Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
September 19, 2021
Hello All – Beginning with President Obama, and continuing now under President Biden, the US military-foreign policy elite has attempted to extract itself from the quicksand of the wars in the Middle East and make a "pivot to Asia." This has been accompanied by a media and White House drumbeat of alarm over China's "aggression," and – more mutedly – over China's economic challenge to US post-Cold War hegemony in the world. With the extraction of US troops from Afghanistan, the USA may be on the cusp of a dangerous escalation of conflict with China. What to do?
It has been said that "war is God's way of teaching American's geography." True or not, we must bite the bullet and spend some time with a map of the South China Sea. We will note that this is in fact adjacent to China, and very far from California or Washington, DC. Next, we should make a stop at the admirable website of the Committee for a SANE US-China Policy. There we learn that, since January 1, 2021, there have been 40 "provocative military maneuvers and close encounters" between US and Chinese planes and ships in the South China Sea, near Taiwan, or elsewhere; of which 25 were initiated by the USA. Could something go wrong?
Other indicators of the intensifying US-China conflict are the add-ons to US military budget proposals that supposedly counter China. A report from Brown University's Watson Center notes: "The China threat argument has been utilized to justify the quest for a 350 ship Navy—up from about 300 ships currently; major Air Force purchases like a new bomber and the F-35 combat aircraft; the Pentagon's $1.5 trillion, three decades-long proposed nuclear weapons upgrade plan" … and much more.
Yet USA collaboration with China is essential to address significant problems of mutual interest. For example, the looming food crisis in Afghanistan requires collaboration between the USA and Afghanistan's neighbors, including China, now with significant influence in Afghanistan. An even more pressing issue is the climate crisis, which requires collaboration and significant cooperation between the US and China if humanity is to survive. In short, just as the Biden administration is launched on its "pivot toward China," the US peace movement needs to match this new development, learning and educating others about the nuts and bolts of war and peace in the South China Sea.
News Notes
This week the US military retracted its previous claims and admitted that its drone attack that killed 10 people in Kabul was "a horrible mistake," and not a "righteous" assassination of a would-be ISIS suicide bomber. In a statement, BanKillerDrones said, ""The Pentagon's and Biden administration's efforts to cover-up the truth about the slaughter of 10 civilians in Kabul on Aug. 29, seven of them children, is simply an example of the on-going cover-up of killer drone atrocities that have been perpetrated by every U.S. administration since the first U.S. drone attack, in Afghanistan, on October 7, 2001, the day the U.S. invaded that tortured nation." To sign a petition urging President Biden to end drone attacks on Afghanistan, go here.
Growing US aggressiveness towards China and Russia underscores the importance of preventing conflicts that could lead to nuclear war. Last week Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal led a group of 28 Democrats to push back against President Biden's intention, exemplified by his 2022 budget proposal, to build up US nuclear weapons. The build-up takes off from the already inflated budget numbers of the Trump regime, and adds billions more. We are happy to note that CD congressional representative Jamaal Bowman is one of the signatories of the Democrats' anti-nuclear effort.
What may be the most set of congressional votes of Joe Biden's presidency will soon take place re: the linkage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill to the much bigger budget reconciliation process. In a nutshell, progressive Democrats in the House have committed to withholding their votes from the bipartisan bill unless and until the infrastructure bill is passed. If large enough, this group – though now numbering only 16 – may exercise the congressional muscle needed to push through both, rather than only one, of these important pieces of legislation. The Rivertowns should be proud to note that Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones among the progressives who have bravely committed themselves to this "both or none" strategy.
Finally, if you – like me – are among those who find maps useful and helpful in opening the door to new ways of looking at "familiar" things, I recommend The Decolonial Atlas. The curators of the site say "It's based on the premise that cartography is not as objective as we're made to believe. The orientation of a map, its projection, the presence of political borders … are all subject to the map-maker's bias – whether deliberate or not." Enjoy! (h/t JS)
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each 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 6:00 pm in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, 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!
