https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNpe_WfaP9c&ab_channel=TheRealNewsNetwork
Thursday, September 3, 2020
Biden launches massive “law and order” ad campaign
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/03/bide-s03.html
By Barry Grey
3 September 2020
3 September 2020
The presidential campaign of Joe Biden released a new TV ad on Wednesday that denounces anti-police-violence protesters who engage in vandalism or looting and places the blame for violent clashes between police and demonstrators in cities such as Kenosha, Wisconsin and Portland, Oregon on President Trump.
The sixty-second ad sums up the law-and-order message of the speech given Monday in Pittsburgh by the Democratic candidate. That hastily arranged appearance was in response to the fascistic denunciations of protesters and portrayal of Biden and the Democrats as beholden to socialist rioters and arsonists that dominated last month's Republican convention.
The ad begins with video of Biden speaking in Pittsburgh interspersed with photos of burnt-out cars and stores and video of confrontations between protesters and riot police. Biden states: “I want to make it absolutely clear. Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. It’s lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted.”
Biden goes on to say, “Fires are burning and we have a president who fans the flames. He can’t stop the violence because for years he’s fomented it… Donald Trump adds fuel to every fire.”
The ad is part of a massive $45 million one-week television and digital purchase that is by far the campaign’s largest to date. The ad will air nationally on cable television and in local markets in nine battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The Trump campaign has launched two new law and order ads of its own around the theme “Communities not criminals. Jobs not mobs.” They will air in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The Biden ad comes on the eve of a quickly organized visit by Biden and his wife Jill to Kenosha, Wisconsin set for Thursday. On Tuesday, Trump visited the city, met with police and National Guard officials and reiterated his defense of killer cops and far-right vigilantes who attack crowds protesting against police violence and racism.
Kenosha is a city of 100,000 that has been devastated by decades of plant closures. It has become a focal point of demonstrations against police violence that have been ongoing across the country since May, following the brutal police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Protests erupted in Kenosha last month after the August 23 police shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake, an African American worker and father of six. Officer Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the police force, shot the unarmed Blake point-blank seven times in the back as the victim was trying to get into his car, where three of his children were seated. Blake remains hospitalized, paralyzed from the waist down.
The Democratic governor of Wisconsin has called in some 1,500 National Guard troops and the Democratic mayor of Kenosha has overseen a brutal police crackdown against overwhelmingly peaceful protesters, involving mass arrests and the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and military-grade armored vehicles.
On August 25, during the Republican convention, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, a Trump enthusiast and would-be cop, heeded a call by the Kenosha Guard militia group to come to the city and carry out an armed confrontation with protesters. Rittenhouse shot and killed two peaceful protesters and injured a third.
Biden’s ad makes no mention of the murder of two protesters by a pro-Trump vigilante in Kenosha or the open coordination between the militia members and the Kenosha police, captured on cell phone video viewed by millions around the world.
In responding to the fascistic ravings of Trump and the Republicans by seeking to establish their own law-and-order credentials, Biden and the Democratic Party are following the demands of their backers on Wall Street and within the intelligence and national security apparatus, as articulated by the New York Times.
On Tuesday, the Times’ print edition carried an op-ed piece by columnist Brett Stephens headlined “Unwitting Progressives for Trump: Does Joe Biden have the nerve to stand up to the far left?”
The article denounced protesters in Washington DC who jostled Republican Senator Rand Paul and his wife as they were leaving the White House following Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention. It complained that Biden's Pittsburgh speech did not go far enough and urged him to “call out far-left ugliness,” visit burned-out businesses in Kenosha, and telephone the family of a right-wing activist killed last Saturday in Portland.
This was followed Wednesday by a prominently placed commentary by the Times’ leading columnist Thomas Friedman calling Biden's “looting is not protesting” speech a “good start,” but demanding that he more forcefully denounce calls to “defund the police.” Friedman, among the Times’ most direct conduits to Wall Street and US intelligence, went on to say that “Biden, if he frames it right, can be the real ‘law and order’ candidate in this election. Because he’s not for disbanding the police, but for improving them.”
The Washington Post cited Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor and senior figure in the Democratic Party, described by the Post as a “Biden friend,” as praising the Pittsburgh speech but warning, “He has to give that message over and over.”
