Calendar
We are cleaning out the house and have lots of things available to enrich your space. Join us for the “Pay What You Can Sale”, located in the main ballroom we have lots of stuff up for grabs and all we ask is that you donate a little cash to our tip jar. And by the way, in addition to cash we can also take card payments and offer a tax receipt so you can write off the cash donation if you desire.
See ya there!
Join us, rain or shine, to call attention to racial injustice and demonstrate solidarity!
Throughout the East Bay and nationally, folks have been creating “Human Billboards” – holding signs and making visible our support for the Movement for Black Lives and communities targeted by Trump. These gatherings are a simple yet effective way of channeling anger and sadness over injustice into collective action and solidarity.
For those of us who are white, it’s a way to express a unified voice in opposition to Trump and the white nationalist, transphobic, sexist politics he represents, and to commit to ending white silence and visibly supporting racial justice.
For all of us, it’s a concrete way to put our heart and soul into action. It’s being in community with each other, to share with like-minded people a belief that a loving, humane, compassionate world is possible, and to take a small step towards making that happen.
If you’ve been wanting to get more involved, this event is a great way to take action, meet people and gain further connections in the community we’re building. Bring a sign – here are some ideas for messaging:
Will you show up for racial justice?
Black Lives Matter!
Solidarity with Black and POC Trans Women!
No Deportations! No Border Walls!
End Displacement of Black and Brown communities!
Solidarity with Undocumented Migrants!
Solidarity with Queer and Trans People of Color!
We Support Black Womxn!
We Support Our Muslim Neighbors!
Will you fight against Islamophobia?
RSVP here: http://
John Dean, of Watergate fame, will appear with Congresswoman Barbara Lee at a town hall meeting.
Dean, the White House counsel from 1970 to 1973, was a key witness during the Watergate scandal that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974.
The purpose of the May 21 meeting, according to Lee, D-Oakland, is to discuss presidential accountability in the era of President Donald Trump, as well as the legal, ethical, and moral limitations of presidential authority, and its impact on her district.
Also to appear is Malcolm Nance, a retired U.S. Navy Officer and an expert on national security policy anti-terrorism intelligence, according to Lee.
More information is available through Lee’s district office at 510-763-0370.
Susan Griffin is a celebrated author and Pulitzer Prize finalist, a poet and an Emmy award-winning playwright. Whether pairing ecology and gender in her foundational work Woman and Nature, or the private life with the targeting of civilians in A Chorus of Stones, she sheds a new light on many contemporary issues, including climate change, war, colonialism, the body, democracy, and terrorism. She has recently completed a novel about global warming and the creative process, called The Ice Dancer’s Tale, and is concluding a long poem about the Mississippi River.
See her web page at www.susangriffin.com
In the coming months, the WILPF Peace Talk series will feature other local women authors talking about their lives, their writing and their activism.
ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ, author and revolutionary historian, will speak Sunday, July 16th from 3-5pm at Eric Quesada Center for Culture and Politics, 518 Valencia St., San Francisco (16th St./Mission BART station)
MAXINE HONG KINGSTON, author and Professor emerita will speak Sunday, September 17th from 3-5pm at the Ed Roberts Campus, 3075 Adeline St., Berkeley (Ashby BART Station)
The Peace Talk series is presented by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, East Bay and San Francisco branches.
Caravan for Justice� #statelobbyday
hosted by Wealth and Disparities in the Black Community – Justice 4 Mario Woods
We start with a Press Conference and honoring victims and their families with words from mothers and families. Then we lobby the state legislators around our demand for a Civil Rights Pattern and Practice Investigation of SFPD!
We have a carpool tool set up – if you would like to arrange to share rides from the Bay Area to Sacramento! Sign up as a driver or as a passenger: http://www.groupcarpool.com/t/o9w2f3
Please sign and share our petition for the State Attorney General – to call for a Civil Rights Pattern and Practice Investigation of SFPD: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/demand-civil-rights-investigation-of-the-sfpd
Finally – please SHARE our GoFundMe for Mario Woods Remembrance Day with all of your friends and contacts! https://www.gofundme.com/MarioWoodsRemembranceDay
Let’s support Mario’s mom, Gwen, and Mario’s family, by joining in these activities – as we seek #Justice4MarioWoods and Justice for all victims of police violence.
