Calendar
Next Saturday the art activists of Animals Against Extinction will unfurl a striking banner at the pedestrian overpass at University Avenue at I-80, Berkeley. The banner will focus the attention of thousands of drivers on the ongoing threats that climate change poses to all living species.
If you’d like to be a part of this action, please gather at noon Saturday, March 21 at Sea Breeze Cafe at the foot of University and Frontage Road, immediately west of I-80.
This action will also serve as a dress rehearsal for actions at First Friday in Oakland, and the Earth Day celebration in Martinez (at the site of Shell and Tesoro) on April 18th. We will expose Big Oil’s murderous role in contributing to the climate crisis.
7th Open Circle ~Connect & Collaborate on Ending Police Brutality,
Systemic Racism and Disenfranchisement of Black People & People of Color
Let’s kick this meeting off with a potluck at 3:00 pm followed by the Open Circle at 3:45 pm. Please bring a dish or snacks to share!
Open circle will begin with report backs and announcements of upcoming actions followed by reflection and dialogue around the current state and thoughts or approaches on how to effect change.
We will end with breakout group topics and time to connect with folks with similar interests. Some great affinity groups have formed out of the breakout groups segment. Solidarity is afoot so bring your ideas!
Notes from last meeting:
omnicommons.org/connect
Get involved with the fight against solitary confinement.
Become a human rights pen pal: Contact cws@igc.org
Come learn about continuing developments in the battle save the Berkeley Post Office and the Postal Service from privatization, support our Occupiers and help us plan our next steps in opposition to the theft of our public commons.
The postal service wanted to sell the post office to Hudson-mcdonald, a local developer. The City of Berkeley sued the post office to stop the sale. Hudson-mcdonald backed out of the deal in early december.
Get an overview of the sale announcement here. Here’s a good more general overview piece.
There was a hearing in Federal Court on December 11th.
Their will have been another hearing on March 19th. The federal judge will decide whether the lawsuit will continue or be dismissed – he’ll decide sometime after March 19th. We’ll be discussing the judge’s decision if he’s made it at this meeting, and our response.
Check out the Community Garden at the Post Office.
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.
The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly builds community and power among those who seek higher wages and better work life conditions for area workers. We meet every second and fourth Tuesday of the month at the SEIU Local 1000 union hall, 1433 Webster Street, 2nd Floor in downtown Oakland. These assembly meetings occur from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm.
Our work together encompasses:
- (1) the concerns of precarious, contingent and care workers;
- (2) current campaigns to improve wages for low-wage workers; and
- (3) efforts by unionized workers and unions to improve wages and quality of work life.
At this meeting we will be planning an action at OGP on April 15th (4/15 = FOR $15) in tandem with other actions around the East Bay and converging on a huge FF15 rally to commence at 4:00 PM at UC Berkeley.
We share stories and information in an egalitarian and participatory way to build relationships and build the movement.
We look forward to learning with you and making change for the better. Please love and support one another. We have a duty to fight. We have a duty to win.
We’ll be discussing the Debt and Economic systems of the ancient world for this meeting, using an article written by Michael Hudson.
Here’s the reading. Reconstructing The Origins of Interest-Bearing Debt… Last time we read through page 30, and this we’ll cover the rest of the chapter.
The Politics of Debt Reading Group is associated with the Bay Area Public School and Strike Debt Bay Area.
Everyone is encouraged to come to People’s Park Friday, March 27th, beginning at 6:00 AM throughout the entire day, as the scheduled tree cutting will last until 3.
At 6AM Thursday morning, the Professional Tree Care Company arrived at People’s Park accompanied by the Berkeley Police Department. They surrounded the area with orange fencing and brought their wood chippers in. Over the course of the day, the work crew proceeded to begin chopping down three oak trees and a few other trees including a plum sapling. A UC landscape architect named David A. Johnson watched over the whole affair pointing out which trees should be cut down.
At noon several defenders arrived at the park. They watched as limbs were severed from a perfectly healthy tree. We yelled at David Johnson as he directed the workers and handed out fliers explaining why they were cutting down the trees. Soon after he was confronted and tried to excuse himself saying “I was defending people’s park pulling up concrete in 1969.” We told him plainly that he sold out and there should at least have been a meeting with the community about the trees. He went back and forth about how many trees were scheduled to be cut down but we confirmed with other sources that the total was 29 over the weekend.
