Calendar
OccupyForum presents
Information, discussion & community!
Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
Rebels With a Cause:
A Film by Helen Garvy
Descended from the Intercollegiate Socialist Society started in 1905, SDS held its first meeting in 1960. Its political manifesto, the Port Huron Statement drafted by Tom Hayden, criticized the political system of the United States for failing to achieve international peace. It critiqued Cold War foreign policy, the threat of nuclear war, and the arms race. In domestic matters, it criticized racial discrimination, economic inequality, big businesses, trade unions and political parties. In addition to its critique and analysis of the American system, the manifesto also suggested reforms: a need to reshape into two genuine political parties, for stronger power for individuals through citizen’s lobbies, for more substantial involvement by workers in business management, and for an enlarged public sector with increased government welfare, including a “program against poverty.” The manifesto provided ideas of what and how to work for and to improve, and also advocated nonviolent civil disobedience as the means by which student youth could bring forth a “participatory democracy.”
Sound familiar?
But When, in 1965, United States President Johnson dramatically escalated the war in Vietnam, SDS held the first teach-in against the war, and then hundreds more, all over the country. SDS worked to organize the march against the war in Washington that attracted 25,000 anti-war protesters, and SDS became the leading student group against the war on most U.S. campuses.
SDS pursued civil-rights and anti-war activities, was in 1967 the scene of an SDS-generated free speech movement (the University Freedom Movement) that mobilized thousands of students in massive demonstrations and other activities and coordinated series of demonstrations against the draft.
In the spring of 1968, National SDS activists led an effort on the campuses called “Ten Days of Resistance” and local chapters cooperated with the Student Mobilization Committee in rallies, marches, sit-ins and teach-ins, which culminated in a one-day strike on April 26. About a million students stayed away from classes that day, the largest student strike in the history of the United States.
The student shutdown of Columbia University in New York, led by an inter-racial alliance of Columbia SDS chapter activists and Student Afro Society activists. As a result of the mass media publicity given to Columbia, SDS activists such as Columbia SDS chairperson Mark Rudd during the Columbia Student Revolt, the organization was put on the map politically and “SDS” became a household name.
SDS in San Francisco played a major role in the Third World Student Strike at San Francisco State College. This strike, the longest student strike in U.S. history, led to the creation of Black and other ethnic studies programs on campuses across the country.
A new incarnation of SDS was founded on January 16, 2006, and by 2010 had grown to over 150 chapters around the United States. It has held five national conventions to date, including the fifth in 2010.
Come watch Rebels with a Cause and find out how they did it!
Q&A and Announcements to follow.
Donations to OccupyForum gladly accepted; no one turned away!
The Human Rights Commission will hold a special mtg. to hear testimony/stories from those with encounters with the Richmond PD. The HRC is a sympathetic group. This meeting was requested by George Galvis and others in response the the recent shooting of Leno Gonzales by Richmond PD.
For more info. contact George Galvis with “Communities for Restorative Youth Justice”. Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice | Newsletter All are invited to attend this HRC mtg. on April 27th.
Abby and Evan will have a pre-trial hearing on the charges against them for participating in the BART shutdown on Bart Friday, part of a #BlackLivesMatter weekend of action.
Come stand in solidarity with them!
Come support Antoinette and Evan, arrested unjustly at the BART Friday action in January. BART police and SF Sheriffs targeted these two brave individuals while they were in custody. Particularly severe pain and trauma was caused to Antoinette, whose cane was stolen by BART PD, and despite repeated requests for mobility assistance, she was denied any help and police mocked her as they forced her to move about the BART station and jail without assistance. The proceedings are a farce. The judge has denied dismissing charges despite vague charges, lack of evidence and the brutal manner of arrest, and is proceeding with pretrial. Please come out and show the judge, BART police and SF Sheriffs that an injury to one is an injury to all.
Join us to celebrate Earth Day and San Francisco’s #cleanenergy future by rallying to tell city leaders we need to step up our game on climate action and launch #CleanPowerSF this year! (After talking about it since 2004.)
We’ll hear from community leaders, organizers, students, and residents about why launching CleanPower in 2015 is critical to the city taking meaningful climate action — then we’ll head into City Hall to tell policymakers in their 1:30 meeting that SF cannot wait any longer: we need a clean energy program for our city now!
