-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- You may know of John Hammell. He is a tireless activist, dedicated to Freedom of Choice in personal health - vitamins, herbs, supplements - which are threatened by the global elite, who seem to need to keep "the proles" in a state of marginal health. ----- Original Message ----- From: John Hammell To: Fred & Tricia Andrews Sent: 15 January, 2000 4:22 AM Subject: Re: On WTO Resistance. SUPERB! IAHF Webmaster: Put my comments and the excellent article below them about what really happened in Seattle in the anti WTO section of the IAHF website, and if that section doesn't exist yet, please create it! IAHF LIST: As one of the demonstrators in Seattle, I concur whole heartedly with Tricia's assessment of the beautifully written article below. It is long, but well worth the time to read. We are presently living under the 4th Reich. Move over,Hitler and Mussolini- now we're saddled with Michael Moore (the unelected whore in charge of the WTO)/Clinton and Albright- globalist stooges to the drug cartel who are trying to destroy America, and all the sovereign nations of the world! Vitamin/herb consumers of the world unite! If you don't yet own a gas mask, you need one! They are available from Centerfire Systems in Kentucky- toll free directory assistance for number. When I was in Seattle, I wore mine the whole time and had a knapsack full of extra filters. The Nazi swine who assaulted us with chemical warfare made it an alleged "felony" to possess a gasmask in Seattle. (Sick, eh?) Nichole Hastings of NPICenter.com, why do you back the jack booted Nazi swine who defend the multinational criminals? Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact that you are being funded by Warner Lambert? Wake up, Nichole! By accepting funds from Warner, you are helping to slit the throat of the dietary supplement industry! Have you no conscience? "Software Problem" Nichole? The Lord works in Mysterious ways... To learn the truth about the CODEX international threat to health freedom, see the Codex Oversight Section of the IAHF Website, http://www.iahf.com You sure won't learn the truth from NPICenter.com,CRN,NNFA, or so called CfH! BEAT BACK// THE CORPORATE ATTACK!//GOTTA BEAT-BEAT BACK//THE CORPORATE ATTACK!! BEAT//BACK THE CORPORATE ATTACK!//GOTTA BEAT-BEAT BACK//THE CORPORATE ATTACK!! THE PEOPLE! UNITED! WILL NEVER BE DIVIDED! THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DIVIDED!! At 09:03 PM 1/14/2000 -0800, you wrote: >>>> This is provocative, very deep, worth taking the time to read every word! Think on it; absorb it; remember it. This message should be about our future. The WTO should NOT! Tricia -------- Original Message -------- From: sasha <<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Fw: Paul Hawken on WTO resistance - superb! <long> To: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | <http://www.co-intelligence.org/WTOHawken.html>http://www.co-intelligence.or g/WTOHawken.html | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | | Introduction by Tom Atlee: "Paul Hawken (leading | environmental businessman and new-economic theorist) | has come up with a stunning WTO story, integrating the | scene on the street with the issues in question, moving | to a very dramatic conclusion. Spread it around." | | | THE WTO: INSIDE, OUTSIDE, ALL AROUND THE WORLD | | by Paul Hawken, Sausalito, January 6, 2000 | | When I was able to open my eyes, I saw lying next to me | a young man, 19, maybe 20 at the oldest. He was in | shock, twitching and shivering uncontrollably from | being tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed at close range. | His burned eyes were tightly closed, and he was panting | irregularly. Then he passed out. He went from | excruciating pain to unconsciousness on a sidewalk wet | from the water that a medic had poured over him to | flush his eyes -- like a young boy in bed. | | This is what I remember about the violence. There was | almost none until police attacked demonstrators that | Tuesday in Seattle. Michael Meacher, environment | minister of the United Kingdom, said afterward, "What | we hadn't reckoned with was the Seattle Police | Department who single-handedly managed to turn a | peaceful protest into a riot." There was no police | restraint, despite what Mayor Paul Schell kept proudly | assuring television viewers all day. Instead, there | were rubber bullets, which Schell kept denying all day. | In the end, more copy and video was given to broken | windows than broken teeth. | | As I tried to find my way down Sixth Street after the | tear gas and pepper spray, I couldn't see. Anita | Roddick found and guided me. When your eyes fail, your | ears take over. I could hear acutely. What I heard was | anger, dismay, shock. For many people, including the | police, this was their first direct action. | Demonstrators who had taken non-violent training were | astonished at the police brutality. I heard young | voices, incredulous, stunned. The demonstrators were | students, their professors, clergy, lawyers, and | medical personnel. They held signs against Burma and | violence. They dressed as butterflies. | | More than 1,500 non-governmental organizations | registered with the World Trade Organization. More than | 700 organizations and between 40,000 and 60,000 people | took part in the protests. These groups and citizens | sense a cascading loss of human and labor rights in the | world. Seattle was not the beginning but simply the | most striking expression of citizens struggling against | a worldwide corporate-financed oligarchy -- in effect, | a plutocracy. Oligarchy and plutocracy are not polite | terms. They often are used to describe "other" | countries where a small group of wealthy people rule, | but not the "first world" -- the United States, Japan, | Germany, or Canada. The World Trade Organization, | however, is trying to cement into place that corporate | plutocracy. Already, the world's top 200 companies have | twice the assets of 80 percent of the world's people. | And this polarization and concentration of wealth is | increasing. Global corporations represent a new empire | whether they are aware of it or not. With massive | amounts of capital at their disposal, any of which can | be used to influence politicians and the public as and | when deemed necessary, they threaten and diminish all | democratic institutions are diminished and at risk. | Corporate free market policies subvert culture and | community, a true tyranny. The American Revolution | occurred because of crown-chartered corporate abuse, a | "remote tyranny" in Thomas Jefferson's words. To see | Seattle as a singular event, as did most of the media, | is to look at the battles of Concord and Lexington as | meaningless skirmishes. | | But the mainstream media, consistently problematic in | their coverage of any type of protest, had an even more | difficult time understanding and covering both the | issues and activists in Seattle. No charismatic leader | led. No religious figure engaged in direct action. No | movie stars starred. There was no alpha group. The | Ruckus Society, Rainforest Action Network, Global | Exchange, and hundreds more were there, coordinated | primarily by cell phones, emails, and the Direct Action | Network. They were up against the Seattle Police | Department, the Secret Service, and the FBI -- to say | nothing of the media coverage and the WTO itself. | | Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and author of | an elegy to globalization entitled "The Lexus and the | Olive Tree," angrily wrote that the demonstrators were | "a Noah's ark of flat-earth advocates, protectionist | trade unions and yuppies looking for their 1960s fix." | Not so. They were organized, educated, and determined. | They were human rights activists, labor activists, | indigenous people, people of faith, steel workers, and | farmers. They were forest activists, environmentalists, | social justice workers, students, and teachers. And | they wanted the World Trade Organization to listen. | They were speaking on behalf of a world that has not | been made better by globalization. Income disparity is | growing rapidly. The difference between the top and | bottom quintiles has doubled in the past 30 years. | Eighty-six percent of the world's goods go to the top | 20 percent, the bottom fifth get 1 percent. The | apologists for globalization cannot support their | contention that open borders, reduced tariffs, and | forced trade benefit the poorest three billion people | in the world. Globalization does, however, create the | concentrations of capital seen in northern financial | and industrial centers -- indeed, the wealth in Seattle | itself. Since the people promoting globalized free | trade policies live in those cities, it is natural that | they should be biased. Despite Friedman's invective | about "the circus in Seattle," the demonstrators and | activists who showed up there are not against trade. | They do demand proof that shows when and how trade -- | as the WTO constructs it -- benefits workers and | producers abroad, as well as workers in developing | nations. And that proof is simply non-existent. | ______________________ | | Earlier that day, November 30, I had walked toward the | Convention Center with Randy Hayes, the founder of | Rainforest Action Network. As soon as we turned the | corner on First Street and Pike Avenue, we could hear | drums, chants, sirens, roars. As we approached Fifth, | police stopped us. We could go no farther without | credentials. Ahead of us were thousands of protesters. | Beyond them was a large cordon of gas-masked and | riot-shielded police, an armored personnel carrier, and | fire trucks. On one corner was Niketown. On the other, | the Sheraton Hotel, through which there was a passage | to the Convention Center. The cordon of police in front | of us tried to prevent more protestors from joining | those who blocked the entrances to the Convention | Center. Randy was a credentialed WTO delegate. He | showed his pass to the officer who thought it looked | like me. The officer joked with us, kidded Randy about | having my credential and then winked and let us both | through. The police were still relaxed at that point. | Ahead of us crowds were milling and moving. Anarchists | were there, maybe 40 in all, dressed in black pants, | black bandanas, black balaclavas, and jackboots, one of | two groups identifiable by costume. The other was a | group of 300 children who had dressed brightly as | turtles in the Sierra Club march the day before. The | costumes were part of a serious complaint against the | WTO. When the United States attempted to block imports | of shrimp caught in the same nets that capture and | drown 150,000 sea turtles each year, the WTO called the | block "arbitrary and unjustified." Thus far in every | environmental dispute that has come before the WTO, its | three-judge panels, which deliberate in secret, have | ruled for business, against the environment. The panel | members are selected from lawyers and officials who are | not educated in biology, the environment, social | issues, or anthropology. | | Opening ceremonies for the World Trade Organization's | Third Ministerial were to have been held that Tuesday | morning at the Paramount Theater near the Convention | Center. Police had ringed the theater with Metro buses | touching bumper to bumper. The protesters surrounded | the outside of that steel circle. Only a few hundred of | the 5,000 delegates made it inside, as police were | unable to provide safe corridors for members and | ambassadors. The theater was virtually empty when U.S. | trade representative and meeting co-chair Charlene | Barshevsky was to have delivered the opening keynote. | Instead, she was captive in her hotel room a block from | the meeting site. WTO Executive Director Michael Moore | was said to have been apoplectic. | | Mayor Paul Schell stood despondently near the stage. | Since no scheduled speakers were present, Kevin | Danaher, Medea Benjamin, and Juliet Hill from Global | Exchange went to the lectern and offered to begin a | dialogue in the meantime. The WTO had not been able to | come to a pre-meeting consensus on the draft agenda. | The NGO community, however, had drafted a consensus | agreement about globalization -- and the three thought | this would be a good time to present it, even if