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Nearly Eighty Arrested in San Francisco During ‘First Real Occupation’ of 2012

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Allison Kilkenny / The Nation / April 3, 2012

Once the last major Occupy camps had been razed by police forces, pundits began to crow that the movement was finished. Of course, once it became clear that thesis was not grounded in reality, the professional ponderers went on to wonder aloud (and in print) if occupations would still be a major part of the group’s agenda. In other words: could Occupy still be Occupy without ongoing occupations?

An Occupy Wall Street action in San Francisco of between 100 and 300 activists achieved what New York Magazine calls “one of the first real occupations of 2012” when they took over a building belonging to the city Archdiocese. (photo via @OCongress)

Police in riot gear stormed the two-story building Monday afternoon after breaking through a barricade the activists had built and arrested nearly eighty Occupiers.   [Read more…]

The Green Store of Ocean Beach Has to Move – and Is Looking for Sponsors

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The Green Store of OB – sitting in an old storefront at 4827 Voltaire Street Voltaire Street – has to move. After 17 years being in the same location, the environmentally-and-socially- minded shop was given a 60 day eviction notice by its landlord on April 1st – and it wasn’t a joke.

But Colleen Dietzel – owner and manager – is not bitter. She and her partners at the Green Store have had a wonderful relationship with their landlord, Gregg Sullivan over the years. “He’s been very good to us,” Colleen told me over the phone. “Gregg supported what we’ve been doing here,” she said.

In a bit of irony, Colleen is getting ready to celebrate the Green Store’s 23rd anniversary this April 22nd. The store originally opened in one location in OB and had to move after 6 years. That’s when she and her partner Kip Kruegar moved into the place on Voltaire. Sullivan didn’t buy the place until 7 years later, so he’s been their landlord for the past ten years.   [Read more…]

San Diego Interfaith Community to Wash Feet of Janitors to Highlight Health Inequality – April 5th

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Study Released Revealing Startling Data on Lower Life Expectancy Even in Upper Income Communities

On Thursday, April 5, 2012, over 200 union janitors, religious leaders and community members will be gathering at Good Samaritan Episcopal Church, where members of San Diego’s religious community will be washing the feet of our hardworking janitors to draw attention to the impact of inequality of health for both working class and middle class families.

The janitors’ union, SEIU United Service Workers West (USWW), as part of their statewide campaign for a new contract expiring in 2012, released a study that demonstrates that with a better health care system people in middle-class families could live four years longer, and people would live five years longer.   [Read more…]

A Hopeful Youth Town Hall Meeting at Jacob Center in Lincoln Park

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This old dude was so tired that evening but there was no way I was going to miss a Town Hall Meeting with such a compelling theme as “Silence is Worse than Violence” – especially considering that a number of youth leaders decided that such a gathering was needed to begin a conversation for solutions to the problem. I love it when our children take the lead.

The night was kicked off with a bumping rap about how, “We got to rise up above it” followed by a spoken word piece about love and respect and honoring our ancestries and histories. Amen.

That set a tone that was soothing to my aging bones and the featured speaker and moderator of the evening, Kevin Powell, a prominent voice in the hip hop generation, jumped right in without missing a beat with anecdotes about the rough edges of his youth and how he turned it all around and has devoted his life to positive hopeful causes like ending violence, in keeping with why we were all gathered at the Joe & Vi Jacobs Center.   [Read more…]

Student Walk-Outs Planned at City College, SDSU, and UCSD for March 1st

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As part of the March 1st National Day of Action for Education, three area college campuses are planning student and faculty walk-outs tomorrow, the first day of March. Students at City College, San Diego State University, and University of California at San Diego have all joined in this national day of demonstrations, and each campus […]

Nurses to Converge on 60 Congressional Offices in 21 States Sept. 1 to Call for Tax on Wall Street to Heal America

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Vista rally time has been corrected! See inside.

RNs to sponsor soup kitchens, food pantries, speak outs on the need for jobs, healthcare, education, housing – and outline the RN plan on how to pay for it.

Local actions planned for San Diego include a freeway overpass flash mob and soup line.

From Maine to California, nurses, joined by others fed up with the ongoing economic crisis, will call on Congress members in their local district offices Sept. 1 to support a tax on Wall Street financial speculation, a revenue source fast becoming an international norm, to pay for healing the nation.
  [Read more…]

Community and Labor Activists Begin Movement to Change San Diego

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Over three hundred community and labor activists met yesterday, Saturday, August 27th, for an all-day economic summit and began the process of building a movement to change San Diego. Under the title of “A Better San Diego”, yesterday’s event at Horace Mann Middle School was the culmination of months of meetings and discussions initiated by […]

State of Emergency Rally, San Diego – Friday, May 13 from 4-6 p.m.

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Embarcadero Marina Park North 500 Kettner Blvd, San Diego More than 2,000 educators, students, parents, union members, business and community leaders – arriving by car, trolley, bus and train from throughout San Diego, Imperial, and southern Orange and Riverside counties – will participate in a huge rally between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. at San Diego’s […]

Library Supporters & the San Diego Budget Kabuki Theater

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If you are not at the table you are on the menu. By Anna Daniels/Cross-posted at OB Rag Tomorrow, Thursday May 5th, the San Diego City Council will listen to public testimony about the library budget. This hearing, at 10:30 am in the commission chambers, will be the only opportunity to provide input solely on […]

Overflow Crowds at City College Conference Hear Call for General Strike in California

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Organizers for the day-long community/labor conference, held last Friday at San Diego City College were stunned by the response–expecting perhaps 150 registrants, nearly 300 people turned out. “This is a good kind of problem to have”, said AFT member Professor Jim Miller, as he asked attendees to rotate seating so everybody could have table space during a lunchtime seminar entitled “Making Change at Walmart”. It was clear from talking to forum participants that recent events in Wisconsin have resonated locally.   [Read more…]

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