Calendar
Join us Wednesday, March 28th for a discussion on basic income in the 2020 presidential race with candidate Andrew Yang.
Last month, Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur from New York, announced that he was running for president as a Democrat in the 2020 elections. What makes Andrew’s campaign unusual is his primary policy position — he believes that automation is an imminent threat to American jobs, and that we must enact universal basic income as a way to counter this danger.
On Wednesday, March 28th, Jim Pugh will sit down with Andrew for a public fireside chat in San Francisco. We’ll discuss his views on basic income and how he expects the issue to play out in his campaign, followed by an open discussion with the audience.
Light refreshments and drinks will be provided.
Join us for a screening of Beyond Recognition,
A film exploring the quest to preserve one’s culture and homeland in a society bent on erasing them. Followed by discussion with Sogorea Te Land Trust Co-founder Corrina Gould.
Sogorea’ Te Land Trust is an The Sogorea Te Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led community organization that facilitates the return of Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone lands in the San Francisco Bay Area to Indigenous stewardship. Sogorea Te creates opportunities for all people living in Ohlone territory to work together to re-envision the Bay Area community and what it means to live on Ohlone land.
Learn more about Sogorea Te Land Trust:
Sogoreate-landtrust.com
Learn more about Beyond Recognition :
http://
Learn more about our hosts the Latinx collective Hasta Muerte Coffee: http://
UPDATE 3/24: Now more than 1,000 people have joined the caravan.
Bay Area luchadorxs for immigration justice are gathering in solidarity with migrants currently forming a 1,000+ person caravan from Central America through Mexico—the “Migrants in the Struggle” 2018 Refugee Caravan. By traveling together, the caravan turns an individual’s dangerous journey into a mass mobilization. Learn more, bring friends, and support future friends forced to flee home and head north in the hope of finding safety. These caravanerxs are on the front line fighting for the right to migrate and seek refuge. Join them!
Enjoy free dinner from Cheeseboard Pizza; bring a friend; get involved; spread the word: donate to help this community on the move with basic necessities like food, medical supplies, flashlights, and more: paypal.me/refugeecaravan. If you can’t make it, pitch in here and please share: https://www.paypal.me/refugeecaravan.
For more information and ongoing posts about the caravan, follow Pueblo Sin Fronteras.
This meeting will include a discussion of the proposed Enabling Legislation for Measure LL which will provide details on the structure and operations of the Police Commission, the Inspector General and the Community Police Review Agency (CPRA).
The Coalition’s suggested edits to the Ordinance will be discussed. Of particular importance is our insistence that there be legal counsel for both the Agency and the Commission that is not part of the City Attorney’s office in order to protect the independence of the process. We encourage the community to come out and echo this point.
The Reparations Tour: White Solidarity with the Black Power Blueprint is part of a U.S. wide tour building support for the Black Power Blueprint Project, a program for economic and political power in the hands of the African working class of St. Louis in the wake of the mass resistance following the police murder of Mike Brown in 2014.The Black Power Blueprint is a community project that is purchasing and revitalizing buildings in the heart of the impoverished O’Fallon neighborhood, creating programs for community economic development such as the Uhuru House community center and the One Africa! One Nation! Marketplace and community garden. The project also includes collective renovation of a building to be used as a community kitchen, bakery and African Independence Workforce program for black workers who are coming out of the U.S. colonial prison system.
This tour offers white people an opportunity to support the projects through reparations to the black community and to stand in solidarity with the movement for self-determination and power in the hands of the black working class.
26 year-old Karl Marx embarks with his wife, Jenny, on the road to exile. In 1844 Paris, he meets Friedrich Engels, an industrialist’s son, who investigated the sordid birth of the British working-class. Engels, the dandy, provides the last piece of the puzzle to the young Karl Marx’s new vision of the world. Together, between censorship and the police’s repression, riots and political upheavals, they will lead the labor movement during its development into a modern era.
“No scholar has done more to shed light on Israel’s ruthless treatment of the Palestinians than Norman Finkelstein. In “Gaza” he meticulously details Israel’s massacres of the Palestinians…while demolishing the myths Israel and its supporters have invented to disguise these shocking events.”—John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago
The Alliance for a Sustainable Puerto Rico presents an update on autonomous mutual aid projects thriving in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
This art exhibit and talk is to revitalize the relationships between local communities and the indigenous peoples in Chiapas through art and dialogue.
Come meet and listen to Bay Area artists that have collaborated with the Zapatista community and an update by the Chiapas Support Committee at 8pm.
Artesanías: There will also be arts and crafts for sale by the Zapatista Women’s Art Collective!
The Chiapas Support Committee Oakland with La Peña Cultural Center present this CompArte artwork created by diverse, political and powerful Bay Area artists in dialogue with the Zapatista community.
In this art exhibit, painters that create works of art imbued with symbols and images of justice, exposing capitalist exploitation and its inhumanity, share practical visions where our communities live free of oppression, want, poverty, pollution, racism and hierarchical suffocation on canvass. Social justice art shows us how to imagine the revolution.
