The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has overseen a failed effort to combat COVID-19, and in fact, appears to have thrown up its hands in surrender. As of this writing, 843,000 people in the U.S. have died, and the omicron variant is now overloading hospitals with COVID patients, including thousands of children. 

The symptoms may or may not be less severe – assessments in the media are contradictory. But in Chicago, Boston and New York City, where the earliest surges of omicron took place, patients are dying on only a slightly smaller scale than during previous waves of infections – because of the sheer number of cases. 

In spite of all this, capitalist government institutions are pulling back control efforts. Millions of parents are worrying that the premature return to in-school studying will send their children to the hospital. 

Two weeks ago, just days after a Dec. 21 letter from the CEO of Delta Airlines requesting that the isolation period be lessened, the CDC did exactly that. The isolation guidelines were lowered from 10 days to five days.

Had there been a higher level of global cooperation early in the pandemic, it’s questionable whether omicron would have even come into existence. 

U.S. capitalists block cooperation

The means to vaccinate the world through a cooperative international plan existed, and as the U.S. spewed hateful propaganda and anti-communist conspiracy theories, the Chinese government repeatedly called for a cooperative effort. But the chance to move forward was squandered by capitalist greed and vaccine nationalism promoted by U.S. big money.

Giant corporations that own health insurance companies, hospital chains and drug manufacturers, as well as the banks that invest in them, are so dominant in the U.S. economy that the availability of health care has historically compared miserably even to other major capitalist countries. 

That U.S. capitalism produced one of the most resourceful scientific and medical communities in history didn’t help, because it also has commodified all of science to an extent never seen before. Life-saving medical care and even preventive medicine is a privilege that communities of color and poor people in general are often denied. 

Further, instead of going all-out to produce and distribute vaccines globally, the U.S. ruling class’ nationalist and genocidal hoarding of life-saving science is what gave SARS-CoV-2 all the time it needed to mutate and for the omicron variant to emerge in Africa, where the vaccination rate is in the single digits. 

Even the design of the mRNA vaccines – whose development and production was funded by the U.S. government – points to the nationalist orientation of giant capitalists. Regardless of how effective they are, the required cold storage and transportation makes them impractical for a global vaccination campaign. 

That didn’t have to be the case. For instance, once the science, research, development and manufacture of the vaccines was accomplished, redirecting the resources normally devoted to the U.S. imperialist war machine might have made short work of COVID-19.

Many other countries with far fewer advantages than the United States have done a much better job protecting lives and controlling the spread of the disease.

Socialist countries’ achievements 

Cuba and China have stood out as models of how a pandemic should be dealt with. 

Every revolution of the 20th century that set out to build socialism, at its onset, exhibited an all-out effort to improve health care. This history of prioritizing health instead of profit is the foundation of the remarkable achievements by both countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

China and Cuba used every resource possible to produce vaccines and treatments to protect their own populations. At the same time – because a pandemic cannot be ended by vaccinating within the borders of one country – they both have shared medical teams, vaccines, treatments and supplies internationally, even while combating the disease at home.

When the 1949 Chinese Revolution ended what they called the “century of humiliation,” the early days in the process of rebuilding saw an unprecedented determination to eradicate diseases that were associated with deep poverty. 

Beginning in 1949 and growing during the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong’s army of “barefoot doctors” received basic medical training and set out for the countryside to promote preventive care and treat common illnesses. 

Over the decades, China has beaten back or eliminated numerous communicable diseases that had run rampant throughout the country, such as plague, smallpox, cholera and typhus. In addition, cases of malaria and schistosomiasis have been reduced dramatically. 

Schistosomiasis – a parasitic disease from freshwater snails – infected 10 million Chinese people in the mid-1950s. Mao was so elated as the eradication campaign began showing signs of success that he wrote poetry about it and spoke about it frequently.

China’s Health Silk Road

While it is true that the Communist Party of China has prevailed on many capitalist corporations operating there to contribute to health care and the general welfare of the population, the Chinese health care system itself is almost wholly state-owned, and the “Health Silk Road,” as China’s international medical solidarity has come to be called, is a longtime CPC initiative.

