Calendar

On Luis’s 9th month commemoration, SAT. JANUARY 7th 10am-1pm, we will celebrate the Mexican tradition of sharing Rosca de Reyes by breaking bread and drinking hot chocolate, and expressing generosity towards our homeless encampment neighbors by bringing a few basic material gifts for them (e.g. socks.)

For our Coalition, this is also the critical start to the next three months of organizing leading up to the 1 year anniversary of Luis’s killing. Let’s get there together with his family in San Francisco and Yucatán! We’ll announce the first court date in the civil case on Jan 7th too.

For this event we are teaming up with individuals and associations who already work on anti-police brutality, indigenous rights, immigrant rights and unhoused/homeless outreach to collaborate with us.

If you would like to help out, please write to justice4luis@gmail.com

Starline is hosting a benefit gig for the Immediate Oakland Fire Relief Fund, featuring Rituals of Mine, Wax Idols, Anticon artist JEL, Kool A.D. with Cult Days, and more.

More info: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/rituals-of-mine-ghost-ship-benefit/Content?oid=5072561

Join AROC in Taking Action to Stop Urban Shield!

On Tuesday, January 10th, the Stop Urban Shield Coalition will be rallying to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors meeting, where the Sheriff is set to present on the militarized policing program and weapons expo Urban Shield. At the last meeting, the Sheriff’s department flat out lied to both the Supervisors and the general public, claiming that they were not applying for the federal funding that they use to hold Urban Shield. We knew otherwise, and a public records request proved us right.

With a Trump presidency right around the corner, stopping Urban Shield in Alameda County is a key local step to resisting the threats posed by him and his administration. Alameda County must stop sponsoring the racist, xenophobic, and lethal strategies, tactics, and technologies being spread by Urban Shield. We hope that you will join us in this fight, as it is now more important than ever.

• Come out on Tuesday, January 10th for our rally and press conference at the Alameda County Board of Supervisors Meeting. We want to pack the room to show that our communities reject Urban Shield and everything it represents. 10am, Alameda County Administration Building, 1221 Oak St, Oakland, CA 94612. [Facebook]

• Call the Board of Supervisors on Monday, January 9th. Click here for contact info and a script that you can use.

• Are you an Alameda County Resident? Sign our petition, and share it with your networks.

This action, sponsored by Families Against Fossil Fuels, will call for “No Fossil Fascism for Our Kids.” Families will also march to the office of Phil Tagami, the developer who is now suing Oakland for blocking a coal export terminal. Event will include activities for children, drumming, and dancing.

OccupyForum presents

Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!

The Trump Presidency and the Crisis of United States Imperialism

Almost daily since the 2016 election, the Obama administration and the Democratic Party Establishment has intensified its anti-Russia propaganda ­– while President-elect Trump claims that he plans to normalize relations with Russia.

To explain the significance of that policy divergence,

Professor George Wright will, first, outline the current geo-political situation in relationship to the United States and Russia; second, contrast Trump’s proposed foreign policy to Obama and Clinton’s approach, with emphasis on Russia policy; third, analyze the (transparent) intra-ruling class struggle for control of United States foreign policy currently in play exhibited by the differences over how to relate to Russia; and, fourth, speculate on the political implications of that intra-ruling class struggle as it relates to the crisis of United States Imperialism.

George Wright’s professional experience includes teaching Political Science at California State University, Chico between 1969 and 2003. He also taught History at Skyline Community College between 2004 and 2013. His major research interests include: United States Politics, International Political Economy, and the Politics of International Sport. He has a Ph.D. from the Department of Politics at the University of Leeds (UK).

Time will be allotted for announcements.

Donations to Occupy Forum to cover costs are encouraged; no one turned away!

Press Conference and Rally

Standing Up, Fighting Back: Moving Forward Against Trump and Militarism in the New Year

From the disturbing images of police repressing indigenous resistance in Standing Rock to the often unreported near-daily SWAT raids in Black and Brown neighborhoods in our cities, we know that police militarization is a violent strategy of containment, control, and warfare. But we also know that all over the world, people are fighting back. The Stop Urban Shield coalition sees its work as a tangible and winnable step toward diminishing the destructive impacts of police militarization that serves to destabilize our communities. In 2016 the organizations that make us Stop Urban Shield have been proud to come together with others to educate ourselves about the shady path of resources and power involved in police militarization, to strategize to disrupt that toxic flow, and to take bold and inspiring actions against warfare in our neighborhoods and cities.

In 2016 many hours of outreach and building with community member and organizations culminated in a powerful direct action and civil disobedience against the Urban Shield weapons expo in Pleasanton in September. This mobilization disrupted both the expo and some of the war games crucial to an increase in police militarization. Building on the momentum of that action, we were also able compel elected officials in Alameda County to finally call critical questions about Urban Shield and the unaccountable and untransparent power exercised by the Sheriff’s office in controlling this program. All of this work was held together by different volunteer members of our coalition thinking together to research, analyze, understand, and critique Urban Shield. We are proud to this year to have issued our report Urban Shield: Abandoning Hope Not Build Hope as a strong educational foundation to our work.

