THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED OR POSTPONED. STAY TUNED.

On Behalf of the Serrano Family, we are asking our beloved Community, to join in solidarity, to demand justice for Yanira Serrano, who was mercilessly gunned down , June 3, 2014, in front her family, by San Mateo County Sheriff.

Please come and support our effort to STOP BUSINESS AS USUAL, during the Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival. Let’s remind the city, county, state and the nation, that while this is a time when most families are enjoying the happy joy and harvest of the season; the Serrano family will not be celebrating this love & bounty because of senseless police brutality.

TRANSPORTATION:

FOR THOSE OF YOU, WHO HAVE ACCESS TO CARS AND VANS, OR HAVE THE RESOURCES TO RENT VEHICLES, LET’S ORGANIZE CARPOOLING OPPORTUNITIES FOR FOLKS IN SF BAY AREA, EAST BAY, NORTH BAY, SOUTH BAY, STOCKTON, SANTA ROSA, AUBURN, ETC. ♥

Please check out Yanira’s story on the Facebook page… And LIKE Justice 4 Yanira Serrano:

WE DID IT! AFTER 14 MONTHS OF WORK, THE ZONING OVERLAY ORDINANCE PASSED ON SEPTEMBER 30th. It will take effect on October 30th.

Read more about our victory here.

Nonetheless the Postal Service still has the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

And the Postal Service outsourced Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

We’re still fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

On July 29th, at our invite, Ralph Nader spoke on the steps of the Berkeley Post Office against privatization and corporatism. Watch and listen to his talk here.

We began the “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 a large number of national and local unions, including teachers’ unions and the AFL-CIO.

For almost four months the Berkeley Staples has been ‘occupied’ 24/7 by an intrepid band of San Francisco occupiers with solidarity and support from BPOD members distributing literature and convincing people not to shop at Staples.  They’re still there! Come hang out with them outside Staples at Durant & Shattuck.

We have joined with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative, Measure R, on the ballot to cement the rezoning of the Berkeley Post Office and other areas in the Historic District to prevent privatization, and also to insure a better Downtown Berkeley.   (The City Council could undo what they just wrought at any time; a ballot initiative become law can only be undone by another vote of the people).

Come help us plan our next steps.

CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.

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.

19th Annual Nation Day to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.

Press Conference & Rally 1:00 PM.

March beginning 2:00 – 2:30 PM.

A video from the Alan Blueford Center for Justice regarding October 22nd.

– Consistently use our hashtags #Oct22 and #o22 in all tweets

-Trending hashtags, that are also important to add to our tweets as much as possible are: #Ferguson #FergusonOctober #BlackLivesMatter #AllLivesMatter

-Follow, tweet at, and retweet things from Carl Dix (@Carl_Dix), SMIN (@StopMassIncNet), and NYCRevClub (@NYCRevClub)

Meeting of the City of Oakland’s “Privacy and Data Retention Ad Hoc Advisory Committee” – open to the public.

When:
2nd & 4th Thursdays
6:00pm – 8:00pm

Where:
Council Chambers
Oakland City Hall
14th & Broadway

Read the announcement from the City of Oakland City Administrator’s Weekly Report (April 25, 2014):

This committee was created by City Council action during the discussions earlier in the year about the Port Domain Awareness Center (DAC). The goal of the DAC is to improve readiness to prevent, respond to and recover from major emergencies in the Oakland region and ensure better multi-agency coordination across the larger San Francisco Bay Area. The goal of the Privacy and Data Retention Policy is to ensure there are safeguards to protect against potential misuse of the data or violations of individuals’ privacy rights and civil liberties. The meeting is open to the public. For questions about the Ad Hoc Committee, please contact Joe DeVries, Assistant to the City

We need to show up to these meetings and pressure the City to adopt a privacy policy that makes privacy a priority, not only “security” or administrative convenience.

Come help us mobilize!

See this article for detailed information and background links on the sale.

UPDATE 10/25/14 10:00 PM. Press release:

The Israeli Zim ship is on the run, but we are closely tracking the ship. And based on our calculations, the Zim Beijing cannot make it this weekend,  but it could change course and arrive this week. Let’s show Zim what they can expect if they try to come back. Let’s show the world that the Bay Area says no to Zionism. 

