Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
March 7, 2021
Hello All – For the last four weeks workers at Amazon's giant warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama have been voted Yes or No for a union. The union campaign has been underway for several months, headed by the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Workers Union. Amazon has never had one of its workplaces unionized, and it is spending $10,000 a day on consultants to keep its 5,800 Bessemer workers from voting for the union. The voting continues until March 29th. The workers have received support from throughout the USA, including from our own Congressman Jamaal Bowman. Here are some excerpts from his article published Friday in the magazine Jewish Currents.
Amazon employs at least one million people, making it the second-largest employer in the US. If workers in Bessemer take the incredibly brave and difficult step of forming a union and standing up to the atrocious greed of their employer, it could help catalyze the next wave of workers reclaiming their power across the country from corporate overlords. In other words, the significance of the Amazon workers' struggle goes far beyond their workplace, or even the company. It's about the power of unions to remake the landscape of work. Unions deliver real, direct, material benefits to their members. Union workers on average make at least 11% more than non-union workers, controlling for education, occupation, and experience. A new wave of unionizations would also be a big step forward for racial justice. Workers of color benefit most from being represented by a labor union, and families of color with union members have five times the median wealth of families of color who are not union members. A successful union drive at Amazon would also embolden workers seeking better conditions at other exploitative tech companies. The problem isn't just that Amazon mistreats, underpays, and undervalues people; it's that Amazon sells that mistreatment of workers to investors and business elites as innovation. … When I touch down in Alabama, I will tell the Amazon workers I am proud of them—for taking the first step toward a union and for speaking out against injustice. We don't have to settle for an economy that treats workers as expendable. We can build a system that respects the inherent power and dignity in every single one of us and that puts people ahead of profits. I'm standing with workers in Bessemer because the time for racial and economic justice is now, whether Amazon likes it or not. [Read More]
The progressive movement in the United States can't make the gains that we need to make without a strong and successful union movement. Is an "American Spring" in the making? If this happens, an important role will have to be played by the socialist and progressive Democrats in Congress. The voters in CD 16 (the Bronx and Westchester) can be proud that we have a congressman in Jamaal Bowman who is supporting the Amazon workers. Give Jamaal a shout-out on his website.
News Notes
Rep. Mondaire Jones (CD 17) was on Democracy Now! this week, speaking about HR 1 and its "foundational importance" to US democracy. He also stated his belief that Israel was obligated to share its supply of Covid-19 vaccine with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, something that it has not done.
Hundreds of NY organizations have joined forces to press for some much-needed relief for immigrants battered by the Covid Economy. One of these campaigns is #FundExcludedWorkers, which calls on the state legislature to provide funds for those who did not receive federal stimulus checks because of the immigration/legal status. A week ago hundreds of New Yorkers shut down the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges in support of this demand. For a good article from MSN, go here.
After the Senate parliamentarian stripped the $15/minimum wage from the Covid relief legislation, Sen. Bernie Sanders offered it as an amendment. It lost because 8 Democratic Senators joined with the Republicans to vote it down. To learn who these 8 Senators are, who should be primaried asap, go 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.) Another vigil takes place on the first Monday of the month (April 4th), from 6 to 6:30 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 4 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!
Tomorrow, March 8th, is International Women's Day. Here is a useful/interesting short film on the origins and history of the Day. March 8th (1917) is also the anniversary of the (first) Russian Revolution. Several films were produced for the 1927 Soviet 10th-anniversary celebrations; my personal favorite is "The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty," a documentary pieced together from newsreel fragments and home movies by Esther Shub, the Soviet Union's leading film editor in the 1920s. Check it out here.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
GOP Embraces Trump and His Steal Elections Strategy
By Max Elbaum, Organizing Upgrade []
---- Even before the semi-formal anointment of Trump as the GOP's post-2020 top leader at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Feb. 28, the twice-impeached former President had been awarded the crown. Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, considered Trump's most powerful opponent in the media-proclaimed "Republican Civil War," had surrendered without a fight. On Feb. 13 he had told the country, "Trump's actions that preceded the [Jan. 6] riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty." Four days later he said on FOX News that he would "absolutely" support Trump for President if he was the 2024 GOP nominee. That's game over. The Trump-provoked, Confederate-flag-waving assault on the Capitol Jan. 6 didn't split the GOP. Rather, it revealed that from bottom to top the Republican Party has become even more Trumpified than it was while Trump was President. [Read More]
Last Exit from Afghanistan
s, The New Yorker [March 1, 2021]
---- The peace talks began last September, in Doha, Qatar, a Persian Gulf microstate that sits atop the world's largest natural-gas field. For seven years, Qatar's leaders have hosted several of the Taliban's most senior members in luxurious captivity, housing them and their families with all expenses paid. At the opening ceremony, delegates from the Taliban and the Afghan government gathered at the Doha Sheraton, in a cavernous convention space staffed by an army of guest workers. … As Americans have lost patience with the war, the U.S. has reduced its presence in Afghanistan, from about a hundred thousand troops to some twenty-five hundred. Seven months before [the Doha meeting], Doha, officials in the Trump Administration concluded their own talks with the Taliban, in which they agreed to withdraw the remaining forces by May 1, 2021. The prevailing ethos, a senior American official told me, was "Just get out." [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
Withdrawing US Troops From Afghanistan Is Only a Start. We Have to End the Air War Too.