Notably, and to great praise by international health agencies, China has been working hard to replicate this success against diseases of poverty as part of the Health Silk Road, particularly against schistosomiasis in Africa, where 90% of cases exist today.

This drive to help spread health care internationally has ramped up during the pandemic. When COVID began killing people in droves during March 2020, Chinese medical teams went to hard-hit Iran and Italy. By June 2021, the foreign ministry announced that China had delivered more than 350 million vaccine doses to more than 80 countries. 

Last August, President Xi Jinping pledged a $100-million donation to Covax, an international agency coordinating global vaccine distribution, but added a pledge of 2 billion vaccine doses to be provided internationally outside of Covax. 

By October 2021 the China International Development Cooperation Agency reported that over 1.5 billion doses have already been delivered to 106 countries, focusing on Africa, Asia, Latin America and the South Pacific.

While there is still much to be done to safeguard the Global South from this deadly disease and possible new variants, China continues its own medical internationalism and its call for global cooperation instead of Cold War slander and capitalist greed.

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• Teachers, students resist unsafe schools
• MLK Day organizers say ‘NO COPS in commemoration’
• Workers organize and strike to fight pandemic and capitalist inflation
• Free Ruchell Magee!
• The Bronx fire tragedy wasn’t an accident
• Stop winter evictions!
• Amazon workers have a right to a union
• Brooklyn, N.Y., teachers demand ‘Safety not swagger’
• Alicia Jrapko, presente!
• Los Angeles rally backs South Korean workers’ struggle
• Why Kazakhstan exploded
• ‘U.S. claims of Russian threat to Ukraine are groundless’
• Alto a los beneficios para millonarios en Puerto Rico

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Workers at Amazon are fed up! And they’re speaking out!
Source: What Up Baltimore

The recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) nationwide settlement that forces Amazon to notify workers of their rights to organize for union representation is a victory for Amazon workers and all workers.  

This decision orders Amazon to email approximately 750,000 workers describing their specific rights to organize for a union. In addition, according to the settlement, Amazon is not to threaten workers with discipline or call the police when they engage in union activity.

The company must also post the notice in prominent places in its fulfillment centers, sortation centers and delivery stations. Amazon must publish information on the news alert page of its “A to Z” app for workers and on its website.

You can read the entire agreement here.  

The credit for this decision squarely rests on the shoulders of the courageous workers from Chicago, Staten Island, New York, and Bessemer, Alabama. They not only filed charges but expressed themselves through work actions and protests.

Can workers use this moment to push forward to organize?  

A former Amazon worker, Steven Ceci, stated: “This could be an important moment. The present labor shortage, due not just to the so-called ‘big resignation’ but to the omicron crisis – together with this NLRB decision – can ignite the movement for union rights and workers’ power.”

Baltimore Amazon workers press forward

Inspired by Bessemer, Staten Island and Chicago Amazon warehouse workers, Baltimore workers spoke out at a Jan. 4 rally and press conference to support Amazon workers and demand that trillionaire boss Jeff Bezos keep his “hands off workers’ right to unionize.” 

Baltimore Amazon workers recounted unsafe conditions in the warehouse, unresponsive management, poor and unpaid wages, and the need for a union. The Unemployed Workers Union, Peoples Power Assembly and Seniors United vowed community support for their organizing efforts.

Warehouse workers shared this most recent message from Amazon management that cut paid time for COVID illness in half: “After reviewing the newly released guidance from the CDC, we are updating Amazon’s COVID-19 isolation and quarantine policy to one week (seven calendar days) from when you took the test, with up to 40 hours paid leave.”

From Walmart to Amazon, workers have seen sick pay cut as their billionaire bosses jump on the recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) “miss-guidelines” that force COVID-infected workers back to work after just five days – a move that jeopardizes the health of workers and threatens community safety.

Andre Powell, a PPA organizer, described how a relative who works at Amazon is seriously ill with COVID and cannot work, and may end up fired and without money to support their children.

While some workers may recover quickly, many do not. Therefore, the community rally demanded that all workers have a right to full sick pay for the entire duration of the illness, regardless of time; no reprisals or firings for lost time; and COVID testing on the job, including negative tests to return to work.

