TODAY Bike Ride for Black Lives – 5pm Friday, Dec 12th @ 14th & Broadway #Oakland #ShutItDown #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/95HfdLynVq

— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) December 12, 2014

2014 Worst Boss of the Year: Hs. Lordships, Don’t Steal Our Healthcare!

Workers at H’s Lordships restaurant have been bargaining a contract for four years. These longtime workers are asking for a fair contract, however management continues to propose drastic takeaways. Workers have offered to give up sick days and vacation time and participate in a new plan with a high deductible and reduced benefits. But the restaurant is proposing to increase healthcare eligibility so that as many workers would lose their health insurance all together. For those who still qualify, they are also proposing shifting another $290 per month of the cost of family medical from the Employer to the worker.

To make matters worse, they are now threatening to unilaterally implement these takeaways effective January 1. UNITE HERE Local 2850 is declaring H’s Lordships the “Worst Boss of the Year.”

Join us for Christmas carols and cookies at our holiday action, where we will ask for worker justice this holiday season. Let’s tell management to stop being a Grinch!

Questions or need a ride? Contact Nicole Zapata at nzapata@unitehere.org or 925-639-7588.

ANSWER Community Forum: All Welcome
The Movement to End Police Brutality:  What’s Next

Share the Facebook Event

Featured Speakers
Maile Hampton, ANSWER Coalition
Akbar Muhammad, International Representative of the Nation of Islam
Frank Lara, Party for Socialism and Liberation

& New Video on the Struggle for Justice

Wheelchair accessible. Refreshments provided.

Find out why Harvey Milk is on a stamp as a pioneer for the gay community. (Documentary) The film won an academy award. Free.

Long Haul is screening a move the second through last Sunday of each month in December, January and February.

EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO VIOLENT UNDERCOVER COPS!!

On Wednesday night, in the middle of a protest in Oakland, an undercover cop pulled out a gun and pointed it indiscriminately at protestors in the crowd. OPD was later quick to absolve themselves of blame and assert the aggressor was a CHP cop. ACAB.

Come express your rage at the racist police state in all its acronyms – rally, speakout, and march against CHP and all pigs.

Material Print Machine is a newer collective at the Omni Commons building, in the basement. We are hosting an Open House on THIS Saturday. We’ve been working over the past few months to set up a community print shop at the Omni. Come learn more about the project and the resources we are offering, and celebrate what we’ve done so far.

We’ll be printing letterpress posters, binding books and drinking cider.

If you’d like to be a collective member, we are actively seeking new members! We invite collaboration with anyone who is interested! Search for the “Material Print Machine” group on Facebook if you’d like to find updates that way. We are constantly growing and changing and have work parties where we are preparing the equipment to be used!

Currently, this is our schedule for work parties, held in the Omni Commons basement:

Fridays:
12-4 PM Work party

Sundays:
6-7 PM Work party
7-8 PM Collective meeting (and we stay around to work later into the evening often)

Come join us and check out what we do! We also plan to start doing workshops in the space soon, so come ask a collective member about that!

Speakers:

Jack Heyman, boycott support organizer, later ILWU Local 10 Exec. Board member (retired)

Howard Keylor, co-leader of boycott, longtime ILWU Local 10 Exec. Board member (retired)

For eleven days in November-December 1984, a ship full of cargo from South Africa sat and rusted in San Francisco harbor as 300 longshoremen refused to touch the apartheid freight on board.

This dramatic act of militant labor solidarity by members of Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) with the embattled black masses of South Africa sent a powerful message that reverberated world-wide. The longshore action was actively supported throughout by hundreds who rallied at the gates of Pier 80 to show their solidarity.

The 1984 Bay Area boycott originated with a motion put forward at a Local 10 Executive Board meeting by International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT) supporter Howard Keylor. Jack Heyman, who later became a leading militant in Local 10, played an important role in organizing support for the unionists.

