The Oakland Police Commission is holding it’s first special public hearing. The commissioners decided to focus on homelessness. #OakMtg pic.twitter.com/QA2pZ2HhQC
— Darwin BondGraham (@DarwinBondGraha) February 2, 2019
In San Francisco we celebrate Valentine’s Week – the week of love and friendship – with an annual Nude Valentine Parade. Why nude? Because it’s much more interesting and fun that way, and because nudity and love go well together. But more importantly, this is a way to reduce the harm that prudishness does to our society.
The parade starts in the Castro District – once famous as the nation’s center of gay love – and ends in the Haight-Ashbury District – where the Summer of Love took place in the year 1967.
We will gather at Jane Warner Plaza (corner of Castro and Market Streets) at noon on Feb 16 (the Saturday following Valentine’s Day). We will walk from the plaza to Haight Street, via a mostly level route (uphill portions are not very steep). The parade ends at Haight and Stanyan Streets.
The parade itself takes about an hour, but we have the option to stay until 4pm on the sidewalks along Haight Street. Friendly visitors to the Haight-Ashbury are usually eager to chat and have their pictures taken with public nudists.
The parade is free for anyone to join, to follow, or to watch. Anyone can participate –visitors and locals, all genders, all ages. Any degree of nudity is legal at this event, and many participants will only be wearing shoes.
In the spirit of grief, love, and compassion, we will gather to honor Earth and to affirm our commitment to rebel nonviolently against government inaction on climate change. The gathering is the first step in a series of XR events this spring as we build up to International Rebellion Week in April. Please join us and join the rebellion!
This event will include a climate ribbon ceremony, a silent march, art & music and amazing speakers including:
– Joanna Macy, author of Active Hope
– Pennie Opal Plant of Idle No More
– Rhiannon Hewitt, who performed at the Pathway to Paris
– Ryan Rising of Permaculture Action Network
Please help us fill the amphitheater by spreading the word to your friends, colleagues and family members on social media. Also, please ask them to sign up on our Action Network page for updates on future actions.
Help us turn up the noise on Twitter by using the hashtag #XRBayArea and click “attending” on this Facebook event.
BRING:
A CANDLE: Please bring A CANDLE, one for each person coming. It may be windy, so we suggest a candle in a glass, or a taper candle with an improvised shield – we trust your ingenuity.
GENERAL: This is an outdoor event, so layers, an umbrella and comfortable shoes, water and your own snacks. We gather rain and shine.
KIDS: This is a kid friendly event, though there will not be specific programming for children.
ART: We have created some inspiring art for this event. We encourage everyone to create your own additional signs, banners, puppets, etc – we love your style!
WHO WE ARE:
We are the Extinction Rebellion, an international nonviolent direct action movement that represents nothing less than radical love at work. We aim to drive radical change, through nonviolent resistance, in order to avert climate breakdown and minimize the risk of human extinction and ecological collapse. In a matter of a few months, XR has sprouted up in more than 200 locations around the world and it continues to grow.
We rebel because our governments’ continued submission to fossil fuel interests is setting us on the path to climate change catastrophe and extinction. We rebel because we understand that racial healing and climate justice are inextricably linked. The communities most harmed by climate change — indigenous nations, poor communities, front line communities of color — are the ones least responsible for producing it. We rebel because the systems that have transformed our climate are fundamentally unjust. We rebel because we are in dire need of broad-based, grassroots resistance and collaboration for resilience amid deep social divisions and runaway climate change. We rebel because our kinship with all life on Earth requires us to do so.
For more information, message XR Coordination through the FB page.
On January 22nd Mike Pence made a phone call to opposition politician Juan Guaidó, essentially offering him the presidency of Venezuela. The next day, Guaidó swore an oath in which he appointed himself “Interim President of Venezuela.” Minutes later, Donald Trump officially recognized that self-appointment, in effect instigating a coup against the elected Bolivarian government of Nicholas Maduro. Since then, the mainstream corporate media has been supporting the coup, flooding the air waves and Internet with stories about chaos, poverty, corruption, and violence in Venezuela, exclusively covering anti-government marches, and showing clips of world leaders calling for the overthrow of the Venezuelan government.
