My Not-So-Secret Past: WTO Protester

I wanted to share a blast from the past with you. This shot was taken in Seattle whilst I was attending a rally before marching to protest the WTO. That's World Trade Organization.

YES, I WAS THERE! Yes, I smelled the tear gas. Blech.

Professor X and I had gone up with a group to participate in the People's Rally and March for Fair Trade on Tuesday, November 30, 1999.

I made my own special sign to carry. It read "WTO - Do your mothers know what you're up to?"


I am so clever.

Because you are my special friends, I will tell you a little something more. Something about the terrible destructive rioting that went on that evening. I was not part of it. I was headed home with my group, eager to see my two children. I'd left them home just in case things got a too wild. Little did I know.

Amazing Girl Child was a small baby then. I'd hated being away from her that day, mostly because I loved every minute of being with her. But also because she was breastfeeding. And by the time I got home that evening, I was swollen to bursting. Ouchies. Big ouchies! Boy, was I glad to see that baby. Too personal? Sorry.

I'd gone to the rally because I thought it was important to show support for those who had organized it. I'd joined 50,000 environmental, human rights, labor, and church activists in a peaceful and legal demonstration.

With our current economic crisis, the WTO is again in the news, but the focus is on resistance toward US protectionism. Articles like this show that media attention is not on abusive labor practices around the world or environmental degradation caused by low standards from WTO policies. I'm concerned that we might forget it's important to protect our air and water and workers because of concern for the economy.

I haven't forgotten. We can't sacrifice precious health and physical safety of workers - and ultimately, of ourselves - because we're scared about this downturn.

After all, what would our mothers say?

Thoughtful Thursday: What's YOUR American Dream?

The economy is in trouble. I know they've been saying this for a while, but I actually believe it now.

A friend's husband is getting laid off.

Another friend's husband has lost a third of his business contracts, and she is scrambling to make sure that the family can still get needed medical and dental services.

Others are afraid of losing their jobs, driving unreliable cars, and dreading a whole variety of unexpected expenses and income loss.

I received an action alert today from Moveon.org about the greed of Wall Street bankers taking big bonuses whilst expecting the federal government to spend taxpayers' dollars on bank bailouts.

Big bonuses.

The alert said "Sen. McCaskill was reacting to the $18.4 billion in bonuses that Wall Street bankers took home in 2008."

That's a whole lotta dough. It would pay for a lot of dental checkups or brake jobs.

What it comes down to, for me anyway, is nothing less than defining the American dream. Is it that anyone can grab as much as they can? That government should not get in the way of profit-making endeavors? That there should be no regulation of business? That this is a great country because a person can rise to a level where they make an obscene amount of money while others go hungry?

Um.....I don't think so.

I believe in the idea of one's fair share. And not the insane excess that some people have been taking and spending.

One of my friends recently sent me a picture of her taken at the FDR Memorial in DC. I totally love that place. It's full of beautiful natural stone and water and great bronze sculptures. I'm inspired by his quotes, chiseled into the stone. The one I've shared above encapsulates one of the reasons I'm a Democrat, and what I hope fellow Democrats believe. I'd love it if my fellow Americans all believed it.

What do you believe?