Uphill Media May 24, 2019
Presidential candidate Mike Gravel and Nancy Pelosi Challenger, Shahid Buttar discuss the Pentagon Papers ordeal and how it relates to the current situation with Julian Assange and the Fourth Estate. https://www.mikegravel.org/https://shahidforchange.us/
Link to Progressive Primary?: http://occupysf.net/?s=progressive+primary
This notification centers on known actions around the Stopping the Raids, Border Camps / Detention Centers / Concentration Camps / No Cages
Reminder of RESIST Contingent in Sunday’s San Francisco’s PRIDE PARADE
ARTICLES:
Dems Cave on the Border – June 29, 2019
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/06/29/dems-cave-border
Activists rally across San Francisco against migrant camps at Southern border – June 27, 2019
Report Back on NoKidsIn Cages Demo – June 27, 2019
Upcoming Events
Saturday, June 29, – Friday, July 12
Saturday, June 29
1. Saturday, 2:00pm – 4:00pm, Stop ICE Raids! Stop Detentions! – Planning Meeting (For demo on July 5)
New Valencia Hall
747 Polk St.
SF
Wheelchair accessible
Last week, President Trump announced raids to deport thousands of immigrants from cities across the country, including San Francisco. Although last Sunday’s deportation sweeps were postponed, immigrants, their supporters, and working people in general need to demand an end to all ICE raids and detentions.
Join with other community members, advocates and activists to plan a July 5th demonstration to demand that the Federal Government stop the raids and close detention centers.
Sponsor: Freedom Socialist Party Bay Area
Info: https://www.facebook.com/events/2862256110512108/?active_tab=about orhttps://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/06/27/18824262.php
Monday, July 1
2. Monday, 9:30am – SF Playdate Protest to #CloseTheCamps
SF Federal Building
98 7th St.
SF
This is a playdate protest that centers our kids, calling on Congresswoman Pelosi to do everything in her power to unify her party to close the concentration camps where children, families and other immigrants are suffering and dying.
We’ll be reading stories, singing songs, playing and making movement art. We’ll also hear from families who’ve been directly impacted and make our voices heard all the way to Pelosi’s office.
Please bring your blankets, bubbles, signs and extra snacks. Come ready to sing and chant and help your kids participate in the activities.
9:30am – We will gather in the Federal Building courtyard behind the Bamboo Asia restaurant (along Mission St).
10am-11am – We will hold our playdate and if you can’t find us along Mission, we will likely be on the 7th Street side of the same courtyard of the Federal Building.
Resources for talking to your kids about immigration: https://docs.google.com/…/1skKBvHn535vNl_EeiW2iswFrwW…/edit…
We are a group of immigrants and community members who believe that immigrants are vital members of our community and who are horrified by the treatment of migrants at our southern border and in communities across our country. We believe immigrant families belong together and free. We are affiliated with many organizations including, but not limited to: La Colectiva de Mujeres, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, Hand in Hand, SURJ Youth and Families, Bay Reistance, Rice and Beans Coop, and the Bay Area Families Solidarity Network.
Info: https://www.facebook.com/events/383427522526490/
Tuesday, July 2
3. Tuesday, 12Noon, Emergency Rallies #CloseTheCamps (Called by Move-On)
Enter your zipcode to sign up for event near you: https://www.closethecampsnow.org/event/close-camps-now/search/
San Francisco Protest: Senator Feinstein’s Office
1 Post St. @ Market St.
SF
Thursday, July 4
4. Thursday, 10:00am – 11:30am, Standing on this land together: Indigenous, settlers & migrants
1900 4th St.
Berkeley
This July 4th, join members of the indigenous Ohlone, interfaith and immigrant community for prayer and ceremony on sacred Ohlone territory at the West Berkeley Shellmound site. This 4th of July, we honor the ancestors and 1st nations of the Bay area.
~ We reflect on what does it mean to be a guest on indigenous land?
~ How is the invisibility, displacement and harm towards indigenous peoples and immigrants connected?
~ How can we create new meaning together in celebration of our interdependence?
