The ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism was established in 2011 to honor all those who fought against fascism during the Spanish Civil War by connecting the legacy with international activist causes today. This year’s winners, Lydia Cacho and Jeremy Scahill, discuss their work with Kate Doyle, director of the Evidence Project at the National Security Archive.
Lydia Cacho is an award-winning Mexican journalist, author and human rights activist specialized in women and children’s rights. She has written a dozen books from poetry to fiction, nonfiction, and investigative reporting.Slavery Inc. her international best seller on sex trafficking, human slavery and child pornography has been translated into many languages. Cacho has been recognized for her international investigations of human rights violations and organized criminal networks. She has received 40 international human rights and journalism awards including the Human Rights Watch Ginetta Sagan Amnesty Award; OXFAM award; IWMF award; CNN Hero; UNESCO-Guillermo Cano freedom of expression award; the Wallemberg Medal; the Tucholsky Award; PEN Canada Award; and World Press International Hero 2010 for the International Press Institute in Vienna.
Jeremy Scahill is one of the three founding editors of The Intercept. He is an investigative reporter, war correspondent, and author of the international bestselling books Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield andBlackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Nigeria, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere across the globe. Scahill has also served as the national security correspondent for The Nation and Democracy Now! Scahill’s work has sparked several congressional investigations and won some of journalism’s highest honors. He was twice awarded the prestigious George Polk Award, in 1998 for foreign reporting and in 2008 for Blackwater. Scahill is a producer and writer of the award-winning film Dirty Wars, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Kate Doyle is senior analyst of U.S. policy in Latin America at the National Security Archive where she directs the Evidence Project, connecting the right to truth and access to information with human rights and justice struggles in Latin America. Since 1992, Doyle has worked with human rights organizations, truth commissions and prosecutors to obtain government records from secret archives that shed light on state violence. In 2012, Doyle was awarded the ALBA/ Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism, which she shared with Fredy Peccerelli of the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala.
Join the Oakland Institute for two short films, focused on fracking and its resistance here in California. Dear Governor Brown looks at the contradictions of Gov. Jerry Brown—the “greenest” governor in the US (?), who’s encouraging the growth of fracking in California. The film also explores fracking in our state. Faith Against Fracking looks at the role of faith leaders from multiple backgrounds in forming alliances and contributing to the struggle to end fracking.
Following the film, join the Oakland Institute’s Policy Analyst Elizabeth Fraser, along with Shannon Biggs of Movement Rights and David Braun of Americans Against Fracking for a discussion about the incredible and important work happening here in California to ban fracking once and for all.
A one-time screening of The Brainwashing Of My Dad, a documentary by filmmaker Jen Senko about her Democratic dad and his slide into the world of hard right-wing media indoctrination. The film merges the personal story of her family with a look at the right-wing media machine and the sad state of the mainstream media – and could not be more timely in the middle of most bizarre election cycle in American history.
Featuring interviews with Noam Chomsky, David Brock, Jeff Cohen, George Lakoff, Claire Conner, Frank Luntz and narrated by actor Matthew Modine with animations by Bill Plympton. Executive producer Ryan Smith will answer questions after this special screening at the United Nations Association Documentary Festival.
A strong audience showing will demonstrate interest in the state of the media and build support for more film-making about our communications system.
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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.
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
Join us for a conversation with Fred Glass, longtime friend of the Labor Center and author of a new book, From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement. The author will delve deep into the vibrant labor history of the Golden State where workers have engaged in politics, strikes, and a variety of organizing strategies to find common ground among its diverse communities to achieve a measure of economic fairness and social justice.
About the book
There is no better time than now to consider the labor history of the Golden State. While other states face declining union enrollment rates and the rollback of workers’ rights, California unions are embracing working immigrants, and voters are protecting core worker rights. What’s the difference? California has held an exceptional place in the imagination of Americans and immigrants since the Gold Rush, which saw the first of many waves of working people moving to the state to find work. From Mission to Microchip unearths the hidden stories of these people throughout California’s history. The difficult task of the state’s labor movement has been to overcome perceived barriers such as race, national origin, and language to unite newcomers and natives in their shared interest. This is an indispensable book for students and scholars of labor history and history of the West, as well as labor activists and organizers.
About the author
Fred B. Glass is Communications Director for the California Federation of Teachers and Instructor of Labor and Community Studies at City College of San Francisco. He is the producer of Golden Lands, Working Hands, a ten-part documentary video series on California labor history.
This event is free and open to the public.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event. Books are also available online from UC Press.
Space is limited. Please register for the event.
Join us as we welcome award winning filmmakers Melissa Young and Mark Dworkin, co-directors of the PBS film Shift Change as they screen their latest documentaries, WEconomics and La Empresa es Nuestra.
