THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH
    Matt Drudge   on Seattle WTO99
Late on Tuesday evening in Seattle, such a commotion in the street.

Someone declared the end of globalism, broke a window, and someone's head got beat.

Who cares if CNNMSNBCFOXNEWS and all of the rest of the phony cable news channels did not have the guts to cover the globalism riots in Seattle in real-time.

They're yesterday's way. Late-century frauds that will get washed away like a bad nightmare in morning light.

[Didn't the same channels go live -- for hours -- to a Seattle shooting episode last month? That story was on message, I suppose. GEMURDOCHTURNER like shootings, don't like protests against world systems -- that they run.]

CNNUN was in a stock market report when a series of explosions rocked the downtown area as police cast a giant cloud of noxious gas over the core of Seattle.

Imagine, if you will, that an explosion rocks Pristina. You just know Christiane Amanpour would rush to the airwaves in breaking news urgency, with onions under her fingernails, reporting the sound of the atom splitting. Jamie would be feeding the script in her ear from State.

Ted Turner did not hear the boom -- after all, he sold it years ago for a few million TIMEWARNER A-class global shares. Who gives a damn about America when you are making a fortune with POKEMON profits?

Just as police were firing pepper spray into the crowds and protesters started blazes in the middle of a downtown Seattle street, NBC's concern was with officially launching its first public Internet company bearing its name and branding, NBC Internet, Inc. (NBCi).

In the Year of our Lord Dow Jones 11,000 -- Bob Wright, President and CEO of NBC and Chairman of NBCi made the announcement after the successful closing of the transactions to form NBCi.

As if Wright understands one thing about what is driving the Internet revolution?

[Has anyone checked MSNBC.COM lately? Safe and mushy and late to everything. If it were not for MSNBC corporate deals with WEBTV -- would anyone have this page as their default? Thought so.]

A wave of breaking bottles crashed across the city street, and someone cut a cable to a satellite truck that was feeding to a HANNITY AND COLMES on FOX NEWS.

Late in the day, the channel had exhausted all JonBenet Ramsey, Mexican graves and Monica Lewinsky topics and was reluctantly moving into Seattle coverage at the fresh speed of a FOX FLASH.

MTV NEWS was nowhere to be found in Seattle on Tuesday.

After all, MTV youth weren't programmed to get upset about their corporately conceived destinations. Isn't MTV really just a VIACOM production -- which will soon marry CBS -- which will own a 1/3 of everything on the dish and the box?

"This RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE world premiere video is brought to you by NIKE!"

MTV rebellion is an episode of LOVELINE between bong hits.

Next stop: suicide.

Tom Brokaw-aged Kurt Loder will pretend to be concerned, before he introduces the next Marilyn Manson, brought to you by PEPSI.

ABC's NIGHTLINE did not even mention Seattle Tuesday night. Viewers who thought they were watching anchor Ted Koppel -- quickly realized that he had left the building ten years ago.

There was no symphonic soundtrack, no spiffy 'Battle in Seattle' graphics to tell the story of tens of thousands of diverse protesters trying to scream above the satellites, trying to get the world to hear a story the media networks refuse to tell without a sneer on their faces.

"Not since the days of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement has the entire downtown core of a major American city been seized by popular uprising; rarely has so diverse an array of groups linked elbows against a common enemy, in this case the faceless forces of globalization," a newspaper reported in fresh editions.

"Mad river of people floods the streets of Seattle. Once in a lifetime experience. Send it to your friends," newspaper vendor Paula Rozner called out, announcing afternoon headlines in the old/new-spirit of Extra! Extra!

Organizers credited the Internet with mustering widespread support. "It has allowed people to communicate at least as regularly as corporations do," said Denis Moynihan of the Direct Action Media Collective.

A protester dressed as a sunflower blocked a limousine carrying Secretary of State Madeline Albright on a Seattle street.

To think that she had once told students at a commencement address at Harvard: "Those who graduate today will live global lives!"

Albright must have been reassessing the concept, while sipping lattes, trapped in the lobby of the Westin Hotel as anti-globalism protesters raged outside.

Us Albright watchers have suspected for some time, that for Madam, The World is Not Enough.

Her raw lust to control on a geo-political scale is something beyond ego and ambition and a hot new St. John outfit from Neiman's that makes your Chinese counterpart forget that you bombed his embassy in Kosovo.

