Calendar
The Contra Costa Racial Justice Coalition will host Aaron Zisser, a civil rights lawyer who served as Independent Police Auditor in San Jose.
As IPA, Zisser reviewed internal investigations of alleged officer misconduct and issued policy recommendations. He served in this role for about a year before an intense political campaign, waged by the police union, forced him out. South Bay police accountability activists believe that the campaign against Zisser was the police union’s way to trying to put the brakes on efforts to give the Auditor more powers to hold the agency to account. (As the Mercury News put it, a “veiled opposition to community demands for expanded reach for the IPA, including increased access to internal misconduct investigations – and officer-involved shooting probes.”)
Now that the CCC Racial Justice Task Force is trying to increase accountability over the CCC Sheriff’s office, Zisser will be attending the next CCRJC meeting to help thr group understand various models of independent oversight for law enforcement. Some of these models are described in “Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement Bodies,” a report which describes the pro’s and con’s of different ways that cities oversee their police departments. Options range from civilian police commissions (such as we have here in Richmond) to Independent Auditor models, like the one in San Jose. To find out more or get involved, please attend the meeting on the 10th!
Editors Mateo Hoke (’14) & Taylor Pendergrass discuss their new oral history collection, SIX BY TEN: STORIES FROM SOLITARY, with narrator Mohammed “Mike” Ali. Featuring a reading and Q&A with Mateo, Taylor, and Mohammed, as well as a journalistic reversal in which Mohammed will interview the editors. This event is hosted by the Berkeley Oral History Center and is co-sponsored by Voice of Witness, Haymarket Books and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
About the book
Six by ten feet. That’s the average size of the cell in which tens of thousands of people incarcerated in the United States linger for weeks, months, and even decades in solitary confinement. With little stimulation and no meaningful human contact, these individuals struggle to preserve their identity, sanity, and even their lives.In thirteen intimate narratives, Six by Ten explores the mental, physical, and spiritual impacts of America’s widespread embrace of solitary confinement. Through stories from those subjected to solitary confinement, family members on the outside, and corrections officers, Six by Ten examines the darkest hidden corners of America’s mass incarceration culture and illustrates how solitary confinement inflicts lasting consequences on families and communities far beyond prison walls. [MORE]
Six by Ten: Stories from Solitary is published by Haymarket Books. Click here to purchase the book before the event.
RSVP: https://goo.gl/KSYYeU
We’re so excited to have Mutual Aid Disaster Relief stop in Oakland during their West Coast tour!
Come hear about MADR’s work including their formation during Hurricane Katrina, solidarity efforts in Puerto Rico, and all the way to their current training program.
This evening will be an introductory presentation: “Protectors v. Profiteers: Communities in Resistance to Disaster Capitalism.”
Free admission – all are welcome!
This event is in OMNI’s Ballroom which has wheelchair accessibility.
Posters from Beehive Collective and other merch will be on sale as a fundraiser for the tour. Please bring cash and support this impactful tour!
If you have any questions contact Susan: susanpark13@gmail.com
THEN, join them on Sunday in SF for a deeper, participatory workshop for affinity groups and individuals who are ready to get involved, “Giving Our Best, Ready For The Worst: Community Organizing as Disaster Preparedness.”
https://www.facebook.com/events/2584142935057711/
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The Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADRelief) Training Team is visiting our community. Currently MADRelief is on a national capacity-building and educational tour. They will explain how natural storms turn into unnatural disasters through dangerous new forms of “disaster capitalism” and “extreme resource extraction,” and train diverse affinity groups on principles of grassroots direct action humanitarian aid and crisis response, covering a wide range of topics such as “Principles of ‘Solidarity, Not Charity,’” “Using Privilege to Break Down Barriers,” “Building Power in Collaboration,” and “Overcoming Trauma Together.”
Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) is a decent(ralised) secure gossip platform. Imagine if Facebook or Twitter was run by its users, could be extended by anyone, offered cryptographic security, and required no centralized infrastructure!
Come by and learn more about SSB, ask questions, get set up on one of the several client programs, and be free from oppressive centralized social networks.
Read more at https://www.scuttlebutt.nz
Katya Cengel discusses Exiled: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to California and Back.