In a gesture of reparations and making amends for the continued occupation of indigenous land, non-indigenous peoples are invited to make a donation to support:
1) Shellmound Legal Defense Fund: https://shellmound.org/donate/
(2) Shuumi Land Tax: https://sogoreate-landtrust.com/shuumi-land-tax/
** If standing for 1.5 hours is uncomfortable, please bring a camping chair.
** After the Ceremony, for those who can stay, we will walk over to the water at the Berkeley Marina and have a picnic. Please bring something to share!
** Be mindful that the Berkeley Marina will be having their annual July 4th all day festival beginning at 12:00pm
Sponsors: Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity + 3 Other groups
Info: https://www.facebook.com/events/839915856407521/
Friday, July 5
5. Hold this date for demo sponsored by Freedom Socialist – Bay Area – Check Indybay this week
See item # 1
Friday, July 12
“Lights for Liberty”
6. Friday, 11:30am – 12:30am, Compassion Has No Walls: Mend the Past, Transform the Future
ICE
630 Sansome St.
SF
Join us in front of the ICE building for our monthly interfaith vigil! We will nourish our spirit and call for the dismantling of ALL forms of detention and incarceration. Let us turn our collective energy to mend the past, heal the present, and transform the future!
We resist the detention of immigrant children in concentration camps, like what was done in the past to Jewish communities, indigenous communities, and Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. We stand with members of the Japanese American community who are calling for the closing of all detention centers: “Never Again Is Now.”
This vigil is a part of the national “Lights for Liberty” campaign happening across the country demanding an end to detention: https://www.lightsforliberty.org/
Sponsor: Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity
Info: https://www.facebook.com/events/437933363708869/
7. Friday, 2:00pm – 5:00pm, STOP ICE
ICE
630 Sansome St.
SF
Responding to the call for a week of action against ICE from July 8th to 12th, we choose to rally outside their SF office.
WHAT DO WE WANT? The camps closed, the families reunited, and immigrants left alone!
Sponsor: RISE UP JULY 12Th
Info: https://www.facebook.com/events/349774258983604/
8. Friday, 7:00pm – 10:00pm, Lights for Liberty San Francisco
Powell Street Cable Car Turnaround
SF
Our Mission: FREEDOM.
Lights for Liberty: https://www.lightsforliberty.org/
We are a coalition of people, many of whom are mothers, dedicated to human rights, and the fundamental principle behind democracy that all human beings have a right to life, liberty and dignity.
We are partnering with national, regional and local communities and organizations who believe that these fundamental rights are not negotiable and are willing to protect them.
Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps, will bring thousands of Americans to detention camps across the country, into the streets and into their own front yards, to protest the inhumane conditions faced by refugees.
Info: https://www.facebook.com/events/2321405664768515/
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
RESIST Contingent at PRIDE PARADE
Sunday, June 30th San Francisco
Parade starts promptly at 10:30am and will go to Civic Center
Warning parts of Market St. will be closed starting at 6:30am – plan your trip via public transportation!
A large Resist! contingent will LEAD the parade on Sunday, following Dykes on Bikes.
Few other groups participating in the RESIST! Contingent (not all are listed) at the San Francisco PRIDE PARADE
9:30am – Support Medicare for All
Steuart St. Between Mission & Market St.
Contact Don B. at 415-810-5826 if you can help carry a banner for the parade or help with tabling
10:00am – Refuse Fascism
Steuart St. Between Mission & Market St.
Be there no later than 10am
Look for ‘Handmaids’ and large photos of the children that have died at the US Border camps.
(Not to late to be a handmaid – we will have a few costumes available – contact: afong@jps.net )
Join RefuseFascism.org in the San Francisco #RESIST! Contingent.
50 Years After Stonewall: We Will Not Go Back! We Will Not Accept a Fascist America! In the name of Humanity, Trump and Pence Must Go!
9:30am by 10:00am – Bay Area Action Committee to Free Julian Assange
Steuart St. Between Mission & Market St.
Look for banner below message below
Related signage welcomed.
A group of us has formed to carry signs and a banner in support of Chelsea Manning, currently in prison for refusing to testify to a grand jury, and Julian Assange, currently fighting extradition to the US from an English jail. We’ve organized for Chelsea for several years now.
Consider tape or a handkerchief over your mouth to symbolize the gagging of free speech
Please join us See banner below!
