Mon 14 Jan 2008
By Steve Thornton
The writers are on strike. Jon Stewart is a scab. Who cares? There’s still plenty to watch on TV and at the movies. Even if my favorite shows are re-runs, there’s always Netflix, right?
Well, the strike of 12,000 members of the Writers Guild of America, which began November 5th, should be important to us, and here’s why:
1. The strike is about the future of work. It’s old news that American industry has been shipped to foreign shores. Connecticut lost as many as 200,000 manufacturing jobs in the last three decades. Tomorrow’s jobs – our children’s work – could very well be in information technology. The writers are fighting for their fair share of the pie when it is served across the internet, through iTunes and other new digital media. What they are able to win now, our kids may not have to fight so hard for in the future.
2. It gets people talking about unions. When Tina Fey in New York and Jack Black in Hollywood walk the picket line in solidarity with striking writers, it’s news (sad but true). Since only one in ten U.S. workers is presently in a union, labor organizing is not a daily topic of conversation. That’s good for business leaders, but bad for the rest of us. In an age when we are bombarded with Paris Hilton’s jail time and Martha Stewart’s recipes, discussions and even arguments about the value of unions are a good thing.
3. The issue is fairness. The union advantage for working people still holds true. Union jobs pay more than non-union (30% higher according to the AFL-CIO), health benefits are more affordable and the only real pensions left are union-made. And your union is still the only sure way to win fairness and respect on the job. Some writers earn a salary greater than most working people, but 48% of them are unemployed at any one time. The point is they are looking out for the security of their families, facing down powerful interests that will be making an estimated $4.6 billion in television revenues over the next three years. That should be an issue we can get behind.
4. When the writers win, we all win. Strikes are so infrequent these days that the pundits tell us the tactic no longer works. But withholding our labor is the strongest weapon we have as working people. It seems that once a decade a strike really grabs public attention. Most of us still remember the historic 1986 Colt Firearms strike, which the United Auto Workers won after four years (when they ended up buying the company). We also remember the 1997 UPS Teamsters’ strike which garnered plenty of grassroots support for their demands for secure pensions and full-time jobs. Ten years later, with American workers’ wages and benefits losing ground, it’s time for another high-profile labor fight. When the Writers’ Guild strikers prevail, it gives hope to every group of workers struggling for a fair share. The strike demonstrates that, as farm worker union leader César Chávez said, “Sí, se puede”: yes, it can be done.
5. Entertainment might just get more real. We know all there is to know about cops, lawyers and doctors, right? We should, since they are the favored subjects of television and films. The lives of regular working people just don’t seem to be as dramatic or funny. There’s bus driver Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, and aircraft worker Chester A. Riley in the Life of Riley. Oh wait, that’s 1950s TV! Besides Archie Bunker and Roseanne Conner, working folks have been few and far between on the tube or the big screen. Labor plot lines are even more scarce. As an avid TV fan, I can tell you that Battlestar Galactica and The Office have had recent union story lines, and the workers at George Lopez’s factory staged a sit-down strike to stop their shop from moving offshore. But that’s about it. It’s time we saw ourselves on movie and TV screens more often. When the writers win with our support, they gain more power on the job, and they hope, writing becomes more creative and less formula. They will be able to pitch new real-life dramatic stories about working people. And this time it will come from first-hand experience.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Write on, Steve.
January 14th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I’ll give you 6 reasons:
1. News Corp. (FOX)
2. National Amusements (CBS, VIACOM, Paramount)
3. Disney (ABC, Miramax, Touchstone)
4. General Electric (NBC, USA, Sci-Fi, Universal)
5. Time Warner (HBO, CNN, Warner Bros., WB, Castle Rock
6. Sony
This is a battle against media consolidation and corporate greed. The producers have the most powerful corporations in the world behind them.
Unfortunately, the media holdings of these corporations still only make up a fraction of the companies’ total wealth. This is a massive battle in the war against Big Media.
PS. I don’t know if I can hate on John Stewart (I could hate on him for other things, like smarmy liberalism). We always talk about the movement’s inability to the get the message out. What better way than John Stewart being on every night to keep the message out there?
