Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
July 6, 2020
Hello All – The key to a Trump win in November 2020 is voter suppression. The Trump oligarchy is favored by the Electoral College, gerrymandering of election districts, and other things that can't be changed by next November, but voter suppression is the battleground where fights can be won and lost between now and then. Some voter suppression is intentional, such as voter ID laws or felon-voter laws that are known to lower the voter participation rate of lower-income voters. In the midst of the Covid-19 crisis and the historic incompetence of state and county Boards of Election, we also face what may be charitably called unintentional voter suppression, such as we have witnessed in recent primary elections. While there is little danger of Trump winning the November election in New York, the incompetence displayed by state and county Boards of Elections could have important (and negative) outcomes for local and state government. And, for traditionalists, it would be nice if we could make our election system work for establish some semblance of Democracy, a step on the road to a Just Society.
In Westchester, problems that voters experienced before or during the June 23rd elections have brought forth several efforts and many proposals to fix what is broken about our election system before Chaos descends in November. A new coalition, Concerned Voters of Westchester, has been started to coordinate and energize grassroots participation and advocacy for better election procedures. CFOW is a member of this coalition. Here is the Coalition's Mission Statement:
Elections, a non-partisan issue, are the bedrock of our republic's democracy. This diverse coalition of citizen voters and organizations are vested in accurate, fair, fully accessible, safe and secure elections. We are dedicated to ensuring that the Westchester County Board of Elections fulfills its obligation to conduct fully compliant, legal elections that provide confidence to the electorate that elections are fair, fully accessible, safe and secure. The mission of this group is to exert extraordinary pressure on, and advocate for action by all elected officials and authorities who are both vested in and responsible for accurate, fair, fully accessible, safe and secure elections in November 2020 and beyond.
Organizations interested in joining the Coalition should email concernedvotersofwestchester@gmail.com. A first project is a petition, "Urgent Call to Hold Public Hearings About Voting in Westchester." To sign the petition, go here.
At the County level, responding to public outrage, the Board of Legislators has three initiatives:
- A new Election Information Gathering Task Force has been established by Board Chairman Ben Boykin. [Link]. The Task Force will obtain public input about the June 23 Primary Election and about pro-active steps that can be taken for the November 3 General Election. It will hold a public input session on Wednesday, July 8, at 7 pm. [Link]. The session will be streamed live and archived on the Board's website.. The Task Force will provide a report to the Board of Legislators by August 7, 2020.
- Additionally, the Board of Legislators would like to hear first-hand experiences from those who voted in the June primary. The deadline for comments is July 15. They are asking voters to share their experiences, as specifically as possible, by email.
- The Board of Legislators is also planning a Committee of the Whole for the week of July 20 (specific date to be determined) with County Board of Elections Commissioners and staff. In future meetings, the BOL is also planning to speak with voters, advocates, State Board of Elections representatives and others to help ensure that clear and pro-active steps are taken before November.
Righting the many wrongs of our state and county election systems will be a long-term task, but there are many important changes that can made between now and November. Please, everyone pitch in!
News Notes
CFOW and friends hold a vigil in Yonkers, at the Hudson-Fulton Park (Warburton and Odell Aves.) every Monday from 6 to 6:30 pm. The focus is on "Say Their Names," "Black Lives Matter," and "End Police Violence," and includes a Silent Vigil for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in honor of George Floyd. Please join us!
Many news reports and articles published this weekend noted the irony in celebrating the July 4th holiday in the midst of an uprising against Unfreedom in the USA. Here is James Earl Jones reading Frederick Douglass's famous speech from 1852, "(Video) "What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?" [Link].
Earlier this month, West Point's graduating class, who had been sheltering at home as protection against the Pandemic, were called back to The Point so that they could be the audience for a bombastic "graduation speech" by The Orange One. Some West Point graduates issued a speech of their own, stating "We are concerned that Black Cadets are experiencing racism in a manner inconsistent with the statement made by the Superintendent in a USA Today interview that the Academy "does not have a systemic problem with racism." We hope for West Point to become a place where that statement rings true and therefore want to partner with the Academy in striving for that." Read more here.
