Calendar
Fight for a city budget that puts communities and workers first.
We are a group of labor, housing, racial and social justice advocates that believes the Oakland City Council should pass a budget that reflects the needs of our communities. We fight alongside working people throughout the East Bay.
8:00 AM: Telegraph & MacArthur Blvd. Join tenats to demand the city reinvest in Healthy Housing.
11:00 AM: Oakland City Hall. Justice for low-wage workers! Join fast food workers and community members calling on the City to enforce the Minimum Wage.
3:30 PM: Oakland City Hall. Reinvest in Public Services. Join residents as they call on the City to reinvest resources to fix our roads and address illegal dumping in the flatlands.
4:30 PM: Oakland City Hall steps. Press Event to call for a Budget that Reinvests in Oakland.
7:00 PM: 14th & Broadway, Oscar Grant Plaza. Take back our streets! The new curfew can’t stop us from holding space in the streets.
What do we DEMAND???
Reinvesting in Tenants & Housing: Enforcing the Tenant Protection Ordinance & adequately staffing city housing inspectors
Reinvesting in Workers: Enforcing Minimum Wage & Paid Sick Days & making sure there are resources for the city’s most vulnerable workers including fast food and day laborers
Reinvesting in Equity: Supporting the creation of a Department of Race & Equity
Reinvesting in Public Services: Ensuring that flatland communities get the services they need by working toward a fair contract that gives our city workers the pay, rights & respect they deserve
Reinvesting in responsible development: Public land for the public good & ensuring that communities benefit from the rise in development taking place in our city
Background on ReFund Oakland:
The ReFund & ReBuild Oakland Community-Labor Coalition representing over 15 labor, community and faith groups has been focused on building a broad based agenda to ensure big banks, large corporations and our elected officials reinvest in working families, communities of color and neighborhoods impacted by inequity, displacement and underrepresentation.
In 2013 ReFund groups came together and, alongside a 1 day strike organized by city unions, helped to push a budget that prioritized public services and an agenda that reinvested in working class families and communities of color across the city.
The Berkeley PD chief will present the police department’s “post-incident review of events of December 2014.”
This is an important meeting for the public to attend. It will be the first disclosure, after six months, of the police narrative of their response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations.
Note: the meeting will begin at 6pm instead of its usual 7pm starting time to allow more time for public comment and for commissioners to question the chief.
Our streets have been stolen from us, our rights have been stolen from us, our PEOPLE have been stolen from us. It is time to take them back!
It is unconstitutional to repress our right to hold space in the very place that was built on the backs of our ancestors. We’ve been told too many times that we don’t belong here: through the over-policing and criminalization of our communities, through the militarization of the police force, through gentrification, through unlawful curfews and state sanctioned violence against our communities.
The new curfew imposed on our people IS NOT going to stop us from holding space in the streets that BELONG TO US!
Black people and allies, it is time to come together and take back what rightfully belongs to us.
BYP100 Bay Area Chapter, in solidarity with Just Cause’s #OurBudgetOurCity day of action, Black Lives Matter (Bay Area), ONYX, BlackOUT Collective and Black Seed, will take back the streets that WE pay for, the streets that belong to US!
#OurBudgetOurCity is a day demonstrating the priorities that the City can spend their money and resources on – the needs of Oakland’s residents! Oakland’s public officials prioritize the profit-driven interests of developers, investors, big landlords, and protecting windows more than protecting the interests of Oakland’s working class and low income communities.
It’s clear that those of us whose needs are not being met and who are being displaced, suffering from the impact of gentrification, and living under the threat of state violence are not taking it anymore. The Bay Area has been blazing with people all over standing up to take back the rights that we have. June 10th is a day to celebrate all of that, and to show the Mayor, the City Council that we are united in our fight against gentrification and that we demand that our voices and demands be heard.
Take a look at the schedule of actions below.
8 AM: Join tenants to demand the city reinvest in Healthy Housing!
Location: Corner of Telegraph Ave. and West Macarthur Blvd.
11 AM: Justice for low-wage workers! Join fast food workers & community members calling on the City to enforce the Minimum Wage!
Location: Oakland City Hall
3:30 PM: ReInvest in Public Services! Join residents as they call on the City to reinvest resources to fix our roads and address illegal dumping in the flatlands! Location: Oakland City Hall
4:30pm: Press Event @ the Steps of Oakland City Hall to call for a Budget that ReInvests in Oakland!
7 PM: Take back our streets! The new curfew can’t stop us from holding space in the streets
Location: 14th and Broadway.
Please come out and show your solidarity with the people of Oakland fighting in solidarity for the right to take back our streets. WHOSE STREETS?! OUR STREETS!!!
Please bring:
A scarf or handkerchief
Earplugs
We discuss various monetary and debt-related topics. For our next meeting we will read a section from Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt. It will be chapters 25-28 and cover more on international debt in the Asian theatre and elsewhere.
