Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
December 6, 2020
Hello All – The congressional leaders of the Democratic Party appear to be on the cusp of accepting a federal relief package in the range of $900 billion, rather than the $2 trillion package put together in the House of Representative several month ago (and not acted on by the Senate). The push to accept this less-than-half-a-loaf seems to come from President-elect Biden, on the grounds that some relief soon is better than nothing. This is admittedly a hard decision for the Democratic leadership, but it should prompt progressives to point out how such a "relief" bill simply continues the War on the Poor. As Massachusetts congresswoman Ayanna Pressley points out, what's missing – enhanced unemployment insurance benefits, workplace protections, paid sick leave, direct cash payments to individuals, national eviction and foreclosure moratoriums, and rental assistance – is exactly what working people need. Bernie Sanders spoke out strongly against this proposal on Friday. This fight for what's fair must be fought.
In contrast to the Great Debate on whether working Americans should get some help, the Pentagon's $740 billion military spending bill passed Congress last Wednesday with little debate. Neither the bloated and dangerous "mission" of the Pentagon, nor the absurd level of spending required to support World Domination was ever on the table. As Sarah Lazare wrote in this week's In These Times
But this is no ordinary year. As Congress races to pass the NDAA for 2021, it does so in a country that is hurtling toward months that could be among "the most difficult in the public health history of this nation," according to Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Along with this health crisis, whose scale in the United States was entirely preventable, comes economic devastation: Lines for food banks are stretching for miles and, according to one study, one in six people is food insecure. As of September, one in six adults said they live in a house that's behind on rent.
Here we have once again a confusion of "national security" for "human security." By the time Trump is out of office, it is likely that more than 400,000 people in the USA will have died from the Covid pandemic. A large proportion of these deaths will be due to an under-funded (and mismanaged) public health infrastructure. The billions spent on "national defense" will do nothing to replace the lost year(s) of learning by our school children, or to repair the broken households and communities ripped apart by the ravages of loss of income, eviction, and foreclosure. The Great Power is reduced to the status of a failed state, without our mighty military machine doing a lick of good. – If a learning curve is still available to Americans, let's hope that we can recognize "human security" or "real security" as our goal, not mere military supremacy.
News Notes
The Trump people are continuing the capital-punishment onslaught this week, as Brandon Bernard is scheduled to be executed on Thursday, December 10. Twenty years ago Bernard, then 18 years old, was convicted of being a participant – not a shooter – in a horrible murder in Texas. Now 5 juror who sentenced him back then don't think he should die. As Biden has stated that he opposed to the death penalty, the Trump people are in a frenzy to kill as many as possible. Learn about Brandon Bernard and his case in excellent essays here and here..
The US media rarely posts pictures of Palestinians – in Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza – doing anything except being arrested. This contributes to the negative stereotypes that many Americans hold about Palestinians. As an antidote, each month The Electronic Intifada publishes "Palestine in Pictures." Here is their portfolio for November: an impoverished people under colonial-style occupation.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Taking the Covid Crisis into account, we meet (with safe distancing) for a protest/rally on Saturday in Hastings, at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton and Spring St.) Another vigil takes place on the first Monday of the month (December 7th, etc.), from 5 to 5:30 pm, in Yonkers at the intersection of Warburton Ave. and Odell. In this time of coronavirus, we are meeting by Zoom conference; if you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, Tuesday and Thursday at noon and/or Saturday at 5 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!
We the People are facing strong headwinds. The Covid economy has laid waste to jobs, income, schooling for our children, a secure home for renters and homeowners, and so much more. It's a good time to remember that Americans have joined together in the past and fought for what we needed. Here are some songs I like: - "Union Maid," by the New Harmony Sisterhood; "You Gotta Go Down and Join the Union," by the Almanac Singers; and "Solidarity Forever" with Pete Seeger. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
FEATURED ESSAYS
Martyred Missionaries: The Lives and Legacies of Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel
---- On the night of December 2, 1980, Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazel, Catholic missionaries from the United States, were kidnapped, beaten, raped, and murdered by a U.S.-backed death squad while working to help the poor and oppressed people of El Salvador. In their lives, work, and tragic, untimely deaths, the women inspired people in El Salvador who, deeply moved by their ultimate sacrifice, would at long last prevail in their freedom struggle. … For Salvadoran clergy, choosing the "wrong" side in the nascent struggle could mean a death sentence, as the March 12, 1977 assassination of Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande by a right-wing death squad demonstrated. … Oscar Romero, too, would pay for his tireless advocacy for the poor with his life. But first he would inspire a nation with his words and deeds, and the American churchwomen were among those who heeded his call to action. … The Salvadoran civil war finally ended in 1992, with more than 75,000 men, women, and children killed—85% of them by the army and paramilitary death squads, according to the United Nations. While each and every one of those deaths is tragic, some them—Father Grande, Archbishop Romero, the six Jesuit priests massacred in 1989, and the four American churchwomen, to name but a few—transcend the conflict at hand and become universal icons of righteousness that endure through the ages. [Read More]
(Video) An extended interview with Paul Farmer, epidemic doctor in Haiti and Rwanda
[FB – Dr. Paul Farmer became famous some decades ago as a result of his work fighting epidemics in Haiti. More recently he has worked to stop the Ebola virus in Rwanda/Congo. He is also a professor at Harvard. On Friday, Democracy Now broadcast an extended interview with Dr. Farmer about Covid and about his experiences treating Ebola in Congo/Rwanda.] - See Part I – "Centuries of inequality in the US laid grandwork for pandemic devastation" [Link]; and Part II – "Colonization Fueled Ebola: Dr. Paul Farmer on [his new book] "Fevers, Feuds & Diamonds" & Lessons from West Africa" [Link].
