Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
November 13, 2018
Hello All – This year a nationwide effort by Veterans for Peace and similar organizations focused on the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I – Armistice Day – and the importance of reclaiming November 11th as a day of peace, rather than a day of yea-for-war that Veterans Day has become. Certainly 100 years after the "War to End All War," it should be obvious that part of achieving or maintaining an end to war is to nurture a culture of peace in our daily lives. On what has become Veterans Day, for many years CFOW has urged that we separate the warrior from the war, that we acknowledge and support veterans who need our help, but that we refuse to go along with the idea that soldiers in US wars have been "defending our freedoms" or "serving the national interest."
In some good/useful reading linked below, veterans speak out about how their ideas of "serving their country" were shattered soon after they arrived at whatever military theatre they were sent to. There must be some reason why 17 veterans commit suicide every day, and I believe the remorse for killing people in a situation for which they have no understanding plays a part of this. Also linked below are an article and a video in which Suzanne Gordon explains how Trump's efforts to "privatize" veterans' healthcare threatens the VA system itself. As Veterans Day becomes a national day of celebrating war, we owe it to today's veterans to fight against the nationalist warmongering that permeates our political elite, who care nothing for actual veterans once their "service" is finished.
The War in Yemen – The war in Yemen has reached horrendous proportions. The UN calls it "the world's greatest humanitarian disaster." Tens of thousands of people have been killed, and millions are on the brink of death through starvation and disease. Congress and the mainstream media are slowly awakening to this horror, and the role of the United States in facilitating the Saudi military campaign has become a world-class moral embarrassment. The story behind the story is addressed in some good/useful reading linked below. The front-burner action item is to pass a Resolution ending US support for the war, based on the implementation of the War Powers Act (1973). This act demands that the President get the consent of Congress for military action longer than 60 days. Soon the House of Representatives will vote on HR 138. Recently our congressional representatives Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey signed on as co-sponsors of this legislation, and it is possible that it will pass the House. (Similar legislation has been introduced into the Senate.) Passage of the War Powers Resolution, and thus pulling the plug on US support for the war, will depend in part on how vigorously members of the House Democratic leadership like Lowey and Engel push it. To put some wind at their back, please call Nita Lowey (202-225-6506) and Eliot Engel (202-225-2464) and say that you support the end of war in Yemen and want them to support HR 138. Thanks!
Help Needed in Georgia and Florida – Recounts in the Georgia governor's race and the races in Florida continue, with the Republicans trying to shut them down and the Democrats demanding that all the votes be counted. Older stalwarts will remember the disasters that followed when Al Gore and the Democrats folded in Florida in 2000 [Link]. A simple way we up here can help out is to send money to help with legal and other expenses incurred in the recount-fights. CFOW dipped into its treasury and you can too. To send a donation to Georgia's Stacy Abrams, go here. To help out Andrew Gillum in Florida, go here.
News Notes
The Thousand Oaks mass shooting was mass shooting #307 so far this year (311 days). Juan Cole reports that there were 15,549 gun homicides in the USA in 2017, while only 32 in the UK. If you're keeping score at home, the place to start is the Gun Violence Archive.
Last week, in response to Trump's firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, there were demonstrations in more than 1,000 US cities, including one in White Plains that drew 400 participants. Sponsored mainly by MoveOn and Democrat activists, the protests were directed at the likely firing of Robert Mueller and ending his investigation of the Trump/Russia connection.
Although we think of the days of European colonialism as over, there are at least a dozen "non-self-governing territories" ruled by European countries; for example, Bermuda, Pitcairn Island, and New Caledonia. For a user-friendly and imo interesting survey of these colonial remnants, go here.
As the media have reported, the mid-term elections saw thousands of new registered voters. What I didn't know until now was the huge disproportion between people registering as Democrats and Republicans. To see some numbers, go here. (h/t GB).
And finally, about the photographer Jean Mohr. I first saw/learned of his photography in a book he did with John Berger, A Seventh Man, about Turkish "guest workers" in Germany and Switzerland. Mohr did lots of photography like this, illuminating the lives of people who were having a hard time, and finding nobility. Check out "Jean Mohr, Photographer Who Found Heart Amid Bleakness, Dies at 93" [Link].
