Calendar

Laurel Bookstore welcomes Reverend Billy Talen, spiritual leader and global activist, to speak on Earth Day from his new book The Earth Wants You.

A preacher’s exhortation, an activist’s primer, inspired visions and a call to arms for a wild, creative, Earth-led cultural revolution.

Civic life in the time of climate chaos—floods, fire, drought and superstorms—will require intensive policing and social control. Governing bodies will transform and democracy will fall by the wayside; the banks and the power stations will be heavily defended; whole populations will be incarcerated. While this might seem like dystopian fiction, it’s actually a description of life as it’s lived in much of the world now, and will become the norm unless we can stop it. When the ocean is pouring in through the door, will we find the will to act before we drown?

This book is a call for action as extreme as the weather. It’s meant to radicalize those who didn’t think the climate crisis would require any risky personal commitment. The Earth revolution is upon us, and it must be as wild and as unpredictable as life on Earth itself! Earth-a-lujah!

Reverend Billy and his choir of singing-activists are on the front lines of creative direct action, and here they offer up a distillation of the passion, the inspiration, and the hopes for love and survival that fuel their work. In a mix of essays, polemics, surrealist scenarios and news flashes from the frontlines, Reverend Billy answers the question, “What are we to do?” with a resounding chorus of “Take Action NOW!”

The Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair is an annual event for people interested and engaged in radical work to connect and learn through book and information tables, workshops, panel discussions, skillshares, films and more! We create an inclusive space to introduce new folks to anarchism, foster productive dialogue between various political traditions and anarchists from different milieus, and create an opportunity to dissect our movements’ strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and tactics.

This Earth Day 2016, MARCH FOR THE EARTH in honor of Cesar Chavez because environmental rights are human rights! Gathering at 10am at 19th and Dolores, the parade departs promptly at 11 to walk to 24th and Mission. The festival is on 24th Street between Bryant and Treat. Please don’t miss the music, speakers and community! Bring signs and friends! Organizations please call John (415) 312-6924 or email marchfortheearth@gmail.com if you would like to be listed in the parade roster.

Want to learn how to work toward abolishing the cops? Want to hear how we challenge the notion that policing keeps us safe? CR Oakland regularly offers this workshop that looks at the role and history of policing in the U.S., the way it has impacted various communities, and how people have resisted and challenged its inherent violence. This workshop also goes over how we can reduce our reliance on policing by highlighting the various ways that building up community strength and practices lead to true safety that does not depend on law enforcement.

The building is wheelchair accessible. Please email croakland@criticalresistance.org to RSVP.

Join us to celebrate EARTH DAY WEEKEND at the Gill Tract where we will come together to BUILD OUR POWER and continue the fight to DEFEND THE LAND.

As many of you know construction has started on the southernmost part of the Tract below Monroe St. UC Berkeley has sold out that parcel of public land to be turned into a luxury senior housing complex. But we won’t let the rest of the southside of Gill Tract be paved into a corporate chain grocery store. It’s a critical moment as permits may be issued any day now. Let’s seize this weekend of celebrating and protecting Mama Earth to resist further threats to this historic farmland and greenspace.

We’ll have a weekend full of engaging activities planned including speakers, music, food, and much more, SO COME OUT ALL DAY EACH DAY AND PLAN TO STAY THE NIGHT.

Saturday 4/23
*12 Noon: meet on the corner of San Pable Ave and Monroe St.
*Activities will include altar building so bring decorative fabric, remembrance pictures/images, flowers, battery-powered lights, special/sacred objects, etc.
*5pm Speakers: TBA
*6pm Dinner served
*7pm Music: Future Twins, group jam, more (tba)
*Camp out under the stars!

Sunday 4/14
*We will go support the fun activities at the northside Community Farm.
*6:00 Dinner
*Night time film screening of “This Changes Everything” (the Naomi Klein film) w/ popcorn

What’s Next in the Fight to Protect Public Spaces, the Rights of Homeless People, AND Free Speech

Why: Though our occupation has been torn down, the fight to preserve public resources, free speech, and the rights of homeless people must continue

Though the Main Berkeley Post Office is not currently up for sale, the USPS continues to pursue a “shrink to survive” strategy by reducing and outsourcing services, chiseling away at union employment, and selling post offices around the country.  Management of this huge enterprise is neglected with only three Governors on the Board that is chartered for eleven.  The Postal Service continues to ignore the strong recommendations of its own Inspector General to correct anti-competitive practices in its real estate division and to pursue financial viability by offering banking services to its customers.

Allowing the USPS to wither in this way threatens the citizenry with the loss of universally accessible mail service, with a devastating injury to organized labor, with the elimination of public space on Main Streets throughout the country, and with the abdication of the Constitutional mission to provided a vehicle for the transmission of free speech.

