Calendar
- Anyone can bring a proposal
- for new classes
- events
- organizational procedures
- lectures, talks, speakers
- workshops
- skill-shares
- Organizers vote
- on class proposals
- important financial expenditures
- use of space
- core values
- We meet each other
- make relevant announcements
- collaborate and coalesce new visions of the school
- distribute tasks and plan to take action
- learn how to build collectivity, a commons, a life
Elias Castillo discusses “A Cross of Thorns: The Enslavement of California’s Indians by the Spanish Missions”
Author Elias Castillo shatters the image of California’s Missions as idyllic places where Franciscan friars and Indians lived in an environment of mutual respect. In reality, the Missions were death camps where more than 60,000 Indian workers died, many as a result of whippings, disease, and malnutrition.
The book is the result of more than six years of research and study of original documents including eyewitness accounts by early travelers, records kept by the friars, and historic letters by church and government authorities in Alta California and Mexico.
A Cross of Thorns delivers a damning indictment of the enslavement of California’s Indians by the Spanish Missions. It is especially timely in light of the fact that the Pope has said he plans to declare Father Junipero Serra a saint. Serra was the key founder of California’s Spanish missions. Serra has been sharply criticized by Native Americans for his role in their abuse and genocidal treatment.
http://www.revolutionbooks.org/
Peacewalk for a Nuclear Free Future to start here
A group of dedicated activists is walking from Richmond to the 2015 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations in New York City in April. One of the organizers writes: “We are starting in Richmond because we want to bring the energy of all of the good things happening there with us as we walk.” The walk will be led by Reverend Jun Yasuda, (affectionately known as “Junsan”) a Nipponzon Myohoji Buddhist nun who has been walking around the country and the world for more than 40 years.
The group will meet in a prayer circle before beginning the walk, and you are invited to join in and to see them off. If you’d like to start the walk with them, the route on the 20th will go to West Oakland, passing many BART Stations along the way, so it would be possible to walk part of the day and BART back. (A support car is also available if someone can’t make it to a BART Station for some reason.)
For a flyer with more about the walk and its full route, follow this link.
Her Resilience Part I: Mural Unveiling & Ceremony presented byMamacitas Cafe and Her Resilience: A Mural for Women Affected by Violence in Oakland
Featuring Mona Webb as Emcee
Nuri Nusrat & Robert Castro – Circle Facilitators
– Calpulli Huey Papalotl Danza Opening Ceremony
-Community Dialogues on Safety and Resiliency
-Childcare by Liliana Hurtado of YOLOTL COLLECTIVE
– Face painting by Melody Sage
– Healing Circles for All Genders
– Tamales by Tamales La Oaxaqueña
– Coffee, Drinks, and Donuts by Mamacitas Cafe
Special thanks to Akonadi Foundation for event support
(Notes on accessibility: This is an outside garden space. the garden is entrance is level to the ground. The top portion of the garden can only be accessed by the stairs, about 15-20 steps. Both levels will have tables+chairs+pillows)
Join us at Whole Foods.
We’ll be rallying for higher minimum wages at noon in front of the store. Drop by if you’re interested in helping out or if you have any questions. An increase in the Berkeley minimum wage doesn’t just make economic sense—it’s a necessity for workers, who literally can’t afford to pay rent in this city on less than $15/hour!
The planting was in January. Now the garden is in full bloom. The gardening work continues. Join us!
More information on the Berkeley Post Office Defense against the sale and privatization here.
Join ~20 Bay Area activist groups on Saturday, 12th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, to say no to endless war. pic.twitter.com/aReDdWLFmQ
— Not Frantz Fanon (@violentfanon) March 16, 2015
The premier of “Amor for Alex.”
The one year anniversary of the unlawful killing by SFPD of Alex Nieto.
Join us on Sunday March 22nd for the 17 month anniversary Park Clean-up, Vigil & Stargazing at Andy’s Park / Andy Lopez Memorial. From 9am to 12 Noon come out and help clean up the park…At 9:00pm there will be a candlelight vigil and a telescope will be available to look at the stars
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School is the opposite of education, a study to release us from our confinement
In this time of trying to grasp disintegrating vestiges of our commons, it’s difficult to formulate the calls for structures for our benefit without resorting to lapsing into requesting our Owners to let us have what we’ve been taught is our commons. So we call for jobs, schools. The fact is our jobs are all about profiting our Owners, and school is about getting us all in line to do that.
The last session we did on this subject subsided into consciousness raising, school having been so harmful to us, so painful, that we sought relief, relinquishing the challenge to delve into positing how we want to learn, teach, study. This time let’s try that instead; try finding the other way – not home school, not the many reformations of school, but how to not school….
Suggestion: read/print out https://njfhar.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/structural-objective/ for discussion.
Our discussion will be led by Norma Harrison, a former candidate for the Berkeley Board of Education and a member of the State Central Committee of the Peace and Freedom Party.
