By Richard Mellor in California
Any worker who’s been through a strike knows that the mass media is biased. In that sense, those accusing the media of “fake” news are correct. But what the mass media has is a class bias. It is designed to influence public opinion in a way that places the private sector and the so-called free market in a positive light. The landlord, the cops, the CEO, the hedge fund manager, these are who we must look up to. It is free speech from the point of view of those who own the media.
I remember during the uprising that occurred after the Rodney King beating by cops was caught on video and a Teamster truck driver, Reginald Denny, was dragged from his cab and beaten mercilessly. The beating was horrible and caught on tape. The mass media made sure we saw this event day after day for a long while. The reason for this extensive coverage was not a result of the owners of the mass media having concern for Denny; it was to generate anger and ill-feeling toward the black youth who committed the offense and the black community in general for participating in the uprising; it was to undermine the reason for the uprising. This is why the looting of stores is a popular theme as it gives the media another means to denigrate an entire community.
Ongoing murder of black people
A recent study found that during the thousands of Black Lives Matter protests, a justifiable uprising against the ongoing murder of Black people by the police, the overwhelming majority of them have been peaceful, with “…more than 93% involving no serious harm to people or damage to property…” Yet the capitalist media and the government ensure we draw a different conclusion with the help of lots of coverage.
Looting is given a prominent role in the coverage and racists, landlords who profit from the need for decent housing, and the ruling class in general, place looting front and centre. I have heard workers refer to the protestors as “looters” repeatedly, this more often than not has a racist root and is often accompanied by the “Blue Lives Matter” slogan, in essence supporting the police murders of black folks.
Let’s Talk About Looting
Let’s address some much more extensive and harmful looting. There’s housing for instance. After the Great Recession, when more than five million people had their homes taken from them by moneylenders, big investment firms and capital management companies started snapping up single family homes. This was fairly new, as the big landlords like their victims in one place like a tower block, as it’s easier and cheaper when problems need addressing or their agents have to actually come face to face with the tenants.
But the 2008 crash that destroyed so many lives offered too lucrative an opportunity for the owners of capital. Investors have been buying more than one in ten homes sold in the US over the last decade, according to the Wall Street Journal. Wayne Hughes, who is CEO of American Homes 4 Rent, has 53,000 suburban houses in 22 states and collects about $1 billion a year in rents. Shares of the two largest landlords, Invitation Homes and American Homes 4 Rent are up 79% and 59% respectively.
A home is human shelter, it should not be a commodity or an investment and there is no nastier phrase in the real estate lexicon than “house flipping” in my opinion. Housing, like other important social needs, should belong to businesses; that’s why the market fluctuates so much and why housing in the US is so expensive. Some of the wealth we create through labour is in their banks and state coffers and how that is allocated should be the collective decision of those who created it; providing housing is one area.
The pandemic has brought new opportunities for the speculators in human shelter as investors are raising billions of dollars to snap up homes as people start falling behind on mortgage payments. Those with federally-backed mortgages can take advantage of a government protection plan set up in March. They can skip mortgage payments for a year and make up for it later. This relief program is known as “forbearance”, but many homeowners are missing out and lending companies are not being cooperative. In January, local restrictions on evictions and foreclosures, introduced in response to the pandemic, will expire and people could start losing their homes.
Some of these looters, like Invitation Homes are starting sale-lease back programs as a means of increasing its home-ownership above its present 80,000. Sale-leaseback is common in commercial real estate and involves investors buying a home from someone having a hard time with the mortgage and the possibility of losing it then renting it back to them.
One speculator in human shelter, Jared Kessler, is the CEO of a start-up (I hate that term too) called EasyKnock. Kessler’s all excited about the end of the prohibition against foreclosures in January, “Once January comes that’s when the carnage will come,” Mr. Kessler said. “We’re just giving people choices that they never had before.” (Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2020).
In capitalist free market ideology and culture, Kessler is an innovator, a fine outstanding member of society, waiting for the “carnage” that the market is about to inflict on a section of society, and as Obama’s friend Rahm Emanual suggested, taking advantage of a crisis. Self-enrichment, regardless of the consequences, is good in capitalist ideology
It’s much like the Great Recession, when moneylenders, so cooperative making the sale, are hard to find. Sue Stevenson, a mortgage-default counsellor describes the situation when it comes to applying for forebearance:
“We might refer to it as the document paper game. The servicer has everything that they require to do a loan modification to review but continuously and sometimes for over seven months will keep asking for documents that they already have. It is frustrating to no end.”
“Ms. Stevenson, the counsellor……said homeowners have had trouble getting through to mortgage-service companies on the phone.”, the Wall Street Journal writes, “Calls are often sent to voice mail and not returned, she said. Other times, calls are answered but dropped. Borrowers must then call again and endure yet another lengthy hold period.”
Sounds familiar doesn’t it? We call it the run-around. Pressing endless buttons on the telephone trying to get an answer to something that is important to you. And what sort of society but an unjust and inhumane one would create a profession called mortgage default counsellor?
During the process, homeowners are sent letters warning them that they are past due on their mortgage payment and that they are at risk of foreclosure and forced eviction. Mortgage holders are told the letters are required by law. Even so, one woman says, “It’s just scary every time they send a letter of being delinquent. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do.”
And on another note, It is the police forces that evict people from their shelter on behalf of the moneylenders: Blue Lives Matter folks might think about that for a minute.
Housing is a basic right, or should be, in any civilized society. But we don’t live in a civilized society, do we? We live in a marketplace and everything is for sale including our bodies.
From the US socialist website, Facts for Working People. The original can be found here.
September 21, 2020
