Calendar

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

We’ve began the “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!  Here’s the front of the postcard. The campaign has been adopted by Postal Unions, the San Francisco Labor Council and has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, and has gone national!

All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privatization of services. The California Federation of Teachers passed a resolution in support of opposition to Staples.  Just recently the American Federation of Teachers, AFCSME and UNITE HERE did too. We are trying to get the Alameda Labor Council to pass a similar resolution.

For the last three+ weeks the sidewalk in front of Staples has been ‘occupied’ 24/7 by an intrepid band of San Francisco occupiers with solidarity and support from BPOD members, and they plan to continue there, distributing literature and convincing people not to shop at Staples, indefinitely.  Go by and say ‘Hi!’ and help them out.

And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Advisory Commission on Historical Preservation came out with its report, recommending that sales of Historic Post offices be halted until the USPS conforms with historical preservation law. Here is our response.  Also the Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Historic Post Offices came out  recently – anything could happen now since Congress’ “request” that no historic Post Offices be sold until it had come out has been honored and no further Congressional request or mandate has come down. Come help us plan our response.

We have joined with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative on the ballot to rezone the Berkeley Post Office and other areas in the Historic District to prevent privatization, and also to insure a better Downtown Berkeley.  We succeeded in getting the necessary signatures; it will be voted on in November, but Tom Bates and the City Council have nefarious plans to undermine our coalition.

Encouraging articles are still coming out about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. The National Conference of Mayors just endorsed Postal Banking. We held a forum on postal and public banking on March 29th on the Post Office steps.

We are planning our next event, ‘Jam the Sale.’ Spread the work and come help us out!

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.

Here are the articles on Piketty we will read for the next class

Summary of Piketty argument:

http://boingboing.net/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-t.html

Critique of Piketty:
Mainstream:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/05/capital-eats-the-world/
Occupy (very short by Graeber):
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/30/savage-capitalism-back-radical-challenge

Plus a radio interview from Michael Hudson:
http://youtu.be/uv6kEd9C9CM

And another, optional, topical-historical take on Picketty and Capitalism:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/24489-the-compelling-conclusion-about-capitalism-that-piketty-resists

Here is how to get to the OMNI from BART:
1) get off at the MacArthur station
2) head East towards Telegraph
3) go North up Telegraph for 4-5 blocks
4) veer left onto Shattuck
5) go 3 blocks up Shattuck to the big white and blue building on the left (4799)
6) ring the bell (top right of door)
7) Tell ’em you’re here for he Public School class

Hope to see you all there!

Meeting of the City of Oakland’s “Privacy and Data Retention Ad Hoc Advisory Committee” – open to the public.

When:
2nd & 4th Thursdays
6:00pm – 8:00pm

Where:
Council Chambers
Oakland City Hall
14th & Broadway

Read the announcement from the City of Oakland City Administrator’s Weekly Report (April 25, 2014):

This committee was created by City Council action during the discussions earlier in the year about the Port Domain Awareness Center (DAC). The goal of the DAC is to improve readiness to prevent, respond to and recover from major emergencies in the Oakland region and ensure better multi-agency coordination across the larger San Francisco Bay Area. The goal of the Privacy and Data Retention Policy is to ensure there are safeguards to protect against potential misuse of the data or violations of individuals’ privacy rights and civil liberties. The meeting is open to the public. For questions about the Ad Hoc Committee, please contact Joe DeVries, Assistant to the City

We need to show up to these meetings and pressure the City to adopt a privacy policy that makes privacy a priority, not only “security” or administrative convenience.

Come help stop Berkeley Police from getting tasers!

After each mishap or tragedy that occurs these days in Berkeley, we are told that it could have been averted “if only” the police had been issued tasers. The mayor of Berkeley made this claim after six Berkeley police killed a mentally ill transgender woman in her own home last year. BPD officers made the same claim again when a mentally ill man stabbed himself several times. This week, Chris Stines of the Berkeley Police Association (BPA) went to great pains to spread the notion that if a Berkeley police officer had had a taser this past week, he wouldn’t have been assaulted. It is regrettable that the BPA uses these incidents as nothing more than a way to win political points. The issue of how to protect officers as well as the human rights of the citizenry is far more complex than simply giving cops more hardware on their belts.

