Author: Slingshot robot #1

By Lunatic Liberation Front

People’s Park in Berkeley just turned 50 years old and while it might be an old relic of the 1960’s, it still matters and it’s still worth defending. Slingshot has a special connection to the Park. Riots in the 1980s and 1990s defending the Park brought our collective together and taught important lessons about direct action street protests and engaging with the issues of the day. The experience of dodging rubber bullets and police lines forged personal relationships that have endured ever since. The lessons learned were used numerous ways; from Copwatch & Critical Mass to Reclaim the Streets & Anti-Globalization/WTO/IMF organizing. And that was just the fuckin’ 1990’s. The politics of taking space propelled us into the 21st Century, from resisting wars and police abuse to opening squats and spreading ideas like Occupy near and far.

It is amazing how so many of the issues faced by the radicals who created the Park in the 1960s are still in play today. We’re still struggling against a dehumanizing, unfair, militarized, racist system that values land for profit more than it values people’s lives or the earth. Today as the Bay area struggles to retain grassroots communities in the face of forces that want to turn it into a hyper-capitalist hellhole, the Park provides a refuge open to everyone.

The ethos of the Park is that it is controlled by the people: “User Development” means that gardens and landscaping are created by the people who feel the impact, not government managers who hardly spend five minutes in the space. Right at its inception the Park’s rallying cry encouraged participation from all with, “Everyone gets a blister.”

Hundreds of people — ranging from freaks and radicals to regular Berkeley folks — built the Park as a community in 1969 to provide a free speech venue for concerts and activist events on vacant land owned (and many contend stolen) by the University of California Berkeley. The scene was a popping counter culture with growing numbers of people determined to make a new America — a new world. UC’s first attempt to seize back and destroy People’s Park lead to rioting, police shootings that left bystander James Rector dead and dozens wounded, and a week-long National Guard occupation of Berkeley. Since then, although UC has always claimed to legally own the land, they have never been able to control it.
Failing that, UC has done everything it could to undermine community efforts and support for the Park. For a few years an advisory board existed where activists and campus officials could meet and discuss the Park. Since the board was dissolved, the University has continued with the practice of making controversial changes without warning or public input. Often, this happens during class breaks when the nearby student population is low. They cut down trees as well as destroy gardens and have even confiscated tools activists use for general maintenance. If the Park looks like a festering eye sore, that’s intentional on the part of UC Berkeley.
The scene in the Park can be pretty dysfunctional at times. But our enemies work overtime to make the Park ugly and encourage social disintegration. For decades, during orientation, the university has told new students to stay away from the Park claiming it was a center of criminal activity. At the same time, UC police were directing crime and drugs to the Park and harassing regulars. The university’s claimed concern for student safety is curious, because the UC has covered up sexual assault in fraternities and numerous sexual harassment cases perpetrated by faculty.
As the Park is stigmatized for being a sanctuary only for drug dealers and crazy people, we’ve seen the greater community change significantly. On nearby Telegraph Avenue you can purchase legal marijuana. Since the opioid crisis, drug usage and overdose has forced many mainstream people to reconsider the drug war. San Francisco is on the cusp of being the first city in the U.S. to have a legal safe injection facility — a model that has been successful for saving lives. And after numerous mass shootings, national discourse often goes into the importance of having awareness of mental health issues and the possible remedies. To my knowledge no Berkeley crazy person has ever gone on a shooting spree.
Most telling are the thousands of encampments that have taken over public space. Urban campsites are a global phenomenon. In this light, the most allegedly negative aspects of the Park such as it being a “homeless camp” are clearly symptoms of capitalism.
UC has been widely criticized for both admitting more students each year and continuously raising tuition. It cries about a lack of housing while exacerbating the issue. On the eve of the Park’s 50 year anniversary, UC announced plans to raze the Park to construct a dorm that can hold up to 1,000 beds and then tested continued community support by cutting dozens of trees in late 2018 and continuing into early 2019. “While the UC cut our trees, the People’s Park Community grew flowers breaking through the institution, hosting event after event — protest after protest, to demand its right to exist” commented Park activist Aidan Hill. “Chancellor Christ, after announcing the Park would be the first university ‘owned’ parcel developed under her leadership, quietly told ASUC (student government) senators that People’s Park would be developed after Oxford and Hearst projects which would take ‘many years’.”
Are they getting desperate? Recently the Berkeley Free Clinic — which was created to treat people wounded by police during protests over the Park in 1969 — was approached by a UC official promising a space for the clinic in the proposed dorm to be built on the Park. This is an old tactic of pitting two groups to fight each other who would otherwise be allies. It is not going to work!
“Park activists spoke out — reassuring that the land and the people who occupy it and enhance it would not go down without a fight.”
“The question is: How can People’s Park foster a future in which the entire community benefits. The Park stands parallel to the most pressing challenges facing our society. As we move further into a police state, the Park brings us democratic governance, alternative forms of healthcare, methods to challenge inequalities and a solid first-line of climate resilience. The Park is partnering with the People’s Open Network to bring communication technology into the People’s hands with free and open internet access for all,” added Aidan.

