Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
April 11, 2022
Hello All – The world stands by, awaiting a renewed Russian assault on Ukraine, this time focused on the eastern and southern edges of the country. The apparent aim of this assault – perhaps Russia's Plan B – is to overrun the borderlands of Kharkiv, the Donbas provinces, and perhaps then moving westward to Odessa. If this is in fact Plan B, the goal would seem to be the construction of a Russian satellite regime in the areas mentioned above, isolating Ukraine from the Black Sea, safeguarding Crimea, and incorporating the Donbas.
Given the strength of Ukrainian resistance so far, Russia may not be more successful in this second offensive than they were in the first one. But whether they do or don't succeed, the question now on the Table is, How will this war end? And what are the US and European war aims? For it is increasingly clear, as indicated in some of the reading linked below, that protecting the Ukrainian people and minimizing the loss of life in this war are not the only war aims of the NATO powers.
This has been made quite clear in the response of both Europe and the USA to tentative terms of settlement floated by Ukraine and by Russia, and by the failure of both Europe and the USA to articulate any war aims of their own. For example, it is unclear whether the US supports the end of the Ukrainian conflict based, in part, on a firm declaration by Ukraine that it will never join NATO. It is abundantly clear that none of the NATO partners want anything to do with "security guarantees" for Ukraine if they should give up on joining NATO. European statesmen have been quoted in the news to the effect that they are very much against Ukraine agreeing to anything that gives up some or all of the Donbas to Russian control, as setting a bad precedent for the future. And the USA refuses to clarify if/whether, in the event of a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement, they would remove the war-time sanctions now placed on Russia.
These are things that peace advocates need to investigate and clarify, and demand that our government support what the Ukrainian people/leadership deems the best they can do for themselves under these very bad circumstances. It would be immoral and unacceptable for the USA and/or European countries to prolong this war, at the expense of more Ukrainian lives and destruction, in the hope that a military quagmire would weaken/overturn the ruling clique in Putin's Russia.
Some useful reading on war aims, negotiations, and the Ukraine war
"Chomsky: US Policy Toward Russia Is Blocking Paths to De-escalation in Ukraine," an interview with C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout [April 7, 2022] [Link].
"Washington appears to be absent from the process, seemingly holding out for a preferred outcome while the violence rages," by Ted Snider, Responsible Statecraft [April 9, 2022] [Link].
"Ukraine Is Not a Stage for American War Fantasies," by Richard Eskow, Common Dreams [April 7, 2022] [Link].
"The U.S. Has Its Own Agenda Against Russia," by Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept [[Link].
Beauty as Fuel for Change
CFOW's new initiative, Beauty as Fuel for Change, is now launched. Our founding statement says: "At this time when our #Democracy is at a crossroads, CFOW embarks on a new initiative for 2022. As Community leaders of this initiative, Concerned Families of Westchester stalwarts hope to inspire an exploration of expressive, creative visioning. We want to plant seeds of positive representations, to interrupt the negative, divisive patterns we live with today. A project to change the conversation, with creative expression that is hopeful and helpful and inspires us to create a better world! This is a vehicle for positive imaginings & a way to reach out beyond borders to build bridges between activists in all arenas and to let us unleash the power of creativity in our human community!" To learn more, go to our Facebook Group. To contact the project organizers, email BeautyAsFuel@gmail.com.
News Notes
While the devastation in Ukraine is bad enough, the ravaged land of Yemen may still rank as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis." Now a two-month truce has been brokered by the UN, and congressional progressives may be about to launch a new War Powers Resolution in an attempt to end the murderous US alliance with the instigator of the war, Saudi Arabia. Read more here.
Climate Can't Wait 2022 is a network of 40+ NY climate and social just groups that have united to advocate for a dozen climate-change bills and proposals in Albany. They have a big action planned for Earth Day in Albany; and leading up to it there will be a rally on Saturday, April 16th in Van Der Donck Park, The Bronx, at 2 pm. Sunrise Westchester, joined by allies from the NYCD16 Indivisible Environment Committee, promise "chanting, chalking, drumming, marching, and a few speeches." See you there!
