Listen to the victim, abused by the system
The basis is racist, you know that we must face this.
"It can't happen here". Oh yeah?
"Take a look around at the cities and the towns."

See them hunting, creeping, sneaking
Breeding fear and loathing with the lies they're speaking
The knife, the gun, broken bottle, petrol bomb
There is no future when the past soon come.

And when they come to ethnically cleanse me
Will you speak out? Will you defend me?
Or laugh through a glass eye as they rape our lives
Trampled underfoot by the right on the rise

Welcome to a state where the politics of hate
Shout loud in the crowd "Watch them beat us all down"
There's a rising tide in the rivers of blood
But if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence

If they come to ethnically cleanse me
Will you speak out? Will you defend me?
Freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
Trampled underfoot by the rise of the right

yeah, in case you hadn't notices, the World Economic Forum is where we got the World Trade Organization, which is currently allowing Europe to sue the USA for over-subsidising it's corporations.

I would have thought that any decent right winger, particularly one of a libertarian bent, would have been right out there on the streets along side the Black Bloc protesting :-)

Bob, your "poetry" is just so sad (not to mention bad).

Talk about HYPERBOLE..."ethnically-cleanse me"? "rape me"? "trample underfoot?--come on! Come off it!

What you mockingly call "the right" is all about everything that makes us America--including the Constitution and the ALL liberties it recognizes! Including the 1st Amendment right to make yourself sound like the fool you probably are.

If anyone's going to trample on you, it won't be the "right." Not unless you break the law and trample on others' rights other--something which the Left has been heavily experienced in over the past several years.

"The knife, the gun, broken bottle, petrol bomb..." Yeah--those are thing the Left know a lot about--or haven't you been watching all those anti-globalization demonstrations footage over the past few years? (Never mind the Left in action over the past several years...)

Remember that Italian communist (seriously--that's what he was) "martyred" by that riot cop in Genoa?

What a novel Leftists innovation to exercise free speech by hurling fire extinguishers at cops. How evil, how repressive and "right-wing" of that cop to defend himself...

Do you know what it's like to have a fire extinguisher hurled at your head, Bob? I don't--and I sure as hell hope I never do.

If anyone comes to hurl fire extinguishers--or paving stones, or petrol bombs, or whatever--at "rightists", will folks like you be there to defend me? Judging from what I've learned over the years, I doubt it...

By the way, the NSDAP were among the first successful pioneering anti-globalization protesters. Do you know what "NSDAP" stands for?

Stay informed, Bob.

I suspect a lot of people will have very little tolerance for the sort of collectivist anti-free-association stasist crap of the anti-globalization buffoons. The zeitgeist has shifted radically, as I suspect they will soon discover the hard way.

Jay's remarks about the NSDAP is quite correct... in Argentina the neo-fascists are also an 'anti-globalization' party whom history has passed by.

On the other hand, Jay, WEF is one of the most prominent marks of the globalization movement, which is the greatest current threat to the american constitution, state and way of life.

The WTO, left unchecked, would make a single great market out of the world, in much the way the Eurocrats have unified the european market, with massive loss of soverignty and individual rights. Already we can see the beginnings of the WTO putting pressure on american domestic policy. While I may not agree with either the tactics or the politics of the street protestors, I do think there is legitimate cause for concern, from a constitutionalist point of view, about the WEF, the WTO, and all that they represent.

Who said this?

"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it;"

Don't you think that the WTO is a rather blatant violation of this maxim? Don't you think that that matters?

I'm frankly stunned that anyone willing to defend the Constitution as strongly as the regular posters at this site is so ready to defend the WEF, the WTO, and assorted associated bodies. The real problem with the agendas put forward by these organizations is not the idea of a global marketplace - that's here already, and it's at best an exercise in Dadaist politics to protests its arrival - but the idea that a foreign body controlled by corprate interests should be allowed to create laws that ovverride the highest levels of the US government - and that's exactly what's at stake here. Any time any corporate interest, domestic, foreign, or international, tries to dictate what's right for me, for my peers, and and for my country, you bet your ass I'm going to fight. The WTO and the WEF have your best interests no more at heart than do Al Quaida or the Saudis - they've just got different convictions.

