CFOW Newsletter - After Trump's Acquittal, What's Next?

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

February 3, 2020

 

Hello All – The final week of the Senate's trial of President Trump raised hopes and then quickly snuffed them out.  The cynical predictions of last summer have come true; no matter what the facts and the law dictated, the Senate Republicans would not vote to convict the Godfather, and President Trump will be acquitted.

 

Before we launch into Plan B, let's take a moment to reflect on what we have just experienced. The USA has always been a flawed democracy, but last week the Senate showed the true face of the wealthy people and interests – the one percent – who rule us.  Their credo is "more for us, nothing for others," and President Trump is their front-man to give them this.  As the New York Times said yesterday morning, "The vote brings the nation face to face with the reality that the Senate has become nothing more than an arena for the most base and brutal — and stupid — power politics."

 

The "base and brutal and stupid power politics" prevails in Washington.  Senator Elizabeth Warren acted on our behalf when she forced Chief Justice to read her question: "At a time when large majorities of Americans have lost faith in government, does the fact that the chief justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the chief justice, the Supreme Court, or Constitution?"

 

Thus what is at stake now in the USA is democracy itself.  What we have now is a crisis of legitimacy, a clearer understanding that the people, the class, that now rules us does their ruling on the basis of power only, and without our consent. So our Plan B includes reclaiming democracy. The Trump regime is illegitimate; we should resist its illegitimacy whenever and wherever we can.

 

Another part of Plan B would be continuing investigation into Trump's corruption. We should demand that the House of Representatives give a forum to John Bolton and other witnesses who the Senate did not want to hear, and subpoena the documents that the Senate did not want to read.  And the investigation of lawlessness should not be confined to Ukraine, etc., but broadened.

 

We can expect the President will feel empowered by his phony acquittal and double-down on political repression and civil liberties violations, with attacks on the poorest and darkest people as his signature MO.  Defending the right to dissent, the right to protest, and the right to seek refuge from wars and the climate crisis will be an important part of our work to reclaim democracy.

 

And finally, a successful Plan B will include being aware of the divisions within the Democratic Party, and working to strengthen those in the Party who are most active in working against war and the climate crisis and the attack on our civil liberties.  During the Impeachment hearings, for example, the focus on military aid to Ukraine led the Democrats to once again exaggerate the Russian threat to the United States.  This should be unacceptable. The Democrat Party is the political vehicle available to us now to reclaim democracy; we can't let it be hijacked by militarists and neo-Cold Warriors.

 

News Notes

Hazaea Alomaisi, known to the Peekskill community as Anwar, went for his regularly scheduled check-in with immigration officials on Friday.  He was arrested by ICE and deported to Yemen on Tuesday, being given no time to see his lawyer or file an appeal.  Anwar had lived for 22 years in the USA, and was well-known in the community for his wildlife photography and his kindness to all. His lawyer says Anwar fears for his life in Yemen, one of the most dangerous places in the world. For more on this story, go here.

 

Last week the House of Representatives voted to repeal the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force act, on which Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump have relied for the legal justification to wage war all over the world [Link]. Useful background explanations of how/why this came about and what it means can be found here and here. This morning the New York Times published a straw-in-the-wind column,  "Americans Demand a Rethinking of the 'Forever War'" in response to the House vote.

 

As of Sunday night, the Corona virus has infected 17,205 people in China, of whom 361 have died.  Already the epidemic has exceeded that of the SARS outbreak in 2002-3. Eleven cases have been confirmed in the USA.  Laurie Garrett, an author of several books on epidemics and how that can be/are not being contained, spoke cogently about the issues on this morning's Democracy Now! ("How Trump Has Sabotaged America's Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic.")  Interesting and thought-provoking about how diseases like the Coronavirus get started is "We Made the Coronavirus Epidemic: It may have started with a bat in a cave, but human activity set it loose," by David Quammen, New York Times.

 

Finally, on this day of the Iowa Caucuses, no newsletter would be complete without a human-interest take on what the good people of Iowa are doing to re-set the nation's political direction.  I particularly liked "Primary Colors: Live From the Iowa Caucuses, Biden, Pence and Trump" by Matthew Stevenson, and here it is.

 

P.S. Don't Forget! If you are not registered as a Democrat, and if you want to vote in the Democratic primary (April 28^th), you must by February 14^th.  Do it now!

 

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 the climate crisis, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. Also, we (usually) have a general meeting on the first Saturday afternoon of each month. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.  And 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!