“Exiled” traces the story of violence through three generations of Cambodian-Americans by profiling a handful of families. It begins with the grandparents, the elderly who will soon be too old to tell their stories of survival. The violence they endured is recognized as the most brutal, a genocide that killed an estimated 20 percent of the Cambodian population. In Cambodia, the criminals have never fully been brought to justice and the victims remain largely silent. The silence is the same in the United States, where survivors have tried to leave their memories of random killing behind. But trauma like that cannot be escaped so easily, and it followed them, seeping back into their families through their children. The guidance, support and care they were often too traumatized to give their children left those same children vulnerable to gang recruitment. The second generation came of age amidst the violence of the past and the present.
The U.S. deported the criminals who did not hold citizenship, sending them back to a homeland their parents had given up everything to escape. They had neither the practical nor emotional skills to cope and their home country offered little help. In Cambodia they succumb to addiction and mental illness in large numbers. Then there is the third generation, the children, the ones still in America growing up without fathers and mothers, subjected to the violence of loss and longing. This is a story about how regimes as brutal as the Khmer Rouge and as benign as the United States have kept alive a legacy of violence and loss. There are no easy answers here, just the words of survivors and their descendants.
Katya Cengel is a freelance writer based in San Luis Obispo, California, and lectures in the Journalism Department of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. She was a features and news writer for the Louisville Courier-Journal from 2003 to 2011 and has reported from North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Her work has appeared in New York Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Marie Claire, and Newsweek. She is the author of Bluegrass Baseball: A Year in the Minor League Life (Nebraska, 2012).
advance tickets: $12 : Books Inc (Berkeley), Pegasus Books (3 sites), Moes, Walden Pond Bookstore, Mrs. Dalloways. East Bay Books, $15 door, KPFA benefit.
Cary McClelland is a writer, filmmaker, lawyer, and rights advocate. His book is an eye-opening portrait of San Francisco transformed by the tech boom. Famously home to artists and activists, the birthplace of the Beats, the Black Panthers, and the LGBTQ movementin recent decades the Bay Area has been reshaped by Silicon Valley, the engine of the new American economy. The richer the region gets, the more unequal and less diverse it becomes. Cracks in the citys facaderapid gentrification, an epidemic of evictions, rising crime, atrophied public institutionshave started to appear. Cary McClelland spent several years interviewing people at the epicenter of the recent change, from venture capitalists and coders to politicians and protesters, from native sons and daughters to the citys newest arrivals. We hear from people who have passed through Apple, Google, eBay, Intel, and the other big tech companies of our time. We meet those who are experiencing changes at the grassroots level: a homeless advocate in Haight-Ashbury, an Oakland rapper, a pawnbroker in the Mission, a man who helped dismantle and rebuild the Bay Bridge, and many fascinating others.
Richard A. Walker is professor emeritus of geography at the University of California, Berkeley where he taught from 1975 to 2012. He has written on a diverse range of topics in economic, urban, and environmental geography, with scores of published articles to his credit. He is co-author of The Capitalist Imperative (1989) and The New Social Economy (1992) and has written extensively on California, including The Conquest of Bread (2004), The Country in the City (2007) and The Atlas of California (2013). Walker is currently director of the Living New Deal Project, whose purpose is to inventory all New Deal public works sites in the U.S. and recover the lost memory of government investment for the good of all.
Sasha Lilley is a writer and radio broadcaster. Shes the host of KPFAs critically acclaimed program of radical ideas, Against the Grain, and the series editor of PM Press political economy imprint Spectre. Her books include Capital and Its Discontents and Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Political Collapse and Rebirth.
Film screening followed by Q+A with Director Laurie Coyle and Maria Moreno’s daughters, Olivia Portugal and Lily DeLa Torre
In Adios Amor, the discovery of lost photographs sparks the search for a hero that history forgot — Maria Moreno, a migrant mother driven to speak out by her twelve children’s hunger. She was the first farmworker woman in America to be hired as a union organizer and became an outspoken leader in an era when women were relegated to the background.
In 1961, UC Berkeley students invited farmworker labor leader Maria Moreno to speak on campus, where she received a standing ovation. A trailblazing activist who paved the way for Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, Maria was forgotten and her legacy buried. Now she’s back to tell her story in an inspiring new documentary.
This event is free and open to the public. Food and drinks will be provided. The MCC is ADA accessible.
