Public Service Loan Forgiveness is a broken promise. On Oct. 6, 2021, the Biden administration announced a limited waiver intended to finally fulfill the promise of loan cancellation for millions of public servants. So far over 100,000 have gotten their debt cancelled because of the PSLF waiver, but many others are encountering problems.

The Debt Collective is co-hosting a webinar with the Student Borrower Protection Center that will focus on how to troubleshoot those problems.

6 p.m. ET Monday, March 21: Troubleshooting the PSLF Waiver

We will cover some of the unwritten rules about how to fill out the form that might trip up or delay the process, how to tell if a message you have gotten is false or misleading, and what steps to take if you think there is a problem. Our goal is to make sure that everyone gets the cancellation they were promised.

RSVP here.

This 5-part course is designed for anyone interested in studying technology and data as the new frontier in organizing against the systems of enforcement and criminalization that harm our communities.

Three years since beginning our monumental #NoTechForICE campaign, we’re launching this course to share resources we’ve developed and to create a digital space for deepening our collective understanding of the ever-expanding state of surveillance––and how to organize against it.

By signing up for this course, you will hear from organizers, professors, and movement leaders who contribute towards this powerful movement for a surveillance-free future. Lessons will cover: data colonialism, race and policing, immigration enforcement, border militarization, global migration, organizing tools, and more.

Alongside key speakers, you will engage with selected readings, reflection questions, and meet other people thinking through these issues of 21st century technologies in their own communities. Join us every two weeks for one hour as we learn together and continue to build a path that centers communities targeted by the detention and deportation machinery, policing, and military operations.

We know that left unchecked, we will be facing down a new world order designed and controlled by big tech and enabled by the government.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH US!

Session Dates

Live sessions will take place biweekly on Wednesdays for one hour at 3pm PST/5PM CST/6pm EST. Lesson materials and content for each lesson will be unlocked prior to the live session.

Session 1: February 23rd
Session 2: March 9th
Session 3: March 23rd
Session 4: April 6th
Session 5: April 20th

SAN FRANCISCO YOUTH MARCH for CLIMATE & RACIAL JUSTICE

From BlackRock to ICE, no more profits from our pain!

On Friday, March 25th, a Global Day of Action, we invite all youth and allies to join us in a
non-violent march calling out those who are profiting from climate destruction and white supremacy.

As the IPCC warns us of the urgency of climate action, as California fire season becomes year round, as more and more of us suffer from asthma, as human rights are violated at the border and in the prison system, and as wars are fought around the world over access to oil and gas, young people are rising up.

We know these issues are connected. Many people crossing the border into the US are in some way fleeing climate breakdown, or the effects of the extractive economy. When companies like Blackrock finance forest destruction, people flee while the whole earth suffers. When Indigenous rights are violated, our ecology is destabilized and our world becomes more dangerous. When we depend on fossil fuels, militarization increases and people on the front lines suffer the most. When fighting climate change we must find solutions to rebuild the entire system in order to get rid of the climate crisis.

We say People Not Profit. We say No One Is Disposable.We say climate refugees and immigrants deserve a pathway to citizenship and that the inhumane and illegal “Remain In Mexico” policy must end. We say BlackRock must stop investing in fossil fuels, deforestation, and destruction. We say CalSTRS and the California Teachers Association must no longer stand by while their pension funds pay for this chaos. We say climate justice is migrant justice is indigenous sovereignty is economic justice is divestment from destruction.

We are standing up for our lives, for our neighbors, for our future, for our planet. On March 25th, please join us, and bring everyone you go to school with, work with, or follow on social media. We need all of us.

AFSC and Council on American-Islamic Relations – SF Bay Area invite you to a virtual training event

Are police and sheriffs in your community allowed to tear gas children or protesters? To send the SWAT team to serve a drug warrant? What militarized equipment does your local police or sheriff have? When are they allowed to use it and against whom?

A new state law gives Californians a new window of opportunity to influence what militarized equipment local police agencies use.

Join our March 31 Zoom training to find out how. You’ll learn:

• What is AB481? How does it apply to my community?
• How do I find the relevant policy and hearing date for my city or county?
• What are effective talking points for speaking up?

You can also use our AB 481 Advocacy Toolkit.

