Calendar
#NODAPL Standing Rock Benefit. Omni Oakland Commons. Dec. 9th at 8pm. The Wyatt Act. Taller Bombalele. Banda Sin Nombre. @MissionDelirium pic.twitter.com/6b55goAaFT
— GuinevereQ (@GuinevereQ) November 29, 2016
DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, has seen a massive influx of new members in the few weeks since the election.
Here in the East Bay and across the country thousands of people have committed to building a left alternative that demands material improvements in our lives.
DSA is dedicated to fighting for single-payer healthcare, tuition-free college, a living wage for all workers, and an end to white supremacy.
We are coming together to oppose the emboldened right wing, protect our targeted brothers and sisters, and build a future that puts people above profit.
Join us on Saturday, December 10th to learn how DSA East Bay is organizing locally. Meet new members, plug into opportunities for action, and enjoy a potluck among friends. Former mayor of Berkeley (and Bernie Sanders surrogate) Gus Newport will speak.
This event is open to new members, old members, friends, family, and anyone who is interested in DSA.
DSA is open to a wide spectrum of beliefs (at least on the left) and you certainly do not need to identify as socialist to attend or participate.
We need people to volunteer to bring food, beverages and utensils, and setup/breakdown the meeting space! To sign up, please follow this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UD8wvboYTEAZKvZaRxGIZrhDVAZpRRYb2PQf54e9sVw/edit#gid=0
Here’s the agenda:
1. Info about DSA. What has happened over the last month and where we’re going
2. Speech by Gus Newport (former Mayor of Berkeley)
3. Breakout sessions for members and non-members
Break
5. Campaigns info
6. Committee info sessions
7. Food/celebration
Note: The building has a security door. There will be someone at the door between 9:45 and 10:15. If you arrive later than that text (510) 776-9291 and someone will come let you in.
*** If you’re not yet a member of DSA, but want to be, you can join here: https://dsausa.nationbuilder.com/join
2016 Vendors
Akratic Behavior || http://akraticbehavior.tumblr.com
Art Activist Nia || http://artactivistnia.com
Asswipe || http://asswipemagazine.storenvy.com
Awkward Ladies Club || http://awkwardladiesclub.com/
Bagger sampler 4 || http://bagger43.com
Bay Area Trans Writers Workshop || http://www.facebook.com/groups/batww/
Bibliophiliac Zines || http://bibliophiliac.bigcartel.com
Breenache || http://breenache.tumblr.com/
Bubblesort Zines || http://bubblesort.io/
Cake and Comix || http://www.cakeandcomix.tumblr.com
Chicken Milkshake Zines || http://chickenmilkshakezines.tumblr.com
Coin-Op || http://coinopbooks.com
comics by Nomi Kane and Kat Efird || http://www.brewforbreakfast.com
Cool Dog || http://miquelacomics.tumblr.com
Courtenberry Comics || http://courtenberrycomics.tumblr.com/
Damian Le || http://calamityhorror.tumblr.com
David Polka || http://davidpolka.com
Deth P. Sun || http://www.dethpsun.com
DisCantBeLife Press (DCBL Press) || https://mkt.com/store/DCBL
E. Sjule Comics || http://www.erikasjule.com
Elise Bernal || http://elisebee.etsy.com
FLOSS Editions || http://flosseditions.bigcartel.com
Fox and Redwood || https://www.etsy.com/shop/FoxandRedwood
Gimme Action || http://www.gimmeaction.com
gracie ct ||
Hunter Savoy Jaffe || http://huntersavoyjaffe.com/a>
irrelevant press || http://irrelevantpress.com
ivy atoms || http://ivyatoms.com
Jamie Oliveira || “http://www.jamie-oliveira.com
Jool’s Comix || http://Jooliefiveash.tumblr.com
Lauren Lim || http://www.lauren-lim.com
Lawrence Lindell Studios || https://facebook.com/lawrencelindellstudios
Lazer Zine || http://alexsodari.com
Lemon Drop Press/COME FIND OUT || http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemondroppresss
Lisa Sy || http://pluralsandnoun.tumblr.com
Lucretia Samuel || http://lucretiarhyssamuel.bigcartel.com/
Maximum Rocknroll || http://www.maximumrocknroll.com
ME(め) || https://mehome.wordpress.com/
MFA in Comics, California College of The Arts || http://comics.cca.edu/
Milvia Street || Minnie Phan || http://minniephan.com
Mixed Race Queer Feminist || http://mrqfzine.tumblr.com/
Mixed Rice Zines || http://www.jesswuohlson.com
MochaMixZines || http://maryaerrinjones.com
Nicole Goux || http://nicolegoux.com
Oatmeal Magazine || http://www.oatmealmagazine.com
Paradox Creations || http://etsy.com/shop/ParadoxNowCreations
Queer Anxiety Babiez Distro || http://queeranxietybabiezdistro.tumblr.com
Re/SEARCH || http://www.researchpubs.com/
Rock Paper Scissors Collective || http://rpscollective.org
Ryan King || http://www.ryankingwrites.com
Sabrina Barekzai || http://sabrinabarekzai.com
Scumburbia || http://www.samgrinberg.com
Silver Sprocket || http://www.silversprocket.net/
Snack Bar Collective || http://thesnackbarcollective.tumblr.com
STIMULUS || http://stimuluscomic.com
The Grand Newsstand || http://www.thegrandnewsstand.com/
The Stay At Home Girlfriend || http://www.missmuffcake.com
Thick Thigh Collective || https://www.facebook.com/ThickThighCollective
THREE, SADHANA and 100 YEARS FROM NOW OUR BONES WILL BE DIFFERENT || http://anandvedawala.com
Two Photon Art || http://www.twophotonart.com
Unity Press || http://www.jeffreycheung.com
Zines Rasquache || http://www.etsy.com/shop/ZinesRasquache
The first 100 people to arrive will get a free pocket Constitution!