The writer is a former Baltimore warehouse worker (BWI2) and author of the pamphlet Amazon Worker Tells All, which can be downloaded free at Struggle-La-Lucha.org.

On January 11, 2022, the United Nations (UN) Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths appealed to the international community to help raise $4.4 billion for Afghanistan in humanitarian aid, calling this effort, “the largest ever appeal for a single country for humanitarian assistance.” This amount is required “in the hope of shoring up collapsing basic services there,” said the UN. If this appeal is not met, Griffiths said, then “next year [2023] we’ll be asking for $10 billion.”

The figure of $10 billion is significant. A few days after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in mid-August 2021, the U.S. government announced the seizure of $9.5 billion in Afghan assets that were being held in the U.S. banking system. Under pressure from the United States government, the International Monetary Fund also denied Afghanistan access to $455 million of its share of special drawing rights, the international reserve asset that the IMF provides to its member countries to supplement their original reserves. These two figures—which constitute Afghanistan’s monetary reserves—amount to around $10 billion, the exact number Griffiths said that the country would need if the United Nations does not immediately get an emergency disbursement for providing humanitarian relief to Afghanistan.

A recent analysis by development economist Dr. William Byrd for the United States Institute of Peace, titled, “How to Mitigate Afghanistan’s Economic and Humanitarian Crises,” noted that the economic and humanitarian crises being faced by the country are a direct result of the cutoff of $8 billion in annual aid to Afghanistan and the freezing of $9.5 billion of the country’s “foreign exchange reserves” by the United States. The analysis further noted that the sanctions relief—given by the U.S. Treasury Department and the United Nations Security Council on December 22, 2021—to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan should also be extended to “private business and commercial transactions.” Byrd also mentioned the need to find ways to pay salaries of health workers, teachers and other essential service providers to prevent an economic collapse in Afghanistan and suggested using “a combination of Afghan revenues and aid funding” for this purpose.

Meanwhile, the idea of paying salaries directly to the teachers came up in an early December 2021 meeting between the UN’s special envoy for Afghanistan Deborah Lyons and Afghanistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai. None of these proposals, however, seem to have been taken seriously in Washington, D.C.

A Humanitarian Crisis

In July 2020, before the pandemic hit the country hard, and long before the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, the Ministry of Economy in Afghanistan had said that 90 percent of the people in the country lived below the international poverty line of $2 a day. Meanwhile, since the beginning of its war in Afghanistan in 2001, the United States government has spent $2.313 trillion on its war efforts, according to figures provided by Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University; but despite spending 20 years in the country’s war, the United States government spent only $145 billion on the reconstruction of the country’s institutions, according to its own estimates. In August, before the Taliban defeated the U.S. military forces, the United States government’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) published an important report that assessed the money spent by the U.S. on the country’s development. The authors of the report wrote that despite some modest gains, “progress has been elusive and the prospects for sustaining this progress are dubious.” The report pointed to the lack of development of a coherent strategy by the U.S. government, excessive reliance on foreign aid, and pervasive corruption inside the U.S. contracting process as some of the reasons that eventually led to a “troubled reconstruction effort” in Afghanistan. This resulted in an enormous waste of resources for the Afghans, who desperately needed these resources to rebuild their country, which had been destroyed by years of war.

On December 1, 2021, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) released a vital report on the devastating situation in Afghanistan. In the last decade of the U.S. occupation, the annual per capita income in Afghanistan fell from $650 in 2012 to around $500 in 2020 and is expected to drop to $350 in 2022 if the population increases at the same pace as it has in the recent past. The country’s gross domestic product will contract by 20 percent in 2022, followed by a 30 percent drop in the following years. The following sentences from the UNDP report are worth quoting in full to understand the extent of humanitarian crisis being faced by the people in the country: “According to recent estimates, only 5 percent of the population has enough to eat, while the number of those facing acute hunger is now estimated to have… reached a record 23 million. Almost 14 million children are likely to face crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity this winter, with 3.5 million children under the age of five expected to suffer from acute malnutrition, and 1 million children risk dying from hunger and low temperatures.”

