Calendar
Join us to tell CDCr that their “security/welfare checks” are torturing the men in Pelican Bay SHU and need to stop NOW!!
Learn more here about the checks and how you can further support by sharing information and making phone calls:
Since August 2, 2015, men in Pelican Bay SHU have been awakened every 20-30 minutes, 48 times a day, due to so-called “security/welfare checks” by guards. The architecture of the Pelican Bay SHU (PB SHU) amplifies the loud noise of the ‘checks’ -metal pod doors opening and slamming closed, chains and locks rattling, guards’ boots stomping, metal rods banging against the cell doors, and the beeping of the electronic monitoring system at each cell door. Sometimes guards also shine their flashlights into people’s eyes. The people suffering these so-called “security/welfare checks” are locked in concrete solitary cells, so the noise and intrusion every 30 minutes is (additional) unavoidable torment .
As of the February 1st, it will be 181 days that these men have been tortured by sleep deprivation!! Six months.
California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation (CDCr) claims the 30-minute checks are to prevent suicide. But we know that interrupted sleep is causing serious mental and physical health problems. John R. Martinez, in solitary for 15 years and in Pelican Bay SHU for over a decade, wrote in late August: “…there is a reasonable probability that life-threatening injuries and/or even death is inevitable, as medical symptoms are only worsening but not being treated.” People locked up in PB SHU report health problems including:
severe stress
weight loss
dizziness
faintness
nausea
headaches
eye problems
stomach and bowel problems
depression
fast heart rates
John’s mother, Dolores Canales, co-founder of California Families Against Solitary Confinement and the Family Unity Network, said: “I visited my son in the Pelican Bay SHU on 12 September and he is going crazy from not being able to sleep. I’ve never seen him like this. He couldn’t think, and he fell asleep while I was talking with him from across the glass partition.” John was in that state in September after 5 and a half weeks of sleep deprivation. It has now been 5 months since the checks started on August 2, 2015.
Prisoners cannot concentrate, exercise, read, do legal work – the things that help them survive – and they can’t sleep! This is extremely cruel and dangerous.
If you can’t attend the Rally in person, please make phone calls (and call more than once!) to:
CDCR Secretary’s Office: 916-323-6001,
CDCR Director of Adult Divisions, Kelly Harrington (he): 916-445-7688
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair of Senate Public Safety Committee: 916-651-4009
Assembly Member Bill Quirk, Chair of Assembly Public Safety Committee: 916-319-2020
Governor Jerry Brown: 916-445-2481
Suggested script for calls: Begin with your name and the city and state where you live. Please tell all of them: “Stop the so-called ‘welfare’ checks in the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison. Sleep deprivation is torture.”
You can also email CA elected officials- to STOP the ‘checks’- with this link from Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) :http://tinyurl.com/ztjcos3
Please spread the word! More people need to know about this sleep deprivation! And we want a strong showing outside CDCr. Share the articles, the American Public Health Association (APHA) letter opposing the checks, and our video. [Links below]
Any questions, don’t hesitate to send us a Facebook message or email us at phssreachingout@gmail.com
SF Bay View article
http://sfbayview.com/2015/
American Public Health Association (APHA) letter opposing the checks
http://wp.me/P1BB1k-27L
You Tube Video “Sleep Deprivation”
https://www.youtube.com/
The Guardian, Sept, 25, 2015
http://
Scientific American, Oct. 2015 “Sleep On It: Your nightly rest turns out to affect your mind and health more than anyone suspected”
https://
Why Interrupted Sleep Is Worse Than Short Sleep
http://time.com/4094734/
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue
on all sides of these critically important issues!
Cecile Pineda
Apology to a Whale
Pineda calls on us to recognize that our view of nature as a resource for convenience and profit is killing the planet. She calls on us to build our lives and our laws around the need to revere and protect the living earth and all its creatures. If the first step towards a cure is a proper diagnosis, Pineda moves us much closer to finding the cure for a culture that is killing the planet.
Cecile returns to OccupyForum this Monday evening to read from her book Apology to a Whale and lead a discussion about what humans have done to the planet, and how we can address it in our time.
This is going down tonight w/ the homie @alpha1906 …His book on campus racism is a must read.. pic.twitter.com/kg2HPVnpOe
— Davey D (@mrdaveyd) February 3, 2016
Thur Feb. 4 nationwide mobilizations re TPP –
Noon PROTEST outside Feinstein’s office, One Post St., SF near Montgomery St. BART Sta.