the | hall had only a desultory number of delegates. Although | the three were credentialed WTO delegates, the sound | system was quickly turned off and the police arm-locked | and handcuffed them. Medea's wrist was sprained. All | were dragged off stage and arrested. It mirrored how | the WTO has operated since its birth in 1995. Listening | to people is not its strong point. WTO rules runs | roughshod over local laws and regulations. It | relentlessly pursues the elimination of any strictures | on the free flow of trade, including how a product is | made, by whom it is made, or what happens when it is | made. By doing so, the WTO is eliminating the ability | of countries and regions to set standards, to express | values, or to determine what they do or don't support. | Child labor, prison labor, forced labor, substandard | wages and working conditions cannot be used as a basis | to discriminate against goods. Nor can environmental | destruction, habitat loss, toxic waste production, and | the presence of transgenic materials or synthetic | hormones cannot be used as the basis to screen or stop | goods from entering a country. Under WTO rules, the | Sullivan Principles and the boycott of South Africa | would not have existed. If the world could vote on the | WTO, would it pass? Not one country of the 135-member | states of the WTO has held a plebiscite to see if their | people support this concept. The people trying to meet | in the Green Rooms at the Seattle Convention Center | were not elected. Even Michael Moore was not elected. | | But while the Global Exchange was temporarily silenced, | the Direct Action Network's plan was working | brilliantly on the outside of the Convention Center. | The plan was simple: insert groups of trained | non-violent activists into key points downtown, making | it impossible for delegates to move. DAN had hoped that | 1,500 people would show up. Close to 10,000 did. The | 2,000 people who began the march to the Convention | Center at 7 a.m. from Victor Steinbrueck Park and | Seattle Central Community College were composed of | affinity groups and clusters whose responsibility was | to block key intersections and entrances. Participants | had trained for many weeks in some cases, for many | hours in others. Each affinity group had its own | mission and was self-organized. The streets around the | Convention Center were divided into 13 sections and | individual groups and clusters were responsible holding | these sections. There were also "flying groups" that | moved at will from section to section, backing up | groups under attack as needed. The groups were further | divided into those willing to be arrested, and those | who were not. As protestors were beaten, gassed, | clubbed, and pushed back, a new group would replace | them. Throughout most of the day, using a variety of | techniques, groups held intersections and key areas | downtown. The protests were organized through a network | of cell phones, bullhorns, and signals. All decisions | prior to the demonstrations were reached by consensus. | Minority views here heeded and included. The one | agreement shared by all was no violence, physical or | verbal, no weapons, no drugs or alcohol. There were no | charismatic leaders barking orders. There was no | command chain. There was no one in charge. Police said | that they were not prepared for the level of violence, | but in fact they were unprepared for a network of | non-violent protestors totally committed to one task -- | shutting down the WTO. | | Moore and Barshevsky's frustration was shared by | Madeleine Albright, the Clinton advance team, and chief | of staff John Podesta. This was to have been a | celebration, a victory, one of the crowning | achievements to showcase the Clinton administration, | the moment when it would consolidate its centrist free | trade policies, allowing the Democrats to show | multinational corporations that they could deliver the | goods. This was to have been Barshevsky's moment, an | event that would give her the inside track to become | Secretary of Commerce in the Gore Administration. This | was to have been Michael Moore's moment, reviving what | had been a mediocre political ascendancy in New | Zealand. To say nothing of Monsanto's moment. If the | as-yet unapproved draft agenda were ever ratified, the | Europeans could no longer block or demand labeling on | genetically modified crops without being slapped with | punitive lawsuits and tariffs. The draft also contains | provisions that would allow all water in the world to | be privatized. It would allow corporations patent | protection on all forms of life, even genetic material | in cultural use for thousands of years. Farmers who | have spent thousands of years growing crops in a valley | in India could, within a decade, be required to pay for | their water. They could also find that they would have | to purchase seeds containing genetic traits their | ancestors developed, from companies that have | engineered the seeds not to reproduce unless the farmer | annually buys expensive chemicals to restore seed | viability. If this happens, the CEOs of Novartis and | Enron, two of the companies creating the seeds and | privatizing the water, will have more money. What will | Indian farmers have? | | But the perfect moment for Barshevsky, Moore and | Monsanto didn't arrive. The meeting couldn't start. | Demonstrators were everywhere. Private security guards | locked down the hotels. The downtown stores were shut. | Hundreds of delegates were on the street trying to get | into the Convention Center. No one could help them. For | WTO delegates accustomed to an ordered corporate or | governmental world -- it was a calamity. | | Up Pike toward Seventh and to Randy's and my right on | Sixth, protestors faced armored cars, horses, and | police in full riot gear. In between, demonstrators | ringed the Sheraton to prevent an alternative entry to | the Convention Center. At one point, police guarding | the steps to the lobby pummeled and broke through a | crowd of protestors to let eight delegates in. On Sixth | Street, Sergeant Richard Goldstein asked demonstrators | seated on the street in front of the police line "to | cooperate" and move back 40 feet. No one understood | why, but that hardly mattered. No one was going to | move. He announced that 'chemical irritants' would be | used if they did not leave. The police were anonymous, | black ghosts. No facial expressions, no face. You could | not see their eyes. They were masked Hollywood | caricatures burdened with 60 to 70 pounds of weaponry. | These were not the men and women of the 6th precinct. | They were the Gang Squads and the SWAT teams of the | Tactical Operations Divisions, closer in training to | soldiers from the School of the Americas than local | cops on the beat. Behind them and around were special | forces from the FBI, the Secret Service, even the CIA. | | The police were almost motionless. They were equipped | with U.S. military standard M40A1 double canister gas | masks; uncalibrated, semi-automatic, high velocity | Autocockers loaded with solid plastic shot; Monadnock | disposable plastic cuffs, Nomex slash-resistant gloves, | Commando boots, Centurion tactical leg guards, combat | harnesses, DK5-H pivot-and-lock riot face shields, | black Monadnock P24 polycarbonate riot batons with | TrumBull stop side handles, No.2 continuous discharge | CS (orto-chlorobenzylidene-malononitrile) chemical | grenades, M651 CN (chloroacetophenone) pyrotechnic | grenades, T16 Flameless OC Expulsion Grenades, DTCA | rubber bullet grenades (Stingers), M-203 (40mm) grenade | launchers, First Defense MK-46 Oleoresin Capsicum (OC) | aerosol tanks with hose and wands, .60 caliber rubber | ball impact munitions, lightweight tactical Kevlar | composite ballistic helmets, combat butt packs, 30 cal. | thirty-round mag pouches, and Kevlar body armor. None | of the police had visible badges or forms of | identification. | | The demonstrators seated in front of the black-clad | ranks were equipped with hooded jackets for protection | against rain and chemicals. They carried toothpaste and | baking powder for protection of their skin, and wet | cotton cloths impregnated with vinegar to cover their | mouths and noses after a tear-gas release. In their | backpacks were bottled water and food for the day | ahead. | | Ten Koreans came around the corner carrying a 10-foot | banner protesting genetically modified foods. They were | impeccable in white robes, sashes, and headbands. One | was a priest. They played flutes and drums and marched | straight toward the police and behind the seated | demonstrators. Everyone cheered at the sight and | chanted "The whole world is watching." The sun broke | through the gauzy clouds. It was a beautiful day. Over | cell phones, we could hear the cheers coming from the | labor rally at the football stadium. The air was still | and quiet. We waited. | | At 10 a.m. the police fired the first seven canisters | of tear gas into the crowd. The whitish clouds wafted | slowly down the street. The seated protestors were | overwhelmed, yet most did not budge. Police poured over | them. Then came the truncheons, and the rubber bullets. | I was standing with a couple hundred people who had | ringed the hotel, arms locked. We watched as long as we | could until the tear gas slowly enveloped us. We were | several hundred feet from Sgt. Goldstein's 40-foot | "cooperation" zone. Police pushed and truncheoned their | way through and behind us. We had covered our faces | with rags and cloth, snatching glimpses of the people | being clubbed in the street before shutting our eyes. | The gas was a fog through which people moved in slow, | strange dances of shock and pain and resistance. Tear | gas is a misnomer. Think about feeling asphyxiated and | blinded. Breathing becomes labored. Vision is blurred. | The mind is disoriented. The nose and throat burn. It's | not a gas, it's a drug. Gas-masked police hit, pushed, | and speared with the butt ends of their batons. We then | sat down, hunched over, and locked arms more tightly. | By then, the tear gas was so strong our eyes couldn't | open. One by one, our heads were jerked back from the | rear, and pepper was sprayed directly into each eye. It | was very professional. Like hair spray from a stylist. | Sssst. Sssst. | | Pepper spray is derived from cayenne peppers. It is | food-grade, pure enough to be used in salsa. The spray | used in Seattle is the strongest available, containing | 10 percent to 15 percent Oleoresin Capsicum, with a 1.5 | to 2.0 million Scoville heat unit rating. One to three | Scoville units are when your tongue can first detect | hotness. (The jalapeRo pepper is rated between 2,500 to | 5,000 Scoville units. The habanero, usually considered | the hottest pepper in the world, is rated around | 300,000 Scoville units.) This description was written | by a police officer who sells pepper spray on his | website. It is about his first experience being sprayed | during a training exercise: | | "The pepper spray stream then hit my eyes. It then felt | as if two red-hot pieces of steel were grinding into my | eyes, as if someone was blowing a red-hot cutting torch | into my face. I then fell to the ground just like all | the others and started to rub my eyes even though I | knew better not too. The heat from the pepper spray was | overwhelming. I could not resist trying to rub it off | of my face. The pepper spray caused my eyes to shut | very quickly. The only way I could open them was by | prying them open with my fingers. Everything that we | had been taught about pepper spray had turned out to be | true. And everything that our instructor had told us | that we would do, even though we knew not to do it, we | still did. Pepper spray turned out to be more than I | had bargained for." | | The Seattle Police had made a decision not to arrest | people. Throughout the day, the affinity groups created | through Direct Action stayed together. Tear gas, rubber | bullets, and pepper spray were used so much that by | late afternoon, supplies ran low. What seemed like an | afternoon lull or standoff was because police had used | up all their stores. Officers combed surrounding | counties for tear gas, sprays, concussion grenades, and | munitions. As police restocked, the word came down from | the White House to secure downtown Seattle