Calendar
Alameda County PFP’s summer potluck picnic!
If you’re in the San Francisco area, the local Peace and Freedom party invites you to their annual summer potluck picnic.
Everyone is welcome to join! Come and meet PFP members, hang out and discuss the issues of the day. Please bring food which does not require additional cooking on-site. Also, please bring your own non-disposable plate, cup and eating utensils if possible.
We hope to see you there!
Come out to an East Bay DSA Racial Solidarity Committee BBQ Social at DeFremery Park on Saturday, August 17th from 1pm to 3pm! We will have delicious free food and great conversation as we hang out and talk about socialism and what the Racial Solidarity Committee has been up to! All folks interested in DSA and racial justice work are welcome, but people of color are especially encouraged to attend. Feel free to bring a dish to share, although we will provide a spread regardless! Children are very welcome! Please let us know if you have childcare needs.
RSVPs are strongly recommended so that we can be sure that we make enough food!
Accessibility Information: This event is in a public park which should be fully accessible to people with disabilities.
A presentation and discussion with Mitchel Cohen, editor of the new book, The Fight Against Monsanto’s Roundup: The Politics of Pesticides
Chemical poisons have infiltrated all facets of our lives. More than half a century since Rachel Carson issued Silent Spring – her call-to-arms against the poisoning of our drinking water, food, animals, air, and the natural environment – The Fight Against Monsanto’s Roundup looks at the politics underlying the mass use of pesticides and the challenges people around the world are making against the purveyors of poison and the governments that enable them.
“This may be one of the most important books you read this year. We are being poisoned, and this book is sounding a well-informed alarm. Read it. Get educated and then join the thousands rising up against those who care more for profit than the health of our bodies and our earth.”
– Eve Ensler
Our planned speaker will be Daniel Kovalik who will update us on current developments in Venezuela. A frequent visitor to Venezuela, his most recent book is The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela: How the US Is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil.
Dan currently teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He also served for over 25 years as Associate General Counsel of the United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO (USW). While with the USW, he served as lead counsel on cutting-edge labor law litigation, including the landmark NLRB cases of Lamons Gasket and Specialty Health Care. He has also worked on Alien Tort Claims Act cases against The Coca-Cola Company, Drummond and Occidental Petroleum – cases arising out of egregious human rights abuses in Colombia.
The Christian Science Monitor, referring to his work defending Colombian unionists subject to death threats, described Dan Kovalik as “one of the most prominent defenders of Colombian workers in the United States.” Kovalikreceived the David W. Mills Mentoring Fellowship from Stanford University School of Law and was the recipient of the Project Censored Award for his article exposing the unprecedented killing of trade unionists in Colombia. He has written extensively on the issue of international human rights and U.S. foreign policy for the Huffington Post and Counterpunch and has lectured throughout the world on these subjects.
Other books Dan Kovalik has written:
The Plot to Attack Iran: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Iran.
The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin.
The Plot to Control the World: How the US Spent Billions to Change the Outcome of Elections Around the World.
Protests, actions, poetry readings…to demand that immigration detention centers be closed and families reunited.
Daily schedule: https://bit.ly/32MTXEs
A month-long protest outside ICE in downtown San Francisco, organized through word of mouth, networking, and social media, will take place every day from Noon to 1pm during the month of August, by a different sector, group, or organization: librarians, lawyers, public health and health care workers, poets, drummers, journalists, tenants rights activists, educators and students, mothers and families, bar and restaurant workers, environmental activists, grandmothers, the interfaith community…
WHEN: Every day in August from Noon to 1pm
WHERE: ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), 630 Sansome St., San Francisco, CA 94111
WHO: Librarians, lawyers, public health and health care workers, poets, drummers, journalists, tenants rights activists, educators and students, mothers and families, bar and restaurant workers, environmental activists, grandmothers, the interfaith community…
THIS WEEK
Mon Aug 5: Climate & Environmental Justice: No Coal in Oakland, 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations and other groups
Tues Aug 6: Bend the Arc: Rabbi Shifra Tobacman, Speaker. Also in attendance: Dan Kalb, Oakland City Councilmember
Wed Aug 7: Mothers/Families
Thurs Aug 8: Refuse Fascism
Fri, Aug 9 (11:30am-12:30pm): Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (monthly vigil) and CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations)
Sat, Aug 10: Tenants Rights
Sun, Aug 11: Students/Educators
RSVPs requested: re-presentmedia.orgLacey Schwartz grew up in a typical middle-class Jewish household with loving parents and a strong sense of her identity. She believes her family’s explanation of having a Sicilian grandfather until she discovers that her biological father is a black man with whom her mother had an affair.
