Calendar

MASS RESISTANCE TO MASS INCARCERATION IS GROWING! Please join your voice and stand together against he horrors of family separation, racist policing and imprisonment, and criminalization of immigrants this Sunday August 12th (11am-Noon) and demand WCDF and demand “Let Our People Go!” Please read details on parking and location below.

Sheriff Livingston announced an end to WCDF contract with ICE, in part due to growing protests. Immigrant detainees are in peril of being sent to private prisons in other states, and the sheriff will likely fill the ICE budget hole by increasing the general population at WCDF. Never forget, most of the people incarcerated there are interned only because they cannot post bail.

Livingston also blocked off the entire jail property and declared no protests are allowed and threatened anyone who steps on the property without “official business” will be arrested. This is a clear violation of first amendment rights. We won’t allow the Sheriff’s blatant disregard of free speech stop us from protesting the immorality of mass incarceration and inhumane treatment of general population and immigrant detainees.

Stand with our monthly multi-face action to demand that immigrant detainees be released, not transferred, hear about community bail funds and demand an end to the racist poverty imprisonment policies. We will gather and protest across the street (read on for details).

Across the country, the situation is dire. Kidnapped migrant children are being interned alone, the regime is rapidly building internment camps—some on toxic sites—where they plan indefinite internment of immigrant families. We have to end the normalization of millions of people separated from their families in the course of racist mass incarceration policies throughout the US.

This Sunday, August 12th from 11am-Noon across the street from WCDF at 1111 Giant Highway Richmond we will:

• HEAR Samba band Sistah Boom
• Patricia Contreras Flores, healer and writer, from ACUDIR Alameda County United in Defense of Immigrant Rights who will share an indigenous perspective with prayer, updates from dispatching the ACILEP hotline and song
• GET UPDATES from families whose loved ones are imprisoned at WCDF
• WRITE letters to individuals detained by ICE
• CREATE at the children’s art table
• SHOUT & MAKE NOISE so people inside can hear they are not forgotten

MUST READ: Parking & Location Info
1. There is no longer access to parking or entry at WCDF (Google Map is HERE). There are two choices for parking: the first is anywhere possible on the sides of Great Highway, and the second is to pay $3 at the Point Pinole parking lot that is located immediately south of WCDF.

2. The only bathrooms for public to use are located in the Point Pinole parking lot. We can no longer use the jail bathrooms.

3. We will have signs and volunteers indicating the flattest place to enter the field area to guide people to the field next to the large eucalyptus trees across from WCDF.

4. Some of the scrubby plants in the field are prickly. But it is not paved and therefore not easily accessible. We suggest closed shoes and longer pants to avoid prickly plants.

5. The sheriff’s “no entry” policy is unfair, we think illegal, and especially challenging to people with limited mobility. Last Saturday, a small group of people in wheelchairs and in camping chairs clustered with signs by the entrance barricaded by patrol cars, people with mobility challenges may choose this option again and there will be helpers to offer support for folks with mobility challenges reach the prostest on the field.

LET OUR PEOPLE GO protests are held on the 2nd Sunday of every month at 11am, to oppose the immorality of mass incarceration and deportations with activist debriefs, music, art, stories, poetry, interactive small groups and more. We demonstrate at West County Detention Facility in Richmond, which holds both county jail and Bay Area ICE detainees. We stand/sit outside the front entrance, adjacent to both public parking and the visitors’ waiting room, which has public bathrooms, making this an accessible action.

Let Our People Go was initiated by members of Kehilla Community Synagogue’s Immigration Committee, modeled in part on the 1st Saturday vigils held by our partners at Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity. A grassroots effort, Let Our People Go protests are organized ongoing by a few volunteers from Kehilla’s Immigration Committee, Congregation Beth El and Solidarity Sundays. The participation of a multitude of organizations, artists and regular attendees creates a powerful community circle to send a sustained message of resistance. **If your school, network, affinity group or congregation is interested in getting involved, contact us at letourpeoplego@kehillasynagogue.org.**

This one-hour Sunday morning protest is one way that Bay Area residents—especially those who currently enjoy the privileges of citizenship—can shine a spotlight on this immoral site of internment right in the East Bay. It’s our responsibility to fight the right wing’s racist, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, ableist, transphobic, homophobic, misogynist ramp up of authoritarian policing, incarceration, and deportation practices—if not now, when?

Join the Hasta Muerte Movie Night: Prison Strike Screening of “Attica” (1971) Film screening and social!

