Let’s JOIN HANDS in a circle ALL the way around 3.4 miles of Lake Merritt- to stand up against racism, sexism, homophobia, and Islamophobia!
This is a peaceful joining together to honor our community, the values we stand for, and our resilience as a nation.
As Hilary Clinton said today, “Our constitution enshrines – the rule of law, the principal that we’re all equal in rights and dignity, and the freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these things and must defend them.”
Let’s join together as a community!
Can we make an entire circle around the lake, holding hands?!
Please join me and SHARE this with as many people as you can.
The meeting location is below- but hopefully our circle will grow!
Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK and the co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange. She has been an advocate for social justice for more than 40 years. Described as “one of America’s most committed — and most effective — fighters for human rights” by New York Newsday, and “one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement” by the Los Angeles Times, she was one of 1,000 exemplary women from 140 countries nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the millions of women who do the essential work of peace worldwide.
At this event she will discuss her latest book:
Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection.
Co-sponsored by Friendly Favors
FREE for Students / Half price for MTDPC Members.
PRE-REGISTER at link
Please come out to support folks who got arrested in the streets on protesting the election. MONDAY and TUESDAY 9am Monday morning at Wiley Manuel Dept 112.
What are the disproportionate impacts of climate change on households most at risk, including people of color, with low incomes, or with disabilities? How can community leaders and agency staff work together to systematize social justice in climate resilience?
Join grassroots leaders from the Resilient Communities Initiative (RCI), and key agency staff from the Office of Planning and Research (OPR), California Department of Public Health, and other agencies in the second joint policy workshop in a series that seeks to identify how communities most at-risk from climate change can move from input to leadership in resilience policies. The workshop will focus on systematizing and funding social justice in climate resilience planning.
The RCI’s first joint policy workshop brought together 90 grassroots community leaders and agency staff to tackle social justice in sea level rise and flooding. Several promising regional joint initiatives between community groups and agencies are emerging as a result. This workshop will focus on other ways climate change impacts the Bay Area.
Key justice and equity issues to be addressed include:
This joint policy workshop is part of the Regional Resilient Leadership Academy series presented by the Resilient Communities Initiative to bring grassroots community leaders most impacted by climate change together with key governmental staff to build long-term partnerships.
Dinner provided, and complimentary translation services and childcare available upon request — see registration page for details.
Special thanks to the Kresge Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, and Marin Community Foundation for supporting the Regional Resilience Leadership Academy Policy Workshop Series.
OccupyForum is proud to once again host Deni Leonard who will speak about Standing Rock, the general history of Tribal Governments’ relationship with the U.S. Federal Government, and issues which are present today.
Biography of Deni Leonard: Served as National Chairman of the G.I. Alliance which directed the protests at the U.S. Army Bases around the U.S. and territories. While in the U.S. Army, closed down the Presidio Stockade, occupied Fort Lawton Army base in Seattle, Washington, and organized protests around the country. Testified at the Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit to describe my experience at the Presidio Stockade and met David Dillinger, John Kerry, Donald Sutherlin and several members of the Chicago 7.
Served as a National Consultant to the U.S. Commission On Civil Rights and investigated the Pine Ridge election between Dick Wilson and Russell Means, investigated racial discrimination on the Navajo Reservation and organized a national civil rights hearing. Served on the Oregon State U.S. Commission On Civil Rights Committee and served as the first Executive Director of the Oregon Human Rights Commission.
Stood with the Traditional Leaders on reservations and brought strategies to protect them from progressive Tribal Leaders that supported the Bureau of India Affairs. Keynote Speaker at National Tribal organizational conferences, NCAI, National Indian Gaming Association and International Gaming Association about using municipal bonds to fund their projects.
Announcements will follow. Donations to OccupyForum
to cover our costs are encouraged; no one turned away.
Please come out to support folks who got arrested in the streets on protesting the election. MONDAY and TUESDAY 9am Monday morning at Wiley Manuel Dept 112.
Join us on Tuesday, November 15 for a solidarity action and rally at the Citibank Branch office in Albany at 1377 Solano Avenue at 4 pm calling on them to revoke the funding for this dirty oil pipeline.
