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Public Comments - Speeches
World Trade Organization Teach-In
Western Oregon University, Monmouth OR
April 12, 2000As I prepared for this event I was faced with a decision.
Was I going to attend because I am a former active duty military officer with an unwavering opposition to domestic violence?
Was I going to attend because I am a concerned environmentalist that believes we have gone terribly wrong and allowed false choices to strip our land of its health and us of our dignity?
Was I going to attend because I am a believer in sustainable practices - an optimist that sees a place and time where people can learn to revel in the enduring instead of the ephemeral?
Or was I going to attend because I am an elected community leader - a student of politicraft - a teacher of government, and speech?
Ultimately, I concluded that I was going to attend because I, like you, am an heir to an intergenerational legacy - I decided that I wanted to be here tonight in my most important capacity - Citizen.
I believe that the office of citizen is the most important, most powerful position within the framework of our government.
Here, in America - citizens have the power of the vote, the power of thought, the power of assembly, and most importantly the power of self-determination - and we need these powers because ours isn't an easy task.
As citizens, we are charged with nothing less than the preservation of the Union; our most important job is to sustain the Dream that is America for the generations yet to come.
We are, "We the People" - you, me, everyone that wants the job.
We are charged with forming a more perfect union.
We are charged with establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, and providing for the common defense.
We are charged with promoting the general welfare and securing the blessings of liberty - not only for ourselves, but for our posterity.
Jefferson in his Declaration of Independence claimed that certain truths were "self-evident".
Among these truths were the following:
All people [men] are equal, Unalienable rights are inherent to our human condition,
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are worth fighting for,
Security of rights comes from governments; instituted by free people - they are free associations freely entered into, and
That when governments violate these self-evident truths, change is justified.
I suggest to you tonight that when governments purposefully violate the rights of its citizens, when they betray the trust of the governed - making change isn't merely justified - it is a moral obligation.
In such circumstances, we are obligated to strive for change, meaningful progressive change.
However, we must always remember that there is a finite distinction between progressive change and violent revolution.
Progressive change challenges the status quo; it brings people together for a better world.
Violence by contrast divides, decays, and destroys - it is the final solution.
Jefferson was careful to itemize, to list abuse by abuse - the justification for violent change.
His approach provides us and those that follow with an understanding of when, and when not to employ violent means for political ends.
His conclusion was simple: violence is justified, when and only when, all peaceful means have been exhausted.
I say this because we aren't "there" yet - we're not even close.
As we turn our gaze toward the World Trade Organization and its associated devastation of ecological and cultural arrangement, our passions become enflamed, as they should.
We must convert our passion into involvement; transform our interest into investment.
While I want everyone to have a passion for progress, I also want everyone to recognize that our own revolution only came about when all forms of appeal had been exhausted.
There was no governmental structure then that allowed for popular dissent - non-violent action, as we understand it today was not as possible yesterday.
This is important to remember because the real genius of our Constitution is its eternal malleability.
Revolutionaries crafted our Constitution; it was precisely because of their experience with bloodshed and chaos that we have been given the tools for peaceful, non-violent reconstruction of our social fabric.
They saw what revolution really is; they knew change would come but they gave us alternatives.
With this framework of moral obligation and non-violence in mind, I want to emphasize that this speech is an unapologetic argument for the American People and against America's continued involvement with the World Trade Organization, as it currently exists.
I am opposed to the WTO because I believe the WTO is the very antithesis of our democratic ideals - and I believe we deserve better; our children deserve better.
In their powerful essay, Ralph Nader and Lori Wallach prove that the WTO was founded, is sustained by, and will only benefit from - a "dumbing down" of democratic thought, civic action, and self-governance.
They suggest that we are witness to the dawn of a Brave New World, a world created in the image of corporatia - given form and function by the latest changes in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
This new world is based upon some interesting tenets:
Establishment of super-national limitations on any nations' legal and practical ability to subordinate commercial activity to the nation's goals;
Provisions for automatic agreement, automatic submission to trade sanctions, secretly arrived at, through a non-democratic process; under the new regime, all nations must unanimously oppose changes within ninety days;
Creation of "least trade restrictive" norms based upon a new conceptual design of tariff - no longer are tariffs merely taxes on the import or export of goods - now they are anything, any law, any reason the WTO deems "restrictive";
Construction of a new closed-door world structure - one that does not honor the values of due process and open access: disputes are now resolved in secret before a tribunal arrangement that nobody outside the process understands.
