Calendar
“Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.”
A Conscious Commons Festival
As you may know, the US Postal Service is trying to sell and privatize Berkeley’s Downtown Post Office. Community members continue to mobilize to save our commons in what has become a national effort. We are involved in spreading the word through festivals and action and by participating in judicial and political efforts to let public officials, developers and buyers know that the people are defending our public resources and do not want post offices sold.
Activities hosted at the Post Office will include:
- Invocation, and meditation
- Information sharing on: postal banking, postal jobs and direct action defense of commons
- letter writing, and art
Come join us! Bring your friends! Bring your lunch!
Sponsored by Berkeley Post Office Defense
http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Our Concerns
Self-professed Buddhist’ Richard Blum is chairman of the CBRE board of directors–the agent for the sale of US post offices. The sale of our constitutionally guaranteed post offices promote the transfer of public commons and resources to private corporations which brings higher prices, worse quality of services, higher profits and non union lower paid jobs without benefits. Now, US postal services have been shifted into {84} private US Staples stores including Berkeley and San Francisco.
The Berkeley Post Office and post offices all over the US are under threat of being sold by questionable means. (For example: Goldman Sachs is one of the largest shareholders with CBRE, which has been involved in both selling and purchasing postal property and numerous sale prices appear to be below documented value. Please see: Going Postal: U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s husband sells post offices to his friends, cheap by Peter Byrne.
From: The Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thupten Gyatso
During his exile in India, the Dalai Lama was fascinated by the modern world and he introduced the first Tibetan currency notes and coins. On 13 February 1913, he made public the five-point statement reasserting Tibet’s Independence. Also, in 1913 he established the first post office in Tibet
“it is not enough to be compassionate, we must act.”
David Rovics, Eric Drooker & Tristan Anderson
will perform together on Sunday, Feb. 23rd at the Art House in Berkeley, 2905 Shattuck Ave. The event will be a benefit for Justice 4 Tristan.
Schedule:
- 5 PM Potluck dinner
- 6 PM Welcoming
- 6:15-6:45 Tristan Anderson slide show
- 6:45-7:15 David Rovics amplified set
- 7:15-8:00 Eric Drooker Multimedia Performance
- 8PM-….. David Rovics acoutic set
David Rovics is a great folk singer of songs of social significance. You can download most of his music at his web site or over at Soundclick and other places.
Eric Drooker is an artist, painter, graphic artist, and animator from New York.
Tristan Anderson is an activist and photographer who was critically injured by an Israeli tear gas cannister in 2009 during a peaceful protest. Tristan is hemiplegic- mostly paralyzed on the left (formerly dominant) side of his body. He uses a wheelchair. He has lost sight in his right eye, suffers chronic pain in his paralyzed limbs, and has had pronounced, life changing cognitive and emotional repercussions as a result of the injury that was done to his brain. He has an ongoing lawsuit against the Israeli government.
Click on image to get printable PDF
Click HERE for 11×17″ Poster Image.
And HERE to get a letter sized 4-to-a-page flyer for small handbills.
Col. Ann Wright, peace activist “extraordinaire,” coming to Occupy Beale AFB this month.
Please join us for one or both days! Together we can stop the War Machine and ground those drones for good!
For three years activists have been gathering monthly at Beale AFB, near Marysville, CA. This month
Col. (ret.) Ann Wright joins us to protest and will be speaking at several local events.
Monday, February 24th Protest/Vigil: 3-5 p.m. at Wheatland Gate,
(Intersection of So. Beale Rd. and Ostrom Rd.)
5:30 p.m. Teach-in and Encampment at Main Gate (N. Beale Rd.)
Tuesday, February 25th Vigil: 6-9 a.m. at Wheatland Gate
(S. Beale Rd. and Ostrom Rd.)
Hear Col. Ann Wright!
Noon: Yuba City College, Room 716, Math & Science Bldg.
2:30-3:45 p.m. Eating Well Cafe, 1908 North Beale Rd., Linda
6-8 p.m. Brick Coffe House, 316 D St., Marysville
Carpool from the Bay Area: Contact Toby Blome, 510-215-5974, ratherbenyckeling@comcast.net
The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!
The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.
And we’re fighting against both!
Come help us plan our next steps.
The City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which may protect the Post Office against various commercial uses, or be totally ineffective. We need to stay on top of it.
The American Postal Workers Union is planning more actions against Staples; we need to support them. We have some ideas of our own too!
Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked and we need to be on the leading edge of that. And Barbara Lee has introduced even stronger language into legislation to stop the sale of Historic Post Offices.
We are planning an outreach event for sunday, February 23rd, a Conscious Commons Festival. Come out and enjoy the experience!
THINGS ARE HAPPENING!
AND CHECK OUT OUR SPIFFY NEW WEBSITE.
David Rovics tours on four continents, playing for audiences large and small at cafes, pubs, college campuses, churches, union halls and protest rallies. Many activists consider him a leading voice of the Occupy Movement in that he has visited and performed at 30 Occupy tent cities throughout the U.S. Our Steve Jacobson traveled to Mendocino with David last year and says whether David is performing for an audience of 10 people or 100, he gives it his all. This should be really great; inspiring and galvanizing.
The Sunflower Alliance is pleased to host a series of forums in northern Contra Costa County on the dangers of the fossil fuel industry’s turn to extreme energy in recent years. CoCoCo and Benicia are home to five refineries, specializing in the dirtiest and heaviest crude oils, and the industry has proposed five major projects to expand refineries and bring in crude oil by train.
In Pittsburg, Martinez, and Richmond, we will have panel discussions with experts and community activists, featuring a special guest from Lac-Mégantic, Canada, which suffered a devastating oil train explosion last July that killed 47 people. They’ll educate us on Big Oil’s plans and the local, regional, and global effects.
Learn about the consequences for your community, and learn how communities are organizing to fight back and protect our health and safety!
The forums will be held on the following dates:
Pittsburg: Monday, February 24th, 2014, from 7pm to 9pm at First Baptist at 204 Odessa Ave. Facebook event here.
Martinez: Wednesday, February 26th, 2014, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm at the Veterans Memorial Building at 930 Ward St. Facebook event here.
Richmond: Saturday, March 1st, 2014, from 12pm to 2pm at the Bobby Bowens Progressive Center at1021 MacDonald Ave. Facebook event here.
Speakers
Each forum will have a slightly different set of panelists, tailored for the concerns of that area. However, every panel will feature:
- Marilaine Savard: spokesperson for a citizens’ group in the region of Lac-Mégantic, Québec.
- Antonia Juhasz: oil industry analyst, journalist, and author of The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must do to Stop It and Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill.
Look at the descriptions in the Facebook events for each location (see above) to find out more about each panel’s members.
We look forward to seeing you at one of the panel discussions!
Hundreds of thousands of Korean workers are striking F25 to defend the basic right to organize unions and their right to strike.
In December some 5000 police were sent to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions headquarter; 138 unionists were arrested, rail workers were fired upon, and the union was fined millions of dollars for “obstructing business.”
We demand:
- Free all jailed workers.
- No reprisals, rehired fired workers, drop charges and fines.
- Stop government repression against unions
- Defend the right to strike and stop privatizaion.
On February 26th (6pm-8pm) the City of Oakland will host a session in City Council Chambers for “Public Input to the DAC Privacy Policy Framework.” The Oakland Privacy Working Group will conduct a meeting the day before (Tuesday, February 25th 7pm) at the Sudo Room. If you are an active participant please attend this meeting. We will be discussing and solidifying our overall approach and plan for addressing City Council as one voice.
Note: Our regular meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 28th, at 8:30 PM in the same location (Sudo room), after the Privacy Policy Framework meeting at City Call.
SAN FRANCISCO TENANTS’ GROUPS TO HOLD “MARCH ON GREED” IN PROTEST OF LOCAL LANDLORD AND “SERIAL EVICTOR”
San Francisco – Next Wednesday, February 26, a coalition of tenants’ rights activists and and local economic justice groups, led by the rising direct action group Eviction Free San Francisco, will hold a march in protest of a local landlord Kaushik Dattani, who has been receiving increased notoriety as a “serial evictor” due to him recently being added to the “dirty dozen” by the Anti Eviction Mapping Project, for being one of the worst Ellis- Act evictors in San Francisco. The event, titled “A March on Greed: Housing is a Human Right”, aims to make Mr. Dattani an example of real estate speculation that has been directly affecting the displacement of the City’s lower and middle income renters.
The meet-up for this event is to happen at 11:30am on Wednesday, at the 24th Street BART station. From there, the group plans to walk to Mr. Dattani’s office at 3232 22nd Street. The event is anticipated to last no longer than an hour, and is expected to have a similar crowd size as past protests led by the group, which has shown to be 50 to over 100 participants.