If people have ideas on what we should study together please bring it up during the next meeting. We encourage participation! It need only loosely pertain to debt, money, economics, and/or banking.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_VeYBmQOi8FTFEwUDJVdC0wQU0/view?usp=sharing
The Politics of Debt Reading Group is affiliated with the Bay Area Public School and Strike Debt Bay Area.
The program includes a short film “Until All Are Free”, updates and letter-writing
Originating as a day of solidarity for eco-prisoners, June 11 remains anchored in a project of ecological defense and struggle against a society based on exploitation and confinement.
Join us on the annual day of solidarity with long-term eco- and anarchist prisoners, including Marius Mason and Eric McDavid. They were subject to the longest federal prison terms (22 yrs and 20 yrs respectively) of those indicted in the so-called “Green Scare”, targeting radical activists.
In calling for the day, we aim to deepen ongoing support for comrades facing long sentences. We are committed to building a model of solidarity that is both long-term and rooted in our work.
Transitions…
On January 8th of this year, Eric McDavid was released from prison after nine years of incarceration.
Last year Marius Mason publicly shared his new name and use of male pronouns that better reflect his transition to a masculine gender identity.
Join us to discuss ways to support our comrades.
Join us for a discussion of V.I. Lenin’s key writing on the process of overthrowing capitalism, State and Revolution! Todd Chretien, editor of the new annotated edition from Haymarket Books, will present.
Lenin was hiding from the police during the 1917 Russian Revolution while he finished State and Revolution. Lenin’s most widely read—and most misunderstood—book describes the “monstrous oppression of the working people by the state” and how capitalism transforms whole areas of the globe into “military convict prisons for workers.” State and Revolution defends Marx and Engels’s argument that workers must dismantle, or “smash,” capitalist states through revolution from below, and replace them with radically democratic states.
This new edition features an introduction and hundreds of explanatory annotations by Todd Chretien that place Lenin’s work in its historical context. Chretien will kick off a discussion of the key insights from the book and their applicability to struggles against state violence and for liberation today.
This movie tells the story of the many struggles for neighborhood communities against “urban renewal” displacement by the collusion of corporate and city planners. The story is told through the eyes of tenants, city planners, business owners, scholars, and politicians, The Vanishing City exposes the real politic behind the alarming disappearance of New York’s beloved neighborhoods, the truth about its finance dominated economy, and the myth of inevitable change. Artfully documented through interviews, hearings, demonstrations, and archival footage, the film takes a sober look at the city’s luxury policies and high-end development, the power role of the elite, and accusations of corruption surrounding land use and rezoning. The film also links New York trends to other global cities where multinational corporations continue to victimize the middle and working classes.
Sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice as part of our Conscientious Projector Series for the 99%
Wheelchair accessible.
For occasional email notices of peace/eco/social justice alerts and related events at BFUU, send any email to:
bfuusjev-subscribe [at] lists.riseup.net
A man was killed in the morning on Saturday 6/6 by the 76 gas station at the 580 Lakeshore exit in Oakland. Police found him sleeping (or unconscious) in his car. It is not clear whether this was a case of medical emergency where the man simply was not able to follow police orders.
APTP, together with Mr. Hogg’s family members are holding a vigil on Friday 6/12 at 6:00 PM at the location where Mr. Hogg was killed – the intersection of Lakeshore and Lake Park Ave, by the 76 gas station.
WE ARE SEARCHING FOR WITNESSES OF THIS KILLING AND ITS AFTERMATH. Please inbox Anti Police-Terror Project.
A Food Not Bombs benefit featuring Everymen(FL.), a punk/bluegrass band from Florida, The Sour Mash Hug Band, and The Navigator.
All proceeds go to support East Bay Food Not Bombs, feeding the homeless, low income, and disenfranchised in the East Bay since 1980. Funds will go toward the remodeling of a commercial kitchen in the basement of the Omni Commons, for primary use of FNB. Currently EBFNB feeds the hungry 6 days a week. Learn more at https://ebfnb.org/
There will be free food in abundance, of course!
EB Food Not Bombs is a founding member collectives of the Omni Oakland Commons, a collective of collectives stewarding shared space and resources for all of Oakland! The Omni Commons is located at 48th and Shattuck Avenue very near Telegraph Ave. and is a few blocks north of the MacArthur BART station.
Everymen: http://www.everymenfl.com/
Sour Mash Hug Band: http://
Come see what homescale urban farmers are up to and what is possible on a x-small, small, medium or large lot.
Details and Tickets: iuhoakland.com
Continuous Music outdoors and in Cafes.
Crafts, Bazaar, Kids Zone.
- student debt resistance
- organizing for public banking.
- advocating for Postal banking.
- ongoing study group
- 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
- reviewing our recent Debtors’ Assembly and preparing for the next one at the US Social Forum in San Jose
- Our presentation on money and debt at the US Social Forum
- saving the Berkeley Post Office and stopping the Staples non-union takeover of good Post Office jobs
- and much more!
Strike Debt – Principles of Solidarity
Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.
