Calendar

The Ito Sisters – Antonia Grace Glenn –  Documentary – 83 min. Q&A Follows                                                          

The Ito Sisters is a documentary film capturing rarely told stories of the earliest Japanese immigrants to their United States and their American – born children.

Treasure Island, a man-made island off the coast of San Francisco, looks more like a post-apocalyptic wasteland than a Bay Area suburb. But as demand for housing in the area continues to climb, developers including Lennar  now thee largest homebuilder in the US  turned to Treasure Island in hopes of creating the next big real-estate destination.

In 2011, the city of San Francisco approved a proposal to add 8,000 homes, 500 hotel rooms, 300 acres of parks, 140,000 square feet of retail, and 100,000 square feet of office space to the island over 15 years. The island’s population is expected to grow from 2,500 to about 20,000 by 2032, when the final stages of development wrap. Most of the existing buildings will be demolished to make room for new developments. The development project comes with a price tag of $5 billion. With construction on infrastructure underway, we are learning that there’s more to this former toxic-waste site than meets the eye.

Like the Bayview, these landfills were used by the Navy to decommission its radioactive ships and for other toxic work.  In 1993, the Navy decommissioned Treasure Island, moving sailors’ families out. The 1994 federal Base Closure Community Redevelopment and Homeless Assistance Act,“A bill to revise and improve the process for disposing of buildings and property at military installations under the base closure laws,” opened national floodgates to environmental racism. Men, women and children are stricken with tumors and cancers from exposure to radiation, chemicals and lead the Navy dumped into island soil during 50 years training sailors for nuclear war, as well as lung disease from asbestos and mold in the walls of military housing.

A 1997-1998 city government report announced, “Three hundred housing units on TI [Treasure Island] are expected to be occupied in October or November of 1998 under an interim housing plan. TIDA has contracted with the John Stewart Company to rehabilitate and manage these units. This interim plann is intended to preserve the housing stock which deteriorates rapidly with lack of use, and to provide an income stream.”San Francisco began to use HUD subsidies for maintenance and eventual island redevelopment.

As mayor, veteran of 30 years in the state Assembly and 15 as the all-powerful speaker, Willie Brown used his pull to deprive Treasure Islanders of San Franciscans’ equal rights to rent control, subjecting them to no cause evictions. Additionally, he crafted a consortium of collaborating organizations.

� The Treasure Island Development Authority Board (TIDA), which serves at the mayor’s pleasure

� Treasure Island Homeless Development Initiative (TIHDI), an umbrella organization of nonprofits, which provides rehabilitation services for marginalized people

� The John Stewart Co., California’s largest poverty pimp, which manages HUD-subsidized and market rate housing

� The Navy arm of the consortium, following federal law, which began radiation and chemical cleanup.

By 2017, 18 years of subsidy money and intimidation have elapsed. As the cartel prepares the toxic soil for lucrative high-rise condos and hotels, homeless families’ incomes are no longer required. Redevelopment has begun. With three generations of subsidies in its coffers, John Stewart Co. is quietly launching evictions. Ill from chemical and radiation exposure, their offsprings’ DNA forever transformed, targeted families are, as planned, being returned to City streets.

Carol Harvey will share with us the history, and the damning revelations she continues to unearth, and what we can do about it.

Carol Harvey is a San Francisco political journalist specializing in human rights and civil rights.

http://sfbayview.com/2017/09/death-camp-treasure-island/

http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-treasure-island-san-francisco-transformation-2017-8/#you-can-live-in-san-francisco-your-whole-life-and-never-set-foot-on-treasure-island-1

Time will be allotted for announcements.

The Middle East Children’s Alliance Presents

Nobel Peace Prize Nominee
DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI

Speaking on
100 Years after the Balfour Declaration:
The Anti-Colonial Struggle in Palestine

Facebook event

Mustafa Barghouti is General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative & President of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees

Introduced by linguistics professor Dr. Khalil Barhoum, Stanford University
Interviewed by Dr. Samia Shoman, Palestinian-American educator whose research was on a sovereign Palestinian state
Benefit for the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees
Wheelchair Accessible

Tickets: $10 – $100, available now through Eventbrite
$100 ticket includes seats reserved up front
To avoid the service charge, buy tickets directly from MECA: email Susan@mecaforpeace.org, or call Sue 9am-4pm, Tuesday-Friday at 510-548-0542.
$15 tickets available at these East Bay bookstores: Moe’s, Laurel Books (cash and checks only), Walden Pond, and East Bay Booksellers (formerly Diesel).

Cosponsored by KPFA 94.1 FM, Friends of Sabeel, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Palestinian Youth Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, and more!

Meet us in the First Floor Multipurpose Room for a showing of the powerful documentary, Now Is The Time Healthcare for Everybody.

