Tell your assemblymember: Yes on 857!

On Monday, April 8, California Public Banking Alliance (CPBA) volunteers from all over the state will converge on the Capitol to press for lawmakers’ promises of support for AB 857.

But lobbying can’t do the whole job. Now is the time for all of us California supporters of public banking to call our assemblymembers and tell them to vote YES on this crucial legislation!

Calling your elected officials is quick and easy. You can talk to the staffer who answers the phone or leave a voicemail. Say something like this:
“My name is _________, and I live in District [number]. I’m calling to ask Assemblymember _______ to vote YES on AB 857, the public banking bill. I strongly support establishing a public bank in my community.”

Below are phone numbers for all assemblymembers whose districts include part of Alameda County. Wherever you live in the state, if you’re not sure who represents you, check this finder.
     District 15�Buffy Wicks                  (916) 319-2015
District 16�Rebecca Bauer-Kahan  (916) 3119-2016
District 18�Rob Bonta                    (916) 319-2018
District 20�Bill Quirk                      (916) 319-2020
District 25�Kansen Chu                 (916) 319-2025

And remember, everyone you know in California can call their legislator. Please ask them to call, too. It could make a real difference!

Help make our East Bay bank happen

We’re planning on doing a lot more tabling at markets and street fairs through the spring and summer, and we could really use some help. Tabling is a great way to get out of that cyber-bubble and talk to actual fellow citizens about creating the vibrant local economy we all want to see. You don’t need a finance background – just a couple free hours and an ability to explain the basics.

You can also help by suggesting places for us to table. We need to connect with folks all over Alameda County so we can point to broad grassroots support for our bank as we push the Board of Supervisors to make it happen.

If you’re interested in tabling or have an idea for a venue, please don’t wait to shoot us an email at contact@publicbankeastbay.org. Thank you!

A 6-week series to help us develop a deeper analysis and to call attention to the kinds of changes needed in the City’s budget and policies.

4/15 – Housing
4/22 – Economy
4/29 – Education
5/6 – Public Health
5/13 – Neighborhood Life
5/20 – Public Safety

The first week’s workshop on the Housing Indicators is the first of a 6-week series to help us develop a deeper analysis and to call attention to the kinds of changes needed in the City’s budget and policies.

Join us for this deeper dive into the Equity Indicators Report for the City of Oakland. Released last year, it clearly shows the effects of white supremacy on our community. Oakland posted a failing score of 33.5 out of a possible 100 across all indicators. This was the lowest score of all cities that participated in this national study.

Carroll Fife, the founder of Black Women & Elected Leadership, the Executive Director of Oakland ACCE, and one of the founding members of Community READY Corps, will join us as a guest speaker to provide some deeper analysis of the report’s findings and point us to actual solutions that will advance racial justice and equity in our housing market.

The Coalition for Police Accountability has issued a Call to Action: Come to City Council at 4:00 pm, Tuesday April 30th at City Hall & support the Oakland Police Commission. The Commission needs full authority over the Inspector General position & its own independent counsel. pic.twitter.com/9HAC2ZtOwf

— Pamela Price (@PPriceCares) April 29, 2019

Come march with Oakland IWOC, Bay Area IWW, and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists this MayDay 2019.
We will be showing up for the rally 830 at OGP an transporting people to Howard Terminal for the rally/march at 11.

Gathering at 3pm at Oscar Grant Plaza
Rally starts at 3:30pm
March starts at 4pm
Closing Rally at Lake Merritt Amphitheater

For This years March:

There will be a designated section at the front of the March for youth and people with disabilities who wish to lead the March. There will be several accessibility cars following the March for folks who cannot or would prefer not to walk (contact Jenny to reserve a seat Jenny.tighe@gmail.com). Please show up to the event scent-free. We will have community security, medics, food and water distribution throughout the full program and public restrooms at the end of the March. We will have Spanish translation and ASL interpretation for the program. Please contact Jenny (Jenny.tighe@gmail.com) with any accessibility questions or concerns.

Pertinent agenda items:

4. 5:15pm: UC Berkeley’s Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic – presentation of draft Privacy Principles; review and take possible action.
5. 5:30pm: Federal Task Force Transparency Ordinance – OPD – presentation of inaugural annual report for FBI/JTTF; review and take possible action.
6. 5:40pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – Hofer/Patterson – proposed amendment to prohibit use of facial recognition technology; review and take possible action.
7. 6:00pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Remote Camera Impact Report and draft use Policy – review and take possible action

Alan Haber is one of the creators of Students for a Democratic Society as well as a founder of the Long Haul in Berkeley in 1979.

