Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
May 27, 2018
Hello All – The CFOW vigil in Hastings this weekend focused on the danger of war in Korea. Following a flurry of diplomacy fumbles, President Trump cancelled the summit scheduled for North Korea on June 12th. While many in the political elite were relieved that the summit was off, on the grounds that Trump was totally unprepared for any serious talking, The New York Times and other critics of the Administration focused on the aggressive noises coming from Vice President Pence and Trump's new National Security Adviser John Bolton as the instigators of the diplomatic breakdown. Today there seems to be an effort to restore a diplomatic track, perhaps headed for a summit later in the summer. We will see.
While events in Korea are certainly complex – the two Koreas, China, and the erratic President Trump – I think the main story lies in what might be called Regime Change in the White House. With the appointment of super-hawk John Bolton as President Trump's National Security Adviser, the person who now has the most influence on US foreign/military policy is on record as advocating military attacks/regime change for both North Korea and Iran. The leaders of both these countries are well aware of the significance of Bolton's appointment. Americans should pay close attention to this disaster also, as with Bolton in the House, we are In the Soup.
For emergency first aid for these baffling developments, I highly recommend the article linked below by former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman ("War & Peace") and the Democracy Now! interview with Prof. Christine Hong, which was linked in last week's newsletter and is still the best user-friendly introduction to how the United States and North Korea got to this dangerous moment. And for those willing to lend a hand, please check out and sign your name to Code Pink's "People's Peace Treaty" with North Korea.
Memorial Day is here again, and so are the Greenburgh "Special Operations" sharpshooters, who this afternoon camped on a Hastings rooftop a few doors down from where I live. They are here to protect the Memorial Day parade's main speaker – a general, an admiral? – from terrorists. CFOW friend Steve Siebert has an excellent letter in The Enterprise this week, questioning what message this armed show-of-force brings to our town. Guns are cool? Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori? Also in this week's Enterprise is an article about the honoring in Albany of the commander of the commander of the local American Legion. Accepting the award, Mr. Pecci recalled that when he returned from Vietnam, "I was spit upon and called a baby killer." It's hard to argue with someone about their memories of their own life, but many years ago historian Jerry Lembcke tried to verify whether or not returning service personnel were "spit upon," etc., and concluded that this was a lie and "an urban legend." The book is called "The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam." But legends die hard, and this legend – the spit-upon veteran – is very useful to the war system.
News Notes
The House of Representatives just passed the $700 billion Pentagon budget, Almost all the Republicans voted for it, as well as 131 Democrats, including our own Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey. The new budget, corrected for inflation, is apparently the largest chunk of US military spending since World War II. The irresponsibility of the House and the Democrats are given a well-deserved walloping by Emma Vigeland on The Young Turks. And while I'm thinking about our politicians, here is a fair-and-balanced report from The Intercept's Jon Schwartz, "Chuck Schumer is the Worst Possible Democratic Leader on Foreign Policy at the Worst Possible Time."
Venezuela held a presidential election last Sunday. With US encouragement, much of the political opposition to President Maduro boycotted the voting, and so Maduro won a second six-year term. The vilification of Venezuela and its reform program under Caesar Chavez and continuing under his successor is a staple of the US media and political elite. Here is a useful analysis of last Sunday's voting. To keep up to date with Venezuela, check out the excellent website https://venezuelanalysis.com/, a project of CFOW friend Eva Golinger.
The Greenburgh Human Rights Advisory Council has issued a powerful statement condemning stepped up federal action against our immigrant neighbors. They write:
ICE and ERO are targeting immigrant communities and abducting people not to solve legitimate security concerns, but rather to satisfy a purely political agenda. Above all else, these government agencies seek to instill terror, chaos, and hopelessness among some of the most vulnerable members of our society. Having seen these heartless and cruel tactics, we must question whether we want our own government to use tactics that would've been very recognizable in the Nazi arrests of the Jewish people. This is what we see today in ICE's government-sponsored attack on our immigrant population, which has led some, including Brooklyn Congresswoman Yvette Clarke earlier this year, to refer to the agency as, "America's Gestapo." ICE has long been a cruel instrument and their funding must be called into question.