We haven't heard from Hudson Valley Sally for too long, and so this week's rewards are some of my favorites.  Check out "Sister Moon,"  "Just Deportees," and "Billy in Air." Hudson Valley Sally will be at the Walkabout Clearwater Coffeehouse on April 11^th; save the date!

 

Best Wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

THIS WEEK'S FEATURED ESSAYS

 

The Apartheid Deal of the Century

By Jeff Halper, Middle East Monitor [January 31, 2020]

[FB – Jeff Halper is one of our best analysts/reporters re: Israel/Palestine.  The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions has done outstanding work. Learn about him and his work here.]

---- The Trump "deal of the century" is nothing if not predictable. The product of a small group of Orthodox Jewish Americans willingly adopting the long-standing plans of the Israeli right, it merely reaffirms what Israeli policy has in fact done "on the ground" over the past 53 years. In fact, we in the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) made a map 15 years ago that corresponds closely to Trump's map. Once we knew the route of the Separation Wall, the Apartheid Wall, it was easy to draw the map that would eventually emerge. … Needless to say, the plan is a non-starter. Rather than even a mini-state on 22 per cent of historic Palestine as proposed in the two-state option, the Palestinians – who are both the indigenous and the majority population in the country – will have to do with only 15 per cent of their country. … While Israel expands from 78-85 per cent of the country, the Palestinians are left with a sterile Bantustan: no contiguous territory, no border with the Arab states, no control over water or other vital resources, loss of Jerusalem as a religious, cultural and political center, not to mention its loss as a tourist site – economically non-viable patches of barren land, whether you call it a state or a prison. [Read More]

 

For more on "the Deal of the Century" – "Top 5 ways Trump plan for Palestinians is a Crime against Humanity," by Juan Cole, Informed Comment [January 29, 2020] [Link]; and legal analyst Noura Erakat gives a (video) cogent overview here. The plan is already a non-starter; read "In Humiliating Rebuke, Arab League and Palestine Slap Down Kushner Plan, as Palestine severs all Relations with US and Israel" by Juan Cole [February 2, 2020] here.

Acquittal

 

 

"Public Charge" Ruling Shows the Supreme Court Won't Save Us From Trump's Anti-Immigrant Agenda

By Natasha Lennard, The Intercept [January 28, 2020]

---- Expanding the "public charge" rule, rightly described as a "wealth test" for immigrants, has long been on the Trump administration's fascistic agenda wish list. The new policy — which would make it harder for legal immigrants to obtain green cards if they use, or have ever used, public benefits, including food programs and Medicaid — constitutes a dramatic and draconian shift in immigration policy. After it was first announced last August, immigrant rights advocates and numerous states rushed to oppose the rule; lower courts upheld a national injunction against the cruel policy shift, which could see permanent residency status denied to even employed, documented immigrants who have used government assistance programs. It should come as no surprise that on Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4, along predictable political lines, that the injunction be lifted and that the new "public charge" policy could be enforced. The ruling is just the latest reminder that righteous appeals to judicial checks and balances, and to a constitutional bulwark against Trumpian policy excess, come to a dead end in the nation's highest court. As in the case of the so-called Muslim ban, and the decision to allow billions of dollars in Pentagon funds to go toward building the border wall, the Supreme Court has once again made painfully clear the limits of legal challenges to Trump's anti-immigrant agenda. [Read More]  And for more bad news about immigration, read "One Year into "Remain in Mexico," the U.S. Is Enlisting Central America In Its Crackdown on Asylum" by Sandra Cuffe, The Intercept [January 29, 2020] [Link].

 

Snowden Warns Targeting of Greenwald and Assange Shows Governments 'Ready to Stop the Presses—If They Can'

By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams [January 27, 2020]

---- In an op-ed published Sunday night by the Washington Post, National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden connected Brazilian federal prosecutors' recent decision to file charges against American investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald to the U.S. government's efforts to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. … As Common Dreams reported last week, the NSA whistleblower, who has lived with asylum protection in Russia for the past several years, is also among the political observers who have pointed out that although even some of Greenwald's critics have rallied behind him in recent days, Assange has not experienced such solidarity. Assange is being held in a London prison, under conditions that have raised global alarm, while he fights against extradition to the United States…. In his Post op-ed, "Trump Has Created a Global Playbook to Attack Those Revealing Uncomfortable Truths," Snowden wrote of Greenwald's case that "as ridiculous as these charges are, they are also dangerous—and not only to Greenwald: They are a threat to press freedom everywhere. The legal theory used by the Brazilian prosecutors—that journalists who publish leaked documents are engaged in a criminal 'conspiracy' with the sources who provide those documents—is virtually identical to the one advanced in the Trump administration's indictment of [Assange] in a new application of the historically dubious Espionage Act."  [Read More] For more on Assange, Greenwald, and threats to freedom of the press, read "Reporters Face New Threats From the Governments They Cover" by James Risen, New York Times [January 26, 2020] [Link]. In an interview last week, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture speaks of the many outrages and horrors of the US/UK torture of Assange. [Link].

