Memorial Day Massacre of 1937 Offers Stark Reminder: Media Usually Side With Corporations, Police

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/7369/may_30_1937_massacre_reminds_labor_keep_fighting_to_get_truth_out/

Tuesday May 31, 2011 10:36 am

By Roger Bybee

We’ve become accustomed to seeing "credible" major media voices like The New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer blame United Auto Worker members for hauling in outlandish wages of a supposed $73 an hour, destroying the global competitiveness of U.S. companies. Those claims are way off-base: Actual average auto worker wages are $27-29/hour. Meanwhile, new workers start at just $14.50, with limited benefits.

Given the distance of most reporters and editors from the lives of working people—and the fact that labor reporters have become virtually extinct in America—it is easy to see why reporters and pundits would find such falsehoods credible.

But the Memorial Day Massacre on May 30, 1937 in southeast Chicago—the 74th anniversary of which was yesterday—should remind us that even when 10 workers get shot in the back and killed, the media’s natural inclination is to side with corporations and the police.


Police fire on a crowd of strikers during the Republic Steel strike on May 30, 1937, in Chicago. Ten people were killed in the massacre. (Photo via Arkansas AFL-CIO )


On Memorial Day 1937, Chicago policemen fired upon a crowd of 1,000 striking United Steelworkers and their wives and children near Republic Steel on the city’s southeast side, killing 10 workers—each one shot in the back or side, indicating that they were fleeing the police rather than charging them.

Another 30 workers were shot and wounded, all but four struck in the back or side. Ten of the strikers and supporters were permanently crippled by bullet wounds or relentless thrashings inflicted by Chicago Police billy-clubs.

MEDIA REACTION: RIOTING WORKERS PROVOKED COPS

FULL story at link.

[Rageneau]

1. The major media are, and always have been, pro-conservative

And, it goes without saying, anti-liberal.