Calendar
The nightmare situation of Covid-19 in US jails and prisons, and its disproportionate impact on Black people and POC confined there, has made the call for decarceration more urgent than ever. In recognition of Black August, we feel the need and desire to respond as SURJ and make a space where our broader community can show up together.
The SURJ Mobilization Committee is planning a physically distanced Human Billboard and Car Caravan: We hope you can join us!
In solidarity with those incarcerated in jails, prisons, youth detention, and ICE concentration camps, we will be amplifying the messages of our partners and demanding an end to these inhumane conditions and immediate decarceration. We will also have a small car caravan in support of the Human Billboard for those of us who, due to Covid-19, are not able to be part of the HB.
Our last Human Billboard was a great success and we plan the same for this one!
Check here for connection info
Noted historian and criminologist Tony Platt will share his long research and insights into the carceral state known as the USA. Tony Platt has been involved since the 1960s in issues relating to criminal justice, race, inequality, and social justice in American history. He taught at the University of Chicago, Berkeley, and California state universities. He is currently a Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law & Society in Berkeley’s Law School. A founding member of the editorial board of Social Justice, Platt blogs on history and memory at http://GoodToGo.typepad.com. In addition to books and scholarly journals, he has published in a wide variety of popular sites, including National Public Radio, Los Angeles Times, History News Network, Truthdig, Huntington Post, The Guardian, and San Francisco Chronicle.
From teaching criminology with David Du Bois, editor of the Black Panther Party’s newspaper, and organizing California’s first major conference on prison activism in the 1970s, to more recently speaking out about the damaging social legacies of eugenics, Platt’s experience as a political activist and public intellectual informs his research and publications. In the 1970s, he was co-author of The Iron Fist and The Velvet Glove, a book that challenged prevailing conceptions of American policing. In his latest book, Beyond These Walls: Rethinking Crime and Punishment in the United States (St. Martin’s Press, 2019, https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250085115), Platt draws upon a lifetime of research and commitment to social justice to articulate
THE OCCUPY OAKLAND POTLUCK BEFORE THE GA ON THE LAST SUNDAY OF THE MONTH HAS BEEN INOPERATIVE SINCE THE PANDEMIC STARTED AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE INOPERATIVE FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE.
(Due to technical problems with the calendar events are nearly impossible to remove, hence this notice)
Anyone wishing to get notices about the GA, which is currently being held online every other Sunday, can email
occupyoakland@lists.riseup.net
and request to be put on the list.
Please join the Moms, @APTPaction @CURYJ @ellabakercenter @PeoplesStrike at 1225 Oak Street (Oakland) for a socially-distanced rally and action on Tuesday, September 1st at 1 pm.#HomesNotHarm #HousingIsAHumanRight #NoEvictionsOnStolenLand #CancelRent #DefundPolice pic.twitter.com/ue394AJqKi
— Moms 4 Housing (@moms4housing) August 28, 2020
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82465546845
Agenda items:
4. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Forensic Logic Impact Report and proposed Use Policy –
review and take possible action.
5. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Exigent Circumstances Use Reports – review and take
possible action.
6. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Live Stream Use Reports – review and take possible
action.
7. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance Amendments – Hofer/Patterson/Gage – review and take
possible action.
a. Prohibition On Predictive Policing And Remote Biometric Surveillance Technology
b. Annual Report metrics and due dates
c. Additional cleanup language
8. Sanctuary Contracting Ordinance – CPO – Annual Report – review and take possible action.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84693488061?pwd=M2t3S0dzdkhwN01oZm1hcFpHZS91UT09
In 2018 the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released an alarming report, stating that the world needed to steeply cut its carbon emissions and make radical changes in order to limit the planet’s temperature from rising to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. If that goal wasn’t met, the report predicted a horrifying increase in suffering for almost all life and ecological collapses.
In America, this report was met on the political Left by sustained calls for the abolition of capitalist exploitation of people and the planet. The rationale was that capitalism’s imperative for endless economic growth required massive amounts of energy, the vast majority of which is still produced through fossil fuels. Some of the specific responses were reinvigorated support for anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggles by Indigenous peoples, surges in attendance at climate strikes, and great support for proposals like the Green New Deal by elected officials.
