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Pastimes : No to WTO! Seattle 1999 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frederic Conrad who wrote (178)	12/29/1999 3:45:00 PM
From: Tom Clarke	Respond to of 187

No Globalization Without Representation By Dr. Lenora Fulani "The hour of destruction, or manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny, stares you in the face. Every friend to his country, to himself and posterity...is now called upon...to make a united and successful resistance to this last, worst and most destructive measure of administration." Is this a leaflet for the protests at last week's meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle? No. It's a leaflet for a 1773 town meeting in Boston to protest the passage of the Tea Act by England's Parliament. But the 226 years between the Seattle and Boston protests notwithstanding, the two events have some interesting things in common. The British East India Company, which dominated the late 18th century tea trade in Asia, was on the verge of collapse. Its warehouses along the Thames were hugely overstocked with unsold tea. It was time for a "bailout"-1770's style. East India was awarded a monopoly in the American colonies and a deal in which the British government would refund to it the import duties collected upon arrival of the tea in England from Asia. A duty tax on the colonies was imposed by the Tea Act of 1773, but since the price of East India's tea would drop due to the refund, it would be cheaper than the Dutch tea it competed against. Thus, the British expected that America would relinquish protests about taxation without representation because the people were getting a good buy. Parliament believed it could thus secure its authority to tax the colonies-something the colonists had been resisting for over ten years-and save Britain's control over the international tea trade in the process. However, Parliament was wrong. The colonists recognized the ploy for what it was-an effort to bribe them into complying with an unconstitutional tax, into forfeiting their political interests in exchange for cheap consumer goods. When three British ships carrying 45 tons of tea landed at Griffin's Wharf in Boston Harbor, a group of some 200 patriots, disguised as Mohawk Indians, dumped the tea into the harbor. The British called the Boston Tea Party an insurrection and closed the port of Boston, abrogated the Massachusetts Charter, installed a military governor, and completely usurped the colony's democratic institutions. In response to this and other parliamentary acts which imposed England's authoritarian will on the colonies, the Committees of Correspondence were formed, which soon convened the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1774. The solidarity there was remarkable. Patrick Henry said it most eloquently: "All America is thrown into one mass. Where are your landmarks-your boundaries of colonies? They are all thrown down. The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American." Less than two years later, the Declaration of Independence was drafted and signed. The war to establish the democratic governance of America of, by and for the people, had begun. The Battle in Seattle was not exactly a tea party. And today's global trading realities are a lot more complex than the days when the British East India Company controlled the tea trade. But the principle that the terms of U.S. participation in the world marketplace-as both consumers and producers-must be determined democratically by the American people is still at issue. It is that principle that Americans are rising to defend-including those in the streets of Seattle, in the communities of color (amongst the hardest hit by the erosion of our manufacturing base); including environmentalists, trade unionists and economic nationalists. Cheap consumer goods, the "bribe" of the new millennium, won't make up for the declining quality of U.S. jobs, the vast discrepancies in the distribution of wealth, the destruction of the global environment, the undermining of our sovereignty and human rights violations overseas. The anti-WTO movement is a movement that throws down the boundaries depicted by Patrick Henry two centuries ago. This time, the boundaries are less geographic and more ideological. And it is this coming together of left, center and right-the creation of "one mass" -that seriously threatens the bipartisan elite. That is one reason why my Reform Party alliance with Pat Buchanan, a left/right coalition opposed to economic policies that favor transnational special interests, has caused such a furor. Does Seattle signal the coming of a new American revolution against postmodern tyranny and for a radically restructured and reformed democratic process? Only if the American people are ready to dump the two parties and rebel against the labor, left and environmental bureaucrats who tell them to vote for the Democrats in spite of their support for the WTO and like-minded trade policies. That's what the Reform Party is all about. And that's what its political reform agenda is all about-giving the American people the power to determine our trade policy by restoring our control over our own government through instituting process reforms like term limits, initiative and referenda, same day voter registration and campaign finance restructuring. The revolutionists tossed the tea into the harbor rather than be subject to taxation without representation. But it wasn't about the tea or about the tax. It was about the process by which the tea was taxed. We fought a war to guarantee that the process by which commerce and society overall were governed would be democratic and self-determined. And there are battles yet to be won. Today the usurpers of democracy and self-determination are not the British Crown and Parliament, but Bill Clinton and Al Gore, Trent Lott and George W. Bush-the Democrats and the Republicans who would have the WTO and its unelected representatives of multinational capital set the terms for our economic endeavors. If the battle cry of the 1770's was "No Taxation Without Representation," then the battle cry of the new millennium may be "No Globalization Without Representation." And America is going to have to declare its political independence from the two parties to make it stick. -30- Lenora B. Fulani twice ran for President of the U.S. as an independent, making history in 1988 when she became the first woman and African American to get on the ballot in all fifty states. Dr. Fulani is currently a leading activist in the Reform Party and chairs the Committee for a Unified Independent Party. She can be reached at 800-288-3201 or at fulani.org. 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