Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
July 18, 2021
Hello All – Ten days ago protests erupted in Cuba over the shortages of goods and the malfunctioning of the state. These protests were amplified by US media, especially in Florida/Miami, and elicited statements from President Biden and Sec. of State Blinken condemning Cuba. Some excitable people called for bombing Cuba or US intervention. Why is this happening and what needs to be done?
Context is never the strong suit of the US media, and so important details of the US-Cuban relationship – such as decades of economic blockade and attempts to overthrow the Cuban government – have not been included in reporting. The fact that President Obama removed Cuba from the list of "state sponsors of terror" six years ago – and thus opened the door for normalization of relations – is largely forgotten. This door was abruptly closed by President Trump, who also imposed more than 200 new economic sanctions against Cuba. President Biden has not taken any steps to end the Trump policies. The suffering of the Cuban people is real; but if this were a genuine concern of Biden/Biden, they could simply return to the policies of President Obama and take the USA boot off the Cuban neck.
Pundit commentary generally ascribes Trump's punitive sanctions on Cuba, and Biden's refusal to remove them, as a contest for the electoral votes of Florida in the 2022 and 2024 elections. Though their power is eroding, the "anti-Castro" Cubans in Florida are still strong in parts of the state; and both Democrats and Republicans see political advantage in torturing Cuba. Change is not likely in the foreseeable future.
Our history is full of USA attempts to overturn the Cuban Revolution, and it would be foolish to think that something won't be tried again. While preparing and defending against such an eventuality, this would be a good time to bone up on what the Cuban revolution has accomplished, and what its real – not imaginary – fault lines are. An article linked below, for example, reminds us that the US economic blockade has forced Cuba to develop its own pharmaceutical industry, which kept its Covid fatalities far below the level of other Western Hemisphere countries, and that it's medical system provides low-cost quality care that Americans can only dream of. There's much more to learn about Cuba – only 90 miles from home.
Some Useful Reading About the USA & Cuba
The Hidden Hand of the US Blockade Sparks Cuba Protests
(Video) "We Just Want the Basics": Rare Protests in Cuba Amid Deep Economic Crisis, Ongoing U.S. Blockade
(Video) How Cuba Beat the Pandemic: From Developing New Vaccines to Sending Doctors Overseas to Help Others
The Trump Administration's Parting Outrage Against Cuba
By Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores, Code Pink [January 13, 2021] [Link]
News Notes
Yesterday CFOW hosted a rally in Hastings that was part of the nationwide John Lewis "Good Trouble" voting-rights action. More than 150 actions in 40 states memorialized the first anniversary of John Lewis' death by speaking up for the passage of voting-rights legislation in Congress. About 40 people attended our rally; you can see some pictures on our Facebook page. Thanks to Lee Greene for the video, and to all who came out.
Also yesterday, the "BanKillerDrones" people & friends held a press conference in NYC in support of drone whistleblower Daniel Hale, who will be sentenced on July 27th (for up to 10 years in prison) for his courageous act of releasing info about the drone assassination program to the media. You can see some good pictures/video about the action here and here. For more information about Daniel Hale, go here. For lots of info about drones (assassination and surveillance), go here..
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. We meet for a protest/rally each 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. If you would like to join one of our Zoom meetings, each Tuesday and Thursday at noon, 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!
This week's Rewards for stalwart readers were inspired by an article in the Boston Review called "The Sounds of Struggle" [Link]. It describes the creation, in 1960, of a jazz album called 'We Insist!: The Freedom Now Suite." 1960, of course, was a seminal year, starting off with the lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro, NC, a catalyst for the civil rights movement that followed. We Insist! was made by drummer Max Roach, singer Abbey Lincoln, saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, and lyricist Oscar Brown, Jr. As the Boston Review notes, "Roach and his collaborators picked up the power of the imagery—of the movement "unfurling" all around them, of the radicalization of movement activists—to produce a musical composition that remains an indelible contribution to both the politics of Black freedom and the expansion of musical horizons in mainstream jazz." You can hear the "Freedom Now Suite" here. Abby Lincoln, the singer for We Insist!, also starred in a 1964 film that was part of the early civil rights movement, "Nothing But a Man," which you can see here. Enjoy!
