How Billionaires Took Over Liberalism and Destroyed It

Eric Zuesse

They’ve done it via the ‘news’-media — their propaganda-operations. So, this is about how billionaires do that; how they’ve done it.

Ever since at least the time of Thucydides in the 5th century BC, the wealthiest have ruled, and did it by conquest and plunder. The acquisition of exceptional wealth was by theft: it was coercion, which could be either physical against the body (violence), or mental against the mind (deception). Exceptional wealth was acquired by some form of theft. The wealthiest controlled the government, which then enforced that theft as legal “ownership.” That’s how the economy worked. The government is the ultimate authority on who owns what. None of this has changed over the millennia. However, the technologies today are different, depending less on the wielding of steely weapons, and more on the statement of stealthy words, than in the ancient past. Increasingly, control is being achieved by deceiving the public. (For example, America’s leading liberal politician, Joe Biden, was one of the U.S. Senate’s leading segregationists and back-room opponents of the NAACP, but claims to be a supporter of “civil rights”, and is thus voted for by the overwhelming majority of America’s Blacks — but America’s press hides his segregationist record, and so they don’t know about it. Those voters’ ignorance is that politician’s strength, and it all comes from America’s billionaires.) Today’s methods of deceiving (and thus controlling) the public are considerably more sophisticated and professional than in the past. The aristocracy (the billionaires) do it nowadays mainly by means of their buying and selling, and hiring and firing, of the news-media, which thus have far more importance than in ancient times, because deceit is today’s main way to control the public.

Whereas conservative media rely unashamedly upon the existing popular mythology, liberal media need to rely upon that but to pretend not to, and to be instead ‘humanitarian’ and ‘enlightened’ in a more tolerant and open-minded sense: they specialize in hypocrisy — it’s liberal aristocrats’ particular style of art-form; they’re the ‘not conservative’ type of aristocrats. They pretend to be what they aren’t (champions of democracy — which they actually despise and crave to overcome, if it exists at all).

Progressive media (to the extent they exist at all, which is only very slight, anywhere) avoid both hypocrisy and mythology: they are openly anti-aristocratic, and rejecting also any mythology — they are populist, while not affirming the popular (or any) mythology. (By contrast: conservative ‘populists’ are committed to the existing popular mythology, and can therefore be manipulated by openly conservative aristocrats — they can be “Tories,” or even “Nazis,” and they can therefore vote against their own “class interests.” It’s stupid, but conservative ‘populists’ nonetheless do it routinely.)

As a result of this (since the progressives’ appeal — rejecting both the aristocracy and the mythology — is so small), politics almost invariably pits conservatives against liberals, and therefore promotes dictatorship (rule of the nation by its aristocracy), either way.

This means that, almost invariably, it’s either the conservative aristocrats, or else the liberal aristocrats, who rule a country. (Democracy — rule by the public — is thus very rare.)

Perhaps the most famous of all liberal news-media during the Twentieth Century was Britain’s Guardian newspaper, which was anti-imperialist — and that’s a core component of progressivism, because the aristocracy derive wealth not only by exploiting their domestic public, but also (if they are internationally successful, meaning control vassal-nations) by exploiting foreign publics. These aristocrats exploit foreign publics by controlling foreign governments. That’s called “imperialism.”

The Guardian newspaper was widely considered, until recently, to be not only liberal, but even progressive. It promoted government-expenditures for the benefit of the people, instead of for international conquest (which billionaires much prefer). Consequently, the aristocracy hated it, and wanted to take it over.

Tragically, that newspaper was, in fact, taken over, culminating in 2016, by American billionaires’ ‘charities’, and promptly it became perhaps the world’s most-rabidly pro-imperialistic propaganda-sheet (even worse than America’s own Washington Post and New York Times, both of which were infamous villains, which had, for example, helped to promote George W. Bush’s lies to invade and destroy Iraq for WMD that didn’t even exist except in their own lies about the matter — and those were definitely lies, not mere errors such as the liars and their propaganda-media claimed afterward). They are constantly whipping up hatred against Russia’s Government and against any nations (like Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2012, Ukraine 2014, and Venezuela 2015, were, and like China and Iran are now) that were friendly toward Russia — because Russia is the main country that America’s billionaires want to conquer and control that they don’t yet  control. So, they constantly propagandize against Russia, where they all want “regime change” (meaning, actually, conquest).

Just as for at least the past 2,500 years, conquest is the aristocracy’s chief goal. All aristocrats support imperialism. (Any who would oppose it would no longer be accepted within the aristocracy. It would hurt them in their business-dealings with other aristocrats. Amongst their fellow aristocrats, they would be rejected.)

This journalistic transformation at the Guardian, from anti-imperialist, to becoming a champion of the Military-Industrial Complex (which is owned and controlled by the billionaires), is typical.

Understanding this transformation toward pure propaganda is helpful in order to understand the functioning of today’s most destructive Government, the U.S. Government — the country (whose Government is controlled by its billionaires — no democracy) that has perpetrated far more invasions and coups, and done far more damage in and to the world, than all other Governments in the world combined, ever since the end of World War II. It has mass-murdered tens of millions of people, not only via invasions, but by coups that were followed by U.S.-imposed brutal dictatorships (which served the U.S. aristocracy) — and all the while with the U.S. regime pretending to advance ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ (such as in Iraq 2003-, Libya 2011-, and Syria 2012-). (After all: it’s liberal; it is hypocritical — it pretends to be progressive but isn’t.)

Though this incredibly hypocritical global-tyrannical U.S. regime is accepted world-wide, as if it weren’t today’s equivalent of Nazi Germany (only bigger than that), it is by far the world’s most evil Government, much as Nazi Germany’s Government was, in its time. Whereas America under President FDR (who was sincerely an enemy of Nazi Germany) was largely a democracy, America is now an aristocracy of its billionaires — a dictatorship by its own super-rich (and they are vicious, comparable to what Germany’s Nazis were, though using far more-liberal rhetoric).

A typical example of today’s Guardian (which is no longer a newspaper but just an online propaganda-site funded by those billionaires’ ‘charities’, and by readers who are stupid enough to donate and pay in order to be deceived by ‘news’ they read there) is two ‘news’-reports that were published in the Guardian on the same day, and unconnected with one-another except that they were both fact-less, undocumented, and rabidly hateful against Russia’s Government — that’s to say, against the bête noire of American-and-allied (such as UK) billionaires.

On 16 July 2020, the Guardian headlined both “Russian state-sponsored hackers target Covid-19 vaccine researchers” and “UK says Russia sought to interfere in 2019 election by spreading documents online”. Both were probably lies, but certainly unverified by any clear facts — totally uninformative, and just strings of allegations, pure war-propaganda — much of it stenographically citing from official government sources in the U.S. and UK dictatorships (just like the “WMD in Iraq” lie was).

