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The Community Democracy Project is your connection to direct democracy in Oakland! Convened out of Occupy Oakland in Fall 2011, we’re gathering steam on a campaign to bring the people back in touch with the city’s resources through participatory budgeting.
Picture this: Across Oakland, Neighborhood Assemblies are regularly held in every community. People come together to tackle the important issues of their neighborhoods and of the city. At these assemblies, people don’t just have discussions–they learn from one another, from city staff, and they make fundamental decisions about how the city should run. They decide the city budget.
Democratic, community budgeting is a powerful step toward building strong communities, real democracy, and economic justice–and it’s being done all over the world.
The budget of the City Oakland totals more than $1 billion per year. Although part of the budget must be used for specific purposes, still over half of the budget–over $500 million per year–consists of general purpose funds paid by the taxes, fees, and fines of the people of Oakland. The Mayor and the City Council decide the city budget, with minimal input from the community.
Working together, we will not only get a seat at the table–we will REBUILD the table itself. Participatory democracy is real democracy–join us to say: Local People, Local Resources, Local Power!
- AND FREE QUALITY HEALTH CARE FOR ALL :
- The Oasis Clinic in Oakland, CA, which treats patients with Hepatitis-C (HCV), is calling for a demonstration to protest the outrageous price-gouging of Big Pharma corporations, like Gilead Sciences, which hike-up the cost for essential, life-saving medications such as the cure for the deadly Hepatitis-C virus, in order to reap huge profits. The Oasis Clinic’s demand is:
- PUBLIC HEALTH, NOT CORPORATE WEALTH!
- The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal urges you to support this demonstration! As many as 700,000 prisoners are among the nearly 5.2 million Americans infected with HCV, according to the Center for Disease Control, and political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is among them.
- MOBILIZE AT THE JP MORGAN HEALTH CARE CONFERENCE.
- This JP Morgan investor conference is an invitation-only event which entices corporate CEOs, CFOs, investors and other opportunist big-wigs to slurp up the profits that can be made from gouging the victims of life-threatening diseases such as Hepatitis-C. This includes Gilead Sciences, the “owner” of Harvoni, which is the effective new cure for HCV.
- One pill a day for 12 weeks does the trick with a 95 percent cure rate, but Gilead charges $1,000 per pill, or nearly $100,000 for a full course of treatment!!
- Prisoners are among the most likely to contract Hep-C, and among the least likely to receive the newly available cure for the disease, due to both the exaggerated price, and the refusal of prison administrations to provide proper health care to inmates!
- Mumia Abu-Jamal was infected in 1981, after he was shot by police and treated as a prisoner for his wounds. Falsely convicted for killing a cop and sent to death row (he’s now serving life without the possibility of parole), Mumia’s infection began to show symptoms in 2015, which is typical for this slow-incubating but usually fatal (if untreated) disease. Mass mobilization by supporters is the only reason Mumia got any medical attention at all, and he is still denied the curative Harvoni treatment which alone can ensure his survival! The PA prison system is trying to kill Mumia by medical neglect!
- In violation of National Institute of Health (NIH) regulations, Gilead canceled its program to supply a certain amount of the drug at low cost. And the New York Times reported that in “a complicated deal to sell hepatitis drugs at a small fraction of their usual cost while imposing tight restrictions intended to protect lucrative markets in the West… for the past year, Gilead has sold the drug to the Egyptian government for about $10 a pill.”
- Mumia Abu-Jamal, though he suffered near death for lack of treatment last year, is the first one to point out that he is only one of many. He supports the demands for treatment of some 10,000 prisoners in Pennsylvania alone who suffer from HCV infection.
- In a recent federal appeal, lawyers fighting for treatment of Mumia brought out evidence in court of a secret PA Department of Corrections (DOC) protocol which explicitly provides for observation, but not treatment, of HCV infected prisoners!
- WE DEMAND:
- PUBLIC HEALTH, NOT CORPORATE WEALTH!
