This is an article I wrote about the outcome of the strike for a website that I think is called voicesfor2morrow. It could also have been for voices4tomorrow. Or a Pickle-esque voices-42mor.row. You see, I didn't submit it directly; I gave it to a friend, who needed something written by a twentysomething to accompany a video she made about the strike in order to have it included on the site. Which is a little silly. So please excuse some of the cheesiness, but I had to make it... youthful.
They wanted it to be on the subject of idealism with regard to the writers' strike:
This is what victory looks like
The Writers Guild went out on strike on November 5, but even shortly beforehand, there was a tremendous amount of doubt – among everyone involved, even us – as to whether we’d actually go out. It was only when the corporations responded to our reasonable demands with an offer actually worse than the status quo that we realized what we were up against. We realized we would have to strike.
The decision was undertaken with great sense of purpose. We knew that the economic destruction of a strike would affect not just corporations and writers but the entertainment community (and for that matter, the local economy) as well. But the things we wanted were worth fighting for, and we had a responsibility to each other, to our sister unions in Hollywood, and most importantly to the next generation of writers to not only wage a strike but win it.
What followed was truly inspiring. The air became thick with impassioned speeches and eloquent emails – as befits a writers’ strike. And though it may have occasionally strayed into overdramatic territory, at the end of the day, we sustained a campaign of social protest for a hundred days. It was hard, because it’s hard to form and then keep the belief that individuals can resist a powerful, entrenched, nondemocratic institution like a corporation. But we bore in mind the reasonableness of our demands, the rightness of our cause, and the necessity of the fight, and I believe that idealism carried us through till the end.
So this was my frame of mind when I first saw the proposed deal a week ago. And when I saw it, my heart sank. The negotiated terms seemed only a shadow of our demands, those things we thought were worth fighting for. And to make things worse, the deal was essentially done. The membership would weigh in, but it was already a fait accompli. There would be no more fight and there would be no more changes to the deal. How could I accept that? Hadn’t I dedicated a huge amount of effort to the idea that our demands were perfectly fair, that anything less would be wrong?
And yet, I did accept the deal. Was that settling? No, I would say it was learning. I’ve come to understand idealism as a motivating force, as the fuel of the movement. But eventually, if that movement is tied to a process, you need a little, uh, dealism. At the final meeting, a WGA leader reminded us of a Voltaire quote – that we mustn’t let “the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
I should add, though - this isn’t a “loss of innocence” story. My idealism is intact and has never been stronger. Making a deal doesn’t eviscerate idealism; in fact it employs and requires it. In turn, the deal enables our guild and our idealism to survive. We will need that fuel to negotiate the next deal, when this deal is up in three years. And in fact, this is the design of the deal – it carves out pathways for us to better achieve some of those fightworthy demands, but the onus is on us to take those paths. That will require an approach that starts with idealism and only arrives, briefly and ultimately, at dealism. And I trust that this is the approach we’ll take. Skipping to the end isn’t something writers like to do anyway.
PS, Pickle Reader - If you don't think I freaked myself out with how H-Rod the second to last paragraph was and immediately tacked on the last one... well, you are not taking into consideration many feelings I've made clear.
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