Sri Lankan artists discuss COVID-19 and its impact on their creative work, living conditions

Wasantha Rupasinghe

COVID-19 infections are spiraling out of control across Sri Lanka with more than 19,000 infections and 73 deaths, most of them since early October. Like its international counterparts, the Sri Lankan government has not taken any serious measure to contain the virus and is blaming the population for the spread of COVID-19.

The refusal of President Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s government to overhaul and boost the health service is creating a disaster with hundreds of thousands workers, including those in the so-called “unorganised” sector, deprived of their jobs and not provided adequate social relief.

One of the sectors criminally abandoned by the Colombo government is art and culture. Musical performances, theatre, film and teledrama production, book exhibitions and similar activities have almost entirely come to a halt. Thousands of artists and creative workers employed in these activities are without income and many have become destitute.

Notoriously, even in “normal periods,” capitalist governments have little regard for serious art and cultural works. They are hostile toward artists brave enough to question or challenge the official lies and false narratives. The callous attitude of the Sri Lankan ruling elite is reflected in part by the fact there are no proper statistics on how many people even work in the country’s artistic and creative sectors.

Although there are various guilds, these organisations only have several hundred members each and limited financial resources.

The World Socialist Web Site recently spoke with creative workers from the music, theatre and teledrama sector who explained that the government had failed to provide adequate financial support and in some cases just given meagre famine rations.

Kapila Kumara Kalinga is a well-known veteran author, theatre director, lyricist and teledrama scriptwriter. His works, including his latest play Banku Weeraya (Bank Hero), have received awards at literature and drama festivals such as the State Drama Festival.

Kapila Kumara Kalinga

Kalinga endorsed the WSWS’s characterisation of the pandemic as a “trigger event” that had escalated the social, economic and political crises of the capitalist system.

“The issues that have emerged in the field of art and culture were there even before the pandemic hit. The coronavirus has aggravated them,” he said.

“The creation of artistic work in Sri Lanka has been forced to stop because of the pandemic. Tens of thousands of workers, including actors, makeup artists, as well as ‘tea boys’—involved in setting up film and television sets—and drivers, have lost their livelihoods.

“Most of those involved in creative art work do not have adequate bank savings. I was forced to end the staging of my most recent drama Banku Weeraya due to the current disastrous conditions.

“Normally, a drama actor receives a pittance of about 5,000 to 10,000 rupees [$US27 to $US54] for each show. Accordingly, they get about 20,000 to 40,000 rupees if there are four shows a month. Most actors are totally dependent on this, so when a drama is not produced they don’t receive any money.

“These artists are attempting to maintain themselves through the government’s 5,000-rupee [$27] subsidy,” Kalinga said, a reference to the miserly financial compensation provided to families living below the poverty line. “And because many artists do not have other jobs, they have become destitute. Consider a makeup artist for example. They can’t do anything else and there are no other jobs?

“Several months ago, the government boasted that artists and actors would be given a 500,000-rupee [$2,702] loan, but this was just so the government could pretend it was concerned about artists. All of the banks, with the exception of one state bank, refused to provide the loans.

“Many veteran artists are over 60 years old. When they apply for a loan, three people, including one from the applicant’s home has to sign as guarantors. Even in ordinary periods, most people are reluctant to be loan guarantors. Moreover, many people don’t even apply for loans because of the difficulties providing the documents asked by the bank.

“The prevailing uncertain situation has had a huge mental impact on artists and actors,” Kalinga said.

“I’ve been forced to be very cautious about spending my savings during the past period. The pandemic have also forced people to cut their expenses and so I’m not receiving income from sales of my books [novels, short stories and other written works]. The tragic situation now facing artists and actors is not separate in any way from that of working people and I realise that this situation is not limited to this island,” he said.

Malaka Devapriya is an award-winning filmmaker, stage director and radio playwright. His most recent movie, Bahuchithawadiya (The Undecided), has been screened at several international film festivals and won Special Jury award for Best Direction at the 8th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Film Festival in 2018.

Malaka Devpriya

Devapriya said the state should be responsible not just for defending and protecting artists from the COVID-19 tragedy, but the entire mass of people. If it is unable to do so, he added, then why it is ruling?