People’s Park meetings are Sundays at 1pm. Food Not Bombs serves Monday through Friday at 3PM. The space is open at all times for you and your affinity group to hold court in. Its a great place to notice what’s up with the sky, to people watch and talk about the news of the day. Check out Tom Dalzell’s new book “The Battle for People’s Park 1969” by Heyday Books. Let 1,000 Parks Bloom! More info at peoplespark.org.

 

Compiled by Jesse D. Palmer

Goddamn we need more underground and alternative spaces these days — places organized around meeting our needs for music, art, creativity, fun and liberation. Rebel bases supporting the struggle against the ugly fossil fueled consumption monster that is destroying the world.

While our spaces may be leaky warehouses or cluttered and cramped basement libraries, they are filled with life and love. Meanwhile the mainstream world — with all their money and training — is a catalog of the miserable: people sleepwalking through their lives checking facebook and buying shit they don’t need on amazon — their car engine idling while they absent mindedly munch on junk food. Fuck that — let’s live intense and wild sorting through dumpsters and conspiring late into the night.

Here’s some updates to the Radical Contact List published in the 2019 Slingshot Organizer. Please send us your updates about new spaces for the 2020 version by July 25. Look for updates at slingshotcollective.org.

Franklin Street Works – Stamford, CT

An alternative art space available for meetings and events. “Our exhibitions tend to challenge the conceptual norms of our society in the hopes of sparking a bigger discussion.” 41 Franklin Street, Stamford CT 06901 203-595-5581 franklinstreetworks.org

Phoenix Allies for Community Health – Phoenix, AZ

A volunteer-run clinic for the underserved community in downtown Phoenix. 2902 W. Clarendon Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85017 623-455-6470 Azpach.org

Never Ending Books – New Haven, CT

A free book shop in New Haven that hosts music, performance and art events. They also provide space for ElmCity InfoShop Thursday and Friday. 810 State St, New Haven, CT 06511 neverendingbooks.net

Anchor Health Initiative – Stamford, CT

A non-profit LGBTQ health and medical center that offers general checkups, transgender medical services and support with legal name changes. 30 Myano Ln #16, Stamford, CT 06902 203-674-1102 and 2200 Whitney Ave #360, Hamden, CT 06518 203-903-8308 anchorhealthinitiative.org

Molten Java – Bethel, CT

A community centered cafe, art gallery and music venue that hosts weekly open mics, and has vegan and vegetarian options. Our CT contact reports: “an overall friendly place for punky humans to hang out. I think their slogan is something like.. make coffee not war.” 213 Greenwood Ave, Bethel, CT 06801 203-739-0313 moltenjava.wordpress.com

Far Out Farm – Kittrell, TX

A permaculture farm that spreads knowledge about organic gardening medicinal and native plants and building with reclaimed materials. 16198 FM 230 Kittrell TX 75851 936-661-8964

Port Orford Community Co-op – Port Orford, WA

A tiny co-op health food store in a rural area that hosts underground events. 812 Oregon St. Port Orford, OR 97465 541-366-2067

Prostor39 – Prague, Czech Republic

A new DIY space that hosts events, film, an art gallery and workshops. Řehořova 33/39 Praha 3 – Žižkov 130 00 420-608-051-226 prostor39.cz

Changes to the 2019 Slingshot Organizer & notes

• The Red and Black Coop moved. Their new address is 4232 Whiteside St. Los Angeles 90063 (mail: PO Box 65052 LA, CA 90065.)

