Democratic controlled Congress allows funding for school meal programs to expire, threatening 10 million children with hunger

Alex Findijs

Federal support for school lunches is set to expire at the end of the month after the US Congress refused to renew funds for a school meal program implemented in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The program waived food assistance requirements and allowed schools to reimburse costs for providing free lunches to all students. It provided $11 billion a year to schools, enabling them to provide breakfast and lunch to millions of students. 

Preschoolers eat lunch at a day care center, Monday, Oct. 25, 2021, in Mountlake Terrace, Wash. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

However, despite being extended by Congress two times before, the Democrats who control both the House and the Senate have decided it is no longer worth funding. By cutting the program from this year’s $1.5 trillion dollar federal budget, Congress has opened the door for hunger to return to nearly 10 million school age children this summer, a figure that is only likely to worsen as the school year returns in the fall. 

Jillian Meier, director of the advocacy group No Kid Hungry, told the Guardian, “I think we’re going to see in real time the summer hunger crisis grow, and that’s going to give us a preview of what’s going to happen next school year.” 

As food prices continue to skyrocket amid decades-high inflation, schools are being placed under an extreme amount of pressure. During the program they could rely on a steady reimbursement of $4.56 per meal for all students. Now they will only receive $3.66 for participating students as qualification restrictions go back into effect. 

The financial strain on schools will hit quickly. With food prices rapidly rising, reports have emerged of school officials shopping at Costco early in the morning to try and buy cheap food items in bulk. Some school districts have been forced to cut back on the number of food options and even the quality of the food, which could carry additional financial penalties as schools struggle to meet standards issued by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees federal school meal programs. 

Before the waivers have even been cut, schools were already struggling to keep meal programs running. According to USDA deputy undersecretary Stacy Dean, speaking to the Washington Post in March, “Ninety percent of schools are using the waivers and only 75 percent of them are breaking even.” And with a decline in school personnel during the pandemic, schools additionally lack the labor to improve services. 

“We literally believe we’re going to go off a cliff June 30,” Katie Wilson, executive director of the Urban School Food Alliance told Vox. “And we simply don’t have the labor to go back to doing what we did [pre-pandemic]. We have school districts that are missing hundreds of people, so to expect them to account for every kid and what their family income is ridiculous.” 

Millions of parents have been suddenly thrust into an impossible situation as well. They will have to somehow come up with the money to replace school meals that once provided up to 50 percent of their children’s daily caloric intake. Not only this, but school officials have noted that registering for free or reduced lunches under the previous requirements could be a year-long process.

Teachers and school workers often begin speaking with parents about meal programs in the fall, preparing them for registration for the following school year. Now schools will have to process millions of applications in a matter of months and many families may not be aware of or able to complete registration in time, leaving them without the assistance they need. 

This drastic cut to food services will have severe impacts on children’s health and ability to learn. According to a study by No Kid Hungry, providing access to summer meals for students could increase the number of high school graduates by 82,000 and save over $50 billion in educational costs each year. This is because hungry students are unable to learn effectively and often suffer from extensive learning loss over the summer, requiring additional funds to be dedicated to assist them. Not only this, but undernourished children are 31 percent more likely to be hospitalized with an average hospital bill of $12,000, a cost that could throw a family into debt for years. 

Blame for the cut has quickly been placed by the Democrats on Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who blocked the passage of the Kids Not Red Tape Act proposed by Democratic Senator from Michigan Debbie Stabenow this March. However, funding for the waiver was never included in the initial budget proposal, and despite bi-partisan support, never received any significant efforts by Senate Democrats to ensure its passage. 

Ultimately, the Democrats are in agreement with McConnell that pandemic era social measures must come to an end and that the gutting of what has become an essential service preventing child hunger is necessary to force parents back into the workplace. 

“There is no urgency and political appetite to even have this conversation,” said Meier. “Frankly this is not a priority for Congress and the White House. People are really focused on having a ‘return to normal’ ... folks aren’t talking about it and they have no clue that this crisis is looming.” 

100,000 Turkish doctors strike amid growing global movement of health care workers

Ulaş Ateşçi

Eleven organizations representing a majority of physicians and other health care workers in Turkey are striking nationwide Wednesday after their demands for better wages and benefits were rejected by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government.

In addition to the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), which has around 110,000 members, doctors' organizations such as Hekimsen, Hekim Birliği Union and Tabip Sen, as well as nurses and other health workers, are participating in the strike. At least 100,000 physicians are expected to participate in this work stoppage.

Health care workers in Turkey have been the most combative section of the working class since December last year, organizing numerous strikes and protests for their demands. Following strikes in January, February and March, Hekimsen went on strikes for six days.

The decision to strike came after the Erdoğan government submitted a bill to parliament that rejects all the basic demands of doctors and health care workers. Holding a 'Great Physician Workshop' last Saturday, they decided on a joint nationwide strike today.

In a joint statement yesterday, they declared, “We do not accept this proposed law, which was passed by the [parliamentary] commission and will be brought to the Parliament today, which does not include any improvements for us, our demands and our rights. We say ‘withdraw this law.’” They added that “Tomorrow we will be on strike for our social rights, and tomorrow we will not provide services except for emergency cases, intensive care and oncology cases.”

The statement drew attention to the link between the increasing subordination of the health system to capitalist profit and the deterioration of the working and living conditions of health care workers and public health services: “Turkey's health system, which has been privatized with the Health Transformation Program and which sees patients as customers, hospitals as businesses and us as slaves, is increasingly collapsing due to pandemics and crises.”

