Olan Musk Rushes to Judgement on Murder of Tech Billionaire.

 

San Francisco Tenderloin image Source: US Guardian Online

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
4-14-23

 

A couple of years ago, a friend and I were heading up to Lake Tahoe for a few days, hoping to find some nice hikes. We stopped to have breakfast in Auburn, a small community on the way up.

 

Sitting across from us was a guy maybe in his forties talking to this older woman that appeared to be his mother. We had a hard time keeping our mouths shut as the guy was attacking San Francisco and the stench of urine in the streets and the drug addicts and homeless and all the crime that results from this section of society, the people that capitalism abandons to the streets, the ones that don’t fill the prisons.

 

If you walk through the Tenderloin, the homelessness and drug addiction that accompanies it is visible everywhere, as well as the smell of urine. After all, homeless people, many of them with major medical issues, some of them veterans, have to eliminate their body waste just like the rest of us. I’m sure that if you aren’t mentally ill before you end up on the streets of America’s major cities, homelessness will take you there.

 

I used to visit the Piano Fight bar up that way, a great venue for plays, comedy and music. After getting out of the subway at Powell Street it was just a short walk but right through the heart of it. People were on the sidewalks, groups of them and I had to walk right through these groups up to Taylor Street. I was never threatened or intimidated by people. The most invasive experience would be someone might ask for some money. The most unpleasant aspect of an experience like that should be, for any normal human being, regret that there’s nothing one can do about it; that along with compassion and perhaps anger at a society that allows it.

 

But the US mass media is very adept at placing the blame for the ills of an exploitive and unjust society on some of its worst victims. Right wing types like the guy in the restaurant, who would include immigrants and people on welfare for his problems, are given traction by the right wing, xenophobic and increasingly fascist leaning commentators on right wing radio and television.

 

The Christian right in the Republican Party, and other neo-fascist elements use these crises as a means of attacking their opponents in the other Wall Street Party, the Democrats.  The Democrats cry a lot of crocodile tears about the numerous failings of the so-called free market but do little about it. Democratic politicians are associated with urban populations and are particular targets when it comes to urban poverty and homelessness. California is a poplar target but it is obvious that having a temperate climate, if one finds oneself out on the streets better, these streets be in California’s San Francisco Bay Area than Fargo North Dakota.

 

On April 4^th, a tech billionaire was stabbed to death in San Francisco. The billionaire, Bob Lee, was walking in an upscale neighborhood when he was stabbed repeatedly in the chest. The immediate response was to attack the epidemic of crime in San Francisco, it’s so bad you can’t even walk in a rich neighborhood and be safe. The right wing took aim at the “liberal” political elements in the city (Democrats) for being soft on crime and pandering to the homeless; these are just electoral tactics aimed at increasing the voter base. Despite the fact that people denied basic human shelter are the victims of violence rather than perpetrators of it, the initial thrust was aimed at them.

 

Having a much more influential voice than the lowly Trumper in that café, Onan Musk, the individual fortunate enough to be born a white man in South Africa whose dad once owned an emerald mine, took to the Twitter world:

 

Musk’s response is a small example of the general trend. But yesterday, (April 14 ^th) the police arrested the murderer, another tech wizard and friend of the deceased. There are reports today that the victim may have been in a relationship with the killer’s sister.

 

The murderer, was arrested in his fancy apartment block that is full of lawyers, architects and other fancy folks and apparently there were shocks all round.

 

What was Bob Lee anyway? He produced nothing, made nothing. He developed an app called Cash App that allows money to be transferred from one hand to another and charged 1.5% for the process. In 2021, this parasitic venture made almost $2 billion profit. While it’s a sad situation when someone’s life is taken in this way, Mr. Lee has children that will be distraught no doubt, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for all the tears from the media. Workers are taught to worship such social wasters like Lee and his murderer; they are the epitome of success. They are praised as innovators and hard working. Hard working at getting others to work hard. That’s the gist of it.

 

Yet there are thousands upon thousands of deaths each year that are not natural but are a product of social conditions. The lack of medical care and a national health system is one. There are so many mentally ill people on the streets because we have no serious and humane facilities for treating mental illness. Anyway, if you weren’t sick before you became homeless (5 million had their homes stolen from them in the 2008 crash), living on the streets will change that.

 

Both capitalist parties in the US are responsible for these deaths. The Democrats pay lip service to the health care or housing crisis but do very little to change it. Both Obama and Biden have promised changes in these areas, so did the Clintons. What happened to Obama’s public option or the Medicare for All that was so popular when Democrats wanted Trump gone.The $3 trillion we spent in Afghanistan would have gone a long way to solving many of our domestic problems.

 

Just like the looming climate catastrophe, the gun violence, the mass shootings, the infrastructure collapse, the chemical spills, rail derailments and more; these are market driven disasters. 

 

We are in the era of capitalism’s decline, of capitalism’s end days as some have put it. Capitalism cannot develop society further, not even here in the belly of the beast, the most powerful nation and richest in human history, the country with more billionaires than any other and California has most of them. And in the face of that, Biden is over in Ireland promising billions in investment. "I'm home" said Biden during the visit. No mate, you're not Irish, you're of Irish ancestry. That's different.

 

Bernie Sanders raised consciousness with his talk of social, needs and democratic socialism. He put forward social democratic demands, attacked the wealthy and inequality and had a huge effect on young people only on each occasion to offer the Democratic Party as the electoral road to go. This is a dead end politically and millions of working class people have drawn that conclusion. In the 2016 national election almost 100 million opted out.

 

Sanders could have fomented a left split form the Democrats around his demands and program, attacks on the billionaires, and social need. He has been around the left a long time he is well aware of the history in other advanced capitalist countries of independent working class parties, Labor Parties, Social democratic and socialist parties.

 

The Democrats in San Francisco are going on the offensive in the light of Musk’s tweet and others like it and the arrest not of a homeless killer but one of the tech industry’s own and a friend of the deceased.

 

But workers have to draw the conclusion that a step we must take if we are to break the political stranglehold the ruling elite has on the economy, society as a whole and the political process, is the building of an independent working class alternative to the two parties of capitalism. A party rooted in our communities, our organizations, unions etc. a party that can draw to its ranks all the victims of the savagery of the market.