Things to Do/Coming Attractions
Ongoing – CFOW holds a vigil/rally each Saturday at the VFW Plaza in Hastings (Warburton and Spring) from 12 to 1 p.m. Everyone invited; please join us!
Sunday, November 18th – The Pelham Picture House will show an advance screening of "The Interpreters," a film about the fate of people in Iraq and Afghanistan who were interpreters for the US soldiers, and what happened to them next. Filmmakers Sofian Khan and Andres Caballero will be on hand for a post-screening Q&A. The program starts at 7:30 p.m. For details and directions, go here.
Saturday, December 1st – Each year WESPAC hosts the Margaret Eberle Fair Trade Festival and Crafts Sale. It's a good place to buy holiday presents, and it supports worthy causes. It goes from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Memorial United Methodist Church, 250 Bryant Ave. in White Plains. $5 suggested admission.
Sunday, December 2nd – The next CFOW monthly meeting will be held at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society, 12 Elm St. in Dobbs. We meet from 7 to 9 p.m. At our meetings we review our work/the events of the past month and make plans for what to do next. Everyone is welcome at these meetings.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each Saturday in Hastings, from 12 to 1 p.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Our leaflet and posters for our rallies are usually about war or climate change, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. We (usually) meet on the first Sunday of each month, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Dobbs Ferry Historical Society. Our weekly 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 financially, please end a check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
This Newsletter
Articles linked in the CFOW newsletter are intended to illuminate some of the main action-issues about which we are concerned. Coming mostly from the "dissenting media," they provide an alternative to the perspectives of the mainstream media. In addition to the excellent Featured Essays, I especially recommend David Swanson's and Suzanne Gordon's articles on Armistice Day/veterans; the articles that update the horrible military/humanitarian situation in Yemen; Mike Albert's comments on what's missing from our post-election analysis; and (under "Our History") some warm memories about Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, as revealed by their newly opened archives at the Schomburg Center in Harlem. Read on!
Rewards!
Last Saturday CFOW was honored at the Walkabout Clearwater Coffee House as the "activist group of the month." While pitching our wares and literature, we were also able to hear a wonderful concert with Rev. Robert Jones and Matt Watroba. Much of the concert was educational, in that they showed the showed the roots of much modern music in the by-gone days of folk and blues. (And there's lots more on-line.) The Coffee House has lots of good programs coming up; check out their schedule here.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
The Fate of the Earth Depends on Women
By Beatrice Fihn, The Nation [November 8, 2018]
[FB – Beatrice Fihn is the leader of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.]
---- On October 20, President Trump announced that the United States would pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty after more than 30 years. In doing so, he ended an agreement that abolished an entire class of nuclear weapons and recklessly pushed us to the brink of a new Cold War. He's brought us back to a time when the United States and Russia could develop and expand their nuclear arsenals without restraint. Trump's decision is a wake-up call as much as it's a clarion call. It highlights the flaws of a system in which one man can determine our collective fate, and makes clear why all nations need to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted by 122 countries at the United Nations last year. By banning nuclear weapons under international law, we can still pull the hand brake on a new arms race. … Nuclear weapons are the beating heart of our colonial and patriarchal order. These weapons and the security apparatus that places faith in them are inherently dehumanizing. Consider that just a few months after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a poll showed that less than 5 percent of Americans thought laying waste to those cities was a bad idea, and nearly a quarter said that the United States should have dropped more bombs in order to inflict maximum suffering and death before Japan had a chance to surrender. Or consider the financial order that encourages banks to fund companies that produce nuclear weapons, so long as they produce them for European countries and the United States. Or consider how the proponents of deterrence claim that nuclear weapons have prevented war, in spite of the millions of deaths in proxy wars in Korea, Southeast Asia, Africa, and now the Middle East. The loss of those lives is considered a necessary evil or even a policy success. [Read More] And learn more about the International Campaign in this interview with Beatrice Fihn.
Israel Must Prevent an Unnecessary War in Gaza
[FB – Although lightly reported in the US mainstream media, this weekend's fighting in Israel/Gaza is worrisome; learn more here.]
