Pandemic-related surge of mental health issues continues in Australia

John Mackay

At least one million Australian’s have sought mental health assistance during the COVID-19 crisis, with new data describing a surge in the use of services in Victoria during the recent “wave” of the pandemic.

Pedestrians walk away from the central business district in Melbourne, Australia, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)

The Victorian coronavirus outbreak, which commenced at the end of June and lasted 139 days, resulted in more than 18,000 infections and 806 deaths between July and October.

The first Commonwealth Health Department data on the pandemic, released earlier this month, shows that access to crisis services has risen by 67 percent in Victoria. This included a 30 percent increase in the demand for children’s mental health services in a four-week period during September and October.

The data, obtained by the Australian newspaper, reveals that some 350,884 Victorians sought access to Medicare funded GPs, psychiatrists, psychologists and other counselling for that period over this period. That represents a 31 percent increase compared to the same period in 2019, with the Victorian figures three times the national average. The spike is more than double that experienced in New South Wales (NSW), the country’s most populous state.

The figures show the major impact the pandemic has had on the mental health of both children and adults. There were some 3,702 calls to the Kids Helpline in Victoria over the same four-week period, a 61 percent increase and 24 percent higher than the rest of the country. Beyond Blue, another service, recorded 6,472 calls in those weeks, representing a 67 percent increase compared to the previous year.

These findings come at the same time as another national survey released by the Wesley Mission reported that the mental health of three out of four people has been negatively affected by COVID-19. Of those, 40 percent feel uncertain about the future, one third reported stress and more than a quarter stated that they have felt more anxious during the pandemic. At least 20 experiencing worsening mental health had not received any assistance.

New government statistics have also provided some insight on the state of mental health prior to the pandemic. Data released last month by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) showed that 4.3 million people, or 17.1 percent of the Australian population, received mental-health related prescriptions in 2018–19.

Other figures show a significant rise in those seeking mental health services over time.

In 2008–09, 5.7 percent of the Australian population accessed Medicare subsidised mental health-specific services. This almost doubled in 2018–19, with 10.6 percent receiving assistance, but even this is likely an underestimation.

Another report by the AIHW and Flinders University released in September, “Suicide in Australia; Trends and analysis 1964–2018” highlights a disturbing increase of people taking their own life. Rates have been increasing steadily over the last 10 years, from an average of over 2,000 annual deaths by suicide in the mid-1980s, to more than 3,000 each year in 2017 and 2018.

In 2016-18, suicide was the leading cause of death for those aged between 15 and 44, with males representing a higher proportion. However, there is evidence of changes to this trend, with suicide rates among teenage girls increasing faster than any other age group. Those born from 1994–98 and 1999–2003 reached six suicide deaths per 100,000 by age 15–19, considerably higher than earlier generations of girls at the same age.

Hospitalisation for self-harm is more common among the younger age groups. According to the AIHW report, in contrast to the high prevalence of male suicide, young girls and women are more likely to be hospitalised for intentional self-harm than men, making up almost two thirds of all cases in 2016–17.

Teenage girls (15–19 years) with 686 per 100,000 persons represent the highest category of reported self-harm compared to 180 per 100,000 for boys. Between 2007–08 and 2016–17 the rates of hospitalised injury cases for intentional self-harm for females aged 15–24 rose 62 percent.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) measures “years lost,” which refers to deaths earlier than expected as a result of mental health and suicide and how many more years those affected could have lived. Intentional self-harm or suicide led to 115,000 lost years of life in 2019. By comparison, ischemic heart disease, which is considered one of the highest causes of early death, was responsible for 78,000 lost years.

The average age for those who die from suicide is 44 years. This has fallen over the last 10 years in line with the increase in depression and anxiety among younger cohorts.

The mental health crisis cannot be understood without reference to the enormous growth of social inequality. The global financial crisis of 2008, then the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression, saw the gutting of funding to essential services such as healthcare and education under Labor and Liberal-National governments, and a marked increase in poverty and other forms of social misery. This was on top of the devastation already caused by the gutting of jobs and wages initiated under the Hawke and Keating Labor governments in the 1980s and 90s, and continued to this day.

Over the same period, the wealth of the corporate and financial elite has soared to astronomical levels.

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of workers have been hit with lay-offs, sackings and dramatic falls in income, with the blows falling heavily on younger layers who are disproportionately represented in precarious casual and contract employment. While doing virtually nothing for ordinary people, governments, with the support of the unions, have funnelled hundreds of millions in public funds to the major corporations, and have embarked on a further pro-business overhaul of industrial relations and working conditions.

Professor Ian Hickie, one of the co-directors of the University of Sydney’s Brain Mind Institute told the Australian this month that there was “an urgent need for substantive investments in new services” to meet the demands of the crisis. “Victoria, clearly at the moment stands out… but other parts of the country as well where unemployment and uncertain futures is biting hard.”

“Young people are at the top of the list. All the feedback from youth services around the country, particularly in Victoria, is there is a massive increase in demand in the past three months. What we need urgently is a national response.” He went on to stress that “people will die on waiting lists.”

In an article published in the Guardian, Professor Hickey outlined the woefully inadequate response of the federal Liberal-National government, backed by the Labor opposition.

Hickey wrote: “The budget papers predict that the commonwealth will spend $5.7 billion on mental health in 2020 (alongside more than $6 billion by states and territories). As national health spending is well over $180 billion, mental health spending will not increase substantially above its long-term average of 7 percent. In fact, given the additional expenditures urgently required in the physical health and aged care sectors, real mental health spending may fall.”

For decades, state and federal governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike, have ignored repeated warnings about the shortages of mental health services.

In Victoria, for example, a 2007 Office of the Public Advocate report tabled in state parliament revealed a four-year bed shortage in the state’s 106 mental health facilities. It found that some patients waited up to 48 hours in emergency departments for admission to acute mental health units and that the wait time for extended care beds was more than eight months.

In 2018, a report revealed that in an estimated 34 percent of emergency departments across the country, it is typical for mental health patients to wait eight or more hours for a bed, even after being assessed as needing hospital care.

