Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
January 28, 2018
Hello All – For the last few weeks, CFOW has focused its weekly rallies/protests on the threatened deportation of 800,000 beneficiaries of the DACA program and the additional 2.5 million undocumented "Dreamers" – all immigrants to the USA, brought here as children. The DACA program is scheduled to expire on March 5th; Dreamers not in the program are vulnerable right now for deportation.
It is hard to imagine a starker test of the moral fiber of our nation, not only in terms of should the Dreamers be allowed to stay in the United States, but whether their supporters can find the energy, resourcefulness, and courage to do what must be done to overcome the deportation regime of the Trump Agenda.
As with many immigrants, "legal" or not, most of the Dreamers and their families are refugees. This is especially true for the immigrants from Central America, and from the Middle East. Many are refugees from war. Others are refugees from global warming and climate chaos in their home countries. Many more are refugees from economies that can no longer support them, where there are no jobs. And many more, especially those from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, are refugees from the gang violence that saturates their communities. These fellow humans are here because their lives are in danger. They need help – our help; should we turn away from them in their time of need?
The DACA/immigrant crisis will come to a head on February 8th, at which time it is likely that the Senate Republicans will propose a totally unacceptable bill that essentially holds the Dreamers hostage, offering to trade them and their lives for a harshly restrictive recasting of US immigration law, including the construction of The Wall on the Mexican border. The recent events in Congress cast doubt on the Democrats' willingness to disrupt the government – to force a shutdown if necessary – to save the Dreamers from deportation. Whether a mass upsurge of support for the Dreamers will be sufficient to pressure the Democrats to do what must be done is uncertain; but without such an upsurge – angry where justified, disruptive where necessary – defeat seems unavoidable. People get ready.
News Notes
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was started shortly after the Hiroshima bombing (1945). Emblematic of their work has been the "Doomsday Clock," periodically reset to signal the how close humans are to "Doomsday," primarily from the threat of nuclear war, but more recently including drastic climate breakdown. Last week the hands of the Doomsday Clock were moved 30 seconds ahead, and now stand at 2 minutes to midnight. The last time the Clock was this close to midnight was in 1953, the final year of the Korean War, when Eisenhower was threatening to use nuclear weapons. This link takes you to "a brief history of the Doomsday Clock."
It's becoming the "new normal." Here is some "local news" from New Jersey, describing the arrest by ICE of two immigrants taking their children to school; but a third immigrant escaped and sheltered in a church. In this case, the three are Christians from Indonesia, who escaped from persecution in the 1990s. The story describes a high level of community support/resistance.
Last week the CFOW newsletter reported on the action of the New Orleans city council, which had passed a resolution saying that the city would not do business with companies engaged in human rights violations. This sounded too much like "BDS" for many NOLA politicians and Jewish groups, and the pressure was sufficient to cause the city council to rescind the resolution. This interesting article tells the story of the rise and fall of NOLA's human rights resolution.
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Ongoing - Stalwarts and friends looking at the CFOW Facebook page have undoubtedly seen Erik McGregor's pictures of rallies, marches, and events. In a nutshell, he is everywhere, and helps build the movement by letting the world know what we are doing. Next Wednesday Erik is turning 50; and to help him keep doing what he has been doing, please send him a birthday donation - to do it, go here.
Ongoing - As many readers will recall, CFOW stalwarts participated in the efforts to prevent the construction of the 42" Spectra gas pipeline in northern Westchester, with three stalwarts being arrested and fined. The pipeline is particularly dangerous because it passes through the backyard of the Indian Point nuclear plant. Although that section of pipeline construction has been completed, even with Indian Point shutting down there will remain 40+ years of nuclear waste, stored within the blast radius of a potential pipeline accident. Two years ago Governor Cuomo ordered a risk assessment of a possible (catastrophic) accident. Where is the study?! Please sign this petition demanding that the risk-assessment study be made public. (And for a useful update from Riverkeeper on the situation at Indian Point, go here.)
Sunday, February 4th – The next CFOW monthly meeting will be held at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St., in Dobbs, from 7 to 9 p.m. At these meetings we review our work over the past months, discuss current events, and make plans for what to do next. Everyone is welcome at these meetings.
