Calendar
Click here for the Facebook event page
Eat, drink, dance, and meet local labor activists at the Bay Area Labor Notes Dance Party and Fundraiser at the Omni Commons, 4799 Shattuck Avenue in North Oakland, on Saturday, May 7 from 6:00 to 11:00 pm.
All proceeds will help low-wage workers attend the international Labor Notes conference in Chicago this April.
A small donation of $5-$35 covers food, music, camaraderie, and stories about the Bay Area labor movement from local labor activists. Cash bar available, Venmo also accepted. Nobody turned away for lack of funds. All ages.
The program will begin around 7:30, featuring worker leaders speaking about labor struggles and victories from across the Bay Area, as well as a raffle, before turning into a dance party.
The Labor Notes Conference is a unique gathering of thousands of rank-and-file union members, local leaders, and activists who are putting the movement back into the labor movement.
It is an increasingly important space for labor activists to attend skill-building workshops and meet to share effective strategies that can win gains and amplify the voice of workers.
Your support will help to (re)build a fighting, democratic labor movement across the U.S. and around the world!
Click here for the Facebook event page
Join us Friday night for a dance party fundraiser! Labor Notes trains people to organize on the job, & connects radical union activists from all over the country! The money from this party will pay for Bay Area unionists to go to their big national conference in Chicago! pic.twitter.com/UVajS7MHDX
— East Bay DSA 🌹 (@DSAEastBay) May 2, 2022
Omni work party tomorrow (Sunday) 11-4pm! Lots of small tasks to be done. Please come help us clean, improve and repair our building, as we get ready for more events all summer.
— Omni Commons (@omnicommons) May 7, 2022
A critical investigative documentary that reveals the grossly underreported story of anti-BDS legislation that is sweeping through state legislatures in the U.S., undermining the First Amendment and causing real harm to those who stand up for their right to free speech. (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions is a movement organized by the Palestinian BDS National Committee in response to Israel’s human rights record.) The effects of these bills, which coerce individuals and companies into signing what is tantamount to a loyalty oath against the BDS movement, are far more wide-reaching than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and directly undermine the First Amendment. This film follows three individuals — a publisher in Arkansas, a lawyer in Arizona, and a speech therapist in Texas — who risk their livelihoods to fight for our freedom of speech rights and expose the powerful political entities behind these insidious anti-boycott laws.
IN PERSON: Producer SUHAD BUBAA
NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:
occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If for some reason the amphitheater is being used otherwise and/or OGP itself is inaccessible, we will meet at Kaiser Park, right next to the statues, on 19th St. between San Pablo and Telegraph. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)
On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally. Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.
At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.
General Assembly Standard Agenda
Welcome & Introductions
Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
Announcements
(Optional) Discussion Topic
Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.
Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area
San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv
The Braver Angels event, “We the People’s Forum: Does One Size Fit All for Addressing Homelessness?” is coming up!
The Zoom meeting will open to participants at 7:55 pm EST on Monday, May 9. Here is your Zoom link to join:
https://braverangels-org.zoom.us/j/82190712365
For troubleshooting questions ahead of the event, email dlapp@braverangels.org
We the People’s Forum is an initiative of We the People’s Project at Braver Angels, an effort to build a politically and racially diverse team of working-class Americans to build a house united in America. To learn more or to get involved, visit www.braverangels.org/wpp
OTU’s Mission
The Oakland Tenants Union is an organization of housing activists dedicated to protecting tenant rights and interests. OTU does this by working directly with tenants in their struggle with landlords, impacting legislation and public policy about housing, community education, and working with other organizations committed to furthering renters’ rights. The Oakland Tenants Union is open to anyone who shares our core values and who believes that tenants themselves have the primary responsibility to work on their own behalf.
Monthly Meetings
The Oakland Tenants Union meets regularly at 7:00 pm on the second Monday evening of each month. Our monthly meetings are held in the Community Room of the Madison Park Apartments, 100 – 9th Street (at Oak Street, across from the Lake Merritt BART Station). To enter, gently knock on the window of the room to the right of the main entrance to the building. At the meetings, first we focus on general issues affecting renters city-wide and then second we offer advice to renters regarding their individual concerns.
If you have an issue, a question, or need advice about a tenant/landlord issue, please call us at (510) 704-5276. Leave a message with your name and phone number and someone will get back to you.
Margaret Prescod is a co-founder of Black Women for Wages for Housework, coordinator of Women of Color in the Global Women’s Strike, and joint coordinator of the Care Income Now Campaign. She is on the board of the National Welfare Rights Union. She is founder of the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders and is the host of “Sojourner Truth” a nationally syndicated show on Pacifica Radio. She is a mother and the author of Black Women Bringing it all Back Home.
