A comment on the viral Tik Tok “Devious Licks” trend

Renae Cassimeda

“Devious Licks,” a recent trend on the social media platform Tik Tok, involves students in the US and elsewhere posting videos of either stolen school property or vandalized school bathrooms, or both. A “lick” in this context is another term for something stolen.

A view of the TikTok app logo. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File)

The phenomenon, a form of backward and anti-social protest, no doubt reflects the anger and confusion of a portion of young people under conditions of a deadly pandemic and general political instability and crisis.

The “Devious Licks” trend began in September as videos of students having stolen personal protective equipment ( PPE) from school—such as masks, hand sanitizer and tissues—were posted on social media. One student, for example, posted a video of himself unzipping his backpack and pulling out a hand sanitizer dispenser with the caption, “only a month into school and got this absolute devious lick.” In two days, the video was viewed over seven million times.

Hundreds of copycat Tik Tok videos were posted in response, many trying to outdo the previous ones. Videos of students having stolen a microscope, computer or school street signage each reached two to three million views in under 24 hours. In addition, there have been multiple videos of bathrooms vandalized, with stall doors, mirrors, soap dispensers, sinks, toilets or urinals removed, broken or thrown across the room.

The videos have generated an uproar in the media, cries for more severe punishment for those involved and the demand by politicians and school district officials that Tik Tok be “held accountable” and greater censorship imposed on the platform. School districts in nearly all 50 US states, plus locations in Canada and the UK, have reported being “hit” by the trend.

Districts have responded by suspending and expelling students and imposing heightened security measures, including closing public restrooms for days at a time, tracking and limiting student restroom breaks and installing more cameras on campuses, especially near bathroom entrances. In addition, authorities have fined and charged numerous students, with arrests coming in various parts of the country.

Students have also posted videos bringing to light the various security measures and responses by school officials. Videos on Tik Tok record angry messages from school administrators over loudspeakers threatening criminal charges or offering $100-$500 cash rewards to any student who turns informant. One student posted a video of a campus police officer entering a classroom to perform a random bag search to find any stolen items.

After two weeks of the trend gaining traction, Tik Tok responded in mid-September by deleting accounts and videos, as well as redirecting related hashtags to their community guidelines with the message, “We expect our community to create responsibly—online and IRL [in real life]. We’re removing content and redirecting hashtags and search results to our Community Guidelines to discourage such behavior. Please be kind to your schools and teachers.”

In mid-September, US Senator Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut from Democrat) wrote a letter to Tik Tok CEO Shou Zi Chew urging the platform to ban videos, users and hashtags related to the trend. Blumenthal, one of the richest individuals in Congress, has organized an upcoming hearing to discuss the impact of social media on youth.

There is nothing remotely progressive about the “Devious Licks” videos or the acts of theft and vandalism. This will not stop some on the pseudo-left from attempting to endow such activities with an incipient “anti-capitalist ethos.” In April, Protean, an online journal produced by a self-proclaimed “leftist media collective,” carried an article, “Shoplifting Communities: Sharing Tactics and Anti-Corporate Principles,” which noted that “Shoplifting has risen dramatically since the pandemic began.” The article points to one “decentralized anarchist collective” that promotes “scamming and shoplifting as a response to the injustices of capitalism.”

This is reactionary nonsense, which only plays into the hands of the authorities and the police.

The “Devious Licks” videos and the theft of PPE and other materials are not actions aimed at mobilizing students against the present conditions. On the contrary, they reflect to a considerable extent the pessimism and disorientation of those carrying out the various thefts. The actions may also express skepticism in regard to measures taken to mitigate the pandemic by those who have been influenced by the right-wing media campaign against lockdowns and masking, or by sentiments articulated by their parents.

There isn’t a hint in the “Devious Licks” trend of any political ideology. However, is there the possibility of anarchistic moods developing among the youth in the US? Absolutely, given the repulsive state of political life, dominated by two parties of big business, profits, greed and war. The official atmosphere communicates itself to young people, generating alienation, bitterness, anger and even individualistic, semi-terroristic moods.

Blumenthal’s actions reveal how the ruling elite will use such episodes to step up attacks on free speech and intensify the campaign for “law and order.” They equally reveal the extreme sensitivity of the ruling elite to these developments. It intensely fears the youth and anticipates social explosions. The powers that be will move swiftly to suppress any hint of opposition from young people.

The possibility of high school and college students and others utilizing social media to engage in mass opposition terrifies the establishment. The growing outrage of the youth is one of the most explosive components of the political situation in the US at present.

Young people have been immensely affected by the traumatic and bewildering events of the past year and a half—the disaster of the pandemic as a whole, including the deaths of relatives and friends; the quarantining and the recurring outbreaks; the back and forth between online and in-person instruction; the battles over masks and vaccines; the bombardment of poorly executed and inadequate mitigation measures; the lack of a scientific approach to containment. What long- and short-term impact is all this having?

In September the number of reported COVID cases among children 0-17 hit its peak at 251,781 in the week ending September 8. Since schools began reopening throughout the US in late July, more than 1,772,578 children have officially tested positive and 171 have died from COVID-19, while at least 5.8 million young people have been infected and 520 have died from the virus since the start of the pandemic, according to data from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Despite such terrible numbers, the bipartisan, teachers union-backed campaign to reopen schools and keep them open continues unabated. Students have been thrown into the same crowded and dilapidated classrooms with poor ventilation as before the pandemic. Schools lack even adequate mitigation measures such as robust testing and contact tracing, low levels of community transmission, high-quality ventilation, social distancing, masks, etc.

Many youth must be asking, for what were all the sacrifices made? What is the purpose of PPE mandates as the virus continues to spread unchecked? They confront a torrent of contradictions and lies, COVID rules and expectations in school, as well as major disagreements in districts and broader communities over measures such as mask mandates and vaccination. Meanwhile the ruling class and its media outlets pour out claims to the effect that we must learn to live with the virus and accept hundreds of thousands more deaths.

