Calendar
Progressives and socialists have sometimes won state power in liberal, democratic regimes, and used it to rein in the worst excesses of capitalism. But, due to their structural power, capitalists exercise disproportionate control over the state, often allowing them to prevent or roll back such reforms.
Please join the Socialist Night School on Tuesday, February 5 for a discussion of the capitalist state and the sorts of reforms possible under capitalism.
Required Readings
See the readings that we’ll be discussing after a brief introduction from our members.
Advance tickets: $12: brownpapertickets.com :: T: 800-838-3006
or Pegasus (3 sites), Books Inc (Berkeley), Moe’s, Walden Pond Bookstore, East Bay Books Mrs. Dalloway’s
$15 door
For decades one of the most farseeing, outspoken public intellectuals in the United States has been Robert B. Reich. Now he provides us with The Common Good, his sixteenth book, a passionate, clear-eyed manifesto urging the recentering of our national economics and politics on the profound idea of the common good. Responding to the prevailing uproar of divisiveness, cynicism and blind self-interest, Reich makes a powerful case for expanding America’s moral imagination. Rooting his argument in common sense and everyday reality, he demonstrates that a common good not only exists, but in fact is the very essence of any functional society or notion. Societies, he asserts, undergo varying virtuous cycles that reinforce the common good as well as vicious cycles that undermine It – one of which this country has been experiencing for the past five decades. This can and must be reversed.
First we must weigh the moral obligations of citizenship and carefully consider how as a country we should relate to honor, shame, patriotism, truth and the meaning of leadership.
This is a heartfelt statement from a major political thinker devoted to saving America’s soul.
Robert B. Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations and has written fifteen books, including The Work of Nations, Saving Capitalism and Locked In the Cabinet. His essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washingon Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He is currently chair of the national governing board of Common Cause.
Kathryn Horsley is a retired public health researcher and civil servant who worked on demographic and reproductive health research in Bolivia, East Africa and the Middle East for 16 years. More recently she worked for Seattle-King County Public Health and Alameda County Public Health Departments on community assessment and mapping of health outcomes regarding infant and maternal mortality, teen pregnancy, etc. Kathryn has done community outreach for KPFA Radio, and over the past three years has co-produced benefit events for KPFA.
KPFA benefit
Hosted by the Ecology Center, StopWaste and City of Berkeley, with the generous support of BayREN.
Why? Our homes and buildings are the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. But thanks to local Community Choice Energy providers, electricity in the Bay Area is clean, and is getting cleaner and greener every year. We can vastly reduce our carbon footprint by getting off natural gas in our homes and electrifying everything. Not only does electrification reduce GHGs, it also makes our homes healthier and safer.
What?
- Watch induction cooktop demos
- Talk with local residents who are electrifying homes and apartments
- Meet local contractors installing all-electric appliances
- See super-efficient heat pump water heaters & space heating/cooling systems
- Learn more at workshops with international electrification expert Sean Armstrong. Limited seating – advance registration required.
- 3:30-5:00pm – Building Professional Workshop (Plumbers, Electricians, Contractors, Architects, HVAC Installers)
- 6:00-7:30pm – Renter & Homeowner Workshop
Agenda:
3. 5:10pm: Open Forum
4. 5:15pm: UC Berkeley’s Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic – introduction and discussion of scope of work, including drafting of Privacy Principles.
5. 5:20pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Exigent Use of Surveillance Technology report, and take possible action.
6. 5:30pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Automated License Plate Reader Anticipated Impact Report – review and take possible action.
7. 6:00pm: Federal Task Force Transparency Ordinance – OPD – presentation of inaugural annual reports (FBI/JTTF, ATF, DEA task forces), and take possible action.
8. 6:30pm: Surveillance Equipment Ordinance – OPD – Body Worn Camera Anticipated Impact Report – review and take possible action.
How does the dream of a college degree become a reality for low-income students?
Please join us for East Bay Community Conversations
Higher Education and the California Dream: Myth or Reality
These and many other issues facing students desiring a higher education degree in California are critical topics for a two-part series hosted by the KQED Community Advisory Panel.
Hear from and share your thoughts with higher education administrators, faculty, students, and elected officials.
