CFOW Newsletter - Focus on policing one year after George Floyd

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

May 30, 2021

 

Hello All – Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.  In a sense, this anniversary was a Memorial Day for our war at home.  It has been a long war, from 1619 through the Civil War and Reconstruction, and then through the Second Reconstruction of the 1960s and the civil rights movement. Throughout what is now five centuries, the war has been shaped by rising and falling patterns of White Supremacy and Black Resistance.

 

The anniversary of Floyd's murder was to be the deadline for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.  This legislation has passed the House of Representatives, but is stalled in the Senate, where the issue of "qualified immunity" – a legal doctrine that shields police from being held responsible for reckless violence - divides Republicans from Democrats.The importance of "qualified immunity," of course, goes beyond legal technicalities, and makes manifest the front-burner role of the police in maintaining the status quo of white supremacy.

 

Since Floyd's murder, more than 1,000 people – about three a day – have been killed by police, an average that has been sustained for years.  Since the beginning of 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive, some 17,000 people have been killed by guns (more than half being suicides), and there have been 237 "mass shootings" in five months. Little has changed.

 

Today's New York Times reports a pandemic "surge" of gun buying, with more than one million sales each week. More than one-third of American households now own a gun. While there are many reasons why people might be guns, one can't help but think that the fear of social breakdown, perhaps overlaid with the fear of race war, is a contributor to this trend.

 

It is in this context, I think, that the insights of the "defund the police" movement are so important.  Efforts to address traffic violations or mental health crises without a posse of armed responders represent a step in the right direction. Ending "qualified immunity" will also send a message to police forces – and perhaps to individual officers as well – that the police do not have a license to kill.  And more broadly, the demand that Black Lives Matter – the wallpaper of the year of struggle since the murder of George Floyd – must be maintained in the continuing struggle.

 

The state of policing one year after George Floyd's murder

 

(Video) George Floyd's Murder Was "Clarion Call" to Defund Police. What's Changed in Year Since His Death?

From Democracy Now! [May 25, 2021]

---- George Floyd's murder on May 25, 2020, sparked a global uprising against systemic racism and police brutality and put the spotlight on decades-long movements dedicated to abolition and criminal justice reform. Memorial events and marches are celebrating George Floyd's life and commemorate the first anniversary of his murder, and negotiations continue in Congress over legislation that bears his name, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. [See the Program] Also useful from Democracy Now! this week was "America on Fire": Historian Elizabeth Hinton on George Floyd, Policing & Black Rebellion" [May 26, 2021] [Link].

 

Also useful/interesting – "Congress Misses Symbolic Deadline for Police Reform" by  Akela Lacy, The Intercept [May 25, 2021] [Link] and "Campaigns to Defund Police Have Seen Major Wins" by Asha Ransby-Sporn, Truthout [May 25, 2021] [Link].

 

Things to Do/How to Help

Please help CFOW in our campaign to support drone whistleblower Daniel Hale, who faces up to 10 years in prison for giving information about the USA drone assassination program to The Intercept. His act of conscience is similar to and of equal import to the action of Edward Snowden when he informed the world about the USA surveillance programs. Information about Daniel's case and details about how he can be supported can be found on his website, https://standwithdanielhale.org/.  (Right now, the main "ask" is to write some letters.) A helpful and illuminating statement from a member of Daniel's legal defense team can be heard on a recent webinar beginning at 38:48. For background on the alarming developments in weaponized and surveillance drones, go to www.bankillerdrones.org.

 

Although the rate of incarceration in NY State prisons has been dropping, recently released data from the Vera Institute of Justice makes it clear that the legacy of racism remains with us. Specifically, of those who were convicted in the Westchester and are now serving sentences in New York State prisons:

 

·    90.6% (724 out of 799 total) are people of color

·    89.8% (389 out of 433 total) of those serving indeterminate sentences are people of color

·    80.5% (107 out of 133 total) of incarcerated people aged 55 or older are people of color

·    88.6% (62 out of 70 total) of people serving life sentences without the possibility of parole are people of color

 

CFOW is working with the NYS group Release Aging People in Prison to provide pathways for parole for older prisoners who have served 15+ years of their sentence. One bill pending in Albany is "Elder Parole" (A3475a). Rivertowns Assemblyman Tom Abinanti has yet to give his support to this legislation.  Please call his office in Albany (518-455-5753) or in Tarrytown (914-631-1605) and say you would like the Assemblyman to support Elder Parole.  And do it soon! The legislative sessions ends in two weeks.