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. 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 two off-beat offerings. Perhaps you saw this stunning performance by Denmark's starlings in a recent New York Times; here it is with video: "Gazing at the 'Black Sun': The Transfixing Beauty of Starling Murmurations" [Link]. And (true confession) I recall with a cringe my indignation when Malcolm X came to my college campus 60 years ago and, inter alia, claimed that Africa was the home to great kingdoms while "Europe" was still struggling with feudalism. As a Western Civ. student, I knew this couldn't be true; yet now Google has put on-line the ancient Timbuktu manuscripts of Mali that "which promise to re-balance the African Continent's place in world intellectual history." Check out this "Mali Magic" [Link].
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
Russia, Ukraine, NATO, and the Left
By March 31, 2022]
---- It is tough for leftists to be on the same side as the mainstream. We can easily feel at those times that we're missing something, that we're letting down the struggle, that by ganging up even on an admittedly bad actor we're helping strengthen the nemesis at home, allowing it to appear as the good guy. Ever since 1917, that has been the case with regards to the western Left and Russia. Before 1917, the Left saw the tsarist autocracy as the pinnacle of authoritarian reaction, an attitude that eased the path for the socialist parties of Russia's enemies to embrace World War I. But ever since the Russian Revolution, the Left has been wary of joining with any western bourgeois condemnations of the country, despite its own often fierce objections to Stalinism or the clampdown on internal democracy. As the war now enters its second month, we see this again in the case of Ukraine, despite the fact that Putin's Russia is far closer to the tsarist model than to anything from the Soviet period. In the first days after the invasion, it seemed like almost all that prominent western left commentators could talk about was not Russia but NATO. The invasion was wrong, they usually stated at the outset and then proceeded to focus on the "real" culprit, invariably the West. …Yet it's contrary to all internationalist principles, and plainly Americocentric, to give even a slight pass to an imperialism just because the country doing it opposes the country you think does it more. [Read More]
America's Vanishing Kingdom
April 5, 2022]
---- My dad's American dream was made of aluminum. Not that he would have put it that way. He did not talk much, and never about his dreams, but most days for nearly 25 years he headed off to a factory and turned aluminum and other metals into parts and a paycheck. He started at the Torrington Company, once one of the largest producers of metal bearings in North America and the biggest employer in Torrington, Conn., where we somehow found ourselves in 1980. Half a decade had passed since the fall of Saigon. My dad had been in and out of a re-education camp; we had been in and out of refugee camps. After we did stints in Thailand and Hong Kong, someone, somewhere sent us to Torrington. My father died there three decades later, having spent the rest of his life making industrial and military supplies in America's gun belt. … When the historian Andrew Friedman characterized the suburbs as a cover for the workings of U.S. imperial power, he was referring to the ways national security institutions like the C.I.A. hid their offices in places like leafy Langley, Va. He could have easily been talking about towns like Torrington, as quiet as they come and no less important in maintaining U.S. power. An industrial town, Torrington prides itself on being a place that made stuff: bikes, guitars, needles, bearings. Despite its reputation as the home of sleepy suburbs and commuter towns, Connecticut makes lots of stuff, including guns. … Howmet, where my father worked next, made airfoils, rings, disks, forgings and other parts for airplanes, including the infamous F-35 fighter jet. These companies made the parts, in other words, that turned men and machines into fighters. Or as an advertisement from Torrington's manufacturers during World War II put it: "We are 'Behind the Men Behind the Guns.'" My father became one of those men. [Read More]
(Video) Back from Kabul, Women's Delegation Urges U.S. & Europe to Unfreeze Afghan Funds Amid Humanitarian Crisis
From Democracy Now! [April 6, 2022]
---- Women in Afghanistan are protesting a number of gender-based restrictions from the Taliban, including an order in March to shut down public high schools for girls. In response, U.S. officials canceled talks with Taliban leaders in Doha, continuing to freeze billions in Afghan assets while Afghanistan spirals into economic catastrophe. We speak with Masuda Sultan and Medea Benjamin, two co-founders of Unfreeze Afghanistan, a coalition advocating for the release of funding for Afghan civilians. They recently visited Afghanistan as part of a U.S. women's delegation and say the U.S. has a responsibility to alleviate the suffering there, which it had a major role in causing over two decades of war. "It seems that every time there is a showdown between the Taliban and the international community, it's the Afghan people that suffer," says Sultan. "We are now having a kind of economic warfare against the Afghan people," adds Benjamin. [See the Program]. To learn more about Unfreeze Afghanistan, go here.
