Calendar
When: Sept. 12
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Where: 555 Santa Clara St., Vallejo
Why: City Council Meeting to Demand:1.) Release badge bending report
2.) Pursue firing of Tonn
3.) Hire reform Police Chief
4.) Hire reform City Manager
5.) Plan for non-discriminatory & lawful recruiting.— Melissa Nold, Esq. (@savage_esquire) September 11, 2023
Online via Zoom (Register: https://forms.gle/3ndS1aHkPnudEXSHA)
Join our community to discuss the impact of Shotspotter, an audio surveillance system used to detect gunshots, which was installed in Pasadena in 2022. We will also hear experiences and lessons learned about Shotspotter from other cities across the nation.
Speakers:
Mohammad Tajsar, ACLU, Pasadena
Ed Vogel, Lucy Parsons Labs, Chicago
Tracy Rosenberg, Oakland Privacy, Oakland
Aje “Je” Amaechi, Freedom to Thrive, Portland
Moderated by Florence Annang, POP Pasadena
New Copwatcher Orientation
Wanna get involved in Berkeley Copwatch? Sign up for an orientation this month. Learn about how we do the work and find where you can plug in!
Wed. September 13, 7:00-8:00pm
Wed. September 21, 7:00-8:00pm
There will be more new copwatcher orientations in the future, please email us if you can’t make the sessions above:
berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com
Do you want to get involved in Berkeley Copwatch?
Learn more or contact us directly at berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com
Donate
Save the date for the next virtual summit from the Bay Area Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force: Climate and Indigenous Leadership. This is the next in the series on Climate, Social Justice, and the Rights of Nature.
Save the date. Watch for program details
Register here
End Fossil Fuels!
Protest the climate emergency by joining us for a climate action rally with speakers, music, and dance at Lytton Plaza in Palo Alto on Friday, September 15 at 4PM.
This event is part of a worldwide weekend of climate action ahead of the UN Climate Summit 2023.
More info: https://www.instagram.com/fridaysforfuture_paloalto/
FROM FRIDAYS FOR FUTURE WEBSITE: SEPT 15th GLOBAL CLIMATE STRIKE
https://fridaysforfuture.org/september15/
We must end the Era of Fossil Fuels. Scientists have warned us of the dire consequences of fossil fuel dependency for many years, and affected communities have testified to their disastrous impacts. Yet they have been brushed aside. Our wealthiest nations’ leaders have failed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the most privileged 1% continue to live in excess while the most vulnerable remain on the frontlines of a crisis they did not create. Already marginalized and disadvantaged communities face the worst impacts while their resilience is stretched.
The Global Climate Strike is part of the truly global effort to End The Era of Fossil Fuels. This is a call to action from Indigenous and First Nations, youth activists, civil society organisations, social movements, feminist and migrant rights groups, trade unions, faith institutions, academic centres, health institutions, people of all genders and backgrounds, everywhere.
The fossil fuel industry is content with sacrificing life on earth to rake in an annual profit. It is past time for world leaders to take a clear stand and address the climate crisis. We are organizing to put people over profit and demand action for communities everywhere.
WE DEMAND:
–An end to Fossil Finance, divesting from new and current fossil fuel projects.
–A rapid, just, and equitable phase-out of all fossil fuels, ensuring that the burdens and benefits are re-distributed fairly among different stakeholders, with particular attention to historically marginalized and vulnerable communities.
–Massive investments in community owned renewable energy projects.
–Reparations for the harms caused to communities affected by the climate crisis and its structural causes, as well as enforcement of the Loss and Damage Fund, with special emphasis of historical polluters paying into the Fun
The Sept. 15th Global Climate Strike (https://fridaysforfuture.org/september15/) is part of the worldwide weekend of climate action to protest the climate emergency ahead of the UN Climate Summit 2023, with the main March to End Fossil Fuels NYC and more global protest actions happening on Sept 17th: https://www.endfossilfuels.us/
Through the eyes of children, their families, and the helping industry that has developed from the housing crisis, A Rising Tide follows the strategies of families and service providers struggling with homelessness.
