Calendar

9896
Jul
24
Thu
City of Oakland Privacy Committee Meeting @ Oakland City Hall Council Chambers
Jul 24 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Meeting of the City of Oakland’s “Privacy and Data Retention Ad Hoc Advisory Committee” – open to the public.

When:
2nd & 4th Thursdays
6:00pm – 8:00pm

Where:
Council Chambers
Oakland City Hall
14th & Broadway

Read the announcement from the City of Oakland City Administrator’s Weekly Report (April 25, 2014):

This committee was created by City Council action during the discussions earlier in the year about the Port Domain Awareness Center (DAC). The goal of the DAC is to improve readiness to prevent, respond to and recover from major emergencies in the Oakland region and ensure better multi-agency coordination across the larger San Francisco Bay Area. The goal of the Privacy and Data Retention Policy is to ensure there are safeguards to protect against potential misuse of the data or violations of individuals’ privacy rights and civil liberties. The meeting is open to the public. For questions about the Ad Hoc Committee, please contact Joe DeVries, Assistant to the City

We need to show up to these meetings and pressure the City to adopt a privacy policy that makes privacy a priority, not only “security” or administrative convenience.

StopTheDAC

55983
Jul
25
Fri
Coalition for a Taser-Free Berkeley. @ Grassroots House
Jul 25 @ 2:00 am – 3:30 am

Come help stop Berkeley Police from getting tasers!

After each mishap or tragedy that occurs these days in Berkeley, we are told that it could have been averted “if only” the police had been issued tasers. The mayor of Berkeley made this claim after six Berkeley police killed a mentally ill transgender woman in her own home last year. BPD officers made the same claim again when a mentally ill man stabbed himself several times. This week, Chris Stines of the Berkeley Police Association (BPA) went to great pains to spread the notion that if a Berkeley police officer had had a taser this past week, he wouldn’t have been assaulted. It is regrettable that the BPA uses these incidents as nothing more than a way to win political points. The issue of how to protect officers as well as the human rights of the citizenry is far more complex than simply giving cops more hardware on their belts.

Of course, these kinds of statements can never be proven. No one can know whether a taser would have prevented the confrontation in which the officer was involved in a fistfight with a suspect who was believed to be mentally ill. The BPA continues to apply steady political pressure to our local politicians and insists that somehow, real safety resides in our ability to meet suspects with electric shocks. At Berkeley Copwatch, we disagree. We believe that it is the duty of the officers to place the well being of the community at the forefront of their efforts. We believe that mentally ill people have a right to treatment and should not be subjected to torture because of a condition which they do not control. It is time for the City of Berkeley to return to the humane approaches for which it was once famous and reject the militarization of care which has overtaken our approach to community health and safety.

Top ten reasons against tasers.

 

56288
Jul
26
Sat
Justice For Yanira (We Want Answers!) @ Half Moon Bay Volunteer Fire Department
Jul 26 @ 12:00 am – 2:00 am

Join the family, friends and community as they demand justice for an innocent life stolen by law enforcement. Yanira Serrano Garcia was murdered on June 3, 2014 by San Mateo County Sheriff’s.

The family seeks accountability from law enforcement and the District Attorney’s office.

Please join us on Friday, July 25, 2014 at 5pm as we meet at the Half Moon Bay Fire Station located at 1191 Main St, Half Moon Bay CA for a rally and march.

The family has asked that you please wear white.

Learn more here: http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/yanira-serrano-garcia/

56294
March For Palestine. @ Chelsea Manning Plaza
Jul 26 @ 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm

March for Palestine….Chelsea Manning Plaza aka Justin Herman Plaza, Market @Embarcadero in SF. 

6,000 people this past Sunday; 20,000 this coming Saturday.

ANSWER COALITION.

On July 16th, Israeli Defense Forces deliberately targeted a group of children playing soccer on a Gaza beach, killing four from the same family and maiming the others—another war crime committed against the Palestinian people.

WE DEMAND THAT 

Stop US Aid to the Apartheid State of Israel! 
Free all Palestinian political prisoners! 
End the collective punishment of Palestinians!
End colonial occupation of Palestine!
Stop the massacre in Gaza! End the blockade of Gaza!