CompArte is a play on the Spanish words “compartir” (to share) and “arte” (art), “CompArte: The Ballad of the Zapatistas” is a show of sharing art to help us dream a different world where we all fit and to show solidarity with indigenous communities in Mexico and everywhere else.
The painters from Oakland and San Francisco participating in this show include: Jhovany Rodríguez, Daniel Camacho, Yescka, the Asaro collective from Oaxaca, Rafael Sanhueso, Andres Cisneros and Agustin Barajas Amaral.
La Peña Cultural Center is a long-time community space for artists, cultural workers, women and youth of color, queer and culturally rooted groups working in specific traditions to produce and perform works of social justice and solidarity.
The Chiapas Support Committee (CSC) is a grassroots collective based in Oakland, California, and serves as a center for education and information about Chiapas, the Zapatista communities and Mexico. CSC has worked worked with Indigenous Zapatista communities since 1998 to support and accompany their process of constructing autonomous (self-governing) institutions such as health care, education and economic production. CSC organizes forums and other events and activities to share and discuss ideas, analyses and human rights issues related to the Zapatista communities, Mexico and the U.S.
Donations are welcome at the door / No one turned away for lack of funds.
100% of the donations collected at the door benefit Chiapas Support Committee Oakland and La Peña Cultural Center to continue important community programming.
Home of the Compañero Manuel blog on the Zapatistas & Mexico
Come to the next Waffles & Zapatismo class, with an open general meeting after class from 12 Noon to 1pm. The class will focus on the 1994 Zapatista Uprising, the 1994 Democratic Convention and the 1996 1st Intercontinental Gathering. There will be discussion after the presentation and from 12-1 there will be an open general meeting with discussion about what the Chiapas Support Committee is doing and how you can participate.
Zapatista News & Analysis
!. Zapatista Captain calls on Women to “struggle together against the patriarchal capitalist system” – Captain Erika welcomed women to the Women’s Gathering in the Zapatista Caracol of Morelia and urged them to listen and speak to each other with respect as women in struggle that give each other dance, music, film, video, painting, poetry, theater, sculpture, fun, knowledge and thus nourish the struggles that we all have.
2. María de Jesús Patricio and the CIG: What was achieved – R. Aída Hernández Castillo admits her frustration that Marichuy’s campaign wasn’t able to achieve enough signatures for her to appear on this year’s presidential ballot, but also recognizes the achievements of the politics of life over the politics of death. Worth a read!
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2018/02/21/opinion/021a2pol
3. The Mayor of Oxchuc is removed and new municipal council elected – Following the armed attack on her opponents, the Chiapas Congress finally had enough of Oxchuc Mayor María Gloria Sánchez Gómez and removed her immunity from prosecution, removed her from office and swore in a new mayor and municipal council.
En español: http://www.proceso.com.mx/523066/desafueran-y-destituyen-alcaldesa-de-oxchuc-gobernara-consejo-municipal
4. Tillerson, Militarization and Oil II – In this second part of an opinion article about US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s recent Latin American tour, Carlos Fazio demonstrates how the US government’s national security strategy (reliance on fossil fuels) plays out in Latin America. The first part of the article is also posted on the blog. The articles take a deep look at US policy in Latin America, including regime change in Venezuela.
En español: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2018/02/26/politica/021a1pol
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The finale in the US Postal Service’s lawsuit against the City of Berkeley for rezoning the downtown Historic District, which includes the Post Office Building on Allston & Milvia, in late 2014 to prevent it from being used for most commercial purposes should it be sold, as the Post Service intended to do beginning back in 2013.
There will be two hours of oral testimony, one hour allocated to each side.
Federal District Court Judge William Alsup, who presided over a previous lawsuit by the City of Berkeley in its attempt to prevent the Postal Service from selling the property in 2014, will preside.
Berkeley activists from Berkeley Post Office Defenders, First They Came for the Homeless and Save the Berkeley Post Office have been fighting against the sale of the downtown Berkeley Post Office and the privatization of the US Postal Service since 2013. Twice the Post Office exterior was “Occupied” and numerous rallies have been held on its steps.
Demand D.A. O'Malley Charge Mateu with Murder of Sahleem Tindle
🚨 #Oakland Monday, April 2, at 3:30 p.m.
"The Tindle family will be meeting with Nancy O'Malley and we want to let them know we support them." @APTPaction#Justice4Sahleem #OMalleyChargeMateuhttps://t.co/VerGmeY22i— Indybay (@Indybay) March 29, 2018
Wednesday April 4, 2018 will mark the 50th anniversary of the tragic assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It will also mark the 51st anniversary of his visionary speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” delivered at the Riverside Church in New York City. Dr. King’s words were precautionary and prophetic, providing both a diagnosis and a cure – “a true revolution of values” – for our society’s gravest illnesses, “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.” Today his words remain as timely and relevant as ever.
