Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
April 23, 2023
The first Earth Day was celebrated and acted upon by some 20 million Americans on April 22, 1970. The day is now seen as a milestone in the birth of the modern environmental movement, leading by the end of the year to the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of pro-environment legislation. The New York Times reported the event with enthusiasm and a large front-page picture of huge crowds on Fifth Ave. But on the right-hand side of the front page was the paper's lead article, "Cambodian Crisis Grows as Troops Seem to Falter." Earth Day had the picture, but The Times knew that the looming military disaster in Cambodia was the main story.
And so Earth Day was born in the midst of war. A week after Earth Day Nixon went on TV to announce an invasion of Cambodia, which he and Secretary of State Kissinger had been "secretly" bombing for more than a year. An outpouring of campus protest, culminating in the massacre at Kent State on May 4th, brought much of the nation to a standstill and overshadowed the promising beginnings of Earth Day. While Exxon, Shell, and Big Oil knew how the burning of fossil fuels endangered our planet, the 70s and 80s sped by with little popular or political engagement with the looming climate crisis. Thus then as now, efforts to address what we now see as a climate crisis were/are offset by political and media attention to war, and the siphoning of trillions of dollars to the US War Machine that was/is desperately needed to stop the real existential crisis of climate catastrophe.
Indian Point Update
Last week's Newsletter relayed the news that Holtec International, the mega-company paid (a lot) to "decommission" the Indian Point nuclear plant, had put on "pause" it's plan to dump a million gallons of radioactive water into the Hudson River until "this summer" (whenever). All sources ascribe the "pause" to agitation by citizens (500,000 petition-signers) and action by local officials: two dozen towns and three counties have passed Resolution condemning Holtec's dumping plan. Also important was a strong letter to the (federal) Nuclear Regulatory Commission from Senators Schumer and Gillibrand; and I am told that Sen. Gillibrand announced on the Brian Lehrer show that she would take strong action in the Senate to prevent dumping.
Well done people! And yet clearly we have to keep up the pressure, as we have won only a "pause." Our most important task for the coming week is to flood Governor Hochul's phones with short messages saying NO to the water-dump. Give her a call at 518-474-8390. Tell the human or answering machine that you want the Guv to take action to "stop the dump!" Also this week, we can support the campaign to Stop Holtec by attending a rally and press conference at Cortlandt Town Hall on Thursday, April 27th, at 4:30 pm, ahead of the 6 pm meeting of the Decommissioning Oversight Board, which we can also attend. (To learn more, go here.)
Finally, I found an in-depth article from two years back, published in the Very Establishment "Fortune" magazine, which raised serious questions about the competence of the "decommissioning" contractor Holtec. Read "Nuclear drawdown: How two little-known private companies are taking over the biggest environmental cleanup in U.S. history" here (follow 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 in Yonkers on Monday from 5:30 to 6:00 pm at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. 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 join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, please send a return email for the link. 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 riff on the theme of "the pursuit of happiness." First up is Bob Marley's "One Love," from the international group Playing for Change. Next we have Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra with Leonard Bernstein's "Mambo," from "West Side Story" [h/t BT]. And finally, enjoy Yuja Wang, who brings such enthusiasm to classical music, with Mendelssohn's "Piano Concerto No.1."
