Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
August 7, 2022
Hello All – Yesterday was the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Tuesday will be the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki. About 200,000 people were killed in the two bombs' blasts; many more died by radiation poisoning in the years to follow. At the time, Americans believed that the atomic bombs had ended the war; and most Americans still believe this. We know now, from basic historical research, that the Japanese surrendered because of the Soviet declaration of war; Japan had been counting on continued Soviet neutrality to somehow negotiate a favorable surrender. The American leadership knew that Japan would surrender with a Soviet declaration of war, and knew that this declaration was scheduled for August 9. After many delays, the Bomb was tested (successfully) on July 16th. Since assuming office after the death of Roosevelt in April 1945, the goal of Truman and his close advisers was to extend the war until the bomb could be used – to demonstrate its power to the Russians and other potential adversaries – but to end the war before the Soviets could join it and become partners in the subsequent occupation. Truman's gamble 'succeeded," as the war had been extended until the bomb could be used, but ended before the Russians had gained a foothold in Japan.
And so began decades of official lies about the bomb, about radiation, about the feared "invasion" of Japan by US troops that the A-bomb had made unnecessary, and much more. These lies and cover-ups, carefully documented in Gar Alperovitz's 1995 scholarly study The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth, formed the intellectual wall paper of the Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s. Well into the Kennedy era, as Daniel Ellsberg writes in The Doomsday Machine, the basic war plan of the United States was to kill more than 600 million people if the Russians threatened the USA (or if an accident happened). The possibilities of mass suicide are with us still, as the Secretary General of the UN warned last Monday, citing the war in Ukraine among the conflicts driving the risk of accidental or on-purpose nuclear war to a level not seen since the height of the Cold War. [New York Times].
Read more – (Video) "Warnings Grow over Nuclear Annihilation as Tensions Escalate Between U.S., Russia & China," from Democracy Now! [August 4, 2022] [See the Program]; and "The Unbearable Weight of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Where We Stand on August 6 and 9, 2022," by H. Patricia Hynes, Informed Comment [August 2022] [Link].
Israel's bombing of Gaza may be halted by a ceasefire agreement. So far Israel has killed several dozen Palestinians in Gaza, including 15 children, and more than 300 people were injured. Israel claimed it was acting "preemptively" – that is, anticipating an attack and so striking first. As this useful article from Mondoweiss points out, "The 'NYTimes' hides why Israel is attacking Gaza — Prime Minister Lapid is running for re-election." Historian Juan Cole makes another important point: "Israel bombs Civilian Apt. Bldg. in Gaza City, Killing 10, Wounding 55; When Russia does it, it is a War Crime. [Link]. It is to our nation's shame that President Biden's only comment on Israel's aggression is to re-iterate that "Israel has a right to defend itself." Our friends at Jewish Voice for Peace have published a good, short statement about Israel's crimes in Gaza; let us hope the ceasefire is real and that it holds.
News Notes
August 23rd is the date of the congressional Democratic primary election. Rep. Jamaal Bowman is running for re-election. He is challenged by three other Democrats. Bowman did very well in the August 3 candidate forum sponsored by many Indivisible groups. See it here. Yesterday some CFOW stalwarts joined other Bowman supporters to leaflet at the Hastings farmers market, unfurling our new banner. To help out on the campaign, go here.
Rep. Bowman's opponents are attempting to tar him with the brush of being "anti-Israel." Bowman has made it clear that he supports both Jewish rights and Palestinian rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Of great interest is the extent to which the "anti-Israel" smears are becoming obsolete, no longer of interest to Democratic voters. For example, "US: More Democrat voters support BDS than oppose it, new polls show" [Link].
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Weather permitting, we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil is held each Monday from 5:30 to 6:00 pm in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. To learn about our new project, "Beauty as Fuel for Change," go here; and to make a financial contribution to the project, go here. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. Our newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. If you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
The Fire Inside Mike Davis
[FB – Mike Davis is one of the great thinkers/activists of our time. Many of his essays have been linked in the Newsletter. He is now dying of cancer. Check out this thoughtful survey of what he has written and what he has done.]
