CFOW Newsletter - Focus on Impeaching Mad King Donald

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

October 13, 2019

 

Hello All – It was inevitable that the mere initiation of impeachment proceedings against President Trump would generate a torrent of irrational and potentially dangerous acts on his part, some of which would amount to impeachable offenses themselves. (See Marjorie Cohn's essay, "Trump's Stonewalling of Impeachment Inquiry Is an Impeachable Offense.")  And this week Trump's incoherent stance toward Turkey's invasion of northeast Syria has generated protests from previously durable allies in the Republican Senate.  The arrest while trying to flee the country of two of Mayor Giuliani's henchmen, and the unraveling of the Trump team's prohibition on current and former administration officials testifying to Democrat-controlled investigating committees is a further sign of Trump Besieged.

 

It is clear that the wheels are falling off the Trump presidency.  The loose screws in our president are on full display.  The pressures coming from congressional investigations and the rising dissent from Trump's former staff and supporters are causing the president to act more irrationally. As Rebecca Solnit wrote in the article linked below: "President Trump and the upper echelons of the executive branch are at war with the legislative branch, the rule of law, the constitution, federal civil servants and the American people. Tuesday's White House refusal to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry only escalates their defiance and their chaos."

 

Where will this lead? It is increasingly clear (at least to me) that Trump's refusal to cooperate with whatever remains of an "impeachment process" has moved the power struggle among the US political elite to a new level.  Even the Watergate impeachment of President Nixon did not seem to hold the same promise of high-intensity sword fighting among the main players.  Below I've linked good/useful essays that address the widening conflict.  Interesting Times!

 

President Trump is at war with the rule of law. This won't end well

By Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian [UK] [October 9, 2019]

---- Do Americans still have a government? I do not know. What I do know is that President Trump and the upper echelons of the executive branch are at war with the legislative branch, the rule of law, the constitution, federal civil servants and the American people. It's a conflict that pulls in many directions, and if the president threatened civil war the other day as something that could happen if he doesn't get his way, we can regard the ordinary state of things as a low-intensity civil war or a slo-mo coup that's been going on from the beginning. Tuesday's White House refusal to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry only escalates their defiance and their chaos. The chaos takes so many forms. Innumerable stories have made it clear that even the president's own aides and cabinet members treat him like a captive bear or a person having a psychotic breakdown – like someone unstable who must be kept from harming himself and others. They have done that by heaping on the flattery, and by warping and limiting the information he receives, and often by doing their best to prevent his directives from being realized. [Read More]

 

Trump Is Mentally Unfit, No Exam Needed

[FB - Three mental health professionals who contributed to "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" cite recent actions that confirm their worries.] [October 11, 2019]

To the Editor: Re "Trump Flies Into the Cuckoo's Nest" [Link] [Gail Collins, October 10, 2019]

---- Gail Collins makes a point that we have been articulating seriously since the publication of our book, "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump," two years ago: President Trump is mentally unfit for office. Our publications have been derided as violations of the Goldwater Rule, "armchair psychiatry" and political bias dressed up as professional opinions. But, as mental health professionals, we have felt a duty to address a public health crisis: a mentally unfit person in charge of the world's most powerful military and its nuclear weapons. We have found ample evidence of his instability and grandiosity in the president's own words and public statements, most recently confirmed in his referring to "my great and unmatched wisdom," coupled with yet another threat to "totally destroy and obliterate" a foreign country. [Read More]

 

News Notes

When we were younger, October 12^th was Columbus Day. Today 8 states and more than 130 cities in 34 states observe Indigenous Peoples Day as an alternative to Columbus Day. For an interesting guide re: how this came about, read "Indigenous Peoples' Day: Rethinking How We Celebrate American History," Smithsonian Magazine [October 11, 2019] [Link].  And if another example is needed of how racism lurks in every corner of American history, recommended is "How Italians Became 'White'," by Brent Staples, New York Times [October 12, 2019] [Link].

 

In the UK, a slanderous campaign vilifies the Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn.  Led primarily by rightwing interests, the campaign alleges both the party and the leader are guilty of anti-Semitism.  In a letter to the UK's leader liberal newspaper The Guardian, Noam Chomsky and many UK intellectuals and political leaders claim "Flawed reporting on antisemitism claims against the Labour party." [October 11, 2019] [Link]

 

The "School Strike for Climate," pioneered by Sweden's Greta Thunberg, has come to Hastings. For the second Friday in a row, a Hastings middle school student has taken her spot in front of Village Hall from 12:30 to 3:15.  If you see her, give her some love and join the strike.

 

Things to Do/Coming Attractions

Saturday, October 19^th – World Can't Wait will hold a rally demanding "Remove Trump/Pence" at Union Square, NYC, starting at 5 pm.  For more information, go here.

