Calendar
Join us on 9/14/19 for a showing of blbfilmproductions.com
Health Care for All – Contra Costa and Alameda County Chapters will show The Power to Heal: Medicare And The Civil Rights Revolution, a 56-minutes long public television documentary that tells a poignant chapter in the historic struggle to secure equal and adequate access to healthcare for all Americans. This film was shown in July at the NAACP National Convention in Detroit.
After movie Q&A with:
- Rochelle Pardue-Okimoto, Mayor of City of El Cerrito
- Myrtle Braxton, Chair, Richmond Commission on Aging
- Alireza Rezapour, Internist, Physicians for National Health Program
Co-sponsors: NAACP El Cerrito Branch and Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia
In order to guarantee your seat register at: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4300560
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!
- special large meeting to launch a broad community campaign to get a charter amendment for a stronger police review commission in Berkeley on the 2020 ballot.
Phase 1 of our ongoing campaign:
-Recruit more people, from different sectors of the community, to get involved with this issue.
-Educate the public about the need for a stronger police review function in Berkeley, especially given the continuing racial disparities in policing.
-Build public pressure on the Mayor & City Council to put the charter amendment (Arreguin/Harrison version, which is currently under consideration) on the 2020 ballot. The vote to put it on the ballot could come as early as September.
Phase 2
-If the Council puts the charter amendment on the ballot, we will be working to ensure that it gets passed.
-If they do not put it on the ballot, we have the other option of pursuing a signature campaign to get it on the ballot.
General Meeting
Our September General Meeting will be an informal gathering to greet new and ongoing rebels and help them plug in to upcoming events. We’ll be on the south side of the park – look for the Extinction Rebellion banner. Come on down!
Ready to Swarm?
After the general meeting, hang around for Swarming Training – as we go over what swarming is, how it works, how to be a police liaison and a lookout, and how to de-escalate tense situations. We’ll be doing plenty of practice and role play, so you’ll be well prepared for the swarming action on September 23rd. De-centralized “swarms” briefly stop traffic to cause POLITE disruption and hand out info to drivers about the climate crisis and upcoming actions. Please swarm with us!
Business Like? Call For Business-Attired Volunteers
Number needed: 25-50, all genders, aged 21�45 ideal (we want to look like the Montgomery demographic) for an action on Montgomery St., San Francisco during the Strike for Climate Justice on Sept. 25:
- 7am�11am�Shift 1; ;
- 11am�2pm�Shift 2;
- 2�5pm�Shift 3; ;
- or any time you can come between 7am�5pm for at least one hhour
Action:
Persons dressed for success (wearing business attire) and wearing N95 masks or other respiration devices will walk up and down Montgomery St. on Sept. 25, handing out leaflets and/or carrying signs. You look like any other business person on Montgomery, except you won’t be on your phone, and you are wearing what we all may need to wear in 20-30 years: breathing masks.
Contact: MaryAnn at doctorpepp@protonmail.com
The 2018 Charter Amendment for a strengthened police commission is back for 2020.
Please join a short-term “push,” over the next two months, to get the amendment on the ballot. Community members will meet for an hour on Sunday afternoon September 15 to get organized for action.
This push will not require you to go door-to-door or get signatures on petitions. It will not require raising money.
All that is necessary is for you to talk to people you already know, in your organization, congregation, union, club, or family and friends, and persuade them to write the city council and mayor to vote the measure onto the 2020 ballot.
Please join us for a brief discussion
At this meeting we will give an overview of the proposed ballot initiative and share suggested talking points for Council outreach. We’ll leave plenty of time for questions and answers.
* * * * *
Background.
- We came very close to getting the charter amendment on the city ballot last summer, but at the last minute the city council did not take up the issue. This failure was bound up with the extended meet-and-confer process, and the intense counter-attack by those who prefer the status quo of ineffective civilian oversight.
- A year later the meet and confer process appears to be winding down. A number of Council members have promised to put a version of the amendment on next year’s ballot. This is the version crafted by Mayor Arreguin and Councilmember Harrison. It is the tamest of all the versions bruited about last year, but still stronger than the current toothless Police Review Commission (PRC). The main advance is that it would remove community oversight from the domain of the City Manager, resolving a clear conflict of interest as the CM is the leader of the police force as well as overseeing the PRC. Also, it provides the PRC confidential access to internal department data as necessary to fulfill its role.
