Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, & Culture

The lengthy quote below is from the article, Why the writers’ strike never came up in the Democrats’ Los Angeles debate by David Walsh, 2 February 2008.

One of my goals has been to get my friends on the left to recognize some of the importance of the writers' strike. Among the few left-wing outfits covering the strike are the Trotskyists at the World Socialist Web Site.

The coverage by David Walsh at this site has been very good except for a few lacunas. Perhaps I will talk about those lacunas in another context, but I will list them here: 1) There has been no analysis about the significance of the idea of industrial unionism in the writers' strike. 2) A left-wing analysis, or any pro-union analysis, of the writers' strike must deal with the significance of IATSE, the problem with its leadership, and the need for a caucus of IA-progressives to support the writers. 3) The problem of relative social-power in the industry is never discussed by David Walsh, except in the context of the notion that the strike can't be fought well unless the fighting is done from a socialist perspective. (The sermons about socialism are the price you will pay for getting Walsh's decent analysis about the writer's strike. Just think of it as WSWS's version of product placement.)

The article quoted below is mostly about why Clinton and Obama did not have the guts to mention the writers' strike during their debate in Los Angeles.

A note by contrast should be added to the observations below. One reason why it was significant that Edwards turned up for a WGA demonstration in New York is because it took guts. By unambiguously supporting the writers' union in this strike a presidential candidate gives up a significant portion of Hollywood money, which has always been important for Democratic party candidates. (As a caveat to this I must mention that I don't support Edwards or any other presidential candidate and never have.)

The four big and consistent financial backers of the Democrats are (1) the big city real estate and construction interests; (2) the trial lawyers; (3) individuals in media and entertainment; and (4) unions. These four groups are rarely in agreement on goals and policies. The unions are usually the outliers, in this group, and are less significant financially than the other groups. Among the other three elite donors the only money that can be taken by Democratic presidential candidates with a clear conscience is trial lawyer money. If a Democratic presidential candidate alienates any of the first three of these financial groupings it is usually considered a disaster for their campaign. It is possible to alienate the unions and survive in the Democratic Party, but it is not possible to alienate the financial block represented by media and entertainment.

I usually don't write about the presidential beauty contest, because, frankly, I think most of what is talked about and written about in the context of this kind of pseudo-politics is irrelevant. But it is important to know where the money comes from for these people because those who give the moneys are essentially investors in a set of policies. The investment strategy of the economic elite, represented in this case by the flow of money to any particular politician, usually sets the boundaries that the candidate must work within.

The current bitter conflict pits the writers against a number of massive corporations, pillars of the US ruling elite. This Hollywood wing of the elite plays a particularly significant role in bankrolling the Democratic Party. While both Clinton and Obama released statements at the beginning of the strike expressing their support for the writers, that was merely for public relations purposes. In reality, the two Democratic hopefuls depend heavily on the largesse of film and television executives—at present stubbornly refusing the writers’ modest demands and smearing them in the media—for campaign funds.

Late last February, for example, during the Presidents’ Day recess of Congress, Obama’s campaign organized a $2,300-per-ticket Beverly Hills reception, attended by film stars, studio executives and others, which raised some $1.3 million.

Not to be outdone, in March 2007 the Clinton campaign raised $2.6 million at a Beverly Hills gala held at the estate of supermarket billionaire Ronald Burkle, also attended by Hollywood leading lights.

Like the Democratic Party establishment as a whole, the media and entertainment elite is divided in its loyalties, or still undecided. Clinton has the support of Rupert Murdoch of News Corp (Fox Television, 20th Century Fox) and National Amusements billionaire Sumner Redstone (CBS, Viacom), former Paramount Studios chief Lansing, Barbra Streisand, Spielberg, Harvey Weinstein and Hugh Hefner.

In his camp Obama has Spielberg’s DreamWorks partners Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, ex-Disney chief Michael Eisner (who denounced the writers’ strike as “stupid” n November), producer Norman Lear and Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman Michael Lynton, among others.

After Thursday’s tepid debate, as one commentator noted, “it was off to even more important business, as Obama drove up the street to the Avalon nightclub and Hillary headed west toward the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, each to attend $2,300-per-ticket fundraisers.”

In the 2008 election cycle so far the television, film and music industry has provided the various candidates with $15,354,208 in contributions, 77 percent of that going to the Democrats (www.opensecrets.org). Individuals or Political Action Committees involved in movie production specifically have handed over $4,175,659—91 percent to the Democratic Party.