School reopenings following limited lockdowns have resulted in more infections and death and have not eased the physical or psychological suffering. While anger among youth over the current conditions is widespread, the “Devious Licks” phenomenon on Tik Tok does not reflect the thoughts and feelings of the majority of students, who are appalled by the destruction of their schools and the thefts often directed at teachers. In fact, the majority of students are angry at the perpetrators who have caused a repressive backlash, the crackdown and the surveillance measures that have been unfairly imposed on entire student bodies. Additionally, many staff and students are upset about the increased workload and stress this has caused an already overworked and short-staffed custodial workforce.

Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme 2022/2023

Application Deadline: 1st December 2021 at Hong Kong Time 12:00:00

Offered Annually? Yes

About Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme: The Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme (HKPFS), established in 2009 by the Research Grants Council (RGC), aims at attracting the best and brightest students in the world to pursue their PhD programmes in Hong Kong’s institutions. About 300 PhD Fellowships will be awarded this academic year. For awardees who need more than three years to complete the PhD degree, additional support may be provided by the chosen institutions. The financial aid is available for any field of study.

Eligibility: Candidates who are seeking admission as new full time PhD students in the following eight institutions, irrespective of their country of origin, prior work experience, and ethnic background, should be eligible to apply.

• City University of Hong Kong
• Hong Kong Baptist University
• Lingnan University
• The Chinese University of Hong Kong
• The Education University of Hong Kong
• The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
• The University of Hong Kong

Applicants should demonstrate outstanding qualities of academic performance, research ability / potential, communication and interpersonal skills, and leadership abilities.

Selection Criteria: While candidates’ academic excellence is the primary consideration, the Selection Panels will take into account factors as follows:

• Academic excellence;
• Research ability and potential;
• Communication and interpersonal skills; and
• Leadership abilities.

Number of Awards: 300

Value of Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme: The Fellowship provides an annual stipend of HK$322,800 (approximately US$41,400) and a conference and research-related travel allowance of HK$13,500 (approximately US$1,730) per year for each awardee for a period up to three years. 300 PhD Fellowships will be awarded in the 2022/23 academic year*. For awardees who need more than three years to complete the PhD degree, additional support may be provided by the chosen universities. For details, please contact the universities concerned directly.

Selection Panel: Shortlisted applications, subject to their areas of studies, will be reviewed by one of the following two Selection Panels comprising experts in the relevant board areas:

• sciences, medicine, engineering and technology
• humanities, social sciences and business studies

Application Process for Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme:

• Eligible candidates should first make an Initial Application online through the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme Electronic System (HKPFSES) to obtain an HKPFS Reference Number by 1 December 2021 at Hong Kong Time 12:00:00 before submitting applications for PhD admission to their desired universities.
• Applicants may choose up to two programmes / departments at one or two universities for PhD study under HKPFS 2022/23. They should comply with the admission requirements of their selected universities and programmes.
• As the deadlines for applications to some of the universities may immediately follow that of the Initial Application, candidates should submit initial applications as early as possible to ensure that they have sufficient time to submit applications to universities.

Visit Scholarship webpage for more details

The Ultimate Drug War Crackdown

Jacob Hornberger

Throughout the long sordid history of America’s war on drugs, drug-war proponents have claimed that if only government officials would really crack down on drug use and drug distribution, the decades-old war on drugs could finally — finally! — be won. 

But one big problem is that throughout the decades of drug warfare, there have been crackdowns — big crackdowns. 

Many federal judges, for example, some of whom have considered themselves to be fierce drug warriors, have long imposed maximum jail sentences on drug-law violators. 

Congress itself has gotten involved in drug-war crackdowns, for example by mandating that federal judges, some of whom weren’t proving tough enough, mete out “mandatory minimum sentences” for drug violators.

There is also the asset-forfeiture racket to consider, a program that entitles DEA officers and state and local cops to steal money from people who are suspected of violating drug laws. 

There has been the extradition of Latin American drug lords to the United States, followed by long jail sentences in American prisons.

And of course, there has been the racist component to the drug war, by which cops have used drug laws to stop, search, frame, and harass blacks. 

Obviously, those crackdowns didn’t end up winning the war on drugs. On the contrary, the war on drugs is as far away from being won as it’s ever been.

And then came Rodrigo Duterte, the elected dictator of the Philippines and an absolute favorite among American drug warriors. Having been elected in 2016, Duterte announced that he was going to win the war on drugs in the Philippines. 

Today, five years later, Duterte is under investigation by the International Criminal Court, which is alleging that Philippine police have killed 6,100 suspects in drug trafficking raids. 

Notice the operative word: “suspects.” None of these dead people ever had a trial. None of them were ever convicted. They were just killed.

Moreover, that 6,100 figure might be an extremely low estimate. According to an article in Laprensalatina.com, “Human rights groups speak of between 27,000 and 30,000 dead, mostly victims of alleged extrajudicial executions.” The article also points out that the “victims include 112 children, according to a report published in 2020 by the World Organization Against Torture.”

Duterte is claiming that he’s innocent, but if he isn’t, his system has to be considered the ultimate drug-war crackdown. Just think about it. No constitutional technicalities to follow. No reading of Miranda rights. No criminal defense attorneys. No due process of law. No jury trials.  

Just imagine U.S. officials establishing a system in which the cops are empowered to kill anyone they suspect is violating the drug laws. What could be better than that, at least from the perspective of a drug-war proponent, right?

Well, except for one thing. They still haven’t won the drug war in the Philippines! They’re still fighting. And from the way things look, they will be fighting forever, just like American drug warriors!

If the killing spree in the Philippines hasn’t worked to win the war on drugs, isn’t that a good sign that no crackdown, no matter how vicious, can ever succeed in winning the war on drugs? 

I suppose a drug-war proponent could say, “Jacob, bring in the military and have them fight the drug war as viciously as they fought the Taliban.” But at the risk of belaboring the obvious, the military lost its war against the Taliban. Moreover, when Mexico used its military to fight to the drug war, the results was tens of thousands of innocent people killed, with no end in sight to the drug war.

I’ve got a better idea, a libertarian idea: Let’s just end the drug war by legalizing all drugs. No more drug-war searches, arrests, harassment, incarceration, or killings. Just leave people free to ingest whatever they want. Leave drug rehabilitation to private groups, like Alcoholics Anonymous. 

