Four years ago...
I was in Seattle in 1999, and working for a politically progressive nonprofit. We did briefings and updates on the upcoming WTO protests, and many of our staff went to march in the marches, shout and scream in the protests, and experience what would later be called "The Battle of Seattle." Before that, my first exposure to the concept of the "all-powerful WTO" was from a flyer, forced into my hands at a concert, describing the secret cabal that would rob us of our sovereignty, destroy unions and human rights, and obliterate the free will of the entire world.
I thought it was conspiracy nuttiness. Still, I like a good conspiracy, and so I read more. And I didn't like what I read. So I marched. Like 99.9% of the marchers, I didn't carry a hammer, or a black hood. I was part of a peaceful 20,000-person march, before the idiots and the fratboys and the tear gas came out.
I also attended a rally by Ralph Nader at Key Arena several months later, where he excoriated the WTO as anti-democratic, demanded a death penalty that could be used against criminal corporations, and cast fire and brimstone against the corporate buying of politics. He was brought to the stage by Michael Moore (who had previously come to town during the WTO activities), Eddie Vedder, and Seattle City Council member Peter Steinbreuck.
Four years ago, I didn't decide whether I would vote for Gore or Nader until I entered the voting booth. I saw Nader's point that the D's and the R's were only millimeters apart. The problem was that politicians saw most of us as a blank-faced audience, and only listend to the fat cats with the fat checkbooks.
We all went to a local tavern in Pioneer Square to watch the results. Maria Cantwell's winning - yea! Jennifer Dunn's winning - boo! (But Heidi Behrens-Benedict, the perennial also-ran, never stood a chance.)
Al Gore won a slew of states. Al Gore had no business even being in a close race - he was the two-term VP for a Teflon-coated Bill Clinton, the man who had survived personal scandal and impeachment and even turning the platform of his party on his head (hello, welfare reform.) He was running against a feeble inarticulate child-man who had failed at every business venture he had ever tried, whose only talent seemed to be raising prodigous amounts of money.
So Al Gore won states, and then Bush won states, and then NBC called Florida, and the election for Gore. And we all celebrated and ordered drinks.
And then NBC said, wait a minute.
Somehow, Al Gore had let the election slip away from him. I know, I know - there was Nader, there were butterfly ballots, there was the Supreme Court. But how the hell did Al Gore run such a disastrous campaign that any of that stuff mattered? Gore should have won in a landslide. But instead, NBC said, wait a minute.
Four years ago, I told people that Gore would have won in a blowout if he had done this one thing. In one major speech, in a nationally publicized address, he would declare that he was going to re-examine the documents that obligated us to the World Trade Organization. If he put the WTO in the public spotlight just once, and declared that he questioned it - not that he was pulling out, as so many anti-globalizationists demanded, but that he was giving it a good once-over - student vote would have exploded. The burgeoning anti-sweatshop movement would have rallied behind Gore, the youth that were bored to tears would stand up to be counted, and that would have done it.
Four years ago, I thought the WTO was the biggest issue in the world. And I thought that Bush would be a feeble president, maybe pass a few insignificant bills, but he would never have any long-lasting impact on this country. He would be merely a place-holder until the next real President moved in.
That was a long time ago.
Here's what I know now:
Al Gore is a much better speaker than he ever showed us in 1999 and 2000;
Ralph Nader runs for no one's benefit but his own;
Republicans are better than Democrats at taking advantage of opportunities;
the conspiracy theories of the WTO were really just a warm-up act;
and finally, never say that there's no way your candidate can lose an election.
7:47:06 PM 
|