or the WTO | meeting would be called off. By late afternoon, the | Mayor and Chief announced a 7 p.m. curfew, "no protest" | zones, and declared the city under civil emergency. The | police were fatigued and frustrated. Over the next | seven hours and into the night, the police turned | downtown Seattle into Beirut. | | That morning, it was the police commanders that were | out of control, ordering the gassing and pepper | spraying and shooting of people protesting | non-violently. By evening, it was the individual police | who were out of control. Anger erupted, protestors were | kneed and kicked in the groin, and police used their | thumbs to grind the eyes of pepper-spray victims. A few | demonstrators danced on burning dumpsters that were | ignited by pyrotechnic tear-gas grenades (the same ones | used in Waco). Taunting, jeering, protestors were | defiant. Tear gas canisters were being thrown back as | fast as they were launched. Drum corps marched using | empty 5-gallon water bottles for instruments. Despite | their steadily dwindling number, maybe 1,500 by | evening, a hardy number of protestors held their | ground, seated in front of heavily armed police, hands | raised in peace signs, submitting to tear gas, pepper | spray, and riot batons. As they retreated to the | medics, new groups replaced them. Every channel covered | the police riots live. On TV, the police looked absurd, | frantic, and mean. No one could believe what they were | seeing. Passing Metro buses filled with passengers were | gassed. Police were pepper spraying residents and | bystanders. The Mayor went on TV that night to say, | that as a protestor from the '60s, he never could have | imagined what he was going to do next: Call in the | National Guard. | | During that day, the anarchist black blocs were in full | view. Numbering about one hundred, they could have been | arrested at any time but the police were so weighed | down by their own equipment, they literally couldn't | run. Both the police and the Direct Action Network had | mutually apprised each other for months prior to the | WTO about the anarchists' intentions. The Eugene Police | had volunteered information and specific techniques to | handle the black blocs, but had been rebuffed by the | Seattle Police. It was widely known they would be | there, and that they had property damage in mind. To | the credit of the Mayor, the Police Chief, and the | Seattle press, distinctions were consistently made | between the protestors and the anarchists (later joined | by local vandals as the night wore on). But the | anarchists were not primitivists, nor were they from | Eugene. They were well organized, and they also had a | plan. | | The black blocs came with tools (crowbars, hammers, | acid-filled eggs) and hit lists. They knew they were | going after Fidelity Investments but not Charles | Schwab. Starbucks but not Tully's. The GAP but not REI. | Fidelity Investments because they are large investors | in Occidental Petroleum, the oil company most | responsible for the violence against the U'wa tribe in | Columbia. Starbuck's because of their non-support of | fair-traded coffee. The GAP because of the Fisher | family's purchase of Northern California forests. They | targeted multinational corporations whom they see as | benefiting from repression, exploitation of workers, | and low wages. According to one anarchist group, the | ACME collective: "Most of us have been studying the | effects of the global economy, genetic engineering, | resource extraction, transportation, labor practices, | elimination of indigenous autonomy, animal rights and | human rights and we've been doing activism on these | issues for many years. We are neither ill-informed nor | inexperienced." They don't believe we live in a | democracy, do believe that property damage (windows and | tagging primarily) is a legitimate form of protest, and | that it is not violent unless it harms or causes pain | to a person. For the black blocs, breaking windows is | intended to break the spells cast by corporate | hegemony, an attempt to shatter the smooth exterior | facade that covers corporate crime and violence. That's | what they did. And what the media did is what I just | did in the last two paragraphs: Report on the desires | and recount the property damage caused by a tiny sliver | of the 40,000 marchers and demonstrators. | | It's not inapt to compare the carefully considered | lawlessness of the anarchists with the equally | carefully considered flouting of other laws by the WTO. | When the "The Final Act Embodying the Results of the | Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations" was | enacted April 15th, 1994 in Marrakech, it was recorded | as a 550-page agreement that was then sent to Congress | for passage. Ralph Nader offered to donate $10,000 to | any charity of a congressman's choice if any of them | signed an affidavit saying they had read it and could | answer several questions about it. Only one congressman | -- Sen. Hank Brown, a Colorado Republican -- took him | up on it. After reading the document, Brown changed his | opinion and voted against the Agreement. There were no | public hearings, dialogue, or education. What passed is | an Agreement that gives the WTO the ability to overrule | prior U.S. conventions, acts, treaties, and agreements. | The WTO directly violates "The Universal Declaration of | Human Rights" adopted by member nations of the United | Nations, not to mention Agenda 21, the Convention on | Biodiversity, and others. Most of the delegates to | Marrakech, even the heads of country delegations, were | not included or made aware of the WTO statutes that | were drafted by sub-groups of bureaucrats and lawyers, | some of whom represented transnational corporations. | | The police mandate to clear downtown was achieved by 9 | p.m. Tuesday night. But police, some who were fresh | recruits form outlying towns, didn't want to stop | there. They chased demonstrators into neighborhoods | where the distinctions between protestors and citizens | vanished. The police began attacking bystanders, | witnesses, residents, and commuters. They had | completely lost control. When President Clinton sped | from