Biden’s Pittsburgh speech and the new campaign ad are part of a further shift of his campaign to the right. The ad is intended to reassure the American ruling elite that he can be relied on to suppress growing social opposition intensified by the criminally incompetent and callous response of the entire political establishment to the coronavirus pandemic, and the social catastrophe that is unfolding as a result of the subordination of workers’ health and lives to corporate profits and Wall Street stock prices.
It makes a mockery of the attempts by Biden and the Democrats to posture as allies of youth and workers confronted by police violence and racism. It points to the fact that the Democrats’ promotion of racial politics is aimed at dividing the working class and defending the capitalist ruling class and the state institutions, such as the police, that safeguard its wealth and power.
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The sixty-second ad sums up the law-and-order message of the speech given Monday in Pittsburgh by the Democratic candidate. That hastily arranged appearance was in response to the fascistic denunciations of protesters and portrayal of Biden and the Democrats as beholden to socialist rioters and arsonists that dominated last month's Republican convention.
The ad begins with video of Biden speaking in Pittsburgh interspersed with photos of burnt-out cars and stores and video of confrontations between protesters and riot police. Biden states: “I want to make it absolutely clear. Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. It’s lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted.”
Biden goes on to say, “Fires are burning and we have a president who fans the flames. He can’t stop the violence because for years he’s fomented it… Donald Trump adds fuel to every fire.”
The ad is part of a massive $45 million one-week television and digital purchase that is by far the campaign’s largest to date. The ad will air nationally on cable television and in local markets in nine battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The Trump campaign has launched two new law and order ads of its own around the theme “Communities not criminals. Jobs not mobs.” They will air in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The Biden ad comes on the eve of a quickly organized visit by Biden and his wife Jill to Kenosha, Wisconsin set for Thursday. On Tuesday, Trump visited the city, met with police and National Guard officials and reiterated his defense of killer cops and far-right vigilantes who attack crowds protesting against police violence and racism.
Kenosha is a city of 100,000 that has been devastated by decades of plant closures. It has become a focal point of demonstrations against police violence that have been ongoing across the country since May, following the brutal police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Protests erupted in Kenosha last month after the August 23 police shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake, an African American worker and father of six. Officer Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the police force, shot the unarmed Blake point-blank seven times in the back as the victim was trying to get into his car, where three of his children were seated. Blake remains hospitalized, paralyzed from the waist down.
The Democratic governor of Wisconsin has called in some 1,500 National Guard troops and the Democratic mayor of Kenosha has overseen a brutal police crackdown against overwhelmingly peaceful protesters, involving mass arrests and the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and military-grade armored vehicles.
On August 25, during the Republican convention, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, a Trump enthusiast and would-be cop, heeded a call by the Kenosha Guard militia group to come to the city and carry out an armed confrontation with protesters. Rittenhouse shot and killed two peaceful protesters and injured a third.
Biden’s ad makes no mention of the murder of two protesters by a pro-Trump vigilante in Kenosha or the open coordination between the militia members and the Kenosha police, captured on cell phone video viewed by millions around the world.
In responding to the fascistic ravings of Trump and the Republicans by seeking to establish their own law-and-order credentials, Biden and the Democratic Party are following the demands of their backers on Wall Street and within the intelligence and national security apparatus, as articulated by the New York Times.
On Tuesday, the Times’ print edition carried an op-ed piece by columnist Brett Stephens headlined “Unwitting Progressives for Trump: Does Joe Biden have the nerve to stand up to the far left?”
The article denounced protesters in Washington DC who jostled Republican Senator Rand Paul and his wife as they were leaving the White House following Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention. It complained that Biden's Pittsburgh speech did not go far enough and urged him to “call out far-left ugliness,” visit burned-out businesses in Kenosha, and telephone the family of a right-wing activist killed last Saturday in Portland.
This was followed Wednesday by a prominently placed commentary by the Times’ leading columnist Thomas Friedman calling Biden's “looting is not protesting” speech a “good start,” but demanding that he more forcefully denounce calls to “defund the police.” Friedman, among the Times’ most direct conduits to Wall Street and US intelligence, went on to say that “Biden, if he frames it right, can be the real ‘law and order’ candidate in this election. Because he’s not for disbanding the police, but for improving them.”
