Calendar
Spaghetti Dinner for the 99% – dinner and program
Our Liberties, Our Voices, Our Lives! featuring
– JERRY MANDER, author and activist speaking on”Can Capitalism Be Reformed to Work for Democracy and Nature?”
– WILL DURST, political satirist
– KAREN MELANDER MAGOON & DEE ALLEN, Revolutionary Poets Brigade
– Local activists will be honored for their work for Peace and Protecting the Rights of People and the Earth
Join Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub.
We aim to have 2 monthly meetings, every 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 6:30 at the SUDOROOM. Stop by and learn how you can help guard Oakland’s right not to be spied on by its own governement & if you are interested in joining the Oakland Privacy Working Group email listserv, send an email to: oaklandprivacyworkinggroup-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
The entrance to the sudoroom is on 22nd Street, ring the buzzer and come up the stairs or take the elevator.
For more information on the DAC and how it came to be in Oakland check out the DAC FAQ, the Oakland Wiki Domain Awareness Page and the Oakland Privacy WordPress.
Download the printable flyer for the Feb. 4 Protest
TAKE BACK YOUR POWER: Investigating the Smart Grid
This week there will be two Bay Area screenings of the award-winning documentary, Take Back Your Power. Researchers, energy experts, doctors, environmentalists, and community members share their insights into the problems with ‘Smart’ meters and the ‘Smart’ grid, including damage to health, fires, invasion of privacy, and NO promised energy savings. There will be extensive discussion after the San Rafael screening. To learn more about this film, please go to http://www.takebackyourpower.net.
Prolonged Solitary Confinement and the
Constitution
Brown Bag Presentation by
Jules Lobel, Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh
California currently holds several thousand prisoners in solitary confinement in what are known as Special Housing Units (SHU’s) throughout the state. Over 1000 of those prisoners confined in isolation at housed at Pelican Bay State Penitentiary SHU. These prisoners live in 80 square foot windowless cells. Their cells have solid steel doors perforated with small holes with permit some air to circulate and an extremely limited view into the hallway. The prisoners remain in their cells for 22 to 24 hours a day. They only leave their cells to shower, or for exercise in a somewhat larger cell that does get fresh air and very limited sunlight. They never see birds, trees, grass, and only rarely see other people. They receive no phone calls and can make no phone calls to the outside world. They have virtually no programming.
About 500 of these prisoners have been in solitary in these conditions for over a decade. Almost one hundred of them have lived in these conditions for over 20 years. Several years after Pelican Bay was opened, a class action lawsuit challenging solitary confinement as practiced at Pelican Bay was tried in federal court. The Federal District Court Judge refused to enjoin the State’s use of solitary confinement generally, but did hold that mentally ill prisoners, or those at risk for serious mental illness could not be placed there. Professor Lobel is lead counsel in a lawsuit that again – 20 years later- challenges California’s use of prolonged solitary confinement at Pelican Bay.
This talk raises questions of how we define the “cruel and unusual” punishment prohibited by the Constitution. Is solitary confinement cruel for constitutional and moral purposes only if it can be shown that the prisoner is either seriously mentally ill or will become mentally ill? What is the relationship between mental and physical pain imposed on prisoners for purposes of the Eighth Amendment? What makes a practice cruel – should it require a showing of serious mental or physical harm at all? What are “unusual” practices – are practices that we might recognize as cruel but are nonetheless widespread such as solitary confinement – unconstitutional? Should our society accept prolonged solitary confinement as a means to make prisons less violent?
Please RSVP to emui@law.berkeley.edu. Subject: RSVP – Jules Lobel Presentation.
Sponsored by the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law & Social Policy. http://www.law.berkeley.edu/ewi.htm
—
Elaine T. Mui
Center Administrator
Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law & Social Policy
(formerly Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity & Diversity)
Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice
University of California, Berkeley
School of Law
MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
More information to come…
International Day of Action.
� Meet at Pelosi’s office at 7th and Market 4:30 pm to speak, hear, hand out flyers, etc.
