Calendar
All Out to Sacramento!
9:30 AM: Hearing, Rm 4203.
12:00 noon: Rally.
2:00 PM. Lobby legislators.
Rideshare: Contact Tynan 415 361 8436. Rides from McArthur Bart 7:00 AM.
In response to the largest prison hunger strike in US history, California lawmakers are holding the 2nd legislative hearing on solitary confinement in US prisons.
We will be with the prisoners… in the courts, in the legislature, or out in the commnity. We will use every venue available to us, UNTIL THE TORTURE IS ENDED.
— Marie Levin, sister of Hunger Striker Sitawa Jaama.
Join the CODEPINK NSA program as we surveill and monitor the house of Senator Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday, February 11th at noon.
Bring your surveillance equipment, magnifying glasses, tracking devices and drones as we monitor for any suspicious activities!
The protest is being organized in solidarity with the Day We Fight Back day of action!
SAN FRANCISCO CONVERGENCE
* Mark Klein, former ATT technician and whistleblower on the NSA/ATT.
* Guerrilla Projections and Video by the SF Projection Dept. in conjunction with projection/illuminator groups across the country.
* Giant “Stop Watching Us” painted Parachute.
Join us at the site of Room 641A, the telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency in a massive, unconstitutional, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans’ communications.
In January 2012 we defeated the SOPA and PIPA censorship legislation with the largest Internet protest in history. A year ago this month one of that movement’s leaders, Aaron Swartz, tragically passed away. Today we face a different threat, one that undermines the Internet, and the notion that any of us live in a genuinely free society: mass surveillance. If Aaron were alive, he’d be on the front lines, fighting against a world in which governments observe, collect, and analyze our every digital action.
Mass surveillance is an escalation of of spying and disruption–from COINTELPRO of the 60’s and 70’s to the Palmer Raids of the ’20’s– to silence social change movements for social, economic, environmental, climate justice and democracy; so if we are part of those movements or support them, we can step up so they have the political breathing space to grow. win and make a better world.
Demand Justice for Kayla Moore
One year ago on February 12th, Kayla Moore was killed by Berkeley Police Officers. A transgendered, African American woman with mental disabilities who was in her own home, she posed no threat to herself or others. Without any legal justification, Berkeley Police officers grabbed her and attempted to take her into custody. On her stomach, handcuffed and struggling to breath under a pile of six police, Kayla died in the early hours of February 13th.
The Berkeley City Council has ignored the issue! Berkeley Police Review Commission has still not completed an investigation of the officers involved or the failed policies that allow untrained cops to respond to mental health emergencies instead of real professional
WE DEMAND :
* COPS INVOLVED BE DISCIPLINED/FIRED
* BERKELEY FUND CIVILIANS TO RESPOND TO
MENTAL HEALTH EMERGENCIES
RALLY AND VIGIL: Wed. February 12th 6pm at GAIA Building
2116 Allston Way (above Shattuck)
SPEAKOUT: 7pm Police Review Commission
Meeting
South Berkeley Senior Center 2939 Ellis Street (off Ashby)
Facebook: Justice for Kayla Moore
-Remove Janet Napolitano as UC President and replace her with a great educator.
-Defend public education! Stop the privatization of the UC’s!
-Full citizenship rights or undocumented immigrants! Pass the Federal DREAM Act.
-Double underrepresented minority enrollment at UC Berkeley and UCLA.
-Restore Affirmative Action – Overturn Prop 209.
-BP out of UC Berkeley! Stop the Privatization of Public Education.
TELL CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL KAMALA HARRIS:
PROSECUTE KILLER COPS IT’S YOUR JOB
RALLY AND SPEAKOUT 3PM THURSDAY 2/13 1515 CLAY STREET, OAKLAND (STATE BUILDING BEHIND OSCAR GRANT PLAZA)
Initiated by the Justice 4 Alan Blueford Coalition.
The Justice for Alan Blueford Coalition (JAB) submitted a letter to California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris at the State March Against Police Brutality on October 22, demanding that she do her job and prosecute Miguel Masso for the murder of Alan Blueford. Since then she has responded with a flat refusal to reopen the investigation. (See excerpts from the letter we sent below.) On October 22 and since we have reached out to other families with victims of police murders to join in a statewide campaign to demand that AG Harris do her job. Many families have joined on and will be sending letters about their loved ones to Harris, demanding prosecution of the killer cops. All the families are invited and welcome to join us at the rally and speakout at the State Building in Oakland.
