Calendar
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
EMERGENCY ACTION AND MEETING TO DEFEND HUCHIUN – KNOWLAND PARK!
PLEASE SHARE AND INVITE!
http://www.facebook.com/events/1621914134725011/
12:00 PM – Thursday August 6th – The Knowland Park entrance by the intersection of Malcolm and Snowdown Ave.
6:00 PM – Planning Meeting – The Knowland Park entrance by the intersection of Malcolm an Snowdown Ave.
Please join us this Thursday to stop the construction and plan a long term resistance to defend the park and neighborhood from the Zoo!
Over the weekend the Oakland Zoo began constructing a fence around the proposed development site for the Zoo expansion despite public outcry against its negative impacts on the rare habitat and working class neighborhood. The Oakland Zoo plans to cut down 50+ trees including 2 old growth Oak trees destroying the home of the threatened Alameda Whipsnake, the rare Maritime Chaparral plant community and the Mountain Lion. We see this expansion as neo-colonial, gentrifying, and devastating to this rare and beautiful land. Now that the Zoo and City of Oakland are refusing to hear the concerns of a massive community coalition the we are being forced to take direct action to protect the land.
Join Slow Food East Bay and Transition Berkeley for an evening delving into the prickly world of fish, fishing and the health of the oceans. We’ll start at 6pm with a potluck dinner (true to Slow Food USA local and sustainable values!) then see the amazing new film about salmon and the northwest, The Breach, at 7. (http://www.thebreachfilm.com)
The evening comes to a point with a short panel of local fisher(wo)men, fish mongers and others involved with keeping this huge part of our ecosystem healthy and in balance and Q&A with local folks involved in the worlds of fishing and the oceans. How can we both support those that make their livelihood from the ocean and the fish populations? How can we be educated and inquisitive consumers of seafood, asking the right questions about sourcing, distribution and health? Join us in the conversation to try to find answers to these questions and more.
Representatives from Slow Food will also talk about the political & gastronomic history of the Slow Food movement, explain the ‘Good Clean & Fair For All’ mission, and announce current projects and opportunities for involvement. For more For more info: info [at] transitionberkeley.com
website: http://www.transitionberkeley.com
This event is co-sponsored by Transition Berkeley, Slow Food East Bay, and BFUU’s Social Justice Ctee.
Wheelchair accessible.
August 8-10: Mark the Anniversary of the Police Murder of Mike Brown and the Heroic Uprising that Followed:
It Was – AND IS – Right to Rebel!!
On August 9, it will be one year since a Ferguson, Missouri, cop, Darren Wilson executed Michael Brown for walking in the middle of the day on a sleepy street. Mike Brown was unarmed, running away, and had his hands up when he was shot multiple times and then his body was left lying dead in the street for four-and-a-half hours.
This brutal murder was met with outrage. For days and then weeks people took to the streets with defiance, rage, and righteous rebellion. People insisted on their rights and defended those rights in the street. Without the rebellion, this terrible state-done murder would just be another rerun of the same old, all-too-familiar story, the same murderous stuff that happens to Black and Latino youths over and over again. Very few people would have shared the grief of his parents for the terrible loss of this young man, at the very beginning of his life. The defiance and righteous rebellion challenged people all over the country to get off the sidelines and stand with those refusing to take this any longer.
It is important that on the weekend of August 8-10, the anniversary of the murder of Michael Brown, people stand firmly and publicly manifest that the verdict rendered by the people, that those who took to the streets of Ferguson in righteous and defiant rebellion and protest night after night, was true – Mike Brown did not have to die. It was right for the people of Ferguson to rebel and people everywhere are proud of them for rising up. On– Mike Brown should not have been murdered by the police.
HANDS UP! DON’T SHOOT! Fuck the DOJ! The struggle in Ferguson opened a crack in the coffin where America has buried alive whole sections of Black and Latino youths and the struggle over the last year has widened the crack further. WE WILL NOT GO BACK.
In Cleveland, Ohio, a delegation of the Party for Socialism and Liberation joined 1000 other attendees at the first ever Movement for Black Lives National Convening. The activists met and engaged with others who are part of the resurgence of the struggle against racist police terror. Then, shortly after the conference ended, a stunning indictment was handed down in Cincinnati, charging a police officer with murder in the death of a Black motorist. This indictment is clearly a result of a powerful country-wide movement. The thousand people gathered in Cleveland said clearly, “Black Lives Matter!”
