CFOW Newsletter - Focus on the coup in Bolivia

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

November 25, 2019

 

Hello All – Two weeks ago a military coup overthrew the democratically elected government of Bolivia.  The Trump administration immediately supported this coup, as did most of our mainstream media. This is a great tragedy, both for Bolivia and for the USA.

 

The coup has resulted in a government take-over by the leaders of a Christian-fascist party that used gangs of armed thugs to force the members of the government to flee the country. Bearing a large Bible and denouncing Bolivia's indigenous people as "Satanic," the new political leaders entered the halls of government after winning only 4 percent of the vote in the November 10^th election.

 

The military coup in Bolivia overthrew a government led by Evo Morales.  Morales comes from Bolivia's indigenous community, which includes 40 percent of the population of Bolivia.  During his 14 years as President, the poor people of Bolivia have achieved a large increase in their standard of living.  And this was a problem for the white descendents of the Spanish colonizers – the rule of the indigenous. In the eyes of the richer "white" people of Bolivia, to give preference to the needs of the poor was wrong. 

 

Like many poor countries, Bolivia is cursed with a plethora of natural resources, greatly needed/desired by multinational corporations and, in this as in so many cases, located on the lands of a poor, indigenous population.  Lithium, the key to making batteries, has been in the news; and the day after the coup Bolivia's new "government" signed a contract with a German company to mine Bolivia's lithium deposits, which the mining company had been unable to do with Morales' government. Another example is indium, a key component in liquid crystal displays (LCD); the world's largest deposits are found in Bolivia. Researcher Vijay Prashad reports on a dozen similar rare metals found in Bolivia. There is no evidence that corporate interests were responsible for the coup, but "regime change" will have many corporate beneficiaries. 

 

Similarly, we do not know the role of our government in this coup, but there are signs that the traditional tools of "regime change" were operating.  For example, the head of the armed forces was trained by the USA, and the millionaire leader of the fascist gangs received funding and support from our government. At least six of the coup leaders are known to have passed through what used to be known as the US Army's School of the Americas (whose reputation as the birthplace of Latin American military coups got so bad that it changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.)

 

Another foundation of Bolivia's coup that needs some research is the Organization of American States. It was the OAS that disrupted the vote counting after the election with a false report that there were "voting irregularities," helping to spark the protests against the Morales government that were then militarized into a coup. Whether the OAS acted thusly on purpose or by accident, and whether the US played a supporting role in the OAS election intervention is still unknown, but given the outcome the question is of considerable interest.

 

On Friday, 14 US congressional representatives, among them Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, sent a letter to Secretary of State Pompeo expressing their concern "that recent statements and actions on the part of senior Trump Administration officials are contributing to an escalating political and human rights crisis" in Bolivia. Sadly our Reps. Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey were not among the signers of this protest.  If this disappoints you, please call Eliot Engel (202 225-2464) and Nita Lowey (202-225-6506} and ask them to speak out against the military coup in Bolivia.

 

Useful reading on the coup in Bolivia

"They're Killing Us Like Dogs"—A Massacre in Bolivia and a Plea for Help

By Medea Benjamin, Code Pink

---- I am writing from Bolivia just days after witnessing the November 19 military massacre at the Senkata gas plant in the indigenous city of El Alto, and the tear-gassing of a peaceful funeral procession on November 21 to commemorate the dead. These are examples, unfortunately, of the modus operandi of the de facto government that seized control in a coup that forced Evo Morales out of power. The coup has spawned massive protests, with blockades set up around the country as part of a national strike calling for the resignation of this new government. One well-organized blockade is in El Alto, where residents set up barriers surrounding the Senkata gas plant, stopping tankers from leaving the plant and cutting off La Paz's main source of gasoline. Determined to break the blockade, the government sent in helicopters, tanks and heavily armed soldiers in the evening of November 18. The next day, mayhem broke out when the soldiers began teargassing residents, then shooting into the crowd. I arrived just after the shooting [Read More]

 

What's Happening In Bolivia Is a Violent Right-Wing Coup

By Laura Carlsen, November 20, 2019

---- Regime change in Bolivia was long planned by the right and the U.S. government. Years ago, the conservative "civic committees" based in the white, wealthy area of Santa Cruz began a strategy of separating from the nation ruled by a very popular indigenous, leftist president. The U.S. embassy supported the civic committee of Santa Cruz and other opposition groups, betting on the balkanization of the country.  When that strategy failed, they began to develop a plan to foment conditions for a military coup. A November 2007 Wikileaks cable from the U.S. embassy in Bolivia noted encouragingly: "There are strong indications that the military is split and could be quite reticent to follow orders." As for General Kaliman, he was trained at the infamous School of the Americas. The police chief who betrayed the government the day before also received training in Washington. Luis Fernando Camacho, leader of the Santa Cruz civic committee and the emerging leader of the 2019 coup, has also received direct funding and support from the U.S. government. [Read More]

