August 24, 2021 GREENZINE SF Green Party Weekly News and Events www.sfgreenparty.org twitter.com/sfgreenparty instagram.com/sfgreenparty mastodon.sfgreens.org/@sfgreenparty www.facebook.com/groups/SFGreenParty/ Dear Greens, At our monthly meeting last month, we endorsed NO on the gubernatorial recall election. Although we strongly disapprove of Newsom's performance as Governor, we also have many concerns about the leading candidates to replace him, as well the plurality vote (rather than ranked choice vote) on his replacement, since a plurality vote will likely result in a winner with little popular support. We will also consider endorsing one of the Green candidates running to replace Newsom at our monthly meeting tonight; see the meeting agenda below: *===========================* What: Green Party Monthly meeting Where: Redstone Bldg (2940 16th Street, near South Van Ness) #301, SF When: Wed, Aug 25, 7-9 pm We received answers to our gubernatorial recall questionnaire from Dan Kapelovitz and Heather Collins. We will consider making an endorsement at this meeting. We also agendized discussion of eliminating gas lines from SF buildings, as well as phasing out urban gas stations. Mask protocol: SF's COVID rules currently require people to wear masks indoors, even if everybody present is fully vaccinated. If you want to attend remotely, email cc@sfgreens.org to participate. Every 4th Wednesday the SF Green Party meets to discuss issues of concern, listen to interesting speakers, endorse events, plan outreach and more! Everyone welcome. All meetings are wheelchair accessible. To make a presentation or gain the SFGP endorsement of events and issues, please contact our SFGP County Council at: cc@sfgreens.org *===========================* What: KPFA election Where: online When: ballots were sent by email 8/16, vote before 10/15. If you're a KPFA member, please be sure to vote for the Rescue Pacifica candidates in the Local Station Board (LSB) election. It will be conducted using ranked choice voting. We have endorsed the nine Rescue Pacifica candidates, as listed below. (More info about Rescue Pacifica is here: https://rescuepacifica.net/ ). This year's election is vital to preserve democracy at KPFA and Pacifica! Individuals involved with the opposing faction worked to gut the powers of the LSB and they've filed lawsuits to try to take control of KPFA and the Pacifica network. Please use your democratic voting rights to maintain and strengthen the LSB by voting for the Rescue Pacifica candidates as your top nine choices! Please vote for all nine of the following candidates as your top choices (in any order): Rich Stone * Daniel Borgstrom * Don Macleay * James McFadden * Adisa Armand Donna Carter Pete Farruggio Amber Jayanti Elizabeth Milos * = Registered Greens; note that Rich Stone is a County Council member here in San Francisco. Thank you for standing up for democracy and supporting progressive, independent radio! *===========================* What: Online events When: various dates, see below Below are some more online events -- as before, almost all of them are free, and they're hosted across the country, as well as in Canada, the UK, New Zealand, and Ireland. (The listed times are for the local Pacific time zone). They cover a fairly broad range of topics, so please just ignore the ones you're not interested in. And of course, do feel free to forward as much or as little of this info to others as you'd like: Tue, 8/24, 4 pm -- The Doctrine of Discovery and the Legacy of Injustice -- How did the Doctrine of Discovery add to the legacy of injustice committed against indigenous people & what can we do about it? -- The recent discovery of mass graves in Saskatchewan, Canada, filled with the bodies of indigenous children from boarding schools demands that people in North America look deeply at the injustices that have been committed against Native peoples -- The Doctrine of Discovery not only enabled colonizers in their brutal conquest of the "new world" that caused a near genocide among Native peoples, it also prepared the way for Manifest Destiny, a devastating policy of the United States. These actions resulted in massacres of Native Americans and more forced removals and the beginning of faith-based boarding schools. It was in these schools where "educators" sought to "kill the Indian and save the man." -- Join this challenging discussion where we will demythologize the Doctrine of Discovery and reveal legacy of generational sin against Native Americans and learn how we can appropriately move forward in both lament and action. -- The discussion will be led by Mark Charles. The son of an American woman (of Dutch heritage) and a Navajo man, Mark teaches the complexities of American history regarding race, culture, and Christendom in order to help forge a path of healing and conciliation for the nation. He is the co-author of the book, Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery, and he authors the blog Reflections from the Hogan. Mark is currently an independent candidate for the presidency of the United States, advocating for a Truth and Conciliation Commission – a formal and national dialogue