Calendar
Come speak out on a “privacy policy” that allows the City of Oakland to violate our 1st and 4th amendment rights with impunity.
Staff is taking a new and aggressive approach to public engagement around this draft framework. Distribution of this framework will happen via EngageOakland, a survey monkey, and broad dissemination via the Neighborhood Service Coordinators. This framework is being disseminated for a thirty day public comment period. During that time period there will be two public meetings scheduled for Wednesday, February 26th in City Council Chambers, and Thursday, March 13th at the Dimond Branch Library located at 3565 Fruitvale Avenue. Both meetings will occur between 6 to 8pm.
“During Phase 2, City/Port staff will develop a Privacy and Data Retention Policy that governs the collection, retention, storage, and dissemination of information processed by the DAC ensuring the protection of privacy rights by individuals, and will return said policy to the Council for approval no later than March 2014.”
Oakland Police were video taping anti-surveillance activists at City Council meeting tonight. #DAC #OAKMTG via @guelo pic.twitter.com/RlTynCD40N
— Domain Awareness (@domainawareness) February 19, 2014
The Sunflower Alliance is pleased to host a series of forums in northern Contra Costa County on the dangers of the fossil fuel industry’s turn to extreme energy in recent years. CoCoCo and Benicia are home to five refineries, specializing in the dirtiest and heaviest crude oils, and the industry has proposed five major projects to expand refineries and bring in crude oil by train.
In Pittsburg, Martinez, and Richmond, we will have panel discussions with experts and community activists, featuring a special guest from Lac-Mégantic, Canada, which suffered a devastating oil train explosion last July that killed 47 people. They’ll educate us on Big Oil’s plans and the local, regional, and global effects.
Learn about the consequences for your community, and learn how communities are organizing to fight back and protect our health and safety!
The forums will be held on the following dates:
Pittsburg: Monday, February 24th, 2014, from 7pm to 9pm at First Baptist at 204 Odessa Ave. Facebook event here.
Martinez: Wednesday, February 26th, 2014, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm at the Veterans Memorial Building at 930 Ward St. Facebook event here.
Richmond: Saturday, March 1st, 2014, from 12pm to 2pm at the Bobby Bowens Progressive Center at1021 MacDonald Ave. Facebook event here.
Speakers
Each forum will have a slightly different set of panelists, tailored for the concerns of that area. However, every panel will feature:
- Marilaine Savard: spokesperson for a citizens’ group in the region of Lac-Mégantic, Québec.
- Antonia Juhasz: oil industry analyst, journalist, and author of The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must do to Stop It and Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill.
Look at the descriptions in the Facebook events for each location (see above) to find out more about each panel’s members.
We look forward to seeing you at one of the panel discussions!
- Come to this event to find out what’s going on in Venezuela. For another source that is not from the “elite” point-of-view, see http://venezuelanalysis.com/
A Kentucky-based company called Bowie Resource Partners wants to turn Oakland’s Jack London Square into a hub for shipping dirty coal to Asia.
CREDO activists have helped fight off similar proposals in Oregon and Washington over the past few years, but the coal industry is desperate to ship its dirty product overseas, so it is now targeting California for coal exports.
The Port of Oakland’s Board of Commissioners will be discussing the proposal at its meeting on Thursday � and it wants to hear whatt local residents think. Can you be there to urge the Board of Commissioners to reject the disastrous proposal to export dirty coal through the Port of Oakland
We’d recommend arriving at 3 p.m. to sign up to speak.
Allowing coal to be exported through the Port of Oakland would pollute our air and water with dangerous coal dust and undermine our efforts to fight climate change. It’s a bad deal for Oakland and the Port’s Board of Commissioners needs to reject it without delay.
The Board of Commissioners’ own staff report detailed several problems with the proposal, including increased greenhouse gas emissions, coal dust pollution, conflicts with the port’s policies and the likelihood of community opposition.
It is outrageous that the Port of Oakland is even considering proposals to export dirty coal. With a big turnout at Thursday’s public meeting we can make it clear to the Port’s Board of Commissioners that the Bay Area won’t stand for a dirty coal export terminal at Jack London Square.
