Calendar

To observe and participate in the meeting via Zoom, go to: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85817209915

Agenda Items:

4. Informational Item a. Data Sharing policy for ALPR as pertains to ICE

5. Action Items:

a. Annual Reports

1. CrimeTracer Forensic Logic 2024 (OPD)

2. Cellebrite 2024 (OPD)

3. Pen Register (OPD)

4. ShotSpotter (OPD)

b. Use Policies

1. OPD Community Safety Camera Systems (OPD)

Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite.  All are welcome!

For our September, 2025 meeting we will be reading Elinor Ostrom’s Rules for Radicals: Cooperative Alternatives Beyond Markets and States. (Amazon) (Pluto).

Elinor Ostrom was both a groundbreaking thinker and one of the foremost economists of our age. The first and only woman to win the Nobel Prize for Economics, her revolutionary theorizing of the commons opened the way for non-capitalist economic alternatives on a massive scale. And yet, astonishingly, most modern radicals know little about her.
 
Elinor Ostrom’s Rules for Radicals fixes that injustice, revealing the indispensability of her work on green politics, alternative economics, and radical democracy. Derek Wall’s analysis of her theses addresses some of the common misconceptions of her work and reveals her strong commitment to a radical ideological framework. This helpful guide will engage scholars and activists across a range of disciplines, including political economy, political science, and ecology, as well as those keen to implement her work in practice. As activists continue to reject traditional models of centralized power, Ostrom’s theories will become even more crucial in creating economies that exist beyond markets and states.

Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included (in chronological order) Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth,  Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, Exploring Degrowth, The Origin of Wealth, Mine!, The Dawn of Everything  A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Beyond Money, Less is More,  Cannibal Capitalism,  Debt, the First 5000 Years , Poverty, By America, End Times, Jackson Rising Redux , The Feminist Subversion of the Economy, How Infrastructure Works, Inside the Systems that Shape our World, Wealth Supremacy, The Persuaders,  The Path to a Livable Future, Solidarity,  Mutual Aid, Breaking Together, Making Sense of Chaos , TechnoFeudalism, and Stellar.

Union chronicles the extraordinary efforts of an unlikely group of warehouse workers, including Chris Smalls, as they launch a grassroots union campaign at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York.

Proceeds from this viewing go directly to Strike For Our Rights‘ strike fund, supporting striking workers fighting for living wages and equity, like those in this film.

As COVID cases once again rise across the Bay Area, access to testing and protective resources has become more difficult for our communities—especially for Black, Brown, unhoused, and working-class residents. Many of the free testing sites that once served our neighborhoods have closed, and store-bought tests are unaffordable or unavailable for many.

In response, the Anti Police-Terror Project and The People’s House are stepping up to meet the need. We believe public health is a collective responsibility, and we remain committed to providing tools that help keep our communities safe and resourced.

We are now offering free COVID testing multiple days a week at The People’s House in Oakland (893 Willow St).

Testing Schedule

• Tuesdays from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM
• Mondays from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM
  • Offered during The People’s Detox, which also includes free ear acupuncture, Narcan distribution, fentanyl test strips, and peer support for addiction and mental health
• 1st and 3rd Fridays from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM
  • Offered during The People’s Clinic, which includes massage therapy, acupuncture, healing circles, and other community-based wellness services

What to Expect

• Rapid antigen COVID tests are available on-site
• In most cases, individuals will be able to leave with a box of take-home tests (while supplies last)
• K/N95 masks are available to anyone who needs them
• No insurance, ID, or pre-registration is required
• All services are free of charge

The Sacramento City Council is trying to quietly renew the failed ShotSpotter contract for $2.6 million. It expired in June—saving the city $500,000. Let’s keep it that way.

ShotSpotter is discredited and dangerous:

• 73% of alerts in Sacramento led to no report
• Just 4% led to arrests
• Only 8.5% resulted in recovered firearms

It has contributed to the deaths of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago and Kershawn Geyger in Sacramento. This is not public safety. This is State sanctioned violence.

• Write a Letter
• Make Public Comment
  

• Closed Session at 5:30 PM
• Public Meeting from 6:30–10:00 PM

ALERT: OPD is attempting to weaken the city’s vehicle pursuit policy—a direct threat to community safety.

