A young Fidel Castro and his July 26 Movement cadre faced critical questions immediately following their defeat of the Fulgenco Batista Army and Batista’s U.S.-backed dictatorship in 1958-59. Initially, Fidel, previously an attorney from a wealthy family, was characterized as a moderate reformer and past member of one of Cuba’s two main bourgeois parties, the Orthodox Party. Pledged to restoring Cuba’s 1941 constitution that dictator Batista abrogated, the Castro team appointed two bourgeois politicians to the top posts. Manual Urrutia became President and José Miró Cardona became Prime Minister. Both were prominent anti-Batista politicians and both were deeply committed to Cuban business interests and capitalism. The events that transpired in the following six months fundamentally transformed Cuban society, abolished capitalism, and established a revolutionary government dedicated to socialism. Understanding the Cuban road is critical to an understanding of the flawed course followed for decades and to this day in Nicaragua and Venezuela.

We have invited Jeff Mackler of Socialist Action to speak Jeff was the National Secretary of Socialist Action and its presidential candidate in 2016 and 2020. He was the coordinator of the 1999 “Dialogue With Cuba Conference” at UC Berkeley. Two thousand participated in this first institutionally-sponsored conference including a Cuban delegation of 30. Mackler, who has visited Cuba at the invitation of the Cuban government, is the author of several books and pamphlets on Cuba. He is the director of the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, a founder/coordinator of the Bay Area End the Wars Coalition; an Administrative Committee member of the United National Antiwar Coalition, and on the Steering Committee of AssangeDrefense.org

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Emergency Press Conference WEDNESDAY September 29 at 12pm (noon)PT.
Location: Intersection of 8th St. & Harrison, St. Berkeley, Ca.
Spread the word! Show up & show support for residents!#StopTheSweeps #NoMorePovertyTows #StopTheWarOnThePoor #HousingIsAHumanRight pic.twitter.com/8vIC7Iwlrd

— Berkeley Copwatch (@Copwatch411) September 29, 2021

The fossil fuel industry is successfully promoting a huge increase in the production of single-use plastics, adding GHG and toxic pollution at every step.

This webinar will explore how this strategy is increasing fossil-fuel production and worsening the climate crisis.

Judith Enck, President of Beyond Plastics and former Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will discuss the nexus between plastic production and climate change, including the immense environmental justice impacts.

Graham Forbes, Global Project Leader of the Plastic-Free Future campaign at Greenpeace, will discuss Greenpeace USA’s new report, The Climate Emergency Unpacked: How Consumer Goods Companies are Fueling Big Oil’s Plastic Expansion.

Register here.

Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library

Over the past three decades, environmentalism has emerged as a consistent area of work and organizing in the Communist Party of Canada. In general, this mirrors the development of a large body of scientific analysis that has highlighted environmental destruction as an issue of mass public concern and, presently, as an existential crisis. This is an area of political work that has seen a tremendous change in terms of the science around it and how Communist Party policy has developed in line with that.

Our speaker, Dave McKee, has been a political activist for over 30 years with experience in the labour movement, the peace movement, the anti-poverty movement and international solidarity. Presently, Dave is a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Canada and editor of People’s Voice, Canada’s leading socialist publication.

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We Intend to start the presentation as close to 10:30 am as possible, but the Zoom room will be opened up, as usual, at 10:15 for anyone to join and discuss technical matters, catch up with each other, say Hi, etc.. The program (and recording) will end at 12:30, but the Waiting Room will remain open until about 1 pm for informal discussion.

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SUNDAY, Oct 3, 2021 ONLY

Raj Sahai is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
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TOMORROW! Join us at 9:30 AM at City hall for a press conference and rally to get #Justice4JonathanCortez!!! Jonathan should still be with his family today. A father of 3 & youngest of all his siblings, he was 31 when he was murdered by the FBI in Oakland on September, 13 2021.

Register here: https://bit.ly/3o9gAjD

=========================

The Berkeley Anarchist Study Group (aka BASTARD: Berkeley Anarchist Students [of] Attack, Revolt, & Destruction) is one of the longest running (if not the longest running) anarchist reading groups in North America. We meet every Tuesday night from 7:30-9:30pm PST (note the new time!) at The Long Haul (3124 Shattuck Ave in Berkeley).

