Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
August 16, 2020
Hello All – Between now and November 3 – or January 20 – peace & justice stalwarts confront a trio of problems that are woven together. Based on recent discussions within CFOW and among many others, I see these areas of debate/discussion as 1) how to ensure the defeat of Trump in November's election; 2) how to ensure that we have a peaceful transition of power, and that a defeated Trump leaves office on January 20th; and 3) how to assert peace & justice issues and values in the campaign supporting Biden and Harris when the official stance of the Democratic Party falls short or omits vital issues.
Preventing a second term for Trump is the Prime Directive. Simply based on the climate crisis, the world can't afford to waste more time moving backwards. Nor can we allow the rest of the Trump Agenda to rule us. All efforts going forward need to be tested against the Prime Directive: will this help to defeat Trump?
But we also must assume that the chances are very high that even a clear electoral defeat of Trump will be disputed by the Republicans. Competing sets of Presidential Electors may be presenting their credentials to Congress, and the disputes will end up in the Supreme Court. In several articles linked below, the authors propose ways in which protest movements can contest an illegitimate election outcome. Going forward, I think we need to think of protest activity as, in part, preparation or a "rehearsal" for effective action that may be needed after November 3rd. As the 2000 presidential election showed so clearly, we certainly can't count on lawyers and the court system to save democracy by itself.
Finally, in Biden and Harris the great swathe of peace & justice advocates do not have the Democratic presidential team that we wanted. Biden greatly enabled the Iraq War, and has made clear that he is not with us on the climate crisis, or immigration/refugee reform, or Medicare for All, or police violence, or many other issues. The Democratic Party platform is "advanced" in many respects, but draws back on Medicare for All, for example. And it is telling that next week's Democratic Convention will feature and highlight the "Establishment" wing of the Party – the Clintons and Obamas, the leaders of yesterday – while shutting out the voices of Black Lives Matter and giving AOC only 60 seconds.
Many of us believe that the gap between what the Democrats propose for the Biden program and what Sanders offered during his campaign will work against the Prime Directive of removing Trump in November. It appears that decisions have been made to, in effect, target middle-class white voters who supported Obama but then voted for Trump, rather than mobilize young voters swept up in BLM and anti-police protests, or Latinx voters who are angry at Trump's sadistic attacks on immigrants and refugees. While "outreach" and "mobilization" are not contradictory, they involve different allocations of election-campaign resources and organizers. And a "mobilization" campaign strategy would have the additional benefit of preparing for mass movements to dislodge Trump if he is reluctant to admit defeat, while campaign appeals to "moderates" to switch from Trump to Biden are not addressing many potential protesters.
Finally, the official Democratic Party continues to regard its left wing as part of its problem, rather than part of the solution. This is something that the left wing has to accept as a given and find ways to combat and work around; there is no sense in complaining or expecting the corporate wing of the Party to change its ways. If/when Biden becomes President, the fight for the political direction of the Party will be resumed. Thus between now and November 3 – or January 20 – the dilemmas described in the first paragraph above will entangle us in some difficult choices.
News Notes
New reports on the number of deaths due to Covid-19 often add, at the end of their report, that "the real numbers are probably much higher." The current number of Covid-19 deaths in the USA is now officially reported at 165,000, by far the highest country number in the world. But a recent New York Times analysis suggests that this is an undercount by more than 50,000, and that the real number of Covid-19 deaths in the USA is more than 200,000. The additional deaths were illuminated by using the methodology of "excess deaths"; crudely, how many more people died this year than last year, or were expected to die this year if the Virus had not existed. Thus the number of deaths worldwide, officially reported as 772,000, is likely a similar undercount, with the real number of deaths more than one million. [Read More]
The civil rights movements of the 1960s gained national traction in part because of the work of courageous photo-journalists, somewhat analogous to the way that the murders of George Floyd and other victims of the police were brought to the nation's attention by the ubiquitous phone videos. Last week The Times noted the death of one such stalwart, Matt Herron, who described himself as a "propagandist" for civil rights organizations, including the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). A protégé of the Dust Bowl documentary photographer, Herron's story is fascinating reading; but my attention lingers on the fact that he died while piloting his new "self-launching glider" at the age of 89. Check him out.