Police chases are deadly and do zero to reduce or solve crime. Every year, these reckless pursuits kill more people than tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and lightning combined. Innocent bystanders — meaning people not at all involved with the chase — account for 27 percent of all police chase deaths, or 87 deaths per year. We lift the name of slain Castlemont educator Marvin Boomer who was recently one such casualty as he walked with his partner in his neighborhood.

We demand:
No rollbacks on regulations. No more dangerous pursuits in our streets.

This meeting will also include updates from the Community Police Review Agency, Office of the Inspector General, and the transition of Internal Affairs to civilian control.

2:00 p.m. Film: Dead Man Walking — R, 122 mins., 1995. CC in English
4:00 p.m. Discussion with author Sister Helen Prejean & composer Jake Heggie
5:30 p.m. Reception and Book Signing
Free admission – no RSVP required

The XR US Open House is designed for activists who are new to Extinction Rebellion or to climate activism in general, though we also welcome current members of XR or veteran activists who want to network and share ideas. �

On Saturday, September 13, we will provide a short presentation about the climate movement and a more detailed presentation about Non-Violent Direct Action, inviting participants to share ideas for Fall actions.

Please RSVP here.

Speaker: Grover Furr

To Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87388824824?pwd=QTWNvr8cGeGo1ZDW7x9Y8W0sDaNxRc.1

To join on the phone:
Meeting ID: 873 8882 4824
Passcode:  042428
Call one of these numbers and enter the codes above:
+1 646 931 3860 US
+1 669 444 9171 US

Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, communists had always believed that the only way a socialist state could be destroyed was by hostile forces from the outside. Now we know that this was tragically wrong. The Soviet Union was destroyed by betrayal from within.

Uncovering the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union is the most important question confronting Marxists, socialists, and communists today. This is the subject of Prof. Furr’s talk.

Our speaker today is researcher, historian, and author, Prof. Grover Furr of Montclair State University in New Jersey. He teaches Medieval English Literature and has a Ph.D. from Princeton University. However, his subject of research has been the Soviet history of the Stalin period, on which he has written many articles and 17 books, starting with ‘Khrushchev Lied’ in 2011, and his last published book is titled ‘Trotsky’s Comintern Conspiracy – The Case of Osip Pyatnitsky’ published in 2024. His present research is on the Gorbachev period, which culminated in the fall of the USSR in 1991.

Join Zoom Meeting:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85449203697

Green Sunday:  Why Stop ‘Super’ Artificial ‘intelligence’?

Nobel laureates, award winning researchers, and the most cited scientists in history are warning that the development of advanced artificial intelligence poses catastrophic risks to humanity including the risk of human extinction.
This talk shares what the experts are saying in their own words – and argues that we should treat AI development as an urgent existential risk and act to stop it. It also presents a short film based on one near term scenario by a whistleblower from a frontier AI company who left to warn the public about the danger we are in. We will also discuss resistance to advanced AI.

Guido Reichstadter has helped organize some of the world’s first acts of civil disobedience to stop advanced AI development. Over 25 years ago, while studying at the University of Florida, he became aware of the potential for the construction of artificial general intelligence (AGI), machine systems that share the same broad range of problem solving abilities as the human brain, and recognized their inherent danger. After taking his degree in math and physics, he began a 20 year career as a jeweler, married and raised two children. When the release of ChatGPT caused experts to shorten timelines for arrival of AGI, Guido became alarmed that the world would not avoid this danger. In 2024 he put his career on hold and moved to San Francisco, ground zero for US AI development, to mobilize public opposition.

Green Sundays are a series of free public programs & discussions on topics “du jour” sponsored by the Green Party of Alameda County and held on the 2nd Sunday of each month. The monthly business meeting of the County Council of the Green Party follows at 7:00 pm. Council meetings are open to anyone who is interested.

Chasing Chimeras: The Lure of Deceptive Climate Solutions is a new documentary by Barbara Bernstein exposing the fossil fuel industry’s push for false climate “solutions.”  Renewable diesel, hydrogen, biogas, carbon capture, and offsets—all of these alleged post-carbon fixes promise to usher in a brave green world even while they endanger frontline communities and delay real climate action.  All of them present immediate threats right here in the Bay.

