Calendar
- https://eff.org/EFA-2nd-Thu
- Join us for a talk from EFF staff technologist Will Greenberg on Fog Data Science� a data broker which has been selling raw location data about individual people to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
- You can get a head start on the topic by checking out our blog series on the topic here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/inside-fog-data-science-secretive-company-selling-mass-surveillance-local-police
A few weeks after Vallejo PD shot 55 rounds at Willie McCoy, his niece was pulled over by VPD, dragged out of the car, tased & arrested, by 2 of the cops who murdered Willie. There were no charges filed against her. On 2/9 we gather to remember Willie & renew calls for justice. pic.twitter.com/U8O5uaazEa
— Melissa Nold, Esq. (@savage_esquire) February 4, 2023
The 25th SF IndieFest will be presented at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco from Feb 2nd – 9th, and online through virtual cinema from Feb 2nd to Feb 12th.
More info at https://t.co/zlbTFFeDZK#movies #sfindie #indiefilm #sanfrancisco #film pic.twitter.com/zdigQNFMGi— ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL (@AHITHfilmfest) February 1, 2023
moderated by Dr. Maya Soetoro
Join us to learn from Medea Benjamin who will describe her work to stop wars and activism in the United States, Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Cuba, North Korea and Iran. She will also share how college students can participate in these issues.
About Medea Benjamin
Medea Benjamin is an internationally recognized peace and human rights activist. She is the co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women For Peace. Both organizations have trained dozens of interns in challenging the US government’s war propensity and have enabled young activists to work in conflict areas to gain a better understanding of the effects of U.S. government policies including economic war through the use of sanctions. Medea is the author of 10 books including books on Drones, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Her latest book is “War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless War.”
About Dr. Maya Soetoro
Dr. Maya Soetoro is the Graduate Chair at the Matsunaga Institute for Peace at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She was previously the Director of the Matsunaga Institute where, in addition to leading outreach and development initiatives, she also taught Leadership for Social Change, History of Peace Movements, Peace Education, and Conflict Management for Educators. Maya also serves as a consultant to the Obama Foundation, working closely with their international team to develop programming in the Pacific-Asia region.
Sponsor: Matsunaga Institute for Peace, Veterans For Peace-Hawaii Chapter, and Hawaii Peace and Justice
The 25th SF IndieFest will be presented at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco from Feb 2nd – 9th, and online through virtual cinema from Feb 2nd to Feb 12th.
More info at https://t.co/zlbTFFeDZK#movies #sfindie #indiefilm #sanfrancisco #film pic.twitter.com/zdigQNFMGi— ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL (@AHITHfilmfest) February 1, 2023
Join the South Berkeley Legacy Project at its Neighborhood History Walking Tour for #BlackHistoryMonth, led by Tina Jones Williams!
Saturday, February 11
10 am – 12 pmRSVP: 510-821-0821 or zach@twcmih.org pic.twitter.com/fFqiPmzWE0
— Terry Taplin🚰🏳️🌈🥑🌹🚲🚍✍️🏾 (@TaplinTerry) February 6, 2023
Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite.
For our February meeting we are reading Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet and What We Can Do About It (Verso, Amazon) by Nancy Fraser.
A trenchant look at contemporary capitalism’s insatiable appetite—and a rallying cry for everyone who wants to stop it from devouring our world.
Capital is currently cannibalizing every sphere of life–guzzling wealth from nature and racialized populations, sucking up our ability to care for each other, and gutting the practice of politics. In this tightly argued and urgent volume, leading Marxist feminist theorist Nancy Fraser charts the voracious appetite of capital, tracking it from crisis point to crisis point, from ecological devastation to the collapse of democracy, from racial violence to the devaluing of care work. These crisis points all come to a head in Covid-19, which Fraser argues can help us envision the resistance we need to end the feeding frenzy.
What we need, she argues, is a wide-ranging socialist movement that can recognize the rapaciousness of capital—and starve it to death.
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, The Optimist’s Telescope, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, Exploring Degrowth, The Origin of Wealth, Mine!, The Dawn of Everything A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Beyond Money, and Less is More.
