The Importance Of Union Solidarity

Many thanks to the writers over at United Hollywood who first posted this information sometime last week. This is a great little video which everyone working in our industry should watch.We really are all on the same page. The other day I was sitting and eating lunch with several members of the editing crew of the film I am currently working on. The subject of the WGA strike came up and when asked by one of the young assistant editors how I felt about the strike I said that I actively support the writers and think that it’s extremely important that they win this strike and get a fair deal. The young man protested, asking me if I wasn’t concerned that this strike will likely result in a lot of people in our industry being unemployed. Thanks to the strike captains who are blogging at United Hollywood I was able to explain to him that if the writers win this strike, the future residuals that the writers are fighting for would also be won by our union, the IATSE, when the time came for the next round of contract negotiations, and that those residuals will go in large part to pay for our union’s pension & welfare programs. Not a single one of the crew, IATSE members all, were aware that a significant chunk of our benefits are paid for by residuals and that is what makes this strike so important.The thing that strikes me most about all of this (no pun intended), is how little young people, even young union members, know about the history or importance of the labor movement. It’s as though the knowlege of how we got to where we are has been lost. We just take the things that labor had to fight for years ago for granted. It’s just not taught anymore and that is a sin.

The AMPTP Explains Their Groundbreaking Proposal

From United Hollywood, this is the video the WGA doesn’t want you to see. AMPTP Member Roger A. Trevanti explains it all in a way writers can understand!

Liar? or Stupid?

Decide for yourself.

There are few choices more terrifying than the one Mr. Bush has left us with tonight.

We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War III about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole, or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked, at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so, whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed were still even remotely plausible.

A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency an unapologetic warmonger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.

After spokeswoman Dana Perino’s announcement from the White House late last night, the timeline is inescapable and clear.

In August the president was told by his hand-picked major-domo of intelligence, Mike McConnell, a flinty, high-strung-looking, worrying-warrior who will always see more clouds than silver linings, that what “everybody thought” about Iran might be, in essence, crap.

Yet on Oct. 17, the president said of Iran and its President Ahmadinejad:

“I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon.”

And as he said that, Mr. Bush knew that at bare minimum there was a strong chance that his rhetoric was nothing more than words with which to scare the Iranians.

Or was it, Sir, to scare the Americans?

Does Iran not really fit into the equation here? Have you just scribbled it into the fill-in-the-blank on the same template you used to scare us about Iraq?

In August, any commander-in-chief still able-minded or uncorrupted or both, Sir, would have invoked the quality the job most requires: mental flexibility.

A bright man, or an honest man, would have realized no later than the McConnell briefing that the only true danger about Iran was the damage that could be done by an unhinged, irrational Chicken Little of a president shooting his mouth off, backed up by only his own hysteria and his own delusions of omniscience.

Not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr. Bush.

The Chicken Little of presidents is the one, Sir, that you see in the mirror.

And the mind reels at the thought of a vice president fully briefed on the revised intel as long as two weeks ago, briefed on the fact that Iran abandoned its pursuit of this imminent threat four years ago, who never bothered to mention it to his boss.

It is nearly forgotten today, but throughout much of Ronald Reagan’s presidency it was widely believed that he was little more than a front man for some never-viewed, behind-the-scenes string-puller.

Today, as evidenced by this latest remarkable, historic malfeasance, it is inescapable that Dick Cheney is either this president’s evil ventriloquist or he thinks he is.

What servant of any of the 42 previous presidents could possibly withhold information of this urgency and gravity and wind up back at his desk the next morning, instead of winding up before a congressional investigation or a criminal one?

Mr. Bush, if you can still hear us, if you did not previously agree to this scenario in which Dick Cheney is the actual detective and you’re Remington Steele, you must disenthrall yourself: Mr. Cheney has usurped your constitutional powers, cut you out of the information loop and led you down the path to an unprecedented presidency in which the facts are optional, the intel is valued less than the hunch and the assistant runs the store.

The problem is, Sir, your assistant is robbing you and your country blind.

Not merely in monetary terms, Mr. Bush, but, more important, of the traditions and righteousness for which we have stood, at great risk, for centuries: honesty, law, moral force.

Mr. Cheney has helped, Sir, to make your administration into the kind our ancestors saw in the 1860s and 1870s and 1880s, the ones that abandoned Reconstruction and sent this country marching backward into the pit of American apartheid.

Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland — presidents who will be remembered only in a blur of failure, Mr. Bush.

Presidents who will be remembered only as functions of those who opposed them, the opponents whom history proved right.

Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland … Bush.

Would that we could let this president off the hook by seeing him only as marionette or moron.

