It's Not Just the Writers' Strike, Stupid!

Read more about the strike on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.

It's the poison in the toy beads from China; it's the underfunded and underarmored soldiers in Iraq; it's the jaw dropping succession of cronies in government; it's the ping-ponging economy and the disingenuous disavowals of it's instability; it's the incessant enforced obsolescence of technology; it's the mercenaries for hire deployed to fight unnecessary wars; it's the corrupt and deceitful attorney generals; it's the abandoned hunt for the perpetrators of terror; it's the shrugging off of the anthrax scare; it's the rising oil prices; it's the housing crisis; it's the squandering of the trillion dollar surplus into the trillion dollar debt; it's the unending obfuscation and smirking and shrugging.

It's all the antics performed right in front of our gullible faces, all the blatant two-faced three card Monte artifice of loathsome George, tragic Hillary and frightening Rudy and THAT'S WHY IT'S NOT JUST THE WRITER'S STRIKE, STUPID.

All of us in every tax bracket, all workers who labor longer and longer hours to feed their families, who dream of owning a home, of alleviating personal debt, of being able to avail themselves of decent affordable health care, of decent affordable education, of breathing clean air, of living in a peaceful cooperative world safe from the extremists and zealots -- they are the ones that need to stop their own exploitation, abuse and open mockery by the gilded greed drunks, the men who care nothing for the efforts of the innocent laborers who themselves want nothing to do with fame or wealth or power über alles.

(Wait. I am pausing my polemic to allow the reader to take a quick Bias Check: when you've watched It's a Wonderful Life, who do you root for, Jimmy Stewart or Lionel Barrymore? It's basically that simple, folks. Okay, back to haranguing.)

They need to strike because they view the world from ground level level as opposed to lofty heights where the usurers dwell. They know that desiring the same thing their masters have in spades, that by kneecapping the creators of content, the hewers of material, the sculptors of tools, by undercutting the quality of the product in order to secure even greater yields, they would virtually ensure the end of, dare I say, all we profess to hold dear in this country.

The Writers' Strike. If only it were just about them. If only they were as their opponents would have the world believe: a bunch of already over-compensated pansy Hollywood types grousing about more cold cuts and cocaine. Yeah, and if only there were weapons of mass destruction. If only there was yellow cake. If only Bush was a compassionate conservative. It's way deeper: the striking writers are the nagging, enflamed tip of a much deeper, insidious infection.

America's greatness lies in its desire to battle tyranny from within, not without. Throwing its military might around without able pilots at the helm and to serve an imperialist agenda leads to where we have now found ourselves: out of money, out of friends, out favor and out of luck. What the WGA's strike symbolizes is the plight of the citizen against the tyranny of greed that is eroding the spirit of this nation.

So let workers of all stripes, in all forms, in all professions walk the line. It's not just their strike. It's yours.

Read more about the strike on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.

Comments

[mbaty]

Do you think there will be a reality tv show about the writers' strike?
Will we all stop watching tv and find other things to do?
Will the studios simply use this as a free pass and start hiring non-unionized writers, paying them less, and using legal loopholes to get around the unions?
Will they recruit user-generated content for bottom barrel prices?
Things are shifting, and this strike is just one part of a much larger trend.

[sculptor]

Steven, you really get it! It's about the greed of the few verses the need of the many. There is a ecomonic metric of income inequality called the Gini coefficient or index. The higher it is the more unbalanced our society is. Well, the US index is heading up and hasn't been this high since 1920. In addition we about equal to China and Mexico (the later's index is headed down.)

[Halsey]

Steven,

By posting...are you in effect...crossing the picket line?

okay..just kidding...I wouldn't care that much about the writer's strike except for the fact that in syndication, re-runs, etc....the broadcast companies continue to rake in the big bucks..and the creators of those pieces...zip...

It's just that it's difficult for the average American to get behind what "seems" to be a privleged class. Now...let's see what would happen IF coal miners..across the nation went on strike...and our homes could not be warmed this winter... People will survive re-runs...
The Writer's Guild needs to get other unions behind them...be it (ugggh). teamsters, teachers, garment workers... but then...the WRITERS need to get behind other unions as well.

I am not a member of a union...(now..if I could only sell one of my screenplays..that would be a different story..)... but..I do see an allegoric correlation between the state of our country...and a writer's strike..you just have to dig beneath the headlines...

thanks Steven.

