Calendar
*** Register here: http://bit.ly/2SrWFOt ***
Did you know? The historic Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center is where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed 7,000 East Bay residents in 1962 on the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Now, Orton Development proposes to rehabilitate and adaptively reuse the center as a performing arts venue and office space for arts and non-profit organizations.
Join Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas 4 Oakland and Laney College Facilities Planning Committee to hear plans from Orton and share feedback and questions about the project:
Please message tkang@oaklandca.gov if you need childcare or translation.
Oakland Teachers, Parents Students
We Must Win this Fight!
Public Meeting and Discussion
The Oakland Teachers are in the middle of a heroic strike to improve conditions in the classroom and to win a living wage that would allow them to stay in the city. The support in the community is incredibly high, with with an average of less than 5% of students attending school. Even still, the Oakland school district is determined to push forward their plan of closing and charterizing public schools.
Join us to discuss the strike and how to move forward!
SPEAKERS SO FAR:
Rob Rooke: Skyline High and Bret Harte Middle School parent, Socialist Alternative
Erin Brightwell: Redwood Elementary parent, Socialist Alternative
Silvia Ornelas: Roots Middle School parent
Mike Hutchinson: Oakland’s Public Education Network
Deirdre Snyder: Oakland Education Association, Executive Board (personal capacity)
SPEAKERS BEING CONFIRMED:
Rank-and-file OEA teacher
Student leader
Kaiser Elementary School parent
Click Here to RSVP on Facebook!
Join Haiti Action Committee for an eyewitness report about the unstoppable fight of Haiti’s people for liberty and justice. Since February 7th, which was the anniversary of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s 1991 inauguration as Haiti’s first democratically elected president, hundreds of thousands of Haitians have been demonstrating in the streets of cities and towns throughout the country. When thousands are in the streets in Europe, we see live coverage. Not so with Haiti. The U.S. and the Haitian elite are afraid of the mobilization of the poor. Media silence and disinformation are weapons of empire to marginalize the struggle of the Haitian people.
Chanting “we are hungry, we can’t take it anymore,” protesters demand that the totally corrupt and fraudulently (s)elected president, Jovenel Moise, resign immediately. Police and paramilitary forces have killed at least 12 people, with many more wounded. Protests have come in waves ever since Moise was announced the winner of the sham electoral process in late 2017. Moise refuses to step down, and ominously threatens to “clean up the country.” Similar threats by government officials in the past have been followed by police killings. One such instance was the November 2018 state-sponsored massacre in the La Saline neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, during which Haitian police working with weaponized gangs ruthlessly murdered more than 77 men, women and children. Numerous rapes brutalized young women and further traumatized the entire community.
Oil supplied to Haiti through PetroCaribe, Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution project, lies at the heart of the protests. Through Petrocaribe, Venezuela sells oil at a discounted rate to a country out of solidarity, with the expectation that the oil will be sold at market rate and the profit used for economic development of the country. In Haiti, a new report by a government watchdog group documents $4.2 BILLION of this profit has disappeared, unaccounted for. The report lists a number of companies that have received the money, two owned by Moise, with no accounting for how it was spent. Meanwhile, teachers have not been paid for months, and sanitation services are nil. High inflation makes even the basics unaffordable for many people. Haitians throughout the country demand to know what happened to the money, while police and members of Moise’s PHTK Party attack demonstrators with impunity, reminiscent of the Duvalier ton-ton macoutes death squads.
Even if the mass demonstrations force Moise to leave, the international corporatocracy and the Haitian elites will try to force a caretaker government to do their bidding, rather than one that supports the demands of the demonstrators, so this will be a protracted struggle.
Join Haiti Action Committee to hear an eyewitness report about these events and about the unstoppable fight of Haiti’s people for liberty and justice.
- NEW: Relieving millions in local Medical Debt through pennies-on-the-dollar buyback programs.
- NEW: A book group and seminar focused on Economic Inequality and Economic Theory for the modern age.
- Presenting debt and inequality related topics at forums, workshops and in radio productions.
- 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
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.
Indigenous Red Market is this Sunday!
Make sure to get all of your Indigenous Goodies! pic.twitter.com/qrm1SUZGbU— Native Health (@7Gen1D) February 28, 2019
HOT CHOCOLATE FOR PEACE / CHOCOLATE CALIENTE POR PAZ
Since our first Hot Chocolate/Churros stand last Sunday, Lily & Lauren (Age 10) have raised $8500 To Reunite Immigrant Families.
