Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
May 1, 2022
Hello All – Today is May Day, the workers' holiday. The day had its origins in Chicago in 1886, and later became celebrated by trade unions, socialists, and communists the world over. With the exception of the fabulous May Day marches ("A Day without Immigrants") of 2006, the day is seldom celebrated in the USA, though "All Out for May Day!" still draws thousands to march in many parts of the world. Understanding the deep and complex story of May Day provides insights into "the peoples' movement," where it has been and where it might go.
What is it about May Day and where did it come from? I will make it easier for myself (and more fun for you) by linking a Democracy Now! program from 2016 in which historian Peter Linebaugh explains "The Incomplete, True, Authentic & Wonderful History of May Day." In an essay written the same year, Linebaugh writes:
The Soviet government paraded missiles and marched soldiers on May Day. The American government has called May 1 "Loyalty Day" and associates it with militarism. The real meaning of this day has been obscured by the designing propaganda of both governments. The truth of May Day is totally different. To the history of May Day there is a Green side and there is a Red side. Under the rainbow, our methodology must be colorful. Green is a relationship to the earth and what grows there-from. Red is a relationship to other people and the blood spilt there among. Green designates life with only necessary labor; Red designates death with surplus labor. Green is natural appropriation; Red is social expropriation. Green is husbandry and nurturance; Red is proletarianization and prostitution. Green is useful activity; Red is useless toil. Green is creation of desire; Red is class struggle. May Day is both. [Read More]
And on Friday Linebaugh published an essay ("Manoomin May Day") that finds some local roots of May Day celebrations in the life cycle of manoomin, or wild rice. Needless to say, May Day is a complicated and deep-rooted celebration, not unlike the complicated and deep-rooted American people on whom our hopes for the future depend. It is hard to imagine that progressive issues and dreams can be realized in the USA without a strong labor movement. My hopes are raised by the string of victories at Starbucks and Amazon. The shock of the Pandemic economy seems to have shaken up the traditional frameworks of working life, particularly for younger workers. Perhaps the day will soon come again when May Day is celebrated by millions throughout the USA.
News Notes
The New York State Legislature is moving to a close. One issue CFOW has focused on is the effort to ban "hybrid" voting machines, which can be programmed to change a ballot. The bill in the Assembly is A.1115c, and in the Senate it is S.309b. Some user friendly information about the danger of the new voting machines and why they must be banned in NY can be found here. For information on how you can act to stop these machines, go here.
Since April 22, Israeli occupation forces have been raiding the Al Aqsa mosque, attacking journalists and Palestinian worshipers with tear gas and stun grenades. Since Ramadan began on April 2, at least 14 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. Code Pink has organized a campaign to ask the Biden administration to condemn Israel's attacks on Palestinians, and to make US military assistance ($4 billion a year) contingent on taking concrete steps towards peace and justice. For more information about this campaign, go here.
