Calendar
March with community members from across the Bay Area in the streets of Oakland!
3:30PM: Fruitvale Bart Plaza Opening Rally
4 pm: March Starts
5:30: Return to Fruitvale Bart Plaza for Closing Rally and Celebration!
Hosted by Oakland Sin Frontera (OSF) and Partners
WHY ARE WE MARCHING?
Oakland Sin Frontera
· LEGALIZATION FOR ALL UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS
· STOP THE DEPORTATION OF ALL IMMIGRANTS & SHUT DOWN DETENTION CENTERS
· UPHOLD WORKERS RIGHTS
· STOP FEDERAL AND LOCAL POLICE VIOLENCE, AND BRING OUR LOVED ONES HOME FROM PRISONS AND JAILS
· BUILD AND DEFEND STRONG AND HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
· END U.S. MILITARY AGGRESSION & POLICIES THAT FORCE MIGRATION
The committee to create a DAC privacy policy, formed because of the protests against the DAC, will hold its first meeting. By City Council resolution a privacy policy must be in place before the DAC can operate.
Open to public.
Come and tell the committee members: “The only good DAC is a dead DAC.”
- As the April 12th construction groundbreaking ceremony for the controversial UCB Jacobs Hall site at Ridge and Le Roy, community outrage grew about the planned destruction of a beautiful redwood grove, the damage inflicted to the neighborhood’s historical character, and major concerns about the privatized funding in general and Qualcomm’s untrustworthiness in particular. Instead of addressing the concerns of the community transparently, the University cowardly transferred the ceremony to a location that was undisclosed to protestors, intentionally suppressing their first-amendment right to express legitimate grievances publicly. Over the past several weeks, they have utilized typical tactics such as protestor intimidation, massive police presence, and lying about the project timetable. After the ceremony they moved quickly to level the site, leaving a heartbreakingly desolate scene. Caring activists returned several days later to honor the fallen trees and plant new ones in their place, expressing a renewed commitment to preserving this as forested open public space for student and community use. Now it is time to ramp up the efforts to educate one another about the many problems surrounding this project, and mobilize the community in order to prevent the University from moving any further forward with this contentious development. Please join us this Monday May 5th from 12-5pm for a day of teach-outs, organizing discussions, planting, volleyball, and picnicking. Below you will find more information about the issues that have been raised with this project.
- Neighborhood preservation groups and community members have cried out that this project further damages the historic character of this north-side region, both due to the increased exposure of Soda hall’s north face after the tree removal, as well as the addition of Jacob’s Hall. The volleyball court served as an important community building resource for Computer Scientists and others, and its removal represents a loss of valuable outdoor public common space. The redwood trees provided an excellent shady space for students to congregate for study and discussion, and the sturdy well-spaced branches could afford an exhilarating and safe climbing experience. This redwood grove destruction echoes the callousness shown by the University when they removed the Memorial Oak Grove in 2008 despite passionate and convincing please about the importance of saving this unique and sacred large-tree grove, and in spite of the Berkeley laws which prohibit the removal of large Oak trees within city limits. The University has the nerve to offer an offensive token concession that they will use the tree’s body to manufacture some of the building’s furniture, which only serves as a greenwashing measure while addressing none of the real concerns.
- Paul Jacobs is providing $20 million for the Design Institute from his family’s Qualcomm money, which is problematic due to a number of serious ethical and legal concerns. UC Regent Sherry Lansing is suspected of serious conflict of interest violations due to involvement with brokering UC investment deals with Qualcomm while simultaneously serving on their corporate board. The San Diego based company is potentially untrustworthy as a partner because they are under scrutiny for allegedly colluding with the NSA to design illegal and dangerous backdoors in their mobile phone wireless chips, and they are also the focus of a major anti-monopoly probe by the Chinese government. Even without definitively proving the criminality of Qualcomm, one should be quite concerned about the erosive effect that corporate privatized funding arrangements have on the University’s integrity and culture, and also suspicious that our public funding has been intentionally slashed over the decades in order to justify the encroachment of corporate entities into our precious public sphere.
