CFOW Weekend Update
May 5, 2017
Hello Stalwarts – Big doings this weekend; please join in! Tomorrow, Saturday, our weekly vigil/protest will focus on healthcare, the passage yesterday of Trumpcare in the House of Representatives, and the urgent need for an alternative to disaster – "Medicare for All." And on Sunday, please come to our monthly CFOW meeting, where we will take stock of what's happening and make plans for the next month. NB we meet at 7 pm sharp at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs.
Needless to say, the passage of the Republican's "healthcare" legislation in the House of Representatives is a disaster and a national disgrace. If it is true (Who knows? Certainly not the Republicans.) that an additional 24 million Americans will be without health insurance if this legislation eventually becomes law, yesterday's action in the House of Representatives essentially signed the death warrants of 24 thousand people. Each year. Many academic studies have found that there is approximately one "unnecessary death" for every thousand people who don't have health insurance. Do the math: 24 million uninsured means 24,000 "unnecessary deaths." – Americans wrap themselves into knots of outrage when President Assad of Syria "kills his own people." Please explain the difference when the Republicans ensure that, somewhere in this great country of ours, 2,000 people will die each month because of what the Republicans did yesterday. Is $800 billion in "tax savings" – mostly going to the very rich – worth this mass murder? We are used to being denied things that people in other countries have because we must spend most of our "discretionary funds" on military things. But to take away something that Americans already have, that keeps 2,000 fellow humans alive each month and without which they would die, seems especially heinous. Into which circle of Hell would Dante put these wretched Republicans?
To put some factual clothing on this rant, please check out the excellent articles by RoseAnn DeMoro (head of National Nurses United) and John Nichols (columnist for The Nation.) And for useful information about the alternative to Obamacare and Trumpcare – "Improved Medicare for All" – check out the website of Physicians for a National Health Program.
Another important/bad thing happened yesterday, as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) approved the Spectra pipeline people's applications for water permits. This was the last remaining obstacle to the construction of the next leg of the huge Spectra natural gas pipeline the crosses northern Westchester. At the bottom of this Weekend Update I've pasted in a statement from the several organizations that have been fighting the Spectra pipeline for more than two years. In a nutshell, the DEC decision is a disaster and speaks eloquently to the pseudo-liberalism of the Cuomo people and their ever-accommodating pro-business agenda. With potentially thousands of lives at stake, these fossil fools followed the money and did what they did not have to do, allowing the next segment of the pipeline to be constructed. – Please read the statement below, and we'll discuss this at our meeting tomorrow evening.
Coming Attractions
Ongoing – It's sign-up time for the Hastings Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). This project is managed by CFOW stalwart Elisa Zazzera. From June to November you can pick up a weekly bundle of in-season and just-picked fruits and vegetables. For more info, go here, or email Elisa at azzera.elisa@gmail.com.
Saturday, May 6th – CFOW's weekly antiwar/pro-peace vigil/protest will take place in Hastings, at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) from 12 to 1. Please join us!
Saturday, May 6th – The 6th annual "River Sweep" – organized by the Riverkeeper – will include 90 cleanups and tree planting projects from NYC to Albany. Last year, Over 2,200 volunteers removed 49 tons of debris from the Hudson River Estuary. To learn more, and to get hooked up with local projects in Yonkers, Hastings, Dobbs, Irvington, etc., go here.
Sunday, May 7th – CFOW's monthly meeting will be held at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs, from 7 to 9 p.m. Please join us as we review the past month's events and make plans for next month.
Monday, May 8th – Justice Monday in White Plains, from 12 to 1 p.m. The topic this week is "Paid Sick Leave." Paid sick leave legislation is pending before the Westchester Board of Legislators. Majority Leader Catherine Borgia will speak about the bill that would provide paid sick leave for all employees in businesses that have more than 5 people. The weekly vigil/protest is held at the fountain at Renaissance Plaza (Main St. and Mamaroneck Ave.).