Panelists include:
Dr. Marie Elaine Burns, President, Merritt College
Dr. Jowel Laguerre, Chancellor, Peralta Community College District
Dr. Kimberly Mayfield. Dean of Education, Holy Names University
Dr. Chinyere Oparah, Provost and Dean of Faculty, Mills College
The Honorable Loren Taylor, District 6, Oakland City Councilman
Merritt College Student Representative
Janet Miller Evans, Moderator, KQED Community Action Panel
LaNeice Jones, Host, KQED Community Action Panel
Event details:
Doors Open at 5:00PM
Looking for more: Join us on March 20, 2019 at Mills College for the second part of the conversation. Details here.
Contra Costa hearing on whether police misconduct and lethal use of force records will be released retroactively (#SB1421) Case # N19-0109.
Media Alliance, as with many Bay Area media outlets, filed public record requests after the January 1, 2019 enactment of Senate Bill 1421 which allowed the release of police misconduct and use of force records. Our requests to the cities of Antioch and Richmond are tied up in litigation from the police unions, which will be heard in the consolidated Contra Costa County case Walnut Creek Police Officers Association vs City of Walnut Creek
“Maisie Crow’s Jackson, about the last-remaining abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi, where the Dixie flag still flies over the capital, brings to mind Nina Simone’s song “Mississippi Goddam.” She wrote it after Medgar Evers’ 1963 assassination in Jackson. Watching this documentary about the embattled clinic, audiences will wonder if anything has changed since then.”- Film Journal International
https://www.revolutionbooks.org/
Heather La Mastro, a school teacher in Berkeley, recently traveled to occupied Palestine. She visited several refugee camps, hospitals and pediatric mental health care programs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip administered by the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF). Heather will share her stories meeting Palestinian people, especially her students’ Palestinian pen pals in Gaza.
She will be joined by Priscilla Wathington, the Managing Editor for Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), an independent, local Palestinian child rights organization based in Ramallah. Priscilla will speak about the most pressing human rights concerns facing Palestinian children living in the Gaza Strip at this juncture and the grave number of child fatalities at the hands of Israeli forces that DCIP documented in 2018.
Organized by ISM-NorCal https://ism-norcal.org/
Come to a discussion with activists in the fight for decent education in Oakland about what we can do to stand up to these attacks.
https://revolutionaryworkers.org/
RSVP: bit.ly/feedthehood9
DONATE: bit.ly/feedthehood
Join The East Oakland Collective for their large scale community service opportunity to prepare and distribute 3,000 lunches and hygiene kits to our unhoused brothers and sisters across Oakland. This Feed the Hood is paying respect and homage to the Black Panther Party, who fed, clothed and provided resources to the community without government assistance.
<< At-A-Glance Agenda for Feed the Hood >>
7 AM: Volunteers arrive. Volunteer breakfast.
7 AM – 9 AM: Prepare bag lunches and hygiene kits
9 AM – 9:30 AM: Program and instruction
9:30 AM – 10:00 AM: Load caravans
9:30 AM – 11:00 AM: Caravans head out to distribute bag lunches and hygiene kits across Oakland and parts of Berkeley.
**Event is family friendly (kids of all ages welcome to attend with their parent(s) or guardian).
**Coffee/tea and continental breakfast will be served for volunteers.
**Venue is wheelchair accessible.
PARKING: School parking lot prioritized for those participating in the caravan distributions, then overflow on first come basis. Parking available in the neighborhood.
For questions, large donations and group volunteer opportunities contact us at feedthehood@eastoaklandcollective.com.
Monthly interfaith prayer meeting, held on second Sundays, dedicated to healing.
The Bahá’í community of Oakland is 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.
Come share prayers, quotes, poems, and favorite passages from your scriptures with us. Simple breakfast will be served.
Doors open: 10:00 AM
Refreshments served: 10:00-10:30 AM
Prayers: 10:30-11:30 AM
Discussion and socializing: 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM
“Thy name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy. Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for Thee is my companion. Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succor in both this world and the world to come. Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.” ~ Bahá’u’lláh
“Remember the saying: ‘Of all pilgrimages the greatest is to relieve the sorrow-laden heart.'” ~ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Meet living treasure Edythe Boone and enjoy the new installation of her works in Fellowship Hall. This bold muralist, activist, and educator tackles poverty, racism, and inequality—with a paintbrush. She makes murals with all who share her yearning for community. (Note that the reception takes place after the regular 2nd Sunday potluck, which starts around noon.)