You’re invited to the 2016 Bill of Rights Day when we celebrate the goals we’ve achieved together and look ahead to even greater challenges.
We know that you may be concerned about the presidential election results. Many of the proposed policies are unlawful and unconstitutional. The ACLU is swinging into high gear, ready for whatever awaits us.
Since our founding, we’ve worked together to defend the constitutional rights and freedoms of all Californians. Rest assured we’ll continue to do so. We’ve got your back!
Join us in Oakland on December 11 to celebrate the Bill of Rights and continue the fight together. With supporters like you, failure is not an option.
Tickets will NOT be sold at the door.
Abdi Soltani
Executive Director
ACLU of Northern California
ACLU. Because freedom can’t protect itself.
American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California
39 Drumm Street, San Francisco, CA 94111
On the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution:
Humanism vs. fascism, opposing capitalism then and now
Hailed by Martin Luther King, Jr., Hungarian revolutionaries in 1956 not only created a new form of direct democracy in Workers’ Councils but raised Marx’s humanism as freedom from Communism. “The goal of human development, the form of human society,” which Marx had warned is not communism, took center stage against the single-party-state.
Today various forms of humanism, from Black Lives Matter to Prisoners’ Human Rights Movement, also project humanism as an answer to global capitalism. Can Marx’s humanism help our age in is search for a way to unite the idea of freedom with a new post-capitalist reality? (see “Spontaneity of action and organization of thought. In memoriam: Hungarian Revolution”, Nov-Dec N&L at newsandletters.org)
Sponsored by Bay Area News and Letters Committees
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
Alan Haber, SDS:
The Port Huron Statement, Occupy, and a Blueprint for Action
In the 50 years since its initial publication, Tom Hayden has attracted the bulk of media attention surrounding the Port Huron Statement. He wrote much of the original text and served as its high-profile articulator and leader of its execution. But it’s the lesser-known Robert Alan (Al) Haber who is credited as the “big brain,” the “visionary,” and the “indispensable element” of the student movement.
As the founder of SDS, Haber was elected its first president in 1960. He spent the first few years building the organizational and intellectual foundation that would support Henry David Thoreau’s call of “voting with your whole body.” In the SDS, Haber had established an educational association that, in his words, was “concerned with building a responsible and articulate left in universities and to extending the influence of this community into the political life of society more generally.” After one of the organization’s first meetings he wrote, “Pessimism and cynicism have given way to direct action.”
Haber, Hayden, and a handful of SDS members organized a conference to discuss Hayden’s working treatise. In the course of five days, more than 60 student activists from New York to California hunkered down at Port Huron’s FDR Camp to hash out, then publish the consensus document that would change the course of American social and political history.
Join us at OccupyForum to hear from Al Haber, and discuss the implications and applications of the Port Huron Statement, and Occupy, for today’s precarious times.
Q&A and Announcements will follow. Donations to OccupyForum to cover our costs are encouraged; no one turned away!
http://www.sds-1960s.org/PortHuronStatement-draft.htm
http://michigantoday.umich.edu/a8402/
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/tom-hayden-sds-port-huron-counterculture-protest-vietnam/
This workshop for APTP comrades supports the resilience and wellbeing of front line change-makers, justice seekers, organizers, and activists.
