REGISTER FOR THE

PEOPLE’S CONFERENCE FOR PALESTINE

August 29-31, 2025

12PM Friday – 9PM Sunday

Join us as organizations, movement leaders, community members, students and intellectuals, artists and cultural workers, and activists for a three-day convening to reflect, discuss, and strengthen ourselves and our fight for a free Palestine. The People’s Conference for Palestine will feature plenaries, workshops, art and cultural exhibits, and performances.

This year, we will have a new track for children for the entirety of the conference. There will be special programming for children for ages 6-12, where will provide age-appropriate activities to engage kids’ Palestinian national identity through arts and crafts. We will also have babysitting/adult supervision for children aged 4-5. This conference is a place for all ages and all backgrounds – it’s a place for everyone!

This registration covers attendance at the conference only. Participants must arrange travel and accommodation. No refunds will be provided, if you are no longer able to attend the conference, your registration fee will go towards supporting others’ tickets.

Register Today

If you cannot afford the registration fee, please fill out this form to request accommodation.

Accommodations Request Form

The Democrats Aug 22, 2025We are the Democratic Party, and we’re fighting for a brighter, more equal future. Get involved with the Democrats by texting ‘FIGHT’ to 43367 or going to https://www.democrats.org!

(Contributed by Gwyllm Llwydd)

New York City mayoral election candidate Zohran Mamdani attends a campaign rally, on June 21, 2025, in the borough of Queens, New York City.

 (Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)

“Trump himself, as well as top Republicans, will say the goal is to stop Mamdani… and you’ll be wasting your vote on Sliwa. So I feel good about that,” Cuomo said in a leaked recording.

BRAD REED

Aug 19, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday pounced on a report about top rival, disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, saying that he expects US President Donald Trump will help him win in the coming general election.

Politico obtained a leaked audio recording of Cuomo speaking at a fundraiser in the Hamptons over the weekend in which he expressed confidence that Trump and other Republicans would send signals to their voters that they should back him instead of Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.

“Trump himself, as well as top Republicans, will say the goal is to stop Mamdani… and you’ll be wasting your vote on Sliwa,” Cuomo said, according to Politico. “So I feel good about that.”

During the fundraiser, Cuomo also suggested that he would have a better relationship with the president than Mamdani, and that there would be opportunities for the two of them to work together.

“Let’s put it this way: I knew the president very well,” Cuomo said. “I believe there’s a big piece of him that actually wants redemption in New York. He feels that he was rejected by New York. We voted for Hillary Clinton. Bill de Blasio took his name off things. So I believe there will be opportunities to actually cooperate with him. I also believe that he’s not going to want to fight with me in New York if he can avoid it.”

Shortly after Politico’s report was published, Mamdani fired off social media posts condemning his rival for welcoming the help of a president whose far-right, anti-immigrant, anti-free speech agenda has threatened the city he wants to lead.

“At (another) Hamptons fundraiser with Republican donors on Saturday, Andrew Cuomo said it plainly: He’s expecting Trump’s help to defeat us in November,” wrote Mamdani. “‘I feel good about that,’ Cuomo said. New Yorkers won’t.”

Mamdani then pointed to an earlier report from The New York Times that detailed a call that Cuomo had with Trump about the mayoral race.

“Now we’re seeing the results of that collaboration,” Mamdani remarked. “But as we showed in the primary, our hustle can defeat their money. Let’s get organized and win even bigger. Eleven more weeks.”

A spokesman for Cuomo insisted that the former New York governor wasn’t seeking Trump’s assistance in the race despite openly discussing it at a private fundraiser.

“We’re not asking for or expecting help from anyone,” he told Politico. “Governor Cuomo is the only chance to beat Mamdani and ensure the greatest city in the world stays the greatest city in the world.”

Mamdani is centering the city’s affordability crisis in his campaign and has pledged to implement fare-free buses, universal free childcare, a network of city-run grocery stores, and a rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments. Cuomo and other centrist Democrats have sought to portray Mamdani as “unrealistic” and have attacked his support for Palestinian rights—but the attacks have been unsuccessful thus far, with the state assembly member winning the Democratic primary in June by a significant margin.

Polling from the general election has shown Mamdani with a hefty lead over his rivals in a four-way race that includes Cuomo, Sliwa, and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams. However, the same polling also shows that advantage narrows significantly should Sliwa and Adams exit the race.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

BRAD REED

Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio >

MAY DAY STRONG

JOIN US

labor day 2025

workers

over

billionaires

HOST AN EVENT

FIND AN EVENT

Labor and community are planning more than a barbecue on Labor Day this year because we have to stop the billionaire takeover. Billionaires are stealing from working families, destroying our democracy, and building private armies to attack our towns and cities.

Just like any bad boss, the way we stop the takeover is with collective action. We are May Day Strong, working people rising up to stop the billionaire takeover–not just through the ballot box or the courts, but through building a bigger and stronger movement.

