Unions play a contradictory role in advancing a progressive agenda, and nowhere is this more true than in electoral politics.
Despite decades worth of betrayals by the Democratic Party, unions are the party’s most loyal foot soldiers and some of its biggest donors — even for candidates that are tepid at best when it comes to working-class issues. When the politician who fought harder for the working class than anyone we’ve seen in our lifetimes, Bernie Sanders, sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, almost the entire labor movement lined up behind his corporate-funded opponent Hillary Clinton. The same has been true for other candidates backed by the Left since Sanders, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cynthia Nixon. While some progressive unions supported Jovanka Beckles — a democratic socialist and champion of unions and the working class — in her 2018 campaign against billionaire-funded, centrist Democrat Buffy Wicks, many other unions backed Wicks.
Why does labor seem to make these wrongheaded decisions over and over? And how should socialists respond to them? Join East Bay DSA and Jacobin editor Micah Uetricht for a discussion on how socialists should approach unions and electoral politics.
Micah Uetricht is based in Chicago and is the managing editor of Jacobin. He is the author of Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity and is currently working on a book about socialism and Bernie Sanders. He writes frequently about the US labor movement.
“Imprisoning a Generation” is a documentary film which follows the stories of four young Palestinians who have been detained and imprisoned under the Israeli military system. Their perspectives, along with the voices of their families, form a lens into the entangled structures of oppression that expand well beyond the prison walls. (50 minutes, Produced & Directed by Zelda Edmunds). Screened at the 2018 US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Conference. November 29 is also the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Join Us! Following the film, MECA Director Zeiad Abbas Shamrouch and film director Zelda Edmunds will give a brief update about Palestinian children being detained under house arrest and take questions.
TICKETS:
Benefit for MECA programs in Palestine & Lebanon. Wheelchair accessible.
For info: http://www.mecaforpeace.org.
https://www.facebook.com/events/184730162442385/?active_tab=about
Join East Bay DSA’s Labor Committee for their regular Beer and Roses Social! This will now be an ****after party**** for the event “Unions, Politics, and Socialism” earlier in the evening. Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2236804029868932/
Hang out with other members who are interested in the labor movement, hear about what’s happening in the East Bay DSA Labor Committee, and learn how you can get involved!
Meeting of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors’ Ad Hoc Committee on Urban Area Security Initiative, charged with reconstituting and rethinking Urban Shield.
The committee was established by the Board of Supervisors in March 2018 in response to sustained community concerns about Urban Shield, which is funded in part by UASI grants from the Department of Homeland Security, and coordinated by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.
The Board of Supervisors decided in March, 2018 that 2018 would be the last year the county would approve Urban Shield, as currently constituted, and asked the Ad Hoc Committee to make recommendations to the Board on the UASI-funded emergency preparedness training and exercise in 2019 and beyond.
The agenda will include a presentation and Q/A with county emergency preparedness officials (from ACSO, Public Health, and Social Services); a discussion of criteria for weighing recommendations; and a presentation about community-based emergency preparedness initiatives.
Agendas and materials for each meeting are posted at http://www.acgov.org/board/calendarcom.htm
In her first work of literary nonfiction, HAPA TALES AND OTHER LIES, Sharon H. Chang explores her Asian American and Mixed Race identity through the prism of returning to Hawai’i as a tourist. But what begins as a journey to discover herself turns into much more as she learns the true history of the islands, Hawai’i’s Indigenous children, and the Native Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement.
Please join author Sharon H. Chang for a special Oakland Chinatown event celebrating her new memoir, co-hosted by EastwindBooks Berkeley. The evening will include reading and discussion with Sharon and NoCal writers Asha Sudra, Wei Ming Dariotis, Nia McAllister and Fredrick D. Kakinami Cloyd.
Revolution Books is screening this 2007 film at this time to celebrate the spirit of the Iranian people and stand with them against the new severe sanctions on Iran imposed by Trump.
Based on Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel about her life in pre and post-revolutionary Iran and then in Europe. The film traces Satrapi’s growth from child to rebellious, punk-loving teenager in Iran. Marjane grows up in a family of left-wing activist intellectuals who, after the CIA coup against Mossaddegh, opposed the brutal Shah’s dictatorship & participate in the 1979 revolution, but are soon are targeted under the rule of the mullahs.
SUPPORT OF STRIKING WORKERS AGAINST MARRIOTT HOTELS IN SF FOR A RALLY AND MARCH
For 57 days 2,500 workers in SF have been out on strike at the Marriott Hotels. We are partnering with the San Francisco and San Mateo Labor Councils for another day of action this Saturday.
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Let’s show support for the workers! Meet at 10:30am at the Powell Street BART Station exit on Market Street between 3rd & 4th Streets. Look for the ALC banner!
