Calendar
“Groundswell Rising”– a new film about fracking
Learn more about how fracking is poisoning our water and air, causing cancer and asthma, and how ordinary people are successfully fighting to stop the oil and gas industry from fracking in their communities. This provocative and hopeful film documents a people’s movement, a groundswell rising, challenging a system that promotes profit over health.
The film will be followed by a discussion with the director Renard Cohen and a representative of Bay Area 350 who will talk about the movement to ban fracking in California.
New York has banned fracking. We can too!
The planting was a few weeks ago. The gardening work continues. Join us!
More information on the Berkeley Post Office Defense against the sale and privatization here.
Pictures and videos of the soil preparation and planting here.
You are invited to join a citywide discussion about the relationship between Black & Brown communities and Law Enforcement.
On Saturday January 24, the Oakland City Council will convene a special meeting to hear from community groups and individuals about concerns raised in recent protest activities and to discuss what the City can do to improve police/community relations.
If you would like to speak at the meeting, you can fill out a speaker’s card in advance or on the day of the meeting.
#Oakland City Council #BlackLivesMatter forum flyer AND draft agenda. #oakmtg pic.twitter.com/v1Zlrsb7WZ
— TDL (@tdlove5) January 20, 2015
Sponsored by Radical Women and SFSU Rebel Voices.
The Walk for Life is a pro-life event that opposes reproductive rights, taking place two days after the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
Stand with us as we defend the right to a safe and legal abortion!
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A Line in the Tar Sands: Struggles for Environmental Justice is an anthology of stories, analysis, and reflections from global movements fighting the tar sands and oil extraction using a wide variety of strategies and approaches. It features writing by Indigenous organizers from across the continent, analysts, and campaigners, as well as 350.org staff and board members, including a forward by Naomi Klein and Bill Mckibben.
What: The multimedia book launch will include a discussion on solidarity, extraction, and Indigenous sovereignty and climate change, with panel of frontline activists fighting tar sands in the Bay Area, as well as international perspectives. Presenters will include Winona La Duke of Honor the Earth (via Skype), Vivian Huang of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Pennie Opal Plant of Idle No More, an organizer from Pittsburg fighting Wespac oil-by-rail, and Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign (via video).
Click here to RSVP for the event on Facebook.
Event Co-sponsors include Idle No More SF Bay, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Movement Generation, Center for Story Based Strategy, and the Ruckus Society. If you can’t make it on Sunday, we’ll also be holding a more intimate discussion in San Francisco on Thursday evening — more info here.
As the largest industrial project on earth, the Alberta tar sands essentially constitute a strip mine spanning an area the size of Florida. Tar sands development comes with an enormous environmental and human cost. But tar sands opponents — fighting a powerful international industry — are likened to terrorists, government environmental scientists are muzzled, and public hearings are concealed and rushed.
Yet, despite the formidable political and economic power behind the tar sands, many opponents are actively building international networks of resistance, challenging pipeline plans while resisting threats to Indigenous sovereignty and democratic participation.
This struggle is one of the most epic of our times. I hope this book can offer us both a bit of hope and some solid lessons on resistance.
You can read more about the book here.
Our 4th open circle to connect and organize toward the end of police militarization, state violence and systemic racism.
- RSVP and invite folks to the Facebook event
This open circle will continue the dialogue and planning around support, goals, and long-term strategy in addressing the long-standing issues of the extremely disproportionate degrees of police brutality and killings of black people and people of color, systematic racism, state violence, militarization of police, and more that have been brought to the forefront once again due to the recent surge of such atrocities.
Let’s kick this meeting off with a potluck at 3:00 pm followed by the Open Circle at 3:30 pm. Please bring a dish or snacks to share!
- Open circle will begin with report backs and announcements of upcoming actions followed by group discussion.
- The announcements segment will be shorter than last time to allow more time for group discussion.
- There will be breakout groups to allow time for networking and collaboration on projects and affinity groups.
- The facilitation team welcomes suggestions, guidance, and especially participation. Please get in touch by commenting on this page if you want to offer any of these.
We Need a Revolution and a Revolution is Possible!
Come hear Carl Dix & Sunsara Taylor speak on why. They will take questions.
Sunsara Taylor is a writer for Revolution Newspaper, an initiator of Stop Patriarchy, and sits on the Advisory Board of World Can’t Wait. She has written on the rise of theocracy, wars and repression in the U.S., police murder and mass incarceration, and more. She has led in building resistance to these crimes as part of building the movement for revolution to put an end to all this. She takes as her foundation the new synthesis on revolution and communism developed by Bob Avakian.
