East Bay News

Bay Area activists are not waiting for court challenges to stop Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Protests are ongoing and have cropped up outside Tesla showrooms in Berkeley, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Corte Madera and Seaside, amongst other locations. The earliest of these happened on a national day of action on February 15. The action at the Van Ness Tesla location in SF grew to about a thousand people.

Protesters in the San Francisco Bay Area mustered a half dozen demonstrations during a nationwide weekend of actions organized by the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement.  Chevron is a major economic partner of the Israeli government and fuels Israeli apartheid and war crimes. Demonstrators said that just as in the case of South Africa, international boycotts will be an important tool to bring justice for Palestinians. 

For over a decade the Anti Police-Terror Project has called for a week of action and a mass march on MLK Day to reclaim the revolutionary spirit of Dr. King. Towards the end of King's short life he had moved towards a politic rooted in Black liberation and freedom, while vociferously rejecting war, capitalism, and white supremacy. On January 20, people will fill the streets of Oakland to Reclaim King's Radical Legacy for the 11th year in a row.

"The Heart of Gaza" is a photo exhibition featuring the work of Ahmed Younis, a photojournalist in Gaza who's been documenting life during the ongoing aggression. Since Oct 2023, Ahmed has been risking his life on a daily basis to document the atrocities being committed against the people of Gaza, and show the world their experiences. Ahmed's photos will be on display through April at Shawarmaji restaurant in Oakland.

Casey Support Committee writes, "Casey is a dedicated community educator, writer, distroist, and printer who has committed their life to struggles for liberation. A federal investigation by the FBI and several other law enforcement agencies resulted in Casey’s arrest for alleged politically motivated 'crimes.' Since June 17 2024, Casey has been incarcerated at Santa Rita Jail facing federal felonies that could result in up to 20 years of imprisonment."

Daniel Andreas San Diego had been hunted by the FBI for 20 years, wanted for questioning in the 2003 bombings of Chiron and Shaklee, two businesses paying Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) to murder 500 animals per day testing products such as oven cleaner and pesticides. The bombed offices were only slightly damaged, injuring no one; there was an ongoing international campaign at the time to crush HLS called Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC).

On the night of December 8, Maersk's Emeryville office was vandalized "because they are merchants of death." In a communique published by "Some ordinary autonomous queers" they explain that Maersk, a Danish shipping and logistics conglomerate, ships "military cargo for the Zionist entity to use in their genocide of Palestinians. This includes parts for the F-35 jets bombing Gaza right now. We did this in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance."

On September 26, Bay Area residents rallied outside the entrance to Chevron’s global headquarters in San Ramon to protest its fueling of Israel’s genocide. The company is heavily invested in the Israeli economy, supplying most of its military and civilian fuel. The Tamar gas platform, off the Gaza coast, supplies up to 70% of Israel's gas needs. Chevron, a pillar of the Israeli economy, benefits no Palestinians and enables the ongoing genocide.

Golden Gate Fields in the East Bay is finally shutting down. For the last race day on June 9, animal rights activists gathered to mourn the deaths of all the horses who have died there since it opened 1941. Dressed in black, with a coffin and holding flowers, activists held a short funeral procession. They spoke of horse racing's abuse of horses for sport and of how the animals are slaughtered when no longer useful.

Students at UCB, Cal Poly Humboldt, Stanford, Sonoma State, SF State, Sacramento State, USF, UCSC and UCD joined students at colleges throughout the country to establish occupations in support of Palestinians. Outrage at Israel's attempted genocide in Gaza has produced a movement of encampments at Harvard, Columbia, Yale, MIT, NYU, UT Austin, and more. Police have arrested hundreds, and yet the protests persist and expand.