Calendar

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.

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

1. Welcome
2. Welcome Announcements
3. Agenda Overview
4. Forum
5. Reports from Committees, Subcommittees, Caucuses, & Working Groups
6. Action Announcements
7. 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.

We’ll be reviewing our Festival of Celebration and Resistance on the 18th.

Come help us plan our next steps. Come help us plan our action for the 25th.  Come help us prepare for the City Council meeting soon at which the Zoning Overlay Ordinance will be considered.

WE MAY BE WINNING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR SPIFFY NEW WEBSITE.

Sponsored by the League of Women Voters Oakland:

How does a city like Oakland respond to residents’ demands for more effective crime prevention and reduction while protecting everyone’s civil liberties? What is the Domain Awareness Center and how will it impact Oakland? How much surveillance is enough — or too much — to enhance our law enforcement capabilities?

Bring your ideas and a friend or neighbor to discuss these important issues with knowledgeable resource people and fellow Oaklanders.

The Oakland Privacy Working Group will meet at the Sudoroom Wednesday Jan. 22nd at 6:30 to organize an action for February 4th at City Hall to stop the planned building of the DAC, an Oakland-wide surveillance grid to monitor the citizens of the East Bay.

The City Council will be voting on selecting a contractor to take over Phase II of the DAC contract from SAIC  (who was dismissed for violating Oakland’s Nuclear Free Zone Ordinance, which prohibits the city from knowingly doing business with any entity that is engaged in nuclear weapons work).  Apparently all the other alternatives have dipped their toes in the nuclear pool, as well.  The Oakland Privacy Working Group hopes to have a big presence in Oscar Grant Plaza in front of City Hall before we go in to the chambers to voice our opinions about building out this privacy-destroying networked spy hub. We are planning on a potluck at 6:15 in the plaza, bring goodies to share. There will be speakers and music, as well. Since the City Council never seems to address the DAC issue before the witching hour or later we will also have some movies in the plaza.

For more information on the insidiousness of the DAC and how it came to be in Oakland check out the DAC FAQ, the Oakland Wiki Domain Awareness Page and the Oakland Privacy WordPress.

Plans for the demo that need to be firmed up:

1. Facebook Event Page

2. Brass liberation orchestra

3. Music - Last bar fighter

4. Food

5. Movie

6. Sound System

7. Puppets

8. Speakers

   1. suggestions? Daniel Ellsberg?  Edward Snowden?  Batman?

   2. Fired after

   3. Anti Repression Committee

   4. press outreach

9. press release

10. press conference

Please sign the on line petitionetition to stop the DAC

Sign the on line petition calling for the DAC to be defunded. We got 4,000 signatures in about a week and need another 900 to reach our goal.

Click for printable PDF

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! The first was on January 18th. This one:

Thursday, January 23rd: Speak out at the San Francisco Supervisor’s Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee Hearing on the Jail Replacement Project.

Tweeted out by @OccupyUCBerk

Our next meeting for Politics of Debt will be next Friday, January 24th at the public school room.  We’ll take on the Keen vs. Krugman debate about the significance of banking for economics.  It’s something like a Modern Money Theorist vs. a high profile Keynesian.  See you there!

Here’s the article containing  links to most of the articles and blog posts – lots of them, too many to list, but they are presented in the chronological order that the debate took place, so they’re easy to follow.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/46944145

There’s a tremendously important debate being waged across a bunch of different websites, including Paul Krugman’s at The New York Times, about how banking really works.

Original Keen article.

Public School event notice.

Addition:

Here is something to add to the reading list for this week:

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/12/16/economy/oh-my-paul-krugman-edition

This is Keen’s reflection on the issue of banking and how it effects demand. He seems to think Krugman has quietly moved camps.

There are plenty more articles and books to read in the future and we will be furthering our understanding of Modern Monetary Theory as well as a recent school called the New Currency Theory.
E.g., this article from the real-world economics review which we can get into later:

http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue66/Huber66.pdf

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

1. Welcome
2. Welcome Announcements
3. Agenda Overview
4. Forum
5. Reports from Committees, Subcommittees, Caucuses, & Working Groups
6. Action Announcements
7. 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.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.  Come help us prepare for the City Council meeting on the 28th at Old City Hall  at which the Zoning Overlay Ordinance will be considered.

WE MAY BE WINNING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR SPIFFY NEW WEBSITE.

The Public Safety Committee of the Oakland City Council will be discussing the Domain Awareness Center and a new contract for Schneider Electric to implement Phase II of the DAC (replacing SAIC, which was dismissed in part for being a Nuclear Weapons Contrator and in part for being general scum, having defrauded New York City of half a billion dollars)

Here is the agenda item:

Subject: Domain Awareness Center (DAC) Phase 2 Contract Award From: Oakland Fire Department Recommendation: Adopt A Resolution Authorizing The City Administrator To: 1) Negotiate And Execute A Professional Services Agreement With Schneider Electric Inc. To Provide Professional Services For Design/Build/Maintain Services Represented In Phase 2 Of The City And Port Joint Domain Awareness Center (DAC) Project For An Amount Not To Exceed $1,600,000; And 2) If Negotiations Fail With Schneider Electric Inc, The City Administrator Or Her Designee Is Authorized To Negotiate And Enter Into A Contract With Another Vendor On The DAC Phase Evaluations Ranking List, Without Returning To Council

More info on the DAC.

