Calendar
OTU’s Mission
The Oakland Tenants Union is an organization of housing activists dedicated to protecting tenant rights and interests. OTU does this by working directly with tenants in their struggle with landlords, impacting legislation and public policy about housing, community education, and working with other organizations committed to furthering renters’ rights. The Oakland Tenants Union is open to anyone who shares our core values and who believes that tenants themselves have the primary responsibility to work on their own behalf.
Monthly Meetings
The Oakland Tenants Union meets regularly at 7:00 pm on the second Monday evening of each month. Our monthly meetings are held in the Community Room of the Madison Park Apartments, 100 – 9th Street (at Oak Street, across from the Lake Merritt BART Station). To enter, gently knock on the window of the room to the right of the main entrance to the building. At the meetings, first we focus on general issues affecting renters city-wide and then second we offer advice to renters regarding their individual concerns.
If you have an issue, a question, or need advice about a tenant/landlord issue, please call us at (510) 704-5276. Leave a message with your name and phone number and someone will get back to you.
Join us for a A Teach-In Introducing the Debt Collective – the nation’s first union of debtors. w/ local Bay Area organizers Maddy Clifford and Emily Birnbaum. Learn how debtor’s unions are organizing alongside labor unions and tenant unions to combat the financialization of our most basic needs like housing, education and healthcare. Share your personal story, your dream for an economically just future and build solidarity with other debtors and our allies. Plus, free resources to fight your eviction in California AND free copies of Debt Collective’s In These Times takeover issue *first 50 people*
Speaker: Radhika Desai
To Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89531900427?pwd=mXg1rSZe3ONl4pfWlALW4ornc32Eez.1
The application of Neoliberal Economics had its beginning with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. It held its sway for almost four decades starting when China allowed G-7 capital to exploit a vast pool of labor power, but unlike in the past when it resulted in failed economics in the Third World, China rose as an economic giant in just three decades, with the Communist Party of China firmly controlling the process. The US workers largely lost good industrial wages even as they benefited from cheaper consumer products imported from China in these three decades. But lately the Chinese economy has also run into a slowdown and as shown by the recent parliamentary elections in India and Mexico, the Neoliberal Economics has lost support from the vast majority of these two countries and there appears to be opposition to it in China as well. Prof. Desai’s talk will focus on this core issue and how it is related to the decline of the G-7 group of countries, and its impact on the geopolitics and the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine.
Radhika Desai is the convener of the International Manifesto Group (https://internationalmanifesto.org/), which analyzes the fast-changing political and geopolitical economy of the world order. From around the world, they represent a diversity of currents of anti-imperialist socialist thought.
Dr. Desai is professor at the Department of Political Studies and director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, University of Manitoba. Among her many publications are Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire and Intellectuals and Socialism: ‘Social Democrats’ and the Labour Party. She is also the author of numerous articles in Economic and Political Weekly, International Critical Thought, New Left Review, Third World Quarterly, World Review of Political Economy and other journals and in edited collections on parties, political economy, culture, and nationalism. With Alan Freeman, she co-edits the Geopolitical Economy book series with Manchester University Press and the Future of Capitalism book series with Pluto Press.
Her article, “The Long Shadow of Hiroshima: Capitalism and Nuclear Weapons, International Critical Thought,” was published online: 08 Apr 2022 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21598282.2022.2051582?tab=permissions&scroll=top
NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:
occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If for some reason the amphitheater is being used otherwise and/or OGP itself is inaccessible, we will meet at Kaiser Park, right next to the statues, on 19th St. between San Pablo and Telegraph. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)
On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally. Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.
At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.
General Assembly Standard Agenda
Welcome & Introductions
Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
Announcements
(Optional) Discussion Topic
Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.
Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area
San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv
The City of Oakland is planning a massive eviction, so the People have planned a Resource Fair.
Beginning Monday, September 16th, at 8am at West Grand and MLK. pic.twitter.com/ueqlzaCCMW— Mama Lisa (@LisTeague) September 15, 2024
Medical debt shouldn’t exist.
More than 100 million people in the U.S. are actively struggling with medical debt. It’s an injustice that’s costing us our livelihoods, economic stability, and, in far too many cases, our lives.
As election season ramps up and politicians pay lip service to the issue, we can’t make the mistake of accepting minor concessions and band-aid fixes as solutions. If we want to put an end to medical debt, we need to strike at the root of the problem – our predatory, prrofit-driven healthcare system.
That’s why we’re hosting a National Call for Medical Debt Abolition. We’ll discuss our experiences with medical debt, strategies for tackling corporate control of our healthcare, and ways to build the fight for healthcare as a reparative public good. will you join us?
The medical-industrial complex is hostile and dysfunctional, and the corporate interests invested in keeping it that way have a lot of money to throw around. But we have people, we have our anger, and we know how to organize. Together, we can fight back against industry giants and a complicit state.
Please email contact@oaklandprivacy.org a few days before the meeting to get up-to-date location information or obtain Zoom meeting access info.
Join Oakland Privacy to organize against the surveillance state, police militarization and ICE, and to advocate for privacy, surveillance regulation of both corporations and the state, and government transparency, around the Bay and nationwide.
We fight against spy drones, facial recognition, tracking equipment and online tracking, police body camera secrecy, anti-transparency laws, and requirements for “backdoors” to cellphones; we oppose “pre-crime” and “thought-crime,” — to list just a few invasions of our privacy by all levels of Government, and attempts to hide what government officials, employees and agencies are doing.