January 14th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
One of my former students actually wrote a paper for my class about how trained actors are getting screwed out of work by “reality tv” because there’s little-to-no use of actual actors. Two words: Tila Tequila.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:41 am
I would never cross their picket line, but I do believe it will be a miracle if the writers’ strike actually gains the workers anything. Picketers used to carry big signs saying, “Colt Firearms: Unfair” They’d have a fire in a barrel on the street, and they were rugged and resolved. This group is an orderly queue of delicate white guys with dainty paper signs proclaiming “WGAE on Strike” Against whom? Over what? Who cares? You want to say you’re striking Disney or Saturday Night Live, you have to scribble it in with your marker, where there’s no room for it. Writers’ union, indeed.
In the meantime, strikebreakers like Letterman, bearing some special dispensation that the rank and file are compelled to recognize, cross the picket line in full view of the general public. The news writers, who have the same job, are allowed to cross the line without interference, so that Today can go on but Tonight can’t. Who decided to bend the union over like that? Who decided to edit out the names of the employers from picketers’ signs? Union leaders? The networks? Is there a striker on the line who’s as riled by all this as I am?
January 15th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Steve F.– Letterman in this case is a “boss” who owns his show (and the Late Late Show). He settled a contract with the union, then went back to work with his writers. In the biz, this is what we call “setting the pattern,” and is a good thing. It shows that a fair settlement can be reached. I sympathize with you that this group of writers does not exactly inspire the ol’ working class spirit, but then again, these jobs may be the wave of the future. Back at the beginning of the 20th century, they were called “brain workers,” but they were still considered workers.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:47 am
“Picketers used to carry big signs saying, “Colt Firearms: Unfair” They’d have a fire in a barrel on the street, and they were rugged and resolved. This group is an orderly queue of delicate white guys with dainty paper signs proclaiming “WGAE on Strike”"
Steve, there is no inherent connection between testosterone and willingness to fight for your rights. It seems particularly ironic that this is your image of organized labor. Connecticut has so many wonderful examples of strong labor organizations built by workers who are not beefy-looking white guys and who don’t meet your race/gender stereotypes. Perhaps some of them look too delicate and dainty for you but they ARE the labor movement.
Examples? Connecticut’s nursing home industry, where women - and in particular West Indian women - have been the backbone of strike after strike. Building janitors in Stamford and Hartford, who are almost entirely immigrant workers. Food service and hotel workers who are multiracial, male and female, and of all different sexual orientations and gender preferences. State and municipal employees, including many healthcare workers and white collar workers. Professors in the state university and community college systems.
The labor movement has changed in this country because the working class has changed. It would be a good idea if white progressives stepped out of their ivory towers long enough to have a good look around and see who is really doing the work and who is building the movement.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Thanks Peter. I agree that the signs could be more accurate and say more about what their demands are, but I don’t think someone has to be uber-rugged to be a force to be reckoned with.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
for every “writer” that’s on a strike there are probably 10,000 willing to take over his job in hollywood and write their own stuff.
what, honestly, is the point of unions? it’s counterintuitive to the natural progression of life. strong, smart, desirable survive. don’t like what you’re getting paid, don’t take the job or quit your job, go back to school and get yourself another career. all these “actors”, writers, english majors, history majors… what are these kids thinking when they’re in college? what demand is left for them in the real world? perhaps that’s why half the waiters in restaurants are “struggling artists”… well duh.
return on investment: when your workload in college consists of reading fiction novels compared to some engineer trying to derive a path for an air molecule while translating the coordinate axis to keep the particle in a steady frame whom do you think will be “worth” more and get paid more?
unions dumb people down. instead of driving them to strive to be better than the rest, to have a skill that will be in demand, they say: we’ll protect you even though you’re worthless and your job is obsolete.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
ol.
I like unions because they bring out the collective spirit, which is an incredible rush (though foreign to many of us living under capitalism). But it’s the kind of thing Michael Moore talked about in “Sicko.” It happens in this country when there’s an emergency and everyone comes together to help out.