 

Sunday, October 20^th – The United Nations Association of Westchester invites us – and especially "motivated students" – to join them for a county-wide showcase of student projects and campaigns that respond to the climate crisis.  The event will be held at the Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 468 Rosedale Ave in White Plains, from 3 to 5 pm.  To register, and for more information, go here.

 

Sunday, November 3^rd – The next CFOW meeting is on Sunday, November 3, from 7 to 9 pm.  We will have lots to discuss, as the impeachment saga will be over the top, with many collateral impacts on foreign and domestic policy.  I'm thinking about asking another speaker, as the last two meetings w/a speaker were successful.  Any thoughts or suggestions?

That's it for this week.

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

Some Interesting/Useful Reading

 

Non-violently hitting our stride

From Extinction Rebellion [October 13, 2019]

---- As we approached the first weekend of the October Rebellion, it was humbling and inspiring to see that rebels showed no sign of slowing down. In fact, day 5 was marked by a series of exciting milestones: XR Dublin had their first arrests; XR Israel reached a new level of direct action, as rebels glued themselves to the National Stock Exchange in Tel Aviv; and Aussie rebels pioneered the delightful new concept of 'Civil Disco-bedience'. While some sites have been cleared of permanent roadblocks, rebels stayed resilient everywhere: hunger strikers in Italy entered their fifth day, and declared their intent to continue until the Italian prime minister agreed to meet them. … In the words of a rebel in France: 'each in our own way, but ultimately together.' That is how we will win. [Read More] Also very useful is "Can Extinction Rebellion Build a U.S. Climate Movement Big Enough to Save the Earth?" by Alleen Brown, The Intercept [October 12 2019] [Link]. Justin Gillis is a former environmental reporter for the New York Times.  Recommended is his op-ed, "Fire, Floods and Power Outages: Our Climate Future Has Arrived," [October 12, 2019] [Link]

 

Inside the Deportation Courts

By Madeleine Schwartz, New York Review of Books [October 10, 2019 issue]

---- Because immigration courts are under the control of the attorney general, the executive branch can issue new rules that send lawyers scrambling for new ways to represent their clients. Both Sessions and Barr have done this, limiting the meaning of asylum by redefining who counts as a legitimate victim. Immigrants who fear for their lives because of domestic violence find it much more difficult to obtain asylum, as do immigrants whose lives are threatened because their relatives were threatened or killed. One immigration official I talked to compared the attorney general's role to that of the appeals courts, whose decisions bind judges in lower courts. But appeals courts are meant to act independently of the executive branch, not to further its interests. Trump has often called the idea of asylum a "loophole" in the immigration system. … Trump's attempts to close possible paths to immigration have meant ramping up activity in court. Some immigration judges operate out of courthouses, others work out of detention centers, and some have been transferred—both in person and virtually—to courts along the border. Over the course of a week in the Rio Grande Valley, I visited four courts: two immigration courts, one federal court, and new tents set up for immigration hearings. It was common to see people be forced to leave the US after hearings lasting minutes. [Read More]

 

Pathways to Peace

By Mairead Maguire, Counterpunch [October 11, 2019]

[FB – Mairead Maguire is the co-founder of Peace People and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her work in organizing nonviolent action to end the fighting in Northern Ireland. She gave this speech on October 4^th at NoWar2019 in Limerick, Ireland.]

---- I am very happy to be with you all at this conference. I would like to thank David Swanson and World Beyond War for organizing this important event and also all those attending for their work for peace. I have long been inspired by the American Peace activists and it is a joy to be with some of you at this conference. A long time ago, as a teenager living in Belfast, and social activist, I was inspired by the life of Dorothy Day, of the Catholic Worker. Dorothy, a nonviolent Prophet, called for an end to war and the money from militarism, to be used to help alleviate poverty.   Alas, if today Dorothy (RIP) knew that one in six individuals in the USA is in the Military-Media-Industrial-Complex and armament costs continue to rise daily, how disappointed she would be. Indeed, one third of the USA military budget would eliminate the entire poverty in the USA. We need to offer new hope to a humanity suffering under the scourge of militarism and war. … We are also challenged to build structures through which we can co-operate and which reflect our interconnected and inter-dependent relationships. .. I believe if we are to survive as the human family, we must end Militarism and War and have a policy of general and complete disarmament. In order to do so, we have to look at what is sold to us as the driving forces for militarism and war. [Read More]

 