� March down Market Street to Feinstein’s office at Montgomery and Market (McKessen Building)
� Call-and-response chanting, massive phone-call-ins from the street to Feinstein, Pelosi, etc.
and much more!
� Bring signs.
Meanwhile, call Feinstein and Pelosi to stop Fast tracking of the TPP.
Feinstein: (415) 393 – 0707
Pelosi: (415) 556 – 4862
Call NOW!
Join us as we start a new year and plan a rally for February 13th demanding that Kamala Harris prosecute Miguel Masso for the murder of Alan Blueford.
Get up-to-date on the civil lawsuit that is proceeding against OPD and the City of Oakland.
JAB has denounced the Domain Awareness Center and may have a speaker at the anti-DAC rally on February 4th.
Come help us out in the fight for Justice 4 Alan and against police terrorism in general.
3:30PM Petition Drive to Restore Parking 50 parking places at the Bulb
430 PM Sunset Hike
3:30 PM: Drop by a table at the Albany Bulb parking lot to encourage people to demand that the city of Albany restore Parking at the BULB so the working class and their dogs and children can enjoy our park. Recently the City has put up NO PARKING signs along the north side of Buchanan Street, eliminating about 50 parking spaces frequently used by visitors to the Bulb. There is no good environmental or health & safety reason that this action has been taken, that road is very lightly trafficked, so there is no case for making it two lanes (going west only). The City is trying to reduce usage of the Bulb and isolate the residents from the community. At this point all the parking spots for the Bulb in the small lot near the porta-potty are filled all weekend long, causing recreational would-be users to drive around in circles, wasting gasoline waiting for a spot to become free, and blocking disappointed users from giving up and driving away to find another place to walk. The only parking alternative is to drive across the bridge over the freeway and fill up spots in the surrounding residential neighborhoods and walk back about a half mile crossing the railroad tracks through a hole in the fence to return to the Bulb. The City and the Sierra Club and other bourgeois groups have been arguing that the residents need to be evicted from the Bulb and the art must be destroyed in order make the area accessible to all community members, but this action dramatically restricting the heavy citizen use of the Bulb gives lie to that rationale. In fact, last Sunday there was an Albany police cruiser patrolling the parking for long periods, as well a a Albany fire truck traversing the dirt roads, apparently aimed at discouraging people from using the Bulb. What seems to scare the City and Sierra Club is exactly the popularity of the Bulb with visitors AS IT IS, uniquely unencumbered by numbing bureaucratic restrictions on artistic expression, camping or recreation, such as walking your dog OFF LEASH. There is to my knowledge no other place on the Bay where you can throw a stick for your dog into the water or create art from washed up debris. We stopped the City Of Oakland from extending parking meter hours a few years back. Recently this December 500 signatures and hundreds of Active Water Gate Residents forced the Emeryville Go Round bus Company to restore the Watergate Bus Stop. We can make the authorities respond to our demands here, as well. 500,OOO DOLLARS has been SPENT TO DESTROY the BULB. THEY ARE NOT GOING TO STOP THIS TIME UNLESS WE HAVE A MASS MOVEMENT. Call or email Orion to volunteer to collect signatures at other times at: ohohorion99@gmail.com (510) 541-3835 For more info on the Bulb see sharethebulb.org
At 4:30 or so after collecting signatures there wil be an Art Walk around the Bulb. This walk was inspired by a burning man funeral that took place at the Albany Bulb January 11th, over 100 people honered their comrade with a Norse-style boat burning and fire works ceremony. It was very moving.
IT COULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED IF WE HAD LET THEM DESTROY OUR SPACE OCT. 1st 2012 EVICTION. WE HAVE WON SO FAR.
But many of you haven’t see the BULB I have seen. Please visit by yourself…or join my sunset walk on Sunday, Feb. 2. Heavy rain cancels.
