Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
March 15, 2020
Hello All – Within the last week the coronavirus outbreak in the United States has gone from being a potential menace to gaining a vise-like grip on our economy and society. While the US death toll stood at 68 this morning, a New York Times article using estimates from the Centers for Disease Control warned that 200,000 to 1.7 million people could die if no action were taken to slow transmission. Moreover, the same article estimated that 2.4 million to 21 million people in the USA could require hospitalization, though fewer than 100,000 staffed hospital beds are available for people who are critically ill. Perhaps we can see our future in the crisis now engulfing Italy, which reported new 3,590 cases and 398 deaths (the largest one-day toll so far) on Sunday. Given limited hospital and medical resources, doctors in Italy are forced to consider who will live and who will die, as treating everyone becomes impossible. Is this America's future too?
The articles and analyses linked below target several key issues facing all of us as we struggle with the virus crisis and attempt to avoid worst outcomes. They include the effort to gain and broadcast accurate information, now limited not only by our own uncertainty, but also by the Trump administration's kneejerk lying. Another arena of struggle is the demand that protection from and treatment of the virus be provided broadly and equitably, not limited by money or race. Thirdly, as Naomi Klein points out in an article linked below, we must be alert to the "Shock Doctrine": the efforts of government and big business to gain power in the confusion of the crisis, promising solutions that only enrich or empower themselves. Finally, as the shock of our New World begins to lessen, let us hope that throughout Westchester many voluntary networks of mutual aid spring up to assist those who need assistance. Solidarity may be our best defense in this crisis.
Some readings on the coronavirus and our system crisis
America has no real public health system – coronavirus has a clear run
The dirty little secret, which will soon become apparent to all, is that there is no real public health system in the United States. …Instead of a public health system, we have a private for-profit system for individuals lucky enough to afford it and a rickety social insurance system for people fortunate enough to have a full-time job. … There is no public health system in the US, in short, because the richest nation in the world has no capacity to protect the public as a whole, apart from national defense. Ad-hoc remedies such as House Democrats and the White House fashioned on Friday are better than nothing, but they don't come close to filling this void. [Read More]
Who Gets Forgotten in a Pandemic?
By Mike Davis Yesterday 5:27 pm
The outbreak has instantly exposed the stark class divide in healthcare: those with good health plans who can also work or teach from home are comfortably isolated provided they follow prudent safeguards. Public employees and other groups of unionized workers with decent coverage will have to make difficult choices between income and protection. Meanwhile millions of low wage service workers, farm employees, uncovered contingent workers, the unemployed and the homeless will be thrown to the wolves. Even if Washington ultimately resolves the testing fiasco and provides adequate numbers of kits, the uninsured will still have to pay doctors or hospitals for administrating the tests. Overall family medical bills will soar at the same time that millions of workers are losing their jobs and their employer-provided insurance. Could there possibly be a stronger, more urgent case in favor of Medicare for All? [Read More]
A Health Emergency Demands Treatment Not Tax Breaks
By Frank Emspak, Portside [March 10, 2020]
---- The Covid-19 virus shows the complete inability of the US health system to serve the majority of its citizens. But one thing is clear- a tax break and a bail out of the cruise industry will not deal with the virus. Progressives need to need to enunciate and fight for a plan to deal with the potential pandemic. Leaving solutions up to those who have made the situation worse makes no sense. Any successful plan must be based on fulfilling several criteria designed to assure that all working people have access to needed services. As we take these first steps, we also must provide the needed support to first responders. All medical personnel as well as fire fighters need the supplies to protect themselves while they help others. Also in this mix are airline pilots, flight attendants and all those public servants who come in contact with the public. Their unions are already in discussions with the employers to develop effective responses to the virus. What are the criteria for a plan that could respond to the needs of working people? [Read More]
---- The Covid-19 virus shows the complete inability of the US health system to serve the majority of its citizens. But one thing is clear- a tax break and a bail out of the cruise industry will not deal with the virus. Progressives need to need to enunciate and fight for a plan to deal with the potential pandemic. Leaving solutions up to those who have made the situation worse makes no sense. Any successful plan must be based on fulfilling several criteria designed to assure that all working people have access to needed services. As we take these first steps, we also must provide the needed support to first responders. All medical personnel as well as fire fighters need the supplies to protect themselves while they help others. Also in this mix are airline pilots, flight attendants and all those public servants who come in contact with the public. Their unions are already in discussions with the employers to develop effective responses to the virus. What are the criteria for a plan that could respond to the needs of working people? [Read More]
And also: "Cancel Everything: Social distancing is the only way to stop the coronavirus," by Yascha Mounk, The Atlantic [March 10, 2020] [Link]; "Big Pharma Prepares to Profit From the Coronavirus" by Sharon Lerner, The Intercept [ Donald Trump Is Using the Coronavirus Crisis to Attack Social Security" by Nancy J. Altman [March 11, 2020], [Link]; "To Help Stem Coronavirus, Lift Sanctions on Iran" by Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold, Common Dreams [March 13, 2020] [Link]; "How Prisons and Jails Can Respond to the Coronavirus" by [Link];
And finally, "Coronavirus and climate change: 6 ways the Trump administration has botched responses to both, by Dawn Stover, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [March 11, 2020] [Link].