The doctors are demanding that COVID-19 be counted as an “occupational disease,” as health care workers have fallen ill with COVID-19 ten times more often than the broader population, and doctors have lost their lives four times more than the average. To date, over 500 health care workers in Turkey have died of COVID-19.

They also said, “Instead of reviewing and changing the system to solve the failure of the health system; violence, poverty, resignations, migration, lack of merit, unqualified education, performance-based work, mobbing, pressures” were imposed on them. The population, they stated, “is subjected to virtual queues at home, appointments that can be made months later, ever-increasing out-of-pocket expenses, incentives for private hospitals with regulations that devastate public health services, and inequality in health.”

The statement said that this year alone, 938 Turkish physicians have gone abroad due to these conditions, and suicides among health workers have increased. Speaking on March 8 on the growing emigration of physicians, Erdoğan said, “Let them go, if they go. Then we will employ our newly graduated doctors.” According to the Hekimsen union, “approximately 9,000 doctors have resigned from the public service in the last 20 months; nearly 2,000 of them have gone abroad or are about to leave.”

However, Erdoğan changed his tone in the first day of a two-day strike on March 14-15, stating, “This country owes a debt of gratitude to its doctors and needs them.” He claimed his government would make legal regulations to meet some health care workers’ demands. The bill that was then submitted to parliament completely ignored health workers’ demands, however.

Doctors and health care workers have also warned of wider and longer strikes if their demands are not met: “This is neither our first nor our last action. This is a protest against the proposed hollow law. Let no one doubt that we are in a crisis that will not refrain from longer work stoppages.” The statement concluded by calling on the public to support the strike.

Inflation, triggered by the massive printing of money by central banks to be handed over to the super-rich during the COVID-19 pandemic, has surged with NATO sanctions against Russia during the war in Ukraine. In Turkey, annual official inflation rose to 73.5 percent in May and food inflation to 91.6 percent. According to a more reliable report by the independent Inflation Research Group (ENAG), however, real annual inflation already exceeds160 percent.

Moreover, the poverty line for a family of four in Turkey reached 19,600 Turkish lira (currently $1,135) in May, according to the pro-government Türk-İş union confederation. The “hunger limit” (monthly food expenditures required for a family of four to have a healthy, balanced and adequate diet) rose to 6,017 Turkish lira ($350), 1,750 lira more than the minimum wage (4,250 TL, or currently $245).

The Erdoğan government is sitting on a social powder keg that is about to explode. According to a survey conducted by the Turkish Consumer Rights Association in March, nearly 90 percent of Turkey's population of about 85 million, or 76.5 million people, live below the poverty line. The survey also showed that 25.5 million of these 76.5 million people have an income below the hunger limit.

On the other hand, the share of corporations in national income increased from 42.9 to 47 percent in the last two years of pandemic profiteering, while the total wealth of millionaires reached 3.9 trillion Turkish lira.

Nonetheless, “Specialist physicians receive a salary of 12,000-13,000 TL and other physicians 9,500-10,000 TL with a fixed additional payment,” according to a recent report by Hekimsen. Doctors and health care workers are demanding a significant increase in their salaries and pensions as well as improved benefits.

Doctors are demanding that “malpractice” decisions be stopped against them and oppose working over 36 hours non-stop. They pointed out that the number of physicians in Turkey is one-third the average in OECD countries. Physicians also oppose reducing the time to examine a patient to five minutes.

They are demanding legal measures to deter assaults against them in the health care facilities. Each day, there are 40 acts of violence against health care workers in Turkey.

The growing strike movement of health care workers in Turkey expresses the rising anger of broad sections of the working class against the skyrocketing cost of living and social inequality. This year witnessed an explosion of strikes in Turkey, with at least 106 wildcat strikes in January and February alone.

Moreover, it is part of a global movement of strikes and protests by health care workers against understaffing, exhausting workloads and the erosion of their living standards, from Germany, the UK, and France to India, New Zealand and the United States and beyond.

The demands of health care workers in all these countries, and in fact, of the working class as a whole—an end to the subordination of health care to profit, a policy based on science and the protection of public health against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, decent wages and living conditions—require a frontal attack on the wealth and power of the financial oligarchy. It is enriching itself at the expense of the health and well-being of the overwhelming majority of the world's population.

Amid strike wave across France, Macron calls to rearm against Russia

Alex Lantier

On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron pledged to put France on a war footing, boost military spending and impose speedup on workers.

Speaking at the Eurosatory military show in Paris, Macron said France and the European Union (EU) are in a “war economy [for which] we must lastingly organize ourselves.” Citing NATO’s war with Russia in Ukraine, he said, “I have asked the [defense] ministry and the general staff to carry out in coming weeks a reevaluation of the military budget law given the current geopolitical context.”

With France’s military budget of €40.4 billion set to increase to €50 billion by 2025, Macron said: “We still have much to do to react to the deep transformations we are going through. And anyone who doubts the urgency of these efforts should look yet again to Ukraine, whose soldiers are demanding quality weapons and who have a right to an answer on our part. … We will take the decisions on investment and will advance the demands that go with them.”

As strikes spread across France, Macron is doubling down in support of the NATO war with Russia shortly after winning reelection against neofascist candidate Marine Le Pen in April. Hospital and airport workers went on strike last week, and mass transit workers and truckers are set to strike next week amid mounting anger at inflation and rising prices. Macron’s party was beaten into second place in this weekend’s first round of the legislative elections by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s New Popular Ecological and Social Union (NUPES).

France’s “president of the rich” is providing a classic example of how a desperate, hated government uses military adventures abroad to try to strangle the class struggle at home. Macron is trying to use the war NATO has launched with Russia in Ukraine to justify a reactionary agenda of military spending increases, €80 billion in social cuts, and imposing speedup on workers in strategic industries—in the face of mounting social opposition.