The real power of the recent GATT treaty can be summed up in the following explanation of WTO member nation responsibility - as defined by the agreement:
"Each member shall ensure the conformity of its laws, regulations, and administrative procedures with its obligations as provided in the annexed agreement."
In other words, the member nations are now honor-bound to support the will of the WTO over the will of their citizens - we have been assimilated: this is anti-democratic and more importantly, it is illegal.
The WTO, as defined by its own text and internal processes is illegal for several reasons.
First, the latest round of treaty development violates the spirit of freedom and liberty our nation was founded upon - it violates the "original intent doctrine". James Madison in his Federalist Number 51 argued that:
In framing a government which is to be administered by people [men] over people [men], the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. (paragraph 4)
The government has not only failed to control itself but ironically has opted to hand national sovereignty over to other member nations in the process.
Second, I believe the treaty as framed, is unconstitutional.
If treaties are equal to federal law, then as such, by definition, they are subordinate to the Constitutional framework.
And we know that treaties are extensions of federal law; treaties exist as national policy but it is important to remember that they are not passed by two-third majorities in both houses of Congress and they are not ratified by three-quarters of the several states.
Therefore, treaties must adhere to the spirit, intent, and function of the Constitution and its protected freedoms but this latest apparition of GATT doesn't meet the test.
For example, let us look to Amendment X of the Bill of Rights:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Powers not expressly enumerated are left to the states. Therefore, labor, education, and environmental laws grounded in state constitutions and/or passed by the legislatures of the several states cannot be swept aside by treaty when deemed inconvenient to profit.
But under GATT, all federal and state laws are subject to the "least trade restrictive" norms established by a closed-door process, by people that aren't even citizens of our nation.
If we allow this to stand, then the entire structure of dual federalism - that is shared powers by sovereign states - exists as nothing but mere illusion.
I also believe that the GATT treaty violates the spirit of "due process" as defined by Article XIV of the United States Constitution:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within is jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
This article means that citizens have a right to be protected by and from their government.
No outside power has any authority to negate due process but the language of the treaty suggests that it can.
If the treaty can dismiss labor, education, and/or environmental legislation it deems "restrictive" to commerce than something has gone awry because nowhere within the U.S. Constitution is commerce deemed the most important value.
Finally, I believe that the treaty may be treasonous by nature because it trivializes the privatization of national sovereignty - bought with the blood, toil, and tears of generations of Americans.
This is wholly incompatible with the spirit of the American Ideal: It is morally bankrupt to even suggest, much less implement such a policy.
Article III, Section 3. states: Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
Democracy the American Ideal has enemies: Greed, Intolerance, Corporate Irresponsibility, and the establishment of a "Me" society replacing a "We" citizenry.
GATT gives aid and comfort to these enemies.
If we turn our back on the values, virtues, and conventions that have sustained our liberties, then we wage war against our heritage - war against our future.
If we continue on the path we are on, then we will have knowingly buried the ideal of democratic self-rule alongside the freedoms that gave it meaning.
And right now, there is no change in sight - we will continue the path - unless there is change.
I suggest here, now, that we risk our concepts of freedom, liberty, and equality as long as we corrupt our visions of a democratic republic with the "fools gold" of corporatia.
When we support an organization dedicated to the ideal of private profit at the expense of public gain - than we all have blood, real as well as figurative, on our hands.
Whether we like it or not, GATT and its amoral progeny, the WTO are corporate visions of utopia - a place without corporate responsibility, or labor protections, or environmental controls, or respect for culture - ultimately it is a cold, soulless land.
The WTO as it now exists amounts to nothing less than the coronation of corporate profit for its own sake - we have replaced the notion of a noble citizenry with a mass society of consumer paupers.
This new kind of tyranny - the kind where the bottom line, without the associated responsibilities, is the only measure of success, is in truth - the greatest challenge to democratic self-rule that our nation has ever faced.
Unlike previous foes, this particular enemy has no singular face, no easy to identify capitol, nor any standing army - it is the subtlest of foes because it gradually becomes the context we know.
Although subject to debate, I believe that many of our current problems are the logical extension of the egregiously flawed Santa Clara County v. Pacific Railroad (1886) decision - where corporations were granted full rights as "natural persons."
This decision and its precedent have over time granted corporations greater power in their efforts to downplay the role of state management through charter.
I find it revealing that before that decision, it used to be common practice for states to question the actions of corporate management on the grounds of the "public good."
Charters were revoked fairly often before 1886. Can you imagine that happening now?
This decision, and those that have perpetuated its essence, are deeply flawed; flawed because corporations now have the best of all worlds - rights without responsibilities.
