Calendar
This is the opening Sunday, September 15, of the UUSF Sunday Morning Forum series: Bill Ong Hing, JD, Director of Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic of the University of San Francisco will be our speaker. Professor Hing recently returned from a visit to the Texas Border Center where he worked as part of a legal team to inspect the Clint facility, and interviewed the children. He will describe this experience and explain legal aspects of the current laws affecting immigration practices. Dr. Hing’s expertise includes Immigration Law and Policy, Migration Theory, Racism and U.S. Law, and is Professor of Law and Migration Studies, and founder of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. There will be a Q&A audience participation session after the presentation.
UUSF congregants are currently holding weekly witness demonstrations for a “Close the Camps” effort and the moderator of the Forum, Bruce Neuburger, will speak about our involvement on this issue and ways for the public to become involved.
Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
Gloria Steinem was a CIA Agent.
She proudly admits it, so does the CIA. After a brief introduction from ICSS member Eugene Ruyle, we will have an open discussion of two readings:
1. The feminist was a spook, By Markos Kounalakis https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-gloria-steinem-cia-20151025-story.html
2. The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol52no2/intelligence-in-recent-public-literature-1.html
FREE – but hat will be passed for donations to ICSS
About Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
A weekly discussion series inspired by our respect for the work of Karl Marx and our belief that his work will remain as important for the class struggles of the future as they have been for the past.
ACTIVATING THE ENTIRE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
for the Global Climate Strike September 20-27, 2019 & beyond
WHAT IS NVDA?
NVDA stands for Non-Violent Direct Action. Examples of nonviolent direct action (also known as nonviolence, nonviolent resistance, or civil resistance) can include sit-ins, strikes, workplace occupations, or street blockades.
Community security and safety strategies are a critical component to building alternatives to policing and the prison industrial complex. This training will offer folks a chance to learn about the history of community security and safety, dig into some practical verbal de-escalation skills, with an emphasis on intervening in emotional crisis, and practice scenarios they might face in their day to day. Let’s build the alternatives we so desperately need together! Please wear comfortable clothing you can move in!
We ask for a sliding scale donation of any amount to support the continued work of the Alternatives to Policing Coalition. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Elliott Fukui has been an organizer, facilitator and trainer for almost 20 years. He has worked as an organizer and trainer with both national and local groups, most recently as a National Organizer for the Transgender Law Center. Elliott has been a community security trainer and coordinator for a decade, and has coordinated teams across the country. He is committed to exploring and developing practices ground in transformative justice, community accountability, and disability justice as a way of creating the world we all deserve. He loves praxis, making maps, and covering 90’s music on his ukulele.
ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP SERIES
A growing coalition of organizations in the Bay Area is coming together to explore alternatives to calling the police to our campuses and into our neighborhoods. Over the coming year, we will be offering a series of workshops to explore alternatives to calling the police. Some of these workshops will provide deepening analysis and a grounding in alternative ways of thinking about community safety. Others, like this one, will provide practical skills. All of them will lift up a transformative justice framework and emphasize the importance of self care.
The Coalition includes First Congregational Church of Oakland, Kehilla Community Synagogue, Qal’bu Maryam, Jewish Voice for Peace, Skyline Community Church, Oakland Peace Center, Oakland LBGTQ Community Center, and the Omni Collective. We are eager to partner with additional organizations so please contact us if you are interested!
Join APTP in offering hot food, drinks, snacks, and solidarity to releasees and visitors at Santa Rita Jail!
Let us know you’ll be there by sending us a text at (510) 686-3284.
Prisons function to repress, warehouse and extract labor from primarily those of us who are Black or poor. We believe that solidarity is a weapon of resistance, and that we must respond to the basic needs of our community while also confronting state terror.
In honor of Dujuan Armstrong Jr. who entered Santa Rita Jail for a weekend sentence and never came home, APTP is providing material support and direct care to folks at Santa Rita Jail as a small but meaningful way to address the harm caused by incarceration in our community. We do not positively engage with the racist pigs who work at the jail, as they are willing agents of the state that criminalizes and incarcerates us.
We’d love to see you there! Meet APTP outside of the Lake Merritt BART Station at 4pm – we’ll drive out to the jail together from there. All are welcome, no experience required.
Author Lisa Fithian on New Book: “Shut It Down Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance”
Doors open at 6:30pm. Event begins at 7pm.
Our dear friend and long time direct action organizer Lisa Fithian has released a new book, called “Shut It Down Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance,” and we’re excited to host her in the Bay Area.
