Letters
WTO 101 Editor: I was disappointed by Jackie Smith and Timothy Moran's article ("WTO 101, Myths about the World Trade Organization," Spring 2000). The piece fails the simplest test of internal...
...He makes the unsubstantiated assertion that the Clinton proposal "would clearly benefit the poorest countries greatly...
...Consider, for instance, the proposal recently put forth by the Clinton administration to radically open American markets to third world producers...
...Granted, for a coalition to be viable, an important degree of compromise and mutual listening needs to occur—what I challenge is the direction that this needs to take...
...On May Day, a police officer in London was hit in the face with a brick by self-appointed destroyers of capital...
...But because we have a long "lead time" for each issue, you have to send us your letter within three weeks after getting an issue of Dissent in order to get it into the next issue...
...Toro wants to dismiss our argument—and the mounting evidence that supports it—as pure ideology...
...However, our empirically driven assessment revealed a multilateral trading system that is based on questionable assumptions uncritically accepted as fact by decision makers and mainstream media...
...Let's take that chance...
...During the several days of demonstrations here, the comment I heard most often made about the "anarchists" who vandalized Nike, Starbucks, and so on, was, "I'd like LETTERS to kick their asses...
...Our essay sought precisely to move the debate about global trade beyond the taken-for-granted claims on behalf of the WTO and to consider them in the light of systematic, scholarly evidence...
...If we can wed those qualities to a serious agenda of reform, and if we can stave off the temptations of nihilism and violence, then we might actually build a democratic left worthy of the name...
...When I sketched the circumstances under which I believe windowsmashing might be legitimate, my point was that those circumstances are far, far removed from the real world of Seattle 1999—or from the typical practices of the Black Bloc anarchists...
...He doesn't seem bothered by the real and vicious violence of the police in Seattle or the D.C...
...Judging from the exchange between Neumann and Glenn, I am not certain that they would get the joke...
...In Seattle and in other recent actions we've seen some long-overdue chutzpah, playfulness, and coalition-building...
...Perhaps what really unsettles him is that he—and other good liberals like him—may be forced out of complacency...
...Raphael seems to think breaking windows of multinational corporations with a history of human rights violations is wrong, but wanting to "kick [the] asses" of those who do is a reasonable reaction...
...police and U.S...
...While the proposal would clearly benefit the poorest countries greatly, it received no support from the left because it doesn't fit neatly into its ideological vision of what the poor world needs...
...It is up to us to do the work—of justice with healing—that he undertook with his life...
...We reserve the right to edit letters down to fit our space and to choose which shall be printed...
...FRANCISCO TORO Caracas, Venezuela Jackie Smith and Timothy Patrick Moran Reply It sounds to us as though Francisco Toro is dishing out a few doctrinaire litanies of his own...
...I suggest that listening—and moving—in more democratic, lawful, and nonviolent directions accurately sketches the most fruitful direction for the emerging coalition to take...
...The impression one gets is that the authors are more interesting in venting a diffuse dissatisfaction with the world economic elite than in grappling realistically with the problems of the world's poor...
...I hope that the ludicrousness of such a suggestion is immediately obvious...
...Yet, clearly Smith and Moran would not advocate any such thing...
...DANIEL RAPHAEL Seattle, Washington Rachel Neumann Replies Since Daniel Raphael seems to pine for the voice of Martin Luther King, Jr., I quote it briefly here: "The only real revolutionary, people say, is [one] who has nothing to lose...
...I find it telling that, in refuting Myth #6 ("There is no alternative"), the authors argue that globalization is revers126 DISSENT / Summer 2000 ible rather than inevitable without ever sketching even the broadest outlines of what may replace it...
...The authors argue that industrialized countries use the WTO to protect their interests to the detriment of poorer countries, citing specifically the fact that in the Uruguay round tariffs for industrial goods were cut far more deeply than those for agricultural products...
...It is precisely at this moment that I think we are most missing the voice of Martin Luther King, Jr...
...Toro cannot accept the idea that trade liberalization might not benefit poor people...