JOIN US this Sunday, hosted by the First Unitarian Church of Oakland, from 1-3:30 p.m. All donations will support RAICES, whose mission is to “help separated families, detained families, unaccompanied minors, and others who are seeking asylum in the United States.”
The girls decided to host the chocolate and churros stand as a response to the 7 year old boy in Austin, TX, whose hot chocolate stand raised more than $5,000 to support building the wall between the US and Mexico. Lily and Lauren could not accept this, when families are still being separated, with children being caged, illegally adopted and parents unable to be reunited.
Lily is an integral member of the GRAMMY nominated kids hip hop group Alphabet Rockers, who will provide music at the event. Lauren’s mom own’s Jennys Churros, who will supply the hot beverages and churros for the fundraiser.
Volunteer support will be generously provided by teenagers from Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula Keystone, the premiere teen character and leadership program. Grateful for the leadership support from the church, special shine on: Pastor Jacqueline Duhart and Stefan Schneider, Director of Joyful Noise Band.
Special thanks to Remezcla and LatinLive for lifting up the work of these girls, and to Berkeleyside, The Daily Californian and NBC Bay Area for covering us last week (see story here): https://www.facebook.com/alphabetrockers/videos/2248272052111108/
You can donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/mexican-hot-chocolate-stand-for-raices-texas
or Venmo @alphabetrockers – with note #hotchocolateforpeace #chocolatecalienteporpaz
#hotchocolateforpeace #chocolatecalienteporpaz
#alphabetrockers #jennyschurros
PRESS: Beth Blenz-Clucas / Sugar Mountain PR beth@sugarmountainpr.com
EVENT: Alphabet Rockers Jennys Churros
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
- 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
The interwoven story of two of the most significant workers’ rights struggles of our time: the 2011 weeks-long fight by public employees in Wisconsin, and the long struggle by teachers in Chicago to win quality public schools and democracy in their union, culminating in a 2012 teachers strike. Working class struggle is analyzed through union history and a radical critique of the Democratic Party.
Panel with Oakland’s striking teachers after the screening
free admission
free snacks and popcorn
Liberated Lens Film Collective is screening the move Schoolidarity at the Omni Commons in support of the striking Oakland Unified teachers on Sunday, March 3rd at 5 PM.
| Omni Commons 4799 Shattuck Ave Oakland |
|
|
The interwoven story of two of the most significant workers’ rights struggles of our time: the 2011 weeks-long fight by public employees in Wisconsin, and the long struggle by teachers in Chicago to win quality public schools and democracy in their union, culminating in a 2012 teachers strike. Working class struggle is analyzed through union history and a radical critique of the Democratic Party. Panel with Oakland’s striking teachers after the screening Free admission Free snacks and popcorn  |
We’re still playing every Monday that it doesn’t rain!
Occupella organizes informal public singing at Bay Area occupation sites, marches and at BART stations. We sing to promote peace, justice, and an end to corporate domination, especially in support of the Occupy movement.
Music has the power to build spirit, foster a sense of unity, convey messages and emotions, spread information, and bring joy to participants and audience alike. See spirited clip of an action at BART. Check out the actions calendar and come add your voice. There are lots of ways to participate and everyone is welcome.
Join us and our allies in our campaign to audit the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. Help strategize, build community, organize for upcoming rallies and events. Interested in join the #AuditAhern campaign? please reach out to Jose@EllaBakerCenter.org to find out more!
Because of the COVID pandemic we will be meeting virtually via Zoom on the first Monday of the month.
Meeting ID: 828 0976 4186
The Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality & State Repression (OGC) is a
grassroots democratic organization that was formed as a conscious united front for justice against police brutality. The OGC is involved in the struggle for police accountability and is committed to stopping police brutality.
In alliance with the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) we organized the October 23, 2010 labor and community rally for Justice for Oscar Grant. On that day the ILWU shut down the Bay Area ports in solidarity. Our mission is to educate, organize and mobilize people against police and state repression. Sisters and brothers! The Oscar Grant Committee invites you to join us in this vital struggle.
We meet on the 1st Monday of each month
You can join our discussion list by sending a blank (doesn’t even need a subject) email to
oscargrantcommittee-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
Accessibility: Wheelchair-accessible entrance and restrooms
Required Readings
See the readings that we’ll be discussing after a brief introduction from our members.
Ad Hoc Committee on UASI
Wednesday March 6th, 2019 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM
125 12th street, 4th floor, Hayward Room (STE 400)
Oakland CA 94607
- Opening (15 min.)………………………………………………………………………………………………………Chair
- Roll call.
- Meeting purpose and deliverables / Direction from the Board of Supervisors.