On September 1st we will continue the movement we launched on May 1st. Thousands of communities across the country are taking a stand on Labor Day, join us!

DOWNLOAD HOST TOOLKIT

LABOR DAY EVENTS

SEARCH EVENTS

https://workerslaborday.org/mobilize-map-embed/?utm_source=maydaystrong&wmode=opaque

Map powered by the afl cio

A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy

Jane F. McAlevey

From longtime labor organizer Jane McAlevey, a vital call-to-arms in favor of unions, a key force capable of defending our democracy

For decades, racism, corporate greed, and a skewed political system have been eating away at the social and political fabric of the United States. Yet as McAlevey reminds us, there is one weapon whose effectiveness has been proven repeatedly throughout U.S. history: unions.

In A Collective Bargain, longtime labor organizer, environmental activist, and political campaigner Jane McAlevey makes the case that unions are a key institution capable of taking effective action against today’s super-rich corporate class. Since the 1930s, when unions flourished under New Deal protections, corporations have waged a stealthy and ruthless war against the labor movement. And they’ve been winning.

Until today. Because, as McAlevey shows, unions are making a comeback. Want to reverse the nation’s mounting wealth gap? Put an end to sexual harassment in the workplace? End racial disparities on the job? Negotiate climate justice? Bring back unions.

As McAlevey travels from Pennsylvania hospitals, where nurses are building a new kind of patient-centered unionism, to Silicon Valley, where tech workers have turned to old-fashioned collective action, to the battle being waged by America’s teachers, readers have a ringside seat at the struggles that will shape our country—and our future.

---

About the author

Jane F. McAlevey

Jane F. McAlevey is a union and community organizer, educator, author, and scholar. She’s fourth generation union, raised in an activist-union household. She spent the first half of her organizing life working in the community organizing and environmental justice movements and the second half in the union movement.

She has led power structure analyses and strategic planning trainings for a wide range of union and community organizations and has had extensive involvement in globalization and global environmental issues.

She is currently a Senior Policy Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley’s Labor Center, part of the Institute for Labor & Employment Relations.

(Goodreads.com)

Many have warned that allowing D.C. to remain a disenfranchised colony would lead to disaster. They were right.

BY RYAN COOPER 

AUGUST 22, 2025 (Prospect.org)

BRYAN OLIN DOZIER/NURPHOTO VIA AP

National Guard troops patrol outside of Union Station in Washington, August 20, 2025.

President Trump’s military occupation of Washington, D.C., is based on outrageous lies. It is also already causing chaos, with one District vehicle already totaled when it was T-boned by an MRAP truck. (The driver was not seriously injured, thankfully.) The fact that huge mine-resistant vehicles are being driven aimlessly around a city that is notably not littered with IEDs tends to indicate that their presence is meant for intimidation, as the same kind of vehicle was used during South African apartheid.

I suspect this is a trial run for a classic coup d’état, where the military seizes control of the legislature and other important buildings, and declares Trump dictator-for-life. Whether that would work is an open question. But it is clear that a handful of moderate Senate Democrats, by refusing to end the filibuster and grant statehood to D.C., paved the road down which Trump is now driving armored vehicles.

More from Ryan Cooper

For many years now, I have been one among many arguing that D.C. should become a state. The arguments are obvious: As the District’s license plates sarcastically point out (“Taxation Without Representation,” they note), there are about 700,000 American citizens living there who have no representation in Congress. That is an outrageous violation of the principles that underlay the founding of this country. American citizens should have representation in their own government. (The same is true of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.)

D.C. statehood would also reduce the partisan bias of the Senate. On its face, the Senate is a ludicrously unfair institution that grants unjustifiable overrepresentation to randomly depopulated states—Wyoming residents count about 70 times as much as Californians—but for much of American history that was counterbalanced by small states not having a reliable partisan bias. That is no longer true: The median Senate seat is slanted about three points to the GOP, and for much of recent history Republicans have controlled the chamber despite losing the majority of votes for senators. Two more reliable Democratic senators would reduce that structural unfairness.

There is a more practical factor, however, that is arguably most important of all. States possess wide powers over their own budgets and laws, and enjoy certain restrictions on presidential powers to federalize their National Guard troops. Federalizing police is not allowed at all.

As a colony, by contrast, D.C. is directly at the mercy of Congress, as I personally experienced in 2014 when Republicans overruled my vote (and that of my fellow D.C. residents) to legalize recreational marijuana. D.C. control over its own affairs is formally outlined by the Home Rule Act of 1973, which give the president direct control over the D.C. National Guard, allows him to federalize the local police for up to 30 days on his own word (and indefinitely if Congress votes to allow it), along with numerous other petty restrictions. Even that control is not enough for Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), who have proposed a new law granting Trump even more sweeping powers.