Yet in a poll conducted a little more than a week before, 81% of Venezuelans had never even heard of the 35-year-old Guaido! Not mentioned in these news reports are the extremely popular education, health care, and housing programs provided by the Venezuelan government, that the U.S. government has imposed draconian economic sanctions on Venezuela, and that the U.S. has openly spent tens of millions of dollars supporting violent opposition groups. Also not mentioned is that despite all of this, Maduro won re-election in May and thousands have been marching throughout Venezuela in support of the government since the attempted coup; almost every day.
Donald Trump has threatened to use “all options, including military” against Venezuela, a country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves that John Bolton has openly said best belong in the hands of American oil companies. The attack on Venezuela foreshadows forthcoming attacks on Cuba, Iran, and Nicaragua, as well as attacks on anyone here in the U.S. who dares to oppose this drive for domination and destruction of yet another country.
Come to a presentation and discussion to find out what’s really happening in Venezuela.
Speakers: Alicia Jrapko, Task Force on the Americas; Mehmet Bayram, Independent Journalist, Allan Miller, Economist, Activist & Writer.
Please join us for our regular biweekly meeting of the Sunflower Alliance. We’ll discuss ongoing campaigns and future plans and identify upcoming actions we can take to fight fossil fuels and work for a just and sustainable world. Old friends and newcomers are equally welcome. We need your participation and your voice! Come early to hang out and share a potluck lunch.
12:30 potluck lunch
Meeting 1-3
ALTERNATIVES TO POLICING WORKSHOP 2
Let’s talk about the “common sense” ideas about crime, morality, and safety that shape and limit how we think about policing and community safety. Many of these ideas are profoundly influenced by a particular brand of Christianity that has dominated in this country, a version of the faith that served to justify genocide and slavery and continues to uphold white supremacy in ways that are sometimes overt but more often subtle and even innocuous-seeming. How can we begin to call these “common sense” ideas into question so that we can have a different conversation?
In this interactive workshop, we will take a deep dive into both the actual history of policing and the narratives and ideologies that have shaped it. Content will include viewing and discussion of segments from two webinars, one offered by Andrea Ritchie on January 28, 2019 on the History of Policing, and one offered by SoulForce on January 8, 2018 on Christian Supremacy and Policing, both through SURJ-Faith.
Andrea Ritchie is a Black lesbian immigrant and police misconduct attorney and organizer who has engaged in extensive research, writing, and advocacy around criminalization of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people of color over the past two decades. She recently published Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color now available from Beacon Press. Read more about her and her work here: http://andreajritchie.com/bio/
SoulForce is an LGBTQI organization that sabotages Christian Supremacy through radical analysis, spiritual healing and strategic direct action. Their website reads: “Christian Supremacy is not new; the project of empire has snatched Christianity and put it into service for hundreds of years, especially in the United States and its business partners. Calling out Christian Supremacy means recognizing that the struggles against white supremacy, capitalism, and (neo)colonization – to name a few – are intricately tied to how certain sectors and expressions of Christianity are driven by power over, not justice. We believe consciousness of how this kind of religion works in the United States – its language, its cultural plumb lines, its relationship to social and financial power, its stated and unstated values – tells a more honest story of how this country came to be.”
Facilitators will be Nichola Torbett and Marcia Lovelace.
We will also ground ourselves in our values and agreements, which are rooted in transformative justice, and in our commitment to caring for our hearts, minds, and spirits as we do this work.
By donation; no one turned away for lack of funds.
ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP SERIES
A growing coalition of organizations in the Bay Area is coming together to explore alternatives to calling the police to our campuses and into our neighborhoods. Over the coming year, we will be offering a series of workshops to explore alternatives to calling the police. Some of these workshops, like this one, will provide deepening analysis and a grounding in alternative ways of thinking about safety. Others will provide practical skills. All of them will lift up a transformative justice framework and emphasize the importance of self care.
