CFOW Newsletter - We join Peace Action, a national organization working for peace

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

June 20, 2021

 

Hello All – Earlier this month, Concerned Families of Westchester affiliated with Peace Action,

a national organization whose roots go back to the late 1950s and the era of "Ban the Bomb." My own, very first "march on Washington" demonstration was a protest against nuclear testing in the atmosphere, organized by Peace Action's direct ancestor, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE).  When this mission was accomplished, SANE and the Peace Action went on to oppose the Vietnam War and support disarmament treaties, especially those between the USA and the (then) Soviet Union.

 

Today Peace Action has many chapters and programs.  CFOW has joined Peace Action New York State, which has about a dozen chapters and affiliates (us), with a paid staff person, an organizer for student chapters (surprisingly many), and monthly steering committee meetings (us).  The main issues/projects are set annually, and now include working for the renewal of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, an end to US support for the war in Yemen, and a "Move the Money" campaign to redirect military spending to human needs.  Peace Action also responds to breaking news, such as opposing US support for Israel during the recent war there.

 

Why did CFOW join a national organization, and an organization focusing on war and disarmament?  The invitation came to us, in part, because we were the only organization in Westchester and "lower/upstate" that had a focus on war and peace.  On our end, the growing danger of nuclear war, of US conflict with Russia and/or China, the national (and international) build up of nuclear weapons, the end of some important arms control treaties, and the massive funds ($43 billion next year; $1 trillion plus for "nuclear modernization) for nukes in the US budget makes it imperative that we push back on the military budget and the madness of a new arms race.

 

This new project, as an affiliate of Peace Action New York State, is in its infancy, but we think that it provides a platform to reach out to our neighbors about one of the most important issues facing humans. If you would like join us in the new work, or learn more about Peace Action, please send a return email.  Thanks!

 

News Notes

This week Naomi Klein hosted a podcast at The Intercept in which she reported on the shocking revelations that hundreds of First Nation children who were taken from their families beginning a century ago had died at the schools where they had been sent to be stripped of their native culture. Read/hear the interview.

 

In the wake of Hurricane Maria's destruction of much of Puerto Rico, the US established a control board to manage Puerto Rico's economy, ultimately privatizing the island's electric grid. Last week one million people lost power. "A classic example of disaster capitalism," one community activist remarked.  In this Democracy Now! segment, host Juan Gonzalez turns a spotlight on the predatory attack on Puerto Rico's economy.

 

Finally, each week CFOW holds vigils/gatherings to speak out for peace & justice.  Last Saturday our noontime vigil in Hastings focused on the meaning of Juneteenth. And in Yonkers, each Monday at 5:30 pm stalwarts gather to support Black Lives Matter and Say the Names of Black people killed by police.  Please join us!

 

Things to Do

On Tuesday, June 22^nd, the website BanKillerDrones will host a webinar on "Drone use by US police and the Human impact of US drown attacks in Yemen."  The program starts at 11 am and finishes at 12:30 pm. The webinar panelists are the Rev. Dr. Emma Jordan-Simpson, Executive Director of Fellowship of Reconciliation USA, and Mohammed Al-Ahmada, a Yemeni investigative journalist. To register,  click here.

 

Very popular blogger Heather Cox Richardson is now joined by Joanne Freeman in a weekly discussion called "Then and Now."  Last Tuesday their discussion focused on "Battling Over Critical Race Theory."  Their discussion is a user-friendly way to catch up on the debate over "what is true?" and "what to teach?" burning through the blogosphere.  To listen to this one-hour discussion, click here.

 

Fifty years ago this week (1971), Daniel Ellsberg released and the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, 7,000 pages of a 1968 Pentagon study into the origins of the Vietnam War and why the USA was not winning. Last week the Vietnam Commemoration Committee held a webinar with Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, and others to talk about what was in the Papers and how Ellsberg's action influenced the war and the anti-war movement.

 

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.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil takes place every Monday from 5:30 to 6 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 Sunday at 7 pm., please send a return email. Our 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!

Honoring the making of "Juneteenth" a national holiday, marking the end of slavery in 1865, some songs from Sweet Honey in the Rock seem appropriate rewards for this week's stalwart Newsletter readers.  Here are "Let There Be Peace"; "In the Morning When I Rise"; and "Ella [Baker's] Song.  Enjoy!