---- "This is not a time for despair", says historian Mike Davis, currently navigating the final stages of terminal cancer, but speaking about the ubiquitous climate crisis: "We're in the ring, and you have to be ready to go for as many rounds as it takes". At once pugnacious, declarative, cogent, and inspiring, such advice, in a certain sense, resembles its originator, who has been challenging capitalist and imperialist power systems, analysing their many attendant ills and manifestations, since his early days as a civil rights organiser in the 1960s. The occasion for such remarks, with their pugilistic zest, was the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of his path-breaking City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (1990), long regarded as both a classic and an outlier, with its blend of noir-haunted conjuring and granular, sociological exploration of L.A.'s myriad political ecologies. … In Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the U.S. Working Class, the scope of inquiry is expansive and thorough-going, but the sympathy that infuses the narrative, as it were, belongs firmly with the workers themselves. "The harnessing of industrial unionism to renovate the vote-gathering machinery of the Democratic Party" in the New Deal era, Davis observes, with a kind of cantankerous clarity, "was an effective instrumental relationship in one direction only", benefitting the "quasi-aristocratic" Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the interests he served, rather than union memberships. … On first glance, it seems a mark of the depth and tenacity of Davis's opposition to the architectures of injustice that such a "catastrophist understanding of history", for him, could be a galvanizing one. But so it should be: a means of seeing our shared (ultimately precarious) life-in-the-world more clearly, and an aid to battling against its excesses and inequalities. "I don't think you need rations of hope", he reminds us, "What you need is a deep commitment to resistance and a fighting spirit and anger." Three cheers to that – and to the rebel himself, whose words and "fighting spirit" have done so much to keep the flame alive. [Read More]
Russia-Ukraine War Is Propelling Us Into a New Age of Global Political Upheaval
By Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept [
---- When protesters stormed government buildings in Sri Lanka earlier this month, what we witnessed was less the culmination of a revolutionary process than the collapse of a developing country under economic stress. Sri Lankans were coping with higher food and energy prices for months. Once the government ran out of the foreign exchange reserves necessary to import basic necessities like food and gas, the pressure became too much to bear. The ruling party had mismanaged the economy for years, creating tensions that were exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. What finally pushed Sri Lanka over the edge, though, was the economic shockwaves now being felt from the war in distant Ukraine. All signs suggest that it will not be the last country to fall. … The connections between war in Europe and suffering in Asia are crystal clear. "Every molecule of gas that was available in our region has been purchased by Europe because they are trying to reduce their dependence on Russia," Pakistani State Minister for Petroleum Musadik Malik told the Wall Street Journal in a recent report. The minister's comments were a grim reflection of the mechanics of global inequality, as well as a harbinger for the suffering that many other developing countries are likely to experience as the crisis rolls onward without remedy. Optimistic talk about a rising Asian century is all but disappeared. It has given way to grimmer discussions: how to prevent millions of people from falling into famine, and how fragile, heavily-armed states can avoid the ungoverned chaos that rocked many Middle Eastern countries over the past decade. [Read More]
(Video) Albert Woodfox Dies of COVID; Loved Ones Remember the Life & Legacy of Famed Political Prisoner
From Democracy Now! [August 5, 2022]
---- We speak with Michael Mable about the life and legacy of his brother, Black Panther activist and political prisoner Albert Woodfox. Woodfox spent nearly 44 years in solitary confinement at the Louisiana State Penitentiary after he was wrongly convicted of murdering a prison guard. Woodfox's conviction was overturned for the third time in 2013, and he was eventually released in 2016. "His legacy was based upon change," says Mable. "He was a free man, and he's free now." We also speak with his fellow "Angola 3" member Robert King and Woodfox's longtime attorney Carine Williams. "He understood his reasoning for existing," says King on Woodfox's legacy. "He won't be forgotten." [See the Program] Following his release from prison in 2016, Woodfox was interviewed several times by Democracy Now! You can see a compilation these programs here.
