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In the 1960s, students organized a Free Speech movement to resist the University of California, Berkeley, to counter administrative bans on flyering on the campus. 53 years later, there is a new battle brewing over Peoples Park with its community advocating for civic space and the University offering housing projects. As tensions grow between the City’s establishment and Park protesters, many people are caught in the middle trying to navigate college, Covid-19, and Berkeley’s unaffordable housing crisis.

One of the greatest challenges facing the Peoples Park community is that UC Berkeley and the Berkeley City Council have agreed on the development. In fact, they have already allocated over $325 million dollars to displace the homeless encampments to the Rodeway Inn and build “over 1,100” beds for students and “formerly unhoused people.”

But, there are growing concerns about adding more students to Berkeley. The Save Berkeley’s Neighborhood group sued UC Berkeley for over enrolling students, but the Supreme Court decision in their favor was nullified by the California Legislature. The UC Regents then bought a $6.5 million dollar home in Berkeley for its president while thousands of students sleep on the streets during the summer months. These groups argue that the more students we have in Berkeley, the more open space we need to protect them, and that Peoples Park is the only green space available in the neighborhood outside of UC Berkeley’s main campus.

As tensions grow between the City’s establishment and the Anarchists of Peoples Park, thousands of students, businesses, and passersby will be caught in the middle of a potential war brewing in the Southside community, echoing the 1960’s invasion of the National Guard which changed Berkeley’s history forever.

What is the quality of life like at the Rodeway Inn?

What brought you to Peoples Park and why do you fight for it? and

Is there a sustainable future possible for Peoples Park?

Join the Green Party of Alameda County for a roundtable discussion with Peoples Park activists where we ask these questions and more during our monthly Green Sunday.

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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 follows at 7 pm, after a 30-minute break. Council meetings are open to anyone who is interested.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89559844652

Meeting ID: 895 5984 4652

PS  Organizers asked that people go to the Park whenever they can to witness what’s happening and support.   There will likely be at least one Copwatch training at the park, TBD.

https://www.savepeoplespark.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxyZYPTwZTc

PPS CONGRATS to our Left Unity Slate which helped secure our ballot access.  It was a good strategy!  Thnx for voting for them.  Press release:
https://www.cagreens.org/left-unity-strategy-pays-californias-green-party-and-peace-and-freedom-party

Staged reading of ROE produced by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performance of Roe by Lisa Loomer directed by Susannah Wood and organized by Carol Marasovic of the City of Berkeley Commission on the Status of Women

Admission is free – reservations are highly recommended,

https://www.aeofberkeley.org/productions/upcoming-shows/378-roe-by-lisa-loomer

donations to cover the production costs are welcome send to:

Berkeley Actors Ensemble / ROE, PO Box 663, Berkeley, CA 94701

ROE at 7 pm at the Marsh 2120 at Allston Way

Staged reading of ROE produced by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performance of Roe by Lisa Loomer directed by Susannah Wood and organized by Carol Marasovic of the City of Berkeley Commission on the Status of Women

Admission is free – reservations are highly recommended,

donations to cover the production costs are welcome send to:

Berkeley Actors Ensemble / ROE, PO Box 663, Berkeley, CA 94701

Speak up this Thurs 6/16 for #CARTSF to provide a future of care not criminalization for unhoused residents of San Francisco.

Don’t let the city divert money it promised to #GetCARTrolling last year! Sign up for text alerts to make public comment at: https://t.co/Ybc9MheMMa pic.twitter.com/oir6vyztQL

— SF Public Defender (@sfdefender) June 15, 2022

Staged reading of ROE produced by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performance of Roe by Lisa Loomer directed by Susannah Wood and organized by Carol Marasovic of the City of Berkeley Commission on the Status of Women

Admission is free – reservations are highly recommended,

https://www.aeofberkeley.org/productions/upcoming-shows/378-roe-by-lisa-loomer

donations to cover the production costs are welcome send to:

Berkeley Actors Ensemble / ROE, PO Box 663, Berkeley, CA 94701

ROE at 7 pm at the Marsh 2120 at Allston Way

Staged reading of ROE produced by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performance of Roe by Lisa Loomer directed by Susannah Wood and organized by Carol Marasovic of the City of Berkeley Commission on the Status of Women

Admission is free – reservations are highly recommended,

donations to cover the production costs are welcome send to:

Berkeley Actors Ensemble / ROE, PO Box 663, Berkeley, CA 94701

Please join KPFA for a very special Zoom Event when we welcome Britt Wray and her new book, Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis, in conversation with KPFA’s Sabrina Jacobs.

“Wray proves to be consistently empathetic. Climaate activists feeling near the end of their rope will find this full of wisdom.”\Kirkus Reviews

Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis is an impassioned generational perspective on how to stay sane amid climate disruption.

