Concerned Families of Westchester Newsletter
February 7, 2022
Hello All – Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano kicked off Black History Month by saying that CD-16 Rep. Jamaal Bowman should be arrested. He made the comment on a radio interview on February 3rd. Spano said that Bowman's "political philosophy is not in line with the people that live here," indicating that Bowman was too radical. Mayor Spano's "should be arrested" comment was made in reference to Bowman's vote against President Biden's infrastructure bill, a vote made in line with the Congressional Progressive Caucus strategy of not voting on infrastructure until the larger "Build Back Better" bill was passed by the Senate and the two bills voted on together. (As it turned out, the Senate did not pass "Build Back Better," and Bowman's No vote is now justified by events.)
Spano, of course, is testing the waters for a possible run against Bowman in the June 28th Democratic primary election for Congress. Redistricting may make the district slightly "more moderate," and despite Bowman's strong record for a freshman congressman, Spano may think he has a chance. But when a white politicians calls for the "arrest" of a Black congressman, I think we should pay attention. Certainly several Black political organizations are doing so: the Yonkers NAACP issued a statement that it was "outraged," and Westchester's Black Women's Political Caucus called Spano's statement "hateful rhetoric to further his political ambitions."
Spano's call to "arrest" Representative Bowman sounds too much like a former president's call to "lock up" presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Such remarks are simply "dog whistles" and should not go unchallenged. If he wants to be considered a legitimate candidate for higher office, Mayor Spano should issue a public apology for his "arrest Jamaal Bowman" remarks.
News Notes
On Saturday, CFOW stalwarts rallied in the cold, calling for "No War with Russia." We were part of a nationwide effort sponsored by Code Pink and other antiwar organizations. To see lots of pictures of our demo, and many others, go to Code Pink's flickr page.
What's pushing pandemic-era inflation? New data analysis from the advocacy group Food & Water Watch shows that pandemic-era inflation is being largely driven by the food and energy industries, where price increases over the past two years have grossly out-scaled economy-wide increases, and where corporate revenues in these sectors are soaring. To learn more, go here.
CFOW Nuts & Bolts
Please consider getting involved with Concerned Families of Westchester. Weather/covid permitting, 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 will be held on Monday, February 7th 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 for the link. 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!
Stalwart Newsletter readers may have different views about the Beijing Olympics, but surely there can be no debate about the opening ceremonies of the 1992 Winter Olympics hosted in Albertville, France. Cirque de Soleil meets Hieronymus Bosch! Check out this great video, with the circus action starting at 1 hour and 20 minutes in. Enjoy! (h/t JL)
Best wishes,
Frank Brodhead
For CFOW
CFOW Weekly Reader
Featured Essays
Should we disrupt the Democratic Party or try to take it over?
January 13, 2022]
[FB – This essay reflects a long-standing discussion about the trade-offs between working within the Democratic Party or outside the Democratic Party. A similar debate brewed some decades ago about working inside trade unions or outside them. And many of the same arguments, on both sides, could be made about trying to change policy in areas dominated by large organizations – climate/the environment, for example, or prisons/parole. Perhaps the question is not so much "disrupting" or "taking over," but under what circumstances does institutionalized power move in response to popular pressures.]
---- When trying to figure out how they should interact with political parties, social movements face a common challenge: Should they push from without or seek to operate from within? Should they act as a destabilizing threat to all politicians, or should they work to build strength within a mainstream party? Frances Fox Piven and Daniel Schlozman are two theorists who stand at opposite poles of this debate. In Piven's view, movements win by deploying disruptive power from the outside that can polarize the public and create discomfort among politicians. "[M]ovements of mass defiance fired the most important episodes of class and racial reform in the 20th century," she contends. "This capacity to create political crises through disrupting institutions is … the chief resource for political influence possessed by the poorer classes." Schlozman, on the other hand, upholds the view that movements wanting to wield power in the United States do best when they move toward the inside and embed themselves within a traditional political party — and he warns that failure to do so can reduce once-promising mobilizations into historical footnotes. "Movements for fundamental change in American society seek influence through alliance, by serving as anchoring groups to sympathetic parties," he argues, "because parties hold the special capacity to control the government and its resources, and to define the organizable alternatives in public life." Movements that limit themselves to outside agitation, he believes, lose much as a result. This debate is one with genuine consequences. [Read More]
Over a Million Flee as Afghanistan's Economy Collapses
Christina Goldbaum and
---- Since the United States withdrew troops and the Taliban seized power, Afghanistan has plunged into an economic crisis that has pushed millions already living hand-to-mouth over the edge. Incomes have vanished, life-threatening hunger has become widespread and badly needed aid has been stymied by Western sanctions against Taliban officials. More than half of the population is facing "extreme levels" of hunger, António Guterres, United Nations secretary-general, said last month. "For Afghans, daily life has become a frozen hell," he added. Now with no immediate respite in sight, hundreds of thousands of people have fled to neighboring countries. From October through the end of January, more than a million Afghans in southwestern Afghanistan alone have set off down one of two major migration routes into Iran, according to migration researchers. Aid organizations estimate that around 4,000 to 5,000 people are crossing into Iran each day. [Read More] Also of interest/importance is "Rep. Pramila Jayapal Forced Vote on Biden's Strangling of Afghan Economy" by Sara Sirota, The Intercept [February 3, 2022] [Link].
