Under the Radar: Oakland Event Picks of the Week

During this week leading up to the Spring Equinox, find your balance with a mix of cultural, artistic, political, and relaxing events.

Once in a while a week comes along when a handful of worthy events conspire to share the same time slot, leaving one with no other alternative than to toss a coin to determine which one to attend.  This week it seems Thursday is that night.

Every day is Earth Day: We’ll start with two eco-related events on Thursday.  The first is the premier of a fascinating 4-part series called “Ecology Emerges” by Shaping San Francisco that kicks-off at the Humanist Hall Thursday night at 7:30pm. The series gives an overview of the development of ecology activism in the Bay Area over the past 50 years based on a collection of 23 oral histories gathered by local historian Chris Carlsson.

The second is Rainforest Action Network’s 25th Anniversary Kick-off Celebration from 7:00pm – 10:30pm at Lake Chalet Seafood Bar & Grill on Lakeside Drive.

Speaking in Tongues: Alternatively, you can appreciate diversity and explore multi-lingualism with the free Diversity Film Series. This week’s showing is Speaking in Tongues, which follows the stories of four San Francisco public schoolchildren enrolled in Chinese and Spanish language-immersion programs while grappling with the debate over bilingual education. It from 7-9:00pm at Wildwood School Auditorium in Piedmont.  Finally, the Oakland Food Policy Council‘s meets from 5-7:30 Thursday at City Hall. On the meeting’s agenda is a review of the outline of OFPC’s first “Strategic Plan for Transforming the Oakland Food System”.

Which Dr. King Will We Honor?

[ See a shorter version of this published on Truthout]

Once again, as we observe the life and example of Martin Luther King, Jr., the question arises, “Which Dr. King will we honor?”

Will we yet again observe a polished, scaled down, and non-threatening MLK, Jr.—the mere shadow of the man and his dream? At least we will recognize the leadership of the man who called for racial equality and for us to be of service to our neighbors–as we should.  We will even recognize that “we have come a long way” and “there is still further work to do” — as we should.  The further work do be done is invoked almost as an absolution, affirming our commitment to the dream, but without further specification and without discussing our troubling ongoing racial inequalities in our schools, health-care, jobs, housing, and criminal injustice system.

But gone will be the King who called for an end to militarism and far-flung imperial wars,  who said, “I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such” and who called his government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”

A Fun-Filled Fall

There’s no doubt about it: this fall is going to be an exciting one for the nation and the Bay Area.  Dare I say, it’ll be one for the history books.  In my magic clairvoyant mirror hanging just inside my imagination, I can just make out the writing in some future account of the Fall of 2009, “As the dog days of indian summer bore down upon a populace, things were astir in a nation conflicted with itself…”

Or something like that.

On the national scene we will be witness to–and participate in!–the heated political and economic battles over health care. Single-payer will be voted on the House floor this month for the first time. It won’t win, the White House says its off the table, and the media doesn’t seem to want to utter the phrase; but that doesn’t mean people aren’t going to keep putting it back on as part of the discussion. Witness the Mad As Hell Doctors, who are taking off from Portland, OR on a super-roadtrip across the country in an RV (joined by a ‘Care-a-van’) next week to take a message of universal health care for all to the White House and Congress. They will be stopping in 26 cities along the way and they will deliver their message and have a protest event on the Capitol steps on October 1. That’s the way to do it! And they even have a theme song!

But let us not be too consumed by the drama to forget some underlying crises that also need as much or more attention and struggle, such as corporate abuse, socialism for the wealthy, unsustainable economics, climate change, and militarism.  In the next couple months we’ll see

Voices of a People’s History

I had the privilege of seeing Voices being performed at Mission High the other night and highly recommend catching it live or on video. I think there will be TV version soon. Benjamin Bratt, Diane Lane, Josh Brolin, Kerry Washington, and Boots Riley among of The Coup–among others– gave powerful readings from Las Casas to MLK, Jr., to Langston Hughes to Muhammad Ali to more recent voices of resistance. There were many treats like hearing parts of MLK’s prophetic “Beyond Vietnam” and Kerry Washington’s performance of Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?”

We have made great progress on many of the issues due to resistance and activism such as civil rights, women’s rights, labor laws, etc. But sadly, in many cases we are still up against the same things: corporate greed, war profiteers, racism, etc.

Check a glimpse of it at this Sundance Festival clip:

Fittingly they ended with a reading of the inspirational “The Low Road” by Margie Piercy:

What if they gave a war and no one came?

Hello all peacemakers and resisters,

I am writing to let you know that this Monday kicks off “National Week to Show Support for War Resisters”….

Thus I started my invitation to a letter-writing party that I hosted at my house in March to show support for war resisters. It was sponsored by Courage to Resist, an Oakland-based organization that provides support and information for currently serving/active duty war resisters.

Courage to Resist

These resisters have risked their freedom and reputation to oppose the imperial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One crucial way to strike at
ongoing militarism is to pull the pillars out from under it.  It’s like that old Vietnam War-era slogan: “What if they gave a war, and no one came?”  Indeed, the system runs because we allow it to.  What if more people refused to cooperate?  It is oft forgotten, but one factor in bringing the Vietnam War to a close was the increasing number of soldiers who defied orders or resisted in some way.  See the movie “Sir, No, Sir!” for this under-told story.  These heroes, who have pulled away their pillars of support for on-going militarism and imperial policy, need our support and
advocacy.

For example, Robin Long, recently deported from Canada, is serving a
15-month sentence for refusing to fight in Iraq. Tony Anderson is
currently serving a 14-month sentencing for resisting deployment to
Iraq.

More recently, Victor Agosto refused to deploy to Afghanistan and is facing court martial.  Agosto wrote, “There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan. The occupation is immoral and unjust. It does not make the American people any safer. It has the opposite effect.” Agosto wrote these words at the bottom of a military counseling paperwork turned in May 1st to the commander of a Ft. Hood, Texas Army unit headed for Afghanistan.

More war resisters are sitting in prison for refusing to
fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and countless more live with that
possibility.  Several war resisters have been threatened with or already deported from Canada.  Who knows how many more struggle with the decision everyday?

We gathered together to write:

• Letters of support to war resisters in prison, awaiting trial, or seeking refuge in Canada

• Letters to the Canadian government asking that war resisters be granted sanctuary

• Letters to our own government demanding amnesty for war resisters

While letter-writing is not my preferred form of political action, I think there is sometimes a place for it.  And it is a nice sometimes to just get together with friends and be social and discuss and debate issues–sitting down for a change.  It is almost certain that such letters will be thrown in the trash by the U.S. government.  But those who are in prison or facing prison for resisting will no doubt find some small comfort that they are not forgotten.

We are in solidarity.