STOP the biggest corporate power grab ever! Whether or not the Trans-Pacific Partnership is signed by then, rain or shine, we’ll protest, because Congress will still have to pass enabling legislation so enough public outcry CAN still stop it! Pls click “going” or “interested now on our FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/461850570682429/
Organizations can leave a message at 510-595-5575 to co-sponsor this protest, which means they help publicize as able and may send a speaker.
co-sponsors thus far: MOVE to AMEND east bay, BFUU Social Justice Committee, Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom, Task Force on the Americas, Bay Area Women’s Peace Action Circle, Occupy SF Action Council, Flush the TPP, Nicaragua Center for Community Action, TRANSCEND USA, Food & Water Watch, CODE PINK, BCA Steering Committee…
http://www.flushthetpp.org/san-francisco-tpp-is-betrayal-rally/
We would like to invite anyone in the Bay Area to a special concert to rally CCHI 2016 supporters called “Free the Tree Concert and Rally for Ganja Legalization” on February 4, 2015 in downtown Santa Cruz, CA, beginning at 8 p.m.
This special event continues the effort to mobilize and inform the public about qualifying the CCHI 2016 for the Nov. 8, 2016 California ballot and is generously supported by Waverider Nursery Monterey Bay. The cost is $10.00 at the door. This event is not a benefit for CCHI 2016. Donations will be accepted at the CCHI 2016 information booth at the event.
Speakers Include:
Jake Retz candidate for Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors District 2.
Palmer Kain candidate for Sate Senate District 17.
Mickey Martin Cannabis Advocate and Author of medical Marijuana 101
For Information on the event and for vending opportunities, contact:
Marc Baylen
513-403-7234
m_baylen@yahoo.com
CCHI 2016 Contacts:
Michael Jolson
Initiative Proponent
(831) 252-4367
michaeljolson111@icloud.com
Buddy Duzy
CCHI 2016 State Coordinator
(805) 252-4367
bduzy@CCHI 2016.org
Press Contact:
Daryl Wise
StreetWise PR
dsw@streetwisepr.com
This Friday, February 5th, Janet Napolitano (UC President) has invited Black Student Union leadership from all of the UC campuses to have a discussion with her about campus climate. This meeting was called to downplay the severity of anti-Blackness on UC campuses and to silence Black leaders on campus. Janet and her staff have designed this meeting to crowd out any substantive discussion about anti-Blackness and how the University of California engages in a wide range of policies and practices that are unethical and anti-Black.
The students have asked the community to come out and make their presence felt… We need as many black people as poossible and support from the broader community to show the UC that they are supported and we are ready to hold them accountable. Please wear black!! This is about anti-black violence and hostility specifically on UC campuses
- Hear:
- Special guest Glen Ford, Executive Editor, Black Agenda Report (Coming from NYC)
- For Bernie Sanders: Tom Gallagher, Chair SF Progressive Democrats of America; former member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; author, “The Primary Route: How the 99 Percent Take On the Military Industrial Complex”
- Peter Olney, Retired Organizing Director, ILWU; Labor organizer in Massachusetts and California for over 40 years. Activist, Labor for Bernie national network. (for Saturday only)
- For Peace & Freedom Party candidate: Marsha Feinland, Vice Chair, Peace & Freedom Party, four-time P&F candidate for U.S. Senate
- For Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein: Laura Wells, Green Party/Alameda County; former Green Party candidate for California governor
- For Party for Socialism and Liberation, Gloria La Riva, PSL candidate for president; Organizer ANSWER Coalition
- For Socialist Action, Jeff Mackler, former Socialist Action candidate for U.S. Senate/CA; National Secretary, Socialist Action; Administrative Committee, United National Antiwar Coalition
- Sponsor: Socialist Action Party Initial co-sponsors: Green Party of Alameda County; SF Green Party; SF Peace and Freedom Party; Bay Area Solidarity; SF Progressive Democrats of America
- For information, tables at $20, Contact: 510-268-9429 socialistaction@lmi.net
The Peace and Freedom Party presents
Honor Black History
In celebration of Black History Month and the struggles of Black students and
activists which created it, we are inviting two scholar/activists James Garrett, and
Ray Tompkins, to join former Black Panther Gerald Smith, to discuss these
historic struggles including the 5-month student strike at San Francisco State
University in 1968-69 which led to the first Black Studies Program in the country.
