Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
March 1, 2020
Hello All – No nation on Earth spends more money and effort on military equipment and preparedness than the United States. But the worldwide coronavirus outbreak shows that there is more to "security" than guns and bombs. Money isn't everything, but where our government puts the taxpayers' dollars shows its priorities. In the case of the coronavirus, what's relevant is how much money is spent on public health, on medical research, and on international programs to combat infectious diseases.
The Trump administration just released its proposed budget for the fiscal year that will begin next October. It shows that our government plans to cut – drastically – many of the programs and agencies that would protect us from the corona virus. For example:
- The Centers for Disease Control would be cut by 16 percent;
- Global Health Programs run by the State Department would be cut by $3 billion; and
- Funding for the UN's World Health Organization would be cut by 53 percent.
The reduction of our country's "preparedness" to fight the coronavirus and other threats to the public's health illustrates the difference between "military security" and "human security." Human security is a relatively new concert developed in and around the United Nations over the last several decades. It prioritizes the 'security" of humans – of individuals – rather than nation states. Its focus is on food security, shelter, education, health, environment, and human dignity. Usually, human life and well being are in greater danger because of failures to safeguard "human security" rather than the weakness of "military security." A good example is our healthcare system, where tens of thousands of people die prematurely each year because they lack adequate medical insurance, and thus access to good healthcare.
The trade-off between what we need to protect ourselves from the coronavirus and President Trump's priorities is evident in this week's debate about how to upgrade our public health system to deal with the virus. Trump wants $2.5 billion for the coronavirus; medical experts say $8.5 billion is the minimum needed. This sum is far less than the $11.5 billion asked for in Trump's latest budget for the border wall, family separation, and ICE deportations. Priorities rule. [Read more on science & medical/military trade-offs here.)
Because the coronavirus is new, there are many things we do not know that we will know in a few months. But one thing we do know – from past experience – is the importance of prioritizing the science, not politics. Thus it is very dangerous that Trump is in full denial about the dangers of the coronavirus, that he is blaming media and the Democrats for this "hoax," and that he is attempting to make Vice President Pence the gate-keeper for information about the virus. This is a recipe for disaster, and must be stopped.
Some useful reading on the coronavirus and "human security" - A short statement on "Why Human Security?" by Nobel-prize winner Amaratya Sen, one of the founders of the UN's work on this subject, can be read here. On the science of the coronavirus, CFOW's Betsy Todd posted a useful short advisory on her blog at the American Journal of Nursing. And this week Donald McNeil, Jr., the New York Times' reporter on epidemics, wrote "When an Epidemic Looms, Gagging Scientists is a Terrible Idea." [Link]. Trump's appointment of Vice President Pence to head his taskforce on the virus has prompted outrage and opposition, such as this Democracy Now! interview with author (of several books on epidemics) Laurie Garrett ("Pence is Not a Medical Expert") [Link]. Also useful is an article by Sharon Lerner at The Intercept, "Cronyism and Conflicts of Interest in Trump's Coronavirus Task Force" [Link].
Politics
As we head into Super Tuesday, Joe Biden's decisive win in South Carolina gives "moderates" and the Democratic Party leadership new hope that Bernie Sanders can be stopped from getting a majority of convention delegates via the primaries, thus allowing the 700+ "super delegates" – party leaders, etc. – to weigh in on a second round of this summer's convention voting. How this stop-Sanders strategy would work was detailed this week in the New York Times ("Democratic Leaders Willing to Risk Party Damage to Stop Bernie Sanders") [Link] and in the social-democratic publication Jacobin ("Democratic Party Elites Are Ready to Steal the Nomination From Bernie Sanders. We Need a Plan to Stop Them") [Link]..The tensions in the looming showdown between the Sanders supporters and the Democratic Party leadership are captured in an article I like from Common Dreams, "Class War, the DNC, and the Fight for Our Lives" [Link]. According to this wonkish article from The New York Times, if Sanders can get the nomination, he will beat Trump: ""Here's the Math."
News Notes
Is the Afghanistan War finally nearing its end? This week the USA and the Taliban signed an
agreement that would end the fighting; the US would withdraw its 14,000 troops within 14 months, 8,600 of them within 135 days. NATO's 17,000 noncombat troops would also withdraw within 14 months. Whether this agreement and subsequent negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government will actually bring peace is discussed in this good article from The Intercept.
In immigrations/refugee news, this week begins the implementation of the Trump administration's "public charge" rule, which requires that people seeking to immigrate to the United States show that they have money and are not likely to use social services like Medicaid or other government programs. An article from the National Immigration Law Center calls this "a radical and grotesque attack on immigrant communities and US democracy" [Link]. Once here, however, migrants are no longer secure. This week the Justice Department said they were taking a new look at a seldom-used law that would allow the government to "strip the citizenship" from naturalized citizens, though providing few details [Link].