Thank you! –
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
Why There is No Socialism In the United States
with George Wright
We will survey the ideas of historians and sociologists; authors will include German Socialist Werner Sombart, who wrote the pioneering “Why there is no Socialism in the United States?” in 1906; Seymour Martin Lipset, and Eric Foner. We will assess the reasons a Socialist movement and parties have failed to succeed in establishing an alternative political force, in spite of the fact that there have been major radical political formations and movements throughout U.S. History.
George Wright taught Political Science at California State University, Chico between 1969 and 2003; and History at Skyline Community College between 2004 and 2013. His major research interests include: United States Politics, International Political Economy, and the Politics of International Sport. He has a Ph.D. from the Department of Politics at the University of Leeds (UK).
Time will be allotted for discussion and announcements.
Donations to Occupy Forum to cover costs are encouraged; no one turned away!
At the Finance Committee meeting on June 13th, fund allocation and approval of the feasibility study contract will be discussed. Because the funding for the study will impact the city budget, we are asking supporters to not just contact Finance Committee members directly, but to attend all budget meetings hosted by councilpersons and voice your support for funding the study as soon as possible. Upcoming meetings are:
Wednesday, May 17: 6:30-8:30 pm, District 7 and at-large, Councilpersons Larry Reid and Rebecca Kaplan, Oakland Zoo, Snow Building, 9777 Golf Links Road
Thursday, May 18: 6:00-8:00 pm, District 6, Councilperson Desley Brooks, Eastmont Police Department Substation, 2651 73rd Avenue, Oakland
Monday, May 22, 6:00-8:30 pm, District 3, Councilperson Lynette McElhaney, West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline Street, Oakland
Thursday, May 25, 6:30-8:30 pm, District 2, Councilperson Abel Guillen (member of the Finance Committee) [Cantonese interpretation available], Lincoln Recreation Center, 261 11th Street, Oakland
BART to hold Twitter town hall on FY18 budget May 23
Bring all your questions about BART’s future to the upcoming Twitter town hall we’re hosting from noon to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, May 23, where we’ll have experts and elected leaders on-hand to discuss next year’s budget (FY18 is July 1 2017-June 30 2018).
Hashtag #AskSFBART Bart Twitter: @SFBART
BART is facing funding challenges as ridership has dropped, but we look forward to discussing with the public the reasons for these shortfalls and our plan to move forward. In times of declining revenue, staff and directors are working hard to propose solutions that offer cost savings without cutting into service levels.
Other highlights from the upcoming budget include major Measure RR expenditures, which will go toward replacing track, developing power infrastructure, and other critical improvements to increase safety and reliability.
Fare evasion and security improvements are also at the top of our priority list, with $1.2 million slated to go toward stepping up public safety.
The next year will be full of new-service milestones, including the opening of the new 10 mile BART-to-Antioch extension past Pittsburg / Bay Point and potentially Berryessa and Milpitas stations. We’re ready to answer questions about how this will affect existing service, with new Fleet of the Future cars being delivered to help meet new demand.
Bring your questions, and we’ll be ready with answers!
May 24 is Judi Bari Day*Please join us to–
COMMEMORATE
the anniversary of the 1990 Oakland bombing of Judi Bari & Darryl Cherney & attack on Earth First!
CELEBRATE AND STRENGTHEN
Revolutionary resistance and movement solidarity
May 24, 2017 is the 27th anniversary of the attack on Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney by car bomb in Oakland in 1990 as Redwood Summer dawned.
At 11:30 am, people will gather to mark the moment of the bombing itself (12 noon), at the location the bomb blew up Judi’s car with Darryl and Judi in it. Bring signs, songs, drums for a SPEAK OUT and SING OUT.