 

News Notes

A new study from a think tank that studies these things finds that "America has spent $6.4 trillion on wars in the Middle East and Asia since 2001." The report also finds that "more than 801,000 people have died as a direct result of fighting. Of those, more than 335,000 have been civilians. Another 21 million people have been displaced due to violence." [Read More] Imagine how the world/the USA would be different if we had avoided this madness! For another perspective on cost of these wars, read this useful article by Marine combat veteran Matthew Hoh.

 

Scott Warren is free!  Warren faced 20 years in prison for the alleged crime of giving two men from Central America food, water, and a place to sleep. To read out what he did, why the Border Patrol wanted to put him behind bars, and how a jury took just two hours to find him not guilty, go here.

 

While the Democrats and much of the mainstream media are taking a victory lap in the wake of two week's worth of impeachment hearings, I can't help raising a note of caution, as I have done in previous newsletters.  For openers, what did we really learn from the testimony of US Ambassador to Europe Gordon Sondland?  According to Nation writer Aaron Maté, much less and quite different things than the media tells us that we did.  Similarly, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern has some interesting insights into the outdated Cold War frameworks of State Department experts such as Fiona Hill.

 

Pope Francis was in Japan this weekend, speaking in Hiroshima and Nagasaki against nuclear weapons and regretting the failure of the world's nuclear weapons states (including the USA) for their/our failure to ratify the UN Treaty abolishing nuclear weapons.  This morning Democracy Now! has an excellent report, including an interview with one of the Kings Bay Ploughshares 7, Catholic peace activists who are awaiting sentencing for their symbolic protest at the Trident nuclear base in Georgia.  For an excellent update on the Ploughshares 7, read "Can the Religious Left Take Down Nuclear Weapons?" by Sam Husseini.

 

We are everywhere! Last weekend hundreds of students attending the Harvard-Yale football game in New Haven occupied the field at half-time to protest climate chaos and the failure of their schools to divest from fossil fuels, delaying the game for an hour.

 

Finally, it's time for our annual update to the Myth of the First Thanksgiving.

 

Things to Do/Coming Attractions

Sunday, December 1^st – CFOW meets (usually) on the first Sunday of the month at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 7 to 9 pm.  We review our work of the previous month and make plans for the month to come.  Everyone is welcome at these meetings.

 

Friday, December 6^th – The next youth-led climate mobilization will take place across the USA.  It coincides with the 2019 UN Climate Change Conference.  There will be a demonstration at City Hall Park in NYC from 12 to 3 pm; and the Rivertowns students will be rallying in Ardsley at Pacone Park from 3 to 4 pm.  More news when we get it.

 

Saturday, December 7^th – WESPAC'S annual "Margaret Eberle Fair Trade and Crafts Festival" will be held from 10 am to 4 pm at the Memorial United Methodist Church, 250 Bryant Ave. in White Plains.  Fair-trade crafts and good food for sale; suggested admission $5, but no one wll be turned away.  Live music through the day; always an enjoyable visit/event.

 

Sunday, December 8^th – Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal of the New York Metro chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program will speak about "Universal Healthcare: The Road Ahead," at the Riverfront branch of the Yonkers Public Library, 1 Larkin Center in Yonkers, from 2 to 4 pm.  The program is sponsored by NYCD-Indivisible, Indivisible Westchester, Indivisible White Plains and BlueBlast! Free.  To register (necessary), go here.

 

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!

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

SOME USEFUL/INTERESTING FEATURED ESSAYS

 

Noam Chomsky: Democratic Party Centrism Risks Handing Election to Trump

From Truthout [November 21, 2019]

---- I find it psychologically impossible to discuss the 2020 election without emphasizing, as strongly as possible, what is at stake: survival, nothing less. Four more years of Trump may spell the end of much of life on Earth, including organized human society in any recognizable form. Strong words, but not strong enough. I would like to repeat the words of Raymond Pierrehumbert, a lead author of the startling [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report of October 2018, since replaced by still more dire warnings: "With regard to the climate crisis, yes, it's time to panic. We are in deep trouble." These should be the defining terms of the 2020 election. [Read More]

 

India: Intimations of an Ending: The rise of Modi and the Hindu far right.