Trump administration delays enforcement of TikTok ban

Kevin Reed

The Trump administration gave an 11th-hour 15-day extension to the deadline for TikTok to be sold to US owners before the China-based short-form video sharing app was to be shut down on November 12.

A smartphone with Tik Tok and WeChat apps [Credit: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File]

The extension, granted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which oversees the acquisition of US companies by foreign entities, was confirmed by the Treasury Department on Friday. A department statement said, “This extension will provide the parties and the Committee additional time to resolve this case in a manner that complies with the Order.”

The order referred to is the executive declaration issued by President Trump on August 6 that identified TikTok as an example of how “the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China) continues to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.” None of these assertions have been substantiated by any facts, much less proven.

TikTok now has 850 million worldwide users and 100 million users in the US. The app has continued to be downloaded by mobile device users in record numbers despite the anti-Chinese propaganda campaign of the White House that has been supported by both the Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

TikTok, with more than 60 percent of its US users between the of ages 10 and 29, is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. The company launched TikTok in 2017 as a worldwide version of its popular Chinese app called Douyin, which had been created a year earlier. When ByteDance acquired a Chinese competitor called musical.ly—which had an office in Santa Monica, California—and merged it with TikTok in August 2018, the combined product took off.

According to a study performed by iPrice Group, “The USA recorded the highest download index of TikTok videos despite its recent controversy with the app. For now, TikTok reigns as the USA’s #1 entertainment app as it wins reprieve from Trump’s ban orders.”

The establishment of the new deadline of November 27 by the White House is a de facto acknowledgement that its imperialist bullying of the successful and financially valuable Chinese-owned social media platform had become entangled in a web of political and economic contradictions, not the least of which was the electoral defeat of Donald Trump on November 3.

It is ironic that one of the bogus assertions from the White House about TikTok has been that the “mobile application may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party,” and President Trump himself is engaged in one of the biggest lies in American history—declaring that he won the 2020 presidential election with the support of leading figures in the Republican Party, despite losing the popular vote by nearly 6 million votes as well as the electoral college.

Another of the problems faced by the White House has been the court decisions that Trump’s TikTok executive orders were unconstitutional violations of first (speech) and fifth (due process) amendment rights and that a shutdown of the platform would cause harm to users.

The terms of the executive order, which were subsequently spelled out by the President’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, said that TikTok must be acquired by a US firm by November 12 or all financial transactions with the company, such as revenue generated in advertising sales, or all technology platforms hosting the app, such as Apple’s iOS and the Android operating systems, would be declared illegal.

While there are conflicting messages coming from the White House about what will happen next, TikTok said it was committed to engaging with CFIUS to address the security concerns, “even as we disagree with them.”

There is symbolic significance to the new deadline established for the sale of TikTok. November 27 is known in the US as the post-Thanksgiving Day retail event called Black Friday, where massive price markdowns are offered on consumer tech products to Christmas shoppers. Since the beginning of the anti-Chinese campaign against TikTok, an effort has been mounted by the billionaire Trump and his ultra-wealthy cohorts in the tech and retail industries to get their hands on the prized video-sharing platform at a steep discount.

An operative proposal for the acquisition of the assets of TikTok between the US-based enterprise software giant Oracle and global retail monopoly Walmart was given preliminary approval by the Trump administration on September 19. The deal would create a new entity called TikTok Global jointly with 20 percent owned by Oracle and Walmart and the rest split between a group of US venture capitalists and the current Chinese shareholders.

Since this deal would make Oracle merely a “trusted tech partner” of TikTok, leaving a majority ownership with the ByteDance investors, the plan has run up against opposition from the extreme nationalist and virulent anti-Chinese political figures in the US, including Trump. It is unclear whether an agreement can be worked out before the new deadline on November 27.

Although the media has reported that there is “uncertainty” about the future of the TikTok divestiture by ByteDance because of the victory of President-elect Joseph Biden, the Wall Street Journal reported on November 11 that the former vice president’s office said “it didn’t have anything to share on its TikTok plans.” The Journal also wrote that it was unclear whether Biden “would expend political capital to overturn the orders” issued by the Trump administration.

What is clear is that the incoming Biden administration will use whatever tactics are necessary—including an outright theft of the TikTok platform from the Chinese owners—as part of the drive to preserve US domination of the global tech markets. Keeping the Trump administration’s executive orders in place will also keep the cinders of anti-Chinese hatred burning while preparations are being made for the larger trade and military conflicts with China.

World economy engulfed by “debt tsunami”

Nick Beams

Global debt has risen to unprecedented levels since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in what the Institute for International Finance (IIF), whose members include over 400 banks and financial institutions, has characterised as an “attack of the debt tsunami.”

In its Global Debt Monitor report issued on Wednesday, the IIF, said global debt would set a new record and reach $277 trillion by the end of the year, equivalent to 365 percent of world GDP.

“Spurred by a sharp rise in government and corporate borrowing as the COVID-19 pandemic wears on, the global debt load increased by $15 trillion in the first three quarters of 2020 and now stands at $272 trillion,” the IIF report said.

Federal Reserve Building on Constitution Avenue in Washington [Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file]

The extent of the debt acceleration is revealed in data for individual countries and regions. Debt in the major economies jumped to 432 percent of GDP in the third quarter, up from about 380 percent at the end of 2019. Emerging market debt hit nearly 250 percent, with China at 335 percent.

In the US, total debt is on track to reach $80 trillion this year, up from $71 trillion at the end of last year. Debt in the euro area rose by $1.5 trillion in the first nine months of this year.

The IIF report said debt burdens were particularly onerous for emerging market economies, having risen by 26 percent this year as a proportion of GDP. Consequently, the share of government revenues in these countries going to make payments to international finance capital has been rising sharply.

This week Zambia became the sixth developing country to default on a loan and more defaults are expected to come. By the end of next year, some $7 trillion of emerging market bonds and syndicated loans will come due with about 15 percent denominated in US dollars.

The debt crisis for these countries is being intensified by the downturn in the world economy which, according to the International Monetary Fund, is expected to contract by 4.4 percent this year. The IMF has predicted a rebound for 2021 but that forecast was issued before the latest surge in COVID-19 infections in the US and Europe.

