Calendar

Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite.

For our October meeting we are reading Parts 5 and 6 of Jackson Rising Redux: Building the Future in the Present. (PM Press, Amazon).  For our  November  meeting  we  are reading  Parts  7,  8 and  the  Afterwords.

Mississippi is the poorest state in the US, with the highest percentage of Black people and a history of vicious racial terror. Black resistance at a time of global health, economic, and climate crisis is the backdrop and context for the drama captured in this new and revised collection of essays. Cooperation Jackson, founded in 2014 in Mississippi’s capital to develop an economically uplifting democratic “solidarity economy,” is anchored by a network of worker-owned, self-managed cooperative enterprises. The organization developed in the context of the historic election of radical Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, lifetime human rights attorney. Subsequent to Lumumba’s passing less than one year after assuming office, the network developed projects both inside and outside of the formal political arena. In 2020, Cooperation Jackson became the center for national and international coalition efforts, bringing together progressive peoples from diverse trade union, youth, church, and cultural movements. This long-anticipated anthology details the foundations behind those successful campaigns. It unveils new and ongoing strategies and methods being pursued by the movement for grassroots-centered Black community control and self-determination, inspiring partnership and emulation across the globe.

Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth,  Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, Exploring Degrowth, The Origin of Wealth, Mine!, The Dawn of Everything  A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Beyond Money, Less is More,  Cannibal Capitalism,  Debt, the First 5000 Years , Poverty, By America,, and End Times.

Speaker: Mark Albertson

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85175860127?pwd=bfZRQOSMuhX9Pfm4qhPMOZMrmE9Ohm.1

The 200-year history of the Monroe Doctrine is a history of US imperialism. Among Washington’s recent junior partners, Israel stands out as an accomplice to the US imperial project not only in the old world but in this hemisphere as well.

Beginning with the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the course of what is labeled Manifest Destiny (term was applied in 1845) will be charted through the 19th century.  The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 is a continuation of the planned expansion across the North American continent. As the 19th century proceeded apace, the North defeated the South during the 1861-1865 Revolt of the Planters. Industrialization of the United States together with the eventual linking of Chesapeake Bay with the Golden Gate instilled a dynamic America, an allure to become a willing participant in what President Monroe’s document urged the Europeans not to repeat here, Imperialism.  Historical parallels will be made with such efforts as the Catholic Church and Spanish Army in the Philippines, the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the present situation in Gaza.

Our speaker, Mark Albertson, is a frequent presenter at the Library.  In fact, according to his blog, in each of the last three years, he has logged 200-plus appearances. Mark is a military historian with a commanding knowledge of geo-politics. He is the historical research editor at Army Aviation magazine and is the historian for the Army Aviation Association of America. He has authored several books: USS Connecticut: Constitution State Battleship; They’ll Have to Follow You! The Triumph of the Great White Fleet; On History: A Treatise. He is at work on a two-volume history on the saga of Army aviation. Mark teaches history at Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Suggested background reading:

Elier Ramírez Cañedo, 200 Years of the Monroe Doctrine: History and Present, https://resumen-english.org/2023/07/200-years-of-the-monroe-doctrine-history-and-present/

Or check out this informative video:

Ben Norton, Israel’s destruction of Gaza is West’s fascistic plan for Global South, warns Colombia’s president, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC8YMcHn9nE

Community call to Action: Join us at the Oakland City Council Meeting tomorrow 11/27 to urge a YES vote for a #ceasefirenow resolution. United with AROC, Oak4Gaza, JVP Action & many others.

When: arrive at 2:45 at Oakland City Hall. Special meeting starts at 4pm pic.twitter.com/ZIqQbJI3GX

— Authentically Oakland (@ChaneyTurner) November 27, 2023

There is a March and Rally beginning at the Oakland Courthouse on Tuesday November 28th! We are demanding that the Board of Supervisors stop funding for the expansion of Santa Rita Jail. We are demanding an investigation into the over 70 deaths of black and brown inmates in Santa… pic.twitter.com/O5WOwdkYbH

— Anita Wills (@bwdn2008) November 23, 2023

This week, Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library will cover the attacks on the pro-Palestine, anti-genocide movement that are being made in the name of “fighting antisemitism,” A group discussion will follow several short presentations on the subject.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85175860127?pwd=bfZRQOSMuhX9Pfm4qhPMOZMrmE9Ohm.1

