Calendar
UPDATE:
There are some places in this world that are too good to be true, and when they are true, when those places exist, it is almost inevitable that groups of powerful people will want control over them. It is almost inevitable that they will do anything in their power to prevent these places from being enjoyed by those they deem unworthy. It is almost inevitable that these places will be commodified, bought and sold. It is almost inevitable that these places will cease to exist…almost. The Albany Bulb is a place that is too good to be true, and yet, there it sits in very true beauty. It looks across the San Francisco Bay through its wild plant life and painted surface past curved rebar and steel. The sun shines on its face as this old landfill exists as a free space, a space where people and animals come to find some peace, some air. In the wake of the City of Albany’s decision to evict Bulb residents and to continue its war on poor people, residents and supporters have rallied together to defend this space. They have fought the eviction of residents on many levels and continue to fight even after most of the residents have left. Supporters and residents have defied the almost inevitable odds of keeping this space alive.
In the last few days, they have been faced with another inevitable reality. The repression of the City, its Police and its (in)justice system have begun to target residents and supporters. On the evening of Tuesday, May 27, a vocal supporter was arrested in the city of Albany and remains in custody. The repression continued when on Thursday May 29, 12 officers came in at 4 in the morning to roust 2 residents and 1 supporter.They arrested them and their animals and destroyed their home of 7 years. The 3 were later released and the residents are now struggling to pick up the pieces of the place they have called home for so long, the place that was too good to be true. This malicious act was a reaction to growing resistance to the eviction of residents. It became clear that the city was targeting those who had shown resistance when police arrested another Bulb supporter who was also not on the Bulb at the time. That person remains in custody as well.
There are many almost inevitable story, the story of repression is one of them, but the other almost inevitable story is that when a place is too good to be true it is worth defending. And people who defend those places are worth supporting. Together we are stronger than the inevitable, we are greater than the impossible. The struggle to save the Bulb needs your support, and here are some ways you can help:
1- we have supporters still in jail who need money for bail, please visit this site and donate, any amount helps:
http://www.gofundme.com/9pkg6c
2- check out sharethebulb.org for upcoming events and come out to them
3- come out to the Bulb! it’s beautiful!
This activist was snatched up by police may 28th preventing further work with bulb residents .
On may 29 the next day the 4am police terrorist attack that involved over 20 cops from the Alameda Sheriffs berkley and albany with dirt bikes ,vans ,asault weapons etc. happened .
listen to kpfa archives sat may 31 last story on the 6pm news for more details of Bulb struggle also facebook.com/sharethebulb and sharethebulb.org
Elliot, an active labor organizer and Bulb supporter, was arrested on the Albany Bulb on Thursday. He is charged with
“Prisoner MFG Weapon/Etc”
“Furnish Escape Equipment”
“Appropr Lost Prop – $400”
whatever those things mean. He is being / has been held at Santa Rita over the weekend.
It is unknown at this time whether he has a lawyer or will be assigned a public defender or, really, what is going to happen.
Friend and comrade Elliot was arrested Thursday evening as he left the Albany Bulb, located near Berkeley CA in the east bay area of California. Elliot is a longtime organizer and has been involved in a variety of struggles and campaigns. Recently, Elliot, along with others, have been working with residents of the Albany Bulb, a squattter encampment that is been under attack from the police and local government. Learn more at sharethebulb.org.
Elliot’s capture comes in the wake of the arrest of two of the last bulb residents and the destruction of their house, as well as the arrest of two other Bulb supporters. Elliot is being hit with multiple trumped up charges, including possessing tools to escape from jail and possession of weapons, both felonies, as well as two misdemeanors. His bail is set at $65,000, which means that we need $6,500 to bond him. Please support!
To donate, go to: www.gofundme.com/9pkg6c
The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!
The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.
And we’re fighting against both!
Come help us plan our next steps.
We’ve started a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management! Here’s the front of the postcard.
All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privatization of services. The California Federation of Teachers passed a resolution in support of opposition to Staples. We need to continue the pressure on Staples and encourage other unions to pass resolutions denouncing the Post Office’s agreement with Staples.
