Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
August 30, 2020
Hello All – For the coming election, the Republicans appear to be staking everything on law-and-order and white supremacy. The speeches that opened the convention on Monday and closed it Friday stake out the territory of a 21st-century American fascism. Though President Trump made random boasts about the success of the economy or the defeat of the coronavirus, the default theme of the Republican convention was the threat of Black Lives Matter and a promise to protect the suburbs from this plague. Will it work?
For better or worse, Americans have been "chosen" to hold the levers that will decide the future of humans. I'm sure that few people welcome this responsibility; and undoubtedly many share my fears that we may not make the right choices. I think Noam Chomsky lays out our dilemma very well in the short video linked below. We face the twin dangers of nuclear war and climate destruction, and in a very short time we must make the decisions and take the actions that will prevent these disasters. As Bill McKibben explains in his article linked below, it must be Joe Biden's climate programs that determine the fact of humanity; we've run out of presidential administrations to waste.
So Trump must be defeated in November. The vehicle assigned for this task is Biden-Harris, not our first choice, but the only one we have. The Democratic Party leadership seems to be counting on not-Trump being a winning strategy; and this may well be true. But the grassroots energy now rocking the country is coming from the Black Lives Matter movement and their white allies, drawn largely (my guess) from the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. It is this grassroots energy that will be called on to play a key role if and when Trump and his allies render our election chaotic, with an uncertain result. We face not only the possibility of an October Surprise, but even more surprises in the months to come. En garde!
News Notes
Stephen Miller may not be a household name, but he is one of the most important players creating Trump's fascist Agenda. Miller's specialty is anti-immigration policy; his goal is to exclude people of color from our country in the name of White Supremacy. Last week Democracy Now! had an extended two-part interview (here and here) with award-winning journalist Jean Guerrero, author of the new book Hatemonger, a profile of Miller and the anti-immigration networks in the USA. Guerrero also had an op-ed in Friday's New York Times, "Stephen Miller's Dystopian America." An important subject; please check it out!
For CFOW, an important benefit of the victory of Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic primary last June was getting rid of Eliot Engel, whose power-base as head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee gave him an important (and militaristic) role in US foreign policy, esp. re: Israel/Palestine. It now appears that the contest among Democrats hoping to succeed Engel as chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee includes a progressive, Rep. Joaquin Castro, who is challenging the two mainstream Democratic candidates (Rep. Meeks – NY and Rep. Sherman – CA). It would make a big difference if Castro were to hold this important position. [Link]
If you are not a sports fan, the decision of basketball, baseball, soccer, and tennis players – in response to the rampant police violence – to refuse to play, may not be a big deal. But in terms of The Resistance, and in the context of the players' strike on the US labor movement, it was/could be huge. Check out the Democracy Now! interview with The Nation's sports editor Dave Zirin to learn more. [See the Program]
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Taking the Covid Crisis into account, we meet (with safe distancing) for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 11 to 11:30 a.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Another vigil takes place on Mondays, from 6 to 6:30 pm, in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. In this time of coronavirus, we are meeting (by Zoom conference) each Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. If you would like to join our meeting, please send a return email to get the meeting's access code. 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's Rewards for stalwart Newsletter readers come from singer Amy Rigby. I did not know about her (silly me) until I heard her great anti-Trump song. (Potty-mouth alert!). More suitable to a Family Publication are "Girl to City"; "The Good Girls"; "Dancing with Joey Ramone"; and "Do You Remember That?" And there are lots more on-line. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
UPRISING AND CRISIS
(Video) Noam Chomsky: 'There's never been a moment in human history' like this one
From The Hill TV [August 2020]
---- World-renowned scholar and activist Noam Chomsky said humans are living through the darkest and most consequential time in history. Speaking on Hill.TV, Chomsky said the current age is a "point of confluence of severe crises," including the threat of nuclear war, climate change, a raging pandemic, economic depression and racial unrest in the United States. "This is a unique moment in human history, not just my lifetime," he said. "There's never been a moment in human history where such a confluence of crises emerged and decisions about them have to be made very soon — they cannot be delayed." … "There were few decades left in which we could make a decision as to whether organized human life will survive on earth, or will succumb to the threat of environmental disaster," Chomsky added. [Short Video]
The Thin Blue Line Between Violent, Pro-Trump Militias and Police
By Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept [
---- The videos that preceded Anthony Huber's killing on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, are jarring. Among the most chilling is one from the parking lot of an auto repair shop. Several shots ring out. In the distance, you see the gunman in jeans and a green T-shirt. A man rushes up behind him. The gunman turns. More shots ring out and the man collapses to the ground. The gunman circles a parked car, then comes back to the man laid out on the pavement. He looks down at him and pulls out his cellphone. "I just killed somebody," the shooter says, before jogging off. The man on the ground twitches and stares up at the sky, gasping deeply as bystanders work desperately to put pressure on his wound. Some cry, others yell for someone to call the police. … The killings came on the third night of protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man who was left paralyzed after being shot in the back in front of his children. Like other moments around the country, the response to the police violence has featured large-scale peaceful demonstrations, vandalism, and property damage. Blake remains hospitalized and, according to his father, has been shackled to his bed despite being unable to move. … The events in Kenosha are the latest in a long line of cases in which self-styled vigilantes have gathered under the banner of the "thin blue line" — a flag and movement devoted to the defense of law enforcement and the president — and engaged in violence with counterprotesters while police stood back. [Read More]
