Calendar
HOMELESS: A documentary film by internationally renowned writer & scholar Dr Samar Habib, exposing the state emergency crisis of homelessness in Berkeley & Oakland. Plus a documentary collage of information, interviews and stills from the Berkeley Emergency Storm Shelter at 9th & University.
Dr. Habib will introduce the film and be on hand to answer questions. There will be a homemade meal from the Fabulous Chefs at Consider the Homeless.
3:15PM: Doors open
3:20PM: Music & Slide Show
3:45PM: Welcome: Consider The Homeless! founder, Barbara Brust
3:55PM: Dr. Samar Habib introduces her film “HOMELESS”
4:05PM: Screening of the film, “HOMELESS: The Story of America’s Economic Refugees”
4:55PM: Screening of the short film, “BESS – April 2018”
5:10PM: Introductions – Special Guests
5:15PM: Q & A with our guests
6:00PM: Dinner is Served
The housing crisis in the Bay Area and beyond is a wholly preventable disaster, created and maintained by the notion that housing is a commodity and not a human right.
On Saturday, June 30, join us in the campaign for the Affordable Housing Act — a proposed ballot initiative that that will give our cities and counties the power to adopt rent control necessary to address the state’s housing affordability crisis by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.
The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act upholds landlord interests, and – in tandem with the housing crisis – has deeply exacerbated social disparities, displaced longtime communities, driven homelessness, and dealt a blow to working class power by making housing ever more insecure and inaccessible.
Come learn more about repealing Costa-Hawkins and then we’ll hit the streets to talk with our neighbors about housing justice and the Affordable Housing Act!
RSVP here: https://www.eastbaydsa.org/event-canvass-2018-06-30-canvass-for-housing-justice-in-south-berkeley
Alena Museum presents artist activism event on gentrification. We will gather the creative voices and collective power of our community and allies to demonstrate and speak out against the private investors, developers, and politicians who are set out to broaden the gap of wealth at the expense of the people. We will share with you our plans moving forward and how the community can be involved in that process. Displacing the community will not be a silent fight. Stand up for you, your family, your neighbors, and your community as we are witnessing gentrification destroying the cultural fabric of Oakland.
We document current events, make films together, steward an editing suite and share a film equipment library. We also host film screenings, often with local directors, and put on an annual short film festival for independent Bay Area filmmakers. Our goal is to make the digital filmmaking accessible – no overpriced college degree or certificate program required!
We are also a good group to reach out to if you’d like to screen a film at the Omni. We can be reached at liberatedlens@lists.riseup.net
We usually meet in the basement, unless otherwise noted.
We are hosting People’s Assemblies on everything from public safety to education. Together we will imagine an Oakland with housing security, true public safety, sanctuary for all, and create a plan to get us there.
This People’s Assembly will focus on Native communities and the struggle for Native sovereignty and land reclamation. Join us to talk about Red/Black Liberation on the day before the Farce of July.
A core group of protesters are staying 24/7 at an encampment at 444 Washington St. in San Francisco, taking over the street outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. Participants site ICE’s violation of human rights as the primary reason for the action and have erected a pavilion and barbed wire fence to fortify their barricade.
Participants in Occupy ICE SF are encouraging folks to stay the night whenever possible, and to bring supplies including food, water, beverages, ice and coolers. Music performances, instruments, and sound systems are most welcome to help the protesters “turn up the heat and melt the ice”.
Occupy ICE SF stands in solidarity with undocumented immigrants from around the world as they vehemently oppose President Trump’s immigration policies. Protesters are calling for the abolishment of ICE, saying the agency has attempted to transform state and local law enforcement agencies into deportation machines. The San Francisco Police Department is monitoring the encampment but so far there have been no arrests.
