We’re calling on everybody to support Jonathan’s family in this moment. Jonathan took a trip to the corner store a month ago and never came home because he was gunned down by the FBI.

Unknown law enforcement agents have continued to call, harass, and follow members of his family, including at his funeral. This is terrorism.

On Saturday, let’s show the feds that the community is united in support of the family! We condemn Jonathan’s murder, call out the horrific acts of law enforcement on the day of his funeral, and demand justice and accountability.
RSVP
The family demands:

• The FBI must release all video recordings of Jonathan’s killing;
• Mayor Schaaf must name the officers or agents who were involved in Jonathan’s murder;
• Jonathan’s personal belongings must be returned to his family;
• All federal, state and local law enforcement must immediately stop harassing and following Jonathan’s family;
• Stop the ongoing character assassination of Jonathan.

In addition, the family and community are outraged that the City of Oakland has done nothing to protect us from outside law enforcement agencies like the FBI and the California Highway Patrol, which killed Erik Salgado last year. We demand answers and accountability.

Hope to see y’all tomorrow!

Sunday at the Marxist Library (online)

So, what does Lenin take from Marx’s vast works and summarize it succinctly? And specifically on Socialism. Some of us thought that last week’s discussion on socialism did not deal aqequately with Lenin’s scientific concept, so we invited Raj Sahai to lead a Group Discusion on this important topic. Raj will be joined by Gary Hicks and Eugene Ruyle to begin our open discussion. In preparation, folks are invited to read V. I. Lenin’s Karl Marx — a Brief Biographical Sketch with an Exposition of Marxism (1914), available at:

https://libcom.org/library/karl-marx-brief-biographical-sketch-1914-vladimir-lenin
LOGIN INFORMATION

We Intend to start the presentation as close to 10:30 am as possible, but the Zoom room will be opened up, as usual, at 10:15 for anyone to join and discuss technical matters, catch up with each other, say Hi, etc.. The program (and recording) will end at 12:30, but the Waiting Room will remain open until about 1 pm for informal discussion.

THIS ZOOM LINK IS GOOD FOR

Raj Sahai is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2591082607?pwd=WXc2dUlJcGNJektTcGlmSWhBMHZwdz09

Meeting ID: 259 108 2607
Passcode: ICSS1017rs
One tap mobile
+16699006833,,2591082607#,,,,*4131413530# US (San Jose)
+13462487799,,2591082607#,,,,*4131413530# US (Houston)

Dial by your location
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
Meeting ID: 259 108 2607
Passcode: 4131413530

=========================

The Berkeley Anarchist Study Group (aka BASTARD: Berkeley Anarchist Students [of] Attack, Revolt, & Destruction) is one of the longest running (if not the longest running) anarchist reading groups in North America. We meet every Tuesday night from 7:30-9:30pm PST (note the new time!) at The Long Haul (3124 Shattuck Ave in Berkeley).

New participants are always encouraged to stop by regardless of your familiarity with anarchist ideas or practices. We warmly welcome newcomers and encourage them to make the group their own in the same manner we all do. To this effect, we endeavor to cultivate a convivial and gregarious atmosphere where everyone can contribute in whatever ways and to whatever degree they each desire. We do not, however, incorporate fixed practices aimed at creating an artificial “safe space” or prioritize the voices of certain participants as a way of ostensibly bringing about contrived parity amongst ourselves. We have no membership, no responsibilities, and no codes of behavior. In lieu of spurious standards for relating to each other, we look to every participant to find a balance between making their voice heard and hearing those of the rest of the group, between disagreeing passionately with each other and accepting our divergences without necessarily needing to resolve them. In summary, we eschew inflexible precepts for interaction and instead embrace spontaneous and honest dialogue, while leaving it up to each individual to make their voice heard and utilize the group as they see fit.

The study group organizes an annual gathering called the BASTARD Conference. This DIY event consists of informal, autodidactic presentations on anarchy and anarchists, presented by participants in the study group along with friends, guests, and accomplices from around the world.

In addition, this group has acted as a launching point for many texts, projects, and actions in its three decades of existence. Many attendees have been and continue to be integrally involved in projects which have left enduring impacts on international anarchist milieus over the years.

We pick readings for the coming week at the end of each session, after which they will be posted here. If you have a text you’d like to suggest, come pitch it to the group, but please be ready to kick off the following week’s conversation by introducing & sharing your reasons for choosing it.

If any of this sparks your interest or curiosity, then come join us every Tuesday evening from 7:30-9:30pm at The Long Haul (3124 Shattuck Ave in Berkeley). Email birdsoffire [at] riseup [dot] net with any questions. We hope to see you soon!

