CFOW Weekend Update - Peoples Climate March AND CFOW vigil Saturday

CFOW Weekend Update

April 27, 2017

 

Hello All – This is a lot of activity this weekend.  On Saturday, in Washington, DC and around the world it's The People's Climate March.  The main action will be in Washington, DC, where hundreds of thousands are expected.  There will also be hundreds of other marches, including one in White Plains starting at 11 a.m. (see the "Coming Attractions" below).  For those not going to any of the Climate Marches, please join us in Hastings on Saturday for our weekly antiwar/pro-peace vigil/protest, focused again this week on the danger of war on North Korea.  We meet at the VFW Plaza on Warburton Ave. at Spring street from 12 to 1 p.m.  And following the CFOW vigil/protest, a group of Hastings high school students will be arriving and holding a Climate March rally, beginning at 1 p.m.  Please be there to give them a warm welcome.

 

The Peoples Climate March could not come at a more critical moment. As Bill McKibben, of 350.org, wrote last week in The New York Times [Link], we are at the edge of the climate change cliff, now in the climate-denying stranglehold of the fossil fuel industry and the fossil fools assembled by President Trump. What Trump is stealing from us is time – time before we reach a climate-change tipping point, beyond which global warming can't be reversed (melting glaciers, warming seas, melting methane, etc.)  As Mike Klare wrote in an article linked in the last issue of the CFOW newsletter, "Inaction on Climate Change Equals Human Annihilation." We simply can't wait until 2018 or 2020 when the Democrats get reformed and may or may not retake the White House. Direct action – peoples' action – is our only hope.

 

I would like to say a few words about the good/useful weekend reading linked at the end of this Weekend Update.  One of the things that the three articles have in common is an implicit stress on the importance of some historical awareness.  We don't need to turn ourselves into scholars or academic historians, but we need to consider the issues we are addressing with a sense that they were not born yesterday, or that they were not issues until Trump took office.  For example, in her essay on our immigration dilemmas and the threat posed to immigrants' legal rights by the Trump administration, Aviva Chomsky reminds us that the core of the Trump deportation agenda began in the Clinton administration and was carried forward with great energy by President Obama.  Thus we need to try to guide our defense of immigrants' rights with some historical perspective, one in which both US political parties participated, and under strong pressure from US business interests, Nativist agitation, the outcomes of the US wars in Central America, and the neo-liberal tsunami that has enabled the movements of capital and labor with little restraint.  Similar comments could be made about the other two issues addressed by the articles linked below, the story behind the Palestinian hunger strikers and the absence of much of a US antiwar movement, despite the rising tide of Resistance against Trump.  These stories are little known and generally presented by our mainstream media without context, without history.  As Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky explain in their classic book on media, Manufacturing Consent, these techniques are some of the elements that enable our "free market media" to function as a state propaganda machine without visible puppet strings.

 

Two final notes.  The first concerns the dealings of Astorino with ICE, and with the plan to use the Westchester County Jail in Valhalla as an ICE holding area for immigrants detained by ICE.  After the mailing I sent to everyone last night, I found a better version of the same information in this article from The New York Daily News.  (To my knowledge, there has been no further news except for a short clip on Channel 12.)  Also on Wednesday, the Westchester County Board of Legislators issued a statement in response to the report that ICE has asked to use the country jail for detaining immigrants. Please read it.  While the statement denounces the Trump immigration policies, its specific complaint concerns the use of taxpayer money to enable these policies.  Does this mean, as the Daily News Story indicates, that using the country jail is OK with the Board of Legislators as long as it makes a profit? Also, the statement rejects holding Westchester Co. residents without a warrant; does this mean that they are fine with using the jail if ICE uses a warrant to bring an immigrant in?  We need to pay close attention to this developing story.

 

Also, our friends at the SANE Energy Project/Resist Spectra are still working hard to stop the Spectra pipeline in northern Westchester.  The focus now is on persuading Gov. Cuomo to direct the Department of Environmental Conservation to NOT issue critical permits affecting water and streams, which are necessary for the next section of the pipeline to be built. SANE Energy has set up a link for letters to the Governor requesting that he deny these permits, and the deadline for the letters Is Monday, May 1^st. Please check out this link, which has a useful/brief explanation of the situation, and an easy-to-use form for writing the letters.  NB All this is a continuation of the fight against this pipeline that CFOW stalwarts have been waging for more than two years, and which nearly landed Susan, Linda, and Andy in the hoosegow.  We need to keep fighting; let's not give up!

 

Coming Attractions

Saturday, April 29^th – Hundreds of thousands of people will be in Washington, DC for the Peoples Climate March.  As the world rockets toward self-destruction and the Trump Agenda eliminates the few feeble protections set up by the Obama administration against global warming and climate change, humanity is on our own to save our civilization.  To learn about the Climate March, go here. To get a seat on a Climate March bus leaving Hastings Saturday morning, email Tara Herman (Indivisible CD16) at taraherman@mac.com , and she will send you a reservation link and more information.  The cost of the bus is $57.87 per person. (The buses from North White Plains and Bronxville are sold out.)