...Now, assuming that there really is a coalition afoot, one that appears to hold the promise of a truly historic breakthrough between organized labor and the activist constituencies familiar to us all, do Neumann and Glenn really believe that the Teamsters, Steelworkers, AFSCME, AFT, and others are likely to be favorably disposed to the petty destruction of businesses by the "free...
...Raphael is exactly right: the idiocy and thuggery of the London May Day riots were a bad sign of where we may be heading...
...I think it should be...
...No self-respecting leftist seems willing to endorse a program that relies on co-operating with those odious armies of trade bureaucrats and neo-liberal capitalists...
...Rather than seriously pursue this alliance with demolition and assault, I suggest a strong dose of self-examination and humility might be in order...
...We accept e-mail submissions to editors@dissentmagazine.org . DISSENT / Summer 2000 n 127...
...The piece fails the simplest test of internal coherence...
...I regret if my essay failed to make that clear...
...Constitutionally unable to see elite proposals in anything but conspiratorial terms, WTO critics have retreated to a position of constant naysaying, straining to resist the overwhelming tide of economic liberalization while advocating no coherent alternative program of their own...
...Letters will not be returned to senders unless they are accompanied by stamped, selfaddressed envelopes...
...Although they differed somewhat about what was required to legitimate the trashing of buildings and other property presumably owned by the "enemy," they did not examine whether such activity was itself at issue...
...We could do worse...
...It is this "unsettling force" that seems to discomfort Raphael...
...If they can be helped to take action together, they will do so with a freedom and power that will be a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life...
...We are unable to acknowledge letters...
...it is only a matter of time before "our" vanguard inflicts fatalities...
...Marshals in Washington who—when faced with nonviolent protesters— broke arms, beat people up, and sent more than six peaceful protesters to the hospital...
...We simply will not entertain the possibility that such people might do something—anything—that in any way benefits the world's poor...
...But our reading of the evidence is that more liberalized markets and more international trade have been accompanied more often than not by increased poverty and little or no sustained economic growth in the global South...
...Given this situation, the logical response for an advocate of third world agricultural societies would be to call for lower agricultural tariffs...
...In my side of the exchange I thought I "was" raising the flag for self-examination, humility, and nonviolence...
...As I stated in my earlier argument, I think this discomfort is not only useful, but necessary...
...There are millions of people in this country who have very little, or even nothing, to lose...
...I heard no one speak a word of approval or support for the self-elected vanguard who carried out the exemplary actions in downtown, shielded from the police by the bodies of the rest of us...
...We are creating a new movement, one that has the chance to avoid sectarian splits, authoritarian cults, and hypocritical moralizing...
...To Letter Writers • We welcome succinct letters from our readers...
...Vanguards and Coalitions Editors: In separate pieces in the Arguments section ("A Place for Rage," Spring 2000), Rachel Neumann and David Glenn discussed what conditions were required for property destruction (such as that which occurred here during the World Trade Organization [WTO] festivities) to be a valid part of the broader movement against the global corporate takeover...
...Protesters made a strategic choice not to break windows or damage property in D.C., and the police responded just as violently, if not more, than they did in Seattle...
...The question may fairly be asked, then, whether the standard left-wing critique of globalization isn't ultimately animated more by a pre-rational revulsion toward first world elites than by concern for the well-being of the world's poorest people...
...I would like to see Raphael's outrage directed here...
...Letters must be no more than 500 words, typed, double-spaced, and carry the full address and name of the sender...
...Far clearer on what they are against than what they are for, they offer the poor countries nothing but abstract solidarity and the rock-solid conviction that capitalism sucks...
...Instead, they go on to contradict their earlier line of argumentation by attacking Michael Moore's assertion that "the longer we delay launching the [next round of] negotiations, the more the poorest among us lose...
...In fact, this was a major component of the agenda for the Seattle talks...
...David Glenn Replies Hmmm...
...Should our labor sisters and brothers take up the hammer in acts of liberatory destruction...
...Once you stir things up, he worries, you unleash a mob of hammer-wielding teamsters and who knows what else...
Vol. 47 • July 2000 • No. 3