 

The USA is on a path to put more than $1 trillion into a new generation of nuclear weapons that would put the world (and us) in greater danger of terminal disaster.  On Tuesday, June 1^st (8 pm) Code Pink will have a user-friendly webinar about what's going on and some steps that we can take to oppose this.  For more information and to register for the Zoom, go here.

 

Finally, if you would like to make a financial contribution to help Palestinians, congresswoman Rashida Tlaib's website recommends the direct-aid organization Baitulmall and the Institute for Middle East Understanding.  Learn more and make a donation here. For a more activist support group, check out Grassroots International.

 

Some Items of Interest

For those who missed it, the front page of Friday's New York Times was dominated by a photo gallery of pictures of the 65 children killed in the recent war in Israel/Palestine.  All but two of them were Palestinian. The website Mondoweiss called this an "extraordinary moment" …"The accompanying report is almost impossible to look at, it is the face of innocence, beauty, hope, all defiled."  The pictures were also published in the liberal Israeli daily Haaretz; read Gideon Levy's comments here.

 

More than two months ago progressive Democrats queried President Biden about just what he meant in stating that the USA would no longer support Saudi Arabia's "offensive actions" in the war in Yemen.  On Wednesday they finally received a reply to their letter that, according to this article from The Intercept, "sidesteps the question — and provides almost none of the other details members sought." We must assume that, in Yemen, Biden is doing things that he does want us to know about.  It's time for Congress to act!

 

The genocide underway in Tigray, the northern part of Ethiopia, has killed thousands of people and made two million people refugees. I think I speak for the 99 percent in saying we know nothing about what is going on there.  Westchester's Andom Ghebreghiorgis, whose family came to the USA from neighboring Eritrea (also a partner in the genocide), spoke about the Tigray crisis on a recent edition (video) of the Breakfast Club.

 

Finally, today is the birthday of Randolph Bourne, a brave opponent of the First World War who died too young in the influenza epidemic of 1918.  In the last month of his life, Bourne wrote his greatest essay, "War is the Health of the State." In wartime, he wrote, "the citizen throws off his contempt and indifference to Government, identifies himself with its purposes, revives all his military memories and symbols, and the State once more walks, an August presence, through the imaginations of men." Read more about him here.

 

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 on Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil takes place every Monday from 5:30 to 6 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 Sunday at 7 pm., please send a return email. Our 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!

Last week Bob Dylan turned 80.  How is this possible?  For this week's Rewards, here of some Dylan songs/performances from back in the day, when he (and I) were forever young: "Blowing in the Wind"; "Don't Think Twice"; and "Hard Rain." Happy birthday, Bob Dylan.

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

CFOW WEEKLY READER

 

The Way of the Conscientious Objector

By Rowan Moore Gerety, New York Times [May 29, 2021]

---- It was a book of Buddhist parables that put Michael Rasmussen over the edge. In March 2017, Mr. Rasmussen was living near a naval base in Japan, six years into training as a Marine pilot, reading and experimenting with meditation. … Some 2.7 million American service members have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since the start of our "forever wars" in 2001. Tens of thousands have gone AWOL. Countless others have finished out their service disenchanted and depressed, or turned to drugs and alcohol to ease re-entry into a society that would rather ignore war's moral injuries, often losing their benefits in the process. After seeing the horrors of war and the contradictions of American foreign policy up close, many enlisted men and women are compelled to re-examine the ideals that first drew them to military service. Very few soldiers, however, take the path that Mr. Rasmussen eventually did. [Read More]

 

The Climate Crisis

Biden's Fossil Fuel Moves Clash With Pledges on Climate Change

By Lisa Friedman, New York Times [May 28, 2021]

---- Despite President Biden's pledge to aggressively cut the pollution from fossil fuels that is driving climate change, his administration has quietly taken actions this month that will guarantee the drilling and burning of oil and gas for decades to come. … On Wednesday, the Biden administration defended in federal court the Willow project, a huge oil drilling operation proposed on Alaska's North Slope that was approved by the Trump administration and is being fought by environmentalists. Weeks earlier, it backed former President Donald J. Trump's decision to grant oil and gas leases on federal land in Wyoming. Also this month, it declined to act when it had an opportunity to stop crude oil from continuing to flow through the bitterly contested, 2,700-mile Dakota Access pipeline, which lacks a federal permit. The three decisions suggest the jagged road that Mr. Biden is following as he tries to balance his climate agenda against practical and political pressures. [Read More]  But the People's Fightback made some progress this week; read "Big Oil Loses Big in a Day of Game-Changing Climate News" by Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation [May 27, 2021] [Link].