 

Saturday, April 29^th - Peoples Climate March rally in White Plains (Renaissance Plaza, Main St. and Mamaroneck Ave.) from 11 a.m. to 12 noon). For more information, go here.

 

Monday, May 1^st – "Justice Monday" continues in White Plains, starting at noon at the Renaissance Plaza fountain, Main St. and Mamaroneck Ave.  This week join with the Westchester Social Justice Community and the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools. Featured speakers include NYSUT President Andy Pallotta, TWU Local 100 Political Director William Smith, CWA 1103 Sec/Treasurer Joseph Mayhew, Mahopac Teacher's Association President Tom McMahon and Community Leaders and Advocates. For more information, go here..

Monday, May 1^st – All out for MAYDAY!  This year's rally in White Plains will focus on our demand that federal, state, and local governments ensure respect, dignity, safety, and justice for all immigrants, all workers, and all New Yorkers.  The rally starts at 4 p.m. at 148 Martine Ave. and is sponsored by many organizations.  For more information, go here.

 

Saturday, May 6^th – The 6^th annual "River Sweep" – organized by the Riverkeeper – will include 90 cleanups and tree planting projects from NYC to Albany.  Last year, Over 2,200 volunteers removed 49 tons of debris from the Hudson River Estuary. To learn more, and to get hooked up with local projects in Yonkers, Hastings, Dobbs, Irvington, etc., go here.

 

Saturday, May 20^th – CFOW will be one of the organizations participating in the Westchester Social Forum, at the New Rochelle High School, starting at 10 a.m. For more information, go here.

 

Saturday, June 3^rd – CFOW will once again lead off the River Arts Music Tour.  As those with working memories will recall, for the last two years we kicked off the Music Tour in Hastings with some peace and justice songs, starting at 12 and going to 1 pm, under the leadership/direction of Jenny Murphy.  So we're signed up for this again. Please start vocalizing and get ready to join our Stalwart Chorus.

 

Contributions to CFOW

If you are able to contribute to CFOW work, we would appreciate it very much.  Please send your check to Concerned Families of Westchester, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706.  Thanks!

 

Rewards!

For newsletter stalwarts reading all the way to here, your reward is to share in some music I've been listening to lately, the songs of Kate and Anna McGarrigle.  Here is their first (1975) big song, "Heart Like a Wheel." Kate McGarrigle died in 2010 at the age of 63.  A year later, Terri Gross interviewed Kate's sister Anna about "life without her sister."  You can hear this interview – and more of the McGarrigle's music - here.  Enjoy!

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

478-3848

 

SOME GOOD/USEFUL WEEKEND READING

 

Making Sense of the Deportation Debate: How Bill Clinton and Barack Obama Laid the Groundwork for Trump's Immigration Policies
By Aviva Chomsky, Tom Dispatch [April 27, 2017]

---- In many ways, Donald Trump is only reiterating, with more bombast, ideas and policies pioneered under Clinton that then became a basic part of Barack Obama's approach to immigration. Those policies drew directly on racist tough-on-crime and anti-terrorism police tactics that also helped foment white racial fears. Anecdotally speaking, there have already been numerous cases of detention and deportation that appear to go far beyond what was occurring in the Obama years.  But a closer look at those cases and at the numbers suggests surprisingly more continuity than change.  Both the mainstream media and social media have highlighted what appear to be extreme cases of the arrest of DACA ("deferred action for childhood arrivals") youth, also known as "Dreamers," as well as of individuals appearing for routine check-ins with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, or other arbitrary detentions and deportations.  Most of these cases, however, have been far more in line with Obama-era policies than readers of such news might imagine.  Then, too, "low-priority immigrants" were swept up surprisingly often in what the New York Times in 2014 called "the net of deportation." [Read More]

 

American Media Continues to Ignore Historic Hunger Strike Underway [Israel/Palestine]

By Vijay Prashad, AlterNet [April 25, 2017]

---- Since April 17, over 1,500 Palestinian political prisoners have been on hunger strike. Each time the political prisoners declare their intention to strike, Israeli authorities put them into solitary confinement. The hope is that isolation will break their spirits and detach the detainees from the outside world.  … This strike, the largest such demonstration inside Israel's colonial prisons, is called the Freedom and Dignity hunger strike. It suggests that the people who sit in cold, lonely cells remain confident of their cause and of their victory. Dignity is important. It is the opposite of occupation. [Read More] Also interesting/useful is this article from the Israeli publication +972 Mag by Amjad Iraqi, "How the hunger strike could bring Palestinian prisoners back to the fore" [April 20, 2017] [Link]; and this article published in Haaretz [Israel] today called "No Meetings, No Radios and No Salt: How Israel Is Pressuring Palestinian Hunger Strikers" [Link].

 

Where Is the Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders of Foreign Policy?

By Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Washington Post [April 2, 2017]

[FB – Katrina vanden Heuvel is the editor of The Nation.]

