‘Through the Night’: Film & Discussion on Rise of Multiple Job Workers & 24 HR Daycare @ Online

Nov 18 @ 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm

VIRTUAL SCREENING: “Through the Night”

A Virtual Watch Party & Panel Discussion of the documentary THROUGH THE NIGHT by Black womxn director, Loira Limbal

RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/through-the-night-screening-panel-discussion-tickets-125979376707

In collaboration with our partners at 1199 SEIU Rhode Island and Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence (RICADV), SISTA Fire RI will be hosting a virtual screening of the documentary “Through the Night”.

The documentary looks at the impact the modern economy is having on Womxn of Color and our families. We invite you to join us on the evening of November 18th, 2020 at 6:00 pm.
*Registration is required for entry to the watch party. You will receive the Zoom link the day before the event via text and email.*

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with the film’s director Loira Limbal, along with community organizers and advocates from SISTA Fire RI, 1199 SEIU, and RICADV.

FILM SYNOPSIS

Film website here: https://www.throughthenightfilm.com/

To make ends meet, people in the U.S. are working longer hours across multiple jobs. This modern reality of non-stop work has resulted in an unexpected phenomenon: the flourishing of 24-hour daycare centers. THROUGH THE NIGHT is a verité documentary that explores the personal cost of our modern economy through the stories of two working mothers and a child care provider – whose lives intersect at a 24-hour daycare center.

The film follows a mother who works the overnight shift at a hospital; another holding down three jobs to support her family; and a woman who for two decades has cared for children of parents with nowhere else to turn. Over the span of two years, across working holidays, seven day work weeks, and around-the-clock shifts, the film reveals the personal cost of rising wealth inequality in the U.S and the close bonds forged between parents, children, and caregivers.

ABOUT: SISTA FIRE

https://sistafireri.org/about/

SISTA FIRE is co-creating a network of women of color to build our collective power for social, economic and political transformation. At the center of our work are SISTA Circles; through the circles we will provide space for deep interpersonal and leadership development.

SISTA FIRE aims to connect the patterns and practices of community strength from the past, building on the present, and–with great intentions–planting the seeds for the future. We take lessons from our grandmas holding it down in Black Lives Matter, our Indigenous aunties fighting for their own homelands here, our trans sisters who fight for their rights to be who they are, and our immigrant and refugee mommas demonstrating their strength with unrelenting love and profound sacrifices.

68341

Categories: Event

Demilitarize Oakland PD Town Hall  @ Online

Tickets

Nov 18 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Register Here.

Join us for a youth-led conversation on how militarized police impacts our communities and how we can work toward influencing local policy that #DefundsThePolice.

With testimony by Oakland youth on police militarization and from Mental Health First, moderated by BAY Peace. With small group discussions led by 67 Sueños, Urban Peace Movement, Young Women’s Freedom Center, The Village, BAY Peace, Council of American Islamic Relations, AFSC, and National Lawyers Guild.

68347

Categories: Event

Intro to DSA @ ONLINE, VIA 'ZOOM'

Tickets

Nov 18 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Democratic Socialist politicians like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib are raising the expectations of millions of people across the United States and bringing them into a political awakening. The membership of DSA, the largest socialist organization in the United States, is rapidly growing by the thousands. Millions of working-class Americans are calling for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, universal rent control, and more.

But what is democratic socialism? What does it mean to be a member of DSA? How do socialists look at the crises of police brutality, economic recession, and COVID-19? And what will we do after the election is over?

Let’s talk about it.

Join us to discuss what our political moment calls for, meet new people, and get plugged into our fight for democratic control of the things that we need for all of us to live a dignified life.

Join us on Zoom

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84264682668?pwd=S0tCZXlqOGtCOXNPWTRzOVNDUk14Zz09

Meeting ID: 842 6468 2668

Passcode: intro

One tap mobile

+16699006833,,84264682668#,,,,,,0#,,870464# US (San Jose)

+12532158782,,84264682668#,,,,,,0#,,870464# US (Tacoma)

68339

Categories: Event

Nov

19

Thu

A Just Transition for Labor @ ONLINE, VIA 'ZOOM'

Tickets

Nov 19 @ 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Tens of thousands of workers have jobs in fossil fuel and related industries. How do we secure a just transition that guarantees good jobs with benefits for these workers in the new clean energy economy? Carol Zabin is a labor economist who recently completed a comprehensive report for the California legislature called Putting California on the High Road to answer that question. Please read the executive summary of the report before joining this deep-dive discussion. You will also hear from the perspective of the state agency charged with implementing the report’s findings and a seasoned labor activist.

