Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
January 27, 2020
Hello All – Will the "leak" of former National Security Adviser John Bolton's book manuscript make a difference? Will it be the "Black Swan" that saves the day and turns the tide on President Trump's impeachment trial? Will the alleged revelations contained in the manuscript, and reported in today's New York Times (and presumably chewed over for hours on cable news) sway four Republican Senators to agree to Democratic demands that additional witnesses – ta dah, John Bolton – must be called to testify at the Senate trial? It's not impossible; and there's also a strong possibility that President Trump will commit new unforced errors – a cover-up of the cover-up – in attempting to ensure that Bolton doesn't testify.
Without defections from "moderate Republicans," the Republican majority in the Senate is sufficient to bulldoze its way to a vote to acquit Trump by the end of the coming week. But with an eye to the November elections – not just for president, but for all offices – the Republicans are concerned to manufacture at least a thin coating of legitimacy over the impeachment process. The Democrats' demand that they be able to call additional witnesses appears to be supported by a broad swathe of public opinion. A recent CNN poll, for example, found that 69% of Americans, including 48% of Republicans, say that the impeachment trial should include testimony from new witnesses who did not testify in the House trial. The Bolton revelations will only add to this pressure.
The Democrat "managers" have made a strong case. From a legal perspective, as outlined by former National Lawyers Guild president Marjorie Cohn on Democracy Now! last week, Trump is guilty not only of abuse of power and the Ukraine business, but could also be impeached for war crimes, assassinations, and corruption. And "the country" seems persuaded: according to a Fox News poll released Sunday morning – has persuaded a majority of the population, and a large majority (53-34 percent) of independents, that the Senate should vote to convict Trump and remove him from office. Again, the non-stop cable news programming about Bolton's book is likely to strengthen these numbers further. I think this could be an interesting week.
Politics
CFOW does not "endorse" candidates for elected office, but we have a consensus among us to support and publicize the ideas and issues of the two progressive Democrats, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. We think these ideas represent the minimum program our country needs to escape the disasters of war and our climate crisis. This week the news media reported that Sanders was ahead in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire; and David Swanson offers a useful analysis of a recent CNN poll, "Sanders is the Most Electable." The Nation also offers support to the two progressive Democrats, and this week published a pair of "endorsements": "Why I Support Elizabeth Warren for President, by Richard Parker; and "Why I support Bernie Sanders for President," by Zephyr Teachout. Also last week the Democratic National Committee appointed committees for the Democratic National Convention that include many people strongly opposed to a progressive agenda. Finally, the group of activist-intellectuals around Z Magazine – Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, et al. – has published "An Open Letter to the Green Party about 2020 Election Strategy," urging the party not to run a presidential campaign in battleground states. An interesting and important piece, imo.
News Notes
Shortly after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, some of the scientists who helped to develop the Bomb founded The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to work for peace. Two years later, they created the Doomsday Clock, posted on their magazine to indicate how close the world was to atomic apocalypse (midnight). Last year, the Doomsday Clock stood at two minutes before midnight. Last week the Bulletin moved the second hand so as to leave us at 100 seconds before midnight. To learn more and why the scientists think we are even closer to Doom this year, go here.
On Friday, tens of thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad to demand that US troops leave Iraq. The "million person march" was organized by the supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the heads of Shiite party-militias. Between them, these groups have more than 100 seats in Iraq's parliament, which voted a few weeks ago to demand that the US troops pull-out, after the assassination of Iran's General Suleimani. Both President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo have stated that US troops will not leave. To read a user-friendly background article, go here, and to see a short video of the protests, go here.
The coronavirus, which began last month in China, has expanded quickly, with four cases reported in the USA. Should we worry? What should we do? CFOW stalwart Betsy Todd has put up a blog for the American Journal of Nursing explaining the nature of the disease and the precautions we should take. A useful article from Friday's New York Times asks "Is American Ready for Another Outbreak?" and answers in the negative, stressing the importance of decision-making based on science, not politics. One of the reasons why the USA is not as prepared for this new virus as we should be is because so much of our public health infrastructure has suffered from funding cuts over the past decade. Read more here.
Finally, some important votes re: war & peace are coming up in the House of Representatives next Thursday. One vote will on the question of repealing the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF; this is introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against the legislation 18 years ago. The second vote will be on Rep. Ro Khanna's bill to prohibit funding for any military offensive against Iran without congressional approval. If you would like to make your voice heard, you can call Rep. Eliot Engel (202-225-2464) and/or Rep. Nita Lowey (202-225-6506). To learn more about these bills and other war & peace issues before Congress next week, 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!
Rewards!