As workers used their cherry picker to begin cutting down branches one of the defenders stood under the branch being cut and the worker yelled for them to get out but the defender refused. The worker stopped and came down to tell management to call over the nearby police. Soon the cops biked over and told the activists to move from under the tree but the defender refused while saying it was their legal right to be on the side walk. The arborist went to cut down a different tree but the same thing happened there as well. We mournfully watch as a plum sapling was uprooted by a tow rope pulling the whole tree straight into the chipper. As more people began to show up in opposition to the project, management decided to call it a day and pack up. After the landscaper David Johnson told the cops to make sure no homeless people slept within the fence line saying that the bedding of mulch was for the trees not the people.
People will be meeting at the People’s Park stage at 9 PM Thursday evening to discuss possible next steps. We strongly encourage everyone to come by People’s Park tomorrow at 6 AM to prevent further damage to the park. Everyone is encouraged to come to People’s Park tomorrow throughout the entire day, as the scheduled tree cutting will last until 3.
In the meantime, here are some numbers to call and ask that the park not be desecrated:
David A. Johnson (Assistant Director, Project Management)
510-642-7533
Christine Shaff (UC Berkeley Real Estate)
510-643-4793
A Downtown Berkeley Association (DBA) employee (now fired) attacked a homeless person some days ago. The DBA has essentially declared war on the homeless in downtown Berkeley, pushing the City Council to enact and enforce ordinances meant to criminalize the homeless.
A call has gone out to protest the DBA as a result of the incident caught on video below (trigger warning):
police killing is a problem…. and we are starting to realize it. but we need to come out and show that realization, show our frustration…. I don’t know were we’re marching exactly, something like the millions march, I just hope people show up and we take it from there.
theres too many names to list here of all the dead but here are a few. RIP DAVID BREMER RIP OSCAR GRANT RIP ERIC GARNER AND ERIC DORNER, RIP THE WHITE N TRANSGENDER KILLED RIP THE MENTALLY DISABLED WHO ARE KILLED RIP KELLY THOMAS RIP THE MISSING 43, REMEMBER MR PATEL THE INDIAN MAN BEATEN IN MADISON, RIP SHAIMAA AL-SABBAGH!RIP TO ALL AROUND THE WORLD.
I don’t care for looting or destruction of property, were coming for the police… not anybody else… nobodys mom and pop OR whole foods has done shit to us… so lets not break their stuff.
all I have left to say is this poem I wrote about police brutality…I hope it means something to somebody…
Im sick of people dying
Im sick of people dying as you can guess just from the title,
I hope that people hit the streets and attempts iv made are vital,
I try to hit the heart say “its your boy were fighting for”, n people say they’ll come today but never come I scorn, I really hold resentment about the way that people talk, cause then when it comes down to it they don’t fuckin walk the walk….to me its really simple as I look around the world, Bahrain and Gaza/Israel the CAR abroad, Remember Ali Baddah, n FREE Nabeel Rajab and watch for things to escalate the Kurds just want auton, the shits short for autonomy, we want it all the same, so viva Kurdistan and all resistance to the state, resistance to oppression, and resistance to ideas, that land kids just walking home in mourges with grieving peoples, im talking bout the boy, 14 and walking home, n Turkish Special Forces shot him n no not in the dome, they shot him in the heart, and it went out through his spine, n what he did was nothing, he didn’t do a crime, he just really didn’t know that there were soldiers on the line, n that on his way from work hed turn that corner n a dime, it seems it was the wrong corner n BOOM the rifle shot, and now I sit here as a mourner my moral begins to rot, but I remember that the struggle cant be brought down by the evil, the shit we struggle hard against so please bring out the people, Im sick of people dying as you can tell just from the title, so FUCK THE PEOPLE KILLING US ill say it with a smile….
I hope ALL types show up wear black for the fallen, this IS everybodys problem…lets show them we get that. power to the people VIVA LA REVOLUCION!
police_beating.jpg
SF and Mayor Ed Lee will be hosting the 83rd U.S. Conference of Mayors, June 19th – June 22nd, in San Francisco.
SF Action Council is focusing on creating events around their meeting.
