Calendar
http://stopsmartmeters.org/2014/01/03/fcc/
Protest FCC Chair Wheeler
Thurs. Jan. 9th SF Bay Area
WIRELESS MICROWAVE RADIATION KILLS
Thomas E. Wheeler, recently appointed by President Obama as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), will be speaking in Mountain View and Oakland, CA on Thursday, January 9. Join planned protests and speak out against increasing wireless health damage.
Fox in Charge of the Hen House: From 1992- 2004, Wheeler headed the wireless industry lobbying group, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA). During his stint at the CTIA, his own scientists told him that cell phones were causing brain tumors. He buried the data and fired the scientists.
Wheeler buried the truth. Now, we are burying the victims.
Mountain View Event
Wheeler will be speaking in Silicon Valley at the Computer History Museum – 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. in Mountain View. Protest outside starts at 11am, event is from 12-1pm (it is a free Commonwealth Club event and is now open to the general public.) You must sign up in advance here.
Click “register” first. Where it asks for your membership number simply enter “non-member.”
WE NEED YOU TO COME WITH SIGNS AND YOUR VOICES! We would also like to see babies, toddlers, preschoolers, teens, etc at both events. A funeral procession will be held for the victims of wireless technology. Dress in Black! Media will be there and we need to get our message across.
Oakland Event
Wheeler will be speaking at the Preservation Park Niles Hall at 1233 Preservation Park Way in Oakland at 7 pm. We will hold a rally at the main entrance on 12th St. starting at 6pm. Tickets to this free event are sold out but the public is free to attend the rally- more information here.
Again, bring your signs, voices, children, grandchildren and friends. Media will be there also. A funeral procession will be held for the victims of wireless technology. Dress in Black!
What we want:
- adequate health warnings on wireless devices
- a complete ban on wireless radiation in K-12 schools
- a recall on ‘smart meters’
- repeal of the 1996 Telecom Act
- defense of our copper-based landline network
- research-based wireless health standards
- Chair Wheeler to step down from the FCC
- Most of all, we want people to be told the truth- WIRELESS KILLS.
Please join us and spread the word to as many as possible. We look forward to seeing you there! If you have any questions about these events, or you are a member of the news media please call 925-285-5437 or 360-201-3959
Thank you so very much & we hope to see you all next week,
Ellie Marks, California Brain Tumor Association
Josh Hart, Stop Smart Meters!
p.s. please spread the word through social media- we depend on grassroots efforts to make events like these a success!
We cordially invite you to share your collective ideas and effects in the community. A night to share your projects and learn what else is happening with other collectives. If nothing else, it will be a night of art and mysticism.
6:00-7:30 – Collective discussion
7:30-8:00 – Poetry reading
8:00-9:30 – Musical ensemble
9:30-1:00 – Food and dance
Politics of Debt will be primarily discussing the Modern Monetary Theory vs. Austrian School proponents’ video debate. We will elaborate on what Modern Monetary Theory is and stands for.
A link to the public school webpage with the class info and reading/video links.
Community Rally and March to City Hall.
Stop the Crude Oil Storage and Raily Transfer Facility.
Keep Pittsburg safe and healthy.
Say NO to Toxic Racism,
Say NO to any more “DUMPS” in Pittsburg,
Say NO to Hazardous Facilities
next to Housing & Schools
We need to be righteously angry.
Let folks know we are mad as hell and
we ain’t gonna tolerate this.
On January 11th we will be holding a public forum to organize actions for March 15th, international day against police brutality. This forum will take place at the Alan Blueford Center for Justice, which is located near 25th on Telegraph Ave in Oakland.
Everyone is invited! We encourage approaching this forum as individuals rather than as an organization.
Hope to see you there!
Through the end of January we will have General Assembly at the sudoroom on 2141 Broadway, Oakland, CA.
Here are instructions to access the room, the entrance is on 22nd Street:
https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Getting_there
This Sunday will be a Cryptoparty at the sudoroom, along with the third Sunday in January, these will be opportunities to update your digital profile so the government can’t easily track your every move. More blather on this to follow this afternoon when I have a moment.
Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally and has equal decision-making power. Occupy Oakland’s General Assembly uses a participatory decision-making process appropriately called, “Occupy Oakland’s Collective Decision-Making Process.” Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.