Please register for the event by visiting us on Eventbrite or through our Facebook event page.
Co-sponsored by Chicanx Latinx Student Development, Center for Latino Policy Research, and Ethnic Studies Department
To learn more about the film please visit Adios Amor webpage: https://www.adiosamorfilm.com/
Attica – a documentary film by Cinda Firestone
This film documents the events that began on September 9, 1971 when inmates at Attica State Prison seized the prison for four days after months of protesting inhumane conditions. The uprising resulted in the death of 43 people after state troopers were called in to put down the rebellion
This event is the opening night of a three day Revolutionary University
Join us for three days of presentations and discussions to help us understand our current conditions and the problems we face under capitalism. Most importantly, we will talk about the kind of organizing necessary in order to change these conditions and create the kind of society that we need.
For more info:
https://revolutionaryworkers.org/revolutionary-university-fall-2018-oct-12-14/
The tech industry has been shaken by calls from workers at companies including Microsoft, Amazon, and Salesforce to stop collaborating with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The outrage, sparked by stories of children being brutally separated from their parents, led many to call for the abolition of ICE.
What would it take to abolish ICE? What is leading so many people to seek refuge in the US in the first place? In solidarity with those impacted by the actions of this agency, we must not only call to abolish ICE but also ask why people are leaving their homes, risking their lives, in search of refuge.
No Wall They Can Build, written by a former desert aid worker, collects the stories of those who make the journey and outlines the forces driving people to the border.
Readings + materials
https://sites.google.com/view/tech-workers-coalition/topics/no-wall-they-can-build?authuser=0
In October, Berkeley may become the 2nd city, following Richmond, to cut municipal contracts with ICE data brokers. The Sanctuary City Contracting ordinance, which ends city business with companies that send information to ICE, will be in front of the City Council in the town where sanctuary was born. Berkeley’s Federation of Unitarian Universalists will talk about it, along with many other social justice efforts, at Active Hope.
Talks:
Action Updates
Tracy Rosenberg/ Sanctuary City ordinance
Shahid Buttar/Kavanaugh
Susan Harman/ Public Bank
David Peattie, Steve Murphy/ Indivisible Berkeley Economic Justice Team: Break Up With Your Bank
Sandy Emerson/ Fossil Free California
Kelly Curry/ Peace Economy and Planting Justice
Ann Symens-Bucher/ Canticle Farm
Janet Scholl Johnson/ Sunflower Alliance
Virginia Hollins-Davidson/ Poor People’s Campaign
CP introduce David Swanson
David Swanson
Q & A
Wrap up, Thank yous
Book signing and sales
Pie extravaganza (selling slices to benefit CODEPINK)
Celebrate 52 years of the Black Panther Party with a concert & rally featuring X Clan and more! Hosted by Gina Madrid + Saturu Ned. FREE EVENT, call for unity and solutions!
Our October Green Sunday program will focus on the upcoming November 6 elections: the various measures and offices which will be on the ballot in Alameda County, and the written analyses and recommendations in our Voter Guide.
Join a discussion about state and local tax measures, as well as candidates for various local races: mayors, city councils, school boards, special districts, etc.
We will have short presentations by Laura Wells (Green candidate for Congress, CA-D13), Saied Karamooz (Green candidate for Oakland Mayor), James Vann (about housing issues on the ballot), and Mike Hutchinson (No on Measure AA, the Oakland Children Initiative of 2018). [See bios below]
Bring your sample ballot, questions, and opinions. This is an opportunity to ask about — and comment about — items on the November ballot.
SPONSOR: Green Sundays are a series of free programs & discussions sponsored by the Green Party of Alameda County. They are usually held on the 2nd Sunday of each month. The monthly business meeting of the County Council of the Green Party of Alameda County follows at 6:45 pm. Council meetings are always open to anyone who is interested.
Hundreds of Green Voter Guides will be available, for those of you who can distribute them around town at cafes, bookstores, laundromats, libraries, and the like, or by passing them out at BART stations, farmers markets, grocery stores, or anywhere else where there’s a lot of foot traffic.