There’s more to the FBI story than Trump firing James Comey and obstructing investigations. The long-standing FBI story is the squashing of dissident movements and that story is COINTELPRO.
background: Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were falsely arrested for car-bombing themselves on May 24, 1990 while on an Earth First! musical organizing tour for Redwood Summer. They sued the FBI for civil rights violations, claiming the FBI knew they were innocent but arrested them to silence them. We WON that lawsuit against the FBI and Oakland Police!
Viva Judi Bari!
*as proclaimed by the Oakland City Council in 2002, and as marked every year.
At the Finance Committee meeting on June 13th, fund allocation and approval of the feasibility study contract will be discussed. Because the funding for the study will impact the city budget, we are asking supporters to not just contact Finance Committee members directly, but to attend all budget meetings hosted by councilpersons and voice your support for funding the study as soon as possible. Upcoming meetings are:
Wednesday, May 17: 6:30-8:30 pm, District 7 and at-large, Councilpersons Larry Reid and Rebecca Kaplan, Oakland Zoo, Snow Building, 9777 Golf Links Road
Thursday, May 18: 6:00-8:00 pm, District 6, Councilperson Desley Brooks, Eastmont Police Department Substation, 2651 73rd Avenue, Oakland
Monday, May 22, 6:00-8:30 pm, District 3, Councilperson Lynette McElhaney, West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline Street, Oakland
Thursday, May 25, 6:30-8:30 pm, District 2, Councilperson Abel Guillen (member of the Finance Committee) [Cantonese interpretation available], Lincoln Recreation Center, 261 11th Street, Oakland
Have you ever wondered:
- What do police really spend their time doing?
- How much do they make, and why do they get paid so much?
- Could we shrink OPD and make Oakland an even safer, better place to live?
The process of allocating Oakland’s 2.6 billion dollar budget for 2017-2019 has begun. We believe that the scandal-ridden and dysfunctional Oakland Police Department consumes far too many of our city’s resources. It’s time to audit police spending and performance, and redirect wasted funds to community-building, constructive strategies for making Oakland a safer and better place to live.
Our Demands:
- INDEPENDENT AND THOROUGH COST SAVINGS AND PERFORMANCE AUDIT OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT
- DEFUND OPD BY 50%
PLEASE COME OUT TO YOUR LOCAL BUDGET FORUM:
Monday May 8, 6:30-8:30 pm, Councilmember Abel Guillen
St Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave
Wednesday May 10, 6:30-8:30 pm, Councilmember Annie Campbell
Bret Harte Middle School, 3700 Coolidge Ave
Saturday May 13, 10am-12pm, Councilmembers Lynette McElhaney & Dan Kalb
Beebe Memorial Church, 3900 Telegraph Ave
Wednesday May 17, 6:30-8:30 pm, Councilmembers Larry Reid & Rebecca Kaplan
Oakland Zoo- Snow Building, 9777 Golf Links Road
Thursday May 18, 6-8pm, Councilmember Desley Brooks
Eastmont Police Dept. Substation, 2651 73rd Ave
Monday May 22, 6-8pm, Councilmember Lynette McElhaney
West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St
Thursday May 25, 6:30-8:30 pm, Councilmember Abel Guillen
Lincoln Rec Center, 261 11th St. (cantonese interpretation)
Defund OPD will be at each of these budget meetings with information about the police budget, questions to ask, and our demands! Please show up 15 minutes early if possible. More information is available at defundopd.org.
#DefundOPD
In the last few weeks we’ve built a ton of momentum and had some significant successes:
-With incredible and wide-ranging community support, we’ve succeeded in making sure that the city’s outrageous and unaccountable spending on police is the #1 topic of discussion at every single city council member budget forum.
-We’ve already gotten the mayor to stand down from her effort to increase the police force to 800 officers, and now the discussion is turning to maintaining the current staffing levels (near 750) instead of the fully budgeted levels (792).
-We’ve gotten almost every council member to commit, on the record, to supporting an independent, thorough audit of police spending, and the city auditor’s office is on board.
