Re: RAT Scabs and other wounds in need of healing

[jonoh1@juno.com]

What a wonderful attitude. Some thoughts:

On Tue, 23 May 2000 13:57:13 -0700 (PDT) schedlinski
<schedlinski@yahoo.com> writes:
>To weigh in on the richard carter situation,
>
>I think that the divisiveness created by both sides of
>the issue here are exactly what plays into management
>hands during a strike. 

Only if we let it keep us off the picket lines. Diverse opinions are what
we're about. But letting our emotions keep us from doing what we consider
to be the right thing is counter productive. As long as we're walking
side by side yelling and screaming at each other, they will not divide
us.

>
>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. 

But I'm not sure that's true. The PA told me that Richard Carter had
"boasted" about working another job the week before. But selfish works
for me as well. Not to mention just plain shitty.

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. 

People react in different ways to different things for different reasons.
Personally, I <choose> to hold him in contempt. I don't believe there's
anything wrong with a healthy contempt. I think it's wise to know who
one's enemies are and why. While I appreciate your giving nature, I don't
think it works across the board. Or, at least, not in this case for me.
And I don't think he made a difficult choice in a difficult position. I
think he made the easy choice in a difficult position. The difficult
choice would have been to a) not accept the job by taking a personal hit
and/or b) walking off the job when becoming aware that it's a struck
production. Now <that's> difficult.


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.

I feel more sorrow for the middle class union actors who are losing their
homes because of the financial squeeze they've been under during the last
five to ten years as star salaries are skyrocketing, I have more pity for
the middle class actors who've struggled for the last fifteen to twenty
years in this industry to get their salary quote up to some reasonable
wage whose agents are now finding that people will no longer match those
quotes, and I really feel sorry for the working actors who haven't worked
for the last three weeks and may not for many weeks to come due to the
fact that they are making the very difficult decision to strike. We all
give our pity to those we feel deserve it most. I'm happy that Richard
Carter has people feeling sorry for him. I somehow doubt he'd be capable
of returning the favor. We are judged by our actions. 

>
>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.

Yes, it would. I'm just not that generous personally, I guess. Not in
this case. There <is> a black and a white here. One either crosses a line
or doesn't.

>
>And moreover, I hope we don't let our differences on
>this issue interfere with our committment to the
>grander issue at hand.

This is the real point for me as well. And thank you for pointing it out.
In Solidarity,
Jonathan
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