Join us for presentation, video and discussion of the next steps of this important struggle.
Featured Speaker: Jamier Sale
Tata Vision presents a night of live performances from multi-talented youth from the bay area! Don’t sleep.
Omni Commons is throwing a work party. We welcome volunteers who’d like to work on: – rehanging doors, putting on closers & panic bars – learning how electricity works – laying ethernet cable – fixing other small things around the building All skill levels welcome. We will feed & teach you. If you can, RSVP to volunteers@omnicommons.org. Otherwise, just show up!
A door is blown off its hinges! Into a blasted room of scarred walls and shattered windows, armed with M-16’s, America’s bravest duck and dodge for cover, finally training their deadly gunsights on… an old black man watching TV on his couch? This isn’t Baghdad or Kandahar – its home, and for ex-Black Panther Malcolm Haywood it’s just another wrong door police raid in the War on Drugs. So of course Malcolm is horrified when the grandson he’s tried to protect, Nathaniel, returns from serving in Afghanistan only to find another war zone at home – and one where young Black men like Nathaniel are in the crosshairs! Meanwhile the Mayor and the Police Chief – one desperate for votes, the other desperate to fund his militarized police force – ramp up the fear (and their shiny new tank) to fight the newest, drug threat to America… worse than weed, meth, coke, crack, or crank, it’s… SNORF!! And, of course, the SNORF trade is centered in the.. darkest… part of town…
Are the police out of control? What happened to “innocent until proven guilty”? Is Malcolm’s neighbor Lluis (an undocumented immigrant,) actually a SNORF-lord? And can Malcolm convince his grandson that it is safer to re-up and fight overseas than to try to survive here at home, in Freedomland?
#DayofRage is in honor of Sandra Bland. We, the people of the Bay Area, and the United State of Amerika need to stand up and fight the racist, and militant police force that controls us. Its time for us to stand up for our rights and make our voices heard.
We do not want to cause any more violence than we are already accustomed to, but we do need to raise hell. We need to stick up for our brothers and sisters nation wide. We need full police reform. We need your help. Please find time in your busy lives to make a difference. We need voices and bodies from all walks of life, after all, we are in this together. Please spread the word, and invite friends, family, coworkers, etc. We need this senseless violence to stop. Bring noise makers, loud speakers, anything to catch the attention of the masses. How many more deaths will it take for change to happen? Why wait, lets make it happen now.
Remember, if you are reading this, then you ARE the RESISTANCE.
RIP Sandra Bland. Another senseless murder for the fail to use a turning signal.
#SandraBland
#DayofRage
North end of Aquatic Park in Berkeley.
The Bay Area Peace Lantern Ceremony draws forth something beautiful: a community coming together to express visions of a peaceful future and re-commit to bringing those visions to life out of something nightmarish: the incineration of the bustling cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs on August 6 and 9, 1945.
Today, we who are organizing the Peace Lantern Ceremony have our own, new “beautiful nightmare.”
In past years the Peace Lantern Ceremony has drawn between 100 and 650 people.
So far this year, we have nearly 10,000 RSVPs!
We are at an amazing moment, with a beautiful opportunity to grow the movement for a peaceful, nuclear-free world.
· Your cooperation. Please: (1) Take transit, bike, walk, or get dropped off at the event:
· Your understanding. We won’t be able to float lanterns for everyone who attends, and may not even have enough lantern shades for everyone to decorate. (If you want to make shades ahead-of-time and bring them to the event, see the volunteer form, which includes a link to instructions.) If there are no shades left when you arrive, please enjoy observing this beautiful event.
· Wear warm layers; it gets chilly in the park.
· Bring a flashlight, snacks, water (no glass containers, please).
· We probably won’t have enough chairs and tables. If you can lend some, or bring your own folding chair, please do.
· Check our Facebook page for other updates:
Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
“Dangerous Circumstances:”
The CFR Proposes a New Grand Strategy Towards China
“…preserving U.S. primacy in the global system ought to remain the central objective of U.S. grand strategy in the twenty-first century.”
