Calendar
We’re going back to Sprouts to make sure they get our message loud and clear! They want to pave over a precious historic urban farmland (the Gill Tract) to build a new store in Albany. We say, this public farmland is for farming, not corporate chain stores! Back off, Sprouts!
MEET up at 3090 King St, Berkeley, at 2 pm this time. We will then carpool to a local sprouts store to take action, disrupting their business as usual and encouraging shoppers to join our boycott.
The Community Democracy Project is your connection to direct democracy in Oakland! Convened out of Occupy Oakland in Fall 2011, we’re gathering steam on a campaign to bring the people back in touch with the city’s resources through participatory budgeting.
Picture this: Across Oakland, Neighborhood Assemblies are regularly
held in every community. People come together to tackle the important issues of their neighborhoods and of the city. At these assemblies, people don’t just have discussions–they learn from one another, from city staff, and they make fundamental decisions about how the city should run. They decide the city budget.
Democratic, community budgeting is a powerful step toward building strong communities, real democracy, and economic justice–and it’s being done all over the world.
The budget of the City Oakland totals more than $1 billion per year. Although part of the budget must be used for specific purposes, still over half of the budget–over $500 billion per year–consists of general purpose funds paid by the taxes, fees, and fines of the people of Oakland. The Mayor and the City Council decide the city budget, with minimal input from the community.
Working together, we will not only get a seat at the table–we will REBUILD the table itself. Participatory democracy is real democracy–join us to say: Local People, Local Resources, Local Power!
Berkeley Copwatch is tired of unjust policing and lack of accountability. We stand in solidarity with those protesting the murders of black people across the nation and say that this must end! We have our unique problems in Berkeley and the East Bay and we must take local action to stand up and demand justice!
We Demand:
- End racial profiling in Berkeley! Get the statistics on who is really being detained and arrested and stop handcuffing men of color for no reason!
- No tasers in Berkeley! Spend money to study how to end racial profiling – not acquire tasers!
- End the militarization of the police! No boats, no armored personnel carriers, no more weapons and no more military games. Withdraw from Urban Shield!
- Justice For Kayla Moore!
- Decriminalize Mental Illness! Police with no training in mental health crisis are most often the first responders to these kinds of situations. Berkeley must fully fund emergency mental health response in the city and prevent militarized cops from being the first point of contact for members of the public who need help in dealing with emergency mental health situations. No more putting spit hoods over the heads of people with mental illness! No taser use on mentally ill people! Counselors not cops!
Meetings at 7pm every Monday!
OTU’s Mission
The Oakland Tenants Union is an organization of housing activists dedicated to protecting tenant rights and interests. OTU does this by working directly with tenants in their struggle with landlords, impacting legislation and public policy about housing, community education, and working with other organizations committed to furthering renters’ rights. The Oakland Tenants Union is open to anyone who shares our core values and who believes that tenants themselves have the primary responsibility to work on their own behalf.
Monthly Meetings
The Oakland Tenants Union meets regularly at 7:00 pm on the second Monday evening of each month. Our monthly meetings are held in the Community Room of the Madison Park Apartments, 100 – 9th Street (at Oak Street, across from the Lake Merritt BART Station). To enter, gently knock on the window of the room to the right of the main entrance to the building. At the meetings, first we focus on general issues affecting renters city-wide and then second we offer advice to renters regarding their individual concerns.
If you have an issue, a question, or need advice about a tenant/landlord issue, please call us at (510) 704-5276. Leave a message with your name and phone number and someone will get back to you.
We’re standing together on November 10 to say, “We need a raise!” People across the country will be standing up with fast-food workers and all 64 million underpaid workers making less than $15, because it’s time for $15 for all workers. Together we’re turning the tide in favor of working people and our families. And we’ll need everyone’s help — including yours — to make this a reality.
RSVP here to receive email updates: http://fightfor15.org/s-petition/november-10-rsvp/
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We’ll call on corporate CEO’s to raise pay and respect our right to form unions without retaliation. And we’ll call on our elected representatives to stop letting the wealthy and powerful write the rules in their favor.