CELEBRATE BLACK HISTORY MONTH
This is part of our on-going Socialist Forum Series on the first Saturday of every
month. Doors open at 2 pm and the program will start promptly at 2:30 pm. The
forum will end by 4:30 pm, but folks can stay and talk as long as you like.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
The Peace and Freedom Party, born from the civil rights and anti-war
movements of the 1960s, is committed to socialism, democracy,
ecology, feminism, racial equality, and internationalism.
www.peaceandfreedom.org
We ask that all of our coalition members join us this monday on the steps of City Hall as we let the Mayor know that we will not be silenced by the bread crumbs he, the chief and the DOJ have thrown us.
We have a duty to fight for our freedom and we wont stop until we get justice.
OccupyForum presents…
Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!
OccupyForum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue on all sides of these critically important issues!
The Stolen Election in Ukraine 2004,
and What Was Done About It :
Orange Revolution
(Documentary film and discussion)
Presidential elections, Ukraine, 2004. One candidate is backed by the post-Soviet regime. Eight weeks before the election the opposition candidate is seriously poisoned. He survives, but with a severely disfigured face.
In the final voting, blatant vote fraud hands the election to the regime. Instantly, Ukranians pour into the streets by the hundreds of thousands. Fed up with censored media, corruption, and rule by wealthy oligarchs, they take over the capital, Kyiv, to enforce their will. Through snow and freezing temperatures they stand their ground, blockading government buildings, demanding a new election.
Through the eyes and in the voices of the Ukranian people, Orange Revolution tells the story of a people united, not by one leader or one party, but by one idea: to defend their vote and the future of their country.
Discussion and Announcements will follow. Donations to OccupyForum to cover our costs are encouraged; no one turned away!
Valero CBR proposal poses major risks. Public comment, Feb 8
Outrageous. Benicia City Staff is recommending approval of Valero’s dangerous crude-by-rail proposal, despite the “significant and unavoidable” impacts to air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, biological resources and public safety outlined by the Final EIR, which clearly identifies the “No Project Alternative” as the “Environmentally Superior Alternative.” Staff declares that federal preemeption prevents it from objecting to rail-related hazards, even as it parrots Valero’s arguments about the blessings of lowered GHGs and increased jobs and economic benefits.
Make sure you’ve already submitted your comments to the City of Benicia or at least signed the petition opposing the project. The Planning Commission will take public comments on the Final EIR on February 8th before it votes whether to approve the use permit for this project. City Staff has just issued the following instruction for speaking at the hearing:
1. Individuals can sign up by calling the Planning Department (707-746-4280). As of Tuesday there’s only an answering machine to take messages, so it seems we have to wait until Monday the 8th to phone.
2. Individuals can sign up for others besides themselves when signing up in person on the 8th! (Guess what Valero will do with this one!)
3. You don’t have to use your real name.
Here’s the announcement on the City’s CBR web page as of 2/2:
IF YOU WISH TO COMMENT DURING THE HEARING: Due to the large amount of public interest with this project, the City will be instituting a sign up system in order to speak during the public hearings. Interested members of the public will be allowed to speak in order of sign up. Sign ups will be available on the day of the meeting(s) from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Community Development Department. If you are unable to come in person, please call 707-746-4280 to be added to the list. At the hearing, please go to the sign up table just outside of the Council Chambers. Your name will be called in the order in which you signed up. You do not have to sign up in order to speak. However, you will not be called on until those who have signed up have spoken. In order to accommodate the public, we have arranged for overflow rooms in City Hall with the hearing streaming for you to view and listen. You can also view the event live from the City’s website.
Why we should make every effort to testify: If approved, this project would allow the Benicia refinery to transport 70,000 barrels per day of crude oil in two 50-tanker-car trains, instead of shipping the oil by tanker. The project would add to, and not replace, crude already brought to the refinery via pipeline. The Final EIR lists many serious unmitigatable environmental impacts should the project be approved.
Let’s remind the Planning Commission that federal preemption did not cause the San Luis Obispo County staff to roll over and automatically approve a crude-by-rail project within its own jurisdiction. Instead, it understood that it had the power to affect what happens uprail by denying the rail project it was asked to rubberstamp.
Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community is asking all allies to attend the Benicia Planning Commission meeting on February 8 at the Benicia City Hall, 250 East L Street, Benicia. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m., but supporters are urged to arrive by at least 5:30 p.m.—if not earlier—to get the best seats and to arrive before Valero’s supporters.
