Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!

 Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue on all sides of these critically important issues!

OccupyForum presents…

What is Money?

Part II

With Jane Smith and Spencer Veale, members of Politics Of Debt Reading group from Strike Debt Bay Area

 We use money every day.  We spend most of our time working in order to get money. Many of us are in debt and the only way to repay is with money.  For something that is so commonplace and so powerful, we spend very little time really thinking about what money is and where it comes from. Who creates our money and how?

 Jane Smith, Occupy Activist involved with Strike Debt and FedUp, andSpencer Veale, a researcher at International Forum on Globalization (IFG), have been studying the monetary system and its links to debt in the Politics of Debt reading group, a Strike Debt Bay Area group that has been meeting for over a year.  In addition to breaking down the inner workings of the monetary system, they will present solutions to the problems that stem from money created as debt issued by private banks.

An extensive question and answer period will be allotted.  Bring all your burning questions about money!

East Bay Hotel & Food Service Workers Take It to the Streets of Oakland!

East Bay hotel, restaurant and stadium workers are marching for our jobs, our rights and OUR POWER! We are fighting for a higher minimum wage and good jobs that pay us what we need to survive and thrive in the Bay Area in 2014!

Join hotel housekeepers, hot dog vendors from the Coliseum, and airport restaurant workers who are fighting for good contracts – along with fast food workers fighting for $15 an hour and a union, and the Lift Up Oakland! coalition to raise the minimum wage!

“I work at the Oakland Airport, and we’re in a hard fight to keep our families out of poverty, but we’re not fighting alone. We’ve been joining up with Walmart workers, fast food workers, and everyone else who is struggling to pay their rent in the Bay Area. Now we’re going out on the streets in downtown Oakland to show the whole city how strong we are when we’re together!” said Nancy Moncada, retail clerk at the Oakland Airport.

“I believe that it is really important for all of us to come together on March 27th, because when my co-workers from the Coliseum unite with hotel and airport workers we have real strength. We did this five years ago, and we won good contracts, now is the time to make this action even bigger,” said Johnny Stake, a longtime Oakland resident and Coliseum stand worker.

BRING YOUR KIDS AND JOIN THE CHILDREN’S BRIGADE!!!

Three young Americans captured by Iranian forces and held in captivity for two years tell their story.

“Riveting and necessary and illuminating in countless unexpected ways. The hikers have pulled off the almost impossible task of making from their hellish experience something of beauty and grace.”  Dave Eggers

In summer 2009, Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal, and Sarah Shourd were hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan when they unknowingly crossed into Iran and were captured by a border patrol. Accused of espionage, the three Americans ultimately found themselves in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison, where they discovered that pooling their strength of will and relying on each other were the only ways they could survive.

In this poignant memoir, “the hikers” finally tell their side of the story. They recount the deception that lured them into Iran in the first place and describe the psychological torment of interrogation and solitary confinement. We follow them as they make surprising alliances with their fellow prisoners and even some of their captors, while their own bonds with each other are tested and deepened. Told through a bold and innovative interweaving of the authors’ three voices, here is a rare glimpse inside Iran and a timeless portrayal of hardship and hope.

“A Sliver of Light weaves a spellbinding tale of hard-won survival at the intersection of courage and love  the love of friends struggling to support one another in wretched circumstances, the unyielding bedrock of mothers’ love for their long-lost children, and the fiercely tested love of three people for the family of humankind. It is a triumph of writing born of a triumph of being.”  Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree and The Noonday Demon

Shane Bauer is an investigative journalist and photographer. He has reported from locations such as Iraq, Sudan, Chad, Syria, Yemen, Israel/Palestine, and California’s Pelican Bay supermax prison. He has written for Mother Jones, The Nation, Salon, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, and others. He has received the Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism, the John Jay/ H.F. Guggenheim Award for Criminal Justice Reporting, and many other national awards. He was also a finalist in the Livingston Award for journalists under 35.

Josh Fattal, a graduate of Berkeley’s program in environmental economics and policy, is an activist and organizer focused on sustainable development. He has spoken at universities, human rights conferences, and private events to describe the experience of imprisonment in Iran.