The 25th SF IndieFest will be presented at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco from Feb 2nd – 9th, and online through virtual cinema from Feb 2nd to Feb 12th.
More info at https://t.co/zlbTFFeDZK#movies #sfindie #indiefilm #sanfrancisco #film pic.twitter.com/zdigQNFMGi— ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD FILM FESTIVAL (@AHITHfilmfest) February 1, 2023
Marxism and Problems of Linguistics.
Our speaker is Yusuf Gürsey who is originally from Istanbul, Turkey and currently lives in New Haven, CT. He is a member of the CPUSA, as well as a member of the US Peace Council in Connecticut and a member of the Steering Committee of the Center for Marxist Education centered in Cambridge, MA. After retiring from being an associate professor of physics in Turkey, he studied graduate level linguistics online at the Virtual Linguistics Campus broadcast from the University of Marburg in Germany. He is an independent researcher, translator and interpreter. His fields of interest in linguistics are historical linguistics (specializing in Turkic and Semitic languages), phonology and socio-linguistics. He is also currently engaged in research in the study of calendars and the history of Middle Eastern peoples, the medieval period and the history of modern Leftist movements.
The current talk will concentrate Joseph Stalin’s “Marxism and Problems of Linguistics” and the language policies of socialist states and some other leftist movements.
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Learn about a plan to destroy California forest land and increase pollution—here and overseas—by producing “biomass,” a false climate solution that does more harm than good.
The plan is to produce wood pellets to burn in for energy that’s supposedly “renewable,” because trees absorb carbon dioxide when they grow back—disregarding the fact that the CO2 from burning wood is all released immediately, while it takes many decades for a new tree to absorb that much. We don’t have that time!
Golden State Natural Resources is proposing to build two of the country’s largest wood pellet production facilities in California’s Lassen and Tuolumne counties, using wood obtained by cutting and removing “trees and other forest materials, of any type and size . . .within a 100-mile radius of each pellet facility.”
The wood pellets would then be transported by rail to ports in Stockton and Richmond, where they would emit methane, dust, and fine particulate matter. From there they would be shipped overseas to burn in power plants converted from coal, releasing CO2 and co-pollutants.
At this webinar, speakers including Gary Hughes of Biofuel Watch will explain the dangers of this plan and the efforts to stop it.
In a comment letter on the scoping plan for the environmental impact report on this project, the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations, including Sunflower Alliance, wrote: “Wood pellets are a highly polluting, expensive, and inefficient energy source that have no place in a clean energy future. Burning wood for electricity releases more carbon emissions at the smokestack than fossil fuels, including coal, per unit of energy produced.
“Numerous studies show that it takes many decades—to a century or more (if ever)—for cut forests to re-sequester the amount of carbon that is emitted from logging and burning woody biomass for energy, even when forest “residues” (i.e. “waste”) are burned. Producing wood pellets is extremely carbon-intensive because the wood must be debarked, chipped, dried, pulverized, and compressed into pellets. . . Wood pellet production facilities also emit toxic air pollution that harms public health. These facilities are often concentrated in communities of color and low-income communities, worsening environmental injustice.”
For deeper dive on the proposed California project and the perils of biomass, check out this recent episode of Terra Verde on KPFA.
Take a look at how biomass projects contribute to old-growth forest destruction in Canada here.
Find an inspiring story about how North Carolina communities defeated a proposed biomass plant here.
Take action:
If you’re interested in joining a work group to organize opposition, please email action@sunflower-alliance.org
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83676331606?pwd=SUtqU1V3OW1SZ0kzQTlMeDhDRXA5dz09
Natylie Baldwin is the author of The View from Moscow: Understanding Russia and U.S.-Russia Relations and co-author of Ukraine: ZBIG’s Grand Chessboard & How the West Was Checkmated. She traveled throughout western Russia in 2015 and 2017 and interviewed a cross-section of Russians. Her writing has appeared in various publications including The Grayzone, Consortium News, RT, The Globe Post, Antiwar.com, and OpEd News. Her websites are: https://natyliesbaldwin.com/ and: https://natyliesb.medium.com/
Baldwin will discuss Ukraine’s history and how it relates to contemporary political and cultural divisions in the country. She will also provide insight on how NATO expansion and other post-Cold War actions by the US-led West looked from Moscow’s perspective, which led to Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine last February.