This film explores what defines our identity, our family of origin, or the family that raises us.
Dialogue with Director Lacey Schwartz following the film.
Lacey Schwartz is the CEO of Truth Aid, which produces inspiring and empowering multi-media content to affect social change, and the Director of Outreach North America for Be’chol Lashon, which works on issues of racial, ethnic and cultural diversity in the Jewish community. She is a filmmaker and outreach and community strategist who has worked with a variety of companies and organizations, including MTV, BET, Be’chol Lashon, NASCAR and @radical.media. She also Executive Produced the narrative film DIFRET which won audience awards at the 2014 Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals. She produced the web series The Loving Generation (2018) interviewing black-white couples since the 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia which overturned all laws banning interracial marriage.
Free public cultural film series centered on the historic commemoration of the 400th Anniversary of the first Africans brought to British North America. The series will feature a monthly film screening over 7 months, from February 2019 for Black History Month, through August 2019.
Food at 4:30pm
Film at 5pm
Protests, actions, poetry readings…to demand that immigration detention centers be closed and families reunited.
Daily schedule: https://bit.ly/32MTXEs
A month-long protest outside ICE in downtown San Francisco, organized through word of mouth, networking, and social media, will take place every day from Noon to 1pm during the month of August, by a different sector, group, or organization: librarians, lawyers, public health and health care workers, poets, drummers, journalists, tenants rights activists, educators and students, mothers and families, bar and restaurant workers, environmental activists, grandmothers, the interfaith community…
WHEN: Every day in August from Noon to 1pm
WHERE: ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), 630 Sansome St., San Francisco, CA 94111
WHO: Librarians, lawyers, public health and health care workers, poets, drummers, journalists, tenants rights activists, educators and students, mothers and families, bar and restaurant workers, environmental activists, grandmothers, the interfaith community…
THIS WEEK
Mon Aug 5: Climate & Environmental Justice: No Coal in Oakland, 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations and other groups
Tues Aug 6: Bend the Arc: Rabbi Shifra Tobacman, Speaker. Also in attendance: Dan Kalb, Oakland City Councilmember
Wed Aug 7: Mothers/Families
Thurs Aug 8: Refuse Fascism
Fri, Aug 9 (11:30am-12:30pm): Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (monthly vigil) and CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations)
Sat, Aug 10: Tenants Rights
Sun, Aug 11: Students/Educators
Homes Not Jails is hosting a Locksmithing Lab. Learn about locks. Even learn to Lockpick.
Join us to speak out against the police-led response to homelessness, HSOC. HSOC is a highly coordinated effort led SFPD, working in conjunction with the Dept. of Public Works, the Dept. of Homelessness, the Dept. of Emergency Management, and the Dept. of Public Health.
Protests, actions, poetry readings…to demand that immigration detention centers be closed and families reunited.
Daily schedule: https://bit.ly/32MTXEs
A month-long protest outside ICE in downtown San Francisco, organized through word of mouth, networking, and social media, will take place every day from Noon to 1pm during the month of August, by a different sector, group, or organization: librarians, lawyers, public health and health care workers, poets, drummers, journalists, tenants rights activists, educators and students, mothers and families, bar and restaurant workers, environmental activists, grandmothers, the interfaith community…
WHEN: Every day in August from Noon to 1pm
WHERE: ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), 630 Sansome St., San Francisco, CA 94111
WHO: Librarians, lawyers, public health and health care workers, poets, drummers, journalists, tenants rights activists, educators and students, mothers and families, bar and restaurant workers, environmental activists, grandmothers, the interfaith community…
THIS WEEK
Mon Aug 5: Climate & Environmental Justice: No Coal in Oakland, 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations and other groups
Tues Aug 6: Bend the Arc: Rabbi Shifra Tobacman, Speaker. Also in attendance: Dan Kalb, Oakland City Councilmember
Wed Aug 7: Mothers/Families
Thurs Aug 8: Refuse Fascism
Fri, Aug 9 (11:30am-12:30pm): Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (monthly vigil) and CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations)
Sat, Aug 10: Tenants Rights
Sun, Aug 11: Students/Educators
Please join us for a special screening of Generation Zapped. The film discusses the potential health risks from radiation emitted by wireless devices as revealed by scientific research. A Q&A on 5G and cell phones will follow. Pizza & snacks.
