Calendar
ARC General Meeting, Sat, Jan 2City Council will be holding their January 5th meeting in Kofman Auditorium to accommodate what is sure to be a huge crowd to discuss their ordinances to address the rent crisis. Renters need to make a strong showing, and we also need to be well informed on what will be presented and how we can make the strongest case for rent control. Therefore, this will be the primary focus of Alameda Renters Coalition’s General Meeting, this Saturday, Jan 2nd, 2:30pm at 2027 Clement St. Below is the agenda for this meeting. If you’ve never been to a meeting before, this is definitely not one to miss. If you have, try to bring friends. We need all hands on deck! Also, please bring sign making supplies, markers, poster board, card stock, sticks, etc. See you this Saturday, and again on Tuesday! 1) Drive for attendance at Jan 5 City Council Meeting |
Save the date! On January 3 we’ll hear a report from Paris by Pennie Opal Plant, who attended COP21 as a representative of the Indigenous Environmental Network.
Sunflower Alliance general meetings offer a great opportunity to learn more about fossil fuel resistance and climate justice efforts in our region.
Your voice matters, your participation makes a difference. We welcome newcomers.
TPP 101: WHAT IS THE TPP AND WHY SHOULD WE CARE? Sign up here:
Once you sign up, you will get the number and login link to the meeting room.
Free Movie: Let the Fire Burn (2013 documentary Directed by Jason Osder) Found footage film about the May 13, 1985 bombing of the MOVE house in Philadelphia that killed 11 people (including 5 children) and destroyed 61 homes. Free.
Planning Meeting: Interfaith Action for MLK Weekend
For the second year in a row, the Bay area will mark Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday with a 96-hour period of direct action demanding thorough transformation of the social structures that contribute to the war on Black lives.
If you would like to help plan a faith-based action for that weekend, please come to this planning meeting. We are open to planning a single interfaith action, multiple actions representing multiple faith traditions, or an action that consists of waves of people, with each wave representing one faith tradition.
O C C U P Y F O R U M O F F – S I T E M E E T I N G
Enter on Rhode Island, turn to left up the stairs, conference room is to the right.
Justice 4 Mario Woods Coalition Meeting:
National Emergency
Everywhere across this nation, people gather in shock, despair, rage as another black person is murdered by police without accountability. This is a national emergency.
For the third Monday, OccupyForum will be taking place at the Justice 4 Mario Woods Coalition Meeting. Because so many of us showed up (17 out of 70 members so far) for the Bayview and for Mario, and against police executions of blacks in the streets of our country, we are becoming significantly involved. We have been at many actions, including the Town Hall Meeting with Police Chief Suhr, the Police Commission Protest at City Hall, the Rally at 850 Bryant and march to the District Attorney’s office, the Press Conference at City Hall, the Kwanzaa Protest, the Tamir Rice protest in downtown SF, and the Rally at the African American Community Police Board Meeting (which was cancelled and barricaded because they heard we were coming and they were afraid to face our questions about why cops executed Mario Woods, and their accountability). We join in the outrage, and in the planning process of how we will address this national emergency.
The Coalition’s demands are:
- Fire Chief Suhr
- Indict, Convict and Jail the cops who murdered Mario Woods
- An independent investigation into the murder.
Please join us and become part of the Coalition. We need all hands on deck. Please bring friends, groups, family.
BACKGROUND:
On Wednesday, December 2nd, Mario Woods was gunned down by a firing squad of San Francisco Police officers in the Bayview, allegedly for brandishing a kitchen knife and “threatening” police at the scene. Videos showed Woods confusedly stumbling around after police shot bean bags filled with lead pellets and pepper spray at him; then being assassinated by police as he attempted to limp away. Citizens of the Bayview and throughout the city held a vigil that night, followed by testimony at a Town Hall Meeting called by Police Chief Suhr. A meeting at the San Francisco Police Commission characterized by the rage of the community was held December 9th with at least 200 protesters packing into City Hall filing public comment, including Archbishop Franzo King who said, “If the chief continues to defend the right to kill and slaughter people on the street under his command, then he becomes a co-conspirator to murder.” On December 18th, hundreds of youth, families, community and religious leaders throughout San Francisco and the Bay Area held a massive rally on the steps of 850 Bryant Street. Following the rally, the group marched to the offices of District Attorney George Gascón.
