Calendar

Hey #Oakland SAVE THE DATE for training on rapid response to ICE and police terror #endpoliceterror #endwhitesupremacy pic.twitter.com/vuOtMJrqFc

— impostor hoopoe (@thehoopoe) September 6, 2018

Judge and author Lise Pearlman brings to AAMLO her well-researched book on prisoner rights activist and movement lawyer Fay Stender. Stender achieved amazing legal successes in criminal defense and prison reform, known for defending both Black Panther Party leader Huey Newton and revolutionary prisoner George Jackson, before she ultimately refocused with similar zeal on feminist and lesbian rights.

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.

• Presenting debt and inequality related topics at forums, workshops and in radio productions.
• Relieving Medical Debt through pennies-on-the-dollar buyback programs.
• Promoting single-payer / Medicare for All to end the plague of medical debt
• Money bail reform and fighting modern day debtors’ prisons and exploitative ticketing and fining schemes
• Tiny Homes and other solutions for the homeless.
• Student debt resistance. Check out the Debt Collective, our sister organization
• Helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
• Working on debarring US Banks that have been convicted of felonies from municipal contracts, and divesting from the Wall St. banks
• Promoting the concept of Basic Income
• Advocating for Postal banking
• Organizing for public banking in Oakland! We made the first steps happen… now there’s a spinoff group
• Bring your own debt-related project!

If you are new to Strike Debt and want to come early, meet one or two of us and get a briefing on our projects before we dive into our agenda, email us at strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com

The housing crisis in the Bay Area and beyond is a wholly preventable disaster, created and maintained by the notion that housing is a commodity and not a human right.

On Saturday, September 23, join us in the campaign for the Yes on Prop 10, also called the Affordable Housing Act — a ballot initiative that that will give our cities and counties the power to adopt rent control necessary to address the state’s housing affordability crisis by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.

The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act upholds landlord interests, and — in tandem with the housing crisis — has deeply exacerbated social disparities, displaced longtime communities, driven homelessness, and dealt a blow to working-class power by making housing ever more insecure and inaccessible.

Come learn more about Prop 10 and repealing Costa-Hawkins, and then we’ll hit the streets to talk with our neighbors about housing justice and the Affordable Housing Act!

We will be meeting within the park. Look for the big DSA flag!

Accessibility: McClymonds Park is ADA-accessible.

Our Agenda is as follows:

1PM – Brief introductions and agenda check in
1:15 to 2:30PM – Candidate oral statements and Q & A
2:30PM – Ranked-Choice Voting discussion
3:00PM – Endorsement Vote
3:15PM – Fall Strategy Conversation
4PM – Adjourn

NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:

occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If for some reason the amphitheater is being used otherwise and/or OGP itself is inaccessible, we will meet at Kaiser Park, right next to the statues, on 19th St. between San Pablo and Telegraph. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)

On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.

OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally. Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.

At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.

General Assembly Standard Agenda

Welcome & Introductions
Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
Announcements
(Optional) Discussion Topic

Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.

Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area

San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv

Join Oakland Privacy for two award-winning Australian films about our dystopian techno-state. Cosponsored by Liberated Lens Film Collective.

Doors open at 5:30pm
Program starts at 6pm

RSVP

iRony, directed by then 19-year old Radheya Jegatheya, is an 8 minute animated film exploring the relationship between human and technology …. told from the perspective of a phone. The hand drawn animated film is based on a poem by the director which won 2 national poetry awards in Australia and has received 14 “Best of” awards in film festivals around the globe.

Stare Into The Lights My Pretties, directed by Jordan Brown, investigates questions of how did we get here and who benefits to form a critical view of technological escalation driven by rapacious and pervasive corporate interests. Covering themes of addiction, privacy, surveillance, information manipulation, behavior modification and social control, the film lays the foundations as to why we may feel like we are sleep running into some dystopian nightmare with the machines at the helm. The film won the “Edward Snowden Award” in Argentina, “Most Challenging Film” from Indie Lincs in Lincoln United Kingdom, “Most Unforgettable Film” Silver Award from the Spotlight Film Festival, United States; and winner and semi-finalist accolades from events in Poland, Bangladesh, Russia, Ireland and Belgium.

With a brief q+a with Privacy Advisory Commission chair Brian Hofer about what we can do to slow down dystopia right here in our backyard.

Last week, one of the largest consulting and management firms in the world cut ties with ICE. McKinsey and Company showed just how easy it is to stay true to its values. McKinsey’s contract did not deal directly with immigration enforcement but the company still took a stance stating they, “will not, under any circumstances, engage in any work, anywhere in the world, that advances or assists policies that are at odds with our values.”

McKinsey’s move to cancel their ICE contract comes amid growing outcry over company’s contracts with ICE, including more than 100,000 people signing petitions and participating in-person protests at Salesforce, Amazon, and Northeastern University.

