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Last July, after intense community pressure, the Berkeley City Council approved a 12% cut to the $72 million Berkeley Police budget with an “eventual goal” of reducing BPD’s budget by 50%. Reductions in BPD’s budget would fund the new Department of Transportation and Specialized Care Unit. But once again the city is backpedaling on their promise – the city wants to approve a 9% increase in BPD’s budget. This doesn’t even include the $280,000 BPD wants for phone and vehicle upgrades.
Berkeley Copwatch says: We need to hold the Berkeley City Council to their promise: Defund BPD! Fund community-based alternatives!
Read the meeting agenda for May 25 here. The zoom link to join the meeting is on the agenda.
The Sea is Rising and So Are We: A Climate Justice Handbook is an invitation to get involved in the movement to build a just and sustainable world in the face of the most urgent challenge our species has ever faced. By explaining the entrenched forces that are preventing rapid action, it helps you understand the nature of the political reality we are facing and arms you with the tools you need to overcome them.
The book offers background information on the roots of the crisis and the many rapidly expanding solutions that are being implemented all around the world. It explains how to engage in productive messaging that will pull others into the climate justice movement, what you need to know to help build a successful movement, and the policy changes needed to build a world with climate justice.
It also explores the personal side, how engaging in the movement can be good for your mental health. It ends with advice on how you can find the place where you can be the most effective and where you can build climate action into your life in ways that are deeply rewarding.
On April 11, 2021, Duante Wright, a Black man, was killed by a white police officer, just miles from where George Floyd was murdered. In 2020, an average of three people were killed by the police every day of the year.
The highly respected medical journal, The Lancet, and the CDC both state that racism is a serious threat to public health. As healthcare professionals, we know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We need to direct more funds and efforts toward improving preventative systems, supporting communities, and advancing antiracism efforts, and away from policing and incarceration. Policing is supposed to protect, not threaten lives, and yet Black people are killed by police at 2.6 times the rate of white people. The constant stress and fear this causes as well as the trauma every time another person of color is killed, create long-term health harms. Mass incarceration adds to this burden by harming more than rehabilitating. We must reimagine and reform our social systems so that they protect public health.
We will explore these issues and more with expert guest speakers Zach Norris, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center, and Dr. Jennifer James, bioethics researcher, professor, and Black feminist scholar at UCSF. Please join us.
This online event is sponsored by San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility (SF Bay PSR), a nonprofit education and advocacy organization that combines the power of community activism with the knowledge and credibility of health professionals to promote public policies that support human and environmental health.
Sign up for our SF Bay PSR newsletter to receive updates about our monthly events and future radio talks.
The Oakland budget is currently being negotiated in City Hall and we have until June 30th to make sure elected officials support defunding the police and refunding of services, housing, education, arts, mental health services, and other programs that enhance Black lives and Oakland’s working class communities.
No experience is necessary! Making calls is easy, and there will be zoom training before you start. This is a great event for anyone whether you’re new to political campaigns or a seasoned organizer! Phone banking is also a great activity you can do from the safety of your home, during COVID!
RSVP here to join the virtual phone bank at 6 pm. You will need a camera and microphone on your computer, as well as a phone or headset to make the calls. Instructions will be provided once you join!
We still meet via Zoom.
Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com for the invite.
For our May meeting we’ll be reading Part I and Part II of
Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism by Marianna Mazzucato
For our June meeting we will be finishing the book.
Capitalism is in crisis. The rich have gotten richer—the 1 percent, those with more than $1 million, own 44 percent of the world’s wealth—while climate change is transforming—and in some cases wiping out—life on the planet. We are plagued by crises threatening our lives, and this situation is unsustainable. But how do we fix these problems decades in the making?
Mission Economy looks at the grand challenges facing us in a radically new way. Global warming, pollution, dementia, obesity, gun violence, mobility—these environmental, health, and social dilemmas are huge, complex, and have no simple solutions. Mariana Mazzucato argues we need to think bigger and mobilize our resources in a way that is as bold as inspirational as the moon landing—this time to the most ‘wicked’ social problems of our time.. We can only begin to find answers if we fundamentally restructure capitalism to make it inclusive, sustainable, and driven by innovation that tackles concrete problems from the digital divide, to health pandemics, to our polluted cities. That means changing government tools and culture, creating new markers of corporate governance, and ensuring that corporations, society, and the government coalesce to share a common goal.
We did it to go to the moon. We can do it again to fix our problems and improve the lives of every one of us. We simply can no longer afford not to.
Mariana Mazzucato, PhD, is a professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, where she is the founding director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose. She has written, edited, or co-authored numerous books, articles, and papers on policy, capitalism, economics, and innovation, including The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths and The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy.
She advises policy makers worldwide and is currently a member of the South African Presidential Economic Advisory Council, the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisors; the UN’s Committee for Development Policy, and the OECD’s Secretary General’s Advisory Group on a New Growth Narrative. She is also a Special Advisor to the Italian Prime Minister, and a Special Advisor for the EC Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation
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Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth, Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons,, and The Optimist’s Telescope.