DETAILS
Meet at the parking lot at 1 Buchanan Street Extension, Albany 4:30 pm Bring water. snacks, drinks, & flashlights.Visit the wonderful chair/throne built years ago and still there and inscribed “from me to you” and watch sunset from beach then take a 15 min walk to Osha Neuman’s “Crying Women Sculpture.” There we will share stories of the Bulb, future, present and past, & maybe music. Then go to Mad Mike’s Castle & look through the port hole and see the Golden Gate Bridge framed perfectly in the window. And come back on the Water Trail which has 100s of flag stones and finish at the MOSAIC HEART. The trip should be about 2 hrs. We plan to have minimum disturbance to our friends the residents.
Call me or email me or just show up. To get a preview of art go to:
Google ‘image search’ albany bulb
Orion (510) 541-3835
Check out some of Orion’s songs here:
Interview with Orion on KPFA News about new parking restrictions
GG speaking before Albany Shitty Council on homelessness and the Bulb
Join the Open University @ Occupy Cal for our initial meeting of the semester on Monday Feb. 3rd 2014 on the Mario Savio steps.
Campaigns:
1) Ax the Regents:
The UC Board of Regents is the root of all evil for the UC system. This board consists of 18 members appointed by the state Governor for 12 year terms, 7 Ex Officio members, and 1 Student appointed for 1 year terms. None of the board members are democratically elected and some are/will be on their second 12 year terms if we do nothing!
The individuals appointed/reappointed by Gov. Brown are all campaign contributors of his as the following article delineates and all have been heavily involved in the privatization, militarization and betrayal of Public Education.
http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/17/local/la-me-uc-regents-20140118
2) BP Off Campus:
The BP-EBI deal is a $500 Million privatization scam which has diverted critical Energy research at Cal from truly sustainable sources to GMO microbes for rapid fossil fuel production patents for BP. Find all the details on our campaign website:
http://www.bpoffcampus.org
3) People’s History of Activism at Cal:
In an effort to prevent past activist mistakes and to create an institutional memory of all activism at Cal, the Open University has initiated an effort to compile, edit, and present an ongoing people’s history of activism at Cal. Find below one of such articles:
http://ergoat.blogspot.com/2013/11/occupy-cal-infiltrated-by-police.html
4) Cops Off Campus:
From the UCPD thugs that brutally beat peaceful student protesters at Cal on Nov. 9th 2011 or pepper sprayed peaceful students at UC Davis on Nov. 17th 2011 to the recent takeover of the UC Presidency by the secretary of homeland security (a.k.a. the chief federal cop) all presence of armed hired hands is an unprecedented disturbing. Most civilized countries do not allow the presence of armed police on school and university campuses. Then why would the #1 Public University in the world allow such a travesty?
The Postal Service has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!!
The Postal Service has started to outsource Post Office services to Staples, replacing union jobs with low-paying, low benefit work.
And we’re fighting against both!
Come help us plan our next steps. The City Council is on a path to pass some sort of Zoning Overlay which will protect the Post Office against various commercial uses. We need to stay on top of it. The American Postal Workers Union is planning more actions against Staples; we need to support them. Encouraging articles have come out just recently about using Post Offices as banking facilities for the unbanked and we need to be on the leading edge of that. And Barbara Lee has introduced even stronger language into legislation to stop the sale of Historic Post Offices.
THINGS ARE HAPPENING!
AND CHECK OUT OUR SPIFFY NEW WEBSITE.
The Environmental Impact Statement released by the State Department on Friday does not take a stand on whether President Obama should approve the pipeline. That�s good and bad: on the one hand, it�s better than the previous reports, which gave much more support for the pipe — but on the other hand, it avoids the glaringly obvious fact that that a pipeline carrying 800,000 barrels per day of the world�s dirtiest oil would be a disaster for the climate, and the lives of Indigenous communities, farmers and homes along the route.
We�ve been in this place before. We may be here again. And what counts in moments like these is not the words in Washington�s reports, but rather the voices of people in the streets — that�s what changes the equation for the President.
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
�
OccupyForum presents
�
Jiwon Chung and friends:
Theater of the Oppressed
�
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.