Odile Hugonot-Haber is the co-chair of the US Middle East Committee of the Women International League for Peace and Freedom and co-operated Long Haul from 1986-1993.

This event will be a wide-ranging discussion featuring Alan, Odile and the audience on:

1. The history of the Long Haul and the history Berkeley politics in general
2. Their current peace-related and community work now
3. Activism over the long haul – from SDS in 1960 to the present.

Please join us for a presentation by Ralf Ruckus on his forthcoming book with PM Press, The Communist Road to Capitalism: Rupture and Continuity in China since 1949

“Since the reforms started in China in the 1970s, the CCP has never declared the official end of its socialist project, and its leadership still uses Mao Zedong and Marxism as ideological references. Meanwhile, Chinese labor activists use the same references today to justify their opposition against capitalist exploitation under the CCP regime. This confusion is reflected in the positions of outside observers. Some support the CCP’s ‘market socialism with Chinese characteristics’ while others criticize today’s system simply as state-controlled ‘capitalism.’ Often both positions remain blurred as central aspects of China’s socialist history and capitalist present get idealized and others diminished. Clearing up the fog and confusion is not a question of using the correct ideological terms but of following the actual historical trajectory. Ruptures and continuities define the past 70 years of CCP rule. Both were produced by social and political subversion ‘from below’ – from the protests around the ‘Hundred Flowers Movement’ in the 1950s to the strikes of migrant workers in the 2010s – and the regime’s repressive and co-opting counter measures. Thereby, the Chinese society was gradually (and in the end substantially) changed while the ‘red bourgeoisie’ of the CCP managed to stay in power to this day. How and why this happened, that is at the center of the forthcoming book (out in 2020). Its main arguments and conclusions will be presented and discussed during the event.”

Ralf Ruckus supports and analyzes social struggles in China and elsewhere. For more from him see Gongchao: https://www.gongchao.org

SURJ Bay Area is excited to invite you to a special event in Oakland, When We Fight We Win: Building Community Power to Dismantle the Prison System, featuring CURB Statewide Coordinators Amber-Rose Howard and Ivette Al, Sandra Johnson, Senior Organizer with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children / All of Us or None, and Eric Henderson, Policy Director of Initiate Justice.

These four incredible movement leaders will share insights from recent fights — and victories — in the struggle to dismantle the prison system in California, from repealing sentence enhancements, to shutting down jail expansion plans, to working to restore voting rights to folks on parole. Their stories will highlight the small and big ways you can also contribute to creating a more progressive vision of justice than mass incarceration.

All proceeds from this event will go to LSPC/AOUON, Initiate Justice, and CURB, with specific focus on supporting this year’s Quest for Democracy Day, an annual advocacy and rally day, led by formerly incarcerated people and families with incarcerated loved ones to bring their voices to elected officials in Sacramento.

Showing Up for Racial Justice- SURJ, Bay Area

A Member of Californians United for a Responsible Budget

• Follow us on social media @curbprisons FACEBOOK // INSTAGRAM // TWITTER 

Recent years have seen important fights – and important wins – in the struggle to dismantle the prison system in California. From repealing sentence enhancements, to shutting down jail expansion plans, to working to restore voting rights to folks on parole.

Come hear from four incredible movement leaders at the frontline of these struggles about victories, strategies, and the importance of campaigns and coalitions in the continuing movement to dismantle the Prison Industrial Complex. Their stories will highlight the small and big ways you can also contribute to creating a more progressive vision of justice than mass incarceration.

Featuring:
Sandra Johnson, Senior Organizer, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC)/ All of Us or None (AOUON)
Eric Henderson, Policy Director, Initiate Justice
Ivette Alé & Amber-Rose Howard, Statewide Coordinators, Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB)

All proceeds from this event will go to LSPC/AOUON, Initiate Justice, and CURB, with specific focus on supporting this year’s Quest for Democracy Day, an annual advocacy and rally day led by formerly incarcerated people and families with incarcerated loved ones to bring their voices to elected officials in Sacramento. No one turned away for lack of funds.

ASL interpretation available if requested by April 30th by 5pm.

TONY PERROTTET with Steve Wasserman

CUBA LIBRE!  Che, Fidel, and the Improbable Revolution that Changed World History

Advance tickets: $12: brownpapertickets.com :: T: 800-838-3006  or

Pegasus Books (3 sites),Books Inc (Berkeley), Moe’s, Walden Pond Bookstore, East Bay Books, Mrs. Dalloway’s Books,

$15 door, This is a KPFA benefit.