Of course, these kinds of statements can never be proven. No one can know whether a taser would have prevented the confrontation in which the officer was involved in a fistfight with a suspect who was believed to be mentally ill. The BPA continues to apply steady political pressure to our local politicians and insists that somehow, real safety resides in our ability to meet suspects with electric shocks. At Berkeley Copwatch, we disagree. We believe that it is the duty of the officers to place the well being of the community at the forefront of their efforts. We believe that mentally ill people have a right to treatment and should not be subjected to torture because of a condition which they do not control. It is time for the City of Berkeley to return to the humane approaches for which it was once famous and reject the militarization of care which has overtaken our approach to community health and safety.

Top ten reasons against tasers.

Just in the past few weeks we have witnessed:

​ **1000’s of children being driven across the border by US devastation of their homelands and then finding themselves caught between Homeland Security rounds-ups and flag-waving racists

​**The District Attorney in Santa Rosa California refusing to charge the cop who murdered 13-year old Andy Lopez

​**2 videos that went viral showing cops brutally and unjustly beating Black women

All these and more outrages only serve to underscore more than ever the need for powerful outpourings of resistance in October as envisioned in the Call for a Month of Ressistance to Mass Incarceration, Police Terror, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation (www.stopmassinceration.net) that was adopted at the meeting convened in New York in April 2014.

Let’s all come together, individuals and organizations and make real plans so this October, so our determination to end all this reverberates across the country and around the world!

October 2014 needs to be a full month of many diverse forms of resistance.

Already, prominent and respected voices are signing the Stop Mass Incarceration Network’s Call for the Month of Resistance.� Join�  Ayelet Waldman, novelist, lawyer ; Alice Walker, author; Peter Coyote, actor, author, director; Cornel West,� author, educator, voice of conscience;� Carl Dix,� Revolutionary Communist Party; Noam Chomsky,� Professor (ret.), MIT*; Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson; Michelle Alexander, and 100’s of others who have pledged to be part of the Month of Resistance

Stop Mass Incarceration Network, San Francisco Bay Area 1.pdf 

STOP URBAN SHIELD IN OAKLAND!

September 4-8, 2014, in Oakland, California, Urban Shield — a trade show and training exercise for SWAT teams and police agencies — will bring local, national and international law enforcement agencies together with defense industry contractors to provide training and introduce new weapons to police and security companies. Take a stand against the militarization of our community.
Decrease violence in our communities by ending the militarization of the police.
From schools, the border, prisons, to the streets, our communities have become sites of repression and violence at the hands of law enforcement.  Ever increasing militarization of our communities has created a culture of surveillance and repression targeting poor communities of color.  Community-led solutions addressing poverty and the violence of policing are the best ways to ensure genuine safety, health, and wellbeing for people most vulnerable to state violence.

• We demand the City of Oakland defund all activities related to Urban Shield
• We demand that all city agencies withdraw their participation in Urban Shield.

Our communities refuse to be testing grounds for tactics of global repression.
Local police departments collaborate with federal agencies to share information and tactics through vehicles such as fusion centers to surveil and control targeted communities. These same agencies are also exchanging policing and repression tactics with international security officers including but not limited to the Apartheid State of Israel. The import and export of technology and tactics includes purchasing weapons, training local police forces, and sharing strategies through activities such as Urban Shield. Our neighborhoods have become laboratories in which to test international and domestic warfare.

• We demand an end to all City collaborations with the Apartheid State of Israel.
• We call on the City of Oakland to issue a report on all collaborations between the Oakland Police Department and international law enforcement agencies.
• We call on the City of Oakland to reject all US wars and occupations here or abroad.

Community Self-determination
Our communities know what is required to address the social, economic and political problems we face.  Bay Area residents should have decision-making power over how and where resources are allocated in order to build stronger and sustainable communities.

• We demand that Bay Area residents have decision-making power in the process to determine priorities for public safety and emergency preparedness.
• We demand that the City of Oakland invest in community-based programs proven to decrease violence and harm instead of in the increased militarization of its police force and emergency services.