56289
Kickoff Meeting For Oct 2014 Nationwide Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration, Police Terror, Etc @ First Unitarian Church (at Castro, right next to 980 Freeway)
Jul 26 @ 9:00 pm – Jul 27 @ 12:00 am
Major Bay Area Kickoff Meeting
October 2014 Nationwide Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration, Police Terror, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation

Just in the past few weeks we have witnessed:

​ **1000’s of children being driven across the border by US devastation of their homelands and then finding themselves caught between Homeland Security rounds-ups and flag-waving racists

​**The District Attorney in Santa Rosa California refusing to charge the cop who murdered 13-year old Andy Lopez

​**2 videos that went viral showing cops brutally and unjustly beating Black women

All these and more outrages only serve to underscore more than ever the need for powerful outpourings of resistance in October as envisioned in the Call for a Month of Ressistance to Mass Incarceration, Police Terror, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation (www.stopmassinceration.net) that was adopted at the meeting convened in New York in April 2014.

Let’s all come together, individuals and organizations and make real plans so this October, so our determination to end all this reverberates across the country and around the world!

October 2014 needs to be a full month of many diverse forms of resistance.

Already, prominent and respected voices are signing the Stop Mass Incarceration Network’s Call for the Month of Resistance.� Join�  Ayelet Waldman, novelist, lawyer ; Alice Walker, author; Peter Coyote, actor, author, director; Cornel West,� author, educator, voice of conscience;� Carl Dix,� Revolutionary Communist Party; Noam Chomsky,� Professor (ret.), MIT*; Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson; Michelle Alexander, and 100’s of others who have pledged to be part of the Month of Resistance

Stop Mass Incarceration Network, San Francisco Bay Area 
1.pdf 

56262
Jul
27
Sun
Urban Shield Protest Organizing @ 3rd Floor Conference room
Jul 27 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
STOP URBAN SHIELD IN OAKLAND!

September 4-8, 2014, in Oakland, California, Urban Shield — a trade show and training exercise for SWAT teams and police agencies will bring local, national and international law enforcement agencies together with defense industry contractors to provide training and introduce new weapons to police and security companies. Take a stand against the militarization of our community.
Decrease violence in our communities by ending the militarization of the police.
From schools, the border, prisons, to the streets, our communities have become sites of repression and violence at the hands of law enforcement.  Ever increasing militarization of our communities has created a culture of surveillance and repression targeting poor communities of color.  Community-led solutions addressing poverty and the violence of policing are the best ways to ensure genuine safety, health, and wellbeing for people most vulnerable to state violence.

  • We demand the City of Oakland defund all activities related to Urban Shield
  • We demand that all city agencies withdraw their participation in Urban Shield.

Our communities refuse to be testing grounds for tactics of global repression.
Local police departments collaborate with federal agencies to share information and tactics through vehicles such as fusion centers to surveil and control targeted communities. These same agencies are also exchanging policing and repression tactics with international security officers including but not limited to the Apartheid State of Israel. The import and export of technology and tactics includes purchasing weapons, training local police forces, and sharing strategies through activities such as Urban Shield. Our neighborhoods have become laboratories in which to test international and domestic warfare.

  • We demand an end to all City collaborations with the Apartheid State of Israel.
  • We call on the City of Oakland to issue a report on all collaborations between the Oakland Police Department and international law enforcement agencies.
  • We call on the City of Oakland to reject all US wars and occupations here or abroad.

Community Self-determination
Our communities know what is required to address the social, economic and political problems we face.  Bay Area residents should have decision-making power over how and where resources are allocated in order to build stronger and sustainable communities.

  • We demand that Bay Area residents have decision-making power in the process to determine priorities for public safety and emergency preparedness.
  • We demand that the City of Oakland invest in community-based programs proven to decrease violence and harm instead of in the increased militarization of its police force and emergency services.

We call on our communities to continue fighting back and resisting state violence and repression.
In the face of growing efforts to police our communities, we must forge alliances to challenge systems of repression and build power in our communities.  Understanding prisons, borders, surveillance and policing as tools of global repression is critical to building and maintaining powerful movements for liberation.  Gentrification in our streets is colonialism elsewhere. The War on Terror we are living through today is a new formulation of the War on Drugs, and the violence inflicted on our communities necessitates a unified stance against all forms of repression from the US to Brazil, to the Philippines and Palestine.

  • We ask our allies and partners to adopt these principles and take a stand against the policing and repression of our communities.
56324
Jul
29
Tue
Occupy Forum: Theater of the Oppressed. @ Global Exchange, 2nd floor, near 16th St. BART
Jul 29 @ 1:00 am – 4:00 am
OccupyForum continues … 
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!! 

Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogueon all sides of these critically important issues!

OccupyForum presents

Jiwon Chung and friends:

Theatre of the Oppressed

Internal Oppression

As we’ve previously experienced, Theater of the Oppressed is a collection of games, techniques and exercises for using theater as a vehicle for personal and social transformation. It uses the dynamized human body and the charged theatrical space as a laboratory for exploring power, transforming oppression, and finding solutions to the fundamental problems of conflict, inequality, injustice and human suffering. Last time we focused on oppression by external power; this time we’ll explore how internal oppression controls us.

Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed has spread across the Americas and more than 70 countries worldwide. Theatre of the Oppressed is taught in classrooms and in the streets, bringing together students, scholars, administrators, policy makers, and community activists in the pursuit of social justice and human rights. Its use is particularly timely today given the worldwide attention to the rights of the indigenous peoples represented by the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007.

Jiwon Chung is a professional actor, director, and a key theorist of Theater of the Oppressed. He is the Artistic Director of Kairos Theater Ensemble, Adjunct professor at Starr King School at the Graduate Theological Union, and past President of the national organization for Theater of the Oppressed. Author of numerous books, articles, and performances, he is considered a pioneer in the integration of somatics, theater of the oppressed, and socially engaged art. The focus of his work is in the application of theater as a tool for social and political change, using Theater of the Oppressed to challenge, resist, and transform systemic oppression and structural violence and to redress large scale historical atrocity and injustice. His approach to performance and social change is informed by his background as veteran, martial artist, and 3 decades of Vipassana meditation.

Announcements will follow.

 

56319
Berkeley Post Office Defenders General Assembly. @ Downtown Berkeley Post Office steps.
Jul 29 @ 1:30 am – 2:30 am

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.

We’ve began the “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!  Here’s the front of the postcard. The campaign has been adopted by Postal Unions, the San Francisco Labor Council and has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, and has gone national!

staples-invasion-postcard_Page_1

All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privatization of services. The California Federation of Teachers passed a resolution in support of opposition to Staples.  Just recently the American Federation of Teachers, AFCSME and UNITE HERE did too. We are trying to get the Alameda Labor Council to pass a similar resolution.

Check out our correspondence with the President of the American Postal Workers Union, Mark Dimondstein. The APWU has been leading the charge against Staples.

For the last three+ weeks the sidewalk in front of Staples has been ‘occupied’ 24/7 by an intrepid band of San Francisco occupiers with solidarity and support from BPOD members, and they plan to continue there, distributing literature and convincing people not to shop at Staples, indefinitely.  Recently tents went up!  Go by and say ‘Hi!’ and help them out.

And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Advisory Commission on Historical Preservation came out with its report, recommending that sales of Historic Post offices be halted until the USPS conforms with historical preservation law. Here is our response.  Also the Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Historic Post Offices came out  recently – anything could happen now since Congress’ “request” that no historic Post Offices be sold until it had come out has been honored and no further Congressional request or mandate has come down. Come help us plan our response.

We have joined with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative on the ballot to rezone the Berkeley Post Office and other areas in the Historic District to prevent privatization, and also to insure a better Downtown Berkeley.  We succeeded in getting the necessary signatures; it will be voted on in November, but Tom Bates and the City Council have nefarious plans to undermine our coalition.

Encouraging articles are still coming out about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. The National Conference of Mayors recently endorsed Postal Banking.  Pew Research just held a day-long seminar on Postal Banking.

We are planning our next event, ‘Jam the Sale.’ Spread the work and come help us out!

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.

56255
Aug
2
Sat
CANCELED: Block The Boat for Gaza! @ Meet at West Oakland BART, or Berth 57 (see text)
Aug 2 @ 12:00 pm – 7:00 pm

UPDATE: The community groups that called for this action have reconsidered and this action has been called off.  There will still be a bit of coffee, etc. there at 5AM for folks that didn’t get the message.

In Solidarity with Palestinians, especially those beseiged and bombarded in Gaza, we will block 2 Israeli ZIM Ships from docking and unloading at the Port of Oakland.

It happened in 2010 and it will happen again! 

The Palestinian people are under attack from the state of Israel. Palestinian children are being murdered, their hospitals are being bombed, and Palestinian workers are being fired, beaten, arrested, and killed for striking in response. We call on a broad coalition of Pro-Palestinian labor, human rights, and anti-war organizations to join us for direct actions and pickets against the Israeli Shipping company ZIM!