---- The Democratic establishment's record on foreign policy has been disastrous. Most Democratic leaders supported the war of choice in Iraq, the largest foreign policy debacle since Vietnam. They cheered the "humanitarian intervention" in Libya that has ended in the humanitarian horror of a ruined country, racked by violent conflicts, where the Islamic State is consolidating a backup caliphate. They applauded President Barack Obama's surge in Afghanistan even as that war dragged on year after year. … In 2016, Trump showed how unhappy Americans were with that record of futility. During the campaign, he lambasted Hillary Clinton for Iraq and Libya. He derided regime change. He argued that the United States had wasted $6 trillion in the Middle East for nothing. He claimed his "America First" policy would focus on the Islamic State and protecting our borders. He intimated that he would seek to work with Russia's Vladimir Putin to take out the Islamic State.In less than 100 days, Trump has discarded many of his most populist and popular positions.  … Trump has proved more con man than strongman, but Democrats haven't had much to say about these head-spinning reversals. They largely applauded Trump's bombing of Syria and were reassured by his flip-flops on NATO and the moderating of his positions on China and trade. Objections to his military budget increase have focused more about the domestic cuts than the idiocy of pumping more money into an already bloated military. With Democrats in the political wilderness, having lost the White House and both houses of Congress, this is the time for fundamental debate and reassessment. A challenge to the failed doctrines of the Democratic foreign policy establishment is long overdue. [Read More]  Also useful/interesting is this article by Lawrence Wittner, the leading historian of the US antiwar movements, "Why Is There So Little Popular Protest Against Today's Threats of Nuclear War?"' Antiwar.com [April 25, 2017] [Link].

 

CFOW Newsletter - Climate Marches and Climate Change; War with North Korea?

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

April 23, 2017

 

Hello All – Egg was all over our face last week after we were in a tizzy about a possible nuclear war with North Korea.  We completely missed the April-Fools thing about the wrong-way Armada!  Silly us!  But the Armada is supposedly back on track, ready to confront North Korea after a stop-over for war games with Japan. Soon.  Maybe in a week or two.  It's hard to make plans, but we've linked several good/useful articles about the US-North Korean stand-off/danger down below, just in case danger returns.  (And in the spirit of nuclear-fun, here is Vera Lynn – 100 years old last month! – with an updated version of the conclusion of Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove.")

 

With his attack on Syria and his use of a giant bomb in Afghanistan, President Trump has discovered that he can regain some of his lost public support by become a War President. Though his escalation of military force in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somalia is mostly an extension of President Obama's military planning, his bellicosity toward North Korea (not counting the wrong-way Armada) has also boosted his acceptance by the foreign policy elite.  As an article by Jim Lobe linked below observes, his pivot towards the Pentagon and the "Neo-Cons" for foreign policy advice, his demotion of alt-right political adviser Steve Bannon, and his apparent return to a posture of hostility towards Russia largely completes the return of Trump to the traditional hard right of US foreign/military policy, abandoning his presidential campaign slogans about peace with Russia and staying away from foreign wars.  With many of the Democrats' talking points now made obsolete, we face the prospect of a poisonous "national unity" around military adventurism and a reckless foreign policy.  As several of the articles linked below indicate, the outcome will almost certainly be a horrible increase in civilian casualties wherever US military forces are engaged.

 

News Notes

Next Saturday hundreds of thousands of people will gather in Washington, DC and many other cities around the world for The People's Climate March.  Please read this Call to Action by Bill McKibben: "On April 29, We March for the Future," The Nation [April 19, 2017] Link]. [For more about this event and transportation options, see the Calendar entry below.]

 

Stopping climate change means keeping fossil fuels in the ground.  One of the ways to do this is to stop the building-out of the fossil fuel infrastructures – pipelines, oil trains and oil barges on the Hudson, etc.  On the west side of the Hudson, fossil fools are trying to build a "Pilgrim Pipeline." A segment of the pipeline would run through lands of the Ramapough Lenape Nation.  Read an interesting account from The New York Times of the Ramapoughs' fight against the pipeline here.

 

It's easy and important to take simple steps to protect your cell phone privacy/data.  Read this useful article (and see a video): "Cybersecurity for the People: How to Protect Your Privacy at a Protest." [Link]

 

The leading medical journal in the UK is The Lancet. Their recent publication, "America: Equity and Equality in Health," "highlights how widening gaps of income inequality are driving increases in health inequity." [Link]

 

Every year some Israeli young people become conscientious objectors to military service, usually because of the role of the army in the Occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.  Read, for example, the story of 19-year-old Atalya Ben-Abba, who has already spent 50 days in prison for refusing to serve in the IDF, and has now been sentenced to a further 30 days. "Conscientious objector jailed by Israeli army for third time," 972 Magazine [Israel] [April 19, 2017] [Link].