The Coalition includes First Congregational Church of Oakland, Kehilla Community Synagogue, Agape Fellowship, Qal’bu Maryam, Jewish Voice for Peace, the East Bay Meditation Center, Skyline Community Church, Oakland Peace Center, Oakland LBGTQ Community Center, KinFolkz, the Omni Collective, and Black Organizing Project. We are eager to partner with additional organizations so please contact us if you are interested!
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
Liberated Lens will host a free film series commemorating the 400th Anniversary of the first Africans brought to present day America. The series will feature an event every third Sunday of the month starting February, for Black History Month, and ending in August, which marks the quadricentennial.
For the first event of the series we will show “Nightjohn” and have a discussion with Natalie Baszile, author of a novel, “Queen Sugar”.
NIGHTJOHN:
Sarny, a 12-year-old slave girl in the South, faces a relatively hopeless life. Her chief duties at the plantation of Clel Waller are serving at table, spitting tobacco juice on roses to prevent bugs, and secretly conveying intimate messages between Waller’s wife, Callie, and Dr. Chamberlaine. Then Nightjohn, a former runaway slave arrives. In exchange for a pinch of tobacco, Nightjohn secretly begins to teach Sarny to read and write, a crime punishable by death. “Words,” he says, “are freedom.
“Queen Sugar”
Queen Sugar is a novel written by Natalie Baszile, her first published novel. It is a mother-daughter story of reinvention. It tells the story about a woman, who unexpectedly inherits a sugarcane farm in Louisiana. The novel was adapted as a drama television series on Oprah’s network, directed by Ava DuVernay (“Selma”, “13th”)
The birthplace of our Chicago-based comrade Chairman Fred Hampton, Jr. is being targeted for foreclosure. It’s time to turn out to preserve the home where Mama Akua Njeri, formerly known as Deborah Johnson, raised her son and from where they carry on the Panther legacy of organizing their community to bring an end to predatory smash and grab tactics that cause so many to suffer in their community.
Join Community Ready Corps (Allies and Accomplices) for a conversation between community activist Cat Brooks and Mama Akua as they talk about the ongoing work and calling of Black women and girls who are at the center of this year’s #BlackSolidarityWeek.
All proceeds from ticket sales will go to the Black Solidarity Fund and will be used to support the efforts to #SaveTheHamptonHouse. Please bring your wallet and be prepared to make a donation or a pledge so that we can send Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. and Mama Akua home to Chicago feeling our love and support.
Tickets are sliding scale from $5-$80, and no one will be turned away for lack of funds. You will be able to purchase tickets at the door, but space will be reserved for people who purchase tickets in advance (scroll down). Tickets purchased at the door will be $5-$100.
Accessibility Information
Childcare and interpretation for Spanish and ASL provided by reservation. Please come scent-free. Venue is ADA accessible, though not fully scent-free. A scent-free, ADA-accessible bathroom is provided.
The birthplace of freedom fighter Chairman Fred Hampton is being targeted for foreclosure. Without our support, this monument to the radical legacy of the Black Panthers will be another casualty of the big banks. The Chicago community will also lose a key organizing space that currently hosts the Black Panther Cubs among other survival programs.
Join Community Ready Corps (Allies) for a special night of political education and material support for the work of Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. and Mama Akua Njeri. Last year you heard from them at our “Surviving Smash & Grab” event as part of #BlackSolidarityWeek. They opened up about the assassination of twenty-one-year-old Chicago Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton Sr. just 18 months after FBI Director Edgar Hoover issued this directive:
“Prevent the Coalition of militant black nationalist groups…An effective coalition might be the first step toward a real “Mau Mau” in America, the beginning of a true black revolution.”
This year we’ll learn about the work of the Chicago Black Panther Party today, from the Panther Cubs program for youth to plans for a museum documenting the legacy of freedom fighter Chairman Fred Hampton.