Hosted by the CA Brain Tumor Association and WIRED (Wireless Radiation Education and Defense).
As we move deeper into the 2020 election cycle, democratic socialists will be increasingly asked why we support Bernie Sanders and not one of the other, younger candidates. After all, many of Sanders’ challengers have adopted large chunks of his 2016 platform, and are hoping to gain traction with voters by offering policies that, at least at face value, appear to be similar. Now, more than ever, we need to be able to be able to ask and answer: what makes Bernie different? Why must we advocate for explicitly socialist policies rather than progressive-liberal ones? What is even the difference between a socialist political orientation and a progressive-liberal approach, anyway? How might we talk to our progressive neighbors about supporting Bernie in 2020 and, ultimately, supporting socialist ideas?
Protests, actions, poetry readings…to demand that immigration detention centers be closed and families reunited.
Daily schedule: https://bit.ly/32MTXEs
A month-long protest outside ICE in downtown San Francisco, organized through word of mouth, networking, and social media, will take place every day from Noon to 1pm during the month of August, by a different sector, group, or organization: librarians, lawyers, public health and health care workers, poets, drummers, journalists, tenants rights activists, educators and students, mothers and families, bar and restaurant workers, environmental activists, grandmothers, the interfaith community…
WHEN: Every day in August from Noon to 1pm
WHERE: ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), 630 Sansome St., San Francisco, CA 94111
WHO: Librarians, lawyers, public health and health care workers, poets, drummers, journalists, tenants rights activists, educators and students, mothers and families, bar and restaurant workers, environmental activists, grandmothers, the interfaith community…
THIS WEEK
Mon Aug 5: Climate & Environmental Justice: No Coal in Oakland, 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations and other groups
Tues Aug 6: Bend the Arc: Rabbi Shifra Tobacman, Speaker. Also in attendance: Dan Kalb, Oakland City Councilmember
Wed Aug 7: Mothers/Families
Thurs Aug 8: Refuse Fascism
Fri, Aug 9 (11:30am-12:30pm): Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (monthly vigil) and CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations)
Sat, Aug 10: Tenants Rights
Sun, Aug 11: Students/Educators
Our country is falling further into a constitutional and moral crisis created by the racist and xenophobic autocrat sitting in the Oval Office. We need Speaker Nancy Pelosi to lead, not play political games.
Join us on Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. at the InterContinental Hotel in San Francisco (888 Howard St.) to demand that Speaker Pelosi use her power to impeach Trump now. Our communities and democracy cannot afford to wait.
Protests, actions, poetry readings…to demand that immigration detention centers be closed and families reunited.
Daily schedule: https://bit.ly/32MTXEs
A month-long protest outside ICE in downtown San Francisco, organized through word of mouth, networking, and social media, will take place every day from Noon to 1pm during the month of August, by a different sector, group, or organization: librarians, lawyers, public health and health care workers, poets, drummers, journalists, tenants rights activists, educators and students, mothers and families, bar and restaurant workers, environmental activists, grandmothers, the interfaith community…
WHEN: Every day in August from Noon to 1pm
WHERE: ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), 630 Sansome St., San Francisco, CA 94111
WHO: Librarians, lawyers, public health and health care workers, poets, drummers, journalists, tenants rights activists, educators and students, mothers and families, bar and restaurant workers, environmental activists, grandmothers, the interfaith community…
THIS WEEK
Mon Aug 5: Climate & Environmental Justice: No Coal in Oakland, 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations and other groups
Tues Aug 6: Bend the Arc: Rabbi Shifra Tobacman, Speaker. Also in attendance: Dan Kalb, Oakland City Councilmember
Wed Aug 7: Mothers/Families
Thurs Aug 8: Refuse Fascism
Fri, Aug 9 (11:30am-12:30pm): Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (monthly vigil) and CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations)
Sat, Aug 10: Tenants Rights
Sun, Aug 11: Students/Educators
Protests, actions, poetry readings…to demand that immigration detention centers be closed and families reunited.
