Calendar
It’s all hands on deck at the Ella Baker Center this month and we need your help to make Oakland’s Night Out for Safety & Liberation (NOSL) Block Party the best one yet!
Come to this member meeting to learn how you can thrown down for Oakland’s 5th annual NOSL Block Party on August 1st at Defremery Park, the historic West Oakland Black Panther Party community space. You will have a chance to put finishing touches to the program, sign up for volunteer and outreach roles, and build with fierce community leaders.
Click here for more information on Night Out for Safety & Liberation (NOSL): http://
Vegetarian dinner will be provided. The meeting space is wheelchair accesible. Please contact Tash at tash@ellabakercenter.org or 510-428-3939 x2435 if you have accesibility needs and/or questions.
Featuring Joanna Macy, Starhawk, and Ahmed Salah.
Active Hope events aim to lift us out of inaction and despair and into a beautiful, caring world of peace, love, and concern for all beings. This program will include inspiration from those working to save the world; bringing us together and unifying us in this work. It will include voices from the First Nations people, social and environmental justice activists, music, delicious organic vegetarian food, a book signing, heart connections, and inspiration to action.
Book signing, information tables, opportunities for action and networking. Wheelchair accessible.
6 pm potluck dinner; 6:30 pm Program.
Sponsored by Codepink Golden Gate:
Join us Tuesday, July 25th to learn about a California Climate Dividend Fund.
Though we’re likely at least a decade away from a federal basic income, people often debate whether there are policies that states can enact as “stepping stones” to help pave the way.
California State Senator Bob Wieckowski introduced a bill (SB 775) that would create a Climate Dividend Fund a fund to return carbon auctionn revenue to Californians in the form of regular, unconditional payments. Carbon dividends are one popularly discussed stepping stone policy to a universal basic income.
Join us as we hear from Senator Wieckowski on his bill and the Climate Dividend Fund. We’ll discuss his views on universal basic income and the legislation.
The event will be hosted at Covo, a coworking space just off of 6th and Mission. Snacks and drinks will be available.
To attend, please RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/277990942608844/
Program:
– 6:30 Doors open
– 7:00 Program starts
– 8:00 Program concludes, stay for networking and community
See you on the 25th!
The Universal Income Project Team
Mai Masri’s award-winning film, 3000 NIGHTS!
Accused of helping a teenaged boy on the run, a newly-wed Palestinian schoolteacher gives birth to her child, in chains, in an Israeli high-security prison — where she fights to protect him and to survive herself. Palestinian filmmaker Mai Masri’s film 3000 NIGHTS explores the meaning of motherhood, love, betrayal, and the solidarity of women prisoners. Masri says it is about “resilience, resistance, and above all, a film about hope.”
Selected as the Jordanian entry for Best Foreign Language Film for 2017 Oscars.
“See this film, see it Now!” — Ken Loach, Cannes Film Festival
Benefit for MECA’s programs for Palestinian & Syrian refugee children.
Wheelchair accessible.
Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper will offer his thoughts on “Police Accountability: Reimagining and Reengineering the Cop Culture,”followed by a Q & A faciliated by Reggie Lyles, Deacon of Allen Temple Baptist Church, former police captain for Berkeley and Novato police departments and former public safety advisor to Mayor Jean Quan.
After the discussion, Chief Stamper will be available to sign his latest book To Protect and Serve: How to Fix America’s Police which will be available for sale on site.
From to Protect and Serve: How to Fix America’s Police:
“Reflecting the reality that increased militarization does not represent progress, American law enforcement today is arguably as corrupt bigoted, brutal and trigger-happy as it was during the 1960s and 1970s, not to mention earlier eras.”
From Breaking Rank:
“One of the strengths, and drawbacks, of public employment law is that individual employees, from the cop on the beat to the police chief, are rarely held personally liable, financially.(That’s if their actions spring from the ‘course and scope’ of their duties. The provision is a strength because having the city pick up the tab for damages means beat cops and police chiefs don’t have that excuse for not taking bold action when they should. It’s a problem because it licenses some cops to drive like maniacs, shoot people for any cause, or ram a brom handle up a man’s rectum with impunity.”