By Arundhati Roy, The Nation [November 23, 2019]

---- While protest reverberates on the streets of Chile, Catalonia, Britain, France, Iraq, Lebanon, and Hong Kong, and a new generation rages against what has been done to their planet, I hope you will forgive me for speaking about a place where the street has been taken over by something quite different. There was a time when dissent was India's best export. But now, even as protest swells in the West, our great anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements for social and environmental justice—the marches against big dams, against the privatization and plunder of our rivers and forests, against mass displacement and the alienation of indigenous peoples' homelands—have largely fallen silent….. In India today, a shadow world is creeping up on us in broad daylight. It is becoming more and more difficult to communicate the scale of the crisis even to ourselves.  [Read More]

 

(Video) "In Defense of Julian Assange": Why WikiLeaks Founder's Case Threatens Press Freedom

From Democracy Now! [November 22, 2019]

---- This week Swedish prosecutors dropped an investigation into sexual assault allegations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, stemming from 2010. Assange, who has always denied the allegations, took refuge inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London for over seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden on the charges. British authorities dragged him out of the Ecuadorian embassy in April and he has since been jailed in London's Belmarsh prison on charges related to skipping of bail in 2012, when he first entered the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden over the now-dropped sexual assault charges. The United States is still seeking Assange's extradition to the U.S., where he faces up to 175 years in prison on hacking charges and 17 counts of violating the World War I-era Espionage Act for his role in publishing U.S. classified military and diplomatic documents exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. A full extradition hearing will take place in February. [See the Program] Democracy Now! reported today that more than 60 UK doctors have written an open letter to the British government warning that Assange's health is so bad he could die inside his high-security prison.  They called on the British government to move Assange to a hospital.

 

The War on Words in Donald Trump's White House
By Karen J. Greenberg, Tom Dispatch [November 21, 2019]

---- These days, witnessing the administration's never-ending cruelty at the border, the shenanigans of a White House caught red-handed in attempted bribery in Ukraine, and the disarray of this country's foreign policy, I feel like I'm seeing a much-scarier remake of a familiar old movie.  … Sadly, words are more important than we as a nation seem to believe. They are the bedrock on which facts are built and facts are the bedrock on which nations stand in order to make decisions. The Trump administration has little respect for the integrity of words, no respect for educating the public with the facts, and every intention of clouding the space between fact and fiction, certainty and uncertainty. Perhaps the best strategy for finding our way forward is to hold one another accountable, first and foremost, for the very words we use. [Read More]

 

Trump's New Policy on Israeli Settlements Is Illegal and Self-Serving

By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout [November 20, 2019]

----Thumbing his nose at the Geneva Convention, the Rome Statute, the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice, Donald Trump decided that Israel's unlawful construction of Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territory is lawful. This policy change is part of Trump's pattern of seeking to legalize illegal Israeli practices. It panders to Israel at the expense of the Palestinians while aiming to burnish Trump's bona fides with his Christian Zionist base. … Walking in lockstep with Netanyahu, Trump also illegally declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. And three months after he illegally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Netanyahu named a new — and illegal — settlement under construction, "Trump Heights." On November 18, Pompeo announced the end of the United States' 41-year policy of considering Israeli settlements to be unlawful. "The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law," Pompeo declared. [Read More]

 

Useful reading on the USA change of course re: settlements – "New U.S. Stance on Israeli Settlements Is Akin to 'Thou Shalt Murder'" by Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [November 21, 2019] [Link]; and "Pompeo Scorns the Law Because He's Never Had to Follow It," by Robert Fisk, The Independent [UK] [November 24, 2019] [Link].

 

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on the USA, Russia, and Ukraine

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

November 17, 2019

 

Hello All – Americans watching the impeachment hearings may be pardoned if they were surprised to learn that Ukraine was a major security ally of the United States.  Starting from the simple premise (now beyond dispute) that President Trump tried to coerce the newly elected president of Ukraine into investigating the Bidens and the alleged Ukrainian origins of "Russiagate" – the Impeachable Offense – the State Department witnesses kicking off the public testimony aimed a spotlight on the US-Ukraine alliance.  According to them, Trump had withheld $400 million in military aid already appropriated by Congress to coerce Ukraine to do what he wanted.  For the State Department people, this was the real crime: jeopardizing the security of our Ukrainian ally, and thus our own security, in the face of Russian aggression.

