Calendar
Information, discussion & community — Monday Night Forum!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
Occupy Forum presentsF R A C K I N G:
Building a Diverse Movement to Win
Hosted by Californians Against Fracking
Speakers:
Tia Lebherz, Food & Water Watch
David Braun, Americans & Californians Against Fracking
As fracking continues to expand at an unrelenting pace in California, a movement to stop it is rising up and, like New York, is preparing to win a moratorium. But these wins aren’t easy, and this one will be hard won. The good news is that powerful networks exist and smart organizing is going on in multiple communities to stop the oil and gas industry and their toxic processes.Come hear about what the membership of Californians Against Fracking is planning for the fall,share your ideas, and find out how you can plug in for the win.
Tia Lebherz is the Northern California organizer for Food & Water Watch. Based in Oakland; she works to engage activists and hold elected officials accountable on a range of issues across the region including fracking, water privatization, and food issues including factory farms and genetic engineering. Prior to joining Food & Water Watch, Tia worked extensively in the Midwest organizing on campaigns for clean energy and fair food. Tia most recently worked as the Michigan organizer for Food & Water Watch based in Detroit.
David Braun is a co-founder of Americans Against Fracking and New Yorkers Against Fracking, and has recently relocated back to his home state of California to fight fracking where he works with Californians Against Fracking, a coalition of over 150 organizations fighting for a ban. While in New York, David founded and worked with several grassroots anti-fracking organizations` including United for Action, Sane Energy Project, among others. Previously, he was the grassroots coordinator for the films, GASLAND and GASLAND II. Before working on the fracking issue, he worked with MoveOn and has also engaged with numerous other social, environmental and economic justice campaigns.
WE DID IT! AFTER 14 MONTHS OF WORK, THE ZONING OVERLAY ORDINANCE PASSED ON SEPTEMBER 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.
Check out our correspondence with the President of the American Postal Workers Union, Mark Dimondstein. The APWU has been leading the charge against Staples.
For three 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.
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. The Post Office has ignored the report, recently selling historic Post Offices in The Bronx and Burlingame, CA.
We need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale!
We have joined with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative 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.
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.
Film evenings begin with optional potluck refreshments & social hour at 6:30 pm,
followed by the film at 7:30 pm, followed by optional discussion after the film.
YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY
Episode 6: Winds of Change
Created by · Joel Bach and David Gelber
For a description of this film, see the website shown below.
Humanist Hall is wheelchair accessible around the corner at 411 28th Street
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.
OCTOBER 10-13, 2014
THE INSPIRATION
We are in a movement moment.
Droves of people, many of them young and black, took to the streets of Ferguson to demand justice for Mike Brown. Millions stood in solidarity as protestors were met by a brutal and militarized response by local police departments.
Our country can no longer deny the epidemic of police violence facing Black and Brown communities. Mike Brown is now part of a long list of people like John Crawford, Ezell Ford, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant and countless others who have been unjustly killed by police. And, their lives mattered.
JOIN HANDS UP UNITED AND OUR PARTNERS IN FERGUSON FROM OCTOBER 10-13TH FOR A SERIES OF EVENTS, MARCHES AND OPPORTUNITIES TO CONTINUE BUILDING OUR MOVEMENT FOR REAL CHANGE.
Berkeley Police want to have Tasers. But week after week there are incidents all across the country of people being tased by police to death, or for no reason, or to torture them for their alleged “crime” of disrespect.
Come help put a stop to this insanity.
Dramatic and compelling stories of human beings imprisoned unjustly, often for decades, and then exonerated by DNA evidence. The film shows the emotional journey back into society and efforts to rebuild lives with little or no support. SJC is working hard for California State Ballot Prop. 47 which if it passes will make a huge difference in reforming our broken criminal justice system.
More info: http://www.afterinnocence.net/index.html
Sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice Ctee as part of our Conscientious Projector Series for the 99%
Wheelchair accessible.
http://www.bfuu.org/signup.html
Report-back from activists who “went inside” the Urban Shield convention and trade show in Oakland September 4th-7th and were “volunteers” at some of the exercises. And discussion of next steps.
Directions: From 580, take Park Blvd west one long block; turn right on McKinley Avenue, turn right again on Home Place East, park in the parking lot to your left. Entrance is there, walk past the cafeteria to the auditorium.
