) March 21, 2024
Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite.
For our April meeting we will be reading Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises, by Marjorie Kelly (Amazon, Penguin)
“This bold manifesto exposes seven myths underlying wealth supremacy, the bias that institutionalizes infinite extraction of wealth by and for the wealthy, and is the hidden force behind economic injustice, the climate crisis, and so many other problems of our day:
-
- The Myth of Maximizing: No amount of wealth is ever enough.
- The Myth of Fiduciary Duty: Corporate managers’ most sacred duty is to expand capital.
- The Myth of Corporate Governance: Corporate membership must be reserved for capital alone.
- The Myth of the Income Statement: Income to capital must always be increased, while income to labor must always be decreased.
- The Myth of Materiality: Profit—material gain—alone is real, while social and environmental damages are not.
- The Myth of Takings: The first duty of government must be the protection of private property.
- The Myth of the Free Market: There should be no limits on the field of action of corporations and capital.
Kelly argues instead for the democratization of ownership: public ownership of vital services, worker-owned businesses, and more. And she sketches the outlines of a non-extractive capitalism that would be subordinate to the public interest. This is an ambitious reimagining of the very foundations of our economy and society..”
Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included (in chronological order) Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth, Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, Exploring Degrowth, The Origin of Wealth, Mine!, The Dawn of Everything A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Beyond Money, Less is More, Cannibal Capitalism, Debt, the First 5000 Years , Poverty, By America, End Times, Jackson Rising Redux , The Feminist Subversion of the Economy and How Infrastructure Works, Inside the Systems that Shape our World.
This Friday, March 22nd from 3-7pm we are excited to do a soft launch of The People’s Clinic!
The People’s Clinic is an abolitionist wellness and recovery center for people impacted by state/police violence and frontline organizers taking action against genocide.
(1/3) pic.twitter.com/aN3uXvzkrf
— Anti Police-Terror Project (@APTPaction) March 21, 2024
This Friday, March 22nd from 3-7pm we are excited to do a soft launch of The People’s Clinic!
The People’s Clinic is an abolitionist wellness and recovery center for people impacted by state/police violence and frontline organizers taking action against genocide.
(1/3) pic.twitter.com/aN3uXvzkrf
— Anti Police-Terror Project (@APTPaction) March 21, 2024