SF Bay Area

Welcome to this Week in Palestine, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for February 4th to 10th 2012.

Welcome to this Week in Palestine, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for January 28 through February 3rd 2012.

Squamish Voices Protest Aboriginal Land Management Forum

Report from J29 Oakland's Rise Up Festival with 15 min audio of first hand accounts from Move-In march and speakers David Graeber and Andrej Grubacic including the ideas that the strategy of squashing direct democracy with war mobilization has run its course, the importance of conflict, and expanding on the anarchism inherent in friendship and love.

The news of misdemeanor domestic violence charges against Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi has obscured all other news in San Francisco, making the Chronicle and Examiner look like tabloid press. Meanwhile, as Mayor Lee encourages Sheriff Mirkarimi to resign, the investigation of Mayor Ed Lee's mayoral campaign, for campaign money laundering, and of the independent expenditure committee to elect Ed Lee, for absentee ballot tampering, seem to have fallen all the way off the radar. Except at KPFA. Audio three minutes and 13 seconds.

Canada Becomes Bad Cop: Haiti, Wikileaks and Washington

The Bay Area Coalition on Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR) held a rally in support of abortion, and for a full and comprehensive reproductive rights agenda at the Embarcadero near Justin Herman Plaza. The rally took place Saturday, January 21, the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. As in each of the past 8 years, the rally was held at the same time as the Christian-based anti-abortion Walk For Life West Coast, which is continually and successfully moving towards a complete nationwide elimination and criminalization of abortion as a prime position in its right-wing public policy agenda. A new record of over 1,100 anti-abortion provisions have been introduced at the State level during 2011, with 135 laws enacted in 36 states. (49 minutes).

The Socialist-Feminist organization Radical Women organized on short notice a "loud, militant" counter protest of the march through Market Street from the also militant, Christian-based West Coast Walk For Life, The purpose was to directly counter the misinformation and lies from that group, while making it much more difficulty for them to expand their recruiting activities because her in SF they are ineffective when met with opposition. (28 minutes).

For the 8th year in a row, thousands of Christian-church-based activists traveled in from across the Country to rally and march through the City pushing their message that abortion is murder and needs to be outlawed. The annual rally takes place on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. In this audio piece, hear keynote speaker Reverend Clenard Childress. Despite an illogical, irrational, emotionally-charged assessment of abortion and abortion providers, he has been keynote speaker 7 of the 8 years. As painful as it is to listen to such outrageous and inflammatory stuff, the talk is important to hear because this anti-abortion movement is increasingly successful and taking over the current underpinnings of government policy-making. (11 minutes)

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Welcome to this Week in Palestine, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for January 21 to the 27th 2012.

Occupy Wall Street West held a day of action to "shut down" the SF Financial District on January 20. Major banks and financial institutions were targeted along with a number of other predatory corporations including Bechtel Corporation. (34 minutes).

After a successful all-day shutdown of Wells Fargo and Bank of America branches at Montgomery and California, evening shift activists took over Montgomery Street and shut it down for a street rally. (28 minutes)

After a rally on January 18 in front of radio conglomerate Entercom on the one-year anniversary of the corrupt sale and shutdown of KUSF, a number of activists went up the office building elevator to the Entercom broadcast offices, to make their presence felt. By fortune or design, Brenda Barnes, a head administrator and media spokesperson for LA-based Classical Public Radio Network, was in the hall to meet and greet the unannounced activists. A patient, cooperative, and informative talk ensued for close to an hour. This audio is useful for radio insiders and Save KUSF activists to hear and use if useful. (56 minutes).

The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors changed their ground breaking medical marijuana regulation, the 9.31 Ordinance, to thwart off threats from federal officials. The new changes rollback cultivating 99 marijuana plants to 25. Local officials point to federal threats of legal action and fear of raids.

KUSF DJ's legal staff and supporters rallied to keep up public pressure as they await an FCC decision on their petition to deny the sale of their station by the University of San Francisco to Classical Public Radio Network (CPRN). The rally took place in front of the offices of radio conglomerate Entercom in the Financial District on Wednesday, January 18, the 1-year anniversary of the sale. I posted about 75% of the audio. A windy, nosy street and lack of microphone made some of it hard to hear. The messages and emotions are completely clear and need to be heard! (42 minutes)

This week on the Mendocino Country Independent News Hour, we speak with Mendocino County 2nd District Supervisor, John Mccowen, about the federal threats against the county's 9.31 medical marijuana permitting program, the 1st of its kind in the nation to regulate the production of medical marijuana.

This 11 minute audio record includes a rally against evictions and foreclosures in front of BofA Regional Headquarters in SF, a street theater performance in front of Wells Fargo, and a teach-in in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, making the connection between predatory evictions and foreclosures, detention and deportation to break up immigrant families and communities under the guise of national security and big bank's investment in for-profit criminalization.