New York City’s school reopening plan: anatomy of a crime

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/27/nycs-a27.html


By Alberto Escalera
27 August 2020

New York City’s self-proclaimed “progressive” mayor, Democrat Bill de Blasio, has proven just as willing to carry out the homicidal policy of school reopening amidst the coronavirus pandemic as his most reactionary Republican counterparts.

The claims being made by de Blasio and New York City schools’ Chancellor Richard Carranza that the Department of Education (DOE) is carrying out all necessary measures to safely open the city’s more than 1,600 schools—serving more than a million students—are a patent fraud. This is being sold to parents through a combination of half-truths and outright lies.

There is widespread opposition to the reopening of schools from teachers and school administrators. At the same time, a growing number of parents and students are raising concerns over both the safety and the viability of the city’s hybrid models, which bring students into school buildings between one and three days each week.

During the first two weeks of August, school principals and leadership teams from non-District 75 (a non-geographical district designated for special education schools) middle and high schools were told they had to select from one of five DOE-approved models for hybrid learning, despite having been asked previously to develop reopening plans grounded in the reality and needs of each school community. School leaders were told that waivers allowing for alternative models developed by school communities would not be granted.

An enormous amount of pressure has been put on principals to quickly select a pre-approved hybrid model even before the results from family surveys, in which parents can select between in-person, so-called hybrid instruction, or 100 percent remote instruction for their children. Similarly, model decisions were being made before final decisions on teacher requests for medical waivers for in-person teaching were forwarded to principals.

In other words, principals and school teams were essentially excluded from any meaningful input into the reopening process while being forced to choose a hybrid model without considering the kind of basic data on student population or staffing needed to make any rational decision. Parents were also being asked to choose a hybrid model without clear communication of the basic details of said models or adequate time to consider how they would impact work or childcare.
Chaotic changes from one week to another

The pre-approved models disseminated by DOE central provoked immediate disbelief and consternation among principals and school leadership teams because they lack consistency from one week to another, unnecessarily complicating the job of teachers now being tasked with managing multiple groups of students receiving instruction both in-person and remotely, and making the coordination of childcare onerous for parents.

For example, in so-called Model 2, which is listed as “chancellor recommended” for middle schools, students enrolled in hybrid instruction are divided into three in-person groups, or cohorts A, B and C, which meet alternately between one and two different days each week over the course of a three-week cycle.

School administrators and school-based leadership teams have been abandoned by district superintendents and DOE central administration and now face enormous challenges in solving complicated logistical problems stemming from the ill-conceived reopening policy.

For example, many school buildings have limited access points through which students can enter upon arrival at school. In the case of large school buildings and campus sites, i.e. buildings that house multiple schools, there is a high likelihood of students gathering in large concentrations as they wait to enter buildings after newly mandated temperature checks, often through scanning machines.

Additionally, families of many students that require school busses to get to school, particularly at the elementary and middle school levels, have been notified that they will no longer be able to receive this service due to scheduling difficulties and the absence of social distancing protocols for busses.
What about asymptomatic and infected children?

With much fanfare, de Blasio has stated that students and staff would receive daily temperature checks upon arrival at school. Yet, the spread of coronavirus from asymptomatic persons is a proven fact rendering temperature checks an inadequate means to identify people with the virus. At present, school administrators have gotten no response to the logical question of who is to be tasked with conducting temperature checks, nor have school personnel received trainings on how to properly and safely conduct said checks. Predictably, widespread opposition to the idea of conducting these daily temperature checks has emerged among non-medically trained school staff.

Likewise, other critically important questions around protocols for students or staff that display COVID-19 symptoms while in school remain unanswered. Even in cases where schools have an assigned nurse, which is not the case in every school, and a proper isolation space has been identified, the supply of appropriate PPE as well as questions related to the staffing of these specific spaces within schools are still up in the air. Guidelines issued by New York state prevent a school nurse from staffing an isolation room because of the need to respond to other potential emergencies.

Across New York City, school administrators, teachers and parents are also raising serious and still unanswered questions around protocols for regular cleaning and disinfecting of schools as well as ventilation.

At the same time that de Blasio and his schools’ chancellor have made promises to carry out nightly “deep cleaning” of school buildings, custodial engineers across city schools are seeing massive budget cuts and staff reductions. At some schools, custodial budgets are being slashed by as much as 20 percent, and already understaffed cleaning crews are being further reduced. Indeed, there is growing opposition to school reopening even among custodial engineers, who are increasingly expressing frustration over what they view as false promises being made from City Hall for which they will be held accountable.
Decaying infrastructure and poor ventilation

Perhaps no other school facilities issue has received more attention in the past weeks as the ventilation systems in the approximately 1,600 public schools in New York City. This is particularly due to the growing body of scientific evidence that identifies aerosol or airborne transmission as playing a greater role in the spread of the virus than previously understood. It is commonly known that defective and inadequate ventilation systems, along with lead-contaminated water, are major problems highlighting the decades of neglect that plague aging school infrastructure across many areas in the United States.

During a recent virtual town hall meeting with concerned parents, schools’ Chancellor Carranza blatantly lied to attendees when he stated that HVAC systems in schools across the city were being updated with enhanced filtration mechanisms over the summer in preparation for reopening. What he did not mention was that only a small percentage of the city’s school buildings have newer HVAC systems that allow for updates to air filtration mechanisms, and in most cases, the city is merely replacing old air filters with newer ones that have increased merv ratings, a measure for how much capacity a filter has to capture particles in the air. However, even this wholly inadequate “update” is limited to buildings constructed after the 1970s while the vast majority of school buildings in New York City, as in many other areas across the US, are significantly older and do not have central air filtration or even adequate air circulation systems.

In a similarly cynical example of intentional deception, the DOE sent all employees an email this past Saturday, August 22, offering them one-time, free COVID-19 testing with expedited results at one of nine test centers throughout the city between Sunday, August 23 and Thursday, August 27. Assuming that all of the approximately 80,000 DOE employees, most of whom are on vacation this week, actually showed up for testing at these centers, the likely backlog would wreak havoc at a time in which resources are being systematically siphoned away from testing centers for the public. In any event, a one-time test, two weeks before the projected start of school, even if the results were to arrive sooner than the current eight-day average wait for all but the super wealthy fortunate enough to have access to rapid result tests, is meaningless for teachers being asked to risk daily exposure.