And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Advisory Commission on Historical Preservation came out with its report, recommending that sales of Historic Post offices be halted until the USPS conforms with historical preservation law. Here is our response. Also the Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Historic Post Offices came out recently – anything could happen now since Congress’ “request” that no historic Post Offices be sold until it had come out has been honored and no further Congressional request or mandate has come down. Come help us plan our response.
We have joined with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative on the ballot to rezone the Berkeley Post Office and other areas in the Historic District to prevent privatization, and also to insure a better Downtown Berkeley. We succeeded in getting the necessary signatures; it may be voted on in November.
Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. We held a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.
THINGS ARE HAPPENING!
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
OccupyForum
Conversation
with David Korten
David Korten will join us to share his current work on a new book and engage in conversation around the central theme – changing our story from one of “sacred money and markets” to one of a “living economy on a living Earth”. He is interested in exploring this theme with members of the Occupy Forum to test the extent to which this frame has potential broad resonance:
“Our defining cultural story determines what we most value as a society and how our institutions structure our relationships with one another and nature. We are in terminal crisis because we have our story badly wrong. To find a path to a viable human future, we must replace the “sacred money and markets” story around which we currently organize with a” sacred life and living Earth” story that acknowledges our nature and reality as living beings born of a living Earth born of a living universe.”
David Korten’s seminal book and international bestseller, When Corporations Rule the World, is considered by many to be the “bible” of the global Living Democracy Movement, and helped explain globalization to thousands. � It has become a modern classic with a message that seems increasingly prophetic with each passing day. Its central message is a clear and unequivocal wake-up call to humanity. Korten also wrote The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism; The Great Turning:
From Empire to Earth Community; Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth
� to Real Wealth,� among others.
Time will be allocated for announcements.
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Staff Attorney Mark Rumold will argue before a judge that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) must release key legal opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) regarding Section 215 of the Patriot Act—the law the National Security Agency (NSA) uses to collect telephone records on a massive scale.
Judge: Hon. Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers presiding.
Walmart Associates will be on strike to protest Walmart’s illegal retaliation against Associates who have spoken up about inequality and have gone on strike.
We’ll be talking to customers and asking them to support Walmart Associates who continue to highlight the issue of Walmart’s poverty wages deepening income inequality and the impact it has on its workers, customers, and communities as a whole and call on Walmart to raise workers’ wages to $25,000 per year.
Zaki Manian and Janet Weil will host a discussion on a year since Snowden and planning future activism efforts.
Discussion of a year of activism against mass surveillance structured around video clips of significant journalism..
Space is Limited. Please RSVP.
Look for the Strike Debt Bay Area booth somewhere between 24th & 5th streets on Telegraph.
Come hang out and learn about debt! Pick up a copy of the Debt Resisters’ Operations Manual and learn how to fight against your and others debts.
The Alan Blueford Center for Justice will be open for First Friday.
Come pay a visit!
Marxist Editor, LeiLani Dowell, speaks on Uniting Women, LGBTQ, & Workers’ Struggles as part of a California statewide speaking tour. After Oakland, she will speak in San Diego and LA.
LeiLani Dowell began her activism while studying Labor Studies at San Francisco State University shortly after 9/11, when she became actively engaged in the struggle to prevent the war against Iraq. As a queer woman, Dowell has done organizing for lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer rights in both San Francisco and New York, where she currently resides. Dowell has participated in solidarity and fact-finding delegations to Colombia, Lebanon, El Salvador and Haiti, reporting on her experiences in the pages of Workers World Newspaper. She represented the U.S. delegation at a deliberative session of the World Festival of Youth and Students in 2005, and was a lead organizer of a youth delegation to Cuba in 2007.
In 2009, Dowell traveled on an International Action Center-sponsored delegation to Honduras as a right-wing coup was taking place in the country, reporting on the incredible people’s resistance that awakened in response. She was the sole U.S. representative at the 3rd All India Women’s Conference in Kerala, India, in January 2013, and returned to Honduras to monitor the national elections in November.
Dowell’s writings have been published in the books Feminism and War; Marxism, Reparations & the Black Freedom Struggle http://www.workers.org/reparations/reparations-marxism_bk.pdf; Gaza: Symbol of Resistance http://gazaresistancebook.com/; and What is Marxism All About http://www.amazon.com/What-Marxism-All-About-Revolutionaries/dp/0895671530.