 

Does the US-North Korea stand-off lead you to think about what to do in case of nuclear war? The government is way ahead of you!  Check out this interesting article, "The American Government's Secret Plan for Surviving the End of the World," by Marc Ambinder, Foreign Policy [April 14, 2017] [Link].  Of course Stanley Kubrick already worked this out for this film, "Dr. Strangelove" [Link].

 

Coming Attractions

Monday, April 24 – "Justice Monday" will continue in White Plains, starting at noon at the Renaissance Plaza fountain, Main St. and Mamaroneck Ave.  This week "Justice Monday" will join the Westchester Jewish Council and the Holocaust and Human Rights Center to commemorate the Holocaust.  For more information, go here. (No signs or placards for this event.)

 

Saturday, April 29^th – Hundreds of thousands of people will be in Washington, DC for the Peoples Climate March.  As the world rockets toward self-destruction and the Trump Agenda eliminates the few feeble protections set up by the Obama administration against global warming and climate change, humanity is on our own to save our civilization.  To learn about the Climate March, go here.  To get a seat on a Climate March bus leaving Hastings Saturday morning, email Tara Herman (Indivisible CD16) at taraherman@mac.com , and she will send you a reservation link and more information.  The cost of the bus is $57.87 per person. There is also a bus from North White Plains.

 

Saturday, April 29^th - Peoples Climate March rally in White Plains (Renaissance Plaza, Main St. and Mamaroneck Ave.) from 11 a.m. to 12 noon). For more information, go here.

 

Saturday, May 6^th – The 6^th annual "River Sweep" – organized by the Riverkeeper – will include 90 cleanups and tree planting projects from NYC to Albany.  Last year, Over 2,200 volunteers removed 49 tons of debris from the Hudson River Estuary. To learn more, and to get hooked up with local projects in Yonkers, Hastings, Dobbs, Irvington, etc., go here.

 

Saturday, May 20^th – CFOW will be one of the organizations participating in the Westchester Social Forum, at the New Rochelle High School, starting at 10 a.m. For more information, go here.

 

Saturday, June 3^rd – CFOW will once again lead off the River Arts Music Tour.  As those with working memories will recall, for the last two years we kicked off the Music Tour in Hastings with some peace and justice songs, starting at 12 and going to 1 pm, under the leadership/direction of Jenny Murphy.  So we're signed up for this again. Please start vocalizing and get ready to join our Stalwart Chorus.

 

Contributions to CFOW

If you are able to contribute to CFOW work, we would appreciate it very much.  Please send your check to Concerned Families of Westchester, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706.  Thanks!

 

Rewards

Faithful readers of the CFOW Newsletter know that they are richly rewarded for reading at least the first 2 or 3 pages.  This week, meet Syrian-American rap singer Mona Haydar, with her in-your-face video "Wrap My Hijab."  (And you can read about her here.)  And for something completely different, here is Marcia Ball with her piano blues ballad, "(Big Mouth) Louella." Enjoy!

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

FEATURED ESSAYS

The Planet Can't Stand This Presidency

By BILL McKibben, New York Times [April 20, 2017]

---- President Trump's environmental onslaught will have immediate, dangerous effects. He has vowed to reopen coal mines and moved to keep the dirtiest power plants open for many years into the future. Dirty air, the kind you get around coal-fired power plants, kills people. It's much the same as his policies on health care or refugees: Real people (the poorest and most vulnerable people) will be hurt in real time. That's why the resistance has been so fierce. But there's an extra dimension to the environmental damage. What Mr. Trump is trying to do to the planet's climate will play out over geologic time as well. In fact, it's time itself that he's stealing from us. What I mean is, we have only a short window to deal with the climate crisis or else we forever lose the chance to thwart truly catastrophic heating. [Read More]

 

The Main Issue in the French Presidential Election: National Sovereignty

By Diana Johnstone, Counterpunch [April 21, 2017]

[FB – Diana Johnstone writes illuminating commentary on European politics.  Compare her analysis of what's behind today's election in France with this report from The New York Times.]

---- The 2017 French Presidential election marks a profound change in European political alignments. There is an ongoing shift from the traditional left-right rivalry to opposition between globalization, in the form of the European Union (EU), and national sovereignty. … The confusion is due to the fact that most of what calls itself "the left" in the West has been totally won over to the current form of imperialism – aka "globalization". … The left has been won over to this new imperialism because it advances under the banner of "human rights" and "antiracism" – abstractions which a whole generation has been indoctrinated to consider the central, if not the only, political issues of our times. … By far the most fundamental emerging issue in this campaign is the conflict between the European Union and national sovereignty.  It will probably not be settled in this election, but it won't go away.  This is the major issue of the future, because it determines whether any genuine political life is possible. [Read More]

 

Donald Trump's first 100 days: The madder he gets, the more seriously the world takes him

By Robert Fisk, The Independent [UK] [April 21, 2017]

[FB – Robert Fisk is one of our best reporters on events in the Middle East.  Here's how he sees Trump's rush to disaster in the Middle East.]