Walk expropriating and igniting!
Always leaving behind me howls of moral offenses
and smoking trunks of old things.

For the annihilation of all authority!
For the refusal of all submission!
Toward the beautiful idea of anarchy!

Oneof the country’s leading organizers and a co-creator of Black Lives Matter, Alicia Garza’s work has helped shape the discourse on activism and empowerment for more than a decade.

In 2013, Alicia wrote what she called “a love letter to Black people” on Facebook, in the aftermath of the acquittal of the man who murdered seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin. She wrote: Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter.

Long before #BlackLivesMatter became a rallying cry for this generation, Alicia spent the better part of two decades learning and unlearning some hard lessons about organizing. The lessons she offers are different from the “rules for radicals” that animated earlier generations of activists, and diverge from the charismatic, patriarchal model of the American civil rights movement.

In her latest book, The Purpose of Power, Alicia reflects instead on how making room amongst the woke for those who are still awakening can inspire and activate more people to fight for the world we all deserve. Drawing on both her life and her work, Alicia shares a new paradigm for change for the next generation of change-makers.

Join performer, social worker, and activist Honey Mahogany for a powerful conversation with Alicia about her life, her work, and how to build transformative movements to address the challenges of our time.

Free, suggested donation of $20.

Join us along with @CAIRSFBA and @EFF for a CLE webinar that will survey what immigrants and noncitizens might face when entering or leaving a port of entry in California.

🗓 When: Wednesday, Oct. 20th from 6-8pm PT
✍️ Register here: https://t.co/dZL7JJJrum

(1/3) pic.twitter.com/XOtliMiieZ

— NLG San Francisco Bay Area (@nlgsf) October 5, 2021

George Orwell said: “If you wanna vision of the future imagine a boot stomping on a human face forever.”  Well at the moment it is the face of Julian Assange.

Please join me at the Grand Lake to protest the vengeance against Assange who is being imprisoned for revealing the war crimes of the US government, the corruption of the oligarchs, and the piracy by global corporations.

Julian “stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.”  (quoting V)

Come and show your support for freedom of the press and speech. Come protest this vengeful system that uses secrecy to hide its crimes and a British court system shown to be totally corrupt in keeping Assange in solitary confinement with no prosecutable charges left.

Co-Sponsors: Courage Foundation (assangedefense.org) � San Francisco Bay Area National Lawyers Guild � Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal � Black Allianiance for Peace � Code Pink/Women for Peace, � United National Antiwarwar Coalition � International Action Center � Syria Solidarity Movement � P� Peninsula Peace and Justice Center � Peace and Freedom Party � Socialist Actionion � Green Party of Alameda County � U.S. Peace Council � BAYAN USA � • Haiti Action Committee � Socialist Organizer � Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universsalists Social Justice Committee � Task Force on the Americas � Mt.Mt. Diablo Peace and Justice Center � Workers World Party � Veteran For Peace ce � San Jose Peace and Justice Center � Women’s International League for Peace & Freeddom � Bay Action Comm. to Free Julian Assange � Labor Action Comm. to Free Muumia Abu-Jamal � CWA TNG 39521 Pacifica Media Workers Union.

Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library

   Turkey is a neo-colonial NATO member country.  It is tied through its umbilical cord to imperialism.,  Changing the name from Ottoman Empire to Republic of Turkey did not change much from what Ottomans stood for.  An attempt at a bourgeois revolution was too late and had started during the Ottomans but was cut short, crushed, due to occurring in the age of imperialism,  Bourgeois had changed character in this age and was no longer what used to be called a “national bourgeoisie.”  Better term for the leaders of this crippled revolution would be “local bourgeoise” and its character as “comprador bourgeoisie” due to its relationship with imperialism.

Fascism passes through dormant and active phases, but never leaves Turkey.  It is impossible to speak of a “bourgeoise democracy” in the age of imperialism in the neo-colonial countries.  This is tied to the crippled bourgeois revolution.  Any and all, even very peaceful demonstrations are brutally attacked and participants get long prison sentences.  Hundreds of journalists are in jail, opposition party MPs are beaten, silenced and thrown into prisons, even without a charge for more than 4 years.  National Assembly is powerless and is irrelevant but stays for the show, typical of a regime that is defined as the neo-colonial fascism.  Unions are silenced and are under brutal attack.  Media is suppressed and internet access is controlled.  Government media spews unbelievable and outright ridiculous lies and repeats these 24 hours every hour on the clock. Corporations work hand in glove with the government while raking in billions of dollars.