Significantly, public school students are not even being offered this paltry, one-time measure much less access for them and school staff to frequent, free, rapid-result testing as one of the conditions for reopening schools.

The vast majority of the parents who have chosen to send their children back to school within these hybrid models have described the decision as agonizing, explaining that it is more a consequence of being forced back to work or concerns about the continuing loss of special services than the belief that schools will be safe.

Indeed, as many parents are increasingly coming to understand, the students returning to school will find it unlike anything they were familiar with. For example, class schedules are being designed to limit or prevent movement of students at the middle and high school levels in order to prevent now infamous scenarios of large numbers of students traveling through hallways, as was recently documented at a school in North Paulding, Georgia. This means that during the time in which students are present for classes, they will be expected to remain seated in one room.

Cooperative learning, an instructional approach recommended for decades by education experts that promotes active collaboration between students, will be all but eliminated from in-person lessons at all grade levels to adhere to social distancing guidelines. Many of the remaining enrichment classes such as music and physical education will be conducted online even for students attending in-person as these activities entail vigorous movement or the use of wind instruments. Complicated bathroom procedures will have to be developed and implemented to limit the number of students using these facilities at any given time and ensure thorough cleaning after each use.

Even the serving of school lunch raises serious concerns for which the DOE has no answers. For example, to avoid crowded cafeterias many schools are considering having lunches brought to classrooms in which students will essentially remain “quarantined” throughout the day, raising concerns around complicating the already difficult jobs of custodians as well as creating the contradictory scenario of indoor eating for school-aged children at a time when it is still prohibited in restaurants throughout the city.
Unions collaborate with de Blasio

Against the backdrop of this ill-conceived and homicidal drive to reopen schools, it is essential to recognize the role being played by teachers’ unions like the United Federation of Teachers (UFT).

In a clear example of its criminally complicit role in the fraud that de Blasio and his DOE cronies are attempting to carry out, the UFT recently began dispatching bureaucratic functionaries to schools to conduct so-called “safety walkthroughs.” These walkthroughs are taking place in coordination with the Department of School Facilities (DSF), largely behind the backs of rank-and-file union members, who are not being invited to attend. The UFT functionaries dispatched to conduct these walkthroughs are typically retired teachers without any background in building engineering or maintenance systems. They have been observed to simply follow a list of questions with boxes to check off, accepting as truth any response given by school authorities.

In one recent instance, a UFT representative became visibly upset when a rank-and-file teacher showed up uninvited for the walkthrough and questioned the validity of the blindly held assumption that windows capable of opening six inches provide sufficient airflow in rooms lacking other means to circulate air. In another, a UFT representative admitted to completing the checklist, which covers topics ranging from ventilation to the school nurse, PPE and lunches, via telephone with an Assistant Principal in charge of building security.

These bogus walkthroughs highlight the treacherous role being played by the UFT, which intends to ensnare teachers with a combination of empty threats to strike, while opposing any such collective action, as well as promoting illusions in the court system and the Democratic Party.

The improvised and reckless nature of school reopening policy in New York City is leaving teachers, parents and school administrators alike anxious, frustrated and angry. In response to growing popular opposition, de Blasio is doubling down as his cronies within the DOE impose new measures to censor communication between school staff and parents.

If educators are going to save lives, they must take matters into their own hands. This is why teachers, other school workers, parents and students need to form rank-and-file committees of their own, independent of the UFT, to organize genuine opposition to the homicidal school policy being imposed by the de Blasio-Carranza regime.

New York City has already been an epicenter of the deadly pandemic, suffering the loss of 24,000 people to COVID-19. If another catastrophe is to be prevented, teachers must unite with health care, transit, logistics and other workers to prepare collective action, as part of the fight for a nationwide general strike to halt the school openings.

Florida educators launch rank-and-file committee to oppose unsafe school openings

By Duval County Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee
27 August 2020

The following is a statement from the Duval County Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee, which was just established to oppose unsafe conditions in schools that have already been opened in Jacksonville. The county has recorded more than 25,700 cases of COVID-19. According to local polls taken in early August, approximately 80 percent of parents in the district are opposed to in-person learning.

We are forming the Duval County Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee to protect the lives of our students, families, and the most vulnerable members of our community.

After months of applying pressure to the Duval County Public School Board, Superintendent Dr. Diana Greene, and the Duval Teachers United union, our gravest concerns have gone unheard. Schools are open, and the virus is spreading. Teachers, fearful for their jobs and their lives, are trapped in unsafe classrooms without testing, social distancing, proper ventilation, or sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE). The promises made by Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran and repeated by the Board and Dr. Greene have gone unfulfilled.

These schools are not safe. Science has not guided this reopening; greed has. We refuse to lay down our lives for profit or participate in a poorly designed, underfunded, deadly experiment.

Therefore, we issue these demands as the basis for a struggle for a safe return to school in Duval County:
We call for the immediate closure of all public, private, and charter schools. Schools must remain closed until the rank-and-file safety committees, working in conjunction with trusted scientists and public health experts—not only the Florida Department of Health (FDOH)—can ensure the safety of children, teachers, and school employees.


Every student and teacher must be provided with up-to-date computer technology and Internet access for virtual instruction immediately. This technology must include working webcams and microphones.


School ventilation systems must be renovated or replaced to comply with scientific recommendations for a safe environment.


When schools reopen face-to-face, we demand mandatory rapid on-site testing once a week for all faculty, students, and staff. Registered nurses must be stationed at every school, authorized to oversee testing and robust contact tracing. Working alongside educators organized in the rank-and-file safety committee, they must ensure that safety protocols are fully enacted. Teachers have the collective right to refuse to work under unsafe conditions.


Full transparency. We demand daily reporting to the community on results and COVID-positive cases. No one can return to a school building without a negative test.


