CFOW Newsletter - "Medicare for All" rally Saturday in Hastings

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

April 3, 2017

 

Hello All – We learned a lot about America's healthcare crisis during the foolish and unsuccessful attempt of the Trump administration to end "Obamacare" and replace it with something worse.  We learned that there were still millions of people without health insurance, and that the Republicans wanted to add millions more to this number.  We learned that "healthcare reform" was basically a backdoor trick to give rich people a massive tax cut.  And we learned that the Republicans had spent eight years complaining about "Obamacare" without a clue about what they wanted instead. – Now may be a propitious time to bring up the simple and practical idea of addressing our healthcare crisis by expanding Medicare to include everyone from birth, and to improve Medicare by adding features that it now lacks. – There is now legislation in both the US Congress and the New York State legislature that would do this; and in support of "Improved Medicare for All," the CFOW healthcare committee and many friends will hold a rally next Saturday, April 8^th, at the VFW Plaza in Hastings (Warburton and Spring St.) starting at 11 a.m. – We'll have some good speakers and an open mic to talk about your own healthcare needs or experiences.  Please spread the word and join us next Saturday!

 

It is now clear that President Trump's criticisms of the war policies of the Obama administration do not extend to ending the wars.  As several articles linked below show, the Trump Agenda calls for escalating the wars begun or sustained by Obama: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia.  (To which we might add the threats of war with North Korea, Iran, etc.)  This is not happening with dramatic headlines, but with incremental troop deployments of 500 here, 1000 there, and by "loosening the rules" that somewhat restricted when and who US military commanders could bomb without White House approval.  The result can be seen in the massive civilian casualties suffered by people living in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan in the last few weeks. – It is tragic that, despite all this carnage, the United States has only a miniscule antiwar movement and that none of the developing anti-Trump movements (Indivisible, etc) include antiwar perspectives and activities in their agendas.  How can we change this?

 

Tomorrow, April 4^th, is the 49^th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  It is also the 50^th anniversary of Dr. King's great speech as the Riverside Church in New York City called "Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break the Silence."  In this speech, King not only made a clear statement against the war then raging in Vietnam, but spoke of the importance of demolishing the underpinnings that led the United States to wage this illegal and immoral war. Hear this speech here. And this morning, on Democracy Now!, Rev. William Barber of North Carolina ("Moral Mondays") talks about the speech and what it meant for King and for later generations. [Link].

 

News Notes

Opponents of the Spectra pipeline in northern Westchester have been holding periodic prayer vigils outside Governor Cuomo's house.  Yesterday's vigil was the front-page, main story in today's Journal News. One of the speakers at the vigil, Sr. Bette Ann Jaster, also had an op-ed in The Journal News last week, "Tell Cuomo to ensure smart energy choices, nun says," [Link]

 

Ninety-eight-year-old Ben Ferencz is the last living prosecutor from the Nuremburg Nazi trials after World War II.  In this short but powerful video interview, he tells a BBC audience what he has learned about war and about evil in his long life. [Link].

 

Westinghouse, once the world's leading manufacturer of nuclear power plants, has filed for bankruptcy. The final straw was its inability to complete several projects underway, most notably in Georgia, which are expected to have cost over-runs of as much as $8 billion.  While nuclear power has been held out as an alternative source of electricity that would contribute less than oil or gas to global warming, it seems that they just can't be built economically.

 

Action Needed

The NY Energy Democracy Alliance will be going to Albany on Thursday to demand that Gov. Cuomo appoint "People's Commissioners" to the NY Public Service Commission to speed the transition to a clean-energy economy.  They will bring with them a petition that they hope will have 1,000 signatures; and you can add your name here.  To learn more about this issue and why it's important, go here.

 

Coming Attractions

Saturday, April 8^th – CFOW and its new Healthcare Committee will sponsor a rally in Hastings, at the VFW Plaza, in support of "Improved Medicare for All," or "Single-Payer."  The rally will begin at 11 a.m. and will focus on legislation now pending in Albany.  Please join us!

 

Sunday, April 9^th – The next CFOW monthly meeting will be held at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, for 7 to 9 p.m.  Wall-to-wall excitement; don't miss it!

 

Monday, April 17^th – CFOW will be the organizing group for this week's "Justice Monday," with a focus on war and the cost of our wars, just two days before people pay their income tax (60% going to war).  Justice Monday events take place in White Plains from 12 to 1 pm at the fountain at Renaissance Plaza, at the corner of Mamaroneck Ave. and Main St.  If you can help organize this event, and/or if you need a ride or can offer a ride, please send a return email.

