Schedule of ALL Weekend Events at Green Gathering the Weekend in Oakland

SATURDAY
Registration and Breakfast (8:00am - 9:00am)
Opening Ceremony (9:00am - 10:00am)
Saturday Workshops (10:15am - 4:30pm)
Saturday Evening Rally: Back to School, Not War (6:00pm – 8:30 pm)

SUNDAY
Sunday Symposium: Strategies for 2006 Campaign (11:00am - 12:30pm)
Sunday Lecture by David Zirin: Sports and Resistance (12:45pm - 2:00pm)

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SATURDAY WORKSHOP SESSIONS

Morning Session (10:15 – 11:45 am)
Workshop 1: 10:15 – 11:45 am, The Forum

Topic: American Muslims in the era of the PATRIOT ACT

Description: Today 97% of Congress is indifferent Arab/Muslim concerns. This workshop will focus on how the USA PATRIOT ACT serve as a means to politically exclude the Muslim community in America by unjustly applying it to socially and legally intimidate Muslim citizens.

Presenter: Dr. Agha Saeed is the founder and National Chairman of American Muslim Alliance (AMA) and was the first chair of American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPCC). He teaches Political Science and Sociology at UC Berkeley and CSU Hayward.
Workshop 1(B): 10:15 – 11:45 am, Room B-210


Topic: Religion/Spirituality and the Green Party

Description: Together, the workshop participants will explore the place of religion/spirituality in the politics of the U.S., their own lives, and the green Party. There will be a short presentation by the presenters. Most of the time, participants will be involved in a conocimento small group process.

Presenters: Wilson Riles Jr. served on the Oakland City Council for 8 years and was a candidate for Mayor in 2002. He is a member of the Green party and serves on the staff of the American Friends Service Committee.

Patricia St. Onge is a partner in Seven Generations Consulting, providing training and assistance in community organizing, social justice advocacy, cross-cultural effectiveness and spiritual, personal and executive coaching.

Laura Wells was the 2002 Green Party candidate for controller. As a local activist she has worked with Pesticide Action Network, Women’s Economic Agenda Project, Peoples Nonviolent Response Coalition, and other organizations to improve the lives of Oakland residents.
Workshop 1(C): 10:15 – 11:45 am, Room TBA


Topic: Tips and Tricks to get the news media to cover you and your issue

Description: This workshop - offered by two veteran daily newspaper editors – will provide easy and effective "nuts and bolts" tips and tricks to greatly increase the chances of news coverage of your issue for your organization. The workshop will greatly increase the chances of news coverage of Green Party issues and Green Party candidacies. Participants will learn media skills such as creating news releases and media events. The workshop will include information about opportunities for coverage in mainstream and alternative media.

Presenters: Cres Vellucci currently serves as the press secretary for the Green Party of California and as campaign news media manager for the Center for Information in the Public Interest, providing media relations assistance to social justice groups. He is a former daily newspaper reporter and editor, and wire service bureau chief at the State Capitol. He also formerly owned and operated a public relations agency in Sacramento.

Larry Cafiero currently serves as a copy editor for the Santa Cruz Sentinel and as the liaison to the Secretary of State for the Green Party of California. He has worked in all facets of media -- newspapers, radio and television -- during his 28-year tenure in the field.
Workshop 1(D): 10:15 – 11:45 am, Room TBA


Topic: Grassroots Democracy: lessons from the 1968 social uprising in France, and today's grassroot revolt against Bush's regime.

Description: This workshop will discuss the 1968 student revolt in France, with a focus on leaders like Daniel Cohn Bendit and others students who occupied Sorbonne University. It will then turn to the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson and how the pursuit of Freedom and Social Justice shared by our two countries should give us hope beyond the "new Bush tyranny"

Presenter: Jean Michel Normand is French American High School teacher of philosophy. He has traveled extensively in Brazil and has taught in San Francisco for the past 30 years.
GPCA-WG 1: 10:15 – 11:45 am, Room TBA


Topic: The GPCA Platform: What Should It Be? Is It All It Can Be?