Getting There: Andrés Soto, CBE’s Richmond Organizer, is arranging car pools from Richmond, gathering at the Bobby Bowens Progressive Center at 4:00 p.m. and departing at 4:30 p.m. If you need a ride or can drive to Benicia, please contact Andrés at andres@cbecal.org or at 510.282.5363.
Please RSVP here.
Background
Updates can be found at the Benicia Independent.
The project documents can be found on the City of Benicia website.
Every member of the City Council says they want to stop the displacement of Black, Brown and poor people from Oakland. But there’s no better way to displace a population than to take away their access to work. Yet again, our elected leaders have failed to live up to their rhetoric or prioritize the interests of the people they represent.
The behind-closed-doors deals that are made by Oakland city officials must end. Pushing an RFP that cuts services to Oakland’s unemployed (primarily Black and Latino males) must be illuminated just as our allies have done with the mayor’s illegal protest curfew, the corrupt E. 12th St development process, and the domain awareness center.
Join us on Tuesday, February 9 at 1:30 pm at Oakland’s City Council Chambers to let the Council President and CED members know WE ARE PAYING ATTENTION AND WE DEMAND TRANSPARENCY. This illegal RFP designed to circumvent the mandated process must be stopped. Come make your voices heard.
Remember last week how we got thousands of people out in the streets to for our Tackle Homelessness Super Bowl Protest? And remember how we made #TackleHomelessness trend on twitter. And remember when nearly every major publication in America wrote about it and showed the world the fuckery perpetrated by Mayor Ed Lee?
Yeah, that was rad.
This Tuesday, February 9th, it’s time for the next step. I just received this from the Coalition on Homelessness:
#TackleHomelessness Superbowl Protest Next Step
Please come to speak during public comment at SF Board of Supervisors Feb 9 Tuesday at around 4:00.
The Mayor is scheduled to speak at 2:00, we are going to have a silent vigil that will be homeless people led/convened. We have about 30 shirts for folks to wear for silent vigil inside chambers. We are NOT planning on disrupting, just putting pressure on the Mayor with our very powerful presence.
We would appreciate support from the broader community to speak in public comment, which should take place no earlier then 4:00, but likely much later.
The Mayor will not be there for public comment, but it is OK to direct comments towards him.
We are demanding:
$5 million to go immediately to house homeless people
Moratorium on criminalization of homeless people
Sustained commitment from the city to end homelessness, which includes identifying progressive revenue source.
Critical San Francisco Police Commission meeting on tasers.
Please come and stop this escalation of force by SFPD.
Police Chief Greg Suhr will be formally recommending that the SFPD be given tasers at the next Police Commission meeting,
Please come and speak loudly and vociferously against the escalation in the use of force by the already unaccountable SFPD. SFPD should never be given lethal instruments of torture, such as tasers.
A film by Ron Blatman and KQED Public Television. We will also be honoring Sylvia McLaughlin who died recently at 99 years of age. She was always a most gracious friend of our BFUU and her daughter and granddaughter were treasured and active members for some years in the 90’s. So we are honoring her showing these two episodes which show how she was literally one of the miracle workers who in the 1960’s who saved this beautiful and magical bay that every human inhabitant (the Miwoks and Ohlone) of the Bay has depended on. From the earliest inhabitants 5,000 years ago through the Gold Rush, the Mexican period, the Gold Rush, the Earthquake and Fire of 1906, to Silicon Valley, we all have needed this bay which drains a third of California. Now the Bay is one of the world’s leading economic, academic, recreational and cultural regions. Narrated by Robert Redford, don’t miss two of the four episodes of “Saving the Bay” which highlights an unforgettable journey around the waters of the Bay.
Sponsored by the BFUU Social Justice Ctee as part of our Conscientious Projector series.
Free to the public.
Wheelchair accessible.
Ph:510-275-4272
For occasional email notices of peace/eco/social justice alerts and related events at BFUU, send any email to:
bfuusjev-subscribe [at] lists.riseup.net
Sponsored by the Coalition for Police Accountability.
We were asked by the Federal Monitor team to convene a community event in which folks who had had encounters with OP
D in the last two or three years would give testimony about their experiences. The Monitor are interested in hearing directly from those who had negative experiences. They want to know what happened — when, where – and whether or not a complaint was filed, and, if so, what was the outcome, so they can do follow up.