Join Shane Bauer and others on this, the 3rd anniversary of the occupation of Oscar Grant Plaza.
Shane Bauer is a journalist who, with Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattel, were kidnapped by Iranian border guards and imprisoned in solitary in Iran for many months. After his return to the US. Shane wrote about Pelican Bay, California’s notorious solitary confinement facility for inmates.
As he was observing one of the Urban Shield exercises as a official member of the press he was ordered to stop taking pictures and leave.
Urban Shield, a convention devoted to the glorification of the militarization of the police, has been happening in Oakland since 2007. The Mayor announced that it would not be held in Oakland next year, but it will still be held, probably somewhere else in Alameda County. It should be stopped once and for all or, barring that, Oakland and Oakland’s police should not participate.
Links to Letter Sized PDF of flyer
Older flyer and poster versions:
Inside Urban Shield Half Sheet Inside Urban Shield 11×17″ Poster IUS 18×24″ Poster PDF
Click to download 2-to-sheet PDF
Final flyer:
inside urban shield poster 11×17 rev
inside urban shield poster 18×24 rev
Inside Urban Shield Fact Sheet and Forum Schedule (PDF): IUS-Schedule-Fact-Sheet
From Ferguson To The Bay Area: Connecting the Dots
KPFA 94.1 FM
Pacifica Live Programming On The Streaming Channel
http://www.kpfa.org/events/ferguson-bay-area
10:00 am – 2:00 pm
http://www.kpfa.org/kpfa-live-stream-channel
On October 11, 2014 thousands of working people and youth will be converging in Ferguson to protest the continuing racism, discrimination and failure to arrest the policeman who murdered Michael Brown. KPFA WorkWeek will provide live streaming program from the station’s channel with activists and teachers from Ferguson and also will connect the dots to Northern California. We will hear from working people and trade unionists about militarization of police departments in the bay area, the censorship of education by the Oakland school district of the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the same economic and social conditions in Northern California that exist in Feruguson. We will also have video from Ferguson from the rallies and struggles. SEIU 1021 Social and Economic Justice Committee and other organizations are supporting this program.
There will be a gathering at Eastshore park near Lake Merritt right where Lakeshore Blvd. meets El Embarcadero. We’re excited to be joined by Oakland City Councilman Dan Kalb, the talented Occupellas, Students Against Fracking and other wonderful allies fighting Big Oil in the state.
Bring a light-colored t-shirt to screen print an awesome “I support a Frack-Free California” logo, a blanket to sit on and your smart phone for our interactive social media booth to tweet at Jerry Brown. There will also be a 10ft tall mock fracking rig and other great ways to take action to stop fracking in California.
This event is not meant to be a rally, rather a day of action and community building. So please stop on by anytime between 12-3pm.
Hear the stories of how the German state infiltrated animal liberation struggles and spied on activists.
Second Sundays:
Interfaith prayer meeting for healing, dedicated to the survivors and victims of violence and police brutality in Oakland.
We are organizing this gathering for the community to connect, share prayers, writings and poems from all spiritual traditions, reflect and recharge and build coalitions interested in healing.
Please feel free to bring quotes or passages to share
All are welcome
We will serve simple breakfast.
“FROM DENZIL DOWELL TO MIKE BROWN..IT’S STILL GOIN DOWN”
48th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party
Panthers Speak
Panelists Perspectives
The 10 Point Platform
Fallen Comrades
“U.S. officials have portrayed the coup regime that came to power in Kiev, Ukraine, early this year as a beacon of democracy. These photos document a very different reality,” asserted Butterfield.’
“War crimes are being committed daily by the Kiev government against its own citizens, with funding and political support from Washington,” Butterfield charged. “People in the Donbass region and throughout Ukraine are resisting a far-right regime dedicated to austerity and NATO expansion to Russia’s border, which includes openly pro-Nazi elements.”
“Before we are dragged into a dangerous confrontation with Russia, poor and working people in the U.S. need to understand what our taxes are really paying for in Ukraine,” concluded Sara Flounders.
Light refreshments served, wheelchair accessible.
The rounding-up and deportation of immigrants, including children, is part of Mass Incarceration – it is a conscious policy that criminalizes Black and Latino peoples, and treats them as less than human. Families are torn apart and children are being sent back to countries from which they fled for their lives. Along with police murder, and the imprisonment of 2.4 million people, the vicious targeting of immigrants is part of a genocidal program that is accelerating in both numbers and brutality.