'Democracy Is Life': The Grass-Roots Movement Taking On Sudan's Generals
[FB – I greatly admire the bravery and creativity of the pro-democracy stalwarts in the Sudan, who persist in demonstrating against the military coup in their country. This article shows how their movement is sustained by community groups based in democratic discussion.]
---- Hundreds of loosely connected "resistance committees" are organizing nonviolent protests, tracking the injured and dead and demanding a government led by civilians. … In a bare, dusty field in a neighborhood north of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, about a hundred people — gray-haired men in white robes and turbans, young women in jeans and T-shirts, mothers with their children in tow — gathered on a recent evening to discuss what they see as their nation's most pressing need: democracy. For more than six hours, over sweet milky tea and doughnuts, they debated how to dislodge the military from its grip on power, cemented on Oct. 25 when a military coup suddenly put an end to Sudan's two-year-old transition to democratic rule. Across this vast nation of more than 43 million in northeast Africa, hundreds of similar groups, known as resistance committees, are convening regularly to plan protests, draw up political manifestoes and discuss issues like economic policy and even trash pickup. [Read More]
The USA-Ukraine-Russia Crisis
[FB – This morning's Democracy Now! has a useful overview of the diplomatic standoff re: USA-Ukraine-Russia, "Is a Peaceful Resolution Still Possible?" with two expert observers [Link].]
The exit from the Ukraine crisis that's hiding in plain sight
By Katrina vanden Heuvel, Washington Post [February 1, 2022]
[FB – Katrina vanden Heuvel is the publisher of The Nation. With her husband, historian Stephen F. Cohen, she made many trips to Russia and edited Voices from Glasnost.]
---- The crisis over Ukraine grows simultaneously more dangerous and more absurd. Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border, demanding that NATO not admit Ukraine and stop its expansion east. Russian officials want those demands answered immediately, but President Vladimir Putin also says he won't make war. The Biden administration warns of "imminent war," yet Ukraine's president tells the administration to calm down, that the false alarms are damaging the country's economy. Even though President Biden, his two predecessors, Germany and France have made clear that Ukraine is not a national interest worth fighting for, the Biden administration refuses to tell the Russians that it won't do what it has no intention of doing, even at the risk of armed conflict. … In Paris last week, seven years after the Minsk II agreement, Ukraine and Russia held marathon eight-hour talks mediated by Germany and France. A new round of "Minsk talks" will be held in Berlin in the second week of February. As we confront the worst U.S.-Russian confrontation in decades, isn't it time for the United States to join with its allies to revive a path to a settlement that might lead to a stable peace? [Read More]
Chomsky: US Approach to Ukraine and Russia Has "Left the Domain of Rational Discourse"
Interview by C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout [February 4, 2022]
---- The tensions over Ukraine are extremely severe, with Russia's concentration of military forces at Ukraine's borders. The Russian position has been quite explicit for some time. It was stated clearly by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at his press conference at the United Nations: "The main issue is our clear position on the inadmissibility of further expansion of NATO to the East and the deployment of strike weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation." … The issue goes back over 30 years, to when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was collapsing. There were extensive negotiations among Russia, the U.S. and Germany. (The core issue was German unification.) Two visions were presented. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev proposed a Eurasian security system from Lisbon to Vladivostok with no military blocs. The U.S. rejected it: NATO stays, Russia's Warsaw Pact disappears. … As in the case of deployment of offensive weapons on the Russian border, there is a straightforward answer. Ukraine can have the same status as Austria and two Nordic countries throughout the whole Cold War: neutral, but tightly linked to the West and quite secure, part of the European Union to the extent they chose to be. The U.S. adamantly rejects this outcome, loftily proclaiming its passionate dedication to the sovereignty of nations, which cannot be infringed: Ukraine's right to join NATO must be honored. [Read More]
