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Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University, Department of Africana Studies. She is a frequent commentator on CBS News, CNN, Fox News, NPR, and Democracy Now! — and is widely published in the national media and academic journals.

Noura will be discussing her new book, Justice For Some: Law and the Question of Palestine, in conversation with Lara Kiswani from the Arab Resource & Organizing Center.

Tuesday, November 12th

Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University, Department of Africana Studies. She is a frequent commentator on CBS News, CNN, Fox News, NPR, and Democracy Now! — and is widely published in the national media and academic journals.

Noura will be discussing her new book, Justice For Some: Law and the Question of Palestine,  in conversation with Lara Kiswani from the Arab Resource & Organizing Center. More info about Noura Erakat can be found HERE.

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We’re having another Wood Street community cookout on Wednesday 11/13 at 7 pm. I hope housed Oakland residents come out to learn more about how they can support their unhoused neighbors. Bring food if you can, if you can’t, no big deal. It’ll be fun. Meet at 24th and Wood.

— Zack Haber (@ZZZZZZZZZZZack) November 12, 2019

Venue is wheelchair accessible

Agenda Items of Note:

IV. Draft Ordinance on Military Police Equipment
The Coalition for Police Accountability will present a draft ordinance for review. OPD will
also present their response to the draft ordinance.

IX. Subpoenas Regarding OBOA Allegations of Racial Discrimination
The Commission will discuss and possibly take action on whether or not to serve
subpoenas relating to the Oakland Black Officers Association’s allegations of racial
discrimination.

X. Report on Policing of Oakland’s Unhoused Communities
The Commission will discuss the report which was prepared on behalf of the Coalition for
Police Accountability by students at the University of California, Berkeley. This is a new
item. (Attachment 10).

XI. Vote to Submit Request to City Council to Create Standing Policy and Legislation
Committee
The Commission will vote to authorize the submission of a request to the City Council for
approval of a Standing Policy and Legislation Committee.

The Oakland Police Commission will consider the proposed ordinance on militarized equipment. Please come to the first part of this meeting to show support for this ordinance and make a short public comment. BAY Peace organizers will also present video testimony of youth violated by police military equipment.

Oakland PD has submitted a response to the proposed ordinance falsely claiming that it currently requests listed equipment through the Police Commission, City Council and Council’s Public Safety Committee. OPD says that the ordinance would remove these three bodies from their part in governing Oakland and the OPD! In fact, the ordinance will give the City Council and Police Commission authority for reviewing police equipment, with community input, that they have never had.

Please join us on Thursday at 6:30pm and consider asking others to come out on Thursday as well. The militarized equipment ordinance is the first item on the agenda. You can speak during Open Forum at 6:30, and/or right after the ordinance is presented.

You can share this online Petition to Regulate Police Military Equipment in Oakland.

We want civilian control over OPD’s use of military equipment, including sound cannons known as LRADs (Long Range Acoustic Devices). A federal court ruled last year that NYPD’s indiscriminate use of LRADs at a Black Lives Matter protest, where it caused damage to people’s eardrums, was illegal. An LRAD was used in Oakland against Occupy in 2011, causing some protesters to fall over and vomit. Yet, OPD states that “LRAD is not a weapon LRAD is a communication device…” OPD says it has no use policy for the LRAD, and appears to suggest that it doesn’t need one.

We’ve created this interactive map of deployments of the tank-like BearCat in Oakland in 2018 and 2019.

The more we learn, the more clear it is that the militarized equipment ordinance is necessary. Please join us on Thursday.

American Friends Service Committee
California Healing Justice Program
Tel: 510-282-8983

• Information about recent dramatic radio network conflicts, resulting lawsuits, and proposed new bylaws
• The shut down and lock out of staff at New York affiliate WBAI
• The elimination of various independent programs at KPFA
• The truth about the Pacifica network’s financial state
• “Why can’t we all just get along?”