 

Media on Climate Crisis: Don't Organize, Mourn

By Neil deMause, FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting] [January 31, 2020]

---- The year 2019 was, by all accounts, the year of climate awareness. To an unprecedented degree, in the three decades since scientists first warned of the imminent dangers of rising carbon emissions and the resulting global warming, we were transfixed by record-setting heat waves, wildfires in California and Australia, and, of course, Greta Thunberg's sailboat visit to the US, capped off by her selection as Time's Person of the Year. Yet the newfound attention to climate came with a strange disjunction: Being aware of this massive threat to humanity hasn't translated into much concerted action to stop it… The media's shift toward acknowledging the reality of climate change is welcome, if three decades too late, given that the IPCC has been sounding essentially the same alarm about a warming planet since 1988.  But the public presentation of the climate crisis remains carefully constrained to focus on the horrors awaiting us, not on what can be done to ward off the worst, or who stands in the way of doing so. When climate coverage leaves that out, it amounts to mourning the Earth without trying to save it.  [Read More]

 

Our History

Why American Socialism Failed—and How It Could Prevail Today

By Ross Barkan, The Nation [February 1, 2020]

---- Income inequality was surging, a racist president was ruthlessly deporting immigrants, and the world was struggling to recover from a brutal war. The political scene, like America itself, was a deeply volatile, unpredictable place. Meanwhile, a new wave of lawmakers, many of them under the age of 30, had stormed into office, promising radical change. They were disdainful of Democratic machine politics, furiously opposed to conservative Republicans, and unafraid to call themselves socialists. The year, though, was not 2020—it was 1920. The war was the First World War, which had just ended, killing millions and devastating Europe. The president of the United States was Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat who segregated the civil service and was, by the dawn of the '20s, arresting and deporting Eastern European and Italian immigrants, along with the leftists of the era—socialists, communists, and anarchists. The first Red Scare was in full swing. … Harrington's vision, of a DSA transforming the Democratic Party from within, is more plausible than ever before because of both DSA's booming membership and the relative frailness of the Democratic Party's power structure. Today, DSA succeeds by endorsing leftist Democrats in primaries and securing pledges to socialist ideals in exchange for a vigorous volunteer operation. Urban bosses and elite gatekeepers no longer dominate the party, and there are no singularly influential establishment actors who can tamp down the party's left wing, Barack Obama included. [Read More]

 

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on Trump's Impeachment

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

January 27, 2020

 

Hello All – Will the "leak" of former National Security Adviser John Bolton's book manuscript make a difference?  Will it be the "Black Swan" that saves the day and turns the tide on President Trump's impeachment trial? Will the alleged revelations contained in the manuscript, and reported in today's New York Times (and presumably chewed over for hours on cable news) sway four Republican Senators to agree to Democratic demands that additional witnesses – ta dah, John Bolton – must be called to testify at the Senate trial?  It's not impossible; and there's also a strong possibility that President Trump will commit new unforced errors – a cover-up of the cover-up – in attempting to ensure that Bolton doesn't testify.

 

Without defections from "moderate Republicans," the Republican majority in the Senate is sufficient to bulldoze its way to a vote to acquit Trump by the end of the coming week.  But with an eye to the November elections – not just for president, but for all offices – the Republicans are concerned to manufacture at least a thin coating of legitimacy over the impeachment process. The Democrats' demand that they be able to call additional witnesses appears to be supported by a broad swathe of public opinion. A recent CNN poll, for example, found that 69% of Americans, including 48% of Republicans, say that the impeachment trial should include testimony from new witnesses who did not testify in the House trial. The Bolton revelations will only add to this pressure.

 

The Democrat "managers" have made a strong case.  From a legal perspective, as outlined by former National Lawyers Guild president Marjorie Cohn on Democracy Now! last week, Trump is guilty not only of abuse of power and the Ukraine business, but could also be impeached for war crimes, assassinations, and corruption.  And "the country" seems persuaded: according to a Fox News poll released Sunday morning – has persuaded a majority of the population, and a large majority (53-34 percent) of independents, that the Senate should vote to convict Trump and remove him from office.  Again, the non-stop cable news programming about Bolton's book is likely to strengthen these numbers further. I think this could be an interesting week.

