Calendar
A professor of literature and Black Studies, GAThomas recently traveled to Palestine in May 2014 as part of contingent of college and university professors working out of North America in support of Palestinian solidarity, liberation and freedom from occupation, apartheid and colonization. Replete with photographic images, this talk is a first-hand report-back from the Occupied West Bank facing more and more bombings, repression and kidnappings everyday with the support of what Malcolm X dubbed “dollarism.”
Wheelchair accessible. Refreshments provided.
WPA Berkeley Walk
With Harvey Smith
This walk will explore the “New Deal nexus” in Berkeley that includes Berkeley High School, the Community Theater, Civic Center Park, Post Office art, the old UC Press Building (now being repurposed as the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive), and the old Farm Credit Building. The tour will also include the incredible mosaic mural on the UC Berkeley campus and photographs of the California Folk Music Project, Western Museum Laboratory, WPA prints at the Berkeley Public Library, and WPA projects on the UC Berkeley campus.
Join Critical Resistance members, allies, friends and other anti-prison activists for an abolitionist liberation BBQ! We will eat, drink, play, dance, share stories from these past exciting months, and affirm our ongoing fight to end the caging of our communities!
Families welcome – we’ll have plenty of activities for kids 🙂
Let’s celebrate our work, build our connections, and raise money so we can increase our capacity to fight prison industrial complex! Bring your friends, your comrades, and your wallet!
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogueon all sides of these critically important issues!
OccupyForum presents
Jiwon Chung and friends:
Theatre of the Oppressed
Internal Oppression
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As we’ve previously experienced, Theater of the Oppressed is a collection of games, techniques and exercises for using theater as a vehicle for personal and social transformation. It uses the dynamized human body and the charged theatrical space as a laboratory for exploring power, transforming oppression, and finding solutions to the fundamental problems of conflict, inequality, injustice and human suffering. Last time we focused on oppression by external power; this time we’ll explore how internal oppression controls us.
Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed has spread across the Americas and more than 70 countries worldwide. Theatre of the Oppressed is taught in classrooms and in the streets, bringing together students, scholars, administrators, policy makers, and community activists in the pursuit of social justice and human rights. Its use is particularly timely today given the worldwide attention to the rights of the indigenous peoples represented by the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007.
Jiwon Chung is a professional actor, director, and a key theorist of Theater of the Oppressed. He is the Artistic Director of Kairos Theater Ensemble, Adjunct professor at Starr King School at the Graduate Theological Union, and past President of the national organization for Theater of the Oppressed. Author of numerous books, articles, and performances, he is considered a pioneer in the integration of somatics, theater of the oppressed, and socially engaged art. The focus of his work is in the application of theater as a tool for social and political change, using Theater of the Oppressed to challenge, resist, and transform systemic oppression and structural violence and to redress large scale historical atrocity and injustice. His approach to performance and social change is informed by his background as veteran, martial artist, and 3 decades of Vipassana meditation.
Announcements will follow.
RALPH NADER
WILL SPEAK ON THE STEPS OF THE BERKELEY POST OFFICE.
ABOUT THE POST OFFICE, PRIVATIZATION OF OUR PUBLIC GOODS AND SERVICES & THE FIGHT TO DISMANTLE THE CORPORATE STATE
TUESDAY, JULY 29th
MUSIC FROM 2:00 PM
TALK AT 2:30 PM
2000 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA
“Postmaster General Donahoe has demonstrated that he lacks the political courage to stand up to Congress and tell them that they caused this mess and they need to fix it. Instead, time after time, he has chosen to take the easy road and dismantle the USPS piece by piece – whether it is by cutting post office hours, closing post offices, cutting service and delivery standards, increasing postage rates, or now ending Saturday delivery.”
– Ralph Nader, February 6th, 2013.
“Named by The Atlantic as one of the hundred most influential figures in American history, and by Time and Life magazines as one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century, Ralph Nader has helped us drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water, and work in safer environments for nearly five decades.”