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 each Saturday in Hastings, from 11 to 11:30 a.m., at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Another vigil takes place on Mondays, from 6 to 6:30 pm, in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. In this time of coronavirus, we are meeting (by Zoom conference) each Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. If you would like to join our meeting, please send a return email to get the meeting's access code. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. And if you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards!
This week's Rewards come to us from Australian singer Emma Swift, who has a new album of Bob Dylan covers. One that I like and can be heard for free is Queen Jane Approximately, here including a nice video. Another of her songs that I think all will like is I Contain Multitudes, built around some thoughts by Walt Whitman. There's more of her stuff on-line. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
WHAT IF TRUMP WON'T LEAVE?
What If Trump Won't Leave?
By Frances Fox Piven and Deepak Bhargava, The Intercept [
---- To steal the election, we suspect he will adapt the standard playbook of authoritarians everywhere: cast doubt on the election results by filing numerous lawsuits and launching coordinated federal and state investigations, including into foreign interference; call on militia groups to intimidate election officials and instigate violence; rely on fringe social media to generate untraceable rumors, and on Fox News to amplify these messages as fact; and create a climate of confusion and chaos. He might ask the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security — which he has now weaponized against democracy — to deploy to big cities in swing states to stop the vote count or seize ballots. If he does all this right, he'll be able to put soldiers on the streets, inflame his base, and convince millions of people that the election is being stolen from him. This would create the predicate for overturning the will of the voters. … If Trump steals the election, a broad united front will have to make the country ungovernable and the reigning regime illegitimate, despite the risks involved. We can take lessons and heart from other countries around the world where autocrats have sought to steal elections. We can pull off a peaceful Orange Revolution of our own. To do so, we will need to encourage mass civil disobedience — and dare the authorities to arrest hundreds of thousands of people day after day. If an illegitimate election gives rise to civil disorder that cannot be easily suppressed, corporate and political elites will move to dump Trump to protect their interests. [Read More]
More anti-coup thinking – "Trump Is Quite Capable of an 'October Surprise'" by Noam Chomsky, Truthout [August 12, 2020 [Link]; "We need a plan to prevent a Trump takeover — and this anti-coup research shows the way" bAugust 11, 2020] [Link]; and "Preparing for a November Surprise" by Erica Chenoweth, Political Violence at a Glance [July 21, 2020] [Link]. Dr. Stephen Zunes has put together a useful extended essay/short book called Civil Resistance Against Coups A Comparative and Historical Perspective [December 2012] [Link].
(Video) Is Trump Sabotaging U.S. Postal Service Ahead of Election as Part of His Attack on Mail-in Voting?
From Democracy Now! [August 10, 2020]
---- Democratic lawmakers say the Trump administration is sabotaging the United States Postal Service ahead of the November election, when a record number of votes are expected to be cast by mail. Since taking office, U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy — a major Trump donor — has instituted a number of cost-cutting measures that have slowed down the delivery of mail, and overhauled the leadership of the agency in a move that critics say will give him more power. This comes as President Trump continues to attack mail-in voting, claiming the post office can't handle an increase in ballots. We speak with Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, and David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect and author of the new book, "Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power." [See the Program]
More on Trump sabotaging the post office – "Donald Trump and His Postmaster General Are Sabotaging Democracy in Plain Sight" by John Nichols, The Nation [August 12, 2020] [Link] and "The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election" by Aaron Gordon, VICE [August 14, 2020 [Link]. A good demonstration took place yesterday at the home of the Postmaster General [Link].
UPRISING AND CRISIS
After Charlottesville, Protesters Are Still in Danger
By Aubtin Heydari, The Nation [August 12, 2020]
[FB – Aubtin Heydari was injured three years ago in Charlottesville, VA when he was hit by a car that was driven by a young Nazi into a crowd of demonstrators. Heather Heyer was killed in this attack. Check out his story.]