On the list of top industries contributing to the Clinton campaign, “television, music and movies” ranks 7th, having given $2.1 million. The same industry ranks 6th on Obama’s list, having contributed $2.2 million. Clinton has received $6.3 million from the Los Angeles-Long Beach, California area (with $565,525 coming from Beverly Hills), while Obama has taken in $5.1 million from the same area.

Among the top 20 contributors to the Clinton campaign organized by individual firm, along with banking and investment giants Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns, one finds Redstone’s National Amusements ($193,850), Time Warner ($124,150) and Murdoch’s News Corp ($99,350).

On Obama’s list, in addition to Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, one again comes across the names of National Amusements ($220,950) and Time Warner ($142,718).

The prominence of Time Warner on both lists is noteworthy, so too the personal contributions of Barry Meyer, chairman and CEO of Warner Bros (a division of Time Warner), to both the Clinton and Obama campaigns. The debate Thursday was broadcast on CNN, another division of Time Warner, and moderated by the cable network’s Wolf Blitzer. Warner Bros is one of the companies currently struck by the writers and Meyer is considered to be one of their most intransigent opponents.

Is it any wonder then that the writers’ situation never came up for discussion Thursday? No, it’s not.

HOLLYWOOD UNDER THREAT!

RADICALS IN SAG ARE PUSHING WRITERS TO CONTINUE A POINTLESS STRIKE

Radical Writers at a Web Site called "UNITED HOLLYWOOD" are Disrupting Quiet Negotiations


Radical writers and SAG told to sit down and keep quiet

Here are my Brechtian rewrites of the headlines for these non events:

The Los Angeles Times and Variety Develop a New Narrative on the Writers' Stike In Which They Warn Us That the Real Radicals are SAG and the Hot-Heads at United Hollywood

Michael Cieply, at The New York Times follows the lead of the New Narrative and gets it all wrong:

Cieply Fullfills Role as Ventriloquist Dummy for the Hollywood Deal-makers, Signals Change of Propaganda Line

Michael Cipley's article for The New York Times 31 January 2008, is "Recent Moves by Guild Leaders Rattle Writers' Talks".From the headline to the final paragraph Cieply proves himself adept at voicing the point of view of the studio executives and their bosses, the CEOs. He is also adept in propagating a new narrative for those who oppose the writers and the WGA.

Michael Cieply, is The Times reporter on the Hollywood business beat and a former producer for Sony. He is also the main Times reporter of the current struggle between the writers in the Writers Guild of America and the media conglomerates controlled by the likes Rupert Murdoch, General Electric, Sony, Viacom, etc. The New York Times, as I have noted previously, does not acknowledges the conflict of interest of assigning a reporter to cover a strike who was once an executive for one of the companies involved in the strike; nor does The Times do its readers the courtesy of informing us of this conflict of interest. Blame The Times not Cieply. Cieply is simply doing his job as a "business journalist." Like practically all business journalists he is articulating what the business executives say for other business interests.

Cieply's article of the 31st of January is another step in his endeavor of articulating the "larger business interests" involved in the writers' strke. In this article he has indicated the new propaganda narrative that the moguls and the corporate media are likely to follow as long as "closed door negotiations" continue.

The previous "narrative" set down by The New York Times and other papers has been the following: The WGA is led by "ideological" hot-heads and people who are "not professional." Patric Verrone and his "lieutenant," David Young (according to the original narrative) are singled out for their "outsider" status, and their inability to comprehend the subtleties of deal-making.

The old narrative then turns away from the leadership and focuses on "cracks" in the union. Without any evidence Cieply and the other reporters of the corporate press tell us that there is a great divide in the WGA. The officially designated (but mostly unnamed) "moderates" who are not in the leadership are more powerful than the "radicals" such as Verrone and Young. It must be understood that in the anti-union rhetoric of the corporate press the idea of a "moderate" is meant to designate anyone who is willing to make the deal that the bosses want; and the idea of an "ideological" radical is meant to designate anyone who is for a strong union movement. According to the old narrative, the moderate dissidents will triumph in the end but only if the WGA leadership is ignored. Therefore, only when a deal with the responsible and more "collegial" Director's Guild is a made will the moderates in the WGA have room to force their union into "serious" negotiations. In this narrative the dissident "moderates" will put pressure on the leadership to take the DGA deal.

