Calendar
- Our medical debt erasure campaign with RIP Medical Debt is doing well (but needs more signal-boosting). We joined another Alameda County campaign, and together we’re more than two-thirds of the way to our minimum goal. Our donation page is here. The online version of our flyer, with live links, is here. Our FAQ is here. We can also link you to a printable version of the flyer if you have places to hand them out. Press release: press-release-after-1m-raised-final
- Continuing our discussion group on new economic thinking., which began by reading and Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth, continued with Take Back the Economy by Gibson-Graham et al, and for our August meeting will read the introduction and first chapter of Ellen Brown’s latest book, Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. The book group discussion will take place immediately following the Strike Debt Bay Area meeting.
- Organizing for public banking in the East Bay! Public Banking East Bay (which overlaps significantly with our group) is also an active member of the California Public Banking Alliance. The Green New Deal envisions financing through public banks! AB857, which will pave the way for local and regional California public banks, is in committee hearings next week in Sacramento.
- Supporting student debt resistance, working with our sister organization, The Debt Collective. At the end of last year, the Debt Collective won a huge victory against Betsy DeVos and the Trump Department of “Education.”
- Supporting the progress of bail reform law, better than the 2018 California law (including the new end of cash bail policy in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Charlotte’s county), while also fighting modern day debtors’ prisons and exploitative ticketing and fining schemes
- Organizing for Tiny Homes, better sanctioned encampments than Oakland is now currently creating, and other ways to help homeless people get housing and support
- Promoting the concept of universal basic income
- Helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization (an Oakland institution) and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
- Advocating for postal banking, now a national conversation because of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s bill to restore it to U.S. law
- Fighting the current proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, while promoting single-payer / Medicare for All to end the plague of medical debt
- Bring your own debt-related project!
If you are new to Strike Debt and want to come early, meet one or two of us and get a briefing on our projects before we dive into our agenda, email us at strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com
Strike Debt – Principles of Solidarity
Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.
We also oppose debt because it is an instrument of exploitation and political domination. Debt is used to discipline us, deepen existing inequalities, and reinforce racial, gendered, and other social hierarchies. Every Strike Debt action is designed to weaken the institutions that seek to divide us and benefit from our division. As an alternative to this predatory system, Strike Debt advocates a just and sustainable economy, based on mutual aid, common goods, and public affluence.
Strike Debt is committed to the principles and tactics of political autonomy, direct democracy, direct action, creative openness, a culture of solidarity, and commitment to anti-oppressive language and conduct. We struggle for a world without racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression.
Strike Debt holds that we are all debtors, whether or not we have personal loan agreements. Through the manipulation of sovereign and municipal debt, the costs of speculator-driven crises are passed on to all of us. Though different kinds of debt can affect the same household, they are all interconnected, and so all household debtors have a common interest in resisting.
Strike Debt engages in public education about the debt-system to counteract the self-serving myth that finance is too complicated for laypersons to understand. In particular, it urges direct action as a way of stopping the damage caused by the creditor class and their enablers among elected government officials. Direct action empowers those who participate in challenging the debt-system.
Strike Debt holds that we owe the financial institutions nothing, whereas, to our friends, families and communities, we owe everything. In pursuing a long-term strategy for national organizing around this principle, we pledge international solidarity with the growing global movement against debt and austerity.
Beginning on August 10th, the Strike Debt Bay Area Economics Book Group began discussing Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. We tackled the introduction and first chapter, available through the ‘Look Inside’ feature on Amazon, for the August 10th meeting.
For our September 7th meeting, we will be discussing the rest of the first section, Chapters 2-6.
For our October 12th meeting, we will be discussing Chapters 7-9, the first part of the second section.
For our November 16th meeting, we will be discussing Chapters 10 – 13.
For our December 14th meeting, we will be discussing Chapters 14 and through to the end.
All are welcome!
The Economics Book Group began with Doughnut Economics and continued with Take Back the Economy. We read a few chapters every month.
“Today most of our money is created, not by governments, but by banks when they make loans. This book takes the reader step by step through the sausage factory of modern money creation, explores improvements made possible by advances in digital technology, and proposes upgrades that could transform our outmoded nineteenth century system into one that is democratic, sustainable, and serves the needs of the twenty-first century.”
