Calendar
Get ready for the Richmond People’s Assembly! The 2018 Richmond People’s Assembly aims to bring a voice to the community, gather neighborhoods together to organize for collective power, and empower residents to engage in political activities that create the change and solutions we need. It’s inspired by the Richmond People’s Convention of 2004, organized by Richmond Progressive Alliance, Just Cause Richmond, ACORN, and others, which drew over 300 people,
The Assembly is sponsored by the Richmond Our Power Coalition, a collection of local community organizations including the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Communities for a Better Environment, and Urban Tilth.
In the weeks leading up to the Assembly, coalition canvassers will go door to door to listen to and take inventory of community members’ needs. Please save the date!
More information on Facebook.
The Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival is an all day, free neighborhood festival that celebrates jazz, America’s classical music and the Black musical tradition that has transcended the U.S. to reach all corners of the globe, and the legacy of Malcolm X, who believed in the self-determination, self-respect and self-defense of Black and oppressed people throughout the world. This event is a celebration of our Third World communities in the San Antonio district and includes music, speakers, community organizations, local arts & crafts vendors, live mural painting and delicious food.
The 19th Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival is May 19th, the actual date of Malcolm’s birthday 🎉🎈
We invite you to support our programs, including the Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival, aimed at strengthening a social justice agenda that advances the vision and voice of the communities we serve. As Malcolm said, “The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
https://www.eastsideartsalliance.org/contact
In California, the face of climate change is fire. So many of us were impacted by the Northern and Southern California wildfires. Now, we’re holding a rally to make the N95 Particulate Respirator Mask into a powerful symbol of climate change. The mask is uncomfortable, it changes the wearer’s face, and more than anything it means that the air surrounding the wearer is no longer safe to breathe.
The megafires California is facing are the result of climate change. Shorter, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers turn formerly healthy forests into kindling. We need to look this problem in the eye and talk about what it means to maintain healthy forests in the face of an unpredictable climate.
Join San Francisco’s first fully masked rally, in Japan Town’s Peace Plaza. Dance, learn from climate scientists, listen to the words of poets, make yourself heard, and wear your mask!
Masks will be provided at the event.
Robert Parry was instrumental in exposing the truth about the Nicaraguan Contras, the Cocaine shipments into the US and Ronald Reagan’s “October Surprise”. For breaking these stories, instead of winning a Pulitzer Prize, he was slowly but surely pushed OUT of mainstream media.
Parry then founded Consortiumnews which continues today as one of the best sources of analysis about international events.
Guest speakers at the event will include:
* Sam Parry, son of Robert
* Joe Lauria, new editor of Consortiumnews
* Natylie Baldwin, contributor to Consortiumnews
* Dennis Bernstein, KPFA Flashpoints
* Norman Solomon, co-author with Robert Parry
* Ann Wright (by video), contributor to Consortiumnews
This event will honor the great journalist Robert Parry and discuss the importance of Consortiumnews going forward.
Tickets are available at the door or in advance via brownpapertickets.com
Sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice Committee.
Panel Description:“Recent school shootings and the ever-recurring instances of police brutality pose acutely the question of gun control today. Should the Left take up the demand for gun control, and if so, how? If not, why not? How is gun control related to the struggle for socialism?”
Panelists:
Gloria La Riva (Party of Socialism & Liberation)
Urzula Wislanka (News & Letters Committees)
K. Khan (International Marxist Tendency)
Please come to our Inequality Seminar on Sunday, 4/29 at 11:00 AM at the OMNI!
Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.
- Presenting debt and inequality related topics at forums, workshops and in radio productions.
Our next seminar/workshop will be on April 29th. Check it out and make sure to come! - Promoting single-payer / Medicare for All to end the plague of medical debt
- money bail reform and fighting modern day debtors’ prisons and exploitative ticketing and fining schemes
- Tiny Homes and other solutions for the homeless.