Unfortunately, writers haven't been following the conglomerates' narrative. In spite of all the searching and scrutinizing for signs of disunity among the writers, the membership of the WGA has remained remarkably unified. The WGA is a democratic organization, so there are bound to be plenty of disagreements. But my experiences on the picket-line, and in email contacts with writers, have been evidence of unusual unity among a union three months into a strike. Further after seeing everything that the corporate media has failed to produce as far as evidence for this disunity among the writers, I have to conclude that the "disunity" campaign is a myth. Since this conclusion seems to be general the narrative must change.

And the narrative does change.

I have suffered through every single one of Michael Cieply's articles in The Times in the past three months and have read them carefully. Cieply has been one of the main proponents of the old narrative.

Now the propaganda line has changed. The switch has happened, as if on cue, in the whole corporate press. But nowhere is there a more tortured attempt to hide the ball than in Michael Cieply's New York Times.

What is the new narrative coming from The Times, Variety, The Los Angeles Times, and The Hollywood Reporter?

According to the new narrative it is the SAG leaders who are the ideological hot-heads and who are spoiling the party. Also there aresome people within the WGA who are being painted as the radicals and who are trying to scuttle the super-secret peace talks between select CEOs and the WGA leaders. The unexamined implication in all of these articles is that the deal with the DGA is in the best interests of "Hollywood" and the negotiatons must conclude quickly with the acceptance of the DGA deal.

In the new narrative the lines about WGA leaders, Patric Verrone and David Young has also changed. Now there are two kinds of leaders in the WGA and the question is where does Verrone stand. Some of these leaders the "executives" can deal with and the others may rattle the cages in the zoo. In this narrative it might just be possible to make a deal with Verrone and Young, but only if they learn how to play the game. The implication is that "the executives" and "Hollywood" are not quite sure about these two. But maybe the collective minds of "the executives" and "Hollywood" might be proven wrong about the initial condemnatory judgments they made about Verrone and Young. The question that is posed by the new narrative in these articles is essentially, "Has the WGA leadership learned its lesson or not? If they have learned their lesson can they 'control' their union and tell the 'radicals' to shut up?" Or to quote Cieply:

"Production companies representatives… said the comments [by those who don't want to accept the DGA deal] had added the difficulty of making a deal with a guild torn by conflicting demands."

In other words, union democracy is bad. Why isn't Verrone controlling his recalcitrant members?

The new propaganda line that the media is picking up has the following story to tell: There are radicals in the Writers' union; some of those radicals sit on the board but are not currently at the negotiating table. There are also moderates in the writers' union who want to make a deal. The moderates are being respectful and are shutting up and not making noise. According to the new narrative, that is what good people in a union do; they shut up and don't make noise for their position. But bad people like these radicals are not shutting up and if they don't shut up they will scuttle a good deal for "Hollywood". Patric Verrone, in this narrative, is balancing in between the unnamed "moderates" and the hot heads. According to Cieply the hot-heads are at a "Web site called United Hollywood." Will Patric do the right thing for "Hollywood" or will he follow the hot-heads?

(A digression on word use: The newspapers and the Moguls now use the word "Hollywood" with similar meaningless connotations to the way the neo-cons use the phrase "the national interest." In fact where ever the proper noun "Hollywood" is used to designate "the interests of the industry" try substituting the phrase "the national interest" and you will see with what intent the word "Hollywood" is used in these cases. Always be suspicious of very amorphous "key words" that are meant to designate "the general interest" of a group or a nation. Such key words are usually terms of art used to designate "the particular interest" of a preferred group. In this case the amorphous term "Hollywood" is being used to equate the corporate interests of the entertainment industry with the general interests of everyone in the industry.)

Tomorrow I will look at Michael Cieply's article piece by piece. (I cannot do it today because I am late for a WGA benefit in the City.) I think a detail look at this article is proper because it will give the careful reader tools for reading anti-union articles in newspapers, such as The New York Times in the future.

But for now let me say that my first message is that Cieply has been an unusually lousy reporter when it comes to his articles on the writers' strike. I am not blaming him for how lousy a reporter he is in this case. He simply does not have the tools to cover a union action. He only knows what the business executives say and how they act and talk. In all the articles of his that I have read that were written previous to the writers' strike, he has been adept in articulating the Hollywood deal-maker's point of view to other business executives. It is his special talent and he has no other. I think he is too much of a burnt-case to learn anything about the union movement. And as a former Sony executive he probably has imbibed the same anti-union attitudes and misconceptions as most of his fellow corporate executives.

