LOCATION IS GLOBAL EXCHANGE!!!

Occupy Forum continues Monday, June 17th, from 6:00 – 9 pm at Global Exchange

2017 Mission Street near the 16^th Street BART Station

Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!

Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue

on all sides of these critically important issues! 

OccupyForum presents…

 Bread Riots in Cairo

and the Oakland Port Shutdowns:

What’s the Connection?

 In 2008, despite the world’s largest wheat harvest, bread riots broke out in thirty-three countries. In Egypt, the world’s number one importer, global wheat prices rose 130%. The main cause was the financialization of grain markets (similar to the housing boom/bust), driven by speculators like Goldman Sachs. In 2011, strikes and protests over bread shortages sparked struggles that toppled the Mubarak regime.

That same year, global grain trading consortium EGT (Export Grain Terminal) built a new $200 million grain loading facility in Longview, Washington, to do what Walmart does, but in reverse: deliver grains down supply chains as fast – and cheap – as possible to growing markets in Asia, where diets are increasingly McDonaldized. When EGT broke its agreement to operate with ILWU union labor, the Occupy Movement acted in solidarity. The Port of Oakland shutdown on November 2^nd was followed on December 12^th by the attempted shutdown of all West Coast ports. 

Gifford Hartman will lead a participatory presentation to look at the commodification of our food – and our lives  – and at possible future Occupy actions against this global trend. Hartman is a historian of social movements who guides the annual LaborFest walking tour to the sites of the 1946 Oakland General Strike. He is also part of the Global Social Factory & Supply Chains study/research group of the San Francisco Public Schools (http://thepublicschool.org/node/31602) and their Empire-Logistics mapping project (http://empire-logistics.org/). 

Donations to OccupyForum to cover our costs are encouraged; no one turned away!

https://www.facebook.com/events/327465574052892/

Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!

Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue

on all sides of these critically important issues!

Monday, June 10th from 6:00 – 9:00 pm at Global Exchange

2017 Mission at 16th Street, Second floor, across from the 16th Street BART Station.

Jobs-Not-Wars:

The New Priorities Campaign and How People Power Can Overcome the Military-Industrial Complex

While we suffer the effects of cuts to the basic safety net, astronomical spending for immoral and useless wars enrich the 1%. Democrats and Republicans would have us believe that the most urgent problem is lowering the deficit, distracting us from the need to put the country back to work.

Jobs-Not-Wars is a coalition of more than 175 organizations seeking to move money from Pentagon spending to programs that meet society’s needs. Their expansive plans include a “Back to Work Budget” –  like the WPA of the 1930s –  that creates 7 million jobs in the first year, brings in revenue by closing tax loopholes for corporations and the rich, imposes a transaction tax on securities speculation and a carbon tax, ends subsidies for Big Oil, Coal, and Agribusiness, reduces the deficit by 4.4 trillion over 10 years, and preserves services we depend on for survival. Jobs-Not-Wars provides an arsenal of tools to identify, locate and understand military contractors and their distorted relationship with the branches of our government, and reports on the fraud, kickbacks and waste that decimate the budget.  

Beginning this month, the Jobs-Not-Wars Campaign rolls out actions around the country that will educate and empower us to expose and halt the deception of the military-industrial complex, and repair and recreate our society.

Michael Eisenscher is National Coordinator of US Labor Against the War (USLAW) and a veteran union organizer and labor educator who helped to found the New Priorities Campaign. He co-founded the Jobs-Not-Wars Campaign and serves on the steering committee of United for Peace & Justice. Sandra Schwartz served as Peace Education Coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee for 14 years. She was a founding member and continues to serve on the Steering Committee of the New Priorities Campaign and is active in United for Peace and Justice. 

 Donations to OccupyForum to cover our costs are encouraged; no one turned away!

To preview the ideas covered in tonight’s OccupyForum: http://www.jobs-not-wars.org/

LOCATION IS GLOBAL EXCHANGE!!!

 Occupy Forum continues Monday, June 3rd, from 6:00 – 9 pm at Global Exchange:

2017 Mission Street near the 16^th Street BART Station.

Information, discussion & community! Monday Night Forum!!

Occupy Forum is an opportunity for open and respectful dialogue

on all sides of these critically important issues!

OccupyForum presents…

“No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth!” –

 Outsiders and Insiders: Allies or Inadvertent Antagonists?

Litigation has been the defining tactic, but not the only tactic, of grassroots biodiversity groups. The Headwaters Campaign to stop logging in the Old Growth Redwoods involved mass civil disobedience, consumer boycotts, shareholder resolutions and a concerted push to enforce key Environmental Laws like the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act. While the National Environmental Organizations, concerned with losing political access, contended with the constraints of insider political strategy, pursuing litigation at the grassroots level, although beset by  controversy and condemnation, enabled activists to react quickly and boldly and hold the line.

Earth First!’s radical movement culture nurtured a generation of activists skeptical of compromise who saw conventional forms of political participation as too weak to protect the Redwoods. How did these diverse groups figure out their respective strengths and work together to stop logging in the Old Growth Forests? What can we learn from their conflicts and collaboration?

Panelists are Dennis Cunningham, (longtime activist and lead attorney for Earth First!ers Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in their case against the FBI and the City of Oakland’s police); Ben Rosenfeld, (activist attorney who also represented Judi and Darryl, members of Occupy, and the Earth Liberation Front); Mokai, (musician, longtime Earth First!er and a leader of Redwood Summer); and Steve Jacobson, (longtime Earth First!er and videographer).

Donations to OccupyForum to cover our costs are encouraged; no one turned away!

Money, Power & Wall Street:  Episode Two

FRONTLINE tells the story of the global financial crisis

     

Sunday, June 2, 3:30 pm

12:00 Noon March to Bradley Manning Plaza

March Against Monsanto

Calling for Labeling of GMOs so that consumers can make informed decisions. Repealing relevant provisions of the US’s “Monsanto Protection Act.” Calling for

further scientific research on the health effects of GMOs. Holding Monsanto-supporting politicians accountable through direct communication, grassroots journalism,

social media, etc.

https://www.facebook.com/events/561714507193261/

Tonight, the SF Commune and all in solidarity with direct action to alleviate the housing crisis and homelessness will march throughout the Ocean View neighborhood to call for an end to evictions and foreclosures in San Francisco by banks and police.
Gather at Minnie and Lovie Ward Recreation Center at Capitol Avenue and Lobos Street, San Francisco at 5pm to get ready to march at 6pm through the Ocean View and call for an end to evictions and foreclosures by banks, developers, and the police.

When the SF Commune moved into 200 Broad Street over a year ago on Easter Sunday the building was filled with needles, broken glass, and buckets of human feces. The group worked for weeks cleaning up the building, moving out all the hazardous materials and disposing of them properly, and turning the building into a livable home and organizing space. With freshly painted walls, cleaned floors, a rebuilt kitchen, working electricity and running water, the group started to put their attention to the neighborhood beyond themselves. Participating in and organizing free food programs, art projects, community gatherings, and social justice activism, the SF Commune found themselves with their need met and now able to address the needs of others.

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