Calendar
- organizing for public banking in Oakland and elsewhere.
- advocating for Postal banking.
- saving the Berkeley Post Office and stopping the Staples non-union takeover of good Post Office jobs
- working with the City of Richmond and other municipalities for eminent domain seizure of underwater mortgages from the banksters
- ongoing study group
- student debt resistance
- helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
- our famous Strike Debt radio program
- and much more!
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A Line in the Tar Sands: Struggles for Environmental Justice is an anthology of stories, analysis, and reflections from global movements fighting the tar sands and oil extraction using a wide variety of strategies and approaches. It features writing by Indigenous organizers from across the continent, analysts, and campaigners, as well as 350.org staff and board members, including a forward by Naomi Klein and Bill Mckibben.
What: The multimedia book launch will include a discussion on solidarity, extraction, and Indigenous sovereignty and climate change, with panel of frontline activists fighting tar sands in the Bay Area, as well as international perspectives. Presenters will include Winona La Duke of Honor the Earth (via Skype), Vivian Huang of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Pennie Opal Plant of Idle No More, an organizer from Pittsburg fighting Wespac oil-by-rail, and Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign (via video).
Click here to RSVP for the event on Facebook.
Event Co-sponsors include Idle No More SF Bay, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Movement Generation, Center for Story Based Strategy, and the Ruckus Society. If you can’t make it on Sunday, we’ll also be holding a more intimate discussion in San Francisco on Thursday evening — more info here.
As the largest industrial project on earth, the Alberta tar sands essentially constitute a strip mine spanning an area the size of Florida. Tar sands development comes with an enormous environmental and human cost. But tar sands opponents — fighting a powerful international industry — are likened to terrorists, government environmental scientists are muzzled, and public hearings are concealed and rushed.
Yet, despite the formidable political and economic power behind the tar sands, many opponents are actively building international networks of resistance, challenging pipeline plans while resisting threats to Indigenous sovereignty and democratic participation.
This struggle is one of the most epic of our times. I hope this book can offer us both a bit of hope and some solid lessons on resistance.
You can read more about the book here.
Our 4th open circle to connect and organize toward the end of police militarization, state violence and systemic racism.
- RSVP and invite folks to the Facebook event
This open circle will continue the dialogue and planning around support, goals, and long-term strategy in addressing the long-standing issues of the extremely disproportionate degrees of police brutality and killings of black people and people of color, systematic racism, state violence, militarization of police, and more that have been brought to the forefront once again due to the recent surge of such atrocities.
Let’s kick this meeting off with a potluck at 3:00 pm followed by the Open Circle at 3:30 pm. Please bring a dish or snacks to share!
- Open circle will begin with report backs and announcements of upcoming actions followed by group discussion.
- The announcements segment will be shorter than last time to allow more time for group discussion.
- There will be breakout groups to allow time for networking and collaboration on projects and affinity groups.
- The facilitation team welcomes suggestions, guidance, and especially participation. Please get in touch by commenting on this page if you want to offer any of these.
We Need a Revolution and a Revolution is Possible!
Come hear Carl Dix & Sunsara Taylor speak on why. They will take questions.
Sunsara Taylor is a writer for Revolution Newspaper, an initiator of Stop Patriarchy, and sits on the Advisory Board of World Can’t Wait. She has written on the rise of theocracy, wars and repression in the U.S., police murder and mass incarceration, and more. She has led in building resistance to these crimes as part of building the movement for revolution to put an end to all this. She takes as her foundation the new synthesis on revolution and communism developed by Bob Avakian.
In 2013 and 2014, Taylor led two Abortion Rights Freedom Rides, nationwide political and moral counteroffensives against the attacks on abortion. Declaring that “Forced Motherhood is Female Enslavement” these Rides situated the battle over abortion in the fight for women’s liberation, traveled to 17 states, and mobilized mass independent political resistance to defeat the war on women. You can find her impressive verbal battles with Bill O’Reilly and various political commentary by searching “Sunsara Taylor” on youtube. Carl Dix is a long time revolutionary leader and a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). The foundation of his work is the new synthesis of communism developed by Bob Avakian, the leader of the RCP.
In 1970, Carl was part of the Fort Lewis 6, the largest mass refusal of US soldiers to go to Vietnam. In 1985, Carl spearheaded the publication of the Draw The Line Statement that condemned the bombing of the MOVE house in Philadelphia, killing 11 people, 5 of them children. In 1996, he co-founded the October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. In 2011, Carl, together with Dr. Cornel West, co-founded the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and initiated a campaign of civil disobedience to STOP “Stop and Frisk.” This campaign took the effort to end that racist and illegitimate policy to a higher level. In 2014, Carl and Cornel called for making October a Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration, Police Terror, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.
