Connect with https: https://tinyurl.com/election2020-WTF

Speakers and themes include:
* Dr. Laurence Shoup: The factors behind the vote: Historical, economic, social and political

* Michael Rubin: The political reality revealed: What should socialists do now?

* Marsha Feinland: California politics unmasked: What ballot initiatives have become

This event is sponsored by the Oakland Greens, Bay Area System Change Not Climate Change, and the Alameda County Peace and Freedom Party.

EMAIL STRIKE.DEBT.BAY.AREA@GMAIL.COM FOR
ZOOM INFO A FEW DAYS BEFORE THE MEETING.

MAX HAIVEN, THE AUTHOR, WILL BE JOINING OUR DISCUSSION IN DECEMBER!

Strike Debt Bay Area hosts a non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, and The Deficit Myth.

For our October discussion we will be reading the first two chapters of  ‘Revenge Capitalism: The Ghosts of Empire, the Demons of Capital, and the Settling of Unpayable Debts‘ by Max Haiven (You can order it from Pluto Press.)

For our November discussion we’ll be reading the third and fourth chapters, and for our December discussion we’ll read the final chapters and closing material.

Join us – all are welcome! (This is a dense and intricate book, so if you want to join in on the discussion in December as opposed to just auditing the discussion and listening to the author we’d ask that you make sure you’ve read it…)

Capitalism is in a profound state of crisis. Beyond the mere dispassionate cruelty of ‘ordinary’ structural violence, it appears today as a global system bent on reckless economic revenge; its expression found in mass incarceration, climate chaos, unpayable debt, pharmaceutical violence and the relentless degradation of common life.

In Revenge Capitalism, Max Haiven argues that this economic vengeance helps us explain the culture and politics of revenge we see in society more broadly. Moving from the history of colonialism and its continuing effects today, he examines the opioid crisis in the US, the growth of ‘surplus populations’ worldwide and unpacks the central paradigm of unpayable debts – both as reparations owed, and as a methodology of oppression.

Revenge Capitalism offers no easy answers, but is a powerful call to the radical imagination.

Max Haiven is Research Chair in Culture, Media and Social Justice at Lakehead University, Canada. His books include Art after Money, Money after Art (Pluto, 2018), Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power (Zed Books, 2004), Cultures of Financialization (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014) and the Radical Imagination (Zed Books, 2014).

Sun, Nov 15, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
The Ongoing War on Syria & Why it Matters |
Rick Sterling will discuss the current situation in Syria and future prospects if Biden assumes the Presidency. Unreported in mainstream media, the US and allies continue to wage hybrid warfare on Syria – economically, politically, judicially and militarily. Why does the US persist in attacking Syria, preventing it from recovering and harming millions of Syrians? Will this change with a Democrat in the White House?  Why has this struggle become a focal point of East – West conflict? What are the best and worst things that could happen?
   Rick Sterling is on the Steering Committee of Syria Solidarity Movement.

He is an independent journalist who has written many articles about Syria..
LOGIN INFORMATION
The meeting will be opened up, as usual, at 10:15 for anyone to join and discuss technical matters, catch up with each other, say Hi, etc. We Intend to start the presentation as close to 10:30 am as possible. The program (and recording) will end at 12:30, but the Waiting Room will remain open for informal discussion.

Raj Sahai’s Zoom Meeting. (TO BE CONFIRMED)

Sun Nov 15, 2020 10:15am – 1:15pm Pacific Time

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2591082607?pwd=TTdlcFlnZEVCdWt2VlRHeWZLeHNKQT09

Meeting ID: 259 108 2607

Passcode: 6MwQP7

Sun, Nov 22, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm

How the US Dominates the World Economy: Failings of Modern Monetary Theory and why the US can print trillions of dollars and not experience inflation.