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

CFOW Weekly Reader

 

Republicans Are Willing to Destroy Democracy to Retake Power

An interview with Noam Chomsky, Truthout [June 16, 2021]

---- The term "neoliberal proto-fascism" captures well both the features of the current party and the distinction from the fascism of the past. The commitment to the most brutal form of neoliberalism is apparent in the legislative record, crucially the subordination of the party to private capital, the inverse of classic fascism. But the fascist symptoms are there, including extreme racism, violence, worship of the leader (sent by God, according to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo), immersion in a world of "alternative facts" and a frenzy of irrationality. Also in other ways, such as the extraordinary efforts in Republican-run states to suppress teaching in schools that doesn't conform to their white supremacist doctrines. Legislation is being enacted to ban instruction in "critical race theory," the new demon, replacing Communism and Islamic terror as the plague of the modern age. … But some vestiges of democracy remain, even after the neoliberal assault. Probably not for long if neoliberal "proto-fascism" extends its sway. But the fate of democracy won't actually matter much if the "proto-fascists" regain power. The environment that sustains life cannot long endure the wreckers of the Trump era of decline. Little else will matter if irreversible tipping points are passed. [Read More]

 

War & Peace

Washington's Dangerous New Consensus on China

By Bernie Sanders, Foreign Affairs [June 17, 2021]

---- The unprecedented global challenges that the United States faces today—climate change, pandemics, nuclear proliferation, massive economic inequality, terrorism, corruption, authoritarianism—are shared global challenges. They cannot be solved by any one country acting alone. They require increased international cooperation—including with China, the most populous country on earth. It is distressing and dangerous, therefore, that a fast-growing consensus is emerging in Washington that views the U.S.-Chinese relationship as a zero-sum economic and military struggle. The prevalence of this view will create a political environment in which the cooperation that the world desperately needs will be increasingly difficult to achieve. … Americans must not be naive about China's repression, disregard for human rights, and global ambitions. I strongly believe that the American people have an interest in strengthening global norms that respect the rights and dignity of all people—in the United States, in China, and around the world. I fear, however, that the growing bipartisan push for a confrontation with China will set back those goals and risks empowering authoritarian, ultranationalistic forces in both countries. It will also deflect attention from the shared common interests the two countries have in combating truly existential threats such as climate change, pandemics, and the destruction that a nuclear war would bring. Developing a mutually beneficial relationship with China will not be easy. But we can do better than a new Cold War [Read More]

 

The State of the Union

Jim Crow Killed Voting Rights for Generations. Now the GOP Is Repeating History.

By Ari Berman, Mother Jones [June 2, 2021]

---- On September 3, 1868, Henry McNeal Turner rose to speak in the Georgia House of Representatives to fight for his political survival. He was one of 33 new Black state legislators elected that year in Georgia, a revolutionary change in the South after 250 years of slavery. Eight hundred thousand new Black voters had been registered across the region, and the share of Black male Southerners who were eligible to vote skyrocketed from 0.5 percent in 1866 to 80.5 percent two years later. These Black legislators had helped to write a new state constitution guaranteeing voting rights for former slaves and leading Georgia back into the Union. Yet just two months after the 14th Amendment granted full citizenship rights to Black Americans, Georgia's white-dominated legislature introduced a bill to expel the Black lawmakers, arguing that the state's constitution protected their right to vote but not to hold office. [Read More]

 

The Police

To End Racial Capitalism, We Will Need to Take On the Institution of Policing

By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout [June 18, 2021]

---- Police brutality cannot be separated from the lethal nature of white supremacy, and in its recent incarnations became "the war on crime." Under President Nixon and every American president after him, the war on crime continued to expand and intensify into a war on Black communities. The call for "law and order" repeatedly served as a smokescreen for racist and militarized police practices that equated Black behavior with criminality and authorized the use of force against them. As the reach of the culture of punishment expanded, its targets included protesters, immigrants, and those individuals and groups marginalized by class, religion, ethnicity and color as the other — an enemy. This is the organizing principle of a war mentality adopted by the police throughout the United States in which the behavior of Black people and other marginalized communities is criminalized. … Policing cannot be understood outside of the history of criminogenic culture and a racist punishing state marked by both staggering inequities in wealth, income and power, as well as a collective mindset in which those considered non-white are considered less than human, undeserving of human rights, and viewed as disposable.

[Read More]

 

Israel/Palestine

The Real Danger of Israel's New Government

By Phyllis Bennis, Foreign Policy in Focus [June 17, 2021]

---- The new Israeli government takes office already largely paralyzed. With eight diverse parties, they agree only on two things. One, they want to get rid of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Check — that's done. Two, given the unlikeliness of reaching agreement on any major policy changes, they all agree that the current situation of occupation and apartheid for Palestinians is quite sustainable for Jewish Israelis. For now, the status quo will prevail. And that's a problem. … Because this new government has no intention of changing Tel Aviv's policies based on what the Israeli human rights organization B'tselem calls "a regime of Jewish supremacy" from the river to the sea. This new government has no intention of ending Israeli efforts to undermine the U.S. return to the Iran nuclear deal, even if war might be the result. These new leaders have no intention of holding themselves accountable for violations of international humanitarian law and human rights in Gaza or elsewhere. [Read More]

 

Our History

Juneteenth Reminds Us Just How Far We Have to Go

By Kate Masur, New York Times [June 18, 2021]

