On the first and third Mondays of the month, the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project holds its data viz and oral history meetings related to our project in Alameda County.
Calendar
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Jun
5
Mon
Jun 5 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
In November, 2016 we succeeded in getting the Oakland City Council to instruct the City Administrator to report on the usefulness of a feasibility study for creating The Public Bank of Oakland. Our next goal is to convince the City Council to commission that study as soon as possible, and incorporate it into a business plan for a public bank in Oakland.
After that, we will pressure the Oakland City Council to pass enabling legislation that will create and fund a public bank for Oakland. Our overarching goal is to see a public bank flourish in Oakland while it helps the community, thereby providing an example for other jurisdictions wishing to rid themselves of their dependence on Wall Street banks.
We are always looking for help bringing Public Banking information to Oakland residents. There are many ways large and small to be involved; from data entry to tabling events to branding and marketing assistance. Whether you’re looking to jump in with something specific or just want to lend a hand from time-to-time, please be in touch or come to a meeting.
Donate to Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland
Thanks to the generous support of our fiscal sponsor, HERA (Housing and Economic Rights Advocates), you can now make a tax-deductible donation to support our work. Our main expenses at the moment are related to outreach materials and mechanisms.
Click here to donate
*Important: Select “Other” from program and include “Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland” in the Honoree’s name section.
Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland t-shirts are available for a $20 donation! Email us at contact@friendsofpublicbankofoakland.org for details.
Sign the Petition!
You will also be able to sign the petition in person at upcoming events. Be on the lookout for our table, and let us know if there are events where people would like to hear more about the Public Bank of Oakland.
https://friendsofpublicbankofoakland.org/petition/
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“Susan’s life story is one our nation desperately needs to hear and understand. This is a story about personal transformation and collective power. It is about one woman’s journey to freedom, but it will help free us all.” -Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow.
Join Susan Burton for her Bay Area book release! Susan will offer some remarks and will be signing copies of her books. Books will be available for purchase. Light refreshments provided.
Event Hosted By: Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, All of Us or None, Essie Justice Group
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OccupyForum presents…
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
OccupyForum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
CODEPINK: SHUT DOWN CREECH!
With Toby Blome and friends
In each of the last two years, nearly 150 activists, including over 50 veterans, joined CODEPINK from 20 different states across the country. In a series of imaginative nonviolent direct actions, involving the arrest of dozens of activists, they were able to disrupt business as usual.At this crucial point in history, come and hear Toby Blome and friends report back about the SHUT DOWN CREECH 2017 actions against drone killing and global militarism.
WHY WE PROTEST AT CREECH (from the CODEPINK website):
In 2005, Creech Air Force Base secretly became the first U.S. base in the country to carry out illegal, remotely-controlled assassinations using MQ-1 Predator drones, and in 2006, the more advanced Reaper drones were added to its arsenal. Creech drone personnel sit behind computers in the desert north of Las Vegas and kill “suspects” thousands of miles away. Recent independent research indicates that the identity of only one out of 28 victims of
U.S. drone strikes is known beforehand. Though officials deny it,
the majority killed by drones are civilians.
In 2014, it was leaked that the CIA’s criminal drone assassination program, officially a separate operation from the Air Force’s, has been piloted all along by Creech’s super-secret Squadron 17. In November 2015, four Air Force drone veterans who were based at Creech wrote to President Obama: “We came to the realization that the killing of innocent civilians only fueled the feelings of hatred that ignited terrorism and groups like ISIS, while also serving as a fundamental recruitment tool similar to Guantanamo Bay. This administration and its predecessors have built a drone program that is one of the most devastating driving forces
for terrorism and destabilization around the world.”
Since 2009 dozens of activists have been arrested for allegedly trespassing at Creech, while attempting to peacefully interrupt the indiscriminate killing and burning of innocent people by drones. The US drone program is rapidly proliferating as air bases are being converted to drone bases across the U.S. and abroad, but Creech remains the primary air base in U.S. state-sponsored global terrorism. Creech is where the killer drone program started – it is where we shall end it.