Across the country, people who are Fed Up with the Federal Reserve are gathering for Fed Up Fridays. This month, the focus is on labor. The Federal Reserve has a mandate to maintain maximum employment. So where are the jobs?
It is clear that the Federal Reserve serves the interests of the banks first and foremost, ahead of all other mandates. That is not surprising, since the Federal Reserve is 100% owned by Wall Street banks. Until we change the system to issue debt free sovereign money that will serve the people instead of the banks, financiers will continue to get richer and life for ordinary people will continue to deteriorate.
To illuminate this issue, the Code Pink Light Brigade will spell FED UP [heart] LABOR and WHERE ARE THE JOBS?
Join Fed Up this Friday and show your support for monetary policy that helps the 99% instead of Wall Street banks. Let’s kick off monthly Fed Up Fridays!
Twitter: #FedUp @FedUpSanFran @FedUpNewYork
https://www.facebook.com/
https://www.facebook.com/
A panel of alumni from the Zapatista Little School who traveled to Mexico as part of a delegation from Oakland will be talking about their experiences with the Zapatistas.
The Little School is a recent initiative by the Zapatistas to invite thousands of participants from around the world to come to the Zapatista territories, stay in the homes of Zapatista families, work alongside the Zapatistas, and study the Zapatista approach to autonomy.
We stayed in communities across the breadth of the Zapatista territory, from the mountains to the jungle, and will be discussing the different circumstances we encountered in different places, as well as the lessons we learned from our time in the Little School.
We will also be discussing some of our experiences with other autonomous projects that we visited in Mexico, outside the Little School and Chiapas. There will be a slideshow with some pictures from our journey, as well as time for a Q&A with members of the panel.
All are welcome, there will be snacks and tea!
Ballot Initiative to Lift Up Oakland!
Join community members, workers, small business owners, students, and faith leaders who are uniting to lift up our City with a voter ballot initiative to raise the the minimum wage and provide workers with paid sick days.
Raise the Minimum Wage to $12.25!
It’s time we make Oakland the kind of city that families can
afford to put food on the table, keep a roof over our heads,
and keep the lights on! Let’s ensure that workers can meet
our basic needs.
Provide Workers with Paid Sick Days!
No one should have to choose between a paycheck and our health! Let’s ensure that everyone can take care of ourselves and our children when we are sick.
The Sunflower Alliance is pleased to host a series of forums in northern Contra Costa County on the dangers of the fossil fuel industry’s turn to extreme energy in recent years. CoCoCo and Benicia are home to five refineries, specializing in the dirtiest and heaviest crude oils, and the industry has proposed five major projects to expand refineries and bring in crude oil by train.
In Pittsburg, Martinez, and Richmond, we will have panel discussions with experts and community activists, featuring a special guest from Lac-Mégantic, Canada, which suffered a devastating oil train explosion last July that killed 47 people. They’ll educate us on Big Oil’s plans and the local, regional, and global effects.
Learn about the consequences for your community, and learn how communities are organizing to fight back and protect our health and safety!
The forums will be held on the following dates:
Pittsburg: Monday, February 24th, 2014, from 7pm to 9pm at First Baptist at 204 Odessa Ave. Facebook event here.
Martinez: Wednesday, February 26th, 2014, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm at the Veterans Memorial Building at 930 Ward St. Facebook event here.
Richmond: Saturday, March 1st, 2014, from 12pm to 2pm at the Bobby Bowens Progressive Center at 1021 MacDonald Ave. Facebook event here.
Speakers
Each forum will have a slightly different set of panelists, tailored for the concerns of that area. However, every panel will feature:
- Marilaine Savard: spokesperson for a citizens’ group in the region of Lac-Mégantic, Québec.
- Antonia Juhasz: oil industry analyst, journalist, and author of The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must do to Stop It and Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill.
Look at the descriptions in the Facebook events for each location (see above) to find out more about each panel’s members.
We look forward to seeing you at one of the panel discussions!
“First they came for the homeless…”
Occupy / Sit-in against Sit/Lie law in front of Macy’s
This is the second action of this campaign
Don’t stand for Sit/Lie!!
