Even during a global pandemic, our elected leaders keep throwing tenants under the bus. We demand: No more evictions! Cancel the rent! Decommodify housing! Housing is a human right!
Please wear a mask!
Contact us at 415-968-6090 for accessibility info.
Sponsored by: JDW Tenants Union, SMC Tenants Council, People’s Tenants Union, Madison Park Tenants Council, and PSL Bay Area – Cancel the Rents.
Calendar
9896
Jun
23
Wed
JOIN US! Wednesday, June 16 at 12pm
Rally @ 12pm, Car Caravan @ 1pm, come with your car already decorated or use our supplies to decorate during the Noise Demo!SPEAK UP! TODAY at City Council at 6pm (Item #37)
Agenda/zoom link: https://t.co/83qEceVlmZ pic.twitter.com/eO612B5PYv— Berkeley Copwatch (@Copwatch411) June 15, 2021
We are gathering every Wednesday at noon on the steps of City Hall to demand a community budget that prioritizes CARE Not Cops!
The City Manager is proposing a budget that INCREASES funding for the Berkeley Police from last year! This is despite the city’s supposed commitment to “reimagine public safety” and decrease funding to the police.
In advance of the final budget vote on June 29, we are gathering EVERY WEDNESDAY AT NOON on the steps of City Hall to make them hear us and demand a community budget that prioritizes CARE NOT COPS!
We cannot continue with business as usual. According to the City Audit, BPD stopped Black people at a significantly higher rate than their representation in the Berkeley population (34 percent compared to 8 percent). The data also shows that less than 1% of all calls for service were for violent crimes and that 55% of calls to Berkeley Police came in on their “non-emergency” line. BPD failed to even capture data on how many calls involved unhoused people or those with mental health issues.
We need to hold the City Council to their promise to reimagine public safety. We must divert our city funds to alternatives that: (1) are completely independent from the police, (2) are accountable to our most impacted community members, (3) don’t respond only during crises and then leave, and (4) are transparent to the public.
Join us and make noise on the steps of City Hall! Bring your pots, pans, noisemakers. We’ll have speakers and open mic. Tell Berkeley why this is important for everyone’s safety.
This event is wheelchair accessible.
For more info on the Care Not Cops campaign and our Five Demands for the Specialized Care Unit (SCU), go to: berkeleycopwatch.org/care-not-cops
Share the flyer! Share on social media: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter!
69092
Jun
26
Sat
Jun 26 @ 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
69140
Jul
7
Wed
Jul 7 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
| Follow all and any current COVID guidelines | |
69153
Jul
10
Sat
Join us for a solidarity caravan followed by a community gathering of music, food, art, and friends!
What: Reimagine Safety Community Celebration & Caravan
When: Saturday, July 10, 2021
1pm: Caravan from Lake Merritt to Lowell Park
3 pm: Community Celebration at Lowell Park. pic.twitter.com/ajtrZSAcli
— Anti Police-Terror Project (@APTPaction) July 7, 2021
69166
Jul
16
Fri
What: To protest Biden’s inaction on Line 3 and demand that he and the Army Corp of Engineers revoke the permit now.
Where: Phillip Burton Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse
This is being organized by a coalition of Bay Area climate justice activists. Come help us bring the message to Biden and the Corp that it is time to Stop Line 3!
RSVP & info on Facebook: https://fb.me/e/2PsKW4Fgi
69171
Jul
20
Tue
Jul 20 @ 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Come to rally just before city council: July 20th, 2021 1pm PST
Oakland City Hall Oscar Grant Plaza , 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland CA
Get on speakers list for city council meeting by contacting: committeeforlaborparty(at)gmail.com or For a Mass Labor Party in the USA @masslaborpartyusa on Facebook and Twitter
https://www.facebook.com/masslaborpartyusa/
https://foramasslaborparty.wordpress.com
On July 20th, 2021, Oakland City Council will take a vote on Oakland Athletics proposal for the development of a baseball stadium and accompanying condominium complex in the current Howard Terminal and connecting area to Jack London Square.
What does this means for maritime workers and the community in and around the port of Oakland?
