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WSQT Radio 1710 AM in DC
Many have been asking this question: where is the huge movement that fought the Battles of Seattle, A16, Quebec, and Genoa. Where are the millions who marched against the war in 2003?
In 1999, 40,000 people descended on Seattle to kill what became the Doha round of WTO talks after its relaunch the following year. In rapid sucession came battle after battle at international trade summits like Quebec and Genoa.
Less than two years after Seattle, the Servants of Capital struck back: On September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (in which George W Bush is suspected by many of having a hand, permitting them to happen or worse) truck down the Twin Towers in NYC.
After 9/11 came a wave of state terror once ocnsidered unthinkable in the US, with the Dept of Homeland Security Gestapo rounding up thousands. What started in Afghanistan as a limited war soon metastasized into a regional crusade against Iraq and Palestine, with Iran and North Korea next in line. Who can forget that notorious "Axis of Evil" speech?
Still people fought back. In defiance of fear and threats thousands marched against the Patriot Act as far back as 2001. In 2002, as war seemed inevitable in Iraq, protests mushroomed from 80,000 at the IMF/Palestine mobe that spring to half a million in February 2003 in NYC.
After the end of the invasion phase of the war, the Dark Lord Bush strode over the world like a phantasm of terror, seemingly secure in his power over a cowed world.
Soon, however, things began to fall apart for Bush and his masters. The war in Iraq reignited in Fallujah (and even before) into a stunningly powerful insurgency. The Doha WTO talks imploded in Cancun, never to recover. The rising power of Hugo Chavez and other leftist leaders in South and Central America matched the Iraq insurgency with an economic one, all but dooming the FTAA in the proces.
As the resistance grew and grew in Iraq, so did protestors take to the streets once more in the US. This culminated in the huge mobilization against the RNC in New York, where Bush and his friends had gathered the rich and powerful to enjoy wine and cheese over the ruins of the WOrld Trade Center.
THe following year, Bush's regime began to implode even as protestors seemed to tire out. First the Abramoff scandal took put Tom Delay. Next, Hurricane Katrina showed everyone what Bush and the capitalists REALLY had in mind.
After Katrina,African-American families waited on rootftops for rescue that never came while fat cats drew up plans to eminent domain the city and remake it as a playground for the wealthy. These plans were scrapped as FEMA and Bush feared a second insurgency in Occupied New Orleans.
Katrina drove gas to $3 a gallon, yet few protested! Even as scandal after scandal exploded, culminating in the Mark Foley sex scandal, people seemed to be content to limit their protests to polls and elections.
The Dems are no poised to take over at least one, posibly both houses of Congress as voters turn the election into one of the largest protests in US history.
Unfortunately, great danger remains even if voters cut off the GOP arm of the capitalist octopus as now seems likely. It is not enough-it can NEVER be enough-to cut off just one arm of this beast that is strangling so much of our good Earth!
A Democratic takeover will at best restore the conditions of 1993-the conditions in which NAFTA was born. Sauron may be thrown from power, but the spirit of Sauron and the masters of Sauron will endure.
At worst, capitalist and their new Democratic lobbyists will face us again wiht the conditons of 1999, where transnational rather than national power was favored to impose their will. Once mroe we will have to fight, both to hold the Dems feet to the fire and to throw down the corporate masters of ALL mainstream political parties.
It is not enough to throw down the Tower of Terror that Bush has built-its capitalist foundations must be removed or it will surely rise again...
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