Lifelines

This unraveling humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is the reason for the January 11 appeal to the international community by the UN. On December 18, 2021, the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) held an emergency meeting—called for by Saudi Arabia—on Afghanistan in Islamabad, Pakistan. Outside the meeting room—which merely produced a statement—the various foreign ministers met with Afghanistan’s interim Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. While in Islamabad, Muttaqi met with the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West. A senior official with the U.S. delegation told Kamran Yousaf of the Express Tribune (Pakistan), “We have worked quietly to enable cash… [to come into] the country in larger and larger denominations.” A foreign minister at the OIC meeting told me that the OIC states are already working quietly to send humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.

Four days later, on December 22, the United States introduced a resolution (2615) in the UN Security Council that urged a “humanitarian exception” to the harsh sanctions against Afghanistan. During the meeting, which took place for approximately 40 minutes, nobody raised the matter that the U.S., which proposed the resolution, had decided to freeze the $10 billion that belonged to Afghanistan. Nonetheless, the passage of this resolution was widely celebrated since everyone understands the gravity of Afghanistan’s crisis. Meanwhile, Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the UN, raised problems relating to the far-reaching effects of such sanctions and urged the council to “guide the Taliban to consolidate interim structures, enabling them to maintain security and stability, and to promote reconstruction and recovery.”

A senior member of the Afghan central bank (Da Afghanistan Bank) told me that much-needed resources are expected to enter the country as part of humanitarian aid being provided by Afghanistan’s neighbors, particularly from China, Iran and Pakistan (aid from India will come through Iran). Aid has also come in from other neighboring countries, such as Uzbekistan, which sent 3,700 tons of food, fuel and winter clothes, and Turkmenistan, which sent fuel and food. In early January 2022, Muttaqi traveled to Tehran, Iran, to meet with Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and Iran’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Hassan Kazemi Qomi. While Iran has not recognized the Taliban government as the official government of Afghanistan, it has been in close contact with the government “to help the deprived people of Afghanistan to reduce their suffering.” Muttaqi has, meanwhile, emphasized that his government wants to engage the major powers over the future of Afghanistan.

On January 10, the day before the UN made its most recent appeal for coming to the aid of Afghanistan, a group of charity groups and NGOs—organized by the Zakat Foundation of America—held an Afghan Peace and Humanitarian Task Force meeting in Washington. The greatest concern is the humanitarian crisis being faced by the people of Afghanistan, notably the imminent question of starvation in the country, with the roads already closed off due to the harsh winter witnessed in the region.

In November 2021, Afghanistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai urged the United States to reopen its embassy in Kabul; a few weeks later, he said that the U.S. is responsible for the crisis in Afghanistan, and it “should play an active role” in repairing the damage it has done to the country. This sums up the present mood in Afghanistan: open to relations with the U.S., but only after it allows the Afghan people access to the nation’s own money in order to save Afghan lives.

This article was produced by Globetrotter. Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.

The co-founder of the American Indian Movement and longtime leader in the fight for Native civil rights has died.

Clyde Bellecourt, White Earth Nation, died from cancer at his Minneapolis home Tuesday, his wife Peggy Bellecourt confirmed with the Star Tribune. He was 85.

Bellecourt was a co-founder in 1968 of the American Indian Movement, which began as a local organization in Minneapolis that sought to grapple with issues of police brutality and discrimination against Native people. The group quickly became a national force. It would lead a string of major national protests in the 1970s.

AIM held major national protests in the 60s and 70s including the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties — a march to Washington D.C. — and the 1973 Wounded Knee Occupation in South Dakota.

Bellecourt stepped aside as an AIM leader because he was experiencing medical issues, he told Indian Country Today in 2020. The handoff signaled a new era for the movement.

George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis in 2020 just blocks from Bellecourt’s home and he said they started AIM on Minneapolis’ Franklin Avenue in 1968 to protest police violence.

Bellecourt’s family members and friends took to social media to share memories of him.

Lisa Bellanger, the current co-director of AIM, said he was known worldwide and condolences were coming in from around the globe.

Activist Winona LaDuke, White Earth Nation, said he was very influential in her life.

“Clyde was a really good man and influenced a lot of people,” LaDuke said.

Seventeen people died in the Jan. 9 apartment building fire that broke out in the Bronx, New York. Eight of those killed were children.

