Calendar

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Sep
13
Tue
Stand in Solidarity: Bay Area No Dakota Access Pipeline Actions @ Various
Sep 13 all-day

Stand in solidarity with thousands of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).  Actions around the Bay Area will be part of a national day of solidarity Tuesday, Sept. 13.

BAY AREA ACTIONS SEPT 13

More actions are still being added. Find a  current list of local events and RSVP here

12 PM
San Anselmo: Creek Park-San Anselmo Hub, Sir Francis Drake Blvd @ Center Blvd
Fremont: Jamba Juice, Fremont Plaza Shopping Center, 3962 Mowry Ave.

4 PM
Berkeley:  I-80 overpass at the Berkeley Marina

5:30 PM
Oakland: Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza

6 PM
Palo Alto: Lytton Plaza, 202 University Avenue

The pipeline threatens lands of native tribes and other communities as well as the water of the Missouri River. In the words of the Red Warrior Camp: “Water is a necessity for all life. Water is life. Now is the time for all people from all walks of life to join together to stop the desecration and destruction of water, land and life!”

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Sept. 9: A federal judge rejected the request of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe for an injunction against the pipeline.

The same day the Obama administration and the Army Corps of Engineers announced a halt in construction of the pipeline in the area near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, the land bordering or under Lake Oahe. The statement from the federal government also asked the pipeline company to stop construction in a 20-mile radius around the lake. And it said the conflict has raised issues about construction in tribal areas, promising to hold meetings over the fall with tribal leaders about how to do better.

Sept. 8: North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple put the ND National Guard on standby alert status, threatening to invade the camp where thousands of activists from more than 100 indigenous tribes, along with non-indigenous allies, have gathered to block construction of the pipeline.

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NoDAPL: No Keystone By Any Name – Rally at OGP @ Oscar Grant Plaza
Sep 13 @ 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm

The “Dakota Acces” Pipeline (DAPL) is a $3.8B, 1,100 mile fracked-oil pipeline currently under construction from the Bakken shale fields of North Dakota to Peoria, Illinois. DAPL is slated to cross Lakota Treaty Territory at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation where it would be laid underneath the Missouri River, the longest river on the continent.

Construction of the DAPL would engender a renewed fracking-frenzy in the Bakken shale region, as well as endanger a source of fresh water for the Standing Rock Sioux and 8 million people living downstream. DAPL would also impact many sites that are sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux and other indigenous nations.

The DAPL is a massive project being organized by a shady group of the world’s largest fossil-fuel companies and banks. They have offices in cities around the world. Putting direct, nonviolent pressure on the corporations building and funding this project is critical for supporting frontline resistance to DAPL.

Why Target Obama?
Obama has been one of the most outspoken presidents on indigenous rights, and one of few to visit a Native American reservation during his time in office. The reservation that he visited happened to be the Standing Rock Sioux Nation (the same tribe with a lawsuit against this pipeline). President Obama also has the power to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to revoke the permit for this pipeline, and we want him to be referenced in press articles as a possible decision maker on this as the issue continues to escalate. We think that with dozens or even hundreds of actions, we’ll be able to convey to the press that the movement is calling on him to step in as the decision maker.

https://actionnetwork.org/events/san-francisco-stands-with-standing-rock-no-keystone-by-any-name

http://www.350bayarea.org/no_dapl_oak_160913

https://nodaplsolidarity.org/

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Coalition for Police Accountability – YES on Measure LL Campaign Meeting @ Lakeview Public Library (across from the Grand Lake Theatre)
Sep 13 @ 5:45 pm – 7:45 pm

Come at be part of making Oakland history!

Agenda:

  1. Update on communications
  2. Update on budget
  3. Discuss canvassing/events staffing: what’s working, what isn’t
  4. Welcome new volunteers to the campaign
  5. Discuss enabling legislation coming forward

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Sep
14
Wed
Know Your Rights for Social Movement Photographers @ Asian Resource Gallery
Sep 14 @ 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Photographers! Know your rights when you cover marches, demonstrations and other movement actions. Know how to protect yourself, who is on your side, and where the lines are in the real world.

Have you ever wondered:
* Can police confiscate my camera or images?
* What are my rights to photograph or film police themselves?
* Is it safe to stay after a dispersal order?
* What additional rights, if any, does a press pass confer?

We’ll hear from activist photographers, seasoned photojornalists, and movement lawyers on these questions and more. Even if you don’t consider yourself a “photographer” but take cell phone pics/video at protests, this workshop is for YOU too!!

Sponsored by Class Conscious Photographers/Silicon Valley DeBug and Pacific Media Workers CWA Local 39521.

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East Bay Homes Not Jails @ Omni Commons
Sep 14 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Open as many homes as possible…
Hold them as long as possible…

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Sudo Room Weekly Party @ Omni Commons Sudo room
Sep 14 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Our weekly PARTY to get this hackerspace together, to provide a venue for those things that otherwise cannot be worked out through day-to-day practice.

Potluck! – bring your own tasty dish!

Sudo room, located in the southwast corner of the ground floor, is a creative community and hackerspace. We offer tools and project space for a wide range of activities: electronics, sewing/crafting, 3D and 2D manufacturing, coding, and good old-fashioned co-learning!

