Calendar
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 Wednesday of every month.
Open Circle, first and foremost, is an opportunity to build community with one another. Secondly, it is a space to reflect and collaborate on strategies and actions to bring an end to these egregious crimes.
Please join us for the 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 at 3:30 with a speaker who has lost their loved one to police terror, followed by checkins and updates from other families present.
~ Reflection and dialogue on how we can help support them in their fight for justice.
~ Brief announcements for upcoming events.
~ Working groups: tbd
Solidarity is afoot so bring your ideas!
Notes from last meeting:
omnicommons.org/connect
The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly builds community and power among those who seek higher wages and better work life conditions for area workers.
We meet every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month at the SEIU Local 1000 union hall in downtown Oakland at 6:30 PM.
Our work together encompasses: (1) the concerns of precarious, contingent, and care workers; (2) current campaigns to improve wages for low-wage workers; and (3) efforts by unionized workers and unions to improve wages and quality of work life. We share stories and information in an egalitarian and participatory way to build relationships and build the movement.
We look forward to learning with you and making change for the better.
Please love and support one another. We have a duty to fight. We have a duty to win.
OptikAllusions is a digital filmmaking collective dedicated to social change, based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to help each other tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We make films in a spirit of collaboration and solidarity, share a lending library of film equipment for creative projects, organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops.
If you’d like to make videos or want to become a member, join us for our weekly meeting and a workshop!
We usually, meet briefly and then work on projects. It’s open to all!
https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Optik_Allusions
Updates on our progress, organizing strategies and developing work plan to get Public Safety Oversight measure on the Nov 2016 ballot
Join Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub, and other invasions of privacy by our benighted City Government, to support privacy ordinances now being considered by the Oakland City Council emerging from the effort to fight the DAC, and help in other fights to preserve and restore our privacy around the Bay Area, in California and nationwide.
OPWG was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network, and its members helped draft the Privacy Policy that puts further restrictions on the now Port-restricted DAC.
Stop by and learn how you can help guard Oakland’s right not to be spied on by the government & if you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy Working Group email listserv, send an email to:
oaklandprivacyworkinggroup-subscribe AT lists.riseup.net
For more information on the DAC check out
Defenders of the forests of the East Bay Hills will be meeting to discuss and organize this weekend. Please spread the word and come join us!
If you’ve not signed up on the East Bay Hills Forest Defense discussion and organizing list, please do so here (or get in touch if you need help signing up): https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/eastbayhills
Come learn about continuing developments in the battle save the Berkeley Post Office and the Postal Service from privatization, support our Occupiers and help us plan our next steps in opposition to the theft of our public commons.
The postal service wanted to sell the post office to Hudson-Mcdonald, a local developer. The City of Berkeley sued the post office to stop the sale. Hudson-Mcdonald backed out of the deal in early December.
There was a hearing in Federal Court on December 11th. There was another hearing in March 26th. Federal Judge William Alsup decided to dismiss the lawsuit in April because the Postal Service says it is not currently selling the building. But we’re not fooled. The Postal Service could “find” a buyer at any moment. Fortunately, the Judge ordered the Postal Service to provide 42 days notice before any sale, so that the lawsuit could be refiled.
Check out our response to the Judge’s order.
Check out the Community Garden at the Post Office.
In the latest developments, Berkeley has Declared War on Its Homeless, and an ordinance criminalizing the homeless wil come before the City Council on June 30th. (See here and here.)
Also check out our website and the Save the Berkeley Post Office website, and First they Came for the Homeless Facebook for updates.
BPOD is an offshoot of Strike Debt Bay Area, which itself is an offshoot of Occupy Oakland and a chapter of the national Strike Debt movement, which is an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street.
OptikAllusions is a digital filmmaking collective dedicated to social change, based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to help each other tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We make films in a spirit of collaboration and solidarity, share a lending library of film equipment for creative projects, organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops.
If you’d like to make videos or want to become a member, join us for our weekly meeting and a workshop!
We usually, meet briefly and then work on projects. It’s open to all!
https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Optik_Allusions
We discuss various monetary and debt-related topics. For our next meeting we will be reading an essay by one of our own, Spencer Veale, on reforming the monetary system.
Here is the essay:
The Politics of Debt Reading Group is affiliated with the Bay Area Public School and Strike Debt Bay Area.
With a lot of people out of town, the OO GA is cancelled this week. Please ignore the subsequent listing.
