The People’s Community Medics teach basic emergency first aid skills free of charge “BECAUSE NO ONE SHOULD DIE WAITING FOR AN AMBULANCE.”

Currently, Sharena Diamond Thomas is the only first aid trainer at the People’s Community Medics and she has asked us, The Community Democracy Project (Oakland)* to help her find other folks in Oakland willing to help her do this incredibly important and life-saving work. We’re honored to help her out and invite YOU to come join us.

Feel free to bring food (and booze! because we’re also celebrating Shawn and Tia‘s birthdays!)

*The Community Democracy Project is an all-volunteer campaign working to turn the power structure right side up by putting the people of Oakland in charge of the city budget.

Come and hear co-authors, Mumia Abu-Jamal (who will call in during the event) and Stephen Vittoria, plus readers Pam Africa, Tyson Amir, Cat Brooks, Ayanna Davis, Aya de Leon, Emory Douglas, Derethia DuVal, Anita Johnson, devorah major, and others, recite passages from Dreaming of Empire.

This is the first in Mumia Abu-Jamal’s most ambitious work to date, a trilogy written as he struggles for life.
5-20 donation at the door, no one turned away for lack of funds

JP Morgan Chase bank, one of the biggest investors in tar sands, increased its tar sands investments by nearly $6 billion last year — and also increased its investments in coal. Join a local rally as part of a nationwide day of action to #ShutDownChase.

Monday May 7 is the annual shareholder meeting for TransCanada, the company trying to build the KXL pipeline.  Climate defenders are working to stop the KXL pipeline and keep tar sands in the ground with a three-prong strategy:

1. Mass mobilization with the Promise to Protect: Building and igniting a grassroots movement ready to follow the leadership of Indigenous people along the route if TransCanada moves forward.
2. Financial targets: Going after banks, like JP Morgan Chase, who are financing Keystone XL and other dirty fossil fuel projects, can cut off the funding necessary to build these dirty projects. Momentum is growing with the international bank HSBC’s commitment to drop nearly all holdings in tar sands, coal, and arctic drilling last week.
3. Legal action: Fighting TransCanada every step of the way in the courts at the state and federal level.

The national day of action to shut down Chase, hosted by Rainforest Action Network, is part of this strategy.

WHEN

Monday, May 7

IN THE BAY AREA:

8:30 AM, Oakland
Oakland City Hall
Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th and Broadway,

11:30 AM, San Francisco
Chase Bank, 555 Mission St

4:30 PM, Berkeley
Oaks Theater, 1875 Solano Ave

More info here

Socialist solidarity rally TONIGHT!
6pm, Bancroft and Telegraph
Wear green if you have it!

We are joining @norcalsocialism, @LaVozLITci, and @AFSCMELocal3299 pic.twitter.com/OtP9gG0cDW

— East Bay DSA (@DSAEastBay) May 7, 2018

EBC will host a mail night at our office to respond to the increasing amount of correspondence we’ve been receiving from people in prisons and jails across the country. We are getting lots of questions about prior ballot initiatives including Prop 47 and 57, advocacy support, requests for pen pals and EBC’s work at large. We will also be sending information to people inside about how they can get involved with our priority bills.

Please RSVP to Eric@ellabakercenter.org

Habeas Data chronicles the evolution of surveillance law in America over the last 50 years and argues that current law is insufficient for modern technology.

May 8 – Oakland – Laurel Books – 7pm (Launch Party!)

YOU ARE INVITED TO A COMMUNITY CELEBRATION!

Join the E12th Coalition and friends to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the People’s Council (AKA Oakland City Council Take-over) and the spirit of the Public Land for Public Good campaign.

Three years ago this week, community members who’d had enough of Oakland City Council’s continuous failure to listen to neighborhood needs for affordable housing, took over the City Council chambers to prevent the sale of the E12th St public parcel to a luxury tower developer. What followed was a year of community organizing and participatory design that resulted in a beautiful plan for a 100% affordable project that truly reflected the values and needs of the neighborhood. The City ultimately failed to adopt The People’s Proposal, but the spirit of our fight for Public Land for Public Good is still alive and much needed today.

When we can’t count on City Hall, we know we can count on one another to serve the needs of those most vulnerable among us and show a model of land use and housing affordability that the City should prioritize.

We return to The People’s Parcel on E12th St to lift up some amazing community land projects taking place in Oakland today.

Share a meal with neighbors.
Participate in collective art making.
Hear community solutions on supporting houseless folks, building land trusts and public land policy for the people.

Please bring food or beverages to share, if you can. Most importantly, COME and celebrate community resistance and resilience with us!

This September in San Francisco, the Global Climate Action Summit will bring together leaders from state, tribal, and local governments, business, and citizens from around the world, to demonstrate how the tide has turned in the race against climate change, showcase climate action taking place around the world, and inspire deeper commitments from each other and from national governments in support of the Paris Agreement.

2018 is a turning point: countries and all of us must step up the commitments that were made in Paris and do more. The momentum we generate this year must lead to a climate turning point by 2020 in order to prevent the worst effects of climate change. It must be the beginning of a new phase of action and ambition on climate change.