EC. 13. Subject to the powers and duties of the Governor, the Attorney General shall be the chief law officer of the State. It shall be the duty of the Attorney General to see that the laws of the State are uniformly and adequately enforced.
The Attorney General shall have direct supervision over every district attorney and sheriff and over such other law enforcement officers as may be designated by law, in all matters pertaining to the duties of their respective offices, and may require any of said officers to make reports concerning the investigation, detection, prosecution, and punishment of crime in their respective jurisdictions as to the Attorney General may seem advisable.
Whenever in the opinion of the Attorney General any law of the State is not being adequately enforced in any county, it shall be the duty of the Attorney General to prosecute any violations of law of which the superior court shall have jurisdiction, and in such cases the Attorney General shall have all the powers of a district attorney. When required by the public interest or directed by the Governor, the Attorney General shall assist any district attorney in the discharge of the duties of that office.
Raise the Minimum Wage to $12.25. It’s time we make Oakland the kind of city that families can afford to put food on the table, keep a roof over our heads, and keep the lights on! Let’s ensure that workers can meet our basic needs.
Join ACCE, EBASE, Raise the Wage East Bay, ROC the Bay, SEIU 1021, SEIU ULTCW, UFCW Local 5, and UNITE HERE 2850 to gather signatures for a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage and provide workers with paid sick days.
9:30 AM: Rally.
11:00 – 3:00 PM: Signature gathering.
The American Postal Workers Union is organizing a protest at the Berkeley Staples store against the installation of Post Office stations inside Staples stores, staffed by low-wage non-union, no-benefit Staples workers instead of unionized Postal Service employees.
Rich Shelley @ 443-980-5586
Berkeley Post Office Defenders, organized to defend against the sale of the downtown Berkeley Post Office and call attention to the evils of privatization in general, supports the APWU in its efforts to stop the privatization of the US Post Office and preserve living-wage union jobs.
Read about our own, first-in-the-nation, protest at Staples back in December, 2013.
Be there on Saturday if you can!
SAT FEB 15 NOON TO 3PM COLLECT PHONE NUMBERS AND SIGNATURES FROM
WORKING CLASS AT THE BULB to Restore Parking at the BULB
so the working class and their dogs and children can enjoy our park
KUDOS TO mayoral candidate DAN SIEGEL who signed this at the Anti DAC
DEMONSTRATION THE OTHER NIGHT
TEXT OF PETITION
” ” WE THE WORKING PEOPLE OF THE BAY AREA DEMAND YOU RESTORE THE
PARKING SPACES @ THE BULB SO THAT WE CAN CONTINTINUE TO HAVE FREE
ACCESS WITH OUR FRIENDS,FAMILY AND DOGS TO THE SPACE WE LOVE SO MUCH
over 50 parking spaces have been OUT LAWED ON RIGHT SIDE OF BUCHANAN
STREET THERE ARE ONLY 40 SPACES AND TWO HANDIcapped SPACES LEFT. Less
parking less people visiting the Bulb .there trying to
isolate us from our natural working class Allies.
WE stopped oakland from extending
parking meter hours a few years back
Recently this Decembers 500
signatures and hundreds of Active Water Gate Residents forced the
Emeryville Go Round bus Company to restore the Watergate Bus Stop. .
500,OOO DOLLARS has been SPENT TO DESTROY the BULB THERE NOT GOING TO STOP
THIS TIME UNLESS WE HAVE A MASS MOVEMENT.call or email orion to
volunteer to collect signatures and phone numbers at other times at the
Bulb.ohohorion99 [at] gmail.com 510 541 3835
more info on the Bulb sharethebulb.org
CALL SHITTY HALL LEAVE A MESSAGE 510 559 7250
New to Strike Debt?? Don’t walk cold turkey into a bunch of radicals talking about debt! Show up a half hour early at 2:30 PM for an informal pre-meeting intro session. If you’d like to attend this pre-together please email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com and let us know you’re coming.
Join Strike Debt Bay Area in working on some exciting projects locally and nationally to fight unjust debt.
– The latest on our coalition efforts to Save the Berkeley Post Office and fight the privatization of our commons.