We must put an end to this desecration of our Mother Earth and all creatures who inhabit it.
We must put an end to the dehumanization of lives from Ferguson to Palestine to Syria and Yemen. CODEPINK stands with our Muslim sisters & brothers in the circle of life.
We must close all foreign U.S. military bases. Money for human needs.
We must put an end to drone murder, drone surveillance and global militarization
Recent videos of CODEPINK’s successful work at Creech:
Shut DownCreech 2016, (4 min); Fall 2016 CODEPINK Action, (6 min); ShutDownCreech 2015, (25 min); MusicVideo #1, (4 min); Music Video #2, (3 min) (music videos by Nico Colombant)
Now more than ever, the times demand that we resist US drone assassinations and perpetual wars!
WE MUST RISE, LOVE, RESIST! NO DRONES, NO BAN, NO WALLS!
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This will be a collaborative planning meeting so that we can start carrying out the next phase of our work, launching a viral social media / traditional media campaign to leverage as much pressure as possible on the council to implement our defunding demands!
Please show up! Please bring your ideas about how to spread the message as broadly as possible, demonstrate widespread public support and pressure on city council to cut OPD’s budget!
Also, please forward this note to invite organizers, people who have lots of connections, traditional media people, social media experts, artists, people who you know who have turned out or showed up for defund opd.
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The Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality & State Repression (OGC) is a grassroots democratic organization that was formed as a conscious united front for justice against police brutality. The OGC is involved in the struggle for police accountability and is committed to stopping police brutality.
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Jun
6
Tue
Come to Rene C Davidson courthouse Dept 7 at 9am on Tuesday June 6, to support Cesar, who was arrested at an anti trump demo on election day. Lets pack the court!
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Jun 6 @ 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm
“Let all of our deliberations be made with the seventh generation in mind”. Haudenosaunee Guiding Principle
On March 7th, the Oakland City Council nearly voted to end its banking relationship with JPMorgan Chase, one of the principal financiers of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the private prison industry, and the foreclosure crisis. Since then, Defenders of Mother Earth-Huichin has been working to introduce an amendment to Oakland’s Linked Banking Services Ordinance that will prohibit the City from banking with Chase and other institutions that benefit from violations of indigenous sovereignty, climate chaos, and mass incarceration.
On June 13th, our proposed amendments will go to the Oakland Finance Committee Meeting. Let’s make Oakland #NextToDivest!
Now is the time to invite in our city representatives to stand in solidarity and integrity with the Chochenyo Ohlone (the first people of Huichin/Oakland), with indigenous people across the continent, with their own resolutions, and with the people of Oakland and future generations: #DefundDAPL and end our relationship with JPMorgan Chase! #Divest from ongoing violations of indigenous sovereignty and climate chaos, and #Reinvest in native leadership, community resilience, and restorative economies! #MniWiconi
3 ways YOU can support:
TURN OUT! Join us on June 6th at 5pm in front of City Hall to gather our hearts and minds together in ceremony before making our voices heard at the City Council meeting. Then TURN OUT for the Finance Committee meeting on June 13th at 9:30am to support our proposed amendments!https://www.facebook.com/
SEND AND SHARE! Send the attached letter of support to Councilmembers on the Finance Committee expressing your support for our amendments. Then share your letter with friends! [TEMPLATE LETTER COMING SOON]
CALL THE COUNCIL! Call these councilmembers and flood their phone lines with messages of support! [PHONE SCRIPT COMING SOON]
As the City Council deliberates about where to invest our community assets, we invite their deep consideration of the following:
The Dakota Access Pipeline is yet another in a long list of violent violations of Native sovereignty for the sake of profit. We call upon the City of Oakland to stand in solidarity with Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Lakota Nations, all indigenous people, and all lifeforms hoping to inhabit a livable planet by ending their relationships with financial institutions that fund the Dakota Access Pipeline and similar fossil fuel pipelines.
