Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
November 15, 2020
Hello All – Well before the presidential election was called for Biden & Harris, the struggle among Democrats for control of the post-election party and its program was underway. The party had won; to whom does the party turn to acknowledge and reward those responsible? The party had done less well than expected; who was responsible for what went wrong?
With Biden & Harris, the "moderates" or "centrists" of the party control the commanding heights. They will form the transition teams, choose the cabinet and leading administrators, and thus set the program. Here business interests, bankrolling the most expensive election in the history of the Galaxy, claim a leading roll, and together with the moderates or centrists, have launched an attack on the party's left wing – that of Sanders and AOC – as being responsible for the party's disappointing results in congressional elections. [Link]. Fighting back, the party's Left pointed out that Democratic congressional candidates who supported Medicare for all and the Green New Deal won, while most of those who did not, lost. As articles linked below demonstrate, white voters and upper-income voters supported Trump, while Biden's victory was the results of a massive turnout of low-income voters and people of color.
An example of the significance of this broad conflict within the Democratic party is the debate over Biden's foreign policy and national security team, and over the composition of the "transition team" that is vetting candidates (Secretary of Defense, National Security Adviser, etc.), Here the fears of the antiwar movement are being confirmed. At least one-third of the Department of Defense agency review team is connected with the weapons industry [Link] and [Link]. Similarly, the leading candidate for Secretary of Defense appears to be Michėle Flournoy, a leading figure in Obama's defense team and a supporter of "humanitarian" military intervention, who also has close ties to the arms industry [Link] and [Link].
Since the era of President Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Conference, the business wing of the Democratic Party has dominated both the party apparatus and the political agenda. Now, with the growth of a left wing inside the party's congressional delegation, and the growing popularity of "socialist" ideas among the general public, it is difficult for the party to put a lid on program discussions and make them go away without debate. In coming newsletters, we will focus on these debates within the climate/energy sector, within the healthcare industry, education, and other parts of the USA industrial map where the party's leftwing is gaining ground.
Some good reading on these debates – "Before the Dust Has Settled, Corporate Democrats Are Already Attacking AOC and the Left" by David Sirota, Jacobin Magazine [November 2020] [Link]; "Will the Biden Team Be Warmongers or Peacemakers?" by and [LInk]; and "One-Third of Biden's Pentagon Transition Team Hails From Organizations Financed by the Weapons Industry" by Sarah Lazare, In These Times [November 11, 2020] [Link].
How to help in Georgia
The ability of President Biden to pursue any legislative program depends on who controls the Senate, which at the moment appears to rest on the outcome of two Senate run-off elections in Georgia in January. The Democratic candidates are Jon Osoff and Raphael Warnock. The Elect Jon Osoff and Raphael Warnock 2020 Facebook page explains their campaigns. ActBlue has set joint contribution site. You can donate and volunteer to help the campaigns at The New Georgia Project.
News Notes
This interesting short video shows how the next half century of climate change "will force a massive American migration. Extreme heat, massive floods and more fires may force millions of people to move — and millions may be left behind"
This gets personal, as a member of my family, along with a few million other Americans, will be devastated by the failure of the Trump people to renew the unemployment insurance programs that have cushioned the economic disasters consequent on the Coronavirus pandemic. Two critical programs are scheduled to expire on December 26th. Learn more here.
Starting in the spring of 2016, members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, along with thousands of supporters, tried to block the Dakota Access Pipeline from transporting crude oil through their lands, endangering their water. The Sioux and their allies were met with an overwhelming amount of public and private force, injuring many. In a series of articles in The Intercept, Aileen Brown has been documenting the work of private security companies at Standing Rock, in particular one called TigerSwan. In her latest installment, she shows how privatized counterinsurgency works, based on a massive trove of company and court records.
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, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Another vigil takes place on Mondays, from 5 to 5:30 pm, in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. In this time of coronavirus, we are meeting by Zoom conference; if you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, Tuesday and Thursday at noon and/or Saturday at 5 pm, please send a return email. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. 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!
It's been a strenuous week; let's listen to some Nina Simone. Here are "Feeling Good" (1965); "Ain't Got No, I Got Life" (1968); and "I Wish I Could Knew" (1967). Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
THE ELECTION
[FB – The argument among Democrats over "what happened in the election" is closely linked to "what kind of programs should the Democrats pursue going forward to ensure their victory in the 2022 and 2024 elections?" – Party progressives say that low-income people and people of color put the Democrats over the top, and that to the extent possible populist programs to help this constituency should be the focus on Biden's first-term legislation. Party centrists, on the other hand, say that the Black Lives Matter movement and "socialist" slogans kept down the party's votes, and that programs supporting business and the middle class will help the party in the coming elections. For some minimal guidance, here are some exit polls giving some estimates on who voted for the Democrats and why.]