Daily schedule: https://bit.ly/32MTXEs
A month-long protest outside ICE in downtown San Francisco, organized through word of mouth, networking, and social media, will take place every day from Noon to 1pm during the month of August, by a different sector, group, or organization: librarians, lawyers, public health and health care workers, poets, drummers, journalists, tenants rights activists, educators and students, mothers and families, bar and restaurant workers, environmental activists, grandmothers, the interfaith community…
WHEN: Every day in August from Noon to 1pm
WHERE: ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), 630 Sansome St., San Francisco, CA 94111
WHO: Librarians, lawyers, public health and health care workers, poets, drummers, journalists, tenants rights activists, educators and students, mothers and families, bar and restaurant workers, environmental activists, grandmothers, the interfaith community…
THIS WEEK
Mon Aug 5: Climate & Environmental Justice: No Coal in Oakland, 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations and other groups
Tues Aug 6: Bend the Arc: Rabbi Shifra Tobacman, Speaker. Also in attendance: Dan Kalb, Oakland City Councilmember
Wed Aug 7: Mothers/Families
Thurs Aug 8: Refuse Fascism
Fri, Aug 9 (11:30am-12:30pm): Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (monthly vigil) and CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations)
Sat, Aug 10: Tenants Rights
Sun, Aug 11: Students/Educators
As part of the Month of Momentum, 30 Days of Action to Close the Camps, JVP, SURJ and IJAN are jointly organizing an action on Friday, August 23rd. Join us in making the connection between the forced displacement of asylum seekers and refugees coming into the US and their confinement in US concentration camps with the on-going forced displacement of the Palestinian people, as a result of the founding and on-going colonization of Palestine by the state of Israel, and the confining of Palestinian people into walled ghettos, refugee camps and the large concentration camp of Gaza.
As Jewish people, our collective histories and understanding of ethnic cleansing and genocide move us to stand with the people of Palestine and those seeking asylum at the US border. We welcome all those who want to stand with us in solidarity.
EMERGENCY MASS MOBILIZATION. THE COALITION TO CLOSE THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS BAY AREA IS CALLING ON ALL THOSE THAT DENOUNCE AND REBUKE PALANTIR’S SHAMELESS ESCALATION TO IMMEDIATELY MOBILIZE THIS FRIDAY AT PALANTIR HQ IN PALO ALTO AT 4 PM FOR AN EMERGENCY ACTION. Palantir has renewed its ICE Investigative Case Management contract that allows ICE, the CIA, and more to track individuals’ every move — even yours — until 2022. After activists have fought for months to #DROPICECONTRACTS, putting bodies on the line, this is a slap in the face of the families affected that risked arrest to come forward and a direct escalation of the fascist state’s attack on immigrants. STOP THIS FASCIST VIOLENCE NOW! SHUT IT DOWN! STOP ICE TERROR!
READ ON FOR MORE, SEE POSTS IN EVENT FOR DETAILS.
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On Tuesday morning, it was revealed that ICE’s Gotham Investigative Case Management contract with Palantir, originally set to expire on Sept 25, has been renewed through 2022. Activists and immigrants have been putting their bodies on the line nationwide to pressure Palantir to drop its contracts with ICE, yet Palantir continues to prop up the deportation and detention machine. We cannot stand by to watch ANY LONGER.
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Despite the willingness of Palantir executives to lie and deny responsibility, we know that this tech is part of all ICE operations. Palantir is complicit in the the dehumanization, terrorization, mass detention, and sometimes even murder of immigrants. Though the immigrant deportation and detention is just one part of its reign of terror, Palantir earns millions of dollars through its contracts with ICE. Through its facilitation of state surveillance, Palantir is enabling fascism.