No loss of income for educators who choose to stay home. Teachers will not lose their position at their school if they decide to remain virtual. Teachers shall be provided unlimited COVID-19 sick leave.


For freedom of speech and the protection of whistleblowers to include teachers, students, and staff.


For the unity and safety of educators, parents, students, and workers in our community.


Full income protection to all parents and caregivers who stay home with their children.


These measures to be paid for by a surcharge on Florida’s billionaires. As of 2019, Florida was home to 52 billionaires, and 33 of these were listed on the Forbes 400.

We call on all educators, parents, and students in Duval County who agree with these demands to join our rank-and-file safety committee. We also appeal to the same layer of people in the rest of Florida, the United States, and the world to support our struggle and build their own safety committees to fight side-by-side with us for our joint interests.

There is a growing sentiment for a national strike to halt the homicidal reopening of schools across the United States. We in Duval County, Florida, support this movement and wish to lend our strength to those around the country looking for mass action of the working class because our lives are at stake. We call on all layers of workers—manufacturing, logistics, food processing, health care, public and private sector—in Duval County and nationally to support our struggle.

We urge you to join and build the Educators Rank and File Safety Committee Facebook group and register for our call-in meeting on Saturday, August 29.

A growing number of educators across the country are forming district-wide and state-wide safety committees and joining the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee, the national network set up to unify teachers, parents and students across the US, link up with other sections of workers, and prepare a nationwide general strike to halt the deadly reopening of schools.

There are many life-and-death issues behind the decision to form the Duval County Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee. Here are some of the key facts.

Educators, parents, and students have been staging protests against the school openings all across Florida for weeks, including here in Duval County, Pasco County, Hillsborough County (Tampa), and Escambia County (Pensacola). Ignoring mass opposition, districts have moved forward to reopen across the state, producing more than 600 confirmed COVID-19 infections among students and staff, the largest confirmed school total of any state.

Florida Education Commissioner Corcoran lies to the media, claiming that schools have adequate social distancing and PPE in place. Social distancing is not happening, kids are not wearing masks properly, and there is a massive cover-up in terms of the number of new cases within the schools, where rapid testing is not taking place. The real number of cases in Florida schools is undoubtedly far higher than what is being reported.

Educators in Florida have been told to use unpaid FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) days if they contract the virus. However, many who exhibit symptoms are afraid to use their extremely limited number of days until they are more severely ill. The result is that faculty, staff, and students are entering the schools even when they have symptoms. The only precaution being taken at the entryways are temperature tests, which are not adequate indicators of the presence of COVID-19.

Despite widespread anger, the Florida Education Association (FEA), the trade union that claims to represent the interests of teachers in the state, is opposed to a strike. Trade union bureaucrats have told teachers that they must not upset the “powers that be” and jeopardize their ability to collect dues from our paychecks. The local Duval Teachers United, which is affiliated with the FEA, has marched in lockstep with district officials.

The FEA’s primary response to the reopening was the filing of a lawsuit against the State of Florida, leaving the fight in the hands of the court system. The resulting decision, now in legal limbo, at most leaves the question of reopening up to district administrators, which means that counties like Duval can continue to operate face-to-face classes without interruption or adequate safety measures.

The FEA calls this court decision a “win,” but for rank-and-file educators this was no victory. Instead of the union’s promised demands of zero out-of-pocket costs for COVID-19 treatment; rapid testing for students, faculty, and staff; inspection, cleaning, and increased filtering of air conditioning units; and mask requirements for faculty and students—only the masking requirement (which costs the district nothing) is in place.

Finally, Florida has seen possibly the most aggressive drive in the nation for virtual charter schools and privatization. There is no doubt that the state’s demand for a return to school aims to both force workers back onto the job and continue to bleed public schools of resources through declining enrollment. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, an outspoken Trump supporter and school privatizer, has been a leading advocate of reopening schools in the state and has long aligned himself with the government’s attempt to destroy public education.

The Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee has been formed to coordinate and facilitate the building of a network of rank-and-file safety committees in every school and neighborhood, to organize the immense opposition to the murderous plan to reopen schools. All those who agree with this perspective should contact us today, join our Facebook group and make plans to attend our next online call-in meeting Saturday, August 29. Register today and share the event widely with your coworkers!

Under pressure from the White House, CDC issues guidelines for less COVID-19 testing

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/27/test-a27.html

By Benjamin Mateus
27 August 2020

On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) modified its guidelines for testing for COVID-19. Previously, the CDC recommended that people exposed to close contacts of confirmed cases be tested “because of the potential for asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission.”

This recommendation was changed this week to “if you have been in close contact of a person with a COVID-19 infection for at least 15 minutes but do not have symptoms, you do not necessarily need a test unless you are a vulnerable individual or your health care provider or state or local public health officials recommend you take one.”

The change in guidelines has been met with a barrage of anger and dismay among various health experts and physician groups who have repeatedly stated that the key to suppressing the infection is broad, mass testing of the population.

Former Baltimore Health Commissioner, Dr. Leana Wen, told CNN, “I’m concerned that these recommendations suggest someone who has had substantial exposure to a person with COVID-19 now doesn’t need to get tested. This is key to contact tracing, especially given that up to 50 percent of all transmission is due to people who do not have symptoms. One wonders why these guidelines were changed—is it to justify continued deficit in testing?”

According to sources speaking to the New York Times and CNN, the order came from the Trump administration during a closed meeting without the presence of Dr. Fauci. The CDC has remained silent on providing any explanation on its sudden policy change and directed all questions to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

HHS Assistant Secretary Admiral Brett Giroir released a callous and nonsensical statement that said, “This guidance has been updated to reflect current evidence and best public health practices and to further emphasize using CDC-approved prevention strategies to protect yourself, your family, and the most vulnerable, of all ages.”

Speaking later to CNN, Giroir added that the guidelines were authored by Dr. Fauci, White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, and Stephen Hahn, head of the Food and Drug Administration.

However, Fauci, who was in surgery during the meeting where the changes were approved, told the media, “I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern.”