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
(Video) A Conversation with Professor Noam Chomsky
A talk to/with the New York Bar Association [April 20, 2023]
[FB – In one of his most interesting recent talks, Chomsky discusses a variety of topics, including but not limited to geopolitics and the role of China; US elections; the climate catastrophe; the threat of nuclear weapons; and the future of our economy; followed by a Q&A segment.] [See the Program]
The Man Who Leaked the Pentagon Papers Has a Final Warning for America
From The New York Times [April 19, 2023]
---- Daniel Ellsberg fully expected to spend the rest of his life in prison after he leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times and The Washington Post in 1971. The documents revealed decades of government lies and mistakes in about the war in Vietnam, and eventually, they helped end it. The charges against Ellsberg were ultimately dismissed but, he had a secret: The Pentagon Papers were only supposed to be the beginning. Alongside the documents about Vietnam, he'd copied thousands of pages of other documents about America's nuclear war planning that he believed would shock the public conscience. But a series of mishaps kept those documents from ever coming to light. Now, after revealing a terminal cancer diagnosis in March, Ellsberg is reflecting on his life, the secrets he wasn't able to reveal and threats to the world he's leaving behind. [Read More, hear the interview]
Religion Has Friends Among Judges in High Places
By Linda Greenhouse, New York Times [April 22, 2023]
[FB – Linda Greenhouse, the recipient of a 1998 Pulitzer Prize, reported on the Supreme Court for The Times from 1978 to 2008 and was a contributing Opinion writer from 2009 to 2021.]
---- Here's a thought experiment: Suppose that some doctors, who may or may not ever encounter a patient with a Tylenol-induced liver problem, say that the care these patients require is exceedingly stressful and would take them away from attending to the needs of other patients. So the doctors sue the F.D.A., demanding that the agency withdraw its approval of acetaminophen, and a Federal District Court judge agrees. … As readers may have deduced by now, my thought experiment substitutes Tylenol for the abortion drug mifepristone.. The plaintiffs, who would have been laughed out of any court that hadn't been taken over by appointees of former President Donald Trump, are four anti-abortion medical organizations and four individual anti-abortion doctors. And here's my question: What is the difference between my hypothetical Tylenol case and the actual case against mifepristone? In one word, religion. [Read More]
War & Peace
Leaks Reveal Reality Behind US Propaganda in Ukraine
April 20, 2023]
---- The US corporate media's first response to the leaking of secret documents about the war in Ukraine was to throw some mud in the water, declare "nothing to see here," and cover it as a depoliticized crime story about a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman who published secret documents to impress his friends. President Biden dismissed the leaks as revealing nothing of "great consequence." What these documents reveal, however, is that the war is going worse for Ukraine than our political leaders have admitted to us, while going badly for Russia too, so that neither side is likely to break the stalemate this year, and this will lead to "a protracted war beyond 2023," as one of the documents says. The publication of these assessments should lead to renewed calls for our government to level with the public about what it realistically hopes to achieve by prolonging the bloodshed, and why it continues to reject the resumption of the promising peace negotiations it blocked in April 2022. [Read More]
Will the West Turn Ukraine into a Nuclear Battlefield? Why Depleted Uranium Should Have No Place There
By Joshua Frank, Tom Dispatch [April 19, 2023]
----The United Kingdom, which has committed well over $2 billion in assistance to Ukraine, has so far refused to ship fighter jets there but has promised to supply more weaponry, including tank shells made with depleted uranium (DU), also known as "radioactive bullets." A by-product of uranium enrichment, DU is a very dense and radioactive metal that, when housed in small torpedo-like munitions, can pierce thickly armored tanks and other vehicles. … While the UK's decision to send depleted-uranium shells to Ukraine is unlikely to prove a turning point in the war's outcome, it will have a lasting, potentially devastating, impact on soldiers, civilians, and the environment. … If the grisly legacy of the American use of depleted uranium tells us anything, it's that those DU shells the British are supplying to Ukraine (and the ones the Russians may also be using there) will have a radioactive impact that will linger in that country for years to come, with debilitating, potentially fatal, consequences. It will, in a sense, be part of a global atomic war that shows no sign of ending. [Read More]
Also of interest – "Just how many US troops and spies do we have in Ukraine?" by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, Responsible Statecraft [April 18, 2023] [Link]; and "Peace in Ukraine Is Too Important to Leave in the Hands of Arms Dealers," by [Link].