Back in 2019 and again in 2021, House Democrats did pass a sweeping voting rights reform, the For the People Act, which included a ban on gerrymandering and D.C. statehood. Republicans obviously filibustered it, and in the latter case when Dems controlled the Senate, then-Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) refused to consider filibuster reform, so it died.

I won’t rehash the arguments about the stinking, rotten filibuster—an “institution” based on a clerical error, used to block civil rights bills for most of American history, which has caused grave damage to both houses of Congress, and in its current form dates back to about 2007—in too much detail. Suffice to say that moderate Democrats’ pigheaded refusal to end this fake tradition is a big reason why we are in this mess.

If Democrats had axed the filibuster—which could be accomplished with a majority vote in the Senate at any time—and passed the For the People Act in 2021, Trump would now find it considerably more difficult to impose a military occupation on the nation’s capital, and Republican states would face an obstacle to cheating elections by rigging district boundaries. Democrats also would have had 52 votes in 2021-2022 rather than 50, and President Biden’s Build Back Better Act likely would have passed instead of dying in the Senate. Had Biden’s massive expansion of the Child Tax Credit passed, Trump might not have won in 2024.

All that is water under the bridge. But it is an important lesson about the stakes for any future Democratic Congress and president. If they do manage to stop Trump’s attempt to consolidate a dictatorship, America’s political institutions will need a major overhaul. Manchin and Sinema are both gone, but their brand of “moderation”—some mixture of triangulating cynicism, corruption, and cowardice—is not. Supporting D.C. statehood is the bare minimum for any Democrat seeking a Senate seat.

RYAN COOPER

Ryan Cooper is a senior editor at the Prospect, and author of ‘How Are You Going to Pay for That?: Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics.’ He was previously a national correspondent for The Week.

By Adrienne Fong

Am not back posting on a regular basis.

Things are changing rapidly, faster than what is posted. RESISTANCE matters!!!

RESOURCES:

STAY UPDATED WITH BAY RESISTANCE and get plugged to actions you can support, text “Resist” to 888-850-0928

GI HOTLINE (877) 477-4497

  – Share this number to people who know active duty service members

See list of Calendar of Events on Palestine from AROC: https://www.araborganizing.org/events/ 

  If your post is about Palestine you can also list your action on the AROC calendar

There are events listed on Indybay that might be of interest to you(many listings in the South, North & East Bays and beyond the bay area)

Please post your actions on Indybay: https://www.indybay.org/calendar/?page_id=12

Bay Area Progressive Action Calendar

ATW Bay Area / NorCal — Action Together West

ARTICLES

A. ICE protester charged with federal misdemeanors in S.F– August 21, 2025

ICE protester charged with federal misdemeanors in S.F.

B. ICE pepper sprays protesters and press at S.F. immigration court – August 20, 2025

ICE pepper sprays protesters and press at S.F. immigration court 

  See Events # 1 & 13

C. Teen Immigrant’s Release Propels Lawsuit to End ICE’S Courthouse Arrests – August 19, 2025

Teen Immigrant’s Release Propels Lawsuit to End ICE’s Courthouse Arrests – The Intercept

D. Navy Plans Blowing Up Radioactive Buildings in SF Hunters Point – August 19, 2025

Blowing Up Radioactive Buildings in SF Hunters Point Contaminating the Community & Workers : Indybay 

E. UN rapporteur: Hamas is an elected political force, not a band of murderers – August 18, 2025

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250818-un-rapporteur-hamas-is-an-elected-political-force-not-a-band-of-murderers/

F. Netanyahu is on a mission to seize the Middle East. Will anyone stop him? – August 18, 2025

Netanyahu is on a mission to seize the Middle East. Will anyone stop him? | Middle East Eye 

G. Hamas is a Political Movement Not a Band of Murderers, Says  UN Albanese – August 17, 2025

Facebook

H. Mayor Lurie takes credit for immigrant legal aid he had little to do with – August 15, 2025

Mayor Lurie takes credit for immigrant legal aid he had minor role in

I. The Fall of the Israel Lobby Has Begun — And This Is Just the Start | Denzel Washington speech – 3 weeks ago

The Fall of the Israel Lobby Has Begun — And This Is Just the Start | Denzel Washington speech

PETITIONS

1. Trump is Withholding School Funding to Pay for Billionaire Tax Breaks

  SIGN: Trump is Withholding School Funding to Pay for Billionaire Tax Breaks

2. Save the Social Security Administration!

  SIGN: Take Action!

3. Keep PragerU away from public education!

  SIGN: Keep PragerU away from public education! | Demand Progress

EVENTS / ACTIONS

Friday, August 22 – Tuesday, August 26

Friday, August 22

1. Friday, 8:15am – 4:15pm, ICE out of San Francisco courts!

SF ICE Court
100 Montgomery St.
SF 

1 block from Montgomery BART

Join neighbors, activists, grassroots organizations in resisting ICE abductions happening at immigration court hearings!