Clearly, the change in guidance is no minor slip and follows President Trump’s repeated assertion that too much testing has been driving the number of cases up in the country. Behind this maneuver is an effort to ensure the public health guidelines conform to demands by Democratic and Republican officials alike for the reopening of schools and continuation of in-person classes.

Recent debacles in attempting to open schools had seen roughly 2,500 teachers, students and staff tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in the month. Now, almost every state in the country has had at least one school report of a COVID-19 outbreak.
American Academy of Pediatricians—Children vs. all age groups with COVID-19

CNN reported yesterday that in Mississippi, with a positivity rate where at least one in four tests came back positive for COVID-19, nearly 4,000 students and almost 600 teachers have quarantined due to exposure. In Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis has likened school reopening to the Navy SEALs mission to assassinate Osama bin Laden, almost 9,000 children have been diagnosed over the last two weeks. Reports also indicate that the number of children hospitalized has risen 38 percent over the same period to 602 in the most recent announcement.

The social anger and resentment among teachers, parents, and students is palpable and growing. Lack of preparation, utter ineptitude on the part of school officials and teachers unions, and significant pressure being brought to bear from every level of the state are forcing every community to face the significant dangers associated with COVID-19.

Just in the last two weeks, more than 74,000 children in the US tested positive for the coronavirus, a 21 percent increase between August 6 to August 20. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, presently, there have been at least 442,785 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in this age group. Since May, when states proceeded out of lockdowns and opened commerce, children have been a growing section of COVID-19 cases. They presently account for nearly 10 percent of all cases of COVID-19 in the country.

The new testing guidelines fly in the face of earlier studies by the CDC which established that children are more likely to be asymptomatic carriers of the infection but can spread the disease as well as adults. Studies from Italy, South Korea and the US have confirmed that children carry the same or higher viral loads in their nasal sinuses as adults. Documented reports in camps and schools have demonstrated that children are excellent vectors for the transmission of the coronavirus.

The percent of the population that is asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic is still an open question for epidemiologists. The Washington Post published on August 8 a summary of studies in various specific communities which found a wide range in the share of asymptomatic infections. The most often cited reference presently comes from the CDC that places the figure at 40 percent. A small study from South Korea further characterized that only approximately 20 percent of asymptomatic patients will go on to develop symptoms over a median interval of 15 days.

Besides being a significant factor and challenge in the high rate of community transmission, the long-term complications associated with COVID-19—which need urgent study—include lung, heart and kidney injury that could develop into chronic health problems.

Regardless of the decreased propensity of morbidity and death from COVID-19 among children and young adults, this group constitutes close to 95 million people representing almost 30 percent of the country. A death toll of 1 in a 1,000 would mean tens-of-thousands of deaths in these age ranges that could have been prevented. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, mortality among children in 45 states and New York City has ranged from 0 to 0.7 percent.

Equally concerning, teachers at high risk for severe COVID-19 infections account for 1 in 4 educators or 1.5 million people. Additionally, millions of elderly people live in homes with school-aged children. The Trump administration’s push to suppress testing will be catastrophic.

Despite the decline from the July days that saw daily cases reach above 70,000, the present transmission rate remains excessive, with over 40,000 new confirmed each day, and 1,000 people are dying each day. The United States will pass 6 million cases this week and is poised to exceed 200,000 deaths in the first half of September.

Even as the White House moves to suppress testing, health officials are seeing new COVID-19 cases across rural areas of the “heartland” states which had not been as hard hit as the rest of the country. Kansas Governor Laura Kelly reported that there had been a case of COVID-19 in every county in the state, and the seven day-average in cases has been steadily creeping upwards. Last week, the University of Kansas reported over 80 COVID-19 infections on campus.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that eight of ten counties in Illinois that have had the fastest rates of new COVID-19 cases per capita have been in rural districts, a reversal of trends when Cook County, the home of Chicago, dominated cases early in the course of the pandemic.

The latest outbreaks in Illinois have been directly attributed to the return of students to K-12 schools and universities, which is potentially a harbinger of growing community transmission as cold weather will begin to push people indoors in the next two to three months. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is expecting to see more than 200 students with COVID-19 infections among the returning 40,000 students.

Governor of Ohio Mike DeWine reported that the counties of Drake, Mercer and Jackson had recorded the highest new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents. The state has allowed outdoor and indoor sports venues to operate under supposed restrictions of 15 percent of seating capacity. With over 4,000 confirmed deaths in the state, Governor DeWine, defending his handling of the pandemic, told the local press, “…the long-term gain is not just we’ve saved lives. The long-term gain is we don’t destroy our economy.”

Compounding the United States’ testing woes, a recent report by Tori Marsh from GoodRx reported that 67 million Americans in both metropolitan and rural communities are on average over 22 miles from the nearest COVID-19 testing center. Texas, California, Florida, Ohio and Michigan have some of the largest numbers of COVID-19 testing deserts, defined as a census tract that is at least 10 miles away from a testing center. The median income for census tracts in testing deserts is $52,462 compared to $67,964 for non-desert census tracts.

Wildfires continue to rage across California amidst heat wave and pandemic

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/27/fire-a27.html

By Anthony del Olmo
27 August 2020

Fires, ash and disease continue to rage throughout much of the West Coast of the United States. Record-breaking heat waves and fires sparked by powerful lightning storms have torn through several areas of California over the past week, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The scene is apocalyptic as fires rage throughout much of northern California, with a smoke-filled haze covering the dense San Francisco Bay Area and statewide heat waves prompting utility companies to induce rolling power outages.

So far this year, more than 7,000 fires have decimated over 1.6 million acres (2,500 square miles), an area larger than the state of Delaware, to make this fire season one of the most active in California history. In comparison, by August of 2019, some 4,292 fires had burned 56,000 acres across the state.

According to Cal Fire, California’s fire agency, there are currently over 650 active fires of varying sizes, which have so far destroyed over 2,000 structures and killed at least seven people.