So when I complain of Cieply's bad writing and lousy reporting it is because I think that in this case they are not mere slips; that the lousy writing signifies. The bad reporting is a function of Cieply's bias and is therefore meaningful. I have read close to 60 of Cieply's articles in the last few weeks. He is not a bad writer when his writing meets his expertise.If he is a bad writer in his articles on the WGA, SAG and the writers' strike it is because he doesn't understand unions and he doesn't care to understand the workers point of view and The New York Times does not care to understand the workers point of view.

More tomorrow.

Jerry Monaco
31 January 2008
New York City






This
work by
Jerry Monaco is licensed under a
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I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be there in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be there in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they built - I'll be there, too.

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Since the run up to the strike I've been hoping that one of the writers from the WGA would do a thorough analysis of the coverage of the strike by the major newspapers and the industry press.  The corporate media has done a good job of propagating the cause of their sister corporations.  But in the last few weeks the articles in The New York Times have become more and more pro-management and, frankly, quite weird. 

I quote the latest bit of strike "analysis" from The New York Times:

Dennis Palumbo, a screenwriter-turned-psychologist whose practice includes a number of Hollywood writers, said guild members - many of whom have come to regard the companies as negative parental figures - appear to see Mr. Verrone and Mr. Young as friendlier alternatives. "Which parent do you go with, the big, bad parent that you know, or someone who's presenting himself as an Alan Alda parent?" Mr. Palumbo said.

All of this in an article called Writers' Strike Tests the Mettle of 2 Outsiders by MICHAEL CIEPLY (published: January 19,
2008.)

I am sure that Patric Verrone and David Young will gladly accept the compliment that they are in the image of nice Alan Alda... Instead of... what? Which character actors can be cast in the part of evil corporate daddy... Crazy Joe Pesci in Good Fellas? Dennis Hopper in Land of the Dead?

But in truth this is another anti-union cliche.  What can't be imagined by the august New York Times is that it is possible for people to fight for themselves and for the future of their industry.  What can't be imagined by The New York Times is that strikers are not children, but people who have thought seriously about what they are doing and why they are doing it. 

Michael Cieply is The New York Times reporter who wrote the above words. I doubt he ever reported on a labor dispute from the union side. Cieply is a business reporter and he knows Hollywood business practices well. He should since he worked as a producer for Sony Corp. The fact that Michael Cipley was once a producer for Sony is the first piece of information that any reader of Cieply's coverage of the writers' strike should be aware of.  This fact should be presented as a caveat before every story he writes about the WGA, Hollywood union leaders, Patric Verrone, and David Young, etc.

Cipley started his career as a business journalist for Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times. Hollywood was his beat. The moguls were his meat. He has always been adept at articulating the thoughts of the deal-makers to themselves. He has practiced this expertise throughout the writers' strike. The NYT poached Cieply from the LAT in 2004 and moved him to the Big Apple. Apparently he could not adjust to the Byzantine bureaucracy of the Big Ship, nor could he comfort himself with the less sunny pleasures of the Big Apple, so he moved out of the New York Times' editors' desk and back to reporting in Los Angeles. This occurred in January 2007, and was probably part of  The New York Times' long range preparation for the possibility of a writers' strike. Since he moved back to L.A. Cieply has specialized in profile pieces on studio execs and the usual fair of insider analysis-lite of Hollywood business trends. He knows the strange business customs of the Hollywood deal-makers, that is for sure. But he has never shown any knowledge of the long and sometimes tangled history of the Hollywood labor movement.  He has also never displayed any knowledge of the history of unions or the labor movement in general.

I have a question for the Times. Why don't they assign ex-union organizers or ex-union leaders to cover unions and strikes? The answer to this question is simple: If they did the bosses would complain of bias and threaten to withdraw advertising dollars. Assigning an ex-producer from Sony as point man for the coverage of a labor dispute where producers from Sony are among the main contestants on the bosses side treads the line of good ethical practice.

I am working on a much longer analysis of The New York Times' dreadful and condescending coverage of the WGA and the writers' strike and will post the rest soon. The above is just a taste of what is to come.

Jerry Monaco 

Why I Don’t Support the Writer’s Strike
Posted in January 18th, 2008
by The Word Wrangler in Rant

I’ve been avoiding talking about the writer’s strike for a couple of reasons. The first one being

(  See the rest of Word Wrangler's explanation behind the cut: )

that I don’t support strikes, nor do I support unions. The second one is that I believe that people should take responsibility for their own lives. If you think you’re getting a raw deal at your job, then change jobs. Change careers if you want. But don’t stand around with a sign on a picket line, which is the adult equivalent of a child holding his breath until he gets what he wants.