- You are encouraged to express your condemnation of the Jacobs Hall tree removal and privatized funding arrangement in as many venues and formats as possible. It is crucial that we succeed in reaching out to more students, faculty and community members in order to educate people, inspire deep discussion, and mobilize around the possibility of preserving this space for both trees and people to enjoy without the intrusion of a contentious building. Feel free to join us this Monday May 5th from 12-5pm for a day of education and action, and stay tuned for more events throughout the week and month. We wish those lovely old trees were still with us, but we look forward coming together in their honor and moving forward with love and creativity.
- Sincerely, The Open University www.CalOpenU.org
- The Open University is a working group that was born out of Occupy Cal in November 2011, that has continued to use diverse tactics to address the crucial issues identified by this populist activist coalition. We believe in integrative big-picture activism, and are passionate about helping create more community, transparency, wisdom, sustainability, and balance in the world. We stand firmly against inequality, exploitation, discrimination, brainwashing, oppression, torture, militarism, privatization, corporatization, surveillance, colonialism, ecocide and genocide. We coordinate research about historical and current critical struggles which implicate our University, and arrange teach-outs by students, faculty and community members about repressed radical topics in outdoor spaces on campus. We reclaim public common spaces in service of coalition building, discussion facilitation, and as venues for direct action in the name of positive change. We also perform hard-hitting political guerrilla theatre in high-impact environments, which viscerally inspires the public to ask tough questions, and challenges the acceptability of the administration’s behavior in high profile spaces that they are accustomed to dominating. We are an open group of trust-worthy, dedicated, and experienced activists who welcome collaboration with anyone who genuinely cares about saving the world.
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.
We’ve started a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management! Here’s the front of the postcard.
All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privaztization of services. We need to support them in these endeavors!
And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Advisory Commission on Historical Preservation came out with its report, recommending that sales of Historic Post offices be halted until the USPS conforms with historical preservation law. Here is our response.
We join with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative on the ballot to rezone the Berkeley Post Office and other areas in the Historic District to prevent privatization, and also to insure a better Downtown Berkeley.
The Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Historic Post Offices was also supposed to come out before the end of March – anything could happen after it comes out. Come help us plan our response.
Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. We held a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.
THINGS ARE HAPPENING!
Here is the PDF for the final class meeting on Michael Hudson’s The Bubble and Beyond. We will like meet upstairs.
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.
We’ve started a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management! Here’s the front of the postcard.
All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privaztization of services. We need to support them in these endeavors!
And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Advisory Commission on Historical Preservation came out with its report, recommending that sales of Historic Post offices be halted until the USPS conforms with historical preservation law. Here is our response.
The Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Historic Post Offices came out recently – anything could happen now since Congress’ “request” that no historic Post Offices be sold until it had come out has been honored and no further Congressional request or mandate has come down. Come help us plan our response.
We join with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative on the ballot to rezone the Berkeley Post Office and other areas in the Historic District to prevent privatization, and also to insure a better Downtown Berkeley. The last two days of signature gathering will follow this meeting – come and pick up materials to help the effort by gathering signatures.
Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. We held a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.
THINGS ARE HAPPENING!
Panel Discussion on anarchism — past, present, and future — with Ramsey Kanaan (AK Press & PM Press), Liz Highleyman (journalist and historian), and Joey Cain (Bound Together Bookstore, LGBT activist)
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Ramsey Kanaan has republished works of classical anarchist theory by Peter Kropotkin, Alexander Berkman, Rudolf Rocker, Emma Goldman and others, while encouraging the development of contemporary anarchist theory and analysis, such as libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin‘s Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm, which he commissioned for AK Press. He was involved in the early UK anarcho-punk musical scene as lead singer of the Scottish anarcho-punk band Political Asylum. He belongs to Folk This, which performs folk songs from the past, including from the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, and the Paris Commune, and hymns and anthems of the IWW. Kanaan played a key role in the five-year anti-poll tax campaign that ultimately brought down Margaret Thatcher. He is one of the founders of the San Francisco Anarchist Book Fair and is a member of Bound Together Books in San Francisco, a collectively run anarchist bookstore. He is a contributing host and producer at KPFA.
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Joey Cain has been a member of the Bound Together Anarchist Collective Bookstore for three and a half decades and co-produced the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair for 17 years. He has served on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, was instrumental in getting a statue of Harvey Milk placed in SF City Hall, and has been involved in advocating for Private Chelsea Manning. He curates exhibits on radical LGBT History at the SF Main Public Library and serves on the Board of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Association.