The Washington Post cited Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor and senior figure in the Democratic Party, described by the Post as a “Biden friend,” as praising the Pittsburgh speech but warning, “He has to give that message over and over.”
Biden’s Pittsburgh speech and the new campaign ad are part of a further shift of his campaign to the right. The ad is intended to reassure the American ruling elite that he can be relied on to suppress growing social opposition intensified by the criminally incompetent and callous response of the entire political establishment to the coronavirus pandemic, and the social catastrophe that is unfolding as a result of the subordination of workers’ health and lives to corporate profits and Wall Street stock prices.
It makes a mockery of the attempts by Biden and the Democrats to posture as allies of youth and workers confronted by police violence and racism. It points to the fact that the Democrats’ promotion of racial politics is aimed at dividing the working class and defending the capitalist ruling class and the state institutions, such as the police, that safeguard its wealth and power.
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Workers’ opposition grows to Netanyahu government over pandemic and social crisis in Israel
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/03/isra-a03.html
By Jean Shaoul
3 August 2020
Opposition is mounting across Israel to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Blue and White national emergency government’s handling of the pandemic and the deteriorating economic and social conditions.
On Sunday, some 2,000 public health laboratory workers in 400 public laboratories went on strike over poor working conditions and low wages. In public hospital labs, they are carrying out emergency work only. They are continuing to carry out coronavirus tests but are only contacting those testing positive.
Esther Admon, chair of the Association of Biochemists, Microbiologists and Laboratory Workers, blamed the government after talks with the Finance Ministry broke down on Monday saying, “The indifference and disregard of the prime minister and his ministers is outrageous. Beyond words. I understand with sorrow that there is no leadership in Israel.”
Around 200 of the striking workers protested outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem Tuesday evening. They criticised the government for pouring funds into private labs, saying, “If the government had invested even only 10 percent of the NIS 4 billion ($1.3 billion) allocated to the private laboratories, there would have been no reason to strike... We decided to go demonstrate at Balfour [the prime minister’s residence] because we have no choice.”
The strike takes place amid rising opposition to the government’s handling of the pandemic, its return to work policy, and the reopening of schools. Twice weekly demonstrations against Netanyahu’s refusal to resign, even after being indicted on charges of corruption, bribery, and breach of trust in three separate cases, have continued for weeks and are growing larger.
The government initially put tight restrictions in place in early March. In late April, as the infection rate began to fall, the government announced a relaxation of restrictions, allowing the reopening of schools—partially at first and fully on May 17, the day that the new coalition government was sworn in, and a return to work. Later, the government green-lighted the reopening of restaurants, bars, clubs, swimming pools and hotels.
Netanyahu did so without putting in place any measures to guard against or deal with a second wave, despite recommendations from a team of experts, headed by Professor Eli Waxman from the Weizman Institute of Science in Rehovot. His team also recommended that the government reconsider its decision to restart the economy if the daily number of infections rose above 200—another recommendation the government ignored.
Within days of the government lifting restrictions on class sizes, there was a resurgence of the virus, with tens of thousands of pupils later sent into quarantine as their classmates tested positive, ultimately infecting hundreds of students, teachers and relatives. Without contact tracing, hundreds of schools were forced to close. According to the Ministry of Education, by the end of the school year in late June, 977 pupils and teachers had contracted COVID-19, with teachers the worst affected. At least one teacher is known to have died.
Waxman blamed the increase in cases on the speedy and uncontrolled reopening of schools and the economy and the government’s failure to implement his team’s recommendations. He warned that this would soon overload Israel’s hospitals, which have been starved of funds for decades.
Waxman warned other countries considering reopening their schools, “They definitely should not do what we have done,” adding, “It was a major failure.” Experts insisted that smaller classes, mask wearing, keeping desks two metres apart and providing adequate ventilation would be crucial until a vaccine is available. But such conditions are impossible without a near doubling of the number of classrooms and teachers.
In July, Siegal Sadetzki, Israel’s director of public health services, resigned, saying that insufficient safety precautions in schools, as well as large gatherings like weddings, had fueled a “significant portion” of second-wave infections.