Sponsored by Coalition for Police Accountability
COMMUNITY SCOPING MEETING
Phillips 66 has applied for Air District permission to launch what clearly looks like yet another tar sands project. There will be another opportunity to comment about the scope and content of the draft Environmental Impact Report in a July 27th meeting scheduled by the Air District for Vallejo, given potential impacts on that city. A September 2016 oil spill in San Pablo Bay sent 120 Vallejo residents to the hospital and caused 1500 noxious odor complaints. The BAAQMD subsequently found Phillips 66 and the operator of the leaking oil tanker equally responsible.
You can read the Notice of Preparation here in order to tell the Air District what you think should be covered in an analysis of the impacts of P66’s latest attempt to expand its tar sands refining. Please weigh in with written comments.
According to the Air District project description, this P66 wharf expansion “would increase the amount of crude and gas oil brought by ship to the Marine Terminal at the Phillips 66 San Francisco Refinery in Rodeo, California. The refinery processes crude oil delivered by ship from a variety of domestic and foreign sources to the Marine Terminal, as well as crude oil received from central California by pipeline.”
The marine terminal expansion would enable P66 to receive and process higher rates of ship-delivered crude and gas oil, replacing roughly equivalent volumes of pipeline-delivered crudes with shipborne crudes.
Two prior Air District approvals allowed P66 to increase its permitted limits from 30,682 barrels per day (bbl/day) in 2012, to 51,182 bbl/day in 2013. Now P66 seeks a permit increase of 78,818 bbl/day to 130,000 bbl/day, on an annual rolling average basis. It also wants to increase crude or gas oil deliveries from 59 ships up to a total of 135 tankers or ships in any 12 consecutive months.
The Notice of Preparation isn’t as heavy a slog as you might think. Please read it carefully and suggest areas of significant impact that the DEIR must cover.
Here are some useful comments on marine impacts of a tar sands spill:
Baykeeper Comments on Phillips 66 Marine Terminal Permit Revision Project
tar-sands-tanker-threat-ip
tar-sands-health-effects-IB
NAS 2015 Dilbit Study Final
west-coast-tar-sands-threat-report
Green et al. – 2017 – Oil sands and the marine environment current know
SEND EMAIL OR WRITTEN COMMENTS BY 5 PM, AUGUST 28, 2017 TO:
Barry Young, Senior Advanced Projects Advisor
Engineering Division
Bay Area Air Quality Management District
375 Beale St., Ste. 600
San Francisco, CA 94105
Email: P66MarineTerminalPermit Revision[at]baaqmd.gov
For more information, contact Barry Young: byoung[at]baaqmd.gov.
A lot of us get really frustrated with how things are going in the world.
But a lot of people directly impacted by issues like lack of healthcare access, criminal [in]justice system, environmental degradation, wage theft, gentrification, racial profiling, labor-displacement, and more are organizing among each other to fight for their own human rights. Western Service Workers Association has been turning the people most in need to community organizers and solve problems for their own communities in East and West Oakland. Come join me and meet these solution-oriented people in the low-income service workers community this Friday at their 42nd anniversary dinner (flier attached)!
There will be lots of dancing (i.e. cumbia, motown, and all sorts of fun stuff – some powered by bicycle) and mingling with the community. You’ll learn about the different fights we’ve won as a community. People come from all walks of life, although majority of them are low-income service workers.
“Heather Booth: Changing the World” @ San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
Click here to RSVP and get more details and ticket information. (Be sure to get tickets before they sell out!)
This inspiring film is being promoted with the line “Heather Booth is the most influential person you’ve never heard of,” but we’ve heard of her. We know her well! Heather Booth has been a partner with the PCCC in many fights…and now one of our own is featured in a movie.
From 2008 – 2010 Heather worked closely with Elizabeth Warren to overcome massive opposition from Wall Street to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
But this film goes back long before that, tracing Heather’s ongoing legacy and exploring how social change really happens. Through her life and work, this film explores many of the most pivotal moments in progressive movements that altered our history over the last fifty years.