Hundreds of small fires began after thunderstorms hit on the night of August 17, resulting in over 13,000 dry-lightning strikes, which led to massive “fire complexes.” Strong winds and a severe heat wave have exacerbated the situation, creating the second and third largest fires in California history.

The most destructive of the blazes, the LNU Lightning Complex in the northern San Francisco Bay Area counties of Napa, Lake and Sonoma, has destroyed close to 1,000 buildings. It continues to threaten about 30,000 more buildings and has killed at least five people.

As of Wednesday morning, the fire had been 33 percent contained. There are currently over 2,200 firefighting personnel battling the blaze, and Cal Fire authorities are reminding residents to stay on high alert to be prepared to leave at any moment.

Of the five people killed by the LNU Lightning Complex fire, three were found in a hillside bunker in Napa Valley, a Pacific Gas & Electric employee died from smoke inhalation while assisting firefighters, and a male Solano County resident was killed.

The SCU Lightning Complex grew to become the second largest wildfire in California state history after surpassing the acreage of the LNU Lightning Complex on Monday. Only the 2018 Mendocino Complex was larger.

The fire, threatening residents east of Silicon Valley proper in Santa Clara, Alameda, Stanislaus, Contra Costa and San Joaquin counties, has destroyed nearly 40 structures and threatens over 20,000 more. Currently, five people have been injured with burn wounds from the fire, including three firefighters. Fire activity has lessened due to lighter winds and increased humidity, but the fire still remains at only 25 percent containment as of Wednesday afternoon.

The third of the large fire complexes, the CZU Complex, has destroyed over 530 structures throughout Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, south of San Francisco. Cal Fire reported progress in containing the fire for the first time on Wednesday, but the fire remains at 19 percent containment and officials warn that the trend could change if weather conditions worsen. Most devastatingly, the fire has led to the indefinite closure of Big Basin Redwoods State Park, the oldest in California and home to redwood trees hundreds of years old, which have been completely destroyed.

Pollution from the smoke of multiple fires burning at once has significantly worsened air quality across California and southern parts of Oregon. Officials project that the air quality index (AQI) for Northern and Central California will remain at levels up to three times the acceptable range set by the Environmental Protection Agency until at least Sunday.

Polluted air has the potential to weaken the immune systems of otherwise healthy people. This makes the situation all the more dire in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, like smoke inhalation, affects the respiratory system. California already has one of the highest infection rates in the country, with more than 6,000 new cases reported on average each day. Studies suggest that areas with higher levels of air pollution correlate to higher COVID-19 infection rates.

The coronavirus pandemic has compounded the stresses faced by the more than 100,000 people who have been forced for evacuate areas affected by wildfires. Those who would otherwise choose to take refuge in the homes of relatives or friends are having second thoughts, for fear of infecting loved ones or contracting the virus from them.

Bay Area hotels remain booked up with evacuees and there are far too few rooms to house the thousands in need of temporary housing. With hotel vouchers now unavailable, thousands of workers and unemployed are directed to parking lots, parks, campgrounds and other open spaces, where thousands have been forced to live out of their cars, often with little or no aid, in the midst of temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in much of inland California.

Aridity and heat waves have intensified in the last few decades as a direct result of manmade climate change. Summer forest fires in California have increased in size by about 800 percent over the last 50 years, and the 10 most destructive fire seasons on record in terms of area burned have all taken place since 2008.

The average yearly acreage burned nationwide every year since 2000 is more than double the average burned during the 1990s, according to the Congressional Research Service. In recent years, flames have sparked in ecosystems that do not normally have wildfires. Fires are common in dry grass and chaparral, but are now occurring in redwood and coniferous forests.

To make matters worse, the heat wave has led utility companies to enforce rolling blackouts because the outdated infrastructure risks sparking even more fires, cutting power to 130,000 people in southern California and 220,000 people in the Central Coast and Central Valley areas.

Last year, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) implemented the first series of enforced power outages, allegedly to prevent fire from sparking in the event that PG&E power lines fell during dry and windy conditions. PG&E was found earlier this year to be guilty of over 80 counts of involuntary manslaughter for the deaths caused by downed power lines that sparked the 2018 Camp Fire.

Despite the predictability of the annual fires and the techniques to remove shrubbery that would prevent massive fires, there is nowhere near the number of fire crews, airplanes and helicopters needed to put out the fires. In a given year, the state relies on over 2,200 cheap prison laborers to risk their lives battling fires for $2-5 dollars a day, but this year most are currently unavailable due to an early release initiative aimed at limiting the spread of the coronavirus in the state’s prisons.

Moreover, California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, signed a budget in June that would slash over $50 billion in state spending, including a $681 million cut in environmental protection. This would only heighten the danger under conditions where repeated cuts in funding for social infrastructure, including fire departments, have contributed to the current wildfire crisis.

In the wealthiest state, home to 154 billionaires—the largest number in the US—as well as Silicon Valley and the Hollywood film studios, the resources exist to mitigate and prepare for the annual fire season, fully staff the fire departments, upgrade aging energy infrastructure, clear dry vegetation and implement controlled burns. However, under capitalism all aspects of life are subordinated to the enrichment of a tiny elite.

Players shut down NBA playoffs in protest over Jacob Blake shooting

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/27/nba-a27.html

By Alan Gilman
27 August 2020

On Wednesday, the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) refused to leave their locker room for their first-round playoff game with the Orlando Magic. Within an hour of the Bucks’ boycott, the NBA announced all the day’s games had been officially postponed and would be rescheduled, as the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers were planning to sit out their games as well.

Players have reportedly called for a meeting in Orlando Wednesday night as they attempt to figure out their next steps, according to The Athletic. All playoff games by all NBA teams are being held in Orlando, in the same facility and without live audiences, in order to minimize the risk of coronavirus to players and team staff.

This unprecedented boycott comes as NBA players have continued to be at the forefront in speaking out about social and racial injustices following the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, among others.

Over 70 percent of the NBA’s players are black and Milwaukee is 50 miles north of Kenosha. In announcing minutes before the start of Wednesday’s game that his team would not be playing, Bucks guard George Hill told The Undefeated. “We’re tired of the killings and the injustice.”

