CFOW Weekend Update
May 12, 2017
Hello Stalwarts – Please join us tomorrow (weather permitting) for our annual Mother's Day Peace Vigil. We'll be at the VFW Plaza in Hastings from 12 noon to 1 p.m. As some of you may recall, the Mother's Day Proclamation was an antiwar statement by Julia Ward Howe, author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and written in 1870 as a protest against war, especially the Franco-Prussian war, then raging. You can read the original Proclamation and some background about Mother's Day here. (And if it's raining on Saturday, we can meet at the Diner at noon for Meaningful Conversation.)
CFOW stalwart Cynthia Poindexter is retiring from (Fordham) teaching and is moving to Eugene, Oregon. For a few more weeks she can be reached at poindexter@fordham.edu. (I've attached a nice picture of Cynthia by Susan Rutman.) Cynthia, we will miss you; good luck!
Last Sunday's CFOW monthly meeting included a long presentation/discussion about "Single-Payer Healthcare" in New York and nationally. The discussion was led by (stalwart) Dr. Morri Markowitz. The CFOW healthcare committee is hoping to organize a public forum in the Rivertowns on Single-Payer in conjunction with the healthcare committee of NYCD16 Indivisible. We are also looking forward to collecting petition signatures and asking local village/town boards of trustees to pass a resolution in support of Single-Payer, looking forward to the next NYS legislative session. If you would like to get involved in this activity, and/or to join the CFOW healthcare committee, please send a return email.
That's it for this short Update. There's some good/useful Weekend Reading linked below, following these important messages.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
478-3848
Coming Attractions
Ongoing – It's sign-up time for the Hastings Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). This project is managed by CFOW stalwart Elisa Zazzera. From June to November you can pick up a weekly bundle of in-season and just-picked fruits and vegetables. For more info, go here, or email Elisa at zazzera.elisa@gmail.com.
Saturday, May 13th – CFOW's weekly antiwar/pro-peace vigil/protest will take place in Hastings, at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) from 12 to 1. Please join us!
Monday, May 15th – "Justice Monday's" will continue in White Plains at noon at the Renaissance Plaza, Main St. and Mamaroneck Ave. This week's theme will be "Voter Participation is Key!" New voters will be registered and already registered voters will be asked to sign a pledge to Vote in November. For more information, and to keep up with Justice Monday activities, go to (and "like) their new Facebook page.
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, May 20th – Our friends at Rural & Migrant Ministry are having a day-long youth symposium at St. James the Less Church (10 Church Lane in Scarsdale) starting at 10 a.m. At 6 p.m., they will hold their annual "Sowing Seeds of Justice Dinner" at St. Bartholomew's Church (82 Prospect St. in White Plains) to honor twenty years of youth programs. For more information go to www.ruralmigrantministry.org, or call 845-485-8627.
Sunday, May 21st – The CFOW working group on election integrity and stolen elections will show the excellent film "I Voted?" at the Irvington library at 2 p.m. To learn about this film, which explores the many ways that electronic voting systems can be/are corrupted, 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.
SOME GOOD/USEFUL WEEKEND READING
Introduction
While it is true that I often link articles about "Our History" because I'm interested in history, I also think that it's hard to understand events without having some ideas about where they come from. In the early 1970s I was lucky to join an "editorial collective" in Boston that was publishing a magazine called "Radical America." The magazine had been started at the University of Wisconsin several years earlier, and in its first years was called "An SDS Magazine of Radical History," or something like that. But the magazine survived the collapse of SDS in 1969, and its core stalwarts, Paul Buhle and Jim O'Brien, moved to Boston.
The magazine, and the general perspective of what became a "board" of about eight editors, was focused on asserting that the United States had a radical history that was central to its story, but which had been suppressed or neglected by mainstream historical writing and teaching. A focus on the activities of lower class people, women, slaves, etc. is common sense now, but in the mid- and late-1960s, it was just coming into being. At the time (see below), it was called "History from the Bottom Up." This editorial perspective was joined with several others, most notably feminism, and included a broad focus on social movements and radical action in other industrialized countries (e.g. Europe and Canada), at a time when much of the intellectual left was focused on "the Third World" revolutions, then underway. For me personally, it was an extraordinary experience, the best "graduate school" that anyone could hope for; and it still forms a personal framework for me in thinking about world events and social movements.