The surprising story of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Celia Sanchez, and the scrappy band of young men and women who followed them. Cuba Libre! is an absorbing look back at a liberation movement that captured the world’s imagination with its spectacular drama, foolhardy bravery, tragedy, and, sometimes, high comedy—and that set the stage for Cold War tensions that pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Most people are familiar with the basics of the Cuban Revolution of 1956–1959. It was led by two of the twentieth century’s most charismatic figures, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Their movement successfully overthrew the island nation’s US–backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista, and has remained to this day an intense socialist provocation to the massive imperial capitalist country only ninety miles north of Cuba.

Less is remembered about the stirring amateur nature of the movement or the lives of its players. In this wildly entertaining, meticulously researched account, historian and journalist Tony Perrottet unravels the human drama behind history’s most improbable revolution: a scruffy handful of self-taught revolutionaries—many of them kids just out of college, literature majors and art students, including a number of extraordinary young women—who defeated 40,000 professional soldiers to overthrow the dictatorship of Batista. Cuba Libre!’s deep dive into the revolution reveals fascinating details. He describes how Fidel’s highly organized lover Celia Sánchez kept the male guerrillas disciplined, and he portrays a few of the North American volunteers who joined the Cuban rebels. He gained access to private letters, diaries, videos, and other documents no other historian has seen. Perrottet has used these as well as countless interviews to describe the years of guerrilla fighting throughout the Sierra Maestra mountains, the final victory march into Havana, the gradual building of a socialist state, and the accompanying Cold War tensions.

“Perrottet takes us far beyond the basic facts of the Cuban Revolution to the juicy details that remind us that history is deeply human.” — Chris Ryan, NY Times bestselling author.

Tony Perrottet, author of five previous books, is a regular guest on the History Channel and a contributing writer at Smithsonian Magazine. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the London Sunday Times.

Steve Wasserman, Executive Director of Heyday Books, was formerly a deputy assistant editor of the LA Times Sunday opinion pages, after which he became editor in chief of New Republic Books. He has also served as editorial director of Times Books and publisher of Hill & Wang..He returned to the LA Times in 1996 to become editor of the book review.

Sunrise is building a movement of young people to make climate change an urgent political priority and support the #GreenNewDeal to safeguard our generation’s future, create good jobs and transform our economy.

Check out more at www.sunrisemovement.org. Register here: https://forms.gle/LC7Ho9JGugEvq8eh9.

> WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE TRAINING <
1. A deep dive into the Sunrise strategy, story, and structure that make up the movement’s 4-year plan (This is a 9 hour training, with breakfast and lunch provided. We ask people to attend the whole training to get the full experience, and it’s a ton of fun! We promise!)
2. Lots of time to have fun and get to know other young people from around the Bay Area.
3. Hands-on practice and skill building to strengthen your climate organizing skills.
4. Time to dig into the Sunrise Bay Area strategy for making the #GreenNewDeal a political priority and join a team/sub-committee to help make it happen.

> WHO IS THIS FOR? <
It’s for YOU! Whether you’ve come to Sunrise Bay Area events and meetings before or whether you’re just finding out about Sunrise and the Green New Deal and are inspired to learn more, you are welcome!

This is a movement of young people – that means we have members of our hub who are high school students, college students, non-students, working young people, and more (generally between 16-35). People of all identities and backgrounds are welcomed and supported in this space. We are stronger when we join together, and we believe we need all of us to win. Join us.

East Bay DSA’s Medicare for All Committee is hosting a lakeside potluck picnic and you’re invited! Whether you have been active in our M4A work or are looking to get more involved, please bring a dish or drinks of your choice and join us!

Accessibility: Parking lot off of Bellevue Ave. Closest AC Transit stop is on Grand Avenue at Perkins Street, served by the NL, 12, and 805. Public restrooms available.

What if the internet wasn’t about connecting to Comcast, AT&T, Google, or Facebook? What if it meant connecting directly with your friends, neighbors, and community…? Come over to the Oakland Public Library West Branch’s auditorium for the Build Your Own Internet (BYOI) workshop. Let’s discuss how the internet works, and how you can be part of the People’s Open Network, an open, community-owned mesh network.

* No technical expertise needed. Technical curiosity very necessary. *

Democratic socialist politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are calling for Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. Teachers across the country are striking for public education and winning, and tens of thousands of people across the country are getting involved in the project of building democratic socialism in the US. But what is democratic socialism?

Let’s talk about it.

Since the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign brought democratic socialism back into the mainstream, the Democratic Socialists of America went from about 6,000 members to 60,000 nationwide, making it the largest socialist organization in the US in more than 50 years.

If you’re a new DSA member or just curious about democratic socialism, come out to our What Is Democratic Socialism? picnic and find out how to get involved in DSA’s fight for democratic control of the things that matter on the job and in your community and the things we all need to lead a dignified life.