Legalizing drugs would immediately put all drug lords out of business because they couldn’t compete against legitimate pharmacies and other businesses. It would enable drug addicts to secure sound drugs rather than the polluted drugs that they are forced to buy on the black market and that often lead to their deaths. It would encourage people with drug problems to openly seek treatment. And it would put the entire drug-war enforcement bureaucracy out of business, which would save taxpayers a ton of money.

No crackdown, no matter how vicious, will ever end up winning the war on drugs. The drug war will continue to destroy our civil liberties and bring ever-increasing violence to our land.

More important though is a fundamental principle of liberty: People have the fundamental right to ingest whatever they want, no matter how harmful. 

For those two reasons — the futility of winning the war on drugs and the freedom of the individual — there is no reason for Congress or the states to continue the drug war one day longer. To move toward a free, peaceful, prosperous, healthy, and harmonious society, they need to legalize drugs — all drugs — now.

No Militarization of Space Act

Karl Grossman

Finally, there’s some good news about the U.S. push to turn space into a war zone. The “No Militarization of Space Act” has been introduced in the U.S. Congress. It would abolish the new U.S. Space Force.

It is being sponsored by five members of the House of Representatives led by Representative Jared Huffman. In a statement announcing the September 22nd introduction of the measure, Huffman called the U.S. Space Force “costly and unnecessary.”

The arms and aerospace industries, which have a central role in U.S. space military activities, will no doubt be super-active in coming weeks working to stop movement of the legislation.

Representative Huffman, with a background as a consumer attorney specializing in public interest cases, was elected in 2012 to represent the 2^nd Congressional District in California which covers the state’s North Coast up to the Oregon border. He resides in San Rafael.

In his statement announcing the introduction of the bill, Huffman said the “long-standing neutrality of space has fostered a competitive, non-militarized age of exploration every nation and generation has valued since the first days of space travel. But since its creation under the former Trump administration, the Space Force has threatened longstanding peace and flagrantly wasted billions of taxpayer dollars.” And, he continued: “It’s time we turn our attention back to where it belongs: addressing urgent domestic and international priorities like battling COVID-19, climate change, and growing economic inequality. Our mission must be to support the American people, not spend billions on the militarization of space.”

Co-sponsors of the “No Militarization of Space Act” are Representatives Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus; Maxine Waters of California; Rashida Tlaib of Michigan; and Jesus Garcia of Illinois. All are Democrats.

Alice Slater, a board member of the organization World BEYOND War, commented that Trump, “in his besotted hunkering for hegemonic glory,” established the Space Force as “a brand new branch of the already gargantuan military juggernaut….Sadly, the new U.S. President Biden has done nothing to ratchet down the warmongering. Fortunately, help is on the way with a group of five sane members of Congress.”

But not only has Joe Biden stuck with the U.S. Space Force, but most Democrats in both the House of Representatives and Senate voted for its creation as championed by Trump. All Republicans in Congress voted for it.

“With Biden’s ‘full support,’ the Space Force is officially here to stay,” Defense News headlined this year: Its article opened: “U.S. President Joe Biden will not seek to eliminate the Space Force and roll military space functions back into the Air Force, the White House confirmed.” It quoted White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki telling reporters at a February press conference: “We’re not revisiting the decision.”

The Space Force was established in 2019 as the sixth branch of U.S. armed forces after President Donald Trump asserted that “it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space.”

Slater in discussing the Huffman legislation pointed to “repeated calls from Russia and China on the United States to negotiate a treaty to ban weapons in space” and how the U.S. “has blocked all discussion”

“Only last week,” said Slater, “in a speech to a United Nations conference in Geneva, Li Song, China’s ambassador for disarmament affairs, urged the U.S. to stop being a ‘stumbling block’ to preventing an arms race in outer space noting its disrespect for treaties, starting with the end of the Cold War, and its repeated intentions to dominate and control space.”

The major international treaty on space is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 which sets aside space for peaceful purposes and prohibits the deployment of weapons of mass destruction. It was put together by the United States, the former Soviet Union and Great Britain. Craig Eisendrath, who as a young U.S. State Department office was involved in the Outer Space Treaty’s creation, has said “we sought to de-weaponize space before it got weaponized…to keep war out of space.”

For decades, China, Russia and U.S. neighbor Canada have sought to broaden that treaty with a Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) treaty. It would ban the placement of all weapons in space. However, it must be approved by the UN’s Conference on Disarmament before being enacted—and for that a there must be unanimous vote by nations in the conference. The U.S. has refused to support the PAROS treaty, blocking its passage.

The speech last week that Slater was referring to at the UN in Geneva was reported on by the South China Morning Post. It quoted Li Song as saying the U.S. should “stop being a ‘stumbling block’” on the PAROS treaty and going on: “After the end of the Cold War, and especially in the past two decades, the U.S. has tried its best to get rid of its international obligations, refused to be bound by new treaties and long resisted multilateral negotiations on PAROS. To put it bluntly, the U.S. wants to dominate outer space.”

Li said: “If space is not effectively prevented from becoming a battlefield, then the ‘rules of space traffic’ will be no more than a ‘code of space warfare.’”

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of The Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, said: “The Global Network congratulates Representatives Huffman and his co-sponsors for their truthful and valiant introduction of a bill to abolish the wasteful and provocative Space Force. There can be no question that we do not need a new arms race in space at the very time climate crisis is raging, our medical care system is collapsing, and the wealth divide is growing beyond imagination. How dare we even consider spending trillions of dollars so the U.S. can become the ‘Master of Space’!” said Gagnon referring to the “Master of Space” motto of a component of the Space Force.

“War in space signifies a deep spiritual disconnection from all that matters most on our Mother Earth,” he said. “We encourage every living, breathing American citizen to contact their congressional representatives and demand they support this bill to get rid of Space Force.”

The Huffman legislation, if approved, would be part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2022, the annual bill that authorizes military spending. The U.S. Space Force has a budget this year of $15.5 billion and has requested a budget of $17.4 billion for 2022 to “grow the service,” reports Air Force Magazine. “Space Force 2022 Budget Adds Satellites, Warfighting Center, More Guardians,” was the headline of its article.

