Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
July 18, 2022
Hello All – President Biden's visit to Saudi Arabia was a terrible disaster for those seeking peace and justice in the Middle East. While the visit is presented to the US public as an effort to increase the supply and lower the price of gasoline, the visit will further militarize the Middle East and increase arms sales to a repressive dictatorship. As Noam Chomsky and others note in articles linked below, Biden's trip and his agenda are in keeping with decades of US policy towards Saudi Arabia, including the policies of President Trump.
For supporters of peace and justice in the region, it is the US support for the Saudi war against Yemen that causes the most pain. The United Nations has described the situation in Yemen as "the world's greatest humanitarian disaster." By the end of 2021, an estimated 377,000 people had died in the war, including 154,000 directly due to armed conflict, while an additional 223,000 people died due to hunger, disease, and lack of proper medical care. A majority of these indirect deaths are believed to be children under the age of 5. Moreover, attacks by the Saudi-led coalition have destroyed infrastructure across Yemen. Saudi forces have targeted hospitals, clinics and vaccinations centers. Blockades have starved the population and made it hard for hospitals to get essential medical supplies. After more than five years of war, Yemen's health system has almost collapsed.
Our government has tried to cover up its role in enabling and supplying weapons for the bloody war in Yemen. A leaked report issued by the (US) General Accounting Office last month concluded that the Saudi-led alliance "has carried out deadly strikes using combat jets and munitions that have been supplied and maintained largely by American companies with the approval of the State Department and the Pentagon." US arms sales to Saudi Arabia were supported by President Obama at the outset of the war against Yemen, and then peaked during the Trump presidency, with US companies such as Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed selling billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia and its war-coalition partner the United Arab Emirates. But protests against the war surged after the Saudi murder of journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, and after the CIA concluded that the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, had ordered the assassination. It was on the wave of these protests that presidential candidate Joe Biden declared Saudi Arabia and its ruling royal family a "pariah," which should be made "to pay a price." But now, with the price of gasoline high and the fall elections looming, humanitarian concerns are cast aside.
It is way past time for the United States to end its support of Saudi Arabia's war against Yemen. Pushing back against Biden's pro-war policies, on Thursday Democratic Senators, including Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, introduced a joint resolution aimed at ending the unauthorized U.S. military role in the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen. The House introduced a similar bill last month led by Reps. Jayapal (D-Wash.) and DeFazio (D-Ore.) and supported by Westchester's Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones. The Senate resolution will be voted on soon, an important step towards peace in Yemen. Please call NY Sens. Schumer (202) 224-6542 and Gillilbrand (202) 224-4451. Ask them to support the Joint Resolution to end US support for the Saudi war against Yemen. Thanks.
Some useful reading on Biden's trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia
Repeating the colonial mistakes of the past
By Terry Ahwal, Mondoweiss [July 17, 2022]
---- As Americans, we should all be terrified of what President Joe Biden accomplished on his trip to the Middle East. At first, we were offended because he sidestepped the plight of the Palestinian people who live under a brutal Israeli occupation, but as we watched him throughout this trip became apparent, it is much worse than what has been reported. It appears that President Biden came to the Middle East to implement the roadmap created by Benjamin Netanyahu. [Read More]
(Video) "Shameful": Biden's Trip to Saudi Arabia for More Oil Ignores Human Rights Abuses, Khashoggi Murder
From Democracy Now! [July 14, 2022]
---- One of Biden's aims is to convince Saudi Arabia to increase oil production, an answer to pressures at home over skyrocketing gas prices from the Russian war in Ukraine. "If we're willing to sacrifice for oil prices, there are much less heinous sacrifices to be making than to continue military support for the governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE," says Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now. [See the Program]
Biden's Middle East Trip Contains Echoes of Trump's Policies
An interview with Noam Chomsky, Truthout [July 15, 2022]
---- U.S. relations with the family kingdom called "Saudi Arabia" have always proceeded amicably, undisturbed by its horrifying record of human rights abuses, which persists. That's hardly a surprise in the case of "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history … probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment," as the State Department described the prize in the mid-1940s, when the U.S. wrested it from Britain in a mini-war during World War II. More generally, the Middle East was regarded at a high level as the most "strategically important area in the world," as President Eisenhower said. While assessments have varied over 80 years, the essence remains. [Read More]
News Notes
Much of the USA is acting as though Covid is a thing of the past, or perhaps part of our "new normal" that we will have always with us, but is not dangerous. Yet the daily table of "deaths" and "hospitalizations" in The New York Times and else suggests this is not true, and that we are facing yet another surge of the disease. Useful reading/viewing on this can be found in science writer Ed Yong's recent segment on Democracy Now!, "(Video) "Reinfection Wave": Ed Yong on BA.5 Omicron Variant Spread Amid Mask Mandate Rollbacks, Funding Cuts" [July 14, 2022].
