Calendar

A radical movement is tightening its grip across America. The collateral damage? WOMEN. @BirthrightFilm is a must-see → https://t.co/d6ixdbGXDP pic.twitter.com/WN1JFcTBFV

— ACLU of Northern CA (@ACLU_NorCal) April 19, 2018

Please come to our Inequality Seminar on Sunday, 4/29 at 11:00 AM at the OMNI!

Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.

• Presenting debt and inequality related topics at forums, workshops and in radio productions.
  Our next seminar/workshop will be on April 29th. Check it out and make sure to come!
• Promoting single-payer / Medicare for All to end the plague of medical debt
• money bail reform and fighting modern day debtors’ prisons and exploitative ticketing and fining schemes
• Tiny Homes and other solutions for the homeless.
• Student debt resistance. Check out the Debt Collective, our sister organization
• helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
• Working on debarring US Banks that have been convicted of felonies from municipal contracts, and divesting from the Wall St. banks
• Promoting the concept of Basic Income
• Advocating for Postal banking
• Organizing for public banking in Oakland! We made the first steps happen… now there’s a spinoff group
• Bring your own debt-related project!

If you are new to Strike Debt and want to come early, meet one or two of us and get a briefing on our projects before we dive into our agenda, email us at strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com .

Remember that chant “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie?

There’s a new one now: “Nina, Nina, Nina”!

Nina Turner, President of Our Revolution, is coming to the East Bay to help us send to Sacramento and the Alameda County DA seat three corporate-free, people powered WOMEN.

No one is more eloquent than Nina Turner, President of Our Revolution. Her grandma told her about three bones in the body (Ask her!) — she’s got all three!

Nina Turner brings a powerful message to the Bay Area Saturday, April 28th at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School from 6pm-8pm.

Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign was attacked as mostly “Bernie Bros” – young men operating on social media. Never true. Here are the new “Bernie Bros” four WOMEN, dynamic, experienced, and out to help us take back our government!

No one is a more determined and successful champion of all kinds of voters than Jovanka Beckles, Richmond City Council person, now Assembly District 15 candidate.

Gayle McLaughlin has been leading Richmond and the East Bay for years. Now she’s going (for us) for Lieutenant Governor.

https://gayleforcalifornia.org/

Pamela Price promises to be an innovative, corruption-free Alameda County District Attorney, and she and Jovanka have endorsed each others’ corporate-free agendas.

www.priceforda.com

These four women are people-people. They listen carefully. They craft solutions creatively. They fight resolutely for all of us who want corporate money out of politics, who want medicare for all now, who want the broken justice system fixed.

Come, celebrate and support four women who are fighting for us! Buy tickets here. http://www.jovanka.org/our_revolution_s_people_powered_women

THERE IS NOW AN 8:00 PM EVENT AS WELL.  THE 6:00 PM EVENT IS FULL.

TICKETS FOR THE 8:00 PM EVENT HERE.

OAKLAND! SAN FRANCISCO! BAY AREA!

What’s up!

On THIS SATURDAY @ 6pm we will be hosting a FREE event @ Oakland Technical High School. We love Oak Tech and are grateful that they’ve opened their doors up for us again!

Please RSVP, share the event with your friends, and bring your whole crew.

This isn’t just going to be inspirational, it’s going be practical and detailed on how we can build change together!

See you on Saturday!

–Shaun

Wealth & Income Inequality: A Two-Part Workshop by Strike Debt Bay Area

Everywhere we look, everything from the headlines to our paychecks to the tents under the freeway remind us that rich people are getting richer and poor people are getting poorer. But it can be hard to understand exactly how and why that is happening. If we can’t understand it, we can’t change it. And change it we must!

After a look at the causes of runaway inequality in Part 1, we’ll talk about some fairer ways to provide economic security for all in Part 2. What do alternatives to corporate capitalism look like?

Part 1: How Corporations Move Money from the Many to the Few
Sunday, April 29, 11:00am to 12:45pm

Do you wonder what role racism plays in wealth inequality? Do you wish you understood exactly how Wall Street exploits Main Street? The answers are not terribly complicated, but they are shocking. We’ll learn about stock manipulation, financialization, strip-mining, redlining and more.