(Video) Ro Khanna: Progressives Helped Biden Win. We Can't Stop Push for Green New Deal & Medicare for All
From Democracy Now! [November 9, 2020]
---- Former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris are set to take power, after a projected more than 150 million ballots were cast in the 2020 election. A debate is growing over the future of the Democratic Party as progressive lawmakers push back on Biden's centrist policy proposals and consideration of Republicans for Cabinet positions. Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna of California says progressive policies, such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, have popular support. "The policies that we are advocating are not just for deeply blue districts," Khanna says. "They are policies that will help people in the Midwest, in the South, across this country." [See the Program]
(Video) Juan González: Mainstream Media Has Missed the Real Story About Latinx Voter Turnout
From Democracy Now! [November 11, 2020]
---- About 160 million voters cast ballots in this election, setting a new record, and President-elect Joe Biden's lead in the popular vote has jumped to over 5 million. Much of the increased turnout was powered by people of color, while the total number of votes cast by white Americans barely increased from the last presidential election. "The main story is that in an election which saw historic turnout, people of color — and especially Latinos — had an unprecedented increase in voting," says Democracy Now! co-host Juan González. "After decades of political experts talking about the growing Latino vote, this year it actually happened." [See the Program]
More on who voted for the Democrats, on some issues, and why – "Low Income Voters Turned Out for Biden, Now They Need Reliefm" b [Link]; "14 Successful Ballot Initiatives to Reduce Inequality" by Brian Wakamo, Inequality.org [November 9, 2020] [Link]; "From Marijuana To Minimum Wage, Progressives Won Policy Fights On Election Night" by Emily Peck, Huffington Post [November 4, 2020] [Link]; and "There Was Actually a Lot of Good News for the Left on Election Day" by Liza Featherstone, Jacobin Magazine [November 2020] [Link].
What about "the coup"?
What Trump's claim of a 'stolen election' means for activists today
November 11, 2020]
---- So what are we to make of the Trump campaign's lawsuits, Republicans refusing to honor the election results and the Department of Justice looking into "allegations" of supposed voter fraud? If this isn't a coup, then what is it? … I believe Trump's "stolen election" claim is a choice to continue a kind of politics that has served him well in the past — so well that he's re-shaped the Republican Party in its image. Trump specializes in the politics of grievance. Millions of words have been written since 2016 about manipulating grievance to gain political power. The question for the politics of grievance is never whether or not something is true — it can be laughably untrue. … I believe the point of claiming a stolen election is not to set the stage for a coup, but to add more juice to the right's list of grievances for building political power in the future. The bigger the publicity that's produced around this claim, the more juice is created — and that's what they are trying to do now. [Read More]
THE TRANSITION
2020's Lesson Is Clear: Bold Policies to Improve People's Lives Are Broadly Popular
What a Biden-Harris administration should prioritize on its first day.
By
---- Now, Democrats need to deliver for the American people — those who voted for us, those who did not, and those who were too disenchanted or disenfranchised to vote. We need to deliver, even as Republican leaders can't acknowledge the election outcome and plan to grind Congress to a halt. The good news is there are lots of big changes that a Biden-Harris administration can achieve through executive orders and agency action on day one. The president-elect has already committed to reentering the Paris Climate Accord, reinstating DACA and ending the travel ban against certain Muslim countries. Here are more bold steps the new administration can take using existing legal authority. [Read More]
On some issues – "On Environmental Protection, Biden's Election Will Mean a 180-Degree Turn from Trump Policies" by [Link]; and "Joe Biden Said He's Against the Yemen War. He Needs To End It on Day One" by Sarah Lazare, In These Times [November 6, 2020] [Link]
FEATURED ESSAYS
Now We Have to Fight Trump's Tin-Pot Coup — and Biden's Worst Instincts
By Naomi Klein, The Intercept [
---- Most progressive organizations are working hard to avoid a repeat of a different variety of Democratic Party debacle: the one that unfolded in 2008-2009, in the months between Barrack Obama's euphoric election win in November and his inauguration in January. That's when Obama surrounded himself with a team of hardcore neoliberal economists and Wall Street bankers. … I take heart in the fact that the militant movements born in Obama's second term, and which deepened during the Trump years, have clearly learned from the mistakes made in the 2008-2009 transition period. Since Election Day, the reigning attitude toward Biden among groups organizing for racial, economic, and climate justice has been "this guy gets zero chances." Organizations that have worked relentlessly for months to turn out the vote for Biden did not even take a weekend off to celebrate. Instead, they immediately unveiled detailed plans outlining all the executive actions a Biden-Harris administration could take within its first 100 days: from immediate student debt relief, to generous "people's bailouts" as part of its Covid-19 response, to the highly detailed "Frontlines Climate Justice Executive Action Platform," backed by a coalition of powerful groups and published by the think tank Demos. Most ambitious has been a campaign just launched by the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats, which focuses not only on what the new administration can do, but also who should be appointed to do it. [Read More]
The Children of Fallujah: The Medical Mystery at the Heart of the Iraq War