John Froines, a member of the famous "Chicago Seven" trial in 1969, died last week. John was an active member of the peace movement and a planner/organizer for the demonstrations in Chicago in 1968; but he differed from his co-defendants in having a serious day job, as a research chemist, both before and after 1968. This obituary from the Washington Post recounts John's post-1968 career as a researcher and activist to protect Americans from the toxic impact of pollution and unsafe materials. In this, a sustained career in doing good, John reflects the career arcs of thousands of 1968-er protesters.
I got a call from an opinion polling outfit yesterday, wanting to know my opinion on political things, and especially the Democratic primary election for Jamaal Bowman's congressional seat. OK, I said; and answered the normal flow of questions coming from the Democratic Party mainstream, attempting to drive a wedge between "acceptable" reforms (Joe Biden) and unacceptable reformers (AOC, "socialists"). At the end, I pointed out that no question addressed the main questions of our day: the dangers of (nuclear) war and the climate crisis. That's OK, said the interviewer; lots of other polls raise those questions. But they don't. As Noam Chomsky points out in a recent interview, both questions are largely ignored by both opinion-makers and opinion-seekers. On any list of "priorities," both questions rank near the bottom or simply don't make this list: "Humanity Faces Two Existential Threats. One Is Nearly Ignored."
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. 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!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
No Starvation for Oil
By Kathy Kelly, Waging Nonviolence [July 11, 2022]
---- As President Joe Biden embarks on his trip to the Middle East, those of us back home must acknowledge the suffering the United States has caused in places like Yemen. … The war has caused one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, creating an unprecedented level of hunger in Yemen, where millions of people face severe hardship. It seems that his trip will not include Yemen, though if this were truly a "sensitive" visit, he would be stopping at one of Yemen's many beleaguered refugee camps. There he could listen to people displaced by war, some of whom are shell-shocked from years of bombardment. He could hear the stories of bereaved parents and orphaned children, and then express true remorse for the complicity of the United States in the brutal aerial attacks and starvation blockade imposed on Yemen for the past eight years. From the vantage point of a Yemeni refugee camp, Biden could insist that no country, including his own, has a right to invade another land and attempt to bomb its people into submission. He could uphold the value of the newly extended truce between the region's warring parties, allowing Yemenis a breather from the tortuous years of war, and then urge ceasefires and settlements to resolve all militarized disputes, including Russia's war in Ukraine. He could beg for a new way forward, seeking political will, universally, for disarmament and a peaceful, multipolar world. [Read More]
The European Union: Myth and Reality
[FB – Discussions of the Ukraine War, and the roles of the USA and Europe, have generally factored in "NATO," but there has been little discussion of the European Union. Here is a useful primer on the EU, which Ukraine seems poised to join. What will this mean for Ukrainians, or for Europe?]
