Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
July 31, 2022
Hello All – For many weeks we have had brief flashes of hope that there might be a settlement – or at least real negotiations – seeking to end the Russia-Ukraine war. And yet nothing happens. In an essay in The Nation this week, Professor Rajon Menon assembles facts that support his assertion that "Calls for a Diplomatic Settlement in Ukraine are Misplaced." Despite thousands killed on both sides and enormous property damage in Ukraine, no cracks appear in the determination of both countries to fight to the death. "All that matters now," he says, "is Russian and Ukrainian leaders' undiminished confidence that they will be victorious. So long as at least one side does not change its upbeat view, there can be no negotiation toward a political settlement, which will necessarily require difficult compromises by both of them."
And yet there are other parties to this war, namely the United States and NATO. It was not long ago that the USA was openly declaring that its goal in the present war, in addition to saving Ukraine, was to destroy Russia as a powerful state. And to this end, economic sanctions against Russia – the most sweeping sanctions in the history of the galaxy – combined with almost-open-ended military support for Ukraine – would do the trick. But now it appears that Russia has found ways to cope with the sanctions, bolstered by the high price of gas and oil and the willingness of non-US allies to buy these products at discounts. Moreover, the blowback from sanctions has caused turmoil in Europe, as high energy and food prices fuel popular protest and anticipate a recession. Several governments have already toppled. And so we have to ask whether the "larger interests" of the United States and NATO could be the weak link in Ukraine's ability to sustain a war.
The Professor's article also assumes stability in the (very small) governing circles in both Russia and Ukraine. Questions about a revolt of Russia's elite and Putin' inner circle arose early in the war, on the grounds that the war was insane, but so far it seems that Putin has simply shrunk the size of his circle and encouraged people not comfortable with what was happening to leave town. In Ukraine, on the other hand, there are many reports of instability within Zelensky's government and entourage. Many political parties have been banned, mostly on the left. Purges and arrests of government circles have taken place, most typically when Ukrainian officials offer to collaborate with Russian occupiers. Zelensky's announced yesterday that he was ordering hundreds of thousands of civilians living in eastern Ukraine, in the Donbas, to leave their homes, to evacuate the fighting area. An overwhelming refugee problem just in time for winter. This seems irrational, to put it mildly.
And so it might be that – rather that a frozen conflict in place for many more months – it could be Ukraine and its supporters who will seek to end the fighting, to end the terrible costs that the war is inflicting on the USA, on NATO, and on Ukraine itself.
The "Tonkin Gulf Incident"
This coming Thursday will be the anniversary of the 1964 Tonkin Gulf Incident, which opened the door wide to further escalation by the United States in its war against Vietnam. The "Incident" grew out of US naval involvement in support of a covert operation against what was called North Vietnam, and then an imagined attack by North Vietnam against one of the destroyers (falsely) claimed to be in "international waters." In the event, President Johnson produced a resolution giving him broad powers to fight a war in Vietnam, which was quickly passed by Congress. The vote was unanimous on the House, but in the Senate there were two dissenters, Alaska's Ernest Gruening and Oregon's Wayne Morse. Morse was a passionate supporter of democracy, of "the people's" right to control foreign policy. Here is a clip from a TV interview Morse made at the time. Each year we honor Ernest Gruening and Wayne Morse and thank them for their bravery; we will always remember them.
News Notes
New York's congressional redistricting disrupted both congressional districts in Westchester. Jamaal Bowman is running for re-election in a revised CD 16, but the revisions in CD 17 pushed out Mondaire Jones when Sean Patrick Maloney, formerly of CD 18, decided that the new CD 17 was a better fit for him. But Maloney has been challenged by liberal Democrat Alessandra Biaggi. Especially for those in the new CD17, check out her campaign website and her campaign platform. And of course she welcomes your donations.
Today National Public Radio (NPR) reported that "Alleged police misconduct cost Yonkers, N.Y., millions. The complaints kept coming." NPR examined records of alleged police misconduct filed between 2007 and 2020. The "misconduct" usually involved excessive force, and the payments were made to have the cases dismissed before going to a jury. The NPR story has a lot of useful information; check it out here.
US churches continue to consider their attitudes toward Israel and Palestinian political rights. Earlier this month, the Episcopal Church passed several significant resolutions, including one on "Freedom of speech and the right to boycott." Read about the background to this important story here.
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!
Rewards!