The Guardian is now a typical liberal ‘news’-medium, which means that it is at least as imperialistic as the openly conservative ‘news’-media (such as Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London) are.

To show how such propaganda is created and spread, and has been used with enormous success by the millions of hired agents (including publicly elected governmental officials) of the U.S. aristocracy, a few examples will be cited here that have already been sufficiently studied and exposed to be frauds — such as those two ‘news’-stories in the July 16th Guardian have not yet been exposed, but (based on that ‘news’-medium’s record) probably also are frauds.

On August 7th, I headlined “‘Russiagate’ Hoax Unravels, but Their Anti-Russia Sanctions Don’t,” and documented, in considerable detail, the fraudulence of the main U.S. Government hoax against Russia, a hoax that was promulgated in the Mueller Report and in all of the Democratic-Party-created “Russiagate” case against America’s current atrocious (Republican-Party-billionaire-representing) President, Donald Trump (accusing him of being ‘a puppet of Putin’).

What’s stunning there is that, with such a horrid President as Trump, the Democrats selected this hoaxed case to bring against him, in order to force him out of office — as if there weren’t authentic crimes that he had been perpetrating during his Presidency (and even before). They refused to bring any of the authentic cases against him, because they — the Democratic Party itself, its own Senators and Representatives and the Democratic National Committee — were themselves participating in those crimes (such as this and this and this and this). So, they instead brought this “Russiagate” case (which had been manufactured by the prior, Democratic Party, President’s Administration, in conjunction with MI6; and, so, Democratic Party officials could bring it), which is entirely disprovable. All of their ‘news’-media (such as the New York Times, and the Washington Post, and even the formerly British Guardian) therefore hid the hoaxiness of the charges, so as to sucker the Democratic Party’s voters (their readers) into supporting their own Democratic-Party-billionaire-serving politicians, instead of the Republican Party ones, who instead represented Republican Party billionaires. The villain was Russia (their bête noire), instead of Hillary Clinton and their own controlling aristocracy.

That “Russiagate” case in the United States was co-created by America’s CIA and Britain’s MI6; so, not only was it a real crime by the (traitorous) U.S. Government against its own American public, but it was a fictitious crime also by a foreign Government (Russia, ‘the enemy’), against the American people. And, as I have also documented, there are many such governmental crimes. And the more that they can be blamed against countries that America’s aristocracy wants to conquer (such as “Russiagate” was), the better it is for America’s aristocrats. So, this is the routine reality now (and under Trump it has increasingly been also against Iran and China), so as to pump up the Military-Industrial Complex, which is virtually owned by the aristocracy.

I document many things that are consistently denied in America’s mainstream ‘news’-media, and therefore none of those media will publish these articles (though all of my articles are submitted to all of them); but, just today as I am writing, a webmaster at a non-mainstream site objected because I provide “too many” links. Even though he operates an online news-site, he fails to know or respect the fact that ONLY online text-articles possess even the ability to enable their readers to check out easily — just by the reader’s clicking onto a link — the evidence for any reasonably questionable allegation that is being made in the given article (such as this one). Broadcast journalism doesn’t do that. Paper-and-ink journalism also doesn’t. Therefore, all of the traditional ‘news’-media don’t empower their audiences to be intelligently skeptical, and to have easy access to the actual evidence behind any reasonably questionable assertion that is being put forth by them.

Furthermore, even when traditional ‘news’-media establish online sites, any links there are often uninformative, such as to that site’s own archive of references to a given term that is being linked in their article. They assume that you trust one Party or the other, and they provide no easy means of digging deeper — because they don’t want their audience to be able to understand. Those are all billionaire-controlled ‘news’-media. So, all of them lie routinely, in order to advance the business-interests of those owners and control their audience. It’s like they are just nonstop advertisements instead of real news-media. And, since there are no links to their ultimate sources, those audiences would have to become investigators, themselves, in order to separate out which allegations are facts and which allegations are frauds. Readers don’t have the time to do that; and listeners don’t have any way in which they can do it, even if they did have the time. In other words: those audiences will choose to believe and to disbelieve whatever they want. This is the reason for the increasing political-Party polarization. It has become so bad in America now, so that the current U.S. Presidential election is between two rabidly racist contenders: the openly conservative one, Donald Trump, who hardly even tries to hide his racism, versus the other, Joe Biden, who does try to hide the fact that he was one of the U.S. Senate’s leading segregationists and was even allied on segregation-issues with the Senate’s leading segregationist, the Republican Party’s Senator Jesse Helms. Only by means of the ‘news’-media’s hiding Biden’s White-supremacist background, can they pretend that the two Parties are offering the electorate a ‘progressive’ option, in the billionaires’ 2020 Presidential (s)‘election’. Non-racist Americans are offered, by the billionaires’ two Parties, only White-supremacist options (the overtly segregationist Trump, or else the covertly segregationist Biden) to vote for to become the next President.

The entire national public then increasingly consists of people who are prejudiced in whatever ways that they are — increasingly set in their existing false beliefs — their existing myths. To allow billionaires to place their heavy thumbs upon the scales of truth and justice that they own, by means of their control over ‘news’-media, is a sure way for any democracy to degenerate into dictatorship, so that the public are fighting more against each other than against the aristocracy. This is what billionaires want and what has happened. Some things change, but others remain the same. And rule-by-the-richest seems to be in the latter category.

So: this is how one of the very few remaining progressive news-media became switched, in just the past few years, to being whored to the liberal aristocracy. The Guardian, RIP, was almost the opposite of today’s Guardian.

On August 10th, Jonathan Cook, who used to be a Guardian journalist when it was its previous, progressive newspaper, headlined “How the Guardian betrayed not only Corbyn but the last vestiges of British democracy”, and he exposed his former employer as the opposite of what it had been and as having become perhaps even the chief tool by billionaires to destroy the post-Tony-Blair Labour Party which had been led by the progressive Jeremy Corbyn, and as having reflected the Labour Party billionaires’ preference instead to defeat Corby’s Labour Party, in order to help to install as Prime Minister the far-right Tory Boris Johnson so as to restore, as being that Conservative Party’s opposition, the pro-imperialist Labour Party that had joined itself full-force to George W. Bush’s lie-based invasion of Iraq in 2003. “Racism was endemic in the language and behaviours of Labour’s senior, rightwing officials,” whom today’s Guardian had helped to make the Labour Party’s current leaders. This new Guardian was the opposite of the old Guardian, which had given a voice “for control of the Labour party so that it might really represent the poor and vulnerable against rule by the rich.” Today’s Guardian was instead instrumental in killing–off  that Labour Party, and thereby leaving UK with no progressive party at all, and without even a single Party that has any actually functioning progressive wing to it, at all.

