Calendar
We held a vigil on the evening of May 5th, the one year anniversary of Alan Blueford’s death. See photos here.
We are figuring out how to get Miguel Masso, the officer who killed Alan Blueford, fired and prosecuted. In light of the recent upheavals in the Oakland Police Department, we are renewing
are calls for the firing of Masso and justice for Alan. We will have held a press conference to this effect on Thursday, May 16th.
We are formulating how we should interact with Judge Thelton Henderson’s newly appointed Compliance Director for the Oakland police, Thomas Frazier.
We are discussing how we can aide other families who are victims of police violence.
We are making a difference! We can use all the help we can get! Come join us!
The UC raided and bulldozed the farm we worked so hard to till and plant last weekend, plowing all of our starts under. So we’re going to replant it. Meet at 11 AM on Saturday, and bring gardening tools, gloves, sunscreen, water bottles, sleeping bag and tent. If you can’t come on Saturday, please come Sunday at 11 am.
Folks are gathering at San Pablo & Monroe in Albany, CA at 11 AM on Saturday, May 18th to replant. Bring tools & food to share.
There may be more information on Faceplant, but your humble submitter don’t play that.
On Saturday, May 18th, Strike Debt Bay Area will host the Bay Area’s Second Debtors’ Assembly. (The first one was held in February. The beautiful posters for both created by SDBA organizer Sandy Sanders are shown below.)
As individuals, families, and communities, most of us are drowning in debt for the basic things we need to live, including housing, education, and health care. Even those of us who do not have personal debt are affected by predatory lending. Our essential public services are cut because our cities and towns are held hostage by the same big banks that have been bailed out by our government. All of us are outraged that big banks don’t have to pay their debts, but we do.
Debt keeps us isolated, ashamed, and afraid—of becoming homeless, of going hungry, of being crippled or killed by treatable illness, or of being trapped in poverty-level jobs. Those facing foreclosure, medical debt, student debt, or credit card debt feel alone, hounded by debt collectors, and forced into unrewarding work to keep up with payments.
Strike Debt is building a movement to challenge this system while creating alternatives and supporting each other. At the Debtors’ Assembly we will come together as a community and begin to rethink debt, not as an issue of individual shame, but as a political platform for collective resistance and action. Come to the Assembly to learn about tools for escaping the closing walls of debt, to share resources and skills, and to magnify our assembled energy. As we share our experiences we can begin to take back from the financiers what they have taken from us: our freedom and our future.
Debt resistance is just the beginning. Join us as we imagine and create a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits.
ORGANIZATION INFO: Strike Debt Bay Area is the local chapter of Strike Debt, an international movement of groups working to build popular resistance to all forms of unjust debt. Strike Debt has organized the Rolling Jubilee, the Debt Resistors Operations Manual, and local debtors’ assemblies. Strike Debt supports the creation of just and sustainable economies, based on mutual aid, common goods, and public affluence. We owe the financial institutions nothing. It is to our friends, families and community that we owe everything.
Poster from First Debtors’ Assembly:
Our weekly open meeting for members and supporters to discuss the weeks tasks and projects. Come get plugged into ongoing housing defense work! We have abundant and varied work for all folks in any number of meaningful projects.
Rain location: SF Pizza, 1500 Broadway, Oakland
Our weekly open meeting for members and supporters to discuss the week’s tasks and projects. Come get plugged into ongoing housing defense work! We have abundant and varied work for all folks in any number of meaningful projects.
Rain location: SF Pizza, 1500 Broadway, Oakland
Occupy4Prisoners @Occupy4Prisoner
Hey! A bunch of rad folks are having a strategy mtg to discuss supporting people in CA prisons as they prepare to go on hunger strike! (1/2)
Occupy4Prisoners @Occupy4Prisoner
Hunger strike support mtg: Mon 5/20 6-8p, 499 14th Street, Oak (Siegel & Yee)
Come to the very first session of The Politics of Debt reading group on Monday, May 20th at 6:30!
Darwin Bond-Graham will help kick off the discussion and present on public debt as it relates to our personal lives and public institutions. Together we will help shed light on the variety of ways that the debt economy subjects individuals and communities to moral and financial burden. After the initial talk we will break into a general group discussion and lay out the vision for the class.
We are less than a month away from PFC Bradley Manning’s court martial which begins on June 3rd, more than 3 years after his initial arrest and incarceration. We will be doing a mass mailing to bring in as much support as we can right before his trial begins. Help us in our office stuff letters and eat pizza to save Bradley!
BRADLEY MANNING, a 25-year-old, openly gay, US Army intelligence analyst is facing life in prison and has been held in pre-trial confinement for over 3 years. He endured torture and solitary confinement for the first 10 months of his incarceration. He is accused of sharing with Wikileaks: the “Collateral Murder” video of the killing of civilians and journalists by a US helicopter in Iraq, the Guantanamo Files, the Afghan War Diary, the Iraq War Logs, & revealing US diplomatic cables. In short, he’s been charged with blowing the whistle on war crimes & telling us the truth.
A reading group focused on graeber’s Debt. The plan is to have this be a long discussion covering about a chapter a month so that it will be accessible for those with other commitments. We will have our first meeting on Wednesday may 22 at 7pm. We’re meeting at Research on Collective Art at 2331 international Blvd.
A Film by Darryl Cherney and Mary Laz Thomson.
Free Outdoors Event/Action.
Please gather at Union Square to hear some speakers and share our bag lunch exchange! Kids performance art! Political music!
We will march to Justin Herman Plaza where we will have more speakers including well known activists in the anit GMO movement.
Come Occupy the Farm Saturday night, and let’s camp out under the stars and stay through to Sunday! There will be free food, workshops, music, kids activities, celebration, and farming, of course!
Our weekly open meeting for members and supporters to discuss the weeks tasks and projects. Come get plugged into ongoing housing defense work! We have abundant and varied work for all folks in any number of meaningful projects.
Rain location: SF Pizza, 1500 Broadway, Oakland
Our weekly open meeting for members and supporters to discuss the week’s tasks and projects. Come get plugged into ongoing housing defense work! We have abundant and varied work for all folks in any number of meaningful projects.
Rain location: SF Pizza, 1500 Broadway, Oakland
Our weekly open meeting for members and supporters to discuss the week’s tasks and projects. Come get plugged into ongoing housing defense work! We have abundant and varied work for all folks in any number of meaningful projects.
Rain location: SF Pizza, 1500 Broadway, Oakland
Join us! All Are Welcome!
You Are Not a Loan! Or Alone.
We held our second Debtor’s Assembly (watch a video from our first one in February), May 18th in San Francisco.
We are planning our next general get-together wherein our five current subgroups: Direct Action, Debtor’s Union, Outreach and Education, Alternative Institutions, and Research, will meet, organize, plan and report back. It will be held on June 1, 518 Valencia St, near the Mission St. BART in San Francisco 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
We will be discussing our next major actions.
Join us! You Are Not a Loan! Or Alone.
Strike Debt Bay Area, loosely affiliated with Strike Debt (check out their latest video) and Occupy, is dedicated to educating people about and organizing resistance to debt, and finding alternatives to our current system of debt slavery.
Bike the Math to Chevron’s shareholders at their Annual General Meeting in San Ramon. Let’s tell Chevron to stop fueling climate chaos and become a renewable energy company!
Light to medium 6 mile ride to Chevron Headquarters in San Ramon along Iron Horse Trail, arriving at approximately 9am
RSVP at 350BayArea.org or join Facebook Event page
Tasers, spit hoods, pepper spray, hog-tie and “the Wrap” : Is this what Berkeley means by the term “Mental Health Services” ? Numerous incidents in Berkeley show that the “compassionate care” we thought was beging given by mental health care professionals has deteriorated into the systematic use of brute force against those in crisis.
SPEAKERS VIDEO CLIPS WORKSHOP
Join us for a public examination of Berkeley’s Emergency Mental Health Services and whether Police should even be involved as responders.