Calendar

Governor Brown, who continues to position himself as a climate leader while his own permissive dirty drilling and fracking policies undercut his efforts – and also while these policies poison untold quantities of water during an epic drought, will be speaking at a ceremony commemorating the signing of the UN Charter. We’re going to be outside to remind him that climate leaders don’t frack – and responsible leaders don’t poison our water!

Join us in San Francisco as we put pressure the Governor for a fracking ban! Help us send a clear message: TRUE climate leaders don’t create policies that further contribute to climate change, nor do they allow the poisoning of our precious water resources during an historic drought. Period.

Bring noisemakers, signs, and your friends! See you there!

Break the chains, and bring on the hot links! The Justice Collective will host a summer barbecue in celebration of our community’s ongoing efforts to achieve justice and freedom for all Black and Brown lives.

It’s a chance both to honor the work of POC organizers and activists working toward racial and economic justice, and to publicly hold space together in protest against the ongoing gentrification of Oakland. The possibilities are endless, but we need YOU, your vision and enthusiasm to make this event a reality!

We want to co-create this event with our members and friends! Join the BBQ Planning Committee by emailing tia (at)thejusticecollective.org and express your interest!

Facebook RSVP.

This is a special screening to the base of activists who have donated to make the film happen, or to anyone actively interested in remedies to the Supreme Court’s Orwellian-named “Citizens United” decision, which made corporations legal “persons” with the right to spend as much money as they like to, and try to buy US elections. Sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice Committee. Some Social Justice Committee members are in a protest scene as “extras”.
For more info on the film and how to make a contribution to the filmmakers: http://www.peaceteam.net/citizens_united2.php

Donations desperately needed as well.  Send to

Prison Literature Project

P.O Box 1253

Berkeley, CA 94701

TWO SQUARE FEET!

That’s the amount of bedding you’d be allowed if you had to sleep on a sidewalk in Berkeley under new anti-homeless laws the City Council will consider on June 30th. Also, you’d have to move it every hour.  And it would only be permitted if you were “in transit.”

Shelters are always full. The parks are closed at night. How well would you sleep if you were homeless in Berkeley?

JOIN THE EMERGENCY PROTEST!

Called by SAFE (Streets Are For Everyone)

After the protest and before the item comes up on the agenda, join fellow activists:

June 30 is the big day. And we need everyone we can get there. We’ve tried a lot in advance we’ve sent postcards, we’ve had a couple of good actions, we’ve met with (or are about to meet with) the Councilmembers but it may come down to what happens in City Council chambers Tuesday evening.

Tuesday’s agenda is a heavy one: We’re item #14. Before us come the entirety of the City budget, and the Campanile view vote. Both of these will draw crowds. We can expect our item to start late, and to keep us there late.

Fortunately, Councilmember Worthington has reserved a respite room at the top of New City Hall (the one on Milvia). We’ll be sharing it with the Adeline Corridor and Campanile folks. In the hours leading up to our item, we’ll have movies, maybe music, perhaps a teach-in or two, and food. If you want to enjoy yourself while waiting for our item, you can do that. If you want to nap until our item’s up, you can do that, too. Additionally, there are other ways you can support our item throughout the budget and Campanile portions of the meeting. It’s going to be a long night, but we really need everyone we can get there.

As part of the budget, the City Council may be voting to fund “PredPol,” a predictive policing software system. Come speak in opposition to this idea as part of the budget items on the agenda (Items #7 and #9), and read the Oakland Privacy Working Group’s Open Letter to the City Council as to why this system is a bad idea.

The Berkeley City Council is Considering an Ordinance to Criminalize the Homeless!

It would make it a crime to

• Place personal property on the sidewalk for more than one hour
• Place political or other free speech materials on almost any sidewalk without a permit
• Lie on or in a public planter
• Attempt to communicate with someone at or near a parking meter
• Go to the bathroom in public, without providing open public restrooms!

