Calendar

The final class in our “What is Abolition?” series will take a look at the prison system and the conditions that prisoners face, as well as looking at alternatives to dealing with harm. Do prisons actually change people’s behaviors? Or reduce harm? What are alternative ways that we can address interpersonal harm? What is transformative justice? Join this discussion hosted by the EBDSA Political Education Committee and the Racial Solidarity Committee and explore these questions with your DSA comrades.

Check here for readings and videos

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Readings + Videos to come!

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Join us for a solidarity caravan followed by a community gathering of music, food, art, and friends!

What: Reimagine Safety Community Celebration & Caravan

When: Saturday, July 10, 2021

1pm: Caravan from Lake Merritt to Lowell Park

3 pm: Community Celebration at Lowell Park. pic.twitter.com/ajtrZSAcli

— Anti Police-Terror Project (@APTPaction) July 7, 2021

Group Discussion: The Communist Manifesto.

We will go through this foundational work of Marxism reading selective paragraphs  with ample opportunity for discussion after each selection. Be prepared to voice, and defend, your views!

Our discussion will be led by ICSS member Gene Ruyle. In preparation, please re-read the Manifesto itself, and if there are particular passages you want the group to consider, please send the full text of those passages to <cuylerluyle@mac.com> by Saturday morning so they can be included – and bring your own copy to our Zoom meeting (available on the Marx-Engels Internet Archive).

LOGIN INFORMATION

We Intend to start the presentation as close to 10:30 am as possible, but the Zoom room 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.. The program (and recording) will end at 12:30, but the Waiting Room will remain open until about 1 pm for informal discussion.

Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 259 108 2607
Passcode: ICSS711rs
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Gifford Hartman will speak about exemplary moments in labor history that help us imagine possibilities for breaking the current jobs vs. climate-and-community impasse.  For one example: the actions of the petrochemical workers at Porto Marghera in Italy, whose struggles from the 1960s to the 1980s arguably made them the world’s first worker-ecologists:  “They fought against the bosses, but also against the destruction of the workers’ health and environmental contamination.”   (For a deeper dive, see this subtitled documentary: Porto Maghera: The Last Firebrands.)

To get the Zoom link, RSVP to action@sunflower-alliance.org.

US-China Relations and the New Cold War
           

K.J Noh – Understanding US-China Relations in the Current Historical Moment  From dealing with Covid, to mitigating global climate change, to managing global economic shifts, the most important factor determining the outcome of these critical issues is the nature of US-China relations.  Yet, the US is clearly on a path towards conflict with China–“the US is already in the foothills of a cold war”, according to Kissinger–while analyses and news about this critical relationship in the MSM is saturated with misinformation, disinformation, and inflammatory propaganda. K.J. Noh will unpack the origins, players, forces, and risks in the current historical moment, the relationship with Anti-Asian racism, the prospects of war–hot and cold–, and what these outcomes could yield for the future of our planet. Last but not least, he will invite critical consideration about what conscientious and informed citizens can do.

George Koo – Treating China as an adversary is a lose-lose proposition  Key talking points to be addressed are: (1) China does not have a history or policy of confrontation.  (2) US deliberate policy makes no sense but is harmful to American renewal and return to greatness. (3) The essential elements to successful win-win collaboration

K.J. Noh, is a scholar, educator and journalist focusing on the political economy and geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific.   He writes for Dissident Voice, Black Agenda Report, Counterpunch, Popular Resistance, Asia Times, LA progressive, MR Online, and is senior correspondent for KPFA Flashpoints.  He also does frequent commentary and analysis on various news programs, including The Critical Hour, By Any Means Necessary, Fault Lines, Political Misfits, Loud & Clear, and The Socialist Program.

George Koo has devoted a greater part of his career helping American companies, especially technology based companies, develop their approach to China since China began its economic reform in 1978. After his retirement from Deloitte in 2008, he joined the corporate board of Las Vegas Sands and became fully retired six years later. He has been a frequent contributor of commentaries on US China relations first to Pacific News, then New America Media and most recently to online Asia Times.

