Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
September 14, 2020
Hello All – Newsletter readers not living in the Rivertowns may be unaware of the several shocks our comfortable lives received last week. In a nutshell, a fake poster (featuring a bullet-hole) circulated advertising a non-existent Black Lives Matter rally scheduled for Dobbs in Saturday. Also on Saturday, a "truck caravan" to "Back the Blue" was organized in Tarrytown. And again in Dobbs, an incident centering on a T-shirt with a veiled "you're not welcome here" message was judged to be aimed at people of color, in part because it was placed on the doorstep of a few not-white families. This last incident, thankfully, prompted a rally in favor of tolerance and inclusion at the Dobbs waterfront park, attended by imo 400 people.
Set against the background of Black Lives Matter protests across the country, and the emergence of armed militia movements and other gatherings of white supremacists, the Rivertowns events serve as a wake-up call that our quiet neighborhoods on the Hudson are not in a separate universe from the clashes stimulated by the police killings of unarmed African Americans, and more generally by fears that White Power may be solidified for another four years if Donald Trump is re-elected.
Last week's Newsletter developed some ideas/warnings about the way in which our coming presidential election may produce initially inconclusive results, resulting in a legal and political logjam, accompanied by mobilization of grassroots action from both the pro-Biden people and the pro-Trump people. Some further thoughts on this topic are developed in the article by Sasha Abramsky, linked below. Also important will be the political orientation of the police (also discussed in writing below), and whether/how civilian governors and mayors will use or restrain their police and National Guard to preserve the kind of order that they want.
While the events of last week were disturbing, and are an indicator of strife to come in the months ahead, I think that the anti-racists did well. It seemed that hundreds of people collaborated on-line to track down just what was happening and who was doing what, and developed messaging that was explanatory and instructive, but not excessively alarmist. And the team in Irvington that produced the Dobbs Ferry rally did an excellent job. I think that all progressive groups and individuals in the Rivertowns should take last week's white supremacy dust-up as a warning, and our responses as a first-draft rehearsal, and that we must be on our guard for more to come.
News Notes
The deportation hearing of Julian Assange in London is now entering its second week. The United States wants to put him away for 175 years, and the UK legal system seems anxious to oblige. For a good overview of the case, check out the Democracy Now! program from last Wednesday, in which one of Assange's legal time gave a cogent explanation about the charges against Julian and the dangers they pose to USA/world political reporting. The best way to follow the case is via the website Shadowproof, whose manager Kevin Gostzola is monitoring the courtroom. Gostzola's most recent report covered the testimony of Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, on the dangers that the prosecution of Assange poses to press freedom.
Last week federal police in Lacey, Washington murdered Michael Forest Reinoehl, who was wanted for the killing of a "Patriot Prayer" supporter in Portland, OR. According to this useful report, the police didn't seem interested in arresting Reinoehl, or even in identifying themselves, but killed him while he was unarmed and getting into his car. Reinoehl seems to have been an interesting person; check out his story.
The sad and untimely death of David Graeber has brought forth many tributes to this remarkable and interesting man. Last week the Newsletter included some tributes recognizing his role as an activist/intellectual; this week his comrades at Roar Magazine remember him as a "tireless organizer."
Forty-eight refugees from Cameroon have been languishing in a Louisiana prison for more than a year, and a month ago some of them went on hunger strike. Two weeks ago Democracy Now! profiled their strike and broadcast pleas for help from the inmates. This past week an article on "The Hunger Strikers of Pine Prairie Protesting Indefinite Detention by ICE" was published in The New York Review of Books. Their plight highlights the pain of ICE prisoners everywhere. If you are a Netflix subscriber, recommended is the new documentary film "Immigration Nation," which has survived an attempt by the Trump people to suppress it.
