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Marissa Alexander, mother of 3, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison, after firing a single warning shot into the wall to stop her husband from attacking her. She was prosecuted by the same attorney that initially refused to prosecute the murderer of Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and was ironically denied protection under the Stand Your Ground law because she didn’t run away, but stood her ground instead.
It’s not just Florida, it’s everywhere in America. The foundations of these systems that govern are bigoted; they are built broken so they can break us.
We won’t stop, can’t stop, until prisons are emptied of women defending themselves from violence, of black and brown people, and of poor people. We will fight for Marissa, we will fight to defend ourselves, and we will fight for liberation!
Free Marissa Alexander – Oakland.
Let’s return to Wells Fargo CEO/President’s $5 million penthouse home to let him know that if our friends can’t go home due to Wells Fargo evictions, then he shouldn’t be able to go home either.
The Occupy the Auctions / Evictions campaign demands an immediate bank moratorium on all predatory or for-profit evictions or foreclosures of the 99% and a halt to all for-profit foreclosure auctions and evictions.
Come help out!
Speakers: Michael Thurman of Courage to Resist, Elazar Friedman of the Oscar Grant Committee.
Discussion:
The importance of Bradley Manning’s and Julian Assange’s cases. Updates, film clips.
The need for a united front. Comparison of charges of treason to US corporate elite’s
wartime trading with Nazi Germany.
Q&A with extensive audience participation.
July 24, 2008 marks the last minimum wage increase in California.
While the cost of our basic needs–rent, groceries, healthcare, daycare, and gas–continue to increase, the minimum wage has remained at $8/hr for 5 years!
The City of Berkeley is considering a city-wide minimum wage increase, but opponents say that Berkeley workers don’t need a wage increase, and that those who work in the restaurant industry should be excluded if any increase does take effect.
No one who works hard should be living in poverty. We’re fighting to raise the floor for our lowest paid workers and to keep good paying, middle class jobs that allow us to support our families.
JOIN US! RALLY AND MARCH FOR THE MINIMUM WAGE!
5PM: Rally and March at Downtown Berkeley BART station
7PM: Berkeley Labor Commission meeting
North Berkeley Senior center – 1901 Hearst
Facebook
Initiating organizations: EBASE & FAME; Restaurant Opportunities Center; SEIU 1021; SEIU ULTCW; Unite Here 2850; ATU 1555; Our Walmart; Raise the Wage East Bay (RWEB); ACCE
Join us for a letter-writing, open mic, and live art night in solidarity with the prisoners on hunger strike. Bring your energy and your passion, and use your creativity to help build and grow in power together. Set your words and your vision down on paper in response to issues that affect us on a daily basis: racism, police brutality, and imprisonment of our friends and loved ones.
We will be mailing our pieces to prisoners on hunger strike who continue to respond with immense strength and resilience in the face of increasing deprivation. The representatives of the hunger strike are being subjected to extreme conditions of solitary confinement in Ad Seg and especially need our support and correspondence at this time.
“As the California prison hunger strike enters its 3rd week, reports of retaliation against strikers have increased. Last week it was reported that prison officials had moved at least 14 strikers from the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay to Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg), confiscated confidential legal documents, and forced cold air into their cells. Later in the week, legal advocate Marilyn McMahon and one of her paralegals were summarily banned from visiting any California prison. Reports that strikers have been moved to Ad-Seg or to entirely different facilities have also been coming from Corcoran State Prison. The denial of medical care to strikers, especially those with preexisting health conditions, remains a widespread concern for families and advocates.”
For more information: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
This event is the first in an ongoing series. Supplies will be provided. We’ll see you there!
Come joint us to raise funds for Dr. Alejandro Hurtado, who is studying medicine at the ELAM Medical School in Cuba.
The mission of ELAM is to make competent and cooperative doctors with the degree of MD (doctor of medicine), the same degree which is offered to medical graduates all over the Americas. The Latin American School of Medicine is officially recognized by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) and the World Health Organization. It is fully accredited by the Medical Board of California, which has the strictest US standards — which means that qualified US graduates of the Latin American School of Medicine are eligible to apply for residency placements in any state of the US.
It is preferred that ELAM students come from the poorest communities with the intent of returning to practice in those areas in their countries. Initially only enrolling students from Latin America and the Caribbean, the school has become open to applicants from impoverished and/or medically underserved areas in the United States and Africa.
Preference is given to applicants who are financially needy and/or people of color who show the most commitment to working in their poor communities.
Please bring items which can be hard to obtain in Cuba like dental floss (not readily available), vitamins, study snacks like power bars & jerky, and the like.
$15 Minimum Suggested Donation, no one turned away for lack of funds.
It is an “EMERGENCY SITUATION! WE HAVE TO KICK OUR SUPPORT OF THE HUNGER STRIKERS TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL!”
Meet us at MacArthur BART at 7:30 am for a day in Sarcramento – Speaking out, leafletting, rallying, banner-ing, and going out to the people. CALL US (510-926-5207). Facebook.
