Liberated Lens Collective is a community media project based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We believe that story telling belongs to everyone. We do not depend on mainstream media or an expensive film school: we empower ourselves to make our own images!
We learn by doing. We teach eachother. We work horizontally, and operate by consensus. We make films in a spirit of collaboration, inclusivity and solidarity, maintain a film equipment library for creative projects, organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops, and host film screenings. In May 2015 we organized the Films 2 The People Short Film Festival.
To be updated about what we do, join our announce mailing list: Liberated_Lens.announce@lists.riseup.net
To get involved, come to our meetings! We’re open and happy to welcome you, no matter your experience level. Sometimes, the meetings turn into creative workshops!
Since 2004, when he made Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, Robert Greenwald has become a vital and dogged investigator whose no-nonsense approach with its accent on digging up the profit motive is reflected in his titles: Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, Koch Brothers Exposed, and the eye-opening and influential Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.
Greenwald’s new film, Making a Killing: Guns, Greed, and the NRA, is a look at how money is the secret motivator behind American gun culture. It is a crucially underreported story — at least, if you compare it to the media’s focus on the gun-control debate, or to the drumbeat of nightly news tragedy that can be linked to the American obsession with firearms. Overall, gun companies from Smith & Wesson to Glock have given $20 million to the NRA, essentially funding the organization, which is why the NRA, before it’s anything else, is a corporate lobbying group.
Making a Killing: Guns, Greed, and The NRA tells the stories of how guns, and the billions made off of them, affect the lives of everyday Americans. It features personal stories from people across the country who have been affected by gun violence, including survivors and victims’ families. The film exposes how the powerful gun companies and the NRA resist responsible legislation for the sake of profit – and thereby put people in danger.
The film looks into what we can do to put an end to this profit-driven crisis. Through this film and campaign, Brave New Films will work with partners to fight for a country where public safety is more valued than profit.
www.bravenewfilms.org/makingakilling
Announcements will follow. Donations to OccupyForum to cover our costs are encouraged;
no one turned away!
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.
Join us at the Oakland Public Library to march over to the Board of Supervisor’s chambers to support the implementation of the reentry hiring program which allots 1400 quality, fulltime county jobs for formerly incarcerated people in Alameda County.
Join us for Press Conference and to pack the Board Meeting
10am-11am Press Conference
11am-4pm Pack the Board Meeting
We want to show our power and presence at the beginning of the meeting and encourage people to show up at any point and to stay as long as they can. Coalition members will be there until the very end with signage and ready to speak about the Coalition’s report on the impact and the alternatives to Urban Shield Urban Shield: Abandoning Hope not Building Hope .
The S.F. Bay Area Stop Urban Shield Coalition has been working hard to end the militarization of Police Forces along with other organizations and individuals considered to be first responders. Yes, we need to be prepared for emergencies/disasters, but we do not need our responses to be militarized. In the face of disaster, we need our first responders to act humanely and to put the needs of ordinary people first. Hence, we are asking you help us convince the Alameda County Board of Supervisors (BOS) to refuse funding for Urban Shield 2017.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors will hold its regular public meetings on at October 4th and Oct 11th. In a closed meeting, on October 14th, the BOS will vote on funding Urban Shield for 2017. Please help us convince the BOS to refuse funding for Urban Shield 2017. Help us convince the BOS to use available funds for building healthy communities.
Attend the next two BOS public meetings and speak out against renewing funding for Urban Shield. While the BOS does not control Urban Shield, it has the power to cut its funding. The next two BOS meetings are scheduled for: 9:30 AM on Oct. 4th and Oct 11th.
Join or stay in contact with the Stop Urban Shield Coalition at:
We can win but to do so, we need your help. We know time is short, but please take the time to do as much as you can either as a group or as individuals to Stop Urban Shield. And … please share this information with others.
WANTED FOR HIT AND RUN!
On October 10, 2005 in Oakland, Diallo Neal was murdered when a CHP motorcycle officer struck the rear end of Diallo’s motorcycle, launching Diallo into a bus stop, pole, and concrete bench. The CHP fled the scene.
OPD began an investigation, but CHP took it over and closed it saying there was no case because they were never there.
Diallo would have turned 34 the next day, October 11th.
Work is underway to revive the truth of this tragedy, regardless of legal statutes of limitations, and bring it to the public eye.
