Calendar
Our streets have been stolen from us, our rights have been stolen from us, our PEOPLE have been stolen from us. It is time to take them back!
It is unconstitutional to repress our right to hold space in the very place that was built on the backs of our ancestors. We’ve been told too many times that we don’t belong here: through the over-policing and criminalization of our communities, through the militarization of the police force, through gentrification, through unlawful curfews and state sanctioned violence against our communities.
The new curfew imposed on our people IS NOT going to stop us from holding space in the streets that BELONG TO US!
Black people and allies, it is time to come together and take back what rightfully belongs to us.
BYP100 Bay Area Chapter, in solidarity with Just Cause’s #OurBudgetOurCity day of action, Black Lives Matter (Bay Area), ONYX, BlackOUT Collective and Black Seed, will take back the streets that WE pay for, the streets that belong to US!
#OurBudgetOurCity is a day demonstrating the priorities that the City can spend their money and resources on – the needs of Oakland’s residents! Oakland’s public officials prioritize the profit-driven interests of developers, investors, big landlords, and protecting windows more than protecting the interests of Oakland’s working class and low income communities.
It’s clear that those of us whose needs are not being met and who are being displaced, suffering from the impact of gentrification, and living under the threat of state violence are not taking it anymore. The Bay Area has been blazing with people all over standing up to take back the rights that we have. June 10th is a day to celebrate all of that, and to show the Mayor, the City Council that we are united in our fight against gentrification and that we demand that our voices and demands be heard.
Take a look at the schedule of actions below.
8 AM: Join tenants to demand the city reinvest in Healthy Housing!
Location: Corner of Telegraph Ave. and West Macarthur Blvd.
11 AM: Justice for low-wage workers! Join fast food workers & community members calling on the City to enforce the Minimum Wage!
Location: Oakland City Hall
3:30 PM: ReInvest in Public Services! Join residents as they call on the City to reinvest resources to fix our roads and address illegal dumping in the flatlands! Location: Oakland City Hall
4:30pm: Press Event @ the Steps of Oakland City Hall to call for a Budget that ReInvests in Oakland!
7 PM: Take back our streets! The new curfew can’t stop us from holding space in the streets
Location: 14th and Broadway.
Please come out and show your solidarity with the people of Oakland fighting in solidarity for the right to take back our streets. WHOSE STREETS?! OUR STREETS!!!
Please bring:
A scarf or handkerchief
Earplugs
We discuss various monetary and debt-related topics. For our next meeting we will read a section from Ellen Brown’s Web of Debt. It will be chapters 25-28 and cover more on international debt in the Asian theatre and elsewhere.
If people have ideas on what we should study together please bring it up during the next meeting. We encourage participation! It need only loosely pertain to debt, money, economics, and/or banking.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_VeYBmQOi8FTFEwUDJVdC0wQU0/view?usp=sharing
The Politics of Debt Reading Group is affiliated with the Bay Area Public School and Strike Debt Bay Area.
- 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
- reviewing our recent Debtors’ Assembly and preparing for the next one at the US Social Forum in San Jose
- Our 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.
Monthly interfaith prayer meeting, held on second Sundays, dedicated to survivors and victims of violence and police terror in Oakland.
We are organizing this gathering for the community to connect, share prayers, writings and poems from all spiritual traditions, reflect and recharge and build coalitions interested in healing.
In April, it will be two years since we started holding these prayer meetings at the Baha’i Center. Come share prayers, quotes, poems, and favorite passages from your scriptures with us. We will serve a simple breakfast.
San Francisco is hosting the 83rd Annual Conference of Mayors June 19th, 2015 – June 22nd.. Around 250 Mayors will be in attendance. This is an opportunity to raise issues locally and nationally that are of concern to us.
- Black Lives Matter
- Gentrification
- Homelessness
- Privatization
- Homophobia and Transphobia
- Immigration
- The Environment
- Corporate Greed
- Wars not People
All are welcome to help plan for actions.
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 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.
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
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.
March from the Mission District (no location provided) to SF City Hall to the “Counter Gala.”
