Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
February 24, 2020
Hello All – We go about our lives as though everything is OK and things are normal. But we know this isn't true. Our president is unbalanced, at times a madman. His party, the Republicans, is terrified of crossing him, of even the mildest dissent. The Democrats, having failed to convict Trump of impeachable crimes, can do little but wait for November and the election. Acquitted by the Senate, Trump feels invulnerable, unconstrained by law, free to fantasize that he has whatever powers he wants, that he knows best about everything, that loyalty is the Prime Directive for a subordinate.
Last week, for example, Trump declared that he was the nation's "chief law enforcement officer." He is not, but that did not stop him from intervening in the sentencing of his crony Roger Stone to demand a lighter sentence than that recommended by the Justice Department's prosecuting attorneys, and when Attorney General – the real chief law enforcement officer – went along with this, more than 2,000 former federal prosecutors demanded that Barr resign or be fired.
In the Justice Department, as is true throughout all the federal agencies of Trump's America, a power struggle is being waged between the trained professional staff – be they scientists or regulators or whatever – and Trump's appointed executive leadership that is put in place to protect Trump's alleged right to run everything, with no brakes to check him. Yesterday, for example, Trump fired his acting Director of National Intelligence because a subordinate told a congressional committee things with which Trump disagreed; the new Acting Director, a well-known rightwing hack, promptly declared his intention to "clean house," launching a purge of intelligence staff who do not display sufficient loyalty to The Leader.
With impeachment behind him and clear sailing until the November elections, Trump has been born again. His assumption of autocratic power, and the willingness of much of the nation's economic and political elite to allow Trump this, reminds one of the German Enabling Act of 1933, when the Reichstag gave Hitler dictatorial powers: "Laws enacted by the Reich government shall be issued by the Chancellor and announced in the Reich Gazette."
In short, we're in Deep Trouble. Through Executive Orders and firing people who displease him, Trump rules as a monarch, as a Maximum Leader. The Senate stands guard against unpleasant legislation, the courts – and especially the Supreme Court – have his back, and the Rich and Powerful are happy to look the other way as long as the stock market is booming.
What are we to do? Clearly this is not a time to count on the System righting wrongs. And while we must do what we can to defeat Trump and his party in the November elections, many bad things can (and will) happen before then. We can't wait; and worse, we won't defeat Trump if we are passive until November. Somehow we must wake up, mobilize ourselves, join with others, and make a clamor of dissent that will persuade the politically powerful of this country that they must curb the madman in the White House. Can we do this?
Politics
The main political news this week focused on the caucuses/Democratic primary in Nevada. And the main news in Nevada was that Sanders got almost half the votes, displaying the strength of a broad multicultural working-class coalition. For some good insights into what worked for the Sanders campaign, check out this segment from Democracy Now!, "A Stupendous Victory': Bernie Sanders Wins Nevada After Heavy Organizing in Latinx Communities"; and a good article from The Intercept, "How Young Latinos Delivered Nevada to 'Tío Bernie'" [Link]. Today's Democracy Now! had an interesting debate between Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and socialist economist Richard Wolff on Sanders as a "democratic socialist" [Link]. Finally, a poll of New York Democratic presidential candidate preferences shows that Bernie Sanders is (for the first time) in the lead with 25%, followed by Bloomberg (21%), Biden (13%), and Warren (11%).
News Notes
The World Health Organization warned today that the spreading coronavirus is rapidly approaching a tipping point in its effects. It will come as no surprise to Newsletter readers that the just-issued Trump budget for next year proposes cuts in ALL public health and healthcare funding, slashing $3 billion from last year's budget. [Read More]
Today, February 24th, 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will implement punitive changes in USA immigration laws. This is called the "public charge" rule. The new rule allows the government to deny green cards to legal immigrants who use or are deemed likely to use Medicaid, food stamps and other safety net programs. An op-ed in today's New York Times is headlined, "The New Wealth Test for Immigrants is Un-American." For local information, the New York Immigration Coalition has a useful website.
Last spring the New York State legislature and governor passed legislation largely eliminating cash bail and making other reforms that were beneficial to low-income people caught up in the criminal justice "system." The reforms were to go into effect on January 1st; but a strong backlash against the reforms (from police, prosecutors, and Republicans) has put the whole package in jeopardy. For a good update on where this issue now stands, go here.