East Bay DSA will explore this theme in a Socialist Night School mini-series, co-organized with our Green New Deal Committee. These 3 events will explore what it means to be an ecosocialist, the Red Deal and Indigenous struggle, and how to fight for a Green New Deal after Bernie.
In this first Night School, we’ll get an introduction to ecosocialism, its history, and how we can organize as ecosocialists today from the local to the national and international levels. Our readings will cover a broad swath of socialist history, and we’ll get started with 2 speakers:
Becca Miller has been a member of Boston DSA for two years and is a core member of the Take Back the Grid energy democracy campaign. She recently started her second term on DSA’s nationwide ecosocialism working group steering committee, where she’s been working on a new member onboarding process. Becca works as a campaign manager to increase state funding for a program that helps SNAP recipients afford more fruits and vegetables from local farmers.
Benny Zank is a member of the East Bay DSA Steering Committee and has previously served as co-chair of the chapter’s Green New Deal committee. He has organized as an ecosocialist for several years building strong coalitions with other organizations in the Bay Area and works professionally on addressing environmental issues, like supporting the California Energy Code. Follow him @bread_by_benny.
Priority Readings:
DSA Ecosocialist Working Group Principles
Care and Repair: Left Politics in the Age of Climate Change
Recommended Readings:
Karl Marx on the materials of production
We are asking OUR HOUSED neighbors to contribute hygiene supplies, canned food, bottled water, rain gear, tarps, garbage bags, $$ et al to be redistributed on Sunday Sept. 13th to encampments in North Oakland dealing with the COVID 19. We will sanitize and package your donations add a hot packaged meal and fresh fruit to the care kits to be distributed to North Oakland Encampments and surrounding encampments.
In order to properly sanitize and maintain social distancing we are collective the materials on Sept. 4th, 5th & 6th and aiming to distribute 500 hot meals and care kits on Sept. 13th. Overflow resources will be distributed by sister orgs throughout Oakland.
We are asking OUR HOUSED neighbors to contribute hygiene supplies, canned food, bottled water, rain gear, tarps, garbage bags, $$ et al to be redistributed on Sunday Sept. 13th to encampments in North Oakland dealing with the COVID 19. We will sanitize and package your donations add a hot packaged meal and fresh fruit to the care kits to be distributed to North Oakland Encampments and surrounding encampments.
In order to properly sanitize and maintain social distancing we are collective the materials on Sept. 4th, 5th & 6th and aiming to distribute 500 hot meals and care kits on Sept. 13th. Overflow resources will be distributed by sister orgs throughout Oakland.
There are increasing concerns as to what will happen before, during, and after our November election so this is an opportunity to express our concerns. Our group discussion will be introduced by Gene Ruyle and other ICSS members with ample opportunity for discussion. Be prepared to voice, and defend, your views For background, we will post a list of recommended sources in early September, for example in Democracy Now, the New York Times, and elsewhere ss they develop. ICSS member Sharon Rose will moderate.
LOG-IN INFO
The meeting 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. We intend to start the presentation as close to 10:30 am as possible.
Check here for Zoom connection info before the meeting: https://icssmarx.org/icss-sched-latest.html
This Labor Day weekend, join the EBDSA Labor Committee for a screening of Harlan County, USA, and learn about our newly-launched Jobs Program!
This Oscar-winning film documents the struggles of Brookside Mineworkers while striking for safer working conditions, fair labor practices, and decent wages.
Following the screening, we will discuss the film and how the Jobs Program aims to build working-class power through strategic workplace organizing.
Now is a critical time to stand for Julian Assange.
We hope everyone is doing ok after all the fires & amidst pandemic times.
Sadly, the show trial of Julian Assange marches on, and intensifies our need to ACT to save his life – along with saving our freedom of speech & journalism worldwide. His extradition hearing starts on September 7, 2020 at the Old Bailey in London. It is anticipated to last for three weeks.
We would like to show our solidarity with the global #Candles4Assange events in support of Julian. Please join us in:
- VIRTUALLY by sharing a photo of your live, virtual, solo, or group events/actions around the Bay Area this month.
- Join us LIVE at our event on September 7th, if you can, to stand for Julian Assange in peaceful protest. Our main goal is presence & educating the public with fliers and information.Please bring signs/banners/fliers if you have them, but mainly just show up. Safe distancing & masks please.