But a study of the mutation of his language about Iran proves that though he may not be very good at it, he is, himself, still a manipulative, Machiavellian snake-oil salesman.

The Bushian etymology was tracked by Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post’s Web site.

It is staggering.
# March 31: “Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon…”
# June 5: Iran’s “pursuit of nuclear weapons…”
# June 19: “consequences to the Iranian government if they continue to pursue a nuclear weapon…”
# July 12: “the same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons…”
# Aug. 6: “this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon…”

Notice a pattern?

Trying to develop, build or pursue a nuclear weapon.

Then, sometime between Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, those terms are suddenly swapped out, so subtly that only in retrospect can we see that somebody has warned the president, not only that he has gone out too far on the limb of terror but there may not even be a tree there….

McConnell, or someone, must have briefed him then.
# Aug. 9: “They have expressed their desire to be able to enrich uranium, which we believe is a step toward having a nuclear weapons program…”
# Aug. 28: “Iran’s active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons…”
# Oct. 4: “you should not have the know-how on how to make a (nuclear) weapon…”
# Oct. 17: “until they suspend and/or make it clear that they, that their statements aren’t real, yeah, I believe they want to have the **capacity**, the **knowledge**, in order to make a nuclear weapon.”

Before Aug. 9, it’s: Trying to develop, build or pursue a nuclear weapon.

After Aug. 9, it’s: Desire, pursuit, want … knowledge technology know-how to enrich uranium.

And we are to believe, Mr.. Bush, that the National Intelligence Estimate this week talks of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program in 2003….

And you talked of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program on Oct. 17.

And that’s just a coincidence?

And we are to believe, Mr. Bush, that nobody told you any of this until last week?

Your insistence that you were not briefed on the NIE until last week might be legally true, something like “what the definition of ‘is’ is,” but with the subject matter being not interns but the threat of nuclear war.

Legally, it might save you from some war crimes trial, but ethically it is a lie.

It is indefensible.

You have been yelling threats into a phone for nearly four months, after the guy on the other end had already hung up.

You, Mr. Bush, are a bald-faced liar.

And moreover, you have just revealed that John Bolton and Norman Podhoretz and the Wall Street Journal editorial board are also bald-faced liars.

We are to believe that the intel community, or maybe the State Department, cooked the raw intelligence about Iran, falsely diminished the Iranian nuclear threat, to make you look bad?

And you proceeded to let them make you look bad?

You not only knew all of this about Iran in early August, but you also knew it was accurate.

And instead of sharing this good news with the people you have obviously forgotten you represent, you merely fine-tuned your terrorizing of those people, to legally cover your own backside.

While you filled the factual gap with sadistic visions of, as you phrased it Aug. 28, “nuclear holocaust,” and, as you phrased it Oct. 17, “World War III.”

My comments, Mr. Bush, are often dismissed as simple repetitions of the phrase “George Bush has no business being president.”

Well, guess what?

Tonight: hanged by your own words, convicted by your own deliberate lies….

You, sir, have no business being president.

I don’t think that George W. Bush is stupid. I think he’s dyslexic, and he’s probably half in the bag most of the time which makes it difficult for him to speak, but I don’t think he’s stupid at all.

He’s just a liar.

F*ck The Radio

 This was posted over at TRex’s new treeehouse. My favorite comment was this one:

By cleter on Dec 5, 2007
Oh, you can’t f**k a radio. It’s got sharp corners and wires and stuff. That’s crazy-talk.    

Give Me What Is Fair, Man!

’nuff said. (h/t United Hollywood) 

Who Needs Writers…

…when you’ve got Beethoven? (many thanks to Digby and Tristero!) 

¡Viva La Huelga!

Here’s a concise and easy to understand breakdown of where the negotiations in the WGA strike stand at this point. This was posted on United Hollywood and comes from members of the WGA Board.