 

Israel/Palestine

The Myth of Coexistence in Israel

By Diana Buttu, New York Times [May 25, 2021]

[FB - Ms. Buttu is a lawyer, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Palestinian citizen of Israel.]

---- The truth is that the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the Jewish majority of the country have never coexisted. We Palestinians living in Israel "sub-exist," living under a system of discrimination and racism with laws that enshrine our second-class status and with policies that ensure we are never equals. This is not by accident but by design. The violence against Palestinians in Israel, with the backing of the Israeli state, that we witnessed in the past few weeks was only to be expected. Palestinian citizens make up about 20 percent of Israel's population. We are those who survived the "nakba," the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, when more than 75 percent of the Palestinian population was expelled from their homes to make way for Jewish immigrants during the founding of Israel. [Read More]

 

Our History

(Video) U.S. Marks 100th Anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre, When White Mob Destroyed "Black Wall Street"

From Democracy Now! [May 28, 2021]

---- Memorial Day marks the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, one of the deadliest episodes of racial violence in U.S. history, when the thriving African American neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma — known as "Black Wall Street" — was burned to the ground by a white mob. An estimated 300 African Americans were killed and over 1,000 injured. Whites in Tulsa actively suppressed the truth, and African Americans were intimidated into silence. But efforts to restore the horrific event to its rightful place in U.S. history are having an impact. Survivors testified last week before Congress, calling for reparations. President Biden is set to visit Tulsa on Tuesday. [See the Program] Also interesting are the 3-D models of "What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed," from the New York Times [May 24, 2021] [Link].

 

 

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on the prospects for peace in Israel & Palestine

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

May 23, 2021

 

Hello All – For Israel and Palestine, finally a ceasefire!  But I fear we will look back on this moment as a brief interregnum in a struggle that has gone on for a century and is about to resume.  Gideon Levy, a columnist for Israel's liberal Haaretz, wrote today: "With End of Gaza Fighting, Welcome Back to Israel's Normal Routine" [Link]. Versions of this pessimistic opinion blanket the media spectrum, with the exceptions of statements coming from the White House.

 

Reports from Israel/Palestine support this pessimism.  Recall that the triggers for the current uprising and war were the assault on worshipers at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and the threatened evictions/ethnic cleansing of Palestinian families in E Jerusalem.  Over the weekend Israel launched new rounds of attacks on Palestinians at Al-Aqsa, and eviction threats are now issued to even more families [Link].  Other sources for instability include Israel's failure to form a government for the fourth time and the canceling of Palestinian elections by the Palestinian Authority.  And much more.  There is little that is stable "from the river to the sea."

 

The Gaza war clarified the critical role of the United States in enabling Israel's occupation and domination of millions of Palestinians.  The foremost US role is in supplying Israel's military machine, which receives $10 million each day to buy US planes and bombs, all used to destroy Gaza. Code Pink's Media Benjamin and Nicholas J. S. Davies describe "How the United States Helps To Kill Palestinians" here.  A second, but also important, role of the USA is to shield Israel from diplomatic action. On four occasions while Israel was bombing Gaza, President Biden prevented the UN Security Council from even discussing the issue.  Phyllis Bennis, of the Institute for Policy Studies, puts this into a broader context in her essay, "Biden's opposition to an Israeli ceasefire is nothing new" [Link].

 

Going forward, there have been some changes in how much of the world frames the Israel/Palestine conflict that may have an important bearing on the ability of Palestinians to mobilize international support, including from people in the United States.  One change results from the issue of two reports, one from the leading Israeli human rights organization and one from Human Rights Watch, that state without qualification that Israel is an "apartheid state." While this will be strongly debate by all parties concerned, the respectable sources of this statement move the issue of "apartheid" from the fringes of the debate to the center.

 

Those hoping/working for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine will have our work cut out for us in the coming months.  Because of the key role of the USA in giving Israel's colonial-settler project legitimacy and supplying it with weapons, Americans have both an opportunity and a responsibility to make a difference in the outcome of this struggle.

