We normally have a meal before GA on the last Sunday of the month, but this month that would fall the day after Chinese New Years, and our mayoral caninedate Einstein gets very spooked by fireworks after being so traumatized by flashbang grenades and tear gas on October 25th, 2011, when the cops broke up the first encampment that he and Ed Not Bombs are going to try and visits some friends in the country to get away from the noise. And without Einstein keeping the pigeons at a respectful distance its hard to enjoy a peaceful repast in the plaza, so we are delaying our meal until the first Sunday in February, so we’ll take the 5th at 2 PM.

The last Sunday of every month attendees of the OO GA will get together a little earlier than usual, at 2 PM (3 PM pn the summer) to share some food with each others and the community.  There should be a table and utensils/plates courtesy of the Kitchen Committee (such at he is), so just bring a nosh to share…

The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 3 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway, often on the steps of City Hall. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 3:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. During the warmer months we tend to meet at 4 PM.

OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for more than four years! 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

1. Welcome & Introductions
2. Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
3. Announcements
4. (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)
Occupy Oakland Kitchen Committee: (kitchen@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

Open Circle is taking steps to repeal the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights. The timing to achieve this is now.

President trump vows to give police a wider bearth which means more racial profiling, more stop and frisk, more killer cops, zero accountablity.

Let’s work together on this now. The longer trump is in office the harder it will be to turn over this reprehenisble pos Bill.

“Trump states his administration “will be a law and order administration,” committed to ending the “dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America.”
breitbart.com/big-government/2017/01/23/trump-white-house-pledges-support-law-enforcement-white-house-page/ )

We are meeting as a community with the families whose loved ones have been harmed and killed by cops. Hear their experiences and updates on their cases for police accountability, participate in further organizing, and, most of all, love and support one another. ♥

Agenda:
3:45 – 4:00 Introductions
4:00 – 4:30 Family Updates
4:30 – 5:15 Collaborate on repealing the Police Bill of Rights
5:15 – 5:30 Announcements
5:30 – 5:45 Network

*This is a Potluck Event, please feel free to bring a dish, snack or (non-alcoholic) beverage to share. ♥

Location Information:

