In the last year, California has accomplished major gains for agricultural workers, from the new overtime pay law to innovative farm labor certification programs. At the same time, however, agricultural workers and their families are facing extreme threats from federal immigration policies and policing, and a heightened culture of fear. What efforts are underway to address the problems and develop solutions?

Farmworker, business, policy, and research leaders will share on-the-ground perspectives on the current farm labor landscape in California. As the state with the highest number of agricultural workers, 75% of whom are immigrants, we will explore how California can lead the nation in providing healthy, safe, just, and equitable working conditions and how engaged community members can support these efforts.
Speakers:

Luis Alejo, Monterey County Supervisor and Former State Assemblyman, 30th District

Christy Getz, Associate Cooperative Extension Specialist, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, UC Berkeley

Chad Sokol, Dry Grocery and Commodity Buyer, Costco Bay Area Region

Mily Trevino Sauceda, Co-founder, Líderes Campesinas

Moderated by: Maria Echaveste, Senior Fellow, Center for Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley

Opening theatrical presentation, or teatro, by members of Líderes Campesinas.

Come on down to our @DSAEastBay party tonight at Spats on Berkeley! You can also wish me an early birthday https://t.co/FiBotRJt4i pic.twitter.com/XhzVi6lUkW

— TimeCrime (@prosperdave) April 13, 2017

Ecumenical Peace Institute and the Livermore Conversion Project will offer a service of worship and nonviolent witness against nuclear weapons.

Martin Luther King gave his “Beyond Vietnam” speech 50 years ago this spring. We ask, “Where would Dr. King be today?” We believe Dr. King’s spirit is with us at the Livermore Lab where new nuclear weapons continue to be designed, saying once again, “In a day when . . . guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can win a war. Today it is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence; it is either nonviolence or nonexistence.”

Our main speakers will be Francisco and Christina Herrera. The service contains elements from Christian and other traditions. In Christian tradition, April 14 this year is Good Friday, the day on which we remember the crucifixion of Jesus.

The service begins at 6:45 am. We start early, so that we can be visible to commuters who are coming to work at Livermore Lab. We meet at the corner of South Vasco Road and Patterson Pass Road; this is about 2 miles south of I-580. The event is wheelchair accessible, and we meet rain or shine.

Following the witness at the gate, there will be a community gathering at nearby Asbury United Methodist Church to share our work and vision. Light refreshments will be served.

Speakers include Joanna Macy, Antonia Juhasz, Donald Goldmacher, “Heist” film, co-founder Berkeley Progressive Alliance; Shahid Buttar, Electronic Frontier Foundation; Mike Rufo, Bill of Rights Defense Committee; Rev. Earl Koteen, Sunflower Alliance; Mike Katz-Lacabe, Oakland Privacy Working Group; Michael Wong, Veterans for Peace; Susan Harman, Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland; Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley Cares; 350.org Bay Area; April 29 Climate Mobilization; Codepink Women for Peace; Indivisible Berkeley; Diablo Rising Tide, and more!
Music: Lydia Violet (tentative), Betsy Rose, Mike Rufo, Francis Collins, more!

An evening for conscious activists, organizers, musicians, writers, poets, artists, thinkers who work for justice, peace, the future. The concept for “Active Hope” events is meeting outside our ‘silo’ issues – seeing common threads, connecting the dots, drawing from each other the inspiration and courage to act. We will again bring multi-issue activists and organizers together to hear, speak, network, collaborate, strategize. Groups will present briefly across the activist spectrum— environment, social justice, civil liberties, peace and anti-militarism, health care, education, jobs, immigration, and more– all with an emphasis on action opportunities.

Codepink Women for Peace, Golden Gate Chapter

Blueprints for Our Future
Emergency California Education Conference

Let’s Fight for Free Public Education For All Students, Faculty and Staff

A strong public education system is the foundation of every just and democratic society. Yet for most working families—especially those from black and brown communities—the right to free, high-quality education seems further than ever: preschool is inaccessible to children whose parents can’t afford it; k-12 schools are starved of resources while the imposition of high-stakes tests penalizes low-income districts and the explosion of charters exacerbates segregation and inequality; college and graduate students are drowning in debt as tuition at the UC and CSU systems continues to rise; black and brown students are terrorized by police violence, constant raids, and ongoing deportations; LGBTQI students are brutally bullied for their sexual and gender identity; and most students are delivered an education that does not embrace their histories and experiences, and does not educate them for liberation.

Moreover, education workers are under attack, as universities insist on replacing tenure and tenure-track positions with precarious, contingent jobs and the prospect of right-to-work legislation threatens to weaken teachers’ unions, thereby undermining their working conditions and ability to advocate for themselves and their students. Now billionaire and privatization lobbyist Betsy DeVos begins her tenure as Secretary of Education, and she is planning to escalate the oppression and corporatization of the current education system.

For us, it’s time to propose another path: if we tax corporations and billionaires in our state, and if we get students and teachers to democratically run their schools, we can bring about the kind of education system we need. We must build a mass movement that can fight for our education and we must organize it democratically and independently from the Republican and the Democratic parties so we rely on our power and have the final say on what our students and teachers deserve.

