Based on frequent, first-hand reporting in Iran and the United States, The Iran Agenda Today explores the turbulent recent history between the two countries and reveals how it has led to a misguided showdown over nuclear technology. Foreign correspondent Reese Erlich notes that all the major U.S. intelligence agencies agree Iran has not had a nuclear weapons program since at least 2003. He explores why Washington nonetheless continues saber rattling, and he provides a detailed critique of mainstream media coverage of Iran. The book further details the popular protests that have rocked Tehran despite repression by the country’s own Deep State. Erlich offers insights on Iran’s domestic politics, popular culture, and diverse populations over this recent era. His analysis draws on past interviews with high-ranking Iranian officials, the former shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi, and Iranian exiles in Los Angeles, as well as his trip to Tehran with actor Sean Penn.Erlich’s book Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You, co-authored with Norman Solomon was a best seller in 2003. His fifth book, Inside Syria: the Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect (foreword by Noam Chomsky) was published in 2014. In a starred review of Inside Syria, Publisher’s Weekly wrote that Erlich’s “insights and conclusions are objective and valuable… essential reading for understanding the current turmoil in the Middle East.
Norman Solomon is the author of a dozen books including “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He is also the Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, where he coordinates the ExposeFacts.org program for whistleblowers and press freedom, and co-founder of RootsAction.org.
Sabrina Jacobs is host and producer of the popular A Rude Awakening, aired on KPFA, Mondays 3:30 -4pm. She covers local breaking news as well as global events, informing listeners about the latest social injustices. Ms. Jacobs is also currently serving as staff representative/vice chair of Pacifica Radio’s National Board.
Bay Area Landless Peoples Alliance:
Regional meeting of landless activists of the San Francisco Bay Area
65 million people worldwide are fleeing war, ethnic cleansing, environmental catastrophe. Filmed in 23 countries over two years, the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei brings to life the immense human scale of the worldwide refugee crisis.
The film’s aerial photography shows the destruction of Mosul by the U.S. in Iraq, sub-Saharan Africa where 26 percent of the world’s refugees are located, the vast network of permanent camps in the Middle East, and the open-air prison of Gaza and the U.S.-Mexican border.
Ai Weiwei gives voice to the people living through this and to their hopes and their dignified determination to be treated as human beings.
A team of journalists from Liberation News traveled to Mexico in early Nov. to document the refugee caravan. Thousands of mainly Honduran families walking thousands of miles to the U.S. border are fleeing incredible violence and poverty in their home country as a direct result of decades of U.S. exploitation and intervention in the region. These increased hardships stem directly from the 2009 U.S.-backed coup in Honduras that ousted the democratically-elected progressive leader Manuel Zelaya installing a rightwing puppet government and unleashing widespread violence throughout the country.
Join us for an eyewitness report and video from PSL organizer Gloria La Riva documenting the stories of those on the caravan and the mass support they have received from the people of Mexico as they traveled to the border.
Refreshments provided. Wheelchair accessible.
Please join us for our regular biweekly meeting of the Sunflower Alliance. We’ll discuss ongoing eco-campaigns and plans for the future. Newcomers and old friends welcome — we need your participation and your voice. Come early to hang out and share a potluck lunch.
Potluck lunch: 12:30 PM
Do you think internet should be a public commons rather than a corporate monopoly?
Following Aspiration Tech’s annual Nonprofit Software Development Summit, come on over to Omni Commons to learn about the history of the internet, how it works, and how to build your own. Meet and mingle with civic hackers and organizers behind PeoplesOpen.Net: an open, community-based, wireless network in the East Bay.
Join us for food, family-friendly activities, and conversation about the state of the internet today, the physical work that goes into stewarding an internet commons, and the possibilities you see in owning and operating a piece of a community wireless network.
* No experience building internets necessary! Experience living and speaking with neighbors in your communities desired! Curiosity recommended 🙂 *
– Print a t-shirt and make buttons!
– Crimp an internet cable!
– Learn about the sweet nothings computers whisper to each other when you aren’t looking!
– Map your neighborhood resources!
– Eat tasty foods!
Agenda:
2:00pm – Why/what/how of the internet
2:30pm – Snack, mingle, share and experiment
3:00pm – Hands-on workshop with a variety of learning stations
5:00pm – end.
Donations accepted to offset the cost of tasty food!