WAR & PEACE
Activists Urge Joe Biden To Pull Out Of Saudi Arabia's Brutal War In Yemen
By Akbar Shahid Ahmed, Huffington Post [November 30, 2020]
---- President-elect Joe Biden could dramatically improve the worst humanitarian crisis in the world within hours of taking office in January with one simple step: ending American support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. Without the U.S.'s backing, the Saudis and their partners would do far less damage in the Middle Eastern country, where prolonged conflict has killed more than 17,500 civilians and pushed 10 million people to the brink of starvation. On Monday [Nov. 30], 80 advocacy groups urged Biden to take that step as soon as he can, securing what they call "a monumental first achievement for your administration." The groups shared their message to the incoming president exclusively with HuffPost after they sent it to him. As the groups noted, this would be a major step by Biden, who backed the war while he served as vice president for President Barack Obama, but has since vowed to bring it to an end. Many senior Obama administration officials who will play key roles in his team, like incoming national security adviser Jake Sullivan, have also called for the U.S. to withdraw. [Read More]
Scientist, Spy Chief, Apologist for Torture? Meet Biden's New Director of National Intelligence
By Barbara Boland, The American Conservative [December 3, 2020]
---- Joe Biden announced last week that he will nominate Avril Haines to the position of Director of National Intelligence. Haines provided legal cover for CIA agents and worked closely with Barack Obama and CIA Director John Brennan on Obama's tenfold expansion of drone killings. If confirmed by Congress, Haines will be the first woman to head up the coalition of 17 intelligence agencies ranging from the National Security Agency to the FBI and the State Department, all under the umbrella of the DNI. …. The selection of Haines to lead DNI is "very" concerning, national security investigative journalist Gareth Porter told The American Conservative, and particularly if the Biden administration "continues the forever wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria and Africa, as [I] expect it will." "Not only did [Haines] show an absence of ethical values in her role in the Obama White House, but she will have a powerful bureaucratic self-interest in maximizing the drone strikes, which have occupied a major share of the CIA's staffing in the past," he said. … The open question is whether Biden and Haines recognize that the U.S. is in a "very different moment" now, as a war-weary public faces the COVID-19 pandemic. [Read More]
Fort Everywhere
By Daniel Immerwahr,The Nation [November 30, 2020]
[FB – This is a review of a new book by David Vine, The United States of War: A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, From Columbus to the Islamic State. Vine is also the author of a book about US military bases. Among other things, the book reminded me that in only two years of my 78 years of life has the USA not been at war. College students today have never known a year without war.]
---- Shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic struck the United States, a reporter asked Donald Trump if he now considered himself a wartime president. …. What few noted at the time is that Trump, of course, was a wartime president, and not in a metaphorical sense. He presided—and still does—over two ongoing military missions, Operation Freedom's Sentinel in Afghanistan and Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria. More quietly, thousands of US troops patrol Africa and in recent years have endured casualties in Chad, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan. US planes and drones, meanwhile, fill the skies and since 2015 have killed more than 5,000 people (and possibly as many as 12,000) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Why is it so easy to screen these facts out? [Read More]
More about war & peace – "Old Obama hands on Korea policy could pose new problems for peace" bTim Shorrock, Responsible Statecraft [December 3, 2020] [Link]; and "President Trump Orders to Withdraw the 'Majority' of Troops From Somalia" by [Link].