Strobe and Sidney and Tony and Hillary and all of the other "Third Way" basketcases should be writing books [that would never sell] about their visions -- not implementing a world policy.

"We think it's a great challenge to marry our conceptions of social justice and equal opportunity with our commitment to globalization," Bill Clinton declared at summit in Florence, Italy a few weeks ago, where his wife picked up a "global law" award.

"A way that requires governments to empower people with tools and conditions necessary for individuals, families, communities and nations."

Sorry, Mr. Clinton. Here, people empower governments.

We thought you knew.

    Reporters Win Web Logs Fight
    6.15.01   Declan McCullagh Wired News
WASHINGTON   A Seattle journalists collective that was the target of an FBI probe declared victory this week after the U.S. government abandoned plans to obtain logs from the group's Web server. Attorneys for the Independent Media Center said Thursday that the government's abrupt decision not to pursue the request "represents a victory" for the left-leaning collective, which had recruited a team of public- interest lawyers and vowed to fight in federal district court. While IMC representatives were never charged with a crime, the FBI had hoped to peruse the collective's Web logs to learn who had posted sensitive documents allegedly stolen from a police car in Quebec City during April's anti-free-trade protests.

But the U.S. Attorney's office dropped the request after learning that Canadian police had completed their investigation and arrested, according to one source, three suspects in the case. Anything that was done in the U.S., specifically in Seattle, concerning this case was done at the request of Canadian authorities," says Robbie Burroughs, a spokeswoman for the FBI's field office. "We never had an investigation here and we were never investigating the company for violating U.S. laws. We were assisting the Canadian authorities in a case they had open." In April, FBI agents visited the Seattle IMC newsroom and handed editors a court order that requested "all user connection logs" for April 20 and 21. It also instructed members of the collective to stay mum about the order's existence, an unusual requirement that led to an immediate series of leaks on IMC websites, reports in local newspapers within a few days, and the eventual involvement of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Constitutional Rights.
"We were going to file a motion to quash," says Nancy Chang, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City. "The government agreed to a vacation of the order prior to our filing." It's not uncommon for law enforcement to deliver an order to an Internet provider or telephone company requesting certain information that it restricts the company from discussing. But the IMC's attorneys liken this incident to federal agents visiting, for example, the newsroom of The New York Times, and barring the paper from publishing any details of the visit. Chang also said that an order requesting logs of visitors would violate the First Amendment right of association by providing "the FBI with a virtual who's who of the people associated with the IMC and their political views."
A spokesman from the U.S. Attorney's office in Seattle said he was not familiar with the case. The IMC is a collective that includes hundreds of loosely affiliated journalists who produce audio, video and print reports. It began with the 1999 World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, and then spread to other cities and other political events. According to the IMC's own description, it's "a grassroots organization committed to using media production and distribution as a tool for promoting social and economic justice." It's not the first time the group has run into trouble with the police. IMC reporters generally are sympathetic to the activists they write about, and some participate in the demonstrations they cover. A standard line from IMC organizers during orientation sessions is: "If you do a protest, take off your press pass first."
Lee Tien, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the IMC -- represented also by the Perkins Coie law firm -- had not yet decided whether to sue the feds for what amounts to harassment. Tien pointed out that the allegations of lawbreaking involved only Canadian law, not that of the U.S. "There's no decision made about what to do," Tien said. "Certainly there are possibilities of some kind of an action."

VALENCIA, Venezuela   Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez opened a summit of Andean nations Saturday by criticizing the proposed 2005 Free Trade Agreement of the Americas as a quick fix for the impoverished region. A proposal by President Bush and other Western Hemisphere leaders for a free trade pact that would expand the North American Free Trade Agreement to include Central and South America has won support from some Andean heads of state. But Chavez warned that unless poor South American nations unite before joining the FTAA, they risk opening the door to multinational giants that will wipe out struggling local businesses and eliminate jobs.
"I think we need to revise the integration process. Is neoliberalism the way to integrate? In Venezuela, we don't think so,'' Chavez said at the opening of the weekend summit in Valencia, Venezuela. The leftist Chavez is convinced that the Andean Community of Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador can gain negotiating muscle by putting their own regional economic integration ahead of the FTAA. But other leaders, including Colombian President Andres Pastrana and Bolivian President Hugo Banzer, said Saturday free trade from Canada to Chile could help spur economic growth in the region and create jobs.