Hill, as one of the leaders of the boycott, had on Monday intimated his frustration with the NBA resuming basketball in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder. “We can’t do anything from Orlando,” he said. “First of all, we shouldn’t have even come to this damn place, to be honest. I think coming here just took all the focal points off what the issues are.”

Hill’s feelings echoed numerous players in the NBA who had opposed resuming the season. Many did so reluctantly, fearing it would dissipate many of their voices that were prominent during the protest movement inspired by the police murder of George Floyd, particularly when they would all be confined to the artificial environment in Orlando.

When the NBA season resumed in late July virtually all players knelt during the national anthem, while “Black Lives Matter” was emblazoned on the courts in the Disney World bubble. Most players have sported social-justice messages on their jerseys, replacing their names with words such as Justice, Peace, Equality, Freedom, and Enough. Many international players display these words in their native languages.

LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers, the NBA’s most prominent star and increasingly outspoken on social issues, said, “I know people get tired of hearing me say it but we are scared as Black people in America. Black men, black women, black kids, we are terrified. Because you don’t know, you have no idea. You have no idea how that cop that day left the house. You don’t know if he woke up on the good side of the bed, you don’t know if he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

Doc Rivers, the African-American coach of the Los Angeles Clippers, attended Marquette University in Milwaukee, only an hour’s drive from Kenosha, and his father was a policeman. He became emotional during his news conference after the Clippers game on Tuesday evening.

Rivers criticized many of the speakers at the Republican National Convention the night before for talking about fear while black Americans live in actual fear of policing in this country. “All you hear is Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear,” he said. “We’re the ones getting killed. We’re the ones getting shot.”

Kenny Smith, a longtime TNT analyst and 10-year NBA player, walked off the “NBA on TNT” set in support of the players on Wednesday as the show began saying, “I think the biggest thing now—as a black man and a former player—I think it’s best for me to not be here tonight.”

Many other professional athletes throughout the sports world have also expressed their outrage over the Blake shooting.

In Major League Baseball (MLB) the Milwaukee Brewers reliever Devin Williams took the mound Monday, August 24 at Miller Park in the seventh inning of a game against the Cincinnati Reds. With his foot, Williams wrote “BLM” in the clay. Then he proceeded to strike out the side.

On Wednesday, after the Milwaukee Bucks triggered the shutdown of pro basketball games, the Brewers followed suit, refusing to take the field Wednesday night against the Reds in Miller Park. As the news spread, two more night games were cancelled on the west coast: the Seattle Mariners against the San Diego Padres in San Diego, and the Los Angeles Dodgers against the San Francisco Giants in San Francisco.

In the National Football League (NFL), in which all teams are in training camps in preparation for the start of the season in September, dozens of players took to social media to express their outrage over the shooting of Blake.

The Detroit Lions on Tuesday cancelled their practice and after a long meeting assembled near the front of the team’s headquarters to speak to the media.

Quarterback Matthew Stafford said there has never been a day he was more proud to be a Lion and a quarterback in the NFL than Tuesday. “We had our team meeting this morning and no football was talked about. Coach just opened the floor. The conversations lasted four hours and it was incredible to be a part of it.”

“We can’t be silent,” defensive lineman Trey Flowers said. “We can’t stay silent. It can’t be us going through our regular day. So today we stand unified. We are all brothers, the human race. We are all one, and once we realize that and overcome just the difference of skin color, the difference of culture, then we’ll start to love one another, treat others as they are us.”

Far-right militia member arrested for fatally shooting two protesters and wounding a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/27/keno-a27.html

By Jacob Crosse
27 August 2020

Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old former police cadet from Antioch, Illinois, located less than 20 miles from Kenosha, Wisconsin, was arrested and charged with first degree homicide on Wednesday morning in connection with the fatal shootings of two protesters and wounding of a third.

The killings came on the third night of protests over the shooting of Jacob Blake by Kenosha police on Sunday. Police officer Rusten Shesky, a seven-year veteran of the department, fired seven shots point blank into the back of the unarmed 29-year-old African American father of six as he was attempting to get into his SUV. The fusillade severed Blake’s spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.
The arrest of Rittenhouse took place some 10 hours after he was identified on social media video and by eyewitnesses. The video shows that Rittenhouse shot multiple people in two separate incidents, first in a car lot and minutes later in the middle of the street.

Police have yet to publicly identify the victims. However, at a Wednesday press conference police confirmed that all of the victims were from Wisconsin, including the two who died—a 26-year-old Silver Lake resident and a 36-year-old Kenosha man—and the injured individual, a 36-year-old man from West Allis. All three were unarmed.

Comrades and friends have placed posts on social media identifying one of the murdered protesters as Anthony Huber of Silver Lake. A GoFundMe page established to help pay for funeral expenses for Huber exceeded its $25,000 goal in less than eight hours.

A friend of Huber told the local CBS television affiliate he believed Anthony was a hero because he tried to stop the shooter. “He is a peaceful person,” said the friend. “He didn’t go out looking to beat people up. He’s more of a defender. And he put his life on the line for others. That’s what he did.”

Immediately after the shootings, the police refused to question, much less detain, Rittenhouse. In a graphic video viewed over 2.6 million times, Rittenhouse is seen walking past police and armored trucks with his AR-15 slung over his chest after having fired dozens of rounds less than a minute before, leaving several people injured or dying. Police can be seen ignoring shouts from protesters claiming Rittenhouse was responsible. Instead, they drive down the street, allowing the killer to leave the city and drive home to Illinois.

Rittenhouse was drawn to the anti-police violence protest by a group called the Kenosha Militia, which had posted a “Call to Arms” on Facebook. The call for right-wing forces to arm themselves and confront protesters in Kenosha on Wednesday was promoted on the far-right conspiracy website Infowars. In interviews given throughout the evening to internet streamers, Rittenhouse boasted that “we don’t have non-lethal” weaponry and that he was there “to protect the property.”