Whether you are a member or an occasional listener, Pacifica’s survival is essential to everyone’s free speech.
Please come and learn more if you value free independent media. Join us in protecting the fierce independence of KPFA’s local and Pacifica’s national programming, which speaks truth to power.

KPFA:

Is It the End of Our Local

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A substantial debate on single payer:

The pro side will be represented by a professor from the UC school of Public Health.

The con side will be represented by Sally Pipes from the Pacific Research Institute. She used to work for the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, Canada.

Tamarack and Commune Magazine invite you to a video presentation by the Vitalist International:

BE WATER : WORLD

Lessons from the freedom movements in Hong Kong and Catalonia

Magic and Technology In the Revolution of Our Times

Umbrellas, laser pointers, and cardboard boxes, black blocks using encrypted platforms to vote live on escape routes and designers quitting their day jobs to make Pepe memes full time: The movement in Hong Kong is a signal fire showing us the future of resistance in an increasingly digital world.

From low tech solutions against the most advanced surveillance state on Earth to mesh networks and live mapping software, two participants in the movement will discuss the revolution in Hong Kong, from a user’s perspective.

Catalunya Fall 2019

After the Spanish Supreme Court convicted 9 Catalans of “Sedition” for their roles in the 2017 independence referendum, a wave of revolt crashed over the region. Drawing on lessons from the laboratory in Hong Kong, millions of people have built a movement that goes beyond its nationalist framework and questions the meaning of democracy in our time.

Beginning on August 10th, the Strike Debt Bay Area Economics Book Group began discussing Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. We tackled the introduction and first chapter, available through the ‘Look Inside’ feature on Amazon, for the August 10th meeting.

For our September 7th meeting, we will be discussing the rest of the first section, Chapters 2-6.

For our October 12th meeting, we will be discussing Chapters 7-9, the first part of the second section.

For our November 16th meeting, we will be discussing Chapters 10 – 13.

For our December 14th meeting, we will be discussing Chapters 14 and through to the end.

All are welcome!

The Economics Book Group began with Doughnut Economics and continued with Take Back the Economy.  We read a few chapters every month.

“Today most of our money is created, not by governments, but by banks when they make loans. This book takes the reader step by step through the sausage factory of modern money creation, explores improvements made possible by advances in digital technology, and proposes upgrades that could transform our outmoded nineteenth century system into one that is democratic, sustainable, and serves the needs of the twenty-first century.”

“In Banking on the People, attorney Ellen Brown provides a much-needed roadmap for reforming monetary and credit systems and the central banks now strangling our common human future. More lucidly that any other expert I know, she shows how we can break the grip of predatory financialization now extracting value from real peoples’ productive activities all over the world. Her in-depth research and systemic overview of the global and local politics of money-creation and credit allocation include all the viable proposals of global experts and reformers. She reviews many of these reforms: from financial transaction taxes, to a universal basic income to provide purchasing power for the cornucopia of goods and services now produced, to expanding the public banks she so ably promotes via the Public Banking Institute, to returning the Fed and all banks to serving the public utility functions that economies require. This book is a must read for citizens in all societies who see the promising future as we seek to widen democracies and transform to a cleaner, greener, shared prosperity, based on the renewable abundance of free daily energy from our sun.” – Hazel Henderson, CEO of Ethical Markets Media and author of Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age and other books.

Sun, Nov 10, 2019
Open Mic/Political Karaoke

What’s bugging you, politics-wise? Here’s your chance to talk about any and every thing from the PG&E Power Shutdown to Brexit, from Nancy Pelosi to Greta Thunberg, maybe even the riots in Chile. Sign up for 5 minute slots!

Sun, Nov 17, 2019
Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter.
Representatives of the Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression have been invited to discuss their position on this matter.
Awaiting better blurb..