• Charis Circle Books was in Atlanta, GA and they have moved to 84 S. Candler St., Decatur GA 30030.

• Klinika Squat in Prague was evicted.

• The Bike Kitchen at 22 Gibson Street Bowden (enter off Third St) Adelaide South Australia just got an 18 month so will be there until the end of 2020.

• Bluestockings in New York City — a radical hub, bookstore and event space — is celebrating its 20th anniversary all summer long through a series of events and the launch of a membership program to “mobilize community support for trans-affirming and sex worker-affirming spaces and make a powerful statement that radical spaces can survive and thrive now and for years to come.” There will be a kick off party at the end of May – check bluestockings.com for a list of events.

By I Steve

Identification of organizations and social circles as “families” in radical culture is common. Since families tend to live together, the identification feels natural in collective, cooperative, or squatted houses. Insecure hippies try to label everyone as their family, so the metaphor pervades food distribution, ecological direct action, and so on.

Many of us are outcasts and deviants who couldn’t relate to our normal families of origin. Many of us were rejected by our families for being queer. And/or never had anything like a functional family, leaving a resentment and a craving.

Is this natural—did small bands of related humans build broader networks, clans and tribes to create a society grounded in affinity? Is it harmless, a sort of platonic puppy-love that eases rather than obstructs intentional social organization?

Interestingly, the family model pervades all society. In my college class on gender, a guest speaker on workplace sexism told us of a corporate culture where the family metaphor informally buttressed submissive roles for women. How could family be bad, thought 20-year-old Steve. Family identity is key for many marginalized groups, from the Manson Family to the Mafia to the Evangelical Christian La Familia terrorist drug cartel.

On the other hand, The Communist Manifesto calls for the abolition of the family. This is partly about opposition to inherited wealth, but also for society as a whole taking responsibility for the nurturing and development of children, rather than leaving the task to perhaps isolated incompetents. I’m not against family in that way: I promised the gods I would love and cherish my family if I didn’t have to adopt a metaphorical one.

Indeed, rather than express how we come to love each other as we struggle together in the struggle, the family model is a red flag for when we bring our family of origin baggage to our political culture—unspoken rules passed on without words from the Middle Ages; molestation and other unresolved traumas; dinner-table racism whispered as the realism behind the idealism; and sexism, misogyny, rape culture, and sexism.

Embracing family dynamics in radical organization produces a culture of anti-accountability, favored by those who will lose from accountability. It is a key source of the informal leaderships, which are not countered by “structure. ”(I’ve seen too many apostles of “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” manipulate formal process via their unaccountable informal leadership roles).

Our exertion and reception of informal leadership is rooted in family roles we learned before our memories. Someone in the group as the matriarch or patriarch, another is the emotionless overachiever, another the bitter scapegoat, and another as the family clown (aw …)

Rejecting the family metaphor doesn’t mean our political relationships must be cold and businesslike. Showing up together as functional adults doing important work is empowering. If we came from families where trust was an illusion, real solidarity is found in responsible peer relationships.

Of course we can’t just leave our family baggage behind. Rather than act it out, though, we can support self-care for family dynamics just as we would for a comrade with a physical illness. Instead of rehearsing familiar family formulae—including labeling the deviant as the insane family secret—we can invest in radical approaches to mental health and deconstruct psycho-abilism.

We live in a traumatized world. The damages from war, colonization and genocide are passed on through families. But our movements can start a different story.

For 20 years, forest defenders on California’s Lost Coast have blockaded logging roads leading into the ancient forests at the headwaters of the wild Mattole river. The forest is once again under threat and the blockaders need hands in the woods, allies in town, funds and gear. Contact us to get involved! efhum@riseup.net @blockade.babes. Stay tuned for an action camp in June! Read about the Mattole in Slingshot 127 and 128 and the Winter 2019 Earth First! Journal.

