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THE POSTAL SERVICE HAS THE BERKELEY POST OFFICE “UNDER CONTRACT.” !!!!!!!!!!!
THE POSTAL SERVICE WANTS TO SELL THE POST OFFICE TO HUDSON-MCDONALD DEVELOPMENT GROUP.
THE CITY OF BERKELEY HAS SUED THE POST OFFICE TO STOP THE SALE. A TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER IS IN PLACE UNTIL DECEMBER 17th.
A hearing will take place in Federal Court on December 11th.
Come learn about continuing developments and help us plan our next steps in opposition to this theft of our public commons.
Get an overview of the sale announcement here.
Here’s a good more general overview piece.
Davic Rovics gave a concert on the Post Office steps last Monday. Check out pictures and video of him playing.
Also CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE. and the Save the Berkeley Post Office website, and First they Came for the Homeless Facebook for updates.
BPOD is an offshoot of Strike Debt Bay Area, which itself is an offshoot of Occupy Oakland and a chapter of the national Strike Debt movement, which is an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street.
General Assembly tonight at 8 in #WheelerCommons
#FightTheHike
— Open UC (@theopenuc) December 2, 2014
On December 2, 1964, Mario Savio stood on the Sproul steps and inspired the students of this university to take a stand. On the 50th Anniversary of this historic day, The Open UC and Cal Progressive Coalition will be coming together to commemorate the legacy of the Freedom of Speech Movement, and to remind every single student on this campus that our voices have power.
If you believe that public education should be affordable and accessible, join us. If you believe that the state and the Regents should hear our voices and find an alternative to tuition hikes, join us.
12PM: Rally at Sproul Plaza to SPEAK OUT in defense of our public education and our public commons.
Hashtags: #speakout #FSM50 #fightthehike #openUC
Twitter: @theopenuc @calprogressives
Facebook: TheOpen UC, Cal Progressive Coalition
Websites:
http://
https://
Press release about the event.
The Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality & State Repression (OGC) is a grassroots democratic organization that was formed as a conscious united front for justice against police brutality. The OGC is involved in the struggle for police accountability and is committed to stopping police brutality.
Our mission is to educate, organize and mobilize people against police and state repression. Sisters and brothers the Oscar Grant Committee invites you to join us in this vital struggle.
Call to Community Action
The City Government has moved to legally protect 34 or more officers who are shooters or witnesses to the killing of Alex Nieto, or who are responsible for or witnesses to the handling of the homicide scene was handled. We’ve long argued that this a cover-up of the unlawful killing of Alex Nieto.
We members of the communities affected by the killing of Alex Nieto demand complete transparency. We want names, and we want utter transparency in the facts withheld by SFPD and the City Attorney (aka The Mayor.) This has got to end…!
Bring posters, signs and your demands. We want names!
#Justice4AlexNieto #WeWantNames
We stand in solidarity with Ferguson & Ayotzinapa, and all the other Bay Area families and other victims of police brutality.
The man who was being arrested in THE Vine video needs your help.
Livestreamer @codeframesf was violently arrested in San Francisco while streaming the Ferguson solidarity protest on Friday, November 28, 2014. He is now facing trumped up charges of felony and misdemeanor assault on a police officer.
He is still in custody.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
1) Donate here to the Bay Area Anti Repression Committee Bail Fund.
2) Show up to @codeframesf’s arraignment.
Reminder: You must go through a metal detector and bag X-Ray when entering the courthouse.
WATCH
Watch the infamous Vine: https://vine.co/v/On1x6iUuwxK
Over 43 US cities including San Francisco will participate in an unprecedented national mobilization to demand an end to the deadly “Plan Mexico,” a billion-dollar US program to aid Mexico’s corrupt and notoriously violent security forces, ostensibly in their fight against the so-called War on Drugs.
Links:
�Full list of participating cities: www.ustired2.com/cities/
�Website: http://www.USTired2.com
�Facebook (San Francisco protest): http://www.facebook.com/USTired22SanFranciscoCA
�Facebook (national event): http://www.facebook.com/pages/USTired2//767562843324746
�Video message inviting people in US to join Dec 3rd actions: http:://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnL0llkTVuI
�Twitter: https://twitter.com/USTired2
Participants are being asked to wear white and bring candles.