Together we can work to end racism and oppression, create a path to citizenship for immigrants, and fight for wages that strengthen our communities.
Click for full sized image
Click for full sized image
Join Black Workers, Labor Unions, the Fight for $15, and more to tell Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley: DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST THE BLACKFRIDAY14!
Workers from across the Bay Area unite on this National Day of Action for the Fight for $15 to say: Black Workers’ Lives Matter, and ALL Black Lives Matter.
We won’t stand for O’Malley’s racist prosecution and criminalization of Black folks. From the targeting of Black churches and African drummers, to the displacement of longtime Black Oakland communities, and police terror and murder of Black folks, there is a WAR on Black Lives, and so far, Nancy O’Malley is on the wrong side.
On November 28, 2014, the BlackFriday14 chained themselves to two BART trains at West Oakland Station, shutting down service as a call to action nationwide for folks to step up and put an end to the war on Black Lives.
Now the BlackFriday14 face criminalization of their own actions demanding justice.
District Attorney O’Malley has the power to drop all charges against the BlackFriday14 by just saying the word.
Workers stand with the BlackFriday14.
People of conscience stand with the BlackFriday14.
When will D.A. O’Malley stand on the side of justice?
Join us for a Black Worker Speakout, rally, and more to demand that D.A. O’Malley DROP ALL CHARGES NOW!
Afterwards, we will march to Oscar Grant Plaza to join the 4pm Fight for $15 Rally: https://www.facebook.com/
#BlackFriday14 #BlackLivesMatter #Fightfor15 #DroptheCharges
We’re standing together on November 10 to say, “We need a raise!” People across the country will be standing up with fast-food workers and all 64 million underpaid workers making less than $15, because it’s time for $15 for all workers. Together we’re turning the tide in favor of working people and our families. And we’ll need everyone’s help — including yours — to make this a reality.
RSVP here to receive email updates: http://fightfor15.org/s-petition/november-10-rsvp/
—–
We’ll call on corporate CEO’s to raise pay and respect our right to form unions without retaliation. Andf we’ll call on our elected representatives to stop letting the wealthy and powerful write the rules in their favor.
Together we can work to end racism and oppression, create a path to citizenship for immigrants, and fight for wages that strengthen our communities.
Click for full sized image
During the accreditation crisis, City College students and workers fought alongside our community for CCSF. Now Administration intends to shrink classes by 26%, layoff more than a quarter of the faculty, and refuses to negotiate a fair faculty contract. Help us defend a City College for everyone!
1:30 PM: MARCH for CCSF
from CCSF Downtown (88 4th St. @ Mission)
to CCSF Civic Center (1170 Market St. @ UN Plaza)
2:00 PM: RALLY for CCSF
- student debt resistance
- organizing for public banking.
- advocating for Postal banking.
- ongoing study group
- helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
- our famous Strike Debt radio program
- staging Debtors’ Assemblies
- Working on debarring US Banks that have been convicted of felonies from municipal contracts
- saving the Berkeley Post Office, fighting Post Office privatization and stopping the Staples non-union takeover of good Post Office jobs
- fighting modern day debtors’ prisons
- and much more!
Strike Debt – Principles of Solidarity
Strike Debt is building a debt resistance movement. We believe that most individual debt is illegitimate and unjust. Most of us fall into debt because we are increasingly deprived of the means to acquire the basic necessities of life: health care, education, and housing. Because we are forced to go into debt simply in order to live, we think it is right and moral to resist it.
We also oppose debt because it is an instrument of exploitation and political domination. Debt is used to discipline us, deepen existing inequalities, and reinforce racial, gendered, and other social hierarchies. Every Strike Debt action is designed to weaken the institutions that seek to divide us and benefit from our division. As an alternative to this predatory system, Strike Debt advocates a just and sustainable economy, based on mutual aid, common goods, and public affluence.
Strike Debt is committed to the principles and tactics of political autonomy, direct democracy, direct action, creative openness, a culture of solidarity, and commitment to anti-oppressive language and conduct. We struggle for a world without racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression.