The surge in debt is not solely attributable to the pandemic. Even before it struck, the global economy was sliding into a downturn after a brief “recovery” in 2018 from the impact of the 2008 financial crisis.

“The pace of global debt accumulation has been unprecedented since 2016, increasing by over $52 trillion,” the IIF said.

While $15 trillion of this surge had been recorded in 2020, the debt increase from 2016 far exceeded the rise of $6 trillion between 2012 and 2016. In other words, even before the pandemic struck, the entire financial system and the global economy were becoming increasingly dependent on debt accumulation.

Emre Tiftik, the director of sustainability research at the IIF, said debt levels had risen much faster than anticipated at the start of the crisis. There is less “bang for the buck” so far as growth in the economy is concerned.

Tiftik said the increase in debt without a change in the level of economic growth “suggests that we are seeing a significant reduction in the GDP-generating capacity of debt. Aggressive support measures will be with us for some time and will inevitably increase debt significantly.”

The reasons for the divergence between debt levels and GDP growth are not hard to find. Much of the increased debt for emerging market economies is not used to boost their economies and improve health, education and other necessary measures but is used to pay interest and principal on existing debts.

In the major economies, such as the US and Europe, debt is not being incurred to provide the funds for infrastructure or health care measures. It has been used to finance massive corporate bailouts, or is being taken on by corporations to finance their speculative operations in financial markets. None of this generates an atom of real wealth but is used to increase profits obtained by financial operations.

However, if the flow of money is reduced, it threatens to set off a financial crisis, with immediate effects for the real economy as was revealed in the 2008 financial crisis.

The IIF pointed to this danger.

“There is significant uncertainty about how the global economy can deleverage in the future without significant adverse implications for economic activity,” it said.

Another record reached in financial markets earlier this month also underscores the growing instability of the entire system in the face of the “debt tsunami.”

According to the Bloomberg Barclays Global Negative Yielding Debt index, bonds worth $17.05 trillion now have a negative yield, meaning that the price of the bond is so high that an investor would make a loss if they held the bond to maturity.

Of course, no investor lays out massive amounts of money to make a loss. They are betting that the price of the bond will rise still further and lower the yield (two have an inverse relationship) and they will make a capital gain when they sell.

The bond market is only being sustained by the interventions of the world’s central banks—with the Fed alone spending $80 billion a month, almost $1 trillion a year, to buy US government debt.

As Mark Dowding, the chief investment officer at BlueBay Asset Management, told the Financial Times: “Central banks have been buying up more debt than governments can throw at them. That’s been pushing yields down in spite of the huge fiscal expansion.”

But low yields have completely disrupted the investment strategies of pension funds and life insurance companies, which have traditionally relied on returns from secure government bonds to meet their obligations.

The result, as Dowding noted, is to push investors into ever riskier debt financing for governments and corporations as they seek a higher rate of return. The same process has driven the stock markets to near record highs as a result of the injection of trillions of dollars by financial authorities.

The massive growth of debt has decisive and immediate implications for the struggle of the working class to defend itself against the “tsunami of death” unleashed by the refusal of capitalist governments to undertake any meaningful action to combat the pandemic.

Debt, like all other financial assets, is not in-and-of-itself value. It is a form of fictitious capital—a future claim on the surplus value extracted from the working class in the process of capitalist production.

If that process is in any way interrupted, the mountain of fictitious capital is threatened with a collapse. That was seen in mid-March when the initial impact of the pandemic, and the rising demands of workers that action be taken against it, saw a freeze in all financial markets. The potential meltdown was only prevented through the intervention of the Fed and other central banks and the accompanying back to work drive.

Now in the second and third waves of the pandemic, the demand of all sections of the financial oligarchy and their political representatives is that there must be no lockdown. That is, no effective measures will be taken to deal with the pandemic based on the closure of non-essential services and industries with compensation for the workers involved.

Surplus value must be continued to be pumped out of the working class, no matter what the cost to life.

The present situation underscores the insistence by the WSWS that the solution to the pandemic crisis lies in the development of the independent struggle of the international working class to take political power in its own hands in order to initiate a socialist program.

Brazilian state of Amapá on brink of social explosion after 18-day blackout

Tomas Castanheira

The state of Amapá, located in northern Brazil, has for the last 18 days faced a situation of widespread chaos caused by the collapse of its power system. With about 90 percent of its population, almost 800,000 people, subjected to a lack of electricity, water and other basic services, the state is on the brink of a social explosion.

The crisis began on November 3 after an explosion followed by a fire in the state’s main energy substation, located in the capital city of Macapá. The facility is managed by the Spanish-based transnational Isolux Corsán. The collapse of the substation caused a blackout in 13 of the state’s 16 municipalities. Five days passed before the energy supply was partially restored.

Police confront protesters in Macapá, November 6. (Credit: Rudja Santos/Amazônia Real)

On November 9, the Ministry of Mines and Energy of President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration, which established a crisis committee to deal with the situation, announced: “The people of Amapá have electricity again.” The government claimed to have reconnected Amapá to the National Interconnected Energy System, and to have restored “70 percent of the state’s service.” A rotation system, with power supplied at six-hour intervals, was nominally established.

The population, however, contradicts the government’s claims. One resident reported to Brasil de Fato a week ago: “They are sharing a lie about our state. It has not been normalized, it is chaos. We have [energy] rationing only at some points. In practically 13 municipalities there is no water or light.” On Tuesday, November 17, the state was plunged into a new total blackout.

The lack of energy has led to a shortage of water in a state that borders a large section of the Amazon River, the largest in the world, as well as of food and other basic products. Long lines were formed at gas stations, supermarkets and ATMs, as credit card systems went offline. Internet and telephone networks have been disrupted and signals remain very unstable.

Protest in the neighbourhood of Santa Rita, Macapá, November 7. (Credit: Rudja Santos/Amazônia Real)

Macapá, which accounts for more than half of the state’s population, was already experiencing a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases, having registered a 74 percent increase in hospitalizations between October 19 and 26. The chaotic situation provoked by the lack of energy has affected COVID-19 treatment centers, forcing transfers of patients and interruption of testing.

