🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3a209a12.13387846@news.mindspring.com>,
chollanamdoSPAMLESS@mindspring.com wrote:

  :On Sat, 25 Nov 2000 22:47:58 -0500, atticus@mindspring.com (Andy
  :Walton) shared with usenet this thought:
  :
  :>In article <3a2073f6.3630223@news.mindspring.com>,
  :>chollanamdoSPAMLESS@mindspring.com wrote:
  :
  :>  :        Andy, you know as well as anyone that the liberal press always
  :>  :portrays leftist rent-a-mobs as The People incarnate.
  :>
  :>If you don't have the facts on your side, blame the coverage.
  :>
  :>Nope. We didn't hear a word about the left-wing protests at the WTO
  :>conference in Seattle. It's not on the news every time there's a Klan
  :>rally, and the left-wing counterprotesters get out of hand. I must have
  :>hallucinated all of that.
  :
  :        Quit pretending to be an idiot.  The WTO protestors were
  :always simply "protestors" on the news.  We never saw their left-wing
  :affiliations detailed.

Let's take a look at how well-concealed their affiliations were, shall we?

TIME magazine has an essay detailng the protesters' ideology, published
after similar protests in Washington, DC, at
<http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2000/04/17/radicals.html>.

The event did bring together some strange bedfellows including labor
groups, environmentalists and farmers, not to mention anarchists, all
trying to deliver their messages to trade ministers who were attending the
talks.
<http://www.cnn.com/1999/US/12/03/wto.week/>

But the protesters were in Seattle to insist that globalization has become
another word for capitulation to the worst excesses of capitalism, a cover
for eliminating hard-won protections for the environment and workers'
rights. "Before Seattle, we were dead in the water on trade," says George
Becker, president of the United Steelworkers of America.
<http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1999/12/06/wto.html>

While free trade is hardly the subject of dinner-table shouting matches as
the Vietnam War was three decades ago, experts say there are genuine
passions that led to the unusual alliance that gathered in Seattle --
groups as diverse as anarchists, union laborers, animal rights activists,
environmentalists and senior citizens.
<http://www.cnn.com/1999/US/12/02/wto.protest.perspective/>

The protesters -- environmental activists and other more radical
demonstrators who are demanding the abolition of the WTO -- tried to
prevent delegates from leaving their hotels, blocked access to conference
facilities and spray-painted walls and police cars with anti-WTO
graffiti...The disturbances, which covered a several-block area near the
main convention hall, started hours before a march sponsored by the
AFL-CIO saw 20,000 labor activists walk from Memorial Stadium to the
downtown area.
<http://www.cnn.com/1999/US/12/01/wto.02/index.html>

Environmentalists have accused the WTO of weakening international
environmental laws. Labor groups have said they fear global abuses of
workers' rights and low wages abroad. 
<http://www.cnn.com/US/9911/28/wto.protests/index.html>

Riot police fired tear gas and red pepper spray in a futile effort to
clear the streets Tuesday. Tens of thousands of labor union members and
environmental activists danced, chanted and marched through downtown,
blocking delegates from entering the convention center.
<http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/DailyNews/wto_protests991201.html>

The major protest groups held a press conference today criticizing the
actions of police. Among those present were members of the Direct Action
Network, which organized the protests; the Ruckus Society, which trained
activists in civil disobedience; the Rainforest Action Network; and the
United Steelworkers of America.
<http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/wtoprotesters991202.html>

Labor and environmental activists who staged a mock wedding before last
winter's World Trade Organization protests now are partnering for protests
nationwide, including some at the Republican and Democratic national
conventions this summer.
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/wtoww3.shtml

Members of the AFL-CIO, Teamsters, Longshoremen and other unions were
joined en route by students, environmentalists, church groups and social
justice advocates...other members of the labor march peeled off, joining
the more militant demonstrators downtown, where a new round of
confrontations with police broke out later.
<http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/business/labr012.shtml>
-- 
"My main reason for adopting literature as a profession is that, as the
 author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably."
                                                  -- George Bernard Shaw
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Andy Walton * atticus@mindspring.com * http://atticus.home.mindspring.com/