U.S. to Russia: Do as We Say, Not as We Do
By Norman Solomon, ZNet [February 1, 2022]
---- Hidden in plain sight, the extreme hypocrisy of the U.S. position on NATO and Ukraine cries out for journalistic coverage and open debate in the USA's major media outlets. But those outlets, with rare exceptions, have gone into virtually Orwellian mode, only allowing elaboration on the theme of America good, Russia bad. Aiding and abetting a potentially catastrophic — and I do mean catastrophic — confrontation between the world's two nuclear superpowers are lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Like the media they echo and vice versa, members of Congress, including highly touted progressives, can scarcely manage more than vague comments that they want diplomacy rather than war. … In the midst of all this, what about progressives in Congress? As we face the most dangerous crisis in decades that risks pushing the world into nuclear war, very few are doing anything more than mouth safe platitudes. Are they bowing to public opinion? Not really. It's much more like they're cowering to avoid being attacked by hawkish media and militaristic political forces. [Read More]
The State of the Union
The Backlash Against C.R.T. Shows That Republicans Are Losing Ground
---- Since January 2021, according to an analysis by Education Week, Republican lawmakers in 37 states have introduced dozens of bills to restrict teaching on the subject of race and racism under the guise of opposition to "critical race theory." In 14 states, restrictions have either passed into law or been imposed through either executive action or on the authority of a state education commission. One such law, passed in Texas, prohibits teaching that "slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality." One predictable outcome of this frenzy — which includes state lawmakers scrutinizing K-12 and college curriculums for "indoctrination" — is a chilling effect in classrooms, as any attempt to teach an accurate history of racism in the United States is placed under hostile scrutiny. … The ferocity of the drive to keep serious discussions of race and racism out of America's classrooms is an admission, however tacit, that something has changed, and conservatives are on the losing end of that transformation. Where once they were an establishment — such that Du Bois was a voice in the wilderness — now they are on the defensive. Put simply, the people and institutions behind the bans on "critical race theory" are fighting a rear-guard action, and they know it. [Read More]
Israel/Palestine
(Video) Amnesty International Defends Report on Israeli Apartheid, Rejecting Criticism from U.S. & Israel
From Democracy Now! [February 3, 2022]
---- Amnesty International has become the third major human rights organization to accuse Israel of committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians in a new report released on Tuesday. Amnesty finds Israel's system of apartheid dates back to the country's founding in 1948 and has materialized in abuses including massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians — all of which constitute apartheid under international law. We speak with Amnesty International USA's executive director Paul O'Brien, who calls on the United States to "put pressure on the Israeli government to dismantle this system of apartheid," despite both the Biden administration and the Israeli government rejecting the report's findings. [See the Program]
Our History
Feb. 7, 1926: Carter G. Woodson Launched Negro History Week
By Daryl Michael Scott, Zinn Education Project [February 6, 2022]
---- Carter G. Woodson chose February for Negro History Week for reasons of tradition and reform. It is commonly said that Woodson selected February to encompass the birthdays of two great Americans who played a prominent role in shaping Black history, namely Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, whose birthdays are the 12th and the 14th, respectively. More importantly, he chose them for reasons of tradition. Since Lincoln's assassination in 1865, the Black community, along with other Republicans, had been celebrating the fallen president's birthday. And since the late 1890s, Black communities across the country had been celebrating Douglass'. Well aware of the pre-existing celebrations, Woodson built Negro History Week around traditional days of commemorating the Black past. He was asking the public to extend their study of Black history, not to create a new tradition. In doing so, he increased his chances for success. [Read More] For more information about the founding of Black History Month, read "Black History Month founder showed how schools should teach about race" by DeNeen L. Brown, Washington Post [February 1, 2022] [Link].