Register here.

Speakers:

Carol Zabin (Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley) directs the Labor Center’s Green Economy Program. She is a labor economist whose research has addressed low-wage labor markets, labor standards, workforce development, and other economic development and labor issues. Dr. Zabin has consulted with numerous unions and non-profits on strategies and policies to improve jobs in human services and the green economy. Her current research focuses on the impact of climate and clean energy policy on California’s economy, workers, and labor unions. Appointed by Governor Brown, Dr. Zabin sits on the executive council of the California Workforce Development Board. Before joining the Labor Center, Dr. Zabin was on the faculty at Tulane University and UCLA.

Shrayas Jatkar is a Policy Specialist at the California Workforce Development Board, where he ensures public investments in California’s transition to a carbon-neutral economy support high-quality jobs and greater access to them for disadvantaged workers. He has also been a Policy Associate for the Coalition for Clean Air, a Policy Intern for the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, a grassroots organizer for the Sierra Club, and a field organizer for U.S. House and Senate campaigns in New Mexico.

Mark Kyle currently practices labor, political, election, and campaign finance law on behalf of labor unions, nonprofits, and individuals. Formerly the political director for the largest building and construction trades local in North America—Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3—he has also served as the Chief of Staff for the California Labor Federation, the Undersecretary for the California Secretary of State, as well as positions in the California State Assembly, and for several other labor unions. Mark works on climate mitigation and adaptation infrastructure projects at the local, regional, and state level to bring organized labor fully into the fold of aggressive climate action.

WHERE

From your computer.

Register here.

68311

Categories: Event

Out of Mesopotamia @ Online

Tickets

Nov 19 @ 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Online Event Location: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/azadeh-moaveni-and-salar-abdoh-tickets-126610642841

Azadeh Moaveni and Salar Abdoh discuss the intersections of their new books ReTargeting Iran – published by City Lights Books & Out of Mesopotamia – published by Akashic Books.

About ReTargeting Iran, edited by David Barsamian, with Azadeh Moaveni and others

The United States and Iran seem to be permanently locked in a dangerous cycle of brinkmanship and violence. Both countries have staged cyber attacks and recently shot down one another’s aircraft. Why do both countries seem intent on escalation? Why did the U.S. abandon the nuclear deal (which, according to the UN, was working)? Where can Washington and Tehran find common ground? To address these questions and the political and historical forces at play, David Barsamian presents the perspectives of Iran scholars Ervand Abrahamian, Noam Chomsky, Nader Hashemi, Azadeh Moaveni, and Trita Parsi. A follow-up to the previously published Targeting Iran, this timely and urgent book continues to affirm the goodwill between Iranian and American people, even as their respective governments clash on the international stage.

About Out of Mesopotamia: A Novel by Salar Abdoh

Saleh, the narrator of Out of Mesopotamia, is a middle-aged Iranian journalist who moonlights as a writer for one of Iran’s most popular TV shows but cannot keep himself away from the front lines in neighboring Iraq and Syria. There, the fight against the Islamic State is a proxy war, an existential battle, a declaration of faith, and, for some, a passing weekend affair.

After weeks spent dodging RPGs, witnessing acts of savagery and stupidity, Saleh returns to civilian life in Tehran but finds it to be an unbearably dislocating experience. Pursued by his official handler from state security, opportunistic colleagues, and the woman who broke his heart, Saleh has reason to

again flee from everyday life. Surrounded by men whose willingness to achieve martyrdom both fascinates and appalls him, Saleh struggles to make sense of himself and the turmoil in his midst.

An unprecedented glimpse into “endless war” from a Middle Eastern perspective, Out of Mesopotamia follows in the tradition of the Western canon of martial writers—from Hemingway and Orwell to Tim O’Brien and Philip Caputo—but then subverts and expands upon the genre before completely blowing it apart. Drawing from his firsthand experience of being embedded with Shia militias on the ground in Iraq and Syria, Abdoh gives agency to the voiceless while offering a meditation on war that is moving, humane, darkly funny, and resonantly true.

About the authors:

Azadeh Moaveni is a journalist, writer, and academic who has been covering the Middle East for over two decades. She started reporting in Cairo in 1999, while on a Fulbright fellowship to the American University in Cairo. For the next several years she reported from throughout the region as Middle East correspondent for Time magazine, based in Tehran, but also covering Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq. She is the author of Lipstick Jihad and Honeymoon in Tehran, and co-author, with Shirin Ebadi, of Iran Awakening. In November 2015, she published a front-page article in the New York Times on ISIS women defectors that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Her writing appears in the Guardian, the New York Times, and the London Review of Books. She teaches journalism at NYU in London, has been a fellow at the New America Foundation, and is now Senior Gender Analyst at the International Crisis Group.