---- Three years later, the wounds from Charlottesville still feel raw. After long, hot days of marching in the streets, my right leg will hurt more than usual. The flashbacks are still intense, particularly this time of year. After the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, uprisings against racism and police violence have once again forced America to confront its demons. Yet it still feels unclear what has changed in America since August 12, 2017. Though Confederate statues are finally coming down in Virginia and around the country, the Robert E. Lee statue in Emancipation Park—the site and pretext of the deadly rally in which I was nearly killed—still stands, with no plans for removal. … The most traumatizing aspect of the past few months for me has been the car attacks. According to terrorism researcher Ari Weil, there have been at least 72 vehicular assaults throughout the George Floyd uprisings. Once described as "ISIS-style," car attacks have become a frighteningly common occurrence in America, perpetrated both by civilians and by law enforcement. … It took me months to regain the ability to walk. To this day, my leg aches, even after light exertion. But even when I was consigned to a wheelchair, and while the nation mourned Heather Heyer, the injustice that brought me to the streets continued unabated. I never knew Heyer when she was alive, but I must have been standing near her during the attack. Now, three years later, I'm still marching. During the first days of the uprisings here in Los Angeles, I stood on the front lines and felt the tear gas and the pepper spray burn my eyes all over again. [Read More]
Fighting the Great Depression From Below
By Jeremy Brecher, Labor4Sustainability [August 2020]
---- The United States has entered the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This commentary describes the grassroots movements of the early years of the Great Depression in order to learn something about the dynamics of popular response to depression conditions. These early unemployed, self-help, labor, and other movements helped lay the groundwork for the New Deal and the massive labor struggles of the later 1930s. The next commentaries in this series will portray the grassroots movements of the Coronavirus Depression and ask what they might contribute to the emergence of a Green New Deal and a new labor movement. Subsequent commentaries will compare local and state actions in the early years of the Great Depression to such activities today. These commentaries are part of a series on the Emergency Green New Deal. [FB – The several parts of this series include portraits of strikes, anti-eviction "riots," and efforts to organize the unemployed that by compare-and-contrast illuminate the grassroots responses to today's crises.] [Check out the whole series of essays]
Federal Judge Sets Out to Bring Down Law Shielding Police From Legal Liability
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout [August 11, 2020]
---- As the Massachusetts legislature debates whether to water down its qualified immunity defense, a federal judge in Mississippi filed a stunning 72-page opinion blasting the doctrine. Qualified immunity has entered the national discourse with the massive uprisings in the wake of the public lynching of George Floyd. It allows police and other government officials to escape liability for their law breaking. …. The Ending Qualified Immunity Act is pending in the House of Representatives and its companion bill has been introduced by three progressive Democrats in the Senate. A bill to reform, but not abolish, qualified immunity, introduced by Sen. Mike Braun (R-Indiana), is also pending in the Senate. As long as Republicans maintain control of the Senate, and Democrats — many of whom were architects of the current criminal legal system — continue their lukewarm opposition to qualified immunity, it is unlikely the doctrine will be watered down or abolished by Congress. Meanwhile, the state of Massachusetts is debating whether to weaken its qualified immunity defense. [Read More]
For more on our "Uprising and Crisis" – "Racism's Hidden Toll" [Health inequities] by Gus Wezerek, New York Times [August 11, 2020] [Link]; and "Why Black Workers Will Hurt the Most if Congress Doesn't Extend Jobless Benefits" by Emily Badger, et al., New York Times [August 7, 2020] [Link].
FEATURED ESSAYS
"Real politics is constant activism": A conversation with Noam Chomsky
By Anand Giridharadas, The.Ink [August 11, 2020]
---- In this interesting interview, Chomsky comments on the pandemic, the election, the word Bernie Sanders needs to stop using, the Harper's letter, the 1619 Project, patriotism, and the greatest social movement in U.S. history. [Read More]
Can Lebanon be Saved?
[FB – Journalist Robert Fisk has made his home in Beirut, Lebanon for several decades. A reporter for the UK Independent, Fisk is the author of two wonderful books on Lebanon, its people, and its neighbors. This in-depth essay puts Lebanon's post-explosion uprising of discontent in the context of a worldwide crisis of government legitimacy.]