We are calling on all to join us on Sunday and take a stand to stop the US and Israeli relationship, their wars, militarization and repression by disrupting international commerce. Lets make sure Zim knows it will be met with the strength of our sustained movement should it attempt to come this week. As we mobilize at the Port, Block the Boat protests are being planned all over North America with solidarity actions taking place in New York, Long Beach, Tacoma and Vancouver. ALL OUT on Sunday to show our strength and to remind Zim that Israeli business is not welcome on the West coast! Please spread the word.

UPDATE 10/24/14 9:30 PM:
Zim is on the run, but we are tracking the ship closely!
Based on our calculations, the Zim Beijing cannot make it this weekend, but it could change course and arrive this week. Let’s show Zim what they can expect if they try to come back. Meet at West Oakland BART at 3pm SUNDAY to march and rally at the Port of Oakland. It is important we are ALL OUT on Sunday to show our strength and to remind Zim that Israeli cargo is not welcome on the West coast!

———————————-

The Block the Boat Coalition calls on the SF Bay Area to join us as we stop ZIM at the Port of Oakland once again.
Stay tuned for updates!

Subscribe to text-alerts by texting “join” to (510) 346-5951
Follow us on twitter @BlockTheBoat
To get involved, contact info@araborganizing.org
Facebook event & RSVP.

================
August 2014
Longest Blockade of Israeli Ship in History
ZIM ship turned away from SSA in Oakland!

For four days straight the San Francisco Bay Area community blocked the Israeli ZIM ship from unloading at the SSA. And today, we salute the rank and file workers of ILWU local 10 for standing with us against Israeli Apartheid by honoring our pickets and letting the ship go from the SSA terminal yesterday afternoon!

Saturday we mobilized thousands of our community to show the world that Oakland does not welcome racism, apartheid or Zionism, from Ferguson to Palestine. We flooded the streets and marched towards the Port only to discover that the ZIM ship decided to stay at Sea rather than dock and be confronted by the power of our numbers. The ship attempted to dock and unload on Sunday, but within a half hour’s time hundreds of us organized community pickets requesting that workers to stand with us on the side of justice and not unload the Apartheid ship. And as ILWU rank and file always have, and as they did during South African Apartheid, they demonstrated their solidarity with the global fight against oppression and honored our picket. The following Monday and Tuesday saw both an organized call to action as well as autonomous protests determined to keep the ship from being unloaded. These efforts coupled with worker solidarity continued the success of the weekend’s total blockade of the ZIM ship.

Tuesday we declared a historic victory for Palestine as Oakland held down the longest blockade of an Israeli ship. Not only did we block the boat, but we also showed the world that racist exclusionary state of Apartheid Israel has no place on our port, and will soon find that it has no place on any port on the West Coast. After being blocked from unloading at the SSA Terminal, the ZIM ship was forced to leave and unload at another Terminal where it was met with protests by autonomous activists. This even further delayed the unloading of the ship.

From the use of tear gas to the training of police by Israeli military, Oakland feels firsthand the brutality of Israeli war-making. And Palestine knows too well the role the US plays in facilitating the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian people. From the policing and militarization of our local communities perfected with Israeli tactics of repression to the billions that the US provides Apartheid Israel, the connections are clear and are made for us. And over the last four days we showed the world that we stand shoulder to shoulder from Palestine to Oakland to Ferguson as we struggle bring down every wall, every Apartheid system and every racist state.

Palestine will be free.

Block the Boat was organized by a coalition of autonomous activists and the following organizations:

