|
 he
trouble with anti-trade activism is, as you may have noticed, the
anti-trade activists. They just can't seem to shake the image of
window-smashing radicalism that has dominated television coverage
from Seattle to Quebec City. Such pictures have led to a general
public perception that the activists will go to any length to advance
their menagerie of retrograde causes. No tactic — with the possible
exception of careful analysis and reasoned discourse — is out-of-bounds.
"Doing whatever it takes," as one prominent protester
in Quebec City said, means that vandalism, violence, and harassment
are acceptable behavior for the Black Blockheads and Ruckus-Societarians
of the world.
But such nastiness,
we're inevitably told, is limited to small groups of rascally anarchists.
(By the way, am I the only one who thinks that people who embrace
tariffs and an industrial policy haven't fully grasped what the
word "anarchist" means?) The "vast majority"
of globalization's critics are respectable, thoughtful, peace-loving
pillars of society. They may understand the "frustration"
that drives the actions of the fringe, but they certainly don't
condone their antics. "Kids will be kids," they say, "We'd
like to stop them, but there's nothing we can do!"
Well, here's
a thought: The "respectable" groups might start by not
actively encouraging criminal behavior. For example, an e-mail from
Margrete Strand Rangnes, the field director for Public Citizen's
Global Trade Watch, recently appeared in my in box. Trade Watch
is another fine organization brought to us by the Left's patron
saint, Ralph Nader, and its goal is basically to dismantle the international
economy. In furtherance of that goal, Ms. Rangnes decided to distribute
the personal contact information for the steering committee members
of USTrade, a business coalition that supports open trade and the
passage of trade promotion authority for the president.
The names and
contact information were collected by a member of the Sierra Student
Coalition, the student-run arm of the Sierra Club — another supposedly
reputable operation. A Sierra operative "disguising himself
as an elite," the e-mail reports, "infiltrated the [USTrade]
meeting and emerged with important documents."
Public Citizen
clearly has no qualm with embracing a "diversity of tactics"
in its war against the freedom to trade. While the personal information
in its e-mail is offered "only as a public service," the
purpose of distributing it is spelled out for those who don't take
the hint: "A little birdie has told us that this list could
be used to send large numbers of e-mails, faxes, and phone calls
to these corporate free-traders." The message concludes with
a plea not to "let those wealthy white men from USTrade win
this fight!" (Of course, over a third of the names appear to
be women, and likely no one on the list is as wealthy as Nader himself.)
So, Public
Citizen thinks it's acceptable to distribute material encouraging
the harassment of specific private individuals. Bravo. Very grown-up,
very respectable.
Remember, we're
not talking about elected representatives here. There wouldn't be
anything wrong with Public Citizen and the Sierra Club exhorting
their minions — uh, members — to harass congressmen with phone calls
and faxes. Listening to complaints is a politician's job. We pay
them to take that kind of flak.
But prank-calling
private citizens to punish them for their political views is another
matter entirely. Not that prank-calling isn't fun. I got a huge
kick out of dialing random numbers from the phone book … when
I was ten. ("Ima Hogg? You've just won a year's supply of pork
rinds!") Obviously the anti-globalization folks have some maturing
to do.
"We could
tell who they were at the meeting," jokes Caterpillar's Bill
Lane, a member of USTrade and one of the targets of the harassment
campaign. "They were drinking Starbucks coffee and brought
in their own McDonalds."
Lane isn't
surprised by the e-mail, and sees it as a desperation tactic. "I
think they were a little overwhelmed at the number of people that
were there," he told me.
Desperation
or not, the spectacle of supposedly responsible adults encouraging
juvenile behavior is just downright sad. But it's to be expected,
really, from people who think tearing down traffic signs or chaining
yourself to an oil tanker, as activists did during President Bush's
recent trip to Europe, is acceptable behavior. Speaking of Europe,
it's interesting to note that the Public Citizen e-mail is illegal
under the European Union's Data Privacy Directive. That law forbids
the dissemination of personal information over the Internet without
the subject's consent. I wonder if the European recipients of this
list realize that they're trafficking in forbidden data?
The anti-globalization
left demands that people take it seriously, but that's hard to do
when confronted by a PR strategy that vacillates between tantrums
and pranks. I suppose with no facts on their side, that's the best
the activists can do.
|