 

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, 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.

 

Rewards!

This week stalwart readers get some old favorites in their Xmas stocking.  First up is The Real Tuesday Weld with "The Show Must Go On."  Next up is the documentary film "Wasn't That A Time," about The Weavers. Most readers of this newsletter know about Pete Seeger, but I suspect fewer know about the group that he sang with in the 1940s and 1950, "The Weavers."  Enjoy!

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

FEATURED ESSAYS

Noam Chomsky: Trump's First 100 Days Are Undermining Our Prospects for Survival

An interview with By C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout [March 28, 2017]

---- What is happening before our eyes appears to be a two-pronged operation, I presume planned.

Bannon/Trump (and the pathetic Sean Spicer, who has to defend the latest shenanigans in public) have the task of dominating TV and headlines with one wild performance after another. …  Meanwhile, the real work is going on more quietly, spearheaded by Paul Ryan, a different and more malicious kind of posturer, who represents the most brutal fringe of the Republican establishment. … The ideas are quite familiar. They are the standard fare of the component of the Republican establishment dedicated with unusual ferocity to enriching the rich and powerful — bankers, CEOs, and other types who matter — while kicking in the face the vulnerable, the poor and Trump's rural and working-class constituency. All of this abetted by the ultra-right billionaire cabinet and other appointees, selected very carefully to destroy whatever within their domains might be helpful to mere humans, but not to the chosen few of extreme wealth and power. The consistency is impressive, if not breathtaking. [Read More]

 

Donald Trump's Election Was Part of a Startling Global Trend in 2016

By Alfred McCoy, Tom Dispatch [April 3, 2017

---- In 2016, something extraordinary happened in the politics of diverse countries around the world. With surprising speed and simultaneity, a new generation of populist leaders emerged from the margins of nominally democratic nations to win power.  In doing so, they gave voice, often in virulent fashion, to public concerns about the social costs of globalization. Even in societies as disparate as the affluent United States and the impoverished Philippines, similarly violent strains of populist rhetoric carried two unlikely candidates from the political margins to the presidency. On opposite sides of the Pacific, these outsider campaigns were framed by lurid calls for violence and even murder. … The rise of these political soulmates and populist strongmen not only resonated deeply in their political cultures, but also reflected global trends that made their bloodstained rhetoric paradigmatic of our present moment. After a post-Cold War quarter-century of globalization, displaced workers around the world began mobilizing angrily to oppose an economic order that had made life so good for transnational corporations and social elites. [Read More]

 

From Pink Collars to Pink Hats: Working-Class Feminism and the Resistance

By Lane Windham, The American Prospect [April 3, 2017]
---- The robust working-class feminism bubbling up among women, particularly young women workers and women of color, holds the power to reshape the nation's economic and political landscape. Young women are leading the most exciting and dynamic aspects of the 21st-century progressive movement, and they've been at this for a while now—well before the sea of pink pussy hats riveted the world's attention. Progressives who seek to oust Trump should nurture and support today's intersectional working-class feminism; far from elitist, it speaks for so many Americans that it may provide the key to long-lasting change. [Read More]

 

Feds, states target Southern 'sanctuary cities,' leaving local officials in a bind

By Allie Yee, Facing South [March 31, 2017]

---- The Trump administration has continued its crackdown on immigration this week, most recently taking aim at so-called "sanctuary cities." In January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order threatening to withhold federal funding from these cities which, to varying degrees, limit their entanglement in federal immigration enforcement to promote local public safety and community trust. The administration has followed up on Trump's directive, with the Department of Homeland Security recently releasing a list of jurisdictions it said didn't comply with the agency's requests to detain undocumented immigrants in local custody beyond their scheduled release. … Nationwide, at least 18 states considered policies prohibiting local measures to limit federal immigration enforcement in 2016, and 29 are considering them in 2017. [Read More]

 

An American Century of Carnage: Measuring Violence in a Single Superpower World

By John W. Dower, Tom Dispatch [April 1, 2017]

[This essay is adapted from "Measuring Violence," the first chapter of John Dower's new book, The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War Two.]