By Laura Gottesdiener, The Nation [November 9, 2020]
---- Since the 2003 invasion, doctors in Fallujah have been reporting a sharp rise in birth defects among the city's children—and to this day, no one knows why. … Soon Fallujah's children became a topic of concern at tribal meetings and in the provincial doctors' union. Many residents suspected that the major American offensives against the city might have had something to do with the deformities. The second offensive, which began in early November 2004, was the deadliest battle of the entire US war in Iraq—a six-week siege that killed thousands of Iraqis and dozens of Americans and left much of the city in rubble. But these suspicions were kept quiet. Outside people's homes, just beyond the iron front doors, US Marines patrolled the streets, and residents said they feared the United States wouldn't respond kindly to insinuations of having sparked a public health crisis. … Dr. Alani's ad hoc registry was the beginning of a yearslong, unfinished quest to document and investigate the most controversial medical mystery of the Iraq War: an alleged increase in birth defects that, local doctors say, began after the United States invaded the country in 2003 and plagues the city to this day. At stake is the question of whether US military activities in Fallujah contributed to these congenital disorders—an explosive possibility that has transformed this local public health concern into an international political and scientific controversy. For years, the fierce debate over Fallujah has centered on questions about the use and impact of potentially toxic material in US weapons, particularly depleted uranium. The discussion has largely overlooked, however, broader and perhaps even more troubling questions about the long-term public health effects of urban warfare on civilian populations and the dangers of politicizing science and medicine in times of conflict. Read More]
World Economic Forum's 'Great Reset' Plan for Big Food Benefits Industry, Not People
By Jeremy Loffredo, Children's Health Defense [November 9, 2020]
---- The World Economic Forum's (WEF) The Great Reset includes a plan to transform the global food and agricultural industries and the human diet. The architects of the plan claim it will reduce food scarcity, hunger and disease, and even mitigate climate change. But a closer look at the corporations and think tanks the WEF is partnering with to usher in this global transformation suggests that the real motive is tighter corporate control over the food system by means of technological solutions. Vandana Shiva, scholar, environmentalist, food sovereignty advocate and author, told The Defender, "The Great Reset is about multinational corporate stakeholders at the World Economic Forum controlling as many elements of planetary life as they possibly can. From the digital data humans produce to each morsel of food we eat."
[Read More] For more, read "Brave Vandana Shiva speaks out against the Great Reset," from Organic Radicals [November 12, 2020] [Link].
WAR & PEACE
To Save the Iran Nuclear Deal, Think Bigger
By Trita Parsi, Foreign Affairs [November 10, 2020]
---- Soon after taking office, President-elect Joe Biden will face the daunting task of restoring the 2015 nuclear deal and getting the United States and Iran back on speaking terms. The outgoing administration of President Donald Trump intends to make that job nearly impossible by spending its last ten weeks in office engineering a "flood" of sanctions to further squeeze Iran. The Trump team apparently hopes that Biden will not wish to incur the political cost of backtracking on these sanctions, which will be tied to non-nuclear concerns such as ballistic missiles and human rights. … Biden should refuse to be boxed in on Iran much the same way Obama did. He should insist on thinking bigger than just the nuclear deal and looking instead to the broader relationship, because the experience of the past few years has shown that no arms control agreement can be sustained while relations between the two countries continue to deteriorate. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Our Grandchildren, According to Saeb Erekat
By Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [November 15, 2020]
[FB – Dr. Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Organization's Secretary General, died of Covid last week at the age of 65. In this brief memoir Amira Hass, the Haaretz reporter for the Occupied Territories, speaks of the man and the decades-long arc of negotiations, of which he was a part.]
---- It was in early fall of 1997 or 1998. A quick check in an archive could say when it was for sure, but it doesn't really matter now. In any event, I was on my way back from Gaza to Ramallah. It was evening, but not too late because the paper hadn't gone to press yet. The night editor called and asked me to try to get something about the meeting that had taken place that day between PLO representatives and officials from the Netanyahu government. I stopped at a gas station near Ashkelon (strange, the kind of detail one does remember!) and phoned Dr. Saeb Erekat, either because the radio had reported that he participated in the meeting or because I knew he usually answered phone calls. There's nothing to say because nothing happened, he answered when I put my question to him. I don't remember his exact words, but he said something about the minor issues that had been discussed at the meeting. Then he suddenly sighed and said, "Tell me, Amira…" I was surprised that he addressed me so directly, in such a friendly way. … "Tell me, Amira," Erekat said. "Don't the Israelis think about their grandchildren?" He didn't have to explain to me what he meant, but just in case someone doesn't get it: Erekat was asking how Israelis could be so sure they could go on occupying and oppressing and behaving with such arrogance and condescension, without there being any implications for future generations – without terrible things happening and the normality that they so crave collapsing amid much pain for them too. [Read More]