---- The European Union is run on a day-to-day basis by Germany for German interests. Yet for this crucial issue of Ukraine, German leaders have failed to look not only after the interests of Europe over which it exercises tutelage but those of Germany itself. One would imagine that Germany has common interests in mutual security accords with Russia, complemented by common interests in enhanced trade and investment relations. But no. Even apart from the unhinged warmongering German Greens, Washington DC has decreed that the pursuit of such common interests should not take place. Given that the German elite takes German economic self-interest very seriously, the subjugation to Washington is powerful indeed. … What did one expect from the European Union? The sincere pro-Western Maidan demonstrators had swallowed the kool-aid on Europe. Europe has rules comparable to the standard fare of the IMF, which also came visiting Ukraine to dictate the true path. You can't enter the promised land unless you jettison your sovereignty and commit to dismantling a range of public services and social support systems. Ticket of entry. Which is why the then Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych rationally said no thanks as we can't afford it. [Read More]
(Video) In "Immense World," Science Writer Ed Yong Shows "How Animal Senses Reveal Hidden Realms Around Us"
From Democracy Now! [July 15, 2022]
---- The Atlantic's science writer Ed Yong, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for his coverage of the pandemic, joins us to discuss his fascinating new book, "An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us." He says it is a way of "expanding on the world around us through the eyes and noses and ears of other creatures we share this planet with… I hope that it's also a call for empathy, a call to do radical acts of perspective taking for creatures whose lives are very different to ours. I think one could argue, reasonably, that a lot of the problems that we're facing now, the pandemic and otherwise, stem from a catastrophic failure of empathy. But I think empathy is a muscle. I think you can build it, and I think if you repeatedly flex it, it's easier to extend it in every aspect of our lives, to people whose experiences are very different to ours, to creatures whose lives and senses are very different to ours. I hope that the book helps people to get in touch with that, at a time when I think we all sorely need more of it. [See the Program]
The "Pink Tide" in Latin America
Latin America's Second Wave of Left-Wing Governments Could Be More Powerful Than the First
By Kyla Sankey, Jacobin Magazine [July 2022]
---- Until recently, Latin American commentators were widely reporting on the inevitable "ebbing" of the pink tide. By the mid-2010s, the commodity boom that began in the early 2000s had rapidly gone into decline. The Right had grasped the opportunity to destabilize its opponents through campaigns of sabotage, propaganda, and scandal, and left-wing governments were facing crises on all fronts. Whether through elections (Argentina), "parliamentary coup" (Brazil), "silent coup" (Ecuador), or outright military coup (Bolivia), by the second half of the last decade, the left turn seemed to be giving way to the rise of a new right in the region. For their part, social movements appeared to be in a state of fatigue or, even worse, direct confrontation with left governments, and initially lacked the energy or will to defend them against the right-wing assault. If Lula wins in Brazil, by the end of the year, Latin America's six largest economies will for the first time all be under left-wing rule of one kind or another. It is no small feat, then, that today there is no better place for thinking about alternatives to neoliberalism and authoritarianism than Latin America. Gustavo Petro's historic win in Colombia will likely be joined by Lula's success in Brazil's October presidential election to conclude a cycle of electoral victories for the Left. By the end of the year, for the first time in its history, Latin America's six largest economies — Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru — should all be under left-wing rule of one kind or another. [Read More]
The Pink Tide Surges in Latin America
By Roger D. Harris, Dissident Voice [July 12th, 2022]
---- While the political balance between progressive and reactionary states south of the Rio Grande continues to tip to the left, even the corporate press pronounced Biden's June Summit of the Americas meeting in Los Angeles a flop. Most recently, Colombia elected its first left-leaning president, following similar victories in Chile, Peru, and Honduras, which in turn followed Bolivia, Argentina, and Mexico. And the frontrunner in Brazil's presidential contest slated for October is a leftist. However, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and especially Cuba – countries led by explicitly socialist parties – are critically threatened by US imperialism, subjected to severe sanctions. In short, the geopolitical situation in the Western Hemisphere remains volatile. What does this portend for US hegemony and for socialism? [Read More]
The Climate Crisis
Are cities ready for extreme heat?