China, Taiwan, and Nancy Pelosi's Excellent Adventure
Five big questions about Nancy Pelosi's Taiwan visit
By Zhu Zhiqun, ThinkChina [August 5, 2022]
By Zhu Zhiqun, ThinkChina [August 5, 2022]
[FB - This article, by Sane Committee Steering Committee member Zhu Zhiqun, was written after the highly controversial visit to Taiwan on August 3, 2022 by U.S. House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi. It originally appeared at the ThinkChina e-magazine and has been shortened for space. To read the full text, click here].
---- Amid the furor following US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, US academic Zhu Zhiqun answers five questions on everyone's minds about the visit — Does the US Congress follow its own version of China policy? Why has Beijing responded so vehemently? Who is changing the Taiwan Strait status quo? What does the Pelosi trip mean for China-US relations? And what did Taiwan gain from Pelosi's visit? [Read the Article].
21st-Century US Foreign Policy Is Shaped by Fears of China's Rise, Chomsky Says
By C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout [August 4, 2022]
---- Is the increasing influence of China in international affairs a threat to world order? The United States thinks so, and so does Britain, its closest ally. Indeed, the U.S.-China rivalry is likely to dominate world affairs in the 21st century. In this geostrategic game, certain states outside the western security community, such as India, are expected to play a key role in the new stage of imperialism under way. The U.S. is a declining power and can no longer dictate unilaterally; however, as Noam Chomsky underscores in this exclusive interview for Truthout, the decline of the U.S. is "mostly from internal blows." As an imperial power, the U.S. poses a threat to world peace as well as to its own citizens. There is even a radical plan to dismantle whatever is left of U.S. democracy in the event that Trump returns to the White House in 2024. Other Republican winnable dictators could also enforce the plan. What's next for U.S. imperial power, and its impact on the world stage? [Read More]
Also of interest – "Nancy Pelosi Could Get Us All Killed," bAugust 2, 2022] [Link]; "Would You Go to War So Nancy Pelosi Can Visit Taiwan?" by Peter Beinart [August 1, 2022] [Link]; and "As Pelosi Taiwan visit looms, Menendez bill would 'gut' One China policy," by Connor Echols, Responsible Statecraft [August 1, 2022] [Link]
War & Peace
US Interests and Pretenses in a Changing Middle East
Remarks to a Panel of the Middle East Policy Council
[August 4, 2022]
[FB - Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. was a former US Assistant Secretary of Defense, ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm), acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Chargé d'affaires at both Bangkok and Beijing. He began his diplomatic career in India but specialized in Chinese affairs. He was the principal American interpreter during President Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972.
---- In June 1974, cornered by Watergate, Richard Nixon set off on a quick tour of the Middle East. This is something presidents seem to do when they're in trouble back home. In no foreign region is U.S. statecraft so inseparable from domestic politics. But the unpalatable realities of the Middle East have made it the unchallenged center of diplomatic hypocrisy and double standards. It is where the values-based foreign policies that our domestic politics demands go to die. Pledging allegiance to Israel – regardless of its gross violations of Palestinian rights and neighboring states' sovereignty – pries manna from heaven in the form of campaign donations from American Zionists and their fellow travelers. Similarly, given the American addiction to cheap energy, a quixotic desire for Saudi intervention to lower the price of gas at the pump springs eternal. Domestic political calculations, not the strategic pursuit of national interests, have just led President Biden to affirm his fidelity to Zionism with a trip to Israel, the only country in the world where Donald Trump is more popular than he is. [Read More].