Register here for our 45-minute training session, Advocate for your community: AB481, militarized police, and you.

While Oakland and Berkeley have local ordinances on military equipment used by police, sheriff and police departments across the state, they are now required to comply with similar state legislation, AB 481, and will submit policies to city councils and county supervisors within the next five weeks.

Please consider joining us and spreading the word.

This 5-part course is designed for anyone interested in studying technology and data as the new frontier in organizing against the systems of enforcement and criminalization that harm our communities.

Three years since beginning our monumental #NoTechForICE campaign, we’re launching this course to share resources we’ve developed and to create a digital space for deepening our collective understanding of the ever-expanding state of surveillance––and how to organize against it.

By signing up for this course, you will hear from organizers, professors, and movement leaders who contribute towards this powerful movement for a surveillance-free future. Lessons will cover: data colonialism, race and policing, immigration enforcement, border militarization, global migration, organizing tools, and more.

Alongside key speakers, you will engage with selected readings, reflection questions, and meet other people thinking through these issues of 21st century technologies in their own communities. Join us every two weeks for one hour as we learn together and continue to build a path that centers communities targeted by the detention and deportation machinery, policing, and military operations.

We know that left unchecked, we will be facing down a new world order designed and controlled by big tech and enabled by the government.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH US!

Session Dates

Live sessions will take place biweekly on Wednesdays for one hour at 3pm PST/5PM CST/6pm EST. Lesson materials and content for each lesson will be unlocked prior to the live session.

Session 1: February 23rd
Session 2: March 9th
Session 3: March 23rd
Session 4: April 6th
Session 5: April 20th

New Member Orientation!

Get involved with community-based police accountability and the struggle for justice! Copwatch will be hosting a new volunteer orientation (with snacks) where we will have info sessions on copwatching shifts, Know Your Rights trainings, creative projects, casework, and our police incident database.

This even will be held outside, socially distanced with masks.
Accessibility: The location is at ground level, in a grassy area.

For questions, email: berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com

Lead the way in bringing change to the California State Capitol and all our communities!

Virtual. Link will be shared upon registration.
SIGN UP

Led by organizers from the three ACLU California affiliates and ACLU California Action, the 2022 ACLU California Action Conference will kick off on Tuesday, April 19 and be followed with training and visits to lawmakers’ offices to lobby for the change we seek.

This legislative session, activists like you will help pass key bills to:

• Increase oversight of officer-involved deaths.
• Protect students from unnecessary interactions with law enforcement.
• Limit police use of facial recognition technology.

These bills will continue to push California leaders to embrace the change our communities demand.

Register now for this free, virtual event.

In Solidarity,

Carlos Marquez III
Executive Director, ACLU California Action
Donate Now

This 5-part course is designed for anyone interested in studying technology and data as the new frontier in organizing against the systems of enforcement and criminalization that harm our communities.

Three years since beginning our monumental #NoTechForICE campaign, we’re launching this course to share resources we’ve developed and to create a digital space for deepening our collective understanding of the ever-expanding state of surveillance––and how to organize against it.

By signing up for this course, you will hear from organizers, professors, and movement leaders who contribute towards this powerful movement for a surveillance-free future. Lessons will cover: data colonialism, race and policing, immigration enforcement, border militarization, global migration, organizing tools, and more.

Alongside key speakers, you will engage with selected readings, reflection questions, and meet other people thinking through these issues of 21st century technologies in their own communities. Join us every two weeks for one hour as we learn together and continue to build a path that centers communities targeted by the detention and deportation machinery, policing, and military operations.

We know that left unchecked, we will be facing down a new world order designed and controlled by big tech and enabled by the government.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH US!

Session Dates

Live sessions will take place biweekly on Wednesdays for one hour at 3pm PST/5PM CST/6pm EST. Lesson materials and content for each lesson will be unlocked prior to the live session.

Session 1: February 23rd
Session 2: March 9th
Session 3: March 23rd
Session 4: April 6th
Session 5: April 20th

https://www.change.org/p/drop-the-charges-support-kpfa-staff-independent-journalist-frank-sterling/u/30374303

Update: New Court Date April 25th at 8:30 am Contra Costa Superior Court

There is no indication yet that Contra Costa DA Diana Becton is willing to drop the charges of resisting arrest against Frank Sterling. We would like to let Frank’s supporters know that the court date has been changed to April 25th, 2022 and we will hold a brief rally outside of the courthouse to show our support. We will also go inside to pack the courtroom.

