Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
November 1, 2020
Hello All – This year, "Election Day" will be "Election Week" or even "Election Month." Record numbers of people have already voted, and because of the millions of mail-in ballots, we won't know who won the election on November 3rd. Counting ALL the votes may take weeks. The danger we face is that President Trump will claim victory on Election Night, before ALL the mail-in votes are counted. Based on his many statements, we fear he will say that some mail-in ballots are bogus and shouldn't be counted. His lawyers may sue to stop the counting of mail-in ballots. Republican state legislatures may declare Trump the winner even if Biden gets the most votes in that state. This would be the most likely route for Trump to try to stay in office; a slow-motion coup by another name.
If the polls predicting a strong popular vote for Biden and a possible/likely success for Democrats in "swing states" are accurate, "Count All the Votes" is a demand that will unite a majority of people. And this will happen. On Wednesday, November 4th, if the election results remain unclear, hundreds/thousands of demonstrations will take place across the USA demanding "Count All the Votes." To find a demonstration near you, go to www.protecttheresults.com and enter your Zip Code. There are a half-dozen demonstrations (at least) scheduled in Westchester. Concerned Families of Westchester will hold our protest at 4 pm on Wednesday, in Yonkers, on Warburton Ave. at the corner of Odell, the Hudson Fulton Park. To sign up, go here..
Another CFOW initiative is to encourage elected officials and other community leaders to make public statements in support of "counting all the votes." It will help to delegitimize Trump's attempt to short-circuit counting ALL the votes if many community leaders are on record saying this must happen. We've drafted a statement and ask that YOU copy it (or improve it) and send it to your mayor, your local board of trustees, your county legislature, your clergy or rabbi, and your friends. Here's the statement:
We ask you, our elected and civic leaders, to publicly affirm and commit to uphold democracy by ensuring that all votes are counted in this election, and that the results are respected. We are asking you to do your Constitutional duty and protect the integrity and results of the 2020 election. We call on you to speak out now on behalf of the entire country and to make sure every vote cast is counted, and counted accurately. Your public commitment to uphold and protect democracy is greatly needed at this critical time in our history.
And here are some email addresses to get you started:
[County Legislators] Colin D. Smith – smith@WestchesterLegislators.com; Kitley S, Covil – Covil@WestchesterLegislators.com; Margaret Cunzio - Cunzio@WestchesterLegislators.com; Vedat Gashi – Gashi@@WestchesterLegislators.com; Benjamin Boykin - Boykin@WestchesterLegislators.com; Nancy Barr - Barr@WestchesterLegislators.com; Catherine Parker - Parker@WestchesterLegislators.com; Alfreda Williams – Williams@WestchesterLegislators.com; Catherine Borgia Borgia@WestchesterLegislators.com; Damon Maher - Maher@WestchesterLegislators.com; Terry Clements - Clements@WestchesterLegislators.com; MaryJane Shimsky - Shimsky@WestchesterLegislators.com; David J. Tubiolo Tubiolo@WestchesterLegislators.com; Ruth Walter - Walter@WestchesterLegislators.com; Christopher Johnson - Johnson@WestchesterLegislators.com; Jose Alvarado - Alvarado@WestchesterLegislators.com
[State Legislators] Andrea Stewart-Cousins – scousins@nysenate.gov; Tom Abinanti – Abinantit@nyassembly.gov; Amy Paulin – PaulinA@nyassembly.gov; J. Gary Pretlow – PretloJ@nyassembly.gov; Nader J. Sayegh – sayeghn@nyassembly.gov; Steven Otis – OtisS@nyassembly.gov; and more at https://nyassembly.gov/mem/.
[Federal] Sen. Charles Schumer – www.schumer.senate.gov/contact/email-chuck; Sen. Kirstan Gillibrand – www.gillibrand.senate.gov/contact/email-me; Rep.to be Jamaal Bowman – info@bowmanforcongress.com; and Rep. to be Mondaire Jones – info@mondaireforcongress.com.
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 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 Saturday at 2 pm, please send a return email. Our weekly newsletter is archived at https://cfow.blogspot.com/; and news of interest and coming events is posted on our CFOW Facebook page. If you would like to support our work by making a contribution, please send your check to CFOW, PO Box 364, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706. Thanks!
Rewards!
