Calendar

America is at a crossroads.

Six months have passed since the failed attack on our nation and our democracy on January 6th. Since that day, anti-voter laws have been passed in states all over the country and the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent rulings have made clear that it will not act to protect the sacred right to vote. This summer, Congressional districts risk being redrawn in a way that will allow politicians to choose their voters – rather than the voters fairly choosing who represents them.

We have reached an inflection point in which we must force our elected officials to act now or risk losing the very foundation of our republic.

But there is hope for us to stop this undercurrent of corruption and rebuild American democracy so that the freedom to vote is protected, billionaires don’t control our political systems, and our representatives actually respond to we the people.

To do this, we must pass the For the People Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and D.C. Statehood – and we can’t let anything, including the Jim Crow filibuster, stand in our way!

Join us for The Good Trouble Vigils for Democracy on July 17 – the one year mark of the passing of Rep.John Lewis – as we carry on his legacy by hosting candlelight vigils nationwide to demand that Congress act to protect our freedom to vote and rebuild our democracy.

We must and will win this Fight!

Assuming it is open, we will be meeting in-person at our old haunt, the OMNI, and, as an experiment, with a Zoom live link for those who can’t be there physically.  Check back here a few days before the event to insure the availability of the OMNI, otherwise we will meet again solely online.

Due to the exponential growth of Delta COVID in Alameda County we will still be meeting online in July.  The August meeting may be held dually online and at the OMNI Commons.
Stay tuned!

Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com for up-to-date status and the online invite.

Our current topic is degrowth. Our book is Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide, by Liegey and Nelson, available from its publisher Pluto Press and elsewhere, including Amazon.  We will be reading the first half of the book this month, constituting the first three chapters, through page 85 of the paper back edition, and the second half of the book for our August meeting.

“A sense of urgency pervades global environmentalism, and the degrowth movement is bursting into the mainstream. As climate catastrophe looms closer, people are eager to learn what degrowth is about, and whether we can save the planet by changing how we live. This book is an introduction to the movement. As politicians and corporations obsess over growth objectives, the degrowth movement demands that we must slow down the economy by transforming our economies, our politics and our cultures to live within the Earth’s limits. This book navigates the practice and strategies of the movement, looking at its strengths and weaknesses. Covering horizontal democracy, local economies and the reduction of work, it shows us why degrowth is a compelling and realistic project.”

Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth,  Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, and Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism.

Make calls together on Zoom to get killer cops off our streets!

Assuming it is open, we will be meeting in-person at our old haunt, the OMNI, and, as an experiment, with a Zoom live link for those who can’t be there physically.  Check back here a few days before the event to insure the availability of the OMNI, otherwise we will meet again solely online.

Due to the exponential growth of Delta COVID in Alameda County we will still be meeting online in July.  The August meeting may be held dually online and at the OMNI Commons.
Stay tuned!

Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com for up-to-date status and the online invite.

Our current topic is degrowth. Our book is Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide, by Liegey and Nelson, available from its publisher Pluto Press and elsewhere, including Amazon.  We will be reading the first half of the book this month, constituting the first three chapters, through page 85 of the paper back edition, and the second half of the book for our August meeting.

“A sense of urgency pervades global environmentalism, and the degrowth movement is bursting into the mainstream. As climate catastrophe looms closer, people are eager to learn what degrowth is about, and whether we can save the planet by changing how we live. This book is an introduction to the movement. As politicians and corporations obsess over growth objectives, the degrowth movement demands that we must slow down the economy by transforming our economies, our politics and our cultures to live within the Earth’s limits. This book navigates the practice and strategies of the movement, looking at its strengths and weaknesses. Covering horizontal democracy, local economies and the reduction of work, it shows us why degrowth is a compelling and realistic project.”

Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth,  Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, and Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism.

Register
This fire season we’ve seen the largest known wildfire ever in California, bringing the climate crisis literally to our front doors. This is not an isolated event. Climate scientists have been warning that extreme weather would be coming if we continued to burn fossil fuels, and yet, because of capitalism, we’ve only seen the use of those fuels skyrocket. In the past month reports about this crisis have come out with dire warnings, letting us know that tipping points that mean an unavoidable cascade of the irreversible climate crisis, are approaching rapidly if they haven’t had already been reached. All of this means that our task is enormous and urgent. Climate change is a direct result of the capitalist system, and we will not be able to address the climate crisis without getting rid of it altogether.

