: What do the world trade organization protesters, President Clinton, and the Microsoft judge have in common?
: Answer: an almost appalling ignorance of Economics 101.SDF: Nope, it's Elder that's confused.
: The World Trade Organization, a consortium of 135 nations, met in Seattle to discuss ways to increase trade by
: lowering tariffs. Or, better put, they thought they came to discuss increasing trade by reducing tariffs.
SDF: Nope, they run a dictatorship that overrules nations which wish to enact labor or environmental standards for business. The only serious question for WTO elites is that of how tightly can the noose be tightened before the member nations start to chafe at the ropes.
: Protesters stormed the streets of Seattle, rioting and looting to the tune of $19 million in damage.
SDF: Nope, agent provocateurs did that. The protesters actually DEFENDED Gaptown, but liars like Elder don't care.
Police arrested
: hundreds.
SDF: They also pepper-sprayed, tear-gassed, concussion-bombed, and rubber-bulleted thousands of nonviolent protesters, sometimes ripping off gas masks in order to insert their poison and then forcing such masks back onto their wearers. There's video EVIDENCE that Seattle was a police riot.
: Thousands marched, holding up signs condemning capitalism, and blaming the industrialized world for
: "exploiting" Third World labor while trashing the environment.
SDF: Elder wins an employment contract with Nike.
: Then President Bill "I feel your pain 'cuz it takes a village" Clinton threw kerosene on the fire. He sided with the
: WTO protesters, and urged the organization to link trade with worker rights and environmental concerns.
SDF: Clinton's PR initiative was belied when he forced through China's admission to the WTO, which brought Lane Kirkland to Seattle with a few thousand union protesters. Say Frenchy, would you like to compete for labor contracts with Chinese slave laborers? Think you could offer the multinationals a cheaper wage?
: "What!?" said Third World countries, desperate for business from the industrialized world? How dare you impose
: "just" wage levels on us, when our best weapon remains our people's willingness to work hard and long for less
: money? Imposing a kind of international minimum wage, says the Third World, hurts us. It is a form of
: protectionism.
SDF: Elder lies again. The nations of the South were reduced to spectators in the negotiations, which had more to do with the race to the bottom in labor/environmental standards than any concern for anything beside the bottom line.
None.