Read all about it! The latest Extinction Rebellion newsletter is out. Citing a report by the UK government's Climate Change Committee that we need to prepare for a much warmer world, XR states: "We cannot carry on like this. This system is killing us. We want to live. And that's why we need to bring the Rebellion back to our streets. From 1 September, we will peacefully blockade the UK Parliament in London until they act on the climate emergency, passing our 3 demands into law." [Link].
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Until shut down by the virus, we have been meeting for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) 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!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
BOWMAN BEATS ENGEL IN CD-16
FB - Beyond simply celebrating Jamaal Bowman's defeat of 16-term congressman Eliot Engel last month, the victory is inspirational and instructive because it illustrates how a AOC-style grassroots campaign can be organized by progressives to defeat well-entrenched incumbents. Here is a useful article that explains in some detail how this Miracle happened:
How Jamaal Bowman Beat Rep. Eliot Engel In The Bronx
By Daniel Marans , Huffinigton Ppost – June 30, 2020
---- The all-but-official victory is a testament not just to the salience of Bowman's progressive platform and the hunger for new representation in a majority-minority district, but also the maturation of a progressive insurgency that boasted a fraction of the sophistication and resources just two years ago. Despite an electoral record that is mixed at best, the left wing of the Democratic Party has been busy learning from its mistakes and building professional tools capable of matching the establishment's might. "We've been intentional about building infrastructure and an ecosystem that can take on decades worth of the establishment's," said Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats. "As progressives, if we're not investing in media apparatus, polling apparatus, our ability to do research, in addition to the incredible field work that prioritizes talking to voters, then we're not going to be able to mount serious challenges." [Read More]
CFOW's opposition to Engel, and support for Bowman, was motivated in large part by Engel's Democratic Party leadership in promoting a hawkish – and especially an anti-Palestinian – foreign policy. This was true not only when, as the Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 elections, Engel because the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but earlier as well, when Engel was the "Ranking Member" during the presidency of Barack Obama. To help our memories a bit, here are some good summaries of Engel's record:
Rep. Eliot Engel's Positions on Foreign Policy Are Hawkish — and Shameful
By Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept [
s there a House Democrat who better personifies the more aggressive and amoral wing of the Democratic Party than Eliot Engel? The House Foreign Affairs Committee chair, who has been representing New York's 16th Congressional District since 1989, has one of the most hawkish — and shameful — Democratic foreign policy records on Capitol Hill. Let's start with Iraq. Engel was among a minority of House Democrats to vote for the illegal invasion of Iraq. "It would be a monumental mistake not to support" George W. Bush, he proclaimed on the House floor in October 2002, as he disingenuously tried to link Saddam Hussein's Iraq to Al Qaeda and the wider "war on terror." He told his colleagues, "In this era of terrorism, the U.S. has to be proactive." Lest we forget, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis were killed as a result of that vote." [And the record goes on and on.] [Read More]
It's bad politics for Democrats to be hawkish on foreign policy
By Stephen Miles, Win Without War [July 1, 2020]
---- For three years, my organization, Win Without War, and others helped pro-diplomacy activists make their voices heard in Congress in support of President Obama's diplomatic efforts with Iran. Hundreds of thousands of them. It says something about House Democrats that they would let their most senior foreign policy position be filled by someone who, like Engel, was so at odds with the Democratic caucus on numerous foreign policy issues. … For years, the conventional wisdom was that such heresy simply didn't matter if it was confined to foreign policy. The Democratic primary voters of New York's 16th Congressional District just helpfully reminded everyone just how wrong that particular conventional wisdom was. [Read More]
CFOW endorsed Jamaal Bowman (our first & only endorsement in 19 years) in last month's primary. We have a lot of hope for what he will do in Congress; check out his "Reconstruction Agenda" to see if you agree.
UPRISING AND CRISIS
(Video) "America's Moment of Reckoning": Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor & Cornel West on Uprising Against Racism
From Democray Now! [July 3, 2020]
---- Scholars Cornel West and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor respond to the global uprising against racism and police violence following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. "We're seeing the convergence of a class rebellion with racism and racial terrorism at the center of it," said Princeton professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. "And in many ways, we are in uncharted territory in the United States." [See the Program] Also interesting/informative is "The White Left Needs to Embrace Black Leadership" by Barbara Ransby, The Nation [July 2, 2020] [Link].