The War in Ukraine
Anti-War Voices Say More Diplomacy—Not 'Weapons, Weapons, Weapons'—Needed in Ukraine
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams [April 7, 2022]
---- In addition to the unprecedented economic measures they've collectively taken against Russia, the United States and other Western nations have been pouring billions of dollars worth of high-tech weaponry—from Javelin antitank missiles to armed "kamikaze" drones—into Ukraine for weeks as the country resists its neighbor's brutal war of aggression. Just Wednesday night, the Biden administration announced it has authorized another $100 million in arms and other equipment for Ukraine, bringing the total to $1.7 billion in military assistance since Russia launched its invasion. Proponents of the massive and sustained flow of western weapons into Ukraine see the shipments as a major factor behind the country's success thus far in beating back Russia's attempts to overtake major cities." …But anti-war voices have openly questioned the notion—expressed by Kuleba and others—that continuing to rush deadly weapons into a war zone will ultimately increase the likelihood of a diplomatic resolution, which Russia and Ukraine are both pursuing even as they accuse each other of heinous crimes and provocations. Observers have also charged the U.S. with not doing nearly enough to advance the ongoing peace talks. [Read More]
---- In addition to the unprecedented economic measures they've collectively taken against Russia, the United States and other Western nations have been pouring billions of dollars worth of high-tech weaponry—from Javelin antitank missiles to armed "kamikaze" drones—into Ukraine for weeks as the country resists its neighbor's brutal war of aggression. Just Wednesday night, the Biden administration announced it has authorized another $100 million in arms and other equipment for Ukraine, bringing the total to $1.7 billion in military assistance since Russia launched its invasion. Proponents of the massive and sustained flow of western weapons into Ukraine see the shipments as a major factor behind the country's success thus far in beating back Russia's attempts to overtake major cities." …But anti-war voices have openly questioned the notion—expressed by Kuleba and others—that continuing to rush deadly weapons into a war zone will ultimately increase the likelihood of a diplomatic resolution, which Russia and Ukraine are both pursuing even as they accuse each other of heinous crimes and provocations. Observers have also charged the U.S. with not doing nearly enough to advance the ongoing peace talks. [Read More]
Ukraine and NATO Expansion
---- To be absolutely clear, the attack on Ukraine was a clear violation of international law, and there is absolutely no excuse for this invasion. Putin is a war criminal for initiating this unjustifiable bloodshed. However, NATO in general and the United States in particular followed an unnecessary and dangerous policy of political and military expansion that quite predictably aggravated tensions in Eastern Europe. As part of his effort to dismantle the Soviet empire in 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev was naturally concerned to ensure the safety of Russia. … Given that bloody history and the fact that West Germany was part of NATO in 1990, it is not surprising that Russians were concerned about their security. Assurances were given by Western leaders. For example, on January 31, 1990, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher promised that NATO would rule out an expansion of its territory towards the Soviet borders.
Just over a week later, on February 9, during talks about the reunification of Germany, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker told Gorbachev that NATO would not expand, "one inch eastward". One day later, on February 10 at a meeting in Moscow, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Gorbachev agreed in principle to German unification and membership in NATO, as long as NATO did not expand to the east – and they formally signed the deal in September 1990. [Read More]
Will the U.S. Send Reaper Drones Into the Ukraine Whirlwind?
