The Robert E. Lee syndrome: the romantic idolization of the loser no matter the hopelessness or legitimacy of the cause the loser stood for.

A look at the Hollywood writers upcoming strike from a normal labor POV. The one thing everyone misses in all this posturing and preening from producers and writers, and something you couldn't know unless you attended meetings where everyone speaks their minds, is the remaining smoke from the Communist/anti-Communist brawls of the forties. This hangover is present in all labor management "negotiations" in all unions. There are a large number of writers (about 100) who just plain hate the studios and hate the economic system of this country--same in the UAW, UMW and all other unions. This large minority in the Writers Guild are vocal and articulate; they couch their opinions in carefully constructed arguments that have a lot of emotional appeal to an educated (some say over educated) membership ridden by guilt either by the money they make compared with downtrodden working people they pretend to speak for or by their failure to stand up to the Capitalist pigs.

They need a strike to feel good about themselves. Going down in flames when the membership finally agrees to settle is a big win for them. I call it the Robert E. Lee syndrome: the romantic idolization of the loser no matter the hopelessness or legitimacy of the cause the loser stood for. This strike stuff is always emotional, never logical, although all pretend to have logic on their side. I can't remember all the strikes I've been a part of in my lifetime (Teamsters, Actors, Clerks) but at the top of the list of reasons for almost all of them is "balls," as in "we'll show them who has the balls." Make no mistake, even the women are macho (perhaps more if you remember women like Lillian Hellman and Josephine Herbst) and consider losing a strike as akin to losing their lives. The suits not showing up for negotiations just adds the fuel of frustration to the "balls" people. For any strike to end the situation has to be castrated or neutered so that the rage of the castratos can be silenced.

This over publicized labor dispute is just like all of them. The conclusion has already been assured, the problem now is to bank the fires of anger for another few years. So they will all Robert E Lee it or Rosenberg it til the ends of their lives.