To learn more about the work of the GHRAC, go to their Facebook page.
Though no longer of interest to the mainstream media, last Friday there were again demonstrations in Gaza against the confinement of two million people in Israel's prison/ghetto. 109 Palestinians were wounded by gunfire, including 9 women and 4 children. The total number killed since the demonstrations began is at least 115. Some 13,000 Palestinians have been treated for wounds, including 3,500 people hit by bullets. More than 500 Palestinians have been shot in the head. The Palestinian Authority has taken the first steps to bring Israel before the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Not to be intimidated by mere international law, the Israel Supreme Court has decreed that Israel's use of force against unarmed demonstrators in Gaza is lawful.
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Ongoing – CFOW holds a vigil/rally each Saturday at the VFW Plaza in Hastings (Warburton and Spring) from 12 to 1 p.m. Everyone invited; please join us!
Ongoing – Sign the "People's Peace Treaty"! Code Pink writes: "Inspired by the Vietnam-era People's Peace Treaty, we have initiated a People's Peace Treaty with North Korea, to raise awareness about the past U.S. policy toward North Korea, and to send a clear message that we, the people of the U.S., do not want another war with North Korea. This is not an actual treaty, but rather a declaration of peace from the people of the United States." To sign the Treaty, go here.
Ongoing – The Poor Peoples' Campaign got underway last week, with actions across the country. For more information and to get involved, contact Rev. Joya Colon-Berezin.
Saturday, June 2nd – Once again, Jenny Murphy and the CFOW Singalongers will open the annual River Arts music program. We will be at our usual vigil spot, the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring) in Hastings, and we start at noon. We will sing many old favorites, and perhaps some new ones. Please join us!
Sunday, June 3rd – The next CFOW monthly meeting, starting at 7 p.m. sharp. We meet at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs. Our meetings review what we've done over the past month and make plans for what's coming next. Everyone is welcome at these meetings.
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!
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," I especially recommend Rebecca Gordon's extended essay on the US "drone empire" and former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman's inquiry into the role and new powers of Trump's new National Security Adviser John Bolton ("War & Peace"); a set of articles analyzing developing US policy towards Iran; and an essay by the top journalist in the Middle East, Robert Fisk, about the Armenian genocide of and what allows genocides to happen ("Our History"). Read on!
Rewards!
Last Sunday CFOW held a fundraising house concert. Singing for us was the fabulous group "Hudson Valley Sally," and here are some of their great songs. First up is Phil Ochs' "Power and the Glory," my nominee for the national anthem when the People's Commonwealth arrives. Their tender cover of "Annie" is beautiful. "Billy in Air" might have been the crowd favorite, and I think you'll like it too. And I'm so pleased to find their recording of "Get Off the Track," the 1850s antislavery song by the stalwart abolitionists, The Hutchinson Family Singers. (And there are lots more. Enjoy!)
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
Lonesome for Our Home [Zora Neale Hurston]
By Elias Rodriques, The Nation [May 23, 2018]
---- Now that Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, has become a staple of high-school and college classrooms, it's easy to forget that Hurston herself was almost forgotten. In her lifetime, critics lambasted Hurston's writing—as well as her sexuality and even her style of dress. Her books brought her little remuneration in her old age. She lived her last days in a welfare home, and her burial was paid for in installments. Their Eyes Were Watching God and her other works fell out of print. Plants overran her burial plot, obscuring her grave. Although her fiction is much more famous now, it was her anthropology that catalyzed Hurston's revival. Researching voodoo practices back in 1970, Alice Walker found a single unprejudiced text in a sea of racist anthropology books: Hurston's 1935 folklore collection, Mules and Men. … Barracoon, a work unpublished in Hurston's lifetime, captures both her anthropological spirit and her capacity for storytelling and narrative. Started in 1927, Barracoon is an oral history based on an interview that Hurston did with Kossula Oluale, the last survivor of the last American slave ship. [Read More]
Survivors of Massacre Ask: 'Why Did They Have to Kill Those Children?'