After the March Against Corruption this Saturday,
join us in front of Macy’s SF Store on Union Square
This film compiles footage and photographs collected and filmed by Lee over a nine year period including interviews with Betty Friedan, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (the Washington, D.C. delegate to Congress), Aileen Hernandez (the only woman to serve on the first Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), Kathie Sarachild (a leader in the consciousness-raising movement and Redstockings member), Frances M. Beal (cofounder of the Black Women’s Liberation Committee of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and more.
This free event will take place in the 3rd Floor Community Meeting Room.
International Days in Solidarity with the Haitian People
10 years since the 2004 Coup … 210 years since Haiti’s Revolution
* Stand with the People of Haiti – Eyewitness reports, drums, film, food, music
We are approaching the 10th anniversary of the Feb. 29, 2004 coup d’etat, engineered by the US, France and Canada, which has left a brutal legacy of pain and destruction. This is an occasion that cries out to be seized upon by all who oppose the coup and support the popular movement.
In Oakland, we in the Haiti Action Committee are marking the coup, and the 10 years of repressive coup regimes that have followed it, with a celebration of the 210th year of the heroic 1804 Haitian Revolution. The event is happening on March 1st at Humanist Hall. (Mark your calendar!) Other cities are organizing their own events, as part of the 2014 International Days in Solidarity with the Haitian People.
We also encourage you to forward this to friends in other cities or countries. Ask them to consider organizing a Haiti support activity where they are — if possible as part of the International Days from February 23 thru March 8th. It could be a demonstration, vigil, march, public meeting, festival, film showing, rally, candle-light gathering, teach-in, musical or artistic event – to commemorate the Haitian Revolution and protest the continuation of the 2004 coup. Have them contact us. We can supply films or materials if needed.
The actions of US-imposed President Martelly and his ally Jean-Claude Duvalier clearly demonstrate what the 2004 coup was all about. The Haitian people are outraged by the step-by-step return of Duvalierism and its embrace by the fraudulently elected Martelly government — which threatens to bring back the hated military … which organizes sweeps of market women and midnight raids on the camps of earthquake survivors … which continues its repressive vendetta against members of the majority Lavalas movement, including a threatened indictment of long-time Lavalas leader and former Senator, Myrlande Liberis-Pavert on trumped-up charges.
We support the Haitian people’s demand that Haiti’s sovereignty be respected and that the 2004 coup must be reversed. That would mean:
· Free and fair elections in which all parties can run candidates.
· Putting an end to the repression and the U.S./U.N. military occupation.
· Rebuilding Haiti the way the Haitian 99% want it built – Paying a living wage in the factories instead of sweatshop wages … Restoring farming self-sufficiency so Haiti can feed itself again … Real Haitian control of mineral resources and aid funds … Schools, housing and health care for the people.
Be an organizer. Spread the word widely. Thinking globally, acting locally! This follows on earlier International Days in Solidarity with Haiti, with observances in many cities on four continents on September 30, 2005, February 7, 2007 and February 29, 2008.
Honor the Earth
Native American author/activist will show a new short film of the Lakota and Anishinaabe peoples’ horse rides along routes of proposed pipelines that would cross North American prairies to carry Canadian crude oil/tar sands.
Lyana Monterrey
Pittsburg Ethics Council/Pittsburg Defense Council
Co-founder of local community coalitions will talk about the proposed WesPac project in Pittsburg, CA, a massive crude oil storage and transfer facility to feed ultra-dirty oil to Bay Areas five refineries and export across the Pacific.
Victor Menotti
International Forum on Globalization
IFG Executive Director will share visualized data from the recent report, Billionaires Carbon Bomb: The Koch Brothers and the Keystone XL Pipeline, plus interactive mapping of the Kochs influence network, known the Kochtopus.
Please come early to help set up and stay after to break down chairs as OccupyForum supports this event!
See you there! (Don’t show up at Global Exchange, we will all be in Berkeley!)
Winona LaDuke
Honor the Earth
Native American author/activist will show a new short film of the Lakota
and Anishinaabe peoples’ horse rides along routes of proposed pipelines
that would cross North American prairies to carry
Canadian crude oil/tar sands.
Lyana Monterrey
Pittsburg Ethics Council/Pittsburg Defense Council
Co-founder of local community coalitions will talk about the proposed
WesPac project in Pittsburg, CA, a massive crude oil storage and transfer
facility to feed ultra-dirty oil to Bay Area’s five refineries and export
across the Pacific.