By John Morales, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [July 18, 2022]
--- Heat is the silent killer. It doesn't roar like the winds in a hurricane or tear roofs off homes like a tornado. But it is deadly, all the same. In the United States, heat kills more people than any other weather hazard. As global warming drives average temperatures higher, dangerously hot episodes can be expected to proliferate. It is extremely unlikely that temperatures could have reached their deadly-hot levels in India without manmade global warming—levels that researchers say were made 30 times more likely by the climate crisis. Some 70,000 dead across Europe in a 2003 heat wave. Up to 56,000 in Russia in 2010. North America's most memorable heat waves in recent years include one in greater Chicago in 1995 that killed at least 700 people, and a "heat dome" event last year that killed hundreds in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. Worldwide, millions that would otherwise succumb to high heat could be saved if countries implemented policies that reduced and stopped the burning of fossil fuels. The United States alone could save 7.4 million souls across the planet if it reached President Biden's goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, a study by the Climate Impact Lab consortium estimates. This doesn't even take into account other climate hazards—just heat. Acting on the climate crisis today at the local, national, and international level can keep millions from morbidity and death. Heat is silent. You don't have to be. [Read More]
Israel/Palestine
The Israel Lobby's New Campaign Playbook
By Peter Beinart, Jewish Currents [July 15, 2022]
---- In retrospect, one of the most important elections in recent US history occurred last year in a bright-blue congressional district in northeastern Ohio. The early favorite was Nina Turner, a well-known former state senator and co-chair of Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign. But in February, several months after Turner launched her bid, two fledgling pro-Israel organizations, Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) and Pro-Israel America, endorsed her primary opponent, Cuyahoga County Democratic party chair Shontel Brown, presumably because of Turner's stance on Israel-Palestine. …The template created last year in Ohio—pro-Israel groups spending extraordinary sums of money to defeat progressive candidates—has this year gone national. It has transformed the way Democrats wage congressional primaries and laid bare the financial chasm separating the pro-Israel establishment from its liberal Zionist and pro-Palestinian opponents. But it has also illustrated the interconnections between the effort to preserve unconditional support for Israel and the effort to preserve economic policies favored by corporate power. If the formula born in Ohio succeeds—and so far it is succeeding—it will create a new generation of congressional Democrats unwilling not only to hold the Israeli government accountable for its misdeeds, but unwilling to hold America's energy, health care, and financial industries accountable either. Critics of Israel often complain about the phenomenon known as "progressive except Palestine." What this year's campaigns make clear, however, is that if the Democratic Party isn't progressive on Palestine, it's unlikely to be genuinely progressive on almost anything else. [Read More]
Our History
Canons of the Cold War: The Weaponization of Literature
---- During the Cold War, stemming from propaganda programs of the Second World War, the American State spearheaded a series of literary and cultural programs intended to foster a socio-political environment among European 'intellectuals' that would allow for the widespread perpetuation of liberal-democratic ideology. This produced a system in which culture was explicitly weaponized on a mass-scale by the American State. These operations initially began during the de-Nazification of post-war Germany but, as the Soviet Union began to pose a serious threat to America's European influence, shifted to anti-communism under the pretense of creating a space in which artistic-intellectual activity could exist free from authoritarian interference. During this time, the American State organized and funded conferences, literary magazines, libraries, publishers, writers, and translation programs. It also ran parallel operations targeting art, theatre, cinema, science, and journalism. The culmination of America's Cold War cultural operations was the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which has been described as both the cultural counterpart to the Marshall Plan and as a cultural NATO. The CCF organized, funded, and directed cultural activities and publications in an attempt to establish a global network of sympathetic artists. Whereas the Marshall Plan focused upon economic liberalization, the CCF focused upon intellectual liberalization, establishing what was purported to be an ideology-free zone in which artistic freedom was able to exist. In reality, it was a space in which American State ideology was continuously reproduced, serving to bolster and secure American hegemony. [Read More]
