Calendar

9896
Jun
11
Fri
Coding Democracy – How Hackers Are Disrupting Power, Surveillance, and Authoritarianism @ Online
Jun 11 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
(scroll down for event)

CodingDemocracyHackers have a bad reputation, as shady deployers of bots and destroyers of infrastructure. Maureen Webb would like to offer another view. Hackers, she argues, can be vital disruptors. Hacking is becoming a practice, an ethos, and a metaphor for a new wave of activism in which ordinary citizens are inventing new forms of distributed, decentralized democracy for a digital era. Confronted with concentrations of power, mass

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Join City Lights, the Goethe-Institut San Francisco, and Gray Area for Revisions, a week-long festival exploring how technological bias shapes our cultural realities.

Our trust in mediated experiences has never been lower. Governed by algorithms that perpetuate the biases and weaknesses of their developers, our cultural consumption is increasingly shaped by undetectable forces that determine our reality. Images play an important role here: fake photos and videos created with deep neural networks threaten privacy, democracy, and national security. Vision recognition systems skew gender, race, and class differences and become vehicles of discrimination. Underdeveloped AI models misrepresent the health disparities faced by minority populations.

How can we illuminate the algorithmic bias embedded within technology and counter the perpetuation of bias? What innovative approaches can we develop to strengthen inclusion, diversity, and sustainability in technology?

This festival brings a network of luminaries together to share new perspectives and rewrite new visions advocating for justice and reclaiming power.

The festival is part of the project IMAGE + BIAS that critically engages with the cultural realities being increasingly determined by imperceptible technologies.

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Jun
12
Sat
Abolition and Socialism @ Online
Jun 12 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

As both socialism and abolition grow in popularity and relevance, this event seeks to explore the connection between the two. Come join the EBDSA political education committee and racial solidarity committee for this event and discuss the connection between the fight for a world without police and prisons and a world without capitalism. It is suggested to do the readings beforehand, but not required.

The Abolitionist Road to Socialism

Full Abolition, the Highest Stage of Socialism

From Detroit to Minneapolis: Police Brutality is Key to Containing Revolutionary Possibilities

Trump’s Tech Opposition – Jacobin interview

The Shallowness of What Tech Calls Thinking

Tech Workers – Friends or Foes?

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82881422882?pwd=YTZoZVlNWXJHVUdHU2dnQ1RxTVk1QT09

Meeting ID: 828 8142 2882

Passcode: abolition

One tap mobile

+16699006833,,82881422882#,,,,*496662311# US (San Jose)

+12532158782,,82881422882#,,,,*496662311# US (Tacoma

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“SNCC”: Civil Rights Movement Film and Discussion w/ Director Danny Lyon @ Online
Jun 12 @ 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
FPL presents a film screening of “SNCC”, by Danny Lyon, photographer. The screening is followed by a conversation with Danny Lyon and Lewis Watts, photographer.

Register: https://sfpl.org/events/2021/06/12/film-danny-lyons-sncc-screening-director-talk

Danny Lyon’s “SNCC” (2020), brings together hundreds of never-before-seen black-and-white photographs made by Lyon during the years that he was employed as the staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC.

Beginning in 1962 in Cairo, Illinois when Lyon, then a University of Chicago student, met John Lewis, Freedom Rider, the film traces the story of their friendship alongside the ongoing struggle for civil rights in the United States.

The images are layered with archival audio recordings of speeches by and conversations with Lewis, Julian Bond, and Dotty Zellner, among others, as well as freedom songs that were recorded by Alan Ribback in churches and meetings in Atlanta in the 1960s and recently rediscovered by Lyon.

ABOUT: Danny Lyon

Danny Lyon is a photo-journalist, writer and filmmaker. His website is bleakbeauty.com. Among his many books are The Bikeriders, Conversations with the Dead and Knave of Hearts. His latest non-fiction book is Like A Thief’s Dream, PowerHouse Books.

Daniel Joseph Lyon was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 16, 1942. Roosevelt was President. World War Two was on going in Europe, Africa and Asia. Segregation was the law of the land in 13 southern states. Native Americans were not allowed to purchase alcohol in New Mexico. Most Blacks could not or did not vote in the deep south.

Lyon attended NYC public schools in Kew Gardens and Forest Hills, Queens, and in 1959 bought his first camera, an Exa SLR in Munich, Germany during a summer trip, then entered the University of Chicago, where he eventually majored in philosophy and ancient history.