Rally & March.
We Aer All Trayvon Martin. The whole Damn System is Guilty.
Youth Are Not Suspects, They Are Human Beings.
The murder of Trayvon Martin was, and still is, a towering outrage. Remember: when the verdict came down many thousands rejected the call for “calm reflection” from Obama and others and took to the streets in outrage.
Many more asked: Why does this happen? And, what can we do about it? There is a challenge before us: What kind of world are we going to live in? On February 26, 2014 we must answer that challenge with a day of outrage and remembrance for Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Andy Lopez, Renisha MeBride and all the thousands of others like them.
These are modern day lynchings. They sent a message that Black and Latino youth have a bulls-eye on their backs that cops and any ordinary racist can use as target practice.
In response we must deliver our own message: we will not stand by in silence as our youth are brutalized, locked up, murdered and more. On Feb 26th, in Oakland and EVERYWHERE across the country we must say NO MORE! to the criminalization of whole generations of Black and Latino youth.
Come speak out on a “privacy policy” that allows the City of Oakland to violate our 1st and 4th amendment rights with impunity.
Staff is taking a new and aggressive approach to public engagement around this draft framework. Distribution of this framework will happen via EngageOakland, a survey monkey, and broad dissemination via the Neighborhood Service Coordinators. This framework is being disseminated for a thirty day public comment period. During that time period there will be two public meetings scheduled for Wednesday, February 26th in City Council Chambers, and Thursday, March 13th at the Dimond Branch Library located at 3565 Fruitvale Avenue. Both meetings will occur between 6 to 8pm.
“During Phase 2, City/Port staff will develop a Privacy and Data Retention Policy that governs the collection, retention, storage, and dissemination of information processed by the DAC ensuring the protection of privacy rights by individuals, and will return said policy to the Council for approval no later than March 2014.”
Oakland Police were video taping anti-surveillance activists at City Council meeting tonight. #DAC #OAKMTG via @guelo pic.twitter.com/RlTynCD40N
— Domain Awareness (@domainawareness) February 19, 2014
The Sunflower Alliance is pleased to host a series of forums in northern Contra Costa County on the dangers of the fossil fuel industry’s turn to extreme energy in recent years. CoCoCo and Benicia are home to five refineries, specializing in the dirtiest and heaviest crude oils, and the industry has proposed five major projects to expand refineries and bring in crude oil by train.
In Pittsburg, Martinez, and Richmond, we will have panel discussions with experts and community activists, featuring a special guest from Lac-Mégantic, Canada, which suffered a devastating oil train explosion last July that killed 47 people. They’ll educate us on Big Oil’s plans and the local, regional, and global effects.
Learn about the consequences for your community, and learn how communities are organizing to fight back and protect our health and safety!
The forums will be held on the following dates:
Pittsburg: Monday, February 24th, 2014, from 7pm to 9pm at First Baptist at 204 Odessa Ave. Facebook event here.
Martinez: Wednesday, February 26th, 2014, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm at the Veterans Memorial Building at 930 Ward St. Facebook event here.
Richmond: Saturday, March 1st, 2014, from 12pm to 2pm at the Bobby Bowens Progressive Center at1021 MacDonald Ave. Facebook event here.
Speakers
Each forum will have a slightly different set of panelists, tailored for the concerns of that area. However, every panel will feature:
- Marilaine Savard: spokesperson for a citizens’ group in the region of Lac-Mégantic, Québec.
- Antonia Juhasz: oil industry analyst, journalist, and author of The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must do to Stop It and Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill.
Look at the descriptions in the Facebook events for each location (see above) to find out more about each panel’s members.
We look forward to seeing you at one of the panel discussions!
- Come to this event to find out what’s going on in Venezuela. For another source that is not from the “elite” point-of-view, see http://venezuelanalysis.com/
NOTE: We are meeting at 8:30 tonight so we can attend the first public meeting on the DAC “privacy” policy.
http://oaklandwiki.org/Public_Meeting_on_DAC_Privacy_Policy
Join Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub.
We aim to have 2 monthly meetings, every 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 6:30 at the SUDOROOM. Stop by and learn how you can help guard Oakland’s right not to be spied on by the government & if you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy Working Group email listserv, send an email to: oaklandprivacyworkinggroup-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The entrance to the sudoroom is on 22nd Street, ring the buzzer and come up the stairs or take the elevator.