There are two big competing plans for raising Oakland’s minimum wage. One plan from the Chamber of Commerce is slow and full of exceptions. The other, a ballot initiative from union and community coalition “Lift Up Oakland” is for a $12.25 minimum for everybody. Oakland workers need Lift Up Oakland’s proposal because we can’t wait years for a raise and can’t leave anyone behind making poverty wages.
Let’s stop the Chamber of Commerce’s countermeasure.
6:00 PM City Hall Tuesday July 29th. Tell all your friends.
Oakland needs a raise NOW!
We can’t survive on 8.25!
No more poverty wages and gentrification!
Wages delayed are wages denied!
City Council: Don’t raise your wage while you keep ours low!
Some background on the Oakland minimum wage:
Why Oakland needs a raise: Oakland is gentrifying at an astonishing pace. According to the East Bay Express purchase prices for Oakland homes jumped by 64% from 2012 to 2013. Workers need money to pay for food and rent. Workers need a decent wage for a decent life. If the lowest paid worker in Oakland makes $9 it drags the wages of other workers down. Workers can’t pay rent and groceries with money from raises that come years later.
What raise?: Let’s be real, 12.25 an hour is barely enough to survive in the Bay Area. If you adjusted the 1960’s minimum wage based on worker productivity today’s wage would be over 20 dollars. Seattle and San Francisco are on track to get 15 an hour in the next few years. One Oakland mayoral candidate, Dan Siegel is for an immediate 15 an hour minimum wage. It is utterly outrageous that some on City Council are considering slowing down the 12.25 raise. If this weren’t bad enough, the same council member planning to delay our raise is planning to raise her own on the same day.
The Good: There is chance to win a 12.25 per hour minimum wage on the Ballot for Oakland in November. 33,000 people signed a petition put forward by the “Lift Up Oakland” coalition to raise the minimum wage to 12.25 next year. This would be a 3.25 raise over next year’s 9 dollar California minimum wage. It includes 5-10 paid sick days for all workers.
The Bad: The Oakland Chamber of Commerce and their allies on the city council are now scheming to pass a confusing countermeasure. Because Lift Up Oakland’s proposal is wildly popular they crafted a measure that on paper sets a higher dollar amount but takes 3-5 years to come into effect. The measure includes many exceptions.
(1) Taking into account paid sick time, by time it comes into effect the plan by the Chamber of Commerce measure’s wage will have a wage that is the same or worse than Lift Up Oakland’s wage.
(2) Because of the delays and exemptions the chamber’s measure will cost (by a low estimate) 300 Million dollars in lost wages for workers over 5 years compared to Lift Up Oakland’s measure.
(3) The Chamber of Commerce’s measure does not include tipped workers who would remain at 9$, nor does it include homecare workers, or those in youth training programs.
What their side is doing: There are two council members who have come out publicly for the Chamber of Commerce’s Countermeasure. Pat Kernighan and Lynette McElhaney. These politicians are planning to pass the measure outright as an ordinance. They are trying to get other council members to back the chamber of commerce’s measure. They are hoping that by passing the worse measure they will be able to confuse voters into not voting for Lift Up Oakland’s measure.
What can we do: We have to mobilize to stop them from taking that 300 million from our pockets through a deceitful countermeasure. The chamber of commerce, anti-worker council members and the gentrifying developers have one vision for Oakland. We have a different vision and we can win our vision if we fight for it. Spread the word, call and email, invite your friends and neighbors, let’s tell them that Oakland needs a raise NOW!
It has been nearly 50 years and many subsequent crusades since consumer advocate Ralph Nader first captured the spotlight with the publication of “Unsafe at Any Speed.” One might think that the title of his latest book, “Unstoppable,” would indicate a memoir. Not so. Subtitled “The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State” (Nation Books, $25.99, 240 pages), the new book is an argument that the time is ripe for people on opposite sides of the political spectrum to wrest control over their futures away from big business.
Nader, 80, will talk about the book at two midweek appearances, beginning with Wednesday’s conversation with Harry Kreisler, UC Berkeley’s former executive director of the Institute of International Studies. The event is sponsored by KPFA Radio.
Occupy National Gathering 2014 (Natgat2014) will be held July 31 – Aug. 3 in Sacramento, CA. Please stay tuned as we add information about our gathering. Get involved helping us organize and plan on attending! Together We Rise!