Ultimately our livelihoods are at stake. More traffic congestion from mass sporting events and high end entertainment will surround the real estate portion of this proposed development. The developers argue any economic growth will benefit all workers and the community as it will inevitably spread out.
We know this not to be true. Just remember how conversion of the San Francisco Embarcadero from industrial maritime use to tourism was promoted over past decades. The loss of shipyards, maritime facilities and jobs such as scalers, boilermakers and machinists has lead to a steady eroding of union scale wages such that those who work in these areas can no longer afford to live anywhere near the city front.
The Oakland Athletics stadium proposal does not democratically consider workers at the port and the surrounding maritime community. Under the A’s proposed Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (EIFD) increases in property tax revenue on the development expected to rise from the current $30 million to over $12 billion by 2037 will be used for the area of the development itself. Infrastructure spending for schools, port facilities, and resources outside the specified EIFD area (Howard Terminal to Jack London Square) would be left out of this 30+ year projected tax revenue increase.
This type of exclusionary development planning is typical of public land privatization schemes, notably of the Fisher family (who own the A’s Franchise), which has gone on record as backing some of the biggest public land grabs for private profit in city history including AT&T park and the Charterization of public schools into the KIPP chain and Rocketship which their family controls.
Fishers enjoy bipartisan support from all corrupt politicians in the City. The Democratic Council members Ron Bonta and Nancy Skinner of Oakland City are among the foremost advocates for this privatization project. Most other Democrats and Republicans in the City or County have been silent on the issue at best, or supported this union-busting gentrification drive at worst. It is clear that we need a working-class alternative to defend our jobs, unions, residences, and environment.
Sailors, Longshore Workers, Truckers and Railroad Workers Unite! Stand with the working class and multi-ethnic communities against displacement! For well funded schools and public infrastructure through a participatory and democratic decision-making process of all who are effected and concerned!
69179
Jul
21
Wed
The Coalition for a Truly Public UC is a group of students, staff, faculty, and community members calling for justice and a truly public University of California. We come together as a group with the understanding that, although each of our respective struggles has its own unique details and dynamics, they are ultimately all rooted in the same foundation. In that spirit, we are uniting our efforts to expose and fight against the ongoing privatization of the University of California system, and accompanying exploitation of working class people in the form of real estate speculation, displacement, and militarized policing – not only within the state of California, but across the world.
We believe the UC has the potential to be an affordable, public university whose future is democratically determined by students, faculty and the surrounding communities and not the endless search for profit. However, we know that these aspirations are a far cry from the current reality. If there is to be any progress toward achieving them, we put forward the following demands:
1. We DEMAND a truly public (i.e. zero-tuition) higher education system, governed according to democratic process where regular people in the system have meaningful power and opportunity to impact major decision making.
2. We DEMAND the UC cease efforts to demolish and displace the 1921 Walnut st tenants and building on People’s Park as outlined in UC Berkeley’s 2021 Long Range Development plan. More generally, the University of California should cease ALL real estate acquisitions and real estate speculation, particularly such acquisitions that will displace people and other threatened species, and instead create housing options that are accessible to students and working class people, which necessarily means priced below the current market rate in most UC campus towns.
3. We DEMAND the demilitarization of and divestment from campus police, with reinvestment into services that actually benefit students. We call for the end to UCPD involvement in labor disputes and in harassing and displacing homeless people in the areas on and around UC campuses, such as People’s Park in Berkeley.
4. We DEMAND an end to the pattern of privatization, devaluation, and contracting out of UC labor across all 10 UC campuses.
5. We DEMAND an end to the UC’s ties to colonial and imperial projects. This means ceasing support of, and direct investment in, the Thirty Meter Telescope project on the sacred Mauna Kea in Hawaii. It also means actively supporting Indigenous-led efforts to rematriate stolen land, remains, and property held by the Regents and Anthropology Departments across the state.