From Oakland : BART to Embarcadero Center, transfer downstairs to MUNI and get on the T Light Trsin going south bound towards Bayview, get off on Caroll Street and walk back half a block on 3rd.
Emergency door on the armstrong side will be open so that attendees can come directly to the common room.
~~~
Open Circle – Families United for Justice provides an opportunity to build community with one another, to offer support to Families victimized by police misconduct, including police murder and stand with Families in their struggle for justice for their loved ones.

Join us for a report back, art auction & fundraiser for the Standing Rock Two Spirit Nation camp!

Trump’s administration brings new, imminent, and scary threats to water protectors at the Standing Rock encampment in North Dakota. Please help the Two Spirit Nation stand up for our water and the sovereignty of our First Peoples!

Candi Brings Plenty belongs to the Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe and identifies as an Indigenous Queer, Two Spirit Woman. In addition to her leadership within Two-Spirit Nation at Oceti Sakowin/Oceti Oyate camp, Candi is Executive Director of the Equi Institute of Portland, Oregon’s first Trans- and Queer-focused health clinic, and director of the Portland Two Spirit Society.

Two-Spirit Nation camp is a camp within Oceti Sakowin/Oceti Oyate led by Two-Spirit community members. Two-Spirit Nation was honored with a Grand Entry at Standing Rock on October 14th, 2016, and has been leading the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline since.

**If you cannot make it in person and you are able to contribute to the Two Spirit Nation camp at Standing Rock, please donate directly to the camp’s PayPal account: http://paypal.me/TwoSpiritNation

Food & drinks available for purchase. 21 & over.

Accessibility Information:
The event is in the upstairs ballroom space of the Starline Social Club, which regrettably is not yet wheelchair accessible. There are 2 flights of stairs – approximately 20 steps total – leading up to the ballroom. Restrooms have relatively wide stalls. There will be one gender neutral and one women’s* restroom upstairs, and a single-stall gender-neutral restroom attendees can use downstairs. Guests should use whichever restroom they feel most comfortable with. The venue may use some scented cleaning supplies, but we ask that people do their best to arrive ***free of scents and fragrances,*** to support access for community members with chemical sensitivities. More information about being fragrance free here: https://eastbaymeditation.org/resources/fragrance-free-at-ebmc/ and here: http://www.brownstargirl.org/blog/fragrance-free-femme-of-colour-realness-draft-15. There will be unscented soap available for use in the restrooms on the night of the event. If you have any additional access needs, questions, or offerings please contact dicewald@gmail.com before the event.

Please come out on monday at 9am to Rene C. Davidson Courthouse Dept 7 to support a comrade arrested at the Anti Trump election day protest. Let’s show our solidarity by packing the court!

Support Standing Rock!

Are you wondering how you can support the Water Protectors at Standing Rock? There are some great ways you can help!

Oceti Sakowin is the “big camp” at Standing Rock. The easiest and most direct way to support the camp is to donate at http://www.ocetisakowincamp.org. The Medic and Healer Council is busy keeping folks at camp safe & healthy this winter. You can donate to them at�] https://psmag.com/inside-the-battle-over-the-dakota-access-pipeline-2509fa77f23e#.88r2314pphttps://medichealercouncil.com/

Meet at Oscar Grant Plaza for a bus/van to Stockton to take part in a rally for Colby Friday, killed by Stockton Police.

EMERGENCY #NoDAPL Action! Arrestival! Stand with us! Share widely!

Today the Army Corps of Engineers notified Congress that it will grant an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline in the next 24 hours, trampling a planned environmental and tribal consultation review process.

Statement from Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network:

“Donald Trump will not build his Dakota Access Pipeline without a fight. The granting of an easement, without any environmental review or tribal consultation, is not the end of this fight — it is the new beginning. Expect mass resistance far beyond what Trump has seen so far.

“The granting of this easement goes against protocol, it goes against legal process, it disregards more than 100,000 comments already submitted as part of the not-yet-completed environmental review process — all for the sake of Donald Trump’s billionaire big oil cronies. And, it goes against the treaty rights of the entire Seven Councils Fires of the Sioux Nations.

“Donald Trump has not met with a single Native Nation since taking office. Our tribal nations and Indigenous grassroots peoples on the frontlines have had no input on this process. We support the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, and stand with them at this troubling time.”

You can read that notification letter here:
http://www.ienearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Dakota-Access-Pipeline-Notification-Grijalva.pdf

After taking down “the Village” that had been erected at Marcus Garvey Park last week, the city agreed to have a meeting about homelessness tomorrow at 4 at city Hall in hearing room 1.

San Franciscans passed Prop W to fund the Free City College initiative. Since then the Board of Supervisors have kept their promise to the voters by acting to set aside the monies needed and the DCCC has unanimously passed a resolution in support of making the Free City College Initiative REAL by Fall 2017. Now we need to Mayor Lee to just cut the check!

We’ve learned Mayor Ed Lee is considering drastically reducing the scope of Free City or possibly preventing it from moving forward at all, despite being supported by the voters.

Please join us on Thursday, 2/9 at 12:30pm at City Hall Polk St. steps to show your support for making City College FREE for ALL San Franciscans! We will rally from 12:30-1pm and then march to the Mayor’s office at 1pm to deliver thousands of signed postcards urging him to do the right thing for the future of higher education in San Francisco.