 

Some useful reading on Israel's war against Palestinians

 

(Video) "We Want Real Dignity and Freedom": Gazans Welcome Ceasefire But Demand End of Siege & Occupation

From Democracy Now! [May 21, 2021]

---- In Gaza, thousands of people have taken to the streets to celebrate after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire, ending Israel's 11-day bombardment of the territory. At least 243 Palestinians, including 66 children, were killed in the airstrikes and bombings. Rockets fired from Gaza also killed 12 people in Israel. Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, welcomes the ceasefire but stresses Palestinians demand more than just the end of bombing….. [See the Program]

 

When Palestine Shook

By Yousef Munayyer, New York Times [May 19, 202

---- Before the world's attention shifted toward pushing for a cease-fire, Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, inside Israel and in the diaspora had all mobilized simultaneously in a way unseen for decades. They are all working toward the same goal: breaking free from the shackles of Israel's system of oppression. Reacting to growing Israeli restrictions in Jerusalem and the impending expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, Palestinians across the land who identified with the experience of being dispossessed by Israel rose up, together. Even now, as bombs fall on Gaza, they continue to do so. [Read More]

 

Unity at last: The Palestinian people have risen

By Ramzy Baroud, Middle East Monitor [May 18, 2021]

---- From the outset, some clarification regarding the language used to depict the ongoing violence in occupied Palestine, and also throughout Israel. This is not a 'conflict'. Neither is it a 'dispute' nor 'sectarian violence' nor even a war in the traditional sense. It is not a conflict, because Israel is an occupying power and the Palestinian people are an occupied nation. … Actually, it is a Palestinian uprising, an Intifada unprecedented in the history of the Palestinian struggle, both in its nature and outreach. [Read More]

 

Some Items of Interest

In July, Daniel Hale will be sentenced to up to ten years in prison for violating the 1917 Espionage Act.  He has pleaded guilty to giving documents about the drone program to The Intercept. Hale's actions in releasing documents showing the criminal nature of the USA use of drones is analogous to the work of Edward Snowden in exposing government surveillance. A website organized in his defense explains the case and ask people to write letters for him.  A more in-depth view of Hale himself and the significance of his actions and his case can be found in a webinar presented by the BanKillerDrones website; the legal representative for Daniel Hale speaks beginning at 38:48.

 

Early in the Cold War, the Russians charged the USA with "imperialism," citing the status of Puerto Rico, which the US had occupied and controlled since 1898.  Clever President Truman responding by turning Puerto Rico into a "Free Associated State," – generally called "a Commonwealth" – and thus no longer a "colony" (and a standard trick for settler-colonialism). And for many decades Puerto Ricans have debated Statehood vs. Independence vs. the status quo.  Now legislation in Congress may open the way for Puerto Ricans to choose their final status.  This article from Dissent Magazine frames these developments in a useful historical context.

 

With the trend towards electric cars, international conflicts about controlling oil may soon be a thing of the past, no?  Alas, nothing is ever simple.  In an interesting article by Michael Klare called "The Post-Petroleum Resource Race and What to Make of It," we learn about lithium, cobalt, rare earths, and other minerals that are essential for turning solar and wind into electricity, and which are often found only in far away places.  Read more here and be forewarned.

 

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 on Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil takes place every Monday from 5:30 to 6 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 Sunday at 7 pm., please send a return email. Our 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!

This Newsletter was helped along with the blues music of Taj Mahal, still cooking at age 79.  And so the Rewards for stalwart Newsletter readers this week are a sampling of his mighty career.  Here are "Cakewalk into Town"; "You Don't Miss Your Water";  "Diving Duck Blues" (with Keb' Mo'); and "Take a Giant Step."  Lots more on line; enjoy!

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

CFOW Weekly Reader

 

War & Peace

The Pentagon Inflates the Chinese Nuclear Threat in a Push for New Intercontinental Missiles

By Michael T. Klare, The Nation [May 19, 2021]

---- This year, as in every year, the Department of Defense will seek to extract budget increases from Congress by highlighting the severe threats to US security posed by its foreign adversaries. Usually, this entails a litany of such perils, ranging from a host of nation-state adversaries to nonstate actors like ISIS and Al Qaeda. This year, however, the Pentagon is focusing almost entirely on just one threat in its funding appeals: The People's Republic of China. Sensing that a majority in Congress—Democrats as well as Republicans—are keen to display their determination to blunt China's rise, senior officials are largely framing the military budget around preparation for a possible conflict with that country. … From the Pentagon's perspective, this means portraying every budgetary item—from Army tanks and Navy ships to Air Force jets and ballistic missiles—in terms of their utility in fighting the Chinese military, the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Every US military service is seeking more money than before (as they always do), and each one is touting the importance of their weapons in overcoming the Chinese military threat. … The result, not surprisingly, is a contest among the services to magnify the vital importance of their pet projects in overpowering the PLA. [Read More]