Save the Date for Next Month’s Green Sunday – March 12 Report from Nicaragua
Panel Discussion: Phoebe Thomas Sorgen, Erica Caines, and Jennifer Sullivan were part of the Alliance for Global Justice delegation to Nicaragua in January titled “Women in Nicaragua – Power and Protagonism.” Did you know that Nicaragua is a world leader in gender equality?
Erica Caines is Co-Coordinator of Black Alliance for Peace – Haiti/Americas Team. Jennifer Sullivan, who is on the Green Parrty International Committee with Phoebe, joins us from Florida. She is treasurer for the GP National Women’s Caucus. Phoebe is the GP-US representative to the Global Green Network.
Sneak preview: https://afgj.salsalabs.org/reportjan23?wvpId=3b43e68b-92fb-431b-b75f-6268ae8dcb1f
Green Sundays are a series of free public programs & discussions on topics “du jour” sponsored by the Green Party of Alameda County and held on the 2nd Sunday of each month. The monthly business meeting of the County Council of the Green Party follows at 7:00 pm, after a 30-minute break. Council meetings are open to anyone who is interested.
Join Zoom Meeting
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https://t.co/FQYTHaNbc5 things are getting fun during our Monday night women coding nights at the SudoRoom – new flyer and a cool learning mapping project of all the languages spoken in Oakland using Jupiter pic.twitter.com/pUvHtP1sRa
— Sudo Room (@sudoroom) February 12, 2023
Limited seating: sign up now!https://t.co/cKabHzEkyR… pic.twitter.com/LmIkYeEjZz
— Coalition for Police Accountability (@oakcopoversight) February 7, 2023
Oakland Greens 4th annual virtual townhall:
Green Party politics: What are best practices for growing the
Our 4th annual alternative political parties event: What are best practices to overgrow for a new system? The Oakland Greens have long voiced that a best practice might be using rallies as candidate recruitment. We think the current system is running exactly as planned and we need a completely new system. What are your ideas?
Virtual doors open att 6 PM (with the best pre-show music diversity!) The discussion begins at 6:30 PM PST on ZOOM:
Turkiye (the new and improved name replacing Turkey) is in a nosedive toward a total collapse. This is an expected route of all neo-colonial countries dependent on imperialism.
A new section of capitalists is using the NATO Gladio criminals to implement a narco-state to keep the economy alive in Turkiye. Privatization and marketization of every aspect of life have come to a total failure. Unprecedented Corruption at every level, bribery, theft, eco-destruction, gang rule, and the rise of deadly attacks, especially on women, shows the limits of a market economy in a dependent, neo-colonial country.
Turkiye is in dire need of funds to make it to the next day. Each day passing in Turkiye is funded and provided by its Muslim, fascist regional countries while imperialism sucks the life out of people every day. Workers and the people pay for these “favors” with hunger, misery, and working below slave wages. In the new world with its budding multi-polar centers, Erdogan is trying to find a new ally in Russia. However, its loyalty to NATO and western imperialism poses unsurpassable challenges.
We will discuss whether Turkiye has any chance of survival by following the 100 years of the capitalist route. The tasks and obligations of the left before and after the May-June elections will shed a light on everyday living in the country.
Journalist Mehmet Bayram recently returned from a long trip to Turkey.
Yusuf Gürsey is originally from Istanbul, Turkey and is currently living in New Haven, CT. He is a member of the CPUSA, as well as a member of the US Peace Council in Connecticut, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Center for Marxist Education centered in Cambridge, MA.