-We’ve built a huge amount of synergy and mutual support with dozens of organizations who are calling for various budget priorities that will ACTUALLY make Oakland a safer and more just city — and many of them are now making explicit connections between the bloated police budget and the lack of funding for these crucial measures to support housing affordability, education, homeless services, youth programs and employment, and cultural initiatives.
The last two city council members are hosting meetings TONIGHT and THURSDAY NIGHT!
Monday May 22, 6-8pm, Councilmember Lynette McElhaney
West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St
Thursday May 25, 6:30-8:30 pm, Councilmember Abel Guillen
Lincoln Rec Center, 261 11th St. (cantonese interpretation)
For those of you looking for ways to plug in, here’s what we could use right now:
1) come out tonight and/or thursday if you can, and mobilize others to come!
2) Post to social media with the hashtag #DefundOPD and tag Defund OPD in your posts on facebook.
3) Email budgetsuggestions@oaklandnet.c om with our demand: Defund OPD, invest in community. Feel free to reach out if you want to collaborate on more specific verbiage – or just mention the budget priorities that matter to you, and state that you’d like the $ to come out of the police budget (Please cc defundopd@gmail.com)
CHRIS HEDGES: Overcoming Fascism
Hosted by Greg Bridges
Tickets and more information: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2910431
Ruthie’s email is: ruthiesakheim@gmail.com. Put “CHRIS HEDGES TICKET” in subject window!
FEMICOIN
an experimental design workshop for women, men and gender fluid people
Explore the circulation of a speculative feminist currency that unlocks creative capital and facilitates economic gender equality in the Bay Area. A nominal “fee” of $5 will buy a number of Femicoins to participate in the workshop activities. Learn More
As part of the 2017 San Francisco International Arts Festival, the organizers invite men, women and gender fluid people to participate in FEMICOIN an experimental design and performance workshop. This workshop will imagine and explore the circulation of a speculative feminist currency that unlocks creative capital and facilitates economic gender equality in the Bay Area. The workshop will be led by a diverse team, including experts in the fields of design, theatre, economics and gender theory. This is a 3-hour drop in event, open to a maximum of 30 participants. A nominal “fee” of $5 will buy a number of Femicoins to participate in the workshop activities.
ARTIST BIO
Alice Malia is an artist and theatre designer from the UK. Her work in theatre includes immersive and site specific shows for the Edinburgh Festival and beyond. She has ‘performed the design’ live on stage with her London-based theatre company 3Fates, who’s show about Iraqi women: ‘Return’, toured the UK and to the Middle East. She has lectured in Theatre Design at Rose Bruford College, London, and recently co-founded ‘Ecostage’: a platform for working towards an environmentally responsible future for the performing arts.
Hannah Jones is a designer, educator and researcher with expertise in design, collaboration and sustainable futures. With a background in textiles and architecture, Hannah’s work focuses upon designing interdisciplinary design processes and shared learning experiences that tackle complex social and environmental challenges. She is currently working with the d.school: Institute of Design, Stanford University on the development of new courses on the topics of gender in technology and civic innovation.
From slavery and segregation to redlining and ‘the new Jim Crow,’ the American legal system has been rigged against people of color.
We will gather as communities of faith and action to ask: can we imagine a society without jails and prisons? How can we seek to practice abolition now?
The Faith Alliance for a Moral Economy (FAME) is delighted to welcome the panel for our fourth FAME forum:
Marie Levin, activist with the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition and cofounder of Freedom Outreach Ministries;
Joshua Dubler, professor and author of “Break Every Yoke: Religion, Justice & the Abolition of Prisons”; and
Chance Grable, member of Critical Resistance.
Please join us for this final installment of our FAME Forums!
The forum will look at the growing confrontation between the US and Russia and what is behind this growing threat of world war. Speakers include George Wright, Retired Professor Chico State University; Tony D’Agostino, Professor SFSCU, Russian History; and Steve Zeltzer, KPFA WorkWeek Radio.
Call for Volunteers: Lincoln Theatre Park and Community Garden
We are looking for neighbors near and far — anyone who wants to support the cultural memory and self-determination of West Oakland’s black community is welcome! No gardening experience or minimum time commitment necessary!