Description: This workshop is a discussion of how the GPCA should amend and change it’s Platform, and what else the Platform needs to include. Should the Platform be approved by the Counties rather than the General Assembly? Should the Platform seek input like the Canadian Green party does? Should the GPCA platform delete sections related to U.S. policy that the GPUS Platform covers? Should One- Person-one Vote Be Enshrined in the Platform?

Presenter: Shane Que Hee is one of the GPCA Platform Committee Co-Cos, and has been a member of the GPCA Platform Committee since 2003, and Platform Co-Co since 2004.

Afternoon Sessions (1:15 – 2:45 pm)
Workshop 2(A): 1:15 – 2:45 pm, The Forum


Topic: Immigrant rights, the minutemen, and the fight for the driver’s license

Description: This workshop will focus on the crackdown by the INS and state legislators to deny Latino’s their human rights. This crackdown has lead to the rise of the vigilante Minutemen along the Mexican boarder, an unprecedented slew of anti-immigrant bills, and the denial of driver’s license to undocumented workers. We will discuss actions we can take to oppose this crackdown and support the rights of Latino immigrants.

Presenters: Miguel Araujo is the general coordinator of Centro Azteca and is a leader in the fight for the rights of undocumented workers to obtain driver’s licenses.

Maria Poblet is an activist with Deporten a la Migra, (Deport the INS), an organization that has been in the forefront in the fight to stop the Minutemen Vigilante Project and anti-immigration hate legislation.
Workshop 2(B): 1:15 – 2:45 pm, Room B-210


Topic: The Crisis in Public Education

Description: This workshop will address the crisis in education: from the (quiet) reversal of Brown vs the Board of education, to privatization to No Child Left Behind and its open door policy to the US Military.

What are the solutions? How would children be educated in a truly democratic society? Join us for this discussion on not just the problems in education but an exploration of radical solutions, drawing on writers and theorists such as Paolo Freire, John Dewey, and Jonathan Kozol.

Presenter: Jessie Muldoon is an Oakland teacher, union activist and member of in the Oakland teachers association (OEA), and a member of the International Socialist Organization.
Workshop 2(C): 1:15 – 2:45 pm, Room B-264


Topic: Resource Depletion: How will we deal with Peak Oil and Water Scarcity?

Description: Future Focus requires that Greens address the environmental and resource disasters that are headed our way soon. Peak oil – the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era – and water scarcity – the growing global shortage of fresh water - are accepted as facts by most industry professionals. How can we, as a political party, best deal with these imminent changes in our relationship with nature?

Presenters: David Room is the Director of North American Operations for the Post-Carbon Institute, and co-author of “Relocalize Now! Getting Ready for Climate Change and the End of Cheap Oil”, due out this fall from New Society Publishers.

Cleo Woelfle-Erskine is the force behind the Greywater Guerillas, an activist organization opposing privatization of our water supplies. He is co-editor of the upcoming “Dam Nation: Dispatches from the Water Underground”, and helped write the EJCW report, "Thirsty for Justice: A People's Blueprint for California Water".
Workshop 2(D): 1:15 – 2:45 pm, Room B-262


Topic: Political strategies for winning the fight for Universal Health Care

Description: In 1994, a group of activist, with the support of labor and the small business community, put an initiative on the ballot in support of universal health care with single payer financing. This workshop will focus on political strategies to win the fight for universal health care in the future.

Presenters: Don Bechler is chair of the San Francisco chapter of Health Care For All and the California Universal Health Care Organizing Project. He is a Green Party member and has been an active leader in promoting universal health care with single payer financing.
GPCA-WG 2: 1:15 – 2:45 pm, Room A-140


Topic: Organizing the California Fair Wage Initiative - Putting an end to poverty wages

Description: This workshop will discuss the destructive social effects of poverty wages, and focus on how to actually change public policy so that poverty wages becomes unacceptable and a thing of the past. This is an ACTIVIST'S workshop that will concentrate more on the 'doing' than the 'talking'... Come get informed AND involved! See how a grassroots initiative campaign can become a galvanizing and organizing tool for broader social awareness, activism and real political change.

Presenters: Barry Hermanson, a key organizer of San Francisco's recent, successful living wage and minimum wage campaigns, and a Green Candidate for State Assembly in the up-coming 2006 elections.