 

More on the dangers of war with China – "Biden is Accelerating the Pace of the New Cold War with China" by Joseph Gerson, Peace Advocate [Boston] [May 20, 2021] [Link]; and "Risk of Nuclear War Over Taiwan in 1958 Said to Be Greater Than Publicly Known" by Charlie Savage, New York Times [May 22, 2021] [Link].  This latter article focuses on documents stolen by Daniel Ellsberg at the same time that he stole what came to be called "the Pentagon Papers."  The show US plans to use nuclear weapons against China.

 

The Climate Crisis

A Climate Dystopia in Northern California

By Naomi Klein, The Intercept [May 7 2021]

---- It's a ritual that has been repeated many times over the coldest months of Northern California's winter. The Chico police arrive between 9 a.m. and noon on a Thursday, perhaps in the hopes of catching people when they are home. Home, in this case, being flimsy tents, draped in tarps, many of them strung up between pine trees, secured to fences, or hidden beneath highway overpasses. The cops read out orders and sometimes hand out flyers: You have 72 hours to clear all of your belongings or they will be destroyed. … Adding a dystopian layer to this story: According to a survey by the Butte Countywide Homeless Continuum of Care, about a quarter of Chico's unsheltered residents lost their homes in the 2018 Camp Fire which burned the neighboring town of Paradise to the ground, taking the lives of 85 people. For this reason, Chico's war on the unhoused may be providing a grim glimpse into an eco-authoritarian future, in which the poor victims of climate change-fueled disasters are treated like human refuse by those whose wealth has protected them, at least in the short term, from the worst impacts of planetary warming. … It some ways, the question boils down to this: What kinds of public policies will support more people living on less land without turning on each other — and how can those policies simultaneously dramatically lower emissions so that the habitable space for humanity does not contract well beyond survivability? To put it another way: How do we rapidly decrease carbon emissions and economic and social stresses all at the same time? [Read More]

 

The State of the Union

A World of Bikes, Not Walls? Demilitarizing the Border

By Todd Miller, Tom Dispatch [May 16, 2021]

---- From the mountaintops of southern Arizona, you can see a world without borders. I realized this just before I met Juan Carlos. I was about 20 miles from the border but well within the militarized zone that abuts it. I was, in fact, atop the Baboquivari mountain range, a place sacred to the Tohono O'odham, the Native American people who have inhabited this land for thousands of years. At that moment, however, I couldn't see a single Border Patrol agent or any sign of what, in these years, I've come to call the border-industrial complex. On the horizon were just sky and clouds — and mountain ranges like so many distant waves. I couldn't tell where the United States ended or Mexico began, and it didn't matter. I was reminded of astronaut Edgar Mitchell's reaction when he gazed back at Earth from the moon: "It was [a] beautiful, harmonious, peaceful-looking planet, blue with white clouds, and one that gave you a deep sense… of home, of being, of identity. It is what I prefer to call instant global consciousness." A couple hours after my own peaceful moment of global consciousness, Juan Carlos appeared at the side of a dirt road. I was by then driving in a desolate stretch of desert and he was waving his arms in distress. I halted the car and lowered the window. "Do you want some water?" I asked in Spanish, holding out a bottle, which he promptly chugged down.

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" I asked. "Can you give me a ride to the next town?" [Read More]

 

Our History

Did 'Cancel Culture' Drive Richard Wright Underground?

By Joseph G. Ramsey, The Nation [May 20, 2021]

---- Last month's publication of the fully restored version of Richard Wright's novel The Man Who Lived Underground is big news. And for good reason. Against the background of Derek Chauvin's trial for the murder of George Floyd—and widespread protests against racist police brutality—Wright's gripping tale resonates. It's impossible to read these opening pages and not draw connections between Wright's protagonist Fred Daniels—an innocent black man fingered by police for a crime he did not commit—and too many real-life cases today. … So it makes sense that initial reviews of Wright's long-lost novel have focused on the theme of police brutality. Moreover, it seems likely that Wright's detailed depiction of police torture was one reason The Man Who Lived Underground was rejected in 1942. Its publication thus gives us an opportunity to reckon with the role that the American literary establishment has played in stifling frank depictions of this long-standing problem.  … It is long past time that Richard Wright's vivid depiction of police brutality was brought to light—and that such real-life police abuses were rooted out for good. The biographical understanding made possible by the publication of "Memories of My Grandmother," however, reminds us that, for Richard Wright, the police were not just a literal horror but also allegorical figures, representing life- and left-wrecking tendencies that afflicted the racist-capitalist state—and also many of its victims. [Read More]

