Sun, Jan 19, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
Group Reading: Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. In honor of Dr. King’s birthday, we will discuss what many believe is the greatest speech by America’s greatest spiritual leader, a speech that cost him his life. It is not widely recognized that Dr. King was an open socialist who stated that: “There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.” Reading the speech will take about an hour, leaving time for open discussion.

Sun, Jan 26, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
India:  Modi in his Second Term takes a Hard Right Turn
Modi’s BJP won 303 seats in the Parliament of 545 seats in the 2019 General Elections, after completing his first term of 5 years, in which BJP did not have majority, so it was more dependent on its allied regional parties. Modi has undertaken bold move within the first year of his Second term: Removal of Article 370 of the Constitution, which granted Jammu & Kashmir state substantial autonomy; Outlawing of the Triple Talaq practice (thrice repeated word divorce by which men could divorce their wives) among Muslims; Threatened to carry out National Registration of Citizens (NRC); and enactment of Citizens Amendment Act (CAA), which permits granting of citizenship to refugees of Hindu, Christian & Sikh faiths from three countries, but not Muslims: Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Each of these moves go against the spirit of the staunchly secular Indian Constitution. Students and Muslims, joined by secular persons of Hindu, Christian and Sikh faiths, have begun strong opposition to these moves of the government, and now the Left Parties are organizing workers to oppose government’s Neo-Liberal policies. The latest incident of goons attacking and injuring Left Students and Faculty members at the prestigious Jawahar Lal Nehru University (JNU) has added to the tension in society already tense. What is in store for India the years ahead with Modi at the helm? Raj Sahai who closely monitors the political and economic affairs in India will present his views. Q/A will follow his 50 minute talk.

Sun, Feb 2, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
The Haitian Revolution of 1804.
The imp-act of the Haitian revolution was immeasurable – to the slave system, anti-imperial struggles, France and the US. To other slave societies it became an example of what could be accomplished and a source of hope.

Speakers will be Pierre Labossiere and Gerald Smith.

Sun, Feb 9, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
Revolt of the Dispossessed against Neoliberalism in Latin America and the Caribbean
With the Trump administration’s renewed emphasis on imposing the Monroe Doctrine to the Empire’s so-called “backyard,” the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean resist in a revolt of the dispossessed against neoliberalism. In this year in review, hear about the struggles in Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, Bolivia, Haiti, and elsewhere along with the solidarity actions by North Americans in support of the social justice movements. The presenters are activists with the 34-year old human rights organization, Task Force on the Americas (https://taskforceamericas.org/).  The presenters are Alice Loaiza, Alicia Jrapko, David Paul, Marilyn Langlois, Bill Hackwell, Roger Harris.

It’s a good time to take a fresh look at what has worked in times of trouble, and share what we have learned about successful campaigning that gives hope for the future.” – George Lakey.

These times call for new and creative tactics in order to make changes to the status quo.

Explore: What makes nonviolent direct action campaigns relevant now? What about polarization? How do we build stronger campaigns? Can campaigns build a movement of movements that can deliver really big changes?

Expect: experiential activities, small group work, a big picture, affirmation of your own power.

Activist, sociologist and author George Lakey has been on the forefront of social change for five decades, leading social change workshops on five continents and heading projects on local, national and international levels. His latest book, How We Win, details how we can achieve needed social change.

Kazu Haga is the founder of the East Point Peace Academy, as well as a core member of the Ahimsa Collective and a trainer in Kingian Nonviolence, a philosophy developed out of teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His book, Healing Resistance, will be released January 14th.

Sponsored by the Social Justice Committee of BFUU, and the Social and Environmental Action Committee of the Berkeley Society of Friends.

Register at eastpointpeace.org/howwewin or call.

Join us!

 Supporters in Alameda County are welcome.

Here are the links to the draft agenda and 12/1/19 meeting notes.

We hope to see you there.

The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 3 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 3:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland.  (Note: we meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months,  once Daylight Savings Time springs forward we tend to assemble at 4 PM).

On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 2 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.

OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over five years! 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

1. Welcome & Introductions
2. Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
3. Announcements
4. (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

Long Haul Meeting:
First Sunday of Every Month  from 4pm – 6pm

The Long Haul is an anarchist resource center and community space. Our goal is to provide the shell for a space that feels alive with people, projects, and ideas (whether in concert or conflict)–where together we negotiate a tension with society.

We provide a office/meeting space and a non-profit umbrella for a variety of projects/collectives, as well as hosting for numerous social and political events. We also house the Infoshop .

What is the Infoshop?

The Infoshop is a combination of a lending library, computer room, zine making space, activist reading room, and a social gathering space. Anyone can come and browse our many periodicals, zines, and pamphlets in our front office; check-out books, DVD’s, or VCR tapes from the lending library; conduct research using our computer; produce zines in our zine making space; or simply talk with some interesting people.

But, the Infoshop is primarily an information distribution center. Much of literature, (including our own newspaper, Slingshot), is available for free. Flyers regarding current political events and radical/alternative news sources are always posted on our front bulletin board and are on the front desk, these come from the community so please help us stay informed.

oscargrantcommittee-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

In alliance with the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) we organized the October 23, 2010 labor and community rally for Justice for Oscar Grant. On that day the ILWU shut down the Bay Area ports in solidarity. Our mission is to educate, organize and mobilize people against police and state repression. Sisters and brothers! The Oscar Grant Committee invites you to join us in this vital struggle.

We meet on the 1^st Monday of each month
You can join our discussion list by sending a blank (doesn’t even need a subject) email to

oscargrantcommittee-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

Join the 350 East Bay Transportation Campaign, East Bay Democratic Socialists of America Climate and Environmental Justice Caucus,  Labor Rise for Climate, Sunflower Alliance and more to rally on national Transit Equity Day.

Public transit is a civil right!

Public transit combats climate change!

Support AC Transit drivers and their union as they fight for a better contract!

Join us for the official book launch of We Keep Us Safe, written by Ella Baker Center Executive Director Zach Norris. 

“Not me, us” is the slogan of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential run. On the campaign trail, Bernie has consistently emphasized that he alone can’t transform society — that in order to end the stranglehold of the billionaire class over society, millions of working-class Americans must get involved in the political process.

Why does Bernie insist on the need for a mass movement to change society? What is Bernie’s campaign doing to build that movement? What would a working-class movement need to be like in order to enact fundamental change, and what should socialists do to grow that movement? What should we do if and when Bernie wins — or loses?

Join East Bay DSA’s Socialist Night School on Tuesday, February 4 to discuss these questions and others, in the third of a special four-part series on Bernie Sanders, capitalism, and democratic socialism.

See the assigned readings here.

PETER JAN HONIGSBERG with Steve Wasserman

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Advance tickets: $12: brownpapertickets.com ::T: 800-838-3006  or Pegasus Books (3 sites), Books Inc (Berkeley), Moe’s, Walden Pond Bookstore, East Bay Books, Mrs.Dalloway’s Books $15 door, benefits KPFA Radio 94.1FM  info: kpfa.org/events  

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You’re doing God’s work with this book…”  —Robert Scheer

“Honigsberg combines his impressive research with his persistent advocacy for detainees who clearly played no role in the 9/11 attacks and who almost certainly never posed any threat to American citizens. . . . A well-documented, hard-hitting, necessary exposé.”    —Kirkus Reviews 

“What sets Honigsberg’s portrait apart is his focus on the lasting effects of isolation and controversial legal process on all involved. The author concludes that the United States broke the rule of law, and is the worse for it. VERDICT A sobering book for audiences interested in law and current affairs.    —Library Journal

On January 11th, 2002, the first planeload of twenty detainees from Afghanistan arrived at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Eventually 780 Muslim men were held at Guantanamo, many for ten years or longer, and nearly all were never charged with a crime—a violation of America’s foundational belief in due process and the rule of law. Forty men are still imprisoned at Guantanamo today; twenty-six of them are considered “forever prisoners” who will likely die at Guantanamo, having never been charged, tried, or convicted of any wrongdoing.