We will be capping off the 2018 Prison Strike with a free screening of “Attica”, a documentary about the prison uprising in the New York that led to a massacre of prisoners following intense state repression to their revolt. ( read more here: https://libcom.org/history/1971-the-attica-prison-uprising)

The film screening will be followed by an informal social (we’re currently working on getting some food!), as well as a Q and A session with a person from the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC).

More on the Hasta Muerte Coffee Collective Space here: http://www.hastamuertecoffee.com
(Hasta muerte is not affiliated with this event, nor is the Facebook event organizer)

Join us for an exciting and inspiring evening with Berkeley-based activist Xan Joi, a self-proclaimed radical anti-racist Jewish and white lesbian feminist and now author. She will share stories and wisdom found in her new book “But What Can I Do?” gained from her experiences driving around the country over 400,000 miles since 9/11 in her veggie-oil powered box truck.

Her “radical ride” has mobile billboards emblazoned with large, pointed anti-war, anti-violence, pro-peace, pro-empowerment missives all four sides.

Xan shares her stories of engaging in dialogue with both the ‘choir’ and the ‘other’, organizing, and strategizing actions. Her book is an inspiring communiqué aimed at creating a common, shared knowledge base from which to foment individual and collective action dismantling patriarchy, racism, war, misogyny and creating the kind of society we want all to thrive in!

Come join us! Bring an organic snack to share, if you want!
Sponsored by BFUU SJC.

Oakland needs a public bank!

The future Public Bank of Oakland will save our city millions of dollars in bank fees and interest charges. And it will earn millions more every year! It’s the best way to divest from Wall Street and keep our money in Oakland to benefit our community, not private banks’ shareholders. All around the country, the movement for state and municipal public banks is growing rapidly. To find out how public banking works, visit

friendsofpublicbankofoakland.org and publicbanking.org.

What’s happening now with Public Bank of Oakland?

Global Investment Company, the group doing the PBO feasibility study, has turned in their report to the City of Oakland staff and to staff in Richmond, Berkeley, and the County of Alameda, which all contributed funds for the study. The study will be presented to the Oakland City Council finance committee on September 11. We want the committee to accept the study, and recommend to the full Council that it direct staff to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the business plan.

What can I do?

Call City Council–especially the finance committee members! Say that you support public banking and you want to see the business plan RFP issued as soon as possible. In this election year our voices are especially strong. When you call the councilmember who represents your district, be sure to mention you’re a constituent.

District 1:             *Dan Kalb 510-238-7001

District 2:             *Abel Guillén 510-238-7002

District 3:             Lynette Gibson McElhaney 510-238-7003

District 4:             *Annie Campbell Washington 510-238-7004

District 5:             *Noel Gallo 510-238-7005

District 6:             Desley Brooks 510-238-7006

District 7:             Larry Reid 510-238-7007

At-large:              Rebecca Kaplan 510-238-7008

*Finance committee member

Join the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International for a public forum:  ‘Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice: Women Leading Solutions on the Frontlines of Climate Change.”

This free event will be an extraordinary gathering of women leaders from across the United States and around the world, joined in solidarity to speak out against environmental and social injustice, draw attention to root causes of the climate crisis, and present the diverse array of visions and strategies with which they are working to shape a healthy and equitable world.

International advocates, grassroots, Indigenous, and frontline women leaders, and policy-makers, will discuss topics including the intersectionality of gender and environment; Indigenous rights; the just transition; women and forest protection and regeneration; fossil fuel resistance efforts; women and agro-ecology/soils; environmental racism; and women’s leadership and calls for action within a climate justice framework.

Speakers will include:

• Pennie Opal Plant – (Yaqui & undocumented Choctaw & Cherokee) Co-Founder of Idle No More SF Bay, Co-Founder of Movement Rights, and Signatory on the Indigenous Women of the Americas Defending Mother Earth Treaty
• Honorable Mary Robinson – President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, former President of Ireland
• Mirian Cisneros – (Kichwa) President of the Pueblo of Sarayaku, Ecuador
• Annie Leonard – Executive Director of Greenpeace USAl
• Amy Goodman ​- Host and Executive Producer of Democracy Now!
• Jacqueline Patterson – Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Environmental and Climate Justice Program
• Kandi White – (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara) Lead Organizer on the Extreme Energy & Just Transition Campaign with the Indigenous Environmental Network
• Antonia Juhasz – Energy author, investigative journalist and analyst, specializing in oil
• Wanda Culp – (Tlingit) Artist and forest defender, and Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network Regional Coordinator in the Tongass, Alaska
• Dr. Gail Myers – Agri-Cultural Anthropologist, Co-Founder of Farms to Grow, Inc., and co-initiator of the Freedom Farmers Market in Oakland, California
• Leila Salazar-López – Executive Director of Amazon Watch
• Doria Robinson – Executive Director of Urban Tilth, Representative of the Climate Justice Alliance
• Morissa Zuckerman – Representative with Sunrise Movement
• and many more

