Five Before Chaos

Some of you who follow politics are probably familiar with journalist Matt Taibbi, whose gonzo journalism I admire quite a bit. I’ve written before about his takedowns of 9-11 conspiracy theorists and John McCain. Now, although I’m not following the WGA strike as much as others do, I’m a pretty strong supporter of the labor movement. So, naturally, I was a bit bugged by the news that Taibbi’s crossed the picket line to appear on the Colbert Report. From Scholars and Rogues:

For Taibbi, a guy who has made his career slaughtering sacred cows and speaking truth to power, to cross the line is a serious jab in the eye to the writers and their supporters. It doesn’t bother me if some no-name actor or D-list celeb does it, because these people are about nothing but promoting themselves and hawking whatever crappy movie they’ve got going anyway. But someone like Taibbi should know better. He may not care about it, but to every writer that’s refusing to play the game any longer and doesn’t have the spotlight like he does, his appearances say “Yeah, I don’t give a fuck about you and what you’re doing. I got mine, and that’s all I care about.”

Harsh, indeed, and perhaps it’s not as big of a deal as S & R makes it out to be to some, but it bothers me a little. But you know, there was something in the comments of that post that was quite spot-on:

Dear Entertainment Writers on Strike: Recently returned to so-called civilization from the canyons of Utah, I had the opportunity, after long hiatus, to enjoy the product of some of your writing as it gets shoveled into the American maw via television (no TV in my house). What a feat, this writing. It evidenced so much that was stale, false, crass, violent, foolish, salacious, gimmicky, irrelevant, sycophantic, complacent, compliant -it was, in short, the perfect distraction in a dying republic fast on its way to tyranny, the gift that keeps on giving to a government that would hope to turn the screw on free-thinking citizens. In other words, writers-you keep on striking!

Behold: The entertainment will grow cold and grey as the corpse that it already is, with no new cadavers to puppeteer for the newness of each season, where nothing is as new as the recycled dead from the last season. Like Plato’s chained slaves in the cave of shadows, let the viewers wake up, walk into the light, starved for reality-oh writers, let no new entertainments issue from your minds! You may just save the Republic.

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