Tuesday, May 9th – Sponsored by anti-drone groups/people, there will be a protest rally and press conference at 6 p.m. at the entrance to the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum Complex, Pier 86, W. 46th St. and 12th Ave. The protest focuses on the museum's solicitation and then rejection for its new "Drones" exhibit of a display of quilts commemorating those killed by US drone attacks. For more information, contact Nick Mottern at nickmottern@gmail.com. (And please look at the "National Bird" film (about drones) linked below.) CFOW is an "endorser" of this event.
Wednesday, May 10th – Our friends at Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) invite everyone to join the "Unite for Parole and Prison Justice" day of advocacy in Albany. The SURJ bus from NYC will stop in Westchester. For more info about the event and the bus pickup, email surjwestchester@gmail.com and/or see the event Facebook page.
Saturday, May 20th – CFOW will be one of the organizations participating in the Westchester Social Forum, at the New Rochelle High School, starting at 10 a.m. For more information, go here.
Saturday, May 20th – Our friends at Rural & Migrant Ministry are having a day-long youth symposium at St. James the Less Church (10 Church Lane in Scarsdale) starting at 10 a.m. At 6 p.m., they will hold their annual "Sowing Seeds of Justice Dinner" at St. Bartholomew's Church (82 Prospect St. in White Plains) to honor twenty years of youth programs. For more information go to www.ruralmigrantministry.org, or call 845-485-8627.
Sunday, May 21st – The CFOW working group on election integrity and stolen elections will show the excellent film "I Voted?" at the Irvington library at 2 p.m. To learn about this film, which explores the many ways that electronic voting systems can be/are corrupted, go here.
Saturday, June 3rd – CFOW will once again lead off the River Arts Music Tour. As those with working memories will recall, for the last two years we kicked off the Music Tour in Hastings with some peace and justice songs, starting at 12 and going to 1 pm, under the leadership/direction of Jenny Murphy. So we're signed up for this again. Please start vocalizing and get ready to join our Stalwart Chorus.
Rewards
This week's rewards for stalwart readers tend toward the eccentric. First up is a musical commentary on Donald Trump's refusal to make his tax returns public. Older stalwarts may recognize this tune as that of "Charlie on the MTA." Growing up near Boston, I remember hearing this on the radio sometime in the early 1950s. But of course I did not know anything about the background of the song. It was written by Bess Lomax Hawes and Jacqueline Steiner of the leftwing group, the Almanac Singers, which included Pete Seeger among its members. The song was part of the political campaign of Walter A. O'Brien, running as Progressive Party in 1949 for Mayor of Boston, and fighting the fare increase (ten cents, going up to 15 cents) was one of his campaign promises. "Charlie on the MTA" and similar songs were broadcast in Boston neighborhoods by a car with a sound system. O'Brien did not win, but "Charlie on the MTA" is now immortal.
And there's more! I think you might enjoy Bobby Bare singing (to my knowledge) the world's only Christian football waltz. And then there's Eldon Hunt's plaintive "How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?" And perhaps we should include something fun for older stalwarts. And … but that's enough damage for one day.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
478-3848
SOME GOOD/INTERESTING READING FOR THE WEEKEND
(Video) "National Bird"
[FB – This documentary film is MUST viewing for CFOW stalwarts. Many of you know about Nick Mottern's work against drones and his www.knowdrones.org. One of the projects of Nick and his colleagues is to place anti-drone video/ads on cable TV in media markets in which drone operators live. This video is about the drone operators, what they do, and how it ruins the lives of many of them. – Very powerful film; it's available only until May 16th.]
---- National Bird follows the dramatic journey of whistleblowers who are determined to break the silence around one of the most controversial issues of our time: the secret U.S. drone war. The tense and timely film, which had to be made in relative secrecy, gives rare insight into the American drone program through the eyes of veterans and survivors. Plagued by guilt over the killing of faceless people in foreign countries and suffering from PTSD, the veterans decide to speak out publicly, despite the possible consequences. Executive produced by renowned filmmakers Wim Wenders and Errol Morris. [See the Film].