Salar Abdoh was born in Iran and splits his time between Tehran and New York City. He is the author of the novels Tehran at Twilight, The Poet Game, and Opium; and he is the editor of Tehran Noir. He teaches in the MFA program at the City College of New York. Out of Mesopotamia is his latest novel.

68342

Categories: Event

Creating police-free schools: A national conversation  @ Online

Tickets

Nov 19 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Register Here

The safety of students of color is jeopardized by use of police in schools—and across the country, students and allies are working for police free schools. In this webinar we will hear from young organizers from St. Louis, Chicago, and Oakland about the successful strategies and stumbling blocks in their work on this issue. Whether you are already engaged in a campaign locally, or just want to learn more, please join us to envision a future that invests in school safety through student wellbeing, not policing.

68348

Categories: Event

Nov

20

Fri

Bay Area Summit: The Way Forward for Climate Justice @ Online

Tickets

Nov 20 @ 8:30 am – 12:00 pm

RSVP

Join the Bay Area Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force for the finale of its Virtual Summit Series: For an Environmentally Just and Regenerative Future. This final summit — “Where Do We Go From Here for Climate Justice?” — will review the previous topics and discuss plans for the future.

WHEN

Friday, November 20

8:30 – 9:00 am Doors Open / Meet & Greet Attendee Mixer

9:00 – 9:15 am Land Acknowledgement / Welcome/ Plenary

Councilmember Cheryl Davila, City of Berkeley
Corrina Gould, Co-Founder, Sogorea Te Land Trust
Amos White, Vice Chair, Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force

9:15 – 10:30

Message from Congresswoman Barbara Lee
Saul Griffith*–Author of Rewiring America, speaking on how to fund the clean energy economy
Eduardo Martinez*–Richmond City Council
John Gioia*–Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors and California Air Resources Board

10:30- 11:00 (or later TBD)

Complete a survey of participation so far and suggested next steps for the Climate Emergency Mobilization

*Invited, not confirmed

68338

Categories: Event

Fighting State Murder: Racism, the Police, and the Death Penalty @ Online

Tickets

Nov 20 @ 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fighting-state-murder-racism-the-police-and-the-death-penalty-tickets-127358860781

Cost: FREE or donation

Join family members of death row prisoner Rodney Reed, Rodrick and Sandra Reed, police torture victim and former juvenile life without parole prisoner Mark Clements, author and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and journalist Liliana Segura for a discussion about fighting racism in the criminal “injustice” system.

The massive uprising this year against police brutality and murder has sharply illuminated the racism of not only the police, but also the institutions that protect them. This struggle has thrown into sharp relief questions about the true nature of cops, the courts and prisons. The Black Lives Matter movement has given new life to movements for prison abolition, criminal justice reform and the abolition of the death penalty.

The connection between these struggles is clear: the fight against racism. The same system that allows police to murder unarmed people of color in the streets is the system that incarcerates, tortures and murders people behind the walls.

***Register through Eventbrite to receive a link to the video conference on the day of the event. This event will also be recorded and have live captioning.***

SPEAKERS:

Rodrick Reed is Rodney Reed’s younger brother. Rodrick and his family have been fighting to prove Rodney’s innocence and to free him for decades. Rodrick is the Vice President of Reed Justice Initiative. The idea for Reed Justice Initiative was born out of a series of conversations between Rodrick and Rodney, during which Rodney encouraged Rodrick to establish a collaborative to advocate for Rodney and people in similar situations to Rodney.

Sandra Reed is the mother of Texas death row prisoner Rodney Reed. In the 23 years since her son was wrongly convicted, she has been a tireless advocate for justice for Rodney. Sandra served on the board of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) for many years. Following the folding of the CEDP, Sandra and her family founded the Reed Justice Initiative (RJI) to continue campaigning for Rodney and against the death penalty. Sandra currently serves as President of the RJI.