By Samara

Since September of 2018, a group of University of California (UC) students, grad students, and faculty calling ourselves the Community Economies Collaborative (CEC) has been growing a movement to bring the study of community-based economics to the university, and to likewise leverage the UC’s resources towards supporting community-based economic efforts. Starting with a small group at UC Davis, this movement is rapidly growing and is now represented on six of the UC campuses statewide.

As a point of calibration, we are drawing upon the economic writings of Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham, two feminist geographers who jointly write under the moniker J.K. Gibson-Graham. This spring we are reading Gibson-Graham’s, A Postcapitalist Politics, in which they queer both capitalism and Marxism, while exploring practical ways that community economics unfold on the ground. Gibson-Graham’s work, however, is only one articulation of alternative economic thinking, and we are excited to explore a number of alternative models as we build a dynamic and engaging understanding of the way community economies are expressed in language and on the ground. Below are some of the key ideas that we have been working with in our discussions.

The Commons – The “commons” typically refers to natural resources owned and managed by a community. Economist Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2012 for her work on common pool resource management. Her work stands in contrast to Garret Hardin’s pessimistic formulation of the “tragedy of the commons” and gives hope that communities can, under certain conditions, cooperatively manage their resources for the public good. As such, “commons” or “commoning” is at the root of a wide array of cooperative economic activity right now such as community land trusts, time banks, tool libraries, and certain types of venue organization such as that found at the Omni Commons in Oakland. A key advocacy organization for promoting the commons in the United States is the Schumacher Center for New Economics, named for the economist E.F. Schumacher, author of Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, who since the 1960s has been promoting the idea of Buddhist economics, which relates closely to the vision Gandhi laid out for the economy of postcolonial India.

Localism – “Localism” has many different meanings in the literature, but recently, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) has adopted the term to advocate for economic development rooted in community-based enterprises. Their primary argument is that local ownership and control of economic decision-making allows for more democratic and ecological accountability. The term “local living economy” comes from author David Korten, who wrote the 1994 bestseller When Corporations Rule the World. David’s thinking influenced Judy Wicks, a Philadelphia-based activist who owned one of the first restaurants in the country to intentionally seek out locally-sourced ingredients. Judy joined David and several other likeminded individuals to found BALLE in 2001. Their original framework for the organization described several building blocks for a localized economy: sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, zero-waste manufacturing, green building, independent retail and media.

The Anti-Globalization Movement – The takeover of several towns and villages in the Mexican state of Chiapas by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation on January 1, 1994 was a protest against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which went into effect on that date. The uprising became a rallying cry for civil society groups around the world that protested global trade negotiations that were dominated by multinational corporations and global financial institutions at the expense of local communities. These decades-long trade negotiations resulted in the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which has the power to invalidate laws protecting workers and the environment as “trade violations.” Following Chiapas, the wave of anti-globalization protests reached another flashpoint in 1999 during the WTO meeting in Seattle. The violent police response to the protesters captured worldwide attention. Other moments of resistance have included the G8 summit protests and Occupy Wall Street. Beyond protests, this branch of community economies connects to grassroots community development work in the Global South, the rise of the fair trade and the slow food movements, and more recently Buen Vivir, a holistic set of economic and spiritual practices arising from

indigenous communities of South America.

Sustainability – The term “Sustainable Development” came into wide use after the 1987 publication of Our Common Future, a report by a United Nations commission on the rapid deterioration of the planet’s ecology. Sustainability as a framework emphasizes flows of energy, water, food, and waste and treats ecological resources as a form of wealth that should be saved and cultivated with the same conservationist spirit that was once directed towards the saving of money.

The focus on climate change became one of the key concerns within the sustainability framework in the early 2000s after the Bush Administration withdrew the United States from the Kyoto Climate Accords. The concept of “Peak Oil” also gained public attention during this period, an idea that says that after a certain peak, extraction of oil will reach a point of diminishing returns, meaning oil extraction will become increasingly expensive and necessitate a transition to a low-carbon society. This realization sparked the Transition Town Movement in Great Britain and then the United States. More recently, the concept of “resilience” has emerged as new way to think about how to respond to climate change.

Naomi Klein’s recent book and film This Changes Everything directly links the climate crisis to capitalism and the need for re-localization. Klein argues for paying close attention to the economic frameworks coming from indigenous peoples and argues for self-determined economic futures.