With exorbitant housing prices and high student debt, students often face choices between enrollment and rent, between textbooks and groceries. In the face of these calamitous times San Francisco must set the example and ensure access to quality education.

Let’s make Free City REAL!

Can’t attend the day of the action? Here’s one thing you can do instead:

Make a short 30 second video answering this question: Why do we need to act now to make City College FREE for all San Franciscans again? Tag Mayor Edwin M. Lee (type “@MayorEdLee “) and include the hash tags#FreeCity #KeepYourPromise

The City of Oakland is planning a public forum on public banking in Hearing Room 3 of Oakland City Hall (14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland).

Presenters are:

• Marc Armstrong, member, Federal Reserve Faster Payments Task Force, co-founder and past President of the Public Banking Institute, co-founder and President of Commonomics USA;
• Jesse Arreguin, mayor of Berkeley, former Berkeley City Council member
• Tom Sgouros, author of Checking the Banks: The Nuts and Bolts of Banking for People Who Want to Fix It (2014), Senior Policy Advisor to Rhode Island Treasurer; and
• Nichoe Lichen, member of Santa Fe’s Brass Tacks Team (“public banking facts that stick”), Board Member of the Public Banking Institute; and
• Henry Wykowski, past prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office
 in Northern California, currently Harborside Health Center’s lead attorney, speaking on cannabis law as it relates to public banking.

Panel Discussion – How Do We Make This Happen?
Questions and Answers

Endorsing the Idea of Public Banks

“…a Public Bank here in California. I think it’s a good idea.”– Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy, UC Berkeley, address to the California Democratic Convention.

“By using state deposits to finance local investments, the Public Bank will support billions of dollars of critical investments in infrastructure, small businesses, and student loans — saving our residents money and returning all profits to the taxpayers.” – Philip Murphy, leading Democratic candidate for New Jersey Governor. 

“Oakland has been raided by Wall Street for too long. Disastrous pipeline projects have been bankrolled by unaccountable banks for too long. Finance must be under democratic control for the good of our cities, towns, states, and country. Public banks are a real step in this direction.” – Hannah Appel, Professor of Economic Anthropology, UCLA, and former Oakland resident.

“Evidence from around the world suggests that public banks can be a powerful tool to support local economic development that is sustainable and inclusive.  Since giant private banks have lost the public trust for their predatory actions,   responsible city leaders must consider the option of a public municipal bank.”– Fred Block, Professor of Sociology, UC Davis. Author “Democratizing Finance”

Going Deeper

Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland: www.friendsofpublicbankofoakland.org

Commonomics: www.commonomicsusa.org

Public Banking Institute: www.publicbankinginstitute.org

Bank of North Dakota: bnd.nd.gov

(Essay) Public Banks: Bank of North Dakota: ilsr.org/rule/bank-of-north-dakota-2

(Book) The Public Bank Solution, From Austerity to Prosperity, by Ellen Brown

The words of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution were supposed to guarantee that slavery and involuntary servitude effectively were outlawed. With the exception of punishment for a crime where the “party shall have been convicted.” That’s the loophole. And as detailed in Ava DuVernay’s “The 13th”, the injustice system in America has not changed all that much since the earliest days of slavery.

The statistics DuVernay puts onscreen say it all: African-Americans make up 6.5% of the U.S. population but a whopping 40% of the prison population — in a country with the highest level of incarceration in the world; up more than tenfold since 1970 and existing mostly to put away black and Latino men. It all comes down to money. That was the driving force in the beginning, when slavery effectively was ended, but the South had to figure out a way to balance the economics when suddenly short about 4 million slaves. Using the loophole in the 13th Amendment, Southerners started putting blacks in prisons for petty reasons and used them as a workforce without calling them “slaves.” Today the practice is very much alive, overcrowding our prisons and filling them with minorities, the most vulnerable and underprivileged among us.

Sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice Ctee as part of our Conscientious Projector series.

Wheelchair accessible.

Join us for a ‘Black Lives Matter — Protect the Vulnerable’ Sing. Everyone welcome!

Free. Each documentary will begin promptly at 5:30 PM, discussion afterwards.  Food provided.

Feb 3 – John Henrik Clarke – A Great and Mighty Walk

Feb 10 – The House I Live In

Feb 17 – The Night Tulsa Burned

Feb 24th – 13th

On February 11th, there are rallies planned across the country to in support of defunding Planned Parenthood, a move which will cut off essential services to people all across the spectrum, but particularly those who are at or near the poverty line.

Join us in taking back the conversation around Planned Parenthood. The majority of the country does not believe it should be defunded, but we need to make sure that our voices are heard.

If you bring signs, make them short and clearly pro-PP/pro-choice. We want to make sure that we’re seen as a counter-protest and not part of the larger protest.

More details about the protests we are fighting against here: http://protestpp.com/locations. Additional details will be added here as they are determined.

Join us in ensuring quality, affordable health care for all!

Offerings:

• Massage therapy
• Energy work
• Acupuncture
• Birth Doula Practitioners
• Herbal Medicine
• Resource library
• Free Hot Meal
• Free Store
• Cafe Space to hang out, eat, make art and discuss what healing means to us by us and for us.

Emergency Information Session About New Executive Orders

Attorneys from CAIR – San Francisco Bay Area and Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus will be on hand to:

*Share what is known and what is still unclear about the travel restrictions put in place on 1/27 through the #MuslimBan
*Share what you should know about the ban
*Share what you should to do protect yourself