Stand with GILDA BAKER, mother of Diallo Neal, as she demands:
– CHP accept responsibility for the cover up
– Release the name of the officer
– And hold the murderer accountable for his crime.
#Justice4DialloNeal
#NoJusticeNoPeace
#IfWeDontGetItShutItDown
This training will put gentrification and displacement in an historical context so we understand the racialized political and economic drivers. We will use this historical analysis to discuss the ways we can challenge gentrification today.
The analysis that we are presenting is based on the work of Causa Justa :: Just Cause and we are asking for $5-$20 donation, sliding scale, which will go to support CJJC’s work challegning gentrification and fighting displacement. However, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Our workshop has space for 66 people. To reserve your spot in advance, please purchase tickets at http://
ACCESS NEEDS: This event is wheelchair accessible. If you have specific access needs, please email surjbasebuilding@gmail.com
SCENT FREE: We ask that guests do their best to be as scent free as possible. Please refer to this resource from the EastBay Meditation Center for more information on what that means. There will be a scent free section of seating offered. http://
SPREAD THE WORD, INVITE YOUR FRIENDS!
Directed by Suree Towfighnia (2015)
When Debra White Plume’s drinking water tests high for radiation, she sets out to determine the cause. What she finds alarms her.
A nearby uranium mining operation is extracting ore from deep in the ground by tapping the High Plains/Ogllala Aquifer, a huge underground cache of water covering 174,000 square miles from Texas to South Dakota which supplies drinking water to 82 percent of the people who live within the aquifer boundary. The mine’s planned expansion further threatens the aquifer.
At a public hearing in Hot Springs, SD, Lakota tribal members and white ranchers sound off about pending permits that would expand the uranium mining industry in the area. The question on the table among those assembled boils down to this: Can we afford the depletion and possible contamination of our water supply?
Crying Earth Rise Up is an intimate portrait of the human cost of uranium mining and its impact on sacred water. It tells a timely story of protecting land, water and a way of life.
Doors open at 7pm, film starts at 7:30. $5 donation appreciated! Free snacks and popcorn!
Two native women on Pine Ridge reservation expose the human cost of u
ranium mining and its impact on the water, land and people of the Great Plains.
When Debra White Plume’s drinking water tests high for radiation, she sets out to determine the cause. What she finds alarms her.
A nearby uranium mining operation is extracting ore from deep in the ground by tapping the High Plains/Ogllala Aquifer, a huge underground cache of water covering 174,000 square miles from Texas to South Dakota which supplies drinking water to 82 percent of the people who live within the aquifer boundary. The mine’s planned expansion further threatens the aquifer.
Elisha Yellow Thunder intimately understands the dangers of contaminated water. A young mother and a geology student, she unknowingly drank water with high levels of radiation while pregnant with her first daughter, whose severe medical anomalies are life-threatening.
Directed by Suree Towfighnia, 2015
Vigil to End Deportations & Crimilization
Join us in solidarity on indiginous resistance day. We will have activities for families who have been victims of deportation/crimilization.
Vigilia para No Mas Deportaciones y Crimilizacion!
Acompañe nos para un dia de solaridad en el dia de resistencia indigena. Tendremos actividades para las familias que han tenido un familiar que ha sido victim@ de la deportacion/crimilizacion.
Many have been alarmed by the recent spectacle of law enforcement in full riot gear and armored vehicles moving through peaceful demonstrations. At first glance, it’s easy to suspect our police forces are preparing for war or terrorism instead of protecting and serving citizens exercising their civil rights. In Craig Atkinson’s disquieting documentary, such suspicions are reinforced as we learn that since 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security has given police departments $34 billion in grants to purchase equipment, while the Department of Defense has contributed additional billions in free military equipment. What changed and where are we heading? Have the War on Drugs and the War on Terror formed an alliance that apparently justifies the use of military technology, including preemptive surveillance systems on civilians? Sure to spark debate, Do Not Resist thrusts the viewer into the action on the streets and seeks to examine the growing culture of militarized policing.