By Elisabeth Malkin, The New York Times [May 26, 2018]
---- After the soldiers left, the survivors crept out from the ravines and the caves where they had hidden from the slaughter to see a land laid to waste. Some tried to quickly bury the charred bodies of their mothers and their children. Then they fled. For decades, these witnesses grieved in silence over the massacre in the Salvadoran village of El Mozote and nearby hamlets. But after a recent court decision, they have finally begun to speak out publicly, describing in grim detail the four days in December 1981 when Salvadoran military units, trained and equipped by the United States, killed almost 1,000 people in the largest single massacre in recent Latin American history. … For decades the Salvadoran military denied anything had occurred in El Mozote. Six weeks after the massacre, The New York Times and The Washington Post published witness accounts, but General García told the United States ambassador the reports were nothing but Marxist propaganda, according to State Department documents published by the journalist Mark Danner in his 1994 book about the massacre. [Read More]
The Palestinian Nakba Wasn't Just a Historical Event. It Has Continued Unabated for 70 Years.
By Mohamed Buttu, The Nation [May 24, 2018]
---- Seventy years ago, my world and that of nearly a million other Palestinians was changed forever by the establishment of the State of Israel. Expelled from our homes and land to make way for a Jewish-majority state, transformed overnight into refugees in exile or internally displaced people, our lives were turned upside down and shattered. Seven decades later, Israel continues to systematically uproot and displace Palestinians inside Israel and in the occupied West Bank, part of an effort to erase our presence on the land and replace us with Jewish Israelis that has continued relentlessly, year after year, since 1948. … The Nakba wasn't just a historical event. It has continued unabated for 70 years. Every time I leave Nazareth I pass the town where I grew up. Although I can see it and I still have the deeds to more than 100 acres of land, I cannot return and live there. I have one grandchild, a precious 4-year-old boy who I love more than anything else in the world. I dream of a day when he can live in freedom and equality in our homeland and pray that he does not have to endure the same suffering that we have gone through as a result of the racist, apartheid regime that Israel has established in our land. [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
Forget 'America First'—Donald Trump's Policy Is Drones First
By Rebecca Gordon, Tom Dispatch [May 26, 2018]
---- In countries around the world—in the Middle East, Asia Minor, Central Asia, Africa, even the Philippines—the appearance of US drones in the sky (and on the ground) is often Washington's equivalent of the camel's nose entering a new theater of operations in this country's forever war against "terror." Sometimes, however, the drones are more like the camel's tail, arriving after less visible US military forces have been in an area for a while. … From the beginning, the CIA's armed drones have been used primarily to kill specific individuals. The Bush administration launched its global drone assassination program in October 2001 in Afghanistan, expanded it in 2002 to Yemen, and later to other countries. Under President Barack Obama, White House oversight of such assassinations only gained momentum (with an official "kill list" and regular "terror Tuesday" meetings to pick targets). The use of drones expanded 10-fold, with growing numbers of attacks people engaged in activities that were to bear the "signature" of terrorist activity. [Read More] Also useful/interesting is this article by Nick Turse, "Threats 'From the South' Prompt U.S. to Base Drones in Greece for the First Time," The Intercept [[Link].
The Wars in Syria
Legal? Despite Withdrawal Pledge, Trump's Massive Mission Creep in Syria
---- How is fighting Syrian government troops part of the US mission in Syria? Only by virtue of mission creep. …The Pentagon is saying that since the US was part of the negotiations leading to the deconfliction zone south of the capital, it has the right to intervene there to maintain the cease-fire. Some observers suspect that the US is simply running interference for the Israelis, who have occupied part of the Golan Heights and the permanent annexation of which the US is preparing to recognize. The Israeli government does not want Syria going south because they don't trust Damascus to keep the Lebanese Shiite militia, Hizbullah, away from the Israeli border. The de facto Syrian side of the Golan is largely held by the a group (formerly known as Nusra Front) with ties to al-Qaeda. That doesn't sound like self-defense. So de facto, the US and Israel are protecting some al-Qaeda fighters (among a large number of non-extremists). Mission creep can go very wrong very quickly, as the US discovered in Vietnam. [Read More]
War with North Korea?