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets Sundays at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheatre at 14th Street & Broadway, often on the steps of City Hall. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland
OO General A
ssembly has met on a continuous basis for more than three 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)
Occupy Oakland Kitchen Committee: (kitchen@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
In recent years, the growing epidemic of police killings of mostly people of color, the obsessions with “war” (a misnomer for massacre at a distance), the desire to destroy social infrastructures as opposed to conquering territory in these “wars,” the impunity assumed by government, corporations, and police, the supreme court decisions that legitimize this impunity – all these aspects of a growing violence and extremism by institutions of power, suggest that both human concerns and civil society itself are becoming irrelevant to those power institutions. And this, in turn, strongly suggests a system whose name is “fascism.”
There are other names, and other explanations for these phenomena. Police violence can be seen as defending society, or a new Jim Crow. War can be seen as defending the US, or a new globalized imperialism. The technological destruction of social infrastructures by military means can be seen as targetting militants, or preparing invasions. And so on. But the bias toward corporations on the part of institutionalities like courts and administrations brings with it the suspicion (at least) that humans have been becoming irrelevant to the socio-political systems of power. And that makes reference to extreme contortions in the relations of people to power institutions – relations that have to do with structures of violence, structures of acquiescence, and an economy run by corporate structures.
For that reason, we need an understanding of “fascism” in its US context. Many people make the assumption that there is a concrete definition of fascism, that sets forth characteristics and criteria of evaluation. But even using the European experiences of the 1930s, one finds that different countries (Germany, Italy, Spain) produced different forms of fascism. The real question would be, are the political developments occurring around us simply the emergence of new forms of repression, some being carried to extreme, or are we witnessing something more fundamental, namely, the surfacing or resurfacing of a profound cultural and political structure in the US?
For instance, can we actually say that Dylan Roof was simply a lone (white supremacist) assassin committing his carefully premeditated massacre, or was he performing in terms of norms and exigencies of an underlying cultural structure, a part of whose operations has been to racialize not only the social environment, and US global militarism, but class relations as well?
The thesis of this class will be that there is an underlying structure – economic, political, and cultural – that has operated throughout US history, and which can truly be called fascist. The purpose of the class will be to investigate this thesis, to plumb the historical depths of what is signified and revealed by contemporary events, and to see if we can develop an interpretive description of an underlying structure, if it truly exists.
Some of the structures we shall examine in this class are those of racialization, the police-prison nexus, the corporation and corporatization of the economy and the political structure, and the cultural notions of membership in whiteness and white supremacy (for which racism can be seen as an instrumentality). For this purpose, we shall also discuss a critique of white skin privilege, the notion of cultural identity, what it means that class relations are racialized, and other allied topics.
Facilitator: Steve Martinot
Bay Area Public School
The Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality & State Repression (OGC) is a grassroots democratic organization that was formed as a conscious united front for justice against police brutality. The OGC is involved in the struggle for police accountability and is committed to stopping police brutality. In alliance with the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) we organized the October 23, 2010 labor and community rally for Justice for Oscar Grant. On that day the ILWU shut down the Bay Area ports in solidarity.
Our mission is to educate, organize and mobilize people against police and state repression.
Sisters and brothers the Oscar Grant Committee invites you to join us in this vital struggle.
The Oscar Grant Committee meets on the 1st Tuesday of each month.
The Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality & State Repression (OGC) is a grassroots democratic organization that was formed as a conscious united front for justice against police brutality. The OGC is involved in the struggle for police accountability and is committed to stopping police brutality. In alliance with the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) we organized the October 23, 2010 labor and community rally for Justice for Oscar Grant. On that day the ILWU shut down the Bay Area ports in solidarity.
Our mission is to educate, organize and mobilize people against police and state repression.
Sisters and brothers the Oscar Grant Committee invites you to join us in this vital struggle.
The Oscar Grant Committee meets on the 1st Tuesday of each month.
- student debt resistance
- organizing for public banking.
- advocating for Postal banking.
- ongoing study group
- helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
- our famous Strike Debt radio program
- staging Debtors’ Assemblies
- Reviewing our recent presentation on money and debt at the US Social Forum
- saving the Berkeley Post Office and stopping the Staples non-union takeover of good Post Office jobs
- and much more!
Strike Debt – Principles of Solidarity
Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.
We also oppose debt because it is an instrument of exploitation and political domination. Debt is used to discipline us, deepen existing inequalities, and reinforce racial, gendered, and other social hierarchies. Every Strike Debt action is designed to weaken the institutions that seek to divide us and benefit from our division. As an alternative to this predatory system, Strike Debt advocates a just and sustainable economy, based on mutual aid, common goods, and public affluence.