The U.S. Space Force “received its first offensive weapon… satellite jammers,” reported American Military News in 2020. “The weapon does not destroy enemy satellites, but can be used to interrupt enemy satellite communications and hinder enemy early warning systems meant to detect a U.S. attack,” it stated. Soon afterwards, the Financial Times’ headline: “U.S military officials eye new generation of space weapons.” In 2001, the headline on the c4isrnet.com website, which describes itself as “Media for the Intelligence Age Military,” declared: “The Space Force wants to use directed-energy systems for space superiority.”

France and the Fraying of NATO

Gary Leupp

Biden has infuriated France by arranging the agreement to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. This replaces a contract to purchase a fleet of diesel-powered subs from France. Australia will have to pay penalties for breach of contract but the French capitalists will lose around 70 billion dollars. The perceived perfidy of both Canberra and Washington has caused Paris to compare Biden to Trump. The UK is third partner in the agreement so expect post-Brexit Franco-British relations to deteriorate further. This is all good, in my opinion!

It’s also a good thing that Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan was poorly orchestrated with the lingering “coalition partners” such as Britain, French and Germany, producing angry criticism. It’s great that the British prime minister proposed to France a “Coalition of the Willing” to continue the fight in Afghanistan following the U.S. withdrawal—and better that it was dead in the water. (Maybe the French better than the Brits remember the Suez Crisis of 1956, the disastrous joint Anglo-French-Israeli effort to reimpose imperialist control over the canal. Not only did it lack U.S. participation; Eisenhower rationally shut it down after warnings from the Egyptians’ Soviet advisors.) It’s good that these three countries heeded the U.S. command to uphold their NATO promise to stand with the U.S. when attacked; that they lost over 600 troops in a fruitless effort; and that in the end the U.S. didn’t see fit to even involve them in the end plans. It’s good to wake up to the fact that the U.S. imperialists could care less about their input or their lives. but only demand their obedience and sacrifice.

It’s wonderful that Germany, despite obnoxious U.S. opposition, has maintained its involvement in the Nordstream II natural gas pipeline project along with Russia. The last three U.S. administrations have opposed the pipeline, claiming it weakens the NATO alliance and helps Russia (and urging purchase of more expensive U.S. energy sources instead—to enhance mutual security, don’t you see). The Cold War arguments have fallen on deaf ears. The pipeline was completed last month. Good for global free trade and for national sovereignty, and a significant European blow to U.S. hegemony.

It’s great that Trump in Aug. 2019 raised the ridiculous prospect of purchasing Greenland from Denmark, indifferent to the fact that Greenland is a self-governing entity, within the Kingdom of Denmark. (It is 90% Inuit, and led by political parties pressing for greater independence.) It’s marvelous that when the Danish prime minister gently, with good humor, refused his ignorant, insulting and racist proposal, he exploded in rage and cancelled his state visit including state dinner with the queen. He offended not only the Danish state but popular opinion throughout Europe with his boorishness and colonial arrogance. Excellent.

Trump personally, needlessly insulted the prime minister of Canada and the chancellor of Germany with the same childish language he’d used against political opponents. He raised questions in Europeans’ and Canadians’ minds about the value of an alliance with such vileness. That was a major historical contribution.

Good also that, in Libya in 2011, Hillary Clinton working with the French and British leaders secured UN approval for a NATO mission to protect civilians in Libya. And that, when the U.S.-led mission exceeded the UN resolution and waged full-out war to topple the Libyan leader, enraging China and Russia who called out the lie, some NATO nations declined to participate or turned back in disgust. Another U.S. imperialist war based on lies creating disorder and flooding Europe with refugees. It was good only in the fact that it exposed once again the utter moral bankruptcy of the U.S.A. so widely now associated with images of Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and Guantanamo. All in the name of NATO.

***

Over the last two decades, with the Soviet Union and “communist threat” receding memories, the U.S. has systematically expanded this anti-Soviet, anti-communist postwar alliance called NATO to surround Russia. Any unprejudiced person looking at a map can understand Russia’s concern. Russia spends about a fifth of what the U.S. and NATO spend on military expenses. Russia is not a military threat to Europe or North America. So—the Russians have been asking since 1999, when Bill Clinton broke his predecessor’s promise to Gorbachev and resumed NATO expansion by adding Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia—why do you keep trying to expend to surround us?

Meanwhile more and more Europeans are doubting the leadership of the United States. That means doubting the purpose and value of NATO. Formed to confront an imaginary Soviet invasion of “western” Europe, it was never deployed in war during the Cold War. Its first war indeed was the Clintons’ war on Serbia in 1999. This conflict, which severed the Serbian historical heartland from Serbia to create the new (dysfunctional) state of Kosovo, has since been repudiated by participants Spain and Greece who note that the UN resolution authorizing a “humanitarian” mission in Serbia explicitly stated that the Serbian state remain undivided. Meantime (after the bogus “Rambouillet agreement” was signed) the French foreign minister complained that the U.S. was acting like a hyper-pouissance (“hyperpower” as opposed to mere superpower).

The future of NATO lies with the U.S., Germany, France and the UK. The last three were long members of the EU, which while a rival trading bloc generally coordinated policies with NATO. NATO has overlapped the EU such that virtually all of the countries admitted to the military alliance since 1989 have first joined NATO, then the EU. And within the EU—which is after all, a trading bloc that competes with North America—the UK long served as a kind of U.S. surrogate urging cooperation with Russian trade boycotts, etc. Now the U.K. has split from the EU, unavailable to, say, pressure Germany to avoid deals with the Russians Washington opposes. Good!

Germany has a number of reasons to want to increase trade with Russia and has now shown the will to stand up to the U.S. Germany and France both challenged George W. Bush’s Iraq war based on lies. We should not forget how Bush (promoted lately as a statesman by the Democrats!) rivaled his successor Trump as a vulgar, lying buffoon. And if Obama seemed a hero in contrast, his magnetism ebbed as Europeans learned that they were all being monitored by the National Security Agency, and that the calls of Angela Merkel and the Pope were bugged. This was the land of freedom and democracy, always boasting about liberating Europe from the Nazis and expecting eternal payoff in the form of bases and political deference.