Rojava: Millions of civilians in northern Syria threatened

By Bülent Gökay and Lily Hamourtziadou, Links [October 11, 2019]
---- On October 6, the White House declared US troops would be withdrawn from northern Syria and no longer be in the immediate area ahead of a Turkish military operation. It also added the US would not support or be involved in the operations, and that Turkey would now be responsible for the fate of all Islamic State (IS) fighters captured during the last two years (totalling 12,000 men and 70,000 women and children) and currently held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Defence Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish and Arab militias. … Trump announced his intention of withdrawing US troops from the region in December, claiming there was no reason for US troops to stay there since IS was on the verge of complete defeat. Following this, the US administration came to an agreement with Turkey to establish a 10-15-kilometre-wide safe zone, referred to as a peace corridor, along the Turkey-Syria border in northern Syria. As a result, in August some of the Kurdish forces removed their posts and left this zone under the joint control of US and Turkish troops. It seems that this was not enough to satisfy Turkey's security concerns. … This area is not just a military zone occupied by fighters; it is home to between 500,000 and 1 million Kurds and approximately 1.5 million Arabs, Assyrians and Yezidis, many of whom are refugees who have escaped from war zones in Syria and Iraq. The 2014 population estimate of Rojava was 4.6 million. Sandwiched between the Turkish army, the Turkey-supported Free Syrian Army and the Kurdish-Arab SDF militias, these civilians face the risk of losing their homes, lands and lives. This is the unfortunate fate of millions who happen to have been born in this geographic region; in Middle Eastern countries that, in the recent past, have experienced foreign occupation, violent wars and civil wars. [Read More]  Also insightful: "Kurdish Fighters Always Feared Trump Would be a Treacherous Ally," by Patrick Cockburn, The Independent [UK] [October 11, 2019] [Link]

 

Our History

WBAI Signs Off. Its Future Remains Uncertain.

By Arthur Schwartz, The Nation [October 11, 2019]

---- For 59 years, in the center of the FM dial in New York City, WBAI has been a beacon of unabashedly leftist "community-based" radio. On Monday, October 7, at around 7 am, WBAI-NY essentially went off the air. … The Pacifica radio network remains, after 46 years, one of the more fascinating institutions of the postwar counterculture. The first successful experiment in listener-sponsored radio, Berkeley's KPFA began as an idea of Lewis Hill and his allies in 1946 who envisioned a radio station that would promote pacifist awareness in the face of the looming Cold War. … KPFA's iconoclastic programming led New York philanthropist Louis Schweitzer to donate the license of his commercial FM station, WBAI, to the Pacifica Foundation in 1959. In the late '50s and early '60s, the radicalism of Pacifica's broadcasts was exemplified by its eclectic musical programming and educational and political series on issues rarely dealt with by the mainstream media—such as the Kennedy administration's subterfuge in pursuing a nuclear arms buildup. While these elements remain vital aspects of broadcasts now, the Vietnam War and the upsurge of protest against it had an immense impact on the role played by the network's then-three stations during the '60s. WBAI's changing moniker indicates the course of its transformations from the '60s until today: "Free speech radio" evolved into "free radio," finally "community radio."  https://www.thenation.com/article/radio-pacifica-wbai/

 

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on Impeachment [part three]

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

October 7, 2019

 

Hello All – The start of impeachment proceedings against President Trump is long overdue.  Almost since Day One of his presidency he has engaged in "high crimes and misdemeanors" that have injured thousands and thousands of people and brought disgrace on this country.  For the welfare of humanity, he should be removed from office as soon as possible.

 

Questions arise, however, about how or though what means President Trump should be impeached.  Are US war crimes during his tenure "impeachable offenses," or are the crimes committed against future generations by his actions on global warming a sufficient "misdemeanor" to impeach him?  Back in 2017, for example, Texas Rep. Al Green called for Trump's impeachment, and he continued to do so, on the grounds of Trump's racism and bigotry. Or must impeachment rest on a violation of a specific legal or Constitutional provision, such as the allegations connected with Trump's phone call to the president of Ukraine.  Scholars differ.  We/CFOW have generally agitated for "impeach the Trump Agenda," but the Democrats have committed to the narrower strategy. While there is no sense in bickering with the Democrats over how they will frame Articles of Impeachment, we think that Trump's racism, his fanning the flames of climate chaos, and his contempt for international treaties and international law such as those that apply to e.g. the War in Yemen or the horror at our southern border must be constantly on our minds.  Just as Richard Nixon was not charged with "high crimes and misdemeanors" for the War against Vietnam or the bombing of Cambodia, Donald Trump will not be held accountable for the real damage he has done to the world.  But Impeach We Must.

 

It is unlikely that the Democrats will be able to contain "the impeachment process" in a neat, orderly box.  Already President Trump has announced his non-cooperation, thus a la Nixon expanding the range of "abuses of power" that may eventually bring him down.  And we note the dependence of the impeachment process on the FBI and especially the CIA, two institutions that stalwarts of a certain age know to have their own political agenda, ones not always in the National Interest.  (And we note the irony of the mantles of heroism being placed on CIA "whistleblowers," while real whistleblowers such as Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden linger in prison or exile.)  Finally, we think we need to take seriously Trump's threats to not go quietly (again, a la Nixon) into disgrace and exile, hinting at civil war and becoming president for life.  The Interesting Times continue.