Hospitals also began to register an increase in hospitalizations of children with diarrhea and vomiting as a result of difficulties in accessing clean drinking water. Residents of the capital reported collecting rainwater for drinking and domestic activities. In the Archipelago of Bailique, a district of Macapá, where the Amazon River meets the sea, people are reportedly drinking and bathing in salt water.

In a video being shared on social media, an elderly woman resident of the Fazendinha district declared: “What is happening to the people here in Macapá is absurd. Many children are getting sick because of the heat. I have two grandchildren who are sick. Those who have the conditions can pay for a generator, but we are poor. The food is now very expensive. People who are poor are eating eggs, which are cheaper, sausage, mortadella. This is not adequate food for a child. Authorities are not paying attention to the poor. A lot of people are suffering. A lot of appliances, like refrigerators, are burning out [because of power oscillations]. A week ago someone came to offer me a day of domestic services, because his family was going hungry.”

The deep indignation felt by the working population led to a wave of protests throughout the state. In different neighborhoods, residents erected barricades with burning tires and mattresses, and a series of marches took place in the streets of Macapá. By Tuesday, the 15th day of the blackout, the Military Police had already recorded 110 different demonstrations.

The government of Governor Waldez Góes of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), part of the self-proclaimed “left” opposition to Bolsonaro, responded to the demonstrations with brutal repression. A police attack on a protest in the impoverished neighborhood of Congós left at least four wounded, among them a 13-year-old who was shot with a rubber bullet in the eye and risks losing his sight.

On Tuesday, Governor Góes issued a decree, using the pandemic as a pretext, prohibiting protests. It states he had prohibited “until the date of December 2, 2020, throughout the territory of the state of Amapá ... any kind of political activity of people in streets, squares, gyms, in public or private environments, even outdoors, which can lead to crowds of people, such as meetings, walks, motorcades, rallies, flag walks, etc.”

Protest in front of government headquarters, in Macapá. (Credit: Rudja Santos/Amazônia Real)

The energy crisis and the popular uprising had a direct impact on the ongoing municipal elections. A controversial decision by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), at the request of the Regional Electoral Court (TRE) of Amapá, ordered the postponement of the elections exclusively in the capital. They were originally scheduled for last Sunday, and were rescheduled for December 13 and 27.

The decision was made a few hours after the release of a poll showing a vertiginous drop in voting intentions for the first-place candidate, Josiel Alcolumbre of the Democrats (DEM). Josiel is brother of Senate President Davi Alcolumbre, also of the DEM, and is supported by the current mayor of Macapá and the governor of the state. His poll numbers fell from 35 percent to 26 percent, in proportion to the growth of those rejecting his candidacy, which rose from 27 percent to 36 percent.

On Thursday, the Federal Court ordered the removal for a month of the board of the National Electrical Energy Agency (Aneel) and the National Electric System Operator (ONS), allegedly to prevent them from interfering with investigations into the causes of the blackout.

The judge in the case, João Bosco Costa Soares, declared: “I understand that more diligence was needed on the part of Aneel and ONS, especially regarding the charging of the contracted company for repairs on the first transformer that had been under maintenance since December 2019.” Bosco also stated that the blackout was “caused by a succession of ‘Federal Governments’ that neglected to properly plan public policies for the production, transmission and distribution of electricity.”

The consequences of this foretold disaster, which benefited companies such as Isolux Corsán, are now being inflicted upon the population of Amapá and the entire Brazilian working class. Through a provisional measure, the Bolsonaro administration will distribute the costs of the emergency actions taken in Amapá in the light bills of all Brazilians; that is, they will be literally paid for by the workers themselves.

Contrary to all claims by the federal and state governments that the crisis is already under control, this week’s blackout made clear that the situation is as far from over as is the popular discontent.

That this energy crisis is occurring simultaneously with the COVID-19 pandemic is no mere coincidence. Both are rooted in the deep crisis of the capitalist system and its inability to meet essential social needs. The defense of the most basic conditions of human existence depends upon the establishment of socialist governments of the working class in Brazil and throughout the world.

New York region transportation agency prepares draconian cuts to service and transit jobs

Alan Whyte & Daniel de Vries

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced plans at a virtual public meeting held Wednesday to make unprecedented cuts to bus and subway service, as well as in the surrounding commuter railroads. The cuts, if carried through, will decimate public transit in the nation’s largest metropolis.

An MTA worker wearing personal protective equipment [Credit: AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File]

According to the 2021 budget plan, which MTA board members will vote on next month, service cuts will eliminate 9,367 transit worker jobs, mostly in the city of New York. The board also stated its plan to impose a wage freeze on its entire workforce, which, when considering the rate of inflation, amounts to a wage cut.

The brutality of the current attack on transit workers was unmistakable Wednesday, despite the handwringing and crocodile tears from Governor Cuomo’s junior executives at the MTA. The massive job and wage cuts were announced shortly after the New York City Transit chief announced the death of two more workers, at least one from COVID-19. According to a tally by rank-and-file transit workers, the coronavirus death toll for active New York City transit workers is now approaching 150.

The pandemic has led to a sustained drop in fare collection, cutting off one of the MTA’s primary revenue streams. Subway ridership in November is down nearly 70 percent compared to last year, while bus passengers are down by half.

Agency and government officials have pinned any hopes of avoiding the budget apocalypse on the prospects of another federal bailout. The MTA has a shortfall of nearly $2.5 billion for the rest of this year and more than $6 billion for 2020. The requested $12 billion supplemental bailout to balance the books through 2022 remains nowhere in sight, and there is little chance it will pass the lame-duck Congress before the budget approval in December.

The response by the Democratic Party functionaries that compose the MTA board makes clear they intend to put the full burden of the budget crisis on the MTA workforce and the riding public. Under the plan, entire subway, bus, and commuter rail routes will disappear, and service on remaining routes reduced in frequency.

The cuts to the bus system are the most severe. The MTA plans to ax 5,869 jobs concurrent with a 40 percent reduction in bus service. These cuts will devastate not only bus workers and their families but also the disproportionately poor and elderly riders who rely on bus service.