- We realize that not everyone can attend live or in San Francisco. We’re glad to support anyone having any sort of action. NO ACTION IS TOO SMALL & ANYTHING POSITIVE/WELL-INTENTIONED HELPS!
Julian’s farce trial is set to go on for weeks; any action you may take on any day will add to the cumulative difference. But NOW is the time.
Please let us know & we’ll be glad to post it on the website & promote it via adding your city to the global protests list on @Candles4Assange, #Unity4J, and @action_4assange.
We hope to share/post as many photos as possible of ANY actions. Please email directly to admin@bayaction2freeassange.org OR tag @JeaniRN on Twitter noting BayAction2FreeAssange.
MANY WAYS TO ACT IN SUPPORT to be a part of helping free Julian Assange:
- You can find fliers on our resources page and SomersetBean.com has some brilliant graphic informational fliers you can download or print directly to share with people.
- #YellowRibbons4Assange is a vital campaign that Christine Assange & @TRUMANHUMAN2020 started in May, 2020.� It is� an ongoing, easy, and meaningful action to take anywhere. It spreads the awareness of Julian’s plight.� � It has started many conversations at our home’s gate & at events to promote accurate information in conversation. You can learn more here.
- #Clovers4Assange by Anons / @YourMarkLubbers. Add a clover to your Twitter & elsewhere to promote awareness for Julian.
DONATIONS:
Julian’s partner & mother of their two children, @Stellamoris1, has started a fundraiser for legal fees. No contribution is too small.
As Stella has expressed the importance of educating the public on Julian’s case, as has his mother, @MrsC_Assange, noting how important it is to reach outside our immediate bubble. Many people don’t know about Julian’s case due to media blackout. Or they may only know the smears promoted by mainstream media worldwide. It is up to each of us to spread the truth to save his life.
PLEASE TUNE IN TO:
- Action4Assange live broadcasts from D.C. from September 4th – 25th where they will protest and lead demonstrations to bring awareness to Julian’s persecution. The Facebook Event kicks off Friday, September 4th, 12:00PM EDT/9:00AM PDT and you can register here. If you don’t use Facebook, you can likely find it directly on Action4Assange’s YouTube channel. They have great interviews/vigils weekly & a wealth of information & teach-In resources – all worth subscribing to.
- Action4Assange weekly online vigils every Tuesday 9:00PM EDT/6:00PM PDT and Saturday 1:00PM EDT/10:00AM PDT. Watch on YouTube
- A4AWEEKLY ACTIONS PAGE: Action 4 Assange � Action 4 Julian Assange Action4Assange.com
MOBILE BILLBOARDS:
@plucille54 & @SomersetBean have arranged for newly designed Don’t Extradite Assange sister mobile billboards to be on the streets of Washington, D.C. & London for Julian Assange’s extradition hearing. You can donate to help get the message out in London and Washington, D.C.
A MUST SEE:
Please enjoy the newly released film by Juan Passarelli, The War on Journalism: The Case of Julian Assange, from dontextraditeassange.com.
Please feel free to contact us for any reason.
We look forward to seeing your actions – stay safe out there!
In solidarity,
BayAction2FreeAssange.org
Point Molate is the last unprotected headland along San Francisco Bay. For several years, this rare, wild shoreline was being considered as a site for a mega-casino. A hardworking coalition of local groups helped defeat that wrongheaded proposal. Now, a Southern California-based luxury housing developer is trying to make this beautiful site available only to the rich. Opponents of the SunCal proposal argue that the site should be held as a regional park instead of an elite housing complex. As a public park, Point Molate could be enjoyed by nearby Richmond residents, who have shouldered a disproportionate share of the Bay Area’s toxic pollution, and by all visitors to this precious shoreline. The outcome of this fight will affect each and every one of us for years to come.
Sunflower Alliance encourages even non-Richmond residents to sign this Sierra Club petition and speak at the Richmond City Council meeting on September 8th, when the fate of Point Molate is to be decided. As residents Courtney Cummings and David Helvarg explain, “The fight to save Point Molate is, like many land use decisions, also about institutional racism and environmental justice. When it comes to racial equity, no one can seriously doubt that if Richmond, California . . . were a wealthy white community, this last unprotected natural headland . . . would have long ago been set aside as a regional park and visitor destination.”