Meanwhile, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, has claimed since the company’s contract with CBP does not deal directly with activities at the US-Mexico border, Salesforce will not drop their contract.

Facebook event and more info

Demand letter

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED. THE ITEM WILL NOT BE TAKEN UP BY THE COUNCIL THIS DAY.

Council Person Abel Guillen is proposing the Nordic Model for East Oakland otherwise known as End Demand legislation. The law would target clients, thereby creating a smaller pool of paying clients. This is the last thing we need while we are reeling from FOSTA/SESTA.

Every time this kind of bad legislation is put into law, anywhere in the world, it causes more violence against sex workers and unsafe working conditions. We need folks to come pack the meeting and fax City Council before hand at https://tribunus.typeform.com/to/ABrd2T

Accessibility info – This is at City hall – on the 3rd floor, there is an elevator up to the 3rd floor, in terms of scents, it is City Hall, so it’s not scent free

Join Oakland Privacy to organize against the surveillance state, police militarization and ICE, and to advocate for surveillance regulation around the Bay.

We fight against “pre-crime” and “thought-crime,” spy drones, facial recognition, police body cameras and requirements for “backdoors” to cellphones, to list just a few invasions of our privacy by all levels of Government.

We draft and push for privacy legislation for City Councils, at the County level, and in Sacramento. We advocate in op-eds and in the streets. We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and believe no one is illegal.

Oakland Privacy originally came together in 2013 to fight against the Domain Awareness Center, Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OP was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network.

Our major projects currently include local legislation to regulate state surveillance (we got the strongest surveillance regulation ordinance in the country passed in Oakland!), opposing Urban Shield (now gone!) and pushing back against ICE with local legislation.

If you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy email listserv, coming to a meeting, or have questions, send an email to:

contact@oaklandprivacy.org

Check out our website: http://oaklandprivacy.org/   Follow us on twitter: @oaklandprivacy

Check out our sister site DeportICE.

“WATCHING YOU WATCHING US”

Oakland Privacy works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment.  Oakland Privacy drove the passage of surveillance regulation and transparency ordinances in Oakland and Berkeley and is kicking off new processes in Richmond and Alameda County.  To help slow down the encroaching police state all over the Bay Area, join us at the Omni.

Want to get involved with SURJ Bay Area? Come learn about our current work and activities. SURJ moves white people to act for justice, with passion and accountability, as part of a multi-racial majority.

Please attend! Tell people. Spread the word. Challenge this. UC must not be allowed to expand at the expense of rising rents and to displace homeless people!!! This year they admitted 2000 more students into a city that already has a huge affordable housing shortage! Are they manipulating the market just to KEEP RENTS HIGH?

People’s Park Project  – An overview & planning steps for development presented by Ruben Lizardo, Director of UC’s Government & Community Relations

You’re invited to the Le Conte Neighborhood Association meeting:

People’s Park Project – An overview & planning steps for development presented by Ruben Lizardo, Director of UC’s Government & Community Relations, with Telegraph business perspectives from Stuart Baker, Executive Director of Telegraph BID

ORGANIZING IN THE GONE CITY
A conversation with Dick Walker on his latest book,
Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity
in the San Francisco Bay Area

Join LeftRoots and the The Center for Political Education for an
evening with radical geographer Dick Walker. He will be joined by on-the-ground organizers against gentrification, displacement, and exploitation by the tech industry in the Bay Area, including:

• Vanessa Moses, of Causa Justa Just Cause
• Alex Tom, of Chinese Progressive Association
• Divya Sundar, of ASATA – Alliance of South Asians Taking Action

The San Francisco Bay Area is a jewel in the crown of capitalism—the tech capital of the world and a gusher of wealth from the Silicon Gold Rush. The Bay boasts of being the Left Coast, home of green cities, and the best place for workers in the USA. So, what could be wrong?

Join us to examine the dark side of this success: overheated, exploding inequality, and severe environmental damage—and how Pictures of a Gone City can help us build power and win in these changing and challenging times.

Dick Walker is one of those rare scholars who helps us understand the world in order to change it. A professor emeritus of geography at UC Berkeley, he has long been a resource for Bay Area activists seeking to understand where we live and work, its local dynamics and global context. Pictures of a Gone City—sweeping in scope and exquisitely detailed—examines the political economy and class structure of the region; displacement, internal migration and the growth of its cities; and its history of environmental and political organizing.

Wheelchair accessible.

For more information, email bayareacc@leftroots.net or center@politicaleducation.org

On September 13, BART unanimously adopted a surveillance transparency ordinance, the 6th Bay Area entity to do so and the first transit agency in the country. Thanks to you, there will be no more secret surveillance on BART. But BART still has plans for enhanced security and has scheduled a meeting in the suburbs. What BART does affects all of its riders, so your voice should be heard – even if they make you travel a long way to do it. Pittsburg City Hall, to be exact.

Free shuttle from the Pittsburg Center BART station.