From her early work in the 1960s with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Freedom Summer Project, Booth went on to found the Women’s Radical Action Program, and JANE — an organization that helped approximately 11,000 women find abortion providers before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in the U.S.
Heather has trained thousands of activists, was involved in organizing Citizens Action and Campaign for America’s Future, and has worked with USAction, MoveOn, People’s Action, the NAACP National Voter Fund, Alliance for Citizenship, the Voter Participation Center, National Organization for Women, the National Council of La Raza, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the Center for Community Change.
This film will leave you inspired to organize and change the world!
Oakland 1946 General Strike Walk – “We Called It a Work Holiday”
With Gifford Hartman of the Flying Picket Historical Society.
This year is the 70th anniversary of the Oakland General Strike. This walk will revisit the sites of Oakland’s “Work Holiday” that began spontaneously with rank-and-file solidarity with the striking – mostly women – retail clerks at Kahn’s and Hastings department stores whose picket line was being broken by scabs escorted by police.
Within 24 hours, it involved over 100,000 workers and shut down nearly all commerce in the East Bay for 54 hours. In 1946 there were six general strikes across the U.S.; that year set the all-time record year for strikes and work stoppages. The Oakland “Work Holiday” was the last general strike to ever occur in the U.S. This walk and history talk will attempt to keep alive the memory of this tradition of community-wide working class solidarity.
See also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCKs-lhBgiM
http://www.laborfest.net/2017/2017schedule.htm
It’s the last Sunday of the month — that means picnic time!
We have been busy socialists, so it’s time to relax and hang out. Bring your lunch, picnic blanket, friends, and family for a casual picnic with your comrades. No work done here — just socializing! We will try to stake a spot out in the Broadway and MacArthur Blvd. quadrant of the block.
Weather permitting
Bring a dish or drink to share! This will be an afternoon to kick it in the park with good people and to connect with projects rooted in…
ABOLITION and COMMUNITY DEFENSE
TWO FIGHTS built on AUTONOMY AND SELF DETERMINATION
THIS IS AN OPEN INVITATION FOR YOU AND YOUR PROJECT!
Instead of just hold to our own notion of a presentation, we’d rather hear from all of you, provide the platform for other people in projects rooted in Abolition or Community Defense to present on what they are up to.
Anchoring our informal program will be a presentation from Oakland IWOC’s guest, Niecee X from the Black Women’s Defense League out of Dallas, TX
“Black Women’s Defense League is a revolutionary womanist coalition that provides political education, self defense training, and resources and rescue to abused, underserved black women and marginalized genders. BWDL raises awareness, refines solutions, and prepares our members to divest from, combat and replace all forms of oppression with equitable, intersectional systems that are dedicated in serving the African Diaspora and the collective interests of a liberated society.”
And we’ll also be hearing from Oakland IWOC about their ongoing work plus get the news from the inside on the coming national wave of prisoner action slated for the week of August 19th.
Hit us up! or just come through!
We document current events, make films together, steward an editing suite and share a film equipment library. We also host film screenings, often with local directors, and put on an annual short film festival for independent Bay Area filmmakers. Our goal is to make the digital filmmaking accessible – no overpriced college degree or certificate program required!
We are also a good group to reach out to if you’d like to screen a film at the Omni. We can be reached at [ liberatedlens@lists.riseup.net ].
We usually meet in the basement, unless otherwise noted.
Harry Brill said at our last gathering that Tax the Rich is now the longest running rally in the history of Berkeley. September 12, 2017 will be the 6th anniversary
Think of a time when you felt safe in your community. Ask yourself: Who is there? Who isn’t? What do you see?
Night Out for Safety and Liberation (NOSL) is our opportunity to share our answers to these questions with our neighbors, talk about what we need to feel safe in our communities, and redefine what safety means to us.
NOSL is a national event where people across the country redefine and reimagine what public safety really means for our communities: having a living wage job, healthy food, healthcare, housing, education, and more. Too often when we talk about safety we only focus on policing and punishment – but real safety comes from investing in our communities so we can build power.