In the last two weeks, Israel has reported nearly 22,000 infections, one sixth of the total since the start of the pandemic, and a daily rate now of over 2,000 cases. Nearly 970 people have died, half of them in August. This contrasts with around 250 deaths at the beginning of May when restrictions were lifted.
The situation is no less acute in the occupied Palestinian Territories. In the West Bank, there are 8,172 active cases and 161 people have died. In the Gaza Strip, there are 280 active cases and four people have died. Three of the four deaths occurred in the last week and were due to community transmission, in contrast to previous cases that had contacted the disease abroad.
Dr Ashraf Alkudra, spokesman for Gaza’s Ministry of Health, said there was a major shortage of testing kits at Gaza hospitals. Last week, with limited means to stop the spread of the pandemic, Gaza imposed a full lockdown that is set to continue. There are only 90 available ventilators in Gaza, 10 of which were donated by the World Health Organisation.
Coronavirus czar Professor Ronni Gamzu, a physician, is strongly opposed to opening Israel’s schools in the “red areas” designated by regional councils as hot spots. He said it was unreasonable to open schools in such places because it is impossible to avoid new cases in the process. It was a question of managing risk and “this is not a risk to take.”
In the event, on Monday evening, just hours before all the schools were due to reopen at the start of the new school year, the coronavirus cabinet decided to keep schools in the designated red zones with high infection rates closed.
The reopening of schools has met with fierce opposition from teachers, whose union had threatened strike action. This was only averted the day before schools were due to reopen when Judge Hadas Yahalom ruled against the union’s right to strike. This was after the union and the Education Ministry agreed to maintain discussions and a guarantee that no teachers would be placed on unpaid leave without being allowed to present their case in the space of 24 hours.
The Education Ministry agreed to offer 800 pre-retirement positions to teachers who can show they are at risk of becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus and to provide $10 million for personal protection equipment for preschool and elementary school teachers.
The government only averted a strike by schools support staff, including student aides, maintenance staff, and secretaries, at the start of the school year by agreeing to find funds to support the Karev programme. The programme provides educational services for some of the most needy children, including at-risk students, Ethiopian Israelis, immigrants, special needs students, the ultra-Orthodox and Arab students. Without it, some 4,000 workers would have lost their jobs.
This is part of a larger political problem flowing from the government’s inability to agree a 2020 budget—the deadline has now been postponed until the end of November—leaving many school programmes with no funding earmarked for them and at risk of cancelation.
In recent weeks, there have been several strikes by public service workers over low pay and COVID-19-related issues, including:
A nationwide strike of bus drivers in 16 bus companies in July over the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) as more than 1,000 drivers became infected.
A nationwide strike of nurses over low pay and staff shortages, only carrying out emergency work, that was only called off after the government agreed to hire an additional 2,000 nurses on a temporary basis, 400 doctors, and additional security personnel.
A 16-day strike by social workers in support of their demand for higher wages and a reduction in their burgeoning case load amid the pandemic.
Far from leading any united struggle of workers against the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, the Histadrut trade union federation has been in talks with Amir Peretz, a former Histadrut leader and now Minister of Economy and Industry. The talks are aimed at setting up roundtable discussions with employers and government departments over “flexible unemployment benefits.” The official unemployment rate has reached more than 21 percent, and food poverty is soaring.
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Israel’s new government plans war on Palestinians and working class
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3 August 2020
Opposition is mounting across Israel to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Blue and White national emergency government’s handling of the pandemic and the deteriorating economic and social conditions.
On Sunday, some 2,000 public health laboratory workers in 400 public laboratories went on strike over poor working conditions and low wages. In public hospital labs, they are carrying out emergency work only. They are continuing to carry out coronavirus tests but are only contacting those testing positive.
Esther Admon, chair of the Association of Biochemists, Microbiologists and Laboratory Workers, blamed the government after talks with the Finance Ministry broke down on Monday saying, “The indifference and disregard of the prime minister and his ministers is outrageous. Beyond words. I understand with sorrow that there is no leadership in Israel.”
