[free-sklyarov] Re: WTO and Sklyarov/Adobe/DMCA

[Neale Pickett]

Mike, thank you for this thoughtful exposition.  This is what I was
trying to express, but you have punctuated my sentiments very lucidly.
I did not mean to imply WTO or WTOII were not worth while, but as you
wrote, there is much to be learned with how events proceeded and how
they were covered by the media.

Opinions have become entrenched, and the Seattle contingent now consists
of those who will protest on Monday at 11:00, and those who will await
word from the EFF at a nearby park.  Obviously I can't speak for
everyone, but I support the peaceful actions of everyone on this list:
we are all taking what we feel to be the best course of action to help
free Dmitry.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone on Monday, and wish the best of
luck to you all!

Neale

Mike Orr writes:
> On Fri, Jul 20, 2001 at 11:57:23PM -0700, Neale Pickett wrote:
>> But we don't want to spoil things for the EFF by protesting anyway.  WTO
>> has left a sour taste in our mouth (who can name three issues raised by
>> protesters during WTO?  Okay now who can name three kinds of anti-riot
>> gear used by police?), so we want to make sure we use our ability to
>> protest as a strategic tool, not an end in and of itself.
>> 
>> This strategy may not work so well in other parts of the country, less
>> seasoned by protests gone awry :-)

> I don't agree with Neale's negative assessment of the WTO protests, but
> I support his position of restraint in the Sklyarov/Adobe/DMCA case.
> And maybe--as he says--it's because I was at WTO and WTO II (=the
> anniversary), am living with its aftermath, and saw how the (especially
> non-local) media misrepresented it and various (local) interests use its
> memory for their own ends.  BTW, I'm ambivalent about "free trade" vs
> "fair trade", but I'm hopping mad about the DMCA.

> I must object to the term "protests gone awry".  Many people in Seattle
> feel the WTO protest didn't "go awry": it went just fine, thank you.
> The main denouncers are a few boosters wringing their hands over
> our "tarnished image as a world-class city", whatever that means.  I
> guess it means they can't woo companies here as easily as they used to.
> Big deal.  This is not to discount the real negative consequences of the
> event: non-protestors being arrested, protesters receiving "excessive
> force", and innocent businesses downtown losing money.  But the real
> lesson of the WTO protest transcends these unfortunate occurrences and
> even the political issues involved.  

> The lesson is that ordinary people can make a difference.  20,000 people
> attending--and millions of people who didn't--rediscovered the fact that
> they are not powerless, that they can make governments and companies
> listen to their concerns, and if not force them to do the right thing,
> at least force them to give lip service to it or find themselves in an
> embarrassing situation.  The whole four days of WTO was worth it just to
> see Madeline Albright detained in her hotel for half a day!  Sorry for
> the inconvenience, Madeline, but you unwittingly ushered in an age of
> public participation in "the system", and that's what the United States
> of America is supposed to be about.

> But what were the protesters saying and how was it perceived?  This is
> why I urge restraint in the current situation.

> "Who can name three issues raised by protesters during WTO?  Okay now
> who can name three kinds of anti-riot gear used by police?"  This is
> exactly right.  All the anti-globalization protests have done a great
> job of drawing attention to themselves, but a bad job of drawing
> attention to the issues.  And it's not because of a lack of trying:
> WTO and WTO II had teach-ins galore (and still do).  It's because the
> media likes to report on civil unrest and name-calling, and once that
> starts, everything else goes out the window.  80% of the newspaper 
> coverage of all the protests the past two years has been about the
> outlandish things people did, not about the issues.

> Also, remember that the public has much less understanding of DMCA
> issues than they do about trade/NAFTA/labor, and our position sounds so
> weird and paranoid they are reluctant to accept it.  We must not lose
> our historic chance to educate people about the DMCA by degenerating
> into an anti-Adobe protest or a protest-for-the-sake-of-protest.

> This last point bears repeating.  During both WTO and WTOII, there
> were three distinct types of protesters during the day (every day).  In
> the daytime, the talk was almost exclusively on
> trade/NAFTA/labor/environment, the labor unions were out in force,
> and the most ingenious forms of protest took place.  At WTO II, the
> protesters presented the mayor with a cake to thank him for bringing the
> trade conference to town and thus giving a forum for the protesters to 
> state their grievances.  (The irony of course is that the mayor is a 
> booster!)  (PS. It wasn't the mayor who initiated the conference.)
> Around 5pm, most of those people went home and another type of protester
> started arriving, and the rhetoric changed from being mostly about
> trade to being mostly about free speech and police excesses.  Then
> around 8pm, most of those people went home and a third type of
> protester became predominent.  These people were more anti-police than
> anything else, and were determined to sit in the intersections until
> they were arrested.  It felt like you could ask somebody, "Hey, wasn't
> this protest supposed to be about trade?" and they would have responded,
> "Trade?  What's trade?"

> -- 
> -Mike (Iron) Orr, iron at mso.oz.net  (if mail problems: mso at jimpick.com)
>    http://iron.cx/     English * Esperanto * Russkiy * Deutsch * Espan~ol