Ok, I was pretty self involved in my last post about the writer's strike, I'll admit freely. I knew it at the time but I couldn't help but be excited about my first time off in years and starting a whole new path afterwards.

And while I am NOT an member of the WGA, I am a writer and have been all my life. So I have to say I agree with the primary reason for this disagreement, which is producers making money off of writer's work in new mediums but not wanting to share in that new source of passive income. Bullshit, I say and typical of corporate America. I applauded the writers for taking a stand and insisting that they get their fair share since that passive income would not exist without their product.

But I also work (right now) in the industry; literally, in the thick of it, on a TV show that is currently filming its last episode until the strike ends. That means that as of next Wednesday, whether I was leaving or not, we'd be laid off. On an intellectual level I understood that this strike meant tons of collateral damage in the form of innocent bystanders like staff and crew being laid off, right at the holiday season. It's one thing to hear that and know it as a concept; it's a whole other matter to work and live through this, seeing people with families who are paycheck to paycheck looking at a giant void of the unknown about how they will support their families for however long this continues.

While my coworkers are all consumate professionals, there's an undercurrent of fear that I cannot help being touched by and now the full scope of this situation is clicking into a concrete opinion.

A neighbor recently asked, posing a purely neutral question for debate, "who do the writers think they are, striking like this?" And he meant that the broad spectrum effect of their actions are punishing the wrong people, people who make far less than they do and/or who have NO say in who gets what residuals. I even heard fear in the voice of my landlord, who pointed out that because our property is so close to the studios, she was worried about their business as well. This afternoon I went into a fabulous mom and pop shop for flowers, it's right around the corner from Warner Bros., and was completely enchanted with both the woman I met and the shop itself but she too was expressing consternation about the effect that this strike was having on their lives.

The damage is so far reaching and upsetting because the people it hurts the most are the ones who have done no harm to the writers at all. Sadly, the only way for the WGA to be taken seriously and get what they is to hit the Hollywood bigwigs where they live; right in their wallets. But it takes time and a lot of damage to hardworking, wonderful people before that even begins to get their attention.

And now, I've come to the conclusion that I just can't support it because it's lacking in vision and compassion. As to the question of what else they could do to get their demands met, I honestly don't know...but I'm going to quote Spock here people, cause he'd often spout wisdom; "The needs of the MANY outweigh the needs of the FEW, or the one."

Amen, brothers and sisters. Stand up for yourselves, yes...but not at the expense of thousands of others who have done you no harm. I have to wonder how this karmically effects them all later on.

That's just where my heart is with all of this right now. I look around, and I don't like what I see.