Currently she is a Managing Editor of Workers World Newspaper.
Andy Lopez will be honored by family, friends and supporters on the occasion of his 14th birthday. Andy will be celebrated by both those who knew him personally and by those who have been seeking a just response to his death. Speakers at the opening and concluding gatherings will share what Andy’s life and memory mean to them and what they expect to be his lasting legacy.
The noon march will lead by Danza Azteca Coyolxauqui and by youth contingents from Andy’s Youth and the Windsor Bloco Youth Ensemble. Participating group members of the Justice Coalition for Andy Lopez (JCAL), and Mothers in White, as well as other local and state-wide supporters and groups.
The event, entitled, “Not Forgotten – Andy Lopez Presente!,” will begin at 11:00. At noon, participants will march to central Santa Rosa for a culminating birthday rally at Old Courthouse Square.
Time: 11-12Noon – Gather and Speakers
12-1:30pm – March To Courthouse Square, Santa Rosa, CA
1:30-3pm – Rally and Speakers
What does activism look like in Haiti & how can you be apart of it? How can it shape your work here?
Join HAC as we explore Haiti’s history, current political situation, and the connections to parallel struggles throughout the U.S. and around the world.
Come to our first meeting!
Resistance & the Lavalas Movement:
What is Lavalas? Do people in Haiti support the current government? Who is involved in Haiti’s fight for democracy? Why do the world’s superpowers fear the people’s movement? Who is really in power in Haiti? What does activism look like in Haiti?
New to Strike Debt?? Don’t walk cold turkey into a bunch of radicals talking about debt! Show up a half hour early — at 2:30 PM — for an informal pre-meeting intro session. If you’d like to attend this pre-get-together please email strike.debt.bay.area@
Join Strike Debt Bay Area in working on some exciting projects locally and nationally to fight unjust debt.
– The latest on our coalition efforts to Save the Berkeley Post Office and fight the privatization of our commons.
– The latest on our efforts to help Richmond and NGO allies push for principal reduction for Richmond’s homeowners. Read two articles here and here, written by two Strike Debt Bay Area members on the Richmond principal reduction / eminent domain case.
In addition, we are exploring the use of a public bank to help Richmond, CA and other communities escape the thrall of Wall Street.
– Work on our radio segment broadcast periodically on KPFA.
– A project to bring non-profit, non-usurious payday loan services to Vallejo and Oakland.
– Other projects include efforts to fight against student debt in conjunction with peeps at UC Cal via a Strike Debt UC Berkeley chapter of Strike Debt, a book group with semi-weekly discussions, investigations into the legitimacy of mortgage ownership and therefore the right to foreclose, and more.
– Get your very own cop of The Debt Resisters’ Operations Manual!
“Just as bosses are dependent on workers, so are lenders dependent on borrowers. If workers walk out, the enterprise stops. If borrowers refuse to pay their debts, the lenders could be in real trouble. Each side depends on the other. The millions of underwater mortgage holders, of student debtors and credit card holders, need the bank loans – but so do the banks need those borrowers, and they especially need them to cooperate by paying their monthly charges. Otherwise, the capital that the banks list on their books begins to drain away.” ~Francis Fox Piven
Check out our website, our Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.
Check out the Berkeley Post Office Defenders website too.
On June 8, 2011 our beloved son, brother, father, husband, uncle, nephew, grandson, cousin & friend Justice For Ernest Duenez Jr. was murdered by John Moody of the Manteca PD.
Join us this year as we march from the place where he was murdered – 241 Flores Ave Manteca, CA – to the Manteca Police Station.
For the last 3 years you have all seen us through our darkest hours and we would be honored if you would join us as we remind the City of Manteca that we want JUSTICE FOR ERNEST & JAIL FOR MOODY!!
This will be a peaceful march. We encourage you to bring your signs representing your loved ones lost. We will never forget the lives that were stolen from us.