The way that billionaires took over liberalism and destroyed it is by their having taken control over non-conservative media (most of which were liberal, but a few of which were even progressive, as the Guardian used to be) and stripped out of them any opposition that those media previously had had toward imperialism, and replaced that by championing imperialism, so long as it’s of the ‘right’ kind, namely sanctions and coups and invasions by ‘our’ country, against countries that never even threatened one’s own country (but that are friendly toward Russia). By definition, attempting to conquer a country that isn’t attempting to conquer that aggressor-country is the biggest of all international war-crimes; it’s “aggressive war” — and Nazi leaders were hanged for it at Nuremberg — but it’s entirely unpunished when the world’s most powerful country (and its allies) are doing it, such as now. A popular term for it (i.e., for the supreme crime that was being prosecuted at the Nuremberg Tribunals) today is “neoconservatism,” and the only way in which it differs from the Nazi Party is that America’s aggressions are aiming at different targets to destroy.

The easiest way to end democracy is to take control over the news-media so as to make them instead ‘news’-media; and, therefore, that’s the way it has been done.

Foiled in the Security Council: The United States, Extending Arms Embargoes and Iran

Binoy Kampmark

There are no official policing authorities as such when it comes to international relations.  Realists imagine a jungle of states, the preyed upon and the predators, a grim state of affairs moderated by alliances, agreements and understandings. But there is one body whose resolutions are recognised as having binding force: the Security Council, that most powerful of creatures in that jumble known as the United Nations.

To convince the permanent five on the Security Council to reach agreement is no easy feat.  There are the occasional humiliations in the failure to get resolutions passed, but whether it be the US, Russia, China, France or the UK, wise heads tend to prevail.  Best put forth resolutions with at least some chance of garnering support.  Rejection will be hard to take.

On August 14, a degree of humiliation was heaped upon the US delegation.  Washington seemed to have read the situation through fogged goggles, assuming that it would get the nine votes needed to extend arms restrictions on Iran due to expire in October under Resolution 2231.  Of the 15 members, only two – the United States and Dominican Republic – felt the need to vote for it.  Russia and China strongly opposed it; the rest were abstentions.  Previous warnings that any such quixotic effort was bound to fail had been ignored.

The body most shown up in all of this was the US State Department and, it followed, its indignant chief Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.  “The UN Security Council failed today to hold Iran accountable,” he raged on Twitter.  “It enabled the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism to buy and sell deadly weapons and ignored the demands of countries in the Middle East.  America will continue to work to correct this mistake.”  He also called the position taken by Britain and France “unfortunate”, as it had only been the US view to “keep the same rules that have been in place since 2007.”

US ambassador to the UN, Kelly Craft, took it personally, giving the impression that she saw it coming in the diplomatic tangle.  “The United States is sickened but not surprised by the outcome of today’s UNSC vote.  The Council’s failure to extend the Iran’s arm embargo is a devastating blow to the Council’s credibility.” She also promised that the US would “not abandon the region to Iranian terror and intimidation, and when we look for partners in that effort, we will look beyond the UN Security Council.”

The humiliation gave Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi much room to gloat.  “In the 75 years of United Nations history, America has never been so isolated,” he confidently asserted.  “Despite all the trips, pressure, and the hawking, the United States could only mobilize a small country [to vote] with them.”

There was much that sat oddly in this enterprise.  It showed a US effort strongly driven by the anti-Iranian Middle East coven of Arab Gulf states, along with Israel.  That said, the position amongst those states is not uniform either.  In the words of Mutlaq bin Majid Al-Qahtani, special envoy of the Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs for Combating Terrorism and Mediation in Settlement of Disputes, “Iran is a neighbouring country with which we have good neighbourly relations, and it has a position that we value in the State of Qatar, the government and the people, especially during the unjust blockade on Qatar.”

Absurdly, Pompeo has promised to see how the US might rely on a provision in the nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action it unilaterally left in 2018, which permits a “snapback”.  Triggering it would entail a return to the full complement of UN sanctions against Iran.  This novel take was also given an airing by Craft.  “Under Resolution 2231, the United States has every right to initiate snapback of provisions of previous Security Council resolutions.”

In April, Reuters noted the view of a European diplomat that it was “very difficult to present yourself as a compliance watcher of a resolution you decided to pull out of.  Either you’re in or either you’re out.”  Samuel M. Hickey from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation also warned in May that invoking the snapback provision, especially by a non-party, “would not only underscore US isolation on the global stage, it might also undermine the effectiveness of the UNSC by creating a dispute over the validity of a UNSC resolution.”  Russia and China expressed similar readings: it was a bit rich to trigger provisions in an agreement so publicly repudiated.

Iran, in turn, huffed at the very idea of a snapback through its UN ambassador Majid Takht-Ravanchi.  “Imposition of any sanctions or restrictions on Iran by the Security Council will be met severely by Iran and our options are not limited.”

This entire act of gross miscalculation did its fair share of harm, though not in the sense understood by Pompeo and his officials.  It spoke to a clumsy unilateralism masquerading as credible support; to great power obstinacy misguided in attaining a goal.  It was not the UN Security Council that had failed, but the US that had failed it, an effort that many at the UN are reading as directed at torching the remnants of the Iran nuclear deal.  The assessment of the US effort by former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was sharp and relevant.  “You got the Dominican Republic on board (how much did that cost the US taxpayer?)  Not a single other nation voted with you!  The shining city on the hill has been reduced to a glow, like the embers of a dying fire.”

US-backed opposition in Solomon Islands opposes ties to Beijing

Patrick O’Connor

Backed by the US State Department, opposition politicians in the Solomon Islands are continuing their efforts to sabotage the government’s diplomatic switch from Taiwan to Beijing in September last year.

The parliamentary opposition in the capital, Honiara, maintains that Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s recognition of China is illegitimate. A provincial administration in Malaita—one of nine country’s provinces and the most populous—insists that it has the right to maintain its own relations with Taiwan, and refuses to recognise Beijing.

Malaita’s separatist premier, Daniel Suidani, is currently suing the national government after authorities seized a shipment of medical equipment that was en route from Taiwan to Malaita on June 11. The supplies were promoted by the Malaitan provincial government as a contribution to the fight against coronavirus, and reportedly included thermal imaging cameras and medical masks.

After police seized the equipment, Attorney General John Muria Junior explained that the shipment represented an “act of defiance of a government decision” and a possible breach of the Sedition Act.