Finally, Saturday was the 19th birthday of Concerned Families of Westchester. We began with a discussion among three families the day after 9/11, and one thing led to another. Our 20th year promises to be an intense one; please join us.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Taking the Covid Crisis into account, we meet (with safe distancing) for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 11 to 11:30 a.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Another vigil takes place on Mondays, from 6 to 6:30 pm, in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. In this time of coronavirus, we are meeting (by Zoom conference) each Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. If you would like to join our meeting, please send a return email to get the meeting's access code. 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!
Frederick "Toots" Hibbert, a pioneer of reggae music in Jamaica, died last week at the age of 77. I first heard Toots and the Maytals in the 1972 Jimmy Cliff film "The Harder They Come," performing "Pressure Drop." Rolling Stone has put up a collection of "15 Essential Songs," including his last one, "Gotta Be Tough," about the realities of today's Jamaica. Toots Hibbert, thank you for your great music and RIP.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CRISIS AND UPRISING
(Video) Confluence of Crises
By Noam Chomsky, ZNet [September 14, 2020] [7 minutes]
[FB – In this short video, Chomsky describes the convergence of crises (the pandemic, climate, war & peace, etc) that have brought humanity to the edge of disaster and underlines the importance of putting Trump out of office asap.] [See the video].
Is Trump Planning a Coup d'État?
By Sasha Abramsky, The Nation [September 7, 2020]
---- Increasingly, election observers point to the possibility of Trump using the courts to contest so many states' ballot tallies that the Supreme Court ends up as the ultimate arbiter, as happened in the 2000 election. In some scenarios he loses, but his campaign refuses to accept state results, aiming to tie up the process so that states can't certify their results in time for the January inauguration. In others he dispenses with the legal niceties and simply refuses to cede power, banking on enough backing from quasi-military agencies supportive of his agenda, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection as well as law enforcement agencies at the local level and militia groups, that it would take a military intervention to bounce him from the White House. … But relying on a conservative-dominated Supreme Court or a military that has been conditioned—for good reason—never to intervene in domestic political disputes is hardly a surefire path to protecting the country from Trump's dictatorial ambitions. Which brings us back to people power. [Read More]
Why Many Police Are Barely Distinguishable From Racist Vigilantes
---- Right-wing extremist armed vigilantes and police officers are cut from the same ideological cloth of American society that feels entitled to patrol the collective behavior of nonwhites, women, etc. While not entirely white and male, both police and armed vigilantes are largely white men. In urban areas in particular, research shows that law enforcement officers are far less racially diverse than the communities they police and are overwhelmingly male. They epitomize the white male authority that armed vigilante groups aspire to. When armed groups show up to protests, police embrace their presence and see them as allies. A new report published by the Brennan Center for Justice explores the overlap between these two groups at length. … In fact, the National Association of Police Organizations, which had previously endorsed Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden in 2008 and 2012, has now switched its support to Trump. [Read More] Today the New York Times published an in-depth analysis of the leadership of the NYPD union. Looking at the emerging Trump/election conflict, this is very important. Checkout "How New York City's Police Unions Embraced Trump" by [Link]. For an analogous look at California's police, here is "Reform the Police? Guess Who Funds My State's Officials" by [Link].
ELECTION 2020
Can the 'Instigator-in-Chief' Win on 'Law and Order'?
By
---- In light of these often unacknowledged attitudes, the question becomes: Can Trump eke out an Election Day victory by focusing attention and capitalizing politically on the looting and fire-setting associated with some of the Black Lives Matter protests spurred by the police killing of Floyd and other African-Americans? … There are still 55 days to go before Election Day, a lifetime in politics. Imponderables abound: turnout, lying to pollsters, accusations of voter fraud and double voting, active voter suppression, the fate of absentee ballots, the political and logistical status of the United States Postal Service, and that's before we even get to the three presidential debates. The biggest imponderable of all is whether Trump will attempt to subvert the election directly, whether he will accept results he does not like, what unfathomable lengths he might go to — and whether the Republican Party, the Senate and the Supreme Court will stand firm in support of democracy or abet Trump in his reach for unconstrained power. [Read More] And for some interesting thoughts on the Trump base (is it?), read "Regular People: Who Are They? Why Don't They Ever Speak for Themselves?" b [Link]
Trump's Broken Promises to His Voters – He Didn't Deliver!