The Andean leaders agreed, however, that something must be done to eliminate the poverty that affects more than half the region's 113 million inhabitants. About 23 million people live in "extreme poverty,'' defined by the World Bank as living on less than a dollar a day. "The Andean Community is much more than import tariffs and trade. It is the anguish, dreams and hopes'' of its people, Pastrana said. The Andean leaders also were discussing the establishment of common tariffs, ways to fight illegal drugs, border security, political unrest and rebel insurgencies. The summit will close with a military parade honoring Simon Bolivar, the Venezuelan general who campaigned in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador in pursuit of a single entity called Gran Colombia.
Chavez trumpets Third World unity to confront a "unipolar'' world dominated by the United States. But his fiery rhetoric has alienated fellow Andean leaders. Pastrana and Chavez have met several times this year to resolve diplomatic spats over the Venezuelan leader's neutrality toward Colombia's Marxist rebels. In December, Chavez's attempt to organize an Andean presidential summit to commemorate the 170th anniversary of Bolivar's death fizzled amid reports that he supported insurgent groups in Bolivia and generals who staged a coup in Ecuador. Chavez denied the charges and, this time, is determined that the Andean summit will shine.

He invited other countries to participate in the military parade that will feature troops from the Amazon jungle marching with Macaw parrots on their shoulders and snakes wrapped around automatic rifles. "We're the same people. Latin America is one bloc. That's what I think and that's what I think we all think,'' said Maj. Gerardo Villanueva, as he organized the festivities amid screeching parrots and other officers barking orders. Also attending were Ecuador's President Gustavo Noboa and Peruvian Foreign Minister Javier Perez de Cuellar.

    Quebec City goes on war footing for Americas trade summit
    4.21.01   Colin Nickerson Boston Globe, The Guardian & agencies
Quebec Quebec City   As if readying for a hurricane or worse, residents and shopkeepers in the old walled quarter of Quebec City spent Thursday hammering plywood and wire mesh over their windows in anticipation of a weekend of protests. Already graffiti are common. "Death to polluters," reads one Day-glo scrawl. Another says: "Demolish the Summit." The three-day Summit of the Americas has brought an eerie transformation to a beautiful
city. Narrow cobbled streets that are usually packed with tourists are nearly empty. There is not a single block unguarded by uniformed or plain-clothes officers drafted into anti-riot duty from across Canada. In the streets, sparks flew on Thursday as municipal workers finished welding shut manhole covers and sewer grates. … The goal of an American free trade zone from the Arctic Circle to Cape Horn was mooted seven years ago but lay dormant after the Clinton administration lost "fast track" negotiating authority in 1994. Pres. GWBush has declared it a priority but his fellow leaders are sceptical about what the US is ready to bring to the table.
This weekend's 34-nation gathering is supposed only to rubber-stamp the declaration on the Free Trade Area of the Americas agreed by officials last week in Buenos Aires. The hard bargaining comes next, over the 300-page agreement that is the basis for negotiations between now & Jan. 2005. Along with presidents, prime ministers and roughly 9,000 delegates, 6,000 police and 2,000 journalists, the Quebec City summit is expected to attract 10,000 to 40,000 demonstrators from the Americas & Europe. While most are committed to peaceful protests against plans to unite North & South America into a free trade zone, there is deepening fear that radicals will seek to turn confrontations with the police into full-blown riots. One Web site warned: "Our goal in Quebec City is to smash capitalism. But a brick through the windows of blood-sucking commerce or a Gestapo vehicle is also very satisfying."

Police have sealed off nearly all the old city and an adjacent neighbourhood of hotels & govt buildings from all outsiders except summit delegates & journalists. Residents are required to carry special passes. All traffic except police vehicles & summit limousines have been barred from the streets for the duration of the summit. Outside the towering chain-link fence cordoning off the summit, streets were unusually quiet as tourists fled and residents bolted themselves indoors. Police surveillance helicopters thudded continuously overhead. Mayor Jean-Paul L'Allier says he regrets that Quebec City agreed to host the gathering, saying he is fearful of violence and thinks the extraordinary security measures will tarnish a reputation for grace and hospitality. "As for the next time world leaders decide to hold a closed meeting," he says, "they should hold it in the desert."