Moving into 2017, people are all too aware that the destruction being proposed by the incoming Trump regime will require a redoubling of our efforts to come together, to defend our communities, and to fight back. Trump’s campaign has been a platform of fear-mongering and hate – calling for increased policing, mass deportations, surveillance, registries, detention and deportation of immigrant and Muslim communities, and has even labelled social movements like Black Lives Matter as terrorist organizations. The communities that will be highly targeted and affected under a Trump administration are the same ones targeted by policing and militarization programs like Urban Shield.

Stopping Urban Shield in Alameda County is a key local step to resisting the threats posed by Trump. Alameda County must stop sponsoring the racist, xenophobic, and lethal strategies, tactics, and technologies being spread by Urban Shield. Ending Urban Shield is more important than ever.

Just days after the Start of 2017 we invite you to take action to stop Urban Shield.

On January 10, 2017, due to community pressure, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors will conduct a long overdue information session on Urban Shield. We know that the Sheriff will use every trick in his book to rationalize and defend this violent program. We need as many of our people there to raise our voices and share the true impacts of Urban Shield and police militarization, and to compel the Board to take the only rational and humane step possible: Stop Urban Shield.

JOIN US!

We got word late yesterday, that Alameda County is racing forward with a terrible plan next Tuesday to spend over $61 million taxpayer dollars to build a new “mental health unit” at Santa Rita Jail. We need you to say NO to jail expansion and YES to community-based mental health care.

The Alameda Jail Fight Coalition has been organizing to stop the jail expansion for over a year, and we need you next Tuesday! Join us, January 10th to stop the Alameda Board of Supervisors from selecting a contractor to build the massive expansion project. We will continue the fight no matter what, but this may be one of the last opportunities to stop this ineffective and wasteful plan.

We critically need your support, to pressure the Supervisors to prioritize alternatives to meet Alameda’s urgent mental health-related needs. Bring your voice next Tuesday.

In addition to the jail expansion, Supervisors will also vote on funding for the militarized policing program and weapons expo called Urban Shield, as well as and the implementation a county employment program that would provide jobs for people impacted by incarceration. Taking one step forward with a jobs program and two steps back by funding policing and caging, is not a formula for progress. Throw down with us next Tuesday!

A speak out against the restarting of more than 40 of Japan’s nuclear power plants. The government has told the residents of Fukushima that it is safe but independent surveys show that it is still highly contaminated. Over 175 children have already been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and this is expanding. While the government is subsidizing Tokyo Electric Power Company which has had to be nationalized the Abe government is telling families and children that they have to return to Fukushima or their subsidy will be cut. The are economically pressuring the refugees to return to a dangerous contaminated area in order to pretend that they have “decontaminated” Fukushima. Even former prime ministers Koizumi and Kan are against restarting the nuclear power plants but the government is pushing ahead.

Railroad workers who area with rank and file rail unions Doro-Mito (National Railway Motive Power Union of Mito) and Doro-Chiba (National Railway Motive Power Union of Chiba) are also protesting the plans to re-open the rail lines even with the contamination and there have been strikes and protests against this policy.

They also have passed a “secrecy law” that is being used to intimidate and silence reporters and citizens from speaking out and investigating the growing and continuing Fukushima disaster. The cost is monumental yet they are taking action that will lead to another Fukushima with Japan being located on the “ring of fire” where massive earthquakes are certain to hit again.
The Abe government also told the International Olympic Committee and the people of the world that the Fukushima “problem” had been solved. This flagrant and blatant falsification has been exposed again and again following the declaration from the Abe government including the continuing massive costs of supposedly “cleaning up” the catastrophe.

The Abe government is also preparing a “conspiracy bill” that will be used to silence all those who even opposed nuclear power. The people of the United States need to stand with the people of Japan in their efforts to keep the plants shut down and the protection of families and children in Fukushima.

Speak Out and Rally initiated by
No Nukes Action Committee
http://nonukesaction.wordpress.com/

“Meaningful change can only happen with organizing that puts ordinary people at the center of their own struggle: there are no shortcuts to lasting social change.”
A scholar and longtime organizer in the student, environmental and labor movements, McAlevey makes a compelling case that the gains of the two most successful social movements–labor and civil rights–gained their power from mass organizing, a strategy today’s progressives have mostly abandoned in favor of shallow mobilization or advocacy.  In order to win, progressive movements need strong unions built from bottom-up organizing strategies that place the power for change in the hands of workers and ordinary people at the community level.Join us at the UC Berkeley Labor Center for a conversation with Jane McAlevey to talk about her new book, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age.