*****

It has been 76 years since the fall of Berlin (to the Soviets, as you know, not to the U.S.);

72 since the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO);

32 since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the promise by George W. H. Bush to Gorbachev NOT to expand NATO further;

22 since the resumption of NATO expansion;

22 since the U.S.-NATO war on Serbia including the aerial bombing of Belgrade;

20 since NATO went to war at U.S. behest in Afghanistan, resulting in ruin and failure;

13 years since the U.S. recognized Kosovo as an independent country, and NATO announced the near-term admission of Ukraine and Georgia, resulting in the brief Russo-Georgia War and Russian recognition of the states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia;

10 years since the grotesque NATO mission to destroy and sew chaos in Libya, producing more terror throughout the Sahel and tribal and ethnic violence in the crumbling country, and producing more waves of refugees;

7 since the bold, bloody U.S.-backed putsch in Ukraine that placed a pro-NATO party in power, provoking the ongoing rebellion among ethnic Russians in the east and obliging Moscow to re-annex the Crimean Peninsula, inviting unprecedented ongoing U.S. sanctions and U.S. pressure on allies to comply;

5 since a malignant narcissist moron won the U.S. presidency and soon alienated allies by his pronouncements, insults, evident ignorance, a belligerent approach, raising questions in a billion minds about the mental stability and judgment of the voters of this country;

1 year since a career warmonger who has long vowed to expand and strengthen NATO, who became the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine after the 2014 coup, his mission being to clean up corruption to prepare Ukraine for NATO membership (and who is the father of Hunter Biden who famously sat on the board of Ukraine’s leading gas company 2014-2017 making millions for no apparent reason or work done) became president.

1 year since the world saw repeatedly on TV the 9 minute video of an open, public police lynching on the streets of Minneapolis, surely many among the views wondering what right this racist nation has to lecture China or anyone on human rights.

9 months since the U.S. capitol was stormed by U.S. brown shirts brandishing Confederate flags and fascist symbols and calling for the hanging of Trump’s vice president for treason.

It is a long record of terrifying Europe with seemingly unstable leaders (Bush no less than Trump); harassing Europe with demands it minimizes trade with Russia and China and obey U.S. rules on Iran, and demanding participation in its imperialist wars far from the North Atlantic to Central Asia and Northern Africa.

It is also a record of provoking Russia while expanding the anti-Russian juggernaut. It has meant actually using NATO militarily (as in Serbia, Afghanistan, and Libya) to cement the military alliance under U.S. direction, the stationing of 4000 U.S. troops in Poland, and threatening flights in the Baltic. Meanwhile, multiple U.S. agencies work overtime to plot “color revolutions” in the counties bordering Russia: Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine.

NATO is dangerous and evil. It should be terminated. Opinion polls in Europe suggest a rise in NATO skepticism (good in itself) and opposition (better). It was already split seriously once: in 2002-2003 over the Iraq War. Indeed the manifest criminality of the Iraq War, the obvious willingness of the Americans to use disinformation, and the buffoonic personality of the U.S. president probably shocked Europe as much as the beastly Trump.

The amusing thing is that Biden and Blinken, Sullivan and Austin, all seem to think none of this happened. They really seem to think that the world respects the United States as the (natural?) leader of something called the Free World —of nations committed to “democracy.” Blinken tells us and Europeans we’re confronting, “autocracy” in the form of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela all threatening us and our values. They seem think they can return to the 1950s, explain their moves as reflections of “American Exceptionalism,” posture as champions of “human rights,” cloak their interventions as “humanitarian missions,” and arm-twist their client-states into joint action. At present NATO is being pushed by Biden to identify (as it did in its last communique) the PRC as a “security threat” to Europe.

But the reference to China was controversial. And NATO is divided on the matter of China. Some states do not see much of a threat and have every reason to expand ties with China, especially with the advent of the Belt and Road projects. They know that China’s GDP will soon exceed that of the U.S. and that the U.S. is not the economic superpower it was after the war when it established its hegemony over most of Europe. It has lost much of its basic strength but, like the Spanish Empire in the eighteenth century, none of its arrogance and brutality.

Even after all the exposure. Even after all the shame. Biden flashing his trained smile announces “America is back!” expecting the world—especially “our allies”—to delight in the resumption of normalcy. But Biden should recall the stony silence that met Pence’s announcement at the Munich Security Conference in February 2019 when he conveyed Trump’s greetings. Do not these U.S. leaders not realize that in this century Europe’s GDP has come to match the U.S.’s? And that few people believe that the U.S. “saved” Europe from the Nazis, and then staved off the Soviet Communists, and revived Europe with the Marshall Plan, and continues to this day to protect Europe from the Russia that threatens to march west at any moment?

Blinken wants to pick up and move on and lead the world forward. Back to normal! Sound, reliable U.S. leadership is back!

Oh really? the French might ask. Stabbing a NATO ally in the back, sabotaging a signed $66 billion deal with far-off Australia? “Doing,” as the French foreign minister put it, “something Mr. Trump would do”? Not only France but the EU has denounced the U.S.-Australia deal. Some NATO members question how the Atlantic Alliance is served by a business dispute between members that pertains to what the Pentagon calls the “Indo-Pacific” region. And why—when the U.S. is attempting to secure NATO’s participation in a strategy of containing and provoking Beijing—it is not bothering to coordinate with France?

Is Blinken unaware that France is an imperialist country with vast holdings in the Pacific? Does he know about the French naval facilities at Papeete, Tahiti, or the army, navy and air force bases in New Caledonia? The French conducted their nuclear blasts at Mururora, for god’s sake. As an imperialist country, does not France have the same right as the U.S. to gang up on China with Australia, in France’s corner of the Pacific? And if its close ally the U.S. decides to undermine the deal, should not etiquette have dictated that it at least inform its “oldest ally” about its intentions?

The French condemnation of the submarines deal has been unprecedentedly sharp, in part, I imagine, due to the implicit disparagement of France as a great power. If the U.S. is urging its allies to join with it in confronting China, why does it not consult with France about an arms deal designed to do that, especially when it supplants one already openly negotiated by a NATO ally? Isn’t it clear that Biden’s appeals for “alliance unity” mean uniting, behind U.S. leadership around preparations for war on China?