In a Times.com article, John Burris, attorney for the Woods family states, “our view is that this was a person who was shot multiple times at a time when he did not put officers’ lives in imminent danger.” Attorney Burris goes on to mention that the San Francisco Police Department broadly exhibits a “continuing pattern and practice of misconduct.” Other witnesses claim police shot Mario Woods (+20) times. The national trend of police abuse is all the more troubling in the City of San Francisco as the African American makes up 3% of the population, but continues to be disproportionately impacted by police murders and abuse.
The Justice for Mario Woods Coalition formed to unify citizens who are outraged and sickened by the shooting which is one in a long series of racist police brutality and violence against members of the black community. The Justice for Mario Woods Coalition is made up of concerned residents of San Francisco, advocates, leaders and community organizers who want to stop the trend of violence experienced by the black community in San Francisco at the hands of the police. The coalition demands are:
- The immediate removal of Police Chief Gregory Suhr
• Officers be charged with the murder of Mario Woods
An independent investigation of the execution
Video of the shooting of Mario Woods (GRAPHIC CONTENT) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grcd1JlbXN8
http://time.com/4151979/mario-woods-shooting-san-francisco/
http://abc7news.com/news/protesters-sound-off-at-police-commission-meeting-over-sfpd-shooting/1116833/
http://abc7news.com/news/funeral-held-for-man-killed-by-san-francisco-police-/1127341/
http://abc7news.com/news/protest-held-against-sf-police-shooting-of-mario-woods/1128529/
http://sfist.com/2015/12/10/police_commission_meeting_about_mar.php
- A resolution for the Peace and Justice Commission to consider recommending to the Berkeley City Council, making permanent the current one-year moratorium on BPD acquisition and use of drones, which expires this February, will be heard.
- Your presence and comment in support of this effort is welcome.
1 PM PRESS CONFERENCE in front of the building.
2 PM HEARING in Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers’ Courtroom.
(bring your ID to get into the building)
Defend Student Protesters’ Free Speech Rights! Stop the Resegregation and Privatization of UC Berkeley!
Defend the Right to Public Higher Education for All!
Fight Police Brutality! A Badge is Not a License to Brutalize and Kill!
UCB student and community protesters have a right to bring the UC Berkeley administration, UC Police, and Alameda County Sheriffs to trial for brutalizing student protesters on UC Berkeley’s campus during the Occupy Wall Street movement!
Demand Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers rule in favor of an open and public trial, not an individual judicial “summary judgement”!
DETAILS: The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) will present our case against the UC administrators, UC Berkeley Police (UCPD), and Alameda County Sheriffs Officers (ACSO) responsible for the brutal police riot on peaceful student protesters on November 9, 2011 when students at UC Berkeley tried to set up an encampment in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Students protested to oppose income inequality, to defend public education, and to restore affirmative action at UC Berkeley. To this day, the UC administration and the police are defending and justifying their attack. They want to protect their prerogative to repeat this kind of brutal censorship of student political protest when it is aimed at furthering equality and integration.
BAMN has filed a federal lawsuit (Felarca v. Birgeneau) on behalf of 21 student and community activist Plaintiffs against UC Berkeley (UCB) administrators, UCB police and Alameda County Sheriffs for police brutality, false arrests and violation of their free-speech rights. In our lawsuit against UC Berkeley administrators and police, we intend to put the former Chancellor and the top administrators responsible for the attack, together with the police officers and supervisors in charge, on the stand to have to answer, publicly and under cross-examination, for their decisions and actions that led to a police riot on peaceful protesters.
All the evidence uncovered in BAMN’s case shows that the UCB administration were completely responsible for the police violence on Nov 9, 2011 because they were afraid of the movement growing on campus that could unite with the Latina/o and black communities of Oakland and wage winning struggles for public education. The administrator defendants deemed the political speech of the student movement so hostile to the financial and political interests of the university’s private donors and corporate investors that their response to the specter of Oakland uniting with the student movement at UC Berkeley was to have riot police violently suppress and attempt to disperse the demonstration by force.