 

 

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on ending US support for Israel's war against Gaza & the Palestinians

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

May 16, 2021

 

Hello All – While the Biden administration chants that "Israel has a right to defend itself," the horrible conflict in Israel/Palestine marches on.  Despite growing international outcry against Israel's assault on Gaza and its terror against Palestinians in the West Bank, E. Jerusalem, and what is called '48 Israel, it is clear that only stern orders from the USA can stop the slaughter.  How can we make that come about?

 

During the George Bush the First government, stern orders to stop Israeli settlement expansion were obeyed.  During the first days of the Obama government, stern orders to stop Israeli's war against Gaza were obeyed.  Obedience will not follow from soft-peddled wishes that violence "on both sides" must somehow go away.  The US has in its power to deploy threats (and the actuality) to cut military aid to Israel, and to refrain from giving it diplomatic protection in the United Nations and elsewhere.  The realistic target of international pressure and protests in the United States is not somehow to appeal to Netanyahu's "good sense," but to force the Biden administration to see that its own interests are threatened by Israel's continued assault on Gaza and the Palestinians.

 

Threats to cut military aid to Israel have significant leverage. Except for the war in Afghanistan, the US gives Israel more military aid each year than any other country.  And we have promised to give Israel $3.8 billion per year for years to come, more per capita that any other country. US financial support is vital to Israel's apartheid regime. Yet despite laws that regulate the use of US aid, we do not threaten to reduce US aid when Israel uses the aid to commit war crimes or maintain apartheid.

 

A bill now in Congress would start to change that.  Introduced by Minnesota congresswoman Betty McCollum, the bill is called the "Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act." Supported by 15 members of the House, including Rep. Jamaal Bowman, the bill (H.R.2590) would ensure that U.S. financial assistance provided to Israel is not used to support holding Palestinian children in Israeli military detention or prosecuting them in a military court. It also restricts aid use for the unlawful seizure, appropriation and destruction of Palestinian property and forcible transfer of civilians in the West Bank, as well as further Israeli annexation of Palestinian land.

 

As long as Israel's settler-colonial governments deny the human and civil rights of Palestinians living under their Occupation, pro-Palestinian actions in the USA must keep our eyes on the target that can actually do something to relieve Palestinians: the uncritical support, military and otherwise, given by the United States to Israel. As Noam Chomsky argued at length in a discussion with Prof. Noura Erakat last month, what is at issue is not principle so much as tactics, and we need to measure our pro-Palestinian work in terms of how our tactics might bring pressure on our own government to change course.

 

Some useful reading on Israel's war against Palestinians

 

This isn't a civil war, it is settler-colonial brutality

By Lana Tatour, Mondoweiss [May 13, 2021]

---- The civil war narrative is misleading and plays into Israel's hands. It masks settler-colonial power relations, settler-colonial violence and Jewish supremacist violence. What we are witnessing are      not "clashes," or between two equal sides, but rather the Israeli settler state together with Zionist militias declaring a war on its colonized "citizens," who need to protect their lives, homes, and families themselves. [Read More]

 

A Nightmare of Terror Across the Landscape of Palestine

By Yousef Munayyer, The Nation [May 13, 2021]

---- The origins of this moment are as obvious as they are painful, but they bear explaining and re-explaining for a world that too often fails—in fact, refuses—to see the true terms of Palestinian suffering.  To understand how we've arrived at this moment, it is essential to start with the story of Sheikh Jarrah. That small Jerusalem enclave, from which several Palestinian families have been under threat of expulsion, is perhaps, the most immediate proximate cause of this latest crisis. It is also just the latest targeted dispossession of Palestinians by Israel, which has been part of a more than 70-year process. [Read More]

 

Can Palestinian Lives Matter?