Sarah Shourd is a writer, educator and Contributing Editor at Solitary Watch currently based in Oakland. Sarah has done international human rights work with the Zapatista indigenous movement in Chiapas, Mexico; organized with women’s groups against unsolved murders of sweatshop workers in Juarez, Mexico; and taught for the Iraqi Student Project while living in Damascus, Syria. After her wrongful imprisonment in Iran, Sarah has become an advocate for prisoners’ rights, focusing her writing, speaking, and theater projects on the wide-spread use of prolonged solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and jails. She has written for the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, and Newsweek/Daily Beast, and contributes a blog to Huffington Post.

Interviewing the three writers this evening is Frances Dinkelpiel, the co-founder of Berkeleyside,  journalist, and author of Towers of Gold.

Berkeley Arts & Letters and FCCB Present
at First Congregational Church of Berkeley (2345 Channing Way at Dana, Berkeley)

Tickets $15 ($8 students) at Brown Paper Tickets in advance; $20 at the door

Fourth Friday prayer meeting for healing, dedicated to the survivors and victims of violence and police brutality in Oakland.

We get together to:

• Share prayers, spiritual writings and poems from all spiritual traditions
• Reflect and recharge
• Connect with others concerned about violence and interested in healing
• Build community

Please feel free to bring quotes or passages to share
All are welcome

Simple vegetarian dinner will be served.

At noon Laura Wells, candidate for California State Controller, endorsed by the Green Party of California, will speak on the issue of public banking. She will be followed by comments on recent happenings around the possibility of Post Office banking and financial services, updates on where things stand with the (possibly imminent) sale of the Berkeley Post Office, the campaign against the outsourcing of Post Office jobs to Staples, music, letter-writing and more.

The first item in Wells’ platform is

Implement a Publicly-Owned State Bank for California

Determine the best option or options for a successful implementation of a State Bank, and get started on it. Day one. 

Come eat at the Farmer’s Market a block away, join us, get caught up, and enjoy a beautiful Spring day in Berkeley.

Music by one or more of Hali Hammer, Dave Welsh, Fresh Juice Party, Fat Luv, and Mountain Fire.

Other updates about efforts to save our Post Office:

• ~  March 11 hearing with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

• ~  Status of the proposed Zoning Overlay Ordinance.

• ~  Protests at Staples Stores, ongoing.

• ~  Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s proposed moratorium on selling historic Post Offices.

• ~  Legal actions, and invoices outstanding. Plans for a lawsuit. ~  Bring your lunch.

Gather at 2pm, then we will take to the streets at 3pm. Bring your body down. Bring a friend or a hundred. We will march to honor Alex Nieto and all the countless many black and brown young men murdered by those thugs in uniform. We will march for our friends and families getting kicked out of their homes. We will march to stand up and fight back against the takeover of our communities by the forces of capital and their human agents who have too much money for how little heart they possess.

Stand up and be counted.

On Sunday, March 30, 6:00PM @ the Sudo Room (2141 Broadway Ave. Entrance on 22nd St.) We will be having a meeting to prepare for the Earth Day to May Day Direct Action Assembly.

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

The American Postal Workers Union is planning more actions against Staples; we need to support them. We’ve started a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!  Here’s the front of the postcard.

The Berkeley City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which may protect the Post Office against various commercial uses, or be totally ineffective. We need to stay on top of it.

And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Post Offices is supposed to come out before the end of March – anything could happen after it comes out.

Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. We will be holding a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.  Come help us plan it!

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.

A SLIVER OF LIGHT: THREE AMERICANS IMPRISONED IN IRAN

Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shourd

With Chanan Tigay, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, San Francisco State University

In summer 2009, UC–Berkeley grads Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd were hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan when they unknowingly crossed into Iran and were captured by border patrol. Accused of espionage, the three Americans ultimately found themselves in Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison, where they discovered that pooling their strength of will and relying on each other were the only ways they could survive. They share their story of hardship and hope, which is detailed in their new memoir A Sliver of Light: Three Americans Imprisoned in Iran.