The Climate Crisis
(Video) "Not Too Late": Author Rebecca Solnit & Filipino Activist Red Constantino on Avoiding Climate Despair
From Democracy Now! [April 17, 2023]
---- We discuss climate solutions and the need for broad involvement in the fight to avert climate catastrophe with writer and activist Rebecca Solnit and longtime Filipino climate activist Renato "Red" Constantino. Solnit is the co-editor of Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, which features an essay by Constantino about his role in the Paris Climate Agreement titled "How the Ants Moved the Elephants in Paris." "This is the decade of decision, and we need as many people as possible engaged as fully as possible," says Solnit. [See the Program]
We Know the Damage, but Who Will Foot the Bill?
By David Williams, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation [March 22, 2023]
---- Once again, the findings are dire. Projections indicate the 1.5°C warming limit will be reached within ten years, failing binding commitments made in the Paris Agreement in 2015. To prevent further warming and with it the deterioration of living conditions for future generations, it is imperative to drastically reduce the burning of fossil fuels…. Media outlets are hailing the synthesis report as yet another final warning, as a desperate call to act now before it's too late. It is fundamental to recognize, however, that this will only be achieved if those causing the climate crisis are held to account. The report identifies growing inequality as a driver of vulnerability, but inequality in terms of carbon emissions has also risen over the past decades. Recent figures show that the top 10 percent of income and wealth holders are responsible for 48 percent of global emissions, while the bottom 50 percent are responsible for a mere 12 percent. In terms of regional distribution, there is a stark divide between industrialized and low-income countries' emissions. [Read More]
By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams [April 20, 2023]
---- Backed by climate, health, and labor groups, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey on Thursday reintroduced the Green New Deal Resolution, which the progressive leaders have been fighting for since they first unveiled it in February 2019. "In the four years since we first introduced the Green New Deal, the tides of our movement have risen and lifted climate action to the top of the national agenda," Markey (D-Mass.) said of the resolution, which envisions a 10-year mobilization that employs millions in well-paying union jobs to help the country respond to the climate emergency. … Along with reintroducing the resolution—a largely symbolic move given the current makeup of Congress—the pair released a guide for cities, states, tribes, nonprofits, and individuals about how those two laws "help bring the Green New Deal to life." [Read More]
The State of the Union
The Supreme Court Has Preserved Access to the Abortion Pill—Over Alito's Salty Objection
By Elie Mystal, The Nation [April 21, 2023]
---- This is a victory for reproductive rights, insofar as keeping what rights people still have in the wake of last year's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health decision overturning Roe v. Wade counts as "victory." The case now goes back to the Fifth Circuit, which will hold a hearing and, almost certainly, issue another shambolic ruling against the abortion pill. That ruling will eventually be appealed to the Supreme Court, so we don't know when access to medical abortion will be put at risk again. … This is as good as things get on the legal front of the reproductive rights struggle these days: a clearly wrong ruling from a Texas judge has been temporarily blocked over the objection of a mean old man who wanted to fight about something else. And pregnant people who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies can still have access to a 23-year old drug that is safe, effective, and available all over the world in countries not run by fascist theocrats. This is a win, mainly because it's not another devastating loss. For now. [Read More]
Also of interest - (Video) "'A New Jane Crow;: Abortion Advocates Brace for Supreme Court Ruling That Could Ban Mifepristone," from Democracy Now! [April 20, 2023] [Link]; and "The Abortion Pill Case Could Throw Our Health Care System Into Chaos," by Jack Resneck, Jr., New York Times [April 20, 2023] [FB - Dr. Resneck is the president of the American Medical Association] [Link - paste into browser]
(Video) "Poverty, by America": Author Matthew Desmond on How U.S. Punishes the Poor & Subsidizes the Wealthy
From Democracy Now! [April 18, 2023]
---- A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finds that poverty is the fourth-greatest cause of death in the United States. Roughly 500 people die from poverty in the U.S. every day. Our guest, sociologist Matthew Desmond, is the author of the new book, Poverty, by America, the follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. "There's so much poverty in America, not in spite of our wealth, but because of it," says Desmond in an in-depth interview. [See the Program]
