Calendar

Sun, Nov 10, 2019
Open Mic/Political Karaoke

What’s bugging you, politics-wise? Here’s your chance to talk about any and every thing from the PG&E Power Shutdown to Brexit, from Nancy Pelosi to Greta Thunberg, maybe even the riots in Chile. Sign up for 5 minute slots!

Sun, Nov 17, 2019
Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter.
Representatives of the Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression have been invited to discuss their position on this matter.
Awaiting better blurb..

Sun, Nov 24, 2019
Women and War
Women have a long association with violent intergroup conflict and war going back to early human times.  This presentation will survey women in the highly genderized institutions of war and the military in various periods and types of societies.  Although women have been impacted in multiple ways and played many roles, the focus of this talk is on women’s role as fighter/combatant and direct supporters of this activity.  Also covered are women in some of the revolutionary wars and militaries in the past two centuries.  The fighter/combatant perspective on women is usually omitted or “hidden” in accounts by both conventional and feminist analysts who stress women as victims, survivors, peacemakers and supporters of men who fight.  Women as fighters not only redresses this imbalance but indicates a role whose impact is as significant as the other roles that are more widely promulgated.
Presented by Al Sargis, Founder/Director of the Friedrich Engels Institute of Marxist War and Military Analysis (FEIMWAMA).

The workshop is 2-6pm.

ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP
Building alternatives to policing include equipping our communities with the skills to respond to mental health crisis and physical emergencies, including overdose. Too often calling 911 for a mental health or physical emergency brings police attention along with it. In this workshop we will cover mental health crisis intervention, first aid, CPR, and overdose intervention.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
The Oakland Power Projects (OPP) are an initiative of Critical Resistance to engage Oakland residents in building community power and wellbeing without relying on cops. CR Oakland has been fighting against the violence of policing for more than 10 years, and we hope you’ll join us in this next phase.

ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP SERIES

A growing coalition of organizations in the Bay Area is coming together to explore alternatives to calling the police to our campuses and into our neighborhoods. Over the coming year, we will be offering a series of workshops to explore alternatives to calling the police. Some of these workshops will provide deepening analysis and a grounding in alternative ways of thinking about community safety. Others, like this one, will provide practical skills. All of them will lift up a transformative justice framework and emphasize the importance of self care.

The Coalition includes First Congregational Church of Oakland, Kehilla Community Synagogue, Qal’bu Maryam, Jewish Voice for Peace, Skyline Community Church, Oakland Peace Center, Oakland LBGTQ Community Center, and the Omni Collective. We are eager to partner with additional organizations so please contact us if you are interested!

Join us for our National Day of Action to #FreeRodneyReed. Join other members of your community in solidarity with Rodney and his family as we join the national movement to demand Justice for Rodney.

Sign up here

“As many of you know, I favor strong First Amendment protections for journalists and protesters and especially students. But I’m also very much against the President of the United States’ and his followers’ repeated attempts to get Congresswomen of color harmed or killed.

Legally, these two ideals appear to be in conflict. Would you like to see me try to square them? Would you like to hear a fully thought-through articulation of why free speech does not, or at least should not, include personal threats made against any person who dares to oppose Donald Trump? Would you like to hear an expert in First Amendment law tell me why I’m wrong?

If so, please join me and Ken White (aka @Popehat) at Berkeley Law on Monday, November 18th at 5:30 p.m. We will be having a spirited debate about what free speech does mean, should mean, and must mean in the age of Donald Trump. We’ll be playing some of our old hits like: Can a gun store suggest killing Congresswomen if it didn’t actually threaten them? And some new ones like, well, whatever dangerous, hateful thing Trump says in the next 10 days, probably.

We’re being hosted by Director Catherine Crump of the Samuelson Clinic for Law, Technology, and Public Policy. We will try very hard not to break any of the technology or public policy lying around.

Click here to RSVP. Especially if you agree with me! But, even if you don’t. I will defend forever your right to oppose me… just so long as you don’t think you can use the n-word without catching some hands.”

Join immigrants and their allies in fighting for a pathway to permanent residency for over a million longtime U.S. residents who are at risk of losing their legal status under the Trump administration’s attacks on programs such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and Deferred Enforced Departure(DED).

The El Cerrito City Council will hear and vote on a proclamation titled “In Support of Protections from Deportation and a Path to Permanent Residency for Beneficiaries of DACA, TPS and DED” at its November 19 meeting in City Council chambers, 10890 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. The meeting begins at 7:00 PM. Read the entire draft proclamation at this pdf link. The City Council’s agenda isn’t available yet, but will appear at this link closer to the date of the meeting, and should include a final draft of the proclamation.