We call on our communities to continue fighting back and resisting state violence and repression.
In the face of growing efforts to police our communities, we must forge alliances to challenge systems of repression and build power in our communities.  Understanding prisons, borders, surveillance and policing as tools of global repression is critical to building and maintaining powerful movements for liberation.  Gentrification in our streets is colonialism elsewhere. The War on Terror we are living through today is a new formulation of the War on Drugs, and the violence inflicted on our communities necessitates a unified stance against all forms of repression from the US to Brazil, to the Philippines and Palestine.

• We ask our allies and partners to adopt these principles and take a stand against the policing and repression of our communities.

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

We’ve began the “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!  Here’s the front of the postcard. The campaign has been adopted by Postal Unions, the San Francisco Labor Council and has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, and has gone national!

All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privatization of services. The California Federation of Teachers passed a resolution in support of opposition to Staples.  Just recently the American Federation of Teachers, AFCSME and UNITE HERE did too. We are trying to get the Alameda Labor Council to pass a similar resolution.

Check out our correspondence with the President of the American Postal Workers Union, Mark Dimondstein. The APWU has been leading the charge against Staples.

For the last three+ weeks the sidewalk in front of Staples has been ‘occupied’ 24/7 by an intrepid band of San Francisco occupiers with solidarity and support from BPOD members, and they plan to continue there, distributing literature and convincing people not to shop at Staples, indefinitely.  Recently tents went up!  Go by and say ‘Hi!’ and help them out.

And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Advisory Commission on Historical Preservation came out with its report, recommending that sales of Historic Post offices be halted until the USPS conforms with historical preservation law. Here is our response.  Also the Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Historic Post Offices came out  recently – anything could happen now since Congress’ “request” that no historic Post Offices be sold until it had come out has been honored and no further Congressional request or mandate has come down. Come help us plan our response.

We have joined with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative on the ballot to rezone the Berkeley Post Office and other areas in the Historic District to prevent privatization, and also to insure a better Downtown Berkeley.  We succeeded in getting the necessary signatures; it will be voted on in November, but Tom Bates and the City Council have nefarious plans to undermine our coalition.

Encouraging articles are still coming out about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. The National Conference of Mayors recently endorsed Postal Banking.  Pew Research just held a day-long seminar on Postal Banking.

We are planning our next event, ‘Jam the Sale.’ Spread the work and come help us out!

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.

Our next class will look at selected chapters in Ellen Brown’s new book The Public Banking Solution, mostly pertaining to BRICS countries and what a better bank could do for the world.

-Bill

​
 Ellen Brown on BRICs.pdf
​

September 4-8, 2014, in Oakland, California, Urban Shield — a trade show and training exercise for SWAT teams and police agencies — will bring local, national and international law enforcement agencies together with defense industry contractors to provide training and introduce new weapons to police and security companies. Take a stand against the militarization of our community.

Decrease violence in our communities by ending the militarization of the police.
From schools, the border, prisons, to the streets, our communities have become sites of repression and violence at the hands of law enforcement.  Ever increasing militarization of our communities has created a culture of surveillance and repression targeting poor communities of color.  Community-led solutions addressing poverty and the violence of policing are the best ways to ensure genuine safety, health, and wellbeing for people most vulnerable to state violence.

• We demand the City of Oakland defund all activities related to Urban Shield
• We demand that all city agencies withdraw their participation in Urban Shield.

Our communities refuse to be testing grounds for tactics of global repression.
Local police departments collaborate with federal agencies to share information and tactics through vehicles such as fusion centers to surveil and control targeted communities. These same agencies are also exchanging policing and repression tactics with international security officers including but not limited to the Apartheid State of Israel. The import and export of technology and tactics includes purchasing weapons, training local police forces, and sharing strategies through activities such as Urban Shield. Our neighborhoods have become laboratories in which to test international and domestic warfare.

• We demand an end to all City collaborations with the Apartheid State of Israel.
• We call on the City of Oakland to issue a report on all collaborations between the Oakland Police Department and international law enforcement agencies.
• We call on the City of Oakland to reject all US wars and occupations here or abroad.