Join the East Bay DSA Political Education Committee and Green New Deal Committee as we look at why capitalism is incapable of addressing the climate crisis, and why the fight for socialism is our only way out.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82877051499?pwd=U1ZZMzdWQ2dvMXJhbGhqcWxsc1R3QT09

Meeting ID: 828 7705 1499

Passcode: school

One tap mobile

+16699006833,,82877051499#,,,,*266754# US (San Jose)

+13462487799,,82877051499#,,,,*266754# US (Houston)

Reading List

Part 1: THE CURRENT CLIMATE CRISIS
(very brief articles about the current state of the climate crisis)

‘Nobody’s Safe’: 10 Takeaways from New International Climate Change Report

Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse: Article from The Guardian

Part 2: CAPITALISM AND CLIMATE CHANGE

(Don’t mourn organize! These are the main readings, start with the first one, or chose whichever you would prefer!)

What it Will Take: Ch.27 Beyond Capitalism by Carol Dansereau 

A good place to start: a general introduction to why socialism is the only answer to the climate crisis

Introduction and First Chapter of Red Green Revolution by Victor Wallis

A deeper dive into the concepts of ecosocialism

Part 3: ON THE GREEN NEW DEAL

Climate Change Is Class Struggle by Matt Huber

A review of On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal by Naomi Klein that highlights the need for class struggle in the fight for the Green New Deal

2021 DSA Convention: Decade of the Green New Deal: Planetary Crisis and Socialist Power

Register or audit

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYwKCKZvC270piELHNDhnJ5zaxQ1-SoVcIlGihiAZF1f53gQ/viewform

The Struggle for People’s Park is a 2-unit student-led class offered to UC Berkeley Students during the Fall 2021 semester under the Democratic Education at Cal (DeCal) program.

You may apply by clicking the “take my class” button above.

Note: Grading will be based on a pass/fail framework depending on the participation and development designs regarding People’s Park.

For more information and updates, please contact our student facilitator, Aidan Hill at hillae@berkeley.edu

Register or audit

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYwKCKZvC270piELHNDhnJ5zaxQ1-SoVcIlGihiAZF1f53gQ/viewform

The Struggle for People’s Park is a 2-unit student-led class offered to UC Berkeley Students during the Fall 2021 semester under the Democratic Education at Cal (DeCal) program.

You may apply by clicking the “take my class” button above.

Note: Grading will be based on a pass/fail framework depending on the participation and development designs regarding People’s Park.

For more information and updates, please contact our student facilitator, Aidan Hill at hillae@berkeley.edu

YOU GOTTA TAKE THIS CLASS!
Copwatch Presents: the Copwatch DeCal Class on Community-based Accountability

Mondays 5-6:30pm. Open to all.
Registration and more info: https://t.co/LdbC7tEcUe

This class includes opportunities for direct field monitoring of police on duty. pic.twitter.com/gyi5Wr2KWC

— Berkeley Copwatch (@Copwatch411) September 1, 2021

Register or audit

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYwKCKZvC270piELHNDhnJ5zaxQ1-SoVcIlGihiAZF1f53gQ/viewform

The Struggle for People’s Park is a 2-unit student-led class offered to UC Berkeley Students during the Fall 2021 semester under the Democratic Education at Cal (DeCal) program.

You may apply by clicking the “take my class” button above.

Note: Grading will be based on a pass/fail framework depending on the participation and development designs regarding People’s Park.

For more information and updates, please contact our student facilitator, Aidan Hill at hillae@berkeley.edu

“War is Literally Killing the Planet”. The war economy is brought to you by these players: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, BlackRock Worldwide Investments, Lockheed Martin, and Chevron, and you and I bought front row seats. We’re funding it.

With our votes and taxes, we are enabling the destruction of life on earth. We need a peace economy to replace this suicidal situation. We are angry that these players profited handsomely from the 20-year war in Afghanistan. We are grieving that they are destroying the planet worldwide. We are outraged that they are siphoning over 50% of the U.S. federal budget for continuing wars, while people all over the planet are suffering from the climate emergency, pandemic, going hungry, seeing their clean water and air destroyed by wars, resource extraction and fossil fuel emissions, and fearing the future for their children and all beings.

The war economy supplies huge short-term profits to these war profiteers and we are calling them out!