As Macron spoke, military planning officials revealed to Le Monde drafts of a draconian new law allowing the state to requisition industrial production and dictate workflow speed in any industry related to defense. The General Directorate for Armament (DGA) is coordinating this plan together with France’s major defense contracting companies such as Thales or Dassault and their parts suppliers.

Le Monde described it as “a bill allowing for the requisitioning of material or abilities of civilian companies even if France is not formally at war, as the law currently specifies. … The state could, for example, ask a mid-sized business specializing in precision mechanics that does not work in the defense sector to make itself available to a defense contractor and to speed up work on its assembly line.”

DGA chief Alexandre Lahousse told Le Monde it aims to boost France’s capacity to produce “shells, missiles, artillery and armament for infantrymen,” the main equipment needed in the Ukraine war. It also entails requisitioning large quantities of critical raw materials, including titanium, steel, and rare earth elements, or critical parts such as semiconductors. “Many corporations fear that Washington will requisition these materials for its own armies,” the paper noted.

Not only the rapidly increasing danger of world war breaking out in Europe, but also bitter strategic and corporate rivalries between the major NATO imperialist powers—notably between Washington and the EU powers—are driving Macron’s reckless military planning.

Germany in particular has announced a massive €100 billion special fund for military rearmament, as it repudiates the policy of military restraint it adopted after the fall of the Nazi regime and seeks to again emerge as Europe’s hegemonic military power. After the two world wars fought between France and Germany in the 20th century, the explosive rearmament of Germany is no doubt causing consternation in significant sections of the French military brass.

During the presidential elections, neofascist candidate Marine Le Pen denounced Germany as “the absolute negative of the strategic identity of France.” She also called for “a strategic rapprochement between NATO and Russia” once the Ukraine war was ended and criticized US foreign policy towards China as “too aggressive.” While apparently less aggressive against Russia and China, however, Le Pen called to threaten Algeria and develop France’s imperialist wars in its former colonial empire in Africa.

Macron speaks, however, for forces in the French bourgeoisie that, despite growing conflicts with Berlin, are trying to work with it to build up the EU as a counterweight to Washington. He did not denounce Berlin, but implicitly criticized it for devoting its €100 billion special fund to purchasing US weapons, like F-35 fighters and Chinook helicopters, rather than to multibillion-euro plans for a new, jointly developed Franco-German tank and jet fighter.

“Let us not go forward by repeating the errors of the past: spending a lot to buy things from elsewhere is not a good idea,” Macron said. “Now is the time to impose a preference for European products. … We need to reinforce industry and an industrial and technological base for European defense that is much stronger and more demanding, otherwise we will simply build the new dependencies of tomorrow.”

Macron’s warmongering remarks point to the mortal crisis of the capitalist system. In the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, EU and US authorities plunged trillions of euros and dollars into bank bailouts for the super-rich, while insisting that there was no money for a scientifically guided fight to stop the pandemic. These bank bailouts have fueled inflation that is now devastating workers’ living standards and provoking a growing strike wave.

Like other NATO heads of state, Macron is responding by stoking the war with Russia and moving to reimpose some form of state of emergency or martial law, on the fraudulent pretext that he is preparing for a war of national defense. But the threat to workers’ lives and living standards in France and across Europe comes not from Russia, but from the reckless social and military policies of NATO imperialist governments.

During the second round of the presidential elections between Macron and Le Pen in April, the Parti de l’égalité socialiste (PES) called for a campaign in the working class to boycott the second round, reject both candidates, and prepare for a movement against whichever candidate won. It emphasized that Macron would not be an alternative to Le Pen, but would also march towards dictatorship and war. Macron’s calls to place France on a war footing vindicate this assessment.

It also exposes the strategy advanced by Mélenchon and the NUPES against Macron, which is to call on voters to give the NUPES a majority in the National Assembly that would make Mélenchon prime minister. Such an arrangement would leave Macron as president with full control over foreign policy. It would thus allow Macron to impose military rearmament and press for cuts to wages and social spending, tearing apart Mélenchon’s promises to increase wages and pensions.

Mélenchon’s decision to align himself on the flood of denunciations of Russia by Macron and the capitalist media must be taken as a warning: He and the French union bureaucracies would capitulate to Macron’s calls to slash living standards to boost the war effort.

Pandemic profiteers prey on the crisis in education, while US schools are increasingly riven by class divide

Nancy Hanover

Children and their caregivers arrive for school in New York, Monday, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

American educators and students now commonly describe their schools as “falling apart.” There is an unprecedented exodus of teachers leaving the profession. The shortage of educators, bus drivers, and support staff has left districts reeling—cutting schools to four days a week, overstuffing classes, cutting programs and making parents responsible for their child’s transportation.

Decades of austerity have left most US school buildings antiquated, unsafe and poorly ventilated. The spread of COVID-19 is an everyday concern. Years of inadequate pay and rising healthcare costs have left educators struggling to put gas in their vehicles and keep the lights on. A new round of budget cuts and school layoffs is beginning as CARES money dries up and the US government diverts trillions of dollars for war.

If this “perfect storm” was not enough, students and educators are traumatized by the rise of school shootings and the wall of official indifference to their very lives.

But to Wall Street profiteers, these are not problems but opportunities.

The financial elites have seized upon the conditions created or exacerbated by the pandemic to reap record-breaking returns. Among them is a plethora of edubusinesses, charter schools (taxpayer-financed but privately run schools often run by for-profit businesses), the educational technology industry and associated hedge fund investors.

