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Speaker: Dr. Ranjeet Brar, a member of the CPGB-ML which is being prosecuted for Palestine solidarity activism.

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As part of the campaign of persecution of prominent anti-Zionist campaigners in Britain. November 25, Dr. Ranjeet Brar and three members of the UK CPGB-ML were arrested at the national Palestine solidarity demo for manning a table selling a book critical of the history of Zionism that was published nine years ago and has since been distributed widely.  They were told that the book might constitute an ‘incitement to racial hatred’ for which they were held in isolation for 24 hours before being released on bail.

While imprisoned, their families were subjected to 3:00 AM raids, during which police seized phones, laptops, and party literature. When they were set free the following day, it was on the condition that they should not sell or distribute leaflets or pamphlets, deviate from the main routes of any march, or “carry swastikas” (!) The cases are pending until February.

Then, on the 13th of January, while proceedings were being brought against Israel in the International Court of Justice on charges of genocide and British bombers attacked Yemen, another huge London demonstration in solidarity with Palestine was targeted � this time not in a hunt for ‘antisemites’ but forr ‘terrorist sympathizers’.

Some fifty officers descended on CPGB ML supporters, surrounding them and confiscating their literature (the leaflet that they seized had been distributed at every Palestine demonstration since October).  Three supporters were arrested.  The justification for the arrests was that the leaflet “supported Hamas, a banned organization” in breach of the 2000 UK Terrorism Act.

Three comrades were arrested, taken to Hammersmith police station, and held for 28 hours, during which time their homes were raided by large squads of anti-terror police. The legislation used to justify our comrades’ arrest (an extension of the ‘anti-terror’ law that was first enacted at the time of the Irish liberation war in the 1970s) gives the UK government wide ranging and draconian powers to act against its citizens � if they are alloweed to establish the precedent of using it freely against the pro-Palestine anti-Zionist protesters.

Our speaker, Ranjeet Brar, is a pro-Palestine, anti-Zionist activist, journalist, author, and member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (ML), which is being prosecuted for Palestine solidarity activism. Dr. Brar is a Vascular Surgeon at the University of Sheffield Royal College of Surgeons of England, United Kingdom

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Help defeat San Francisco’s Proposition E.

Now that the campaign has launched, we need you to volunteer. I want to extend a warm invite to join us for a Day of Action on Sunday, February 4 at 11 a.m. where we will reach voters to encourage them to vote NOPE (No On Prop E). Lunch will be provided. Grab signs and hand-outs to spread the word!

We are also hosting weekly text banks to reach perspective voters and explain why we oppose Prop E. Text banks will be held on the following days and will last for approximately 2 hours. We are particularly looking for volunteers who speak Spanish or Cantonese.

• Tuesday, January 30 at 5:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, February 6 at 12 p.m.

> RSVP to policy@ellabakercenter.org for the Zoom link

So, please join us in February for a virtual community gathering where we will be responding to letters we receive from people inside prisons and jails in California and across the country. We will be sending in legal resources, parole preparation packets, reentry help, and answers to people’s questions. There will be an “Intro” room for new folks, a problem-solving room, and a “Special Issue” room too! You can also plug into our Calls to Action before/after Mail Night this month. Virtual Prison Mail Night happens on the second Thursday of each month.

Please join Families for Ceasefire at the Lake Merritt Amphitheater on Saturday February 10th for a children’s rally from 11:30am – 1:30pm, in advance of the Gaza Solidarity Ride and in response to Mosab Abu Toha’s call for children of the world to take to the streets and demand a ceasefire. We will have children’s activities and encourage everyone to bring signs, snacks and noisemakers!

Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite.

For our February meeting we will be reading the first half (Chapters 1 -6) of How Infrastructure Works, Inside the Systems that Shape our World by Deb Chachra.  (MIT Press) For our March meeting we will finish reading the book.

“A new way of seeing the essential systems hidden inside our walls, under our streets, and all around us.

