Calendar
Oakland 1946 General Strike Walk – “We Called it a Work Holiday”
With Gifford Hartman of the Flying Picket Historical Society.
This walk will revisit the sites of Oakland’s “Work Holiday” that began spontaneously with rank-and-file solidarity with the striking – mostly women – retail clerks at Kahn’s and Hastings department stores whose picket line was being broken by scabs escorted by police.
Within 24 hours, it involved over 100,000 workers and shut down nearly all commerce in the East Bay for 54 hours. In 1946 there were six general strikes across the U.S.; that year set the all-time record year for strikes and work stoppages. The Oakland “Work Holiday” was the last general strike to ever occur in the U.S.. This walk and history talk will attempt to keep alive the memory of this tradition of community-wide working class solidarity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCKs-lhBgiM
The birthday of our public Post Office will be celebrated this year in Berkeley on Saturday, July 25th, from 12:00 noon till 2 pm, with music going on after that.
The postal unions have written to President Obama, asking that the occasion be celebrated every year as Postal Heritage Day. In Berkeley, we’ve been celebrating it every year at 2000 Allston Way since our struggle to save the P.O. began in July of 2012. So we’ll be celebrating three years of so-far successful struggle to prevent a sale of the building. Portland, Seattle and other cities are also holding Postal Heritage Day celebrations.
2015 also marks the 100th anniversary of the opening of the new Berkeley Main Post Office in 1915.
LET’S CELEBRATE !!!
National Postal Heritage Day
101st Birthday of Berkeley’s Main Post Office
240th Birthday of the United States Post Office
Hear Peter Byrne, Author of Going Postal,
Comedian Mrs. T. Bill Banks, Music by Anna de Leon,
Occupella, Redd Welsh, Hali Hammer, and others
Hot topics with a Focus on Education
Amply your voice: Unity, Democracy, Diversity! Updates from Steering Committee & Action Teams.
Report on reorganization plans.
New members can join at the door and current members can update their status.
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!OccupyForum presents
Nuclear Whistleblower Bob Rowen:
Is Nuclear Energy a “Safe, Clean, and Economical” Alternative?
It is clear that nuclear power is unaffordable in every way. A reliance upon nuclear power impedes our efforts to develop and implement the production of electricity by safe, affordable, sustainable means, such as solar, wind, and geothermal.
Robert Rowen: My Humboldt Diary: A True Story of Betrayal of the Public Trust, Nuclear Power at Humboldt Bay
http://peaceandjusticeonline.org/2011/05/19/nuclear-power-dangerous-dirty-expensive-20-key-facts/
Time will be allotted for Q&A, discussion and announcements.
9. Subject: Right to Record and Photograph
From: Members Of The Public: 100 Black Men
Recommendation: Adopt A The Following Pieces Of Legislation 1) Resolution Affirming The Right To Photograph, Video And/Or Audio Record Police And/Or Peace Officer(s)
Report: https://oakland.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=3761697&GUID=D340EB96-48E5-4FEA-B652-F633CEACFE48 [+ two supplemental reports …]
Also on the agenda:
From: Oakland Police Department
Recommendation: Adopt A Resolution Authorizing The City Administrator To 1) Accept And Appropriate Grant Funds In The Amount Of $290,000 From The State Of California, Office Of Traffic Safety (OTS), For The FY 2015-16 Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP)
In order to meet grant goals, OPD staff will continue to complete the STEP in accordance with OPD policy and OTS grant requirements. These requirements include the performance of the following operations between October 1, 2015 and September 30. 2016:
� 5 DUI/Driver License Checkpoints
� 12 DUI Saturation Patrols
� 4 Distracted Driving enforcement operations targeting drivers using hand-held cellular phones and texting
� 12 Traffic Enforcement operations including, but not limited to, select primary collision factor violations
� 4 Motorcycle Safety operations
� 2 Click-It or Ticket seatbelt enforcement operations
� 12 bicycle and pedestrian enforcement operations in identified areas of high bicycle and pedestrian traffic
� Participation in the National Distracted Driving Awareness Month in April
� Participation in the statewide Click It or Ticket mobilization period in May
� Collaboration with the Alameda County Chiefs of Police Association’s Avoid the 21 Driving under the Influence Coalition
The Oakland Livable Wage Assembly builds community and power among those who seek higher wages and better work life conditions for area workers.
We meet every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month at the SEIU Local 1000 union hall in downtown Oakland at 6:30 PM.