July 11th, 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm  Via Zoom: please see access info below

Green Sundays are a series of free public programs & discussions on topics “du jour” sponsored by the Green Party of Alameda County and held on the 2nd Sunday of each month. The monthly business meeting of the County Council of the Green Party follows at 7:00 pm, after a 30-minute break. Council meetings are open to anyone who is interested.

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Meeting ID: 826 2027 1999
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PLANET PEOPLE PEACE
before profit!
https://acgreens.wordpress.com/
Express your green ideas and “like” us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/greenpartyofalamedacounty/

Join the People’s Transit Alliance and Political Education to learn about how public transportation is an important site for socialist organizing. From public transit’s role as a unionized labor sector to its crucial position as a tool in the fight for ecosocialism and collective struggle, it’s clear that the stakes of how we move around where we live are high.

We will reflect on transportation’s role in capitalism and how it might be transformed, important moments in socialist history that engage transit, and all the possible angles for organizing class struggle and winning a transit system that exists for and through the working class.

See you there!

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Passcode: transit

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In his new book, Cancel This Book, longtime activist and labor lawyer Dan Kovalik argues that cancel culture is entirely mean-spirited, a danger to progressive movement building, and serves only the interests of the extremely powerful. Getting people fired or socially ostracizing them because they ran afoul of the ever-changing language norms or made a simple mistake is a strategy that hands more power to bosses and authority figures. While It may make the accusers feel good, it is destructive,“  Kovalik insists. CANCEL THIS BOOK argues not just for an end to cancel culture, but for a renewed focus on solidarity, compassion, and civility, all of which are required to build the mass progressive movements that we need now more than ever. Like many on the left, Kovalik has watched with concern as works of classic literature have been summarily cut from curricula, individuals have been traumatized and pilloried, jobs lost, reputations destroyed.

“The liberal proponents of cancel culture,” says Chris Hedges,” have become the Grand Inquisitors of speech. They wallow in cloying self-righteousness while at the same time they refuse, either because of cowardice or ineptitude, to confront the real centers of power—the array of intelligence agencies that monitor us 24 hours a day, the rampant out-of-control militarism, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the bankrupt corporate media outlets. Proponents of cancel culture are part of the American burlesque of anti-politics masquerading as politics.”

Dan Kovalik is the author of critically acclaimed The Plot to Scapegoat Russia, The Plot to Attack Iran, The Plot to Control the World, The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela, and No More War.  He has been a labor and human rights lawyer since 1993. Kovalik received the David W. Mills Mentoring Fellowship from Stanford Law School, has written extensively for HuffPost and CounterPunch, and has lectured throughout the world.

Mickey Huff  is the current Director of Project Censored and president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation. He has edited or co-edited ten annual volumes of Censored, and contributed numerous chapters. He is currently professor of social science and history at Diablo Valley College, where he is also co-chair of the history department.  He is executive producer and co-host of the Project Censored Show, a weekly syndicated public affairs program aired over KPFA Radio and fifty community radio stations.

Are you hungry for deeper dialogue about the climate crisis and building community around solutions? We are too.

A group of us at California Doughnut Economics Coalition are reading All We Can Save — it’s a book club! The book club helps us build on our doughnut economics foundation, further connect the (social & ecological) dots, and think more like a 21st-century economist. We want to extend the invite to all.

About Book Club: A unique opportunity to read and share some information and inspirational conversation on important issues. The book club is an unbiased and safe forum that opens our minds to ideas and information for a more in-depth look at our world, our community, and hopefully ourselves.

• Date/Time: third Thursday of each month
• Time: 6-7 PM PST
• Register for event and Zoom link will be provided.
• This Month’s Book: All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. All We Can Save is a national bestseller. Provocative and illuminating essays from women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward.

