Fwd: The Battle In Seattle: From the Frontline

[Jay Fenello <Jay@Fenello.com>]

FYI:


>From: webmaster@buchananreform.com
>Subject: The Battle In Seattle: From the Frontline
>Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 14:48:11 -0500
>
>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


Respectfully,

Jay Fenello,
New Media Relations
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