By keeping depository accounts in JP Morgan Chase, the City has made all of its taxpayers complicit in violence against the Lakota and other Indigenous peoples. When Oakland residents pay taxes, those funds are held in J.P. Morgan Chase, who can use them to make a profit in whatever way they see fit.
JP Morgan Chase is among 26 banks profiting from the Dakota Access Pipeline, and is thus profiting from the violation of U.S. Treaties and the eventual poisoning of drinking water for millions of people. Chase Bank alone has invested $312,500,000 in the company that is carrying out the project, Energy Transfer Partners.
JP Morgan Chase’s record of abuse extends beyond the Native community and the planet. It is one of the most avid lenders to private prison industry leaders, CCA and GEO Group, hence playing a crucial role in the exacerbation of mass incarceration of immigrants and people of color, which directly affects the people of Oakland. JPMorgan Chase also agreed to a $55 million settlement with the United States government over allegations that it discriminated against “thousands” of African American and Latino mortgage borrowers, and the bank’s independent brokers charged minority borrowers higher mortgage interest rates and fees from 2006 to 2009, compared to “similarly situated white borrowers.”
Oakland’s money should not be used to support these multiple forms of violence and furthering of inequities. It should be used to support community. Oakland has an abundance of financial institutions that are committed to lifting up all members of our city. The City could support these institutions with no cost and low risk by keeping their deposits in aligned institutions instead of extractive banks.
We call upon the City of Oakland to:
1. Close all current depository accounts with JP Morgan Chase.
2. Refuse to open a depository account with any of the 26 banks that invest in, lend to, or otherwise profit from the Dakota Access Pipeline, and/or whose investments negatively impact Indigenous Sovereignty.
3. Open depository accounts at local community-based financial institutions.
4. Continue working toward the creation of banking alternatives aligned with indigenous values.
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Jun 6 @ 6:45 pm – 9:45 pm
Join us for this Berkeley Film Foundation funded film screening with an in-depth panel discussion post-screening with:
Azadeh Zohrabi, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
David Muhammad, National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR)
Tamara Perkins, Director | Producer
Jesse Dana, Cinematographer | Co-Producer
Kevin Jones, Editor | Associate Producer and special guests from the film Harrison Seuga and Noel Valdivia Sr.
Life After Life Trailer https://vimeo.com/137638023
Hosted by: Berkeley Film Foundation
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Jun
7
Wed
Documentary by Oscar-winning director Charles Ferguson depicts the devastation being caused by fossil fuel and the catastrophe that will come if we don’t replace it — then turns to beautiful and inspiring visions of technology already in place that can create a clean, sustainable way of living that also promotes more social justice and sense of community.
At the June 7 showing in Alameda, Executive Producer, Tom Dinwoodie (former Co-Founder, SunPower) and Michael Brune (Natl Exec Director, Sierra Club – and local Alameda Resident) will hold a live panel discussion following the film. Proceeds will support local non-profit (501-c3) Community Action for a Sustainable Alameda (CASA).
WHEN
Wed June 7, 6 – 9 PM
6 – 6:30 wine and cheese
6:30 – 8:30 film
8:30 – 9 speaker panel and discussion
Sat June 11 – Thurs June 23
4:20, 7:05, 9:40 PM
WHERE
June 6: Michaan’s Auction Theater | 2700 Saratoga Street, Alameda
June 11 – 23: California Theater, 2113 Kittredge St., Berkeley
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Join us at Ella Baker Center’s monthly member meeting!
This month, we will be organizing for our 5th annual Night Out for Safety & Liberation Oakland Block Party. On August 1st, people across the country will come together to redefine what #SafetyIs: dignity, opportunity, and power in our communities. Click here for more information on Night Out for Safety & Liberation (NOSL)
Vegetarian dinner will be provided.