Infrastructure is a marvel, meeting our basic needs and enabling lives of astounding ease and productivity that would have been unimaginable just a century ago. It is the physical manifestation of our social contract—of our ability to work collectively for the public good—and it consists of the most complex and vast technological systems ever created by humans.

A soaring bridge is an obvious infrastructural feat, but so are the mostly hidden reservoirs, transformers, sewers, cables, and pipes that deliver water, energy, and information to wherever we need it. When these systems work well, they hide in plain sight. Engineer and materials scientist Deb Chachra takes readers on a fascinating tour of these essential utilities, revealing how they work, what it takes to keep them running, just how much we rely on them—but also whom they work well for, and who pays the costs.

Across the U.S. and elsewhere, these systems are suffering from systemic neglect and the effects of climate change, becoming unavoidably visible when they break down. Communities that are already marginalized often bear the brunt of these failures. But Chachra maps out a path for transforming and rebuilding our shared infrastructure to be not just functional but also equitable, resilient, and sustainable. The cost of not being able to rely on these systems is unthinkably high. We need to learn how to see them—and fix them, together—before it’s too 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 , Poverty, By America, End Times, Jackson Rising Redux and The Feminist Subversion of the Economy.

Speaker: Harpal Brar

Harpal Brar will be speaking on his latest book, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: Marketisation of the Chinese Economy. which explores the path of China after Mao’s death, considering the role of the Great Leap Forward in China’s economic development and current success, and the truth behind the political events of the Cultural Revolution. Brar tackles the ultimate question: would China have been better off having continued to use centralized planning, or were the reforms and marketization necessary and beneficial?

Harpal Brar, former Chairman of the CPGB-ML, is a prominent political economist, author, and journalist.

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Written by: Cat Brooks
Starring: Margo Hall
Directed by: Elizabeth Carter
Produced by: Black Lives, Black Words

The Black Lives Black Words International Project, in partnership with the Lorraine Hansberry Theater and the Anti Police-Terror Project, is thrilled to invite you to the powerful cinematic experience that is BOTTLED SPIRITS.

A captivating exploration of race, identity and social justice, “Bottled Spirits”, was produced by an almost entirely Black Oakland-based film crew in the historic Esther’s Orbit Room.

We are also excited to announce that Bottled Spirits will be presented following a screening of the film ‘Rideshare’, a psychological thriller exploring themes of race and power dynamics. The feature promises to be a meaningful cinematic experience.

Following this double feature, we will be joined by celebrated television host and activist W. Kamau Bell who will be hosting a post-show discussion featuring the film’s writer, director, and star, Cat Brooks, Elizabeth Carter, and Margo Hall.

The Israeli state claims that its genocidal slaughter in Gaza is self-defense. To maintain the support of the Israeli population for its horrific assault, it has exaggerated the impact of Hamas’s attack on October 7 and hidden the brutal nature of its war on the Palestinians. Israel’s propaganda has been repeated by the U.S. media and by U.S. politicians who have given Israel’s bloody war their total support.

Tali Shapiro, Israeli anti-Zionist activist and researcher whose work has exposed the lies spread by the Israeli state, will be speaking to us live from Ramallah, Palestine. Tali has over a decade of experience in Palestine solidarity efforts in the West Bank and anti-Zionist protests in Israel. Today she is a coordinator of campaigns for the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, the international effort initiated by Palestinian civil society organizations to apply moral, economic, and diplomatic pressure against Israel so long as the human rights of Palestinians continue to be violated.

 zoom:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82158800683?pwd=N2J6UjgxNWhNak1WRWdUdm9CUit4QT09

Meeting ID: 821 5880 0683
Passcode: 340756

Speaker: Andrew Feinstein
Andrew Feinstein, a former South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress will speak on

• Apartheid in South Africa before it was abolished vs. what is practiced by Israel, as a Zionist state.
• Antisemitism – what it is and its abuse by the defenders of Zionism.
• Israel in global arms trade, and how it serves imperial interests.
• What lessons of the struggle against apartheid in SA could be applied to the struggle against Zionism today?