 

The history of Ukraine, and of its relation to Russia and the Soviet Union, is about as complex a story as History offers.  The Ukraine that separated from Russia in 1991 includes large numbers of people, mostly in the center and east of the nation, who speak Russian and regard themselves as part of Russian culture. An equally large number of people, mostly in the western part of the country, hate Russia and its centuries of domination of Ukraine.  Since 1991, Ukraine's politics have been dominated by alliances of corrupt oligarchs; and the coup/uprising of 2014 ousted the Russian-leaning President Yanukovych and installed a government dominated by oligarchs from the western part of the country, one favorable to integration with the European Union and NATO.

 

This spring Ukraine elected a new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, now famous because of Trump's phone call.  Zelensky's successful election campaign had focused on ending the fighting/civil war in eastern Ukraine, and forging better relations with Russia. Yet since 1991 US policy toward Ukraine (and all of the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe) had focused on extending the EU and NATO eastward, up to Russia's borders.  From the Russian viewpoint, Ukraine is the last domino that shields Russia from the nightmare of Western encirclement; thus the "existential necessity" of keeping Ukraine within its orbit. And thus the State Department testimony at this week's impeachment hearings that in effect raise the significance of the US-Ukraine relationship to that of a "strategic ally," will have implications long after the impeachment drama is over. I think a peaceful outcome is there if we want it.

 

For some user-friendly reading on what's happening with Ukraine-Russia and the post-Cold War perspectives of the US military/political Establishment, I suggest "Ukraine for Dummies" by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern [Link]; "Meet Ukraine: America's Newest "Strategic Ally," by Melvin Goodman, another former CIA analyst and now a professor at Johns Hopkins University [Link]; and many writings by Stephen F. Cohen, a noted scholar of Russian history, such as "Peace in Ukraine? - The friends and foes of a Kiev-Moscow settlement" [Link] and "Why Are We in Ukraine?" [Link].

 

News Notes

Last week CFOW stalwarts joined thousands of people across the USA who protested the impending execution in Texas of Rodney Reed, who was scheduled to die next Wednesday for a crime he did not commit.  On Friday, a Texas court stopped the execution, citing the mountains of new evidence showing Reed was innocent. To read about this case, which stole 23 years of freedom from Reed, go here.

 

Stephen Miller is the pilot for much of the Trump administration's immigration policies, all of which seem designed to inflict the maximum possible cruelty on people seeking refuge and a better life.  The impending end of DACA, in a case heard in the Supreme Court this week, is his work.  Bad luck for Stephen; this week the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch released excerpts from emails Miller sent to rightwing Breitbart news prior to the 2016 election.  White nationalism in the raw.

 

It is often said that action at the United Nations does not register in the News of the World if the United States is not among its supporters.  As an illustration of this, last week the USA, accompanied by Israel and a few small islands, were the lone dissenters on draft resolutions calling for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East, measures to stop an arms race in outer space, and an end to the blockade of Cuba. For a rare report on how the US is isolated from the Community of Nations, go here.

 

Finally, the Museum of Modern Art's branch showcase in Queens has a new exhibit that may be of interest to antiwar stalwarts and others.  It's called "Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2011."  The program exhibits the work of several Western artists and more than 30 artists from Iraq, Kuwait, and their diasporas."  For an interesting NYTimes article about what's on display and where to see it, go here.

 

Things to Do/Coming Attractions

Saturday, November 23^rd (12-4 pm) and Sunday, November 24^th (12-3 pm) – Grace Episcopal Church (Broadway & Main St.) will hold its 25^th annual "Alternative Gifts Market." Always lots of nice stuff, benefiting worthy artists and programs.

 

Sunday, December 1^st – CFOW meets (usually) on the first Sunday of the month at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 7 to 9 pm.  We review our work of the previous months and make plans for the month to come.  Everyone is welcome at these meetings.

 

Saturday, December 7^th – WESPAC'S annual "Margaret Eberle Fair Trade and Crafts Festival" will be held from 10 am to 4 pm at the Memorial United Methodist Church, 250 Bryant Ave. in White Plains.  Fair-trade crafts and good food for sale; suggested admission $5, but no one wll be turned away.  Live music through the day; always an enjoyable visit/event.

 

Sunday, December 8^th – Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal of the New York Metro chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program will speak about "Universal Healthcare: The Road Ahead," at the Riverfront branch of the Yonkers Public Library, 1 Larkin Center in Yonkers, from 2 to 4 pm.  The program is sponsored by NYCD-Indivisible, Indivisible Westchester, Indivisible White Plains and BlueBlast! Free.  To Register (necessary), go here.