- Agenda review.
- Review of Board Actions (30 min.)………………………………………………………County Counsel / Chair
- Review actions taken by the Board of Supervisors at their 2/26/2019 meeting.
- Review recommendations passed in BOS Motion 1.
- Review recommendations passed in BOS Motion 2.
- Review of BAUASI Funding Guidelines (30 min.)…………………………………………………BAUASI/ACSO
- Review funding guidelines for UASI.
- Review recommendations not in compliance with UASI guidelines.
- Funding Compliance Discussion (120 min.)………………………………………………………………………ALL
- Identify Committee recommendations that may not comply with the funding guidelines.
- Review recommendations passed in BOS Motion 2 that are deemed as “non-compliant”, including reason for the classification.
- Propose and discuss modifications that could bring non-compliant recommendations into compliance.
- Identify points of consensus.
- Public Comment……………………………………………………………………………………………………….Public
- Report to the Board of Supervisors (15 min.)…………………………………………………………………Chair
- Identify how best to jointly presents a response to the Board of Supervisors.
- ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..fin
A lecture: “Stamped From the Beginning: How the Ideology of Race Shapes Education and Society”
For details, call 510.642.3726.
Join us as we discuss and finalize the Ella Baker Centers 2019-20 legislative platform to end mass incarceration and hear from people directly impacted by criminal justice policy changes. Dinner will be provided.
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.
AST BAY BOOKSELLERS welcomes Nanjala Nyabola to discuss her new new book Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Kenya, on Wednesday, March 6th at 7pm.
Kenya is the most digitally advanced country in sub-Saharan Africa, where Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and other online platforms are part of everyday life. And, as in Western nations, the digital age has had dramatic effects on society and politics. Yet, while we hear about the #MeToo movement and the Russian bot scandal, there is little appreciation for the feminist movement #MyDressMyChoice and the subversion of state-run political propaganda by social media.
Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics aims to change this by presenting a unique contribution to the debate on digital democracy. For traditionally marginalized groups, particularly women and the disabled, digital spaces have provided vital platforms that allow Kenyans to build new communities that transcend old ethnic and gender divisions. Covering attempts by political elites to prevent social movements from translating online visibility into meaningful offline gains, Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics explores the drastic efforts to contain online activism and new methods of feminist mobilization, as well as how “fake news,” Cambridge Analytica, and allegations of hacking contributed to tensions around the 2017 elections. Reframing digital democracy for the first time from the African perspective, Nanjala Nyabola’s groundbreaking work opens up new ways of understanding our current global online era.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nanjala Nyabola is a Kenyan writer, humanitarian advocate, and political analyst currently based in Nairobi. She is a frequent columnist at Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Al Jazeera, the Guardian, and other publications.
What is Democracy?
One Night Only!
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Main auditorium at 7:15pm
Astra Taylor in person with philosopher Wendy Brown, moderator Anasuya Sengupta and other special guests
Coming at a moment of profound political and social crisis, What Is Democracy? reflects on a word we too often take for granted.
Director Astra Taylor’s idiosyncratic, philosophical journey spans millennia and continents: from ancient Athens’ groundbreaking experiment in self-government to capitalism’s roots in medieval Italy; from modern-day Greece grappling with financial collapse and a mounting refugee crisis to the United States reckoning with its racist past and the growing gap between rich and poor.
Featuring a diverse cast—including celebrated theorists, trauma surgeons, activists, factory workers, asylum seekers, and former prime ministers—this urgent film connects the past and the present, the emotional and the intellectual, the personal and the political, in order to provoke and inspire. If we want to live in democracy, we must first ask what the word even means.
Taylor was active in the Occupy Movement and was the co-editor of Occupy!: An OWS-Inspired Gazette with Sarah Leonard of Dissent magazine and Keith Gessen of n+1.[18] The broadsheet covered Occupy Wall Street in five issues over the course of the first year of the occupation and was later anthologized by Verso Books
On Thursday, March 7th, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is having an “exploratory” hearing into the City’s cold weather policy. The Government of the City of San Francisco has endlessly harassed folks with nowhere to go. The San Francisco Police Department has confiscated peoples tents in the rain, arrested people for creating shelter and not offering more than a temporary stay in a shelter or a cot.
The People of San Francisco and the Bay Area must come together to resist these attacks on working people. Join activists from other Bay Area cities in this action against the attack on the poor and learn about local struggles and ways we can work together to fight back.
This event is sponsored by: The United Front Against Displacement, Democratic Socialists of America: San Francisco chapter, POOR Magazine, and the Bay Area Landless People’s Alliance