NOTE: During the Plague Year of 2020 GA will be held every week or two on Zoom. To find out the exact time a date get on the Occupy Oakland email list my sending an email to:

occupyoakland-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 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 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland. (Note: we tend to meet at 3:00 PM during the cooler months from November to early March after Daylights Savings Time.)

On every ‘last Sunday’ we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.

OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over six years, since October 2011! 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

Welcome & Introductions
Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
Announcements
(Optional) Discussion Topic

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

Join APTP in offering hot food, drinks, snacks, and solidarity to releasees and visitors at Santa Rita Jail!

Let us know you’ll be there by sending us a text at (510) 686-3284.

Prisons function to repress, warehouse and extract labor from primarily those of us who are Black or poor. We believe that solidarity is a weapon of resistance, and that we must respond to the basic needs of our community while also confronting state terror.

In honor of Dujuan Armstrong Jr. who entered Santa Rita Jail for a weekend sentence and never came home, APTP is providing material support and direct care to folks at Santa Rita Jail as a small but meaningful way to address the harm caused by incarceration in our community. We do not positively engage with the racist pigs who work at the jail, as they are willing agents of the state that criminalizes and incarcerates us.

We’d love to see you there! Meet APTP outside of the Lake Merritt BART Station at 4pm – we’ll drive out to the jail together from there. All are welcome, no experience required.

We’ll be holding our regular meeting of the Public Bank East Bay organizational group. We have moved the meeting to regular third Mondays, to make it more predictable and allow some new people to attend. We would LOVE to see you there.

Lots to discuss!

• We had a very successful kick-off meeting for our interim bank board, which happened to be the same day the bill passed the state assembly.
• We have fundraising leads, and we think that the legislation being complete may open fundraising doors. The business plan is absolutely our next step.
• 
  

  Proposed agenda
  1)      AB 857, victories and next steps
  2)      Interim board member meeting reportback and next steps
  3)      Fundraising reportback and next steps
  4)      Anything not covered

AB 857, the bill enabling local public banking has passed both California state houses! On Friday, September 13, we crossed the finish line. The bill now goes to Gavin Newsom, who has expressed public support for public banking in the past. He has until October 13 to sign or veto; if he doesn’t do either, the bill becomes law.

This has been an exhilarating, fascinating, complex, process. Literally thousands of people have been involved. Of course, we will keep you updated when the bill is signed, and when cities and regions start making public bank charter applications to the state Department of Business Oversight.

Please join us! Now is such a great time to get involved.

If you have questions or want to understand the group better, you can come half an hour early, at 5:30. Just let us know in advance.

For Your Reading Pleasure

You might appreciate this detailed, informative, and accurate article on public banking. (We love how the author calls us out as early participants in this initiative.)

Public Bank East Bay (formerly Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland) were at the forefront of these efforts. Activists there advanced the project so far that they were poised to found their bank even before AB 857 gave them an explicit way to do so. San Francisco opened a task force to explore the possibility and state and local treasurers began their examinations as well.  Quickly, it became clear that intermingling public funds with cannabis money would be bad politics and likely impossible as long as marijuana is classified Schedule 1.  But even with that issue off the table, the appetite for greater financial independence in the form of public capital sources was growing, and with more attention came more knowledge, more scrutiny, and more opposition.

The big banks ignored this effort as long as it was a handful of activists in a handful of towns. An effort to change statewide banking regulations, creating public entities that would compete with entrenched financial powerhouses, would not go unopposed. Knowing that the fight to create local public banks would be futile without unity with other California cities, and without the cooperation of regulators operating against a defined legal framework, organizers from these local movements founded the California Public Banking Alliance, with the primary goal of modeling and sponsoring legislation to make local public banks a reality. In one short year, this alliance mobilized activists behind legislation to do just that.

How to reach us

Email us any time.

9/9: Will be discussing issues related to this Crackdown and our strategy for the next 3 to 6 months.

9/16: We have many, many issues to discuss, including the forthcoming visit of Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

Author Lisa Fithian on New Book: “Shut It Down Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance”

Doors open at 6:30pm. Event begins at 7pm.

Our dear friend and long time direct action organizer Lisa Fithian has released a new book, called “Shut It Down Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance,” and we’re excited to host her in the Bay Area.

Details on the book:

For decades, Lisa Fithian’s work as an advocate for civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action has put her on the frontlines of change. Described by Mother Jones as “the nation’s best-known protest consultant,” Fithian has supported countless movements including the Battle of Seattle in 1999, rebuilding and defending communities following Hurricane Katrina, Occupy Wall Street, and the uprisings at Standing Rock and in Ferguson. For anyone who wants to become more active in resistance or is just feeling overwhelmed or hopeless, “Shut It Down” offers strategies and actions you can take right now to promote justice and incite change in your own community.

