Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
October 24, 2021
Hello All – Today is UN Day, the 76th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. In Westchester, the United Nations Association is building out on the UN commitment to sustainable development and ending the climate crisis with a program called ""No Time for Plan B on Climate: We Must Act NOW! What Cities, Schools and YOU can do to Help!" UN flags are also flying in Hastings, and in front of the city halls of Mt. Vernon and White Plains. (To learn more about today's program, go here.)
As the world prepares for the 26th Conference of Parties meeting in Glasgow, Scotland to discuss (and act on!) ways to mitigate our climate crisis, grassroots activists around the world are doing what they can to underscore the urgency of this meeting. At the last climate meeting in Paris in 2015, world leaders cobbled together commitments that would supposedly keep the temperature of the Earth from rising more than 1.5⁰ Celsius, (2.7⁰ Fahrenheit) above our pre-industrial-era temperature. The only way this could be done, it was understood, was by stopping the emission of excessive amounts of carbon dioxide (or similar "greenhouse gases" such as methane). Yet in the last 6 years, little progress has been made, and humans now stand at the brink of a global-warming catastrophe that is irreversible and will drastically change the environment in which we, along with plants and animals, have evolved over millions of years.
In the last 50 years, and not least during the current session of Congress, it has become clear that the drivers of rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are the burning of fossil fuels, mainly coal, oil, and gas. And it has also become clear that, over the last half-century, that the owners and directors of fossil fuel corporations have understood, and have suppressed and fought against public understanding, that to continue to burn fossil fuels is to choose a crisis for human existence.
And yet the fossil-fuel Behemoth grinds on, converting the futures of billions of humans into riches to fill the pockets of a favored few. Somehow, no one can lift their hand to stop this runaway car; it is as if we are, like deer, caught in the headlights of our destruction. Time and tide – and global warming – wait for no one. Are we really incapable of organizing ourselves to stop this nightmare?
News Notes
In the case of imprisoned journalist Julian Assange, the extradition proceedings – by which the USA hopes to snatch Assange from his Belmarsh prison in London and deposit him for life in a dark hole – resume in London's High Court on Wednesday. That is, just a short time after revelations that the CIA plotted to kidnap and/or assassinate Assange while he sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, President Biden's lawyers will try to persuade the judge that nothing bad could possibly happen to Assange if he were incarcerated in the USA. To learn more about Assange, the CIA, etc., check out the informative Belmarsh Tribunal, whose witnesses include Jeremy Corbyn, Edward Snowden, and many more.
Economic sanctions are often presented as an alternative to war, but they are actually war by other means. Their purpose is to inflict civilian casualties, following the unlikely theory that an economically devastated people will rise up against their rulers, demanding compliance with whatever the USA wants. The case of US sanctions against Venezuela was recently investigated by UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan. Presenting her findings at the 48th UN Human Rights Council session on September 15, Douhan stated that the wide-reaching sanctions program against Venezuela has had a "devastating" effect on the entire population's living conditions. For more about the effects of sanctions on Venezuela, go here.
In NYC an interesting Tribunal is underway, to be concluded tomorrow. It is called "In the Spirit of Mandela," and in Tribunal fashion it indicts the alleged guilty parties, presents many witnesses who have experienced the mailed fist of white supremacy, and then presents the evidence heard to a jury for a verdict. The first session focused on the experience of political prisoners, in the USA and throughout the world, and included many former Black Panthers and other revolutionaries who have suffered years of imprisonment. To learn more about this interesting project, check out "'In the Spirit of Mandela': International Tribunal Seeks to Charge U.S. Government with Crimes Against Humanity" by Bob Lederer and Matt Meyer, Covert Action Magazine [October 18, 2021] [LInk].
Finally, perhaps you, like me, was once riveted by Frank Herbert's novel Dune. Apparently I completely missed the point of the story back then. At any rate, historian Juan Cole has written an interesting review of the novel, its context, and its transformation into a major Hollywood film: "At its heart, Dune is a Tragedy, and a Warning against Trumpism." [Link]
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 6:00 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!
CFOW's beloved comrade and stalwart Andy Ryan died this week after a long illness. In his memory, CFOW's photographer Susan Rutman put together a package of pictures of Andy and posted them on our Facebook page. Covering most of the last decade, Susan's pictures also illuminate some of the things CFOW has done, and the community we've built in doing them.
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Do You Want a New Cold War?