- Student debt resistance. Check out the Debt Collective, our sister organization
- helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
- Working on debarring US Banks that have been convicted of felonies from municipal contracts, and divesting from the Wall St. banks
- Promoting the concept of Basic Income
- Advocating for Postal banking
- Organizing for public banking in Oakland! We made the first steps happen… now there’s a spinoff group
- Bring your own debt-related project!
If you are new to Strike Debt and want to come early, meet one or two of us and get a briefing on our projects before we dive into our agenda, email us at strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com .
Strike Debt – Principles of Solidarity
Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.
We also oppose debt because it is an instrument of exploitation and political domination. Debt is used to discipline us, deepen existing inequalities, and reinforce racial, gendered, and other social hierarchies. Every Strike Debt action is designed to weaken the institutions that seek to divide us and benefit from our division. As an alternative to this predatory system, Strike Debt advocates a just and sustainable economy, based on mutual aid, common goods, and public affluence.
Strike Debt is committed to the principles and tactics of political autonomy, direct democracy, direct action, creative openness, a culture of solidarity, and commitment to anti-oppressive language and conduct. We struggle for a world without racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression.
Strike Debt holds that we are all debtors, whether or not we have personal loan agreements. Through the manipulation of sovereign and municipal debt, the costs of speculator-driven crises are passed on to all of us. Though different kinds of debt can affect the same household, they are all interconnected, and so all household debtors have a common interest in resisting.
Strike Debt engages in public education about the debt-system to counteract the self-serving myth that finance is too complicated for laypersons to understand. In particular, it urges direct action as a way of stopping the damage caused by the creditor class and their enablers among elected government officials. Direct action empowers those who participate in challenging the debt-system.
Strike Debt holds that we owe the financial institutions nothing, whereas, to our friends, families and communities, we owe everything. In pursuing a long-term strategy for national organizing around this principle, we pledge international solidarity with the growing global movement against debt and austerity.
There’s more to history than you might think!
In two films, Prime Suspects: Who Killed Martin Luther King Jr.? (Court TV, 2000, 37 min.) and Truth At Last: The Assassination of Martin Luther King (James Corbett, 2018, 51 min.), the official story of the murder is convincingly disproved – James Earl Ray did not kill King – through the decades-long work of William F. Pepper, attorney, investigator, and author, an influential friend of Martin King in the last year of his life, and attorney for the King family. Pepper, in his third and final book on King’s 1968 murder, The Plot to Kill King (2017), revealed the disturbing truth with startling and explosive conclusions largely ignored by the media.
A discussion will follow the screening of the films.
Presented by the Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance co-sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice Committee sf911truth.org
Join the Albany Democratic Club for this cautionary tale: And Then They Came For Us (2017), about the fragility of our Democracy during times of crisis. Knowing our history is the first step to ensuring we do not repeat it!
Featuring George Takei and many others who were incar- cerated, and photographs by Dorothea Lange.
Directed by the Peabody Award winners, Abby Ginzberg (Albany resident) and Ken Schneider.
Former Albany Mayor and icon, Jewel Okawachi and her family will be honored during the program.
Includes informal brunch reception
Panel members:
Rev. Deborah Lee: http://
Satsuki Ina: https://
Abby Ginzberg: http://
Trailer: http://vimeo.com/210002629
Event proceeds will be used to promote civic engagement and mobilize voters for 2018!
Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
Kurds in the Eye of the Storm
The Kurdish people — divided among Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran — have found themselves on the frontlines of the fight against ISIS in the aftermath of still more intense wars that had raged around them in all four countries for decades. While being battered by the storm, emerging out of its eye are some pioneering social experiments and some surprising alliances.
Sharat G. Lin, who has visited all of these countries, is a political economist, expert on labor migration, and the Middle East. He is a research fellow and past president at the San Jose Peace and Justice Center, and on the Board of Advisors of the Initiative for Equality (IfE).
Seating is limited, so plan to come early. We start promptly.
FREE – but hat will be passed for donations to NPML
About Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
A weekly discussion series inspired by our respect for the work of Karl Marx and our belief that his work will remain as important for the class struggles of the future as they have been for the past.
