Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
October 16, 2022
Hello All – This weekend, across the USA, protests demanding that our government take steps to end the war in Ukraine took place in dozens of cities. Similar demands arise around the world, especially in Europe; and at the UN 66 countries have urged negotiations to end the war. As negotiations are not in sight and the military action seems stalemated, the collateral damage of this war – food supplies, a cold winter in Europe, etc. – has prompted a broad call to somehow end this nightmare.
Yes, Russia is the aggressor, the ultimate war crime. In a better world, those responsible for this war would be held to account. But now, on the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a looming question is whether (or not) Russia would use "tactical" (i.e. smaller than used in Hiroshima) nuclear weapons if it faced significant losses or Ukraine/NATO somehow carried this war into Russia itself.
The paradox of this war is that serious scholars believe that neither party to this war will be ready to negotiate as long as they feel they have a chance of winning the war. And yet the same scholars believe that the Russians may use battlefield nuclear weapons if they were facing military defeat. As hardly a week goes by without the Biden administration and Congress shoveling out millions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine, it looks like we are doomed for endless war until the USA decides that enough is enough, or until Russia brings out its nuclear weapons.
Somehow, the war must stop. We don't know if negotiations are possible. Both Russia and Ukraine refuse to compromise, and the announced war aim of the USA (Secretary of Defense Austin) is to use the war to fatally weaken Russia. But we have no other option than to press for negotiations, to call on the USA/NATO to make clear that Ukraine will not join NATO, and to explain to Ukraine that a territorial compromise – rather than evicting Russia from Crimea – must be considered.
Some useful reading/viewing on the war in Ukraine
(Video) Medea Benjamin & Nicolas Davies: "Negotiations 'Still the Only Way Forward' to End Ukraine War"
From Democracy Now! [October 12, 2022]
---- The Biden administration has ruled out the idea of pushing Ukraine to negotiate with Russia to end the war, even though many U.S. officials believe neither side is "capable of winning the war outright," reports The Washington Post. For more on the war, we speak with CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin and independent journalist Nicolas Davies, the co-authors of the forthcoming book, "War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict." [See the Program] For an extended presentation of their views, read "Biden's Broken Promise to Avoid War with Russia May Kill Us All," by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, Code Pink [October 11, 2022] [Link].
(Video) Noam Chomsky & Vijay Prashad: U.S. Must Stop Undermining Negotiations with Russia to End Ukraine War
From Democracy Now! [October 10, 2022]
---- Russia has launched its largest strikes on Ukraine in months, attacking civilian areas in Kyiv and nine other cities just two days after President Vladimir Putin had accused Ukraine of blowing up a key bridge connecting Russia to Crimea. As the war continues to escalate in Ukraine, we feature an interview recorded earlier this month with world-renowned political dissident Noam Chomsky in Brazil and political writer Vijay Prashad. Chomsky discusses why he thinks there is no major U.S. peace movement in response to the Ukraine war, and talks about the dangerous U.S. Senate policy on China and Taiwan, which he says, along with Ukraine, could end in a "terminal war." [See the Program] Chomsky and Prashad have published a new book, "The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power." They talked about the book on an extended interview with Jacobin Magazine.
Is Putin on the way out?
By Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft [October 11, 2022]
---- As Russian defeats in Ukraine mounted over the last month, so has speculation about President Vladimir Putin's survival in office, and talk in Washington and among Russian oppositionists of the need for the Biden administration to adopt "regime change" as an open U.S. strategy. In its approach to this question, the Biden administration should concentrate above all on the question of the relationship between the composition of the Russian leadership and the search for an end to the war in Ukraine. It would indeed be a very good thing if Putin were to be replaced. In fact, he should step down himself. … It is vital to note, however, that this opposition will come not only from opponents of the war, but even more dangerously for Putin from extreme nationalists who believe that the war should be waged more efficiently and ruthlessly. [Read More]
Things to Do
UN Day will be observed on Sunday, October 23rd. A program of great interest, about Restorative Justice opportunities for youth in Westchester County, will be presented on-line by the United Nation Associations of Westchester and of the Bronx on Zoom at 3 p.m. To register for the program, and for more information, go here.
