Calendar
During the accreditation crisis, City College students and workers fought alongside our community for CCSF. Now Administration intends to shrink classes by 26%, layoff more than a quarter of the faculty, and refuses to negotiate a fair faculty contract. Help us defend a City College for everyone!
1:30 PM: MARCH for CCSF
from CCSF Downtown (88 4th St. @ Mission)
to CCSF Civic Center (1170 Market St. @ UN Plaza)
2:00 PM: RALLY for CCSF
A National Day of Action on November 12th.
The #MillionStudentMarch demands three key things:
1 – Tuition-free public college
2 – Cancellation of all student debt
3 – $15/hr campus-wide minimum wage at every college in the country
The United States is the richest country in the world, yet students have to take on crippling debt in order to get a college education. We need change, and change starts in the streets when the people demand it.
Over 40 million Americans share a total of $1.2 trillion in student debt and over half of that is held by the poorest 25 percent of Americans. While top administrators take home six and seven figure salaries, campus workers are paid poverty wages.
The 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education reaffirmed California’s prior commitment to the principle of tuition-free education to residents of the State. This is not happening. The UC is a public university system under attack by predatory lenders, ignorant corporate leadership, and the forces of capitalism that oppress students and promote inequality of race, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status.
We will no longer sit idly by. #MillionStudentMarch will be a day of local actions united to show support for the above demands. Imagine the message we could send to the government and the corporate establishment if we have marches at hundreds of colleges. Education should be a human right and we’re willing to fight for it! Join the march, join the movement! With students, college graduates, and workers united we can build a movement capable of winning debt-free college for all and a $15/hr minimum wage for all campus workers!
If you or your organization would like to sponsor or be part of planning for this action, please contact the organizers at eavporganizing@asuc.org.
Newly revised: Zara’s Faith
by Marc Sapir
Featuring Kenia Serrano Puig, President of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) and Member of the Cuban Parliament.
Others to speak, Dra. Laura Gomez recently graduated from the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba, Richmond Councilwoman Gayle McLaughlin and others.
Door open at 6:30 PM.
Dear Healthcare Activist,
I hope you can attend a presentation on ColoradoCare on Nov 14.
`
The San Francisco & East Bay branches
of the California Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program
are proud to present journalist and health reform advocate
T.R. REID
well-known author of
The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care
Speaking about ColoradoCare a citizen’s initiative to provide
affordable, high quality health care for all Colorado residents
going before voters of Colorado in November 2016
more info: http://coloradocareyes.co
Refreshments will be served
Description of the program
ColoradoCare is a ballot initiative for a publicly financed, universal health plan for the state of Colorado that would be operated by a private cooperative under a 21-person elected Board. While the ballot measure spells out the program’s governance and Board structure in considerable detail, key aspects of the program are not specified, and/or left to the discretion of the Board. In the past the drafters made clear in public statements that ColoradoCare is NOT a single-payer plan.
The initiative would cover all Colorado residents under a publicly funded, cooperative insurance plan. While the new program would replace most private insurance, Medicaid and CHIP coverage, it would serve only as supplemental coverage for those covered by Medicare, the VA and TriCare. The initiative would not prohibit the purchase or sale of private coverage duplicating the public plan. However, proponents expect that little private insurance would persist, since most businesses and individuals would not want to pay twice for coverage.
The proposal would cover a broad range of benefits, but would not cover dental care for adults, or long-term care for most individuals.
ColoradoCare would be funded via a payroll tax of 6.67 percent on employers and 3.33 on employees, or 10 percent of non-payroll income (excluding pensions and annuities), along with federal funds that would have come to the state via subsidies for private coverage under the Affordable Care Act, for Medicaid, and for other programs.
The drafting of ColoradoCare was spearheaded by Colorado Sen. Irene Aguilar and psychologist Ivan Miller. Volunteers and paid staff gathered the signatures necessary to put it on the ballot. Journalist T.R. Reid has become a champion and spokesperson for the plan both inside and outside of Colorado.