 

Politics

CFOW does not "endorse" candidates for elected office, but we have a consensus among us to support and publicize the ideas and issues of the two progressive Democrats, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. We think these ideas represent the minimum program our country needs to escape the disasters of war and our climate crisis. This week the news media reported that Sanders was ahead in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire; and David Swanson offers a useful analysis of a recent CNN poll, "Sanders is the Most Electable."  The Nation also offers support to the two progressive Democrats, and this week published a pair of "endorsements": "Why I Support Elizabeth Warren for President, by Richard Parker; and "Why I support Bernie Sanders for President," by Zephyr Teachout.  Also last week the Democratic National Committee appointed committees for the Democratic National Convention that include many people strongly opposed to a progressive agenda. Finally, the group of activist-intellectuals around Z Magazine – Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, et al. – has published "An Open Letter to the Green Party about 2020 Election Strategy," urging the party not to run a presidential campaign in battleground states.  An interesting and important piece, imo.

 

News Notes

Shortly after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, some of the scientists who helped to develop the Bomb founded The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to work for peace.  Two years later, they created the Doomsday Clock, posted on their magazine to indicate how close the world was to atomic apocalypse (midnight).  Last year, the Doomsday Clock stood at two minutes before midnight.  Last week the Bulletin moved the second hand so as to leave us at 100 seconds before midnight.  To learn more and why the scientists think we are even closer to Doom this year, go here.

 

On Friday, tens of thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad to demand that US troops leave Iraq. The "million person march" was organized by the supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the heads of Shiite party-militias.  Between them, these groups have more than 100 seats in Iraq's parliament, which voted a few weeks ago to demand that the US troops pull-out, after the assassination of Iran's General Suleimani.  Both President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo have stated that US troops will not leave.  To read a user-friendly background article, go here, and to see a short video of the protests, go here.

 

The coronavirus, which began last month in China, has expanded quickly, with four cases reported in the USA.  Should we worry?  What should we do?  CFOW stalwart Betsy Todd has put up a blog for the American Journal of Nursing explaining the nature of the disease and the precautions we should take. A useful article from Friday's New York Times asks "Is American Ready for Another Outbreak?" and answers in the negative, stressing the importance of decision-making based on science, not politics. One of the reasons why the USA is not as prepared for this new virus as we should be is because so much of our public health infrastructure has suffered from funding cuts over the past decade.  Read more here.

 

Finally, some important votes re: war & peace are coming up in the House of Representatives   next Thursday.  One vote will on the question of repealing the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF; this is introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against the legislation 18 years ago.  The second vote will be on Rep. Ro Khanna's bill to prohibit funding for any military offensive against Iran without congressional approval. If you would like to make your voice heard, you can call Rep. Eliot Engel (202-225-2464) and/or Rep. Nita Lowey (202-225-6506).  To learn more about these bills and other war & peace issues before Congress next week, go here.

 

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 the climate crisis, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. Also, we (usually) have a general meeting on the first Saturday afternoon of each month. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.  And 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!

Randy's back! With President Trump's back to the wall – Impeachment and all that – Randy Rainbow puts up a new campaign theme song ("it's only a draft") to re-elect the Orange One.  And on a much more serious note, I highly recommend this (audio) interview with Michelle Alexander, in which she reflects on the 10^th anniversary of her seminal book, The New Jim Crow, and what it would take to change America's racial crisis.

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

SOME FEATURED ESSAYS

 

How the Transformative Power of Solidarity Will Beat Trump

By Naomi Klein, The Intercept [January 22, 2020]

---- This is one of the fascinating ways that the campaign's slogan "Not Me. Us." has gradually taken on a life of its own, with new layers of meaning added as the project matures. When the slogan was first unveiled, it seemed to mean something narrow and specific: This campaign was not about voting for a messianic leader who would fix all of our problems for us. To achieve the scale and speed of change that Sanders is pledging (and that we desperately need), the people currently supporting his campaign, with small donations and volunteer work and eventually votes, will need to stay organized and keep pushing for change on the outside, just as they did during the New Deal era. The slogan still carries that meaning. … But as the campaign has gone on and the base has grown, the slogan's meaning has become more layered. "Not Me. Us." is now also the first-person voice of that worker or student or senior or immigrant who previously had been suffering in silence and solitude, blaming themselves, and who now sees that they have more company than they ever dared to imagine. Now it also means: "I thought it was just me. Now I know it is us." [Read More]

 

How Generation Z is leading the climate movement

By Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence [January 14, 2020]

