Nikki Finke, finally ending her six or so weeks of steady pimping for WGA in the Writers strike, seems to sense that both she and the writers are full of that brown stuff that clouds men's minds so they cannot see.

I predicted from the very beginning here that WGA, with all their Ph.D. members, aren’t smart enough to correctly analyze the current corporate structure. That is because WGA is being run by a “hate capitalist” segment of the union which is bound and determined to show their collective “manhood” in the face of facts. This is not new. The Guild has always had a huge left communist type of membership which is able to get everybody else in the union so angry that they just lash out every ten or so years. So the union dopes do a seppuku just to prove how awful the management is and how “honorable” the Holy and Sacred Order of Screen Writers is.

This was always a strike against multi-national conglomerates with invisible heads, not against the parasitic studio heads, something the WGA genius class couldn't see. There is no way to strike multi-nationals. Not only are they concentrated capital structures located somewhere between Moscow and New York, they are at the same time spread out through 30 or more “hedged” corporations that are also located in any one of forty or so countries. This means one or two of the subs can actually have zero income but the overall multi-national isn’t hurt at all. This strike is a moronic 1930s communist labor action against “The Invisible Man,” it's obvious that the unhittable Invisible One wins. It was obvious from day one that the writers and studios were determined to produce money losing “hate America” movies no matter what the box office returns turned out to be. It has been clear that the actors, acting through their greedy agents, have been robbing studio revenue by getting a piece of the box office gross; meaning that studio profits are cut off at the pass. This studio contractual incompetence was never dealt with directly by their controlling entities because that is not how the MBA staffed multi-nationals ever operate. They just bide their time til they can either divest themselves of their non-performing assets at a profit or “restructure” them. The WGA has forced the hand that was going to be played anyway. There is no way any business is going to allow a money losing entity to last for very long.

So this stupid “strike” always threatened the status quo, one that particularly includes the agencies representing all “talent.” The agents are a force that has resulted in the multi-million dollar agencies (in a peculiar twist, these agencies might be a part of the same multi-national), units that perform absolutely no artistic function. They are but parasitic leeches sapping the life out of the entire movie/TV business dictating contract terms (that are "oh, by the way") favorable to the agencies. The WGA also wants to force writers already members of IATSE to join and pay dues to WGA; this without the inconvenience of a NLRB sanctioned and supervised vote of the already unionized writers who may not want to join.

The WGA has a clause in their “list of demands” that includes control of scripts. This is encapsulated in the demand that The Writers Guild have “oversight of the fair-market value of intracompany transactions that might affect writer pay.” Besides the obvious subjective definition of words like “fair market value”or “intracompany transactions that might affect writer pay” this is an effort by hard line leftists to control all scripts and all content. Any and every excuse to shut down production over “transactions that might affect writer pay” will mean that the unions control the company. No real business will ever sign anything like that.

The only question is whether the corporate honchos really want to destroy the unions or just make them behave like “good doggies.” My bet is the “good doggy” one.

BUT first comes both the Actors Guild and the Directors Guild, each of which will make brave sounding noises but will actually take their cues from the current "action." Most probably they are reading the writing on the walls.

"Stay doggy. Stay. Good doggy."

Late add: a commenter over at Libertas expands on this post by pointing out that the Nets have already "outsourced" scripts to foreign countries and employed foreign actors who have perfect American accents, both skills hired at very cheap wages.