Calendar

Action Spokescouncil* called for by Idle No More SF Bay, The Society of Fearless Grandmothers, Extinction Rebellion SF Bay, Diablo Rising Tide and the 1000 Grandmothers Bay Area.

*For Spokescouncils, we are encouraging groups, organizations and individuals to organize affinity groups (AG) and send spokespeople who represent affinity groups or clusters of affinity groups. These will be the ‘empowered’ representatives who represent and are responsible for consulting others in their AG or cluster for input and decisions.

RSVP form:https://actionnetwork.org/forms/september-14th-1st-spokescouncil-meeting-for-sept-25-action/

PEDIE PEREZ‘ 5th Year Memorial
Saturday, September 14th at Dusk (~6:30 PM)
@ Uncle Sam’s Liquors
3322 Cutting Blvd, Richmond, CA 94804

REMEMBERING WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN PEDIE’S 30TH BIRTHDAY

CANDLE-LIGHTING
BALLOON RELEASE
refreshments

Pedie was an intoxicated young man who tried to walk away from a Richmond cop who was hassling him. The police officer, Wallace Jensen, claimed that when he tried to apprehend Pedie the unarmed young man tried to grab his gun, so he stepped back and fired 3 rounds into Pedie, killing him. The surveillance video from the liquor store doesn’t show the “altercation” but does clearly show that the cops didn’t try to render any assistance to Pedie as he lay dying on the liquor store floor. The police “investigation” was a cover up that didn’t even discuss the two (six, really) eye-witnesses that contradicted the cop’s story. The 33-year old cop subsequently Jensen retired on a full disability tax-free pension of $70,700 plus benefits because he was so traumatized by gunning down an unarmed young man who didn’t immediately follow his orders, so I guess in less than a decade he’ll be paid more in benefits and income than the family & and lawyer got in the miserly settlement. FWIW, the Richmond Police Review Commission found that Jensen used excessive force by a 7 to 1 vote. With that and a dollar you can still get a coffee some places. The police report and some cell phone evidence taken by by-standers has never been released to the family or anyone else because there was no law requiring to cops to provide such things to the family. But disgraced & disbarred Contra Costa District Attorney Mark Peterson “issued a rare, seven-page report explaining the course of the investigation, in which he maintained that the case was carefully reviewed.” The plead deal allowed Peterson to keep his pension, estimated at $128,000 per year, with adjustments for inflation

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.

What skills, tools and approaches are useful in encouraging white people to sustain balanced engagement with anti-racism/racial justice education and work? How can we cultivate resilience (as opposed to white fragility) in ourselves, our communities, and our movements?

White Fragility is defined by Robin DiAngelo as “A state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation (2011).”

What skills, tools and approaches are useful in encouraging white people to sustain balanced engagement with anti-racism/racial justice education and work? How can we cultivate resilience (as opposed to white fragility) in ourselves, our communities, and our movements? Resilience is, in part, defined as:

1. Staying with the conversation

2. Giving and receiving information and feedback from facilitators and peers without becoming highly defensive, reactive, or shut down/dissociated for long period of time

3. Managing the guilt and shame that can arise in learning about the history and current reality of race and racism in the US.

This workshop will explore the role of the body, community, spirituality, intellectual knowledge and other themes that you bring from your experience. We will cover basic information about how the brain and body responds to perceived threats, and explore how to work with this toward greater resilience in moments of challenge.

This workshop is for all experience levels. Participants will be invited to discuss in small groups, move around the space, and hold their bodies in different shapes for 1-2 minutes if available. Content will be presented in both verbal and written formats.

Sliding Scale: $15-$85. No one is turned away for lack of funds. Preregistration is required due to limited space and a pre-workshop assignment.

ASL Interpretation: Requests must be made at accessibility@surjbayarea.org no later than 9 PM, September 12.

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.

Close the Camps – Free Our Children

Schedule of Actions

11:00 AM RALLY at 24th & Mission Street
12:00 Noon MARCH to City Hall
1:00 PM RALLY at City Hall
3:00 PM Protest at ICE
3:00 PM Delegation to present DEMANDS to Congresswoman Pelosi
3:00 PM Delegation to present DEMANDS to Senator Feinstein
6:00 PM Mexican Independence Day Celebration & Rally at 24th & Mission Street

WHO ARE WE? – Close the Camps – Free Our Children is a Bay Area grassroots coalition drawn together
by outrage at the horrific mistreatment of immigrants at our borders, particularly children. We are
people of color, faith-based groups, community members, artists, citizens and non-citizens, attorneys,
labor, activist, students, parents, allied organizations and concerned community members that are
committed to closing the camps and freeing innocent children.