With the future of the Affordable Care Act in serious doubt, millions may lose their health insurance. Medicare and Medi-Cal are under attack. This documentary explains what single payer healthcare is and how it saves money. It shows what behind-the-scenes heroes are doing to clear the fog of misperceptions that has kept us from moving forward.

Q&A and Discussion about State Senate Bill 562,The Healthy California Act (Lara/Atkins).

Link to flyer: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-SG0wM83IbIVEYzYm82R0thZ28

Single-Payer Social, North Oakland

East Bay comrades! There's a @jacobinmag reading group on Berkeley's campus next week, we hope to see you there 🤓✊🏾📕 pic.twitter.com/aMiJHJmkQW

— Bay Area ISO (@norcalsocialism) October 30, 2017

Zionism, Fascism and the Free Speech Debates: A Fundraiser for the Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi Defense Fund

Appetizers and Drinks Will be Provided

Sponsored by the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild Co-Sponsors: Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP), Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA), International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN)

Among the speakers will be Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, the San Francisco State University professor publicly accused by AMCHA and seven other Zionist organizations of “egregious misuse of university and taxpayer funds” and “meetings with terrorists” after a 2014 academic trip to Jordan and Palestine. In 2016, she was targeted by the David Horowitz “Freedom Center,” which posted fliers on SFSU’s campus reading “Rabab Abdulhadi: A leader of the Hamas BDS Campaign, Collaborator with Terrorists, San Francisco State Profesor, #JewHatred.” Despite SFSU’s investigation finding that AMCHA’s claims had no merit, Professor Abdulhadi was then subjected to a lawsuit this year by the Lawfare Project–whose director has repeatedly denied the existence of Palestinians–and mega-firm Winston & Strawn LLP. Last month, Professor Abdulhadi and her attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against her.

Speakers will also include NLG attorneys and others.

Pack the court on November 8th for antifascists facing charges from 6/26/16 nazi shutdown in Sacramento pic.twitter.com/jT9cPd7Syj

— Berkeley Antifa (@berkeleyantifa) November 2, 2017

Meeting was moved to this day and time from its normal first Thursday of the month date.

Agenda:

1. 5:00pm: Call to Order, determination of quorum
2. 5:05pm: Review and approval of October meeting minutes
3. 5:10pm: Open Forum
4. 5:15pm: Discuss and take possible action on Oakland Police Department Immigration Policy No. 415
5. 5:45pm: Receive staff status update on Surveillance Equipment Ordinance labor discussions and take possible action.
6. 6:00pm: Subcommittee status update on ALPR policy conversion project
7. 6:05pm: Further discussion of citywide Privacy Initiative and Privacy Program (Seattle)
8. 7:00pm: Adjournment

Learn what you should do at work, home, in school or on the streets if you are ever confronted by immigration officers.

Oakland Centro Legal De La Raza

District 4 Councilwoman Kate Harrison will speak at a town hall meeting on police reform. Harrison will be part of a speakers panel along with George Lippman, the District 4 member of the Police Review Commission, and Tracy Rosenberg of Media Alliance.

“Police are often depicted as separate from the government but, ultimately, as elected representatives, the (City) Council and its appointees on the Police Review Commission are responsible for setting broad police policies and evaluating police performance,” an announcement from Berkeley Citizens Action, the event sponsor, reads in part.

Among the focuses of the event will be initiatives by Harrison’s office and the commission “to promote transparent, de-escalated, and equitable policing that reflects our community values,” and a discussion of “plans to proactively update Berkeley Police Department policies to ensure transparency in police operations,” according to the announcement.

Subjects to be addressed include:

• Current and planned initiatives for use of force by police.
• Better reporting and assessment of differences in police stops in parts of the community (stops, citations and arrests).
• A proposed Surveillance Ordinance.
• Policy guiding the police in demonstrations.
• Introduction of body cameras.
• Increasing oversight by citizens and the Berkeley Police Review Commission.

Join your Berkeley neighbors on the 80/580 freeway overpass to announce to Thursday Rush Hour traffic that you aren’t fooled by the Trump Tax Scam, and they shouldn’t be either.

RSVP.

• RSVP for address

  The campaign for single-payer healthcare is gaining momentum, but we still have a lot of work to do. Only by going door-to-door in every neighborhood in every district can we build a movement large enough to overwhelm the money that the private insurance companies will throw against it.

  By talking to our neighbors about how joining the campaign for single-payer healthcare can benefit them and the people they know, we also strengthen our capacity to articulate the daily anxieties and traumas inflicted on all of us by capitalism into a socialist agenda to dismantle the perverse system of capitalism.

  If you that sounds like the kind of structure you want to help build, come out to one of our district canvassing events. You can be an experienced canvasser or totally new to canvassing. Training, lunch, and materials will be provided.