---- Juneteenth should serve not only to remind us of the joy and relief that accompanied the end of slavery, but also of the unfinished work of confronting slavery's legacy. Thanks to the efforts of generations of activists, laws that explicitly discriminate based on race are a thing of the past. But today's conservatives echo their 19th-century predecessors when they justify federal inaction on voting rights with arguments about states' rights and spurious claims of electoral corruption. These arguments join a growing attack on the teaching of American history itself. Americans need to understand that the original Constitution, which protected slavery while providing few federal safeguards for individual rights, did not create a path toward abolition or racial equality. To the contrary, before and after Juneteenth, it was Black people and their white allies who fought to eradicate the racist legacies of slavery and who demanded that the federal government take action to protect the rights of all. [Read More] Also insightful is "Juneteenth and the Problem of American Freedom" by Anthony Conwright, The Nation [June 19, 2021] [Link].

 

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on Nuclear Weapons and the Treaty Banning Them

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

June 13, 2021

 

Hello All – As President Biden is in Europe this week, urging NATO countries to – among other things – ramp up their anti-China efforts, our weekly vigil focused on the growing dangers of nuclear war. In the case of possible war with Russia, the danger-zone lies primarily in the US/NATO military build-up on Russia's borders; but in the case of China, the challenge by China to the USA's world economic leadership and regional leadership in Northeast Asia presents a more amorphous danger-zone.

 

Of great importance to recall/understand, this new round of Great Power Rivalries is playing out against a background of a dramatic growth in the production of nuclear weapons. According to a new report from the Nobel Prize-winning "International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons," in 2020 the nine nuclear-armed nations of the world spent $72.6 billion on nuclear weapons, with the USA share at about 50 percent of that amount, $37.4 billion. 

 

Why is this happening?  According to the Campaign's report, the upsurge of weapons-building in the USA is not responding primarily to international events, but got its start during the Obama presidency around the need to appease domestic critics of Obama's attempts to reduce international tensions (e.g. the Iran Nuclear Agreement) by offering a trade-off with a "Nuclear Modernization" program that would send more than a trillion dollars to the arms makers (Raytheon, General Dynamics, etc.) over the next 30 years. The Campaign's report also highlights the role of millions of dollars spent by the arms makers on lobbying Congress, and for the first time (I think) highlights the role of arms makers in funding the leading think-tanks that shape the USA narrative of "what must be done" for "National Security."

 

Of great interest to me is that the non-nuclear countries of the world are pushing back against nuclear madness.  Initiated by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons [Link] in Australia in 2007, by 2017 a Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons was adopted by the United Nations; and the Treaty came into force in January 2021.  So far the Treaty has been ratified by 86 nations, though (no surprise) not the United States or the other eight nuclear weapons countries.  But this is a beginning, and we will get there someday.

 

Some reading/viewing – The main author of the Campaign's report on the nuclear build-up was interviewed on Democracy Now! this week.  The Campaign's website has an excellent and user-friendly illustrated history of their work over the decade that culminated with the Treaty. And I think you may be inspired, as I was, by the speech by Campaign leader Beatrice Fihn when she accepted Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 on behalf of the Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

 

News Notes

A decade ago, White Plains police officers killed DJ Henry and Kenneth Chamberlain (in separate incidents) that sparked outrage against what was perceived as racist police violence.  This week Westchester DA Mimi Rocah announced that she was reviewing these two cases. The Kenneth Chamberlain murder has been the subject of on-going protests, led by Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr. with broad community support. One year ago, Democracy Now! ran an extensive interview with Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr. when a court ruling allowed a re-opening of the case.  (To see the extensive coverage of the Chamberlain case over the last decade, click here.) CFOW will follow this case closely.

 

This week Hastings High School grad Emma Francis-Snyder was featured in The Enterprise because her short documentary film, "Takeover," is included in the Tribeca Film Festival.  The film focuses on the dramatic 1970 takeover of Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx by the Young Lords, a radical activist organization of NY Puerto Ricans.  Emma was interviewed and parts of the film were aired this week on Democracy Now!, whose co-host, Juan Gonzalez, was a leader of the Young Lords and part of the Takeover a half-century ago. [See the Program]

 

As part of the BDS movement, last week Bay Area activists blocked an Israeli-owned ship from off-loading their cargo in Oakland. The effort was a joint project of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center and the longshore workers' union.  The (Westchester-based) website Mondoweiss has an illuminating interview the project's organizer, Lara Kiswani. [Link].

 

Finally, it turns out that there are people who do research into where's a good place to raise a child, and this week the New York Times published the results: the "Raising a Family Index."  The bottom line?  It's better in the USA than in Mexico, but not as good as in Bulgaria.

 

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.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil takes place every Monday from 5:30 to 6 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 Sunday at 7 pm., please send a return email. Our 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!