This is it. Saturday, July 7 is the FINAL DAY we have to collect enough signatures to get Our City Our Home on the ballot.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Our City Our Home:
This measure would provide $300 million of resources for affordable housing, mental health care and other services needed to house our homeless residents and protect all those who are vulnerable to eviction and displacement. We can finally make homelessness as we know it a thing of the past in San Francisco, and be a model for the rest of the country.
We ask you to INVITE YOUR FACEBOOK COMMUNITY to join this urgent effort by volunteering on Saturday! We need volunteers for a variety of roles, especially signature gatherers. Call Ben at 415 674 6080 for details!
Street Fair.
Oakland First Fridays brings you “Art Of D.I.Y.,”
When we think about Independence Day what usually comes to mind is freedom, but we rarely talk about the formation of something new. Banding together, the United States was a do-it-yourself movement. You can be free, but what are you doing with your freedom? As we reflect on independence this month, we are reminded of all the artists who make works from scratch, highlighting those who do-it-themselves.
Occupella will be having a Black Lives Matter/Stand With the Vulnerable sing at Fruitvale BART Friday, July 6th from 5:15-6:15.
What Corporations are doing (Conrad MacKerron, As You Sow)
What Cities and Countries are doing, policy-wise (TBD)
What Businesses are doing (Samantha Sommer, ReThink Disposable)
The Recycling Challenges of disposable foodware (Martin Bourque, Ecology Center
https://ecoctr.org/disposablefreedining
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The Peace and Freedom Party presents
Socialist Cuba
Working Class Perspectives
A product of the first socialist revolution in the Americas, the Republic of Cuba is surrounded by many myths, but what is the reality? To answer this question, members of the Bay Area Black Worker Center toured Cuba earlier this year and will give us a Report-Back. Speakers include: justin king, Jessica Travenia, Cloudell Douglas, and Gerald Smith
FREE! (Please buy food & drink at the Pub.) FREE!
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 as long as you like. Speaker’s affiliations are listed for identification only. The opinions expressed do not reflect the 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
“There is no other force, there is no other party, there is no other real ideology out there right now that is asserting the minimum elements necessary to lead a dignified American life.” – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DSA member and likely future congresswoman, on democratic socialism in Vogue Magazine
It’s 2018 and socialism is ascendent. The political revolution that Bernie Sanders set in motion with his insurgent campaign in the 2016 presidential primary continues to build in intensity. More and more people are standing up to say that they’ve had enough with a system that puts profit over people, that puts the wealth of the few over the dignity and flourishing of the many.
Democratic socialists all over the country are fighting for an improved and expanded Medicare for All healthcare system, a federal jobs guarantee, universal rent control, tuition-free public education pre-K through college or trade school, a powerful, militant labor movement, and the abolishment of ICE.
We’re winning elections, we’re building explicitly socialist institutions, we’re training effective socialist organizers, and we’re introducing millions of people to real-world anti-capitalist politics.
Come on out to a picnic in the park to learn more about democratic socialism and get involved in our local activities here in the East Bay. New members and not-yet-members are welcome!
Normally meeting on the 1st Thursday of the month, OPAC will meet instead on the 9th in July.
Agenda:
4. 5:15pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – status update regarding department outreach for survey of existing equipment.
5. 5:20pm: Discuss and create working group for review of Federal law enforcement task force agreements.
6. 5:30pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – “Large Scale Event- Warriors Parade”. Receive and take possible action on staff informational report.
7. 5:40pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – Police Department – “Ride Along” software application. Review and take possible action on Anticipated Impact Report.
8. 6:10pm: Police Department proposal to amend City retention schedule pertaining to Body Worn Camera footage. Review and take possible action on proposal.
Despite SF's sanctuary policy, SFPD raided the @occupyicesf camp early this morning–when local media wouldn't be around to document. A few injuries.