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Liz Highleyman considers herself a philosophical anarchist, though an eclectic one without allegiance to any particular party line. She’s written widely on the topic of anarchism and radical politics, including an Introduction to Anarchism that has been propagated over the web and translated into several languages. Since 1999 she has been involved with the global justice movement and has written several related articles, including articles on drug pricing and patents for AlterNet, AIDS drug access in developing countries for BETA, and an essay on queer activism and the global justice movement for the book From ACT UP to the WTO .
Did you know Governor Brown will release his revised 2014-15 budget proposal tomorrow?
In recent years we’ve seen $15 billion dollars of cuts to social safety net programs, and we know to build a stronger healthier California for everyone we need invest in programs not prisons.
Folks across California are furious that the the Governor has proposed more prison spending including $500 million to build new jails.
On Wednesday, we’ll be joining up with the California Partnership organizing rallies and press conferences across the state.
Can you can join us and help get the word out?
Statewide Day of Action – Wednesday May 14th
San Francisco
Time: 1:30pm
Location: State Building 350 McAllister Street
Join striking fast food workers and allies from 36 countries and 150 U.S. cities, including Oakland, as we call out some of the world’s worst corporate behavior. With success in exposing widespread wage theft and in the wake of new reports showing an industry with the largest pay gaps between CEOs and workers, we’re demanding change, $15 for workers and a union.
5:30 AM Meet at ACCE Oakland Offices 2501 International Blvd
10:30 AM Meet at 14th St and Alice the Library in Downtown Oakland, 135 14th St.
On May 15th, the #FightFor15 goes global! http://t.co/qWreiqJSZO #FastFoodGlobal pic.twitter.com/AcCIkH91SW
— Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallStNYC) May 7, 2014
BREAKING: Fast Workers Announce GLOBAL STRIKE on May 15th! #FastFoodGlobal pic.twitter.com/SKe6Srtk3Q
— The Other 98% (@other98) May 7, 2014
The KPFA Community Advisory Board invites you to an information and
music sharing Town Hall gathering in West Oakland .
We want to hear from youth, listeners, community members, musicians and media activists about your favorite music, community actions and programming ideas. Learn about creating press releases and posting announcements. Help KPFA to address our cultural, political and economic challenges now.
New to Strike Debt?? Don’t walk cold turkey into a bunch of radicals talking about debt! Show up a half hour early—at 2:30 PM—for an informal pre-meeting intro session. If you’d like to attend this pre-together please email strike.debt.bay.area@
Join Strike Debt Bay Area in working on some exciting projects locally and nationally to fight unjust debt.
Thomas Gokey from Strike Debt New York City – creative debt thinker and Rolling Jubilee organizer – will be joining us!
– The latest on our coalition efforts to Save the Berkeley Post Office and fight the privatization of our commons.
– The latest on our efforts to help Richmond and NGO allies push for principal reduction for Richmond’s homeowners. Read two articles here and here, written by two Strike Debt Bay Area members on the Richmond principal reduction / eminent domain case.
In addition, we are exploring the use of a public bank to help Richmond, CA and other communities escape the thrall of Wall Street.
– Work on our radio segment broadcast periodically on KPFA.
– A project to bring non-profit, non-usurious payday loan services to Vallejo and Oakland.
– Other projects include efforts to fight against student debt in conjunction with peeps at UC Cal via a Strike Debt UC Berkeley chapter of Strike Debt, a book group with semi-weekly discussions, investigations into the legitimacy of mortgage ownership and therefore the right to foreclose, and moe.
“Just as bosses are dependent on workers, so are lenders dependent on borrowers. If workers walk out, the enterprise stops. If borrowers refuse to pay their debts, the lenders could be in real trouble. Each side depends on the other. The millions of underwater mortgage holders, of student debtors and credit card holders, need the bank loans – but so do the banks need those borrowers, and they especially need them to cooperate by paying their monthly charges. Otherwise, the capital that the banks list on their books begins to drain away.” ~Francis Fox Piven
Check out our website, our Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.
