Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
November 3, 2019
Hello All – For the last three years, fires have destroyed tens of thousands of acres of California woodlands. Fire laps at the edges of towns and major cities. San Francisco's newspaper wonders whether parts of California "have become too dangerous to inhabit." A decade of drought has killed 100 million trees. The drought has alternated with record downpours that have turned burned-over stretches into massive house-burying mudslides.
When our mainstream media (occasionally) mention "climate change," this is the reality. It's a climate crisis. How long will it be before it's OK to mention this to the children?
An unexpected turn in California's fire season is that the electricity has been cut off to more than a million people, because the antiquated system is causing fires when a line is blown down in the high winds. Rebeca Solnit writes: "Ordinary life has vanished in fire-ravaged California":
"Everything has changed; everything must change to respond to it, with global action to limit the extent of climate chaos that is already so destructive, with local action to reinvent how we power our homes and communities and to shift whose interests are served from shareholders to citizens, and from corporations to the web of life. Right now in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, we are paying the price for relying on old systems in a new climate."
System breakdown is the new normal. The most amazing part of our climate crisis is that our political leaders and mainstream media largely ignore it. "Climate change" is rarely mentioned. Fires and flooding are treated like traffic jams or street crime. Stuff happens. And our political leaders can do little.
The student-led Sunrise Movement, advocates of a Green New Deal, keep up their chant that we have only 12 years before Business as Usual threatens to make the climate crisis no longer controllable. The young people, who will live their lives in a climate emergency, feel the heat and see the rising oceans. Their political leaders, people charged with protecting them, will be long gone before the worst effects of the climate crisis are felt. Can a "modern," advanced industrial society respond to an existential crisis in time? Has evolution "selected" our species for survival? It's not looking good.
Another Rising Cost of Climate Change: PG&E's Blackouts to Prevent Wildfires
By Georgina Gustin, Inside Climate News [October 30, 2019]
---- With wildfires forcing evacuations in the Los Angeles hills and Sonoma County, and parts of California under an "extreme red flag warning" from the winds, the state's largest electric utility triggered another preemptive blackout on Tuesday that left half a million customers in the dark. Shutting down the power has become PG&E's primary defense to keep its troubled power lines from sparking wildfires in the dry landscape, as happened in 2017 and 2018 to deadly effect. It also vividly illustrates how the costs of failing to address climate change reach far wider than just property lost to the flames. The blackouts, while likely saving homes and lives, mean many businesses and industries can't operate, schools can't open, and gas stations remain shuttered. For small businesses, several days without power or customers could be devastating. Just the blackouts alone could cost the state billions. [Read More]
Has the climate crisis made California too dangerous to live in?
By Bill McKibben, The Guardian [UK[ [October 29, 2019]
---- It wasn't the first time this had happened – indeed, it's happened every year for the last three – and this time the flames were licking against communities destroyed in 2017. Three years in a row feels like – well, it starts to feel like the new, and impossible, normal. That's what the local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, implied this morning when, in the middle of its account of the inferno, it included the following sentence: the fires had "intensified fears that parts of California had become almost too dangerous to inhabit". Read that again: the local paper is on record stating that part of the state is now so risky that its citizens might have to leave. On the one hand, this comes as no real surprise. … But California? California was always the world's idea of paradise (until perhaps the city of that name burned last summer). Hollywood shaped our fantasies of the last century, and many of its movies were set in the Golden state. California is the Golden state, the land of ease. [Read More]
News Notes
Two good interviews with Noam Chomsky were posted online this week. At The Intercept, Chomsky says "The current moment, not just political, is the most grim moment in human history. We are now in a situation where this generation, in fact, in the next few years, is going to have to make a decision of cosmic significance which has never arisen before: Will organized human society survive?" [Link]. And at Truthout, Chomsky addressed President Trump's "foreign policy of a con man," with a focus on the latest events in Syria. [Link].
Today's New York Times has a must-read article on "How Trump Reshaped the Presidency in Over 11,000 Tweets" [Link]. That's about 10 tweets a day over 33 months. The article breaks down (with charts & graphs!) when he tweets, what he tweets about, etc. More importantly, the article shows the influence of far-right media platforms on Trump's thinking and re-tweeting.
The fossil-fuel giant Exxon is on trial in NYC, charged with misleading its investors (and thus the public) about the expected costs to its bottom line from climate change. Last year we learned that Exxon scientists knew in the 1970s that burning fossil fuels would affect our climate, predicting quite accurately where we would be today. But Exxon can't be sued for crimes against humanity, only for misleading investors. To follow this important case, read about the testimony this week of former CEO Rex Tillerson [Link], and for some history of "what did the company know and when did it know it?" go here.