For this week's Rewards for stalwart readers, we're circling back to the Resistance Revival Chorus, a new favorite for me, with songs that hit the spot for our struggle to come. Their website is https://www.resistancerevivalchorus.com/, where you can see/hear "This Joy," "Ella's Song," and more. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
ELECTION 2020
(Video) "Drop Your Ballot Off": Supreme Court Rulings on Mailed Ballots Sow Doubt on Which Votes Will Count
From Democracy Now! [October 29, 2020]
---- A record 76 million people have already voted in the U.S. election, but the battle over the counting of mail-in ballots continues, with the Supreme Court issuing rulings on how long after Election Day ballots can be counted in the battleground states of Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. We speak with Mother Jones senior writer Ari Berman, author of "Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America," who says the Supreme Court could yet decide who wins the presidency if a close result leads to legal challenges. "My message to voters in these states and other states is drop your ballot off," says Berman. "Don't leave it to chance that your vote could be thrown out." [See the Program]
Short of a General Strike, How Can Labor Stop Trump From Stealing the Election?
By Jane McAlevey, The Nation [October 30, 2020
---- There has been a lot of social media chatter about a general strike here in the United States if the results are ambiguous and Trump tries to steal the election. It would be amazing if national trade unions here were prepared to take the same actions in November 2020 that Chile's national unions took in November 2019—but there's absolutely no indication that people in positions of power in significant sectors of the US economy are ready to act as boldly as Chilean leaders did. Even if a presidential coup warrants a general strike, achieving one as early as next week is wishful thinking. As a campaign strategist, union organizer, and veteran of both the 2000 Florida recount and many supermajority workplace strikes, I believe it is urgent to remain deadly serious and sober about the actual possibilities when it comes to defending what's left of our modicum of democracy. [Read More] For more on what labor can/might do, read "Strike for Democracy!" by Stephanie Luce, Organizing Upgrade [October 26, 2020] [Link].
How Safe Is the US Election from Hacking?
By Jennifer Cohn, New York Review of Books [October 31, 2020]
---- Election management systems, voting machines, memory cards, and USB sticks are among the many things that election insiders could corrupt. The software used in voting machines and election management systems is proprietary to the vendors, making it difficult to obtain permission to forensically analyze them. Experts say hackers could erase their tracks anyway. As a practical matter, the only way to know if electronic vote tallies are legitimate is to conduct full manual recounts or robust manual audits using a reliable paper trail. … In an ideal world, such independent monitoring efforts and citizen initiatives would not be necessary. Americans could go to the polls, vote, and be sure their ballots would be counted in a free and fair election. But that is not the reality. Instead, we face an unprecedented combination of election interference from hostile foreign powers and a president intent on keeping the public confused and uninformed about threats to our election infrastructure. As another US president liked to say: trust, but verify. [Read More]
FEATURED ESSAYS
Bernie Sanders: Build a Compassionate Nation
October 26, 2020 / Bernie Sanders
---- Over the past 40 years, corporate America and the billionaire class have been waging a war against the trade union movement in America, causing devastating harm to the middle class and working class. When oligarchs like Donald Trump tell us that the economy is "booming," they are right—the economy is booming for the extremely rich and extremely profitable corporations in America—who, by the way, pay nothing or next to nothing in federal income taxes. Meanwhile, millions of working people of America can barely get by. Even before the pandemic hit, more than half of our people were living paycheck to paycheck, tens of millions had no health insurance, and 500,000 slept on the streets. Over the past three decades, the top 1% increased its net worth by over $22 trillion and the bottom 50 percent lost $776 billion—a massive, grotesque transfer of wealth. But what should give us hope is that despite corporate, right-wing efforts to dismantle the power of working people at every opportunity, workers are fighting back, and the trade union movement has won many important victories in the past several years. [Read More] For some interesting ideas on the US Labor movement, read "The Movement for Black Lives and Labor's Revival" by Tim Schermerhorn and Lee Sustar, ZNet [October 31, 2020] [Link].