Fellow members:There are a lot of rumors and questions floating around, and we’d like to address them.HAVE NEGOTIATIONS BROKEN DOWN?No.DID OUR NEGOTIATING COMMITTEE ASK FOR A BREAK?No.THEN WHY THE FOUR DAY BREAK?On Thursday, the studios and networks gave us some of their proposals, and said they needed more time to fashion the rest. Therefore talks were scheduled to resume on Tuesday.THE COMPANIES SAY THEY ARE OFFERING US IS A $130 MILLION INCREASE. THE GUILD CALLS IT A ROLLBACK. WHY THE DISPARITY?The companies have still not explained how they arrived at their $130 million figure, but we can certainly explain how this is a rollback.OKAY. SO HOW IS THEIR MADE-FOR-INTERNET PROPOSAL A ROLLBACK?Currently, the writer of a 30-minute prime-time TV show makes almost $21,000. The conglomerates are proposing that if that writer wrote the same show for the Internet, his or her initial compensation would be $2,600. That’s a rollback of 88%.SO WHAT’S THEIR OFFER ON INTERNET RERUNS?Currently, the writer of a half-hour television episode makes about $11,600 when his or her episode is first re-run on TV. The companies are proposing that if that same episode is rerun instead on the Internet, they will pay the whopping total of $139 for unlimited reruns for one year–and nothing at all if it only streams for six weeks. About a third of all TV series are now being rerun only on the Internet. This amounts to an immediate 98.8% rollback. And it gets worse. If they decide to call a show “promotional,” they don’t have to pay us anything. It’s a “freepeat.”WOW. AND WHAT ABOUT FEATURES?Are you sitting down? The companies want to be able to stream any and all feature films in their entirety, supported by advertising dollars, and pay the writers nothing. Zip. Nada. Bupkus. A 100% rollback.GIVEN ALL THIS, HOW IN THE WORLD DID THE COMPANIES COME UP WITH THE 130 MILLION DOLLAR FIGURE?Our question exactly. It’s definitely not a three-year number. As near as we can figure, their proposal might net us that total around the year 2107.YOU HAVEN’T SAID ANYTHING NEW ABOUT DOWNLOADS.Neither have they. We are hoping that they will address this essential issue by Tuesday. Stay tuned.In solidarity,Nick KazanHoward A. RodmanPhil RobinsonTom Schulman(for the Board of Directors)

The writers need all of our support. This strike is crucial for eveyone working in television and motion pictures, not just the writers. If you question whether this is true consider this from WGA member Joss Wheldon:

we might take this to the streets of some other cities. Get the word out, remind everyone that corporate greed (it’s nothing but) is hurting everyone in this country. Not just because they’re robbing people of entertainment (and, on occasion, art) and strangling an entire (non-writing) community, but because they’re sending a message to every union in the country: you’re next. The actors know that in their case, it’s literally true, but it’s also true for the concept of a unionized workforce. We get a lot of flack for being well-fed, glamorous, rich and powerful. We’ve worked hard to dispel that stereotype but in fact, a select few of us are wealthy and influential. And we have the support of some of the most famous and beloved (and wealthy and influential) people in the country: TV and movie stars! So the fact that the studios feel perfectly comfortable SPITTING IN OUR FACES in front of the whole world cannot bode well for any other union that works under them — or under anyone who sees how easy it is to deny the basic rights of workers even so public as we. This is bad for writers, bad for actors, teamsters, teachers, nurses, dockworkers… the shape of this country is changing. The middle class is being squeezed out. We’re trundling back to the middle ages, people, and all we can do is lie there and take it.

Here is what you can do.1 – Watch the shows that are still running, and watch the reruns of those shows when they begin to come on.2 – Do NOT watch reality shows if you can avoid them. They are produced using either non- union or no writers. The producers want to use the reality shows to break the strike.3 – Make note of the advertisers on the shows that you watch and let them know tht you support the writers and will not patronize them if they advertise on struck shows.4 – Let your friends and family know how they can help.We are all on the same page.

Closing Time

 From Common Dreams: 

It’s Closing Time
by Joyce Marcel

America twice hitched its star to a drunk, albeit a dry one, and now it’s coming close to closing time.

“Ah we’re drinking and we’re dancing/And the band is really happening/And the Johnny Walker wisdom’s running high,” sings Leonard Cohen in “Closing Time.” “All the women tear their blouses off/And the men they dance on the polka-dots/And it’s partner found/It’s partner lost/And it’s hell to pay when the fiddler stops: it’s closing time.”

Yes, we’re coming to closing time for George W. Bush and his Darth Vader vice-president, Dick Cheney, who are now scrambling to get in one more war before they have to fish or cut bait – and in this case, “fish” means leaving office and (hopefully) getting tracked down in whatever jungle they’re hiding and dragged before a court of law to answer for their crimes.

And “cut bait” means following the lead of their good friend Pervez Musharraf and suspending the Constitution, declaring martial law and giving themselves unlimited dictatorial powers for the rest of their unnatural lives.

O yes, for a while there the bar was hopping; it was quite a scene. The women were tearing their blouses off and the men were dancing on the polka dots. The rich were getting obscenely rich, the yachts were getting larger, the private jets were flying higher, the diamonds were getting shinier, and the square footage of the houses was growing so large that the help needed roller skates.

It must have been fun for Bush and Cheney, the two of them jerking off on power, and for the fat cats who stuck their hands in our hard-earned tax dollars and stuffed their pockets, and for the dictators and tyrants who took this country for every cent they could.