Statement by the Hunger Strikers.
Greetings of solidarity and respect to all of our supporters, all people of conscience around the world, and all similarly situated prisoners. You should know that once again our peaceful protest is making history, bringing international attention to our collective efforts to bring an end, once and for all, to the inhumane conditions and torture of indefinite solitary confinement.
We are being tortured each day by state officials (Governor Brown, his appointee CDCR Secretary Beard, and all his underlings). Increased retaliation has been perpetuated upon defenseless and starving prisoners who only seek what any human being strives for—humane treatment, dignity, equality, and justice for our families, loved ones, and ourselves. These are the fundamental rights of all people, including those incarcerated by the state. We are doing all we can, together with our outside supporters, to bring about a positive changes. Gov. Brown is not above the will of the people of California, and if he refuses to recognize the legitimacy of our human and civil rights struggle against the practices of this prison system, then it is the responsibility of the federal government and President Obama to use their powers to stop the harm being done to thousands of prisoners being held in solitary confinement.
CDCR officials are attempting to undermine the voluntary actions of prisoners who truly want better treatment and living conditions by wrongfully accusing us of forcing tens-of-thousands of prisoners across California, along with our supporters in the free world, to participate in our protest. Prisoners across the state are participating because of the inhumane conditions they are being subjected to. As HUMAN BEINGS prisoners are collectively resisting such treatment, and they are doing so peacefully. The attempted repression of our protest has not broken our spirits. In fact it has only helped to strengthen each of us—individually and collectively. Despite CDCR’s retaliations and propaganda, we remain steadfast in our commitment. We will see our peaceful hunger strike through to victory, even if this requires us to endure the torture of force-feeding. We believe at this point in our struggle we are prepared to do what is necessary in order for Gov. Brown and the CDCR to realize how serious we are, and how far and long we are willing to go to have our reasonable demands implemented.
We are hopeful that all those brave men and women across the state who are participating in this strike—all who are able health-wise—will be encouraged to issue public statements of their own, via media outlets across the country, letting the world know why they have taken part in this historic, collective struggle.
In closing, we want to inform the world that this hunger strike is far from over. We are in it for the long haul. Thus, we strongly urge Gov. Brown to return from his “get-away” vacation overseas and deal urgently with this crisis before more prisoners suffer serious health damage or death. If any deaths do occur, the responsibility for them will fall squarely on Brown and the CDCR in their callousness and inaction.
We believe that we will prevail.
In Solidarity,
PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Representatives
– Todd Ashker, C-58191, PBSP-SHU, D4-121
– Arturo Castellanos, C-17275, PBSP-SHU, D1-121
– Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (Dewberry), C-35671, PBSP-SHU,D1-117
– Antonio Guillen, P-81948, PBSP-SHU, D2-106
The ONYX Organizing Committee, Advance the Struggle, People’s Community Medics, the Kenneth Harding Jr. Foundation, the Justice for Alan Blueford Coalition, Workers World, The Oscar Grant Foundation, Young Oakland, Healthy Hoodz and East Bay ISO call on the people to keep the pressure on the state. Not just for Trayvon but for ALL of the young Black and Brown lives that have been stolen by the state! We Need to STAY in these Streets!!!!!
Oscar Grant Committee Forum Series
The War on Terror and the Attack on Civil Liberties
Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library6501 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland, CA
Friday, July 26, 2013
7 PM
The fraudulent “War on Terror” is linked to heightened domestic police
repression and surveillance of millions of US citizens. All this is part of the US
Government’s attempt to criminalize social justice activism. The Boston Bombing, and
the locking down of an entire city under martial law, will be analyzed in depth as we
figure out what’s coming our way in the near future. The methods used by Obama’s
administration was a trial balloon to test the American people’s resolve to resist such
a massive unwarranted response.
Recently the FBI ratcheted up their war against the American people by
cynically designating Assata Shakur as a terrorist, and as part of the rationalization
for increasing the bounty on her head to $2,000,000.
The Oscar Grant Committee invites you to attend this forum.
A Rally in Direct Defense of our Post Office!
Our heritage is being auctioned off to privateers, as austerity and Congressional mandates squeeze the US Postal Service to the point of breaking. The same forces that want to privatize Social Security and prisons are now in the process of selling off Post Offices across the United States.
Come help save the Berkeley Post Office and send a message across the United States that our Post Offices – jobs, services, buildings and history – are worth saving!
– Starting at 1:00 pm at 2000 Allston Way (1 block from Berkeley BART), with speakers, music and dance, street theater, public forums, and a Birthday Cake to celebrate the founding of the Post Office in July 1775.
– We need everyone’s help to mount a defense that cannot be ignored.
– National Weekend of Action to save the Post Office, including actions at threatened post offices in the Bronx, New York; Portland, Oregon; Berkeley; Tacoma, Washington; and at the Southern Calif. offices of Rep. Darrell Issa, who’s leading the Congressional effort to dismantle and privatize the Post Office.