Event Sponsors include:
San Francisco Green Party
Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice
Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club
Sierra Club, SF Bay Chapter
350 SF Bay Area
LEAN Energy US
San Francisco League of Conservation Voters
Our City
Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council
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Training 8
- Meeting People Where They’re At
- This training will teach participants how to be conscious of the experiences and conditions incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people face, in order to improve participants’ advocacy. Trainers will focus on methods to increase mindfulness and improve relationship building and advocacy skills during phone calls, correspondence, visits, and other support activities. Examples will be drawn from experiences at CDCR Women’s facilities.
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- RSVP & Survey: Please complete to shape venue, content, and number of copies for the series.
Email List Sign up for announcements here http://eepurl.com/7WwfL - Materials, resources, and flyers for this training series are available here http://caitlinkellyhenry.com/support/
Cost If you can afford to, please donate to cover expenses http://www.nlgsf.org/contribute.
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Invite Here https://www.facebook.com/events/421294274710875
- Windy Click, California Coalition for Women Prisoners Coordinating Committee Leader, Parole Support Coordinator, Spitfire Speaker’s Bureau Coordinator http://www.womenprisoners.org/about/. Windy is a survivor of prison and prisoner rights organizer. She was released in 2012 from Valley State Prison for Women where she did 17 years on a 15 to life sentence. Windy was a leader inside prison educating on Domestic Violence and Health Education. She has been a member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners for the past 13 years.
- Samantha Rogers, Program Coordinator, California Coalition for Women Prisoners http://www.womenprisoners.org/about/ (bio forthcoming)
- Nora E. Wilson, Director of Legal Advocacy, Justice Now http://jnow.org/who.html is a prison abolitionist, attorney, and human rights activist. As Director of Legal Advocacy at Justice Now, she coordinates direct service provision to people in prison, trains future lawyers and activists in advocating for people in California prisons, and provides support to family and friends advocating for loved ones inside. Such support ensures people in prison and communities targeted for imprisonment the physical and emotional respite required to take part in Justice Now’s systemic change activities. Nora grew up in a conservative town in the deep South and learned from watching her mother advocate on behalf of a family member in prison. During law school, she discovered the most meaningful work she had ever undertaken through an internship with National Advocates for Pregnant Women, where she worked to secure the human and civil rights, health, and welfare of pregnant and parenting women who were suffering harm at the hands of the criminal justice system. After law school, Nora moved from the East Coast to become a proud resident of the East Bay. She began volunteering with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children in San Francisco and soon discovered Justice Now. Nora continued her legal training at Justice Now for over a year before she became a Staff Attorney, specializing in provision of direct services and medical advocacy on behalf of people in women’s prisons, as well as compassionate release advocacy and support on behalf of terminally ill and permanently incapacitated people in California prisons. In January 2015, when Justice Now adopted a collective staff structure, Nora transitioned to the role of Director of Legal Advocacy. She received her BA in Political Science from the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia and her JD from Fordham University School of Law in New York City.
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Come make May Day banners and Picket Signs with us at the Omni to the May Day #SHUTITDOWN activities in Oakland!
Can’t paint? You can support us by bringing paint, brushes, fabric, flag poles, ect.
You will also be able to pick up May Day flyers for last minute distribution!
Oakland Spring Rising
All Food is Medicine ~ All Water is Sacred
40 Farms in 40 Days
beginning May 1st, 2015
Mission:
The Mission of Oakland Spring Rising is to support existing community groups and new urban farmers to grow as much nutritious food in an urban setting as possible.
Goals:
To grow 100 pounds of healthy, organic produce for 400,000 people per year using available vacant land in Oakland. In order to achieve this, Oakland Spring Rising was formed to be a hub for material & knowledge transfer between those who have grown plants & mushrooms, who have kept bees & chickens & goats, and those who want to. Oakland Spring Rising first initiative will be to initiate 40 Farms in 40 days, beginning May 1st, 2015.
Vision:
In order to achieve the Mission, we will offer resources to all community members who wish to receive assistance. Oakland Spring Rising acknowledges that urban agriculture and nutrition exist within ongoing struggles against private property and gentrification in Oakland. With this in mind, we support food insecure communities that want to grow healthy food and medicine. Amidst catastrophic weather instability, Oakland Spring Rising acknowledges that the healthier a community’s food, the healthier their decisions.
Oakland Spring Rising has the following as its primary methods of enabling community resiliency
Soil Testing – nearly all urban soils have some degree of toxicity. Oakland Spring Rising seeks to develop community based strategies for testing and treating toxic & damaged soils using plants, beneficial soil bacteria & mushrooms. Methods for dealing with many toxins are new, and Oakland Spring Rising seeks to make Oakland the largest and most successful urban soil remediation on the planet.
