Rally in Richmond this Saturday

Posted on August 11, 2009

Got a couple emails this morning about a big rally and action at the Chevron Oil Refinery in Richmond this saturday.  I’m going to try to make it out and, if you can, you should too.  here’s the call:

Tired of hearing about climate Change? Then do something.

August 15th Chevron oil refinery action

• CLEAN AIR FOR RICHMOND & THE BAY;
• STOP OIL REFINERY EXPANSIONS
• CORPORATIONS OUT OF COPENHAGEN CLIMATE TALKS!

Saturday, August 15th, 11:30am

Richmond BART,

16th St. & Macdonald Ave., Richmond, CA

FESTIVAL RALLY – 11:30am

MARCH ON CHEVRON OIL REFINERY – 1:00pm

followed by NONVIOLENT CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

In order to bring our climate back to the safe zone and avoid catastrophic consequences, we need to make massive emissions cuts now. There’s only one way we can achieve that: we need to turn the political heat way up — and push back the corporate and business lobbyists who use false solutions (clean coal and carbon trading) to keep polluting and profiting.Climate change is rooted in an unjust economic system controlled by corporations at the expense of people and planet. Climate justice means we need to address these root causes and create postive alternatives; localized, low-carbon communities and economies.

On August 15th stand with the environmental justice movement that has stopped Chevron’s refinery expansion in Richmond. Chevron already produces two million pounds of air pollution, water pollution, and greenhouse gases each year. The expansion would create much more greenhouse gas and toxic air pollution.

Join the growing alliance of groups and people creating “street heat” for climate justice in the lead up to the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Talks

Organize a climate justice affinity group with your friends, neighbors, co-workers, fellow students, union, church or family and join us for Aug. 15 and beyond.

The call is being put out by the Mobilization for Climate Justice, West and the page for info on the action is http://west.actforclimatejustice.org/2009/08/august-15th-protest-chevrons-oil-refinery-expansion/ or just http://west.actforclimatejustice.org/ for their main website.

Hope to see ya’ll there!

Battle of the Bands

Posted on April 3, 2009

Now anyone who’s been in the music business (and I’m sorry to say it is a business) for any length of time knows that’s it’s full to overflowing with slimy unscrupulous parasites who make their money by inserting themselves between musicians and their fans in order to take a chunk of the money, but I think I may have just discovered a new low.  There’s a new company that’s been advertising on Craigslist in San Francisco for an upcoming “Battle of the Bands” and bragging that they’re setting them up all over the country.  The battles (or rather series of battles) are basically marathon shows.   Starting at 5:30 in the afternoon 9 bands get to play half an hour each and the band that gets the loudest applause advances to a second round; the winner of which gets $500, a gig all to themselves, and the possibility of getting some free studio time or even a tour to all the cities where they’re hosting battles.  Sounds kind of cool, huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought too.  So I called them and asked what it would take for Beltaine’s Fire to get in.

And here’s the catch.

Each band gets 100 tickets for the events and is expected to sell as many as they can at $10 each, the more you sell the better your time slot in the battle.  And since the winner is determined by audience applause, the bands that sell the least will be playing to an empty house at 5:30 in the afternoon and lose.  That makes sense, they’ve got to fill the venue somehow after all.  Thing is, the promoters keep ALL the money.  The bands, who have to go out and convince their fans, friends, and family to collectively drop up to $1000 in tickets, get NOTHING.  Nada.  Not a thing.  So at the end of the night if half the tickets get sold the promoter walks away with $4,500 free and clear – and up to double that if the bands sell more tickets – and the “winning” band gets no cash, not even gas money, and their prize is the chance to do the same thing again for the elimination round, after which – if they win a second time – they get $500.

If the promoter runs four preliminary battles at $4,500-$9,000 each that’s $18,000-$36,000.  Add to that the final battle where only the best-selling bands will play (we’ll estimate maybe $6000-$9,000 for that since any bands that were unable to sell tickets have been eliminated) and the promoter walks away with $24,000-$45,000 in cash. From that they pay the best-selling winning band a measly $500 “prize” and the other 35 bands get nothing and are expected to be grateful for the “exposure.”

The worst part of all this is there are thousands of musicians out there who are desperate or naive enough to believe this is a good way to make a name for themselves and will sign up for this type of thing and make the promoter rich. (most of them won’t have read the fine print or figured out that they don’t get to keep any of the money until the night of, but that’s another story and an object lesson in and of itself).

And that type of shit, dear friends, is why the music industry is run by evil bastards.  Because too many musicians lack the common sense and self-reliance to work together to build a scene instead of relying on opportunistic creeps who are in it for the money.

Anarchists Against the Wall Tour the Bay Area On February 5th & 6th

Posted on February 2, 2009

Schachaf Polakow, a member of Anarchists Against the Wall, will give three presentations in the Bay Area that will include film and photos, and will focus both on AATW’s recent work in solidarity with Gaza and their ongoing work in the West Bank. —- Presentations will be at these times and locations:

- February 5th, Berkeley, 7:30 – 9:30 p.m., Unitarian Hall, 1924 Cedar St.

- February 6th, Berkeley, 4:00-6:00 p.m., UC Berkeley, 105 Boalt Hall.

- February 6th, San Francisco, 7:30-9:30 p.m., Station 40, 3030b 16th St. (and Mission)

Anarchists Against the Wall is a direct action group that fights against Israeli apartheid and oppression in all its forms, most recently also the atrocities in Gaza. For five years the group has waged a constant struggle against Israel’s Wall. The work on the ground in the West Bank, alongside the Palestinian popular movement is breaking new ground in the joint struggle for Palestinian liberation.

In December 2008, Anarchists Against the Wall and the Bil’in Village Committee were jointly awarded the prestigious Carl von Ossietzky Medal—an award given annually by the Berlin-based International League of Human Rights, named after German Nobel Peace Prize winner Carl von Ossietzky who died in a Nazi concentration camp.

Since its formation in response to the construction of the West Bank apartheid wall in 2003, the group has participated in hundreds of demonstrations and direct actions against the wall specifically, and the occupation generally, all over the West Bank. All of AATW’s work in Palestine is coordinated through villages’ local popular committees and is essentially Palestinian led.

Now more than ever, it is critical to support the Israeli resistance movement against the state’s attempted repression of our work. Members of Anarchists Against the Wall continually pay the price for our activism, including being shot, beaten, arrested and indicted. Anarchists Against the Wall is in strong need of funding for legal support for both Palestinian and Israeli activists who are arrested and charged in the course of the struggle.