Join our patner @CURBprisons and the #CloseCAPrisons community in Sacramento next week for the May Revise Budget Press Conference and Rally. We demand that legislators and Governor Newsom close at least 8 more prisons by 2025. RSVP if you can make it https://t.co/zaTJm9cQuX pic.twitter.com/XHmdXMbk6E
— SURJ Bay Area (@surjbayarea) May 3, 2022
Each year in early May, Governor Newsom releases the May Revise budget after receiving input from state government bodies and community members. While the 2022-23 proposed budget (released in January) contained many positive investments, it also allocated $18.6 billion to corrections and included no plans to close more prisons in California, despite historically low, downward trending prison populations
It’s time for Governor Gavin Newsom and elected officials to do what’s right and commit to a smart plan to close prisons in California, like The People’s Plan for Prison Closure, that demands at least 10 prisons be closed by 2025. A serious plan for prison closure must include deep investments in prison towns to move them toward new, healthy economies, as well as toward healthcare, education, reentry services, and housing for justice impacted families communities.
We are showing up outside the California State Capitol on May 11th to demand Governor Newsom close at least 8 prisons by 2025 and adopt a final budget that reflects the values and needs of ALL Californians by investing in communities NOT prisons and policing.
When: Wednesday, May 11th at 9AM (Register To Receive Important Updates)
Your support is critical in providing public comment at the Police Commission meeting on May 11! Learn how to give public comment and other ways to support by visiting: https://t.co/yAaGq2B7uB and https://t.co/yO4EwM6c1P pic.twitter.com/5RV4mt1vw2
— GLIDE (@GLIDEsf) May 10, 2022
Agenda and zoom link will be posted here
Our campaign to ban oil and gas drilling in Contra Costa is at a key point: On May 11 the county Planning Commission will meet to consider the new oil and gas policy in the Conservation Element of the General Plan, which will determine land use decisions for the next twenty years. Let’s all show up (via Zoom) to tell them: Ban drilling!
Under the current proposed plan, the county would keep approving more oil and gas drilling, with unspecified mitigation of negative impacts. They are proposing 3,200′ setbacks, but research has found harmful pollution from drilling 2.5 miles away.
And they’re begging the climate issue altogether. The new “code red for humanity” announcement from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we need to stop extracting fossil fuels before the end of the decade. Approving more fossil fuel extraction is counter to the county’s declared climate policy — and to a basic sense of survival!
So rather than meeting with each other this month on Sunday (which happens to be Mother’s Day), let’s all get together at the Planning Commission meeting May 11 and deliver our message loud and clear.
Most of the 3,300+ people who signed the petition are Contra Costa residents. But for this meeting, the Planning Commission needs to hear from people all over the Bay Area. We all have a stake in this! We need to tell them we’re counting on them to protect our health: both from immediate toxic pollution and climate catastrophe.
More information and talking points here.
On May 8, we can honor our mothers in our personal ways. And we can honor all mothers and Mother Earth the following Wednesday by making it clear to the Planning Commission that drilling has to stop.
WHERE
Agenda and zoom link will be posted here
Our Green New Deal Committee meets on the second Wednesday each month. We will discuss eco-socialist issues, upcoming events and actions, committee priorities, and campaigns. All are welcome! Please RSVP to receive the URL to the meeting or email green-new-deal@eastbaydsa.org.
JOIN US THIS THURSDAY FOR PUBLIC COMMENT TO OPPOSE "A Place for All"
A Place for All = A Place for Nobody. Without housing, shelter is a dead end, with no shelter turnover and no empty beds for those on the streets. pic.twitter.com/ShwNCy0pmC
— Coalition on Homelessness (@TheCoalitionSF) May 10, 2022
Envisioning an Ecological Civilization – with Jeremy Lent
Our civilization is currently hurtling headlong toward catastrophe, as a result of climate breakdown, ecological overshoot, and gaping inequalities. Redirecting humanity’s trajectory will require transformation at a foundational level: moving from a wealth-based, extractive civilization to one that is life-affirming – an Ecological Civilization.
An Eccological Civilization represents an exciting potential future of human flourishing on a regenerated Earth. It would require a transformation of our current economy, politics, and mainstream culture, leading to a fundamentally different civilization based of different values, goals, and collective behavior. It is a vision deeply aligned with the values of the Earth Charter, and with life-affirming groups worldwide – Indigenous, political, community-based, and spiritual – and one that belongs to us all — In this Masterclass, author Jeremy Lent will share the inspiring vision of an Ecological Civilization, and describe what it might look like in practice. He will show how, while the vision might seem a long way off, it may be closer than many people realize.
A Conversation with David Wengrow, co-Author of “The Dawn of Everything”
David Wengrow to discuss key themes from “The Dawn Of Everything” – Free Online Event hosted by Prefigurative Education Project
The Prefigurative Education Project (PEP) is pleased to announce that it will host a conversation with David Wengrow – co-author of the international bbestseller The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity — This event, a live Q&A with the author, will seek to contextualize the big ideas of The Dawn of Everything in a way that seeks to understand “how we got stuck, and why these days we can hardly envisage our own past or future as anything other than a transition from smaller to larger cages.” We will also explore the ways in which we might use some of the concepts from The Dawn of Everything to become unstuck, and to both imagine and work toward a brighter and more liberatory future — The event is free to attend but registration is required – space is limited.