On Monday, Israeli citizens go to the polls for the third time this year to see if they can elect a new government. The first two elections resulted in neither of the leading parties able to assemble enough coalition partners to form a majority of the 120-seat Knesset; and a stalemate is also highly likely in Monday's balloting. The inability to form a majority coalition is determined in part by the refusal of the "Jewish" parties to work with the Arab List, a coalition of formerly divided Arab-based parties that is now the third-largest party (15 seats) in the Knesset, and likely to win more on Monday. Arab-Israeli citizens constitute about 20 percent of Israel's eligible voting population, but are seldom included in US/media discussions of Israel's politics. Thus an interesting article from the Mondoweiss website this week, "'NY Times' ends its blackout, and recognizes Palestinian citizens are voting in Israel's election" [Link].
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Sunday, March 1st – Westchester People for Bernie will hold an "informational rally" at the Mike Bloomberg for President headquarters, 140 Mamaroneck Ave. in White Plains, from 12 noon to 2:30 pm. They write: "A peaceful, informational rally to educate Westchester voters. Let's have personal conversations about Bloomberg's track record, informing voters and electeds about what a Bloomberg candidacy means." For more information, go here.
Saturday, March 6th – The next CFOW monthly meeting will be at the Hastings Community Center, 54 Main St, from 1:15 to 3 pm (following our weekly vigil). At these meetings we review our work for the past month, make plans for the next month, and have general discussions. Everyone is welcome at these meetings. For more info, email fbrodhead@aol.com.
Thursday, March 12th – CFOW and CVI Voter will show the documentary film "Suppressed: The Fight to Vote" at the Hastings Community Center, 44 Main St. in Hastings, starting at 7 pm. "Suppressed" is about Stacey Abrams' fight to be governor of Georgia, and how nefarious voter suppression tactics by the white party leadership led to her defeat. For info about the film, go here.
Sunday, March 29th – The annual Westchester Social Forum will take place at the Eastview Middle School, 350 Main St. in White Plains, from 12 to 6 pm. For more information (about workshops, etc.) and to register, go here.
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. Also, we (usually) have a general meeting on the first Saturday afternoon of each month. 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!
Rewards!
Let's start this week's Rewards off with a fabulous music video from The Killers, "Land of the Free." And I think you will also like some music from The Penguin Cafe Orchestra. For both, thanks to AW.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
THIS WEEK'S FEATURED ESSAYS
(Video) Catastrophic Humanitarian Crisis in Idlib as Syrian Troops Advance & Children Freeze to Death
From Democracy Now! [February 28, 2020]
---- In Syria, 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in an airstrike by Russia-backed Syrian forces in rebel-held Idlib in a major escalation on Thursday. Turkey has vowed to respond in kind, as U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying "the risk of even greater escalation grows by the hour." Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly spoke by phone on Friday to discuss the crisis, as NATO urged rapid deescalation. The all-out offensive by the Syrian government is the single largest displacement in a nine-year war that has forced 13 million to flee and left hundreds of thousands dead. Since December alone, some 900,000 people, at least half of them children, have been displaced from northwestern Syria. As the humanitarian catastrophe deepens, aid workers are describing scenes of chaos and devastation on the ground, with families scrambling for shelter as temperatures fall below freezing. We speak with Avril Benoît, the executive director of MSF USA, or Doctors Without Borders USA. [See the Program]
How Democracy Ends: Not With a Bang But With a Whimper
By Karen J. Greenberg, TomDispatch [February 28, 2020]
---- In this fast-paced century, rife with technological innovation, we've grown accustomed to the impermanence of things. Whatever is here now will likely someday vanish, possibly sooner than we imagine. Movies and music that once played on our VCRs and stereos have given way to infinite choices in the cloud. Cash currency is fast becoming a thing of the past. Cars will soon enough be self-driving. Stores where you could touch and feel your purchases now lie empty as online shopping sucks up our retail attention. The ever-more-fleeting nature of our physical world has been propelled in the name of efficiency, access to ever more information, and improvement in the quality of life. Lately, however, a new form of impermanence has entered our American world, this time in the political realm, and it has arrived not gift-wrapped as progress but unpackaged as a profound setback for all to see. Longstanding democratic institutions, processes, and ideals are falling by the wayside at a daunting rate and what's happening is often barely noticed or disparaged as nothing but a set of passing problems. Viewed as a whole, however, such changes suggest that we're watching democracy disappear, bit by bit. [Read More]