Just in time for May Day, the great documentary film "The Wobblies" has been restored and re-released. The film details the history of the Industrial Workers of the World — a radical union whose members are also known as Wobblies — and their inclusive fight to organize "unskilled" workers, secure fair wages and enshrine the eight-hour workday in the early 20th century. The film maker Deborah Shaffer was on Democracy Now! this week, where you can learn lots about pioneering industrial union and see some great film clips.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Weather permitting, 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 will be held each Monday from 5:30 to 6:00 pm in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. To learn about our new project, "Beauty as Fuel for Change," go here. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. 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 week's Rewards for stalwart readers are pulled from the old-timey song bag that fits with May Day. Thanks to Peter Rothberg of The Nation, we can sing along to "Top 12 May Day Songs." And here's a song of peace (1964) from Pete Seeger that I have not heard before. (h/t to FC) Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
Noam Chomsky: Propaganda Wars Are Raging as Russia's War on Ukraine Expands
An interview by C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout [April 28, 2022]
---- Particularly in the more free societies, where means of state violence have been constrained by popular activism, it is of great importance to devise methods of manufacturing consent, and to ensure that they are internalized, becoming as invisible as the air we breathe, particularly in articulate educated circles. Imposing war-myths is a regular feature of these enterprises. It often works, quite spectacularly. … A host of high-level U.S. diplomats and policy analysts have been warning Washington for 30 years that it was reckless and needlessly provocative to ignore Russia's security concerns, particularly its red lines: No NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, in Russia's geostrategic heartland. … Without going into any further details, Putin's invasion of Ukraine was clearly provoked while the U.S. invasion of Iraq was clearly unprovoked. That is exactly the opposite of standard commentary and reporting. But it is also exactly the norm of wartime propaganda, not just in the U.S., though it is more instructive to observe the process in free societies. Many feel that it is wrong to bring up such matters, even a form of pro-Putin propaganda: we should, rather, focus laser-like on Russia's ongoing crimes. Contrary to their beliefs, that stand does not help Ukrainians. It harms them. If we are barred, by dictate, from learning about ourselves, we will not be able to develop policies that will benefit others, Ukrainians among them. That seems elementary. [Read More]
We Cannot Adequately Resist Without Reimagining the World We Want
By Greta Zarro, World Beyond War [April 29, 2022]
---- The past two and a half years of pandemic, food shortages, racial uprisings, economic collapse, and now another war are enough to make one feel that the apocalypse is unfolding. With globalization and digital technology, breaking news of the world's problems is at our fingertips at any instant. The scope of the issues we're facing as a species and as a planet can be paralyzing. … Millennials like myself and the rising Gen Z have the weight of the world on our shoulders. The American Dream is in tatters. The majority of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, and life expectancy has been dropping, since well before the pandemic. Many of my peers confess that they can't afford to buy homes or raise children, nor would they ethically want to bring children into what they see as an increasingly dystopic future. … As we resist the bad, how can we simultaneously "regenerate," building the peaceful, green, and just world that gives us hope and keeps us feeling nourished? The issue is that many of us are trapped in the very things that we are opposing, propping up the system we dislike. To have the capacity to change the world, we need to simultaneously liberate ourselves from the grind and reduce our own dependencies on the multinational corporations that are perpetuating climate chaos and imperialism worldwide. This necessitates a two-pronged approach to change-making that combines 1) what we more traditionally think of as activism, or policy advocacy for system change, with 2) implementing tangible practices at the individual and community level that advance social, environmental, and economic regeneration. [Read More]
---- The past two and a half years of pandemic, food shortages, racial uprisings, economic collapse, and now another war are enough to make one feel that the apocalypse is unfolding. With globalization and digital technology, breaking news of the world's problems is at our fingertips at any instant. The scope of the issues we're facing as a species and as a planet can be paralyzing. … Millennials like myself and the rising Gen Z have the weight of the world on our shoulders. The American Dream is in tatters. The majority of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, and life expectancy has been dropping, since well before the pandemic. Many of my peers confess that they can't afford to buy homes or raise children, nor would they ethically want to bring children into what they see as an increasingly dystopic future. … As we resist the bad, how can we simultaneously "regenerate," building the peaceful, green, and just world that gives us hope and keeps us feeling nourished? The issue is that many of us are trapped in the very things that we are opposing, propping up the system we dislike. To have the capacity to change the world, we need to simultaneously liberate ourselves from the grind and reduce our own dependencies on the multinational corporations that are perpetuating climate chaos and imperialism worldwide. This necessitates a two-pronged approach to change-making that combines 1) what we more traditionally think of as activism, or policy advocacy for system change, with 2) implementing tangible practices at the individual and community level that advance social, environmental, and economic regeneration. [Read More]
(Video) "We Created the Pandemicene": How the Climate Crisis Could Spark the Next Pandemic
From Democracy Now [April 29, 2022]
---- Climate change is forcing animal migrations at an unprecedented scale, bringing many previously disconnected species into close contact and dramatically raising the likelihood of viruses leaping into new hosts and sparking future pandemics. That's according to a new study in the journal Nature, which predicts that climate-driven disruptions to Earth's ecosystems will create thousands of cross-species viral transmissions in the coming decades. We speak with The Atlantic's Ed Yong, who says this new era can be thought of as the "Pandemicene," a time defined by the power of viruses over humanity and the wider world. "In a warming world, we'll get lots of these spillover events in which viruses find new hosts, mostly transferring between animal to animal but increasing the odds that they will eventually then spill over into us," says Yong. [See the Program] To read Ed Yong's article in The Atlantic, "We Created the 'Pandemicene'," go here.