By Phyllis Bennis, The Nation [March 5, 2021]
---- In recent months talk of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan has increased once again. It's not the first time during the course of the nearly two-decades-long war that we've heard this, and at several points since the war began in 2001, some troops have actually been withdrawn. … Pulling out the ground troops is important. They're not keeping Afghans safer. They're not building democracy. They've been there far too long, and we signed a peace deal promising to get them out. But pulling out the ground troops is not enough. If we're serious about ending the US role in the war, and we must be, we need to get serious about ending the war that's still killing Afghans almost two decades after the United States invaded the country. Calling the air war "counterterrorism" isn't a sufficient reason to continue military campaigns that kill civilians. [Read More]
Biden's War Policy Offers Chance for Change — or More of the Same [Esp. Drones]
By Alex Emmons and Nick Turse, The Intercept [March 7, 2021]
---- Less than two months after taking office, most of President Joe Biden's national security policy is under review. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is reexamining worldwide troop deployments, and the administration is taking a hard look at global counterterrorism operations. Biden's team is also reviewing the Trump administration's peace deal with the Taliban and the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, which Biden, like Barack Obama before him, has promised to close. Meanwhile, a Pentagon task force is reviewing China policy, and the State Department has paused arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. …Perhaps no review will have a more significant impact on national security policy over the next four years than the administration's comprehensive reexamination of Trump-era rules governing counterterrorism drone strikes and commando missions outside of conventional war zones. [Read More]
Also illuminating on War & Peace – "Trump and Biden's Secret Bombing Wars" b The Military's Failure to Reckon With White Supremacy in Its Ranks" by Melissa del Bosque, The Intercept [[Link]; and "Time to Repeal, Not Replace War Authorizations" from Common Dreams [March 5, 2021] [Link].
THE CLIMATE CRISIS
'Good Jobs for All': Sunrise Movement Launches Campaign to Fight Climate Crisis With Work Guarantee
By
---- Amid the ongoing climate emergency and the devastating coronavirus pandemic that has resulted in more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. alone as well as an economic meltdown that has left millions of people unemployed, the Sunrise Movement on Thursday launched its "Good Jobs for All" campaign to demand that lawmakers pursue a robust recovery that guarantees a good job to anyone who wants one and puts the country on a path toward a Green New Deal. … During the campaign launch, Sunrise—joined by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Sara Nelson, president of the the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO—introduced their Good Jobs for All Pledge, which calls on President Joe Biden and members of Congress to immediately enact economic recovery legislation that meets the scale of the overlapping crises society is facing and paves the way for a Green New Deal that puts millions of people to work to fight against catastrophic climate change. [Read More]
CIVIL LIBERTIES
As the Insurrection Narrative Crumbles, Democrats Cling to it More Desperately Than Ever
By Glenn Greenwald, Substack [March 5, 2021]
---- The key point to emphasize here is that threats and dangers are not binary: they either exist or they are fully illusory. They reside on a spectrum. To insist that they be discussed rationally, soberly and truthfully is not to deny the existence of the threat itself. One can demand a rational and fact-based understanding of the magnitude of the threat revealed by the January 6 riot without denying that there is any danger at all. … The argument then, and the argument now, is that the threat was being deliberately inflated and exaggerated, and fears stoked and exploited, both for political gain and to justify the placement of more and more powers in the hands of the state in the name of stopping these threats. That is the core formula of authoritarianism — to place the population in a state of such acute fear that it acquiesces to any assertion of power which security state agencies and politicians demand and which they insist are necessary to keep everyone safe. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
If We Want to Renew Democracy, We Need to Tax the Ultra-Wealthy
By Madeleine Johnsson, Inequlity.org [March 2, 2021]
---- Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Pramila Jayapal's Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act of 2021, introduced March 1, could not be a more timely reminder that the United States needs serious policy changes to address massive wealth and income inequality. While eight million Americans slipped into poverty and half a million lives were lost to Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic — all with a disproportionately large impact on communities of color — the wealth of U.S. billionaires almost doubled, up $1.3 trillion. … For most Americans fortunate enough to own their own home, it is by far their greatest source of wealth, so in a sense, middle-class people already pay a wealth tax. The Ultra-Millionaire Wealth Tax would ensure that the super-rich pay taxes on all their assets, not just their New York mansions or Florida getaways, but their stocks, bonds, jewelry, sports cars, and art collections. [Read More]
The Private Health Insurance Industry: Should It Be Eliminated?
