Calendar

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Feb
4
Tue
Renewable and Resilient: Community Microgrids @ Community Center
Feb 4 @ 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Learn about how community microgrids can increase renewable energy and make our communities more resilient for dealing with power shutoffs like those that stranded many Bay Area communities last fall.

Climate change and the increased danger of fire make it necessary for us to build our own local electric grids, powered by renewable energy, not subject to whatever happens to long-distance power lines.

Hear a panel describe the importance of distributed energy, how it works,  and current microgrid projects in California and Marin.

SPEAKERS;

Peter Asmus, Guidehouse
Ellie Cohen, The Climate Center

(doors open at 6 with light refreshments)

Environmental Forum of Marin members $10
Benefactors, lifetime members, and MC46 students free

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WE KEEP US SAFE: OFFICIAL BOOK LAUNCH @ Restore Oakland
Feb 4 @ 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm

Come hear from Zach and learn about how we can come together to build secure, just, and inclusive communities. Books will be available for sale and the author will be signing copies.

Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities

Despite the United States’ long-standing tradition of aggressive policing and imprisonment, we still don’t feel safe. It’s clear that our current approaches to justice aren’t working. They blame our problems on a subset of scapegoats and marginalized Others we’ve been indoctrinated to perceive as criminals, decreasing our societal capacity to hold powerful institutions and individuals accountable. Community leader and lawyer Zach Norris lays out a radical way to shift the conversation about public safety away from fear and punishment toward growth and support systems for our families and communities.

 

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Socialist Night School: Bernie 2020 and Class Struggle @ East Bay Community Space
Feb 4 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

“Not me, us” is the slogan of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential run. On the campaign trail, Bernie has consistently emphasized that he alone can’t transform society — that in order to end the stranglehold of the billionaire class over society, millions of working-class Americans must get involved in the political process.

Why does Bernie insist on the need for a mass movement to change society? What is Bernie’s campaign doing to build that movement? What would a working-class movement need to be like in order to enact fundamental change, and what should socialists do to grow that movement? What should we do if and when Bernie wins — or loses?

Join East Bay DSA’s Socialist Night School on Tuesday, February 4 to discuss these questions and others, in the third of a special four-part series on Bernie Sanders, capitalism, and democratic socialism.

See the assigned readings here.

 

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A Place Outside the Law: Forgotten Voices From Guantanamo @ Hillside Club
Feb 4 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

PETER JAN HONIGSBERG with Steve Wasserman

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Advance tickets: $12: brownpapertickets.com ::T: 800-838-3006  or Pegasus Books (3 sites), Books Inc (Berkeley), Moe’s, Walden Pond Bookstore, East Bay Books, Mrs.Dalloway’s Books $15 door, benefits KPFA Radio 94.1FM  info: kpfa.org/events  

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You’re doing God’s work with this book…”  —Robert Scheer

“Honigsberg combines his impressive research with his persistent advocacy for detainees who clearly played no role in the 9/11 attacks and who almost certainly never posed any threat to American citizens. . . . A well-documented, hard-hitting, necessary exposé.”    —Kirkus Reviews 

“What sets Honigsberg’s portrait apart is his focus on the lasting effects of isolation and controversial legal process on all involved. The author concludes that the United States broke the rule of law, and is the worse for it. VERDICT A sobering book for audiences interested in law and current affairs.    —Library Journal

On January 11th, 2002, the first planeload of twenty detainees from Afghanistan arrived at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Eventually 780 Muslim men were held at Guantanamo, many for ten years or longer, and nearly all were never charged with a crime—a violation of America’s foundational belief in due process and the rule of law. Forty men are still imprisoned at Guantanamo today; twenty-six of them are considered “forever prisoners” who will likely die at Guantanamo, having never been charged, tried, or convicted of any wrongdoing.