Community Self-determination
Our communities know what is required to address the social, economic and political problems we face.  Bay Area residents should have decision-making power over how and where resources are allocated in order to build stronger and sustainable communities.

• We demand that Bay Area residents have decision-making power in the process to determine priorities for public safety and emergency preparedness.
• We demand that the City of Oakland invest in community-based programs proven to decrease violence and harm instead of in the increased militarization of its police force and emergency services.

We call on our communities to continue fighting back and resisting state violence and repression.
In the face of growing efforts to police our communities, we must forge alliances to challenge systems of repression and build power in our communities.  Understanding prisons, borders, surveillance and policing as tools of global repression is critical to building and maintaining powerful movements for liberation.  Gentrification in our streets is colonialism elsewhere. The War on Terror we are living through today is a new formulation of the War on Drugs, and the violence inflicted on our communities necessitates a unified stance against all forms of repression from the US to Brazil, to the Philippines and Palestine.

• We ask our allies and partners to adopt these principles and take a stand against the policing and repression of our communities.

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

On July 29th, at our invite, Ralph Nader spoke on the steps of the Berkeley Post Office against privatization and corporatism. Watch and listen to his talk here.

We’ve began the “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!  Here’s the front of the postcard. The campaign has been adopted by Postal Unions, the San Francisco Labor Council and has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, and has gone national!

All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privatization of services. The California Federation of Teachers passed a resolution in support of opposition to Staples.  Just recently the American Federation of Teachers, AFCSME and UNITE HERE did too.

Check out our correspondence with the President of the American Postal Workers Union, Mark Dimondstein. The APWU has been leading the charge against Staples.

For most of July the sidewalk in front of Staples was ‘occupied’ 24/7 by an intrepid band of San Francisco occupiers with solidarity and support from BPOD members distributing literature and convincing people not to shop at Staples.

And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Advisory Commission on Historical Preservation came out with its report, recommending that sales of Historic Post offices be halted until the USPS conforms with historical preservation law. Here is our response.  Also the Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Historic Post Offices came out  recently – anything could happen now since Congress’ “request” that no historic Post Offices be sold until it had come out has been honored and no further Congressional request or mandate has come down. Come help us plan our response.

We have joined with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative on the ballot to rezone the Berkeley Post Office and other areas in the Historic District to prevent privatization, and also to insure a better Downtown Berkeley.  We succeeded in getting the necessary signatures; it will be voted on in November, but Tom Bates and the City Council have nefarious plans to undermine our coalition.

Encouraging articles are still coming out about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. The National Conference of Mayors recently endorsed Postal Banking.  Pew Research held a day-long seminar on Postal Banking.

We are planning our next event, ‘Jam the Sale.’ Spread the work and come help us out!

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.

When:
2nd & 4th Thursdays
6:00pm – 8:00pm

Where:
Council Chambers
Oakland City Hall
14th & Broadway

Read the announcement from the City of Oakland City Administrator’s Weekly Report (April 25, 2014):

This committee was created by City Council action during the discussions earlier in the year about the Port Domain Awareness Center (DAC). The goal of the DAC is to improve readiness to prevent, respond to and recover from major emergencies in the Oakland region and ensure better multi-agency coordination across the larger San Francisco Bay Area. The goal of the Privacy and Data Retention Policy is to ensure there are safeguards to protect against potential misuse of the data or violations of individuals’ privacy rights and civil liberties. The meeting is open to the public. For questions about the Ad Hoc Committee, please contact Joe DeVries, Assistant to the City

We need to show up to these meetings and pressure the City to adopt a privacy policy that makes privacy a priority, not only “security” or administrative convenience.

Yes, its time for another Taser meeting! Come and get some literature and STICKERS! to distribute. We have a lot so please help us spread the word!

We have a kick-ass line up for the September forum and now we need a flyer and publicity to make sure that the place is packed! We can also strategize about other ways to make the debate happen.

I also encourage people to check out TruthNotTasers.blogspot.org

They claim that the number of taser related deaths is closer to 800. See what you think.

New endorsements include: Alameda County Green Party .

AGENDA

1. Forum- publicity/flyer/interviews in advance
2. Tabling opportunities
3. Paul’s taser video preview
4. Pressuring the candidates…how?