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

CFOW WEEKLY READER

 

Why Biden Might not be Able to Extricate the US from its Middle East Quagmire

By Walden Bello, Foreign Policy in Focus [June 9, 2021]

---- Next September, when the last C-130 cargo aircraft and Chinook transport helicopters take off from the infamous Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan that has doubled as a CIA torture center for suspected jihadists, they will not only be leaving behind the site of a military defeat. Their departure will also mark the dismal end of a strategy of direct military engagement to drastically reshape the Middle East that resulted instead in upending the global strategic balance. America's 20-year-long war in the Middle East contributed decisively not only to degrading U.S. imperial power but also to the domestic polarization savaging the American political process at present and to the emergence of China as the new center of global capital accumulation. Ending the Afghanistan commitment, liberals and progressives hope, will provid the conditions for a fundamental reset of US foreign policy. But even now, many are skeptical that the United States has really learned its lesson and that Joe Biden will not find another excuse to maintain a military contingent in Afghanistan. In a United States that has gone through the trauma of COVID-19, followed by the January 6 insurrection and a pandemic of almost weekly mass shootings, Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush, 9/11, and the War on Terror might seem to be historical footnotes that pale before the country's present troubles. But these now seemingly distant personalities and events had a decisive role in shaping the present. [Read More].  To read Part 2 of Walden Bello's essay, "Osama's Ghost: The Economics of Overextension," click here.

 

The Climate Crisis

The Keystone XL Pipeline Is Dead. Next Target: Line 3.

By Bill McKibben, New York Times [June 11, 2021]

---- The announcement this week from the Canadian company TC Energy that it was pulling the plug on the Keystone XL pipeline project was greeted with jubilation by Indigenous groups, farmers and ranchers, climate scientists and other activists who have spent the last decade fighting its construction. The question now is whether it will be a one-off victory or a template for action going forward — as it must, if we're serious about either climate change or human rights. The next big challenge looms in northern Minnesota, where the Biden administration must soon decide about the Line 3 pipeline being built by the Canadian energy company Enbridge Inc. to replace and expand an aging pipeline. … If Keystone failed the climate test, how could Line 3, with an initial capacity of 760,000 barrels a day, possibly pass? It's as if the oil industry turned in an essay, got a failing grade, ignored every comment and then turned in the same essay again — except this time it was in ninth grade, not fourth. It's not like the climate crisis has somehow improved since 2015 — it's obviously gotten far worse. At this point, approving Line 3 would be absurd. [Read More]  And please note, "Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere Hits Record High" [419 ppm] by Brad Plumer, New York Times [June 7, 2021] [Link].

 

The State of the Union

The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax

By Jesse Eisinger, et al., ProPublica [June 8, 2021]

---- In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world's richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes. Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row. ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation's wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. … Taken together, it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most. The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year. [Read More]

 

Our History

The Secrets and Lies of the Vietnam War, Exposed in One Epic Document [The Pentagon Papers, 1971]

By Elizabeth Becker, New York Times [June 9, 2021]

[FB – On the 50^th anniversary of the publication of what came to be called "The Pentagon Papers," the New York Times had several articles about the Papers' publication, significance, etc., as well as a link to the original zillion-page document.]

---- Brandishing a captured Chinese machine gun, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara appeared at a televised news conference in the spring of 1965. The United States had just sent its first combat troops to South Vietnam, and the new push, he boasted, was further wearing down the beleaguered Vietcong. … That was a lie. From confidential reports, McNamara knew the situation was "bad and deteriorating" in the South. Lies like McNamara's were the rule, not the exception, throughout America's involvement in Vietnam. The lies were repeated to the public, to Congress, in closed-door hearings, in speeches and to the press. The real story might have remained unknown if, in 1967, McNamara had not commissioned a secret history based on classified documents — which came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. By then, he knew that even with nearly 500,000 U.S. troops in theater, the war was at a stalemate. He created a research team to assemble and analyze Defense Department decision-making dating back to 1945.  [Read More] Also of interest is the Times article about the use the Vietnamese make of the Pentagon Papers in writing their history of the war. [Link].

 

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on parole justice for older prisoners

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

June 6, 2021

 

Hello All – Yesterday 1,000 people marched in NYC for "parole justice."  With less than a week left in the NYS legislative session, people across the state – especially the families of people incarcerated – have mobilized to change some of the practices in our present "system" of granting parole.

 

A particular focus of the movement for parole justice is on older prisoners, 55+.  As the number of people in NY prisons has declined, the proportion of prisoners age 55+ has risen from 10 percent to 20 percent. Few people in this age group pose much of a threat to society, yet many are likely to die in a prison hospital rather than among their family and loved ones.