 

The Climate Crisis and the Extinction Rebellion

Though the mainstream media has moved on, the climate crisis and the worldwide uprising to stop it continue. Today (Monday) marked the beginning of a month of worldwide protests, many of them linked to the direct-action group Extinction Rebellion.  The Extinction Rebellion comes to us from the UK, but over the last year has become implanted in the USA.  In NYC today the protests were centered on Wall St., where "blood" was sprayed on the Wall St. bull statue, while protesters engaged in a "die-in," representing the future that awaits us if the Reign of Fossil Fuels is not stopped asap. About 90 people were arrested on this first day of the NYC protest. Protests also took place in London, Amsterdam, Melbourne, and many other cities.  In London, 280 people were arrested by evening, including two in their 80s who were arrested for spray-painting a government building with "Life, not death for my grandchildren."  For more information about this week's events, go here.

 

And in Hastings, last Friday a middle-school student began a "school strike for climate," following in the footsteps of Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.  The student says she will strike each Friday from 12:30 to 3:15 pm, taking her stand for the climate in front of the Hastings Village Hall.  If you see her, drop by to wish her well; and let us hope that she is soon joined by many other students.

 

Save the Hastings VFW Park

For the second week in a row we passed out leaflets at our Saturday vigil with some information about the Village of Hastings' plan to do major renovation on the park, renovations that we fear will eliminate the Plaza on which CFOW has held 500 Saturday events over the past decade, and which has also been used by many others – including the Village itself – to host gatherings and speak out to the public.  The project is premised on receiving $200,000 in federal block-grant money.  The grant application, detailing the goals and scope of the proposed project, can be found on the Hastings Village website. The architect's site plan can be found on page 45 of the grant application.  While the Mayor and the Downtown Working Group state that the site plan is only a "placeholder," it is consistent with the intention of the project to spend $400,000 (of which $200K is Hastings' match) for major changes in the park.  CFOW, which most values the Plaza as a unique example of a public space for speaking and performances, proposes instead that the Park be repaired and maintained, not dug-up and replaced.  If you have comments or questions about this project, you can email the Downtown Working Group.

 

CFOW Nuts & Bolts

Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester.  We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.)  Our leaflet and posters for our rallies are usually about war or the climate crisis, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. We (usually) meet on the first Sunday of each month, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society.  Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.  And 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!

 

That's it for this week.

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

GOOD READING/FEATURED ESSAYS

 

(Video) From Trump to Nixon: "Watergate" Film Explains "How We Learned to Stop an Out of Control President"

From Democracy Now [October 4, 2019]

---- President Donald Trump called openly Thursday for the leaders of Ukraine and China to investigate Trump's campaign rival Joe Biden and Biden's son Hunter for corruption. Trump's explicit remarks during a press conference came as leaders of the Democratic-led House pushed ahead rapidly with their impeachment investigation. … We spend the hour looking at back at the Watergate scandal, which led to Nixon's resignation in 1974 and is the focus of a documentary titled "Watergate — Or: How We Learned to Stop an Out of Control President." Drawing on 3,400 hours of audiotapes, archival footage and declassified documents, the film chronicles the dramatic events surrounding the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in 1972, which precipitated Nixon's eventual resignation two years later under threat of impeachment. We play clips from the film and speak with its director, Charles Ferguson, who won an Academy Award for his documentary "Inside Job." [See the Program]

 

Rojava ["the Syrian Kurds"] in the Crosshairs of Turkey's Dictator Erdogan

[FB] – This morning's New York Times announces:  "In a major shift in United States military policy in Syria, the White House said on Sunday that President Trump had given his endorsement for a Turkish military operation that would sweep away American-backed Kurdish forces near the border in Syria."  The Times forgets to note that these "American-backed Kurdish forces" have established the remarkable state and society of Rojava, a de facto self-governing unity of some two million Kurds.  While to the Trump administration they were only useful fighters against ISIS who can now be betrayed and discarded in the interests of US policy towards Turkey, the Kurds have built a new world for themselves around the principles of anarchism and eco-feminism, based in large part by the Kurds' jailed leader having discovered the writings of the American anarchist and environmentalist Murry Bookchin while in prison. Learn about these remarkable people and their amazing efforts at self-organization (in wartime) via some of the good/useful readings below.  Long Live Rojava!