Local community organizations El Cerrito Progressives, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant,and NorCal TPS Coalition will hold a rally/vigil outside City Hall before the meeting, from 5:30 to 6:30 PM. Come hear local speakers tell their stories and explain how we can all work to keep families together and our communities intact. El Cerrito Mayor Rochelle Pardue-Okimoto is also slated to speak at the beginning of the rally. Come even if you live outside of El Cerrito! TPS Coalition has been working with several cities on the issue; you can read the Berkeley City Council’s 10/15/19 resolution, “Protect from deportation and a path to permanent residency for beneficiaries of DACA, TPS, and DED,” at this pdf link.  

We already know that we desperately need single payer for health care. But the recent failures of PG&E show how we need a single-payer system for our energy grid, too — to stop the reckless, dangerous behavior of private companies getting rich off what should be a public good, and to fight climate change. Only one of the Democratic candidates running for President has unequivocally called for bringing PG&E under public control. Bernie Sanders’s Green New Deal proposal isn’t just the boldest proposal to save the planet that any candidate has made yet. It also includes the United States moving to 100 percent public ownership of our power grid.

How can the growing democratic socialist movement win demands that stave off the worst of the climate crisis and move us towards a more sustainable future? Solving the ecological crisis requires a mass movement to take on hugely powerful industries. Yet the environmental movement’s base in the professional-managerial class and focus on consumption has little chance of attracting working-class support. The seminal essay by Matt Huber included in the class readings argues for a program that tackles the ecological crisis by organizing around working-class interests.

The readings for the upcoming Night School class can be found here: https://www.eastbaydsa.org/night-school/

This important discussion between two major American whisteblowers will focus on the urgent need to end unaccountable government power.

Daniel Ellsberg is an American activist and former United States military analyst formerly employed by the RAND Corporation. He precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of the U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers. In1973, Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage Act  along with other charges of theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Due to governmental misconduct and illegal evidence-gathering, and the defense by Leonard Boudin and Harvard Law School Professor Charles Nesson,  all charges against Ellsberg  were dismissed. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2006. He is also known for  voicing support for Wikileaks, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden.  Ellsberg was awarded the 2018 Olof Palme Prize for his humanism and exceptional moral courage.

Jeffery Sterling is a former CIA agent convicted under the Espionage Act for talking to a New York Times reporter. He was released from prison after serving more than two years of his 42-month sentence. Sterling’s case drew nationwide attention because the Obama-era Department of Justice unsuccessfully tried to force the reporter, James Risen, to divulge the identity of his sources for “State of War,” his book that revealed just how the CIA had botched a covert operation against Iran’s nuclear program. Risen reported that instead of undermining the Iranians, the CIA had provided them with useful information on how to build a nuclear bomb. The case had a racial dimension, as Sterling was one of the few black undercover operatives at the CIA. After several years of what he believed was discriminatory treatment, he filed a complaint against the agency, followed by a lawsuit. The CIA fired Sterling in 2002. His lawsuit was blocked by the courts after the government argued successfully that proceeding with the suit would expose state secrets. As a whistleblower, Sterling subsequently met with Senate investigators about the mismanaging of a classified program he worked on at the agency.

Norman Solomon is the author of a dozen books including “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” He is also the Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, where he coordinates the ExposeFacts.org program for whistleblowers and press freedom. He is co-founder of RootsAction.org.  Kevin Cartwright has since 1994 handled many important positions for Pacifica Radio station KPFA-FM. He is a communications strategist who continues working with various social change organizations across the country to help improve their communications.

Give Us Something to be Thankful For

A Visit to Governor Newsom, to Expedite Healthy California for All Commission for Single-Payer Healthcare!

-We are providing a charter bus – capacity 56, first come,, first served – that will pick up at the Larkin Street main libraryy in San Francisco and then at Ashby BART before heading to Sacramento. We ask for those able to carpool to please do so! We will also have box lunches once we arrive. So that we have a headcount to submit the lunch order in time, and to know who will be on the bus and who will need to carpool, the deadline to RSVP is November 8th. (You are welcome to complete the RSVP after the 8th, the more the merrier, but we cannot then guarantee a ride or a lunch.)

San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin St.
10:30am

Ashby BART
3100 Adeline St.
11:00am

Governor’s Office
1315 — 10th St.
12:30pm

Meeting at Gov’s Office at 1pm // Rally on North Steps at 2pm
Bus capacity is 56; carpool caravan
encouraged! RSVP and info: tinyurl.com/HCN-Newsom

Sponsored by ACCE, Berkeley Tenants Union, EBHO, Community Land Trust, Gray Panthers.