The success of the 1984 anti-apartheid boycott helped lay the basis for subsequent political labor actions such as:

– The 1986 community-labor blockade of the Nedlloyd Kembla at Pier 80 by the Campaign Against Apartheid and the IBT

– The 1999 shutdown of all ports on the U.S. West Coast in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal

– The 2008 one-day West Coast strike against the occupation of Iraq

– The 2010 Bay Area port shutdown to protest the murder of Oscar Grant by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle

– Occupy Oakland’s November 2011 “General Strike” and the December 2011 Port Shutdown

– The recent blockades of Israeli ZIM Line vessels in defense of the Palestinian people by Block the Boat and the Stop ZIM Action Committee

Come celebrate and learn about how this historic political strike was organized from two ILWU militants who played instrumental roles in an action which Nelson Mandela hailed as having “established [the ILWU] as the frontline of the anti-apartheid movement.”

Organized by the International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT)

For more information:
www.bolshevik.org
facebook.com/Bolsheviks
twitter.com/ibt1917

Interfaith Prayers for Victims and Survivors of Violence

Second Sundays:

Interfaith prayer meeting for healing, dedicated to the survivors and victims of violence and police terrorism in Oakland.

We are organizing this gathering for the community to connect, share prayers, writings and poems from all spiritual traditions, reflect and recharge and build coalitions interested in healing.

Please feel free to bring quotes or passages to share
All are welcome

We will serve simple breakfast.

Marxism & the South African Tragedy of Marikana 2012

Violence claimed 44 lives in less than one week, August 11- 16 period. 10 were killed by the workers themselves, which included 2 policemen, 2 security guards, and 6 mine workers & 34 workers were killed and 70 injured by South African Police Services (SAPS) personnel at the site surrounding the British owned Lonmin Platinum mine located in Marikana, 78 km west of Pretoria.

Following this incident, President Jacob Zuma ordered an independent commission of inquiry headed by a retired Supreme Court Judge, Ian Farlam. After two years of publicly held testimony with all who were in any way connected to the incident, final arguments by the attorneys representing stake holders in this incident.
A section of US Left has charged the government of South Africa itself to be the culprit. Raj Sakai, a member of ICSS, will attempt to provide a dispassionate analysis keeping in mind Lenin’s admonition to all those given to emotions, oversimplifications and shortcuts, repeatedly reminding them that a concrete analysis that employees all relevant concrete facts is needed in such cases.

Plan to come early for coffee and donuts. We start promptly.
FREE – but hat will be passed for donations to NPML

About Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
A weekly discussion series inspired by our respect for the work of Karl Marx and our belief that his work will remain as important for the class struggles of the future as they have been for the past.
For descriptions and our full schedule, go to icssmarx.org

Hosted by the Theology and Religious Studies Department of USF, and sponsored by Tikku,  www.tikkun.org, and by the (interfaith and secular-humanist-and-atheist-and religious-welcoming) Network of Spiritual Progressives, The Metta Center for Non-Violence, and many others.

The recently elected Congress that will shape America in the next two years is committed to defunding government so that it cannot enforce the minimal environmental protections currently in place, provide health care coverage for those who need it, provide safety and health protection for our food and our work places, or protect the old, the young, the vulnerable  while at the same timee, that Congress will seek to decrease still further the taxes on the super-rich and the corporations they own and control.

This is an ethical, spiritual and religious crisis of monumental proportions — and calls for secular liberals and progressives to join with spiritual or religious activists to work together to develop strategies to save our planet earth and protect middle income and working people and the unemployed from the assaults of the selfish.

That’s why we, spiritual progressives of every variant (including atheists and secular humanists as well as people in every religious community) must now take action to present a different worldview, one based on the Biblical call to “love our neighbor” but also “love the stranger” (the Other/the powerless), and pursue justice and peace.

You don’t have to remind us that religion has sometimes been used to justify all forms of oppression or that spirituality sometimes devolves into self-indulgent flakiness. But so has democracy and socialism sometimes been used to justify imperialism or forms of totalitarianism. We’ve got to get well-intentioned people, both secular and religious, to stop putting each other down, and instead unite so we can help Americans re-embrace the values that once led us as a society to create institutions that embodied caring for each other and for the earth.