According to research published by The Intercept, “ICM specifically allows ICE agents to access a vast “ecosystem” of data to facilitate immigration officials in both discovering targets and then creating and administering cases against them. The system provides its users access to intelligence platforms maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and an array of other federal and private law enforcement entities. It can provide ICE agents access to information on a subject’s schooling, family relationships, employment information, phone records, immigration history, foreign exchange program status, personal connections, biometric traits, criminal records, and home and work addresses.” By the DHS’s own admission, ICM is proprietary to Palantir: “Palantir owns and maintains the code and info tech necessary to support the system.”
Activists, academics, and even Palantir employees themselves have begged executives to drop its contracts with ICE. But Palantir continues to profit off of terror and the separation of families. Palantir is actively destroying our communities. We cannot wait for a new president to reform an inherently fascistic and white supremacist institution. ICE is holding our communities in unlivable conditions, leaving even children vulnerable to sexual abuse and even death. It’s on us to act NOW to disarm and abolish ICE and all forms of oppression.
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The company has faced frequent protests and direct actions calling to shut down operations and drop ICE contracts at its headquarters this past year—from Palo Alto to New York—and internal worker demands that it stop facilitating ICE’s deportation machine.
None of this has impacted Palantir’s moral calculus. Palantir’s decision to continue funding ICE operations after repeated community pressure outlining the direct harms of its software is a direct escalation in Palantir’s attack on immigrants and a slap in the face of the thousands of immigrants stolen for deportation throughout the country.
Everyone should be worried about this expansion. Palantir’s state surveillance tools allow any racist agency they contract with to track individuals in real time through unfiltered access to their every movement associated with a vehicle, each purchase, every family relationship, and more with no oversight. According to research published by The Intercept, “ICM specifically allows ICE agents to access a vast “ecosystem” of data to facilitate immigration officials in both discovering targets and then creating and administering cases against them. The system provides its users access to intelligence platforms maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and an array of other federal and private law enforcement entities. It can provide ICE agents access to information on a subject’s schooling, family relationships, employment information, phone records, immigration history, foreign exchange program status, personal connections, biometric traits, criminal records, and home and work addresses.” By the DHS’s own admission, ICM is proprietary to Palantir: “Palantir owns and maintains the code and info tech necessary to support the system.”
In sum, Palantir has helped create the fascist state surveillance network many have feared would come. This technology in the hands of an increasingly fascist and racist state should alarm everyone with incessant urgency.
Palantir will continue to make hundreds of millions of dollars collaborating with the military-industrial-intelligence complex as families live in fear. This escalation by Palantir and refusal to cease collaborating with state terror should be seen as the escalation of fascist tendencies within the United States. Palantir would not exist without the Department of Defense and CIA funding — this plan to subject immigrants and asylum seekers to three more years of terror and explicit violence is as an escalation of the state’s attack on immigrants.
The Coalition to Close the Concentration Camps-Bay Area condemns the renewal of the contract between Palantir and ICE for the use of the Gotham Investigative Case Management system. Our coalition of over 20 migrant rights and activists organizations have united for the goal of abolishing ICE and freeing communities impacted by the surveillance state that entities like Palantir have helped create.
Evidence gathered by Mijente about Palantir’s work and the willingness of Palantir executives to lie about the extent of their relationship with ICE has made it clear that the way forward is the immediate resignation of those responsible for ICE contracts and an end to any involvement with ICE and similar government agencies.
This year, Palantir was revealed to be involved in the arrests of at least 443 people—mothers, fathers, cousins, and other family members and sponsors who were arrested when ICE investigated children who crossed the border alone.
Palantir was kicked out of a prestigious academic conference when hundreds of academics said they would not be associated with a company that enables human rights abuses. Aside from fueling the deportation and detention machine, Palantir also provides software for racist predictive policing programs that assign points to how likely an individual is to commit crime and builds tools for the Pentagon used in wars that create the refugee crisis in the first place.
Palantir was shown to be intimately involved in workplace raids, like the raids led by ICE this month that arrested almost 700 people in Mississippi—the largest such raid in a decade. These raids have increased by 650% under President Trump, targeting thousands of people annually for arrest and deportation.