The Army Corps fast-tracked the Dakota Access Pipeline without proper consultation, and as a result, bulldozers are approaching Standing Rock as we speak. But with coordinated, massive demonstrations across the country, we’ll make it clear that this powerful movement will not allow the Obama administration or the incoming President to sacrifice Indigenous rights, our water, or our climate – they must reject this pipeline.
This day of action is one of many calls for solidarity actions targeting not only the Army Corps, but stakeholders at every level — including the banks who are funding Dakota Access and the companies building the project.
Please bring art and banners — and be sure to share on social media with #NoDAPL. Some sample messages for art include:
* People over Pipelines
* #NoDAPL
* In Solidarity with Standing Rock
* Obama: Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline
KPFA Radio 94.1FM and Code Pink present:
The co-founder of Code Pink and Global Exchange courageously explores the curious relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, a country long infamous for brutally repressing women and dissidents, supporting terrorists worldwide, and promoting Wahhabism, the most extreme interpretation of Islam.
Assuming you live in the United States, you should be aware of how much effort your government puts into facilitating and defending the crimes of Saudi Arabia. The Saud royal family keeps millions desperately poor. They send religion police around to beat the hell out of people, while they themselves party all over the globe with alcohol, cocaine, prostitutes, and gambling. Most religions are banned; you can be imprisoned, tortured, mutilated, or beheaded simply for being a follower of another religion.
With U.S. support, Saudi Arabia manages to be both the only nation that bans all churches and any non-Muslim religious building, and the leading proponent of global terrorism. In fact, Saudi Arabia spends three times as much per person as the U.S. does on its military, and it spends the biggest chunk of it buying weapons from U.S. profiteers. As the U.S. State Department is well aware, there are no civil liberties in Saudi Arabia. People are jailed, whipped, and killed for speaking out. Saudi Arabia didn’t ban slavery until 1962 and maintains a labor system referred to as “a culture of slavery.” Saudi schools have helped to create branches of Al Qaeda and other extremist groups across Western Asia and Northern Africa at least since the joint U.S.-Saudi operation in Afghanistan that created the Taliban, not to mention the Saudi role in Iran-Contra, in Boko Haram in Nigeria, in Yemen, in Syria and in Europe. — Excerpted from Counterpoint
Medea Benjamin is one of America’s best-known activists. She is the author of Drone Warfare, and the recipient of the 2012 U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation’s Peace Prize.
Kevin Pina is an American journalist, filmmaker and educator. Pina also serves as a Country Expert on Haiti for the Varieties of Democracy project sponsored by the University of Notre Dame. In addition, he is one of the producers of KPFA’s Flashpoints, which airs weekdays.
KPFA benefit
Advance tickets: $12 : brownpapertickets.com :: T: 800-838- 3006
or Books Inc, Pegasus (3 sites), Moe’s, Walden Pond Bookstore, Diesel a Bookstore, Mrs. Dalloway’s
S.F. – Modern Times. $15 door
Please come out to support folks who got arrested in the streets on protesting the election. MONDAY and TUESDAY 9am Monday morning at Wiley Manuel Dept 112.
We need to make our voices heard! It looks like we can no longer count on next spring’s scheduled vote by the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) on our proposal to set strict limits on pollution from oil refineries—greenhouse gases, toxic gases (NOx and SOx), and dangerous particulate matter. This proposed regulation would stop oil refineries from increasing the amount of pollution they emit, and it will be in trouble unless we turn things around.
Emission caps are crucial not only for protecting our health and safety and the planet, but for preventing the Bay Area from becoming a major outlet for tar sands crude oil. Refining tar sands crude produces much higher levels of both health-harming air pollution and greenhouse gases. With a cap on refinery emissions in place, a tsunami of tar sands into Bay Area refineries could be effectively prevented.
But without intensive public pressure, staff will continue its delay-divert-obstruct-and-kill mode. What should be a public, transparent and democratic process is increasingly being carried out in secret sessions. In these closed meetings, Air District staff continues to argue that the emissions caps are not legal. And it has abandoned its original commitment to a community-based forum in Richmond, where frontline community members were to have weighed in on inclusion of an emissions cap in Rule 12-16. (By contrast, the staff will hold six widely publicized community forums on its alternative Rule 11-18 for reducing health risks from pollutants.) Instead of the promised forum on Rule 12-16, staff is offering two “scoping” meetings for comments on the technical scope of the Environmental Impact Report.