Corruption, as expected in the capitalist world is no longer secret but has become the norm.  It is illegal to report corruption.  Turkey uses Europe’s regulations against surveillance capitalism to protect the citizens against corporations like Google and Facebook to protect the capitalists and the corrupt government officials.  It invokes the “right to be forgotten” against any news that exposes corruption, theft, bribery or murder and puts a media ban on news that exposes a corruption.  Meritocracy has long vanished and the only qualification to get a job is loyalty to the government.

Erdoğan was brought to power by the US imperialism and he knows not to bite the hand that feeds him.  As imperialism seems to lose the grip due to its seeming decline, neo-colonials do look around for a new boss to take its orders.  Fascism is the only way to rule in a country that also has a rich history of socialist and left opposition.  However, as new elections approach in a year and a half, the main topic that the country discusses is whether the government will even have the elections or respect the results.  The answer seems to lie in the parallel, paramilitary, armed, terrorist organizations the AKP government is preparing, very similar to the illegal, semi-secret structures that were used for the Armenian Genocide.

Economic collapse has only exacerbated the fascism and repression has increased even in the last few days.

These and similar issues on foreign affairs involving Syria, Russia, China, Greece but mostly European Union and the US will be discussed.  However, Turkey never did, does not, and will not decide independently in its internal or external affairs.  Imperialism is an internal affair in Turkey due to the class structure under imperialism.  What seems to be bold moves that could be read as challenging the US is only the slave asking for the leash to be extended a bit while Turkey picks up doing more dirty work for the US imperialism in the world and the Middle East.

Even many on the left who opposed the analysis of fascism in the past are pronouncing this terminology to define Turkey these days.

What are the alternatives?  What is the left to do?

Our speakeer, Mehmet Bayram, is visiting his native land Turkey and will be reporting from there.  He is a long time journalist, reporter, photographer and translator.  Currently he writes and translates for the Sendika.org in Turkey, a site shut down 62 times by the government. Please follow Turkey’s news in English at:  https://sendika.org/kategori/english/

LOGIN INFORMATION

We Intend to start the presentation as close to 10:30 am as possible, but the Zoom room will be opened up, as usual, at 10:15 for anyone to join and discuss technical matters, catch up with each other, say Hi, etc.. The program (and recording) will end at 12:30, but the Waiting Room will remain open until about 1 pm for informal discussion.

THIS ZOOM LINK IS GOOD FOR

Raj Sahai is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2591082607?pwd=WXc2dUlJcGNJektTcGlmSWhBMHZwdz09

Meeting ID: 259 108 2607
Passcode: ICSS1017rs
One tap mobile
+16699006833,,2591082607#,,,,*4131413530# US (San Jose)
+13462487799,,2591082607#,,,,*4131413530# US (Houston)

Dial by your location
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
Meeting ID: 259 108 2607
Passcode: 4131413530
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc4RrpvAiQ

RSVP

A specter is haunting the Bay Area – the specter of communist unionism. Join East Bay DSA’s Labor Committee for our Spooky Socialist Social, the second in-person committee-sponsored social of 2021 on Tuesday, October 26th, between 6 pm and 9 pm at Eli’s Mile High Club in Oakland!

Come meet members of the committee, friends of the committee, fellow travelers, DSA members, and the socialism and unionism curious! We’ll have announcements on upcoming committee events to share, organizers on committee projects to chat with if you’re curious to plug into labor organizing but don’t know where to start, and members of unions throughout the Bay Area to discuss workplace politics and power with. Feel free to bring your union shirt, pin, DSA garb – comradely costumes are also encouraged.

Food and beverages will be available for purchase at Eli’s. Spooky Socialist Social will be hosted in the backyard patio of the bar. Eli’s requires all patrons to wear a mask and bring a vaccination card and will check for both at the door. Please bring both in order to attend.

Accessible by BART with the nearest stop at MacArthur BART and a 7-minute walk away.

=========================

The Berkeley Anarchist Study Group (aka BASTARD: Berkeley Anarchist Students [of] Attack, Revolt, & Destruction) is one of the longest running (if not the longest running) anarchist reading groups in North America. We meet every Tuesday night from 7:30-9:30pm PST (note the new time!) at The Long Haul (3124 Shattuck Ave in Berkeley).