Free Movie: Fruitvale Station
with author and environmentalist
Mark Hertsgaard
Surviving Climate Chaos: Reframing the Climate Question
Mark Hertsgaard has spoken and written about global warming for more than 20 years. At the birth of his daughter, he was struck by how much more rapidly the earth’s warm-up has come upon us, and by the evidence of these changes. In his most recent book: HOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, Hertsgaard travels the globe to cover climate change effects and policy. He writes: “This book is both a father’s cry and a blueprint on how all of us as parents, communities, companies and countries can navigate this unavoidable new era.”
Herstgaard will address how these changing conditions especially affect peoples living around the equator and in low-lying countries as the oceans rise. What does this mean for them? What will it mean for us? How can we begin to prepare for these inevitable mass migrations?
Like the 400,000 people who traveled to the streets of NY to marshal action on the climate chaos upon us, we must not remain silent. We must become part of the movement and contribute, using our best capabilities. We need thousands of ordinary heroes to step forward and create a new future.
Mark Hertsgaard is the author of six books and a long-time contributor to leading media outlets around the world, including The Nation, Harper’s, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Businessweek, NPR and the BBC. Food &Water Watch, 350 Bay Area, Roots Rhyzing, The Sunflower Alliance and Rising Tide will offer audience members brief descriptions of their climate work, and be available to welcome people who’d like to get involved.
Refreshments available, wheelchair accessible
RSVP: uus4peace@gmail.com or call 415-595-7306
Over the next 50 years, climate change will transform our world in ways we have only begun to imagine. Herstgaard will address how these changing conditions especially affect peoples living around the equator and in low-lying countries as the oceans rise. What does this mean for them? What will it mean for us? How can we begin to prepare for these inevitable mass migrations?
Mark Hertsgaard has spoken and written about global warming for more than 20 years. An environmental correspondent for NPR, The Nation, the New Yorker and other media organizations, Hertsgaard travels the globe to cover climate change effects and policy.
Refreshments available, wheelchair accessible.
Sponsored by the Unitarian Universalists for Peace & Justice,the Green and UU-UNO committees of the UU Society,and OccupyForum SF
Come learn about continuing developments in the battle save the Berkeley Post Office and the Postal Service from privatization, support our Occupiers and help us plan our next steps in opposition to the theft of our public commons.
THE POSTAL SERVICE WANTED TO SELL THE POST OFFICE TO HUDSON-MCDONALD DEVELOPMENT GROUP. HUDSON-MCDONALD BACKED OUT OF THE DEAL IN EARLY DECEMBER. THE CITY OF BERKELEY SUED THE POST OFFICE TO STOP THE SALE. A TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER WAS IN PLACE UNTIL DECEMBER 17th, BUT WAS LIFTED BY THE JUDGE WHEN HUDSON WITHDREW.
Get an overview of the sale announcement here. Here’s a good more general overview piece.
There was a hearing in Federal Court on December 11th.
The next hearing is March 19th.THE FEDERAL JUDGE WILL DECIDE WHETHER THE LAWSUIT WILL CONTINUE OR BE DISMISSED – HE’LL DECIDE SOMETIME AFTER MARCH 19th.
THE POSTAL POLICE HAD BEEN RAIDING THE OCCUPATION INTERMITTENTLY IN THE WEE HOURS OF THE MORNING. BUT THE OCCUPIERS ARE NOT LEAVING! Read about one of the eviction attempts here. There haven’t been any raids since a few days before Christmas, but they might start up again at any time.
Check out the new Community Garden at the Post Office.
Also CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE. and the Save the Berkeley Post Office website, and First they Came for the Homeless Facebook for updates.
BPOD is an offshoot of Strike Debt Bay Area, which itself is an offshoot of Occupy Oakland and a chapter of the national Strike Debt movement, which is an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street.
As communities around the nation have taken to the streets in the ongoing movement against police brutality the question of the police and their role in society has taken on new importance. With the police killing a Black person every 28 hours a movement is emerging that challenges the idea of who they protect and who they serve. The very origins of their institution is saturated in racism and violence. From their beginning as a force to quell strikes, urban riots, and the threat of slave insurrection they have always existed primarily as an enforcer for the 1% and the protector of their property.
Join the International Socialist Organization for a discussion about the origins and function of the police and their relationship to racism, class and capitalism.