Our Speaker, Andrew Feinstein, is a London-based activist, filmmaker, author, political scientist, and filmmaker. He is chairman of the AIDS charity Friends of Treatment Action Compaign and executive director of Corruption Watch UK

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Please register at:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oakland-greens-free-dinner-a-movie-discussion-series-tickets-786403252297?aff=erelpanelorg

Sausage Party is a 2016 adult computer-animated black comedy film directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan and written by Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg from a story by Rogen, Goldberg, and Jonah Hill. It stars the voices of Rogen (in a dual role), Kristen Wiig, Hill, Bill Hader (in a triple role), Michael Cera, James Franco, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Paul Rudd, Nick Kroll, David Krumholtz, Edward Norton, and Salma Hayek. The film follows an anthropomorphic sausage who lives in a supermarket and discovers the truth about what happens when groceries are purchased leading him on a journey with his friends to escape their fate while also facing a lunatic and malicious douche who wants to kill him.

The film’s animation was handled by the Vancouver-based Nitrogen Studios. It is the first computer-animated film to be rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The film’s rough cut premiered on March 14, 2016, at South by Southwest, followed by its general theatrical release in the United States on August 12, 2016, by Columbia Pictures.

The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its story, voice acting and humor, though its animation and heavy use of profanity received some criticism. It grossed $141 million against a budget of $19 million, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated animated film at the time until it was surpassed by Demon Slayer: Mugen Train in 2020.

Plot: Unbeknownst to humans, a supermarket called Shopwell’s is filled with anthropomorphic grocery items that believe that the human shoppers are gods who take purchased groceries to a utopia known as the “Great Beyond”. Among the store’s groceries is a sausage named Frank, who dreams of living in the Great Beyond with his hot dog bun girlfriend Brenda and his friends Carl and Barry.  The trailer is here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVAcTZKTgmc

Join the Oakland Greens for this free community event, Sunday, February 25.  The Oakland Greens Free Dinner & a Movie Discussion Series is normally a hybrid community discussion event. [[Get in-persxn & virtual tickets and information thru http://www.oaklandgreens.org/events   These community engagement hybrid events are held the last Sunday of the month January thru October.]]  Due to a medical emergency this event will now be online only.

This is a 21 and up event unless with parental supervision.

People’s Park is currently barricaded by stacked shipping containers topped with razor wire and guarded round-the-clock, following a midnight raid in early January by combined police forces from UC, CSU, Alameda County, San Francisco City and County and the California State Highway Patrol, organized by the UC Berkeley administration.   Why?   “The existing legal issues will inevitably be resolved, so we are taking this necessary step now to minimize the possibilities of conflict and confrontation, and of disruption for the public and our students, when we are cleared to resume construction,” said Chancellor Carol Christ (The Berkeleyan, January 16, 2024).  Like others in the flood of official campus public relations communications with which students, faculty and staff have been inundated since the Chancellor’s 2017 announcement of plans to build student housing on the park, this response falls short of explaining why there is such fear of “conflict and confrontation” and such strong opposition to these plans, even from students whose interests the plans are supposed to serve.

For a broader range of perspectives on what was and is going on at People’s Park, Teach-Ins have been organized by UC Berkeley students (January 24) and by community groups (February 4).  Please join us for the next one.  There will be ample time for Q and A.   Fiat Lux!

Presenters:

Harvey Smith, organizer of the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group and project advisor for The Living New Deal, UC Berkeley Department of Geography

Tom Dalzell, labor lawyer and author of The Battle for People’s Park, Berkeley 1969

Tony Platt, author of The Scandal of Cal:  Land Grabs, White Supremacy and Miseducation at UC Berkeley and affiliated scholar at Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Law and Society

Steve Wasserman, publisher of Heyday Books and park activist since 1969

Sylvia T, recent UC Berkeley graduate, independent archival researcher and People’s Park defender

Sara Pech, Historic Preservation Club, a UC Berkeley student group

Representative from the Suitcase Clinic, a UC Berkeley student group

Moderator:

Kristin Hanson, Professor of English, UC Berkeley