Strengths of ColoradoCare
- The proposal if implemented would cover all, or nearly all of Colorado’s uninsured, apparently (and laudably) including the undocumented.
- The proposal includes some useful cost-control features, notably the creation of an annual budget, and the ability to negotiate lower prices with pharmaceutical companies.
- The plan allows for a free choice of primary care doctor.
- The financing plan is more progressive than the current system.
- ColoradoCare’s organizers have mounted an impressive campaign with considerable mobilization.
Weaknesses of ColoradoCare
- Multiple payers would persist – probably including private insurers. As a result, it sacrifices much of the administrative savings that could be realized through a true single- payer reform because providers would have to maintain much of their current cost-tracking and billing apparatus in order to apportion costs among the multiple payers. Published cost estimates for ColoradoCare overstate the savings that could be achieved through single payer, and do not take into account the additional costs entailed by ColoradoCare’s failure to adopt a full single-payer structure.
- The initiative makes no mention of how hospitals or other institutions would be paid – apart from a rhetorical nod favoring ACOs. It makes no mention of global budgeting, separating operating and capital payments, or other constraints on hospital capital spending. Global budgeting is critical to achieving administrative savings; separating operating and capital payments is a bedrock of effective health planning, which is essential for long-term cost containment.
- The initiative would not ban for-profit hospitals or other providers, despite clear evidence that they inflate costs and compromise quality. For-profit ACOs (indistinguishable from HMOs in most respects) might also flourish.
- The initiative specifies that patients would have a free choice of primary care physicians, but makes no mention of whether the choice of specialist or hospital could be restricted.
- While the plan would outlaw deductibles, the Board could impose copayments.
- While the 10 percent tax rate would apply to both the rich and poor (including those with incomes below the poverty line), income over $350,000 would not be taxed.
- The campaign’s anti-government rhetoric is problematic.
- Rather than specifying critical aspects of the plan, the initiative leaves many of these to be decided later by the Board. Delaying such decisions has often favored corporate interests, who can intervene after the popular mobilization required to pass a reform has subsided. In the case of the ACA, corporate lobbying during the rule-making process attenuated cuts in Medicare HMO overpayments; reduced promised funding for public health and community clinics; effectively neutered limits on insurance overhead; and watered down the mandated benefit package. In Vermont, the broad-brush program initially passed by the legislature was whittled down in the detailed design stage, leading to rising cost estimates and ultimate rejection by the governor.
Dr. Ida Hellander is director of health policy and programs at Physicians for a National Health Program. Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler are internists, professors at the City University of New York School of Public Health, lecturers in medicine at Harvard Medical School, and co-founders of PNHP.
PNHP note: While there have been numerous articles about the ColoradoCare plan, one by Michael Corcoran, published by Truthout on Oct. 20, is among the most comprehensive.
Join Gill Tract Farmers and Jasmine Fuego for a whirlwind day at the Grand Lake Farmer’s Market, to celebrate real farmers and help us call out greenwashers Sprouts “Farmers Market”!
10am-2pm: We’ll be photographing and taking testimony from real farmers and the eaters who support them, to highlight their successes, and to let them know about the imminent invasion of Sprouts “Farmers Market”, a national big-box that is not only anchoring the development project that threatens to pave the southern 7 acres of the historic Gill Tract, but also is greenwashing the hard work these farmers do everyday to create real farmer’s markets.
NOON: Performance artist and co-founder of the Permaculture Action Tour, Jasmine Fuego, will lead us in a rehersal and first performance of a Dance Disruption, to Michael Jackson’s Beat It. Find us at Eastshore Park, at the corner of Macarthur Blvd & Grand Avenue to rehearse, and in the meantime watch Jasmine’s video to learn the basic moves:https://www.youtube.com/
Alameda Renters Coalition Calls for Immediate Withdrawal
of Eviction Notices at 470 Central Avenue
The Alameda Renters Coalition will hold a press conference Saturday, November 14, 2105 at 2:00 PM at the apartment complex with the families of the Bayview Apartments in attendance.