---- As always, the latest flare-up had its own localized reason. This time, an army operation in Gaza went wrong, resulting in one Israeli officer and seven Palestinians being killed. This destructive cycle must be stopped immediately – not by threats to destroy Gaza, and certainly not by pointless remarks like those made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference in Paris on Sunday. "No political solution exists for Gaza, just as there isn't one with ISIS," he said. Netanyahu knows very well that Hamas isn't the Islamic State, and the proof is that negotiations are taking place, albeit indirectly, between Hamas and Israel on a long-term cease-fire. But more importantly, the prime minister of Israel must not relate to two million people living under siege in miserable conditions as if they were an incorrigible gang of terrorists. To do so demonstrates shockingly irresponsible leadership. Netanyahu understands quite well that the clashes in Gaza are the result of despair, distress, poverty and the lack of an economic horizon. Therefore, the solution isn't military, but political. [Read More] For some background on the Israeli raid into Gaza, read "Israeli incursions into Gaza are the rule, not the exception," 972 Magazine [November 13, 2108] [Link].
"They Will Not Forgive Us": Donald Trump Welcomes in the Age of "Usable" Nuclear Weapons
By James Carroll, Tom Dispatch [November 5, 2018]
By James Carroll, Tom Dispatch [November 5, 2018]
---- It was only an announcement, but think of it as the beginning of a journey into hell. Last week, President Donald Trump made public his decision to abrogate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a 1987 agreement with the Soviet Union. National Security Advisor John Bolton, a Cold Warrior in a post-Cold War world, promptly flaunted that announcement on a trip to Vladimir Putin's Moscow. To grasp the import of that decision, however, quite another kind of voyage is necessary, a trip down memory lane. That 1987 pact between Moscow and Washington was no small thing in a world that, during the Cuban Missile Crisis only 25 years earlier, had reached the edge of nuclear Armageddon. The INF Treaty led to the elimination of thousands of nuclear weapons, but its significance went far beyond that. As a start, it closed the books on the nightmare of a Europe caught between the world-ending strategies of the two superpowers, since most of those "intermediate-range" missiles were targeting that very continent. No wonder, last week, a European Union spokesperson, responding to Trump, fervently defended the treaty as a permanent "pillar" of international order. To take that trip back three decades in time and remember how the INF came about should be an instant reminder of just how President Trump is playing havoc with something essential to human survival. [Read More] On this subject, please read also "Unwrapping Armageddon," by Conn Hallinan, ZNet [Link]; and "Here's when all of America's new nuclear warhead designs will be active — and how much they'll cost," b[Link].
Toward Racial Justice and a Third Reconstruction
By Bob Wing, ZNet [November 9, 2018]
---- This piece provides an overview of the bitterly polarized and consequential political moment in which the United States, along with many other countries, is embroiled in. It also suggests a strategic approach for U.S. progressives and the left to maximize our contribution to defeating the Trump and the far right, and advancing toward racial and social justice. Since the mid-1970s I see four main trends shaping the world and the country. Big capital in the U.S., for the most part, has moved to the right in reaction to each of them. Each of these trends has also invigorated rightwing populism. … In this light it is no accident that for the last thirty-five years the majority of the corporate class, along with the politicians who represent them, has moved strongly to the right, grasping for even more political and economic power for themselves by attacking the standard of living of working people at home and opponents abroad. At the same time, rightwing racist populism – the grassroots rightward movement of working and middle-class sectors – has grown more extreme and more powerful. Rightwing corporate capital and rightwing populists are strongly allied, despite their obvious differences and internal fights. Militarism, attacks on the living standard of the working class, along with its organizations, criminalization of Black people, the poor and immigrants, mass incarceration, deregulation, financialization, privatization and gross inequality have ruled the day. And now we have Trump and Trumpism. [Read More]
Shining a Light on Life Behind Bars
By Ella Fassler, The Nation [November 12, 2018]