Anne Wayman from the Golden Pencil posted a link to a piece on the Writer’s Resource Center giving three reasons to support the strike.

So I’m giving my reasons why I don’t support the strike.

The rules are set by the corporations - If I went to work at Marvel Comics as a writer or artist, I know going in that the company is pretty much going to own whatever it is I create. If I create the next Superman - and Marvel makes millions of dollars in TV, toys, movies and comic books - chances are I’m still going to be compensated based on our original agreement with Marvel coming out on top. And Marvel certainly isn’t going to give me the rights to the character that’s earning them that much scratch. I know this going in. If I don’t want to play by those rules, I can choose not to.

It’s their game so don’t whine about it when you come out on the bottom of a deal.

Personal responsibility - I admit that I lean pretty far to the conservative side of the political spectrum. My father is a no-nonsense guy and an extremely hard worker. He always preached about controlling your own destiny instead of it controlling you. Make choices - both good and bad - and live with the consequences. And if you’re in a situation you don’t like, pull yourself up out of it and move on.

I realize we live in a society that doesn’t like to hear that. We don’t want to work hard for what we want. We think we’re entitled to everything and when we don’t get it, we whine. We think the companies we work for owe us all. Well, I got news for y’all, it ain’t like that.

For those that think they’re getting screwed by the corporations - which they probably are - go off on your own. Start your own company. Make your own future instead of crying about your present.

The marketplace has changed drastically over the past decade. There are more opportunities than ever for creative people to get noticed, make money AND keep the rights to their material than ever before.

Instead of trying to change someone else’s rules, why not just go and make up your own?

The Word Wrangler said,
in January 18th, 2008 at 12:53 pm

Thanks for the comment Jerry. First, let me start out by stating that I don’t have the level of education regarding copyrights and their history that you do, so I really can’t address that issue.

One question you asked was: “Why is cooperating with others to improve your situation or the situation of your industry somehow an abnegation of personal responsibility?”

The answer is: It isn’t.

I’ll go back to my Marvel Comics example. Back in the 90s, when comics were hot, there were a few very talented creators who worked either for Marvel or DC. These creators became sick of the ‘work for hire’ business practices at the big corporations and - rather than forming a union, striking or picketing - they went off and formed their own company Image Comics.

Image’s business model was based on the notion that creators could publish under the Image umbrella, but still retain all rights to their characters and maintain independent studios.

That’s a good example of people cooperating to change the way business works. Image became so successful that Marvel and DC started treating their talent better because they didn’t want them going off on their own.

Instead of trying to hold a company hostage in order to get what they wanted, they went out and got what they wanted on their own. They changed the rules by making their own rules.

The world is changing in such a way that offers global opportunities for creators. I think we’re moving towards a time where creative types won’t need unions or corporations to find success. And I think that’s in everyone’s best interest.

My reply to this was to say was that a cooperative model for creative writers and a union of employees are not mutually exclusive. (You can read my full comment at The Word Wrangler's site.) 

Postscript: Because of the WGA strike I have read comments by Brian K. Vaughan who believes that the comic book industry would be much better if the comic book creators had a decent union. 

This brings up another subject -- the issue of industry customs and standards.  The reason that companies that make movies and comic books in general control the copyrights of the creative workers is a matter of industry custom and standards. 

Consider the following: 

In the industries that were created before modern copyright existed the creators have substantial control of their copyrights.  In many of the industries created in the 20th Century  creators lost control of their copyrights.  This was mainly because of economic "power",  and the rise of vast networks of distribution.   Historically, if a creator did not have access to the networks of distribution, which were usually held as oligopolies by three or four companies, then the creator lost control of the uses and reuses of his creation.  

The division between creative workers and ownership was especially true in industries where several creators worked on one product.  More often than not the company would try to maintain a high-level of competition between creators and category of creators.  Thus in the movie business editors were set against directors, set designers against the wardrobe designer, wardrobe designers against make-up artists, writers against directors and unit producers, and directors were set against every one.  It was precisely such situations that unions were meant to resolve.  Unfortunately, because of manipulation by the bosses and defeats on the line the unions often exacerbated this situation.  All of this is part of a longer story....  

Jerry Monaco