[Galvestonians for Dr. Ron Paul]

This is why I must respectfully disagree with this strike...At least at this "particular point in time, before the holidays."

NO ONE speaks as to how this is shutting down dissenting voices....The talk shows are all silenced...Broadway is silenced....War movie making is silenced...These are things that ended the Vietnam war. This is how the messages got out...Now these strikes have silenced these voices, yet NO ONE says this.
I can not believe the stupidity of America.

Please wake up and see this for what it is. A right wing attempt at silencing "war critics."

We must debate "real issues" and speak on our economy, Iraq and foreign policy....
We will no longer have this on TV to watch over the holidays....Isnt this too convenient?
You know the talk shows would be speaking on the impeachment bill Kucinich introduced the other day.
The Pakistani Dictatorship. The NIE on Iran...And other important info.
Now they have been forced to shut down.
I wonder why?
What an ingenious way to shut it all down in one swipe.
Give them a contract they can not sign.

Three times this weekend I have heard a Senator and 2 award winning talk show hosts explain that America is in a prime position to impeach Dick Cheney.
The Republicans, up until one week ago, have been saying it would be too un-nerving for the American people to go through another impeachment.
The Dems have gone along with this.
Consistently.
Last week everything changed when Republicans started switching their votes on impeachment and "mocking" the Democrats and causing trouble...
John Conyers said yesterday "this has changed everything."
Please call him Monday morning and request impeachment proceedings begin IMMEDIATELY.
These Republicans must pay for their arrogance and bullying...
Bernie Sanders has said "your calls DO matter."
This war will not end unless these people are impeached or "IF" Ron Paul wins the presidency. Thats too long to wait on an "IF".
Please call.
313-961-5670
202-225-5126

http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=12025

[handworn]

There are no laborers not interested in fame or money, or power over their own lives, even if only judged by the number of purchasers of lottery tickets in working-class neighborhoods such as mine.

The fact of the matter is that when the poorest Americans make more in a week than most of the world lives on in a year, lifestyle has to be the chief guilty party, if among several. The basic costs of living have dropped so low that news stories cover people who by choice live in their campers or pickup trucks and shower at the gym. But almost no one wishes to live on less than they do, and few leaders are willing to take on lifestyle inflation or the TV advertising you help sell for a living which controls it. That's another "third rail" of electoral politics, along with social security. What we need is real financial education made a priority, and a national conversation about what money means and ought to mean, 'cause idealism is like gambling in reflecting the human desire for instincts and desires to lead to success, with a similar degree of reliability as a basis for policy.

[brina]

Just a tiny bit hyperbolic there, Mr. Weber, and not 100 percent scrupulous when it comes to apostrophes.

I can agree with you on pretty much every one of these points, individually, but I fail to see the writers' strike as anything around which we all should rally.

Let's cut out some of these adverbs and adjectives -- lovely, by the way -- and get down to the meat of the matter.

Should we begin with the contaminated beads from China? How does that unfortunate situation fit into the big picture?

Under-funded, under-armored soldiers? All right, that seems to be something we can agree on. What of them?

What about the cronies in politics? They're pretty awful, yeah?

In fact, I'll stop right now and say this: None of these points seems to link to the others, unless your ultimate goal is to make us agree that everything sucks.

I'd love to hear more about real screenwriters, the ones who are just scraping by, covering their rent by waiting tables or penning press releases for toenail fungus cure-alls. It would be interesting to hear why this is relevant to the rest of us.

Because, to be fair, it IS just the writers' strike, so far as we've seen.

You've got us all thinking that the world is at some terrible crossroads, and perhaps it is. But you've failed to prove that any of these things are intrinsically linked to any of the others.

For now, let's start here: "What the WGA's strike symbolizes is the plight of the citizen against the tyranny of greed that is eroding the spirit of this nation."

Please explain.

[04trojan]

High comedy is what this "essay" is. Workers of the world unite! LOL, seriously, Im in a union and even I think this piece of writing was over the top. Comparing the mess in Iraq with the WGA strike? Please, I got family over there and I think their problems are MUCH more important and vital than whatever the WGA is dealing with (getting $$$ for digital downloads?). Seriously, I actually heard a writer on the radio say (about residuals) "We don't work for 4-6 months and that is money you need to live off of." Ummmm, in middle America where I come from - nobody takes 4-6 month "vacations" and expects to get paid. Most middle class Americans would get off their ass and work for their pay. Im not saying that people shouldn't try to get what they feel they deserve - but this essay and this strike seem very overdone.