WEconomics was filmed in the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy which has one of the highest concentrations of cooperative businesses in the developed world. The capital, Bologna, is an industrial powerhouse, where prosperity is widely shared, and cooperatives of teachers and social workers play a key role in the provision of government services.
La Empresa es Nuestra, filmed in the Basque region of northern Spain, describes the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation, that largest cooperative corporation in the world. Founded in the town of Mondragón in 1956, it is the tenth-largest Spanish company and the leading business group in the Basque Country. At the end of 2014, it employed 74,117 people in 257 companies and organizations in four areas of activity: finance, industry, retail and knowledge.
SPACE IS LIMITED! PLEASE RSVP!
Please join us for a film screening and discussion of how these examples can be helpful toward developing a stronger coop economy in the U.S. and specifically the East Bay. Young and Dworkin have produced films about worker coops over a period of 15 years, first in Argentina after the dramatic economic/political collapse in late 2001, then in the Basque Country of Spain and across the U.S., including the Bay Area, for Shift Change. Their work encourages us to think and work toward a more just, equitable, sustainable economy.
In Cooperation,
Ricardo
Ricardo S. Nuñez
http://www.theselc.org/
Audrie & Daisy is an urgent real-life drama that examines the ripple effects on families, friends, schools and communities when two underage young women find that sexual assault against them has been caught on camera and distributed online. From acclaimed filmmakers Bonni Cohen and John Shenk, “Audrie & Daisy”– which made its world premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival — takes a hard look at America’s teenagers who are coming of age in this new world of social media bullying, spun wildly out of control.
“Audrie & Daisy” will be presented FREE in both Piedmont and Oakland by the Appreciating Diversity Film Series and by Piedmont Parents Network. The film was co-produced by documentary filmmaker and Piedmont High School alum Sara Dosa, who will be in attendance to facilitate a discussion after the film on October 27.
The directors were motivated by what they saw: “We are struck by the frequency of sexual assaults in high schools across the country and have been even more shocked by the pictures and videos, posted online–almost as trophies–by teens that have committed these crimes. This has become the new public square of shame for our adolescents. Unfortunately, the story of drunken high school parties and sexual assault is not new. But today, the events of the night are recorded on smartphones and disseminated to an entire community and, sometimes, the nation. Such was the case for Audrie Pott from Saratoga, California and Daisy Coleman, from Maryville, Ohio, 15- and 14-year old girls, living thousands of miles apart but experiencing the same shame from their communities.”
We invite you to this moving and meaningful film so that you can understand more about the world teenagers live in today.
The Appreciating Diversity Film Series is sponsored by the Piedmont Appreciating Diversity Committee, Piedmont League of Women Voters, Piedmont Adult Education, and the City of Piedmont.
Free, no RSVP needed, usually all are able to find seats.
This screening is the Bay Area premiere of The Last Crop documentary.
The Last Crop is an intimate exploration into the lives of small family farmers Jeff and Annie Main of California’s Central Valley. The film follows these organic pioneers’ ten-year pursuit to ensure that a farm need not be imperiled at the end of every generation. Theirs is a story that is being echoed on farms across our nation as our largely aging farming population faces retirement. What sets the Mains apart is their resolve to create an alternative for their farm’s succession that ensures its productivity and affordability for future farming generations.
Post film panelists: Annie & Jeff Main, Andrea Davis-Cetina owner Quarter Acre Farm & National Young Farmers Coalition member, Evan Wigg, Executive Director, Farmers Guild, Kathryn Lyddan, Executive Director, Brentwood Agricultural Land Trust and filmmaker Chuck Schultz
Please contact us if you have any questions at info@blueprintproductions.biz
Food First is the original food policy think tank, founded in 1975 by activist author Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins. Over the years, they’ve produced action-oriented research and analysis in order to help build the movement for food justice and food sovereignty around the world. Their projects range from working to stop ‘land grabs’ in the Americas to pollinator restoration and farmer to farmer education. Their Food Sovereignty tours to places such as Italy and Cuba are well known and sought after.
The October gala gathering celebrates the work Food First has contributed to the food justice movement and provides an opportunity to learn more about their organization. There is no cost to attend and no pressure to contribute financially, though opportunities to do so will be available if you so desire.
Loco Bloco, a non-profit performing arts organization and playwright Paul S. Flores announce their final full production of On The Hill, a play about the impact of the death of Alex Nieto. Directed by the renowned playwright Paul Flores, On the Hill tells the story of the impact that the death of Alex Nieto – at the hands of the SFPD- has had on youth of color residing in SF neighborhoods – neighborhoods that are currently being gentrified. The project uses music, dance and theater as a powerful tool for communities divided by issues of police violence, racism, gentrification and economic disparity,to find ways to dialogue with each other, and discover opportunities for solutions, healing and unification. Through their interpretation of death and life, the young actors incorporate spoken word, bilingual theater, drum, dance and video projection to retell the story of the night Alex Nieto was murdered on Bernal Hill in March 2014. The production is co-directed by Eric Reid.