Confronting America's Misguided Drone Program [For some useful background re: the film]
By Daniel L. Davis, The National Interest [May 2017]
---- The use of armed drone warfare by the United States has proliferated since 9/11. Advocates of the program say it is essential to American national security. These claims are far from convincing—more on that below. What gets very little examination one way or the other, however, is the effect these operations have on the U.S. personnel that serve within the drone-warfare system, and virtually none on the so-called "collateral damage" inflicted on innocents by errant or mistaken strikes. That begins to change on Monday night, with the airing on PBS of National Bird, winner of the 2017 Ridenhour Documentary Film Award, a film that beautifully—and hauntingly—illuminates both. [Read More]
Memory Loss in the Garden of Violence: How Americans Remember (and Forget) Their Wars
By John Dower, Tom Dispatch [May 5, 2017]
By John Dower, Tom Dispatch [May 5, 2017]
[FB – John Dower is one of our era's best historians about Japan and especially the US-Japanese war in the Pacific. His most recent book is The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II, just published.]
---- While it is natural for people and nations to focus on their own sacrifice and suffering rather than the death and destruction they themselves inflict, in the case of the United States such cognitive astigmatism is backlighted by the country's abiding sense of being exceptional, not just in power but also in virtue. In paeans to "American exceptionalism," it is an article of faith that the highest values of Western and Judeo-Christian civilization guide the nation's conduct – to which Americans add their country's purportedly unique embrace of democracy, respect for each and every individual, and stalwart defense of a "rules-based" international order. Such self-congratulation requires and reinforces selective memory. "Terror," for instance, has become a word applied to others, never to oneself. [Read More]
The Empire Expands: Not the American One, But Trump's
By Nomi Prins, Tom Dispatch [April 2017]
By Nomi Prins, Tom Dispatch [April 2017]
[FB – Nomi Prins is a journalist about financial things. She was a managing director at Goldman-Sachs and at Bear Stearns before abandoning the Dark Side. She often appears on Democracy Now! and writes regularly for Tom Dispatch.]
---- President Trump, his children and their spouses, aren't just using the Oval Office to augment their political legacy or secure future riches. Okay, they certainly are doing that, but that's not the most useful way to think about what's happening at the moment. Everything will make more sense if you reimagine the White House as simply the newest branch of the Trump family business empire, its latest outpost. … Conflicts of interest? They now permeate the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but none of this will affect or change one thing President Trump holds dear – and believe it or not, it's not the wishes of his base in the American heartland. It's advancing his flesh and blood, and their flesh-and-blood-once-removed spouses and relatives. [Read More]
Jewish Students Working for Israel/Palestine Peace & Justice on Campus
[FB – I subscribe to the excellent daily mailing from Jewish Voice for Peace. The news packet often includes info about JVP activities on US college campuses. I was struck this week by the insights and cogent argumentation of two letters to campus newspapers – from Vassar and from Tufts – and share them here with you.]
[A right-wing organization] returns to Vassar to intimidate students, activists
---- On Friday, April 28, around 3 p.m., two people with briefcases were spotted outside of Ferry House putting up hateful, Islamophobic and racist posters on dorm buildings, benches and trash cans. It was on behalf of the same group, the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC), that targeted students and faculty by name last semester and took a strong interest in Vassar campus life during last year's Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. Members of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) were immediately alerted to the postings and made efforts to remove them, contacting administrators and security. We, as members of JVP and believers in equity and justice, refuse to be bullied. Instead, we will use instances like this to speak out and reaffirm our commitment to global human rights.[Read More]
Why We (Three Jews) Supported Tufts Divestment
By May 4, 2017]
---- We are Jewish students at Tufts University who strongly supported the Tufts student Senate resolution that recently passed urging Tufts to divest from G4S, Elbit Systems, HP Enterprises, and Northrop Grumman. Major institutions like Tufts are currently invested in these four companies, which profit from violence and incarceration in Palestine and elsewhere. As Tufts students who take the concept of tikkun olam seriously, we feel a responsibility to end this injustice. [Read More]
Joint statement from SenRG, Resist Spectra, and Sane Energy Project on the recent approval of the 401 Water Quality Certificates for Spectra/Enbridge Atlantic Bridge Project.