Please join diverse members of our community for a public participatory reading of Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech. We will do three readings of the complete speech, at 12 noon, 1 pm and 2 pm. We have divided the speech into 16 sections, so we can accommodate a total of 48 readers. You can read the speech at https://tinyurl.com/
Initial co-sponsors : Western States Legal Foundation, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), East Bay and San Francisco branches; Asian-Americans for Peace & Justice; Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC; Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace & Justice; Nafsi ya Jamii.
For planning purposes, please let me know which hour(s) you are available to read. PLEASE RSVP TO:
Jackie Cabasso
wslf@earthlink.net
(510) 839-5877
Hear Bobby Seale speak on Police Accountability on Wednesday April 4!
An Evening of Free Speech
With Bobby Seale and Tony Platt
Doors open at 5:30 pm
Tony Platt 6:00 to 7:00 pm
Bobby Seale 7:00 to 9:00 pm
Bobby Seale is an activist working toward police accountability. He
previously co-founded and was Chairman of the Black Panther Party.
Tony Platt is a Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at the UC Berkeley
Center for the Study of Law and Society. He is the author of ten books
and 150 essays and articles dealing with issues of race, inequality,
and social justice in American history. His upcoming book “Behind
These Walls: Rethinking Crime and Punishment in the United States”
will be released by St. Martin’s Press in January 2019.
They will be speaking on police misconduct and accountability in
general, and specifically about the voter initiative to create an
elected Police Accountability Board with full authority over the
Berkeley Police Department.
There is no charge to attend. Any questions call 510-485-6044.
Media please contact us so we can reserve space for you and any
equipment you might bring.
Long, Bitter and Beautiful Struggle for Freedom
A conversation with Vijay Prashad
What does it mean to live in a democracy where guns are more important than ending poverty? On April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made a powerful argument that the mass movement for racial and economic justice needed to break its silence on the US wars raging abroad. King’s words echoed those of other radicals who argued that understanding the relationship between war, imperialism, and exploitation abroad and violence, racism, and impoverishment at home would imbue people’s struggles with stronger connections and broader horizons, toward deeper social and economic transformations. Our own times call for a reinvigoration of such connections and commitments.
On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King, join CPE for a conversation with Vijay Prashad, director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, on resisting war and building freedom.
Eric Clanton’s next pre-trial court appearance is at Rene C. Davidson courthouse (the one by the lake) at 9am in Department 11.
Eric was the target of a harassment and smear campaign led by neo-nazis last Spring which resulted in police raiding two bay area homes. Four felony charges were brought based on the accusations circulating on 4chan, and other parts of the right wing net.
This is Eric’s seventh appearance, the last several of which have been a series of date changes. There’s hope that a heavy show of support this time may push the judge towards accepting a favorable deal and keeping Eric free.
***A few known fascists protesters and right wing bloggers still show up to Eric’s hearing with relative frequency so consider taking steps to conceal your identity.***
Agenda
1. 5:00pm: Call to Order, determination of quorum
2. 5:05pm: Review and approval of February meeting minutes
3. 5:10pm: Open Forum
4. 5:15pm: Introduction of new commissioners
5. 5:20pm: Presentation by UC Berkeley School of Information – CRIMS Privacy Assessment. Possible Action – Accept report; make recommendations to the City Council.
6. 5:45pm: Review and take possible action on Sanctuary City Contracting Ordinance
7. 5:55pm: Review and take possible action on Cell Site Simulator Annual Report
8. 6:10pm: Community Inquiry into Landlord Tax Audit/Business Revenue Data Requests (presentation by Strauss, Keenan). Possible Action – make recommendations to the City Council.
Transition Berkeley presents:
“Tomorrow” Film & Discussion
6:30 pm refreshments, 7 pm event
Please join us for a showing of the French documentary “Tomorrow “(Demain), a globetrotting documentary focused on solutions to our environmental crisis, by actress Melanie Laurent and eco-activist Cyril Dion.
“Tomorrow” provides a comprehensive look at ways in which activists, organizers and ordinary citizens are trying to make the world a better, more sustainable place.
Tomorrow shows communities taking power back from governments and corporations a form of grassroots activism which may be the best way to undo the top-down policies that have set us on the fast track to destruction.
How can we incorporate these ideas and make positive change happen here in Berkeley?
Event is hosted by Transition Berkeley and the Social Justice Committee of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists.
Please join us for a showing of the French documentary Tomorrow (Demain), by actress Melanie Laurent and eco-activist Cyril Dion, a globetrotting documentary focused on solutions to our environmental crisis.
Tomorrow provides a comprehensive look at ways in which activists, organizers and ordinary citizens are trying to make the world a better, more sustainable place. It takes an optimistic view of the future and visits every corner of the earth to meet with men and women who are taking concrete, positive action for the planet.
Tomorrow shows communities taking power back from governments and corporations — a form of grassroots activism which may be the best way to undo the top-down policies that have set us on the fast track to destruction.
Come at 6:30 for meet and greet and bring vegetarian snacks or drinks to share if you can. Film begins at 7:00. Discussion will follow the film.
Sponsored by Transition Berkeley and BFUU Social Justice Committee.
Wheelchair accessible.