Profit interests have set their sights on the national K-12 education annual spending, estimated between $800 billion and $3 trillion. A bullseye has been placed on the American public education system. Every dollar paid to teachers and school workers (the vast bulk of the education budget) is viewed by this parasitic cabal as a deduction from potential profits.

Businesses are now taking advantage of an educational breakdown, not just in the US but throughout the world, where a parallel crisis is unfolding. The pandemic did not need to lead to such a state of collapse, as seen in China. But the policy of the financial elites is to let the virus rip throughout the population and refuse to close schools (identified as early as the influenza pandemic of 1918 as a nerve center of community transmission for disease) to keep parents at work.

This bipartisan policy, implemented in the US by Donald Trump and even more ferociously by Joe Biden, was reinforced by the unions’ willing partnership. While the ruling elites insisted on face-to-face instruction for the working class to keep parents on the job, they sent their own children to far safer, smaller schools with the most up-to-date COVID protections. 

In other words, the COVID protocols followed by public school districts were dictated not by the preservation of life but by the political interests of Democrats, Republicans and unions, answering to Wall Street. 

The refusal to implement targeted lockdowns, mass community-wide testing and contact tracing has resulted in chaotic patterns of schools opening and closing, unreliable transportation, children warehoused in auditoriums without teachers, unqualified substitutes, thousands of unreported cases, lots of sick children, parents and family members, and tragically unnecessary deaths. All of this has accelerated the growing privatization of American education. 

Jumping in to entice harried parents were charter schools, parochial schools, and especially all-virtual cyber charters—70 percent of which are for-profit businesses. Between 2020 and 2021, 1.5 million students left their public schools, a drop of 3.3 percent of the total US enrollment. During the same period, charter schools added more than a quarter of a million new students, a seven percent year-over-year increase between 2020 and 2021.

For example, the virtual charter school enrollment in Oklahoma more than doubled, adding more than 35,000 new students. According to the Washington Post, most signed up with the for-profit EPIC, which has been repeatedly investigated for misreporting costs to state officials, improper financial transfers and more. Similarly, Pennsylvania saw a growth of 99.7 percent in virtual charter schools. Cyber charters accounted for over 131 percent of the charter school increase in Utah. 

In other words, thousands of families were forced to migrate to substandard for-profit cyber charter schools in the hope of protecting themselves or their families from COVID-19.

These schools, established before the pandemic, were so notorious for their poor outcomes that even the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a pro-charter lobbying group, published a study calling for reform. According to Forbes, online charter schools have a “uniformly negative” track record for every demographic subgroup of students.

But the business model of the cybers was the most lucrative. Without the costs of buildings, lunch service or busing, these business owners pay themselves hefty salaries and still rake in double-digit profit margins. For example, Stride, the US’s largest Education Management Organization, running cyber charter schools across the US, tripled its net income posted in the quarter ending March 2021 and doubled its earnings before taxes. 

Given financial reports like Stride’s, it’s no wonder Wall Street is backing the breakup of the public school system. Former NY City mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg has donated $750 million effort to expand enrollment in charter schools, pay for new charter facilities and train charter teachers and principals. His efforts aim to increase charter enrollment in 20 metro areas by 150,000 students. Bloomberg, who last year denounced public school teachers opposed to school reopenings and told them to “Suck it up and go to work,” justified the initiative citing “traditional public schools’ failures since the pandemic began.” 

Private schools also took advantage of the crisis. A series of initiatives were mounted nationally during the pandemic to resuscitate voucher schemes. Vouchers use various means, including so-called “opportunity scholarships,” to transfer state monies to private schools. Most of these recent attempts failed to get the necessary support, including the lavishly funded “Let MI Kids Learn” petition drive sponsored by Betsy DeVos, Get Families Back to Work and the Republican Governors Association. 

California voucher proponents petitioned, also unsuccessfully, to force their private school scheme onto the 2022 General Election ballot. In Nevada, a judge blocked petition wording halting a proposed pro-voucher petition drive for 2022.

But the well-heeled proponents of private schools are continuing their efforts by other means. For example, Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Public Policy Foundation launched a statewide Parent Empowerment Tour in May to push for school vouchers.

The accelerated drive for school privatization, however, is not only mercenary. A fascistic cabal is spearheading the growth of religious schools and promoting right-wing, nationalist curricula.

The right-wing-dominated Supreme Court is expected to rule imminently on Carson v. Makin, that could further roll back restrictions on the use of public taxes for religious and private schools. It follows that body’s reactionary July 2020 decision in Espinoza v. Montana which opened the door to government subsidies for religious schools.

In a further disturbing development, Michigan’s Hillsdale College has announced a partnership with Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to open 50 charter schools in the state. $32 million in public funding will support the effort. Hillsdale is known as a “conservative,” if not fascist, ideological center. It developed the Trump 1776 curricula, endorsed the Great Barrington Declaration, and is closely tied to Trump’s education secretary Betsy DeVos, Clarence and Ginni Thomas. Lee emphasized that the schools would be devoted to “preserving American liberty” and opposed to so-called critical race theory.

Behind the scenes among all forms of education stands the Education Technology sector. It has  amassed record profits during the pandemic. With school districts desperately trying to accommodate in-person, online, and hybrid options, technology and software purchases were off the charts.

Technology proliferated for tutoring systems, augmented learning, adaptive technologies, enhanced curricula, classroom management, Social and Emotional Learning, student engagement solutions, professional development, and applications for endless communications and testing regimes.

The five tech superpowers—Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook—saw their combined revenue shoot up by more than $1.2 trillion, a one-year pandemic increase of 25 percent. Of course, businesses also contributed to the surge of technologies, but schools had the slimmest budgets and were the most vulnerable.

The size of the global education technology market size is staggering. As of 2021, it was valued at $106.46 billion, with predicted annual gains of 16 percent. Tech businesses, flush with profits, have repeatedly indulged in stock buybacks, enriching their key stockholders even further. Of the ten richest people in the world during the pandemic, eight made their money from tech, the New York Times has pointed out.

In sum, the looting of public education, schooling’s increasing social stratification by class, and the attempts to promote for-profit, pro-capitalist propaganda mills are another side of the ongoing destruction of democratic rights. The ruling elites seek to reorganize education and place it entirely on the basis of the capitalist market. 

The Demons of War Hunker Down in Ukraine

Ron Jacobs

Image by Gayatri Malhotra.

As the war between Russia and Ukraine heads into its second hundred days, the information we are getting regarding it is less clear and less likely to be the truth. This seems especially true in the US media, which contradicts itself in this regard with greater and greater frequency. As for what the Russian media is reporting, that is becoming almost impossible to discover given the expanding censorship of news source that Washington or London considers linked to Moscow. Of course, this censorship is structured different than the censorship in Ukraine and Russia, where much of it is government-imposed. Here in the land of the free, censorship takes the shape of corporate de-platforming of various podcasts, websites and video programming. In addition, corporate payment apps (Pay Pal, etc.) cancel the censored entities accounts, thereby defunding them.

Given the growing amount of disinformation, misinformation and censorship, those leading the charge from Washington, London, Brussels and Kyiv can pretty much write and say whatever they want and no one can prove otherwise. Those who challenge their narrative are often characterized as a Russian asset. This typecasting has expanded so deep and wide that even long-time pacifist groups decrying the war (like they have every other war) are being painted as Russian sympathizers. Indeed, certain segments of the US Left that support Kyiv have come perilously close to identifying pacifists and others opposed to this war in this manner.

One of the newer chapters in this relatively brief conflict concerns a “growing” partisan resistance movement. Some of the same leftists mentioned above have been talking up this resistance for a while, now. Recently, the New York Times published a fairly long article on it. (6/10/2022) The article read much like a press release from the CIA and was dutifully vague in its description of this resistance. For various reasons, there were no numbers discussed. However, neither were the politics of the members discussed; something that raised a few flags in this observer’s mind. It’s legitimate to wonder if these resistance cells are actually made up of ultra-right Ukrainians associated with various neo-nazi organizations or perhaps they are sponsored by the Ukrainian Catholic Church or some other conservative faction identified with the uglier side of Ukrainian nationalism. I’m fairly certain that those on the Left urging others to support them believe these partisans are mostly communist and socialist, while the New York Times prefers to believe they are all pro-capitalist liberals. Given the fact that, according to the Times article, most if not all of these groups are in fairly constant contact with the CIA-organized Ukrainian Center of National Resistance which was formalized last July 2021, it seems pretty reasonable that the bulk of this resistance is made up of far-right and pro-Zelenskyy Ukrainians. Assuming these groups do exist, whether or not they will make any real difference in the war remains to be seen.

Besides Ukraine’s internal situation there is also what Washington and Moscow want this conflict to mean for the future of the world. It seems fairly clear that Moscow’s primary hope is that it can halt the bulldozer that is Washington and NATO. Stating this fact is not an endorsement of Moscow or its aggression. Once again, we have no real idea about Moscow’s intentions because most of what gets to the United States in that regard has been filtered through the consent manufacturing department of the US media or is just plain fiction. On the other hand, Washington has no bones about making its desires clear. For example, on June 10, 2022 President Zelenskyy told a group of pro-US rulers meeting in Asia: “It is on the battlefield in Ukraine that the future rules of this world are being decided,” he said. “So let us save the whole world from coming back to the times when everything was decided by the so-called right of might.” The fact that this was said without any irony dismisses the history of the US/NATO war machine of the last several decades. After all, if NATO had not spent the last twenty-five or so years assimilating nations of eastern Europe like the Borg in Star Trek and had instead decided on a different cooperative security mechanism that included Moscow after the end of the USSR, Ukraine would probably not be in the straits it is in. Washington rejected the overtures made by Moscow regarding a cooperative security arrangement and intentionally chose a path that emphasized its military might to further its hegemonic agenda. This “right of might” Mr. Zelenskyy refers to remains Washington’s standard operating procedure and is a major reason why it dominates so much of the world.

At long last, calls for a negotiated peace are beginning to be heard from sections of the ruling elites in the US and the west. At the same time, Kyiv is awaiting $45 billion dollars of US military aid while aggressively demanding that other nations replenish its supplies of military hardware. Not all of those nations are responding positively. Germany and Bulgaria have both shown some reluctance to continue a war they seem to understand needs to end before it takes down the US-dominated sectors of the world economy they are tied to and creates a situation that could make the recent pandemic seem like a lark.

Indeed, it is the economic factor which may very well determine the course of the Russia-Ukraine war. Washington’s rush to impose sanctions and its cessation of trade with Moscow exacerbated an economic situation that was tenuous at best for the majority of US residents, not to mention even more dire situations elsewhere. As Beijing, Moscow and some of the non-aligned nations (Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, for example) continue to broaden their economic cooperation, the possibility that an alternative global trading project could evolve increases. This would force Washington and its clients and allies into actually competing on equal ground with its capitalist rivals. Of course, this scenario is as potentially dangerous as it is positive. Troubled empires have been known to escalate such rivalries into world wars. In June 2022, Washington certainly qualifies as a troubled empire. If history is a guide, this means that in order for a greater war to be avoided, the power of the non-US-based trading system would have to project enough threat to require diplomacy and detente over war and apocalypse; a balance of terror, so to speak.