And BTW - the fellow at top isn't a poet - he's quoting an oldish Pop Will Eat Itself tune ;)

While I am strongly against world trade, I am just as strongly against people voicing their opinions through violence and bullying.
I strongly suggest staying away from the city this weekend if public displays of righteous idiocy offend you.

To be 'strongly against world trade' is to be in favour of poverty and against free association. It is to favour force over choice. It is to favour death and famine in the third world. Anyone who actually wants for the peoples of South America, Africa and Asia to prosper should be demanding not an end to world trade but the removal of ALL barriers to entry to the US and EU markets. At a stroke that would result in cheaper products for common working western people as cheaper African, South American and Asian goods become available. Immediately the economies of third world nations would improve as they could sell their products without immoral grotesque discriminatory tariff barriers.

Also, as a laissez-faire capitalist libertarian, I am STRONGLY opposed to the World Bank, the WTO and the IMF... these are institutions that support crony capitalism and big-government. They subsidise neo-national socialist stupidity like that in Argentina and despotic kleptocratic regimes across the globe.

I am in favour of true free association and therefore laissez-faire and TRUE globalization. I reject collectivism in all its coercive left and right wing forms and the violence and poverty they always lead to. Individualism and laissez-faire capitalism without borders is the only moral option and the only option that can actually work at all in the long run.

Well said, Perry. I think you nailed the bulk of what's wrong with WTO right there: it's not about FREE trade, it's about transferring more of the power of states into corporate hands, and the power of individuals into state hands.

Frankly, although I abhor the methods (mostly because they're so darned ineffective in the long run) I applaud the goals.

NO to WTO, and all of the impoverishment, rip-off and coercion which it stands for.

And I'll surprise our Palestinian apologist friend by saying that I'm against the WTO and the WEO myself -- but I will never have any commonality with the morons who make a big business out of destroying property. These are the same idiots who, after September 11, hastily changed their protest signs from "Say No to WEO" to "End This Racist War."

[grin]

No, I'm with you on this one, Charles: the protesters are, by and large, a good example of everything which is wrong with the left and anarchist movements. Unruly, disorganized, lacking in any alternative vision and often criminal to boot.

However, that leaves us, the intelligent right, somewhat mapped out of the game with respect to effective action against these kinds of freedom-infringing structural power-grabs: to protest WTO one groups ones selves with ineffective idiots. To sit and let it slide seems very wrong.

Um, you can oppose the violent idiots (who quite often happen to be Marxists of one stripe or another) and still oppose the WTO. It won't get you quoted in the paper or shown on TV, but it can be done.

How? And how to do it effectively?

Frankly, I've got no interest in resisting the Marxists - they do quite a good enough job of resisting themselves!

Have you ever *been* to one of their meetings... oh my god.... I really do recommend it: you'll never lost a second's sleep about the far left again.

But the WTO is another matter, and at this point I see no effective action by the right - I've yet to see even planning for effective action.

How would smart right wingers bring this matter to the public attention? Or to the attention of american business interests (as opposed to transnational business interests who just happen to be camping here for the moment).

I think that's the pressing question: how to get american business to see the WTO as a threat, which it is, and not as a junket.

How? And how to do it effectively?

Not my problem -- I don't care about it enough. If you care enough, then figure it out for yourself.

Have you ever *been* to one of their meetings

I went to a "progressive" group's meeting back during the Gulf War. The group's president -- an intelligent fellow from the Middle East -- patiently explained to them that Saddam Hussein would never give up Kuwait, and that he would only listen to force. They continued with their idiotic peace activism.

Anyone with any sense "fears" this type of people, because they are fanatics. Reality cannot intrude on their world view. Unfortunately, their rhetoric has been moving mainstream; the reason you can't think of a way to express opposition to the WTO without getting lumped in with the Marxists is because the arguments you'd want to use -- personal liberty, national sovereignty, for example -- have been cast as evil by the far left.

If the AFL/CIO, for example, wanted to be responsible, they wouldn't show up for this kind of crap. Instead, they trot their president out to the riot-in-planning so he can mouth a bit of class-warfare rhetoric and give the "working man's" stamp of approval.