Strike Debt holds that we are all debtors, whether or not we have personal loan agreements. Through the manipulation of sovereign and municipal debt, the costs of speculator-driven crises are passed on to all of us. Though different kinds of debt can affect the same household, they are all interconnected, and so all household debtors have a common interest in resisting.
Strike Debt engages in public education about the debt-system to counteract the self-serving myth that finance is too complicated for laypersons to understand. In particular, it urges direct action as a way of stopping the damage caused by the creditor class and their enablers among elected government officials. Direct action empowers those who participate in challenging the debt-system.
Strike Debt holds that we owe the financial institutions nothing, whereas, to our friends, families and communities, we owe everything. In pursuing a long-term strategy for national organizing around this principle, we pledge international solidarity with the growing global movement against debt and austerity.
The Community Democracy Project is your connection to direct democracy in Oakland! Convened out of Occupy Oakland in Fall 2011, we’re gathering steam on a campaign to bring the people back in touch with the city’s resources through participatory budgeting.
Picture this: Across Oakland, Neighborhood Assemblies are regularly
held in every community. People come together to tackle the important issues of their neighborhoods and of the city. At these assemblies, people don’t just have discussions–they learn from one another, from city staff, and they make fundamental decisions about how the city should run. They decide the city budget.
Democratic, community budgeting is a powerful step toward building strong communities, real democracy, and economic justice–and it’s being done all over the world.
The budget of the City Oakland totals more than $1 billion per year. Although part of the budget must be used for specific purposes, still over half of the budget–over $500 billion per year–consists of general purpose funds paid by the taxes, fees, and fines of the people of Oakland. The Mayor and the City Council decide the city budget, with minimal input from the community.
Working together, we will not only get a seat at the table–we will REBUILD the table itself. Participatory democracy is real democracy–join us to say: Local People, Local Resources, Local Power!
6pm Protest will follow earlier events in the day.
Bring your voices and instruments for a long night
New anti-homeless ordinances are being introduced to City Council at the November 17th meeting. Come and stand in solidarity with Berkeley’s homeless and against the ordinances.
Berkeley Copwatch is tired of unjust policing and lack of accountability. We stand in solidarity with those protesting the murders of black people across the nation and say that this must end! We have our unique problems in Berkeley and the East Bay and we must take local action to stand up and demand justice!
We Demand:
- End racial profiling in Berkeley! Get the statistics on who is really being detained and arrested and stop handcuffing men of color for no reason!
- No tasers in Berkeley! Spend money to study how to end racial profiling – not acquire tasers!
- End the militarization of the police! No boats, no armored personnel carriers, no more weapons and no more military games. Withdraw from Urban Shield!
- Justice For Kayla Moore!
- Decriminalize Mental Illness! Police with no training in mental health crisis are most often the first responders to these kinds of situations. Berkeley must fully fund emergency mental health response in the city and prevent militarized cops from being the first point of contact for members of the public who need help in dealing with emergency mental health situations. No more putting spit hoods over the heads of people with mental illness! No taser use on mentally ill people! Counselors not cops!
Meetings at 7pm every Monday!
90th and Bancroft 1pm. Walkout solidarity against police murder in Oakland. Wear all black #FTP #ACAB
— Occupy Oakland (@OccupyOakland) November 17, 2015
Today! #Oakland pic.twitter.com/HcbhWQq0NN
— FireWorks (@FireWorksBAY) November 17, 2015
SHORT NOTICE LOCATION AND TIME CHANGE! We intend to once again attend the Berkeley Police Review Commission Meeting at 7:00 PM, so we will meet beginning at 5:00 PM closer to the South Berkeley Community Center, at Nomad Cafe.
Join the Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against Stingrays being acquired by Alameda County agencies, against Urban Shield, for various privacy ordinances to be passed by the Oakland City Council, against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub, and against other invasions of privacy by our benighted City, County, State and Federal Governments. We are also engaged in the fight against Urban Shield, and Predictive Policing.