Now, in A Place Outside the Law, Peter Jan Honigsberg, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law and the founder and director of the Witness to Guantanamo Project, offers the most comprehensive picture to date of the lives that were deeply and often traumatically transformed by Guantanamo.  From how alleged terrorists were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan and sold to the US to the Bush administration’s use of the term “enemy combatant” to bypass the Geneva Conventions, Honigsberg details how the law was broken in the name of protecting Americans—and how that lawlessness was experienced by everyone who came into contact with Guantanamo.

The stories in the book—and the full-length filmed interviews held in perpetuity at the Duke University Human Rights Archive—are the only record of many of the people who were at Guantanamo. “Their witness,” cautions Honigsberg, “will remind future generations not to repeat what has happened there.”

Peter Jan Honigsberg is a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law and the founder and director of Witness to Guantánamo. His research and teaching focus on the rule of law and human rights violations that occurred in the detention center in Guantánamo, as well as on the study of terrorism and post-9/11 issues. His books include Our Nation Unhinged: The Human Consequences of the War on Terror and Crossing Border Street: A Civil Rights Memoir. Honigsberg lives in Berkeley, California.

This February we are highlighting not only the history of black people but the future as well. We will be paying homage to our local leaders and activists.

Local performer, artist, and educator TJ Sykes will be joining us. All are welcome, dinner provided, for more information

email monifa@ellabakercenter.org. Come build with us!

Join the Center for Political Education for an emergency teach-in.

As the Trump regime unveils its shameful “Middle East Peace Plan”, tensions with the people of Iran remain high, millions are in the streets of Iraq demanding immediate US withdrawal, and the situation in Yemen continues to deteriorate. Globally, US militarism continues to destabilize life from Bolivia, to Venezuela, to Haiti, Sudan and the Philippines. Across the planet and here in the Bay Area, movements are taking up the vital task of building unity against these threats to life, along with building a vision for a society built on peace, solidarity, and democracy.

Learn about:
-The global context for the current escalation with Iran
-Key insights from anti-war organizing 2001-2008
-How US intervention and militarism affects movements for social justice
-What you can do to take action against US war-making

Featured speakers include**:
Yousef Baker (Iraqi Transnational Collective)
Clare Bayard (Catalyst Project)
Lara Kiswani (Arab Resource and Organizing Center)
Chris Lymbertos (Arab Resource and Organizing Center)
Rhonda Ramiro (BAYAN USA)

The housing crisis affects us all. Join Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church’s Justice Jam February 5, 6:30-8pm – hear about the intersections of homelessness, housing insecurity, affordable housing. Find out how to get involved. Guest speakers @Skarlinsky @EBALDC_ED @gwehmanbrown pic.twitter.com/znc4WCnIHM

— Faith in Action East Bay (@FIAEastBay) January 27, 2020

Join the Green New Deal Committee for our monthly meeting!

The Green New Deal Committee is open to all, and all are welcome to join!

Agenda items:

4. Census Team – Presentation on 2020 Census – Informational report only Richard J. Luna, Assistant to the City Administrator, will give a presentation regarding the 2020 Census. The 2020 Census will be conducted primarily online and made available in only 13 languages, which makes it a challenge in ensuring a complete count for Oakland. According to the State of California, 57% of Oakland’s population lives in hard-to-count Census tracts. Factors that lead to hard-to-count areas in Oakland include: crowded units, renters, multiple families living at a residence, people living below the poverty level, among others. The City of Oakland and County of Alameda have partnered in outreach efforts to ensure everyone is counted during the 2020 Census. Commissioners are encouraged to make a pledge to take the Census, register as a Census Ambassador, and to discuss the importance of the Census with family and friends.

5. Chair report – Informational report only
a. PAC Annual Report
b. 2020 Planning and Agenda Management
c. OPD Tech Priority List
d. Goldman School of Public Policy – Citizen Data Project

6. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Cell Site Simulator Annual Report (2019) – review and take possible action

7. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD UAS (Drone) Exigent Use Report – review and take possible action.

8. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – UAS (Drone) Impact Report and proposed Use Policy – review and take possible action

9. Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Mobile ID Impact Report and proposed Use Policy – review and take possible action