Calendar
You have a constitutional right to film the police as they perform their duties in public- but how?!
About this Event
This interactive training is meant as an introduction to your constitutional rights as they pertain to policing and strategies for filming and documenting the police, and is ideal for those looking to assert their rights on the streets! This is also meant to give you tools so you can better advocate for your rights and the rights of others. Sliding Scale donations start at $0.
The way that you choose to interact with the police is a very personal choice, carrying different risks based on your race, gender, class and more.
The information in this training is meant to empower you and offer you choices when confronted by the police. It is not meant to replace your lived experience or tell you what is right in every situation. Only you know that.
YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO FILM. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.
- Introduction and Principles of Copwatching
- Legal Rights and how they play into filming the police
- Three Types of Stops, Violations, and Police Misconduct
- Copwatching Techniques
- How to Film
- Notes on Getting Arrested, COVID-19 and Curfews
- How Can You Fight Back
Brought to you by Berkeley Copwatch (founded 1990). For more information on our history as an abolitionist and community-centered, all-volunteer organization, please visit our website.
DONATE NOW!
The nightmare situation of Covid-19 in US jails and prisons, and its disproportionate impact on Black people and POC confined there, has made the call for decarceration more urgent than ever. In recognition of Black August, we feel the need and desire to respond as SURJ and make a space where our broader community can show up together.
The SURJ Mobilization Committee is planning a physically distanced Human Billboard and Car Caravan: We hope you can join us!
In solidarity with those incarcerated in jails, prisons, youth detention, and ICE concentration camps, we will be amplifying the messages of our partners and demanding an end to these inhumane conditions and immediate decarceration. We will also have a small car caravan in support of the Human Billboard for those of us who, due to Covid-19, are not able to be part of the HB.
Our last Human Billboard was a great success and we plan the same for this one!
The Political Education Committee is proud to invite you to East Bay DSA’s Socialist Day School on Saturday and Sunday, August 29-30!
A lot has happened this year, from Bernie failing to win the nomination, to the economic and health disasters triggered by coronavirus, to the mass mobilization against the structural racism perpetuated by police violence. Discussion and debate of our strategies and tactics are crucial–now more than ever! The moment demands that we seriously engage with strategic debates and that we look critically at the theory which guides us.
We have designed a weekend-long event to ensure that we have the tools to do so. The weekend will focus on two topics: Electoral Politics and Mass Movements in America, and Socialist Anti-Racism & Mass Uprisings. Attendees will engage in free-form discussion on a set of readings that cover key debates, sharing and comparing their thoughts in an effort to develop a more solid understanding of strategy and theory, both as individuals and as a chapter.
It is evident that we now face a situation that requires rigorous analysis and critical understanding. So join us as we rise to the occasion!
Find the readings here: https://tinyurl.com/DaySchoolReadings
To register for this event please fill out this registration form.
Day 2 Sunday, August 30th: https://www.eastbaydsa.org/events/1427/2020-08-30-socialist-day-school-day-2/
Check here for connection info
Noted historian and criminologist Tony Platt will share his long research and insights into the carceral state known as the USA. Tony Platt has been involved since the 1960s in issues relating to criminal justice, race, inequality, and social justice in American history. He taught at the University of Chicago, Berkeley, and California state universities. He is currently a Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law & Society in Berkeley’s Law School. A founding member of the editorial board of Social Justice, Platt blogs on history and memory at http://GoodToGo.typepad.com. In addition to books and scholarly journals, he has published in a wide variety of popular sites, including National Public Radio, Los Angeles Times, History News Network, Truthdig, Huntington Post, The Guardian, and San Francisco Chronicle.
From teaching criminology with David Du Bois, editor of the Black Panther Party’s newspaper, and organizing California’s first major conference on prison activism in the 1970s, to more recently speaking out about the damaging social legacies of eugenics, Platt’s experience as a political activist and public intellectual informs his research and publications. In the 1970s, he was co-author of The Iron Fist and The Velvet Glove, a book that challenged prevailing conceptions of American policing. In his latest book, Beyond These Walls: Rethinking Crime and Punishment in the United States (St. Martin’s Press, 2019, https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250085115), Platt draws upon a lifetime of research and commitment to social justice to articulate
The Political Education Committee is proud to invite you to East Bay DSA’s Socialist Day School on Saturday and Sunday, August 29-30!
A lot has happened this year, from Bernie failing to win the nomination, to the economic and health disasters triggered by coronavirus, to the mass mobilization against the structural racism perpetuated by police violence. Discussion and debate of our strategies and tactics are crucial–now more than ever! The moment demands that we seriously engage with strategic debates and that we look critically at the theory which guides us.