Gradually NATO is fraying. Again, this is a very good thing. I had worried that Biden would quickly work to integrate Ukraine into the alliance, but Merkel seems to have told him no. Europeans don’t want to be dragged into another U.S. war, especially against their great neighbor whom they know much better than Americans and have every reason to befriend. France and Germany, who (recall) opposed the U.S. war-based-on-lies on Iraq in 2003, are finally losing patience with the alliance and wondering what membership means other than joining with the U.S. in its quarrels with Russia and China.

Neo Liberalism And The Decline Of The Roadster In India

T. Vijayendra

Roadster

Roadster is the standard or as in Bengal we call it the ‘Bangla’ cycle. Its design was perfected around 1890 and it has not changed significantly since then. Many people think it is old fashioned and they want to go for ‘fancy’ cycles. However the roadster has a great resilience and remains the choice for millions all over the world. What is more in some parts of the Western world, where its popularity had declined after the Second World War, it is making a comeback.

In much of the world, the roadster is still the standard bicycle used for daily transportation. Mass-produced in Asia, they are exported in huge numbers (mainly from India, China, and Taiwan) to developing nations as far afield as Africa and Latin America. India’s Hero Cycles and Eastman Industries are still two of the world’s leading roadster manufacturers, while China’s Flying Pigeon was the single most popular vehicle in worldwide use. Due to their relative affordability, the strength and durability of steel frames and forks and their ability to be repaired by welding, and the ability of these bicycles to carry heavy payloads, the roadster is generally by far the most common bicycle in use in developing nations, with a particular importance for those in rural areas.

Traditional roadster models became largely obsolete in the English-speaking world and other parts of the Western world after the 1950s with the noticeable exceptions of the Netherlands and to a much lesser extent Belgium along with other parts of North-Western Europe. However, they are now becoming popular once more in many of those countries that they had largely disappeared from, due to the resurgence in the bicycle as local city transport where the roadster is ideally suited due to its upright riding position, ability to carry shopping loads, simplicity and low maintenance.

Neo Liberalism

Neo Liberalism appeared in 1979, with capitalism wanting more freedom for itself and less control by the state. So the Reagan – Thatcher consensus or privatization (what is now referred to as the neo-liberalism) gained currency in the West. In England, Thatcherism represented a systematic and decisive rejection and reversal of the post-war consensus, whereby the major political parties largely agreed on the central themes of Keynesianism, the welfare state, nationalised industry and close regulation of the British economy. In its place, Thatcherism attempted to promote low inflation, a smaller state and free markets through tight control of the money supply, privatisation and constraints on the labour movement. Neo – liberalism came to India in 1991, where it was presented as a package of ‘economic reforms’ for ‘Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation.’ It ended the ‘permit quota raj,’ allowed foreign companies to import, invest and set up their enterprises in India, and ushered in an era of new wealth for the rich and the middle classes at a tremendous cost to ecology.

Indian Bicycle Industry

India is the second largest manufacturer of bicycles in the world. The industry is classified into four segments — standard, premium, kids and exports. Demand for standard/roadster bicycles, which is the largest segment (accounting for half of all bicycles sold in 2020) is driven by government purchases. Government departments procure these bicycles through a tender process and distribute under various welfare schemes. Demand for premium and kids bicycles (nearly 40 per cent) is driven by fitness and leisure needs. Exports and sales of other kinds of bicycles constitute the remaining 10 per cent demand.

Decline of the Roadster

In 1990, 90 percent bicycles produced in India were roadsters. By 2020 it has been reduced to 50 percent. What has happened?

After independence the import of bicycle was banned and India started manufacturing its own bicycles. Several important bicycle companies came up – Sen Raleigh in Asansol, Hercules/BSA in Chennai, Atlas, Hero and Avon in Punjab (In those days Haryana was not formed).

However in 1991 imports again began. Neo liberalism also brought new wealth and an affluent middle class was born. At the same time concern about climate, global warming and health consciousness increased. This gave rise to a new demand for bicycles from this class and the market for Premium/Fancy cycle was born. And in a few years along with the new generation of kids, the market for kids also came into being. Since then the market share of fancy and kid’s bicycles has continuously increased.

The Problems of Fancy Bicycles in India

The fancy bicycle is transitory in nature – both in history and in the life of the owner of the bicycle. In the world it appeared in the West with MTB after the Second World War and the prestige of the roadster declined. Now the roadster is coming back because it is a more comfortable and reliable machine.

As the word suggests the fancy bicycle is neither utilitarian like the standard/roadster nor professional. It is just fancy used for recreational purposes. Most of the owners use it for weekends only. They normally have a fossil fuel based vehicle – a motor cycle/scooter/car for daily use. Today many of them are environmentally conscious and promote bicycle for environment and health reasons. Many of them are members of the cycle clubs, Rotary clubs, Lions clubs etc. Obviously they belong to relatively affluent middle class.

However in most cases this fancy lasts a few years only. A few of them graduate to professional levels. Most give up after a few years. There are many reasons. As they grow, other pressures – job, family, relatives, and friends grow and they increasingly don’t find time during the weekends. The very jobs that gave them high salaries to indulge in buying these bicycles, do not allow them, within a few years, the time to ride these bicycles! Then they are not able to maintain it. In India the infrastructure for maintenance for bicycle with gears is not very good. Upper class/caste Indians have very poor culture of maintenance – they don’t dirty their hands. Soon the cycle gathers dust. Most gated communities in big cities are full of these abandoned fancy bicycles. The second hand market for them is not good either. So they are offered at half the cost within a few years. It is another example of wasteful nature of the capitalist society.

Role of the Bicycle Clubs

The bicycle clubs have played a big role in promoting these fancy bicycles. In most cities in India the owner of these fancy bicycles is also a good cyclist and is often a prominent member of the local cycle club. In some cases a prominent member of these clubs graduated in starting a shop sensing that in the city there is no good shop or maintenance facilities for these bicycles.