Politics
Strong pressure is coming from the Democratic Establishment and the mainstream media for Bernie Sanders to drop out, even though half of the convention delegates remain to be chosen. While the party leaders want to move as quickly as possible to a consensus around Biden, while keeping him out of the campaigning spotlight, earlier in the week, Sanders stated that he planned to stay in the race, keeping the issues he is raising before the public and hoping to influence the Democratic platform and campaign, even if he is not the candidate. So far in the primary campaign we have learned that Biden's support rests primarily on the belief that he is that candidate most likely to beat Trump, while exit polls show that Sanders' issues (such as Medicare for All) are strongly supported, even in Republican/Southern states. Also, there are many reasons to think that Sanders would be the stronger candidate against Trump. Finally, for two interesting/useful surveys of Sanders and the Democrats, read "Bernie Sanders: Now More Than Ever" by Jane McAlevey, The Nation [March 11, 2020] [Link]; and "Democratic Party Failures Since the Cold War" by Michael Brenes, The Nation [March 11, 2020] [Link].
News Notes
After spending almost a year in jail for refusing to testify about Wikileaks in front of a grand jury, Chelsea Manning was released from jail on March 12th. However, while released, the judge ordered her to pay the $1,000 per day in fines that she had accumulated because of her refusal to testify – a total of $256,000. The very heartening news, therefore, is not only that she is free, but GoFundMe site has raised enough to cover her fines, and a second campaign, to help with her living expenses, has exceeded its goal of $30,000, with 1,000 contributors.
Last week the Trump administration signed a semi-peace agreement with Afghanistan's Taliban, by which the USA promised to withdraw all its troops within 14 months, 4,000 of them very soon. . In return for Taliban promises to break ties with al Qaeda and ISIS, and to begin negotiations with the U.S.-backed Afghan government. In this useful article, Phyllis Bennis says "The U.S.-Taliban Deal Won't Bring Real Peace, But It Could Reduce the Bloodshed." [Link]. For an on-the-ground perspective from writers living in a refugee camp, read "Afghans Imagine a Future of Lasting Peace" [Link]
One of the most complex wars in modern history – the multi-faceted conflict in Syria – may be nearing its end – or not. Turkey, the latest entry into the wars, is on the edge of a military engagement with Russia over control of the northwest corner of Syria. Turkey has already attempted to engage NATO in the fighting, but as of this writing this is not working. For a useful and reader-friendly overview of what's going down in Syria, read "Erdogan's Failed Gamble in Syria" by , Foreign Policy in Focus [March 9, 2020]. [Link].
Finally, The Sunrise Movement, the young peoples' climate action group, is holding a virtual town hall with congressional candidate Jamaal Bowman on Monday, March 16th, at 8:00 PM via Zoom or by dialing +19292056099,,490615233#. Submit your questions for Bowman 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!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
THIS WEEK'S FEATURED ESSAYS
Naomi Klein: Coronavirus Is the Perfect Disaster for 'Disaster Capitalism'
Interviewed by Marie Solis, Vice [March 13, 2020]
---- Let's start with the basics. What is disaster capitalism? What is its relationship to the "shock doctrine"?
NK: The way I define disaster capitalism is really straightforward: It describes the way private industries spring up to directly profit from large-scale crises. Disaster profiteering and war profiteering isn't a new concept, but it really deepened under the Bush administration after 9/11, when the administration declared this sort of never-ending security crisis, and simultaneously privatized it and outsourced it—this included the domestic, privatized security state, as well as the [privatized] invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The "shock doctrine" is the political strategy of using large-scale crises to push through policies that systematically deepen inequality, enrich elites, and undercut everyone else. In moments of crisis, people tend to focus on the daily emergencies of surviving that crisis, whatever it is, and tend to put too much trust in those in power. We take our eyes off the ball a little bit in moments of crisis.
Right now we have multiple crises happening: a pandemic, a lack of infrastructure to manage it, and the crashing stock market. Can you outline how each of these components fit into the schema you outline in The Shock Doctrine ?
NK: The shock really is the virus itself. And it has been managed in a way that is maximizing confusion and minimizing protection. I don't think that's a conspiracy, that's just the way the U.S. government and Trump have utterly mismanaged this crisis. Trump has so far treated this not as a public health crisis but as a crisis of perception, and a potential problem for his reelection.