Help plan and run this event: Come to the organizing meeting. We need everyone’s help
Sponsored by: Direct Defense Action Team to Save the Berkeley Post Office in coalition with Strike Debt Bay Area.
PhatBeets web site with lots of info.
Share your story. Tell us what a safe, healthy, just North Oakland looks like to you.
• Are you Bogged Down with Debt?
• Getting Calls From Debt Collectors?
• Having Trouble Paying What you Owe?
• Want to Know your Options?
10-11 for English Speakers
11-12 for Spanish Speakers
The workshop will include a presentation about different types of debt and information about your options once you’re behind in payments. It will also give time for you to check in and ask questions to advocates and attorneys.
Call (510) 548-4064 to Reserve your spot now!
We will be discussing Christian Marazzi’s ‘The Violence of Financial Capitalism’ – first two chapters. I put up a free online version on the class blog.
More info. Location map. The entrance is on 22nd St.
Please show up at the City Council meeting at 6:30 PM, July 3oth on the third floor of City Hall, 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland and tell the City Council what YOU think.
Fill out a speaker card on Agenda item 35 so you can let your voice be heard at the City Council meeting.
http://www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/CityClerk/s/SpeakerCard/SpeakerCard/OAK032373
Read more here.
Government Surveillance: Panel & Film Screening
From Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers in 1971 to Edward Snowden’s NSA bombshell in 2013, whistleblowers have risked everything to leak dangerous government secrets.
Explore Government Secrecy, Privacy, and Surveillance with us at The New Parkway Theater next Wednesday, July 31, for an evening panel and film screening.
Panel discussion featuring:
Nicole A. Ozer, Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director, ACLU of Northern California
Cindy Cohn, Legal Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Judith Ehrlich, Director, Writer, Producer, The Most Dangerous Man in America
Moderated by Declan McCullagh, Chief Political Correspondent, Senior Writer, CNET
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers is the true story of what happens when a former Pentagon insider, Daniel Ellsberg, armed only with his conscience, steadfast determination, and a file cabinet full of classified documents, decides to challenge an “Imperial” Presidency – answerable to neither Congress, the press nor the people – in order to help end the Vietnam War.
Admission is free, but space is limited. RSVP is required for entry.
When: July 31, 2013 (5:30 – 8:30 p.m.) Doors open at 5:30, panel begins at 6:15, followed by the film screening at 7. Food and drink purchases available.
Send a message to Attorney General Eric Holder and Bureau of Prisons Director Charles Samuels Jr. that Lynne deserves compassionate release!
Long-time National Lawyers Guild member and activist lawyer Lynne Stewart needs our help and she needs it now! The Federal Bureau of Prisons has denied Lynne Stewart’s application for compassionate release, despite recommendations in favor from the warden at her facility, the Regional Office Director, and vetting of Stewart’s release plans by the Federal Probation Office in New York.
Lynne Stewart’s condition is deteriorating rapidly. Medical treatment to arrest the cancer that is metastasizing in her body has been halted because she is too weak to receive it. She remains in isolation, as her white blood cell count is so low that she is at risk for generalized infection.
For over 30 years, Lynne Stewart devoted her life to the oppressed – a constant advocate for the countless many deprived in the United States of their freedom and their rights. She, herself, was targeted and prosecuted because she defended vigorously her unpopular clients – people the U.S. government sought to execute, disappear, and demonize.
In 2006, Lynne Stewart was sentenced to 28-months. In 2009, she was resentenced to 10 years in federal prison in response to the vindictive dictates of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In the fall, the Supreme Court will consider her Certiorari petition on the basis of both Lynne’s and her client’s first amendment rights.
Lynne Stewart’s prosecution and continued imprisonment are an attempt to intimidate all attorneys who would represent unpopular clients, particularly those accused of being terrorists. It is a message to those of us in the legal community who understand how important it is that everyone accused of a crime, especially those accused of the most serious crimes, have a capable attorney both able and willing to zealously defend them.
When BART workers went on strike July 1, the whole Bay Area was affected. BART hired a major union buster to put the workers on strike, then blame the workers in a highly visible battle to bring Wisconsin-style attacks to the Bay Area and drive down living standards for all of us. The 30-day contract extension expires Sunday, August 4 at midnight, yet BART management still refuses to negotiate, likely forcing the workers out again starting Monday, August 5.
BART workers represented by ATU 1555 and SEIU 1021 invite all workers to stand up against Wisconsin-style attacks in the Bay Area on Thursday, August 1 at 5pm at Frank Ogawa Plaza (Oscar Grant Plaza).
Join Justice 4 Alan Blueford Coalition members calling attention to the fate of Alan Blueford, murdered by Oakland Police Officer Miguel Masso, and all those who have suffered similar fates.
The Interfaith Tent will once again be handing out fliers, talking with people, and reading the names of those killed by police on August 2nd @ OPD Headquarters on 7th and Broadway.
We will then walk up Broadway and Telegraph, towards First Friday, talking with people as we go. At previous events this was very effective. Our “Stop Police Violence” signs made people want to talk with us.