Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
January 3, 2021
Hello All – Newsletter writing this afternoon was interrupted by the report from the Washington Post that President Trump had spent an hour on the phone to Georgia election officials and lawyers threatening them with whatever if they couldn't find 12,000 votes needed to change the outcome of that state's presidential election. Unfortunately for Trump, the Washington Post story was based not just on a "report," but on the transcript of the recorded phone call. Holy Banana Republic!
As dozens of Talking Heads reported, Trump's talk was that of a second-strong Mafia Don, issuing barely concealed threats along the lines of "It would be a shame if that nice political career you have would have a car crash," and similar profundities. And the Heads pondered whether Trump had called other states as well; and what else was he up to? Didn't he break the law? Was this Treason?!? Tensions already in play around next week's critical political events – the Senate races in Georgia and the reports of the Electoral College votes to Congress – were ratcheted up another notch. How had America come to this?
And yet – and yet, the impoverishment of the State of our Union goes much deeper than the antics of President Trump. Consider the information and analysis presented below in the section of readings about the Covid-19 pandemic. "We" were unprepared for the corona virus. "We" had dismantled our public health infrastructure. "We" could not forge a consensus on the basic science involved. And "we" could not figure out how to manufacture face masks, how to get needed supplies to healthcare workers and hospitals. "We" could not even achieve a social norm that wearing a face mask was obligatory. Already, more Americans have died of the virus (330K) than were soldiers killed in World War II (291K). We will likely be at 400,000 dead by the time Trump is out of office, and perhaps a million will die before 2022 rolls around.
All this reflects a social and economic system that has failed. It can't protect people from death; it can't deliver whatever is needed to meet basic needs, and it certainly can't deliver "the pursuit of happiness." We need to replace the system with something better, not waste time in patching and polishing what we've got. A consciousness that this is true had been reached by a large and growing share of our people. Let us in 2021 nurture this consciousness and make it grow. Just because Trump leaves the house doesn't mean that we can continue to neglect the foundation, walls, and roof of the world in which we live.
News Notes
President Trump's relentless efforts to remain in office, despite losing to the presidential election by seven million votes, have not gone unnoticed by the Pentagon. Recalling the days when Nixon, facing impeachment, was considered a threat to start a nuclear war and/or commit suicide, the Pentagon has what one analyst calls a "Red Alert" regarding Trump's talk about declaring martial law and not leaving office. Read this interesting/scary account by Newsweek military analyst William Arkin, "Donald Trump's Martial-Law Talk Has Military on Red Alert," here.
Our last Newsletter of 2020 focused on capital punishment and the four federal prisoners scheduled to die before Trump leaves office. One of those so scheduled, Lisa Montgomery, was the subject of an in-depth New York Times article, "Punch after Punch, Rape after Rape, a Murderer Was Made." On the day before Christmas, a federal judge put Lisa Montgomery's execution on hold, raising the possibility that she would live until Biden – who has declared he is against the death penalty s– would become president. But on Friday the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC ruled that the execution could proceed. The killing is now scheduled for January 12th.
For as long as anyone can remember, CFOW stalwart Susan Rutman has had her camera at our events, taking pictures of people and all the action. At the CFOW New Year's Eve (Zoom) Gala last Thursday, we saw a fabulous slideshow of Susan's pictures of CFOW life & times. It's about 20 minutes long; check it out here.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Taking the Covid Crisis into account, we meet (with safe distancing) for a protest/rally on Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Another vigil takes place on the first Monday of the month (January 4th, etc.), from 5 to 5:30 pm, in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. In this time of coronavirus, we are meeting by Zoom conference; if you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, Tuesday and Thursday at noon and/or Saturday at 4 pm, please send a return email. 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 by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards!
Whatever tricks President Trump has up has sleeve, ain't nobody here scared of that faker. First we lift up the Resistance Revival Chorus and "All You Fascists Bound to Lose." Moving right along, let's listen to another one by the Chorus, "This Joy." And finally, a song that I learned on my first civil rights march so long ago, "Woke Up this Morning (with My Mind Stayed on Freedom)." Enjoy! And stay strong!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC CRISIS
The Plague Year: The mistakes and the struggles behind America's coronavirus tragedy.
By Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker [December 28, 2020]
--- There are three moments in the yearlong catastrophe of the COVID-19 pandemic when events might have turned out differently. The first occurred on January 3, 2020, when Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spoke with George Fu Gao, the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which was modelled on the American institution. Redfield had just received a report about an unexplained respiratory virus emerging in the city of Wuhan. The field of public health had long been haunted by the prospect of a widespread respiratory-illness outbreak like the 1918 influenza pandemic, so Redfield was concerned. … Redfield made a formal request to the Chinese government and assembled two dozen specialists, but no invitation arrived. A few days later, in another conversation with Redfield, Gao started to cry and said, "I think we're too late." Perhaps Gao had just been made aware that the virus had been circulating in China at least since November. Certainly, Redfield didn't know that the virus was already present in California, Oregon, and Washington, and would be spreading in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Iowa, Connecticut, Michigan, and Rhode Island within the next two weeks—well before America's first official case was detected. [Read More]
The Vaccine Is Here—Now, We Must Distribute It Fairly
By Zoë Carpenter, The Nation [December 23, 2020]
---- With the national Covid death toll surpassing 300,000, the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine left a facility in Kalamazoo, Mich., on December 13, kicking off an extraordinary effort to inoculate nearly all Americans against the coronavirus. The vaccination campaign faces enormous challenges: the need to keep that vaccine at –94 degrees Fahrenheit, for one. But the challenges are not only logistical. Serious ethical questions remain about who will be at the front of the line. The pandemic has magnified long-standing health inequities in the United States. Black, Indigenous, and Latino Americans have died of Covid-19 at a rate more than 2.7 times that of white Americans. Given this disproportionate toll, which was exacerbated by political leaders' failure to ensure equitable access to testing and care, there's an urgent need for public officials to prioritize racial and economic equity in allocating the vaccines. [Read More] The issue of equity is worldwide. Will the wealthy countries hog all the vaccines, leaving people in poorer countries to wait years (or forever) for their turn? Watch (Video) "People's Vaccine: Calls Grow for Equal Access to Coronavirus Vaccine as Rich Countries Hoard Supply," from Democracy Now! [January 1, 2021] [[Link]]; and read "One Vaccine Side Effect: Global Economic Inequality" b[Link].
Biden Must Tackle the Pandemic With a New Deal for Public Health
By Gregg Gonsalves, The Nation [December 26, 2020]
---- While the failures of the Trump administration on Covid-19 are deservedly well known, Trump alone did not set us up for this catastrophe. Since 2002, during the Bush and Obama presidencies, key funding for state and local health departments dropped by a third, from $940 million in fiscal year 2002 to $667 million in fiscal year 2017. And as the Trust for America's Health documented in 2018, of the $3.36 trillion we spend on health care annually, only 3 percent goes to public health. … A genuine New Deal for Public Health—one that lifts up social welfare as key to our nation's post-pandemic future—will be a struggle to achieve. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and the GOP will summarily dismiss it as socialism, because doing anything that helps the incoming administration is not in their political interest, even if it's a matter of life and death for their constituents. The temptation in Congress, too, will be to settle for less by compromising from the start. But if the Democrats embrace an austerity politics now—by claiming, as Ted Kaufman, one of Biden's chief advisers, did in August, that "when we get in, the pantry is going to be bare"—we will limp out of this pandemic far worse off than when we began. When the prescription is for a full dose of medicine to cure a disease, getting a few pills isn't a victory; it's a recipe for the next disaster. [Read More]
WAR & PEACE
Iran attack may be next in Trump's farewell bag of tricks
By Trita Parsi, National Iranian-American Council [December 31, 2020]
---- No one thought President Donald Trump would leave quietly. But would he go so far as to start a military confrontation with Iran on his way out? Recent military movements by the Pentagon in the Middle East (ostensibly to deter Iran from attacking American troops on the anniversary of the assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani), combined with Israeli media reports that Saudi Arabi and Israel are pressing Trump to bomb Iran before he leaves office, has fueled speculation that Trump may be planning his biggest — and likely most disastrous — stunt yet. … Even if confrontation with Iran won't prevent Biden from becoming President, Trump may calculate that it will kill the Iran nuclear deal once and for all, and ensure continued support for Trump by Adelson and the Evangelicals, which in turn can help Trump strengthen his grip over the GOP even after his presidency. Israeli and Arab media reported today that Saudi Arabia and Israel has been pressuring Trump to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities before he leaves office precisely to prevent Biden from returning to the JCPOA. [Read More]
Activists and Parliamentarians Join Together to Prevent Armed Drones in Germany
By Elsa Rassbach and Nick Mottern, Common Dreams [December 24, 2020]
[FB – CFOW's Nick Mottern and his colleague in Germany describe a very big victory in the halting of legislation to approve arming/deployment of a new drone. Can we do this here? Check out what the German peace movement did to make this happen.]