By David Vine, Tom Dispatch [October 22, 2021]
---- Before it's too late, we need to ask ourselves a crucial question: Do we really — I mean truly — want a new Cold War with China? Because that's just where the Biden administration is clearly taking us. If you need proof, check out last month's announcement of an "AUKUS" (Australia, United Kingdom, U.S.) military alliance in Asia. … If you're too young to have lived through the original Cold War as I did, imagine going to sleep fearing that you might not wake up in the morning, thanks to a nuclear war between the world's two superpowers (in those days, the United States and the Soviet Union). Imagine walking past nuclear fallout shelters, doing "duck and cover" drills under your school desk, and experiencing other regular reminders that, at any moment, a great-power war could end life on Earth. Do we really want a future of fear? Do we want the United States and its supposed enemy to once again squander untold trillions of dollars on military expenditures while neglecting basic human needs, including universal health care, education, food, and housing, not to mention failing to deal adequately with that other looming existential threat, climate change? [Read More]
Our Future vs. Neoliberalism
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, Code Pink [October 20, 2021]
---- In country after country around the world, people are rising up to challenge entrenched, failing neoliberal political and economic systems, with mixed but sometimes promising results. … In the 1980s, U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher often told the world, "There is no alternative" to the neoliberal order she and President Reagan were unleashing. After only one or two generations, the self-serving insanity they prescribed and the crises it has caused have made it a question of survival for humanity to find alternatives. Around the world, ordinary people are rising up to demand real change. The people of Iraq, Chile and Bolivia have overcome the incredible traumas inflicted on them to take to the streets in the thousands and demand better government. Americans should likewise demand that our government stop wasting trillions of dollars to militarize the world and destroy countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, and start solving our real problems, here and abroad. People around the world understand the nature of the problems we face better than we did a generation or even a decade ago. Now we must overcome demoralization and powerlessness in order to act. It helps to understand that the demoralization and powerlessness we may feel are themselves products of this neoliberal system, and that simply overcoming them is a victory in itself. As we reject the inevitability of neoliberalism and Thatcher's lie that there is no alternative, we must also reject the lie that we are just passive, powerless consumers. As human beings, we have the same collective power that human beings have always had to build a better world for ourselves and our children – and now is the time to harness that power. [Read More]
'It's a nightmare I can't shake': The lives robbed by Israel's Gaza assault
By Orly Noy, +972 [Israel] [October 21, 2021]
---- "The horror in the Gaza Strip has been going on for so many years. We have reported on the blockade, the poverty, the wars. We have shared stories of life without water, without electricity, without hope. We have explained what international law requires and what conscience dictates. Now, words fail us." This admission opens the latest report from Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, which features 35 testimonies from Palestinian residents of Gaza who experienced the inferno of Israel's 11-day bombing campaign this past May. For Israeli Jews, May 2021 is remembered as a month of "clashes," primarily in East Jerusalem and some so-called mixed cities. Thanks to the Israeli media's disproportionate coverage of violent acts by Palestinian citizens, the period has been inscribed in their collective memory as a month of Jewish victimization. Israel's deliberate violent escalation is long forgotten; Gaza, as always, vanished from our consciousness the moment the rocket fire stopped. The so-called "Operation Guardian of the Walls" became just another name among a list of grotesque titles Israel has given to its habitual attacks on the strip. Palestinians in Gaza, however, experienced 11 days in which the gates of hell opened once more, suffering one of the deadliest and most destructive assaults on the strip to date. [Read More]
The State of the Union
(Video) Meet India Walton: Black Socialist on Democratic Ticket for Buffalo Mayor Snubbed by NY Dem Party
From Democracy Now! [October 20, 2021]
---- As early voting kicks off Saturday in a nationally watched mayoral race in Buffalo, New York, we speak with India Walton, who shocked the Democratic establishment when she defeated four-term Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown in the Democratic primary. Since then, the self-described socialist has faced stiff opposition from within her party, with many top Democrats in the state, including Governor Kathy Hochul and Senator Chuck Schumer, refusing to endorse her. State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs even compared Walton to former KKK leader David Duke in an interview, for which he later apologized. Walton is a Black single mother, a registered nurse and longtime community activist. If elected on November 2, she will be the first mayor of a major American city in decades who identifies as a socialist. Walton says she is "hyper-focused" on her campaign and does not want to take part in the vitriol of her opponents. "I am running for mayor of Buffalo as an expression of love," Walton adds. [See the Program] For some deeper background on Walton and Buffalo, read "India Walton Didn't Come Out of Nowhere: Buffalo's transformation is the fruit of years of struggle" by JoAnn Wypijewski, The Nation [October 19, 2021] [Link].
Israel/Palestine
Palestinian Rights Groups That Document Israeli Abuses Labeled "Terrorists" by Israel
By
---- An order signed by Israel's defense minister on Friday designated six leading Palestinian human rights groups "terror organizations," marking an escalation in Israel's effort to deprive independent agencies that document Israeli military abuses in the occupied territories of funding from U.S. foundations and European nations. Israeli law criminalizes providing funds to groups designated as terrorist organizations and authorizes the police "to prevent activities by or in support of terrorist organizations, including organizing meetings, marches, or training." The rights groups uniformly rejected the charge — made in an unsigned statement from Israel's internal security service and its bureau of counter-terror financing — that all six are secretly run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which carried out bombings and hijackings starting in the late 1960s. Because the Israeli agencies said the designations were based on secret evidence that was "concealed for security reasons," the rights groups were given no opportunity to rebut an accusation that struck their many international and Israeli partners as transparently false. [Read More] Also illuminating is "Becoming Typical Mideast Dictatorship, Apartheid Israel Declares Palestinian Human Rights Groups 'Terrorists;" b[Link]. For the New York Times' account, go here.
Our History
Songs of Justice, Songs of Power
By Tom Morello, New York Times [October 22, 2021]
---- Harmonizing and hell-raising, rhythm and rebellion, poetry and politics, singing and striking. The Industrial Workers of the World — the shock troops of the early-20th-century labor movement — virtually invented the protest song for the modern age. The I.W.W. was formed in 1905, advocating a militant revolutionary unionism, a cocktail of socialist, syndicalist and anarchist labor theory put into practice. It was always known as a singing union, and its songs were written by hobos and the homeless, itinerant workers and immigrants. I.W.W. songs — like "The Preacher and the Slave" and "Solidarity Forever" — looked an unjust world square in the eye, sliced it apart with satire, dismantled it with rage and then, with mighty sing-along choruses, raised the roofs of union halls and holding cells, "from San Diego up to Maine, in every mine and mill." … What's the antidote for divide and conquer? Work together, fight together, sing together. [Read More]