---- In this fast-paced century, rife with technological innovation, we've grown accustomed to the impermanence of things. Whatever is here now will likely someday vanish, possibly sooner than we imagine. Movies and music that once played on our VCRs and stereos have given way to infinite choices in the cloud. Cash currency is fast becoming a thing of the past. Cars will soon enough be self-driving. Stores where you could touch and feel your purchases now lie empty as online shopping sucks up our retail attention. The ever-more-fleeting nature of our physical world has been propelled in the name of efficiency, access to ever more information, and improvement in the quality of life. Lately, however, a new form of impermanence has entered our American world, this time in the political realm, and it has arrived not gift-wrapped as progress but unpackaged as a profound setback for all to see. Longstanding democratic institutions, processes, and ideals are falling by the wayside at a daunting rate and what's happening is often barely noticed or disparaged as nothing but a set of passing problems. Viewed as a whole, however, such changes suggest that we're watching democracy disappear, bit by bit. [Read More]
Delhi Is On Fire, and My Kashmiri Parents Are in Prison
By Ahmed bin Qasim, The Nation [February 27, 2020]
---- I've been watching the images of bloodshed and targeted attacks against Indian Muslims breaking out on the streets of Delhi. The role of the police in precipitating violence in Delhi and the detention spree in Kashmir since August 5, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the region's nominal autonomous status, has laid bare a glaring truth: The Indian government is willing to use any means to crack down on dissent. For as long as I can remember, my father has suffered under the Indian state. I've seen him in the guise of a prisoner all my life. It's hard for me to even conjure him as a free man. On February 5, he completed his 27th year of imprisonment. I'm 20 years old. In his absence, my mother raised me. But I haven't seen her for two years. Both my parents are in solitary confinement, in two different jails. … Violence is the natural state of the Indian government's rule in Kashmir. The individual liberty of every Kashmiri comes into conflict with the national integrity of India. The Indian state's plan of action in Kashmir is simple: crush every form of dissent and increase the cost of resistance. By compelling the people to choose between survival and resistance, the Indian government thinks it can subdue Kashmiri political aspirations. What it does not realize is that for many Kashmiris, resistance is survival. [Read More] For more on India's chaos, read "Who Will Douse Delhi's Flames?" by [Link]
Free Julian Assange!
By Charles Glass, The Nation [February 25, 2020]
---- If WikiLeaks did not exist, the public would know much less than it does about what government and politicians are doing in its name. When a 35-year-old Australian named Julian Assange launched WikiLeaks with a few like-minded friends in 2006, he little knew what exposing malfeasance would cost him. The WikiLeaks model was simple: provide a safe repository for documents showing state and corporate wrongdoing while guaranteeing anonymity for the leaker. … The criminals who perpetrated war crimes revealed in their own communications documented and made public by WikiLeaks did not want you to know about them. Nor do they want you to know about those they commit in the future. To conceal the truth, they will put the truth-teller in an oubliette where he will never again discover and reveal anything. By depriving Julian Assange of his freedom and thus intimidating his journalistic colleagues, US and UK prosecutors are abetting criminality by spies, secret policemen, torturers, and kleptocrats everywhere. [Read More] For some information about Assange's extradition hearing last week, read "Assange's Extradition Hearing Reveals Trump's War on Free Press Is Targeting WikiLeaks Publisher" by Nozomi Hayase, Common Dreams [Link] and from the notes of Shadowproof's Kevin Gosztola, who was also at the hearing [Link].
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Our History
Making the [Vietnam] Memorial
By Maya Lin, New York Review of Books [November 2, 2000]
[FB – 40 years ago, the USA decided to build a memorial for the US soldiers who had died in the Vietnam War. Choosing a design, of course, was controversial: What was there to be said about the war, if anything, beyond the fact that more than 50,000 Americans had died? The winning design was that of Maya Lin, an undergraduate at Yale University. Her Asian background and her youth were enfolded into the larger debate over the design itself. Twenty years ago, Maya Lin spoke/wrote for the first time about her experience in designing the memorial and the controversy that ensued. She wrote: "It's taken me years to be able to discuss the making of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, partly because I needed to move past it and partly because I had forgotten the process of getting it built. I would not discuss the controversy surrounding its construction and it wasn't until I saw the documentary "Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision" [Link] that I was able to remember that time in my life. But I wrote the body of this essay just as the memorial was being completed—in the fall of 1982. Then I put it away…until now."]
---- On a personal level, I wanted to focus on the nature of accepting and coming to terms with a loved one's death. Simple as it may seem, I remember feeling that accepting a person's death is the first step in being able to overcome that loss…. What then would bring back the memory of a person? A specific object or image would be limiting. A realistic sculpture would be only one interpretation of that time. I wanted something that all people could relate to on a personal level. At this time I had as yet no form, no specific artistic image. The use of names was a way to bring back everything someone could remember about a person. The strength in a name is something that has always made me wonder at the "abstraction" of the design; the ability of a name to bring back every single memory you have of that per-son is far more realistic and specific and much more comprehensive than a still photograph, which captures a specific moment in time or a single event or a generalized image that may or may not be moving for all who have connections to that time. [Read More]