New participants are always encouraged to stop by regardless of your familiarity with anarchist ideas or practices. We warmly welcome newcomers and encourage them to make the group their own in the same manner we all do. To this effect, we endeavor to cultivate a convivial and gregarious atmosphere where everyone can contribute in whatever ways and to whatever degree they each desire. We do not, however, incorporate fixed practices aimed at creating an artificial “safe space” or prioritize the voices of certain participants as a way of ostensibly bringing about contrived parity amongst ourselves. We have no membership, no responsibilities, and no codes of behavior. In lieu of spurious standards for relating to each other, we look to every participant to find a balance between making their voice heard and hearing those of the rest of the group, between disagreeing passionately with each other and accepting our divergences without necessarily needing to resolve them. In summary, we eschew inflexible precepts for interaction and instead embrace spontaneous and honest dialogue, while leaving it up to each individual to make their voice heard and utilize the group as they see fit.

The study group organizes an annual gathering called the BASTARD Conference. This DIY event consists of informal, autodidactic presentations on anarchy and anarchists, presented by participants in the study group along with friends, guests, and accomplices from around the world.

In addition, this group has acted as a launching point for many texts, projects, and actions in its three decades of existence. Many attendees have been and continue to be integrally involved in projects which have left enduring impacts on international anarchist milieus over the years.

We pick readings for the coming week at the end of each session, after which they will be posted here. If you have a text you’d like to suggest, come pitch it to the group, but please be ready to kick off the following week’s conversation by introducing & sharing your reasons for choosing it.

If any of this sparks your interest or curiosity, then come join us every Tuesday evening from 7:30-9:30pm at The Long Haul (3124 Shattuck Ave in Berkeley). Email birdsoffire [at] riseup [dot] net with any questions. We hope to see you soon!

Walk expropriating and igniting!
Always leaving behind me howls of moral offenses
and smoking trunks of old things.

For the annihilation of all authority!
For the refusal of all submission!
Toward the beautiful idea of anarchy!

Join us for our virtual member meeting, Wed Oct 6 at 6pm! We have an amazing panel and presentation exploring the power of District Attorneys, as well as how to organize to hold them accountable! Register at bit.ly/EBCOctMeeting.

“Shut Up” Or Speak Out!
Stand Up For Free Speech At KPFA
Press Conference At KPFA

The attacks on democratic governance continues by the management and their supporters at KPFA.
Pacifica bylaws provide that the Local Station board which is elected by the members and staff should do oversight of the budget on and evaluate the manager.

At last month’s Local Station Board meeting on September 18, 2021 during public comment, the Treasurer of the KPFA Local Station board told a public speaker who was also a candidate to “shut up” during public comment.

The budget which was supposed to be discussed and voted on had only been delivered to the board members hours before the meeting and the KPFA Business Manager Maria Negret personally attacked Local Station Board members that had questions on the budget.

We protest these attacks on listeners at KPFA and also call on the KPFA business manager to be held accountable for personally attacking LSB members who had questions on the budget. Thiis
contempt for democracy at KPFA must be challenged and halted now!

A motion to put off a vote was rejected by the majority of the board which is controlled by the so called “Protectors”.

The lack of transparency and respect of the listeners and LSB members by the management of KPFA
is unaccepatable.

It also follows the fact that $80,000 was sent to New York lawyers supporting the shutdown of WBAI and the same Business Manger failed to pay property taxes that nearly brought about the sale of
tte property for not paying the taxes. This also was never reported to the LSB by the Treasurer and Business Manager.

We also will be speaking about the serious failure to have enough debates and voices of those running in the election. Following up on the lack of information on the bylaw voted tthe membershiip of KPFA as well as other stations are not being provided voices on the air and we will be calling for the election to be extended for anoother 30 days at all stations.

Sponsored by members of Rescue Pacifica & Supporters of democracy at KPFA Speakers Will Include KPFA LSB Members and supporters of KPFA
Make Sure To Vote For Those Who Will Stand Up For A Democratic KPFA & Pacifica

https://rescuepacifica.net
For more information
(415) 533-5642‬

RSVP to action@sunflower-alliance.org for Zoom link.