West Oakland’s Revolution Cafe is about to start a new community garden. Located on the historic 7th street jazz and blues corridor, Revolution Cafe works with non-profit One Fam to host music and provide space for grassroots organizers to meet. In an effort to increase local produce access and assert collective sovereignty in the face of corporate land grabbing, 1700 sqft of the Cafe’s outdoor space will be turned into a community garden in honor of the famous Lincoln Theatre that once stood there.
This Memorial Day Weekend we will remediate lead contamination in the soil to make it safe for gardening. Drop by, till some soil, and soak in the history of West Oakland.
OccupyForum presentsLeft of the Left: My Memories of Sam DolgoffWith Anatole Dolgoff
Sam Dolgoff was a prominent anarchist from New York City, raised among the Wobblies and Anarchists of the latter two thirds of the 20th century. Sam’s activist life included encounters with Emma Goldman, Vladimir Lenin, Eugene Debs, MLK Jr., and many others.
A house painter by trade, Sam Dolgoff was at the center of American anarchism for seventy years. His political voyage began in the 1920s when he joined the Industrial Workers of the World. He rode the rails as an itinerant laborer, bedding down in hobo camps and mounting soapboxes in cities across the United States. Self-educated, he translated, edited, and wrote some of the most important books and journals of twentieth-century anti-authoritarian politics, including the most widely read collection of Mikhail Bakunin’s writings in English.
His story, told with passion and humor by his son, conjures images of a lost New York City – the Lower East Side, the strong immigrant and working-claass neighborhoods, the blurred lines dividing proletarian and intellectual culture, the union halls and social clubs, the brutal cops and bosses, and the solidarity that kept them at bay.
His son, Anatole, a man now in his seventies who, as a child and young man, had a front-row seat to the world of proletarian politics and the colorful characters who brought it to life, will speak to us at OccupyForum and read from his book on his father.
“The American left in its classical age used to celebrate an ideal, which was the worker-intellectual – someone who toils with his hands all his life aand meanwhile develops his mind and deepens his knowledge and contributes mightily to progress and decency in the society around him. Sam Dolgoff was a mythic figure in a certain corner of the radical left … and his son, Anatole, has written a wise and beautiful book about him.” Paul Berman, author of A Tale of Two Utopias and Power and the Idealists
“If you want to read the god-honest and god-awful truth about being a radical in twentieth-century America, drop whatever you’re doing, pick up this book, and read it. Pronto! If you’re not crying within five pages, you might want to check whether you’ve got a heart and a pulse.” Peter Cole, author of Wobblies on the Watterfront
Anatole Dolgoff is the son of Esther and Sam Dolgoff, two of the most important anarchists in the United States in the twentieth century. He has lived in New York City his entire life and teaches geology at the Pratt Institute.
If you were to attend one book talk this year this is the one.
Time will be allotted for announcements.
Donations to Occupy Forum to cover costs are encouraged; no one turned away!
We are going to be making sure that the people’s budget gets the support it needs, and making sure that the City Council knows where to get the funding we need for our communities – TAKE IT OUT OF THE POLICE BUDGET!
Rally at 4:30 PM. Get to city hall as early as you can! If you can’t get there till 6 or 7, it’s still worth it to come! Touch base with the action coordinators when you arrive and they’ll plug you in!
Contact defundopd@gmail.com if you would like to come to a meeting in preparation for this action, on Monday 5/29 at 6:30pm!
Important Meeting Tuesday May 30th City Hall Meeting and Petition Deadline 5:30pm
May 30th, we are looking to hand over our petition forms to the city council to put pressure on them to vote on adding the money needed for the feasibility and implementation study in this budget cycle. This will require the attendance of everyone that supports the Public Bank of Oakland. Ideally we will all be wearing our green t-shirts. We’re trying to get over 100 people to come out in support with signs and in our shirts.
Press Conference re: #Berkeley DIVESTS from #WellsFargo. Tuesday 5/30 at 6:30 pm. Front Steps of Old City Hall. See you there!
— Indivisible Berkeley (@IndivisibleBerk) May 26, 2017