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Be part of the human billboard campaign to send a message to our community and our officials. 2,000 children are still missing! 2,000 children are still crying, frightened and alone. Trump may reunite and then jail families together, with no end date. Can we allow this? Can we let the attack on immigrants continue? The dehumanization of men, women, and children…the criminalization of those at the border and those who live in our community are purposeful attempts to convince citizens that the cruel immigration policies can be justified. We know better and we must continue to SHOW UP. Join with other families. Bring a sign, join in song. Inspire others and be inspired.
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!
July 8 protest at Richmond Jail/ ICE Deportation Center, 11 am – noon pic.twitter.com/1lh1MtYF8o
— Indivisible Berkeley (@IndivisibleBerk) July 4, 2018
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
Onefam in West Oakland is facing an un-just eviction. This is a call to action!
WHAT: Protest at Arnie’s
BRING: loud voices, signs, cars…
TRANSPORT: please contact Angie to coordinate rides. 925.695.6503.
https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/west-oaklands-bikes4life-fights-eviction/Content?oid=16716756
The eviction of one fam, a community center with a bike shop, performing arts venue, and cafe that is run primarily by working class people of color from the neighborhood, where all feel welcome, would be truly tragic. We’re asking for your help. We can win this fight, but not without all the support we can get.
We will be going to the house of the landlord who is trying to evict Onefam, Arnold Fields. We’ll be presenting him with a petition signed by members of the community urging him to sit down and work with Onefam, to find an alternative to a court facilitated eviction.
We need as many people as possible to show up. This way, even if he is not present and we tape the petition to his door, he’ll definitely get it and be clear about how much community support and people power Onefam is rolling with.
Please let us know if you can go, how you will be getting there, and if you have capacity to help with transportation, so we can organize groups of folks getting out there. Please also consider sending this to specific people you know as opposed to any groups or lists.”
EMERGENCY RALLY TOMORROW AT NOON TO SUPPORT THE ICE BLOCKADE!!! 444 WASHINGTON STREET. PLEASE GET OFF AT EMBARCADERO BART/MUNI STATION. #abolishice #occupyicesf #occupysfice @DSA_SF @SFBayResistance
— OCCUPYICESF (@occupyicesf) July 6, 2018
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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!
Join the community protest of mass incarceration and immigrant internment at the Richmond jail, aka West County Detention Facility (WCDF)! Asylum applicants from the border are often relocated there, so those who’ve had their kids taken away from them may be held at WCDF. The cruel, racist separations rent by immigration, policing and cash bail policies deal terrible emotional and economic injuries on our loved ones, neighbors, and communities. We must fight to free our peoples!
• LEARN from Pastor Rhina Ramos of Plymouth Church about her work in the LGBTQ+ immigrant community
• HEAR impacted family members share testimonials
• SHOUT with the Let Our People Go community circle
• and MORE to be announced shortly
LET OUR PEOPLE GO is a youth-and-elder-friendly action that opposes the immorality of detentions/deportations and mass incarceration with activist debriefs, music, art, stories, poetry, interactive small groups, and representation from various faith communities and faithless humanists. Accessible site with parking, plus bathrooms right inside in the visitors waiting room.
The monthly Let Our People Go protests were initiated by members of Kehilla Community Synagogue on the 2nd Sunday of every month at 11am, modeled in part on the first Saturday vigils held by our partners at Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity. A grassroots effort, Let Our People Go is organized by volunteers from Kehilla’s Immigration Committee and Congregation Beth El. The ongoing participation from regular attendees is what creates a powerful community circle, a sustained message of resistance to the powers that lets detainees and their loved ones know that estamos en la lucha con ellos. **If your school, network, affinity group or congregation is interested in getting involved, contact us at letourpeoplego@kehillasynagogue.org.**
A one-hour protest, Let Our People Go is a way for our communities—especially those with citizenship privileges—to stand up for our peoples and bring more attention to this immoral site of internment right in our community. We aim to convey a sustained message of resistance to the right wing’s racist, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, ableist, transphobic, homophobic, misogynist ramp up of authoritarian policing, mass incarceration and deportation practices—if not now, when?
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
ll are welcome to join East Bay DSA’s ongoing Socialist Night School for this special evening on housing politics, in connection with our chapter’s campaign to repeal Costa-Hawkins and win universal rent control & social housing in California.
READINGS HERE: https://www.eastbaydsa.org/resources-readings-socialist-school-2018-summer-session-1
Aside from a short opening lecture, the bulk of class time will be spent in small group discussions where we’ll talk the housing crisis in the East Bay from a socialist perspective, the goal of social housing, and how fighting for Costa-Hawkins can help us unite a mass working-class tenant movement able to systemically kick landlord butt.
All participants are asked to read the readings before class. East Bay DSA members and non-members of any experience/knowledge level on housing politics are all warmly invited.
>>ABOUT SOCIALIST NIGHT SCHOOL<<
Socialist Night School is a rolling open course that provides opportunities for East Bay DSA members to ground their political work in the rich theoretical and historical traditions of the socialist left.
Classes are down-to-earth, inclusive spaces that give East Bay comrades a chance to grow their politics together, regardless of background knowledge or affiliation. You don’t have to have been to a night school before and you don’t have to RSVP to join us! You don’t even have to be a member of East Bay DSA — everyone is welcome.
>>ABOUT EAST BAY DSA’S SOCIAL HOUSING CAMPAIGN<<
Join your neighbors in the East Bay Democratic Socialists of America as we organize to win the Affordable Housing Act, universal rent control, and beautiful social housing for everyone.
Our homes should be homes, not investments for Wall Street and corporate landlords. By organizing our neighbors, standing up to prevent evictions, and winning elections, we are building a mass movement for a housing system that puts people over profit.