10:00am, Freedom Socialist Party
Gather at Steuart St & Don Chee Way (nr. the bocce ball courts along Embarcadero
FSP will march with the Resistance Contingent
Contact for details: 415-864-1278 · bafsp@earthlink.net
Banner in Support of Chelsea Manning & Julian Assange
June 28, 2019 by Common Dreams
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks as South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) look on during the second night of the first Democratic presidential debate on June 27, 2019 in Miami, Florida. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
In a fiery closing speech at the 2020 Democratic presidential debate in Miami, Florida Thursday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders said compelling campaign rhetoric and detailed policy proposals will do nothing to alter America’s deeply unequal status quo if U.S. leaders are not willing to take on Wall Street, the fossil fuel industry, and other powerful corporate forces standing in the way of progressive change.
“Nothing will change unless we have the guts to take on Wall Street, the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the military-industrial complex, and the fossil fuel industry.”
—Sen. Bernie Sanders
“I suspect people all over the country who are watching this debate are saying, these are good people, they have great ideas,” said Sanders. “But how come nothing really changes? How come for the last 45 years wages have been stagnant for the middle class? How come we have the highest rate of childhood poverty? How come 45 million people still have student debt? How come three people own more wealth than the bottom half of America?”
The answer, Sanders said, is that “nothing will change unless we have the guts to take on Wall Street, the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the military-industrial complex, and the fossil fuel industry.”
“If we don’t have the guts to take them on, we’ll continue to have plans, we’ll continue to have talk, and the rich will get richer, and everybody else will be struggling,” the Vermont senator concluded.
Sanders’s closing speech was widely viewed as his strongest moment of the night, and progressives celebrated the senator’s willingness to name the corporate forces invested in upholding a system that has enriched a small slice of the population while leaving most of the public with soaring healthcare costs, stagnant incomes, and a polluted environment.
“Bernie Sanders is right,” tweeted the youth-led Sunrise Movement, which continued its sit-in outside DNC headquarters Thursday night. “Our generation is looking for a president who has the ‘guts to take on the fossil fuel industry.’ We won’t settle for less.”
Waleed Shahid, communications director for progressive advocacy group Justice Democrats, said the core of Sanders’s argument is that “we live in a deeply hierarchical society made up of a powerful few on top who do not want to give up their power.”
“He’s right that only power and a movement of millions coming together can upend our corrupt and rigged system,” Shahid tweeted.Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
The Young Turks Published on Jun 26, 2019
Shahid Buttar is running against Nancy Pelosi! Cenk Uygur and Shahid Buttar, hosts of The Conversation, break it down. MORE TYT: https://tyt.com/trial Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Shahid Buttar Cast: Cenk Uygur, Shahid Buttar *** The Largest Online News Show in the World. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE STREAMING weekdays 6-8pm ET. http://tyt.com/live
Link to Progressive Primary?: http://occupysf.net/?s=progressive+primary
June 27, 2019 by Common Dreams
by Ralph Nader
US President Donald Trump shows one of the executive orders he signed in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on January 24, 2017. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders January 24, 2017 reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation. Trump gave an amber light to the Keystone XL pipeline — which would carry crude from Canada to US refineries on the Gulf Coast — and an equally controversial pipeline crossing in North Dakota. (Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)
Donald J. Trump’s 2020 election strategy is to connect his potential Democratic opponents with “socialism.” Trump plans to use this attack on the Democrats even if Senator Bernie Sanders, who proudly calls himself a “democratic socialist,” doesn’t become the presidential nominee (Sanders has been decisively re-elected in Vermont).
Senator Elizabeth Warren is distancing herself from the socialist “label.” She went so far as to tell the New England Council “I am a capitalist to my bones.”
Sanders and Warren are not what they claim to be. They are both updating Roosevelt’s New Deal and more closely resemble the Social Democrats that have governed western European democracies for years, delivering higher standards of living than that experienced by Americans.
“The gigantic corporations have been built with the thralldom of deep debt—corporate debt to fund stock buybacks (while reporting record profits), consumer debt, student loan debt, and, of course, government debt caused by drastic corporate and super-rich tax cuts. Many trillions of dollars have been stolen from future generations.”
The original doctrine of socialism meant government ownership of the means of production—heavy industries, railroads, banks, and the like. Nobody in national politics today is suggesting such a takeover. As one quipster put it, “How can Washington take ownership of the banks when the banks own Washington?”