Together we will explore:
• How to keep alive and vital that place within us where the motivation to work for social change arises
• How to not only “keep on keeping on,” but to keep on in a way that is transformative for us as individuals, for the organization, the movement, and the community
• How to stay connected to the larger vision and purpose that inspires, uplifts, and sustains each of us to be our best and most whole selves in every area of our lives
• How to process and clear trauma
The workshop will be held in Shelton Hall of the Oakland Peace Center (OPC).
This is the building of the First Christian Church of Oakland (the big white church at the corner of Fairmount Ave and 29th St.) You will need to enter through the glass office door via the parking lot (enter parking lot from Fairmount Ave). Please arrive early if possible. After 7pm the door will be locked and you can text the number posted to be let in.
“Faulty Towers: Where do we go from here in contingent academic labor organizing?”
By Jessica Lawless, who is a former adjunct professor and current organizer for SEIU 1021’s Northern California Faculty Forward Campaign.
This is part of the Oakland Livable Wage Assembly meeting. The talk will be preceded by introductions and a short business meeting. This will be OLWA’s last meeting for 2016.
Casino San Pablo makes millions. Its workers are struggling to get out of poverty. This holiday season, stand with them!
Casino San Pablo made $263 million* in FY 2014-15. But its workers make as little as $11 per hour – less than the minimum wage in nearby towns like Richmond, El Cerrito and Oakland. And the Casino’s proposed raise for its lowest-paid workers in 2017 is just 22 cents per hour!
State labor laws don’t apply at the Casino, so workers are denied many of the basic rights that other California workers take for granted – from California workers’ compensation benefits to a smoke-free workplace. And the Casino’s contract only provides for 3 months of medical leave – so workers can be fired if they need more time to recover from surgery or childbirth.
Workers are standing up to demand the Casino do better. Join them!
In Solidarity, UNITE HERE Local 2850
*gross gaming revenue 2014-15
UNITE HERE Local 2850, 1440 Broadway, Suite 208, Oakland, CA 94612 | www.unitehere2850.org
Urban Shield is a regional, national and global weapons exposition and SWAT training. It is funded by the Department of Homeland Security via the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department. Every year, local police, fire and health departments from cities all over the Bay Area (and a few foreign countries) come together to perform drills and practices throughout the region, all mandated to have a nexus to terrorism.
By focusing the majority of the training given to local departments on extremely violent responses, Urban Shield immerses local SWAT teams in war-like practices and encourages disproportionately violent responses. Urban Shield events are filled with disturbing themes including macho t-shirts disparaging social justice movements (the best-selling one a few years ago was called “Black Rifles Matter”), glorification of hi-tech military-style equipment flowing into local police departments including tanks and drones, and scenarios triggered almost inevitably by people of color as the villains.
For a video of an Urban Shield SWAT training – click here.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors will be reviewing the 2017 funding request to Homeland Security on December 20 on January 10th.
Send an email to them now saying that you want them NOT TO APPROVE funding for a 2017 Urban Shield exposition in the Bay Area.
On 12/20, the fight to #StopUrbanShield continues. Use our easy two-click alert to send an email saying no more. https://t.co/R2friNCzm5 pic.twitter.com/vTPoGggXc4
— Media Alliance (@twrling) November 26, 2016
Hear from a delegation from the Marin County Task Force that traveled from the San Francisco Bay Area to to participate at the US-Mexican Border to raise issues of immigration justice:
(1) participate in a national convergence at the border to highlight the militarization of the southern border and the U.S.-sponsored militarization of Central American borders, and the human rights crisis of an unjust immigration system
(2) support maquiladora workers, highlight the failures of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in protecting workers rights and demonstrate the dangers of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) in further depressing wages in Mexico and the United States
This is part of the Alliance for Social and Economic Justice participating organizations: Bay Area Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), Global Exchange, Marin Task Force on the Americas, San Francisco Living Wage Coalition, Trabajo Cultural Caminante, School of the Americas Watch West.
Eyewitness Aleppo: Journalist Eva Bartlett Reports from Her Experience on the Ground:
Independent Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett, newly arrived from Syria, will report on her experiences in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria, as will Gerry Condon, US Veterans for Peace VP and member of the US Peace Council Delegation to Syria. You will definitely hear much that you have not heard elsewhere, and perhaps question what you think you know about Syria. Eva lived in Gaza for three years and was one of the few western reporters present during the Israeli attacks that killed thousands of Palestinians.