Food – In areas where the soil is appropriate for growing food, Oakland Spring Rising will offer free plants & compost to communities wishing to farm. In areas where the soil needs repair, Oakland Spring Rising will offer suggestions for soil remediation, along with materials for raised beds, free plants & compost, in order to ensure that community members wishing to grow food will still be able to. Where possible, Oakland Spring Rising will use hugelkuulture beds, to encourage water retention.
Animals – Most animal products consumed by people in the United States are laden with toxins. Oakland Spring Rising seeks to provide 100% local & organic eggs to any site wishing to raise chickens. Where appropriate, Oakland Spring Rising will offer workshops and education on tending goats in an urban setting, with an intention towards getting more goats into the community.
Medicine – The modern medical system is a system of disempowerment. Oakland Spring Rising will provide herbal plant medicines to assist community members with all aspects of health.
BioChar – Where appropriate, Oakland Spring Rising will provide Biochar to community farms. Biochar assists in soil fertility and soil microbial life and is available at little to no cost, aside from transportation, as an industrial byproduct.
Mushrooms – Oakland Spring Rising seeks to transport spent mushroom logs to community members who are interested in growing culinary and medicinal mushrooms in Oakland, as well as using mycelium for mycoremediation & soil restoration. Oakland Spring Rising will also serve as a knowledge conduit for any knowledge transfer that community members request.
To Get Involved
Email: oaklandspringrising@gmail.com
Phone: David @ (530) 840-1840
nternational Workers Day Regional Festival and March
1:30-3:30 Festival @ Civic Center Plaza
3:30 Regional March to 24th and Mission
5:00-5:30 Closing program @ 24th and Mission
Silicon Valley De-Bug’s Class Conscious Photographers and Studio Grand present the opening night of:
Eyes on the Movement:
Images from Bay Area Activist Photographers
Powered by working class people and captured by photographers embedded in these struggles.
Photography, music, cultural performances, and refreshments. Special digital slideshow photo exhibit from that day’s May 1st marches.
Photographers include Brooke Anderson, David Bacon, Jenny Cain, Charisse Domingo, Elizabeth Gonzalez, Isabel Gonzalez, Najib Joe Hakim, Jean Leasiolagi, Abraham Menor, Antonio Nava, Karen Ng, Ronald Orlando, Leopoldo Pena, Daniel Zapien.
The war in Viet Nam was one of the most important historical events of the 20th century. It brings to light the heroic struggle of Vietnamese people against foreign aggression, particularly the United States of America.
The Viet Nam Victory Coalition (VNVC), formed in 2014, is hosting a Community Event: “The Spirit of Viet Nam is Stronger than U.S. Bombs” – a day-full of cultural, educational & powerful sharing to mark the 40th anniversary of the US military’s forced departure from Viet Nam and international struggle for self-determination.
PLEASE REGISTER HERE:
https://
Our purpose:
• Highlight the historical meaning and ongoing significance of people’s struggles for independence and against imperial domination.
• Inform and continue to educate ourselves and all who seek to understand this history, to explore its relevance to the present and future, and to keep abreast of the current strategy of the US empire in Asia and abroad.
• Connect and celebrate our humanity with music, poetry, spoken word, and with dialogues and discussion, panels and workshops, and share our story.
Join us in solidarity with the May Day Rally on May 1st in SF (more details to come). March with us!
The space (rooms, bathrooms, etc.) is fully ADA accessible.
Rally in solidarity with Baltimore and the fight for justice for Freddie Gray. All across the country on Saturday May 2nd folks will be in the streets to demand that the war on black folks must end! Come get in the streets! #blackspring #freddiegray
Come to a meeting about what we learn from the real history of May Day, the Marxist traditions of working class organizing in America and discuss what we need to do today to continue the fight.
Followed by a social/fundraiser for the Socialism 2015 conference. www.socialismconference.org
Help make art to support the Refinery Corridor Healing Walks! Come help paint a 24-foot parachute banner with this years Healing Walk image and hand-paint t-shirts (if you got this years Healing Walk t-shirt or patch bring it and paint it–or the feathers on it). Wear clothes you can get paint on.
Here is the Facebook event to RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/982279841804638/
Come support 3 comrades still in custody who were arrested during May Day actions and are facing felony charges.