This event is a fundraiser meant to solicit material support for the effort to preserve and protect the birthplace of Chairman Fred Hampton from the Oakland left. Please bring your wallet and help us send Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. and Mama Akua home to Chicago feeling our love and support.
* Brainstorm articles for next issue
* Discussion forum for your article ideas
* Orientation on how you can submit articles, art, photographs
* Help us discuss our audience and themes for the next issue
* Discuss fundraising and distribution
* Your chance to comment on Slingshot
Everyone is welcome.
Issue #129 is due out on April 20, 2019
Deadline for Issue #129 is April 6, 2019
This protest is planned in response to President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency. Join in to protect the rule of law and our Constitution. On this Presidents Day holiday, stand to demand that our president respect the separation of powers.
David Duhalde is a DC-based political and socialist activist, and is the current Political Director of Our Revolution – a progressive political action organization inspired by Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.
Mark your calendars for a discussion with David: “How Can Our Revolution Work More Closely With East Bay Progressives?” hosted by the RPA. It will be held at Steve Early’s house on Monday, February 18, from 3-6pm (747 Lobos Avenue, Richmond). Beer, wine, and snacks provided. (Additional food or drink contributions welcome!)
Please RSVP to Steve Early at Lsupport@aol.com or at 617-930-7327.
Currently, Our Revolution has over 200,000 members and 600 groups across the country (and a few in Europe). Under Duhalde’s tenure, Our Revolution won over 70 races in the 2018 general election cycle, including electing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Deb Haaland to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Help launch a Bay-Area-wide movement to keep coal out of our communities! Oakland, Richmond, and Vallejo residents have been fighting coal export terminals — already operating or threatening to open — for years.
Now the “No Coal” movement is coming together on a regional level to keep coal out of Northern California. People from the communities fighting coal will come together to share experiences and make plans. Everyone is welcome.
*** Location change: Sibley Auditorium, Bechtel Engineering Center, UC Berkeley ***
Please join us for a special lecture series with celebrated author and scholar Marion Nestle.
Food Politics 2019: Food Policy in the Trump Era
What’s happening under the Trump administration to policies aimed at solving problems of undernutrition, obesity, and the effects of food production on the environment?
Introduction by Michael Pollan, John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism.
This is the first lecture in a series of three special events:
February 12, 2019: https://bit.ly/2ANX9nh
Food Politics 2019: Nutrition Science Under Siege
Nutrition science is under attack from statisticians and the food industry. Who stands to gain and what might be lost?
February 19, 2019: https://bit.ly/2slNtLK
Food Politics 2019: An Agenda for the Food Movement
Recent government policy changes are eroding programs aimed at feeding the hungry, curbing obesity, and protecting the environment. What can consumers and citizens do?
About Marion Nestle
Marion Nestle is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, emerita, at New York University. She holds a doctorate in Molecular Biology and an MPH in Public Health Nutrition, both from UC Berkeley. She is the author of ten books, among them the prize-winning Food Politics; What to Eat; Why Calories Count; Eat, Drink, Vote; and Soda Politics. Her most recent book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat, was published in 2018. From 2008 to 2013, she wrote a monthly Food Matters column for the San Francisco Chronicle. She blogs almost daily at www.foodpolitics.com, and her twitter account, @marionnestle, has been ranked by Science Magazine, Time Magazine, and The Guardian as among the top ten in health and science.
RSVP: https://bit.ly/2SLZupJ
This series is presented in partnership with Berkeley Journalism, the Berkeley Food Institute, the UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship.
East Bay DSA’s Socialist Night School continues its 2019 Winter Session with a class examining strikes.
Over the last year there has been a wave of successful teacher strikes, and our local Oakland Education Association recently voted to authorize a strike. But how do strikes figure into the larger picture of class struggle and building working class power? And what lessons can we learn from historical strikes?
Please join us on Tuesday, February 19 to discuss these questions and more!
Details and readings coming soon!
Accessibility: Wheelchair-accessible entrance and restrooms
See the readings that we’ll be discussing after a brief introduction from our members.