Kolkata Cycle Samaj

However among these clubs the Kolkata Cycle Samaj is an exception. The main reason is its history. In Kolkata about a decade ago, under the pressure of car owners, the Kolkata police banned bicycle on more than hundred roads. They also started making cyclist pay a fine of hundred rupees for violating the ban. Naturally there was uproar. The greatest sufferers were the working class members for whom the bicycle was a necessity and their jobs involved in travelling on these roads. Kolkata Cycle Samaj was born with the objective of removing this ban. While they have not fully succeeded in it they have created a great awareness about the bicycle and urban transport issues all over the country and even abroad. Its face book page has 5800 members!

What can the Bicycle Clubs do?

1. In my opinion bicycle clubs should promote bicycle among common people and help them to acquire one. Most poor people aspire to own a bicycle. Our general aim should be every Indian family should own at least one ladies roadster bicycle. I say ladies because a ladies bicycle can be used by both men and women in the family. Also it has been shown that for normal commuting a ladies bicycle gives a more comfortable ride.
2. Every bicycle club should run a bicycle gift programme for the need person in their locality/town/city. On an average for every fancy bicycle you can purchase two roadsters. So if someone buying a new bicycle and has a budget of more than ten thousand it will be a good idea to purchase tow roadster – one for herself and one to gift.
3. Every bicycle club should have a good relation with a good bicycle maintenance mechanic. They should support him; help him to acquire a good location, a good shop/kiosk. In a small town it can even be a cycle assembly shop or used for restoring old cycles.

The Future

The world is going through a global emergency and we have a window of just about a decade to act to survive! If we do survive than much of the present wasteful society will have to go and with that the fancy bicycles will also go along with all the fossil fuel based transport. Cities will shrink in size. Urban transport will mainly depend on roadster and roadster based cycle rickshaws, cargo cycles and so on.

We live on hope. To keep the hope alive, in the bicycle sector let us promote the roadsters and get rid of our fossil fuel based vehicles!

The Bankruptcy of ‘Great Power Competition’

Daniel Larison

A militarized rivalry between the US and China will be costly and dangerous for all concerned, but the people most likely to suffer from it will be found in the countries that the two major powers choose to turn into their battlefields. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union split Europe down the middle, but it was in Asia, Africa, and Latin America that massive bloodletting took place during the so-called “Long Peace.” Vincent Bevins, author of The Jakarta Method, recently observed, “If a new cold war is anything like the last one, it will not principally be American or Chinese citizens who suffer. During the confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union, huge numbers of people were reduced to collateral damage, far away from famous First World flashpoints such as Berlin, their deaths seen as acceptable, if not celebrated.” As Paul Thomas Chamberlin documented in his history, The Cold War’s Killing Fields, tens of millions perished in the conflicts caused or exacerbated by four decades of superpower rivalry, including the genocides in Bangladesh and Cambodia and the mass murder in Indonesia. If the US and China go down the same road of confrontation, the casualties could well be even higher in the proxy and direct wars of the future. If we want to prevent such horrors from happening again, Americans must demand that our government stop pursuing the militarized “great power competition” that it has been embracing for the last several years.

Major powers always have divergent interests to some degree, but how they choose to manage those disagreements determines whether they can coexist as peaceful competitors or whether they condemn themselves to decades of fruitless militarism and strife. What these states decide to do has ramifications not only for their own people, but for many other nations that are caught in between them. Once major powers have decided on a militaristic, confrontational course, it becomes extremely easy for their political leaders to justify any number of atrocities against innocent people in neutral or contested countries in the name of preventing the rival from “advancing” in some peripheral theater. If the Cold War experience is any guide, the countries that end up in the sights of one or both rivals are devastated and take decades and sometimes generations to recover from what was done to them.

It is not surprising that almost all states in Southeast Asia want nothing to do with the militarized anti-China coalition that the U.S. is trying to assemble. Having endured some of the worst losses during the Cold War, the nations of Southeast Asia do not want to be forced to choose sides or to become pawns in someone else’s struggle yet again. The reaction of the Malaysian and Indonesian governments to the recently announced AUKUS partnership is typical of this aversion to heightened US-Chinese tensions. While China hawks in Washington cheered the new partnership, Malaysia expressed fears that it would provoke more aggressive behavior in the region and Indonesia worried about an intensifying arms race. As the US makes military efforts central to its approach to China and the surrounding region, it makes conflict more likely to happen and it makes it more likely that it will have very few other states willing to cooperate with the US otherwise.

One danger in any great power rivalry is that one or both rivals will conclude that they should interfere in the affairs of other states to gain an advantage against the adversary. If the US finds few states that want to join its anti-China coalition, there are always plenty of hard-liners eager to advocate for covert or overt regime change to install more pliable rulers. Great power rivalry worsens existing imperialistic practices and creates the excuse for new ones, because imperialists will claim that virtually anything is justified in the name of security.

Consider how much bloodshed and misery the US has helped to cause in the Middle East in the name of “countering” Iran: Yemen bombed and driven into famine, Syria devastated by almost a decade of war, and tens of millions of people in Iran collectively punished with sanctions. Now imagine what the result would be across Asia and farther afield from a full-blown militarized rivalry with one of the most powerful countries in the world. And that’s assuming that the US and China don’t directly come to blows and end up launching nuclear weapons at each other. It is not too late to back away from such a ruinous rivalry. Americans need to understand that it would not only be a huge gamble for our country, but it would also be a disaster for many other parts of the world as well.

“Far from restraining conflict, the superpower confrontation actually fueled greater violence around the world,” Chamberlin wrote in the conclusion of The Cold War’s Killing Fields, and that is what rivalry with China threatens to do again. We do not have to turn more countries into new killing fields, but if the US continues down its current path that is what will very likely happen in the decades to come.

Strike by German health care workers continues in Berlin

Markus Salzmann

Health care workers at the state-owned Charité and Vivantes hospitals have been on strike for more than three weeks in the German capital of Berlin. While corporate management and the Social Democrat (SPD)/Left Party/Green Berlin state government, known as the Senate, refuse to make concessions, the Verdi trade union is desperately trying to shut down the strike and codify the constant overworking of staff in collective agreements.

