Calendar
What: 96 Hours of Direct Action Schedule of Events Statewide (Berkeley, All UCs, CSUs, Community Colleges)
Monday, March 2
All Day: Decentralized Direct Actions across Campus
10am: 20 Minute Mass Flyering: Meet on Sproul Steps
5pm: Short Debrief and Info Hub in Wheeler Commons
Tuesday, March 3
All Day: Decentralized Direct Actions across Campus
10am: 20 Minute Mass Chalking: Meet on Sproul Steps
5pm: Short Debrief and Info Hub in Wheeler Commons
Wednesday, March 4
All Day: Decentralized Direct Actions across Campus
12-1pm: Funeral for Public Education on Sproul Steps
+all students, workers, faculty, and community allies are invited to wear black and join die-in
5pm: Short Debrief and Info Hub in Wheeler Commons
Thursday, March 5
12pm-Whenever: STRIKE to Fight the Hike + Phoenix Free Education Festival on Sproul Plaza
+all students, workers, faculty, and community allies are invited to transform our campus together
+bring a tent
*To stay updated on actions around campus, text “FightTheHike” to 88202
*To post or learn about some actions being planned, visit our Facebook page: http://tinyurl.com/lanwxn9
A 27% fee hike in UC tuition has been announced with a range of justifications—this on top of the 300% increase in attending the UC in the last decade alone. The administration claims that the state’s defunding of public education has forced this on us, the only option left is to displace the costs of running the university onto students. We disagree. The UC doesn’t want public money from Sacramento; it wants more of your far less regulated private tuition dollars. In spite of the increased cost of education, we endure cuts to student programs, overflowing lecture halls, classes that are difficult to get into, decreasing numbers of students of color, and many other signs of the declining quality of education.
In response to mounting pressure from students around the state, the administration has now announced plans to delay the fee hike, to wait until we’re less prepared. But a deferral is no victory; we demand far more. Rather than a signal that we should give up, we believe that now is the time to push our demands for a better UC. Students across the state–at UCs, CSUs, Community Colleges and High Schools–have called for “96 Hours of Direct Action” the first week of March, culminating in a statewide student walk out on Thursday, March 5. In 2010 similar actions won hundreds of millions of dollars in state support, and in 2012, they beat back a proposed tuition hike that would have nearly doubled of the cost of a UC education. This March, let’s demonstrate that there’s an alternative to privatization and debt. This is your call to action. On March 5, let’s shut it down.
The first of eight meetings is January 28th.
This seminar will study the corporate structure, its historical development, and its modes of political control.
We are having an orientation for our hands-on study group. The focus of the project is both analytical and activist. As a group, we will develop an understanding of the relationship between gentrification and police violence thru readings, workshops and discussions. At the same time, we will be developing and implementing strategies in our neighborhoods that seek to discourage other people that are new to Oakland from calling the cops. It will last about 3 months and we would love to host it all at the Omni if that works for y’all!
Film evenings begin with optional potluck refreshments & social hour at 6:30 pm,
followed by the film at 7:30 pm, followed by optional discussion after the film.
JEKYLL ISLAND, Part I
by William Still
For this film, see the website shown below.
Humanist Hall is wheelchair accessible around the corner at 411 28th Street.
This conference promotes the development of locally-controlled clean energy economies as a necessary path to a sustainable future. The conference is a diverse gathering of policy makers, entrepreneurs, and community advocates engaged in a thoughtful and inspiring exploration of strategies and programs for advancing a local clean energy transition in the Bay Area.
To learn more about Conference goals and to register, please visit the event website.
On the 2nd Anniversary of Hugo Chávez’s death, we celebrate his legacy, embodied
in the people and their struggle
————————–
March 5 is the second anniversary of the tragic passing of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Yet, despite his short life, he transformed Venezuela by his courageous struggle to make the Venezuelan masses the protagonists of their destiny.
Before Chávez, Venezuela’s natural resources enriched only the oil companies and ruling class. Today the country’s wealth has been harnessed for true development — hundreds of thousands of homes, healthcare and schools throughout the country.
The goal of the Bolivarian Revolutionary process is socialism, where every human being can enjoy guaranteed rights of healthcare, education, housing, jobs, equality, culture, social peace, and international solidarity.
But the U.S. government is working to destabilize the Venezuelan revolutionary government, financing right-wing organizations, encouraging coup attempts and terrorist attacks on the population. Now, the U.S. Congress is applying sanctions on Venezuela to punish the government and people for defending their sovereignty.
It is up to us, the people of the United States, to demand that our government stop the attacks and destabilization of Venezuela, respect International Law and Venezuela’s right to live.
Join us on Thursday, March 5, 5 pm, 24th and Mission, S.F., for a rally to celebrate: “Chavez Vive! La Lucha Sigue!”