Check out the Berkeley Post Office Defenders website too.
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.
We’ve started a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management! Here’s the front of the postcard.
All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privaztization of services. the California Teachers Union passed a resolution in support of opposition to Staples. We need to continue the pressure on Staples and encourage other unions to pass resolutions denouncing the Post Office’s agreement with Staples.
And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Advisory Commission on Historical Preservation came out with its report, recommending that sales of Historic Post offices be halted until the USPS conforms with historical preservation law. Here is our response. Also the Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Historic Post Offices came out recently – anything could happen now since Congress’ “request” that no historic Post Offices be sold until it had come out has been honored and no further Congressional request or mandate has come down. Come help us plan our response.
We have joined with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative on the ballot to rezone the Berkeley Post Office and other areas in the Historic District to prevent privatization, and also to insure a better Downtown Berkeley. The last signature gathering was last week – come find out whether we succeeded!
Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. We held a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.
THINGS ARE HAPPENING!
Cyclists from around the Bay Area will meet outside Richmond BART at 10am to bike the math of climate change to Chevron and tell the company to stop fueling climate chaos and become a renewable energy company. For more info: tubernation@sbcglobal.net
Chevron Corporation’s victims around the world have come together in a joint Statement to reject the transnational’s substandard operations and corporate practices. The affected communities extend an invitation to actively participate in the International Anti Chevron Day, on May 21st, 2014. The Statement is also signed by the organizations that support the victim’s worldwide plight, and demand that Chevron acknowledges its responsibility for all the damage it has procured to the environment and human rights. Any organization that wishes to collaborate with this global action can sign the Declaration in support and contribute through social media and publics events that will be held on May 21st. All requests should be sent to: info@antichevron.com
Or next politics of debt class will be at Xolo Taqueria on Telegraph avenue in downtown Oakland in the upstairs room.
We will be reading from Richard Heinberg’s The End of Growth, which looks at the energy limitations facing our politician’s attempts to restart the economic growth machine. There are implications for finance and bubble making as well. Much thanks to Spencer for scanning the chapters!
Occupy Monsanto: Action Against Genetic Biohazards.
With music by Fresh Juice Party, Occupella and more.
If you are one of the 100,000 workers and students that shut down the Port Of Oakland November 2nd, 2011 we are asking you to defend the Bulb with a peaceful picketline. PS: There will also be autonomous actions. Dare to struggle, dare to win! What kind of pie? Occupie.
Orion (510) 541-3835
� Protect our food supply
� Support local farms
� Protect our environment
� Promote organic solutions
� Expose the cronyism between big business and the government (Agribiz)
� Bring accountability to those responsible for the corruption
Please join us on Sunday at 10 AM as the Salinas Community Unites to PEACEFULLY Protest against the Salinas Police Department.
There have been 3 homicides within the last 90 days! Two of which were committed within these past 11 Days!!
The two young men were farmworkers and had their farmworker tools when they were fatally shot multiple times including the face.
We will be gathering today (5/22) at ROSA DE SARON CHURCH at 6:30pm to prepare for Sunday’s March.
Please join us! OUR COMMUNITY NEEDS US! WE MUST ALL COME TOGETHER IN SOLIDARITY!
THE TIME FOR ACTION IS NOW!!
SALINAS, Calif. (KGO) –Thousands of people are expected in Salinas this weekend for a massive protest against police. Local activists have been demonstrating since Tuesday, after officers shot and killed a man and it was all caught on video.
Protesters believe the shooting was not justified and they point to recent history. This is the third, fatal officer shooting in Salinas since late March…
“Sunday we expect thousands of supporters from outside Salinas coming from the Northern California region, Southern California, leaders from out of state as well, they said their thoughts and prayers are with us,” said Salinas City Councilman Jose Castaneda.
A community meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. Sunday at Closer Park.
A BARBECUE FOR HERBIVORES AND CARNIVORES ALIKE
The time of year cries out for a backyard party to ring in the outdoor season, and there’s no more benevolent use for carbon as a fuel than a barbecue. Also, we’ll be saying “Keep in touch” to our great friend Hannah who will be leaving in June for Gomorrah – the City of Angels – with her family.