WE MUST STOP IT NOW!
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
Occupy Forum presents
Two films on the politics of food
Ripe for Change — a film by Emiko Omori &
Jed Riffe and Occupy the Farm (Trailer)
by Todd Darling
Ripe for Change: California — always a fascinating marriage of opposite extremes — is at a crossroads in agriculture. Many Californians are struggling to fend off over-development and the loss of farming lands and traditions while embracing innovative visions of agricultural sustainability. At the same time, California is where fast food was born and a center of the biotechnology industry and large corporate agribusiness. The debates raging in California over issues of food, agriculture, and sustainability have profound implications for all of America, especially in a world where scarcity is the norm and many natural resources are diminishing.
Ripe for Change explores the intersection of food and politics in California over the last 30 years. It illuminates the complex forces struggling for control of the future of California’s agriculture, and provides provocative commentary by a wide array of farmers, chefs, and noted authors and scientists. The film examines a host of questions: What are the trade-offs between the ability to produce large quantities of food versus the health of workers, consumers, and the planet? What are the hidden costs of “inexpensive” food? How do we create sustainable agricultural practices?
Through the window of food and agriculture, Ripe for Change reveals two parallel yet contrasting views of our world. One holds that large-scale agriculture, genetic engineering, and technology promise a hunger-less future. The other calls for a more organic, sustainable, and locally focused style of farming that reclaims the aesthetic and nurturing qualities of food and considers the impact of agriculture on the environment, on communities, and on workers.
Occupy the Farm will premier November 7th at the UA Berkeley (see link below — OccupyForum will preview the trailer!) On April 22, 2012, hundreds of urban farmers (and many Occupy peeps) marched onto the land in East Bay’s Gill Tract in Albany�an agricultural research center for the University and the last large piece of farmland in the East Bay, which had been marked for development by UC Berkeley. They brought 15,000 seedlings, farming equipment, camping gear and a powerful conviction about the human right to grow their own food and to connect with the land. Students, community members and even UC Berkeley professors and researchers joined forces to “take back the tract” and protect the land for important food research and as a valued public resource for access to land and agriculture.
On that same day, film director Todd Darling received a text about the protesters who were occupying the Gill Tract, and he grabbed his camera and followed their story for five months. Out of this was born Occupy The Farm, a documentary film about the plight and triumph of hundreds of urban farmers during their campaign to protect the tract from development. This film focuses on the human need for access to local agriculture, and shows the possibility that local communities can change the direction of powerful institutions and have a lasting impact on generations to come.
.
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/ripe_for_change
http://ediblesiliconvalley.com/2014-articles/occupy-the-farm/
WE DID IT! AFTER 14 MONTHS OF WORK, THE ZONING OVERLAY ORDINANCE PASSED ON SEPTEMBER 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.
Check out our correspondence with the President of the American Postal Workers Union, Mark Dimondstein. The APWU has been leading the charge against Staples.
For three 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.
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. The Post Office has ignored the report, recently selling historic Post Offices in The Bronx and Burlingame, CA.
We need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale!
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.
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.
Drawing upon work by both artists and social movements, Max Haiven will examine how debt and today’s debt-driven capitalism shape creativity and inhibit the true potential of creative communities.
Max Haiven teaches political economy and cultural studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax and is author ofCrises of Imagination, Crises of Power: Capitalism, Creativity and the Commons. With Alex Khasnabish, he directs the Halifax-based Radical Imagination Projecton Canada’s East Coast. Their book, The Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity, is published by Zed Books.
Moderated by artist Cassie Thornton
This event is part of the Omni’s Jubilee Year initiative.
This panel focuses on the latest trend we’ve seen of governments abusing their authority. More specifically, the panel will narrow its focus onto the increasing militarization of peace keepers in the United States. Through this panel we hope to complete two objectives: (1) shedding light on this issue for those who have been kept in the dark, and (2) showing those in attendance how best to plug and support the movement to end rampant militarization. We are targeting new lawyers and current law students.
**We encourage anyone who is interested to come! This issue affects all of us.**
Presented by Golden Gate University Black Law Student Association.