Details on the book:
For decades, Lisa Fithian’s work as an advocate for civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action has put her on the frontlines of change. Described by Mother Jones as “the nation’s best-known protest consultant,” Fithian has supported countless movements including the Battle of Seattle in 1999, rebuilding and defending communities following Hurricane Katrina, Occupy Wall Street, and the uprisings at Standing Rock and in Ferguson. For anyone who wants to become more active in resistance or is just feeling overwhelmed or hopeless, “Shut It Down” offers strategies and actions you can take right now to promote justice and incite change in your own community.
In “Shut It Down” Fithian shares historic, behind-the-scenes stories from some of the most important people-powered movements of the past several decades. She shows how movements that embrace direct action have always been, and continue to be, the most radical and rapid means for transforming the ills of our society. “Shut It Down” is filled with instructions and inspiration for how movements can evolve as the struggle for social justice continues in the Trump era and beyond.
While recognizing that electoral politics, legislation, and policy are all important pathways to change, “Shut It Down” argues that civil disobedience is not just one of the only actions that remains when all else fails, but a spiritual pursuit that protects our deepest selves and allows us to reclaim our humanity. Change can come, but only if we’re open to creatively, lovingly, and strategically standing up, sometimes at great risk to ourselves, to protect what we love.
A general strike is a strike action that includes a large part of the total labor force in a city, region, or country. General strikes are characterized by the participation of workers in a multitude of workplaces, and tend to involve entire communities. The idea of the general strike is powerful precisely because a massive and persistent withdrawal of labor can bring a capitalist city or even an entire economy to a halt.
The last general strike in the United States occurred here in the East Bay in 1946. One hundred thousand members of the American Federation of Labor shut down the economy of four local cities for two and a half days. Thousands of strikers took over the streets of downtown Oakland. It was an explosive protest against employers’ refusal to recognize the union of newly organized retail workers, and against police intervention to disrupt picket lines.
What touched off the Oakland general strike and why did it end almost as suddenly as it began? Why have there been no subsequent general strikes in the United States in over 70 years? Should activists on the left today be calling for general strikes? Or following Rosa Luxemburg, should we view general strikes as historical phenomenon resulting from specific social conditions?
To find out the answer to these questions and more, please join us for a special edition of Socialist Night School. Fred Glass, local labor historian and author, will be joining us to give lead-off talk on the history of the last Oakland General Strike.
Find the readings here: https://www.eastbaydsa.org/night-school/
You believe in making a difference, but when it comes to racial justice, are your actions aligned with your beliefs? The work begins with looking in the mirror. Without intentional learning and reflection, white people may uphold beliefs and systems that perpetuate injustice. Join us for an intimate and interactive workshop in which we will unpack how whiteness has shaped our lives and discuss how white people who care can take action for racial justice.
This workshop offers those who are new to racial justice work an opportunity to reflect on and analyze the role that whiteness has played in their lives. Through individual, small-group, and whole-group activities, participants will be invited to:
*Reframe racism as a system, rather than a product of individuals who are “good” or “bad”
*Reflect on how their own racial identity has influenced their experiences in the world
*Create a plan for taking at least one action in their own lives to deepen their commitment to racial justice
This workshop welcomes anyone who would like to participate, but it is especially well-suited for white people who are:
*In the early stages of exploring what it means to be white
*Seeking to grow their skills in analyzing and discussing the effects of racism
*Feeling ready to take action to create a more just world
Preregistration is required due to limited space.
Care about climate change? Want a Green New Deal? Join us! Learn more about how to participate in the September 20 Climate Strike and week of action!
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
Because of the conflict with Night School, we will be changing this event to 9/19, and will be holding it over Zoom.
Three documentaries will screen outside on the plaza at National Nurses United headquarters.
The art exhibition “Recognition: Labor Meets Art in Explorations of Social Justice and Identity,” will be open to the public during the screenings.
The films feature three locations where Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) volunteers have deployed to provide direct relief and response to humanitarian, environmental, and social injustice: Post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, Standing Rock, and rural Arizona. RNRN volunteers will introduce the films with stories of how RNs have intervened to provide direct care in support of social justice.
Big Charity: The Death of America’s Oldest Hospital
This documentary by Alexander Glustrom tells the story of Charity Hospital, from its roots in 1736 as a hospital for the poor to its controversial closing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The film features firsthand accounts of healthcare providers and hospital employees who withstood the storm inside the hospital and interviews with key players involved in Charity’s closing. Today the towering art deco building stands empty, and the community continues to suffer devastating consequences from its absence. Screens as part of “Recognition and Response,” National Nurses United’s fall outdoor documentary film series.
Climate Emergency Discussion at City Council Meeting:
The El Cerrito City Council is expected to discuss a resolution to declare a climate emergency and request regional collaboration on an emergency mobilization effort to restore a safe and stable climate.
