East Bay News

At the March 27 Alameda County Board of Supervisors meeting, five-plus hours of discussion ended with a decision that Urban Shield as currently constituted would end after the 2018 war games and exposition. The vote left open-ended what Alameda County’s regional disaster preparedness activities would be in future years, but the Supervisors were decisive that it would not be the Urban Shield event, which began in 2007.

Davis and Berkeley have adopted the new law that mandates public transparency, vetted use policies, and annual reporting to protect human rights and reins in secret, unfettered surveillance by local law enforcement. Oakland is in the final stages of the adoption process. A California surveillance transparency law (SB 1186) passed through its first policy committee on April 5 at the State Senate Public Safety committee.

On April 13, the United States, together with its British and French allies, launched one hundred and five cruise missiles from sea and air striking three alleged chemical weapons facilities in Syria.  Anti-war protesters CodePink Women for Peace responded immediately with actions the following day in front of the Pacific Heights homes of Senator Dianne Feinstein and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Later in the afternoon of April 14, an emergency demonstration at Market and Powell in San Francisco demanded an end to the bombings.

On April 14, the second annual March for Science Bay Area included a walk around the Lake Merritt path, speakers, and live music. The sunny day event also featured information booths and hands-on demonstrations, speakers, live music and activities for children. Organizers explained they want robustly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity.

When members of the Bay Area group Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT!) heard about the imprisonment of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi for slapping the Israeli soldier who had shot her cousin and was now invading her family’s home, they wanted to see her picture prominently displayed during January's Women’s Marches. QUIT! teamed up with artists from the queer arts collectives, Street Cred and Bay Area Art Queers Unleashing Power (BAAQUP), to create a powerful image that has now spread around the world.

On March 14, thousands of San Francisco Bay Area students participated in a national walkout against gun violence, with 1,500 marching in the suburb of Menlo Park alone. However, not all went smoothly for some Bay Area students seeking to express themselves. One district superintendent in the South Bay accused students of not thinking things through, and stated that “Organizations have their own agendas and they’re using kids as pawns."

On March 24, the kids and families of March For Our Lives took to the streets to demand that their lives and safety become a priority, and that gun violence comes to an end. Northern California is marched in solidarity. The national mission statement declared: March For Our Lives is created by, inspired by, and led by students across the country who will no longer risk their lives waiting for someone else to take action to stop the epidemic of mass school shootings that has become all too familiar. In the tragic wake of the seventeen lives brutally cut short in Florida, politicians are telling us that now is not the time to talk about guns. March For Our Lives believes the time is now.

Uncolonized is a short documentary film about a native family who decided they would never enroll their two daughters in the public school system, choosing instead to homeschool them from birth. Chris is Potawatomi and Chasity is Navajo. Their daughters carry both of their parents' lineages in their blood, but also in their way of being. The film takes a critical look at the historical experiences of native children inside of the U.S. public education system and brings clarity to the decisions of the family to keep their daughters out of the public school system.

Defend J20 Resistance writes: On January 20, 2017 at the massive protests in Washington DC against Trump’s inauguration, militarized police attacked and mass-arrested over 200 protestors, charging 214 of them with an unprecedented eight felonies. The first trial against 6 defendants ended with a verdict of not guilty on all charges. In this touring presentation, you'll hear an overview and critical analysis of the case this far, highlighting its role and significance in the changing landscape of political repression in the United States.

Joshua Shepherd writes: I have a self-inflicted wound. I joined the United States military. I didn't know. I couldn't see. I couldn't hear. I was borne of wounded folk. I became wounded myself. Let us heal. I am currently using a Twitter account @FortressBayArea to name militarisms past and present. I aspire to a kind of community solidarity where we challenge our neighbors to stop inflicting wounds for their own sake and that of others. The foundation of the modern Bay Area was laid on conquest. Of land, of people, of spirit. One of UC Berkeley's cornerstones was shifted 5° to align with the Golden Gate and mark the coming conquest of the Pacific.

On March 10, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) and other housing activists kicked off the campaign in the Bay Area for the Affordable Housing Act — a proposed ballot initiative that that will give cities and counties the power to adopt rent control measures necessary to address California's housing affordability crisis by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. For the November 2018 ballot, the deadline for collection of 585,000 signatures statewide is May.