“From the distant past, long before the coronavirus pandemic hit, there has been a deep crisis in the field of art in Sri Lanka. It has only been intensified by the pandemic. Artists have been facing major difficulties for years, particularly in areas such as securing the financial facilities for new creations and in screening their already-produced works.

“Those engaged in stage, radio plays, teledramas and film sectors can be termed workers and the only livelihood of most of them is in the fields they’re engaged in. They don’t have any bank savings.

“The stoppage of artistic productions means that most of my friends have become ‘helpless’ and are fighting to make the daily ends meet. Some ask me for loans, but I also don’t have an income to help them. Many have pawned their jewellery.

“The financial difficulties have become so unbearable that one of my friends in this field even had to sell his library to try and survive. The only wealth of some of my friends is in the art works that they have created. A drama, however, is not like another commodity and so during this period you can’t earn any money by selling a film or teledrama script.

“The government is concealing the real disastrous nature of the pandemic from the people,” Devapriya continued.

“On the one hand, it is promoting black magic and other superstitious things, like spraying pirith pan [holy water prepared by chanting Buddhist recitals], in the name of fighting the COVID-19. On the other hand, the government is attempting to silence the artists and intellectuals who clarify the world against such myths through threats.”

Devapriya voiced his agreement with the World Socialist Web Site ’ s analysis of the pandemic, which was confronting workers in every country and that historic issues in the field of art and culture could only be solved through the building up of an independent political movement of the working class.

European Commission accuses Amazon of violating antitrust rules

Erik Schreiber

The European Commission (EC) has accused Amazon of violating antitrust rules by using third-party sellers’ non-public data to benefit its own retail business. The charge appears in a November 10 statement following an investigation that the EC’s antitrust regulators initiated in July 2019.

An Amazon box (Flickr/soumit)

The European proceedings against Amazon are a shot across the bow of American imperialism. The national bourgeoisies of Europe are reacting to the provocative “America First” trade war policies of the Trump administration and threatening to retaliate, asserting their own interests.

The EC also has opened a second investigation into whether Amazon selects vendors to appear in its “Buy Box” in a way that benefits its own retail, logistics, or delivery services. The Buy Box appears prominently on Amazon’s site and allows customers to add a specific seller’s item to their shopping carts.

In describing Amazon’s anticompetitive practices, the statement specifically refers to France and Germany, which are Amazon’s biggest European markets. As governments have shut down nonessential businesses during the pandemic, customers have increased their online shopping. Among online shoppers, more than 70 percent in France and more than 80 percent in Germany have bought an item on Amazon during the past year, according to Margrethe Vestager, the European Union commissioner responsible for competition.

Amazon is a trillion-dollar multinational conglomerate that not only dominates commerce over the internet, but also develops its own products (such as e-readers, clothing, and toys) for sale on that same market. Since Amazon not only sells products but controls the marketplace where those products compete with those of other businesses, it has a colossal advantage over its competitors.

As a marketplace, Amazon has access to third-party vendors’ non-public business data. It can view, for example, the number of a given product that has been ordered and shipped, a seller’s revenue, information about shipping, and data on sellers’ past performance. The EC found that such marketplace data have been shared with Amazon’s retail business and used as a basis for decisions about its own products. “The use of non-public marketplace seller data allows Amazon to avoid the normal risks of retail competition,” according to the EC.

The other investigation focuses on the Buy Box, which shows a single vendor’s offer for a given product. Vendors compete to have their offers featured in the Buy Box, which allows them to reach users of Amazon Prime (Amazon’s customer loyalty program), who tend to spend more and shop more often than non-Prime customers. About 80 percent of sales on Amazon result from the Buy Box, according to industry experts, and the number of Prime users is growing. The commission is investigating whether the criteria Amazon uses to select sellers for this box favor Amazon’s own retail business or the sellers that use Amazon’s logistics and delivery services.

Not surprisingly, Amazon released a statement expressing its disagreement with the EC’s allegations, denying that it views individual sellers’ data but admitting that it sometimes views “aggregate” data.

The company interprets the terms “individual” and “aggregate” in creative ways. For example, because the company Fortem represented 99.95 percent of sales of car trunk organizers (and not all sales), Amazon considered data related to that company to be aggregate data, according to the Wall Street Journal. Amazon used Fortem’s non-public data to develop its own private-label version of the same product.