We also oppose debt because it is an instrument of exploitation and political domination. Debt is used to discipline us, deepen existing inequalities, and reinforce racial, gendered, and other social hierarchies. Every Strike Debt action is designed to weaken the institutions that seek to divide us and benefit from our division. As an alternative to this predatory system, Strike Debt advocates a just and sustainable economy, based on mutual aid, common goods, and public affluence.
Strike Debt is committed to the principles and tactics of political autonomy, direct democracy, direct action, creative openness, a culture of solidarity, and commitment to anti-oppressive language and conduct. We struggle for a world without racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression.
Strike Debt holds that we are all debtors, whether or not we have personal loan agreements. Through the manipulation of sovereign and municipal debt, the costs of speculator-driven crises are passed on to all of us. Though different kinds of debt can affect the same household, they are all interconnected, and so all household debtors have a common interest in resisting.
Strike Debt engages in public education about the debt-system to counteract the self-serving myth that finance is too complicated for laypersons to understand. In particular, it urges direct action as a way of stopping the damage caused by the creditor class and their enablers among elected government officials. Direct action empowers those who participate in challenging the debt-system.
Strike Debt holds that we owe the financial institutions nothing, whereas, to our friends, families and communities, we owe everything. In pursuing a long-term strategy for national organizing around this principle, we pledge international solidarity with the growing global movement against debt and austerity.
Open mic & cyphers happen EVERY 1st Friday & EVERY 2nd Saturday of the month at The Alan Blueford Center for Justice 2434 Telegraph Ave Oakland, CA 94612.
Show starts at 7pm-ish, give or take an hour or so 😉 depending on the time of the year–we probably start later in the summer & earlier in the winter.
All ages are welcome.
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Prisoners of Consciousness Committee: http://chairmanfredjr.blogspot.com/
Ras Ceylon: https://www.reverbnation.com/rasceylon
Ras Ceylon: https://rasceylon.bandcamp.com/
The Alan Blueford Center for Justice on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE?…
The Alan Blueford Center for Justice on Twitter: @abc4justice
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.
In April, it will be two years since we started holding these prayer meetings at the Baha’i Center. Come share prayers, quotes, poems, and favorite passages from your scriptures with us. We will serve a simple breakfast.
San Francisco is hosting the 83rd Annual Conference of Mayors June 19th, 2015 – June 22nd.. Around 250 Mayors will be in attendance. This is an opportunity to raise issues locally and nationally that are of concern to us.
- Black Lives Matter
- Gentrification
- Homelessness
- Privatization
- Homophobia and Transphobia
- Immigration
- The Environment
- Corporate Greed
- Wars not People
All are welcome to help plan for actions.
Donations desperately needed as well. Send to
Prison Literature Project
P.O Box 1253
Berkeley, CA 94701
The Oscar Grant Committee is hosting a press conference regarding the killing of Richard “Pedie” Perez III on September 14, 2014 by Richmond PD.
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
OccupyForum presents
Film and discussion about the 1971
burglary which exposed massive FBI corruption
Dramatic news at the time, but little remembered now, the Media burglary was the beginning of the end of the mythical FBI the bureau’s director, J. Edgar Hoover, had constructed in the American mind over nearly a half century through the successful efforts of a vast internal public relations office operated with public funds.
Based on Betty Medsger’s book The Burglary, the film 1971 tells the full story of the Media burglary for the first time. The burglars, never found by the FBI despite one of the largest investigations in the bureau’s history, were found by the author and interviewed extensively for The Burglary. In addition to revealing the motivations and life stories of the burglars, who kept their secret for 43 years, The Burglary also documents the very significant impact of this burglary that shocked the public and moved congress, long intimidated by Hoover, to acknowledge the FBI director’s illegal and damaging actions.
For more info on the book, take a look at: http://theburglary.com/
Discussion and Announcements to follow.
OccupyForum welcomes donations but no one turned away.
Come learn about continuing developments in the battle save the Berkeley Post Office and the Postal Service from privatization, support our Occupiers and help us plan our next steps in opposition to the theft of our public commons.
The postal service wanted to sell the post office to Hudson-Mcdonald, a local developer. The City of Berkeley sued the post office to stop the sale. Hudson-Mcdonald backed out of the deal in early December.
There was a hearing in Federal Court on December 11th. There was another hearing in March 26th. Federal Judge William Alsup decided to dismiss the lawsuit because the Postal Service says it is not currently selling the building. But we’re not fooled. The Postal Service could “find” a buyer at any moment. Fortunately, the Judge ordered the Postal Service to provide 42 days notice before any sale, so that the lawsuit could be refiled.
Check out our response to the Judge’s order.
Check out the Community Garden at the Post Office.
Also check out our website and the Save the Berkeley Post Office website, and First they Came for the Homeless Facebook for updates.
BPOD is an offshoot of Strike Debt Bay Area, which itself is an offshoot of Occupy Oakland and a chapter of the national Strike Debt movement, which is an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street.