Occupy California (organizers) Facebook
Help plan NatGat 2014
email lists http://interoccupy.net/
Volunteer to help online, on the ground, or to offer activities. http://interoccupy.net/
Attend NGWG Weekly Planning Calls Wednesdays @ 4 PM PT/7PM ET http://interoccupy.net/
Facebook Planning Group https://www.facebook.com/
fb event page for#NatGat2014 https://www.facebook.com/
fb Community page https://www.facebook.com/
twitter https://twitter.com/
Help Plan NatGat 2014 | NatGat2014 interoccupy.net
There is only one dog running for Mayor of Oakland. Here’s your chance to debate Einstein’s platform with the candidate his canine self.
Einstein will be keeping First Friday safe from Jean Quan and eagerly greeting his would-be constituents.
He’ll be somewhere near the Alan Blueford Center for Justice and the Strike Debt Bay Area table.
Follow @EinsteinForMayor on Twitter and check out his Facewoof page. Here’s an excerpt:
Einstein strongly opposes the Urban Shield weapons show in Oakland AND the Bay Area Urban Area Security Initiative (!!!). Plank 6 of Einstein’s platform: “6. Stronger weapon-control laws shall apply to everyone within the City’s limits, including law enforcement officers.” The strategy of preventing crime with overwhelming force and intimidation is not well-conceived at all. Crime is not an issue for the same reason that smoke alarms don’t cause fires. A very simplistic argument is often made in the media when crime is related to the economy: crime goes up when the economy goes down. But you don’t hear anyone say that the economy goes down because crime goes up. This is just one way in which crime serves as an alarm telling us that a shortage of opportunities and of security – along with the curtailment of civil rights – puts stress on populations, and crime is the RESULT! Let’s focus on reducing the CAUSES of crime – of which brutal repression and the invasion of privacy are two! BAD Urban Shield! BAD!
Strike Debt Bay Area will have a table at First Friday. Come hang out, pick up a DROM (Debt Resisters’ Operations Manueal, get your Public Bank of Oakland t-shirt and/or talk about the politics of debt.
Look for us between 24th and 25th on Telegraph.
At The Alan Blueford Center For Justice, our mission is to help heal the community in Alan’s name so that his memory lives on thru change directed at unity & love. We will be dedicating First Friday to Monique Robinson & her son Taylor, aka Fat Daddy.
“Honor Monique by supporting her child. Taylor has been lucky to have other loving caregivers who have shared in his upbringing, help them continue to love and support him.”
– See more at: http://www.youcaring.com/other/suppor…
Our special guests & featured performers for the night are Fresh Juice Party: http://www.freshjuiceparty.com/
PLEASE JOIN US TO HONOR MONIQUE’S LIFE W/FREE MUSIC & POSITIVE VIBES
UPDATE: The community groups that called for this action have reconsidered and this action has been called off. There will still be a bit of coffee, etc. there at 5AM for folks that didn’t get the message.
In Solidarity with Palestinians, especially those beseiged and bombarded in Gaza, we will block 2 Israeli ZIM Ships from docking and unloading at the Port of Oakland.
It happened in 2010 and it will happen again!
The Palestinian people are under attack from the state of Israel. Palestinian children are being murdered, their hospitals are being bombed, and Palestinian workers are being fired, beaten, arrested, and killed for striking in response. We call on a broad coalition of Pro-Palestinian labor, human rights, and anti-war organizations to join us for direct actions and pickets against the Israeli Shipping company ZIM!
To help organize or endorse the actions blocktheboat@riseup.net
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The Plan for August 2nd:
-Meet at West Oakland BART at 5 AM where we will march to SSA Berth 57 of the Port at 5:10 SHARP!
-If you can’t make the 5 am shift show meet at Berth 57 ASAP where we will be picketing all day!
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Shuttles will be provided back and forth from the West Oakland Bart to the SSA Terminal.
There is no parking at the port! If driving, you can park at West Oakland BART for free, and/or shuttle folks to the port!
Bring food, water, layers, comfortable shoes, and picket signs!