Tim Smith, a political consultant/campaign coordinator, specializing in initiative campaigns, who worked on the successful 1996 minimum wage initiative, and co-coordinated the 1994 Single-Payer Initiative. He is also a Green Party activist who has registered over 2,000 Green voters in the last 5 years.

Evening Sessions (3:00 – 4:30 pm)
Workshop 3(A): 3:00 – 4:30 pm, The Forum


Topic: Labor and Greens -- What are the possibilities?

Description: We will explore the labor movement's relationship with the Democratic Party and what (if any) benefits labor has gotten from that relationship. We will discuss the discontents that many progressive trade unionists have with that relationship. We will assess the possibilities of a break with the Democrats and what role the Green party could play to facilitate such a break.

Presenters: Clarence Thomas is the secretary-treasurer of ILWU Local 10 and is Co-Chair, Million Worker March Organizing Committee. He is a long-time labor activist who has also worked consistently on a number of international issues.

Charlie Ridgell is a representative with local 250 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and a member of the Green party.

Gretchen Lipow, is the past president of the Alameda Education Association and is currently president of the AlCosta Retired Teachers.
Workshop 3(B): 3:00 – 4:30 pm, Room B-210


Topic: Military Out of Our Schools: Building the Movement for College Not Combat

Description: This workshop will focus on the history and current efforts of soldiers refusing to fight unjust wars and students working to kick recruiters out of their schools.

Presenters: Aimee Allison was a conscientious objector during the first Gulf War and is a leader in today's counter recruitment movement. She was Green Party candidate for Oakland City Council District 2 in the spring special election.

Ragina Johnson is the campaign director for the College Not Combat proposition that will be on the November 8 ballot in San Francisco and is a member of the San Francisco International Socialist Organization as well as a member of the Green Party.
Workshop 3(C): 3:00 – 4:30 pm, Room B-264


Title: Myths of Genetic Engineering: PoorWashing, GreenWashing, and Hope Dashing

Description: Proponents of Biotechnology claim that genetically engineered crops will help feed the world, are good for the environment, safe for human health, and that the Third World nations want them.

This workshop will help dismantle these myths, provide examples of international opposition to GE technology, and expose the corporate agenda that is promoting it.

Presenter: Anuradha Mittal, founder and executive director of the Oakland Institute, is an international expert on trade, development, human rights, and agriculture. She is the author of several books, including "Voices from the South: The Third World Speaks Out Against Genetic Engineering," and has written articles for the NY Times, LA Times, and Bangkok Post. She is a former co-director of Food First.
Workshop 3(D): 3:00 – 4:30 pm, B-262


Topic: Cross-filing or Cross Purposes?

Description: Proposition 60 was approved in 2004 by California voters. It gives political parties the right to set their own rules for write-in candidates in party primaries – and applies to both party members as well as members of other parties, who could then seek to ‘cross-file’ and become candidates of more than one party. What does this bode for democracy and independent politics in California?

Presenters: Richard Winger is the Secretary of Coalition for Free & Open Elections (COFOE), serves on the editorial board of Election Law Journal, and is the founder/editor of Ballot Access News since 1985.

Mike Feinstein is a former Green Party Mayor and City Councilmember of Santa Monica, CA, serves on the activist advisory board member for Center for Voting & Democracy, Washington, D.C., and is a co-founder of the Green Party of California.
GPCA-WG 3: 3:00 – 4:30 pm, Room A-140


Topic: Public Funding of Candidates and Single Transferable Voting

Description: This workshop will examine the effects of AB583 to provide 20% funding to all candidates regardless of party or non-party affiliation with same number of signatures and $5 contributions. It will also focus on the process of proportional representation using single transferable voting. There will be demonstrations of a multi-seat election, procedure, process and computer software will be demonstrated and made available to all participants.

Presenters: Trent Lange is the Vice President and Board member of the CA Clean Money Campaign.

Jo Chamberlain was a member of the Elections Team that managed the 2005 election of officers and committee members for the Green Party of the United States at the Tulsa annual meeting this past July.

Jonathan Lundell developed the software program used by the Green Party of the United States in 2004 and 2005 for election of officers and committee members.

Caucus-Working Group sessions (3:00 – 4:30 pm)
Workshop: 4:30 – 6:00 pm, Room B-264


Topic:Indian Gaming and sovereignty issues in Indian country.