A Major Win for Trump's War Cabinet
---- President Donald Trump's abrupt decision to run away from a summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un should not be a surprise to anyone. … In actual fact, the Trump administration was never prepared to discuss any issue that resembled arms control and disarmament, and national security adviser John Bolton, the formidable chairman of the new "war cabinet," was never agreeable to the idea of U.S.-North Korean diplomacy. … Bolton is new to Trump's national security team, but he is clearly the major winner in this diplomatic setback. Other members of the team, including the Secretaries of State and Defense were not consulted prior to the sudden announcement on May 24, 2018. … In record time, Bolton has taken charge of the national security and foreign policies of the Trump administration, and has quietly built a neoconservative team of staffers at the NSC that will take hard-line positions on all items on the international agenda. [Read More]
(Video) As Trump Pulls Out of N. Korea Summit, Women Activists Head to DMZ to Promote Korean Peace Process
From Democracy Now! [May 25, 2018]
---- President Trump has canceled plans for a June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. A top official in North Korea's foreign ministry said Friday that Kim Jong-un is still willing to meet with Trump at any time and that the cancellation of the summit was "extremely regrettable." … Trump sent the letter just hours after North Korea declared it had destroyed one of its nuclear weapons test sites. According to a report from NBC, the decision was made so abruptly the Trump administration did not have time to notify congressional leaders or foreign allies, including South Korean President Moon Jae-in. [See the Program] For more on the women's peace effort, read Jon Letman, "Seventy Years After Korea's Division, Women Lead Push for Peace," Truthout [Link]. Also useful/illuminating is this article by Peter Maass, "Donald Trump Has Liberated Koreans From the Illusion That America Is Helping Them," The Intercept [[Link].
War with Iran? The Iran Nuclear Agreement
Mike Pompeo's 12-Step Plan for Disaster With Iran
By Scott Ritter, Truth Dig [May 23, 2018]
---- Trump made his decision to withdraw official on May 8, and since then the United States has been struggling to articulate a strategy to deal with the consequences of that action. Pompeo's speech—titled "After the Deal: A New Iran Strategy"—was intended to provide America's "Plan B." Upon reflection, however, Pompeo's speech failed to accomplish this. Worse, the unrealistic demands made upon Iran in Pompeo's address, coupled by the absolute detachment from reality and historical fact and/or context these demands were made, made Pompeo's speech far more dangerous than silly. … Pompeo's "advocacy" consisted of little more than citing ongoing economic mismanagement, corruption and political repression, and offering economic opportunity and "liberty" in exchange for mass demonstrations by the Iranian people—demonstrations designed to overthrow the theocratic regime in Tehran. But "regime change," "Iran" and "the United States" are three terms that historically do not mix, as every Iranian knows. [Read More]
Iran: Sanctions & War
---- The question is: has the Trump administration already made a decision to go to war with Iran, similar to the determination of the Bush administration to invade Iraq in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington? Predictions are dicey things, and few human institutions are more uncertain than war. But several developments have come together to suggest that the rationale for using sanctions to force a re-negotiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is cover for an eventual military assault by the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia aimed at regime change in Teheran. … The US Congress can also help stop a war, although it will require members—mostly Democrats—to put aside their anti-Iranian bias and make common cause with the "stay in the pact" Iranians. This is a popular issue. A CNN poll found that 63 percent of Americans opposed withdrawing from the agreement. It will also mean that the Congress—again, mainly Democrats—will have to challenge the role that Israel is playing. That will not be easy, but maybe not as difficult as it has been in the past. Israel's brutality against Palestinians over the past month has won no friends except in the White House and the evangelical circuit, and Netanyahu has made it clear that he prefers Republicans to Democrats. [Read More]
How Iran Will Respond to Trump [An interview with a top Iranian official]
Ahmad Bahmani is the Europe and Americas adviser to Ali Akbar Velayati – who happens to be Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei top foreign policy adviser. So what Bahmani says comes from the highest levels of the Iranian government. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Breaking a Promise, Tom Perez Puts His Thumb on the Scale for Andrew Cuomo
By John Nichols, The Nation [May 25, 2018]