I also like unions because they help to get basic needs met. As a parent, I just want simple things–job security, a job with good conditions and decent pay. If you want to pay an engineer more…go ahead, but at least pay the rest of us a living wage.
Steve Thornton,
I had heard (on NPR) that Jon Stewart is doing the same as Letterman (”setting the pattern”). Is that incorrect?
January 15th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
ol, the best evidence that your hypothesis is false (that “unions dumb people down”) is found in your own post. You obviously have no experience as a union member or dealing with union issues, and yet your comment is one of the most moronic I recall having seen on this blog.
As a piece of writing it is nearly unintelligible. As social commentary it is no more than a pathetic and second-rate rehash of Cliff notes on Ayn Rand, the sort of product that an uninterested freshman recovering from a binge-induced hangover might turn in for a class that they despised.
Where is your evidence that the survival of the “strongest” individuals is part of the “natural progression of life?” That sort of tripe went out in the 1930’s, and any anthropologist will tell you that the survival of the human species has historically depended on the ability of human beings to work in groups, cooperate with each other, and pool their collective strengths.
As for return on investment even someone with your infantile grasp of economics surely is capable of understanding that in a complex industrial society there is a need for people who can engage in creative writing just as surely as there is a need for engineers. Whether one job pays more than another is a good deal more complicated than placing a value on reading novels versus studying molecules. Fact is, these writers do get paid good money for what they do because it has a social value.
It is true that many people who are in unions are sometimes described as worthless. Usually those descriptions come from the coddled and snot-nosed brats produced by corporate America’s upper echelons. These cretins are “dumbed down” by an educational system that mistakenly reinforces the idea that having money equals being smart or for that matter being socially useful. Looking out from the windows of their suburban MacMansions or observing the world through the windows of a moving Hummer makes them extremely ill-qualified to even be a part of the human race much less comment upon it. Ironically, they go through life without the foggiest notion of what people who work for a living do every day and the way that their work makes it possible for some people to live in their little bubbles of privilege.
January 15th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Dave- only Letterman has a deal and no picket lines up. He has been talking about the strike, from what I hear. Properly ironic, I’m sure. Steve T (so many steves!)
January 15th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
That may have been the second Ayn Rand dis on this blog in the time of a week. Right on!
Not to sound like an ass or anything, but I’m super glad that our American economy is so robust right now that quitting a job because we don’t like the conditions is a possibility.
But seriously, unions are worthless when they exist but are NOT used. They do have the power to negotiate for better pay and conditions, yet sadly, many are not as active as they could be. So, how to solve that problem–eliminate unions or push for them to be stronger? It makes more sense to get people riled up as a united front than to fall into the abysmal trap of “every man for himself.”
January 15th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Thanks Peter. I was wondering if Steve F by his description really ment to say that there were a bunch of people who looked like effeminate “gays” on the line. You know those creative delicate white men must all be fags who don’t know how to fight. That is how I as a Queer would take it. Yeah, we Queers even have a big problem with liberals. And to think that Steve F wants to run against Larson. Better put something Queer on your list of things to learn before going out trying to get votes because if that is what you ment about those on the picket line you can expect that us Queers will see through you and will bash back. I bet you a dollar you won’t get the lgbt vote either. By the way there isn’t a delicate limp wrist in my group QWB and we all have very big mouths.
Also thanks Peter for what we call “setting the record queer” with your description of who is in the labor movement, what we look like and who we are.
Steve Thornton can correct me if I am wrong but I do believe that now a days most unions have mass produced signs that they carry. Generally with the unions name and excepted wording. I know 32BJ does.
One thing that I have never been able to reconcile with my way of looking at things is that even people like Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Tobey Maguire, Bruce Willis, Drew Barymore and etc, etc are workers too.
Let’s talk about that sometime Steve T and solidarity with the likes of them.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
i’ve never read the author.
with regards to you referring to my writing moronic and hangover induced, i’m flattered, but unfortunately i didn’t go out last night.
that way of thinking went out in the 30’s? is not the smart and successful that dominate? look at bill gates, look at steve jobs. these people and many others created whole industries, enriched millions of people and opened “doors” that people didn’t think could be opened.
take a jet engine manufacturer pratt. some engineer designs an engine, or improves it. that 2% in thrust efficiency equals 2% in fuel savings, which subsequently trickle down to every little cranny of the world economy, impacting millions of people. the people that come up with tangible ideas are the ones that are worth something to this society and should be rewarded. to push a button on a milling machine, incidentally the procedures for which another engineer designed, and to slap a titanium block into and out of it is what unions do. are they not replaceable and worthless? yes they are. one could have a monkey do that job, and if it wasn’t for unions and politics you could probably 99% automate it completely.
no one here is privileged looking down on others from our penthouses and not doing anything for work. you write with a sick paranoia and disdain for anyone with anything. if i don’t like what i’m doing — i’m going to school and working full time. i will not go on strike and blackmail my way into me getting paid more than i’m worth. being in that situation would drive me even more to be on the “other” side. to be on the side where i will be in demand because of my contributions, not because a union stands behind me and screams “stop hurting america”.
and if ultimately not about money pete, then what are all the unions bitching about? so to quote you: “These cretins are “dumbed down” by an educational system that mistakenly reinforces the idea that having money equals being smart or for that matter being socially useful.” — until you show me a union of mit phds that are willing to work for free to brainstorm on life saving ideas all day long and someone is forcefully paying them money for their job and they go on strike i really don’t get what you’re trying to say.
January 15th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
ol, you really are a pathetic piece of excrement. I have been able to at least be civil to other commentators on this blog but I can’t muster that for you because you are so thoroughly self-deluded and arrogant. On a more generous day I would just write you off based on the assumption that your experience of real life is a few months living in a college dorm and getting a nice big allowance from mommy and daddy. You sound like you know just about that much about the world. But I’m not feeling that generous today.
Maybe it’s because every piece of paper that I pick up on my job is another story about a decent working person who got screwed over by some selfish and self-centered corporate twit with the same deluded sense that he knows others’ worth to the penny. The stories range from an immigrant domestic worker who was forced to live in someone’s laundry room for two and half years while being paid about a dollar an hour, to a guy with a fantastic work record who got fired in his mid-fifties after several decades of loyal service because somebody was too lazy to investigate a false accusation that had been made against him, to two women who were regularly groped and sexually molested by their boss and were fired when they complained, to a nurse whose job duties suddenly got changed because her boss didn’t like it when she criticized the hospital administration for its insensitivity to people with disabilities.
Someone sick enough to proclaim that the working people who make this country run are “worthless” deserves to find out just how much his own puny existence would be worth if he didn’t have truck drivers, bricklayers, hospital workers, waiters, sales clerks, machine operators, electricians, plumbers, teachers, bus drivers, and a million others all doing their jobs to give him the little insulated bubble in which he oh-so-comfortably resides.
I suggest you take your budding genius and brilliant ideas out to the desert somewhere. Find out how far your ideas will get you if you don’t know how to build a shelter, grow food, drill for water, or cure snakebite. Then come back and tell us you’re the next Bill - my empire is built on the backs of ten million workers who get paid shit for wages - Gates.
January 15th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
rough day at the office pete?
funny experience i have with unions: when i first started my job there was a strike going on. all these guys hungout at the red light and would call me and others driving in/out a “scab”. this christmas, different job but same coorporate umbrella, our local union folk stood at the main door collecting money for their fellow comrades from the same people whom they so proudly called scabs. my parent’s allowance not coming until a few days after, and smartly saving my money for patron, i was not able to contribute to their bypartisan cause. as i walked by, i glanced at my rolex and noting the time i said “shouldn’t you be punched in at the shop right now talking on the rediculous rules the nascar is trying to implement?”
perhaps you outa start a picket line outside asking your boss not to send you sad letters of abused people anymore, i really think they’re taking a toll on your humour.
January 15th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Ahhh yes….it’s all funny. Until somebody bursts your little bubble and it’s your life and livelihood on the line. Then you’ll be off to a lawyer’s office so fast to scream about how you were wronged. I see plenty of those too. The guy who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anybody but who thinks that there ought to be a law to protect HIS little piece of territory.
Oh, and just how hard is to use spell-check? I don’t expect you to actually be able to spell but a minimal effort to make your comments readable would be nice.
January 15th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
pardon the spellar skills. i truly will strive to better them. english is not my first language.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Yeah, it sucks to be powerless…or to be replacable. What are our rights? Some say that the most important are free speech. But what was left out of the constitution was the right to housing, healthcare, food, healthy living conditions. And to paraphrase Helen become ours when we forceably reclaim them.
Those of us that believe that we should have the right to be fed, housed, clothed and and taken care of when sick, better figure out how we’re going to secure power. There will always be people like ol, who think we amount to nothing. It’s on us to force people like him to understand that we’re important–by striking-by solidarity with those who are striking. By solidarity with those who are oppressed.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
oops…(end of the first paragraph should read…”and to paraphrase Helen Keller, rights are not inalienalbe. they become ours when we forceably reclaim them.”
January 15th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Who judges, I’m wondering, what an employee is worth? I work hard, but I think it’s disgusting that a person who works hard in a different field that requires more from them physically and emotionally (I’m thinking about nursing, in this case) gets paid far less than I do.
Peter, I think that you’re saying a lot of things that other people are thinking. A lot of what OL is expressing here seems to be coming from a place of either privilege or inexperience. I hear some of my younger “traditional” students express similar things. They haven’t gotten out in the world yet, and so I know that their ideas are largely coming from ignorance.
Look, I have a good education and because of that, I can take more risks at work. As long as I’m doing my job, I’m not going to worry about if I’m respecting the pecking order or whatever. Why? Because I have a good education and am fairly certain that I can get another job in my field that will pay the bills. I also have other privileges like private transportation, citizenship, and the ability to clean up well for a job interview.
But the reality is that not everyone has these advantages…so unlike me, their options aren’t simple. I can walk off a job, join a union, or complain about whatever to whomever without fearing that I will be homeless in a week because of the repercussions.
This is the problem with the pervasive American dream myth–a handful of people were able to beat the odds and have a little upward mobility, and so that’s interpreted as meaning everyone should be able to do that, with no help from unions or government assistance or anywhere else.
It’s a real shitty thing to put someone down for wanting a living wage. It’s anti-American, actually.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Unions ensure that we are not powerless. Unions help make the invisible visible, the inaudible audible. Corporate heads would have you believe that every man is not equal, but shared language guarantees equality. Often times it requires an organized union to speak as “loudly” as the corporation (ironically a much smaller organization than a union, usually) at which point equality is recognized and demands considered.
The market determines what an employee’s work is worth, which is exactly the issue. The writers are not being paid for any of their work which the big studios make available on the internet and derive profit from. Hence, the market has determined that a writer’s work is valuable online and is willing to pay for it, however, the studios are not willing to raise laborers’ wages. This, most will admit, seems unfair.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
On worth and worthlessness:
“Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God. to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
January 15th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Union bashers comment on this blog at their own peril. I got a hypothetical for ol: Imagine going out into the labor market having to start at square one, without all the rights and benefits labor unions have won in the past. It’s just you and the boss. Where do you start?
What you gonna negotiate first? A living wage? a 40-hour-work week? A safe work environment?
Vacation time? Sick leave? Pension? Health care? How good are you?
January 16th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Gay men are no more delicate than other men, but writers are another story. It’s a sitting-down job that’s about a hundred times easier than standing at a machine or cleaning floors or waiting on tables, and it’s a wonder that anybody is willing to pay a person to do it. All the writing that goes into Undercurrents is unremunerated, and yet we keep on cranking it out.
The leathery workers on the Colt picket line were both men and women, and I’m sure some were not heterosexual, but they were determined, and they were out there day after day, month after month, advertising the misconduct of their employer in bold. This group, not so much. To inspire the public, they need bigger signs, bolder rhetoric and cheaper clothes.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Since when is writing easy??
You don’t think writers deserve to be paid? They would be more effective if they appeared more blue collar?
They’re accomplishing what they set out to. The public doesn’t watch TV like they used to. Networks and studios are beginning to lose money. They will feel the pressure. Writers are proving their worth. The recent Golden Globe awards were a total non-event because no one would show up and sponsors wouldn’t buy commercials. Nobody needed to rub dirt beneath their fingernails in vain for this to happen.
Besides, this is taking place in LA. Struggle, suffering and discontent aren’t a part of Southern California’s character. It’s 70 degrees, sunny, and everybody’s gay.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Steve F, I think you’re missing the point. You were called on your rhetoric by both Richard and me because it smacks of gender stereotyping and anti-gay bias. Fact is when you refer to one group of men disparagingly as “delicate,” “dainty” and “creative” and contrast them with another group of men who you describe positively as “rugged and resolved,” your comments are likely to be interpreted as anti-gay.
I’m going to say it again and will keep on saying it. Straight people, whites, men and people of privilege generally have to learn to say “I’m SORRY, I was WRONG to say that . . . THANKS for pointing out that I was unconsciously reflecting racist/sexist/homophobic stereotypes.” Until we learn to take responsibility for the message that our words and actions convey to others, especially to oppressed and marginalized groups, we are not going to be taken seriously on these issues.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I don’t know any dainty gay men and I would never stereotype gays as I would writers and other people who do sedentary work. And I never said the Colt strikers were men. There were women out there every day, and they were as rugged as the men.
I’ve seen these picketers on TV, and they strike me as less earnest, less aggrieved, and more pampered than what people expect from strikers. Their signs are pathetic, they socialize with their celebrity bosses, and I blame their union.
We could both acknowledge, too, how little sympathy these writers show for working people in their writings. I dare you to name a character on any TV show who belongs to a union. As for gays, on TV they’re ruthlessly and openly stereotyped by these same writers. People who watch too much of the crap they put might be excused for detecting some sort of gay stereotyping in my comments, but it ain’t there.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
What are you a coal miner or something? Get a life, creep!
January 16th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
WHAT’S WRONG WITH BEING DAINTY????? Dainty people have every right to strike. This is hilarious.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
The stereotyping is less of a problem, to me, than any implication that might exist that fulfilling said stereotype is weakness.
For the record, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone, male or female, who I would describe as dainty. My cat is dainty. A lace doily is dainty.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Good point, Kerri. I think both are true. Certain words and catchphrases are commonly used to pigeonhole members of oppressed groups and reduce them to a two-dimensional character. But that doesn’t mean that the characteristics that these catchphrases describe are themselves negative.
But to get back to the original discussion, of course, Lords is right . . . the fact is that this strike IS effective. The disruption of the Golden Globes, word that the Emmys may suffer a similar fate, and the constant media coverage of the strike show that the union is using an effective strategy. Even if it doesn’t include beefy men in flannel shirts standing around a fire in a garbage can.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
As a card carrying member of the white male oppressors union, whose job it is to hold onto our privileged status at all costs, I say Steve F has been treated unfairly in this lively thread (union made in America). Anyone who knows Steve personally reads his inflammatory stuff thru the Fournier filter. You can deconstruct his stuff for hints of homophobia and playing the stereotyping card all you want, but I think your efforts would be better employed taking on the real enemies. And if you do suspect Steve of harboring neanderthal thoughts, why not ask him nicely first if he meant to imply that all writers were limpwristed nancy boys instead of assuming that’s what he’s saying.
Peter and Richard, I understand your concern for language that denigrates the underdog. But I think some slack is called for here.
Calling a man “delicate” or “dainty” will be taken as code words for gay by some people.
But the words can also apply to men of non he-man physical attributes regardless of sexual persuasion. What are you trying to achieve here?
January 16th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Compared to the Colt signs, these signs are dainty. They’re hard to read at 20 yards.
January 16th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Lord,
Dial it down a notch, wouldja? Calling someone a creep, besides being lame, pedestrian, banal, declasse, etc, are cyber fighting words and deserve, if not an asswhupping, at least a cream pie in the face. And are you dissin’ coal miners now?
January 16th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Jim, I think it is one thing to say that I am being unfair to Steve F. Whether I am or not is altogether insignificant. No doubt I am often unfair to many people. I think it is altogether different to say that Richard is not supposed to speak his outrage because he views Steve’s language as homophobic.
Where, exactly, do we expect to learn whether words are offensive to members of a particular group than from members of that group? Or do we, as people who do not experience anti-gay bigotry, get to decide that because we don’t see it as offensive therefore it is not?
I realize that we keep having this same argument but it reflects a huge weakness of the progressive movement in this country. There continues to be a prevailing attitude that what oppressed people say about their oppression doesn’t matter, and that people with privilege are entitled to define what is and is not offensive.
I will repeat my earlier comment: Is it really that terribly, awfully hard for someone, when they are called on a remark that may reflect stereotyping or bias or unconscious bigotry, to say “Gee, I hadn’t realized that this might be offensive . . . I’m sorry . . . Thanks for letting me know how my words affected you.”
January 16th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Steve F. I don’t watch tv except for a look at the Weather Channel if a storm is coming. (I have lost my ability to sniff the breeze but thank my lucky stars I still know which way the wind blows.)
I can only detect anti-gay stereotyping in its many un-manners and forms from my years of experience, what I have been taught, and in consciousness raising Queer Groups. I think we all know when something is off or tainted. I fully agree with Peter in his #27. I have learned much from my anti-racist friends and teachers and not ashamed to admit when I am wrong. I am troubled about a coment I made about “limp-wrist” people in QWB and will sit down with others in my group to find out where the hell I was coming from. Correction will be made and I will learn, correction from within the group. I have learned over the years that when any of us outside a group make troubling statements that the only people who can correct are the ones who find the statements or act to be offensive. In my case by other Queers who are fem and offended.
I agree with the Lords. Using one’s brain is good honest work and payment is due. As I get older it becomes harder and harder to use my brain. Yes, the writers sure did with their strike shut down the Gloden Globes and this also was with and in solidarity with “movie stars” who are another group of workers. Peter’s quote from Charles Dickens says a lot. Each one of us adds something to the whole. I even think that those who are very philosophical and hang out on the Big Rock Candy Mountain should get paid for their thinking and teaching. They have a hell of a lot to say.
Remind me not to call CT. Rep. Steve F when next year we begin to organize the Security workers of Hartford into a union. Heavens, many of us sit on our bottoms and receive all sorts of sterotyping from the white middle-class who seems to think that we are all stupid, lazy and do nothing.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Peter,
What I am unclear about is what you are after here. If Steve had used “puny white men” instead of “delicate” or “dainty”, would that be more acceptable? Are you saying dainty and delicate are taboo words? (Richard, I’d like your perspective on this too.)
January 16th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Peter,
Let me emend my #38 comment. You make clear what you are after. So in this case, is there language Steve could have used that would convey his thoughts without offending innocent bystanders? Because, knowing Steve, his intention frequently is to rile up somebody or other.
January 16th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
No, the point was and remains this:
Clearly, a large group of “dainty,” “delicate,” “effeminate,” “puny” or “white-collar” laborers can prove that when organized they can accomplish a lot by striking. I think that is good news! It has been refuted that a striker must be a “butch leathery factory worker” in order to be taken seriously (Therein lies the stereotype. I don’t think it has been a homophobia issue.)
Steve F, I’m sorry I called you a creep, but I would call my best of friends creeps if their behavior warranted it.
January 16th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Lord,
my coal miner friends would like a word with you. They have feelings too, you know.