Ousmane Konteh was just 2 years old when he perished. Haouwa Mahamadou was 5 when she died. Some survivors are fighting for their lives in hospitals.

The fire broke out in the 19-story Twin Parks North West tower at 333 E. 181st St. Many of the victims belonged to immigrant families from the West African country of Gambia. Families with roots in the Dominican Republic were also residents.

The country of Gambia was used by the British Empire as a source of enslaved Africans and then as a peanut plantation. Gambia and all Africans deserve reparations.

The entire Dukuray family perished. They were the mother Fatoumata, the father Haji, 12-year-old Mustapha, 11-year-old Miriam and 5-year-old Fatoumata.

Four members of the Drammeh family lost their lives. Muhammad Drammeh was killed one day after his 12th birthday. He died along with his mother, Fatoumata Drammeh, and his two sisters, Fatoumala Drammeh and Nyumaaisha Drammeh.

Fatoumata Tunkara died with her 6-year-old son Omar Jambang. Isatou Jabbie, Sera Janneh, Hagi Jawara and 12-year-old Seydou Toure perished. 

The fire apparently started when an electrical space heater plugged into an outlet caught fire. Families are forced to use space heaters because landlords don’t provide enough heat. That’s a crime.

Toxic smoke rose rapidly from a third-floor apartment, filling halls and stairways with poison. All of the people who died were killed by smoke inhalation. 

The Twin Parks tower wasn’t ancient. It was built in 1972. Yet it didn’t have sprinklers or exterior fire escapes.

Lethal smoke rose in the tower because it’s lighter than air. More modern buildings raise the air pressure in the stairwells to keep out smoke. The newer structures also equip stairwells with dampers.

So why didn’t the Twin Parks tower have these life-saving features? It’s because the building was privately owned and making it safe would cut into the landlords’ profits. Many of the tenants paid their rent with Section 8 vouchers. 

One of the owners is Rick Gropper, co-founder of the Camber Property Group. The outfit  bought Twin Parks in 2020 with other companies as part of a $166-million, eight-building deal. Gropper likes to pick up properties like Twin Parks with Section 8 tenants because it offers tax breaks. 

So what is Rick Gropper doing on newly-elected New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ transition team for housing issues?  

They didn’t have to die

Following the tragedy, people throughout the New York City area and across the country have responded with sympathy and love. They have raised close to a million dollars for the families at the Twin Parks tower.

Meanwhile, Mayor Adams and television commentators initially gave lectures on the importance of closing doors if your apartment catches fire. The clear implication of the media barrage was to blame victims for their own deaths.

Adams did admit that “there may have been a maintenance issue with this door.” A year after a 2017 Bronx fire that killed 12 people, the city council passed a law ordering self-closing doors to be installed in all buildings by mid-2021. 

The mayor even questioned the need for tenants to have space heaters, contending there were no outstanding heating complaints at the Twin Parks tower. There were actually four heating complaints filed by the tenants last year with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. 

Thousands of tenants in New York, including those living in New York Housing Authority buildings, are forced to have space heaters or boil water on their stoves to keep warm.

Another problem was that fire alarms would go off many times without cause, leading residents to ignore them. All these problems could have been fixed so 17 people didn’t have to die.

But that would have meant hiring more maintenance workers and cutting into Rick Gropper’s profits. Gropper may think of himself as a liberal who attends charity balls. But owning apartment houses for profit is a dangerous practice, just like privately owned nursing homes where tens of thousands have died of COVID. 

Just to break even and pay the mortgage, landlords will have to cut back on repairs and maintenance workers. The result is a lack of heat, doors that don’t close and increased risk of fires.

Close to two hundred people marched on “billionaires’ row” in midtown Manhattan’s 57th Street on Jan. 12 to protest the ending of the New York statewide ban on evictions.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday this year by ending the moratorium on Jan. 15. Hochul said kind words for those who died in the Bronx, but sees nothing wrong with 250,000 families facing eviction in the middle of winter. 

Marchers not only called out the governor, they also went to the headquarters of mega-landlords like LeFrak and BlackRock and condemned their crimes. People chanted in memory of the “Bronx 17.”

Housing is a human right. The power of the people will make it happen.

