Riots in Seattle
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After reading the Geov Parrish column "Impolitics" ("The high cost of throwing rocks," 11/4), I'm concerned about the safety of protesters, law enforcement officers, and innocent bystanders as the WTO convenes here on November 30th. Nonviolent protests and civil disobedience are long-standing traditions in the USA. Courageous activists like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Henry David Thoreau have often served as the moral conscience for the nation. Our own President, William Jefferson Clinton, protested against the government's involvement in Vietnam. We must remember that without activism and protests, slavery and child labor would still be acceptable institutions, and women would not have the right to vote.
In the past, however, we have seen riots in Seattle—during the Vietnam war era, after the Rodney King verdict, and recently it happened during the homeless youth protests. Hopefully, these sort of confrontations can be avoided during the WTO conference.
The eyes of the entire world will be watching, and many will be sitting in judgement—let's hope cooler heads prevail.
MARK TAYLOR-CANFIELD
SEATTLE
You want fries with that?
I have a few questions that perhaps the trade globalization mavens could answer.
Under WTO trade regulations, what is to prevent a country from selling E. coli tainted meat in the US? And would, say, Brazil be able to scream "Unfair!" if we block that meat at the border and refuse it entry or sale in US markets?
If a country wanted to sell thalidomide in the US, would the WTO claim that the decades-old ban by the US on this highly toxic drug is unfair? And if the drug meets the safety standards of, say, Ethiopia, would the much stricter US standards be an illegal barrier to fair trade? What if instead of thalidomide we are talking about the diabetes medication your mother takes or the high blood pressure medicine you need to stave off heart attacks?
Would labelling a product as "Meets US safety and purity standards" be struck down as "unfair preference given to domestic products"?
Who will be held responsible when food and medicine which do not meet US standards start killing folks? I for one am not looking forward to the day when the Jack-in-the-Box poisonings of yesteryear are looked back upon with nostalgia.
GREGORY GADOW
SEATTLE
Giant sucking sound
Everyone's heard statistics regarding the unnatural rate of species extinction we are now seeing, or on how very long it took to create the forests on this planet and how very little time it's taken to deplete them. Only one creature has the ability or appetite for such destruction. Yet somehow we think we are immune to the catastrophes this could cause.
In "That Giant Sucking Sound" (11/25), David Korten hits the nail on the head when he says, "We're just shifting more wealth into the pockets of the small percentage of the world population that owns most of the shares of corporate stock. In the end this is all about corporate profits." What good will all that money do when we have a planet that can't support life? Disruptions in the food chain are rippling to the top, despite how smart we think we are or how much money we have. People need to start looking at how their actions effect the planet and every other creature on it. We need to step back and see the big picture. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, we need to do it before it's really too late.
Americans have an especially voracious appetite when it comes to more of everything, yet we actually are either enlightened or wealthy enough to have some laws regarding labor, the environment, and animal welfare. But there are still many in this country and elsewhere who don't look beyond immediate gratification of their own selfish desires, thinking only "how can I get what I want?" regardless of the other costs. Unfortunately, there is no special place for those of us who have tried to tread lightly on this earth. We all die if the land, water, and air can't support life. It is a slow death for now. Our bodies are silently poisoned by the accumulated pesticides that we pass onto our young, and sea creatures are strangled by plastic six-pack rings thoughtlessly discarded into our oceans.
We belong to the planet, WTO. Tread lightly, it's the only one we have.
DIANE DASH
BRIER
An abstract good
The concerns raised by critics of the WTO on issues of labor conditions, environment, health, and human rights are of sufficient credibility and weight that the American public should give the claims and counter-claims a much more rigorous scrutiny than has been made thus far. Proceeding largely on the testimony of the WTO's beneficiaries seems gullible even by American standards. In the abstract, free trade is good; the particulars of American trade deficits is anything but good. We simply have not heard enough evidence nor has there been sufficient public debate to proceed with reasonable confidence in our present course.
An independent, impartial evaluation of the consequences of the WTO to date (and perhaps NAFTA, since so many effects may be intermixed) should be conducted. And there should be a moratorium on further WTO implementation until that evaluation is completed (two years?).