In another recorded interaction, Rittenhouse, AR-15 in hand, is seen with several older members of the militia outside of a boarded-up business. Police drive up and through their loudspeaker offer their “appreciation” to the heavily armed militia members. “We really appreciate you guys,” one cop says over the loudspeaker, while another asks “if you guys need any water.”

President Trump has repeatedly made statements inciting far-right and fascist forces to attack opponents on the left. The murder of the Kenosha protesters took place in the midst of the Republican National Convention, which has featured speaker after speaker denouncing anti-police violence protesters as anarchists, Marxists, terrorists, looters and rioters. In April, Trump posted a tweet urging armed militia groups opposed to state lockdown orders to “liberate” states with Democratic governors such as Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia.

Far-right groups including Proud Boys and boogaloo bois have gone to Kenosha, a rust belt city devastated by the closure of factories and destruction of manufacturing jobs, to confront and threaten protesters, as they have in other cities across the country where protests have continued since the May 25 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In seeking to build his personalist base of support, Trump has embraced the fascistic conspiracy group QAnon, which pledges to carry out a “storm” that will end in the execution of Trump’s political opponents.

Trump took to Twitter Wednesday afternoon claiming he had spoken to Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, and would be sending “federal law enforcement and the National Guard... to restore LAW and ORDER!”

Evers has already declared a state of emergency, imposed a curfew and ordered hundreds of National Guard troops into the city, underscoring the fact that state violence against protesters is a bipartisan policy.

Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian, also a Democrat, has unleashed his police force to attack peaceful demonstrators with tear gas and rubber bullets and deployed military-style armored vehicles on the streets. Unlike protesters, the gun-toting fascists have been permitted by police to break curfew each of the last two nights.

Trump has derided Democratic governors and mayors for not being sufficiently brutal in suppressing protests. In response, police departments in Democratic-run cities such as Pittsburgh and New York City are taking it upon themselves to “disappear” protesters. The same is true in Wisconsin. Within the last 24 hours, video has emerged of police appearing in unmarked vehicles and kidnapping people without due process or explanation.

On Monday, a teenage boy in Madison was taken in by police without explanation after protests had died down. In Kenosha, before the curfew went into effect, heavily armed agents surrounded a “riot kitchen” food truck, which serves meals to protesters and the homeless free of charge, and proceeded to smash the windows and kidnap those inside in broad daylight. Details of the exact sequence of events that led to the shootings in Kenosha are still being determined. However, social media video collected throughout the night shows that the authorities, including the Kenosha police and the Sheriff’s department, were well aware of and encouraged the intervention of far-right militia groups to terrorize demonstrators.

In one video, an unidentified militiaman is seen talking with protesters after the shootings. “Ya know what the cops told us today?” he asks, and then says the police told him they were going “to push them down by you, ‘cause you can deal with them, and then we are going to leave.”

In the first press conference held by Kenosha authorities since Blake was shot on Sunday, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth acknowledged that he had been approached regarding the prospect of deputizing armed civilians. Beth said he discouraged this primarily because of the “liability” it would entail.

At the press conference, Police Chief Daniel Miskinis denied that he had interacted with the militia group or had any knowledge pertaining to it.

The day prior, in a public Facebook post that has since been taken down, the militia group sent a message to Miskinis signed by the “Kenosha Guard Commander.” The message implored the police chief, “Do NOT have your officers tell us to go home under threat of arrest as you have in the past. We are willing to talk to KPD and open a discussion. It is evident that no matter how many Officers, deputies and other law enforcement officers that are here, you will still be outnumbered.”
Facebook post from Kenosha Guard to Chief Miskinis.

Asked during Wednesday’s press conference why the police allowed Rittenhouse to simply walk away after his violent rampage, Sheriff Beth enumerated a laundry list of excuses, citing screaming, sirens, and radio-traffic, which, according to Beth, can cause “tunnel vision.”

Beth has previously had to apologize for “letting his emotions” get the best of him. At a press conference in February 2018, he spoke to the media regarding an arrest involving stolen property from a nearby mall. No one was injured in the incident, but this did not prevent Beth from pontificating on what he deemed justice.

He declared: “I think at some point society has to get so fed up that they are no longer willing to tolerate people who are not an asset to society. I think we have to create a threshold where, once you cross the threshold, Wisconsin, the United States, builds warehouses where we put these people who have been deemed to be no longer an asset, that are really a detriment…”

Prior to the shootings, hundreds of protesters and residents had gathered outside the city courthouse, defying an 8 p.m. curfew imposed Tuesday night to demand justice for Jacob Blake. No charges have been announced to date against the killer cop Rusten Shesky, who remains on paid administrative leave, along with two other officers.

Leading up to Wednesday night’s protests, police had erected a steel fence around the public safety building, which protesters attempted to knock over. Riot police and several large BearCat armored police vehicles equipped with Long Range Acoustic Devices responded with tear gas, ear-splitting sirens, pepper balls and rubber bullets. Protesters gathered in the park across the street from the building and responded with off-the-shelf fireworks and water bottles, while attempting to shield themselves from the barrage with garbage dumpsters and umbrellas.

Riot police backed by their armored vehicles then formed a line and moved into the park, as they deployed smoke and tear gas. Protesters attempting to flee were blocked off by armed militia men, believed to be part of the Kenosha Guard. The group’s Facebook page was taken down Wednesday, but not before roughly 3,000 people had expressed interest in attending the event called “Armed Citizens to Protect our Lives and Property.”

Meanwhile, officers under the direction of Sheriff Beth blocked off interstate exits and on-ramps prior to the curfew, preventing people from leaving or entering the city.

At the Wednesday press conference, National Guard Major General Paul Knapp said the number of National Guard troops being sent to Kenosha would be doubled, possibly including soldiers from out of state. Sheriff Beth confirmed that federal agents with the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; and the US Marshals Service were already deployed in the city, along with “equipment and information.”

The Republican National Convention: A frightened ruling class incites fascist violence

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/27/pers-a27.html

27 August 2020

The Republican National Convention concluded its third day last night, with a parade of speakers combining endless homages to the police and military with denunciations of protests against police violence as mobs and anarchists.