Malaitan provincial officials receiving Taiwanese aid, Daniel Suidani is seated, front-left (Credit: Daniel Suidani, Facebook)

The police seizure came three days after Daniel Suidani issued a provocative statement praising Taiwan for sending an earlier shipment of food and medical aid. He repeatedly referred to coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus,” echoing US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s efforts to scapegoat China for the pandemic. Suidani’s statement was denounced by the Solomon Islands foreign minister, and by Chinese embassy officials in Honiara.

The provincial premier responded to the police seizure by promoting a social media campaign aimed at pressuring the government to release the supplies, with the hashtag #MalaitanLivesMatter. His government is now pursuing a legal case in Honiara.

The latest conflict between the national government and Malaita’s provincial administration follows months of tension over the China diplomatic switch.

In May, Suidani denounced two members of the national government from Malaita who visited the island alongside employees of the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation. The team conducted a feasibility study on a new road project.

In response, Suidani declared: “We are strongly opposed to PRC [People’s Republic of China] communist ideology and investment.” Without citing any relevant laws, he claimed the authority to deny any Chinese national entry to Malaita and to block any economic activity involving Chinese corporations.

One national government member responded by threatening to suspend the Malaitan regional administration, using the state of emergency powers imposed in response to the coronavirus threat.

The government has not done so, though it retains sweeping powers under the state of emergency. The Solomon Islands remains one of the few countries in the world yet to register a coronavirus infection. A surge in cases in neighbouring Papua New Guinea, however, now threatens to spill over into adjacent Pacific states.

Widespread infection in Solomon Islands would quickly overwhelm the impoverished country’s makeshift healthcare system. The situation is an indictment of Australian imperialism, which led an aggressive military-police intervention into the country in 2003, on a spurious “humanitarian” pretext. The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) involved Australian expenditure of $2.6 billion, of which almost nothing went to health and other basic needs of the population.

The World Health Organisation five years ago carried out a comprehensive review of the Solomon Islands’ health system. It found that health centres and clinics in rural areas, where the majority of the population live, had an “urgent need for upgrade, repair or renovation; many facilities were operating without proper water and sanitation, electricity and basic medical equipment.” The report added: “There are serious shortages of clinical equipment and medical supplies at most health facilities, with hospitals often relying on old and poorly maintained medical, diagnostic and surgical equipment.”

In any country, a provincial administration attempting to maintain its own foreign relations in direct opposition to national government policy would be provocative and unlawful. The Malaitan administration’s actions are especially reckless because they threaten to reignite the Solomon Islands’ low-intensity civil war that took place between 1999 and 2003. This conflict, in which the separatist Malaita Eagle Force militia was a central participant, cost around 200 lives and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

US imperialism is playing a crucial role in encouraging Suidani’s provocations. Washington viewed with outrage the Solomon Islands’ diplomatic switch to Beijing as it cuts across American efforts to isolate China. Determined to assert US dominance in Asia, the Trump administration is accelerating its war drive against Beijing.

Shortly before Sogavare officially announced the shift from Taiwan to China, a team of US state department and defence department officials made a secretive visit to Malaita and held behind closed doors discussions with Suidani. The Malaitan premier subsequently declared he would refuse to recognise the diplomatic switch, and launched a campaign against the Chinese government on an anti-communist, evangelical Christian basis.

In January, the World Socialist Web Site warned that the US and Australian governments were preparing a destabilisation campaign against the elected national government. That article highlighted the implications of Republican Senator Marco Rubio’s threat, issued via Twitter, to crash the Solomon Islands’ economy by “potentially ending financial assistance & restricting access to US dollars & banking.”

Since this statement the coronavirus crisis hit the United States and the world, Washington has not moved to implement Rubio’s threat. Nor has Suidani explained whether there has been an official response to his request late last year to the US and Australian governments to “be part of Malaita security.”

US-backed provocations in Solomon Islands will likely be stepped up in the next period. Pompeo delivered a highly-provocative speech on July 23 that effectively declared “regime change” as the overarching goal of the US in China. Within the framework of this aggressive policy, State Department operatives no doubt regard the people of the Solomon Islands as inconsequential and expendable pawns in their “game.”

Canadian provinces and cities confront huge deficits as economic crisis deepens

Omar Ali

Ontario predicted this past week that its deficit will grow to a record $38.5 billion in the 2020-21 fiscal year as a result of massive revenue shortfalls and increased provincial spending due to the coronavirus pandemic. Canada’s most populous province, currently governed by the hard-right Doug Ford-led Conservative government, is only the latest in a growing number of provinces and municipalities reporting record-breaking deficits following the economic collapse triggered by COVID-19.

In a report released late last month, the City of Toronto said it expects to go $3 billion deeper into debt this year and next. The analysis recommended that municipal authorities impose mass job cuts and privatize public assets to balance the books.

One proposal was a voluntary retirement program that would pay workers close to retirement a lump-sum equivalent to three months’ salary in exchange for their taking early retirement. Managers would then have to keep the retired worker’s post unfilled for at least six months, and find ways to offer services with fewer staff. The city has already imposed over $500 million in cost savings this year, including through temporary layoffs.

Similarly, savage austerity measures are being considered across Ontario’s 444 municipalities and in other provinces. The starvation of funds for municipalities, which have suffered significant losses of income due to lockdown measures, is part of a deliberate policy by the ruling elite to enforce austerity measures at all levels of government in order to pay for the bailout of the banks and financial oligarchy carried out by the federal government. Coming after decades of austerity budgets, pay freezes, and job cuts at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels, this policy will prove devastating for already overstretched public services, particularly under conditions in which social inequality and poverty are on the rise.

The Ford government announced in late July that it would provide, in conjunction with the Trudeau Liberals, a miserly $2 billion in funding support to Ontario’s municipalities. This would not even come close to meeting Toronto’s financial shortfall, never mind those of the hundreds of additional municipalities also in dire need of support.

The Ontario government’s funding deal is part of a $19 billion package agreed to between the Trudeau government and the provinces with the aim of accelerating the reopening of the economy, regardless of its consequences for public health. Ford explained that the funding would “help restart our economy and come back stronger than ever before.”

The all-party support for the reckless back-to-work drive, which is being accompanied by the reopening of schools in the face of opposition from teachers and parents, is aimed at making working people pay for the more than $650 billion the Trudeau government, Canada’s central bank and various government agencies have poured into the financial markets and corporate coffers since March to bail out the rich and super-rich.

At the end of this month, the federal government will allow the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) to expire. It intends to force the millions of workers still out of a job either on to less generous Employment Insurance benefits or a new makeshift benefit for gig economy, contract and self-employed workers that will provide substantially less than the CERB’s meagre $2,000 per month stipend.

