CKNW Editorial
for December 14, 1999

I’m amazed that there is any doubt why the battle in Seattle was won by the protesters. I don’t of course condone violence whether by protesters or authorities and there was far too much mindless violence on both sides. But what the idiots who run things in this world don’t understand is that there is a world wide rebellion against all authority which is or seems to be out of reach of ordinary people … that is to say, most authority.

Let’s look at some things which seem unconnected.

British people are getting fed up with the European Union which is run by bureaucrats over which they have no control who are guided by prime ministers over whom they only have ephemeral control at best and then only every four or five years.

People in those parts of Canada that don’t elect Liberals are getting badly pissed off with a federal system which utterly ignores them … we have a Prime Minister who controls every single lever of power in the country personally and we have no control over his election and no brakes on his power. The Liberal MPs from BC are worse than useless because they are the trappings of representative government in BC while in fact they are high paid lickspittles.

We have two governments, one in British Columbia and one in Ottawa utterly unconcerned by the opposition of British Columbians to the Nisga’a Treaty and unblushingly hold phony public meetings to, in a style reminiscent of Joseph Stalin’s show trials, give them the pretext of official approval they crave before shoving the treaty down our throats.

We see a government get less than 3% of the popular vote in a constituency they once held.

We see business leaders across the country utterly unconcerned with an international trade structure which will listen to them with great care but will play no attention to ordinary citizens. These business people and their high paid experts express amazement that everyone doesn’t take their word for the proposition that a global economy run by the selfish board rooms of big corporations is good for them. They’re stunned that workers, white collar and blue, want to not only know what the hell is going on but have some say in the matter. The country’s right wing can’t understand that the great unwashed see the World Trade Organization as representing capitalists they don’t control, who in turn control the politicians who are unanswerable to the ordinary citizen.

We are governed by an establishment that is made up entirely of self interested, self serving plutocrats who have abandoned all concerns for public process and principles of democracy and there is bewilderment often combined with contempt at what happened in Seattle.

The public around the world is telling its respective establishments to get stuffed.

Yes, we all know the globalization is here to stay and we all understand that governments are very limited, in terms of historic powers, in what they can do. What the public will not put up with is politicians surrendering what little power they have, without a fight, to bureaucracies like the European Community, to the Business Community and the World Trade Organization.

This power unleashed in Seattle is not a sometime, here today, gone tomorrow thing. Many of the protest groups were way outers who have been with us since time began. But the main thrust of the fight comes from those who in other times dressed up like Indians and threw containers of tea in Boston Harbour.

We have seen the manifestation of a huge, lumbering, ill led and often ill advised movement. It’s not going to go away nor is it simply the left, or greenies, or tree huggers, or anarchists. Those politicians who understand this and see the need for reform but more importantly focus on and implement real reform will prosper.

If the Campbell led Liberals want to cement their strength and ensure that it goes past the next election they will not only continue to promise drastic government reform they will demonstrate a willingness to implement it.

It’s too late for the federal Liberals in BC. Much as I stand miles away from them on social issues and issues of civil liberties, even I will vote Reform next time and in doing so I will be following the decision of the majority of British Columbians. After Nisga’a and other issues too numerous to list, the Federal Liberals have lost all right to support from this province and I predict they will lost at least 5 of their 7 BC seats next time … they’ll lose all of them if we have our wits and memories about us.

There may have been some damned fools in Seattle but none so foolish as those who think that the public is going to continue to be pushed around by people who are not elected and by people who are elected but don’t think it necessary to represent the people once the votes are cast.