– The latest on our efforts to help Richmond and NGO allies push for principal reduction for Richmond’s homeowners. Read an article written by two Strike Debt Bay Area members on the Richmond principal reduction / eminent domain case.
In addition, we are exploring the use of a public bank to help Richmond, CA and other communities escape the thrall of Wall Street.
– Work on our radio segment on KPFA
– Other projects include efforts to fight against student debt in conjunction with peeps at UC Cal via a Strike Debt UC Berkeley chapter of Strike Debt, a book group with semi-weekly discussions, investigations into the legitimacy of mortgage ownership and therefore the right to foreclose, efforts to thwart payday loan usury and more.
“Just as bosses are dependent on workers, so are lenders dependent on borrowers. If workers walk out, the enterprise stops. If borrowers refuse to pay their debts, the lenders could be in real trouble. Each side depends on the other. The millions of underwater mortgage holders, of student debtors and credit card holders, need the bank loans – but so do the banks need those borrowers, and they especially need them to cooperate by paying their monthly charges. Otherwise, the capital that the banks list on their books begins to drain away.” ~Francis Fox Piven
Check out our website, our Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.
Check out the Berkeley Post Office Defenders website too.
In the 1980’s the CIA flooded the black community with crack-cocaine as a means of funding the Right-wing insurgency in Nicaragua but also as a way of attacking the power of the black community. Join various community speakers as they discuss this history, its impact and meaning today, as well as the ways in which the Black Panther Party addressed drugs in Oakland and across the United States.
Andy’s Youth has decided to call a march demanding that the Santa Rosa Police Dept. show the public their findings and conclusion of The Andy Lopez Investigation.
“The People have Lost Confidence, and No Longer Believe, that Jill Ravitch, along with the Sonoma County District Attorneys Office, can, with the Highest Level of Moral and Ethical Standards, Without Bias, and with Full Transparency and Impartiality, conduct any form of investigation. To assume that Jill Ravitch, or the Sonoma County District Attorneys Office can perform their duties, and Prosecute these Killer Cops whenever the issue of Police Brutality arises, is Laughable and Preposterous!”
The People Will Unite and Demand Justice For Andy Lopez!
Justicia Para Andy Lopez!
We Want the District Attorney Jill Ravitch, and the Santa Rosa Police Dept. to:
1. Provide the People with a copy of an unaltered, S.R.P.D. Report
2. Indict Erik Gelhaus with the crime of Murder
3. I.D. the “Unnamed Deputy” who was in the patrol car when Erik Gelhaus Murdered Andy Lopez
4. Disqualify the So. Co. D.A.’s Office
The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!
The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.
And we’re fighting against both!
Come help us plan our next steps. The City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which may protect the Post Office against various commercial uses, or be totally ineffective. We need to stay on top of it. The American Postal Workers Union is planning more actions against Staples; we need to support them. The next one is Saturday, Feb 15th, two days before our meeting. Encouraging articles have come out recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked and we need to be on the leading edge of that. And Barbara Lee has introduced even stronger language into legislation to stop the sale of Historic Post Offices.
We are planning an outreach event for sunday, February 23rd, a Conscious Commons Festival. Come help us plan and execute it!
THINGS ARE HAPPENING!
AND CHECK OUT OUR SPIFFY NEW WEBSITE.
All out to City Hall to pack the next Oakland City Council meeting in opposition to the Domain Awareness Center (DAC). The DAC is a massive proposed spy center for the city of Oakland, in cooperation between Oakland Police and the Department of Homeland Security. This vote could stop the DAC, if City Council is willing to take a real stand.
Exactly what time the vote will take place is uncertain, so come hang out with Oakland Privacy Group activists beginning at 6:30 and learn about the DAC.
Sign up to speak against the DAC.
The meeting is “City Council.” (under Comm/Council Name).
The agenda item is 13.
The date would be 02-18-2014
No Surveillance State in Oakland! Stop the #DAC! – 2/18 http://t.co/petkv18wyB #oakmtg pic.twitter.com/AWhBcxwJQS
— mary mad (@marymad) February 14, 2014
Jazz virtuoso
Gilad Atzmon meets Peter Barshay on bass and Bryan Bowman on drums
7:00pm @Uptown Body & Fender
401 26th St. Oakland
Phone: (510)224-3518 19th St. BART
a benefit for the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund
SPIED UPON: SURVEILLANCE AND RESISTANCE
Between the ever-present fear of informants to the profusion of metadata collection and the construction of the Domain Awareness Center (DAC) in Oakland, the growing problem of surveillance has made it into the mainstream dialogue, but the people and communities most affected are sometimes being left out of the conversation.
