Calendar

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” – Karl Marx

This history is the history of class struggle. To understand the class struggle is to understand the fundamental conflict within capitalism, between capitalists and workers, and the means to move beyond it. It keeps our hope for a better world from becoming sentimental and anemic and empowers it with the means for fundamental change. Without an understanding of class struggle, socialists have no political program outside of a moral stance that the current system is unjust. But with that understanding lies the power for putting the wheels of history back into motion.

Readings

The ABCs of Capitalism – Capitalism and Class Struggle

Please email contact@oaklandprivacy.org a few days before the meeting to get up-to-date location information or obtain Zoom meeting access info.

Join Oakland Privacy to organize against the surveillance state, police militarization and ICE, and to advocate for surveillance regulation around the Bay and nationwide.

We fight against spy drones, facial recognition, tracking equipment, police body camera secrecy, anti-transparency laws and requirements for “backdoors” to cellphones; we oppose “pre-crime” and “thought-crime,” —  to list just a few invasions of our privacy by all levels of Government, and attempts to hide what government officials, employees and agencies are doing.

We draft and push for privacy legislation for City Councils, at the County level, and in Sacramento. We advocate in op-eds and in the streets. We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and believe no one is illegal.

Check out some of what we worked on in 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019.

Oakland Privacy originally came together in 2013 to fight against the Domain Awareness Center, Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OP was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network.  We helped fight and helped win the fight against Urban Shield.

Our major projects currently include local legislation to regulate state surveillance (we got the strongest surveillance regulation ordinance in the country passed in Oakland!), supporting and opposing state legislation as appropriate, battling mass surveillance in the form of facial recognition and other analytics, mass aerial surveillance, ubiquitous license plate readers, and pushing back against ICE.

On September 12th, 2019 we were presented with a Barlow Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for our work, and on March 16th, 2021 s James Madison Freedom of Information Award by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists.

If you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy email listserv, coming to a meeting, or have questions, send an email to:

contact@oaklandprivacy.org

Check out our website: http://oaklandprivacy.org/

Follow us on twitter: @oaklandprivacy

“WATCHING YOU WATCHING US”

Oakland Privacy works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment.  Oakland Privacy drove the passage of surveillance regulation and transparency ordinances in Oakland and Berkeley and is kicking off new processes in various municipalities around the Bay.  To help slow down the encroaching police and surveillance state all over the Bay Area, join us at the Omni.

Join KPFA for this special Zoom event when Steve Wasserman hosts Azar Nafisi and her book, Read Dangerously

Afar Nafisi with Steve Wasserman : A KPFA Zoom Event

Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times

The New York Times bestselling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran returns with a guide to the power of literature in turbulent times, arming readers with a resistance reading list, ranging from James Baldwin to Zora Neale Hurston to Margaret Atwood.

[TICKETS / MORE INFORMATION]
Buy Tickets

Come hang out at the Empty Homes Tax mobilization tomorrow at noon — we will be training for signature gathering and having a fun BBQ 😎 See you there! pic.twitter.com/CgM10SfpWy

— DSA San Francisco (@DSA_SF) April 15, 2022

It’s been almost 2 years since SLPD officer Jason Fletcher murdered #justice4steventaylor while he was having a mental health crisis. Join us on Saturday, April 16th at the new Steven Taylor Park Site (@ San Leandro Marina) to celebrate life, justice, and community healing! pic.twitter.com/6eVkvNyLoR

— CURYJ (@CURYJ) April 14, 2022

Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the the online invite.

For February, 2022 we’re reading the first three chapters of The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by the late David Graber and co-author David Wengrow.

For March, we’re reading the next four chapters, 4-7.

For April, we are finishing the book.

All are welcome!

“A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution―from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality―and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation…”

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 and Mine!.

Ww have invited Laura Wells to discuss the historic decision this year in which the Green Party and the Peace and Freedom Party created a Left Unity Slate of statewide candidates for the June 7, 2022 primary in California. This cooperative strategy was based on the many shared values between the two parties, all of which will save lives, money, and the planet. Among the values are a single-payer “Medicare for All” healthcare system, real justice not increasing criminalization, truly affordable housing, public ownership of energy, ending wars for profit, public banking, and a comprehensive climate plan including meaningful work that provides a living without destroying the planet.

Topics to discuss include the challenges and successes of these two progressive socialist and eco-socialist parties, and ultimately, the question of what does it really take to shift our states and nations toward socialist values for the survival of people and planet?

Laura Wells is a political activist in California and in solidarity with Latin America. She has been an organizer and a candidate for the Green Party, and is running again for state Controller in 2022. She also ran for Congress in 2018, and governor after the global financial meltdown in 2010. A former financial systems analyst, Laura focuses her platform on taxing the rich, public banking, reforming Proposition 13, and saving money and lives with an improved Medicare for All healthcare system.

