> Dennis Claxton wrote:
>>> I don't believe any of that, and really hope the writers win - but
>>> what would the upshot be for the broader class struggle?
>>>
>>> Doug
>>>
>>
>>
>> More writing about class struggle in popular shows?
>
>
> I don't recall that happening after the last writers strike and doubt it
> would be a result of this one either.
==================================
Workers commonly regard their own strikes as justified while viewing
others - of which they lack direct knowledge - through the hostile lens of
the commercial media. So unless strikes are part of a more general wave of
labour unrest, as in the 30s, they rarely lead by themselves to an increase
in sustained class consciousness.
That having been said, small militant strikes in offbeat sectors can be a harbinger of things to come. The militant but defensive and ultimately unsuccessful PATCO strike was the beginning of a long period of conservative reaction and labour retreat. The writers' strike is an effort to make pay and organizing gains from the broadband revolution at a time when the political pendulum may be swinging back in the opposite direction. Madison Avenue's nostalgia for the 60s may be another cultural straw in the wind:
The '60s as the Good Old Days By STUART ELLIOTT New York Times December 10, 2007
IF you remember the '60s, as a popular saying goes, you probably weren't there. No matter. Madison Avenue is taking you back with a skein of campaigns celebrating sights and sounds of the decade.
The ads are filled with images like Volkswagen buses festooned with groovy graffiti, daisies and other power flowers, peace signs, psychedelic drawings in DayGlo colors and hair, long beautiful hair, shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen (to quote a lyric from the era).
Music, too, is being used to invoke the 1960s. Commercials on television, radio and the Internet play tunes like "Daydream" by the Lovin' Spoonful (1966), "Gimme Some Lovin' " by the Spencer Davis Group (1967) and "On the Road Again" by Canned Heat (1968).
Full: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/business/media/10adcol.html?pagewanted=print