Too many people have responded to the 2014 electoral victories of the Right by feeling powerless. “What can I do?“ they tell themselves. “The Rightists have the money and are filled with passionate intensity, while those who seek peace and justice too often lack a coherent strategy. There are so many groups taking on one little part of the problem or another, but mostly they don’t cooperate with each other and don’t even try to educate people in each specific social justice, humanitarian or environmental struggle about how they are linked to all the other struggles. So to those on the outside, it looks like everyone is just fighting for their own special interest, but not for the common interests of the rest of us. I can’t see how I can do anything, given this mess.”

But there is something you can do, not alone, but with a movement that we are creating. The liberal and progressive forces have made some big mistakes but we can change that, and we have a strategy for how to do that and how to Reclaim America. And we need you to be part of it. And to learn from you as well, because we know we don’t have all the answers!

We approach this task with humility, but also with excitement about the possibility of forging a new direction, bringingtogether all those people who really yearn for a society based on love, kindness, generosity, social and economic justice, and peace. We call this goal “The New Bottom Line.”

We will mourn what has happened to our country and to the planet, and acknowledge our own responsibility. Rather than just blame the super-rich and their ability to manipulate media and spend millions on candidates who serve their interests, we also need to challenge liberals and progressives to think more deeply about what changes are needed in the ways that they present themselves (attention office holders – you are invited to be part of this), drraw upon the wisdom of secular humanists, religious traditions (at least the humanist and love-and-caring dimensions of all the world’s religious and spiritual communities), and spiritual-but-not-religious thinkers, and the work of the (interfaith and secular-humanist-welcoming) Network of Spiritual Progressives.

We will hear each other’s ideas for how to move forward, build ties among the vast array of social change organizations, progressive religious and spiritual communities, and learn skills for improving our ability to have our most visionary ideas really taken seriously by our families, neighbors, co-workers, and even some of our most cynical friends. This gathering is just the first step in bringing this kind of discussion into the heart of everyone involved in social transformation, into every social change organization and every place where ethically sensitive people gather.
Part of our intention is to reintroduce into public discourse the ethical values that could contribute to rebuilding a society based on love, care, generosity, awe and wonder. And you can play an important role by challenging progressive organizations to introduce into all their activities a shared vision of the world we want  not just focusing on what is wrong with the way thiings are now, but presenting a positive vision of the world as it needs to be a New Bottom Line of love, caring, kindness, generosity, social justice, peace, environmental sanity and awe and wonder at the grandeur and preciousness of our planet earth and the universe of which we are part.

Undoubtedly, given the fact that it is people of color who are disproportionately represented among the poorest in the society, they will be facing especially rough times, added to the racism and violence that they face even under “normal” conditions, as exemplified recently in Ferguson. In particular, in light of the justifiable outrage at the racism manifest not just in the verdict from Ferguson but also in the way most Americans don’t seem to have a clue about the racism involved and how pervasive it is, we encourage us all to see fighting racism as not just as issue for African Americans or people of color, but as a priority as well for white people to address: what is the best strategy to both counter and transform that racism? How to do that, (without seeming to suggest that all whites are bad and hence provoke backlash that actually makes things worse for people of color), is part of the discussion we hope to initiate at this conference.

We invite liberals and progressives of every possible stripe to come together and strategize about how these kinds of values can reshape public life in the US. We ask you, the reader of this, to help us get leaders, activists, and members of progressive movements for social and economic justice, peace, environmental sanity, civil rights, feminism, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, unions, liberal and progressive political parties and elected officials to meet and strategize together.

We need  physicians and other health practitioners, lawyers, Silicon Valley techies, psychotherapists, working people in offices and factories and skilled trades, small business people, African Americans , Latinos, Asian Americans, and every other minority community,  philanthropists,  financial and investment experts, scientists, engineers, high school and college students, teachers and academics, researchers, seniors, millenials, boomers, and everyone in between who can fully commit to nonviolence and empathy as strict guidelines for how to approach those with whom we disagree. Please invite your friends  afterwards, when they hear how exciting it was for you, they’ll be disappointed that you didn’t try to convince them to come!