We meet every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday outside of one of the SF immigration court buildings to:

• deter ICE from taking people
• accompany people to their court proceedings (if/as requested)
• walk people to their transportation home (if/as requested), to reduce their chances of being abducted in transit
• encourage oncoming traffic to honk in support 🙂
• share art, literature, and snacks
•  

Court is in session from 8am – 4pm. Including cleanup & last call for accompaniment home, we’re outside from 8am to 4:30pm / 4:45pm.

Serious violence against protestors has occurred, but most days thus far have passed without incident.

Everyone is welcome and every one is vital, even if you can only participate for a little bit.

Info: ICE out of San Francisco courts! : Indybay 

2. Friday, 9:00am, ALERT – Golden Gate 26: Show Up for the Golden Gate 26 — Rally and Public Comment! (NEW)

In person:

Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center
SF

Coffee/pastries provided

9:00am – Rally

10:00am – Golden Gate Bridge District Meeting

Pack the Public Comment!

Submit public comment during the Bridge District’s Board meeting at 10am in person. You can submit public comment via phone on the 22nd or via email by 5pm on Aug 21st . More details shared below, and talking points are in the link in our bio!

Call-in info: Call (415) 569-6446 at 9:45am to be let into the 10am meeting

Logistics and Sample Script are outlined in the Public Comment Toolkit:
– https://bit.ly/GG26toolkit

Coming from the East Bay? Coordinate rides here:
– Rideshare Spreadsheet: https://bit.ly/PublicCommentRideshare

– If you can make public comment on 8/22, it would be ideal if you could also email your statement by 5 PM the day before (Thursday, 8/21) to districtsecretary@goldengate.org . This will ensure that they will see your message even if public comment is cut short or canceled.✨

The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District and DA Brooke Jenkins are using a $163K restitution claim to bolster a politically charged prosecution against the Golden Gate 26. They want to dissuade our community members from taking action against genocide, and we won’t let them!

The prosecution of the GG26 is occurring within the context of escalating repression, from the revocation of student visas to the detention and deportation of individuals speaking out for Palestine. This restitution claim isn’t about toll fees-it’s about using institutional power to silence dissent and punish those who fight for collective liberation. The Bridge District now has a choice: to uphold its responsibility to the public, or to align with a conservative prosecution aimed at silencing their constituents.

Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/DNmZQqrJgop/ 

3. Friday, 10:00am – 12:30pm, NOISE AGAINST GENOCIDE (NEW)

Israeli Consulate

456 Montgomery St.
SF

Israel is about to complete their final genocidal solution with a massive ground invasion after horrific months of bombing, murder, starving civilians, blocking food, water, and aid. 

F@ck these psychopathic monsters. Refuse to stay silent.

Bring noisemakers:
megaphones, pots and pans, drums, whistles, and your loudest voices.
Wear your keffiyehs, wave your Palestinian flags, and show up in solidarity with Gaza.

This ongoing effort is being organized by an autonomous group of activists  

Please Join This Weekly Collective Action of Rage Against Genocide 

4. Friday, 11:00am, Thiel Takedown – People Over Billionaires

RSVP & info: https://actionnetwork.org/events/thiel-takedown-action-at-founders-fund

Founders Fund (One of Peter Thiel’s primary venture  capital vehicles and a key early investor in Palantir.

Lyon & Lombard St.
SF

MUNI # 43

Peter Thiel is the co-founder and chairman of Palantir – the company that’s:

·       Enabling ICE to locate and kidnap immigrants

·       Helping the Israeli military automate its “Kill Chain” in Gaza

·       Building a mega-database for Trump containing your private personal information

A long-standing backer of authoritarian ideas, he was an early donor also to the political careers of Donald Trump and JD Vance. Now, between Palantir’s massive government contracts and Trump’s assaults on democracy, he’s getting a handsome return on his investment.

Through vehicles like Founders Fund and companies like Palantir, Thiel aims to make his dystopian business plans a reality

Info: Facebook 

5. Friday, 4:30pm – 6:30pm, Stop AI Protest at OpenAI

Open AI Offices
1455 3^rd St
SF

Help us say, “Close OpenAI!” OpenAI is the company leading the race to smarter-than-human AI, also known as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), i.e., an AI that is smarter than all human experts across all technical domains. Although libertarians have long espoused that technology always generally benefits workers, AGI would leave humans out of the loop in every major industry, and, ultimately, have no need for humans to repair or improve itself. AGI would mean mass unemployment, and a massive transfer of wealth to the 1%.

AI developers like OpenAI have stolen copyrighted works from creatives without their consent, and actively refuse to share royalties with any of them. It is ludicrous to think they’ll start sharing wealth with anyone who they’ve caused to be unemployable. If the rich no longer need human workers or human soldiers, and everyone but them is homeless, what will stop the rich from throwing out the trash? It is the job of the people to reserve their right to strike, and protest the corporations that are trying to lead us to this catastrophe.