OPWG was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network, and its members helped draft the Privacy Policy that puts further restrictions on the now Port-restricted DAC.
Stop by and learn how you can help guard Oakland’s right not to be spied on by the government & if you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy Working Group email listserv, send an email to:
oaklandprivacyworkinggroup-subscribe AT lists.riseup.net
For more information on the DAC check out
The Anti Police-Terror Project is a group of concerned and committed institutions, organizations, and individuals dedicated to ending state-sanctioned murder and violence perpetuated against Black, Brown and Poor people. We are a Black led, multi-racial, multi-generational coalition. Join us as we organize to resist police terror and create a strong and sustainable community support system.
Nine months ago we flooded the BART Board meetings twice in a row, overwhelmed them with hours and hours of public comments, surprise banners, chanting, and general people power, and forced BART to drop the restitution against the Black Friday 14!
Now, as we approach the one-year anniversary of the Black Friday action that was a call to action nationwide for people of conscience to step UP to end the state-sanctioned War on Black lives, it is time for us all to return to BART and demand that they urge D.A. Nancy O’Malley to#DROPTHECHARGES NOW!
Start practicing your speech, cuz it’s time again to flood the BART Board meeting with public comments and show BART that we’re still here, we’re still fighting, we still stand with the #BlackFriday14, we still remember their racist and deadly legacy, and it’s time they took steps to get on the right side of history!
7pm Action tomorrow! #FruitvaleBART to #OPD hq This Fri 11/20 fight back against #Oakland killer cops! pic.twitter.com/QgsgyQrZU6
— thc (@nysrene) November 19, 2015
General Meeting of Renters. Preparations toward elections of officers. News of the ARC. Policy discussions. More to come.
The Community Democracy Project is your connection to direct democracy in Oakland! Convened out of Occupy Oakland in Fall 2011, we’re gathering steam on a campaign to bring the people back in touch with the city’s resources through participatory budgeting.
Picture this: Across Oakland, Neighborhood Assemblies are regularly
held in every community. People come together to tackle the important issues of their neighborhoods and of the city. At these assemblies, people don’t just have discussions–they learn from one another, from city staff, and they make fundamental decisions about how the city should run. They decide the city budget.
Democratic, community budgeting is a powerful step toward building strong communities, real democracy, and economic justice–and it’s being done all over the world.
The budget of the City Oakland totals more than $1 billion per year. Although part of the budget must be used for specific purposes, still over half of the budget–over $500 billion per year–consists of general purpose funds paid by the taxes, fees, and fines of the people of Oakland. The Mayor and the City Council decide the city budget, with minimal input from the community.
Working together, we will not only get a seat at the table–we will REBUILD the table itself. Participatory democracy is real democracy–join us to say: Local People, Local Resources, Local Power!
Come learn about continuing developments in the battle to save the Berkeley Post Office, other Post Offices in the area, and the Postal Service from privatization. Support our Occupiers and help us plan our next steps in opposition to the theft of our public commons.
Since Federal Judge William Alsup’s ruling in April, 2015 after the Postal Service told the judge it is not currently selling the building, the Postal Service has remained silent and no further attempts at a sale have been attempted. But we’re not fooled. They could “find” a buyer at any moment (although the Judge ordered the Postal Service to provide 42 days notice before any sale, so that the City of Berkeley’s lawsuit could be refiled).
Check out the Community Garden at the Post Office.
In more recent developments, Berkeley has Declared War on Its Homeless, and an ordinance criminalizing the homeless came before the City Council on June 30th (see here and here) but was tabled to some indeterminate date.
November 1st will be the one year anniversary of First They Came for the Homeless’ occupation of the downtown Post Office’s grounds. FTCftH is planning a sit/lie protest in San Francisco on Black Friday.
Check out our website and the Save the Berkeley Post Office website, and First they Came for the Homeless Facebook for updates.
BPOD is an offshoot of Strike Debt Bay Area, which itself is an offshoot of Occupy Oakland and a chapter of the national Strike Debt movement, which is an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street.