FLOWER-POWER, 2000

(Scoper)

"Anybody here, seen my old friend 1960's? I just looked around, and he's gone…"

Well, maybe not completely. What passes today for a Haight-Ashbury-style protest has happened twice in recent months. Last year, it was the so-called "Battle in Seattle," when demonstrators made their feelings known by disrupting the meeting of the World Trade Organization. Over the weekend similar street shenanigans in Washington, D.C. accompanied gatherings of delegates from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

(Remember when "IMF" meant "Impossible Mission Force," and that if Peter Graves or any of his "I-M force" were caught or killed, the Secretary would disavow any knowledge of their actions? And we thought all those tapes had self-destructed.)

Protest is alive and well in the United States today, and that's a fine thing. I'd be just as worried about a society in which no one cared to complain, as I would be about a society in which no one was allowed to complain. But, for the record, I've gotta say that these little eruptions of discontent, just don't have the flavor (dare I say "panache?") of the Daley-driven, storm-troopin', skull-crackin' anti-Vietnam riots outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

That's fine, too. It's not a stupid, immoral war they're trying to stop these days (Ha! And you thought I was a straight-line conservative!), it's public attitudes about big-money, international capitalism.

Of course, that's where they lose me. I don't think the World Bank and IMF are doing much good, either, but for different reasons. What impoverished, struggling countries need is freedom for their people to help themselves. Bailouts from wealthy, advantaged nations such as the U.S. will not bring that about; most of the money tends to turn iron-fisted dictators into the Energizer Bunny. (They just go on, and on, and on.) We need to take a different approach, and, my protesting friend, as cool as you might look in your bandanna and Birkenstocks, you're simply on the wrong track.

So are slogans such as these, seen in D.C. last weekend (though some are creative):

In all your decadence, people die
More world, less bank
Human need, not corporate greed
Global Village, not pillage

(my personal favorite:) Spank the Bank

Yes, capitalists ARE greedy, but a pure capitalist doesn't begrudge someone else a better life, too. It's not a "zero-sum" game, where if I get more, you get less. There's plenty for everyone; what we have is not a "resources" crisis, but a "distribution" crisis.

What does everybody really want, no matter where he or she lives? A better life. Now, that's relative, and historically, it always has been. During the early Industrial Revolution of the 19^th century, rural people flocked to the cities to do hard, grimy, lousy labor for 60 hours a week. Why? It was a better life than the one they had left behind. Guaranteed food and shelter for you and your family every day, at any miserable level, is much better than no such guarantee.

In the past 10 years, there's been a virtual explosion of Hispanic immigration in many major U.S. cities (including the one in which I live.) Many of them do manual labor for (what is to us) low pay. They might live 3 to a bedroom and 6 to a bathroom, but it's a big improvement for them, and things will keep on improving.

In the early 20^th century, it was the European Jews and the Irish. History repeats.

We should be glad they're all here, because they teach us more about the "American Dream" than some of us who were lucky enough to be born here have ever really thought about. "Me 'at's off" to them.

The WTO, WB and IMF protesters have a point to make, too. I'm glad they're making it. Globally, we have a long way to go. From my own, tiny little soapbox, may I make a plea of my own? Everybody, everywhere in the world, knows how to manage their own lives. The problem is, many are not allowed to do so. Crusade for freedom! Freedom for every human being everywhere!

Thanks for reading.