Our work together encompasses: (1) the concerns of precarious, contingent, and care workers; (2) current campaigns to improve wages for low-wage workers; and (3) efforts by unionized workers and unions to improve wages and quality of work life. We share stories and information in an egalitarian and participatory way to build relationships and build the movement.
We look forward to learning with you and making change for the better.
Please love and support one another. We have a duty to fight. We have a duty to win.
Subject: Special City Council Meeting
From: Council President Gibson McElhaney
Recommendation: Hold A Special City Council Meeting On Council And Committee Meeting Protocols, Including Discussion Of, And Possible Recommendations Regarding, The Council Rules Of Procedure, Brown Act And The Sunshine Act Regarding Meeting Rules In Article II
We will rally to Protect, Improve, and Expand Medicare to All. Nationally, the legislation we are campaigning for is HR 676 sponsored by 49 congress members.
EAST BAY FORESTS:Message From Hiroshima will be released by Cinema Libre Studio on August 4, 2015. However, in light of the upcoming 70th Anniversary of the atomic bombing, Cinema Libre has made the film available in advance to be shown by select non-profit organizations, including American Friends Service Committee.
Synopsis: Narrated by George Takei, Message From Hiroshima provides an inside look at life and culture in the city before the first atomic bomb was deployed. Today, where the Hon and Motoyasu rivers meet, stands the Peace Memorial Park – the former location of the Nakajima district, which once was home to thousands of people and hundreds of businesses. When the atomic bomb was detonated 2,000 feet above Hiroshima’s city center on August 6, 1945, all of that vanished. Seventy years later, director Masaaki Tanabe makes it his mission to revive the memory of what once was by interviewing hibakusha (survivors) and former residents. These heart-wrenching testimonials, along with computer-generated recreations of restaurants, shoe stores, cinemas, and the famous Industrial Promotion Hall, takes us deep into the hustle and bustle of a lost culture and people.
View Trailer: Message From Hiroshima Trailer
52 min. | Japanese, with English subtitles and English narration
Visit the film’s Official Website: http://www.cinemalibrestudio.com/message-from-hiroshima/
Visit the film’s Facebook Page: http://www.facebook/messagefromhiroshima
Attend the 8 am 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing witness at Livermore Labs on August 8th
Lake Merritt is the arena for “Knock Out Oil” on August 1st. Save the date for lively, family-friendly, anti-fracking street theater on the occasion of the statewide Clean Not Extreme Day of Action.
August 1st marks a pivotal moment in the fight to stop fracking and other forms of extreme oil extraction in California. For years, Governor Jerry Brown has refused to even consider ending these toxic practices before the results of an independent scientific study were released. That California Council on Science and Technology report has just come out, and it confirms what we already knew: that fracking and other forms of extreme extraction are indeed dangerous. (Read a recent LA Times editorial citing the study as grounds for a moratorium.)
A state-commissioned environmental impact report (EIR) was also released last week. It found that impacts to air quality, public safety and climate from extreme oil production methods are “significant and unavoidable.”
Fracking, moreover, is an environmental justice issue. It overwhelmingly occurs close to schools that serve predominately Latino populations. More than sixty percent of the 61,612 California children who attend school within one mile of a stimulated well are Latino. Statewide, Latino students are over eighteen percent more likely to attend a school within a mile and a half of a stimulated well than non-Latino students. This is why one Kern County family recently sued Governor Brown in a lawsuit brought by the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, claiming that the new fracking regulations put in place do not protect the health of Latino public school children.
Governor Jerry Brown has run out of excuses.
Sunflower Alliance, in partnership with a statewide alliance of fracktivists, strongly urges you to sign this timely petition to Governor Brown. He needs to hear the voices of the millions of Californians who want an end to fracking and other forms of dangerous extraction NOW.
Take a few seconds to sign the petition to ban fracking and other extreme extraction methods in California. And then come out to Lake Merritt on Saturday, August 1st, to “Knock Out Oil.”
WHEN
August 01, 2015 at 12pm – 3pm
WHERE
Lake Merritt
- student debt resistance
- organizing for public banking.
- advocating for Postal banking.
- ongoing study group
- helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
- our famous Strike Debt radio program
- staging Debtors’ Assemblies
- Reviewing our recent presentation on money and debt at the US Social Forum
- saving the Berkeley Post Office and stopping the Staples non-union takeover of good Post Office jobs
- and much more!
Strike Debt – Principles of Solidarity
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.