URGENT: Tell the City Again: No New Jails OR Jail-like Facilities in SF!
Come to the Final Meeting of the SF Jail Replacement Project Work Group
Friday, October 28, 2-5 PM, 25 Van Ness, Room 610
A huge grouping of community groups, service providers, and justice activists stopped a new SF jail last spring, but there’s a danger the City may try again.
Last spring, the City set up the “Work Group to Re-envision the Jail Replacement Project” to decide what to do, or build, or plan INSTEAD of a new jail. At Friday’s meeting they will vote on proposed alternatives to present to the Supervisors.
The Workgroup had been considering alternatives to to jail construction and is proposing some strong and viable community based solutions, including more housing and reentry services. But now the list of proposals includes building a smaller jail, renovating jail cells, and a locked mental facility, in spite of overwhelming public and workgroup opinion against jail facilities. See list of proposals at http://tinyurl.com/zk395r9
We defeated the proposed jail last year; we can’t let the Mayor and Sheriff turn this around! Please come and speak out. We need everyone’s voice.
The No New SF Coalition has an 8-Step Plan for a jail-free San Francisco, based on open user-led facilities, community investment in housing and services, separating services from law enforcement, equitable access to care for all, bail and bond reform, pathways to permanent housing, and immediate closure of 850 Bryant. See http://tinyurl.com/jqurr7j The Coalition’s longer and more detailed report, Build Justice, Not Jails, is available at http://tinyurl.com/h7w2rmg.
Read more about Friday’s action at http://tinyurl.com/hb3w9yz .
Militarized police are gearing up to clear out the camps and arrest the water protectors who are defending their rivers and land – including Sioux sacred sites and burial grounds – against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Over 100 tribes have come together to fight back against this corporate encroachment.
We will protest at the Wells Fargo building, one of a long list of banks responsible for funding the pipeline companies to the tune of $467 million.
Capitalist expansion and the corporate drive for profit have caused untold suffering for native people throughout US history, and recent police aggression reveal once again who’s side the state is on. Join us to protest this government action carried out for big business.
Native speakers have been invited.
SOLIDARITY with STANDING ROCK!
FIGHT CORPORATE GREED!
EVICT THE REAL TRESPASSER: BIG OIL!
GREEN JOBS NOW!!
Hosted by Bay Area Socialist Alternative. In September SA helped raise $1600 and many supplies that we delivered to the Sioux camp.
The once free-spirited city of San Francisco is now a “Company Town,” a playground for tech moguls of the “sharing economy.” Airbnb is the biggest hotel. Uber privatizes transit. And now these companies want political power as well. Meanwhile, middle class and ethnic communities are driven out by skyrocketing rents and evictions–sparking a grassroots backlash that challenges the oligarchy of tech. Is this the future of cities around the world? The feature-length documentary, “Company Town,” is the story of an intense election campaign to determine the fate of the city at the epicenter of the digital revolution.
Produced and directed by Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow. Edited by Manuel Tsingaris. With Aaron Peskin, Julie Christensen, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Ron Conway,Brian Chesky, Joe “Fitz” Rodriguez, Jeffrey Kwong, Sunny Angulo, Shaw San Liu, Gordon Chin, Lina Chen. David Campos, Patrick Hannon, Chris Lehane David Talbot & Willie Brown. USA. 2016. 77 mins.
Former Panthers Melvin Dickson and Aunti Frances will be hosting a celebration and “stone soup” meal with other food justice activists and community members from the east bay, who will share their experiences and their stories.
Speakers (so far) include:
Van, Qilombo Oakland
Sita Bhaumik (and others), The People’s Kitchen Collective
Doria Robinson, Urban Tilth
Jocelyn Golden, Manna from Heaven
Aunti Frances, Self-Help Hunger Program
Joy Moore, local food activist
Kristyn Leach, farmer at Namu Farm
We will break bread together and celebrate with live music, dancing and fresh and organic fruits and veggies from the market.
Yes on 61, in partnership with California Nurses Association, presents Your Money or Your Life: A Free Documentary Screening & Panel.
Join nurses, veterans, seniors, and community leaders as they sneak preview a new documentary film –featuring BERNIE SANDERS– about pharmaceutical greed and discuss the groundbreaking changes Proposition 61 will bring for many Californians who are struggling to afford their medications. Film trailer: https://youtu.be/
Panel will include:
– Martha Kuhl, RN, CNA Secretary-Treasurer
– Jesse Brooks, AHF Patient Advocate
– Other distinguished speakers, including Veterans & Seniors, TBA
Light snacks & beverages will be served.
This event is free and open to the public.