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The ink was barely dry on Alameda’s unanimously approved rent increase and eviction moratorium when all tenants of the Bayview Apartments, a 34-unit complex at 470 Central Ave. in Alameda, were told they were being kicked out.
On Nov. 7th, residents at Bayview Apartments were given notices of termination of tenancy telling them all to move out by January 8, 2016, forcing them to pack up their homes over the holiday season and disrupting the education of some 16 students in the middle of the school year.
Sridhar Equities of San Jose, owner of the complex for less than a month, said in the notice that tenants needed to leave their homes so they could “perform work on the building.” The notice was given despite the fact that the new owner hadn’t even applied to the city for permits for construction at the 470 Central Avenue address according to city officials.
Sridhar did repost notices on Veteran’s Day changing the move-out day to Jan. 11, assumedly to avoid conflict with the city’s new 65-day moratorium on evictions. Vietnam Veteran Mike Sabo, a resident of Bayview Apartments, said that getting that notice was “like a spear in the heart.”
Alameda Renters Coalition demands, on behalf of the families and residents at 470 Central Avenue, that Sridhar Equities withdraw all termination notices. Essential repairs on the apartments can be done with tenants remaining in their homes.
The Coalition will hold a press conference Saturday, November 14, 2105 at 2:00 PM at the apartment complex with the families of the Bayview Apartments in attendance.
“This tight-knit community, where most children attend school next door at Paden Elementary School, is in danger of being completely torn apart,” said Catherine Pauling, spokesperson for Alameda Renters Coalition. “Sridhar is just using this as a smokescreen for evictions to get immediate high market rates. This callous disregard for Alamedan families is not acceptable to our community and demonstrates why renters need protections”
– Alameda Renters Coalition
Alameda Renters Coalition is a group of Alameda city residents who recognize housing as a basic need and seek to bring housing stability to our community.
Come to this meeting to discuss Socialist politics, watch a special video from Kshama Sawant, and hear from local organizers of Socialist Alternative.
“We need a new party of the 99%”
We have a duty to fight. We have a duty to win.
Salt of the Earth (1954) provides one of the best examples of blacklisted filmmaking in the 1950s. Few films were so affected, from every possible direction, by the House Un-American Activities Committees proceedings. For one thing, the movie focused on a highly controversial topic – labor relations – in its story of Chicano workers in a New Mexico zinc mine. When Anglo workers are given higher wages and safer conditions, the Chicanos go on strike to receive the same treatment. The film follows not just their strike but how the workers’ wives become involved as well.
Join us for discussion and food after the viewing.
The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly builds community and power among those who seek higher wages and better work life conditions for area workers.
Click to download printable 4/1 flyer
The Howard Zinn Book Fair, now in its second year will welcome over 140 authors and 50 publishers to a day celebrating the work of legendary historian Howard Zinn, author of The People’s History of the United States. Last year more than 1500 attended this free public event and we expect an even bigger crowd this year.
Our keynote address will be delivered by two giants in the fight for civil rights: Award-winning historian Dr. Clayborne Carson and Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza. They will be introduced by Dr. Nicholas Baham III, author of The Coltrane Church: Apostles of Sound, Agents of Social Justice.
This year’s tributes to the author of A People’s History of the United States include sessions led by David Barsamian of Alternative Radio and Voices of a People’s History co-author Anthony Arnove, as well as a special participatory reading of Marx in Soho by our very own local activists the Renounce War Project.
Keeping with the precedent we set last year, the Book Fair includes local, national and international authors and activists, such as Rebecca Solnit, David Talbot, Rachel Cassandra, Lauren Gucik, David Zirin, the Revolutionary Poets Brigade, and a special reading of Terry Bisson’s screen play Kansas Brown, featuring Peter Coyote.
Our complete program is available at: http://
and our growing list of sponsors includes: University of California Press, Seven Stories Press, AK Press, City Light Publishers, Haymarket Books, Heyday Books, Eastwind Books, PM Press, Verso Books, Ithuriel’s Spear, Reading Partners, and the SEIU 1021 Peace & Justice Committee.