In “Shut It Down” Fithian shares historic, behind-the-scenes stories from some of the most important people-powered movements of the past several decades. She shows how movements that embrace direct action have always been, and continue to be, the most radical and rapid means for transforming the ills of our society. “Shut It Down” is filled with instructions and inspiration for how movements can evolve as the struggle for social justice continues in the Trump era and beyond.

While recognizing that electoral politics, legislation, and policy are all important pathways to change, “Shut It Down” argues that civil disobedience is not just one of the only actions that remains when all else fails, but a spiritual pursuit that protects our deepest selves and allows us to reclaim our humanity. Change can come, but only if we’re open to creatively, lovingly, and strategically standing up, sometimes at great risk to ourselves, to protect what we love.

A general strike is a strike action that includes a large part of the total labor force in a city, region, or country. General strikes are characterized by the participation of workers in a multitude of workplaces, and tend to involve entire communities. The idea of the general strike is powerful precisely because a massive and persistent withdrawal of labor can bring a capitalist city or even an entire economy to a halt.

The last general strike in the United States occurred here in the East Bay in 1946. One hundred thousand members of the American Federation of Labor shut down the economy of four local cities for two and a half days. Thousands of strikers took over the streets of downtown Oakland. It was an explosive protest against employers’ refusal to recognize the union of newly organized retail workers, and against police intervention to disrupt picket lines.

What touched off the Oakland general strike and why did it end almost as suddenly as it began? Why have there been no subsequent general strikes in the United States in over 70 years? Should activists on the left today be calling for general strikes? Or following Rosa Luxemburg, should we view general strikes as historical phenomenon resulting from specific social conditions?

To find out the answer to these questions and more, please join us for a special edition of Socialist Night School. Fred Glass, local labor historian and author, will be joining us to give lead-off talk on the history of the last Oakland General Strike.

Find the readings here: https://www.eastbaydsa.org/night-school/

You believe in making a difference, but when it comes to racial justice, are your actions aligned with your beliefs? The work begins with looking in the mirror. Without intentional learning and reflection, white people may uphold beliefs and systems that perpetuate injustice. Join us for an intimate and interactive workshop in which we will unpack how whiteness has shaped our lives and discuss how white people who care can take action for racial justice.

This workshop offers those who are new to racial justice work an opportunity to reflect on and analyze the role that whiteness has played in their lives. Through individual, small-group, and whole-group activities, participants will be invited to:

*Reframe racism as a system, rather than a product of individuals who are “good” or “bad”
*Reflect on how their own racial identity has influenced their experiences in the world
*Create a plan for taking at least one action in their own lives to deepen their commitment to racial justice

This workshop welcomes anyone who would like to participate, but it is especially well-suited for white people who are:

*In the early stages of exploring what it means to be white
*Seeking to grow their skills in analyzing and discussing the effects of racism
*Feeling ready to take action to create a more just world

Preregistration is required due to limited space.

Join this event

Join Oakland Privacy to organize against the surveillance state, police militarization and ICE, and to advocate for surveillance regulation around the Bay and nationwide.

We fight against “pre-crime” and “thought-crime,” spy drones, facial recognition, police body camera secrecy, anti-transparency laws and requirements for “backdoors” to cellphones, to list just a few invasions of our privacy by all levels of Government, and attempts to hide what government officials, employees and agencies are doing.

We draft and push for privacy legislation for City Councils, at the County level, and in Sacramento. We advocate in op-eds and in the streets. We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and believe no one is illegal.

Oakland Privacy originally came together in 2013 to fight against the Domain Awareness Center, Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OP was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network.  We helped fight and helped win the fight against Urban Shield.

Our major projects currently include local legislation to regulate state surveillance (we got the strongest surveillance regulation ordinance in the country passed in Oakland!), supporting and opposing state legislation as appropriate, battling mass surveillance in the form of facial recognition and other analytics, and pushing back against ICE.

On September 12th, 2019 we were presented with a Barlow Award by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for our work.

If you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy email listserv, coming to a meeting, or have questions, send an email to:

contact@oaklandprivacy.org

Check out our website: http://oaklandprivacy.org/   Follow us on twitter: @oaklandprivacy

Check out our sister site DeportICE.

“WATCHING YOU WATCHING US”

Oakland Privacy works regionally to defend the right to privacy and enhance public transparency and oversight regarding the use of surveillance techniques and equipment.  Oakland Privacy drove the passage of surveillance regulation and transparency ordinances in Oakland and Berkeley and is kicking off new processes in various municipalities around the Bay.  To help slow down the encroaching police and surveillance state all over the Bay Area, join us at the Omni.

The Anti Police-Terror Project meets the third Wednesday of every month.

August’s agenda will include an update on developments at Santa Rita jail and an active shooter response training.