This Newsletter
Articles linked in the CFOW newsletter are intended to illuminate some of the main action-issues about which we are concerned. Coming mostly from the "dissenting media," they provide an alternative to the perspectives of the mainstream media. In addition to the excellent "Featured Essays," please look at the selection of articles about the DACA crisis; the several articles about the changed situation in Syria, now that Turkey has invaded; the set of articles about the persistence of poverty in the USA; and (in "Our History") the in-depth review of Daniel Ellsberg's new book, "The Doomsday Machine," which chronicles the very dangerous lapses in the command-and-control of nuclear weapons, beginning on Day One and continuing now under the Trump regime.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Our leaflet and posters for our rallies are usually about war or climate change, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's tax cut legislation are often targeted, depending on current events. We meet on the first Sunday of each month, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. If you would like to make a financial contribution to our work, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards!
The "Rewards" section of the newsletter is provided so that Serious Readers can take a breather before plunging into the News Quagmire. As noted below ("Our History"), jazz musician and South African freedom movement activist Hugh Masekela died last week. Here are three of his classics - "Grazing in the Grass," "Stimela," and "Bring Him Back Home" (Nelson Mandela). And on the home front, h/t to LJT and EZ for digging up and passing on this 1967 (Vietnam War) "Stop the Bombing" ad from the Hastings newspaper. I see quite a few of the (2001) founding generation of CFOW among the signers; check it out!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
The Norwegian Menace - Should We Build a Wall to Keep Them Out?
By Ann Jones, Tom Dispatch [January 24, 2018]
By Ann Jones, Tom Dispatch [January 24, 2018]
---- In the past couple of weeks, thanks to the president's racist comments about Haiti and African countries he can't even name – remember "Nambia"? – as well as the stamp of approval he awarded future immigrants from Norway, we've seen a surprising amount of commentary about that fortunate country. Let me just say: those Norwegians he's so eager to invite over are my ancestral people and, thanks to years I've spent in that country, my friends. Donald Trump should understand one thing: if he and his Republican backers really knew the truth about life in Norway, they would be clamoring to build a second "big, fat, beautiful" wall, this time right along our Eastern seaboard. One thing is incontestable: a mass of Norwegian immigrants (however improbable the thought) would pose a genuine threat to Donald Trump's America. They would bring to our shores their progressive values, advanced ideas, and illustrious model of social democratic governance – and this country would never be the same! [Read More]
Showdown in Afrin: Turkey's Attack on Syria's Kurds Threatens That Country's Most Democratic, Pluralist Force
By Meredith Tax, The Nation [January 26, 2018]
---- Last week Turkey opened a new front in the Syrian war by using its air force against the Syrian Kurdish canton of Afrin—which had done absolutely nothing to provoke this attack—even while the battle against ISIS continues in Deir Ezzor, where the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by the Kurdish YPG-YPJ, are fighting with US support. Turkey's attack on the Syrian Kurds has opened up a new front in the war, jeopardized its already fragile relationship with the United States, and given a green light to jihadis to attack the Kurds. … Until now, Afrin, which is famous mainly for olive-oil soap, has been one of the more stable parts of Syria; for this reason, despite a Turkish embargo, it became the destination of hundreds of thousands of refugees, who increased its population from 400,000 before the war to roughly 750,000 now. Afrin borders Turkey on the north and is surrounded on its other sides by Syrian government forces and rebel forces, including Al Qaeda. Like other parts of Rojava, Afrin is run democratically, with an emphasis on religious and ethnic pluralism, restorative justice, the liberation of women, ecology, and economic cooperatives. [Read More][. Also very useful/interesting on Afrin, by an activist from the Kurdish women's movement, is Dilar Dirik, "A call for solidarity: defend Afrin — defend humanity," Roar Magazine [January 26, 2018] [Link]. Also interesting is Megan Specia, "Foreign Fighters Back Kurdish Militia in Syria in Fight Against Turkey," [Link].
When Love Could Kill Us
By
[FB – In her many novels, short stories, and books of poetry, Marge Piercy has been chronicling "our era" for half a century. My personal favorites are "Small Changes" and "Vida," from back in the day. Check her out!]