Stansfield Smith will explain how the US control of the world economy since the end of World War II has enabled it to bully the world’s countries into depending on the US dollar and using it as the international currency. This requires world countries to amass quantities of dollars to operate and to pay the cost of upholding the value of the dollar, which includes investing in the growing US debt. This also explains how the US can use its economic sanctions to punish countries that seek independence from US control. While Modern Monetary Theory gives an account of why the US can continue to print vast sums of money and suffer little inflation, its explanation avoids confronting the reality of US control of the world financial structure.

Stansfield Smith’s presentation is based on his articles: Inadequacy of Modern Monetary Theory and the Power of the US Dollar in the World Economy and Why the US Can Keep Increasing its Debt and not Suffer Inflation.
Stan Smith has been involved in the Freedom for the Cuban Five movement and the movements in defense of the sovereignty of El Salvador, Cuba, Venezuela, and other Latin American countries for 40 years. He has written numerous articles such as: First Two Months in Power: Hitler vs. Trump; What North Koreans Think; Framing North Korea; Is Russia imperialist; China’s International Solidarity Aid to the World During the Corona Pandemic; Chomsky and Other Liberal Intellectuals Ask Us to Join Them in Throwing in the Towel. He produces a weekly compendium of articles on Latin America at https://chicagoalbasolidarity.wordpress.com/.

Sun, Nov 29, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm (Thanksgiving weekend)
TENTATIVE: Abhinav Sinha on the International Working Class
Our speaker is editor of the renowned Hindi magazine ‘Muktikami Chhatron-Yuvaon ka Aahwan.’

Sun, Dec 6, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
The Logic of Capitalist Production and Marx’s Ecology
Even many Marxists are convinced that Marx believed in production without limitations, and thus Marx was oblivious to the question of ecology of the planet. Today the world is caught in a double jeopardy: on one hand capitalism is reducing workers’ organized bargaining power by production shifted to lowest wage countries pitting workers of one country against another and on the other capitalist production is consuming the resources of the planet provided by Nature rapidly while massively polluting land, water, and air. Since the fall of the USSR, China has been touted as the successful model of socialism using the capitalist market, or what is termed as “Market-Socialism”. This leads workers in US with no hope unlike in 1930s when they saw hope after the revolution in the USSR and workers had state power and were constructing socialism. A section of the US workers were drawn to a demagogue, namely Trump in the US and in India a majority of workers followed another demagogue: Modi in India. This trend is also developing in other countries. Raj Sahai will analyze this situation in the first hour and then in the second invite comments from the audience.

RSVP

We say their names. We never forget. Racial justice uprisings gained momentum during the Summer of 2020, fueled by the unrepentant police killings of unarmed Black and Brown Americans. Men, women and children were killed while walking. Driving. Sitting in cars. Selling cigarettes. Relaxing in the backyard. Holding a toy gun. Experiencing a mental health crisis. The policing system has been racist and unjust at its core. Calls to abolish, to defund, the police are ever louder, and more compelling.

So how do we get there? What does this look like in practice? How should cities redistribute their budget millions to keep communities healthy and safe? To advance the conversation, Next City welcomes Asantewaa Boykin and Cat Brooks, co-founders of the Anti Police-Terror Project. Brooks and Boykin have started a program, MH First, which sends trained volunteers to respond to people having psychiatric emergencies or problems with substance use, circumventing the police entirely. Boykin calls it a “framework based on community members taking care of each other, specifically in times of crisis.”

Join Next City as we hear from Boykin and Brooks in a keynote address that digs into the questions: How can communities best care for themselves? How can we deepen our community bonds, and political engagement, to hold officials accountable and take action to dismantle systemic racism, so that we finally live up to the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all Americans? As Brooks has said, “A year ago it felt like we were screaming into the wind about needing these alternative responses … finally people are listening.”

Kelly Regan
Next City
Kelly Regan is editorial director at Next City, where she oversees all site content, manages the ebook program and serves as a frequent webinar moderator. During her tenure she has been passionate about elevating issues of representation, criminal justice reform, environmental justice and truth and reconciliation. Regan has spent more than two decades working in books, magazines, and print and online publishing. She is a longtime freelance editor and writer, and is the author of Field Guide to Dreams, published by Quirk Books.