 

(Video) "A Shakespearean Act of Betrayal": Trump Agrees to Let Turkey Invade Kurdish-Controlled Syrian Area

From Democracy Now! [October 7, 2019]

---- U.S. troops have begun withdrawing from northeast Syria as Turkey prepares to invade Kurdish-controlled areas of the country. For years, the Kurds have been close allies to the United States in the fight against ISIS. On Sunday, however, the White House released a statement that surprised many in the region, announcing that Turkey would be "moving forward with its long-planned operation in Northern Syria," following a phone call between President Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in that operation, and the United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial 'Caliphate,' will no longer be in the immediate area," the statement said. The announcement marks a major shift in U.S. policy, since as recently as January President Trump threatened to "devastate Turkey economically" if it attacked Kurdish forces in Syria. Meanwhile, in neighboring Iraq, the death toll continues to rise as police and soldiers fire on people defying a government-imposed curfew in mass anti-government protests. For more on events in the region, we speak with Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper. [See the Program] In the latter part of this interview, Cockburn speaks about the massive uprising now underway in Iraq.  For more on this, recommended are Cockburn's recent article, "The Iraqi people are in revolt," The Independent [UK] [October 7, 2019] [Link]; and "Iraqi Gov't Teeters as Protest Death toll Rises to 100, with 4,000 Wounded," by Juan Cole, Informed Comment [October 6, 2019] [Link].

 

For more on Rojava and how it works – "Experiment in Self-Rule in Rojava," Le Monde diplomatique [September 2017] [Link]; "Report from Rojava: What the West Owes its Best Ally Against ISIS," by Debbie Bookchin, New York Review of Books [April 4, 2019] [Link]; and for a useful video, "Rojava - Northern Syria: The Kurds between Conflict and Democracy," from Deutsche Welle

[Link]. Old friend Meredith Tax wrote a book about the women of Rojava: A Road Unforeseen: Women fight the Islamic State; you can read a good review here.

 

(Podcast and Text) The Silencing of Kashmir: Arundhati Roy on India, Modi, and Fascism

From The Intercept [October 3, 2019]

---- [Kashmir] is the most militarized place on earth. And perhaps right now there are more Indian troops, and have been more Indian security forces there since 1990, more than probably were deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan by the U.S., you know, and that is a valley that has been locked down. If you follow, for example, there's the Jammu and Kashmir civil service, JKCCS it's called. There's a report, a torture report, which is so chilling to read. I mean, what happened in Abu Ghraib, all these kinds of forms of torture, and variations of it have been commonly practiced there, you know. So, according to the Associated Press 70,000 people have been killed in this conflict. It's a valley covered with graveyards. Every village has its own graveyard. The gravestones grew out of the ground like young children's teeth there, you know. It's a place where you have had people fighting for self determination for 70 years. And that fight became militant because of the repression from 1990 onwards. India's moral position on Kashmir has never, ever been a moral position. It is a kind of moral corrosion that has corroded all of us. And now, now the world is looking at it. [Read More/Hear the Podcast]

 

Five Years Later, Do Black Lives Matter?

By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Jacobin [October 2019]

----In the five years since Mike Brown Jr was murdered and the streets of Ferguson, Missouri erupted, police across the United States have killed more than four thousand people, a quarter of them African American. Five years later, do Black Lives Matter? Confronted by an array of internal and external obstacles, "the movement" has stalled even as a white supremacist rules from the White House. … Recognizing the stubborn duration of police abuse and violence is less about pessimism than it is about sobriety. There is no quick fix to police brutality. The police are so difficult to transform because the bipartisan political establishment needs them, especially when it decides it has nothing left to give us. … But what is the value of protecting the "rule of law" when the law itself prioritizes what is valued by the elite, while ignoring what is valued by most of us? In other words, neither the law nor law enforcement is on our side, and that ultimately makes the movement to reform either extremely difficult. [Read More]

 

Hypersonic Weapons and National (In)security

By Rajan Menon, LobeLog [October 6, 2019]

---- Hypersonic weapons close in on their targets at a minimum speed of Mach 5, five times the speed of sound or 3,836.4 miles an hour. They are among the latest entrants in an arms competition that has embroiled the United States for generations, first with the Soviet Union, today with China and Russia. Pentagon officials tout the potential of such weaponry and the largest arms manufacturers are totally gung-ho on the subject. No surprise there. They stand to make staggering sums from building them, especially given the chronic "cost overruns" of such defense contracts — $163 billion in the far-from-rare case of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Voices within the military-industrial complex — the Defense Department; mega-defense companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Boeing, and Raytheon; hawkish armchair strategists in Washington-based think tanks and universities; and legislators from places that depend on arms production for jobs — insist that these are must-have weapons. Their refrain: unless we build and deploy them soon we could suffer a devastating attack from Russia and China.

The opposition to this powerful ensemble's doomsday logic is, as always, feeble. [Read More]

 

Bernie's Heart. And Ours.

By Norman Solomon, ZNet [October 6, 2019]
---- Along with being where all blood goes, the heart is an enduring metaphor. As Bernie Sanders recovers from a heart attack, now might be a good time to consider some literal and symbolic meanings.