————————–
Sponsored by Bay Area Latin America Solidarity Coalition. Endorsed by ANSWER Coalition, SOA Watch-San Francisco; FMLN-Nor. California; FSLN-Nor. California; Haiti Action Committee; Hondurenos en Resistencia del Norte de California; Task Force on the Americas; Nicaragua Center for Community Action; Party for Socialism and Liberation; Workers World Party
The BAPS General Meeting is where our core group of organizers come together. For those looking to get involved with the school, this is the best place to start. What happens at the General Meeting?
- Anyone can bring a proposal
- for new classes
- events
- organizational procedures
- lectures, talks, speakers
- workshops
- skill-shares
- Organizers vote
- on class proposals
- important financial expenditures
- use of space
- core values
- We meet each other
- make relevant announcements
- collaborate and coalesce new visions of the school
- distribute tasks and plan to take action
- learn how to build collectivity, a commons, a life
Karibu! (Welcome!)
We are inviting everyone out to Qilombo to participate in a day of festivities, mural painting, cleaning and gardening!
This project will be part of several different phases to create Oakland’s first Afrika Town! Qilombo’s role in Afrika Town will be immense. We are in the process of upgrading the space: building onto our community garden, adding a lovely mural on the side of the building, and doing the first steps to putting in a kitchen.
This kitchen is very much needed due to all the food programs we have at Qilombo. Also we will be having a potluck bbq so we need donations of side dishes and goodies, too!
If you can make food to bring or buy food to grill, please feel free to let us know here. Please come out to help us beautify and empower the community out of love for the people!
Mwezo wote wa watu
All power to the people!
Donate money to this amazing project here: http://qilombo.org/ (and ask us for what we need materially and skill-wise).
Donate to the community breakfasts here:
http://www.gofundme.com/
~ * Mo’ Mama’s Rise Collective (childcare) is also accepting donations. We’re requesting everything miniature, from mats to desks, to chairs, toys, books, non-toxic art supplies, to chalkboard paint and chalk, baby mugs and dishes, one file cabinet, safety scissors. If you have any other ideas please message the hosts on this event page. ♥
Afrika Town (in the making)!
50th Anniversary of Selma Bloody Sunday Commemorative Bridge Walk and Rally
Walk across the span in solidarity with the marchers in Selma, Alabama
Bring Signs, Banners and your voice against InJustice
USA, 1965: Black people in Selma, Alabama, viciously attacked by cops and the Klan for seeking the right to vote, beaten with baseball bats and billy clubs, tear gas, and whips; … people murdered by brutalizing police, by racist vigilantes; … “whites only” Jim Crow segregation still prevails across the South, and in the North Black people crammed into crrumbling ghettos; forced to attend overcrowded, underfunded inner city schools; arrested, beaten, and murdered by police; kept in the lowest-paying, most dangerous jobs, if they find work at all…
USA, 2015:a full half-century later a New Jim Crow of criminalization and mass incarceration of Black and men still in full effect; more Black men in prison today than were enslaved in 1850; soaring unemployment for Black people in cities across the entire country; public schools more segregated now 60 years since the U.S. Supreme Court put an end tto the hateful “separate but equal doctrine” than they were in the late 1960s; And increasingly, Black people denied the right to vote, supposedly the most “sacred” right of U.S. citizenship, at a rate seven times higher than that for white people.
On top of that, there’s the increasing number of Black men and youths murdered by police in every city of this country choked tto death on a sidewalk in New York; shot and killed walking down the street in Ferguson, Missouri, in a park in Cleveland, on a train in Oakland; racist vigilantes murdering Black youth in cold blood, being let free by courts at every level, up to and including the Federal government. The system is once again forcefully reminding us of the Dred Scott Decision that Black people have “no rights which the white man was bound to respect”.
But, also in August 2015, the defiant youth of Ferguson stood up. They sparked a powerful movement to stop the murder of people at the hands of the police. Tens of thousands of people, of different ethnicities and all over the country, blocked highways and bridges, marched through shopping malls, did “die-ins” everywhere, walked out from school, and left work. These actions shook this country to its core.
Now We Are At a Crossroads Will we allow the system to suppress this movement and continue business as usual, or will re-take the offensive and bring even more massive waves of struggle to STOP the murder of Black, Brown and all people by the police?
On April 14, we need to take our movement to STOP wanton police murder to a whole new level. NO SCHOOL! NO WORK! NO BUSINESS AS USUAL!
On this day, thousands of students walking out of school, taking over buildings and going on strike at colleges and high schools nationwide. People gathering and marching in cities all across the U.S. The normal routine of this society, which includes wanton police murder of Black and Brown people, must be brought to a Halt!