Cat Brooks
Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP)
When an Oakland family is experiencing the trauma of police violence, when young people of color need encouragement, when elder neighbors are in pain, Cat Brooks has been a force for change as she engages in the work of accompaniment and struggle. Inspired by her own lived experience, she has spent her life organizing to bring an end to unjust systems which were built to sustain the privileges of the status quo. Whether she’s serving the People in their fight for justice, collaborating with State Assembly members to pass AB931 or raising her daughter in West Oakland, she brings with her the combined forces of compassionate grace, resilient tenacity, and laser focused vision which are rooted in and nurtured by the fierce love of her activist mother who raised her and energized by the injustice of a system that incarcerated her father instead of providing him with healthcare support to fight his addiction.

Born into a mixed-race, working class, union family in segregated Las Vegas, NV, Cat learned about what it means to fight from her mother, who was on the forefront of the domestic violence movement and from her father was the first Black stagehand with IATSE Local 720 on the strip. She was only 8 years old when her father’s struggle with substance abuse landed him in a Nevada Correctional Facility. But she learned how to stay strong from her mother who raised her on very little income in their one bedroom apartment in the deserts of Las Vegas. Her eighth year was important in another way – it was the year she found and fell in love with the theater. Theater would be a grounding force for Cat. The training and performances sustained her throughout her school years and led her toward a Bachelor’s Degree in theater from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. After graduation, she studied briefly with the National

Royal Studio in London before moving to Los Angeles to pursue her dream to become an actress.

What happened next would change her life forever. Instead of finding full time work as an actor, she was hired as communications coordinator for Community Coalition, an organization founded by now Congresswoman Karen Bass. In many ways, this role prepared her for everything that would follow. Not only did she build her skills as a communications professional, she gained vital “on the ground” political training as an organizer and advocate around community concerns such as: educational equity, land use, foster care, re-entry for ex-offenders, and Black-Brown solidarity. One of her early successes came as part of a citywide coalition that fought for and passed a resolution that required the Los Angeles Unified School District to adopt the “A-G” curriculum which is required by the University of California system to ensure that students have acquired sufficient general subject matter knowledge prior to entering college.

Following that success, Cat was asked to come to Oakland as Media Outreach Manager for the Education Trust-West to support the passage of a similar resolution in the Oakland

Unified School District. Cat played a leadership role in fostering a grassroots partnership with the community to pass the “A-G” resolution in Oakland. In her work at ETW, together with parents, she developed a curriculum to empower families to advocate for quality education for their youth.

Whether honing her skills as a consummate performer and passionate speaker or serving as the Communications Director for Coaching Corps, as Executive Director of Youth Together or as Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild, Cat’s leadership has always been informed by and in collaboration with impacted communities. She played a central role in the struggle for justice for Oscar Grant and is the co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) whose mission is to rapidly respond to and ultimately eradicate state violence in communities of color. With APTP she shepherded the development of a “First Responders” process which provides resources and training for a rapid community-based response to police violence. This model is currently being replicated across the state of California and the country.

While Cat’s energies have been centered on activism and community engagement, she also successfully navigates the “halls of power” offering her considerable skills to the work of negotiating the passage of AB931 and SB 1421. In addition, she has organized with local housing advocates to bring Proposition 10 (Repeal Costa Hawkins) to the ballot in November. Cat currently serves as the Executive Director of the Justice Teams Network, a network of grassroots activists providing rapid response and healing justice in response to all forms of State violence across California. In addition, she is touring her one-woman show, Tasha, about the in-custody murder of Natasha McKenna in the Fairfax County Jail. And, in late 2018, Cat was the runner up in the Oakland mayoral race.

She lives in West Oakland with her daughter.