---- The real story of this exquisitely tormented and brilliant nation, of course, goes far further and wider. It's a truism – as well as true – to say that corruption is the cancer of the Arab world (and not just the Arab bit, if recent events in Israel taken into account). But somehow, we find the Lebanese version of corruption more terrible, more shameful, more grotesque than that which is practised in every other Arab country. Is this because it is more obvious? Or because it exists in the only Arab nation that actually publicises its own decay? … The only conceivable vehicle would be the combination of a new international league attached to Marshall Plan largesse, a re-envisioning of the world's commitments – not just to little Lebanon but the whole Middle East tragedy, a multinational work of imagination which could embrace all the sectarian and expansionist wars that have afflicted the region over the past hundred years. … The Lebanese are not alone in seeking an end to corruption. We are all demanding the same thing across the globe. We are, to coin another cliché, all Lebanese now. That's why the cataclysm which swept through their capital was so powerful and so frightening. [Read More]
(Video) Israel & UAE Deal to Normalize Relations Is New Chapter in 100-Year War on Palestine: An Interview with Rashid Khalidi:
From Democracy Now! [August 14, 2020]
---- In a deal brokered by the United States, Israel and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to fully normalize relations after years of secretly working together on countering Iran and other issues. Under the deal, Israel has also agreed to temporarily halt plans to annex occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank, which had already been on hold due to international condemnation. We speak with Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, who says the agreement is being falsely characterized as a peace deal. "I don't see that it has anything to do with peace," he says. "On the contrary, it makes the chance of a just, equitable and sustainable peace much, much, much harder."
[See the Program] Also very useful is "Don't be Hoodwinked by Trump's UAE-Israel "Peace Deal" by Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold, Code Pink [August 14, 2020] [Link].
OUR HISTORY
The 'Wall of Vets' Continue Long Legacy of Veteran Activism
By Brian Trautman, ZNet [August 12, 2020]
---- Military veterans have long been resisting war, promoting positive peace, and defending human and civil rights against state violence and other forms of oppression. They have made significant contributions to the antiwar and peace and justice movements over many decades. Their participation in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is no different. Veterans have been highly visible in supporting the racial justice demands of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. The disturbing truth, which a great number of veterans recognize, is that white supremacy, systemic racism and police brutality at home is profoundly connected to and fueled by U.S. imperialist militarism/war abroad. With this knowledge, veterans have taken on roles as nonviolent warriors to educate about those connections and help underrepresented and marginalized communities fight injustice. One of the most recent manifestations of this activism is the 'Wall of Vets' in Portland, OR, a group of veterans that assembled in response to the deployment of federal paramilitary units to that city and the violent attacks they perpetrated against antiracism protestors. [Read More]
---- Military veterans have long been resisting war, promoting positive peace, and defending human and civil rights against state violence and other forms of oppression. They have made significant contributions to the antiwar and peace and justice movements over many decades. Their participation in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is no different. Veterans have been highly visible in supporting the racial justice demands of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. The disturbing truth, which a great number of veterans recognize, is that white supremacy, systemic racism and police brutality at home is profoundly connected to and fueled by U.S. imperialist militarism/war abroad. With this knowledge, veterans have taken on roles as nonviolent warriors to educate about those connections and help underrepresented and marginalized communities fight injustice. One of the most recent manifestations of this activism is the 'Wall of Vets' in Portland, OR, a group of veterans that assembled in response to the deployment of federal paramilitary units to that city and the violent attacks they perpetrated against antiracism protestors. [Read More]
Tearing Down Black America
By Brent Cebul, Boston Review [July 22, 2020]
---- When James Baldwin visited San Francisco in 1963 to film a documentary about U.S. racism, he encountered neighborhoods in turmoil: the city was seizing properties through eminent domain, razing them, and turning them over to private developers. Part of a massive, federal urban renewal program, nearly 5,000 families—no fewer than 20,000 residents, the majority of them people of color—were being displaced from rental homes, private property, and businesses in the Western Addition neighborhoods. Baldwin spoke to a Black teenager who had just lost his home and watched as his neighborhood was destroyed. He told Baldwin: "I've got no country. I've got no flag." Soon after, Baldwin would say: "I couldn't say you do. I don't have any evidence to prove that he does." At the very moment when the civil rights movement secured voting rights and the desegregation of public and private spaces, the federal government unleashed a program that enabled local officials to simply clear out entire Black neighborhoods. That young man was one of millions of Americans, disproportionately of color, who lost homes and communities through the federal urban renewal program. In discussing its human costs—colossal in scope and yet profoundly intimate—Baldwin helped popularize a phrase common in Black neighborhoods: urban renewal meant "Negro removal." To steal people's homes, Baldwin understood, was to shred the meaning of their citizenship by destroying their communities. And "the federal government," he said, "is an accomplice to this fact." [Read More]