Furthermore, OpenAI continues to work with military defense contractor Andurill to develop increasingly advanced AI weapons for the United States and Israel. There is no world where putting extremely smart AIs in military weapons is a good idea.
https://www.wired.com/story/openai-anduril-defense/

2,700 cited AI researchers said in a poll that there is a 19% chance of AGI causing human extinction, and Geoffrey Hinton, who won the Nobel Prize for his work in AI in 2024, says there is a 50% chance of AGI causing human extinction. Some experts, like Dr. Roman Yampolskiy, say the risk of extinction is 99.99%. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, when asked about the worst case for AGI, said it could be, “lights out for all of us,” and later said AGI will arrive in 2025. It is impossible to have experimental evidence that the behavior of an AGI will stay safe indefinitely and that AGI will never want something that will lead to our extinction similar to how we often caused the extinction of many less intelligent species.

We demand that workers, within their respective industry, are given the right to vote on what level of AI they are ok with, to stop themselves from becoming increasingly unemployable. We demand an end to the integration of AI into militaries worldwide. We demand that the US government shut down OpenAI, close any other company building AGI, and permanently ban the development of AGI.

Info: Stop AI Protest at OpenAI : Indybay 

6. Friday, 5:00pm, Vigil for GAZA (NEW)

Cortland & Andover
SF

Stand with your neighbors!!

Host: Bernal Bay Resistance

7. Friday, 5:30pm, Make Noise for Gaza (NEW)

Grand Lake Theater (in front)

Oakland

Make some noise for Gaza! Please join us at 5:30 at the Grand Lake Theater for a kid-friendly action. Bring pots, pans, signs, snacks, and chalk! We can march around the intersection with the lights

Every Friday!

Info: Facebook

Saturday, August 23

8. Saturday, 11:00am – 12Noon, Protest Up Zoning

SF City Hall
Plaza side (Civic Center)
SF 

Find out what actions you can take to stop the demolition of our cities.

Mary Lurie’s harmful upzoning has residents outraged – and now Senator Wiener is pushing even more height and density with zero affordability!

Speakers:

Aaron Peskin – former President Board of Supervisors

Lori Brooke – Neighborhoods United SF

Stephen Torres – Neighborhood Activist

Christin Evans – Small Business Forward

Peter Stevens – Affordable Housing Developer

Among others

In San Francisco, opponents warn SB 79 could open the door to 7- to 15- story towers across 95% of the city, permanently reshaping neighborhoods with no guarantees of affordability, safety, or infrastructure.

SB 79 ignores San Francisco’s earthquake vulnerability, narrow streets, and aging infrastructure. Without necessary upgrades, density increases pose serious safety hazards.

SB 79 allows developers to build large-scale, high-density projects based solely on proximity to transit stops—even proposed, not-yet-built ones. It has already passed the State Senate and now faces a vote in the Assembly.

San Francisco is Not Exempt

To secure votes, Senator Wiener is dangling a so-called “conditional exemption” for cities with housing elements as extreme as SB 79. For San Francisco, this is not relief — it is a trap.

The north and west sides already face Mayor Lurie’s aggressive upzoning maps, which satisfy Wiener for now. Meanwhile, residents of the Mission, Bernal Heights, Potrero, and other eastern neighborhoods were promised relief from further upzoning after years of major changes. Historic neighborhoods like Chinatown and North Beach are in the path of 79 too.

SB 79 breaks that promise subjecting these communities to further upzoning that drive demolitions, displacement, the loss of small businesses, and make neighborhoods even less affordable.

Residents call this a betrayal of public trust — broken promises that divide the city while handing Senator Wiener, and his YIMBY lobbyist, exactly what they want.
https://www.livablecalifornia.org/

Info: Protest Up-Zoning | Facebook  or Protest Up-Zoning : Indybay

9. Saturday, 12Noon – 2:00pm, San Francisco: Tesla Takedown!

SF Tesla Dealership
999 Van Ness (corner of O’Farrell)
SF

Tesla Takedown continues!
This is a peaceful protest.

Info: San Francisco: Tesla Takedown! : Indybay 

Sunday, August 24

10. Sunday, 12Noon – 1:30pm, Public Discussion- Fight the Cuts: Disability Justice Now!

New Valencia Hall
747 Polk St. (nr. Ellis)
SF

Also on Zoom — Register at https://bit.ly/DisabilityJusticeNow

Wheelchair accessible

seven blocks from Civic Center BART & on or near Muni bus lines #5, 19, 31, 38 & 49

Lunch and socializing afterwards
Door donation $3-5 Lunch donation $10-15
Fundraiser for the Freedom Socialist newspaper

– Restore & expand healthcare and benefits
– Why an inclusive movement is key
– The key leadership of people with disabilities
– Build for a general strike