The 9th annual Urban Shield – the SWAT team training and weapons expo that brings together local, regional and global police-military units – will be held in Oakland this coming September 4-8. Oakland is gearing up to stop it! Building on growing resistance to police militarization in the US, Bay Area community organizations and the Facing Tear Gas campaign have come together to call for Oakland’s non-participation in Urban Shield, community self-determination, and solidarity with global movements. Urban Shield is connected to national police militarization programs such as 1033, 1122, Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) and DHS Fusion Centers. Stopping Urban Shield is one step to roll back police militarization. Stay tuned for ways to get involved!

Sign on to our demands using our form here and join us for a Community Education Forum where you can learn about Urban Shield, how it impacts our communities and find out how you can plug into the Week of Education & Action, August 30 – September 5.

Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC)
Critical Resistance
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN)
Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA)
War Resisters League – Facing Tear Gas

The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!

The Postal Service outsourced Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.

And we’re fighting against both!

Come help us plan our next steps.

On July 29th, at our invite, Ralph Nader spoke on the steps of the Berkeley Post Office against privatization and corporatism. Watch and listen to his talk here.

We’ve began the “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!  Here’s the front of the postcard. The campaign has been adopted by Postal Unions, the San Francisco Labor Council and has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, and has gone national!

All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privatization of services. The California Federation of Teachers passed a resolution in support of opposition to Staples.  Just recently the American Federation of Teachers, AFCSME and UNITE HERE did too.

Check out our correspondence with the President of the American Postal Workers Union, Mark Dimondstein. The APWU has been leading the charge against Staples.

For most of July the sidewalk in front of Staples was ‘occupied’ 24/7 by an intrepid band of San Francisco occupiers with solidarity and support from BPOD members distributing literature and convincing people not to shop at Staples.

And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Advisory Commission on Historical Preservation came out with its report, recommending that sales of Historic Post offices be halted until the USPS conforms with historical preservation law. Here is our response.  Also the Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Historic Post Offices came out  recently – anything could happen now since Congress’ “request” that no historic Post Offices be sold until it had come out has been honored and no further Congressional request or mandate has come down. Come help us plan our response.

We have joined with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative on the ballot to rezone the Berkeley Post Office and other areas in the Historic District to prevent privatization, and also to insure a better Downtown Berkeley.  We succeeded in getting the necessary signatures; it will be voted on in November, but Tom Bates and the City Council have nefarious plans to undermine our coalition.

Encouraging articles are still coming out about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. The National Conference of Mayors recently endorsed Postal Banking.  Pew Research held a day-long seminar on Postal Banking.

We are planning our next event, ‘Jam the Sale.’ Spread the work and come help us out!

AND CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.

Here is the reading  for the next Politics of Debt meeting  – OMNI basement.

We will continue on with Ellen brown’s Public Banking solution on the topic foreign policy and other countries’ use of Public Banks.

PBS-Germany

PBS-Argentina

PBS-Latin-America1

PBS-Ch-3

The next Taser-free Berkeley organizing meeting.

Also see

PUBLIC FORUM: SHOULD BERKELEY POLICE USE TASERS ON THE PEOPLE OF BERKELEY?

Meeting of the City of Oakland’s “Privacy and Data Retention Ad Hoc Advisory Committee” – open to the public.

When:
2nd & 4th Thursdays
6:00pm – 8:00pm

Where:
Council Chambers
Oakland City Hall
14th & Broadway

Read the announcement from the City of Oakland City Administrator’s Weekly Report (April 25, 2014):

This committee was created by City Council action during the discussions earlier in the year about the Port Domain Awareness Center (DAC). The goal of the DAC is to improve readiness to prevent, respond to and recover from major emergencies in the Oakland region and ensure better multi-agency coordination across the larger San Francisco Bay Area. The goal of the Privacy and Data Retention Policy is to ensure there are safeguards to protect against potential misuse of the data or violations of individuals’ privacy rights and civil liberties. The meeting is open to the public. For questions about the Ad Hoc Committee, please contact Joe DeVries, Assistant to the City

We need to show up to these meetings and pressure the City to adopt a privacy policy that makes privacy a priority, not only “security” or administrative convenience.