And to top it all off, we are presenting a Firebrand Records Showcase at Oakland’s Omni Commons the night before the fair, featuring The Last Internationale, Son of Nun, Built For the Sea and Ryan Harvey. These dynamic acts will be joined by the Bay Area’s premier political Hip-Hop band, Mass Bass and MC’d by poet Ananda Esteva. Expect performances by surprise guests. Tickets available in advance at: http://
For more information about the program or if you are a publisher or organization who would like to participate, please contact us atwww.HowardZinnBookFair.com
New anti-homeless ordinances are being introduced to City Council at the November 17th meeting. Come and stand in solidarity with Berkeley’s homeless and against the ordinances.
Stop Berkeley’s anti homeless laws. Old City Hall. Starting on 11/16 at 11am until…
This photo is the heart breaking truth of too many people in this country. This is someone’s home. Every night this person builds this structure, and every morning they take it down. This has been going on for over a year here at the Berkeley Post Office Occupation.
The person inside this structure is a 69 year old retired nurse. She dedicated her life to helping others. Now, in a week, Berkeley wants to pass new laws that will have a negative impact on people who are barely surviving. The truth is, this is the face of homelessness that the press doesn’t report. The politicians don’t consider her plight, but a housed voter gets to say no, no homeless in my park, or on my sidewalk, or in my shopping district. City officials don’t have to care if the community is not willing to. Few city officials have understanding or compassion. If they did, Julie would not be living in a self made, cardboard box shack on the sidewalk.
Please share this. Berkeley City Council must be made to understand there is a human cost to criminalizing people because they have to survive.
First They Came For The Homeless.
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
OccupyForum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
Occupyforum presents
First-hand report from the Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C.
Kangas starts where the police leave off. Who did this? Was it the act of an individual or was it an organized effort? Reverend Pinckney was a young, gifted elected black voice, rising from the South. Of the nine people Roof murdered, why did he assassinate Senator Clementa Pinckney first?
Who set up the Russian website for Roof? Why did the FBI allow Roof to buy a gun, when he had two prior felony arrests, which barred him from legally buying a gun? Half Roof’s friends were black. All of them said, “He is not a racist”. Is Roof some sort of Manchurian Candidate sent by the SC KKK to assassinate Pinckney, the next MLK? Kangas interviewed over 30 eye-witnesses: family members of the victims, including family and friends of Dylann Roof. Kangas has become personal friends with several members of the Emanuel Church. They invited him to go with them to meet Hillary Clinton when she was speaking to the NAACP in Charleston.
As an investigator, Paul Kangas did the last autopsy on Gary Webb, the journalist who exposed the CIA Iran-Contra scandal (see the movie “Killing the Messenger”). Kangas worked as a journalist with the Black Panther Party; he wrote the front-page story in the last edition about “Jonestown” for Elaine Brown, the editor of the BPP paper. The BPP asked Willie Brown to include Kangas in the LEOP program for black and minority Law Students so he could be admitted to Hastings Law College, where he graduated in 1975. Kangas will give a presentation followed by Q & A on crime, poverty, racism, and conspiracy.
Wheelchair accessible, ride shares announced.
Rally Against New Anti-Homeless Laws
Dear City Council,
We don’t need a “two square foot” rule for personal belongings. It makes our community look silly, and makes it harder to get grant funding. The Department of Justice and Housing and Urban Development oppose criminalization and prioritize grants from which stop criminalizing unavoidable human conditions. They state such laws are unconstitutional.
Monday
6:00 am: Prayer Circle and Fasting
11:00 am: Press Conference
6:00 pm: Sing out/Rally for Justice and Human Rights
Tuesday
6:00 pm Rally and speak out before City Council
Shuffling people from place to place is ineffective and inhumane. We need low income housing, not luxury housing, and we save money with practical solutions.
Sincerely, Citizens of Berkeley
and Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE)
6pm Protest will follow earlier events in the day.
Bring your voices and instruments for a long night
New anti-homeless ordinances are being introduced to City Council at the November 17th meeting. Come and stand in solidarity with Berkeley’s homeless and against the ordinances.