We draft and push for privacy legislation for City Councils, at the County level, and in Sacramento. We advocate in op-eds and in the streets. We pursue lawsuits as necessary to protect our rights. We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and believe no one is illegal.
Check out some of what we worked on in 2024, with links back through 2019.
Oakland Privacy originally came together in 2013 to fight against the Domain Awareness Center, Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OP was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network. We helped fight and in 2018 we helped win the fight against Urban Shield.
Our major projects currently include local legislation to regulate state surveillance (we got the strongest surveillance regulation ordinance in the country passed in Oakland!), supporting and opposing state legislation as appropriate, battling mass surveillance in the form of facial recognition and other analytics, mass aerial surveillance, ubiquitous license plate readers, online tracking and ID requirements, street surveillance, and fighting to ensure local governments adhere to State privacy and transparency regulations.
On September 12th, 2019 we were presented with a Barlow Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for our work, and on March 16th, 2021 the James Madison Freedom of Information Award by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists.
If you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy email listserv, coming to a meeting, or have questions, send an email to:
Check out our website: http://oaklandprivacy.org/
Follow us on twitter: @oaklandprivacy, and/or on Mastodon at https://mastodon.social/@oaklandprivacy, and/or at Bluesky at @oaklandprivacy.bsky.social
Earlier this year the Anti Police-Terror Project proudly launched The People’s Clinic with scheduling options every 1st and 3rd Friday at The People’s House in West Oakland. We created The People’s Clinic as an abolitionist healing space for communities affected by police terror and state violence, frontline organizers, and our West Oakland neighbors. We offer free services for community like acupuncture, herbal consultations, massage, healing tools library, monthly workshops, and more.
Our Healing Justice framework invites community to envision and manifest a life beyond the violence we survive everyday. Without healing there is no justice. Sign up today to join us for free healing services this Friday!
Our Clinic draws upon the revolutionary history of the Young Lords and seeks to honor the legacy of Dr. Mutulu Shakur. Ancestral medicine is one of the greatest strengths that our movement has to combat state violence, and it is a central value of APTP to utilize healing justice as a strategy for the longevity of organized resistance.
APTP Healing Justice Team
NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:
occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If for some reason the amphitheater is being used otherwise and/or OGP itself is inaccessible, we will meet at Kaiser Park, right next to the statues, on 19th St. between San Pablo and Telegraph. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)
On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally. Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.
At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.
General Assembly Standard Agenda
Welcome & Introductions
Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
Announcements
(Optional) Discussion Topic
Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.
Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area
San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv
Community groups have long been pushing the California Air Resources Board to prioritize environmental justice. Now CARB is at least asking for our input. The powerful agency is holding a series of public meetings around California in the next few weeks to discuss how to “incorporate environmental justice into future research on air quality, climate change, health, and sustainable communities.” It wants to hear about research needs and priorities. Outcomes from the meeting will impact CARB’s 5-Year Strategic Research Plan and help guide potential research projects for the 2025-2030 time period.
Refinery activist Kathy Kerridge reminds us that “CARB’s research informs regulations, programs, and incentives that affect people in our neighborhood and region.” Her Benicia Community Air Monitoring Program is cosponsoring the September 23rd meeting in Richmond.
An online meeting option is available if you can’t attend one of the in-person meetings. You can also provide written recommendations by emailing: research@arb.ca.gov.
Register here.
Co-Hosted with: Benicia Community Air Monitoring Program
Tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/B5XC2lVtV9
— Y Disassembler (@loomdoop) September 23, 2024
FORMERLY INCARCERATED SHORTS PROGRAM
The Berkeley Film Foundation presents a program of shorts by and about formerly incarcerated filmmakers, with a post program Q&A. The films include �
Finding Ma (14 minutes), about a Vietnamese family struggling with the ramifications of foster care and imprisonment was they search for their homeless mother in Sacramento;
Friendly Signs (22 minutes), wherein an San Quentin inmate and his older deaf brother start a sign language course the prison;
The Bridge Between Two Worlds (30 minutes), in which two parolees released from San Quentin reinvent themselves by attending a private school in Marin; and
Judging Juries which examines injustices in the jury system that adversely impact defendants and deny them fundamental rights.
A diverse group of changemakers, knowledge-holders, and innovators, hosted by the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, will explore how we can “disrupt the corporation-enriching global extractive system that results in widespread injustice, poverty, hunger, climate change, and irreversible environmental destruction.”
Forty years ago, Bhopal, India, experienced the world’s worst-ever corporation-caused disaster, resulting in the deaths and disabling of hundreds of thousands of marginalized people over multiple generations. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, corporations have been exploiting, polluting, and appropriating land and people for over a century.
In this event, survivor-activists of the 1984 chemical disaster will join in solidarity and conversation with Bay Area environmental justice activists. Participants—including environmentalists, labor organizers, community/indigenous leaders, housing experts, artists, lawyers, activists, agroecologists, scientists, and other knowledge-holders from a diverse range of ethnicities and perspectives—will discuss how frontline/indigenous communities and activists are taking on what continues to be the greatest challenge of our time.
Seats are limited. Please reserve yours with QR code in the graphic or here.
Tickets: Sliding scale donation $5 and up.
RSVP
Email bayareadebtorsunion@gmail.com for meeting info.
Please join the rally!
“If you’ve been waiting to turn up for that one protest action for the unhoused, this’ll be it! We need numbers, folks, as we want the city of Berkeley to here our outlay at their unjust actions! See you there.”
