Calendar
Come learn about continuing developments in the battle save the Berkeley Post Office and the Postal Service from privatization, support our Occupiers and help us plan our next steps in opposition to the theft of our public commons.
The postal service wanted to sell the post office to Hudson-Mcdonald, a local developer. The City of Berkeley sued the post office to stop the sale. Hudson-Mcdonald backed out of the deal in early December.
There was a hearing in Federal Court on December 11th. There was another hearing in March 26th. Federal Judge William Alsup decided to dismiss the lawsuit because the Postal Service says it is not currently selling the building. But we’re not fooled. The Postal Service could “find” a buyer at any moment. Fortunately, the Judge ordered the Postal Service to provide 42 days notice before any sale, so that the lawsuit could be refiled.
Check out our response to the Judge’s order.
Check out the Community Garden at the Post Office.
Also check out our website and the Save the Berkeley Post Office website, and First they Came for the Homeless Facebook for updates.
BPOD is an offshoot of Strike Debt Bay Area, which itself is an offshoot of Occupy Oakland and a chapter of the national Strike Debt movement, which is an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street.
OptikAllusions is a digital filmmaking collective dedicated to social change, based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to help each other tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We make films in a spirit of collaboration and solidarity, share a lending library of film equipment for creative projects, organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops.
If you’d like to make videos or want to become a member, join us for our weekly meeting and a workshop!
We usually, meet briefly and then work on projects. It’s open to all!
https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Optik_Allusions
The Anti-Police Terrorism Project is a project of the ONYX Organizing Committee that in coalition with other organizations like the Alan Blueford Center for Justice, Workers World and Healthy Hoodz is working to develop a replicable and sustainable model to end police terrorism in this country.
We are led by the most impacted communities but are a multi-racial, mutil-generational coalition.
We meet the 3rd Wednesday of every month.
March from the Mission District (no location provided) to SF City Hall to the “Counter Gala.”
Organized by Stop Mass Incarceration.
“Our communities are safer and stronger when we have access to stable and supportive housing, quality healthcare and food, empowering education and employment, and freedom.” -War Resisters League
San Francisco and Mayor Ed Lee will host the 83rd U.S. Conference of Mayors summer session June 19-22, 2015, the first time since 1997. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, about 200 mayors from across the country are expected to attend, along with 200 to 300 support staff and roughly the same amount of corporate sponsors. Mayors also often bring their spouses and families to the summer meeting. The San Francisco meeting will be held at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square hotel.
This an opportunity for the Mayors to hear from the people!
The Conference of Mayors is coming to SF. Mayor Ed Lee is getting excited to play the proud host while ordinary San Franciscans struggle with a housing crisis and an epidemic of racist policing.
The mayors of this country, many of them Democrats, who posture like progressives, are administering austerity and managing a police form that kills every day.
Come to the rally and march to protest the Mayor’s Conference.
International Socialist Organization.
The mayors plan to party hearty while cops continue to kill Black and transgender men, women, and youth across the country. They will be boarding buses to attend a “Color of Life Global Celebration” at the California Academy of Sciences. Join with APTP to dampen their party.
Across the country mayors have allowed their police departments to become heavily militarized, with weapons and equipment provided by the U.S. military. They’ve invited repressive regimes like Israel to provide their departments with training. Israeli troops act as an occupying army to the Palestinian people, much like many police forces in the U.S. act with regard to Black communities and other communities of color.
We demand that the assault rifles, tanks, drones, and other military style offensive weapons be removed from our cities’ police departments. Instead we demand complete control over the police by the communities which they are supposed to serve.
Open Circle, first and foremost, is an opportunity to build community with one another. Secondly, it is a space to reflect and collaborate on strategies and actions to bring an end to these egregious crimes.
Please join us for the Potluck at 3:00 pm followed by the Open Circle at 3:30 pm. Please bring a dish or snacks to share!
~ Open circle will begin at 3:30 with a speaker who has lost their loved one to police terror, followed by checkins and updates from other families present.
~ Reflection and dialogue on how we can help support them in their fight for justice.
~ Brief announcements for upcoming events.
~ Working groups: tbd
Solidarity is afoot so bring your ideas!
Notes from last meeting:
omnicommons.org/connect
The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly builds community and power among those who seek higher wages and better work life conditions for area workers.