For more information on the DAC check out the DAC FAQ, the Oakland Wiki Domain Awareness Page and the Oakland Privacy WordPress.
A Kentucky-based company called Bowie Resource Partners wants to turn Oakland’s Jack London Square into a hub for shipping dirty coal to Asia.
CREDO activists have helped fight off similar proposals in Oregon and Washington over the past few years, but the coal industry is desperate to ship its dirty product overseas, so it is now targeting California for coal exports.
The Port of Oakland’s Board of Commissioners will be discussing the proposal at its meeting on Thursday � and it wants to hear whatt local residents think. Can you be there to urge the Board of Commissioners to reject the disastrous proposal to export dirty coal through the Port of Oakland
We’d recommend arriving at 3 p.m. to sign up to speak.
Allowing coal to be exported through the Port of Oakland would pollute our air and water with dangerous coal dust and undermine our efforts to fight climate change. It’s a bad deal for Oakland and the Port’s Board of Commissioners needs to reject it without delay.
The Board of Commissioners’ own staff report detailed several problems with the proposal, including increased greenhouse gas emissions, coal dust pollution, conflicts with the port’s policies and the likelihood of community opposition.
It is outrageous that the Port of Oakland is even considering proposals to export dirty coal. With a big turnout at Thursday’s public meeting we can make it clear to the Port’s Board of Commissioners that the Bay Area won’t stand for a dirty coal export terminal at Jack London Square.
Across the country, people who are Fed Up with the Federal Reserve are gathering for Fed Up Fridays. This month, the focus is on labor. The Federal Reserve has a mandate to maintain maximum employment. So where are the jobs?
It is clear that the Federal Reserve serves the interests of the banks first and foremost, ahead of all other mandates. That is not surprising, since the Federal Reserve is 100% owned by Wall Street banks. Until we change the system to issue debt free sovereign money that will serve the people instead of the banks, financiers will continue to get richer and life for ordinary people will continue to deteriorate.
To illuminate this issue, the Code Pink Light Brigade will spell FED UP [heart] LABOR and WHERE ARE THE JOBS?
Join Fed Up this Friday and show your support for monetary policy that helps the 99% instead of Wall Street banks. Let’s kick off monthly Fed Up Fridays!
Twitter: #FedUp @FedUpSanFran @FedUpNewYork
https://www.facebook.com/
https://www.facebook.com/
A panel of alumni from the Zapatista Little School who traveled to Mexico as part of a delegation from Oakland will be talking about their experiences with the Zapatistas.
The Little School is a recent initiative by the Zapatistas to invite thousands of participants from around the world to come to the Zapatista territories, stay in the homes of Zapatista families, work alongside the Zapatistas, and study the Zapatista approach to autonomy.
We stayed in communities across the breadth of the Zapatista territory, from the mountains to the jungle, and will be discussing the different circumstances we encountered in different places, as well as the lessons we learned from our time in the Little School.
We will also be discussing some of our experiences with other autonomous projects that we visited in Mexico, outside the Little School and Chiapas. There will be a slideshow with some pictures from our journey, as well as time for a Q&A with members of the panel.
All are welcome, there will be snacks and tea!
Ballot Initiative to Lift Up Oakland!
Join community members, workers, small business owners, students, and faith leaders who are uniting to lift up our City with a voter ballot initiative to raise the the minimum wage and provide workers with paid sick days.
Raise the Minimum Wage to $12.25!
It’s time we make Oakland the kind of city that families can
afford to put food on the table, keep a roof over our heads,
and keep the lights on! Let’s ensure that workers can meet
our basic needs.
Provide Workers with Paid Sick Days!
No one should have to choose between a paycheck and our health! Let’s ensure that everyone can take care of ourselves and our children when we are sick.
JAB is currently focused on the demand that California Attorney General Kamala Harris do her job & prosecute ALL killer cops. Everyone is welcome, we will meet at The Alan Blueford Center for Justice at 2434 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, please check here for late changes.
Our latest action was a civil disobedience “standin” at Oakland’s State Building that resulted in eight people being arrested, but the good news is that all the charges are being dropped.
Upcoming events we will be discussing include
- – April 8 – Families United March on State Capital
- – April 25 – Civil trial begins in support of Ernest Duenez, Jr. in Sacramento
- – May 8 – Civil trial begins in support of Alan Blueford
- – May 31 – statewide mobilization in support of Andy Lopez in Santa Rosa