Attend an action at the Air District (BAAQMD) Headquarters, stand with community youth and organizations, and tell the Board members we need them to vote the right way —on June 2nd, the next day—to protect community health from the ravages of particulate matter pollution. We cannot afford to lose this intergenerational fight for environmental justice. Our lungs just cannot afford it.
You can RSVP for the June 1st action on Facebook (or here if you don’t have Facebook).
And don’t forget to sign the petition!
The Air District must protect community health and truly bring “a healthy breathing environment for every Bay Area resident,” in the words of its mission statement.
The next day on June 2nd, the Bay Area Air District will be voting on whether to take strong regulatory action against Chevron and PBF refineries and force the facilities to make dramatic pollution cuts. After seeing the stark health impact data and hearing from community members like you, the Advisory Council of the Air District recommended that BAAQMD take “maximum feasible action within its authority to reduce emissions from [particulate matter] sources, prioritizing the most impacted areas.” However, Big Oil and its allies are lobbying aggressively against the cat cracker Rule 6-5, distorting facts and making false claims.
YOUTH ACTION
WHEN
Tuesday, June 1, 10AM –
WHERE
|10 min. from the BART Embarcadero
VIRTUAL AIR DISTRICT HEARING & FINAL VOTE – RSVP HERE FOR JUNE 1ST, 6 PM GROUP PRACTICE SESSION & TO RECEIVE TALKING POINTS
This year the Ella Baker Center is partnering with various organizations and hosting a series of in-person mutual aid events across Alameda County. As we know, the pandemic has only further exacerbated racial & socio-economic inequalities in our communities. So many of our neighbors are not safe as they face food insecurity and struggle to keep a roof over their head. Despite this clear public health crisis, Alameda County and certain city governments continue to push a false narrative of public safety. Spending our valuable tax dollars on more police and more jails cells will not keep us safe. We know that we are safe when our needs are met. #WeKeepUsSafe. Here is how you can support our June mutual aid event:
Donation Drive: Tuesday, June 1st, 4p-7:30 pm @ 550 El Embarcadero, Oakland, 94610 (Lake Merritt): We will be collecting diapers, baby wipes, baby formula, pet food, cooking oil. All donations will be handed out to our community members during mutual aid events
Mutual Aid Day: Sunday, June 6th, 11a-2p @ Weekes Park, 27182 Patrick Ave, Hayward, 94544: We will be providing free hot to-go plates, PPE, baby supplies, back to school supplies, toiletries, and more. Spread the word & join us!
Join the NLG-SFBA for another CPRA workshop with @CPRAlawyer. This workshop will discuss tactics and challenges of California Public Act requests made regarding officer use-of-force incidents, sexual assault, and acts of dishonesty.
📝 Register Here: https://t.co/z3GxU05PLY pic.twitter.com/20O7yt8G2Q
— NLG SF (@nlgsf) May 20, 2021
In the 1960s, Daniel Ellsberg traveled to Vietnam to study conditions on the ground, as the war escalated during the Johnson presidency. While there, he slowly but surely came to the conclusion that the war was not only immoral but also unwinnable. And, upon his return Stateside, he told this to anyone whose ears he could catch, be they Defense Secretary Robert McNamara or Ambassador Averell Harriman, as Sasha Abramsky detailed in a recent Nation profile of Ellsberg as he approaches his 90th birthday. When these senior figures didn’t listen, when the war continued and the list of lives lost grew longer by the hour, he made the momentous decision to go public with his insider knowledge that that war was based on a web of lies. The Pentagon Papers published in 1971 by The New York Times changed the course of history.
Fifty years after leaking the Pentagon Papers, he shows no signs of slowing down. Join a conversation with the OG whistleblower and Katrina vanden Heuvel about trying to open eyes kept deliberately shut by those who would prefer to avoid having to deal with the crises of our times.
Tickets are $10. All proceeds directly support The Nation’s journalism. We hope you will join us! There will be ample time devoted to audience questions and conversation. All ticket-holders will also be sent a link to the recording 24 hours after the event concludes. If you have any questions, please email us at events@thenation.com.
Register
Join us on June 3rd for our first virtual regional summit, We Take Care Of Us: A Deep Dive Into The Movement to Decriminalize Mental Health & Skin Color. We’ll spend an inspiring afternoon learning about how to build replicable and sustainable alternatives to police and prisons for mental health — and how we as a community can take care of each other in moments of crisis.
May is #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth, and we know that alternatives to the police for mental health crises are more critical than ever. Up to 50% of the people killed by law enforcement are in the middle of a mental health crisis. Those who are killed are disproportionately Black and Brown. A mental health crisis should not be a death sentence, but it too often is, particularly for people with Black and Brown skin.
We’ll learn from families directly impacted and fighting for justice, elected officials ready to implement new approaches, and healers and organizers who are already doing the work of birthing new, life-affirming, community alternatives into existence from the ashes of today’s barbarous systems of state violence.
Come hear from local leaders and participate in workshops on topics such as:
- Mental Health First: learn about APTP’s cutting-edge community response program in Oakland and Sacramento, and how you can build a similar program in your community without waiting for the state.