How William Barr Is Weaponizing the Justice Department to Help Trump Win
By Peter Stone, The Intercept [
---- On August 13, a day after President Donald Trump again charged that Democrats' efforts to expand mail-in voting due to the pandemic will create "the greatest rigged election in history," U.S. Attorney General William Barr too made unfounded and conspiratorial-sounding claims. Barr told Sean Hannity on Fox News that Democrats' drive seeking to expand mail-in voting could raise "serious questions about the integrity of the election," were "grossly irresponsible," and "reckless." … Barr has violated numerous fundamental norms as attorney general, using his sweeping powers to carry out actions and judgments that are politically beneficial to the president's reelection campaign. Now, with under 70 days to the presidential election, the actions that pose the most consequential harm are those that threaten a free and fair election — especially Barr's work to undermine, rather than uphold, voting rights and to publicly accuse Trump's enemies. … Finally, as Trump's law-and-order mantra has become a central campaign motif, Barr's crackdown on largely peaceful protests in D.C., and authorizing federal agents to help fight violent crime in several cities run by Democrats look like ominous campaign ploys and possible harbingers of what's ahead before November. … Barr's leading role in Operation Legend at times overlaps — and seems to be inspired by — a conspiratorial, far-right, and dystopian vision of urban chaos he has linked to Black Lives Matter protests, which the attorney general alleged in a Fox interview this month with Mark Levin. Barr labeled some Black Lives Matter protesters "Bolsheviks" engaged in "urban guerrilla warfare," driven by a "lust for power." [Read More]
FEATURED ESSAYS
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Limits of Representation
[August 26, 2020]
----- The demand for racial representation in government has been a crucial part of politics in the post-civil-rights United States. It reflects the recognition that no one can speak for another group of people, let alone a group of people suffering from centuries of oppression and exploitation. They must be allowed to speak for themselves. As Black populations swelled in American cities, they demanded to be represented by people who came from their own neighborhoods, on the assumption that those people would be most familiar with and sympathetic to a political agenda that would advance the needs of Black communities. In the nineteen-sixties, it was reasonable to assume that Black elected officials would advance an agenda that supported African-Americans, because of their proximity to the insurgent Black movement. But, fifty years later, that assumption no longer holds true. … The emerging populist, anti-racist movement of the past few months has exposed to the world that the issues raised by Occupy and the first iteration of Black Lives Matter have not gone anywhere: they have become only worse. The movement has also revealed the scale of protest that will be necessary if Biden and Harris win and fail to live up to their lofty promises. A recurring theme of the D.N.C. was "restoring the soul of the nation." But if restoration is simply about returning to the conditions that have brought us to this chaotic moment, then even more intense protests may well be on the horizon. We may have just experienced the largest participation in marches and protests in U.S. history under Trump, but we would be remiss to forget that Black Lives Matter erupted as a movement during Obama's Presidency. [Read More]
On Climate Change, We've Run Out of Presidential Terms to Waste
---- If Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take over the White House, in January, they're going to be dealing with an immediate and overwhelming climate crisis, not just the prospective dilemma that other Administrations have faced. It's not coming; it's here. The luxury of moving slowly, the margin for zigging and zagging to accommodate various interests, has disappeared. So, if the Democrats win, they will have to address the pandemic and the resulting economic dislocation, and tackle the climate mess all at the same time. Any climate plan must be, in some way or another, the solution to the current widespread loss of jobs. … We're out of Presidential terms to waste. If there's going to be effective American action on climate, it's going to have to come from Joe Biden. [Read More]
(Video) The Social Fabric of the U.S. Is Fraying Severely, if Not Unraveling
---- By Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept/ System Update [
The year 2020 has been one of the most tumultuous in modern American history. … Since the end of World War II, the only close competitor to the current moment is the multipronged unrest of the 1960s and early 1970s: serial assassinations of political leaders, mass civil rights and anti-war protests, sustained riots, fury over a heinous war in Indochina, and the resignation of a corruption-plagued president. But those events unfolded and built upon one another over the course of a decade. By crucial contrast, the current confluence of crises, each of historic significance in their own right — a global pandemic, an economic and social shutdown, mass unemployment, an enduring protest movement provoking increasing levels of violence and volatility, and a presidential election centrally focused on one of the most divisive political figures the U.S. has known who happens to be the incumbent president — are happening simultaneously, having exploded one on top of the other in a matter of a few months. … Lurking beneath the headlines justifiably devoted to these major stories of 2020 are very troubling data that reflect intensifying pathologies in the U.S. population — not moral or allegorical sicknesses but mental, emotional, psychological and scientifically proven sickness. Many people fortunate enough to have survived this pandemic with their physical health intact know anecdotally — from observing others and themselves — that these political and social crises have spawned emotional difficulties and psychological challenges. [Read More]. And for the video, go here.