Now, in A Place Outside the Law, Peter Jan Honigsberg, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law and the founder and director of the Witness to Guantanamo Project, offers the most comprehensive picture to date of the lives that were deeply and often traumatically transformed by Guantanamo.  From how alleged terrorists were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan and sold to the US to the Bush administration’s use of the term “enemy combatant” to bypass the Geneva Conventions, Honigsberg details how the law was broken in the name of protecting Americans—and how that lawlessness was experienced by everyone who came into contact with Guantanamo.

The stories in the book—and the full-length filmed interviews held in perpetuity at the Duke University Human Rights Archive—are the only record of many of the people who were at Guantanamo. “Their witness,” cautions Honigsberg, “will remind future generations not to repeat what has happened there.”

Peter Jan Honigsberg is a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law and the founder and director of Witness to Guantánamo. His research and teaching focus on the rule of law and human rights violations that occurred in the detention center in Guantánamo, as well as on the study of terrorism and post-9/11 issues. His books include Our Nation Unhinged: The Human Consequences of the War on Terror and Crossing Border Street: A Civil Rights Memoir. Honigsberg lives in Berkeley, California.

 

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Feb
5
Wed
Ella Baker Meeting
Feb 5 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

This February we are highlighting not only the history of black people but the future as well. We will be paying homage to our local leaders and activists.

Local performer, artist, and educator TJ Sykes will be joining us. All are welcome, dinner provided, for more information

email monifa@ellabakercenter.org. Come build with us!

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Building a Movement to Stop the War @ Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California (ICCNC)
Feb 5 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm


Join the Center for Political Education for an emergency teach-in.

As the Trump regime unveils its shameful “Middle East Peace Plan”, tensions with the people of Iran remain high, millions are in the streets of Iraq demanding immediate US withdrawal, and the situation in Yemen continues to deteriorate. Globally, US militarism continues to destabilize life from Bolivia, to Venezuela, to Haiti, Sudan and the Philippines. Across the planet and here in the Bay Area, movements are taking up the vital task of building unity against these threats to life, along with building a vision for a society built on peace, solidarity, and democracy.

Learn about:
-The global context for the current escalation with Iran
-Key insights from anti-war organizing 2001-2008
-How US intervention and militarism affects movements for social justice
-What you can do to take action against US war-making

Featured speakers include**:
Yousef Baker (Iraqi Transnational Collective)
Clare Bayard (Catalyst Project)
Lara Kiswani (Arab Resource and Organizing Center)
Chris Lymbertos (Arab Resource and Organizing Center)
Rhonda Ramiro (BAYAN USA)

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Justice Jam @ Lakeshore Ave. Baptist Church
Feb 5 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

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Multifaith Response to Climate Crisis @ St. Johns Presbyterian Church
Feb 5 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

 Rev.Ambrose Carroll (Green the Church), Starhawk (Earth Activist Training), and Rabbi Arthur Waskow (The Shalom Center) will lead an evening of song, ceremony, preaching, prayer, and community at the intersection of climate activism and spirituality.

Funds raised from this event help support the work of Green the ChurchEarth Activist Training, and The Shalom Center. Co-sponsors include St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Church By the Side of the Road, Aquarian Minyan, and Keneset HaLev. Co-produced by Derech HaAreretz – Way of the Earth and JeWitch Collective.
Please help spread the word on facebook

Wheelchair accessible
Fragrance-free including laundry, hair, and body products. For more about what that means please go to: www.jewitch.org/accessibility.

More info here

To find out about the entire week of Bay Area events with Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Starhawk and Friends, go to www.derechhaaretz.org/events

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DSA Green New Deal Committee
Feb 5 @ 6:45 pm – 8:30 pm

Monthly Meeting

Join the Green New Deal Committee for our monthly meeting!

The Green New Deal Committee (GNDC) is organizing for a socialist Green New Deal in the East Bay and beyond. We believe that future generations are entitled to a beautiful planet with a vibrant natural world that can sustain a good life for all people, and that creating a fully ecological society will require a revolutionary transformation to replace the capitalist social order based on exploitation and oppression with a new society based on cooperation, equity, and justice. A Green New Deal must serve as a bridge toward a decarbonized, democratized, decommodified, and demilitarized future for all.

In our monthly meetings, we hold political discussions and strategize for our Green New Deal work, such as our ongoing Lets Own PG&E campaign, No Coal in Oakland, and many more.

The Green New Deal Committee is open to all, and all are welcome to join!

 

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Feb
6
Thu
Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission @ Oakland City Hall
Feb 6 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Agenda items:

4. Census Team – Presentation on 2020 Census – Informational report only Richard J. Luna, Assistant to the City Administrator, will give a presentation regarding the 2020 Census. The 2020 Census will be conducted primarily online and made available in only 13 languages, which makes it a challenge in ensuring a complete count for Oakland. According to the State of California, 57% of Oakland’s population lives in hard-to-count Census tracts. Factors that lead to hard-to-count areas in Oakland include: crowded units, renters, multiple families living at a residence, people living below the poverty level, among others. The City of Oakland and County of Alameda have partnered in outreach efforts to ensure everyone is counted during the 2020 Census. Commissioners are encouraged to make a pledge to take the Census, register as a Census Ambassador, and to discuss the importance of the Census with family and friends.

5. Chair report – Informational report only
a. PAC Annual Report
b. 2020 Planning and Agenda Management
c. OPD Tech Priority List
d. Goldman School of Public Policy – Citizen Data Project

6. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Cell Site Simulator Annual Report (2019) – review and take possible action

7. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD UAS (Drone) Exigent Use Report – review and take possible action.

8. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – UAS (Drone) Impact Report and proposed Use Policy – review and take possible action

9. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Mobile ID Impact Report and proposed Use Policy – review and take possible action

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“Kids Caught in the Crackdown,” a documentary @ Revolution Books
Feb 6 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
As the detention of migrant children has climbed to record-breaking levels under Trump, FRONTLINE and The Associated Press investigated what’s going on inside federally-funded shelters – and the lasting impact on children held in U.S. custody. The nearly 70,000 migrant children who were held in government custody this year – up 42 percent in fiscal year 2019 from 2018 – spent more time in shelters and away from their families than in prior years.

Andrés Cediel is a documentary filmmaker and Professor of Visual Journalism. He produced “Rape in the Fields” and was a writer and producer of “Rape on the Night Shift” which brought to light rampant sexual assault of immigrant women in the agricultural and janitorial industries.

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Homeless First & 24 Hours, Community Film Screening @ Longhaul
Feb 6 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Screening of two short films on homelessness:

24 HOURS by Yesica Prado
An account of eviction of an encampment in Berkeley

HOMELESS FIRST by Anka Karewicz & Travis Schirmer
A Liberated Lens production that follows the Berkley encampment known as “First They Came for the Homeless,” a group fighting for the right to live in tents within a self-sustaining community.

Wheelchair accessible

sm_long_haul_screening_flyer.jpg
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Omni General Assembly @ Omni Commons
Feb 6 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Come by our open Delegates Meetings every Thursday evening at 7pm! We’ll give space to brief announcements, updates from working groups, proposals up for consensus, and discussion around important issues. The schedule is created weekly at the following url: https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom

This meeting usually happens in the Ballroom, but the the location may change depending on the access needs of people attending and other events taking place in the building.

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Feb
7
Fri
Back to Court: Impact CDCR’s Resentencing Process @ Ella Baker Center, Suite 202
Feb 7 @ 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Help us get people back to court for resentencing and get people free! Come learn about CDCR’s re-sentencing process, and prepare comments and live testimony. We have 45 days to make public comments and testify at CDCR’s hearing.

Since June 2018, CDCR’s PC § 1170(d)(1) Resentencing “pilot program” formally tracked and reviewed over 1,800 cases and referred roughly 1300 people back to court for resentencing. So far CDCR prioritized referring people with illegal or no longer mandatory enhancements, with sentencing errors, and for exceptional conduct. Now, effective January 1, 2020, CDCR has updated its Title 15 regulations that govern the process and criteria CDCR staff use for making PC § 1170(d)(1) resentencing referrals. As we’ve seen with Proposition 57 parole board hearings, exclusionary criteria are now being applied that keep people incarcerated who should have a chance to come home. And the unclear referral process is contributing to confusion, unfairness, and missed opportunities for freedom.

Join us to prevent more people being left behind by broad exclusions.

Or via video: email james@ellabakercenter.org for the link.

For more information visit: http://bit.ly/Regulations-1170d1

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Tsuru Fold-In & Film Screening @ Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Suite 290
Feb 7 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
20200207andthenwebthumbnail-01.png Never again is NOW. Join OACC and Tsuru for Solidarity for a “Tsuru Fold In,” to fold cranes that will join the “National Pilgrimage to Close the Camps” in June 2020. This movement plans to bring 125,000 paper cranes, or tsuru, as expressions of solidarity with immigrant and refugee communities that are under attack today. The 125,000 cranes represent the members of the community who were rounded up and incarcerated in U.S. concentration camps during World War II, including both Japanese Americans and Japanese Latin Americans. Learn more at tsuruforsolidarity.org.

Accompanying this fold in will be a screening of “And Then They Came For Us.” Watch the trailer:

https://vimeo.com/210002629

Co-presented by Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Tsuru for Solidarity, and Oakland Public Library.

This event is free with a $3-5 suggested donation. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Event link: https://oacc.cc/event/tsuru-fold-in-film-screening/
RSVP here: https://oacc.liveimpact.org/li/8737/sevent/evt/home/132408/69

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Feb
8
Sat
Showing Up for Racial Justice Through the Power of Public Policy @ Berkeley YWCA
Feb 8 @ 10:00 am – 12:30 pm

Join SURJ Bay Area’s Policy Committee for a legislative strategy session and workshop that will demystify the legislative process, build our collective legislative capacity, and highlight the legislative priorities and strategies of SURJ’s people of color (POC) led partners!

This workshop is the first of a two-part series for anyone who is passionate, curious, or wants to learn more about the ways that policy combined with grassroots organizing can be used as a tool in the movement for racial justice and collective liberation.

This workshop will provide opportunities for participants to:

– Hear from Kristine Boyd, Community Organizer at Initiate Justice, on their 2020 legislative campaign
– Learn how the Movement 4 Black Lives Policy Platform (M4BL) fits into SURJ Bay Area’s organizing framework
– Leverage our grassroots power in the state Capitol
– Plug into statewide policy work and action
– Practice bringing your voice and positionality to the political process

Guest Speaker:

Kristine Boyd is a community organizer with Initiate Justice. She is a woman who is directly impacted by mass incarceration, finding self-motivation through Zora Neale Hurtson’s quote, “Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding spot.” She is committed to being vocal about how incarceration has impacted her life and is inspired to advocate for political change and more programs available for those who want to better themselves. Kristine is also an Essie Justice Group sister and a student at Skyline College in San Bruno.

Event tickets are sliding scale – $0-10. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
This workshop is also a fundraiser for Initiate Justice. Please bring an additional cash donation that is meaningful for you.

We are eager to hear all of your voices and to help develop progressive grassroots’ power in the California policy landscape. All levels of experience are welcome!

Hold the date for the second workshop in this two-part series: February 22, 2020!
ACCESSIBILITY INFORMATION

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Bay Area Poor People’s Campaign Meeting @ Redstone Bldg
Feb 8 @ 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Today, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival has picked up the unfinished work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s 1968 Poor People’s Campaign. We are creating a new fusion politics to change the moral narrative of the country.

From Alaska to Arkansas, the Bronx to the border, people are coming together to confront the interlocking evils of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism and the war economy, and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism. We understand that as a nation we are at a critical juncture — that we need a movement that will shift the moral narrative, impact policies and elections at every level of government, and build lasting power for poor and impacted people.

Please join us and the movement as we build towards a Mass Assembly and March on Washington, June 20, 2020. We welcome your participation at the next Steering Committee meeting of the Poor People’s Campaign Bay Area Supporters, Saturday, February 8th, 3:00 pm at San Francisco’s historic Redstone Building.

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Strike Debt Bay Area’s Economics Book Group: “Limits” @ Omni Commons
Feb 8 @ 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm

We start a new book for the new year.  All are welcome at host Strike Debt Bay Area’s economics book group discussion.

We meet once a month.  For January we are reading the first three chapters of “Limits (Why Malthus Was Wrong and Why Environmentalists Should Care” by Giorgos Kallis (Amazon, Stanford University Press).  For February, the remaing chapters.  Not a problem if you will have missed January – the chapters are short and it is easy to catch up for February!

Previous books er have discussed include Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics and Ellen Brown’s Banking for the People.

“In an era addicted to endless growth, Giorgos Kallis artfully explores the power of limits and the surprising freedom that they can unleash. A compelling―and fittingly concise―read for our times.” (Kate Raworth author of Doughnut Economics)

“Western culture is infatuated with the dream of going beyond, even as it is increasingly haunted by the specter of apocalypse: drought, famine, nuclear winter. How did we come to think of the planet and its limits as we do? This book reclaims, redefines, and makes an impassioned plea for limits—a notion central to environmentalism—clearing them from their association with Malthusianism and the ideology and politics that go along with it. Giorgos Kallis rereads reverend-economist Thomas Robert Malthus and his legacy, separating limits and scarcity, two notions that have long been conflated in both environmental and economic thought. Limits are not something out there, a property of nature to be deciphered by scientists, but a choice that confronts us, one that, paradoxically, is part and parcel of the pursuit of freedom. Taking us from ancient Greece to Malthus, from hunter-gatherers to the Romantics, from anarchist feminists to 1970s radical environmentalists, Limits shows us how an institutionalized culture of sharing can make possible the collective self-limitation we so urgently need.” – Book description.

Join us!

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Report from 2nd International Gathering of Women in Struggle @ Omni Commons
Feb 8 @ 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm

In December 2019 Zapatista Women organized the Second International Gathering of Women in Struggle in Chiapas Mexico. At least 4,000 women attended from all over the world. The gathering was dedicated to struggle to end gender based violence. Women who attended the gathering will share their experience, feelings, thoughts, and analysis. Participants include the Chiapas Support Committee, Sogorea Te Land Trust, the Sexta National and International, etc.

Hosted by Chiapas Support Committee Oakland

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Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools @ Mills College, Lisser Hall
Feb 8 @ 5:30 pm – 9:00 pm

The precarity of Black girls’ lives in school have been made visible by Dr. Monique Morris. Through her writing, advocacy, and now film, PUSHOUT, we now have the language to describe and understand what we see happening to Black girls in schools. Morris’ work has inspired debate and legislation with the recent sponsoring of the Ending Punitive, Unfair, School-based Harm that is Overt and Unresponsive to Trauma (P.U.S.H.O.U.T) Act,” by representatives Ayanna Pressley (D- MA), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.). The law identifies the many students made vulnerable by race, gender, and disability positionality and outlines resources and policy recommendations to secure educational spaces for children.

Join Mills College, School of Education for its culminating Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action event: a screening of PUSHOUT and townhall panel discussion moderated by Dr. Margo Okazawa-Rey. Dr. Monique Morris will provide opening remarks. In collaboration with the Mills College Black History Month programming and Ethnic Studies Department, we are proud to host this screening of PUSHOUT.

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