[Peace-discuss] Re: Fw: CLNews: Ron Paul

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Here's an account of the respect in which the Democratic party is 
observing the picket line. --CGE]

	Writers’ strike reveals profound cultural and social divide
	By Rafael Azul
	14 December 2007

Last Friday’s walkout by the television and movie producers from 
negotiations with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) begins to reveal 
the profound social, political and cultural issues contained in the 
strike by film and television writers, now in its sixth week.

The strategy of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers 
(AMPTP) is to isolate and demoralize the striking writers. To this end, 
it has revived the kind of political attacks that recall the old 
red-baiting campaigns of the 1950s. At the same time, the hiring of 
Democratic Party consultants by the AMPTP makes it clear that in this 
struggle the AMPTP is acting in concert with not only the business 
elite, but the entire political establishment.

The AMPTP broke off negotiations, charging WGA leaders with pursuing “an 
ideological agenda” that is at odds with the economic needs of their 
membership. Behind the calculated choice of words—which are ominous, 
given the history of bitter battles of Hollywood writers against 
political persecution and blacklisting in the 1930s and 1950s—is a 
transparent attempt to intimidate and divide the writers. Meanwhile, the 
producers pose as the true friends of writers, who are asked to join in 
a “new economic partnership” with the AMPTP that would dilute writers’ 
present level of control over their work.

In this insidious campaign, the AMPTP counts on the help of sections of 
the media. This is exemplified by a New York Times article published on 
December 10, which refers to the writers’ non-economic demands as part 
of a “writers’ revolution” that, the paper warns, would result in a 
“radical shift in union power.” These demands—the expansion of the 
closed shop, by bringing non-union “reality show” writers into the WGA, 
the right to honor another union’s picket line, and the right to oversee 
intra company transactions that may affect writers’ wages—are elementary 
demands, without which the effect of strikes would be emasculated. 
Furthermore, were the writers to agree to a no-strike clause in their 
contract, they would be forced to cross picket lines of Screen Actors 
Guild (SAG) members in the event of a strike in 2008. Many SAG members 
have declined to cross writers’ picket lines and support the strike. 
Those WGA officials that oppose that concession are condemned by the 
AMPTP as power-hungry “organizers” who put their own ideological 
interests ahead of the membership.

An important aspect of the AMPTP strategy is its relationship with the 
Democratic Party. It has hired a consulting company led by Chris Lehane, 
a well-known Democratic Party operative who was an adviser to the SAG 
during its last strike in 2002. Lehane began his career as part of a 
White House crisis-management team during the administration of 
President Bill Clinton; he has also worked as Al Gore’s press secretary 
and John Kerry’s communications director, as well as for Hillary Clinton 
in the current presidential race.

Lehane and Mark Fabiani, another former Clinton operative, now operate 
the consulting company in Los Angeles called Fabiani & Lehane . In 
addition to consulting for the AMPTP, the firm has also worked for other 
employer groups such as the Pacific Maritime Association, which 
represents West Coast shippers. Currently, Lehane is also the chairman 
of “Californians for Fair Election Reform,” an organ of the California 
Democratic Party.

The consulting company also does work for the “Change to Win” faction of 
the trade union bureaucracy. Change to Win includes the Service 
Employees International Union (SEIU), the Teamsters Union, the 
Carpenters Union, the UNITE HERE union, and the Farm Workers Union. In 
response to Lehane’s employment by the AMPTP, the SEIU’s Andy Stern 
announced that the SEIU Local 99 had terminated its relationship with 
Lehane and predicted that other Change to Win unions would quickly 
follow suit. Stern is reported to have said that Lehane’s “days are 
numbered in the labor movement.” He did not, however, offer any 
explanation of why Lehane was hired in the first place.

In fact, firms like Fabiani & Lehane are one of the links that connect 
the Democratic Party both with employers and labor bureaucrats. It is 
part of the corporatist relationship between labor and management that 
is peddled by Change to Win, the WGA, and all other unions.

Behind the Democrats’ much-publicized and essentially meaningless 
gestures of solidarity with the WGA, such as politicians showing up on 
the writers’ picket lines, Fabiani & Lehane represents the real face of 
the Democratic Party, as an enforcer of class relations and caretaker of 
the political and economic interests of the ruling class.

Ironically, Lehane describes Fabiani & Lehane as “liberal and 
progressive” and sees no contradiction between this claim and his 
participation in the combined efforts of the AMPTP, the press, and firms 
like his to demoralize and isolate the writers’ strike.

AMPTP negotiators have made it clear that they are willing to shoulder 
large costs in this struggle, by sacrificing the fall 2008 TV season, 
refunding more than a billion dollars to advertisers—as a result of a 
dramatic drop in prime-time audiences since the strike began—and 
postponing the production of several movies. In some cases, as in NBC’s 
Philanthropist, a drama scheduled to appear in the fall of 2008, writers 
in Canada and Great Britain are being recruited to write at least 2 of 
the 13 projected episodes.

Beyond the immediate economic issues of the strike are much larger 
social and political questions. The media oligopolies, together with the 
rest of big business, are at the forefront of a campaign to change class 
relations in America and internationally. The attack on the writers is 
part of a multi-front assault on the working class and its living 
conditions.

An important part of that assault is the control of intellectual and 
artistic property and the dumbing-down of both education and culture.

An educated working class, able to connect to its history and to the 
legacy of human culture, is a threat to existence of capitalism, a 
system that is ever more dependent on the politics of militarization and 
brutalization. In contrast, socialist consciousness demands and depends 
on raising the cultural and intellectual level of the working class.

By their social role, writers exist on the dividing line between the 
cultural and artistic needs of the broad mass of working people and the 
profit interests of the media giants. Everything that writers stand 
for—art, innovation, refinement and creativity—is contrary to what these 
modern-day robber barons demand: standardization, militarization, 
vulgarity, appeals to the lowest common cultural denominator, 
predictability and cost-cutting. The defense of elementary rights 
becomes subversive to the ruling class.

In other words, six or seven companies, with near-monopoly control over 
movie making and television, are trying to propel the industry back to 
the conditions of the 1930s, when producers had almost total control 
over the work of writers. The WGA then was formed both to defend the 
writers’ intellectual property and living standards and also to respond 
to the cultural needs of the population.

Implicit in the current strike, as it was in the creation of the WGA in 
1933, is the wresting of control of television and control of screen and 
TV plays from the six media giants by society and the production of 
movies and television shows in the interest society as a whole.

<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/dec2007/wga-d14.shtml>

unionyes at ameritech.net wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- *From:* Richard Myers
> <mailto:rtmyers at h2net.net> *To:* clnews at lists.clnews.org
> <mailto:clnews at lists.clnews.org> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 12, 2007
> 6:54 AM *Subject:* CLNews: Ron Paul
> 
> Many working folk have wondered whether Ron Paul, the Republican 
> presidential candidate from Texas, is worthy of their support. They
> may wish to consider whether the candidate respects a picket line.
> The answer appears to be a resounding "no":
> 
> Congressman Ron Paul First Presidential Candidate To Cross Writers’
> Picket Line - 12/05/07 ...