Calendar
On Monday the 12th, the Peace & Justice Commission will create specific proposals for the Berkeley City Council to review at its upcoming meetings. The draft attached above is a starting point. It needs your input and participation in Monday’s discussion to shape it into a truly transformational platform. We look forward to hearing your ideas about changes to Berkeley’s policies on policing and accountability, along with an investigation of police practices.
There will be time for extensive public comment on specific proposals for changes in city policy and practice. Please prepare by reviewing the attached draft document before the meeting (see below). We have arranged for a larger room, so please feel free to spread the word!
In 2014 the community made our anger felt about the uncounted police killings of African American and Latino youth, and we declared the apparently radical notion that Black lives matter.
Now it’s 2015, and time to make real change in Berkeley.
This month the city government will be discussing how to rein in the outrageous police attacks on non-violent demonstrations. We must be allowed to demonstrate safely against the killings of people of color by state authorities.
See Councilmember Jesse Arreguin’s three specific proposals, including wording changes to several BPD General Orders, in items 27, 28, and 29 in the upcoming January 20 Council agenda at:
But this is not enough. Let us remember what brought us out in the streets in December. Black lives are devalued here in Berkeley as across the country. Kayla Moore is dead because our society favors “command and control” over compassionate mental health care.
We must keep the focus where it belongs. We can end racial profiling and impunity for those who kill under color of authority. We can turn around the militarization of local police, the collaboration with national security intelligence sharing, and begin to overturn the racial disparities that ravage communities of color in Berkeley.
Transforming policing and racial justice in Berkeley
DIRECT ACTION TRAINING: The Ruckus Society will be hosting a training Monday eve (1/12) immediately following the spokescouncil meeting (~8:30pm-10pm), at the First Presbyterian Church at 27th and Broadway. This training is for any and all participants in MLK weekend actions!
Tomorrow @ @ucdavislaw I'm talking about the things NSA does in the name of surveillance that make us *less* secure. pic.twitter.com/RMCM2bbVfj
— Jennifer Granick (@granick) January 13, 2015
President Obama is on the brink of making his final decision on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.
Last Friday, the Nebraska Supreme Court validated the pipeline’s risky route through the state, moving the pipeline decision onto the President’s desk. That makes the coming weeks a critical period — this campaign has been sustained by action in the streets and now we need to show that we still stand strong against this climate disaster.
Tomorrow the climate movement is mobilizing coast-to-coast to tell the President to reject Keystone XL now, and there’s a big action planned in San Francisco
Join fellow activists and organizers from CREDO and Rainforest Action Network to tell President Obama to reject Keystone XL — now. We’ll have a short, powerful rally to let President Obama know that progressives in the Bay Area are demanding an immediate rejection of Keystone XL.
Congress is doing Big Oil’s bidding, the Nebraska Supreme Court has passed the buck, and so it’s up to President Obama to take the next step by rejecting the pipeline once and for all.
Original event notice and to sign-up/RSVP.
: : : : : : Reclaiming King’s Legacy : : : : : :
“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is a state-sponsored war on Black lives in the United States and people across the country are demanding that it comes to an end. As long as it remains business as usual to gun down Black women, men and children in the streets of this country, there will be no business as usual anywhere or for anyone. Shut. It. Down.
Oakland’s Anti Police-Terrorism Project is calling a bay area wide spokescouncil to plan and coordinate actions for the upcoming Martin Luther King Day weekend (1/16-1/19). Let’s carry forward and amplify the struggle, together!
PLEASE SAVE THE FOLLOWING DATES for upcoming meetings in your calendar. Before your first meeting, please make sure to attend an orientation!
> Monday Jan 5th, 7pm orientation and kickoff meeting, CNA Offices
> Thursday Jan 8th, 6pm orientation, 7pm meeting, OMNI Commons
> Saturday Jan 10th, 10am orientation, 11am meeting, OMNI Commons
> Monday Jan 12th, 6pm orientation, 7pm meeting, (First Presbyterian Church)
> Wednesday Jan 14th, 6pm orientation, 7pm meeting, OMNI Commons
> Saturday Jan 17th, 11am meeting, OMNI Commons,
What is a spokescouncil?
A spokescouncil is a collective framework for direct action mobilizations, where large masses of people organize themselves into smaller teams called “affinity groups”. Affinity groups plan their actions independently with the intention of advancing the larger goal of the spokescouncil. Affinity groups are represented by at least one person (“a spoke”) at the meetings, where they are able to share resources and coordinate their actions with other groups.
Why a spokescouncil?
We propose the spokescouncil as a solution to many of the shortcomings of unstructured mass assemblies. We intend to provide a highly structured organizing space with clear tactical and messaging guidelines, that empowers participants to organize independently and in parallel. We intend to inspire a multitude of diverse actions and awaken the massive potential we have as a community engaging in direct action.
* The Anti Police-Terrorism Project is a project of the ONYX Organizing Committee in coalition with individuals and organizations like The Alan Blueford Center for Justice, Healthy Hoodz, Community Ready Corps, Idriss Stelly Foundation and more
** for questions or more information about the spokescouncil please contact aptpspokescouncil@gmail.co
On the agenda is the use of a residential street as a staging area for the cops during the protests against killer cops beginning December 6, as well as discussion about policies regarding the use of teargas and mutual aid.