Honor Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr 2022
Baltimore Event

Sunday Jan 16, 4 pm to 5:30 pm

Workers Rights are Human Rights
Fighting for Dr. King’s Dream

REGISTER HERE
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_f9CQqJ91REO7NhJ0-m2L9w

Panelists include:
Message from Rebecka Jackson Moeser, Executive Director, Resist this Pac: Give Us the Ballot
Amazon workers – Unemployed Workers Union
Welfare Rights Organization – United Seniors & more

Panelists will inspire us and discuss what we can do!
Followed by the film: At the River I Stand

To register for this important forum go to:
REGISTER HERE
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Jan. 12 – Members of the Chicago Teachers Union voted to take classes remote for several days in defiance of the city administration. Thousands of New York City students walked out of classes to protest unsafe conditions. Furious staff, youth and families from Oakland, California, to Columbia, Missouri, and Boston are demanding the return of remote learning options, increased testing and safety measures in schools.

We all remember Donald Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant slogan, “Build that wall.” Now the Biden administration and its allies in the corporate media have “built a wall” of dangerous denial around the spread of COVID-19’s omicron variant in public schools across the U.S. And teachers, school staff, students and families are fighting back.

Along with healthcare and retail workers, school workers and students have been on the frontlines of the pandemic since early 2020 – never more so than today. Crammed into overcrowded classrooms without adequate ventilation, testing or PPE, schools are omicron superspreaders – ones that federal, state and local officials insist remain open despite all evidence to the contrary. Why?

Advocates for keeping schools open and denying a remote option cite “learning loss” as their primary reason. But in cities like New York, home of the country’s largest public school system, so many thousands of students and teachers are sick that little learning is going on in most classrooms. In many schools, students who come in are packed into even more dangerous conditions – like auditoriums and lunchrooms – because so many peers and staff members are out sick.

As enraged teachers and students have been saying for weeks, most want to teach and learn in a classroom environment. But that can only happen when it is safe to do so. Withholding remote options and safety measures during a pandemic surge is the greatest source of “learning loss” as parents keep their children home and many students and teachers fall ill.

Childhood infections and hospitalizations have skyrocketed since mid-December. Omicron is a variant of COVID-19 that is highly transmissible and often results in “breakthrough cases” among those who are already vaccinated. But officials have only gotten more dug in about keeping schools open, without any remote option. 

It’s not just pro-Trump anti-maskers who are responsible. Some of the worst offenders are Democratic allies of the Biden administration, including incoming New York Mayor Eric Adams and his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who locked teachers out of their remote classrooms.

The real reason – which is becoming clearer to more and more workers – is that the capitalist economy demands it. Profit-hungry capitalists find their businesses short staffed. Keeping schools open is a way to force parents to come to work, often in unsafe conditions. The health of the community – including elders, people with chronic illnesses, and younger children who have not yet been approved for vaccination – is not a priority for the capitalists and their bought-and-paid-for politicians. 

Baltimore: a case study

Baltimore, a predominantly Black city, is a case study in what is happening around the country, including larger cities like Chicago and New York. 

The school superintendent and Democratic city administration refused to heed the Baltimore Teachers Union, which asked them to act preemptively to protect teachers, students and the community before the scheduled return to classrooms following the year-end holiday break.

On Dec. 22, BTU President Diamonte Brown said: “There is much we do not yet know, but what is clear is that transmissions are at record levels and vaccination does not eliminate infection. It is prudent and necessary for City Schools to consider all possibilities. 

“However, there have only been minimal changes to the status quo and we have not heard of any contingency plans that could be enacted if circumstances continue to worsen.”

The union quickly laid out a clear course of action and preparation, calling on the city to open the winter session remotely and delay in-person schooling while testing and safety measures are put in place.  

Instead, the Baltimore City officials plowed forward with reopening, with no plan, minimal testing and resulting chaos.

Baltimore activist Sharon Black of the Unemployed Workers Union told Struggle-La Lucha: “The community is outraged. It’s been up to teachers to raise money to provide N95 and KN95 masks, and not a thing has been discussed in terms of safety on buses at school rush hour – either for drivers or students.”