This is an opportunity to raise issues locally and nationally that are of concern to us, THE PEOPLE, that the mayors have resisted and refused to act upon – or acted against the interest of The People. For instance: “Black Lives Matter”, police militarization and excessive use of force, gentrification of our communities, homelessness, racism, immigration, privatization of our commons, homophobia, trans-phobia, the People’s taxes being spent on wars enriching the 1% and not serving the people and more.
All are welcome to help plan for actions as equal participants, OccupySF Action Council is merely acting as a central hub for organizational purposes.
Meetings Every Sunday, 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Get involved with the fight against solitary confinement.
Become a human rights pen pal: Contact cws@igc.org
- March to OUSD HQ at 1000 Broadway.
- Better Contracts for Students and Teachers.
- Keep Public Schools Public.
- Hard Caps for Special Eduction.
- Money for School Sites not Upper Administration.
- Counselors not Cops.
Which way for the ILWU-
Militant Unionism or Business Unionism?
Since October 2014 the bodies of 55 immigrants were found in the Rio Grande River Valley in Texas and 15 other bodies were pulled from the waters of the Rio Grande River.
These were people trying to cross one of the most militarized borders in the world.
Amilcar Perez-Lopez, Guatemalan immigrant was unjustly killed by SFPD on February 26.
Antonio Zambrano was brutally executed by Pasco, Washington police on February 10.
2059 immigrants were arrested nationwide by ICE agents in “Operation Cross Check”.
We are having an orientation for our hands-on study group. The focus of the project is both analytical and activist. As a group, we will develop an understanding of the relationship between gentrification and police violence thru readings, workshops and discussions. At the same time, we will be developing and implementing strategies in our neighborhoods that seek to discourage other people that are new to Oakland from calling the cops. It will last about 3 months
March and Forum for Ayotzinapa
Community March:
Mission and 16th Sts.
1:30pm- Danzantes welcome the community
2pm- Start of the rally
2:30pm- March starts towards 24th St.
Community Forum:
Buena Vista Horace Mann Elementary
3351 23rd St., between Bartlett and Valencia Sts.
4-6pm
Saturday, April 4th, San Francisco welcomes the families of the 43 students disappeared by the Mexican government this past September, 2014, joining with their demand for justice with their caravan throughout the US.
We are in solidarity with their struggle and welcome everyone to a community and family-friendly march from 16th St. to 24th St. on Saturday, April 4th. This march is called for 2pm and will arrive at Buena Vista Horace Mann (3351 23rd St.) where a community forum organized by KPOO, Radio Bilingüe and Rompeviento TV USA, will be held. Here, all attendees will learn about the atrocities committed by the Mexican State as well as the struggle for justice. Ayotzinapa is the most recent and horrific example of a State that exercises violence with impunity against its citizens and social justice fighters.
We also recognize our own experiences in the United States where police kill our people in the streets, just as the case of Almicar, or any other community, especially the Black community.
Its time to say, “Stop State-Sponsored Terror in the Mission, San Francisco, the Bay Area, California and throughout the United States! Justice for all victims of State violence! A State that disappears and murders its own citizens does not deserve to govern! The Mission stands with Ayotzinapa! Stop State-sponsored terror on both sides of the border!
Special thanks to the United Educators of San Francisco for their support in sponsoring this community event.
Initiated by:
Bay Area Committee in Solidarity with Ayotzinapa
Get involved with the fight against solitary confinement.
Become a human rights pen pal: Contact cws@igc.org
Come learn about continuing developments in the battle save the Berkeley Post Office and the Postal Service from privatization, support our Occupiers and help us plan our next steps in opposition to the theft of our public commons.
The postal service wanted to sell the post office to Hudson-Mcdonald, a local developer. The City of Berkeley sued the post office to stop the sale. Hudson-mcdonald backed out of the deal in early december.
Get an overview of the sale announcement here. Here’s a good more general overview piece.
There was a hearing in Federal Court on December 11th.
There was another hearing in March 26th.
Federal Judge William Alsup will decide whether the lawsuit will continue or be dismissed – he’ll decide sometime after April 2nd, when the Post Office gets back to him on whether they are willing to rescind their decision to sell. We’ll be discussing the judge’s decision if he’s made it at this meeting, and our response.
Check out the Community Garden at the Post Office.
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.
Check calendar to verify and for location
Help organize to defend public education! Remove the dictatorship and demand an end to downsizing, pushout policies, austerity, and attacks on diversity, and the cancellation of the construction of the Performing Arts Education Center.