SEATTLE OF THE EAST MORE OF THE SAME, ONLY BETTER by Greg Coleridge Published April 19 - 25, 2000
Last weekend's activities in Washington, D.C., against the lending practices of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank were a curious mix of similarities and differences from last year's activities in Seattle concerning the meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Like in Seattle, the events in Washington, D.C., focused attention on the undemocratic international organizations supported by our tax dollars, which serve the interests of transnational corporations (TNCs) and a privileged few while largely ignoring the views and needs of poor, environmental, labor, religious and indigenous constituencies, especially in the underdeveloped world. Unlike Seattle, D.C. event organizers had a fairly easy time communicating their message to the mainstream corporate media. With almost no vandalism from those on the street in the district, the mainstream media couldn't fixate on a few window smashers, the public reaction to the window smashers, and the after-effects of the window smashing, as they did with the WTO meetings. Like in Seattle, the goal of the impressive and diverse speakers I heard at a teach-in and rally, and certainly of those on the streets, was not "reform" of these institutions. The goal was abolition and replacement. Unlike the WTO, which only has a five-year history, the IMF and World Bank have been around since 1944. They have had 55 years to "reform," yet poverty and inequality - both within participating developing nations and between participating developing nations, as well as overdeveloped nations - have increased. Like in Seattle, there were mass arrests of mostly young people engaging in nonviolent direct action. Unlike Seattle, massive chemical weapons were not fired at those risking arrest. The result in D.C. was twice the number of arrests, with an attendant greater opportunity, in the true spirit of civil disobedience, to use the legal system as a forum for education about and
resistance to the injustice and violence of the IMF and World Bank. Finally, like in Seattle, I felt the beginning of a real social movement. There is now a global social movement for justice, a sustained ability and desire to challenge corporate rule, comprised of people making issue connections and willing to take social risks, committed to structural change and in solidarity with those in other nations. This doesn't mean, however, that everyone should do the same thing everywhere. People in the U.S. have a critically important responsibility. Given that the U.S. has a disproportionate role in the IMF, World Bank and WTO in setting agendas, formulating proposals, and funding and awarding loans to other nations, such institutions or their replacements can only be as
authentically democratic as our own government. While it may seem logical to focus most of our energies on the next meeting of whatever international grouping is heading our way, we cannot ignore the threats of corporate power in our own land. Even if the WTO, IMF and World Bank evaporated tomorrow, U.S. citizens still face a daunting task to challenge and undo 225 years of constitutional protections against corporations, including the "rights" of corporations to dominate the public airwaves, contribute politically, and genetically modify life - all of which are defended under the 14th Amendment, and even by the Bill of Rights. Part of the citizen challenge to corporate rule must not be directed solely at international organizations that serve as corporate shields. It must also include challenging and reshaping the U.S. Constitution, federal and state regulatory agencies, state corporate codes, and individual corporate charters that currently shield corporate power. "Human rights not corporate rights" is a principle as appropriate in Cleveland, Ohio, as it is at any event in Seattle or Washington, D.C.
Greg Coleridge was in Seattle participating in demonstrations last November, and in D.C. this past weekend.
Doug Henwood wrote:
> Brad De Long wrote:
>
> >And the real puzzle is why the "left" is for the abolition
> >of--imperfect--institutions of collective self-management
> >responsible to democratically-elected governments
>
> The IMF is responsible mainly to the U.S. Treasury, and to a much
> lesser extent the EU and an even lesser extent Japan. That's what,
> 15-20% of the world's population? The other 80-85% are merely
> dictated to. And I won't even bring up the lack of accountability on
> the Treasury's part to the U.S. population.
>
> Doug
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