The ruling elite is seizing on increased government deficits to justify its reopening of the economy and gutting of financial aid, even though the real source of the growing public debt levels is the virtually unlimited support extended to the super-rich. Finance Minister Bill Morneau revealed last month that the federal government’s budget deficit is expected to reach $343 billion this year. The projected debt before the pandemic was $34 billion. Proportionately, the 2020-21 federal deficit will be far and away the largest since the Second World War. The overall federal debt is expected to surpass the trillion-dollar mark for the first time in Canadian history, at $1.2 trillion, a figure equal to more than half of the country’s gross domestic product.

The economy is expected to contract by nearly 7 percent, the most severe slowdown since the Great Depression. Morneau tried to paint a rosier picture by pointing out that the government has been able to borrow at low interest rates, keeping the cost of servicing its debt relatively low. The degree to which government debt is an attractive investment is bound up with the extreme volatility of global financial markets that are increasingly relying on massive influxes of capital from the world’s central banks to stave off collapse.

Morneau also cited the government’s expectation that economic growth would rebound to 5 percent in 2021, although this is contingent on businesses returning to something resembling pre-pandemic levels. Much the same can be said for the government’s optimistic prediction that unemployment will drop to 7.8 percent next year from 9.8 percent this year.

In the already depressed economies of eastern Canada, the pandemic has hit public finances hard. In Nova Scotia, the premier announced that the deficit is now $852 million and the debt nearly 40 percent of GDP. In Newfoundland & Labrador, the government is considering allowing desperate residents to dip into their pensions to offset their financial troubles, forcing them to use their retirement funds to ride out the pandemic. Even prior to the pandemic, there was increasing discussion in ruling circles about the need for Ottawa to organize a rescue package to prevent the Newfoundland government from sliding into bankruptcy.

Concerns over the state of Canada’s economy have been growing since the pandemic erupted. In late June, the ratings agency Fitch downgraded Canada’s credit rating from AAA, the highest investment rating, to AA+. It cited the pause of several provinces in implementing their debt reduction plans as something that could impede efforts to stimulate growth moving forward.

Voices in the corporate-controlled media have begun demanding that governments do more to reduce their deficits and overall debt burden. Michael Wernick, a former clerk of the Privy Council, who resigned due to the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal last year, argued that a debt of $1 trillion or more would compel Ottawa to slash federal government employment and services and that this correction must come in a year or two. He argued that the experience of working from home during the lockdown should provide ministers with information on where to reduce staff and spending.

The former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page argued in an interview that austerity would be the inevitable result of the pandemic. He predicted the government would have to increase taxation and cut back programs. The Financial Post meanwhile, wrote that the government must put in place debt ceilings and that, to cover repayments, they must not only privatize state assets but do so at bargain rates. It argued that tax increases should come in the shape of regressive consumption taxes and used the opportunity to call for further reductions to Canada’s already low corporate tax rates.

Former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has also joined in, calling for severe austerity in a May column in the Wall Street Journal. Harper, who was prime minister during the 2008-09 global financial crisis, made clear he would have made similar demands even if the pandemic had not erupted. Looking back at the 2008-09 crisis, he noted that “this time will probably be much worse … Unless we experience a period of astronomical global growth, simple arithmetic dictates that many governments, both national and subnational, will experience debt crises or at least severe pressures, in the years to come. If they fail to practice mild austerity proactively, a brutal kind will be thrust on them.”

Many commentaries have drawn comparisons to the 1990s when Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his finance minister, the future Prime Minister Paul Martin, instituted massive social spending cuts and privatizations, and have pointed to these measures as the way forward. Wernick recalled that the government in the mid-90s slashed “45,000 public service jobs, eliminated 73 federal agencies, reduced foreign aid by 21 percent, and privatized Canadian National Railways.” He predicted that a similar future is now in store for Canadian workers.

Andrew Scheer, the current Conservative Party leader, crudely illustrated the basic interests animating this class-war policy, noting that “coming out of the pandemic, every single country on the planet will be desperately competing for the same opportunities and the same investments, so where is the prime minister’s plan to set us apart?”

As the official opposition Conservatives choose a successor to Scheer next weekend, they are making clear that vicious cost-cutting will be on the order of the day, should they come to power. “Many on the left are going to try to use the pandemic as a justification for a return to the failed policies of the past,” declared Scheer in a Wednesday interview with the Canadian press. To oppose this, he continued, his successor would need to let “people and markets take the lead” by cutting back on government, i.e., by gutting what remains of the public services and social protections the working class won as the result of the mass struggles of the last century.

Heat wave, rolling blackouts affect thousands across California

Peter Ross

As record high temperatures for this time of year crossed the state of California, utility companies conducted rolling blackouts affecting more than 410,000 homes and businesses over the weekend. A total of 20 record highs for August 14 and 15 were set or tied in 15 cities across the state, with the most remarkable being 105 degrees Fahrenheit in the coastal city of Santa Cruz, breaking the last record of 96 set 114 years ago. In a troubling indicator of climate change, 13 of the previous records were set last year.

According to the National Weather Service (NWS), highs in inland areas will continue to reach 100 to 110 F through the middle of next week. The NWS has issued excessive heat warnings for much of the country west of the Rocky Mountains. Maximum temperatures have been 5 to 15 degrees above normal in interior areas, and could rival conditions last seen during the deadly July 2006 North American heat wave, which killed at least 147 people in California, according to coroner reports. A 2009 study in the journal Environmental Research estimated that the number of deaths due to that heat wave was in fact two to three times higher.

As National Weather Service meteorologist Bruno Rodriguez noted in a video briefing, “the cumulative effect from so many days of above-average temperatures is definitely going to act to increase the overall heat risk.” A study this year in the journal Environmental Epidemiology estimated that, nationally, about 5,600 deaths are attributable to heat annually, more than from any other weather-related cause. Extreme heat disproportionately affects children and the elderly, and the vast majority of deaths occur in poor and working class neighborhoods.

In this file photo, Air Force Civil Engineers working with high voltage power lines during a power outage. (U.S. Air Force photo/Jimmie Denton)

A 2019 study from USC, published in Environmental Research Letters, found that 31 percent of residential homes in the Greater Los Angeles area did not have access to air conditioning. “Cooling stations” have been opened in some districts, but with limited capacity due to social-distancing measures. The elderly and people with preexisting medical conditions, among the most vulnerable to both overheating and COVID-19, will now have to choose between extreme heat and exposing themselves to infection. And as sociology professor Eric Klinenberg recently commented to the LA Times, “social isolation combined with extreme heat is a proven killer.”

The heat wave comes during a pandemic which has intensified an already intense crisis for working families. Unemployment was 19.4 percent in LA county as of August 3, almost 1 million people. A 2020 study by UCLA’s Institute on Inequality and Democracy estimated that there are 449,000 individuals who are unemployed, with no income, living in rental housing in Los Angeles county, putting them at high risk for homelessness.