Asantewaa Boykin, R.N MICN
Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP)
San Diego, CA native,  Emergency RN, daughter of Valerie Boykin and granddaughter of Bertha Brandy. Her poetry combines her love of words, storytelling, and resistance. Exploring topics like; space-travel, black-femme militancy,& motherhood. Which describes her first full length poetry collection, “Love, Lyric and Liberation.” Asantewaa is co-founder of APTP (Anti Police – Terror Project) an organization committed to the eradication of police terror in all of its forms. Along with being a dedicated nurse she is also a founding member of the Capital City Black Nurses Association. Asantewaa along with a brave group of organizers and medical professionals developed Mental Health First or MH FIRST a mobile mental health crisis response team aimed at minimizing police contact with those who are in the midst of a mental health crisis. While her greatest honor is being the mother of her son Ajani and bonus daughter Aryana and granddaughter Lilith.

RSVP now for this panel, or to purchase a single ticket to all six of the Solutions of the Year events for just $35, visit the main event page.

Join community members and advocates for the third TRUTH Act forum in Alameda County to demand transparency and accountability! If we uphold our values, we’ll move Alameda County forward together.

Under the TRUTH Act, any jurisdiction that has allowed ICE access in the past year is required to hold a community forum bringing transparency to local jail entanglement with immigration enforcement.

At #AlamedaTruthForum2020, we’re calling on the Sheriff and the Board of Supervisors to end all collaboration with ICE. Regardless of a community member’s convictions, they are valued and should not be funneled to ICE, which could be a death sentence. Collaborating with ICE is one of the many things the Sheriff spends money on that ends up harming communities of color and immigrant communities. For this reason, we participate in this forum in solidarity with the many Alameda community racial justice organizations and their demands to #DefundThePolice & #DefundTheSheriff, and invest in Black communities.

Prison Mail Night – Holiday Cards Edition!

We will be reading the prologue and the first chapter ahead of this meeting. Anyone interested in learning and discussing with others is welcome to join us.

The book is about how two centuries of Indigenous resistance created the movement proclaiming “Water is life”. In Our History Is the Future, Nick Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance that led to the #NoDAPL movement. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a manifesto, and an intergenerational story of resistance.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87512638918?pwd=a0V3eHZlaFU2Z2lJL0tHaHpUVlNiUT09

Meeting ID: 875 1263 8918

Passcode: GND

One tap mobile

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11/10 National Actions To Support The Campaign For US House Resolutions 1175 &1162 To Drop The Charges Against Julian Assange & Edward Snowden

https://bayaction2freeassange.org/12-10-20-event/?uuid=ce85e565-606b-4ca0-946d-cc504160e09d

On November 23, 2020 Stella Moris, Julian’s fiancé, tweeted that over 70% of prisoners in Julian’s Belmarsh Prison wing were infected with COVID-19. His life is in imminent danger and depends on us acting urgently!
In October, Tulsi Gabbard and Thomas Massie introduced House Resolution 1175, a bill calling for the United States to ensure the release of Julian Assange. She introduced a similar bill, House Resolution 1162, with Matt Gaetz aimed at dropping criminal charges against Edward Snowden. With Tulsi Gabbard leaving Congress it is imperative to ensure that H.Res 1175 and H.Res. 1162 do not die with the start of the 117th Congress.

Please join us LIVE, if you can, at Representative Barbara Lee’s Congressional Office and stand for Julian Assange and Edward Snowden in peaceful protest and educating the public with fliers and information. It will take place on Thursday December 10, 2020 at 11:00 AM 1301 Clay St. Oakland.

Please bring signs/banners/fliers if you have them, but mainly just show up. Safe distancing & masks please.

