Last summer I saw the movie Battle in Seattle and came away with quite a brew of emotions. I started this article back then but never finished it. With the economic mess of 2009, we are on the cusp of change. We are balanced on a fulcrum–we can tip towards economic justice for the masses, or towards the same old system of wealth amassed at the top and corporations creating and driving policy. So the movie is as relevant as ever. It attempts to capture the 1999 unprecedented nonviolent street action that brought attention to globalization and corporate power over governments and over the interests of people and the planet as epitomized by the World Trade Organization (WTO). The protest brought together a vast array of constituencies (environmentalists, human rights activists, labor unions, religious groups, anarchists, and many others) to bring public attention to the wrongs of the WTO.

My review of the movie? The text that ran on the screen at the beginning and the end of the movie were the most poignant and I would have liked for the issues to have more presence in the movie itself. The text gave us information about globalization and corporate wealthfare. And about the hammer of debt that the WTO uses to bludgeon developing nations into the perfect places for corporations to make money. Filmmaker Stuart Townsend tried to put a human face to the events by focusing on fictional characters from various factions including the police and a news reporter. I did not feel he gave as full or sympathetic a story to his fictional activists until the very end of the film.

So what does this have to do with land conservation? Much! The WTO and other arms of corporate policymaking and globalization clearly place the rights of corporations to make profit above the rights of people for a clean, healthy and safe community. Did you know that corporations have been granted the same rights as individuals over the decades? This has enabled corporations, through the (private and anonymous) court of the WTO, to sue local governments (and often win) when public policy to protect land, water and air resources interferes with the “rights” of corporations to make profit. California’s more strict environmental policies have been neutered by the WTO, for instance.

The events in Seattle were a pinnacle moment in the history of social action–many groups came together to voice their concerns over globalization and corporate control of trade. This was the first protest primarily organized through cell phones and the internet, giving activists an unprecedented ability to organize on the streets. It took months for organizers to plan the protests, and it is now widely held as the most successful “mass action” to date.

One of the advantages of the 2009 economic collapse is that more people will understand the actions of corporations and how they contributed towards the collapse: how corporate greed and the right to profit undermine economic justice. I await a movie that documents not only what led to the collapse (see my Raging For the Wild, Part 2 article) but also documents the social and economic justice that resulted and the distribution of wealth across many, many more people. Hey, I can dream! Please join me!

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