Around 200 of the striking workers protested outside Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem Tuesday evening. They criticised the government for pouring funds into private labs, saying, “If the government had invested even only 10 percent of the NIS 4 billion ($1.3 billion) allocated to the private laboratories, there would have been no reason to strike... We decided to go demonstrate at Balfour [the prime minister’s residence] because we have no choice.”
The strike takes place amid rising opposition to the government’s handling of the pandemic, its return to work policy, and the reopening of schools. Twice weekly demonstrations against Netanyahu’s refusal to resign, even after being indicted on charges of corruption, bribery, and breach of trust in three separate cases, have continued for weeks and are growing larger.
The government initially put tight restrictions in place in early March. In late April, as the infection rate began to fall, the government announced a relaxation of restrictions, allowing the reopening of schools—partially at first and fully on May 17, the day that the new coalition government was sworn in, and a return to work. Later, the government green-lighted the reopening of restaurants, bars, clubs, swimming pools and hotels.
Netanyahu did so without putting in place any measures to guard against or deal with a second wave, despite recommendations from a team of experts, headed by Professor Eli Waxman from the Weizman Institute of Science in Rehovot. His team also recommended that the government reconsider its decision to restart the economy if the daily number of infections rose above 200—another recommendation the government ignored.
Within days of the government lifting restrictions on class sizes, there was a resurgence of the virus, with tens of thousands of pupils later sent into quarantine as their classmates tested positive, ultimately infecting hundreds of students, teachers and relatives. Without contact tracing, hundreds of schools were forced to close. According to the Ministry of Education, by the end of the school year in late June, 977 pupils and teachers had contracted COVID-19, with teachers the worst affected. At least one teacher is known to have died.
Waxman blamed the increase in cases on the speedy and uncontrolled reopening of schools and the economy and the government’s failure to implement his team’s recommendations. He warned that this would soon overload Israel’s hospitals, which have been starved of funds for decades.
Waxman warned other countries considering reopening their schools, “They definitely should not do what we have done,” adding, “It was a major failure.” Experts insisted that smaller classes, mask wearing, keeping desks two metres apart and providing adequate ventilation would be crucial until a vaccine is available. But such conditions are impossible without a near doubling of the number of classrooms and teachers.
In July, Siegal Sadetzki, Israel’s director of public health services, resigned, saying that insufficient safety precautions in schools, as well as large gatherings like weddings, had fueled a “significant portion” of second-wave infections.
In the last two weeks, Israel has reported nearly 22,000 infections, one sixth of the total since the start of the pandemic, and a daily rate now of over 2,000 cases. Nearly 970 people have died, half of them in August. This contrasts with around 250 deaths at the beginning of May when restrictions were lifted.
The situation is no less acute in the occupied Palestinian Territories. In the West Bank, there are 8,172 active cases and 161 people have died. In the Gaza Strip, there are 280 active cases and four people have died. Three of the four deaths occurred in the last week and were due to community transmission, in contrast to previous cases that had contacted the disease abroad.
Dr Ashraf Alkudra, spokesman for Gaza’s Ministry of Health, said there was a major shortage of testing kits at Gaza hospitals. Last week, with limited means to stop the spread of the pandemic, Gaza imposed a full lockdown that is set to continue. There are only 90 available ventilators in Gaza, 10 of which were donated by the World Health Organisation.
Coronavirus czar Professor Ronni Gamzu, a physician, is strongly opposed to opening Israel’s schools in the “red areas” designated by regional councils as hot spots. He said it was unreasonable to open schools in such places because it is impossible to avoid new cases in the process. It was a question of managing risk and “this is not a risk to take.”
In the event, on Monday evening, just hours before all the schools were due to reopen at the start of the new school year, the coronavirus cabinet decided to keep schools in the designated red zones with high infection rates closed.
The reopening of schools has met with fierce opposition from teachers, whose union had threatened strike action. This was only averted the day before schools were due to reopen when Judge Hadas Yahalom ruled against the union’s right to strike. This was after the union and the Education Ministry agreed to maintain discussions and a guarantee that no teachers would be placed on unpaid leave without being allowed to present their case in the space of 24 hours.