Mark Clements is a Chicago police torture survivor. At age 16 in 1981 he was taken to area 3 violent crime unit where he was tortured to confess to a crime. Mark was one of Illinois first juvenile’s sentence to natural life without parole in the state of Illinois. He remained incarcerated for 28 years before his conviction was overturned in 2009. In 2009 he was hired as administrator and organizer with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and later served as a Board member with CEDP. Mark also helped establish the Illinois Fair Sentence of Youth through Northwestern University of School of Law, while sitting on the board of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. Mark works with the Chicago Torture Justice Center as a learning fellow working in many complex areas of trauma and while attending court hearings and in support of others that were taken to police stations across the city of Chicago and tortured by members of the Chicago Police Department.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes and speaks on Black politics, social movements, and racial inequality in the United States. She is author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, which won the Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book in 2016. She is also editor of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, which won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBQT nonfiction in 2018. Her third book, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, published in 2019 by University of North Carolina Press, was a finalist for a National Book Award for nonfiction, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for History.

Liliana Segura is an award-winning investigative journalist covering the U.S. criminal justice system, with a longtime focus on harsh sentencing, the death penalty, and wrongful convictions. While at The Intercept, Segura has received the Texas Gavel Award in 2016 and the 2017 Innocence Network Journalism Award for her investigations into convictions in Arizona and Ohio. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
_______________________________________________________________

68346

Categories: Event

Nov

22

Sun

Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library @ ONLINE, VIA 'ZOOM'

Tickets

Nov 22 @ 10:30 am – 12:30 pm

Sun, Nov 15, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
The Ongoing War on Syria & Why it Matters |
Rick Sterling will discuss the current situation in Syria and future prospects if Biden assumes the Presidency. Unreported in mainstream media, the US and allies continue to wage hybrid warfare on Syria – economically, politically, judicially and militarily. Why does the US persist in attacking Syria, preventing it from recovering and harming millions of Syrians? Will this change with a Democrat in the White House? Why has this struggle become a focal point of East – West conflict? What are the best and worst things that could happen?
Rick Sterling is on the Steering Committee of Syria Solidarity Movement.

He is an independent journalist who has written many articles about Syria..
LOGIN INFORMATION
The meeting will be opened up, as usual, at 10:15 for anyone to join and discuss technical matters, catch up with each other, say Hi, etc. We Intend to start the presentation as close to 10:30 am as possible. The program (and recording) will end at 12:30, but the Waiting Room will remain open for informal discussion.

Raj Sahai’s Zoom Meeting. (TO BE CONFIRMED)

Sun Nov 15, 2020 10:15am – 1:15pm Pacific Time

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2591082607?pwd=TTdlcFlnZEVCdWt2VlRHeWZLeHNKQT09

Meeting ID: 259 108 2607

Passcode: 6MwQP7

Sun, Nov 22, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm

How the US Dominates the World Economy: Failings of Modern Monetary Theory and why the US can print trillions of dollars and not experience inflation.

Stansfield Smith will explain how the US control of the world economy since the end of World War II has enabled it to bully the world’s countries into depending on the US dollar and using it as the international currency. This requires world countries to amass quantities of dollars to operate and to pay the cost of upholding the value of the dollar, which includes investing in the growing US debt. This also explains how the US can use its economic sanctions to punish countries that seek independence from US control. While Modern Monetary Theory gives an account of why the US can continue to print vast sums of money and suffer little inflation, its explanation avoids confronting the reality of US control of the world financial structure.

Stansfield Smith’s presentation is based on his articles: Inadequacy of Modern Monetary Theory and the Power of the US Dollar in the World Economy and Why the US Can Keep Increasing its Debt and not Suffer Inflation.
Stan Smith has been involved in the Freedom for the Cuban Five movement and the movements in defense of the sovereignty of El Salvador, Cuba, Venezuela, and other Latin American countries for 40 years. He has written numerous articles such as: First Two Months in Power: Hitler vs. Trump; What North Koreans Think; Framing North Korea; Is Russia imperialist; China’s International Solidarity Aid to the World During the Corona Pandemic; Chomsky and Other Liberal Intellectuals Ask Us to Join Them in Throwing in the Towel. He produces a weekly compendium of articles on Latin America at https://chicagoalbasolidarity.wordpress.com/.

Sun, Nov 29, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm (Thanksgiving weekend)
TENTATIVE: Abhinav Sinha on the International Working Class
Our speaker is editor of the renowned Hindi magazine ‘Muktikami Chhatron-Yuvaon ka Aahwan.’