By Nick Mottern, Common Dreams [April 7, 2022]
[FB – CFOW stalwart Nick Mottern is a founder of the important project called Ban Killer Drones. Check out its website here.]
---- Two retired U.S. Air Force generals who were deeply involved in the early development of the U.S. drone war program have suggested introducing the notorious MQ-9 Reaper, the most powerful U.S. killer drone, into the skies over Ukraine. Decisions about whether and how to use Reaper and Grey Eagle drones in Ukraine can have profound consequences for humanity.
Such a move would open a new, even more dangerous phase in Ukraine's war in which Reapers, and MQ-1 Gray Eagle drones, both widely used in Afghanistan, might be put at the service of the Ukrainian military to attack Russian forces in Ukraine and, quite possibly, to conduct assassination and bombardment inside Russia. These drone operations, which would almost certainly be reliant on U.S. military personnel, could lead to a nuclear response from Russia if they are seen to further signal a determination by the United States to fragment Russia's central government and turn Russia into a failed state like Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan. The United States and western Europe waged wars of choice in these countries, presumably because the countries had not subordinated their national interests to the national interests of the United States and Western Europe. [Read More]
The Climate Crisis
Autocracies and Fossil Fuels Go Hand in Hand
By Bill McKibben, The Nation [April 11, 2022]
---- At first glance, last autumn's Glasgow climate summit looked a lot like its 25 predecessors. … But as I wandered the halls and the streets outside, it struck me again and again that a good deal had changed since the last big climate confab in Paris in 2015—and not just because carbon levels and the temperature had risen ever higher. The biggest shift was in the political climate. Over those few years the world seemed to have swerved sharply away from democracy and toward autocracy—and in the process dramatically limited our ability to fight the climate crisis. Oligarchs of many kinds had grabbed power and were using it to uphold the status quo; there was a Potemkin quality to the whole gathering, as if everyone was reciting a script that no longer reflected the actual politics of the planet. Now that we've watched Russia launch an oil-fired invasion of Ukraine, it's a little easier to see this trend in high relief—but Putin is far from the only case. Consider the examples. …. [Read More]
Israel/Palestine
US charitable donations are funding the displacement of Palestinians
By Mohammed Khatib, Mondoweiss [April 7, 2022]
---- In Bil'in, we have continued this tradition of steadfast resistance to colonization. Starting in 2005, residents of the community have organized weekly protests against the construction of the apartheid wall and Israeli land theft, literally putting our bodies on the line to defend our lands and illustrate the depth to which we are dedicated to Palestinian rights and self-determination. … We have initiated the Campaign to Defund Racism in honor of this tradition, and in light of the vital need to address the structures that allow Israeli settlement to continue. This campaign seeks to stop the exploitation of U.S. charitable status to fund the Israeli settler movement. The campaign addresses the financing of Israeli settler-colonialism, and responds to the decades-long battle to protect our lands and resources from the Galilee to Sheikh Jarrah to Bil'in to the Naqab. As settler organizations coordinate the theft of church properties in Jerusalem and build pressure on the state to displace Naqab Bedouins, we need our allies to take a proactive approach to change the laws in their communities to support our struggle on the ground. [Read More] Also informative is a program from Aljazeera, "Why is Ukrainian and Palestinian resistance treated differently?," [April 7, 2022] [Link].
Our History
Whose Revolution? The history of the United States' founding from below.
By Eric Foner, The Nation [April 4, 2022]
---- Over a century ago, the historian Carl Becker remarked that the American Revolution had two components: the contest with Great Britain over "home rule" and an internal struggle over political and economic power—or the question of who should rule at home. In the past few decades, as part of a broader shift in historical scholarship, the study of the revolution from below has become a major cottage industry. Indeed, just as most of the 1619 Project's content was not new to those familiar with recent writing about slavery and race, the idea that ordinary Americans did much to shape the revolution is now commonplace. What is new in Holton's latest book, Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution, is his effort to unite "the known and unknown revolutions" in a single narrative. [Read More]