---- On May 24, Perez appeared at the New York State Democratic Party convention to deliver an all-in endorsement of Governor Andrew Cuomo and his running mate, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul. … What gives? Both Cuomo and Hochul face spirited primary challenges from progressive Democrats who have captured public attention and endorsements, and who seem to be stirring the imaginations of the younger Democrats and the independents and new voters the party needs. So why is the chairman of the Democratic National Committee appearing at a state Democratic convention to endorse a pair of candidates who face hotly contested primaries? [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Gaza, "the World's Largest Concentration Camp"
An interview with Norman Finkelstein, by Jeremy Scahill
From The Intercept [
---- Never in modern history has there been such a merciless, sustained campaign of collective punishment like the one that Israel has meted out against the people of Gaza. And that punishment is horrifying enough, just when you consider the humanitarian consequences of the blockade and the poisoning of the environment and the water supply. But then add to that the regular massacres of people literally trapped between the sea and a nuclear-armed nation-state, with the most advanced mass-killing machinery on the planet and you have to ask: What does Israel really want? And the answer, it seems, is submission and acceptance of dehumanization by the Palestinians or they die. This week on Intercepted, we spoke to the blacklisted academic Norman Finkelstein. He has authored 11 books including, "The Holocaust Industry," and "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History." … Finkelstein says that he has been targeted for his outspoken views and scholarship on Israel. It has been more than a decade since Finkelstein has been able to teach at a university. He remains defiant. "Is it accurate, is it calling things by the proper names to say that the Palestinians in Gaza are trying to breach a border fence?" he asked. "No. The Palestinians in Gaza are trying to breach a concentration camp fence. They're trying to breach a ghetto fence. They're trying to breach a prison gate." [Read More]
Along the Gaza Border, They Shoot Medics (Too), Don't They?
By Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [May 28, 2018]
---- Any healthcare system in the West would collapse if it had to treat as many gunshot wounds in a single day as there were in the Gaza Strip on May 14, say international medical figures. Yet Gaza's medical system, which for years has been on the brink of collapse as a result of the Israeli blockade and Palestinian internecine conflict, coped amazingly well with the challenge. In Israel, the events of May 14 are already history. In the Strip, their bloody consequences will shape the lives of thousands of families for years to come. It was the number of people injured by gunfire, more than the high body count, that was so shocking: Nearly half of the more than 2,770 people who sought emergency care had gunshot wounds. "It was clear that the soldiers are shooting above all in order to injure and maim demonstrators." That was the conclusion I heard from my interlocutors, some well experienced in bloody international conflicts. The aim was to hurt rather than to kill, to leave as many young people as possible with permanent disabilities. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY ["The past is never dead; it's not even past" – Wm. Faulkner]
You Can't Commit Genocide Without the Help of Local People
---- How do you organise a successful genocide – in Turkish Armenia a century ago, in Nazi-occupied Europe in the 1940s, or in the Middle East today? A remarkable investigation by a young Harvard scholar – focusing on the slaughter of Armenians in a single Turkish Ottoman city 103 years ago – suggests the answer is simple: a genocidal government must have the local support of every branch of respectable society: tax officials, judges, magistrates, junior police officers, clergymen, lawyers, bankers and, most painfully, the neighbours of the victims. Umit Kurt's detailed paper on the slaughter of the Armenians of Antep in southern Turkey in 1915, which appears in the latest edition of the Journal of Genocide Research, concentrates on the dispossession, rape and murder of just 20,000 of the one and a half million Armenian Christians slaughtered by the Ottoman Turks in the first holocaust of the 20th century. It not only details the series of carefully prepared deportations from Antep and the pathetic hopes of those who were temporarily spared – a story tragically familiar to so many stories of the Jewish ghettoes of Eastern Europe – but lists the property and possessions which the city authorities and peasants sought to lo ot from those they sent to their deaths. The local perpetrators thus seized farms, pistachio groves, orchards, vineyards, coffee houses, shops, watermills, church property, schools and a library. Officially this was called "expropriation" or "confiscation", but as Umit Kurt points out, "huge numbers of people were bound together in a circle of profit that was at the same time a circle of complicity". The author, born in modern-day Gaziantep in Turkey – the original Antep – is of Kurdish-Arab origin, and his spare, dry prose makes his 21-page thesis all the more frightening. [Read More]
