The justice journey for the family of Luis Góngora Pat begins on Monday March 13th, 1:30pm Federal Courthouse Building.  This is the federal civil case filed by the family. (Obviously, Gascón has done nothing on the criminal case.)

During the first court date the legal team headed by Adante Pointer from the Law Offices of John Burris will work to set a jury trial date and set a schedule for discovery and other work to be done!

We welcome a strong presence to boost family moral and let the judge and the City know that we’ll be paying VERY CLOSE ATTENTION. Thank you! Justice & Honor for Luis Góngora Pat!

As the newly installed juggernaut in Washington DC lurches forward, apparently dismantling and destroying most of the things valued by a majority of people in this country (whether they realize it or not), such as health care, environmental protections, social security and what little oversight remains of corporations, it may be helpful to remember that throughout US history, many ordinary citizens stood up to the government, corporations
​,​
and powerful individuals. Sometimes they were successful, sometimes they weren’t. But they have repeatedly demonstrated the incredible power of individuals or grassroots movements created by ordinary people.

THE PEOPLE SPEAK is a beautiful and moving film inspired by Howard Zinn’s books
​A People‘s History of the United States
first published in 1980 and one of the bestselling history books in the country
and Voices of a People’s History of the United States, the primary-source companion to A People​’s History of the United States, edited with Anthony Arnove.

The film features the actual words (in letters, songs, poems, speeches, and manifestos) of rebels, dissenters, and visionaries from our past and present including Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Bob Dylan, Langston Hughes, Chief Joseph, Muhammad Ali, and unknown veterans, union workers, abolitionists, and many others never featured in high school textbooks. These dramatic moments from our history are brought to life by a group of remarkable musicians and actors filmed mostly in live performances.

Like Howard Zinn’s work as a whole, THE PEOPLE SPEAK celebrates the extraordinary possibilities for creating social change that ordinary people have realized throughout the course of our nation​’s rich, but often ignored, history of dissent and protest.

Following the film, Andy Gillis, Occupier and one of the organizers of the Howard Zinn Book Fair, will facilitate a discussion on how to apply much of what we’ll see in the film to the current authoritarian trend in DC. We can share the various ways we’re resisting individually as well as the groups, movements and ideas we’ve encountered recently and also discuss how we might bring these together under a larger umbrella group or movement. We’ll write up a summary of the discussion and send it out to everyone in preparation for a continuation of the following week’s Forum with author Michael Goldstein.

As Howard Zinn said, “if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future.The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Time will be allotted for announcements.
Donations to Occupy Forum to cover costs are encouraged; no one turned away!

YOU’RE INVITED!

WHAT: Rally to tell CONGRESS: Don’t take away our health care!

After years of trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the GOP has introduced a dangerous bill that would kick 24 million Americans off their health care coverage, defund Planned Parenthood, cut Medicaid, and make health care more expensive for many struggling financially.

Together, this Tuesday, we will make sure our members of Congress know that we don’t want them to touch our health care. We’ll also make it clear that Trump’s second Muslim Ban is as unacceptable as his first, and must go. 

Michael Brewster is back in court on Wednesday and his family is asking for our support.

On February 9th, Michael wasn’t feeling quite himself. He wasn’t posing a danger to anyone but he may have needed some assistance. His mom and sister-in-law, flagged the police over to ask them to call an ambulance for Michael because they thought he needed to go to the hospital.

Instead of helping Michael, they brutalized him. They punched him, struck him with their baton, several officers were on top of him despite saying multiple times that he couldn’t breathe. A sherriff even kicked him in the ribs after throwing him into the jail cell. Michael was lucky to have survived this attack. It may have been worse if his mother, Trina Peters and his family didn’t prevent further brutalization.

In their normal corrupt fashion, the police are charging Michael with 3 felony counts of assault and threat of assault.

The preliminary trial starts Wednesday morning. Please come if you can! We’ll be handing out heart-shaped pins to show our solidarity for Michael.

National Day of Action to Celebrate the Lives of Black Trans Women and Protect All Trans Women and Femmes
[Image artist: Ethan Parker]

Celebrate and say the names of transwomen while they are alive, not only after they’ve been murdered!

Gather with the Bay Area Queer Anti-Fascist Network (Queer as Fuck) at the Powell Street Cable Car Turnaround at 4:45pm and walk to Union Square and back, saying the names of trans women of color who are alive and thriving in the community.

Get Equal called for an action to be held today and their call is sponsored by TGI Justice Project, BYP 100, the Transgender Law Center, and others. See the full description at http://www.getequal.org/blog/statement-national-day-of-action-for-trans-women-of-color.

Join us with signs of support!
#ProtectTransWomen
#StopTransMurders
#BlackLivesMatter
#SayHerName

In case you hadn’t heard—weird weather is here to stay. California, after years of drought, is now lighting up with flash flood warnings. This is just one aspect of climate change that’s been spurred on by human activity.