- MACRO: how organizers can work with cities to find solutions.
- What is CAHOOTS? Learn about the Oregon model that everyone’s talking about!
- First responders: a case study in how community can prevent police murder and keep each other safe.
- The movement to defund the sheriff and decriminalize mental health in Alameda County
- How police became the answer to every social ill and what we must do to end that practice
- And more!
Come spend the day with the people who are powering the movement to decriminalize mental health and create a world without cops and cages in Northern California and beyond. Learn about current efforts to provide compassion and care to those in crisis, not a badge and a gun. We don’t need police because #WeTakeCareOfUs.
ASL, Spanish interpretation and closed captioning will be provided.
Co-sponsored by the Anti Police-Terror Project, Justice Teams Network and KPFA.
The Oakland budget is currently being negotiated in City Hall and we have until June 30th to make sure elected officials support defunding the police and refunding of services, housing, education, arts, mental health services, and other programs that enhance Black lives and Oakland’s working class communities.
No experience is necessary! Making calls is easy, and there will be zoom training before you start. This is a great event for anyone whether you’re new to political campaigns or a seasoned organizer! Phone banking is also a great activity you can do from the safety of your home, during COVID!
RSVP here to join the virtual phone bank at 6 pm. You will need a camera and microphone on your computer, as well as a phone or headset to make the calls. Instructions will be provided once you join!
ZIM is Here! Mobilize at 6:00am – at The Port of Oakland #BLOCKTHEBOAT (from Adrienne Fong) https://t.co/O9kVJirgCz pic.twitter.com/I05HkbRy2d
— OccupySF.net (@BathtubBulletin) June 4, 2021
Our mobilization is working! We're current picketing 6 different gate entrances with over 600 people, and workers are not crossing the pickets. The message is clear: profiteering from Israeli apartheid is not welcome in the Bay Area #BlocktheBoat #BDS #FreePalestine pic.twitter.com/cUxFDNarJs
— AROC #BlocktheBoat (@AROCBayArea) June 4, 2021
Proceedings have begun in Marin County Superior Court against San Quentin State Prison and the California Department of Corrections (CDCR) for what one judge has called “the worst epidemiological disaster in California correctional history.”
More than 300 individuals have filed ‘habeas corpus’ petitions, alleging the prison violated 8th Amendment protections against “cruel and unusual punishment” when a transfer of incarcerated people which failed to test for COVID, to San Quentin resulted in a massive COVID-19 outbreak.
In May of 2020, CDCR decided to move 121 incarcerated people from the California Institution for Men (CIM), in Chico, to San Quentin. At the time, CIM had the highest COVID-19 infection rate of any prison in California. Prior to the transfer, San Quentin did not have a single confirmed case.
In the ensuing weeks, approximately 75 percent of prisoners and staff were infected with the virus.
We will have a panel to discuss this massive injustice.
Confirmed speakers:
Danica Rodarmel, SF Public Defender’s Office
Professor Hadar Aviram, UC Hastings Law School
Adamu Chan, Former Incarcerated Person
Member of the Legal team, invited
#BlockTheBoat ACTION #2: Everyone mobilize this afternoon to Middle Harbor Shoreline Park @ Port of #Oakland 4pm or earlier. Israeli owned ZIM Cargo Vessel "Volans" will attempt to offload/onload cargo. No War Criminal Apartheid Zionist economic interest allowed in our town! #BDS pic.twitter.com/327BYQXOWc
— Free Palestine (@domainawareness) June 4, 2021
Alameda County’s budget decisions will have many implications for communities throughout the County. This training on Saturday morning is open to the public.Join us as community leaders discuss how labor and community can work in partnership together. Let’s build people power.
Wednesday, May 5th, 5:00 – 7:30 p.m.
Register: bit.ly/EBCmeeting
We are hosting another Mutual Aid day on Sunday in Hayward! All are welcome, supplies are on a first come, first serve basis. Come through for a hot plate of food, essentials, and community.
If you are interested in volunteering please fill this out: https://t.co/SBiqsNpyOR pic.twitter.com/MmD7goWg7q
— Ella Baker Center (@ellabakercenter) June 3, 2021
Come celebrate the unveiling of Extinction Rebellion San Francisco Bay Area’s new mural, “The world is on fire,” with music performances, art activities, storytelling and some surprises!
The mural is larger than life and has to be seen in person to fully appreciate the love and detail that our Art Working Group painters put into this over many months during COVID lockdown in 2020. Now that we can finally be out on the streets again, come celebrate and find community in the power of creativity to help us #TellTheTruth and turn the tide on the climate and ecological emergency.
Our first date got rained out, but we are going to reschedule for early June. We will be screen printing posters on-site for you to take home, and have painting stations for children and adults alike.
This event is outdoors and COVID-safe, so please follow community health guidelines, wear a mask, and bring hand sanitizer.
Contact leanarosetti@gmail.com for more info about Extinction Rebellion SF Bay Area’s Art Working Group.
Email clarionalleymuralproject@gmail.com for info about the Clarion Alley Mural Project.