Victor Menotti
International Forum on Globalization
IFG Executive Director will share visualized data from the recent
report, “Billionaires’ Carbon Bomb: The Koch Brothers and the Keystone XL Pipeline,”
plus interactive mapping of the Kochs’ influence network, known the “Kochtopus”.
After a strong community presence from the Lighthouse Mosque, and local technology
activists, the City of Oakland put the breaks on the approval of the”Domain Awareness
Center” (DAC) an $11 Million dollar Department of Homeland center that would
set an unprecedented standard for spying on a city wide level.
Two weeks ago a local Yemini-American leader, Mokhtar Alkhansali, really moved the council
with his speech stating:
“You don’t see that many Muslims here today, even though this
is one of the greatest civil rights issues of our generation. What happens today will be
echoed throughout the legacy of this city and throughout the country. I don’t want
drones to be in my neighborhood here or in my neighborhood back in Yemen. I don’t
want people to be able to record my conversations with my wife, we have
curtains in our living room for a reason. We have the right to privacy, it is sacred, and if
you vote tonight to take away that basic right you will take away our freedoms, our
liberty and our essential existence as dignified humans. So I urge you today on
behalf of my family, my community, and the human community as a whole to get away
from these practices. We urge you to vote against this because our community, we
want to be here, we want to be present and voice our concerns but we can’t when we
know that voicing our concerns will lead to our mass incarceration and the targeting of
our community.”
Full Video: http://tinyurl.com/laaenxu
Stop the DAC at City Council after this press conference.
Dearest friends, family and fellow farmers,
We need your voices and bodies in Albany this Wednesday! Despite a successful referendum, citizen appeal, 2 current lawsuits, and 15 years of public comments against the commercial development of the Gill Tract Farm, Albany City Council will be voting on a development plan to place a large parking lot and chain grocery store (“Sprouts”) on the south side of the Gill Tract. The city council moved this vote up from the original date of March 17th, so please help us get the word out about the new date and time!
This a very important vote and the outcome will greatly impact the struggle for the Gill Tract. Please join us to voice your opposition to this development:
If you can’t come, please email or call UCB Vice-chancellor of Real Estate Rob Lalanne (415-908-1500) and Chancellor Nicholas Dirks (510-642-7464). Tell them we want preserve this land as a center for agroecological research and local, sustainable urban farming, and demand that they stop commercial development of public farmlands!
Support the Trayvon 2, Hannibal Shakur (Lamar Caldwell) and Tanzeen Doha. They were arrested while protesting the George Zimmerman not-guilty verdict in the murder of Trayvon Martin. The Trayvon 2 are being railroaded through the judicial system on false charges.
This is going to be a very important date, so let’s pack the court room to show our community support.
There will be a rally at 8AM and the hearing starts around 8:30 AM.
For a lot more information, legal defense fund donation link, and video.
Student Debt National Day of Action
Wells Fargo Student Loans,
– John Stumpf, and
–Chevron Oil Company.
What do these three have in common?
They’ve created the student debt crisis impacting our communities and growing inequality in education.
283% CSU fee increase since 2002
$170 million in student debt
135% community college tuition increase since 2006-2007.
25% less funding for higher education since 2009.
Today, we have much less funding for education because corporations are not paying their fair share forcing the average student to graduate college with over $30,000 in debt. Two companies are leading the effort to limit their taxes and maximize their profits through high student loans, environmental impacts and tens of millions spent on aggressive lobbying. John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo and Chevron Board Member is at the center of the student debt crisis.
STAND WITH STUDENTS TO DEMAND JOHN STUMPF:
1. Modify Wells Fargo loans to reduce student and household debt;
2. Support $2 billion each year for our CA schools by getting Chevron to withdraw opposition to the Oil Extraction Tax.
Participating organizations:
Jobs With Justice
San Francisco ACCE
Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment
Student Labor Action Project
CCSF Student Labor Action Project- SLAP
Draw your impressions of your neighborhood or whatever else you want!
We’ll have paper, drawing stuff, and scanners, and in the end we’ll add your drawings of Oakland to the Oakland Wiki! You can make drawings to illustrate different entries (Dog Park anyone? )