Ecological economics – Herman Daly was once the Senior Economist for the Environmental Department of the World Bank, where he worked to develop policy guidelines related to sustainable development. He co-founded the journal Ecological Economics and has argued forcefully since the 1970s against the use of gross domestic product to measure economic wellbeing, saying that instead, we should use what he and John Cobb developed called the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) as form of measuring economies. Daly and others have advocated for a steady-state economy, with some calling for degrowth in order to avoid environmental disaster. This is absolute heresy to the economic establishment, and there are still very few ecological economists in university departments. The 1975 book Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach is an early work of science fiction imagining a steady-state economy on the US West Coast. A leading advocacy organization is the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

Diverse Economies – Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham met as Ph.D. students in geography at Clark University in the 1970s. They began to develop a critique of Marxist analysis, showing the problems of an economic theory that requires the state to be seized before the new economy can be implemented. Instead, they have developed a queer, feminist approach to economics, a practice that “encourages us to make visible the hidden alternative economic activities that everywhere abound, and to connect them through a language of economic difference.” Only by working to collectively see noncapitalistic activities, and treating them as both present and viable, are we able to “actively build on them in the here and now to transform our local economies.” Gibson-Graham’s work moves us past forms of essentialism that dominate traditional Marxist thought. They suggest that the real economy is like an iceberg. What’s most visible is capitalist exchange, but most economic activity happens informally below the surface. Thinking through these “diverse economies” is a way of opening up our imagination to the diverse economic practices and possibilities all around us.

These are just some of many ideas we are exploring as we come together to rethink our roles as academics, community members, and inhabitants of the planet at this moment in time. As climate chaos ravages the planet, the need to course-correct towards more resilient and sustainable community-based economics has never been more urgent. We are eager to continue to develop and grow our understanding of “community economies” within and outside of the academy, while also working to leverage the UC system towards growing more sustainable, just, and democratic economies locally, and around the world. We hope that our work will inspire others to build similar projects within their communities and workplaces, and we hope that others will join us!

In January of 2020, we plan to hold a conference at UC Davis which we hope will be the beginning of this process to develop curriculum and policy changes within the UC and beyond. Currently, we are hoping for more UC graduate students from around the state to join our steering committee, and to join us on our quarterly retreats. We are also looking to connect with community partners who are working to build and advocate for resilient community economies to join us in developing policy and practices. If you would like to be part of the conference, or are interested in this project, please reach out to us at shsteele@ucdavis.edu. If you would like to follow our efforts, you can subscribe to our listserv by sending an email to SYMPA@ucdavis.edu – in the subject line put “subscribe cec-list@ucdavis.edu” followed by your name and leave the body of the email blank.

 

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By Jane Stillwater

I recently toured the U.S. Holocaust Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian.  These two museums are both very similar — and also very different.

The U.S. Holocaust Museum is devoted to chronicling the genocide of Jews by Nazi Germany — and this museum rightfully reminds us that genocide is a bad thing.  One of the exhibits that moved me to tears was commemorating the heroic Jewish resistance fighters.  They risked their lives fighting fascism.  Many of them were tortured and murdered.

Then I moved on to the American Indian Museum — same story there.  Genocide on a grand scale.  Millions of Native Americans murdered in cold blood.  But there was one big difference between the two museums.  When the Jews fought back against the evil Nazis, they were called resistance fighters and heroes.  But when the Natives fought back against genocidal attacks by Americans, they were given no place of honor in the American Indian Museum.  They were not considered heroes.  In fact, they were barely mentioned at all.

There was only a very small collage-type thingie in a back corner of the fourth floor of the museum that mentioned a few Native “activists” and the 1973 protest at Wounded Knee.  Custer’s last stand was mentioned.  And there was just one mention in passing about the American Indian Movement — but nothing at all about Leonard Peltier, the resistance fighter who defended his people from a deadly FBI attack and who is now serving his 44th year of a life sentence in some lonely Florida prison for a crime that he didn’t commit.

There is another kind of genocide going on in America today — or should I say “femicide”.  It is shamefully easy for a non-Native person to enter a Native reservation and then murder or rape or kidnap a Native woman or child — and get away with it because tribal police on American Indian reservations have no jurisdiction to arrest non-Natives.