RSVP

Tax the Rich rally with Occupella sing along 7 Years on Solano Anniversary Celebration

Top of Solano in front of closed Oaks Theater,.

The very first Tax the Rich Rally was September 12, 2011. Occupy NYC began the following Saturday in 2011.

EBC 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 EBC’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 Emily@ellabakercenter.org

West Oakland Punks with Lunch is a guerilla not-for-profit Harm reduction outreach organization providing food and other necessities to people experiencing homelessness.

Anyone and everyone is welcome to volunteer with us! We just ask a few simple guidelines to keep PWL running smoothly.

Please come wearing closed toed shoes and dressed appropriately for the weather. We ask that you show up with a non-judgemental, come as you are attitude. Be ready to work hard and have fun!

Wednesday:  Mobile Outreach

Meet at: 36th and MLK                Hours: 6pm-8pm

We do mobile outreach from 56th St. and MLK all the way down to 30th and MLK.
We provide snacks, water, hygiene and harm reduction supplies.
If you are interested in volunteering Wednesdays, please email us at:
oaklandpunkswithlunch@gmail.com

Sunday: Fixed Sites

Meet at: 2630 Union St.               Hours:    Prep 1pm-3pm, Distribution: 3pm-6pm
We have two fixed sites on Sundays. One at 35th and Peralta St. from 3:30pm-4:15pm and the other at 4:30pm-5:15pm. Ideally we stay on time, but we don’t beat ourselves up if we are a little late.  You have the option of staying for only prep, only distribution, or BOTH!  Sundays are the perfect day to get to know our organization for the day, or continue working with us to grow as on organization.

In May 2018, Oakland joined a growing number of California cities and counties that are currently passing meaningful surveillance oversight laws.

The new law requires that the Privacy Advisory Commission be notified if the city is spending money or seeking outside grant money to be spent on any hardware or software that could potentially impact privacy. Notably, Oakland’s law specifically includes provisions that forbid non-disclosure agreements and protect whistleblowers.

Oakland has been at the forefront of local efforts to pass pro-privacy measures for many years now. Back in 2013, after a controversial measure to approve federal grant money to construct a “Domain Awareness Center,” the city created the PAC. This body, composed of volunteer commissioners from each city council district, acts as a privacy check on the city when any municipal entity (typically the police department) wants to acquire a technology that may impinge on individual privacy.

It appears to be the only municipal entity like this anywhere in the nation.

So to help us understand what’s going on with the Oakland PAC, we’ve invited Raymundo Jacquez III, an Oakland attorney, and a member of the PAC, to the next edition of Ars Live.

Raymundo Jacquez III joined the Youth Law Academy (YLA) at the Centro Legal de la Raza in 2014. He earned his J.D. from UC Davis School of Law, Martin Luther King Jr. Hall in 2014, and his B.A. in Sociology with a minor in Chicana/o Studies from UCLA in 2008. Jacquez is passionate about improving access to the legal profession for students of color, civil rights law, police accountability, education, and social justice.

As the YLA Program Director, Jacquez manages the mentorship program, coordinates internships, and advances the group’s Diversity Legal Pipeline for undergraduate students. He brings his experience as a youth organizer, educator, and lawyer to the YLA to engage students in a critical examination of the legal system and hopes to motivate students to realize their unique potentials as agents of change in their community.

Ars Live takes place on the second Wednesday of every month at Eli’s Mile High Club in Oakland (3629 MLK Way – they have the best tater tots you’ve ever eaten).

Doors open at 7pm, and the live filming is from 7:30pm to 8:20-ish. Stick around afterward for informal discussion, beer, and snacks. Can’t make it out to Oakland? Never fear! Episodes will be posted to Ars Technica the week after the live events.

The event is free but space is limited, so get there early if you want a seat.