It is critical that we show up for the November 16 Board of Directors meeting. We must demand that our elected representatives on the Board prevent further staff obstructions.
We strongly encourage all public health professionals and all other concerned citizens to attend this hearing. We misjudged the need for turnout at October’s Board meeting: the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) turned out over 20 professional refinery staff, and we had only two speakers. The Board pays close attention to public comments, and our strong presence at meetings keeps them on track.
For individuals and organizations desiring to make detailed comments on the rule-making process, please note the December 2nd deadline.
To ensure that the Board doesn’t fall further behind—and votes YES on the proposal next May—we are mobilizing a grassroots campaign in the entire nine-county Bay Area to encourage city councils to pass resolutions supporting caps on refinery emissions.
Thus far the city councils of Belmont, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Emeryville, Oakland, Richmond, San Pablo, San Rafael and San Francisco have endorsed our call for rapid completion of rules for emission caps! This is citizen democracy at its most basic: community residents stepping up to demand their elected representatives act to protect their health and safety. It will take a majority of the 24-member Board of Directors of BAAQMD to vote and pass the regulation limiting refinery emissions.
Gathering support resolutions from city councils and other elected bodies in their districts is the best way to make sure that Air District Board members do their job and protect our communities. Dozens of elected bodies remain to be contacted. We need members of all communities to bring this resolution to their local elected bodies. Join us at our bi-monthly meetings! Contact: sunflowerjsj at gmail.com .
First and third Thursdays of every month, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Bobby Bowens Progressive Center
2540 Macdonald Ave., Richmond
For more information about the Community-Worker Proposal, the draft resolution, and a support letter from United Steel Workers Local 5 (which represents 80% of Bay Area refinery workers), check out these documents:
Model BAAQMD resolution Aug 2016
Full Community-Worker Proposal
Four years. Endless meetings. Hundreds, if not thousands of public comments. And finally last June, overcoming opposition by BAAQMD staff, the Board of Directors unanimously voted to set a date, May 2017, to vote on the Community-Worker proposal to cap refinery emissions at their current level.
But there was a catch. The caps proposal was paired with a staff proposal for a massive program to reduce emissions at all industrial facilities. That’s a worthy goal, but the process could take up to ten years. Unless refinery emissions are capped at their current level, air pollution could rise disastrously while that lengthy process goes on.
The staff proposal was another effort by the BAAQMD bureaucracy to delay and divert attention from our caps proposal. The staff counter-proposed a plan to do a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) on all industrial sources of pollution. This means doing a detailed analysis of the potential health impacts of various amounts of each chemical in the pollution emitted by every industrial facility in the Bay Area.
The positive aspect of the staff proposal is that it would set a stricter standard for protecting health. A Health Risk Assessment (HRA) calculates how many deaths per million would be caused by exposure to different amounts of each chemical. The current standard is that exposure should not cause more than 100 deaths per million people. The new rules would bring this down, first to 25 deaths per million and then to 10 deaths per million—among the strictest levels in the nation. Industrial facilities would be required to install “Best Available Retrofit Control Technology” to bring their emissions down to these levels.
However, the entire process—doing an extensive HRA, determining and agreeing on needed retrofits, installing them, demonstrating their efficacy, remediating retrofits that don’t achieve necessary goals—could easily take five to ten years or even longer. Moreover, this process must be done on a case-by-case basis for thousands of individual industrial pollution sources. Without a cap in place, refinery emissions will inevitably increase during these extended studies.
BAAQMD Staff continues to oppose the refinery emissions cap, supporting the fossil-fuel industry’s false claims that:
The board set a specific schedule for the work on the two proposals:
Release of the NOP for the EIR is already two three months late!
The Board has committed to monitor progress. It agreed to separate the two rules, as we have been demanding all along, if combining the two regulations were to delay adoption of the emissions cap.
(Note: The significance of the August 19, 2016 date is that regardless of the final completion date, this sets the reference point used to calculate the current refinery emissions baseline.)
In addition to delaying tactics from its own staff, the Air District Board faces strong opposition from the Western States Petroleum Association and other oil industry groups. Without intensive public pressure, the Board could give in to pressure from Big Oil for more delay, and reject this critical proposal when it comes up for a vote.