These planned cuts could have a disastrous impact on the region’s livelihood. An analysis by the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation projected a reduction of $65 billion in gross domestic product leading to a loss of 450,000 jobs by 2022. “Simply put, without reliable and safe subway, bus and commuter rail services, the future of the city and region is in doubt. Students will not be able to get to school, essential workers to their jobs, and offices will remain empty,” Mitchell L. Moss, director of the Rudin Center, said last month.

While the transit agency in New York is the largest, agencies are preparing similar cuts throughout the country. The Metro in Washington D.C. is planning on buyouts to eliminate 1,400 jobs. The Regional Transportation District of Denver, Colorado, voted to cut 700 jobs and reduce worker pay. In Philadelphia, the head of the SEPTA transit agency has made it clear that service cuts, layoffs and fare hikes are on the agenda without federal relief.

In New York, the MTA also announced plans for a 4 percent fare hike and an 8 percent increase for bridge and tunnel tolls. These hikes are typical of the fare and toll changes the agency has been imposing on its riders and vehicle drivers since 2010. However, with millions of New Yorkers facing financial ruin and the city abandoning its modest reduced-fare program for low-income families, access to transit is already becoming beyond reach for many.

The wage freezes, layoffs, service reductions and fare hikes, as drastic as they are, will not come close to shoring up the MTA’s finances. Even after a projected $1.2 billion in savings from these cuts in 2021, the MTA projects it will still be short up to $3.2 billion for the year.

To balance the books, the MTA will proceed with the borrowing of $2.9 billion from the Federal Reserve bank under its Municipal Liquidity Facility (MLF) program. The agency already tapped the MLF for $450 million to cover debt payments that came due in August. To repay these loans, the MTA intends to issue bonds in 2023, adding to its runaway $46 billion bond debt.

According to the state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the MTA is already suffering “suffocating levels” of debt. He has projected that paying interest and principal is forecast to take up 25.7 percent of the MTA’s revenue in 2021. Between 2020 and 2024, the MTA has budgeted $16 billion in debt repayment, equivalent to the entire projected deficit over the same period.

The repayment to wealthy firms like BlackRock, the largest MTA debt holder and run by the billionaire Larry Fink, is considered untouchable. Meanwhile, thousands of MTA workers, who have already seen more than 140 colleagues sacrificed to keep the economy open during the pandemic, are considered expendable.

The national president of the Transport Workers Union, John Samuelsen, who serves Governor Cuomo as a member of the MTA board, responded with a proposal to increase borrowing further. Samuelsen’s proposal, offered as a reprieve from immediate job cuts and wage freezes, would only further consolidate control over the MTA in the hands of large bondholders.

Samuelsen’s plan follows the TWU’s collaboration with the MTA in forcing transit workers to remain on the job without protective gear throughout the first peak of the pandemic. This summer, Samuelsen joined with the MTA chairman, Pat Foye, to co-write an op-ed in the New York Times fruitlessly begging Congress for a rescue package and covering up for the Democratic Party, which serves the interests of the billionaires as much as the Republicans.

At the meeting on Wednesday, there was no discussion of the more than 600 billionaires in the United States who now have a combined wealth of around $4 trillion. Their fortunes have increased during the pandemic while working people have lost their jobs, incomes and lives.

To adequately fund vital social services like public transportation and ensure good quality jobs, it is not a question of whether the resources exist. It is a question of which class in society controls them. We urge transit workers to develop rank-and-file committees independent of the pro-corporate unions to carry forward a fight against layoffs and cuts and for the independent interests of the working class.

Fascist Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse released after posting $2 million bail

Jacob Crosse

After roughly two and a half months in custody, 17-year-old Donald Trump supporter and police fanatic Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch, Illinois was released from a Wisconsin jail on Friday afternoon after his attorneys posted in full his $2 million bail. Rittenhouse was able to gather the funds to secure his release by having his lawyers appeal for donations from the far-right and the Republican party.

Rittenhouse, who has become a symbol for the fascist right, is facing multiple serious charges including first-degree intentional homicide for the death of Anthony Huber, 26, of Silver Lake, first-degree reckless homicide for the death of Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, of Kenosha and attempted first-degree intentional homicide for the shooting of Gauge Grosskreutz, 26, of West Allis.

Kyle Rittenhouse during an extradition hearing in Lake County court, October 30, 2020, in Waukegan, Illinois [Credit: AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, Pool]

Lin Wood, one of Rittenhouse’s defense attorneys and an open supporter of the fascist QAnon conspiracy theory, personally thanked MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an acolyte of President Donald Trump and Silver Spoons childhood actor Ricky Schroeder, for “putting us over the top,” in securing the release of Rittenhouse. Wood has claimed that online defense funds set up for Rittenhouse have exceeded over one million dollars.

Wood is one of several lawyers on Trump’s legal team attempting to undermine the presidential election result through undemocratic lawsuits to halt the certification of the vote or through throwing out hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots in battleground states such as Georgia. Wood also represents Georgia Congresswoman-elect and fellow QAnon supporter Majorie Taylor Greene. Greene, who won her seat after running unopposed, routinely spouts bigoted and racist conspiracy theories including accusing Holocaust survivor George Soros of having collaborated with the Nazis.

Kenosha was the site of three days of protests by multiracial youth and community members following the release of a social media recording of police shooting Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man and father of six, on August 23. Blake was shot in the back seven times by 31-year-old Kenosha police officer Rusten Shesky leaving him paralyzed. Shesky has yet to be charged with a crime as state authorities slowly proceed with their “investigation.”

A freedom of information request from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed last week that Shesky, who became a cop in 2013, has been the subject of five internal investigations, including for pulling gun on and handcuffing a misidentified suspect. Shesky has also been investigated for causing thousands of dollars in damage to police vehicles in three separate accidents.

The shooting of Blake capped a summer of thousands of protests against police violence that began with the May 25 murder of George Floyd by four cops with the Minneapolis Police Department. Throughout the summer and into the fall, police across the US have violently responded to protests with tear gas, baton strikes, and mass arrests as well as appealing to fascistic militia elements and racist street gangs, such as the OathKeepers, Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer to assist them in terrorizing and suppressing demonstrations.