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Volunteer with us!
The Prisoners Literature Project is based in Berkeley, California, and we’re always looking for volunteers to help answer letters, send out books, learn more about the prison system, and assist in other ways.
We currently meet on Sundays from 2-5pm and on Wednesdays from 6:30-9:30pm at the Grassroots House. This is located at 2022 Blake St. (at Milvia), Berkeley, CA 94704. (Map – there’s plenty of local parking, and the office is walkable in 11-15 minutes from downtown Berkeley BART or Ashby BART – also, AC Transit bus #18 stops nearby.)
(Please note that we can’t accept prisoner book requests at this address. Book requests from U.S. prisoners must be mailed to PLP; c/o Bound Together Books, 1369 Haight St, San Francisco, CA 94117.)
We welcome helpers of any age and experience at our volunteer sessions (here’s what they look like!), and are also very happy to host students looking for community service. You should read a lot, have neat legible handwriting, and be able to follow the rules to get books into prisons. We don’t make the rules, but we do have to follow them!
Bringing more than four people? Please contact us first so we can better accommodate your group. (BTW, we maintain ‘call for volunteer’ listings on VolunteerMatch.org, on Idealist.org, and on AllForGood.org, so you might have seen us there!)
Other ways to help?
If you can’t make it in-person to our volunteer sessions, we’d still love your help. In particular, we’re looking for donations — both one-time and recurring — to help pay for postage on the hundreds of book packages we send out monthly.
Other things we’d love help with include: fundraising efforts, publicity, and contacting publishers and distributors to get multiple copies of our most sought-after books. We need to keep building our reserves — and further reduce our request backlog.
Got more ideas? Come to a meeting and share them with us!
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Jun
8
Thu
Jun 8 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Have you wanted to meet all the new activist groups under one tent? Come party at our 1st Activists Unite Event! We will have fabulous food and drinks and FUN!
You won’t want to miss this chance to meet other activists! Haven’t you been dying to learn their vision and activities! Come meet others who share your values.
Democratic clubs and activist groups to Table & increase your membership! Tell us what you do. Bring flyers & sign-up sheets.
One thing we all agree upon? We want to FLIP CD10 and replace the current Congressman who hates science; denies climate change; denies a woman’s right to choose; is against gay marriage; and wants to repeal Obamacare & take away health care benefits from 1 in 7 of hisconstituents. We all want to elect a Congressperson in CD10 who shares our values!
Party and mingle!
• Groups can tell us who you are at Tables and brief Introductions
• Hear from Michael Eggman who almost won CD10 in 2016 and deciding whether or not to run again;
• Chief of Staff, Tim Sbranti will tell us about Eric Swalwell’s efforts to flip congressional seats in California and more;
• Mark DeSaulnier is coming unless last minute problem;
• Patty Hughes, Vice-Chair of the CDP Rural Caucus for Central CA and other activists local to CD10 will talk to us
5 minute walk from Orinda BART. $5 per person donation requested, but not required, to cover rent, food and drinks. If possible sign up as GOING on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/
TABLE: Request $10 contribution per table to help defray costs. You get one free admission with your table donation. Please sign up to table by donating $10 at www.ContraCostaDems.org. We will recognize that is for June 8 Tabling. Then, call or email Carolyn Phinney 925-788-7374; carolynphinney@comcast.net
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Jun 8 @ 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm
A Report on the National Indigenous Congress’ constituent assembly held over Memorial Day weekend to form a parallel government for Mexico. We’ll also have a report from the Chiapas Support Committee’s recent delegation to Zapatista Territory with photos and video footage. Discussion following reports
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Jun 8 @ 7:30 pm – 10:00 pm
The National Indigenous Congress met at the end of May in Zapatista Territory to form the Indigenous Government Council for Mexico, an anti-capitalist government from below and to the Left and based on the same governing principles that the Zapatistas follow. The new council named an indigenous woman as its spokesperson, and as a candidate in Mexico’s 2018 presidential elections. What does that mean to those of us here in the U.S.? What ideas can we take away from this revolutionary project? A panel, which includes activists that just returned from a visit to Chiapas, Mexico, will weigh in on what they learned and present video footage and photos. Sponsored by the Chiapas Support Committee.