---- Resist Spectra, Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion (SAPE), Safe Energy Rights Group (SEnRG), and Sane Energy Project are outraged that New York State, through the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), approved the 401 Water Quality Certificate (WQC) for the Atlantic Bridge Project to move fracked gas through New York.
The Atlantic Bridge Project, an illegally segmented section of Enbridge/Spectra Energy's massive "Algonquin" Pipeline Expansion, is only four miles long in New York State, but it will have detrimental effects on 21 surface water bodies, including three protected trout streams and 15 wetlands. The entire project is sited for construction within sensitive watersheds including the New York City watershed, part of the drinking water source for more than eight million residents in the New York City metropolitan area.
The larger issue is that the DEC was required to also include any and all impacts to water bodies in New York State by the Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) Pipeline, the first segment of this project, already operating just 105 feet from critical safety infrastructure at the aging and failing Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, in its Atlantic Bridge determination. While the Federal approval of the AIM Project is currently being challenged in the courts, Spectra/Enbridge is proceeding with the expansion. The DEC is statutorily obligated (New York Environmental Conservation Law § 3-0301) to "take into account the cumulative impact upon all of such resources in making any determination in connection with any license, order, permit, certification or other similar action or promulgating any rule or regulation, standard or criterion," and failed to do so in this case.
When Governor Cuomo banned fracking in New York State it was based on the imperative to protect the public health and welfare of New Yorkers and water resources of the state, including the New York City watershed. It is unconscionable that the state would approve a dangerous, polluting, and climate-change-exacerbating fracked gas transmission pipeline that carries these same threats, plus a significant risk of nuclear disaster to millions of New Yorkers.
Spectra showed throughout the process of building the AIM Project that it would not comply with wetlands and other environmental protections - Resist Spectra submitted hundreds of documents to the DEC documenting these violations. One violation was so egregious - illegally disrupting wetlands to find a lost drill bit on the banks of the Hudson RIver - that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) categorized it as a "significant violation" and sent a letter of sanction to Spectra.
In February 2016, Governor Cuomo commissioned a risk assessment of the dangers related to the co-location of Spectra's AIM Project and the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, that still has not been released. Also In 2016, Governor Cuomo and Senators Schumer and Gillibrand called on FERC to halt construction of the AIM Project because of the threat posed to the more than 20 million people in the evacuation radius of the plant. With the January 2017 announcement of the plant's closure, the results of the risk assessment are more, not less, important. Closing Indian Point will be a multi-year process during which the AIM Project will continue to operate. Even once the plant is decommissioned, more than 40 years of spent radioactive fuel will remain on site in various storage locations, all of which remain within the blast radius of Spectra's AIM Project and are vulnerable. New Yorkers deserve to know what the risk assessment shows and have those risks mitigated.
In his 2017 State of the State, Governor Cuomo said that NYS "must double down by investing in the fight against dirty fossil fuels and fracked gas from neighboring states" to meet our Clean Energy Standard goals. In light of all this information, the DEC still approved the WQC for a project that will put our water and our communities at risk. That DEC did so after denying the Constitution and Northern Access Pipelines' WQCs, projects shorter than the "Algonquin" Pipeline expansion, makes this approval indefensible.
We will continue to fight for the well-being of the environment and the people of New York, even as those entrusted with that duty neglect to do so.