We promised to convene such a meeting. This is an opportunity we should not miss to counter the Schaaf cheerleading about how much progress OPD has made, despite the fact that there were 7 killings of African-American males in the last year! The City is anxious to get out from under Federal oversight and the Monitor wants an ‘on the ground’ assessment of whether OPD behaves differently than they did in the ‘Riders’ era, or whether things are basically still the same.
Please share this widely — especially with those who are likely to have been impacted directly, or even indirectly, as observers, and we hope youth will be encouraged to attend, along with their parents.
No City officials (including police) have been invited to attend — only the Federal Monitor team.
There will be no panel discussion — the whole evening will be devoted to hearing testimony from the community!!!
In conjunction with Strike Debt Bay Area
Mehrsa Baradaran talks about her new book
How the Other Half Banks:
Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy
How the Other Half Banks is a history of banking for the masses in the United States, the story of how it has failed in the last thirty years – to be replaced by predatory payday lenders and their ilk – and the case for Postal Banking (find out about this!) as the way to once again provide banking services at reasonable rates for the tens of millions of unbanked and underbanked.
Mehrsa Baradaran is Associate Professor at the University of Georgia School of Law
See Mehrsa Baradaran on YouTube
Friday: At the Green Arcade Bookstore in SF.
Also in Oakland on Saturday at 6:00 PM a the Laurel Bookstore at Oscar Grant Plaza.
Event flyers:
strike debt – baradaran flyer color
strike debt – baradaran flyer color 4up
strike debt – baradaran flyer bw
strike debt – baradaran flyer bw 4up
SF Mime Troupe presents: “COINTELSHOW: A Patriot Act”, by L.M. Bogad on February 12 & 13 in SF
Follow Special Agent Christian White on a cheerfully creepy tour of declassified government surveillance documents. White probes the redacted (blacked-out) texts of the FBI’s notorious Counterintelligence Programs, searching for the words erased in the name of the Freedom of Information Act.
Learn fun techniques for the infiltration of activist groups, how to earn benefits and a pension as an agent provocateur, and how to, in the words of J. Edgar Hoover, “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize” your neighbors! Read on!
Tickets: FREE but you must reserve a seat!
JOIN US FOR A SHIFT: LATE NIGHT MASS COPWATCHING
· February 12, 10 PM – 1 AM
· February 27, 8 PM – 11 PM
Since October 2015, Berkeley Copwatch has been holding “mass copwatch” events that invite folks to join us for a shift. It’s been fun and very empowering to have up to five cars full of copwatchers patrolling our city and on the scene when police stop people.
This month we have two shifts scheduled. Please join us; we will train you in the essentials of copwatching, how to document and how to stay safe!
Contact us at (510) 548-0425 or berkeleycopwatch@yahoo.com to learn where we will be meeting.
Food Not Bombs will be hosting a fundraiser for Oakland’s Omni Commons, and YOU’RE invited! This event will last pretty much ALL DAY– from 2pm until late in the evening (10 or 11pm).
Come prepared for:
*A DANCE PARTY! (or several)
*Readings and book signings!
*Open mic!
*A DELECTABLE vegan meal!
*Meeting the best friends you’ll EVER have!
…and MORE!!!!
FEATURING: (And this list has only just begun…)
Antioquia: https://antioquia.bandcamp.com/
Carol Denney: http://www.caroldenney.com/
Bicicletas por la Paz: www.bicicletasporlapaz.com/the-band/
Maracatu Pacifico: http://www.maracatupacifico.com/#!/bio
V.E.X.:
http://moirascar.blogspot.com/
http://thebaybridged.com/2015/06/10/get-to-know-moira-scar-and-v-e-x/
Interested in performing? Decorating? Cooking? Promoting? Reach out to Saryta at srod622@gmail.com and Arthur at arnoldmcpeebles@gmail.com.
Presale tickets coming soon!
PRESALE suggested donation: $10 to party, plus $10 to guarantee your seat at the FEAST! Nom nom nom nom nom.
DOOR suggested donation: $15 to party, $10 to eat, $25 for the Full On Experience.
ABOUT THE COMMONS:
The Omni Commons is comprised of several Bay Area collectives with a shared political vision—one that privileges a more equitable commoning of resources and meeting of human needs over private interests or corporate profit.
We invite you to join us in establishing a safe, productive place to pool resources for the collective use and stewardship of the greater community. A space that fosters an ethic of radical collaboration across disciplines and between individual collectives, creating a living model for future radical spaces. https://omnicommons.org/
CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU!