"Power Concedes Nothing Without Demand"

Frederick Douglass said it first and said it best. I thought about those words a lot today back on the picket line in front of Viacom in the heart of Times Square, marching laps around our little patch of Broadway in thirty-degree weather as it started to freezing rain. The mood on the line was certainly more sober than it had been that first day marching at 30 Rock. Gone was the oompah band, gone was the sun.

Nevertheless there was a stoicism today on the line that heartened me. Writing is very hard work. I don't know many other careers that require such self-discipline. Yes, the strike is hard on us and our always uncertain futures have suddenly became even more so. But when is a writer's life ever predictable? Most all of our careers will at some point soar, dip and soar again (not necessarily in that order).

Perhaps that is what the AMPTP most underestimates about us. Despite how some nattering nabobs of negativism might carp, the writers I've talked to are grimly determined to fight this fight. We fought the fight to beat the odds to become professional writers. If we'd wanted a life of cushy job security we would have gone into marketing.

Yes, the AMPTP's bait and switch of walking out of the negotiations, walking back in to raise our hopes and then walking out again was a brilliant psy/ops ploy to make us break down and cry, but is that the best they've got? C'mon guys, we had to endure our parents trying to psych us out of becoming writers and going to law school. Most of us had to endure years of rejection before we sold our first anything.

We are of flinty stock and will still be writing long after you've been fired from the entertainment industry you are intent on destroying and become the CFO of a waste management consortium out of Oklahoma City.

Comments

[eaglecapri]

Be strong!!! The entertainment industry is NOTHING without writers. Writing is where it begins....then come the producers, directors, etc.!!!!!

[darker]

Grab your Uzi and march the
nearest Republican OUT OF OFFICE.
It's the only way they'll go.
TAKE THEM OUT!

[joja]

Good luck to all of you. You're in the same boat with a lot of your fellow countrymen & women -- facing job displacement by those willing to work for less.

Now would be a good opportunity for writers to expose this devastating business practice for what it is doing to the fabric of our society, and our lives.

Maybe you could finally get some of the recognition for your cause that you seem to be lacking. There are tens of millions of Americans, just like you, who have hit the picket lines only to find that, a few months down the road, the jobs they fought for have evaporated.

If you feel like you've been frozen out by the MSM, it's because you have. They're the gatekeepers, afterall. They know that most people are too worried about feeding their families and keeping a roof over their heads to worry about your future incomes. We've already been there, done that.

Welcome to hell.

[thenicerguy]

We have to threaten the weasels in the DGA to get them to back off negotiating with the AMPTP. If they do, we'll demand "A Film Written by" on every film.

And we'll drag the negotiations out until the actors join us if necessary, screwing any chance of the DGA profiting from their quisling actions.

The AMPTP has underestimated them resolve of the writers. Most of us are used to long periods of unemployment. We'll just work on our spec scripts and wait.....

[melakfilms]

You're my new hero, Trey. After reading so much defeatist tripe from John Ridley (See his article regarding how the WGA has already lost this battle...) it's refreshing to see a fellow writer who is not only hanging in there but out on the street striking, where we belong.

I can only imagine Ridley is upset because production on "Undercova Brutha 2" has halted.

[JoanneS]

The AMPTP is going to live to regret this. All this pissing in the wind is going to bite them in the ass.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Um, if all the writers stay on strike, does
this effectively stop the propaganda flow for
all perpetuity? I sure hope so, because paying
6 bucks for popcorn and an eight-dollar movie
ticket was getting old. Speaking OF old, I've
got some old books that are pretty good...I
think I'll read those instead of waiting in
line to see Not Another Bruce Willis Propaganda
Movie etc...

[LeoMarvin]

That's "nattering nabobs of negativISM."