JOIN US FOR A RALLY IN PROTEST OF THE UC REGENTS MEETINGS OCCURRING AT THE SAME TIME. THE UC DECISION MAKING PROCESS IS UNDEMOCRATIC AND THE REGENTS ARE HIDING FROM THE PEOPLE USING COVID RESTRICTIONS
69174
Jul
24
Sat
Assuming it is open, we will be meeting in-person at our old haunt, the OMNI, and, as an experiment, with a Zoom live link for those who can’t be there physically. Check back here a few days before the event to insure the availability of the OMNI, otherwise we will meet again solely online.
Due to the exponential growth of Delta COVID in Alameda County we will still be meeting online in July. The August meeting may be held dually online and at the OMNI Commons.
Stay tuned!
Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com for up-to-date status and the online invite.
Our current topic is degrowth. Our book is Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide, by Liegey and Nelson, available from its publisher Pluto Press and elsewhere, including Amazon. We will be reading the first half of the book this month, constituting the first three chapters, through page 85 of the paper back edition, and the second half of the book for our August meeting.
“A sense of urgency pervades global environmentalism, and the degrowth movement is bursting into the mainstream. As climate catastrophe looms closer, people are eager to learn what degrowth is about, and whether we can save the planet by changing how we live. This book is an introduction to the movement. As politicians and corporations obsess over growth objectives, the degrowth movement demands that we must slow down the economy by transforming our economies, our politics and our cultures to live within the Earth’s limits. This book navigates the practice and strategies of the movement, looking at its strengths and weaknesses. Covering horizontal democracy, local economies and the reduction of work, it shows us why degrowth is a compelling and realistic project.”
Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth, Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, and Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism.
69151
Aug
6
Fri
Aug 6 @ 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Join the movement to #FreeDonziger! Tomorrow August 6, will mark 2 years of Steven Donziger's unprecedented house arrest for taking on @Chevron & demanding #EnvironmentalJustice for the Amazon.
=> SF Bay Area: Chevron Richmond Refinery, 4pm Friday
Learn more 👇👇👇 pic.twitter.com/04UU574C8t— Sunflower Alliance (@SunflowerAction) August 5, 2021
69220
Aug
12
Thu
Aug 12 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Housing is a human right! March and rally on Thursday, August 12th 5pm at Downtown Berkeley Bart. Spanish translation will be available#ElPuebloUnido pic.twitter.com/jZKKol2pNF
— Berkeley Copwatch (@Copwatch411) August 10, 2021
69227
Aug
17
Tue
69236
Aug
21
Sat
Assuming it is open, we will be meeting in-person at our old haunt, the OMNI, and, as an experiment, with a Zoom live link for those who can’t be there physically. Check back here a few days before the event to insure the availability of the OMNI, otherwise we will meet again solely online.
Due to the exponential growth of Delta COVID in Alameda County we will still be meeting online in July. The August meeting may be held dually online and at the OMNI Commons.
Stay tuned!
Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com for up-to-date status and the online invite.
Our current topic is degrowth. Our book is Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide, by Liegey and Nelson, available from its publisher Pluto Press and elsewhere, including Amazon. We will be reading the first half of the book this month, constituting the first three chapters, through page 85 of the paper back edition, and the second half of the book for our August meeting.
“A sense of urgency pervades global environmentalism, and the degrowth movement is bursting into the mainstream. As climate catastrophe looms closer, people are eager to learn what degrowth is about, and whether we can save the planet by changing how we live. This book is an introduction to the movement. As politicians and corporations obsess over growth objectives, the degrowth movement demands that we must slow down the economy by transforming our economies, our politics and our cultures to live within the Earth’s limits. This book navigates the practice and strategies of the movement, looking at its strengths and weaknesses. Covering horizontal democracy, local economies and the reduction of work, it shows us why degrowth is a compelling and realistic project.”
Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth, Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, and Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism.
69151
Aug
22
Sun
Aug 22 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Bay Area: We are asking you to turn out for this tomorrow! Follow @AfghansTomorrow. #BayArea #Oakland #Afganistan #HousingIsAHumanRight https://t.co/lWFXMJW8oY
— Berkeley Copwatch (@Copwatch411) August 21, 2021
69259
Aug
25
Wed
69265
Aug
28
Sat
THIS SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN CANCELLED
As socialists, we condemn US militarism and interference in foreign affairs, including in Afghanistan. We call for an end to the War on Terror, and acceptance of all war refugees.