In 2013 and 2014, Taylor led two Abortion Rights Freedom Rides, nationwide political and moral counteroffensives against the attacks on abortion. Declaring that “Forced Motherhood is Female Enslavement” these Rides situated the battle over abortion in the fight for women’s liberation, traveled to 17 states, and mobilized mass independent political resistance to defeat the war on women. You can find her impressive verbal battles with Bill O’Reilly and various political commentary by searching “Sunsara Taylor” on youtube. Carl Dix is a long time revolutionary leader and a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). The foundation of his work is the new synthesis of communism developed by Bob Avakian, the leader of the RCP.
In 1970, Carl was part of the Fort Lewis 6, the largest mass refusal of US soldiers to go to Vietnam. In 1985, Carl spearheaded the publication of the Draw The Line Statement that condemned the bombing of the MOVE house in Philadelphia, killing 11 people, 5 of them children. In 1996, he co-founded the October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. In 2011, Carl, together with Dr. Cornel West, co-founded the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and initiated a campaign of civil disobedience to STOP “Stop and Frisk.” This campaign took the effort to end that racist and illegitimate policy to a higher level. In 2014, Carl and Cornel called for making October a Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration, Police Terror, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.
Free Movie: Fruitvale Station
with author and environmentalist
Mark Hertsgaard
Surviving Climate Chaos: Reframing the Climate Question
Mark Hertsgaard has spoken and written about global warming for more than 20 years. At the birth of his daughter, he was struck by how much more rapidly the earth’s warm-up has come upon us, and by the evidence of these changes. In his most recent book: HOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth, Hertsgaard travels the globe to cover climate change effects and policy. He writes: “This book is both a father’s cry and a blueprint on how all of us as parents, communities, companies and countries can navigate this unavoidable new era.”
Herstgaard will address how these changing conditions especially affect peoples living around the equator and in low-lying countries as the oceans rise. What does this mean for them? What will it mean for us? How can we begin to prepare for these inevitable mass migrations?
Like the 400,000 people who traveled to the streets of NY to marshal action on the climate chaos upon us, we must not remain silent. We must become part of the movement and contribute, using our best capabilities. We need thousands of ordinary heroes to step forward and create a new future.
Mark Hertsgaard is the author of six books and a long-time contributor to leading media outlets around the world, including The Nation, Harper’s, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Businessweek, NPR and the BBC. Food &Water Watch, 350 Bay Area, Roots Rhyzing, The Sunflower Alliance and Rising Tide will offer audience members brief descriptions of their climate work, and be available to welcome people who’d like to get involved.
Refreshments available, wheelchair accessible
RSVP: uus4peace@gmail.com or call 415-595-7306
Over the next 50 years, climate change will transform our world in ways we have only begun to imagine. Herstgaard will address how these changing conditions especially affect peoples living around the equator and in low-lying countries as the oceans rise. What does this mean for them? What will it mean for us? How can we begin to prepare for these inevitable mass migrations?
Mark Hertsgaard has spoken and written about global warming for more than 20 years. An environmental correspondent for NPR, The Nation, the New Yorker and other media organizations, Hertsgaard travels the globe to cover climate change effects and policy.
Refreshments available, wheelchair accessible.
Sponsored by the Unitarian Universalists for Peace & Justice,the Green and UU-UNO committees of the UU Society,and OccupyForum SF
As communities around the nation have taken to the streets in the ongoing movement against police brutality the question of the police and their role in society has taken on new importance. With the police killing a Black person every 28 hours a movement is emerging that challenges the idea of who they protect and who they serve. The very origins of their institution is saturated in racism and violence. From their beginning as a force to quell strikes, urban riots, and the threat of slave insurrection they have always existed primarily as an enforcer for the 1% and the protector of their property.
Join the International Socialist Organization for a discussion about the origins and function of the police and their relationship to racism, class and capitalism.
TANKS, NO THANKS
GIVE BACK THE BEARCAT ARMORED MILITARY VEHICLE
(Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck)
Let city council know how you feel
SAY NO TO THE MILITARIZATION OF THE POLICE
Organized by SCRAM ! ( Santa Cruz Resistance Against Militarization !)
SHUT DOWN DIABLO CANYON
JOIN US in the accelerating campaign to shut California’s last nukes: the two reactors at Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo. Citizen activism has closed the reactors at Humboldt, Rancho Seco and San Onofre, and stopped proposed projects at Bakersfield, Bodega and elsewhere. We believe we can force this deadly, dangerous and disastrous plant shut if you will join with us.
PG&E’s Diablo is two 1200+ megawatt monsters surrounded by earthquake faults, in a tsunami zone, out of compliance with clean water and fire safety regulations, lacking a credible evacuation plan and now completely priced out of the market by clean, cheap, safe and job-producing renewable energy.