A multi-faceted documentary filmmaker, Craig Atkinson is a notable producer, editor and cinematographer. Most recently, Craig was an additional cinematographer on documentaryNorman Lear: Just Another Version of You. Craig also produced, and was the co-cinematographer on feature length documentary Detropia, a lyrical exploration about the city of Detroit trying to re-invent itself in a post-manufacturing United States. The film premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and won the Editing Award for U.S. Documentary. Detropia went on to win ten additional awards worldwide and was short-listed for an Academy Award. While in Detroit, Craig was also a cinematographer on The Education of Muhammed Hussein, a 40-minute short documentary exploring the Muslim population in the Detroit area. The film, made for HBO, was short-listed for an Academy Award in 2012. Earlier is his career; he was Enat Sidi’s (The Wolfpack, Jesus Camp) assistant editor during 12th and Delaware, an HBO film that takes a compelling look at the ongoing abortion debate in America. The film was an official selection at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Craig holds a MA in Visual Media Arts from Emerson College.
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PRECEDED BY
THE DEAN SCREAM
US 2016, 10 min
Director Bryan Storkel
A case study of how the media can take a simple, innocent moment in time and spin it into something completely different.
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#JusticeForColbyFriday
#JusticeForJamesRevera
Transportation to a protest / rally in Stockton from Oakland, and back. Meet at OGP at 2:30 PM.
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Voice your solidarity with Yvette Felarca, and demand that she be reinstated immediately, paid her full wages, and the harassment of her and her students be stopped: boardofed@berkeley.net, Superintendent@berkeley.net
Defend Yvette Felarca!
Non-sectarian defense of all anti-fascists!
An injury to one is an injury to all!
For more information:
Press conference with Yvette Felarca and her lawyer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHhVxvNt3vY
Details of what happened in Sacramento, and the neo-Nazis involved: http://antifasac.weebly.com/home/blood-in-the-valley-why-people-put-their-lives-on-the-line-to-run-nazis-out-of-sacramento
More about the fascist organizers of the Sacramento rally: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/06/27/violent-clashes-erupt-sacramento-between-white-nationalists-and-antifascists
Details about neo-Nazis converging in Berkeley prior to their attempted rally in Sacramento: https://itsgoingdown.org/big-nazis-on-campus/
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JOIN CODEPINK, WORLD CAN’T WAIT, OCCUPYSF Action Council and others at the huge PEACE banner
Theme this week is: “REFUGEES…”
Feel free to bring your own signage, photos, flyers, …Additional signs and flyers provided.
Stand (or sit) with us and the huge PEACE banner.
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal has called for:
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In the midst of on-going struggles which unite us all: opposition to rampant police killings of Black men; freedom for political prisoners including former Black Panthers, Oscar Lopez Rivera and Leonard Peltier; opposition to the death penalty, life without parole, solitary confinement; big pharma price-gouging; immigrant deportations; the Standing Rock resistance to the destruction of both native lands and the environment; the Puerto Rican struggle against imperialist oppression; and defense of Palestinians from Zionist terror.
We are writing to advocate joining together now in a renewed fight for freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal. December 9, 2016 will be 35 years since the police tried to execute Mumia on the streets of Philadelphia and then framed him, with the complicity of the prosecution and the court, and sentenced him to death. It took international mass mobilization to prevent his execution. It is taking protest and publicity to keep him alive in prison and to get him treatment for his Hepatitis C.
A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision (Williams v. Pennsylvania) ruled that a prosecutor cannot later sit as judge over the same defendant. This is precedent setting for Mumia who has filed a new legal action based on the fact that Mumia’s appeals of his conviction from 1998 on were denied by Justice Ronald Castille who was the Philadelphia District Attorney,—his prosecutor—during his first appeal. If successful, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rulings that upheld his conviction would be overturned. Mumia would be able to re-appeal the issues of his innocence, jury bias, falsified evidence to obtain a new trial, if not outright dismissal of charges.
It is unlikely that this new legal opportunity to win a court battle for Mumia’s freedom will be repeated. We began the struggle for Mumia’s freedom with the understanding that the fight for Mumia is one that encompasses the fight against capitalist, racist injustice from police street execution to the legal lynching of the death penalty, to frame-up convictions, mass incarceration, and all the horrors of the U.S. prison system. The fight for Mumia is a defense of those who stand in opposition to the policies of U.S. imperialism; it is a case of Black Lives Matter.
Mumia has never succumbed to the state’s attempt to silence him. He is a beacon of light and hope for other prisoners across the US, as well as for all victims of imperialist war, racism and the “incarceration nation.”
We support all legal actions in Mumia’s defense but recognize that there is no justice in the capitalist courts. The Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (LAC) focuses on mass and labor actions to free Mumia. Without such action, the new case for Mumia’s freedom will—as similar attempts have before—be consigned to the “Mumia exception” judicial waste-bucket. We continue to work to get international labor support for Mumia’s freedom and for Hep C treatment. Mumia’s struggles, if supported by a mass movement can not only free him, but also help unite struggles of prisoners and other victims of the racist-imperialist-capitalist system throughout the world.