Antisemitism is an on-going problem of great concern. Yet an obstacle to achieving unity in combating antisemitism is the definition of antisemitism itself. The official definition used by the US and much of the world is called IHRA, a definition developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association. This definition of antisemitism can be used to stigmatize criticism of the policies of Israel's government, participation in the BDS movement, or protests by student groups. The admirable organization Palestine Legal has developed a useful critique of IHRA; and they will present and discuss alternatives to IHRA – "All About IHRA: A Policy Webinar" – on Wednesday, October 19th (Zoom) at 1 pm. To register for the program, go here.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Weather permitting, we meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil is held each Monday from 5:30 to 6:00 pm in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. To learn about our new project, "Beauty as Fuel for Change," go here; and to make a financial contribution to the project, go here. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. Our newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. Another Facebook page focuses on the climate crisis. If you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards!
This week's Rewards for stalwart readers are inspired by the many events and programs last Monday that celebrated Indigenous People's Day. On Democracy Now!, singer Buffy Sainte-Marie goes to the root of the matter – What's wrong with calling it Columbus Day? – riffing on calls for the repeal of the "Doctrine of Discovery," the pseudo-legal scholarship of past times that justified "Christian" rule over the semi-humans of the New World. And of the many great songs in Buffy Sainte-Marie's repertoire, here are "Universal Soldier," "The War Racket," and her rendition of "America the Beautiful." Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
(Video) "This Time Feels Different": Iran's Women & Youth-Led Protests Continue to Grow Amid Brutal Crackdown
From Democracy Now! [October 13, 2022]
---- Anti-government protests in Iran, first sparked last month by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, have moved into their fourth week. The youth and women-led protests cross class and ethnic divides, and the demands have grown in scale and scope, with many, even in the clerical community, now calling for the complete abolition of the Islamic Republic. Many sectors of society, including businesses and unions, have also joined in protest, with oil workers from one of the country's major refineries going on strike Monday. Iranian authorities have launched a violent assault on protesters in response, explains Amnesty International's Raha Bahreini, with security forces shooting live ammunition into crowds to disperse the protests, leaving thousands injured and at least 144 victims dead, 24 of them children. The government violence is "indicative of just what a threat the regime believes these protests are," argues Iranian American scholar Reza Aslan, who says that despite numerous revolutions in Iran's history, "this time feels different." [See the Program] -
Also of interest – It was on Democracy Now! that I first heard the now-famous song "Because of ...." [And another version.] [And in Australia. Many more on line.] The words of the song are taken from tweets responding to the killing of protesters in Iran, and the demands being made by the protesters for more personal freedom and a better life. The singer was arrested 3 weeks ago for publishing this song. Please listen. And for an in-depth look at some background to the uprising, read "Khamenei's Dilemma," by Christopher de Bellaigue, New York Review of Books [October 13, 2022] [Link]. And Peter Beinart has some interesting things to say in a video posted today, "Who Should We Trust to Support Freedom in Iran?" [Link].