Sun, Dec 6, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
The Logic of Capitalist Production and Marx’s Ecology
Even many Marxists are convinced that Marx believed in production without limitations, and thus Marx was oblivious to the question of ecology of the planet. Today the world is caught in a double jeopardy: on one hand capitalism is reducing workers’ organized bargaining power by production shifted to lowest wage countries pitting workers of one country against another and on the other capitalist production is consuming the resources of the planet provided by Nature rapidly while massively polluting land, water, and air. Since the fall of the USSR, China has been touted as the successful model of socialism using the capitalist market, or what is termed as “Market-Socialism”. This leads workers in US with no hope unlike in 1930s when they saw hope after the revolution in the USSR and workers had state power and were constructing socialism. A section of the US workers were drawn to a demagogue, namely Trump in the US and in India a majority of workers followed another demagogue: Modi in India. This trend is also developing in other countries. Raj Sahai will analyze this situation in the first hour and then in the second invite comments from the audience.

68330

Categories: Event

Beyond Biden: Working-Class Remedies for a World in Crisis @ ONLINE, VIA 'ZOOM'

Tickets

Nov 22 @ 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm

Trump was defeated. But Biden & Harris won’t solve the multitude of problems that working people are faced with, from COVID and climate devastation to police killings of people of color. What will work, based on history, are mass movements. They have been the catalyst for working people’s gains. Today this is truer than ever. Join an online discussion on how to build a revolutionary feminist groundswell in 2021.

Register here: https://bit.ly/Beyond-Biden

68350

Categories: Event

Nov

26

Thu

Community Meal and Mask Giveaway

Tickets

Nov 26 @ 11:00 am – 2:00 pm

68359

Categories: Event

Nov

28

Sat

Omni Commons Mutual Aid @ Omni Commons

Tickets

Nov 28 @ 10:00 am – 1:00 pm

The next North Oakland Mutual Aid distro this weekend (Nov 27-29)….
Let's help our unhoused neighbors !#MutualAid #Oakland #Berkeley #eastbay #omnicommons #grassroots #activist #collective #community #collective #center pic.twitter.com/bvv3gPxPr9

— Omni Commons (@omnicommons) November 27, 2020

68360

Categories: Event

Nov

29

Sun

Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library @ ONLINE, VIA 'ZOOM'

Tickets

Nov 29 @ 10:30 am – 12:30 pm

Sun, Nov 15, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
The Ongoing War on Syria & Why it Matters |
Rick Sterling will discuss the current situation in Syria and future prospects if Biden assumes the Presidency. Unreported in mainstream media, the US and allies continue to wage hybrid warfare on Syria – economically, politically, judicially and militarily. Why does the US persist in attacking Syria, preventing it from recovering and harming millions of Syrians? Will this change with a Democrat in the White House? Why has this struggle become a focal point of East – West conflict? What are the best and worst things that could happen?
Rick Sterling is on the Steering Committee of Syria Solidarity Movement.

He is an independent journalist who has written many articles about Syria..
LOGIN INFORMATION
The meeting will be opened up, as usual, at 10:15 for anyone to join and discuss technical matters, catch up with each other, say Hi, etc. We Intend to start the presentation as close to 10:30 am as possible. The program (and recording) will end at 12:30, but the Waiting Room will remain open for informal discussion.

Raj Sahai’s Zoom Meeting. (TO BE CONFIRMED)

Sun Nov 15, 2020 10:15am – 1:15pm Pacific Time

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2591082607?pwd=TTdlcFlnZEVCdWt2VlRHeWZLeHNKQT09

Meeting ID: 259 108 2607

Passcode: 6MwQP7

Sun, Nov 22, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm

How the US Dominates the World Economy: Failings of Modern Monetary Theory and why the US can print trillions of dollars and not experience inflation.

Stansfield Smith will explain how the US control of the world economy since the end of World War II has enabled it to bully the world’s countries into depending on the US dollar and using it as the international currency. This requires world countries to amass quantities of dollars to operate and to pay the cost of upholding the value of the dollar, which includes investing in the growing US debt. This also explains how the US can use its economic sanctions to punish countries that seek independence from US control. While Modern Monetary Theory gives an account of why the US can continue to print vast sums of money and suffer little inflation, its explanation avoids confronting the reality of US control of the world financial structure.

Stansfield Smith’s presentation is based on his articles: Inadequacy of Modern Monetary Theory and the Power of the US Dollar in the World Economy and Why the US Can Keep Increasing its Debt and not Suffer Inflation.
Stan Smith has been involved in the Freedom for the Cuban Five movement and the movements in defense of the sovereignty of El Salvador, Cuba, Venezuela, and other Latin American countries for 40 years. He has written numerous articles such as: First Two Months in Power: Hitler vs. Trump; What North Koreans Think; Framing North Korea; Is Russia imperialist; China’s International Solidarity Aid to the World During the Corona Pandemic; Chomsky and Other Liberal Intellectuals Ask Us to Join Them in Throwing in the Towel. He produces a weekly compendium of articles on Latin America at https://chicagoalbasolidarity.wordpress.com/.