To help organize or endorse the actions blocktheboat@riseup.net

Facebook event & RSVP.

___________________________________________
The Plan for August 2nd:

-Meet at West Oakland BART at 5 AM where we will march to SSA Berth 57 of the Port at 5:10 SHARP!

-If you can’t make the 5 am shift show meet at Berth 57 ASAP where we will be picketing all day!
________________________________________

Shuttles will be provided back and forth from the West Oakland Bart to the SSA Terminal.

There is no parking at the port! If driving, you can park at West Oakland BART for free, and/or shuttle folks to the port!

Bring food, water, layers, comfortable shoes, and picket signs!
___________________________________________
Use our HashTags!
#BlockTheBoat and #PicketForPalestine to spread the word!

Also #SF2Palestine and #Youth4Palestine to connect to local networks

Please copy, paste, and share this event!

___________________________________________

On Monday July 21st there was a General Strike in Israel protesting the bloody and violent occupation of Palestinian lands. We believe that the working class must take a stand to defend the human rights of Palestinians.

An Injury to One is An Injury to All!
Tear Down The Apartheid Wall!

 

Embedded image permalink

56323
Aug
7
Thu
Tell Pelosi: Stop Supporting Genocide in Gaza! @ San Francisco Federal Bldg
Aug 7 @ 12:00 am – 1:30 am

Protest & March
Tell Nancy Pelosi:
STOP Supporting Genocide in Gaza!
End the Siege of Gaza!
End All U.S. Aid to Israel!

(August 6th is also known as Hiroshima Day, the day the US dropped the nuclear bomb on tens of thousands of innocent civilians.)

The Palestinian people of Gaza have been heroically resisting in the face of the merciless U.S.-backed Israeli assault. More than 1,500 Palestinians have been killed and over 8,000 wounded, the overwhelming majority civilians.

Meanwhile, virtually every U.S. politician, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have been falling all over each other to express their support for this mass murder.

The U.S. has armed, funded and supplied the Israeli occupation forces. Just this week, the Pentagon announced that it will provide an emergency resupply of ammunition to the Israeli army as it has used up so much in its Gaza operation.

For more info, visit answersf.org
Download the flyer: http://www.answercoalition.org/sf/assets/pdfs/pelosi-flyer-081314.pdf

56375
Strike Debt: Politics of Debt Reading Group: Ellen Brown on BRICS and a better banking system. @ OMNI Collective in the basement - buzz to get in (near Lanesplitter Pizza on Telegraph)
Aug 7 @ 2:30 am – 4:30 am

Our next class will look at selected chapters in Ellen Brown’s new book The Public Banking Solution, mostly pertaining to BRICS countries and what a better bank could do for the world.

-Bill


 Ellen Brown on BRICs.pdf

56325
Aug
9
Sat
Richmond Day of Action: Our Power National Convening. @ The Kinder-Morgan Rail Yard Gate
Aug 9 @ 4:30 pm – Aug 10 @ 12:00 am

Held on the last day of the Our Power National Convening, the Day of Action will amplify the grassroots-led solutions of Richmond and other communities on the frontlines of energy injustice and social injustice. Richmond is part of a growing national campaign called the Our Power Campaign, where communities on the frontline of environmental pollution are asserting Our Power to build local living economies that work for people and the planet. Richmond-based organizations and the Our Power Campaign are now calling on everyone to join them in building this just transition. The Our Power Day of Action 2014 will raise up the voices of Richmond community members to realize their visions of the future. Together we can not only stop the expansion of dangerous, polluting refineries and pipelines, but begin a just transition away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy, good jobs, and healthy thriving communities.

The day’s schedule will include a community march to the Richmond Greenway, a community speak out/rally, a festival of community-led “solutions” inspired and anchored by some of the local work happening in Richmond, culminating in a solar powered concert called “unplug the empire” which will happen in partnership with Urban Tilth and others at the 16th St. entrance of the Richmond Greenway.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

9:30am – Opening Ceremony & March for a Just Transition
Location: The Kinder-Morgan Rail Yard Gate at 144 S. Garrard Blvd
Opposite the Garrard Commercial Center
Bus Line: 72M: S. Garrard Blvd and Canal Blvd stop

*** FREE SHUTTLES PROVIDED FROM RICHMOND BART STATION starting at 8:30am ***

The day’s events will commence with an opening ceremony in collaboration with Idle No More and the Native American Health Center at the Kinder Morgan Rail Yard. We will commemorate the 2nd anniversary of the Chevron refinery explosion that sent over 15,000 Richmond residents to the ER. We will ground ourselves by honoring the land we are on, illuminating the unjust and disproportionate impacts on frontline communities like Richmond posed by unjust extractive energy industry and corporate greed.