PARADISE is coming to Oakland! One particle at a time. Because we don’t trust air we can’t see or feel, & on the orders of Chicken Little we will be meeting at the Omni Commons today, same bat time (3PM) until the sky stops falling. Personally, I prefer the Little Red Hen, she never let the exploiters to extract her surplus labor.
The Little Red Hen persuades Chicken Little to call for expropriating the means of production.
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 3 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 3:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months, once Daylight Savings Time springs forward we tend to assemble at 4 PM).
On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 2 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over five years! 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
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
In August, at the urging of Idle No More SF Bay, several Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) staff and board members journeyed to British Columbia to meet with government officials and First Nations people resisting the Canadian Trans Mountain Pipeline, and then to Alberta to tour tar sands extraction sites. This special Board of Directors meeting features the report back from that trip.
Speakers will include the BAAQMD delegation and some of the people the delegation met with in Canada: Charlene Aleck, elected Councilor from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in British Columbia, Tzephorah Berman from Stand.earth, Dave Collier, and Pennie Opal Plant from Idle No More SF Bay.
In 2017, Phillips 66 applied for an Air District permit to nearly triple the amount of oil it brings in by tanker to its Rodeo wharf. This current proposal follows an unsuccessful attempt made by the refiner three years ago to bring in tar sands crude via oil trains to its Central Coast refinery in Santa Maria. That refinery is joined by pipeline to the refinery in Rodeo; together they comprise what Phillips 66 calls the San Francisco Refinery. The Santa Maria project was stopped by the tireless efforts of Northern California activists all along the rail lines, who ultimately persuaded the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors to deny approval. Now Phillips 66 is resuming its attempts to convert to tar sands refining. The current status of its Rodeo “wharf expansion” proposal is unknown, however. The Draft Environmental Project has not yet been released, and it’s unclear what action the Air District will ultimately take.
The November 19th meeting should expose the very real connections between Canadian tar sands mining, Indigenous rights, and the potentially serious impacts on Bay Area frontline communities and on the global climate. Will the BAAQMD, a major local enforcer of California climate policy, take its role of climate protector seriously enough to erect a protective barrier around the Bay and ensure that extra-toxic tar sands are kept out of local refinery crude slates? Bay Area climate justice activists are watching closely.
See you on the 19th!
Meeting of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors’ Ad Hoc Committee on Urban Area Security Initiative, charged with reconstituting and rethinking Urban Shield.
The committee was established by the Board of Supervisors in March 2018 in response to sustained community concerns about Urban Shield, which is funded in part by UASI grants from the Department of Homeland Security, and coordinated by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.
The Board of Supervisors decided in March, 2018 that 2018 would be the last year the county would approve Urban Shield, as currently constituted, and asked the Ad Hoc Committee to make recommendations to the Board on the UASI-funded emergency preparedness training and exercise in 2019 and beyond.
The agenda will include a presentation and Q/A with county emergency preparedness officials (from ACSO, Public Health, and Social Services); a discussion of criteria for weighing recommendations; and a presentation about community-based emergency preparedness initiatives.
Agendas and materials for each meeting are posted at http://www.acgov.org/board/calendarcom.htm
After forays to Fremont and Castro Valley, the task force charged with implementing the transition from the “last Urban Shield as we know it” to a different kind of emergency preparedness training, will be meeting in Berkeley in the City Council chambers on the 19th.
The task force is countywide, so any Alameda resident is welcome, although the intent of meeting in each supervisor’s district is to make it easier for local constituents.
For more on the task force’s work, the meetings to date and the long process to transform the police militarization expo: https://www.afsc.org/story/alameda-county-emergency-preparedness-uasi-and-post-urban-shield-resources
The task force has to deal with a funding cycle in process, Alameda’s desires to both retain the funding and to transform the event, and the Department of Homeland Security, so the challenge is not small.
Oakland Privacy, a regional citizens group that protects privacy and works on surveillance and overpolicing issues, made some recommendations to the task force here: https://oaklandprivacy.org/2018/10/25/rebooting-alameda-county-emergency-preparedness/
A report back from the 2018 event from MA director Tracy Rosenberg, who attended the last urban Shield as we knew it.
https://medium.com/p/67bfeaaeeaba
More Information:
This case was filed the day the Trump order went into effect by grassroots organizations fighting for the rights of immigrants and refugees, including the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, Al Otro Lado, Innovation Law Lab and the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles. Our clients filed this legal challenge because the Trump administration’s actions are contrary to basic asylum, reflect the administration’s contempt for Central and Latin Americans, and will have dangerous consequences to highly vulnerable populations fleeing unspeakable violence.