While I was at the American Indian Museum, I suddenly found myself in the tragic midst of the REDress Project — dozens of empty red dresses, swaying tragically in the wind and rain, symbolizing the thousands of raped, maimed, murdered and disappeared Native women on reservations across America.  Something like 86% of these crimes have been committed by non-natives.

At a symposium entitled “Safety for Our Sisters” held at the museum, we learned that almost half of Native women have been abused or raped or disappeared. “It’s actually closer to 87%” said one speaker. Native women have become an endangered species — and meanwhile many politicians are too busy reveling in a sick and addictive love affair with Walls and Wars to notice.

The grim history of these many centuries of violence and genocide against Native Americans continues today, as White Americans continue to value money and greed and power over any kind of humanity or love of fellow human beings.  The Jewish Holocaust lasted a decade, but the Native American genocide is still going on today.

We can wallow in the sense that America is morally doomed, or we can take a page from the Jewish and Native resistance fighters and resist. Resist injustice. Resist corporate greed. Resist colonialism. Resist bigotry.

For centuries it was mainly American Indians who suffered from genocide by colonialists — but now it is the entire world facing extinction by corporate America’s bottomless greed.

Isn’t it time for all of us to start righting these horrendous wrongs?  Let’s join our Indigenous brothers and sisters in seeking justice!

Jane Stillwater is a child of the 60s living in cooperative housing in Berkeley. She blogs at jpstillwater.blogspot.com.

By Hayley

The UN has warned that we have twelve years to limit the catastrophic impacts of climate change, and climate change isn’t the only threat.  We are also facing massive species die offs, the oceans are becoming too acidic to support life, and ecological harm is being caused by everything from concrete to deforestation to unsustainable farming practices.

Capitalism has us locked in a death march, with our collective labor being steered towards making the planet uninhabitable.  Individual lifestyle changes are important, but they simply aren’t enough to reverse the direction we’re going in, and time is running out. It is time to get brave, get public, and to start working for massive changes in the way we do things. A mere 100 companies are responsible for 71% of carbon emissions. It is time to re-imagine our financial landscape so that it becomes impossible for these mega-polluters to exist.  It’s time for a nationwide divestment movement!

A key factor fueling ecological destruction is that people are getting paid to do it. The equation is simple: Cut the funds, cut the destruction.

A 2018 report by Rain Forest Action Network shows how top banks are dumping obscene amounts of money into planet-killing activities. Wells Fargo, for instance, invested more than $4.6 billion in fossil fuels between 2015 and 2017. In response, cities like Seattle and Davis have pulled all city funds from Wells Fargo, and a number of groups have also been demonstrating in front of Wells Fargo to draw attention to its role in funding ecological destruction.

At this point, all of the major banks are putting money into ecocide, which is why it’s vital to make sure you aren’t banking with any of them. Close your account today! But also, if you have a 401k, that money might be invested without your knowledge in climate-killing funds, and likewise, your city, school, or workplace might have it’s money caught up in ecological destruction.

Recently, an online tool was developed to help you figure out if you have money accidentally invested in fossil fuels. Here’s the link: fossilfreefunds.org  Try it now!  Seriously, check your own funds, your workplace’s, and your city’s.  It’s time to get all funds out of ecological destruction.

Divestment is a huge step in taking away the power of the planet-killing industries. But this needs to go beyond a boycott. We need an alternative system.

That’s why we also need to break up the mega banks, and replace them with publicly-owned banks. In 2018, Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill that would break up any bank with total exposure greater than 3% of the US Economy.  While this bill didn’t pass, it’s a great vision in terms of setting our sights on the next steps. But breaking up mega-banks is just the start. We also need public banks — banks that are owned and controlled by the people rather than corporate shareholders.

In North Dakota, there has been a public bank since 1919, showing us that it’s possible to have a bank owned by the people. The Bank of North Dakota earns a profit for the state, generating public funds that contribute to education, disaster relief, and infrastructure projects. While BND isn’t divested from climate chaos, it at least shows us that it’s possible to create a successful public bank.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, public banking activists have been laying the groundwork to create the East Bay Public Bank, a publicly-owned bank with the explicit mission to never invest in ecocide.  Currently, a new law, AB857, is being drafted in the California Legislature that will set things in place for public banking in California.