Part 2: How We Can Build a More Just Economy for All
Sunday, May 6, 11:00am to 12:45pm

Using our shared understanding of the problem, we will examine past and existing movements for change: what they are, how they work, and how they can grow. We’ll talk about better ways to make sure all have access to the basic necessities. Then we’ll discuss how we can keep the wealth we create in our communities instead of paying it into the bank accounts of global elites. In sum, what might a fair, sustainable, and joyful economic system look like?

We’d love you to RSVP to strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com so we know how many people to expect.
This workshop is free.
We’d love you to come to both parts if you can.

Wealth & Income Inequality: A Two-Part Workshop by Strike Debt Bay Area

Everywhere we look, everything from the headlines to our paychecks to the tents under the freeway remind us that rich people are getting richer and poor people are getting poorer. But it can be hard to understand exactly how and why that is happening. If we can’t understand it, we can’t change it. And change it we must!

After a look at the causes of runaway inequality in Part 1, we’ll talk about some fairer ways to provide economic security for all in Part 2. What do alternatives to corporate capitalism look like?

Part 1: How Corporations Move Money from the Many to the Few
Sunday, April 29, 11:00am to 12:45pm

Do you wonder what role racism plays in wealth inequality? Do you wish you understood exactly how Wall Street exploits Main Street? The answers are not terribly complicated, but they are shocking. We’ll learn about stock manipulation, financialization, strip-mining, redlining and more.

Part 2: How We Can Build a More Just Economy for All
Sunday, May 6, 11:00am to 12:45pm

Using our shared understanding of the problem, we will examine past and existing movements for change: what they are, how they work, and how they can grow. We’ll talk about better ways to make sure all have access to the basic necessities. Then we’ll discuss how we can keep the wealth we create in our communities instead of paying it into the bank accounts of global elites. In sum, what might a fair, sustainable, and joyful economic system look like?

We’d love you to RSVP to strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com so we know how many people to expect.
This workshop is free.
We’d love you to come to both parts if you can.

This is one of the biggest events of the year at People’s Park, with a great lineup of music, dance and speakers. Come and participate!

Join our monthly meeting for members and newcomers interested in opposing the Trump agenda! For more information, visit indivisibleeb.org

Indivisible East Bay is a chapter of the Indivisible movement. We are a grassroots organization focused on stopping the Trump administration’s policies by:

• Lobbying our group’s Members of Congress (MoCs) with office visits, calls, emails, and rallies.
• Lobbying our MoCs on topics of laws, policies, and nominations.
• Collaborating with other Indivisible groups and sharing resources for meetings and events.

https://indivisibleeb.org

League of Women Voters of Piedmont  Speaker Series

Catherine Crump is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at U.C. Berkeley Law School. She will speak about surveillance, public safety, privacy and civil rights. A former staff attorney for the ACLU, Professor Crump has focused her career on free speech, privacy and the impact of modern technology on the law.

This event is open to the public and is co-sponsored by the City of Piedmont and City Councilmember, Jen Cavenaugh.

You are invited to
A conversation with Terry Kupers:
Why we need to be concerned about mass incarceration and supermax solitary confinement

The prison population is seven times what it was in the 1970s, and meanwhile the proportion of prisoners with serious illness has grown.   Tens of millions of people have served time and experienced resultant compromised lives.

Solitary confinement is pervasive in the prison world and causes great human damage.   Let’s get beyond the “lock ’em up and throw away the key” sensibility and talk frankly about how mass incarceration, solitary confinement and the criminalization of mental illness damage our social fabric.

Speaker

Ashby Village member Terry A. Kupers, M.D., M.S.P., is Professor Emeritus at The Wright Institute and Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He provides expert testimony in class action litigation regarding the psychological effects of prison conditions including isolated confinement in supermaximum security units, the quality of correctional mental health care, and the effects of sexual abuse in correctional settings.   His recently published book is Solitary: The Inside Story of Supermax Isolation and How We Can Abolish It. He is also the author of Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It, and co-editor of Prison Masculinities. Terry Kupers is a contributing editor of Correctional Mental Health Report. He received the 2005 Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

RSVP
(how to reach us)

The location is accessible.

Space is limited!

