Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
November 6, 2022
Hello All – According to the (often-wrong) public opinion polls, Democrats will not do well in Tuesday's election and the Republicans may take control of one or both houses of Congress. If this happens it is a disaster from which it will not be easy to recover. But we must; and to do this we must give serious thought to why our deformed democracy has been so compromised by the insanity that has taken over the Republican Party and propelled it to a position of dominance.
The sad truth is that the fight to restore democracy will not only be between Republicans and Democrats, but within the Democratic Party itself. Since the days of Bill Clinton, the Democrats have not been able to sustain a populist economic program for fear of losing the support of well-to-do Democrats, upon whom the party depends for financial support. As money has become the key ingredient for political success, this dilemma has only grown worse. The party leadership must not stray too far towards taxing and regulating the rich to benefit lower-income people. Yet, that's where the votes are.
The failure of the two campaigns by Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination for the presidency illustrates the problem. It was clear that it was Sanders, not Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, who had the best chance of obtaining support from at least a portion of the white lower-middle-class voters who ended up in the Trump camp. Yet the Democratic Party leadership saw that an economic program with a "preferential option for the power" was incompatible with retaining the financial support of its affluent base.
One of the things we can do – both in Tuesday's election and going forward – is to give vigorous support to entities such as the Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party. They are part of the True Reform wing of the Democrats. They support candidates like Jamaal Bowman when the Democrats are too timid and prefer traditional "moderates." They provide money and organizers for grassroots campaigns. Their endorsement is recognized as a signal that a candidate will work for ordinary people, not just the rich.
This election season support for the Working Families Party is also important just to keep them on the ballot for future elections. A few years ago, Governor Cuomo saw the Working Families Party as a threat to the welfare of his rich, corporate friends. He changed the rules so that the Working Families Party – or any other "third party" – would have to get 130,000 votes in a statewide election to ensure that they were on the ballot for the next year. This is a high hurdle, but a fact of NY life. So for this reason, if you are planning to vote for Democrats Kathy Hochul, or Jamaal Bowman, cast your vote for them on the Working Families line. Keep the reform movement ticking!
News Notes
Westchester has been troubled by several incidents of alleged antisemitism, and by subsequent disagreements about what is "antisemitism" and what is "free speech"? On Thursday, November 10th, a committee of the Town of Greenburgh will present an informative webinar, featuring both scholars and community activists. To learn more about the program and to register to attend, go here.
Dorothy Day – anarchist, pacifist, and candidate for sainthood – lived for many years in the South Shore neighborhood of Staten Island. From there she commuted each day by ferry to Manhattan, where she oversaw the projects of the Catholic Worker movement and the publication (sold for a penny) of the Catholic Worker publication. This week she was commemorated by the Staten Island Ferry, which commissioned its new ferry boat in her honor. Read more here.
To gain some attention to our climate disaster, activists in England have been splattering famous paintings (covered with glass) with soup and mashed potatoes and other substances. They do get attention; is this OK? Uganda's leading climate activist Vanessa Nakate had some interesting thoughts about this on a recent BBC program.
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 is 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; and to make a financial contribution to the project, 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. Another Facebook page focuses on the climate crisis. 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 "prompt" for this week's Rewards for stalwart Newsletter readers showed up on the CFOW page early this morning, thanks to EZ. Many readers will recall Bob Dylan's wonderful 1967 short film "Subterranean Homesick Blues." But new to me is the short film-in-response to Dylan's work by "Weird Al" Yankovic, "Bob," with all-palindrome lyrics. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
Fascism and Civil War
By Walden Bello, Meer Magazine [October 19, 2022]
[FB] – In light of the many prophesies of disaster, I think it is useful to look at how people have conceptualized 'fascism" nearly a century after its first appearance in Europe.]