Oh, and globalization is not the "greatest threat" to the USA. I think the lunatics who like to slaughter children to bring about their ideal world take that slot.

I think the problem for people with beefs with the WTO (left or right) is getting the message out. How do you get above the noise level that's being dished out by corporations that control the media? The Left has nothing but magazines like Adbusters and Mother Jones and they're pretty much just preaching too the choir. And the right, as VKG points out doesn't seem to have much of a movement going at all.

Robert hits the nail on the head when he said that "It won't get you quoted in the paper or shown on TV". That's the problem for both sides (and likely why the Left has degenerated into violence).

Oh, and what we New Yorkers need is people spraying mace and biting noses? Come on, that's just assholish.

The anti-WTO people make me crazy, don't get me wrong. But it's time to act like adults, not rapist celebrity boxers.

Its the corruption stupid!

And those who do the corrupting really get their jollies off when those they corrupt engage in any kind of activity that takes everybody’s eyes off of the corruption ball, i.e.; counterproductive name calling, using labels so abstract that they are meaningless, dialogue that confuses and mixes economic systems with political systems, engaging in inflammatory BS, etc. etc.
There is a value to all of this however. Corruption is an incremental process. The current turmoil is a definitive incremental step in the process of correction that will bring more attention to remedy the problem. We already see a consensus, regardless of viewpoint, that there is a problem. We also see attempts at solutions.
They will not come until the problem is clearly stated.

It is not our Constitution with its Bill of Rights. It is without equal!
It is not capitalism. Capitalism is the quintessential economic system!

CLEAR STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: Its the corruption stupid!
Our magnificent Constitution and that splendid economic system of capitalism have been corrupted!
How and by whom? [Lets be honest now folks!]
Greedy, self serving business interests, have corrupted and gained control of all branches of the government! They own the legislature, judiciary and law enforcement, from top to fucking bottom. These toady suck-up corrupted minions in your government have been steadily cranking out more protectionist laws than Bayer has aspirins. These highly protectionist laws, justified with false rationales [your safety is the most over used], have the sum total effect of putting cash directly into the hands of those who paid to have them created. They are always crafted to be purposefully vague so as to facilitate their selective enforcement!
How have they got away with this?
By controlling the ‘zeitgeist’ [a fickle thing that zeitgeist] through an even more corrupted national media staffed with super slut journalists!

SUMMARY: The system is really wacked – pretty far gone; litigating, voting, running for office, etc. all the traditional methods of change, although somewhat effective, have also been corrupted to merely dissipate your anger and prevent leveling the playing field of that marvelous economic system of capitalism.

SOLUTION: POCKET POWER!
More power than a rocket!
Its the money in your pocket!

Fight greedy protectionist capitalism with value based capitalism!
A characteristic of capitalism is investments determined by private decision.
You can determine not to buy from greedy, self serving scum bags that have corrupted your government, screwed you out of your Constitutionally guaranteed opportunity and taken away your freedoms!

Slick name for boycotts? Hell no, Pocket Power is pure capitalism!
Will it work? You bet your ass it will! All companies live or die by the bottom line! They will mend their evil ways when you squeeze their cash balls [capitalist principle! isn’t it great?]. What's to be done?
Illuminate to eliminate.
Nothing gets rid of a cockroach faster than a little light.
Refocus your combatant energy into illuminating the bad guys and putting out the word that they either suck freedom or you won’t buy their shit [make a private decision to invest elsewhere]!
Remember its all about values!
Just what America needs right now.
We should all be able to kiss and make up and get behind this one.
Lets punish the bad guys – not each other in the streets!
Copy and forward! Thanks!

I wish I could be there to see what it's like.

I do believe that the images that make it onto the news media are the craziest ones, and not a true representation of the activists.

There are too many competing concerns, they have to get it together if they want to present a united front that doesn't end up getting called the Black Bloc.

Don't you guys have something better to do, like instead of arguing about it just go to, oh, I dunno, a click-to-donate site, or an email-your-state-rep site and fix the problems you're so avidly complaining about?