A Fast-Emptying Ark: The World Grows Quieter by the Day
By Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org [October 13, 2022]
---- I confess, for reasons I can't fully explain, that when bad things are happening to animals I tend to look away in pain. When bad things are happening to people I try to face those things squarely and do what I can, but there's something about wildlife—perhaps the way its become implicated in our strange human game without having the slightest agency at all—that just confounds me; some kind of sad and disabling rage fills me. Sometimes, however, the truths are just too overwhelming to avoid. A vast new study finds there are 70 percent fewer wild animals sharing the earth with us than there were in 1970. Read that again. And again. … But that's not what makes me so desperately sad. It's that so many trillions of animals are dead, gone. The world is so much lonelier than it's ever been before, at least in the long eons since fish started crawling out on land. The wondrous, comical, cruel, buzzing, gaudy, sexy carnival that is Life has shut down most of its tents; the symphony of grunts, squeaks, roars, belches and barks has faded to a diminuendo chorus. The creatures that always informed human dreams — that ended up on masks and totem poles, daubed on the walls of caves — have wandered away into the mist. Over those five decades most of the decline can be traced to habitat destruction: the human desire for ever more stuff playing out daily, acre by acre, across the globe. [Read More]
Noam Chomsky: Brazil's Runoff Election Will Have Enormous Effects on the Global Climate Crisis
An interview with C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout [October 13, 2022]
---- A century ago, Brazil was declared to be "the Colossus of the South," set to lead the hemisphere along with "the Colossus of the North." Since then, the northern Colossus has replaced Britain as the virtual ruler of the world, extending its power far beyond the dreams of what is now Washington's junior partner. The southern Colossus has stumbled. It is important to understand how. … The destruction of democracy was welcomed by Kennedy-Johnson Ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon as a "democratic rebellion," "a great victory for the free world" that should "create a greatly improved climate for private investments." This democratic rebellion was "the single most decisive victory of freedom in the mid-twentieth century," Gordon continued, "one of the major turning points in world history" in this period. Gordon was right. The vicious military junta in Brazil was the first of the neo-Nazi terror-and-torture National Security States that then spread over Latin America, a plague that reached Central America under Reagan's murderous regime. A Bolsonaro victory would likely doom the Amazon. A Lula victory might be able to save it, averting a disaster for Brazil and a catastrophe for life on earth. [Read More]
War & Peace
Nuclear Extortion? Abolish Nuclear Weapons
---- In a moment of candor, President Biden told Democratic Party contributors the risk of nuclear "Armageddon" is the highest since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from Florida. Referring to Russian President Putin's veiled threats to use short-range nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the President added it was the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis such a "direct threat" had been issued. Not true. The US has a history of nuclear extortion. [FB - Korean War, Vietnam War, Iran in 2007, North Korea during Trump, near Russia in 2020, etc.] … The uncomfortable truth is that as long as there are nuclear weapons, we are all hostage to those few individuals who can order their launch. On the anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the answer is not to build more nuclear weapons, but to return to the arms control treaties Bush and Trump abandoned and to sign on to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to abolish nuclear weapons from the face of the earth. [Read More]
Surviving the Killing Fields: a Worldwide Challenge
By Kathy Kelly and Nick Mottern, BanKillerDrones.org [October 12, 2022]
---- Awaiting discharge from a hospital in Cairo, Adel Al Manthari, a Yemeni civilian, faces months of physical therapy and mounting medical bills following three surgeries since 2018, when a U.S. weaponized drone killed four of his cousins and left him mangled, burnt and barely alive, bedridden to this day. On October 7th, President Biden announced, through Administration officials briefing the press, a new policy regulating U.S. drone attacks, a new policy regulating U.S. drone attacks, purportedly intended to reduce the numbers of civilian casualties from the attacks. Absent from the briefings was any mention of regret or compensation for the thousands of civilians like Adel and his family whose lives have been forever altered by a drone attack. Human rights organizations like the UK- based Reprieve have sent numerous requests to the U.S. Department of Defense and the State Department, seeking compensation to assist with Adel's medical care, but no action has been taken. … The Biden administration seems keen to depict a kinder, gentler form of drone attacks, avoiding collateral damage by using more precise weapons like the "ninja bomb" and assuring that President Biden himself orders any attacks waged in countries where the United States is not at war. [Read More] Also insightful (and alarming) is "Israel Authorizes Military to Kill Palestinians With Drones in the West Bank," by Marjorie Cohn, Truthout [October 13, 2022] [Link].