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87642436529?pwd=OUttbmpiOHp6VDZTdFI3MGdIRnY2UT09

Zoom Meeting ID: 876 4243 6529
Passcode: 934748

REGISTER ONLINE: https://bit.ly/casiwebinar

Speakers:

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Nick Estes
Navid Farnia
Toussaint Losier
Moderator: Suzanne Adely

President-Elect Joe Biden announced as early as November 24, just three weeks after the election, that one of his greatest priorities as the new president will be to restore the United States to its rightful place as an international leader. This is of course a euphemism for the restoration of U.S. imperialism, and Biden’s cabinet nominees reflect such aspirations. Biden’s pick for Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, has been complicit in the CIA’s use of torture and drone warfare, while Biden’s nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, stated in her lauded speech on November 24 that “America is back.”

But it is the nomination of Tony Blinken as Secretary of State that is the most telling. Blinken once called for the partition of Iraq, and has advocated for the bombing of Syria and Libya, reflecting an embrace of chaos and destruction as the backbones of U.S. foreign policy in the Arab region. Now Blinken’s got his eye on China. Recently, Blinken announced that the U.S. should prioritize its “relations” with China.

“China poses a growing challenge, arguably the biggest challenge, we face from another nation state: economically, technologically, militarily, even diplomatically…. So I think the question we have to ask ourselves is, ‘What is the most effective strategy to protect and advance our security, our prosperity, our values when it comes to engaging with China?’ And I think the Vice President would tell you that we have to start by putting ourselves in a position of strength from which to engage China so that the relationship moves forward more on our terms than on theirs.”

There is no question that U.S. imperialism will soon experience a resurgence. But anti-imperialist movements throughout the world have also entered a new phase of resistance and even victory. The success of the Bolivian people against the U.S. sponsored coup and the return of Evo Morales to Bolivia is one of the greatest anti-imperialist victories in recent memory, and is sure to usher in more anti-imperialist triumphs. In the face of a multilateral geopolitical landscape, a weakened U.S. economy and divided ruling class, and a new wave of anti-imperialist resistance, how much longer can U.S. imperialism survive?

Please join the Committee for Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran as we end our workshop series on U.S. imperialism. Panelists will discuss the future of U.S. imperialism and global repression under the incoming Biden administration. Specific topics of discussion include recent assassinations of Iranian government officials and coup attempts in Venezuela, the role of AFRICOM in expanding U.S. imperial power, the demise of liberalism and the rise of fascism as it effects U.S. imperial policy, and links between domestic policing and militarism abroad. This discussion will be undergirded by an analysis of U.S. continental imperialism as the process of racial capitalist accumulation that allowed the U.S. to launch overseas imperialism, presented by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz.

And stay tuned for our next workshop series, which will focus on Iran and the Arab region. Our first workshop in this series, scheduled for January, is entitled “U.S.-Iran Relations in the Biden Era: What’s Next?”, and includes Richard Falk, Sasan Fayazmanesh, Vira Ameli and others. And in March, we will host “Iran and Palestine: A History of Joint Struggle.”

Register

Join the Berkeley Food Institute for screening of clips from the FRONTLINE PBS film, “COVID’s Hidden Toll” and discussion with the film’s creators. Along with Assemblymember and Agriculture Committee Chair Robert Rivas, and other esteemed guests, we will examine the inequities for farmworkers’ health being exposed amid the current pandemic.

The film, of which select clips will be shown, examines how the COVID crisis has hit vulnerable immigrants and undocumented workers. The documentary, follows the pandemic’s victims who are essential workers often invisible to many people relying on them, including crucial farm and meat-packing workers who lack protections and are suffering higher rates of illness.

Access Coordinator
Nathalie Muñoz, namc93 [at] berkeley.edu, 510-529-1533

CART Captioning will be provided. If you require any other accommodation for effective communication in order to fully participate in this virtual event, please contact Nathalie Muñoz at least 7–10 days in advance.

Heather Ann Thompson, Flint Taylor, and Darrell Cannon discuss the legacy of police violence against Black Panthers and the Attica uprising.

This event marks the paperback release of Taylor’s book The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago and is also framed by Thompson’s Pulitzer-prize winning book Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy.

RSVP to attend…