The Education Ministry agreed to offer 800 pre-retirement positions to teachers who can show they are at risk of becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus and to provide $10 million for personal protection equipment for preschool and elementary school teachers.
The government only averted a strike by schools support staff, including student aides, maintenance staff, and secretaries, at the start of the school year by agreeing to find funds to support the Karev programme. The programme provides educational services for some of the most needy children, including at-risk students, Ethiopian Israelis, immigrants, special needs students, the ultra-Orthodox and Arab students. Without it, some 4,000 workers would have lost their jobs.
This is part of a larger political problem flowing from the government’s inability to agree a 2020 budget—the deadline has now been postponed until the end of November—leaving many school programmes with no funding earmarked for them and at risk of cancelation.
In recent weeks, there have been several strikes by public service workers over low pay and COVID-19-related issues, including:
A nationwide strike of bus drivers in 16 bus companies in July over the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) as more than 1,000 drivers became infected.
A nationwide strike of nurses over low pay and staff shortages, only carrying out emergency work, that was only called off after the government agreed to hire an additional 2,000 nurses on a temporary basis, 400 doctors, and additional security personnel.
A 16-day strike by social workers in support of their demand for higher wages and a reduction in their burgeoning case load amid the pandemic.
Far from leading any united struggle of workers against the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, the Histadrut trade union federation has been in talks with Amir Peretz, a former Histadrut leader and now Minister of Economy and Industry. The talks are aimed at setting up roundtable discussions with employers and government departments over “flexible unemployment benefits.” The official unemployment rate has reached more than 21 percent, and food poverty is soaring.
The author also recommends:
Israel’s new government plans war on Palestinians and working class
[26 May 2020]
In face of overwhelming popular opposition, Brazilian governments push criminal reopening of schools
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/03/braz-s03.html
By Tomas Castanheira
3 September 2020
After disastrous results in Manaus, the first capital city to resume on-site classes, the governments of major states throughout Brazil, including those most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, are advancing criminal plans to reopen schools between September and October.
Headed by the different parties of the Brazilian ruling class, these governments face as their adversary the working class, which vehemently opposes this homicidal policy.
A survey published by the Datafolha research institute on August 17 found that 80 percent of Brazilians are against reopening schools. About 60 percent are sure that the return of classes will “severely aggravate the pandemic.”
These polls reflect the resistance of the great majority of the population to accepting the toxic anti-scientific campaign promoted by the Brazilian state as whole, headed by the country’s fascistic president, Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro has been silent on the subject of schools in the recent period, clearly because he believes that state politicians of his self-declared opposition are doing the dirty work for him.
Brazil remains the country with the highest indices of COVID-19 cases and deaths, trailing only the United States. It has just crossed the milestone of 4 million confirmed cases, with roughly 125,000 confirmed deaths from the disease.
Twenty days ago, on August 10, classes in public schools were resumed in Manaus, the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, by order of Governor Wilson Lima of the Christian Social Party (PSC). The immediate result was the outbreak of new COVID-19 cases in 36 schools within a week of their reopening.
Growing protests by teachers and school staff led the government to announce a massive testing of education workers, while keeping the schools functioning in the same unsafe conditions. The tests were conducted by the Amazonian Health Surveillance Foundation (FVS), which operates as a government public relations agency.
The results of the tests were disclosed in a deliberately confusing manner. On August 24, the FVS released the first result of the tests, with 342 positive cases among the 1,064 tests conducted, indicating that 30 percent of education professionals were infected.
When it presented updated numbers, on Monday, the FVS hid the results of IgG type tests (which show longer term antibodies). It just published that, in a universe of 2,114 tests, “Only 162, or 7.6 percent, had recent infections.”
What they call “only 7.6 percent” is, in fact, an extremely unsettling number. Translated into the total of 110,000 students attending schools, which are not being systematically tested, it would indicate that there are more than 8,300 infected youth inside classrooms. They are putting their own lives at risk, as well as those of their fellow students, teachers and family members.
The impact this will have on the city that produced scenes of mass burials of COVID-19 victims at the peak of the pandemic are not yet clear, but some numbers already sound the alarm. Professor Henrique dos Santos Pereira, of the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM), told A Crítica: “From what we can see, there is an increase in the number of hospitalizations in Manaus in the second half of August, approaching the same levels as the peak of June 22.”