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Jun
9
Fri
Jun 9 @ 9:00 am – 11:00 am
Please come to the exhibit of the The Welcome Home Project Opening night.
The panel will feature moving stories by several of the participants in the Welcome Home Project. The photographer, Ruth Morgan, will be present and refreshments will be served.
I know it is a schlepp to Hayward, but the BART stops a block from the city hall gallery. I promise that you will be moved in many ways by hearing these powerful and compelling speakers talk about their many years of experience in the criminal justice system and how they turned their lives around. They all will share deeply personal stories of redemption, restitution, and restoration – true healing.
The exhibit is a powerful and compelling collection of photographs and stories of formerly incarcerated Alameda County residents that have turned their lives around after many years of involvement with the criminal justice system. Ruth Morgan, is a nationally acclaimed photographer and Executive Director of Community Works West whose work was recently in the The Sentence Unseen show on Alcatraz. The Welcome Home Project humanizes the formerly incarcerated while adding a deeper understanding of the challenges of reentry. These stories are testimony to the power of resilience and determination in the face of the barriers that most formerly incarcerated individuals face.
Micky Duxbury
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Jun
10
Sat
How do we approach the challenging conversations in our lives, whether its about confederate flags, Donald Trump, cultural appropriation, Palestine/Israel, or even just racism and racial justice in general?
This workshop is an opportunity to dive in much deeper with structured time to practice a range of difficult conversations around highly-charged racial issues. We will be sharing some basic skill-building tools in how to approach conversations, and then explore scenarios relevant to the lives of participants. This will include examination of some of the ways that internalized sexism can impact our courageous speaking capacities.
Small group work, role-plays, and Theater of the Oppressed techniques will support seeing tough communication blocks in a new light. Well try out what feels challenging, in a relatively low-stakes and supportive environment, allowing ourselves time to debrief, reflect, and learn from each other.
Contact basebuilding@surjbayarea.o
The venue is wheelchair accessible.
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Solar is more accessible and affordable than ever. Are you ready to make the leap to get your power from the sun? Should you? Can you? How? Solar expert Doug McKenzie will provide a strong foundation for your decision-making. Presentation followed by Q&A, so bring your questions!
Topics include:
Why: the environmental benefits of solar
What: what a PV system includes & how it works
Solar Economics: Payback/ROI, rate comparisons with/without solar
Solar Financing: owning versus leasing, low-income options
Other Considerations: Contractors, home selling, Tesla tiles, policies
Jobs: The growth of solar in CA, US, the world, and how to get a foot in the door
Join this FREE event at the Ecology Center. More details & RSVP here. There’s also a follow-up event to go deeper on solar topics on Saturday, June 24th – check that out here.
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Jun 10 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm
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.
Come get connected with SDBA’s projects!
- Promoting single-payer / Medicare for All to end the plague of medical debt
- Presenting debt-related topics at forums and workshops
- Tiny Homes for the homeless.
- Working on debarring US Banks that have been convicted of felonies from municipal contracts, and divesting from the Wall St. banks
- money bail reform and fighting modern day debtors’ prisons and exploitive ticketing and fining schemes
- Student debt resistance. Check out the Debt Collective, our sister organization
- helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
- Promoting the concept of Basic Income
- Advocating for Postal banking
- Organizing for public banking in Oakland! We made the first steps happen… now there’s a spinoff group
- 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 .
Also check out our website, our twitter feed, our radio segments and our Facebook page. Take a look at our Public Banking website, Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland.
Strike Debt Bay Area is an offshoot of Occupy Oakland and Strike Debt, itself an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street.
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.
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