The film results from a conversation between the filmmaker and Dr. Christine Ma. Dr. Ma is the Medical Director of two clinics working with houseless children and their families.
Presented by The Oakland Greens
So weed is legal all over, proving again that profit wins over conservative morality. Are small independent growers, manufacturers, and dispensaries receiving a level playing field?
The Green Party has long been an advocate for ending the war on drugs. We also support and encourage from our candidates an economic equalization position when it comes to the economics of cannabis.
For September we deep dive into what solutions are out there to balance the playing fields with new systems to promote an economic lift up to the communities that have suffered most when pot was illegal. Join us Saturday September 16 with the regular cast thru Alice’s looking glass into this important issue.
Please register today (Friday), at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/corporate-cannabis-the-economic-divide-presented-by-the-oakland-greens-tickets-559097845707?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
Speaker: Raj Sahai
The Modi led BJP is in its 10th year governing India. India is 5th largest economy, has landed a mobile land rover on Moon’s South pole, improved industrial infrastructure and has reduced absolute poverty. In 2023, India also surpassed China in population, but the per capita income remained low, with unemployment rising, and widened income and wealth disparity under the neoliberal economy. Social tensions have risen with its aggressive Hindutva ideology. India is in BRICS, SCO, and G20, of which it is the president in 2023. With its strong ties with the US cemented in his visit to Washington this year, India has placed itself in the center of rising international tensions, with Russia and China emerging at the opposite pole to the US led unipolar order. National elections are due in March/April 2024. Raj Sahai will provide his assessment of the emerging economic and political picture in India.
Our speaker, Raj Sahai, is a native of India and a longtime resident/citizen of the U.S. He is a founding member of our Program Committee.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81133350622?pwd=dUUyUWppbWt6djVTaElISUhocXpSUT09
Meeting ID: 811 3335 0622
Passcode: ICSS2717rs
Dial by your location
+1 669 444 9171 US
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdVC04xvn9
If you’re in the Bay Area, you can secure a spot in our charter bus, which will be leaving from the Ashby BART station at 8:30 AM, taking you to and from the action!
The United Nations is calling on world leaders to take real steps to lead us off fossil fuels to protect people and the planet. On September 20th in New York, the UN Climate Ambition Summit will gather world leaders to commit to phasing out fossil fuels.
The “ticket to entry” will be tangible action to keep fossil fuels in the ground— in the form of policies, and not just empty declarations.
Before the summit, thousands will take to the streets in New York and around the country—including Sacramento—demanding that Biden take bold action to end fossil fuels. (Biden promised to end drilling on federal lands, yet he has approved more fossil fuel projects than Trump.)
The March to End Fossil Fuels is being organized by a coalition of local and national organizations led by the Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Popular Democracy, Climate Organizing Hub, Food & Water Watch, Fridays For Future USA & NYC, Earthworks, Greenfaith, Indigenous Environmental Network, New York Communities for Change, Oil Change International, and Oil & Gas Action Network.
In California, we’ll gather in Sacramento to demand that our leaders, Biden and Newsom, stop permitting fossil fuels and make a plan to phase out oil and gas. This family-friendly action will feature a giant puppet show, carnival games, performers and speakers who will share how you can get involved in ending the era of Fossil Fuels and building a better future together.
If you want to take on a volunteer role with outreach, making art, singing or drumming, performing or other support, sign up here.
Carpool signup sheet is here.
Oakland’s annual Art + Soul Festival is today in downtown and this year is combined with AfroComicon at City hall. Events are FREE! Enjoy music, food, vendors, and fun 12pm to 6pm.
Full lineup at : https://t.co/w7K8Z5XuGj pic.twitter.com/YSCKAAz9YN
— Allyssa Victory for Oakland (@Victory4Oakland) September 17, 2023
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
Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite.
For our August and September meetings we are reading End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration by Peter Turchin.
For our August meeting we’ll be reading the first two sections, which is about half of the book.
For the September meeting we will finish the book.