Simply having publicly-owned banks isn’t enough: we also have to make sure there is a clear mission to never invest in ecological destruction. Credit Unions can also be a good option to do your banking, as long as they are divested from ecocide.

We have just a few years left to course-correct our society so that the global change in temperature will be 1.5°C instead of much worse, and we’ve already killed off 60% of the planet’s species since 1970. Working to prevent ecological collapse means rethinking our society at every level, and building better ways to bank is a part of the solution. We need to think fast and act smart. Cut off the funds that fuel ecocide and de-pave the way for the planet’s ecological future.

You can learn more about the Bay Area project to create the nation’s first eco-friendly public bank at publicbankeastbay.org.

By Rachelle Hughes

Am I white? I acknowledge my privilege as a white passing person, but I am still hesitant to classify myself as such. My late mother was British and Caucasian, but my father is Persian, and even though I identify as Middle Eastern, the ‘Ethnicity’ section on every single official document I’ve ever encountered seems to want to pigeonhole me into a white identity I am not fully comfortable with. So what am I? Am I white? And regardless of whether or not I am, why am I so uncomfortable with this label?
I’ve been conflicted about my racial identity ever since I learned of the complexities of racial privilege in the United States and what being a person of color really means. Middle Easterners are often boxed into the “white” category, but the term P.O.C. represents the racial groups that are not dominant in this country and that struggle under its existing systems of racial privilege and hierarchy. Now, faced with this definition, I can do nothing else but conclude that Middle Easterners are undeniably a group that falls into the P.O.C. category.
The fact that some Persians and Mid-Easterners still assert their “whiteness” is evidence enough of how badly we are treated when we are not white. When we cannot pass ourselves off as such. Rampant Islamophobia after the 9/11 attacks has led to an increasingly contagious level of hatred towards Middle Eastern people in the United States (ive seen “MUSLIMS GET OUT” sharpied onto the back of a street sign). When I remember how intense this hatred can be, I remember how privileged I am to be white passing. But recognition of my privilege often comes with guilt as I ask myself: “What makes me more worthy of respect than non white-passing Middle Easterners?” I would gladly renounce this privilege if it meant I could help other people fight its existence in our society, but all things aside, it is a relief and a blessing to be able to slip under the radar of racists, or to have a common, English first name that doesn’t prompt suspicious glances and whispered jokes from my classmates whenever it is called out for roll. I often take these little things for granted, and that is why I am scared of assuming a white identity.
I am scared of assuming a white identity because I am scared of becoming complicit in a system of oppression that is pitted against people just like me and my father. By calling myself white, I would be reinforcing the notion that it is shameful to be anything contrary to the white norm in our society—that it is “better to be white.” I also refuse to call myself something that I am not. I am Persian. My whole life was spent around my Persian father’s Persian acquaintances— I belong to no other ethnic culture. An African-American person who has one white parent and one black parent can still identify as African-American, so why can’t I identify as Middle Eastern? I am fervently proud of my Persian heritage and feel like it represents me strongly. I refuse to back down against society telling me to be anything except what I am. I will not bend to a racist will; I will fight it. I am Persian. I am of mixed Middle Eastern descent. I will fight for my identity. In the words of the Iranian-Americans who stood up against the ethnic misidentification of Middle Easterners in the 2010 U.S. National Census, “Check it right, I ain’t white.”

By Jesse D. Palmer

Let me start by saying that I love to ride my bike. When I think about the climate crisis — that human extinction is now on the line if humans don’t immediately and dramatically decarbonize and otherwise reduce our foot print — one of the first things I think the universe will miss if humans go extinct is the bicycle. Bikes could be the greatest human invention — simple, efficient, powerful and yet still fun, humble and human scale. Our technology may be the thing that destroys our species, but bikes are one of the tools that empower individuals and communities and free us to reach our full potential.