---- Many Americans assume that the private health insurance industry is an unmovable fixture in the U. S. health care system, but there is a growing need to re-examine that premise. Over recent decades, its performance has been increasingly profit-driven to the point of now becoming unaffordable for patients, their families, employers and taxpayers. The time has come to consider whether or not it should continue as the major way to finance health care in this country. …. Under a new system of national health insurance through Medicare for All, we will find health care much more affordable than today. The current high premiums, deductibles, copays, co-insurance, denied pre-authorizations, large out-of-pocket payments, and ruinous medical bills will be long gone. With moderate progressive taxes that we all share by income level, 95 percent of Americans will pay less for health care than they do now. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
(Podcast) Building the Palestine solidarity movement
An interview with US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Executive Director Ahmad Abuznaid, from Mondoweiss [February 26, 2021]
---- Ahmad Abuznaid was recently named the Executive Director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. In the wake of Trayvon Martin's murder in 2012, Ahmad co-founded the Dream Defenders. He has interned at the International Criminal Court, presented before the United Nations' Human Rights Committee and was the Director of the National Network for Arab American Communities. [We] spoke to him about the future of the Palestine solidarity movement, challenges to expanding BDS work, and how the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights is engaging with Jewish anti-occupation groups. [Listen to the Program]
A State That Has Nothing to Hide Has No Reason to Fear an ICC Investigation
Editorial, Haaretz [Israel] [March 5, 2021]
---- The International Criminal Court's announcement that it will investigate prima facie war crimes committed by Israel predictably elicited angry responses, which reached their peak with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement, "The biased court in The Hague made a decision that constitutes undiluted antisemitism and the height of hypocrisy." … No attempt to tar the investigation as antisemitic and wage a campaign against the court can serve as a substitute for Israel's obligation to conduct its own honest investigation into the incidents that gave rise to the complaint against it, halt the kinds of actions that put it on a collision course with the international community and cooperate with the court. A state that doesn't consider itself to be guilty has no need to fear an investigation. [Read More] Also interesting is "Palestinians Should Drag Architects of Settlements to the ICC" by Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [February 17, 2021] [Link]
OUR HISTORY
Remembering the First Gulf War
By Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence [March 2, 2021]
---- Thirty years ago, when the United States launched Operation Desert Storm against Iraq, I was a member of the Gulf Peace Team. The group consisted of seventy-three people from fifteen countries, aged twenty-two to seventy-six, living in a tent camp close to Iraq's border with Saudi Arabia, along the road to Mecca. Our mission: to nonviolently interpose ourselves between the warring parties. In this capacity, we witnessed the dismal onset of the air war at 3 a.m. local time on January 17, 1991, huddled under blankets, hearing distant explosions, and watching anxiously as war planes flew overhead. With so many fighter jets crossing the skies, we wondered if there would be anything left of Baghdad. Ten days later, Iraqi authorities told us to prepare to evacuate to Baghdad. Not all of us could agree on how to respond. [Read More] And for an excellent overview of the 1991 Gulf war, read "The Gulf Crisis" by Noam Chomsky, Z Magazine [February 1991] [Link].