Help get the word out! Share the flyer: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0wpl4lwn0b8pgkw/Flyer.12-01-18-OneJobRally.pdf?dl=0
East Bay for everyone is a pervasive network of voices speaking up for housing abundancy and better cities all over the East Bay. We organized YIMBYtown 2017, the world’s Yes In My Back Yard conference which brought nearly 200 organizers to experience Oakland and learn more about housing justice across the country. We’ve also organized for the approval of nearly three thousand homes across the region, received international news coverage, and helped sue Berkeley with a winning outcome for housing all over the state of California.
East Bay for Everyone runs on our membership; even though much has changed since our beginning, our organization has been open to all who can commit to the most important rule of East Bay for Everyone: Show Up.
We are a broad anti-racist coalition of socialists, anarchists, liberals, progressives, communists, YIMBYs, housers, YIOBYs and more. If there’s a sect on the left, it’s here and have figured out how to work together to secure the right of the city for everyone.
— Victoria Fierce, ƀᵾŧ wħɇɍɇ wɨłł ŧħɇɏ ᵽȺɍꝁ (@tdfischer_) November 23, 2018
Oakland teachers are fighting to end the teacher retention crisis and provide a great education for all our students. We’ve been working without a contract for 1.5 years, and since the Oakland Unified School District is refusing to meaningfully engage with our demands, we are preparing for a possible strike in early 2019.
Join Oakland teachers for our first neighborhood canvass to get the word out about our contract fight, and to give community members the opportunity to show their support. We’ll be going door to door with our support signs for people to post in their windows, and having conversations about all that’s at stake in this fight for the future of public education in our city.
MEET OUTSIDE OF THE GRAND LAKE THEATER AT 2PM! We will provide training, materials, water, and snacks.
Oakland knows that teacher working conditions are student learning conditions, and that our kids, teachers, staff, and families deserve more. Let’s give them the opportunity to show it!
We are fighting for a public education system that puts students first, and in order to win, we need our community to fight alongside us. OUSD spends extravagantly on consultants and administrators in their central office; yet when we say we need smaller class sizes, more student support, and a living wage for educators, they say the funding just isn’t there.
Join us in getting the word out and building support for our fight for the schools that Oakland students deserve!
The Peace and Freedom Party presents
We have invited some knowledgeable comrades to lead our discussion of whether and how the recent elections have impacted our struggles in various areas, including foreign policy, immigration, gender relations, jobs, education, human rights, and more. Confirmed speakers include Gary Hicks, CP-USA and CCDS, Gene Ruyle, Veterans for Peace, PFP Gerald Smith, Oscar Grant Committee, PFP Tom Gallagher, Progressive Democrats of America; SF-DSA Stan Woods, will moderate for the Peace and Freedom Party.
This is part of our on-going Socialist Forum Series on the first Saturday of every month. Doors open at 2 pm and the program will start promptly at 2:30 pm. The forum will end by 4:30 pm, but folks can stay and talk afterwards. The opinions expressed are those of the speakers and do not reflect official views of the Peace and Freedom Party.
The Peace and Freedom Party, born from the civil rights and
anti-war movements of the 1960s, is committed to socialism, democracy, ecology, feminism, racial equality, and internationalism.
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org
How We Get Free features three leading activist-scholars who will come together in conversation about Black Feminism past and present. The speakers, each coming from a unique radical tradition, will combine their own research and experience with the history of past movements to explore questions around race, gender, class, and ultimately, liberation. What is the role of elections? Of #BlackLivesMatter? Of Trump? How should we be organizing today for our collective liberation?
Our speakers are Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Alicia Garza and Zoe Samudzi. How We Get Free takes place Saturday, December 1 at 7pm at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St, Oakland, CA 94612. The event is sponsored by the Fifth Annual Howard Zinn Book Fair (being held Sunday, Dec. 2 from 10-6 at CCSF, 1125 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA) and the International Socialist Organization. A donation of $5 – $10 is requested and any proceeds will go toward the Zinn Book Fair and ISO.
In the last several years, Black feminism has reemerged as the analytical framework for the activists response to the oppression of trans women of color, the fight for reproductive rights, and of course, the movement against police abuse and violence. The most visible organizations and activists connected to the Black Lives Matter movement speak openly about how Black feminism shapes their politics and strategies today.
—Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an assistant Professor of African-American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, an examination of the history and politics of Black America and the development of the social movement Black Lives Matter in response to police violence in the United States. Taylor’s book, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective explores the history of the Combahee River Collective, a trailblazing 1960s-70s group of radical black feminists through interviews with the groups founders. Her research examines race, housing, and public policy.