Bernie immediately used his heart trouble to advance a central mission. From the hospital, he tweeted: "I'm fortunate to have good health care and great doctors and nurses helping me to recover. None of us know when a medical emergency might affect us. And no one should fear going bankrupt if it occurs. Medicare for All!" That's the kind of being "on message" we so badly need. It's fully consistent with Bernie's campaign and his public life. ("Not me. Us.") He has never been a glad-hander or much of a showman. He's always been much more interested in ending people's pain than proclaiming that he feels it. … That's where the heart as metaphor is apt. Bernie has a huge and eternally healthy heart, filled with the lifeblood of empathy and dedication. In essence, that's what the Bernie 2020 campaign is all about. As he has been the first to say, it's not about him, it's about us. How much compassion and commitment can we find in our hearts? [Read More]

 

Our History

The Forgotten History of America's Worst Racial Massacre

By Nan Elizabeth Woodruff, The New York Times [September 30, 2019]

---- One hundred years ago this week, one of the worst episodes of racial violence in American history unfolded in Elaine, Ark., a small town in the Mississippi Delta. Details remain difficult to verify. The perpetrators suppressed coverage of the events, and the victims, terrified black families, had no one to turn for help. In fact, local police were complicit in the killing of untold numbers of African-Americans.  The Elaine massacre was among the worst instances of racial violence in American history, and it took place in a region, the Delta, that defined itself by its violence and oppression. One African-American, William Pickens, described the Mississippi Delta as "the American Congo." Elaine, though an isolated plantation region, was part of the broader social upheaval following World War I that came in the form of massive strikes and racial confrontations, both at home and abroad. … Americans have yet to reckon with this horrible past. Elaine was probably the largest massacre of black people in post-Civil War history, yet no federal investigation was ever conducted. This neglect by the government came in the face of people who merely sought to exercise their basic rights to secure a lawyer to defend their property. America cannot address the inequality, poverty, inadequate education, the racially biased criminal justice system, and the limited life chances of black people that define contemporary society until the nation confronts and acknowledges this history. The obligations of the past weigh heavily upon the present. [Read More]

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on Impeachment

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

September 29, 2019

 

Hello All - CFOW welcomes the long-overdue move to impeach President Trump. Trump's "crimes and misdemeanors" began on Day One, with his barring of refugees, and have continued ever since. For more than two years our nation has been emotionally battered by his racism, his sadism towards immigrants and refugees, his ignorance and recklessness towards efforts to stem our climate crisis, and his shoot-from-the-hip approach to foreign policy and war.  Impeach him now, as soon as possible.

 

However, we think the Democrats are using poor judgment in focusing impeachment only on his Ukraine phone call to get dirt on Joe Biden.  From the viewpoint of the Democratic Party leadership, it may make sense to a simple and what is believed to be a slam-dunk issue.  With no chance of impeachment passing the Senate, a quick process in the House will check the impeachment box – thus ensuring party unity – and get the congressional process out of the way as soon as possible in order to focus on the 2020 presidential election.

 

Certainly it would be more satisfying to conduct impeachment hearings against the Trump Agenda itself. Criminality runs through all Trump has done. Ending US participation in the Paris Climate Agreement ensures climate chaos will get dangerously worse. Pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Agreement endangers everyone in the Middle East and raises the prospects of war.  The illegal and sadistic policies directed toward immigrants and refugees on our southern border ("Children in Cages") are a national disgrace.  And there is much more. As many have remarked, impeaching Trump on a phone call to Ukraine is like jailing Al Capone for tax evasion.

 

Perhaps another reason for a short and sweet impeachment process is that (I suspect) there are many issues and much murkiness in this struggle at the top of the US power structure.  The role of Joe Biden in the Obama administrations support for the 2014 Ukraine coup and the subsequent US manipulation of Ukraine politics will be an interesting story someday.  The phone call itself was related to a belief – not crazy – that the Ukraine government of 2016 sought to support Hillary Clinton's candidacy.  And it seems naïve to anyone with a memory to think that the CIA has no stake in the power struggles of the day.  I've linked an article below (there are many) that pursues these and similar lines of thought.

 

Let us hope that, against the wishes of the Democrat leadership, the impeachment hearings come to include the more serious of Trump's crimes and misdemeanors. Indeed, it is likely that Trump, like Nixon, will melt down during investigation and that new discoveries will reveal unknown dimensions of his criminality. Cover-ups of the cover-up seem likely.  These are interesting times.

 

Some Useful Reading/Viewing on the Impeachment Crisis

A video/reading of Trump's phone call with Ukraine's President Zelensky can be read/seen here.

 

The Whistleblower's complaint can be read here.