Hours: The space is open whenever a member is present. Come visit! Best times to drop in are evenings between 7 and 9pm. See the calendar for recurring meetups and upcoming events: https://sudoroom.org/calendar

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Sep
15
Thu
Santa Rita Jail Fight @ Ella Baker Center Office
Sep 15 @ 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Draft agenda:

  • Alameda County Mental Health Advisory Board Meeting report back and next steps
  • Turnout for Friday’s meeting
  • Outreach

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Frackopoly: The Battle for the Future of Energy and the Environment, by Wenonah Hauter, Food and Water Watch @ Bobby Bowens Progressive Center
Sep 15 @ 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

This is a great opportunity to meet Wenonah Hauter, the Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, as she tours to promote her important new book, Frackopoly: The Battle for the Future of Energy and the Environment.

Wenonah will discuss one hundred years of political influence-peddling by the oil and gas industry and the resulting deregulation that has devastated communities across the country.  But her vision is not bleak:  she reminds us of the groundswell of public support for a clean energy revolution, and the ascendance of a grassroots movement fighting to ban fracking and taking back our democracy in the process.

Copies of her book will be available to purchase, and Wenonah will sign books after her presentation and Q & A.

Wenonah Hauter is a compelling speaker and one of the most important minds of her generation.  This is an event definitely not to miss!

Frackopoly: The Battle for the Future of Energy and the Environment shines a fresh light on the influence the oil and gas industry has in politics today and chronicles the political power generated by an exciting grassroots movement that is fighting to ban fracking, keep fossil fuels in the ground and help take back our democracy.

The event is free, so feel free to bring friends. We look forward to seeing you there!

RSVP FOR EVENT HERE.

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Oakland Privacy Meeting: Fighting Against the Surveillance State. @ Omni Commons
Sep 15 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
  • NOTE DAY CHANGE – ONE TIME ONLY. MEETING IS ON THURSDAY INSTEAD OF WEDNESDAY.DAC Opposition photo no-surveillance-city-council_zps7d741c77.jpg
  • Join the Oakland Privacy Working Group to organize against the surveillance state,  against Urban Shield, and to advocate for privacy and surveillance regulation ordinances to be passed around the Bay Area, including the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, the BART Board of Directors, and by the Oakland and Berkeley City Councils.
  • We are also engaged in the fight against Predictive Policing and other “pre-crime” and “thought-crime” abominations, drones, improper use of police body cameras, ALPRs, requirements for “backdoors” to your cellphone and against other invasions of privacy by our benighted City, County, State and Federal Governments.

op-logo.2.1OPWG originally came together to fight against the Domain Awareness Center (DAC), Oakland’s citywide networked mass surveillance hub. OPWG was instrumental in stopping the DAC from becoming a city-wide spying network; its members helped draft the Privacy Policy that puts further restrictions on the now Port-restricted DAC, and made Oakland’s new Privacy Advisory Commission to the City Council happen.  We were also the lead in having Alameda County pass the most comprehensive privacy and usage policy in the country for deployment of “Stingray” technology (cell phone interceptors).

We have presented our work at the recent RightsCon in San Francisco and at Left Forum and HOPE in New York City.

If you would like to attend our meeting would like a quick introduction to what we’re doing before we dive right into the thick of things, send email to  contact@oaklandprivacy.org and one of us will show up twenty minutes early to give you some background on our work.

Stop by and learn how you can help guard our 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

Check out our new website.

For more information on the DAC check out

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How UC Berkeley’s System Lets You Down @ Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley, Room 54
Sep 15 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

You’re invited to join us tonight to discuss justice and injustice at UC Berkeley, and how to build a student organization on campus.

The ISO will hold a discussion about UC Berkeley’s history of complicity with sexual harassment, and its censorship of a student-run course on Palestine, and plan how to expand socialist organization on campus.

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Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood @ Hillside Club
Sep 15 @ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
sm_nick_schau_in_berkeley.jpg Nicolas Schou, award-winning investigative journalist, author of “Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb,” exposes government operatives altering media stories and films. He names names and spotlights flagrant examples of collusion, of respected reporters selling out to powerful agencies. For the first time, Schou gets CIA officers, Hollywood consultants, reporters, and entertainment executives to go on record about the ways “true stories” come about and how the CIA has embedded itself in Hollywood to ensure that the agency gets the hero treatment on-screen. We learn about how some of Hollywood’s brightest stars gain unique access inside agency headquarters — and what price they pay for that access. Schou relates how the CIA routinely vets articles on controversial topics such as the drone assassination program, granting friendly reporters background briefings on classified material, while simultaneously prosecuting ex-officers who release damaging information.
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Sep
16
Fri
National Day of Action for Imam Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) @ Lil Bobby Hutton Park
Sep 16 @ 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm

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Justice 4 Colby Friday – Vigil for Answers
Sep 16 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

We are asking if anyone in the community has any information, eyewitness accounts or video showing the unjust killing of Colby Friday, shot in the back by Stockton Police Officer David Wells.

The community can no longer tolerate Stockton police officers shooting their citizens in the back – it is the same tired narrative that repeats time and time again.