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Use our HashTags!
#BlockTheBoat and #PicketForPalestine to spread the word!
Also #SF2Palestine and #Youth4Palestine to connect to local networks
Please copy, paste, and share this event!
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On Monday July 21st there was a General Strike in Israel protesting the bloody and violent occupation of Palestinian lands. We believe that the working class must take a stand to defend the human rights of Palestinians.
An Injury to One is An Injury to All!
Tear Down The Apartheid Wall!
Protest & March
Tell Nancy Pelosi:
STOP Supporting Genocide in Gaza!
End the Siege of Gaza!
End All U.S. Aid to Israel!
(August 6th is also known as Hiroshima Day, the day the US dropped the nuclear bomb on tens of thousands of innocent civilians.)
The Palestinian people of Gaza have been heroically resisting in the face of the merciless U.S.-backed Israeli assault. More than 1,500 Palestinians have been killed and over 8,000 wounded, the overwhelming majority civilians.
Meanwhile, virtually every U.S. politician, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have been falling all over each other to express their support for this mass murder.
The U.S. has armed, funded and supplied the Israeli occupation forces. Just this week, the Pentagon announced that it will provide an emergency resupply of ammunition to the Israeli army as it has used up so much in its Gaza operation.
For more info, visit answersf.org
Download the flyer: http://
Community Forum on Causa Justa / Just Cause & East Bay Solidarity Network: 6:00 PM
Music: 6:30 PM
Performance: 7:00 PM
The San Francisco Mime Troupe creates and produces socially relevant theater of the highest professional quality and performs it before the broadest possible audience.
We do plays that make sense out of the headlines by identifying the forces that shape our lives and dramatizing the operation of these giant forces in small, close-up stories that make our audiences feel the impact of political events on personal life.
To make this work accessible the Mime Troupe performs its shows in local parks at a price everyone can afford: FREE.
A free screening of a documentary film about what antibiotics in cattle, pigs, and chickens are doing to our health. Their use increases resistance of bacteria which cause disease in humans. Using microscopic footage, harrowing personal stories, and expert insights, “Resistance” clarifies the problem of antibiotic resistance, how we got to this point, and what we can do to turn the tide.
Held on the last day of the Our Power National Convening, the Day of Action will amplify the grassroots-led solutions of Richmond and other communities on the frontlines of energy injustice and social injustice. Richmond is part of a growing national campaign called the Our Power Campaign, where communities on the frontline of environmental pollution are asserting Our Power to build local living economies that work for people and the planet. Richmond-based organizations and the Our Power Campaign are now calling on everyone to join them in building this just transition. The Our Power Day of Action 2014 will raise up the voices of Richmond community members to realize their visions of the future. Together we can not only stop the expansion of dangerous, polluting refineries and pipelines, but begin a just transition away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy, good jobs, and healthy thriving communities.
The day’s schedule will include a community march to the Richmond Greenway, a community speak out/rally, a festival of community-led “solutions” inspired and anchored by some of the local work happening in Richmond, culminating in a solar powered concert called “unplug the empire” which will happen in partnership with Urban Tilth and others at the 16th St. entrance of the Richmond Greenway.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:
9:30am – Opening Ceremony & March for a Just Transition
Location: The Kinder-Morgan Rail Yard Gate at 144 S. Garrard Blvd
Opposite the Garrard Commercial Center
Bus Line: 72M: S. Garrard Blvd and Canal Blvd stop
*** FREE SHUTTLES PROVIDED FROM RICHMOND BART STATION starting at 8:30am ***
The day’s events will commence with an opening ceremony in collaboration with Idle No More and the Native American Health Center at the Kinder Morgan Rail Yard. We will commemorate the 2nd anniversary of the Chevron refinery explosion that sent over 15,000 Richmond residents to the ER. We will ground ourselves by honoring the land we are on, illuminating the unjust and disproportionate impacts on frontline communities like Richmond posed by unjust extractive energy industry and corporate greed.
We will then march from the Kinder Morgan Rail Yard to the Richmond Greenway Trail, celebrating the notion of just transition away from dirty energy and corporate greed, to local living economies rooted in justice, sustainability and community resiliency.
