Calendar
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.
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!
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!
Please pack the court for oral arguments in East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. Trump, a federal lawsuit challenging the new Trump proclamation, which bars people seeking asylum at the U.S. southern border if they attempt to enter outside a port of entry.
Monday lawyers with Center for Constituional Rights and our legal co-counsel, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center, will argue that the ban is unlawful and ask the court to issue a Temporary Restraining Order to prevent the asylum ban from going into effect. The argument will take place before Judge Jon S. Tigar.
Note: Please plan to arrive at least 30 minutes early to go through security. ID may be required.
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.
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.
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.
Thanks to community support, a federal judge granted us an extension today on the restraining order against eviction!
We have two weeks until our next court date: Show up MONDAY Nov 26, 3 pm, at Dellums Building at 1301 Clay St, 4th floor courtroom 2! #ByeLibby #UpgradeDontEvict pic.twitter.com/mhAHSwC0rA
— The Village, Oakland (@VillageOakland) November 14, 2018
Special Meeting Agenda
Commission Members:
District 1 Representative: Reem Suleiman,
District 2 Representative: Chloe Brown,
District 3 Representative: Brian M. Hofer,
District 4 Representative: Lou Katz,
District 5 Representative: Raymundo Jacquez III,
District 6 Representative: Vacant,
District 7 Representative: Robert Oliver,
Council At-Large Representative: Saied R. Karamooz,
Mayoral Representative: Heather Patterson
_____________________________________________________________________________________
4. 5:15pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – Unapproved Use of UAV by OPD during exigent circumstances – presentation of revised staff report and take possible action
5. 5:25pm: Review and take possible action on a Federal Task Force MOU with the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS)
6. 5:35pm: Review and take possible action on a Federal Task Force MOU with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)
7. 5:45pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – Cell Site Simulator draft Use Policy – review and take possible action on revised staff policy.
8. 7:00pm: Adjournment
Unions play a contradictory role in advancing a progressive agenda, and nowhere is this more true than in electoral politics.
Despite decades worth of betrayals by the Democratic Party, unions are the party’s most loyal foot soldiers and some of its biggest donors — even for candidates that are tepid at best when it comes to working-class issues. When the politician who fought harder for the working class than anyone we’ve seen in our lifetimes, Bernie Sanders, sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, almost the entire labor movement lined up behind his corporate-funded opponent Hillary Clinton. The same has been true for other candidates backed by the Left since Sanders, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon. While some progressive unions supported Jovanka Beckles — a democratic socialist and champion of unions and the working class — in her 2018 campaign against billionaire-funded, centrist Democrat Buffy Wicks, many other unions backed Wicks.
Why does labor seem to make these wrongheaded decisions over and over? And how should socialists respond to them? Join East Bay DSA and Jacobin editor Micah Uetricht for a discussion on how socialists should approach unions and electoral politics.
Micah Uetricht is based in Chicago and is the managing editor of Jacobin. He is the author of Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity and is currently working on a book about socialism and Bernie Sanders. He writes frequently about the US labor movement.
“Imprisoning a Generation” is a documentary film which follows the stories of four young Palestinians who have been detained and imprisoned under the Israeli military system. Their perspectives, along with the voices of their families, form a lens into the entangled structures of oppression that expand well beyond the prison walls. (50 minutes, Produced & Directed by Zelda Edmunds). Screened at the 2018 US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Conference. November 29 is also the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Join Us! Following the film, MECA Director Zeiad Abbas Shamrouch and film director Zelda Edmunds will give a brief update about Palestinian children being detained under house arrest and take questions.
TICKETS:
Benefit for MECA programs in Palestine & Lebanon. Wheelchair accessible.
For info: http://www.mecaforpeace.org.
https://www.facebook.com/events/184730162442385/?active_tab=about
Join East Bay DSA’s Labor Committee for their regular Beer and Roses Social! This will now be an ****after party**** for the event “Unions, Politics, and Socialism” earlier in the evening. Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2236804029868932/
Hang out with other members who are interested in the labor movement, hear about what’s happening in the East Bay DSA Labor Committee, and learn how you can get involved!
In her first work of literary nonfiction, HAPA TALES AND OTHER LIES, Sharon H. Chang explores her Asian American and Mixed Race identity through the prism of returning to Hawai’i as a tourist. But what begins as a journey to discover herself turns into much more as she learns the true history of the islands, Hawai’i’s Indigenous children, and the Native Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement.
Please join author Sharon H. Chang for a special Oakland Chinatown event celebrating her new memoir, co-hosted by EastwindBooks Berkeley. The evening will include reading and discussion with Sharon and NoCal writers Asha Sudra, Wei Ming Dariotis, Nia McAllister and Fredrick D. Kakinami Cloyd.