An electronic version of the Guide is now available at our blog website here: http://acgreens.wordpress.com/voter-guides
Bios of presenters:
Laura Wells has been a Green Party activist since 1992, when the Green Party was first on the ballot in California. She has been very active within the party at local and state levels, and has run as our candidate for state Controller and for Governor. This year, we called for a Green to run for Congress since Barbara Lee was running unopposed in the primary. Laura stepped up as a write-in candidate, and won. She faced Barbara Lee at a League of Women Voters candidate forum on October 5. With Top 2, they will be the only two candidates for Congress, District 13, on the ballot in November. https://laurawells.org/
Saied Karamooz is running for Mayor of Oakland. Saied has been involved in a number of progressive campaigns over the years. Most notably, he has been serving as an active member of the Coalition for Police Accountability that spearheaded Measure LL, resulting in the establishment of a Police Commission in Oakland. Currently he is a commissioner on Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission and President of the Jack London Improvement District. Over the past few years, Saied has supported initiatives such as the Fight for 15, Stop Urban Shield, the Public Bank of Oakland, and No Coal in Oakland. Saied’s campaign website (everyonesmayor.org) provides a clear outline of how to make Oakland an equitable city for all.
James Vann, a recently retired architect, is a long-time community, political, and housing activist in Oakland. He co-founded the Oakland Tenants Union, and continues to fight for justice and equality in the policies and laws of Oakland’s Rent Adjustment Program toward the benefit of tenants. As an original member of East Bay Housing Organizations (EBHO), James works for funding and construction of housing that is affordable to Oakland workers and households throughout the flatlands. Politically, James was a organizer in 1967 of the Peace & Freedom Party, where he forged an alliance between Peace & Freedom and the Black Panther Party. P&F qualified for the ballot in 1968. James was elected that same year to chair the opening session of the founding convention of the P&F Party. www.oaklandtenantsunion.org/
Mike Hutchinson was born and raised in Oakland and is a proud graduate of the Oakland Public Schools. After working in our schools for 20 years, in 2012 he became a public education advocate. Since then he has been working to save and fix public education in Oakland by any means necessary. He is currently working to build the organization he co-founded, OPEN: the Oakland Public Education Network, which is a founding member of the Journey For Justice national alliance, and the west coast anchor organization for the #WeChoose national campaign.
Movie Trailer: https://youtu.be/lXyMwgGT6yg
6:30 PM – Introduction
6:40 PM – Film Screening
7:40 PM – Discussion
8:30 PM – Closing
Please bring snacks and other things to share if you can!!!
The economic system of capitalism has undermined democracies throughout the world, created huge income disparities, wrecked our ecosystem and isolated us from our own communities. Yet very few people truly understand its roots.
This six-part documentary series from Icarus Films is an ambitious but accessible series that looks at both the history of ideas and the social forces that have shaped the capitalist world. Featuring interviews with some of the world’s great historians, economist, anthropologists and social critics (including Noam Chomsky, Thomas Piketty and more), CAPITALISM questions the myth of the unfettered free market, explores the nature of debt and commodities, and retraces some of the great economic debates of the last 200 years.
If we are going to challenge our current system, we first need to understand it. Join us, each Monday for a FREE screening and informal discussion. Please bring food to share for a collective potluck meal!!
All screenings will be inside Shelton Hall at the Oakland Peace Center, 111 Fairmount Ave.
Monday, 9/17 – Episode One: Adam Smith, The Birth of the Free Market – Capitalism is much more complex than the vision Adam Smith laid out in The Wealth of Nations. Indeed, it predates Smith by centuries, and is rooted in the predatory practices of colonialism and the slave trade.
Monday, 9/24 – Episode Two: The Wealth of Nations: A New Gospel? – Adam Smith was both economist and moral philosopher. But his work on morality is largely forgotten, leading to tragic distortions that have shaped our global economic system.
Monday, 10/1 – Episode Three: Ricardo and Malthus: Did You Say Freedom? – The roots of today’s global trade agreements lie in the work of stockbroker David Ricardo and demographer Thomas Malthus. Together, they would restructure society in the image of the market.
Monday, 10/8 – Episode Four: What If Marx Was Right? – Have we gotten Marx wrong by focusing on the Communist Manifesto instead of his critique of how capitalism works – a critique that is as relevant and penetrating as ever?
Monday, 10/15 – Episode Five: Keynes vs. Hayek: A Fake Debate? – The ideological divide between the philosophies of John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek has dominated economics for nearly a century. Is it time for the pendulum to swing back to Keynes? Or do we need a whole new approach that goes beyond this simple dualism?