The news portal G1 reported that the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Pará, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have already set dates for a return to classes between September and October.
Facing massive opposition from educators and family members, governors and mayors are spouting lies and taking minimal measures to gain ground. The first claim is that their decisions are being made on the basis of a “scientific evaluation,” expressed with the release of colorful maps, whose criteria change every week. The second is that the return will be “optional” and will not be done suddenly.
The governor of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), made these hypocritical arguments in an exemplary way this Tuesday, during the presentation of his back-to-school calendar. “We understand that the risk, at this moment, is lower than what was perceived at other moments,” he said. “It is not a return at any cost, nor a disorganized return or a return to normal. It is a calendar to authorize, or to stop restricting (!), but not to force a return.”
What does a “risk lower than what was perceived at other moments” mean? The capital of Porto Alegre has 88 percent of its ICU beds occupied, even after the recent construction of new beds, and the state registered 1,463 new cases this Monday. Amidst this scenario, Leite proposes the return, in the first place, of kindergarten students on September 8.
The preference for reopening the schools for the youngest students is not an accident, and the rationale was explicitly stated by the governor: “Many parents have gone back to on-site work and have no one to leave their children with. This return to work imposes the need for places for child care, which are the kindergarten schools.”
Essentially the same model is being advanced in São Paulo, which has the highest incidence of COVID-19 in the country and for any state in the world, with 30,673 confirmed deaths and 826,331 cases. On Wednesday alone, 298 deaths were reported in the state.
Despite declaring, with the support of the press, that students will return to classes in state schools on October 7, the government of Governor João Doria, of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), is actually promoting the reopening of schools as early as next week. His objectives are exactly the same as those of his fellow party member from Rio Grande do Sul – to give workers a place to leave their children while they generate profits for the ruling class and are themselves subjected to the risks of infection.
To force through his criminal project, Doria is offering overtime pay to teachers who supplement their workload by receiving students on-site for an “emotional welcome” this month. In an interview with Folha, the state secretary of education of São Paulo, Rossieli Soares, stated that he may hire substitute teachers, in a bid to brreak teachers' resistance.
A teacher from the São Paulo state network sent the World Socialist Web Site a government statement sent to the school boards on September 1 that exposes the “optional” character of this return. Advising schools to conduct a survey on the resumption of classes among teachers and parents, the document concludes: “It is not necessary to reach a majority that wants or does not want the return to define the opening of the school.”
The project being prepared in São Paulo, as in other states, represents a conscious assault of the ruling class on the lives of the masses of working people that can be defined as a policy of social murder. A simulation presented by a group of researchers from leading Brazilian and international universities shows that the parameters set for reopening in São Paulo would provoke, in a three-month period, the infection of up to 46 percent of students and teachers.
School workers and families must unite to overturn this policy. They need to face not only the governments, but also the trade unions that claim to represent the educators. In the capital of São Paulo the unions are joined with the local government in an “Emergency Committee on the Crisis of Education.”
In a press release on the last meeting of this committee, which took place on August 18, the SINPEEM teachers union stated that it and “representatives of other union entities and congressmen have discussed once again the return of on-site classes ... SINPEEM has insisted once again that the return of the on-site classes can occur only in 2021, after City Hall puts in place protocols with measures that guarantee the safety of education professionals, students and their families.”
What the unions are doing, in fact, is conspiring behind closed doors with the government to create the best conditions to break workers' resistance. The same course is being pursued by the other unions affiliated to the National Confederation of Education Workers (CNTE).
The central objective of the CNTE in the present situation is to isolate workers locally and prevent a general strike of education workers throughout Brazil, which would join with the ongoing postal workers’ strike and could provoke an uprising of the Brazilian working class as a whole.
To overcome this blockade imposed by the unions, Brazilian educators and parents must build independent rank-and-file committees in each school and neighborhood. These committees will allow the workers themselves to politically lead their struggle and unite with their colleagues throughout Brazil and across national borders.
The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), which publishes the WSWS, is already advancing the organization of such committees in a number of countries, fighting for the unification of education workers internationally and the building of a revolutionary leadership for their struggles.
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