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THE VIEW FROM HERE - In announcing the SAG-AFTRA Strike on Thursday, June 13, 2023, Union President Fran Drescher said, “What happens here is important because what’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor, when employers make Wall Street and greed their priority . . “
Not only are the Writers and SAG-ATRA on strike, but so are Los Angeles hotel workers. A Walk-out can be a type of strike when people are “mad as hell and not going to take it any more” as newsman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) remarked in Network.
Hundreds of thousands of Angelenos, especially Millennials and Gen Zers, are on a type strike from their jobs in Los Angeles, except their strike is a forever Walk-out. They’ve Walked-out of Los Angles and have gone all the way to Las Vegas, Texas, and onward to The Carolinas and even Florida. When a strike becomes a Walk-out like Angelenos have been staging for years, they’re not returning after a few weeks or months or ever! Sure, the producers have tried their petty jaunts to Vancouver (remember 21 Jump Street?). Producers are easily be lured back to LA with big bucks from the government, but not so everyday Millennials and Gen Zers. Regular employers have also fled Los Angeles and set up shop in states where families can own a home and gain equity. Now, the Walk-out” Millennials and Gen Zers are getting higher salaries in faraway cities with lower costs of living.
Real life Fran Drescher like the movie character Howard Beale speaks the truth – Wall Street and greed – have made us mad as Hell, but are we going to do anything about it? Hell No! LA runs on Lies and Myths.
Angelenos have been taking up the wazzu for years. After we saw that Garcettism was destroying Los Angeles, Angelenos re-elected him with 80.1% of the vote and gave him billions of dollars via Measures HHH and JJJ to dole out to Wall Street via his developer buddies. When Garcetti was re-elected “The situation is particularly dire in Los Angeles. The metropolitan area witnessed a one-year increase of 11 percent, bringing its homeless population to 41,174 people . . .” (Sept 29, 2016 PUBLIC CEO, Homelessness in California by Cory Golden) Did anyone care? Apparently not. Garcettism continued as did the steady rise in homelessness.
One could opine that Matt Damon in Elysium (2013 produced, and directed by Neill Blomkamp) gave us a graphic warning where Hollywood and then where Los Angeles were headed. That was a major point in the SaveHywd’s and HELP’s 2012 lawsuit against Garcetti’s Hollywood Community Plan, i.e., the Hywd Plan’s lies and myths which were ruining Hollywood would extend to the entire city. Yet, Angelenos are as naively passive as ever. Presently, Hollywood is experiencing a sequel of the 2012 litigation. July 13, 2023, Déjà vu: Three Lawsuits Again Challenge The 2023 Hollywood Community Plan Update, by Dick Platkin
Let’s face reality, we cannot separate the corruptionism which has seized Los Angeles and the California courts for well over a decade from the Writers, SAG-AFTRA, and hotel workers strikes. Power corrupts, and corruption destroys, but Angelenos wallow in lies and myths even after we’ve passed the point of no return. The Millennials and Gen Zers are not returning nor are the employers who followed them out of state. They’ve got large detached homes with yards, a family dog or two, good schools, no traffic nightmares. Los Angeles offers them – eternal rentership, thereby sending more of their paychecks to Wall Street only to reach retirement with bupkis except more rent increases.
The Hollywood Woker-Developer Axis of Evil
Be careful for what you wish; you just might get it. Celebs love Wokeism. Jimmy Kimmel was thrilled to hobnob with Eric Garcetti, ignoring the thousands of homeless who were needlessly dying on LA streets. Oh, how the celebs loved to blame all the world’s evils on dead old white men, ignoring who wrote the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and the Federal Papers, intentionally laying a rock solid basis to end slavery. The Alt Right opposition to Wokiesm , however, is even worse, i.e. Ron DeSantis, the Catholic League, Marjorie Taylor Greene. But, that is the nature of polarization – the extremes seize control and shout down the moderates. Of course, the extreme right’s narrative is garbage, but that does not mean the Woker narrative was not a resurgence of the anti-Black racism of low expectations. Blacks and other minorities of color became pawns in a game where celebs could strut and preen their holy Wokeism. Meanwhile, the Woker-Developer alliance was destroying poor people’s homes as fast as possible, constructing high end apartments that no one wanted and shoving hundreds of billions of dollars into rapid mass transit. No matter how often it was proven that densification was killing Los Angeles, Hollywood celebs fell all over themselves to establish their street creds. June 29, 2023 Pulse explains why Multi-Unit Housing More Expensive, but lies and myths are stronger than facts and logic. When one can afford a $200 Million Malibu compound, it’s hard to understand the situation of a minimum wage worker’s plight when rents are $1,500 per month. Celebs will pay that much for a dinner. Contrary to Wokeism’s dogma, skin color does not confer wisdom. “Yeah but we earned it,” so sayeth Black billionaires and White billionaires. No, society is structured so that you won the rigged lottery.
Now, Hollywood’s writers and actors are living the dark underbelly of the Woker-Developer alliance. Ten to one, the writers’ and actors’ strikes will be settled with Wall Street’s eternal greed still in full control. Producers will replace writers by AI, while AI-generated likenesses will mouth the lines written by the AI-writers. The former writers and actors will find that they are screened out of Elysium. One errata in Elysium; it’s not set 2154, that’s LA in 2054.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a former attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. You may email him at [email protected])