Organizers, sponsors and co-sponsors: International Action Center (IAC), United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), US Peace Council, Syria Solidarity Movement, Socialist Action, Workers World Party, Resource Center for Non Violence Palestine/Israel Action Committee, ANSWER – SF Bay Area, Cindy Sheehan Soapbox, Mt. Diablo Peace and Justice Center, Peace and Freedom Party (Marin), Peace and Freedom Party (San Francisco), Project Censored, Media Freedom Foundation, Veterans for Peace East Bay Chapter 162
Urban Shield is a regional, national and global weapons exposition and SWAT training. It is funded by the Department of Homeland Security via the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department. Every year, local police, fire and health departments from cities all over the Bay Area (and a few foreign countries) come together to perform drills and practices throughout the region, all mandated to have a nexus to terrorism.
By focusing the majority of the training given to local departments on extremely violent responses, Urban Shield immerses local SWAT teams in war-like practices and encourages disproportionately violent responses. Urban Shield events are filled with disturbing themes including macho t-shirts disparaging social justice movements (the best-selling one a few years ago was called “Black Rifles Matter”), glorification of hi-tech military-style equipment flowing into local police departments including tanks and drones, and scenarios triggered almost inevitably by people of color as the villains.
For a video of an Urban Shield SWAT training – click here.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors will be reviewing the 2017 funding request to Homeland Security on December 20 on January 10th.
Send an email to them now saying that you want them NOT TO APPROVE funding for a 2017 Urban Shield exposition in the Bay Area.
On 12/20, the fight to #StopUrbanShield continues. Use our easy two-click alert to send an email saying no more. https://t.co/R2friNCzm5 pic.twitter.com/vTPoGggXc4
— Media Alliance (@twrling) November 26, 2016
We have received word from Manny’s attorney that this court appearance is important and that support in the audience is very likely to influence the judge!
Manny was arrested in Burlingame at the Anti Trump demonstrations outside the Hyatt Hotel. (Remember in the Spring when Trump was so scared by demonstrators he had to sneak in through the back??) He has been fighting his charges ever since!
We realize the peninsula is out of the normal area that we usually call for folks to give support, however, it would really mean a lot to Manny and his defense team to supporters in the audience!
Standing Rock water protectors still urgently need our help. Efforts continue in our own backyard to encourage divestment from Citibank, that perpetual bad actor and financial ringleader of the global investors bankrolling the Dakota Access Pipeline. Because Energy Transfer Partners plans to go ahead with pipeline construction under the Missouri River despite the Army Corps of Engineers permit denial, it is more important than ever to stop the financing for this pipeline. Without investors, this project simply cannot move forward.
Join us on Saturday, December 17th at Citibank branches across the Bay Area to urge customers to close their bank accounts and demand that Citibank divest from DAPL.
We just need two to three people at each branch any time on Saturday. Which of these branches can you target? Please RSVP to both Carolyn (carolynclara [at] gmail.com) and Lora Jo (ljfoo60 [at] gmail.com). Here are four documents that you can print and use: talking points, a flyer to distribute, a petition for signature-gathering, and a letter that customers can send to Citibank:
samplescript-forbanksdivestingfromdapl-12-7-16
Citibank, Piedmont Branch
4101 Piedmont Ave.
Oakland, CA 94611
Citibank, 4017 Macarthur Blvd Branch
4017 Macarthur Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94619
Citibank, Fruitvale Village
3301 East 12th Street
Oakland, CA 94601
Citibank, Alameda-Downtown Branch
2420 Santa Clara Ave.
Alameda, CA 94501
Citibank, Oakland-Chinatown
801-A Franklin St.
Oakland, CA 94607
Citibank, Berkeley Square Branch
2000 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94704
Citibank, San Leandro-Downtown
1300 E 14th Street
San Leandro, CA 94577
Citibank, San Lorenzo Branch
429 Paseo Grande
San Lorenzo, CA 94580
Citibank, Albany Branch
1377 Solano Ave.
Albany, CA 94706
Citibank, 280 El Cerrito Plaza Branch
280 El Cerrito Plaza
El Cerrito, CA 95630
Remember to check their Saturday hours—best way to do that is enter the branch in Yelp. If you don’t live near any of the banks listed on the spreadsheet, go here to to find one nearest you.
This year’s theme is Community: for good or ill.
For anarchists the idea of community represents both an ideal and a practice. The ideal community is either explicitly anarchist, one that concerns itself with an anti-authoritarian rigor, challenging culturally normative standards like beauty, heterosexuality, diet, and bigotry or it is a broader group that allows anarchists to live within it, and listens to their concerns. The practice for anarchists, by and large, is identical to that of our neighbors— isolation, slavery to job and routine, and association only with a small subset of who is possible, even just within a geographical area.