---- The more dangerous America's crackpot President becomes, the saner the world believes him to be. Just look back at the initial half of his first 100 days: the crazed tweeting, the lies, the fantasies and self-regard of this misogynist leader of the Western world appalled all of us. But the moment he went to war in Yemen, fired missiles at Syria and bombed Afghanistan, even the US media Trump had so ferociously condemned began to treat him with respect. And so did the rest of the world. It's one thing to have a lunatic in the White House who watches late night television and tweets all day. But when the same lunatic goes to war, it now emerges, he's a safer bet for democracy, a strong President who stands up to tyrants (unless they happen to be Saudis, Turks or Egyptians) and who acts out of human emotion rather than cynicism. [Read More]

 

The Syrian People Have Been Betrayed By All Sides

By Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept [April 20 2017]

---- Assad may be the biggest monster but he is far from the only monster. Some of us, therefore, refuse to pick a side; refuse to glorify regime over rebels, or Americans over Russians, or Iranians over Arabs. Brahimi had it right: a plague on all their houses. The Syrian people deserve better than Assad but they've been betrayed on all sides, and suffered as a result, for six long years. A political solution based on a negotiated, power-sharing deal is now as much a chimera as a military solution in which Assad is forced from power. Syria will continue to bleed. Rather than picking between the various bad guys, and further prolonging the fighting, our time and energy would be better spent on pressuring hypocritical governments in the West and the Arab world to open their borders to Syrian refugees and also to uphold and deliver on their much-vaunted pledges of humanitarian aid. There are, in fact, many ways to help ordinary Syrians without dropping more bombs on them. [Read More]  For more useful reading on Syria, here is James Trimarco, "What a policy of real solidarity with the Syrian people looks like," Waging Nonviolence [April 10, 2017] [Link].

 

Saturday's "March for Science"

Why They March: "Science and Scientists Are Now Under Attack"

By Sharon Lerner, The Intercept [April 22 2017]

---- The March for Science is a response to the Trump administration's distaste for science — or at least the kind that gets in the way of profit — but it is also a celebration of those among us who have devoted their lives to understanding how the world works. The thousands descending on the National Mall, on the first Earth Day under a regime that has taken a sharp knife to government science budgets, study stars and butterflies, barrier reefs and hedgehog reproduction, viruses and bird flight patterns. Most days, they make and test their hypotheses in laboratories or perhaps in the Arctic Circle or the Australian Outback, in an anti-gravity chamber or a deciduous forest. But on this rainy April Saturday, they have come together in Washington, D.C, to make a point that feels more urgent than ever: Science matters, and we ignore its findings at our peril. [Read More]

 

Also Interesting/Useful on the March for Science – Zoe Carpenter, "Scientists Are Marching Because Things Are Not Normal," The Nation [April 21, 2017] [Link]; and David Suzuki, "March for Science on Earth Day," ZNet [April 21, 2017] [Link]. See photos of "best signs" here. Democracy Now! live-streamed the 5-hour event, which you can see here. [NB check out the first interview, with March organizer and old friend Beka Economopoulos.]

 

WAR & PEACE

Bannon Down, Pentagon Up, Neocons In?

By Jim Lobe, LobeLog [April 2017]

[FB – Is Trump reversing course in foreign policy, realigning with the military/foreign policies of Obama and Bush?  Jim Lobe thinks he is.]

---- The apparent and surprisingly abrupt demise in Steve Bannon's influence offers a major potential opening for neoconservatives, many of whom opposed Trump's election precisely because of his association with Bannon and the "America Firsters," to return to power after so many years of being relegated to the sidelines. Bannon's decline suggests that he no longer wields the kind of veto power that prevented the nomination of Elliott Abrams as deputy secretary of state. Moreover, the administration's ongoing failure to fill key posts at the undersecretary, assistant secretary, and deputy assistant secretary levels across the government's foreign-policy apparatus provides a veritable cornucopia of opportunities for aspiring neocons who didn't express their opposition to the Trump campaign too loudly. [Read More]

 

War with North Korea?

[FB – After Trump's fiasco with the "wrong-way Armada," it's hard to make plans for the next nuclear stand-off.  Though North Korea celebrates the birthday of its armed forces on Tuesday – and thus a big celebration, with talk of a nuclear test – the Armada is now engaged in "naval exercises" with the Japanese navy, still some distance from North Korea. Still, things are moving in a bad direction, and for illumination, I've reposted several articles by Bruce Cumings, my guide on Korean politics and history.]

 

How to Defuse the Crisis With North Korea

By Joel S. Wit, New York Times [April 19, 2017]

---- I have been meeting with North Korean government officials for over two decades, first for almost 10 years as part of my job at the State Department, and then as a researcher working at universities and think tanks. This experience has made me familiar with the North Koreans' views on safeguarding their country's security. I believe that President Trump is making a big mistake if he thinks that the threat of a military strike and escalating sanctions will persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. … The Trump administration's constant refrain that "all options are on the table" should mean just that — not only a military strike but also a diplomatic offensive. In doing so, President Trump would avoid the policy quagmire just over the horizon, strengthen cooperation with China and give Pyongyang a face-saving way out of the current confrontation before it's too late. [Read More]

 

Recent articles by Bruce Cumings on North Korea – "This Is What's Really Behind North Korea's Nuclear Provocations," The Nation [March 23, 2017] [Link]; "Getting North Korea Wrong," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [November 27, 2017] [Link]; and "The North Korea that can say no," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [January 11, 2016] [Link].