 

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!

 

Rewards!

What is it that makes a good antiwar song?  The horrors of war?  The beauties of peace?  This week's Rewards come from an interesting article by Manual Garcia, Jr. called "Heartrending Antiwar Songs," in which he links a dozen antiwar music videos that are loved by many, and comments on what makes them effective and popular.  Enjoy!

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

SOME USEFUL/INTERESTING FEATURED ESSAYS

 

Naomi Klein on Climate Chaos [and much more]

By Will Meyer, In These Times [November 13, 2019]

---- When I was writing The Shock Doctrine, I was in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and watching the way our current economic system actually responds to the shock of the kind we are going to see more of in a warming world. What I was writing about then was the infrastructure of disaster capitalism descending onto this still-flooded city—the privatization of the school system, of the hospitals, of public housing, and realizing that there wasn't a counter response really. During that time, I researched why [economist] Milton Friedman and others were so obsessed with the need to have a strategy for different kinds of crisis, what became clear was that they believed that everything had gone wrong during the New Deal. That the great crash of 1929 had been used to push this radical agenda. They actually understood that when capitalism produces these crises, it's much more organic for societies to move to the left than it is for them to move to the right. You have to work really hard to get them to move to the right. So it's fitting in a way that we're talking about a Green New Deal because it brings this full circle. [Read More]

 

Why Aren't People in the US Rising Up Like Those Elsewhere in the World?

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies, Code Pink [November 14, 2019]

---- The waves of protests breaking out in country after country around the world beg the question: Why aren't Americans rising up in peaceful protest like our neighbors? We live at the very heart of this neoliberal system that is force-feeding the systemic injustice and inequality of 19th century laissez-faire capitalism to the people of the 21st century. So we are subject to many of the same abuses that have fueled mass protest movements in other countries, including high rents, stagnant wages, cradle-to-grave debt, ever-rising economic inequality, privatized healthcare, a shredded social safety net, abysmal public transportation, systemic political corruption and endless war. We also have a corrupt, racist billionaire as president, who Congress may soon impeach, but where are the masses outside the White House, banging pots and pans to drive Trump out? Why aren't people crashing the offices of their congresspeople, demanding that they represent the people or resign? If none of these conditions has so far provoked a new American revolution, what will it take to trigger one? … So why is the American public so passive? [Read More]

 

Big Oil Needs to Pay for the Damage It Caused

By Tamara Toles O'Laughlin and Bill McKibben, Yes! Magazine [November 15, 2019]

---- Framing the climate crisis as a matter of equity and another opportunity for justice doesn't mean we stop thinking about it in other ways, too. In the end, this is a tussle with chemistry and physics, and clearly the most urgent goal is to slow down the planet's heating. Building solar panels and wind turbines in the end ultimately benefits the most vulnerable. If the Marshall Islands have a chance at surviving, if the rice farmers of the Mekong Delta have any prayer of passing on their land to their sons and daughters, then it depends on a rapid energy transition for the whole planet. But at this point, even the best-case scenarios are relentlessly grim; lots of damage has been done, and far more is in the offing. We're going to have to remake much of the world to have a chance at survival. And if we're going to try, then that repair job shouldn't repeat the imbalances of power and wealth that mark our current planet. Justice demands a real effort to make the last, first this time around. [Read More]

 

A Visit with Arundhati Roy

---- Last Tuesday, several CFOW members attended the Cooper Union program that featured a speech by the great Indian writer/activist Arundhati Roy, followed by a discussion between her and Naomi Klein.  Roy's talk was an extensive and alarming description of what is happening in India today, with a focus on the recent events in Kashmir and Assam.  In a nutshell, Hindu fascism is on the rise, and comparisons with the Third Reich of the 1930s are on the money. On Monday, Roy appeared with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! – "The Silence Is the Loudest Sound: Arundhati Roy Condemns Indian Crackdown in Kashmir." [Link].  Her speech at Cooper Union on Tuesday evening was live-streamed; you can see it here, beginning at 14:00 into the video.