Take a look at the Richmond Community News, which contains their article as well as an analysis of a whole range of serious problems with the SunCal proposal.
Zoom: https://zoom.us/join Webinar ID: 969 8696 1620 Passcode: ccsept8
Phone: 1-669-900-6833 or 1-253-215-8782 or 1-346-248-7799 Webinar ID: 969 8696 1620
Cars and bicycles travel with a message for the community- Black lives matter! Join your neighbors, brings signs and prepare to make noise as we travel slowly on a route through the residential and business sections of El Cerrito. The caravan concludes with a short rally to inform you of latest updates on the city’s response to ECP’s proposals for “reimagining public safety”. including the petition for greater police accountability and defunding. If you haven’t signed, click here: https://campaigns.organizefor.org/petitions/el-cerrito-police-reforms
Cars line up at the N/E Bart Lot on the corners of Richmond St and Central Ave.
Join us for a conversation with the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people. Starting in Fall 2020, BCNM commits to paying an annual Shuumi Land Tax, a small step towards acknowledging the history of genocide on this land and contributing to its healing, as well as embarking on our Indigenous Technologies Initiative.
About Corrina Gould
Corrina Gould (Lisjan Ohlone) is the chair and spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan— she was born and raised in Oakland, CA, the village of Huichin. A mother of three and grandmother of four, Corrina is the Co-Founder and Lead Organizer for Indian People Organizing for Change, a small Native run organization that works on Indigenous people issues and sponsored annual Shellmound Peace Walks from 2005 to 2009. These walks brought about education and awareness of the desecration of sacred sites in the greater Bay Area. As a tribal leader, she has continued to fight for the protection of the Shellmounds, uphold her nation’s inherent right to sovereignty, and stand in solidarity with her Indigenous relatives to protect our sacred waters, mountains, and lands all over the world.
Her life’s work has led to the creation of Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, a women-led organization within the urban setting of her ancestral territory of the Bay Area. Sogorea Te’ Land Trust works to return Indigenous land to Indigenous people. Based on an understanding that Oakland is home to many peoples that have been oppressed and marginalized, Sogorea Te works to create a thriving community that lives in relation to the land. Through the practices of rematriation, cultural revitalization, and land restoration, the Land Trust calls on native and non-native peoples to heal and transform legacies of colonization, genocide, and to do the work our ancestors and future generations are calling us to do.
Due to unhealthy air quality, this memorial event is postponed until next Thursday.https://t.co/q9PjfNRCpy
— Indybay (@Indybay) September 10, 2020
Come through to the Lake Merritt Amphitheater (Oakland) on Thursday, September 10th 7-10pm for a memorial honoring the dozens of lives that have been taken by police and vigilante violence since George Floyd was killed. This number grows everyday 💔 Just as we exercise collective power through demonstrations, it is also important to collectively mourn and make the time and space to honor those for whom we seek justice 🖤 bring candles, flowers, offerings, and your mask! Please maintain social distance when possible
This is a virtual meeting: join with this link: https://tinyurl.com/SudsSnacks
2:30-3:30 Discussion of local elections, Featuring:
– Carroll Fife, candidate for Oakland City Council District 3
– Aiden Hill, Green Party candidate for Berkeley Mayor
– The Action 2020 slate for Oakland School Board
– The socialist slate for Hayward City Council
3:30-4:00
Presentation and discussion of the Statewide propositions on the
California ballot –
– A short summary of all of the propositions with concurring positions by the Alameda County Greens and the Peace and Freedom Party, and a brief presentation of their differing views on Propositions 24 and 25.
4:00-4:30
Additional time for questions and comments
– Note: A forum about the national election will be held on Oct 3, 2020.
This event is sponsored by the Oakland Greens, Bay Area System Change Not Climate Change, and the Alameda County Peace and Freedom Party.
For more information call 510-465-9414
The latest updates from the #6Forced2Strike group, who are going on day 7 of a hunger strike in front of Antioch Police Department. Below is the latest press release (9/10/20), a photo of the site, and their three demands: pic.twitter.com/GJ2Vvs6RMy
— Sarah Belle Lin (@SarahBelleLin) September 10, 2020