Billions of dollars of private capital and public investment are covering a massive international bet on CCUS, the fast-emerging technologies of carbon capture, utilization, and storage currently being promoted as the means to planetary salvation.   State, federal, and global entities ranging from the California Air Resources Board to the U.S. Department of Energy and the International Energy Agency all endorse CCUS as a necessary means of net-zeroing carbon emissions.  Carbon capture has equally captured the imagination and endorsement of multiple Big Green organizations.  But many in the environmental justice movement reject CCUS as a “false solution,” embracing the insight of poet Audre Lorde that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

Join us at the next Sunflower Alliance monthly meeting for an in-depth examination of the feasibility, costs, and real-life impacts of the rush to adopt CCUS.   How can we as activists impact policy in the coming legislative season and at the California Air resources Board?  We are excited to announce the following speakers:

          *Danny Cullenward, Policy Director at CarbonPlan.  He’s an energy economist and lawyer focused on the design and implementation of scientifically grounded climate policy. He holds a JD and PhD from Stanford University, where he teaches classes on energy law and climate policy.

          *Kathy McAfee, Professor of International Relations at San Francisco State University, teaches political economy and environmental policy.  Her current research concerns “selling nature to save it” through market-based and alternative responses to unsustainable growth and global warming: carbon trading, payments for ecosystem services, forest conservation in the tropics, and climate justice.

          *Kathy Dervin, Co-Chair of the 350 Bay Area Action Legislative Team, is a veteran climate justice activist and state policy expert, with decades of professional service on the Climate and Health Team in the Office of Health Equity for the California Department of Public Health.

          *Martha Dina Arguello, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles.  For the past 32 years, Martha has served in the non-profit sector as an advocate, community organizer, and coalition builder.  She joined PSR-LA in 1998 to launch the environmental health programs, and became Executive Director in November 2007.

Donate The Sunflower Alliance operates on a shoestring, but we sometimes require a little capital. Please use the DONATE button on the right side of our Get Involved page, or write a check to Sunflower Alliance and mail to P.O. Box 1934, El Cerrito, CA 94530-1934.

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We will explore the Texas anti-abortion law (SB8) and the struggle against it (and similar legislation).  But we want to go deeper, by locating this struggle in the context of the polarization of politics in America and other countries.  The US is more severely divided than it has been for decades.  Trump is no longer President, but Trumpism is very much alive.  In the sixties and seventies, the last period of major polarization, our movement, including radical feminism, was growing.  Now, despite some increased numbers and visibility, the movement seems not up to the many challenges we face.  What are we to do?

Snehal Shingavi is associate professor of English at the University of Texas, Austin, where he teaches South Asian literatures in English, Hindi, and Urdu, as well as the literature of the South Asian diaspora.  He received his PhD in English from the University of California, Berkeley and has taught previously at Notre Dame de Namur University and the University of Mary Washington.  He is a long-time social justice activist and has participated in a number of campaigns and movements, including: the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, the third world Liberation Front, the Association of Graduate Student Employees/UAW local 2865, Students for Justice in Palestine, Friends of South Asia, United Students Against Sweatshops, the Green Party (where he managed Aimee Allison’s bid for Oakland City Council as a Green), the Campus Antiwar Network, the Texas State Employees Union/CWA local 6186, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Stop the Cuts Coalition, Occupy Austin, the People’s Task Force, and the Democratic Socialists of America.  He is the author of The Mahatma Misunderstood: the politics and forms of literary nationalism in India (Anthem Books, 2013).  He has also published widely in places like GQ India, the International Socialist Review, Postcolonial Text, South Asia, The New Inquiry, the South Asia Journal, The Book Review and the Annual of Urdu Studies.

Nancy Rosenstock is a long time fighter for women’s liberation as well as a socialist. In the early 1970s, Rosenstock was an activist in Boston Female Liberation, one of the first radical feminist organizations, and she served on the national staff of the Women’s National Abortion Action Coalition in 1971. Today she is a member of Chicago for Abortion Rights. She is the author of the forthcoming book*Inside The Second Wave of Feminism: A Participants’ Account of Boston Female Liberation, 1968�1972, which is sscheduled for publication in 2022 by Haymarket Books.
My remarks will focus on where we are at currently in the fight for the right of women to choose abortion.  Since the 1973 historic Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision decriminalizing abortion, right-wing forces, fueled by the government, and both major political parties, have led attack after attack on abortion rights.  Today we are at a critical juncture.  What is necessary to counter these attacks and build a fighting movement?  What lessons can we draw from the past decades?

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

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