The MountainSky Journal

So, there's a conference in Seattle and a bunch of government people from various countries plan to attend. The name of the organization sponsoring this conference is vaguely familiar, but most of us don't know much about it or what it does... it's the WPO or WTO, or something like that. All of a sudden, out of the blue as it were, there are street protests involving hundreds, maybe even thousands of people. They carry signs and some of them wear sea turtle costumes and other bizarre regalia. The protests get rough. Police use tear gas and drive back mobs. Officials can't reach the conference center and ceremonies are cancelled. Then in England, more demonstrations, and these too become violent. Ruffians do battle with police, cars are overturned, fires started...

What are we to make of it -- mobs of hooligans running riot on the streets of Seattle and London, all supposedly in defiance of this WTO thing, whatever it is? I honestly don't know what to make of it, but my curiosity is aroused. Though we may not penetrate to the substance of all this, we can make note of a few things:

1. First, a mob is manipulated. To get a mob, manipulators assemble a crowd (with pamphlets, telephone calling trees, email lists, etc.), then they get to work with speeches and music and chants, etc., lashing up emotions, and breaking down civilized instincts and reservations. If their skill at arousing and harnessing crowds of people is sufficient, the manipulators will be able to direct the mob as they choose. The mob is a blunt instrument of politics for sure, not suitable in an environment where reasoning and moderated debate are used to make decisions and reach agreement. Indeed, those who know they cannot get what they want by reasoning and debate will sometimes resort to the mob. Those who belong to a mob are essentially in submission to the manipulators and to their own passions. They care not what signs are hoisted over their heads, or what those signs mean, and it's nothing to them that worthy arguments confront their cause. Indeed, they are beyond having a cause that makes any pretense of being reasonable.

2. Since two mobs in places thousands of miles apart have been deployed in honor of a previously obscure conference involving this "world trade organization" the manipulators are probably quite skilled. They have managed to draw attention not only to the conference but to the organization itself. Does anyone think that without these mobs (I believe they style themselves as "protestors") a meeting of the WTO would get the TV and newspaper coverage we're seeing? Of course not. Without the crowds and tear gas it wouldn't get even 15 seconds and a yawn on the 11 o'clock news. This is well planned and well coordinated.

3. At one website I glanced at, a woman who is involved in the "protests" is quoted as saying that the "'forces of order' exist to protect the interests of Capital." In London placards saying "Kill Capitalism" were raised above the hooligans, as they started to rip up paving stones (which would more likely kill policemen). We might reasonably guess that the manipulators here include communists and communist sympathizers. Environmentalists of the Wacko persuasion are involved as well. Thus a handful of people with extreme views that don't stand up well under the weight of ordinary common sense (to say nothing of systematic reasoning) are able, at least for a moment, to get the attention of the world using this WTO thing, which a week ago was just another acronym in the alphabet soup of organizations spawned by government.

4. The White House chose Seattle as the location for this conference. Supposedly this was because Seattle has such a great interest in international trade. That's what the reporters are dutifully saying. But as it happens, Seattle is also one of the few cities in the U.S. where a mob of a thousand green communists could be assembled and goaded into attacking "Capital." Imagine such protests in Pittsburgh or Cleveland or Tulsa! No way. Nowhere in American Flyover Country would this happen. To get mobs clashing with police in clouds of tear gas because a so-called "world trade organization" might or might not be impacting sea turtle populations you would have to have the meeting in San Francisco or New York or Washington or Seattle. Maybe Portland, Maine or Santa Barbara. But clearly, it couldn't be just anywhere, because there are only a handful of U.S. cities where the coffee shops could turn out as many as 1,000 people who chatter to each other anxiously and interminably about global warming and other science fiction stories.

5. The "nowhere in Flyover Country" should be qualified by saying you can't start something like this in flyover country. It could, theoretically, be used as a catalyst anywhere there are lazy, mush-head students on a state university campus.

6. President Clinton will make an appearance in Seattle, they say. Maybe Al Gore. The odd thing is that the Administration seems to be at odds with the mobs. The WTO is a thing Bill Clinton helped create and he says he supports it. But at the same time, Al Gore probably wishes that he too could be wearing a sea turtle costume and doing the pepper spray dance on the streets of Seattle. What's going on here?

7. "Developing...," Drudge would say. Let's watch this unfold.

Peter Barry 12/7/1999

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