---- On February 17, 1941, almost 10 months before Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Life magazine carried a lengthy essay by its publisher, Henry Luce, entitled "The American Century." The son of Presbyterian missionaries, born in China in 1898 and raised there until the age of 15, Luce essentially transposed the certainty of religious dogma into the certainty of a nationalistic mission couched in the name of internationalism. Luce acknowledged that the United States could not police the whole world or attempt to impose democratic institutions on all of mankind. Nonetheless, "the world of the 20th Century," he wrote, "if it is to come to life in any nobility of health and vigor, must be to a significant degree an American Century." The essay called on all Americans "to accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation in the world and in consequence to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such measures as we see fit." Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor propelled the United States wholeheartedly onto the international stage Luce believed it was destined to dominate, and the ringing title of his cri de coeur became a staple of patriotic Cold War and post-Cold War rhetoric. [Read More]

 

WAR & PEACE

With Trump approval, Pentagon expands warfighting authority

By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press [April 2, 2017]

---- Week by week, country by country, the Pentagon is quietly seizing more control over warfighting decisions, sending hundreds more troops to war with little public debate and seeking greater authority to battle extremists across the Middle East and Africa. This week it was Somalia, where President Donald Trump gave the U.S. military more authority to conduct offensive airstrikes on al-Qaida-linked militants. Next week it could be Yemen, where military leaders want to provide more help for the United Arab Emirates' battle against Iranian-backed rebels. Key decisions on Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan are looming, from ending troop number limits to loosening rules that guide commanders in the field. The changes in Trump's first two months in office underscore his willingness to let the Pentagon manage its own day-to-day combat. [Read More]  Also useful reading is Ben Hubbard and Michael R. Gordon, "U.S. War Footprint Grows in Middle East, With No Endgame in Sight," New York Times [March 29, 2017] [Link].  For more on the expanding military fronts, see (video) Phyllis Bennis, "US Escalates Wars in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen," Rising Up With Sonali  [March 29, 2017] [Link]; and Nick Cumming-Bruce, "U.N. Urges Iraq and Allies to Rethink Tactics as Airstrikes Kill Civilians," New York Times [March 28, 2017] [Link].

 

The War in Syria

White House Accepts 'Political Reality' of Assad's Grip on Power in Syria

By Michael R. Gordon, The New York Times [March 31, 2017]

---- President Trump has abandoned the goal of pressing President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to leave power, marking a sharp departure from the Middle East policy that guided the Obama administration for more than five years, the White House said on Friday. "With respect to Assad, there is a political reality that we have to accept," said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary. "The United States has profound priorities in Syria and Iraq, and we've made it clear that counterterrorism, particularly the defeat of ISIS, is foremost among those priorities," he added, using the acronym for the Islamic State. In a sense, Mr. Spicer's comments — and similar comments on Thursday by Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Nikki R. Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations — have merely made explicit an assumption that has guided the Trump administration's policy toward the region in recent months. [Read More]

 

The War in Yemen

(Video) Yemen: Trump Expands U.S. Military Role in Saudi War as Yemenis Brace for Famine

From Democracy Now! [March 30, 2017]

---- The U.S. is also rapidly expanding military operations in Yemen. The U.S. has reportedly launched more than 49 strikes across the country this month—according to The New York Times, that's more strikes than the U.S. has ever carried out in a single year in Yemen. More than 10,000 people have been killed since the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen began two years ago this month. Meanwhile, The New York Times is reporting today that the Trump administration has approved the resumption of sales of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia. President Obama froze some of these weapons sales last year due to concern about civilian casualties in Saudi Arabia's expanding war in Yemen. We speak to Iona Craig, a journalist who was based in Sana'a from 2010 to 2015 as the Yemen correspondent for The Times of London. [See the Program]

 

The War in Iraq

The Bodies of Mosul

By Robin Wright, The New Yorker [March 30, 2017]

---- The struggle for Mosul is unlike any other battle since ISIS seized a third of Iraq (and a third of Syria) to create its pseudo-caliphate, in 2014. In cities like Fallujah and Ramadi, the vast majority of civilians fled as the Iraqi Army fought to take back territory. In Mosul, however, the Iraqi government appealed to more than a million residents still living under Islamic State rule last fall not to leave, partly because of the challenge of caring for so many displaced people. Iraq was already struggling to accommodate some three million people displaced by the war, plus a quarter of a million refugees from neighboring countries. To cope with the strain on resources, electricity, water, and other services are now limited. [Read More] Also illuminating is the article (part of a series) by Patrick Cockburn, "People in besieged Mosul Old City 'dying of starvation' as Isis shoots anyone who tries to flee," The Independent [UK] [March 30, 2017] [Link]; and a photo essay from The New York Times, "Engulfed in Battle, Mosul Civilians Run for Their Lives," [March 28, 2017] [Link].