---- Today, the American Prisoner Writing Archive (APWA) boasts over 1,600 essays, making it the largest and first fully searchable archive of nonfiction writing by those currently incarcerated in the United States. … After reading just a few dozen essays, bold themes begin to emerge: brutal retaliation against the incarcerated for minor infractions, such as misreporting the number of toilet-paper rolls in an individual's cell; assault and rape by corrections officers; cover-ups of corruption, suicide, institutional (and explicit) racism; inadequate or no health care; and the recognition that prison is the new form of slavery in the United States. There are also documentations of extraordinary resilience, resistance to dehumanizing practices, and the will to rebuild damaged lives from inside. The essays are poignant and gut-wrenching. They vividly depict the waking nightmare endured by over 2 million Americans, recalling, in turn, accounts written by freed slaves throughout the late-18th and nineteenth centuries. [Read More]
THOUGHTS ON ARMISTICE DAY
Celebrate Armistice Day, Not Veterans Day
By David Swanson, World Beyond War [November 7, 2018]
---- Veterans Day is no longer, for most people, a day to cheer the ending of war or even to aspire to its abolition. Veterans Day is not even a day on which to mourn the dead or to question why suicide is the top killer of US troops or why so many veterans have no houses. Veterans Day is not generally advertised as a pro-war celebration. But chapters of Veterans For Peace are banned in some small and major cities, year after year, from participating in Veterans Day parades, on the grounds that they oppose war. Veterans Day parades and events in many cities praise war, and virtually all praise participation in war. Almost all Veterans Day events are nationalistic. Few promote "friendly relations with all other peoples" or work toward the establishment of "world peace." It was for this coming Veterans Day that President Donald Trump had proposed a big weapons parade for the streets of Washington, D.C.—a proposal happily canceled after it was met by opposition and almost no enthusiasm from the public, media, or military. [Read More]
(Video) On Veterans Day, Advocates Warn Against Pence & Trump-Led Attacks on VA Healthcare
From Democracy Now! [November 12, 2018]
---- On the federal observance of Veterans Day, we take a closer look at the issue of veterans' healthcare. On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence wrote an article for Fox News touting Trump's record on veterans' health and the passage of a policy known as "Veterans Choice," which is seen by veterans' advocates as an attempt to drain the Veterans Health Administration of needed resources and eventually force privatization of the system. We're joined by award-winning journalist and author Suzanne Gordon. Her new book is "Wounds of War: How the VA Delivers Health, Healing, and Hope to the Nation's Veterans." She recently wrote an article for The New York Times titled "By Protecting Veterans' Health, You May Protect Your Own." [See the Program] Suzanne Gordon's op-ed in The New York Times, "By Protecting Veterans' Health, You May Protect Your Own" can be read here.
Also useful/powerful on Armistice/Veterans Day – "One Veteran's Plea – Get Informed or Ditch the Holiday," by Maj. Danny Sjursen, Antiwar.com [November 13, 2018] [Link]; "Ten Years Gone: Iraq and Afghanistan Vets on What It All Meant," by [Link]; and "Military "Service" Serves the Ruling Class," by Will Griffin, [Link].
THE WAR IN YEMEN
'The violence is unbearable': medics in Yemen plead for help
From The Guardian [UK] [November 8, 2018]
---- Aid agencies and medical staff on the ground in Hodeidah have begged the international community to intervene to stop the violence in the besieged Yemeni city as coalition and Houthi rebel forces struggle to gain the upper hand ahead of a planned ceasefire at the end of the month. "The violence is unbearable, I cannot tell you. We're surrounded by strikes from the air, sea and land," said Wafa Abdullah Saleh, a nurse at the barely functioning al-Olafi hospital in the Houthi-controlled city centre. "The hospital treats the hungry and people injured in airstrikes day in and day out, but there is a serious shortage of medicine," she said. "Even if we try our hardest we cannot treat patients because we lack the necessities for basic operations." Hodeidah, a large and cosmopolitan city on Yemen's Red Sea coast, was seized by Yemen's Houthi rebels early on in the three-year-old war. More than 80% of the country's food, aid, fuel and commercial goods enter the country through the city's port. Attempts by the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to retake the city from the rebels have been delayed after warnings from the UN and aid agencies that any damage to the port facilities could plunge Yemen – where three-quarters of the 28 million population are now reliant on aid to survive – into full-blown famine. Fighting restarted in earnest last week, however, after US calls for a ceasefire at the end of November, as pro-government militias aim to seize as much ground as possible before hostilities are supposed to stop. [Read More]