Sun, Nov 29, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm (Thanksgiving weekend)
TENTATIVE: Abhinav Sinha on the International Working Class
Our speaker is editor of the renowned Hindi magazine ‘Muktikami Chhatron-Yuvaon ka Aahwan.’

Sun, Dec 6, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
The Logic of Capitalist Production and Marx’s Ecology
Even many Marxists are convinced that Marx believed in production without limitations, and thus Marx was oblivious to the question of ecology of the planet. Today the world is caught in a double jeopardy: on one hand capitalism is reducing workers’ organized bargaining power by production shifted to lowest wage countries pitting workers of one country against another and on the other capitalist production is consuming the resources of the planet provided by Nature rapidly while massively polluting land, water, and air. Since the fall of the USSR, China has been touted as the successful model of socialism using the capitalist market, or what is termed as “Market-Socialism”. This leads workers in US with no hope unlike in 1930s when they saw hope after the revolution in the USSR and workers had state power and were constructing socialism. A section of the US workers were drawn to a demagogue, namely Trump in the US and in India a majority of workers followed another demagogue: Modi in India. This trend is also developing in other countries. Raj Sahai will analyze this situation in the first hour and then in the second invite comments from the audience.

68330

Categories: Event

Dr. Benjamin Madley, “An American Genocide” Zoom Presentation @ Online

Tickets

Nov 29 @ 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Please join us for this Zoom meeting using the link below:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87119438221?pwd=YUNnVkEwYUh2d29tWnpDamJoelo2QT09
Meeting ID: 871 1943 8221
Passcode: 025469
Dial by your location +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

Dr. Benjamin Madley, author of An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873

We are honored to be able to present Professor Benjamin Madley at this holiday weekend Zoom meeting. In our quest to educate ourselves about American history, and after celebrating our most American holiday, Thanksgiving, it is fitting that we look closely at the history of our country, and our state in particular.

Professor Madley is Associate Professor of History at UCLA, where he writes about Native America, the United States, and colonialism in world history. Born in Redding, California, he spent much of his childhood in Karuk Country near the Oregon border where he became interested in relationships between colonizers and Indigenous peoples. He will speak about his break-through book, published by Yale University Press, An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873.

Madley describes pre-contact California before explaining how the Gold Rush stirred vigilante violence against California Indians. He narrates the rise of a state-sanctioned killing machine and the broad societal, judicial, and political support for genocide. Many participated: vigilantes, volunteer state militiamen, U.S. Army soldiers, U.S. congressmen, California governors, and others. The state and federal governments spent at least $1,700,000 on campaigns against California Indians.

This book received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History, the Raphael Lemkin Book Award from the Institute for the Study of Genocide, the Charles Redd Center / Phi Alpha Theta Award for the Best Book on the American West, the California Book Awards Gold Medal for Californiana, and many other awards. According to former California Governor Jerry Brown, “Madley corrects the record with his gripping story of what really happened: the actual genocide of a vibrant civilization, thousands of years in the making.”

68353

Categories: Event

Dec

1

Tue

Abolition Then and Now: Robin D. G. Kelley and Isaac Julien @ ONLINE, VIA 'ZOOM'

Tickets

Dec 1 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

Register here

Join historian Robin D. G Kelley and artist Isaac Julien for an online conversation about the anti-slavery movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and current abolitionist uprisings against racist police brutality and the prison industrial complex. The conversation is informed by “Lessons of the Hour-Frederick Douglass” (2019), Julien’s immersive, ten-screen film installation about the famed abolitionist currently on view at McEvoy Arts. The conversation takes place online via Zoom on Wednesday, December 1, 2020 at 12pm PST. Attendance is free with registration.

With excerpts of his speeches and dramatizations of his private and public milieus, ‘Lessons’ offers a contemplative, poetic journey into Douglass’ zeitgeist and a forceful suggestion that the lessons of the abolitionist’s hour have yet to be learned. The installation is joined by Julien’s tintype portraits and mise-en-scenes photographs of the film’s subjects as well as “When Living is a Protest,” an exhibition of modern and contemporary photography from the McEvoy Family Collection curated by Mark Nash and “New Labor Movements” a daily resonant film program curated by Leila Weefur that explores contemporary visions of America and concepts of transnational Blackness. The exhibitions are on view through March 13, 2021. Admission is free.