“In Banking on the People, attorney Ellen Brown provides a much-needed roadmap for reforming monetary and credit systems and the central banks now strangling our common human future. More lucidly that any other expert I know, she shows how we can break the grip of predatory financialization now extracting value from real peoples’ productive activities all over the world. Her in-depth research and systemic overview of the global and local politics of money-creation and credit allocation include all the viable proposals of global experts and reformers. She reviews many of these reforms: from financial transaction taxes, to a universal basic income to provide purchasing power for the cornucopia of goods and services now produced, to expanding the public banks she so ably promotes via the Public Banking Institute, to returning the Fed and all banks to serving the public utility functions that economies require. This book is a must read for citizens in all societies who see the promising future as we seek to widen democracies and transform to a cleaner, greener, shared prosperity, based on the renewable abundance of free daily energy from our sun.” – Hazel Henderson, CEO of Ethical Markets Media and author of Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age and other books.
Monthly interfaith prayer meeting, held on second Sundays, dedicated to healing.
The Bahá’í community of Oakland is 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.
Come share prayers, quotes, poems, and favorite passages from your scriptures with us. Simple breakfast will be served.
Doors open: 10:00 AM
Refreshments served: 10:00-10:30 AM
Prayers: 10:30-11:30 AM
Discussion and socializing: 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM
“Thy name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy. Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for Thee is my companion. Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succor in both this world and the world to come. Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.” ~ Bahá’u’lláh
“Remember the saying: ‘Of all pilgrimages the greatest is to relieve the sorrow-laden heart.'” ~ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
East Bay DSA’s bimonthly general meetings (GMs) include deliberation and voting on member-submitted resolutions, member announcements, reports from our committees, and more.
Volunteering at the GM is lively, easy, and low-commitment, and hugely benefits the meetings and thus our internal democracy. If you intend to come and would like to volunteer (!), let us know here. Use this form, too, if you have child supervision or accessibility needs, including the need for an ASL interpreter.
With our new regular schedule, member-submitted resolutions will be accepted on a rolling basis. Please email them to resolutions@eastbaydsa.org. The submissions deadline for each meeting is three weeks before the meeting.
General meetings are run by the Meetings Committee. For questions or comments, or if you are interested in joining the committee, write us at meetings@eastbaydsa.org!
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 90-day bloodbath known as the Rwandan Genocide was actually the final phase of a four-year war that most Westerners know little or nothing about. However, that war and many smaller wars for the resource riches of Rwanda’s neighbor, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, continue today. The US and its Western allies have played an unconscionable role in all this that should be understood.
The great French investigative journalist Pierre Paen, who passed away on July 25, published a landmark study of the conflict titled Noires fureurs, blancs menteurs. Rwanda, 1990-1994 (Black Furies, White Liars. Rwanda, 1990-1994). Two landmark studies published in English are Robin Philpot’s Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa, from Tragedy to Useful Imperial Fiction, and Judi Rever’s In Praise of Blood: Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front.
Ann Garrison is an independent Bay Area journalist who contributes to the San Francisco Bay View, Counterpunch, Consortium News, the Black Agenda Report, the Black Star News, Global Research, and Pambazuka News. She also produces radio for the KPFA-Berkeley Weekend News and WBAI-New York City’s AfrobeatRadio. In 2014, she was awarded the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize by the Womens International Network for Democracy and Peace for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes Region.
EastSide Arts Alliance and Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA) present:
Mujeres Magicas Book Release
Childcare and light snacks provided
Our readings will be in Spanish with simultaneous interpretation in English
Mujeres Mágicas is a bilingual Spanish-English anthology of domestic workers writing stories that cross languages, genders and borders to reveal lessons of survival and celebration for all.
Come celebrate 26 years!
— free t-shirt raffle
— silk screen your own t-shirt – bring a blank shirt
— vegan chocolate cake / celebratory food items
— tell funny stories
Indivisible Berkeley brings the Trump Resistance to 2000+ of our closest neighbors in Berkeley and surrounding communities.
Our mission is to resist the Trump agenda by engaging our elected officials at all levels of government and promote progressive and democratic values. Read our entire mission statement here
Bay Area Landless People’s Alliance meeting to discuss plans, outreach, organizing regarding regional homeless communities and organizations.
For more info: https://www.facebook.com/groups/541837129562482/
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.
APPARENTLY NOT HAPPENING
No further information yet.
“Kovalik helps to cut through the Orwellian lies and dissembling which make this
intervention possible, and just when such truth-telling is so desperately needed.”
—Oliver Stone, Academy Award-winning director & screenwriter
Since 1999 when Hugo Chavez became the elected president of Venezuela, the US has been conniving to overthrow his government and to roll back the Bolivarian Revolution which he ushered in to Venezuela. With the untimely death of Hugo Chavez in 2012, and the election of Nicolas Maduro that followed, the US redoubled its efforts to overturn this revolution. The US is now threatening to intervene militarily to bring about the regime change it has wanted for twenty years. While we have been told that the US’s efforts to overthrow Chavez and Maduro are motivated by altruistic goals of advancing the interests of democracy and human rights in Venezuela, is this true? The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela answers this question with a resounding “no,” demonstrating that:
- U.S. interests in Venezuela have always centered upon one and only one thing: Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
- The US has supported one repressive regime after another in Venezuela to protect its oil interests.