How do we know that the climate is changing dramatically, and that this isn’t just part of the planet’s natural cycles? Join us for a conversation with a local scientist who studies this exact question.

Professor Lynn Ingram studies the history of climate and environmental change in California using sediment cores from lakes and estuaries, including San Francisco Bay. Dr. Ingram is a Fellow of the California Academy of Science, and is a Senior Fulbright recipient and Miller Fellow at UC Berkeley.

Filmed before a live audience each episode of Ars Technica Live is a speculative, informal conversation between Ars Technica hosts and an invited guest. The audience, drawn from Ars Technica’s readers, is also invited to join the conversation and ask questions. These aren’t soundbyte setups; they are deepcuts from the frontiers of research and creativity.

Contact: Annalee Newitz (annalee@arstechnica.com)

Ingram has been a Professor in the Departments of Earth and Planetary Science and Geography at UC Berkeley since 1995. She is the author of more than sixty published scientific articles on past climate change in California and the other locations around the Pacific Ocean, and she is the author of a book about the climate history and water resources in California (UC Press, 2013): The West without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climatic Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow.

Annalee Newitz is the tech culture editor at Ars Technica. Previously she was the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo and io9. She is the author of Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction (Doubleday). Her first novel, Autonomous, comes out in 2017 from Tor Books.

New Muslim Ban begins 3/16. Protest New Ban & all attacks on immigrant, indigenous, Black & Brown communities. Thurs 4pm at SF Federal Bldg. pic.twitter.com/lU565LvTQi

— AROC (@AROCBayArea) March 14, 2017

http://selmaoutloud.brownpapertickets.com/

Join us to see the award winning film “Selma” at our watch party — and help build the community of resistance that will carry us forward in the next four years.

This movie is not recommended for young children; however we will have food and activities outside the theater for kids and families. All ages are welcome and encouraged.

The Nanci For Berkeley campaign showed that the power of the people is real in Berkeley and in the world. In just a few short months, we helped to change to political and social conversation in Berkeley politics. We also helped to unseat an incumbent whose policies did not reflect our neighborhood values, and use the ranked choice voting strategy to help elect Cheryl Davila, a progressive activist who is currently the only council voice saying no to militarization of the Berkeley police.

PEACE Out Loud is a neighborhood Social Permaculture project dedicated to being in community. We know that our liberation must be collective if it is to happen at all. We host classes, camps, workshops and events for joy and freedom.

Here’s why you should come:

More than forty years after the Selma march, the voting rights Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists fought for and won back then are under attack from Republican governors across the country — and Trump is indicating that he wants to make things worse.

At this critical moment, the progressive left has much to learn from the movements that paved the way for this one. That’s why this March, DFA members are gathering to build community and energize for the resistance by screening Ava DuVernay’s 2015 film “SELMA.” Here’s the 2-minute trailer for Selma — check it out and then sign up to join us!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6t7vVTxaic

This event is hosted by the Nanci For Berkeley campaign and PEACE Out Loud. There is no cost for the event, but we do ask folks to make donations to help cover the cost of the venue, and we will be accepting donations for Democracy For America and local nonprofits.

The Predator-in-Chief wasted no time in attacking women’s reproductive rights in restricting funding for international women’s organizations and the nomination of known anti-abortion judge William Gorsuch to the supreme court. The republican health care proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare represents a dangerous escalation in the right wing war on women. Not only would Trumpcare do away with gender equity rules for insurance plans, it would require the exclusion of abortion care for any plan sold to individuals receiving a government subsidy, and it would defund Planned Parenthood.

The Trump administration threatens to drive back decades of progress on women’s rights. At the same time, a new generation of women activists has signaled its willingness to fight for full equality in movements against sexual violence on college campuses. We urgently need to build a new women’s movement that will fight to extend women’s reproductive rights, counter Trump’s emboldening of sexists, and unite with the movements for immigrant rights, for LBGTQ rights, for Black Lives Matter and others to decisively defeat Trump and the billionaire class.

After Women’s Day, the next date to prepare massive collective resistance is May Day, known and celebrated around the world as International Worker’s Day. Since May Day 2006, when strike action for immigrant rights succeeded in pushing back attacks from the Bush administration, this day has also been linked to the struggle against racism and for immigrant rights.

This May Day can be turned into a first major rally of resistance by women, immigrants, by students walking out and unions mobilizing against “right to work” (for less) legislation. Join us to build for such action from below and put pressure on labor, women, environmental and immigrant rights leaders to come together and coordinate these efforts.

Trump’s despicable attitude towards women are a reflection of the vicious sexism that capitalist society constantly reinforces through stereotypes and systemic gender inequality. To truly end sexism, we need to take on the entire system that relies on inequality, both economic and social, to create huge profits for the few at the top.