---- Andrea Manning was quickly drawn into Zero Hour's remotely coordinated teenage network, becoming an organizer. The team's first project was a nationwide day of action that summer on July 21, 2018, which included a march in Washington, D.C. and satellite actions around the country. Manning and her friends pulled off an Atlanta rally that drew 40 people. Small as this first local action may have been, the phenomenon of high schoolers protesting climate change piqued the community's interest and garnered coverage from news media like the Georgia State Signal. Meanwhile, young people around the world were drawing inspiration from Zero Hour — most notably Greta Thunberg, then a 15-year-old high school student in Sweden. Thunberg read about Zero Hour's day of action online. Then, a month later, she began her Fridays For Future school strike campaign, protesting outside Sweden's parliament every week. The strike movement spread across Europe and the world, becoming a key part of today's wave of youth climate activism.  [Read More]

 

Indelible Legacy: Or How This Became a Gitmo World

Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua Dratel, Tom Dispatch [January 2020]

---- In January 2002, the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility in Cuba opened its gates for the first 20 detainees of the war on terror. Within 100 days, 300 of them would arrive, often hooded and in those infamous orange jumpsuits, and that would just be the beginning. At its height, the population would rise to nearly 800 prisoners from 59 countries. Eighteen years later, it still holds 40 prisoners, most of whom will undoubtedly remain there without charges or trial for the rest of their lives. … And those detainees are hardly the only enduring legacy of Guantánamo Bay. Thanks to that prison camp, we as a country have come to understand aspects of both the law and policy in new ways that might prove to be "forever changes." Here are eight ways in which the toxic policies of that offshore facility have contaminated American institutions, as well as our laws and customs, in the years since 2002. [Read More]

 

One person, one vote for Israel-Palestine

By Gideon Levy, Haaretz [Israel] [January 26, 2020]

---- The Trump administration's Middle East peace plan brings with it good news and bad news. It will put the final nail in the coffin of that walking corpse known as the two-state solution – that's the good news. It will also create a new reality in which international law, the resolutions of the international community and especially international institutions are meaningless. Filled with the hope that the U.S. president instills in us, in his great mercy, let's begin with the good news. Once his proposal is made public, no one will ever be able to talk with any seriousness about the two-state solution. It was probably never born, but now it is clearly dead. There is no Palestinian state and there never will be. … Trump's news and the world's capitulation, however, are much more portentous. Trump is creating not only a new Israel, but a new world. A world without international law, without honoring international resolutions, without even the appearance of justice. A world in which the U.S. president's son-in-law is more powerful than the UN General Assembly. [Read More]

 

The War on Journalism [Julian Assange and Glenn Greenwald]

By Nozomi Hayase, Antiwar.com [January 24, 2020]

---- At the hearing on Thursday, at Westminster in London, the timetable for Julian Assange's US extradition case was worked out. Assange's US legal teams made an application to have the extradition hearing split. His defense lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, emphasized to the court that they won't be ready to call the main body of their evidence until after the first week of the hearing, which is now set to start at the end of February.  … Assange's legal team has been warning about the threat to press freedom by the US government's judicial overreach to prosecute a foreign journalist, with their two-edged sword of denying the First Amendment protection, while applying the Espionage Act. … Now, the "Assange precedent" seems to be being quietly established. The spark of the war on journalism now has enlarged. On Tuesday, Glenn Greenwald, a journalist at The Intercept, was charged with cybercrimes in Brazil…  Assange's extradition hearing is now set to proceed in two parts from the beginning of February 24, for one to two weeks and then continue further from May 18 for three more weeks. This is the most important press freedom case of 21^st century. The public must engage in order to end this war on journalism. [Read More]

 

Americans Need to Hear More from Iranians. Here's Where to Start.

By Negin Owliaei, Foreign Policy in Focus [January 21, 2020]

---- Following President Trump's announcement that the U.S. would seek new sanctions, but not immediate military escalation, against Iran, most people in the United States likely breathed a sigh of relief. For Iranians and Iranian Americans like myself, that relief was accompanied by a reminder of just how painful existing conditions can be. Sanctions starve our people of food, medicine, and safety while public figures threaten us with more violence. We may no longer be at immediate risk of all-out, open combat, but this is hardly peace. Every part of the U.S. relationship with Iran feels asymmetrical, and looking through coverage of Iran in U.S. media makes that imbalance incredibly obvious. … Perspectives from Iranians and Iranian Americans have been largely absent in mainstream U.S. media, or of questionable sourcing when they do appear. Fortunately, this absence has also been felt by plenty of Americans, eager to resist more bloodshed in their names. So I've compiled a few of the most illuminating and emotionally resonant pieces I've come across from Iranians and Iranian Americans, both in the diaspora and within Iran. [Read More]

 

Our History

(Video) "King in the Wilderness"

FB – I failed to include this magnificent documentary – new to me – in last week's appreciation of Martin Luther King, on the anniversary of his birthday.  This 2018 film covers King's last years, when, following the Harlem riots of 1964 and the Watts riot of 1965, he moves his civil rights campaign to the North, starting with a residence in Chicago slum housing, and intersects with a political climate that sorely tests his commitment to nonviolence. Check it out - here.