 

(Video) James Risen: Whistleblower Complaint Shows "Trump Is a Habitual Criminal" Abusing His Office

From Democracy Now! [September 27, 2019]

---- Democrats are ramping up efforts to impeach President Trump for pressing the president of Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Nearly 90% of House Democrats now support impeachment … For more on the unfolding scandal, we speak with James Risen, senior national security correspondent for The Intercept. [See the Program]

 

Another Day, Another Scandal. What the 'Trump-Ukraine Collusion' Is Really About

By Daniel Lazare, Antiwar.com [September 28, 2019]

---- From initial report to America's greatest scandal ever in just four days – surely this was some sort of Washington speed record. Since the moment Trump was elected, Democrats have been searching for "the Big One," as New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd put it, the scandal "that's going to finally bring Donald Trump down" – and now at last they found it. … Now that Trump stood accused of conspiring or coordinating with the Ukrainian government – or at least trying to – surely the Big One was finally at hand. But it's not. One reason is that there's no sign of a quid pro quo. … Another reason for skepticism is that charges of a smear job clearly misplaced. If anyone's activities are suspicious, it's Biden's, and Trump can hardly be blamed for wanting to get to the bottom of them. [Read More] And for more skepticism, read "The Democrats' Impeachment Attempt Against Trump Is A Huge Mistake," from Moon of Alabama [September 25, 2019] [Link].

 

Save the VFW Park – Home of CFOW

In the fall of 2002, CFOW stalwarts began what became a weekly vigil/protest in Dobbs Ferry against the looming war against Iraq. During and after the war, our Saturday vigils continued; though about 10 years ago we moved from Dobbs Ferry to Hastings, assembling at the VFW Park each Saturday noon with posters, leaflets, and a banner-de-jour to protest war and injustice. And so over the past decade the VFW Plaza has become a CFOW home to some 500 weekly peace & justice gatherings.

 

For those not familiar with Hastings' VFW Park, it is in the center of the village, with an inviting green lawn descending a steepish hill to a small semi-circular stone amphitheater about 25' by 30'.  A few small steps separate the plaza or stage from the sidewalk, and each Saturday we line up on the plaza along the sidewalk to hold our signs and banner and give out leaflets to passersby.  There is also interaction with people in cars: honks, thumbs-up, and occasional shouts of disagreement.  Frequently people we know or don't know stop to discuss the issue of the day – on last Saturday, for example, impeachment.

 

This is a classic example of a "public sphere," now rapidly vanishing from the urban and suburban architectural scene.  This public space is used for official events – the home port for the Veterans' Day and Memorial Day parades, for example – or as a venue for unofficial events such as a rally against white-nationalist graffiti found near our schools; or a rally against Trump's banning of refugees, which was attended by many local politicians; or for a display of baby strollers, a protest against Trump's policy of separating families at our southwestern border.  It is also a place where the Girl Scouts sell cookies, young entrepreneurs set up a lemonade stand, and skateboarders practice new tricks.  As a public sphere, I can think of no similar location in Westchester. It gives the village a true center, something lacking in most villages; and we can view it with pride as a symbol of the village's public support for citizen activism.

 

It is therefore truly disappointing to learn that the Village of Hastings is seeking federal funding to replace the VFW Plaza and the lawn behind it with a new park. In the funding application submitted to the County, the plaza/amphitheater bordering the sidewalk would be removed, and the lawn would be brought down to the sidewalk, with many changes on what is now the grass area. The submitted plan can be viewed at here, with a sketch of the site plan on page 45.

 

Certainly the VFW Plaza could use some repairs – new benches, for example – and the lawn behind it could use more chairs and some trees to replace those recently lost.  But the possibility of "free money" (a grant of $200K), to be matched by $200K of Village money, has lured our Board of Trustees into proposing a big project, one that can attract federal funding. The grant proposal has been submitted, after a "process" that was rushed and included little time for thought or community input, and we will know in January if the plan has been funded.  While the Village committee working on this assured a meeting last Monday that if the proposal was funded the plan could be changed, we are concerned that the plaza/amphitheater and beautiful green lawn will be lost. The VFW Park is one of the things that make Hastings unique among the Rivertowns, and it should be preserved and maintained, not dug up and replaced. If you would like to express an opinion about the Village plan, please call our mayor, Nikki Armacost, at 914 478 3400 ext 651; or you can send a letter to the Board of Trustees, Hastings Municipal Building, 7 Maple Ave., Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706.

 

CFOW Nuts & Bolts

Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester.  We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.)  Our leaflet and posters for our rallies are usually about war or the climate crisis, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. We (usually) meet on the first Sunday of each month, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society.  Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.  And 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!

 

That's it for this week.