We will then march from the Kinder Morgan Rail Yard to the Richmond Greenway Trail, celebrating the notion of just transition away from dirty energy and corporate greed, to local living economies rooted in justice, sustainability and community resiliency.

See the full march route here.

12:30 P.M. – “Our Power, Our Voices” – Community Speak Out
Location: the Richmond Greenway Trail – 16th St entrance (between Ohio & Chanslor Ave)
The march will arrive at the 16th street entrance of the Richmond Greenway Trail  where a solar powered community speak out will be held, amplifying stories of resistance and resiliency of Richmond and other frontline communities at the junction of environmental, health, work and housing injustices.

Communities members of front-line Refinery communities, labor, health and housing justice organizations will speak out about the climate crises facing our communities and share their visions of community resiliency and a just and sustainable Richmond.

Speakers from the following communities and organizations will be present:
• Idle No More
• Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA)
• Richmond Environmental Justice Coalition
• Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN)
• Communities for a Better Environment (CBE)
• Crockett-Rodeo United to Defend the Environment
• Martinez Environmental Group
• Urban Tilth
• Black Mobilization, Organization and Education in Richmond (BMOER)
• California Nurses Association (CNA)
• Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) – Richmond
• Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (MST) / Landless Workers Movement
• Friends of the Earth, Mozambique

2 P.M. – 5 P.M. “Our Power, Our Harvest” – Community Solutions Festival & Unplug the Empire Solar Powered Concert
Location: the Richmond Greenway Trail – 16th St entrance (between Ohio & Chanslor Ave)
Demonstrations of Just Transition community-led strategies inspired and anchored by some of the local work in Richmond, including urban gardening, rainwater collection installation, a bike clinic, pop up health clinic for HIV testing, solar array demonstrations & workshops, live mural painting on the greenway, teach-ins and live music by Richmond and Bay Area artists (all powered by the sun!).

 

56369
Protest Staples Post Offices with APWU! @ Staples, Downtown Berkeley
Aug 9 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Join the continuing protests against Staples union-busting and Post Office management’s attempt to privatize the Post Office. Join he American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO and Berkeley Post Office defenders outside of Staples in Berkeley at an informational demo to keep the pressure on Staples and the Post Office.

In its continuing attack on postal workers and on the public service, the U. S. Postal Service has cut a deal with Staples to provide postal services at Stapes stores. Postal Jobs must be maintained as good jobs that pay a living wage.  Our communities need more, not less, living wage jobs!

Visit www.stopstaples.com to learn more and get involved.

 

56364
Aug
10
Sun
Urban Shield Protest Organizing. @ 3rd Floor Conference room
Aug 10 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
STOP URBAN SHIELD IN OAKLAND!

 
 

September 4-8, 2014, in Oakland, California, Urban Shield — a trade show and training exercise for SWAT teams and police agencies — will bring local, national and international law enforcement agencies together with defense industry contractors to provide training and introduce new weapons to police and security companies. Take a stand against the militarization of our community.

Decrease violence in our communities by ending the militarization of the police.
From schools, the border, prisons, to the streets, our communities have become sites of repression and violence at the hands of law enforcement.  Ever increasing militarization of our communities has created a culture of surveillance and repression targeting poor communities of color.  Community-led solutions addressing poverty and the violence of policing are the best ways to ensure genuine safety, health, and wellbeing for people most vulnerable to state violence.

  • We demand the City of Oakland defund all activities related to Urban Shield
  • We demand that all city agencies withdraw their participation in Urban Shield.

Our communities refuse to be testing grounds for tactics of global repression.
Local police departments collaborate with federal agencies to share information and tactics through vehicles such as fusion centers to surveil and control targeted communities. These same agencies are also exchanging policing and repression tactics with international security officers including but not limited to the Apartheid State of Israel. The import and export of technology and tactics includes purchasing weapons, training local police forces, and sharing strategies through activities such as Urban Shield. Our neighborhoods have become laboratories in which to test international and domestic warfare.

  • We demand an end to all City collaborations with the Apartheid State of Israel.
  • We call on the City of Oakland to issue a report on all collaborations between the Oakland Police Department and international law enforcement agencies.
  • We call on the City of Oakland to reject all US wars and occupations here or abroad.

Community Self-determination
Our communities know what is required to address the social, economic and political problems we face.  Bay Area residents should have decision-making power over how and where resources are allocated in order to build stronger and sustainable communities.

  • We demand that Bay Area residents have decision-making power in the process to determine priorities for public safety and emergency preparedness.
  • We demand that the City of Oakland invest in community-based programs proven to decrease violence and harm instead of in the increased militarization of its police force and emergency services.

We call on our communities to continue fighting back and resisting state violence and repression.
In the face of growing efforts to police our communities, we must forge alliances to challenge systems of repression and build power in our communities.  Understanding prisons, borders, surveillance and policing as tools of global repression is critical to building and maintaining powerful movements for liberation.  Gentrification in our streets is colonialism elsewhere. The War on Terror we are living through today is a new formulation of the War on Drugs, and the violence inflicted on our communities necessitates a unified stance against all forms of repression from the US to Brazil, to the Philippines and Palestine.

  • We ask our allies and partners to adopt these principles and take a stand against the policing and repression of our communities.
56368
Aug
12
Tue
Berkeley Post Office Defenders General Assembly. @ Downtown Berkeley Post Office
Aug 12 @ 1:30 am – 2:30 am

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.

On July 29th, at our invite, Ralph Nader spoke on the steps of the Berkeley Post Office against privatization and corporatism. Watch and listen to his talk here.

We’ve began the “Don’t Shop at Staples” campaign with some awesome… what else? … postcards to send to Staples management!  Here’s the front of the postcard. The campaign has been adopted by Postal Unions, the San Francisco Labor Council and has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO, and has gone national!

staples-invasion-postcard_Page_1

All four Postal Unions have joined together to support maintaining full service, public Post Offices in every community, with expansion to include postal banking, and to oppose subcontracting and privatization of services. The California Federation of Teachers passed a resolution in support of opposition to Staples.  Just recently the American Federation of Teachers, AFCSME and UNITE HERE did too.

Check out our correspondence with the President of the American Postal Workers Union, Mark Dimondstein. The APWU has been leading the charge against Staples.

For most of July the sidewalk in front of Staples was ‘occupied’ 24/7 by an intrepid band of San Francisco occupiers with solidarity and support from BPOD members distributing literature and convincing people not to shop at Staples.

And we need to be prepared if the Post Office announces a sale! The Advisory Commission on Historical Preservation came out with its report, recommending that sales of Historic Post offices be halted until the USPS conforms with historical preservation law. Here is our response.  Also the Office of Inspector General’s report on the sale of Historic Post Offices came out  recently – anything could happen now since Congress’ “request” that no historic Post Offices be sold until it had come out has been honored and no further Congressional request or mandate has come down. Come help us plan our response.

We have joined with other activists in Berkeley to put a ballot initiative on the ballot to rezone the Berkeley Post Office and other areas in the Historic District to prevent privatization, and also to insure a better Downtown Berkeley.  We succeeded in getting the necessary signatures; it will be voted on in November, but Tom Bates and the City Council have nefarious plans to undermine our coalition.

Encouraging articles are still coming out about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked. The National Conference of Mayors recently endorsed Postal Banking.  Pew Research held a day-long seminar on Postal Banking.

 

We are planning our next event, ‘Jam the Sale.’ Spread the work and come help us out!

THINGS ARE HAPPENING!

AND CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE.

56381
Aug
14
Thu
City of Oakland Privacy Committee Meeting @ Oakland City Hall Council Chambers
Aug 14 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Meeting of the City of Oakland’s “Privacy and Data Retention Ad Hoc Advisory Committee” – open to the public.

When:
2nd & 4th Thursdays
6:00pm – 8:00pm

 

Where:
Council Chambers
Oakland City Hall
14th & Broadway

 

Read the announcement from the City of Oakland City Administrator’s Weekly Report (April 25, 2014):

This committee was created by City Council action during the discussions earlier in the year about the Port Domain Awareness Center (DAC). The goal of the DAC is to improve readiness to prevent, respond to and recover from major emergencies in the Oakland region and ensure better multi-agency coordination across the larger San Francisco Bay Area. The goal of the Privacy and Data Retention Policy is to ensure there are safeguards to protect against potential misuse of the data or violations of individuals’ privacy rights and civil liberties. The meeting is open to the public. For questions about the Ad Hoc Committee, please contact Joe DeVries, Assistant to the City

We need to show up to these meetings and pressure the City to adopt a privacy policy that makes privacy a priority, not only “security” or administrative convenience.

