More on the coalition being formed in the Battle of Seattle:
The Battle In Seattle
From the Frontline
December 3, 1999
It will take some time to tally up the results of the "Battle of Seattle"
but there is no doubt the globalists are running scared. Before Seattle
they were smug: the op-ed columnists in the Times and Wall Street Journal
talked about WTO and NAFTA foes with the patronizing tones reserved for
folks trying to use hand looms long after it was established cotton could
be spun with electric power. "Luddites", members of a left-right
"Halloween coalition," -- so the epithets ran.
Americans understand, so the globalists claimed, that consumer choice is
king; that the China market is huge. The unspoken corollary was that one
day the United States would import ALL its manufactured goods from the
likes of China and El Salvador. Only fools, those who refused to
listen, couldn't understand that.
But a couple of days of trade bureaucrats needing squads of cops in full
riot gear to escort them to and from their hotels, and the globalist
nation-breakers are a little less arrogant. President Clinton, nothing if
not attuned to the political breezes of the moment, arrived in Seattle and
suddenly began talking how the WTO should put labor standards on the
agenda.
Labor standards. Imagine that. A two-term Democrat who has always
received the major union endorsements, who has made very effective use of
union soft money political advertising, just now claims to have discovered
that one his core constituencies might have legitimate interests at stake
in the trade negotiations
But as soon as talk of labor rights and standards crossed his lips,
Clinton's buddies at the WTO rebuffed him. No question of it. Clinton,
they sniffed, was trying to appease a domestic constituency. But the WTO
wouldn't have it. Speaking out against child labor in the global trade
talks was a definite no-no. Labor standards would "discriminate" against
the "developing" countries.
Happily the WTO doesn't - yet - have the last word here.
A formidable coalition against it is now forming; nay, it already exists.
It has passion on its side as well as reason. It includes
environmentalists, important groups like Friends of the Earth, and the
thousands of folks who marched on Monday in sea turtle outfits. (The WTO
had declared American laws against fishing techniques that killed sea
turtles illegal.) Its backbone is union members, who want keep decent jobs
that provide decent benefits for themselves and hope their kids can have
them too. It includes folks like Ralph Nader, a veteran activist, a
fertile political mind. And of course it includes economic nationalists,
people like Pat Buchanan who put America first without apology. Buchanan
is the sole presidential candidate who opposes the WTO and probably the
only one who had given the organization more than passing thought before
this week.
The globalists fear this coalition, and now so much more than they did
last Monday. Washington is so thick with lobbyists, politicians could
delude themselves that only the folks who can fund campaigns with big soft
money really count. But in a democracy, the soft money folks can be
overwhelmed -- and that may be what's beginning. Millions of American
recognize - even if they aren't union members or working class that
America is a better place because workers can earn good wages, have access
to health insurance, hold jobs on which they can support their families.
You don't need a personal connection with Teamsters or steelworkers to
realize this, just some common sense.
After Seattle, the nation's politics seem pregnant with possibility. The
elite consensus which wants Americans to buy and consume and not think too
much about important questions looks suddenly shaky. Other issues may
emerge as well. Perhaps immigration - where most Americans want a
slowdown, and the Congress doesn't listen to them. Perhaps an hyper
active foreign interventions supported by both Republican and Democratic
elites, the folks who think American can solve every problem with force,
or those who yearn for a new Cold War. Here, the elite hold on public
opinion is even more tenuous than it is on trade.
After Seattle, it looks like real democracy may be starting up again.
Scott McConnell |