TICKETS AND MORE INFO AVAILABLE HERE

This Saturday we will have an MH First Training open to ALL community members…

Register for MH First Training

Where: East Oakland � Location will be shared upon registration

Accessibility: This is a 7 hour training in person with no virtual option. We will provide materials for you to access in advanced if needed. Breaks will be provided. Lunch will also be provided for all participants. Please include any accessibility needs in the registration form.

*Participants will be required to wear a mask throughout the training, except when eating lunch, and will be socially distanced from each other.*
Register for MH First Training
We deserve community crisis response that doesn’t harm us and instead honors our lives.

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

For May, 2022 we’re reading the first four chapters of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, And the Future of the Planet, by Raj Patel and Jason W Moore. UC Press, Amazon

For June, 2022, we’ll be finishing the above book.

All are welcome!

“Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. In making these things cheap, modern commerce has transformed, governed, and devastated Earth. In A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore present a new approach to analyzing today’s planetary emergencies.

Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism. At a time of crisis in all seven cheap things, innovative and systemic thinking is urgently required. This book proposes a radical new way of understanding—and reclaiming—the planet in the turbulent twenty-first century.”

Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this 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, 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! and The Dawn of Everything.

That’s the intent of the pending Supreme Court decision, a draft copy of which has already been leaked to the media. This will be a human rights disaster for women. On May 11,2022  the U.S. Senate voted down the Women’s Health Protection Act 49 to 51. The WHPA would have made abortion legal, eliminating the role of the Supreme Court on the issue of abortion and nullifying the pending Supreme Court decision,  How do we fight back against this grossly undemocratic decision? We certainly can’t trust the Democratic Party leadership.

Our speaker is Rosa Astra, an Oakland-based militant journalist, community organizer, and activist with the ANSWER coalition.

LOGIN INFORMATION

Our Zoom room 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.. The program (and recording) will begin as close to 10:30 am as possible and will end at 12:30, but the Waiting Room will remain open until about 1 pm for informal discussion.

ZOOM LINK

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2591082607?pwd=NnYwL1Z1RU9kcURQeG1NbnNZZXRqdz09

Meeting ID: 259 108 2607
Passcode: ICSS1962rs

Dial by your location
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

Passcode: 7952417642
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc4RrpvAiQ

Catch the premier of this new short film from the People vs Fossil Fuels coalition. Dear President Biden, a new documentary film by Jon Bowermaster,  shares the stories of leaders from the People vs. Fossil Fuels coalition and the fossil fuel resistance movement who are fighting to protect communities, water, and public health.

Online. Register here

The screening of this 35-minute short film will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker, and the organizers and climate activists featured in the film. The discussion will also share ways to get involved and hold President Biden accountable to his climate promises, as well as information on how to host your own screening.

Speakers:

• Carolyn Raffensperger, Science & Environmental Health Network (Iowa)
• *Fermin Morales, Philly Boricuas (Pennsylvania)
• *Jean Su, Center for Biological Diversity
• *Jessica Wiskus (Iowa)
• *John Beard, Port Arthur Community Action Network (Texas).
• *Joye Braun, Indigenous Environmental Network (Cheyenne River Sioux)
• *Kate Delany, Food & Water Watch (New Jersey
• Peter Kalmus, climate scientist and writer
• *Russell Chisholm, Protect Our Water, Heritage and Rights (Virginia)
• *Sandra Steingraber, Science & Environmental Health Network, Concerned Health Professionals of New York
• Sharon Levigne, Rise St. James (Louisiana)
• Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch

It’s with great sadness that we share about another in-custody death at Santa Rita Jail. This is the 59th in-custody death that we know of since 2014.

🕯Please join Jose “Nick” Piña’s family for a community vigil in front of the sheriff’s office in Oakland tmrw, Wed 6/22 at 4pm. pic.twitter.com/0cc0oe5Dtz

— Anti Police-Terror Project (@APTPaction) June 21, 2022

In 1968, a 24-year-old woman moved to Berkeley, California and immediately became enmeshed in the Youth International Party, aka The Yippies, a recently-formed satirical protest group. In the next few years, Judy Gumbo (a nickname given her by Eldridge Cleaver), was soon at the center of counter-cultural activity—from protests in People’s Park, to meetings at Black Panther headquarters, to running a pig for President at the raucous Democratic National Convention in Chicago, a protest that devolved into violent attacks by the police and arrests that led to the notorious Chicago Conspiracy Trial.

In this insider feminist memoir, Gumbo reveals intimate details of her fellow radicals Jerry Rubin, Nancy Kurshan, Anita & Abbie Hoffman, Eldridge & Kathleen Cleaver, Paul Krassner, Stew Albert, and more, detailing their experiences in radical anti-war protests and her own skirmishes with, and victory over, illegal FBI surveillance.

Yippie Girl explores Gumbo’s life as a protester to show that, while circumstances always change, protesters can stay loyal to the causes they believe in and remain true to themselves. She also reveals how dogmatism, authoritarianism, and interpersonal conflict can damage those same just causes, offering a timeless and strategic guide for activists today protesting against injustice in all its forms.