With over 25 days of strike action, the labour dispute at the two hospital groups is one of the longest strikes in the history of the German health care system. Since all campuses of the Charité and eight clinics of the Vivantes group are still affected, thousands of operations and treatments have been postponed or cancelled since the beginning of the strike. Around 1,200 beds are currently out of service and around 2,000 patients are waiting for an operation or appointment for treatment.

Health care workers in Berlin

Although the strike is extremely stressful for patients and for those employees who are unable to participate because of the need to provide necessary patient care, support for the strikers remains unbroken. The catastrophic working conditions in the clinics, which endanger the health of patients every day, are plain for all to see.

The Berlin strikers are representative of the many hundreds of thousands of health care workers across Germany who are confronted with the same working conditions.

This was recently made very clear in a damning letter from the nursing staff at the Hamburg University Hospital (UKE). In it, two-thirds of the approximately 300 intensive care staff at the UKE described their working conditions and demanded that the legally applicable regulations are enforced at a minimum. Even the legally applicable minimum staffing levels, which are totally inadequate to guarantee quality patient care, are consistently not adhered to.

Instead of the required minimum ratio of one nurse for every intensive care patient, the ratio is sometimes one to four. As a result, important medications are not administered in a timely manner and treatments such as caring for wounds cannot be carried out correctly.

“Unfortunately, patients often have to lie in their own faeces for a considerable amount of time,” the nurses wrote with regard to the hygiene situation. This suggests that under these conditions, measures of basic hygiene, which are all the more important during the pandemic, often cannot be adequately observed.

“In order to ensure that the patient is cared for, many colleagues regularly forego their breaks outside of the ward,” write the nurses. Many suffer from “the feeling that they are doing more than is actually humanly possible.” Many colleagues cry during or after work and no longer have the strength for leisure activities after work.

These descriptions do not differ from the conditions in Berlin hospitals. In numerous interviews, nurses report on completely overworked employees and poorly cared for patients due to major staff shortages.

While the nursing staff at Charité and Vivantes are fighting for better working conditions and relief from unbearable workloads, Vivantes management interrupted the negotiations for several days until Monday this week.

The last offer from management was an outright provocation. The offer not only contained no improvements for nursing staff, but even called for further concessions in some areas. For example, a staff-to-patient ratio on a normal ward of 10 patients to every nurse during the day and 20 patients to one nurse at night. It is impossible to provide quality care under these conditions.

Instead of intensifying and expanding the strike in response to management’s provocations, Verdi is determined to reach an agreement as quickly as possible. At the Charité, the negotiations between Verdi and the management are well advanced and Verdi believes an agreement is possible in the next few days. While concrete terms for minimum staffing levels on wards are currently still being negotiated, the parties have agreed on what they refer to as burden compensation. The system awards a point to a staff member who works five shifts while understaffed. Each point can be converted into eight hours of free time. However, days off accruing from this scheme will be capped at five per year.

Such an arrangement would neither end the overworking of nurses nor improve patient care. If a nurse works two shifts lasting eight hours while understaffed, they are not even entitled to two hours of free time. With the Verdi proposal, the company would still make a hefty profit with every overworked nurse and health care worker who breaks down crying at the end of the shift.

In view of the real situation of constant overwork, the capping of time off at five days means that it would have little impact. Most nurses already work massive amounts of overtime that is almost impossible to reduce due to the lack of staff. Verdi’s proposal aims merely to legally codify this permanent state of overwork in a collective agreement.

Nursing staff cannot expect much from the minimum staffing rules under negotiation. As early as 2016, after the conclusion of the “historic collective bargaining agreement” with similar rules, Verdi announced with great fanfare that working conditions would improve massively. In fact, nothing has changed. On the contrary, the situation is so catastrophic today that nurses are prepared to strike for over three weeks.

At Vivantes, the management recently offered one day of leisure time compensation after 12 hours of understaffed work. Trainees would only receive the free day after working 48 shifts. Nonetheless, union representatives expressly stated that here, too, they were optimistic that an agreement could be found soon.

Verdi’s despicable role is also evident in the negotiations for the workers employed by Vivantes’ subsidiaries. The staff in the cleaning, catering, laboratory and security services departments have also been on strike for many weeks. These workers receive up to €900 less for the same work as employees in the parent company. According to the union, many do not even receive the minimum wage of €12.50.

Vivantes, whose supervisory board chairman is the Berlin Senator for Finance Matthias Kollatz (SPD), has refused to give any ground. Verdi and the employers have agreed to call on the former Brandenburg Minister-President Matthias Platzeck (SPD) to serve as a mediator. The worn-out Social Democrat was not chosen at random. Under Platzeck’s leadership, the strike by workers at Charité subsidiary CFM, which had been rumbling on for years, was only settled at the beginning of this year.

Verdi and Charité management sought to appease the approximately 2,500 employees with the prospect of an adjustment of wages to the TVÖD (public sector collective agreement) after they had previously earned several hundred euros less for years. Even today, wages are still well below the TVÖD. Verdi deliberately excluded the CFM from the current strike at the Charité. Platzeck is now supposed to enforce a similar fraud at Vivantes.

This shows how closely Verdi, management and the political establishment work together against the workers. This week, incoming mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) met again in the Zionskirche with employees of the state-owned hospitals. Workers can only expect a further deterioration in their conditions under a new state government formed in the House of Representatives.

Giffey stated that “in the upcoming exploratory talks with all parties, hospital financing will be an important topic.” The main focus will be on how savings can be made at the state-owned hospitals. In the past few years, the municipal hospitals have received only a small amount of funds for investments, so that they had to finance them with their own funds that could actually have been diverted into patient care. The SPD has headed the Berlin government since 2001 and is therefore responsible for the current miserable conditions, together with the Left Party and the Greens.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the health care workers at Charité and Vivantes have to organize themselves in rank-and-file committees independently of Verdi in order to successfully lead the fight against the SPD/Left Party/Green Senate. The strike must be extended across the country and internationally. The whole working class must take action to come to the defence of health care workers.

The strike vote on an unlimited strike at the Brandenburger Asklepios hospitals in Brandenburg/Havel, Lübben and Teupitz concluded on October 5. Workers at these facilities recently organised a four-day warning strike. They are fighting for an increase in salaries, some of which are more than €10,000 per year below those of other Asklepios hospitals.