Randy's back! With President Trump's back to the wall – Impeachment and all that – Randy Rainbow puts up a new campaign theme song ("it's only a draft") to re-elect the Orange One. And on a much more serious note, I highly recommend this (audio) interview with Michelle Alexander, in which she reflects on the 10th anniversary of her seminal book, The New Jim Crow, and what it would take to change America's racial crisis.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
SOME FEATURED ESSAYS
How the Transformative Power of Solidarity Will Beat Trump
By Naomi Klein, The Intercept [January 22, 2020]
---- This is one of the fascinating ways that the campaign's slogan "Not Me. Us." has gradually taken on a life of its own, with new layers of meaning added as the project matures. When the slogan was first unveiled, it seemed to mean something narrow and specific: This campaign was not about voting for a messianic leader who would fix all of our problems for us. To achieve the scale and speed of change that Sanders is pledging (and that we desperately need), the people currently supporting his campaign, with small donations and volunteer work and eventually votes, will need to stay organized and keep pushing for change on the outside, just as they did during the New Deal era. The slogan still carries that meaning. … But as the campaign has gone on and the base has grown, the slogan's meaning has become more layered. "Not Me. Us." is now also the first-person voice of that worker or student or senior or immigrant who previously had been suffering in silence and solitude, blaming themselves, and who now sees that they have more company than they ever dared to imagine. Now it also means: "I thought it was just me. Now I know it is us." [Read More]
How Generation Z is leading the climate movement
By Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence [January 14, 2020]
---- Andrea Manning was quickly drawn into Zero Hour's remotely coordinated teenage network, becoming an organizer. The team's first project was a nationwide day of action that summer on July 21, 2018, which included a march in Washington, D.C. and satellite actions around the country. Manning and her friends pulled off an Atlanta rally that drew 40 people. Small as this first local action may have been, the phenomenon of high schoolers protesting climate change piqued the community's interest and garnered coverage from news media like the Georgia State Signal. Meanwhile, young people around the world were drawing inspiration from Zero Hour — most notably Greta Thunberg, then a 15-year-old high school student in Sweden. Thunberg read about Zero Hour's day of action online. Then, a month later, she began her Fridays For Future school strike campaign, protesting outside Sweden's parliament every week. The strike movement spread across Europe and the world, becoming a key part of today's wave of youth climate activism. [Read More]
Indelible Legacy: Or How This Became a Gitmo World
Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua Dratel, Tom Dispatch [January 2020]
---- In January 2002, the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility in Cuba opened its gates for the first 20 detainees of the war on terror. Within 100 days, 300 of them would arrive, often hooded and in those infamous orange jumpsuits, and that would just be the beginning. At its height, the population would rise to nearly 800 prisoners from 59 countries. Eighteen years later, it still holds 40 prisoners, most of whom will undoubtedly remain there without charges or trial for the rest of their lives. … And those detainees are hardly the only enduring legacy of Guantánamo Bay. Thanks to that prison camp, we as a country have come to understand aspects of both the law and policy in new ways that might prove to be "forever changes." Here are eight ways in which the toxic policies of that offshore facility have contaminated American institutions, as well as our laws and customs, in the years since 2002. [Read More]
One person, one vote for Israel-Palestine
---- The Trump administration's Middle East peace plan brings with it good news and bad news. It will put the final nail in the coffin of that walking corpse known as the two-state solution – that's the good news. It will also create a new reality in which international law, the resolutions of the international community and especially international institutions are meaningless. Filled with the hope that the U.S. president instills in us, in his great mercy, let's begin with the good news. Once his proposal is made public, no one will ever be able to talk with any seriousness about the two-state solution. It was probably never born, but now it is clearly dead. There is no Palestinian state and there never will be. … Trump's news and the world's capitulation, however, are much more portentous. Trump is creating not only a new Israel, but a new world. A world without international law, without honoring international resolutions, without even the appearance of justice. A world in which the U.S. president's son-in-law is more powerful than the UN General Assembly. [Read More]
The War on Journalism [Julian Assange and Glenn Greenwald]
---- At the hearing on Thursday, at Westminster in London, the timetable for Julian Assange's US extradition case was worked out. Assange's US legal teams made an application to have the extradition hearing split. His defense lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, emphasized to the court that they won't be ready to call the main body of their evidence until after the first week of the hearing, which is now set to start at the end of February. … Assange's legal team has been warning about the threat to press freedom by the US government's judicial overreach to prosecute a foreign journalist, with their two-edged sword of denying the First Amendment protection, while applying the Espionage Act. … Now, the "Assange precedent" seems to be being quietly established. The spark of the war on journalism now has enlarged. On Tuesday, Glenn Greenwald, a journalist at The Intercept, was charged with cybercrimes in Brazil… Assange's extradition hearing is now set to proceed in two parts from the beginning of February 24, for one to two weeks and then continue further from May 18 for three more weeks. This is the most important press freedom case of 21st century. The public must engage in order to end this war on journalism. [Read More]
Americans Need to Hear More from Iranians. Here's Where to Start.
By Negin Owliaei, Foreign Policy in Focus [January 21, 2020]
---- Following President Trump's announcement that the U.S. would seek new sanctions, but not immediate military escalation, against Iran, most people in the United States likely breathed a sigh of relief. For Iranians and Iranian Americans like myself, that relief was accompanied by a reminder of just how painful existing conditions can be. Sanctions starve our people of food, medicine, and safety while public figures threaten us with more violence. We may no longer be at immediate risk of all-out, open combat, but this is hardly peace. Every part of the U.S. relationship with Iran feels asymmetrical, and looking through coverage of Iran in U.S. media makes that imbalance incredibly obvious. … Perspectives from Iranians and Iranian Americans have been largely absent in mainstream U.S. media, or of questionable sourcing when they do appear. Fortunately, this absence has also been felt by plenty of Americans, eager to resist more bloodshed in their names. So I've compiled a few of the most illuminating and emotionally resonant pieces I've come across from Iranians and Iranian Americans, both in the diaspora and within Iran. [Read More]
Our History
(Video) "King in the Wilderness"
FB – I failed to include this magnificent documentary – new to me – in last week's appreciation of Martin Luther King, on the anniversary of his birthday. This 2018 film covers King's last years, when, following the Harlem riots of 1964 and the Watts riot of 1965, he moves his civil rights campaign to the North, starting with a residence in Chicago slum housing, and intersects with a political climate that sorely tests his commitment to nonviolence. Check it out - here.