Autonomous Action & the General Assembly
The bulk of the work of Occupy Oakland does NOT happen in the General Assembly. It happens in various committees, caucuses, and associated groups that report back to the general assembly. Everyone participating in Occupy Oakland should be part of at least one associated group. Occupy Oakland encourages autonomous actions that do not require consensus from the General Assembly. This encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.
General Assembly Standard Agenda
- Welcome
- Welcome Announcements
- Agenda Overview
- Forum
- Reports from Committees, Subcommittees, Caucuses, & Working Groups
- Action Announcements
- General Announcements
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.
24 Hours to Save the Post Office! A Festival of Celebration and Resistance.
It’s happening Saturday starting at 11:00 AM at the Post Office and going for 24 hours.
In November the Planning Commission passed on to the Berkeley City a proposed Zoning Ordinance that would make the Post Office property less desirable to potential purchasers of the capitalist variety. We are still waiting for action on this from the City Council and are organizing to put pressure on City Council members and the Mayor to make sure this measure is brought up and passed. We collected 600 petition signatures so far as part of that pressure and are aiming for a lot more!
The Postal Service has announced that they are contracting with Staples to provide Post Office window services inside Staples stores, using Staples employees instead of Post Office employees. There is already a pseudo Post Office operating inside the Berkeley Staples store (Shattuck & Durant). We conducted our first action against this privatization of postal services on December 21st.
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
OccupyForum presents
What’s That Stench???
Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Expansion
in the North Bay / Pittsburg
and the Campaign to Stop it in its Tracks
The WesPac Pittsburg Energy Infrastructure Project would transform Pittsburg CA into a major crude oil receiving, storage and shipping facility. WesPac develops, constructs, owns and operates infrastructure throughout North America for petroleum products handling, and Pittsburg is the next target for modernization and reactivation of its existing marine terminal and oil storage and transfer systems. Plans are to move Canadian tar sands crude to the Chevron and Shell refineries through pipelines and extended rail systems, load it onto ships and send it to Asia to the tune of 242,000 barrels per day. This is the same dirty crude slated for the Keystone XL pipeline, a project drawing widespread opposition. Even dirtier crude oil would be shipped to the WesPac facility from southern California. Oil would also come from a huge deposit in North Dakota, which, like the California oil, would be extracted by fracking. Do we want the Bay Area to be the locus of this scheme which threatens Pittburg and North Bay towns and our Bay,
not to mention the climate impact of burning all that fossil fuel???
Spills, leaks, blow-ups, smog, gas, fires like the one in Richmond, soil contamination, prolonged effects on area air and water quality and health effects such as asthma, cancer and birth defects, loom. Increased pollution from idling trucks, rail cars and ships — affecting wildlife, marshes and wetlands, the shoreline, polluted water in the delta (water used for drinking and agriculture), — jeopardized property values, and critically, significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions warming the climate are the risks and threats. This development would include:
� Pipelines: Expand existing pipelines and add new lines from rail cars to tanks;
� New Rail: Build crude-by-rail transload facility; extend tracks, greatly increase rail shipments right through town;
� Storage: Modernize and reactivate the site�s tanks and build new ones;
� Tanker trucks, diesel trucks: Mobilize for construction and transport: (congestion, diesel fumes, road deterioration, traffic hazards);
� Shipping: Dredge and pile drive to deepen the Bay and reopen, expand and modernize Marine Terminal
CRAIG DILWORTH in person
Author of the profound 2010 book:
TOO SMART FOR OUR OWN GOOD
The Ecological Predicament of Humankind
Our ecologically disruptive behavior – which is the same as our explosive technological know-how — is rooted in the nature of Homo Sapiens. Humankind’s development consists of an accelerating movement from situations of scarcity, to technological innovation, to increased resource availability, to increased consumption, to population growth, to resource depletion once again — in a vicious circle from the dawn of humanity and continuing today. Craig Dilworth amasses enormous evidence to prove that technology is our undoing: his Vicious Circle Principle trumps our intelligence.
January 11, 2014 marks the 12th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo. This month as Andy Worthington and Debra Sweet tour cities and campuses raising the call, Close Guantánamo NOW! – they’ll be joined at various events by other powerful speakers including Jeffrey Kaye, Jason Leopold, Michael Kearns, and Todd Pierce. The new documentary film Doctors of the Darkside will also be shown at some events.