The Newsletter's "Rewards!" are usually lighter fare, a way station for stalwart readers before diving into Serious Business. This week, however, I offer what was to me an extraordinarily interesting video interview between Sarah Schulman, author of a new book on the history of ACT-UP, and Rebecca Vilkomerson, a leader of Jewish Voice for Peace. The subject is how ACT-UP succeeded and failed in developing strategy and tactics for a movement composed (primarily) of hundreds of New Yorkers facing likely death due to the AIDS epidemic. Schulman's giant archive of interviews with activists was also instrumental in developing the earlier documentary film "United in Anger: A History of ACT-UP." I learned a lot from the Schulman-Vilkomerson discussion, and I think others may also.
Best Wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
(Video) Who Rules Asia?: An Interview with Noam Chomsky
Interviewed by Jenny Li, New Bloom Magazine [June 2021]
---- We have an enormous responsibility today to prevent the kinds of conflicts that are coming, that are brewing, that are developing. And if permitted, the current course is pursued, will very likely lead to extremely dangerous situations, possibly even nuclear war. And a nuclear war between major powers is simply unthinkable. It would essentially destroy everything. It would leave the kind of world nobody would want to live in. How is it happening? Just take a look at what's happening right off the coast of China. Chinese warplanes have penetrated the air defense system of Taiwan. The United States has sent a huge naval armada, two major aircraft carrier groups into the South China Sea, an area of enormous strategic importance for China. Any of these things could blow up at any moment off the coast of China. Notice, it's not in the Caribbean Sea. It's not the Eastern Pacific, the Eastern Pacific off the coast of California. It's off the coast of China. China is ringed with nuclear bases, a circle of containment, nuclear missiles aimed at China from U.S. bases all through the Pacific. What's called "The Quad," the four major Asian U.S. allies, Japan… The United States itself is devoting enormous efforts to try to prevent China's development. It's pretty shocking to look at it. We should be cooperating. It is necessary for China and the United States, two major economies, to be cooperating on all sorts of issues, crucial issues like global warming, pandemics, nuclear weapons." [See the Program] For a transcript, go here.
A Legendary Abortion Rights Activist on What Comes After Texas
September 8, 2021]
---- When Heather Booth helped a friend's sister obtain an abortion in 1965, she thought it would be a one-off situation. Instead, it became the start of a legendary underground operation known as the Jane Collective, or simply Jane. In the years leading up to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the Jane Collective helped thousands of pregnant people in the Chicago area and beyond obtain abortions in defiance of strict statewide bans—establishing procedures to protect and support those seeking them and those providing them, and also to promote safety. Now, following Texas's law to ban abortions after six weeks (before many people know they are pregnant) and award private citizens $10,000 for suing anyone remotely involved in a procedure beyond those weeks, the right to an abortion, already something that existed more in theory than reality for much of the country, seems ever more uncertain. Many activists are turning to earlier generations for lessons on how to resist restrictions and get care to those who need it. I called up Booth to ask her about Jane's history and her perspective on the new law. [Read More]
(Video) "Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire": How Racism Fueled U.S. Wars Post-9/11
From Democracy Now! [September 14, 2021]
---- According to the Costs of War Project, the wars launched by the United States following 9/11 have killed an estimated 929,000 people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere. The true death toll may never be known, but the vast majority of the victims have been Muslim. "Racism is baked into the security logic of the national security state in the U.S., as well as in terms of how it operates abroad," says Islamophobia scholar Deepa Kumar, a professor of media studies at Rutgers University. "The war on terror was sold to the American public using Orientalist and racist ideas that these societies are backward." [See the Program]
The Climate Crisis
[FB – It's hard to overstate the importance of the Glasgow climate summit, which will start on October 31st and go through November 12th. As the articles linked below show, the Earth is rapidly warming towards a 2 degree Celsius temperature increase, now viewed as guaranteeing catastrophe. Two days ago, the head of the United Nations warned that the summit risked failure: "There is still a level of mistrust, between north and south, developed and developing countries, that needs to be overcome. We are on the verge of the abyss." In the USA, the "Green New Deal" – the most hopeful climate policy now on the legislative table – is bound up with President Biden's infrastructure proposal, whose legislative success is in doubt. We must renew our efforts to demand effective policies to prevent climate catastrophe.]