The trade unions in Germany act as wages police

Peter Schwarz

Despite the skyrocketing cost of living the head of the German IG Metall union has publicly pledged to demand only a maximum 7 percent wage increase spread over two years in the autumn collective bargaining round for the metal-working industry’s 4 million employees. That would amount to the biggest real wage in Germany cut since the economic crisis of the 1930s.

IG Metall boss Jörg Hofmann [Photo by IG Metall]

In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Jörg Hofmann assured that his union would follow the European Central Bank’s inflation target of 2 percent “and not the current inflation rate of almost eight percent” as the benchmark for its wage demands.

“According to the proven wage formula, we follow the estimated two percent target inflation of the European Central Bank and the increase in productivity, which is 1.1 percent. And that’s for two years,” the IG Metall (IGM) leader said. “So, only based on this formula do we come to a demand for six percent more wages. On top of that, there is necessarily a redistribution component, because the companies are making such high profits right now.”

Even if the union follows through on this demand—and it usually accepts just half at most—this would still result in a dramatic loss of income. Collectively negotiated wages in the metal-working industry have not increased since 2018. Since then, IGM has only agreed to one-time payments, which, although they dampened the loss of purchasing power in the short term, have not counted toward basic wages on which future increases are based.

Assuming 8 percent inflation for both this year and next—and many experts expect it to reach double digits—the official consumer price index at the end of 2023 would be around 23 percent higher than in 2018. Collectively agreed wages, however, would only have risen by 7 percent even if the IGM demand were fully implemented. The real wages of a metal worker would therefore be 16 percent lower than five years ago!

However, the official inflation index does not adequately reflect the actual increase in prices. Above all, prices for food, heating, rent and energy, which place a particularly heavy burden on lower and middle income earners, have risen several times over. The World Bank expects international food prices to rise by 22.9 percent this year. For many workers and their families, this is threatening their very existence. They are simply no longer able to make ends meet on their monthly salaries.

Add to this unbearable work stress, the threat of job losses and the consequences of a homicidal coronavirus policy that has claimed 140,000 lives and infected 3.6 million in Germany alone, with 1 in 10 suffering long-term health effects.

All over the world, workers are reaching the conclusion that they must fight to defend their rights and past gains. The number of strikes and protests around the world have increased significantly—from the US to Europe, Asia and Africa. However, Hofmann and his bureaucrats are responding by collaborating even more closely than before with the corporations and government.

In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Hofmann justifies his rejection of seeking adequate compensation for inflation by saying that IG Metall was acting “sensibly” and had “the good of the whole country in mind.” “We are not triggering a wages-prices spiral,” he added, completely accepting the lying claim that workers’ wages are somehow responsible for massive price rises.

When he talks of the “good of the whole country” he really means the ruling elites and their stock market values and profits. In this he speaks for not only IG Metall, but for all the German unions and trade unions internationally.

In Germany alone, contract talks are set to take place this year covering 10 million employees. In addition to the almost 4 million workers in the metal and electrical industries, this includes 92,000 in the iron and steel industry and 580,000 in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Here, the IG BCE has postponed collective bargaining from April to the autumn and agreed on a one-time bridge payment of €1,400, which can be reduced to €1,000 by the companies.

The service sector union Verdi has already signed collective agreements for the printing industry, the insurance industry, the private banking sector and daily newspapers that are far below the demands of IG Metall. The agreements will each run for two years and consist of one or two single payments of €500 and annual pay rises of just 1.5 to 3 percent.

At the end of the year, the collective agreements for 2.7 million employees in the federal and local government sectors, retail trade, the motor vehicle industry and the construction industry expire.

In the past, unions that represented the interests of the bosses and stabbed workers in the back were called “yellow unions.” Today, all unions are yellow. They have become a wages police force working for the corporations.

Every day, they try to prove anew to the transnational corporations and financial investors that production can be more cost-effective and profitable in “their” country rather than elsewhere. To do so, they sacrifice the wages, working conditions and social gains of the workers. In exchange they receive lucrative handouts from management as supervisory board members and works council representatives.

The “wages-prices spiral” that Hofmann cites to justify wage restraint is simply an obscene lie propagated by the capitalists and their union flunkeys. According to this, it is workers’ wage demands that are responsible for rising prices. To stop price increases, workers have no choice but to sit back and watch inflation rip up their incomes.

In fact, inflation is the form in which vast sums are being recouped from the working class that governments have pumped into the pockets of the rich.

The European Central Bank alone has invested €5.1 trillion in public and private bonds in the last seven years. This unimaginable sum would be enough to pay out €15,000 in cash to each of the eurozone’s 342 million inhabitants, from infants to the elderly, not to mention the countless hospitals, schools and infrastructure projects it could finance. Instead, those trillions have funded an orgy of enrichment, which according to Oxfam, produced a new billionaire every 30 hours during the pandemic.

The disruption of supply chains during the pandemic and the repercussions of the Ukraine war and the sanctions against Russia have shaken this massive speculative bubble. Now, everything is being done to make the working class foot the bill.

Added to this are the huge costs of military rearmament as all imperialist powers—above all Germany—prepare for a violent re-division of the world, which has already begun with NATO’s proxy war against Russia and the increasingly bellicose threats against China. It is an open secret that the €100 billion “Special Fund for the Bundeswehr” is only the beginning. The working class is to bear the costs for all of this.

The interest rate hikes by central banks serve to further increase the pressure on the working class, which is to be hammered by rising unemployment. Meanwhile, profits continue to rise ever upward.

In the second half of 2021, despite growing crises, corporations in the US recorded their highest after-tax profit rate since the early 1950s—almost 15 percent. German Dax-listed companies also set new records; in the first quarter of 2022, their profits were 21 percent higher than in the same quarter the previous year. Nevertheless, the working class is being made to bleed.