The War in Ukraine
(Video) As Pentagon Chief Talks of "Weakening" Russia, Is U.S. Treating the Ukraine Conflict as a Proxy War?
From Democracy Now! [April 28, 2022]
----- The Biden administration has pledged billions in military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded in late February, and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said this week that the U.S. goal was "to see Russia weakened." Author and analyst Anatol Lieven, senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, warns that unless there is a commitment to finding a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it could become a U.S. proxy war with "very, very dangerous potential consequences." [See the Program]. Lieven recently wrote "The horrible dangers of pushing a US proxy war in Ukraine," Responsible Statecraft [April 27, 2022] [Link]
Experts Warn Against 'Perpetual War' in Ukraine as US Signals Long-Term Strategy
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams [April 27, 2022]
---- Earlier this week, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin openly acknowledged something that analysts and critics of American foreign policy have suspected since Russia attacked Ukraine in February: That one of the Biden administration's primary objectives in arming Ukrainian forces to the teeth is to severely degrade Russia's military capacity. … Insofar as weakening Russia's military in the short-term is necessary to help Ukraine fend off a deadly and illegal war of aggression, Austin's summary of U.S. aims was seen by some commentators as perfectly sensible and obvious. But other observers and anti-war campaigners warned that the Pentagon secretary's remarks hinted at a longer-term U.S. foreign policy agenda that, if pursued, could prolong warfare in Ukraine and heighten the risk of a direct military confrontation between Russia and NATO. [Read More] Planning for a more aggressive war in also rising in NATO. Read "What Germany's Rearmament Means for World Peace," by Michael Makowski, The Progressive [April 27, 2022] [Link]; and "Dangerous ambiguity: UK policy towards Ukraine," by Richard Norton-Taylor, Declassified [April 29, 2022] [Link].
How Could the U.S. Help to Bring Peace to Ukraine?
---- How the United States and its NATO allies act now and in the coming months will be crucial in determining whether Ukraine is destroyed by years of war, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, or whether this war ends quickly through a diplomatic process that brings peace, security and stability to the people of Russia, Ukraine and their neighbors. If the United States wants to help restore peace in Ukraine, it must diplomatically support peace negotiations, and make it clear to its ally, Ukraine, that it will support any concessions that Ukrainian negotiators believe are necessary to clinch a peace agreement with Russia. … One of the most critical steps that U.S. and NATO leaders can take to provide an incentive for Russia to agree to a negotiated peace is to commit to lifting their sanctions if and when Russia complies with a withdrawal agreement. … So policy decisions by the United States will have a critical impact on whether there will soon be peace in Ukraine, or only a much longer and bloodier war. The test for U.S. policymakers, and for Americans who care about the people of Ukraine, must be to ask which of these outcomes U.S. policy choices are likely to lead to. [Read More]
The Climate Crisis
Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Continue to Seize On Russia's War in Ukraine to Push Long-Term Interests
By Lee Fang, The Intercept [April 25, 2022]
---- Since the Mountain Valley pipeline was announced eight years ago, the proposal to transport fracked natural gas from West Virginia to export terminals in southern Virginia has faced regulatory hurdles and local opposition. The main concern is that the project runs through environmentally sensitive waterways and farmlands, putting them at risk of spills — while further promoting the development of fracking throughout West Virginia. Now, after nearly a decade of lobbying, the energy crisis sparked by Russia's war in Ukraine appears to have turned the tide, with federal regulators supporting a construction route that could bring the pipeline into service as early as next year. …The progression of the West Virginia pipeline project is one of many fossil fuel priorities now reshaped by the devastation wrought by the war in Ukraine. [Read More]