 

The Chicago Teachers Strike Was a Lesson in 21st-Century Organizing

By Sarah Jaffe, The Nation [November 16, 2019]

---- In 2012, the Chicago Teachers Union wrote the playbook that has been successfully used by teachers around the country to reform their unions and win at the bargaining table and on the picket line. That was the year Chicago's teachers waged a new kind of strike, one that redefined solidarity and began to change the narrative around the public good. Now, seven years later, the CTU has shown us all how it's done, reclaiming its place at the center of the conversation about union power in the United States. [Read More]

 

The Coup That Ousted Bolivia's Evo Morales Is Another Setback for Latin American Socialism

By Elise Swain, The Intercept [November 15, 2019]

---- Morales's journey into self-imposed exile marked the end of a remarkable era in Bolivian politics. The first Indigenous president in the modern Americas rode a populist wave to power in 2006, when Bolivia's Movimiento al Socialismo — Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS — rose amid a reshuffling of South American politics to the left in the wake of the Cold War's end. Part of this "pink tide," Morales's 14 years in power saw economic gains for many Bolivians. By 2017, Bolivia's middle class had grown dramatically, and the country of around 11 million people had the region's highest growth rate — but at a cost. Deforestation rates in Bolivia spiked, and Morales pivoted to the center while embracing natural gas and mining projects. The October 2019 election virtually guaranteed trouble for Morales's presidency long before it took place.  [Read More]

 

Also illuminating about the Bolivian coup  - "The Bolivian Coup Is Not a Coup—Because US Wanted It to Happen," by Alan MacLeod, Fairness and Accuracy in the Media [FAIR] [Link]; and "Evo Morales: the fall of the hero of the Bolivian transformation," by Nick Dearden, Open Democracy [November 15, 2019] [Link].

 

Remembering Noel Ignatiev

Noel Ignatiev's Long Fight Against Whiteness

By Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker [November 15, 2019]

---- A fifty-four-year-old Marxist radical, Ignatiev had come to the academy after two decades of work in steel mills and factories. The provocative argument at the center of his book [How the Irish Became White]—that whiteness was not a biological fact but rather a social construction with boundaries that shifted over time—had emerged, in large part, out of his observations of how workers from every conceivable background had interacted on the factory floor. Ignatiev wasn't merely describing these dynamics; he wanted to change them. If whiteness could be created, it could also be destroyed. … In his conception, white privilege wasn't an accounting tool used to compile inequalities; it was a shunt hammered into the minds of the white working class to make its members side with their masters instead of rising up with their black comrades. White privilege was a deceptive tactic wielded by bosses—a way of tricking exploited workers into believing that they were "white." [Read More] And for a memoir by a fellow radical, read "Noel Ignatiev: Remembering a Comrade and a Friend," by Louis Proyect, Counterpunch [November 15, 2019] [Link]

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on Veterans/Armistice Day

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

November 10, 2019

 

Hello All – Monday is Veterans Day.  For opponents of war, Veterans Day is problematic because it has been folded into the American celebration of war, while not doing much to remember and care for our military veterans. Our editorial this week is taken from an essay written last year by David Swanson, one our most thoughtful and hard-working opponents of war. He writes:

 

Celebrate Armistice Day, Not Veterans Day

Do not celebrate Veterans Day. Celebrate Armistice Day instead. Do not celebrate Veterans Day — because of what it has become, and even more so because of what it replaced and erased from U.S. culture.

 

Exactly at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, in 1918, 100 years ago this coming November 11th, people across Europe suddenly stopped shooting guns at each other. Up until that moment, they were killing and taking bullets, falling and screaming, moaning and dying, from bullets and from poison gas. And then they stopped, at 11:00 in the morning, one century ago. They stopped, on schedule. It wasn't that they'd gotten tired or come to their senses. Both before and after 11 o'clock they were simply following orders. The Armistice agreement that ended World War I had set 11 o'clock as quitting time, a decision that allowed 11,000 more men to be killed in the 6 hours between the agreement and the appointed hour.

 

But that hour in subsequent years, that moment of an ending of a war that was supposed to end all war, that moment that had kicked off a world-wide celebration of joy and of the restoration of some semblance of sanity, became a time of silence, of bell ringing, of remembering, and of dedicating oneself to actually ending all war. That was what Armistice Day was. It was not a celebration of war or of those who participate in war, but of the moment a war had ended. Congress passed an Armistice Day resolution in 1926 calling for "exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding … inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples." Later, Congress added that November 11th was to be "a day dedicated to the cause of world peace."