- Chavez and Maduro are not the “tyrants” we have been led to believe, but in fact have done much to advance the interests of democracy and economic equality in Venezuela.
- What the US and the Venezuelan opposition resent most is the fact that Chavez and Maduro have governed in the interest of Venezuela’s vast numbers of poor and oppressed racial groups.
- While the US claims that it is has the interests of the Venezuelan people at heart, the fact is that the US war against Venezuela has greatly undermined the health and living conditions of millions of Venezuelans.
The battle for Venezuela now being waged will determine the fate of all of Latin America for many years to come. The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela lets readers know what is at stake in this struggle and urges readers to reconsider which side they are on.
Dan Kovalik is the author of critically-acclaimed The Plot to Scapegoat Russia, The Plot to Attack Iran, and The Plot to Control the World. He has been a labor and human rights lawyer since graduating from Columbia Law School in 1993. He received the David W. Mills Mentoring Fellowship from Stanford Law School, has appeared on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, has written extensively for theHuffington Post and Counterpunch, and has lectured throughout the world.
Come by our open Delegates Meetings! We’ll give space to brief announcements, updates from working groups, proposals up for consensus, and discussion around important issues. The schedule is created weekly at the following url: https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom
This meeting usually happens in the Ballroom, but the the location may change depending on the access needs of people attending and other events taking place in the building.
Come hang out with East Bay DSA members and talk about socialism, current events, historic events, the future, music, your cat, someone else’s cat, etc.
This is a great event for new members and people curious about DSA. We’ll tell you about upcoming East Bay DSA events and how you can get involved!
Ale Industries is family friendly and allows dogs. It’s a five minute walk from Fruitvale Bart and has some parking available in front of the brewery.
While Ale Industries doesn’t sell food, there will be a food truck parked outside.
CompArte: The fourth annual Emiliano Zapata Community Festival
The Chiapas Support Committee invites you to enjoy music, poetry and art that expresses anti-capitalist resistance, deep solidarity with indigenous peoples’ struggles for community, land & justice, and a shared space for envisioning an end to the repressive and racist climate we are challenging in the U.S.
CompArte means to share & build a living culture of humanity with musicians, artists & poets from Oakland and S.F. Bay Area.
All the funds collected at the door and from the purchase of Zapatista arts & crafts sold by the Chiapas Support Committee go to support the autonomy projects of the Zapatista communities in Mexico.
FEATURING
Artists:
Paintings by Zapatistas
Daniel Camacho + live mural painting
FYE Collective
Alejandro García
Xochitl Guerrero
Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo
Eddie Lampkin
Maya
Jhovanny Rodríguez
Stephanie Sánchez
Poets & Music:
EJ (dj)
Madelina y los Carpinteros
Mo Sati
Francisco Herrera
Omi & Amanda
Mogauwane Mahloele
The Chiapas Support Committee will be selling hand-woven blouses and artesanía made by the Zapatista women’s art collective from Chiapas
There will also be local community-based vendors offering hand-made jewelry, weavings, arts & crafts, coffee & dessert.
Click here for more information on the Zapatistas: https://chiapas-support.org
If you can’t make it to CompArte, please consider making a generous donation on-line:
* Click I am in solidarity:
https://chiapas-support.org/home/donate/
Or through Venmo: @Enapoyo1994
*
CompArte: Why we come together in art
2019 marks the 25th year since the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN, Zapatista Army of National Liberation) launched an armed uprising to say NO to capitalist neoliberalism and “free” trade, which mean indigenous genocide, and a deep heart-made YES to indigenous liberation, autonomy and solidarity across borders and dreams.
In the last 25 years, the EZLN and indigenous people have transformed the political landscape of Mexico, provided global leadership and inspiration against the capitalist sickness of possession, private property and war. The EZLN continues organizing with indigenous and non-indigenous communities to build autonomy, stop capitalist mega-projects and extractive destruction and new and renewed relationships rooted in justice, the natural world and shared dreams of land, peace & solidarity to stop out common enemy capitalist economies and world wars.
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Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Zapatista Revolution
Come together to share art and express solidarity with the Zapatistas and indigenous peoples’ struggles for justice!