In 1963 the waters began rising behind Glen Canyon Dam and 170 miles of the Colorado River slowly disappeared as the riverbed and surrounding canyons filled with water. Those who supported and those who opposed the dam considered it a longterm transformation; environmentalists mourned Glen Canyon as dead and gone forever. But it’s coming back, in a victory that is also the pervasive disaster of climate change.

“Lake Powell and the wreckage of where it used to be and will never be again was the right place to think about the madness of the past and the terror of the future, even amidst the epiphanies of beautiful light and majestic space,” writes Rebecca Solnit in Drowned River:  The Death and Rebirth of Glen Canyon on the Colorado (Radius Books), her collaboration with photographers Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe.

350.org executive director May Boeve talks about the near future of climate activism, including September’s Climate Summit.

NY Times bestselling author, Richard Rothstein, will discuss his recent book, The Color of Law, and the role of the state in creating and maintaining segregation, to the detriment of African Americans and society as a whole. This panel will situate the author’s work in West Oakland, a community that was created/disadvantaged by redlining, “urban redevelopment,” nearby industrial zoning, and other government actions. The panel will pull together activists, electeds, and community members, to reflect on how we got here and the role of government and private actors in remedying it.

Gentrification comes up constantly in the Bay Area, but few of us feel equipped to take action against it. Is it inevitable? What can we do now to prevent displacement?

Berkeley City Councilmember Cheryl Davila is hosting a SURJ workshop which will put gentrification and displacement in a historical context so we understand the racialized political and economic drivers. You’ll hear about past and current struggles led by communities of color to preserve their homes and communities.

Facilitators from SURJ – Oakland/Bay Area will present analysis based on the work of Causa Justa :: Just Cause. SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), Bay Area chapter, is part of a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people for racial justice through community organizing, mobilizing, and education. However, all are welcome at this workshop regardless of identity.

We are asking for $5-$20 donation, sliding scale, which will go to support CJJC’s work challenging gentrification and fighting displacement. However, no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Building Accessibility: Neyborly can accommodate mobility devices.

Scents: ask everyone to please arrive at meetings fragrance free to support access for folks who experience multiple chemical sensitivities and allergies. This means using only body products and laundry detergent that say “fragrance free” or “unscented” on the label and do not have scented ingredients.

More info on Causa Justa: http://www.cjjc.org/

SPREAD THE WORD, INVITE YOUR FRIENDS!

Come join Local Clean Energy Alliance and Rosana Francescato and Matt Renner from the Clean Coalition, who will explain what a microgrid is, the basics of how it works, and how Community Microgrids provide economic, environmental and resilience benefits to communities.

We will hear about the Clean Coalition’s plans for microgrids in fire-devastated parts of the North Bay, and in other areas, to create islands of power sustainability as part of the rebuilding process.

For a 90-second video on Community Microgrids, follow this link.

Tickets are free, but space is limited.  Get tickets at Eventbrite.

We all have a right to a healthy life. That means a right to healthcare, a right to clean air, clean water, and a clean earth, to healthy food, a right to a job and housing and the right to live a life free of discrimination and oppression.

WE NEED IMPROVED MEDICARE FOR ALL NOW. The U.S. is one of the only countries in the “developed” world that does not guarantee universal health coverage. We pay more for health care and have worse outcomes (http://www.commonwealthfund.org/interactives/2017/july/mirror-mirror/) because our system isn’t built to take care of people, it is built so that private health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies can make more and more money.

Private healthcare in this country is bad enough, but Trump and the GOP are on a mission to make it far worse through cuts to the ACA, Medicare, and Medicaid. We need these programs, and much more.

Medical illness is the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S. There are 4 paid lobbyists for every single congressperson in Washington DC and health industry lobbying spending continues to rise as the expectation and discussion of healthcare and medicare for all grows. Both Republicans and Democrats at the state and federal level take millions from those who profit off of the sickness and suffering of US residents. The private health insurance companies don’t want to pay for the health care we need because it would impact their profits. IT’S TIME TO GET PRIVATE PROFITS OUT OF OUR HEALTHCARE.

In California, the Democratic Party has a supermajority, which means that they can pass any law they want. They control the Senate, the House, and the Governorship, but they have shelved SB 562, the bill that would guarantee healthcare as a right for all California residents. We need independent corporate-free representatives who will unapologetically support single payer healthcare.

A HEALTHY LIFE MEANS BREATHING CLEAN AIR AND DRINKING CLEAN WATER. West and Downtown Oakland residents have some of the highest asthma rates in the country, and have higher stroke, heart failure, stress, and diabetes rates than other areas. The higher air and environmental pollution exposes people living in these and other environmentally polluted areas of the Bay Area to worse Health outcomes than higher income communities in other areas (https://www.edf.org/airqualitymaps/pollution-and-health-concerns-west-oakland). Fossil fuel companies, including the 5 corporations that have oil refineries in the Bay Area, do not base their decisions around the health of human beings or the environment. They exploit resources and pollute our communities in search of greater profits.