 

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on Dr. Martin Luther King's gifts to us all

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

January 19, 2020

 

Hello All – Martin Luther King, Jr. is remembered now as a civil rights leader and an advocate of nonviolence; but in his last years King also became an outspoken opponent of war and a crusader for economic justice.   On his day, let us remember and honor the great arc – the entirety – of Dr. King's life.

 

In one of his last essays, for example, King pointed out that the "black revolution" had gone beyond the "rights of Negroes." The struggle, he said, is "forcing America to face all of its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism and materialism. It is exposing the evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced."

 

This is the Martin Luther King, Jr. that we wish to especially remember and honor today.  In the face of our many wars, we recall the words he spoke at Riverside Church in NYC just a year before his death; he said:

 

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

 

Millions of people are homeless and suffering because of the wars supported by our government. The disasters of war engulf Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and now threatens the people of Iran. Yet the people of America have not been able to act effectively to turn the tide of disaster. In his own day, King addressed a similar dilemma, our failure to stop the war in Vietnam, killing millions of people. In his 1967 speech at Riverside Church, he said:

 

If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve...The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways.

 

Finally, Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaimed that justice and peace couldn't wait. Millions of lives depended on swift and powerful action. He said:

 

We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, "Too late."

 

On this, the 91^st birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., let us honor his memory by renewing our resolve to do all we can to work for peace and justice.

 

Some illuminating reading/listening to help us remember MLK – We can starting with his great 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech, move on to his courageous "Anti-Vietnam War speech" at Riverside Church, NY, in 1967; and finally to the speech he gave to striking Memphis sanitation workers on the eve of his assassination, "I Have Been to the Mountaintop." As for some reading, there is so much, but some of these may be new to you: "The Hours Before "I Have a Dream," by Calvin Trillin, The New Yorker [August 30, 1963] [Link]; "Martin Luther King's Radical Anticapitalism," by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, The Paris Review [January 15, 2020] [Link]; and "Martin Luther King Day with Trump," by Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker January 7, 2017] [Link].

 

Politics

The media-driven scuffle between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and their supporters, thankfully seems to be drawing to a close; but it shows the fragility of the non-aggression pact between the two progressive candidates for the Democratic nomination for president.  I think it is  very important that we keep our Eyes on the Prize of retaining this progressive united front until it is clear which of the two candidates appears to have the greater chance of winning in November, and then to encourage a blending of the two campaigns behind him or her.  In this case, as in so many others, demands for "unity from below" are our safeguard against division among leaders.  In support of this, let us congratulate the leaders of 16 progressive organizations who quickly issued a unity statement, and I encourage a close reading of the article by Norman Solomon, a supporter of Sanders, "Not Bernie, Us.  Not Warren, Us."

 

Also fading seems to be the immediate danger of a US-Iran war. In the 48 hours when it appeared that such a war was threatening, it was clear that there was not much popular support for war, and in many places strong opposition.  But it was also clear that the antiwar movement was not as strong as it must be if we are to have much effectiveness.  Responding to this concern, I think that we all – not just "antiwar groups" – need to give this our attention.  Helpful in this respect, I believe, are ""Iran Tensions Showed How Much More Work an Effective U.S. Anti-War Movement Needs to Do," by Natasha Lennard, The Intercept [Link], and a roundtable discussion led by The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill, "Trump v. Iran: What Now?" [Link].

 

News Notes

The proliferation of "Killer drones," used to assassinate Iranian General Suleimani and thousands of other "bad guys" around the world, is a terrible danger to the human species.  In Westchester, www.knowdrones.com is an excellent website to learn about this danger.  This week I learned about a UN program that focuses on the dangers of drone robots, the drones guided/programmed by Artificial Intelligence.  To learn more about this danger, I recommend a chapter from the just-out annual report of Human Rights Watch, "As Killer Robots Loom, Demands Grow to Keep Humans in Control of Use of Force" [Link].