---- Trump voters are not inclined to change their minds. Some of them are forever Republicans and will only vote the GOP ticket; they are called hereditary voters. Others can't stand the Democratic Party nominees, won't vote for the Libertarian ticket, and will only vote for Trump. Some love Trump because of his anti-immigrant stance, deregulation of law enforcement on businesses, and nominations of anti-choice and right-wing corporatist federal judges. Yet, polls show that the one area of widespread disappointment among Trump voters (not the rich ones) is that he didn't deliver the improvements for their livelihoods that he promised in the 2016 campaign. … But Trump voters expected Trump to do a little bit more to further the legitimate self-interests of the families on Main Street. Now come two Pulitzer-Prize-winning, famously accurate reporters, Hedrick Smith, executive editor of reclaimtheamericandream.org, and Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times with lists of Trump's broken promises. [Read More]
Can We Call It Fascism? Trump's Voter Suppression Project, 2020
---- I find it more than a little disturbing that the "debate" over Trump's politics has degenerated into a discussion of whether Trump is "an authoritarian" or "a fascist." As far as I'm concerned, once someone admits Trump is authoritarian in his politics, discussions of what type of authoritarian he is are largely academic. When the U.S. police state is systematically murdering people of color, and one of the two major parties is ramping up to engage in massive voter suppression, debating what brand of authoritarianism Trump ascribes to seems insensitive and disconnected from reality. Trump's "poll watching" initiative, coupled with his celebrations of vigilante violence against his political enemies, represents a ticking time bomb in its potential to provoke disaster come election day. This administration represents an existential threat to what little remains of American democratic institutions and the rule of law. Whether one calls it fascist, authoritarian, or dictatorial is ultimately secondary to the larger question of what can be done to combat this menace. [Read More] And for a very different assessment of how/why the Trump people are moving towards fascism, read "The U.S. Is Borrowing Its Way to Fascism" by Richard D. Wolff, ZNet [September 12, 2020] [Link].
FEATURED ESSAYS
The US Is a Failed State
By Tom Engelhardt, Tom Dispatch [September 10, 2020]
---- Humanity has so far (and I use that phrase advisedly) managed to create just two ways of destroying human life on this planet. In doing so, it has, of course, taken over tasks that it once left to the gods (Armageddon! Apocalypse!). On both counts, Donald Trump is proving himself a master of destruction. The first way, of course, would be by nuclear weapons, so far, despite close calls, used only twice, 75 years ago. However, the president and his crew have focused with striking intensity on tearing up nuclear arms pacts signed with the Soviet Union in the final years of the Cold War, backing out of the Iranian nuclear deal, pumping up the "modernization" of the US nuclear arsenal, and threatening other countries with the actual use of such weaponry. … In that second category when it comes to destroying human life as we've known it via the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the president and his men (and they are basically men) have shown a particular flair. I'm still alone in doing so, but I continue to refer to the whole lot of them as pyromaniacs, because their simple denial of the reality of global warming is the least of it. [Read More]
America Is Trapped in a Pandemic Spiral
By Ed Yong, The Atlantic [September 2020]
---- The U.S. enters the ninth month of the pandemic with more than 6.3 million confirmed cases and more than 189,000 confirmed deaths. The toll has been enormous because the country presented the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus with a smorgasbord of vulnerabilities to exploit. But the toll continues to be enormous—every day, the case count rises by around 40,000 and the death toll by around 800—because the country has consistently thought about the pandemic in the same unproductive ways. Many Americans trusted intuition to help guide them through this disaster. … These conceptual errors were not egregious lies or conspiracy theories, but they were still dangerous. They manifested again and again, distorting the debate around whether to stay at home, wear masks, or open colleges. They prevented citizens from grasping the scope of the crisis and pushed leaders toward bad policies. And instead of overriding misleading intuitions with calm and considered communication, those leaders intensified them. [Read More] To amplify Ed Yong's report, read "How Did the 'Best-Prepared Country' Become a Horror Story?" by [Link].