Oakland teachers just set the date of their strike for this coming Thursday! Join us this Tuesday night for an emergency Oakland Is Strike Ready meeting and bring everyone you know! pic.twitter.com/XlnnSR15Ok
— East Bay DSA 🌹 (@DSAEastBay) February 16, 2019
UC Berkeley is hosting influential scholars and social movement leaders from Brazil and the United States—homes to the two largest Black populations outside the continent of Africa.
Guest Speakers include:
Cat Brooks (Anti Police-Terror Project)
Ericka Huggins (Black Panther Party)
Vilma Reis (Movimento de Mulheres Negras)
Alicia Garza (Black Lives Matter)
Asha Ransby-Sporn (Black Youth Project 100)
Djamila Ribeiro (Movimento de Feministas Negras)
Andreia Beatriz & Hamilton Borges dos Santos (Reaja ou Será Mort@)
Christen Smith (UT Austin)
Tina Sacks, Leigh Raiford & john a. powell (UC Berkeley)
Camila de Moraes and more throughout this three-day symposium!
In 2019, a U.S. congressional session begins with more women and non-white members than ever before amid a contentious executive branch, and Brazil’s far-right president-elect begins his first term despite anti-Black, -LGBTQ, and -woman rhetoric. The symposium on “Anti-Black State Violence in the Americas” will facilitate transnational coalitions, engagement, and learning. Taking place over three days, scholars, scholar-activists, and organizers will discuss the intersecting challenges of addressing anti-black state violence through workshops on topics including: policing and democracy; historical foundations of Black struggle; wellness and healing; sustainability and social movements; cultural media production; education in today’s socio-cultural contexts; pathways to contesting racialized forms of violence, and, many others.
Join us during this dynamic multi-disciplinary symposium as we illuminate cross-cultural understanding, bringing forward the sharp contrast and commonality between South and North America and generating anti-oppression community building across the Americas. All community members welcome!
RSVP for individuals events and workshops: https://goo.gl/forms/par3FykAT2mJtRCe2
All events are wheelchair accessible. Please fill out our Event Registration form so we can accommodate any additional access needs.
We can’t wait for you to join us for this dynamic event!!!
STOP SFPD MILITARIZATION ALERT! The vote to approve Tasers in 2018 violated the Brown Act! Remember how they locked us out of City Hall last year and cast an illegal vote? Come out tomorrow and demand the SF Police Commission rescind the vote! City Hall 2/20 5:30 Rm. 400.
— DSA San Francisco (@DSA_SF) February 20, 2019
Come learn how you fit, and where you can plug into, the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative.
The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative (EB PREC) uses community investment to develop permanently affordable cooperative housing that uses regenerative practices, like wealth re-distribution, to empower sovereign, self-determined Black Indigenous and POC communities.
Our mission is to facilitate BIPOC and allied communities to cooperatively organize, finance, purchase, occupy, and steward properties, taking them permanently off the speculative market.
By co-creating community controlled assets, thereby reducing risk of displacement, we help people meet their basic social, economic, and emotional needs, and empower them to cooperatively lead a just transition from an extractive capitalist system into one where communities are ecologically, emotionally, spiritually, culturally, and economically restorative and regenerative.
Points of Unity:
This is not an exhaustive list and it is a work in progress. For now, EB PREC has adopted the following points of unity.
~We stand for the liberation and healing of all people and lands oppressed and exploited by histories of Genocide, Slavery, Low wage labor, Land theft, Predatory lending, and Forced migration.
~We provide mutual aid to front-line communities first, the liberation of black and indigenous communities is fundamental to the liberation of all people, a rising tide lifts all boats.
~We believe restorative solutions are rooted in collective land stewardship and decision-making. We prioritize people, planet, and future generations over profits. We move at the pace of community, not capital.
~We build trust and safe spaces with each other by doing the healing work required to transform antiquated capitalist notions into regenerative and cooperative relationships.
~We build productive capacity for disinvested BIPOC communities through community education and networks of cooperatives. EBPREC helps communities manifest vision into reality on the communities terms.