On the night of August 25 dozens of militia members, including Rittenhouse, were drawn to the anti-police violence protest by a group called the Kenosha Militia, which had posted a “Call to Arms” on Facebook in order to “protect our lives and property.” Rittenhouse and his friend, 19 year-old, Dominick Black, who was recently charged with two counts of intentionally giving a dangerous weapon to someone under 18, causing death, were seen in multiple videos carrying AR-15 rifles.

Despite illegally carrying a rifle after curfew, Rittenhouse and fellow militia members were not hassled by police forces leading up to the shooting. Video from the night of the shooting shows police offering water to and thanking militia members, including Rittenhouse, for “all their help” in threatening protesters.

Family and friends of the victims had previously called for a higher bail amount citing Rittenhouse’s previous attempts to flee, such as the night of the shooting when he walked past police after shooting multiple people before driving home to Illinois and turning himself in approximately an hour later. Anthony Huber’s father, John Huber, in an online court appearance earlier this month asked for a bail amount of $10 million, while a lawyer for Grosskreutz called for a $4 million bail.

In a video released by the Washington Post on Thursday, Rittenhouse said he had no regrets about illegally bringing a rifle to the streets of Kenosha to confront protesters. “I feel I had to protect myself,” Rittenhouse said. “I would have died that night if I didn’t.” The Post reported that Kyle’s older sister, Faith, watched the protests online with her brother who referred to demonstrators as “rioters” and “monsters.”

Demonstrating the support Rittenhouse has within the far-right and the White House, Proud Boys chairman and director of Florida Latino outreach for the Trump presidential campaign, Enrique Tarrio, led members of the Proud Boys in a “Free Kyle” chant outside the Washington Monument during the “Stop the Steal” rally on November 14.

US hits record 200,000 new daily COVID-19 cases as hospitals fill to capacity

Benjamin Mateus

The third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is wreaking havoc on the already haggard health systems throughout a large swath of the country. There were 200,000 confirmed cases on Friday alone, along with nearly 2,000 deaths. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation is projecting another 50,000 fatalities before the winter holidays end.

Patient in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) [Source: Wikimedia Commons]

Despite these disastrous surges, both the outgoing Trump and incoming Biden administrations reaffirmed this week that there will be no nationally-coordinated lockdowns in response to combat the pandemic.

To date, there have been 12.2 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the US and more than 260,000 deaths. This includes a record 4.5 million active cases, more than one percent of the entire US population, and more than 80,000 hospitalizations. Not only are both figures at record highs, the pace at which both are increasing far exceeds even the sharp rise in cases and hospitalizations in April, a measure of how widespread the pandemic has become in the United States and how little is currently being done to slow the spread.

What measures are being taken are limited to mask mandates, short term and limited restrictions such as limiting the operating times of bars and restaurants, and advisories to remain vigilant. The two main vectors of infection, schools and workplaces, are being kept open even as workers and students continue to lose their lives.

The explosion of cases nationwide also belie any hopes on vaccines as logistical challenges loom in the face of the sheer mass of infections and rapidly rising death tolls. According to many in the public health sector, it will take the better part of next year to see a vaccine widely distributed, along with $4.5 billion in federal aid to build and coordinate the vaccine distribution network.

A case in point, Wisconsin's hospital association, has warned that the health system within the state is on the brink of "catastrophe." President of Wisconsin's Hospital Association, Eric Borgerding, wrote to Democratic Governor Tony Evers that the state needed more field hospitals. "Wisconsin faces a public health crisis the likes of which we have not experienced in three generations. A crisis of this magnitude caused by a virus that is so clearly raging across all of Wisconsin demands a unified and substantial response." Yet, the state government is in gridlock on any measures that infringe on local businesses' closure or restrictions. All that has been tentatively agreed to is extending the already in place mask mandate into 2021.

On Thursday, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a dire warning against Thanksgiving travel. "The safest way to celebrate Thanksgiving this year is at home with the people in your household," according to Dr. Erin Sauber-Schatz of the CDC. Despite this warning, the AAA predicts that up to 50 million Americans will visit family or friends during the period, 95 percent traveling by car. This massive movement of the population will only exacerbate the tenuous situation. In 2019, it was estimated that 55 million people traveled.

Along with the shortage in material preparedness, it is the critical shortage of healthcare workers pushing health systems to the brink. STAT News reported that hospitals across 25 states are severely understaffed, forcing facilities to transfer severely ill patients hundreds of miles and across state lines just for a hospital bed.

John Henderson, chief executive of the Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals, said it bluntly, "Care is about more than a room with a hospital bed. It's about medical professionals taking care of patients. If you don't have the staff to do that, people are going to die." Texas has more than 8,000 hospitalized patients, up from 3,000 in September.

At the Odessa Regional Medical center, the neonatal intensive care unit has been converted into a COVID-19 ICU for adults. Their ICU capacity was beyond capacity, necessitating an overflow unit to be established in a separate building. Instead of the usual limit of two patients to a critical care nurse, they see six or eight. Dr. Rohith Saravanan, the hospital's chief medical officer, told CNN, "The only space that's not full right now is the hallways. For every patient that you see here, there's several more that are positive outside the hospital that could have used some care, but there's no space. The more critical people get admitted and the rest get sent home."

These scenarios play out from rural areas of Kansas, Missouri, Utah, the Dakotas to metropolitan communities in Los Angeles County and the Chicago suburbs. Health care workers infected with COVID or in quarantine on top of chronic shortages of nurses and doctors in rural communities means the backup nurses available in the Spring are now practically non-existent.

A spokesman for the Ohio Hospital Association, John Palmer, explained that 20 percent of 240 hospitals across the state are facing staffing shortages.

Pentagon shakeup aimed at paving path to Trump coup

Bill Van Auken

In the midst of the attempt by US President Donald Trump to nullify the 2020 election by means of an extra-constitutional coup, neither Biden and the Democrats, nor the US corporate media, have seen fit to alert the American and world public to ominous developments within the US military and its Pentagon command.