---- What was it was like for young women before Roe v. Wade was the law of the land? Sadly, going back to those dark and violent times is the master plan of many in power today. [Read More] Marge Piercy also speaks here about the pre-Roe Era in (Video) "No Choice: What the US Would Be Like Without 'Roe v. Wade,'" from here.
How the Pentagon Enlisted Trump To Continue Its Perpetual 'War on Terror'
---- The speech by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on January 17 laying out a series of conditions that would make it possible to withdraw US troops from Syria confirmed what had already been revealed by the Pentagon itself: The Trump administration is planning to keep US troops in Syria indefinitely. Although it was not a comprehensive policy statement, the Tillerson speech completed a months-long process in which the Pentagon has succeeded in enlisting the Trump administration to sign on for a semi-permanent US military engagement in three countries with significant US troops contingents: Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. This trifecta of semi-permanent US military engagements reflects the extraordinary power of the Pentagon to sway even a president who had made opposition to such policies a central element of his campaign. … The permanent wars in those three countries represent, in effect, a new Pentagon business model for those regions. The model looks for far more payoff in terms of congressional appropriations – as well as power at home and abroad in relation to budgetary and political costs – than the Pentagon obtained from waging the big wars of the past in Iraq and Afghanistan. It counts on US casualties remaining relatively small, because combat will take the form of bombings or Special Operations attacks. Low US casualties are crucial to the new model, because most Americans are not convinced such US military endeavors are necessary or good for this country. [Read More]
'I Came With a Calling': Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin
By Zoë Carpenter, The Nation [January 24, 2018]
---- Reading," Ursula K. Le Guin once wrote, "is actual collaboration with the writer's mind. No wonder not everybody is up to it." Few writers have offered readers a mind so expansive, sharp, and wondrous as did Le Guin, who died Monday at the age of 88. She wrote 10 story collections, six volumes of poetry, 13 children's books, five translations, numerous essays, and 20 novels, for which she won a number of prizes. But numbers can't bear the full weight of her influence, which was sweeping and, for a long time, underrated. Like many of her characters Le Guin was an explorer, and a bit of a misfit—at least in the literary scene, which long kept her quarantined as a "genre writer." To read Le Guin's most beloved speculative fictions—which include The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed—was to enter new worlds assembled whole from the twigs and stones and flowers she gathered up in her wide intellectual expeditions: bits of history, cultural anthropology, political theory, mythology, Taoism, semiotics, geology. Not everybody was up to it. [Read More] - Last fall, Zoe Carpenter wrote a longer essay about Ursula Le Guin, based on her visit noted in the article above; check it out here. And here is a video of a Q&A with Le Guin, also from October 2017.
DACA AND "THE DREAMERS" CRISIS
Trump Immigration Plan Demands Tough Concessions From Democrats
---- Under Mr. Trump's plan, described to reporters by senior White House officials, young immigrants who were brought into the United States as children, would be granted legal status, allowed to work legally, and could become citizens over a 10-to-12 year period if they remain out of trouble with the law.
Officials said that would include about 690,000 people who signed up for protection under an Obama-era program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, but also for another 1.1 million undocumented immigrants who would have qualified for the program but never applied. Mr. Trump ended the DACA program last September. In exchange, Congress would have to create a $25 billion trust fund to pay for a southern border wall, dramatically boost immigration arrests, speed up deportations, crack down on people who overstay their visas, prevent citizens from bringing their parents to the United States, and end a State Department program designed to encourage migration from underrepresented countries. [[Read More]
Democrats Don't Grasp the Dreamers' Sense of Emergency
By Joshua Holland, The Nation [January 26, 2018]
---- Democrats' political calculus, right or wrong, and the sense of emergency—of being under siege by white nationalists empowered by the full force of the federal government—that's driving immigrant communities and their allies to see this as the fight of their lives. … It's hard for those of us who came to this country generations ago to fully appreciate the visceral sense of foreboding—even terror—that comes with knowing that you or the people you love are at risk of being scooped up by ICE agents at any moment of the day or night. Since many recent immigrants live in mixed-status homes—and certainly neighborhoods—it's a threat felt by millions of Americans citizens and legal immigrants. Immigrant communities are demanding that Dems mount a fight that's commensurate with what they rightly see as an existential threat. Democrats, on the other hand, are treating it like any other legislative battle. While activists want them to fight as if they're challenging the Fugitive Slave Act, [the Democrats are] trying to figure out what pressure points they can apply to a party that controls everything and weighing the potential costs and benefits of going to the mat for "illegals," as it's been portrayed on Fox News. [Read More]
More useful reading on DACA and "The Dreamers" – Julianne Hing, "The 4 Most Shocking Proposals in the White House Immigration Plan." The Nation [January 27, 2018] [Link]; Editorial, "Trump Dangles Hope for Dreamers," [Link]; Joan Walsh, "The New Trump Immigration Plan Is Anti-American," The Nation [January 26, 2018] [Link]; Paul A. Kramer, "Trump's Anti-Immigrant Racism Represents an American Tradition," [Link]; Andrea Germanos, "Renewing 'Racist Assault on Immigrant Communities,' Trump's DOJ Threatens 23 Sanctuary Jurisdictions," [Link]; and Kevin Gosztola, "Trump Administration Turns ICE Into Tool for Political Repression," [Link].
WAR & PEACE
It's Time We Saw Sanctions for What They Really Are – War Crimes
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent [UK] [January 19, 2018]
---- The record of economic sanctions in forcing political change is dismal, but as a way of reducing a country to poverty and misery it is difficult to beat. UN sanctions were imposed against Iraq from 1990 until 2003. Supposedly, it was directed against Saddam Hussein and his regime, though it did nothing to dislodge or weaken them: on the contrary, the Baathist political elite took advantage of the scarcity of various items to enrich themselves by becoming the sole suppliers. Saddam's odious elder son Uday made vast profits by controlling the import of cigarettes into Iraq. The bureaucrats in charge of UN sanctions in Iraq always pretended that they prevented Saddam rebuilding his military strength. This was always a hypocritical lie: the Iraqi army did not fight for him in 1991 at the beginning of sanctions any more than it did when they ended. It was absurd to imagine that dictators like Kim Jong-un or Saddam Hussein would be influenced by the sufferings of their people. … Economic sanctions are like a medieval siege but with a modern PR apparatus attached to justify what is being done. A difference is that such sieges used to be directed at starving out a single town or city while now they are aimed at squeezing whole countries into submission. [Read More]
Turkey Joins the War in Syria
Tillerson's open-ended Syria war proves US is stuck in Mideast quicksand
By Stephen Kinzer, The Hill [January 23, 2108]
---- When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced last week that American troops would remain in Syria indefinitely, he sounded much like the legendary nation-grabber Theodore Roosevelt. "We have hoisted our flag, and it is not fashioned of the stuff which can be quickly hauled down," Roosevelt declared during debate over the Philippine War more than a century ago. "There must be control! There must be mastery!" No one imagines that the 2,000 American soldiers now in Syria — or even a much larger force — can bring either mastery or control. Yet Tillerson's announcement made clear that Syria is becoming a new front in the "long war" that the United States seems determined to fight in the Middle East. This commits our blood and treasure to a project that serves no vital American interest. On the contrary, our extended involvement in the Syrian civil war will promote instability, feed radicalism, divide NATO, and expose American troops to deadly attack. Since Congress has not approved our entry into this war, it may also be illegal. [Read More]
US is fuelling more wars in the Middle East
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent [UK] [January 27, 2018]
---- The US may want to get rid of Assad and weaken Iran across the region but it is too late. Pro-Iranian governments in Iraq and Syria are in power and Hezbollah is the most powerful single force in Lebanon. This is not going to change any time soon and, if the Americans want to weaken Assad by keeping a low-level war going, then this will make him even more reliant on Iran. The present Turkish incursion shows that Ankara is not going to allow a new Kurdish state under US protection to be created in northern Syria and will fight rather than let this happen. But the YPG is highly motivated, well-armed and militarily experienced and will fight very hard, even though they may ultimately be overwhelmed by superior forces or because the Turkish and Syrian governments come together to crush them. It was a bad moment for the US to stir the pot by saying it would stay in Syria and target Assad and Iran. A Kurdish-Turkish war in northern Syria will be a very fierce one. The US obsession with an exaggerated Iranian threat – about which, in any case, it cannot do much – makes it difficult for Washington to mediate and cool down the situation. Trump and his chaotic administration have not yet had to deal with a real Middle East crisis yet and the events of the last week suggest that they will not be able to do so. [Read More]
---- The US may want to get rid of Assad and weaken Iran across the region but it is too late. Pro-Iranian governments in Iraq and Syria are in power and Hezbollah is the most powerful single force in Lebanon. This is not going to change any time soon and, if the Americans want to weaken Assad by keeping a low-level war going, then this will make him even more reliant on Iran. The present Turkish incursion shows that Ankara is not going to allow a new Kurdish state under US protection to be created in northern Syria and will fight rather than let this happen. But the YPG is highly motivated, well-armed and militarily experienced and will fight very hard, even though they may ultimately be overwhelmed by superior forces or because the Turkish and Syrian governments come together to crush them. It was a bad moment for the US to stir the pot by saying it would stay in Syria and target Assad and Iran. A Kurdish-Turkish war in northern Syria will be a very fierce one. The US obsession with an exaggerated Iranian threat – about which, in any case, it cannot do much – makes it difficult for Washington to mediate and cool down the situation. Trump and his chaotic administration have not yet had to deal with a real Middle East crisis yet and the events of the last week suggest that they will not be able to do so. [Read More]
For more on the war in Syria and the Turkish invasion – Corey A. Booker and Oona A. Hathaway, "A Syria Plan That Breaks the Law," [Link]; Carlotta Gall, "Turkey Begins Ground Assault on Kurdish Enclave in Syria,"
[Link]; As Turkey Attacks Kurds in Syria, U.S. Is on the Sideline," [Link]; Juan Cole, "In blow to Trump, Syrian Kurds call on al-Assad to Save them from Turkey," Informed Comment [January 26, 2018] [Link]; and (Video) "Why Don't Syria, Iran, Iraq And Turkey Want A Kurdistan?" from Informed Comment [January 27, 2018] [Link].
War with North Korea?
US Bombers in Guam Seen Readying for Tactical Nuclear Strike on North Korea
---- With all other signs of tensions on the Korean Peninsula on the decline, the US is stepping up its deployment of nuclear-capable bombers and general firepower to the airbase at Guam. This is further fueling speculation that the US is preparing itself for the long-speculated sneak attack on North Korea, and that such a sneak attack could involve B-61 gravity bombs as part of a tactical nuclear strike. The Trump Administration has been seen to be favoring the idea of a "limited attack," betting that North Korea would not retaliate. It's hard to imagine this could possibly be both limited and involve nuclear arms, but recent developments on the B-61 suggest that's indeed the point of the weapon. [Read More]
Best Advice for Policymakers on "Bloody Nose" Strike against North Korea: It's Illegal
By Michael Schmitt and Ryan Goodman, The Intercept [January 23, 2018]
---- As tensions de-escalate on the Korean Peninsula, the international legal debate over the so-called "Bloody Nose Strategy," which involves "a limited military strike against North Korean sites without igniting an all-out war on the Korean Peninsula" has moved in the other direction. In particular, Lieutenant Colonel Shane Reeves and Captain Rob Lawless have argued on Lawfare, that "there is a strong argument such a strike would be lawful" under international law. In an Opinio Juris post, Professor Kevin Jon Heller begs to differ. So do we. To put a stronger point on it, we believe policymakers would be badly misled by the notion that such a strike would be lawful. The strategy has apparently been the subject of quiet debate in the Administration. According to the Wall Street Journal, the proposal would be to "[r]eact to some nuclear or missile test with a targeted strike against a North Korean facility to bloody Pyongyang's nose and illustrate the high price the regime could pay for its behavior. The hope would be to make that point without inciting a full-bore reprisal by North Korea." [Read More]
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE BREAKDOWN
3 Strategies to Get to a Fossil-Free America
By Bill McKibben, The Nation [January 25, 2018]
---- When the next phase of the US climate movement launches with a nationally streamed rally at the end of the month, the wound-licking will be over. Yes, the Trump administration has upset any hope of a smooth and orderly transition to a new energy world. Yes, it's pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement and opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. Yes, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Energy Secretary Rick Perry have made a mockery of hurricane victims and fire victims and flood victims, from San Juan to Montecito to Houston. But the fossil-fuel industry doesn't hold all the high cards. We'll start playing our own aces for a Fossil-Free United States on January 31…. The basic outlines are pretty simple. None of the strategies rely on Washington's doing anything useful. In fact, because DC has emerged as the fossil-fuel industry's impregnable fortress, our strategies look everywhere else for progress. In every case, real momentum has emerged, even in the last few weeks. [Read More]
Trump's Assault on Solar Masks an Epic Crisis in the Nuclear Industry
By
---- As Donald Trump launches his latest assault on renewable energy—imposing a 30 percent tariff on solar panels imported from China—a major crisis in the nuclear power industry is threatening to shut four high-profile reactors, with more shutdowns to come. These closures could pave the way for thousands of new jobs in wind and solar, offsetting at least some of the losses from Trump's attack. … Powered largely by Chinese product, the cost of a solar-generated watt of power has dropped from $6.00 in the late 1990s to around $0.72 in 2016. Further drops are considered inevitable. At that price, there is virtually no economic margin for any other new energy production construction except wind and natural gas. Even gas—with its uncertain long-term supply—is on the cusp of being priced out. [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES/"THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR"
The War on Dissent
---- Just when you thought the corporatocracy couldn't possibly get more creepily Orwellian, the Twitter Corporation starts sending out emails advising that they "have reason to believe" we have "followed, retweeted," or "liked the content of" an account "connected to a propaganda effort by a Russia government-linked organization known as the Internet Research Agency." While it's not as dramatic as the Thought Police watching you on your telescreen, or posters reminding you "Big Brother Is Watching," the effect is more or less the same. … These are just the latest salvos in the corporate establishment's War on Dissent, an expanded version of the War on Terror, which they've been relentlessly waging for over a year now. As you may have noticed, the ruling classes have been using virtually every propaganda organ at their disposal to whip up mass hysteria over a host of extremely dubious threats to "the future of democracy" and "democratic values," Russia being foremost among them, followed closely by white supremacy, then a laundry list of other "threats," from Julian Assange to Bernie Bros to other, lesser "sowers of division." [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
The U.S. Can No Longer Hide From Its Deep Poverty Problem
---- You might think that the kind of extreme poverty that would concern a global organization like the United Nations has long vanished in this country. Yet the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, recently made and reported on an investigative tour of the United States. … There are 5.3 million Americans who are absolutely poor by global standards. This is a small number compared with the one for India, for example, but it is more than in Sierra Leone (3.2 million) or Nepal (2.5 million), about the same as in Senegal (5.3 million) and only one-third less than in Angola (7.4 million). Pakistan (12.7 million) has twice as many poor people as the United States, and Ethiopia about four times as many. [Read More] You can read Philip Alston's report here.
For more on poverty in the USA – Ed Pilkington, "A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America," The Guardian [December 15, 2017] [Link]. And from the leaders of the new "war on poverty," Dr William Barber and Dr Liz Theoharis, "Poverty in America is a moral outrage. The soul of our nation is at stake," The Guardian [December 16, 2017] [Link]. To keep things in perspective, "World's Richest 1% Acquired 82% of Wealth in 2017: Report," from TeleSur [January 23, 2018] [Link].