Thousands of students gathered to defend the tents that had been put up by Occupy Cal from the administration’s efforts to take them down. Videos of baton-wielding police beating students and even some professors, while the protesters held the line and refused to retreat, went viral and gained national media attention.
The UC administration authorized the use of batons against the student protest in violation of its own policies on November 9. Then UCB Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, sanctioned the use of indiscriminate force to terrorize and disperse the second protest action on that day, even as public outrage over the earlier violence was growing. The UCB anti- Occupy policy was so fanatical that students were banned from even walking through the campus with tents,bullhorns or “signage” of which the administration disapproved. People across the country were shocked that police would brutally beat peaceful protesters at UC Berkeley, the historic site and center of the Free Speech Movement of the 1960s.
The UC Berkeley administrator defendants claim they have the exclusive and unfettered right to dictate any and all “time, place, and manner” restrictions on student political speech. To absolutely no one’s surprise, these restrictions are only ever invoked against the most progressive and popular student political speech – against the fee hikes, against privatization, against the increasing racism, sexism, and inequality at UC Berkeley and in this society.
Chancellor Birgeneau made clear that the decision to suppress Occupy on the campus and to shut down the movement was also fueled by fear of the campus being “taken over” by “outside anarchists” on to the campus. Other members of the Chancellor’s “Crisis Management Team,” in charge of formulating the policing policies for the day, referred to their fears of “intransigents” coming to the campus. The term “non-affiliates” was also used as code to describe the people and politics they were hostile to and wanted to keep barricaded off from the campus. This was understood among them as code for denying people from Oakland access to the campus. The variety of demagogy against ‘outsiders’ has never had anything to do with protecting the right of students to govern their own campus and fight for their own interests. It’s a defense of elitism, of racism, of discrimination against immigrants, and in end it’s a reflection of the administration’s fear of its own students and their potential to join and lead a national movement. UC Berkeley is the world’s premiere public university because of its history of radical student protest and the gains won and enforced by the student movement. All the hallmarks of a great university – academic freedom, social criticism, honest scientific inquiry, and a dedication to the ideals of democracy, equality and justice – were won by struggles waged on this campus and in our communities.
In contrast to the fear and pessimism of the University, the anger and optimism of the new generation of civil rights and immigrant rights leaders are already propelling our whole society in the direction of freedom and equality. The explosive and militant mass resistance in Ferguson, Baltimore, Oakland and Berkeley show that the status quo is becoming increasingly unviable and volatile. In the Bay Area, BAMN played an active, and at times, crucial leadership role in the Oakland and Berkeley marches to win justice. BAMN is building a movement that can connect our campus with the ongoing struggles of minority, progressive and oppressed people around the world. The growing inequality and polarization in the United States and across the world means no shortage of struggle in the next period of history. Whether these struggles win or lose is a question of leadership – it’s up to us and what we do. Come fill the courtroom for this court case, where the power of the people can make and shift history!
LINKS TO OUR UCPD POLICE BRUTALITY TRIBUNAL:
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/
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Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)
Get the word out! January 5, tell the mayor & council: Keep rents fair & low – stop the unjust evictions!! #alamtg pic.twitter.com/10RYsR4nLc
— Alameda Renters (@Alameda_Renters) December 28, 2015
Item 7.11 (On Consent)
Subject: Creation Of A Privacy Advisory Commission
From: Office Of The City Administrator
Recommendation: Adopt An Ordinance Establishing The Privacy Advisory Commission, Providing For The Appointment Of Members Thereof, And Defining The Duties And Functions Of Said Commission.
The Oakland Privacy Working Group invites you to come and support the creation of a first-of-its-kind privacy commission for Oakland, an outgrowth of our work opposing the Domain Awareness Center.
“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
Spokescouncil Meetings are scheduled to take place:
January 5th @ 7pm at the OMNI
January 9th @ 7 pm @ the OMNI
January 12th @ 7pm (San Francisco Location TBD)
January 14th @ 7pm (Location TBD)
The MLK weekend will once again culminate in a King Day march that embodies the true spirit of King’s resistance to capitalism, imperialism and racism.
Over the last year, in the Bay Area alone, there have been dozens of police murders. In San Francisco, we have most recently seen the brutal execution of Mario Woods, in addition to police beating a disabled man in front of the Twitter building and racist text messages exchanged between SFPD on-duty officers.