Each month, we will discuss essays from each section:

• 4/15: Begin
• 5/20: Part 1 – Root
• 6/17: Part 2 – Advocate & Part 3 – Reframe
• 7/15: Part 4 – Reshape & Part 5 – Persist
• 8/19: Part 6 – Feel & Part 7 – Nourish
• 9/16: Part 8 – Rise & Onward
• 10/21: TBD

—

How it relates to Doughnut Economics: The book club helps us to further connect the dots and think more like a 21st-century economist.

What: To protest Biden’s inaction on Line 3 and demand that he and the Army Corp of Engineers revoke the permit now.
 
Where: Phillip Burton Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse

This is being organized by a coalition of Bay Area climate justice activists. Come help us bring the message to Biden and the Corp that it is time to Stop Line 3!
RSVP & info on Facebook: https://fb.me/e/2PsKW4Fgi

Secretary Blinken has recently asserted that conflict in the South China Sea (SCS) between the Philippines and China could justify US war against China, due to a mutual defense treaty. This pronouncement comes as the US rallies its allies to form a bloc against China, escalates economic war, and heightens rhetoric against China. This presentation will explain:

* Why the SCS–and the Phillipines–are critical to US global geostrategy

* The SCS arbitral tribunal decision that the US claims as justification for Phillipine claims

* The history & context of the current cold war against China

* How the war would unfold

Our speaker, K.J. Noh, is a scholar, educator and journalist focusing on the political economy and geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific.   He writes for Dissident Voice, Black Agenda Report, Counterpunch, Popular Resistance, Asia Times, LA progressive, MR Online, and is senior correspondent for KPFA Flashpoints.  He also does frequent commentary and analysis on various news programs, including The Critical Hour, By Any Means Necessary, Fault Lines, Political Misfits, Loud & Clear, and The Socialist Program.

LOGIN INFORMATION

We Intend to start the presentation as close to 10:30 am as possible, but the Zoom room 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.. The program (and recording) will end at 12:30, but the Waiting Room will remain open until about 1 pm for informal discussion.

Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 259 108 2607
Passcode: ICSS718rs
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Meeting ID: 259 108 2607
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Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc4RrpvAiQ

Come to rally just before city council: July 20th, 2021 1pm PST
Oakland City Hall Oscar Grant Plaza , 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland CA
Get on speakers list for city council meeting by contacting: committeeforlaborparty(at)gmail.com or For a Mass Labor Party in the USA @masslaborpartyusa on Facebook and Twitter
https://www.facebook.com/masslaborpartyusa/
https://foramasslaborparty.wordpress.com

On July 20th, 2021, Oakland City Council will take a vote on Oakland Athletics proposal for the development of a baseball stadium and accompanying condominium complex in the current Howard Terminal and connecting area to Jack London Square.
What does this means for maritime workers and the community in and around the port of Oakland?

Ultimately our livelihoods are at stake. More traffic congestion from mass sporting events and high end entertainment will surround the real estate portion of this proposed development. The developers argue any economic growth will benefit all workers and the community as it will inevitably spread out.

We know this not to be true. Just remember how conversion of the San Francisco Embarcadero from industrial maritime use to tourism was promoted over past decades. The loss of shipyards, maritime facilities and jobs such as scalers, boilermakers and machinists has lead to a steady eroding of union scale wages such that those who work in these areas can no longer afford to live anywhere near the city front.

The Oakland Athletics stadium proposal does not democratically consider workers at the port and the surrounding maritime community. Under the A’s proposed Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (EIFD) increases in property tax revenue on the development expected to rise from the current $30 million to over $12 billion by 2037 will be used for the area of the development itself. Infrastructure spending for schools, port facilities, and resources outside the specified EIFD area (Howard Terminal to Jack London Square) would be left out of this 30+ year projected tax revenue increase.

This type of exclusionary development planning is typical of public land privatization schemes, notably of the Fisher family (who own the A’s Franchise), which has gone on record as backing some of the biggest public land grabs for private profit in city history including AT&T park and the Charterization of public schools into the KIPP chain and Rocketship which their family controls.