Biden's Most Daunting Adversary [The Climate Crisis]
By Bill McKibben, New York Review of Books [October 31, 2020]
---- If Joe Biden wins the presidency, he will be faced with a hundred pressing problems and a thousand things to repair from the Trump years. Nevertheless, he will have little choice but to concentrate on the climate crisis. Until now, for most people the danger has remained at a distance, except for scientists who have done their best to warn us about the speed and power of the storm headed our way. But amid the smoking pall that still hangs over the West and the recovery in Louisiana, after two powerful hurricanes in less than two months, there is no longer any doubt about the immediacy of the danger. And so everything—especially the economic response to the trauma of Covid-19—must flow in the direction of swift climate action. In 2018 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told us that we had until 2030 to dramatically bend the curve of emissions—in fact, to cut them in half—if we had any hope of meeting the climate target we'd set in Paris in 2015. That's a wretchedly difficult goal, on the bleeding edge of the technically possible. And if we do not get started immediately, even that chance will slip away, and with it much of the prospect for a planet capable of sustaining civilizations like the ones we're used to. If we want to avoid such a fate, the US will have to act quickly and, for the first time, actually take a leadership role in the international climate effort. So what could President Biden do during his first days in office? [Read More] Also helpful/interesting is "The Most Important Climate Ballot Initiatives to Watch on Election Day" by Dharna Noor, ZNet [November 1, 2020] [Link]
People to Autocrats: Not So Fast
By , Foreign Policy in Focus [October 28, 2020]
---- Authoritarianism has been on the march for years, but people powered revolutions are pushing regimes toward democracy on nearly every continent. … Despite all the obstacles, Americans are voting in huge numbers prior to Election Day. With a week to go, nearly 70 million voters have sent in their ballots or stood on line for early voting. The pandemic hasn't prevented them from exercising their constitutional right. Nor have various Republican Party schemes to suppress the vote. Some patriotic citizens have waited all day at polling places just to make sure that their voices are heard. Americans are not alone. In Belarus and Bolivia, Poland and Thailand, Chile and Nigeria, people are pushing back against autocrats and coups and police violence. Indeed, 2020 may well go down in history alongside 1989 and 1968 as a pinnacle of people power. Some pundits, however, remain skeptical that people power can turn the authoritarian tide that has swept Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Narendra Modi into office. … Pundits tend to overstate the power of the status quo. Autocrats may have the full panoply of state power at their disposal, but they also tend to dismiss challenges to their authority until it's too late. As Americans await the verdict on Donald Trump, they can take heart that the tide may be turning for people power all over the world. [Read More]
Some fight-backs against authoritarians – [Turkey] "Woke at the Wake of Democracy, Laughing" b
[Link]; [Belarus] "A Feminist Blueprint for Saving Democracy in the US – and beyond" b[Link]; and "The Republican Party's 2-Decade-Long March toward Hungarian and Turkish-Style Illiberalism" b[Link]
WAR & PEACE
What Trump and Biden get wrong about North Korea
By Christine Ahn, Responsible Statecraft [October 26, 2020]
----- At [the recent] presidential debate, the American people were presented with two widely divergent points of view on how to address North Korea's growing nuclear arsenal: Either engage with its leader (and thereby "legitimize" a "thug") or apply more sanctions and pressure in order to "control" North Korea. But this is a false dichotomy. Meeting or not meeting with the North Korean leader hasn't been the failure of U.S. policy. And more pressure and sanctions will not convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons arsenal. To make any substantial progress, the next administration must take a wholly new approach to achieve a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. Most urgently, the next administration should officially end the Korean War with a peace agreement. Contrary to the belief held by most Americans, the 70-year-old war never officially ended and was only halted by a fragile ceasefire signed in 1953. … But since last year's Hanoi Summit, talks between North Korea and the United States have stalled. That's because engagement with North Korea was not accompanied by a fundamental change in U.S. policy. The United States keeps expecting that pressure will convince North Korea to unilaterally disarm without providing any sanctions relief or security guarantees. [Read More]
The Weapons Industry Doesn't Care Who's President
By Greg Shupak, The Nation [October 30, 2020]
---- It's difficult to imagine that the wealthiest investors in the world disburse millions of dollars to political campaigns without the occasional peep at their portfolios. The institutional logic at work here is such that, no matter the outcome of Tuesday's vote, the occupant of the White House for the next four years will be there thanks in considerable part to people with a stake in Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed's earnings. War industry firms themselves directly donate to candidates in a fairly bipartisan fashion. Aerospace companies in the war business focus their political donations on members of the House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees, which dole out federal money, and on members of the Armed Services committees, who help shape military policy and thus can create demand for what this industry sells…. While Trump has made a show of disavowing any involvement in quid pro quos with American corporations like Exxon, it's safe to say that major industry sees government as a source of opportunity. Arms dealers and their patrons are no exception; they exist to make money. They don't pour cash into the political system out of pure ideological commitment—they expect a return on investment. Whoever is inaugurated in January, companies whose profits depend on the US military can be expected to have his ear. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