Confronting Trump on the “socialism” taboo can open up a great debate about the value of government intervention for the good of the public. Sanders can effectively argue that people must choose either democratic socialism or the current failing system of corporate socialism. That choice is not difficult. Such an American democratic socialism could provide almost all of the long overdue solutions this country needs: full more efficient Medicare for all; tuition-free education; living wages; stronger unions; a tax system that works for the people; investments in infrastructure and public works; reforms for a massive, runaway military budget; the end of most corporate welfare; government promotion of renewable energies; and the end of subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear power.
In my presidential campaigns I tried to make corporate socialism—also called corporate welfare or crony capitalism—a major issue. Small business is capitalism—free to go bankrupt—while corporate capitalism—free to get bailouts from Washington —is really a form of corporate socialism. This point about a corporate government was documented many years ago in books such as America, Inc. (1971) by Morton Mintz and Jerry Cohen.
Now, it is even easier to make the case that our political economy is largely controlled by giant corporations and their political toadies. Today the concentration of power and wealth is staggering. Just six capitalist men have wealth to equal the wealth of half of the world’s population.
The Wall Street collapse of 2008-2009 destroyed eight million jobs, lost trillions of dollars in pension and mutual funds, and pushed millions of families to lose their homes. Against this backdrop, the U.S. government used trillions of taxpayer dollars to bail out, in various ways, the greedy, financial giants, whose reckless speculating caused the collapse.
In May 2009, the moderate Senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, said: “The banks—hard to believe when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created—are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”
Is there a single federal government agency or department that can say its most powerful outside influence is NOT corporate? Even the Labor Department and the National Labor Relations Board are under more corporate power than union power.
Who better than Trump, on an anti-socialist fantasy campaign kick, can call attention to the reality that Big Business controls the government and by extension controls the people? In September 2000, a Business Week poll found over 70 percent of people agreeing that big business has too much control over their lives (this was before the horrific corporate crimes and scandals of the past two decades). Maybe that is why support in polls for “socialism” against “capitalism” in the U.S. is at a 60 year high.
People have long experienced American-style “socialism.” For example, the publicly owned water and electric utilities, public parks and forests, the Postal Service, public libraries, FDIC guarantees of bank deposits (now up to $250,000), Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, etc.
What the public is not sufficiently alert to is that Big Business has been profitably taking over control, if not outright ownership, of these public assets.
In the new book, Banking on the People, by Ellen Brown, readers can get an idea of the way large banks, insurers, and the giant shadow banking system—money market funds, hedge funds, mortgage brokers, and other unregulated financial intermediaries—speculate and shift deep risk and their failures onto Uncle Sam. These corporate predators gouge customers, and, remarkably, show a deep aversion for productive investment as if people matter.
Moreover, they just keep developing new, ever riskier, multi-tiered instruments (eg. derivatives) to make money from money through evermore complex, abstract, secret, reckless, entangled, globally destabilizing, networks. Gambling with other people’s money is a relentless Wall Street tradition.
The crashes that inevitably emerge end up impoverishing ordinary people who pay the price with their livelihoods.
Will the Democrats and other engaged people take Trump on if he tries to make “socialism” the big scare in 2020? Control of our political economy is not a conservative/liberal or red state/blue state issue. When confronted with the specifics of the corporate state or corporate socialism, people from all political persuasions will recognize the potential perils to our democracy. No one wants to lose essential freedoms or to continue to pay the price of this runaway crony capitalism.
The gigantic corporations have been built with the thralldom of deep debt—corporate debt to fund stock buybacks (while reporting record profits), consumer debt, student loan debt, and, of course, government debt caused by drastic corporate and super-rich tax cuts. Many trillions of dollars have been stolen from future generations.
No wonder a small group of billionaires, including George Soros, Eli Broad, and Nick Hanauer, have just publicly urged a modest tax on the super wealthy. As Hanauer, a history buff and advocate of higher minimum wages, says – “the pitchforks are coming.”Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His latest books include: To the Ramparts: How Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency, and Why It Isn’t Too Late to Reverse Course, How the Rats Re-Formed the Congress, Breaking Through Power: It’s easier than we think, and Animal Envy: A Fable
12 JUN | Norweigian Parliament
Six rebels were arrested for interrupting a parliamentary session in Oslo with a protest speech demanding that the government declare a climate emergency (video here). The rebels were held for 12 hours and reportedly given the biggest fines in XR history: 118.000 NOK (10,886 GBP). We salute you, brave Norweigian rebels.