New participants are always encouraged to stop by regardless of your familiarity with anarchist ideas or practices. We warmly welcome newcomers and encourage them to make the group their own in the same manner we all do. To this effect, we endeavor to cultivate a convivial and gregarious atmosphere where everyone can contribute in whatever ways and to whatever degree they each desire. We do not, however, incorporate fixed practices aimed at creating an artificial “safe space” or prioritize the voices of certain participants as a way of ostensibly bringing about contrived parity amongst ourselves. We have no membership, no responsibilities, and no codes of behavior. In lieu of spurious standards for relating to each other, we look to every participant to find a balance between making their voice heard and hearing those of the rest of the group, between disagreeing passionately with each other and accepting our divergences without necessarily needing to resolve them. In summary, we eschew inflexible precepts for interaction and instead embrace spontaneous and honest dialogue, while leaving it up to each individual to make their voice heard and utilize the group as they see fit.

The study group organizes an annual gathering called the BASTARD Conference. This DIY event consists of informal, autodidactic presentations on anarchy and anarchists, presented by participants in the study group along with friends, guests, and accomplices from around the world.

In addition, this group has acted as a launching point for many texts, projects, and actions in its three decades of existence. Many attendees have been and continue to be integrally involved in projects which have left enduring impacts on international anarchist milieus over the years.

We pick readings for the coming week at the end of each session, after which they will be posted here. If you have a text you’d like to suggest, come pitch it to the group, but please be ready to kick off the following week’s conversation by introducing & sharing your reasons for choosing it.

If any of this sparks your interest or curiosity, then come join us every Tuesday evening from 7:30-9:30pm at The Long Haul (3124 Shattuck Ave in Berkeley). Email birdsoffire [at] riseup [dot] net with any questions. We hope to see you soon!

Walk expropriating and igniting!
Always leaving behind me howls of moral offenses
and smoking trunks of old things.

For the annihilation of all authority!
For the refusal of all submission!
Toward the beautiful idea of anarchy!

Registration is OPEN for our 25th Anniversary Celebration – Oct 27th! Michelle Alexander, author of @thenewjimcrow will be in conversation with Xochitl Larios, of @CURYJ, and @aliciagarza Co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter and Principal of @blackfutureslab. https://t.co/2RC0vPlwDO pic.twitter.com/iUtUzRTGKc

— Ella Baker Center (@ellabakercenter) September 27, 2021

Celebrate our 25th Anniversary With Alicia Garza, Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

After Trayvon Martin’s brutal murder by police in 2013, Alicia Garza was the first to say the words that would later become the largest demonstration for racial justice in history: Black Lives Matter. Join Alicia Garza and other brilliant organizers at Ella Baker Center’s 25th Anniversary Celebration on October 27th at 6pm PST to discuss how you can continue to redefine safety.

Click here to reserve your ticket
Wednesday, October 27th, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. PST
Online and In Person

Register Here

You have the opportunity to hear from powerhouse movement leaders:

• Michelle Alexander, who shifted the narrative about incarceration when she published The New Jim Crow in 2010.
• Alicia Garza, who activated millions of people all over the world to fight against police violence when she co-founded Black Lives Matter.
• Xochtil Larios, who is transforming the youth justice system right here in Alameda County.

Your support has helped us build a culture of care for 25 years, and we will not stop until our vision is realized. We hope you will join us.

📢 Reject the Babu Settlement! 📢

Come learn more about the Babu v. Ahern lawsuit and settlement, how it will impact mental health care in Alameda County jails, and what we can do to fight it.

✍️Register for the Teach In happening next week here:https://t.co/CKZBIT2ade pic.twitter.com/3gbGTZyzZS

— NLG San Francisco Bay Area (@nlgsf) October 21, 2021

Youth march 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM

As we approach the global climate talks in Glasgow, join a global day of action against the biggest funders of climate chaos to demand that banks and finance companies like BlackRock stop funding fossil fuels.

The Youth Climate Finance Alliance and many climate justice organizations have called this worldwide day of action. A growing network of Indigenous Land Defenders, community organizations, climate activists, and student strikers are preparing local events like the one in San Francisco.

Big banks are accelerating the climate crisis by financing fossil fuels – and they must be held accountable. Without funding, fossil fuel projects cannot be built. And that’s exactly what we need in order to stave off the worst effects of the climate emergency

Help paint a block-long street mural with paint made from California wildfire ashes and charcoal. Street Mural Action Initiated by: NDN Collective, Idle No More SF Bay, AIM Foothills Central California Chapter, CA MMIWP2S.  Join Youth vs Apocalypse in a Youth March.

more details/RSVP

or on Facebook

UPDATE: MARIN ACTION, 3:30 PM

Later the same day you can join in the day of action at 3:30 PM for an hour-long protest at Citibank, 666 Third Street near 101, in San Rafael.  Some signs are provided or bring your own.