So it is fitting that bikes have a role in the grassroots resistance that is building against sleepwalking off a climate cliff. We have run out of time waiting for governments and corporations to decarbonize. If humans stay on our current unsustainable course — where everything we do day-to-day degrades the earth — we’ll soon cross climate tipping points, and rapid ecological change will be out of our hands. There’s a slim chance that if we quickly reverse ecological damage, we can save ourselves, and what’s lacking is massive political, cultural and social will. We need urgency, speed and collective action. The price of inaction must be constant and overwhelming resistance and disorder in the streets.

The Friday For Future student climate strikes inspired by Greta Thunberg is just the type of disruptive action that can help as it expands and diversifies so that it’s not just students but everyone refusing to sit idly by while our house is on fire.

One small piece of raising the cost of climate inaction could be rush hour mass bike rides — a fun and legal way to tie up traffic and block business as usual with a clear message: if you keep destroying the world, we’ll shut you down. In California and most other places it is legal to ride your bike on the street, but because bikes are slower than cars, just a small group of legally moving bikes function like a mobile freeway accident. Traffic is already stressed at rush hour and a small hiccup can tie up the commute big time.

In the 1990s I was involved in huge Critical Mass bike rides that happened Friday nights during rush hour. They weren’t (and aren’t) protests — CM has no demands, no leaders and no meetings. Because big bike rides are so disruptive and because just daring to ride a bike in a car dominated world puts you so far outside the mainstream and at odds with the powers that be, Critical Mass at its heyday was more effective than any protest bike advocates could have organized.

Riding your bike with a big leaderless group is fun. Not knowing who is in charge or what is going to happen next is a rare experience in our pre-programmed lives. Humans yearn for excitement, spontaneity, and the sense of community that exists on a CM ride when everyone can talk to anyone and individuals takes responsibility for the whole. Rides have music and costumes and a few simple tips help make it work: the people in front shouldn’t ride so fast that it gets spread out and cars get into the mass. If you’re in front its up to you to select a good route to avoid going in circles.

Some bike advocates hate Critical Mass because it is unruly and can antagonize drivers, cops and city officials. But chaos works — there’s plenty of reason to credit CM in the 1990s and early 2000s with increasing pressure to improve bike infrastructure.

Around the Bay Area, Critical Mass still exists in San Francisco on the last Friday of each month at 6 at Justin Herman Plaza. But it has dwindled in numbers and social weight and no longer exists at all in many other cities. Locally, CM has mostly been replaced with Bike Party: huge, fun and diverse bike rides that happen well after rush hour, on a pre-planned route, with rules of conduct and a division of labor between leaders and participants. I get that Bike Party is organized to avoid disruption and conflict with cars so it can be just a fun bike ride, and that’s fine.

But its really time to reclaim Critical Mass or better yet, something with a new name that uses the basic tactic of a rush hour, mass disruptive ride, but goes beyond CM’s (reasonable) refusal to unify around an articulate political goal other than “we like to ride our bikes” and “bikes are good.”

Bikes are good and it’s great that there are better bike lanes and bike parking some places. In the 1990s, us “critical massholes” were aware of climate change but it wasn’t clear that it was an existential threat. It wasn’t clear that no matter how bike friendly cities might get, there’s no bike commuting on a dead planet.

Do we call it Friday Bike for Future or Climate Mass or is there a better name you can think up? Climate bike rides can be a leaderless movement but with a clear political message: massive action is needed to decarbonize and the status quo is unacceptable.

Protest tactics that are also fun and that build community are win-win-win situations — they help avoid burnout because they add joy as opposed to actions that feel like a grim, boring duty. To really increase political pressure, movements need to grow exponentially and be infectious by self-creating their own energy and having tactics that automatically attract new members.

Right now youth-led groups like the Sunrise Movement, Extinction Rebellion and others are figuring out how to raise the stakes. Many of these activists weren’t born during CM’s heyday so its useful to share tactics that worked.

During street protests groups often get pushed onto the sidewalk or to a less visible location by police — largely to avoid disrupting traffic. A bike contingent with just a few dozen people can out-flank police lines. Bike groups are mobile, swift and so long as they are moving in traffic they’re usually legal.

It all goes back to bikes being special. When you ride you’re almost flying, you’re in balance. Bikes don’t need a sign. Emissions-free, healthy, and joyful is part of a future worth having, or at least worth struggling for.