Strike Debt is committed to the principles and tactics of political autonomy, direct democracy, direct action, creative openness, a culture of solidarity, and commitment to anti-oppressive language and conduct. We struggle for a world without racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression.
Strike Debt holds that we are all debtors, whether or not we have personal loan agreements. Through the manipulation of sovereign and municipal debt, the costs of speculator-driven crises are passed on to all of us. Though different kinds of debt can affect the same household, they are all interconnected, and so all household debtors have a common interest in resisting.
Strike Debt engages in public education about the debt-system to counteract the self-serving myth that finance is too complicated for laypersons to understand. In particular, it urges direct action as a way of stopping the damage caused by the creditor class and their enablers among elected government officials. Direct action empowers those who participate in challenging the debt-system.
Strike Debt holds that we owe the financial institutions nothing, whereas, to our friends, families and communities, we owe everything. In pursuing a long-term strategy for national organizing around this principle, we pledge international solidarity with the growing global movement against debt and austerity.
Defenders of the East Bay Hills forests will be meeting this weekend. Please spread the word and come join us!
Our next organizing meeting will be on July 12 at 3pm at the Eucalyptus Grove/Grinnell Natural Area, near UC Berkeley campus West entrance.
(From the corner of Oxford and Center, follow the pathway into the trees across a foot bridge. Near the end of the pathway turn left across a second foot bridge into the eucalyptus grove.)
Bring lawn chairs or blankets, and anything else you need to get comfortable.
Wheelchair accessible. Please don’t wear scented products to this meeting as there are several chemically sensitive participants among us, who were injured by pesticides like the ones used in these projects.
If you’ve not signed up on the East Bay Hills Forest Defense discussion and organizing list, please do so here (or get in touch if you need help signing up): https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/eastbayhills
The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly builds community and power among those who seek higher wages and better work life conditions for area workers.
We meet every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month at the SEIU Local 1000 union hall in downtown Oakland at 6:30 PM.
Our work together encompasses: (1) the concerns of precarious, contingent, and care workers; (2) current campaigns to improve wages for low-wage workers; and (3) efforts by unionized workers and unions to improve wages and quality of work life. We share stories and information in an egalitarian and participatory way to build relationships and build the movement.
We look forward to learning with you and making change for the better.
Please love and support one another. We have a duty to fight. We have a duty to win.
Updates on our progress, organizing strategies and developing work plan to get Public Safety Oversight measure on the Nov 2016 ballot
We discuss various monetary and debt-related topics. For our next meeting we will be discussing Greece, it’s debt, the recent referendum and its implications on the world monetary system, and Greece’s prospects.
Here is a (long) investigation into the origins and odious nature of Greek debt.
https://berkeleypostofficedefenders.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/greek-odious-debt.pdf
Some recent articles. Select a subset, and/or find your own…
A good overview of how it all came to be in layman’s terms.
Greek debt crisis: ‘Of all the damage, healthcare has been hit the worst’
Tsipras Has Just Destroyed Greece.
Germany Won’t Spare Greece Pain – It Has an Interest in Breaking Us.
Michael Hudson: EU Infrastructure Undermines Sovereignty
NY Times: Debt Crisis Pits Greeks Against Germans
Wall Street Journal: Europe Takes Hard Line with Greece
Yanis Varoufakis opens up about his five month battle to save Greece
Yanis Varoufakis full transcript: our battle to save Greece
The actual deal made on Monday:
Greek debt crisis: Here’s the deal
The Euro-Summit ‘Agreement’ on Greece – annotated by Yanis Varoufakis
Deal on Greek Debt Crisis Is Reached, but Long Road Remains
The Problem of Greece Is Not Only a Tragedy. It Is a Lie.
Greece put its faith in democracy but Europe has vetoed the result
How Will the Greek Privatization Fund Work?
Yanis Varoufakis: On the Euro Summit’s Statement on Greece: First thoughts
International Monetary Fund Proposed Greek Debt Relief
How Greece Was Lost: ‘We Were Set Up’ – Yanis Varoufakis
Massive debt relief for Greece would give economy chance to grow: IMF
The I.M.F. Is Telling Europe the Euro Doesn’t Work
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The Politics of Debt Reading Group is affiliated with the Bay Area Public School and Strike Debt Bay Area.