AF3IRM
Al-Awda New York
All African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP)
American Friends Service Committee
American Muslims for Palestine
ANSWER Coalition
APEN: Asian Pacific Environmental Network
Arab Youth Organizing (AYO)
AROC: Arab Resource & Organizing Center
ASATA: Alliance of South Asians Taking Action
Bay Area Women in Black
BAYAN-USA
Bay Area CodePink
Bay Area Latin America Solidarity Coalition
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee
Black Organizing Project (BOP)
Black Organizing Leadership and Dignity (BOLD)
Black Workers For Justice
Catalyst Project
CodePink Washington
Committee for Open Discussion of Zionism (CODZ)
Communist Party of San Francisco
Critical Resistance – LA
Critical Resistance – Oakland
Critical Resistance – Portland
Descoloniza a Oakland/Decolonize Oakland
Free Palestine Movement
Freedom Archives
Friends of Deir Ibzi’a
Fuerza Mundial/Pueblos en Movimiento
General Union of Palestine Students – SFSU
Global Women’s Strike
Gray Panthers of San Francisco
Green Party of Alameda County
Haiti Action Committee
International Action Center
International Jewish Anti Zionist Network
International Solidarity Movement – West Bank/Gaza
International Socialist Organization
International Tribunal of Conscience for Camilo
ISM-Nor Cal
IWW Bay Area Branch
Jewish Against Genocide
Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
Justice for Palestinians
La Voz de l@s trabajadores/Worker’s Voice
Labor for Palestine
Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Marcha Patriotica (Colombia) – California chapter
Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA)
Movement Generation
National Lawyers Guild SFBA Chapter
Noam Chomsky
NorCal Friends of Sabeel
Occupy SF Action Council
ONYX Organizing Committee
The Palestine-Israel Action Committee
Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions
Palestinian Youth Movement
Queers Undermining Israeli Terror
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
San Francisco Green Party
School of the Americas Watch East Bay
Socialist Alternative – Bay Area Branch
Socialist Organizer
SOUL: School of Unity and Liberation
Southern Anti-Racism Network
Stanford Students for Justice
Stop the War Machine
Students for Justice in Palestine – Cal
Totally Radical Muslims
UAW Local 2865 (Academic Student Workers at the University of California)
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott
US Palestinian Community Network
Veterans For Peace Chapter 69
World Can’t Wait Bay Area
Workers World Party
Xicana Moratorium

THE POSTAL SERVICE HAS
THE BERKELEY POST OFFICE
“UNDER CONTRACT.” !!!!!!!!!!!

 Come help us plan our next steps in opposition to their proposed theft of our public commons.

 Obtain more information of the status of the sale here.

Also CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE. and the Save the Berkeley Post Office website 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.

We are holding a followup to “Inside Urban Shield” based on the ideas that were thrown out and briefly discussed at that Community Forum.  Please come to get involved: organizing and acting to most effectively influence things locally, nationally and at the state level.

Just a few of the many ideas that were proposed:

• Opposing the acquisition of the San Leandro tank with a demonstration.
• Attending Bay Area UASI meetings.
• Pushing for privacy legislation in Oakland.
• Cutting off funding to police organizations that violate human rights.
• Opposing California’s Peace Officers’ Bill of Rights.
• Looking at Richmond and Salt Lake City models of policing
• Using the series ‘Overcriminalized.” and the action kits that go with it.
• Opposing pre-trial detention.

Speak out at Berkeley City Council  against renewal of Police Department Agreements with
Homeland Security/FBI programs!

The first Action Calendar item on the agenda is a Public Hearing on renewing
the Berkeley Police Department’s (BPD) agreement with Federal, local and State
law enforcement agencies.

To stop militarization of police departments we must demand that City
Councils not renew the agreement with the Homeland Security program, Urban
Areas Security Initiative (UASI), which gives grants to local police
departments for military equipment, such as tasers, drones, tanks and more.
Stopping UASI at our local City Councils would help to stop Police
Departments’ shopping spree at the annual URBAN SHIELD convention, stocked
with Homeland Security corporate merchandise.

Surveillance goes hand in hand with militarization. Ask the Council to also
vote to not renew the BPD agreement with the Northern California Regional
Intelligence Center (NCRIC), a data fusion center coordinated by the FBI’s Bay
Area Joint Terrorism Task Force, to which Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs)
are sent: e.g. taking a photo of a building or taking notes, especially if
you’re of a suspicious ethnic/color group.

SuperBOLD (Berkeleyans Organizing for Liberty Defense)

———————-
Berkeley Copwatch
2022 Blake St
Berkeley, CA 94704

Why: To create a physical boundary of bodies and voices blocking the transfer of ownership of our public post office

The Board of Governors of the USPS has done a skillful job of narrowing the focus of the objections to the sale of the Downtown Berkeley Post Office to the issue of two New Deal works of art contained therein.  At this time, the position of the USPS is that they’ve done everything they can to satisfy the concerns of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (an agency formed by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966) and concerns of the City of Berkeley for the preservation of these artworks, even to the point of promising that the USPS will provide that protection themselves in perpetuity after the building is sold.