We have designed a weekend-long event to ensure that we have the tools to do so. The weekend will focus on two topics: Electoral Politics and Mass Movements in America, and Socialist Anti-Racism & Mass Uprisings. Attendees will engage in free-form discussion on a set of readings that cover key debates, sharing and comparing their thoughts in an effort to develop a more solid understanding of strategy and theory, both as individuals and as a chapter.
It is evident that we now face a situation that requires rigorous analysis and critical understanding. So join us as we rise to the occasion!
Find the readings here: https://tinyurl.com/DaySchoolReadings
To register for this event please fill out this registration form.
Day 2 Sunday, August 30th: https://www.eastbaydsa.org/events/1427/2020-08-30-socialist-day-school-day-2/
THE OCCUPY OAKLAND POTLUCK BEFORE THE GA ON THE LAST SUNDAY OF THE MONTH HAS BEEN INOPERATIVE SINCE THE PANDEMIC STARTED AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE INOPERATIVE FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE.
(Due to technical problems with the calendar events are nearly impossible to remove, hence this notice)
Anyone wishing to get notices about the GA, which is currently being held online every other Sunday, can email
occupyoakland@lists.riseup.net
and request to be put on the list.
NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:
occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 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 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)
On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! 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
Please join the Moms, @APTPaction @CURYJ @ellabakercenter @PeoplesStrike at 1225 Oak Street (Oakland) for a socially-distanced rally and action on Tuesday, September 1st at 1 pm.#HomesNotHarm #HousingIsAHumanRight #NoEvictionsOnStolenLand #CancelRent #DefundPolice pic.twitter.com/ue394AJqKi
— Moms 4 Housing (@moms4housing) August 28, 2020
We meet over Zoom. If you’d like to join us, and aren’t on our organizers’ list, drop us an email and we’ll send you an invitation.
The Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland was formed by members of Commonomics and Strike Debt Bay Area in August, 2016. By November 2018, we had persuaded the City of Oakland to fund — with contributions from Richmond, Berkeley, and the County of Alameda — a feasibility study for a public bank. The study deemed a public bank feasible, but city staff did not recommend moving forward. Notwithstanding that obstacle, the City Council voted unanimously in favor of examining next steps.
At that point, we decided to rename ourselves as Public Bank East Bay and work more directly with the County of Alameda, which we are doing now. Watch our Latest News for details.We are meeting regularly, have almost 1500 people on our mailing list in support of our goals (to join the mailing list, contact us). We are broadening our coalition by adding to our list of Oakland and East Bay organizations that support our efforts.
In 2018, we joined the California Public Banking Alliance. AB 857, the Alliance-sponsored bill enabling local public banks in California, has passed ALL of its legislative hurdles and was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom.
Working Groups
Some of our working groups meet between organizers’ meetings, and others just confer by phone and email. You can come to our meetings and plug into any one of these:
-
Search for Interim Board Members
Help us find interim board members for the Public Bank of the East Bay. We are building an Interim Board to facilitate the transition to an approved, operating Board of Directors. Review the requirements for Board members. If you would like to be on the Interim Board, or you know someone you think would be good, you can email us or use the contact page linked above.
-
Outreach to Organizations & Individuals
Help us with outreach (tabling at events, farmers’ markets, etc.) and spread the word about public banking! We also need help encouraging organization(s) to join us as supporters. -
Fundraising Operations
Help us raise money from individuals and foundations, find major donors, donate to our efforts. -
Digital Outreach Advocacy
Help us work with politicians to put public banking legislation on the table.
-
Governance
Join the larger California Public Banking Alliance (CPBA)
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82465546845
Agenda items:
4. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Forensic Logic Impact Report and proposed Use Policy –
review and take possible action.
5. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Exigent Circumstances Use Reports – review and take
possible action.
6. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Live Stream Use Reports – review and take possible
action.
7. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance Amendments – Hofer/Patterson/Gage – review and take
possible action.
a. Prohibition On Predictive Policing And Remote Biometric Surveillance Technology
b. Annual Report metrics and due dates
c. Additional cleanup language
8. Sanctuary Contracting Ordinance – CPO – Annual Report – review and take possible action.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84693488061?pwd=M2t3S0dzdkhwN01oZm1hcFpHZS91UT09
In 2018 the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released an alarming report, stating that the world needed to steeply cut its carbon emissions and make radical changes in order to limit the planet’s temperature from rising to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. If that goal wasn’t met, the report predicted a horrifying increase in suffering for almost all life and ecological collapses.
In America, this report was met on the political Left by sustained calls for the abolition of capitalist exploitation of people and the planet. The rationale was that capitalism’s imperative for endless economic growth required massive amounts of energy, the vast majority of which is still produced through fossil fuels. Some of the specific responses were reinvigorated support for anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggles by Indigenous peoples, surges in attendance at climate strikes, and great support for proposals like the Green New Deal by elected officials.