We meet every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month at the SEIU Local 1000 union hall in downtown Oakland at 6:30 PM.
Our work together encompasses: (1) the concerns of precarious, contingent, and care workers; (2) current campaigns to improve wages for low-wage workers; and (3) efforts by unionized workers and unions to improve wages and quality of work life. We share stories and information in an egalitarian and participatory way to build relationships and build the movement.
We look forward to learning with you and making change for the better.
Please love and support one another. We have a duty to fight. We have a duty to win.
OptikAllusions is a digital filmmaking collective dedicated to social change, based in Oakland, California. We share resources, skills and knowledge to help each other tell stories that might otherwise remain untold. We make films in a spirit of collaboration and solidarity, share a lending library of film equipment for creative projects, organize free, at cost or donation-based workshops.
If you’d like to make videos or want to become a member, join us for our weekly meeting and a workshop!
We usually, meet briefly and then work on projects. It’s open to all!
https://omnicommons.org/wiki/Optik_Allusions
Meet at the Simon Bolivar Statue in UN Plaza (Hyde Street between McAllister & Market) – a short walk from Civic Center BART in San Francisco
A draconian and racist policy of ethnic cleansing in the Dominican Republic threatens a quarter of a million people with deportation to Haiti. Second and third generation Dominicans who are classified as Haitian have been stripped of citizenship and declared “migrants.” Vigilante mobs and legal authorities alike are pushing people out of their homes and taking their property. Anyone who is Black and under the age of 85 may be classified as Haitian, even if they were born in the DR and have no ties to Haiti. They are being expelled from the country and made stateless.
We join with individuals and organizations across the country, the Caribbean and the globe to denounce this injustice and demand the government of the Dominican Republic reverse its unjust law and end forced expulsion of its citizens. No Human Being Is Illegal.
At the same time, we cannot ignore or fail to denounce our own government which under the Obama Administration by 2014 was responsible for the mass deportation of over two million immigrants and the annual incarceration of half a million people in horrific detention facilities awaiting immigration proceedings across the country. No Human Being Is Illegal.
Updates on our progress, organizing strategies and developing work plan to get Public Safety Oversight measure on the Nov 2016 ballot
Join Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub, and other invasions of privacy by our benighted City Government, to support privacy ordinances now being considered by the Oakland City Council emerging from the effort to fight the DAC, and help in other fights to preserve and restore our privacy around the Bay Area, in California and nationwide.
OPWG was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network, and its members helped draft the Privacy Policy that puts further restrictions on the now Port-restricted DAC.
Stop by and learn how you can help guard Oakland’s right not to be spied on by the government & if you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy Working Group email listserv, send an email to:
oaklandprivacyworkinggroup-subscribe AT lists.riseup.net
For more information on the DAC check out
Pull the Plug on Jail Expansion
Where: 1500 Capitol Avenue, First Floor Auditorium, Sacramento, CA 95814
Who: Board of State and Community Corrections
Join community members from across California as we come together to stop the funding stream for new jails.
Over 40 of California’s 58 counties have plans to build new jails. While some of them claim to be for treatment or to just replace existing jails, we know we won’t be able to continue to pass sentencing reform or bring our loved ones home unless we stop building cages. These projects put our counties in fiscal jeopardy, and they also undercut the resources available for the life-affirming programs and services that can get people out of jails and keep them out. And with the passage of Prop.47 we know there is no need to build more jails!
Come to Sacramento and help us show that communities across the state are united: No New Jails!
Governor Brown, who continues to position himself as a climate leader while his own permissive dirty drilling and fracking policies undercut his efforts – and also while these policies poison untold quantities of water during an epic drought, will be speaking at a ceremony commemorating the signing of the UN Charter. We’re going to be outside to remind him that climate leaders don’t frack – and responsible leaders don’t poison our water!
Join us in San Francisco as we put pressure the Governor for a fracking ban! Help us send a clear message: TRUE climate leaders don’t create policies that further contribute to climate change, nor do they allow the poisoning of our precious water resources during an historic drought. Period.
Bring noisemakers, signs, and your friends! See you there!