Gray Panthers Berkeley East Bay is co-sponsor of this Housing Justice Week rally They will share how they fought an illegal Ellis Act conversion/eviction. Learn how Prop O funds and nonprofit community land trusts could be used to help create self-governing cooperative communities. Hot cider, snacks, and music.

What will it take to truly address the systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism, and war economy plaguing our country today? The answer is presented in the Poor People’s Campaign Moral Budget, which lays out the policies and investments to address the widespread and systemic injustices we face.

We invite you to come together with other supporters of the Poor People’s Campaign to learn more about these solutions through our Moral Budget Reading Group. This will be a space for us to develop our collective understanding of the policies we’re working towards and how they will affect the lives of the people in our communities.

We’ll be discussing the pages 31 through 50, “Investments in Domestic Tranquility.”

You can view the Moral Budget on your computer here: http://ppcbayarea.org/moral-budget. If you’d like to purchase a physical copy for $10, please email info@ppcbayarea.org and let us know.

We hope you’ll join us to be part of this reading group. Forward together, not one step back!

In this era of “reconciliation”, Indigenous land is still being taken at gunpoint. INVASION is a new film about the Unist’ot’en Camp, Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidimt’en Territory, (Gidimt’en checkpoint) and the larger Wet’suwet’en Nation standing up to the Canadian government and corporations who continue colonial violence against Indigenous people.

The Unist’ot’en Camp has been a beacon of resistance for nearly 10 years. It is a healing space for Indigenous people and settlers alike, and an active example of decolonization. The violence, environmental destruction, and disregard for human rights following TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) / Coastal GasLink’s interim injunction has been devastating to bear, but this fight is far from over.

• ───────────────── •

INVASION is a new documentary on the Unist’ot’en struggle for sovereignty against industry giants. This film is a collaboration between Sub.Media founder Franklin López, AJ+ reporter Michael Tol, and documentary filmmaker Sam Vinal. Learn more at: http://www.unistoten.camp/invasion

Sun, Nov 10, 2019
Open Mic/Political Karaoke

What’s bugging you, politics-wise? Here’s your chance to talk about any and every thing from the PG&E Power Shutdown to Brexit, from Nancy Pelosi to Greta Thunberg, maybe even the riots in Chile. Sign up for 5 minute slots!

Sun, Nov 17, 2019
Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter.
Representatives of the Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression have been invited to discuss their position on this matter.
Awaiting better blurb..

Sun, Nov 24, 2019
Women and War
Women have a long association with violent intergroup conflict and war going back to early human times.  This presentation will survey women in the highly genderized institutions of war and the military in various periods and types of societies.  Although women have been impacted in multiple ways and played many roles, the focus of this talk is on women’s role as fighter/combatant and direct supporters of this activity.  Also covered are women in some of the revolutionary wars and militaries in the past two centuries.  The fighter/combatant perspective on women is usually omitted or “hidden” in accounts by both conventional and feminist analysts who stress women as victims, survivors, peacemakers and supporters of men who fight.  Women as fighters not only redresses this imbalance but indicates a role whose impact is as significant as the other roles that are more widely promulgated.
Presented by Al Sargis, Founder/Director of the Friedrich Engels Institute of Marxist War and Military Analysis (FEIMWAMA).

Women have a long association with violent intergroup conflict and war going back to early human times.  This presentation will survey women in the highly genderized institutions of war and the military in various periods and types of societies.  Although women have been impacted in multiple ways and played many roles, the focus of this talk is on women’s role as fighter/combatant and direct supporters of this activity.  Also covered are women in some of the revolutionary wars and militaries in the past two centuries.  The fighter/combatant perspective on women is usually omitted or “hidden” in accounts by both conventional and feminist analysts who stress women as victims, survivors, peacemakers and supporters of men who fight.  Women as fighters not only redresses this imbalance but indicates a role whose impact is as significant as the other roles that are more widely promulgated.

Presented by Al Sargis, Founder/Director of the Friedrich Engels Institute of Marxist War and Military Analysis (FEIMWAMA).

Prior to 2017, Oakland City Hall only had $250,000 per year to spend on Homeless Services.

