Waking up to ‘Gang Wars’

I listen to CBC. It is almost always on in the car and it is what I wake up to in the morning and usually listen to as I go to sleep at night. The past couple of months, I have rolled over in the morning and as I doze in and out of sleep have been aware of a nagging sense of dissatisfaction and disengagement from the The Early Edition. I can’t stand the political panel with most of my venom directed to Erin Airton who I find to be whiny and reactionary in her comments. This has little to do with her political leanings as I don’t hold the same political views as Rafe Mair but I find his comments, even when I disagree with them, to be thought out and well-argued.

This morning my discomfort all made sense when I woke up to hear the morning show which was all about Metro Vancouver’s Gang Wars. I found the commentary, interviews and questions asked of the interviewees to be one-sided and inflammatory. I also never thought that a Province headline would be used as supportive material for CBC programming. I waited patiently for the ‘other side’, the discussion about how crime rates in Metro Vancouver have declined, a discussion as to who joins gangs and why, a discussion of the history of gangs in Vancouver, anything that would stem the tide of ‘are you scared to go outside because you might be shot.’ As a side note – I am not afraid to go outside, I don’t feel anymore threatened than I ever did and when the ‘Balcony Rapist’ moved to New Westminster, I didn’t lock myself into the apartment.

I think that where my dissatisfaction with the morning show, comes not from my disagreeing with what is being said (I revel in yelling at the radio) but in the direction that it is taking. Everything that has been touched in the last month has turned into ‘AN ISSUE’ that we should be scared about. I think that today it was made worse by the fact that all that was on the local news was discussion about the various shootings. Apparently nothing else is going on in our city that is considered newsworthy.

All of this is happening at a time that our Federal Government is wanting to pass a crime bill and are quietly preparing the way for capital punishment. Harper may say that he is not planning on opening the debate on capital punishment but then gave this ,”The reality in this particular case is, were we to intervene, it would quickly become a question of whether we were willing to repatriate a double murderer to Canada,” Harper told reporters. “In light of this government’s strong initiatives on tackling violent crime I think that would send the wrong signal to the Canadian public.”, as his reasoning as to not bring Ronald Allen Smith back to Canada to serve a prison term instead of being executed. At the same time, Canada is also not standing in the forefront of the UN call to end capital punishment.

I expect a lot from CBC, more than what I do from The Province or The Sun and definitely more than all of the other news casts on T.V.. However, the morning show today made me want to tune into CNN.  I’m not saying that there isn’t something going on obviously there is.  I just don’t thinking that instilling fear is the best way to go about dealing with the issue.  I turned off the radio this morning when I listened to someone phone in and talk about how we should “just send those  people(Asians) back to their home.”  Pretty presumptive to assume that ‘those’ people are landed immigrants and not people whose families have lived here for generations.  What about the Hell’s Angels bigoted caller?  Last time I checked, they were all Caucasian.

I will continue to listen to CBC because there isn’t really another alternative.  In the meantime I’ll continue to listen to exemplary programming such as learning about the latest dog parks  and cross  my fingers that someone takes over the programming for the Early Edition sooner than later.