During our 17-month occupation of the Main Berkeley Post Office, we expanded our mission to protest the criminalization of homeless people.  Solving the widespread social problems that result in homelessness is not, nor can it be, the job of the police.  We will continue to raise awareness of this strategic miscalculation by city officials and to demand that truly affordable housing be created for the homeless so they can spend more time putting their lives in order and less time shifting their belongings from pillar to post.

Our press conference will review the course of our 17-month occupation.  We will thank everyone who played a role in sustaining our presence on the grounds of the post office.  And we will discuss our strategies going forward:

– To organize community members to call out the USPS for not using the Main Berkeley Post Office to its full potential, and for not heeding their Inspector General’s recommendations to crack down on their real estate division and to institute postal banking.

–   To invite candidates for election in November to use the Main Berkeley Post Office as a backdrop for supporting union labor, for Main Street Not Wall Street, and for attacking the predatory fringe finance industry.

– To retain and build on the way we’ve used public space for free expression. No matter how one might speculate as to the reasons why the Postal Police tolerated our occupation for so long, we demonstrated that public officials may not have absolute control over the use of spaces they administer, but that communities can override authorities without relying on permits, petitions, lawsuits, lobbyists, threats, or bribes. We can just use those spaces.

– To continue to nurture the community garden that we planted on neglected post office property over a year ago, and to which we are currently denied access by US Postal Police.

Berkeley Post Office Defenders: http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/

First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999?ref=br_tf

BPOD is affiliated with Strike Debt Bay Area: http://strike-debt-bay-area.tumblr.com/

Saving the United States Postal Service as a Public Enterprise: http://tinyurl.com/ltqq7ng

Privatization Is Social Cancer; Saving the US Postal Service: http://tinyurl.com/mbcbzrf

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL SOMETIME IN MAY, DATE TO BE DETERMINED.

Celebrating 4 years at the Gill Tract! Food, live music, holistic medicine, and farmin’! We would love your help in making the magic happen sign up to volunteer at http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0b4faba729a3fe3-earth

The BASTARD (Berkeley Anarchist Students of Theory And Research & Development) conference promotes multiple approaches to anarchism. Come and share yours. Come and participate in a commerce-free event with other anarchists to talk about the philosophy and theory of where we’ve come from, where we are, and where we’re going.

Every year we have a loose theme, to allow people who want a framework on which to base a workshop. The BASTARD Conference is an annual event and gathering organized by the Berkeley Anarchist Study Group, which is an open long running (10+ years) anarchist study group that meets every week on Tuesday @ The Long Haul Infoshop (3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley CA. 94705).

http://sfbay-anarchists.org/

It’s time to celebrate our History of Struggle!

Leave it to Diva
Skank Bank
Funky Nixons
Hali Hammer
Yukon Hannibal
Bogues
Tee Lewis
Bay Area Harmonica Club
Us
Steven Lewis
Max Ventura
Chanel
All Nations Singers
DJ Soul

Food Not Bombs Field Kitchen all day
Tables

Good Community Good Times…Details TBA

Congresswoman Barbara Lee & Troy Williams to Speak at Post Salon.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee will discuss overcoming barriers for the formerly incarcerated to vote and find jobs at next week’s Post Salon. Troy Williams, former San Quentin inmate, will respond.

The salon will also report on the housing moratorium, a local voter registration drive and the crisis of jobs and job training programs in Oakland, discussing the significance of what will be discussed at the Tuesday, April 26 Community and Economic Development Community Meeting.

RSVP online

The Occupy Oakland General Assembly meets every Sunday at 4 PM at Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater at 14th Street & Broadway near the steps of City Hall. If it is raining (as in RAINING, not just misting) at 4:00 PM we meet in the basement of the Omni Collective, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland.  On every last Sunday we meet a little earlier at 3 PM to have a community potluck to which all are welcome.

OO General Assembly has met on a continuous basis for over four years! Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally . Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.

At the GA committees, caucuses, and loosely associated groups whose representatives come voluntarily report on past and future actions, with discussion. We encourage everyone participating in the Occupy Oakland GA to be part of at least one associated group, but it is by no means a requirement. If you like, just come and hear all the organizing being done! Occupy Oakland encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.

General Assembly Standard Agenda

1. Welcome & Introductions
2. Reports from Committees, Caucuses, & Independent Organizations
3. Announcements
4. (Optional) Discussion Topic

Occupy Oakland activities and contact info for some Bay Area Groups with past or present Occupy Oakland members.