on issues of race, gender, and class: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-doctrine-of-discovery-and-the-legacy-of-inj... Tue, 8/24, 5 pm -- Anti-fascism in the USA: Bill Mullen and James Tracy -- Join us as we welcome Bill Mullen, co-editor of The U.S. Anti-fascism Reader, and James Tracy, co-author of No Fascist USA!, for a talk about the history of anti-fascism in the United States and its lessons for activists today -- Bill V. Mullen is Professor of American Studies at Purdue University. He is the author of James Baldwin: Living in Fire (forthcoming); and UnAmerican: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Century of World Revolution and Afro-Orientalism, and a founding member of the Campus Antifascist Network -- James Tracy is an author, organizer, and an Instructor of Labor and Community Studies at City College of San Francisco. He is the co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times and the author of Dispatches Against Displacement: Field Notes From San Francisco's Housing Wars -- About The U.S. Anti-fascism Reader: Since the birth of fascism in the 1920s, the United States has been home to its own distinct fascist movements, some of which decisively influenced the course of US history. Many on the left are unaware that the US has a rich antifascist tradition, because it has rarely been discussed as such. The U.S. Anti-fascism Reader reconstructs the history of US antifascism, showing how generations of writers, organisers, and fighters spoke to each other over time -- About No Fascist USA!: In 1977, a group of white anti-racist activists formed the first chapter of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, dedicated to countering the rise of the KKK and other far-right white nationalist groups. No Fascist USA! tells the story of that network, whose efforts throughout the 1980s––which included exposing white supremacists in public office, confronting neo-Nazis in street protests, and engagement with the underground punk scene––laid the groundwork for many anti-racist efforts to emerge since: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/anti-fascism-in-the-usa-bill-mullen-and-james-t... Tue, 8/24, 5 pm -- P&P Live! Robert S. Levine: THE FAILED PROMISE with Richard Bell -- Join Robert Levine as he discusses his newest book, THE FAILED PROMISE, with Richard Bell on P&P Live! -- Robert S. Levine foregrounds the viewpoints of Black Americans on Reconstruction in his absorbing account of the struggle between the great orator Frederick Douglass and President Andrew Johnson, in: The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson -- Robert S. Levine (Ph.D. Stanford) is Distinguished University Professor of English and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the author of Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity; Dislocating Race and Nation: Episodes in Nineteenth-Century American Literary Nationalism; The Lives of Frederick Douglas; Race, Transnationalism, and Nineteenth-Century American Literary Studies; and (upcoming from Norton) The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson -- Richard Bell is Professor of History at the University of Maryland and author of the new book Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home which is shortlisted for the George Washington Prize and the Harriet Tubman Prize. He serves as a Trustee of the Maryland Center for History and Culture and as a fellow of the Royal Historical Society: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pp-live-robert-s-levine-the-failed-promise-with... Tue, 8/24, 6 pm -- Dispelling the Myths: "Critical Race Theory" in K-12 Classrooms -- Teachers of the Year discuss the controversy surrounding critical race theory. -- ***Interested attendees must RSVP via Eventbrite to receive the Zoom Webinar link and password 24 hours before event.*** -- Why are conversations about race, equity, racial justice and "Critical Race Theory" in k-12 classrooms so contentious now? Three experienced and acclaimed 2019 Teachers of the Year—AZ, UT, and AR--share their experiences and perspectives on the social and political debate taking the US by storm. In the wake of the US and global racial justice “reckoning,” where does this focus on Critical Race Theory fall and how does this “controversy” challenge the foundation of US education and race relations?: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dispelling-the-myths-critical-race-theory-in-k-... Tue, 8/24, 6 pm -- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz in conversation with Alejandro Murguía -- Celebrating the launch of her new book Not A Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion -- Debunks the pervasive and self-congratulatory myth that our country is proudly founded by and for immigrants, and urges readers to embrace a more complex and honest history of the United States -- Whether in political debates or discussions about immigration around the kitchen table, many Americans, regardless of party affiliation, will say proudly that we are a nation of immigrants. In this bold new book, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz asserts this ideology is harmful and dishonest because it serves to mask and diminish the US's history of settler colonialism, genocide, white supremacy, slavery, and structural inequality, all of which we still grapple with today -- Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma in a tenant farming family. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than 4 decades and is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. Dunbar-Ortiz is the winner of the 2017 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize, and is the author or editor of many books, including An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, a recipient of the 2015 American Book Award: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/roxanne-dunbar-ortiz-in-conversation-with-aleja... Tue, 8/24, 10 pm -- Unravelling the Capitalist State: Crisis and Opportunity -- Sydney Environment Institute Doctoral Fellow Anna Sturman explores the capitalist state as a key terrain of inquiry for environmental and social justice movements -- A central concept that remains resolutely under-theorised in much climate and environmental scholarship is the capitalist state -- In conversation with this resurgent state theory literature and on-the-ground responses to compounding crises, SEI Doctoral Fellow Anna Sturman argues that what we may observe as disparate crises are internally related facets of the same crisis - or crisis tendencies - of capitalism. Moving past definitions of the state which see it as a unified and autonomous entity, instrumentally or structurally inclined to act in one way or the other, here instead the state is positioned as an internally contradictory set of social relations which can be worked on and through by different social forces -- As crisis tendencies continue to escalate, the state will be worked on and through by different social forces bent on achieving their aims. With the ongoing rise of the far-right, we can see that the stakes have never been higher. The time is now to return to a serious consideration of the capitalist state and how progressive forces might navigate it as part of a broader strategy to bring about a safer, democratic future -- Speaker: Anna Sturman is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney and a SEI Doctoral Fellow. Her research interests include the political economy of climate change, the role of agriculture in programmatic socio-ecological transformations, materialist ecofeminist approaches to economics and theories of the state: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/unravelling-the-capitalist-state-crisis-and-opp... Wed, 8/25, 4 am -- We Are All Mutants: CRISPR and Multispecies Futures -- AMOR MUNDI Multispecies Ecological Worldmaking Lab presents “We Are All Mutants: CRISPR and Multispecies Futures”: A Talk by Multispecies Ethnographer & Biotechnoscience Scholar Eben Kirksey -- In THE MUTANT PROJECT: Inside the Global Race to Genetically Modify Humans, anthropologist Eben Kirksey visits the frontiers of genetics, medicine, and technology to ask: Whose values are guiding gene editing experiments? And what does this new era of scientific inquiry mean for the future of the human species? -- In 2018, Dr. He Jiankui announced that he had created the first genetically modified babies—twin girls named Lulu and Nana—sending shockwaves around the world. As scientists elsewhere start to catch up with China’s vast genetic research program, gene editing is fueling an innovation economy that threatens to widen racial and economic inequality. Fundamental questions about science, health, and social justice are at stake: Who gets access to gene editing technologies? As countries loosen regulations around the globe, from the U.S. to Indonesia, can we shape research agendas to promote an ethical and fair society? -- EBEN KIRKSEY is an American anthropologist and Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He speaks widely at the world’s leading academic institutions including Oxford, Yale, Columbia, UCLA, and the International Summit of Human Genome Editing. Professor Kirksey holds a long-term position at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/we-are-all-mutants-crispr-and-multispecies-futu... Wed, 8/25, 9 am -- Who is Creating Existential Risk? (Why, and Why Should We Care?) -- In this panel, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk researchers will discuss an array of different hazards, ranging from AI to bioweapons, climate change to nuclear weapons -- Who or what are the primary creators of global risk? Should we be most concerned about individuals like the lone rogue scientist or hooded hacker, or place more responsibility with larger actors such as large corporations and states? To what extent should we think of actors as holding responsibility for risk, as opposed to it being something that emerges in a more distributed way? Why does this matter, and how might understanding the root causes and responsibilities around global risk help us to better mitigate them? -- In this panel, researchers from the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) will discuss these questions for an array of different hazards, ranging