13 and 17 JUN | Government offices, Oslo, Norway
XR Norway rebels blocked the entrance to the PM’s office on 13 June to protest the government’s plans to continue extracting oil from 25 countries until 2070. The rebels appealed to our duty to future generations; many read statements on behalf of the young and unborn, including the father of Herik, eighteen months, who had his son in his arms as he spoke.
Just a few days later, rebels blocked the entrance to its Ministry for Climate and Environment, in condemnation of the Norwegian government’s inaction on climate targets. Despite being part of multiple international climate agreements, they continue to push compliance dates into the future. They have recently invested in a massive road building programme and approved a record number of new licenses for oil exploration. They are one of the few countries in Europe with higher emissions in 2016 than in 1990. In addition, they own one of the world’s largest oil companies. Here’s hoping the rebels’ voices were heard.
6 JUN | Bundesplatz, Bern, Switzerland
Photo by Patrick Frauchiger. Find more of his stunning photos from the event.
On 6 June, the Swiss parliament decided how much money it would invest in the European climate budget. With fake blood and a non-violent die-in, rebels called on ministers to act now to prevent the sixth mass extinction of life on earth.
26 JUN | Gas refinery, Haifa
Photo by Michael
21 JUN | State Library, Melbourne
22 JUN | Die in at Forest Chase, Melbourne
Photo by Tobias Busch
21 JUN | Brisbane
Hundreds of rebels marched across Victoria Bridge, stopping rush hour traffic and glueing themselves to the road. Frank, pictured, along with six other Rebels were arrested but only two were charged.
24 JUN | Sydney
Rebels joined hands and had five minutes of silence before singing as they marched through Martin Place.
Tomorrow – Thursday, June 27th
#NoKidsIn Cages
Rally & Press Conference
Thursday, June 27
12Noon – 1:00pm
9th Circuit Federal Courthouse
95 7th Street at Mission
(across the street from Federal Building)
San Francisco
Info: https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/06/25/18824231.php
This Thursday, June 27, starting at 12 noon, we are holding a press conference outside the 9th Circuit Court to denounce the Trump Administration denying migrant children soap and sleep in U.S. detainment centers including concentration camps.
The names of the children who died in American custody will be read aloud and written in chalk on the sidewalk. This is the court determining if the cruel and inhumane Trump policies are constitutional.
We will assemble two wire cages to symbolize the plight of infants and children separated from their families. Inside the cage will be dolls representing the detained toddlers and aluminum foil serving as blankets
Our message is #NoKidsinCages
Indybay posting by Michael Petrilis
Article:
The father and daughter who drowned at the border dove into the river in desperation – June 26, 2019
F/U – Tuesday, 6/25, Richmond City Council voted 5 – 2 to NOT renew their contract with Vigilant Solutions!
Vigilant Solutions is in contract with ICE to provide access to billions of license plate reader scans to help immigration enforcement hunt and track undocumented people and their families, friends and associates. ACLU has documented 9,000 ICE agents with access to Vigilant’s LEARN database and 30,000 searches a month.
June 24, 2019 (theonion.com)
WASHINGTON—Amid escalating tensions with the hostile celestial object, National Security Adviser John Bolton argued for military action against the Sun Monday after being presented with evidence it has nuclear capabilities. “Newly collected intelligence shows the Sun, day after day, generating extreme levels of nuclear energy, and America simply cannot stand idly by any longer,” said Bolton, adding that the United States will soon be forced to consider a preemptive attack on the Sun, such as deploying troops to the Sun’s surface or a targeted strike to swiftly take out the Sun. “We know the Sun is harboring dangerous amounts of nuclear power in what we are referring to as its ‘Core,’ a site where the Sun appears to be fusing over 600 million metric tons of hydrogen every second. This is, needless to say, an extremely powerful, aggressive star that threatens the American way of life, and, frankly, I question the utility of negotiating with such an unreasonable orb.” Bolton added that the United States would likely consider military action after giving the Sun a chance to comply with a nuclear accord.