See the full march route here.
12:30 P.M. – “Our Power, Our Voices” – Community Speak Out
Location: the Richmond Greenway Trail – 16th St entrance (between Ohio & Chanslor Ave)
The march will arrive at the 16th street entrance of the Richmond Greenway Trail where a solar powered community speak out will be held, amplifying stories of resistance and resiliency of Richmond and other frontline communities at the junction of environmental, health, work and housing injustices.
Communities members of front-line Refinery communities, labor, health and housing justice organizations will speak out about the climate crises facing our communities and share their visions of community resiliency and a just and sustainable Richmond.
Speakers from the following communities and organizations will be present:
• Idle No More
• Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA)
• Richmond Environmental Justice Coalition
• Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN)
• Communities for a Better Environment (CBE)
• Crockett-Rodeo United to Defend the Environment
• Martinez Environmental Group
• Urban Tilth
• Black Mobilization, Organization and Education in Richmond (BMOER)
• California Nurses Association (CNA)
• Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) – Richmond
• Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra (MST) / Landless Workers Movement
• Friends of the Earth, Mozambique
2 P.M. – 5 P.M. “Our Power, Our Harvest” – Community Solutions Festival & Unplug the Empire Solar Powered Concert
Location: the Richmond Greenway Trail – 16th St entrance (between Ohio & Chanslor Ave)
Demonstrations of Just Transition community-led strategies inspired and anchored by some of the local work in Richmond, including urban gardening, rainwater collection installation, a bike clinic, pop up health clinic for HIV testing, solar array demonstrations & workshops, live mural painting on the greenway, teach-ins and live music by Richmond and Bay Area artists (all powered by the sun!).
Join the continuing protests against Staples union-busting and Post Office management’s attempt to privatize the Post Office. Join he American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO and Berkeley Post Office defenders outside of Staples in Berkeley at an informational demo to keep the pressure on Staples and the Post Office.
In its continuing attack on postal workers and on the public service, the U. S. Postal Service has cut a deal with Staples to provide postal services at Stapes stores. Postal Jobs must be maintained as good jobs that pay a living wage. Our communities need more, not less, living wage jobs!
Visit www.stopstaples.com to learn more and get involved.
Green Sunday sponsored by the Green Party of Alameda County:
Join us for a lively discussion about differing views on how we can best achieve a liveable minimum wage, both in the East Bay, and beyond.
Steve Gilbert is an active retired member of SEIU 1021. He worked with his union in developing the Millionaire’s Tax 2010 – 2012 and then on the Oakland minimum wage initiative that became the Lift Up Oakland Initiative ($12.25/hour and sick leave). He also was active with his union in organizing strikes at the Port of Oakland and Hayward.
Scott Johnson is a writer and activist who has been involved in organizing around police brutality and labor. He was involved with Occupy Oakland, the Occupy Oakland Labor Solidarity Committee, and Fight for Fifteen Oakland. Writings include: The Politics of Giving a Raise and: Oakland’s fight for less-than-15?
DIRECTIONS: One block north of Alcatraz on the West side of Telegraph, wheelchair accessible. Buses pass by regularly. Ashby BART is approximately 7 blocks away.
SPONSOR: Green Sundays are a series of free programs and discussions sponsored by the Green Party of Alameda County. They are held on the 2nd Sunday of each month.
With discussion led by Richard Becker, author of “Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire.”
Made in 1973, this film includes an excellent chronology of the events leading to the establishment of the state of Israel by the Zionist forces utilizing rare historical footage. It explains the role of Britain and the U.S. in establishing and supporting the Israeli state, and documents the long history of resistance by the indigenous Palestinian people to colonial settlement and expulsion. Beginning with the rise of political Zionism, the film goes on to describe the Arab rebellion against Turkish rule during World War I, the general strike and armed rebellion against British control of Palestine in the 1930’s, the dispossession of the Palestinians in 1948 and afterwards, as well as the development of the Palestinian liberation movement following the 1967 Six Day War.
Produced by CineNews, 1973, 55 min.
Wheelchair accessible. Refreshments provided.