In 1963 he became The Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) first photographer. Lyon’s photographs are in Museums and collections throughout the world. His most recent one man show was at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Lyon is represented by Gavin Brown Enterprises and the Etherton Gallery in Tucson, AZ.

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Jun
13
Sun
DSA June General Meeting & Chapter Social @ Snow Park
Jun 13 @ 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm

 Join us for East Bay DSA’s June General Meeting & Chapter Social!

We are excited to convene an outdoor general meeting and social this month — come and hear from our outgoing and incoming leadership, learn about our plans for the coming year, and meet and mingle with other members.

We’ll meet on Sunday, June 13 from 12:30-2:30 pm in Snow Park in Oakland, at the corner of Harrison Street and 19th Street.

Snacks and hand sanitizer will be provided. Friends, family, and kids are welcome!

RSVP and we’ll see you there!

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The Plastics Disaster: Sunflower Alliance Meeting
Jun 13 @ 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm

 Vastly increasing the production of plastic is the new fossil fuel industry strategy to maintain its profits—which means increasing toxic pollution at every step, from oil/gas extraction to production to waste.

Join us to learn more about this racist and ecocidal campaign, and how people are fighting to stop it.  The program includes:

A short animated film, The Story of Plastic,which summarizes a longer documentary explaining the whole disastrous process.

Speakers:

— Julie Teel Simonds, Center for Biological Diversity, providing an overview of this strategy;

— Miriam Gordon, Upstream Solutions, sharing information about current state and federal bills to reduce plastics;

— Someone from RISE St. James, the community organization in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley leading the fight against the construction of the Formosa Plastics plant (not yet confirmed).

To get the link RSVP to
action@sunflower-alliance.org

Before the meeting:

Watch The Story of Plastic documentary for more background.  We have arranged for our participants to stream the film free at any time.

To receive our special link, email jeantepper[at]gmail.com

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Green Sunday: United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America
Jun 13 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

 United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (and what you can do about it)
***  With Nolan Higdon and Mickey Huff  ***

The role of news media in a free society is to investigate, inform, and provide a crucial check on political power. But does it?

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82620271999?pwd=S3ZwUklteGI5YjJsMEtMSnJXRzU3UT09

Meeting ID: 826 2027 1999
Passcode: 2020

It’s no secret that the goal of corporate-owned media is to increase the profits of the few, not to empower the many. As a result, people are increasingly immersed in an information system structured to reinforce their social biases and market to their buying preferences. Journalism’s essential role has been drastically compromised, and Donald Trump’s repeated claims of “fake news” and framing of the media as an “enemy of the people” have made a bad scenario worse. That said, these concerns about media misinformation did not just disappear upon the election of Joe Biden and we must be ever vigilant against propaganda campaigns from the corporate press and both major political parties.

Written in the spirit of resistance and hope, United States of Distraction offers a clear, concise appraisal of our current situation, and presents readers with action items for how to improve it.  http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100388060

Dr. Nolan Higdon is an author and university lecturer of history and media studies. Higdon’s areas of concentration include youth culture, news media history, and critical media literacy. His most recent publications include The Anatomy of Fake News from University of California Press (2020) and United States of Distraction with Mickey Huff from City Lights Books. He sits on the boards of the Action Coalition for Media Education and Northwest Alliance For Alternative Media And Education.

Mickey Huff is director of Project Censored and president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation. He is currently professor of social science, history, and journalism at Diablo Valley College where he is co-chair of the history area and is chair of the journalism department. He is executive producer and host of the weekly syndicated public affairs program The Project Censored Show on Pacifica Radio. His most recent publications include United States of Distraction (City Lights Books) co-authored with Nolan Higdon, and Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2021 (Seven Stories Press) co-edited with Andy Lee Roth. www.projectcensored.org

“Mickey Huff and Nolan Higdon emphasize what we can do today to restore the power of facts, truth, and fair, inclusive journalism as tools for people to keep political and corporate power subordinate to the engaged citizenry and the common good.” Ralph Nader

“The U.S. wouldn’t be able to hide its empire in plain sight were it not for the subservient ‘free’ press. United States of Distraction shows, in chilling detail, America’s major media dysfunction – how the gutting of the fourth estate paved the road for fascism annd what tools are critical to salvage our democracy. Abby Martin, The Empire Files

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. *We will start promptly at 5:00 pm each month — however, this month will be the final notice about that! The monthly business meeting of the County Council of the Green Party follows, at 6:30 pm. Council meetings are open to anyone who is interested.