- IMMEDIATE AND FREE TREATMENT FOR ALL HCV-INFECTED PRISONERS!
- NO EXECUTION BY MEDICAL NEGLECT!
- JAIL DRUG PROFITEERS, FREE MUMIA!
- This message from:
- Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
- PO Box 16222 Oakland CA 94610
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.
“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
Spokescouncil Meetings are scheduled to take place:
January 5th @ 7pm at the OMNI
January 9th @ 7 pm @ the OMNI
January 12th @ 7pm @ the OMNI
January 14th @ 7pm @ the OMNI
The MLK weekend will once again culminate in a King Day march that embodies the true spirit of King’s resistance to capitalism, imperialism and racism.
Over the last year, in the Bay Area alone, there have been dozens of police murders. In San Francisco, we have most recently seen the brutal execution of Mario Woods, in addition to police beating a disabled man in front of the Twitter building and racist text messages exchanged between SFPD on-duty officers.
In Oakland, we have seen 8 Black men murdered by police since only June of 2015. In fact, a recent graphic by Mapping Police Violence shows that in 2015, Oakland ranks third in police killings per million people in 60 of America’s largest cities.
Police are the shock troops of gentrification. Mayors give them a mandate: make this city appealing to developers by any means necessary. City Councils fund police and constantly seek to expand their numbers and their powers. As a result, people of color are being pushed out of cities at unprecedented rates, by an out of control rental market, increased police occupation and terrorism against communities of color, as well as crackdowns on those who dare protest these unjust policies.
A year ago, people across the country began taking to the streets in unprecedented numbers; storming shopping centers, blocking streets and highways, interrupting cultural events and public transit. And the people SHUT IT DOWN. We SHUT IT DOWN because there is a state-sponsored war on Black, Brown, and other marginalized peoples in the United States. WE SHUT DOWN BUSINESS-AS-USUAL because business-as-usual is an out-of-control epidemic of police terror.
Last year, in partnership with comrades and allies, APTP launched 96 Hours of Direct Action in the Bay Area, and answered a national call to Reclaim King’s Radical Legacy which we did through a march that brought over 7,000 people into the streets of Oakland. We believe it is important for our movement to draw on King’s legacy to ground ourselves, to reinforce our conviction and confidence in the tactics and strategy of disruptive direct action.
A year later, while we are starting to have an impact, we also see that we have a long long way to go. So this Martin Luther King Day weekend, Oakland’s Anti Police-Terror Project* is calling on you to help us SHUT IT DOWN – again. Together, we will unleash the vast creativity and organizing capacity of our communities to produce a spectrum of disruptive and creative activity. In the spirit of MLK, we want these to actions to meaningfully interrupt business as usual whether that be with direct action, teach-ins, concerts or prayer vigils and to do so with action logic that links our resistance to fighting racism, economic injustice, and imperialism. We want you to plan these actions independently, but together we will coordinate collective support for these actions through a spokescouncil so that they have maximal support and impact.
Please visit the facebook event page: Updates, meeting agendas, calendar, and other info will be posted.
https://www.facebook.com/events/632827553487864/
Invite your friends!
Check out the web site for more about APTP’s vision: http://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org/new-events/
WE DEMAND:
- The resignation of Mayor Libby Schaaf
- The immediate termination of Chief Sean Whent
- The immediate termination of Chief Greg Suhr
- The immediate termination of the officers involved in the murders of Richard Perkins, Mario Woods, Yuvette Henderson, Amilcar Lopez, Alex Nieto, Demoriah Hogg and Richard Linyard
- The immediate reallocation of city budgets: reduce police budgets and reallocate those funds to provide for affordable housing that allows Black, Brown and other people of color to remain in San Francisco and Oakland.