Please urge your city council members to join the other 9 Bay Area cities and over 800 jurisdictions across the globe to take leadership and address climate change as the global threat that it is. Remind the Mayor and City Council members to support a strong Climate Emergency Resolution that supports:
–An urgent citywide climate emergency mobilization effort to reverse global warming with all segments of the community to rapidly transition to zero greenhouse gases
–Reduction of city Greenhouse Gas Emissions as quickly as possible toward zero net greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2045, and a 50% reduction by 2030.
–A regional Bay Area-wide Collaboration on a just transition to a sustainable economy and to work to catalyze an urgent climate mobilization at the local and state level.
Come to the council meeting, and/or write your city council members. And please RSVP below so we can keep you posted on any last minute changes.
Mayor Pardue-Okimoto: rpardueokimoto [at] ci.el-cerrito.ca
City Councilmembers: jabelson [at] ci.el-cerrito.ca.us; gquinto [at] ci.el-cerrito.ca.us;
pfadelli [at] ci.el-cerrito.ca.us; glyman [at] ci.el-cerrito.ca.us
Link to the city agenda materials : http://www.el-cerrito.org/Archive.aspx?AMID=41
In the Bay Area, the following jurisdictions have adopted Climate Emergency Resolutions for regional collaboration on an immediate just transition and emergency mobilization effort to restore a safe climate: Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, San Francisco, Hayward, Fairfax, Petaluma, Cupertino and Richmond. Other CA jurisdictions include Santa Cruz and Mendocino Counties and the cities of Chico and Santa Cruz.
Matewan is an awesome film by John Sayles, based on a historic coal miners strike in West Virginia. Highly recommended!
PEOPLES PARK MOVIE NIGHT
a part of the people’s park potluck initiative
Free Popcorn!
Park movie Nights, every friday at 8pm:
bring food and friends to share
help build and develop this community of Resistance
Protect our Green space, trees, Community, historical landmark, free speech, social justice, civil rights, gardens, music, art, style, freebox, recreation, climate, ecology, education, sports
People’s park committee
peoplespark.org
Come along on a free walking tour which dares to name you as having an abiding inner Trump reigning in your bosom, and supplies an opportunity to exorcise that daemon.
The walk is about real estate and justice. The old story told plainly through San Francisco anecdote.
Join us in support of the Global Climate Strike. Learn, engage and find ways you can act in the fight against climate change.
Every day you hear daunting news about the negative effects climate change is having both locally and globally and the issues may seem too big and out of reach for you to make an impact. But don’t despair, you can act and make a difference. The Global Climate Strike is happening from the 20th September to the 27th of September in countries, cities and towns all over the world.
In support, East Bay Climate Action Network is holding a Rally and Environmental Fair. We will have exciting speakers, displays and representatives from different groups and organizations involved in environmental programs, who will educate and engage you, providing you with different ways to get involved. The second part of the event will give you the opportunity to participate in Action Groups working for change.This is a free family friendly event. Bring water bottle and blanket for lawn seating. East Bay Climate Action Network: Turning energy into action for a healthy climate. facebook.com/EastBayClimateActionNetwork #climatestrike globalclimatestrike.net
We turn 4 this year and we would love for y’all to be a part of the celebrations!
Cult Mind
Younger Lovers
Godstomper
Grosero
The Leave Me Alones
We will have raffle prizes and vendors!
And as always, we will have our usual narcan trainings and harm reduction supplies for our event!
Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
Honduras: Refugees & Resistance
Our speaker will be Karen Spring, the Honduras-based Coordinator of the Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN), a group of over 30 organizations from Canada and the United States, website: http://www.hondurassolidarity.org. She has lived and worked in Honduras since 2009 and works closely with community-based organizations affected by US and Canadian foreign policy and investments. Karen has written or contributed to several reports about mining, militarization, and human rights issues and blogs at: http://www.aquiabajo.com
Karen is married to Edwin Espinal who was a political prisoner for 18 months and fought for his release as well as the freedom of over 30 political prisoners in Honduras. Her husband’s trial is pending.
Karen is on a speaking tour, sponsored by the Task Force on the Americas (TFA) to raise awareness and funds for political freedom and independence for Honduras.
About Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
A weekly discussion series inspired by our respect for the work of Karl Marx and our belief that his work will remain as important for the class struggles of the future as they have been for the past.
Join me on Sun., 9/22 for a West Berkeley Homelessness Town Hall Mtg from 4-5:30 pm at Berkeley Rep Admin Office (999 Harrison St) to share your concerns & ideas w me.
Topics to include:
RV parking
Options for CalTrans parcels
Encampment policy
Mid-range & LT goals
& more!— Rashi Kesarwani (@RashiKesarwani) September 18, 2019