#SF #BayArea #Oakland All Out to #ShutItDown for #EricGarner #MikeBrown #Ferguson 5PM 14th and BROADWAY OGP OAKLAND
— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) December 3, 2014
Reminder for #Oakland #SanFrancisco: NLG legal # is 415-285-1011. That's 415-285-1011. Sharpie on you & then share it w/others #EricGarner
— Cindy Milstein (@CindyMilstein) December 3, 2014
.@blogdiva : OAKLAND: 5PM #OGP 14th and Broadway. Justice for #EricGarner #ICantBreathe #oakland2NY
— OccupythePort (@occupytheport) December 3, 2014
#OAKLAND: 5PM #OGP 14th & Broadway. Justice for #EricGarner #ICantBreathe #oakland2NY #ShutItDown #IndictTheSystem
— IO: (InterOccupy) (@InterOcc) December 3, 2014
The local CBS station just told 100k+ Facebook fans about the #EricGarner 5PM protest at OGP. Nice. http://t.co/d5PtUmBNdV
— Political Fail Blog (@PFailBlog) December 3, 2014
There will be three meetings of this class, on Wednesdays at 7 pm – Dec. 3, 10, and 17.
This class will investigate the structure of prison from three perspectives:
- Its ethics,
- Its inherent criminality as a system,
- Its role in the structures of racialization in the US.
Today, we live in a society in political and ethical crisis because it has instituted a revenge ethic and a desire to place people in internal exile in the place of justice and humanism. Having done so, it has created the largest prison system in the world.
Each of these perspectives cries out for the abolition of prisons. The structures of racialization in the US have always depended on a prison system. The topic of the “new Jim Crow” will not only encompass a discusstion of Michelle Alexander’s book by that title, but also the accumulating material evidence that Jim Crow has become our re-institutionalized reality.
Consider this:
The Broken Window theory, by which William Bratton turned New York City into a police state under the heel of “stop and frisk,” can stated as follows: “Even one broken window creates the condition for anti-social behavior.”
The ethics of prison abolition echoes in response to this: “The violence of even one person thrown in a cage by political authority creates the condition for violent behavior.”
The class will address questions such as the following:
1- what is the real structure of imprisonment, and what are the ethics of each of its components?
2- what is the political structure of the prison, and how does it relate to both its structural ethics, to the ideal of human rights, and to the society that we live in.
3- what structures does the political domain us to inhale people into its prison system, to remove them from their communities and habitats, and often to punish them for their attempts to survive physically and psychically?
4- what is the nature of punishment, and why is it even a social or cultural value?
5- what is the connection between social violence, victimless crime laws, and capitalism?
6- what dimensions of the present US prison system could be abolished right now, in the interest of justice, and what does it imply about this society that it refuses to do it?
7- what is the cyclic relation between slavery, prison labor, debt servitude, the prison industry, and Jim Crow?
8- with the prison industry actually materializing a foundation for a New Jim Crow (in Michelle Alexander’s sense), what evidence do we see of the government’s actual success in re-institutionalizing Jim Crow?
9- what is the structure of “racialization” in the US, what role did the former Jim Crow play in it, and what role does the prison today play in it?
If you are interested, contact me for links to some reading, or just show up on Dec. 3.
Steve Martinot
martinot4 [at] gmail.com
Last time we read Positive Money’s proposal for an alternative banking system, parts 1-4. This week we’ll finish discussing it, with parts 5-6.
Aloha.
The Politics of Debt Reading Group is a joint effort of the Bay Area Public School and Strike Debt Bay Area.
IMPORTANT ERIC GARNER DEMONSTRATION
1 PM
IN THE QUAD… IRONICALLY THE VERY SITE OF THE INFAMOUS UCD PEPPER SPRAYING INCIDENT
— OccupyUCDavis (@OccupyUCDavis) December 4, 2014
Join us at Fruitvale Bart plaza to bring attention to widespread inequality and our shared struggles for a living wage ($15/hour) and the right to unionize without retaliation.
Nov. 29th marks the 2nd anniversary of when the first 100+ fast food workers, fed up with low wages, poor treatment and disrespect walked off the job in New York.
Let’s make it known that a minimum wage hike isn’t all we’re fighting for in Oakland and beyond!