All three Bay Area events are open to the public including at the Stanford and Hastings campuses. Contact World Can’t Wait SF Bay, sf [at] worldcantwait.org or 415-864-5153, to volunteer your help staffing programs (we especially need videographers, photographers), and ideas for publicity and media. Donate to support the tour here: http://www.indiegogo.com
Film screening “Doctors of the Dark Side” with Andy Worthington & Debra Sweet in conversation.
The US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has chosen Richmond as the location for voting on its final report on the August 6, 2012, Chevron Richmond Toxic Explosion and Fire. The hearing will be at 6:30 p.m. in the Richmond City Council Chambers at 440 Civic Center Plaza.
Please join Communities for a Better Environment, APEN, RPA, ACCE, 350.org Chevron Watch and Bay Area, the Richmond Environmental Justice Coalitionand community representatives from Pittsburg, Rodeo/Crockett and Benicia at 5:30 p.m. for a rally in the Civic Center Plaza.
This is a MAJOR event for our communities, because the CSB is recommending a new standard for regulating Big Oil’s refineries in the US – the Safety Case regime. We demand Safety First! No new Permits w/o the Safety Case!!
Please come out and support the CSB, the people of Richmond and the Bay Area refinery towns!
San Francisco Living Wage Coalition Meeting. The Living Wage Coalition is building a grassroots movement of low-wage workers and their allies to win economic justice. Anyone who works full time should be able to survive on what they earn and support themselves and their children. Come to be a part of discussing next steps in pursuing an economic justice agenda.
The Oakland Privacy Working Group will meet at the Sudoroom Wednesday Jan. 15th at 6:30 to organize to stop the planned building of an Oakland-wide surveillance grid to monitor the citizens of the East Bay.
Approval for a contractor to take over Phase II of the DAC contract from SAIC – summarily dismissed months ago for violations of Oakland’s Nuclear Free Zone Ordinance – is supposed to take place at the January 21st City Council meeting.
For more information on the insidiousness of the DAC and how it came to b in Oakland check out the DAC FAQ, the Oakland Wiki Domain Awareness Page and the Oakland Privacy WordPress.
OPG hopes to have a large presence and a big rally on February 4th in front of City Hall at Oscar Grant Plaza, and YOU ARE INVITED. We are planning to have potluck food & drink at the plaza at 6:15 before going in to the council chambers to voice our opinions on this spy-network. So far the City has always scheduled this skulduggery as the last item on the agenda, well after midnight, to try to discourage public comment, so we are planning to show movies in the Plaza to keep folks entertained while waiting for the item to come up. Let’s stop this fucking thing, privacy is an essential element of freedom.
Join Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide mass surveillance center.
If you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy Working Group email listserv, send an email to: oaklandprivacyworkinggroup-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
On line petition to stop the DAC
On line petition to stop the DAC
$12 advance tickets: brownpapertickets.com :: 800-838-3006
or Pegasus (3 locations), Marcus Books, Moe�s, Walden Pond, Diesel a Bookstore, and Modern Times.
Radical economist Richard Wolff recently exploded into the forefront of progressive thinking in the United States with his brilliantly insightful book Capitalism Hits the Fan, which chronicled Wolff’s growing alarm and insights as he watched the economic crisis build, burst, and dominate world events. His analysis differs sharply from explanations offered by politicians, media commentators, and other academics. While he retains many Marxist contentions, Wolff rejects the economic determinism typical of most schools of economics.
“Richard Wolff is the leading social economist in the country. This book is required reading for anyone concerned about a fundamental transformation of the ailing capitalist economy.” — Cornel West.
Professor of Economics Emeritus from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Wolff is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School University in New York. In recent years while delivering public lectures at many colleges and universities, as well as to community and trade union meetings, he has built a reputation for blunt speaking, clarity, refreshing scorn, and an enjoyable wit.
Wolff is the author of many books, including Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism, Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism, and Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It. He hosts the weekly hour-long radio program Economic Update on WBAI (Pacifica Radio) and writes regularly for The Guardian, Truthout.org, and the MRZine.
�Bold, thoughtful, transformative – a powerful and challenging vision that takes us beyond both corporate capitalism and state socialism. Richard Wolff at his best!�
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The Postal Service is still trying to sell the downtown Berkeley Post Office (and privatize the entire USPS). We’re still trying to save it. The Berkeley City Council will be considering a proposal in late January to help that effort, a Zoning Overlay Ordinance that will make the entire Historic District Area (including the Post Office) less attractive to private, commercial development.