The Berkeley Post Office Defenders re-emphasize two objections that have been largely ignored in the struggle to save our post office:

1. The sale that the USPS intends to process is one manifestation of the neo-liberal strategy of privatization, deregulation, union-busting, and the cutting of government services, pursued via the World Bank and the WTO, which  in the last half-century  have proved to to be so detrimental to the welfare of people living in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa, the nations of the former Soviet Union, Iraq, and many others.  Locally, the privately-owned Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) is trying to bankrupt the publicly controlled City College of San Francisco.  The capital property of the USPS is a possession of the people of the United States as a public holding, meaning it is a component of national wealth and infrastructure, and the defense of that wealth is necessary for maintaining the viability of the national enterprise.  The Berkeley Post Office Defenders oppose the privatization of publicly owned property everywhere it is threatened, and we have mobilized our opposition locally to shield the erosion of the material foundation of community, of which the Downtown Berkeley Post Office is an element.
2. With regard to the public ownership of the New Deal artworks, the promise of the USPS to preserve them  given its strategy of privatizatioon  is a deception.  By selling more than 300 of its properties since 2006, the Board of Governors of the USPS has undermined the capital foundation of the enterprise it is publicly charged with protecting.  This insidious strategy follows the steps to complete privatization of postal services pursued by other countries  the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany and The Netherlands.  Given that the Board of Governors is selling the USPS out of business, it is their intention that, very soon, they will no longer be in a position to preserve the public ownership of anything.

The Downtown Berkeley Post Office is not only a monument to public organization, it is an organ of our common body; without it we grow weaker.  The agents of privatization are chiseling away at the investment our ancestors made to the survival of democracy.  Our post office was built by the sweat equity of our great-grandparents, and financed by their tax dollars.  As such, the Postal Service has NO RIGHT to sell it.  Berkeley Post Office Defenders DEMAND that this sale be halted and that the building continue to serve our – and our great-grandchildren’s – common good.

For more on the current status of the Downtown Berkeley Post Office: https://occupyoakland.org/2014/10/berkeley-post-office-contract-sold/

Berkeley Post Office Defenders: http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/

First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999?ref=br_tf

BPOD is affiliated with Strike Debt Bay Area: http://strike-debt-bay-area.tumblr.com/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/12/1313465/-The-Seeds-of-Protest-Bloom-Staples-Boycott-Goes-National#

For background on the fight to Save Berkeley’s Post Office:

Those Damned Hippies, They’re Saving the Post Office

USPS mission:

Saving the United States Postal Service as a Public Enterprise: http://tinyurl.com/ltqq7ng

Privatization Is Social Cancer; Saving the US Postal Service: http://tinyurl.com/mbcbzrf

In respond to the Global Day of Action in solidarity with Kobanê

More Information about the global call out

kobanesolidemo.png

THE POSTAL SERVICE HAS THE BERKELEY POST OFFICE “UNDER CONTRACT.” !!!!!!!!!!!

 Come help us plan our next steps in opposition to their proposed theft of our public commons.

Get an overview of the sale announcement here.

Here’s a good more general overview piece.

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.

Strike Debt In Action with Student Debtors
We invite you to join us at the Department of Education Public Hearing to support current and former Corinthian (Everest, Heald, and Wyotech) students who will be speak directly to DOE officials to tell their stories and demand debt cancellation.

Join online at: Corinthian.debt.is The Debt Collective tech team created this page so that those of us who can’t be in Anaheim in person can be there virtually. This website will go live an hour before the hearing with a livestream, chat, social media links, DoE twitter bomb and other virtual actions. Everyone who wants to support Corinthian students as they demand debt cancellation, meet here on Nov 4th: http://corinthian.debt.is

What’s the Background?

On September 17th, Strike Debt launched The Debt Collective, where we are developing a new platform for organization, advocacy, and resistance. We aim to build power to bargain with creditors or even to threaten a debt strike. As we build membership, debtors can join together based on region, type of debt, or lender.

Alone our debts are a burden; together they make us powerful.

People already get it.  Denny in South Dakota emailed us to ask, “Is it possible there are others who have some of my issues in common? Is there an opportunity to collectivize this issue?”

Phil in California asked a similar question, “Do you have a collective group of Bank of America Mortgage debtors?” Denny and Phil’s questions show that people already understand what the debt collective can do.

People are ready to organize and begin demanding fair terms: fair interest rates, fair principal amounts, even the abolition of unjust debts.

Why Start With a For-Profit College?

The Debt Collective’s pilot project is with current and former students from for-profit Everest college. Everest, like other for-profit schools, targets students from low-income households, disproportionately from minority backgrounds. As Everest’s parent company, Corinthian, falls apart and its predatory activities are revealed, students are still expected to pay back their loans.

If Everest students join together, we believe they can win a full debt discharge. Their victory will help us demonstrate debtors’ collective power and other groups can be formed to follow their example.

What Will Happen at the Hearing?