 

The main issue with parole is that Parole Boards are mandated to consider parole in terms of the crime that was committed.  Yet many prisoners have taken advantage of the rehabilitation programs available to them, or have simply matured, so that the person they are now stands a good chance of leading a productive life on the "outside."  In considering parole, should personal rehabilitation be taken into account?  And if not, what is the purpose of rehabilitation in the first place.

 

A second consideration in thinking about parole starts with the racial disparities in the prison population.  Taking Westchester as an example, of the 800 people sentenced in Westchester, 90 percent are people of color; and of those now 55 or older, 80 percent are people of color. So parole – or obstacles to parole – is a racial issue as well as a "procedural" issue.

 

There are now two bills now in the NYS legislature that address this issue:

 

·    "Fair and Timely Parole" would change parole hearings by directing the Parole Board to consider what kind of person the prisoner has become, rather than simply (as is the case now) the nature of the crime he or she committed many years ago.

 

·    "Elder Parole" would allow incarcerated people age 55 and older who have already served 15 years or more a chance to go before the Parole Board for a hearing.

 

Please note that neither of these pieces of legislation would automatically "free" anyone.  The bills are directed to giving people a chance for a parole hearing.

 

Please call the offices of Majority Leader Sen. Andrea Stewart Cousins (518-455-2585) and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (518-455-3791) and ask them to support "Elder Parole" and "Fair & Timely Parole."  And for more information about Parole Justice, go here.

 

News Notes

Congressman Jamaal Bowman was in Hastings on Friday; he was given a tour by the mayor and then met with some of us locals. He mentioned the issue now confronting "the Squad" and the dozen or so leftists among the House Democrats: whether to support President Biden's new version of an infrastructure project or to block it, as it is actually a Republican project in sheep's clothing.  He explained this in a press statement on Thursday; check out this useful article from Common Dreams.

 

Sometimes late-night conversations lead to "Whatever happened to the 'sixties radicals?"  A friend from back in the day, Mark Levitan, recently passed away; and another friend, Mike Hirsch, wrote a memoir about Mark's life and work in the 'seventies and way beyond.  Like many from back then, Mark kept on keeping on, as told here.

 

Last Sunday the valedictorian of Lake Highlands (TX) High School went off message in her graduation speech and addressed some of the misdeeds of the Texas government and legislature.  Responding to the state's extreme anti-choice law, Paxton Smith said, "I refuse to give up this platform to promote complacency and peace, when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights," and "I have dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Every girl here does. We have spent our whole lives working towards our futures, and without our consent or input, our control over our futures has been stripped away from us." Well done, Paxton!  Check out the video here.

Things to Do/How to Help

As the NYS legislature grinds to an end, one of the bills in danger of getting lost in the shuffle concerns banning "hybrid" voting machines that can be "hacked" to change your vote.  In the Assembly, the bill is A1115A; in the Senate it's S309A.  Please call Assembly Speaker Carl Hastie (718-654-6539) and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (914-423-4031) and ask them to prioritize these bills for this legislative session.  For information about "hybrid" machines and the dangers they represent to our elections, go to "Smart Elections."

 

Heather Cox Richardson is a new star in the left/liberal blogosphere.  She is a "political historian" (esp. about Reconstruction, and thus racism/white supremacy) and each day posts informative, user-friendly observations on our passing political scene. She also posts informative video "chats" about US history.  Check all this out here. (h/t EZ)

 

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.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil takes place every Monday from 5:30 to 6 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 Sunday at 7 pm., please send a return email. Our 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!

It has been quite a while since we checked in on the songs of Leonard Cohen.  So this week's Rewards include some favorites from among his "political" songs: "Democracy"; "Everybody Knows"; and "First We Take Manhattan."  Enjoy!  (h/t FA).

 

Best wishes

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

CFOW WEEKLY READER

 

'Reality Rebellion' [Trump's failed coup and its legacy]

By Mark Danner, New York Review of Books [June 6, 2021]

---- At the United States Capitol, after more than four months, the National Guardsmen have finally packed up and gone. Members of Congress come and go as always. But now they pass through magnetometers to make sure they are not bringing weapons onto the floor of the House or the Senate. Beyond the looming white building, the country has few magnetometers and a growing surge of political bitterness. In late April the president announced to Congress, rather poignantly, that a critical part of his program is "to prove that democracy still works—that our government still works and we can deliver for our people." Perhaps he will succeed and perhaps one day the Capitol coup and its aftermath will be remembered as a low point and not as the gateway to something worse. But that this rather modest goal is so central to our elected leader shows how late the hour is, and how much Americans need to be assured that it is true. "Can our democracy," the president implored Congress, "overcome the lies, anger, hate, and fears that have pulled us apart?" The plain answer is that there is as yet no sign that it can. All around us are signs that our angry politics are likely to grow angrier—and perhaps more violent still.  [Read More]

 

War & Peace and the Climate Crisis

Chuck Schumer wants to pump up Cold War with China — at the planet's expense

By Marcy Winograd and Medea Benjamin, Code Pink [June 3, 2021]

