CFOW Weekend Update
April 21, 2017
Hello Stalwarts – World-savers have a busy couple of weeks coming up. The two main dangers to our civilization/survival – nuclear war and climate change – will be in the spotlight and on the front burner, etc. The two marches in Washington, D.C. – tomorrow the "March for Science" and the following Saturday the "People's Climate March" – both focus on threats to our planet. Closer to home, tomorrow there will be a sister "March for Science" beginning at 10:30 a.m. in NYC; and the following week there will be a sister "People's Climate March" in White Plains starting at 11 a.m. – More details about both these events are included in the calendar entries down below.
While many stalwarts and friends of CFOW will be going to these important marches, in light of the escalation of US military adventures and the threat of war with North Korea, we will also hold antiwar vigils in Hastings on both Saturdays at noon, at the VFOW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.).
In our news media, the war drums have been muffled by an obsessive focus on the latest/daily shenanigans of Trump and his not-ready-for-prime-time players. Yet the war news is very bad. It is now clear that an important objective of the cruise missile attack on Syria and the giant bomb dropped on ISIS in Afghanistan was to signal the North Koreans that the United States is prepared to use enormous military force if it is not obeyed. Though all news about the US "Armada" heading towards the coast of North Korea must now be viewed with caution, it appears that the US aircraft carrier will be in position to strike North Korea sometime next week. Whether a war – and a devastating one – can be averted via the resumption of some kind of negotiations is unclear. We must assume that frantic negotiations are going on between China and North Korea, and between the United States and China; but we will know about them and their outcome only long after the fact.
As for our several military conflicts/wars now underway, it appears that the Trump administration and the Pentagon are escalating the US military presence in each of them. Despite horrific civilian casualties in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen – and despite the apparent lack of progress in moving towards anything that could be described as a "victory" for US imperial aspirations – each week seems to add hundreds more troops to each theater of war, with clear commitments to increased firepower. – Below I've linked illuminating articles by Gareth Porter about the US war crimes in Yemen and by Ahmed Rashid about the continuing disaster of "America's longest war" in Afghanistan. Investigations of the wars in Somalia, Iraq, Syria, and Libya would reveal similarly hopeless situations, where the only consistent US intervention is to reject and prevent negotiations that might end the violence. – For these reasons, it is important that all supporters of peace and opponents of the US Empire's military adventurism make an extra effort to speak out and act up against the current course of events.
As newsletter readers know, Israel's defensive counterattack against the Palestinian "Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions" movement has broad support within the US political elite. Whether from sincere belief or crass opportunism, both federal and state legislatures are attempting to strike back at the BDS movement through what most legal observers regard as unconstitutional suppression of free speech. At the very bottom of this "Weekend Update," I've inserted a recent appeal from the Westchester Coalition against Islamophobia against anti-BDS legislation now under consideration in Albany. Please consider this and, if in agreement, contact the legislators indicated to voice your distress against this unwarranted attack on non-violent resistance to Israel's anti-Palestinian policies.
Coming Attractions
Saturday, April 22nd – The New York City "March for Science" starts at 10:30 a.m. at 62nd St. and Central Park West. The march will start at 11:30 a.m. and head down Broadway to 52nd St. For more information, go here and here.
Sunday, April 23rd – A free showing of the film "Cries from Syria," a documentary on Syria's civil war, will be held at The Community of Living Traditions, Stony Point Confdrence Center, 17 Cricketown Rd., in Stony Point, NY. The film starts at 3 p.m. Following the film, there will be a Q & A with two young women seeking asylum in the US, Ahed Festuk and Sana Mustafa. You may also stay for dinner for a cost of $10. RSVP here: tinyurl.com/april23spc. For more information call 845-786-5674.
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 29th – 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 29th - 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 6th – The 6th 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 20th – 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 3rd – 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.
Rewards!