* The murder of Black and Brown people by the police MUST STOP.
* Justice for all the victims of brutal, murdering police.
* Indict, convict and send killer cops to jail: the whole damn system is guilty as hell.
* Stop the repression targeting the protests: Drop all the chargges against all those arrested.
Stopping Police Murder is NOT a Spectator Sport!
Stop Mass Incarceration Bay Area
2501 San Pablo
Berkeley, CA 94702
- organizing for public banking in Oakland and elsewhere.
- advocating for Postal banking.
- saving the Berkeley Post Office and stopping the Staples non-union takeover of good Post Office jobs
- working with the City of Richmond and other municipalities for eminent domain seizure of underwater mortgages from the banksters
- ongoing study group
- student debt resistance
- helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
- our famous Strike Debt radio program
- help save Doctors’ Hospital in San Pablo
- and much more!
Monthly interfaith prayer meeting, held on second Sundays, dedicated to survivors and victims of violence and police terror in Oakland.
We are organizing this gathering for the community to connect, share prayers, writings and poems from all spiritual traditions, reflect and recharge and build coalitions interested in healing.
Please feel free to bring quotes or passages to share
All are welcome
As this meeting is during the Bahá’í fast, we will not serve breakfast. Breakfasts will resume in April.
The first Woman’s Day was organized by the Socialist Party in New York in 1909, in remembrance of the 1908 strike of International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. It was made an annual celebration the following year by the Socialist Second International. On March 8, 1917, the women of Petrograd went on strike with the demand “Bread and Peace.” Within weeks, Tsar Nicholas II was imprisoned. The Russian Revolution had begun. To celebrate, we will gather at our usual time, aided by Norma Harrison.
We’ll look at the women’s movement of the 1970s, the successful attempt to empty it of any roots in majestic struggle; to make it an effort to compel the slave labor of women into the 9-5 offices as a success story, removing further the opportunity for us all to to share the work to maintain us and to advance our struggles. Consciousness raising stunned us, thrilled us, surprised us, and was snatched from us by the owning class using, again, Their media, schools, churches, jobs.
Our work is still to take, to re-take our struggle.
Children, men, women, join us to sing our song again, together.
Note: Gene will be out of town and will not be providing donuts and coffee. BYO.
Seating is limited, so plan to come early. We start promptly.
Facebook event. 15NowBerkeley Facebook.
Join us March 8th at the Target Express grand opening in downtown Berkeley. We’ll have our own alternative grand opening with a target of $15/hr!
We’ll be rallying for higher minimum wages at noon in front of the Target. Drop by if you’re interested in helping out or if you have any questions. An increase in the Berkeley minimum wage doesn’t just make economic sense—it’s a necessity for workers, who literally can’t afford to pay rent in this city on less than $15/hour!
Join us for a March and Celebration of the 105th Anniversary of INTERNATIONAL WORKING WOMEN’S DAY
UPHOLD the LEGACY & POWER of WOMEN’S RESISTANCE HERE and ABROAD!
12PM Rally & Speak Out for Justice
12:30 PM March to Rise & Resist
1:30 PM Celebration for Women’s Strength & Resistance
In honor of the first women strikers in 1909, we will be commemorating the 105th Anniversary of International Working Women’s Day on March 8th. Join us as we uphold the Legacy and Power of Women’s resistance here and abroad!
At the forefront of global resistance against increasing violence and imperialism are women of color. Here in the United States, the state has continued to perpetuate violence against its own people, specifically people of color. Women in the U.S. will continue to be in the forefront of many battles — opposing U.S. wars and occupations while demanding funding for human needs, defending collective bargaining in their unions, demanding wages that allow their families to keep up with the cost of living, stopping foreclosures so they can stay in their homes, demanding contraceptives and other free preventive health care, and fighting for basic rights to affordable education, quality health care and housing, and good-paying jobs. Join us as we March to demand an end to gentrification, state violence, and militarization!
We will also have a cultural celebration after the march to remember and lift up all the women and Trans women who have come before us in the struggle. We will celebrate their legacies they have left behind and honor the women and Trans women who are fighting in the forefront today for self-determination, freedom, and liberation.
Bring your signs, banners, and noisemakers and march with us!
This International Women’s Day we will be joining in the streets with women all around the world who are marching to demand their rights.
We will be out to stand against violence against women in all forms. Against the growing number of killings of transwomen, against police brutality, against racism, street harassment, domestic violence and more. We will be coming out as we struggle to support ourselves and our families in the face of ever increasing evictions and gentrification.
We march to stand in solidarity with our sisters around the world who are fighting back as well.
We are marching to demand equality and our right to dignified lives.
Women Organized to Resist and Defend (WORD)