Yesterday, the Ella Baker Center, CURB, and other allies mobilized to Sacramento with over 50 community members across California to stop the funding stream for new jails. We also presented the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) with our community recommendations of formerly incarcerated leaders to guide the reinvestment of Proposition 47 funds. Our turnout was tremendous and we were able to make a huge impact in front of the BSCC!
Despite major public outcry, the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) approved funding for a $54 million dollar jail expansion project at Santa Rita Jail. Now, the decision to accept the funding is on the County Supervisors. Let’s tell them we need to stop this now!
Here are 3 things you can do to take action:
1. Join us at next Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors Meeting on November 17 at 10:30am to say “NO MORE JAILS IN ALAMEDA COUNTY!”
The meeting begins at 10:30 a.m., but we don’t anticipate public comment will begin until after 11 a.m. More information will be provided at the meeting. If you aren’t able to attend the entire meeting, but would like to be notified as public comment is approaching, please contact: Darris@ellabakercenter.org.
***** RSVP on Facebook. *****
2. Call the Board of Supervisors and demand “COMMUNITY CARE, NOT CAGES” today!
Below is a list of the email and phone numbers of the members of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. Please call and email them, and encourage others to the same. Below is a sample script.
Supervisor Haggerty, (510) 272-6691
Supervisor Valle, (510) 272-6692
Supervisor Chan, (510) 272-6693
Supervisor Miley, (510) 272-6694
Supervisor Carson, (510) 272-6695
Dear Supervisor _____________,
I am a resident of Alameda County calling/writing to urge you and all Alameda County Board of Supervisors to reject the $54 million of jail construction money coming from Sacramento, and instead enter into a meaningful dialogue with Alameda County residents about true community safety and well-being. We need your leadership to say no to new jails and demand full investment of resources back into the communities most damaged by mass incarceration.
3. Spread the word on social media: Tweet at supervisors, and share the Facebook event.
We need to keep the momentum against this jail expansion growing: help us get 200 people to take action today!
In Community,
Darris Young
Local Organizer
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
www.ellabakercenter.org | 510.428.3939
1970 Broadway, Suite 1125 | Oakland, CA | 94612
90th and Bancroft 1pm. Walkout solidarity against police murder in Oakland. Wear all black #FTP #ACAB
— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) November 17, 2015
Today! #Oakland pic.twitter.com/HcbhWQq0NN
— FireWorks (@FireWorksBAY) November 17, 2015
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DOWNTOWN OAKLAND FOR THE PEOPLE!
Meet at 4:30 pm, march at 5
RSVP on Facebook!
Send a letter to the mayor!
What’s the future of downtown Oakland? Luxury condos and Uber offices for the rich, and poverty wages and displacement for workers and people of color? Or good jobs, affordable housing, schools, and arts spaces for ALL of Oakland’s communities?
This fall, the Oakland Planning Department is considering approving a new Hampton Inn in downtown Oakland – behind closed doors with no public process. This is a terrible deal for workers.
The Hampton Inn developer already operates 2 local hotels where workers have reported low pay, no health benefits, horrible working conditions, shorting of workers’
pay, abuse and humiliation from managers, and violations of the new Oakland minimum wage.Building a poverty-wage hotel in downtown Oakland would not only be unfair to the future workers at the Hampton Inn, but would hurt union hotel workers around the East Bay who are struggling to maintain the wages and health benefits that they have fought for over the years.
And this project would exacerbate the East Bay’s crises of inequality and displacement – no one can afford to live in Oakland today on wages this low.
People power stopped the backroom deal to develop market-rate housing at the East 12th Street parcel. People power can stop this project too.
Come tell the City of Oakland: we don’t need secret deals to create more poverty-wage jobs. Downtown Oakland needs good jobs, affordable housing & real democracy!