Today in London the first day of hearings took place on whether Julian Assange should be extradited to the United States. A second round of hearings will take place in May. If sent to the USA, Assange faces 18 charges in US courts, with maximum penalties of up to 185 years in prison. At the core of the complex legal case is whether, when he published "secret" US documents (available to three million people) on WikiLeaks, he was acting as a journalist or as a spy/traitor. For a useful perspective on the case, read "With WikiLeaks, Julian Assange Did What All Journalists Should Do," by UK journalist Patrick Cockburn [Link].
One of the USA's highest profile political prisoners is Chelsea Manning. She is held in jail in an attempt to coerce her to testify against WikiLeaks. Manning says that she has nothing more to say about WikiLeaks, and that the USA is using the grand jury process illegally. A good update on the case is "Hardships Chelsea Manning Has Endured Are Unlike Any Other Case Of Grand Jury Resistance" [Link]. Surprisingly, there is a landmark court case that, as applied to Manning, should immediately release her from prison. Read "The Law Says Chelsea Manning Must Be Freed From Prison," by Natasha Lennard of The Intercept [Link].
Finally, in her congressional day job AOC is working on legislation to relieve poverty. A threshold issue is to define poverty in realistic terms, so that it can be measured and applied to real-world cases. For the last half century (at least!), the "poverty level" has been defined as an income three times the cost of a subsistence diet. But today, housing and medical costs are huge, while the proportion of a household budget going to food has shrunk. In this video, check out AOC's impassioned speech on the (simple) need to "recognize poverty."
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Sunday, March 1st – Westchester People for Bernie will hold an "informational rally" at the Mike Bloomberg for President headquarters, 140 Mamaroneck Ave. in White Plains, from 12 noon to 2:30 pm. They write: "A peaceful, informational rally to educate Westchester voters. Let's have personal conversations about Bloomberg's track record, informing voters and electeds about what a Bloomberg candidacy means." For more information, go here.
Saturday, March 6th – The next CFOW monthly meeting will be at the Hastings Community Center, 54 Main St, from 1:15 to 3 pm (following our weekly vigil). At these meetings we review our work for the past month, make plans for the next month, and have general discussions. Everyone is welcome at these meetings. For more info, email fbrodhead@aol.com.
Sunday, March 29th – The annual Westchester Social Forum will take place at the Eastview Middle School, 350 Main St. in White Plains, from 12 to 6 pm. For more information (about workshops, etc.) and to register, 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. Also, we (usually) have a general meeting on the first Saturday afternoon of each month. 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
The Tyranny of the Minority, from Iowa Caucus to Electoral College
By Corey Robin, New York Review of Books [February 20, 2020]
---- It has been more than two weeks since the Iowa caucuses, and we still don't know who won. That should give us pause. We don't know in part because of a combination of technological failing and human error. But we're also in the dark for a political reason. That should give us further pause. No one disputes that Bernie Sanders won the most votes in Iowa. Yet Pete Buttigieg has the most delegates. While experts continue to parse the flaws in the reporting process, the stark and simple fact that more voters supported Sanders than any other candidate somehow remains irrelevant, obscure. [Read More]
A Very Hot Year
By Bill McKibben, New York Review of Books [March 12, 2020]
---- This year began with huge bushfires in southeastern Australia that drove one community after another into temporary exile, killed an estimated billion animals, and turned Canberra's air into the dirtiest on the planet. The temperatures across the continent broke records—one day, the average high was above 107 degrees, and the humidity so low that forests simply exploded into flames. … This year wouldn't have begun in such a conflagration if 2019 hadn't been an extremely hot year on our planet—the second-hottest on record, and the hottest without a big El Niño event to help boost temperatures. And we can expect those numbers to be eclipsed as the decade goes on. Indeed, in mid-February the temperature at the Argentine research station on the Antarctic Peninsula hit 65 degrees Fahrenheit, crushing the old record for the entire continent. It is far too late to stop global warming, but these next ten years seem as if they may be our last chance to limit the chaos. If there's good news, it's that 2019 was also a hot year politically, with the largest mass demonstrations about climate change taking place around the world. [Read More]
Also useful on our climate crisis – "'No Surrender': After Police Defend a Gas Pipeline Over Indigenous Land Rights, Protesters Shut Down Railways Across Canada," by Alleen Brown and Amber Bracken, The Intercept [F[Link]; "Canada Oil-Sands Plan Collapses Over Politics and Economics," by [Link]; and "Methane Emissions Crisis and Rapid Global Heating: It is all Fossil Fuel Drilling and Fracking, by J[Link].