Speakers:
Brittanie Hernandez-Wilson — Disability Justice activist and community organizer
Sam Rubin — Disabled socialist feminist and former Special Education teacher

Host: Freedom Socialist Party

Info: Public Discussion — Fight the Cuts: Disability Justice NOW! : Indybay 

11. Sunday, 3:00pm, Defend Workers

UNITE HERE – Local 2 Hall

209 Golden Gate Ave.
SF

Brought to you by Bay Area Labor for Palestine, hear from a panel of six working class activists from across social movements on the repression and attacks being faced by working people today under the Trump administration. Speakers will discuss the Palestine solidarity movement, immigrant rights movement, and the movement to defend ethnic studies. Panelists will share stories of workers organizing against the attacks and the connections we can draw across sectors to build a fight back to the attacks on our civil rights.

Panelist:

Sang Kil, Professor at San Jose State Univerisity

Mike, AFGE – defending federal workers

Roslta, CNA defending the right to protest

Sergio, UESF, Defending ethnic studies

Floricil and Papeles Para Todos, defending immigrant workers

For more information: https://www.instagram.com/p/DNJ1DLhhPj5//

Defend Workers : Indybay

12. Sunday, 7:00pm – 8:30pm, From the Frontlines to Our Hearts

Berkeley Finnish Hall
1970 Chestnut St.
Berkeley

 a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear from someone like Sandra Adler Killen — a nurse and lactation consultant who, who with immense courage and compassion walked straight into a war zone (and will soon return) to support new mothers and babies. Sandra will share her experiences, along with the daily messages she continues to receive from colleagues on the ground in Gaza. Together we will gather in community — to hold our heartbreak and explore how we can meaningfully show up for the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

This evening also serves as a fundraiser for the Gaza Infant Nutrition Alliance, directly supporting mothers and babies in Gaza.

We’ve also launched a new Instagram where we share the messages Sandy receives: @motherhoodunderseige.

Info: From the Frontlines to Our Hearts : Indybay 

Tuesday, August 26 

13. Tuesday, 8:15am – 4:15pm, ICE out of San Francisco courts!

SF ICE Court
100 Montgomery St.
SF 

1 block from Montgomery BART

Join neighbors, activists, grassroots organizations in resisting ICE abductions happening at immigration court hearings!

We meet every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday outside of one of the SF immigration court buildings to:

• deter ICE from taking people
• accompany people to their court proceedings (if/as requested)
• walk people to their transportation home (if/as requested), to reduce their chances of being abducted in transit
• encourage oncoming traffic to honk in support 🙂
• share art, literature, and snacks
•  

Court is in session from 8am – 4pm. Including cleanup & last call for accompaniment home, we’re outside from 8am to 4:30pm / 4:45pm.

Serious violence against protestors has occurred, but most days thus far have passed without incident.

Everyone is welcome and every one is vital, even if you can only participate for a little bit.

14. Tuesday, 9:00am-10:00am (PT); 12Noon – 1:00pm (ET), Detained, tortured, disappeared: The Israeli military’s targeting of Palestinian children

Zoom registration:

https://www.dci-palestine.org/detained_tortured_disappeared_20250826

Israel is the only country in the world that systematically detains, tortures, prosecutes, and imprisons children in a military detention system. Around 500 to 700 Palestinian children are targeted by this system each year, and the brutal abuse they face by Israeli forces has severely intensified since October 7, 2023. Now, Israeli forces are detaining, torturing, and disappearing Palestinian children from Gaza, with no accountability.

This webinar will train attendees on the basics of Israel’s military detention system and how it targets Palestinian children to exert control over the Palestinian people. Attendees will hear directly from Defense for Children International – Palestine about the hurdles faced by lawyers trying to provide legal aid for child detainees. This training will also include actions to take in support of Palestinian child detainees from the United States, United Kingdom, and other places around the world.

For more information: https://www.dci-palestine.org/

Info: Detained, tortured, disappeared: The Israeli military’s targeting of Palestinian children : Indybay

Yezen Abu Ful—a 2-year-old who lives with his family in the Al-Shati refugee camp—is seen suffering from severe malnutrition caused by Israel’s blockade of Gaza in this July 13, 2025 photo.

 (Photo: Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The new report comes as the world’s top authority on hunger crises officially declared a full-blown famine in the Palestinian territory.

BRETT WILKINS

Aug 22, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

As the world’s leading authority on hunger crises officially declared a catastrophic famine in Gaza, a report published Friday details how Israel has dismantled the time-tested civilian aid distribution model and replaced it with a military-based system in which many Palestinians are not only dying from starvation but are also being killed while trying to obtain food.

Forensic Architecture (FA)—a multidisciplinary research group based at Goldsmiths, University of London—and World Peace Foundation (WPF), a philanthropic organization affiliated with the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts—published The Architecture of Genocidal Starvation in Gaza, March-August 2025, “revealing how… Israel has dismantled the proven and internationally-backed ‘civilian model’ of aid distribution, replacing it with a ‘military model’ which furthers Israel’s military and political objectives in Gaza while starving the region’ss civilian population.”