This year we are sending cards & updates to over 10,000 people who are currently incarcerated💛

💌 In addition to having our volunteers pick up holiday mail kits, we are having an *in-person & covid safe* mail night! (Masks are requred indoors)

💌RSVP: https://t.co/pHush3ncwa pic.twitter.com/4ZgISsWjN4

— Ella Baker Center (@ellabakercenter) November 14, 2023

Join us on Tuesday, December 5th at 2PM at San Francisco City Hall and call on the Board of Supervisors to support a permanent ceasefire!

Supervisor Preston plans to introduce a ceasefire resolution at next Tuesday’s Board meeting.

Text “SF” to 833-633-0604 to stay updated pic.twitter.com/AVX6LjAycx

— AROC #FreePalestine (@AROCBayArea) November 30, 2023

Register here.

Join Greenaction and Save the Bay for a discussion by frontline community activists and an academic expert on sea level rise, focusing on how rising groundwater and sea levels caused by climate change will flood and spread toxic and radioactive contamination along San Francisco Bay, threatening the health and environment of communities and the entire bay ecosystem.

As sea level rises, shallow groundwater will be pushed to the surface, causing more widespread flooding. This will impact infrastructure, homes, and communities in ways that we are just beginning to understand. Thousands of toxic sites that currently border the San Francisco Bay are also at risk of inundation by groundwater and sea level, which could put tens of thousands of residents at risk, especially low-income communities and communities of color.

Panelists:

Kamillah Ealom is Greenaction’s Bayview Hunters Point Community Organizer/Policy Advocate and Program Coordinator and a lifelong resident of Bayview Hunters Point.

Ms. Terrie Green is the Executive Director of the Marin City Climate Resilience and Health Justice program.  She will share how her community is being impacted by climate change and how they are organizing to respond.

Dr. Kristina Hill is a UC Berkeley professor and expert on groundwater rise, emphasizing environmental justice as a focus for climate resilience planning.

Moderator:  Ezra David Romero, KQED Radio climate reporter who helped bring this issue to public attention.

WHEN

Tuesday, December 5, 5 – 6 PM

WHERE

Online  Register here.

Members of the public can view the meeting live on KTOP or on the City’s website at
https://www.oaklandca.gov/topics/ktop-tv-10

To observe the meeting via Zoom, go to: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85817209915
Or One tap mobile: +1 669 900 9128

Relevant Agenda Items:

3. Open Forum/Public Comment for non-agenda items
4. Recognition of Commissioner Robert Oliver for his years of service – Council Member Reid’s office
5. Welcome new Commissioner Sean Everhart – Council Member Reid’s office
6. Surveillance Technology Ordinance – OPD – Cellebrite Cellphone Data Extraction Technology
a. Review impact report and take possible action on a proposed use policy

It is supported by these former political prisoners:

Arthur League, Sundiata Tate, Claude Marks, Luis Talamantez, David Gilbert, Minister King as well as Freedom Archives, Coalition to Free Ruchell Magee, Party of Socialism and Liberation, and Code Pink.

Ruchell Magee’s life was one of resistance to oppression. Mumia Abu-Jamal’s life is also one of resistance to oppression.

“My fight is to expose the entire system, judicial and prison system, a system of slavery. This will cause benefit not just to myself but to all those who at this time are being criminally oppressed or enslaved by this system.”� � Ruchell Magee

This event will include short speeches and writing holiday cards to political prisoners and protest postcards to Philadelphia D.A. Krasner, who is continuing to support the conviction and life prison sentence of Mumia.

Please spread the word!

Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite.

For our December meeting we are reading the first half (through chapter 2) of The Feminist Subversion of the Economy. (Common Notions Press, Amazon). For our January, 2024 meeting we will read the remainder.

The political response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the pressures on the global capitalist economies has, once again, imposed the priority of markets over life. Add to this the climate crisis and, undoubtedly, the task of sustaining life continues to be privatized, made invisible, and feminized.We must ask: what does a dignified life look like, especially one that transforms the gendered labor divisions and a racialized, exploitative feminized care economy that falls mainly on the shoulders of women—from the household to the wider effects of the capitalist economy on social reproduction.