This year, we shut it down in the names of:
Yuvette Henderson
Nate Wilks
Richard Perkins
Richard Linyard
Demoriah Hogg
Yonas Alehegne
Amilcar Lopez
Mario Woods
Alex Nieto
#mlkshutitdown
#96hours
#reclaimMLK
Reminder this is a call out for affinity groups to organize autonomous solidarity actions in line withAPTP’s Principles.
Questions, ideas, comments, or to get involved
Email aptpspokescouncil@gmail.com
The Sustainable Berkeley Coalition is working for open, transparent governance that supports our diverse community with appropriate development, housing and protected environment. Meetings are planned for the second Wednesdays of the month at 7:30 pm
Our Berkeley Progressive Alliance will join other civic groups and communities
to help create a united voice and vision to elect 2016 Berkeley leadership.
We need a city council and mayor that will represent the true vision of our city’s people.
We need affordable housing and community-oriented development projects,
green developers, innovations to help the homeless and the underemployed,
better opportunities for small and local businesses, an environmentally sustainable
vision for traffic and local transportation, and better prioritization of infrastructure
and city services maintenance.
Individuals, neighborhood groups, social justice and environmental justice organizations are invited and welcome. We learn from each other and are stronger together.
The CPA is creating a charter amendment ballot initiative to create an accountable, civilian-controlled, police commission.
The ONLY agenda item will be a discussion of whether or not we should file a petition with the City Clerk’s Office to declare our intention to collect signatures to independently place our item on the Nov 2016 ballot.
We will discuss the pros and cons, including logistic challenges but also organizing opportunities.
In the interim, we will try to assemble as much information about what signature initiatives involve, what the needed capacity looks like. Toward that end, we have committed to having a final draft that we would need to submit to the City Clerk ready for your review by January 8th.
The Occupy The Farm documentary will be screened on the Sprouts grocery building @ 30th & Broadway today 6pm; protests outside store all day
— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) January 13, 2016
Go to grand opening of Sprouts grocery 30th & Broadway, #Oakland today & tell shoppers to boycott until company stops paving Gill Tract farm
— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) January 13, 2016
“Equality demands dignity. And dignity demands a job and a paycheck that lasts through the week.”
“When you have mass unemployment in the Negro community it’s called a social problem. When you have mass unemployment in the white community it’s called a depression”
“We refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt”
— Martin Luther King, Jr–
Last year, during MLK weekend, The Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) answered a national call by initiating #96Hours of Direct Action that culminated in an historic march from Fruitvale Station to Coliseum City on Martin Luther King Day. Over 7,000 people took to the streets and reclaimed the radical spirit of King and celebrated his legacy of resistance! Since then, APTP has steadfastly been organizing to build a replicable and sustainable model for eradicating police-terror in communities of color.
In the months following that powerful weekend, the police and the state have taken more lives than ever before and our communities are facing accelerated displacement due to rapid gentrification that is supported and encouraged by our new Mayor and City Council members.
Based on a vote taken at the last spokescouncil – this year’s 96 Hours of Direct Action will have increased specificity. Please see below for the weekend’s parameters:
1/15: Actions focused on gentrification will take place on both sides of the bridge
1/16: Actions focused on the many areas of state terror happening in Oakland (police terror, gentrification, educational inequity etc.,)
1/17: Actions focused on the many areas of state terror happening in San Francisco (corrupt police department, gentrification, police murders)
This is a family-friendly event and a celebration of King’s legacy, Black Lives and the struggle for social justice.
Last year we marched through areas in Oakland that are currently in development or are proposing development and we made clear demands to stem the tide of gentrification, end the displacement of Black and Brown residents, replace high-rise plans with affordable housing, and implement local-hiring practices all while demanding an immediate end to police terror in our communities.
Join us as we plan yet another historic day. We are meeting the 3rd Wednesday of every month at 7:30 At EastSide Arts Alliance. When we get closer to the date, we will initiate the spokescouncil again so affinity groups can come together – or form – and plan for the #96hours.
APTP is coalition of organizations and individuals committed to ending the state sanctioned murder of Black, Brown & Poor people by police departments across the country.