For the millions of people who will be affected by extreme heat in the coming week, not to mention the tens of thousands of homeless, the health risks will be compounded by the negligence of profit-driven utility companies and utter inadequacy of infrastructure. Rolling blackouts affected over 130,000 people in Southern California Friday, after the state ordered utilities to decrease power output by 1,000 megawatts due to the increased demand. Blackouts continued Saturday evening after a 470-megawatt power plant unexpectedly went offline, with utility companies cutting power to 130,000 people in southern California and 220,000 people in the Central Coast and Central Valley areas.

This was the first time that state officials were forced to institute rolling blackouts due to an energy shortfall since the 2001 California electricity crisis. The 2001 crisis occurred after market manipulation by energy companies, chiefly Enron, caused energy prices to increase by 800 percent, leading to a series of blackouts that affected millions of people and cost the state over $40 billion.

Of course, for many in California, blackouts have become commonplace, as the state’s wildfire seasons have become ever more severe. In October and November of 2019, Pacific Gas and Electric, California’s utility monopoly, cut power to over 3 million people to reduce the risk of electric ignitions and avoid legal liability for wildfires. Many were without power for nearly a week.

Lisa Murkowski, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told a December 2019 hearing that, “Wildfire blackouts could be California’s new normal for the next 10 to 30 years, or even longer.” In other words, working people should accept decades of regular blackouts as an inevitability, even as the state’s billionaires amass vast wealth.

While ample resources exist to update California’s aging energy infrastructure and prevent wildfires, state lawmakers have no such intensions. The state has systematically cut funding for social infrastructure, and private utilities have intransigently refused to take basic steps to mitigate the wildfire danger. During the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 154 billionaires in the state collectively amassed an additional $174.4 billion, only slightly less than California’s entire $202.1 billion budget for the current fiscal year. Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed cutting $681 million from the state budget for environmental protection.

Extreme temperatures and drought conditions, which lengthen the fire season and increase the risk of wildfires, will continue to intensify as the effects of climate change become increasingly severe. The Lake Fire, which started in Los Angeles County last Wednesday, grew over the weekend to more than 17,000 acres. By Sunday evening it was only 12 percent contained and hundreds were ordered to evacuate.

Across northern California, the heat contributed to high wind thunderstorms, sparking several wildfires and minor evacuations in Monterey County. So far, firefighters have successfully prevented the fires from growing out of control, but these events will be far more likely in the future. A 2019 USC study in Environmental Research Letters found that the number of extreme heat days—those with temperatures above 95 degrees Fahrenheit—will more than double by 2070 in urban South Los Angeles.

Half of UK Early Years learning workers paid less than minimum wage for 25-year-olds

Charlotte Salthill

The stability of the early years workforce in England, a report by the Social Mobility Commission, has exposed extreme levels of exploitation across the sector.

Half of England’s 280,900 Early Years (EY) workers are paid less than the minimum wage of £8.72 an hour for those over 25 years old. Thirteen percent were paid under £5 an hour; 29 percent between £5 and £7 an hour; and 31 percent between £7 and £9 an hour.

Low pay is one of the main reasons given for leaving the job, alongside increasing work demands and a lack of training and continuous professional development (CPD). More than one third (37 percent) of EY workers stay in their job less than two years. This compares to a 47 percent turnover rate in retail and a national average of 29 percent.

Of the 280,900 EY professionals in England, 58 percent are nursery nurses and assistants, 33 percent are childminders and 9 percent are playworkers. The workforce is predominantly young, with 40 percent below the age of 30, and 96 percent female.

There is a pronounced pay gap between those who work in public versus private and voluntary settings (PVI). Of public sector employees, 47 percent earn above £9 per hour compared with 20 percent in PVI. At the lower end of the pay scale, 26 percent in public settings are paid lower than £7 an hour, compared to 47 percent in the private sector.

The report says this situation is compounded by “unintended effects of government policies such as the minimum wage and the 15 and 30 hours of funded childcare”. EY providers rely on Local Authority funding for 30 hours of funded payments, which amounts to just £1,000 per child each year, if the setting has a qualified EY teacher. This is paid on an hourly basis, equating to an average of £4.38 per child, which barely covers costs and guarantees downward pressure on wages.

Many EY staff are poorly qualified for tasks they are asked to carry out. Apprenticeships are a common route into the EY profession, especially for young people unable to shoulder the burden of university and college fees. But the apprenticeships on offer deny young people an in-depth theoretical or pedagogical training and are a form of cheap labour. Those under 19 years of age or in their first year of apprenticeship get £4.15 an hour. This equates to £8,632 a year for a 40-hour week. Average living costs for a single person excluding rent are £9,072 in London and £7,152 in Manchester.

Some EY workers told researchers they had to take second jobs, while others described themselves as living on the edge of financial survival.

The report found excessive work demands are leading to burnout and low morale. Staff cited “long hours of physically tiring work”, poor child-to-staff ratios, excessive paperwork, high levels of responsibility and a lack of resources to help children, including those with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND).

Staff in privately run settings reported they had to pay for their own training and attend sessions outside of paid hours. Managers said they plan to spend 55 percent less on training in the coming years. But staff in PVI settings described their managers as being disengaged and controlling, with little understanding of what the job entailed.

A lack of adequate skills, including literacy, is cited as a problem. One manager explained, “We don’t need somebody that can come in and just babysit children and look after them. They have to be literate, they have to be able to read and write effectively, to do the required reports and observations and things that we require.” But without a massive training programme and value placed on young workers to develop their skills, they are treated as babysitters.

Cuts to local authority budgets are endangering the most vulnerable children. A nursery teaching assistant whose family outreach centre had closed described the pressures on remaining staff, “We’ve got so much going on with safeguarding…We (are) trying to do the role that our outreach colleagues used to do.”

Safeguarding work includes engaging hard to reach families, protection from maltreatment, and ensuring that children suffering abuse or neglect are reported, which are statutory responsibilities.

Quality EY provision is vital to a child’s cognitive, social, and emotional development, especially in more deprived areas where parents struggle at home. In the last 10 years more than 1,000 Sure Start centres that provided a variety of services to support children’s learning, health, and well-being, have closed. Tory austerity cuts imposed by Labour controlled councils have forced the poorest families to rely on volunteer provision run by charities and the church.

The Social Mobility Commission’s research was concluded before the COVID-19 pandemic that has plunged the sector into crisis. The report’s authors note that many EY workers have been furloughed, but that even before the pandemic around 45 percent of childcare workers claimed state benefits or tax credits—well above the average among the wider female workforce. They warn this proportion will increase throughout the second half of 2020 and beyond.

