Feature Archives

On February 26th, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed two key resolutions. The first re-establishes the city's sanctuary status and calls on Mayor Gabin Newsom to take action. The second is a resolution that allows for dispensaries to stay open after the March 1st deadline, pending an amendment to the current ordinance. On February 4th, members of San Francisco's medical cannabis community and their supporters gathered to call onhe Mayor to end his silence about recent US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)'s scare tactics against medical cannabis facility landlords. Days later, Newsom's spokesperson made a lukewarm statement against the DEA's actions, but supervisors and their constituents wanted to provide assurances that medical cannabis patients and dispensaries would be protected.

Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW) organized protests for Tuesday, February 5th, the day California voters went to the polls for the 2008 presidential primary, to demand that Democratic presidential candidates take stronger anti-war positions. DASW called into question the "anti-war" credentials of candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Protesters gathered at 5pm in San Francisco's U.N. Plaza and in Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza for marches to Clinton's and Obama's campaign headquarters in SF and Oakland.

On February 11th, more than two hundred participants of the Longest Walk 2 embarked on a five-month journey on foot from San Francisco. They plan on arriving in Washington, D.C. on July 11, 2008. Native American tribal leaders, religious groups, environmentalists, teachers, students, and people from throughout the world are joining the walk with its "peaceful and spiritual call to action to protect Mother Earth and defend human rights."

On Wednesday, February 14th, the California Food and Justice Coalition will hold a 12pm "Speak-Out and Eat-In for a Fair and Healthy Farm Bill" at the UN Plaza Farmers Market, near Nancy Pelosi's office. Participants will urge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to "have a heart" and support a Fair and Healthy Food and Farm Bill, one that "stops subsidizing corporate agribusiness at the expense of public health and instead invests our tax dollars into creating a sustainable, healthy, community-driven and just food system." After the speakout, participants will walk to Nancy Pelosi's office to deliver their message.

On Sunday, February 3rd, the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal presented Fighters for Freedom, an event in support of Mumia, who is a political prisoner and death row journalist. The event was held at the ILWU Local 34 Hall in San Francisco. The event honored and included Dennis Bernstein, Lynne Stewart, Michael Franti, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Barbara Lubin, and Aundre Herron. The recent video about Mumia's case that was broadcast on NBC's Today Show was shown. A court decision about if Mumia will be granted a new trial is imminent, and emergency demonstrations in response to the outcome have already been scheduled.

On Saturday January 26th, Bay Area activists protested at Senator Feinstien's home to commemorate the World Social Forum's Day of Action by demanding the Human Right to Housing in New Orleans. Demonstrators targeted Senator Feinstein due to her ambivalence on Senate Bill 1668, the "Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act of 2007," which would allocate funding for housing in New Orleans and guarantee one for one replacement of any destroyed public housing units.

In the week leading up to the January 11th national day of action against torture, student organizers with World Can't Wait and the Bay Area Revolution Club spoke in classes and distributed orange armbands at several Bay Area high schools. Larry Everest was invited by students at Leadership High to give a presentation about the abuses that are taking place at Guantanamo Bay. After the presentation, the Administration sent a letter home to all parents of students who attended the event-- stating the school's intention to teach the "other side" of torture, which one of the teachers described as the "Bush Administration's point of view." In addition, school administrators threatened to take students' orange bandanas.