#reclaimMLK
#96hours
Bay Area SPOKESCOUNCIL – 96 HOURS OF ACTION FOR MLK CONFERENCE CALL
12-23, 26 and 29, 2015 at 7:00pm PT / 10:00pm ET
Our next meeting will be on Thursday at SEIU local 1020 at 6 pm. Enter at 350 Rhode Island . Enter on Kansas Street side between 16 th and 17th street side.
“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
Spokescouncil Meetings are scheduled to take place:
January 5th @ 7pm at the OMNI
January 9th @ 7 pm @ the OMNI
January 12th @ 7pm @ the OMNI
January 14th @ 7pm @ the OMNI
The MLK weekend will once again culminate in a King Day march that embodies the true spirit of King’s resistance to capitalism, imperialism and racism.
Over the last year, in the Bay Area alone, there have been dozens of police murders. In San Francisco, we have most recently seen the brutal execution of Mario Woods, in addition to police beating a disabled man in front of the Twitter building and racist text messages exchanged between SFPD on-duty officers.
In Oakland, we have seen 8 Black men murdered by police since only June of 2015. In fact, a recent graphic by Mapping Police Violence shows that in 2015, Oakland ranks third in police killings per million people in 60 of America’s largest cities.
Police are the shock troops of gentrification. Mayors give them a mandate: make this city appealing to developers by any means necessary. City Councils fund police and constantly seek to expand their numbers and their powers. As a result, people of color are being pushed out of cities at unprecedented rates, by an out of control rental market, increased police occupation and terrorism against communities of color, as well as crackdowns on those who dare protest these unjust policies.
A year ago, people across the country began taking to the streets in unprecedented numbers; storming shopping centers, blocking streets and highways, interrupting cultural events and public transit. And the people SHUT IT DOWN. We SHUT IT DOWN because there is a state-sponsored war on Black, Brown, and other marginalized peoples in the United States. WE SHUT DOWN BUSINESS-AS-USUAL because business-as-usual is an out-of-control epidemic of police terror.
Last year, in partnership with comrades and allies, APTP launched 96 Hours of Direct Action in the Bay Area, and answered a national call to Reclaim King’s Radical Legacy which we did through a march that brought over 7,000 people into the streets of Oakland. We believe it is important for our movement to draw on King’s legacy to ground ourselves, to reinforce our conviction and confidence in the tactics and strategy of disruptive direct action.
A year later, while we are starting to have an impact, we also see that we have a long long way to go. So this Martin Luther King Day weekend, Oakland’s Anti Police-Terror Project* is calling on you to help us SHUT IT DOWN – again. Together, we will unleash the vast creativity and organizing capacity of our communities to produce a spectrum of disruptive and creative activity. In the spirit of MLK, we want these to actions to meaningfully interrupt business as usual whether that be with direct action, teach-ins, concerts or prayer vigils and to do so with action logic that links our resistance to fighting racism, economic injustice, and imperialism. We want you to plan these actions independently, but together we will coordinate collective support for these actions through a spokescouncil so that they have maximal support and impact.
Please visit the facebook event page: Updates, meeting agendas, calendar, and other info will be posted.
https://www.facebook.com/events/632827553487864/
Invite your friends!
Check out the web site for more about APTP’s vision: http://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org/new-events/
WE DEMAND:
- The resignation of Mayor Libby Schaaf
- The immediate termination of Chief Sean Whent
- The immediate termination of Chief Greg Suhr
- The immediate termination of the officers involved in the murders of Richard Perkins, Mario Woods, Yuvette Henderson, Amilcar Lopez, Alex Nieto, Demoriah Hogg and Richard Linyard
- The immediate reallocation of city budgets: reduce police budgets and reallocate those funds to provide for affordable housing that allows Black, Brown and other people of color to remain in San Francisco and Oakland.
This year, we shut it down in the names of:
Yuvette Henderson
Nate Wilks
Richard Perkins
Richard Linyard
Demoriah Hogg
Yonas Alehegne
Amilcar Lopez
Mario Woods
Alex Nieto
#mlkshutitdown
#96hours
#reclaimMLK
Reminder this is a call out for affinity groups to organize autonomous solidarity actions in line withAPTP’s Principles.
Questions, ideas, comments, or to get involved
Email aptpspokescouncil@gmail.com
Meet in the Dimond district Safeway parking lot. Organized by SURJ
TODAY: 10:45 meet @ Walgreen's, 51st&Tel to join us for Fast food worker action! #96Hours #RECLAIMMLK
— Bay Solidarity (@BaySolidarity) January 16, 2016
“Oakland is being touted as a #1 tourist destination spot. Under the Mayorship of Libby Schaaf, a mandate has been issued to make the City pretty for tourists and developers. This has meant an upsurge in police terror and murders in Oakland. In what we have dubbed Libby’s Bloody Era, string of Black men were murdered in Oakland in 2015. All of them declared “justifiable”.
As part of the 96 Hours of Direct Action, Join APTP at Terminal One of Oakland Airport where we will welcome people to Oakland – the nations third leading city it police murders – by reading a list of names of Black, Brown and Indigenous Peoples murdered at the hands of law enforcement in Oakland – and across the country.
Meet inside Terminal One.
Ride Sharing is highly encouraged. Please see the Facebook page.
More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1958174034406838/
Join us for reports of activities aimed at resisting the multiple fossil fuel expansion projects in our area. At this meeting we will also take up an extended discussion on strategies for movement building.
Newcomers always welcome.
Our Oakland airport action was very successful! The police were a no show and we had the run of the airport, and there were no arrests. Saturday is a light travel day and Oakland is a smaller airport….
So we’re going to try it again at SFO on a very busy travel day! Please bring signs this time! Lets make this even bigger.
We’ll meet at the International terminal, at the BART fare gates. Try to be on time, we may move around the airport.
BART goes right to the international terminal of the airport, but is relatively expensive. and there is parking if you want to carpool, and also other transit options: http://www.flysfo.com/to-from/public-transit.
Announcement for SFO #SayTheirNames tomorrow at 6pm, on day set for SF actions. Stay tuned to @APTPaction for exact location and details.
— Dave Id (@DaveId) January 17, 2016
#SayTheirNames #ReclaimMLK #96Hours @APTPaction tomorrow at #SFO is at 6pm Check Facebook for updates
— Terri Kay (@TKOakWWP) January 17, 2016
The Community Democracy Project is your connection to direct democracy in Oakland! Convened out of Occupy Oakland in Fall 2011, we’re gathering steam on a campaign to bring the people back in touch with the city’s resources through participatory budgeting.
Picture this: Across Oakland, Neighborhood Assemblies are regularly held in every community. People come together to tackle the important issues of their neighborhoods and of the city. At these assemblies, people don’t just have discussions–they learn from one another, from city staff, and they make fundamental decisions about how the city should run. They decide the city budget.
Democratic, community budgeting is a powerful step toward building strong communities, real democracy, and economic justice–and it’s being done all over the world.
The budget of the City Oakland totals more than $1 billion per year. Although part of the budget must be used for specific purposes, still over half of the budget–over $500 million per year–consists of general purpose funds paid by the taxes, fees, and fines of the people of Oakland. The Mayor and the City Council decide the city budget, with minimal input from the community.
Working together, we will not only get a seat at the table–we will REBUILD the table itself. Participatory democracy is real democracy–join us to say: Local People, Local Resources, Local Power!
Liberated Lens is a digital filmmaking collective dedicated to social change, based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to help each other tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We make films in a spirit of collaboration and solidarity, share a lending library of film equipment for creative projects, and organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops.
Join us for our weekly meeting and a workshop!
We usually meet in our editing suite (2nd floor in the ballroom, to the left of the stage) and then work on projects. It’s open to all!
Pre-march protest in solidarity with the fighting people of Haiti:
Black Lives Matter from Haiti to the Bay
· Drummers
· Report from Haiti – By Pierre Labossiere
A part of the 96 Hours of Direct Action to Reclaim the Radical Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere!” We will march to join the 11AM rally and march at Oscar Grant Plaza
Haiti is in the streets almost every day – as tens of thousands turn out to demand that the stolen 2015 election be thrown out. The mass movement is telling the U.S./U.N. occupiers: “Don’t Steal Our Votes!” It is demanding “Reclaim Haiti’s sovereignty!” from foreign occupation.
Haiti’s struggle is our struggle. It’s now 50 years since the U.S. Voting Rights Act, but it’s been rolled back to systematically deny Black people the right to vote – again. In Haiti the 2015 elections were plagued by endless and well-documented ballot stuffing, vote buying, armed coercion, naked vote rigging – yet the U.S. ambassador gave his “OK” to the faked election results. In effect, whether it’s here or in Haiti, the U.S. rulers are deliberately interfering with the people’s right to freely choose the representatives that they want.
Haiti’s fight is our fight. Just as we in the Bay Area are fighting against police murder of Black people, so it is in Haiti. The State Dept wants to suppress the surging popular movement – using police terror against the people. During the 2015 elections, special US-financed police units sprayed machine gun fire into working-class neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince and Arcahaie to suppress the vote, killing scores of people.
The U.S. State Department is the main actor trying to push through the fraudulent elections – maneuvering to exclude Haiti’s most popular political party – Fanmi Lavalas – from any role in the next government. The U.S. wants to keep in power corrupt puppets who are willing to give away Haiti’s abundant mineral resources … privatize the mines and the electric company … and keep factory wages at US$3/day – continuing a long tradition of the U.S. and France stealing the wealth and the labor of the Haitian people.
Lighting the fires of struggle – Many have commented that the Haitian people, in their vast majority, are very aware of their history – proud inheritors of the Revolution of 1791-1804, when Haiti defeated the army of Napoleon, ended plantation slavery and declared independence from France. “It’s on every lip,” said one Lavalas activist. “People are saying that in rejecting this stolen election, we are lighting the fires of struggle, continuing the fight for equality and sovereignty that our ancestors fought for 200 years ago.”
****After the protest we will walk 2 blocks to join the 11:00 AM rally and march at Oscar Grant Plaza (14th & Broadway) to Reclaim the Radical Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. ****
For more information, connect with the Haiti Action Committee: www.haitisolidarity.net @HaitiAction1 and on Facebook
Reclaiming King’s Legacy
“Equality demands dignity. And dignity demands a job and a paycheck that lasts through the week.”
“When you have mass unemployment in the Negro community it’s called a social problem. When you have mass unemployment in the white community it’s called a depression”
“We refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt”
– Martin Luther King, Jr
Last year, during MLK weekend, The Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) answered a national call by initiating #96Hours of Direct Action that culminated in an historic march from Fruitvale Station to Coliseum City on Martin Luther King Day. Over 7,000 people took to the streets and reclaimed the radical spirit of King and celebrated his legacy of resistance! Since then, APTP has steadfastly been organizing to build a replicable and sustainable model for eradicating police-terror in communities of color.
In the months following that powerful weekend, the police and the state have taken more lives than ever before and our communities are facing accelerated displacement due to rapid gentrification that is supported and encouraged by our new Mayor and City Council members.
This year our MLK day march will be even bigger.
This is a family-friendly event and a celebration of King’s legacy, Black Lives and the struggle for social justice.
Last year we marched through areas in Oakland that are currently in development or are proposing development and we made clear demands to stem the tide of gentrification, end the displacement of Black and Brown residents, replace high-rise plans with affordable housing, and implement local-hiring practices all while demanding an immediate end to police terror in our communities.