WHY ARE WE PROTESTING? – We are outraged at the inhumane conditions that exist at the detention
centers. We are here to connect with those who share our outrage and to create the platform needed to
enact change! We condemn the criminalization of migrants and refugees who are seeking a better life
and we are taking action to bring about real immigration reform.

The recent killing of 22 people in El Paso, Texas, the majority of Mexican descent, also points to the
direct connection between anti-immigrant sentiments and white-supremacist domestic terrorism. It is
deplorable that the President of the United States continues to use inflammatory rhetoric to incite
domestic terrorism against what he calls the “invasion” of immigrants. We stand in direct opposition to
this divisive hate speech which is responsible for the killing of innocent U.S. citizens and Mexican
nationals.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE? – On Sept 16, 2019 – Mexican Independence Day – we will protest and rally
against the inhumane conditions and immoral policies that harm individuals, target immigrants and
damage the fabric of our democracy. We will take direct action to bring attention and awareness to
these issues, and demand action from our elected officials. We will present these demands to elected
officials responsible for oversight and we will monitor the implementation in the months to come. Our
policy demands include:

1. Close the camps NOW! – Eliminate all contracts with private prison operators. Groups such as
CoreCivic and Geo Group receive millions of dollars in contracts, and make huge profits for
detaining immigrants and their children who are seeking asylum.
2. Free Our Children NOW! – We demand the immediate release of our innocent children from
cages that house them, and immediate reunification with their parents or relatives while
awaiting asylum as per the nation’s existing laws.
3. Immediately eliminate section 1325 from the U.S Code – Section 1325 from the U.S Code makes
it a criminal violation to enter the United States without inspection, and is the legal basis for
separating children.
4. Full Amnesty NOW! – Develop an immediate pathway for full citizenship for the millions of
individuals living and contributing to this country. End the 3, 5, and 10 year ban that require the
undocumented who might qualify for legal status to leave the country in order to fulfill
becoming a citizen.
5. Defend and expand Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Temporary protected
Status (TPS), and Deferred Enforcement Departure (DED) – We support asylum for all political
refugees and we oppose the current Muslim Ban.
6. Boycott companies providing services to Custom Border Patrol (CBP) – More than 1,123
vendors collect over $6.4 billion provide an array of goods and services including vehicles, food,
furniture, and housekeeping, computers, and data collection software to CBP. A company such
as Palantir took over $41 million dollar in contracts to provide surveillance and is complicit in
raids conducted by ICE.
7. Make Domestic Terrorism a Federal Crime – It is time for Congress to enact a federal offense of
domestic terrorism, and include white-nationalist supremacists on the domestic terrorist list.
Immigrants must not be the fodder for racist, domestic terrorism!
We support and will coalesce with allied groups who continue to stand in opposition to the current
administration’s immigration policies. We support all actions to close ICE offices across the country,
permanently!

Get Involved!
Contact us: 415-206-0577
Facebook: A Day Without Immigrants SF
Instagram: @ADayWithoutImmigrantsSF

UD Director Ben Carson is coming to SF tomorrow.

We will be there to demand more funding for affordable housing and to END the criminalization of homelessness!

Join us!

Text/call Sam Lew, Policy Director, for more info: 415-272-8022

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.

Join this event

Join this event

We call for a youth-led climate strike march, going to different targets that are contributing to climate breakdown, leaving our mark to let these places know what we are fighting for. We will again start at the office of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and will connect targets in government, finance, and energy. For those that can’t join in person, we will be asking people to post on social media and tag our targets.

Demands:

1.WE DEMAND A SAFE, HEALTHY AND JUST PLANET.
This climate crisis threatens our ability to live. If climate change continues on this course, we won’t be able to eat, breathe, or have safe shelter. In order to successfully fight the climate crisis we are facing, we must also fight the systems of white supremacy, racism, greed, and exploitation that have led us to it. Fighting for climate justice means fighting for a world that is safe, healthy, and just for all of its inhabitants. We must enact climate emergency plans at the local, national, and international level.