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
"You're Gonna Have a Fucking War": Gen. Mark Milley's Fight to Stop Trump from Striking Iran
July 15, 2021
[FB – Following last November's election, there were many warnings/concerns that Trump would start a war – target, Iran – as part of a larger plan to stay in office. It turns out these fears were well founded, as described here, with further revelations undoubtedly to come.]
---- The last time that General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with President Donald Trump was on January 3, 2021. The subject of the Sunday-afternoon meeting, at the White House, was Iran's nuclear program. For the past several months, Milley had been engaged in an alarmed effort to insure that Trump did not embark on a military conflict with Iran as part of his quixotic campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 election and remain in power. The chairman secretly feared that Trump would insist on launching a strike on Iranian interests that could set off a full-blown war. … A running concern for Milley was the prospect of Trump pushing the nation into a military conflict with Iran. He saw this as a real threat, in part because of a meeting with the President in the early months of 2020, at which one of Trump's advisers raised the prospect of taking military action to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons if Trump were to lose the election. [Read More] Another part of the story: "Did Netanyahu Try to get Trump to Wag the Dog with Strike on Iran after Biden Won?" b[Link].
War & Peace
Is a War With China Inevitable?
By Michael T. Klare, The Nation [July 15, 2021]
---- For most security analysts, it's not a matter of if a US-China war will erupt, but when. Does this sound fanciful? Not if you read the statements coming out of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the upper ranks of Congress these days. … In other words, we Americans face an existential choice: Do we stand aside and allow the "fast-growing consensus" Sanders speaks of to shape national policy, while abandoning any hope of genuine progress on climate change or those other perils? Alternately, do we begin trying to exert pressure on Washington to adopt a more balanced relationship with China, one that would place at least as much emphasis on cooperation as on confrontation? If we fail at this, be prepared in 2026 or soon thereafter for the imminent onset of a catastrophic (possibly even nuclear) US-China war. [Read More]
20 Years of U.S. Occupation Was Brutal in Afghanistan—And So Will Be the Exit
By Sonali Kolhatkar,
---- Opponents of the war have known since 2001 that there is no military solution to the U.S.-sponsored fundamentalist violence that had plagued Afghanistan at the time. More such violence—which is largely what the U.S. offered for nearly 20 years—only made things worse. In announcing the war's end and pivoting to what he deemed were "happy" topics, Biden fed the "propaganda of silence" that my co-author James Ingalls and I referred to in the subtitle of our 2006 book Bleeding Afghanistan. There has long been a deliberate effort to downplay the U.S.'s failures and paint a rosy picture of a war whose victory has always been just around the corner. But there is no happy ending for Afghans, and there was never meant to be. Afghans, already weary of never-ending war in 2001, were promised democracy, women's rights, and peace. But instead, the U.S. offered elections, a theoretical liberation of women, and an absence of justice, while championing corrupt armed warlords and their militias. … Even the manner of withdrawing American troops was as shameful as the mess the U.S. is leaving behind. [Read More]
The Covid Pandemic
Delta Is Driving a Wedge Through Missouri
By Ed Yong, The Atlantic [July 2021]
---- But building trust is slow, and Delta is moving fast. Even if the still-unvaccinated 55 percent of Missourians all got their first shots tomorrow, it would still take a month to administer the second ones, and two weeks more for full immunity to develop. As current trends show, Delta can do a lot in six weeks. … In the meantime, southwest Missouri is now a cautionary tale of what Delta can do to a largely unvaccinated community that has lowered its guard. None of Missouri's 114 counties has vaccinated more than 50 percent of its population, and 75 haven't yet managed more than 30 percent. Many such communities exist around the U.S. [Read More] And of course they are disproportionately Republican states or communities; read "Treating the Unvaccinated" (about Utah), by July 16, 2021][Link]; and "In Undervaccinated Arkansas, Covid Upends Life All Over Again" by [Link].