You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument
By June 26, 2020]
---- I have rape-colored skin. My light-brown-blackness is a living testament to the rules, the practices, the causes of the Old South. If there are those who want to remember the legacy of the Confederacy, if they want monuments, well, then, my body is a monument. My skin is a monument. … What is a monument but a standing memory? An artifact to make tangible the truth of the past. My body and blood are a tangible truth of the South and its past. The black people I come from were owned by the white people I come from. The white people I come from fought and died for their Lost Cause. And I ask you now, who dares to tell me to celebrate them? Who dares to ask me to accept their mounted pedestals? [Read More] And for more about Confederate monuments (and much more), recommended is (Video) "Angela Davis on Abolition, Calls to Defund Police, Toppled Racist Statues & Voting in 2020 Election," from Democracy Now! [July 3, 2020] [Link].
Protesters Attacked by Police Are Suing to Vindicate Their Constitutional Rights
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout [July 3, 2020]
---- Protesters demonstrating against white supremacy and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd's public lynching have been met with illegal repression by law enforcement. Police have utilized toxic chemical and sonic weapons, dangerous projectiles, intrusive surveillance, physical violence and "kettling" to trap demonstrators after dispersal orders are given. In a study conducted by the University of Chicago Law School's International Human Rights Clinic, researchers found not one police department in the 20 largest U.S. cities in compliance with minimum human rights standards governing use of lethal force. They called the use of force by police "state-sanctioned violence." … Since the Black Lives Matter uprisings began, qualified immunity has become a hot-button issue. Colorado made history on June 19 by banning the qualified immunity defense. Congress is considering proposals that could abolish or water down the defense. [Read More] For another perspective on police violence, read "The Police and the Pentagon Are Bringing Our Wars Home" bJuly 4, 2020] [Link].
'We Are Not Even Beginning to Be Over This Pandemic'
By Gregg Gonsalves, The Nation [July 2, 2020]
---- Just this week, something startling occurred. We heard the unvarnished truth about Covid-19 in the United States from a major public health official, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's principal deputy director Anne Schuchat. … What did Dr. Schuchat say that was so remarkable?
We're not in the situation of New Zealand or Singapore or Korea where a new case is rapidly identified, and all the contacts are traced, and people are isolated who are sick, and people who are exposed are quarantined, and they can keep things under control. We have way too much virus across the country for that right now, so it's very discouraging.
In other words, the Covid-19 epidemic in the United States is out of control, erupting on a massive scale in many different places across the country, and attempts to rein it in will be difficult. … Yet the path forward remains clear. In terms of public health, it's set out in the hymnal many of us have been singing from for some time: more social distancing, hand-washing and mask-wearing, test-trace-isolate, and yes, probably more lockdowns—with the proviso that these need to come with real economic and social support for ordinary Americans, not bailouts for corporations and the rich. Responding to this pandemic is going to be much harder now, and will require far more resources than we needed only a few weeks ago. We've also got to stop the lies, challenging every one of them, whether from the administration or from news sources that parrot them or give them any safe harbor out of some misplaced desire to be fair and balanced, setting truths and falsehoods thus on equal footing. [Read More]
(Video) Barbara Ransby on the Biden Problem: Social Movements Must Defeat Trump & Also Hold Dems Accountable
From Democracy Now! [July 2, 2020]
---- Amid a mass uprising against racism and state violence, social movements are not just fighting hostility and backlash from President Trump, but also dealing with a "Biden problem," according to historian, author and activist Barbara Ransby. "I think it's fair to say that Joe Biden is not our dream candidate, by any means," she says. "We should be critical of Joe Biden. We should be ready to hold Joe Biden accountable come January. But we should be clear about the need to defeat Trump in November." [See the Program]
FEATURED ESSAYS
America's Enduring Caste System
By
---- A caste system is an artificial construction, a fixed and embedded ranking of human value that sets the presumed supremacy of one group against the presumed inferiority of other groups on the basis of ancestry and often immutable traits, traits that would be neutral in the abstract but are ascribed life-and-death meaning in a hierarchy favoring the dominant caste, whose forebears designed it. A caste system uses rigid, often arbitrary boundaries to keep the ranks apart, distinct from one another and in their assigned places. Throughout human history, three caste systems have stood out. The lingering, millenniums-long caste system of India. The tragically accelerated, chilling and officially vanquished caste system of Nazi Germany. And the shape-shifting, unspoken, race-based caste pyramid in the United States. Each version relied on stigmatizing those deemed inferior to justify the dehumanization necessary to keep the lowest-ranked people at the bottom and to rationalize the protocols of enforcement. … As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power — which groups have it and which do not. It is about resources — which groups are seen as worthy of them and which are not, who gets to acquire and control them and who does not. It is about respect, authority and assumptions of competence — who is accorded these and who is not. [Read More]