[CoolerHeads]

Love this post!

[MENTAL]

.
The WGA has given TV executives and TV viewers a GREAT opportunity. The best TV shows ever were made during the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's. Bring them back. Ernie Kovacs, Steve Allen, Mary Tyler Moore, The DickVanDyke Show, Jack Paar's Tonight, Sid Caesar, The Bob Newhart Show, Johnny Carson's Tonight, The Wild, Wild West, The Jack Benny Program, That Girl, The Avengers, Carol Burnett, Sonny and Cher, Jackie Gleason, Kraft Television Theater, Studio One, Philco Playhouse, Playhouse 90, Armstrong Television Theater, Rowan & Martin's Laugh In, The Ed Wynn Show, The Saint, The Rifleman, Knight Rider, The Six Million Dollar Man, Mission Impossible, Superman, and on and on. Nothing created since even comes close (except Seinfeld). Make these classics the new stable for prime time TV on all networks. Bring back the best TV ever produced - and everybody wins, both young and old. After several months of seeing these classics, maybe, just maybe, the standard for acceptable TV will increase from its current toilet-level cr'ap-fest.
.

[middleoftheroad]

You had me at "tragic Hillary".

I don't agree with all things in all your posts, but this one was very poetic.

[nlightenup]

Bravo, man, bravo.

[ERose]

You said it all, Weber. As a nation we have suffered for years from false pride. The 4th of July has come to mean grilled food and gunpowder, instead of a celebration of triumph over tyranny. We are so proud of being Americans we failed to see that the triumph was a fragile and assailable holy grail that we have now lost track of.

I for one believe the successful future of this country lies in fair & livable wages.

Take Ireland as an example. A country split and tortured by eight centuries of unimaginable poverty & suffering, religious strife, and ignorance, often ruled by outlanders who sucked the wealth of the land into their own coffers.

Yet today in both Irelands, there is little poverty, & much new industry & shared wealth. Lo & behold....the IRA has just "stood down" and packed away their weapons in a public ceremony the world assumed could never happen. Eight centuries! The Church has lost its strangling grip on the land, pretty much by default. The whole mindset of the place has changed for the better. THERE is a country with a lot to be proud of.

Give the People a living wage, a reasonably comfortable and secure lifestyle, and war and strife and hatred and hopelessness and ignorance....evaporate. The lesson is: We the People cannot let ourselves be bullied into thinking you can't fight city hall.

We're brainwashed into thinking that it would destroy our economy if workers were given a fair slice of the pie they helped make. Government must stop raising minimum wage in such tiny years-in-the-future increments. By the time it takes effect,taxes & cost of livng jumps negate it. Double the minimum wage & it would not be enough. ANY elected or civil officials making decisions on behalf of workers should be required to design a budget based on a minimum wage paycheck after taxes.

Wage reform will never happen unless we see true campaign finance reform. Clearly our elected officials don't represent the interests of voters who elected them, they serve the various entities who contributed to their campaigns.

[Hallucinocynic]

Steven, I can agree that the writers' plight reflects, in some ways, the greater intellectual and moral disconnection between corporatist America and its constituency. But, this strike also is dealing with the ownership (licensing rights) of intellectual properties. Once again, corporatists (who rarely have any intellectual connection to an art form that they historically control) are attempting to gain ownership to material of which they had NO developmental involvement. That the corporatists control virtually all distribution channels (and now seek to gain control over the internet, thus subsuming that channel as well) insures that those writers who come up with original material cannot maintain ownership of that material if they wish to exhibit their creations and, hopefully, enjoy financial gain from their work. Substitute the word 'state' for corporation and you have fascism.

The most ironic aspect of this is that those 'citizens' who angrily support the fascist movement here on HuffPo are individuals who have the least to gain from corporatist success. They are truly the sheep that Phyllis S wrote about 50 years ago.

[kellygrrrl]

Excellent, Steven, again!!!!
The "disappearing" of the middle class; of the consumer-driven economy; of the hope of a Nation
sickens and saddens me beyond words.
In a time when We the People have become obsolete and voiceless and invisible, it is comforting to hear a voice.
Thank you for expressing my feelings!

[wanked]

Dont actors make way too much money as well,..? does a Tom Cruise deserve millions for a few months work? hardly.
Hollywood professionals represent a mini version of our country at large. Way too much ching for the guys at the top; guys that really arent doing anything worthwhile.......