Isaac Julien’s pioneering artistic practice incorporates the moving image, photography, and installation to create open-ended narratives through physical and sensorial immersion. Robin D. G. Kelley is a Professor in the Department of African American Studies at UCLA. His research explores the history of social movements in the U.S., the African Diaspora, and Africa; black intellectuals; music; visual culture; contemporary urban studies; historiography; poverty studies; and ethnography. This event is co-presented with the Institute of the Arts and Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz as part of UC Santa Cruz’s ‘Visualizing Abolition’ series.

Free

68364

Categories: Event

Socialist Night School: Why the Working Class? @ ONLINE, VIA 'ZOOM'

Tickets

Dec 1 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Socialists talk a lot about the working class. Why is that? Well, we think workers play a particular role under capitalism that makes them central in the fight for socialism. As the main producers of society’s wealth, workers have the potential power to halt the system. What does it mean to build this power and how does that inform our organizing today?

Join the East Bay DSA Political Education Committee for a discussion of these questions and more!

Reading + Listening

Hal Draper, Why the Working Class

Vivek Chibber, Why the Working Class

Video: Why Do Socialists Talk So Much About Workers? with Vivek Chibber (Optional)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84783105991?pwd=Tlk5SENqWHFHV216M1lSZkRtUGk2dz09

Meeting ID: 847 8310 5991

Password: 897028

One tap mobile

+16699006833,,84783105991#,,,,0#,,897028# US (San Jose)

+13462487799,,84783105991#,,,,0#,,897028# US (Houston)

68356

Categories: Event

Dec

3

Thu

Anti-Racism 101: How to Show Up For Racial Justice @ ONLINE, VIA 'ZOOM'

Tickets

Dec 3 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

Register here

If you are feeling called to action but are not sure how to or where to begin, this workshop is for you.

In this introductory workshop, we’ll start by understanding systemic racism as a system of advantage rooted in the beliefs and institutionalization of white supremacy, rather than a product of individuals who are “good” or “bad”.
We’ll also discuss how individuals can engage in an ongoing practice of anti-racism to actively dismantle racism in their daily lives.
Attendees will have opportunities to engage in small-group dialogue and create a plan for taking at least one action in support of racial justice within their personal spheres of influence. Join us as we come together in community to learn, empower, and participate in change.

This workshop welcomes anyone who would like to participate, but it is especially well-suited for white people who are:

In the early stages of exploring what it means to be a white anti-racist

Seeking to grow their skills in analyzing and discussing the effects of racism

Feeling compelled to take action to create a more just world

Accessibility:

This event will be held on Zoom, and a computer or smartphone will be required.

Closed captioning can be offered.

This event will be offered only in English; we have not yet built capacity for translation to other languages.

Price

This workshop has a suggested registration fee on a sliding scale of $0-30 to accommodate participants of all class backgrounds. Please contribute what feels right to you.

At least 70% of all registration fees collected will be passed to SURJ Bay Area’s accountability partners, who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color-led organizations doing racial justice movement work. A small portion of funds will be allocated to support SURJ’s operations.

68373

Categories: Event

Ectopia 2050 – Ecology Center Lecture Series @ Online

Tickets

Dec 3 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

ECOTOPIA 2050 5-PART SPEAKER SERIES

Ecotopia 2050 is designed as a 5 Episode speaker discussion series with the first episode serving as an introduction/prelude to the event. The speaker discussion series is paired with corresponding book club meetings that give participants a more intimate opportunity to discuss the themes of the book in the community.

Based on the 1975 blockbuster utopian novel Ecotopia, this discussion and book club event series revisit some of the futuristic visions of the Ernest Callenbach classic. His visionary ideas, and those of his generation, that he so skillfully captured in Ecotopia are a fascinating amalgam of technical, economic, societal, and cultural transformations. They are predictive on so many levels, and the series will explore what has come true, what remains on the list of things to do that were proposed, and what new visions we might begin to pull together in the construction of an updated Ecotopian vision of today.

Registration Instructions
1. Choose your experience (single episode) or full series
2. Are you joining the book club? *choose the add on
Note: You must be registered for the full series if you register for book club.
3. Check out.
4. A secure Zoom link will be sent 24 hours ahead of event time to registered email.

Pricing:

Limited Income $60 full series $20 single episode

Membership $90 full series $25 single episode

General admission $110 series $35 single episode

No-one turned away for lack of funds.