Israel/Palestine
(Video) Race, Apartheid, and Settler Colonialism
A webinar with Noura Erakat, Watson Institute [April 27, 2022]
---- Since 2021, several Israeli and mainstream human rights organizations, have concluded what Palestinians have long known and insisted upon: Israel is an apartheid regime. Despite the welcome, and long-awaited, synergy between them, there remains significant analytical divergence among these organizations and Palestinian activists and scholars. In particular, while the reports emphasize that Israel has become an apartheid regime as a result of its failure to establish a Palestinian state, Palestinians have pointed to Zionist ideology to insist that Israel did not become a discriminatory regime but is defined by such discrimination. This lecture will explore the implications of this analytical divergence by examining the juridical framework of apartheid embodied in the 1973 Convention consecrating it as a crime against humanity. It will also trace the Palestinian intellectual tradition to highlight that Zionism is not like apartheid but that the ideologies constitute intellectual and political bedfellows. Finally, by visiting the drafting history of UNGA Resolution 3379 (1975) declaring Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination, the lecture will help fill a glaring lacuna in the recent apartheid reports regarding racial theories of Zionism. [See the Program] Also of interest – "The international community must adopt the Palestinian narrative," b Middle East Monitor [April 28, 2022] [Link].
Our History
(Video) Harvard's Legacy of Slavery: New Report Documents How It Profited, Then Tried to Erase Ties
From Democracy Now! [April 28, 2022]
---- Harvard University released a 134-page report this week that detailed the school's extensive ties to slavery and pledged $100 million for a fund for scholars to continue to research the topic. The report documents dozens of prominent people associated with Harvard who enslaved people, including four Harvard presidents. Harvard commissioned the study in 2019 as part of a wave of schools reckoning with their pasts and the ongoing legacy of racial discrimination. "Harvard's ties to slavery begin with the founding of the institution," says MIT historian Craig Steven Wilder, author of "Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities." Wilder says that while this history is not new, Harvard worked for decades to erase its complicity in slavery. "We're really only beginning to reconcile and to really struggle with the deep ties that this institution has to slavery," he says. [See the Program] For more information on the Report's back story, read "In landmark report, Harvard confronts its ties to slavery," by Mike Damiano, Boston Globe [April 26, 2022] [Link].
Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa: The Continued Relevance of a Landmark Book
By Bill Fletcher, Jr., New Labor Forum [April 2022]
---- The Covid-19 pandemic has both illustrated and dramatized the ongoing North/South divide on planet Earth. The question of who has been able to obtain the vaccine and who has not; who is able to produce the vaccine, and who is constrained by corporate patent restrictions. … When one looks at planet Earth, we see global patterns in the manner in which the pandemic has spread and brought disaster, patterns that date back to the fifteenth century, patterns that are rooted in slavery and colonialism and, ultimately, in the construction of so-called race and racist oppression. When one looks at such patterns, one inevitably returns to the continent of Africa. The challenges facing contemporary Africa make no sense in the absence of an analysis that digs into the slave trade, colonialism, and the arbitrary division of the continent into alleged nation-states, many of which lack the resources to stabilize and advance. In this context, there have been a myriad of opinions—I would hardly call them analyses—as to the root causes of the challenge. All too often, such opinions place the blame on the Africans themselves or simply treat the slave trade and colonialism as matters from the past which lack contemporary relevance. In the early 1970s, however, a book was published that threw down the gauntlet and challenged the apologists of colonialism and neocolonialism to look at why and how Africa found itself in the conditions that it did. [Read More]