 

The War in Iraq

(Video) "Biggest Humanitarian Catastrophe Since 2003 Invasion": The Battle for Mosul

From Democracy Now! [April 20, 2017]

---- According to the group Airwars, at least 1,782 civilians were killed last month in coalition strikes. The civilian death toll could be as high as nearly 3,500. The battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul is now in its seventh month. The United Nations is warning the city is facing a humanitarian catastrophe, perhaps the worst in the entire conflict. More than 400,000 people are trapped in parts of the city still under control of the Islamic State. … We speak with Anand Gopal; he recently returned from the Middle East and has reported extensively from the region. [See the Program] For more on the humanitarian tragedies for civilians caught in the wars in Syria and Iraq, read "Civilian casualties from airstrikes grow in Iraq and Syria. But few are ever investigated," by Molly Hennessy-Fiske and W. J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times [April 21, 2017] [Link].

 

The War in Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Making It Worse

By Ahmed Rashid, New York Review of Books [April 18, 2017]

----Since assuming office President Donald Trump has barely mentioned Afghanistan, a country where US forces have been engaged in the longest war in American history. Perhaps this is because, after more than fifteen years and $700 billion, the US has little to show for it other than an incredibly weak and corrupt civilian government in Kabul and a never-ending Taliban insurgency. Now Afghanistan faces a new horror—as a testing ground for what can only be called a US weapon of mass destruction. [Read More]  To better understand the Trump administration's "test" of the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used, read "What Is the "Mother of All Bombs" That the U.S. Just Dropped on Afghanistan?" Scientific American, [April 13, 2017] [Link].

 

War Crimes in Yemen

The US Provided Cover for the Saudi Starvation Strategy in Yemen

By Gareth Porter, Truthout [April 8, 2017]

---- As Yemen's population has teetered on the brink of mass starvation in recent months, the United States has played a crucial role in enabling the Saudi strategy responsible for that potential humanitarian catastrophe. Both the Obama and Trump administrations have prioritized the US's alliance with the Saudis and their Gulf allies over the lives of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis under imminent threat of starvation. Although the UN agencies have offered no public estimate of the number of Yemenis who have died of malnutrition-related conditions, it is likely that the figure is much higher than the estimate of 10,000 killed directly by the Saudi-coalition bombing. United Nations agencies have estimated that 462,000 Yemeni children under five years of age are already suffering severe acute malnutrition, putting them at serious risk of death from starvation and malnutrition-related disease. [Read More]  In a devastating account of  the impact of the Yemen war on children, read this "executive summary" to this report by Save the Children, "'Every Day Things are Getting Worse": The Impact on Children of Attacks on Health Care in Yemen," [April 2017] [Link].

 

War with Iran?

The Coming Crisis With Iran

By Trita Parsi, New York Times [April 20, 2017]

[FB – Trita Parsi is the founder of the National Iranian American Council.]

---- President Trump has flip-flopped many times during his first months in office. But none may be as consequential as his decision on April 18 to certify that Iran is abiding by the nuclear deal of 2015, paving the way for further waiving of sanctions. In just a few months, Mr. Trump has gone from promising to "tear up" the nuclear deal to allowing its extension. … There are a number of potential land mines on the near horizon. The first is in Congress, where a bipartisan effort is underway to introduce new sanctions on Iran that, despite the protestations of the legislation's sponsors, would violate the terms of the nuclear agreement by adding new conditions onto the deal. If this legislation reaches the president's desk, he will have a choice between rejecting it and keeping the nuclear deal alive, or signing it and causing an international crisis. By certifying to Congress that Iran is in compliance with the deal, it is now more difficult for Mr. Trump to push the United States out of compliance by adopting new sanctions or failing to renew the sanctions waivers. But anything is possible. [Read More]

 

The Continuing Debate about Poison Gas in Syria

[FB – Two weeks ago CFOW circulated a statement called "Why We Oppose the US Attack on Syria."  Its first point was that the attack was in violation of both US and international law, and the UN Charter.  Its second point was that responsibility for the attack was as yet undetermined, even though most of the US political elite – and the Trump administration – assumed without serious investigation that the Assad government had used a chemical bomb on a remote Syrian village.  Yet the debate about what actually happened in Syria continues, bolstered last week by a report by Ted Postol, an emeritus MIT professor, claiming that the available evidence clearly shows that the chemical was not spread from a bomb.  I think Prof. Postol's report underscores the uncertainty of what happened, reaffirming our second reason to oppose Trump's aggression against Syria.]