---- [Author Paul] Mason seeks to provide a practical guide to stopping fascism in its tracks. But, as a Marxist, he knows that without a theory that accurately interprets reality, there can be no successful praxis. And a wrong theory may in fact be worse than no theory at all. This is what happened in early 20th century Italy and Germany. So focused were socialists and communists on reading fascism in terms of the struggle between the Capital and Labor that they failed to fully appreciate the relatively autonomous ideological dimension of fascist mobilization. To the Italian and German socialists and communists, the fascists were principally a tool of the most reactionary sections of Big Capital to crush the working class. That its ideational or ideological dimension was central was something their antennae were insensitive to and led to their inability to understand why the middle classes flocked to Mussolini and Hitler. This is not to say that Big Capital did not ally with the fascists. They did, but they did not create fascism. The process was much more complex. [Read More]
Iran: Thousands of Detained Protesters and Activists in Peril
---- Iranian authorities have escalated their assault against widespread dissent and protests through dubious national security charges against detained activists and grossly unfair trials, Human Rights Watch said today. On October 31, 2022, the head of Tehran Province's judiciary said that it had issued around 1,000 indictments against those arrested related to protests. … Iran has a long history of using vaguely defined national security charges against protesters and dissidents in trials that fall grossly short of international standards. Iran's intelligence agencies and state media outlets regularly publish and promote false claims against activists and dissidents. An informal network of activists inside Iran, known as the Volunteer Committee to Follow-Up on the Situation of Detainees, said that as of October 30, in addition to mass arrests of protesters, intelligence agencies have arrested 130 human rights defenders, 38 women rights defenders, 36 political activists, 19 lawyers, and 38 journalists, the majority of whom remained in detention. [Read More]
The War in Ukraine
The Backlash to Progressives' Ukraine Letter Shows the New Cancel Culture in Washington
By Peter Beinart, New York Times [November 4, 2022]
---- Rarely does a document so bland generate such heat. On Oct. 24, 30 progressive members of Congress wrote President Biden a letter about Ukraine policy. The letter blamed Russia for the war. It endorsed military aid to Ukraine and long-term security guarantees to ensure it remains "free and independent." And while it proposed "a proactive diplomatic push" to end the fighting, it also insisted that it "is not America's place to pressure Ukraine's government regarding sovereign decisions." Given that Mr. Biden has already said the war must end in a "negotiated settlement" and that his top advisers are already talking to their Russian counterparts, the missive largely encouraged him to continue what he's already doing. And yet its release sparked a ferocious backlash nevertheless. … Within a day of the letter's publication, its authors retracted it. They retracted it because a new Cold War atmosphere now pervades Washington. Politicians who suggest even modest compromises with America's great power foes face censure from both sides of the aisle. During the last Cold War, fears of appearing soft on Communism cowed progressive legislators into silence as the United States descended into war in Vietnam. After the attacks of Sept. 11, many Democrats acquiesced to the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq because they feared being called soft on terrorism. When it comes to Russia and China, another climate of conformity is now taking hold. Unless challenged, it could eventually bring disaster as well. [Read More]
The U.S. Choice Not to End This War Is Fog Fact #1
, World Beyond War [November 4, 2022]
---- What a fog fact is, is a fog fact, i.e. a fact that's not seriously disputed but also not widely known by people who would find it incredibly important. It's incredibly important to be aware that there are well-established facts out there that one doesn't know about but would care passionately about if one managed to get at them through the fog of sports, weather, and every idiotic utterance of Herschel Walker or Joe Biden. … The chief fog fact is that the U.S. and its NATO sidekicks have been preventing the ending of the war, not just by providing the weapons for one side of it, but by blocking negotiations. I don't mean just cracking down on Congress Members who dare to utter the word "negotiate." I don't mean just producing a whirlwind of propaganda claiming the other side is monsters with whom one cannot speak, even while negotiating with them on prisoner exchanges and grain exports. And I don't mean just hiding behind Ukraine, claiming that it's Ukraine that does not want to negotiate and that therefore the U.S., as loyal servant to Ukraine, must go on escalating the risk of nuclear apocalypse. I mean also the blocking of possible ceasefires and negotiated settlements. [Read More]
Also of interest - (Video) "Making Sense of the War in Ukraine," an [Link]; and "Solidarity and Negotiations to End the Ukraine War," b[Link]. Frequently updated maps depicting the Russian invasion of Ukraine can be found in the Financial Times [UK].
The Climate Crisis
COP27: a year on from the Glasgow climate pact, the world is burning more fossil fuels than ever
By Mathieu Blondeel, The Conversation [November 6, 2022]
---- The burning of fossil fuels caused 86% of all CO₂ emissions during the past ten years. Despite being the primary culprits of global heating, coal, oil and gas were barely mentioned in the official texts of previous UN climate change summits. That all changed at COP26 in November 2021, where the Glasgow climate pact was signed. The agreement contained the first ever acknowledgement of the role of fossil fuels in causing climate change. It also urged nations to phase out measures which subsidise the extraction or consumption of fossil fuels and to "phase-down" coal power. With COP27 beginning in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt, it's time for a progress update. Unfortunately, it's not good news. The ongoing energy crisis – and the short-term responses to it by governments around the world – have made it more difficult to meet the pact's goals of ending the dominance of fossil fuels. … One year on from the Glasgow climate pact, emissions pledges and promises have yielded to immediate security concerns. A short-term dash for gas and coal might make sense given the shock of Russia's invasion, but ideally sky-high fossil fuel prices would speed up the transition to renewables. Simply swapping fossil fuel dependence from one exporter to another is bad for the climate and certainly does not make energy supply more secure and affordable. Rather than an energy price crisis, the world is grappling with a fossil fuel price crisis. [Read More]
The moral crisis of the COP27 meeting - (Video) "Egypt Arrests Hundreds in Crackdown Before COP27 Climate Summit; Pressured to Free Alaa Abd El-Fattah," from Democracy Now! [November 3, 2022] [Link]; "What to Expect from COP27 in Egypt's Police State: An Interview With Sharif Abdel Kouddous," b [Link]; and "Nobel Laureates Press Egypt to Free Alaa Abd El Fattah, Writer on Hunger Strike, Before COP27," by [Link].