We cannot afford to stay in our separate silos working on single-issue politics, or immerse ourselves in cynicism and despair about the possibility of making significant change. At the very least, we need to articulate a shared vision of the world we want  not just the world we are against  so so that even as each of us continues in our focused activities to address specific ways that the world and its people are hurting, we simultaneously articulate a positive vision that we all share. We need a new unity and a new psychological and spiritual sophistication to heal and repair our very broken society.

Won’t you join us? Registration required at spiritualprogressives.org/reclaimAmerica

Cost: $15 for students and incomes under $30/k yr.; � incomes over $30k/yr: $25 if you register by Dec.5. $45 or anyone registering after Dec. 5.

By mail: make check to Tikkun and mail to 2342 Shattack Ave, #1200, Berkeley, CA 94704,� 510-644-1200.

For more info: Cat@spiritualprogressives.org

Hosted by the Theology and Religious Studies Dept. of USF and sponsored by Tikkun www.tikkun.org, and by the (interfaith and secular-humanist-and-atheist-and religious-welcoming) Network of Spiritual Progressives, The Metta Center for Non-Violence, and many others.

Ask your local chapter of any civic, religious, social change organization or your local church, synagogue, mosque, ashram, professional organization, union or any of the reputable groups willing to commit to non-violence in the struggle for social justice. Ask them to cosponsor or at least publicize this to all of their members wherever they live in the US and to get those members to either create other such gatherings (we’ll have materials and possibly even speakers for these events).

We are not proponents of any religion or spiritual tradition except for The New Bottom Line of love and generosity, etc. which you can read about at http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/yearning-for-a-world-of-love-and-justice.

​

And we are inspired by Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and liberation theologians in every religious or spiritual tradition. For example, read a little bit from the new pope: Pope Francis in Evangeli Gaudium:

“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power a globalization of indifference has developed we en end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor… the culture of prosperity deadens us. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose.”

(A fuller version can be found in the Spring 2014 issue of Tikkun Magazine. When you join the Network of Spiritual Progressives at www.spiritualprogressives.org, you get a free subscription to Tikkun Magazine.)

If you miss this conference, but want to be involved in the ongoing work, please contact the executive director of the Network of Spiritual Progressives Cat Zavis and tell her what specifically you are willing to work on (but only after you’ve read our essay “Yearning for a World of Love and Justice” at http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/yearning-for-a-world-of-love-and-justice).

Since the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014, protests have spread to every major city in this country and cities around the world. In the Bay Area, we have witnessed and participated in almost two straight weeks of freeway takeovers, mass marches and, more recently, student walkouts.

Now, as these displays of rage continue with no end in sight, and as we quickly approach the Millions March, the questions before us are both extraordinarily simple and incredibly complex: Where do we go from here? How do we sustain the power we have built in the streets while working toward stronger coordination and organization between ourselves, our communities and other cities around the country?

We wholeheartedly believe that this ongoing movement presents exciting possibilities for new forms of revolutionary activity to emerge. But while we remain largely inspired by the recent wave of rebellious actions, it is our opinion that the time is now to collectively strategize how to expand and intensify our efforts.

As a small step, we invite any individuals or groups who want to discuss these and other related questions to meet at 2:00pm in Oscar Grant Plaza on December 14, 2014.

We encourage all participants to come prepared to collaborate in serious, principled reflection and debate on the events of the past two weeks. Proposals will be welcomed. Although we realize that such discussions will be unavoidably messy and contentious, we ask that all who attend to please refrain from personal or sectarian attacks and avoid rumor spreading or speculation. Also, we request that individuals and groups respect the need for the fullest possible participation from all those who wish to do so, and be mindful that they do not monopolize discussion time or conduct themselves in a way that discourages others from contributing.