Fishers enjoy bipartisan support from all corrupt politicians in the City. The Democratic Council members Ron Bonta and Nancy Skinner of Oakland City are among the foremost advocates for this privatization project. Most other Democrats and Republicans in the City or County have been silent on the issue at best, or supported this union-busting gentrification drive at worst. It is clear that we need a working-class alternative to defend our jobs, unions, residences, and environment.

Sailors, Longshore Workers, Truckers and Railroad Workers Unite! Stand with the working class and multi-ethnic communities against displacement! For well funded schools and public infrastructure through a participatory and democratic decision-making process of all who are effected and concerned!

REGISTER: [Click here]

In the age of algorithms and informatics, law enforcement agencies across the country have turned to data-driven programs to help fight crime. But what happens when such programs infringe on civil rights, amplify racial biases or become abusive? And how can journalists hold those agencies accountable while detailing the steep human costs for those targeted? In this webinar, 2021 Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporters Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi will explain how they unearthed a secretive policing operation in Florida that used data to harass residents and profile schoolchildren. And they will discuss strategies that reporters can use to go beyond press releases and sniff out similar programs in their own communities. They’ll also share practical reporting tips for fact-checking police claims, finding the right people to bring the story to life, and some broader lessons learned from landing difficult stories in the face of sustained opposition.

Kathleen McGrory is the deputy editor for investigations at the Tampa Bay Times. She and her colleague Neil Bedi won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for their reporting on a local policing program used to monitor and harass residents. The series was also a finalist for the 2021 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and the Scripps Howard Award for Local/Regional Investigative Reporting. Their prior series, on problems at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting and won the 2019 George Polk award for local reporting and an IRE award. As a 2016 Center for Health Journalism National Fellow, she reported “In Harm’s Way,” revealing for the first time that between 2010 and 2015 nearly 3,200 kids in Florida were killed or injured by firearms. She started her career at the Miami Herald, where she covered breaking news, education and government. She is a graduate of Hamilton College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Neil Bedi is a reporter at ProPublica in Washington, D.C., where he covers federal government agencies. He was previously an investigative reporter at the Tampa Bay Times. His 2020 National Fellowship project with 2016 National Fellow Kathleen McGrory focused on a local predictive policing program in Pasco County, Florida that harassed residents and profiled schoolchildren. It was recently awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, and led to a federal investigation and several civil suits. His 2018 investigation with McGrory into the alarming death rate at the cardiac surgery unit of a Florida children’s hospital won the George Polk Award and was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. In addition, he has twice been named a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. He graduated from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING:

WHERE

Join Zoom call with option for public speaking here. 

Update:  After an hour of staff presentations, questions from the Board of Directors, and 5 1/2 hours of impassioned public testimony, the Board lost its quorum and the clock ran out on the scheduled June vote on BAAQMD’s Rule 6-5.  It has been continued to July 21st at 8:30 AM.  There will be further opportunity for public comment, but those comments will be limited to 30 seconds, and only if you didn’t speak at the June 2nd meeting.

Previous action alert:

Join the Bay Area public in demanding that BAAQMD adopt the strictest refinery regulation of particulate matter emissions!

Last March, a majority of the BAAQMD Stationary Source Committee voted 7-4  to send the most stringent proposal for Rule 6.5*—a measure to reduce health-destroying particulate matter from the Chevron and Marathon refineries—to the full Board of Directors. The community turned out in force and made eloquent, persuasive comments in favor of the tightest possible regulation of Bay Area refinery particulate matter emissions, or PM 2.5, the primary cause of our “stationary” (non-transportation) air pollution–related illness. They demanded that these refineries install wet scrubbing technology in the chambers that break down heavy oils—the Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Units (FCCUs), or “cat crackers”—on the earliest feasible timeline, as recommended by BAAQMD’s own Advisory Board.

