Re: RAT Scabs and other wounds in need of healing

["Donna Sherritt" <ohbelladonna@hotmail.com>]

Well put.  I've heard many insightful comments from varied points-of-view in 
this debate, but I sure hate to see us alienate each other when there's a 
greater threat at hand.  To quote Sinead (albeit out-of-context), "Fight the 
*real* enemy."


>From: schedlinski <schedlinski@yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
>To: rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
>Subject: Re: RAT Scabs and other wounds in need of healing
>Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 13:57:13 -0700 (PDT)
>
>To weigh in on the richard carter situation, though as
>a not-even-an-actor, let alone a union one, I perhaps
>have no right to, it seems a live and tense issue.
>
>I think that the divisiveness created by both sides of
>the issue here are exactly what plays into management
>hands during a strike. Trying to get those striking
>and supporting the strike to fight each other rather
>than focus on the groups who are continuing to shoot,
>who are fighting the legitimate demands of the union,
>and who are (to cite a RAT list example) moving
>production to South Africa only limits our power.
>
>Yes, scabbing is a bad thing -- though I'd weigh in
>that "selfish" is a better word than "inhumane," since
>inhumane requires the kind of consideration that it
>doesn't seem the actor used. Jonathan is right to tell
>us, should we meet him, to speak to him, to let him
>know he let people down. But by the same token, he is
>deserving more of pity than spite, since he after all
>made a difficult choice in a difficult position. The
>only HUAC parallel that makes sense to me is one where
>the actor is like someone called before the committee
>who gave names, and in doing so saved his skin but
>lost his friends. For that, we ought to feel sorry for
>him, though we ought to feel sorry with no warmth.
>
>In any case, during any strike there will be scabs,
>and the scabs are really a distraction from the issue
>at hand. In some strikes the scabs are people who are
>so desperate that in order to marginally improve their
>standard of living they must break the strike -- these
>people are victims of management as well. It would be
>an act of generosity on our part to view scabs in this
>strike the same way.
>
>And moreover, I hope we don't let our differences on
>this issue interfere with our committment to the
>grander issue at hand.
>
>rm schedlinski
>
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