----In an historic development that will undoubtedly save the lives and sanity of many people in Mali and Afghanistan—a development in which a number of U.S. citizens participated—the German military establishment was forced by a surprising surge of opposition among the MPs in the Socialist Democrat Party (SPD) in the German Bundestag (parliament) to delay plans, at least for now, to arm the Heron TP drones that Germany has been leasing from Israel since 2018. … The decision by the German parliament not to arm drones pending extensive further public discussion regarding drone killing is indeed historic. It is the only instance in which a sufficiently broad and deep popular opposition to drone killing has been mounted to effectively thwart a military, political and industry campaign to acquire and deploy killer drones. The decision is also a high point in a nearly decade-long campaign that has involved over one hundred peace groups and other civil society, scientific and religious organizations and NGOs. The campaign in Germany began to take shape in 2012, soon after Angela Merkel's party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), announced plans to acquire armed drones for the German Bundeswehr, in spite of strong international and U.N. criticism of U.S. and Israeli targeted drone killings as well as by the Left Party in the Bundestag in 2010. [Read More]
Why Senators Must Reject Avril Haines for Intelligence
By Medea Benjamin and Marcy Winograd, Code Pink [December 30, 2020]
[FB – I'm posting this article partly because it shows that Avril Haines is the wrong choice for Biden's Director of National Intelligence; but also because the thorough investigation by Benjamin and Winograd reveals details about Haines' views and record that are typical of many of Biden's nominees for his "national security team." The inclination of this team, imo, is to push for an aggressive foreign policy, allegedly "reclaiming US world leadership." What could go wrong?]
---- Even before President-Elect Joe Biden sets foot in the White House, the Senate Intelligence Committee may start hearings on his nomination of Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence. Barack Obama's top lawyer on the National Security Council from 2010 to 2013 followed by CIA Deputy Director from 2013 to 2015, Haines is the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing. She is the affable assassin who, according to Newsweek, would be summoned in the middle of the night to decide if a citizen of any country, including our own, should be incinerated in a U.S. drone strike in a distant land in the greater Middle East. Haines also played a key role in covering up the US torture program, known euphemistically as "enhanced interrogation techniques," which included repeated water boarding, sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, dousing naked prisoners with ice cold water, and rectal rehydration. For these reasons, among others, the activist groups CODEPINK, Progressive Democrats of America, World Beyond War and Roots Action have launched a campaign calling on the Senate to reject her confirmation.
THE CLIMATE CRISIS
5 years after the Paris Accord: How countries' climate policies match up to their promises, and who's aiming for net zero emissions
By Morgan Bazilian and Dolf Gielen, The Conversation [January 1, 2021]
[FB – With the USA not participating in the Paris Climate Agreement during the Trump years, precious time has been lost. Biden has promised to rejoin the Agreement and to implement an aggressive climate policy. This useful article reviews how the signers of the Agreement have been doing – or not doing – to meet their targets for CO2 reduction, and the challengers that the nations face as we try to save our civilization.]
---- December marked the fifth anniversary of the Paris climate agreement – the commitment by almost every country to try to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius. It's an ambitious goal, and the clock is ticking. The planet has already warmed by about 1 C [1.8 degrees F.] since the start of the industrial era. That might not sound like much, but that first degree is changing the planet in profound ways, from more extreme heat waves that put human health and crops at risk, to rising sea levels. Bold visions for slowing global warming have emerged from all over the world. Less clear is how countries will meet them. So far, countries' individual plans for how they will lower their greenhouse gas emissions don't come close to adding up to the Paris Agreement's goals. Even if every country meets its current commitments, the world will still be on track to warm by more than 3 C this century, according to the United Nations Environment Program's latest "Emissions Gap Report," released ahead of the anniversary. [Read More] And for an update, read "How Trump Tried, but Largely Failed, to Derail America's Top Climate Report" New York Times [January 1, 2021] [Link]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
(Video) The Freedom Struggle in 2020: Angela Davis on Protests, Defunding Police & Toppling Racist Statues
From Democracy Now! [December 31, 2020]
---- In a Democracy Now! special, we revisit our June 2020 interview with the legendary activist and scholar Angela Davis about the uprising against police brutality and racism launched in May after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The protests have helped dramatically shift public opinion on policing and systemic racism, as "defund the police" became a rallying cry of the movement. Davis is professor emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. For half a century, she has been one of the most influential activists and intellectuals in the United States and an icon of the Black liberation movement. [See the Program]
What Biden and Harris Owe the Poor
By William J. Barber II and Liz Theoharis, New York Times [December 25, 2020[
[FB - Dr. Barber and Dr. Theoharis are co-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign.]