---- Despite an existential climate crisis, Senator Chuck Schumer's $250 billion "United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021" takes aim at China as the most pressing national security threat. In a Cold War-style declaration, the Senate Majority Leader's proposed legislation reads like the last gasp of a dying empire, a plea from a panicked superpower losing its grip on global dominance. Schumer's laborious 1,445-page bill, the product of six Senate committees, would have the U.S. compete with China by creating tech hubs of robotics and artificial intelligence in U.S. cities, promoting school programs in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), accelerating production of semiconductor chips and spending $600 million to ramp up U.S. military presence in the South China Sea to show China the U.S. still rules the world. Collaborate with China to thwart climate catastrophe? That would be heresy. In a less xenophobic United States, a more visionary blueprint would emerge for collective technological development to save our warming planet. [Read More]  For another good overview, read "Biden Dangerously Accelerating the New Cold War with China" by Joseph Gerson, Campaign for Peace, Disarmament, and Common Security [June 4, 2021] [Link].

 

The State of the Union

(Video) "The Second":  The Racist Roots of the Constitutional Right to Bear Arms

From Democracy Now! [June 3, 2021]

---- Do African Americans have Second Amendment rights? That's the question Emory University professor Carol Anderson set out to answer in her new book, "The Second," which looks at the constitutional right to bear arms and its uneven application throughout U.S. history. She says she was prompted to write the book after the 2016 police killing of Philando Castile, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop after he told the officer he had a legal firearm. Anderson says the Second Amendment was always intended to be a means of arming white people to control the Black population. "There was this massive fear about these slave revolts, Black people demanding their freedom, being willing to have an uprising to gain their freedom," says Anderson. "What I saw was that it wasn't about guns. It was about the fear of Black people." [See the Program]

 

Israel-Palestine

Four Things to Know About Israel's New 'Change Coalition'

By Phyllis Bennis, Foreign Policy in Focus [June 4, 2021]

---- In Israel's parliament, the Knesset, a broad but shaky new "change coalition" claims it's ready to finally oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the right-wing Likud leader who's held the office for the last 12 years. If approved, the new coalition would anoint as prime minister Naftali Bennett, a former Netanyahu ally who supports settlement expansion and annexation of much of the West Bank, and who is significantly further to the right than Netanyahu himself. In theory, if it stays in power for two years, the more centrist Yair Lapid would then take over as prime minister. But that's a big "if" — and the new coalition may not even survive its initial vote of confidence next week. More importantly, whoever is the next prime minister, Israel's politics — particularly on Palestinian rights — have in the last several years shifted dramatically to the right, and it is the far right wing of this new "coalition" that remains the most powerful. Here are four things to know about the government that could replace Netanyahu… [Read More]

 

Our History

Ronald Reagan Made Central America a Killing Field

An interview with Greg Grandin, Jacobin Magazine [May 2021]

---- Latin America has played a crucial role in the history of US empire — and not simply because of its proximity to the US. As historian Greg Grandin argues in the recently reissued Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States and the Making of an Imperial Republic, countries south of the border have been used as a crucible in the formation of US policy, a testing ground for its imperial theories, and a touchstone for domestic movements. One critical moment was the rise of Reaganism, when neoconservatives like Jeane Kirkpatrick and Elliott Abrams steered the US's foreign policy and rank-and-file members of the New Right took a keen interest in fighting left-wing movements in Central America. Right-wing leaders later used the lessons they gleaned from brutal counterinsurgency programs in El Salvador in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. In a recent appearance on the California-based progressive radio show Against the Grain, Grandin spoke with radical journalist Sasha Lilley about the many ways Latin America's resistance to US empire has reshaped American politics.  [Read More]

 

 

 

 

CFOW Newsletter - Focus on policing one year after George Floyd

Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter

May 30, 2021

 

Hello All – Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.  In a sense, this anniversary was a Memorial Day for our war at home.  It has been a long war, from 1619 through the Civil War and Reconstruction, and then through the Second Reconstruction of the 1960s and the civil rights movement. Throughout what is now five centuries, the war has been shaped by rising and falling patterns of White Supremacy and Black Resistance.

 

The anniversary of Floyd's murder was to be the deadline for the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.  This legislation has passed the House of Representatives, but is stalled in the Senate, where the issue of "qualified immunity" – a legal doctrine that shields police from being held responsible for reckless violence - divides Republicans from Democrats.The importance of "qualified immunity," of course, goes beyond legal technicalities, and makes manifest the front-burner role of the police in maintaining the status quo of white supremacy.

 

Since Floyd's murder, more than 1,000 people – about three a day – have been killed by police, an average that has been sustained for years.  Since the beginning of 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive, some 17,000 people have been killed by guns (more than half being suicides), and there have been 237 "mass shootings" in five months. Little has changed.

