I was listening to Andrea Mitchell Reports today on MSNBC and a segment came on about the Global Citizen Festival. Mitchell was interviewing two representatives from Caterpillar. Caterpillar is teaming up with Global Citizen and MSNBC to fight global poverty. Caterpillar spokeswomen were talking about how great CAT has been in the fight to end global poverty as well as helping with this upcoming concert that MSNBC has been plugging all week. Mitchell just sat there agreeing with everything these two women were saying and not asking any of the hard questions.
My husband and I grew up in Central Illinois. We are still Illinois residents. We will be moving back to Central Illinois once he is out of the service. Imagine my anger and disgust while listening to this bullshit fluff piece.
CAT cares nothing for global poverty. In fact they have helped create poverty right here in the United States. Peoria Illinois has been home to Caterpillar for as long as I can remember. I remember hearing about the strikes during the 80's and 90's growing up; Union workers striking to protect their pay and benefits. Since the 1980's CAT has not been a fan or advocate of fair wages and fair work practices. I remember hearing about how it was getting harder and harder for CAT employees.
During college some my husband's fraternity brothers (a veteran fraternity) went to work for CAT while finishing up school or went to work for CAT right after school. Then the Great Recession hit and that gave CAT a way in to justify publicly a new round of particularly nasty wide sweeping layoffs. I remember sitting with my husband eating when a friend who worked at CAT called panicked. My husband had just re-enlisted after he was laid off from his job and my job was going to be phased out (not CAT jobs) and our friend wanted to know if my husband would go with him for support to get re-enlisted. My husband asked why he would want to re-enlist since he had a good job at Caterpillar. Our friend told us word came down about massive layoffs at CAT; they were sending the jobs overseas and right-to-work states so they pay workers less. Sure enough that was the major news of the night on local news programs. Unfortunately for our friend a lot of veterans across the country were thinking same thing (some of them at CAT) and he missed being able to re-enlist by a week.
Caterpillar cares nothing for people living in poverty. This partnering up to fight global poverty is just a marketing gimmick. I am disgusted with Mitchell for not asking the hard questions and for not holding them accountable for their participation in creating poverty. This is another media failure. This is just another example of how the main stream media has become complacent and lazy. I think Walter Cronkite and Edward Murrow would be ashamed of what has become of broadcast journalism.