The convention’s verbal violence was complemented by the physical violence unfolding in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where a fascist gunman opened fire on people protesting against police violence in the wake of the police shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake.

The gunman, 17-year-old Kyle Howard Rittenhouse, killed two people and seriously wounded a third, and then was allowed by police to pass through their lines carrying his weapon and return to his home in Illinois, where he was later arrested.

Rittenhouse is a fervent Trump supporter who attended a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa on January 30, and can be seen on video sitting in the front row only a few feet away from the president. He posted a TikTok video from the event. When an ultra-right paramilitary group, the Kenosha Guard issued an appeal for right-wing gunmen to come to the city and reinforce the police against protesters, Rittenhouse was only one of a number who responded.

There is a direct chain of causation from the White House to the gas station in Kenosha where Rittenhouse opened fire on innocent, unarmed people. Trump’s constant diatribes against protesters and in support of the police, since the protests first began after the May 25 police killing of George Floyd, included retweeting the notoriously racist slogan, first issued by a Southern sheriff during the civil rights movement, that “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Rittenhouse put these words into action.

In his speech Wednesday night, Vice President Mike Pence included Kenosha in a list of Democratic-run cities where anarchy has supposedly been unleashed, including Portland and Seattle, and said nothing about the murder of protesters by a Trump-loving fascist.

In the course of two and a half hours, not a single convention speaker raised the events in Kenosha or expressed the slightest regret or concern over the actions carried out by Rittenhouse. He had been named Wednesday morning, and his identity as a Trump supporter was certainly known before the convention session began at 8:30 p.m.

This collective silence betokens consent: the Republican Party has become the party of vigilante violence against those protesting against police brutality and other forms of oppression. This was already demonstrated Monday, when Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the wealthy vigilante couple who pointed weapons at Black Lives Matter protesters in St. Louis, addressed the convention. They hailed Trump as the defender of the suburbs against (black) invaders.

What finds expression in Trump is the drive of the most reactionary sections of the bourgeoisie to create the basis for a fascist movement. There is not now a mass social base for such a movement, but Trump makes his appeal to the police and other front-line agents of repression, like the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement; sections of the military; and ultra-right and fascist elements, mobilized on the basis of racism, anti-immigrant bigotry, and anti-communism.

The fascistic tone was set from the opening moments of the convention, when the first speaker declared Trump to be the “bodyguard of Western civilization” standing up to “the vengeful mob that seeks to destroy our way of life, our neighborhoods, schools, churches and values.” On Wednesday, congressional candidate Madison Cawthorn addressed the convention, despite reports of his visiting a Hitler vacation resort, the Eagle’s Nest, and posting on social media that seeing the facility used by “the Führer” had been “on his bucket list.”

Today, according to press reports, Republican congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene, an open supporter of the fascistic QAnon online conspiracy theory, is to be an invited guest at the White House when Trump gives his acceptance speech. Greene won the Republican primary for the 14th Congressional District in Georgia and is expected to win the general election in the heavily Republican district.

The Republican convention is a contemptible array of maniacs, toadies, money-grubbers and outright fascists, but that fact does not lessen the danger that it represents. It is a remarkable and ominous development that one of the two major capitalist parties, half of the official political system of American capitalism, has been put at the disposal of a president who is seeking to incite a fascistic movement to establish authoritarian forms of rule in the United States.

The danger arises not from the intrinsic strength of the social forces Trump represents and appeals to, but from the role of the Democratic Party and the middle-class “left”, as well as the corporate-controlled unions, in blocking and suppressing the struggles of the working class.

In all his political operations, Trump seeks to take advantage of the bankruptcy of the opposing bourgeois party, a bankruptcy rooted in social interest. The Democratic Party is a capitalist party, dedicated to the enrichment of the financial aristocracy, complaining perhaps about the fairness of the distribution of wealth within the top one percent of society—it should be allotted with more concern to racial and gender diversity—but not challenging the fundamental structure of the profit system.

The real nature of the Democratic Party “opposition” to Trump was expressed in the extraordinary comments made by Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate defeated by Trump in 2016. In an interview last week, she advised the 2020 Democratic nominee not to give up prematurely if the outcome of the vote on November 3 is close. “Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances because I think this is going to drag out, and eventually I do believe he will win if we don’t give an inch and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side is,” she said.

Biden is supposedly the favorite in the election, ahead in the polls both nationally and in all the “battleground” states that will decide the contest in the Electoral College. But Clinton’s advice is not to cave in too early! Clinton was obviously recalling the premature surrender of Al Gore in 2000, who made a concession call to Bush which he later had to retract. Her advice is nonetheless remarkable, both as a glimpse of her own expectations and what she thinks of the fighting temper in the Biden camp.

Nor has any Democrat said what they will do if Trump simply refuses to accept the results of an unfavorable election and leave office—other than to suggest, as Biden did earlier this summer, that he would count on the military to escort Trump out of the White House.

The real social position of Trump and the Republicans is demonstrated in the common characteristic of all the various reactionary and fascistic appeals made at the Republican convention: fear.

Trump and his acolytes are operating in an environment dominated by a growing wave of social protests: the mass demonstrations against police violence, which brought millions into the streets; the mounting resistance of teachers, autoworkers and all sections of the working class to being driven back to unsafe workplaces under conditions of a deadly pandemic; and the growing indignation of the population as a whole as the death toll from coronavirus mounts towards 200,000, while the Trump administration and state governments, Democratic as well as Republican, sabotage any collective social response to the disaster.

The unbridled hysteria at the Republican convention is not just a display for electoral purposes. It demonstrates a profound sense of isolation and weakness, not merely on the part of the ultra-right convention-goers, but on the part of the financial aristocracy itself, which sees itself increasingly under siege.

When speaker after speaker denounces socialism, and declares that if Trump is defeated, socialism will follow inevitably, they falsely attribute this danger to Biden and the toothless Democrats. But their real concern is the growing development of a mass movement among working people directed against the capitalist system.

Patrick Martin