 Chris Hedges shows us in America, The Farewell Tour, a country that should

Shame us, a land of rampant and deadly drug addiction, of escape into gambling and pornography, of zenophobic scapegoating – a country where the super rich exploit the poor and vulnerable. He is calling us out for having become a corporate state where the dignity and worth of the individual no longer matter.

This is a profound and provocative examination of America in crisis, convulsed by pathologies that have risen from the sense of hopelessness. Hedges examines our retreat into gambling, pornography, and drugs as Americans attempt to cope with an economic collapse that has left so many out of work and others working two or even three jobs just to stay afloat. As our society unravels, we also must face global upheavals, specifically the emerging catastrophes wrought by climate change. He argues that we must reverse the corporate coup d’etat destroying our country and combat the current crisis by waging a cultural, moral and even spiritual resistance.

 Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has reported from more than 50 countries. He spent 15 years at The New York Times as a foreign correspondent and bureau chief. He is the author of twelve previous books, including the bestselling American Fascists, Death of the Liberal Class,and War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University, The University of Toronto, and in  the New Jersey prison system. He is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute.  His work has appeared in Harper’s,

  The New Statesman, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, Adbusters, Granta,  and Foreign Affairs.

 Norman Solomon is a  media critic, former U.S. Congressional candidate, and a journalist with ExposeFacts.org, a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is also the author of numerous books and a co-founder of RootsAction.org.

Tickets: $15 brownpapertickets.com, Pegasus Books (3 stores), Moe’s, Walden Pond Bookstore, East Bay Books, Mrs. Dalloway’s, Books Inc Berkeley), $18 door

The It Takes Roots-hosted Solidarity to Solutions Summit is a popular assembly for all progressive social movements to gather, discuss and debate the critical strategies, solutions and proposals for collective action that will tackle the root, systemic causes of capitalism and climate change.

The gathering aims to critically examine the neo-liberal, corporate agenda of the Global Climate Action Summit and highlight the democratic, grassroots solutions being cultivated by Indigenous communities, communities of color and working class peoples around the world.

This assembly is built on the shared belief that to successfully tackle these intertwined crises, we need to take action in solidarity with the self-determination of communities on the frontlines of ecological and economic collapse.  This means following their leadership in replacing the dig, burn, drive, dump systems that are destroying the planet with localized systems of caring and sharing being cultivated by those same communities.

It Takes Roots is a multiracial, multicultural, multi-generational alliance of networks and alliances representing over 200 organizations and affiliates in over 50 states, provinces, territories and Native lands in the U.S. and Canada, and is led by women, gender nonconforming people, people of color, and Indigenous Peoples.  It is an outcome of years of organizing and relationship building across the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ), Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), and Right to the City Alliance (RTC) alongside Center for Story-based Strategy and The Ruckus Society.

Sol2Sol Schedule of Events

• Saturday, September 8, 10am: Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice March, Embarcadero, San Francisco
• Sunday, September 9: 8am Traditional Ohlone Ceremony and Welcome at the Shellmounds. Community Solutions Tours, Art Builds & Action training, Bay Area
• September 10, 8am: Mass action Against Climate Change Profiteers at Parc 55 Hotel, 55 Cyril Magnin St, San Francisco
• Tuesday, September 11: It Takes Roots Solidarity to Solutions Summit at La Raza Park, San Francisco
• Thursday, September 13, 7am: Mass Action at the Global Climate Action Summit at 736 Mission St, San Francisco

On August 9, BART dropped a multi-million new security dragnet proposal with only three days notice. The Bay Area responded with 2 full hours of passionate public testimony leading to the tabling of 5 components of the plan, including the PSIM information platform and rumors of the possible adoption of facial recognition technology, as mentioned to the press by one BART director.

On September 13, part 2 gets underway.

After an unannounced and controversial installation of automated license plate readers at Macarthur BART in 2016, BART agreed to adopt a surveillance transparency ordinance, but after nearly two years of meetings, they had not done so and took advantage by trying to rush through a huge upgrade with little transparency, and no use policies or civil rights assessments.

At the August 9 meeting, the tabled items were postponed to a meeting in the suburbs to be scheduled at a later date. That meeting never happened, so they remain on the table. But the Board has committed to voting on the transparency ordinance on the 13th.

The ordinance will make sure there can be no mass surveillance upgrades on 3 days notice ever again, and that the community will get a say on what security measure we want – and which we don’t want.

But we need you there to make sure it is passed and make sure it is strong and doesn’t get watered down. Passing these ordinances is how we keep from having to mobilize on 3 days notice over and over and over again.