The DAC FAQ.

Come tell the members of the Public Safety Committee what you think of the Orwellian dystopia that is the DAC!

cease-and-desist-with-sigs

Join Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub.

We aim to have 2 monthly meetings, every 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 6:30 at the SUDOROOM.  Stop by and learn how you can help guard Oakland’s right not to be spied on by its own governement & if you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy Working Group email listserv, send an email to: oaklandprivacyworkinggroup-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

The entrance to the sudoroom is on 22nd Street, ring the buzzer and come up the stairs or take the elevator.

For more information on the DAC and how it came to be in Oakland check out the DAC FAQ, the Oakland Wiki Domain Awareness Page and the Oakland Privacy WordPress.

Download the printable flyer for the Feb. 4 Protest

Join us as we start a new year and plan a rally for February 13th demanding that Kamala Harris prosecute Miguel Masso for the murder of Alan Blueford.

Get up-to-date on the civil lawsuit that is proceeding against OPD and the City of Oakland.

JAB has denounced the Domain Awareness Center and may have a speaker at the anti-DAC rally on February 4th.

Come help us out in the fight for Justice 4 Alan and against police terrorism in general.

Join the Open University @ Occupy Cal for our initial meeting of the semester on Monday Feb. 3rd 2014 on the Mario Savio steps.

Campaigns:
1) Ax the Regents:
The UC Board of Regents is the root of all evil for the UC system. This board consists of 18 members appointed by the state Governor for 12 year terms, 7 Ex Officio members, and 1 Student appointed for 1 year terms. None of the board members are democratically elected and some are/will be on their second 12 year terms if we do nothing!

The individuals appointed/reappointed by Gov. Brown are all campaign contributors of his as the following article delineates and all have been heavily involved in the privatization, militarization and betrayal of Public Education.

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/17/local/la-me-uc-regents-20140118

2) BP Off Campus:
The BP-EBI deal is a $500 Million privatization scam which has diverted critical Energy research at Cal from truly sustainable sources to GMO microbes for rapid fossil fuel production patents for BP. Find all the details on our campaign website:
http://www.bpoffcampus.org

3) People’s History of Activism at Cal:
In an effort to prevent past activist mistakes and to create an institutional memory of all activism at Cal, the Open University has initiated an effort to compile, edit, and present an ongoing people’s history of activism at Cal. Find below one of such articles:

http://ergoat.blogspot.com/2013/11/occupy-cal-infiltrated-by-police.html

4) Cops Off Campus:
From the UCPD thugs that brutally beat peaceful student protesters at Cal on Nov. 9th 2011 or pepper sprayed peaceful students at UC Davis on Nov. 17th 2011 to the recent takeover of the UC Presidency by the secretary of homeland security (a.k.a. the chief federal cop) all presence of armed hired hands is an unprecedented disturbing. Most civilized countries do not allow the presence of armed police on school and university campuses. Then why would the #1 Public University in the world allow such a travesty?

Original notice on Indybay.

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.   The City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which will protect the Post Office against various commercial uses. We need to stay on top of it. The American Postal Workers Union is planning more actions against Staples; we need to support them.  Encouraging articles have come out just recently about using  Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked and we need to be on the leading edge of that.  And Barbara Lee has introduced even stronger language into legislation to stop the sale of Historic Post Offices.

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

WE MAY BE WINNING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR SPIFFY NEW WEBSITE.

More info.

This class will delve into the differences between Modern Monetary Theory and New Currency Theory (only recently devised).  Does MMT hold the only solutions for monetary or banking reform?  Or is NCT have better options?  We’ll read this position paper from the latest Real-World Economics Review to understand the nuances of our debt based financial system:

http://p.feedblitz.com/t3.asp?/332386/0/0/www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue66/Huber66.pdf

Michael Hudson’s ‘The Bubble and Beyond’ will also be mixed in the discussion. Chapter 3, ‘How Economic Theory Came to Ignore the Role of Debt’ and chapter 6 ‘The Financial Character of Today’s Crisis’ will attempt to clear up misconceptions about debt in economics.  I will scan these chapters and make them available as soon as possible.

see you there!

Discussion to plan the next steps for Grow the Revolution.

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.   The City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which may protect the Post Office against various commercial uses, or be totally ineffective. We need to stay on top of it. The American Postal Workers Union is planning more actions against Staples; we need to support them.  Encouraging articles have come out just recently about using  Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked and we need to be on the leading edge of that.  And Barbara Lee has introduced even stronger language into legislation to stop the sale of Historic Post Offices.

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

WE MAY BE WINNING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR SPIFFY NEW WEBSITE.

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@gmail.com and let us know you’re coming.