Linked below are two recent articles and a new documentary film that discuss the background of this historical perspective and (in the case of the documentary film) illustrates it. In the first article, Jesse Lemisch, the originator (I believe) of the phrase "History from the Bottom Up," addresses some of the issues radical historians were discussing in the mid- late-1960s. In the second article, Eric Foner, perhaps our most influential "public intellectual" of the historical persuasion, talks about his recent book about Abraham Lincoln and slavery, and some of the ideas that helped form it. And that documentary film about coal miners' struggles in West Virginia shows what's been left out of mainstream US history, and how much can be gained by learning more about it. (And thanks to Elisa Z for bringing the film to my attention.) - Frank Brodhead
Jesse Lemisch says he is not and never has been a believer in a usable past
From the Society for US Intellectual History [May 2017]
---- "Beyond the historian's critical role, I believed and continue to believe that the better society that we seek to build will include play and other things that may have no immediate relevance — a society that doesn't reduce art, science, music, history, truth, etc. to the merely instrumental, one that provides room for the joy of those who practice these things, include those who take joy in doing history. I wrote, "I do not share Staughton's disdain for truth-seeking." History that seeks truth is a worthy endeavor and one that should be very much a part of our vision of the good society. So I see the pursuit of a "usable past" as perhaps a good thing, but also as a limiting goal. As I put it in "2.5 Cheers… "I can't see much hope for an enduring left that lacks contact with art, science, truth, and beauty." This idea is very much at odds with assigning historians to create a "usable past." – [Read More]
---- "Beyond the historian's critical role, I believed and continue to believe that the better society that we seek to build will include play and other things that may have no immediate relevance — a society that doesn't reduce art, science, music, history, truth, etc. to the merely instrumental, one that provides room for the joy of those who practice these things, include those who take joy in doing history. I wrote, "I do not share Staughton's disdain for truth-seeking." History that seeks truth is a worthy endeavor and one that should be very much a part of our vision of the good society. So I see the pursuit of a "usable past" as perhaps a good thing, but also as a limiting goal. As I put it in "2.5 Cheers… "I can't see much hope for an enduring left that lacks contact with art, science, truth, and beauty." This idea is very much at odds with assigning historians to create a "usable past." – [Read More]
In Search of Lincoln and His World: Interview of Eric Foner
By Catherine Clinton, Civil War Times Magazine [May 2017]
---- Eric Foner is one of a handful of historians who have won the Bancroft and Pulitzer prizes within the same year. His widely acclaimed 2011 study The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery also earned the Lincoln Prize. … I had always been influenced by the view that emphasized Lincoln's prejudices and slowness, especially in comparison with Radical Republicans. But when I examined carefully the topic of Lincoln and race, I concluded this was a flawed way to look at these issues—Lincoln was not Martin Luther King Jr., he was a man of his time. The first thing to realize is that he thought of slavery not exclusively as a matter of race. We can look at slavery in the 19th century as a political system, as an economic system, as an embarrassment to the international reputation of the U.S. There are many ways of talking about slavery within the 19thcentury context; race is only one of them. [Read More]
---- Eric Foner is one of a handful of historians who have won the Bancroft and Pulitzer prizes within the same year. His widely acclaimed 2011 study The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery also earned the Lincoln Prize. … I had always been influenced by the view that emphasized Lincoln's prejudices and slowness, especially in comparison with Radical Republicans. But when I examined carefully the topic of Lincoln and race, I concluded this was a flawed way to look at these issues—Lincoln was not Martin Luther King Jr., he was a man of his time. The first thing to realize is that he thought of slavery not exclusively as a matter of race. We can look at slavery in the 19th century as a political system, as an economic system, as an embarrassment to the international reputation of the U.S. There are many ways of talking about slavery within the 19thcentury context; race is only one of them. [Read More]
From Deep Green Resistance [May 2017] [One hour and 50 minutes]
FB – I would describe this film as an education about coal miners' struggles in the early part of this century. The picture and film research that went into it are fabulous. It is Part One of a project by Scott Noble of Metanoia Films about "class struggle in the United States." [See the Film]