The DA needs to be aware that the community supports Frank Sterling who was exercising his First Amendment right to protest against outgoing Chief of Police Chauncey Brooks. Brooks was resigning as Chief of the Antoich Police Department to become the Deputy Chief of Police of Boise Idaho amidst controversy over how he handled the cases of police violence especially the case of the police killing of Angela Quinto. Frank is an independent journalist and KPFA staff, Director of the Apprenticeship program.

DROP THE CHARGES! Support KPFA staff & Independent journalist Frank Sterling!

On September 17th 2021, KPFA staff member and journalist Frank Sterling was attacked by police while covering a demonstration in Antioch. He was tackled, held down, tasered, and his recording equipment taken. Compounding the injustice, Frank has been charged with resisting arrest.

Frank is Technical Director of KPFA’s Apprenticeship Program; a contributor to Friday evening’s Full Circle show; and a staff representative to the KPFA Local Station Board. Frank is part of the Bay Area’s Native American community, active in exposing police brutality and denouncing police killings and has already endured a previous attack by the Antioch police.

Take action: Sign this petition. Call Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton’s office at 925-957-2200 or tweet at @DADianaBecton and demand the dismissal of charges.

Email the DA at DAOffice@contracostada.org. Please use Subject heading:Drop the Charges.

The DA ran on criminal justice reform. We are asking she uphold her promise. We must end the criminalization of protest and of independent journalists covering these events.

For more information:
Report by Black Agenda Report contributing editor Ann Garrison: https://blackagendareport.com/activist-journalist-frank-sterling-trial

Longshoremen and teachers are united to strike against the privatization of Oakland

Please spread this far and wide to encourage everybody to participate. Begin the fightback vs the billionaires

https://tinyurl.com/7dfvez5e

The billionaires are after our public resources here in the City of
Oakland. The Oakland School Board has recently voted to close 11
public schools, despite overwhelming opposition from the
community. School closures disproportionately harm
communities of color. They are part of a long-term plan by
corporations to destroy public education – selling them off to real
estate developers or converting them into charter schools.
Oakland does not have “too many schools,” as the district says.
Oakland has too many charter schools!

Meanwhile, the City of Oakland is planning to spend $855 million in
taxpayer money to construct a new A’s stadium and condo complex at Howard Terminal, which is crucial to the port of Oakland. These privatization schemes are part of the gentrification of Oakland – attacking working-class communities, destroying union jobs, and displacing
low-income residents of the Bay Area

We must come together and fight back! This year May Day
(International Workers Day) falls on a Sunday, so our
action will be two days earlier, on April 29. The ILWU
Local 10 has informed the port that they will be having
a stop work day on this day in support of Oakland
teachers.

APRIL 29 Port Shutdown! School Shutdown!
2pm – Rally at Oscar Grant Plaza / City Hall
3pm – March to 1000 Broadway

WOMEN’S MARCH: NATIONWIDE CALL TO ACTION for ABORTION RIGHTS

Let’s be clear: Abortion is health care

That’s why in light of the dire news that SCOTUS has voted to strike down Roe v. Wade, we’re showing up for abortion rights.

We’re horrified, saddened, and livid. If you are too, then now is the time to show up and show them our movement won’t back down from protecting our reproductive rights.

Show up at your courthouses, federal buildings or town square to say bans off our bodies and demand elected officials take action before SCOTUS overturns Roe.

Bring your families, your signs, your stories, your heart, and your commitment to
save Roe and access to safe & legal abortion for all who need it.

🚨 RALLY TO DEFEND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS!

Join Bay Area union members, elected leaders, Planned Parenthood, La Familia Community Clinic, and more in an emergency rally.

⏰ WHEN: Today, 5pm

📍 WHERE: In front of Ronald V. Dellums Oakland Federal Building (1301 Clay St, Oakland) pic.twitter.com/qjlGJz4NnF

— IFPTE Local 21 (@IFPTE21) May 3, 2022

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)

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

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!