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Tuesday, November 12th – 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 12th - 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 14th – 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 1st – 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!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
This Week's Featured Essays
Convicted Anti-Nuclear Activists Speak Out: "Pentagon Has Brainwashed People"
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout [October 28, 2019]
---- The seven Catholic peace activists who were convicted on October 24 for their symbolic protest against nuclear weapons at the Kings Bay Naval Base are now facing a two-to-three-month wait to hear their prison sentences. They could face more than 20 years in prison.. … The jury that convicted the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 activists was self-avowedly apathetic about the risks posed to humanity by nuclear weapons, and the judge and prosecution worked together to prevent the defendants from sharing information or arguments to raise jurors' consciousness on the issue. … Defendant Patrick O'Neill shared an anecdote that further highlights the degree to which the jury reflected the widespread ignorance about nuclear risks that exists in the U.S. now. "When Judge Lisa Wood asked the entire jury pool: 'Do any of you have a strong opinion about nuclear weapons — pro or con, would you raise your hand?' Of 73 people, not one raised a hand," O'Neill told Truthout. [Read More]
The Lynching of the Charismatic Geek [Julian Assange]
By Diana Johnstone, Antiwar.com [November 2, 2019]
---- The original sin of Julian Assange was the same as that of Galileo Galilei. Galileo sinned by revealing to the people things the elite already knew or at least surmised, but wished to keep secret from the masses, in order not to shake the people's faith in the official truth. Assange did the same thing with the formation of WikiLeaks The official version of reality was challenged. All lies should be exposed. By far the most sensitive targets of his wide-ranging reality revelations were the lies, the hypocrisy, the inhuman brutality of the United States in its wars of global hegemony. To Assange, these things were simply wrong. … He did not know how to compromise; he was a geek after all, less and less charismatic as he faded in the shadows of the embassy of Ecuador. It's all very well to denounce lies and tell the truth, but one mustn't overdo it. It's delightful to have a cause when you have a solid social and financial background to fall back on, and when you know how to play the game so as to be in and out at the same time. Julian had none of those social graces. He was honest, intent, stubborn. He was incapable of hypocrisy, even in his own interest. He would not abjure, as Galileo did. [Read More]
Elizabeth Warren's Plan Is a Massive Win for the Medicare for All Movement
By Ady Barkan, The Intercept [November 1 2019]
---- The movement for single-payer health care has taken some big strides forward in recent years. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., put the issue at the center of the Democratic Party's debate with his run for president in 2016. In partnership with the nurses union and other champions, he then got 19 senators to co-sponsor his bill in 2017. After Democrats took back the House of Representatives, we demanded and got hearings in multiple powerful committees on the fantastic bill spearheaded by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. (The successor to that of the progressive hero and former Michigan Rep. John Conyers, who died this week.) These were our victories, earned by a movement that has been fighting for many decades. The plan that Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren just released is another enormous win for us. It will help persuade our friends and families and neighbors to support Medicare for All, and in the not-too-distant future, to convince Congress too. Here's why. [Read More]
J Street conference confronts America's 'blank check' to Israel
By Mairav Zonszein, +972 Magazine [Israel] [November 1, 2019]
---- By making U.S. aid to Israel the central theme of its 2019 conference, J Street is challenging bipartisan support for Israel ahead of 2020. Now that the organization is starting to talk the talk, will it walk the walk? Sanders, a conference favorite who received by far the most exuberant applause when he came on stage, was the only one to call explicitly for conditioning and even redirecting aid; the Vermont senator suggested some of the $3.8 billion Israel receives annually should be redirected toward alleviating conditions in Gaza, which he described as "inhumane, unacceptable and unsustainable." The J Street conference marked a significant shift in the discourse around the U.S.-Israel relationship in general, and J Street's role in particular. [Read More] For more commentary on these significant developments, read "Democratic Party Split Over Military Aid To Israel" by Peter Beinart, The Forward [October 30, 2019] [Link].
Our History
(Video) Who Burned the Bronx? PBS Film "Decade of Fire" Investigates 1970s Fires That Displaced Thousands
From Democracy Now! [October 30, 2019]
---- The new documentary "Decade of Fire" looks back at the history of a crisis that unfolded in New York City in the 1970s, when the South Bronx faced a near-constant barrage of fires that displaced almost a quarter million people and devastated an entire community. Co-directors and producers Vivian Vázquez Irizarry and Gretchen Hildebran tell the story of the government mismanagement, landlord corruption, and redlining that lit the Bronx ablaze. They also describe how the community fought back to save their neighborhoods. The film airs next week on PBS. [See the Program] And for Part Two of this program, "How Policymakers Tried to Clear the Bronx of Its Original Residents By Letting It Burn," go here.