Sun, Nov 24, 2019
Women and War
Women have a long association with violent intergroup conflict and war going back to early human times.  This presentation will survey women in the highly genderized institutions of war and the military in various periods and types of societies.  Although women have been impacted in multiple ways and played many roles, the focus of this talk is on women’s role as fighter/combatant and direct supporters of this activity.  Also covered are women in some of the revolutionary wars and militaries in the past two centuries.  The fighter/combatant perspective on women is usually omitted or “hidden” in accounts by both conventional and feminist analysts who stress women as victims, survivors, peacemakers and supporters of men who fight.  Women as fighters not only redresses this imbalance but indicates a role whose impact is as significant as the other roles that are more widely promulgated.
Presented by Al Sargis, Founder/Director of the Friedrich Engels Institute of Marxist War and Military Analysis (FEIMWAMA).

The workshop is 2-6pm.

ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP
Building alternatives to policing include equipping our communities with the skills to respond to mental health crisis and physical emergencies, including overdose. Too often calling 911 for a mental health or physical emergency brings police attention along with it. In this workshop we will cover mental health crisis intervention, first aid, CPR, and overdose intervention.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
The Oakland Power Projects (OPP) are an initiative of Critical Resistance to engage Oakland residents in building community power and wellbeing without relying on cops. CR Oakland has been fighting against the violence of policing for more than 10 years, and we hope you’ll join us in this next phase.

ABOUT THIS WORKSHOP SERIES

A growing coalition of organizations in the Bay Area is coming together to explore alternatives to calling the police to our campuses and into our neighborhoods. Over the coming year, we will be offering a series of workshops to explore alternatives to calling the police. Some of these workshops will provide deepening analysis and a grounding in alternative ways of thinking about community safety. Others, like this one, will provide practical skills. All of them will lift up a transformative justice framework and emphasize the importance of self care.

The Coalition includes First Congregational Church of Oakland, Kehilla Community Synagogue, Qal’bu Maryam, Jewish Voice for Peace, Skyline Community Church, Oakland Peace Center, Oakland LBGTQ Community Center, and the Omni Collective. We are eager to partner with additional organizations so please contact us if you are interested!

Join us for our National Day of Action to #FreeRodneyReed. Join other members of your community in solidarity with Rodney and his family as we join the national movement to demand Justice for Rodney.

Sign up here

Join the Moms for Housing for a housewarming party! The Moms for Housing have reclaimed a vacant, investor-owned home on behalf of the Oakland community and Black, working single moms everywhere. Come down to 2928 Magnolia Street starting at noon today to celebrate the move into #MomsHouse and help the Moms for Housing defend their new home from the predatory real estate speculators that kept this home vacant for the last two years.

MomsForHousing Twitter

Website

“As many of you know, I favor strong First Amendment protections for journalists and protesters and especially students. But I’m also very much against the President of the United States’ and his followers’ repeated attempts to get Congresswomen of color harmed or killed.

Legally, these two ideals appear to be in conflict. Would you like to see me try to square them? Would you like to hear a fully thought-through articulation of why free speech does not, or at least should not, include personal threats made against any person who dares to oppose Donald Trump? Would you like to hear an expert in First Amendment law tell me why I’m wrong?

If so, please join me and Ken White (aka @Popehat) at Berkeley Law on Monday, November 18th at 5:30 p.m. We will be having a spirited debate about what free speech does mean, should mean, and must mean in the age of Donald Trump. We’ll be playing some of our old hits like: Can a gun store suggest killing Congresswomen if it didn’t actually threaten them? And some new ones like, well, whatever dangerous, hateful thing Trump says in the next 10 days, probably.

We’re being hosted by Director Catherine Crump of the Samuelson Clinic for Law, Technology, and Public Policy. We will try very hard not to break any of the technology or public policy lying around.

Click here to RSVP. Especially if you agree with me! But, even if you don’t. I will defend forever your right to oppose me… just so long as you don’t think you can use the n-word without catching some hands.”