We also oppose debt because it is an instrument of exploitation and political domination. Debt is used to discipline us, deepen existing inequalities, and reinforce racial, gendered, and other social hierarchies. Every Strike Debt action is designed to weaken the institutions that seek to divide us and benefit from our division. As an alternative to this predatory system, Strike Debt advocates a just and sustainable economy, based on mutual aid, common goods, and public affluence.
Strike Debt is committed to the principles and tactics of political autonomy, direct democracy, direct action, creative openness, a culture of solidarity, and commitment to anti-oppressive language and conduct. We struggle for a world without racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression.
Strike Debt holds that we are all debtors, whether or not we have personal loan agreements. Through the manipulation of sovereign and municipal debt, the costs of speculator-driven crises are passed on to all of us. Though different kinds of debt can affect the same household, they are all interconnected, and so all household debtors have a common interest in resisting.
Strike Debt engages in public education about the debt-system to counteract the self-serving myth that finance is too complicated for laypersons to understand. In particular, it urges direct action as a way of stopping the damage caused by the creditor class and their enablers among elected government officials. Direct action empowers those who participate in challenging the debt-system.
Strike Debt holds that we owe the financial institutions nothing, whereas, to our friends, families and communities, we owe everything. In pursuing a long-term strategy for national organizing around this principle, we pledge international solidarity with the growing global movement against debt and austerity.
Monthly interfaith prayer meeting, held on second Sundays, dedicated to survivors and victims of violence and police terror in Oakland.
On Sunday August 9th, this will also be one year since the brutal murder of Mike Brown, a black teen, by a police officer in Ferguson. Around the country, events to commemorate Mike Brown and other victims of police terror are scheduled.
We are organizing this gathering for the community to connect, share prayers, writings and poems from all spiritual traditions, reflect and recharge and build coalitions interested in healing.
In April, it was two years since we started holding these prayer meetings at the Baha’i Center. Come share prayers, quotes, poems, and favorite passages from your scriptures with us. We will serve a simple breakfast.
Folks are spread all over creation, many of us are meetinged out for the week, see you next week at the Omni at 2PM.
Special Ed
Agenda:
· review the latest draft of our proposed ballot measure,
· discuss proposals for how to ensure we get the best Commissioners
· talk about the work that lies ahead: growing the Coalition, getting important endorsements, educating the public and meeting with our Council members.
· We’ll also need to put on some community events and do some fundraising.
The BFUU is embracing the call from our Unitarian Universalists Association to engage in a program about the widening gap in well-being and incomes in the United States. This segment of our related series of study groups will focus on police militarization, its impact on our communities, its relationship to the widening gaps in our society and economy, and what we can do about it. Our guest speaker will be Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb; who will inform us of the latest developments and give us contact information for community involvement.
Sponsored by the Berkeley Fellowship of UUs
Wheelchair accessible.
The Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality & State Repression (OGC) is a grassroots democratic organization that was formed as a conscious united front for justice against police brutality. The OGC is involved in the struggle for police accountability and is committed to stopping police brutality. In alliance with the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) we organized the October 23, 2010 labor and community rally for Justice for Oscar Grant. On that day the ILWU shut down the Bay Area ports in solidarity.
Our mission is to educate, organize and mobilize people against police and state repression.
Sisters and brothers the Oscar Grant Committee invites you to join us in this vital struggle.
The Oscar Grant Committee meets on the 1st Tuesday of each month.
We discuss various monetary and debt-related topics. For our next meeting we will be discussing Greece, it’s debt, the recent referendum and its implications on the world monetary system, and Greece’s prospects.
A continuation of our last meeting. See there for a list of background reading and please read the latest articles in the news about what is happening in Greece.
The Politics of Debt Reading Group is affiliated with the Bay Area Public School and Strike Debt Bay Area.
Today, after 70 years, nearly 16,000 nuclear weapons-94% of them held by the USA and Russia-continue to pose an intolerable threat to humanity, and the danger of nuclear war is growing. Whether a nuclear exchange is initiated by accident, miscalculation or madness, the radiation will know no boundaries. The USA plans to spend a trillion dollars over the next thirty years “modernizing” its nuclear arsenal. The human cost of this is immeasurable-to our health, environment, ethics, and democracy, to our prospects for global peace, and to our confidence in human survival.
Program featuring Daniel Ellsberg, Country Joe McDonald, Taiko drummers and more; followed by a short march to the Lab gate, a traditional Japanese Bon Dance, nonviolent direct action and witness.
Sponsored by dozens of Bay Area peace and justice groups. More info: Tri-Valley CAREs, 925-443-7148, and Western States Legal Foundation, 510-839-5877