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Jun
14
Mon
FROM PARADISE TO PACIFIC HEIGHTS: YOUTH DEMAND A CIVILIAN CLIMATE CORPS @ H. Dana Bowers Northbound Rest Area
Jun 14 @ 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Sunrise Movement leaders from across California are marching 266 miles from Paradise to San Francisco for the Civilian Climate Corps. We’re marching to demonstrate the urgency of the climate and economic crisis, and need for Congress and Biden to pass an ambitious CCC by the end of Summer 2021 as an immediate first-step solution. The Civilian Climate Corps is a vision of a federal jobs program (modeled after the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps) that will put our generation to work combatting the climate crisis with equity and equality, scaled to the size of the emergency. Join us Monday, June 14th to welcome the marchers and walk across the Golden Gate Bridge and into the city. We will hold rallies and paint street murals outside the residences of our elected officials while demanding an ambitious CCC that provides good jobs to address the climate emergency and start the Decade of the Green New Deal. RSVP to stay in touch with the latest information.

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Jun
15
Tue
David & Margaret Talbot: By the Light of Burning Dreams @ Online
Jun 15 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

KPFA Radio 94.1 FM presents a unique Zoom Event:

David & Margaret Talbot

By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Second American Revolution

Hosted by Greg Bridges

………………………………………………………………………………

New York Times bestselling author David Talbot and New Yorker journalist Margaret Talbot illuminate “America’s second revolutionary generation” in this gripping history of one of the most dynamic eras of the twentieth century— brought to life through seven radical episodes that offer urgent lessons for today.

The political landscape of the 1960’s and ‘70’s was probably the most tumultuous in this country’s history: the fight for civil rights, women’s liberation, Black Power, and the struggle to end the Vietnam War. In many ways, this second American revolution was a belated fulfillment of the betrayed promises of the first — working to extend the full protections of the Bill of Rights to non-white, non-male, non-elite Americans excluded by the nation’s founders.

Based on exclusive interviews, original documents, and archival research, By the Light of Burning Dreams explores critical moments in the lives of a diverse cast of iconoclastic

leaders of the twentieth century radical movement: Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers; Heather Booth and the Jane Collective, the first underground feminist abortion clinic, Vietnam peace activists Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and the United Farm Workers; Craig Rodwell and the gay pride movement; Dennis Banks, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Russel Means and the warriors of Wounded Knee; and John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s politics of stardom. Margaret and David Talbot reveal the dramatic epiphanies that galvanized these modern revolutionaries and created unexpected connections and alliances between individual movements across race, class and gender divides.

DAVID TALBOT is the New York Times bestselling author of The Devil’s Chessboard, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, Season of the Witch, and most recently, Between Heaven and Hell.

MARGARET TALBOT has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 2004. She is the recipient of Whiting Award and New America Foundation Fellowship, and the author of The Entertainer: Movies, Magic, and My Father’s Twentieth Century.

GREG BRIDGES is a radio dj who can be heard over KCSM and KPFA, where he has a weekly show and is a contributor to KPFA’s Hip Hop and social affairs show HardKnock Radio. Greg has written for various publications including Jazz Now Magazine and Bayshore Magazine.

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Jun
16
Wed
A Conversation with Angela Davis @ Online
Jun 16 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
“An activist. An author. A scholar. An abolitionist. A legend.”—TIME

Join a live conversation with activist and scholar Angela Davis, who has been deeply involved in our nation’s quest for social justice for decades. The Distinguished Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz has also taught at UC Berkeley, UCLA, the Claremont Colleges, Stanford, and other universities. The author of nine books, most recently, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement, has lectured around the world and will be joined by Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, Dean’s Professor and Chair of Political Science and International Relations at USC.

In the early seventies, Davis spent eighteen months in jail and on trial after being placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted List.” She has continued to examine the social problems associated with incarceration and the criminalization of communities most affected by poverty and racial discrimination. Davis will address numerous issues related to race, gender, and a 21st century abolitionist movement that envisions a world without prisons.