Ava DuVernay Interviews Angela Davis on This Moment—And What Came Before
From Vanity Fair [August 2020]
---- AVA DuVERNAY: I was reading an interview in which you talked about something that's been on my mind quite a bit lately. It's about this time we are in that I'll just call a racial reckoning. Do you feel that we could have encountered this moment in as robust a manner as we've felt it this summer without the COVID crisis having been the foundation? Could one have occurred with this much force without the other?
---- ANGELA DAVIS: This moment is a conjuncture between the COVID-19 crisis and the increasing awareness of the structural nature of racism. Moments like this do arise. They're totally unpredictable, and we cannot base our organizing on the idea that we can usher in such a moment. What we can do is take advantage of the moment. When George Floyd was lynched, and we were all witnesses to that—we all watched as this white policeman held his knee on George Floyd's neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds—I think that many people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, who had not necessarily understood the way in which history is present in our lives today, who had said, "Well, I never owned slaves, so what does slavery have to do with me?" suddenly began to get it. That there was work that should have happened in the immediate aftermath of slavery that could have prevented us from arriving at this moment. But it did not happen. And here we are. And now we have to begin. [Read More]
The Democratic Party Won't Be Out-Israel'd This Fall
ByAugust 27, 2020]
---- The Democratic Party is not going to get out-Israel'd this fall. Yesterday, Kamala Harris had a conference call with 1800 Jewish Democratic donors and assured them a President Biden will never condition aid over any "political decisions that Israel makes and I couldn't agree more." Biden-Harris will show "unwavering support" for Israel. And Biden backed the "largest military aid package" to any country when the Obama administration signed that $38 billion MOU in 2016. The fact is that despite deep misgivings about Israeli human rights violations in the Democratic base, the Democratic Party has brilliantly and effectively squelched the issue as a possible wedge in the coming election. … The Democrats have a unified line at the top now. Israel is a progressive cause. The self-determination of the Jewish people in their ancient land is something to be celebrated, and we are going to keep pretending we are pushing for a two state solution. As we continually remind Democrats, Progressive Democrats don't believe these ideas. They think the two-state solution is a cruel charade for a reality of apartheid, that Israel's political culture is overwhelmingly rightwing, and that Jewish national "self-determination" is an excuse for rampant discrimination against a Palestinian minority. But the Democratic establishment doesn't care; those voices will not be heard inside the party and progressives are falling into line. Bernie Sanders spoke for 8-1/2 minutes at the Democratic convention, emphasizing the urgency of defeating a dangerous president, but he was a good soldier and didn't bring up the Palestine issue. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
My Friend John Lewis
By Danny Lyon, New York Review of Books [August 29, 2020]
[FB – In the early 1960s, Danny Lyon became the photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Read more about him here.]
---- He was born John Robert Lewis in a wooden house that had no electricity in Troy, Alabama. He had ten siblings, including a brother who was born deaf. His mother called him Robert. As a child he played and ran through the 120 acres his father owned with twenty siblings and cousins. He loved the life of his childhood. Something made him different. At fifteen he wrote a letter to Dr. King saying he wanted to integrate the high school in Troy. Dr. King called him "the boy from Troy." Washing dishes at American Baptist Seminary in Nashville, he studied nonviolence, the way of Gandhi and Thoreau with Reverend James Lawson. By 1963 he had been arrested forty times. When, in the summer of 1962, I first saw him sitting in the corner of a small church in Cairo, Illinois, I knew who he was. John Lewis was a Freedom Rider. I gazed at him with wonder on that morning in southern Illinois. John was twenty-two years old. That summer he had asked the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) for ten dollars so he could work in Virginia, but for some reason Jim Forman had sent him to Cairo. I had never been in the South and I probably had never heard anyone from Alabama speak. Then, in that small church, he got up to speak. Though there might have been as few as fifteen people there, his voice exploded across the room with passion. I was transfixed. I would not leave the movement for another two years and in another sense I would never leave John. [Read More]