Agenda and related documents here: http://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=12962
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS TRAINING: the MLK spokescouncil’s legal working group will be hosting a training Wednesday eve (1/14) immediately following the spokescouncil meeting (~8:15pm-10pm)
BAY AREA CIVIL LIBERTIES COALITION GENERAL MEETING
The Bay Area Civil Liberties Coalition works actively to empower individual efforts and support collective initiatives within the San Francisco Bay Area to support human rights, defeat illegal spying and surveillance and end abuse and militarization by local, regional, statewide and national government agencies and criminal justice/homeland security programs.
Individuals and organizations that support this work are encouraged to join us. Voting memberships for new organizations are subject to approval by the founding organizations. BACLC also engages in project-based collaborative work with a wide variety of organizations.
The Anti-Police Terrorism Project is a project of the ONYX Organizing Committee that in coalition with other organizations like the Alan Blueford Center for Justice, Workers World and Healthy Hoodz is working to develop a replicable and sustainable model to end police terrorism in this country.
We are led by the most impacted communities but are a multi-racial, mutil-generational coalition.
We meet the 3rd Thursday of every month at Eastside Arts Alliance at 7:30 pm.
Come organize to challenge:
- SLPD profiling/harassment of POC
- SLPD shootings and killings of POC
- militarization, including the BearCat and military-grade weapons
- Increased surveillance
- SLPD School Resource Officers creating “dossiers” on “at risk” elementary school students
- more
Every Thursday in January is the Black Lives Matter Film Series.
This week: “War Witch” (2010) civil war in Africa narrative
Mass convergence at the Montgomery BART platform, demanding:
- Drop the Charges and the Ransom on the Black Friday 14
- Disband the BART Police Department
- Institute a low income discount ticket program
Be on time and bring a spoon!“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.”
— Martin Luther King
There is a state-sponsored war on Black lives in the United States and people across the country are demanding that it comes to an end. As long as it remains business as usual to gun down Black women, men and children in the streets of this country, there will be no business as usual anywhere or for anyone.
BAY AREA LAWYER DIE-IN FOR RACIAL JUSTICE
The Bay Area legal community (attorneys, legal staff, law students, professors, and allies) are invited to participate in a “Die-In” calling for an end to the use of excessive force, police brutality, and racial profiling in communities of color. This direct action is in response to recent grand jury decisions not to indict police officers in the killing of unarmed civilians, Mr. Eric Garner, Mr. Michael Brown, and Mr. John Crawford. Their deaths and the subsequent grand jury decisions represent a fundamental failure of our justice system. This action is in solidarity with national protests to affirm that Black Lives Matter.
As representatives of the legal community, we are sworn to uphold the law and provide leadership in our communities. During this moment of crisis, we refuse to be silent witnesses to racial inequality and injustice perpetuated by the legal system we are a part of. We can and must do better. This action is a symbol of our commitment to demand and bring about change that is long overdue.
We call on the Bay Area legal community and all allies to join us.
This will be a peaceful demonstration.
Cesar was originally arrested Nov 2, 2011 and falsely convicted of a vandalism charge August 13, 2012 after the jury deliberated the evidence for only 15 minutes, without even looking at photographic evidence collected by Aguirre’s defense attorneys.
Since then Cesar has been appealing his case. There is a possibility that Cesar will be remanded into custody for another 2 months. It is crucial that we show our support for Cesar and stand against this wrongful conviction.
Check out his support page for more info:
https://www.facebook.com/
From Cesar:
“If anyone would like to be in attendance at the court this Friday it would be welcomed and much appreciated. My lawyer advised that it’d be helpful to have a show of support during my appearance. We only ask that all be respectful and orderly while the court is in session.
Thank you all for the continuing love and support.”
“You may well ask: ‘Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?’ You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.”
Join us for a night of performances to benefit the kickoff the direct action campaign to Defend Knowland Park – Huchiun Territory of the Ohlone Tribe.
We will have performances by:
RedStar (Indigenous Hip Hop)
https://www.youtube.com/
Jabari Shaw (Political Hip Hop)
https://www.youtube.com/
Grupo Puyakan (Colombian Cumbia)
https://www.youtube.com/
Rosanonymous (Folk Punk)
https://www.youtube.com/
We would like to raise a couple thousand dollars for gear and bail funds…
Knowland Park (Ohlone Territory called Huchiun) is a 500-acre wildland open space in the Oakland hills, deeded to the City by the State in the 1970′s under the condition that it would always remain a public park.
Now the Oakland Zoo is trying to expand onto the park, fencing in a large portion of the area and cutting down dozens of trees, some of which are old growth Oaks. The park is home to many threatened and rare species of plants and animals such as the Alameda Whipsnake, The Great Horned Owl, and the Mountain Lion.
Defend Knowland Park! seeks to take direct action and put our bodies on the line to prevent the Zoo from privatizing this peice of Ohlone land.
Visit us at www.DefendKnowlandPark.org
NO COMPROMISE IN DEFENSE OF MOTHER EARTH!
KEEP KNOWLAND PARK WILD AND FREE!
ALL OUT! Wear Black! Rally at 16th BART Station. (PartyPatrol)