What is more, former Amazon employees have admitted publicly that the company engages in this practice. One of the company’s former product management workers told the Capitol Forum, “I used to pull sellers’ data to look at what the best products were when I was there…. That was my job.”

Other public information substantiates the EC’s claims about Amazon’s manipulation of the Buy Box. Jeff Bezos, the company’s CEO and the world’s richest man, admitted during a US Congressional hearing in July that the criteria for spotlighting sellers in the Buy Box “indirectly” favor product offers that can be shipped with Prime.

European regulators are not alone in scrutinizing Amazon. The United States Congress and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also are investigating the company’s relationship with third-party vendors. In a report that it issued in October, the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee found that Amazon has monopoly power over third-party sellers. In testimony before the subcommittee, one such seller said that he had been forced out of the business after Amazon copied his products (including even their color scheme), sold its versions at lower prices, and featured them in the Buy Box.

Other third-party vendors told the antitrust subcommittee that they have “no choice” but to pay for Fulfillment by Amazon, the company’s logistics and delivery service. Using this service makes a product eligible to be sold to Prime customers and helps companies “to maintain a favorable search result position, to reach Amazon’s more than 112 million Prime members, and to win the Buy Box,” according to the subcommittee’s report.

Like the subcommittee, the FTC has interviewed Amazon’s third-party sellers. However, few details about its investigation are available, and the FTC has taken no meaningful action to restrain the growth of the conglomerate or its domination over the American market.

The United States has various laws, dating from the late-19th and early-20th centuries, that restrict the formation of monopolies and outlaw unfair competition. But this regulatory framework is effectively a dead letter. There has been little in the way of enforcement action for nearly four decades, after AT&T was broken up in 1982. The Amazon conglomerate, controlled by Bezos, invades and conquers one sector of the economy after another with impunity.

If the EC concludes that Amazon has broken antitrust rules, it could fine the company as much as 10 percent of its annual worldwide revenue. Such a fine would equal $28 billion if based on 2019 revenues and $37 billion if based on the company’s revenue forecasts for this year. For context, the latter figure is approximately equal to the gross domestic product of Paraguay in 2019.

An alternative would be for the EC to demand behavioral remedies in the form of prohibitions on certain business conduct. Amazon could well decide to ignore such remedies and simply pay fines if it is caught. The vast company can afford to treat the occasional fine as a cost of doing business. It also is entirely possible that the EC will come to a settlement with Amazon or drop its case entirely.

The investigations by the EC and by the Congressional subcommittee underscore Amazon’s incredible size and dominance. During the second quarter of 2020, Amazon had an operating profit of $5.8 billion. In October, Amazon’s share price reached approximately $3,000, which gave it a market valuation of about $1.5 trillion. This valuation is greater than that of Wal-Mart, Target, Salesforce, IBM, eBay, and Etsy put together, according to the subcommittee’s report.

Amazon’s dominance is neither the result of Bezos’s genius nor a fluke. It is the result of an objective process. “Free competition gives rise to the concentration of production, which, in turn, at a certain stage of development, leads to monopoly,” wrote Vladimir Lenin in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. “The general framework of formally recognized free competition remains, but the yoke of a few monopolists on the rest of the population becomes a hundred times heavier, more burdensome and intolerable.”

The solution is not to rely on capitalist governments to restrain this process with anti-monopoly regulations. Instead, workers must openly declare as their aim the transformation of technology monopolies like Amazon into public utilities democratically controlled by the working class that can be mobilized to satisfy social need around the world, rather than further enriching the world’s richest man.

Stop the rearming of Germany’s air force, army, and navy!

Johannes Stern

US President Donald Trump’s latest threats of war against Iran underscore the urgency of building an anti-war movement in the working class based on a socialist programme. The same applies to developments in Germany. Six years after the federal government declared the end of military restraint at the 2014 Munich Security Conference, the largest rearmament programme since the Second World War is being implemented, despite the coronavirus pandemic.