Info at: https://njfhar.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/table-of-contents
The Free Marissa Caravan is back after traveling almost 4000 miles in 3 weeks from Oakland to Jacksonville FL for the hearing which was to determine if Marissa spent more time imprisoned in jail, imprisoned in her home, or pardoned for firing a warning shot into the ceiling, injuring no one, to ward off the man who was beating and threatening to kill her.
We’d like to tell you about our travels through-out the country, the women we met, and the experiences we shared as we worked to make Marissa Alexander a household name across our land, and her fight for freedom our “Stand up, Fight Back” cause!
And about where Marissa is at right now & what we intend to do about it!
Please bring an organic (if possible) dish to share, your loved ones, friends, allies!
Or just be there! Together we will free Marissa now!!
Co-sponsored by the Free Marissa Caravan, and the BFUU Social Justice Committee.
Wheelchair accessible.
7th Open Circle ~Connect & Collaborate on Ending Police Brutality,
Systemic Racism and Disenfranchisement of Black People & People of Color
Let’s kick this meeting off with a potluck at 3:00 pm followed by the Open Circle at 3:45 pm. Please bring a dish or snacks to share!
Open circle will begin with report backs and announcements of upcoming actions followed by reflection and dialogue around the current state and thoughts or approaches on how to effect change.
We will end with breakout group topics and time to connect with folks with similar interests. Some great affinity groups have formed out of the breakout groups segment. Solidarity is afoot so bring your ideas!
Notes from last meeting:
omnicommons.org/connect
Restore The Fourth SF and Pow Magazine present
DON’T SPY ON US!
A Musical Event promoting our opposition to mass surveillance and state violence.
Musicians:
- Jimmy Dias
- Jordannah Elizabeth
- DEAR MANNY
- The Spiral Family
- Coywolf
Let’s make a public show of our commitment to stop the torture!
Leafleting and speakers (you). This fight is not over!
Cosponsors: California Families Against Solitary Confinement (CFASC); Peoples’ Action for Rights and Community (PARC); Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition (PHSS); Project: Pollinate; Sin Barras.
PHSS and many other co-sponsors and endorsers are conducting actions statewide in CA, nationwide, and internationally. These actions coincides with proposals for action from Pelican Bay State Prison Hunger Strikers, which calls for “designating a certain date each month as Prisoner Rights Day. [when] supporters would gather throughout California to expose CDDCR’s actions and rally to support efforts to secure our rights.”
We choose the 23rd of each month for the 23 or more hours every day that people are kept alone in 7 by 11 foot concrete cells.
Endorsers: Ramona Africa and The MOVE Organization; Cabrillo College Justice League; Cafe Intifada; California Peace and Freedom Party; Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action (COPA) Restorative Justice Institutions; Darrell and Karen Darling; Family of Frank Alvarado Jr., killed by Salinas Police, July 10, 2014; Free Our Minds, Free Radio Santa Cruz; Rabbi Borukh Goldberg; Justice for Palestinians, San Jose; LA Laborfest; Dylcia Pagán, former Puerto Rican Political Prisoner held in US prison; Leonard Peltier Support Group Silicon Valley; Prison Activist Resource Center (PARC); South Bay Committee Against Political Repression (SBCAPR); Donna Wallach; Anti-Racist Action-LA
Questions or want to be added as co-sponsor or endorser? phssreachingout@gmail.com
http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com
@CAHungerStrike
Find us on Facebook: Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
OccupyForum presents
Film and discussion with SF anti-gentrification activists
When development officials announce a controversial plan to tear down and remake the Fulton Mall, a popular, bustling African-American and Caribbean commercial district just blocks from Anderson’s apartment, she discovers that the Mall, despite its run-down image, is the third most profitable shopping area in New York City with a rich social and cultural history. Anderson must confront her own role in the process of gentrification and investigate the forces behind it more deeply.
Anderson meets with government officials, urban planners, developers, advocates, academics, and others who both champion and criticize the plans for Fulton Mall. Only when Anderson meets Brooklyn-born and raised scholar Craig Wilder, who explains his family’s experiences of neighborhood change over generations, does Anderson come to understand that what is happening in her neighborhoods today is actually a new chapter in an old American story. The film’s ultimate questions become how to heal the deep racial wounds embedded in our urban development patterns, and how citizens can become active in fixing a broken planning process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkA6PO_gC1k
Discussion and Announcements to follow.
Get involved with the fight against solitary confinement.
Become a human rights pen pal: Contact cws@igc.org
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, a local developer. The City of Berkeley sued the post office to stop the sale. Hudson-mcdonald backed out of the deal in early december.
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.
Their will have been another hearing on March 19th. The federal judge will decide whether the lawsuit will continue or be dismissed – he’ll decide sometime after March 19th. We’ll be discussing the judge’s decision if he’s made it at this meeting, and our response.
Check out the 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.