11:30 am meet at 241 Flores Ave Manteca, Ca
12:00 noon begin march to Manteca PD
BBQ to follow at location to be announced at march
Join us for food and family time***kids games***kids bring your swimsuits
Ernest’ murder caught on police camera:
The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!
The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.
And we’re fighting against both!
Come help us plan our next steps.
We’ve started a “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management! Here’s the front of the postcard. The campaign has been adopted by Postal Unions, has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, and has gone national!
All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privatization of services. The California Federation of Teachers passed a resolution in support of opposition to Staples. We are trying to get the Alameda Labor Council to pass a similar resolution.
And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Advisory Commission on Historical Preservation came out with its report, recommending that sales of Historic Post offices be halted until the USPS conforms with historical preservation law. Here is our response. Also the Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Historic Post Offices came out recently – anything could happen now since Congress’ “request” that no historic Post Offices be sold until it had come out has been honored and no further Congressional request or mandate has come down. Come help us plan our response.
We have joined with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative on the ballot to rezone the Berkeley Post Office and other areas in the Historic District to prevent privatization, and also to insure a better Downtown Berkeley. We succeeded in getting the necessary signatures; it may be voted on in November, but Tom Bates and the City Council have nefarious plans to undermine our coalition. More info at the meeting as available!
Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. We held a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.
THINGS ARE HAPPENING!
Ryan Rising & Ivy Anderson
Story Telling and Discussion:
Land Access, Food Autonomy,
Permaculture and Direct Action
Come hear stories of direct actions and community organizing over the last few years that have focused on reclaiming access to land to create permaculture and common spaces in the Bay Area.
Also, hear a report back from the Zapatista Escuelita: The Little School of Freedom according to the Zapatistas – the indigenous communities in resistance in Chiapas, Mexico, who reclaimed much of their land base in 1994 and have been self-organizing and living autonomously from the Mexican government ever since. Both here in the Bay, and in the jungles of Southern Mexico, it is access to land and what people bring forth from it through the work of their hands that empowers people to live successfully.
“Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality.” -Malcolm X
Our dialogue will explore how people are organizing for access to land around the world, and focusing on the Bay Area and the lessons the Zapatistas and others have to share that inform our work here. We will talk about land reclamation, creating permaculture through direct action, & local food autonomy.
Ryan Rising is a permaculture designer, community organizer, and direct action advocate living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ryan recently returned from the first grade of the Zapatista Little School in Chiapas, Mexico.
Ivy Anderson runs the Mendell Roots Community garden on Third and Palou and teaches gardening and healthy eating to Bayview youth. Ivy is committed to creating access to free organic food and open green space in the Bayview.
Q&A and Announcements will follow.
Ayr
-Bulb
more info occupyoakland.org and sharethebulb.org and facebook/sharethebulb which is public access
MORE INFO call orion 510 541 3835
Crude-by-Rail in Oakland? Say NO on Tuesday, June 10
A resolution opposing transportation of hazardous fuels through Oakland will soon be considered by the Oakland City Council. The first step is a meeting of the Public Works Committee.
Tuesday, June 10, 11:30 AM
Oakland City Hall, first floor
If passed, this will go to the full council shortly thereafter. If you are available Tuesday, please attend to express support for this important step in the campaign against crude-by-rail, fossil fuels and climate change.
Councilmembers are recommending that the City Council adopt a resolution “to oppose transportation of hazardous fossil fuels material, including crude oil, coal, and petroleum coke, along California waterways, through densely populated areas, through the City of Oakland.” Please come to show support!
People who want to speak need to fill out a speaker card in person before each item starts or on line athttp://www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/CityClerk/s/SpeakerCard/SpeakerCard/OAK032373
What is going on in Syria? Is there a “revolution” or is this western “regime change”? What can we make of the June 3 Presidential Election in Syria? Rick Sterling is a founding member of Syria Solidarity Movement. He was in Syria with International Peace Pilgrimage in April 2014 and visited Damascus, Latakia and Homs. Rick will discuss the roots of the conflict, impressions from observations and first hand discussions with a wide variety of Syrian and Palestinian residents in Syria.
http://www.syriasolidaritymovement.org
Co-sponsored by Syria Solidarity Movement, and the BFUU Social Justice Committee.
Wheelchair accessible.