ARNOLD GETS HIS SCRIPT REWRITTEN

By: Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

Last week I commented about Der Governator, that he's only The Hero when the script is written that way. The news is out that there?s a new draft of the movie "Der Governator Reforms California."

This draft of the script has Der Governator's parties being crashed by opponents, forcing Ahnuld The Hero to alter his schedule and duck into his events through the back door, at locations from California to New York City to Washington D.C. He's getting testy with this opposition - A-listers like him aren't supposed to deal with the "below-the-line" folks. (For those not in the know, that?s a Hollywood term for those whose names appear in the credits "below the title", in other words, all the hard workers without whom the movie doesn't get made.)

When he appeared at "21" in New York to meet his $22,300-a-person out-of-state supporters for his "local" reforms here in Kahleeforneeah, Arnold found himself slipping inside through the service entrance while Governor Pataki went in through the front door, to avoid fire-fighters, policemen and nurses yelling "Screw Arnold!" outside.

Inside, San Jose firefighter Jeremy Ray, secretary of Santa Clara Firefighters Local 1171 had reserved a table for dinner. Once there, he slipped in to Big Boy's reception on the floor above and confronted Der Governator over his "reform" of the state retirement system, turning it into a Wall Street-run 401(k) system that the California Attorney General has said will deny pensions to the widows and children of firefighters and policemen who die in the line of duty. According to Ray, "He said 'I'm a friend of the firefighters and would never take anything away from them.' I said 'No, you're not a friend to us, sir. And what you're doing is wrong.'" The NYPD was called to remove the "unruly extra" from Arnold's set. As Ray remembered, "while I was being led away, one of the officers introduced himself and said 'God bless you, brother, we're on the same side. Thanks for doing what you did.'"

When Arnie showed up in Columbus Ohio over the weekend for his Arnold Classic bodybuilding competition, nurses from California marched outside, providing information to passers-by about Der Governator's move to sidestep a state law requiring sufficient hospital nurse staffing to provide proper care for patients.

Arnold isn't used to this. For the past thirty-odd years, he's basked in the adoration of the crowd, whether it was at a Mr. Universe competition, a Hollywood blockbuster opening, or his campaign for Governor in 2003. While speaking before groups who make five-figure individual contributions to sit in the same room with him, he calls the nurses, firefighters and policemen picketing outside "special interests."

Still, 75 of them were waiting for him outside the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C., when he arrived for a "business roundtable" with national corporate donors for his "local" reforms. Der Governator's cavalcade drove up to the side of the building where he walked down a flight of stairs to an underground rear entrance. Still, he couldn?t avoid the demonstrators, who crowded around the stairwell chanting "Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Schwarzenegger's got to go!!"

Arnold Schwarzenegger is not a "new kind of Republican." He shills for the far right just like any other standard-issue Rightie. He's even been caught with his own "Karen Ryan" scandal. For those with short memories, "Karen Ryan" was the actress portraying a news reporter in the stealth campaign by the Department of Health and Human Services to promote Bush's Medicare prescription drug "reform" that was being hit in the "real" news. Here in California, Der Governator spent $1,262 of the taxpayers' money for a "video news release" that supports his proposal to wipe out mandatory meal breaks for hourly workers. An ex-reporter now working in Arnold's publicity office is heard over professionally-shot "B-roll" footage of men and women at work, saying "Many working Californians can benefit from the proposed regulations because the change provides real-life relief." With the text helpfully provided for the local anchor to open and close with, the unwary viewer might think they were watching an actual "news" report. This past Wednesday, it was revealed the Governor?s office has prepared other "video press releases" on the subject of nurse staffing ratios and public employee retirement. Unlike official press releases, however, neither of these have any statement on them that they come from the office of the Governor, either. What we have is more Republican lies, just like the President's.

The good news is, the California press is beginning to clear their heads of Der Governator's Cubano smokescreen and see him for the right-wing shill he is and always has been. The rest of the country needs to wake up to the truth of Arnold. Speaking to his corporate sponsors at "21", he said "As California goes, so goes the nation." He's right. George Bush?s campaign against Middle America?s greatest asset - Social Security - is only the first wave of a far right attempt to cosset the comfortable and roll back the rights won over the past 70 years by the rest of us who work for a living.