---- To fulfill the mandate that the 2020 electorate has given them, Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris must reject the politics of austerity and fulfill their commitment to policies that address human needs and cultivate human capacities. While the Georgian runoffs will determine whether Democrats have a Senate majority, the new administration can take a bold stand now and commit to policies that would lift Americans regardless of their party affiliation. We must have immediate relief targeted to the Black, Native, poor and low-income communities that have suffered most from Covid-19, alongside universal action to address the root causes of inequality by guaranteeing every American access to quality health care, a $15 minimum wage, the right to form and join a union, and access to affordable housing. [Read More]
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Palestinian Teenagers Bashar and Yousef Join a Grim Statistic: Shot by Israeli Forces
By Amira Hass, Haaretz [Israel] [January 3, 2021]
---- Bashar Hamad, 16, of the Qalandiyah refugee camp and Yousef Taha, 17, of Kafr Qaddum don't know each other. But they form part of the unseen statistic of Palestinians shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank last year. Of the total, 632 were wounded by sponge- or rubber-tipped metal bullets, including 127 minors, while 155 were wounded by live fire, including 28 minors. And that's on top of the 1,513 who were suffocated by tear gas and needed treatment on the spot or at a clinic, among them 195 minors. The two teens have something else in common: Each was just a hairsbreadth from joining the statistics of those killed by Israeli fire in 2020 – 25 people in the West Bank, including seven minors. [Read More]
The US Money Tree: The Untold Story of American Aid to Israel
By Ramzy Baroud, Editor, Palestine Chronicle [January 1, 2021]
---- On December 21, the United States Congress passed the COVID-19 Relief Package, as part of a larger $2.3 trillion bill meant to cover spending for the rest of the fiscal year. As usual, US representatives allocated a massive sum of money for Israel. While unemployment, thus poverty, in the US is skyrocketing as a result of repeated lockdowns, the US found it essential to provide Israel with $3.3 billion in 'security assistance' and $500 million for US-Israel missile defense cooperation. Although a meager $600 dollar payment to help struggling American families was the subject of several months of intense debate, there was little discussion among American politicians over the large funds handed out to Israel. … As of February 2019, the US has withheld all funds to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, in addition to cutting aid to the UN Palestinian Refugees agency (UNRWA), the last lifeline of support needed to provide basic education and health services to millions of Palestinian refugees. Judging by its legacy of continued support of the Israeli military machine and the ongoing colonial expansion in the West Bank, Washington insists on serving as Israel's main benefactor – if not direct partner – while shunning Palestinians altogether. Expecting the US to play a constructive role in achieving a just peace in Palestine does not only reflect indefensible naivety but willful ignorance as well. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
Remembering H. Jack Geiger, Doctor Who Fought Social Ills
---- Dr. H. Jack Geiger, who ran away to Harlem as a teenager and emerged a lifelong civil rights activist, helping to bring medical care and services to impoverished regions and to start two antiwar doctors groups that shared in Nobel Peace Prizes, died on Monday at his home in Brooklyn. He was 95. … Dr. Geiger was a founding member of two advocacy groups, Physicians for Social Responsibility, which shared the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to end the nuclear arms race, and Physicians for Human Rights, which shared the 1997 prize for working to ban land mines. He rallied doctors in the Cold War era to speak out against what he saw as a myth being promoted by the government, that nuclear war could be survivable. On the contrary, he insisted, hospitals would be quickly overwhelmed, and even victims with treatable injuries would perish. … He skipped so many grades in the city's public schools that he graduated from Townsend Harris High School (then in Manhattan, now in Queens) at 14. Too young to start college, he learned typing and shorthand and went to work as a copy boy for The New York Times. He also began hanging out at jazz joints, listening to Billie Holiday, Art Tatum and Fats Waller. His parents were often beside themselves, waiting up for him and sometimes even calling the bars to ask if "Jackie" was there. [And much more.] [Read More]