In September we’re giving updates on our Police Commission campaign and about a local campaign to audit Sheriff Ahern; showing a short film about Dujuan Armstrong, who died in police custody at Santa Rita Jail earlier this year; and giving a quick update about our newly formed Sacramento chapter. Let us know if you can join us!

Join us to find out how you can get involved.
This space is wheelchair accessible. Please contact us for any additional accessibility questions or concerns.

Join this event

Come by our open Delegates Meetings! We’ll give space to brief announcements, updates from working groups, proposals up for consensus, and discussion around important issues. The schedule is created weekly at the following url: https://pad.riseup.net/p/omninom

This meeting usually happens in the Ballroom, but the the location may change depending on the access needs of people attending and other events taking place in the building.

Three documentaries will screen outside on the plaza at National Nurses United headquarters.

The art exhibition “Recognition: Labor Meets Art in Explorations of Social Justice and Identity,” will be open to the public during the screenings.

The films feature three locations where Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) volunteers have deployed to provide direct relief and response to humanitarian, environmental, and social injustice: Post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, Standing Rock, and rural Arizona. RNRN volunteers will introduce the films with stories of how RNs have intervened to provide direct care in support of social justice.

Big Charity: The Death of America’s Oldest Hospital

This documentary by Alexander Glustrom tells the story of Charity Hospital, from its roots in 1736 as a hospital for the poor to its controversial closing in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The film features firsthand accounts of healthcare providers and hospital employees who withstood the storm inside the hospital and interviews with key players involved in Charity’s closing. Today the towering art deco building stands empty, and the community continues to suffer devastating consequences from its absence. Screens as part of “Recognition and Response,” National Nurses United’s fall outdoor documentary film series.

Climate Emergency Discussion at City Council Meeting:

The El Cerrito City Council is expected to discuss a resolution to declare a climate emergency and request regional collaboration on an emergency mobilization effort to restore a safe and stable climate.

Please urge your city council members to join the other 9 Bay Area cities and over 800 jurisdictions across the globe to take leadership and address climate change as the global threat that it is. Remind the Mayor and City Council members to support a strong Climate Emergency Resolution that supports:

–An urgent citywide climate emergency mobilization effort to reverse global warming with all segments of the community to rapidly transition to zero greenhouse gases

–Reduction of city Greenhouse Gas Emissions as quickly as possible toward zero net greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2045, and a 50% reduction by 2030.

–A regional Bay Area-wide Collaboration on a just transition to a sustainable economy and to work to catalyze an urgent climate mobilization at the local and state level.

Come to the council meeting, and/or write your city council members. And please RSVP below so we can keep you posted on any last minute changes.

Mayor Pardue-Okimoto: rpardueokimoto [at] ci.el-cerrito.ca
City Councilmembers: jabelson [at] ci.el-cerrito.ca.us; gquinto [at] ci.el-cerrito.ca.us;
pfadelli [at] ci.el-cerrito.ca.us; glyman [at] ci.el-cerrito.ca.us

Link to the city agenda materials : http://www.el-cerrito.org/Archive.aspx?AMID=41

In the Bay Area, the following jurisdictions have adopted Climate Emergency Resolutions for regional collaboration on an immediate just transition and emergency mobilization effort to restore a safe climate: Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, San Francisco, Hayward, Fairfax, Petaluma, Cupertino and Richmond. Other CA jurisdictions include Santa Cruz and Mendocino Counties and the cities of Chico and Santa Cruz.

Matewan is an awesome film by John Sayles, based on a historic coal miners strike in West Virginia. Highly recommended!

PEOPLES PARK MOVIE NIGHT
a part of the people’s park potluck initiative

Free Popcorn!
Park movie Nights, every friday at 8pm:
bring food and friends to share
help build and develop this community of Resistance
Protect our Green space, trees, Community, historical landmark, free speech, social justice, civil rights, gardens, music, art, style, freebox, recreation, climate, ecology, education, sports
People’s park committee
peoplespark.org

Join us in support of the Global Climate Strike. Learn, engage and find ways you can act in the fight against climate change.

Every day you hear daunting news about the negative effects climate change is having both locally and globally and the issues may seem too big and out of reach for you to make an impact. But don’t despair, you can act and make a difference. The Global Climate Strike is happening from the 20th September to the 27th of September in countries, cities and towns all over the world.

In support, East Bay Climate Action Network is holding a Rally and Environmental Fair. We will have exciting speakers, displays and representatives from different groups and organizations involved in environmental programs, who will educate and engage you, providing you with different ways to get involved. The second part of the event will give you the opportunity to participate in Action Groups working for change.This is a free family friendly event. Bring water bottle and blanket for lawn seating. East Bay Climate Action Network: Turning energy into action for a healthy climate. facebook.com/EastBayClimateActionNetwork #climatestrike globalclimatestrike.net