East Bay DSA will explore this theme in a Socialist Night School mini-series, co-organized with our Green New Deal Committee. These 3 events will explore what it means to be an ecosocialist, the Red Deal and Indigenous struggle, and how to fight for a Green New Deal after Bernie.
In this first Night School, we’ll get an introduction to ecosocialism, its history, and how we can organize as ecosocialists today from the local to the national and international levels. Our readings will cover a broad swath of socialist history, and we’ll get started with 2 speakers:
Becca Miller has been a member of Boston DSA for two years and is a core member of the Take Back the Grid energy democracy campaign. She recently started her second term on DSA’s nationwide ecosocialism working group steering committee, where she’s been working on a new member onboarding process. Becca works as a campaign manager to increase state funding for a program that helps SNAP recipients afford more fruits and vegetables from local farmers.
Benny Zank is a member of the East Bay DSA Steering Committee and has previously served as co-chair of the chapter’s Green New Deal committee. He has organized as an ecosocialist for several years building strong coalitions with other organizations in the Bay Area and works professionally on addressing environmental issues, like supporting the California Energy Code. Follow him @bread_by_benny.
Priority Readings:
DSA Ecosocialist Working Group Principles
Care and Repair: Left Politics in the Age of Climate Change
Recommended Readings:
Karl Marx on the materials of production
We are asking OUR HOUSED neighbors to contribute hygiene supplies, canned food, bottled water, rain gear, tarps, garbage bags, $$ et al to be redistributed on Sunday Sept. 13th to encampments in North Oakland dealing with the COVID 19. We will sanitize and package your donations add a hot packaged meal and fresh fruit to the care kits to be distributed to North Oakland Encampments and surrounding encampments.
In order to properly sanitize and maintain social distancing we are collective the materials on Sept. 4th, 5th & 6th and aiming to distribute 500 hot meals and care kits on Sept. 13th. Overflow resources will be distributed by sister orgs throughout Oakland.
***>> EMAIL STRIKE.DEBT.BAY.AREA@GMAIL.COM FOR ZOOM INFO A FEW DAYS BEFORE THE MEETING. <<***
Strike Debt Bay Area hosts a non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, and How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century.
For our July, August and September discussions we will be reading ‘The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy’ by Stephanie Kelton. (Find it at your local bookstore or through this site.)
For July, we will have read the first two chapters.
For August, we will have read chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6,
For September, chapters 7 and 8.
The book is easy reading, and it would be easy to catch up. Join us – all are welcome!
Stephanie Kelton’s brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country.
Kelton was chief economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee (minority staff) and an advisor to the Bernie2016 presidential campaign. Kelton is a regular commentator on national radio and television and speaks across the world at large gatherings of people interested in global finance, political economy and public policy. She has superb connections in all areas of print and broadcast national media. Her op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg.
For July, we will also have read two shorter pieces, following up on themes we have taken up in previous readings:
- The Neoliberal Era is Ending – What Comes Next? by Rutger Bregman
- From Banks and Tanks to Cooperation and Caring.
We are asking OUR HOUSED neighbors to contribute hygiene supplies, canned food, bottled water, rain gear, tarps, garbage bags, $$ et al to be redistributed on Sunday Sept. 13th to encampments in North Oakland dealing with the COVID 19. We will sanitize and package your donations add a hot packaged meal and fresh fruit to the care kits to be distributed to North Oakland Encampments and surrounding encampments.
In order to properly sanitize and maintain social distancing we are collective the materials on Sept. 4th, 5th & 6th and aiming to distribute 500 hot meals and care kits on Sept. 13th. Overflow resources will be distributed by sister orgs throughout Oakland.
There are increasing concerns as to what will happen before, during, and after our November election so this is an opportunity to express our concerns. Our group discussion will be introduced by Gene Ruyle and other ICSS members with ample opportunity for discussion. Be prepared to voice, and defend, your views For background, we will post a list of recommended sources in early September, for example in Democracy Now, the New York Times, and elsewhere ss they develop. ICSS member Sharon Rose will moderate.
LOG-IN INFO
The meeting will be opened up, as usual, at 10:15 for anyone to join and discuss technical matters, catch up with each other, say Hi, etc. We intend to start the presentation as close to 10:30 am as possible.
Check here for Zoom connection info before the meeting: https://icssmarx.org/icss-sched-latest.html
NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:
occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 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 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)
On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! 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
This Labor Day weekend, join the EBDSA Labor Committee for a screening of Harlan County, USA, and learn about our newly-launched Jobs Program!
This Oscar-winning film documents the struggles of Brookside Mineworkers while striking for safer working conditions, fair labor practices, and decent wages.
Following the screening, we will discuss the film and how the Jobs Program aims to build working-class power through strategic workplace organizing.