Pacific Gas & Electric has recently killed 8 people in a San Bruno neighborhood it burned to the ground due to negligence and greed. A replay at Diablo would irradiate much of California, and create a lethal cloud that would blow across the entire United States. It would bankrupt California and much of the nation, with virtually no responsibility to be shouldered by PG&E.
Long-time No Nukes activist Harvey Wasserman will speak and facilitate an on-going strategy session aimed at winning this shut-down as quickly as possible. We will have a strategy in formation and a resolution in hand to push forward the process of finally making California free of all nuke reactors. The time to flip the “off-switch” is NOW! This will be a meeting to further that necessary cause.
On Wednesday OUSD will be discussing proposals to privatize Fremont HS, Castlemont HS, McClymonds HS, Frick MS and Brookfield Elementary and make it easier for charter schools to recruit public school families. This is tied to changes the district is pushing to the teacher union contract that will make these turnarounds easier to implement.
OEA is fighting for the resources needed to create stable schools and bottom-up school transformation!
Let’s show up unified as teachers, students, parents and community members to shut down the Superintendent Wilson’s proposals to continue the experimentation on flatland schools and the implementation of top-down school turnarounds.
The folks in this kettle rang in the New Year with arrests. Let’s show them 2015 will be full of solidarity!
Come out to Wiley Manuel on both Thursday, 01/29 and Friday, 01/30 at 9am in Department 107 for their arraignments!
Always check Antirepression website and facebook for last minute changes.
6:00 pm and 8:00 pm screenings
KPFA Radio 94.1FM and International House, UC Berkeley, present:
THE THROWAWAYS
An award winning documentary film
With Bhawin Suchak (Director/Producer) & Ira McKinley (ex-felon & homeless filmmaker)
Tickets: 800-838-3006 or at independent bookstores, student discount at door, KPFA benefit
The Throwaways is a timely and provocative look at the impact of mass incarceration and police brutality on black men in America. Told through the eyes of homeless ex-felon Ira McKinley, the film documents his struggle to bring positive changes to his community in inner-city Albany, NY. As he strives to give voice to the people on the streets fighting for survival, McKinley confronts the stigma of being formerly incarcerated. More than an illumination of marginalized people in trouble, this film is a call to action, a narrative of engaging in the fight for justice.
“The Throwaways courageously explores the most pressing racial justice issue of our time: the mass incarceration and profiling of poor people of color.”
-Michelle Alexander, author, The New Jim Crow
WINNER Best Documentary, Long Beach Indie Film
WINNER New York Hi-Light, Harlem International Film Festival
OFFICIAL SELECTION at eight other film festivals
Bhawin Suchak, Director/Producer
Sam Pollard, Executive Producer, an award-winning feature film and television video editor, and documentary producer/director whose career spans almost thirty years. He has edited several Spike Lee films (Four Little Girls, Jungle Fever, Mo Better Blues) and served as the producer for Henry Hampton’s historical civil rights documentary Eyes On The Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads.
Website: http://throwawaysmovie.com
Tickets via Brownpapertickets.
Come hear about the struggles of many people and organizations to fight the huge corporations and governments behind the tar sands projects as Joshua Kahn Russell, editor of A Line in The Tar Sands: Struggles For Environmental Justice, reads from the book and discusses the latest progress in the effort to stop this giant carbon bomb. More details below…..
it’s happening at The Green Arcade (maybe San Francisco’s coolest book store and one that supports critical thinking about, well, everything) at 1680 Market Street @ Gough – 7pm, this Thursday – and it’s free!
Joshua Russell Kahn co-editor of
A Line in the Tar Sands:
Struggles for Environmental Justice
Despite the formidable political and economic power behind the tar sands, many opponents are actively building international networks of resistance, challenging pipeline plans while resisting threats to Indigenous sovereignty and democratic participation. Including leading voices involved in the struggle against the tar sands, A Line in the Tar Sands offers a critical analysis of the impact of the tar sands and the challenges opponents face in their efforts to organize effective resistance.
“The tar sands has become a key front in the fight against climate change, and the fight for a better future, and it’s hard to overstate the importance of the struggles it has inspired.” –Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben
“The most important stories in the tar sands struggle are hidden by the media. This revelatory book tells of Canadian duplicity, Chinese capital, migrant workers, healing ceremonies, movement reflection and strategy, EU lobbying, the contradictions of NGO politics, Indigenous activism, and much more. The story of Greenhouse Goo is global. But so it its resistance: beautiful, complex, and rich. A Line in the Tar Sands is drawn with hope and righteous anger, celebrating the cosmologies that the tar sands industry and its politicians�would destrstroy.” Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved
Joshua Kahn Russell is a core trainer, facilitator, and action coordinator with The Wildfire Project and the Ruckus Society. He currently serves as the Global Trainings Manager at 350.org, and has trained thousands of activists.