 

CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING

Trump v. the Earth [the EPA]

By Amy Davidson, The New Yorker [April 3, 2017]

---- President Trump said that his order puts "an end to the war on coal." In reality, it is a declaration of war on the basic knowledge of the harm that burning coal, and other fossil fuels, can do. Indeed, it tells the government to ignore information. The Obama Administration assembled a working group to determine the "social cost" of each ton of greenhouse-gas emissions. Trump's executive order disbands that group and tosses out its findings. Scott Pruitt, the new E.P.A. administrator—who, as attorney general of Oklahoma, had joined a lawsuit attempting to undo the endangerment finding—announced that the agency was no longer interested in even collecting data on the quantities of methane that oil and gas companies release. [Read More]  And for more about Trump's climate-suicide plan, read Emily Wirzba, "'Energy Independence' Executive Order Dismantles Climate Action," Friends Committee on National Legislation [March 28, 2017] [Link].

 

THE CAMPAIGN FOR "IMPROVED MEDICARE FOR ALL'

Bernie Sanders Wants to Expand Medicare to Everybody — Exactly What Its Architects Wanted

By Zaid Jilani, The Intercept [March 31 2017]

---- Bernie Sanders doesn't just want to play defense on health care — he's introducing a bill that would expand the Medicare program to everybody in America, creating a single-payer health care system. Such a system would wipe out inefficiencies in our current, private insurance-run system, and polls very well — yet it is opposed by the health care industry and the Democratic and Republican establishments that relies on them for campaign cash. But creating a "Medicare-for-all," single-payer health insurance system for all Americans would be fulfilling the dream of those who created the Medicare system in the first place in 1965. Medicare's architects ended up compromising with Congress and establishing a system that offered public-run health insurance just for the elderly, but they never intended for only retirees to benefit from the program. [Read More]

 

Medicaid saved ObamaCare from repeal, not the Freedom Caucus

By Mark Weisbrot, The Hill [March 31, 2017]

---- A lot of the reporting on Trump's epic failure on the attempted repeal of Obamacare has focused on the Freedom Caucus, a group of libertarian-minded representatives for whom the administration's bill did not go far enough in obliterating the gains from the Obama administration's expansion of health care coverage. But the defeat of Trump's American Health Care Act (AHCA) may have had more to do with the pressure — including grassroots organizing — and risks faced by many Republican representatives who feared taking away insurance that most voters want. And one cannot assume that all members of the Freedom Caucus acted out of ideological concerns; they too have constituents that need health care. [Read More]

 

THE STATE OF THE UNION

"FBI's Comey, not Russia, Tilted the Election Toward Trump:" Interview with Dennis Kucinich  

By Mike Whitney, Counterpunch [April 3, 2017]

---- Dennis Kucinich: The Director of the FBI is not beyond accountability. President Obama should have demanded Director Comey's resignation immediately after Comey interfered in the 2016 Presidential election with his October 28, 2016 pronouncement of the discovery of new emails in the Clinton case.   Comey breached protocol, bypassed channels, and tilted the outcome away from Clinton and toward Trump. If Comey refused a presidential demand that he resign, then President Obama should have dismissed him.  There is a precedent.  President Clinton dismissed FBI Director Session in 1993. Also The FBI Director can also be subject to impeachment by the House and removal by the Senate. Given his role in upending the 2016 President election, it is astonishing that Director Comey is being given a chance to prove it was 'the Russians what did it.' [Read More] And for more about the Russia/US election conundrum, see this Democracy Now! program, (Video) "Moscow Sees Hypocrisy in Allegations After U.S. Interfered in Russian Elections in 1990s" [March 31, 2017] [Link].

 

Why Is This Hate Different From All Other Hate?

By Michelle Goldberg, New York Times [April 1, 2017]

---- The Israeli bomb threat hoax does force some reassessment. Perhaps we have given Trump-era anti-Semitism more emphasis than it deserves. …For example, while synagogues have been threatened, at least four mosques have been burned. According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, there have been 35 attacks on mosques — including vandalism, break-ins and death threats — in the first three months of this year, compared with 19 over the same period in 2016. … The various strands of renascent bigotry in Mr. Trump's America are intertwined, and anti-Semitism is only part of the tapestry. Yet Americans, for good historical reasons, tend to have a particularly heightened sensitivity toward anti-Semitism. All 100 senators signed a letter calling on the Trump administration to take "swift action" against the anti-Semitic bomb threats. There has been no similar political urgency in demanding protection for other harassed minorities. [Read More]

 

Black Lives Matter Just Launched a Major Campaign for the Age of Trump

By Collier Meyerson, The Nation [April 1, 2017]