In Oakland, we have seen 8 Black men murdered by police since only June of 2015. In fact, a recent graphic by Mapping Police Violence shows that in 2015, Oakland ranks third in police killings per million people in 60 of America’s largest cities.
Police are the shock troops of gentrification. Mayors give them a mandate: make this city appealing to developers by any means necessary. City Councils fund police and constantly seek to expand their numbers and their powers. As a result, people of color are being pushed out of cities at unprecedented rates, by an out of control rental market, increased police occupation and terrorism against communities of color, as well as crackdowns on those who dare protest these unjust policies.
A year ago, people across the country began taking to the streets in unprecedented numbers; storming shopping centers, blocking streets and highways, interrupting cultural events and public transit. And the people SHUT IT DOWN. We SHUT IT DOWN because there is a state-sponsored war on Black, Brown, and other marginalized peoples in the United States. WE SHUT DOWN BUSINESS-AS-USUAL because business-as-usual is an out-of-control epidemic of police terror.
Last year, in partnership with comrades and allies, APTP launched 96 Hours of Direct Action in the Bay Area, and answered a national call to Reclaim King’s Radical Legacy which we did through a march that brought over 7,000 people into the streets of Oakland. We believe it is important for our movement to draw on King’s legacy to ground ourselves, to reinforce our conviction and confidence in the tactics and strategy of disruptive direct action.
A year later, while we are starting to have an impact, we also see that we have a long long way to go. So this Martin Luther King Day weekend, Oakland’s Anti Police-Terror Project* is calling on you to help us SHUT IT DOWN – again. Together, we will unleash the vast creativity and organizing capacity of our communities to produce a spectrum of disruptive and creative activity. In the spirit of MLK, we want these to actions to meaningfully interrupt business as usual whether that be with direct action, teach-ins, concerts or prayer vigils and to do so with action logic that links our resistance to fighting racism, economic injustice, and imperialism. We want you to plan these actions independently, but together we will coordinate collective support for these actions through a spokescouncil so that they have maximal support and impact.
Please visit the facebook event page: Updates, meeting agendas, calendar, and other info will be posted.
https://www.facebook.com/events/632827553487864/
Invite your friends!
Check out the web site for more about APTP’s vision: http://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org/new-events/
WE DEMAND:
- The resignation of Mayor Libby Schaaf
- The immediate termination of Chief Sean Whent
- The immediate termination of Chief Greg Suhr
- The immediate termination of the officers involved in the murders of Richard Perkins, Mario Woods, Yuvette Henderson, Amilcar Lopez, Alex Nieto, Demoriah Hogg and Richard Linyard
- The immediate reallocation of city budgets: reduce police budgets and reallocate those funds to provide for affordable housing that allows Black, Brown and other people of color to remain in San Francisco and Oakland.
This year, we shut it down in the names of:
Yuvette Henderson
Nate Wilks
Richard Perkins
Richard Linyard
Demoriah Hogg
Yonas Alehegne
Amilcar Lopez
Mario Woods
Alex Nieto
#mlkshutitdown
#96hours
#reclaimMLK
Reminder this is a call out for affinity groups to organize autonomous solidarity actions in line with APTP’s Principles.
Questions, ideas, comments, or to get involved
Email aptpspokescouncil@gmail.com
We're holding a DIRECT ACTION TRAINING to DEFEND the Gill Tract FARM on Wednesday, the 6th between 6:30 and… https://t.co/Mzw30jeLZW
— Occupy the Farm (@occupyfarm) January 5, 2016
Homes Not Jails is a consensus-based collective of squatters and squat supporters who believe housing is a human right. Our goal is to open as much vacant housing as possible and to keep it open as long as possible. HNJ is a place to organize mutual aid among squatters and squat supporters and housing rights advocates in the bay. We actively fight to make our space inclusive and safe for everybody and combat oppression in all forms.
Kurdish Film Series in #Oakland coming up in solidarity w #Rojava first one Dec 20th 5:30pm @ 1501 Harrison St pic.twitter.com/u2CnfVpbFC
— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) December 17, 2015
Join us at our next monthly membership meeting where we’ll discuss upcoming campaigns and how you can organize with us in 2016!