This Sat, 8/28 at 2:00 p.m. at UN Plaza, we will show our solidarity with the Afghan people. pic.twitter.com/Q7zOrEkId0
— DSA San Francisco (@DSA_SF) August 26, 2021
69267
Aug
30
Mon
Children and families in California frontline communities are sick and dying because the agencies that should be protecting them are in bed with corporate polluters and developers.
Join Sunflower Alliance and 22 other sponsoring groups to demand that CalEPA and the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) take immediate action to protect environmental justice communities across California.
For Bay Area carpool info, email action@sunflower-alliance.org.
EJ communities from Laytonville to LA will converge on the CalEPA Building in downtown Sacramento to speak out and act up against these agencies’ refusal to follow science and protect the health of vulnerable communities.
A full bedroom set will be brought to the protest, with volunteers representing CalEPA, DTSC, lobbyists, corporate developers and polluters in bed, drinking champagne and smoking cigars.
Following the hour-long protest, we will gather at Cesar Chavez Plaza across the street for an optional EJ training by California Environmental Justice Coalition. We’ll be on our way home by 3 p.m.
You can learn more on the CA-EJ protest website, which includes information about the groups involved and the demands they’ll present to CalEPA and DTSC.
Masks and social distancing are required! Let’s be smart and safe.
69261
Aug
31
Tue
Aug 31 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
69273
Aug 31 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Register
This fire season we’ve seen the largest known wildfire ever in California, bringing the climate crisis literally to our front doors. This is not an isolated event. Climate scientists have been warning that extreme weather would be coming if we continued to burn fossil fuels, and yet, because of capitalism, we’ve only seen the use of those fuels skyrocket. In the past month reports about this crisis have come out with dire warnings, letting us know that tipping points that mean an unavoidable cascade of the irreversible climate crisis, are approaching rapidly if they haven’t had already been reached. All of this means that our task is enormous and urgent. Climate change is a direct result of the capitalist system, and we will not be able to address the climate crisis without getting rid of it altogether.
Join the East Bay DSA Political Education Committee and Green New Deal Committee as we look at why capitalism is incapable of addressing the climate crisis, and why the fight for socialism is our only way out.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82877051499?pwd=U1ZZMzdWQ2dvMXJhbGhqcWxsc1R3QT09
Meeting ID: 828 7705 1499
Passcode: school
One tap mobile
+16699006833,,82877051499#,,,,*266754# US (San Jose)
+13462487799,,82877051499#,,,,*266754# US (Houston)
Reading List
Part 1: THE CURRENT CLIMATE CRISIS
(very brief articles about the current state of the climate crisis)
‘Nobody’s Safe’: 10 Takeaways from New International Climate Change Report
Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse: Article from The Guardian
Part 2: CAPITALISM AND CLIMATE CHANGE
(Don’t mourn organize! These are the main readings, start with the first one, or chose whichever you would prefer!)
What it Will Take: Ch.27 Beyond Capitalism by Carol Dansereau
A good place to start: a general introduction to why socialism is the only answer to the climate crisis
Introduction and First Chapter of Red Green Revolution by Victor Wallis
A deeper dive into the concepts of ecosocialism
Part 3: ON THE GREEN NEW DEAL
Climate Change Is Class Struggle by Matt Huber
A review of On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal by Naomi Klein that highlights the need for class struggle in the fight for the Green New Deal
2021 DSA Convention: Decade of the Green New Deal: Planetary Crisis and Socialist Power
69278
Sep
3
Fri
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYwKCKZvC270piELHNDhnJ5zaxQ1-SoVcIlGihiAZF1f53gQ/viewform
The Struggle for People’s Park is a 2-unit student-led class offered to UC Berkeley Students during the Fall 2021 semester under the Democratic Education at Cal (DeCal) program.
You may apply by clicking the “take my class” button above.
Note: Grading will be based on a pass/fail framework depending on the participation and development designs regarding People’s Park.
For more information and updates, please contact our student facilitator, Aidan Hill at hillae@berkeley.edu
69271
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