Monday, 10/22 – Episode Six: Karl Polanyi, The Human Factor – An exploration of the life and work of Karl Polanyi, who sought to reintegrate society and economy. Could the commodification of labour and money ultimately be as disastrous as floods, drought and earthquakes?
In May of 2018, Richmond became the first city in the country to prevent municipal contracts with companies that sell data to ICE. Now it is Berkeley’s turn as we try to build a region-wide resistance that will change the business decisions of companies. Using public money to subsidize the high-tech hunting of immigrants is a choice and we can make another, better choice here in Northern California. Sanctuary is not just a slogan.
The good news is that the contracting restriction is, currently, on the consent calender and we hope that means no opposition and a quick vote of approval. And an early night. But assumptions make a fool out of everyone, so community members speaking in support is important and we need to be prepared for a lengthier process in case one ensues.
We’re still finalizing this course.
Required Readings
Additional details and readings will be added shortly.
KPFA Radio 94.1FM presents
D.D. Guttenplan & Michael Lerner
The Next Republic: The Rise of a Radical New Majority
advance tickets: $12 Books Inc/Berkeley, Pegasus (3 sites), Moes, Walden Pond Bookstore, Mrs. Dalloways. East Bay Books $15 door, KPFA benefit
Exactly who are the new progressive leaders emerging to lead the post-Trump return to democracy in America? National political correspondent D.D. Guttenplans The Next Republic is an extraordinarily intense and wide-ranging history of the recent fall and incipient rise of democracy in America. Here youll meet some of the individuals who are changing the course of American history such as new labor activist Jane McAlevey, racial justice campaigner Chokwe Antar Lumumba, environmental activist Jane Kleeb, Sanders campaign veterans Zack Exley, Waleed Shahid and Corbin Trent, as well as anti-corruption crusader Zephyr Teachout.
Its high time that someone resurrected authentic populism activism from below, and showed how it can be the path to a better future. Thats done very convincingly in D.D. Guttenplans fine book, The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority. Noam Chomsky
D.D. Guttenplan has written a profoundly subversive book. At a moment when Trumpism, cynicism and corruption seem to reign supreme in our politics, he has made a compelling case for hope and optimism about the future of our democracy, and has put the meaning of our republic in its historical context. Victor Navasky
At a moment when history and truth are under attack, and the survival of our republic is once again in doubt, The Next Republic is a timely, humane, forceful narrative of our insurgent political momentand a deeply reported contribution to the fight for a progressive future in America. Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor & publisher of The Nation
D.D. Guttenplan, London correspondent for The Nation, is the author of The Holocaust on Trial, a book about the Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt libel case. In 2009 Guttenplan completed a biography of I. F. Stone titled American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone.
Michael Lerner is an American political activist, the editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine , and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley. He is the author of` Numerous books including Jews and Blacks: Let the Healing Begin (with Cornel West), and
The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country From the Religious Right.
Join this conversation with Michael Leon Guerrero. Learn about the Labor Network for Sustainability, the only national membership organization building support in the labor movement for a just transition to a sustainable, renewable energy economy, and its Labor Climate Convergence taking place in CA next year.
This will also be an opportunity to discuss next steps for Labor Rise for Climate, Jobs & Justice following the hugely successful Labor Contingent in the September 8th march in SF.
Pot-luck dinner: We’ll provide food. Any dish you would like to bring to share is welcome but not required.
**Please RSVP** on the Face Book Event page (https://www.facebook.com/events/1026883824160478/) to be sure there is enough food for everyone.
Come find out why public banking is suddenly making national news: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, and other cities and states are considering changing finance to finance change!
On Thursday, October 18, at the San Rafael Corporate Center 750 Lindaro Street in San Rafael, join 350Marin and hear author and attorney Ellen Brown, founder of the Public Banking Institute and host of the radio show ‘It’s our Money’ and Susan Harman, Co-founder of Commonomics USA Member of Friends of the Public Bank of Oakland, talk about about the Public Bank movement that’s rapidly building momentum locally and across the US. Refreshments and networking at 6:30pm. Speaking program begins at 7pm.
See, download and distribute the flyer HERE and RSVP below.