No other "natural person" has such discretion - such raw power.
Even though most corporations are still empowered through state authority, many operate without human conscience.
Unfortunately, corporations that have a conscience often fall because by the standards of greed: where conscience is a valueless commodity - a fruitless cost with no investment potential.
The notion that corporations are "natural persons" was wrong then, it is wrong today - it must be changed.
The time has come for a complete re-examination of how we regulate commerce, and why we try.
For the last few minutes I have outlined the problem.
We know that we face a situation constructed by the interests of broadly held, international fortunes.
We also know that we are at a time and place in our history where the truth about unregulated international commerce, is gradually being revealed to us.
This is a defining point in our history.
Are we up to the challenge?
If so, then we must reconcile the vision of success and failure espoused by the "Free Trade Movement" with the necessary underpinnings of democracy: accessible governance, open and well established procedure, and full accountability - for only then can the WTO live up to its rhetorical vision of a true world partnership.
Simply recognizing the flaws and the inherent corruption that is the WTO by itself doesn't make our lives any better.
If we want a WTO that promotes a healthy environment instead of encourages its desecration and decay - then we must work towards that end.
If we want a WTO that respects local customs and affords workers a "life wage" instead of a WTO that acts like a cultural neanderthal that forces a downward spiral of wages and benefits - then we must work towards that end.
If we want a WTO that is a partnership instead of new human-made tyranny, an organization that values sustainable practices instead of negates them - then we must work towards that end.
And if change is warranted, then it is time to ask the question, "How, how do we work towards moral ends?" The answer is simple: "Non-violent action."
This term has two components: action - by this I suggest: purposeful efforts implemented by persons to transform meaning into reality.
It also proscribes action within a context: a space where non-violence exists as both means and end.
For any lasting political change to occur it will take the vast majority of Americans recognizing the inherent corruption of the status quo - and then seeking an alternative vision.
This cannot happen once violence is interjected into the dialogue.
First, violence corrupts the activist as well as the act.
Second, violence allows precious energy and resources to be misdirected and squandered.
Third, violence diminishes the moral authority of those promoting change.
Until we exhaust all peaceful alternatives, in proper order - violence is not justified; in truth it aids their cause.
While I have great respect for, and belief in non-violent political action - I have absolutely no tolerance and no respect for those that engage in violent political action.
It takes courage to peacefully stand for your convictions - to risk arrest for peaceful demonstration, and then live with the consequences of your decision.
By contrast, to maim, kill, or destroy - to burn down a building such as we've seen here in Monmouth - and then flee the scene because you are afraid of the consequences - is nothing but an act of cowardice.
Moral action demands accountability and responsibility - of the individual as well as the unjust law.
Moral citizens fulfill their obligations through means that honor their ends; they understand the difference between making a difference, and making a scene.
Therefore, if the WTO is an affront to our democratic liberties, then what must we do?
We must develop a detailed list of grievances and then petition our government through peaceful means.
After this we must educate on a mass scale, beyond the bastions of higher education - we must show the WTO for what it is so people can know the truth.
The labor movement, the faith movement, the environmental movement, and all other peaceful partners in this enterprise must build on the progress made and unify an effort behind non-violent principles.
This demands of us a complex organizational structure and a set of core principles that the vast majority can support.
This also demands of us an uncommon level of commitment - a personal investment that suggests an intimate relationship with the often-fleeting promise of success.
I argue that the time has come for Moral Government.
This is not a religious government but rather an association of neighbors working together for "good" ends through "good" means.
It is time that we guarantee opportunity.
It is time that we protect the basic freedoms - to think, to act, to work, and to live.
It is time that we provide a safe environment: a time and place where people can drink the water, breathe the air, eat the food, walk the streets, and feel secure in their homes and workplaces.
Ultimately, it is time that we provide for a future that is at least as bright as our present - a place we can proudly hand over to the next generation when the time is at hand.
To do these things, we must commence a long-term strategic campaign.
We must foster an attitude that is truly diverse - sincerely open.
It is time that the never-haves, have-nots, and nearly-haves work together to demand, through peaceful means, a more equal division of the labor.
The World Trade Organization is the icon of the New Techno-Economy: it is the Anti-Democrat that threatens the Ideals that have provided this nation, and others - with the opportunities few other people in history have enjoyed.
If we allow things to continue because we were unwilling to take a stand then it is we, and not the WTO that will be, must be, blamed.
Together citizens built this nation. Together, citizens can preserve it.