As a special treat, we’ll be screening the fascinating, award-winning documentary by Marlene “Mo” Morris, “A New Color: The Art of Being Edythe Boone.”
We demand:
No U.S. Coup!
– No troops
– No sanctions
– Return Venezuelan money to the legitimate Maduro government
– No proxy interventions (i.e. through Colombia or Brazil)
Recognize the elected Maduro Bolivarian government
No recognition of the self-imposed, rogue Guaidò “government”.
We invite other organizations to endorse. Please message with your endorsement, and we’ll add you to the listed endorsers.
Our forum this month will focus on the likely teachers strike in Oakland and the battle against school closures and charters linked to a privatization agenda locally and nationally. This comes on the wake of a very successful strike by teachers in Los Angeles and an educator upsurge spreading elsewhere.
Our presenters will be Mike Hutchinson, long time education activist, school board candidate, and leader of OPEN (Oakland Public Education Network) and Becca Rozo-Marsh, a leader of the Oakland Education Association and co-chair of that union’s community outreach committee.
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.
Becca Rozo-Marsh is a classroom teacher at Coliseum College Prep Academy and a member of the Oakland Education Association’s Executive Board. In 2016 she was one of the recipients of the Teacher for Social Justice award given by the San Francisco based group Teachers 4 Social Justice.
SPONSOR: Green Sundays are a series of free programs & discussions sponsored by the Green Party of Alameda County and are 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.
PLANET PEOPLE PEACE
before profit!
https://www.justice4chinedu.com/
East Bay Booksellers invites you to The Diesel Readers Book Group’s discussion of Radio Free Vermont byBill McKibben, on Monday February 11th at 7pm.
As the host of Radio Free Vermont–“underground, underpowered, and underfoot”–seventy-two-year-old Vern Barclay is currently broadcasting from an “undisclosed and double-secret location.” With the help of a young computer prodigy named Perry Alterson, Vern uses his radio show to advocate for a simple yet radical idea: an independent Vermont, one where the state secedes from the United States and operates under a free local economy. But for now, he and his radio show must remain untraceable, because in addition to being a lifelong Vermonter and concerned citizen, Vern Barclay is also a fugitive from the law.
In Radio Free Vermont, Bill McKibben entertains and expands upon an idea that’s become more popular than ever–seceding from the United States. Along with Vern and Perry, McKibben imagines an eccentric group of activists who carry out their own version of guerilla warfare, which includes dismissing local middle school children early in honor of ‘Ethan Allen Day’ and hijacking a Coors Light truck and replacing the stock with local brew. Witty, biting, and terrifyingly timely, Radio Free Vermont is Bill McKibben’s fictional response to the burgeoning resistance movement.
Vandana Shiva and Vijaya Nagarajan
Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, and alter-globalization author. Currently based in Delhi, she has authored more than twenty books, including Who Really Feeds the World? Water Wars, and Biopiracy. She is one of the leaders and board members of the International Forum on Globalization (along with Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith, Ralph Nader, Jeremy Rifkin) and a figure of the global solidarity movement known as the alter-globalization movement. She has argued for the wisdom of many traditional practices, as evidenced by her interview in the book Vedic Ecology. She is a member of the scientific committee of the Fundacion IDEAS, Spain’s Socialist Party’s think tank. She is also a member of the International Organization for a Participatory Society. She received the Right Livelihood Award in 1993, an honor known as an “Alternative Nobel Prize.” Before becoming an activist, Shiva was one of India’s leading physicists.
Vijaya Nagarajan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theology/Religious Studies and in the Program of Environmental Studies at the University of San Francisco. She writes about Hinduism, gender, ritual, ecology and the commons. Recently her work has centered around spiritual autobiographies of place, especially around immigration and motherhood. She has been active in the American Academy of Religion and in environmental movements in the United States. She is the author of Feeding a Thousand Souls which documents the history of the tradition of the kolam. Every day millions of Tamil women in southeast India wake up before dawn to create the kōlam, a ritual design made of rice flour, on the thresholds of homes. This thousand year-old ritual welcomes and honors the goddesses Lakshmi and Bhudevi. Braiding Tamil women’s voices and the author’s own stories, Feeding a Thousand Souls offers different knowledge traditions––beauty, history, gender, literature, religion, anthropology, mathematics, and ecology.
In cooperation with KPFA.