 

We learned this week that the past decade was the hottest decade in recorded history, and that 2019 was the second-hottest year ever. Moreover, according to new climate models, it appears that the force of CO2 in the atmosphere has been underestimated, and that it has a greater impact on warming that has been thought up to now. In a nutshell, this is very bad news. Thus the deadline to establish a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, thought to be some 12 years in the future according to the most recent UN report, may well be some decades behind us.  Whether and how much drastic action may mitigate disaster, such as that now  burning much of Australia, is of course unknown, but it would be criminal not to try.  To get involved in a serious way with efforts to save our civilization from environmental chaos, check out the newly formed group, Extinction Rebellion Westchester.

 

On December 9^th the Washington Post published documents – dubbed "the Afghanistan Papers" – it received under the Freedom of Information Act that showed that the congressionally appointed Inspector for Afghanistan had amassed  hundreds of pages of testimony by US military personnel in Afghanistan affirming that the war was going badly and they had no idea what they were doing.  Last Tuesday, Rep. Eliot Engel's Foreign Affairs Committee held a lengthy hearing/interview with the Inspector, who confirmed the worst news and more. The video of the hearing can be seen here, and an especially illuminating segment can be watched at 1:17:25 into the video. Because of the Impeachment proceedings and the usual Trump antics of the day, the hearing was poorly attended, with little media coverage; and it is to be regretted that Rep. Engel did not use the full potential of the Afghanistan Papers to launch an extended public investigation into the War against Afghanistan and why we should leave asap, but in an odd way Trump's wars-around-the-world are sheltered from scrutiny by the media/congressional demands of Impeachment.

 

Last Tuesday, more than 500 people went to Albany to support "Fair and Timely Parole" (S.497A) and "Elder Parole," (S.2144).  CFOW member Steve Siebert reports:  

 

Over 500 people (for issues like this, an unexpectedly large and encouraging number) showed up to urge lawmakers to pass these two bills. Much of the day was theatrical – marches though the halls while singing and chanting, a press conference on the Million Dollar Staircase, stories from many formerly incarcerated [under the dome of the aptly but depressingly named War Room, "honoring" acts of genocide against native Americans thought to be part of NY state's glorious history]). But numerous meetings were held with legislators, and additional co-sponsors signed onto the bills. Our subgroup of about eight people met with an aide to Tom Abinanti, who has not yet signed on to sponsor either bill. I've talked to him in the past about the urgency of criminal justice reform, and he seems supportive, but also seems to need political cover for this. Another Hastings-on-Hudson resident who was there and I are going to try to get a petition together with hopefully hundreds of signatures from the river towns, including Tarrytown and perhaps Elmsford.

  

For details on the issue and the event, go here. And coming up next week, on January 21^st in Albany there will be a rally to limit solitary confinement to 15 days. To learn more about the event and the reasons why the action is important, go here. The organizers are aiming for 1,000 participants; please join them!

 

Finally, as if we don't have enough on our plate, Business Insider reports (and video!) that "The Navy has said it has top-secret information about unidentified flying objects that could cause "exceptionally grave damage to the National Security of the United States" if released."  We report, you decide.

 

Things to Do/Coming Attractions

Tuesday, January 21^st – Again in Albany, there will be a rally to limit solitary confinement to 15 days.  To learn more about the event and the reasons why the action is important, go here. The organizers are aiming for 1,000 participants; please join them!

 

Sunday, January 26^th – The Sister District Bronx/Westchester with the Social Justice committee at the First Unitarian Society of Westchester and CFOW will show the documentary film "Suppressed: The Fight to Vote," from 3 to 5 pm.  The film shows Stacey Abrams' fight to become the first Black female governor in the U.S, and the many challenges that face Georgians, including polling place closures, voter purges, missing absentee ballots, extreme wait times and a host of voter ID issues—all of which disproportionately prevented many students and people of color from casting their ballots. The FUSW is at 25 Old Jackson Rd. in Hastings. For more information email ny16dc@gmail.com.  

 

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 the climate crisis, but issues such as racial justice or Trump's immigration policies are often targeted, depending on current events. Also, we (usually) have a general meeting on the first Saturday afternoon of each month. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page.  And 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!

Until this week, I did not know about the Protest Music Project housed at the interesting website www.shadowproof.com.  From this site, and in honor of yesterday's many Women's Marches, here is "We Are Rising" by Taina Asili.  Enjoy!

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

THIS WEEK'S FEATURED ESSAYS

 

Injustice on Repeat: From mass incarceration to mass deportation, our nation remains in deep denial.