The Racist Underpinnings of the American Way of War
By , Foreign Policy in Focus [July 1, 2020]
---- The U.S. military command's pushback against President Donald Trump's attempt to use the military against people demanding racial justice has received a lot of good press. But let's not overdo the praise. For most of their existence, the U.S. Armed Forces were racially segregated. It was only in the 1950s that the slow process of integration began, with racial discrimination still a major problem in the ranks today. While race has been widely discussed with respect to the composition and organization of the military, much less attention has been paid to the way racism has been a central feature of how the United States has waged its wars. … What we might call the "American Way of War" has emerged from a convoluted historical and ideological process. This war-making cannot be divorced from the racism that is fundamentally inscribed in the capitalist political economy of the United States and is structurally reproduced in its growth and expansion. This structural inscription stems from two original sins: the genocide of Native Americans to clear the social and natural path for the rise and consolidation of capitalism, and the slave labor of African Americans that played an essential role in laying the foundations for industrial capitalism. … Finally, the American Way of War is marked by the marriage of advanced technology and racism that is intended to limit the expenditure of lives on one's side while inflicting massive devastation on the other side — under the guiding assumption that white lives are precious and colored lives are cheap. [Read More]
War and peace under Trump – "Trump's Record on Foreign Policy: Lost Wars, New Conflicts, and Broken Promises" by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, Jacobin Magazine [June 30, 2020] [Link]; "A Russian Bounty Is Bad. What's Shocking and Outrageous Is the War" by Andrew McCormick, The Nation [July 2, 2020] [Link]; and "House Democrats, Working With Liz Cheney, Restrict Trump's Planned Withdrawal of Troops From Afghanistan and Germany" by Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept [[Link].
The Democrats' New Climate Plan Is Weirdly Isolationist
By Kate Aronoff, The New Republic [July 1, 2020]
---- A new 538-page report adopts an America First strategy to solve a global problem. There's a lot to like in the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis's 538-page climate plan. Put together by nine Democratic majority members of the committee through hearings and consultations, the document released Tuesday is more ambitious than anything that could have come out of Capitol Hill even a few years ago—thanks largely to pressure coming from inside and outside the halls of power. The plan, though, also imagines the United States fighting climate change alone, an isolated government with an economy broadly resembling the one it had half a century ago… The plan touches on the Paris Agreement and the Green Climate Fund set up under its auspices. But its discussion of the international aspects of climate change largely ignores pressing global governance questions and conjures up images of an America under attack, fending off hordes of climate refugees with a military that's procuring green tanks. … As green groups have noted in the last few days, the House committee's hefty climate plan is a step in the right direction. For now, though, Democrats are still holding fast to George H.W. Bush's bipartisan wisdom, dispensed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992: "The American way of life is not up for negotiation." [Read More]
When will Palestine have its Declaration of Independence?
---- If you read the grievances of the founding generation of Americans in the Declaration of Independence, many of them mirror the grievances of Palestinians today. Israeli Occupation authorities decide on the framework of Palestinian lives and make the important decisions for them. But Palestinians cannot vote in Israeli elections and have no say in those decisions. There isn't any doubt that at least free American colonists had far more rights from the British crown than Palestinians have from Israel. As Americans commemorate the Fourth of July, they should have a thought for those in the world who still lack the rights guaranteed in the US constitution. Some of those are African-Americans, who de facto are denied what they should have de jure. Others are like the Palestinians, who do not even have a de jure claim on basic human rights. Many Americans are now saying they do not want to be part of the oppressive white power structure that denies African Americans their rights. Too few are saying that they can no longer be part of an international policy that keeps Palestinians stateless for geopolitical aims or the propitiation of domestic constituencies. [Read More]