Praise for Yippie Girl: Exploits in Protest & Defeating the FBI

“We have to get our history right. So young folks can see where we were coming from… And Yippie Girl tells it like it is.”
 Bobby Seale, Founding chairman and national organizer of the Black Panther Party

“Love the writing: VERY live, immediate – this does not feel like ancient history, it’s living and breathing in our lives right now. It’s part of our power, people power.” � Kris Welch, Host, The Talkies, KPFA-FM

“Gumbo delivers a sharp-edged memoir of years of protest and resistance . . . A welcome addition to the literature of radical activism in the age of Johnson, Nixon, and beyond.”  Kirkus Reviews

“The subject JUDY GUMBO is considered to be the most vicious, the most anti-American, the most anti-establishment, and the most dangerous to the internal security of the United States.”  FBI

“Judy Gumbo was and is quite a dame. Her new book is splendid.”
� Susan Brownmiller, feminist, activist, author, Against Our Will, Men, Women and Rape

“With the world fractured by orchestrated divisiveness, Yippie Girl is a healing balm.”
�� Meegan Lee Ochs, daughter of Phil Ochs; Artist Relations Manager, ACLU of Southern California

Don't miss our upcoming event on reproductive freedom and privacy with @htsuka from @eff and @MindingPrivacy of @DukeLaw, moderated by @FoxCahn
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​See you June 23rd at 6 pm EST!
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​Register here: https://t.co/5KMda2z4U4 pic.twitter.com/hIkY6mP2H8

— S.T.O.P.—Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (@STOPSpyingNY) June 14, 2022

We need to reallocate funding from the carceral system. And we want a very tiny portion of that reduction, $4.8 million to go to fund the Compassionate Alternative Response Team (CART) through DPH. #implementCARTnow #CARTSF pic.twitter.com/OyjUDSCgcW

— CausaJusta (@CausaJusta1) June 22, 2022

The SLAP BBQ!

If you are able to contribute to ensure we have enough food please Venmo donations to the handle @slapbayarea . OR if you do not have Venmo but want to donate ahead of time please email Ronan G, ronanronang@gmail.com.

Please join KPFA for a very special matinee Zoom Event on when we welcome Delegate Danica Roem and her new book, Burn the Page: A True Story of Torching Doubts, Blazing Trails, and Igniting Change in conversation with Charlie Jane Anders.

“this colorful, no-holds-barredd account of Roem’s life and political work still delights for its unabashed candor. An inspiring story of self-acceptance and determination.”Kirkus Reviews

An inspirational memoir-meets-manifesto by Danica Roem, the nation’s first openly trans person elected to US state legislature.

TICKETS AND MORE INFO AVAILABLE HERE

Danica Roem made national headlines when–as a transgender former frontwoman for a metal band and a political newcomer–she unseated Virginia’s most notoriously anti-LGBTQ 26-year incumbent Bob Marshall as state delegate. But before Danica made history, she had to change her vision of what was possible in her own life. Doing so was a matter of storytelling: during her campaign, Danica hired an opposition researcher to dredge up every story from her past that her opponent might seize on to paint her negatively.

In wildly entertaining prose, Danica dismantles all the stories her opponents tried to hedge against her, showing how through brutal honesty and loving authenticity, it’s possible to embrace the low points, and even transform them into her greatest strengths. Burn the Page takes readers from Danica’s lonely, closeted, and at times operatically tragic childhood to her position as a rising star in a party she’s helped forever change.

Delegate Danica Roem, part of the historic group that flipped Republican seats in the 2017 election, is the first out-and-seated transgender state legislator in American history. Prior to her political career, Roem was a journalist and now serves as a frequent guest on national media. She and her work have been featured in USA Today, People, GQ, The New York Times, Elle, and many others, and was the subject of the GLAAD award-winning documentary This Is How We Win.

Charlie Jane Anders’ books include Victories Greater Than Death, Never Say You Can’t Survive, The City in the Middle of the Night and All the Birds in the Sky. She’s won the Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Lambda Literary, Crawford and Locus Awards. Her fiction and journalism have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate, McSweeney’s, Mother Jones, Wired Magazine, and other places. Her TED Talk, “Go Ahead, Dream About the Future” got 700,000 views in its first week. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.

“Easily the most dramatic episode in American history was the sudden move to free four million black slaves in an effort to stop a great civil war, to end forty years of bitter controversy, and to appease the moral sense of civilization.”

W.E.B Dubois’ classic book “Black Reconstruction in America” flipped prevailing narratives about Reconstruction on their head. Bringing a materialist analysis of history to the forefront. Dubois analyzes the conditions of the white workers, the north, planters, and slaves before the Civil War and how these conditions led to the war breaking out. In the chapter “The General Strike”, we’ll take a look at how the actions of the slaves in particular solidified the defeat of the Confederacy and their own freedom.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84025374876?pwd=UytxV1BFbTRIK1M5bGU0UGdBTmhXZz09

Meeting ID: 840 2537 4876

Passcode: 257341