The Capitalist Mass Media: Anti-Worker, Anti-Union.

The first eight minutes of my local 30 minute news tonight was about crime, starting with what the newsman called a "surge" in violent crime in an Oakland neighborhood, a neighborhood in the "foothills" which is a way of letting the public know it is not in the "ghetto" or the "killing" zone" or other areas of Oakland that usually grab the headlines when it comes to crime and that most people ignore as long as the crime stays there. "People who live here are more frightened every day" the reporter tells us.

The reporter goes on to interview numerous residents who have been robbed and they all tell their stories.  One man was met at his front door, offered his wallet and stuff but the thieves didn't want it.  They forced him inside, made him strip naked and then grabbed the contents of his house.  They then transported the loot in his car.  The reporter says that the robbers said, "This one's for Oscar Grant" as they left the house.  Oscar Grant was the young black man fatally shot in the back by a transit cop who received an involuntary manslaughter verdict from a jury with not one black person on it.

The reason for this intense top of the news story was not so much concern for the public but the layoff of 80 Oakland cops.  It was a politically motivated story from the big business media in order to pressure the politicians to find money to put more cops on the street but mostly to ensure public support for paying more out of our own pockets for it one way or another; they needed to frighten us a little .  The news Anchor stated that it was simple "logic", "Fewer cops, crime will probably go up". This was a general theme, crime going up because of fewer cops.

So the big business mass media is concerned about jobs in a roundabout way, police jobs; after all, if you have to break a strike you need police too.  But crime goes down when people are being productive, when they have good jobs with decent pay and benefits, paychecks that actually mean something.  It's also pretty simple "logic" that more productive jobs means less crime.  There was no mention of the catastrophic unemployment statistics for black youth in Oakland. There was no mention of how increased unemployment, foreclosures, loss of health care, evictions by slumlords (and Oakland has many) that result from low pay or no pay that doesn't cover rent might influence crime statistics.  In the Oakland general strike of 1946, crime went down. People were fighting the real enemy.

There was more about murders and a man in Richmond that stole a car at a gas station but there was a five year old in it. The father had gone in to pay and left his keys in the car with the baby strapped in the back.  The perp went two freeway exits and obviously noticed there was a kid in the car I would say and dropped her at a corner where a woman noticed her and called the cops. Now I don't condone stealing the car but I really figure the guy didn't see the child.  It had a happy ending in a way, but the general theme was how bad crime is, another black male terrorizing the neighborhood.  I would be terrified if that happened and my grandchild was taken, I'd be worried sick thinking of the worst.  Of course, I wouldn't leave my grandchild in the car at a gas station in the early hours of the morning with the keys in it.  But, after the fact, it could be said the person was not the worst kind of thief and had made a mistake, but that would not create the right mood out there; gotta keep people afraid of each other and on edge.

Then they report on a new plan in San Francisco to have civilians serve as cops investigating non violent crime, gathering evidence, conducting interviews etc. Volunteering is also the rage now, whole church congregations do it.  They spend billions on wars, trillions on bailouts and expect workers to volunteer.  We should oppose this sort of scabbing and if we belong to a church that advocates it we should speak out.

After all the murder and mayhem (The murder and mayhem the US military is involved in around the world was left out like the slumlords activity), the next story was another swipe at a different, slightly better off section of the working class.  The Alameda County bus drivers are engaged in a sick out to protest a concessionary contract being imposed on them by the transit authority. The reporter interviewed the overwhelmingly working class, African American ridership to hear all the horror stories about buses running a half hour late or more. Such devoted journalists they are they want us to know what the driver's action is "costing the passengers."

One youngster tells of how it makes him late for summer school.  Another woman tells us how the driver's actions cost her $50 because she arrived late for an appointment. There was nothing said about the driver's issues and how much they have lost over the years.  Nothing said about what it's like working split shifts and dealing with the public every day like drivers do.  Much of the anger that exists because people have lost jobs, homes, apartments and health care can be directed by a frustrated public at people like mailpersons , bus drivers, DMV employees or other public sector workers. Eliminating routes and cutting back service on an already pretty worthless public transit system costs the public plenty but no comments about this from the news reporters. Politicians in both capitalist parties, have savaged everything public including care for the disabled and sick; all to rescue the bankers from their own system.

The problem with a sick out though, like the strikes that the Union leaders organize, is that they are very limited and narrow in scope. The Union leaders don't  build links with the community so the power of Labor on the job and in the community can win jobs for all, good public transit and other necessities of life any civilized society should provide, and this one can certainly afford.  The head of BP who has just been ousted received an immediate $1.5 million a year retirement package; not bad for destroying whole communities and an entire ecosystem.

At the end of the attempt to demonize the bus drivers though they reporter was forced to say that "lots" of people sided with the drivers who were fighting for their pay and benefits.  This was because only working class people and poor working class people ride the buses; this was class solidarity.

The news has a class bias we all know that, or most of us do; big business owns all the mass media.  The sad thing is that the Union leaders also have a class bias, they support capitalists and capitalism, and when it goes in to crisis they agree with the bankers that workers and the middle class have to cough up and rescue it no matter how far back they drive our living standards. That's why the best they can come up with is a sick out and then deny its a sick out so they can't be accused of violating society's laws or Union contracts; when what has to be done is to violate laws and contracts but in a mass way and with wider public involvement.

But you have to accept that you need to fight to do that and the Union leaders see no alternative, fighting can only lead to chaos.

As a worker I was chatting with this morning told me, "There is going to be a major upheaval in this country at some point, they are making it so it is impossible for us to get by."