For more on the military/humanitarian situation in Yemen – "150 Killed in Battle for Yemen's Hodeida as Millions Face Starvation," by Natacha Yazbeck, Agence France Press [November 13, 2018] [Link]; and "Yemeni War Deaths Underestimated By Five To One," by Alisdare Hickson, Intrepidreport.com [November 12, 2018] [Link]
The U.S. Will Stop Refueling Jets in Yemen, but Progressives in Congress Want More
By Alex Emmons, The Intercept [November 9, 2018]
---- On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration would end mid-air refueling support to the Saudi- and UAE-led coalition that has been bombing Yemen, cutting off what is widely seen as the most significant pillar of American support for the brutal campaign. But progressives in Congress are pushing for more, aiming to cut off weapons sales and pass a measure in both chambers that would force the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Yemen. The measure, which was introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D.-Calif) in the House and by Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Mike Lee (R.-Utah) in the Senate, relies on the legal theory that intelligence and logistical support amount to "hostilities" under the 1973 War Powers Act, and therefore must be authorized by Congress, which has not approved U.S. involvement in the war between the coalition and a rebel group known as the Houthis in Yemen. … Citing anonymous sources, the Post reported that the administration's decision "was prompted at least in part by the Saudi military's increased aerial refueling capacity," suggesting that the withdrawal of U.S. support may not have as much impact as Khanna and others hope. [Read More]. Also useful is "Will House Democrats End U.S. Involvement in Yemen War?" by Giorgio Cafiero, Lobe Log [November 7, 2018] [Link].
GLOBAL WARMING/CLIMATE CHAOS
The Terrifying Science Behind California's Massive Camp Fire
---- "We're seeing urban conflagrations, and that's the real phase change in recent years," says Stephen Pyne, a wildfire expert at Arizona State University. It used to be that fires destroyed exurbs or scattered enclaves. "But what's remarkable is the way they're plowing over cities, which we thought was something that had been banished a century ago." The Camp Fire horror show, which burned 70,000 acres in 24 hours, and has now reached over 110,000 acres, is a confluence of factors. … Urban areas aren't supposed to burn, at least they haven't been supposed to since San Francisco in 1906. They've been designed and built with better materials (read: a whole city isn't made of wood alone anymore) and more defensible spaces. But with a conflagration like the Camp Fire, it can overwhelm an urban area by setting off hundreds or thousands of tiny fires, perhaps miles ahead of the main fire itself. There's no single line to put up a fight, so firefighters are overwhelmed. This is what a climate change reckoning looks like. [Read More]
In Blow to Pipeline Project, Court Invalidates Trump Administration's Keystone XL Environmental Review, Blocks Construction
By
---- A federal judge ruled today that the Trump administration violated bedrock U.S. environmental laws when approving a federal permit for TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline project. The judge blocked any construction on the pipeline and ordered the government to revise its environmental review. … U.S. District Court Judge Brian Morris found that the Trump administration's reliance on a stale environmental review from 2014 violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. This ruling follows the court's previous decision, on August 15, 2018, to require additional analysis of the new route through Nebraska. … Based on these violations, the court ordered the State Department to revise its environmental analysis, and prohibited any work along the proposed route — which would cross Nebraska, South Dakota, and Montana — until that analysis is complete. Keystone XL would have carried up to 35 million gallons a day of Canadian tar sands — one of the world's dirtiest energy sources — across critical water sources and wildlife habitat to Gulf Coast refineries. Plaintiffs Northern Plains Resource Council, Bold Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club filed the lawsuit in March 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana. [FB –The story appends a copy of the Court's decision.] [Read More] For the New York Times' version, "Judge Blocks the Disputed Keystone XL Pipeline in a Setback for Trump's Energy Agenda," go here.