Description: The recent attack on Indian gaming is exemplified by governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's demand for a 25% tax on California Indians when Multi-national corporations only pay 8 1/2%. This workshop will focus on unraveling the deceptive game being played by both Democrats and Republicans to extort revenue out of the original inhabitants.

Presenter: Zachary RunningWolf (Blackfeet) is a Bay Area Native American leader and elder. He is a guest lecture at the University of California at Berkeley, where he helped save ethnic studies program in 1999. He is a member of the InterTribal Friendship House and help start the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland.
CCWG - WG: 4:30 – 6:00 pm, TBA


Topic: Campaigns and Candidates General Meeting

Description: This will be a meeting of the Campaigns and Candidates Working Group. In the spirit of the Gathering, the meeting will discuss the role of the working group and allow participants to express their general vision(s) for the working group. Participants will be invited to discuss long-term issues which the press of business at General Assemblies generally does not allow. Attendees will be invited to help form subcommittees (e.g., diversity, internet technology and fund raising) and plan candidate training sessions. Other items may be added according to the interests of those attending this session.

Presenters: This is a meeting convened by the CCWG Interim Coordinator. However, there may be multiple facilitators on different subjects to allow persons who would like to learn or practice meeting facilitation in a small informal setting.
FINANCE - WG: 4:30 – 6:00 pm, TBA


Topic: Campaign & County Treasurers Workshop

Description: Are you running for state or local office or considering running? Do you have a campaign Treasurer or are you one yourself? Are you now a County party Treasurer?
* Confused about California filing requirements?
* Need to know about new state filing rules?

Come to this workshop hosted by GPCA Treasurer Kenny Mostern, and GPCA Assistant Treasurer (and Alameda County GP Treasurer) Bob Marsh. We'll discuss state and local filing requirements, and we'll share common experiences and practices to help you do a better job and avoid common pitfalls.


Saturday Evening Rally: Back to School, Not War (6:00 – 8:30 pm)

Across the country a new movement has sprung up of students, parents, teachers and community members opposing military recruiters in their schools and neighborhoods. From students kicking recruiters off campus, from Seattle to the Bay Area to New Haven to New York; to parents and teachers' unions opposing the military targeting their children; to the growing unwillingness of young people to kill and die in an unjust war, their message is simple:

Military recruiters out of our schools, U.S. troops out of Iraq!

To support the counter-recruitment movement and the rights of all students to a decent and affordable education the Green Party is hosting the anti-war rally: Back to School, Not War. Guest speakers include many of the leading voices in the counter-recruitment movement, including Aimee Allison, a leader in today's counter recruitment movement, Clarence Thomas, co-chair of the Million Worker March Organizing Committee, Ragina Johnson, campaign director for the College Not Combat proposition, Jesse Muldoon, Oakland Education Association, plus a special call-in from Elaine Brown, former chairman of the Black Panther Party and Green Party candidate for mayor in Brunswick Georgia (other speakers TBA).


Sunday Symposium on Strategies for the 2006 Campaign

On Sunday at 11:00 am we will sponsor a symposium on Green Party strategies for the 2006 elections in California. The symposium will feature presentations by Green Party gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo and former Green Party Mayor of Santa Monica Michael Feinstein. The symposium will focus on different strategies for building the Green Party through the electoral process. There will be plenty of time for open discussion, followed by closing remarks from both speakers. This is an event that Greens won’t want to miss!


Sunday Lunchtime Lecture by David Zirin: Sports and Resistance

In "What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States," author Dave Zirin chronicles the social struggles that have played out on the athletic fields through essays, profiles and interviews with athlete-activists. He depicts the role of professional and amateur sports in the larger issues of politics, commercialism, bias and class.

As Zirin explains, “the very passion we invest in sports can transform it from a kind of mindless escape into a site of resistance. It can become an arena where the ideas of our society are not only presented but also challenged. Just as sports can reflect the dominant ideas of our society, they can also reflect struggle.

Dave Zirin makes it clear that sport can be a powerful carrier of the best within us, which is respect for each other's humanity and life itself, human relationship and connection, and the joy of play with our fellow humans."

This is a talk not to be missed!