January 16th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Jim the reasons have been all well discussed in the comments. No words are really taboo but expect that if used as a put down or if are perceived as such the user will be called on the carpet. I think we should go back to the original posting by Steve Thornton and re-read it. Steve mentions many good points why any of us who are union members, union supporters, progressive or liberals must support all workers. An Injury to One is an Injury to All! It’s too bad that more of you commentators were not at the IWW Fundraiser last Friday. You would have learned a lot about solidarity. One thing that I re-learned is that “where-ever workers stand up for their rights its there you’ll find Joe Hill.” Yes, Joe Hill the great troubadour and IWW member is there in LA and NYC marching with the women and men, the lgbt,Queers and the straights. I am sure he doesn’t care if the workers are wearing nice clothes, carring dainty signs, or are delicate or rough. But I am sure if these workers are attacked by anyone, bosses,other workers, scabs,progressive, liberals or Capitalist pigs that Joe would not be deterred from fighting back and organizing. Nor will I.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Richard,
Fair enough. I look forward to being called on the carpet but I prefer the disciplinarian to be wearing fishnet stockings and to speak in a Swedish accent.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
And am I the only one offended by the Lord’s disparaging comment re: coal miners?
January 16th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Something about the inflation rate:
http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/ats-ap_top11jan16,0,318742.story
January 16th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I didn’t disagree with a word Steve Thornton said. In the 37 years we’ve known each other, I don’t think I ever have. Just pointing out some disconcerting differences between the writers’ strike and others I’ve seen and how it all comes across on TV. Somebody has to say these things.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Kerri,
comment #45, I don’t follow. Are you trying to change the subject? Are you saying the horse is dead, why do we keep beating it?
January 16th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
:)
January 16th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Wow, this thread really degenerated. Thanks to Steve Thornton for his original write-up. I’ve been meaning to write something about the strike for a while.
Here’s my take right now:
- As much as I love Colbert and Stewart, they are scabs. I watched the first couple episodes of the return, but then I felt wrong about it. By going back on the air, all they do is give more leverage to the corporations. The more we watch, the more ad revenue, the less crunch the corporation will feel. Therefore, less need for the writers, or for the corp to give in the to writers. We should probably boycott these shows, and vocally. If we want them to be the mainstream critics of the establishment that we’ve come to know and love, they must have some kind of principled foundation. Crossing the line is not a good place to start.
I’ve been debating whether or not their overt support for the strike was enough to justify my viewing of the shows, since that’s one of the few ways mainstream audiences are actually hearing about the strike. But ultimately, as I said, this seems to play into the hands of the corporations.
There are better ways to show solidarity. Why not do live shows on the picket line? Stewart can get his own camera and website and start internet-casting the The Daily Strike Show! He doesn’t need Viacom to get watched.
Even better, get all the tech union folks who are caught in the mix to strike too! Then even if the corpos wanted to go on the air, they’d have a much harder time.
- This is a 21st century labor fight. Waning are days of the industrial unions, especially in America. I feel this fight is bigger than just these writers and their respective employers. Bigger issues about the internet in general will be affected - ie, whether online video of shows like the Daily Show will remain free.
- Unions are always a good idea when you’re dealing with corporations or governments. Period.
Sorry, I’ll stop. That’s way more than I planned to write.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Sorry for contributing to the sideshow. Back to the original post. Kevin, you raise the issue of the techies who make the Daily Show cablecast possible. Are they union workers? And if so, why don’t they honor the picket lines?
January 17th, 2008 at 9:14 am
I can field that question. Most union contracts do not have provisions that protect workers when they respect picket lines of other unions (Teamsters are one of the few). Of course, workers can still make that decision collectively without the legal protection, and if they are strong enough can possibly weather the consequences. “Illegal” actions take place all the time, but not always successfully. Remember, workers very rarely have the chance (or the gumption or the leadership)to go on strike for their OWN contract, let alone someone else’s.
This points to the fundamental problem the labor movement has: the law is against us, and we don’t have unity across unions (for a lot of reasons, and it’s not only the boss’s fault). The terms “one big union” and “general strike” don’t just sound like rhetoric when we look at real life situations like the Writers.
What if AFTRA, IATSE, CWA, NABET, IBEW and all the other unions just in the media were in one union and had a history of real solidarity? It’s the big challenge.