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Fierce Critic of Mueller Probe Now Has Power to Sabotage the Investigation
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout [November 8, 2018]
---- An official from the Justice Department told The Washington Post that Whitaker would replace Rosenstein as the decision-making authority over Mueller's investigation. But Whitaker has a likely conflict of interest that could be examined by Justice Department ethics advisers who may pressure him to recuse himself. Whitaker has criticized the Mueller probe on television and in writing. In light of what happened to Sessions, Whitaker is unlikely to recuse himself. Indeed, Trump invariably fired Sessions and appointed Whitaker in order to limit the Mueller investigation. … There is abundant evidence that Trump engaged in obstruction of justice, and he is worried Mueller may come after him. Trump fired Comey because he wouldn't drop the investigation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's ties to Russia. And Trump drafted a memo to cover up the real purpose of the meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and the Russian operative. In addition, Mueller's team is apparently pursuing three avenues that directly impact Trump …. Mueller was undoubtedly aware that Trump would target his investigation once the midterm elections were over, and he may have already taken steps to prevent the total derailment of his work. The special counsel might already have sealed grand jury indictments over which Whitaker would have no control. Mueller, who told Trump's legal team a sitting president cannot be indicted, may have asked the grand jury to name Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator to violate federal election laws. [Read More] Civil liberties lawyer David Cole was interviewed on Democracy Now! See (Video) "Trump Fires AG Sessions, Installs New Loyalist Whitaker to Oversee Mueller Probe" [[November 8, 2018] [Link].
Caravan Walks Quietly On, U.S. Opposition a Distant Rumble
By Kirk Semple and Todd Heisler, New York Times [November 9, 2018]
---- Hoisting their knapsacks on their shoulders, the seven stepped into the stream of migrants and started walking north — a quiet procession that already stretched for miles into the dark Mexican countryside. The migrant caravan began on Oct. 12 in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, with several hundred participants and quickly grew by several thousand as it crossed the border into Guatemala and wound north into Mexico. It became the largest and most dramatic iteration of a yearslong tradition that had largely passed unnoticed: Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence in their homelands, traveling en masse toward the United States, the size of their groups providing security from the criminals who prey on migrants during the journey. [Read More] For an update on the Trump administration rollback of the rights of asylum seekers, read "The Trump Administration Just Unleashed a New Attack on Asylum Seekers," by John Washington, The Nation [November 9, 2018] [Link]; and "Jeff Sessions's Legacy Will Be Catastrophic for Asylum Seekers," by Chris Gelardi, The Nation [November 8, 2018] [Link].
INTERPRETING THE ELECTION RESULTS/WHAT TO DO NEXT
Bernie Sanders Opens Up About New Democrats in Congress, Taking on Trumpism
By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone [November 2018]
---- Sanders, a possible 2020 presidential candidate, called Tuesday's victories "a significant step forward in terms of the revitalization of American democracy." But he also had some customarily sharp-edged takes about the conventional wisdom already forming about the results. As he did two years ago, Sanders warned against complacency and insisted it would be a "very, very serious mistake" if Democrats did not at least try to pass progressive legislation, so as to call Trump's populist bluff. Failure to do so, he implied, would mean ceding vital territory to Trump, a man with "no core beliefs." "People can chew bubble gum and walk at the same time. Democrats can do that. And if all they're going to do is investigate Trump, that would be, in my view a very, very serious mistake. I think finally we are going to have oversight over Trump's behavior. And I think investigations are absolutely appropriate. But simultaneously, people who are making $11 an hour are not worrying about investigations. People who have no health care, or can't afford prescription drugs, are not worried about subpoenas. People who can't afford to send their kids to college are not worried about another investigation. So it would be a tragic mistake in my view if all the Democrats did is focus on investigations. They must, must, must go forward with a progressive agenda to win the support of the American people." [Read More]
A Different Take?