 

The Chemical-Weapons Attack In Syria: Is There a Place for Skepticism?

By James Carden, The Nation [April 19, 2017]

---- In addition to highlighting the embarrassing degree to which the American media is seduced by displays of American military might, its rush to embrace President Trump's decision to launch a military attack against Syria on April 6 has also crowded out dissenting voices from the administration's claim that it was the government of Bashar al-Assad that was responsible for the chemical-weapons attack in Khan Sheikhun, which killed over 80 people and injured hundreds.  … It hardly needs saying that highlighting these dissenting voices is not tantamount to excusing Assad's heinous human-rights record or his previous attacks, which have killed countless innocent Syrians. Rather, it is to draw attention to the failure of the US media, which has once again abdicated its responsibilities by ignoring the serious questions and allegations about the White House's intelligence relating to the chemical-weapons attack in Syria. [Read More]  To read the (revised) report from Prof. Postol, go here. Also useful/interesting is Charles P. Blair and Brooke V. Higgens, "Sarin and sentimentality: Trump and Assad's emotional chemistry," The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [April 7, 2017] [Link].

 

CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING

Inaction on Climate Change Equals Human Annihilation

By Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch [April 20, 2017]

---- Not since World War II have more human beings been at risk from disease and starvation than at this very moment. On March 10th, Stephen O'Brien, under secretary-general of the United Nations for humanitarian affairs, informed the Security Council that 20 million people in three African countries -- Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan -- as well as in Yemen were likely to die if not provided with emergency food and medical aid. … Major famines have, of course, occurred before, but never in memory on such a scale in four places simultaneously. According to O'Brien, 7.3 million people are at risk in Yemen, 5.1 million in the Lake Chad area of northeastern Nigeria, 5 million in South Sudan, and 2.9 million in Somalia. In each of these countries, some lethal combination of war, persistent drought, and political instability is causing drastic cuts in essential food and water supplies. Of those 20 million people at risk of death, an estimated 1.4 million are young children. [Read More]

 

Donald Trump Rewards Fossil Fuel Industry By Signing Climate Denial Executive Order

By Alleen Brown, The Intercept [March 28 2017]

---- Trump's executive order doesn't just knock over the centerpiece of Obama administration's efforts to prevent the worst effects of climate change, the Clean Power Plan. It also includes a list of disastrous concessions that the fossil fuel industry and its front groups have worked for years to win. It orders the Interior Department to end a moratorium on new coal mine leasing on federal land; directs agencies to reconsider rules limiting emissions from hydraulic fracturing; kills guidance requiring climate change be considered in environmental reviews for infrastructure projects; and calls for a re-calculating of the social cost of carbon, which puts a dollar value on what greenhouse gas emissions cost society. Trump's order also demands federal agencies rethink any policy that stands in the way of energy development and cancels other Obama-era climate efforts such as his Climate Action Plan. [Read More]

 

CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"

Trial and Terror

A report by Trevor Aaronson and Margot Williams, The Intercept [April 20, 2017]

---- The U.S. government has prosecuted 796 people for terrorism since the 9/11 attacks. Most of them never even got close to committing an act of violence. … Since the 9/11 attacks, most of the 796 terrorism defendants prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice have been charged with material support for terrorism, criminal conspiracy, immigration violations, or making false statements — vague, nonviolent offenses that give prosecutors wide latitude for scoring quick convictions or plea bargains. … Very few terrorism defendants had the means or opportunity to commit an act of violence. The majority had no direct connection to terrorist organizations. Many were caught up in FBI stings, in which an informant or undercover agent posed as a member of a terrorist organization. The U.S. government nevertheless defines such cases as international terrorism. … 415 terrorism defendants have been released from custody, often with no provision for supervision or ongoing surveillance, suggesting that the government does not regard them as imminent threats to the homeland. [Read the Report]

 

(Video) Prosecuting WikiLeaks Threatens Press Freedom: An interview with Glenn Greenwald

From Democracy Now! [April 22, 2017]
---- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald responds to reports that the Trump administration has prepared an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed the report at a news conference Thursday. Last week, CIA chief Mike Pompeo blasted WikiLeaks as a "hostile intelligence service," in a stark reversal from his previous praise for the group. Pompeo made the remarks last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in his first public address as CIA director. Pompeo went on to accuse WikiLeaks of instructing Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning to steal information. He also likened Julian Assange to a "demon" and suggested Assange is not protected under the First Amendment. [See the Program]

 

THE STATE OF THE UNION

Meet the organizers behind the next 'Day Without an Immigrant' strike

By Sarah Aziza, Waging Nonviolence [April 19, 2017]

---- The planned action, billed as "A Day Without an Immigrant," is set to be the largest immigrant rights action for at least a decade, with hundreds of thousands already pledging to stay home from work for a day in protest of systemic discrimination towards the immigrant and undocumented communities. … It's a lofty goal for an organization that formed less than two years ago, but Cosecha has a strong track record already. Drawing inspiration from farm workers and their leaders — Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong and Cesar Chavez  — as well as "the thousands of African-Americans who stood up to the racist Jim Crow system," Cosecha is an energetic movement that has grown quickly. Its ranks include a national team and hundreds of part-time volunteers across the country, which enabled Cosecha to play major role in several waves of direct action, including scores of campus walkouts and multiple protests outside Trump Towers. [Read More]

 

What Up With the Democrats?