A HEALTHY LIFE MEANS A LIVING WAGE AND A PLACE TO LIVE. That means enacting a minimum wage that is a living wage, a wage that allows us to purchase healthy food and afford to live where we work if we want to. 3 men in the U.S. have more money than half of the US population, over 160 million people (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/nov/08/bill-gates-jeff-bezos-warren-buffett-wealthier-than-poorest-half-of-us). Corporations don’t want to pay workers a living wage because it would impact their profits, but they wouldn’t be able to make that surplus without profiting off of the real value that the workers’ create. Developers don’t want rent control and affordable housing because it would impact their profits. There are currently over 500,000 unhoused persons in the US at this time (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/the-number-of-homeless-people-in-america-increased-for-the-first-time-in-7-years/) and there are more vacant houses than unhoused people.

A HEALTHY LIFE MEANS LIVING FREE OF DISCRIMINATION AND OPPRESSION. Institutionalized discrimination and oppression lead to economic inequality, higher stress, worse health outcomes and shorter life expectancy.

Our health needs are at odds with the profit motive of private health insurance, pharmaceutical companies, developers and fossil fuel companies.

Stop Trump’s Attacks on Our Health!
Fight cuts to the ACA, Medicare, and Medicaid.

We Need Medicare for All!
Release and pass SB 562 in California as a step towards nationwide Medicare for All.

No More Evictions!
Enact living wage laws, rent control, and publicly fund affordable housing.

Fight Climate Change and Environmental Pollution!
For a mass green jobs program to invest in renewable energy to replace fossil fuels.

No More Institutionalized Racism and Sexism!
Halt all deportations, full legalization for all US Residents, Equal Pay for Equal Work, Equal access to opportunity for all regardless of ability, race, or gender.

https://www.marchforourhealth.org/

Endorsements:

Healthy California
Health Care for All California
Socialist Alternative Bay Area
East Bay Democratic Socialists of America
Democratic Socialists of America: San Francisco
Physicians for a National Health Program
National Union of Healthcare Workers
UPTE-CWA Local 9119
California Alliance for Retired Americans
California Partnership
UC Berkeley Progressive Student Association – Our Revolution
East Bay Young Democrats
Our Revolution California
Our Revolution East Bay
Our Revolution Contra Costa County
Courage Campaign Contra Costa
El Cerrito Progressives

Bring your daughters, mothers, and entire family. Walk in unity & spirit for the original mother’s day purpose (post-Civil War): To Unite Women to End War. “We will not raise our children to kill the children of other mother’s.” Gather on either end of the eastern walkway, & converge in middle. Wear PINK, or not. Rally afterwards.

#Justice4Sahleem Rally & March—Monday, 5/14/18, #Oakland!
11 AM—County Courthouse, 12th & Fallon
1:30 PM—March to Webster & 20th
2:30 PM—Dedication to the Life & Spirit of #SahleemTindle
4 PM—BART Police Citizen Review Board Meeting, 2040 Webster@APTPAction & #MothersFightBack pic.twitter.com/LS4CzEjbPh

— Elizabeth Fitzer (@ItsBethFitzer) May 14, 2018

From Global Women’s Strike Omni Collective – please circulate wildly. Bay Area GWS participant and welfare mother Jane Welford will be among the key speakers in Sacramento.

KICKOFF ACTION MAY 14, THE DAY AFTER MOTHERS’ DAY!

Protests in over 30 state capitols across the US

IN CA: RALLY & PROTEST ACTION 2PM SACRAMENTO STATE CAPITOL BUILDING

The theme of May 14th actions is
SOMEBODY’S HURTING OUR PEOPLE: CHILDREN, WOMEN AND PEOPLE WITH
DISABILITIES IN POVERTY

Somebody’s hurting our people and it’s gone on far too long!
Together, we will rise up and challenge the evils of systemic racism,
poverty, the war economy, environmental devastation, and the nation’s
distorted morality!

WE ARE DAYS AWAY from the May 14th kick-off of the Poor People’s
Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, demanding a massive
overhaul of the nation’s voting rights laws, new programs to lift up
the 140 million Americans –  70% women and children – living in
poverty, immediate attention to ecological devastation and measures to
curb militarism and the war economy. May 14th actions kick off 40 days
of sustained moral fusion nonviolent direct action and activities
building on the work of Dr. Martin Luther King.

For more information and to participate in the May 14 rally/direct
action,
HTTPS://POORPEOPLESCAMPAIGN.ORG/ [1] OR EMAIL
CALIFORNIA@POORPEOPLESCAMPAIGN.ORG

HTTPS://FACEBOOK.COM/CALIFORNIAPPC/ [2] OR

Virginia Eubanks talks about her book
Automating Inequality:
How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor

Virginia Eubanks is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY. She is also the author of Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age. Her writing about technology and social justice has appeared in The American Prospect, The Nation, Harper’s and Wired. For two decades, Eubanks has worked in community technology and economic justice movements.