By Michael Albert, ZNet [November 11, 2018]
---- There has been a massive flood of election assessments. What was gained? What worked? What didn't? What are people proposing in response? Writers and activists are wisely touting various lessons. But so far, at least judging from materials I have seen, one direction of thought seems conspicuously absent. Progressive post election commentary nearly universally discerns that urban and even suburban areas, and particularly minority communities and women in those areas largely repudiated Trumpism and strikingly even supported some very progressive and even radical candidates and referenda, whereas rural areas and particularly white working class men (and women) in those rural areas largely backed Trumpism and were far less likely to support progressive referenda. Beyond those observations, while numerous progressive pieces quite reasonably entreat that future serious and sustainable gains require further radicalization of program and process able to further attract and protect urban voters, minority voters, and women voters, I haven't seen any progressive pieces saying that future serious and sustainable gains require enriched program and process that reaches out to rural voters, white voters, and male voters. … If progressive pundits want to weigh in on which way the Democratic Party ought to turn, isn't the core issue not whether it should oppose vile racism and sexism, which of course it should, and not whether it should favor wider health care and oppose harsh cutbacks and particularly environmental calamity, which of course it should, but whether it should continue its decades long strategy of serving the material well being and social advantages of professionals and highly empowered voters – or should instead prioritize serving working people more broadly? [Read More]
Some more perspectives on the elections – "Billionaires, Not Voters, Are Deciding Elections
By Sonali Kolhatkar, Truth Dig [November 9, 2018] [Link]; "The Midterm Results are Challenging Racism in America in Unexpected Ways," b [Link]; "Progressives Win on Medicaid Expansion, Public Education, and Voting Rights Through Ballot Initiatives," by Rachel M. Cohen, The Intercept [[Link]; and "The Top 11 Things the Dems Absolutely must Do in the House," [Link].
OUR HISTORY
Making America's Wars Great Again: The Pentagon Whitewashes a Troubling Past [Vietnam War]
By Arnold R. Isaacs, Tom Dispatch [November 9, 2018]
By Arnold R. Isaacs, Tom Dispatch [November 9, 2018]
---- The Vietnam War was obviously one of the most disastrous of this country's past mistakes — and the Pentagon's "50th Vietnam War commemoration" is a near-perfect example of how both national and military leaders and a willing public have avoided facing important truths about Vietnam and American wars ever since. That's not just a matter of inaccurate storytelling. It's dangerous because refusing to recognize past mistakes makes it easier to commit future ones. For that reason, the selective history the Pentagon has been putting out on Vietnam for more than six years, and what that story tells us about the military leadership's institutional memory, is worth a critical look. The commemoration website's historical material — principally a set of fact sheets and an extensive "interactive timeline" — is laced with factual mistakes, errors of both omission and commission. Its history drastically minimizes or more often completely ignores facts that reveal America's policy and moral failures, its missteps on the ground, and its complicity (along with the enemy's) in massive civilian suffering not just in Vietnam but in Laos and Cambodia, too. Opposition to the war at home is largely scrubbed out of the record as well. Perhaps more telling than the misstatements has been the prolonged failure to correct faulty entries that have remained unchanged for years even though the site's administrators were well aware of them. [Read More]
MLK: What We Lost
By Annette Gordon-Reed, New York Review of Books [November 8th issue]
---- It might be hard for younger generations of Americans in 2018, fifty years after King's assassination, to fathom just how controversial a figure he was during his career, and particularly around the time of his death. That is because King's image has undergone a remarkable transformation in these five decades. He and the movement he helped to lead have been absorbed into a triumphant story of American exceptionalism, in which the actions of individual people matter less than the dynamism of the supposedly inexorable wave of human progress that swept the country forward from the Declaration of Independence to the civil rights movement. The strength of the opposition to civil rights for blacks, the antagonizing and discomfiting words King used, and the aggressively disruptive tactics he and his supporters employed have been pushed into the background. [Read More]
Portrait of a Marriage, Onstage and at the Barricades
By Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times [November 12, 2018]
---- The archive of Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, now at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, traces more than 60 years in the theater, in the movies and at the front lines of social activism. Dee, who grew up in Harlem, got her professional start in 1940 at the American Negro Theater, an ensemble that performed in the building that houses the Schomburg Center. (Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte were also members.) Davis, who arrived in New York in 1939, first performed with the Rose McClendon Players, a company named for the pioneering African-American actress that worked out of the Harlem Library on 124th Street, 10 blocks downtown. But they only met when they were cast opposite each other in "Jeb," a play by Robert Ardrey that opened on Broadway in 1946. Davis played an African-American World War II veteran who returns home to Louisiana only to have his ambitions thwarted by racism. Dee was his long-suffering sweetheart. The play — the third on Broadway that season, The Times noted in its review, dealing with "racial intolerance" — closed after only nine performances. But later that year, Dee and Davis joined "Anna Lucasta," the first play on Broadway with an all-black cast that was not focused on racial themes. (The 1949 Hollywood film version featured an all-white cast.) [Read More]