Tell the City Council:
“House keys not handcuffs! The solution to homelessness is housing.”
Every recent study about helping the homeless has concluded such!

Berkeley City Council Meeting, Old City Hall, June 30^th beginning at 7:00 PM, Item #30.
Warning: The ordinance(s) are the last item on the agenda- it might go late into the night.

After such a beautiful and historic Pride weekend, it was heartbreaking to wake up to the news that a mural that celebrates Latino/Chicano LGBT culture in the Mission was destroyed yet again, this time by arson.

The Mission is a neighborhood that has a long history of tolerance and acceptance of all people. The actions of the individual or individuals who perpetrated this hate crime do not reflect the values of the Mission or San Francisco. Homophobia or hate of any kind has no place in our neighborhood.

In this critical time, it is important that we as a Mission community come together and show that we respect and appreciate the value of every individual. Through our peaceful assembly let’s send a loud and clear message of unity and acceptance.

This opening event of the 21st annual Laborfest is produced by another San Francisco treasure, the 56 year old San Francisco Mime Troupe. The 4th of July weekend shows will take place July 3, 4 and 5, 2015 with live music at 1:30 p.m. and the 1.5 hour or so show at 2 p.m. The biggest crowd is of course on the 4th of July. Bring a picnic lunch, water, your suntan/sunscreen lotion as needed (and it is always sunny in the Mission District), sign the petitions that you like, and enjoy some of the best traditions of San Francisco with the SF Mime Troupe and Laborfest.

LaborFest was established in 1994 to institutionalize the history and culture of working people in an annual labor cultural, film and arts festival. It consists of a month of movies, music, bike rides, boat rides, bus rides, and walking tours so you learn labor history while you enjoy your rich labor cultural heritage. It begins every July 5th, which is the anniversary of the 1934 “Bloody Thursday” event. On that day, two workers Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise were shot and killed in San Francisco. They were supporting the longshoremen and maritime workers strike. This incident brought about the San Francisco General Strike which shut down the entire city and led to hundreds of thousands of workers joining the trade union movement.

It is as a direct result of the 1934 general strikes of San Francisco, Minneapolis and Toledo that in 1935, we won Social Security, unemployment insurance and the right to organize labor unions. One of the tasks that remains is to win socialized medicine, guaranteeing free medical care to all from cradle to grave, paid for with our tax dollars, instead of paying for war.

This year’s free original show by the SF Mime Troupe, performed by professional actors, is Freedomland. The synopsis is:

A door is blown off its hinges! Into a blasted room of scarred walls and shattered windows, armed with M-16’s, America’s bravest duck and dodge for cover, finally training their deadly gun sights on… an old black man watching TV on his couch? This isn’t Baghdad or Kandahar – its home, and for ex- Black Panther Malcolm Haywood, it’s just another wrong door police raid in the War on Drugs. So of course Malcolm is horrified when the grandson he’s tried to protect, Nathaniel, returns from serving in Afghanistan only to find another war zone at home – and one where young Black men like Nathaniel are in the crosshairs! Meanwhile the Mayor and the Police Chief – one desperate for votes, the other desperate to fund his militarized police force – ramp up the fear (and their shiny new tank) to fight the newest, drug threat to America. Worse than weed, meth, coke, crack, or crank, it’s… SNORF!!
See also http://www.laborfest.net/2015/2015schedule.htm
http://sfmt.org/schedule/ More Northern California shows

Songwriting duo Craig Casey (guitar, vox) & Pratibha Gautam (keys, vox) are the backbone of this sprawling musical, artistic and political juggernaut. FJP is NOT yo’ momma’s protest music! Defying easy categorization, their infuriatingly catchy songs range from pop, reggae, acoustic, gospel, and hard rock. FJP plays a large collection of wildly danceable original tunes full of punch…er, we mean: juice!

Their debut full-length album, “Where’s Our Change?” is available on iTunes, Amazon, Reverb Nation and through the official website: www.FreshJuiceParty.com. FJP’s second release is an EP of digital downloads coming in 2015. All of FJP’s music is recorded by Craig Casey.