Hurricane-Torn Puerto Rico Says It Can't Pay Any of Its Debts for 5 Years
---- The fiscal plan must now be approved by the oversight board, which has been at odds with Puerto Rican leaders over how to restore fiscal balance after years of spending more than they had, and borrowing to make up the difference. The board, for example, has insisted on reducing public employee pensions by 10 percent, on average, as a way to spread the economic suffering evenly among Puerto Ricans. Puerto Rico declared a form of bankruptcy last May, giving the island a way to decide how much to cut pensions, debt payments and other obligations under federal court supervision. The federal oversight board will represent the Puerto Rican government in the proceedings — but first it must accept the governor's fiscal plan. If it disagrees, it is empowered to impose its own fiscal plan on the island. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Examining 'Ten Myths about Israel', by Ilan Pappe
By Allan C. Brownfeld, American Council for Judaism [January 24, 2018]
---- In this book, written on the 50th anniversary of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Professor Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian now teaching at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, examines the most contested ideas concerning the origins and identity of the contemporary state of Israel. The "ten myths" that Pappe explores reinforce the regional status quo. He explores the claim that Palestine was an empty land at the time of the Balfour Declaration, as well as the formation of Zionism and its role in the early decades of nation building. He asks whether the Palestinians voluntarily left their homeland in 1948, and whether June 1967 was a war of "no choice." Turning to the myths surrounding the failures of the Camp David Accords and the official reasons for the attacks on Gaza, he explains why the two state solution, in his view, is no longer viable. [Read More]
How Arafat Eluded Israel's Assassination Machine
---- As a reporter in Israel, I have interviewed hundreds of people in its intelligence and defense establishments and studied thousands of classified documents that revealed a hidden history, surprising even in the context of Israel's already fierce reputation. Many of the people I spoke to, in explaining why they did what they did, would simply cite the Babylonian Talmud: "If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first." In my reporting, I found that since World War II, Israel has used assassination and targeted-killing more than any other country in the West, in many cases endangering the lives of civilians. But I also discovered a long history of profound — and often rancorous — internal debates over how the state should be preserved. Can a nation use the methods of terrorism? Can it harm innocent civilians in the process? What are the costs? Where is the line? [Read More]
Also useful/interesting on Israel/Palestine – From Middle East Monitor, "US partisan divide over Israel at its widest ever, new poll finds" [January 25, 2018] [Link]; and Rick Gladstone, "White House Urged to Restore Aid to U.N. Palestinian Refugee Agency," New York Times [[Link].
OUR HISTORY
Hugh Masekela: No Room for Compromise
[FB – South African musician Hugh Masekela died this week. Here is an excellent review of his life and work, including his relation to the South African freedom struggle.]
---- For over 60 years Hugh had been at the forefront of world revolutionary trends and made his mark at the site of the global anti racist struggles. It was fifty years ago in the midst of the '68 uprisings when Masekela used his trumpet to inspire the youths who were then fighting for revolutionary change all over the world. His album and the lead song, Grazing in the Grass, was a song of inspiration. His sounds of struggle, inspiration, revolutionary change and love are now part of the history of revolutionary music of the end of the twentieth century and early twenty first century. Born in 1939 in the period of fascism and warfare, his life had been dominated by the experiences of Sharpeville, police brutality, racism, exploitation and resistance. In response, he sought avenues for self expression and articulation and up to the very end he was critical of the way in which the top leadership of the African National Congress had capitulated before international capital. … The songs "Change" and "Stimela" sent a clear message to leaders such as Thabo Mbeki who had become an apologist for 'nationalists' such as Mugabe. Whether it was in Ghana, New York or Johannesburg, freedom lovers will this week join in the celebration of the contribution of Hugh Masekela. Rest well freedom fighter your music will continue to inspire those who have never surrendered. [Read More]
The Nuclear Worrier [Daniel Ellsberg]
By Thomas Powers, New York Review of Books [January 18, 2018]
[This is a review of Ellsberg new book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.]
---- Vietnam was not the first or the biggest thing that worried Ellsberg after he went to work in his late twenties as an analyst for the RAND Corporation in 1959. His first and biggest worry was the American effort to defend itself with nuclear weapons. When Ellsberg finally got a look at the plans for such a war he realized immediately that the Strategic Air Command had built a military instrument that not only could but in his view probably would break the back of human civilization. … The Doomsday Machine addresses three subjects. The first is the history of Ellsberg's work at RAND on nuclear war planning just before and during the Kennedy administration, when he discovered what Air Force General Curtis LeMay, commander of the Strategic Air Command, had planned and prepared by 1960 to do to the Sino-Soviet bloc in the event of war. The second is how city-destroying attacks became the air strategy of choice during World War II, with the effect of gradually resigning airmen to the efficiency of nuclear weapons, one of which could do what it had taken three hundred B-29 bombers over Japan to do using conventional bombs. The third is how to end the dependence of so many nations on nuclear weapons before a spark creates a conflagration that incinerates the world. [Read More]