The School Board and Baltimore City Health Department claim they will have testing in place and possibly completed by the end of January – after schools have already been back in session and spreading COVID for weeks. School staff have reiterated that many air filters and purifiers are in need of further maintenance. 

“It is profits before people that is driving this criminal neglect of the health of young people and teachers. ‘Get kids back to school, so parents can make money for bosses’ is their motto,” Black added.

Role of Biden and the CDC

The Biden administration has encouraged this dangerous behavior, with the president repeatedly saying that schools should remain open. 

Biden’s Centers for Disease Control issued new guidelines Dec. 27 cutting the quarantine period for infected people from 10 to 5 days, citing “societal impact” (e.g., critical infrastructure and staffing shortages) as a major reason.

Even former Surgeon General Jerome Adams, a Trump appointee, advised against following the new CDC guidance, saying people should get a negative test before leaving isolation. Adams called the change “a compromise to keep the economy open in the face of inadequate tests.”

Shortly after the CDC altered its guidelines to benefit bosses at the expense of public health, it also issued a report that COVID infection may increase the danger of diabetes in children – a chronic, lifelong and potentially fatal condition that requires expensive maintenance drugs.

The Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE-UFT) in New York pointed out the Biden administration’s hypocrisy, noting that on Jan. 2, as schools were about to resume in-person classes, the White House press briefing room was being reduced to only 14 seats due to concerns about omicron. “Cool, cool, but 30 kids in a classroom is fine.”

In truth, what we are seeing is Trump’s vision of mass infection unimpeded by public health measures taking shape under Biden and the “anti-Trump” Democrats. Because the capitalist class demands it, and both Republicans and Democrats at bottom exist to serve their interests.

The more Biden, Adams, Lightfoot & Co. barrel ahead endangering the lives of workers and their children, the more resistance they will face, and the more people will become aware that neither Democrats or Republicans can be relied on to protect their most basic rights. 

Only independent organization in the spirit of the rebellious Chicago teachers and New York students can defend the lives and health of the people!

The writer is the parent of two New York City public school students.

Around 100 teachers, students and parents rallied at the Barclays Center sports arena in downtown Brooklyn, New York, Jan. 5 to demand real health and safety protections for public school communities throughout New York City. The action was organized by the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE-UFT), a progressive faction of the United Federation of Teachers.

Signs and banners alerted onlookers that “NYC schools are not safe!” MORE-UFT activist Annie Tan, a special education teacher in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, led chants of “Who keeps us safe? We keep us safe!” 

Speakers condemned the new mayoral administration of former cop Eric Adams and his predecessor Bill de Blasio for denying students and teachers a remote learning option during the surging COVID-19 omicron variant sweeping the city. 

Before the December holiday break, omicron was spreading rapidly through city schools. Both the outgoing and incoming Democratic administrations refused to take measures to ensure the safety of school communities upon the resumption of classes on Jan. 3, and rejected numerous calls to postpone in-person classes to give time for all students and workers to be tested. 

Many community members told horror stories from their own schools: sick children being sent to classes due to lack of testing and the Department of Education’s lack of communication with non-English-speaking parents; high numbers of teacher absences meaning students are crammed into auditoriums, further heightening the risk of spread; illness of food preparation workers leaving teachers scrambling to feed lunch to hungry kids.

Mayor Adams boasted of “New York swagger” as a reason to force students and teachers back into the school petrie dish. A sign held high by an African American teacher at the Jan. 5 rally responded succinctly: “Safety not swagger.” 

Unfortunately, UFT President Michael Mulgrew has been collaborating with the city administration in covering up the extent of the crisis and refusing to listen to the demands of the union’s members and the broader school community.

MORE-UFT members held a follow-up action at UFT headquarters on Jan. 11, demanding action from the union leadership.

MORE-UFT demands include: KN95 or N95 for students, faculty and staff; weekly testing for all staff and students, and result data to be shared; repair or replace insufficient ventilation systems; student absences excused if parents choose to keep children home during the surge; and remote learning options.

New York residents are urged to call the city’s information hotline 311 and say: “I am very concerned about COVID safety in NYC public schools. I believe weekly testing of all staff and students is the only way to keep schools safe.”

The following interview with Struggle-La Lucha co-editor Greg Butterfield was originally published by the website Ukraina.ru.