(Video) Yale Study Says Medicare for All Would Save U.S. $450 Billion, Prevent Nearly 70,000 Deaths a Year
From Democracy Now! [February 19, 2020]
---- As the Democratic presidential hopefuls prepare to take to the debate stage tonight, we turn to a central issue of the campaign: Medicare for All. In a new study, Yale scholars have found that Medicare for All will save Americans more than $450 billion and prevent 68,000 deaths every year. The study in The Lancet — one of the oldest and most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals — found that Medicare for All, supported by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, will save money and is more cost-effective than "Medicare for All Who Want It, "a model supported by Pete Buttigieg. Sanders referenced the study at a campaign rally in Carson City, Nevada. For more, we go to New Haven, Connecticut, where we're joined by Alison Galvani, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis at Yale's School of Public Health. She is the lead author of the new Lancet study, "Improving the prognosis of health care in the USA." [See the Program] Also useful: "Here's What 22 Separate Studies Found: Medicare for All Would Cost Less Than the For-Profit Status Quo," Common Dreams [February 24, 2020] [Link].
The West Displays Its Insecurity Complex
By Diana Johnstone, Consortium News [February 19, 2020]
---- "The West is winning!" U.S. leaders proclaimed at the high-level Annual Security Conference held in Munich last weekend. Not everybody was quite so sure. There was a lot of insecurity displayed at a conference billed as "the West's family meeting" – enlarged to 70 participating nations, including U.S. -designated "losers". Trump's crude Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made nobody feel particular secure by treating the world as a huge video game which "we are winning". Thanks to our "values", he proclaimed, the West is winning against the other players that Washington has forced into its zero-sum game: Russia and China, whose alleged desires for "empire" are being thwarted. … The term "the West" could mean a number of things. The conference organizers define it by "values" that are supposed to be essentially Western: democracy, human rights, a market-based economy and "international cooperation in international institutions". In fact, what is meant is a particular interpretation of all those "values", an interpretation based on Anglo-American history. And indeed, in historic terms, this particular "West" is essentially the heir and continuation of the British empire, centered in Washington after London was obliged to abdicate after World War II, while retaining its role as imperial tutor and closest partner. [Read More] For some second thoughts on "the West is Winning!" read this useful article on the Democrats and the Afghanistan War: "Democrats Want to End Endless Wars, With a Catch," by Alex Emmons, The Intercept [[Link].
How Do You Document Something As Unimaginable as a School Shooting?
By Rebecca Bengal, Lightwork [February 24, 2020]
[FB – This is a review of American Origami by Andres Gonzalez]
---- In the weeks and months after the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which took the lives of 20 students between the ages of 6 and 7 and of six adults on the staff, the residents of Newtown, Connecticut, were flooded with thousands of physical expressions of condolence from the public. Many of them were addressed to the whole town. They were delivered to the Newtown Municipal Center and from there to a nearby airplane hangar, where bins overflowed with flowers, quilts, drawings, banners, postcards, and letters from around the world… The inadequacy of "thoughts and prayers" as a response to mass shootings in America rings hollowly throughout debates on gun control and how to prevent future tragedies. … Words and images, like thoughts and prayers, are merely representations too; they can't solve anything, but, this book implies, they can push us closer. [Read More]
Our History
(Video) Malcolm X's Daughter Ilyasah Shabazz on Her Father's Legacy & the New Series "Who Killed Malcolm X?"
From Democracy Now! [February 21, 2020]
---- Fifty-five years ago today [Friday], Malcolm X was assassinated. The civil rights leader was shot to death on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. He was only 39 years old. Details of his assassination remain disputed to this day. Earlier this month, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said he was considering reopening the investigation, just days after a new documentary series about the assassination was released on Netflix called "Who Killed Malcolm X?" It makes the case that two of the three men who were convicted for Malcolm X's murder are actually innocent and that his uncaught killers were four members of a Nation of Islam mosque in Newark, New Jersey. [See the Program]
How Mexico's Muralists Lit a Fire Under U.S. Artists [Lots of pictures]
---- "Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945" at the Whitney Museum of American Art represents a decade of hard thought and labor, and the effort has paid off. The show is stupendous, and complicated, and lands right on time. Just by existing it accomplishes three vital things. It reshapes a stretch of art history to give credit where credit is due. … That story, a hemispheric one, begins in Mexico in the 1920s. After 10 years of civil war and revolution, that country's new constitutional government turned to art to invent and broadcast a unifying national self-image, one that emphasized both its deep roots in indigenous, pre-Hispanic culture and the heroisms of its recent revolutionary struggles. The chosen medium for the message was mural painting — monumental, accessible, anti-elitist, in the public domain. And three very differently gifted practitioners quickly came to dominate the field: Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros: "Los Tres Grandes" — "the three great ones" — as they came to be known among admirers. [Read More]