 

We don't have so many holidays dedicated to peace that we can afford to spare one. If the United States were compelled to scrap a war holiday, it would have dozens to choose from, but peace holidays don't just grow on trees. Mother's Day has been drained of its original meaning. Martin Luther King Day has been shaped around a caricature that omits all advocacy for peace. Armistice Day, however, is making a comeback. [Read More]

 

And more thoughts for Veterans/Armistice Day

The Return:  The traumatized veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

By David Finkel, The New Yorker [September 2, 2013]

---- Two million Americans have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of those who have come back describe themselves as physically and mentally healthy. They move forward. Their war recedes. Some are even stronger for the experience. But studies suggest that between twenty and thirty per cent of returning veterans suffer, to varying degrees, from post-traumatic stress disorder, a mental-health condition triggered by some type of terror, or a traumatic brain injury, which occurs when the brain is jolted so violently that it collides with the inside of the skull, causing psychological damage. Every war has its after-war: depression, anxiety, nightmares, memory problems, personality changes, suicidal thoughts. If the studies prove correct, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have created roughly five hundred thousand mentally wounded American veterans. [Read More]

 

I Never Expected to Protest the Vietnam War While on Active Duty

By David Cortright, New York Times [November 8, 2019]

[FB – David Cortright is the author of the classic Soldiers in Revolt: The American Military Today (1975) and is the co-editor of a new book, Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War."  He is a professor of peace studies at the Univesity of Notre Dame." [Link]. He tells how he went from being in the military band to a peace activist during the Vietnam War.]

 

News Notes

A few weeks ago the CFOW Newsletter included the sad news that NYC's progressive, listening-supported WBAI had been taken over by Pacifica Radio and shut down. But the station is back on this week, though the struggle for survival is far from over.  It's at 99.5 FM – check it out!

 

As 2020 approaches, conservative political forces are once again doing what they can to purge voters and otherwise suppress the votes of lower-income people and people of color. One good account of this is "Fighting Voter Purges Across the South." Also useful is "Republicans, Not Russians, Threaten Our Elections" [Link]. People get ready.

 

In response to the dismal/criminal lack of coverage of our climate crisis by the mainstream media, in September a consortium of 323 news outlets large and small pledged to give the crisis the coverage it deserves.  Here is a useful report: "Has Climate News Coverage Finally Turned a Corner?" [Link].

 

And finally, a key step in putting Brazilian fascist Jair Bolsonaro into the presidency was the imprisonment of his leftist political rival, and the former president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ("Lula") on fake charges.  Last Friday, Lula walked free, released because a court judged his imprisonment illegal.  Catch up on this important development here.

 

Things to Do/Coming Attractions

Tuesday, November 12^th – The New York Immigration Coalition writes: "On November 12th, the Supreme Court will hear the case on "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" also known as DACA, and begin proceedings to determine the fate of the program. This court decision will determine the future of 700,000 recipients. To build national support and call attention to this issue, we are mobilizing to DC to have a presence outside of the court. … We will be leaving the White Plains area at 2am on Tuesday, Nov. 12th (the day after Veteran's Day) to arrive in DC around 7:30am where we will convene to eat breakfast (provided by NYIC) and head to the rally."  For more information about the program and transportation/bus, go here.

 

Tuesday, November 12^th - The International Sanctuary Declaration Campaign "has called together outstanding migrant rights activists from around the world to speak to the conditions they are facing, how they are responding, and what it will take to turn fortresses into sanctuaries."  The event will take place at the Ethical Culture Society of Westchester, 7 Saxon Woods Rd. in White Plains, from 5 to 9:30 pm.  For tickets ($10) and more information, go here.

 

Thursday, November 14^th – Bronx Climate Justice North will show the film, "Fire in Paradise" (a PBS Frontline documentary), about the fires in California (and discussion to follow) at the Riverdale-Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture, 4450 Fieldstone Road, in Riverdale, starting at 7 pm.  For more information, go here.

 

Sunday, December 1^st – CFOW meets (usually) on the first Sunday of the month at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 7 to 9 pm.  We review our work of the previous months and make plans for the month to come.  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 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!

 

Rewards!

This week we have some rewards for stalwart readers.  First up is an excellent video built around John Lennon's song, "Working Class Hero."  Next, many of you will know of John Sayles and his excellent films. An interesting interview with Sayles was posted on ZNet this week, including a segment about the making of his classic 1987 film about a West Virginia miners' strike in 1920, "Matewan."  Check out "If They Can Do It by Busting a Union, They'll Do It" [Link], and watch a gripping segment from the film here.  Enjoy!.