University of Tel Aviv study points to COVID as cause of recent unexplained acute liver failure among children

Benjamin Mateus

On June 7, 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Hepatitis Alliance, at their World Hepatitis Summit 2022, released a joint news statement in which they also briefly addressed the current cases of unexplained acute hepatitis (liver inflammation) among young children. There have been some 700 such cases in the last five months, spanning 34 countries, coinciding with the Omicron phase of the pandemic. The United Kingdom and the United States lead in the number of cases, each with more than 200.

Israelis receive a COVID-19 vaccine from medical professionals at a coronavirus vaccination center set up on a shopping mall parking lot in Givataim, Israel [Credit: AP Photo/Oded Balilty]

The clinical signs of the disease come on suddenly, with a high proportion of children developing liver failure and around six percent needing a liver transplant. Nine have died. The most common symptoms are vomiting and jaundice, the yellowing of the skin and the sclera of the eyes. 

Many in the scientific community speculated that the disease fell into the spectrum of the multisystem inflammatory syndrome-children (MIS-C) arising from a previous COVID infection, which can afflict a minority of children and adolescents after the acute phase of COVID has passed and their infections have already cleared, meaning that once acute hepatitis manifests, their COVID tests are negative. Many have also not had antibody tests conducted to confirm previous COVID infections.

Speaking with New Scientist, Dr. Deepti Gurdasani of Queen Mary University of London said, “I think we have seen hepatitis as part of MIS-C before, but not in the numbers that are being seen now.” She explained that the rise could be because Omicron has infected millions of children in a few short months.

Many public health officials, including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the WHO, have placed undue emphasis on adenovirus infections, which commonly cause colds and flu-like symptoms in the population. However, they almost never cause liver failure among previously healthy children, or even the immuno-compromised, for that matter. 

Despite experience with adenoviruses and ample expertise on viral infections and liver injury that have been amply documented in the literature, this didn’t stop the CDC from writing on May 6, 2022, “This cluster [in Kentucky], along with recently identified possible cases in Europe, suggest that adenovirus should be considered in the differential diagnosis of acute hepatitis of unknown etiology among children.” 

But in their report they clearly stated that on liver biopsies no [adenovirus] viral infections were ever observed. Even with the use of the electron microscope, no viral particles were evident. In the very rare instances where adenoviruses have caused liver failure among immunocompromised children, in 100 percent of cases the adenovirus was detected in liver cells.

On May 22 the WHO provided a more nuanced perspective, writing, “While adenovirus is a plausible hypothesis as part of the pathogenesis mechanism [the manner of development of disease], further investigations are ongoing for the causative agent; adenovirus infection (which generally causes mild self-limiting gastrointestinal or respiratory infections in young children) does not fully explain the more severe clinical picture observed with these cases.”

Dr. Farid Jalali, a gastroenterologist, has emphatically denounced the claim that these recent unexplained pediatric acute liver failures are associated with the detection of adenovirus in the patients, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and recent massive waves of Omicron infections. Adenoviruses are common and can colonize the areas of the respiratory and intestinal tracts. Finding them doesn’t necessarily indicate they were the cause of the disease.

He emphasized that public health institutions are doing a disservice to the children and families of the afflicted by suggesting such an association and are only minimizing the dangers posed by the current policies that allow SARS-CoV-2 to persist in human communities. 

The debate in the scientific community has been ongoing. However, a recent study from Tel Aviv University has provided new evidence that COVID is indeed responsible for these acute liver failure cases. Lead author Dr. Shiri Cooper and colleagues submitted a report last Friday to the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition on five pediatric cases that had recovered from asymptomatic or mild COVID and later suffered acute liver injury.

They distinguished two patterns of liver involvement after COVID-19: acute liver failure that required transplantation and acute hepatitis with injury to the bile system. Interestingly, the two patients with liver failure were aged only three and five months, and those older, aged eight to 13, developed a disease pattern similar to their adult counterparts. 

In adults, post-COVID liver injury has been described in the medical literature but usually as a late complication of severe COVID and hospitalization that leads to progressive liver failure. 

Cooper and colleagues in the current study from Tel Aviv University wrote, “The clinical manifestation of the pediatric patients suggests that the pathogenesis is not related to the severity of acute [COVID] disease” as it is in adults. The disease among children frequently presents several months after the diagnosis of COVID-19. In their study, the mean time from COVID to liver failure was 75 days, which explains why so many of these cases were missed as Long-COVID complications, because children are routinely missed in diagnosing the milder form of acute disease. 

Many of the findings in the children with liver failure have also been seen in adults, such as the swelling and enlargement of the liver. The walls of the gallbladders were thickened, and the bile ducts were dilated. Biopsies of the liver showed extensive inflammation. In other words, the disease process that has been attributed to adults after their COVID infection has distinct parallels with these children and their acute liver inflammation.

Because of the claimed association with adenovirus, the authors of the Israeli study also attempted to investigate this hypothesis. 

First, they commented on published results by the European CDC on 14 cases. None showed adenovirus in any residual liver cells, called hepatocytes: “One case underwent adenovirus PCR of liver tissue which was negative.” In another case series of six patients, none of the liver biopsies showed the presence of any adenovirus particles. But as already noted, in rare cases of adenovirus-induced liver failure, liver biopsies in all the cases showed viral particles were present. 

In the five patients in Israel, “The adenovirus stain was negative in all, and the histologic features [under the microscope] were not suggestive of adenovirus hepatitis. Three patients had adenovirus PCR performed from whole blood, and in one, it was positive. However, as the liver histology was not suggestive of adenovirus infection, we did not consider it as the culprit for the hepatitis.”