Our next meeting will be on Thursday at SEIU local 1020 at 6 pm. Enter at 350 Rhode Island . Enter on Kansas Street side between 16 th and 17th street side.
What really happened at the Paris Climate Talks and what does it mean now that they are over? Hear first hand from Kathy Dervin, 350 Bay Area, and other local activists.
Why does local action matter? Learn about the City of Berkeley’s progress in reaching its climate action goals and how YOU can take action now through the Transition Streets program and the Berkeley Climate Action Coalition. Bring your questions and ideas on how we’re going to transition to a lower carbon, more equitable and connected future. Please feel free to bring a snack to share around 6:30 pm (ditching plastics if you can). Film starts at 7.
For more info: info [at] transitionberkeley.com
website: http://www.transitionberkeley.com
This event is co-sponsored by Transition Berkeley, the BFUU’s Social Justice Committee, the Ecology Center and the Berkeley Climate Action Coalition
Wheelchair accessible.
Court Support for Janye
Janye’s next court date is January 8, 2016 at Wiley Manuel in Oakland at 8am in Dept 112. Please Note the 8am time (not a mistake).
The fight isn’t over. Let’s keep the pressure on the kangaroo court!
SUPPORT JANYE WALLER! – arrested in an obvious case of racial profiling, in which the cops said he “fit the description” of a crime he did not commit. A witness to the “crime” immediately confirmed that Janye had nothing to do with it, but Janye was still taken into custody where he was questioned and then leveled with serious charges related to last year’s protests in Oakland against the non-indictments for the murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
JANYE WALLER IS A YOUNG BLACK ACTIVIST, A LOCAL OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA. He lives and works in Oakland, providing financial support to his mother, his two younger brothers, and his cousin. He attended Berkeley Community College where he planned to major in Accounting, but had to take leave in order to help support his family, and he hopes to return to college soon. Janye also volunteers at a social center in West Oakland that works to empower black and indigenous people living in the Bay Area through education and mutual aid. Within this space Janye works tirelessly, helping coordinate and administer programs focusing on skills like urban farming, which foster both community and individual autonomy.
JANYE IS THE ONLY PERSON WHO IS CURRENTLY FACING SERIOUS CHARGES AFTER THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE FLOODED THE STREETS DURING THE WAVE OF PROTESTS IN THE BAY AREA LAST WINTER. After several high profile police killings of young black men, the Bay Area, like much of the rest of the country, surged into a wave of protest and resistance. The state responded by using the legal system as a tool of repression, threatening incarceration and steep fines for some of those involved in these actions. It is sad but obvious that the one person getting targeted for that beautiful moment of protest is a strong and politicized young black man.
Mayor Lee has been decidedly absent as we have sought dialogue with him about Chief Suhr’s inability to run a police force. Chief Suhr has created a culture of racism and brutalization that gave those five officers permission to assassinate Mario Woods. If he will not fire Chief Suhr, who refuses to step down, then we will let him know that he can go too. If we do not get justice, he will not get peace!!! We will be at the doors of San Francisco’s City Hall for the Mayor’s Inauguration not in celebration, but in protest!
Everyone please try to wear black. The mayor may be celebrating his re-election but we will turn it into a funeral march in honor of Mario Woods
#calltoaction #justice4mariowoods #mariowoods #shutdownSF #BlackLivesMatter #firechiefsuhr pic.twitter.com/18O61d9eck
— Justice4MarioWoods (@Justice4MWNow) January 2, 2016
Middle East – Justice First, Peace at Last
- The Communist Party USA (Oakland/Berkeley) invites you to a discussion: Middle East – Justice First, Peace at Last.
- Suggested Readings:
- Communist Party of Israel, ‘Palestinian & Israeli Protesters: “The Last Day of the Occupation is the First Day of Peace”’ http://maki.org.il/en/?p=6287.
- Uri Avnery, ‘ The Reign of Absurdiocy’. http://www.politicalaffairs.net/a-powerfful-isreali-critique-of-the-concept-of-international-terrorism-and-wars-without-end-against-it-by-norman-markowitz/.
- Salam Ali, ‘The Iraqi Uprising Against Corruption And Sectarianism, http://iraqiletter.blogspot.com/