from AI to bioweapons, climate change to nuclear weapons. They will consider the sources of existential risk in the past and present, what could change in the future, and what this means for the world. Panellists: Jess Whittlestone, Lalitha Sundaram, Tom Hobson, and Luke Kemp: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/who-is-creating-existential-risk-why-and-why-sh... Wed, 8/25, 11 am -- The Divide by Jason Hickel -- Join author Jason Hickel and guests for a discussion on Global Inequality and its Solutions -- The richest eight people control more wealth than the poorest half of the world combined. Today, 60 per cent of the world’s population lives on less than $5 a day. Though global real GDP has nearly tripled since 1980, 1.1 billion more people are now living in poverty -- Join author Jason Hickel and guests for a discussion on The Divide - a provocative, urgent and ultimately uplifting account of how the world works, and how it can change for the better. The discussion will explore the reality that poor countries are poor because they are integrated into the global economic system on unequal terms, and that aid only helps to hide this: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-divide-by-jason-hickel-tickets-163829706061... Wed, 8/25, 12 noon -- Ethics in Tech – A Conversation Series -- From the moment you wake up and check your messages on Facebook or Twitter, to when you set your Google Nest for the night, tech giants wield unprecedented influence over our daily lives. With this enormous power comes an enormous potential for abuse. The information economy has led to profound challenges to personal privacy. Stalkerware takes advantage of security gaps in our personal digital infrastructure to turn phones and smart home products into tools for facilitating domestic violence. Online platforms are grappling with what it means to provide fairness and due process to their users. And across the tech industry, racial and gender-based discrimination scandals suggest a need to address toxic cultures. The question of how to impose ethical guardrails on these enormously powerful actors is among the most important challenges of this generation -- Our first session features Cory Doctorow, in conversation with Dr. Sarah Roberts -- Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger -- the editor of Pluralistic and the author of young adult novels like LITTLE BROTHER and HOMELAND and novels for adults like ATTACK SURFACE and WALKAWAY, as well as nonfiction books like HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM. He is the former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group -- Sarah T. Roberts is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Department of Information Studies and holds an appointment in Labor Studies. She was recently appointed a Research Associate to the Oxford Internet Institute: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ethics-in-tech-a-conversation-series-tickets-16... Wed, 8/25, 3 pm -- Hemp and Biotech: An Earth Based Solution for 21st Century Challenges -- A monthly series highlighting hemp as an eco-solution to the climate crisis with conversations between industry Leaders and youth activists! -- Moon Mother Hemp Company and Earth Guardians are combining forces to host a virtual series designed to shine light on hemp as a dynamic solution to the current climate crisis. Each panel will focus on unique topics chosen by the Earth Guardians' Youth Council featuring industry specialists. Learn about hemp history, environmental benefits, justice & equity, daily uses, substitutions, and more! -- AUGUST WEBINAR: HEMP AND BIOTECH: AN EARTH BASED SOLUTION FOR 21st CENTURY CHALLENGES -- Many of the biggest challenges in the battle against our environmental crisis lie in the biotech space. However, today a number of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs are looking at those challenges through the lens of Hemp. Some of the most evocative uses of Hemp are as an alternative to plastic, packaging, and other low impact solutions to a sustainable economy and a more regenerative approach to the challenges of commerce and utility: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hemp-and-biotech-an-earth-based-solution-for-21... Thu, 8/26, 4 pm -- "Redeeming the Heart and Soul of America": A Conversation with Rev. William Barber -- Rev. William Barber is one of the best known social justice advocates in America today and his passion and eloquence has inspired millions of people. On Thursday night, August 26th he will be featured in a webinar hosted by the McClendon Scholar Program at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. He will be interviewed by Rev. William Lamar IV, pastor of the historic Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, DC. They will discuss personal faith, activism and social change and what needs to be done to "redeem the heart and soul of America.": https://www.eventbrite.com/e/redeeming-the-heart-and-soul-of-america-with-re... *===========================* To submit events for our newsletter, please email a short blurb to news@sfgreens.org. Messages to a mailing list will be rejected.