The Dawn of Everything is an ambitious work that challenges the prevailing understandings of how history unfolds. Its authors, David Wengrow and David Graeber, sustain an argument that human history doesn’t march in a stepwise, linear fashion with an inexorable endpoint embodied by our current forms of economic and social relations. Rather, they argue, there is an incredible range of ways in which humans have chosen to organize themselves, and examination of this diversity shatters many foundational myths regarding how we got where we are and what types of relational potentialities exist for humanity.
David Wengrow is a British archaeologist and Professor of Comparative Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He is the author of three books and numerous academic articles on topics including the origins of writing, ancient art, Neolithic societies, and the emergence of the first states in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
His co-author, David Graeber, was an American anthropologist and anarchist activist. His influential work in economic anthropology, particularly his books Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011) and Bullshit Jobs (2018), and his leading role in the Occupy movement, earned him recognition as one of the foremost anthropologists and left-wing thinkers of his time .
About PEP — PEP is an independent political education initiative centered around liberation, freedom, and the maximization of human potential and well-being. For more information please visit https://prefigurativeeducationproject.org —
A free virtual tour of 12 local homes
Register Today
Looking for inspiration to make your home climate resilient? Join us at the East Bay Green Home Tour! With a fresh line-up of homes and rentals, this free virtual event will be a helpful source of resources and ideas to help you stake your claim on a green and healthy future.
Enjoy live Q&A with homeowners, renters, and experts in a neighbor-to-neighbor format that makes offerings locally relevant. Topics include electrification, water efficiency, carbon sequestration, fireproofing, and more!
Sign up for the Green Home Tour to receive a 15% discount at the Ecology Center Store!
Ecology Center
2530 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, CA
ecologycenter.org
The Supreme Court stands poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established the right of women to abortion. Forced motherhood is female enslavement. When women are not free, no one is free.
Our only way forward and our best way forward is to resist. NOW is the time to rouse thousands and soon millions in struggle so that we can look every woman and girl in the eye with the promise in word and deed that they will have a future as full human beings. NOW is the time to stand up, together, as if our lives depend upon it – for, in fact, they do.
Wear & DISPLAY #GREEN4Abortion
Green is the color worn by millions of women in Argentina, Colombia, and other countries to express their fierce determination to legalize abortion. We are inspired by their example! Wear green and display green everywhere � on campuses, on the job, on public trannsport, on social media.
PLANET PEOPLE PEACE
before profit!
A free virtual tour of 12 local homes
Register Today
Looking for inspiration to make your home climate resilient? Join us at the East Bay Green Home Tour! With a fresh line-up of homes and rentals, this free virtual event will be a helpful source of resources and ideas to help you stake your claim on a green and healthy future.
Enjoy live Q&A with homeowners, renters, and experts in a neighbor-to-neighbor format that makes offerings locally relevant. Topics include electrification, water efficiency, carbon sequestration, fireproofing, and more!
Sign up for the Green Home Tour to receive a 15% discount at the Ecology Center Store!
Ecology Center
2530 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, CA
ecologycenter.org
Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
What is China today? What about the Communist Party and the unions in China? Do they represent gains or setbacks for humanity?
Wadi’h Halabi of the CPUSA and the Center for Marxist Education will be discussing these and related questions. Halabi studies the material basis for revolutionary optimism, with a focus on developing and advancing the architecture to complete humanity’s transition from capitalism to socialism.
Leaders in China first invited Halabi in 2000, based on an economics column published in the People’s World. Dozens of invitations followed. A proposal Halabi made to China’s leaders helped reintegrate its Communist Party into Solidnet, which organizes annual meetings of the ‘official’ Communist parties worldwide. Another Halabi proposal led to the historic unionizing of all Walmart workers in China in 2006.
Halabi’s work in China has focused on changes in the world political economy and, especially, identifying and addressing the weaknesses that led to counter-revolution in the Soviet Union and other severe defeats for humanity.
Halabi’s presentation draws from class lessons of Palestine, where he was born, before being driven out in 1948, first to Gaza, then Egypt and Lebanon, all in times of war or civil war.
Speaker will be Wadi’h Halbi , Communist Party, USA. For background on his background and life as a Palestinian refugee and Communist, see his talk Israel/Palestine: A Historical Perspective from a Palestinian Communist. Sunday June 6, 2022. ICSSMARX.ORG.
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 259 108 2607
Passcode: ICSS22515r
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NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:
occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If for some reason the amphitheater is being used otherwise and/or OGP itself is inaccessible, we will meet at Kaiser Park, right next to the statues, on 19th St. between San Pablo and Telegraph. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)
On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally. Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.
At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.
General Assembly Standard Agenda
Welcome & Introductions
Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
Announcements
(Optional) Discussion Topic
Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.
Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area
San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv