Calendar
1. Welcome and Introductions
2. Developing a coordinated agenda for local resistance and radical change in Oakland
a. Presentation and discussion on the impact of Trump’s election
b. Discussion of how Trump’s election impacts our work in Oakland
(1) Housing, gentrification and displacement
(2) Police accountability
(3) Education
(4) 2018 Oakland City Elections
c. How to build OJC to carry out this work
3. Responding to Trump’s attacks on immigrants – Presentation and discussion
If you’re interested, you can RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/178774692617282/
We’ll be starting the conversation promptly at 1:30pm, so make sure to arrive by then!
We’ll see you next Saturday!
The Universal Income Project team
BOB MOSES
President and Founder, The Algebra Project
Milo Yiannopoulos and Free Speech on the Berkeley campus: A Discussion
Trump tweeted on Feb 2: “If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view – NO FEDERAL FUNDS?”
We are inviting speakers to lead our discussion on this topic.
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 3 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 3:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (In prior years we have agreed to meet at 4:00 PM during summer hours, that is, once Daylight Savings Time goes back into effect).
On every last Sunday we meet a little earlier at 2 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over five years! 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 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 billion 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!
Within Our Gates by Oscar Michaeux.
Oldest known surviving film made by an African-American director.
1920’s silent film. Portrays the contemporary radical situation in the United States during the early 20th Century – the years of Jim Crow, the revival of the Klan, the Great Migration of blacks to cities of the North and Midwest, and the emergence of the ‘New Negro.’
Free snacks and popcorn.
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the country’s largest socialist organization. We are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly democratic socialist presence in American communities and politics.
DSA East Bay holds Executive Committee meetings on the second and fourth Saturday of the month. All are welcome to attend and join in the discussion about the direction of our local chapter!
We will review the work our 18 teams have accomplished over the past two weeks, and set action plans for the next two weeks. Time permitting, we might also offer a training on Grassroots Organizing 101 or another topic as part of our evening. A more detailed agenda will be developed over the next week, as we hear back from our new groups and see what they would find most helpful.
The family of Angel Ramos inivites community members to attend and make their voices heard during public comment at the next Vallejo City Council meeting. Vallejo police murdered Angel on January 23rd, 2017.
The family demands:
-The release of the officers’ body camera footage
-Naming of the officer(s) who killed Angel
This is an important early opportunity to put City Councilmembers on notice that the community will not tolerate a cover-up or failure to investigate.
Sing for an hour with the Tax the Rich crew.
Event is cancelled if it is raining.
Join us in promoting a public bank for the City of Oakland!
The Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland was formed by members of Commonomics and Strike Debt Bay Area in August, 2016.
In November, we succeeded in getting the Oakland City Council to instruct the City Administrator to report on the cost and scope of a feasibility study for creating The Public Bank of Oakland. Our next goal is to convince the City Council to commission that study as soon as possible, and incorporate it into a business plan for a public bank in Oakland.
The City of Oakland, with our organizing help, held a public forum on public banking at Oakland City Hall, on Thursday, February 9, 2017. Watch the video .
After the Administrator’s report, due on or about March 1, we will lobby the Oakland City Council to fund the aformentioned study, and once that is out (hopefully with a favorable set of recommendations) we will lobby the Oakland City Council to pass enabling legislation that will create and fund a public bank for Oakland. Our overarching goal is to see a public bank flourish in Oakland while it helps the community, thereby providing an example for other jurisdictions wishing to rid themselves of their dependence on Wall Street banks.
Bring your signs. Bring your noisemakers. Bring your crew. Show the world we will not stand for this in our backyard. #deleteUber
We say NO to:
* Sexism and misogyny of tech bro culture
* Exploiting workers with low wages and predatory loans, “contracting” economy
* Tech driven displacement of people of color and immigrants, the poor and working class, queers and artists
* Silicon Valley “neutrality” and complicity with Trump’s agenda and neoliberal capitalism.
Why #deleteUber?
http://mashable.com/2017/02/21/uber-disgusting-examples/
https://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/uber-executive-suggests-digging-up-dirt-on-journalists
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/06/uber-subprime-auto-leases/485480/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/dozens-uber-employees-describe-sexist-hostile-work-culture-article-1.2979909
https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber
OccupyForum presents…
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
At the River I Stand:
The 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike,
the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, and Strike as Strategy
Film and Discussion with George Wright
Memphis, Spring 1968 marked the dramatic climax of the Civil Rights movement. At the River I Stand skillfully reconstructs the two eventful months that transformed a strike by Memphis sanitation workers into a national conflagration, and disentangles the complex historical forces that came together with the inevitability of tragedy at the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This 58-minute documentary brings into sharp relief issues that have only become more urgent in the intervening years: the connection between economic and civil rights, debates over strategies for change, the demand for full inclusion of African Americans in American life, and the fight for dignity for public employees and all working people.
In the 1960s, Memphis’ 1,300 sanitation workers formed the lowest caste of a deeply racist society, earning so little they qualified for welfare. In the film, retired workers recall their fear about taking on the entire white power structure when they struck for higher wages and union recognition.
But local civil rights leaders and the Black community soon realized the strike was part of the struggle for economic justice for all African Americans. Through stirring historical footage we see the community mobilizing behind the strikers, organizing mass demonstrations and an Easter boycott of downtown businesses. The national leadership of AFSCME put the international union’s full resources behind the strike. One day, a placard appeared on the picket lines, which in its radical simplicity summed up the meaning of the strike: “I am a man.”
Endemic inner-city poverty, attempts to roll back gains won by public employees, and the growing gap between the rich and the rest of us make clear that the issues Martin Luther King, Jr. raised in his last days have yet to be addressed. At the River I Stand succeeds in showing that the causes of (and possibly the solutions to) our present racial quandary may well be found in what happened in Memphis.
We are very lucky to have George Wright with us to help disentangle the issues and tease out the strategies applicable to ourselves today.
Time will be allotted for announcements.
Donations to Occupy Forum to cover costs are encouraged; no one turned away!
Today on Flashpoints KPFA Producer.. Water Protector and Drone Base Resistor, Freewillin Franklin will join host Dennis Bernstein in featuring the documentary film “National Bird”
National Bird follows the dramatic journey of three whistle blowers who are determined to break the silence around one of the most controversial current affairs issues of our time: the secret U.S. drone war. At the center of the film are three U.S. military veterans. Plagued by guilt over participating in the killing of faceless people in foreign countries, they decide to speak out publicly, despite the possible consequences….Their stories take dramatic turns, leading one of the protagonists to Afghanistan where she learns about a horrendous incident. But her journey also gives hope for peace and redemption. National Bird gives rare insight into the U.S. drone program through the eyes of veterans and survivors, connecting their stories as never seen before in a documentary. Its images haunt the audience and bring a faraway issue close to home.
The show will feature excerpts from the film and an interview with the producer/director Sonia Kennebeck.
People will also be able to donate to KPFA for a copy of the film..
Rev. Traci Blackmon, an organizer and registered nurse, discusses her experiences in social justice activism and community health in the wake of Michael Brown Jr.’s murder in Ferguson, MO. In Ferguson, Rev. Blackmon provided a mobile faith-based outreach program to improve health outcomes in underserved and impoverished areas. She co-authored the newly released “White Privilege” curriculum currently being taught throughout the United Church of Christ.
The event is FREE and open to the community.
How activists in a working-class company town (Richmond, CA) harnessed the power of local politics to reclaim their community.
A call has gone out. It asks us to begin organizing a general strike on March 8, in response to Donald Trump’s oppressive administration and the neoliberal attack that threatens our livelihood.
We are heeding the call. Given the short amount of time, we are not planning for a strike in the traditional sense. We are instead planning a 5 pm demonstration.
By organizing this, we hope to create the tools and infrastructure necessary to organize a women’s bloc for the national general strike called for May 1 in Oakland.
Join us at the Omni Commons to discuss, plan and work towards building our collective power.
— Planning Meetings will be held Tues and Thurs leading up to March 8.
Court Support Needed!
Michael Brewster, was brutally attacked by police on February 8th.
His mother, Trina Peters, flagged down the police, explained Michael was having a mental health problem and asked them to call an ambulance for him. They said they would. Instead, the officers rushed him threw him on the ground and began to detain him. They called for back up and police swarmed the area.
Michael was unarmed and posed no threat to the officers, yet, they had him face down on the ground. Despite telling him he couldn’t breathe, several officers were on top of him. They beat him up and attempted to assault him with a billy club. Police told the people recording the incident to get back because it was a crime scene.
They beat him so badly that he was at SF General Hospital for 4 days before transferring him to the jail at 850 Bryant St, SF. The police denied his mother visitation and refused to release information regarding his wellbeing and that his court date was this last Wednesday. She only learned of it that day by chance.
The judge set his bail at $100,000. He is still being held at 850 Bryant St, SF.
His family is begging for court support.