TANKS, NO THANKS
GIVE BACK THE BEARCAT ARMORED MILITARY VEHICLE
(Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck)
Let city council know how you feel
SAY NO TO THE MILITARIZATION OF THE POLICE
Organized by SCRAM ! ( Santa Cruz Resistance Against Militarization !)
SHUT DOWN DIABLO CANYON
JOIN US in the accelerating campaign to shut California’s last nukes: the two reactors at Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo. Citizen activism has closed the reactors at Humboldt, Rancho Seco and San Onofre, and stopped proposed projects at Bakersfield, Bodega and elsewhere. We believe we can force this deadly, dangerous and disastrous plant shut if you will join with us.
PG&E’s Diablo is two 1200+ megawatt monsters surrounded by earthquake faults, in a tsunami zone, out of compliance with clean water and fire safety regulations, lacking a credible evacuation plan and now completely priced out of the market by clean, cheap, safe and job-producing renewable energy.
Pacific Gas & Electric has recently killed 8 people in a San Bruno neighborhood it burned to the ground due to negligence and greed. A replay at Diablo would irradiate much of California, and create a lethal cloud that would blow across the entire United States. It would bankrupt California and much of the nation, with virtually no responsibility to be shouldered by PG&E.
Long-time No Nukes activist Harvey Wasserman will speak and facilitate an on-going strategy session aimed at winning this shut-down as quickly as possible. We will have a strategy in formation and a resolution in hand to push forward the process of finally making California free of all nuke reactors. The time to flip the “off-switch” is NOW! This will be a meeting to further that necessary cause.
The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly builds community and power among those who seek higher wages and better work life conditions for area workers. We meet every second and fourth Tuesday of the month at the SEIU Local 1000 union hall, 1433 Webster Street, 2nd Floor in downtown Oakland. These assembly meetings occur from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm.
Our work together encompasses:
- (1) the concerns of precarious, contingent and care workers;
- (2) current campaigns to improve wages for low-wage workers; and
- (3) efforts by unionized workers and unions to improve wages and quality of work life.
We share stories and information in an egalitarian and participatory way to build relationships and build the movement.
We look forward to learning with you and making change for the better. Please love and support one another. We have a duty to fight. We have a duty to win.
Inaugural Assembly: Tuesday January 27, 6:30 pm
This is a meeting for privacy minded people in San Francisco. January 28th is International Data Privacy Day, a fitting time to host the first in what we hope will be an ongoing series of Privacy Lab Meetups in the Bay Area.
At this meeting our speaker will be Cooper Quintin from the EFF, who will present “A State of the Union for Privacy and Consumer Protection and Wishlist for 2015”. His presentation will be preceded by 30 minutes of socializing as people arrive, and then followed by about an hour for general questions, interactions, discussion and networking. Additionally the event will be held at Mozilla’s San Francisco office, where developers of the Firefox browser can more easily join.
Our aim is to include and bring together privacy professionals and others interested in privacy at for-profits, non-profits, and NGOs in an effort to contribute to the state of the ecosystem for privacy. By attending you’ll be able to hear about what other people and organizations are working on and how to get involved.
We hope to see you attend and become part of the growing community of privacy advocates in San Francisco.
On Wednesday OUSD will be discussing proposals to privatize Fremont HS, Castlemont HS, McClymonds HS, Frick MS and Brookfield Elementary and make it easier for charter schools to recruit public school families. This is tied to changes the district is pushing to the teacher union contract that will make these turnarounds easier to implement.
OEA is fighting for the resources needed to create stable schools and bottom-up school transformation!
Let’s show up unified as teachers, students, parents and community members to shut down the Superintendent Wilson’s proposals to continue the experimentation on flatland schools and the implementation of top-down school turnarounds.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) will convene a public meeting on January 28, 2015, starting a 6:00 p.m. at the 450 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond, CA, 94804.
Next Wednesday, January 28, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) will hold a public meeting, to present the third and final investigation report and safety recommendations from the August 6, 2012, crude unit fire that occurred at the Chevron Refinery in Richmond, CA. That fire endangered 19 workers and sent more than 15,000 residents to the hospital for medical attention.
The Draft report is here [big PDF file]:
FTP march J28 7pm OGP 14th and Broadway. 400 got arrested so 400 turn up.
— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) January 20, 2015
#OaklandProtest #FTP #J28 march 1/28/15 #OGP 407 people for arrested that night.. 400 and 7… So that's how many… http://t.co/pE1G3dXbcF
— FilmingInFerguson (@BellaEiko) January 20, 2015
The first of eight meetings is January 28th.
This seminar will study the corporate structure, its historical development, and its modes of political control.