The Climate Crisis
As Biden backslides, a bigger, better-organized climate movement prepares to seize this 'now or never' moment
July 6, 2021]
---- Over 500 activists from the youth-led Sunrise Movement descended on Washington, D.C. last week for one of the largest U.S. climate protests since COVID-related restrictions began easing. The young people rallied in front of the White House on June 28, to hear from a range of speakers, including Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, Indigenous pipeline fighters from Anishinaabe land in Minnesota and Sunrise organizers from all corners of the country. All called on President Biden to act swiftly to address the climate crisis. … The climate movement today is far bigger, better-organized and more active than at the beginning of any previous Democratic president's term. And while COVID largely prevented activists from organizing large in-person protests in the first few months of Biden's administration, that is changing as virus-related restrictions related to travel and gatherings ease. Now, climate activists are shaping the public narrative in ways they have often struggled to do in the past. [Read More] To learn what scientists are thinking at this point, see (Video) "Floods, Fires & Heat Waves: Michael Mann on "The New Climate War" & the Fight to Take Back the Planet," from Democracy Now! [July 16, 2021] [Link]; and "Climate scientists shocked by scale of floods in Germany" by Jonathan Watts, The Guardian [UK] [July 16, 2021] [Link]
Trouble in Brazil
Bolsonaro Is Spreading Trump-Like Fear of "Election Fraud" in Brazil
An interview with Noam Chomsky, Truthout [July 16, 2021]
---- Like Trump, Bolsonaro's most important policy commitments, by far, are to destroy the prospects for organized human life in the interest of short-term profits for his friends — in his case, mining, agribusiness and illegal logging that have sharply accelerated the destruction of the Amazon forests. Scientists had anticipated, pre-Bolsonaro, that in a few decades, the Amazon would shift from one of the world's greatest carbon sinks to a carbon source, as it transitions from tropical forest to savannah. Thanks to Bolsonaro, that point may already be approaching. For Brazil, the effects will be devastating. Rainfall will sharply decline, with much of the rich agricultural land turning to desert. The world as a whole will suffer a severe blow, a wound that might prove to be lethal. For the Indigenous inhabitants of the forest, the outcome is genocidal.As elsewhere in the world, the Indigenous in Brazil have been in the forefront for years in trying to protect human society from the depredations of "advanced civilization." But time is growing short, and if the Trumps and Bolsonaros of the world are granted free rein, chances of decent survival are slim. [Read More]
Digging Deeper into Haiti
Were Haiti's Capitalists Behind the Assassination of President Moïse?
An interview with Kim Ives, English-language editor of Haiti Liberté, Jacobin Magazine [July 2021]
---- What happened in Haiti on July 7?
There was a band of mercenaries with brand new Nissan Patrol vehicles. They clearly had knowledge of the layout of the presidential compound, where Moïse lived. They were clearly well-financed, well-prepared. It was a very sophisticated operation. Who had the money to do that? And who would want to do that? Haiti Liberté's working hypothesis is that the mercenaries, more than likely, were hired by one or a consortium of the bourgeois families who are opposed to Moïse. Reginald Boulos is one. Dimitri Vorbe is another. There are several others who were unhappy with Moïse. If this hypothesis is correct, their fear is of the uprising that is coming out of Haiti's vast shantytowns, where the lumpenproletariat is organizing itself into armed gangs, which have now vowed to carry out a revolution against the bourgeoisie and "the rotten system," as they call it in Haiti. … The result is that millions of peasants have been ruined and have moved to the cities to join the ranks of this huge lumpenproletariat. The bourgeoisie is absolutely terrified of this revolution. [Read More]
Israel/Palestine
Israel: Racist, Violent Policing Is at the Heart of Apartheid
July 16, 2021]
---- Police made sweeping arrests of Israel's large minority of Palestinian citizens after protests rocked the country in May during Israel's 11-day attack on Gaza. Officers were documented beating demonstrators, and in some cases torturing them while in detention. Police also failed to protect the Palestinian minority from planned, vigilante-style attacks by far-right Jewish extremists. This was the damning verdict of an Amnesty International report published last week. The findings indicate that Israeli police view the country's Palestinian minority, a fifth of the population, as an enemy rather than as citizens with a right to protest. … The contrast between how police responded to protests by Palestinian citizens and supportive statements from their leaders, on the one hand, and to incitement from Israeli Jewish leaders and violent backlash from the Jewish extreme right, on the other, is stark indeed. [Read More] And highly recommended is this short video, "Palestinians Film War in Gaza: 'So They Know We Existed'", New York Times [July 15, 2021] [Link].