This week's Rewards for stalwart readers focus on the new Roger Waters tour, "This is Not A Drill." As political commentator Kevin Gosztola raves in his review of the performance in Minneapolis, it is a "revolutionary concert experience," one with incredible staging and seating in the round that can barely be captured on You Tube. But – give it a try – here is a recording of the July 23rd concert in Detroit. In a simpler format here is a recent version of his anti-war classic, "Two Suns in the Sunset." Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
(Video) Ukrainian Feminist: We Need Western Solidarity in Fighting Russian Imperialism
From Democracy Now! [July 28, 2022]
---- We speak to Oksana Dutchak, a Ukrainian feminist and co-editor of the leftist journal Spilne, who fled to Germany because of the "inability to live under the constant pressure of fear" as Russian invaded. She says Western leftists and feminists who have misgivings about Western military support for Ukraine often overlook that Ukrainians are fighting for self-determination and against imperialism. "What does it mean to stop the war? How it should be stopped? There are questions which should be in the center if you want to give a political answer to the challenges Ukrainian society is facing," she adds.[See the Program] Dutchak's manifesto in favor of national defense, and critical of those in the West (and elsewhere) who oppose sending arms or aid to Ukraine, is must reading for anyone wrestling with this issue. Read "10 Terrible Leftist Arguments against Ukrainian Resistance" here.|
(Video) Economist Jayati Ghosh: Global Debt Crisis Is Perfect Storm of Unrest, Economic Disaster, Starvation
From Democracy Now! [July 27, 2022]
---- We look at the looming possibility of a global recession amid rising inflation, the pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine. World financial institutions and wealthier countries should take stronger actions such as writing off debts that are crippling developing nations, says Jayati Ghosh, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "This is just completely lack of political will. It's not because we don't know what to do." Her piece in The Guardian is headlined "There is a global debt crisis coming — and it won't stop at Sri Lanka," and she also discusses other countries on the brink of an economic collapse, including Pakistan, Nepal, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Panama and Argentina. [See the Program] For those attempting to follow the turmoil in Sri Lanki, Ghosh has an article in the [UK] Guardian last week, "There is a global debt crisis coming – and it won't stop at Sri Lanka [Link].
Biden Should Remove Cuba from the Infamous State Sponsors of Terrorism List
---- As the Cuban government celebrates the July 26 Day of the National Rebellion–a public holiday commemorating the 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks that is considered the precursor to the 1959 revolution–U.S. groups are calling on the Biden administration to stop its cruel sanctions that are creating such hardship for the Cuban people. In particular, they are pushing President Biden to take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Being on this list subjects Cuba to a series of devastating international financial restrictions. It is illegal for U.S. banks to process transactions to Cuba, but U.S. sanctions also have an unlawful extraterritorial reach. Fearful of getting in the crosshairs of U.S. regulations, most Western banks have also stopped processing transactions involving Cuba or have implemented new layers of compliance. This has hampered everything from imports to humanitarian aid to development assistance, and has sparked a new European campaign to challenge their banks' compliance with U.S. sanctions. [Read More] And for a brief reminder of the role of "July 26th" in Cuban history, check out this short video "M-26-7 - The 26th of July Movement (Cuba)."
War & Peace
After the Fist Bump
By Phyllis Bennis, In These Times [July 21, 2022]
---- Biden's first presidential trip to the Middle East had a lot to do with consolidating U.S. power and countering Chinese and Russian influence there, strengthening the Israeli- and Saudi-led anti-Iran coalition under U.S. leadership, and increasing arms sales. The timing had a lot to do with the war in Ukraine, and the price of oil at home, with global shortages and price hikes linked to war-driven sanctions against Russian crude. Biden's trip had a message for all of that. MBS and the Israeli leadership have been eager to reaffirm their tight partnerships with the United States, following their strategically consistent but symbolically extreme embrace by Trump. Biden's greetings made clear that consistency was indeed his agenda, and that apartheid, war crimes and murder of journalists would pose no barriers to those special ties between Washington and its favored Middle East allies. But far more consequential were the actions — what Biden did and didn't do during his meetings. [Read More]
The Climate Crisis
Humanity can't equivocate any longer. This is a climate emergency
By Rebecca Solnit and Terry Tempest Williams, The Guardian [UK] [July 28, 2022]