For more details please visit: https://occupyoakland.org/ai1ec_event/oo-barbecue-herbivores-carnivores-alike/?instance_id=260928
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The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets Sundays, 2-4 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 2:00 PM we meet inside at the Sudoroom, 2141 Broadway, the entrance is on 22nd St between Telegraph and Broadway. Ring the buzzer and say you are here for the OO GA. Directions
We have met on a continuous basis for almost two and a half 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.
The bulk of the work of Occupy Oakland does NOT happen in the General Assembly. It happens in various committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives voluntarily come to the GA and report on past and future actions. 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
- Discussion Topics
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/
Justice 4 Alan Blueford: justice4alanblueford.org
Oakland Privacy Group: 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
Albany Bulb Defense: sharethebulb.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: sudoroom.org
San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv
Protest the cancellation of the Morning Mix, a radio show on KPFA during morning drive time, which was hosted by diverse programmers who are based in the local community. It is being replaced with a show, with one radio personality, that will be piped in from Los Angeles.
Only some Morning Mix segments have been rescheduled, and at times of the day when most working people are at work and unable to listen, including the labor show Work Week Radio (https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio), and Project Censored (http://www.projectcensored.org/category/radio/).
This removal of the Morning Mix from drive time is part of a larger, ongoing coup, which you can read about here: http://www.unitedforcommunityradio.org/
Support the Morning Mix hosts and real Community Radio.
Rally in front of KPFA:
Monday, May 26, 2014
7am
1929 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Berkeley, California
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/05/23/18756199.php
May 23, 2014
For Immediate Release
Stand Up And Fight Back For Free Speech Radio
“This is Miguel Gavilan Molina. It has come to my attention that this past Wednesday – the same day that Pacifica’s new interim executive director was introducing the staff of KPFA to the three finalists for the general manager position – KPFA’s outgoing interim manager was slashing and scattering the Morning Mix and removing it from the morning.
Whose idea was it to make major changes and have them put in place by a manager in his last days at KPFA? Regardless of who decided this, what reason was there to rush it through, with no prior notice to listeners, instead of waiting for the new manager to come in?
The co-hosts of the Project Censored Show, part of the Morning Mix on Friday mornings, were told by the interim General Manager last Friday that they were pre-empted for the final week of the fund drive, but were moved to the 1 P.M. slot for that week only, and that no program changes would be implemented until a new manager was in place.
I ask, as a former child farmworker, who toiled in the fields of misery, and as a producer on Pacifica for over thirty years: Who is running KPFA? Who is making the decisions?
And what do those people who are killing the Morning Mix, think they are doing to the morale for our newest group of emerging producers? Once again, mostly white people are deciding for the entire KPFA community—mostly black and brown – how things are to be run at KPFA.
It is time to defend this station or lose it: the white-minority ruling group does not have the right to drive through their own changes, which now include destroying the Morning Mix.
One of the Morning Mix crew, Sabrina Jacobs, is now calling for support by the black, brown, Asian, and progressive white staff and the community, to rIse up and support the Morning Mix.
I quote our colleague, Sabrina Jacobs:
“The People of Color that are affiliated with KPFA and Pacifica Radio will not be silenced until the questions of all those concerned are answered. The world outside of this “bubble” that has been created where white supremacy reigns will cease to exist when the necessary changes are made and our demands to be treated equally are heard and executed, post haste.”
Dr. Marc Sapir, a long time generous supporter of KPFA, and a long time activitist said in a widely distributed statement: “The stepping forward of minority programmers along with the rest of the Mix staff can be a signal that this resistance is possible and this could lead to a much improved station and network…”
STAND UP AND FIGHT BACK FOR FREE SPEECH RADIO: LONG LIVE THE MORNING MIX.
This is Miguel Gavilan Molina standing strong for Free Speech Radio, KPFA Pacifica”
After this statement on air Miguel continues to discuss this with Dennis Bernstein on his program; hear more at http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/103089 ; statement at about 28 minutes and 35 seconds into the program.
ACTION PLANNED:
Come to KPFA at 7:00am Monday morning (or as soon afterwards as you can) to support the Morning Mix hosts in objecting to their treatment by KPFA.
1929 Martin Luther King Jr Way at Berkeley Way in Berkeley.