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s majority in Congress siphons over 50% of our federal budget to fund the skyrocketing costs of war and Pentagon operations with their huge greenhouse gas emissions. Pelosi insists on spending our money on continual wars and refuses to support Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, affordable housing, education, elder and child care, clean water, air, and food — the things that give life and peace a chance.

BlackRock is making a killing on killing with its investments in the war economy and planet destroying fossil fuel and nuclear industries, earning a handsome profit for its investors (https://blackrocksbigproblem.com/the-problems/).

Lockheed buys Congress with it’s generous campaign contributions, acting as the U.S. State Dept. and Pentagon’s master, weaponizing space and urging a war on China, and selling weapons to human rights violators like the Israeli government and the Saudis — who beheaded a journalist, attacked the World Trade Center, and bombed a school bus in Yemen killing 40 children with a 500 pound Lockheed bomb. The Saudis are U.S. allies, thanks to Lockheed, Pelosi, Chevron and BlackRock.

Chevron sits on Lockheed’s Board of Directors and is a major Pentagon contractor, supplying fossil fuels for the military’s immense greenhouse gas emissions. Chevron’s short term thirst for profits, polluting, pillaging and extracting fossil fuels, aided by militarized police forces and private armies, is adding to the planet’s death spiral. Chevron is a criminal enterprise.

We are “connecting the dots” to show that divesting from the war economy — represented by Pelosi, the Pentagon, BlackRock, Lockheed and Chevron– and investing instead in the peace economy we deserve, is the way out of this tragic situation.

For International Day of Peace, CODEPINK and allies are going to expose the war financiers, war profiteers, and war climate destroyers and call for funding a peace economy instead.

Register or audit

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYwKCKZvC270piELHNDhnJ5zaxQ1-SoVcIlGihiAZF1f53gQ/viewform

The Struggle for People’s Park is a 2-unit student-led class offered to UC Berkeley Students during the Fall 2021 semester under the Democratic Education at Cal (DeCal) program.

You may apply by clicking the “take my class” button above.

Note: Grading will be based on a pass/fail framework depending on the participation and development designs regarding People’s Park.

For more information and updates, please contact our student facilitator, Aidan Hill at hillae@berkeley.edu

At YSA we have found that it takes a village to build a village. If you’re interested in volunteering on Saturday’s from 9:30am to 4pm come join us @ 633 Hegenberger road Oakland, CA. For more info email sally@youthspiritartworks.org #tinyhousevillage #artwork #development pic.twitter.com/zmy40K0Bja

— Youth Spirit Artworks (@YouthSpiritArts) September 23, 2021

Register or audit

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYwKCKZvC270piELHNDhnJ5zaxQ1-SoVcIlGihiAZF1f53gQ/viewform

The Struggle for People’s Park is a 2-unit student-led class offered to UC Berkeley Students during the Fall 2021 semester under the Democratic Education at Cal (DeCal) program.

You may apply by clicking the “take my class” button above.

Note: Grading will be based on a pass/fail framework depending on the participation and development designs regarding People’s Park.

For more information and updates, please contact our student facilitator, Aidan Hill at hillae@berkeley.edu

YOU GOTTA TAKE THIS CLASS!
Copwatch Presents: the Copwatch DeCal Class on Community-based Accountability

Mondays 5-6:30pm. Open to all.
Registration and more info: https://t.co/LdbC7tEcUe

This class includes opportunities for direct field monitoring of police on duty. pic.twitter.com/gyi5Wr2KWC

— Berkeley Copwatch (@Copwatch411) September 1, 2021

From October 11 to 15, thousands of people will take action at the White House, participate in civil disobedience, and demand that President Biden choose a side: People vs. Fossil Fuels.

This Friday we will take the message of the People Vs. Fossil Fuels week of action to our local federal building, in solidarity with the hundreds of activists that will be putting their liberty on the line in Washington, D.C.

Join us in making these demands: https://peoplevsfossilfuels.org/demands/

YOU GOTTA TAKE THIS CLASS!
Copwatch Presents: the Copwatch DeCal Class on Community-based Accountability

Mondays 5-6:30pm. Open to all.
Registration and more info: https://t.co/LdbC7tEcUe

This class includes opportunities for direct field monitoring of police on duty. pic.twitter.com/gyi5Wr2KWC

— Berkeley Copwatch (@Copwatch411) September 1, 2021