Oh, to Be In Seattle!
JON CARROLL Thursday, December 2, 1999
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OUTRAGE IS BEING expressed in many quarters about the events in Seattle surrounding the grand opening of the Millennial Conference of the World Trade Organization. Some people are outraged by the protests, some by the vandalism that accompanied the protests, some by the actions of the police, some by the conference itself, its intentions or its secretiveness or its apparent slavish desire to please multinational corporations no matter what.
I am not outraged. I am pleased by the entire thing. I think it's a fine warm day for democracy.
I think international trade is a good thing, a means of competition that does not involve killing people. The more economically intertwined we are, the less likely we will be to bomb each other. Say what you want about the multinationals, they do like peace. Peace is good for business.
(One advantage of the digital revolution -- a smaller role for arms merchants. Everyone follows the money; if less of the pie is in guns and bombs, there will be a greater push toward peace with profits.)
And I am delighted to see demonstrators back on the street. I am delighted to see civil disobedience being practiced. Civil disobedience is an honorable way for less powerful people to make their voices heard.
I am delighted that trade policy is attracting the attention. That would have been unthinkable even five years ago. It's a mark that we have internalized the globalization of everything; it is a mark that we understand where the power really is. Locating the power is always important.
THE MESSAGE OF the protesters is pretty muddled, but that's only because trade policy touches every aspect of life. China Out of Tibet, Stop Killing Turtles, Child Labor Must Go, Fairness for the American Farmer, Save Our Jobs, Boycott Burma -- you name it.
But everyone's skills are rusty; I think these groups need to haul some old lefties out of their nooks and ask them how to go about staying on message while slumping in the streets. Full employment for aging Marxists! Elderly SNCC workers -- your talents are needed!
Many of these issues, after all, involve something very like workers seizing the means of production -- or at least influencing the rules of production. Dialecticians, your time has returned! Let's set up www.cell meeting.com and go to it.
It has always been an inevitable side effect of civil disobedience that looters will take advantage of the chaos. This is regrettable, but 8-year-olds on production lines in Bangladesh are regrettable too, and mass repression of religious freedom in China, and toxic dumping in Third World countries. Besides, it's the '90s -- everyone is insured, and everyone can sue. We're fine!
THE POLICE DID what they were supposed to do. Civil disobedience aims to disrupt the flow of daily life; police are supposed to maintain order. It's a dance, and both sides understand the rules. I'm sure some cops got overzealous, but that's as predictable as unaffiliated vandals. See previous paragraph for things more worrisome than enthusiastic law enforcement officers in the Pacific Northwest.
I think political engagement is a good thing. It's interesting to see environmentalists and labor unions marching in the same parade, after years of the latter accusing the former of being unconcerned with jobs.
The outcome of the trade talks will satisfy no one. That too is just the way it should be. We are very new at this globalization thing; we can't even really agree on an agenda. It's going to be a long time before First World pieties are accepted in Third World economies. Moral imperatives versus cultural relativism -- maybe there will be more jobs for anthropologists, too.
But it's starting. The smell of money and blood is in the air; people are finding channels for their feelings of powerlessness. No one is in control. Let's get ready to rock and roll. Now that the Second World is gone, does the Third World move up a notch?
There's a man with a gun over there, tellin' me I got to be jrc at sfgate.com.
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