But now the staff’s deserting the ship like the rats they are, and it’s going to be hell to pay when the fiddler stops and the bill comes due for the Johnny Walker wisdom of torture and invasion and bloody murder and mayhem abroad and corruption and bankruptcy at home.

“And the whole damn place goes crazy twice,” Cohen sings. “And it’s once for the devil/ And once for Christ/But the Boss don’t like these dizzy heights/We’re busted in the blinding lights/Of closing time.”

No, the Boss don’t like all these babies who got burned and maimed. He don’t like seeing those poor deluded souls being taught to blow themselves up in the name of Muhammad. He don’t like the way America used its soldiers, who believed in honor and service and thought they were defending their country.

He don’t like the mercenaries and the bagmen and the billions of dollars that went “lost” in the sands of Iraq, or the history of mankind that got lost in those very same sands. He don’t like the corporate greed that brought about the subprime scandal and will soon shake our country into another Depression.

He’s not too fond of the pollution of the Creation, either, or of the rest of the scum and the snakes let loose by Bush, Cheney, Rove and their friends.

No, it’s once for the devil and once for Christ, and the devil’s already got his due, and Christ? Hell, he’s been lost since the beginning of this disastrous enterprise. Turn the other cheek? Just how good did that sound to this “Christian” nation after 9/11?

The question for the ages is simply this: why didn’t we stop them? Why didn’t we stop them after they stole the first election? Why didn’t we stop them when they lied their way into war? Why didn’t we stop them in the second election? Why didn’t we stop them after we elected a whole slate of candy-assed Democrats to Congress?

Why is this still going on, when impeachment is too good for these bastards?

Was it because we were all drugged with television? Was it because there was no draft, so the cruel wars we recklessly started only affected the military and their families? Was it because the cheap and easy credit let us all live beyond our means? Was it because we thought that, given enough luck and time, we could all get rich and famous – or at least get our own reality shows, be famous for being famous, and have a tank full of sharks in our living rooms?

There’s no 12-step program for bombing the world. There’s no way to go around apologizing to every man, woman and child we’ve hurt. One day at time? There aren’t enough days. There’s no sponge big enough to sop up all the blood on Bush and Cheney’s hands.

We didn’t stop them. We’ll have to live with that. Some of us preached and shouted and wrote polemics, but none of us stopped them. Now we’ve got a bunch of lame presidential candidates who either haven’t got the guts to stop them or who want to jump on the gravy train themselves.

We’re counting the days, but we still haven’t stopped them. We’re busted in the blinding light, and there will be hell to pay when this country staggers out of its drunken, wanton, drugged and destructive stupor.

America, you twice hitched your star to a drunk, albeit a dry one, and now it’s closing time, closing time, closing time.

This is the question that will haunt me forever. How could we have let this happen?

Rockin’ In The Free World

Neil rocks on, and next week I will be honored to be working with him again on a new documentary he is making about CSN&Y.

Rockin’ In The Free World by Neil Young
——–
There’s colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin’ their feet
People sleepin’ in their shoes
But there’s a warnin’ sign on the road ahead
There’s a lot of people sayin’ we’d be better off dead
Don’t feel like Satan, but I am to them
So I try to forget it, any way I can.

Keep on rockin’ in the free world,
Keep on rockin’ in the free world
Keep on rockin’ in the free world,
Keep on rockin’ in the free world.

I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away, and she’s gone to get a hit
She hates her life, and what she’s done to it
There’s one more kid that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool.

Keep on rockin’ in the free world,
Keep on rockin’ in the free world
Keep on rockin’ in the free world,
Keep on rockin’ in the free world.

We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We got department stores and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people, says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.

Keep on rockin’ in the free world,
Keep on rockin’ in the free world
Keep on rockin’ in the free world,
Keep on rockin’ in the free world. 

(h/t Suzanne)

Homeless In Paradise

by Stephen Fleischman

 

In the United States of America, the greatest country in the world, as many as three and a half million people experience homelessness in a given year (1% of the entire US population or 10% of its poor) and of that, 1.37 million (or 39%) are children under the age of 18.

 

The total number of billionaires in the world is 793 with 371 of them being in the United States of America, that’s about 322 more than there were 20 years ago.

 

If it can be said that people with money and power run the world, then 1% of America’s wealthiest and most powerful run America behind a façade of democracy.  The façade is coming apart and the true nature of this government is plain to see.

 

After four years of a useless war, costing Americans their lives and treasury, and enriching the multitude of corporate entities slurping up billions at the Iraqi trough, we have allowed the new robber barons, Bush and his crony capitalist friends to continue conning us out of house and home, our country. Our constitution is in shreds and our economy is about to crash. Don’t let any of the Wall Street freaks try to fool you. They’re as scared as we are.