A Eurofighter Typhoon of the German Bundeswehr (credit: wikimedia / bomberpilot)

Over the past week, European arms giant Airbus announced the signing of a contract to supply the German air force with 38 fighter jets. Prior to that, the budgetary committee in Germany’s federal parliament relied on the votes of the right-wing extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD) to move ahead with the project. The fighter jets, which are to be supplied over the coming years, will cost a total of €5.4 billion.

The purchase is part of a more comprehensive rearming of the German air force and its counterparts across Europe. Dirk Hoke, CEO of Airbus Defence and Space, remarked on the signing of the contract, “The new Tranche 4 Eurofighter is currently the most modern fighter jet produced in Europe with a lifespan stretching well beyond 2060. Its technical capabilities make possible its full integration into Europe’s Future Combat Air System (FCAS).”

The FCAS is a European-wide air combat system composed of manned multi-purpose jets, unmanned support aircraft, drones and satellites, potentially equipped with energy and nuclear weapons. The cost of the system, which is officially to be operational by 2040, surpasses all European arms projects since the end of the Second World War. According to media reports, estimates range from $300 billion to $500 billion.

Alongside the German air force, a major rearmament programme is also underway for the navy. Work is “continuously ongoing to swiftly push ahead with the modernisation and growth of our fleet initiated over recent years,” wrote the inspector of the navy, Vice Admiral Andreas Krause, in his lead contribution to an annual report titled “Facts and figures on the Federal Republic of Germany’s naval independence.” Above all, the contract for the building of the new F126 class of frigates, known as MKS 180, was “finally signed.” Valued at €6 billion, it is the largest naval contract in the history of the Bundeswehr, the Federal Republic’s armed forces.

Behind the scenes, much larger plans are also being plotted here. In early 2019, Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and Chancellor Angela Merkel (both Christian Democrats) raised the possibility of constructing a joint German-French aircraft carrier, which would cost even more.

Irrespective of which absurdly huge projects are officially adopted, the ruling class has decided, as it did prior to the First and Second World Wars, to prepare Germany for war by spending enormous sums of money on rearmament. Hardly a day has gone by since the US presidential election in which leading media outlets, think tanks, and politicians have not demanded a more rapid implementation of rearmament plans and increases to the defence budget. Following the speech from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democrats, SPD) on the 65th anniversary of the Bundeswehr’s founding, Kramp-Karrenbauer spoke along similar lines on Wednesday.

It is “a whole-of-government task” to strengthen “Germany’s reliability in defence and security policy,” she stated in her second foreign policy keynote speech to students of the Bundeswehr University in Hamburg, which was held virtually. “The long-term financing of the defence budget must be of common concern for a government.” She can “therefore believe it is possible to adopt a defence planning law that codifies the multi-year financing of our security over the long-term. So that security is constantly underpinned as an absolutely central task of the state.”

The message is clear. While spending on education and social services will be cut further, and there is no money for health care in the midst of a deadly pandemic, the defence budget will constantly increase to finance the gigantic rearmament plans. “I am happy that in the current budget talks we were able to agree on already providing some of these projects with a perspective of being financed over the medium-term: the eurofighter, the NH90 helicopter, the eurodrone,” stated Kramp-Karrenbauer. This is “good for the soldiers, reliable for our allies” and promotes “European independence, industrial capacity and technology.”

The defence minister made no secret of what is really at stake with the rearmament plans: a third German grab for world power. “We must have an outward-looking view of the world together instead of only focusing on ourselves,” she said. “My goal, and this must be our goal, is that Germany and Europe actively influence our own neighbourhood and the global order. That we keep the interests we have firmly in mind, how we serve them, which goals we pursue in the world, and how we can get there by cooperating with others.”

She sought with a touch of pathos to convince the military personnel to internalise the interests of German imperialism and decisively enforce them. “I hope you will learn to practice this view early on, constantly develop it, and never lose it, regardless of which rank you are currently deployed, from the young unit commander to the military policy level.” On this specific point, she intends to “start an initiative whose aim will be to strengthen this view, that is the geopolitical and geostrategic schooling of the soldiers and Bundeswehr employees.”

Due to its historic crimes in World War II, the German ruling class felt compelled for a long period to conceal its military interventions with humanitarian rhetoric. If they now speak openly of geopolitics and geostrategy, this must be taken as a warning. The ruling elite is preparing to impose its imperialist interests militarily, even in the farthest flung corners of the globe.