By Sarah Aziza, The Intercept [May 13 2021]

---- Palestinians, as a people, are visible but rarely seen. We do not "exist" as others do; we have neither a formal country nor any economic or military power to speak of. We have a history and culture, but these are eroded and appropriated more with every passing year. Mostly, we are collectively obscured by what people think they know, what they think we are: threats, troublemakers, terrorists. This is how we can be in so many headlines and yet die such endless deaths. We die, in part, because that is what the world expects of us. Our name is invoked only in connection to brutality and strife, which are presented as inevitable, our natural state. [Read More]

 

Some Items of Interest

Saturday, May 15^th, was the anniversary of the Nakba, the events in 1948 whereby some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes by the Israeli army, a foundational step in creating the state of Israel.  Over the last decade, debates about the outcome of the 1967 war and the Occupied Territories have been supplemented by paying attention to this earlier Israeli crime, the Nakba.  Last week the Foundation for Middle East Peace held an informative webinar, "The Palestinian Nakba: What Happened in 1948 and Why It Still Matters, that featured US congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Prof. Rashid Khalidi, and other excellent speakers.  See it here.

 

I think Prof. Noura Erakat is one of the most articulate and knowledgeable spokespeople for the Palestinian cause. She has appeared on several Democacy Now! programs, and she is the author of an imo outstanding book, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine. Last week she was interviewed at length on the program "Majority Report," where she placed the ongoing Palestinian protests in context and refuted Israeli talking points about the conflict in Israel-Palestine.  See the Program here.

 

In "Art Against Drones," peace activist Kathy Kelly announces an interesting new project that will install a replica of a US military Predator drone will be installed on the newly re-opened High Line elevated park in Lower Manhattan's West Side.  Though it will be unarmed (no Hellfire missiles or a surveillance camera), it is bound to start discussions about today's American Way of Death.  Read about this here. To learn more, go to www.bankillerdrones.org.

 

Finally, this week I saw a broadcast of the 1966 docudrama The War Game. Commissioned by the BBC, the film dramatized what happens shortly before and during a nuclear attack on the town of Rochester, England, struck by a one megaton Soviet bomb.  The BBC cancelled the scheduled broadcast, saying "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting." (The film was eventually shown in theaters, won many prizes, etc.)  At that time I was interested in "peace messaging": was it better to talk about the beauties of peace or the horrors of war, in order to move an audience to action.  The film, in all its 1966 clunkiness, frightened a nation's elite, determined to keep up with the Yanks as a "nuclear power."  Check it out here.

 

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 on Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil takes place every Monday from 5:30 to 6 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 Sunday at 7 pm., please send a return email. Our 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!

Tomorrow, May 17^th, is Income Tax Day.  Good luck to all you people out there with incomes.  This week's Rewards consider different musical views of taxes.  Starting out with Gene Autry and the (1942) wartime view about taxes, we have "I paid my income taxes today." By 1965 things had become contested, as witnessed by Joni Mitchell's "Tax Free."  Ry Cooder speaks for Middle America (1972) in "Taxes on the Farmer Feeds us All." And Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings bring it home (2006) with a message to George Bush: "What if we all stopped paying taxes"  Enjoy!

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

914-478-3848

 

CFOW WEEKLY READER

 

Chomsky: Without US Aid, Israel Wouldn't Be Killing Palestinians En Masse

By C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout [May 12, 2021]

---- Israel has been a highly valued client since the demonstration of its mastery of violence in 1967. Law is no impediment. U.S. governments have always had a cavalier attitude to U.S. law, adhering to standard imperial practice. Take what is arguably the major example: The U.S. Constitution declares that treaties entered into by the U.S. government are the "supreme law of the land." The major postwar treaty is the UN Charter, which bars "the threat or use of force" in international affairs (with exceptions that are not relevant in real cases). Can you think of a president who hasn't violated this provision of the supreme law of the land with abandon? For example, by proclaiming that all options are open if Iran disobeys U.S. orders — let alone such textbook examples of the "supreme international crime" (the Nuremberg judgment) as the invasion of Iraq.  The substantial Israeli nuclear arsenal should, under U.S. law, raise serious questions about the legality of military and economic aid to Israel. That difficulty is overcome by not recognizing its existence, an unconcealed farce, and a highly consequential one, as we've discussed elsewhere. U.S. military aid to Israel also violates the Leahy Law, which bans military aid to units engaged in systematic human rights violations. The Israeli armed forces provide many candidates. Congresswoman Betty McCollum has taken the lead in pursuing this initiative. Carrying it further should be a prime commitment for those concerned with U.S. support for the terrible Israeli crimes against Palestinians. Even a threat to the huge flow of aid could have a dramatic impact. [Read More]

 

The State of the Union

(Video) Can the Criminal Justice System Be Reformed? PBS Series "Philly D.A." Follows Larry Krasner's Efforts

From Democracy Now! [May 12, 2021]

[FB – The election and then the work of Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner illuminates many aspects of criminal "justice" reform demanded by BLM and the "defund the police" movements this year.  The Philadelphia Democratic primary – tantamount to the election – will take place on Tuesday, and Krasner has a strong challenger from the "law & order" side of policing.  As John Nichols puts it in an article in The Nation, "Tuesday's Democratic primary, is a political test that has local and national ramifications. If Krasner wins the primary, … the assessment will be that this movement is here to stay."  Here is a useful perspective on grassroots views of Krasner and the election from the Philadelphia Inquirer.]