Life During APEC '97
Have you heard of APEC '97, also known as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit? It was a major intl economic conference in Vancouver, Canada 11.19-26.1997. 18 world leaders attended conference and hardly anyone in N.America knew it was happening. Did you know that during that conference, not only Bill Clinton & Jean Chretien but also tyrants like Indonesia's Suharto & Jiang Zemin of China endorsed a deal to supplement the Intl Money Fund to prevent financial meltdown in the East, and discussed trade, business infrastructure and other matters that will impact your life? Curious? Want more information? Check out official APEC site to get the party line or Canadian govt's APEC '97 site for press releases & other official info about Nov. conference results. Know more about the other side at APEC-Alert.
I couldn't avoid APEC because I work in the bldg next to the conf. HQ in Canada Place and the Waterfront hotel where President Clinton, Madelaine Albright and the US delegation took up residence. The conference public relations people called it a "secure zone." It felt more like a war zone to me. APEC security analysts put a lot of effort and imagination into identifying any and every potential threat and then set up precautions intended to prevent them. If those same defences suborned the civil rights of ordinary citizens whose tax dollars were footing the bill for conference, well that was just too bad.
It's not as if civilians don't voluntarily give up those rights in small, often unnoticed ways on an almost daily basis in govt buildings, office towers and especially airports. Every time we enter an airport to meet someone else's flight or fly somewhere on an airplane, we & our belongings are subjected to camera surveillance, metal detectors, x- rays and searches. Our bags can be confiscated if we put them down in the terminal then walk away from them for a minute or so too long. No search warrant is necessary because we are assumed to consent to those invasions of our privacy when we present ourselves at the entrance to the terminal. Everyone has the right to refuse, but exercising it results in being denied entry & forfeiting the plane ticket. It's hard to condemn airport security designed to stop people from taking weapons or bombs onto planes. But security is a delicate balancing act between curtailing public freedoms & rights and ensuring safety. If too much emphasis is placed in one direction or the other, everything tumbles down, usually hurting the public in the process.

My sense of foreboding about APEC '97 started with the melodramatic memoranda circulated on behalf of the APEC management committee a month before the conference: don't expect to use too many couriers, because they dress strangely and will have problems getting through the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) checkpoints; don't carry long narrow objects near the windows because it makes the US Secret Service agents nervous and they are likely to shoot first and ask questions later; don't drive into the area unless you've got photo identification and a monthly parking decal to show that you have a right to be beneath the building; don't drive if you don't have to, and allow extra time no matter how you are getting to work because bus routes will be changed and traffic congested in the entire downtown core due to street closures. Oh, and by the way, you're still expected to be at work on time. 2 weeks before the conference began, I realised it was going to be far worse than I had expected. A man carrying a grenade in his hand luggage was captured at Vancouver International Airport in a spot check. Next day the newspapers announced that the cost of security for APEC had more than doubled. They didn't say that it was related to the alleged terrorist's arrest, but it seemed like an awfully big coincidence to me. By the time APEC started on November 19, the 3 buildings in the Waterfront Complex were surrounded by concrete barricades, chain link fences and gates. In one way, I was lucky. My bus route had not been changed. I only had to walk 4 or 5 extra blocks around the sealed-off streets to get to work. Others had to walk as many as 15 or 20 blocks. Still, as I walked to work, I could feel the eyes following me. The eyes of the police & RCMP officers who stood in clumps on every street corner. The eyes of the RCMP officers manning the concrete barricades at the outer checkpoints. The eyes of the RCMP officers manning the gates at the inner checkpoints, making sure that I wasn't trying to go anywhere but into my building. The eyes of the RCMP officers in the lobby of my building. The eyes of the police, RCMP and CSIS and US Secret Service agents congregating in the food court: holding meetings at the tables, eating McDonalds, drinking Starbucks coffee, listening to instructions through their ear wires and muttering into walkie-talkies. Eyes watching to make sure that I wasn't going anywhere I didn't belong and wasn't overly interested in the security personnel. Ignorance & willful blindness of my co-workers both astounded me and added to my stress. Why didn't they realise that the concrete barricades down the middle of Cordova Street were there to prevent the car & truck bombs like those used by terrorists in Lebanon, in London and in Oklahoma? That there were bomb-sniffing dogs wandering around because someone expected there to be bombs? That the plethora of handguns holstered on uniform belts & beneath suit jackets were there because there was an expectation that they would be needed & used? That the security was there to protect the APEC delegates and everyone else was just a potential innocent bystander? … I pushed them into moving away from the office windows facing onto Canada Place the day I looked down & saw fire trucks idling and military personnel scrambling around. Afterwards, when tv news announced the military had dealt with 2 bomb threats that day, they realised that I hadn't been joking after all. And they still managed to feel safe. Friday, Nov. 21, security tightened further … Complaints about inconvenience & delays, but not a single comment about civil rights infringed every day of the conference. When the subject was broached, they were incredulous & disbelieving. This was about protection & safety, wasn't it? How could it possibly hurt them? How could it erode their civil rights? How could they not see what was happening in front of their own faces? Not all of us could pick up placards & take to the streets in protest, but we ought to defend those who did.