For our full schedule, go to icssmarx.org
Labor donated by ICSS volunteers
Please join us for our regular biweekly meeting of the Sunflower Alliance. We’ll discuss ongoing campaigns and plans for the future. Newcomers and old friends welcome — we need your participation and your voice.
Are you excited about housing justice, connecting with neighbors, and building real people-power in West Oakland? Bring a dish or non-alcoholic beverage or just your lovely selves, and of course be sure to bring your ideas for future directions for organizing for housing justice, Medicare for All, and other DSA projects in West Oakland!
Accessibility: The park is wheelchair-accessible.
NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:
occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If for some reason the amphitheater is being used otherwise and/or OGP itself is inaccessible, we will meet at Kaiser Park, right next to the statues, on 19th St. between San Pablo and Telegraph. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)
On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally. Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.
At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.
General Assembly Standard Agenda
Welcome & Introductions
Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
Announcements
(Optional) Discussion Topic
Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.
Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area
San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv
We document current events, make films together, steward an editing suite and share a film equipment library. We also host film screenings, often with local directors, and put on an annual short film festival for independent Bay Area filmmakers. Our goal is to make the digital filmmaking accessible – no overpriced college degree or certificate program required!
We are also a good group to reach out to if you’d like to screen a film at the Omni. We can be reached at [ liberatedlens@lists.riseup.net ].
We usually meet in the basement, unless otherwise noted.
May 21st is the last day to register to vote for the June 5th primary election in California! Please join us for a special rally to share information and resources! Learn about Proposed New Laws that will affect you! Get information on Education and Employment, meet local Employers. Come together as a Community!!
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights | www.ellabakercenter.org | 510.428.3939
REGISTER TO VOTE! MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!!
May 21st is the LAST DAY TO REGISTER to vote for the June 5th primary election in California! Please join us for a special rally to share information and resources!
> Register to vote THAT DAY – We will help!
> Learn about Proposed New Laws that will AFFECT YOU!
> Get information on Education and Employment
> Meet local Employers
> Come together as a Community!!
SPONSORED BY:
Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS)
Californians for Safety and Justic
ACLU
League of Women Voters
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform
Root & Rebound
All Of Us Or None Of Us
Community & Youth Outreach
Legal Services for Prisoners With Children
Berkeley Women Organized for Political Action
Film: Evolution of Organic by Mark Kitchell
(get tickets in advance or be put on guest list!)
The San Francisco showing of Mark’s new film: Evolution of Organic will be at the Roxie this coming Monday, May 21st from 6 pm-9 pm. Rainbow Grocery is sponsoring the event. Appearing will be Bu Nygrens of Veritable Vegetable, Kim Kaput of Rainbow Grocery, and John Wick of the Marin Carbon Project. We recommend buying tickets in advance at ticketing.us.veezi.com or just go to the Roxie website.
From filmmaker Mark Kitchell (Berkeley in the Sixties, A Fierce Green Fire) comes a new film: Evolution of Organic. It’s the story of organic agriculture, told by those who built the movement. A motley crew of back-to-the-landers, spiritual seekers and farmers’ sons and daughters reject chemical farming and set out to explore organic alternatives. It’s a heartfelt journey of change, from a small band of rebels to a cultural transformation in the way we grow and eat food. By now organic has gone mainstream, split into an industry oriented toward bringing organic to all people and a movement that has realized a vision of sustainable agriculture. It’s the most popular and successful outgrowth of the environmental impulse of the last fifty years.
If you would like to be on the Guest List as OccupySF, let me (ruthiesakheim@gmail.com) know and I’ll put your name on it.
Wilder than Wild is an hour-long documentary film about wildfires and climate change. This Bay Area premiere will be followed by a panel and Q&A with Berkeley City Councilmember Kate Harrison, UC Berkeley fire scientist Scott Stephens, Berkeley firefighter Mike Shuken, and filmmakers Kevin White and Stephen Most.
Registration required.
For more information and to register, visit their website.
Tenant and Neighborhood Councils (TANC) is a member-run housing organization built out of the East Bay Democratic Socialists of America. We encourage all tenants of private landlords, unhoused people, and public housing residents, to join us in organizing councils.