As socialists, we fight for a society based on gender, racial and economic justice. For Socialist Alternative, the struggle against Trump and the billionaire class is part of a larger struggle to end the capitalist system as a whole.

Join us Thursday March 16 to discuss a new women’s movement as part of a larger Anti-Trump movement, and the need for a socialist transformation of society.

Speakers during the event will include:
A Bay Area Nurse to talk about single payer
Darby Thomas, San Francisco DSA
Erin Brightwell, Socialist Alternative

This SURJ workshop will put gentrification and displacement in a 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.

Our workshop has space for 66 people. To reserve your spot in advance, please purchase tickets at http://www.surjbayarea.org/surj_displacement_and_gentrification_workshop_20170316

ACCESS NEEDS: This event is wheelchair accessible. If you have specific access needs, please email surjbasebuilding@gmail.com, and we’ll be happy to work with you to accommodate them.

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://eastbaymeditation.org/accessibility/PDF/How-to-Be-Fragrance-Free-.pdf

http://www.cjjc.org/

SPREAD THE WORD, INVITE YOUR FRIENDS!

*Though intended for a white allied audience – people of color are also welcome.*

A conversation with Asad Haider, co-editor of Viewpoint Magazine

Doors at 6:30pm, event starts at 7pm
Followed by reception with food and drink

Asad has written extensively on socialist history, theory, and strategy and has contributed to the ongoing discussion of how to build multi-racial solidarity. This kind of solidarity, he argues, will be crucial not only to successfully resisting the attacks of the Trump administration, but also to actually winning reforms like single-payer healthcare that can increase our confidence and capacity to fight for a socialist society.

In his latest Jacobin article, “Where Are the People of Color?” Asad describes how white guilt on the left ignores and sidelines socialists of color. He points out that a “meaningful common interest does not somehow exist by default” but instead must be “constituted by the composition of these multitudes into a group,” which is “a process of political practice.”

Join us for a conversation about how capitalism and white supremacy are inextricably linked, and what the growing socialist left can learn from past socialists and communists about building solidarity. Followed by reception!

Militant resistance has a long history both domestically and abroad.

Every day, people are fighting back against the Trump Administration, corporations and the forces of hate. From the immigration ban to the Dakota Access Pipeline to the normalization of white supremacy, we are seeing new waves of resistance no longer taking any shit from the authoritarian state. We see militant action appearing more and more frequently challenging these powers that be,and challenging orderly liberal political solutions.

Domestically, forces from the martyrs at Haymarket and the 1877 Great Railroad Strike (the only actual “general strike” in American history) to the march on Blair Mountain and the Flint sit down strikes to the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement and the anti-nuclear movement of the 1960s and 1970s have shaped American dissent to capital and industry. Globally, people’s movements have ejected U.S. Empire from places like Cuba and Vietnam and led global insurrections against neo-liberalism from Chiapas, Mexico.

Now we can use history as a guide for more radical action and resistance.

Join us for a provocative and exciting discussion with Dr. Robert Buzzanco, Professor of History at the University of Houston, about militant and effective resistance to U.S. Capital and Empire.

This event is another in a series of Diablo Rising Tide events discussing militancy and escalation in social movements.

Robert Buzzanco is a Professor of History at the University of Houston. He is author of ‘Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era’ and ‘Vietnam and the Transformation of American Life.’ He teaches courses in War, Globalization and Terrorism, Social Movements, US Foreign Policy, and Twentieth Century History. You can read more of his work at https://afflictthecomfortable.org/

Join SURJ Bay Area and the Anti Police-Terror Project for a First Responders Training.

APTP builds the capacity of community members to respond to police terror and violence. The purpose of this training is to share knowledge and skills with regards to conducting independent people’s investigations into cases of police terror.

The topics covered will be:

– An introduction to APTP
– How to conduct people’s investigations of police murder
– Know your rights and security considerations when conducting an investigation
– First aid
– An overview of different aspects of family support

The material being presented is created by the Anti Police-Terror Project.  Email mobilization@surjbayarea.org with ticket requests or questions. Our workshop has space for 60 people. To reserve your spot in advance, please purchase tickets on the SURJ website here: http://www.surjbayarea.org/firstresponderstraining.

MORE ABOUT APTP: The Anti Police-Terror Project is a group of concerned and committed institutions, organizations, and individuals dedicated to ending state-sanctioned murder and violence perpetuated against Black, Brown and Poor people. They are a Black led, multi-racial, multi-generational coalition. Visit their website here: http://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org/

CHILDCARE: We will be providing childcare on location that is arranged in advance. Please email madeleinemtaylor3@gmail.com for requests.