---- Welcome to the newest iteration of Black Lives Matter. On Thursday, the Majority, a coalition that includes more than 50 organizations and groups, including the movement's founding organization, Black Lives Matter Network, announced its first national campaign: Beyond the Moment. From April 4th to International Workers Day on May 1, participating organizations will hold a series of actions across the country aimed at raising awareness around issues including white supremacy, economic justice, reproductive justice, immigrant rights, LGBTQ rights, indigenous rights and attacks on Muslim communities. It appears to be one of the largest national campaigns to come out of Black Lives Matter, and it's one that focuses on bringing together activists, organizers and groups with different missions—from the Fight for $15 to indigenous land rights. [Read More].  One campaign will start tomorrow in Memphis on the 49^th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, with the intention of continuing Dr. King's "Poor People's Campaign" [Link]. The campaign will culminate with nationwide demonstrations on Mayday: read Nadia Prupis, "With Trump As "Final Straw," Immigrant and Workers' Rights Groups Gear Up for May Day Strikes," Common Dreams [April 3, 2017] [Link]

 

Democrats Should Do Everything They Can To Block Neil Gorsuch

By Ari Berman, The Nation [April 3, 2017

--- Forty-one Senate Democrats have now pledged to oppose Neil Gorsuch's nomination, given them the votes necessary to block him. If Democrats filibuster, Republicans say they'll invoke the nuclear option for Supreme Court nominations and confirm Gorsuch with a simple majority of 51 votes. … There are at least five good reasons to oppose Gorsuch now. … Democrats might not be able to ultimately block Gorsuch but they at least need to try, as my colleague Joshua Holland writes. Put pressure on moderate Republicans like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Energize the Democratic base. Shine a spotlight on the importance of the courts. Show the public they stand for something. Caving on Gorsuch will make it harder, not easier, to wage future battles. [Read More]. For more about this important issue, read Joshua Holland, "Democrats Need to Call Mitch McConnell's Bluff and Filibuster Neil Gorsuch," The Nation [March 31, 2017 [Link].

 

ISRAEL/PALESTINE

Israel Hits Back Against Boycott

By Marjorie Cohn March 30, 2017

[FB – This article includes a good summary of the many accomplishments of the BDS movement over the past few years.]

---- According to the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, the "inflammatory fabrications" against Omar Barghouti constitute the "latest chapter of repression and intimidation" against him. For years, various arms of the far-right Israeli government have subjected Barghouti to intense threats, intimidation and repression. The investigation of Barghouti is part of Israel's "systematic efforts to criminalize the BDS movement, intimidate activists and stop free speech," the Committee said. "After failing to intimidate them through the threat of revoking Omar's permanent residence in Israel, and after the effective travel ban imposed on him proved futile in stopping his human rights work," the Committee stated, "the Israeli government has resorted to fabricating a case related to Omar's alleged income outside of Israel to tarnish his image and intimidate him." [Read More]  And for what Omar Barghouti has to say about his arrest and the BDS movement, go here.

 

OUR HISTORY

Labor and the Legacies of World War I

By Elizabeth McKillen, Labor and Working Class History [March 20, 2017]

---- April 2017 marks the 100^th year anniversary of U.S. entrance into World War I. Most European labor and socialist groups reluctantly chose to support their nations' war efforts in order to avoid government repression and to protect workers' rights during wartime.  By contrast, the prolonged period of U.S. neutrality between August 1914 and April 1917 afforded American workers and labor activists a unique opportunity to debate the war and to develop plans for thwarting U.S. intervention in the conflict in venues that ranged from neighborhood union halls and city labor councils, to Socialist street rallies, immigrant fraternal meetings, national trade union conventions, and the pages of the vibrant labor and socialist press. [Read More]

 

The Red Emigrant [Issac Deutscher]

By Bruce Robbins, The Nation [March 30, 2017]

---- Exile spelled the end of the Eastern European phase of Deutscher's career, but he didn't allow it to define him. In his own eyes, he was rooted—and proudly so—in the tradition of Spinoza, Heine, Marx, Luxemburg, Trotsky, and Freud, the "non-Jewish Jews" he discusses in the title essay of this still-sparkling reprint. He was also rooted in leftist internationalism, a tradition that provided him with a home wherever he happened to live.  Deutscher's political commitments and his experiences with the Polish Communist Party also gave him an activist's sense that timing was at least as important as principle, a sense that subtly relativized his judgments and clearly informed everything he went on to write, whether it was his journalism as a Russian-speaking commentator on the Kremlin, his political criticism, or the works of history that subsequently made him famous. [Read More]