A recent survey by the Sutton Trust into the impact of COVID-19 on the EY sector found a staggering one quarter of providers said they were unlikely to still be operating next year, rising to one third of providers in deprived areas.

Research by the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) shows that 71 percent of nurseries expect to operate at a loss over the coming months, putting thousands of childcare places at risk. The charity Pregnant Then Screwed found 81 percent of employed mothers need childcare to work and that 51 percent of these do not have childcare in place to return to the workforce.

The pandemic has revealed an existential crisis for early years education that has been long in the making. Mass closures and job losses are the product of a decades-long assault by the ruling class on public education. Capitalism is incapable of providing the care, nurture, and stimulation that young children need from the earliest ages. Billions must be seized from the financial oligarchy to build nurseries, creches and pre-schools in every neighbourhood, and to fund well-paid jobs and training for all who work in the sector.

Scotland’s schools reopen as COVID-19 infects students

Steve James

Scotland’s 700,000 students were sent back to class at almost 2,500 primary and secondary schools last week by the Scottish National Party (SNP) government.

SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Education Secretary John Swinney ordered the return of more than 50,000 teachers. The move is a trial run for the Johnson government’s homicidal back-to-school drive across the UK.

Schools were reopened despite a resurgence in coronavirus infections.

On Friday, 65 new COVID-19 cases were reported across Scotland, while 253 people are in hospital with the virus, three of them in intensive care. More cases have been identified in the first two weeks of August than in the whole of June and July. Fifty two cases were reported on Tuesday alone, although no deaths have been reported for 29 days. On August 13, however, Sturgeon reported the “R” number, which charts the number of new infections arising from any single case, stood at around 1.3.

In Aberdeen, an outbreak led to a partial lockdown, with almost 200 cases. Pubs, cafes, and restaurants have been closed and some professional football matches have been cancelled. The Aberdeen outbreak led to cases in nearby North Angus. Five cases were also reported in Orkney.

Most concerning are reports of outbreaks among school students. Eight pupils at Bannerman High School in Glasgow have tested positive for COVID-19, although none had yet returned to school. Despite the cluster, the school reopened last week.

On Saturday, the Herald reported that Bannerman High’s cluster was related to an outbreak among senior management at a McVities biscuit factory in Glasgow, with four managers sent home. Workers at the Tollcross factory have repeatedly raised concerns over unsafe working conditions. One worker tested positive in April.

Two pupils at St Ambrose High and one at St Andrews High, both in Coatbridge, tested positive. Two had returned to school for what was described as a “relatively short period of time.” Two staff at Peterhead Central primary school in Aberdeenshire tested positive prior to the reopening. The school will remain closed for one week.

These outbreaks presage an inevitable surge in COVID-19 cases among pupils, teachers, and other staff, driving wider community transmission.

Numerous scientific reports confirm that school age children can develop symptoms of COVID-19 and transmit the coronavirus to others.

In all, some 19,238 case of COVID-19 have been reported in Scotland, with 2,491 deaths. Excess deaths, most of which can be attributed to COVID-19, run to as many as 4,885, with nearly half in care homes.

The Scottish government accelerated its plans to reopen on August 11, rejecting even minimal social distancing measures. Proposals floated in June for a “blended” return—including reduced class sizes and just one or two days of face-to-face classes per week—were shelved. The government has even encouraged retired teachers to return to work, despite the clear risk to their health.

Both the SNP and the Labour Party insisted on a full return to school. Former First Minister Jack McConnell of Scottish Labour, now Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale, led these efforts, and was joined by former SNP health secretary Alex Neil. The pair exploited their position as former teachers to browbeat parents fearful for the safety of their children.

There is huge concern among parents and teachers over the SNP government’s measures. A survey of 29,867 teachers by the Educational Institute for Scotland (EIS), Scotland’s largest teaching union, found that:

* 61 percent felt unsafe or somewhat unsafe about returning to work.

* 83 percent believed that social distancing of 2 metres could not be maintained in schools.

* 80 percent did not believe there was “Transparent and shared evidence that the spread of infection is under control and that schools and educational establishments are safe places to work.”

* 74 percent felt that “track and trace” measures, essential for understanding the scope of outbreaks and implementing measures to suppress them, would not be in place when schools reopened.

* 68 percent were not confident, or even somewhat confident, that necessary social distancing measures, risk assessments, and hygiene measures would be ready.

However, reflecting the mis-leadership of the trade unions, the lack of an alternative, and media propaganda and misinformation, 60 percent supported schools reopening, while remaining concerned about the spread of COVID-19. A further 27 percent of teachers opposed re-opening entirely.

A separate survey by the Secondary School Teachers Association (SSTA) found that:

* 65 percent were not or were only slightly confident their workplace was safe.

* 67 percent had little or no confidence that their employer could keep their school safe.

Despite teachers’ well-founded concerns, neither union made any attempt to delay or prevent schools from re-opening. Both the SSTA and EIS survey results were only released a few days before the August 11 deadline for reopening.

The unions’ efforts were directed towards pressuring the Scottish government and local authorities into marginal changes in safety procedures. They placed full responsibility on individual teachers to look after their own conditions.

EIS General Secretary Larry Flanagan called on teachers to return to school, insisting only that updated risk assessments should be carried out “by the employer and that staff and teacher trade unions are fully consulted on their content.”

Throughout the pandemic, the trade unions have been central to ensuring workers are corralled behind the needs of the corporations. Internationally, the reopening of schools is the lynchpin of government efforts to force parents back to work, regardless of levels of coronavirus transmissions. Schools are being transformed into holding pens, with teachers, students and their families treated as guinea pigs.

More than 2,500 early learning centres and nurseries were reopened by the SNP government in July, despite the impossibility of social distancing.

The Socialist Equality Party rejects the claim that the only alternatives on offer to school students, parents, and teachers are either poor schooling from home, or dangerous schooling in class.

We call for teachers, classroom assistants, school staff, bus drivers, parents and school students to form rank-and-file committees. All schools and non-essential workplaces must remain closed until the pandemic threat is over, with full income protection.

The demand for a general strike must be raised to halt the reopening and safeguard teachers and other school staff, pupils, and their families.

We call for a vast expansion of testing and contact tracing to show an R number of less than 0.1 percent before any school reopens—based on carefully considered and impartial scientific advice. Resources, extracted from the bank accounts and private wealth of the super-rich and the major corporations, must be poured into schools and online learning systems to ensure neither students nor education workers suffer until the pandemic is fully suppressed.

A risky game with health and lives as schools reopen throughout Germany

Gregor Link

Millions of children and hundreds of thousands of teachers are beginning to return to schools. Full attendance is mandatory, with everything that goes with it—overcrowded classrooms, cancelled lessons, run-down sanitary facilities and crowded public transport and school buses on the way to school.