ZOOM LINK
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Meeting ID: 811 3335 0622
Passcode: ICSS2717rs
One tap mobile
+16694449171,,81133350622#,,,,*5892135124# US
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Dial by your location
+1 669 444 9171 US
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdVC04xvn9
Tomorrow (2/19) from 4-6pm we will be continuing our reading group of Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth” at the Omni Commons. So far we have finished the first two chapters and we will be discussing Chapter 5 and we will pick up on reading Chapter 3 together. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/8mpzFTaUSs
— Community Liberation Programs (@comlibprograms) February 18, 2023
https://t.co/FQYTHaNbc5 things are getting fun during our Monday night women coding nights at the SudoRoom – new flyer and a cool learning mapping project of all the languages spoken in Oakland using Jupiter pic.twitter.com/pUvHtP1sRa
— Sudo Room (@sudoroom) February 12, 2023
As part of BCLT’s newly launched project on biometrics, we will be hosting a virtual symposium on February 22 and 23, 2023 titled ‘Biometrics Regulation: Global State-of-Play’. Join us to hear leading global experts in the fields of law, public policy, social science, and computer science discuss existing data protection regulations for biometrics and future pathways for ethical innovation. We will discuss real-world innovations in Digital ID, facial recognition technology, and commercial digital wellness. Registration is now open!(opens in a new tab)
The aim of the virtual symposium is to discuss the global state-of-play for biometric data protection. We want to think more critically about biometric technologies as well as biometric regulation. As a result, we want to merge conversations on data protection compliance with broader technological, social and policy issues in different biometric technologies.
Neither biometrics technology itself nor legal frameworks for data protection are new concepts in today’s age of Big Data. But the past decade has witnessed an increasing diffusion of innovation across the globe with global technology supply chains, a reconfiguration in geopolitical alliances, and experimental domestic regulation by different jurisdictions for data and emerging technologies. The data economy is both premised on and sustained by the generation, use and transfer of large amounts of data (quantity) as well as different types of data (quality). This symposium therefore, is one of the first events organized by BCLT that seeks to explore global legal perspectives on data protection.
Specifically, this symposium is focused on biometric data and its role in three different socio-technical innovations – digital ID and service delivery, facial recognition and AI, and commercial digital wellness. We are seeing more investment in and uptake of these innovations across the world as well as by different actors (governmental, private, and humanitarian). Further, these three innovations indicate a gradient in regulation – with more regulations focused on digital ID, and fewer regulations directly focused on commercial digital wellness. Within these regulations however, there are differing degrees of data protection-related rights and obligations.
The symposium has two elements – a descriptive element and a future-facing element.
- The descriptive element brings together interdisciplinary panels from the fields of law, computer science, social science, and public policy. These panels will outline innovations in the selected biometric technology, the privacy harms or security risks that these innovations entail, the existing legal regulations and compliances for biometric data, and the impact of these regulations (or the lack thereof) on the identified harms and risks.
- The future-facing panel will bring together legal practitioners, human rights researchers, public policy practitioners and social science researchers to outline global policies, strategies and alliances that can encourage the development of ethical and responsible biometric technologies.
The symposium will comprise of 4-panel discussions, each for a duration of 60 mins. In each panel, speakers will present for 45-50 minutes, and the remaining time will be reserved for Q&A.
CANCELLED
We have a rare opportunity to work together to make national headlines for our sites. The Palestine, OH scandal has been flooding the news and it’s about to die out. We need to catch that wave before it’s gone. Let’s work together to bring attention to the fact that this isn’t just happening in E. Palestine. California is its own environmental trainwreck.
We’re working with a media consultant and will get national news coverage if we get enough participation from all EJ groups in CA. We’ll have a press conference in Los Angeles while groups across CA are live streaming their solidarity gatherings to us in LA.
#JCRCBayArea stands with the people of Ukraine. Join our friend @IgorTregub for upcoming events in the #BayArea commemorating one year since the invasion of #Ukraine began:#Berkeley (Thursday, 2/23): Civic Center Park by the flagpole at Martin Luther https://t.co/TtKFvWvPce… https://t.co/xyCN7K550b pic.twitter.com/XWIn3glPfJ
— JCRC Bay Area (@SFJCRC) February 22, 2023