Existing avenues for combating rising rents, slumlord behavior, and evictions are channeled through non-profit organizations. These types of organizations, while a critical resource for tenants, do not necessarily challenge the larger structural dilemma that we face—the subjugation of housing under capitalism.
Effectively challenging well-heeled landlords, developers, and state managers depends on moving beyond individual relationships to landlords and towards organizing collectively as tenants against each and all landlords. Only then can we build our capacity to fight back against the forces that structure our lives.
Capitalism spurs investors and speculators to treat housing as storage containers for wealth with high rates of return rather than places to call home. From the history of the housing struggle across the country, we have seen that it is often the most precarious among us who are pushed out of our homes, made to live on the street, or forced into squalid living conditions. Throughout history, working class people—and especially working class people of color— have fought against discrimination, exploitation, and displacement. The history of housing struggles reveal our particular housing problems as collective ones that arise from capitalist housing market.
We understand our struggles as being interconnected, and our organizing against those who profit massively from precarity and misery in our daily lives follows this insight. We are building power towards a future where housing is constructed and allocated according to necessity—not according to profit.
WHO WE ARE
Join APEN, CEJA, Idle No More SF Bay, Jobs With Justice, North Bay Organizing Project, PODER, SEIU 1021, 350.org and over 50 other organizations at a meeting on May 22. We are organizing to plan a bold, visionary action during Jerry Brown’s “Global Climate Action Summit.” We demand real climate leadership that protects vulnerable communities, workers, and future generations: keep fossil fuels in the ground; develop a just, equitable, resilient 100% renewable energy economy that rapidly expands economic opportunity; create family sustaining jobs: Rise for Climate Jobs & Justice March on Saturday September 8th.
The whole world is coming to San Francisco for the Global Climate Summit from Sep 12-14.
Climate disruption is impacting all of our communities from jobs to justice and everything in between. And we want you, your organizations, friends, and family to rise up with the world on September 8th to demand real solutions.
You are invited to come to a meeting to build the movement leading up to the largest march for climate jobs & justice on the West Coast. There’s lots to do and your talents and gifts are welcomed!
Join your sisters and brothers as we look forward to creating a world of equity, justice, and a sustainable and safe future for the next seven generations to come. It’s up to us.
Please join Amnesty International SF Group 30 &
The Department of International & Multicultural Education at the University of San Francisco
For an evening of discussion and short films about Shawkan, photojournalism, jailed journalists, and issues of press freedom.
Featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Kim Komenich in conversation with award-winning Egyptian photojournalist and filmmaker Khaled Sayed.
With a special selection of Shawkan’s photographs exhibited.
Background: Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abou Zeid, known as “Shawkan” was recently honored with the prestigious 2018 UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize on World Press Freedom Day. Shawkan is detained in Egypt’s Tora Prison Complex, where he has been held arbitrarily for nearly five years—just for working as a photojournalist. Egyptian prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Shawkan.
Photography is not a crime. Journalism is not a crime. Come partake in photography and writing actions on behalf of Shawkan and other jailed journalists.
- Panelists: After introducing themselves, panelists will be asked to answer a series of three questions:
- 1) What are the struggles of people who are homelessness in Berkeley?
- 2) What are immediate things that can be done by the Community and the City to address the needs of people who are homeless?
- 3) What are some long-term actions that can make a difference?
- 4) What are the challenges and obstacles?
- Big Mama, First They Came for the Homeless Encampment
- Mike Zint, First They Came for the Homeless – confirmed
- Representative, Youth Spirit Art Works – confirmed
- Nick Houston, East Oakland Collective – confirmed
- Tiny, Poor Magazine, Oakland – confirmed
- Respondents:
- Paul Kealoha-Blake, Mental Health Commissioner, City of Berkeley
- Osha Neumann, East Bay Community Law Center
- Boona Cheema, founder of BOSS & Mental Health Commissioner, City of Berkeley – confirmed
- Representative, Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center -confirmed