At the same time, these questions are intimately connected with considerations of our environment. The Feminist Subversion of the Economy makes the conection between patriarchy, capitalism, and ecological crisis—and rallies women, the LGBTQ+ community, and movements worldwide to center gender and social reproduction in a vision for a just ecology and economy.

Public intellectual, academic, and activist Amaia Pérez Orozco offers a vision beyond the myths of development (unlimited growth), wealth (accumulation of capital), and work (limited to waged labor) and, at the same time, accounts for the tasks, networks, and economic subjects that, materially and daily, guarantee that life keeps going.

Newly translated and updated in collaboration with Liz Mason-Desse, who has won a PEN translation award for her work on feminist economics, The Feminist Subversion of the Economy shows the urgent need to radically and democratically discuss what we mean by a dignified life and how we can organize to sustain life collectively.

Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth,  Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, Exploring Degrowth, The Origin of Wealth, Mine!, The Dawn of Everything  A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Beyond Money, Less is More,  Cannibal Capitalism,  Debt, the First 5000 Years , Poverty, By America, End Times, and Jackson Rising Redux.

Join Zoom Meeting

Speaker: Paul Larudee

Recently back from a humanitarian mission to besieged Gaza, which was denied entry by Egyptian authorities, our speaker will explain how the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians is a natural outcome of Zionism. The social dynamics of domination inevitably lead to genocide given sufficient time. This is the logical consequence of exceptionalism.

The resistance forces of the Palestinians and their allies have planned for a confrontation of unlimited duration, while Israel plans only short, massive attacks designed for a quick, decisive victory, which in this case is illusive. This is the main reason they have chosen genocide as a tactic. They reason that massive, horrible deaths of vulnerable civil Palestinians, mainly women and children, will force Hamas, Hezbollah, and their allies to take risks and expose themselves. But genocide is not working. And when it doesn’t, Israel’s answer is to use more genocide.

Paul Larudee, our speaker, is an Iranian-born American political activist who is a major figure in the pro-Palestinian movement. Based in the San Francisco Bay area, he has been to Palestine many times since 1965. He is active with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a nonviolent resistance group, and the Syria Solidarity Movement (SSM). Paul is a co-founder of the Free Palestine Movement (FPM) and the Free Gaza Movement (FGM), whose boats broke a 41-year-old Israeli naval blockade of Gaza in August 2008. He was a member of the US delegation aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which was attacked by Israeli forces on May 31, 2010.

Paul has a PhD in linguistics and spent fourteen years in Arab countries, supervising a Ford Foundation project in Lebanon, working as a Fulbright-Hays lecturer in Lebanon, and a US government adviser to Saudi Arabia. He is also a Registered Piano Technician.

Paul received the Lifetime Peacemaker Award from the Mount Diablo Peace and Justice Center. Another, albeit inadvertent, tribute to Paul’s dedication and effectiveness is this disgusting doxing.

https://www.israellycool.com/2006/06/06/the-loathsome-paul-larudee/) by the blogsite Israellycool.

Recommended background reading: https://syriasupportmovement.org/2023/11/12/genocide-is-israels-strategy/.
Paul tells the story of the founding of ISM here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H6OUStQR9c. Here Paul talks about Syria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHbivUckqC0.

Dear Greens and Supporters,

Celebrate the Holiday Season with old friends and new. We’ll have good fun, yummy food, and open dialogue at the 2023 Annual Potluck Holiday Party

Please bring a drink or dish of your choice to share!

**See you there!**

(There will be no Green Sunday Program or Green County Council meeting in December. We’ll party instead.  The next regular Green Sunday program will be the second Sunday in January, 2024, followed as usual by the Alameda Green Party County Council.)

“Join us on Human Rights Day 2023 for a poignant exploration of our shared humanity. Amidst the tumult of global conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, this event delves into the relentless assault on human rights. Through gripping narratives and thought-provoking discussions, comedy, and music we aim to unveil the pain echoing across continents. Yet, within this darkness, we aim to discover glimmers of hope that illuminate a path towards a future where dignity prevails. Stand with us, embrace the urgency, and let’s collectively envision a world where human rights are not just given lip service but defended and celebrated.”