From Portland, Oregon, to the Bay Area refinery corridor, Chasing Chimeras showcases the communities fighting back against these projects and the governments enabling them.  Chasing Chimeras scrutinizes how state and federal programs promote and fund renewable diesel, biogas and hydrogen development, while disincentivizing the adoption of proven climate solutions.

The film features Bay Area activists Ann Alexander, Maureen Brennan, Ben Eichenberg, Bonnie Hamilton, Gary Hughes, Greg Karras, Kathy Kerridge, Theo LeQuesne, and Shoshana Wechsler.  There are also cameos of Bay Area academics Barbara Haya and Mark Jacobson.

RSVP HERE.

If you can’t make the screening, the film is also available online.

As COVID cases once again rise across the Bay Area, access to testing and protective resources has become more difficult for our communities—especially for Black, Brown, unhoused, and working-class residents. Many of the free testing sites that once served our neighborhoods have closed, and store-bought tests are unaffordable or unavailable for many.

In response, the Anti Police-Terror Project and The People’s House are stepping up to meet the need. We believe public health is a collective responsibility, and we remain committed to providing tools that help keep our communities safe and resourced.

We are now offering free COVID testing multiple days a week at The People’s House in Oakland (893 Willow St).

Testing Schedule

• Tuesdays from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM
• Mondays from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM
  • Offered during The People’s Detox, which also includes free ear acupuncture, Narcan distribution, fentanyl test strips, and peer support for addiction and mental health
• 1st and 3rd Fridays from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM
  • Offered during The People’s Clinic, which includes massage therapy, acupuncture, healing circles, and other community-based wellness services

What to Expect

• Rapid antigen COVID tests are available on-site
• In most cases, individuals will be able to leave with a box of take-home tests (while supplies last)
• K/N95 masks are available to anyone who needs them
• No insurance, ID, or pre-registration is required
• All services are free of charge

This gathering is more than a film screening—it is a space for honest dialogue, reflection, and connection. You’ll hear directly from people whose lived experiences challenge assumptions and deepen our understanding of how cycles of harm take root and how they can be broken. Your voice and perspective matter in shaping the solutions that will define our communities for the next generation. Together, we can envision and work towards a future in which compassion and evidence guide our policy decisions, so that every child has the chance to thrive.

Speaker: Nadya Williams

To Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87388824824?pwd=QTWNvr8cGeGo1ZDW7x9Y8W0sDaNxRc.1

Meeting ID: 873 8882 4824
Passcode:  042428

Call one of these numbers and enter the codes above:
� +1 646 931 3860 US
� +1 669 444 9171 US

Huge parades in Ho Chi Minh City this spring marked the 50th anniversary of April 30, 1975, when a North Viet Namese army tank crashed through the iron gates of the U.S. Embassy in Sai Gon. The military took the lead in the parade, but it soon changed to beautiful peace floats, music, doves, flowers, and thousands of workers and children, along with colorful cultural costumes.

Our speaker, Nadya Williams, observed the celebrations and traveled throughout the country. She says, “Although Viet Nam is looking to the future, the past is always present . During the so-called “Indochina War,” Viet Nam, along with Laos and Cambodia, received more explosive power than World War I and II combined. It remains the largest aerial bombardment in human history.” She will share what she learned from encounters with many people of Viet Nam’s transformation since the war’s end and the still long road ahead.

Freelance journalist Nadya Williams has been an active Associate Member of Veterans For Peace since 2003. She is on the board of the Viet Nam Chapter 160 of VFP and Director of Communication for the San Francisco Chapter 69.

A satirical take on the mundane absurdities of life in modern-day Iran, these nine vignettes illuminate the lighter side of enduring under authoritarian rule. Whether choosing a name for a newborn, graduating from grade school, getting a driver’s license, applying for a job, or seeking approval for a film script, if you live in Iran, you best come fluent in Orwellian discourse. Progressing along a rough timeline from birth to death, each story is shot in a static camera angle as a single petitioner negotiates with an authority figure hovering just outside of frame, who is practiced in the language of doublespeak.

Includes a post-film Q&A and discussion.