 

Today's New York Times reports a pandemic "surge" of gun buying, with more than one million sales each week. More than one-third of American households now own a gun. While there are many reasons why people might be guns, one can't help but think that the fear of social breakdown, perhaps overlaid with the fear of race war, is a contributor to this trend.

 

It is in this context, I think, that the insights of the "defund the police" movement are so important.  Efforts to address traffic violations or mental health crises without a posse of armed responders represent a step in the right direction. Ending "qualified immunity" will also send a message to police forces – and perhaps to individual officers as well – that the police do not have a license to kill.  And more broadly, the demand that Black Lives Matter – the wallpaper of the year of struggle since the murder of George Floyd – must be maintained in the continuing struggle.

 

The state of policing one year after George Floyd's murder

 

(Video) George Floyd's Murder Was "Clarion Call" to Defund Police. What's Changed in Year Since His Death?

From Democracy Now! [May 25, 2021]

---- George Floyd's murder on May 25, 2020, sparked a global uprising against systemic racism and police brutality and put the spotlight on decades-long movements dedicated to abolition and criminal justice reform. Memorial events and marches are celebrating George Floyd's life and commemorate the first anniversary of his murder, and negotiations continue in Congress over legislation that bears his name, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. [See the Program] Also useful from Democracy Now! this week was "America on Fire": Historian Elizabeth Hinton on George Floyd, Policing & Black Rebellion" [May 26, 2021] [Link].

 

Also useful/interesting – "Congress Misses Symbolic Deadline for Police Reform" by  Akela Lacy, The Intercept [May 25, 2021] [Link] and "Campaigns to Defund Police Have Seen Major Wins" by Asha Ransby-Sporn, Truthout [May 25, 2021] [Link].

 

Things to Do/How to Help

Please help CFOW in our campaign to support drone whistleblower Daniel Hale, who faces up to 10 years in prison for giving information about the USA drone assassination program to The Intercept. His act of conscience is similar to and of equal import to the action of Edward Snowden when he informed the world about the USA surveillance programs. Information about Daniel's case and details about how he can be supported can be found on his website, https://standwithdanielhale.org/.  (Right now, the main "ask" is to write some letters.) A helpful and illuminating statement from a member of Daniel's legal defense team can be heard on a recent webinar beginning at 38:48. For background on the alarming developments in weaponized and surveillance drones, go to www.bankillerdrones.org.

 

Although the rate of incarceration in NY State prisons has been dropping, recently released data from the Vera Institute of Justice makes it clear that the legacy of racism remains with us. Specifically, of those who were convicted in the Westchester and are now serving sentences in New York State prisons:

 

·    90.6% (724 out of 799 total) are people of color

·    89.8% (389 out of 433 total) of those serving indeterminate sentences are people of color

·    80.5% (107 out of 133 total) of incarcerated people aged 55 or older are people of color

·    88.6% (62 out of 70 total) of people serving life sentences without the possibility of parole are people of color

 

CFOW is working with the NYS group Release Aging People in Prison to provide pathways for parole for older prisoners who have served 15+ years of their sentence. One bill pending in Albany is "Elder Parole" (A3475a). Rivertowns Assemblyman Tom Abinanti has yet to give his support to this legislation.  Please call his office in Albany (518-455-5753) or in Tarrytown (914-631-1605) and say you would like the Assemblyman to support Elder Parole.  And do it soon! The legislative sessions ends in two weeks.

 

The USA is on a path to put more than $1 trillion into a new generation of nuclear weapons that would put the world (and us) in greater danger of terminal disaster.  On Tuesday, June 1^st (8 pm) Code Pink will have a user-friendly webinar about what's going on and some steps that we can take to oppose this.  For more information and to register for the Zoom, go here.

 

Finally, if you would like to make a financial contribution to help Palestinians, congresswoman Rashida Tlaib's website recommends the direct-aid organization Baitulmall and the Institute for Middle East Understanding.  Learn more and make a donation here. For a more activist support group, check out Grassroots International.

 

Some Items of Interest

For those who missed it, the front page of Friday's New York Times was dominated by a photo gallery of pictures of the 65 children killed in the recent war in Israel/Palestine.  All but two of them were Palestinian. The website Mondoweiss called this an "extraordinary moment" …"The accompanying report is almost impossible to look at, it is the face of innocence, beauty, hope, all defiled."  The pictures were also published in the liberal Israeli daily Haaretz; read Gideon Levy's comments here.

 

More than two months ago progressive Democrats queried President Biden about just what he meant in stating that the USA would no longer support Saudi Arabia's "offensive actions" in the war in Yemen.  On Wednesday they finally received a reply to their letter that, according to this article from The Intercept, "sidesteps the question — and provides almost none of the other details members sought." We must assume that, in Yemen, Biden is doing things that he does want us to know about.  It's time for Congress to act!

