FW: On Seattle

[James Baird]

A good piece by columnist Jon Carrol in today's SF Chronicle:



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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