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

GOOD READING/FEATURED ESSAYS

Snowden in the Labyrinth

By Jonathan Lethem, New York Review of Books [October 24, 2019 Issue]

[FB – This is a review of Edward Snowden's just-published autobiography, Permanent Record]

---- Snowden's book is straightforward, admirably so. He has taken the risk of assuming that his reader is interested not only in his "moment of vision" and the brazen act that earned his fame and notoriety, but also in the formation of his personality, and the slow growth of his understanding of technology, espionage, surveillance, and human rights. Despite his gifts at computer programming, he has no interest in persuading you that he's unusual; quite the opposite. A clean-cut, apolitical child of a military family, his father a Coast Guard officer, his mother a federal employee—his parents divorced in 2001—Snowden is a gentle and conforming type, and he's consistently amazed that more people don't feel as he does about the intelligence community's crimes. … How does one decide to become the dissident, the scapegoat, the whistleblower? Snowden seems as mystified as we are. [Read More]

 

Sanders and Warren: The need for a progressive front

By The Organizing Upgrade Editorial Collective [September 28, 2019]
---- As the Democratic primaries unfold, clear patterns are emerging in the polls. Joe Biden has held on to a steadily diminishing but still significant lead. Bernie Sanders has held a relatively steady proportion of support. Elizabeth Warren has emerged from the pack to be level or sometimes ahead of Sanders, while all other candidates lag behind. While there is much to be said about how to read these early polls, the most important takeaway is that the two candidates with the most progressive visions and campaigns have together surpassed the party's centrist standard-bearer. … We believe that base building groups should assert themselves in the primary process and we believe firmly that the different decisions groups reach to endorse either Sanders or Warren should not produce irresolvable contradictions. Instead, we contend that building a primary-stage front against the party's conservative wing should be our rallying cry. [Read More]

 

Stepping Away From a Disastrous War Over Kashmir

By Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept [September 28, 2019]
---- At a massive rally in Houston this past weekend, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a stadium packed with supporters that India had bade "farewell" to a constitutional clause granting autonomy to the Himalayan region of Kashmir. "Article 370 had deprived people of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh of development," Modi told the crowd. "Terror and separatist elements were misusing the situation. Now, people there have got equal rights." The crowd responded with roaring applause. Modi's remark about "equal rights" was a jarring contrast to the news reports that have come in from Kashmir describing thousands of detentions, cases of torture and death, and a communications blackout that has severed Kashmir from the rest of the world. The de facto annexation of the long-contested region has further strained relations between India and Pakistan. It has also raised the specter of a full-blown insurgency pitting the Indian government against disaffected Kashmiris. For those to whom these ratcheted-up tensions look like another flare-up in a troubled area of the world, the situation bears a caveat: This time is different. [Read More]

 

Ending GM's Two-Tiered Labor System Is UAW Members' Top Demand — and Part of a Bigger Fight Against Worker Misclassification

By Rachel M. Cohen, The Intercept [September 26 2019]

---- Since last week, nearly 50,000 GM workers have been on strike, in part against a two-tiered system enforced by the auto giant that leaves "temporary" workers doing the same jobs as permanent staff for substantially less pay and fewer benefits. The striking workers, represented by the United Automobile Workers union, or UAW, are demanding a defined path to "permanent seniority" for GM's temporary workers — who make up about 7 percent of GM's U.S. workforce. GM has also entrenched inequality in its ranks by contracting out some jobs, like custodial work, that were traditionally staff roles. … The workers' demands are part of a broader push against worker misclassification, a tactic used by employers to lessen their labor costs. [Read More]  Also illuminating/useful for this important strike, read "GM Strikers Say 'No More Tiers!'" by Jane Slaughter and Chris Brooks, Labor Notes [September 18, 2019] [Link]; and "What's at Stake in the General Motors Strike," by Nelson Lichtenstein, Dissent [September 20, 2019] [Link]

 

Our History

The Desperate Plight Behind "Darkness at Noon"

By Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker [September 23, 2019]

---- On December 1, 1934, Sergei Kirov, the head of the Communist Party in Leningrad, was shot and killed in the hallway outside his office. The assassin, an unemployed man who had been expelled from the Party and bore a grudge against its leadership, was apprehended on the spot, but the case still raised questions. How did the killer get his pistol? Who had called off the bodyguards who usually surrounded Kirov at all times? Today, most historians agree that it was Joseph Stalin himself who ordered the murder, in order to eliminate a potential rival. But the official investigation came to quite different conclusions. During the next four years, it metastasized into a conspiracy-hunt that claimed to expose shocking villainy at the highest levels of Russia's government, military, and industry. In a series of trials that were publicized around the world, some of the oldest and most trusted Bolshevik leaders—men who, with Lenin, had led the Russian Revolution—were accused of being traitors. … That novelist was Arthur Koestler, and the book that the Moscow Trials inspired him to write was "Darkness at Noon," which became one of the most important political novels of the twentieth century. Telling the story of a veteran Bolshevik who is awaiting trial for treason, the book originally appeared in December, 1940, just two years after the events that it drew on, and became a worldwide phenomenon. [Read More]