President Donald Trump on a phone call with leaders of Sudan and Israel in the Oval Office of the White House, Oct. 23, 2020, in Washington [Credit: AP Photo/Alex Brandon]

The outlines of this coup have come into sharp focus in the past few days. This is not a matter merely of Trump’s intentions, but rather of actions aimed at executing this coup that are being carried out in real time.

Trump’s invitation to the White House Friday of Michigan Republican state legislators has laid bare a definite strategy for establishing a presidential dictatorship. Trump and his supporters are carrying out an aggressive propaganda campaign to delegitimize the election with lying allegations of ballot fraud and increasingly fascistic conspiracy theories in order to provide a pretext for Republican-controlled statehouses in states like Michigan to repudiate the popular vote and select slates of pro-Trump electors.

They are counting on this extralegal operation ending up in the US Supreme Court, where fully one-third of the justices are Trump appointees, and a precedent has already been established by the 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore, which stopped the popular vote count in Florida and awarded the presidency to Republican George W. Bush, with no opposition from the Democratic Party.

Such a brazen attempt to overturn an election will inevitably provoke explosive resistance, particularly in the heavily working-class urban areas where millions cast their ballots to drive Trump from office. Such an assault on core democratic rights and the last vestiges of constitutional forms of rule cannot be executed without a resort to overwhelming repression.

It is in this context that a ceremony held Wednesday at the Fort Bragg, North Carolina headquarters of the US military’s Special Operations Command—comprised of the Army’s Green Berets, the Navy’s SEALs and other elite killing squads—serves as a deadly warning. The new “acting” Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller announced the elevation of the Special Operations Command to a status on a par with the existing branches of the armed forces, the Army, Navy, Air Force, etc.

As the well-connected military website breakingdefense.com explained the shakeup: “The crux of the transformation will ensure that the top special operations official at the Pentagon can go directly to the Defense Secretary on ... operational matters, including secret raids against high-value targets. The office will no longer have to move through the larger DoD Policy apparatus to reach the secretary.”

Miller, who has refused to answer any questions from the media since being installed as Pentagon chief, told an audience of assembled troops, “I am here today to announce that I have directed the Special Operations civilian leadership to report directly to me, instead of through the current bureaucratic channels.”

Miller has not been confirmed, and will not be confirmed, by the US Senate to an office he has held for little more than a week. A retired colonel and 30-year Special Forces officer, he has no qualifications to hold the post outside of his unswerving loyalty to Trump.

Under normal circumstances, Miller would be surrendering his office to a Biden appointee in barely two months and, in the interregnum, would be collaborating closely with his incoming replacement. Instead, he is announcing the most far-reaching change in the military chain of command in recent memory.

Miller’s installation as defense secretary is the result of a wholesale purge of the top civilian leadership at the Pentagon that Trump initiated with the firing-by-tweet of Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Trump’s determination to oust Esper dates back to last June, when the US president deployed federal security forces and US troops to suppress anti-police-violence demonstrations near the White House and threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to send troops into the streets across the country to put down the mass protests provoked by the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Esper, a former lobbyist for the arms industry, voiced his opposition, saying that such a domestic deployment of the US military to suppress the American population could be ordered only as a “last resort.” His position, shared by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, expressed fears that such a use of US troops would provoke uncontrollable resistance and tear the military apart. Since his ouster, Esper, Milley and the fired number-three official at the Pentagon have all issued statements pointedly reminding US military personnel that they have sworn an oath to the Constitution.

Such invocations will have no effect on the cabal of Trump loyalists and semi-fascists that have been placed in charge at the Pentagon since the election. Miller made it clear in a confirmation hearing for another national security post that he had no compunction against using federal intelligence resources to pursue protesters at the order of the White House.

The new civilian head of Special Operations, who will now enjoy direct and secret collaboration with the defense secretary, unencumbered by “bureaucratic channels,” is one Ezra Cohen-Watnick, 34, an extreme right-wing operative. He was brought onto the National Security Council by virtue of his political connections to the likes of Trump’s fascistic former adviser Steve Bannon, the fanatically anti-Iranian and indicted ex-National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Named to the number-three post at the Pentagon, undersecretary for policy, is retired general and frequent Fox News commentator Anthony Tata, whose previous nomination for the post had to be withdrawn after it emerged that he has denounced Obama as a “terrorist leader,” “Manchurian candidate “and a Muslim.

A similar figure has been named as Miller’s chief adviser, retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, another Fox News commentator known for denouncing European countries for admitting “unwanted Muslim invaders” bent on “turning Europe into an Islamic state,” condemning attempts in Germany to come to terms with the Holocaust as a “sick mentality” and calling for martial law and the summary execution of migrants on the US-Mexican border.

Trump has made a particular appeal to the Special Operations forces that have now been elevated in status within the chain of command. He aggressively intervened last year in the court-martial of Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher for war crimes in Iraq, protesting, “We train our boys to be killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill!”

At the close of his campaign, just five days before the election, Trump flew to Fort Bragg for closed-door meetings with Special Forces troops and their commanders. Given subsequent developments, there is every reason to believe that the purpose of this trip was to assess the level of his support within the military units stationed there, and among their commanders, and to discuss plans for an armed response to an explosion of resistance to his plans to steal the election and establish a presidential dictatorship.

The tactics being employed by the Trump White House have been rehearsed countless times abroad under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Fabricated claims of election fraud have been used to justify US-backed coups, oust presidents and foment “color revolutions” from Honduras, Bolivia and Venezuela to Ukraine and Georgia.

Now these same methods are being brought “home” under conditions of an insoluble economic and social crisis, characterized above all by staggering levels of social inequality and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the homicidal “herd immunity,” back-to-work policy of the capitalist ruling class.

Far more than the threat of a coup and dictatorship, Biden and the Democratic Party fear an eruption of popular protest and mass resistance from below against Trump and his co-conspirators. Whatever their tactical differences with Trump, they represent the interests of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus.