Share, invite, show up and support! Thousands of people went out to protest this weekend, and there were many arrests, but unsurprisingly, the folks who were held and face serious charges are black and brown. Part of fighting white supremacy is standing in solidarity with those who racist systems try to oppress.
FIELD TRIP: OccupyForum is co-sponsoring Kathy Kelly this coming Monday
Sponsored by: SF Friends Peace and Social Concerns Committee; Voices for Creative Nonviolence, ECUMENICAL PEACE INSTITUTE/CALC, EMERGENCY, AFSC, Vets for Peace, Occupy Forum, Campaign Nonviolence and Code Pink
Kathy Kelly
The Raft and the Shore:
Crossing Borders to Abolish War
During the war in Vietnam, two venerable peacemakers, Thich Nhat Hanh and Daniel Berrigan, SJ, exchanged ideas about nonviolent resistance to war in a book entitled: The Raft is Not the Shore. Drawing on experiences living alongside people trapped in war zones and in U.S. prisons, (most recently in Afghanistan, and in federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky), Kathy Kelly will discuss what she as learned from people bearing the brunt of what Martin Luther King termed “the triple evils” of racism, militarism, and poverty.
Kathy Kelly will be introduced by Sherri Maurin who has just returned from Afghanistan. Both travel as representatives of Voices for Creative Nonviolence and are hosted in Kabul by the Afghan Peace Volunteers.
Wheelchair accessible
Potluck
dessert
:Bring a dish
Deep Web, a film about “Silk Road” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace), online communications and commerce, is to be screened at SF International Film Festival. Cindy Cohn, legal director of EFF is scheduled to appear at the 9:00 PM, May 4 screening. More information below and at: http://www.sffs.org/sfiff58/program/deep-web#.VUQAtqbVmJ0.
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- About the film:
- Director Alex Winter, a well-known actor and a leading advocate for an open internet, lucidly investigates the implications of online technologies and the gray legal areas of anonymous communications and commerce by focusing primarily on the history and demise of online black market website Silk Road. In addition to documenting the federal trial of Silk Road’s purported founder and owner, San Francisco-based Ross Ulbricht, allegedly known to Silk Road’s users as the Dread Pirate Roberts, Winter weaves in the perspectives of futurists, journalists and legal experts. A bastion for privacy advocates and cybercriminals alike, the “deep web” refers to a place on the internet where cutting-edge technologies mask participants’ identities and facilitate secret activities. As such the deep web exposes the contradictory goals and potential conflicts between free speech advocates and government regulators. Winter’s previous documentary, Downloaded deftly detailed the history and impacts that online file sharing has had on culture, the law and music/media industries. With Deep Web, Winter presents a perfect companion piece while telling a true story of espionage, surveillance and activism taking place at the digital frontier. �Sean Uyehara
- Director Alex Winter (May 3, May 4) and presenters John Perry Barlow (May 4), Susie Cagle (May 4) and Cindy Cohn (May 3, May 4) expected to attend.
This Tuesday the Oakland City Council decides whether or not to sell off the East 12th parcel to private developers. Join us for a rally at City Hall to demand that public land be used for public good, not for private profit!
Background
In the midst of a housing affordability crisis in Oakland, the City is proposing to sell publicly owned land to private developers UDR and Urban Core to create a 24 story, 300 unit luxury high-rise apartment tower right by Lake Merritt, where the median rent will be 3k per month. The development will have no affordable units and no real community benefits. The property is on E12th and 1st Ave street, right by the new pedestrian bridge at the end of Lake Merritt.
Long-time residents are being pushed out of Oakland every day because of skyrocketing housing costs. The city’s number one priority right now should be figuring out how to make it possible for working families to stay in Oakland – not developing luxury high rises for the rich that are just going to raise rents and exacerbate displacement.
May 5th come rally for development without displacement in Oakland now! Stay for the City Council meeting to speak out against gentrification in Oakland and for affordable housing!
These local organizations, representing the people Oakland endorse this fight!
Asians4BlackLives
Asian Pacific Environmental Network
Black.Seed
Causa Justa Just Cause
Classroom Struggle
Communities for a Better Environment
Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice
East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy
East Bay Housing Organizations
East Bay Solidarity Network
Eastlake United for Justice
Oakland Education Association
Oakland Rising
Oakland Tenants Union
Public Advocates
SEIU 1021
Transform
Thank you all for your support and your work! #SaveE12th