Dmitry Strauss: Greg, Russia has raised the issue of nonproliferation of U.S. and NATO missile strike systems near its borders. This topic will be discussed by Russia with NATO and the United States in the coming days. In your opinion, how legitimate is this point of view of Russia? 

Greg Butterfield: I believe Russia’s position is completely valid and correct. The unbridled growth of the U.S.-dominated NATO military alliance over the last three decades is a threat to Russia and its allies, and one of the greatest threats to peace in the world. The growth of NATO has meant not just the spread of Western troops and weaponry in eastern and central Europe. It has also meant the ascension of governments like those in Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and the Baltic States, that look to the fascist collaborators of World War II as their example.

President Putin and the Russian government have consistently spoken about the danger inherent in NATO’s integration of Ukraine – the last major “domino” on Russia’s western border. The situation has been precarious ever since the U.S.-backed coup in 2014 brought a far-right regime to power that nurtures openly fascist elements who eagerly desire war with Russia. 

In the final days of the Soviet Union, when the Gorbachev government withdrew support from the USSR’s socialist European allies, the U.S. pledged not to expand NATO to the east or threaten Russia and other post-Soviet states. Of course, Washington never honored this pledge. Republican and Democratic administrations alike have consistently betrayed that promise and steadily increased the danger of another devastating war in Eurasia.

DS: The U.S. and NATO talk about Russia’s “aggressive plans” with regard to Ukraine as their reason for the placement of missile strike systems. Russia says it has no such plans, and explains that the concentration of its troops near the Ukrainian border coincides with its right to place its troops in its own territory the way it likes. Which argument is more convincing?

GB: The claims by the U.S. and NATO of a threatened Russian “invasion” of Ukraine are completely baseless. They are not taken seriously by any knowledgeable person. Unfortunately, the workers and general population in the West are denied that knowledge. This is the greatest challenge facing the anti-war movement here. U.S. officials expect the lack of objective information and constant beating of war drums in the capitalist media to convince the masses of people that Russia is a threat to people here. They are pursuing the same kind of war propaganda against China.

Since the Maidan coup in 2014, Washington and its puppets in Ukraine have repeatedly tried to provoke a situation where Russia would be forced to intervene to protect the population of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. In the West, where the legitimacy of the Donbass republics has never been acknowledged, such a defensive and humanitarian action by Russia would be portrayed as an act of aggression that justifies NATO intervention.

So far, the governments and militaries of Russia and the Donbass republics have managed to skillfully deflect these provocations. The current campaign in the West to convince the populace that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent, which started two months ago, is the most dangerous and sustained since 2014.

DS: What do you think is the reason for the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and Russia and the United States? Is it the geopolitical repartition of the world? Is it aggression of Russia? Is it an outdated approach of the United States to current world events? 

GB: The conflict stems directly from the destruction of the Soviet Union 30 years ago. When socialism was overthrown and the Soviet republics split up, Washington and Wall Street expected the entire region to quietly become “banana republics” of the West. For the first decade under Yeltsin, it seemed this would be the case. But the rise of an independent-minded capitalist oligarchy in Russia, represented by the Putin administration, put a wrench into U.S. plans. 

Even today, two decades later, the U.S. ruling class and its political establishment cannot reconcile themselves to the existence of a sovereign Russia, Belarus and Donbass, whether capitalist or socialist. 

DS: Why do you think there is such a tense political situation in the world? How close do you think we are to a war? Or is it just an external impression, but in fact everything is as usual now, with no especially deep troubles?  

GB: The danger of war is growing. The unending drive of the world capitalist economy for greater profits engenders war between nations and states. This is especially true of the U.S., whose global economic and military hegemony is constantly being eroded. To keep their fragile grip on power, the U.S. capitalists are driven to increasingly dangerous actions.

It’s clear that the powers in Washington will never reconcile themselves to Russia’s independent existence. Sooner or later, war will break out – unless there is significant movement toward social change in the West. That means a revolutionary struggle for socialism by the working class and oppressed peoples, in solidarity with the countries that value independence and sovereignty. 

In the meantime, Russia, China and other countries are wise to take strong measures to defend themselves.

Source: Ukraina.ru