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

The 1960s were an exciting time to live through for those who could see what was happening, because they were a time when, all over the world, people were coming together, organizing themselves, and living their lives according to principles – principles of opposition, of democracy, of cooperation, of justice, and of liberation from the colonialisms of former centuries, both in the colonies and in the colonialist countries. 1968 marked a node in this historical development, in which huge events materialized and concretized movements as upsurges that focused on contesting corporate colonialist and militarist power.

We could list the Vietnamese Tet offensive that deconstructed US strategies there, the strike in France that was the largest strike in history, rebellions in black communities across the US in response to the assassination of MLK, the formation of Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and other RUMs throughout the auto industry along with the first massive strike in Lordstown, the student upsurges in the US that seized Columbia Univ., SFSU, NYU, and others to stop the military’s braintrusts and make education relevant, the civil rights movement in Ireland, the Cultural Revolution in China that was at its populist high-point before being organized into a vast sectarian campaign, Prague Spring, the massive uprising in Mexico City during the Olympics (with solidarity from John Carlos and Tommy Smith), and the beginning of that new form of international anti-colonialist solidarity epitomized by groups of USians working in Cuba and later organized as the Venceremos Brigades.

All these events had profound influence on the thinking of the world’s people, leading almost to an inability of the power elites of the corporate world to govern in the old way. Socialist and socializing ideologies became general ways of thinking, the difference between party politics and people’s politics thrust parties aside, and movements teaching people how to establish political and cultural autonomy as a source of real political strength and not of division took hold for the next ten years.

Steve Martinot has been a union and community organizer, lecturer at the Center for Interdisciplinary Programs at SFSU, and written extensively on the structure of racism and white supremacy in the US, as well as on corporate economics and culture.

Dinner: 6:30 PM

Movie: 7:30 PM

Film Night: Dispatches from Resistant Mexico – Producer/Director Caitlin Manning will present her film from communities and peoples in resistance in Mexico.  Sponsored by Liberated Lens and co-sponsored by the Chiapas Support Committee

Calvillo Manriquez v. DeVos – Fraudulent Student Debt

On April 30, 2018, the Court will also hear argument on Plaintiffs’ Motion for a Preliminary Injunction in a class-action on behalf of certain Corinthian borrowers (though the result of this case will set an important precedent for ALL former for-profit students). Through this motion, Plaintiffs seek an order stopping the Department of Education from partially denying these class members’ borrower defense applications and an order requiring the Department to grant them a full loan discharge as it was doing under its streamlined process before January 20, 2017. Although it is unlikely that we will get a ruling that day, we will will get to hear how the judge is thinking about the issue.

The Debt Collective submitted an amicus brief in this case detailing harms former students experienced and asking the court to provide full relief to all. You can read the brief here.

• 10:00 AM – Rally, Berth 63, 1579 Middle Harbor Rd., Oakland
• 11:00 AM – March to Little Bobby Hutton (Defemery Park) for Rally, then march to…
• 3:00 PM – Rally and March at Oscar Grant Plaza for Immigrant and Worker Rights.

The ILWU will stop work for eight hours at all 29 ports on the West Coast. Join dockworkers Local 10 & 34 for a day of solidarity and resistance.

Justice for Stephon Clark. Justice for Saleem Tindle.

This week Occupy Forum is heading out to another location for several authors’ readings

Richard Walker, author of
Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area &
Phil Cohen, author of
Archive That Comrade! Left Legacies and the Counter Culture of Remembrance

Richard A. Walker is professor emeritus of geography at the University of California. He has written on a diverse range of topics in economic, urban, and environmental geography. He is coauthor of The Capitalist Imperative (1989) and The New Social Economy (1992) and has written extensively on California, including The Conquest of Bread (2004), The Country in the City (2007) and The Atlas of California (2013). Walker is currently director of the Living New Deal Project, whose purpose is to inventory all New Deal public works sites in the United States and recover the lost memory of government investment for the good of all.

Phil Cohen played a key role in the London counterculture scene of the 1960s. As “Dr. John” he was the public face of the London street commune movement and the occupation of 144 Piccadilly, an event that briefly hit the world’s headlines in July 1969. He subsequently became an urban ethnographer, and for the past forty years he has been involved with working-class communities in East London documenting the impact of structural and demographic change on their livelihoods, lifestyles, and life stories. Currently he is research director of LivingMaps, a network of activists, artists, and academics developing a creative and critical approach to social mapping. He is also professor emeritus at the University of East London and a research fellow of the Young Foundation.