ACCESS NEEDS: This event is wheelchair accessible. If you have specific access needs, please email mobilization@surjbayarea.org, and we’ll be happy to work with you to accommodate them.

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: https://eastbaymeditation.org/accessibility/PDF/How-to-Be-Fragrance-Free-.pdf

Join faith leaders and activists as we urge our elected officials to honor sanctuary for all people, regardless of immigration status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or religion.

Speakers Include:
-Dolores Huerta, Co-founder of United Farm Workers
-Rev. John Fife, Co-founder of the Sanctuary movement
-Jose Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and
immigration activist
-Rev. Dr. David Vásquez-Levy, President of Pacific School of Religion

This rally will conclude a Borders and Identity conference, hosted by Pacific School of Religion and Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion – CLGS. More information about Borders and Identity at psr.edu/earl-17

Dear Friends,

Please join us on Sunday, March 19th from 3-5pm to make art for the homeless! We will design and cut out shadow scenes to be projected on to tents at the homeless camp located at the Here/There sign on the Berkeley/Oakland border.
A wonderful opportunity to meet members of the camp and do something fun to support them!

All ages welcome. Please spread the word!

Liberated Lens Film Collective presents a dark night of comedy shorts by Thalia Drori Ramirez and Cineastas de Granada.

An evening of comedy shorts by filmmaker Thalia Drori Ramirez, including a premiere of her latest film, Squirrel, which features Mary Vivian Pearce (Pink Flamingos, Multiple Maniacs, Female Trouble) as the school principal. Drori Ramirez will also present a comedy by the students of Cineastas de Granada, a video production program she founded for teen girls in Granada, Nicaragua. A discussion with the filmmaker will follow the screening.

Squirrel Trailer:
https://vimeo.com/164283185

[ Facebook event here ]

Time: 7:00 p.m.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

About the Filmmaker:
Dark and surreal comedies, Thalia Drori Ramirez’s films are uncensored female fantasies, focusing on revenge, fear and horror. Like the group hug that turns into an opportunity to cop a feel, her work embraces mainstream Hollywood’s comforting and sensuous form, while it simultaneously takes advantage of the innocence of that form by telling non-traditional stories and by using unorthodox
content. Within the context of film as the coquettish seductress, her work reveals the female inner world.

Cineastas de Granada:
In 2005, Thalia Drori Ramirez founded Cineastas de Granada, a video production program for teenage girls in Granada, Nicaragua. The free-of-charge classes offer young women an opportunity to learn film writing, directing, camera and editing, to gain access to the world of media, and to put their stories out into the world.

Why Congress Should Start an Impeachment Investigation Now of President Donald Trump”

Panel Discussion with:
Jovanka Beckles, Member of Richmond City Council
John Bonifaz, Co-Founder and President, Free Speech For People
Ben Clements, Chair of the Board, Free Speech For People
Eva Paterson, Civil Rights Attorney and Activist
Norman Solomon, Co-Founder and Coordinator, RootsAction

Moderated by: Kris Welch of KPFA Radio

Welcoming remarks by:
Rev. Michael McBride, The Center for Faith and Justice

This event is free and open to the public

To learn more visit www.impeachdonaldtrumpnow.org

How does a city like Oakland deal with real crime issues, but also avoid repeating the past excesses of police surveillance? Our guest for Episode 12 of Ars Technica Live is Bruce Stoffmacher, a civilian employee and legislative analyst with the Oakland Police Department.

Stoffmacher will be discussing how the city balances privacy interests with the needs of law enforcement. Prior to working for OPD, he was a policy analyst in the mayor’s office.

Filmed before a live audience at Eli’s Mile High Club (3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Oakland, CA), each episode of Ars Technica Live is a speculative, informal conversation between Ars Technica hosts and an invited guest. The audience is also invited to join the conversation and ask questions. These aren’t soundbyte setups; they are deepcuts from the frontiers of research and creativity.

Doors are at 7pm, and the live taping is from 7:30 to 8:20pm (be sure to get there early if you want a seat). Then you can stick around for informal discussion at the bar.

Bruce Stoffmacher currently works as the Legislation Manager for the Oakland Police Department, where he works with the City’s Office of the City Attorney, Controller’s Bureau and City Administration to pass legislation in support of contracts, MOUs, budget priorities, and policies related to connected to public safety strategies. He writes City Council reports, legislation and grants, and supports diverse communication and partnership efforts. He also works on several data and technology projects.

David Kravets senior editor for Ars Technica. Founder of TYDN fake news site. Technologist. Political scientist. Humorist. Dad of two boys. Peace.

Cyrus [suh-ROOS] Farivar is the Senior Business Editor at Ars Technica, and is also an author and radio producer. His book, The Internet of Elsewhere—about the history and effects of the Internet on different countries around the world, including Senegal, Iran, Estonia and South Korea—was published by Rutgers University Press in April 2011.