StopTheDAC

55981
Aug
15
Fri
Keep Berkeley Taser Free! @ Grassroots House
Aug 15 @ 2:00 am – 4:00 am

Yes, its time for another Taser meeting! Come and get some literature and STICKERS! to distribute. We have a lot so please help us spread the word!

We have a kick-ass line up for the September forum and now we need a flyer and publicity to make sure that the place is packed! We can also strategize about other ways to make the debate happen.

I also encourage people to check out TruthNotTasers.blogspot.org

They claim that the number of taser related deaths is closer to 800. See what you think.

New endorsements include: Alameda County Green Party .


AGENDA

1. Forum- publicity/flyer/interviews in advance
2. Tabling opportunities
3. Paul’s taser video preview
4. Pressuring the candidates…how?

56392
Aug
16
Sat
Oakland California, to Ferguson, Missouri
Aug 16 @ 1:00 am – 3:00 am
  1. Oakland California, to Ferguson, Missouri
  2. FUCK THE POLICE MARCH
  3. 8/15/2014
  4. Meet @ 14 and Broadway in Oakland
  5. 6:00pm
  6. Bring Marshmallows
  7. 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed by police and they left him for dead in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri.
  8. To the good people of Ferguson, take heart – and take your streets. You are not alone, we will take the streets here in Oakland.
  9. The time has come for more than simple justice for these atrocities. The time has come to draw a line in the sand and say “no more dead kids”, no more police killings and beatings. Anonymous is drawing a line in the sand, and that line runs right down the middle of Main Street Ferguson, Missouri. Police impunity ends with the barbaric death of Mike Brown.
  10. Occupy every square inch of your city. Open your homes and help in any way you can the protesters who will come to your city from every part of Missouri and the USA. Businesses and householders that are near protest rallies, open your WiFi routers so that live streamers and other independent journalists can use the Internet connections. Feed each other, keep each other safe – and stay in the streets until we are totally victorious in all our demands.
  11. Oakland California to Ferguson, Missouri
  12. FUCK THE POLICE MARCH
  13. Wear All Black

Another listing.

56389
ALERT!!! TIME CHANGE!!! STOP ISRAEL @ THE PORT @ Meet at West Oakland BART, or Berth 57 (see text)
Aug 16 @ 10:00 pm – 10:00 pm

ALERT! ALERT! TIME CHANGE TO 3:00 PM. (ORIGINALLY 5:00 AM)

Stop Israel at the Port!
Zionism isn’t welcome in our town!

Block the Israeli Zim Ship at the Port of Oakland
Saturday, August 16th
3:00 PM – meet at West Oakland Bart and march to Berth 57

STOP THE SIEGE ON GAZA! 
END THE COLONIAL OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE! 
RIGHT OF RETURN FOR ALL PALESTINIAN REFUGEES! 
FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS! 
BOYCOTT, DIVEST, SANCTION!

[Facebook Page]

 

Facebook
Web site

56366
Strike Debt Bay Area Meeting: Ideas Into Action. @ Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater, jsut outside City Hall
Aug 16 @ 11:00 pm – Aug 17 @ 1:30 am
Strike Debt Bay Area’s next meeting will begin at 4:00 pm (an hour later than previously) and run until 6 or 6:30. Come and help us draw awareness to and fight unjust debt!

 

This is a great opportunity to get updates on SDBA’s many projects:
 

  • organizing for public banking in Oakland
  • securing funding from the City of Vallejo for nonprofit check cashing and public finance study initiatives through the participatory budgeting process
  • saving the Berkeley Post Office and stopping the Staples non-union takeover of good Post Office jobs
  • working with the City of Richmond and other municipalities for eminent domain seizure of underwater mortgages from the banksters
  • participating in Occupy San Francisco’s third anniversary convergence
  • ongoing study group
  • distribution of Debt Resisters’ Operations Manual
  • and much more.
 Also check out our website, our twitter feed, and our Facebook page.
56273