On November 4th, we have a unique opportunity to demonstrate the power of debtors acting collectively at the Department of Education public hearing.

If you live in the Los Angeles area, we invite you to join us at the event.

If you don’t live in southern California but still want to support students, go here, starting at 12p PST, to help share students’ messages, see video clips, and watch the livestream of the hearing.

Please follow the Debt Collective on Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook event & RSVP

Agenda includes preparations for the Board of Governors meeting on November 17th

Devoted to understanding debt, how it interacts with our financial system, and theorizing about what to do about it.

Readings for the 29th:

http://www.pieria.co.uk/articles/martin_wolf_proposes_the_death_of_banking

http://coppolacomment.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-imf-proposes-death-of-banking.html

Do we really care who creates money?

Below is the Wolf article the first link refers to. All 3 of these together really isn’t very long. Also,  we can review the last reading (found here), which still has a lot to it that is not quite clear.

Strip private banks of their power to create money

By Martin Wolf
The giant hole at the heart of our market economies needs to be plugged

Printing counterfeit banknotes is illegal, but creating private money is not. The interdependence between the state and the businesses that can do this is the source of much of the instability of our economies. It could  and should be terminated.

I explained how this works two weeks ago. Banks create deposits as a byproduct of their lending. In the UK, such deposits make up about 97 per cent of the money supply. Some people object that deposits are not money but only transferable private debts. Yet the public views the banks’ imitation money as electronic cash: a safe source of purchasing power.

Banking is therefore not a normal market activity, because it provides two linked public goods: money and the payments network. On one side of banks’ balance sheets lie risky assets; on the other lie liabilities the public thinks safe. This is why central banks act as lenders of last resort and governments provide deposit insurance and equity injections. It is also why banking is heavily regulated. Yet credit cycles are still hugely destabilising.

What is to be done? A minimum response would leave this industry largely as it is but both tighten regulation and insist that a bigger proportion of the balance sheet be financed with equity or credibly loss-absorbing debt. I discussed this approach last week. Higher capital is the recommendation made by Anat Admati of Stanford and Martin Hellwig of the Max Planck Institute in The Bankers’ New Clothes.

A maximum response would be to give the state a monopoly on money creation. One of the most important such proposals was in the Chicago Plan, advanced in the 1930s by, among others, a great economist, Irving Fisher. Its core was the requirement for 100 per cent reserves against deposits. Fisher argued that this would greatly reduce business cycles, end bank runs and drastically reduce public debt. A 2012 study by International Monetary Fund staff suggests this plan could work well.

Similar ideas have come from Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University in Jimmy Stewart is Dead, and Andrew Jackson and Ben Dyson in Modernising Money. Here is the outline of the latter system.

First, the state, not banks, would create all transactions money, just as it creates cash today. Customers would own the money in transaction accounts, and would pay the banks a fee for managing them.

Second, banks could offer investment accounts, which would provide loans. But they could only loan money actually invested by customers. They would be stopped from creating such accounts out of thin air and so would become the intermediaries that many wrongly believe they now are. Holdings in such accounts could not be reassigned as a means of payment. Holders of investment accounts would be vulnerable to losses. Regulators might impose equity requirements and other prudential rules against such accounts.

Third, the central bank would create new money as needed to promote non-inflationary growth. Decisions on money creation would, as now, be taken by a committee independent of government.

Finally, the new money would be injected into the economy in four possible ways: to finance government spending, in place of taxes or borrowing; to make direct payments to citizens; to redeem outstanding debts, public or private; or to make new loans through banks or other intermediaries. All such mechanisms could (and should) be made as transparent as one might wish.

The transition to a system in which money creation is separated from financial intermediation would be feasible, albeit complex. But it would bring huge advantages. It would be possible to increase the money supply without encouraging people to borrow to the hilt. It would end “too big to fail” in banking. It would also transfer seignorage – the benefits from creating money – to the public. In 2013, for example, sterling M1 (transaactions money) was 80 per cent of gross domestic product. If the central bank decided this could grow at 5 per cent a year, the government could run a fiscal deficit of 4 per cent of GDP without borrowing or taxing. The right might decide to cut taxes, the left to raise spending. The choice would be political, as it should be.

Opponents will argue that the economy would die for lack of credit. I was once sympathetic to that argument. But only about 10 per cent of UK bank lending has financed business investment in sectors other than commercial property. We could find other ways of funding this.

Our financial system is so unstable because the state first allowed it to create almost all the money in the economy and was then forced to insure it when performing that function. This is a giant hole at the heart of our market economies. It could be closed by separating the provision of money, rightly a function of the state, from the provision of finance, a function of the private sector.