New Climate Analysis Shows Near Total Global Failure to Meet 1.5°C Targets
By Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams [September 15, 2021]
---- A new analysis reveals a near total global failure of governments to have climate action and targets on track for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Released Wednesday by the Climate Action Tracker (CAT), the assessment rated just one nation, The Gambia, as "1.5°C Paris Agreement compatible," and found the United States' overall climate action—despite a welcome "U-turn on climate change" since the Trump administration—to be "insufficient." The analysis, which covered policies of 36 nations and the European Union, framed the widespread failings as particularly glaring given the "absolute urgency" of climate action made clear by the most recent IPCC report, a publication United Nations chief António Guterres declared "a code red for humanity." [Read More]
Also informative is "What's Up With COP26?" b [Link]. Famed climate scientist James Hansen warns that the worldwide decline of air pollution could increase the rate of global warming significantly. A recent international survey found that "Climate Inaction Has Left Majority of Young People Believing Humanity Is 'Doomed.'" But Friday's great action by Extinction Rebellion, protesting the continuing practice of major banks in investing in fossil fuels, shows that the fight back against the climate crisis is alive and well.
The State of the Union
We Are on the Precipice of a Housing Disaster
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, The Poor People's Campaign [September 17, 2021]
[FB – Once again, we need to deploy a strong "inside-outside" strategy: intense community-based agitation for housing justice coordinated with work inside local, state, and federal legislatures to prevent homeless for millions of people.]
---- "The coronavirus pandemic could result in some 28 million Americans being evicted.… By comparison, 10 million people lost their homes in the Great Recession." These predictions come, in part, from Emily Benfer, the chair of the American Bar Association's Task Force Committee on Eviction and cocreator with the Eviction Lab at Princeton University of the Covid-19 Housing Policy Scorecard. She observes, "We have never seen this extent of eviction in such a truncated amount of time in our history." … Those facing eviction, those underpaid and excluded, and many of the 140 million people who are poor and low-income can't wait for those in power to act (if they ever do). Grassroots efforts like the National Union of the Homeless, Housing Justice for All, Cancel the Rents, Homes Guarantee, and other networks promoting rent strikes and eviction resistance will continue to organize to ensure that all Americans have a place to live, thrive, and build the sort of society we know is possible. [Read More]
Our History – The 10th Anniversary of "Occupy Wall St."
Life can be different: 10 years ago, Occupy Wall Street changed the world
By Rebecca Nathanson, The Guardian [September 15, 2021]
---- Occupy Wall Street politicized an entire generation – one that grew up under George W Bush in the post-9/11 years, pinning all their hopes on Barack Obama. Let down when his message of "hope and change" failed to manifest after the 2008 global financial crisis, they began to question American political and economic institutions themselves. I was one of those millennials. The movement upended my life, introducing me to new politics and people. It also upended the world, part of a string of uprisings that spread from Tunisia and Egypt to Spain and Chile to, finally, the United States. Occupy's rise in 2011 marked the re-entry of class consciousness into mainstream American politics. Occupy had two pillars: its critique of inequality, and its vision of an alternative way of organizing society. The former moved from the fringe to the center, bringing inequality into the national discourse; the latter has been largely overlooked. The movement made decisions by consensus, which was messy and slow, but it also challenged the idea that the way we live is a given. [Read More]
(Video) "Another World Is Possible": How Occupy Wall Street Reshaped Politics & Kicked Off New Era of Protest
From Democracy Now! [September 17, 2021]
---- On the 10th anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, we examine the legacy of the historic protests with three veterans of the movement: Nelini Stamp, now the director of strategy and partnerships at the Working Families Party; Jillian Johnson, a key organizer in Occupy Durham who now serves on the Durham City Council and is the city's mayor pro tempore; and writer and filmmaker Astra Tayor, an organizer with the Debt Collective. Occupy Wall Street "broke the spell" protecting the economic status quo and marked a major shift in protests against capitalism, Taylor says. "Occupy kind of inaugurated this social movement renaissance," she tells Democracy Now! "We've been in an age of defiant protest ever since Occupy Wall Street. [See the Program{
Also of interest – "Did Occupy Wall Street Make a Difference?" by Ruth Milkman, et al., The Nation [September 17, 2021] [Link]; "What Occupy Wall Street Organizers Would Do Differently. Do they still stand by the leaderless revolution?" The Nation [Link]; "The Impact of Occupy Wall Street Continues to Grow" by John Tarleton, The Indypendent [September 15, 2021] [Link]; and "Occupy Memory" by Molly Crabapple, New York Review of Books [Link].