The OKC/CA/NYC band has a refreshing blend of message & medium. FJP’s lyrics harken revolution and change, and interplay with your mind and heart; meanwhile, their deeply satisfying grooves meld with your soul, and keep your feet happy and tapping. Their genre-hopping, varied sound has been compared to Bowie, Dylan, Santana, Bob Marley, Elvis Costello, The Beatles & XTC.

Known as much for making the news as making music and art, FJP has been the subject of a commentary on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, featured in the NY Times Magazine inside cover, mentioned in a TIMES NOW interview by Julian Assange, as well as many other prominent national and international news outlets.

Big Changes for Cuba

What is the meaning of the partial normalization of relations with the U.S.? Does the updating of the Cuban economic model herald the restoration of capitalism? Zenobia Thompson will answer these and other questions from American supporters of Cuba. She was a member of a delegation from the Communist Party, USA that met in February with leaders of the Cuban Communist Party and Government and toured important institutions.

In Solidarity with Disarm NYPD, and in Conspiracy with the Black, Brown and Red Rebellion, We Call on all those who Support the Self Determination of the Oppressed to a Flag Burning Gathering at Oakland Police Headquarters on the 4th of July.

[We will convene at Oscar Grant Plaza if we are blocked from the Oakland Police Department]

Facebook event & more info.

Sponsored by Bay Area Intifada

Fredrick Douglass once asked “to what to the slave is the 4th of July?” This question is more relevant now than ever. With the rise of white supremacist terrorist attacks on New Afrikan people it is clear that the u.s. government is unwilling to defend the most basic Human Rights of it’s so called “citizens”. Black and Brown people’s can no longer be governed by a system designed to exploit and exterminate us, it’s time we governed our selves.

This will be a discussion about the importance of Independence and Self-Determination for colonized peoples and the contradiction of the so called Independence of the united snakkkes on the 4th of july aka “the 4th of the lie.”

Guest Speakers:
–Russell Shoatz III, son of Black Liberation Army Political Prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz.

–Shaka At-thinnin, Founder of Black August Organizing Commitee B.A.O.C.

The discussion will be followed by dinner and a political Hip Hop performance by local artists.

“I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night”
Join LaborFest on The 100th Anniversary Concert on Death of Joe Hill with David Rovics

In 1915 in Salt Lake City, Utah, IWW union organizer and labor troubadour Joe Hill was murdered by a firing squad. The effort to silence him failed and he has become one of the most famous labor organizers and musicians in the world.

It is a sick irony that Utah this year has reinstituted the firing squad for executions! Over 2 million mostly Black and Latino workers are in prison today in the United States and in California, more money is spent on the prison industry than on education.

Joe’s struggle for union and labor rights is as relevant today as it was in 1915. Millions of workers would like to have unions but are intimidated and bullied by companies like Walmart and Macdonald’s to fire workers who speak up. Walmart this year closed five stores including one in Pico Rivera, California for supposed “plumbing problems” which were really threats of union organizing.
Although this Walmart’s act is illegal, the corporations who run America and the world flagrantly ignore the laws and protections workers are supposed to have in this country.

Over 10,000 workers are fired every year in this country for union organizing and these are only the workers that have pursued NLRB lawsuits. Joe Hill saw the struggle of workers and union rights as the most important struggle in his life, and he paid for it with his life.

LaborFest will honor the 100th anniversary of his death with a concert with labor troubadour David Rovics. Throughout the year, Rovics has been traveling in Europe in a series of concerts to commemorate the life and struggles of Joe Hill. Rovics has performed throughout the world. His hard hitting songs for workers and human rights are powerful and moving. Also performing at  the commemoration will be Carol Denney and Marcus Duskin.
http://joehill100.com
Parking space available at the union hall parking lot. The entrance is at the corner of King St. and 2nd, right next to the AT&T Ball Park.