---- We are declaring a climate emergency. Everyone can, in whatever place on Earth they call home. No one needs to wait for politicians any more – we have been waiting for them for decades. What history shows us is that when people lead, governments follow. Our power resides in what we are witnessing. We cannot deny that Great Salt Lake is vanishing before our eyes into a sun-cracked playa of salt and toxic chemicals. Nor can we deny that Lake Mead is reduced to a puddle. In New Mexico a wildfire that began in early April is still burning in late July. Last August, the eye of Hurricane Ida split in two – there was no calm – only 190mph winds ripping towns in the bayous of Louisiana to shreds; and 7m acres in the American west burned in 2021. The future the scientists warned us about is where we live now. The climate emergency has been declared over and over by Nature and by human suffering and upheaval in response to its catastrophes. The 2,000 individuals who recently died of heat in Portugal and Spain are not here to bear witness, but many of the residents of Jacobabad in Pakistan, where Amnesty International declared the temperatures "unlivable for humans", are. The heat-warped rails of the British train system, the buckled roads, cry out that this is unprecedented. The estimated billion sea creatures who died on the Pacific north-west's coast from last summer's heatwave announced a climate emergency. The heat-devastated populations of southern Asia, the current grain crop failures in China, India, across Europe and the American midwest, the starving in the Horn of Africa because of climate-caused drought, the bleached and dying coral reefs of Australia, the rivers of meltwater gushing from the Greenland ice sheet, the melting permafrost of Siberia and Alaska: all bear witness that this is a climate emergency. So do we. Yet the anxiety we feel, the grief that is ours, pales in comparison to the ferocity of our resolve. [Read More]
The King and the Queen of the Endangered Monarch Butterfly: A Story of Proactive Environmentalism
---- Call them the king and the queen of the endangered monarch butterflies. Ole Schell and Elizabeth Weber, both of whom grew up in a world of privilege, have put their own privilege to work for the environment. They are leading the charge in the San Francisco Bay Area to save the beloved monarchs from extinction. This summer they mounted a stunning exhibit in the tiny town of Bolinas in western Marin County to inform and educate citizens about the plight of the butterflies (Danaus plexippus) and about efforts to create habitat for them and bring them back to former nesting grounds where they have not been seen for years. If and when change comes, it often comes from places like Bolinas on the margins, not at the centers. There were an estimated ten million monarchs in the 1980s. In July 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature issued a report that said the population has declined by an estimated 99.9 percent. [Read More] In an excellent short video, Ole Shell describes "Creating the West Marin Monarch Sanctuary."
Israel/Palestine
AIPAC declares war on any support of Palestinian human rights
ByJuly 28, 2022]
---- AIPAC's all-out assault on Andy Levin and Donna Edwards reflects their ongoing effort to shift the boundaries of acceptable politics on Israel. AIPAC spent well over $3 million to defeat Levin, using their new political action committee, the United Democracy Project, to leverage the race. That is an enormous amount of money in a single district primary race. But this is the AIPAC strategy, and it has proven effective. Last week, AIPAC used over $6 million in campaign spending to defeat Donna Edwards in Maryland, a progressive with a strong congressional track record who was trying to get back into Congress. The race is looking grim for Levin. A poll released on July 21 showed Stevens with a commanding lead of 58% to 31% over Levin. The poll could be overstating the margin, and the head of Target Insyght, Ed Sarpolus, which carried out the poll noted that, "sometimes polls like this get much tighter by election day," but it's a huge margin. Sarpolus also stated that "Unless something happens, Haley is going to win." [Read More]
Our History
Thinking about George Orwell
FB – Many people have read George Orwell's books Animal Farm (1945) and 1984 (1949), and some have read his memoir about the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia (1938), or his earlier novels about lower-middle-class life in England in the 1930s. His writing typically reflects the themes of authority/illegitimate authority, and the need for free thinking and free speech. Recently I read two shorter pieces by Orwell that I would like to share, as I think they bear on Our Times:
George Orwell's 1940 Review of Mein Kampf
---- Suppose that Hitler's programme could be put into effect. What he envisages, a hundred years hence, is a continuous state of 250 million Germans with plenty of 'living room' (i.e. stretching to Afghanistan or thereabouts), a horrible brainless empire in which, essentially, nothing ever happens except the training of young men for war and the endless breeding of fresh cannon-fodder. How was it that he was able to put this monstrous vision across? It is easy to say that at one stage of his career he was financed by the heavy industrialists, who saw in him the man who would smash the Socialists and Communists. They would not have backed him, however, if he had not talked a great movement into existence already. [Read More]
The Freedom of the Press: Orwell's Proposed Preface to Animal Farm (1945)
---- Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news – things which on their own merits would get the big headlines – being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that ʻit wouldn't doʼ to mention that particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this is easy to understand. The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question [Read More]
