Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
September 8, 2019
Hello All - Last week, as Hurricane Dorian barreled toward the Bahamas, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg - "Hurricane Greta" - landed in New York. Known widely as the inspiration for "student climate strike," Greta stepped off an emission-free sailboat to be greeted by a crowd of several hundred people. She will soon be attending a UN climate summit, but before that she will be part of a worldwide "Global Climate Strike" on Friday, September 20th.
Why a Climate Strike? Since 1988 we have known that human activity, especially burning gas, coal, and oil, has caused the Earth to get warmer, thus changing our climate and our weather. Since 1988, global warming has continued, but the governments of the world have done little to protect us. We are approaching a time when global warming may be unstoppable. This is our emergency
Let's stay with Hurricane Dorian for a moment, a Category 5 storm that more or less destroyed an entire island nation, and brought fear and trembling to other islands and the USA coastal states. Climate scientist tell us that warmer water and warmer air make such storms more frequent and more intense, and that such storms move more slowly than in years gone by, giving them more time to dump rain on wherever they are. Despite the obvious connections between global warming and the especially damaging effects of Hurricane Dorian, two useful/illuminating media studies (here and here) show that corporate media – print and television – made a connection between our climate crisis and Hurricane Dorian in only a few out of hundreds of reports. Is it any wonder that people of the USA, of all the industrialized nations in the world, are the least knowledgeable about, and the least concerned with, our climate crisis?
So here comes the Global Climate Strike – the week of September 16 -20. The energy behind the Climate Strike comes from young people. While the leaders of the world's nations will be dead and gone long before the full impact of climate chaos strikes us, young people will still be here to bear the brunt of disaster. And they are angry and they are rebelling. They say the obvious: it is not fair that their lives will be ruined and our civilization traumatized because the elites of their parents' generation were unwilling or unable to tackle the power of the fossil-fuel giants and pay attention to climate science, not Fox News.
While the youth uprising and protests against the fossil fools are everywhere, the most active groups now leading the fight for our climate are the "Extinction Rebellion" and the "Sunrise Movement." Extinction Rebellion has its roots in Europe, especially the UK, using nonviolent civil disobedience to protest their government's inaction. The Extinction Rebellion's obvious point is that We the People should not go quietly to our graves, doing nothing while the fossil fools and their governments destroy us. Fight back!
The Sunrise Movement is based in the USA. It is composed of young people, and is similar to the student strikes in Europe, where, partly inspired by Greta Thunberg, students have been striking, marching, and protesting each Friday, disrupting business-as-usual. In the USA, the Sunrise Movement held a sit-in in Nancy Pelosi's office last fall, demanding that Congress take action for a Green New Deal. And it was the Sunrise Movement that led the demand that the Democratic Party hold a presidential candidates' debate on the climate crisis.
This week's CNN forum on the climate crisis, where the Democratic presidential candidates talked at length about their plans to fix our climate crisis, was a response to this grassroots rebellion. While there were differences among the candidates, almost all favored ending carbon emissions by 2050, ending federal subsidies of the fossil fuel industry, and restricting oil and gas leasing on public lands. But the forum also exposed differences about how to do all this, and how aggressively to fight Big Energy. Among Democratic Party activists, a debate focuses on Joe Biden and whether his climate proposals are strong enough to gain the support (or assent) of liberals. And once again, if and when the mainstream media allow "climate" to be discussed, they ignore the urgency of the crisis and the short-term timetable that Nature has given us, rejecting – for example – Bernie Sanders' proposals as too extreme.
So far climate strikes are planned in 117 countries, with over 2,500 events planned. In NYC, the main rally will be on Friday, September 20th, in Foley Square (near City Hall) starting at noon. In Westchester, there will be rallies in Croton (121 Maple St.) at 11:30 AM, and at Chuck Schumer's office in Peekskill (1 Park Place) at 9 AM. And on Monday, September 9th, the Climate Strike week will be kicked off by Naomi Klein and Greta Thunberg speaking at a town hall in NYC. Though the event is sold out, you can watch a live stream broadcast starting at 7 pm. If we learn of additional events, they will be posted on the CFOW Facebook page.