Overturning the Affordable Care Act Could Result in 68,000 Deaths
By Sharon Lerner, The Intercept [
---- As many as 68,000 people may die in a single year if the Supreme Court overturns the Affordable Care Act, according to research published Thursday. The study, published by Health Affairs, found that some 2.3 million people have already lost health insurance coverage during the first three years of the Trump administration and that between 3,399 and 25,180 people died as a result of losing that coverage. … On November 10, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in California v. Texas, a case that could result in the court striking down the entire Affordable Care Act in the midst of a global pandemic that has already resulted in more than 227,000 deaths in the U.S. Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump's recently installed justice, is expected to vote with conservatives against the law. [Read More]
Across the U.S., Trump Used ICE to Crack Down on Immigration Activists
By Nick Pinto, The Intercept [
---- Immigration authorities under President Donald Trump's administration have pursued a widespread campaign of official retaliation against immigrant rights advocates around the country, according to a newly released database and searchable map assembled by the Immigrant Rights Clinic at New York University Law School. Though some of the more than 1,000 incidents of alleged retaliation catalogued in the NYU Law map have been previously reported on, and others have even been the subject of high-profile litigation, those instances have often been viewed in isolation. The NYU Law map, which was published under the banner of Immigrant Rights Voices in partnership with the immigration advocates of New Sanctuary Coalition, represents the most comprehensive effort to date to document all known instances of official retaliation against immigrant rights advocates. As such, it paints a picture of a practice so widespread as to seemingly constitute an official policy of using the powers of the state against critics of an unchecked immigration apparatus. [Read More
The President's War on Dissent Is Using Trumped-Up Federal Charges
By Natasha Lennard, The Intercept [
---- Throughout this year's long summer of uprisings, the Trump administration and its servile Justice Department escalated outlandish efforts to demonize and criminalize left dissent and Black liberation protest. The president's paranoiac screeds against "antifa" echoed and exceeded the chaos and baselessness of the J20 prosecutions. Meanwhile, a vast federal law enforcement apparatus has deftly been expanding its reach over the policing and prosecution of dissent nationwide. Eschewing the J20 playbook of mass arrests and collective prosecutions, federal prosecutors have instead found unprecedented and targeted ways to turn local protest activities into federal crimes — particularly with the use of radically overreaching charges for "interstate" crimes, even for protesters who crossed no state lines. [Read More]
OUR HISTORY
Remembering Diane di Prima: Poet of the Great American Counterculture
---- How much of her stories were true, no one will ever know, especially now that she's dead. Maybe it doesn't matter what was true and what was invented and imagined. Maybe her many readers don't need to know if she actually had sex with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, an incident she describes in her classic, Memoirs of a Beatnik, which was published in 1969 by Olympia Press and that helped to revive the dormant legend of the Beats. "Some of us sold out and became hippies," di Prima wrote in the "Author's Note" to that volume. She added, "Some of us managed to preserve our integrity by accepting government grants, or writing pornographic novels." Integrity was all-important to her. … An anarchist, a Buddhist, a dreamer and a practical revolutionary in the tradition of her maternal grandfather Domenico Mallozzi—a comrade of Carlo Tresca and Emma Goldman—di Prima was a real poet and an honest intellectual, too, who offered an idiosyncratic cultural history of the 1950s in Memoirs of a Beatnik. Ideas, not sex, drives that book. [Read More]
The First 50 Years of James Bond
[FB – The actor Sean Connery died this week, evoking some mainstream meditations on the cultural significance of the "James Bond" films in the 1960s. The following essay, by the founder of Counterpunch, the late Alexander Cockburn (taken from his 2004 book "Serpents in the Garden)," places James Bond and his creator in the context of the Cold War and other dreadfulness of that era.]
---- The most successful saga in postwar popular culture got off to a conscientious start after breakfast on a tropical morning in Jamaica early in 1952. Ian Fleming, forty-three years old and ten weeks away from his first and last marriage, knocked out about 2,000 words on his Imperial portable claiming (falsely) that he was just passing time while his bride elect, Anne Rothermere, painted landscapes in the garden. In fact Fleming had been planning to write a spy thriller for years and he kept up the regimen of 2,000 daily words until, two months later, he was done, with Commander James Bond recovering from a near lethal attack on his testicles from Le Chiffre's carpet beater, Le Chiffre finished off by a Russian, Vesper Lynd dead by her own hand, and a major addition to the world's cultural and political furniture under way. … He has much to answer for. Without Fleming we would have had no OSS, hence no CIA. The cold war would have ended in the early 1960s. We would have had no Vietnam, no Nixon, no Reagan and no Star Wars. [Read More]