To this end, we call on all California students, parents, and education workers to join us in building a collective vision and strategy for transforming public education, and to participate in the May 1st General Strike to defend immigrant and workers’ rights, and to defeat privatization and right-to-work legislation. We need a system that guarantees free, high-quality education from preschool to doctoral degrees as a universal right; provides just working conditions for all teachers and education employees; and centers the needs of our most vulnerable and marginalized students while openly combating racism, islamophobia, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression. It’s time to go on the offensive. Our students and education labor unions have a key role to play and we must unite across sectors and build power through independent, grassroots action!

At the Emergency California Education Conference we will:

• Discuss the multiple factors that have led to the current crisis at all levels of public education.

• Hold teach-ins and workshops on how to build collective power in our education workers’ unions and schools.

• Discuss strategies for taking action, in particular labor action (including May 1st), to fight privatization and build an education system that gives all people a future worth fighting for!

WE ARE ACCEPTING WORKSHOP PROPOSALS UNTIL APRIL 1: we encourage facilitators to submit workshop proposals on specific aspects of the education crisis, educational activism, and/or visions for the future of public education.
To submit a workshop proposal, please indicate your interest in the form below, and follow up by emailing your proposal to ever.upward.march@gmail.com with the subject header [Your Last Name] Conference Proposal!
Your proposal should be for a workshop of about one hour, and include:

Facilitator(s) name(s)
Title of Workshop
A short blurb about the workshop main idea (2-3 sentences)
A quick outline of your workshop (4-5 sentences)

Please use the survey to RSVP and submit your workshop proposals! While the workshops are open to all who’d like to facilitate, we especially encourage high school students, university students, teachers and education workers, university instructors, and parents to apply. People of color, women and queers, differently abled folks, immigrants, and the working class to the front!

RSVP AND FIND DIRECTIONS TO SUBMIT YOUR WORKSHOP PROPOSALS HERE: https://goo.gl/forms/vIpBMmUx2thFxh0v1

The “Alt-Right” is coming back to Berkeley…

DEFEND THE BAY
BLOC PARTY & COOKOUT

Trump supporters, white supremacists, fascists and bigots of many varieties are planning a rally in MLK Civic Center Park on April 15th. Let’s show them there is no space for racism or fascism here in the Bay!

Come connect with other like-minded folks. Enjoy food, music, speakers and more. Bring food to share if you can!

***To help protect yourself from the alt-right and the state, bring a mask or other way to conceal your identity and bring your friends to have each other’s backs.***

For more helpful information on staying safe and secure check out the following links:
https://itsgoingdown.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/message-in-a-bottle.pdf
https://mtlcounter-info.org/en/staying-safer-in-the-streets/

Critical Resistance- Oakland is pleased to offer “Intro to the Prison Industrial Complex and Abolition” for K-12 Educators.* Organizing to get police out of your school? Working on responses to harm in the classroom and staffroom that do not involve criminalization? Want a curriculum that creates possibilities to imagine and build a world without prisons and borders? Building to protect students and families from immigration enforcement (ICE)?

This workshop will provide a space for educators to dig into CR’s analysis of the prison industrial complex (PIC) and identify practical and strategic ways to begin integrating abolition into their work. This workshop is a followup to a panel event, “Without Walls: Abolition & Rethinking Education,” happening the night before (April 14th, 6 – 8: 30 PM at the Islamic Cultural Center, 1433 Madison St., Oakland, CA 94612).

Need childcare? Let us know by 4/12 please.

*Please note this is a workshop specifically for educators (teachers, school admin, afterschool workers, cultural workers, etc), but this is not a workshop *for K-12 youth themselves.* If you could like a workshop for youth, please email croakland@criticalresistance.org We would want to do well by young people and do our youth-friendly workshop!

Accessibiilty: The Omni Ballroom space is ADA accessible. There is a ramp into the ballroom, as well as a chairlift. Please also come fragrance free if you are able.

Peace Flag raising ceremony, first at Civic Center flagpole at 2180 Milvia Street, corner of Allston Way and then at the flagpole at MLK, Jr. Civic Center Park, 2151 MLK, Jr. Way (between Center Street and Allston Way, across from Old City Hall), Berkeley

With Conscientious Objectors and War Resisters from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars

Bob Meola, Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission, War Resisters League, Courage to Resist

Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist, Chelsea Manning Support Network

Sing along Ain’t Fest [“I Ain’t Marching Anymore, Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around, Down By the Riverside (Ain’t Gonna Study War No More)] with Max Ventura, Hali Hammer, and Nancy Schimmel

Song sheets provided; Ain’t Fest Lyrics links: www.songlyrics.com/phil-ochs/i-ain-t-marching-anymore-lyrics/  www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/j/joan_baez/aint_gonna_let_nobody_turn_me_around.html#! www.metrolyrics.com/down-by-the-riverside-study-war-no-more-lyrics-peter-paul-mary.html

Sponsored by City of Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission

Endorsed by War Resisters League-West and Courage to Resist

What the Health is the groundbreaking follow-up film from the creators of the award-winning documentary Cowspiracy. The film exposes the collusion and corruption in government and big business that is costing us trillions of healthcare dollars, and keeping us sick.

https://youtu.be/Jf44vLndiRM
The event is at the Koret Auditorium, Lower Level and scheduled as followed:
2:00 pm – 2:15 pm Introduction
2:15 pm – 3:45 pm Movie
3:45 pm – 4:45 pm Q&A
4:45 pm – 5:00 pm Raffles

California’s
Medicare for All
Legislation –  SB 562

How does SB 562 provide health care? How can we campaign for SB 562?