For a list of the Left Unity Slate candidates, see https://leftunityslate.org/, and for Laura’s blog and campaign website, see https://laurawells.org/

ZOOM LINK

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2591082607?pwd=c1JuWjJyQ1hqTWFTNE8xUmhNYjJsdz09

Meeting ID: 259 108 2607
Passcode: ICSS2247rs
One tap mobile
+16699006833,,2591082607#,,,,*0620301838# US (San Jose)
+13462487799,,2591082607#,,,,*0620301838# US (Houston)

Dial by your location
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:

occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If for some reason the amphitheater is being used otherwise and/or OGP itself is inaccessible, we will meet at Kaiser Park, right next to the statues, on 19th St. between San Pablo and Telegraph. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)

On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.

OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally. Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.

At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.

General Assembly Standard Agenda

Welcome & Introductions
Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
Announcements
(Optional) Discussion Topic

Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.

Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area

San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv

Join KPFA for this very special, IN-PERSON EVENT, when Beverly Guy-Sheftall hosts Alice Walker and her book, Gathering Blossoms Under Fire.

From National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize�winning author Alice Walker and edited by critic and wwriter Valerie Boyd, comes an unprecedented compilation of Walker’s fifty years of journals drawing an intimate portrait of her development over five decades as an artist, human rights and women’s activist, and intellectual.

*Proof of COVID-19 vaccination required for entry, masks strongly encouraged.

[TICKETS / MORE INFORMATION]
Buy Tickets

Add your support for a proposed Bay Area Air Quality Management rule that would ban gas hookups in new buildings.

This measure would update the Air District’s guidelines for applying the California Environmental Quality Act.  It’s a way to extend the good work that dozens of Bay Area cities have done with reach codes and regulations to require all-electric new construction. This would apply a similar standard to the whole region.

Methane ( 80 – 90% of “natural gas”) is a much more potent greenhouse has than carbon dioxide. Extraction, transportation , and use of natural gas inevitably produces methane leaks all along the supply chain – in addition to the carbon dioxide produced by burning the gas.

In addition, methane is a toxic gas that increases acute and chronic respiratory problems including asthma, damage to lung development in children and other respiratory diseases. Several studies have linked asthma to use of gas stoves.

And use of natural gas increases the risk of fires and explosions.

Join the meetings where the Air District will consider this proposal and add your voice:

WHERE

Links to meetings here

In a related Air District process

In addition to the proposed ban on gas hookups in new buildings, the Air District has already committed to a zero-nitrous oxide (NOx) standard for home heating and hot water, “with a plan for an equitable, affordable transition.” Gas appliances could not meet that standard.

NOx is produced when fuel is burned. This is a toxic gas that  interacts with sunlight in atmosphere to produce ozone and PM2.5. This mixture causes respiratory problems (asthma, wheezing, decreased lung function), heart disease, and early death).

In the Bay Area, household appliances release nearly three times as much NOx as light-duty passenger vehicles and more than eight  times as much as power plants

A letter from the Sierra Club and other groups is urging the Air District to “lead a broad, multi-stakeholder effort with two working groups to ensure an equitable transition to electric space and water heating.”

 CancelStudentDebt: A Conversation with Organizers from the Debt Collective — A panel of organizers from the Debt Collective, the nation’s first debtors’ union, make the case for cancelling all student debt — THE ISSUE OF STUDENT DEBT GETS TO THE HEART of questions about inequality, democracy, and the future of the economy in the United States. It also poses a challenge to the way higher education is currently organized in the country.

Please join HANNAH APPEL and BRAXTON BREWINGTON, organizers from the Debt Collective, the nation’s first debtors’ union, as they make the case for cancelling all student debt. They will discuss what they have experienced in the course of their organizing and their evolving strategies in the face of the federal government’s shifting positions on student debt cancellation. Moderated by Mitchell Center Graduate Fellow INDIVAR JONNALAGADDA —

THE DEBT COLLECTIVE organizes debtors’ unions using an emancipatory activation of household debt under finance capitalism. Alone, our debts are a burden, but together they make us powerful. Household debt leveraged collectively in the threat of a debt strike creates the power to remake contemporary financial relationships. The Debt Collective’s first debtors’ union has won over $2 billion in debt abolition for people holding debt from for profit colleges. They have published a book entitled Can’t Pay Won’t Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition (2020)