BAAQMD staff has been taking the indefensible position that oil companies’ costs outweigh the health benefits of wet scrubbing technology, already in place at Valero in Benicia as well as over half of U.S. refineries. They’ve  justified this stance by accepting industry’s extravagant cost claims and grossly underestimating the health consequences—asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart disease and stroke—borne primarily by low-income, Black, and Brown residents of frontline communities.

It’s clear that industry has been pulling out all the stops to prevent Board approval of the most health-protective standards: every union member (from unions opposing this rule) was instructed to call in to the June 2nd meeting and speak in opposition. This is wildly unprecedented. While this struggle is again being framed as the environment vs. jobs, what is not generally understood is that job loss in the fossil fuel industry is not driven by environmental regulations:  it’s market forces that are to blame.

Talking points here.

*See a detailed analysis of “Rule 6-5” and its potential to reduce enormous health impacts in this December post.

RSVP (scroll down)

If you love sci-fi, fantasy, and other speculative fiction, chances are you love futuristic world-building and supernatural elements. What if we made more space for daydreaming, re-imaginings, and inventions in the real world?

If our systems of law and property were designed around a flawed worldview of separation and dominance, then what does it look like if we rebuild them on a foundation of interdependence? Bring your imagination!

Sustainable Economies Law Center staff, interns, and partners will share about our on-the-ground work and visions for the future. We’ll also do some small group visioning and then turn our collective story about the future into a sci-non-fi blog post or video!

Guest Speakers:

Christopher J. Chew | Co-Director of Cooperative 4 the Community

Chris (they/them) was born and raised in Oakland, where they consumed a LOT of sci-fi and fantasy. They use their imagination to dream up unique solutions to the world’s problems. For example, when the Community Democracy Project needed a way to pay signature gatherers to help with the People’s Budget Amendment Campaign, Chris co-founded Cooperative 4 the Community to create the first worker-owned signature gathering firm.

Hope Williams | Co-Director and Legal Apprentice of Radical Real Estate Law School

Hope (she/her) is a legal apprentice at the Sustainable Economies Law Center! She is excited to finally begin her path to becoming an attorney advocate that helps black and brown marginalized communities. Devoted to housing rights and organizing people power to fight the oppressive white supremacist regime, Hope spends most of her time making sure that the law is accessible to the people.

Victoria Jin Yu | Member of the Community Democracy Project

Victoria (she/her) works at Design Action Collective and spends her free time reading/writing fantasy fiction and volunteering at the Community Democracy Project on a campaign to put the entire city budget in the hands of the people. Every other week, she combines those two passions and plays D&D with a group of Oakland activists, cooperators, and organizers.

Yeji Jung | Intern at the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and Sustainable Economies Law Center

Yeji (she/they) is a Korean American immigrant woman continuously learning their histories and connecting with their ancestors. They connect the land struggle on the Korean peninsula to land struggles everywhere, especially where they reside, and join movements for liberation with a growing understanding of Indigenous sovereignty as environmental justice in the face of the global climate/capitalist crisis. They strive to show up for community in various roles, including artist, organizer, Korean political pungmul drummer, law student, and gardener learning Korean farming. At SELC, they are working with Sogorea Te’ Land Trust to support the rematriation of Lisjan Ohlone land.

Thirty years since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, awareness of disability rights, advocacy, and visibility has increased, yet there is still a long way to go toward equality and understanding. Examining the complexities of disability issues with wisdom, humor, and honesty, author and disability advocate Rebekah Taussig offers a roadmap for broadening our awareness and expanding our understanding to help build a more inclusive world.

Growing up as a paralyzed girl in the 1990s and early 2000s, Rebekah saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of these depictions felt right because none of them represented her lived experience-complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling. Rebekah seeks to normalize the lived experience of disabled persons while also advocating for improvements and a paradigm shift-something that we all play a necessary part in. Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another.

We need more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity and in Rebekah’s latest book, Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body, she challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we build a more radically inclusive future together.

Join Rebekah in conversation as she talks about her book, her life and her work, and challenges us to work together to build a more inclusive world.

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