This is why a coalition of organizations—including the Sierra Club, Communities for a Better Environment, Sunflower Alliance, 350 Bay Area, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Richmond Progressive Alliance, and others—have launched this major grassroots campaign to let the Bay Area Air Quality Management District know: The people of the Bay Area demand caps on pollution from oil refineries!
[Event] Meeting Video 5 Years After Fukushima & US Bases and War In And On Okinawa https://t.co/bAS0uDusTs
— Indybay (@Indybay) November 8, 2016
JOIN CODEPINK, WORLD CAN’T WAIT, OCCUPYSF Action Council and others at the huge PEACE banner
Theme this week is: “REFUGEES…”
Feel free to bring your own signage, photos, flyers, …Additional signs and flyers provided.
Stand (or sit) with us and the huge PEACE banner.
Noura will speak about “From Occupation to Warfare: How Israel Expanded its use of Force and Diminished Palestinian Resistance.”
With Special Guest Palestinian musician Yara Mubarak
Tickets: $10 low income, $15 general, $25 supporter, $50 freedom fighter, $100 change-maker!
NOURA ERAKAT is a human rights attorney, activist, and Assistant Professor at George Mason University. She is a Co-Founding Editor of Jadaliyya, an ezine on the Middle East and an Editorial Committee member of the Journal of Palestine Studies. While an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, Noura helped launch the first university divestment campaign in 2001. Upon graduating from Berkeley Law School, she helped seed BDS campaigns throughout the country as the National Organizer with the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
Noura has served as Legal Counsel to a Congressional Subcommittee in the House of Representatives as well as the Legal Advocacy Officer for the BADIL Resource Center for Refugee and Residency Rights. Most recently, she released a short multimedia documentary, Gaza In Context, that rehabilitates Israel’s wars on Gaza within a settler-colonial framework. She also produced the short video, Black Palestinian Solidarity. Currently Noura is writing a book tentatively titled, Law as Politics in the Palestinian-Israel Conflict.
Benefit for the Middle East Children’s Alliance, wheelchair accessible.
$10.00 – $100.00, sliding scale.
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Come stand with the mothers of murdered children and family members from 12:00 – 2:00 every Friday
to pressure District Atty George Gascon to charge killer SFPD cops with murder
who executed Mario Woods, Jessica Nelson, Luis Gongora Pat, Alex Nieto, and all the rest.
Bring signs! STOP POLICE MURDER!
We have signs that say “Mario Woods is our Son”, and signs for each one murdered.
Please find the box of signs and “Say Their Names” for the Media.
James “Nate” Greer was killed by Hayward and BART Police on May 23, 2014. Please support us in love and solidarity for our fight for his justice at a rally and candle light vigil on Friday November 18, @ 5:00 pm. We will all meet outside the Lake Merritt Bart Station in Oakland.
We welcome other coalitions, families and activists to share their stories as well and memorialize the loss of their loved ones, who were killed by police. Feel free to bring posters, banners. We are all in this fight together
Same rules apply: This is a peaceful event
For more info on the wrongful death of James Nate Greer, please follow us at
https://www.facebook.com/
Free thanksgiving meals for the community this Sat. Spread the word for those who might need it! @LibbySchaaf @Abel_Guillen @Kaplan4Oakland pic.twitter.com/NMR9GenItT
— Oak Life Church (@oaklifechurch) November 15, 2016
There is just under a week left before the No New SF Jail Coalition’s upcoming town hall on our next steps towards a jail-free city.
On December 1st, the SF Board of Supervisors will review a series of proposals put forth by the city’s work group on alternatives to the jail at 850 Bryant. Though we successfully advanced recommendations of bail reform, supportive housing and services, we will need to keep up the pressure in order to move the city away from its reliance on jails.
While we have a lot of ideas to uplift, we also need to stay vigilant against efforts to re-entrench jailing and policing as solutions to unmet needs in our communities.
On Saturday, we’ll present the concrete steps behind our vision, which we’ve also published in tools like 8 Steps to a Jail-Free San Francisco and the San Francisco Community Health Initiative. This will be your chance to learn how you can get involved in the next steps of this city-wide fight.
We hope you can make it!
Lunch will be provided.
If you would like Spanish interpretation at the Town Hall, please email us at nosfjail@curbprisonpending.org and we will be sure to provide it.
See you there!