The working class must intervene in this unprecedented crisis as an independent social and political force, opposing the conspiracies of the Trump White House and its military allies through the methods of class struggle and the fight for the socialist transformation of society.

Ethiopia: Death and Despair as Divisions Erupt Into Violent Conflict

Graham Peebles

Grandmothers carrying babies, mothers, children, men young and old with nothing but the clothes on their backs are fleeing fighting in northern Ethiopia and making their way to Sudan, where emergency camps await them; according to the UNHCR 5,000 a day are making the journey.

Ethiopians are killing one another in the Tigray region of the country where an armed conflict is raging between the Ethiopian military and forces loyal to the regional government, the TPLF (Tigray Peoples Liberation Front), a group that some in the country describe as terrorists.

The TPLF formed the dominant force within the ruling coalition (the EPRDF), and ran Ethiopia with an iron fist from 1991 until 2018. Brutal and centralized, human rights were trampled on, free speech outlawed, state terrorism routine; the TPLF were vicious, ruled by fear and are hated still by many Ethiopians, inside and outside the country.

Sustained protests led to their overthrow in 2018 when the new Prime Minister took office. Although the EPRDF coalition remained, the approach changed dramatically under PM Abiy Ahmed and his team; a sense of optimism swept across the country and many Ethiopians living abroad returned to help rebuild their homeland. The TPLF were marginalized, vilified in some quarters and a number of the key figures arrested for crimes committed when in power, more arrest warrants are outstanding.

Bordering Eritrea in the North and Sudan to the West, Tigray is a small region (accounting for only 6% of the population), which has built up an extremely strong, armed unit (police/militia), with, according to some sources, around 250,000 men in uniform, including 20,000 commandos.

And the people cry out

On November 4th they attacked the Ethiopian National Defense Forces Base located in the Tigray region, reportedly killed a number of soldiers and stole artillery and military equipment. The Ethiopian government’s response was to initiate military operations; actions described by the Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as law enforcement and by others, including the TPLF, as an act of war.

Some form of conflict had been brewing for some time, the criminal raid on the military base being the final straw in a series of provocations; most notably holding banned regional elections in September (which the TPLF won). As a result, the government claims the TPLF is not a legitimate regional government. For their part, due to general elections being postponed because of the coronavirus (although there have been very few cases in Ethiopia) and the government remaining in office, the TPLF claim the government is not legitimate either.

Many have been calling for talks between the parties, directly or via mediators, and an immediate unconditional ceasefire, but neither of these common-sense suggestions seems likely. As Prime Minister Ahmed shouts that this conflict can only be resolved militarily, and declares a ‘final push’, the voices of the TPLF express their determination to defend their land; ‘Tigray is now a hell to its enemies….the people of Tigray will never kneel.’ And so it goes on, humanity’s lunacy.

There is no communication from within Tigray, the UN and other humanitarian agencies have been denied access and the government is controlling the narrative.

The situation is extremely serious, unless handled with great care it could quickly escalate into a wider armed conflict dragging in neighboring states, and triggering a major humanitarian incident, the seeds of which have already been planted. With no supplies being allowed into the region food is running low in Tigray, as is money, and an estimated 30,000 people have fled their homes and made their way to Sudan were they are being accommodated in basic camps. Before the fighting began the International Organization for Migration (IOM) revealed that there were more than 1.8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ethiopia; around 100,000 of whom are in Tigray.

Beyond the pettiness of governments, the duplicity and self-interest of geopolitics, it is the people who suffer the greatest loss and pain in a conflict, and so it will be in Ethiopia.

Death destruction and trauma are the hallmarks of war and armed conflict; lives are lost, mostly civilian non-combatants lives, homes demolished, people displaced, fear created, poverty and hunger exacerbated. This is what war is, it is an abomination and it should be avoided at all costs; where disputes arise alternatives should be found, fully explored, compromise reached and violence rejected. And in a country like Ethiopia where most people are poor, their lives hard, a country that ranks 173rd out of 189 countries in the UN Human Development Index, war should never be contemplated. The government has fighter jets and tanks, but people are hungry and homeless, health care is inadequate at best, education poor, and now there’s a war; it is lunacy, isn’t it?

Violence has been the resounding tone of human history, tribal conflicts abound, fights over land and power, resources and dominion over others. Currently there are around 30 violent conflicts taking place in the world including the Ethiopian one: data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event data Project (ACLED) shows the areas where clashes between state forces and others have occurred. Most incidents in red are in the global south, but if you factor in national homicides and general violence, it’s a worldwide image of carnage.

Talk of ‘peace’ and ‘brotherhood’ is commonplace, but the killing and fighting goes on and on; hollow words then. Even in Ethiopia, where religion – Christianity and Islam, both of which espouse peace – dominate the lives of most people. Look at Syria, or Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya; beautiful countries all, wonderful people, and yet conflicts persist, death and destruction continues daily. And now Ethiopia, where the fear must be that even if the TPLF are ‘defeated’ they will go underground and an armed insurgency will take hold – something that is in a sense even harder to combat or limit.

Maturity

It is time for humanity to grow up and recognize that we are brothers and sisters of one humanity – this is not some religious platitude, or new age drivel, it is a fact in nature. Ethiopia is a wonderful land, the people are warm and kind, but social divisions rooted in ancient tribal groupings are deep, historic grievances unresolved. The path out of conflict into peace is the same in Ethiopia as it is for the world as a whole, it is made up of principles of goodness that are innate, but buried; it requires the negation of behavior and modes of living that divide and ferment suspicion and resentment.

Unity, cooperation, tolerance and sharing, these are the key qualities of the time and the antidotes to hate and division; we could add forgiveness, understanding and respect. All flow from the same foundation – love. Not sentimentalized, corrupted love, but love as the cohesive force binding all life together; that impelling agent for good.

It matters not what the political justifications are for violence; of course if attacked a nation, region, family, individual will defend themselves, but to attack – with ‘overwhelming force’ and justify the killing as necessary, as the Ethiopian PM is doing – is to feed that fog which obscures our inherent humanity, the nature and residing quality of which is love. It is this purifying quality, which needs to become the guiding force for our actions, in Ethiopia and throughout the world.