2. WE DEMAND JUSTICE AND ASYLUM FOR PEOPLE DIAPLACED BY CLIMATE CHANGE.
Individuals and families displaced by climate change seek asylum in a safe place because they have nowhere else to go. Climate justice means abolishing ICE, closing concentration camps at the border, ending family separation, and creating inclusive new laws and regulations that treat everyone as human.

3. WE DEMAND POLICY BASED ON SCIENCE.
We have eleven years before the effects of the climate emergency are irreversible. We can’t afford to compromise with climate change deniers. We must enact immediate legislation based on scientific analysis of carbon emissions and the ways that climate disasters impact certain communities. Science clearly shows that global temperatures are rising dangerously, and that we are on track to face unprecedented climate disasters. We demand a Green New Deal, a resolution that lays out a science-based plan to reach negative carbon emissions by 2030.

4. WE DEMAND THAT PEOPLE, NOT CORPORATIONS, INFLUENCE POLICY.
Representation and transparency are vital for successful democracies; corporate money must be taken out of politics. We demand all politicians sign the “No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge.” We demand Citizens United must be overturned and super PAC’s be abolished. Corporate funding and donations from millionaires and billionaires must be replaced with public funding of elections in addition to small-dollar donations. To ensure that every vote counts, we must restore the Voting Rights Act, secure automatic registration for every citizen above 18, and re-enfranchise those convicted of felonies.

5. WE DEMAND EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL.
The government must be for the people, by the people; all policies and decisions made must be for the benefit of all. Black and trans lives matter; the Equality Act must be passed. The rights of Brown, Black, and Middle Eastern migrants must be respected. Women deserve full reproductive justice, and equity in the workplace. We demand universal background checks and Medicare for All in order to ensure a safe and secure environment for everyone. We demand diversity and representation, and intersectionality must fuel the climate justice movement. Frontline communities must have a voice and leadership role, and we look to indigenous communities to lead the transition to a just and sustainable world.

6. WE DEMAND THAT HUMANS PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF NATURE.
Just as humans have rights, nature has rights. Humans have a moral obligation to respect and protect plants, animals, and ecosystems. We demand that the rights of nature be legally represented. This includes legislation to provide sanctuary for endangered species, regulate hunting, and end deforestation, pollution, destructive fuel extraction, fracking, factory farming, and unsustainable agriculture. All life is interconnected, and we must live in harmony with the Earth.

7. WE DEMAND A JUST TRANSITION
Countries and individuals that have contributed the most to climate change must be held accountable. We demand urgent climate action, including the GND, that protects vulnerable communities and create economic justice. Policies must respect workers’ rights ’to living wages and health care, young people’s rights to free, relevant education, and everyone’s right to affordable housing. To quote Movement Generation:

Transition is inevitable. Justice is not. A just transition is the process of getting from where we are to where we need to be by transforming the systems of economy and governance.

A just transition requires moving from a globalized capitalist industrial economy to linked local living participatory economies that provide well-being for all.

This September 20 – 27th, millions of people around the world will walk out of our workplaces and homes to join youth climate strikers on the streets to march and demand an end to the age of fossil fuels, corporate pollution, and environmental destruction.

Our house is on fire — let’s act like it. We demand climate justice for everyone.

Help us change the world.

Strike events on Global Climate Strike Day: Friday, September 20, 2019

Berkeley Climate Action Coalition/Ecology Center Strike

Friday, September 20th, 15:00 p.m.

Ecology Center Store/Offices

Berkeley, United States

Berkeley Climate Action Coalition/Ecology Center Strike

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Students for Climate Action

Friday, September 20th, 11:00 a.m.

University of California Berkeley, Sproul Plaza

Berkeley, United States

Students for Climate Action

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Massive Sept. 8th Street Festival Lead-up to Sept. 20

Friday, September 20th, 10:00 a.m.

Solano Avenue Street Festival, Albany between Stannage and Cornell

Albany, United States

Massive Sept. 8th Street Festival Lead-up to Sept. 20

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Oakland-Laney Climate STRIKE Rally / Merging with Youth-led March in SF

Friday, September 20th, 10:00 a.m.

Gather at the Main Quad, center of campus

Oakland, United States

Oakland-Laney Climate STRIKE Rally / Merging with Youth-led March in SF

Join this event

RICHMOND: 11:00 AM @ Richmond Civic Center Plaza, 450 Civic Center Plaza , Richmond 94804