National (In)Security and the Pentagon Budget
By
---- The inadequate response of both the federal and state governments to the Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on the United States, creating what could only be called a national security crisis. More than 190,000 Americans are dead, approximately half of them people of color. Yelp data show that more than 132,000 businesses have already closed and census data suggest that, thanks to lost wages, nearly 17% of Americans with children can't afford to feed them enough food. In this same period, a number of defense contractors have been doing remarkably well. … The spread of Covid-19 has created one of the most significant crises of our time, but it's also provided far greater clarity about just how misplaced the priorities of Washington have been all these years. [Read More]
(Audio) Surveillance in an Era of Pandemic and Protest
A live chat with Naomi Klein, Shoshana Zuboff, and Simone Browne on September 21 at From The Intercept [
---- As this summer of pandemic and racial justice protests draws to a close, Naomi Klein will host a landmark conversation between Shoshana Zuboff, author of "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism," and Simone Browne, author of "Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness." The three authors will discuss how both governments and tech giants are using our moment of overlapping crises to push through discredited surveillance technologies that threaten privacy, democracy, and any hope of equality. Early in the pandemic, Klein wrote that these forces have aligned to "advance a vision of a future in which our every move, our every word, our every relationship is trackable, traceable, and data-mineable." [Hear the Program]
(Video) "This Is Climate Change": West Coast Fires Scorch Millions of Acres & Blot Out the Sun
From Democracy Now! [September 10, 2020]
--- The skies of the Bay Area and Northern California turned a dark orange as 90 major fires burn in the western United States, from San Diego to the Canadian border. At least seven people have died as a result of the fires, which have already burned 2.5 million acres in California alone. Despite heavy coverage in the mainstream media, however, few outlets are highlighting the link between the blazes and the accelerating climate crisis. "The fact is that TV news is completely abdicating its responsibility when it comes to telling the truth of what the West is dealing with right now," says Leah Stokes, assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a researcher on climate and energy policy. "This is climate change. It's not rocket science. And when will the media start calling it that?" [See the Program] Another very good Democracy Now! segment profiles "Pandemic, Wildfires & Heat Wave: Undocumented Farmworkers Face "Triple Threat" as West Coast Burns" [September 14, 2020] [Link].
OUR HISTORY
(Video) Costs of War: After 9/11 Attacks, U.S. Wars Displaced at Least 37 Million People Around the World
From Democracy Now! [September 11, 2020]
---- As the United States marks 19 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, a new report finds at least 37 million people in eight countries have been displaced since the start of the so-called global war on terrorism since 2001. The Costs of War Project at Brown University also found more than 800,000 people have been killed since U.S. forces began fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, at a cost of $6.4 trillion to U.S. taxpayers. "The U.S. has played a disproportionate role in waging war, in launching war and in perpetuating war over the last 19 years," says report co-author David Vine, a professor of anthropology at American University. [See the Program]
The Forgotten History of the Radical 'Elders of the Tribe' [The Gray Panthers]
By
---- By the mid-1970s, she was a national celebrity. She had speaking engagements all over the country; she traveled 100,000 miles annually, giving at least 200 talks a year. She was all over the TV: "The Phil Donahue Show," the "Today" show and "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson, multiple times. … She was Maggie Kuhn, the woman who, 50 years ago, founded the Gray Panthers, a movement to encourage activism — sometimes radical activism — among the country's older people. Today, both Kuhn and her movement have been all but forgotten. But their mission is worth remembering, commemorating and perhaps even resurrecting, especially in the present moment. [Read More]
