Conned No More

David R. Brower / Alliance Magazine v.2, n.1

Citizens of America, you've been conned. You invited Bill Clinton and to con you when NAFTA and GATT came up. Doonesbury and Ralph Nader didn't buy it. Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club, and Earth Island Institute didn't either. Nor did the United Steelworkers of America or the defenders of Headwaters Redwoods. Too many other organizations and institutions accelerated damage to the earth and to workers by being willing to advocate an ever-booming global economy. Every presidential candidate is now trying to promise people that they can sustain this kind of economic growth. I need not remind union members how much "growth" there has been in union jobs under the "booming" globalized economy.

Ask not for whom the economy booms, it booms for the rich. In fact, Jeff Gates, author of the forthcoming book, Democracy At Risk: Rescuing Main Street from Wall Street, tells us that 86% of the much-reported stock market gains of the last decade were harvested by the richest 10% of Americans. Bill Gates (no relation) alone now has more money than the poorest 45% of Americans. The wealth of Gates and the second and third richest men in America exceed the gross domestic product of the world's poorest 41 countries, with their 550 million citizens. Don't expect men this rich to like your naive concept of democracy. You should, however, expect it of the press, of local or national governments, and all other institutions that are subject to public pressure, a category that now includes the World Trade Organization.

At Bill Gates's invitation, the economic con men took their mischief to Seattle, attempting to expand the WTO's overwhelming power, but didn't get away with it. As Lori Wallach of Public Citizen put it, "the unstoppable force called economic globalization just hit the immovable object called grassroots democracy."

Grassroots democracy got a shot in the arm last March, at the always impressive Land, Air, and Water conference in Eugene, Oregon, when a few Steelworkers and enviros got a memorable meeting going in the bar. We shared regret over what Charles Hurwitz was doing to our redwoods, working people, and local economies, if not his own. We declared an alliance and soon cemented it in Eureka, California. I was delighted to be invited to co-chair the coalition with USWA's David Foster, who later described our mission so beautifully that it must be repeated as often as possible: If you will promise to make sustainable jobs a product of environmental protection we will promise to make environmental protection our most important job."

To which I added, feeble by comparison: "We promise that the Alliance will be the conscience for corporations, investors, and politicians who have lost theirs. They want to keep us tied up in a jobs-versus-the-environment contest, when the real imperative is to create a world where we all have jobs-for-the-environment."

An ad that ran the week of the World Trade Organization Ministerial meeting read: "When the state becomes the servant of corporations it's called fascism. When the corporations create their own super state, it's called the VETO.'' The general WTO idea is to keep the environment, human rights, workers' rights, and peace from get ting in the way of world trade. If the transnational corporations and big investors are suffering from a disease I call Ecomyopia, what's the cure? Start by realizing there are limits to Growth. Then ask: What kinds of Growth must we have? What kinds can we no longer afford?

Restorative businesses that can help make the economy safe for Life on Earth, employee-owned companies that promote economic equity, these are just a few examples of how some kinds of economic growth would do us some good. The economic growth of the WTO where the rich get richer and our children get a threadbare, toxic planet is something not even Bill Gates can afford.

My friend Nancy Newhall called for us to live on the Earth in such a way that no creature "snake nor butterfly, be hindered from its errand." But what is our own errand? Perhaps we have forgotten, and must remember that every species alive has an errand: to share, restore, and celebrate the Earth. From other species we can re-learn commerce; the cycles of Nature restore everything. And nothing is wasted. Everything is made ready for the next use and next user. You wouldn't ask a bee to opt for a job or the environment. In the course of doing its ` job" of gathering food to insure the survival of its hive, it pollinates the wild plants and domestic crops that make the world livable (and edible!) for the rest of us. If our cleverness with chemicals and genes kills off bees and other crop pollinators, even Wall Street would notice (and they generally only care about one kind of green ...Greenspan!).

As we look to the future, we can say, "Remember Seattle!" Remember the tens of thousands who took to the streets to take back democracy. Remember how the police became the unwitting handmaidens of the transnational corporations. Having been in combat in World War B, I could not fail to notice how much like the German SS their behavior was. They were too young to know whose interests their brutal actions served. I don't have the problem of being too young. The Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment was not deterred but immeasurably strengthened. We all deserve congratulations on winning the first round in Seattle. The door is wide open to create an alternate future that makes sense. We can start by enjoying the inspired analysis by Paul Hawken of how the possibilities changed in Seattle. Pass the article around and prepare to keep winning. By all means put it in the hands of your favorite presidential candidate and ask him to support it. Then persuade him to think more like Ralph Nader on pain of losing votes to him.

Alliance Magazine is a publication of the
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