“Aid can be lethal when used in a manipulative way,” an introduction to the report states. “We have unpacked the architecture of starvation imposed by Israel in Gaza. It is composed of acts of construction and destruction: the destruction of Palestinian agriculture and food sovereignty, the destruction of Palestinian civil society, and the construction of death traps.”

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The report opens by noting a March 2024 provisional order by the International Court of Justice in The Hague—a product of the tribunal’s ongoing genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa—directing the Israeli government to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israel ignored the order and ramped up its forced starvation of Gaza.

“In Gaza, under the Israeli system of aid distribution, intentional mass starvation is happening on two levels, the biological starvation of individuals through the provision of starvation rations, or no rations at all,” the report’s authors wrote, as well as “the destruction of the group as a whole, through collective dehumanization, separating the population from its land, and the disintegration of a functioning Palestinian society in Gaza.”

According to the report, Israel has dismantled the “civilian model” of aid distribution by:

• Attacking essential aid infrastructure like warehouses, distribution points, kitchens, and bakeries;
• Restricting the supply of aid into Gaza by international humanitarian organizations; and
• Creating the conditions for aid diversion, including attacking groups tasked with securing aid routes, and failing to intervene in the diversion of aid in areas controlled by the Israeli military.

The report says Israel has implemented a “dangerous and deadly” system in which there are only four ration stations run by the US-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), “all located in military zones.”

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Described by many as “death traps,” GHF’s aid points have been the sites of regular Israeli massacres of desperate Palestinian aid-seekers. Thousands of Palestinians have been killed or wounded while trying to obtain aid in Gaza, including more than 850 people slain at or near GHF centers. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) whistleblowers have said they were ordered to fire live bullets and artillery shells into crowds of desperate aid-seekers, even when they posed no security threat—accounts corroborated by a former US special forces colonel who resigned from GHF.

The new report found at least 64 incidents of Palestinian civilians “being attacked by the Israeli military while seeking aid, including 25 incidents at and around GHF ration stations,” as well as dozens of attacks on aid infrastructure, humanitarian workers, and police.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said earlier this year that more than 1,500 humanitarian workers were killed in Gaza since October 2023, including medical and civil defense personnel. The United Nations humanitarian affairs office said this week that 181 aid workers were killed while working in Gaza last year—accounting for nearly half of all such fatalities worldwide. Israel has baselessly accused many of these slain aid workers—especially employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—of being members of Hamas or other militant groups.

The new report also notes that “airdropped aid landed in active combat zones, or in densely populated areas, where airdrops have killed people, and destroyed shelters.” Palestinians have also drowned while trying to reach aid airdropped into the Mediterranean Sea, which the IDF has prohibited Gazans from entering under penalty of death.

Furthermore, the report’s authors found that Palestinians must walk an average of more than three-and-a-half miles to the nearest GHF aid point, with such centers being open for an average of just 10 minutes at a time between June 19 and July 4.

The publication also highlights the 58 evacuation orders to which Gazans have been subjected. Critics have called “evacuation” a euphemism for ethnic cleansing. Israeli operations, including Gideon’s Chariots and the newly launched Gideon’s Chariots 2, are aimed at conquering Gaza and ethnically cleansing its residents to locations including a proposed concentration camp that would be built over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.

The report concludes that Israel is “instrumentalizing aid” in order to:

• Enforce displacement and reconcentration;
• Make reaching aid deadly and dangerous;
• Undermine civil order, dismantle the social fabric of Palestinian society, and dehumanize Palestinians; and
• Permit and enable the diversion of aid.

“The dehumanization of Palestinians, the stripping of basic dignity, and the tearing apart of the fabric of the community are not accidental byproducts of the mass starvation inflicted on the people of Gaza,” the report’s authors assert. “There is every reason to believe that these are what Israel intends through its militarized ration system.”

The report’s publication adds to the body of research on Israel’s weaponized starvation—one of the alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes for which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Earlier this week, Amnesty International—one of a growing number of human rights defenders around the world accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza—said the country’s government is “carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip, systematically destroying the health, well-being, and social fabric of Palestinian life.”

Last month, WPF executive director Alex de Waal, a leading global authority on famine, asserted that “there is no case since World War II of starvation that is being so minutely designed and controlled” as Israel is doing in Gaza.

“This is preventable starvation. It is entirely man-made,” de Waal added. “And every stage of this has been predicted, and at every stage action could have been taken—by Israel, by the international authorities, [the] international community, those who back Israel—to prevent what is happening now… Those steps have simply not been taken.”

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BRETT WILKINS

Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks during a press conference with Texas Democrats on August 5, 2025 in Aurora, Illinois.