Event details:

https://youtube.com/@EthicsInTechnology

Musician- Pete Kronowitt

If Steve Earle threw a margarita at Elvis Costello and got pissed enough to write political tunes, they would sound like Pete Kronowitt songs. Following in the footsteps of folk singers advocating to better humanity, Pete has organized, marched and sang his way across this land. Pete founded Face the Music Collective, a guide for creative activists utilizing performances to inspire targeted individual action, and is on the board of Music Declares Emergency US, a climate music industry nonprofit with a mission to activate fans.

Franchesca Fiorentini-

American Journalist, Correspondent, activist, and stand-up comedian. Host of Newsbroke and The Bitchuation Room Podcast.

Will Durst- Acknowledged by peers and press alike as one of the premier political satirists in the country, Will Durst has patched together a comedy quilt of a career, weaving together columns, books, radio and television commentaries, acting, voice-overs, and most especially, stand up comedy, into a hilarious patchwork of outraged and outrageous common sense. His abiding motto is, “You can’t make stuff up like this.” The New York Times calls him “possibly the best political comic in the country.” Fox News agrees “he’s a great political satirist,” while the Oregonian hails him as a “hilarious stand-up journalist.

Ousman Noor studied law at SOAS: University of London, and social anthropology at the University of Oxford. He worked as a human rights barrister (lawyer) in London for 9 years, specializing in refugee and detention law, and taught as a Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS. For 3+ years, He was Government Relations Manager at Stop Killer Robots, a coalition of 250+ NGOs from 70+ countries. Following a personal Tweet calling for an end to occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing in Palestine, his employment was terminated.

Kevin Welch is the president of EFF-Austin, a digital civil liberties organization founded alongside the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and continues to be a member of their Electronic Frontier Alliance (EFA). At EFF-Austin, he leads their push to educate the public and politicians about important legal and cultural issues confronting society in emerging technological spaces. He has spoken at diverse venues on these topics including at SXSW and at State Department. He is a Caltech graduate with degrees in Bioengineering and English.

Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based writer and activist whose work focuses on issues of war and peace, and human rights. He is a staff writer at Common Dreams.

Rev. Martin Todd Allen is an Associate Minister at the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples. Previously, Rev. Allen worked as a prison, hospital and military Chaplain and currently works as a hospice chaplain in the South Bay. In addition, he serves on the board of directors of The Human Agenda.

Bill Budington is a long-time activist, cryptography enthusiast, and a Senior Staff Technologist on EFF’s Public Interest Technology team. His research has been featured in the The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and cited by the US Congress. He is the lead developer of Cover Your Tracks, led HTTPS Everywhere from 2015-2018, and has contributed to projects like Let’s Encrypt and SecureDrop. Bill has spoken at USENIX Enigma (2016), HOPE (2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022), CCC (2017), InfoSec Southwest (2017), ShmooCon (2019, 2020), and other infosec conferences. Bill’s primary interest lies in dismantling systems of oppression, building up collaborative alternatives and, to borrow a phrase from Zapatismo, fighting for a ‘world in which many worlds fit.’ He loves hacker spaces and getting together with other techies to tinker, code, share, and build the technological commons.

Organizer, Host and Panel Discussions By:

Vahid Razavi Founded Ethics In Technology 10 years ago and is now the Founder of No Ethics In Big Tech, is the author of two books, The Age of Nepotism and Ethics in Tech and Lack Thereof. As a lifelong activist and humanitarian, he has produced hundreds of videos on various social issues, including Ethics In Technology, Silicon Valley, regional politics, poverty, war, and social injustice.

In loving memory of all our departed parents especially Parivash Gharavi.

This event is not financed, endorsed or supported in any way by any government, for-profit, or nonprofit corporation.

The event is free of charge and does not require registration. We ask if you like the content to subscribe to our channel and share the video with friends.

Please join the SF Gray Panthers in a public reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights) on Monday, December 11, 2023 @ noon on the steps on the Polk Street side of SF City Hall! (In cooperation with the office of SF Board of Supervisor Dean Preston). For more information, please email us at ! -SF Gray Panthers

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages. The UDHR is widely recognized as having inspired, and paved the way for, the adoption of more than seventy human rights treaties, applied today on a permanent basis at global and regional levels (all containing references to it in their preambles).