This event is free and open to the public.  Space is limited; please register in advance.  Books will be available for purchase at the event and are also available online from Oxford University Press.

Jane F. McAlevey is a Post Doctoral Fellow in the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School.  She is also the author of Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement

Come out to support the family of Sean Moore, who survived shooting by SFPD on January 6, 2017. Police need to use mental health professionals and their deescalation training instead of guns. The town hall is used to placate community members concerned about police violence and to promote the myth that additional weapons such as tasers would prevent future abuses of power. In fact, tasers kill.

Announcement of Town Hall from Ingleside Police Station

http://inglesidepolicestation.blogspot.com/2017/01/jan-6-2017.html
Town Hall Meeting

A town hall meeting will be held on Thursday, January 12, 2017 at
5:30 PM to provide the community with an update on the investigation of the officer involved shooting that occurred on the 500 block of Capitol Avenue on Friday, January 6th.

This “Tale of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits” is Greg Palast’s documentary about steering an election through calculated racist disenfranchisement. Beginning with the 2000 election and continuing to the 2016 campaign, Palast interviews those who’ve been victimized, identifies schemes and villains, and presents the case for powerful corruption of the election system in the United States.

Sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice Ctee as part of our Conscientious Projector series.

Wheelchair accessible.

Pray 4 Oakland has partnered with the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office & Clean Slate Program as well as America Works Inc. to help community members clean their criminal records & obtain jobs!

We have the ability to assist residents reduce convictions, clear some criminal records, terminate probation early, seal juvenile records and more!

America Works Inc.specializes in job placement for “hard to employ” individuals.

East Bay Works will be present to speak about their job opportunities for people with criminal records/backgrounds.

The Traffic Amnesty program will be closing in March 2017 – we will have forms available for pick-up and completion at the workshop.

Please join us for this AMAZING opportunity at a SECOND CHANCE!

The People Get Ready conference is just a week away! We hope this conference will be an empowering place for organizers and activists to think together to deepen our understanding of the political moment and ways to struggle for shifts in power.

SESSIONS:
Clampdown: Understanding Fascism, Imperialism, and White Supremacy

Trying Times: Understanding the Impacts of Neoliberalism under Trump

Are You Going to Go My Way?: Considering Alliances, Fronts, and other Left Formations

Rocksteady: Exploring the Radical Potential of Community Defense

Many Rivers to Cross: Navigating Opportunities and Tensions between International and Domestic Organizing

Confirmed Speakers Include:

Phil Hutchings
Linda Evans
Alicia Jrapko
Emily Lee
Kung Feng
Liz Derias-Tyehimba
Tongo Eisen-Martin
Greg Morozumi
Corrina Gould
Lara Kiswani
Max Elbaum
Maari Maitrey
Alex Sanchez
Pierre LaBossiere
Lily Fahsi-Haskell

With More to Come…

This event is wheelchair accessible and free to the public. No registration is necessary.

Childcare will be provided.

POETS PROTEST AGAINST TRUMP
What: A Nation-wide action by poets from Austin to Chicago, New Orleans to St. Louis, San Francisco to Sacramento.
When: January 15, 2017 at 1PM (Local time).
Where: Oakland CA, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland CA

Contact: Paul Corman-Roberts (pabs67@yahoo.com)

On Sunday, January 15, at 1PM (local times) in protest against a Donald Trump presidency, poets across the United States will mount readings on the front steps of their respective city halls (as well as other venues).

Citizens from all walks of life are welcome to come and have their say in talk or poetic form. The choice of City Hall front steps for the events is to underscore the citizen-run nature of the event. This is not a cultural happening: it is a citizen uprising in verse. Donald Trump’s presidency represents the first American dictatorship in this nation’s history and must be stopped at all costs. With the Fourth Estate under seige it is now up to writers, poets, artists and musicians to join in and put our shoulders to the wheel. Together we can offer the companionshp and courage to be found in great verse. There is no Post-Truth Era for the world of poetry.

The effort is the brainchild of poet and author Alan Kaufman, editor of the bestselling The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and the poet Michael Rothenberg, director of One Hundred Thousand Poets For Change.

The Bay Area Harmonica Club is organizing a special night of feasting and music benefiting Snubbed by the Hub Poor Tour 2016/ the Homeless Camp that gets raided every few weeks or so.

This is about Building Community and Solidarity, with the “People’s Instrument”. NOTAFLAF…

6PM Dinner & Music featuring the harps…

*(get on board that train with) Bay Area Harmonica Club
*Mudfence
*Andrea Prichett (of Leave it to Diva) & Ayr
Tin Sandwich, harmonica trio (our mentors)
*Dennis D Banjoman (Traditional American & Songs from the Sea)
*Vincent Gordon (from Reverie, Solo guitar and harmonica)
*Missin Cousins

Keep posted for updates & more TBA!
Harmonicas for the Homeless for Health & Happiness