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

“For those of us focused on progressive social change,” says the board chair of Our Revolution, secretive spending by corporations and the ultra-rich “has blocked candidates committed to our entire agenda including workers’ rights, Gaza ceasefire, financial reform, rent control, Medicare for All, and renewable energy.”

JULIA CONLEY

Aug 22, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

Ahead of the Democratic National Committee’s upcoming summer meeting in Minneapolis, organizers with the grassroots advocacy group Our Revolution on Thursday delivered a petition with 13,000 signatures calling on committee members to adopt DNC Chair Ken Martin’s proposal to take a major step toward banning dark money in presidential primaries.

As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, Martin’s proposal directed the DNC Committee on Reforms to identify “real, enforceable steps the DNC can take to eliminate unlimited corporate and dark money in its 2028 presidential primary process.”

The panel is set to vote on the issue on August 27 as the DNC wraps up the summer meeting.

The DNC has in the past declined to allow votes on resolutions that sought to ban dark money—undisclosed and corporate funds that can go towards election efforts through issue-advocacy groups—with the committee’s resolutions panel refusing to bring the issue up for a vote twice in five months in 2022-23, after super PACs had spent $1.35 billion on the 2022 midterms.

While super PACs are legally required to disclose their donors, many effectively act as dark money groups because the sources of their funding are difficult to trace.

“For too long, billionaires and corporate super PACs have drowned out the voices of working people,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, on Thursday. “Democrats can’t claim to be the party of working people while letting dark money groups and corporate elites choose their presidential nominees. This resolution is about putting power back where it belongs—in the hands of voters, not billionaire donors.”

Paco Fabian, campaign director for Our Revolution, told Common Dreams that Democratic leaders have long been driven by the “fear of scaring away funders that provide a lot of money to the party.”

“This resolution is about putting power back where it belongs—in the hands of voters, not billionaire donors.”

Our Revolution backed Martin’s run to lead the DNC earlier this year in part because of his call for the party to rein in corporate and dark money spending in elections, said Fabian.

“I think he understands that in the past, especially in Democratic primaries, they haven’t necessarily been shared contests,” Fabian said. “The DNC can really make it a fairer process where it’s not about who spends the most money. It’s really about who convinces the most people to support them based on their policy positions.”

Martin’s proposal does not seek to ban super PACs from Democratic primaries, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has demanded, but the progressive senator—whose 2016 presidential campaign led to the founding of Our Revolution—applauded the step urged by the DNC chair earlier this month.

“Congrats to the DNC for starting the process to ban Big Money from presidential primaries,” said Sanders.

Martin’s proposal notes that the Democratic Party must “demonstrate its willingness to reject certain types of donations if it hopes to win the trust of voters,” according to The New York Times.

“The DNC encourages Democratic officeholders and candidates at all levels of government to support efforts to reduce the influence of corporate and dark money in their campaign policy platforms, and to lead by example in rejecting such donations,” reads the resolution, which does not specify how candidates would be held to account for accepting dark money from outside groups.

Larry Cohen, board chair of Our Revolution, wrote in The Nation on Friday that “candidates could be required to sign some version of the ‘People’s Pledge’ agreed to by Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown in the 2012 general election for the U.S. Senate,” which required a candidate benefiting from “big money independent expenditures [IE] to donate a similar amount, from their campaign funds to a designated charity.”

“Campaign funds are far more valuable than IE money, providing a powerful deterrent,” wrote Cohen.

Cohen emphasized that in Democratic primaries, “big money has often weighed in on behalf of centrist Democrats and against progressives,” with independent expenditures including dark money hitting record highs in 2024 “as millions of dollars poured into several districts in the weeks before primary elections, demonizing leading Democratic candidates” such as former Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.).

Cohen added:

For those of us focused on progressive social change, this spending has blocked candidates committed to our entire agenda including workers’ rights, Gaza ceasefire, financial reform, rent control, Medicare for All, and renewable energy. The Congressional Progressive Caucus which had been advancing towards a majority of the Democratic Party Caucus, has now seen incumbents defeated and new progressive candidates blocked by the onslaught of money from crypto, fossil fuel, and an endless parade of corporate spending, AIPAC (American Israeli Political Action Committee) and other right-wing groups, as well as Republican billionaires.

Our Revolution delivered the 13,000 petition signatures a day after the Times reported on the Democratic Party’s plummeting voter registration numbers, with all 30 states that track voter registration by political party finding that Democrats ceded ground to the Republicans between 2020-24.

While Democrats lost about 2.1 million registered voters between those years’ presidential elections, the GOP gained 2.4 million.

Fabian expressed hope that Martin’s resolution could be the first step towards “a real boon” for the party.

“It can really bring in folks to the party where they’re like, ‘Okay, it’s not about money now. It’s about people. And that means I feel like my voice will be heard, as opposed to the current system where my voice will only be heard if I bring a bag of money with me.'”

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JULIA CONLEY

Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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