Since 2017, volunteers with HAWG Homeless Advocacy Working Group have spent countless hours successfully advocating for more than $56 million to be spent towards ending the outrageous homeless crisis. more than $30 million has already been spent on ineffective approaches that harm more than help curbside residents. and while the millions were wastefully spent, homelessness has doubled in Oakland in the past two years. The Mayor’s anti-homeless Encampment Management Team led by Assistant to the Administrator Joe De Vries is responsible for the mismanagement of funds and the city’s inhumane treatment of our unhoused brothers sister’s.

For the past two years, City Council has attempted to work with advocates and directed Joe and the Encampment Management Team to try a variety of effective and cost effective approaches. 99% of the time Joe and his time have ignored City Council and continue to use millions to harm, traumatize and kick down our people on the streets.

Enough is enough.

Join The Village in Oakland #feedthepeople, The East Oakland Collective @Love and Justice in the Streets on Tuesday November 26, 2019 5pm at City Council meeting to speak truth to power.

please sign up to speak even if you are not going to speak, so yo can give you time to another speaker who needs more time. if you decide to speak, here’s some points to help you when you speak:

– over the past two years, you have survived and/or witnessed the cruel and inhumane treatment of The City government to Oakland’s unhoused.
– In the past two years the Joe DeVries and his team have spent more than $30 million dollars towards “solving” homelessness. But during those two years homelessness doubled in Oakland, and dozens of unhoused residents who used the city’s programs are back on the streets. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONEY?

We Demand:
1. An immediate end to evictions of curbside communities, demolitions of homes and towing of vehicles people live in or store belongings in.

2. An immediate end to the destruction of curbside residents’ personal property and survival gear.

3. As the City Council directed the Mayor and her Administration two years ago, two parcels of public land in each district be identified and used for sanctuaries for curbside communities.

4. Immediately upgrade all curbside commuities with adequate portapotties, trash services, clean drinking water, solar power and upgrades to self-built homes.

5. Due to his anti-homeless tendencies, his absuse of power, his complete disregard of the humanity and right of curbside residents, his mismanaement of millions of dollars to go towards solutions to homelessness, an immediate dismisal of Assistant to the Administrator Joe De Vries. Due to his deep anti-homeless biases and arbitrary decisins that impact the lives and well being of Oakland’s unhoused, he cannot lead the approaches to solve this crisis.

6. The immediate implementation of City Councilwoman Nikki Fortunato Bas’ reccomendations to align all The City’s appraches to homelessness with a human rights lense.

7. No more fundraising for or building any more Tuff Sheds. These programs are a waste of money and not effective to meet the scale of the homeless state of emergency or the actual needs of curbside residents.

8. An end to market rate and above market rate development. The City must turn its attention to the neglected deeply affordable housing development goals in the next year.

Join Extinction Rebellion SF Bay as we perform XR’s version of the Evening Prayer from the opera Hansel and Gretel outside the Opera House. This event will take place between 1:30 PM and 2 PM, as the opera is presented inside by the SF Opera.

Wells Fargo is the season sponsor of the SF Opera. Wells Fargo is the largest financier of the fracking industry, and the second-largest financier of the fossil fuel industry in the world. This year the Royal Shakespeare Company in the UK is cutting its ties to their sponsor, BP, after school children threatened a boycott. A similar outcome in San Francisco would be one small step in combating climate chaos.

This is an open action. Anyone moved to participate is welcome to join us as we listen to the singers tell us about getting pushed into the oven of climate chaos.

Roles needed: lip syncers, gingerbread people, folks to hand out flyers and hold signs, and pretend opera-goers (to create buzz around the action).

Participants who want to take on one of the roles will need to report to the staging area for this event at 1 PM. If you would like to take on a role, please contact lwbdarkdeep@protonmail.com. All ages welcome!

Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library

Town Hall Meeting on Hong Kong (China)

Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rep Jim McGovern (D-MA) are sponsoring the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019,” but many believe that the U.S. should not be interfering in the internal affairs of China. After a brief introduction by ICSS member Eugene E Ruyle, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies at Cal State Long Beach, and perhaps a few additional speakers, we will have an open discussion of the issue with all opinions welcome.

Please spread the word and join us on Monday in San Francisco at the 9th Circuit Court, which will hear arguments in our case to block Trump’s asylum transit ban.

Repeatedly in recent months, Bay Area community members have packed federal courts to oppose Trump’s attempts to block people from seeking protection in the U.S. We hope you’ll join us again.

WHEN: Plan to arrive before 9am, when the judges begin proceedings for the morning. Let’s gather afterward in solidarity as well.

After multiple victories to halt the new rule, in September the Supreme Court temporarily sided with Trump while the 9th Circuit considers East Bay Sanctuary Covenant v. William Barr, thus blocking folks who must transit through a third country from seeking asylum in the United States.