 

The genocide underway in Tigray, the northern part of Ethiopia, has killed thousands of people and made two million people refugees. I think I speak for the 99 percent in saying we know nothing about what is going on there.  Westchester's Andom Ghebreghiorgis, whose family came to the USA from neighboring Eritrea (also a partner in the genocide), spoke about the Tigray crisis on a recent edition (video) of the Breakfast Club.

 

Finally, today is the birthday of Randolph Bourne, a brave opponent of the First World War who died too young in the influenza epidemic of 1918.  In the last month of his life, Bourne wrote his greatest essay, "War is the Health of the State." In wartime, he wrote, "the citizen throws off his contempt and indifference to Government, identifies himself with its purposes, revives all his military memories and symbols, and the State once more walks, an August presence, through the imaginations of men." Read more about him 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.)  A "Black Lives Matter/Say Their Names" vigil takes place every Monday from 5:30 to 6 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 Sunday at 7 pm., please send a return email. Our 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!

Last week Bob Dylan turned 80.  How is this possible?  For this week's Rewards, here of some Dylan songs/performances from back in the day, when he (and I) were forever young: "Blowing in the Wind"; "Don't Think Twice"; and "Hard Rain." Happy birthday, Bob Dylan.

 

Best wishes,

Frank Brodhead

For CFOW

 

CFOW WEEKLY READER

 

The Way of the Conscientious Objector

By Rowan Moore Gerety, New York Times [May 29, 2021]

---- It was a book of Buddhist parables that put Michael Rasmussen over the edge. In March 2017, Mr. Rasmussen was living near a naval base in Japan, six years into training as a Marine pilot, reading and experimenting with meditation. … Some 2.7 million American service members have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since the start of our "forever wars" in 2001. Tens of thousands have gone AWOL. Countless others have finished out their service disenchanted and depressed, or turned to drugs and alcohol to ease re-entry into a society that would rather ignore war's moral injuries, often losing their benefits in the process. After seeing the horrors of war and the contradictions of American foreign policy up close, many enlisted men and women are compelled to re-examine the ideals that first drew them to military service. Very few soldiers, however, take the path that Mr. Rasmussen eventually did. [Read More]

 

The Climate Crisis

Biden's Fossil Fuel Moves Clash With Pledges on Climate Change

By Lisa Friedman, New York Times [May 28, 2021]

---- Despite President Biden's pledge to aggressively cut the pollution from fossil fuels that is driving climate change, his administration has quietly taken actions this month that will guarantee the drilling and burning of oil and gas for decades to come. … On Wednesday, the Biden administration defended in federal court the Willow project, a huge oil drilling operation proposed on Alaska's North Slope that was approved by the Trump administration and is being fought by environmentalists. Weeks earlier, it backed former President Donald J. Trump's decision to grant oil and gas leases on federal land in Wyoming. Also this month, it declined to act when it had an opportunity to stop crude oil from continuing to flow through the bitterly contested, 2,700-mile Dakota Access pipeline, which lacks a federal permit. The three decisions suggest the jagged road that Mr. Biden is following as he tries to balance his climate agenda against practical and political pressures. [Read More]  But the People's Fightback made some progress this week; read "Big Oil Loses Big in a Day of Game-Changing Climate News" by Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation [May 27, 2021] [Link].

 

Israel/Palestine

The Myth of Coexistence in Israel

By Diana Buttu, New York Times [May 25, 2021]

[FB - Ms. Buttu is a lawyer, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Palestinian citizen of Israel.]

---- The truth is that the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the Jewish majority of the country have never coexisted. We Palestinians living in Israel "sub-exist," living under a system of discrimination and racism with laws that enshrine our second-class status and with policies that ensure we are never equals. This is not by accident but by design. The violence against Palestinians in Israel, with the backing of the Israeli state, that we witnessed in the past few weeks was only to be expected. Palestinian citizens make up about 20 percent of Israel's population. We are those who survived the "nakba," the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, when more than 75 percent of the Palestinian population was expelled from their homes to make way for Jewish immigrants during the founding of Israel. [Read More]

 

Our History

(Video) U.S. Marks 100th Anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre, When White Mob Destroyed "Black Wall Street"

From Democracy Now! [May 28, 2021]

---- Memorial Day marks the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, one of the deadliest episodes of racial violence in U.S. history, when the thriving African American neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma — known as "Black Wall Street" — was burned to the ground by a white mob. An estimated 300 African Americans were killed and over 1,000 injured. Whites in Tulsa actively suppressed the truth, and African Americans were intimidated into silence. But efforts to restore the horrific event to its rightful place in U.S. history are having an impact. Survivors testified last week before Congress, calling for reparations. President Biden is set to visit Tulsa on Tuesday. [See the Program] Also interesting are the 3-D models of "What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed," from the New York Times [May 24, 2021] [Link].