Join us for an evening of ideas, discussion and questions about solidarity in the face of this intimidation. How do we support one another and our movements when being targeted by police, surveillance and informants? What are the legal, community and political responses that can best keep the larger “us” safe and allow our movements to flourish?
•SPEAKERS•
JASON KIRKPATRICK, filmmaker and activist, will show clips of and discuss his upcoming film, Spied Upon. Interviewing activists across the world and telling his own personal story, Jason will take us on a journey into one of the biggest political surveillance scandals in Europe, documenting growing movements of resistance to surveillance along the way.
ZAHRA BILLOO, Civil rights attorney and Executive Director at the Bay Area Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), speaks on the use of informants in a post-9/11 context, their impact, community resistance, and lessons learned.
RICHARD BROWN, Black Panther and member of the SF8, will share his history with undercover police and surveillance, imparting the ‘long view’ of solidarity learned from a lifetime of activism.
•PANEL DISCUSSION•
Moderated by Nadia Kayyali of the EFF
(Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Q & A with the speakers will follow in conversation with representatives from:
Bay Area Anti-Repression Committee
Bay Area Coalition to Stop Political Repression (at AROC)
Legal Workers of the Bay Area National Lawyers Guild (NLG)
Oakland Privacy Working Group (OPWG / anti-DAC)
Some links:
Domain Awareness Center on Oakland Wiki (general info on DAC, not OPWG’s site):
http://oaklandwiki.org/
Spied Upon film:
http://spiedupon.com/
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR):
http://www.cair.com/
Richard Brown / SF8::
http://www.freethesf8.org/
Anti-Repression Committee:
https://
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF):
https://www.eff.org/
Coalition to Stop Political Repression (AROC):
http://araborganizing.org/
NLG:
http://www.nlgsf.org/
Oakland Privacy Working Group (OPWG):
https://
What can we learn about the state’s repressive strategies from the case of the ACAC 19? What does it mean? What doesn’t it mean?
There were several repressive tactics used in this case: apparently random attack, brutality, and arrest; the inclusion of the gang task force, felony charges, outrageous bails, DNA collection, cell phone confiscation and searches; social media subpeonas, mass media attacks and persisting with prosecuting a case with little or no grounds.
Some tactics were historically typical and some were not. Hear from defendents how it went down, from the street to the court. Then we will discuss what we can learn from this case.
There will also be a fundraising raffle and donation to benefit the restitution fund of the ACAC 19.
“Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.”
A Conscious Commons Festival
As you may know, the US Postal Service is trying to sell and privatize Berkeley’s Downtown Post Office. Community members continue to mobilize to save our commons in what has become a national effort. We are involved in spreading the word through festivals and action and by participating in judicial and political efforts to let public officials, developers and buyers know that the people are defending our public resources and do not want post offices sold.
Activities hosted at the Post Office will include:
- Invocation, and meditation
- Information sharing on: postal banking, postal jobs and direct action defense of commons
- letter writing, and art
Come join us! Bring your friends! Bring your lunch!
Sponsored by Berkeley Post Office Defense
http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Our Concerns
Self-professed Buddhist’ Richard Blum is chairman of the CBRE board of directors–the agent for the sale of US post offices. The sale of our constitutionally guaranteed post offices promote the transfer of public commons and resources to private corporations which brings higher prices, worse quality of services, higher profits and non union lower paid jobs without benefits. Now, US postal services have been shifted into {84} private US Staples stores including Berkeley and San Francisco.
The Berkeley Post Office and post offices all over the US are under threat of being sold by questionable means. (For example: Goldman Sachs is one of the largest shareholders with CBRE, which has been involved in both selling and purchasing postal property and numerous sale prices appear to be below documented value. Please see: Going Postal: U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s husband sells post offices to his friends, cheap by Peter Byrne.
From: The Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thupten Gyatso
During his exile in India, the Dalai Lama was fascinated by the modern world and he introduced the first Tibetan currency notes and coins. On 13 February 1913, he made public the five-point statement reasserting Tibet’s Independence. Also, in 1913 he established the first post office in Tibet
“it is not enough to be compassionate, we must act.”