Boeing airfield to the Westin at 1:30 a.m. | Wednesday, his limousines entered a police-ringed city | of broken glass, helicopters, and boarded windows. He | was too late. The mandate for the WTO had vanished | sometime that afternoon. | | ______________________ | | Over the next few days, a surprised press corps went to | work and spun webs. They created myths, told fables. | They vented thinly veiled anger in columns, and pointed | guilt-mongering fingers at brash, spoiled white kids | who did not understand the issues. Supposedly, | anarchists led by anarcho-primitive John Zerzan from | Eugene ran rampant. Misguided demonstrators held | self-canceling views. Protestors were against trade. | Patricia King, one of two Newsweek reporters in | Seattle, called me from her hotel room at the Four | Seasons and wanted to know if this was the '60s redux. | No, I told her. The '60s were primarily an American | event; the protests against the WTO are international. | Who are the leaders? she wanted to know. There are no | leaders in the traditional sense. But there are thought | leaders, I said. Who are they? she wanted to know. I | began to name some, including their writings, area of | focus, and organizational affiliations: Martin Khor and | Vandana Shiva of the Third World Network, Walden Bello | of Focus on the Global South, Maude Barlow of the | Council of Canadians, Tony Clarke of Polaris Institute, | Jerry Mander of the IFG, Susan George of the | Transnational Institute, David Korten of the | People-Centered Development Forum, John Cavanagh of the | Institute for Policy Studies, Lori Wallach of Public | Citizen of the International Society for Ecology and | Culture, Mark Ritchie of the Institute For Agriculture | and Trade Policy, Anuradha Mittal of Institute for Food | & Development Policy, Helena Norberg-Hodge of the | International Society for Ecology and Culture, Owens | Wiwa of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni | People, Chakravarthi Raghavan of the Third World | Network in Geneva, Debra Harry of the Indigenous | Peoples Coalition Against Biopiracy, Jose Bove of the | Confederation Paysanne Europ'enne, Tetteh Hormoku of | the Third World Network in Africa, Randy Hayes of | Rainforest Action Network. Stop, stop, she said. I | can't use these names in my article. Why not? Because | Americans have never heard of them. Instead, Newsweek | editors put the picture of the Unabomber, Theodore | Kaczynksi, in the article because he had, at one time, | purchased some of John Zerzan's writings. | | Between 40,000 and 60,000 people came to Seattle to | demonstrate. What a majority of media projected onto | the marchers and activists, in an often-contradictory | manner, was that the protesters are afraid of a world | without walls; that they want the WTO to have even more | rules; that they blame the WTO for the world's | problems; that they are opposed to global integration; | that they have been duped by Pat Buchanan; that they | are against trade; that they are ignorant and | insensitive to the world's poor; that they want to tell | other people how to liveVthe list is long and | tendentious. | | Some of the mainstream media also assigned blame to the | protesters for the meeting's outcome. But ultimately, | it was not on the streets that the WTO broke down. It | was inside. It was a heated and rancorous Ministerial, | and the meeting ended in a stalemate, with African, | Caribbean, and some Asian countries refusing to support | a draft agenda that had been negotiated behind closed | doors without their participation. With that much | contention inside and out, one can rightly ask whether | the correct question is being posed. The question, as | propounded by corporations, is how to make trade rules | more uniform. The proper question, it seems to me, is | how do we make trade rules more differentiated so that | different cultures, cities, peoples, places, and | countries benefit the most. | | "Civilizations in decline are consistently | characterized by a tendency toward standardization and | uniformity. Conversely, during the growth stage of | civilization, the tendency is toward differentiation | and diversity." -- Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History | | Those who marched and protested opposed globalization | but they did not necessarily oppose | internationalization of trade. Economist Herman Daly | has long made the distinction between the two. | Internationalization means trade between nations. | Globalization refers to a system where there are | uniform rules for the entire world, a world in which | capital and goods move at will without the rule of | individual nations. Nations, for all their faults, set | trade standards. Those who are willing to meet those | standards can do business with them. Do nations abuse | this? Always and constantly, the US being the worst | offender. But it does provide, where democracies | prevail, a means for people to set their own policy, to | influence decisions, and determine their future. | Globalization supercedes the nation, the state, the | region, and the village. While eliminating nations may | indeed be a good idea, the elimination of sovereignty | is not. | | One recent example is that of Chiquita Brands, which | recently made a large donation to the Clinton | administration after the United States filed a | complaint with the WTO against the European Union | because European import policies favored bananas coming | from small Caribbean growers. There was no question | about the policies: they restricted imports from large | multinational companies in Central America (plantations | whose lands were secured by US military force during | the past century), and favored small family farmers who | used fewer chemicals. It seemed like a decent thing to | do, and everyone thought the bananas tasted better. For | the banana giants, this was untenable. The United | States prevailed in this WTO-arbitrated case. So who | really won, and who lost? The self-sufficient farmers | who were making a decent living prior to the decision | didn't win. Did the Central American employees at | Chiquita Brands win? Ask the hundreds of workers in | Honduras who were