HANNAH APPEL is an economic anthropologist interested in transnational capitalism and finance; finance, debt and debtors’ unions; the African continent’s place in global capitalism; the economic imagination; anti-capitalist and abolitionist social movements. Her research and teaching interests are guided by the economic imagination. What does it mean to understand racial capitalism ethnographically, and to work actively to undo it? Her first book, The Licit Life of Capitalism, is both an account of a specific capitalist project – U.S. oil companies working off the shores of Equatorial Guinea – and a theorization of more general forms and processes that facilitate diverse capitalist projects around the world. She is also a co-founder and organizer with the Debt Collective and co-author of Can’t Pay Won’t Pay: The Case for Economic Disobedience and Debt Abolition

BRAXTON BREWINGTON is communications professional and electoral organizer, focused on racial, economic and democratic justice. Braxton currently works with The Debt Collective, a national debtors union fighting to cancel debts and defend millions of households. Recently, Braxton worked as a Communications Lead for the Democratic Parties of Georgia and North Carolina, and served as a Field Organizer for U.S. Senator Cory Booker’s presidential campaign. Braxton was a Democracy Fellow with Common Cause, where he worked to galvanize students to become civically engaged by registering them to vote on campus, organized marches to the polls, and lobbied Congress. Braxton was a state spokesperson in North Carolina for the Rucho case, and cites his speech at the steps of the US Supreme Court as the event that propelled him into fighting for a powerful multi-racial democracy:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cancelstudentdebt-a-conversation-with-organizers-from-the-debt-collective-tickets-309845184287?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Next Friday: Earth Day Youth Rally

What: Show Up to Support the Youth Earth Day Rally

This Earth Day, join Youth Vs. Apocalypse and other allies at 10 AM at Civic Center Bart Station to demand environmental and climate justice.

Demands to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Mayor Breed, the EPA, State Department of Toxic Substances Control, the State Water Quality Control Board, and all elected officials include:

1. Retesting with independent community oversight of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund site & adjacent areas
2. Full and comprehensive cleanup of all contamination to mitigate community vulnerability and d the threat posed by rising groundwater and sea levels.
3. Full reparations including financial compensation and lifetime health services for all residents, ex-residents and workers exposed to and impacted by Shipyard contamination

Mark your calendars for next Friday, April 22!

Youth response to this action has been huge! If you’d like to donate to the Youth Vs. Apocalypse transportation support fund, please click here to go to their gofundme page.

RSVP and more info on the Earth Day rally here.

Save the date! Don't miss our webinar on April 22, at 12:15 pm PT/3:15 pm ET, "Immigration Prison: Hard Questions About Abolition." Register at https://t.co/K0erK3YTuE. 1/6 pic.twitter.com/e00L7ebMXL

— UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy (@UCLA_CILP) March 29, 2022

Celebrate Earth Week with the pick of the year’s best environmental films, in person on the big screen at the David Brower Center or live on-demand at home with your computer.

Films explore nature, community activism, adventure, conservation, water, energy and climate change, wildlife, environmental justice, agriculture and more.

Showcasing people’s ongoing heroic efforts to

• save endangered wildlife,
• protect frontline communities, and
• raise awareness about local and global environmental challenges and solutions.

IN PERSON FRIDAY APRIL 22

• Goldman Theatre, David Brower Center, Berkeley
• Eco Fair, Silent Auction, Prizes: 6 pm
• Films: 7 pm
• Ticket includes on-demand access to full program for one week —  April 22 – 29

VIRTUAL-LIVE FESTIVAL, APRIL 22 – 29

with live chat:

• Virtual doors & chat: 6:30 PM
• Films: 7 PM
• Full program on-demand: 7 – 10 PM

Tickets $15 – $25
$5 discount for Sunflower Alliance! Discount code WSFFSFA

Info on films and and showings and ticket purchase here.

Hosted by Citizens Climate Lobby and community partners including Sunflower Alliance

▪️Who is a "journalist" under legal definitions?
▪️What are your rights to film police?
▪️When do shield laws apply?
▪️Where can journalists be in a disaster or after police curfew?

Get your questions answered.

SATURDAY | 10 AM |
RSVP | (CC)https://t.co/KSaY8G8GYD pic.twitter.com/QhUczHe8lp

— First Amendment Coalition (@FACoalition) April 20, 2022

Join us for a comprehensive overview of legal protections and practical considerations for covering protests, filming police in the field and more.

This free webinar is presented by: Asian American Journalists Association, Los Angeles, California News Publishers Association,  Californians Aware, First Amendment Coalition, Los Angeles Press Club, Media Alliance, Media Guild of the West, National Association of Black Journalists of Los Angeles, National Association of Hispanic Journalists,  National Press Photographers Association, Pacific Media Workers Guild, NewsGuild-CWA Local 39521, SPJ/LA, SPJ NorCal

Register for the Webinar