Anti-Bernie Elites Blaming Russia

By Norman Solomon, ZNet [April 21, 2017]

---- For the Democratic Party's most hawkish wing — dominant from the top down and allied with Clinton's de facto neocon approach to foreign policy — the U.S. government's April 6 cruise missile attack on a Syrian airfield was an indication of real leverage for more war. That attack on a close ally of Russia showed that incessant Russia-baiting of Trump can get gratifying military results for the Democratic elites who are undaunted in their advocacy of regime change in Syria and elsewhere. The politically motivated missile attack on Syria showed just how dangerous it is to keep Russia-baiting Trump, giving him political incentive to prove how tough he is on Russia after all. What's at stake includes the imperative of preventing a military clash between the world's two nuclear superpowers. But the corporate hawks at the top of the national Democratic Party have other priorities. [Read More]

 

Also interesting/illuminating  - Robert L. Borosage, "Democrats Shouldn't Be Trying to Banish Tulsi Gabbard," The Nation [April 12, 2017] [Link]; Jamie Peck, "The Democratic party is undermining Bernie Sanders-style candidates," The Guardian [UK] [April 13, 2017] [Link]; and (a good example of media analysis) Aaron Maté, "MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Sees a "Russia Connection" Lurking Around Every Corner," The Intercept [April 12, 2017] [Link].

 

ISRAEL/PALESTINE

Palestine's Nelson Mandela

By Uri Avnery, Antiwar.com [April 22, 2017]

---- I have a confession to make: I like Marwan Barghouti. I have visited him at his modest Ramallah home several times. During our conversations, we discussed Israeli-Palestinian peace. Our ideas were the same: to create the State of Palestine next to the State of Israel, and to establish peace between the two states, based on the 1967 lines (with minor adjustments), with open borders and cooperation. This was not a secret agreement: Barghouti has repeated this proposal many times, both in prison and outside. … This week, Barghouti, together with about a thousand other Palestinian prisoners in Israel, started an unlimited hunger strike. I have just signed a petition for his release. [Read More] For Barghouti's statement about "Why We Are on Hunger Strike in Israel's Prisons," New York Times [April 16, 2017] [Link].

 

From trigger-happy to shoot-to-kill

From B'tselem [The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights] [April 20, 2017]

----In 2016, Israeli security forces killed 101 Palestinians, including 31 minors. Ninety of the casualties were killed in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), eight in the Gaza Strip, and three in Israel. Among the casualties were ten women and one female minor. Seventy-five of the casualties (74%) were killed in incidents in which they assaulted, attempted to assault, or allegedly attempted to assault Israeli security forces and civilians. Seventeen more Palestinians (17%) were killed during clashes with the security forces, in demonstrations, and in stone-throwing incidents. The rest were killed by bombing, during arrest missions, and in other incidents. [Read the Report]

 

OUR HISTORY

"Fear City" Explores How Donald Trump Exploited the New York Debt Crisis To Boost His Own Fortune

Naomi Klein interviews author Kim Phillips-Fein, The Intercept [April 23, 2017]

---- When I published "The Shock Doctrine" a decade ago, a few people told me that it was missing a key chapter in the evolution of the tactic I was reporting on. That tactic involved using periods of crisis to impose a radical pro-corporate agenda. They said that in the United States that story doesn't start with Reagan in the 1980s, as I had told it, but rather in New York City in the mid-1970s. That's when the city's very near brush with all-out bankruptcy was used to dramatically remake the metropolis. Massive and brutal austerity, sweetheart deals for the rich, privatizations. In classic Shock Doctrine style, under cover of crisis, New York changed from being a place with some of the most generous public services in the country, engaged in some cutting-edge attempts at racial and economic integration, to the temple of nonstop commerce and gentrification that we all know and still love today. [Read More]

 

How U.S. Race Laws Inspired Nazis

By David Swanson, ZNet [April 22, 2017]
[FB – I have been reading about the construction of "the white race" and race laws in 17th-century Virginia.  Based on the review, this new book seems very interesting.]

---- James Q. Whitman's new book is called Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law. … What Whitman's book adds to the complex story is an understanding of U.S. influences on the drafting of Nazi race laws. No, there were no U.S. laws in the 1930s establishing mass murder by poison gas in concentration camps. But neither were the Nazis looking for such laws. Nazis lawyers were looking for models of functioning laws on race, laws that effectively defined race in some way despite the obvious scientific difficulties, laws that restricted immigration, citizenship rights, and inter-racial marriage. In the early 20th century the recognized world leader in such things was the United States. [Read More]