Hosted by East Bay Fast Food Workers.
Protest Events in Bay Area over next 4 days. pic.twitter.com/C1pO4VCgHf
— OccupythePort (@occupytheport) December 4, 2014
45 years to the day that Chairman Fred Hampton Sr. & Defense Captain Mark Clark of the Chicago Chapter of the Black Panther Party were assassinated by the state, The People worldwide recognize December 4th as “International Revolutionary Day” or I.R.D.
While the main event will be at the scene of the crime in Chiraq with POCC/BPPC (PrisonersOf ConscienceCommittee/BlackPantherPartyCubs) on Thurs.December 4th we will hold our 10th consecutive Zulu Nation Thursdays-OAKLAND in solidarity with #IRD45
Performances by:
Jahi (PE2.0)
Kev Choice
East Bay Politix (Sinista Z & Ras Ceylon)
G.P.
Age Scott the Black Bukowski & more
Resident DJ TD Camp
6-8pm Meeting of the Minds (Film Screening of “Assassination of Chairman Fred Hampton” Documentary) & community discussion re: Ferguson & Solidarity Statements
8-11pm Performances
11-midnite Open Mic Cypher
OAKLAND: Non-RCP led March will begin at 7PM. (H/T @hyphy_republic)
— OccupythePort (@occupytheport) December 5, 2014
We hear there's a callout to meet at the cable cars at Powell and Market in #SF today at 6pm for #EricGarner #MikeBrown #Ferguson #BayArea
— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) December 5, 2014
How police are targeting political enemies with attempts to restrict free speech. Everyone, from black and Latino youth, anti-war activists, labor militants and rap artists are in their cross-hairs. We can fight back against police attack on speech and school curricula!
Speakers: Keith Cook, Mumia’s brother.
Cephus ‘Uncle Bobby’ Johnson.
Speakers and Film: “Manufacturing Guilt”
7 pm Friday December 5th 2014
Theater at La Pena Cultural Center
(just below Ashby Avenue)
$5 – $10 sliding scale at the door (no one turned away)
Join the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio and Oakland Teachers For Mumia to hear how police are targeting political enemies with attempts to restrict free speech.• Keith Cook, brother of Mumia Abu-Jamal,
• Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson, uncle of Oscar Grant,
• Eliot Grossman, former lawyer for Mumia, and
• Spokespersons for Prison Radio, Oakland Teachers for Mumia, and the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal.
• Film: “Manufacturing Guilt” — This riveting documentary makes it clear how cops and prosecutors framed Mumia Abu-Jamal for a murder he didn’t commit.
Join us! We will discuss:
• The New “gag” law in Pennsylvania that seeks to silence prisoners. This law, cobbled together in days following Mumia’s recorded presentation to a commencement ceremony at Goddard College, was explicitly designed to “shut him up.” The targets of this blatantly unconstitutional law, however, include all prisoners convicted of violent crimes!
• A Law Suit has been filed to stop the “gag” law from being implemented! Support for this effort is critical. Donations will go toward the fight against the “gag” law.
• The suppression of the “Urban Dreams” web site by the Oakland School Board. This teacher-created site of voluntary curriculum ideas included one comparing the suppression of Mumia’s commentaries with censorship of Martin Luther King’s later writings. While the Superintendent of Schools has now promised to restore the site, we must remain vigilant!
• Both of these measures—the “gag” law in Pennsylvania, and the suppression of the Urban Dreams website—were taken at the behest of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)! The FOP is a highly politicized organization which seeks to silence social critics such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, and dictate the curricula in schools! The FOP and Democrat/Republican politicians will continue their attempts at intimidation and suppression, unless we act!
• Ferguson shows that black and Latino youth particularly are threatened by militarized and politicized police who shoot first and ask questions later, and frame their targets for crimes they didn’t commit. Chief targets have included Native American Activists like Leonard Peltier, militant working-class activists, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Black Panthers and Martin Luther King. Mumia is currently a top target to silence. But anyone and everyone can be on their enemies list, and in their cross-hairs! Fight back now!
Donate Now to fight the “gag” law! go to:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/protect-freedom-of-speech-keep-mumia-on-the-air
See you on December 5th!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA • 510.763.2347
Sponsored by Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu Jamal, Prison Radio and Teachers for Mumia.