BART is currently planning to use the same platform that was proposed as the “brains” of the Domain Awareness Center (PSIM). The plan calls for 2000 CCTV cameras to be converted to IP-based for geospatial tagging and advanced real-time video analytics.

There are plenty of common sense things BART could do with $15-25 million dollars to improve security on the transit system without treating every passenger like a criminal suspect.

BART is a subway, not a perpetual lineup.

Please come and help us create community control over transit surveillance.

Tweet at hashtag #NODACFORBART

the Alameda County Probation Department, Public Defenders Office, and the Sheriff’s Office will testify in front of the Public Protection Committee to urge the adoption of legislation that will eliminate criminal justice administration fees in Alameda County. The East Bay Community Law Center, a legal services provider serving low-income residents in Alameda County, along with the Policy Advocacy Clinic of U.C. Berkeley Law School, Justice Reinvestment Coalition of Alameda County, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the Urban Strategies Council, have been actively advocating for the elimination of these fees.

The Probation Department, Public Defenders Office, and the Sheriff’s Office assess insurmountable fees on people convicted of criminal offenses. For example, today, in Alameda County, defendants are charged monthly probation supervision fees of up to $90 per month and pre-charge investigation report costs of $710. Considering the context of other economic wealth-stripping mechanisms embedded in the criminal justice system, criminal justice fees in Alameda County are causing high pain for families and low gain for local county government.

“This is not only a fiscal and good governance issue but also a racial justice issue. Black folks, particularly Oakland residents suffer from disproportionate police contact, traffic stops, incarceration and all of the life altering collateral consequences that follow. In addition, Black folks are overburdened by housing costs, lower than average wages and the disastrous impacts of gentrification. This confluence of issues results in the most marginalized communities being the ones most impacted by court ordered debt that they cannot afford to pay. We urge the Board of Supervisors to take the first step in rectifying this situation by eliminating these fines and fees,” remarked Brandon Greene, staff attorney and clinical supervisor at the East Bay Community Law Center.

“It is time for Alameda County to end the unscrupulous wealth-stripping of low-income individuals and families. EBCLC has represented countless individuals who want a clean start but are unable to get out from underneath the pile of debt imposed by criminal justice administration fees. A repeal of fees and discharge of outstanding debt would be an important step towards true debt free justice in Alameda County,” commented Theresa Zhen, staff attorney and clinical supervisor at the East Bay Community Law Center.

In 2016, Alameda County eliminated juvenile fees and fines, which led to the passage of a bill that made California the first state in the country to eliminate court fees and fines for juveniles. Hoping for a repeat of this trailblazing action, this current campaign would eliminate adult fines and fees in Alameda County. The East Bay Community Law Center plans to publish a white paper that digs deeper into how the current system exacts high pain for little gain, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities. Additionally, the Law Center has convened a state-wide coalition to end adult criminal justice fees throughout California.

The Public Protection hearing will take place at the County Administration Building, 1221 Oak Street, Room 255, 2nd Floor, Oakland, CA 94612 from 10:00AM – 12:00PM.

The agenda can be found here.

New Tuff Shed camp planned for parking lot at Kaiser Convention Center near Lake Merritt. Once open, no camping rule to be enforced by the lake. Community meeting Sept. 13 pic.twitter.com/nCZP3sIebI

— Scott Morris (@OakMorr) September 8, 2018

SPEAKERS
ANGELA DAVIS & NADINE NABER
STRENGTH & RESILIENCE: AROC 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY
CELEBRATE 10 YEARS OF COMMUNITY DEFENSE, MOVEMENT BUILDING & RESISTANCE

SPEAKERS

Angela Davis
Nadine Naber

FEATURING
DJ Emancipacion
Al Juthour Dabke Troupe

HONOREES
ILWU Local 10
Nancy Hormachea
Stop Urban Shield Coalition
Teachers 4 Social Justice

TICKETS
Purchase early bird tickets here!

HOST COMMITTEE
Alia Ghabra
Eyad Kishawi
Hassan Fouda
Hatem Bazian
Johnnie Batarseh
Layla Feghali
Lily Haskell
Liz Derias-Tyehimba
Monadel Herzallah
Naima Shalhoub
Noura Erakat
Ramiz Rafeedie
Renda Dabit
Samer Elbandek
Senan Elkhairi
Yousef Abudayyeh
Ziad Abbas