THE CLIMATE CRISIS
States of Change: What the Green New Deal Can Learn from the New Deal in the States
By Jeremy Brecher, Labor Network for Sustainability [December 2020]
---- With the likelihood of a federal government sharply divided between Republicans and Democrats, states are likely to play an expanded role in shaping the American future. The aspirations for a Green New Deal may have support from the presidency and the House, but they are likely to be fiercely contested in the Senate and perhaps the Supreme Court. Bold action to address climate and inequality could emerge at the state level. Are there lessons we can learn from the original New Deal about the role of states in a highly conflicted era of reform? The original New Deal of the 1930s was a national program led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. But states played a critical role in developing the New Deal. The same could be true of tomorrow's Green New Deal. There is organizing for a Green New Deal in every one of the fifty states. But our federal system is often ambiguous about what can and can't be done at a state level and how action at a state level can affect national policy and vice versa. The purpose of this discussion paper is to explore what we can learn about the role of states in the original New Deal that may shed light on the strategies, opportunities, and pitfalls for the Green New Deal of today and tomorrow. [Read More]
THE STATE OF THE UNION
It's Time to Turn the World Right Side Up by Reimagining Public Safety
By Mary Hooks, Prism Reports [December 1, 2020]
---- The truth of the matter is that what makes people safe is as varied as the gender spectrum. As humans we have the capability of compromising each other's ideal of safety at every turn. But to think militarized police in tacky polyester uniforms is the best way to address it will leave us all doomed. I know for a fact that had my family and community had meaningful work that they had control over, we would have had a taste of safety. If we'd had the services necessary to address the wicked state-sanctioned crack epidemic, we would have been able to get a sense of safety … We can't get rid of policing as we know it if we continue to value one person's time and labor over another's, which is a requirement of racialized capitalism. We must fight like hell to break isolation and mediocrity which nurtures capitalism and fear. This may seem like a tall order. However, if we exert the same amount of force and energy that has been used to instill fear, make mass consumption an art form, shred the social safety net, lie and manipulate the public to support war and exploitation to instead imagine and build alternative systems of public safety, then I believe we can do what must be done to turn the world right side up again. [Read More]
Healthcare Workers Are Organizing Like Their Lives Depend On It
By Alice Herman, In These Times [December 1, 2020]
---- Poor working conditions — as well as long-standing concerns about patient safety issues, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic — have prompted healthcare workers to launch a series of dramatic on-the-job actions. … While traditional unionization has slowed in 2020, including in the healthcare sector, there are indicators of growing interest in organizing within hospitals, nursing homes and other frontline healthcare facilities. Thousands of workers have gone on strike. And while it's difficult to estimate how many workers have taken part in smaller on-the-job protests and pickets, healthcare workers are filing more NLRB complaints alleging retaliation for workplace organizing than in previous years. Meanwhile, several healthcare unions report they are making inroads with non-union workers. They especially see potential to improve the ratio of patients to staff, which has steadily deteriorated in the context of consolidated corporate healthcare systems. [Read More] Last week nurses at Montfiore New Rochelle, ground zero for the Covid pandemic, held a two-day strike to protest the lack of safety equipment and staffing shortages. Read a good report here.
Biden's Choice on Julian Assange and the First Amendment
By Charles Glass, The Intercept [
---- Assange's liberty represents the liberty of all journalists and publishers whose job is to expose government and corporate criminality without fear of prosecution. We need and deserve to be protected against government control of the press. By removing the 1917 Espionage Act charges against Assange, Biden would be adhering to the precedent established by the administration in which he served for eight years as vice president. President Barack Obama's Department of Justice investigated Assange and WikiLeaks for three years until 2013 before deciding, in the words of University of Maryland journalism professor Mark Feldstein, "to follow established precedent and not bring charges against Assange or any of the newspapers that published the documents." Equal application of the law would have required the DOJ to prosecute media outlets, including the New York Times, that had as large a hand in publicizing war crimes as did Assange himself. If prosecutors put all the editors, publishers, and scholars who disseminated WikiLeaks materials in the dock, there would not be a courtroom anywhere in America big enough to hold the trial. Obama decided against it, knowing it would represent an unprecedented assault on freedoms Americans hold dear. [Read More]
Also useful/important – "A Trump Immigration Policy Is Leaving Families Hungry" by [Link]; and "Why Did Racial Progress Stall in America?" by Shaylyn Romney Garrett and [Link].
ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Hundreds of Palestinian Minors are Imprisoned in Israel. This is What Arrests Look Like
---- Basel al-Badawi is 16 years old, a student in the 10th grade, the offspring of refugees and also a bereaved brother: His older brother was killed before his eyes a year ago. Omar was 22 when Israel Defense Forces soldiers shot him to death at short range and then claimed that they thought the towel he was holding – with which he was trying to put out a fire at his house – was a Molotov cocktail. We visited the home a few days after Omar was killed, in the heart of the Al-Arroub refugee camp, between Hebron and Bethlehem, to document the circumstances of his death. Two weeks ago – four days after the first anniversary of his killing – IDF troops returned to the building on whose steps they killed Omar. This time they came in the dead of night to arrest his younger brother, Basel. They abducted him from his home while he was barefoot, wearing only bedclothes, and took him away for almost a full day of detention and interrogation. It was only at dawn that his interrogators brought him a pair of shoes. … According to data of the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, 157 Palestinian children and youths were still incarcerated in Israel at the end of September – 18 of them under the age of 16. A report published jointly this week by the organizations Yesh Din-Volunteers for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights and Breaking the Silence, about the night raids on Palestinian homes and the psychological damage they wreak, states that 64 percent of the families who gave testimony said soldiers invaded their home more than once, and that in 88 percent of the cases the raids took place at night. According to United Nations data for 2017-2018, soldiers broke into Palestinian homes throughout the West Bank, 6,402 times, an average of 267 incursions a month, about 10 a night. [Read More]