“I am encouraged that the federal government adopted a comprehensive doctrine for the Indo-Pacific, which also includes security and defence policy. The strategic significance of the region is thus fully acknowledged,” stated Kramp-Karrenbauer. Germany will also “show its flag” there—“such as with more liaison officers and, in the coming year, coronavirus permitting, with a German naval vessel.”

To enforce its interests not only against Russia and China, but also increasingly independently of and if necessary against the United States, Berlin is pursuing the goal, in close collaboration with Paris, of establishing Europe as a foreign policy great power. “Germany and France want the Europeans to take more decisions themselves and act more effectively when it is necessary. We want Europe to be a strong partner for the US on a level playing field, not a foundling in need of protection. The new American President Joe Biden must see and sense that this is precisely what we are striving for,” demanded Kramp-Karrenbauer.

All parliamentary parties agree with this orientation in its fundamentals. There are merely discussions on how the German-European offensive should be implemented. While Kramp-Karrenbauer stated in her speech that “the idea of European strategic autonomy” is a bridge too far “if it nourishes the illusion that we can guarantee stability, security and prosperity in Europe without NATO and the US.” Representatives from the SPD, Left Party, and Greens in particular are pushing for a more aggressive pursuit of independent European initiatives—in line with the course of French President Emmanuel Macron.

“Instead of suggesting herself what she would like to do concretely to strengthen Europe’s defence capabilities, she stays in the shadows and focuses on administrating instead of shaping,” said Green Party Deputy Franziska Brantner in criticising the defence minister.

What the Greens understand by “shaping” is explained in the text of a motion recommending passage of the party programme at its congress being held this weekend. “The EU must become able to do world politics,” it states. Above all, the aim is to “strengthen the EU’S common security and foreign policy (GASP/GSVP) and thereby make it more capable of taking action.”

The SPD proposes in a current paper the creation of a European army “to set a security policy anchor and occupy new firm ground.” The German presidency of the EU must be used “to push ahead with the project of a European army.” The “nucleus” of such an army should be based around “the already existing EU battlegroups,” and over the medium-term “grow to the size of a reinforced military brigade and rise to approximately 8,000 troops, including the support element (logistics, medical service).”

The Left Party is the most aggressive of all in demanding a German-European foreign policy independent of the United States. The party’s foreign policy spokesman, Gregor Gysi, stated shortly before the US presidential election that Germany must learn, “for geostrategic reasons,” to “sometimes say no to the US.”

In a recent statement published on YouTube, the former parliamentary group leader and influential Left Party politician Sahra Wagenknecht complained that Europe is “not in a position to protect its companies” and is “a digital colony of the United States.” It is necessary to “deal with the US with self-confidence, irrespective of who the president is” and “invest money in areas where our independence and sovereignty are at stake,” she added.

The aggressive nationalist and militarist campaign of all the parliamentary parties corresponds with their deadly policy in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The strategy of “herd immunity,” i.e., the murderous mass infection of the population with the virus, is supported just as forcefully by the nominal left-wing parties as it is by the explicitly right-wing organisations, up to and including the AfD. The state governments in Germany, of which the Left Party and Greens are a part, led the way in reopening the economy; now they vehemently oppose closing schools and nonessential production. “Profits before life” is the essentially fascistic slogan of the media, big business and the politicians.

The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) already analysed six years ago at its special conference against war how the ruling class was responding to the deepening capitalist crisis and the upsurge of working class opposition by turning to militarism, fascism and war, as it did in the 1930s. We wrote at the time:

The revival of militarism is the response of the ruling class to the explosive social tensions, the deepening economic crisis and the growing conflicts between European powers. Its aim is the conquest of new spheres of influence, markets and raw materials upon which the export-dependent German economy relies; the prevention of a social explosion by deflecting social tensions onto an external enemy; and the militarization of society as a whole, including the development of an all-embracing national surveillance apparatus, the suppression of social and political opposition, and the bringing into line of the media.

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated this process, while at the same time radicalising workers and young people around the world. What they require now is a clear political strategy and perspective. The struggle against militarism, war and the policy of herd immunity requires the independent political mobilisation of the working class on the basis of a socialist programme

It is necessary to overthrow the capitalist profit system, which in the final analysis is the cause of militarism and war, expropriate the vast wealth of the super-rich, banks and major corporations, and place them under democratic control. Only in this way can the social rights of all—including the right to health and life itself—be secured. Billions of euros to combat the pandemic, health care, education, social services and culture! Not a single cent for the rearming of the German air force, army and navy!

San Diego schools continue to reopen as California surpasses 1 million COVID-19 cases

Renae Cassimeda

In recent weeks, California passed the grim milestone of having over 1 million COVID-19 cases, and the state has recorded 18,555 deaths. The statewide test positivity rate currently stands at 5.2 percent, with the majority of counties reporting a positivity rate well over 8 percent. Within the last week, 28 counties throughout the state were added to the most restrictive “purple” tier, placing 41 out of 55 counties in the worst category for COVID-19 case counts, which is reached when the positivity rate surpasses 8 percent.

San Diego High School (Wikimedia Commons)

The surge in cases throughout California is part of a nationwide and international explosion in cases and deaths. The United States now has a total of 12,225,857 COVID-19 cases and 259,843 deaths. According to data from the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than 1 million children have tested positive for coronavirus, disproving the arguments advanced by the bourgeois press and politicians who argue schools are not hotbeds for spreading the virus. Such grim statistics are likely much higher due to the large number of asymptomatic cases that go untested and unreported.

In response to the extreme rise in cases, California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement Monday that he was pulling the “emergency brake” on the state’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy” and will reinstate broad restrictions across much of the state.

“We are sounding the alarm,” Newsom said in the statement, adding, “California is experiencing the fastest increase in cases we have seen yet—faster than what we experienced at the outset of the pandemic or even this summer. The spread of COVID-19, if left unchecked, could quickly overwhelm our health care system and lead to catastrophic outcomes.”

In reality, Newsom is advancing the position of the Democratic party, which refuses to carry out lockdowns and closures of schools and non-essential businesses. Newsom’s herd-immunity policies are geared toward keeping businesses open and production flowing, prioritizing profits over workers’ lives.

Despite the fact that 94 percent of state residents live in counties in the most restrictive tier, schools, factories and other workplaces are being kept open. Newsom’s “emergency brake” measures have so far amounted to a mask mandate, citations for businesses that do not meet the required restrictions, and a possible curfew. Such measures provide no real mitigation of the virus on their own and leave millions of workers and their families to confront contracting the illness at work or school.

Schools that have already reopened will not be subject to closures and will be allowed to continue their reopening plans, many of which are already operating under full in-person instruction for all students.

The regulations given to “purple” counties declare that all K-12 schools that were fully online cannot offer in-person instruction while the county remains purple. However, if a school currently offers in-person instruction, even if it is for a small group or limited number of students, the school is not only allowed to maintain in-person classes, but is granted the ability to expand operations, meaning school districts throughout the state will continue with their plans to allow all students onto campuses, and resume close-to-normal operations. Many of the districts that will remain open are in communities with the highest infection rates.

Last month, San Diego teachers and students established the San Diego Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee in opposition to the dangerous reopening of schools to in-person instruction throughout San Diego County. Among the demands we issued in our founding statement were for an immediate halt to all in-person and hybrid instruction for K-12 schools and colleges, full funding for online instruction so that schools can remain online, and the redistribution of CARES Act funds used to bail out Wall Street to instead provide the working class with all the resources needed during the pandemic.

In San Diego County, COVID-19 cases are surging as cumulative totals reach 68,203 cases and 952 deaths. The county reported 1,087 new cases last Saturday, breaking its single-day record for new cases. In the week since, numbers have remained three times higher than the number of average daily new cases in October. COVID-19 hospitalizations have also increased by 27 percent during the weeks of October 25 to November 7, and public health officials anticipate cases and hospitalizations to continue to rise.

The majority of school districts, at least 27 out of 42 in the county, were open to in-person instruction under a full or limited capacity prior to San Diego County moving into the purple tier last week and will remain open as cases continue to rise. According the San Diego County Office of Education dashboard, at least 28,654 students now attend schools fully in-person, 122,177 attend in-person under a hybrid model, and 31,691 staff are present on public school campuses throughout the county.