Back in 2010, when Nature magazine asked leading scientists to provide a ten-year forecast, Turchin used his models to predict that America was in a spiral of social disintegration that would lead to a breakdown in the political order circa 2020. The years since have proved his prediction more and more accurate, and End Times reveals why.
The lessons of world history are clear, Turchin argues: When the equilibrium between ruling elites and the majority tips too far in favor of elites, political instability is all but inevitable. As income inequality surges and prosperity flows disproportionately into the hands of the elites, the common people suffer, and society-wide efforts to become an elite grow ever more frenzied. He calls this process the wealth pump; it’s a world of the damned and the saved. And since the number of such positions remains relatively fixed, the overproduction of elites inevitably leads to frustrated elite aspirants, who harness popular resentment to turn against the established order. Turchin’s models show that when this state has been reached, societies become locked in a death spiral it’s very hard to exit.
In America, the wealth pump has been operating full blast for two generations. As cliodynamics shows us, our current cycle of elite overproduction and popular immiseration is far along the path to violent political rupture. That is only one possible end time, and the choice is up to us, but the hour grows late.
Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this 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, The Deficit Myth, Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, Exploring Degrowth, The Origin of Wealth, Mine!, The Dawn of Everything A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Beyond Money, Less is More, Cannibal Capitalism, Debt, the First 5000 Years and Poverty, By America.
Members of our city council are pretending to do something about crime by proposing more of the same destructive policing approach that has never kept us safe instead of investing in our communities.
There’s always more money for cops. Only for cops, not for schools or jobs or healthcare or parks or libraries — not for any of the things that actually make healthy and safe communities.
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WHAT: Give Public Comment at Oakland City Council Meeting
WHEN: Tuesday, September 19 at 2pm
WHERE: Online or in person at Oakland City Hall
- In person — Oakland City Council Chamber, 3rd Floor, 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA 94612 — Note: We recommend wearing a high quality mask if you attend in person. Make sure to show up on time and fill out a speaker card to make public comment.
- Online — You can also join by video conference (Zoom), or by dialing (669) 900-6833, Meeting ID: 846 7751 1593 (if asked for a participant ID or code, press #). To make public comment via Zoom, you must email cityclerk@oaklandca.gov before the meeting — let them know you wish to speak on Agenda Items 6.35, 9 & 10, and your name on Zoom.
| Get Talking Points |
| Join Via Zoom |
First — to approve two resolutions restoring funds to the Department of Violence Prevention to ensure that the community based organizations interrupting violence across Oakland have the resources they need to do their work. After cuts were made in this June’s budget, the council has seen that disinvestment in violence prevention has negatively impacted our ability to stop the violence in our streets.
Let’s make sure they do the right thing and restore funds to the Department of Violence Prevention immediately!
Second — we need to demand that our city council takes a rational look at public safety. Proposals by Dan Kalb and Kevin Jenkins take a one-sided look, falsely assuming that lateral academies, foot patrols, automated license plate readers (ALPRs), high-speed chases, and increased investment in the failing Ceasefire program are what is needed to keep us safe.
We need to demand that they stop with the empty rhetoric and instead support data-driven approaches to public safety!
With so much at stake, your voice is needed! Please join us to demand that community ambassadors, increased investment in MACRO, and restoring much needed funds to our violence prevention efforts are truly what is needed.
Please email contact@oaklandprivacy.org a few days before the meeting to get up-to-date location information or obtain Zoom meeting access info.
(THE JANUARY 17TH MEETING, 2024 WAS MOVED TO JANUARY 24TH)
Join Oakland Privacy to organize against the surveillance state, police militarization and ICE, and to advocate for privacy, surveillance regulation of both corporations and the state, and government transparency, around the Bay and nationwide.
We fight against spy drones, facial recognition, tracking equipment, police body camera secrecy, anti-transparency laws and requirements for “backdoors” to cellphones; we oppose “pre-crime” and “thought-crime,” — to list just a few invasions of our privacy by all levels of Government, and attempts to hide what government officials, employees and agencies are doing.
We draft and push for privacy legislation for City Councils, at the County level, and in Sacramento. We advocate in op-eds and in the streets. We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and believe no one is illegal.