Even for a short Weekend Update, stalwart readers get what's coming to them. Get your dancing shoes on for the first reward, as Marcia Ball sings out a warning about "(Big Mouth) Louella." Next up we have Eric Bibb and Maria Muldaur with "Don't Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down." And to hear the wonderful Maria in something completely different, go here.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
Some Good/Useful Weekend Reading
The Planet Can't Stand This Presidency
By Bill McKibben, New York Times [and 350.org] [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]
Inaction on Climate Change Equals Human Annihilation
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. "We are at a critical point in history," he declared. "Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the U.N." Without coordinated international action, he added, "people will simply starve to death [or] suffer and die from disease." Major famines have, of course, occurred before, but never in memory on such a scale in four places simultaneously. [Read More]
The US Provided Cover for the Saudi Starvation Strategy in Yemen
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]
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]
An Appeal to All from the Westchester Coalition Against Islamophobia
NY STATE ASSEMBLY MEMBERS TO CONSIDER A3239 TO PENALIZE BDS SUPPORTERS
WESTCHESTER VOICES URGENTLY NEEDED TO COUNTER THIS MOVE - PLEASE ACT QUICKLY
Dear Friends,
Below is an urgent request for your help in fighting a bill in the State Assembly that penalizes supporters of BDS. Legislators are returning to Albany the week of April 24 and need to hear from us NOW. Please find immediately below directions for what you can do and talking points, and then scroll down toward the end of the message for a full explanation of the problem: what is happening and why we need to act.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Send an email to each of the four Westchester Assembly representatives who are involved with A3239. If you are a constituent, emphasize this; but email even if you are not, because every message helps. If you are Jewish, make this explicit. Calls are fine, but letters and emails leave a written record of your opinion and should come first.
Please send an email to Amy Paulin (Assemblywoman for District 88 with offices in Scarsdale) and to Steven Otis (District 91, office in Port Chester) protesting their sponsorship of this bill and expressing your hope that they will rescind their support. PaulinA@nyassembly.gov OtisS@nyassembly.gov
Send a message to both David Buchwald (District 93, office in Mt. Kisco), also a sponsor of A3239, and Sandy Galef (District 95, office in Ossining), both of whom sit on the Government Operations Committee in which the similar bill died last year. Urge them to prevent this bill from getting out of committee to the floor. BuchwaldD@nyassembly.gov GalefS@nyassembly.gov
TALKING POINTS
1. Boycott, divestment, and sanctions are nonviolent approaches to ending injustice. These tactics are protected under the Constitution and have a long and honorable history protesting segregation (the Montgomery bus boycott), unfair working conditions (the farmworkers' grape boycott), an apartheid regime (the boycott of South Africa), and LGBT discrimination (boycotts of Arizona and North Carolina). Official NY State legislative measures that penalize supporters of BDS have a chilling effect on speech and association that infringes First Amendment protections. They stifle the open exchange of ideas that could help resolve the tragic conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
2. Requiring vendors to certify to their political beliefs and actions is an egregious violation of the Bill of Rights reminiscent of McCarthyite loyalty oaths. The NY State Legislature should not be discriminating against people who follow the demands of their conscience.
3. The BDS movement on behalf of Palestinian rights, which is supported by many in the Jewish community, is directed against the discriminatory policies the government of Israel employs against Palestinians. It is not anti-Semitic. It does not promote hatred or discriminate against Jews as a people but rather protests the policies of a state.
4. Under international law recognized by the vast majority of nations of the globe, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands is considered illegal and Israel's treatment of Palestinians an abuse of human rights. Supporters of BDS are thus acting in concert with international law and standards of justice.
THE PROBLEM
The NY State Senate has already passed three bills (S2492, S2493, S4837) that stifle the free expression of political opinions. One of the bills, if enacted, would defund student groups that endorse boycott campaigns for Palestinian rights. The second would withhold state funding from academic institutions that support BDS campaigns. The third bill would codify – and expand – a widely-criticized, anti-protest executive order signed last year by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. The bill would, among other things, expand Cuomo's blacklist to include individuals who support boycotts for Palestinian rights. Local State Senators Andrea Stewart-Cousins and George Latimer both voted in favor of these bills.
These three bills have been modified and passed on to the State Assembly in the form of A3239, which aims to prohibit State contracts with vendors who support BDS. According to the official website, this bill establishes "purchasing restrictions on persons boycotting Israel and the investment of certain public funds in companies boycotting Israel; requires the commissioner of general services to compile a list of companies boycotting Israel and establishes that such companies will be considered non-responsive bidders." For the moment, while the Assembly negotiates the State budget, A3239 is sitting in the Government Operations Committee, which is chaired by Crystal Peoples-Stokes, who represents a Buffalo district. We must urge committee members not to consider A3239 so that it will not get to the Assembly floor.
BDS is being condemned as anti-Semitic, and anti-BDS bills are being sold as a response to anti-Semitism. Protest from Westchester Jewish voices is thus particularly important. Anti-Semitism, like Islamophobia, is currently a serious problem; but discriminating against people whose consciences lead them to support BDS is not the way to tackle it.