Find out more information about our legal challenge here.
Mark your calendars! We're hosting TWO Public Banking 101 sessions in November–one at Alley Cat Books, and one @DSA_SF. We hope to see you there 🙌🏾 pic.twitter.com/8Sg3u7g293
— SF Public Bank (@sfpublicbank) October 25, 2018
REPORT FROM THE FRONTLINES:
A report-back on Palestine by the US Palestine Community Network
Join us for a report back on the recent delegation to Palestine organized by the U.S. Palestine Community Network (USPCN). USPCN members will share about conditions on the ground as they relate to political prisoners, refugees, health, land theft, and the right of return.
This event is free and welcome to all ages. Donations to support the speakers as they travel the country is greatly appreciated.
Hosted by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center.
For more questions contact info@araborganizing.org
Tell Barbara Lee to support immediate action for a Green New Deal! Join the Sunrise Movement to visit Barbara Lee in a national day of action calling on progressive legislators to support rapid national mobilization for an equitable clean-energy economy.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is sponsoring a resolution to create a Green New Deal , a 10-year economic mobilization to carbon-neutrality and drawdown. Her resolution includes the requirement that the plan promote “high income work, entrepreneurship and cooperative and public ownership” as well as “social, economic, racial, regional and gender-based justice and equality.”
It is essential that members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Barbara Lee, get behind this resolution to make it happen.
Last week Ocasio-Cortez joined the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats in a sit-in in Nancy Pelosi’s office. They said now that Democrats have a majority in the House of Representatives it’s time to take bold action on the climate.
The Sunrise Movement and Climate Mobilization are calling on everyone to call five leaders of the Progressive Caucus on Monday and join in the national day of visits to legislators Tuesday.
Hello we are here to Save the Internet!
Join us every Tuesday in the Omni Commons mezzanine to help build a community-owned and -operated wireless mesh network in the East Bay!
Every Tuesday night, we meet to discuss on-going projects, technical bugs, community and media outreach, finances and budgeting, and upcoming events, such as node mounts, office hours, and workshops. Newcomers are encouraged to come on the last Tuesdays of the month for general orientation, but are welcome at any meeting.
A wireless mesh network is a network where each computer acts as a relay to other computers, such that a network can stretch to cover entire cities.
Our goal is to create a wireless mesh network that is owned and operated by the community.
Want to help create an alternate means of digital communication that isn’t governed by for-profit internet service providers? Join us for the mesh hacknight! We need people of all backgrounds to help with everything from community involvement and grant writing to mounting antennas on buildings and developing software!
Learn more at https://peoplesopen.net and http://sudomesh.org/
Come meet our Biohackers and other Mad Scientists in our new space at the Omni Commons to discuss science, brainstorm projects, learn more about Counter Culture Lab, and plot world domination.
And hey – free pizza! See you there 🙂
To RSVP to this event, or check other events organized by Counter Culture Labs, see our Meetup page: http://www.meetup.com/Counter-Culture-Labs/
Join us at this 19th year gathering at our ancient ceremonial and the largest funerary site of the Ohlone people of the East Bay. This is a family friendly event, we will be handing out information and educating the public about this sacred site. Bring Cookies or snacks to share and a good attitude. We will have prayers and songs offered and updates on current work and issues in our communities
On Nov. 20, 1969, after centuries of being killed, displaced and driven from their land, a group of Native Americans landed on Alcatraz Island and claimed it as their own.
For 19 months the media reported every move, the government tried to stop them, and thousands of supporters visited and sent supplies.
In this 2015 documentary, the story of the historic, audacious takeover of Alcatraz is told with passion, humor and heart by Adam Fortunate Eagle, the main organizer.
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.
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
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.
Come out to Fruitvale Village and stand in solidarity with the International Call to Action for the Refugee Caravan and Central American Exodus. This day is being led by countless immigrant rights organizations that have been tirelessly organizing on both sides of the border.
The migrant caravan is a result of years of US imperialism and military intervention in Central America, which have resulted in thousands of people being forced to flee unlivable conditions in their home countries. We demand respect for the human right to seek asylum, and an end to the criminalization of all refugees.
We reject the imperialism, racism, mass incarceration, and xenophobia that have been validated and amplified by Trump and his administration. Refugees are welcome here!
Read the full call to action including demands and endorsing organizations here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PsPwJ2kORIefjU54OGdehxdzMAc7WMXNa3eGSKygess/edit
This will be a Spanish event, English translation will be available.