Check out some of what we worked on in 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019.
Oakland Privacy originally came together in 2013 to fight against the Domain Awareness Center, Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OP was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network. We helped fight and in 2018 helped win the fight against Urban Shield.
Our major projects currently include local legislation to regulate state surveillance (we got the strongest surveillance regulation ordinance in the country passed in Oakland!), supporting and opposing state legislation as appropriate, battling mass surveillance in the form of facial recognition and other analytics, mass aerial surveillance, ubiquitous license plate readers, and street surveillance, and fighting to ensure local governments adhere to State privacy and transparency regulations.
On September 12th, 2019 we were presented with a Barlow Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for our work, and on March 16th, 2021 s James Madison Freedom of Information Award by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists.
If you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy email listserv, coming to a meeting, or have questions, send an email to:
Check out our website: http://oaklandprivacy.org/
Follow us on twitter: @oaklandprivacy, and/or on Mastodon at https://mastodon.social/@oaklandprivacy
Bestselling author and Intercept contributing editor Naomi Klein’s new book, “Doppelganger,” dives deep into what she calls the “Mirror World”: our destabilized present rife with doubles and confusion, where far-right movements playact solidarity with the working class, AI-generated content blurs the line between genuine and spurious, and so many of us project our own carefully curated digital doubles out into the social media sphere.
Klein will be in conversation with Annalee Newitz discussing “Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World” tomorrow, September 20 at 7 p.m. PDT at the First Presbyterian Church in Oakland, California.
Tickets are limited…
Secure your tickets to join Naomi Klein
JOIN NAOMI TOMORROW, SEPTEMBER 20 →
Through the eyes of children, their families, and the helping industry that has developed from the housing crisis, A Rising Tide follows the strategies of families and service providers struggling with homelessness.
The film results from a conversation between the filmmaker and Dr. Christine Ma. Dr. Ma is the Medical Director of two clinics working with houseless children and their families.
New Copwatcher Orientation
Wanna get involved in Berkeley Copwatch? Sign up for an orientation this month. Learn about how we do the work and find where you can plug in!
Wed. September 13, 7:00-8:00pm
Wed. September 21, 7:00-8:00pm
There will be more new copwatcher orientations in the future, please email us if you can’t make the sessions above:
berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com
Do you want to get involved in Berkeley Copwatch?
Learn more or contact us directly at berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com
Donate
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn’t go as planned.
Stanley Kubrick’s controversial adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s dystopian nightmare of youthful mayhem and madness remains just as provocative now as it did upon first release. It creates its own language both literally and cinematically, a dark satire of one possible future that seems more likely every day.
Speaker: Laura Wells
The United States was a leading democracy two centuries ago. Now many other nations have leap-frogged over the US by developing better political/electoral systems. As a consequence, they also have better systems for healthcare, higher education, housing, and justice combined with increased personal safety.
The locked-down two-party system has joined with the vast inequality of wealth and power in the US in order to raise hurdles to block solutions that people want, create, and support. We will take a good look at those hurdles, many of which are now being highlighted during the presidential campaign of Cornel West, who is running as an independent “third party” candidate.
There are solutions, and steps we can take. We will discuss why proportional representation is key to an inclusive multi-party system, and why ranked choice voting by itself has not lived up to its expectations.
Laura Wells has been a Green Party activist since the party became ballot-qualified in California in early 1992. She is a co-coordinator of the state Coordinating Committee of the Green Party of California (GPCA). She has run for State Controller and Governor, and ran once for Congress. Laura Wells, both as a Green Party candidate and behind-the-scenes organizer, has experienced first-hand the roadblocks put up by the two Titanic parties, including being arrested outside of the gubernatorial debate in 2010 for the accurate charge of “trespassing at a private party.”
Website: https://laurawells.org/
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81133350622?pwd=dUUyUWppbWt6djVTaElISUhocXpSUT09
Meeting ID: 811 3335 0622
Passcode: ICSS2717rs
Dial by your location
+1 669 444 9171 US
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdVC04xvn9
NOTE: Our programs are all recorded and will be placed on our website soon after they are finished.