As you all know, the policy is part of a larger effort to effectively end the ability of immigrants of color to seek protection in the United States. We must continue to fight against this atrocious program and organize for just solutions instead.

Hope to see you on Monday.

This is it! Join us when the Richmond City Council will finally vote on the Richmond Coal Ordinance.   The ordinance would phase out the storage and handling of coal and petroleum coke (pet coke) over a three year period.

Doors open at 6:00 PM.

We expect many people to show up in opposition, as happened at the Planning Commission hearing, so get there early. Faced with a rowdy show of force, the commission voted to delay approval of the ordinance. We need to show the council members that there are even more people who support passing the ordinance without delay and transitioning the terminal to cleaner commodities that won’t endanger the health of residents and workers.

Richmond residents and workers are encouraged to testify about health impacts, visible dust, and other concerns.  If you are willing to speak, please email action@sunflower-alliance.org for information about this process.

No Coal in Richmond has collected more than 2,000 signatures on a letter to the City Council urging them to act to end coal and petroleum coke handling and storage at the Levin-Richmond Terminal. Richmond already suffers from the areas’s highest levels of asthma and other health problems caused by bad air quality.

Time to get coal out of Richmond!

The Life enrichment committee has agreed to host a special meeting to focus on homelessness that will include voices and reflect the work of unhoused leaders and advocates in the trenches day in day out.

we will breaking down the roots and scope of crisis, evaluate the current approaches and present real, cost effective solutions, new approaches to service providing, and crisis informed models of rapid rehousing.

we are hoping the audit of all things related to homeless will also be presented at this meeting.

Prior to 2017, Oakland City Hall only had $250,000 per year to spend on Homeless Services.

Since 2017, volunteers with HAWG Homeless Advocacy Working Group have spent countless hours successfully advocating for more than $56 million to be spent towards ending the outrageous homeless crisis. more than $30 million has already been spent on ineffective approaches that harm more than help curbside residents. and while the millions were wastefully spent, homelessness has doubled in Oakland in the past two years. The Mayor’s anti-homeless Encampment Management Team led by Assistant to the Administrator Joe De Vries is responsible for the mismanagement of funds and the city’s inhumane treatment of our unhoused brothers sister’s.

For the past two years, City Council has attempted to work with advocates and directed Joe and the Encampment Management Team to try a variety of effective and cost effective approaches. 99% of the time Joe and his time have ignored City Council and continue to use millions to harm, traumatize and kick down our people on the streets.

Enough is enough.

Join The Village in Oakland #feedthepeople, The East Oakland Collective @Love and Justice in the Streets at the Life Enrichment Committee to speak truth to power, listen to real solutions, understand what’s really going on with the money.

please sign up to speak even if you are not going to speak, so yo can give you time to another speaker who needs more time. if you decide to speak, here’s some points to help you when you speak:

– over the past two years, you have survived and/or witnessed the cruel and inhumane treatment of The City government to Oakland’s unhoused.
– In the past two years the Joe DeVries and his team have spent more than $30 million dollars towards “solving” homelessness. But during those two years homelessness doubled in Oakland, and dozens of unhoused residents who used the city’s programs are back on the streets. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONEY?

We Demand:
1. An immediate end to evictions of curbside communities, demolitions of homes and towing of vehicles people live in or store belongings in.

2. An immediate end to the destruction of curbside residents’ personal property and survival gear.

3. As the City Council directed the Mayor and her Administration two years ago, two parcels of public land in each district be identified and used for sanctuaries for curbside communities.

4. Immediately upgrade all curbside communities with adequate portapotties, trash services, clean drinking water, solar power and upgrades to self-built homes.

5. Due to his anti-homeless tendencies, his absuse of power, his complete disregard of the humanity and right of curbside residents, his mismanagement of millions of dollars to go towards solutions to homelessness, an immediate dismissal of Assistant to the Administrator Joe De Vries. Due to his deep anti-homeless biases and arbitrary decisions that impact the lives and well being of Oakland’s unhoused, he cannot lead the approaches to solve this crisis.

6. The immediate implementation of City Councilwoman Nikki Fortunato Bas’ reccomendations to align all The City’s approaches to homelessness with a human rights lense.

7. No more fundraising for or building any more Tuff Sheds. These programs are a waste of money and not effective to meet the scale of the homeless state of emergency or the actual needs of curbside residents.

8. An end to market rate and above market rate development. The City must turn its attention to the neglected deeply affordable housing development goals in the next year.