TOMORROW: Demand the SF Board of Supervisors support #AbolishICE and break up with any bank that finances private prisons pic.twitter.com/KA1OZKTJDt
— SF Public Bank Coalition (@sfpublicbank) July 9, 2018
The Ella Baker Center will host a mail night at our office to respond to the increasing amount of correspondence we’ve been receiving from people in prisons and jails across the country. We are getting lots of questions about prior ballot initiatives including Prop 47 and 57, advocacy support, requests for pen pals and the Ella Baker Center’s work at large. We will also be sending information to people inside about how they can get involved with our priority bills.
Please RSVP to Eric@ellabakercenter.org
#occupyicesf is back baby!!! @occupyicesf pic.twitter.com/6tctGyAX7v
— BITCOINTELPRO (@LiaOffLeash) July 10, 2018
KPFA Radio 94.1 FM presents
Advanced Tickets: Pegasus Books (3 stores), Books Inc (Berkeley), Moe’s, Walden Pond Bookstore, East Bay Books, Mrs. Dalloway’s
What does a middle-class democracy look like when it falls apart? When – after forty years of economic triumph – the country’s fiscal winners persuade themselves that they owe nothing whasoever to the rest of the country? With his exceptionally sharp eye for detail, Thomas Frank takes us on a wide-ranging tour through present day America, showing us a society in the final stages of disintegration, and describing the
worlds of both the winners and the losers—the sprawling mansion districts as well as the daily lives of fast-food workers.
Rendezvous with Oblivion is a collection of interlocking essays examining exactly how grotesque inequality has manifested itself in our cities, in our jobs, in the way we travel, and of course in our politics, where in 2016, millions of anxious ordinary people rallied to the insulting presidential campaign of a billionaire who had only contempt for them.
These accounts of folly and exploitation are brought together in this volume, unified by Frank’s distinctive voice, sardonic wit, and fresh, anti-orthodox perspective. They capture a society where status signifiers are hollow, where the allure of mobility is merely another con job, and where rebellion too often yields nothing. For those who despair of the future of this country, Rendezvous with Obliviion is a booster shot of energy, reality, and welcome moral outrage.
“Thomas Frank combines two things absent from most liberal commentary: muckraking reporting and satiric wit.” — New York Times’ Book Review
Thomas Frank is the author of the New York Times’ bestselling What’s the Matter with Kansas? as well as Listen, Liberal, and Pity the Billionaire, and The Wrecking Crew. A former columnist for The Wall Street Journal and Harper’s, he is the founding editor of The Baffler, and writes regularly for The Guardian.
Kris Welch is a veteran, very popular KPFA on-air host, a mother, and a devoted grandmother.
KPFA benefit
Join a live Q&A via Skype with Ken Ward, one of the valve turners who shut off oil pipelines in October 2016. This discussion of the valve turners’ multi-state civil disobedience action will follow a screening of the documentary film “The Reluctant Radical.” The film follows Ward as he confronts his fears and puts himself in the direct path of the fossil fuel industry to combat climate change.
Join Sunflower Alliance for two fundraisers for the valve turners’ legal defense fund.
TICKETS AVAILABLE AT BROWN PAPER TICKETS (sliding scale)
Richmond: https://bpt.me/3483033;
Oakland: https://bpt.me/3489485
Check out “The Reluctant Radical” trailer here
A climate change film like no other, THE RELUCTANT RADICAL is an intimate character portrait of valve turner Ken Ward, who puts everything on the line in his fight to stave off climate change. Using cinéma vérité storytelling, the film reveals both the personal costs and also the fulfillment that comes from following ones moral callingeven if that means breaking the law.
The film follows Ken for a year and a half, culminating with his participation in the coordinated action that shut down all the U.S. tar sands oil pipelines on October 11, 2016 and the ensuing trial that threatened to put him behind bars for twenty years.
There are many fronts in the vast climate fight; this film highlights the personal struggles and victories of one daring path. -Bill McKibben, Climate Advocate and Founder of 350.org
He was told he was crazy, but crazy is sitting idly by as disaster for young people is knowingly locked in. -Dr. James Hansen, Climate Scientist