To keep up the pressure on all concerned, and let them know that the people STILL do not want Post Offices sold, Berkeley Post Office Defenders invite you to twenty-four hours of activities beginning at 11:00 AM.
Activities will include
- petition signing and flyer distribution (11- 5)
- presentations, teach-ins (11:30 – 2:00)
- music (2:00 – 5:00), including the Funky Nixons, Phat Love and Fresh Juice Party!
- arts and crafts
- dinner and a movie (6:00 – 10:00)
- letter writing (11:00 – 2:00)
- an empathy circle
- a study group
- a free clothing box
- tents and signs
- light brigade spelling out slogans of resistance (around 7:00 PM)
Come join us! Bring your friends!
Berkeley Post Office Defenders.
Please join Share The Bulb for a weekend of actions against the pending eviction of more than 50 people from the Albany Bulb!
January 17th
—————
Residents and allies of the Albany Bulb will rally at Albany City Hall at 4PM, before marching up Solano Avenue. We will stage an overnight campout on Solano Avenue, illustrating the plight of the more than 50 residents of the Albany Bulb, who, if evicted, would be forced onto Albany’s streets.
January 18th
————–
Artists will flock to the Bulb for a day of participatory art, live demonstrations, workshops, and art tours. Join us for an Art Festival at the Bulb from 12-5PM!
*****
The campout is part a West Coast Day of Action to fight the criminalization of homelessness, sponsored by the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP). Cities in the Bay Area and around the country have passed laws making it impossible for homeless people to live within the law. It has become a crime to sit or lie down, to sleep in public, panhandle or otherwise conduct their lives in public view.
The eviction would force Bulb residents back into the same social narrative of police harassment and criminalization of homelessness which originally drove many of them to the Bulb.
We have successfully prevented the eviction from going forward since October, and we’re ready to take the fight into the new year! Come join us, and find out how you can help preserve this unique Bay Area treasure.
If you’re interested in direct action related to local foreclosure defense, show up early and learn more.
January 18th
————–
Artists will flock to the Bulb for a day of participatory art, live demonstrations, workshops, and art tours. Join us for an Art Festival at the Bulb from 12-5PM!
*****
The campout on Friday is part a West Coast Day of Action to fight the criminalization of homelessness, sponsored by the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP). Cities in the Bay Area and around the country have passed laws making it impossible for homeless people to live within the law. It has become a crime to sit or lie down, to sleep in public, panhandle or otherwise conduct their lives in public view.
The eviction would force Bulb residents back into the same social narrative of police harassment and criminalization of homelessness which originally drove many of them to the Bulb.
We have successfully prevented the eviction from going forward since October, and we’re ready to take the fight into the new year! Come join us, and find out how you can help preserve this unique Bay Area treasure.
The San Francisco Gray Panthers are very concerned about issues of mass incarceration, prison expansion, profiling of minorities and youth, and the criminalization of poverty. Particularly in San Francisco, with such extremes of wealth and poverty, it seems outrageous to build more jail space, when three-quarters of prisoners are there because they’re too poor to make bail.
We are helping to organize two important upcoming events to stop the new jail and we hope you will join us!
Here’s the details:
Saturday, January 18th: Attend our Town Hall meeting to speak out about the jail plan, and get prepared for the upcoming Supervisors meeting: 2-4 PM at the Redstone Building, 2940 16th Street (near mission). Download the event flier here.
Thursday, January 23rd: Speak out at the San Francisco Supervisor�s Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee Hearing on the Jail Replacement Project: 1-3:30pm, in City Hall Room 250.
Join Strike Debt Bay Area in working on some exciting projects locally and nationally to fight unjust debt.
– 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 an article 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.
– A report on FedUp, our action in coalition with Occupy SF and others to highlight (and Illuminate!) the Fed’s contributions to the ills of our economy and call for it to become unprivatized.
– Work on our radio segment on KPFA
– Other projects include efforts to fight against student debt in conjunction with peeps at UC Cal via a Debtors’ Union, a book group with semi-weekly discussions, investigations into the legitimacy of mortgage ownership and therefore the right to foreclose, efforts to thwart payday loan usury and more.
“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.