By Michelle Alexander, New York Times [January 17, 2020]

---- We are now living in an era not of post-racialism but of unabashed racialism, a time when many white Americans feel free to speak openly of their nostalgia for an age when their cultural, political and economic dominance could be taken for granted — no apologies required. Racial bigotry, fearmongering and scapegoating are no longer subterranean in our political discourse; the dog whistles have been replaced by bullhorns. White nationalist movements are operating openly online and in many of our communities; they're celebrating mass killings and recruiting thousands into their ranks. … Contrary to what many people would have us believe, what our nation is experiencing is not an "aberration." The politics of "Trumpism" and "fake news" are not new; they are as old as the nation itself. The very same playbook has been used over and over in this country by those who seek to preserve racial hierarchy, or to exploit racial resentments and anxieties for political gain, each time with similar results. [Read More]

 

The Center Blows Itself Up: Care and Spite in the 'Brexit Election'

By David Graeber, New York Review of Books [January 13, 2020]

---- Politics, in wealthy countries, is increasingly becoming a war between the generations. … Why, then, such an apparently devastating victory? Why did middle-aged swing voters—particularly in the former Labour heartlands of the North—break right instead of left? … Most experienced the next forty or so years largely as a sequence of disasters. In 2016 they turned against the "Eurocrats," then watched in dismay as the entire political class proceeded to engage in endless and increasingly absurd procedural ballet that appeared designed to reverse their decision. This explanation is true, but superficial. To understand why Brexit became such an issue in the first place, one must first ask why a populism of the right has so far proved more adept than the left at capitalizing on profound shifts in the nature of class relations that have affected not just the UK but almost all wealthy societies; second, one must understand the uniquely nihilistic, indeed self-destructive, role of centrism in the British political scene. [Read More]  For additional insights into the collapse of the UK, read "Labour's fake anti-Semitism crisis outlives Corbyn" by Asa Winstanley, Electronic Intifada [January 16, 2020] [Link]; and "So Much for England," by Tariq Ali, London Review of Books [January 23, 2020] [Link]

 

The Playbook for Poisoning the Earth [Bees and Neonicotinoids]

By Lee Fang, The Intercept [January 18, 2020]

[FB – Years ago, the late Jean St. George, an early member of CFOW, would bring up at our monthly meetings, "What about the bees?" To give her her due, we would talk about this for a few minutes and then move on, not knowing how to even start "saving the bees."  Looking back, how wrong we were, and how right Jean was, about the centrality of this crisis.]

---- In September 2009, over 3,000 bee enthusiasts from around the world descended on the city of Montpellier in southern France for Apimondia — a festive beekeeper conference filled with scientific lectures, hobbyist demonstrations, and commercial beekeepers hawking honey. But that year, a cloud loomed over the event: bee colonies across the globe were collapsing, and billions of bees were dying. … In the U.S., however, industry dug in, seeking not only to discredit the research but to cast pesticide companies as a solution to the problem. Lobbying documents and emails, many of which were obtained through open records requests, show a sophisticated effort over the last decade by the pesticide industry to obstruct any effort to restrict the use of neonicotinoids. [Read More] For some clues about where this is going, read "Who Controls Trump's Environmental Policy?" New York Times [January 14, 2020] [Link].

 

Our History

It's Time We Celebrate Ella Baker Day

By Mark Engler, The Nation [January 17, 2020]

---- Honoring Baker alongside Martin Luther King would highlight the long and patient work of building a social movement. King was undeniably an inspirational leader who deserves to be honored. But this weekend also should allow us to appreciate other contributors to the civil rights movement. The life of Ella Baker highlights a different model of leadership and gives insight into the long and patient work of building a social movement. While King is justly remembered as a powerful preacher and rousing orator, a political strategist and practitioner of nonviolent direct action, Baker calls attention to a more specific role: that of the organizer.

Drawing from activist Bob Moses, the sociologist Charles Payne has argued that the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s actually contained two distinct traditions. One he labels "the community-mobilizing tradition," which was "focused on large-scale, relatively short-term public events." Payne sees this lineage as "best symbolized by the work of Martin Luther King," and he includes in it such well-remembered events as the March on Washington and the famous campaigns in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama. The second is a tradition of community organizing. This is a lineage, Payne writes, "with a different sense of what freedom means and therefore a greater emphasis on the long-term development of leadership in ordinary men and women," and it is a tradition best epitomized "by the teaching and example of Ella Baker."

Ultimately, both dramatic mass protest and long-term organizing were essential to the gains of the civil rights movement. But in retellings of what it took to secure change, the latter work is too often forgotten. [Read More]