made infertile by the use of | Dibromochloropropane on the banana plantations. Ask the | mothers whose children have birth defects from | pesticide poisoning. | | Globalization leads to the concentration of wealth | inside large multi-national corporations such as | Time-Warner, Microsoft, GE, Exxon, and Wal-Mart. These | giants can obliterate social capital and local equity, | and create cultural homogeneity in their wake. | Countries as different as Mongolia, Bhutan, and Uganda | will have no choice but to allow Blockbuster, Burger | King, and Pizza Hut to operate within their borders. | Even Martha's Vineyard's refusal to allow a McDonald's | could be nullified under the WTO regulations. The | as-yet unapproved draft agenda calls for all | governments to open up their procurement process to | multi-national foreign corporations. No longer could | local governments buy preferentially from local | vendors. It could force governments to essentially | privatize health and allow foreign companies to bid on | delivering national health care programs. It could | privatize and commodify education, or ban cultural | restrictions to entertainment, advertising, or | commercialism as a trade barrier. In addition, | globalization kills self-reliance, since smaller local | businesses can rarely compete with highly capitalized | firms who seek market share instead of profits. Thus, | developing regions may become more subservient to | distant companies, with more of their income exported | rather than being re-spent locally. | | On the weekend prior to the WTO meeting, the | International Forum on Globalization held a two-day | teach-in at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle on just | such questions of how countries can maintain autonomy | in the face of globalization. Chaired by IFG President | Jerry Mander, more than 2,500 people from around the | world attended. A similar number were turned away. It | was the hottest ticket in town ( but somehow that | ticket did not get into the hands of pundits and | columnists. It was an extravagant display of research, | intelligence, and concern, expressed by scholars, | diplomats, writers, academics, fishermen, scientists, | farmers, geneticists, businesspeople, and lawyers. | Beyond and before the teach-in, non-governmental | organizations, institutes, public interest law firms, | farmers organizations, unions, and councils had been | issuing papers, communiquHs, press releases, books, and | pamphlets for years. They were almost entirely ignored | by the WTO. | | But something else was happening in Seattle underneath | the debates and protests. In Stewart Brand's new book, | "The Clock of the Long Now -- Time and Responsibility," | he discusses what makes a civilization resilient and | adaptive. Scientists have studied the same question | about ecosystems. How does a system, be it cultural or | natural, manage change, absorb shocks, and survive | especially when change is rapid and accelerating? The | answer has much to do with time, both our use of it and | our respect for it. Biological diversity in ecosystems | buffers against sudden shifts because different | organisms and elements fluctuate at different time | scales(flowers, fungi, spiders, trees, laterite, and | foxes(all have different rates of change and response. | Some respond quickly, other slowly, so that the system, | when subjected to stress, can move, sway, and give, and | then return and restore. | | The WTO was a clash of chronologies or time frames, at | least three, probably more. The dominant time frame was | commercial. Businesses are quick, welcome innovation in | general, and have a bias for change. They need to grow | more quickly than ever before. They are punished, | pummeled and bankrupted if they do not. With worldwide | capital mobility, companies and investments are | rewarded or penalized instantly by a network of | technocrats and money managers who move $2 trillion | dollars a day seeking the highest return on capital. | The Internet, greed, global communications, and | high-speed transportation are all making businesses | move faster than before. | | The second time frame is culture. It moves more slowly. | Cultural revolutions are resisted by deeper, historical | beliefs. The first institution to blossom under | perestroika was the Russian Orthodox Church. I walked | into a church near Boris Pasternak's dacha in 1989 and | heard priests and babushkas reciting the litany with | perfect recall as if 72 years of repression had never | happened. Culture provides the slow template of change | within which family, community, and religion prosper. | Culture provides identity and in a fast-changing world | of displacement and rootlessness, becomes ever more | important. In between culture and business is | governance, faster than culture, slower than commerce. | | At the heart, the third and slowest chronology is | earth, nature, the web of life. As ephemeral as it may | seem, it is the slowest clock ticking, always there, | responding to long, ancient evolutionary cycles that | are beyond civilization. | | These three chronologies conflict. As Stewart Brand | points out, business unchecked becomes crime. Look at | Russia. Look at Microsoft. Look at history. What makes | life worthy and allows civilizations to endure are all | the things that have "bad" payback under commercial | rules: infrastructure, universities, temples, poetry, | choirs, literature, language, museums, terraced fields, | long marriages, line dancing, and art. Most everything | we hold valuable is slow to develop, slow to learn, and | slow to change. Commerce requires the governance of | politics, art, culture, and nature, to slow it down, to | make it heedful, to make it pay attention to people and | place. It has never done this on its own. The | extirpation of languages, cultures, forests, and | fisheries is occurring worldwide in the name of | speeding up business. Business itself is stressed out | of its mind by rapid change. The rate of change is | unnerving to all, even to those who are benefiting. To | those who are not benefiting, it is devastating. What | marched in the streets of Seattle? Slower time strode | into the