Organized by UNITE HERE Local 2850, 1440 Broadway, Suite 208, Oakland, CA 94612 | www.unitehere2850.org
Rally Against New Anti-Homeless Laws
Dear City Council,
We don’t need a “two square foot” rule for personal belongings. It makes our community look silly, and makes it harder to get grant funding. The Department of Justice and Housing and Urban Development oppose criminalization and prioritize grants from which stop criminalizing unavoidable human conditions. They state such laws are unconstitutional.
Monday
6:00 am: Prayer Circle and Fasting
11:00 am: Press Conference
6:00 pm: Sing out/Rally for Justice and Human Rights
Tuesday
6:00 pm Rally and speak out before City Council
Shuffling people from place to place is ineffective and inhumane. We need low income housing, not luxury housing, and we save money with practical solutions.
Sincerely, Citizens of Berkeley
and Streets Are For Everyone (SAFE)
A rally on the steps at 6:00 PM.
Council meeting begins at 7:00 PM.
Agenda item #28 (anti-homeless ordinances) Improve Conditions on Our Community Sidewalks; Amending Berkeley Municipal Code Chapters 13.36 and 14.4 may not be heard until after 9:00 PM.
Also there will be agenda item #24 City Manager Referral: Implementation of Tier One Recommendations from the Homeless Task Force
Also, check out the press conference the day before.
#28
From: Councilmembers Maio, Capitelli, Droste, and Mayor Bates
Recommendation: Discuss and refer the following services and ordinances to the City Manager for implementation, and adopt first reading of three Ordinances:
1. Adding Section 13.36.085 to the Berkeley Municipal Code prohibiting urination and defecation in public places.
2. Amending Sections 14.48.020 and 14.48.170 of the Berkeley Municipal Code regulating use of sidewalks.
3. Adding Section 13.36.040 to the Berkeley Municipal Code prohibiting obstruction of City-owned planters and trees.
Additional Services:
1. Create a secure storage facility for personal belongings; bins must be of adequate size, of reasonable number (estimate of 50 – 100 at the outset) and ensure reasonable access, with posted hours.
2. Provide additional bathrooms in the Downtown and Telegraph areas.
3. Provide mobile showers and bathrooms for public use.
Ordinances Would Disallow:
1. Urination and defecation in public spaces.
2. The placement of personal belongings on sidewalks and plazas covering more than 2 square feet during the day, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. (storage to be provided).
3. The placement of a wheeled mobile unit, no more than 6 square feet in size (i.e. a standard shopping cart) during the day, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. for no more than one hour in one location after which time the unit must be moved to a different block face (storage to be provided).
Note: Purpose of #2 and #3: Amend Berkeley Municipal Code Chapter 14.48 so the Traffic Engineer may adopt regulations and ensure that public streets, and especially sidewalks, are fully accessible and usable for the purposes for which they were constructed and intended, specifically the movement of goods and traffic, pedestrians and wheelchairs.
4. Lying inside of planter beds or on planter walls.
5. Personal items affixed to or placed on public fixtures including poles, bike racks (except bikes), planters, trees, tree guards, newspaper racks, parking meters and pay stations. Pet leashes exempt only as not prohibited in BMC 10.12.110.
6. Placement of personal objects in planters, tree wells, or within 2 feet of a tree well to enable tree care and to protect tree trunks.
In Addition:
A. Provide public notice before enforcement, including direct interaction with persons to explain the ordinances, location of storage facilities, and location of services.
B. Prior to issuing a citation regarding personal belongings persons shall receive an initial warning with information regarding available storage.
C. Refer to the budget process extending transition-aged youth shelter hours beyond winter months. D. Make public restrooms available and well publicized. Involve BART in exploring possible locations.
E. Ordinances concerning the placement of personal belongings and wheeled mobile units on sidewalks will not be enforced until storage services are in place.
#24
From: Councilmember Arreguin
Recommendation: Refer to the City Manager to develop a plan to implement the Tier One Recommendations of the Homeless Task Force, which involve expanding the City’s Homeless Outreach Team and Mobile Crisis Team, increasing funding for the Crisis Intervention Training (CIT), increasing the number of public restrooms, and providing additional storage spaces and warming centers for the homeless population.