Indonesian immigrants & supporters ignored threats of retaliation from President Suharto and his Foreign Minister Ali Alatas against family members remaining in Indonesia, and took to the streets. Lest you dismiss these threats as vague & unfounded, consider that some observers estimate Suharto & his allies slaughtered as many as 400,000 Communists, suspected Communist sympathisers and East Timorian peasants. Many Chinese joined the protests, taking a stand against Jiang Zemin. In an interview with the publisher & 2 reporters from Canadian newspaper The Globe & Mail Sat.11.29.97 shortly after APEC '97, the Chinese President claimed to be a democrat, and that he thinks himself "quite open-minded". Those protestations from man who governs a country which encourages forced abortion & murder of female infants; approves the use of organs for transplants without prior consent from executed prisoners; believes bloody military crackdown in Tiananmen Square, in which hundreds and possibly thousands died, was necessary. The Globe & Mail, "Had the then Chinese govt failed to adopt resolute measures, then we could not possibly have enjoyed today's stability."
Many APEC '97 protesters were Canadian: members of the "People's Summit" (a mainstream anti- APEC group), of the left wing "No! to APEC Coalition", First Nations people and students …

Protest was not acceptable to those who organised security for APEC '97. C conditioned to look for conspiracies, assassins and terrorists saw ample opportunity for both in the most peaceful demonstration. Barricades, fences and a small army of police kept protesters far from APEC leaders meeting in Museum of Anthropology at University of Br.Columbia. One person was arrested for posting signs with subversive messages like "Democracy" & "Free Speech" outside security perimeter. Nov. 25 when demonstrators got too close to security fence some tore at wire fence, police entered the fray. Using bicycles to force their way into the crowd, they used pepper spray on protesters, bystanders, reporters. When over, 40 arrested during protests & attempts to block roads used by motorcades. Most of those people were among the demonstrators, but 2 of them were members of the Indonesian security team assigned to protect Suharto. What were they doing in the middle of that protest? None of the press releases or news articles I've found have said anything beyond that they were arrested for breach of the peace during a demonstration.
Why compromise Canadian civil rights for a forum that is unlikely to ever include human rights on its agenda? Answer appears to be money. Experts all agree that in ever-shrinking world, Canada must expand its trade horizons to thrive. APEC's information overview sets the 1996 combined GNP of 18 member countries as over $22 trillion, or approximately 52% of total world output and 40% of global trade. To Canada, with globally integrated economy, APEC represents a trading bloc which cannot be ignored by those in power …. APEC '97 results more ephemeral than concrete. Other than financial bailout pgm for troubled Eastern countries, geared toward encouraging further work in the future. No amount of money or promises of future benefits can possibly make it worth my while to give up my civil rights. Vancouver Sun newspaper article titled "Stephen Hume: Denounce the Tyrants", Hume talks about willingness of Canadian politicians & financiers to deal with leaders like Suharto & Zemin, to ignore human rights, environmental standards and workers' rights in return for discussions of freer trade & financial considerations. In his words, "Out in the blunt-spoken hinterlands we call this whoring, but this week in the sophisticated city it will be called a necessity of protocol." … when I sold my body on the streets, I was paid in cold hard cash, not vague promises couched in flowery language.

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