Israel/Palestine
Fantasies of Israel
By Ilan Pappé, New Left Review [April 19, 2023]
---- The protesters are motivated by what one might call the fantasy of Israel: that of a secular democratic state with enough moral capital to justify its occupation of Palestine at home and abroad. They are happy to be seen as exceptional nation – which must subjugate the Arabs to preserve the dream of a Jewish homeland – but they are also desperate to conform to the 'civilized' standards of the Global North. Their liberal Zionism is founded on a series of oxymorons: Israel as an enlightened occupier, a benevolent ethnic cleanser, a progressive apartheid state. Thanks to Netanyahu's government, this image is now under threat; its contradictions are no longer containable. The state's reputation is being damaged not only domestically, but also among the 'international community' that typically hails Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East and Tel Aviv as the LGBT capital of the world, while ignoring the besieged Gaza ghetto a few miles south. … For all their differences, the two Israeli camps are united in their support for the settler-colonial project on which the nation was built. Settler colonialism invariably entails the dehumanization of colonized peoples, viewed as the principal obstacle to political harmony. In Israel, every Palestinian must be perceived as a savage or potential terrorist, every Palestinian territory as a theatre of war. [Read More] Also of interest – "Israeli Apartheid at Last Described in the Pages of the Venerable 'Foreign Affairs' Journal," by Nasim Ahmed, Middle East Monitor [April 18, 2023] [Link]
Meet 'proud racist' May Golan, set to become Israel's Consul General in New York
By
---- "I'm proud to be a racist!" shouted Israeli lawmaker May Golan in 2012, when she was an activist in one of the nationalist rallies inciting against African refugees in Tel Aviv. Now she is on her way to New York City. Benjamin Netanyahu has tapped her to become Consul General in NYC, a position that is considered influential because it covers not just New York state but also New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. This means that it covers the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel — nearly 3 million people. …Responses to the reported nomination were nonetheless vociferous among Zionists. The more liberal-leaning were horrified, and several former diplomats called Golan a "divisive and racist" figure and "the opposite of what Israel needs in such an important region." T'ruah, a progressive rabbinical human rights group, said, "Golan and her far-right cronies are not welcome here." [Read More]
Our History
(Video) Author Carol Anderson on How Anti-Blackness Drives U.S. Gun Culture & Right-Wing Assault on Democracy
From Democracy Now! [April 13, 2023
---- We discuss the debate over gun control, as well as Republican attacks on democracy, with author and academic Carol Anderson, who says U.S. gun culture has always been connected to "the inherent, fundamental fear of Black people." She notes the expulsion of two Black Democratic state lawmakers in Tennessee for leading a gun control protest at the Capitol highlights how gerrymandered state governments uphold white supremacy in the face of "youth that are pushing forward for a different vision of America." Anderson is professor of African American studies at Emory University and author of The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. She also comments on the right-wing assault on abortion rights and education. [See the Program] Also of interest is "Why Did Madison Write the Second Amendment?" by Carl T. Boggs, History News Network [April 17, 2023] [Link].
How Social Turmoil Has Increased Witch Hunts throughout History
By Silvia Federici and Alice Markham-Cantor, Scientific American [May 2023]
---- It's an old story: A woman is accused of witchcraft by someone close to her—a neighbor, a relative, a rival. Often the original accuser resents or envies the woman or has a property dispute with her. At first the complaints are just whispers. But then something happens—a child gets sick, or an accident occurs. The woman's name is said again, loudly this time, and more people echo it. Then she is dragged from her house and killed. This is what happened to Iquo Edet Eyo, a 69-year-old woman from Cross River State in Nigeria. Along with four others, she was murdered in October 2022, allegedly by a group of young men who charged that her witchcraft had caused a recent motorcycle crash. … The narrative could be set in Germany in 1581, India in 2003, Uganda in 2018 or Papua New Guinea in 2021. Every year more than 1,000 people around the world, including men and children, are tortured, expelled from their homes or killed after being charged with witchcraft—using magic, usually to cause harm. Far from declining with modernization, as some 20th-century scholars predicted, witch hunts are holding steady in some places and may be happening more often in others. [Read More]
