Calendar
See full agenda on website.
People Get Ready 4 will gather left movements in the Bay Area of California to analyze political conditions and discuss movement strategy during a period of deepening economic, social, and ecological crises.
The conference is hosted by Center for Political Education.
Endorsing organizations include:
Arab Resource & Organizing Center | Alliance of South Asians Taking Action | Black Organizing Project | Bay Rising | California Coalition for Women Prisoners | Catalyst Project | Chinese Progressive Association | Critical Resistance (Oakland) | GABRIELA Oakland | Haiti Action | International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network | National Lawyers Guild – SF Bay Area | Palestinian Youth Movement (Bay Area) | San Francisco Rising | Sogorea Te’ Land Trust
Program Description
The conference will feature organizers, activists, strategists, and scholars in conversations that will sharpen participants’ understanding of the political conditions and threats we face in the current moment and provoke thoughtful debate and discussion on strategies for building working-class power for the long-term.
*Note: Session times, titles, and speakers may still be adjusted over the next few weeks.
Tickets & Registration
Tickets are priced on a sliding scale. Please self-select your ticket level based on what you are able to give. If you are able to give more than the suggested levels, please consider donating to the Solidarity Fund, which helps CPE provide this conference to more participants free of charge.
As with all of our previous conferences, no one will be turned away from People Get Ready 4 for lack of funds.
Disability Access at the Venue
Dwinelle Hall is located by the Sather Gate on the UC Berkeley Campus. A detailed description of Accessibility and Compliance for Dwinelle Hall can be found here.
The eastern entrance of Dwinelle Hall has two sets of stairs to enter the building (both sets of stairs have 5 steps each for a total of 10 steps) and a ramp to enter the building as well.
Plenary sessions and breakout sessions will be held in 155 Dwinelle and 145 Dwinelle. These auditoriums are wheelchair accessible at the top level near the entrances, and on stage for conference speakers via elevator. There are 20-30 seats in each auditorium that are accessible by zero to two steps: these will be reserved for attendees with limited mobility. The remaining seats in the auditorium are accessible by 3-16 steps.
In addition to 155 Dwinelle, the breakout sessions will be held in Dwinelle classrooms that are flat and without internal stairs or levels. They contain classroom chairs and desks for seating.
The floors on which these classroom are located are accessible via stairwell or elevator. Restrooms are also accessible via the same stairwell and elevator.
COVID Policy
Participants will be required to wear masks while indoors at the conference and to confirm up-to-date vaccination status prior to registration.
We will provide masks for participants to wear in case they do not have one.
If you are unable to attend the event due to illness, we will provide a full refund.
See our FAQ for more information on our COVID policy.
US aggression toward China is escalating and China is shedding its usual restraint to more clearly call out this aggression and warn the US not to overstep its red lines. K. J. Noh, an activist, journalist, and scholar on the geopolitics of the Asian continent, will discuss the renewed belligerence of South Korea under President Yoon Suk-yeol, the increasing militarization of Japan, shifting alliances in Western Asia, and how China, including Taiwan, is responding. Noh will also speak about efforts in the United States to prepare for a war against China and how that is increasing violence against Asian Americans, as well as what we can do to prevent what would be a catastrophic conflict.
K. J. Noh is a journalist, political analyst, writer, and teacher specializing in the geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region.
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- just west of Shattuck, downtown Berkeley.
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- Drop by briefly, or stay and chat if it isn’t crowded. Optional pot luck refreshments.
Dan’s recent open letter revealing diagnosis of 3-6 months to live: https://consortiumnews.com/2023/03/02/daniel-ellsbergs-not-yet-goodbye/
For March we have a movie based on historical fact, and ties to patriarchy that in the end create a very useful human sexuality tool — Believed to be a real medical condition, two doctors (Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Pryce) in Victorian England use manual stimulation of female genitalia to cure their patients’ ills, leading to the invention of the vibrator — These free community-building events are designed to see the connection between media and the real world — Does life imitate art or does art imitate life?:
The 22nd Annual Bay Area BASIL Seed Swap is back and in-person. Free event! In collaboration with Transition Berkeley and Richmond Grows Seed Lending Library, the Seed Swap will include free educational resources on native pollinators and seed saving, space to network with other local gardeners, and an exchange of unique seeds from throughout the East Bay. Seed enthusiasts at all levels of experience are welcome. This event is free- seeds to share or a donation of $5-15 are suggested and no one will be turned away for lack of funds. So grab a friend, bring some seeds, and take home something new!
Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite.
For our March, April and May meetings we are reading Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber (Warwick, Amazon).For our March meeting we’ll be reading the first five chapters.`For the April meeting we are reading chapters through 9.
Before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors—which lives on in full force to this day.
So says anthropologist David Graeber in a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Renaissance Italy to Imperial China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong.
We are still fighting these battles today.
Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included 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, and Cannibal Capitalism.
Anchored by the Wiyot Tribe’s Dishgamu Community Land Trust, several Cal Poly Humboldt faculty members, Green Eco-Socialist Network, Native Roots Network, New Economy Coalition, the US Solidarity Economy Network, and a growing network of additional partners, this 3-day virtual conference serves as a space to exchange experiences and information, strengthen alliances and networks, and to devise strategies to decenter colonial systems and implement concrete solutions to heal the land and people. Over 1,000 people participated in the 2022 Summit, and we expect even more in 2023!