---- Four years ago, the longtime civil rights attorney Larry Krasner shocked the political establishment in Philadelphia by being elected district attorney. Now he faces a tough reelection next week. We delve into his record as captured in a new eight-part series by PBS "Independent Lens" that follows how Krasner, who had sued the Philadelphia Police Department 75 times during his career, ran on a platform of ending mass incarceration and has fought to overhaul the DA's Office. "Is change possible in an institution like this?" asks series co-creator Ted Passon. "Why or why not?" We also speak with co-creator Nicole Salazar about how the series explores "the tensions between the new guard, between Krasner's team and the existing prosecutors in the office." [See the Program]. The PBS program site has some useful background material about both the issues and the making of the film.

 

Israel/Palestine

Palestinian Refugees Deserve to Return Home. Jews Should Understand.

By Peter Beinart, New York Times [May 12, 2021]

[FB – Saturday, May 15^th, was celebrated in Palestine and around the world as the anniversary of the Nakba, in Arabic, "the catastrophe," marking the 1948 expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their home in the newly created state of Israel.  Beinart's article, and it publication in the New York Times, is important in part because it reflects the leftward movement – more critical of Zionism – in both the liberal Jewish mainstream and in the elite media.]

---- Why has the impending eviction of six Palestinian families in East Jerusalem drawn Israelis and Palestinians into a conflict that appears to be spiraling toward yet another war? Because of a word that in the American Jewish community remains largely taboo: the Nakba. The Nakba, or "catastrophe" in Arabic, need not refer only to the more than 700,000 Palestinians who were expelled or fled in terror during Israel's founding. It can also evoke the many expulsions that have occurred since: the about 300,000 Palestinians whom Israel displaced when it conquered the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967; the roughly 250,000 Palestinians who could not return to the West Bank and Gaza after Israel revoked their residency rights between 1967 and 1994; the hundreds of Palestinians whose homes Israel demolished in 2020 alone. The East Jerusalem evictions are so combustible because they continue a pattern of expulsion that is as old as Israel itself. … The crimes of the past, when left unaddressed, do not remain in the past. That's also the lesson of the evictions that have set Israel-Palestine aflame. More than seven decades ago, Palestinians were expelled to create a Jewish state. Now they are being expelled to make Jerusalem a Jewish city. By refusing to face the Nakba of 1948, the Israeli government and its American Jewish allies ensure that the Nakba continues. [Read More]

 

Our History

When Queers Fought the State and Won

By Hugh Ryan, Boston Review [May 11, 2021]

[FB – This is a review of Sarah Schulman's new book, Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987–1993.  Among the reasons for the book's importance is that ACT UP was one of the most successful direct-action movements in our era. Many lessons to learn from ACT Up and this book looks like the place to start.]

---- Let the Record Show, Sarah Schulman's monumental new history of ACT UP New York, is a war chronicle in which the teller is both scribe and veteran. Schulman joined the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) a few months after it was founded in 1987. At that point, six years into the crisis, there were an estimated 500,000 people living with HIV in the United States alone, there were still no effective medical treatments, and the U.S. government's anemic response to the pandemic was a toxic cocktail of homophobia and hysteria. ACT UP was most effective when it had the broadest coalition of members. As such, its story cannot be accurately told in a traditional narrative format that focused on a few "heroes" and their journey. ACT UP burst onto this scene determined to confront apathy and create change on every level, from getting new drugs approved to creating alternative media through which to disseminate accurate information about the crisis. As the founding chapter, ACT UP New York was "the mother ship," but 148 other chapters, all acting autonomously, have since sprung up around the globe. Unquestionably, they have been one of the most effective activist movements in modern U.S. history—though as Schulman chronicles, their successes did not come without great costs. In fact, Let the Record Show is in part a grand accounting, tallying up what was won, what was lost, and the process through which those battles were fought. Only by this kind of rigorous analysis can the lessons of ACT UP be passed on to current and future activists. [Read More]