As to the mechanism of injury, the authors suggested that damage to the immune system from COVID is likely the cause, and considerable effort is needed to understand these complex processes. It is all the more necessary that public health authorities stop being obstructionists, heed the weight of the evidence that has already been presented, and acknowledge the dangers posed by COVID and the reckless “herd immunity” policy that exposes children to unnecessary harm. 

Dr. Lisa Iannattone stated bluntly on Twitter, “Anyone putting forth the hypothesis that there are two novel pediatric liver failure outbreaks caused by two different viruses happening at the same time is not someone to be taken seriously. I don’t care what ‘very serious institution’ they work for. This is absurd. It’s COVID.”

South Korean truckers continue indefinite strike against soaring fuel prices

Ben McGrath

An indefinite strike of South Korean cargo truck workers continued into its second week on Tuesday, as they struggle against high fuel prices and the tearing up of safety measures.

Striking truck drivers in South Korea, June 7, 2022 (Photo: Facebook / Korean Confederation of Trade Unions)

The strike, which is having an impact on other industries, including steel making and automotive manufacturing, is part of a growing upsurge of working class action around the world against inflation and other attacks on living and working conditions.

Workers in the 25,000-member Cargo Truckers Solidarity (CTS) union are demanding a rise in freight prices to cover soaring fuel costs as well as the extension of the Safe Trucking Freight Rates System, which is due to expire at the end of the year. The system sets a legal minimum for freight fares, so workers do not feel forced to drive unsafely to make ends meet. Cargo drivers are also demanding an expansion of the goods covered under the system.

In recent months, the cost of diesel fuel has skyrocketed to a national average of 2,008 won ($US1.56) per liter. Drivers reported spending as much as 100,000 won ($US77.50) or more to fill up their gas tanks. Cargo drivers are considered self-employed contractors, so fuel costs are passed on from the companies to the workers.

CTS is negotiating with South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. CTS is affiliated with the so-called militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), which claims to have more than 1.1 million members.

The Trade Ministry has estimated that in steel, automotive and other related industries, the strike so far has resulted in disruptions to production and distribution worth 1.6 trillion won ($US1.24 billion), as companies cannot receive materials or ship finished products. Workers’ pickets have obstructed roads leading to facilities, in addition to drivers refusing to haul goods.

As of Monday, police have detained at least 44 union members for supposedly obstructing business operations.

The country’s two largest steelmakers, POSCO and Hyundai Steel, have reported disruptions to their operations. POSCO stated that as of Monday morning, production at its Pohang steel complex in North Gyeongsang Province had halted at several facilities, with daily production of wire rods dropping by 7,500 tons and that of cold-rolled steel declining by 4,500 tons. The Pohang steel complex typically produces 20,000 tons of steel per day. While production has not been halted at Hyundai Steel, an official from the company told the media: “If the strike is protracted, we may have to adjust our production.”

Drivers on picket lines at companies like Hyundai Motors and Kia Motors have also caused disruptions to production. Hyundai claimed last week that the strike forced the company to halve production at its Ulsan factory, the largest auto facility in the country. The company normally produces about 6,000 vehicles per day at the plant.

Major ports like Busan, Incheon, and Pyeongtaek are seeing disruptions as drivers demonstrate at the facilities, refuse to move shipping containers and call on non-union drivers to join the strike. At Busan, the largest port in the country, the transportation of containers has fallen to approximately 25 percent of normal activity.

Reflecting the growing concerns of the ruling class about rising workers’ struggles internationally, the New York Times referred to the strike as “the latest headache for a global supply chain already reeling” from the COVID-19 pandemic and the US/NATO-instigated war against Russia in Ukraine. South Korea is a major manufacturer of semiconductors, steel, and automobiles.

As in Korea, there is a growing strike wave globally. Millions of workers in the United States, Europe, Asia and throughout the world face huge fuel costs, soaring food prices and other attacks on their wages and living conditions. In this, Korean truck drivers have powerful allies in their class brothers and sisters internationally.

The drivers also face the same enemy: the capitalist system itself. This includes all elements of the ruling elite, from the right-wing government of President Yoon Suk-yeol and the companies to the trade union bureaucracies.

Speaking through administration officials, Yoon told reporters on Monday that he had instructed his government to “come up with solutions from various angles, as the damage to industries could increase this week.”

Already, the government is using the military to serve as strikebreakers and scabs. The Transport Ministry has deployed at least 100 military cargo trucks and dozens of others from local governments to move goods at ports.

However, CTS and the KCTU are attempting to isolate the strike and allow workers to burn themselves out. Kim Gyeong-dong, a CTS official, told the media last week that the union had run out of funds to conduct the strike as of Thursday and it was unlikely that it could continue for another ten days after that.

This is an admission by the union that it is looking to wrap up the strike as quickly as possible. For all the KCTU and its affiliates’ posturing as militant organizations, their goal from the start has been to allow workers to let off steam before sending them back to work without their demands being met, or with vague false promises from the government to address their concerns.

Furthermore, the union is keeping the number of drivers participating in the strike to a minimum. According to the Transport Ministry, only 6,600 drivers were involved in strike action on Monday, though CTS claims that the government is underestimating the number of strikers.

This may be true, but the union itself claimed that only 15,000 drivers went on strike on the first day, leaving another 10,000 drivers on the job to minimize as much as possible the impact of the stoppage. In total, there are 420,000 truck drivers throughout the industry and while union officials pay lip service to encouraging non-union drivers to join the strike, there has been no genuine effort from the bureaucrats to broaden the struggle.