Presented by USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative. Co-sponsored by the Center for Black Cultural and Student Affairs, the Black Student Assembly, the Student Assembly for Gender Empowerment, and Brothers Breaking Bread.

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CA Public Banking Act Review @ Online
Jun 16 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

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WANT A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF PUBLIC BANKING? @ Online
Jun 16 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm


Register here

Dear Friends and Public Banking Allies,

We’d like to invite you to our next Public Banking 101 session, an educational series hosted by the Friends of the Public Bank East Bay exploring public banking in the context of our ongoing efforts to create a public bank in the East Bay.

Our speaker will be Sylvia Chi, co-author of the landmark 2019 California Public Banking Act (AB 857) and former policy director for the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN).

Sylvia will give an overview of AB857 and how it frames what the public bank can be, the steps we need to take to create one, and the latest regulatory updates from the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. We’ll also be addressing questions like:

  • How can a public bank serve the specific needs of East Bay communities?
  • How can we build a bank that reflects our values and priorities?
  • How do we ensure it’s truly public, governed by the people we aim to serve?

And, of course, we’ll address your questions. We hope you’ll join us for an insightful conversation as we move towards making public banking a reality in the East Bay.


69127
Jun
17
Thu
California Doughnut Economics Coalition Book Group – All We Can Save @ Online
Jun 17 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Are you hungry for deeper dialogue about the climate crisis and building community around solutions? We are too.

A group of us at California Doughnut Economics Coalition are reading All We Can Save — it’s a book club! The book club helps us build on our doughnut economics foundation, further connect the (social & ecological) dots, and think more like a 21st-century economist. We want to extend the invite to all.

About Book Club: A unique opportunity to read and share some information and inspirational conversation on important issues. The book club is an unbiased and safe forum that opens our minds to ideas and information for a more in-depth look at our world, our community, and hopefully ourselves.

  • Date/Time: third Thursday of each month
  • Time: 6-7 PM PST
  • Register for event and Zoom link will be provided.
  • This Month’s Book: All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. All We Can Save is a national bestseller. Provocative and illuminating essays from women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward.

Each month, we will discuss essays from each section:

  • 4/15: Begin
  • 5/20: Part 1 – Root
  • 6/17: Part 2 – Advocate & Part 3 – Reframe
  • 7/15: Part 4 – Reshape & Part 5 – Persist
  • 8/19: Part 6 – Feel & Part 7 – Nourish
  • 9/16: Part 8 – Rise & Onward
  • 10/21: TBD

How it relates to Doughnut Economics: The book club helps us to further connect the dots and think more like a 21st-century economist.

69128
Jun
21
Mon
Berkeley Copwatch – New Member Mondays
Jun 21 @ 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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Jun
22
Tue
Rally for an Equitable Alameda County Budget @ County Building
Jun 22 @ 8:00 am – 10:00 am

Image

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Lake Merritt Vigil for Peace @ Lake Merrit Pergola
Jun 22 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

69150
Jun
23
Wed
Know Your Rights for Oakland Tenants @ Online
Jun 23 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Jun
24
Thu
People Over Cops & Cages Rally – SF @ SF City Hall
Jun 24 @ 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

Image

69149
Jun
25
Fri
Improving Oversight and Transparency in US Small Arms Trade
Jun 25 @ 9:00 am – 10:00 am

69133
Jun
26
Sat
Assange defense event @ Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California
Jun 26 all-day

This is the initial information we have re. this event, hosted by the Bay Area Freedom for Julian  Assange Committee, and Assangedefense.org.

What: Speakers include Julian Assange’s father and brother, John and Gabriel Shipton, plus Alice Walker and Dan Ellsberg.
Noam Chomsky will speak via Zoom as will Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Initial co-sponsor list:
Courage Foundation (Assangedefense.org)  Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal  National Lawyers Guild, Bay Area   Black Alliance for Peace  CodCode Pink, Golden Gate and nationally  United National Antiwar Coalition  International Action Center  Syria Solidarity Network Peninsula Peace and Justice Center   Social Justice Committee, Unitarian Universalist Church, Berkeley  Peace and Freedom Party  Green Party of California  U.S. Peace Council  Socialist Action

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Strike Debt Bay Area Book Group: Mission Economy – A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism @ Online
Jun 26 @ 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

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 EconomicsLimitsBanking on the PeopleCapital 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.

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