WTO. Ancient identity emerged. The cloaks of | the forgotten paraded on the backs of our children. It | is not the fast things that will prevail. In the end, | that which is slow is powerful. | | What appeared in Seattle were the details, dramas, | stories, peoples, and puppet creatures that had been | ignored by the bankers, diplomats, and the rich. | Corporate leaders are certain they have discovered a | treasure of immeasurable value, a trove so great that | surely we will all benefit. It is the treasure of | unimpeded commerce flowing everywhere as fast as is | possible. It is like romantic love. Bright, shining, | perfect, and unassailable. But in Seattle, quick time | met slow time. The turtles, farmers, and priests | weren't invited and don't need to be because they are | the shadow world that cannot be overlooked, that will | tail and haunt the WTO, and all it successors, for as | long as it exists. They will be there even if they meet | in totalitarian countries where free speech is | criminalized. They will be there in dreams of delegates | high in the Four Seasons Hotel. They will haunt the | public relations flacks who solemnly insist that | putting the genes of scorpions into our food is a good | thing. What gathered around the Convention Center and | hotels was everything the WTO left behind. | | In the Inuit tradition, there is a story of a fisherman | who trolls an inlet. When a heavy pull on the | fisherman's line drags his kayak to sea, he thinks he | has caught the "big one," a fish so large he can eat | for weeks, a fish so fat that he will prosper ever | after, a fish so amazing that the whole village will | wonder at his prowess. As he imagines his fame and | coming ease, what he reels up is Skeleton Woman, a | woman flung from a cliff and buried long ago, a | fish-eaten carcass resting at the bottom of the sea | that is now entangled in his line. Skeleton Woman is so | tangled in his fishing line that she is dragged behind | the fisherman wherever he goes. She is pulled across | the water, over the beach, and into his house where he | collapses in terror. In the retelling of this story by | Clarissa Pinkola Estes, the fisherman has brought up a | woman who represents life and death, a specter who | reminds us that with every beginning there is an | ending, for all that is taken, something must be given | in return, that the earth is cyclical and requires | respect. The fisherman, feeling pity for her, slowly | disentangles her, straightens her bony carcass, and | finally falls asleep. During the night, Skeleton Woman | scratches and crawls her way across the floor, drinks | the tears of the dreaming fisherman, and grows anew her | flesh and heart and body. This myth applies to business | as much as it does to a fisherman. The apologists for | the WTO want more-engineered food, sleeker planes, | computers everywhere, golf courses that are | preternaturally green. They see no limits; they know of | no downside. But Life always comes with Death, with a | tab, a reckoning. They are each other's consorts, | inseparable and fast. These expansive dreams of the | world's future wealth were met with perfect symmetry by | Bill Gates, Jr. the co-chair of the Seattle host | committee, the world's richest man. But Skeleton woman | also showed up in Seattle, the uninvited guest, and the | illusion of wealth, the imaginings of unfettered growth | and expansion, became small and barren in the eyes of | the world. Dancing, drumming, ululating, marching in | black with a symbolic coffin for the world, she wove | through the sulphurous rainy streets of the night. She | couldn't be killed or destroyed, no matter how much gas | or pepper spray or rubber bullets were used. She kept | coming back and sitting in front of the police and | raised her hands in the peace sign, and was kicked, and | trod upon, and it didn't make any difference. Skeleton | Woman told corporate delegates and rich nations that | they could not have the world. It is not for sale. The | illusions of world domination have to die, as do all | illusions. Skeleton Woman was there to say that if | business is going to trade with the world, it has to | recognize and honor the world, her life and her people. | Skeleton Woman was telling the WTO that it has to grow | up and be brave enough to listen, strong enough to | yield, courageous enough to give. Skeleton Woman has | been brought up from the depths. She has regained her | eyes, voice and spirit. She is about in the world and | her dreams are different. She imagines a world where | children do not live on streets; she believes that the | right to self-sufficiency is a human right; she | imagines a world where the means to kill people is not | a business but a crime, where families do not starve, | where fathers can work, where children are never sold, | where women cannot be impoverished because they are | mothers and not whores. She cannot see in any dream a | time where a man holds a patent to a living seed, or | animals are factories, or people are enslaved to money, | or water belongs to a stockholder. Hers are deep dreams | from slow time. She is patient. She will not be quiet | or flung to sea anytime soon. | | | ) Paul Hawken, Sausalito, January 6, 2000 | <<<< ************************************************************** IAHF:(International Advocates for Health Freedom) PO Box 625 Floyd, Virginia,24091, USA 800-333-2553, overseas: 540-745-6534, 540-745-6535 fax, http://www.iahf.com email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Help Get a Codex Oversight Hearing: Call Beth Clay at 202-225-5074 House Government Reform and Oversight Committee- See Codex Oversight Section of IAHF website for more info. If You Belong to NNFA- Ask Them Why They Oppose Having a Codex Oversight Hearing, and Ask Why They Don't Enforce Article 14.3 in their Bylaws: (Conflict of Interest) Ask why they don't kick Warner Lambert and the rest of the drug cartel OUT of NNFA! Ask Why they endorse the NAS paper "A Risk Assessment Model For Establishing Upper Levels for Nutrients" when it is being used illegally by the FDA to break past the consumer generated impasse at Codex. 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