At the same time, the number of new COVID-19 infections in Germany is at its highest level since the introduction of protective measures. In the last two days alone, 1,226 and 1,445 people were infected with the deadly coronavirus. In the USA, where a patient dies every one and a half minutes of the virus, parents or students now have to sign a statement exempting the school management from any liability if a child at school falls ill with COVID-19 and dies.

Against this background, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert outlined two goals in dealing with the pandemic at a press conference in Berlin on Wednesday. “One is to keep the economy running as well as possible and the other is to get schools and the entire educational system back on track.” Seibert did not explain how many deaths this policy will cause—and the journalists present did not ask him.

Pupil Moritz is on his way to the first day at his new school in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

Seibert was summing up the attitude of the entire ruling class. On Saturday, in a joint statement, four major business associations declared with remarkable frankness, “It is high time that the regular operation of Berlin schools starts again.” It is “in the interest of employers and their employees” to send children back to school as soon as possible.

The return of children to school so that parents are available for work sets the course for a further devastating spread of the pandemic, which will cause countless new deaths and unspeakable suffering. More and more studies show how dangerous it is to resume attendance at school. The claim that children are not infected or do not pass on the virus has been clearly refuted.

In the USA, 97,000 children tested positive for coronavirus in the last two weeks of July alone, and according to a recent report by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the number has risen to 338,000 since the beginning of the pandemic. The German state governments are preparing for similar conditions by reopening schools.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where schools opened already at the beginning of last week, a grammar school in Ludwigslust and a school in Rostock had to be closed again because teachers and students tested positively. There were similar cases in Hamburg.

In Berlin, where classes resumed on Monday, coronavirus infections have been detected at eight schools, as the Senate (state) Education Administration informed local radio station rbb. One, the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Gymnasium in Treptow-Köpenick with 800 students, was closed again on Thursday.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, where the school year only began on Wednesday, a day-care centre in Dortmund and an elementary school in Essen were closed again due to coronavirus infections. Other schools remained open despite positive tests.

Nevertheless, the state governments are ruthlessly reopening schools. In Schleswig-Holstein, which is governed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Greens and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), even teachers with a medical certificate showing they are at risk are being forced to teach. Of 1,600 teachers belonging to coronavirus risk groups, only 32 have been exempted from teaching. All others must teach, even if an infection means a possible death sentence for them.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, where 200,000 teachers and 2.1 million pupils returned to classrooms on Wednesday, there is compulsory school attendance even for children of high-risk parents. “As a matter of principle, pupils are obliged to take part in face-to-face teaching. The general provisions on compulsory schooling and participation apply,” the NRW Education Ministry states.

State Education Minister Yvonne Gebauer (FDP) has already openly admitted that COVID-19 victims are an integral part of her school reopening concept. “We cannot protect people from falling ill with COVID-19,” she said in a radio interview. There will “always be diseases.” The government can only ensure that “our hospitals are prepared, that enough intensive care beds are available, that enough ventilators are available. But we cannot protect all people.”

With more than 2,370 new infections in the last seven days (413 new infections within one day alone), North Rhine-Westphalia now has the highest infection rate in Germany, with around 52,600 cases. In Bochum in the Ruhr Area, the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants, averaging 30 over the last seven days, is dangerously close to 50, at which point a regional lockdown is imminent.

“What I can’t get into my head, is regular schooling in the face of rising infection rates, demonstrably even during the holiday season,” Martina R. from North Rhine-Westphalia commented on Facebook. “Actually, for at least three weeks, lessons should be designed in such a way that as few people as possible are infected. Previously ill people, for example, should generally be taught in home-schooling, the rest in a mixture of attendance and home-schooling, especially smaller groups are necessary.”

With a view to the new infections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Hamburg, Martina added, “It is already apparent that regular [school] operations cannot function in this way. Politicians have no conscience—and children cost money, but do not contribute anything to the coffers, nor do they have a lobby. In any case, regular operations have nothing to do with science.”

Education Minister Gebauer and State Premier Armin Laschet (CDU), who are hated for their particularly ruthless coronavirus policies, represent the only state government to have felt compelled to make wearing masks compulsory in NRW, introduced at short notice, but not for primary school pupils. In all other federal states—including Thuringia, which is led by the Left Party—the regulations do not mandate the wearing of masks.

Brigitte, a teacher from Rhineland-Palatinate, explained to the World Socialist Web Site, “So far, officially on Monday, in our state, we will continue with limited regular classes. What exactly this means was not clear before the holidays. More detailed instructions will not be available until tomorrow. Otherwise: full classes, frequent airing, wearing masks outside classrooms in the corridors and the schoolyard. In classes—where it is already quite cramped—there should be no compulsory wearing of masks. I was usually happier to go to school on my first day than this year.”

Brigitte’s colleague Maria reported similar conditions in Hesse. “Before the holidays, the Education Ministry issued a ‘timetable’ that classes should be similar to those before the coronavirus. That means full class sizes and a full timetable—but hand washing should be maintained. Whether or not masks should be compulsory in the schoolyard is to be decided by the respective school management. There was no progress towards digitalisation. We’ll start again on Monday, and I doubt that anything will come of it.”

Scientific studies from Israel and Japan, as well as investigations by the Berlin Charité, have proven that conditions such as those found in classrooms, gymnasiums and changing rooms pose a particularly high risk of so-called “cluster infections” and “superspreading” events, in the course of which, hundreds of people fall ill within a very short time.

Barbara, a high school teacher from Lower Saxony, said in an interview with the WSWS, “A mass outbreak at school—that would mean school closures—just like a mass outbreak in the city. We had that in June and therefore had to teach online for two more weeks.”

Although Barbara’s secondary school is also scheduled to resume regular operations next week, she has not yet received any information about how lessons are to be organised in concrete terms or what measures are to be taken. “Yesterday we received our lesson plans. Timetables are not yet ready. I would be happy if we had to wear masks compulsorily in class and in the teachers’ rooms for the first two weeks. Many colleagues and students have been on vacation—that’s pretty scary to me personally.”

The case of Bavaria shows just how far-reaching the efforts of the state governments are to get back to business as quickly as possible in the interests of making profits. There, the state health office had not informed 44,000 holiday returnees of their results until yesterday, who had voluntarily had themselves tested for the coronavirus since 30 July. Among those tested were about 900 infected persons, who had thus remained undetected for days.

The same information policy is also being applied in schools. Ricarda, who is due to return to her school next Monday, told us, “I don’t even have a timetable. The school management is waiting for new instructions until the last minute. I have already set up the desks individually. Then, during the introductory days, I will do a targeted Iserv training [online training system] with the students, in case the school is closed again. Students should bring their equipment and I practice with them. I hope that’s enough.”