This will not happen now. But remember the possibility. When the next crisis comes – and it surely will – we need to be be ready.

Please join Flying Over Walls, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity, CURB and many others in fighting the latest round of CDCr’s attempts to censor communications across the walls! CDCr publicizes at its website that the purpose of these censorship rules is to forbid “publications that indicate an association with groups that are oppositional to authority and society.”

These proposed regulations seem to be a retaliation to try to prevent future hunger strikes or meaningful organizing of any kind. These new revisions do almost nothing to address the widespread concern and opposition voiced just a few months ago when the original version of the regulations were proposed. We need policies that open the lines of communication with our incarcerated family, friends, loved ones and political allies, not shut them down. Deadline is November 10 for public comments to the latest revisions put out. Please send in comments and make calls to let them know we are watching!

******************************BACKGROUND**********************************

Now that CDCr has passed new STG (Security Threat Group, aka gang) regulations, if any STG-associated incarcerated person’s name or letters are published in a newsletter (aka TGIJP’s Stiletto, Black & Pink’s monthly newsletter, Critical Resistance’s The Abolitionist, SF Bay View’s newspaper, etc.), then the whole newsletter can be banned, so as to ensure that “inmates shall also not possess or have under their control written material or photographs that indicate an association with a validated member or associate of a Security Threat Group. ”

And, if not banned, if they publish an article or picture of a “validated” member of a STG (whether or not it’s true, because the STG regulations are so absurd), another prisoner’s possession of it may be used to indicate that he or she is “associated” with the prisoners whose work is published in it, which could lead to them being “validated” as part of a STG and end up in SHU (solitary).

CDCr also continues to deem as contraband any number of items that a person in the SHU may innocently possess.

Please invite others, notify local media and help us raise awareness so that the CDCr does not try to slip this regulation through. Comments supposedly will only be “heard” to the extent that they address the revisions, rather than the originally proposed text, so please mention the revisions in your letters, even if it is just to say that these revisions do not address our original concerns.

*********************FAX-IN, EMAIL-IN, WRITE-IN!!!*************************

Please submit written comments to:

Timothy M. Lockwood, Chief,
Regulation and Policy Management Branch,
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,
P.O. Box 942883,
Sacramento, CA, 94283-0001;

by fax to (916) 324-6075;

or by e-mail at rpmb@cdcr.ca.gov (We additionally recommend that those responding by e-mail cc staff@oal.ca.gov)

Comments must be received or postmarked no later than 5:00 p.m. on November 10, 2014.

Sample letters and other resources will be posted in the comments section. Please post letters that you’ve sent and information that you want to share in order to support others in crafting their letters, emails, calls and faxes!!

*********************************AND CALL-IN!!!*******************************

In order to raise the pressure, once you have submitted your written comments, please also call Lockwood’s office to voice concern: (916) 445-2269. If you cannot get through, you can also call Christopher Abshire: (916) 327-5305.

Call-in script:

“Hi, my name is _________. I’d like to speak to Chief Timothy M. Lockwood or his staff person who handles public comments.

[You will almost definitely be told no one is available to speak with you. You can then tell the receptionist or whoever you are speaking with:]

“I am calling to express my concern / anger about the CDCR’s newly revised obscene materials regulations issued October 20. I’m upset that the Department has failed to meaningfully take into consideration concerns previously expressed by hundreds of community members regarding the originally proposed text, despite the Department’s promise that it would go back to the drawing board and its claim that the public had misunderstood its intent.

As a resident of [your city & state], I am very concerned that the description of what constitutes material from a Security Threat Group consists of materials that are highly subjective to individual interpretation on the part of prison staff and includes everyday items that may be innocently possessed. The CDCR needs to ensure that (1) no publication will be banned—permanently or temporarily— merely because because it has political or sexual content and correspondence typically protected by First Amendment constitutional rights, or because a person in custody with STG affiliation has chosen to publish his name and/or location in an editorial, news article or penpal request; and (2) no person in custody will be penalized simply for possessing publications that reference or include “affiliated” members of an STG.

[If you don’t get to have a real conversation with someone, make sure you leave your name and number and ask them to have a staff person call you back.]

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.

THE HEARING TO GRANT A RESTRAINING ORDER AGAINST THE SALE WILL HAVE BEEN MONDAY MORNING.

 Come learn about what happened in court 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.

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.