The World's Other Nuclear Flashpoint: Mounting Tensions Over Taiwan
By Michael T. Klare, Tom Dispatch [October 2022]
---- Thanks to Vladimir Putin's recent implicit threat to employ nuclear weapons if the U.S. and its NATO allies continue to arm Ukraine — "This is not a bluff," he insisted on September 21st — the perils in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict once again hit the headlines. And it's entirely possible, as ever more powerful U.S. weapons pour into Ukraine and Russian forces suffer yet more defeats, that the Russian president might indeed believe that the season for threats is ending and only the detonation of a nuclear weapon will convince the Western powers to back off. If so, the war in Ukraine could prove historic in the worst sense imaginable — the first conflict since World War II to lead to nuclear devastation. But hold on! As it happens, Ukraine isn't the only place on the planet where a nuclear conflagration could erupt in the near future. Sad to say, around the island of Taiwan — where U.S. and Chinese forces are engaging in ever more provocative military maneuvers — there is also an increasing risk that such moves by both sides could lead to nuclear escalation. While neither American nor Chinese officials have explicitly threatened to use such weaponry, both sides have highlighted possible extreme outcomes there. [Read More]
Civil Liberties
Anti-boycott laws are a dystopian nightmare
By Hamzah Khan, Mondoweiss [October 4, 2022]
---- Few things have as much bipartisan support in the U.S. as unconditional support for Israel. Ironically, while criticisms of the U.S. government are protected by the First Amendment, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have made it nearly impossible to criticize Israel without facing tangible consequences like public smearing, and even financial loss. Across the U.S., 34 states — from "blue" states like California and New York to "red" states like Texas and South Carolina — have passed some form of legislation that makes it illegal for the state to contract with businesses and individuals who participate in Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), a grassroots movement founded by Palestinian civil society that seeks to pressure Israel to abide by international law. … These anti-BDS laws have been wielded to disastrous effect, with state governments targeting individuals and companies alike who seek to exercise their right to boycott an apartheid state. By punishing boycotts of Israel, U.S. legislators encroach on Americans' First Amendment rights. [Read More]
The State of the Union
(Video) "People Do Have Power": Frances Fox Piven at 90 on Movements, Preserving Democratic Rights, & Fascism
From Democracy Now! [October 11, 2022]
---- As the United States heads into another recession and labor organizing is surging, we speak with leading sociologist and longtime social movement scholar Frances Fox Piven as she turns 90 years old. "We're at another juncture: a bitter contest about democratic rights," says Piven, who claims the U.S. has always been a "limited democracy." Despite attacks on fundamental rights, Piven says, "people do have power" to organize and protect their rights, because "we live in a complex, integrated society where the activities of ordinary people really do matter." Piven's groundbreaking books include "Regulating the Poor" and "Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail" with her late husband and collaborator Richard Cloward. [See the Program]
Israel/Palestine
Progressives and Palestinians
---- Last year three established human rights organizations with reputations for reliable findings produced fact-based public reports demonstrating Israel's apartheid nature. Notably, B'tselem, Israel's own human rights organization, produced its report in January of 2021. Amnesty International followed in February and Human Rights Watch in April. The Israeli government reacted in two ways: (1) They denounced these reports as anti-Semitic. … (2) In August of 2022, "Israeli forces raided the offices of seven Palestinian human rights groups causing extensive property damage and issuing military orders to shut them down. This followed Israel's earlier characterization of those organizations as 'terrorist' and 'unlawful.'" … The issue of ignoring the facts made public by an array of human rights organizations, and now reinforced by the reported repressive behavior of the Israeli authorities, is an important one for American politicians who claim to be progressives. American politicians and other supporters of Israel who deny there is any apartheid problem face the cognitive dissonance that comes with "holding two or more contradictory beliefs, thoughts, or values at the same time." [Read More] Also of interest is "Draconian tactics are the only defense Israel has left," by October 5, 2022] [Link].