On Jan 20, 2015, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office released a 3-page report completely exonerating Officer Wallace Jensen of any wrongdoing in the shooting of Pedie Perez:
“We conclude that … the officer acted in lawful self- defense, Based on our review, we believe the officer’s actions constitute Justifiable Homicide.”
The District Attorney’s report states that the office must be guided by the “law that states that the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Jensen’s actions were not in self-defense” but the report in no way even discusses two eye witnesses that claim that his actions were absolutely NOT in self-defense. Their narratives have been excluded, but in fact their testimony should be considered by a trier of fact who should make the determination of whether they are credible in a legal proceeding. At least two eye witnesses contradict Officer Jensen’s story, providing ample grounds to initiate a prosecution of the officer for murder in this case.
We reject the coverup and call for openness and transparency with an independent investigation and an independent prosecutor.
PLEASE COME to the Rally and March, if you can…NO JUSTICE . NO PEACE…ALL LIVES MATTER…END POLICE BRUTALITY and WORSE YET…END MURDER, by KILLER-COPS! Wallace Jensen belongs in JAIL…he had absolutely NO REASON to KILL Pedie…”JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE”…We Don’t Think So!
Direct action against Sprouts Farmers Market in the South Bay.
Be there or be square.
Location, Time TBA.
Bring a wooden spoon.
Email occupyfarm@gmail.com for more details
Defenders of the forests of the East Bay Hills will be meeting to discuss and organize this weekend. Please spread the word and come join us!
If you’ve not signed up on the East Bay Hills Forest Defense discussion and organizing list, please do so here (or get in touch if you need help signing up): https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/eastbayhills
Come learn about continuing developments in the battle save the Berkeley Post Office and the Postal Service from privatization, support our Occupiers and help us plan our next steps in opposition to the theft of our public commons.
The postal service wanted to sell the post office to Hudson-Mcdonald, a local developer. The City of Berkeley sued the post office to stop the sale. Hudson-Mcdonald backed out of the deal in early December.
There was a hearing in Federal Court on December 11th. There was another hearing in March 26th. Federal Judge William Alsup decided to dismiss the lawsuit in April because the Postal Service says it is not currently selling the building. But we’re not fooled. The Postal Service could “find” a buyer at any moment. Fortunately, the Judge ordered the Postal Service to provide 42 days notice before any sale, so that the lawsuit could be refiled.
Check out our response to the Judge’s order.
Check out the Community Garden at the Post Office.
In the latest developments, Berkeley has Declared War on Its Homeless, and an ordinance criminalizing the homeless wil come before the City Council on June 30th. (See here and here.)
Also check out our website and the Save the Berkeley Post Office website, and First they Came for the Homeless Facebook for updates.
BPOD is an offshoot of Strike Debt Bay Area, which itself is an offshoot of Occupy Oakland and a chapter of the national Strike Debt movement, which is an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street.
TWO SQUARE FEET!
That’s the amount of bedding you’d be allowed if you had to sleep on a sidewalk in Berkeley under new anti-homeless laws the City Council will consider on June 30th. Also, you’d have to move it every hour. And it would only be permitted if you were “in transit.”
Shelters are always full. The parks are closed at night. How well would you sleep if you were homeless in Berkeley?
JOIN THE EMERGENCY PROTEST!
Called by SAFE (Streets Are For Everyone)
After the protest and before the item comes up on the agenda, join fellow activists:
June 30 is the big day. And we need everyone we can get there. We’ve tried a lot in advance we’ve sent postcards, we’ve had a couple of good actions, we’ve met with (or are about to meet with) the Councilmembers but it may come down to what happens in City Council chambers Tuesday evening.
Tuesday’s agenda is a heavy one: We’re item #14. Before us come the entirety of the City budget, and the Campanile view vote. Both of these will draw crowds. We can expect our item to start late, and to keep us there late.
Fortunately, Councilmember Worthington has reserved a respite room at the top of New City Hall (the one on Milvia). We’ll be sharing it with the Adeline Corridor and Campanile folks. In the hours leading up to our item, we’ll have movies, maybe music, perhaps a teach-in or two, and food. If you want to enjoy yourself while waiting for our item, you can do that. If you want to nap until our item’s up, you can do that, too. Additionally, there are other ways you can support our item throughout the budget and Campanile portions of the meeting. It’s going to be a long night, but we really need everyone we can get there.