Join us at DeFremery Park on Tuesday, August 1st as we build community together. There will be free food, games, family-friendly activities, a DJ, dance and spoken word performances, healing practitioners, arts activities, and screen printing.
Turn up with us for a BLOCK PARTY at DeFremery Park, the historic Black Panther Party organizing park in West Oakland.
We’ll be celebrating Oakland’s 5th annual Night Out for Safety and Liberation to redefine what safety means to us to start a different conversation about public safety beyond policing; focusing on how we can build equity, power, and opportunity in our communities.
Featured artist include:
– Hip Hop for Change
– DJ Slowpoke
and more!
There will be an art build, free posters, food, healers, lawn games, face painting and family activities. All are welcome and all are invited.
Let’s continue to build a narrative that defines safety not in terms of fear, crime, and punishment, but rather as a community that has access to affordable healthcare, housing, food, education, safe and working infrastructure, and more.
Hosted by Night Out for Safety and Liberation and Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Pendarvis Harshaw is a Senior Communications Associate at PolicyLink, working to amplify stories of policies and practices that are moving us toward a more equitable world.
Prior to becoming a member of the PolicyLink family, Pen earned a degree from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and an undergraduate degree from Howard University’s School of Communications. Pen is a published journalist with bylines from Youth Radio, Fusion, The Huffington Post, National Public Radio and more. He runs a website dedicated to documenting the wisdom of elder African American men in his community,OGToldMe.Tumblr.Com. And although he is no longer a high school teacher, he is forever an educator.
Pen & OG Told Me were also recently featured in the following:
East Bay Yesterday Podcast https://soundcloud.com/user-736747354/i-believe-in-the-elders-pendarvis-harshaw-on-gathering-og-wisdom
Just a few blocks from Powell St BART Station.
Linda Lye, of the ACLU: When is free speech hate speech? When does it cross the line?
Suds, Snacks, & Socialism at the Starry Plough
The Peace and Freedom Party presents
From HIROSHIMA to WWIII
If workers won’t end these wars, who will?
Hiroshima was not so much the end of WWII as the opening salvo in a series of new wars which must be ended if humanity is to survive. Will the working class fulfill its historic mission and end this madness? Or must we look elsewhere? We are inviting speakers to address this question.
This is part of our on-going Socialist Forum Series on the first Saturday of every month. Doors open at 2 pm and the program will start promptly at 2:30 pm. The forum will end by 4:30 pm, but folks can stay and talk as long as you like. Speaker’s affiliations are listed for identification only. The opinions expressed do not reflect the official views of the Peace and Freedom Party.
The Peace and Freedom Party, born from the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s, is committed to socialism, democracy, ecology, feminism, racial equality, and internationalism.
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org
Are you aware that Black people, Latinos, and Native Americans are twice as likely to be stuck in jail because they can’t afford bail? The U.S. money bail system is largely to blame for over-crowded jails across the nation. 70 percent of people are incarcerated for one simple reason: being too poor to afford bail.
The bail trap
Unscrupulous bail bonds contracts allow private corporations to make exorbitant profits off of people living in poverty. While people with access to wealth can buy their freedom, poor people have weeks, months, and even years of their lives taken from them.
This isn’t justice. Race and socio-economic status should not determine whether someone is free or in jail while they await their trial.
Come and see “The Bail Trap” and let’s talk about what we can do to replace the broken money bail system right here in California.
RSVP & follow on facebook here
We’ll talk about how the state has historically tried to disrupt left movements, especially those led by people of color, and how to collectively resist it. This is a launch event for Catalyst’s new pamphlet: “A Troublemaker’s Guide: Principles for Racial Justice Activists in the Face of State Repression.”
Panel discussion with:
- Cat Brooks, Anti-Police Terror Project
- Isaac Ontiveros, Center for Political Education
- Lara Kiswani, Arab Resource and Organizing Center
- Maisha Quint, Eastside Arts Alliance
- Donna Willmott, Catalyst Project
Wheelchair accessible, please come fragrance free. Please make childcare & other access requests to Isaac@collectiveliberation.org by July 31st.
Participants will receive a copy of the pamphlet.