Organized by Stop Mass Incarceration.
“Our communities are safer and stronger when we have access to stable and supportive housing, quality healthcare and food, empowering education and employment, and freedom.” -War Resisters League
San Francisco and Mayor Ed Lee will host the 83rd U.S. Conference of Mayors summer session June 19-22, 2015, the first time since 1997. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, about 200 mayors from across the country are expected to attend, along with 200 to 300 support staff and roughly the same amount of corporate sponsors. Mayors also often bring their spouses and families to the summer meeting. The San Francisco meeting will be held at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square hotel.
This an opportunity for the Mayors to hear from the people!
The Conference of Mayors is coming to SF. Mayor Ed Lee is getting excited to play the proud host while ordinary San Franciscans struggle with a housing crisis and an epidemic of racist policing.
The mayors of this country, many of them Democrats, who posture like progressives, are administering austerity and managing a police form that kills every day.
Come to the rally and march to protest the Mayor’s Conference.
International Socialist Organization.
The mayors plan to party hearty while cops continue to kill Black and transgender men, women, and youth across the country. They will be boarding buses to attend a “Color of Life Global Celebration” at the California Academy of Sciences. Join with APTP to dampen their party.
Across the country mayors have allowed their police departments to become heavily militarized, with weapons and equipment provided by the U.S. military. They’ve invited repressive regimes like Israel to provide their departments with training. Israeli troops act as an occupying army to the Palestinian people, much like many police forces in the U.S. act with regard to Black communities and other communities of color.
We demand that the assault rifles, tanks, drones, and other military style offensive weapons be removed from our cities’ police departments. Instead we demand complete control over the police by the communities which they are supposed to serve.
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
Meet at the Simon Bolivar Statue in UN Plaza (Hyde Street between McAllister & Market) – a short walk from Civic Center BART in San Francisco
A draconian and racist policy of ethnic cleansing in the Dominican Republic threatens a quarter of a million people with deportation to Haiti. Second and third generation Dominicans who are classified as Haitian have been stripped of citizenship and declared “migrants.” Vigilante mobs and legal authorities alike are pushing people out of their homes and taking their property. Anyone who is Black and under the age of 85 may be classified as Haitian, even if they were born in the DR and have no ties to Haiti. They are being expelled from the country and made stateless.
We join with individuals and organizations across the country, the Caribbean and the globe to denounce this injustice and demand the government of the Dominican Republic reverse its unjust law and end forced expulsion of its citizens. No Human Being Is Illegal.
At the same time, we cannot ignore or fail to denounce our own government which under the Obama Administration by 2014 was responsible for the mass deportation of over two million immigrants and the annual incarceration of half a million people in horrific detention facilities awaiting immigration proceedings across the country. No Human Being Is Illegal.
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
Pull the Plug on Jail Expansion
Where: 1500 Capitol Avenue, First Floor Auditorium, Sacramento, CA 95814
Who: Board of State and Community Corrections
Join community members from across California as we come together to stop the funding stream for new jails.
Over 40 of California’s 58 counties have plans to build new jails. While some of them claim to be for treatment or to just replace existing jails, we know we won’t be able to continue to pass sentencing reform or bring our loved ones home unless we stop building cages. These projects put our counties in fiscal jeopardy, and they also undercut the resources available for the life-affirming programs and services that can get people out of jails and keep them out. And with the passage of Prop.47 we know there is no need to build more jails!
Come to Sacramento and help us show that communities across the state are united: No New Jails!
Governor Brown, who continues to position himself as a climate leader while his own permissive dirty drilling and fracking policies undercut his efforts – and also while these policies poison untold quantities of water during an epic drought, will be speaking at a ceremony commemorating the signing of the UN Charter. We’re going to be outside to remind him that climate leaders don’t frack – and responsible leaders don’t poison our water!
Join us in San Francisco as we put pressure the Governor for a fracking ban! Help us send a clear message: TRUE climate leaders don’t create policies that further contribute to climate change, nor do they allow the poisoning of our precious water resources during an historic drought. Period.
Bring noisemakers, signs, and your friends! See you there!