As the War in Ukraine Devastates the Nation's Ecosystems, the World Reaches Record-High Military Spending
---- Both the weapons of the East and of the West are ravaging, poisoning, and destroying Ukraine's landscape. It doesn't matter if the military hardware employed comes from the aggressor Russia or from the weaponry supplied by the U.S. and NATO. There are many countries that have already been devastated by recent wars; the world does not need another one. For now, more soldiers on all sides will die. More Ukrainian civilians will perish or be plunged into homelessness and economic hardship. Deliveries from the West started out with small arms, ammunition and Stinger and Javelin missiles. Weeks later there is progress; now heavy weapons ranging from artillery systems to helicopters to Switchblade drones have begun to arrive in Ukraine. In response, Russia has been targeting railway lines, warehouses, oil depots, and other vital infrastructure to stop the flow of Western weaponry to Ukraine. …The sense of ludicrous waste evoked by these happenings is persuasive. Anatol Lieven, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, takes a long view on this matter. "I strongly believe that in view of climate change, a century or so from now most of the basic preconceptions underlying the strategies of leading world powers will be seen by our descendants to have been profoundly irrational," he writes. [Read More]
The State of the Union
What Democrats Should (but Probably Won't) Learn From the Kansas Abortion Victory
By Natasha Lennard, The Intercept [August 4, 2022]
---- The resounding ballot victory to keep abortion protections in the state constitution of deep-red Kansas is a rebuke to the Republican's far-right agenda. It's a win worth celebrating. The stakes of preserving legal abortion in Kansas couldn't be higher. It is a reminder, too, of what those on the front lines of this struggle have long known: Banning abortions is popular only with an extremist yet extremely powerful Christo-fascist minority. Since the GOP has made clear its comfort with — indeed explicit desire for — the entrenchment of far-right minority rule, the Kansas result will not shift the party's priorities. Republicans will still push their pro-natalist, white supremacist agenda of taking bodily autonomy away from women and pregnant people. There's no lesson in Kansas for Republicans. It's the Democratic establishment that should instead take a cue from the Kansas victory. … As Kansas showed, grassroots struggle remains the sine qua non for defeating the white supremacist nationalists. It was hardly the work of the party establishment that achieved the ballot win. Organizers on the ground worked day and night to alert voters of the ballot measure, raise funds, build support, and counter heavy-handed manipulations from the Republican side. [Read More] Also of interest – "Progressives See Midterm Hopes Rise on Kansas Voters' Defense of Abortion Rights," by Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams [August 3, 2022] [Link].
Three Tons of Fascism with a Bull Bar
By
---- In the United States during 16 months in 2020 and 2021, vehicles rammed into groups of protesters at least 139 times, according to a Boston Globe analysis. Three victims died and at least 100 were injured. Consider that a new level of all-American barbarity, thanks to the growing toxicity of right-wing politics, empowered by its embrace of ever-larger, more menacing vehicles being cranked out by the auto industry. … Fueled by diesel or gasoline, and supercharged by what political scientist Cara Daggett has labeled "petro-masculinity," those men in big, loud vehicles serve as the shock troops for a white-right authoritarian movement that threatens to seize control of our political system. Recall the "Trump caravan" that tried to run a Biden campaign bus off the road in Texas just before Election Day 2020. Or the "Trump Trains" of pickups carrying men with paintball guns, one of which attacked Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon. [Read More]
Israel/Palestine
Why Resistance Matters: Palestinians Are Challenging Israel's Unilateralism, Dominance
August 6, 2022]
---- Until recently, Israeli politics did not matter to Palestinians. Though the Palestinian people maintained their political agency under the most demoralizing conditions, their collective action rarely influenced outcomes in Israel, partly due to the massive discrepancy of power between the two sides. Now that Israelis are embarking on their fifth election in less than four years, it is important to raise the question: "How do Palestine and the Palestinians factor in Israeli politics?" Israeli politicians and media, even those who are decrying the failure of the "peace process", agree that peace with the Palestinians is no longer a factor, and that Israeli politics almost entirely revolves around Israel's own socio-economic, political and strategic priorities. This, however, is not exactly true. [Read More]
Our History
(Video) "Mother Country Radicals": Weather Underground's Bernardine Dohrn & Bill Ayers's Son Makes New Podcast
From Democracy Now! [August 1, 2022]
---- We spend the hour with an activist who replaced Angela Davis on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List: Bernardine Dohrn, a leader in the radical 1960s organization called the Weather Underground. When Dohrn and her activist husband Bill Ayers literally went underground to avoid arrest, they then raised a family as they continued to fight for revolution. Now a new podcast that was created, written and hosted by their son, Zayd Ayers Dohrn, explores their family history. Dohrn and Ayers discuss how they were radicalized, how they raised their children underground and why they resurfaced, and respond to whether they think their actions — like bombing the Pentagon to protest the war in Vietnam — perpetuated violence. [See the Program]