Trump and the Republican congress want to gut the Affordable Care Act, privatize Medicare, cut back on Medicaid, and privatize the Veteran’s Administration.

In California, we have the chance to legislate our own health care program that covers everyone, has no co-pays, no deductibles, and no premiums.

SB 562 will remove the insurance industry from our lives.

net

Article deadline is at 3 pm Saturday April 15 and everyone is invited to join the article editing process Saturday 3-6 and Sunday 3-9 pm.

Slingshot is accepting articles, photographs, art, letters, review, etc. for issue #124, to be published in late April, 2017. Email slingshot dot tao dot ca and send your submission as an attachment please. Or you can drop it by and meet us.

Many radical topics are of interest (economics, environment, identity politics, DIY, anti-represssion, resistance, etc.) — we suggest you write about stuff you’re involved with, know about, or are passionate about. Because we only come out every 3-5 months and it takes a while for an article to go from the author to getting distributed, the best Slingshot articles are analysis, not pure news updates.

“TOMORROW” is an upbeat environmental documentary directed and narrated (in English) by actress Melanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds) and activist Cyril Dion. Together, they traveled to 10 countries to visit Permaculture farms, urban agriculture projects, community-owned renewable initiatives. They introduce us to people making a difference in the fields of food, energy, finance, democracy, and education.

French actress and director Mélanie Laurent (starring in Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS), became increasingly aware, shortly after having her first child, of several leading scientists reports stating that man’s environmental impact on the planet had reached a critical stage, which could threaten human life as we know it.

Conscious of the kind of world her son would grow up in, Laurent teamed up with Cyril Dion to make TOMORROW, a documentary about our environmental and social challenges.

The film’s incredible success lies in their choice not to frighten – though the facts are sobering – but to inspire; to go beyond the disaster scenarios, and share concrete solutions as implemented by hundred of communities around the world.

Traveling to ten countries, from the urban farms of Detroit to an English town that mints its own David Bowie currency to encourage local spending, from a completely sustainable village in southern India to the progressive schools of Finland, Laurent and her colleagues introduce viewers to people making a difference in the fields of food, energy, finance, democracy, and education. Their shared ideas and examples make TOMORROW one of the most essential and unexpectedly inspirational viewing experiences of our time.

In French and English with English subtitles

Join us for the Thinking Ahead speaker series with a discussion of Sabeel Rahman’s book, “Democracy Against Domination“, moderated by john a powell, with community organizer Christina Livingston and pollitical scientist Paul Pierson.

Unchecked corporate power is a danger to our way of life. What would a political economy where we all belong look like? What values, institutions, and movement strategies must we develop to achieve this vision in an era of growing inequality and resurgent right-wing populism?

The event will be followed by a reception, with finger food and refreshments. The event is organized with New America California and the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

 Fundraiser backyard party for Oakland Women’s Strike Organizing Collective! *

*- We’re slinging pizza and drinks to raise $ *

*- For those who can’t attend in person, but would still like to contribute, look for @May_Day on Venmo. *

*- Funds raised will go towards the ASL interpreter fees from March 8, t-shirts & screen-printing supplies and food for May Day. *

McCarty AB 1185 Letter to the Journal

Narrated by Liam Neeson, this award-winning, landmark documentary tells the dramatic story of the events that took place in Dublin during Easter Week 1916, when a small group of Irish rebels took on the might of the British Empire.

The film – featuring a combination of rarely-seen archival footage, new segments filmed on location worldwide, and interviews with leading international experts – also uncovers the untold story of the central role Irish Americans played in the lead-up to the rebellion. Although defeated militarily, the men and women of the Easter Rising would wring a moral victory from the jaws of defeat and inspire countless freedom struggles throughout the world – from Ireland to India.

An initiative of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame, this documentary tells the story of the 1916 Easter Rising in a comprehensive way and, for the first time, places these events in their proper historical, political and cultural context as the precursor to an independent Irish state and the disintegration of colonial empires worldwide.

This screening will be a feature-length version of the original 3-part television series.

Doors at 6:30pm, film starts at 7pm. Free snacks and popcorn, as always!

Sheriff Ahern not only continues to cooperate with ICE by notifying ICE on prisoner releases, but he is also the head of the California Sheriffs’ Association, which promotes the same practices. He even signed a letter as the head of their political action committee to support the nomination of arch racist Jeff Sessions for U.S. Attorney General.

Keep the pressure on Ahern to stop cooperating with ICE!
#NotMySheriff #StopICE

Bring your signs and loud voices!
Please contact us if you would like to endorse.