Some Useful Reading on the Climate Crisis
Why the Democratic National Committee Must Change the Rules and Hold a Climate Debate
By Naomi Klein, The Intercept [August 21, 2019]
---- Here is why setting an emergency tone at this crossroads is so important. Imagine that the party does absolutely everything right between now and November 2020. It elects a beloved candidate to lead the party with a bold and positive platform; that candidate goes on to defeat Trump in the general election; other galvanizing candidates succeed in taking the Senate and keeping the House for your party. Even in that long-shot, best-case scenario, a new administration would come to power with the climate clock so close to midnight that it will need to have earned an overwhelming democratic mandate to leap into transformative action on day one. The timeline we face is nonnegotiable. [Read More]
The Rise of a New Climate Activism
By Sophie Yeo, The Ecologist [September 5, 2019]
---- I saw Greta Thunberg for the first time in Poland at the end of last year. It was during the early days of the Katowice (Poland) UN climate negotiations. … What I didn't realise was that she would catalyse a shift in how climate activism works altogether. … The viral nature of the movement, where young people can broadcast their concerns to millions, highlights the potency of a concoction both timeless and modern: the anger of youth and the organising power of social media. … When Greta told the UN that "real power belongs to the people", she couldn't have known the extent to which that sentiment would define the next year of climate activism. What we don't know yet is whether it's enough. Enough power. Enough people. [Read More]
---- I saw Greta Thunberg for the first time in Poland at the end of last year. It was during the early days of the Katowice (Poland) UN climate negotiations. … What I didn't realise was that she would catalyse a shift in how climate activism works altogether. … The viral nature of the movement, where young people can broadcast their concerns to millions, highlights the potency of a concoction both timeless and modern: the anger of youth and the organising power of social media. … When Greta told the UN that "real power belongs to the people", she couldn't have known the extent to which that sentiment would define the next year of climate activism. What we don't know yet is whether it's enough. Enough power. Enough people. [Read More]
We Will See Roots Reaching Out for Each Other
By Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental [September 8, 2019]
---- Last week, Agence France-Presse got its hands on a draft UN report called Special Report on the Ocean and Cyrosphere in a Changing Climate. This 900-page document is study of the oceans for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body which won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007. What extracts have become available make for chilling reading. 'The same oceans that nourished human evolution', the draft says, 'are poised to unleash misery on a global scale unless the carbon pollution destabilising Earth's marine environment is brought to heel'. … Unless there are deep cuts to the carbon emissions created by humans, at least 30% of the northern hemisphere's surface permafrost could melt within the next eight decades. This would mean that by 2050 the oceans will rise, and the 'extreme sea level events' will wipe out islands and low-lying megacities. Few scientists are convinced that warming can be controlled at the threshold of 1.5˚C; they hope for 2˚C. At this increase of temperature, the oceans will rise sufficiently to displace more than a quarter of a billion people; these displaced people – at 250 million – would collectively form the fifth largest country in the world after China, India, the United States of America, and Indonesia. [Read More]
---- Last week, Agence France-Presse got its hands on a draft UN report called Special Report on the Ocean and Cyrosphere in a Changing Climate. This 900-page document is study of the oceans for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body which won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007. What extracts have become available make for chilling reading. 'The same oceans that nourished human evolution', the draft says, 'are poised to unleash misery on a global scale unless the carbon pollution destabilising Earth's marine environment is brought to heel'. … Unless there are deep cuts to the carbon emissions created by humans, at least 30% of the northern hemisphere's surface permafrost could melt within the next eight decades. This would mean that by 2050 the oceans will rise, and the 'extreme sea level events' will wipe out islands and low-lying megacities. Few scientists are convinced that warming can be controlled at the threshold of 1.5˚C; they hope for 2˚C. At this increase of temperature, the oceans will rise sufficiently to displace more than a quarter of a billion people; these displaced people – at 250 million – would collectively form the fifth largest country in the world after China, India, the United States of America, and Indonesia. [Read More]
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 the climate crisis, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. We (usually) 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. And if you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
This Newsletter
The CFOW Newsletter is changing. This edition is a first-draft of how the changed newsletter will look. Until now, the Newsletter has tried to have useful information/links for the issues that CFOW is engaged with; but as time went on, and the number of issues has grown, things got out of hand. And the editor is not getting any younger. Going forward, we are thinking of a topical focus for each newsletter – in today's case, the climate crisis – supported by some useful articles; and an additional selection of a half-dozen articles of general interest – what used to be called "Featured Essays." The result will be about 5 pages instead of ten, perhaps more readable and with more focus. Your comments are appreciated.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
GOOD READING
"There Are Reasons for Optimism" [An interview with Noam Chomsky]
Interview by John Nichols, Catalyst [September 2019]
---- When you were ten years old, you wrote a short essay on your concerns about the rise of fascism. You were writing after the fall of Barcelona to Francisco Franco's fascist forces in the closing days of the Spanish Civil War. The Americans who fought in that war, as members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, were disparaged as "premature anti-fascists," as they dared to raise arms against the allies of Hitler and Mussolini before the US entered World War II on December 8, 1941. At ten, you aligned yourself with the antifascists. Do you recall the article?