Background: The CFR and its Grand Strategy China Report: The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is the think tank of monopoly-finance capital, Wall Street’s think tank. It is also a membership organization: the ultimate networking, socializing, strategic planning and consensus forming institution of the dominant sector of the U.S. capitalist class. The CFR’s activities help unite the capitalist class to become not just a class in itself, but also a class for itself. It is the world’s most powerful private organization, the “high command” body of the American plutocracy. The Council has an almost century long history of forming study groups to plan America’s overall “grand” strategic policies. It sets the agenda for debate, builds consensus among both the powerful and attentive publics, then inserts its own network of people into public office to implement its favored doctrines in the real world. One of its latest efforts, a study group on U.S. grand strategy toward China, completed its work and issued a report– approved by the CFR board of directors–entitled Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China, in March of 2015. This report used the term “dangerous circumstances” to describe the growing tensions between the world’s most powerful two nations.
Laurence H. Shoup will outline the CFR’s worldview, their critique of current U.S. policy toward China, their view of China’s grand strategy, what they think U.S. grand strategy should be, a critique of this CFR report, and the eco-socialist revolution that we now need.
Laurence H. Shoup is author of Wall Street’s Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics 1976-2014 (forthcoming, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2015).
Sunday, August 9, 2015 – 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
6501 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland (just North of Alcatraz Ave.)
Seating is limited, so plan to come early. We start promptly.
FREE – but hat will be passed for donations to NPML
About Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library
A weekly discussion series inspired by our respect for the work of Karl Marx and our belief that his work will remain as important for the class struggles of the future as they have been for the past.
For info or to subscribe to our weekly announcements,
Call Gene Ruyle at 510-332-3865 or email: cuyleruyle [at] mac.com
For our full schedule, go to icssmarx.org
https://www.indybay.org/uploads/2015/07/27/icss-fly-2015-08-09-cfr-china-1.pdf
Across the country, on this day, many will take time to pause in remembrance of Mike Brown and the movement his murder sparked in Ferguson and across the country.
Join us in Oscar Grant Plaza as we take time to remember Mike Brown and all of our fallen.
Bring items for an altar, bring poems and songs to share. Bring your passion and commitment to continue the struggle to end police terror in our communities.
We invite you to join us on Sunday, August 9th at the Omni Commons. We are assembling a Volunteer Design & Facilitation Team that will plan and steward a collective visioning and planning process with all of Omni Commons. This future process, which we are calling BECOMING OMNI COMMONS, will seek to:
* expand and transform our collective sense of possibility
* clarify our shared values
* examine our cultures, narratives and processes
* create priorities to move towards more sustainable and supportive ways of being together and being in the world
* design an action-calendar for our visioning and planning process
A plan for BECOMING OMNI COMMONS will be presented to the Omni Commons delegates council (our governance body) and actualized as soon as possible.
The details:
Who: You! Anyone interested in joining our Volunteer Design & Facilitation Team (described above)
What: A fun four-hour facilitated, preparatory meeting, followed by DINNER!
Where: Omni Commons, 4799 Shattuck Ave, Oakland, CA 94609 (and possibly on-line if you cannot be physically present)
When: Sunday Aug 9th 2pm-6pm (you must arrive on-time and stay for the entire session)
Why:
Given our present circumstances:
* We are in a serious financial pickle right now.
* We have an opportunity to potentially buy the building very soon.
* We are struggling with interpersonal conflict, overwork, and burnout.
* We have never had the opportunity to engage in a visioning process since moving into 4799 Shattuck a year ago.
We need to:
* Reform our processes to be inclusive of as many perspectives as possible.
* Align our work and our organizing with our ideals and our politics.
* Provide a safe platform for constructive criticism and reflection.
* Invest openness, patience and respect for the diversity of perspectives and experiences of all of those who have been involved or impacted by Omni Commons in some way or another.
How: If you’d like to join the team and can attend the meeting, RSVP to becoming@lists.omnicommons.org and share any important requests or dietary needs.
RSVP to becoming@lists.omnicommons.org
If you cannot make it and would like to participate, please fill out this survey by August 2nd: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BXGHX2N
Love and solidarity,
Laura Turiano, Yar Cohen, Sarah Pritchard, Julio Rios, Dusty Mabry, Matt Senate, Joe Liesner, Libbie Cohn