BRIDGET JOHNSON: Anti-Capitalist A-Team
BY BRIDGET JOHNSON
November 11, 2005
Somewhere in the world, I am convinced, there is a commune that keeps a collection of anti-globalization protesters at hand. Ready to go and battle capitalist imperialists at a moment's notice -- Genoa, Seattle, London -- like an anarchist "A-Team," this far-left brigade comes prepared with face-obscuring hoods and sturdy boots suitable for kicking in any pane of glass. Complete with seething anger and unbridled angst, their far-reaching hatred makes them a most versatile squad.
Try not to notice that, as they decry free trade as being pro-corporation and hurting mom-and-pop businesses, they're smashing in the windows of small and large businesses alike. And this crack super-leftist destruction squad can sniff the wind to find any G8 summit or meetings of the World Trade Organization, World Bank or International Monetary Fund.
Yes, anywhere rich capitalist despots are (allegedly) conspiring to rip off the world's poor people, these globally conscious protesters can be found hurling Molotov cocktails through hapless neighborhoods. Setting bonfires, smashing windows, slingshotting rocks -- no uncivil disobedience job is too big.
Last week Friday was a perfect time to shoot a "Far-Left Gone Wild" video. At the Summit of the Americas, the rank-and-file globalization foes tore up the streets of Mar del Plata, Argentina, in the name of global justice and betterment of humanity. And, of course, to join in the ubiquitous Bush bash.
Even soccer star Diego Maradona showed up for the Argentinian Bush-bash fest helmed by Venezuelan President and Che wannabe Hugo Chavez. Bush "doesn't value us. He steps on us. And yet we have to be at his feet," Maradona was quoted by Democracy Now!, which covered the counter "People's Summit."
Bush has undoubtedly become the favored whipping boy of political agitators the world 'round. It's like seven degrees of Bush -- if you're angry enough and inspired enough, surely you can come up with a theory that traces your woes back to the U.S. president. Doesn't matter where you live, doesn't matter what you do. Doesn't matter if you're illegally deforesting Malawi to feed your family, Bush surely carries some blame. Suicide bomber? Bush's policies drove him to do it.
The president just can't win: In Europe he's called a neocon, while Chavez and South American cohorts call him a neoliberal. But the anti-globalization movement has found in George W. Bush a poster child of sorts -- he has finally given their movement a tangible target, a face for their ideological dartboard.
The real left-wing hero of the Mar del Plata protests was their celeb cheerleader Chavez, who still claims we're planning to invade his Bolivarian playground. His aim of the summit, in addition to getting lots of free press, was to "bury" the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposal -- and promote his own South American trade bloc plan.
Bush struck back ably at Chavez on Sunday: "Ensuring social justice for the Americas requires choosing between two competing visions. One offers a vision of hope" and the "other seeks to roll back the democratic process of the past two decades by playing to fear, pitting neighbor against neighbor and blaming others for their own failure to provide for their people." Smackdown!
No such logic will appeal to that protesting bloc. The anti-globalization demonstrators aim to shut down these summits and financial meetings with rioting and blockades. Yet the only entity they end up wounding are the municipalities that are taxed by public-safety costs and damages to public and private property. One of the storefronts with a smashed-in window in Argentina was a pastry shop, no doubt a cover for some cream-filled capitalist conspiracy.
As long as Anarchy-R-Us continues to be a staple of the anti-trade movement, these pop-up protests will only be seen as the reactionary tool of an unreasonable rabble. No one's going to hear your trade argument over the sound of breaking glass. Assuming you have a viable argument, of course. |