EC Scholarship Request form here

68153

Categories: Event

Dec

4

Fri

Zoom Letter-Writing Party To Protect The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge! @ ONLINE, VIA 'ZOOM'

Tickets

Dec 4 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

This is a letter-writing party to get together on Zoom and write letters together for this campaign organized by XR DC.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83713470647?pwd=SEVXeW5nc25wRncwM041aWNxNGxLZz09

Info about the campaign:

The Trump administration is working to open Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil mining before leaving office in January. This is something that climate deniers and extinction profiteers have been trying to accomplish for decades, but was too extreme for even the George W. Bush administration. Now, after the election, and with no hope of holding onto power, they’re trying to rush it through on their way out.

From November 17 through December 17 the Bureau of Land Management is taking nominations for land tracts to be auctioned and leased to oil companies. They’ve divided the coastal plain of ANWR up into potential tracts and are seeking suggestions on which tracts would be best for oil extraction and/or input on how their existing delineation of the tracts should be changed. After the nomination period they will publish a lease notice, announcing which tracts they intend to make available at an auction. Once they publish the lease notice they are required to wait 30 days before auctioning off the mining rights. With the Presidential inauguration taking place on January 20, 2021, they have a very narrow window of time to review all tract nominations and publish their lease notice. Any delay in this process, even a matter of hours, could result in the lease not being finalized until after President Biden is sworn in, effectively killing the deal.

ACTION

Submit as many letters as possible to the Alaska Bureau of Land Management. These should be notes or letters, not actual (or fake) lease tract nominations.

Some potential submission strategies:

Write a love letter to the future, to your grandchildren, to the planet.
Write personal letters to the BLM Alaska employees, letting them know the consequences of their actions and what they could do to help. Encourage them to delay the nomination review by dragging their feet. Remind them that they might need a bathroom break, or a cup of coffee. Get creative.

NOTE: Interfering with a federal submission process could potentially be a crime. Posing as an oil exploration company and submitting legitimate seeming nominations could potentially add to the seriousness of this and increase the likelihood of an investigation. We do not recommend you include any identifying information, including your name, contact info, address, etc.

MAILING ADDRESS

State Director
Bureau of Land Management, Alaska State Office
222 West 7th Avenue, Mailstop 13
Anchorage, AK 99513-7504

Please mail your letters as you have them ready. Rather than delivering a giant pile of these all at once, we want a constant barrage that they can’t keep up with. To reach Anchorage by the deadline (December 17) all letters must be mailed no later than December 9 with normal postage. Also consider sending them from different zip codes so that they will not all have identical postmarks.

68383

Categories: Event

Alec Karakatsanis on “Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers…” @ Online

Tickets

Dec 4 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Carl Dix will be in conversation with Alec Karakatsanis.

This virtual program will stream on YouTube and FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/revbooksnyc/live/
To register for the event, go here. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/alec-karakatsanis-on-usual-cruelty-the-complicity-of-lawyers-tickets-131059812427

Alec Karakatsanis is interested in what society chooses to punish. For example, it is a crime in most of America for poor people to wager in the streets over dice; dice-wagers can be seized, searched, have their assets forfeited, and be locked in cages. It’s perfectly fine, by contrast, for people to wager over international currencies, mortgages, or the global supply of wheat.

Alec Karakatsanis is also troubled by how the legal system works when it is trying to punish people. The bail system, for example, is meant to ensure that people return for court dates. But it has morphed into a way to lock up poor people who have not been convicted of anything. He’s so concerned about this that he has personally sued court systems across the country, resulting in literally tens of thousands of people being released from jail when their money bail was found to be unconstitutional.

“[Usual Cruelty is] a devastating indictment of the legal profession by one of our most important young lawyers, Usual Cruelty cuts to the core of what is critical to understand about our legal system, and about ourselves. Every law student and lawyer should read this book.”
—Anthony D. Romero, exec. director, American Civil Liberties Union

Usual Cruelty is available at Revolution Books in Harlem, or at RB’s online store here: https://shop.revolutionbooksnyc.org/book/9781620975275

Read an excerpt from Usual Cruelty about the money bail system in Time magazine here: https://time.com/5749542/cash-bail-impact/

Alec Karakatsanis is a former public defender. He is the founder of the Civil Rights Corps, an organization designed to advocate for racial justice and bring systemic civil rights cases on behalf of impoverished people. He was named the 2016 Trial Lawyer of the Year by Public Justice, and was awarded by Gideon’s Promise for contributions to indigent defense in the South.

Carl Dix is a co-founder with Cornel West of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network; a co-initiator of RefuseFascism.org; and a follower of the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian.

68385

Categories: Event

Calendar

WHERE

WHEN

ECOTOPIA 2050 5-PART SPEAKER SERIES