Join us to stop oil trains in San Leandro and beyond!

On July 6, 2013, an oil train exploded in Lac Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people. Two years later, and big oil is pushing harder than ever to move more and more oil trains through North America, while oil trains keep exploding, and carbon emissions keep rising.

This May, the US Department of Transportation is set to release new rail safety regulations. While an oil train erupted in flames in Galena, IL, lobbyists for big oil met with Federal regulators pressuring them to weaken these proposed rules. We know that these rules will not protect the 25 million Americans who live in the oil train blast zone, because there is NO safe way to transport extreme tar sands and Bakken crude.

This year, from July 6-12, 2015, citizens will organize more than 100 events across the US and Canada to demand an immediate ban on oil trains.

A proposed project in San Luis Obispo County will bring oil trains of 80 cars or more through San Leandro every day.  This project can be stopped if elected officials reject the applicant’s proposal.  On July 6, 2015, we will distribute information and  along the BART corridor that parallels the Capital Corridor Amtrak route.  BART tracks lie in the Blast Zone for miles through the urban heart of Alameda County and beyond.  

No more exploding trains. No more tar sands. Join our event on July 6, 2015

The Grease Diner will be hosting an in-progress screening and fundraiser for Benjamin Welmond’s Renew Vietnam, a film about Project Renew – an organization removing bombs, mines and other dangerous explosives from the Quang Tri province of Vietnam. The event will take place on July 17th from 6 – 9pm at the Grease Diner in Oakland. In addition to an in-progress screening of the unfinished 20 minute film, there will be a Q & A with director Benjamin Welmond, and the founder of Project Renew, Chuck Searcy. Bill Creighton (head of SF’s Veterans for Peace chapter) will be talking about the legacies, and current fight for institutional support to victims of Agent Orange. As this event is a fundraiser, the Grease Diner will be offering live-screenprinting of Renew Vietnam t-shirts and tote bags, which can be purchased during the event. Proceeds will go towards funding of the film, which is still in post-production. Welmond has been using indiegogo to raise the essential funds for the film, which are needed for a composer, translator and animator. The screening will be an opportunity to get involved and learn about Project Renew.

During the Vietnam War, the Quang Tri province became one of the most heavily bombed places in history, and it is estimated that 800,000 tons of bombs did not detonate as designed. The United States government also sprayed Agent Orange to kill the crops, which utilizes a deadly chemical with severe biological repercussions. These bombs have left a powerful legacy on the area, injuring and killing thousands of unsuspecting civilians. In 2001, The NGO Project Renew was established by Chuck Searcy, a Vietnam Veteran, an active member of Veterans for peace, in order to find ways to make Quang Tri a safer place. Project Renew trains local Quang Tri citizens to work around the clock to disarm leftover explosives, lend support to victims, and educate local populations on how to be alert and aware. In December of 2014, Benjamin Welmond went to the Quang Tri province to film a short documentary about Project Renew, in order to raise awareness of their efforts, and spark discussions on the powerful impact of war.

You can RSVP to the event and invite friends through this facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/events/379579128905685/) . Sliding scale donations (recommended donation of $5 and up) will be taken at the door. The Grease Diner is located at 6604 San Pablo Avenue in Oakland, CA. The Grease Diner is an art gallery, gift shop, and screen printing studio with a DIY feel and radical attitude. Owners, Jon Jon and Laurie are excited to be working with Benjamin Welmond to help him raise the additional funds needed to finish the film while providing a space for folks in the bay area to learn about Project Renew and the aftermath of the Vietnam war. As well as addressing the US’s impact on Vietnam, the film also brings up important questions dealing with the US’s foreign military policy. All are welcome to come to the event, and the Q & A sessions will be an important time to address questions about what the effect of war is.

To donate and see the trailer for the film, please go here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/renew-vietnam-the-documentary#/story

To learn more about the film please see: http://www.renew-thedoc.com