Occupy Oakland Web Committee: (web@occupyoakland.org)
Strike Debt Bay Area : strikedebtbayarea.tumblr.com
Berkeley Post Office Defenders:http://berkeleypostofficedefenders.wordpress.com/
Alan Blueford Center 4 Justice:https://www.facebook.com/ABC4JUSTICE
Oakland Privacy Working Group:https://oaklandprivacy.wordpress.com
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Bay Area AntiRepression: antirepression@occupyoakland.org
Biblioteca Popular: http://tinyurl.com/mdlzshy
Interfaith Tent: www.facebook.com/InterfaithTent
Port Truckers Solidarity: oaklandporttruckers.wordpress.com
Bay Area Intifada: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com
Transport Workers Solidarity: www.transportworkers.org
Fresh Juice Party (aka Chalkupy) freshjuiceparty.com/chalkupy-gallery
Sudo Room: https://sudoroom.org
Omni Collective: https://omnicommons.org/
First They Came for the Homeless: https://www.facebook.com/pages/First-they-came-for-the-homeless/253882908111999
Sunflower Alliance: http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/
Bay Area Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/bay-area

San Francisco based groups:
Occupy Bay Area United: www.obau.org
Occupy Forum: (see OBAU above)
San Francisco Projection Department: http://tinyurl.com/kpvb3rv

Prince dance party at SFPD mission hunger strike at 8pm. #hunger4justicesf #FireChiefSuhr #BlackNBrownUnity#Justice4Luis

— Anti Police-Terror (@APTPaction) April 24, 2016

Sing for an hour on Solano Avenue at the old Oaks Theater, Berkeley.

RSVP here!

Last winter, workers at the Holiday Inn Express Oakland Airport told the City of Oakland that their boss was violating their rights under Measure FF, the new minimum wage law. The City investigated and issued a report identifying a number of alleged violations at the hotel – failing to pay the minimum wage for all hours, “rounding off” time-clock records to shave off time worked, requiring employees to give notice before using sick leave, taking away workers’ accrued vacation time, and other alleged violations.

Then, the following month, the City’s Planning and Building Department gave the owners of the Holiday Inn Express permission to develop a new hotel in downtown Oakland – a Hampton Inn on 11th Street in Chinatown.

“The City assessed a penalty of $5,000 against the Holiday Inn Express – then turned around and gave the hotel’s owners a permit to build a brand new hotel where they can make lots of money. So what reason would any boss have to respect our rights?” said downtown Oakland hotel housekeeper Irma Perez.

The Planning and Building Department wants to ignore the issues of job quality and the impacts of poverty-wage jobs in considering hotel development, but we’re not going to let them! Councilmembers Guillen and Kalb have introduced a City Council resolution calling on the Planning and Building Department to take job quality seriously. The resolution would also begin the process of bringing more public accountability to hotel development decisions.

The City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee will consider this resolution on Tuesday, April 26th, at 1:00pm. Please attend, and call on the members of the Committee to vote YES for the resolution, for GOOD JOBS IN HOTELS and NO POVERTY-WAGE HOTELS IN OAKLAND!

Please let us know if you can be there, and if you plan to speak.

In solidarity,

UNITE HERE Local 2850

Hosted by Berkeley Copwatch.
Know Your Rights trainings are tools for learning how to deal with the police, how to safely assert your rights and how to safely and effectively observe the police in your community.

Join us in this workshop at the Grassroots House at 7:00 PM on April 26! This is a free event; bring your bodies and your buddies, as well as questions, concerns, stories, resources.

And in the meantime, check out the Berkeley Copwatch Know Your Rights Pocket Card.

Tell City Council to adopt a REAL Living Wage

Raise Berkeley’s minimum wage to $15 by Oct. 2017
Raise it each year by 3% + inflation until it’s in sync with Berkeley’s official “Living Wage” (now $16.37)
Bring sick leave up to the standards set by Oakland, Emeryville and San Francisco

There is a crisis in Berkeley and the Bay Area.  Rents are out of control and the wage standards are so low families can’t work enough hours to keep their heads above water.  Many are being pushed out of our communities.

Working families need relief now. The good news is some is on the way.   More than enough signatures were submitted last Monday to insure a progressive Berkeley Minimum Wage measure will be on the Ballot in November.

But relief could come sooner if the city council majority stopped stalling and adopted the initiative now. Their inaction and foot dragging has already extracted a heavy toll on Berkeley’s lowest paid workers costing them over $3,500 to date. Instead of joining with the voters of Oakland, SF and the Emeryville City Council, Bates, Capitelli, Droste, Maio, and Moore chose to prolong allowing poverty wages.

As unconscionable as that is they are now lining up to do it again.  Their current proposal will unnecessarily delay getting to $15 several years and will never catch up to Berkeley’s official Living Wage which the city defines as “a wage that can support a family at, or above, the poverty level” currently pegged at $16.37.

SPEAK OUT!