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

THIS WEEK'S FEATURED ESSAYS

 

Forged in Fire: California's Lessons for a Green New Deal

By Naomi Klein, The Intercept [November 7 2019]

---- A Green New Deal-style approach — which fuses the battle against planet-warming pollution with the kinds of universalist health, housing, and transit policies that make daily life less stressful and more humane — is not, therefore, one of many possible climate solutions. Having exhausted every other option, it is the only kind of climate response that stands a chance of not going up in smoke. Put bluntly, we will not do what is required to confront the climate emergency unless we are willing to confront the economic and social emergencies produced by decades of neoliberal policy. Because it isn't only our dry and overheated forests and grasslands that are tinderboxes, just waiting for a tiniest spark to go up in flames. All around the world, our human societies, scorched under the stresses of late capitalism, are political tinderboxes as well. In the short window that remains, we need policies capable putting out all these flames. [Read More]

 

For more useful/illuminating news about the climate crisis, read/view - (Video) "Bill McKibben on U.S. Withdrawal from Paris Accord, California Fires, Climate Refugees & More," from Democracy Now! [November 5, 2019] [Link]; "US Withdrawal from Paris Climate Agreement Will Cause 'Real Harm'," an interview with Michael Mann, The Real News [November 9, 2019] [Link]; "Embracing the Green New Deal," by Jon Queally, Common Dreams [November 9, 2019] [Link], and  "How Scientists Got Climate Change So Wrong," by Eugene Linden, New York Times [November 8, 2019] [Link].

 

No Premature Burial for Academic Freedom: Speaking up in Ann Arbor

By Chandler Davis, Infomed Comment

---- Let me make a case for urgency of defense of academic freedom. … The number of firings from American Universities for perceived communism in the great Red-hunt of 1947-1960 was in the hundreds, and the firings for perceived adherence to BDS or the like today are much fewer. There is one effect that looks very similar. In the 1950s any untenured academic might be leery of signing a petition critical of the US fighting a war in Korea (to take one example), knowing it would be vulnerable to public attack. The same went for critical examination of the capitalist system. In the present period, criticism of the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians is subject to the same chill. We all know perfectly well that if you want to criticize the occupation of the West Bank you had better reflect on your job security, because Canary Mission is watching you. So what? We go right ahead, only we watch our step: what's wrong with that? Let me try to shoot down this complacency. In the first place, constantly guarded speech is not free speech. It doesn't do the job free speech is needed for, the exploration of ideas and values.  [Read More]

 

Texas Prepares to Execute Rodney Reed Amid a Flood of New Evidence Pointing to His Innocence

By Jordan Smith, The Intercept [November 8,, 2019]

[FB – Rodney Reed is scheduled to die on November 20^th, despite the mounting evidence that he is innocent.  What is so terrible about this story is that it is like so many others, where a low-income person, often a person of color, has their life ruined/ended so the "system" can justify itself.  Like an Errol Morris film, Jordan Smith lays it all out; an amazing essay.]

---- Over the last 18 years, I've written dozens of times about Reed's case. It was clear early on that it had serious problems and that Reed's conviction left open a number of questions about what happened to Stites and why. As the years have passed, the case has become even more disturbing. There is medical and forensic evidence that has been debunked. There are witnesses — including within Stites's family — who have come forward to say they were aware of the relationship. And then there's Fennell. There's been a lot of troubling information about him, too, including from law enforcement officers disturbed by his behavior both before and after Stites's murder. Some of that information should have been made available to defense lawyers before Reed's trial but wasn't. And then there are the courts, crucially including Texas's Court of Criminal Appeals, which has repeatedly demonstrated a results-oriented willful ignorance in the face of mounting evidence challenging the conviction. [Read More]

 

Our History

(Video) Remembering the 1968 Orangeburg Massacre When Police Shot Dead Three Unarmed Black Students From Democracy Now! [November 8, 2019]

[FB – Before Kent State, there was Orangeburg.  As the students killed at Orangeburg were black, not white as at Kent State, the massacre has only a fragile hold on the history of "the '60s." This is a powerful story, based on the memories of the photographer who was first on the scene, back then.]

---- The 1968 Orangeburg massacre is one of the most violent and least remembered events of the civil rights movement. A crowd of students gathered on the campus of South Carolina State University to protest segregation at Orangeburg's only bowling alley. After days of escalating tensions, students started a bonfire and held a vigil on the campus to protest. Dozens of police arrived on the scene, and state troopers fired live ammunition into the crowd. When the shooting stopped, three students were dead and 28 wounded. Although the tragedy predated the Kent State shootings and Jackson State killings and it was the first of its kind on any American college campus, it received little national media coverage. The nine officers who opened fire that day were all acquitted. The only person convicted of wrongdoing was Cleveland Sellers, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, known as SNCC. Sellers was one of the organizers of the protest. He was convicted of a riot charge and spent seven months behind bars. He was pardoned in 1993. [See the Program]