We support a renewed campaign to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. An event is planned for Philadelphia for December 9, 2016 initiated by the Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the New York Campaign to Bring Mumia Home and a call is in the works.
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Slogans being put forward for this event are:
Mumia is Innocent and Framed! Free Mumia, Now!
Abolish the Racist Death Penalty! End Solitary Confinement!
End Life Imprisonment without Parole! Quality
Health Care for all Prisoners! Hep C Meds for All!
End Mass Incarceration! Black Lives Matter! No Stop and Frisk!
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We ask you to join us in an effort to reignite the struggle to free Mumia, on all fronts. We will look forward to seeing you for an organizing meeting at the Omni house, 6 pm October 12, 2016 to plan action here in the Bay Area.
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See you on the 12th of October at the Omni!
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Two Black revolutionary socialists from Workers World Party are running for president and vice president – Monica Moorehead & Lamont Lilly 2016. Both will be reporting back from the Nogales SOA Watch Convergence at the border with Mexico. Lamont Lilly just recently returned from a WWP campaign solidarity delegation to Standing Rock.
We’re not running to win the elections – we’re running to help to build the struggle in the streets and connect with activists and freedom fighters doing the work in communities across the country – from Black Lives Matter, the struggle for migrant rights, LGBTQ liberation, solidarity with Standing Rock, women’s liberation, building international solidarity with workers across the globe resisting US imperialism, and more.
Find out more about our campaign and our revolutionary 10 point program at our website (http://www.workers.org/wwp/our-campaign/) and come out to share your thoughts, experience, and ask questions!
Location may change, check the event page for updtes. Refreshments will be provided. Wheelchair accessible.
Join the Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the surveillance state, against Urban Shield, and to advocate for privacy and surveillance regulation ordinances to be passed around the Bay Area, including the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, the BART Board of Directors, and by the Oakland and Berkeley City Councils.
We are also engaged in the fight against Predictive Policing and other “pre-crime” and “thought-crime” abominations, drones, improper use of police body cameras, ALPRs, requirements for “backdoors” to your cellphone and against other invasions of privacy by our benighted City, County, State and Federal Governments.
OPWG originally came together to fight against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OPWG was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network; its members helped draft the Privacy Policy that puts further restrictions on the now Port-restricted DAC, and made Oakland’s new Privacy Advisory Commission to the City Council happen. We were also the lead in having Alameda County pass the most comprehensive privacy and usage policy in the country for deployment of “Stingray” technology (cell phone interceptors).
We have presented our work at the recent RightsCon in San Francisco and at Left Forum and HOPE in New York City.
If you would like to attend our meeting and would like a quick introduction to what we’re doing before we dive right into the thick of our agenda, send email to contact@oaklandprivacy.org and one of us will show up twenty minutes early to give you some background on our work.
Stop by and learn how you can help guard our right not to be spied on by the government.
If you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy Working Group email listserv, send an email to:
oaklandprivacyworkinggroup-subscribe AT lists.riseup.net
or send a request to contact@oaklandprivacy.org
For more information on the DAC check out
Showing up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Bay Area is a local chapter of a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people for racial justice. There are over 150 chapters and affiliates nationwide. Through community organizing, mobilizing, and education, SURJ moves white people to act as part of a multi-racial majority for justice with passion and accountability.
Come learn about our current work and activities much of which focuses on police violence, displacement and dismantling white supremacy. You’ll also hear about what SURJ’s committees are currently working on: Basebuilding, Communications, Fundraising, Mobilization, San Francisco, and Youth & Families.
We’ll answer your questions, and share how you can get involved.
Our weekly PARTY to get this hackerspace together, to provide a venue for those things that otherwise cannot be worked out through day-to-day practice.
Potluck! – bring your own tasty dish!
Sudo room, located in the southwast corner of the ground floor, is a creative community and hackerspace. We offer tools and project space for a wide range of activities: electronics, sewing/crafting, 3D and 2D manufacturing, coding, and good old-fashioned co-learning!
Hours: The space is open whenever a member is present. Come visit! Best times to drop in are evenings between 7 and 9pm. See the calendar for recurring meetups and upcoming events: https://sudoroom.org/calendar