If you or your group would like more information, or would like to help with facilitation and other logistical tasks, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Edge City, Oakland

Please come out for Court Support on Monday at 2pm at Wiley Manuel for:

– The Ferguson 3, who have pre-trial in Dept 115. The Ferguson 3 are three comrades who were arrested the night of the Mike Brown Verdict. They have court at 9 am.
AND
– Two comrades who have court in Dept 112 at 2:00 PM.

Please come and support!!!

Please check here for the most up-to-date-info before going, as court times and dates often get pushed back and postponed.

Keep up the fight against the privatization of the Post Office and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of living wage jobs.]

See Stop Staples and the American Postal Workers’ Union website

Berkeley Post Office Defenders, First They Came for the Homeless and Save the Berkeley Post Office support this fight.

A comrade, Ezra was tazed and arrested last night in Oakland during the protests. He has court Monday at 9am at Hayward Hall of Justice (24405 Amador Street) Dept 502. He is facing serious charges so we really need to pack the courtroom!

Please check here for the most up-to-date-info before going, as court times and dates often get pushed back and postponed.

More on Ezra:

Ezra was arrested on December 13, 2014 during an anti-police demonstration in Oakland, CA. He is currently facing 2 felony charges and 3 misdemeanors and is set to be arraigned on 12/15 at 2pm, with the bail set at $87,500. We are hoping he will be released, however given the severity of the charges, we are preparing to bail him. All money raised in excess will be donated to the Bay Area Anti-Repression Committee Bail Fund. Ezra is a local muralist and plays in multiple Bay Area bands. He has volunteered with Food Not Bombs for a number of years and is currently a student at Laney College. He is active in both San Francisco and Oakland communities and also supports his family back home. Let’s get him out of jail!

We need space for anger.
We need space for protests.
We need space for healing.
We need space to mourn.
We need US.

Join us on Monday @ 5:00 pm at Lake Merritt for a vigil for those who have lost their lives to police terrorism.

We will meet in three places:

1) the pillars at Embarcadero and Grand
2) lakeside drive across from snow park
3) grassy amphitheater on Lake Merritt blvd.

We will walk in a single file line in both directions until we have encircled the lake.

We will collectively hold space to mourn the lives stolen from us and create a circle of healing for families who have lost their children to police violence.

We recognize a need for community to gather and families to bring their children and we will hold this space as such.

Please bring candles. And we will engage in a silent procession around the lake.

OccupyForum Presents…
Pia Mancini on DemocracyOSÂ
(Democracy Operating System)

Information, discussion & community!

Monday Night Forum!

Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!

“Occupy Wall Street. Arab Spring. Greek Riots. We’ve been experiencing a great crisis of representation these past decades, regardless of our location, ethnicity or culture. The political system insists in excluding most of us from the spaces where the decisions are made that impact our lives. The internet has changed everything: the way we share and consume culture, how we engage in commerce, and how we communicate with others. But the internet has failed to change in one key area of our lives: politics. Democracy is in great need of a serious upgrade.

“We are working on a user-friendly, open-source, vote and debate tool, crafted for parliaments, parties and decision-making institutions that will allow citizens to get informed, join the conversation and vote on topics, just how they want their representatives to vote. A tool that will transform the noise we create during protests into a signal that has a clear, direct and strong impact on the political system. Our vision is that DemocracyOS will become the operating system of a more open and participatory government.”
— DemocracyOs.org (Go to www.DemocracyOS.org for more information.)

Come hear Pia Mancini speak via Skype from Buenos Aires, Argentina, about the
exciting new development called DemocracyOS (Democracy Operating System).

Since Buenos Aires is 5 hours ahead of us, it will be 11pm there when we
start here at 6pm, so please be on time!

Study up beforehand (or after the fact) at these sites:

Link to Huffington Post article:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thierry-
dufay/democracy-20-the-power-of_b_5964188.html

Link to Wired Magazine article: Â http://www.wired.com/2014/05/democracy-os/

Link to Pia Mancini TED talk on YouTube: Â https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=NXfYNdapq3Q

Preview YouTube video Pia Mancini: How to upgrade democracy for the Internet era
Pia Mancini: How to upgrade democracy for the Internet era