The Chiapas Support Committee is organizing the fourth annual CompArte Zapatista to be held on Saturday, August 17, 2019, at the Omni Commons in Oakland, California! Stay tuned for more details.
CompArte
CompArte literally means Share-Art, a space to uplift the challenges, dreams, visions, of the people, indigenous and non-indigenous people, that are leading the struggle for a world where all worlds fit, a community of communities, against neoliberalism, against capitalism, against war & racism, against a patriarchy that is blood-soaked in capitalist/dominant industrial society and the struggles for humanity, for a return to the sources of life and dream of relationships that heal and not harm, a matriarchy of relationships that take care of each other and the natural world, that give prominence to women, girls, transpeople, the different, the marginalized, those forgotten by capital and Presidents and only remembered when they are needed as cannon-fodder for wars and political strife.
CompArt is a deep space for art, paintings, songs, theater, dance, poetry, hip-hop and community for peace & justice and that demands we live and uphold life in all her diversity.
SAVE CHELSEA & JULIAN
hI aLL HOPE TO SEE YA oRION
EVERY FRI 530PM TO 7PM “BASTA SAVE CHELSEA AND JULIEN ” VIGIL DEMO POTLUCK MUSIC (7PM AFTER PARTY/MEETING ) FRUITVALE &MACARTHUR OAKLAND
WE HOPE TO CONNECT PEOPLE TO OUR ON-GOING CAMPAIGNS IN THE BAY.
Here is a link to the bay area action for Julian which includes CHELSEA SUPPORT PLEASE SIGN UP
https://bayaction2freeassange.org
TELL EVERY ONE
Thanks for your letters you can write a letter directly to Chelsea here’s her address tell her who you are and why you want to save her don/t be shy
PLEASE WRITE LETTERS TO CHELSEA (only hand written and no post cards no pictures do not write any thing on the outside of the letter to Chelsea Elizebeth Manning
William G Truedale Adult Detention Center
2001MILL ROAD
ALEXANDRIA VA 22314
also join the #LettersToJulian campaign,writejulian.com
WE NEED TO HIP PEOPLE TO THE YOU TUBE SHOWS AND WEB SITES AND TWITTER FEEDS
We find the BEST INFO IS FROM CHELSEA (xychelsea.is) AND JULIEN WEB SITES and twitter feeds YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE A MEMBER of TWITTER JUST TYPE IN twitter.com/xychelsea or twitter.com/defendassange and you/ll be able to read and see the latest INTERNATIONAL news and support via the links
also Consortium News ,HAS A Unity4J every friday on line LIVE STREAM vigil for Julian and of course support the work of ongoing wekileaks.org
PLEASE Google the following you tube shows ADD COMENTS ..AND TELL OUR FRIENDS
JIMMY DORE show and chelsea Manning 80,000 HITS SO FAR .. news flash now 90,000 hits
REDACTED TONIGHTt Julien Assange and Chelsea Manning
our own BAY ARE STEVE ZELTZER LABOR VIDEO project Julien and Chelsea Manning
and SECULAR TALK & julien and Chelsea Manning
and CROSS TALK Julien and Chelsea Manning
Chelsea Manning/s Youtube site
TULSI 2020
VETERANS FOR PEACE
CODE PINK
BLACK AGENDA REPORTS
JILL STEIN
DANIEL ELSBERG
FLASHPOINTS KPFA 5PM EVERY DAY
BRITS LABOR PARTY LEADER JEREMY CORBIN
CHRIS HEDGES FORMER NYT JOURNALIST
Thanks Orion
BELOW IS THE LINK TO her letter she wrote to judge
https://www.aaronswartzday.org/chelsea-manning-letter.
It’s an extreamly well researched LETTER TO THE JUDGE ABOUT THE HISTORY OF SECRET GRAND JURIES Don/t ever forget about what she said in response to her 2nd Grand Jury Trail which they imposed a $500.00 daily fine after 30 days and a $1000.00 daily fine after 60 days “I/D RATHER STARVE THEN ANSWER YOUR SECRET GRAND JURY”
Following a new generation of young Afghan women cyclists, Afghan Cycles uses the bicycle to tell a story of women’s rights – human rights – and the struggles faced by Afghan women on a daily basis, from discrimination to abuse, to the oppressive silencing of their voices in all aspects of contemporary society. These women ride despite cultural barriers, despite infrastructure, and despite death threats, embracing the power and freedom that comes with the sport. This documentary is a production of Lit Media directed and produced by Sarah Menzies. The film is approximately 1 hour, 30 minutes long. Reception to follow.
Co-presented by Oakland Asian Cultural Center and Oakland Public Library.