Chomsky: The article was for the fourth-grade newspaper. I was the editor and the only reader as far as I recall, aside from maybe my mother. Luckily for me, she didn't save anything. I'm sure it would be quite embarrassing. All I remember about it is the first sentence, which described what I was thinking at the time. The first sentence was: Austria falls, Czechoslovakia falls, Toledo falls and now Barcelona falls. I was writing after the fall of Barcelona, February 1939. And it just seemed at the time that the spread of fascism was inexorable. Nothing was going to stop it. The article was concerned with what was going on in the world, which was frightening. I was old enough to listen to Hitler's speeches at the Nuremberg Rallies — not understanding the words, but it was easy enough to pick up the tone. You could just see what was happening as this plague spread all over Europe and seemed to have no end. [Read More]
(Video) Shut It Down: Veteran Organizer Lisa Fithian Offers a Guide to Resistance in Era of Climate Crisis
From Democrcy Now! [September 6, 2019]
---- Lisa Fithian is a longtime organizer and nonviolent direct action trainer since the 1970s. She has shut down the CIA. She has occupied Wall Street, disrupted the World Trade Organization and stood her ground in Tahrir Square. She has walked in solidarity with the tribal leaders at Standing Rock and defended communities in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. She joined us at the Democracy Now! studio to talk about her new book, which was published this week, titled "Shut It Down: Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance." Fithian is currently on a book tour and doing a new workshop called "Escalating Resistance: Mass Rebellion Training." [See the Program] And you can see Part Two of this interview, "'Shut It Down: Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance': Lisa Fithian Reflects on Decades of Protest"
[Link] For additional analysis and inspiration about why and how to take action, highly recommended is "Strike! - Unbreakable human solidarity is what we need, and mass strikes are the strategy to get it," by veteran organizer Jane McAlevey, The Nation [September 2, 2019] [Link]
Why is the Far-Right Rising Globally?
An interview with Walden Bello, The Real News [August 25, 2019]
---- Walden Bello, author of "Counterrevolution: The Global Rise of the Far-Right," argues that the far-right is in ascendancy at the moment not only in reaction to the failures of neoliberalism, but also because of the failures of liberal democracy. Not since the pre-World War II period of the early 20th century have there been as many far-right governments in office as today. It almost seems that with every new election, another one joins the ranks of governments that can be described as authoritarian, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, homophobic, racist, or even sexist. Governments that fall into this far-right categorization include Jair Bolsonaro's government in Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte's in the Philippines, Narendra Modi's of India, Tayyip Erdogan's of Turkey, Viktor Orban's of Hungary, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and last but not least, Donald Trump's government in the United States. They all came into power in the last five years, more or less. Why is it though that there is this fairly sudden rise of the far-right? There are a number of political scientists and sociologists who have tried to explain this phenomenon, but it receives relatively little attention in the general public. Joining me now to discuss the global rise of the far right is Walden Bello. He is a sociologist who has given this topic a lot of attention. He actually recently published a book on this topic with the title, Counterrevolution: The Global Rise of the Far Right. [Read More] Also highly recommended is Part Two of the interview, "How to Confront the Global Rise of the Right? [August 26, 2019] [Link]
Our History
From mind control to murder? How a deadly fall revealed the CIA's darkest secrets
By Stephen Kinzer, The Guardian [UK] [September 6, 2019]
---- Glass shattered high above Seventh Avenue in Manhattan before dawn on a cold November morning in 1953. Seconds later, a body hit the sidewalk. Jimmy, the doorman at the Statler hotel, was momentarily stunned. Then he turned and ran into the hotel lobby. "We got a jumper!" he shouted. "We got a jumper!" The night manager peered up through the darkness at his hulking hotel. After a few moments, he picked out a curtain flapping through an open window. It turned out to be room 1018A. Two names were on the registration card: Frank Olson and Robert Lashbrook. … Decades later, however, spectacular revelations cast Olson's death in a completely new light. First, the CIA admitted that, shortly before he died, Olson's colleagues had lured him to a retreat and fed him LSD without his knowledge. Then it turned out that Olson had talked about leaving the CIA – and told his wife that he had made "a terrible mistake". Slowly, a counter-narrative emerged: Olson was disturbed about his work and wanted to quit, leading his comrades to consider him a security risk. All of this led him to room 1018A. [Read More]
At the Movies
Film 'Official Secrets' is the Tip of a Mammoth Iceberg
By Sam Husseini, Consortium News [August 29, 2019]
---- Katharine Gun worked as an analyst for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent of the secretive U.S. National Security Agency. She tried to stop the impending invasion of Iraq in early 2003 by exposing the deceit of George W. Bush and Tony Blair in their claims about that country. For doing that she was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act — a juiced up version of the U.S. Espionage Act, which in recent years has been used repeatedly by the Obama administration against whistleblowers and now by the Trump administration against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. Gun was charged for exposing— around the time of Colin Powell's infamous testimony to the UN about Iraq's alleged WMDs – a top secret U.S. government memo showing it was mounting an illegal spying "surge" against other U.N. Security Council delegations in an effort to manipulate them into voting for an Iraq invasion resolution. The U.S. and Britain had successfully forced through a trumped up resolution, 1441 in November 2002. In early 2003, they were poised to threaten, bribe or blackmail their way to get formal United Nations authorization for the invasion. [Read More] For another good review/perspective, read "The Best Movie Ever Made About the Truth Behind the Iraq War Is "Official Secrets," by Jon Schwarz, The Intercept [August 31, 2019] [Link]