- Any initiative drive has two phases. The first one, qualifying for the ballot, is critical. If Council votes the amendment onto the November 2020 ballot this fall, they will ensure that the public has a chance to vote for police accountability. A coalition of community groups that has been working on this issue, the Racism and Criminal Justice Reform (RCJR) group, is not taking anything for granted. We are planning a fall drive to inundate Council members with messages demanding they strengthen civilian oversight of the police.
Who is organizing this push?
- The RCJR is a coalition of organizations and individuals with a long history of anti-racist and police accountability work. It includes members of Indivisible Berkeley, the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, and local chapters of the NAACP and the ACLU, among others. Alongside the charter amendment campaign, we are involved with the ongoing campaign for the City of Berkeley to take swift and effective action to overcome racial disparities in policing.
What is our immediate objective?
- RCJR has a very realizable goal of organizing five hundred or more Berkeleyans to write or call Council in the next two months. A thousand messages would be overwhelmingly effective. We need to contact all nine Council members including the mayor, taking no one for granted. Their promises aside, we know that political leaders are subject to pressure from all sides. We must deluge the Council members to ensure they remember their promises. Phone calls, emails, letters, office visits, council meeting comments, all help get the message across.
Resources:
Thanks for your participation in this historic campaign. Always remember that this is a simple matter of justice. Public safety requires the trust of the community, and a certain knowledge that policing is done impartially. This moderate initiative will enhance public accountability and improve the policing experience for everyone involved.
Contact RCJR at:
racialandcriminaljustice@wellstoneclub.org or
middeen@berkeleynaacp.com
NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:
occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If for some reason the amphitheater is being used otherwise and/or OGP itself is inaccessible, we will meet at Kaiser Park, right next to the statues, on 19th St. between San Pablo and Telegraph. 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. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)
On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.
OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! 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)
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
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
We’ll be holding our regular meeting of the Public Bank East Bay organizational group. We have moved the meeting to regular third Mondays, to make it more predictable and allow some new people to attend. We would LOVE to see you there.
Lots to discuss!
- We had a very successful kick-off meeting for our interim bank board, which happened to be the same day the bill passed the state assembly.
- We have fundraising leads, and we think that the legislation being complete may open fundraising doors. The business plan is absolutely our next step.
Proposed agenda
1) AB 857, victories and next steps
2) Interim board member meeting reportback and next steps
3) Fundraising reportback and next steps
4) Anything not covered
To The Governor’s Desk!
AB 857, the bill enabling local public banking has passed both California state houses! On Friday, September 13, we crossed the finish line. The bill now goes to Gavin Newsom, who has expressed public support for public banking in the past. He has until October 13 to sign or veto; if he doesn’t do either, the bill becomes law.
This has been an exhilarating, fascinating, complex, process. Literally thousands of people have been involved. Of course, we will keep you updated when the bill is signed, and when cities and regions start making public bank charter applications to the state Department of Business Oversight.
Please join us! Now is such a great time to get involved.
If you have questions or want to understand the group better, you can come half an hour early, at 5:30. Just let us know in advance.
For Your Reading Pleasure
You might appreciate this detailed, informative, and accurate article on public banking. (We love how the author calls us out as early participants in this initiative.)
Public Bank East Bay (formerly Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland) were at the forefront of these efforts. Activists there advanced the project so far that they were poised to found their bank even before AB 857 gave them an explicit way to do so. San Francisco opened a task force to explore the possibility and state and local treasurers began their examinations as well. Quickly, it became clear that intermingling public funds with cannabis money would be bad politics and likely impossible as long as marijuana is classified Schedule 1. But even with that issue off the table, the appetite for greater financial independence in the form of public capital sources was growing, and with more attention came more knowledge, more scrutiny, and more opposition.
The big banks ignored this effort as long as it was a handful of activists in a handful of towns. An effort to change statewide banking regulations, creating public entities that would compete with entrenched financial powerhouses, would not go unopposed. Knowing that the fight to create local public banks would be futile without unity with other California cities, and without the cooperation of regulators operating against a defined legal framework, organizers from these local movements founded the California Public Banking Alliance, with the primary goal of modeling and sponsoring legislation to make local public banks a reality. In one short year, this alliance mobilized activists behind legislation to do just that.
How to reach us
9/9: Will be discussing issues related to this Crackdown and our strategy for the next 3 to 6 months.
9/16: We have many, many issues to discuss, including the forthcoming visit of Donald Trump and Ben Carson.
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.
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!
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/