It's the worst-case scenario, especially combined with the fact that the U.S. doesn't have a national health care program and its protections for workers are abysmal. This combination of forces has delivered a maximum shock. It's going to be exploited to bail out industries that are at the heart of most extreme crises that we face, like the climate crisis: the airline industry, the gas and oil industry, the cruise industry—they want to prop all of this up. [Read More] For another perspective on the relation between the coronavirus and the economic crisis, read "Trump Wouldn't Save You From This Pandemic Even if He Could" by Nomi Prins, The Nation [March 13, 2020] [Link]
Arundhati Roy: How to Think About Empire
An interview with Avni Seipal, Boston Review [January 3, 2019]
Avni Sejpal: In your book, An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (2004), you identify a few different pillars of empire: globalization and neoliberalism, militarism, and the corporate media. You write, "The project of corporate globalization has cracked the code of democracy. Free elections, a free press and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities on sale to the highest bidder." How would you update this today?
Arundhati Roy: That was fourteen years ago! The updates now would include the ways in which big capital uses racism, caste-ism (the Hindu version of racism, more elaborate, and sanctioned by the holy books), and sexism and gender bigotry (sanctioned in almost every holy book) in intricate and extremely imaginative ways to reinforce itself, protect itself, to undermine democracy, and to splinter resistance. It doesn't help that there has been a failure on the part of the left in general to properly address these issues. In India, caste—that most brutal system of social hierarchy—and capitalism have fused into a dangerous new alloy. It is the engine that runs modern India. Understanding one element of the alloy and not the other doesn't help. Caste is not color-coded. If it were, if it were visible to the untrained eye, India would look very much like a country that practices apartheid. Another "update" that we ought to think about is that new technology could ensure that the world no longer needs a vast working class. What will then emerge is a restive population of people who play no part in economic activity—a surplus population if you like, one that will need to be managed and controlled. Our digital coordinates will ensure that controlling us is easy. Our movements, friendships, relationships, bank accounts, access to money, food, education, healthcare, information (fake, as well as real), even our desires and feelings—all of it is increasingly surveilled and policed by forces we are hardly aware of. How long will it be before the elite of the world feel that almost all the world's problems could be solved if only they could get rid of that surplus population? If only they could delicately annihilate specific populations in specific ways—using humane and democratic methods, of course. Preferably in the name of justice and liberty. Nothing on an industrial scale, like gas chambers or Fat Men and Little Boys. What else are smart nukes and germ warfare for? [Read More]
Would the Draft Help End America's Endless Wars?
By Nan Levinson, The Nation [March 11, 2020]
---- As much as Americans love their military—it's consistently the part of the government in which they have the most confidence, according to multiple polls—the majority of them don't want to join it or be made to join it. Active-duty personnel currently account for a mere 0.4% of the population and only about 7% of us have ever been in uniform (more than half of those are over 60 years old). If we consider a tour in the armed forces a burden—as we must, despite all that thankful hand-shaking of people in uniform and their celebration everywhere—shouldn't we also consider the effects on the country of relying on an all-volunteer force (AVF) to carry that burden? One of those effects is surely that so many of the rest of us are allowed to ignore the endless wars and other conflicts "our" military has sparked and is still involved in around the world in our name. And what to make of the often-repeated claim that if only we did have a draft, this country might be far less eager to march into war? Is that, in fact, true? [Read More]
Chile: Notes from a Revolt
By Ariel Dorfman, New York Review of Books [March 13, 2020]
[FB – Ariel Dorman, a Chilean novelist and playwright, was an associate of President Salvador Allende when Allende was killed (or committed suicide) in the US-backed military coup of September 11, 1973. Dorfman writes here about his memories of the coup as they mix with the youth-led uprising in today's Chile.]
---- At the very moment when, on October 6, 2019, high school students were igniting the first sparks of the rebellion by joyously jumping the turnstiles of a number of subway stations to protest a fare hike, Chile's right-wing president, Sebastián Piñera, was boasting on a television program that the country was "an oasis" in a turbulent and convulsed Latin America. The clueless leader, like most of Chile's elite, did not realize what was already erupting from the depths of a country he did not understand. Instead of acknowledging the anger behind this peaceful and playful defiance of norms—the students chanted that they had the right to "evade" the tariff just as the corrupt owners of Chile's economy were incessantly "evading" any form of reckoning—Piñera's government responded with a ferocious repression, further alienating large swaths of the citizenry. … The combination of such belligerent rhetoric, which recalled the justifications used by Pinochet to persecute dissidents, with actual tanks on the streets once again, further outraged the people of Chile, many of whom had struggled so hard, and at such a steep cost in suffering, to get the military out of their lives. On October 25, millions of men, women, and children serenely flooded cities and towns all over the country, spontaneously repudiating the repression and calling for its perpetrators to be punished. Such a nationwide assembly, the largest in our history, was unique in several ways. In contrast to every other march in living memory, this one was not organized by political parties, all of which, right, center and left, had fallen into utter disrepute with an increasingly disaffected and skeptical electorate and an underclass of primarily young people who were constantly promised paradise tomorrow while they lived a version of hell today. [Read More]
