LESSONS OF THE HOUR

”It has shaken my faith in the nobility of the nation. I hope and trust all will come out right in the end but the immediate future looks dark and troubled. I cannot shut my eyes to the ugly facts before me. He is a wiser man than I am who can tell how low the moral sentiment of this republic may yet fall. When the moral sense of a nation begins to decline and the wheel of progress to roll backward, there’s no telling how low the one will fall or where the other may stop…”

-Frederick Douglass

In December of 2024, after the election I went to the AD/SM/PA Council meeting wrestling with a lot of what the quote above suggests. And this…

”The story of this country’s history is not one of ceaseless and upward progress. It is often one of long reversals.”

-Jamelle Bouie

So for the time being I waited until it seemed obvious as it always does that the time would present itself. I cannot ignore how corrupted society has become in almost every way, not the least of which is at the Guild. Too many people shun their responsibilities in the name of making a living. They ignore core principles and obligations to others that I’m sure makes it easier for them to sleep at night. Not me. I have risked everything to pursue truth and what’s right. I’ve been punished for this in what I can only describe as unthinkable behavior that is most certainly as unethical as anything I’ve known. And yet some are rewarded by this behavior. Others think they’ve been given the right to play god…

”The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”

-Albert Einstein

So, if you weren’t at the annual meeting here is what I said…

“My name is…

I’ve been a member of the DGA for 41 years. I was elected to the AD/SM/PA Council three times in the last 15 years. Last year I ran for U.S. Congress in the 32nd District. My website dougsmithforcongress.com is still up and running in case i decide to do so again…and in case you want to know a little more about me, and the issues we face in an increasingly troublesome and fraught world.

I decide to run because clearly we are facing existential risks to the environment, an unquenchable thirst and greed for money and power, as well as a horrifying technologic threat in Artificial Intelligence, that if not regulated accordingly can spell disaster for humanity, along with the democracy we have long embraced as the envy of the entire world.

The DGA has contracts with Fox Corp. and its affiliates that have pushed us to the brink of an American collapse. Apparently the DGA feels there is an acceptable price to pay for our society’s downfall.

During Covid, I think the DGA was on the side of big corporations in putting profit over people, as well.

The DGA selfishly settled contract disputes that left our sister unions to fend for themselves during the writer’s strike, betraying our ties to them and the industry on which we all rely.

Jimmy Kimmel joked on the Oscars in front of the largest television audience of the year that “We caved”. The DGA was made a laughing stock.

What’s worse is our pathetic attempt at remaining neutral in not endorsing the only party who supported Union labor and who wouldn’t burn down our country in order to rule over its ashes, in the last election.

What’s clear now is that in the history books, right next to the cowards in Congress who do nothing to fight for our country, we at the DGA will also be seen as cowards who failed to act in a time of crisis.

We failed. You failed! It is time for the Director’s Guild to act, to be leaders…or RESIGN.

I did not devote my entire career to the Guild to have it fall so miserably short on such an obvious and massive scale. I thought Directors had vision!

I hope you agree and act accordingly.

Thank you.”

Please share and go beyond.

Doug .