Last Tuesday, three schools in the Vista Unified School District (VUSD) closed and returned to fully virtual learning after positive cases were reported at Rancho Buena Vista High School, Vista Magnet Middle School and Madison Middle School. These three schools have notified the public that in-person instruction at the campuses will resume November 30.

VUSD, located in north San Diego County and serving more than 25,000 students, is one of the first districts in the county to have opened for fully in-person instruction last month. The most recent reported data from November 11 shows the case rate in Vista at 15.1 percent. According to the district, there have been 31 reported positive cases on school campuses since reopening October 20. Despite an increase in cases within the district and a surging positivity rate throughout the community, the district insists on remaining open.

San Diego County’s three largest districts—San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD), Poway Unified School District (PUSD), and Sweetwater Union High School District (SUHSD)—were open under a limited capacity prior to the county’s purple tier designation and are allowed to keep campuses open for in-person instruction.

San Diego Unified School District, the county’s largest school district with over 100,000 students, has been providing small group in-person sessions for students with high needs since October 13. The district is currently in “Phase One” of its reopening plan and will continue offering in-person sessions for at least 4,000 students. The district will expand into “Phase Two” of its reopening plan in January by opening its elementary and secondary campuses to a hybrid learning model.

SDUSD superintendent Cindy Marten revealed a “National Education Recovery” plan this week calling for a robust testing program, which will be utilized to provide a political cover for further school reopenings in collaboration with the unions.

Poway Unified School District, the second largest in the county, reopened all 39 campuses last month for limited in-person instruction. In a recent statement responding to the county moving into the purple tier, PUSD Chief Communications Officer Christine Paik stated, “We are considered open and we can continue with our reopening.” She added, “Even if you’re only open for part of the population now, eventually if you want to reopen for all of the students who want to come back in-person, you can and that’s our plan.” According to the district COVID-19 dashboard, there have been at least 22 reported positive cases among students so far this month.

Sweetwater Union High School District, the county’s third largest district with 40,000 students, has been providing small group in-person sessions on campuses since earlier this month. Due to an excess of Title I funding from the CARES Act that the district must spend by December 31, schools are opening up their campuses for tutoring where students attend their online classes at school and receive assistance from a teacher. Teachers were asked to recommend students who are struggling in their classes to be placed in the in-person tutoring program. According to the district website, there are 790 students and 729 staff currently on campuses throughout the week.

SUHSD is located in the South Bay of San Diego County along the border between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, which contains some of the highest infection rates in the county. The latest data shows that the community of San Ysidro had a recent seven-day average case rate of 25.3 percent. San Diego County data reports that in the communities of San Ysidro and Otay Mesa an estimated one in five people may be currently battling the virus.

Sweetwater teachers have expressed opposition to the recent move by SUHSD to offer in-person tutoring and after-school programs.

Responding to the district’s sudden move to provide in-person tutoring, Jake, a special education teacher, told the World Socialist Web Site, “The district is preparing for a return to in-person teaching. If no one gets sick during this pilot program, then the district will use this as justification for a full return. Early in the school semester, the district sent a survey asking teachers if they would be interested in returning back to the classroom, and a resounding majority refused to return to the classroom.”

John, also a special education teacher, shared his response to a staff e-mail that asked for teachers to recommend students to attend in-person tutoring. He said, “These kids will now be exposed to a more dangerous environment than need be and may be exposed to a deadly virus. I for one will grade accordingly from now on. Per my beliefs, I do understand academic progress this year is of paramount importance, but I do not morally agree with identifying students who are struggling knowing that they will be ‘allowed the opportunity to volunteer,’ to participate in a small group environment, where they are receiving support but are also being exposed and exposing staff members to a potentially life-altering virus.

“I will be changing my policies on leniency for late and missing assignments. Personally I am willing to take the brunt of ‘being talked to’ or having my records reviewed, if it comes to that, but I sleep better knowing I’m helping to foster community and keep people safe in a time when we are all in need of a helping hand. The reality is that no students from K to 12th grade will be fully meeting their potential or at grade level, in this district or elsewhere during this time of distance learning.”

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.