Climate Activism on the Brink of Nuclear War
---- One lesson the disastrous NATO-Russia war in Ukraine has taught us is that an attempt to decrease the climate catastrophe by kicking the oil, gas and coal habit must be carefully planned. A perfect recipe for turning popular opinion anti-green is to slam the brakes on fossil fuels with no substitute ready, as has happened to Europe due to its imbecilic sanctions on Russian energy. Those sanctions backfired, causing fuel prices to spike. Russia got rich, Europe is going broke and any popular support for ditching oil and gas evaporated. Good work Biden and birdbrain Eurocrats. The west shot itself in the head and set back, possibly a decade, the cause of transitioning off fossil fuels. But that transition must come; and sooner than a decade. The climate catastrophe is here, already scarifyingly evident in fires, killer heatwaves, massive droughts, floods, storms – and that's just the beginning. … So the question for climate activists is how to switch to renewables in times of looming nuclear war. [Read More]
The State of the Union
The Quality (or Inequality) of Life
By
[FB] - The Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis is Co-Chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival with the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II.
---- Ours is an ever more unequal world, even if that subject is ever less attended to in this country. In his final book, Where Do We Go From Here?, Reverend Martin Luther King wrote tellingly, "The prescription for the cure rests with the accurate diagnosis of the disease. A people who began a national life inspired by a vision of a society of brotherhood can redeem itself. But redemption can come only through a humble acknowledgment of guilt and an honest knowledge of self." Neither exists in this country. Rather than an honest sense of self-awareness when it comes to poverty in the United States, policymakers in Washington and so many states continue to legislate as if inequality weren't an emergency for tens, if not hundreds, of millions of us. When it comes to accurately diagnosing what ails America, let alone prescribing a cure, those with the power and resources to lift the load of poverty have fallen desperately short of the mark. [Read More]
Israel/Palestine
Will Biden stand up to Israel's new far right government?
B Mitchell Plitnick, Responsible Statecraft [November 3, 2022]
[FB] - Mitchell Plitnick is president of ReThinking Foreign Policy. His previous positions include vice president at the Foundation for Middle East Peace, director of the US Office of B'Tselem, and co-director of Jewish Voice for Peace.
---- When Israelis went to the polls on Tuesday, it seemed likely that Benjamin Netanyahu — the embattled, indicted, ex-prime minister — would emerge for the third time to retake his old former office. But it turned out that the polls delivered an even more decisive right-wing victory than many had expected and, while consecutive Israeli elections have, over the past decade, each produced the "most right-wing government in Israeli history," this round's strong, anti-democratic statement was much more powerful than past ones. … The election's biggest surprise is the resounding success of the radical right-wing Religious Zionism coalition, led by Bezalel Smotrich, which scored 14 seats, making it the third largest party in the Knesset and granting Smotrich and his partner, Itamar Ben-Gvir, enormous influence in the coalition politics of the next Israeli government. … The power and influence Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and other far-right figures will inevitably wield in the new Netanyahu government remain a concern, especially to leaders opposing the movement toward the global right. With the increasingly illiberal and anti-democratic tilt of the Netanyahu-led government, those concerns are certain to deepen and should provoke a reassessment in Washington's approach to diplomacy with Israel, particularly regarding the Palestinians. [Read More]
Also of interest - (Video) "From Terrorist Backer to Kingmaker: Itamar Ben-Gvir & Israeli Far Right Help Netanyahu Regain Power," from Democracy Now! [November 4, 2022] [Link]; (Podcast) "Israel Election: What's Behind the Rise of the Far Right?" [Link]; and "Israel's Far-Right Kingmakers Draw on U.S. Funding — Despite Terror Classifications," by Daniel Boguslaw, The Intercept [[Link].
Our History
[FB] – Comparative history helps us to see what's common and what's unique in similar historical events. Here is imo an interesting look at our two most significant nuclear near-misses since World War II.
Today's Hawkish Discourse Makes the Cuban Missile Crisis's Nuclear Brinkmanship Seem Sane
By Branko Marcetic, Jacobin Magazine [October 2022]
---- Sixty years ago today, the world breathed a sigh of relief after humanity's closest call with nuclear holocaust ended peacefully. Over the thirteen days from October 16 to 29, 1962, the Cuban missile crisis graphically showcased how easily catastrophe could be triggered in the nuclear age. Exactly sixty years later, the world is again at risk of nuclear "Armageddon," according to US president Joe Biden, as the same two states again find themselves locked in conflict over a neighboring state. … As both US foreign policy and its political climate come to resemble more and more the most dangerous and intellectually stifling years of the Cold War, it pays to look back at those thirteen fearful days sixty years ago and how that era's media and political establishment experienced them. What lessons does it hold for us today? [Read More]
How Close are We to Nuclear War? ["Able Archer," a NATO exercise in 1983]
---- For the first time in many years, the threat of nuclear war has burst into public awareness. Many proclaim we are at a pinnacle of danger not seen since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the U.S. and USSR faced off over Soviet nuclear missiles situated in Cuba. …. But, contrary to what Joe Biden recently stated, "We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis," there was another moment of peril in 1983 that is far less known. Daniel Ellsberg, who as a defense analyst advised the White House during the Cuban crisis, says it may have been even more dangerous. That was Able Archer 83, a NATO exercise that took place in the early days of November mimicking escalation to nuclear war in response to a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. [Read More]