Hundreds of immigrant rights activists, including many students, unionists, and other allies, surrounded the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in San Francisco to disrupt ICE's daily patterns of mistreatment and dehumanization. Increased ICE activity has been reported throughout the Bay Area, the Central Coast, and in the Central Valley. Reports from rapid response networks confirm that ICE agents have recently arrested hundreds of people in cities including Monterey, Oakland, Fresno, Napa, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Clara, and Salinas.

Chinga la Migra reports on an action against Francisco Cantú which took place on February 19 in San Francisco, and the cancellation of his event in Oakland the following day: After being shut down by comrades in Austin and forced to publicly admit he is against abolishing Border Patrol by comrades in New York, Cantú decided not to read from his book or discuss it as had been planned, and at the last minute, announced that he would only be signing books. A few minutes into the book signing a group of us disrupted it by reading prepared statements and handing out flyers, as well as free copies of No Wall They Can Build.

Bob M writes: In the wake of the Stoneman Douglas shooting, the high school students at that school and across the country are calling for a walkout on March 24 and again on April 20, the anniversary of the Columbine shooting in 1999. The students are calling for national leaders to listen to them, but as of yet they do not have demands other than getting AR-15s "out of the hands of people who should not have them." Many radicals still hold strong to the important point that de-arming must start with the cops and military, and not take away self-defense from oppressed communities.

Protests and actions in San Rafael, Oakland, Los Angeles, across the US, and around the world marked the 17th birthday of Palestinian teen activist Ahed Tamimi, imprisoned since December 19 and facing charges before an Israeli military court. Ahed was seized by occupation forces in a pre-dawn raid on her family’s home in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah. She is one of over 350 Palestinian children imprisoned by the Israeli occupation and one of nearly 6,200 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. On February 13, an Israeli military court ordered journalists to leave the courtroom then extended Ahed's detention until her next hearing on March 11.

In honor of Black Solidarity Week, and in light of the recently released FBI report on so-called “Black Identity Extremists,” Community Ready Corps will host a political education panel on the repression of Black dissidents. Leaders from the Anti Police-Terror Project and special guests Mama Akua Njeri and Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. will come together on Saturday, February 17 for an evening of radical truth telling, solidarity building, and self-defense. That morning, a march through East Oakland kicks off Black Solidarity Week, February 17-24.

Frances Moore, affectionately known by those around her as Aunti Frances, is a beloved Black disabled activist, elder, Black Panther and community leader who has lived in North Oakland/South Berkeley her entire life. She now faces a no-fault eviction at the hands of Natalia Morphy and Morphy’s parents, who are exploiting a notorious loophole in Oakland renter protections for their own personal gain. The attempts to evict Aunti Frances signal that Oakland’s redevelopment is moving forward without care and consideration for its longtime residents and community members. A court support breakfast rally will be held on Wednesday, February 21.

On January 20, the one-year anniversary of the inauguration of President Trump, women, children, and allies worldwide demonstrated in hundreds of cities, often in freezing temperatures, to stand up against against Donald Trump and his policies, patriarchal and racist violence and oppression, and for a brighter future for women. The numbers were massive across North America, with 300,000 Chicago, 200,000 in New York City, a half million in Los Angeles, and at least 100,000 in San Francisco. Tens of thousands marched in medium-sized cities such as Oakland, and in smaller towns such as Fresno, thousands took a stand. On January 21, many more took to the streets of Las Vegas, Berlin, Paris, London, and other cities across the globe.

On the same day Homeland Security announced plans for major immigration raids in the Bay Area in response to sanctuary city laws, and the Department of Justice confirmed that it was looking for ways to arrest Sanctuary City mayors and other officials, the City of Oakland defied federal authorities. On January 16, the Oakland City Council unanimously voted to eliminate any and all cooperation with ICE in both criminal and civil matters, except in a case of public emergency. The move arose in reaction to an ICE raid that took place on August 16, ostensibly as a criminal investigation into human trafficking, yet no charges were ever filed and an undocumented man is now undergoing deportation proceedings.