The Western Institute for Social Research invites you to a talk by author and activist, Reverend Richard Lawrence on Reflections of Battles with Racism.
Calendar
9896
Feb
29
Sat
Feb 29 @ 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Southwest of Golden Gate Fields, West of Gilman houseless encampment
(Golden Gate Fields horse track, 1100 Eastshore Hwy, Berkeley, CA 94710)
Marching to Berkeley City Hall, 2180 Milvia St, Berkeley, CA 94704
WHERE: Southwest of Golden Gate Fields, West of Gilman houseless encampment
(Golden Gate Fields horse track, 1100 Eastshore Hwy, Berkeley, CA 94710)
Housing, climate justice, and animal rights activists are wearing GREEN and marching from the houseless encampment at Golden Gate Fields to Berkeley City Hall to demand #TheGreenNewCity.
Join this plant-based food serve and trash pick-up, then march with us to City Hall as we rally to demand housing, climate justice, and animal rights.
The city’s houseless population has increased by 42% to 1000+ people, and wildfires driven by climate change threaten thousands more. Meanwhile, the ultra rich use huge swaths of land for cruel purposes such as horse-racing, even as ordinary people live in squalor right across the street.
We are in a moment of crisis, and our community needs the government to take urgent action — NOT to cater to business interests or allow bureaucracy to bury solutions. We need, in short, to make Berkeley #TheGreenNewCity — one where we bravely confront the climate crisis, enshrine housing as a human right, and live with respect towards our planet and all its inhabitants.
The residents of the Gilman encampment have asked for our help, but remember that this is THEIR home. Please be respectful of their needs and instruction.
WHERE: Meet at Golden Gate Fields, West of Gilman encampment
WHEN:
1:00pm – Food serve and trash pickup
2:00pm – Rally and march begins
4:00pm – Expected end time
WEAR: Please wear a green hoodie/t-shirt
ACCESSIBILITY: This event will include a 3 mile walk which will be done at a moderate pace. We have an accessibility car for anyone who may need it. If you have questions or need support to attend this event, email sfbay-protest [at] directactioneverywhere.com.
ABOUT: Direct Action Everywhere
Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) is a grassroots network of animal rights activists. Through open rescue, demonstration, and disruption, we are creating a world where every animal is safe, happy and free.
67786
Feb 29 @ 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Use your Extra Day to Declare Climate Emergency and keep carbon in the ground
*For life, beauty and joy & against eco-destroying robber barons! *
The earth is not dying – it is being killed.
The corporations killing it have locations near you
(including in downtown Berkeley)
*Roam downtown visiting, decorating and disrupting banks and corporations*
*Build zero waste compostable altars for the 1 billion dead animals at each target*
*Dress as an Australian or Amazonian animal*
*Marching band / mobile bike sound system*
*Kid friendly *
Bring disguises, decorations, musical instruments, pogo sticks, your heart and dreams
For more event information: https://leapdayaction.org/
67729
Feb 29 @ 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Join Sahar Delijani, Rafael Jesus Gonzalez, Julia Scheeres and Andy Zee to Celebrate Revolution Books’ 40th Anniversary.
6pm Reception with wine and light refreshments $25-50
7pm Program & champagne toast $5-up
This is a celebration – as well as a renewed and urgent call for people to support the bookstore. Right as now we face a moment of stark contrast between our hopes and dreams for a better world and the stark reality that great catastrophe looms as fascist regimes rise, and as we confront environmental disaster–Revolution Books embodies the potential bright future for humanity.
For 40 years Revolution Books has fought for revolution and a different future for humanity. And right now we face a moment of stark contrast between our hopes and dreams for a different future and the stark reality that great catastrophe looms as fascist regimes take root here and around the world, as we confront environmental disaster, as the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock is now advanced to 100 seconds to midnight.
Revolution Books embodies the potential bright future for humanity. You feel this when you first walk through the door and find the literature, poetry, history, science, art, and the revolutionary theory for a radically different world. You experience programs and engagements with us and with each other that percolate with emancipatory possibility. What you feel at RB is precious and especially so in these dark times, when a beacon that lights the way forward is so greatly needed.
Revolution Books is alive with the scientific understanding that a different and better world is possible. RB is the political, intellectual, and cultural center of a movement for an actual revolution and that is why it is a unique, incredible bookstore—a resource for the world. The animating heart of the store is the framework for unleashing the revolutionary potential of humanity: the breakthrough in scientifically knowing and radically changing the world through revolution, the new communism developed by Bob Avakian. Avakian emerged from the 60s in Berkeley, and is a leader who never gave up asking the hard questions of the road forward to human emancipation and developing the path to that future.
Also buy tickets at Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/188944268875822/
67771
Mar
1
Sun
Mar 1 @ 8:00 am – 8:00 pm
Exhibit on display from March 1 through April 30, 2020
Reception in the Morrison Library on Thursday, March 5 at 5 pm
This exhibit showcases original silk screen political posters from the 1960s and 1970s on the 50th Anniversary of the Great Poster Workshop in Wurster Hall in May 1970, triggered by the killing of four students at Kent State University in Ohio. U.C. Berkeley, birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, paved the way for mass protests and prolonged student strikes across the country against the Vietnam War and the draft, for black liberation and ethnic studies, and a variety of other struggles for social justice. This legacy of protest continues to be felt in the social movements of today.
67772
Mar
2
Mon
Mar 2 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Autonomous Organizing and State Repression
From Kurdistan to Philadelphia
From Kurdistan to Philadelphia
presented by the Bay Area Mesopotamia Solidarity Committee, the Freedom Archives and the Anthropology and Social Change Department at CIIS
The Kurdish freedom movement, currently active across many borders in the Middle East, has put forth the revolutionary project of democratic confederalism under the principles of localized governance, women’s liberation and ecological practices.
On a smaller scale, but within the context of the massive Black liberation movement, the MOVE Organization of Philadelphia put its revolutionary ideas into practice in the 70s and 80s.
Both initiatives have faced the iron fist of the state for daring to organize autonomously.
During the summer of 2015, the Turkish army and mercenaries bombed Kurdish cities, killing hundreds of people. These brutal attacks were a terrifying re-escalation of Turkey’s 40-year civil war, between the State and the a left-wing Kurdish movement. The Turkish state justified the carnage by calling the political organizing of Kurdish communities into question.
Many of us on occupied land here in the US cannot help but consider similarities and differences between these attacks and the City of Philadelphia’s attack on a mostly African-American neighborhood that killed 11 members of MOVE and destroyed 61 homes in 1985. Philadelphia politicians similarly attempted to reframe the narrative by questioning the legitimacy of MOVE, and their integrity as a political organization.
What do the attacks on the Kurdish movement and the MOVE Organization, their aftermath, the ongoing struggles of the survivors, and the ongoing lack of justice for the dead teach us about the nature of the state, autonomous organization and racial and ethnic stratification?
Please join us for a double feature with presentations from Özlem Y., a Kurdish activist, and Mike Africa Jr., from MOVE, as we attempt to answer these questions, and consider new ones.
Özlem Y., currently in exile in the US, was a firsthand witness to the Turkish atrocities in autonomous Kurdistan where she was part of the Kurdish municipal governance structure.
Mike Africa Jr., a member of MOVE, is a speaker, writer and artist. He was born in prison to Debbie and Mike Africa who were each serving a 30 year sentence as part of the MOVE 9.
67792
Mar
5
Thu
Mar 5 @ 8:00 am – 8:00 pm
Exhibit on display from March 1 through April 30, 2020
Reception in the Morrison Library on Thursday, March 5 at 5 pm
This exhibit showcases original silk screen political posters from the 1960s and 1970s on the 50th Anniversary of the Great Poster Workshop in Wurster Hall in May 1970, triggered by the killing of four students at Kent State University in Ohio. U.C. Berkeley, birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, paved the way for mass protests and prolonged student strikes across the country against the Vietnam War and the draft, for black liberation and ethnic studies, and a variety of other struggles for social justice. This legacy of protest continues to be felt in the social movements of today.
67772
Mar
6
Fri
OAKLAND MOVIE SCREENING
Action2020 is hosting a showing of Defies Measurement, a documentary about the wide-spread damage caused by the privatization movement in public education.https://t.co/mqs6UJctS4
March 06, 2020 at 6pm – 8pm
Red Bay Coffee (3098 E 10th Street) pic.twitter.com/KSiSmnP59x— Action 2020 Oakland (@Action2020Oak) February 19, 2020
67758
67797
Mar
7
Sat
Mar 7 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Finish the Civil War! For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution!
Speaker with discussion period.
$2 donation. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Speaker with discussion period.
$2 donation. No one turned away for lack of funds.
67799
Mar 7 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
he Trump presidency has helped create a climate of disorientation and crisis here and around the world. The Democrats promise to fix the broken system, or they just assume that people who are sickened by Trump will put their hopes in a Democratic candidate — no matter who it is.
Can the elections bring about the changes we need, beyond getting rid of Trump? How can we begin to organize our own forces to deal with the problems of our time? Come to a presentation and discussion about these important questions.
67793
Mar
8
Sun
Monthly interfaith prayer meeting, held on second Sundays, dedicated to healing.
The Bahá’í community of Oakland is organizing this gathering for the community to connect, share prayers, writings and poems from all spiritual traditions, reflect and recharge and build coalitions interested in healing.
Come share prayers, quotes, poems, and favorite passages from your scriptures with us. Refreshments will be served.
Doors open: 10:00 AM
Prayers: 10:30-11:30 AM
Refreshments and socializing: 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM
67610
Why don’t Marxists study the Soviet experience in order to learn what these pioneers of the communist movement did, and what we can learn from them?
For Marx, as for all materialists, practice was – is — primary. Theory must be tested through practice. To base theory on the basis of a false understanding of reality is as fatal to knowledge as it would be to base theory, as idealists do, on ideas alone, without regard to material reality.
The Stalin era was the heroic era of the worldwide communist movement. Indeed, the 20th century may be fairly described as the “Soviet century,” since all the important political and social events and upheavals took place with reference to the Soviet Union.
If, following Marx, we want to build an egalitarian, communist society, we must study the practice of those who came before us in this endeavor. That means studying the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik Revolution, especially the period when Joseph Stalin was in the leadership of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet state.
Why don’t today’s Marxists do this? My talk will explore the reasons for this fatal neglect and urge a corrective. — Grover Furr, Montclair State University
67735
RALLY, MARCH, and CELEBRATION for International Working Women’s Day 2020!
Join grassroots women’s organizations and allies from throughout the Bay Area for a Rally, March & Celebration on Sunday, March 8th to commemorate the 112th International Working Women’s Day anniversary in honor of the first women strikers in 1908.
Join us as we Uphold the Legacy and Power of Women’s Resistance Here & Abroad! Together, we will be lifting up the internationalist struggles and stories of women, trans, and GNC communities around the world.
Let us take the streets and RISE Up to demand an end to gender based violence against women and TGNC communities, RESIST militarization and displacement, and UNITE for self determination. Join us as we collectively protest singing “Un Violador en tu Camino.”
67770
Mar 8 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Green Sunday
The M arch Green Sunday will be a wide-ranging discussion of the March primary results — both locally, as well as the ‘Super Tuesday’ showings here in California and across the country. We will be looking at these outcomes to tell us first about the state of national politics and how the Green Party might respond. There are clearly a wide range of possibilities depending on who the Presidential nominees might be, and ‘Super Tuesday’ should give us a strong indication of where this situation may be heading. In addition, we will assess the local and state races and measures, including several controversial tax proposals and the 3 contested County Supervisor seats — the first time that all 3 seats have had multiple candidates running for each position, for many, many decades; that is, for as long as any of us can recall.
Our discussion will be led by Don Macleay, a three time Green Party candidate for local office, for both Mayor, and for School Board, in Oakland. Don is also a father of two, a school volunteer, machinist, network tech, polyglot, and environmentalist. Beginning last year, he was one of the main founders of the group “Action 2020”, which has been working to overhaul the Oakland School Board, that currently supports charter schools and is corporate-friendly.
Green Sundays are a series of free public programs & discussions on topics “du jour” sponsored by the Green Party of Alameda County and held on the 2nd Sunday of each month. Snacks are potluck. Vegetarian and vegan snacks are always welcome, but we appreciate whatever you can bring! The monthly business meeting of the County Council of the Green Party follows, at 6:45 pm. Council meetings are open to anyone who is interested.
PLANET PEOPLE PEACE
before profit!
67810
Slingshot turns 32 years old – 1988 – 2020
Meet authors from the last 32 years, learn how you can get involved in Slingshot for the next 32 years. Display of back issues.
Vegan chocolate cake, zany free raffle for door prizes, get copies of issue #131 of the paper, maybe snacks, maybe music
67800
Mar
9
Mon
Join us for a screening of RIGGED: The Voter Suppression Playbook, followed by a voting rights panel and Q&A with the film’s executive producer.
Narrated by Jeffrey Wright, RIGGED takes a rigorous look at voter suppression and sparks discussion on the actions needed to protect our democracy. Shot principally during the 2016 election, the film tracks a systematic, decade-long effort to suppress votes at scale and reverse the growing demographic tide of new, young, and non-white voters who helped elect President Barack Obama in 2008. It details a variety of voter suppression “plays,” or tactics, ranging from the purging of voting rolls and passing of new, restrictive voter ID laws to gerrymandering and voter intimidation. The film also includes interviews with Republican strategists detailing how the game was played as well as interviews with leading voting rights advocates, law professors, demographers and Democratic strategists.
Post-Screening panel discussion on voting rights to follow. Panelists include:
Bertrall Ross, Berkeley Law Professor
Brittany Stonesifer, Attorney, ACLU
Mac Heller, Executive Producer, Rigged
VENUE: UC Berkeley School of Law
225 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA
Room 100
Sponsored by the American Constitution Society, La Raza, Law Students of African Descent & the Native American Law Students Association.
DINNER PROVIDED.
Find out more and RSVP today: https://www.facebook.com/events/849706108831076/
67811
The largest strike wave in the US in decades has been occurring for the last two years, and it is not over! Teachers and other public education workers have responded to austerity politics, poor working conditions, low pay, and the erosion of opportunity for their students with a newfound militancy. From West Virginia to Oakland and Los Angeles, this is a national phenomenon. What are its roots? Who are its leaders? What does it mean for the future of public education? For organized labor?
These are the topics explored by Eric Blanc’s Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strikes and Working Class Politics (Verso Press, 2019).
Come to the reading group launch on March 9th where we will:
- Hear Oakland teachers reflect on their experiences in the OEA strike of last spring
- See a presentation on the history of California education unionism from Fred Glass
Who should join? Educators, labor activists, parents, Easy Bay DSA members, and anyone else interested in learning more about the power of working class solidarity. We will meet every other week for ten weeks (four sessions).
Red State Revolt is the second book chosen in a series of Labor Reading Groups sponsored by the East Bay DSA Labor Committee. Copies of the book will be available for a suggested donation at the March 9 event (NOTAFLOF).
To RSVP in advance, go here.
67756
Mar
10
Tue
Mar 10 @ 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm
67821
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