�
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.
SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER DR. STEVEN STRAUSS
Dr. Strauss is an author and practicing Baltimore-area neurologist and Ph.D. linguistics scholar. He is a frequent writer and speaker on education issues, to which he brings an anti-capitalist analysis and the passion of a parent with two children educated in public schools. He was a participant in the 2011 Save Our Schools protest in Washington, D.C. against corporatization and high-stakes testing.
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Stop the Domain Awareness Center before it gets built!!!
Come on Out to Oscar Grant Plaza and City Council Chambers – Together We Say:
DON’T SELL THE PEOPLE OF OAKLAND TO THE DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY!
Outside: Feast! Music! Rally! Late Night Films! More.
Read about the Domain Awareness Center.
Reference: The DAC FAQ
Twitter: @Oaklandprivacy.
Also, sign the on line petition to stop the DAC.
See Also: The Face of Quan. The Arms of Santana. The Body of OPD. Or, DAC Spelled Correctly is NSA.
Also, sign the on line petition to stop the DAC.
The Research Justice Collective, in collaboration with the Data Center, the Dream Resource Center, and the Industrial Workers of the World Survey & Research Committee, presents
LIVE WEB BROADCAST: http://www.researchjustice.com
RSVP: http://bit.ly/introwebinar2014
Speakers:
JAY DONAHUE
Data Center
http://datacenter.org
IMELDA PLASCENCIA
Dream Resource Center
http://www.dreamresourcecenter.org
KATE DIEDRICK
IWW Survey & Research Committee
http://militantresearch.org
Those in power rule by coercion and consent. We see this in the violence wreaked by states when people are caught in the borders. By bosses when workers rise up. By the police when they stop and frisk Black bodies and, sadly, take Black lives.
We accept this violence because knowledge produced by mainstream institutions tells us this is okay, the normal order of things. White men in lab coats take measurements and proclaim in courtroom documents and academic journals, that this is all in order. Grassroots voices, the experiences of the dispossessed, are not considered. Power over is justified.
Research justice is about subverting this order of things. To challenge the status quo by confronting mainstream knowledge with our own experiences and inquiries. To tear down the walls separating researcher from researched. And, to use community-driven research to unsettle power and transform our worlds.
Join us for a live webinar where we introduce the framework of research justice and share two case studies. Jay Donahue will present a new toolkit by the Data Center. Imelda Plascencia will share a research justice project by undocumented youth across California, inquiring about health care and wellness. Last, the IWW Survey & Research Committee will present militant research, where workers-researchers combine campaign research with worker’s inquiry to build one big union.
The moderator is Joe Aasim and technical/outreach support provided by Yvonne Yen Liu, both of the Research Justice Collective.
RSVP: http://bit.ly/introwebinar2014
#researchjustice
#researchjustice
#researchjustice
Sign up on our mailing list to receive information about upcoming events: http://researchjustice.com/contact
The Research Justice Collective is looking for dreamers and schemers to join us. Interested? Fill out this survey by March 1, 2014: http://bit.ly/researchjustice2014survey
Join us in Detroit for the 16th annual Allied Media Conference, June 19-22, 2014: http://amc.alliedmedia.org
#researchjustice
The Research Justice Collective is
___ Christine Schweidler, Boston, MA
___ Joe Aasim (@bikejobdet), Detroit, MI
___ Kat A. Hartman (@kat_a_hartman), Detroit, MI
___ Saba Waheed (@sabawaa), Los Angeles, CA
___ Yvonne Yen Liu (@yvonnegraphy), Los Angeles, CA
This class will delve into the differences between Modern Monetary Theory and New Currency Theory (only recently devised). Does MMT hold the only solutions for monetary or banking reform? Or is NCT have better options? We’ll read this position paper from the latest Real-World Economics Review to understand the nuances of our debt based financial system:
http://p.feedblitz.com/t3.asp?/332386/0/0/www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue66/Huber66.pdf
Michael Hudson’s ‘The Bubble and Beyond’ will also be mixed in the discussion. Chapter 3, ‘How Economic Theory Came to Ignore the Role of Debt’ and chapter 6 ‘The Financial Character of Today’s Crisis’ will attempt to clear up misconceptions about debt in economics. I will scan these chapters and make them available as soon as possible.
see you there!