From Luther Brown, James Cook and James Rivera Jr., all shot and yet these officers all still work, are promoted and are allowed to stalk the streets for their next victim.

Your family many be next. Take this seriously – we don’t want to be out there for you next.

Justice 4 Colby Friday Facebook

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Sep
17
Sat
Abolition of Policing @ Omni Commons
Sep 17 @ 11:00 am – 1:30 pm


Want to learn how to work toward eliminating the cops? Want to hear how we challenge the notion that policing keeps us safe? CR Oakland regularly offers this workshop that looks at the role and history of policing in the U.S., the way it has impacted various communities, and how people have resisted and challenged its inherent violence. This workshop also goes over how we can reduce our reliance on policing by highlighting the various ways that building up community strength and practices lead to true safety that does not depend on law enforcement.

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Know Your Options: Chronic Illness Workshop
Sep 17 @ 11:00 am – 1:30 pm

The space is accessible with no stairs and has an accessible bathroom. Please come scent free to accommodate those with chemical sensitivities.

This Saturday, Critical Resistance Oakland and the Oakland Power Projects will be hosting an important workshop, “Know Your Options: Chronic Illness.” It is designed to increase people’s understanding of how policing, imprisonment, and gentrification drive health inequalities manifest as chronic illnesses and to empower people who live with them to access the care they need with minimal contact with law enforcement. The workshop ends with the problem of substance use and specific training on responding to and reversing drug overdoses.

About the Oakland Power Projects workshops
Because policing fails to meet people’s needs, and puts people in danger of arrest, imprisonment, and/or even death, we must eliminate connections between policing and healthcare.

The “Know Your Options” workshop series aims to increase people’s access to the healthcare they need and to decrease people’s contact with law enforcement. Workshops are facilitated by healthcare workers and community organizers.

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OccupySF 5th Anniversary Picnic and Open Mic @ Sue Bierman Park
Sep 17 @ 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm

OccupySF 5th Anniversary picnic and open mic. Bring your own food. Bring your own drink. Bring instruments. Bring megaphone.

Bring sings and banners!

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Rally Against the TPP @ Vallejo Ferry Terminal
Sep 17 @ 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm

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Oakland Justice Coalition @ Siegel & Yee, 3rd floor (across 14th, back, and diagonally left from City Hall)
Sep 17 @ 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

 This will be the last meeting of the Oakland Justice Coalition before the elections on November 8.


The meeting will focus on the work we must do to elect our candidates to the Oakland City Council and Board of Education. After a long process of creating our organization, establishing a platform, and interviewing prospective candidates, we have created a great slate to work for progressive change in Oakland:

City Council District 3: NONI SESSION
City Council District 7: NEHANDA IMARA

School Board District 1: DON MACLEAY
School Board District 3: KHARYSHI WIGINTON
School Board District 5: MIKE HUTCHINSON
School Board District 7: CHRIS JACKSON

These are candidates who will fight for social, racial, and economic justice in Oakland: better schools, affordable housing, decent jobs, and police reform.

Please come out to help us elect them on November 8.

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Film: Remember the International Hotel. Alameda Renters Coalition. @ t. Buena Vista United Methodist Church
Sep 17 @ 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Join Alameda Renters Coalition and Filipino Advocates for Justice for an intimate screening of “The Fall of the I-Hotel” documentary, as well as special showings of two short videos produced by the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project about the signature drive to put M1 on the ballot.

In 1977, tenants at San Francisco’s International Hotel — mostly Filipino elders — fought a mass eviction. Students, activists, poets, and politicians joined their cause, and while the residents were eventually forced out by sheriff’s deputies, the campaign helped catalyze the Filipino-American community and the Bay Area’s anti-eviction movement.

This political season, Alamedans are remembering the I-Hotel — and are recognizing that the campaign at 470 Central on the west end connects us all to this history and to the present fight for sustainable rent increases and just-cause protections.

After the screenings, we’ll have the opportunity to plug into current opportunities for action around 470 Central and the M1 campaign. RSVP today!

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Strike Debt Bay Area Meeting: Debt Resistance is NOT Futile! @ Paris Baugette
Sep 17 @ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Backup location if Paris Baugette has no seating: Oscar Grant Plaza amphitheater, outside of City Hall.

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.

Come get connected with SDBA’s projects!
  • organizing for public banking
  • advocating for Postal banking
  • helping out America’s only non-profit check-cashing organization and fighting against usurious for-profit pay-day lenders and their ilk
  • Tiny Homes for the homeless.
  • Working on debarring US Banks that have been convicted of felonies from municipal contract
  • student debt resistance
  • Promoting the concept of Basic Income
  • fighting modern day debtors’ prisons and exploitive ticketing and fining schemes
  • Presenting debt-related topics at forums and workshops
  • Bring your own debt-related project!

If you are new to Strike Debt and want to come early and meet one or two of us before the formal meeting starts, email us at strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com .

 Also check out our website, our twitter feed, our radio segments and our Facebook page.
Strike Debt Bay Area is an offshoot of Occupy Oakland and Strike Debt, itself an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street.

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.

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