Calendar

Prosecuting Attorney Angela Corey is planning to push for consecutive sentencing in Marissa’s upcoming re-trial, pushing for a 60 year sentence for firing a warning shot, causing no injury, to protect herself from her abusive husband. We cannot allow this to happen! It’s time to drop the charges against Marissa Alexander and let her get back to the work of raising her children and living her life.

This Saturday, International Women’s Day, at 2pm we will gather in Oscar Grant Plaza for a march into West Oakland to bring awareness to Marissa’s case. We will have information to give to folks and will move at a pace that allows for both participation and important conversations with our neighbors. Families are encouraged to participate!

New to Strike Debt?? Don’t walk cold turkey into a bunch of radicals talking about debt! Show up a half hour early—at 2:30 PM—for an informal pre-meeting intro session. If you’d like to attend this pre-together please email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com and let us know you’re coming.

Join Strike Debt Bay Area in working on some exciting projects locally and nationally to fight unjust debt.

– The latest on our coalition efforts to Save the Berkeley Post Office and fight the privatization of our commons.

– The latest on our efforts to help Richmond and NGO allies push for principal reduction for Richmond’s homeowners. Read an article written by two Strike Debt Bay Area members on the Richmond principal reduction / eminent domain case.

In addition, we are exploring the use of a public bank to help Richmond, CA and other communities escape the thrall of Wall Street.

– Work on our radio segment on KPFA

– Other projects include efforts to fight against student debt in conjunction with peeps at UC Cal via a Strike Debt UC Berkeley chapter of Strike Debt, a book group with semi-weekly discussions, investigations into the legitimacy of mortgage ownership and therefore the right to foreclose, efforts to thwart payday loan usury and more.

“Just as bosses are dependent on workers, so are lenders dependent on borrowers. If workers walk out, the enterprise stops. If borrowers refuse to pay their debts, the lenders could be in real trouble. Each side depends on the other. The millions of underwater mortgage holders, of student debtors and credit card holders, need the bank loans –  but so do the banks need those borrowers, and they especially need them to cooperate by paying their monthly charges. Otherwise, the capital that the banks list on their books begins to drain away.” ~Francis Fox Piven

Check out our website, our Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.

Check out the Berkeley Post Office Defenders website too.

GG’s statement on homelessness at the Albany City Council:

 http://www.youtube.com/user/orionorion99?feature=watch

On March 5th, we are sorry to report that Albany City Council chose to ignore the overwhelming crowd of farm supporters, and instead approved the UC’s development plan for the southern half of the Gill Tract.  This public farmland is an invaluable and rare resource, but if the UC Administration has its way, it will be developed it for purely commercial uses that have nothing to do with Berkeley’s mission and responsibilities as a public land grant university.

After the meeting, many of the people who had come to speak to City Council had an impromptu meeting and announced several followup events:

• 1) A brainstorming and power-mapping forum for the community to propose and deliberate actions that might prevent the development.
• 2) A kickoff event for campus organizing.  Let’s bring some pressure to bear on the UC Administration!

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

The City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which may protect the Post Office against various commercial uses, or be totally ineffective. We need to stay on top of it.

The American Postal Workers Union is planning more actions against Staples; we need to support them. We are going to start a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign.

Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked and we need to be on the leading edge of that.  We hope to holding a forum on postal and public banking soon on the Post Office steps.  Come help us plan it!

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

WE MAY BE WINNING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR SPIFFY NEW WEBSITE.

Water is essential for life.  We are 65% water and are not likely to survive more than three days without it. Water is not just for drinking, but for other essential processes like growing food and for sanitation.  Fresh water is in limited supply. Despite its preciousness, however, water is being violated by pollution and waste, and commercialization all over the globe. Corporations are privatizing and exploiting water supplies where people can least afford it. Climate change is turning more and more of the earth’s surface to desert, and when the rains do come, they come more often as violent storms. California’s most recent drought has brought our regional water issues to the front pages, including the question of why Northern California reservoirs are empty and SoCal reservoirs are full. How can we cope with and reverse this global and local water crisis?

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla is the Executive Director for Restore the Delta, which works in the areas of public education and outreach so that all Californians recognize the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta as part of California’s natural heritage, deserving of restoration. Prior to joining the campaign, Ms. Barrigan-Parrilla served as the Business Development Manager for the Planning and Conservation League in Sacramento. Ms. Barrigan-Parrilla has also worked in education, business and communications.  Over the last seven years, Ms. Barrigan-Parrilla has worked to give Delta residents a voice in the myriad of government processes leading to the proposed peripheral tunnels project, or Bay Delta Conservation Plan.

Adam Scow is the California Director of Food & Water Watch, a national organization dedicated to protecting our right to safe food and clean water. He is responsible for developing strategy for local, state, and campaigns. Adam is a co-founder of Californians against Fracking and has won several campaigns to defeat attempts to privatize our water. He has served on the planning committee for the annual California Water Policy Conference.

Check out the Blue-Gold action plan!
http://www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com/actionplan/index.html

The San Francisco School Bus Drivers (UTU 1741) are inviting you to a picket of Veolia’s para-transit office. This protest is in support of the 4 Union leaders fired by Veolia in Boston. Veolia’s anti-Union record is as bad as its environmental and human rights record.

Steve Gillis, Vice President of Boston School Bus Drivers Union, was one of the fired Union leaders. He was a featured speaker at the anti-Veolia Conference in SF on 2/8. Veolia locked out 800 drivers and fired the leadership of the Union (USW 8751) when they engaged in a protected union activity protesting Unfair Labor Practices by Veolia.

Over a period of only 3 months after Veolia won a contract for school busing in Boston Veolia succeeded in violating every term and condition of the Union contract that they had signed. The Union had, in that short time, filed 18 unfair labor practice charges and over 175 individual & class action grievances.

The fired Union leaders were the Vice President, The Chair of the Grievance committee, the three-term past President and the Recording Secretary. This was an attempt to decapitate the Union.

USW 8751 has asked for solidarity pickets at Veolia’s offices & businesses. Such protests have already had an effect and the Boston School Bus Drivers emphasize that right now things are at a critical juncture in negotiations to get their jobs back and the actions are more important than ever.

We will have signs, but feel free to bring your own signs.

Facebook event & RSVP.

Support Tristan and loved ones as we mark five years since the shooting of Bay Area activist, Tristan Anderson. Tristan was severely injured when he was shot in the head with a (American made) tear gas grenade by Israeli Military Police during a protest in Occupied Palestine in 2009 in the village of Ni’ilin. Tristan became paralyzed on about half his body and lives with severe permanent injury to his brain.

We honor Tristan and rage at our own government for it’s direct role in the misery of Gaza, the tear gas over Taksim, the police killings of Alan Blueford, Oscar Grant, Kenneth Harding Jr…

Facebook page & RSVP.

The US Government sends huge shipments of tear gas to be used against our sister movements around the world… what side are WE are?

4:00 PM: Free Feast.

5:00 PM: Speakers.

6:00 PM: March.

7:00 PM: Solidarity & Healing.

We are a fellowship of people wanting to find aliveness, connection and survival in the face of social-political-economic overwhelm. We do this by recognizing and addressing our unspoken submission to historically entrenched, institutions and influences of the dominant culture. We observe cunning, baffling and powerful social ills perpetuated through inequities involving race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age and ability. We explore how these impact our thoughts feelings and personal habits. We hope that as each of us becomes free from acquisition driven, socially divisive, militarized forces, we can catalyze change and establish a new way of living with care for each other and the earth.

We work with a modified version of AA’s twelve steps and traditions using practices of: anonymity, vulnerability in truth telling, intuitive inquiry, restorative amends, group service, non-hierarchical decision making and conscious action.

The first Recovery from the Dominant Culture meetings were created and held in west Oakland, Ca through Seminary of the Street. This flyer is a draft proposal for a new meeting in Berkeley. We welcome participation in the process of developing meeting agreements. And most of all we invite you to our upcoming meetings beginning on Saturday March 15^th at 10 am

                                                              Draft Version. Edited, Feb, 2014,

1. We admitted we were powerless over our thoughts, feelings, desires and actions shaped by the dominant culture and that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to rebuild our lives, seeking truth, love, and discernment through connection with intuitive wisdom, Great Spirit, God, Goddess and/or a Higher Power of our choice.

4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of how we treat ourselves and relate with others.

5. Admitted to our Higher Power, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our thinking, feelings and actions based on dominant culture conditioning

6. Were entirely ready to have our Higher Power remove coping habits and addictions not in alignment with our integrity.

7. Humbly asked our Higher Power to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons, living beings and earth sources we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people, living beings and the earth wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when acting under the influence of dominant culture patterns we promptly admitted it and sought more conscious ways of interacting.

11. Sought through study, writing, art, prayer and/or meditation to improve our conscious contact with our Higher Power, and to identify new ways of participating in life affirming culture, holding our well being in balance with the well being of others.

12. Having experienced transformative change with these Steps, we practice these principles in all our affairs, carry this message to those interested, and engage in actions that embody an alternative to the addictive processes of the dominant culture

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

The American Postal Workers Union is planning more actions against Staples; we need to support them. We are starting a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!

The City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which may protect the Post Office against various commercial uses, or be totally ineffective. We need to stay on top of it.

And we need to be prepared, despite the zoning effort, if the Post Office announces a sale!

Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked and we need to be on the leading edge of that.  We will be holding a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.  Come help us plan it!

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR SPIFFY NEW WEBSITE.

Minimum Wage Before Council

Richmond Needs a Raise!  Raise the Minimum Wage!

Join the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, the Richmond Progressive Alliance, SEIU 1021, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, the Restaurant Opportunities Center, CCISCO, Somos Richmond, BMOER and the rest of our community ;who are uniting to lift up our City by raising the minimum wage.

The proposal is to raise the minimum wage to $11, $12.30, or $15 an hour and includes a cost of living adjustment annually!  Businesses with 10 or fewer employees would be exempted.

It’s time we make Richmond the kind of town where families can afford to put food on the table, keep a roof over our heads, and not have to choose between a paycheck and health!  When workers have more money in their pockets, they spend it in our community, building local businesses, creating jobs, and generating tax revenue for schools and public safety. EVERYONE BENEFITS!

We will be reading chapters 6 & 7 from Michael Hudson The Bubble and Beyond.

Here they are.

HudsonCh6-7

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

The American Postal Workers Union is planning more actions against Staples; we need to support them. We are starting a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!  Here’s the front of the postcard.

The Berkeley City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which may protect the Post Office against various commercial uses, or be totally ineffective. We need to stay on top of it.

And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale!

Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. We will be holding a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.  Come help us plan it!

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.

East Bay Hotel & Food Service Workers Take It to the Streets of Oakland!

East Bay hotel, restaurant and stadium workers are marching for our jobs, our rights and OUR POWER! We are fighting for a higher minimum wage and good jobs that pay us what we need to survive and thrive in the Bay Area in 2014!

Join hotel housekeepers, hot dog vendors from the Coliseum, and airport restaurant workers who are fighting for good contracts – along with fast food workers fighting for $15 an hour and a union, and the Lift Up Oakland! coalition to raise the minimum wage!

“I work at the Oakland Airport, and we’re in a hard fight to keep our families out of poverty, but we’re not fighting alone. We’ve been joining up with Walmart workers, fast food workers, and everyone else who is struggling to pay their rent in the Bay Area. Now we’re going out on the streets in downtown Oakland to show the whole city how strong we are when we’re together!” said Nancy Moncada, retail clerk at the Oakland Airport.

“I believe that it is really important for all of us to come together on March 27th, because when my co-workers from the Coliseum unite with hotel and airport workers we have real strength. We did this five years ago, and we won good contracts, now is the time to make this action even bigger,” said Johnny Stake, a longtime Oakland resident and Coliseum stand worker.

BRING YOUR KIDS AND JOIN THE CHILDREN’S BRIGADE!!!

Gather at 2pm, then we will take to the streets at 3pm. Bring your body down. Bring a friend or a hundred. We will march to honor Alex Nieto and all the countless many black and brown young men murdered by those thugs in uniform. We will march for our friends and families getting kicked out of their homes. We will march to stand up and fight back against the takeover of our communities by the forces of capital and their human agents who have too much money for how little heart they possess.

Stand up and be counted.

On Sunday, March 30, 6:00PM @ the Sudo Room (2141 Broadway Ave. Entrance on 22nd St.) We will be having a meeting to prepare for the Earth Day to May Day Direct Action Assembly.

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

The American Postal Workers Union is planning more actions against Staples; we need to support them. We’ve started a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!  Here’s the front of the postcard.

The Berkeley City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which may protect the Post Office against various commercial uses, or be totally ineffective. We need to stay on top of it.

And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Post Offices is supposed to come out before the end of March – anything could happen after it comes out.

Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. We will be holding a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.  Come help us plan it!

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.