Highlighting the most dynamic food initiatives in the Bay, including the fight for the Gill Tract Farm (Occupy the Farm). Q&A with the director afterwards, and free Cheesboard pizza!
The Veolia Group is a French owned multi-national, which plays a growing role in the world economy pushing privatization of water resources, transportation and other public services.
In the Bay Area, Veolia has pushed for the privatization of water treatment in Richmond, CA, which has led to union busting and environmental degradation. Thomas P. Hoch, Vice President of Veolia Transportation Services was hired to represent BART management in recent negotiations. Hoch attacked BART unions ATU 1555, SEIU 1021 and AFSCME 993.
Veolia is also involved in privatizing transportation services and has attacked unions such as the Boston School Bus Drivers USW 8751, where Veolia has blatantly violated their union contract and fired 4 of the union leaders. They are still fighting for their jobs back, (Team Solidarity- the Voice of United School Bus Union Workers).
Globally, the Veolia group is the largest water privatization company and various environmental groups have tracked its record of destruction and corruption. In the occupied West Bank, subsidiaries of the group operated segregated buses to illegal Israeli settlements, operated an illegal settler dump and ran a light rail system that sustains the Israeli settlements around Jerusalem.
Communities all around the world have organized against Veolia and managed to get their cities and unions to pass anti-privatization resolutions declaring their cities “Veolia Free”.
Topics will include: Veolia’s labor, environmental and human rights
record and what poor and working people can do about their activities.
We invite you, your union/organization to attend and endorse this conference.
SCHEDULE
1:00 PM Registration
1:15 PM Introductions
Speakers: Steve Gillis, VP USW 8751*, Boston School Bus 5; George Figueroa, BART ATU 1555*; Charles Smith, AFSCME 444* and Richmond Fight with Veolia; Omar Barghouti Co-founder BNC, Palestine
2:45 PM International Panel
Speakers: Hugh Lanning, Chair, Palestine Solidarity Committee in UK; Jackie Lewis, London Regional Committee of Unison, Dump Veolia Information Group and PSC; Dalit Baum, Middle East Program, AFSC
3:45 PM Regional Panel
Speakers: Erin Diaz , Director, Public Water Works! Campaign, Corporate Accountability International (Boston); Lois Pearlman, Sonoma Campaign N. Coast Coalition For Palestine; Mikos Fabersonne, Chair, Davis Committee for Palestinian Rights (DCPR); Clarence Thomas, ILWU Local 10 Executive Board*
5:00 PM Workshops-Education and Action, Labor And Privatization, Organizing In Local Communities
6:00 – 6:30 PM Report Back and Action Proposals
7:30 PM Film Screening “Even The Rain” and poetry, music by Dave Welsh and others.
(* for identification only)
Endorsers: Team Solidarity- the Voice of United School Bus Union Workers, UTU 1741, San Francisco Labor Council, Food And Water Watch, United Public Workers For Action, Inter Union Organizing Committee at CDPH, Labor Video Project, Workers World Party, Marcha Patriótica – Capítulo California , International Action Center, American Friends Service Committee, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Jewish Voice for Peace, Code Pink, Transportation Workers Solidarity Committee
For registration and contact: call 415-282-1908
Discussion to plan the next steps for Grow the Revolution.
Show some love for Tristan on his birthday, and show some love for the Holdout too! Kid friendly, wheel chair accessible. Free food. Tristan’s been through a lot, his body has been through a lot. This winter [get out in the streets with us THURS MARCH 13] marks five years since Tristan was shot in the head with a tear gas grenade, changing his life forever. Join us Sun Feb 9 to have a good time and cherish our comrades. Every birthday is a victory against state aggression.