Alicia Garza is a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement and the special projects director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) which strives to get better pay and working conditions for nannies and housekeepers. She also serves on the board of directors for the School of Liberation and Unity (SOUL) in Oakland. This school works to help underprivileged youth and people with low-income develop skills so they can improve their communities. Garza is also on the board of directors of Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD), another Oakland organization which helps black activists further develop their organizing skills. Garza is one of the activists interview in Taylor’s How We Get Free.
Zoe Samudzi is a co-author of As Black as Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation and doctoral student in medical sociology at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research focuses on the scientific logics that produce race and gender, particularly focusing on transgender health and the ways Blackness is constructed. Her writing has been featured in The New Inquiry, Warscapes, Truthout, ROAR Magazine, Teen Vogue, Black Girl Dangerous, and Bitch Media, among others.
Also featuring poetry readings by fiction writer and poet Idrissa Simmonds.
If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free.
—Combahee River Collective Statement
The Howard Zinn Book Fair is an annual celebration of people’s history, past, present and future. We gather together authors, zinesters, bloggers and publishers for a day of readings, panel discussions and workshops exploring the value of dissident histories towards building a better future. In the spirit of the late historian Howard Zinn we recognize the stories of the ways that everyday people have risen to propose a world beyond empires big and small. The Howard Zinn Book Fair is a non-sectarian left event that welcomes a wide variety of political traditions left traditions.
Please join us for our regular biweekly meeting of the Sunflower Alliance. We’ll discuss ongoing eco-campaigns and plans for the future. Newcomers and old friends welcome — we need your participation and your voice. Come early to hang out and share a potluck lunch.
Potluck lunch: 12:30 PM
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
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
_At the moment that elected officials are entering the Capitol for the
first day of the legislative session, we will convene to testify and
demand that the Legislature address the needs of the people and the
planet._
_The Northern California Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for
Moral Revival will be joined by the Campaign to End Child Poverty in
California and the Lifting Children Out of Poverty Task Force for the
press conference._
* PRESS CONFERENCE AND RALLY AT 10AM- 10:45AM featuring speakers from
Northern California (North Steps)
* PUBLIC HEARING FOLLOWS INSIDE THE CAPITOL AT 11: 00AM-12:30PM.
Testimony will lift the voices of the poor and disenfranchised, along
with faith and community leaders.
Join Northern Californians (Redding, Chico, Davis, Sacramento,
Stockton, Fresno, Merced, Auburn, San Francisco, Marysville, and Oakland
and other areas) to share testimony and demand that our elected
officials act to fight systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation,
the war economy/militarism and our nation’s distorted moral narrative.
TO RSVP AND REGISTER PLEASE VISIT:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/northern-california-poor-peoples-campaigns-rally-public-hearing-tickets-51914542795Page
Co-Sponsored by the Landless People’s Alliance and the United Front Against Displacement
Residents living in over 15 RVs in West Oakland, many of whom have lived and worked in the surrounding community for decades, saw their vehicles impounded in mass by the police on October 23rd. Join us in demanding the return of these vehicles and the property inside them. Residents have been living on the street there ever since losing the vehicles, and several have been without their identification papers that remain in the impounded vehicles. We are also demanding the provision of restroom facilities for the residents of West Oakland in the vicinity of Raimondi Park, several of whom have been camped out there ever since the towings happened.
Several protests have been held at City Hall over this incident. Michael Hunt, a representative of the mayor, told -suffering residents that the vehicles should never have been towed. The hold-up in getting the vehicles released is the need for forms from the Oakland Police Department, which is currently under scrutiny because of aggressive towing practices. The vehicles were towed at ODP’s request by Auto Plus Towing, a company covered in a recent expose on corrupt towing practices in Oakland “The East Bay’s Tow Hustle. “ https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/the-east-bays-tow-hustle/Content?oid=22699510
Given minutes to leave their RVs and vans, residents tried to grab what they could before the vehicles were towed. Like refugees fleeing for safety, the RV owners were forced to throw possessions out of their doors and windows onto piles on the sidewalk. Many did not have time to secure key material.
You can find a video made on the day of the tow here : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qBIz8vory3g
Because of the COVID pandemic we will be meeting virtually via Zoom on the first Monday of the month.
Meeting ID: 828 0976 4186
The Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality & State Repression (OGC) is a
grassroots democratic organization that was formed as a conscious united front for justice against police brutality. The OGC is involved in the struggle for police accountability and is committed to stopping police brutality.
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 1st 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 @CaDebtJustice next Tuesday December 4 and speak directly to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors about the impact of court & reentry fees on your life and your community #DebtFreeJustice
National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association present a discussion on strategies for moving towards a post-capitalist health-care system.