Globalization: Good or bad?

As you probably recall, in 1999 a broad based coalition of people from all over the world, including small farmers, factory workers, and environmentalists, demonstrated against globalization at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle.

My impression of what happened comes from Rebecca Solnit’s description of the event. Rebecca, who lives in San Francisco, has such an optimistic outlook and can find reasons to celebrate no matter how dire the problems are that we face, has written a book about her experience in Seattle in 1999, The Battle of the Story of the “Battle of Seattle.”

Rebecca has written a terrific article, “Learning How to Count to 350-Remembering People Power in Seattle in 1999 and Berlin in 1989.” Naomi Klein has written a book review, “Copenhagen: Seattle Grows Up” about Rebecca’s (and her co-author brother’s) book.

Rebecca won’t be at our local “Seattle + 10” event (except in spirit) from 1-5 pm on December 5th at the Sebastopol Veteran’s Memorial Building, but I hope you will be. Given the roster of speakers, this is an opportunity to learn more about the worldwide effort for ordinary people to be heard as globalization results in a loss of jobs, environmental degradation in developing countries, and other problems that affect all of us.

(Double-click on the flier to enlarge it.)